Something’s odd with WordPress today (no dashboard), so I’ll make this quick’n'easy. More proper updates to follow in the new year (2012 – bring on the apocalypse!), but for now here’s what Michel Gondry gets up to when he’s bored:
For those who don’t get it, check out the plot synopsis for Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind and especially this. If you still don’t get it, well, the French are weird, y’know?
Enjoy the rest of 2011 – see you next year!
There’s something ironic about watching three one-hour films about the influence of modern technology on our lives, recorded via digital TV, and then that old technology they call “Teletext” goes on the fritz, giving us one line of subtitles every 5-10 minutes… Where are modern TVs that use the YouTube algorithm to subtitle programmes on the fly?
Anyway, Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror. We already had the one where the pig, ahem, and the prime minister, erm, you know. The second episode was broader in choosing its satirical targets: gamification, avatars, Nintendo WiiFit and Miis, micro-transactions, casting shows, all of those were in there. There wasn’t anything terribly original about any of the individual elements – but Brooker and his co-writer and wife Konnie Huq turned “Fifteen Million Merits” into a strangely moving, discomfiting romance with a final twist that, though again not exactly new, worked very well… and Rupert Everett makes a wonderfully hateful mirror-universe Simon Cowell.
I was very much looking forward to the third and final episode, “The Entire History of You”, as I’d been surprised to enjoy the first two as much as I did. The episode was beautifully shot and edited, and the acting was strong as well, but in the end it disappointed, more so than any of the previous ones. My biggest quibble with it is that the central conceit – in the not-too-distant future, almost everyone has an implant, the Grain, that records what people experience and allows for instant playback on any AV setup, complete with zooms and, I’d imagine, instant uploads to YouTube for all of those cute-cat/fat-kid-making-an-arse-of-himself/America’s-funniest-maulings type experiences. So far, so okay… but the entire story, centred on an insecure husband who (rightly) suspects his wife had an affair, does not really depend on the Grain. While the tech, which Black Mirror purportedly is about, may change the exact expression of the protagonist’s anxieties, the story would not have differed in any major way without it. “The National Anthem” (now with more pig!) and “Fifteen Million Merits” were about human foibles, but they depended on technology to highlight how our understanding of public vs. private, self-image, entertainment etc. are shaped by the media we use to express them. Perhaps “History”‘s point was that technology doesn’t screw up people, people screw themselves up, but after the previous episodes had made a strong point that the tech, the media, the platforms do matter, that they do shape us, that would have been a strange point to make.
Still, having watched all of Black Mirror, I’m definitely curious now about Brooker’s Big Brother-inspired, zombie-infested satire Dead Set. Apparently Davina McCall gets munched on by the undead… not that I’d wish that on any TV personality. Except perhaps Ann Coulter, but let’s face it, those brains would be a tad on the nouvelle cuisine side.
In Swiss cinemas, there’s almost always an intermission roughly halfway during the film. Doesn’t matter if it’s a three-hour epic or a blink-and-it’s-over chit of a comedy. Doesn’t even matter if it’s the remastered 2001: A Space Odyssey and five minutes after the cinema’s intermission (2001 - now there’s a true popcorn flick!) there’s the roadshow version’s actual intermission.
Even though I would consider myself a cinephile, I don’t hate intermissions with a vengeance. Sometimes I like having a moment to pause and think about what I’ve just seen; sometimes my bladder is grateful for them.
And sometimes they break a movie’s back, much like this:
I greatly enjoyed the first 50-60 minutes of Roman Polanski’s Carnage. The film was expertly paced, the casting near perfect (although I would’ve loved to see James Gandolfini in it), the performances strong, with just the right lightness of touch. I’m notoriously tricky when it comes to comedy, but I was laughing along with the escalating situation. And then came the break.
For all I know, without the forced interruption I would have stayed in the film. I would have enjoyed it to the end. As it was, the impetus was gone, and what remained felt clichéd, trite, predictable. Oh ho, neuroses and hypocrisy under a thin veneer of civilisation! Tee hee, the lawyer collapses when his mobile phone ends up in the vase! Giggle, snort, the wife breaks down in a sobbing wreck when her beloved handbag is thrown across the room, spilling its innards all over the floor.
Thing is, all of this – the clichés, the lack of any depth – was there in the first half… but as the film built up momentum, it felt like all of this was exactly to the point. Having had five minutes of ice cream ad projected at the screen and then to pick up where we’d left, as if nothing had happened? Carnage had turned from witty, sharp, light-of-touch comedy to leaden sitcom. The remaining 25 minutes felt longer than the almost-hour we’d already seen. Yes, it was still expertly acted, but to such obvious, hackneyed effect. Perhaps an earlier break would’ve been better, giving the film more of a chance to build up momentum again. I don’t know, but as it was I had seen two thirds of a smart, funny film, only to turn against it in the remaining half hour.
It’s difficult not to think of this piece of Zen wisdom:
P.S.: It’s difficult not to love Christoph Waltz’ performance in this, though, while disagreeing with him 99.9%.
So… Glad that’s over. I’m not going to spout overused terms such as Jumping the Shark, but if I hadn’t known that House M.D. was waaaaay past its prime before, I definitely would know after having watched the season 7 finale. One of the advantages of being 6-12 months behind the English speaking world due to watching series on Swiss TV is that I’d already heard all the clamouring, wailing, gnashing of teeth and general lamentations concerning the season ending, so I had lowered my expectations accordingly. Not quite enough, mind you – it’s painful watching the actors trying to make the material work. Lazy writing is one thing; lazy writing that spells all the show’s facile pop psychology out is just insulting to the intelligence of the audience.
From everything I’ve heard about the eighth (and final, right? Promise?) season, it sounds like the show remains moderately, patchily watchable, but at this point it’s difficult not to wish for the actors involved to find something better that isn’t written by an infinite number of computers programmed by monkeys (and shit-flinging ones at that) and possibly IT supported by outsourced Indian monkeys. (For the record: the computers work flawlessly, even if their output is dross.)
How do you follow up a depressingly shoddy episode of House? Why, with a Channel Four satire about the UK Prime Minister coerced into having sexual intercourse with a pig, that’s how! The first episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror sounded like crass satire in a one-sentence synopsis, and the reviews I’d read were tepid at best – so I was surprised to find “The National Anthem” well written, well acted and quite thought-provoking. While the premise is satirical, the episode plays it straight and with remarkable conviction at that – which made “The National Anthem” quite a bit more unsettling than a more leering, in-your-face approach would’ve achieved.
Though the entire media satire-meets-inappropriate sexual content thing did put me in mind of one of my favourite Monty Python sketches. So, to end this post on a more amusing note:
