The Bourne Ultimatum

Unusually good conventional action fare. As with the other two instalments, probably the most striking thing about it is the emphatic, realistic-seeming nature of the fight scenes.

IMP audit

I've been doing the IMP thing for almost three years now; have flirted with the idea of dropping off, but am likely to keep it up for at least a while longer. Anyway, I've gotten behind in noting them here, and so here we are.

2007

Jan - "Sweet Soul / Disco: 70s - Party Down!"
Feb - "Jazz Convulsions"
Mar - "Score!"
Apr - "SF local mix"
May - "Dear Junior, I Miss You. <3 Senior (SXSW 2007)"
Jun - "Selecao"
Jul - "1977"
Aug - "Game Over"
Sep - "Mix tape"
Oct - "Space & Sci-Fi mix"
Nov - [untitled]
Dec - "Chillaxin"

2008

Jan - "Jan 2008: The Best of 2007"
Feb - "Love Gone Bad"
Mar - [untitled]
Apr - [untitled]
May - "if you were a kiss ... then i'd be a hug"
Jun - [untitled]
Jul - "Uncovered"
Aug - "Country Influenced"
Sep - "Jump Into Fall"
Oct - [untitled]
Nov - [untitled]
Dec - "Disco Villians & Christmas Songs"

2009

Jan - "Happy new year 2009"
Feb - "Cosmopolitan Living"
Mar - "20 Questions" (from Thomas in Glendale, AZ). I listened to this a few times without it making much of an impression; three which stood out (apart from the classic "Do You Realize??" are Andrew Bird's "Why?", PJ Harvey's "Is That All There Is?", and a song called "Where Is My Boy?" with vocals by Chris Martin (done by a dj called Faultline).
Apr - "Ah Spring! When A Young Man's Fancy Turns To Love"
May - [untitled] (from Andrew in Plymouth, MA). The maker's almost-closing salutation, "I hope your records drone sweetly on", says it all. A nice mix, kicking off with a Velvet Underground outtake and ending with Cat Power & Eddie Vedder's exquisite "Evolution", and taking in, among others, Yo La Tengo, Pale Saints, Slumber Party, Beach House, His Name Is Alive and Spacemen 3 in between.
Jun - "Some Old Favourites"
Jul - "Alternative Static"
Aug - "Songs that reference other songs/artists/bands/albums" (from Graham, unknown location). Given the theme, unsurprisingly a mixed bag in terms of musical styles, but mostly pop/rock and polite indie; some decent tunes.
Sep - "Purple Mounted" (from Steve in Alexandria, VA). I think there's kind of a horse/animal theme running through this one; coming with the territory is a strong contemporary country/folk tinge (Neko Case, My Morning Jacket, Bright Eyes, Bon Iver, etc).
Oct - [I remember this coming in the mail - it had a UK postmark - but I'm not sure where the cd itself has got to...no doubt it'll turn up]
Nov - [untitled] (from unknown, somewhere in Australia). A fun one, featuring lots of familiar songs that I like listening to (eg, Vampire Weekend's "I Stand Corrected", "Dry the Rain", the Futureheads' "Hounds of Love"), in which melody and rhythm are both prominent.

St Trinian's

Only so-so unfortunately - it was a premise that promised much, but the film doesn't quite hit the right tone (which should have been something like D.E.B.S. crossed with Mean Girls and then given a more anarchic twist). Still, snappy enough, and boasting enough interesting faces, for me not to regret it.

"Dusk To Dawn"

A mostly mellow mix cd from Kim, melding nocturnal modern rock (the Frames, Jeff Buckley), electronic/ambient (Mum, Mogwai), folkesque & singer-songwriter (Lou Rhodes, Scout Niblett) and noise (Sonic Youth, Einsturzende Neubauten), with some more unclassifiable stuff interspersed; as is always the case with mixes from good friends, it very much has the stamp of its maker, an impression strengthened by the presence of several familiar tracks and artists.

Avatar (3d)

Genuinely spectacular and quite immersive. Yes, the story is entirely predictable, the characters are flimsy, and the message (while worthy) is delivered with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but none of that is the point - the film looks amazing and delivers a thoroughgoing 'movie' experience. Very impressive.

(w/ M)

X-Men 2

Another very watchable instalment. But I don't know what it is about these films - they're enjoyable, and they have a certain style, but they just don't quite coalesce into anything more than the sum of their parts.

Stieg Larsson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire & The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest

So this is what all the fuss is about! They really are compulsively readable, somehow despite Larsson's technical skills only being okay-to-good at best (the structuring, in particular, is often peculiar, particularly in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) - what pulls them through is the gripping story (with occasional but always effective action sequences) and, even more than that, the characters, and particularly the intriguing Lisbeth Salander. For mine, The Girl Who Played with Fire is the best of the three - it's certainly the most straight-ahead in terms of story, and benefits from having a particularly streamlined plot - but in many respects the three books read as an impressively unitary narrative, building up to the reveals and revelations in The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest and unified by their laser-like focus on the ills of contemporary Swedish society.

George R R Martin - A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords & A Feast for Crows

Steven Erikson having made up my epic fantasy diet in recent months, on re-reading Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series (at any rate, as far into it as he's gotten - unfortunately, he lacks Erikson's ability to turn out weighty tomes on a more or less annual basis), it's striking how quickly he sets up many of the key character arcs and narrative threads at the very outset. This was the third time that I've read these books, and they were correspondingly less gripping and intense, but they're still immensely good.

Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart regularly appears on those 'best book/novel ever' lists, but I've always conscientiously avoided it as one that I was unlikely to enjoy; having now read it for book club, I feel entirely justified in having done so. I simply didn't get anything out of it - nothing that I look for in literature was significantly present in it.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Tremendously pleasing. The idea of Wes Anderson doing this book in stop-motion animation, with all of the animal characters essentially acting (and dressed) like Wes Anderson characters, was always very appealing, and the end result is delightful. Oddly, it probably has the most consistent tone and recognisably 'normal' characters of any of his films to date - normal, at any rate, in the sense that the layers of emotional affect (both the characters' and our responses to them) are relatively naturalistic, insofar as that's a meaningful comment to make about a bunch of nattily-dressed talking animals. But above all else, Anderson's Fantastic Mr Fox is a lot of fun - very likeable, with just the right amounts of archness, slapstick, 60s music, conflict, feeling, and existential moments.

(w/ Kevin)

9

The best description for the surprisingly entertaining 9 that I've seen is 'stitch-punk' - stitched puppets with mechanical workings in a ruined post-apocalyptic landscape where the threats come from other, fully-mechanised constructs. The action is non-stop and takes place against an effectively rendered backdrop, and there are several good voice actors in the mix too; it's not a classic of its kind, but still plenty diverting.

(w/ M)

Akron/Family @ Corner Hotel, Thursday 10 December

I haven't listened to a lot of Akron/Family; live, at least, they're a kind of psychedelic folk band with some serious jam elements. It was a good show - the band exerted themselves to involve the crowd, and by the end had pretty much succeeded.

(w/ Julian F)

Where The Wild Things Are

Actually significantly better than I'd expected. The book wasn't actually a particularly large part of my childhood, but I was aware of this film a long way out because of the people who were attached to it and the initial promise that it could be something genuinely dark. But my expectations fell dramatically after hearing that it had been de-fanged to make it more palatable for children, so it was a very pleasant discovery to find that there is, in fact, a genuine wildness to the finished version. The sets and images are of the kind that is often used to evoke childhood imaginings - detailed and naturalistic sweep mixed with some surprisingly (and deliberately) rough edges. The wild things themselves are convincing, and genuinely menacing when required; overall, I think the film is a missed opportunity, but really not too bad.

(w/ M)

Komaneko

Not unpleasant but also not particularly interesting and somewhat over-cutesy series of animations.

(w/ family, M and Kevin - at ACMI)

Once Upon A Time In The West

Of course, a truly iconic film, and one that is still strikingly vivid today. The American mythos, which finds one of its clearest expressions in westerns of this era, strikes a chord with me, and Once Upon A Time In The West is probably the most archetypal western film that I've seen; as is usually the case with this kind of film, it leaves an impression both by drawing on the rich stock of imagery that already exists and by remaking those visual ideas anew, a sort of (re)iterative deepening.

(w/ Kevin)

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Picnic at Hanging Rock is a film that is almost purely mood - I first saw it back in high school, or maybe early uni, in summer I think, although inevitably (given the nature of the film and the vagueness of my recollections of it) that would be the season that I associate it with. It stayed with me, and I've thought of it as one of my favourite films since, although more in the way of being a recurring touchstone than on its own terms as such, if there's a meaningful distinction to be made there; returning to it now, I found it to be just as painterly, drowsily dream-like and hazily enveloping as I'd recalled, if slightly less compelling.

