The Dark Knight... Begins?

Note: I have done my best not to reveal any significant plot or character moments from The Dark Knight Rises, and you won't learn anything from this blog that should spoil your enjoyment of the film if you have not seen it. However, if you simply must not know anything at all, I recommend you get yourself to the cinema, pronto, and then read this afterwards. The same probably goes for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, though f you haven't seen that by now, you really aren't trying.



There's a great bit in the film  Ferris Bueller's Day Off where Ferris and his buddies go to an art gallery and zoom around taking a look at the paintings, as would any normal, healthy teenagers on a day off school. Here's the scene. You don't need to watch it, but it's very nice.



Anyway, the bit I really like is the bit near the end where Cameron - played by the awesome Alan Ruck - get's lost in a painting, his gaze (and ours) focusing closer and closer on the image until all we can see are the fibres of the canvas. The meaning of the image is gone, all that is left is colour and shape.

I like it for a number of reasons. It says something about Cameron himself, of course, and the lack of centre his character has. There's also a kind of abstract aesthetic beauty to the scene which is a satisfactory end in itself. And then there's the reason I'm thinking of it now. Some things, it seems, are impossible to make sense of until you move away from them. I guess for Ferris and his friends, his 'day off' would be one of them - a flutter of inconsequential moments that would gain significance the older they got. Imagine Jim McAllister from Alexander Payne's Election, looking back on his carefree youth, seeing it anew from his compromised, trapped, older point of view. Time and distance lend perspective, give things shape.

I saw The Dark Knight Rises on Friday, and I have to say, I feel like Cameron in my reactions. Too close to the canvas to really understand what is going on. There's a film there, yes, and I sort of have an opinion on it, but I can't quite see it yet. I'm too near, too involved in this moment. If you ask me what I think, I'll probably praise it to the heavens - I did really enjoy it - but that will be kind of a cheat because I don't really know what it means yet.

I'm not like this about every film, you understand. I didn't sit through 'Bad Teacher' ruminating on the existential nature of my viewing experience. I thought "This is slightly better than I thought it would be," and "I don't really fancy Cameron Diaz any more'" And then I forgot about it. It didn't matter. I think TDKR does matter.

For one, and most obviously perhaps, there was no way to watch the film without being aware of the cinema shootings in Denver not 24 hours before. There are - and this should not come as a spoiler to anyone - some scenes in TDKR featuring gunfire, and people screaming. It was impossible to watch without wondering at what point in the film that Denver audience found themselves wrenched out of fantasy violence into its real life equivalent.

Once leaving the cinema, it is still impossible to disassociate the movie from the shootings. Scores of idiot speculators are scrambling over each other to find causal links between a comic book movie and the cowardly actions of an idiot with guns. We won't be out of these particular woods for some time, largely due to the desperation of some Americans to blame gun crime on absolutely anything but guns. But just in case someone near you even tries to blame 'these kind of movies' for the actions of cowards with guns, here's an argument you can use for free. Director Christopher Nolan's films are not about the power of weapons, or of armour, or even of strength. They are about the power of hope, The Dark Knight Rises especially so. There are at least two scenes in TDKR which unarmed individuals advance in the face of gunfire - vulnerable, heroic, believing that doing the right thing is more powerful than superior firepower. The film is behind these people and gives their actions worth. It is against the men with guns. Against. Them.

Moving on from these events, the biggest struggle TDKR has is the shadow of its immediate predecessor - the similarly named The Dark Knight. And while there are a number of 'brilliant things' about TDK that TDKR might struggle to emulate, there is really only one that people are talking about - can Tom Hardy's Bane match Heath Ledger's Joker? The latter performance is one of the greatest pieces of character creation in living memory, elevated into instant legend by the subsequent death of Ledger. And it is an issue that will not leave you during a viewing of TDKR. Bane is not The Joker, Hardy is not Ledger. You will not find any satisfaction trying to locate 'Jokerness' in this film.

And this is the problem, isn't it? Nolan has ignored the great rule of sequels - do the same thing again, but different. It's not just that Bane is not The Joker. Gotham has changed. Batman has changed. The genre, pretty much, has changed. The entire tone and feel of this movie is different from what has come before. And  I will admit that, having rewatched Batman Begins and The Dark Knight in the run up to TDKR, I did occasionally find myself, as I watched the new film on Friday, wondering, 'Is this... as good?'

