However you dice it, Robyn was a gem...the fizz and snap of tracks like "Konichiwa Bitches" and "Who's That Girl", the chilly post-millennial electro-pop waves of "With Every Heartbeat", the pared-back genius of "Be Mine!" - it all added up to something somewhat out of the ordinary, and an album that stood up to repeat listens remarkably well.
Coming after that, Body Talk Pt. 1 is a confounding record. It plays more like a longish ep than an album, leading off with four cuts of polished commercial dance-touched pop before a second half comprised of three songs in wildly disparate styles (none particularly successful, and one, "Dancehall Queen", actively annoying) and then the 2 minute, lullaby-like "Jag Vet Dejlig Rosa", which does work, though by the time it appears, it feels completely out of context.
The main problem with the record is that the personality of Robyn herself, which came through so clearly on her self-titled lp, is largely buried - while the first half of Body Talk Pt. 1 is perfectly listenable ("Cry When You Get Older" in particular is catchy), there's nothing on it that demands attention or that feels especially fresh, a few tantalising hints of the pop thrills of which she's capable notwithstanding, and the second half is just a hodge-podge. Alas!
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Mates of State - Bring It Back
One thing about MoS - for all of their undeniable twee-ness, their melodies, singing and arrangements are a model of clarity...songs like "Fraud in the '80s", "For the Actor" and "Running Out" stand out because they're cleverly written songs with strong melodic backbones and some interesting twists, delivered brightly and winningly, and not because of any particular studio gloss or gimmickry. Bring It Back is an enjoyable set from an always charming outfit - keeping it simple, and doing it well.
Summer Wars (MIFF)
Shy maths whiz boy accompanies popular female classmate to large family gathering at ancestral manse where he discovers that she is passing him off as her fiance and becomes entangled in the machinations of a rogue AI in a virtual world called 'OZ' that is intimately connected with external society - very anime (which it in fact is).
(w/ M)
(w/ M)
Symbol (MIFF)
One of the more purely enjoyable films I've seen for a while. Hard to do justice to it by way of a summary, but at its centre is a man who wakes up to find himself in a large, white, apparently featureless room but, on closer inspection, discovers that there are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of little protrusions from the walls and floor - turns out they're little cherubs' penises - which, when pressed, produce some more or less repeatable effect (various objects shoot out from concealed hatches in the wall; water starts pouring from above directly onto his head, wherever he moves to; a mysterious, African appearing figure materialises and sprints across the room to disappear through the opposite wall).
It's played for laughs, often of the slapstick, the absurd and the more purely metaphysical all at the same time, and it is frequently laugh out loud funny; intercut are scenes from another story, involving a conspicuously mediocre Mexican wrestler ('Escargot Man'), the connection to which is made apparent near the end. Inventive, deadpan, unashamedly low-brow at points, ultimately gesturing at a vague sense of the profound, it's a peculiar (and perhaps peculiarly Japanese) kind of divine comedy.
(w/ M; Wei and AM also there; likewise Adam P, and a pair of his/M's friends, C & P)
It's played for laughs, often of the slapstick, the absurd and the more purely metaphysical all at the same time, and it is frequently laugh out loud funny; intercut are scenes from another story, involving a conspicuously mediocre Mexican wrestler ('Escargot Man'), the connection to which is made apparent near the end. Inventive, deadpan, unashamedly low-brow at points, ultimately gesturing at a vague sense of the profound, it's a peculiar (and perhaps peculiarly Japanese) kind of divine comedy.
(w/ M; Wei and AM also there; likewise Adam P, and a pair of his/M's friends, C & P)
"let it die"
There was a time when mix cds were really important to me - when they felt like a way of expressing things that couldn't otherwise be externalised. For better or for worse, the intensity of that feeling has since much receded, but I've been reminded of it, a little, by listening to "let it die", which was handed to me the other day with the words "it's a break-up mix cd, but still a mix cd" - or something to that effect. It doesn't hurt that the mix begins with Cyann & Ben's glittering merry-go-round lullaby "I can't pretend anymore", an old mix cd favourite of my own, but mostly it's the sense that the mix really does reflect a feeling, a state of mind - not a particularly happy or positive one, of course, but one that has found expression in a form that still, after all, makes sense to me.
Sin City
Still excellent. I'm not surprised they never got around to making another instalment - so vividly and effectively does this one mark out the stylistic terrain that it occupies that it seems the last word on that count...anything further, one feels, would be redundant - an arid exercise in repeating something that has already definitively been done.