The Brothers Bloom

What a wonderful concoction! Stylish, whimsical, off-beat and preoccupied with narrative and story-telling, it's another film that could've been calculated to appeal to me (the most recent other having been (500) Days of Summer). It was several weeks ago now that I saw The Brothers Bloom (extemporanea is somewhat in arrears), so the details are no longer fresh in my mind, but the colour and the shape of it haven't faded, and besides, speaking 'objectively', I'm always happy to watch Rachel Weisz and Adrien Brody no matter what they're doing - and enjoyed the scruffy, slightly savage charisma that Mark Ruffalo brought to his role too. Of the films released this year that I've seen, this one just may be my favourite.

(w/ M)

Live music

Seeing that Neko Case is coming down again, early next year, has had me thinking about my favourite live music experiences; happily, being (obviously!) the archivin' type, I have a more or less complete Record of shows attended, updated on facebook but now duplicated here (you never know, facebook might explode tomorrow).

Looking back, three really stand out: Françoiz Breut at the Corner in early '06 made a deep impression on me for more reasons than I can count; Neko Case, raising the roof in St Kilda one balmy February night in 2007, was simply great; and then, just a couple of months later, the Pixies' brilliant, ecstatic set at the 'best of V' mini-festival at the music bowl came almost out of left-field to floor me.

To be honest, what the other particularly memorable ones tend to have in common is that they were put on by favourite artists of mine, past or present, but second-guessing why some shows linger while others recede is really essentially a pointless exercise, not only because the sum total of factors feeding in is always so large, but, more importantly, also because, when it comes to music, who cares why something makes you feel good, so long as it does? In chronological order, then: the ineffable electro-pop of Tujiko Noriko at the end of several hours of noise at Ding Dong in early 2004; Radiohead at Rod Laver Arena a couple of months later (objectively probably really only a quite good show, but it felt like such an event - it was Radiohead, after all, and it seemed like everyone was there); Belle and Sebastian's joyful career-spanning set at the Palais mid-winter '04, at the height of my love for them; Pretty Girls Make Graves at the Corner late that year (another that was really probably actually only quite good, but I was basically obsessed with the band at that point, and just enjoyed it so much); then a leap forward to last year where Bjork unexpectedly made my head spin at the Big Day Out, and then, a few days later, Spoon totally killed at the Corner; Wilco a few months on, a show that I took almost for granted at the time, but, in retrospect, was pretty unimpeachably great; and most recently, spring-feeling-like-summer '08, Goldfrapp rocking the Palais something wicked.

* * *

2009

Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea (20/9)
Aimee Mann (5/9)
Flaming Lips (29/7)
Vic Chesnutt & Victoria Williams (9/7)
Luluc (2/7)
Je Suis Animal (17/6)
Ladytron (5/6)
Lucinda Williams (2/4)
Fidler, Sal Kimber & Fireside Bellows (22/3)
Jolie Holland (13/2)
Neil Young + My Morning Jacket (27/1)
Woven Hand (20/1)

2008

Blonde Redhead (31/12)
Final Fantasy (11/12)
Emiliana Torrini (18/11)
Julie O'Hara Quintet (19/10)
Joan as Police Woman (10/10)
Toni Childs (1/10)
Goldfrapp (26/9)
The Last Town Chorus (12/9)
Band of Horses (3/8)
Sigur Ros (1/8)
Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson (9/4)
Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus & Mary Chain, Modest Mouse, Queens of the Stone Age + others @ V Festival (5/4)
Patty Griffin (28/3)
Wilco + The Drones (26/3)
Jens Lekman (10/3)
Kelly Clarkson (4/3)
Lisa Miller (29/2)
Stars (28/2)
PJ Harvey (20/2)
Rufus Wainwright (1/2)
Spoon (31/1)
Bjork, Arcade Fire, Spoon, Kate Nash, Sarah Blasko + others @ Big Day Out (28/1)

2007

Amanda Palmer (13/12)
Joss Stone (9/12)
Angie Hart (19/10)
Emilie Simon + Nouvelle Vague (7/7)
Lisa Miller (20/4)
Wilco (18/4)
New York Dolls, Phoenix, Jarvis Cocker, Pixies @ Best of V Festival (4/4)
Love of Diagrams, Camera Obscura, Love is All, the Walkmen, Peter Bjorn & John + others @ St Jerome's Laneway Festival (24/2)
The Audreys, Four Play @ St Kilda Festival (11/2)
Neko Case (2/2)
Lisa Miller, Laura Veirs, Mary Gauthier, Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea + others @ the Harvest Festival (20/1)

2006

The New Pornographers (12/12)
Talvin Singh (7/12)
Yann Tiersen (29/11)
Kasey Chambers (22/11)
Black Cab (4/11)
The Crayon Fields (29/9)
Francoiz Breut (29/4)
The Sticks + Zero/Some (1/4)
Talvin Singh, Kusun Ensemble, Dhol Foundation, Renegades Steel Orchestra, Evelyn Glennie + others @ All-Star World Percussion Spectacular (19/3)
Pretty Girls Make Graves, Augie March, New Buffalo, Broken Social Scene, Les Savy Fav + others @ St Jerome's Laneway Festival (26/2)
Kathleen Edwards (14/2)
Lisa Miller (18/2)
M.I.A. (1/2)


2005

Machine Translations (6/9)
Tujiko Noriko (11/8)
Laura Veirs & the Tortured Souls (29/5)
Architecture in Helsinki, Gersey, Ground Components, Eskimo Joe, the Dears + others @ St Jerome's Laneway Festival (27/2)
New Buffalo (13/2)
Ennio Morricone Experience (23/1)

2004 and earlier (incomplete)

Pretty Girls Make Graves + Love of Diagrams (November 2004)
Belle and Sebastian + Architecture in Helsinki (23/7/04)
Radiohead (26/4/04)
Tujiko Noriko (18/2/04)

Interpol (7/8/03)

Goo Goo Dolls, Tea Party, Billy Idol + others @ M-One festival (2002)

Beth Orton, Alex Lloyd, Spiderbait, Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers + others @ Big Day Out (January 2000)

Metric - Fantasies

I've always liked the Emily Haines and Metric stuff that I've heard before, but with Fantasies, Metric's latest, they really, really hit it. To me, it sounds like a buzzing, super-charged amalgam of say Lush (circa Split and Lovelife), post-Execution of All Things (ie, poptastic) Rilo Kiley, Garbage, the Killers and Pretty Girls Make Graves and Sleater-Kinney (particularly the more mellow end of the last two's palettes); it's not stretching too much to say that those are a few of my favourite things, and it's not stretching at all to say that Fantasies is totally excellent.

New wave, power-pop, bubblegum (and sometimes slightly harder-edged) punk, modern rock and glossy stadium-pop all feed into the mix, and the result is a record made up of 10 magnificently listenable songs, all immediately catchy and all also more inventive and layered than is at first apparent. Picking favourites is difficult - I like the most direct tilts at anthem glory like "Help, I'm Alive" and "Sick Muse", but the angular pop directionality of cuts like "Gold Gun Girls" also appeals, as does the archetypal penultimate track slow-burn of "Blindness"; and then there's the golden-edged, Stones and Beatles-referencing "Gimme Sympathy" (featuring some particularly Rilo Kiley-esque moves including a rather Jenny Lewis-styled vocal from Haines, who in fact proves herself a much more versatile singer throughout than I'd previously given her credit for), which was the song that prompted me to seek out the album after I heard it on the radio one morning. Also noteworthy is "Satellite Mind", which reminds me of the minor classic "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" - which makes sense given that Haines was, of course, the vocalist on that particular BSS track.

So it's pretty much perfect feel-good summer-time music for the Belle & Sebastian crowd - although to say that is almost certainly to generalise too far from my own experience. But either way, this is a fantastic album.

The New Pornographers - Challengers

Another impeccably good album from the New Pornographers - less immediately barnstorming than Electric Version or Twin Cinema (both of which, incidentally, I think, qualify for 'minor greatness' status in my book), but equally pleasing, and it continues to reveal its details and depths as I keep on listening to it, just like those others.

Jenny Wilson - Love and Youth

Turns out I had totally the wrong idea about Jenny Wilson, misled by the weird cover and the connection to the Knife - her thing is actually a hushed, quirky kind of soul (cool song titles too). Not too bad, if not particularly my thing.

Natalie Imbruglia - Come To Life

As I've recounted before, a new Natalie Imbruglia album is actually cause for considerable excitement in these parts - excitement, I might add, of the totally non-ironic variety. Unfortunately, though, Come To Life doesn't really speak much to me - it's all a bit undistinguished, and lacks any of the glorious moments that have sprinkled the rest of her recent work.

Okkervil River - The Stand Ins

Somehow I've found myself listening to Okkervil River over the whole of this year, first The Stage Names, then Black Sheep Boy, and now The Stand Ins, which is just as good as the others (although The Stage Names stands out slightly from the other two, perhaps because it was the first one that I listened to). My favourite song on the album is also its longest at six and a bit minutes - "Blue Tulip", which goes for broke in the 'fraught indie epic' stakes and completely pulls it off.

"When the Rain Stops Falling" (MTC)

So I thought that "When the Rain Stops Falling" was very good, and up there with Realism and August: Osage County as the best that the MTC has done this year - it took a while to get going, but the pay-off was worth it.

