Dr Dunce's Curious Compendium

Psychobabblers

2012-02-06T07:00:00.007Z

A Dangerous Method is Cronenberg's glossy examination of the troubled relationship between crazy Carl Jung and single minded Sigmund Freud. Jung, while enthralled by his master's revolutionary thinking, embarks on a foolish affair with one of his more attractive patients which presages/underpins the intellectual feud between the two men. Fassbender, Mortensen and Knightly take the main roles in this little psychodrama and perform reasonably well however their accents do drift towards pastiche at times. There is a couple of intentionally humorous moments at the start and given the pomposity of the subject it's a shame Cronenberg didn't continue along in that vein. I dunno it's a very watchable film and probably a quite good primer to the two thinkers and the milieu that they lived and worked in but it wasn't exactly revelatory and I was a little underwhelmed by the end, the only highlight I guess was watching Knightly getting spanked.

John Huston's Freud: A Secret Passion is a more comprehensive look at the early life and work of the famed nut doctor. Following his career from his association with Josef Breuer and their investigation of neuroses using hypnosis, his subsequent therapeutic 'successes' and onto the development of his barmy theory of Infantile Sexuality and it's riotous debut. Huston keeps things rolling at a decent pace and doesn't bother his cast with the comedy accents but uses a single patient, played by the stunning Susannah York, to elucidate most of Freud's theories which is a little odd and unnecessary. If you're wanting to learn a bit more about how Sigmund developed his ground breaking theories it's probably a better watch than Cronenberg's effort but it's not nearly as pretty to look at and almost an hour longer.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

2012-01-30T07:17:00.007Z

The Big Doll House is a 'so bad it's good' 70's lady-prison thriller probably most notable for Pam Grier's debut performance. A dizzying selection of beauties are incarcerated in a sweaty Asian jail run by a sexually frustrated, sadistic warden. As the torture and ill treatment escalates they decide escape is their only option and manipulate a couple of rapey, moronic men to assist. As you might imagine the script and acting aren't up to much but there's enough violence, thoroughly un-pc humour and rakes of gratuitous nudity to make this low budget flick a classic of exploitation cinema.

Big Bad Mama is a Roger Corman romp starring Angie Dickinson, Skerrit and Shatner. A mother and her two teenage daughters embark on an audacious life of crime and mayhem, blasting their way across America with much enthusiasm, picking up a couple of dudes on the way to keep their beds warm. Despite the obviously tight budget there's plenty of action of one sort or another but it's real strength lies with Dickinson's dominating central performance, portraying the sassy, driven matriarch with such brio that it eclipses the failings of the rest of the cast. Another surprisingly accomplished and enjoyable Corman production.

Grey Matters

2012-01-29T23:05:00.006Z

Having a low IQ seems to correlate with being politically Conservative, racist and homophobic, and though it's quite an obvious result I'm just really glad some scientists made the effort to confirm it. Thank you Brock Uni in Ontario

Nice bit about the under appreciated Abraham Maslow, via Mind Hacks.

Scientists may have sketched out how "sacred" beliefs differ from everyday thoughts. SciDaily

Some adventurous attempts to make sense of the Psilocybin experience, Neurophilosophy

Modest pdf article examining the brain differences caused by meditative practice, Reddit

Some boffins are fretting over the recent successes in cognitive enhancement techniques, particular direct noggin stimulation, via Oxford Uni

Another interesting brain boosting experiment using fMRI feedback appears to show learning without any intent.attention at all, TheAtlantic

Ketamine appears, from recent trials. to offer immediate relief from depression, Reddit

Locust's brains are helping us reveal the mechanisms behind our associative memories, SciDaily

Haitian Zombification still engenders study, Mind Hacks

Review of a recent compilation of papers on Panpsychism, Reddit

Mini Anime Medley

2012-01-29T22:24:00.002Z

Sonic Succour

2012-01-29T00:11:00.004Z

Dumb Bottery & Fun Pottery

2012-01-27T07:08:00.005Z

A young boy has to spend the summer with his feckless, effete father in the robot battling slice of cheese that is Real Steel. Essentially a remake of Stallone's Over The Top with snazzy cgi automata replacing the mulleted musclemen, this cliche riven tale has a Spielberg-ish focus on the father/son bond instead of concentrating on a future where robots duke it out for sport. Jackmon and Lilly's performances are competent enough but are only a smidge more emotional than the bots they tinker with and the script is just as functional. I know this wasn't made with a 30 plus viewer in mind and I'm not sure why even bothered but even for a kids film this was anodyne, stunningly formulaic guff. Definitely not the droids I was looking for.

Perversely the Harold and Kumar franchise seems to improve with it's sequels and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas was the tightest and funniest yet. The pot heads have drifted apart but an adventure to track down a replacement Xmas tree brings them back together and they stumble their way through an increasingly unlikely series of escapades. With a sharp script and an admirable gag rate this inane, simple minded comedy kept me chuckling throughout and though it's not going to appeal to everyone it knows it's target market and has no lofty pretensions. I'm sure this won't be the last we'll see of the pair.

Found Footage Flim Flammery

2012-01-20T17:05:00.005Z

The Tunnel is a crowd-funded, VODO distributed, found footage horror from Down Under and it's actually quite good, well a few bits gave me the willies. A news crew decide to poke about some abandoned subway tunnels after some vagrants and yoofs go missing but they soon realise their mistake when the sound man is snatched by an elusive entity. Torn between a good story and their own safety they remaining crew stumble around for while before it becomes apparent their stalker is still hungry. Nicely made, especially given it's titchy budget, and reasonably acted this has plenty of vim and despite the talking head spots that intersperse the action, it still manages to build the fear quite nicely.

7 Nights of Darkness, though just as cliched as Tunnel, doesn't manage to muster the same amount of atmosphere. Reality TV contestants are challenged to stay a week in a haunted hospital and the skeptical bunch are soon made aware there's some truth to the tales of spectral kids and malignant entities. Populated with a clutch of stereotypical characters and some ropey actors wheezing life into the predictable script this limps along with little imagination or merit.

Star Trekkin' & Other Distractions

2012-01-19T21:16:00.004Z

Beautiful false dawn captured in India, APOD

Russia's failed Phobos Grunt probe has returned home, somewhere off the coast of Chile. But they're looking to blame the Yanks for it's demise due to it maybe getting zapped by an asteroid radar. NS

The deepest vents yet have been discovered in a Caribbean rift and they're teaming with life, SciDaily

Some German's have built the tiniest storage device ever - an 8 bit magnetic data store made out of 96 atoms. SciDaily.

Umami was the fifth but now tongue-focussed scientists have discovered the sixth taste, fat. ImapctLab.

Interesting article about Octopi & consciousness, Reddit.

NASA refutes ufologist's assertion that a triangular UFO was snapped by Stereo-B, Daily G

Boffins have been noodling about investigating the links between our body clock and schizophrenia, NS

Another stunning video from the ISS, Reddit

Glorious Gothics

2012-01-17T20:25:00.009Z

Iris Murdoch's faux gothic fable The Unicorn is a intriguing, tense read about a woman seemingly house-bound in the wilds of west Ireland after a love affair gone wrong. The airless status quo is disrupted with the arrival of a young tutor, who's intrigued by the mysterious characters and circumstances behind the curious living arrangements and it's not long before she's tempted to resolve the situation once and for all. It's beautifully written and Murdoch builds a disturbing, atmosphere pregnant with actions and words unsaid and it builds nicely until it's inevitable crescendo. It's a wonderful read but I'm beginning to suspect that I'm missing some of the symbolism or subtext that lurk beneath the surface of Murdoch's novels.

Rudyard Kipling's Strange Tales is a compendium of peculiar little stories, set mostly in colonial era India. There's ghosts, ghouls, werewolves, pits of death and a miasma of weirdness all written with a direct, sparse prose, though old fashioned and a little stilted, somehow manages to imbue the events with an extra chill. Few books have ever actually frightened me and Kipling's is no exception but his strength lies in the descriptions of the psychologies of the disturbed and perturbed characters as they face unsettling, incomprehensible scenarios. Maybe a little patchy but definitely worth a look.

Glum Vs Gaudy

2012-01-16T07:05:00.005Z

Thomas Alfredson's condensed adaptation of Le Carre's classic spy thriller Tinker Tailor was a surprising success. With an accomplished, talented cast including Cumberbatch, Hardy, Jones, Firth and Oldman and an impressive script the tale of Smiley's mole hunt unravels at a deliberate pace that slowly winds the tension up towards the big reveal. Obviously the book and the original have a level of detail you can't squeeze into a 2 hour movie but they've crafted a pretty strong version which, along with the superb cinematography, will no doubt garner plenty of awards. Hopefully they'll do The Honorable Schoolboy next instead of jumping straight to Smiley's People like the Beeb did.

Director Tarsem Singh's previous efforts The Cell and The Fall were beautifully lush films but paper-thin and Immortals, based loosely on the Greek myth of Theseus, follows that same pattern. Our protagonist is forced into taking up arms when the evil king Hyperion ravages his land in search of a fabled bow with which he can release the Titans. Rourke, Dorff and Cavill are joined by the luminous Pinto in the super glossy sword and sandals action and they all manage to put in good performances however the script is fairly week and the Titans themselves a little, er, underwhelming so the whole thing kind of fizzles out at the end, of course there's a fat hint towards a sequel but I guess that'll depend on the box office. Despite all it's flaws I still quite enjoyed it, think Clash of the Titans with a God of War commitment to stylish violence and hyperbolic visuals.

