Friday Film #3

The Imposter aired on channel 4 last night, and I know I was part of a large audience which will have seen it. I rarely watch whole films on live TV but I'd had this on my watchlist for a while so sat down with some friends. The opening is a quick relay of events which show how the imposter convinced the family he was their missing son, retold through fuzzy phone calls starting with one from a phone booth in Spain. The imposter describes how he executed the fake call in order to get put in a children's home, where he felt he would be cared for, something he had not experienced in the real world. The ad break brought welcome space for an omg and then the story carried on, unfurling more and more bizarre events as the imposter is flown over to the US and accepted as the missing child by the family, until we're almost questioning whose side were on (but not quite) with the final revelation that the family may have known all along that the 23 year old Frenchman, Frederic, was an imposter. Both sides of the events are tragic, but I doubt many would have continued to sympathise with the grown man once it is revealed that he is now married with 3 children of his own. This film is an incredible story, and the usually inexcusable flaws in a mystery like this only add to its overall impression as a perplexing account to watch. It doesn't matter how so many people can mistake a 23 year old for a 16 year old because it actually happened. The vulnerability of the family is sometimes hard to accept when they're behaving so unbelievably from our point of view, as they constantly seem to convince themselves that their son is really back. The conclusion leaves us with an undecided case of what happens to the real kid while the incredibly blaze imposter/narrator appears dancing to Michael Jackson in a cell. An enjoyable watch despite the heavy content and a great film for C4 as the difficulties many will have found in the chilling account will be retold around the country today as they were on twitter.

Space Jam

This film will be associated forever with what I now know was a perfectly executed marketing project for Looney Tunes, Nike and their main man Mike Jordan. Happy meals carried the characters and TV and toy shops were swamped with adverts and toys created to make every kid obsessed. It is quite clearly merchandising vehicle for Warner Bros. and Michael Jordan, both of which were in need of some top down exposure amongst children, and in turn new sponsorship opportunities.

These are not even the most cynical opinions Space Jam. But while the forces that came about to produce this film cannot be ignored, part of the reason it works so well, watching this film again a few days ago brought back memories of a child's view of cinema; a trip that was more about the sweets and bucket of pepsi than the 90 minutes of colour flashed 'big' in front of you. I enjoyed seeing it again, appreciating the now outdated methods of causing a craze amongst kids whereby a lot of money can be made in the short term and its all good fun. Now the chosen tools for cashing the children's cinema cash-cow are the much less enjoyable exploits of slickly animated 'relatable' characters who overcome insecurities to succeed with chums and family. Where have absurd story-lines involving Bill Murray, global sports stars and an unbelievably sexual love interest for Bugs Bunny gone?

Of the few DVDs that'll be available for my kids to watch, Space Jam will occupy the mindless entertainment category for Sunday afternoons, devoid of any wholesome family advice it will hold more value for its history lesson into pre-internet phenomena.

This weeks most listened to #2

Radiohead - Fake plastic trees
A favourite since being bought The Bends in what were definitely my formative years in terms of music. Thom Yorke's voice can be so sad and angry and a major reason behind my love for Radiohead. "She looks like the real thing, she tastes like the real thing" - these lines are huge. I hadn't seen the video before either and its pretty good, just for Thom's face.

Toyboy and Robin - Jaded
These guys have placed themselves perfectly in the current space for house/garage interest from 90s kids, and this track is exactly what we want. The video is perfect as well, laying down the challenge for anyone to attempt the moves at a party for ultimate respect.

Pictureplane

I heard this guys self-proclaimed punk-rave music from one of the many links Grimes' twitter account has led me to. Pictureplane's 'Thee Physical' album is full of great tracks, good for running too, and to see him in interviews on youtube helps explain how he reached this mash up of genres. Also he wears mad shit which I couldn't.

Friday Film #2

Rebel Without a Cause

I'm really good

I watched this film with my parents, who I had a feeling were anxious to see whether I related to Jim, the main character brilliantly portrayed by James Dean. His struggle with behaving as a man should, with confusing influences from his dad, guys at school and the policeman, are shown by his extreme emotions throughout the film. The girlfriend serves to steady Jim as he becomes more confident in his new surroundings.  These factors of teenage life are spot on, I'm sure they relate to many more people who saw this film as they did to me (plus I own a red jacket, as I know many more do as a result of its iconic status when donned by Dean).
Yet while we see Jim as an unstable young man with a number of conflicts arising from his detachment from the family and lack of any other constant in his life, it is the quiet and calm Plato who emerges as the real threat. His reaction to the turbulence of teenage life is to defend himself by placing the power back in his own hands via a gun, the opposite of Jim who is able to embrace the possibilities open to a lovable rogue and get himself a babe.
This film could be seen as one of the first in a series of countless high school films in which good looks and confidence prevail over the 'geeks'. But this would minimise it to a film about high school. I found it to be one of the more convincing accounts of the transition from boy to man, something I don't recall from the many films made since which attempt to tackle the same subject.