* * *

(From an email to RE dashed off while at work last week:)

I thought the cast by and large were very good, and I thought the neat tying up was important to the structure of the play as a whole - it made sense of the repetition of ideas, etc, provided the structural justification for the jumping back and forth between different time periods and settings, and provided a relatively optimistic (or at least humanistic) ending in that it gave a resolution and a sense of progression from the failures of the past (ie, Gabriel the second being able to reach some kind of understanding with his own son, and in the process achieve a partial redemption of the human misery and loss of previous generations, including the abandonment of the first Gabriel by his father)...

* * *

[part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co]

Regina Spektor - Soviet Kitsch & Far

The albums on either side of Begin to Hope, and together, the main soundtrack to my last few weeks.

Soviet Kitsch is quirkier, more idiosyncratic, and generally less polished, but the risks it sees Spektor taking pay off in spades. "Carbon Monoxide" is arguably the most spectacular success in that respect, but it's the sky-scrapingly dramatic, deeply personal-sounding "Us" that I love (helped by its importance within the (500) Days of Summer soundtrack).

Far, by contrast, is a much glossier record, but it preserves many of the conceits (and I mean that, if not in the best possible way, then at least neutrally-shading-to-positively) that mark Soviet Kitsch - the odd phrasings, abrupt left-turns, flights of whimsy and soaring mini-epics prominent among them. I'm pretty addicted to the devastatingly pretty "Blue Lips", which is good in many of the same ways that songs like Radiohead's "Lucky" are; "Two Birds" and "Dance Anthem of the 80s" also particularly appeal.

Moon

An effective little sci-fi number, directed and co-written by Duncan Jones (aka David Bowie's son) with a strong vision and a good grasp of his craft. The look and feel are recognisably retro, and the two films that it most obviously recalls are 2001 and Solaris (though I only know the latter through Soderbergh's marvellous remake; that said, having experienced other Tarkovsky, it's easy to imagine, at least in general terms, how the original would have looked), but it's more modest than those antecedents, and the tension and suspense it generates, which is significant, is less metaphysical or existential than that which accompanies those others.

(w/ M)

Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

Erikson conceived of this as the first half of a two-volume novel that will conclude his epic Malazan Book of the Fallen series, and it shows. The (as ever) many strands making up its complex plot pretty much all run through the whole of the book, and all are left pretty much unresolved by the time the book comes to an end. There's a lot of scene-setting in Dust of Dreams, and relatively little significant character development or reconfiguration, with some of the treatments seeming rather superficial; of most interest are the coming to prominence of the K'Chain Che'Malle and the progression of Yan Tovis, Yedan Derryg and their Shake, although my favourite parts continue to tend to be those focusing on the Malazans, and the horrific trek of the Snake also sticks in the mind. Happily, Erikson turns these out very quickly; all the evidence is that the final book in the series, when it comes out, will bring events to an immensely satisfying close.

Robin Hood

The Disney version, with the animals - Michelle wanted to watch it. Charming!

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

I didn't really think that Parnassus would be any good - Tideland was one Gilliam film filled with spectacular images and suffering a severe lack of anything else too many, so far as my expectations went. Actually, though, it was a pleasant surprise - as visually spectacular as could be expected, and married to a decent story and some characters into whom one could actually get one's teeth (even if one of the characters is, of course, played by four different actors - Heath, Johnny, Jude and Colin). It doesn't hurt, of course, that it features Tom Waits as the Devil - as a matter of fact, it may be the least charismatic film performance I've ever seen from Waits, but given how high the man has set the bar in the past (see the Coppola Dracula and the Jarmusch pair Coffee and Cigarettes and Down By Law for evidence), that's hardly a fail.

(w/ M)

"The Dwelling" (ACCA)

Every time I visit ACCA, I'm struck anew by what a great space it is, and especially by how well it lends itself to rearrangement to suit individual exhibitions. This one, "The Dwelling", brings together a range of mostly video artists exploring ideas encapsulated in these comments in the exhibition guide:

The more common modern understanding of dwell is that of a safe place to remain; a pause, or a thought. It is a word that conjures up the idea of comfort, protection and rest. However, in ninth century old-English, the word dwell had a twistier meaning: it meant to lead astray, hinder and delay.

The works making up the exhibition are characterised by an interest in the symbolic meanings and resonances latent in 'dwellings' - houses and other buildings. Some engage the psychoanalytic dimensions of these issues quite overtly - "The likening" (David Noonan and Simon Trevaks), for example, in which a woman moves through an ominously gothic suburban home to encounter a seated figure at a kitchen table who turns out to be none other than herself - whereas others, like Eija-Liisa Ahtila's three-screened "Talo (The house)", in which inner and outer realms slip unavoidably into each other, dwell more in the border realm between 'psychology' and lived experience and phenomenology.

My favourites, I think, were the Ahtila video work, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller's "Opera for a Small Room", which installs a small but life-size wooden hut in a darkened room with music, a thunderstorm and other incidental and not-so-incidental sound, and the 13 minute video of "House II: The Great Artesian Basin Pennsylvania" (David Haines and Joyce Hinterding), in which a great flow of water gushes ceaselessly from the openings of a gothic house, oddly compelling, both because and I think in spite of the incongruity, and putting me in mind of a Chris van Allsburg image brought to life.



(w/ M)

Whiskeytown - Pneumonia

Pneumonia has been around for a long time, but somehow I never got to it until quite recently. It's actually a really wonderful record in the alt-country vein, evidently driven by Ryan Adams, though his voice is sweetly counterpointed by bandmate Caitlin Cary's on several songs. Country, rock and pop run through it, blending into a sound that's now familiar but no less welcome for it - sometimes melancholy, sometimes more breezy, sometimes even rootsily rocking. My favourites are back to back about a third of the way in - the chiming "Don't Be Sad" followed by "Sit and Listen to the Rain" which, in its low-key way, makes me think of the sound that a stream makes, burbling quietly to itself as it runs.

The Box

A significant step up from the mess that was Southland Tales without being a patch on Donnie Darko, The Box confirms Richard Kelly as a genuinely visionary director, but unfortunately also suggests that Donnie Darko may have been a once-off in terms of quality. I don't have a problem with the design of The Box (so to speak), including its wilder twists and turns, but it ultimately doesn't satisfy because the pieces don't feel held together by any deeper thread; it reminded me of Shyamalan's lesser works, both in that respect and in the mood that it created (that latter being a strong point).

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

It was probably in my head because of the new book by the Artemis Fowl guy, but mainly I thought I'd rewatch it in order to see (in order) Zooey Deschanel, Bill Nighy and John Malkovich. As with most films, I suppose, not as fun the second time around - and, thinking back, I think I was pretty primed for it that previous time.

Ponyo & Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

An Astor double feature. Ponyo was undeniably cute, but there wasn't much to it; Nausicaa, however, was really good, filled with striking images and strong, clearly realised ideas (the emphasis on the sky throughout is a particular feature). I have some difficulty with certain anime conventions, particularly the tendency to insert humour in a way that can undermine the sweep of the whole, but those quibbles notwithstanding, Nausicaa worked for me - as a story, as a fantasy, and as an imaginative journey (all three being slightly different, in this context, at least).

(w/ M, and Kevin was also there with Serena and another of his younger relatives)

Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

Another Ankh-Morpork novel, and one that's much in the vein of Pratchett's latter-day work - it's thoughtful, clever and amusing, but rarely laugh out loud funny (although it has its moments). I think that the wizards are increasingly my favourite characters; in the past, it's generally been (in no particular order) Vimes, Vetinari, Death and Susan.

"Apocalypse Bear Trilogy"

I saw this play described as suburban surrealism somewhere, and that's not a bad description, although it's possibly more programmatic than that description would suggest. Its deadpan weirdness is perhaps slightly overdone, and likewise its signposting of the (admittedly vague) Significance of the woods. At its heart are two imperfect, somewhat damaged figures and the apocalypse bear itself, and a set of symbolic encounters (real, imagine, external, internal) playing out themes of (among others - it was a couple of weeks ago now that I saw it) choice, loss, repetition and the mundane. The first Lally Katz that I've caught, and I saw hints of why she's so widely spoken about (and, in many circles, highly regarded), but I think that I'll reserve judgement for the time being...

(w/ Julian F)

Whip It

The kind of movie for which I am a sucker - smart, sassy, colourful and fun (and starring Ellen Page). Not a world-beater of a film, but one that I enjoyed watching heaps.

(w/ M)

David Sedaris - When You Are Engulfed In Flames

A collection of mostly brief, anecdotal pieces which are ostensibly scenes from Sedaris's life but which I suspect have been slightly embellished in places, mostly fairly light - in the vein of observational humour - but grounded; it's sometimes hilarious (though not as frequently as I'd expected), at times touched lightly with sadness, and always readable...possibly this was just me seeing what I expected to see, but I was left with the impression that, partly as a matter of subject matter, but more particularly in terms of tone, this was a book that might particularly strike a chord with gay men, though its appeal evidently isn't in any sense limited to that demographic and I'd struggle to really explain that impression. Anyway, it was both diverting and occasionally thought-provoking; I think I might read some more of his stuff.