Soul Gems

2012-01-15T23:57:00.003Z

Tea Leaf & Magic Bean

2012-01-13T17:33:00.005Z

For All the Tea in China is a novelisation of the adventures of the Victorian botanist/plant hunter, and my ancestor, Robert Fortune. Covering his second, illegal trip into the Chinese hinterland this time he's is trying to steal the secrets of the coveted Green & Black Teas of China which are still highly prized and, at the time, a cornerstone of the Chinese economy. Fortune's search of seeds, saplings and Tea expertise was at the behest and expense of the East India Company, the very model of a ravenous, brutal corporate monster. The book pads out his dramatic and tense encounters with locals, pirates and warlords with plenty of social and historical background. Fortune comes across as a determined, passionate man who had no shortage of gumption but as much as he seems to admire the Chinese themselves he doesn't appear to understand or acknowledge much awareness (or maybe sympathy) for China's people and their cultural/political situation. There is one moment however, during his trip into the Wu Yi mountains, bowed over by the beauty of the landscape and the generosity of the monks that helped him, that he shows a more humane side. The writing is good, if a little unremarkable, and it's certainly a much easier read than Fortune's own memoirs of the time but it's the events & escapades of the main character that drive this book. I'm obviously a little bias but I really enjoyed it, a nice, interesting slice of history.

The Anatomist is another enjoyable tale of scientific discovery this time set in Renaissance Italy and about a man with a quite different passion. Mateo Colombo was a highly regarded physician of the era and after becoming smitten with a prestigious whore sets about finding a way to codify and manipulate female passions and during the process, stumbles onto a patient that reveals the existence of "Amor Veneris" aka the clitoris. There's less social/cultural scene setting than in For All... and the narrative is considerably more involved, reading almost like a novel but author Frederico Andahazi's light prose dances through the colourful story of Colombo's discovery, imprisonment & subsequent trial. There's a lots of laughs and a little tragedy along the way as well as the expected sex, death and politics and it's a fascinating & thoroughly entertaining read.

Camera Work

2012-01-12T17:49:00.006Z

The Little Ghost Nebula courtesy of APOD
Infrared Jupiter via Reddit.
Far side of the Moon, NASA

Chucklish Triple

2012-01-12T07:03:00.006Z

30 Minutes or Less is a heist comedy starring Jessie Eisenberg, Danny McBride and Aziz Ansari. Floating through life as a pizza delivery man, Eisenberg gets himself kidnapped by some bumbling criminals who rig him into a bomb vest and demand he robs a local bank. Nicely made and sporting plenty of talent it's a decent if unexciting film. There are some laughs but the script isn't quite as sharp as it thinks it is and it rolls along to a cheesy, predictable conclusion. Given the individuals and director involved I had high hopes for this but I suspect the Tinseltown mangle squeezed out most of the fun.

A bunch of 30 somethings decide to hold one last party in their for-sale summer home and choose to go out with a bang in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. With a cast of SNL luminaries and assorted players the film is actually a fairly sweet, almost old fashioned exploration of friendships and love which will no doubt disappoint the filth seekers as they plan and attend the initially excruciating gang bang. The script is mildly amusing but the charming performances and it's rather surprisingly chaste approach made the film quite an enjoyable, if slight, watch.

Much like the Brit sitcom-to-film features of years past, sadly The Inbetweeners movie fails to match the hilarity of the original series. The priapic boys head off for a sweaty Malia holiday with 'clunge' on their mind but as you'd expect their ineptitude and naiveté thwart their initial effors. There's some decent laughs throughout, mostly due to Neil's prediliction for bagging grannies, and the cast repeat their successes of the series but the script focusses too much time on their burgeoning emotional lives instead of concentrating on the crass. It's still a good effort but it's a shadow of what it could've been.

Four Play

2012-01-09T07:00:00.007Z

Ravaged Savages

2012-01-04T22:44:00.004Z

Woody Harrelson puts in a powerful performance in Rampart as a brutal, corrupt cop that finds himself in a maelstrom of controversy with few friends left in a Dept determined to clean house. Co-scripted by Ellroy, Harrelson's character, Dave Brown, is an amalgam of the author's previous psychotic/moralistic creations with the usual drink and drug problems, casual racism and misogyny oh and a tendency for brutal violence. After being caught on camera dolling out some 'justice' Brown is splashed about the TV and papers and, after his family abandons him, he slumps deeper & deeper into his own personal abyss. Though it's a fairly hackneyed plot, Woody's nuanced, almost fragile performance and the excellent direction/cinematography lend this plenty of extra weight. It stutters a bit in the final third but it's still a engrossing, dark character study - think Colours crossed with Bad Lieutenant.

Kill List is a British hitman thriller with heavy undertones of barking madness. It's hard to describe without giving away the twists and turns but the simple plot is soon mashed together with more than it's share of horror and oddness. After a botched job, our protagonist Jay and his chum Gal, are tempted back to work by a juicy contract and they leave their suburban lives for a murderous road trip, as you'd imagine, things don't go quite as planned and they're soon way out of their depth. The script is maybe a little basic but the two leads put in decent performances and the whole thing clips along at a fair rate with some jarring, jaw dropping violence but it's the slow burning atmosphere of dread that really impressed. As the pair complete their tasks it's more than apparent that there's more going on than they know and it builds and builds towards a bewildering, disturbing finale. Sure the ending was maybe a little obvious, even disappointing but I still enjoyed the film, A fine, dark thriller with shades of Dead Man's Shoes.

Double Dreck

2012-01-03T23:03:00.004Z

The fact that makers of The Thing prequel couldn't come up with a different title betrays their lack of imagination and the film certainly isn't a patch of Carpenter's seminal horror scifi. The plot follows the fate of the Norwegian campers who uncover the xenomorph and suffer amidst the ensuing chaos, mayhem and bloodshed. The acting is reasonable enough I guess and there's plenty of action but sadly the film pales in comparison with Carpenter's paranoid, tense feature with only a few wisps of atmosphere along the way and, though the CGi monster has some nice transformations, it's contemporary gloss detracts from the terror. The biggest disappointment however was the handful of lazy scenes which seemed to be direct lifts from the '82 version as if the filmmakers weren't sure if they were making a straight remake or a prequel. It was also pretty stupid of the director to bang on about how his new film would dovetail perfectly with the original when there's a number of inconsistencies and some of the deaths, thinking throat & wrists cut guy, occur off screen and are shoehorned into the last 5 mins.

The Amityville Haunting is a found footage pile of scat, riffing of the numerous earlier movies and the actual 'events'. The acting & script are awful and there's more unintentional laughs than scares peppering the meandering unfocused plot. If I hadn't been so hungover I might have got off my arse and switched it off but I made it through to it's thoroughly predictable end. Please don't make the same mistake.

Yesteryear's Futurities

2012-01-03T07:00:00.005Z

Edible Audio

2012-01-02T19:32:00.007Z

1. Booker T & The MG's - Mo' Onions
2. King Curtis - Memphis Soul Stew
3. Andre Williams - Chicken Thighs
4. Johnny Otis - Alligator Meat
5. James Brown - Mother Popcorn
6. Kenny Burrell - Chitlins Con Carne
7. Pucho & his Latin Soul Brothers - Greasy Greens
8. Rufus Thomas - Soul Food
9. Maceo Parker - Pass The Peas
10. Willie Bobo - Fried Neckbones & Some Home Fries
11. Eddie Bo - Funky Jam
12. James Brown - Do The Mashed Potato
13. Professor Longhair - Jambalaya
14. Louis Armstrong - All That Meat & No Potatoes
15. Professor Longhair - Jambalaya
16. Dr John - Gris Gris Gumbo Ya
17. Booker T & The MG's - My Sweet Potato
18. D'Angelo - Chicken Grease
19. Tony Joe White - Polk Salad Annie
20. Herbie Hancock - Watermelon Man

Hodge Podge of 2011 Remnants

2012-01-02T19:01:00.007Z

Side splitting blog of insane, crap magazine tips.

The origins behind some of the more common superstitions.

Ireland's first case of spontaneous combustion.

Mother lode of odd Wikip entries.

Weird article about Japan's suicide forest.

Gallery of unusual and deadly gardens.

Hypnotic drop of H2O.

High & Low Rom-Coms

2012-01-02T19:00:00.004Z

Crazy, Stupid, Love stars Steve Carrell as a middle aged man set adrift after his wife, Julianne Moore, leaves him for another man. After stumbling around bars heartbroken he's taken under the wing of a young lothario, Ryan Gosling, and shown the ropes of the modern dating scene. It's a moderately amusing little rom-com that has a surprising amount of maturity and nuance to the personal relationships involved and plenty of decent performances but there's just wasn't enough laughs for me and it plays out more like a heart warming drama than anything else. A well made film just don't go expecting chuckles.

There's more laughs in What's Your Number, a potty mouthed rom-com starring the gorgeous Anna Farris, but it's considerably less subtle and way more adolescent than it should be. Fired from her job a pretty singleton stumbles across a magazine article which says that women with more than 20 sexual partners are unlikely to ever get married so she starts a High Fidelity-esque journey of rediscovering her former hook-ups. The humour swings from low-brow to crass and the plot is fairly unbelievable and remarkably predictable but Farris is a charming lead and manages to breathe some life into the well trod ground.

Auf Wiedersehen Ken

2011-11-29T22:14:00.003Z

Four Play

2011-11-29T21:53:00.002Z

LoFi SciFi FlyBys

2011-11-28T21:04:00.007Z

Earthling is an ambitious low-budget scifi movie about a bunch of people bound together by a strange reaction to an anomalous event in Earth's orbit. The main character loses her unborn child in a car accident and struggles to put her life and mind together, it doesn't help that she's hallucinating and seems to be stalked by strangers suffering similar problems. Nicely acted and with the confidence to tease out the plot gradually there's some Cronenberg-esque body horror and some dreamy Lynchian influences throughout. It's not without it's flaws but it's a nice quiet, examination of alienation and the human experience and with a bigger budget and maybe with some extra polish this could have been brilliant. An assured debut.

Love, is another low budget/large ambition feature debut only this time set in orbit. It's the tale of a lonely astronaut stranded on ISS Mk 2 struggling to maintain his sanity after an unspecified calamity separates all contact with Earth. Despite the titchy budget there's plenty of nice looking effects, some decent set pieces and few wisps of atmosphere along the way. The film is interestingly framed by a Civil War era tale but it's woefully underused and the director prefers to punctuate both with wholly unnecessary talking head snippets discussing the nature of human relationships, life etc. I dunno it's a nice, if derivative, little film with an excellent central performance it's just shamefully squandered by the uneasy mishmash of styles, a limp 2001 inspired end and a foolish, pretentious final few frames.

