POLITICS/SOCIETY: THE ALTERNATIVE VOTE VOTE

I have a postal vote and have already used it. I voted No.

Not long ago this would have surprised me. I'm all for egalitarianism and believe that a true democratic system should reflect all points of view, even those I find repugnant (anyone reading the About Me sidebar can guess what they are). However, after some thought and some reading about the issues, I changed my mind. I now believe that AV is an unsuitable method to create an effective and decisive parliament. A government created with the support of minority parties would be too compromised to govern effectively which would result in a weak vacillating government.

So that's why.

At the same time as I voted No, I also for voted in the local council elections. As a socialist, it doesn't take much working out which way I voted.

That's right. I voted Conservative.

And I voted Conservative for the same reason that I would support the AV system for local elections.

Sunderland is massively dominated by Labour who have a huge majority every time which marginalises the opposition. I believe that to be effective, a council needs a strong opposition to keep it on its toes. An AV system would massively increase the size of the opposition which can only be a good thing. 

Of course it could also lead to the same situation I complained that a national government would find itself it. However, on a local level that isn't a bad idea. I'm very much in favour of a plurality of views at a local level because, on at that level, I don't believe there is such a diametric divergence of views between the parties as the focus is a relatively narrow one.

At the very least it would mean I could vote Labour again with a clear conscience.

SOCIETY: THE ROYAL WEDDING DAY

As usual, I got up and let out/let in/fed the cats/cleaned out a litter tray, put the kettle on, doled out some cereal for myself and switched the TV on to watch about 5-10 minutes of BBC News. It featured a couple of celebrities talking about the Royal Wedding, cut to the genial (smug) presenter Bill somebody or other, then over to some enthusiastic vox pops. Having finished my cereal, and having seen more than enough, I made my coffee and switched on the desktop to check my email and sample some online editions of newspapers.

About lunchtime, I checked out the Royal Wedding on the BBC news website just to make sure that it hadn't been interrupted by terrorists or an alien invasion, then went back downstairs to watch the latest episode of Fringe which I'd recorded.

Teatime I watched ten minutes of highlights on the BBC News channel.

I'm not anti-monarchist (though there are far too many minor royals snuffling at the teat of the public purse) and I don't particularly want this country to become the British Republic, though it wouldn't bother me if it did. I'm just not interested in the Royal Family. By all accounts William is a thoroughly decent person who puts himself over well in public and is very genuine in his concerns. His wife is very pretty and seems pleasant enough. Fine. But I just don't care. I'm not interested and unless something exceptional happens I'll be never writing or referring to them again in this blog. Maybe if they get kidnapped by aliens. Only cricket (one of the most tedious games in the world) ranks lower than the Royal Family on my personal scale of disinterest.

Great. It's over. I can forget about it now.

Except, like an earthquake, it will keep rumbling on for some time after the actual event. Sleep has never seemed more attractive.

E-BOOKS: SELF PUBLISHING ON KINDLE or HOW I DID IT.

Yes, that's right, I've self-published a novel as a Kindle e-book available from Amazon for the modest price of £2.59. (It was supposed to be £2.25 but I buggered up the price which has to be first set in dollars.)  What's it about, you're dying to know. Here's the Amazon blurb which I wrote months ago but forgot about.

This is a witty and genuinely unpredictable blend of SF and the supernatural, where nothing is quite what it seems. It features two unusual heroines who would really rather sing Heart songs in a karaoke bar or watch a DVD in bed (a good horror movie or ‘The L-Word’ will do), while sharing a decent bottle of red wine, than go out and save the world. Shame they don’t have that choice.

Debra and Rachel are young, sexy, successful, in love and living in modern London. Then Debra triggers a curse which is slowly turning her into a zombie and Rachel learns about the Shadows and all the secrets Debra has been hiding from her. Together they set out on a surprising journey which leads them to encounter cannibal witches, the strangest road in the world, an ex-boyfriend who has what may as well be a ‘Monster’s Munch’ sign pinned to his back, two oversexed werewolves, and the monstrous Man of Power who offers salvation but at a horrendous price. Debra and Rachel’s only advantages are some modest martial arts skills, a cutting sense of humour, a great capacity for swearing, more confidence than common sense, and the occasional help of a not quite sane ex-SBS commando turned freelance assassin.

And just when they think it’s all over and they can live happily ever after, that’s when they learn what the Shadows really are and it’s up to our hedonistic heroines to save the universe.

Unfortunately the odds aren’t exactly in their favour.

Contains: strong violence, intense emotions, scenes of a sexual nature, and the frequent use of rude words.

Doesn't that make you want to order it right now? You don't even need a Kindle to read it. You can download a free Kindle app to your pc or laptop instead. Plus, in addition to the 74,000 word novel, you also get a 28,000 word linked novella entitled The Flying Man.

Converting it into Kindle format proved to be a bit of a pain as I'm not really very technically minded. Obviously I did manage it but I think the paragraph formatting is a little off. I also checked every day for three days to see if it had appeared and all in vain. When I finally checked the settings, the book was still in draft mode and I needed to click another couple of buttons and refill in a form before it worked. After that it was up in 18 hours. 

Now all I need to do is sit back and wait for the deafening sound of nothing happening. Alternatively I could grit my teeth (not wise as I'm going to the dentist in a couple of hours) and go on one of the Kindle Writers forums to find out how to publicise it.

You can link to it here:  
http://www.amazon.co.uk/ALL-THE-WORLDS-AT-ONCE/dp/B004Y1KABK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1303898544&sr=8-1

 

At least I've stopped tinkering and finally done something with it. Now I can focus properly on another novel which has been on the back-burner for a while.

DVD: LIP SERVICE (2010)

I watched this six part series on BBC3 last year and waited for the price of the DVD to come down to something reasonable before buying it. The first episode received a general panning from the critics and I was a bit iffy about it but things picked up in the second once the characters and the physical/emotional environment in which they lived became clearer.