Like Cameron, I need to step away from the canvas. TDKR is not 'as good' as those two films. Neither is it better that them. Or worse. It is part of a larger canvas, one I can't properly see yet. One that takes in a bigger idea of heroism, hope, madness and society than one film can properly express. We are looking at a series of films that will, one day, transcend its individual components and even the tragic circumstances of its birth. What it will then be, I can't yet say. I'm just too close.

Star Wars Trivia

Every now and then I have one of those glorious days where I don't have to speak to anyone at all. This is ace, because most of what people have to see is a huge waste of my time, but it does have a drawback. When I finally do see someone, and try to speak to them, I find myself utterly unable to remember how people are meant to communicate.

One of two things then happens. Either I mutter staccato, incomprehensible sounds, blinking at them like a fish transformed unexpectedly into a human, having completely forgotten how to talk. Or, worse, I babble like a madman, wittering at high speed about everything that has ever happened to me and what it might mean. Neither of these makes for a delightful spectacle, unless you hate me and want to see me look like a fool.

I mention this 'not speaking' thing because I've not blogged for a while and may well have forgotten how to speak to you, the beloved denizens of internetworld. Please don't be put off if I bark and howl, or make a noise like a spanner banging about in a washing machine. I'm sure I'll be back to normal before long. In the meantime... have this:

Klaatu Barada Nikto

Some time ago I embarked upon a dictionary of what I considered to be the most important things about Star Wars. I got as far as 'O' and then kind of drifted off topic and started bitching about the BBC. Well, I thought I'd do some more. Should you wish to remind yourself of the previous entries, I believe you can access them by clicking on 'Klaatu Barada Nikto' somewhere towards the end of this blog. Or I suppose you could trawl through the entire backlog of my written nonsense, and forget about whatever it was you were doing before you came wandering into this dark corridor or my mind.

So, then...

P is for Padme


Unused screenplay extract from ATTACK OF THE CLONES. PADME, who is also called AMIDALA for reasons that are never entirely clear, is talking to a PRETTY LOOKALIKE.


AMIDALA

Hello, would you like a job with the ruling elite of Naboo?



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

Yes please!



AMIDALA

Well, how would you feel about wearing this big special hat?



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

But that’s your special hat, your royal prettiness.



AMIDALA

 Yes, well, never mind that. Just put it on. That’s right. And now paint your face

white.



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

But maam , now I look just like you…



AMIDALA

Yes, that’s right. Now. I’m going to stand over here, looking normal, and I’d like

you to wander over there, towards that bomb.



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

Bomb?



AMIDALA

Did I say bomb? I meant spaceship.



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

You said bomb.



AMIDALA

No I didn’t.



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

You did, you said bomb.



AMIDALA

Do you want this job or not?



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

I’m not sure…



AMIDALA

Look, just walk towards the shiny, lovely, very safe spaceship.



PRETTY LOOKALIKE

Well, alright. Why are you running away, your highness?



Spaceship explodes. Good triumphs over evil. Padme/Amidala runs away and becomes a famous ballerina. Possibly.


Coming soon - Q is for Qui-Gon Jinn.

Album review: Postcards

This Way to the Seaside!

‘Postcards’ is the second album from weird and brilliant West Yorkshire trio The Housekeeping Society, following 2011s oddball debut, ‘This Way to Power’. If you’ve heard that album, or been lucky enough to catch one of their mesmerising live sets, you’ll have some idea what you’re in for. If not... well, describing them might be a bit tricky.



They’re not normal, you see, the Housekeepers. Quite aside from their decidedly odd moniker, they produce music that pings with wit and invention, bounding gleefully from one musical style to another whilst never losing focus on a sound that is, distinctly, and for want of a better word... Housekeepy. You might want to call it folk music, with its earthy, organic tones dominated by guitar, piano and ukelele, breathing in time with the yearnings of its characters. But then these are also pop songs, with canny, vibrant hooks and melodies that seep unnoticed into the background chatter of your mind and hum away all day.



We start with a journey to the seaside, as opening track The Coast is Clear builds a rhythm around the chugging of a steam train that develops into a wide eyed, playful hymn to the joys of getting away from it all. From this point on we will never be far from the beach, swooping through the lives of holidaymakers, locals, Bed and Breakfast owners and seafarers, as the fortunes of the holiday industry ebb and swell through the years. The tone shifts from vaudevillian whimsy (Seaside Mystery Man) to wistful melancholy (the achingly beautiful Ghosts), taking in romance, nostalgia and social commentary along the way.