Daybreakers
I'd got the impression that this one might be an unusually stylish, intelligent vampire flick, and while that's probably a fair call, it's also undeniable that the film's genre heart is very close to the surface. It goes like this: most of the world's population has been turned into vampires by a mysterious outbreak, but apart from a newfound thirst for blood (preferably human), things go on much as before...until the human blood supply begins to run low, it becomes apparent that a vampire deprived of blood undergoes a degeneration to a rather more atavistic and terrifying state, and a small group of surviving humans stumbles upon a cure for the vampirism. Neat concept, but it doesn't do all that much with it, being content instead to make the predictable moves en route to its bloody climax, with the result that it feels like an opportunity missed.
Enter the Void (MIFF)
Not a film that I would've picked out for myself, but Jon suggested it, and I was willing to take a risk. Anyway, first things first: I can't say I enjoyed Enter the Void at all. Its quasi-mysticism didn't sit well with me (afterwards, Adam W told me that it was a very faithful representation of the ideas of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, which features in the film's 'plot'), and the closing stages suffered badly from an overly literal depiction of the abstract/metaphysical/spiritual notions with which it was by then turning out to be principally concerned (from that perspective - and several others - the low point was unquestionably the 'vagina eye' close-up of the penis going in and out, in and out...which was the point at which large parts of the audience started laughing and more or less didn't stop for the rest of the film); at 154 almost relentlessly disorienting, largely non-linear, frequently ugly, sometimes outright hideous, and occasionally jump-in-your-seat shocking minutes long, it was also a pretty gruelling viewing experience.
That said, I'd stop short of calling it gratuitous - while it certainly pushes the bounds of good taste very hard, and certain scenes/montages went on for way too long, I did feel that it was a serious artistic project on Noé's part, and not mere provocation - the film seems committed to pushing the viewer for a purpose, namely to experience, in all its intensity, the life of its central protagonist (including the traumatic events that have shaped his identity, to which his consciousness, being the vehicle through which the film is presented, recurs over and over) and the willed journey towards reincarnation that he undertakes following his seedy, untimely death in a Tokyo toilet.
So, all up, I don't regret having seen this film, even though sitting through it was a real endurance test, and even though I don't think there's any particular profundity to it - it was certainly an experience, it did provoke me, and I do respect its artistic integrity, however ultimately flawed the film is.
(in the end, Jon couldn't make it, so went with Adam, David + Justine; also, trang + 1)
That said, I'd stop short of calling it gratuitous - while it certainly pushes the bounds of good taste very hard, and certain scenes/montages went on for way too long, I did feel that it was a serious artistic project on Noé's part, and not mere provocation - the film seems committed to pushing the viewer for a purpose, namely to experience, in all its intensity, the life of its central protagonist (including the traumatic events that have shaped his identity, to which his consciousness, being the vehicle through which the film is presented, recurs over and over) and the willed journey towards reincarnation that he undertakes following his seedy, untimely death in a Tokyo toilet.
So, all up, I don't regret having seen this film, even though sitting through it was a real endurance test, and even though I don't think there's any particular profundity to it - it was certainly an experience, it did provoke me, and I do respect its artistic integrity, however ultimately flawed the film is.
(in the end, Jon couldn't make it, so went with Adam, David + Justine; also, trang + 1)
Daria seasons 1 & 2
Daria has a special place in my heart. It looms very large in my memories of my adolescent years, and there's no other tv show to which I have anywhere near the same sentimental connection; it doesn't require any great self-understanding to grasp why my teenage self was so drawn to the sarcastic outsider-dom of Daria and her angular, arty friend Jane, nor why it feels as if the show helped considerably in getting me through that turbulent period. I know I'm not the only one who feels that way, and the show would have been a natural candidate for a dvd release, but licensing problems prevented that, and so for years I felt - again, this isn't overstating it - a kind of void, created by its unavailability.
Anyway, a while ago, I mentioned much of the above to Julian F, who nodded sympathetically, and then, the next time I saw him, presented me with a burned dvd containing seasons 1 and 2, which he'd downloaded in the meantime. So I've been watching it in fits and bursts since then, and finding, rather to my surprise, that I've seen all of the episodes before (ie, back in high school) - surprising because I don't remember watching Daria particularly faithfully or systematically back then, as great a significance as it's since assumed. And I still enjoy it very much, though in a different way, of course - overlaid by the intervening years and by the fact that I no longer feel like my life could be saved by a piece of popular culture (nor that I need saving, at least not in that way).
