SubscribeHey folks! I’m Google’s number one for ‘anti-Kerry merchandise’, just now. Upon discovering this fact I did a quick search for goodies on Amazon, thinking I could cash in on my affiliate status. But they’ve got nothing in stock! Anyway. Being ‘anti’ is bad for the soul, so I suggest these uplifting tomes instead.
Me? Censored by Google…
31 May 2004
Anti-Kerry merchandise
Films in 50 words-ish: At Five in the Afternoon (Panj É Asr)
It’s hard to dispute that Iranian filmmakers – most importantly the Makhmalbaf family – are leading the way with realist cinema. In Blackboards, Samira followed a group of Kurdish teachers made refugees by the chemical bombing of Halabcheh as they stumbled around the mountainous Iran/Iraq border trying to sell English lessons to a population whose children are mostly smugglers’ mules. Here she builds on her father’s work, Kandahar, which first visited post-war Afghanistan with a story of woman’s return from Canadian exile to save her suicidal sister.
Anyway. At Five in the Afternoon in fifty words-ish…
Makhmalbaf’s Afghanistan could not be more foreign or more bleak, yet her sympathetic portrayals – especially of men who pray at the sight of a woman’s face – ensure there’s no judgement. Instead, Nogreh’s going against her father to become an educated woman plays out naturally, like teen rebellion.
A masterful 10 out of 10.
Performance……The Day After Tomorrow
If you found my comments useful, let Amazon know by clicking At Five in the Afternoon and hitting the ‘yes’ button underneath their copy of this review. You may buy while you’re there.
30 May 2004
Dtroit at Urbis
Manchester’s regeneration has enabled the city to go well beyond the municipal art galleries and museums to be found in elsewhere and to branch out into more innovative forms. Urbis is the star of that show. Not only is the museum an architectural wonder, it brings Manchester a first for content. Urbis is museum to the modern city.
Dtroit focuses on the popular culture – Motown to Eminem – that has kept Detroit on the map as every other aspect of its social fabric has disintegrated. It’s fair to say that Manchester has a near identical experience, albeit on a smaller scale, but that we’ve managed to take that pop culture and make it a theme of regeneration. So it’s no surprise to hear the creators of Detroit techno animatedly discuss cruising their city to New Order, Duritti Column et al. The absence of social history does let the show down, but you can spend hours blissfully listening to anything from Jackie Wilson to the White Stripes on iPods.
Katharine wore her Saatchi Gallery t-shirt in a show of solidarity with the YBAs who lost work in this week’s Momart fire. That event brought a predicable reaction from the likes of the Daily Mail, who have always been ashamed of contemporary Britain. The YBAs have done much to create an image of Britain abroad that has given us a place on the contemporary art map. The Daily Mail, on the other hand is a newspaper so ashamed of its heritage it keeps pre-war archives locked away (supported Hitler’s allies the British Union of Fascists). Today its contribution remains wholly negative as it injects nothing but bile and xenophobia into British culture.
Innovation is brave, whinging is cheap and Urbis, like the YBAs, has more than it’s a fair share of detractors. Local Liberal Democrats even call for its conversion into commercial office space, albeit as part of wider campaign to end the city’s party culture. But Urbis is beginning to deliver.
Films in 50 words-ish: Performance
Performance is something of a period piece, exploring its two protagonists with self-conscious experimentation. Both are moral men on their own terms, while outside the mainstream; gangster and drug addled rock star. Ultimately, they come to be defined in terms of each other – as each other’s opposite or mirror image.
A dated 7 out of 10.
29 May 2004
Farewell Friends
This diary’s a bit of a shrine to the ephemeral and so mentioning Friends’ last episode is a kind of obligation, but sadly it feels like an obligation to me. I just didn’t buy into the over sentimental one-hour special. Friends should have been cancelled off season to avoid the knowing finale in which all the loose ends are tied with happy-ever-afters all round. It was all too neat.
Nevertheless, Friends was definitely of its time and for me it’s always Ross that dates it; partly because I have trouble seeing David Schwimmer as a sex symbol, but mainly because his sexuality seems falsely macho and dated. Remember how he couldn’t cope with his first wife’s lesbianism? In these bi-curious times, surely he’d wear that badge with pride.
28 May 2004
Conspiracy theorists: what’s their agenda?
