Classics: Treasure Island & Vertigo

In the middle of getting ready for an imminent work trip to Israel, I found time to attack a couple of classics from different media; the book Treasure Island, and Hitchcock’s masterpiece of film, Vertigo.

First up, Treasure Island, a book I can’t actually remember if I read when I was younger as the themes are now so familiar; pirates with parrots and wooden legs, buried treasure and heroic cabin boys. Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic is best read at a younger, more innocent age, yet maintains it’s ability to thrill even to us jaded older folk. A fun, lightweight classic but don’t expect anything too mentally challenging.

Then we have Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. As someone who watches a lot of movies I’m slightly embarrassed to say that I’ve not watched any Hitchcock films. This is something I realise I now need to rectify, as Vertigo is visually sumptuous, engaging with great acting from James Stewart, and a thrilling soundtrack. There’s also a classic early intro sequence from Saul Bass. The story follows Stewart, who plays a detective on retirement due to the onset of crippling vertigo which caused the death of a fellow officer. Stewart, for want of anything else to do, accepts a friend’s request to follow his wife, Kim Novak, who has been acting strangely and apparently is possessed by the suicidal spirit of a dead woman. Stewart accepts, and in carrying out his duties falls in love with the wife and things progress from there.

Although the film is now over 50 year old it is still a joy to watch. The speed of pacing may put off some viewers, but Hitchcock was well ahead of his time and if you’re not addicted to jump cuts then all will be well. Happily for me this now means I have the rest of Hitchcock’s back catalogue to watch as well. Splendid stuff.

Punchdrunk vs. ENO – The Duchess of Malfi

Last night we went along to see The ENO/Punchdrunk co-production of The Duchess of Malfi at a remote office block in the east end of London. This was touted as one of the ‘must see’ events of the theatrical season in London, and caused the ENO’s ticketing server to crash quite horrendously when it went on sale – luckily I managed to grab four tickets in the melee, and now I really wish I’d gotten more as it was quite splendid.

For those of you not familiar with Punchdrunk, they formed in 2000 to create immersive theatrical experiences where the audience is expected to wander around, interact with the performance to some degree and to create their own relationship with the works rather than just sitting in a chair and watching. Audience members at Punchdrunk events are required to wear masks which helps to separate audience from performers, but also creates a wonderful sense of alienation. Instead of creating a single thread of narrative that unfolds on the stage in front of you, there are little nuggets of story happening all over the venue and your participation in this requires you to find and unravel what’s going on. To add complexity, Punchdrunk events are generally quite dimly lit and involve a lot of subtle set dressing that just adds to your confusion, joy and discomfort – to varying levels. And now onto last night’s performance, in which spoilers may be revealed…

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Favourite Films: Twelve Monkeys

Above: “I am the man who kills Bruce Willis” – the actor with the dubious and singular honour of killing Bruce on-screen is coached by Terry Gilliam”

Most of you will know about my mild obsession with Terry Gilliam and his amazing films. Gilliam’s movies are some of the most regularly re-watched in my extensive collection, along with those of the Coen Brothers and Christopher Nolan. All of them delight in visually stunning extravaganzas combined with off-beat yet engaging characters, and Twelve Monkeys is no exception.

Twelve Monkeys is Gilliam’s 1996 sci-fi time-travel confuso-thriller starring Brad Pitt, Bruce Willis and Madeline Stowe amongst others. The basic story is based around the surreal French short film La Jetee, centering around a man from the future who has seen his own death as a child. In this re-telling our soon to come dystopian future has the remnants of he human race living underground, holding on after a devastating virus has killed most people. Willis plays James Cole, a prison inmate chosen to go back into the past to try and investigate what happened and ultimately retrieve a pure source of the original virus so the future/present scientists can create a cure. With me so far? Well there be spoilers ahead, so be warned.

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Nineties TV Weekend (Is It Sunny Out?)

For some reason, in between bouts of sitting on the roof playing Scrabble in the sun, it’s been a bit of a nineties TV weekend. We’ve had too much sun the last two weekends anyhow…

First up has been American Gothic – a Twin Peaks-esque horror/supernatural series from the mid-90s that starred Gary Cole as the excellently ambiguous Sheriff Buck. A great character study in how people deal with someone who’s obviously the embodiment of evil, yet who’s consistently nice and helpful to everyone, of course always to his own ends. The DVD transfer’s not great, the series sometimes looks dated, and the really strange thing is that the episodes are on the discs in the wrong order (see wikipedia for the correct order), but even with all that it’s still held up really well 15 years later. As people said, it was ahead of its time and these days would likely have been an HBO series rather than CBS. Such is life.