* * *
I read somewhere that, more recently, there's finally been a dvd release, incidentally, but I think the deal was that they could only manage it by excising all of the musical snippets that are such an important part of the show (particularly given the quintessential 90s-ness of the songs and artists represented) and replacing them with other stuff; that being so, it seemed a better bet to stick with the downloaded, original versions, occasional blurriness and pixelation notwithstanding.
Anyway, a while ago, I mentioned much of the above to Julian F, who nodded sympathetically, and then, the next time I saw him, presented me with a burned dvd containing seasons 1 and 2, which he'd downloaded in the meantime. So I've been watching it in fits and bursts since then, and finding, rather to my surprise, that I've seen all of the episodes before (ie, back in high school) - surprising because I don't remember watching Daria particularly faithfully or systematically back then, as great a significance as it's since assumed. And I still enjoy it very much, though in a different way, of course - overlaid by the intervening years and by the fact that I no longer feel like my life could be saved by a piece of popular culture (nor that I need saving, at least not in that way).
* * *
I read somewhere that, more recently, there's finally been a dvd release, incidentally, but I think the deal was that they could only manage it by excising all of the musical snippets that are such an important part of the show (particularly given the quintessential 90s-ness of the songs and artists represented) and replacing them with other stuff; that being so, it seemed a better bet to stick with the downloaded, original versions, occasional blurriness and pixelation notwithstanding.
Folk Rock and Faithfull / Marianne Faithfull - Easy Come Easy Go
In principle, I like Marianne Faithfull, both in her winsome 60s incarnation and upon her subsequent, gravel-voiced re-emergence. In fact, though, I tend to find her music - from all points in her long, if sporadic, recording career - more or less uninteresting; I suppose that while she's unquestionably an icon, that hasn't come about particularly because of her musical talent. Indeed, the liner notes for Folk Rock and Faithfull, a collection of songs recorded in the vein of her early, wistful, folky girl-pop between '64 and '69, obliquely make a similar point, remarking that "[Faithfull's] influence on mid-sixties Brit Girl pop was rather out of proportion with her tally of hits - just four Top Tenners".
The compilation itself brings out both the strengths and the weaknesses of the style: the mood and sound are evocative - both of their particular era and of a more intangible state of mind, the latter explaining why the style has been so persistent, recurring as a strong influence on a range of genres at intervals since the sixties - but individual songs and performers don't tend to stand out, probably in large part because the form itself doesn't lend itself to innovation.
As to Easy Come Easy Go, this is Faithfull's most recent album and I wanted to like it (particularly given that it was a gift from Kim), but there's just not much to it - Faithfull growls her way through a double cd of covers (including of Neko Case's "Hold On, Hold On"), but doesn't add anything to the originals other than the simple act of doing them over in her own, rather montonous latter-day style.
The compilation itself brings out both the strengths and the weaknesses of the style: the mood and sound are evocative - both of their particular era and of a more intangible state of mind, the latter explaining why the style has been so persistent, recurring as a strong influence on a range of genres at intervals since the sixties - but individual songs and performers don't tend to stand out, probably in large part because the form itself doesn't lend itself to innovation.
As to Easy Come Easy Go, this is Faithfull's most recent album and I wanted to like it (particularly given that it was a gift from Kim), but there's just not much to it - Faithfull growls her way through a double cd of covers (including of Neko Case's "Hold On, Hold On"), but doesn't add anything to the originals other than the simple act of doing them over in her own, rather montonous latter-day style.
K J Parker - The Company
The Company is an unusual kind of novel - a hard-edged work of military fantasy in which the battles are all in the past but the ex-combatants are unable to leave the war behind them, and which gradually reveals itself to be something of a parable on the very nature of war.
David Sedaris - Santaland Diaries
Six David Sedaris Christmas pieces; I like the two which are apparently based on real experiences (accounts of working as a Macy's Christmas elf and, as a teenager, meeting a co-worker of his sister's who also happens to be a ho - he doesn't fail to bring out the seasonal pun - respectively) much more than the others, whose satire is biting but, with the exception of the misguidedly critical theatre reviews of elementary and middle school Christmas productions ("Front Row Centre with Thaddeus Bristol"), too mean-spirited for my liking.