Shot through all this like words through a stick of rock is a real sense of time and place. The album tastes of salt and candy-floss, thanks in no small part to the layering of location recording from the North Coast, often sequenced into the rhythms of the tracks by percussionist Ivan Mack.

There are two or three tracks that stand out quite quickly. End Of The Pier is energetic and poppy, with a frenzied electronic bass-line under swooping strings and a soaring lead vocal by Ric Neale that would make Morten Harket’s ears prick up. The plaintive, wistful voice of Spencer Bayles, meanwhile, lends a delicate and beautiful sadness to You, Me And The Swell Of The Sea. Most moving of all, and for this reviewer the highlight of the album, is the Neale penned Still. In this ballad we hear the prayers of a woman widowed by the sea, wondering how the God who moves over the face of the water could let it happen. A powerful lyric over a haunting piano signature, the song burrows deeper with every listen.



There are many other treasures here. Suitcase is either funny or heartbreaking depending on your mood, as the titular item of luggage laments an increasingly one-sided love affair with its owner. And closing track The Seaside’s Been Shut Down sees nothing wrong with being both sing-a-long melodic perfection and a terribly sad curtain drawn on the world we have been celebrating.


The whole album, in fact, plays on the tension between the joy of the present and the pain of the past, finding both beauty and sadness in the fading world of the sea front. This is reflected not only in the carefully crafted lyrics and eclectic instrumentation, but also in the gorgeous cover art. Created by Jean McEwan and Robert Hope, the sleeve design evokes in image what the album does in sound: seaside landscapes, slipping out of focus into abstract, pastel memory. On the cover a child-like scribble of a house soars through the air, carried by a zeppelin over a defocused seafront. Hope and bittersweet nostalgia at the same time, Postcards is something to write home about.

Postcards is available for pre-order. For inormation, including upcoming tour dates, visit http://www.thehousekeepingsociety.com/

Do Homophobes Dream of Electric Gays?

Hello you, you gorgeous thing. Is that a new haircut? No? Well, maybe I'd just forgotten how lovely your face was. Lovely, lovely face. Like a statue, carved from fragrant soap. May I lick your lovely face? May I? Hmm. Maybe I shouldn't have done that. Your face tastes weird.

Right, stop flirting you hussy - we've got work to do. The weather has got warmer, the evenings longer and, as a result, the homophobes have come buzzing out of hibernation to irritate the shit out of us. You've probably seen them, wittering about how The Gays are coming to eat your sandwiches, steal your toys and have sex with your Jesus. Just as a hayfever sufferer can sniff a high pollen count, I can sense an unusually high presence of self righteous dickheads in the air, and I think it's time to either murder them in their beds as they sleep or, at the very least, complain about them incessantly online. Whichever gets the job done.

The trouble with hunting homophobes is that they a) look just like us and b) often honestly don't know they are homophobes. They think they are reasonable humans, making good and righteous moral arguments from a fair and balanced perspective. A vast proportion of them call themselves Christian, and believe that they are doing God's work. If you went up to them with an axe and said "Are you a homophobe?" they would probably say "Goodness no, I'm just a lovely person who wants to make the world a better place for everyone - even faggots!"

In this sense, they're like the Replicants in Blade Runner. You've seen Blade Runner, right? Ridley Scott film from 1982. In it, androids that look exactly like humans are loose on future Earth - violent, clever androids that will snap your fingers off as soon as look at you with their artificial eyes. Harrison Ford is sent to catch them but - oh oh - not only do these Replicants look human, but they've been implanted with human memories, so they feel emotions and, in some cases, believe themselves to be human.

Harrison Ford employs a test to determine if someone is human or not, called the Voight Kampff test. It's a series of questions, designed to elicit an emotional response. If the subject fails to register enough emotion, Harrison concludes that this person is, in fact, made of wires and plastic and stuff, and quite rightly shoots them in their artificial face. It's a very efficient system, and I've devised my own version to aid us in our fight against the Homos (I thought I'd shorten homophobes to 'homos'. That's alright, isn't it?)

 

Here comes the test. Just confont your homo with the scenario, and gauge their response from the options I have provided.