"Terminus" (Abbey Theatre @ Malthouse)

"Terminus" is a verse play comprised of a series of monologues, delivered in turn by three figures who stand and are spotlit each time it's their turn to speak, unspooling a dizzying tale of violence, compassion, car chases, transcendent sex, the obscene and the lyrical, and souls literally sold to the devil, here performed by a very strong trio of actors from the Irish Abbey Theatre (Kate Brennan, Andrea Irvine, Karl Shiels) and given a simple, evocative staging which brings out both the play's visceral and human elements and its more metaphysical urges. Extremely impressive.

(w/ Ruth and Hayley - part of MIAF)

(500) Days of Summer OST

Works well both on its own terms and as a document of the film, which is unsurprising given how closely woven music is into the film itself. It's a pleasing mix of the familiar (two of the Smiths' most iconic songs in "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" and "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want", "There Goes The Fear", "Mushaboom"), the sort-of-familiar (most notably, sweet covers of "Here Comes Your Man" and "Please, Please, Please" by Meaghan Smith and She & Him respectively) and songs that I didn't know before but remember from the film itself (Regina Spektor's "Us", which plays over the opening credits and does much to set the tone for the film and its soundtrack, has particularly stuck with me).

Missing, sadly, are the original cuts of the Nancy & Frank (Black) songs that Summer and Tom do in the film; likewise, though less regrettably (although I wouldn't have minded had it in fact been included), "She's Like The Wind" - but you can't have everything. All up, this is a very, very charming soundtrack indeed.

Death in Vegas - The Contino Sessions

Kind of an electro-rock collision (from back in the late 90s), both relatively downbeat and harder-edged bits feeding into the mix. Hasn't made much of an impression on me, although it has some interesting moments.

Terry Pratchett - Nation

An attempt at something a bit different by Pratchett. Nation puts Issues more front and centre than most of his Discworld books (although they've never been far from sight even in those others, and particularly in the last two-thirds or so of that, continuing series), and contains fewer laughs, though the voice is still recognisably his and it's an easy read for all that. Nothing special by Pratchett's standards, though, for all that its heart is clearly in the right place.

"A Streetcar Named Desire" (STC)

Cate + "Streetcar" = a lightning trip up to Sydney last weekend to catch a matinee performance. Cass and I first looked into this a while back, but tickets were already all gone; we had better luck when a new round was released, and Sunny arranged to see the same performance along with a currently Sydney-based friend of his, one Louise. (M also came up, but didn't see the play.)

So it was worth the trip - an extremely solid production highlighted by Blanchett's performance and the strength of those around her, and without any particular weaknesses. I would have liked it more if it had been more drenched in atmosphere, more melodramatic, rather than being rendered (as it in fact was) in relatively understated, naturalistic hues - I didn't feel it quite got to the heart of the play, but even so, as a merely very good staging of what may well be a great play, it was very enjoyable.

Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger

Mmm, I never read The Night Watch, but somewhere along the line, Waters has gotten really good. Essentially a post-war haunted house story, redolent with psychological ambiguity and unease, and delicately steeped in post-Victorian and Freudian notions of the unconscious and the uncanny, The Little Stranger is full of strikingly lucid, elegantly clear prose and note-perfect descriptions, wedded to a building sense of eeriness and a story that grabs from the beginning and doesn't let go. It draws heavily on older, classic examples of the type - The Turn of the Screw isn't an unreasonable comparison - but distinguishes itself both through its craft and, relatedly, by the manner in which it develops into a subtle parable about class, as seen through the lens of the relationship between Faraday and the Ayreses. A really terrific novel, and one which has left me with no doubt that Waters deserves the acclaim she's increasingly been receiving.

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

An extremely off-beat Gus van Sant project from the 90s about a woman born with abnormally large thumbs and magical hitch-hiking powers who finds her way to a utopian cowgirl ranch; studded with interesting actors (many in 'blink and you'll miss them' cameos) including the always watchable Uma Thurmann in the lead role, it ought to've been at least moderately good, but in fact it really goes nowhere...there just didn't seem any point to it - I found it completely baffling.

Lisa Germano - Slide

Another draught of gauzily pretty, ineffably damaged 4ad pop from Germano, Slide has an old favourite in "If I Think Of Love" and the original version of "Reptile" and much else besides.

Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea @ the Corner, Saturday 20 September

A good show - she played mostly stuff from Hidden Hands, which suited me fine, but also pulled a few numbers from Dead Wood Falls (and a couple from elsewhere, including, as she did last time I saw her, "Folsom Prison Blues"), and I enjoyed it all.

(w/ M)

"One Night the Moon" (Malthouse)

I thought that this was good, but flawed. It's an evocative, atmospheric staging (the first ten minutes or so, in particular, are stunning) which benefits a great deal from the simplicity of the film which it interprets and the strength of that underlying material, including its songs, but which is held back by some relatively minor but intrusive issues in terms of overall pacing and a couple of the performances (including the singing). Overall, worthwhile though.

(w/ Kevin)

(500) Days of Summer

I really liked (500) Days of Summer - indeed, I'd go so far as to say that it's perfect.[*] The set-up is simple: boy (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets girl (Zooey Deschanel) and they fall into a relationship - but then he falls in love, and she doesn't. But the presentation of the story is less so: it's giddily non-traditional in its zooming back and forth through the 500 days promised by the title, whimsical to the point of tweeness at times, and filled with little cute bits, but also quite determinedly subversion of traditional romance narrative forms - while saving up for the end a message that may just be more romantic than that which typically emerges in those narratives themselves.[**]

I love the way that it has Zooey Deschanel as the perfect girl (only she's not). I love the way that she first notices him as they stand side by side in an elevator and the strains of "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" escape from his headphones - and then sings along to it, all natural-like, to him. I love how, at karaoke, she does Nancy (Sinatra) and he does the Pixies - and the utterly believable and sweetly excruciating awkwardness of the bit where she asks him, outside on the road afterwards, whether it's true what his friend said, that he likes her, and he totally lies while being desperate to tell the truth. I love how it's tossed off that she likes "Born to Run" and Rene Magritte and, surely, everything else that a boy might want a girl to like. And I love how perfectly it captures the rush of falling for someone and everything that comes along with and after that initial giddy hope and joy.

At first glance, it seems that the film is set up for the viewer to identify with Tom - and, indeed, I did, in terms of the little things (the way that his clothes fit on him in the same way that mine do on me), the not so little things (the formative impact of gloomy british post-punk music, the devastating effect of the materialisation of a pretty girl who shares many of the same cultural referents and likes as him), and the not little at all things (his assumptions about relationships, love and mutual understanding, and how they're put under stress as the story progresses). But Summer isn't simply some fantasy figure, nor merely archetypal or significant only in terms of how Tom interacts with and relates to her - rather, she's a realistic character in her own right, and, oddly, I see much of her in myself, too.

(And did I mention that it's also very funny, not to mention having a sweet soundtrack?)

This isn't one of those films that's really knocked me off my emotional orbit like, say, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind did. But it's left an impression on me, and I've taken it a bit to heart - I'm not sure, but I think that maybe I feel about (500) Days of Summer the way that a lot of people (but not me) felt about Garden State. It kind of made me happy and sad in the same proportions; it made me feel and, the which is possibly the more difficult trick for a film like this, it also made me think.

* * *

[*] Perfect, that is, taken on its own terms, of course.
[**] My thinking that its message may, in fact, be more romantic than that legible in its more 'traditional' counterparts is, now that I think about it, very possibly reflective of the extent to which I could, were I so minded, see the development of both Tom and Summer as parallel to my own; an unfortunately extremely piquant illustration which springs to mind is my previously-held view about the more romantic interpretation of the end of Lost in Translation and a particular conversation, a few years back, in which it came up (the record of which I haven't been able to quickly find here in extemporanea).

Paint a Vulgar Picture: Fiction inspired by The Smiths edited by Peter Wild

What the title says - each story taking its title from a Smiths song, some bearing an overt Smiths influence, other a more tacit one, and one or two seemingly simply taking the song title itself as a jumping-off point. Not many made much of an impression, although the two by writers who I've previously read - Scarlett Thomas' "Paint a Vulgar Picture" and Catherine O'Flynn's "You've Got Everything Now" - both have much of the flavour that makes me like their longer work; if there's a theme running through the stories, it's probably a fascination with the working class, the down-on-their-luck and the generally disenfranchised (punks, queers, drug-takers, criminals).

One Night the Moon

Saw this while at uni (quite literally - it was in one of the ERC's viewing rooms, with Kevin) but thought I should rewatch before seeing the current staging at the Malthouse this weekend. Simple, but good - in its dreamy way, reminiscent of Picnic at Hanging Rock in places, and the music is good, too.

The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema

Reminded by their "Hey, Snow White" on the Dark Was The Night set of how great the New Pornographers can be, I went looking for a reasonably priced copy of Mass Romantic the other day to finally listen to it; I didn't have any luck, but did come across their two most recent, Twin Cinema and Challengers, and picked them up instead. I haven't really listened to the latter of those yet, but hey, guess what? Twin Cinema is excellent!

