A Few Thoughts on The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo

So a few thoughts after seeing David Fincher's The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo from someone who has neither read the books nor seen the Swedish films, approached in the frantic and fast aesthetic of Fincher's editing:

1. This is one of those weird pan-Western Hollywood productions where it's English and American stars have to put on strange, half-arsed Scandinavian accents because of it's Swedish setting, and even then they drop into their normal voices most of the time.  You kind of wish they would just set the film in Alaska so we wouldn't have to put up with this weird pretense.

2. Similar to The Dark Knight, the first half of this film feels a bit like a trailer, frantically cramming fragments of scenes on top of each other, glueing them with overlapping dialogue.  Montage upon montage and razor sharp cuts admirably solidify key story points and character motivations while we're rushed along without a moment to breathe; it's nicely done but grows a tad wearing after a while.

3. And of course all this is underpinned by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' heaving, pulsing soundtrack.  It's nice to see the figure behind Nine Inch Nails (one of my favourite bands as a teen) being reborn as a superb film composer.  Reznor and Ross' score churns and flutters, moans and throbs, and generally keeps the tension bubbling away throughout with their synths and drum machines (when I say this I mean computer (probably a Mac)).

4. Lastly I think the opening credit sequence needs to be addressed:  it's completely berserk and comes out of nowhere!  Weird CGI graphics of the films lead characters, along with USB cables which fly out at us, underpinned by an industrial version of Led Zeppelin's 'Immigrant Song'!?  The only possible linkage with the film's plot that I can think of, is that it might be some sort of visualisation of Lisbeth Salander's dreams?  I'm really not sure what was going on there.

That's all I have to say.  It's quite a good film, but not quite as thrilling as I was hoping it to be.  Oh yeah, it also tries to sully the purity of Enya's 'Orinoco Flow', which I'm not sure I'm happy about.

And Lisbeth Salander at one point is wearing a t-shirt with 'FUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCK' emblazoned across it, which I think is brilliant.

Later Bureaucrats...

Really Frightening

Hello.  I think most of us are pretty desensitised to this image (as well as the poster for the first Jaws) these days, but I came across it the other day and it struck me how bloody nightmarish it is.  I mean, it's really really scary.  Look at it.  It's not really a shark, it's a bloody huge monster.  It will swallow you whole after it's gulped down the lady water-skier.  It will not be stopped.  Run, my god, run (or swim).

Busey Bites 3

Here we have Mr. Busey in a much more subdued role, having only a small part in David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997) playing Balthazar Getty's father.  Gary says nothing in this particular scene, but it's one hell of an entrance none the less; decked out in leather and shades with his wife (Lucy Butler) he looks like James Dean crossed with The Judder Man.

What is particularly special in this scene, for me, is how clearly it demonstrates the volume of Gary Busey's head.  There's something almost Tyrannosaurus Rex-like about its size, particularly when his mouth is agape; I kind of expect him to leap on the desk, little arms bunched up to his chest, and rip the heads off the odd assortment of penitentiary bureaucrats fearfully looking on at the leather-clad blonde mensch who's just waltzed into their world.

Later penitentiary bureaucrats...

Re: 'The Demise of the Terrestrial Treat'

Just to back up my recent article, it's 1 in the morning, I'm about to go to bed and The Godfather is just starting on Channel 5.  And it's not a short film.  What they playing at?

Film Haiku #3: Ode to Christopher Lloyd in Back To The Future

body contorts, eyes bulge, hands flail,

and I ask

did you inspire Michael Richards portrayal of Cosmo Kramer in Seinfield?

After Hours, Scorsese and New York

After Hours (1985) is the underrated gem of Martin Scorsese’s 1980’s films. When asked, many people would say that Raging Bull, released in 1980, was Scorsese’s only notable film of that decade. Indeed, some are even unaware that Scorsese actually made other films during this period as the box office success of After Hours, The King of Comedy (1983) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) were minor in comparison to Marty’s more illustrious offerings such as GoodFellas (1990) and Casino (1995).

