Tana French - The Trespasser

In this one, Antoinette Conway takes centre stage, working with partner Steve Moran a few months after the events of The Secret Place on an investigation that quickly twists to call into question the motives and loyalties of her fellow Dublin murder squad members. Events move fast and Conway is a smart, gritty character whose flaws and strengths are both apparent without being laboured (similarly, the rest of her life outside work, including how it sets up, disposes of, and then has her deploy to her own benefit the disappearance of her own father), and whose narration plays well into the book's general interest in subjectivity of perspective. The vast majority of the action plays out in a series of interview scenes which more than hold the interest as people's apparent motives gradually appear, or in some cases only seem to.

Bits and pieces along Flinders Lane

A bit of time between appointments so I browsed my way down to the Treasury end.

At Flinders Lane Gallery, Josh Robbins, "Bonjour Mamacita". Colourful bird pageantry.

At fortyfivedownstairs, Gavin Brown, "Market Market". Also big on colours, though in a different way; Cambodia, and lively.

At Arc One, Murray Fredericks, "Vanity". Very appealing! Like the ones above, engagingly large format. The brochure references Merleau-Ponty and the idea of the Ganzfeld effect (which I previously came across via James Turrell) and the disorienting yet beautiful and thoroughly experiential effects that Fredericks creates with his photos and their staging with facing mirrors make for a new take on the horizon.

Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky - Big Hard Sex Criminals vol 1

Well, I was sceptical about this one for what are probably pretty obvious reasons. The blurb on the back cover tempered that slightly, but only slightly: "It's a 'graphic novel' about a couple who stop time when they orgasm, so they rob banks." But actually this turned out to be a solid recommendation/loan, with well drawn (both senses) main characters and nice depictions of some classic themes (of literature, and I imagine including of graphic novels): discovering sex, while discovering oneself, and then the search for love as a youngish adult; cutely, Lolita brings them together.

"Patrick Pound: The Great Exhibition" (NGV Australia) / Nolan

The exhibition started inauspiciously for me - a darkened room lined with two glass cabinets each containing a series of found black and white photographs, one after another into monotony. I'd seen this all before, or that's how it felt.

But as I moved further into the show, it opened up for me and I ended up enjoying Pound's collections a great deal, especially the more or less central room in which works from the NGV's collection - some familiar, others not, and all, as the exhibition notes suggest, standing in as representations of things absent - and found images are organised around the walls with more objects installed in the middle of the room, associations and meanings generating as I went.

Also, it was just a few months ago that I first came across Pound at ACCA.

***

Also, wandering after, saw that Nolan's complete series of paintings and drawings from Wimmera in the early 1940s were on display. They are terrific.

Lone Survivor

Good war movie. Mark Wahlberg as watchable as usual, and highly interesting (in a good way) was Ben Foster (previously for me, though it was released more recently, Hell or High Water and also - thanks google - Claire's ambiguous boyfriend on Six Feet Under).

Personal Shopper

Even just one day later, it's hard to resummon the mood and effect of this - the description is unusually apt - haunting film, although listening to Very Sad closing credits song "Track of Time" (Anna von Hausswolff) is helping somewhat.

There are ghosts of all kinds in Personal Shopper, and from the opening sequence, which sees Kristen Stewart's Maureen arriving at and, later that night, moving watchfully through a large, old house that's all creaking floorboards and sudden cracks, gusts and ricochets in search of something that we later learn could be one of several different spirits, Stewart's character herself seems at once haunted and ghostly in her own right.

There are literal ghosts - or, at least, manifestations - and a host of other fears, some of which turn out to be justified, if possibly all enfolded upon each other. And there are depths and eddys of many kinds, all centred around Stewart in a way that proves, in the film's final line, to have been wholly apt the entire time - and creating a challenge which she, as an actor, proves entirely up to, through whatever alchemy of natural state, projected association and deliberate performance. A remarkable film.

(previously from Assayas/Stewart, the just as great Clouds of Sils Maria)

The xx - I See You

As probably unrepeatably great as their hushed debut was - a vein in which they very much continued on their follow-up Coexist (hushedness rather than greatness) - there's a thrill to hearing the xx open up and stretch more extrovertedly skywards on confident, sweetly swooning tracks like "Say Something Loving", "Replica" and "On Hold", while even the more traditionally 'xx'-feeling quieter songs vibrate with a newfound brightness and colour, everything mixed more sharply and vividly (witness "A Violent Noise", "I Dare You" and the Portishead-summoning neo-torch of "Performance"). Very good.

Colossal

Anne Hathaway, alcohol problems, giant monster terrorising Seoul, monstrous behaviour of other kinds, all of that satisfyingly brought together with appropriately high stakes at both the interpersonal and citywide levels. Quite the unusual and rather excellent film.

(w/ Cass)

"Claire Lambe: Mother Holding Something Horrific" (ACCA)

An impressive exhibition, each of its four rooms opening to and in conversation with the others and within themselves.

The major piece, taking up most of the large hall, is "The waterfall", an installation that the ACCA attendant who happened to be doing a guided tour while I was there aptly called a kind of storyboard, a mirror-layered imagined house furnished with images from the artist's own life and art, other images (including several of forced affection) and a replica of Freud's chair, in which the personal, the cinematic and the abject are all in free play. There's a lot to it and I spent a lot of time with it; it's a response to Duchamp's last work, the mysterious, viewed-through-a-keyhole assemblage "Etant Donnés".

The corner room houses a single, seemingly self contained bronze flower growing out of the centre of the darkened room's floor, soundtracked by an ambientish instrumental track that occasionally erupts into bosque-y cacophony - "Ma femme au chat ouvert" - while the other two rooms lay out more pieces that are thematically and figuratively of a piece with others elsewhere. It's all very interesting - struck a chord with me.

Birdman

Sometimes a movie just taps into something and that's what Birdman does. A movie that is - for all that its characters do move and breathe in ways that gesture towards the universal from their specificities - basically about movie and theatre people shouldn't be this engaging and yet it is. The cutting to make it seem like it's all one take, even when that involves some fluidity in time and space, adds to it.

Underground Lovers - Dream It Down

It's always a good sign when, on the first listen to a new album, you're moved to immediately replay some of the individual songs along the way rather than allowing the whole record to play through in a single (figurative) spin; for Dream It Down, that kicked in with the pulsingly strummed, climbing "Superstar" and then wistful instrumental follow-up "Supernova", strings-led and sad.

Of course, while it's new to me, Dream It Down isn't actually a new album, but rather dates back to 1994, and it's due to triple j's hottest 100 cd for that year that I've long known and cherished the breezily moody "Losin' It"; this is also the album that houses "Las Vegas" and its utterly dramatic chorus. And there's plenty else nice here, threading shimmering guitar-led pop-rock, the occasional chamber pop touch and hazy electronic weave, not least the 8 minutes worth of "Recognise", featuring vocals from Philippa Nihill and anticipating the terrain that outfits like School of Seven Bells wouldn't get to for another couple of decades or so.

(Leaves Me Blind, 1992; Weekend, 2013)

Charlotte Wood - The Natural Way of Things

Disquieting and indeed thoroughly confronting, and thereby very effective in its rendition of the deep and enduring misogyny in Australian society; it's the sense of deeply unpleasant realness, with an element of the abject, that gives this novel its unsettling power. A strong sense of place, and also of the universal, with characters who come to life primarily via the things that drive them, in a way that feels aptly allegorical rather than underdeveloped.

"Not As The Songs of Other Lands: 19th Century Australian and American Landscape Painting" (Potter Museum)

Mostly from the Terra Foundation for American Art in Chicago and the University of Melbourne's Grimwade Collection including many from the Hudson River school whose combination of pastoral and romanticist mood in rendering American landscapes unsurprisingly attracts me; also prominent are examples of 'luminism' which I gather emerged as a kind of later development particularly focused on light and atmosphere.

The exhibition also manages some nice side by side comparisons of Australian and American landscapes with very similar compositions and styles, including one of a bend in the river flowing through Studley Park. But it was generally the American scenes that most spoke to me.

John Glover - "Patterdale Farm" (c. 1840)

John La Farge - "Paradise Valley" (c. 1866-1868)

Martin Johnson Heade - "Newburyport Marshes: approaching storm" (c. 1871)

Sanford Robinson Gifford - "Hunter Mountain, twilight" (1866)

Radiohead - The King of Limbs & A Moon Shaped Pool

There was a time when Radiohead felt absolutely essential - more so than any other artist throughout that period (more or less OK Computer to Hail to the Thief) and probably more so than any other artist during any period[*] - and so, in a way, it's remarkable that it's taken me this long to get caught up on not just one but their last two lps. And yet, for me, at last coming to them now, what's noticeable is that each is interesting in both musical and emotional terms - and that they strike me primarily on those levels rather than that of the nostalgic or by way of personal associations connected to the band's past output.

The King of Limbs is the more challenging of the two, and particularly its front half, which is heavier on the scuttling, skittering (and less melodic/propulsive) end of the band's repertoire, needed several listens for me to get my ear in for, and still scans as a four-song sequence that I generally appreciate more than I really like. The second half speaks more directly to me - especially the simplicity of "Codex", which hearkens back to so many piano-led Radiohead ballads before it (a mini genre that seemingly never gets old or loses its ability to move), and sighing follow-on "Give Up The Ghost", not to mention the sprightly close of "Separator".

Taken together, the set's a welcome reminder of Radiohead's remarkable musicality as well as their sheer weirdness - a weirdness which, through whatever combination of deft touch and talent, and a trajectory that led all of us in our millions down the rabbit hole behind them, has always been sublimely accessible.

And then A Moon Shaped Pool, which is a notch above. It's impossible for me to compare anything new that Radiohead - or, for that matter, anyone else - might put out to their past albums, at least in terms of 'quality', because those past records are all either landmarks in their own right (everything up to and including Amnesiac) or subsequent artifacts that I've listened to through the filter of those earlier, gravitationally immense works (Hail to the Thief, although over a slow burn of many years it has increasingly gained significance in its own right, plus In Rainbows). But, at the very least, A Moon Shaped Pool has what I can only describe as depths - pun unintended - that make it a worthy addition to the canon, a compelling quality that sinks in.

In "Burn the Witch", it has an urgent, shivering opener which does indeed sound like a low flying panic attack, and after that it's a succession of spacious, not overly ornamented melody-pieces, of which "Decks Dark" and the latest of the band's idiosyncratic versions of fragmented soul, "Identikit", are the most penetrating, together with the rhythmic lullaby of "Present Tense" and, of course, "True Love Waits" at the end, a song that's only grown over the years, endlessly moving even as its meaning and the ways in which it summons feeling have shifted.

No, they haven't gone away.

***

[*] I was reminded of how generational that experience was the other night when I put on A Moon Shaped Pool before dinner, and when Nic - visiting for the night - asked me whether I'd known that Radiohead is her favourite band (I hadn't), how natural and unsurprising that was to learn.

Hugh Howey - Beacon 23

What seems at first to be a fairly typical 'war-traumatised loner who hasn't left his past behind' piece, enlivened by its premise of the unnamed protagonist manning a lighthouse in space - a beacon by which faster than light space vessels navigate to avoid shearing into a nearby asteroid belt - develops into a surprising examination of anti-war dissent and the some-time necessity of violence; the theme is more nuanced than its treatment (which is a bit on the simple/direct side) but nonetheless, a good way to pass an hour or two.

Kubo and the Two Strings

Kubo worked for me - an animated tale of adventure set in an imagined Japan, complete with magic-ed origami, a guardian monkey and human sized beetle samurai (it gains something from the knowledge that Monkey is voiced by Charlize Theron and Beetle - restrainedly - by Matthew McConaughey, but doesn't depend on it) and plenty of monstrous adversaries, all in stop motion, and with plenty of subtlety, melancholy and, especially at the end, kindness. Bonus points for Regina Spektor's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", a song whose tune turns out to be tailor made for her.

Gods of Egypt

Well I was very sceptical about this but then I read a review that made it sound enormously enjoyable, viz:

... in the film, directed by the agreeably bonkers Alex Proyas, the god Set (Gerard Butler) rides a chariot pulled by giant green flying beetles, making the case that the movie is more than aware of its own absurdity.

...

where else could you see Geoffrey Rush, playing the almighty Ra, grow to 50 feet and drag the sun to the other side of a flat earth while shooting solar beams at an advancing chaos serpent bent on consuming him? That alone may not be worth the price of admission, but Gods of Egypt seeks to justify itself by aiming for that kind of theatricality every five minutes.

...

The gods are not only tall and beautiful—they also bleed molten gold, and can transform at will into what can only be described as … animal robots. To do battle, Horus sprouts metal wings and turns into a giant robo-falcon, like some ancient Transformer.

...

Butler is playing an Egyptian god who takes the form of a giant canine, but he sticks pretty firmly to his natural Scottish accent, perhaps realizing that the film is too far gone to worry about minor details like that.

And so on.

I'm pleased to report that (a) there can be no doubt that the movie is aware of its own absurdity (as evidence, take, in addition to all of the above, the smarmy opening narration, Chadwick Boseman's remarkably camp turn as the God of Wisdom, the way the Sphinx goes, quote, "Oh bother" before disintegrating after its riddle is guessed) and (b) contrary to all the terrible reviews, actually it really is plenty fun to watch in a 'brainless adventure' kind of way. Also notable: the way the gods are all just kind of twice or maybe three times the size of humans but otherwise completely regular-looking and to scale except when winged, in metallic animal form, etc, etc; Jaime Lannister (see previous); the inordinate amount of cleavage; very fake looking special effects.

"Contemporary Photography" (NGV)

A presentation of recent acquisitions, including a bunch of artists - and, in some cases, works - that have come across my radar before, including a couple of David Rosetzky cut-ups, Polly Borland (via "Untitled (Nick Cave in a blue wig)", 2010), three of Steve Carr's smoke bubbles, a series of Thomas Demand pieces colourfully in conversation with Matisse ("Cuttings", 2014) which for the first time sparked a response in me to his work, a Mapplethorpe, Sophie Calle ("The giraffe", 2012 - poignantly lovely), Trevor Paglen (these were the three 'drone' ones that I've seen before, but I hadn't realised till just then that Paglen was also the photographer who caught my attention with his spacey couple of pieces at the Mori Art Museum last year), a pair of Alex Prager stills, Carsten Holler.

And then there were a few that were new, and that struck me powerfully - especially the two by Thomas Jorion ("Toyo", 2009 and "Blednik", 2011) and Danny Singer's three portraits of small town life under expansive skies ("Sturgus", "Delisle sky", "Gainsborough winter sky", all 2015), large format and high-hung - both Jorion and Singer distinctly painterly in both their framing/eye and rendition - and Pieter Hugo's "Green Point Common, Cape Town" (2013). I noticed recently that photography had, stealthily, at some point become possibly my favourite form of contemporary visual art (although, having said that, I tend to experience many of the individual contemporary artists who I think of as my favourites as each more or less sui generis rather than as working in particular forms like sculpture, installation, etc even though of course they are), and this selection was a reminder of why that is.

Peter Thiel - Zero to One

Whatever the oddities of his politics or personal views, this set of essays on the theme of 'startups, or how to build the future' is full of useful insights and provocations. I've read it twice through over the last couple of months and found myself referring to it a lot, while wondering about its validity as applied to startups motivated by social purpose, whether for-profit or in the not-for-profit sphere (e.g. his idea that every startup should be aiming to dominate - even monopolise - its market).

Logan

Gosh this was good. Earns its Western-quoting settings - including the urban ones - and Johnny Cash ending by committing to the piece in how it renders its characters, mood, and elements of the storyline, and wrings both excitement from its set pieces (especially the first big one, when Laura and Logan fight their way out of the compound and flee in Logan's stretch limo - along with Charles aka Professor X - with antagonists in hot pursuit) and emotion and pathos from the relationships and pasts and presents of all three of the principals.

(w/ Julian)

Passion, Lament, Glory (St Paul's Cathedral)

A staged performance of three 18th century pieces (or excerpts) on the theme of the passion of Christ: Salve Regina (Handel); excerpts from Handel's Messiah; and then Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat mater - Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

The focus was on the music, which was moving and stirring in places (all three works), but the way it was rendered generally added to it - not least the cathedral setting - whether it was the spotlit soprano in black alone, the members of the chorus rising unexpectedly from their seats in pews amongst the audience for the excerpts from Messiah as three performers moved down the central aisle, two bearing whips and one a heavy wooden beam (to then 'crucify' the Jesus figure from a large cross at the front where he remained hanging for much of the performance), or the dozen female figures (plus Mary) in motion depicting the women who remained with him at the last for the Pergolesi, culminating in Jesus's own literal ascent rendered by an aerialist at the front of the church.

(w/ Kevin)