15 December 2010
Rupture
Only one of the five artists, photojournalist Agnes Dherbeys, photographed the victims of the military crackdown. However, five of her images have been removed from the exhibition (leaving conspicuous white spaces on the gallery wall). The censored photos include a stunning portrait of a black-clad sniper (seemingly confirming the presence of 'men in black' at the protests), and disturbing images of injured and dead protesters.
Photographs by the other four artists depict only the aftermath of the protest: burnt buildings, plumes of smoke, and barricades of tyres. Manit, for example, photographed bystanders while they photographed the ruins of CentralWorld. This presents the protesters simply as arsonists, and ignores the army's violent crackdown. (Manit has previously portrayed military suppression of protesters more directly, with images in the From Message To Media and Flashback '76 exhibitions.)
Rupture is showing at BACC, Bangkok, from 25th November 2010 to 9th January 2011. Note that the five censored photographs are included in the exhibition catalogue.
The Body Show
The exhibits on show here are less controversial than those of Bodyworlds - there are no pregnant women or copulating couples - and they are posed less sculpturally/artistically. Unlike at Bodyworlds, visitors are permitted to photograph, and even touch, the bodies. The Body Show will close on 3rd April 2011.
13 December 2010
Movies On The Beach
Burden Of Dreams
There are several parallels between Fitzcarraldo and Apocalypse Now, which are exposed by the two respective documentaries. Both films were made on location in tropical jungles, both suffered significant logistical problems and lengthy delays, both had to replace their leading actors, and both feature a central character leaving civilisation behind on an upriver journey.
Burden Of Dreams reveals how Herzog and his team of labourers struggled to pull a ship over a hill, and how this and other obstacles almost derailed the film's production. Fitzcarraldo's star, the temperamental Klaus Kinski, is only interviewed briefly, complaining that there is "no escape from this fucking stinking camp". Kinski's volatile temper is not revealed in Burden Of Dreams, though Herzog discusses Kinski in his own documentary My Best Fiend.
Even the usually intrepid Herzog seems burnt out by the production of Fitzcarraldo: "There is a lot of misery, but it is the same misery that is all around us. The trees are in misery and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing, they just screech in pain". His monologue is accompanied, ironically, by beautiful images of jungle animals and insects.
06 December 2010
Avatar (Collector's Extended Cut)
Additions to the Collector's Extended Cut include an explanation of why the school (introduced in the Special Edition) was abandoned, and a rather dark and violent prologue set on Earth (with lots of rain and neon, like Blade Runner). This prologue is tonally different to the rest of the film, and I therefore prefer the original version. Generally, the additional footage in the Collector's Extended Cut is narratively less significant than that of the Special Edition.
02 December 2010
My Soul To Take
The premise (seven teenagers are attacked by a serial killer who died on the day they were all born; they are possessed by his soul, and he reclaims their souls) is convoluted and unrealistic. The prologue (with its excessive body count and exploding ambulance) is laughably melodramatic. The killer's identity is obvious after the first murder, thus the subsequent misdirections and twists are unconvincing and unsurprising. Worst of all, the film is neither scary nor shocking, merely predictable and conventional.
26 November 2010
Princess Mononoke
The film opens with an exhilarating action sequence in which a boar attacks a group of villagers. The boar, which actually resembles a large spider, has its eye pierced by a spear, and the film is filled with equally exotic monsters and similarly violent battles.
24 November 2010
Kaidan
For classic Japanese horror, see the films of Nobuo Nakagawa, especially Black Cat Mansion (creepy and atmospheric, except for the unconvincing ghost-cat) and Jigoku (surprisingly graphic and gruesome). Kenji Mizoguchi directed one of the first Japanese ghost films, Passion Of A Woman Teacher (now lost, like so many of Japan's silent films), and one of the very best, Ugetsu (one of Mizoguchi's masterpieces). The stylised portmanteau film Kwaidan is arguably the best introduction to Japanese horror.
14 November 2010
Decision Points
Decision Points is credited solely to Bush, though in the acknowledgements he explains ambiguously that he "worked with" Chris Michel. It's unlikely that someone famous for Bushisms like "Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream" [sic!] could write a coherent manuscript, therefore we can assume that, unlike Tony Blair's memoir A Journey, Decision Points was ghost-written. Nevertheless, it does have some characteristic Bush lines: after 9/11 he wanted to "find out who did this, and kick their ass".