Inception
Had Inception been any less good than it was - ie, very good - it would have been a crushing disappointment - writer/director Christopher Nolan has a huge number of runs on the board, and so far as my personal reckoning goes, it must have one of the best ensemble casts ever assembled: in Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt the crucial figures in two of the films that I've most taken to heart in the last few years (Juno and (500) Days of Summer), Page in particular being a favourite (but then who doesn't love Ellen Page?); in Cillian Murphy the most enthrallingly odd, more-or-less mainstream character actor in the business; in Marion Cotillard one of the most talented, not to mention most sheerly hot, Movie Stars going around; and in Leonard DiCaprio, an actor whose considerable abilities are forever at risk of being obscured by his looks and stardom but who nonetheless never seems to put a foot wrong.
Really, Inception is the complete package. Its stars all positively exude charisma (speaking of which, apart from those mentioned above, Michael Caine and Ken Watanabe are no slouches in that department either, nor the other key players), breathing life into their characters and navigating the film's many action sequences with equal aplomb; said action is frenetic and genuinely exciting - the equal of that in Nolan's Batmans - and things move along at a ferocious pace.
And of course there's the plot. Like Memento and The Prestige before it, Inception is ingeniously conceived and intricately plotted, but in a way that always plays fair with the audience - Nolan tells us what he's going to do, and then goes ahead and does it. The mechanics of the extraction and dream architecture processes are clearly laid out for us, as is the design for the central heist, and while the history of Cobb's relationship with Mal is revealed in stages, there's no suggestion that the way it's told to us is inaccurate (until a final scene which adds a layer that was always implicit)...the trick, such as it is, is in the construction. Even though all the pieces are there in plain sight (and Nolan handles his narrative elements with impressive economy - there's no place for MacGuffins here), it isn't until afterwards that it becomes obvious just how neatly everything fits together. Would that all blockbusters were this intelligent, this thrilling, this good.
Really, Inception is the complete package. Its stars all positively exude charisma (speaking of which, apart from those mentioned above, Michael Caine and Ken Watanabe are no slouches in that department either, nor the other key players), breathing life into their characters and navigating the film's many action sequences with equal aplomb; said action is frenetic and genuinely exciting - the equal of that in Nolan's Batmans - and things move along at a ferocious pace.
And of course there's the plot. Like Memento and The Prestige before it, Inception is ingeniously conceived and intricately plotted, but in a way that always plays fair with the audience - Nolan tells us what he's going to do, and then goes ahead and does it. The mechanics of the extraction and dream architecture processes are clearly laid out for us, as is the design for the central heist, and while the history of Cobb's relationship with Mal is revealed in stages, there's no suggestion that the way it's told to us is inaccurate (until a final scene which adds a layer that was always implicit)...the trick, such as it is, is in the construction. Even though all the pieces are there in plain sight (and Nolan handles his narrative elements with impressive economy - there's no place for MacGuffins here), it isn't until afterwards that it becomes obvious just how neatly everything fits together. Would that all blockbusters were this intelligent, this thrilling, this good.
Justin Cronin - The Passage
I'd seen a few references to The Passage over the last few months, and intriguing ones at that, with the result that its publication in Australia felt like something of an event. I burned through its 766 pages in a few days; basically, it's The Stand with vampires (plus a Watership Down interlude), and as immersive as that description makes it sound. Cronin moves things along quickly, creating mood and atmosphere effectively while also throwing in plenty of action, so that the book is as frequently unnerving as it is exciting, and sometimes genuinely moving; also, for better or for worse, it ends with the suggestion of a sequel. There's not much to fault about it, for what it is - a real good bit of genre fiction.
"Dead Man's Cell Phone" (MTC)
Pleasant but kind of forgettable; Lisa McCune fairly charming though also fairly stagey (to be fair, it could have been intentional - but one of the problems with the play as a whole is that its arch, contemporary-whimsical-quasi-magic-realist stagey-ness doesn't take it anywhere in particular while undermining any real audience investment in its characters).
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph & co]
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph & co]
David Mitchell - Ghostwritten
Feels like something of a dry run for Cloud Atlas - less fully developed than that later effort, but sharing elements of its structure and method of developing its thematic concerns and, crucially, its storytelling flair. Mitchell whips from milieu to milieu, inhabiting (the choice of words is deliberate) character upon character, including some very non-traditional subjects (two of them outright non-corporeal). Motifs recur; ideas are recapitulated and spun from an array of different perspectives. An impressive feat, and all the more so for a first novel.