The story revolves around three women: photographer Frankie (Ruta Gedmintas, front and centre above) a photographer who just arrived back from New York after two years; which upsets her ex-lover and old friend Cat (Laura Fraser, second row, right) an architect; though wannabe (and failing miserably) actress Tess (Fiona Button, second row left) is happy to see an old mate again. After an early hiccup, Cat starts seeing the slightly butch Detective Sergeant Sam (Heather Peace, back row, right) and Tess begins seeing the experimenting local tv presenter Lou (Roxanne McKee, back row left) who is on the rebound from an affair with a married man. The careless Frankie, an emotional mess, is looking into a puzzle about her birth and  shags any woman she can get her hands on until she meets Sadie (Natasha O'Keefe) a slick and crazy estate agent. Other characters include: Cat's wannabe science fiction writer brother Jay (Emun Elliott) who is crazy in love with his best friend Tess and his sf novel turns out to be an allegory of their relationship; fellow architect Ed (James Anthony Pearson) an old straight male friend in the process of settling down with his girlfriend Becky (Cush Jumbo) but doing his best to screw up the relationship and everything else around him.

Oh yes, and it's set in Glasgow though at least (at least) half the cast have English accents.

In case you hadn't guessed, this is sort of a British answer to the American groundbreaking lesbian drama series The L Word.

Fiona Button as Tess

Laura Fraser & Heather Peace (Cat & Sam's first kiss)

The cast is pretty good. I can't give an objective opinion about Ruta Gedmintas simply because I just hated her character even when she was being screwed up by her duplicitous bullying uncle which probably means she was pretty good. I absolutely love Fiona Button who is just a fantastic actress with a very flexible and mobile face which perfectly mirrors her thoughts. Button is just brilliant and I'll watch anything in future I come across with her in it. Her character is so sweet, funny, good-natured, and with lousy judgement in girlfriends, you can't help, like Jay, but adore her. Laura Fraser is already well known as a highly talented actress and she nails the part of the intense highly strung Cat to a T while making you sympathise with her. Heather Peace (the only member of the core cast who actually is gay and who turned down a role in Coronation Street to do this show) is wonderful as the sharp tough but vulnerable cop Sam who finds herself falling in love with Cat. I can't fault the rest of the cast either.

Will they or won't they get it on by the series' end?

Okay, let's stop ignoring the elephant in room and look straight at it. This is a drama (with comedy) about lesbians. How explicit is the sex? Answer: very, amazingly so. The style of it, however, reflects the emotional content (or lack of it). Cat and Sam's sex is often tender and loving as well as passionate. Tess and Lou is joyful fun, noisy and laughing. Ruta is rutting in a cold light. Explicit as it is, it never feels gratuitous or exploitative. It would have been a surprise had it been as the creator Harriet Braun (an experienced tv writer) is gay.

Technically it's very good with excellent location photography of Glasgow and I can't fault the frequent use of the songs played either, appropriate and also good music.

Because they weren't sure of getting a second series (they have, hurray!) it ends on several satisfactory notes which, while leaving several questions unanswered, makes it feel like a self-contained drama. You do, however, want to see these characters again. While the show is flawed and sometimes annoying, the story is generally good, the characters interesting, and the acting superb.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 13 - OH BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU? (2000)

 

I bought the soundtrack album to this movie; only the second soundtrack album I ever bought in my life. The first was back in the 60's and was The Sound Of Music.  The music in this film is simply brilliant and most of it from genres I'm generally not keen on. In particular the three-part harmony of Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch on the lullaby Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I've ever heard. The scene in which it appears, mimed by the three graceful slow-moving sirens as they seduce our three weary heroes, is delicate, evocative and almost mythic in tone. It's worth seeing the film for that very scene alone. Or it would be if it's wasn't packed with memorable set-pieces, many of them based around songs. 

 

Another rivetting scene is set at night and lit by torches as large number of Klansmen march to stomping rhythm as their Great Knobhead (or Dragon) bellows the traditional Oh Death (Won't Ya Please Pass By Me Another Year). The Great Knobhead is revealed as a candidate for governor whose campaign is based on his working for the ordinary man -as long as he's white, anglo-saxon, and protestant and not black, Jewish, or Catholic.

I love this film. Although episodic in structure, its spine is Homer's Odyssey which is about a hero (Ulysses) trying to get home to his wife and his struggle to do so. Initially this doesn't appear to be the case as Everett Ulysses McGill (Clooney) convinces the two men he's chained to on the chain gang to escape with him because he has buried a stolen 1.2 million dollars  near shack in a valley about to be flooded. Clooney's character is wonderful: vain and not as intelligent as thinks albeit clever enough to con his two friends Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) whose combined i.q. might reach double digits. Having escaped from the chain gang, they embark on a series of picaresque adventure across Mississipi.

The colour is bleached and at the very beginning the film is black and white, only fading gradually as the camera pans to the chain gang, who are chanting a work song, does the colour fade in.

In the course of their adventures, our heroes meet up with George 'Babyface' Nelson, a manic-depressive with a tommy-gun and a love of robbing banks, a blues singer, Tommy Johnson* (Chris Thomas King, who is a blues singer by trade) who claims he has just sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads (a la Robert Johnson) and with whom they pal up with for a while and together record a song at a radio station in the middle of nowhere. They meet the sirens (see above) and rescue Johnson from a lynching by the Ku Klux Klan (ditto) where the Cyclops (John Goodman), who robbed them earlier, get his due desserts. And there is so much more.

This is a film of so many delights it's almost too rich. As I've said already, the soundtrack, specifically the songs, which are woven perfectly into the story are an unalloyed feast for the ears. It's also by far the Coens funniest film -just check out the scene where Delmar is convinced that the Sirens have turned Pete into a toad (it emerges from his neatly laid out clothes by a river bank). Nelson, who plays the dim-witted Delmar, is the only one of the three leads who actually sings in the film. With a degree in the Classics, he was the only one of the cast and crew (if you believe the Coens' disclaimer) who had actually read The Odyssey. But just because it's primarily a comedy doesn't mean it lacks its serious moments such as the Ku Klux Klan sequence and when a police car crashes into a (thankfully cgi) cow while chasing Babyface Nelson, which isn't funny at all.

Is this the Coens' best film in my opinion? You'll have to wait until later on in the week to find out when I conclude with an overview.

Random Notes.

*Tommy Johnson is an odd name to chose for a fictional Blues singer even if he was modeled on Robert Johnson (which, the crossroads story apart, I'm not convinced by) because there really was a Blues singer called Tommy Johnson who was active at the time and one of his most famous songs became the model for Canned Heat's On The Road Again.