Unsurprisingly, Bush does not admit to many regrets, and the few that he does acknowledge are presentational rather than ideological. The premature "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner was "a big mistake", but he still justifies waterboarding, Guantanamo Bay, and the invasion of Iraq. He attempts to refute his image as a warmonger, detailing his efforts to secure the required UN resolutions, though he later appears impatient with diplomacy: "It felt like it was taking forever". Reading this book produced a very similar feeling.
13 November 2010
8th World Film Festival of Bangkok
Tanwarin Sukkhapisit's film Insects In The Backyard, which was screened on 6th and 8th November, has subsequently been refused a certificate by Thai censors, and therefore will not receive a general theatrical release. It received its world premiere at the Vancouver International Film Festival in Canada earlier this year.
Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, screening today and tomorrow, is an anthology of three feminist short films, each by a different director (Breakfast by Wang Jing, realistically mundane; Lunch by Anocha Suwichakornpong, amusingly trivial; Dinner by Kaz Cai, superbly stylised). The directors took part in a Q&A after today's screening.
12 November 2010
Green's Dictionary Of Slang
The Dictionary is published in three volumes (A-E, F-O, and P-Z), and is an expanded version of Green's single-volume The Cassell Dictionary Of Slang (subsequently revised as Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang; further revised as Chambers Slang Dictionary). Green has also written Getting Off At Gateshead and other thematic studies of slang.
Masters Of Cinema
Alfred Hitchcock
Krohn efficiently and concisely summarises Hitchcock's feature-film career (though not Alfred Hitchcock Presents) in a little over 100 pages. The text is accompanied by generally well-chosen images, with publicity stills kept to a minimum. My only caveat is that Krohn seems almost obsessed with comparing Hitchcock to Cecil B de Mille, who is mentioned, increasingly tenuously, throughout the book. There is a useful illustrated filmography, and a limited bibliography.
11 November 2010
The Godard Week
05 November 2010
The Greatest Films Of All Time
The Greatest Films Of All Time are as follows:
Romance
1. Brief Encounter
2. Casablanca
3. Before Sunrise / Before Sunset
4. Breathless
5. In The Mood For Love
6. The Apartment
7. Hannah & Her Sisters
8. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
9. Room With A View
10. Jules & Jim
11. All That Heaven Allows
12. Gone With The Wind
13. An Affair To Remember
14. The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg
15. Lost In Translation
15. Roman Holiday
15. WALL-E
18. My Night With Maude
19. Voyage In Italy
20. Dr Zhivago
21. Harold & Maude
22. When Harry Met Sally
23. Say Anything...
24. The Fabulous Baker Boys
25. A Matter Of Life & Death
1. Chinatown
2. Touch Of Evil
3. Vertigo
4. Badlands
5. Rashomon
6. Double Indemnity
7. Get Carter
8. Pulp Fiction
9. Cache
10. GoodFellas
11. The Conversation
12. Bonnie & Clyde
13. The Killing
14. The French Connection
15. The Big Sleep
16. La Ceremonie
17. Point Blank
18. Hard-Boiled
19. The Long Good Friday
20. A Prophet
20. Heat
20. Scarface
23. Miller's Crossing
24. The Postman Always Rings Twice
25. Le jour se leve
1. Annie Hall
2. Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
3. Some Like It Hot
4. Team America: World Police
5. Dr Strangelove
6. The Ladykillers
7. Duck Soup
7. Rushmore
9. Kind Hearts & Coronets
10. Monty Python's Life Of Brian
11. Airplane!
12. Election
12. His Girl Friday
12. The Big Lebowski
15. This Is Spinal Tap
16. Bringing Up Baby
17. There's Something About Mary
18. Dazed & Confused
18. M*A*S*H
20. Groundhog Day
21. Clueless
22. The Great Dictator
23. Clerks
24. The Jerk
25. Shaun Of The Dead
1. Apocalypse Now
2. North By Northwest
3. Once Upon A Time In The West
4. The Wild Bunch
5. Deliverance
6. City Of God
7. Paths Of Glory
8. The Wages Of Fear
9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
10. The Thin Red Line
11. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
12. Ran
13. Bullitt
14. Die Hard
15. The Adventures Of Robin Hood
16. The Searchers
17. Goldfinger
18. The Last Of The Mohicans
19. Full Metal Jacket
20. The Deer Hunter
21. Gladiator
22. Rome: Open City
23. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
24. Where Eagles Dare
25. The Incredibles
1. Andrei Rublev
2. Mulholland Drive
3. L'Atalante
4. Tokyo Story
5. Citizen Kane
6. A Clockwork Orange
7. Days Of Heaven
8. Wild Strawberries
9. The White Ribbon
10. The Gospel According To St Matthew
11. Aguirre: The Wrath Of God
11. Pather Panchali
13. The Conformist
14. Death In Venice
15. The Godfather I-II
16. The Graduate
16. There Will Be Blood
18. Battleship Potemkin
19. The Rules Of The Game
19. Shadows
21. Distant Voices, Still Lives
22. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
23. La Dolce Vita
24. Breaking The Waves
25. Spirit Of The Beehive
1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Metropolis
3. Blade Runner
4. Alien
5. The Wizard Of Oz
6. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
6. Solaris
8. Spirited Away
9. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
10. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
10. King Kong
12. Terminator I-II
13. The Matrix
14. Alphaville
15. Back To The Future
16. Planet Of The Apes
17. Brazil
18. The Lord Of The Rings I-III
19. Dark Star
20. The Day The Earth Stood Still
21. Edward Scissorhands
22. Akira
23. The Princess Bride
24. Pan's Labyrinth
25. Starship Troopers
1. Psycho
2. Rosemary's Baby
3. Don't Look Now
4. The Wicker Man
5. The Shining
6. The Exorcist
7. Nosferatu
8. Let The Right One In
9. Vampyr
10. Peeping Tom
11. The Innocents
12. The Ring
13. The Haunting
14. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
15. Dead Of Night
16. The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari
17. Halloween
18. Bride Of Frankenstein
19. Les Diaboliques
20. Audition
20. Dracula
22. The Blair Witch Project
23. Evil Dead I-II
24. Carrie
25. Les Vampires
1. Chinatown
2. Psycho
2. Andrei Rublev
4. Annie Hall
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey
6. Brief Encounter
7. Apocalypse Now
Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are counted as a single entry, as are The Godfather I-II, Terminator I-II, Evil Dead I-II, and The Lord Of The Rings I-III. Scarface is the Brian de Palma remake, Carrie is de Palma's 1976 horror film, and Dracula is the Terence Fisher Hammer version. Also, Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy; and Psycho is the original version.
03 November 2010
Survival Of The Dead
[Warning: plot spoilers.] What's the point of the million dollars, except as a set-up for a potential sequel? Why does the twin sister appear out of the blue, for an inconsequential emotional reconciliation? Why is the zombie horse-rider initially smarter than other zombies, and why does she suddenly lose her sentience? And what, if any, socio-political comment is Romero making this time?
01 November 2010
Jackass 3D
Johnny Knoxville, clearly the most professional group-member, now acts mainly as an announcer, excusing himself from most of the stunts. After being punched, or even urinated on, the men always laugh with (and at) each other, and I wonder how much of this camaraderie is genuine. In addition to the 3D, many stunts were filmed with ultra-fast cameras, resulting in plenty of slow-motion action footage, and this makes the film more cinematic than its predecessors.
31 October 2010
Adresseavisen
This is not the first time that Henriksen has caused controversy by drawing Mohammed. In 2008, Adresseavisen published his cartoon of Mohammed as a naked suicide-bomber. That image was one of many Mohammed cartoons published in response to the protests surrounding another Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, which printed twelve Mohammed cartoons in 2005.
El Alma Nunca Piensa Sin Imagen
A Siam Theatre Presentation
26 October 2010
i
The editor's letter on page three announces that the i is "not only a new paper, but a new kind of paper, designed for people with busy, modern lives. Colourful and accessible, concise and intelligent, it's your essential daily briefing." The first issue successfully lives up to that description: it is colourful (printed in full colour throughout), accessible (tabloid format), concise (with an emphasis on short news articles), and intelligent (with decent coverage of business and world news).
24 October 2010
A World History Of Art
Laurence King has subsequently commissioned histories of various artistic fields, such as A World History Of Architecture (more accessible, though less detailed, than Banister Fletcher's A History Of Architecture), A History Of Interior Design, History Of Modern Design, Graphic Design: A New History (more engaging, though less scholarly, than Philip B Meggs's A History Of Graphic Design), and Photography: A Cultural History (more up-to-date, and better organised, than Naomi Rosenblum's A World History Of Photography).