Constantine
It's not that I particularly love this movie, yet this was the third time that I've seen it; still, I enjoyed it on this pass too, for there's a lot to like, most notably a cracking pace, a willingness to be literal in its depiction of hell and its denizens, and vivid performances from its principals (including Keanu wreathed in dark clothes, cigarette smoke and a bad attitude, a young Shia LaBeouf adding a lighter touch, Peter Stormare's memorable cameo as a poncingly menacing Lucifer, and of course turns from Rachel Weisz and Tilda Swinton, two of the most attractive women in Hollywood today).
Kingdom of Heaven
Ridley Scott, Orlando Bloom, 12th century Crusade setting, modern attitudes towards religious tolerance, etc - not bad, not great.
"Boston Marriage" (MTC)
Mamet's version of a drawing-room comedy, "Boston Marriage" is on the light side but clever, and entertaining enough, buoyed by good performances from Pamela Rabe, Margaret Mills and Sara Gleeson (the last particularly enjoyable as the perky maid Catherine), a sharp edge (though more cutting would have been better) and a pleasing vulgarity in moments. A slyly happy ending, too!
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph & co]
[part of an MTC subscription with Steph & co]
The Secret in Their Eyes
A tough-minded crime/thriller/drama/thwarted-romance piece set in Buenos Aires with things to say about passion, responsibility, opportunity and living with the past - pretty watchable, if (deliberately) on the heavy side.
M J Hyland - This Is How
Like Hyland's previous novels, Carry Me Down and How The Light Gets In, This Is How is a quiet, disquieting excursion into a mind that is, if not outright damaged, then at least subtly but devastatingly unsuited to the society of others; again like those other books, the first person present tense voice is increasingly claustrophobic and uncomfortable for the reader.
The first part, in which the sense of unease builds to Patrick's fatal act, is stronger than the second, in the prison, which suffers from a sense of over-familiarity despite Hyland's taut, incisive style; overall, though, another very strong novel.
The first part, in which the sense of unease builds to Patrick's fatal act, is stronger than the second, in the prison, which suffers from a sense of over-familiarity despite Hyland's taut, incisive style; overall, though, another very strong novel.
David Foster Wallace - Infinite Jest
I'd been looking forward to reading Infinite Jest for a while, and the recent India trip seemed a perfect opportunity to finally get stuck in. Perhaps the most striking thing about the novel (after the obvious fact of its massive length) is its generosity - in its abundance of ideas and connections (and words), in its willingness to reiterate and return to connections and linkages in case they were missed when first mentioned, in the many brands of humour that are sprinkled throughout, in the breadth of its thematic coverage, and in the way that it treats its characters and respects their essential humanity in a way that DeLillo and Pynchon, two obvious points of reference for DFW, often don't.
Some of the book's funniest passages involve two characters ostensibly having a conversation but in fact barely if at all engaging with each other, so that what instead emerges is effectively two fragmented, almost surreally juxtaposed monologues; as with many, or indeed perhaps all, of the book's comic devices, it also serves a deeper purpose, dramatising the failures of connection and communication that litter Wallace's post-contemporary America. A satire, a serious-minded examination of modern cultures of addiction, entertainment and (over-)achievement, a remarkably disciplined sprawl, paradoxically highly readable while deliberately self-disruptive, itself a consummate entertainment with innumerable stings in the tail, Infinite Jest is really something.
Some of the book's funniest passages involve two characters ostensibly having a conversation but in fact barely if at all engaging with each other, so that what instead emerges is effectively two fragmented, almost surreally juxtaposed monologues; as with many, or indeed perhaps all, of the book's comic devices, it also serves a deeper purpose, dramatising the failures of connection and communication that litter Wallace's post-contemporary America. A satire, a serious-minded examination of modern cultures of addiction, entertainment and (over-)achievement, a remarkably disciplined sprawl, paradoxically highly readable while deliberately self-disruptive, itself a consummate entertainment with innumerable stings in the tail, Infinite Jest is really something.
Michael Collins
Plenty watchable; nice to see Alan Rickman in a role involving no hamming whatsoever (and he does it well, too).
Shutter Island
Painted by Scorsese in bold, confident strokes, Shutter Island doesn't quite satisfy despite a bunch of good actors, a suitably shadowy cinematographic palette, and a convincing period setting - the trimmings are all there, but the plot is too familiar, as is the way it unfolds.
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