This was going to be the last Coens' movie to be reviewed. I've only missed one (I'm deliberately excluding their scripted by, but directed by Sam Raimi, Crimewave and anything else they didn't create together) which is The Ladykillers, their transformed remake of the Alec Guinness original, on the grounds that pretty much every review of it I've read said it's total shite so I don't feel like spending money on it. And then there came one of those off coincidences. Gary, a handyman who does odd jobs for us, was in the house this afternoon, saw my book about the Coens and commented favourably on it. Turns out he's a big fan. He also told me that BBC1 was showing The Ladykillers in the next day or two. It's tomorrow so I'll record it. Coincidence? Certainly. But I'll still have to watch it. I mean, it's different watching it for free than paying for the privilege of being shafted by the Coens.

DVD: THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE (2010)

An Amazon 4-star review.

The original novel is so dense that it would impossible to accurately film it as a movie. As a TV series is something else. So the best that can be done is put over a representation of the original novel that also manages to stand on its own. And that is what's happened. It's probably best if you see the film without having read the book first as you approach it without preconceptions and don't sit through it thinking that they missed out this and missed out that; then go on and read the book.

As it is, on it's own it's a gripping piece of work, albeit dependent on the previous movie. Once again Noomi Rapace does an outstanding job of portraying Lisbeth Salander and it's hard to see any other actress coming close as in the impending American remake. Rapace has deservedly become an international star as her performance is unforgettable and she's probably the main reason for seeing this irrespective of any other virtues it may possess.

But to do the books justice would require 3 fifteen-part miniseries and I'd love to see that happen.

DVD: K-20 THE LEGEND OF THE BLACK MASK (2010)

An Amazon 4-star review.

It's Japan 1949. Because Japan struck a peace deal with the UK and USA there was no World War 2 and Japan is now a rigidly stratified society of have and have-nots. Its peace is only threatened by the master criminal, the Man of 20 (and probably a lot more) faces, K-20. Determined to steal a machine, invented by the Nobel prizewinning Nikolai Tesla, which broadcasts cheap power but he wants to use for destruction to make him the most important man in Japan, as part of his schemes he sets up our hero Heikichi Endo, a circus acrobat and illusionist, to be framed as K-20.

Phew!

I loved this film. Based on either novels or manga (I'm not sure which) which have been popular for some time in Japan, it's directed with a feminine sensibility by Ms Shimako Sato who also wrote the screenplay. What this means in that there's a lightness of touch, a hero who is compassionate (he helps feed locals orphans living rough) fallible good-humoured and masculine without being macho, there's an element of humour and understated romance. There is also plenty of action. When Endo is broken out of prison by local thieves, he is given a book on how to become a master thief. The various elements play to both his intelligence and skills and involve a lot of parkour (the French sport of leaping around buildings) and provides everything he needs to challenge K-20.

The other main players, apart from the masked K-20 and Endo, are Baron Kogoro Takechi the senior police officer in charge of the K-20 and his fiancee Duchess Yoko Hashiba who seems to have reservations about her impending marriage. When Endo rescues Yoko from the clutches of K-20, he takes her to his world, a place of deprivation that Yoko never knew existed and which immediately sparks her social conscience. So we have a three-hander, plus master villain K-20 always waiting in the wings to strike.

Cop: Hero

Heroine: Hero

Hero: Villain

Hero: Hero's Buddy

There's lots going on in this film which is always fascinating and holds the attention for its two-hour running time (note: not the 2hrs42 it says on the DVD case). The special effects are great, the action is  wild, the acting is everything it should be. Don't let the fact that it's subtitled put you off. This is a great action movie with elements of science fiction, super-villainy, comedy, romance, social conscience and a lot of red herrings. Apart from some minor swearing it's fine as family viewing albeit not for younger kids who wouldn't be able to follow the subtitles anyway. That caveat to one side: highly recommended. Trust me, you'll love it.

Post Script.

I guessed who K-20 was very early on. Will you?

DVD: ON ORDER

I've just ordered two box sets from the same American dealer via Amazon Marketplace, both of them from that well-known re-packager of out of copyright stuff Mill Creek.

 

Yes, 50 movies in a box set. And not for the first time either have I ordered a box set of this size. And here are the contents, courtesy of M. Terenzio  on amazon.com who patiently typed out the entire list.

The Amazing Transparent Man
Anatomy of a Psycho
Blood Sabbath
Bloody Pit of Horror
Crucible of Horror
Curse of Bigfoot
Death in the Shadows
Death Warmed Up
The Devil's Nightmare
Devil's Possessed
Doctor Jekyll and the Werewolf
Don't Answer the Phone!
Double Exposure
The Dungeon of Harrow
The Eerie Midnight Horror Show
The Embalmer
Evil Brain from Outer Space
Fangs of the Living Dead
Frankenstein 80
Grave of the Vampire
Green Eyes
Guru,the Mad Monk
Hands of Steel
Horror Rises from the Tomb
The House by the Cemetery
The House That Screamed
It Happened at Nightmare Inn
Keep My Grave Open
Manos:The Hands of Fate
The Manster
Monstroid
Mutant
My Mom's a Werewolf
The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave
Night Fright
Night of Bloody Horror
Night of the Blood Beast
The Oval Portrait
Point of Terror
The Sadist
Satan's Slave
Scared to Death
The Tell-Tale Heart
Terror Creatures from the Grave
Terror in the Jungle
They Saved Hitler's Brain
Thirsty Dead, The
The Undertaker and His Pals
Vampire's Night Orgy
The Werewolf of Washington 

Of course a number of these movies will be total crap and the quality of the prints won't be much cop either but there will be a fair number of fun stuff and at about 22p a film I 'm not being robbed. The running time is around 70 hours.

And then there's-

Again, a kind Amazon.com reviewer has provided this list.

 

HarryRfromNE (North Shore area of MA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Giant 600 Cartoon Pack (DVD)

This is from Mill Crek's Giant 600 Cartoon- Special Collector's Edition". Seems the only diff is a free t-shirt & some other things in the Special edition:

DISC 1
Includes Popeye and Betty Boop

# Popeye - 30 episodes
# Betty Boop - 22 episodes:

DISC 2
Includes Tom & Jerry, Mr Piper, The Three Stooges, Casper, Herman, Gabby, Little Audrey, Little LuLu, Felix the Cat and Mr. Bang, Katrinka & The Skipper
# Tom & Jerry - 5 episodes
# Mr Piper - 7 episodes
# Casper - 3 episodes
# Herman - 3 episodes
# Gabby - 4 episodes
# Little Audrey - 3 episodes
# Little LuLu - 2 episodes
# Felix the Cat - 2 episodes
# Mr. Bang, Katrinka, The Skipper - 3 episodes