The ones that I've particularly got my teeth into so far tend to be the ones on which Neko Case features prominently - something which she seems to do more frequently on this record than on Electric Version - and "The Bones of an Idol" and "The Bleeding Heart Show" are my current favourites. The latter, in particular, is absolutely vintage New Pornographers, up there with the title tracks from their first two records, "Letter from an Occupant", "From Blown Speakers", "The Laws Have Changed" and (my particular favourite) "Testament to Youth In Verse" as one of their bulletproof best moments. When they hit their straps, which is frequently, there's something gloriously barnstorming, roof-raising, about their take on modern power-pop, and they're very hard to beat.

7 Worlds Collide - The Sun Came Out

If I have this right, 7 Worlds Collide is a project pulled together by Neil Finn - they've put this record out for Oxfam. He's assembled an impressive cast of luminaries to write, sing and perform on songs - I reckon that the highlights are the two Jeff Tweedy, three-or-four-Wilco-albums-ago-sounding, numbers, "You Never Know" and "What Could Have Been", Glenn Richards' (Augie March) chiming "Duxton Blues", and "Reptile", the set closer and the song from which it draws its name, contributed by the always delightful and surprising Lisa Germano. There are also cuts from Johnny Marr (who plays guitar on several others), Phil Selway of Radiohead, KT Tunstall and others; all up, it's a pleasant collection rather than one that reaches any great heights, but it's very listenable even leaving aside the star-studdedness.

Yasmina Reza - Art

A terse, unsparingly intelligent and very pleasing three-hander focusing on the assumptions and accommodations that we make with ourselves and with each other in order to get along, bringing those ideas to light through the device of the differing responses to a work of modern art purchased by one of the three individuals who make up the play's dramatis personae. Reza was the playwright behind God of Carnage; I think I like Art more, though to an extent, comparing a play one has seen performed but not read, with another that one has read but not seen performed, is like comparing apples and oranges.

Ian C Esslemont - Return of the Crimson Guard

Esslemont collaborated with Steven Erikson in conceiving the world of the latter's Malazan series, and while Erikson has been making the running with the novel-writing, wikipedia tells me that Esslemont's contributions are regarded as equally canonical, and that's certainly the best way to approach this one, which for all intents and purposes is part of the series proper, enriching it by drawing out more about some characters who haven't yet featured prominently in Erikson's books, and also chronicling crucial developments at the centre of the Malaz empire itself, including directly surrounding Laseen. The prose isn't quite as good as Erikson's, nor the weaving of threads as mind-bogglingly complex - Return of the Crimson Guard is more heavily military than any in the 'Malazan Book of the Fallen' series to date - but it's still very satisfying.

V for Vendetta

(For the second time - still good.)

"God of Carnage" (MTC)

An entertaining assault on bourgeois hypocrisies and mores generally with a bit of a dark streak (which comes with the territory - and, indeed, is probably essential to the success of any play or other work in this vein) running through it. For mine, this play is something of a one-trick pony, but it's intelligently put together and genuinely sharp-edged, and was well performed (Hugo Weaving a stand out), so I enjoyed it nonetheless.

[part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co]

Aimee Mann @ the Palais, Saturday 5 September

Aimee Mann just might be my favourite artist currently going around (Radiohead, as ever, I place in a different - though not necessarily higher - category) and this was her first ever Australian tour, and so I was pretty excited about the show, an excitement that was only slightly diminished by the news that she was only touring with a pair of keyboardists rather than with a full band.

Anyway, I was always going to enjoy it, and I did - she drew from nearly her entire solo discography (I don't remember anything from Whatever), although with a bit of an emphasis on I'm With Stupid, Lost in Space and the Magnolia soundtrack, including enough songs from my 'personal canon' of Aimee Mann numbers to provide distinct highlights (she's never really had 'hits' as such, such as could comprise a more official canon, but I suppose the nearest would be the big Magnolia trio of "Deathly", "Save Me" and "Wise Up", all of which she played and all three of which would be in my personal list, too), but then I've listened to all of her albums so many times that every song she played (barring a b-side and a duet with Ben Lee) were intimately familiar to me. Mann herself was in good voice, and very likeable besides; the instrumentation did feel slightly bare, but it at least put a different complexion on a set of songs that, as I mentioned just before, I knew very well. It wasn't in any way revelatory, but I enjoyed the concert very much.

(Support act was Ben Lee, about whom, as ever, the less said, the better. "Cigarettes Will Kill You" was charming when it came out, but his entire career since then has just been an exercise in the utter lack of charm. I don't know what it is - he just annoys me.)

(w/ M and Wei)

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Twice Upon A Time - The Singles

Siouxsie and the Banshees have always been there in the background for me as historical and musical contemporaries of crucial acts like the Cure and the Cocteau Twins, but I've never really listened to them. This set is, I think, a best-of tracing the second half (although it may be slightly more than half) of their career; based on it, I think I can say that I like the band's sound but the songs themselves aren't lighting any rockets beneath me.

Ronald Welch - Sun of York

Whether it's a case of cause and effect or some common underlying root cause, it's easy for me to draw a direct line between this historical novel, which focuses on a few years during the War of the Roses in 15th century England and which I think I must have first read some time in primary school and returned to at least once a few years on from then, and much of what I enjoy reading today (most notably, George R R Martin's magnificent 'Song of Ice and Fire' series). Read now, some of the deficiencies in its craft are evident, but it still stands up as a pacy, well-coloured, surprisingly violent bit of historical fiction, dealing of course with an inherently dramatic and interesting period.

Silver Summit - Silver Summit

Better live, where the atmospherics and textures went further (tending to be a bit flattened out on record), but still at least interesting in recorded form.

"Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire" (NGV)

The exhibition was crowded when we went, as it apparently has been for the whole time that it's been running, meaning that circumstances weren't conducive to having any kind of real experience of the art - but I didn't mind that too much, as, while I like him well enough, I'm not a huge fan of Dali in the first place, and so was approaching the show principally as an opportunity to get more of a sense for his work and to see how it was all put together. (I wanted to go in any event because, like him or not, he's certainly Important, and especially in the 20th century art scene, which is pretty much my thing.)

Anyway, so I enjoyed the exhibition, crowd notwithstanding. Sympathetically curated, it didn't focus too much on the 'personality' aspect of Dali that can be so off-putting (and distracting) and thereby brought into greater prominence the quality of the work itself, which is (for mine) undeniably high. (Also, unlike the one from a few years ago, which was exhibited somewhere in Southbank, if I remember correctly, it concentrates principally on his drawings and paintings, with some of his cinematic work and a small annex containing jewellery, rather than on his sculptural and more 'design'-oriented work.)

It's arranged more or less chronologically, and I must say that some of his earlier stuff, showing strong cubist influences, was amongst the most appealing to me; indeed, it's possible to see strong elements of many of the key streams of 20th C art in his work over time - apart from his early dalliances with cubism, there's surrealism, of course, the movement with which he was most obviously affiliated for much of his career, and also a strong dose of pop art (indeed, it's arguably in a particular form of pop surrealism, often dabbling strongly in kitsch, that Dali's own influence is most apparent in contemporary art)...something else that is how good a painter he is technically, particularly in his 'mature' and post-atomic, and increasingly apocalyptic, work. At his best, his work is deeply mysterious, potently symbolic and strongly suggestive of the unconscious terrain - this exhibition was well worthwhile.

(w/ Yee Fui, trang and M)

Luluc - Dear Hamlyn

Pretty much what the show led me to expect - tranquil, contemporary (but not too contemporary) folk, well done.

Madonna - Ray of Light

For some reason I felt like listening to this, and duly tracked it down, a couple of weekends ago; its smoothly sparkly, vaguely eastern-influenced modern-90s electronic-dance-pop feels instantly familiar (not least because I heard the singles from it on the radio a lot back in the day), and goes down easily.

Brandi Carlile - The Story

I picked this up because it was cheap (it was three cds for $10, and I already had two) and I remembered reading some positive things about it on the internet when it came out, and put it on in the background a few nights later while doing something else; about a minute into the second song, the title track, I was compelled to turn it up, caught by Carlile's sudden, dramatic soar into modern rock anthem territory, her voice rising suddenly as power chords crashed in while the song hit its spectacular chorus for the first time, and to keep it up loud for the rest of the record, as it became apparent that Carlile had the chops to make good on that early promise. The Story is a set of country/roots/rock delivered with more personality than is usual for this kind of music, and at times with a pleasant rawness. It's good - nowhere near great, but good.

The Pretenders - Greatest Hits

When I think of the Pretenders, I think, on the one hand, of chiming, surprisingly tough rock-pop numbers like "Brass in Pocket", "Don't Get Me Wrong" and "Back on the Chain Gang", and on the other hand of their big ballad, "I'll Stand By You", which I've listened to loud, late at night and on my own more times than I'd probably care to admit. This best of hasn't done much to shake that impression, but I know a lot of the songs and like them well enough.

Smoosh - Free to Stay

Much like their debut She Like Electric, Free to Stay finds Smoosh making bright, surprisingly interesting indie-pop - it's not particularly memorable, but it is pretty likeable while it lasts.