After Hours tells the story of computer programmer Paul Hackett, played brilliantly by Griffen Dunne (American Werewolf in London) who, after a typically dull day at work, meets Rosanna Arquette in a New York coffee shop. After being given Arquette's phone number, Paul makes the unusually spontaneous decision to go to the Soho part of the city later that night in order to buy a plaster of Paris bagel paperweight from Arquette's roommate who is an artist. This, of course, is a smokescreen that can potentially result in him meeting Arquette again.

As soon as Paul’s twenty-dollar bill blows out of the taxi window en-route to Soho and he is given a withering look by the irate driver, his night goes from bad to worse. From this point onward, the seemingly simple process of returning home becomes a nightmare. Over the course of the night Paul meets a host of Soho crazies from gay vigilantes to schizophrenic waitresses. Each time Paul comes across someone who appears helpful and sympathetic, events beyond his control conspire to turn these benefactors against him.
Eventually Paul becomes so emotionally fatigued and frustrated that his use of the term ‘oh wow’ takes on a very funny and tangibly real quality in a scene toward the end of the film. Yet again, embedding issues have conspired to ruin MY night but you can watch the said scene here: http://youtu.be/CXv0lziInvE

I would argue that while Scorsese’s films in the 80’s, barring Raging Bull, were not as grand and operatic in scale as GoodFellas, Casino or The Departed (2006), they are similarly fine directorial achievements. Scorsese’s visual and narrative style in the case of this film, remains the same and ultimately recognizable as his own.
The film is laced with the trademark Scorsese sweeping movements of the camera and occasionally breathless editing we all know, but it is in his presentation and treatment of New York City, that his finest work can be seen. As in Taxi Driver (1976), the city feels like a character in its own right and something central and key, even on a subconscious level, in gaining the most emotional understanding from the film. As Paul navigates the rain-slicked streets and smoke rises up from the street’s many man-holes and air vents, the sense of place and time feels strong and drags the viewer into the city and into the film itself.

The New York City of After Hours

After Hours is a fantastically dark, paranoid black comedy about mistaken identity, suspicion and sexuality but also it is another one of Scorsese’s love letters to New York. Be it from a negative or a positive point of view, the film is made with the city in mind. Whether from it’s inhabitants to it’s buildings or from it’s neighborhoods to it’s transport system, this film, like so many Scorsese has made in New York before, seems to capture they way things felt in this place and at that time.
This can also be seen in the film’s satirical view of both the gay and the hipster art community in New York at that time, almost a pre-cursor to Chris Morris’s Nathan Barley and some of those that inhabit the Dalston area of London currently.

Also, watch out for early appearances of Home Alone actors John Heard and, in particular, Catherine O’Hara whose performance is especially memorable.

Trailer Trauma

Gaaaahhhdd movie trailers are so predictable these days.  I'm always excited to see trailers before the main movie event, it's part and parcel of the whole experience.  But I swear these days every trailer follows a format of two halves.

1st Half: Moody, enigmatic, snippets of dialogue that don't reveal too much, the editing, music, it all poses a lot of questions.  This is fine, if only the trailer ended here, but no, we must go on to the...

2nd Half: The music changes, it becomes more overtly emotional, we see characters hugging, crying, screaming, we feel like we're seeing a lot more of the film than we should in a trailer.  There is a sort of saccharine emotional rush, whatever type of film is being advertised.

Endless amounts of trailers follow this format, whether its a thriller or a family drama or a sci-fi, good and bad.  So, below are three trailers which were more daring, tell the audience a lot less, and are all the better for it.

1. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Using footage shot specifically for the trailer, the teaser further adds to the reality of the film, creating a bleak and scary mood.  Fave bit is the question put to the dad of one of the missing students, where it cuts before he answers.  Don't know why but that is especially affecting.




















2. Psycho (1960)
Okay, so this trailer isn't exactly quick and to the point, being as it is over 6 minutes long, but Hitchcock plays it so coy.  The audience back in the day must have known he was toying with them, yet at the same time been caught up in the mystery.  And even though the whole thing is rather tongue-in-cheek, the ending is still visceral and horrifying.  'Bathroom....'