DISC 3
Contains cartoons with various characters including Baby Huey, Hunky & Spunky, Mighty Mouse, Woody Woodpecker, Raggedy Ann, Heckle & Jeckle, and more!
# Other - 53 episodes:All's Fair At The Fair, Along Came A Duck, Ants In The Plants, Boy Meets Dog, A Car-Tune Portrait, Circus Capers, The Cob Web Hotel, Comin' Round The Mountain , Crazytown, Cupid Gets His Man, The Enchanted Square, The Fresh Vegetable Mystery, The Golden State, Goofy Goat Antics, Hawaiian Birds, Hector's Hectic Life, In The Museum, It's a Greeks Life, Jingles , Les Escargots, Little Brown Jug, Little Hawk, The Little Stranger, Marriage Wows, Music Academy, A Mutt In The Rut, Nursery Scandal, Once Upon A Time, Palm Court Orchestra, Pantry Panic, Parrotville Old Folks, Parrotville Post Office, Peeping Penguins, Picnic Panic, Play Safe, Professor YaYa's Memoirs, Quack-A-Doodle-Doo, The Queen of Hearts, Red Riding Hood, Scotty Finds a Home, Snow Foolin', The Snow Man, Spinning Mice, The Story of Time, Sultan Pepper , The Sunshine Makers, The Talking Magpies, Time For Love, Vacuum Cleaner, Westward Whoa, Winter Draws On, Wolf! Wolf!, You Can't Shoe a Horsefly

DISC 4
Includes Betty Boop, The Three Stooges, Various Christmas Cartoons and more!
# Betty Boop - 19 episodes
# The Three Stooges - 22 episodes
# Christmas Cartoons - 8 episodes
# Other - 6 episodes:The Big Bad Wolf, Mary's Little Lamb, Old Mother Hubbard, Simple Simon, The Three Bears, Tom Thumb

DISC 5
Includes Tom & Jerry, Felix the Cat, Popeye, Casper, Gabby, Little LuLu, Little Audrey & More!
# Tom & Jerry - 5 episodes
# Felix the Cat - 8 episodes
# Popeye - 6 episodes
# Casper - 2 episodes
# Gabby - 3 episodes
# Little Lulu - 4 episodes
# Oswald Rabbit - 3 episodes
# Little Audrey - 2 episodes
# Molly Moo-Cow - 1 episodes
# Alice - 3 episodes
# Other - 7 episodes: The Cat's Canary, Frisky Frolics, Frozen Frolics, Humpty Dumpty, Magic Mummy, Merry Kittens, The Toyland Caper
Product Description
DISC 6
Includes Hunky & Spunky, Pied Piper & more!
# Hunky & Spunky - 6 episodes
# Pied Piper - 4 episodes
# Other - 42 episodes: The Big Drip, The Big Flame Up, Bimbo's Auto, Bunny Mooning, Chicken a la King, Christopher Columbus, A Coach for Cinderella, Dancing on the Moon, David & Goliath, Dick Whittington's Cat, An Elephant Never Forgets, The Emerald Isle, The Enchanted Horse, Farm Foolery, Gobs of Fun, Granite Hotel, Helter Swelter, Little Red School Mouse, The Lone Star State, The Mild West, Much Ado About Mutton, Old MacDonald Had a Farm, Our Funny Finny Friends, Paul Bunyan, Pest Pupil, Pleased to Eat You, Robin Hood, Robin Hood Rides Again, Scrappily Married, A Self Made Mongrel, The Ski's the Limit, Sing or Swim, Small Fry, Somewhere in Dreamland, The Stork Market, Suddenly It's Spring, The Tears of an Onion, Tom Sawyer, Toys Will Be Toys, Treasure Island, The Trojan Horse, Yankee Doodle Donkey

DISC 7
Includes Calvin and the Colonel, Clutch Cargo, Felix, Aesop's Fables and more!
# Calvin And The Colonel - 4 episodes
# Clutch Cargo - 15 episodes
# Aesop's Fables - 10 episodes
# Felix - 11 episodes
# Space Angel - 5 episodes
# Blackie the Lamb - 2 episodes
# Snap, Crackle & Pop - 1 episodes
# Cinderella - 1 episodes
# Little Gray Neck - 1 episodes
# Little Gray Neck

DISC 8
Includes Fraidy Cat, Gumby, Hoppity Hooper, Wizard of Oz and Popeye
# Fraidy Cat - 9 episodes
# Gumby - 14 episodes
# Hoppity Hooper - 24 episodes
# The Wizard of Oz - 1 episodes
# Moonbird - 1 episodes
# Popeye - 1 episodes

DISC 9
Includes Farmer Alfalfa, Alice, Wacky & Packy, Herman the Mouse and many more!
# Ray Harryhausen - 5 episodes
# Farmer Alfalfa - 12 episodes
# Alice - 6 episodes
# Wacky & Packy - 9 episodes
# Nicky Nome - 2 episodes
# Comicolor - 4 episodes
# Herman the Mouse - 2 episodes
# Van Beuren Studios - 4 episodes
# Christmas Cartoons - 6 episodes

DISC 10
Includes Colonel Bleep, Christmas Cartoons & more!
# Colonel Bleep - 25 episodes
# George Pal Puppetoons - 5 episodes
# Mel-O-Toons - 10 episodes
# Christmas Cartoons - 9 episodes: Little Christmas Burro, Santa's Pocket Watch, Howdy Doody's Christmas, Santa in Animal Land, The Night Before Christmas, The Little Lamb, A Christmas Dream, The Elf and Mr. Little, A Present for Santa Claus
# Meany, Miny, and Moe - 1 episodes

DISC 11
Includes Calvin and the Colonel, Clutch Cargo, Felix the Cat, Tom & Jerry and more!
# Calvin and the Colonel - 4 episodes
# Clutch Cargo - 35 episodes
# Terrytoon - 3 episodes: Billy Mouse's Akwakade, The Black Duck, Sharpshooter
# Felix the Cat - 1 episodes
# Other - 7 episodes: Joe Glow the Firefly, Teacher's Pest, Ups and Down Derby, Joint Wipers, Adventures of Junior Raindrop, Destination Earth, To Spring

DISC 12
Includes The Three Stooges, Hoppity Hooper and more!
# The Three Stooges - 19 episodes
# Hoppity Hooper - 16 episodes
# Max Fleischer - 6 episodes
# Screen Songs - 5 episodes
# Noveltoon - 3 episodes
# Other - 1 episodes: Going Places 

What he doesn't mention is there's a fair bit of stuff from cartoon creator legend Ub Iwerks who left Disney in the early years to start his own studio. All this stuff from the 20's through to the 40's, the pioneering days of animation when the more imaginative animators were coming up with wild and weird stuff you just wouldn't see today. Also there was a huge market for cartoons at the cinemas then as fillers in the programming.