On a slightly lighter note, Channel 4 on demand now has the hilariously surreal Mr Don & Mr George available for your viewing pleasure. Again, the order is slightly out, no idea why, but all six wonderful, bizarre and charming episodes are there to enjoy. Trailing the exploits of two men called McDiarmid, but not related, this is another series that was arguably way ahead of his time – an offshoot of the also excellent Absolutely (also available on Channel 4 right now).

Charlotte Gainsbourg @ Shepherds Bush Empire

Last night we went to see Charlotte Gainsbourg sing for the first time in London. At a fairly busy Shepherds Bush Empire, a crowd that consisted of a large proportion of French speakers waited in anticipation for the actress daughter of the famous singer to show us her own skills. As you might expect, they weren’t quite up to the high bar Serge set, but Charlotte has created her own style to set herself apart and it works well.

The crowd responded well to tracks such as Master’s Hands and the excellent IRM, which work best with Charlotte’s soft voice, but it was for covers of her dad’s songs that the crowd went wild – especially a finale of Couleur Cafe. The singing shadow of Serge Gainsbourg is hard to avoid if you’re his only heir, but maybe it’s best to embrace your heritage at times. As Charlotte herself said in a recent interview when asked who she would invite to her dream dinner party?: “Ghosts. Yvan, my children and my father, because they never met.”

The Latest Jesus-Phone Rises

Another year, another iPhone. But this year at the WWDC Steve Jobs’ presented something unexpectedly expected, the iPhone 4, and boy is it cute.

The ‘traditional’ iPhone front aspect is still relatively intact, but the new side bezel of aluminium is something very new, and indeed very ingenious as it incorporates an antenna. The latest iPhone also features something Apple calls a ‘retina screen’, a screen with resolution so high that your eye cannot perceive the different pixels. A screen the same size as the older iPhones, but with roughly 75% of the pixels of the iPad. That is stunning, and it’s a technology I can’t wait to see on any laptop screen. Twin cameras, front and rear facing, are now present – one replete with LED flash & full HD recording plus the ability to edit movies in situe via a cut down version of iMovie (available at a premium from the App Store), the other camera is set to let you video conference face to face (for now only over wireless). Then there’s the built-in gyroscope, that detects movement in three directions. What the what!

Having not held it in my hand, and only from the pre-emptive looks from Gizmodo amongst others, I can only guess how amazing it feels to the touch. Yes, unfortunately, I want one. Will this gadget-lust cost me? Yes, it will. Thankfully I won’t have to wait too long to be parted from my money, as it rolls onto UK shelves on 24th June.

Flight of the Conchords @ Hammersmith Apollo

Kiwi Splendour – Jemaine & Bret in action (more pics)

From the very first moment that Bret & Jemaine, better known as Flight of the Conchords, took to the packed, ecstatic crowd at Hammersmith Apollo we knew we were in for a treat. Sporting home-made cardboard box heads the expectation was for We are Robots, but instead they launched straight into Too Many Dicks (On the Dancefloor), giving Arj Baker – Dave from the show & tonight’s support – the chance to show his rap chops. The crowd lapped it up and every other classic song the Kiwi duo rolled out, whether they were pitch perfect or slightly off with hilarious recovery. One surprise though was quite how potent Jemaine is. That man can deliver an accent, and a sexy pose, like no-one else in comedy today – with the possible exception of Matt Berry. Even Bret’s talented musical delivery & banter seemed sometimes to be playing second fiddle to the ‘llama faced’ god.

All the crowd pleasers had been delivered by the end of the almost two hour set, no mean feat when you’re two guys on stage all the time. We Are Robots (with Jemaine’s amazing Schwartzenegger impersonation), Hurt Feelings, Woo Song, Business Time, Carol Brown (with Bret as all the exes) and a finale of epic mock-rock God proportions with Bowie and finally Sugalumps. Boy, did they give us sugalumps. Especially the lucky front row who received Bret in full effect as he clambered into the crowd. In between the fan friendly songs the guys took time to regale us with stories from their tour, involving the hilarity of muffins and elevators delivered with deadpan perfection.

A perfect night, with the only downside being the ridiculous difficulty in getting tickets when they first went on sale. I believe the gig sold out in three minutes, not helped by a ‘maximum’ of six tickets per person. Six! By the 5th gig the Conchords announced the guys had sensibly started asking for photo ID and will-call picket for everyone, but this was for Wembley Arena rather than the relative intimacy of Hammersmith. Something really needs to be done about the touts scalping their profits, not only the ones outside, but the corporate off-shoots of companies such as TicketMaster who encourage people to tout and re-sale tickets to profit from real fans. ID pickup is likely the best solution and it really can work, as I saw earlier in the month at Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace gig in New York. That aside, the extra money spent was worthwhile (see, I’m part of the problem…) I just wish it had gone to the men who deserved it.