Thompson Double Barrell

2011-11-25T17:57:00.005Z

A husband and wife bank robbing double act jettison their psychotic partner and go on the lam with the cash in Jim Thompson's callous thriller The Getaway. The screen version starring McQueen and McGraw can't hold a candle to the casual violence and quick wit that Thompson has soaked into these 160 pages with it's snare drum tight plot and it's devastating, surreal conclusion in El Rey. It's a tribute to Thompson's writing that despite his spartan style and his amoral, calculating characters that when the duo eventually reach their end you actually feel sorry for them. A thrilling masterclass in cynicism.

The Grifters is not quite up to the previous couple of Thompson noirs I've read but it's still a thrilling, nasty read about a low-key con artist and his possessive mobster linked mother. After perfecting numerous short cons our protagonist suffers a serious assault and finds himself at a career crossroads. The sudden reappearance of his mother and her subsequent feud with his girlfriend muddy the waters and he finds his life slipping from his iron grip and spiralling towards violence. Thompson's lean, mean prose keeps the pace clipping along but the denouement misfires a little with a stuttering series of events that was fairly disappointing, maybe with another couple of chapters things could have improved.

Sights with Sounds

2011-11-21T22:21:00.005Z

Human Highway is a psychedelic slice of nonsense directed by Neil Young & Dean Stockwell. Set in a failing diner/garage a cast of weirdos bumble along with their lives unaware that their unfulfilled dreams are about to get steamrolled by a planet devouring dose of radiation. Dennis Hopper joins in the fun as they all goof about in between musical numbers which are handled by Young himself and some band called Devo who also play an amusing, glowing work crew from the nearby nuclear power plant. I certainly couldn't recommend this as it's mostly rubbish with some patchy acting & so-so script and the plot makes the Beatles Mystery Tour seem coherent. Still it's certainly got something - there's a few genuine laughs, some lovely lurid colouring and a great musical/dream sequence towards the end that caps this surreal romp off nicely.

Animated Latin Jazz romantic dramas don't come along very often so I was eager to see what Chico & Rita had to offer. Told mostly in flashback in pre-revolutionary Cuba it follows the stormy relationship of a pianist and a sultry vocalist trying to crack the big time and find fame and riches in America. The music is brilliant with some exuberant, joyous set pieces and the animation is stylish though a little uneven - the landscaping is excellent but occasionally the characters awkward and under drawn. It's main failing however is the trite plot, a fairly basic hackneyed romantic arc with simplistically drawn lovers who meet, part, reunite and part again & finally it their last reunion I found particularly unlikely and simplistic. Still if you let the music sweep you away it's an enjoyable 100mins.

Lovely Lapses

2011-11-21T00:01:00.002Z

Firmament Foci

2011-11-20T19:57:00.006Z

Cassini snaps a monstrous storm on the surface of Saturn. ScienceDaily.

That faster than light Neutrino result still stands despite a couple of weeks of further observation. New Scientist.

Shackleton Energy are planning to be the first company to mine the Moon. Wired.

Cygnus X-1 is the first Black Hole to have it's 'history' charted from it's inception 6 million years ago thanks to VLBA. ScienceDaily

Bad Astronomy has a splendid explanation of the optical/cosmological effects behind this stunning pic of the Moon taken from the ISS.

Seems like Europa's peculiar domes/depressions are where liquid water has approached the surface. New Scientist. And there's some new evidence for giant lakes of water under it's surface, Wired.

China's Shenzhou probe successfully returns to Earth after docking with it's minilab, another step towards the goal of an orbiting manned space station. BBC

While Russia's failed Phobos-Grunt probe is, according to scientists, due to fall into our atmosphere sometime in January. It's payload of toxic fuel is still a concern apparently. New Scientist.

The problem of orphan supernovae may just be because their surrounding galaxies are not visible. Physorg.

NASA have released their most accurate relief map of the Moon yet. BBC

Historical Histrionics

2011-11-17T22:22:00.011Z

Perfume by Peter Suskind is a dark, squalid tale set during 18th century Paris. Highly acclaimed and subsequently adapted for the screen the book follows the life of an odorless psychotic born into abject poverty whose blessed with a preternatural sense of smell. His gift lifts him from destitution and cultivating his skill in the perfume trade and he begins to plan his own nefarious apotheosis. Suskind's prose is quite light, almost flippant at times but he brings a life and a surprising richness to the olfactory world of Grenouille and his dark, cold hearted character. It's a decent read, if occasionally a little florid, but it spins along to a rather unexpected climax

Memoirs of a Gnostic Dwarf, like Perfume, follows the life of a wretched, poverty born child from birth to his eventual ascent to great power. Peppe, the diminutive central character is the son of a hawker of gut rot wine in Florence in the 17th century but a chance encounter brings him under the spell of beautiful Gnostic and his life is forever changed. His subsequent education, arrest, circus indenture and eventual escape are all just preludes to his position as adjunct to Pope Leo X and a life of power and luxury. While Perfume hinted at the filth and debauchery of the past the author David Madsen isn't nearly so circumspect with orgies, burnings, prostitution, assasination, torture and rape drawn with such zeal and vigour it's occasionally quite nauseating. Despite all the depravity its a surprisingly touching and humourous novel, with a nice description of the gnostic faith and a swirling, thrilling examination of the decadence that surrounded the Catholic church at the time of the reformation. Well worth your time if you can find it.

Zombie Lovers & Near Dead Haters

2011-11-15T07:16:00.004Z

An Italian cemetery whose inhabitants rise from their graves requires a special sort of caretaker and in this peculiar little film it's Rupert Everett that's tasked with dispatching the returners. Directed by Argento protege Michele Soavi and based on a novel from Italian comic book artist Scalvi, Cemetery Man, is a melange of comedy, horror and romance quite unlike anything I've seen before. Everett & his monosyllabic sidekick hammer away with shovels & pistols at the unliving during the night watch but both fall madly in love during the day & after Everett's love dies, returns and is dispatched again he begins to lose his mind and a series of encounters with two doppelgangers finally tip him over the edge. Despite it's disparate elements and the modest budget it's a really enjoyable little oddity with a twisted sense of humour, bags of style and a surprisingly affective plot.

Patrick is a coma patient with a evil streak of psychic juju in the schlocky 70's Aussie horror directed by Richard Franklin. When a new nurse gets a job in a barmy hospital she slowly realises her new ward is behind some of the peculiar happenings around her and it's not long before the men in her life feel the wrath of Patrick's strange abilities. The acting and script are pretty shoddy and I'm not sure it's wise for any film to have it's antagonist in a coma but there's some choice period laughs throughout and enough Australian strangeness to keep this B-movie entertaining-ish.

Audio Acquisitions with partial Spotification

2011-11-14T23:14:00.005Z

Kubrick, Aldrich & Wilder

2011-11-12T19:24:00.001Z

Dramedy & Rudd-ery

2011-11-09T23:01:00.009Z

Cherry follows a young man who joins an Ivy league University and finds himself alienated from his more worldly peers but he soon falls into a friendship/romance/love triangle with an attractive mature student and her precocious daughter. There's decent performances throughout and the faux indie sensibility keeps the plot 'real' but it's just not that funny for a film billed as a comedy and ends up little more than your average coming-of-age drama. Maybe I'm being harsh, as there are some nice touches and it's certainly possesses a sensitivity absent from the usual American Pie type crap, but there was nothing for me, that justifies the plaudits it's already garnered.

Our Idiot Brother stars Paul Rudd has a hapless but loveable hippy forced back into the bosom of his family after selling weed to a uniformed police officer. Not long after his arrival however and his naivete and simple mindedness begin to unravel his 3 sister's complicated city lives. Rudd is probably one of the better actors to fall from the Anchorman tree and he's supported with an excellent cast and it's brief run time keeps things tight. Overall a pretty decent, endearing little film but like Cherry it eschews some of the laugh potential for heartwarming and handwringing. Still both films, given they've strayed from the vulgar & crass path of most Hollywood efforts, are worth a look.

Low Key Thrills

2011-11-08T22:55:00.006Z

Bill Nighy's quiet, mumbly charm underpins Page Eight, a modest little spy thriller about intelligence sharing and a deceitful Prime Minister. Approaching retirement, Nighy finds himself under suspicion after a ultra sensitive document stirs up trouble and after an unlikely May-Dec flirtation with his gorgeous neighbour, played by Rachel Weisz, he soon becomes unsure who he can trust. With some decent acting and a wry, cynical script this was far more enjoyable than I'd expected and the paucity of action is outweighed by a (sadly all too rare) realism and intelligence.

Steven Soderbergh's Contagion also relies on it's realism to create the tension with a new, enigmatic disease spreading round the globe in this multistrand narrative. Structured much like his Traffic this thriller follows victims, health professionals, investigators and journalists from the onset of the epidemic to the inevitable, disastrous consequences. With a cast including Damon, Fishbourne,Paltrow and Winslet this has plenty of talent and a strong script that keeps the medical mumbo jumbo to a minimum. After it's torpid start it really picks up the pace and becomes a fairly chilling evocation of our perilous, interconnected world.

Dapper Video Mappery

2011-11-08T15:12:00.002Z

The Great Antidote

2011-11-07T22:26:00.007Z

A brain parasite found in 10-20% of the UK population has been shown to effect dopamine levels. ScienceDaily.

Hubble has snapped the disc of gas & dirt being slurped down by a Black Hole. Wired.

The multitude of the brain's subconscious activity is addressed in this DiscoverMagazine article.

There's an area of sunspots roughly the size of Jupiter now facing in our direction. Discovery.

Russia's Phobos-Grunt mission launches this week and hopefully will return with a bucketful of the Martian moon's soil. ScientificAmerican.

Scientists have discovered a strange spiral structure Sun in the Lupus constellation. Gizmodo

Interesting article about the influence of our physicality on consciousness. ScientificAmerican.

