Witness the past! | Glimpse the future!
I was into Lost- big time- before the ongoing media war between Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson deprived me of it. And I mightily enjoyed the first episode of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. If anything, the fact it's been cancelled already makes it more appealling to me, as I know I needn't invest in it. I'm also digging Dexter; it's fun to think that he might at any moment bump into that other carrot-headed Miamian incarnation of justice, Horatio Caine.
This reminds me of a game Stephen Fry mentions in his books, and which
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uniquefergus recently indulged in; confessing to shocking, inexcusable gaps in your cultural experience. So, tv aside:Authors whom I've never read a word of : any of the Brontës; Victor Hugo; Stephen King; Herman Mellville; Hugh McDiarmid; George Orwell; Ian Rankin; Sir Walter Scott; Will Self; Viginia Woolf.
Films I've never seen in full : Annie Hall; any cut of Blade Runner; Casablanca; Do the Right Thing; any of the Godfather trilogy; Gone With the Wind; any of the Three Colours trilogy; anything by Bergman, Kurosawa or Powell & Pressburger.
Music I've never listened to (rather than simply heard): Antony and the Johnsons; Woody Guthrie; Janis Joplin; Joy Division; Bob Marley; Pink Floyd; The Sex Pistols; The Small Faces; The Smiths; Rufus Wainwright.
In this last category I'm particularly guilty of transgression. In the past
mcgazz and today mirpuri despair of my tin ear and apparent inability to be moved by music. I guess I'm just irrevocably, irredeemably visual. What music I do like invariably has a visual association to it; classical compositions, film scores or highly narrative song-writers (Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hanon) that encourage you to picture something as you listen.That and my flinty, cold heart. Oh yes. Life's hardened me.
NB- Your correspondent, then aged 22, cried at the end of The Iron Giant.
- What's that idiot listening to?:Nothing right now, but the rock-bottom dollar's got me Amazonin' for Elfman!
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Bookwise, I tried and failed with both Steven King and Sir Walter Scott. As for Orwell, Animal Farm is a short but satisfying read. I keep meaning to pick up an anthology and get all his novels in one. Victor Hugo however is wonderful.
Films - I've only watched pieces of one Woody Allen films. Blade Runner is ok. Casablanca is very good. I will confess now that not only have I never seen Psycho all the way through, but (you know this already, but it bears repeating) - I think Citizen Kane is vastly overhyped, boring, and I fell asleep watching it. There. I am so uncultured.
Music - I still think Billy Joel is cool, and I listen to country, so what do I know? Hell, I listen to Radio 4 in the morning, so I don't know any new music!
Thundercats - fully CGI in 2009. Can you confirm that rumour?
Blade Runner is supposed to be getting the final, definitive treatment at the end of the year. I know we've heard that before, but I'm inclined to believe it as Harrison Ford has given interviews on it and he rarely talks about past work and has never spoken of BR before. So maybe I'll catch it then.
It's easy to dismiss Citizen Kane from this remove as it's been copied, homaged and parodied so many times. The reason critics and students hold it in such high esteem is because it's the Dead Sea Scroll of film theory. Once you realise that virtually everything happening on screen had never been done before, and that film grammar is being invented as the story progresses, it's a marvel. That and I find it impossible not to be charmed by the sheer ballsiness of Welles bashing Wm Randolph Hearst so thoroughly. Hard to imagine a young film maker doing the same today (to Murdoch, say) without being completely marginalised. And while we're on Welles, if you've never heard it, enjoy this, and never seen it, enjoy this as well.
Who am I to confirm anything? CGI would, I suppose, make more sense for Thundercats. The new Masters of the Universe flick is apparently being done in the greenscreen/digital airbrushed style of 300. And I'm prepared to entertain the idea that the shadowy JJ Abrams project currently driving the internet insane- Cloverfield- is a Chthullu movie.
Aaaah, best line ever. I wish Welles had really done that! I am shocked and delighted by the drunken footage - I thought only Reed got that blitzed.
Yup, Cloverfield is a Chthullu movie, or certainly The Old Ones. Mind you, we had a nice Chthullu moment in the Hellboy movie.
YMIL
So, children will be playing with Chthullu figures next year? Surely this is the end of days...
My DVD of "Profit" won't play on an ordinary telly. Fat lot of use that is.
At the moment, I'm revisiting my early 90s rave-era faves. Also, I've been compiling
By the way...if you like narrative songwriters try Glen Tilbrook/Chris Difford (aka Squeeze) and do give Bob Marley a try, the man was a genius. In the 70's I was well into Reggae and Ska, which had it's origins in the Coventry/West Mids area.
As for films there's a million I've never seen and not missed but a life without the Godfather Trilogy is...for me... a life wasted.
I know, I'm a fool. I think the reason I've never gotten into it is because Brando looms so large in the first instalment and as much as I like pretty much everyone else in the cast, Brando's always just struck me as hugely over-rated and slightly absurd.
Plus I think I can get into Scorcese's view of that criminal world more readily than Coppola's; it seems more humorous, but also more deeply unpleasant. But then I've never watched Scarface either which, by all accounts, is more ostentatiously gruesome and blackly comic than Goodfellas, Casino etc.
What, even in "Superman"? ;-)
I still like Brando (some of the time). L feels the same way about him as you do. I went through that whole 'method' thing when I was younger, before rejecting it as essentialist pompousity. I now reckon the best actors are the ones who turn up, pick up a script and do it.
The Stephen King thing surprises me. Here, leastwise, it's an absolute rite of passage. It's like having a getting caught masturbating story. You've got one, but you might deny it. I've come around my "I won't admit I like Stephen King" cringery of my 20s and now have come to terms that I like the hack.
Of course, I don't admit this on dates or in mixed company. Just like the getting caught masturbating story.
I don't recommend dipping into THE SOPRANOS. I tried and my main complaint is exactly what led so many to bitching after the finale- so many plot threads are left dangling with no intent to give you some of that much-needed closure shit. ECHHH I say.
I've been diggling the SIX FEET UNDER lately. It's really good but every single character cheats in their relationship. There's no relationship in the four seasons I've watched that isn't cheated on.
I'm tired. I offered you nothing substantial and I'm tired. G'night.
I'm not automatically suspicious of that which is popular, I just don't have the friggin' time to take in everything that pop culture tells me I should like. Who does? So certain things pass me by entirely. Often that's no big loss, but every so often there's something I regret not "getting on board with" from the off. Prime example for me right now is The West Wing. If Aaron Sorkin's writing on that was anything like it is on Studio 60 (and those in the know say it was better) then I've been a fool. God, how I wish I had conversations like that with my co-workers.
NB- since the time of writing I've popped my Powell and Pressburger cherry, having sat through The Life & Death of Colonel Blimp last week. Bit creaky, sure, and reeking of an England long gone, but the scenes concerning the central duel are masterful, reminding me of Citizen Kane in their delicious turning of the screw as duellers, seconds and referee go through the tense preparations but denial of release by having the fight itself happen off-camera.