3. Dogville (2003)
Similar to the Psycho trailer, Dogville's teaser plays on the notoriety of it's director, telling the viewer a lot more about the production of the film and the hardship the actors underwent, rather than the film itself.  But what it says to us really is: controversy.  We ask ourselves: 'If the reality is so controversial, then the fictional must be horrifying.  I've got to see it!'

 

Musical Journeys With Rustie (on the Tube & in my head)

  

 Anyone sitting opposite me on the tube recently may have noticed me attempting to hide an elated smile as we traversed subterranean London.  My mouth fidgeted childishly, wrestling with the grin that was attempting to beam out of my twenty seven year old face, my seated body twitched as it battled restraint.  The reason for this excitement is the newest album by Glasgow-based producer Rustie, Glass Swords.  It takes Dubstep, a pointless term these days, refracted as the genre is into various sub genres and scenes like light off the sides of the aforementioned mineral, and explodes it into a rainbow-coloured glitter-synth rush. A song like 'Ultra Thizz' launches euphoric blasts at the listener, vocodered vocals twirl and flutter while the beats stomp and kick like an ecstatic pixie hammering back and forth.  Like much 'Post-Dubstep', or 'Bass Music' (take your pick, both are equally boring epithets), Rustie intertwines his music with the after-image of 90's dance music; but whereas someone like Burial engenders a sense of memory, nostalgia inherent in the music, Rustie's music is infinitely more hyperactive, zinging and blasting off like a rainbow rocket shooting these references into the future. With synthesizers and kick drums jumping up and down and setting off fireworks in my head, it was hard to keep still on the Piccadilly Line.  When 'Hover Traps' goes 'epic', the melody reverberates like a church choir transformed into seven hundred heavenly synths, a buzzing mass of colour and melody; it's hard not to leap up and punch the air when you hear this stuff, it's so goddamn exhilarating.  This got me to thinking about my relationship with songs.  How I obsess over music as exciting and intoxicating as Glass Swords.  The amount of times this week that I have skipped back to the beginning of a song as it reached it's close, was, well, a lot.

And yet even now I can feel the thrill of Rustie's album begin to fade; the rainbow synths are not quite as dazzling and the fluorescent vocal samples fair to stir in me the sense of escapism that music can generate in the listener.  I realise that obsessing over a song tends to be a reductive process for me.  At first I am so bowled over by the track that listening to it is just as much an attempt at making sense of it, as it is marvelling at it's rush and creativity.  The song contains a mystery that I haven't yet solved; it's alien and invigorating and continually draws me back for repeated listens.  Countless tracks, from many a genre, have awakened the joyous explorer in me, causing me to listen to them again and again in a short space of time: 'Strings of Life', 'Teeth Like God's Shoeshine', 'Waltz #2', even a song as drawn out and disparate as Godspeed You! Black Emperor's 'Dead Flag Blues'.  Of course this is ultimately self-defeating; as I slowly come to understand the track more and more, as I begin to anticipate it's peaks and troughs with each successive listen, the mystery and excitement begins to fade bit by bit.  And soon, I'm grasping on to that one peak, that one ecstatic moment which is my dearest moment of the song, the moment that conjures a careless jubilation and contentment with life.  But, as with most things, this moment is fuelled by what surrounds it, indeed when I first heard the song I may not have considered this my favourite moment with such clarity; back in those days of thrilling uncertainty, the song was a hazy jungle environment, I was setting out to explore this clearly brilliant and exciting place, but had yet to become familiar with it's glorious details.  By the time the songs charms have faded and I clutch vainly at a particular melody shift or vocal wobble, I realise that these singular moments are not secret safes where the songs shining brilliance is stored away, no, the power is interwoven throughout, ingrained into every element.

I recall listening to 'Night Train' by Guns n' Roses so much that I reached a nadir, merely listening out for the lines 'Ready to crash and burn/ I'll never learn/ I'm on the night train', where Slash's lead guitar shifts down a note then up one, with the rhythm.  This moment had previously electrified me, made me feel strangely emotional considering the song's a tribute to a brand of cheap wine; but I hungered after that moment continually, I was like a smack addict so consumed by the drug that every hit of heroin is insufficient, the guitar line barely sated my hunger because the rest of the song had been abandoned.  Soon, when I played 'Night Train' I was filled with disappointment even before I had reached those lines, lines which before had shone so strong.