Heart of Darkness

Joseph Conrad's account of his character's experience of the jungle and the mysterious Kurtz is the purest example of colonial endeavours into the unknown, and the morbid fascination we have with such bleak adventure. With the end of the novel comes a sense of freedom from the claustrophobic descriptions of darkness, which follows the realisation that the experiences within the book are unlikely to ever be encountered in today's world.
It is a very well written book; the pace of the novel reflects the speed of the old steamer, crawling upriver further into the unknown, until Kurtz is met and 'dealt with', and the sailor Marlow's telling of his story to other crew members sat on a deck of a ship at anchor on the Thames means the reader is allowed brief moments of respite from the oppressive jungle atmosphere, perhaps like flashes of the sun through a heavy canopy of foliage.
But it has proved to be more than just a good read, inspiring many great films who deal with human's journeys into the unknown. Herzog's Aguirre, Wrath of God comes closest to Conrad's stifling tragedy, a brilliant film whose madness is a product of Herzog's fanatic directing methods coupled with Klaus Kinski's demonic presence, whose maniacal stare serves to capture the strength and destruction which teeter on the edge of Conrad's Kurtz. Apocalypse Now is Hollywood's attempt, and the force of the film comes from its stunning transplant of Conrad's novel to the Vietnam war; the infamous "the horror, the horror" line is visualised in my eyes by the napalming of the jungle in the opening scene. Marlon Brando opts to play Kurtz as a formidable physical presence battling with a hellish kingdom of his creation, a haunting screen presence compared with the ghostlike Kurtz of Conrad's African jungle.
A slightly more tenuous product of the 'heart of darkness' concept is the monolith in 2001: a Space Odyssey. While the psychedelic journey through the darkness of space is arguably a more obvious metaphor for mankind's progress into the unknown, the monolith itself, pure blackness with no explanation behind its appearance or existence, could be taken as a concentrated physical embodiment of our unanswered questions. Arriving at the beginning to spark the dawn of man, and later discovered by man's progress beyond earth, its appearance at the end of the film reminds us of the potential crushing force of the unknown, with us all our lives this darkness can never be illuminated, something we have to accept in order to live our lives (particularly relevant for discussion of 2001, which has no firm explanation from Kubrick or widely agreed theories behind its meaning).

2001 shows us the shift from earthly threats to that which beyond our planet. While space has become the subject of our interest and exploration since the 20th century, the jungle still holds a magic over us, as it did over Conrad. Its exoticism and danger combine to have me fascinated and most other people respectful of one of the last remaining unknowns on earth.

This week's most listened to #1

Music feature showing the songs/albums/artists I've heard or revisited each week

Yung Lean - I cannot get enough of this kid. An unlikely product of decades of rap, his take on the music made by his idols sounds so cool. His soundcloud is growing, but this track is still my favourite. Plus he loves arizona ice tea, really loves it.

The Horrors - their last two albums are go to listening for me. I saw them in Birmingham last year and really like their recharge of melancholic British guitar band music, in this way they're not particularly original but have some addictive songs nonetheless. I love Monica Gems

Modest Mouse - possibly my favourite band (so could turn up every week), their first two albums definitely make my top 10. I love drums, and this track builds to awesome drumming, aswell as catchy lyrics.

Friday Film #1

The first in a feature discussing the last film watched by the Friday of each week.














'White Diamond' - Werner Herzog.
Documentary following the return of an aerospace professor to the rainforest canopy.

Its a beautiful film, which doesn't surprise me having experienced some of Herzog's other work. This one felt particularly ad hoc, with spontaneous tangents away from the airships flights providing just as much to care about as the success of the airship.
The loneliness of one of the locals, Mark Anthony, whose family left him behind to live in Spain was one of the unexpected things to stick around after the film ended, especially as Herzog appeals to Mark Anthony's family to contact him in the closing comments.
I am fascinated by the jungle, just as humans in general fear and respect the unknown, and this film uses the Amazon as a the living embodiment of this unknown. Herzog's earlier 'Fitzcarraldo' is one of my favourite films for its slog of a story unfolding in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. This time out the cameras don't immerse themselves in the suffocating foliage as seen in other jungle epics, instead reflecting the perspective of the airship itself; slowly observing the teeming forest from a close distance.
The climax of the film comes around halfway through with the professor Graham Dorrington's recounting of his previous experience with a similar airship. Never shy of providing Herzog with  tasty anecdotes to narrate the filming of his project, Dorrington describes the death of the wildlife cinematographer Dieter Plage after his last airship failed, clearly finding it difficult to come to terms with as he stares into the dark river bank opposite. This point, brought about by Herzog's relationship with the professor, is one of the moments Herzog is renowned for documenting; in this case a perfect image of human struggle towards achievement.