Sure a lot of them will be awful but the amazon.com reviews suggest that there's also a lot of gems among them, just as they do for Pure Terror. I expect I'll be reviewing some of them in dribs and drabs once they arrive in two or three weeks time.

DVD; DEMON EMPIRE (2010)

An Amazon review: "Unusual Korean Fantasy"

One of the several unusual things about this film is that despite the DVD being rated 15, when you check the small print underneath you discover that the film itself is only 12 rated and that it's the bonus material which has raised it to 15. The bonus material in question is one violent and bloody trailer. I'd have thought that to increase the appeal the producers of the DVD would have omitted it. So, if you're wondering whether this would be suitable for someone younger than 15, the answer's yes -just skip the first trailer. While there is plenty of action, it's quite bloodless and an early scary sequence isn't very scary. As to whether or not you should buy it, keep reading.

Most of the film is set in mid-Heaven where souls stay for a little while before either being reincarnated or continuing on to heaven. Our hero is magically transported here alive because only he can stop the human-like but magically powered demon warriors (formerly his comrades on earth of whom he is the only survivor) from destroying mid-Heaven and thus dooming both Earth and Heaven. things are made difficult by the fact he has to protect the life of an angel who is a woman he loved on earth but who no longer remembers him. And that's pretty much the story, so it's both a tragic love story and an action film and both facets work well together.

I mentioned above that it's quite bloodless. That's because when anyone is killed in mid-Heaven, they burn up like coloured pieces of paper and this is, in an odd sort of way, quiet a lovely effect. Swords, spiked chains, and arrows still go right through people but bloodlessly.

Visually it's an attractive film with excellent use of CGI in the backgrounds and the action sequences. As you'd expect, the fight scenes are spectacular and, because this is set in a magical land, the flying and running along the tops of trees are more acceptable than in the usual martial arts movies. The subtitles are fine which is a relief as poor subtitling can spoil a film.

This isn't the greatest Asian fantasy movie I've ever seen but it's an enjoyable one, a slick proficient well-made fantasy.  Three and a half stars.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 12 - THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE (2001)

A small town noir set in 1949, a monosyllabic protagonist with a cigarette a permanent fixture, and monochrome film (that's black & white to you and I). This is really quite a downer of a movie. It's also about ten minutes too long which is unusual for the Coens whose scripts are usually very tight. 

The decision to film in black and white was a good one as this is a very colourless film. There is no joy anywhere in it, there's no happiness. The monosyllabic protagonist barber Ed Crane (Billy Bob Thornton), who also narrates, is trapped in an uncommunicative marriage with a wife (Frances McDormand) who is having sex with her boss (James Gandolfini), Ed decides to anonymously blackmail the boss to fund a business deal with Jon Polito a travelling man who wants to start a chain of dry cleaners (dry cleaning being a new invention at the time). And, as you'd expect, it all goes to shit. Gandolfini thinks Polito is the blackmailer but learns otherwise. Polito disappears with the cash. Gandolfini confronts Thornton and in the struggle is accidentally killed. McDormand is arrested for his murder and things go progressively downhill (but less interestingly).

It's possible to posit that the film is a study in alienation. Thornton's character is as alienated as it's possible to get. He has no real marriage and  he works for his brother in law. This mirrored by Gandolfini whose wife (somewhat resembling the Wicked Witch of the West), usually silent, turns out to be a flying saucer nut and that a government conspiracy is behind her husband's death, and he took works for his wife's family. Apparently successful, Gandolfini is as desperate as Thornton who takes away the money that McDormand has embezzled for him to start his own store.Everyone in the film is trapped, even the talented teenage pianist (Scarlett Johansson) who's more interested in boys than her gift -she plays technically well but without any spark, which could stand as metaphor for this film.

This is a bleak, overlong, and frankly depressing film which seems to lack energy and saps that of the viewer. It's well made of course, it couldn't be anything else. On a technical level it's even brilliant. It just isn't a film which can really be enjoyed.*

Random Notes.

* I could be in a minority here as it seems to have gone down very well at the box office as well as with critics, so don't let me put you off. 

As usual for a Coen Brothers film, it was nominated for awards all over the place and won many of them, most notably for the cinematography by Roger Deakins.

Unsurprisingly, noir crime writer James M. Cain was mentioned as a significant influence on the film.

There will be two more days of Joel & Ethan Coen - Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? is to come, and an overview to conclude matters. But I'm taking a break for a few days from them to watch a couple of Asian movies and The Girl Who Played With Fire and also read a book I've just ordered about them.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 11 - NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007)

No bones about it, as Anton Chigurh, Javier Bardem plays one of the scariest motherfuckers in movie history. If you thought that Antony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter was scary, Bardem is scarier by virtue of the fact that he is just human and not some super genius, just an utterly ruthless murderer who is totally lacking in empathy and any compassion. He is one of the greatest movie monsters ever. In one scene he terrorizes an aging shopkeeper into gambling his life (without ever saying that's what's happening) on the toss of a coin for no reason whatsoever other than it amuses him. There is no possible way of reasoning with him because he has already decided he's going to kill you and because (as seen in the first murder he commits) he enjoys it.

Well, this is the Coens big one: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Bardem). Four Oscars plus a further four nominations they failed to win. And it's not even their best film, though it is a pretty damn good one.

It's a three-hander between Tommy Lee Jones as the local sheriff, Bardem, and Josh Brolin who stumbles onto a drug-deal gone wrong and takes off with the money. And none of them ever really meet, though Brolin and Bardem do actually have a brief encounter and talk once on the phone. The plot is fairly simple. Jones tries to find out what's going on as the bodies pile up, Bardem hunts Brolin who tries to make sure that his wife (Kelly Macdonald, a long way from Trainspotting) is okay. The film basically cuts between the three protagonists until the surprising and strange ending.

In a sense, this is a very minimalist film: there isn't an awful lot of dialogue, the story itself is minimalist, a dance of fate, the music is sparse with some of the most intense scenes completely lacking any cues, and the ample shots of the wide Texas landscape are dry, almost desert-like in appearance. 