(My junkie moment comes at 01:38)

One of two things tends to occur at this point.  I might leave the song for a while; put it away, maybe for a long time.  If the music is good, I'll definitely come back to it.  Or I stumble upon another dimension of the song, one that electrifies the whole experience of listening to it once more; a moment that seemed merely functionary before, a bridge from verse to chorus or a repeated word that I only now notice has a peculiar vocal inflection which jazzes with my being (man).  The song is thrown into a new light, it's whole body comes into focus again, and the importance of every moment is reestablished: how it fluctuates and breathes, how words seep into each other, how the intro foreshadows the middle eight.  My head feels on fire again, the back of my neck tingles, my fingers tremble and maybe even my eyes well up with tears.  Countless songs through my life have ensnared me in this way: 'In For The Kill', 'Ambling Alp', 'O.N.E.'.  From a hyper-happy-deranged breakcore damager like Bong-Ra's 'Hello, My Cock Is An Aardvark' to exquisite chamber pop such as The Zombies 'Time Of The Season', I'm clueless as to which song will grab me next, but when it does, ecstasy consumes me, and my life revolves around that single track, listening to it again, again and again.

A favoured song's status constantly evolves through our lives, travelling from a digital file (most probably), which builds and bursts into a supernova that illuminates everything we do for a few days, maybe a few weeks, maybe even a few months; and then it is reduced once again to a humdrum bit of text on a screen, the twists and turns contained within easily anticipated.  Then I suppose it lies dormant, a mythical creature, waiting for it's resurrection, which may well come as a serendipitous stumble, a backwards turn into the song; a chance renunion that will spark the flame of mystery and wonder once again.

This elaborate relationship may well be what unfolds with Rustie's Glass Swords, I can't say for sure yet; although the vivacity of it's rollercoaster vocals and glitter punch beats has started to fade and I'll no doubt put it down soon and revert to normality when riding the London Underground, an album this colourful and insanely melodious will surely have it's hooks in me deep, and I don't think they'll be leaving for a long time, even if I think I've forgotten them.

Great Films & Great Posters 1

FIlm Haiku #2: Ode to the Sound of Jared Leto's Arm in The Thin Red Line

you're arm points men
to their doom
and sounds like deep fabric approval

On finishing The Killing (& getting TIME wrong in The X-Files as well)

A few thoughts after watching the second season of hit Danish crime drama The Killing:

What was initially a well acted, well shot crime drama, inevitably and manically, even obssessively, threw in as many red herrings as possible in the last two episodes to the point where I went, 'You know what?  I ain't bothered no more, just tell me who the killer is'.

Similar to feeling so famished that you concoct, and then wolf down, a savoury feast so large you feel like a bad sac of offal, sagging off your chair afterwards, The Killing races towards its conclusion while simultaneously zinging out such a multitude of different possible resolutions that when we're finally rewarded for our perseverance, we realize that the journey was the fun bit, actually hearing the explanation for the series of murders is a bit of a damp squib.

I declare thus: 'Too many red herrings in a TV detective drama will always lead to disappointment'.

And just another small point:  The time frame for The Killing feels completely skewed.  In the eighth episode, President Gert mentions to Justice Minister Buch that he has only been Justice Minister for one week (Buch's appointment happened in the first episode).  'Huh???' I said to the TV, 'one week only?'  And in that time 3 people have been murdered, Hans Peter Raben has had a parole board hearing, been put in solitary confinement for attacking a prison guard, escaped from jail and been to Sweden and back again, been shot in the chest, operated on, and is now running around, fit as a fiddle; Detective Sarah Lund has declined an offer of proper police work on a murder case, then accepted it, then been taken off the case, then been brought back on, then suspected her partner of being the killer, interrogated him, then made friends with him again; it just doesn't seem believable to me.