The Conchords gave us an amazing night and showed us that New Zealand isn’t all Hobbits. There are Elves and Maoris as well. Sexy ones at that.

A Very Neon New Year to Everyone

Space Invader Neon @ Lazarides Grifters Show
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

As the last few hours of 2009 draw to a close we can reflect on the year that’s been. Or we can do the same as every newspaper across the world has done and reflect on the decade that’s been – the ‘noughties’.

2009 for me has been dominated by an increasingly joyous obsession with Space Invader graffiti, combined with my first full year of work in London since ‘97 and the opportunity to do some European travel. Prague, Paris and Barcelona all featured – as did happy return trips to New York and Toronto. My carbon footprint has been quite heavy this year, apologies to the world on that. There have also been a number of weddings – so further congratulations to Aimi and Gary, Paul and Victoria and Chris and Cecilia on that front. Not to mention the great increase in quality time spent with my family now we’re on the right side of the world again.

2009 was also a great year for gigs – from perennial faves TV on the Radio, Daedelus, PJ Harvey and the amazing Blur reunion gig at Southend. We thought that Blur wouldn’t be beaten, but then a last minute intimate Pearl Jam gig at Shepherd Bush snuck in there to give them a good run for their money, as well as unexpectedly superb Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Pixies gigs. Wow. 2010 has a lot to live up to there.

As to the decade. Well you can read this blog if you want, which started in earnest on February 27th, 2000 with this unauspicious first post. Yes, this blog is almost turning ten! It’s seen a lot of good times with friends around the world, and a lot of tragedy with the events of 9/11 and the election of George Wanker Bush amongst others. Although the Internet has revolutionised our world, it hasn’t helped us to overcome the fears and governmental idiocy that have been introduced at the same time – or at least not yet..

Decade highlights for me have to be the arrival of four nieces and nephews, getting to travel round the world and learning to scuba dive, living in New York and Montreal, making some great friends, and spending half that decade with the ever lovely Miette.

So for everyone, everywhere – here’s to a happy, healthy 2010 and the decade beyond. Go for your dreams and don’t listen to the naysayers. Skol!

Meeting my Idols #2: Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam in Q&A @ The Curzon Mayfair
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

Last night we had the joy of seeing Terry Gilliam’s latest film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, followed by a Q&A with the great director himself. All very exciting stuff.

The film is awesome, a fantastical myth making tale along the lines of Baron Munchausen, with great performances from all the actors. The way in which Heath Ledger’s untimely departure from halfway through filming is handled extremely well and, if anything, adds to the film – as in some scenes Heath’s English accent veers a little antipodean or is smothered in excessive use of the word ‘mate’.

Lily Cole is visually stunning and hypnotising as Parnassus’ daughter, unaware of her imminent fate as the trade made in a bet between Parnassus and the Devil – played excellently by Christopher Plummer and Tom Wait respectively. Why are Gilliam’s casting choices always so spot on?

After the fun of the film we got to spend a while in Q&A with Terry Gilliam. He was at ease, happy to go into stories, and full of interesting anecdotes. The only annoyance was the apparent inability for some audience members to not ask questions regarding Heath’s death and family, all of which had been answered by Terry in many of his recent interviews or were just deeply inappropriate.

Post Q&A Terry was thronged by fans outside in the bar, some more greedy with his time than others, but thankfully he found a few seconds on the way out the day to sign my favourite Brazil DVD. Huzah! Fanboy #2 goal achieved (#1 being meeting Eddie Izzard back in ‘98 of course).

PJ Harvey & John Parish @ Shepherds Bush Empire

PJ Harvey & John Parish @ Shepherds Bush Empire
Originally uploaded by ultrahi.

The every amazing Polly Jean with her co-conspirator John Parish rocked Shepherds Bush Academy last night for the second of two gigs. Wonderful stuff indeed. How such an amazing range of sound comes from her small frame is somewhat beyond me, but I’m sure glad it does. From the opening epic rock of Black Hearted Love, to the very end, every moment was wonderful and tight – we even got a few minutes of PJ banter as one of the band’s laptops gave us a crackly acapella moment.

It’s been a long time since my last PJ gig at Glasto over ten years ago, and before that was at the Que club in Brum (supported by Tricky) and this gig just shows she’s going from strength to strength. Thanks to Polly and John for a splendid night, to Rich and Andrew for coming along to enjoy, and to Sooz for Facebooking her original comment when she missed the first round of tickets! Now let’s see if I can get some Blur preview gig tickets this morning…