Despite being faithfully adapted from a novel by Cormac McCarthy, it slots easily into the Coens' oeuvre (pretentious, moi?) in terms of its themes of free will, chance, and fate. It's also their most violent film by far and easily as intense as Miller's Crossing (which I prefer because of its density.) As you'd expect, the acting is terrific and often very subtle, but Bardem dominates the screen.

Random Notes.

The critical consensus is that it's the Coens' best film to date. That it won four Oscars suggests, rightly, that it won a whole bunch of other awards, though the only BAFTA it took was for Supporting Actress for Kelly Macdonald (a home favourite).

BOOKS: RECENT AMAZON BOOK & GRAPHIC NOVEL REVIEWS

 Ever since Greg Rucka brought Renee Montoya to the forefront of Batman supporting characters in the brilliant ensemble series Gotham Central, outing her as a lesbian and continuing her changes from drunk unlicensed private eye to becoming the new Question in the excellent series 52 where he also established she once had a relationship with Kate Kane the new Batwoman, I've been a big fan of the character.

So I was looking forward to this collection which was originally published as a backup series in Detective Comics. Sadly it's a fairly by the numbers story. Helping out a Mexican immigrant who'd paid people to bring his sister over the border only to have her disappear, The Question finds herself on the trail of white slavers. The first half ends with her saving the girl. However, she also realises she can't take down the operation on her own and enlists a friend, another non-powered superhero, The Huntress. This second part is more interesting than the first an we meet a very powerful superhuman who is behind it all and a particular enemy of The Question's.

This is all okay but given Montoya's previous outings (pun not intended) under writer Greg Rucka, it's all very underwhelming and the words perfunctory and routine spring to mind. Cully Hamner's art is adequate without being inspiring which pretty much sums the whole thing up. 

Okay, basic setup: Magic users and magical creatures live in an enclave (or 'ghetto') in a corner of New York called Golgotham and have done for centuries with lots of mutual prejudice between them and humans 'numps'.

Our attractive artist and human heroine called Tate moves into a spacious apartment where she can create her metal sculptures in piece. Her handsome Kymeran (humanoid six-fingered magic user) landlord Hexe practices only right-hand (good magic) and therefore needs the extra cash as you can't live off your principles. She has secrets and so does he and you just know they are going to get together sometime.

This book is more of a scene-setting for this new series and is well enough done to make it interesting in its own right as we see a strong clash of cultures between human and Golgotham. There is action and mayhem towards the end when they have to rescue a teenage were-cougar from the clutches of the villain and there's a general adult (as in grown-up) feel to the novel. There is ample scope with this scenario to develop other new characters as protagonists rather than continue to have Tate and Hexe up front all the time and I hope Collins will follow this route rather than take the easy way out of having the happy couple face new challenges, break up, get together again, face...

All in all a nice start and I'll be looking out for the next one. 

 Essentially it's a prequel to the series and is set during the summer before they start at Roundview. It's easy to read with the narration switching between the various characters, frequently in a single scene which makes it easy to put down and pick up again.

It fills in some of the background of the characters but doesn't give away any major secrets though it does explain more clearly some of the motivations of some of them. Nick, for example, comes over as a nicer and less superficial person than you might imagine. We find out that Grace has just joined old friends of Mini and Liv shortly before the start of the book and is still getting to know them rather than them being a tight threesome as it first seemed in the opening episode of the new series. They also know who Alo and Rich are. Matty doesn't appear at all but we do find out what triggers Frankie's move to Bristol. Some other characters are introduced with one in particular whom it would be good to see in the next series. This is Rhodie, a likeable deaf girl who doesn't speak, and who makes Alo's few days in Newquay very memorable.

This is a light and quite amiable read, pretty much like Season 5 as a whole really, so if you liked that then... 

(Note: the author is the younger sister of the brains behind the TV series.)

This used to be one of my favourite team books back in the mid-80's but either it just isn't as good as I remembered it being or it took longer to get going than in just the first 8 issues + Secret Origins collected here. Or both.

But there's also something else. Comics should avoid dealing with real life political figures partly because it dates the book more than pop culture references which can easily be glossed over. I remember an early 80's X-team coming over with an anti-communist line as bad as anything from the 1950's McCarthy witch hunts. In an 80's Batman and the Outsiders, at least one of the team considers killing the evil Russian Premier Gorbachev. At least in the Suicide Squad story Gorbachev is seen as being more pragmatic but still upholding the core values of the 'Evil Empire'.

I also think times have moved on and that SS might have been cutting edge (insofar as a mainstream DC book of the time could be called that) back then, but compared to today's Secret Six, they're almost as wholesome as Archie. Perhaps that's a little bit of an exaggeration but you know what I mean.

It's okay, it's an entertaining competently done action book -pity there's no introduction to provide a sense of perspective. I just feel a little disappointed. 

This and the following book were both selected by me from the Amazon Vine freebie for review program. Please note that this does not automatically guarantee a good review. In fact, Vine items tend to be lower rated than my non-Vine (i.e. I paid for it) reviews.

Definitely a cut above the usual supernatural thriller, the story is narrated by an intelligent, sophisticated werewolf who is nearly two hundred years old. Tired of it all, he's readying himself for one last encounter with a cult of werewolf hunters where he intends to die. But life, as he discovers, isn't as simple as that and his entire world is changed when he's given a reason for living.

And I really don't want to say anything more than that about the story. Discover its delights for yourselves. I will add that it's a pleasure to have a refined and literate protagonist in a horror novel for a change. Jake the werewolf has a depth and perspective to his character which makes it a pleasure to be in his company. There is gore of course but it's never gratuitous or lurid which is quite remarkable given that the narrator revels in the killing and eating of a human being once a month.

For fans of the supernatural thriller (horror novel), this is a rare (allusion intended) treat. 

"Imagine The Bourne Identity rewritten by Neil Gaiman..."

So goes the first line of Amazon's synopsis. That sold me immediately. Now, however, permit to finish the sentence.

"...and it would be nothing like this novel." Gaiman's stories exploded with ideas, the Bourne novels are action-packed. This one is neither.