It reminds me of a moment in the X-Files at the end of season 2 when either Mulder or Scully, I can't remember which, mentions that they have been on the X-Files together for a year.  A year!?  That seems to average out at about one crazy X-Files wild ride every two weeks, and even though its a program you take with just a little more than a pinch of salt (a sack) I just find it hard to believe that Mulder and Scully are that goddamn busy with abductions and monsters, I mean, America must be positively buzzing with unsolved murders and UFO created time loss if that is the case.  And the government have devoted only two agents to dealing with this crisis?  They don't even get their own secretaries!  One year covered in two seasons?  What were the writers thinking? I just naturally assumed that in between episodes Mulder and Scully went for months just investigating dull stuff such as trad murders and organised crime.  Clearly small town America's freaks of nature and alien goings on in deep, dark forests keep them busy 24/7.

Anyway, I'm out...

Martyn- Masks

Really into Martyn at the moment. I recently saw him play an amazing set at Berghain in Berlin. The club is an awesome experience in itself and is hard to describe or do justice to. Just go there. This is one of my favourite tracks from his new album, 'Ghost People'. I also recommend checking out his first album 'Great Lengths'. It's a banger.

The Demise Of The Terrestrial Treat

One evening, in the late 1970's, a young woman was in her bedsit, stirring her cheap dinner while the television flickered in the corner. Then, something caught her eye, something on the television; perched on the arm of the sofa, still holding the saucepan and stirring it's contents, she stared at the screen. Before she knew it, two and a half hours had passed, the saucepan was still on her lap, and dinner was far from ready. That young woman was my mum and, that evening, her culinary attempts had been frozen in their tracks by the majesty of Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In A West.

My mum had switched on the television merely to shake up the despondent feeling of being on one's own, a bit of background accompaniment to her cooking, but the living room, the dinner, all this had faded away when sweeping camera shots of cowboys in dust jackets had drawn her in, enthralling her, and forever solidifying a time and a place in her mind, an association, a sensation, a feeling. And so my mum can never watch Once Upon A Time In The West without remembering this moment, where she was, what she was doing, the very fact that I am able to recount this story is because she recalls it so strongly. These associations beautifully blend the cinematic with the everyday in our memory; a film becomes highly personal, indistinguishable from our very being. This is something everyone can relate to (I hope), but for how much longer?

One of the body blows the digital age has dealt to celluloid is to crush films' lustre, it's saturated, murky organic beauty, simultaneously it has also broken down the way we watch them. I was scouring the terrestrial channels last Sunday night, that most sacred of nights, being as it is the last station of cosy comfort before the daily grind of Monday begins, in search of a decent film. What I got was Blood Work, directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. Let's just say this was not one of his best efforts, or let's just say that it was rubbish. Released 2002 it felt like it had been made in 1992, a strange anachronistic wash lay over it, the dialogue was awful and the cinematography was exceptionally bland, looking as dreary as Eastwood's polo shirts; trying to find a striking composition in it was like searching for a shred of decency in a Michael Bay film. I was in tawdry L.A. hell; the level of believability in Blood Work was a veneer so thin I stopped concentrating as soon as it clicked that Jeff Daniels was the rampant killer (why else would such a big star have such a seemingly small part?). Following on from this limpid stain of a film, Channel Five coughed up something called Half Past Dead from the arse end of it's vaults. Seeing as I had more important things to do (like sleeping), I went to bed.

'Quickly, Quickly! It's Starting!'
When I was younger, the British terrestrial channel programmers held gems in their hands. Many an old film, from decades gone by, would I stumble across: In The Heat Of The Night, Midnight Run, McCabe & Mrs Miller, If..., Videodrome, Goodfellas, 12 Angry Men, The Terminator, Manhunter, Braindead, Breaking Away, Lost Highway, The Shining, (clearly I didn't have the patience to read subtitles at this stage), these are but a few that I watched on a Saturday or Sunday night, occasionally a weekday. Each of these films carries a memory with it, of people, of evenings, of life. Films on TV were something special; they were fleeting, if you missed something, the opportunity to see it was lost. 'Come on! Come on, quickly! It's starting, it's starting!!' These words really meant something back in the day, had a real urgency; they remind me of spilling Ribena as I rushed back to the living room during an advert break in Star Wars, coursing with an excitement, a holding of breath at the imminent unfolding of the plot. Likewise when Jurassic Park had it's terrestrial premier I didn't want to miss a single frame of dino-action, I awaited it's post-watershed screening with baited breath. These are enduring childhood memories, forever ingrained in me along with such classic episodes as my mum slamming a car door closed on my finger and being chased by a hound down an Irish lane while on holiday. Because of their appearances on television during my formative years, films like Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Candyman are like old friends, because catching them live, as it were, was a special event. Nowadays we can pause a film and wait as long as we like, and with the availability of films to download, pirated or paid for, and TV channels spreading like a virus, terrestrial programmers have given up broadcasting good quality films at reasonable hours. Although the frightening amount of channels technically offer us more films to watch, the laborious channel sifting necessary to find these films leaves our thumbs aching (who really remembers channel numbers now? There are far too many). With four channels we were more limited, and less likely to let a film slip through our flexible, still sprightly, fingers unwatched.