Southern Delights

2011-11-05T01:58:00.004Z

Directed by Tony Richardson's madcap satire The Loved One is a 60's gem. A young British poet lands in LA and moves in with his Uncle who works as a vocal coach to the stars, after he passes away the nephew must arrange a tinseltown funeral at a guady, opulent cemetary staffed with some rather curious characters, one of whom attracts his eye. Based on a Evelyn Waugh novel and adapted by the brilliant Terry Southern this pacy nonsense has plenty of laughs as it's rolls around poking fun at everyone and everything with gusto. Sporting a fantastic ensemble of actors including Gielgud, Liberace, Coburn, McDowall and Steiger this is a sadly forgotten 60's masterpiece.

Terry Southern's satirical novel Candy, an updated version of Voltaire's Candide, follows the sexy exploits of a high school ingenue as she attempts to share her love on an epic journey across America. Like The Loved One the film sports a ridiculously talented cast with Burton, Brando, Matthau, Coburn and Ringo all appearing as Candy's lovers in a never ending series of comic vignettes but sadly it's not nearly as amusing. Sure there's laughs but it's a patchy and uneven, with some of the sequences overstaying their welcome and by the end it's tiresomely predictable however despite all it's flaws it's a fine example of psychedelic 60's nonsense and there's nowhere else you're likely to witness Ringo Starr portray a Mexican who ravishes a schoolgirl in front of Richard Burton & Sugar Ray Robinson.

Workings For a Weird Muse

2011-11-04T23:39:00.007Z

Nice gallery of Mike Mitchell's popculture work over at Buzzfeed.

Plenty of amazing/shit sculpture in some Norwegian park. Reddit

And a tonne of taste bending paintings here.

Egocentricity & Ectoplasm

2011-11-04T23:02:00.006Z

Ian McEwan's Saturday is a provocative novel about a single day in the life of an affluent neurosurgeon, Henry, who lives & works in central London. From early morning, the reader becomes an intimate witness to Henry's river of thoughts, fears and remembrances as well as the mundane activities of a typical weekend but a car accident at the fringes of an Iraq War march has consequences for his whole family. It's testament to McEwan's skills that the main character and side players survive this cauldron of microscopic attention unscathed and the everyday detail never seems burdensome in fact McEwan's clear, crisp prose lends a necessary briskness to the narrative. This well written, close study is an excellent read, but for me at least, a little disappointing; given the focus on one protagonist's interior life and character it was a pity I didn't really like Henry very much, he's diffident, pompous and shallow, one of those tedious, ossified professionals that tend to live half-lives despite their privileges. Nevertheless McEwan continues to impress.

Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel concerns a rotund psychic working the circuit while coping with a foul, truculent, uncouth spirit guide who is unwilling to reveal the truth about his mistress's mysterious, tragic past. After hiring an assistant business booms but the effort to cash in with a biographical book brings increasingly dark memories to the surface. There's plenty of funny swipes at the psychic biz with some great oddbod characters, hucksters and credulous, desperate punters (most familiar from my own days as a book hawker/kook enabler) and there's plenty of brilliant dialogue but the biting cynicism slowly reveals a pitch black plot riven with delusion, deception, abuse, murder and prostitution all rearing very ugly heads along the way. It's very well written, with a nicely drawn afterworld but it's maybe a little flabby in the midsection and I'd have preferred a firmer resolution after all that grim but still it's definitely worth a look.

Tubing

2011-11-04T22:20:00.007Z

McEwan's 80 & 90

2011-11-02T07:31:00.006Z

Jonathan Pryce and Tim Rice star in the 1983 TV movie The Ploughman's Lunch penned by Ian McEwan. A callow journalist in his selfish pursuit of the affections of a toothsome lovely neglects his own ailing mother to further his aims, spending time with the academic mother of his intended, hoping to seal the deal and gaining insights for his novel about Suez. As to be expected from McEwan this is an achingly middle class love triangle with a certain intellectualism restraining the lust and blinding the characters to their respective, mostly unpleasant, selves. Events finally spin out of the protagonist's control and come to a head during Thatcher's speechifying at a Tory Party conference. Nicely acted with a strong script this cold little film is a little uneven and though the politics have dated badly the nexus of conflict between self interest, desire and family duty hasn't.

Christopher Walken's smooth, reptilian performance dominates The Comfort of Strangers adapted from one of McEwan's novellas. A young English couple try to reignite their romance by revisiting Venice but accidentally find themselves under the sway of a peculiar older couple played by Walken and Mirren. Harold Pinter's script and Paul Shrader's close direction create a strange, unsettling atmosphere as the young pair lose themselves, literally, into the narrow streets of Venice and find themselves sexually invigorated by their experience. There's a delicate, ambiguous subtext running behind the events and script that culminates in a shattering final scene but it's maybe lost some of it's nuance in translation, however it's still a fine film with excellent performance and some stunning cinematography.

Block of Rocking Beats

2011-11-02T00:40:00.004Z

Lady Flavoured Enigmatic Escapisms

2011-11-01T22:26:00.014Z

Memoirs of a Survivor is a dystopia about a future Britain brought to it's knees by perpetual war with poverty, hunger and lawlessness rending society apart. Based on a novel by Doris Lessing this curious, melancholic film follows the experiences of a lonely women who discovers, weirdly, that she can move in time/space through her living room wall. After a petulant teenager gets billeted with her she's exposed to the more desperate elements in society, the futility of their predicament becomes apparent and she considers an escape to the other side of the wall. Julie Christie's understated performance holds the film together and underpins the strange atmosphere of hopelessness that pervades throughout. Not without it's flaws this is still an interesting, curious film but one that's probably not for everyone.

Another Earth intertwines the discovery of an Earth like planet wandering into our solar system and the tragic tale of a young woman, on the cusp of attending MIT, who causes a fatal car accident. After her release from prison she takes up as a janitor and seeks an escape by entering the contest to make a trip to the other planet but the tentative relationship she's built with the only other survivor gives her second thoughts. Despite the myriad of plot holes and it's slightly self-consciously downbeat atmosphere it's quite a decent watch with good performances, a mature script and the mysterious appearance of our mirror planet is carefully worked and tastefully unexplained. Made me think of Monsters a little and that's no bad thing but, as above, I doubt it'll be to everyone's tastes.

Forties Fear Mongering

2011-10-31T19:29:00.005Z

Based on a short story by Pushkin, The Queen of Spades is an exquisite fable about the consequences of avarice. An impoverished Russian officer buys a book which reveals the occult secret behind an aging Countess' wealth and embarks on a convoluted plan to gain the power for himself and unsurprisingly things don't go smoothly. Lavishly staged, beautifully shot and with a carefully paced script the film's success is sealed by an impressively intense central performance by Anton Walbrook whose portrayal of the character's descent from desperation to obsession and finally into madness give the film it's emotional punch.

The Beast with Five Fingers is not quite as successful as Spades but is still an entertaining slice of vintage horror. A famous pianist, retired in a plush Italian villa, carks it and strange, ghostly antics follow and soon enough his house guests, hanging around for the will to be read, start turning up dead too. When the local policeman rolls up his investigation leads him to conclude the pianist's paw, now missing from the corpse, is the only possible culprit. Though it's a bit creaky on the script front and the cinematography is a workmanlike it does have a brilliantly demented performance by Peter Lorre as an astrology researcher at it's core and it's more than enough to keep things ticking along.

Dark Dreams

2011-10-29T01:04:00.008+01:00

A Lizard in a Women's Skin is a psychedelic horror/thriller giallo from Lucio Fulci. The daughter of a powerful politician finds herself plagued with disturbing, sexy hallucinations about her partying neighbour but the waters and her sanity are further muddied when the neighbour turns up stabbed to death. Quite barmy throughout and filled with lovely psychedelic imagery as well as cliche this rumbles along quite enjoyably, building an atmosphere of ambiguity that only really becomes resolved in the final scene. Though the script and acting are pretty ropey it's the startling cinematography and visual, er, decadence that make this worth watching.

The Paranormal Activity franchise rolls on with the release of a prequel feature designed to add more meat to the bones of the original story. Set in the 80's the film shows the sisters' first encounter with the evil presence that later claims their lives and provides a semi-coherent narrative to it's purpose. Despite it's tawdry, low budget shocks I found it moderately entertaining and somewhat chilling however I can't imagine the camera-trickery trope can take much more mileage. If you enjoyed the previous films you'll probably get something out of this but it'll be a guilty, low brow pleasure, the equivalent of haunted house fairground ride.

Some Things Wicked

2011-10-28T23:54:00.003+01:00

Hammer Time

2011-10-28T22:26:00.006+01:00

Hammer's House of Horror magazine ran a series of excellent comic-book adaptations of the studio's movies. Here's a little selection....Cinebeats provide The Curse of The Werewolf and

Hairy Green Eyeball has a stunning Brian Bolland penned Vampire Circus and The Reptile.

Psycho Pulps

2011-10-26T22:15:00.006+01:00

The Killer Inside Me is surely as dark as noir can get, author Jim Thompson throws us headlong into the mind of a psychotic sex killer in this chilling thriller set in small town Texas. Deputy Lou Ford struggles to keep his 'sickness' at bay as he pootles about town spouting cliches and lending a friendly hand to the locals, succumbing finally to his instincts for murder and violence after meeting a beuatiful whore. This is a brutally effective novel and Thompson's cold, disturbing protagonist is carefully, cleverly drawn and his journey from plain mad to full blown psychosis is quite terrifying - think Highsmith's Ripley on PCP and you might get the idea. Thompson's writing and pacing are excellent and it's a deeply disturbing but brilliant work that burns towards it's incendiary finale. I must start digging around for more of his Thompson's work, especially after finding out he'd written on of my favourite Kubrick films The Killing as well as Frears' The Grifters.

Ira Levin's novel The Boys From Brazil is a fine thriller about Nazis and mad genetic experiments. It doesn't quite match A Kiss Before Dying in drama and plot twists but then it's not terribly long ago that I rewatched the film. Anyways an aging Nazi hunter is tipped off about an enclave of Nazi's hiding out in South America and their plans to assassinate 80 or so fathers and despite his ailing health he's soon hot on their heels and heading towards a confrontation with medical monster Josef Mengele. Dunno it's an easy read, well written but not quite as taut as it shouldn't have been and it's simplicity means the original novel didn't have much more to offer than the film but that's hardly Levin's fault.

The Great Antidote

2011-10-26T20:31:00.005+01:00

4 moons of Saturn caught in this very lovely image by Cassini. APOD

Evidence for the link between DNA activity & early childhood environmental conditions. Scienceblog.

The patient known as "Sybil" has admitted her multiple personalities were fake. Reddit.

Hong Kong researchers Kwok & Zhang have discovered complex organic compounds in space created without the presence of "life". Reddit.

The long disputed reality of hypnosis may be finally coming to an end with some interesting eye-movement research which seems to support the existence of a distinct hypnotic modality of consciousness. MedicalXpress.

New evidence shows there's little between ourselves and chimps but our so called "junk", DNA that is. DailyG.

Another study, this time of Orangutan societies, demonstrates that "culture" isn't exclusive to humans. SciDaily.

Linguists have cracked the Copiale code - turns out the mysterious manuscript details the rituals of a German ophthalmology cult. NYT

Has the worm finally turned? Psychologists line up to object to the forthcoming publication of DSM5, which is bound to be another example of idiocy and psychiatric propaganda. PsychToday.

Evidence has been uncovered for the earliest oxygen breathing lifeform - a mineral chomping bacteria about 2.5 billion years old. LiveSci.

Stunning pic of a N Atlantic giant Octopus. Via NS

DC Double Downer

2011-10-26T07:19:00.009+01:00

Bruce Wayne & Jim Gordon forge their reputations in Batman Year One, the latest DC animated feature, and it's a remarkably faithful adaptation of Frank Miller's original graphic novel. Remarkable in the sense that what worked so well on the page has been recreated here for better or worse - the pacing seems a little off for the format and the "realism" of Bat's & Gordon's trajectories seem a little odd and underwhelming for an animated movie, worst of all however is the insipid voice work with almost all the main characters miscast. Still the quality of Miller's work shines through and it's still a reasonably entertaining watch - I'm just kinda glad the didn't decide to my favourite The Killing Joke.

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is a portmanteau collection of tales fleshing out the GL universe of extra terrestrial alien police. Framed by Hal Jordan's narration to a student there area five stories told to explain the history and diversity of the corp and it's not too shabby. The animation is decent enough and there's no shortage of action but the scattershot approach means there's no real substance to the 80 mins and it feels more like a bunch of Saturday morning toons stitched together than a coherent film. Sadly it seems DC are still way behind Marvel in milking their respective franchises.

1984 Futuristics

2011-10-25T22:12:00.007+01:00

The Philadelphia Experiment is a seriously hokey slice of 80's nonsense based around the urban legend about the USS Eldridge that gets pushed out of normal time/space during an anti-radar experiment during WW2. Our two protagonists are sailors on the Eldridge who, after throwing themselves overboard during the calamitous experiment, land on terra firma circa 1984. After stumbling about for a bit they eventually hook up with Nancy Allen and dodge the authorities on their road trip to their home town in a haze of inarticulate future shock unaware their arrival has caused a seemingly unstoppable vortex to appear. With a shoddy script, wooden acting and some cheapo fx there's little here to recommend to anyone.

Psychic Dennis Quaid is hired by Christopher Plummer and Max Von Sydow in 80's scifi-romp Dreamscape. Quaid has been drifting about using his skills for gambling and seduction but after falling foul of some race track buddies he signs up for a government programme involving projecting his consciousness into the troubled minds of test sleepers, things go well but it appears Plummer has nefarious plans for his chum the President. It's not bad I guess, the fx are certainly better than P Experiment's (still look amatuerish by today's standards) and has at least half a decent plot, competent script/actoring and has Quaid's easy charm to keep things from becoming too po-faced as it romps along to it's obvious conclusion. Definitely the better of the two if you're after a bit of retro scifi

Nihon Novelties

2011-10-25T20:32:00.003+01:00

Island Incidents

2011-10-24T21:47:00.005+01:00

The fictional Hebridean Isle of Fara is experiencing an unprecedented heatwave in The Night of the Big Heat. Thankfully the island includes Cushing and Lee as residents and their separate, respective investigations as local GP and roving scientists leads them to the conclusion that the extreme heat may be caused by visitors from another planet. This isn't the finest film I've ever seen with some weak effects, lame day-as-night cinematography and a rudimentary script but it has a certain charm whether that's from the tawdry love triangle plot or the alien as glowing poached egg I can't say.

Retreat stars Cillian M & Thandie N as a traumatised couple who return to an isolated island to repair their relationship but their tentative peace is disrupted when a soldier, played by Jamie Bell, washes ashore claiming a flu virus is ravaging the world and they must all seal themselves in to survive. What follows is a tense, psychological thriller about trust with 3 solid performances and a bevy of plot twists. There's nothing particularly special here but it's surprisingly effective.

Listening Listings

2011-10-24T21:13:00.004+01:00

Aliens & Alienation

2011-10-23T22:40:00.007+01:00

His Master's Voice is definitely one of Stanislaw Lem's tougher, deeply philosophical books but nonetheless it's still a nourishing read. A mathematician is asked to join an elite group of braniacs gathered in a secret desert enclave to decipher an impossibly complex alien signal. What follows is 200 pages of dense deliberation, discussion and theorising about the nature of first contact, imaginings about alien motivations, possible civilisations, our own perceptual filterings scientific and otherwise and the preening short sightedness of the military/industrial complex which governs and funds our scientific endeavours. There no hint of the lightness to be found in Lem's Tichy memoirs or Cyberiad but it's weighty, dialogue heavy pace means there's few other scifi books that can match Lem's virtuosity in delineating the problems surrounding other worldly communications, far surpassing his own similarly themed novels Solaris and Fiasco. Brilliant but not for Lem novices.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman is a brilliant militaristic scifi novel about a far flung war with an enigmatic alien race that's fought by soldiers whose deep space tours mean their eventual return to earth is centuries in the future. Haldeman's vision, clearly designed to echo his own experiences in the Vietnam conflict, nonetheless portrays the idiocy of all wars and nicely handles the indoctrination of draftees, the cold military machine and the agonising waiting before the inevitable bursts of combat. The protagonist William Mandella is involved in the initial phase of the conflict but after a troubled period back on a debilitated, war worn Earth where life, language and society are vastly different he returns to the conflict an officer and leads a squadron in a number of crucial encounters. Haldeman keeps things rocking along and packs in plenty of ideas and though the characters are a little underwritten it's still a classic of 70's scifi.

Cinema Succulents

2011-10-23T20:56:00.005+01:00

Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive is a stunning, dreamlike thriller about a movie stuntman with a nice sideline as a getaway driver. His modest, quiet life is overturned once he befriends his attractive neighbour & young son but after her husband is released from prison things get complicated and startlingly violent. Beautifully shot, with excellent performances and some brilliant retro styling this is probably my favourite film of the year so far. Refn's meditative Valhalla Rising showed the director could generate plenty of atmosphere on a tiny budget but this feature is a much more complete effort and should deservedly catapult him into the big league.

Given most prequels are usually a pile of crap I was pleasantly surprised by the competence of Rise of the Planet of Apes. James Franco stars as a scientist tampering with simian intelligence in an effort to cure Alzheimers but after his project is shut down he continues his research at home with an infant chimp and his Pa, John Lithgow as test subject. With plenty of nods to the Heston original this romps along as the chimp's intelligence grows and along with some chums from local sanctuary he incites sedition and it all barrels along to a climatic battle for freedom. Sure it's fairly ridiculous but with jaw dropping SFX and some tight pacing I was gripped - let's hope The Thing prequel is as faithful to the original material.

Undergound Overground

2011-10-23T16:44:00.005+01:00

An intact Viking burial ship, complete with grave goods, has been discovered near Ardnamurchan. BBC

NASA software has enabled archaeologists to reveal the sophisticated Lunar calendar surrounding a Black Forest Royal Tomb. Past Horizons.

Seems someone was treating his dog to a juicy Mammoth bone 25,000 years ago, after a find in the Czech Republic. Reddit.

Melting Norwegian glaciers are exposing Roman era garments & textiles. Reddit.

Chinese Archaeologists are digging into the society that flourished along the Silk Road. Reddit.

Remote sensing appears to have found a submerged henge near the edge of the Loch of Stenness in Orkney. Past Horizons.

An Aztec cremation platform has been unearthed at the Templo Mayor r uins near Mexico City.

The mysteries surrounding Gobekli Tepe, one of the oldest temples ever found, are slowly being unraveled. Reddit.

Randoms

2011-10-20T23:28:00.004+01:00

The Horror of Shatner

2011-10-10T17:32:00.009+01:00

Paunchy William Shatner plays a suave-ish veterinarian who's cool under pressure in the terrible/tremendous Kingdom of the Spiders. A small Texan town is besieged by tarantulas and while The Shat seduces the investigating academic hottie, bodies start piling up but no fear he soon, er, gets his finger out and saves a few lives. Despite or maybe because of the crappy script, acting and sfx I quite enjoyed this B movie chiller - some care was taken over the cinematography and the plot isn't terrible with a decent climatic battle but I'd only really recommend this if you enjoy The Shat's particular, um, acting "style" and have a penchant for crap films. Be warned though if you're a fan of arachnids as a surprising number of the cute little critters were clearly burned, stomped, chomped & run over in the making of this film.

Pre Trek Shatner appeared in the horror film Incubus, one of a handful of movies idiotically filmed in Esperanto. A bored Succubus decides The Shat will be her next victim when he rolls into town looking to cure his war wounds in the towns magical waters and finds herself falling for his charms. Nicely shot in black and white and generating a few wisps of atmos along the way this at least has some ambition but with The Shat's stilted, confused performance and a brief 75 min runtime this plays out more like a TV special than the Bergman-esque supernatural fable it aspires to be. An half decent effort so maybe give it a go but it lacks the fun and so-bad-it's good quality of Spiders.

If you've still not had you're fill of Bill Shatner's unique artistic endeavours here's his latest musical effort - a cover version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Enjoy or not.