That isn't to say that it isn't without its own special charm but it is a sedate charm. Basically it has one idea and nearly two thirds of the length (and it is quite lengthy) pass before we begin to discover what it is. The story focuses on three characters who find their lives entertwining. The location is Lausanne and much of that is set within its cathedral. I can tell you that the characters are interesting -a British detective with memory loss who is manipulated by the Swiss police; an American courtesan who discovers, too late, her new life is not what it appears; and a sweet young man with special needs who has a rather unique job at the cathedral. I can tell that the author writes well and his descriptions of the environment are vivid. (Except for his jarring use of two words. I have never met anyone British who lights a 'smoke' rather than a cigarette, and the author also overuses the word 'fag' when cigarette would be better. Don't know why, but I found it jarring.) I can also tell you that this is a supernatural thriller but no more than that as to do so would be to spoil it. The author carefully involves the reader before revealing his hand.

It isn't for everyone and it is rather long for its substance, but those who do like it will like it a lot. I did. 

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 10 - FARGO (1996)

 

Set in Minnesota where the Coens grew up, this rural area isn't one usually visited by film makers. With a large immigrant population of Scandinavian origin, the local accent is reflected in this, particularly in the use of the word  'Yah' for 'Yeah'. 'Yah' would appear to be the most popular word in Minnesota, capable of a variety of inflections and meanings and sometimes in the movie an entire conversation is conducted using the the one word.

When Jerry (William H. Macy), the put upon car salesman son in law of a local businessman, needs money for a scheme, he hits on the idea of having his wide kidnapped, paying the kidnappers half of $80,000 and keeping the other half for himself (except the actual ransom money which he obtains from his father in law is one million bucks, something he keeps to himself. The kidnap goes off relatively okay until the kidnappers get stopped by a state trooper outside of Brainerd the home town of Paul Bunyan. Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare) had no compunction shooting the cop in the top of the head and when two people driving by see Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) dragging the body off the road, Grimsrud has no compunction about driving after them and executing them. Unluckily for the kidnappers, the local chief of police is the 7-months pregnant Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand) whose mind is far sharper than her appearance and manner would suggest. Needless to say, things go from bad to worse as schemes unravel, more people die, and Gunderson ferrets out what's really going on.

As usual, the casting is perfect. Macy makes a brilliant befuddled car salesman who never gets things right. McDormand (who won the Best Actress Oscar for this performance) is just amazing, totally consumed by her character. Buscemi and Stormare are great as the small time crooks who are doomed by their own venality. The script as you'd expect is tight as newt's arse and won the Coens an Oscar for Original Screenplay. Macy, in an interview attested to this, citing the scene where he struggles inarticulately to answer McDormand's questions. Every grunt, every part word, was scripted.

Unlike Miller's Crossing (see previous post) which was drenched in dark colours, the dominant colour here is white which is no surprise as it's set in Minnesota in the winter where snow covers the landscape and ice coats the windscreens of cars. The bleached landscape is impressive and the opening shot is of a car slowly emerging into view from a white-out.

No question that this is a terrific film, made all the more distinctive by its locations and distinctive accent. Also, although proclaimed as a thriller on the covers of the DVD, it is, not unusually for the puckish Coens, also a black comedy. I enjoyed it a lot but, despite all the acclaim it received, I prefer Miller's Crossing.

Random Notes.

Apart from the Oscars it won, Fargo was also nominated for Best Picture, Directing, Supporting Actor (Macy), Cinematography (Roger Deakins), Film Editing (Roderick Jaynes aka the Coen Brothers). It also won a shedload of awards from all over the place including the BAFTA for Direction.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 9 - MILLER'S CROSSING (1990)

 

An unnamed city during the Prohibition era that is owned by criminal gangs and the mayor and the police chief are the happy puppets of whichever gang boss is ascendant. That's currently Leo (Albert Finney) who is acting extremely unwisely, in the opinion of his advisor Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) in protecting Bernie (John Turturro) the gay and loathsome brother of his girlfriend Verna (Marcia Gay Harden) from another powerful gang boss Johnny Caspar (John Polito) who claims that Bernie has been screwing up his gambling on fixed boxing matches. Bernie is also the secret lover of Mink (Steve Buscemi) the boyfriend of Caspar's brutal lieutenant The Dane (J E Freeman). Reagan is also screwing Verna behind Leo's back and has a massive gambling debt which he won't allow Leo to pay off.

Got that? Read it all again if you need to because that's just the basic setup. I'll wait.

Tom & Verna

Johnny Caspar

Leo

Bernie

Although a gangster movie, it transcends the bounds of genre with its powerful themes of loyalty, integrity, love, and betrayal. When Leo refuses Caspar's request to stop protecting Bernie, which he does out of loyalty to Verna, the scene is set for a challenge to Leo's authority. Morally, in terms of the gangsters' rules, Caspar (a brilliant performance by John Polito incidentally) is in the right. As he says, "If you can't trust a fix, what can you trust." Caspar is a practical man and also a man of integrity so when Leo won't do the right thing he decides to try and bring him down.

Although complicated, the story is easy enough to follow. The film itself is a rich and dark tapestry in which individual motivations are the key, though sometimes even the individuals concerned don't understand their own motivations, or they are deliberately never explained. It's beautifully photographed and superbly acted. The tight script and use of then contemporary slang (including the frequent use of ethnic slang like sheeny) is vivid and one of the Coens' best and that's saying something. The only way to do this film justice would be an extensive analysis which, frankly, is beyond me. This is one of those rare films where a whole book could be written about it. If I was doing a list of 50 must-see films, this would be near the top. Absolutely brilliant.

Random Notes.

Struggling with the script for Miller's Crossing, the Coens decided to take a break and wrote Barton Fink in three weeks to clear their heads so they could get back to it with a fresh eye.

When Gabriel Byrne first read the script he thought it was comedy. Having watched the film I can understand why he'd think that. It is sometimes funny, but it's no laughing matter.

There's a scene where one man gets his head bashed in. I remember it as being longer on my original viewing but it may simply be that the impact has lessened over the years.

Sam Raimi has a non-speaking cameo as a gun-happy detective who quickly reaps what he sows.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 8 - RAISING ARIZONA (1987)

Another early outing from J&E Coen, purveyors of fine films to the cognoscenti and one I haven't seen in over twenty years and yet about which I remember much. Probably because it's a real good movie.

Starring Nicholas ('Never Knowingly Underacts') Cage and Holly ('Fine Performance Guaranteed') Hunter as the mismatched couple whose courtship begins when she takes his photograph as a convicted felon and she a cop, as she does several times until he finally really and truly decides to go straight and propose to her. They live happily ever after until Hunter discovers she can't get pregnant and they decide to steal a baby from local businessman whose wife has just had quintuplets on the grounds that they won't really miss one of them.