I Miss Being Able To Miss
When talking about Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, David Lynch said 'I never miss it when it's on cable'. And here we get to the crux of the matter: nowadays it's virtually impossible to miss something, because you can either pause it or watch it online. My mum's encounter with Once Upon A Time In The West is just one example of a personal experience that is becoming a lot less frequent if not downright extinct; this is because we needn't drop everything to ensure we reach a film's climax. Movie platforms have become so ubiquitous that I wonder whether the magic is slowly trickling out of the movies themselves. Their status in our lives is lessening; their overall impact on us as people is dwindling like a lost light in the night. The magic is ebbing away. Films on TV that I watched when I was young are monuments, great immovable totems. For another generation, these monuments are being toppled, split into pieces; broken up, paused, shrunk and skipped through; fading with our memories.

Sideways

My co-blogger once described some of the humour and moments in Sideways as ‘outrageous’ and I’d say his assessment is pretty accurate. For an Oscar winning film that could almost be considered a romantic comedy, Sideways does indeed contain some outrageous moments usually relating to sex and always involving Jack Cole played by Thomas Haden Church who, in my mind, is the thinking man’s Steve Stifler.

The thing is with Sideways is that it essentially moves from sedate and occasionally touching and gentle scenes involving beautiful Californian landscapes and discussions about wine, to moments of extreme jocularity and brilliantly graphic sexual dialogue. This contrast is effective and guarantees laughter.

Such moments and scenes include Miles (Paul Giamatti) walking in on Jack having sex with Sandra Oh in a motel room. In typical Sideways style, the sex seems extreme and almost shocking as Miles’s eyes are soiled by the sight of Jack, who is positioned aggressively atop Sandra Oh. Oh’s legs point to the ceiling and all we hear are Jack’s yells of ‘NOT NOW!’ to Miles.

The recurring theme of Jack and his tireless pursuit to get Miles laid brings about some of the best lines, some of which are in the video below. Jack tells Miles he’s going to get his ‘joint worked on’, that he needs to ‘get his bone smooched’ and poses the question: ‘Don’t you want to feel that little box gripping down on your Johnson?’

Well Miles, don’t you??

Busey Bites 2

Here we have a fantastic clip taken from the set of Predator 2 (1990) in which our blonde bombshell Gary Busey plays Special Agent Peter Keyes. In this clip Busey is supposedly himself, having some 'downtime' in between takes, although for a man like Busey I'm not sure 'downtime' exists. I think it brilliantly adds to myth and fascination surrounding him; is he for real? is he just having us on?.....

Evil movie jailers and guards

The 'Fat sack of shit' named 'Manly' from the enjoyable Stallone vehicle Lock Up

 The Linda Hamilton face-licking orderly 'Douglas' from Terminator 2

Vagrant hating small town cop 'Galt' from First Blood

I wanted to post videos to demonstrate the evil of these men but due to issues with embedding permission or lack of videos relating to these characters, I couldn't. But, take my word for it, they are all shits.

Busey Bites 1

In the first of a regular feature on this site, we will explore the rich and varied career of the psychotic Gary Busey by focusing on a different film role or reality TV meltdown performed by the man each time.

To open proceedings, Busey’s performance as the tyrannical Commander Krill in Under Siege, has been chosen.  On a side note, Krill are shrimp-like marine crustaceans. Under Siege is set at sea. What a delightful aquatic link.