Beautiful Kate

So I hadn't really known much about Beautiful Kate before seeing it, but it turned out to be a quietly stunning example of the kind of Australian cinema that seems to come down the line quite frequently whose success lies in the way it integrates its more dreamily poetic impulses with the more concrete, character-driven elements that give the film its punch. The flashback scenes are hazily nostalgic without obscuring the harshness that is so integral to Ned's past; over and over, the past bleeds into the present and vice versa, the physical landscape providing both continuity and indicia of change (most particularly, the dried up dam), each as unforgiving as the other. Much of the credit must go to director Rachel Ward, but she's also gifted with uniformly strong performances from her Australian cast; this is a really good one.

(w/ Kai)

Faith Hill - The Hits

Whle I quite like this kind of pop country when done well, this set's a bit too sunnily bland for me. I do have fond memories of "This Kiss", though, I must admit.

District 9

Grit, dust and blood galore in this tale of alien immigration. I'm not sure how much I'd say I enjoyed it, but it did grip, and it's an honest to goodness action film amidst the pointed references to the gross mistreatment (dehumanisation) of refugees and other marginalised people in the present and recent and not so recent past.

(w/ M, Noelle, Adam and Jonathan)

Fred Uhlman - Reunion

One of those small but perfectly formed novelettes that comes along from time to time; published in 1971, it recounts the developing friendship between two 16 year old boys, one Jewish and the other the golden son of an aristocratic line, in early 1930s Germany as Nazism begins to make itself felt in earnest. Throughout, a misty, backward-looking atmosphere coexists with an unexpected specificity which removes the narrative from the field of nostalgia; the ending is poignant and piercing.

(This was a gift from Sarah V, who was back in Melbourne for a few days, reviving our old idea of book exchanges, and at the same time giving me a few others to add to the 'to read' pile of the floor near my desk - Durrell, Goethe, Leroux.)

Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policemen's Union

In some ways, this one-two from The Yiddish Policemen's Union, a novel that's equal parts detective/noir genre piece and contemporary-Jewish-lit, captures what the book is all about:

"It's not much," Landsman says, rain pattering the brim of his hat. "But it's home."
"No, it isn't," Batsheva Shpilman says. "But I'm sure it makes it easier for you to think so."

In this book, it's often in the dialogue that the melding of the two divergent literary streams with which Chabon is here engaged is most evident, and also in the dialogue that some of the hidden consonances between the two become apparent (a cynical wisecrack is a cynical wisecrack, after all, whether hard-boiled or ancestrally resigned). The Yiddish Policemen's Union is no mere exercise in style or cleverness; rather, it's a genuine attempt at synthesis, which entails grappling with the conventions and concerns of both of the main forms on which it draws (in the passage above, the play on the meaning of 'home', itself of course particularly significant for the Jewish diaspora, is characteristic). It's not a complete success (I liked Kavalier and Clay much more), but, at once extremely enjoyable and unobtrusively serious-minded, there's plenty to like about it.

Sarah Blasko - As Day Follows Night

One that I've had to listen to quite a few times for it to really make itself known, but worth the perseverance. A collection of sprightly, spacious, vividly coloured singer-songwriter pop which hits its straps at the start, falters with a couple of dreary numbers in its midsection and then runs home strongly, it deliberately eschews the spectral atmospherics that characterised The Overture & The Underscore and What The Sea Wants... in favour of a lighter, more delicate (if equally introspective) palette which, married with a bunch of pretty good songs, I find rather charming, if not quite as memorable as her two earlier lps.

Minority Report

Not too bad, but then not great either; a pretty decent fusion of 'proper' science fiction and cyberpunk-lite with blockbuster sci fi/adventure.

Tennessee Williams - Mister Paradise and Other One-Act Plays

Often, a writer's shorter pieces can provide a kind of key, or perhaps more aptly a map, which aids in navigating their longer (if not always more substantial) work - themes and ideas which may not emerge as clearly or as simply in full-length novels, with all their associated foliage, may be laid bare in shorter stories and novellas, for example. There's something of that sense to the short plays in this volume, mostly from early in Williams' writing career; they certainly have the characteristic flavour that I've come to associate with his plays, and nearly all of them stage some kind of confrontation or collision between youth and age, innocence and experience...has definitely added something to my relationship with his work.

Braveheart

Sometimes I just get in the mood.

Steven Erikson - Toll the Hounds

A lot of what's set up in the seven books preceding this one is revisited and, seemingly, brought to fruition in Toll the Hounds, with Dragnipur, the Tiste Andii (and particularly Anomander Rake) and the increasingly fated city of Darujhistan at its heart, all related in Kruppe's distinctive voice. I've said it before, but it bears saying again - Erikson really is masterful...over the course of this series to date, he's created something which stands apart from anything else ever written in this vein.

"Rockabye" (MTC)

Post-show discussions following this, Joanna Murray-Smith's take on the ethics of celebrity adoption of third world children (and a fair bit else besides, extending out fairly directly from that central question), quickly revealed a clear consensus - alas, it's a rather mediocre play. I found it hard to damn as bad per se (others weren't so temperate) - rather, it was just all too middling, never raising its sights above the ordinary and so not even an interesting failure. Punchy enough, but there was just nothing to it.

Incidentally, greatest feel-good song of all time is almost certainly "Son of a Preacher Man"; possibly "Superstition" (in a slightly different way, too, "Lazy Line Painter Jane", of course). For some reason "A Whiter Shade of Pale" comes to mind too, but that can't be right.

[part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co]

Coraline

Deliciously dark and creepy, if not quite to the same degree as the book from which it draws its inspiration. At times, Coraline reminded me of "The Path", a thoroughly atmospheric little game/immersive experience that I downloaded and spent some time with a while back, with its unsettling little-girl music and partly cropped explorations of apparently innocuous indoor and outdoor landscapes which acquire an increasingly ominous character as things progress, and also in a certain deadpan character which grounds the fantastic events which proliferate over its course. It looks great, with everything suitably shadowy and nocturnal (the 3d-ness adds an extra dimension (ha) to the experience), and the most fantastic sequences have a visual flair and crackling elan which befit the happenings that they depict. A really good adaptation, and an equally good film on its own terms.

(w/ M)

$9.99

Stop-motion claymation; more downbeat and less whimsical than I'd expected, though replete with flights of fancy. Had an unexpected realist streak running through it, despite the many departures from 'realism'. And yes, it was about the meaning of life.

(w/ Steph)

Knowing

Considerably better than I'd expected. Nicolas Cage, often good in this kind of role, is really only so-so - but he has the right kind of look for the film, haunted by his past and tormented in the present, and the visuals are sometimes striking. It's really more of an 'idea' film than a blockbuster, though it has many of the trimmings of the latter; it falls somewhat short, but nobly so. Reminds me a bit, actually, of Aronofksy's The Fountain, in the attempt to meld metaphysical messages with darkly dream-like imagery and a sprinkling of action.

Flame & Citron

Beautifully shot and tensely involving thriller focusing on the activities of a famed pair of Danish resistance fighters during the second world war. Benefits immensely from tremendously charismatic performances from the titular figures and the shadowy, heavily contrasted cinematography, where scenes are composed of deep, textured blue-blacks and vividly lit, almost luminous pales (often faces). Also digs deeply into the moral uncertainties of their actions while emphasising the violence of the killings perpetrated by them and others in their shadowy war.

(w/ Jaani and M)

Love Exposure

MIFF program descriptions are often very misleading, but the one for Love Exposure, somehow, turned out to be spot on, viz:

* * *

Clocking in at just under 240 minutes but never skipping a beat, visionary filmmaker Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Noriko’s Dinner Table) presents an epic love story peppered with religion, perversion and martial arts.

After being forced to confess his sins by his priest father, high school student Yu embarks on a spree of wrongdoing, becoming a ninja-like master of sneak-photography – taking photos up girls’ skirts. Yu’s world is knocked even further off-kilter when he meets Yoko – a man-hating riot girl – and gets involved with a mysterious cult.

Sion’s masterwork is a one of a kind – an iconoclastic, scattershot action-comedy-romance.

* * *

Four hour running time notwithstanding, it's tremendously kinetic and fun, soundtracked by a pop-pastiche stream and packed with free-wheeling action and drama. Blood, scatology, absurdity and perversion all flow freely (erections play an important part in the plot and themes of the film; likewise, even apart from the 'peek a panty' aspects, schoolgirls variously beating up casts of dozens using martial arts, kissing each other in close up, and being tied up by rope feature prominently); at the same time, it has some thoughtful things to say about religion and society (among many other things), and the notion of 'perversion' comes under moderately close scrutiny. Really one of a kind.

(More, including trailer, here.)

(w/ Meribah, Wei, M and JF)

The Flaming Lips @ Festival Hall, Wednesday 29 July

Much fun! It wasn't the life-changing experience that the '04 BDO set apparently was for lots of those who went that time round, but it certainly was a Show - giant balloons, confetti, animal costumes, lights and projections and all...also, some pretty good songs. It would've been hard not to get swept up in the general good vibes - and I had no compunction about going with it - but I must say (at risk of being a spoilsport), I would've liked it more if the music had been more of a focus. The highlight for me would have to've been "She Don't Use Jelly", reminding me what a monster of a song it is - it's also the one, along with "Yoshimi", which carries the biggest nostalgic charge for me.