Wishy Washy Wyndhams

2011-10-10T07:32:00.008+01:00

I've potent memories of the TV version of Chocky, which aired when I was a kid, but found Wyndham's original novel a little underwhelming. A young boy acquires an imaginary friend who appears to be a little more advanced than the norm and his parents are at a loss to explain the new perspective this friend gives their child. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given it was written (I think) for young adults, it's Wyndham's most simplistic tale with a lightness to the narrative, little time given to the characterisation and a fairly anodyne plot. Just for Wyndham fans and 80's throwbacks like myself I'd say.

Trouble with Lichen, on the other hand, is a satirical tale about a revolutionary discovery which has the potential to retard human aging indefinitely and the media frenzy and. general mayhem that ensues on it's release. Wyndham's young female biochemist plays the long game in this simple tale but her character isn't given much development and feels little more than a cypher at times. Wyndham does however pack in plenty of swipes at the beauty industry, academic churlishness and the role of women in modern society but it's not enough to lift it above the plodding pace and spartan plot. I dunno it's still a decent read, just not in the league as Kraken, Chysalids or Triffids.

Jazz Wives, Juju & Vibes

2011-10-09T23:33:00.009+01:00

Monster Mash & Muddled Hash

2011-10-09T23:29:00.007+01:00

When a farmer yanks a megalith from one of his fields he unwittingly unleashes a pagan monster into the Irish countryside in the B-movie Rawhead Rex. Based on a Clive Barker short this low budget horror has a modest helping of arterial spray, dismemberment and rampaging but the acting is awful and the SFX is dire even for the mid eighties however on the plus side there's plenty of unintentional laughs and Rex romps around ripping the locals in half with a certain brio. Barker wasn't too chuffed with the adaptation but hey I doubt it would've worked as a serious chiller anyways and I found surprisingly entertaining in a so bad it's good sort of way.

The Sentinel sports a fairly amazing cast but reeks of tripe, cheese and bags and bags of batshit. A highly strung, attractive model moves into an apartment block with a peculiar set of neighbours including a cat mad loner, predatory lesbians, dotty old ladies and a blind priest who sits looking out the window all day, strange given the landlady claims the latter is the only other tenant. With a cast that includes Meredith, Walken, Balsam, Gardner, Wallach, Carradine and Sarandon this could have been decent but I'll happily lay the blame at chubster-director Michael Winner's feet, edited badly, poorly scripted, full of plot holes and sadly neither scary or funny enough to make it worth watching. Rare for a reason.

People of the Book

2011-10-09T22:13:00.002+01:00

Iris Murdoch's The Bell examines the foibles and frustrations of the inhabitants of a lay religious community that's still in it's infancy but hopes to make a splash with the presentation of a new bell to the nearby Nunnery. There's a swath of unusual, nicely drawn characters but the novel focuses in the main on two very different characters: Dora, an immature young bride who after a brief separation from her possessive academic husband reconciles with him but finds the community's pious atmosphere stultifying and restrictive and Michael, the group's "leader" who struggles with the interpersonal relationships and conflicts involved in the communal effort as well as his own repressed homosexuality. Murdoch's impeccable writing slowly, inevitably, marches these nuanced characters towards a bittersweet end that's maybe a little telegraphed, a little too predictable. It's a good read but it's dated a fair bit - written in 1958, the portrayal and development of Michael seems clumsy and a little simplistic by today's standards.

Michel Faber's The Fire Gospel is one of Canongate's somewhat patchy series The Myths and Faber chooses to use, vaguely, the tale of Prometheus to satirize the world of publishing and biblical scholarship. A consulting academic finds a lost, heretical Gospel while visiting a Iraqi museum and his subsequent translation propels him into wealth, celebrity and jeopardy as the impact of this new retelling of Christ's life reverberates around the world. I dunno, Faber, like Murdoch, is an exceptional writer, with a clear, clean prose but this novella was a quite disappointing; the main character is crudely drawn and mostly unlikeable, there's a tenuous similarity to the myth it's supposed to reflect and the interspersion of Malchus' revelatory testimony is a little underwhelming. Though it has it's moments and is occasionally quite funny this feels unfinished and seriously underdeveloped - a shame and quite surprising given the complexity and careful plotting of Under The Skin and Crimson Petal.

Shadow Lives

2011-10-06T22:05:00.006+01:00

Ganja & Hess is an arty vampire-ish thriller directed and starring Bill Gunn. Presumably the producers had expected something along the lines of Blacula but instead they got a moody, dreamlike fable about an affluent anthropology Professor stabbed by his assistant with an ancient dagger who awakes with thirst for blood and is seemingly immortal. Though it struggles with it's low budget and patchy improvised script this is an ambitious, intelligent horror about power, money and social roles. I could grumble on about the sound design, some sequences are barely tolerable, but they're offset by the choice gospel music peppered throughout. There's plenty of chin stroking analyses online and I could argue against the most prevalent one but I'd rather not waste your time. Just watch it if you can and enjoy a stunning, atmospheric feature that's a sorely neglected keystone in black film history.
Guillermo Del Toro produced and scripted the remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark which fleshes out the spartan 1973 TV movie into something more contemporary with predictably mixed results. While renovating an old house with a new Mrs and his kid, Guy Pearce uncovers a secret basement with a curious locked grate that, unbeknownst to him, holds some child hungry critters at bay. The acting is alright I suppose, there's a few mild scares along the way and the little devils are nicely designed but it's far too brightly shot for a film about things lurking in the dark and never really conjures even the modest gloom of the original. Meh.

The Great Antidote

2011-10-05T23:24:00.006+01:00

This isn't some scifi critter from a pulpy novel but an actual insect, the Brazillian Treehopper. DarkRoasted.

Is Alzheimer's transmissible? ScienceDaily.

Unravelling the myth of the male mid-life crisis. ScientificAmerican

Amazing 3D printer that constructs glass objects using only sand and the power of the Sun. Popsci.

The discovery of a quasicrystalline structure has won an Israeli scientist the Nobel prize for Chemistry.

We're a step closer to detecting gravitational waves apparently. Impactlab.

The Bolshoi simulation of dark matter in our universe took one of the world's largest supercomputer 6 million CPU hours to create. APOD.

Photographic evidence of the triple rainbows. ScienceDaily.

The molecular interaction between air and water is finally being explained. ScienceDaily.

Nikon's annual Small World contest coughs up some amazing snaps, my favourite but not the winner, below, is of a blade of grass.

Orbital Surveys

2011-10-04T22:16:00.001+01:00

Speaker Business

2011-10-02T23:19:00.005+01:00

Heritage Homicides

2011-10-02T20:53:00.013+01:00

Ira Lewin's taut novel A Kiss Before Dying got a technicolour adaptation in '56 and in the main follows the plot quite closely - man gets girl preggers, shoves her off a rooftop and moves onto find another rich girl to get his teeth into. The acting is fine and it's beautifully shot but the lurid colouring & ill judged soundtrack soften the tension all too often, combine that with the excision of the final murder and the books brutal denouement and it's fails to even generate a fraction of the intensity or darkness of Lewin's novel. Maybe it was a conscious effort to make proceedings a little more palatable to the audience of the day? dunno, anyways its still a good watch and no doubt better than the 1991 version.

Despite turning up almost half way through Green for Danger Alistair Sim shines brightly in this WW2 whodunit. A couple of murders in a small country hospital harried by German bombs prompt the appearance of Sim's sarcastic detective who ambles into town intent on poking at the pre existing tensions of the small group of suspects in an effort to uncover the truth. It's a thoroughly enjoyable, beautifully constructed, scripted and shot and featuring some excellent performances especially by Sim who perforates the seriousness of proceedings with his whimsical, light hearted portrayal of the no nonsense investigator.

Happy Horrors

2011-10-02T20:50:00.001+01:00

Something Slippery & Buggy Jitters

2011-10-02T01:31:00.014+01:00

Polish director Andrzej Zulawski's Possession is deeply disturbing movie. Sam Neil quits his job and returns to Berlin in an effort to save his marriage only to discover his wife is losing her mind and her frequent unexplained absences, violence and apparent infidelities stretch Neil to breaking point but he's still unaware of the true nature of her paramour. With two wide eyed, manic performances from the leads and some brilliantly staged, excruciating scenes of marital disintegration this film is soaked in a troubling atmosphere that only accentuates the Cronenberg-esque body horror of the second half. A fascinating, multi layered horror film that's well worth digging around for.

Dario Argento's Phenomena stars a very young Jennifer Connelly as an actor's daughter sent to a Swiss boarding school only to discover it's besieged by a serial killer who has a penchant for the young ladies, oh and she has a peculiar psychic link with insects. Connelly's unusual ability soon attracts the attention of her classmates & teachers and before the can ship her off to the loony bin she escapes to home of an amiable Scottish entomologist played by Donald Pleasance who thinks it's a good idea for her to use her abilities to track the killer down. It's a strange mismash of ideas that's hamstrung with some ropey acting and a really crappy soundtrack but there's some nice touches along the way and Argento has enough style and skill to make a decent fist of it. I'd recommend Suspira or Profondo Rosso before you tackle this curious little flick.

Brain Slices n Stuff

2011-09-28T23:05:00.005+01:00

Amazing new technique in reconstructing what we see from information garnered from fMRI scans. PopSci

Research shows Chimps might be naturally altruistic after all. ScienceDaily.

Olfaction appears a more potent sense than previously thought. NewScientist.

12th Century nun Hildegard of Bingen described female orgasms as a sense of heat in the brain. Mindhacks.

The problem of free will haunted my undergrad years so nervously here's an article about philosophers and neuroscientists getting knee deep in the debate. Nature.

Dutch scientists investigate our strange tendency to make false confessions. Economist.

Cyborg rat struts about with a brand new artificial cerebellum. NewScientist.

Our understanding of our perception of harmony gets a boost from a mathematical model. Sciencemag.

The active, constructive component of perception is nicely outlined in an article on Forgetomori.