Just for fun, BykerSink’s collected a host of information on recent Iraq conspiracy theories, with the biggest headline going to the idea that American Nicholas Berg was beheaded by the CIA in Abu Ghraib prison. It’s time to attack these ideas in reverse and uncover their agenda.
The answer lies not in a conspiracy’s complexity (fanciful though that can be), but in the implication that without the CIA and left to their own devices, non-westerners wouldn’t think of beheading someone or flying planes into skyscrapers; without the CIA to organise them there would be no terrorists. It’s an – actually quite racist – idea that only well educated and well funded westerners are clever enough to conspire for terror. Before the CIA, conspiracy theorists blamed Jews.
Yet all along the most believable (and quite simple) conspiracy theory – Iran duped US into war – goes largely ignored. Nobody disputes that Ahmed Chalabi sold WMD intelligence to the US or that his opposition to Saddam goes back to when Saddam was a US ally and Iran offered the greatest hope of Iraqi regime change. So the idea that Chalabi would have cut ties with Iran is more fanciful than the idea that Iran would have helped him make up stuff to sell to the Americans. Perhaps the conspiracy theorists don’t go for that because it shows non-westerners thinking for themselves.
US response: Abu Ghraib becomes Camp Redemption……Not a war for idealists
27 May 2004
Spare a thought for#2: too pretty Brad Pitt
Of all Hollywood stars, I think Brad Pitt’s press is the least fair. And it seems to be the girlies fault, because he’s always presented as little more than eye candy. Yet with the exception of his current outing, Troy, Brad’s not done big budget summer blockbusters. And then he had to face the indignity of Talking Movies’ Tom Brook suggesting he’s too old for that kind of thing at nearly forty.
The truth is that Brad Pitt is far more actorly than he gets credit for. He certainly wasn’t the pretty boy in the superb Kalifornia or True Romance. Se7en, Twelve Monkeys and Fight Club are all recognised as classics and with the exception of Snatch (Guy Ritchie’s fault, surely), it’s hard to name a bad Brad Pitt film. Yet no matter what Brad does, he’s always condemned for being too pretty.
Spare a thought for#1: the Mis-teeq ladies……Spare a thought for#3: Jamie Oliver
26 May 2004
Adam Smith Institute confused about markets
This rather confused blog from the Adam Smith Institute makes me wonder if they know how markets work (odd given that’s their specialism). By inclination ASI is suspicious of Fairtrade and talk as if it interferes with the market. But that’s daft. The Fairtrade mark is simply a brand and is managed as such. Building brands – be they Fairtrade, Nescafé or Kenco – is a perfectly legitimate way to compete in a free market.
It falls to consumers to decide whether to pay extra for a name or a warm feeling or less for a budget brand. The brand’s value is decided upon by the market. So Fairtrade manipulates the market by exactly the same mechanism – competition – employed by Nestlé with Nescafé. I wonder if the Adam Smith Institute would extend its criticism to them.
Feudal Creep#2: Prince Charles’ dangerous ambition
Charlie’s been spending so much time with the Saudi Royal Family, it’s agitated the feudalist in him. He must be very jealous – they’re proper all-powerful royals – and perhaps this jealousy has promoted his ‘romanticised ideal of Islamic societies’ discussed in the Times. Being a hanger-on from another age must be difficult, but if he doesn’t stick to the act of settlement it’ll be showdown time. Let’s hope nobody loses their head.
Feudal Creep#1: Prince Charles’ toy town village……Feudal Creep#3: Prince Quack
‘Madonna don’t preach’, say (some) fans
Madonna’s new stage act is leaving some fans cold with its anti-war messages, while others complain that not all their favourites are on show. This latter criticism is probably unfair – she’s got a quite a back catalogue now and something’s got to make way for new stuff.
Yet on the politics I’m in sympathy. I’ve already blogged on how Bryan Ferry let me down so badly. The thing is, Madge has being going too long to suddenly turn political – she’s the material girl not Billy Bragg – and this sudden conscience isn’t going to work. People thought she was a friend with a shared world view and now, for some, that’s gone. And I wonder if cancelling Israeli dates is most to do with a sudden realisation she won’t be able to carry the fans.
‘Celebrity worship essential’, say scientists……Winding up the Observer