(Support - Midnight Juggernauts. Pretty good.)

(w/ M; lots of others around too but hooking up proved somewhat impracticable till after show)

Steven Erikson - Reaper's Gale

Another! Events come to a head in Letheras, where the arrival of both Icarium and Karsa Orlong sends reverberations through the city's web of machinations, plot and counter-plot, as financiers, court functionaries, assassins and gods manoeuvre for power and Rhulad clings increasingly desperately to sanity as his supports are cut away from beneath him. At the same time, the Malazan marines of Tavore's renegade army fight a brutal guerrila war through the jungles of Lether, converging on the capital city while ascendants and soletaken ready their own assaults. New forces arise in the Awl'dan and Twilight's disenfranchised Shake; all the while, too, ill-matched and suspicious companions weave across the continent on quests of their own, particularly the group led by Silchas Ruin in search of his ancient betrayer. And through all of this, Erikson keeps a strong, clear thread running - a sense of things moving ineluctably forward to some shattering ending, even as the layers of recurrence and constraint become ever more unavoidable.

Anna & Alphaville

Rang in MIFF this year with these two, Saturday and Sunday nights. They're part of the Anna Karina retrospective (as a matter of fact, she was up on stage saying a few words before and after each), though as it happens, she wasn't the main reason why I saw either; I'm still quite giddily infatuated with Godard and was keen to see Alphaville on a big screen [previously], and I was really drawn to Anna (which isn't one of his) by the program description of it, which suggested that it would be all frothy, colourful, romantic, Gainsbourg-scored Paris-in-the-60s whimsy. Indeed, though she's been a big part of my Godard experience (as, I suppose, she must be for everyone's Godard experience), she's never specifically registered with me before.

Seeing these two back to back has highlighted two things: (1) she really is only a moderate actor; and (2), despite (1), she's a spectacular movie star. In Anna, she's terribly affected (although arguably that's consonant with the mood of the film as a whole); in Alphaville, as elsewhere, she's wonderfully inscrutable and utterly compelling, just as she was in Bande à part, Made in U.S.A. and Vivre sa vie.

It almost goes without saying, I enjoyed both, though Alphaville very much more than Anna.



(Anna w/ Steph and Nicolette; Alphaville w/ Steph, Kai and Ruth)

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

A couple of people independently mentioned this band to me, both in a 'I only kinda like it but you'll probably like it more' kind of way. Anyway, it's the sort of concoction that could've been calculated to appeal to me, equal parts JAMC fuzz and C86 jangle and tunesmithery, with a dash of mid-to-late (ie, Wish-era) Cure-esque guitar sensibility, and I do quite like it, though it wears its influences perhaps a bit too much a bit on its sleeve, while being perhaps a bit too clean-nosed about it, to really make an impact on me.

Regina Spektor - Begin to Hope

Eccentric girl singer-songwriter stuff, heavy on the kook but also on the talent. I liked pitchfork's take on her as being a Kate Bush for the McSweeney's set; shades also of Frida Hyvonen, Nellie McKay, etc, etc. Pretty good.

Buddy & Julie Miller - Written in Chalk

Nice. It hasn't really smacked me between the eyes yet, but I feel it's almost only a matter of time, so easy and yet satisfying is it to listen to.

The Verve - A Northern Soul

One often hears this album spoken of as something of a minor classic, but I'm not entirely sold. I do like the windswept way in which it weaves bits of shoegaze, indie-rock and (proto?) brit pop together (semi-alliterativeness unintended), but for me, the songs don't quite stand up.

"The Birthday Party" (MTC)

A difficult play to get one's teeth into, but then again, I think that's at least partly the point - it seems to be a play primarily about effect, and more particularly a distinct effect of unsettledness. At one of its centres, a pair of disturbed clowns, Goldberg and McCann; at another, the curiously blank Stanley; throughout, language is seen distorting and losing its moorings; in another way, it seems to be 'about' power and authority. Well worthwhile, though I was left with the nagging feeling that the production may not quite have done justice to the play. (All of that said, I seemed to like it more than the others with me.)

[part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co]

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

There's a reliable sturdiness and craft to all of these movies - they're reliably good. This one's another thoroughly solid entry in the series (and the first I've seen on a big screen), and though it suffers a bit from 'middle film' syndrome - a surfeit of exposition and picking up of existing threads, and not enough action - it's still more than involving enough. Plot developments continue to come as complete surprises to me (those that aren't telegraphed a mile away, that is), which I suspect adds a fair bit to the experience.

(w/ M)

"Alternative Static" (IMP July 2009)

One of the more delightful IMP mixes to've come down the line. Much of it is made up of actual 'alternative' music - that is, music that was called 'alternative' back when the term seemed to have some kind of meaningful denotation - and so classic songs and legendary artists are scattered throughout ("Bizarre Love Triangle", "Just Like Heaven", "She Sells Sanctuary", "It's the End of the World as We Know It", "Girlfriend in a Coma", etc). But that makes the mix sound much less fun than it actually is, for those cuts are mixed in with a cross-section of others which cover a lot of ground, albeit still focusing on the 80s, while retaining a thematic consistency. Indie and alternative-edged disco and dance is a recurring theme ("Personal Jesus", Erasure's "A Little Respect", "West End Girls" and others including a Berlin song that isn't "Take My Breath Away"!), as is jangle/power pop stuff (Voice of the Beehive, the Primitives, Sinead O'Connor's churning, vivid "Mandinka"); all told, it's also a reminder of just how gloriously Pop so much of that kind of music was/is. (Speaking of pop, the shimmering, sinuous "Kiss Them For Me" is a side of Siouxsie and the Banshees that I'd never suspected existed - it's really good, too.)

(from Aimee in Alt. Spqs [?], FL)

"Happy Days" (Malthouse)

This was good! Suitably harrowing and good both on the broad existential sweep and in the little details of language and nuance; Julie Forsyth impressive. Beckett has a really unique idiom, and it comes through clearly here.

(w/ Kim, Ruth & Simon H)

Paul Galloway - Realism

This worked notably better as performed than on the page (I've been thinking a bit lately about the relationship between the written text of a play and its instantiations in performance, though without any solid conclusions yet), but it was worth reading anyway to pick up more of the nuances; also, the ending seemed rather darker on the page (and the 'Meyerholdian' section much less striking and stylised - which isn't particularly surprising).

Steven Erikson - The Bonehunters

On my first read, by this point in the series, I had begun to lose track of a few of the many threads running through it, although the careening momentum of the main strands was more than sufficient to keep pulling me through; I recall being unsure about how some of the bits-and-pieces scenes which are interspersed throughout it had come about, particularly the desperate defence of the shadow and first thrones (strikingly, those images and scenes were nonetheless memorable enough to stick with me). This time, I was better able to track them through, adding to the impact of the whole. Again, there's a spectacular battle about mid-way through (in Y'Ghatan), and then another bravura finale, this time in Malaz City, as Tavore comes closer and closer to tipping her hand as to where she will finally stand, and other powers converge around Rhulad's seat of power.

More on Hidden Hands

Hidden Hands is pretty much the only thing I've listened to over the last week - even picking up the new Wilco and Sarah Blasko records, news of an upcoming Aimee Mann tour, and my ongoing recent Jolie Holland infatuation, haven't shaken that - and the more I listen to it, the more I appreciate how spectacularly good it is.

Like all really good albums, it grows with each listen, and over repeated spins, different songs and streams within it come to prominence. I still can't get enough of the pulsating, slashing "I Am Going But I Am Not Gone" [previously], or of the two similarly mid-to-fast-paced rockers which precede it and kick off the album, "Mother's Desk" and "Fear Is Like A Forest"; yesterday, running a few errands in town in the chill morning sunshine, the epic, ballad-like "It Must Come Through" hit me between the eyes, and that's the one that I've been listening to loud since, including right now. Wicked!

Jen Cloher.

Red Cliff

The most spectacular film I've seen in some time, John Woo's staging of the romance of three kingdoms is pretty much two and a half hours of full tilt action, most of which is comprised of massive, clash-of-thousands battle scenes. The excitement and tension don't let up at any stage, the emphasis on strategic planning and scattering of quieter, more contemplative moments notwithstanding; and with a cast including Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Chang Chen, it has actors who are more than capable of carrying it all off. According to wikipedia, huge cuts were made for the western version which I saw, but even so, it's quite something. Perfect for a Saturday night.

(w/ M)

Jen Cloher & the Endless Sea - Hidden Hands

It's been a few months, I'd say, since I listened to a new album - new to me, that is - that contained a song which made me listen to it over and over, and turned up loud, whenever I got to it, but Hidden Hands' third track "I Am Going But I Am Not Gone" has hooked me in just that way. Is it fair to describe it as 'alt-country'? I've never really thought of Cloher's music in those terms - it's not easy to pigeonhole, being structured principally on rock and pop forms while drawing heavily, and naturally, on folk and country streams. What gets me about that song, and about this album in general, is something that I can't put my finger on, but which comes with all music that strikes a chord, something that goes in around the back of my neck and top of my spine and, I don't know, just makes itself felt.