Piscine & Ovine Distractions

2011-09-28T07:23:00.005+01:00

It took a while but once The Raw Shark Texts got it's teeth into me the last 250 pages went down in one big gulp. Written by Steven Hall this is a clever, tricksy novel about a man who wakes with a disassociatve memory disorder and finds himself guided by letters, posted by his previous self that give him glimmers of his tragic past and more importantly help defend himself against the conceptual shark that's hunting him. Though the amnesiac-adrift trope has become a little tired over the past decade Hall's linguistic shenanigans add enough juice to keep things interesting and even the slightly gimmicky games with the typeface and font help plunge the reader into the double reality/delusion of the protagonist.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is one of Philip K Dick's finer novels which was subsequently adapted into Blade Runner. Rick Deckard hunts runaway androids who return to a devasted, mostly empty Earth and receives the oppurtunity to pursue 6 examples of the latest, most realistic models. The book packs in much more invention & plot than the somewhat truncated film with social control, mood altering tech, TV gurus of course the eponymous artificial pets that all help build a truly Dickish miasma of paranoia, metaphysics and melancholia.

Signage

2011-09-27T21:59:00.004+01:00

Crooks and/or Hooks

2011-09-27T07:19:00.003+01:00

Stephen Frears debut film Gumshoe is a Chandler homage starring a fresh-ish faced Albert Finney as a club comic who puts an ad in the local papers and sets himself up a private detective with only a passion for film and books to back him up. As you'd imagine his first case is quite tasty and he winds up neck deep in intrigue involving arms, apartheid, heroin and of course dames. It's pretty entertaining with a quick wit, great cast and a razor sharp script but it lacks a little danger as Finney starts digging around. Filmed in 71 there's plenty of retro Liverpool & London on show as well as a fair bit of racism which I guess was to be expected, still, this is a funny, overlooked British thriller that's worth catching.

Following the success of Euro horrors Dead Snow and Troll Hunter the Dutch are chipping in with Saint, a grisly spin on their particular Yuletide mythos. A weary detective tries to convince colleagues about the imminent arrival of Saint Nicholas heralded by the Xmas conjunction with a full moon, unheeded the murderous character turns up with his troupe of evil elves and they start hacking up the inhabitants of Amsterdam. There's plenty of gore, dismemberment and skewering but all the blood can't hide a poor script, 2D characters and a feeble, cheesy denoument. Wouldn't bother.

Sounds Like

2011-09-26T23:50:00.003+01:00

Paper Crafters

2011-09-26T22:32:00.006+01:00

25 famous author's last words including HG Wells' above. Reddit.

Virtual monkeys have almost completed the works of Shakespeare. BBC

Some crazy Elder Scrolls nut has printed & bound all the in-game books into one single volume. Reddit.

Book thief and bipolar sufferer returns stolen fictions. Guardian

Stunning illustrations from an 1896 tome. BibliO

Conan Doyle's first novel is finally published. BBC

The Smithsonian has nice list of lost books. Reddit.

Beautiful book sculptures found in Edinburgh libraries. BoingBoing

Nice, via DailyWhat.

British Binds

2011-09-25T23:21:00.006+01:00

While Kraken isn't China Mieville's most accomplished novel, this urban fantasy still romps along, piling on the strange and manages to kick seven shades out of Neil Gaiman's efforts. A giant preserved squid is stolen from the British Museum and Billy, a curator, is plunged into an alternative London filled with mancers, mages, assassins, cults and occult sects most of whom want a little chat about his now absent specimen. Though dark, Mieville keeps things chipper with plenty of humour and cultural references and it's one of his more commercial - mainstream even - offerings but like PKD his imagination is irrepressible and page after page is stuffed with ideas and invention.

On Chesil Beach is an oh-so intimate examination of the wedding night of a young, virginal couple in the early 1960's. McEwan's novella ably demonstrates his skills, with a clean, clear narrative style unfurling the duo's tensions and characters in the seaside hotel they've chosen for the physical consummation of their love. She, a scared, neurotic classical musician with father issues and he, a intellectual voyeur, devoid of maternal love but ramrod with expectations - this was bound to be a, er, bumpy ride. Only 160 pages or so but still a magnificent read that's as funny as it is touching.

Splendiferous Darkness

2011-09-22T00:03:00.004+01:00

Family, Friends & Foes

2011-09-21T22:22:00.005+01:00

The Green Man is a 3 part BBC adaptation of a Kingsley Amis novel and stars Albert Finney as a rakish hotelier who's in charge of a luxurious but haunted country gastro-retreat. Unfortunately Finney's constant womanising and alcoholism have strained his family relations to breaking point and after his father dies our protagonists ghostly visions take on a more corporal form. Originally written in the 60's and adapted in the 90's it's showing it's age a bit but Finney's excellent performance and the curious brew of comedy, sex and horror keep things nicely afloat as he drifts between revulsion and temptation by the offer made by an evil cleric. All in all good
(not so clean) supernatural fun - must root around for the book.

Wild Palms will, no doubt, always be overshadowed by Twin Peaks, which preceded it by a year or so, but it's a clever 6 part scifi mini-series about technology and power that probably has more resonance than ever in our current milieu. As a new interactive, holographic TV system is about to be launched a corporate lawyer finds his family and world turned upside down when he's drawn into a conflict between two groups vying for the future, the Fathers and the Friends, the former helmed by a demented CEO determined to translate recent successes into political power and digital immorality. There's big buckets of talent involved on and off screen - Oliver Stone producing, Kathryn Bigelow directing and Belushi, Loggia, Dourif, Dickinson and a trailer load of other familiar faces starring but it's actually the script that shines through for once with the crisp dialogue sheltering a careful ambiguity. Like Green Man, the past 20 years haven't done it any favours and maybe Belushi is a bit out of his depth but it's still a potent, if unheard, clarion call about the dangers of mixing corporations with politics.

Star Porn

2011-09-21T21:58:00.005+01:00

Kinda Groovy Kinds of Love

2011-09-20T22:46:00.003+01:00

Peter Sellers made some great films during his long career (despite being a bit of a shit in real life) but I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! is distinctly a lesser Sellers. Sellers stars as a stuffy lawyer, sleepwalking his way to marriage and a staid suburban life but becomes tempted by a pretty hippy chick into dropping out and embracing an alternative lifestyle. Unfortunately this is 90 mins of cliche stitched together with a half hearted Sellers performance, some "groovy" music and a couple of pot based wig-out scenes worst of all it barely raised a smile, let alone a chuckle. A vapid, tepid Hollywood attempt to cash in - avoid.

A Safe Place, however, is the real deal, drenched as it is, in the LSD/experimental, counter culture of the era. A beautiful but troubled, young space cadet played by Tuesday Weld beguiles a square into a life of drugs, free love and mystical thinking and the pair's relationship blossoms despite the intervention of a predatory Jack Nicholson and the girl's persistent reminiscences of a tubby magician played by Orson Welles. Directed by Henry Jaglom, who edited Easy Rider & went onto direct Tracks, this is a tricky watch; the narrative is scattered and dream like and the script meandering and stuffed with the hippy burblings of the day. Nonetheless it's at least committed to it's cause and culminates in a strange ambiguous, bittersweet ending.

Tin Foil Millinery

2011-09-20T20:38:00.006+01:00

Is Barbara Bush the daughter of Aleister Crowley?

The Virginia quake might have caused by the covert nuking of secret underground bases, or not?

Former NASA staffer Ken Johnston says there are alien cities on the Moon.

The hidden story of the Fukushima disaster?

Is Nicolas Cage immortal? Some dude is selling the photographic evidence on Ebay. Moviefone.
Aum cult boffin was a Tesla nut and claimed the Kobe earthquake was artificial. Reddit. Disinfo have the anime they made as a recruiting tool.

Some Frenchie scientist found an alien implant in Napoleon's skull.

The increase in UFO sightings is the build up to a staged, faux alien invasion, apparently.

Got handed another flyer bout this Scottish paedo ring the other day. And while we're on the subject here's a UK doc that was apparently never aired.

Indifferent Intrigues

2011-09-19T22:02:00.006+01:00

Charles Bronson and Lee Remick are KGB agents entrusted with saving the world in Telefon, a 70's thriller from Don Siegel. Pesky wig wearing Donald Pleasance is roaming Murica activating hypnotised suicide agents forgotten in the days of detente and Bronson is flown in to hunt him down. It rolls along at a reasonable pace with bombs popping off every 20mins or so but never really gripped me and most of the cast float along in the wake of the big budget action sequences. Still with Schiffrin, Siegel and Silliphant involved this is at least above par action nonsense.

Stanley Donen tries to emulate his own Charade formula of bantering intrigue with Peck and Loren in Arabeseque a light, frothy caper about assassins and cyphers. Aging Peck stars as an academic don tasked with translating a Hittite inscription by friend and foe alike but is soon beguiled by the luminous, deceitful Loren and caught in a web of shifting allegiances. The script is dry and sharp but the action weak and offers no weight or tension to balance against the fluff. Charming if vacuous but decent enough for a Sunday afternoon.

Blacks n Whites

2011-09-19T00:16:00.001+01:00

Watchables

2011-09-18T01:35:00.005+01:00

Ear Food

2011-09-18T00:54:00.005+01:00

Some Of The Kids Are All Right-ish

2011-09-14T07:04:00.005+01:00

Submarine is a beautifully crafted coming-of-age comedy from Richard Ayoade. Set in 80's Wales our odd little romeo Oliver set his sights on a girl but his uneasy navigation through the hormonal waters is perturbed by her mother's ill health and his own's affection for the sleazy new age guru living next door. The performances and script are tight and it's bone dry humour reminded me a little of Rushmore but it's the confident production that pushes this far beyond the usual tropes of adolescent rom com and into one of the best British films I've seen in ages.

Tubster Kevin Smith is famous for his comedies so I was delighted to hear he'd stretched himself into new ground with Red State, a dark and lovely, visceral side swipe at the batshit Westboro Baptist Church and the state powers that breed then cull them. 3 young dudes venture into trailer park territory on the promise of internet sourced sexy times and find themselves at the mercy of a freaky apocalyptic church with bloody intentions. The film has two excellent performances from Michael Parks as the demented Pastor and John Goodman as the Fed called in to deal with the the situation but it's Smiths sharp script and tight, tight direction that make this such an enjoyable thriller.