The Voight Campff Test

Scenario One

You see a gay couple outside a church. Two men, two women, doesn't matter. And they're in suits. Wedding suits. All their friends are around them, throwing confetti and taking pictures. They are smiling. They have rings on their fingers. Behind them, a Vicar smiles, as if to say, "I have just performed a marriage service for these gays."

How do you feel?

a) Outraged and homicidal. Jesus invented marriage in 32AD and quite clearly stated that it was to be on a Saturday afternoon, and you have to wear a tie, and that it's NOT FOR THE GAYS. Now this Gay marriage has happened, all straight  marriages are rendered void and we will all be forced to have anal sex and/or whatever it is gay ladies do.

b) Pleased. The institution of marriage is not exclusively religious in nature - it has some foundation in the context of social and economic norms and thus has changed over time. The Bible certainly doesn't have a consistent, set in stone approach to marriage and it's frankly a lie to say that it does.

c) Bored - it's a wedding of people I don't know. I hate those.

Scenario Two

You are playing a computer game. In it, you can murder a wide variety of people using all manner of exciting weapons. They explode pleasingly when you kill them. Every woman you meet is half naked and fetishised to the point of absurdity. Suddenly you are confronted with a character who is clearly a homosexual. He has an earring and everything. And you have the option to kiss him, if you want to.

How do you feel?

a) Horrified and disgusted. The wholesome, Christian hobby of murdering people in computer games has been invaded by disgusting filth. I am being literally forced to choose the option where I kiss this muscular yet tender space marine in his perfectly designed stubbly face. There are no gay people in real life, or in fiction, so why are they in computer games?

b) Pleasantly surprised. Massive under-representation of homosexuality in mainstream media is one of the contributing factors to their social status as 'other'. If they remain 'other', they are easier to ignore, or - worse - persecute. Also, I assume it is nice for a gay person to be able to play a character which better fits their sexual orientation. In fact, I think it might be a closer fit for good old hetrosexual me, rather than the screaming masculine insecurity of the brutes I'm usually forced to play.

c) Indifferent. Sexual orientation really doesn't come into it when all you're planning to do is bayonet people in the face.

Scenario Three

You orchestrate an advertising campaign suggesting that gayness is basically a disease that can be cured. You try to put your adverts onto the side of buses, but are told that you can't because that's a horrible, small minded twattish thing to do.

How do you feel?

a) Marginalised and oppressed. Middle class white males like myself have been persucuted since the beginning of time, and this is just another example of a society that tolerates and loves homsexuality above all other belief systems. Also, being a gay is clearly quite similar to being a leper. Just as Jesus tried to heal those with leprosy, I am simply trying to heal those with Gay Disease. Basically, I am Jesus.

b) Ashamed of myself for my incredible arrogance. Rather than focusing my efforts on sex trafficking, gang warfare or the ever worsening plight of poor families, I have chosen to criticise the lives of people whose orientation I simply do not understand. I have adopted a simplistic approach to the situation based on a selective misunderstanding of social science, psychology and religion. I have allowed my own personal fear of difference to dominate my judgement and now I am legitamising prejudice and abuse by perpetuating the myth that homosexuality is an illness.

c) Confused, because Boris Johnson has said something decent and sensible.


Anyway, that's the test. Feel free to take it yourself, or apply it to suspected homophobes. If they test positive (mostly 'a's), feel free to chase them through the streets, leaping onto cars and shooting wildly with your space pistol.

Rob vs the BBC - Episode 3

Previously on "Rob vs the BBC"...

Rob stands against a raindrenched street, silhouetted in the sodium glare of the streetlamps. He looks very sexy and cool, like Angel - the vampire with a soul, only with a better face. 

ROB:     Hey, the BBC! Stop sticking bloody great 'coming next' stickers over programmes I'm watching!

Cut to The BBC, standing on top of a car, pissing all over the place.

THE BBC:   No, we can't. People think they're ace. Don't they everyone?

A crowd of people huddle, wretched and cold outside a fish and chip shop. Occasionally the BBC's piss splashes in their faces.

CROWD: (mumbling)   Not really. They're quite annoying.

The BBC spins round, eyes blazing with cold fury. It reaches into its jacket and pulls out a huge machine rifle.

THE BBC:  What was that you bastards?

CROWD: We mean they're very helpful for telling us what time things are on. Without them we would never, ever know what to watch.

Even as they are saying this, one of the crowd - a gentle orphan child - turns to look at Rob. Her tearful face seems to say 'Will you help us against this evil man?'

Rob rises up to his full, impressive height. His handsome face burns with steely determination.

ROB: That's enough!

CUT TO:

Rob and the BBC are locked in deadly combat on the roof of a burning building. Their swords clash, sending sparks into the night sky. 

ROB: No-one likes those On-Screen announcements, you liar! They're an annoying intrusion and they spoil programmes!

THE BBC: I don't care! I'm going to keep on doing it anyway! Ha ha ha ha!

The roof explodes around the two duellists, leaving them perched precariously on the edge of a terrifying drop. Rob presses in, smashing the BBC's sword from its hand. The sword tumbles to the ground below, where the crowd from earlier watch, thinking how cool Rob is and what a prick the BBC is being.

The BBC looks at Rob, grinning manically even though all is surely lost.

THE BBC: You can't win, Rob. Whatever you say, we're just going to keep slapping intrusive, annoying labels over the end of programme. Maybe we'll even start doing it... on BBC1!

ROB: I loved you so much! You know that! I LOVED YOU SO MUCH!

And Rob leaps at the BBC, and they fall, into the flaming inferno below...


Anyway, that's pretty much what happened. If you want the full details you can read the actual correspondence here and here. And once you've read them, I'm sure you'll agree that a) I'm a genius and b) I'm fully justified in my next letter to them, which you can read below.

Dear Mr Kettle

Thank you for your detailed and personal reply to my complaint about In Programme Pointers. As you'll remember, I consider them worthless acts of cultural vandalism and took great pains to point out why. You, in return, sought to justify their existence and tell me that you had no plans to change things anytime soon. I hope you'll understand if I press the matter a little further, believing as I do that your reply does not really nail the essence of my complaint.

First off, I note that you are 'continually conducting research' into my area of concern. Well, you'll see in my last letter that I was fairly specific in asking for details of this research, and yet you still haven't given me any. Your previous letter stated that your IPPs are 'much appreciated by our audience', and I'd said I didn't believe that in the slightest, and asked you for details. In fact, I pretty much accused you of being disingenuous with this data, and challenged you to prove me wrong. So come on. Either give me some data to back up these claims or stop using them as evidence in your argument.

Next up: your second paragraph is all about how not everyone uses newspapers, the internet etc. and so you have to let them know what is on next. I note you completely ignore my point that, as we all go digital, we all have Electronic Programme Guides telling us what is on next, at the touch of a button. You work in the industry, so tell me: by the end of 2012, won't everybody have switched over to digital television? And won't they all therefore have access to EPGs?

And even if they don't, why are you prioritising them - people who can't be bothered to look at one of the millions of TV guides available  - over me - someone who has worked out what he wants to watch, and is trying to watch it? Why is your desire to let people know when things are on greater than your desire to let them watch the programme uninterrupted?

What I would like is some sense that you are taking this complaint seriously. That you genuinely do have the interests of your audience at heart. At the moment you are coming over as someone employed to justify decisions that have already been made. Your reply is a well executed set of evasions and rhetoric, and one only has to look at the language you are using to see an underlying contempt for my point of view and a lack of interest in providing a meaningful response.

For instance: If you want me to feel like you are listening, don't say 'we're sorry if that's how you perceive it'. I don't just perceive IPPs as intrusive - they absolutely, definitively, provably are intrusive. They intrude on the screen, on the action, on the drama. You are trying to shift the focus here onto my reaction to the IPPs, rather than taking responsibility for their existence in the first place. This is not how professionals like yourself should be writing - it is how squabbling couples try to score points off one another: "I'm sorry you feel that way." Don't do it.

If you are reading this letter, Mr Kettle, it means you have followed the link from the much shortened version I have submitted on your website, so thank you. I have submitted that shorter version because you asked me to in your letter. I don't mind doing it, but your insistence that I do so raises a question. Why was this recommendation not given in your first reply? Was my first letter even read, beyond a cursory glance to see what it was vaguely about? You've ignored an awful lot of the points I raised there, so I am wondering if you read it in the first place.

I would like you to consider my complaint more seriously than you have done so far. I want access to the data which you say justifies the inclusion of IPPs. I want a response which addresses the specific issues which I have brought up, especially the factoring in of EPGs. Most of all I want to see a reaction which suggests you have the slightest interest in any opinion other than that of your marketing department.