Of course nothing ever goes right. Their domestic bliss is interrupted by the arrival of escaped con buddy John Goodman and his escaped con brother. Add on Cage's precognitive dream of a ruthless unscrupulous bounty hunter from hell (Ron 'Tex' Cobb) and the scene is set for a conflagration of black comedy and violence.

I'd have liked to show a pic of Cobb in the movie but couldn't find one -in fact I could hardly find any at all from the film. He makes a wondrously fearful menacing sight, face dark and lined, clad in leather and dripping with all kinds of weapons, casually blasting any small animals while passing on his Harley Davidson.

There are numerous memorable scenes but my favourites include the following. Cage trying to steal one of five babies who appear delighted by the intruder in their bedroom and seem intent on having as much fun as possible while he's there. This manages to be simultaneously very funny, very cute (and I normally hate cute), and very charming. Then there's the night scene when thunder and lightning bash and crash, the rain in pouring down churning the dry ground into a muddy mess when a hand appears as if trying to grip the air itself, shortly followed by the massive mud-dripping form of escaping John Goodman as he climbs to his feet, thrust his clenched-fist arms into the air and bellows in triumph. And the two robberies following their kidnapping the kidnapped baby from Cage & Hunter, when Goodman and brother twice leave the baby behind and have to go back for him. On a minor note, at each of the scenes where Hunter takes the police photos of Cage, a voice from someone unseen reminds her not to forgot something. The same unseen voice also speaks up at her wedding. A nice little running gag.

This is a delightful screwball comedy with all performances pitched just right. Even the hallucinatory corny but sweet happy ending seems just right. A lovely film.

Random Notes.

Wikipedia reports that the film has mixed reviews on release but its reputation has grown considerably over the years. Which is only right.

Cobb was, apparently, 'difficult' on set and Cage kept trying to change his dialogue which is a no-no for the Coens who script very tightly.

DVD: THE EVIL (1978)/ TWICE DEAD (1988)

Despite Caltiki a few days ago I was still in the mood for some palate-cleansing horror and so-

Two haunted house movies made ten years apart with nothing in common except that they were both produced by Roger Corman. While there is a scene like that above for The Evil, sadly there isn't for Twice Dead. One particular difference is that the first movie lists Victor Buono (the kiss of death) in the cast which gave me a bad feeling and the suspicion that I knew who the villain would be.

In The Evil, a professor and a mix of students, wife, colleagues arrived to renovate a mansion that the college has bought on the cheap. Oh and there's also a german shepherd. Now this being a horror movie, there is an obvious equation: dog + haunted house = dead dog.  Before they arrive we've already seen a handyman burned to a crisp when a fire explodes from a boiler that wasn't lit so we know that bad things are going to happen. And when the professor (Richard Crenna, a reliable character actor) removes a cross from what appears to be the hatch to a cellar, bad things start to happen, like everyone getting trapped in the mansion which appears to have unbreakable windows and doors.

One by one our cast begins to die. Mostly it isn't particularly gory, though there is one scene where a man is trying to cut through the front door using a rotary saw only to suddenly realise he's slicing through his hand -that was nice and yucky. Finally there's only the professor and his wife left to confront- The Evil!- who, as I expected, turns out to be Victor Buono.

Twice Dead is very different. In an opulent part of town in the 1920's, an actor hangs himself after appearing to stab his girlfriend but it turns out to be a dummy. Sixty years later the new owners, who have just inherited it, and comprise mom, dad, and two late teenage children (brother and sister), and a cat. Now this being a horror movie, there is an obvious equation: cat + haunted house = Oh, you're ahead of me there. The part of town is no longer opulent. the large house is a dump, and there's a gang of punks hanging out on the doorstep. The gang prove to be more dangerous than the ghost with one of the psychos being obsessed with the teenage daughter.

One night about halfway through the movie, the gang break in one at a time and...  Well, one of the two girls goes in a room where she sees and hears a wind-up gramophone playing. The lid is shut and I thought I betcha there's a head in there so the girl lifts up the lid and... You're ahead (hahaha pun!) of me again, aren't you. But that's just the first of several. However it all turns out to be the brother and sister who, using dummies, are trying to scare the gang.

But it just makes them really mad so they break in again (the parents are away all the time this is going on) and things look seriously bad for the unlucky siblings. Then the ghost steps in really takes the gang to town. No, not literally to town, that's a euphemism for doing very unpleasant things.

Okay, so neither of these two are great, or even good, films in most senses of the word. But they were never boring, they weren't badly made, and most of the cast did what was necessary. While I may never watch them again, I got a reasonable amount of entertainment from them. For a couple of Corman cheapies on one disc, that isn't bad going.

Coming Attractions.

Apart from, as promised, Fargo, Raising Arizona, and Miller's Crossing, I'll also be reviewing three more of the Coens' movies: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Man Who Wasn't There, and No Country For Old Men. 

Plus!

A piece of nostalgia as I revisit my childhood and teenage years at Sunderland's several cinemas. (Go on, admire the alliteration, I know you want to.) Plus flea pit photos (if I can find any). Here's a starter.

DVD: 10 DAYS OF JOEL & ETHAN COHEN: DAY 7 - A SERIOUS MAN (2009)

The Film.

On the cover of my DVD are the following quotes-

"Brilliantly funny," -Empire Magazine.

"The Coens' finest film ever," Jason Solomon, The Observer.

"The Kings of Comedy," The Sun.

***** News of the World.

None of these would I use to describe this film. It isn't a bad film by any standards. It's probably a very fond and accurate portrayal of a mid-western suburban Jewish community in 1967, lovingly remembered from the Coens own childhoods. It's also a tragic comedy of a middle aged respectable man whose life is falling apart around him through no fault of his own. The Coens deny it's based on the story of Job but it's hard not to see the resemblances.

Unfortunately it just didn't touch me. I think not being Jewish has something to do with it and I imagine people (particularly Americans) who are Jewish will love it. It's certainly full of Jewish humour which can be a little difficult for non-Jews to appreciate. I suspect this is a film that the Coens made for themselves and has a limited audience. That it made less than a quarter of the gross of Burn After Reading suggests this to be the case.

I may be wrong but it looks as if the cast is almost completely comprised of Jewish actors (which is perfectly understandable as they would inevitably be more in tune with the Coens story) and none of their regular company is involved. Indeed the only actor I recognised was Richard Kind because of his distinctive face.

Random Notes.

And that finished the first box set of the Coens' films. Coming up next, and in chronological order, are Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, and Fargo.