Dead Wood Falls has proved to be a real stayer - I've listened to it heaps, and consistently, since getting it back in '06 - which makes it all the more impressive that now, with Hidden Hands, Cloher and band seem to have topped it. Crisper in sound but no less atmospheric, and the songs, while perhaps less immediate, are somehow richer and deeper - even more satisfying than those on their first album. The rockier ones are driving and hook-laden and crunchily pleasing; the slower turns are touched by melancholy and often faintly spectral (especially the last song, "Watch Me Disappear"). I'm liking this very much.

"Cosmopolitan Living" (IMP February 2009)

Like one or two other recent IMP mixes, rather in the lounge vein - music for a particular mood. I don't have it with me right now but I recall Dionne Warwick's "Walk On By" being on it, and that gives a pretty good sense of the vibe, though most of the other tracks are less well known.

(from Steve in Alexandria, VA)

Martha Wainwright - Martha Wainwright

Been enjoying this one a lot - it's several notches above the average singer-songwriter record. It has an acerbic edge which manifests itself in the lyrics (as could've been expected from radio hit "Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole"), instrumentation and arrangements, and vocals, while Wainwright displays an enviable facility for catchy, unusual melodies...much like her voice, her songs, while not traditionally pretty or smooth, are immediately likeable. Current favourites, apart from aforementioned "BMFA", would probably be "G.P.T." and "When The Day Is Short", but there are plenty of other neat ones too.

God Help The Girl

On paper, this seemed a 'can't miss' proposition - Stuart Murdoch-written songs intended as the soundtrack to an as yet unmade film, sung by girls. As it turns out, though, only a couple of the songs reach any great heights (those being "Musician, Please Take Heed" and "Perfection As A Hipster", the latter including a vocal from Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy); thankfully, the music isn't as slick and brassy as that on the last couple of B&S albums, but it's still all too smooth. It's perfectly listenable and has its moments, but it's nothing special despite its provenance.

Vic Chesnutt & Victoria Williams @ East Brunswick Club, Thursday 9 July

Went along to this one on spec, not really knowing much about either of the acts beyond reputation; somewhat opportunistically, we sat in the front row and so scored a great spot. First, Chesnutt, seated (in wheelchair), strumming his guitar and singing plaintive americana - pretty good. Williams joined him onstage for the final song of his set, and then after a rather awkward transition and then break, they both returned, with Williams singing and playing either guitar or electric piano (and, in snatches, harmonica) and Chesnutt doing occasional backing vocals and muted percussion. Williams' was the loosest set I've seen for as long as I can remember, long pauses between songs as she decided what to do next, often soliciting audience requests; her singing is idiosyncratic, to say the least, but I felt that there was a musicality to her stuff (if not necessarily a great deal of musicianship in the performance)...one certainly had to work to uncover the songs beneath the little girl vocals and stop-start rhythms and lines, but of course it's precisely (and only) in following that path that they disclose themselves. Anyway, I liked them both, though neither had me in raptures.

(w/ Meribah and Wei)

Steven Erikson - House of Chains & Midnight Tides

It's a mark, I suppose, of Erikson's confidence and ability that, with the fourth book in his Malazan series, House of Chains, he's willing to take up the narrative of a relatively (although not completely) minor character from the first three and devote the first couple of hundred (?) or so pages exclusively to him - the first time in the series that such sustained attention has been given to any single character or strand of the plot...I suppose it doesn't hurt that it's pretty much full-tilt action, but even that demands real skill to write successfully. Thereafter, it turns to the campaign in Seven Cities, as the new Adjunct, Tavore, seeks to end Sha'ik's rebellion; typically, we spend as much time in the latter's camp as in the former's. The theme of chaining and imprisonment which has run through the entire series assumes even greater prominence throughout, and the cyclical, recurrent nature of events becomes increasingly clear.

Then, in Midnight Tides, he goes one further, introducing an entirely new empire in the Letherii, and dramatically fleshing out another, that of the Edur, which had previously only been present very much in the margins, as well as filling in more of the history and mythos of the elder races and beings that make up the series' pantheon, with virtually no mention of the significant nations, races and individuals who populate the four preceding books. It's a brave gambit, but it works perfectly - we're immersed in this new struggle and in the host of significant and more minor characters woven into it. (Along with Erikson's usual roster of more or less morally compromised protagonists, Trull Sengar, Seren Pedac, Hull Beddict and Udinaas foremost amongst them, and the delightful Tehol Beddict and Bugg, are a host of characters with smaller roles who move across its pages with great vividity, most particularly Shurq Elalle and Ublala Pung.)

"The Man From Mukinupin" (MTC)

I thought this one was a bit of a mess. Assuming that the production is faithful to the written play, the fault must rest principally with the latter, I think - it's wildly uneven and never coalesces into anything more (the first half, in particular, simply crawls). I was unconvinced by the magic realist elements, and equally so by the apparent attempts at weaving in strands of something Shakespearean or comparably lofty (even, of course, leaving aside the deliberately dreadful performance-within-the-play of Desdemona's death in "Othello"), and likewise by the unexplained fluctuations in tone and style.

[17.3.13 note - part of an MTC subscription with Steph, Sunny & co (though I have a feeling that I might've seen this one by myself, having had to change my date)]

Eagle Eye

Extremely average - it's got a moderately good premise, decent special effects, and Billy Bob Thornton going for it, and that's about it. Endless action, endlessly boring.

Magnetic Fields - Holiday

Relatively early Magnetic Fields, and good! Ends with the ever-young "Take Ecstasy With Me".

Jolie Holland - Escondida

Jolie's become one of my favourites over the last six to nine months or so, and this, her debut proper (there was one before it that I haven't listened to, Catalpa, a subsequent release of a demo recording) has the same soft-edged, sharp-centred charm as Springtime Can Kill You and The Living and the Dead. It's quieter, drawing more on the sparser jazz and folk elements of her music and, particularly, singing, but lovely in much the same vein.

Neil Young - Comes a Time

This one's kind of a softish country-rock type record, a bit in the vein of Harvest but without that other's memorability. It's not too bad, but there's nothing on it to match the lilting charm of its title track.

Luluc @ Northcote Social Club, Thursday 2 July

A duo, their style old-timey sounding folk-esque music. The songs were pretty good but their not so secret weapon is singer Zoe Randell's wonderful voice, smooth and low and used to great effect. I think it was a relatively short set, but it was long enough for their sound to become clear, and for them to demonstrate a good amount of melodic and textural range. Definitely worth keeping an eye out for!

Incidentally, looking at their website a minute ago, I noticed that they were booked to support Lucinda Williams at her show earlier this year, which means I must have seen them then. (All I remember from their set there, assuming it was them, is that they were good, but I was very tired and basically half asleep for its duration...no reflection on the music itself.)

(Support for this show was 'Jessica Says', who I'm quite sure I met around the traps a few years back.)

(w/ Ruth and Wei)

100 favourite albums: # 4: The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico

Well, four albums left to write about, and having gone through this whole exercise, there isn't any doubt in my mind that, for now at least, they are my four favourites (even though I still don't have a clear idea of just what, precisely, that might mean), but deciding the order in which these last four should go has given me a lot of trouble - in large part, I think, because the ways in which each of them is one of my 'favourites' is so different from all of the others.

In trying to think about why this, the Velvet Underground's first album, pushes my buttons in the way that it does, it's difficult to get past the way it sounds. "Venus in Furs" is still my favourite, and in many ways it embodies the template - resounding and resonant, jangling lines circling and repeating, wrapped up in an atmosphere of cloud mystery, Reed intoning sinister nothings over a musical bed that's as crystalline as it is chaotic - but the record really unfurls all the way from start to finish; in other words, from gently twinkling "Sunday Morning" to the clamorous closing descent of "The Black Angel's Death Song" and "European Son", and in between Nico's two melodically wrought dirges, "Femme Fatale" and "I'll Be Your Mirror", two relatively concise rock turns on "Run Run Run" and "There She Goes Again", the epic centre comprised by "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "Heroin", and of course "Venus in Furs" and, almost at the very beginning, the other song on the record which in many ways best seems to sum up what it's all about, "I'm Waiting For The Man".

The Velvet Underground are a reference point for me in more ways than one, and more often than not it boils down to this record. If it makes any difference, I can easily credit that the Velvets have been just as influential as everyone says they are, including, directly or indirectly (but probably fairly directly) on many of my particular faves (say Galaxie 500, the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Mazzy Star to name just four). I don't think it's too fanciful to think of this album as continuing to reverberate down the decades through everything that's come since - indeed, to go further and, with the benefit of hindsight, say that it was, indeed, the crucial break with whatever had come before, announcing the possibility and arrival of something new. And yet to listen to it now is still to be caught up in something which withholds as much as it reveals, something that sounds only like itself, something inexplicably, undeniably great.