Busey’s turn as Krill showcases the actor at his most unhinged, domineering and cowardly- ideal character traits for an effective villain. In the scene I have inserted below, Busey faces off against ‘lowly cook’ Casey Ryback (Steven Segal) who, lo and behold, turns out to be a former Navy Seal and not really a cook at all.

I’m a big fan of Busey’s voice. As a Texas native, his voice is rich powerful and occasionally evil. Though, by no means the best part of the scene, Busey saying ‘MESS DECK’ at 0:18 is always a thrill. What I love about Busey in this scene in particular is his utterly abhorrent behaviour. He declares that Ryback’s lovingly cooked bouillabaisse smells like a ‘lard omelette’. If this insult were not enough he unleashes an enormous wad of phlegm into the bouillabaisse, undoubtedly hurting Ryback’s feelings. 

Film Haiku #1: Ode to Al Pacino's Face in The Godfather Part 2

michael walks in
he reminds me of
old ghosts and chalk

The Richie Hawtin Skincare Protection Plan

Meet the Techno twins, one yells at us: primal, thumping, higher states of consciousness, the other whispers: sleek, seamless, artificial, beats for people who wail excitedly when reading: ‘IT’S HERE: THE IPHONE 4 IN WHITE!’  Thus is the strange split in Techno music's image.  Take Richie Hawtin’s DE9: Transitions (2005); Hawtin’s face adorns the predominantly white cover; who knows what thoughts are crossing his mind as he stares out at us? Is he pondering the invention of a waterproof Macbook Pro so he can make music while bathing in Evian?  I don’t know; a slightly repulsive sheaf of golden hair provides the only colour in the heavily embellished image. But bizarrely enough, this impassive picture is the binding for pumping, kicking, relentless sounds, surely designed to make the listener sweat?  This is sweaty music, with the capacity to produce puddles of perspiration. But the front cover makes Mr Hawtin look as if he’s had biological treatment to block his glands; I call this Techno’s ‘Hairdresser Aesthetic’.

Obviously this ascetic aesthetic, if you will, comes from Techno’s root in machines, machines of course being mankind’s apparent paragons of progress: functional, efficient, fast, never prone to error. You don’t need to have watched The Terminator to know this is bollocks, machines can be ugly messy things that turn against you, waging war on humankind, or even worse, erasing all your mp3s.

The mirroring of machine efficiency in album artwork started well enough: Kraftwerk sheathed their music with stylish, crisp album covers, Autobahn (1974) and Man Machine (1978) resonate with a beautiful 2D style, echoes of Russian propaganda posters and the functionality of road signs.  Very tasteful.  But these days it’s morphed into what looks like commercials for skin cream, propagating a lifestyle of clean living and slicked back hair, God knows why; most techno nights I’ve been to are far from clean.

Yet more offenders: Ricardo Villalobos’s Salvador (2006) has him squatting in the middle of a desert highway in a white v-neck and shades, looking like a fellow who owns a variety of skin lotions. On Carl Craig’s Sessions (2008), Craig locks eyes with ours, tendrils of smoke drift behind him, a functional man fresh out of the dry ice container. Is this really the guy who made ‘Jam The Box’, a song which crashes out of the speakers like a malfunctioning robot, hell bent on destroying any semblance of sterility with it’s clattering, punching kick drum? It's called 'Jam The Box' for god's sake, not 'Wrap The Box In Velvet After It's Had It's Long Soak'.

Rather than these dull misnomers, a more fitting machine analogy would be a gargantuan industrial powerhouse, leaking oil and covered in grease, braying as it’s wheels turn and it’s pistons pump. It may not be electronic, but it suits the thundering sound of Carl Craig’s ‘Jam The Box’ more than a Kindle.

Welcome to our blog, the very catchy: 'She's not my mother, Todd.'

From now on, those of you visiting and hopefully book-marking this site, will be taken on an occasionally self-indulgent, sometimes schizophrenic but always intriguing journey of discovery on all those things we admire, find reprehensible and that simply confuse us in the world of cinema, television and music.

Enjoy.

Charlie & Jack, December 2011.