The revised seventh edition of A World History Of Art finally has a cover that does justice to the book's contents. The covers of previous editions seemed old-fashioned or insubstantial, though the latest cover - a detail from Picasso's Guernica - and the clean, bold typography on the spine, are suitably striking. There are only minor changes to the text and illustrations (as Michael Archer made more significant revisions in the sixth and seventh editions); one tiny regret is that a photograph of Damien Hirst's shark installation (The Physical Impossibility Of Death In The Mind Of Someone Living) has been removed.
EH Gombrich's concise text The Story Of Art remains the classic introduction to art history, though A World History Of Art is more comprehensive and (like all Laurence King publications) benefits from large, full-colour illustrations. Of the major American art textbooks, Helen Gardner's Art Through The Ages is one of the earliest surveys of both Western and non-Western art. Fleming and Honour also co-wrote The Penguin Dictionary Of Decorative Arts and (with Nikolaus Pevsner) the Dictionary Of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, and Honour contributed to World Furniture: An Illustrated History (edited by Helena Hayward).
22 October 2010
The Red Eagle
Featuring rapid-montage fight sequences, and filmed largely with hand-held cameras, The Red Eagle is a surprisingly commercial action film from a director more comfortable with indie cinema. Like his previous film The Unseeable, it's a mainstream genre movie, though its over-the-top violence echoes that of his cult debut Tears Of The Black Tiger. While that first film - and its follow-up, Citizen Dog - were vibrantly coloured and somewhat kitsch, The Red Eagle is visually and thematically darker.
As played by Ananda, Red Eagle is as much a criminal as a superhero. Like Iron Man, he is dependent on pain-relieving medication; like Batman in The Dark Knight, he rides a gleaming black motorbike; like both of them, he has no superpowers. He is pursued by a black-caped figure and sought by a mysterious cabal of masked men, adding stylised elements to an otherwise conventional film. Political corruption is a major theme, and scenes in which the Thai Prime Minister's car is surrounded by protesters are a reminder of last year's demonstrations in Bangkok.
Wisit has announced that The Red Eagle may be his final studio film, as he is apparently tired of compromising his artistic integrity. The Thai National Film Archive screened all of his previous films last month.
21 October 2010
European Union Film Festival 2010
Craig McCall's documentary Cameraman: The Life & Work Of Jack Cardiff is this year's highlight, and is screening on 30th October. Cardiff directed films including Sons & Lovers and Scent Of Mystery, though he is most famous as the cinematographer of three films directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (A Matter Of Life & Death, The Red Shoes, and Black Narcissus). The documentary includes contributions from director Martin Scorsese and actor Charlton Heston, among many others.
20 October 2010
The History Of Italian Cinema
For almost two decades, Brunetta's various Italian cinema histories remained the definitive accounts of their subject, with Peter Bondanella's Italian Cinema providing an impressive though inferior English-language alternative. However, Bondanella's A History Of Italian Cinema, with its new coverage of Italian film genres and its extensive bibliography, now equals or arguably even surpasses Brunetta's work.
16 October 2010
Trespass
15 October 2010
A Social History Of The Media
Tarantula
Arnold directed a series of classic sci-fi films in the 1950s in addition to Tarantula, including Creature From The Black Lagoon and It Came From Outer Space. His pulp masterpiece The Incredible Shrinking Man also features a battle with an arachnid. Tarantula was spoofed nearly forty years after it was made, by Eight Legged Freaks.
14 October 2010
BFI Film Classics
2001: A Space Odyssey
12 October 2010
Quota Quickies
Chibnall re-evaluates the extant films of the period, including a case-study of the early films directed by Michael Powell. He also provides statistical analysis, albeit from a data set that's limited to cinemas in Leicester.
10 October 2010
501 Must-See Movies
The new additions include Oldboy, Shaun Of The Dead, A Cock & Bull Story, Kill Bill, Drag Me To Hell, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, The Dark Knight, Cache, Casino Royale, and The Departed. Unfortunately, among the deletions are classics such as Children Of Paradise, Alexander Nevsky, The Man In The White Suit, The Incredible Shrinking Man, Minority Report, and The Asphalt Jungle.