“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.” - Ray Bradbury
Today is the 27th anniversary of the senseless murder of John Lennon, outside of his New York apartment on Central Park West. Yoko Ono has posted a short notice on the website Imagine Peace about that day.
What’s strange about this personally, other than the personal significance of that number, is that yesterday I was in a small antiques shop on the outskirts of Montreal looking at the National Enquirer from December 30th, 1980 with a claimed last ever picture of Lennon at rest in the morgue on the cover.
Rest in peace, John. You, and many like you, are sorely missed.
It’s been a few years since genius film-maker Wes Anderson’s last film, The Life Aquatic, so it was with great pleasure that tonight we went to see his latest, The Darjeeling Limited. Unsurprisingly we weren’t disappointed, Anderson’s trademark visual style has been transposed effortlessly onto an Indian continent backdrop and the story, written by Anderson, Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman, is wonderfully uplifting and melancholic at the same time.
The movie centers around three estranged brothers on a journey across India on the Darjeeling Limited line. Each brother has his own character flaws, and the inter-play between them all is wonderfully engaging. As their journey progresses across the country other colourful characters are introduced, each with varying impact on the brothers and their life trajectories. Family relations, trust, spirituality and escapism are all investigated as the brothers continue their journey, and by the end of the film they are all changed – but for how long is the question given the embedded character flaws that have kept them going up till now.
Darjeeling Limited is a another great film from Anderson, perhaps not his best but it’s hard to tell these things on first watching. The dynamic nature of Life Aquatic is missing somewhat, being replaced more by emotional tones than melodies. If you love Anderson, you’ll love this – and if you’ve never seen his films then this is a great place to start.
Oh, and as a bonus before the main feature there’s a short – Hotel Chevalier – which fills out a sub-plot of the main movie, plus gives you a chance to how short both Natalie Portman and Jason Schwartzman are. Amongst other things.
Many years ago the Monty Python chaps cames over to the US o’ A to publicize their show for PBS. Luckily for us, an enterprising TV chap kept a small snippet of the interview – featuring Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and a mildly inebriated Graham Chapman, all with wonderful 70s hair. Enjoy.
Last night we went to see Stardust, the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman & Charles Vess’ same titled graphic novel. Gaiman’s last foray into movies, MirrorMask, was interesting but somehow un-engaging, but Stardust is an absolute delight all the way through. A fairy-tale love story, set in a world alongside England – reached through a hole in the wall next to the town of Wall (near Ipswich). Once the protagonist, Tristran Thorne, sets off on his quest to find a fallen star the action comes thick and fast, with twists and amazing characters on the way that keep you constantly engaged and smiling.
My personal highlights are the ghostly chorus of the dead princes, all named based on their order of birth, from Primus to Septimus, and all vying to be the next king by dint of being the last one alive. The already dead brothers includes David Walliams and Rupert Everett, and en masse they inject a wonderful note of humour into a Shakespearean tradition. The special effects are also fully integrated, never too showy just there in subserviance to the story as they should. Plus you have Robert deNiro as a flying ship captain with a hidden secret, Ricky Gervais with a brief cameo as a salesman plus a panoply of other famous actors from both sides of the pond – thankfully a lot are British given that’s the general accent. Even Claire Danes’ accent is reasonable, if a little too plumy in places.
You know this movie would never have gotten made were it for the success of Harry Potter, so for that we owe J K Rowling another thanks. Gaiman is an amazing author and explorer of the imagination, but his popular success is still limited even after the oustanding Sandman graphic novels and a selection of successful novels. Indeed, rumours of Sandman’s movie debut have been around for many years now, but it has yet to appear. Fingers crossed that Stardust has enough box office success to put some steam behind other Gaiman adaptations. So go see it!
Prince recently courted controversy by releasing his new album, Planet Earth, free with a major UK newspaper. The uproar came mostly from the music labels and stores – people who make money from distributing other people’s creations rather than the musicians themselves. Prince himself doesn’t seem to care, as far as anyone knows since he rarely gives interviews these days. His music is his message and he keeps playing, and playing damn well as I saw a few years back at Madison Square Garden. He may have been around a while now but he has an amazing energy, even way back from the stage. Undaunted by his secrecy, the NY Times has a great piece on what Prince has been up to all these years[From metafilter].
This older interview from the Charlie Rose show featuring Stephen Colbert is wonderful. Colbert is actually himself rather than his character ‘Stephen Colbert’ and there are some moving insights into the show as well as his own history, parts of which are very sad indeed. All of this has gotten me even more fired up for next Monday, when I’m going to go see him do his show in person. Woo! Yeah! Etc!
On a related note: this means that when I bumped into Charlie Rose at Heathrow airport over Christmas, he has already met Colbert – so guess I should have thanked him even more effusively than I did.
Just got back from seeing Ricky Gervais’ first warm up gig at Tribeca Performing Arts, prior to his big shows at Madison Square this weekend. Splendid stuff indeed.
This is the first time I’ve seen Gervais live and he was fabulous. Easy banter and subtle expressions translate into high comedy under his expert guidance. My only gripe was that the show was very short, clocking in under 50 minutes. Plus if you’re easily offended this is not a show for you – British humour can be pretty blunt sometimes, well past the point of political correctness and Gervais is adept at making you squirm while you laugh out loud. There’s also something in his manner that reminded me of Eddie Izzard, who is playing at the Just for Laughs festival this year by the way, but this is definately Gervais’ own unique style of humour. Classic.
Oh, and if a venue says ‘No flash photography’ and for some reason you can’t turn your flash off, then hows about you don’t take photographs almost constantly for the last 15 minutes of a show? Now there’s a thought for the idiot who sat in seat G111. Cheers mate.