Sciencey Sampler

2011-09-13T23:24:00.010+01:00

Initial steps to inorganic life. Impactlab.

Placebo power & sleep paralysis. Atlantic.

Animal think like Autistic Savants? Science Daily.

Mulling Martian Methane. Daily Galaxy

Psychiatric pong? Mindhacks.

Green Moon flash. DailyGalaxy.

First double Sun planet found. Nasa

Explaining Near Death Experiences. Scientific American.

Lasers producing 'lectricity? Impactlab

Skull stymies straightforward evolution story. BBC

Southern lights snapped from Space Station. BoingBoing.

Additional August Audios

2011-09-13T22:47:00.004+01:00

Asbo & Astro boys Alien Assualts

2011-09-05T21:55:00.007+01:00

Joe Cornish's directorial debut, Attack The Block, is a pretty decent alien invasion flick about a bunch of hoody yoofs thwarting some shiny toothed critters. There's plenty of action and a few laughs along the way as the motley crew use there lofi weapons and urban skills over the course of a Bonfire night to defend their tower block, enlisting mugging victims and petulant girlies to their cause. The acting is decent enough and it carefully walks the tightrope of stereotypes eventually fleshing out the gang into a fairly likeable bunch but it could have been funnier or maybe that just cause of my too high Adam and Joe based expectations.

Apollo 18 is reasonably entertaining entrant into the found-footage canon basing it's pseudo history on one of the unlaunched final Apollo Moon missions. A bunch of 'stronauts land on the lunar surface for the usual scientific endeavours and stumble across an abandoned Soviet lander and some pesky rock samples. FF features usually suffer from shaky cam overload but they mostly avoid that trap here and pile on the period detailing. It does suffer occasionally with indistinct audio in its strive towards "authenticity"and it's all fairly silly but nonetheless this is a claustrophobic horror that milks it's tiny budget for some genuine chills and the tension builds to a suitably dark finale.

Aural Acquisitions

2011-09-03T01:23:00.006+01:00

Faces come out of the Rain

2011-09-02T22:58:00.004+01:00

My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done is a deliciously strange feature from Werner Herzog. Based on a true story the film reveals, mostly in flashback, the story of a Peru-damaged wanna be actor who slaughters his Ma with a samurai sword. This quiet, odd little film succeeds solely on the richness of the performances Herzog coaxes from his players including Willem Dafoe's flippant detective, Dourif's racist giant chicken breeder and the stunning, fragile malevolence of Michael Shannon trammelled, unhinged killer. Though some might find it a touch affected, I was glued to the screen and it demonstrates what potent actors and skillful direction can bring to simple stories. As much as I enjoy Herzog's documentaries I can't wait for his next narrative.

The inspired casting of Mel Gibson as the deranged lead lends an extra weight to The Beaver, the story of a depressed exec who turns his life around with the help of a glove puppet he finds in the bin. Shockingly for a fairly formulaic journey of discovery pic it's actually quite a decent watch, Gibson puts in a fine performance as the doe-eyed sadsack and his consistent, Ray Winston-ish accented alter ego is surprisingly competent. Jodie Foster plays the long-suffering wife with aplomb but is overshadowed by her excellent direction; for such a curious, quirky tale there's been plenty of effort staging, scripting and shooting the film . Dunno maybe my faculties had been impaired, as I did watch it towards the end of a bottle of wine, but I really enjoyed it. A weird suburban tale of sanity/madness and the family unit.

Happy 83rd Horace

2011-09-02T00:05:00.000+01:00

Lord Luton's Right Load of Cossacks

2011-08-31T21:45:00.005+01:00

Taras Bulba , based on the novel by Nikolai Gogol, is hailed as one of the greatest Russian stories of all time. Bulba is an old Cossack with two sons, he sends them off to be educated in Kiev and through the length of the story we see the destiny of the two sons change. One falls in love with a Polish girl and betrays his father and fellow Cossacks and while the other grows up to be a good Cossack. Now you know the basics lets chat about the films. Yep, plural. First is the 1962 version starring Yul Bryner as Bulba and ....wait for it.....Tony Curtis as the 'bad son'. As you can imagine there is lots of action and the whole thing rattles along at a fair old pace with the usual sped up horse scenes but you end up feeling sorry for old Bulba. A bit of a Hollywood epic with a difference, not on the massive scale that you sometimes expect from Hollywood but they certainly capture the feel of the wild but proud Cossacks.

The second version is a Russian made epic from 2009. They seem to be pumping out these sort of things now (see 1612 for example). As you would expect this version seems far more historically accurate and the battle scenes are far more gory and realistic but unfortunately what it gains in realism it loses in pace and fun. Where the original had legs and the ability carry the audience along the Russian version gets bogged down in preaching and speeches. Those evil Poles! etc etc. If your looking for a rip roaring adventure go for the 1962 version. If you want a historically accurate version with cheap synth soundtrack......

Before we abandon Cossacks altogether I'm going to come over all Sister Wendy and show you a painting that I love.
The reason I'm so taken by this picture is not so much the image itself but the story behind it. Basically the Cossacks were being such a pain in the arse that the Ottoman Sultan, Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV, wrote to them,

"As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the Sun and Moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians—I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks."

The painting shows a group of cossacks writing the reply and having a great deal of fun composing the following

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan (4?)!

Thou art a Turkish imp, the damned Devil's brother and friend, and a secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight art thou that cannot slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou son of a bitch wilt not ever make subjects of Christian sons; we have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck thy mother. Thou art the Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian villain, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, a fool before our God, a grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw thine own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. Thou wilt not even be herding Christian pigs. Now we shall conclude, for we don't know the date and don't have a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year in the book, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

Hands up who thought trolling started with the Internet!

Boffiny

2011-08-30T23:11:00.003+01:00

A Tale of Two Remakes

2011-08-30T07:28:00.002+01:00

It's hard to imagine but somehow the remake of Conan makes the Milius/Arnie version seem Oscar worthy. Sure the remake has more and better staged swordplay, bloodletting and Ron Perlman in it's favour but it just can't match the atmosphere of the original and it all plays out like a fey EA video game. As you'd expect the plot doesn't amount to much; Conan is orphaned & wanders the planet until picking up the scent of his nemesis and his freaky witch daughter while they hunt for some pure blood maiden. Maybe with a lead actor who didn't look empty & lost and a bit more conviction to string things out for more than it's 100mins this might have been worth a look. As it stands I wouldn't waste your time.

However Fright Night, another 80's remake, shows how it's done and manages to surpass the original with gusto. Funnier, bloodier and better acted than the McDowell version this shows what can be done with a little common sense. Former nerd Charley and his girlfriend end up in some bother when the new neighbour turns out to be cleaning the town of pesky kids with liberal fang use and they enlist the help of a jaded, faux vampire hunter. With Toni Collette, David Tenant and Colin Farrell all turning in excellent performances and the script rattling along with plenty of laughs this hokey 80's number has been regurgitated as a funny, richly dark, highly enjoyable addition to the canon of vampire flicks.

Shiny Dim Bulbs

2011-08-29T23:06:00.006+01:00

Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig star in genre mash up Cowboys and Aliens a big budget little brain Hollywood travaganza. Wanted criminal awakes in the desert with an natty wrist band but no recent memories, on wandering into a nearby town the truculent hero finds himself defending it with his newly acquired bangle & soon begins a cliche riven quest against the alien visitors. It's not terrible just depressingly formulaic and despite the insertion of some "wit" and the aforementioned actor heavyweights it never shakes off it's paper thin plotting and reliance on gaudy special effects. It gave me the distinct impression of being built around the title, probably pitched at some meeting of awful, facile minds. Sigh.

Scifi is big business in Japan so it's quite surprising they've produced so few live action space operas. Space Battleship Yamato aims to rectify this with a tale of a ruined Earth besieged by a powerful alien race, only one ship survives and begins a epic journey in search of some alien tech that might help turn the tables. Based on a cherished anime series the film is stuffed with predictably cartoonish characters and a shed load of CGI and SFX to wash it all down with. I dunno somehow the I'm more willing to accept Japanese cheese than Amurican maybe it's their innocence or naivete that makes it palatable but anyways it's a decent enough watch and certainly didn't depress me as much as Cowboys and A's . Maybe if I'd seen the original anime I might have enjoyed it more. It's big glossy fun I guess but boy is it dumb.

Musik fur Ihre Mutter

2011-08-29T22:19:00.004+01:00

Paper Profundities

2011-08-28T21:47:00.007+01:00

Modern suburban living and it's concomitant anxieties are revealed in the darkly comic, rather brilliant White Noise by Don Delillo. Jack Gladney, his wife Babette and their extended brood of children live a peaceful life off campus but their media soaked lives come under increasing strain when the town is threatened by a toxic cloud. Delillo is a superb writer and his stunning interweaving of threads like our relationship with technologies, foolish niche academia and the psychological encroachment of the media effortlessly fill page after page of this skillful satire that's as funny as it is tragic. If I was to find fault it'd be that despite being richly drawn individuals the main characters became a little tiresome in the final third and maybe the pacing of key events could have been improved. Still this is one fine book and given it was written 26 years ago a startlingly prescient one. I can't wait to read one of Delillo's more contemporary novels. Thanks to Sir J for the tip.

Crashing a plane into water near the town of Shepperton a young man transcends and transforms reality in J G Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company. Quite unlike his early scifi dystopias or his later near-future prophecies Ballard's fantastical, William Blake inspired novel is a exhilarating fantastical narrative about nature and religion, er I guess. After the fatal crash our protagonist is imbued with great power and with the local populace under his sway they become witness and participants in his ascent into a strange, brooding Demigod. Unfettered and plunged into the mystic Ballard's writing has never been better as he creates dizzying scapes of preternatural fecundity, orgiastic metamorphoses and their flipside of fetid decay and insistent absorption. It's a hard novel to explain so you're just better off getting yourself a copy and diving right in.

Gid Vids

2011-08-24T23:56:00.004+01:00

Animated Sheet of So What, via Dangerous Minds

Amazing Sand art via Neatorama

392 seconds of August fails, via reddit