
Saturday, 30 December 2006
Mother India

Monday, 25 December 2006
Art & Obscenity

Tuesday, 19 December 2006
Idomeneo

Performances of the opera (written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1781) opera originally scheduled for November were cancelled following advice from the German police, as the Neuenfels production includes a scene featuring the decapitated heads of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, and Poseidon. The production was performed in 2003, though it was initially felt that a revival this year may incite Muslim protests and thus put the safety of the performers and audience at risk. There were no reports of disturbances yesterday, however.
Sunday, 17 December 2006
Women In A Society Of Double-Sexuality


Twelve Flower Months is a collection of a dozen images, each depicting a different flower. Each photograph was taken as the artist was menstruating, and her menstrual blood is visible in each image, as it trickles down her leg or stains her crotch. The age-old fear of menstrual blood, perhaps the most potent cultural taboo, is directly challenged.
Chen was interviewed for the fascinating Channel 4 programme Beijing Swings in 2003 and she discussed the deeply personal nature of Twelve Flower Months. The exhibition runs from yesterday until 20th January 2007.
Thursday, 7 December 2006
1001 Movies
You Must See Before You Die

Again the deleted films and their replacements are all very recent. Casualties this time include important films such as City Of God, Hero, Russian Ark, and Kill Bill I. Also, many of the new entries added to the 2005 edition have been deleted from this 2006 edition! Personally, I prefer the 2005 version.
Wednesday, 6 December 2006
Colour Me Kubrick

Alan Conway died in 1999 (as did Kubrick), and this film is based on a newspaper interview he gave after his con was discovered. The credits call it "A true...ish story", and with such limited source material it's not surprising that they invented much of the plot themselves.
The poster tagline is clumsy: "They wanted something for nothing. He gave them nothing for something". The only original music is an overly literal song by Bryan Adams: "I'm not the man you think I am...". The cast-list reads like a roll-call of mediocre 1980s British TV: Honor Blackman, Peter Bowles, Leslie Phillips, Robert Powell, and the appalling 'comedian' Jim Davidson.
The running-time is less than ninety minutes. The repetitive plot features Conway meeting people, schmoozing them, then moving on to someone else. The film relies entirely on John Malkovich's performance, though it gives him nothing to work with as there's no depth to the character.
The script was written by Anthony Frewin, one of Kubrick's personal assistants (who also wrote the book Are We Alone?). The director, Brian W Cook, was Kubrick's assistant director. Maybe they think that, by portraying Conway as a sleazy opportunist, they are avenging Conway on Kubrick's behalf, but the result is simply exploitative.
Alan Conway's story is a fascinating one. It's amazing that he could pass himself off as Kubrick for so long, and although he was motivated by financial and sexual gain, there are presumably also some psychological reasons for his actions. Whatever they may be, there are no insights into them in this film, only cheap laughs. It's pretty tasteless to make a comedy about Conway - the man was mentally unbalanced, after all.
Colour Me Kubrick currently has no theatrical or video distribution in either the US or UK. It's hard to see it, but it's not hard to see why. Conway was interviewed by Channel 4 for a short documentary called The Man Who Would Be Kubrick (1999) - it lasts for less than fifteen minutes, but it tells us more about Conway than Colour Me Kubrick does.
Saturday, 2 December 2006
Le Cinema En 100 Films

