Film Review: The Tree of Life
One of the worst films I’ve ever seen. Ever. I should point out that I’m not going to write a very long review for this pretentious load of crap because I walked out of it after 25 minutes, but I will give the reasons why.
Brad Pitt & wife Jessica Chastain lose one of their sons in the 1950s. It’s never explained how but he dies in his youth, and the aftermath is anguish, sadness, loss and pain. You know this because the music tells you, the shots of an odd afterlife and trees and the sky tell you; there aren’t any scenes as such. Cut to 2011 and the remaining sibling has grown up into Sean Penn, whom we see on the anniversary of his brother’s death. We know this because he’s sad. There’s no dialogue, we see lots of sunshine, trees and shots of Penn in an Armani suit in the afterlife himself. He mulls things over, he’s sad and anguished even now. Cut through to the beginning of time, with vocal appeals to God by Chastain. I left when writer-director Terrence Malik got as far as the dinosaurs, taking what felt like forever to make a very easy point that life goes on and always has!
There were no scenes, there was no plot, and whilst I have since learned that scenes and plot do appear after the horrifically self-indulgent musings over life, God and the meaning of existence (which did have astonishing cinematography), I don’t regret walking out at all. Art should of course make you think, and should try to provoke, but I do expect a film I watch to have a plot, a beginning, a middle and an end. I also have no interest in watching a blatant, overly pious religion fest. Malik’s arrogance is quite astounding, and I would encourage everyone who reads this review to avoid this pompous, patronising, self-important film like the plague.
1/10 (because the cinematography was so impressive)
Stand Your Ground
A quite brilliant but horrific experiment, as part of the London Street Photography Festival. This is what happens when you give small people a small amount of power, but it ties in to the increasing privatisation or perceived privatisation of public space.
Does News International’s Criminality Not Matter?
Not according to Simon Jenkins:
Rupert Murdoch and his son were summoned before parliament, and gave an eerie performance as an ageing father who had vaguely heard his son had done something regrettable in the family woodshed. Meanwhile the British prime minister, David Cameron, was forced to return from a foreign trip, like a tottering dictator called home by the politburo. The country’s top policeman and top counter-terrorism copwere forced into resignation. Two government judicial inquiries have been set up. Two commons committees are in continuous session. The police are everywhere. Journalists and MPs are lying on the floor, kicking their legs in the air with glee.
Has anyone been murdered? Has anyone been ruined? Is the nation gripped by financial crash or pandemic, earthquake or famine? Are thousands homeless or millions impoverished? A squalid surveillance of the sort long conducted by the tabloid press went beyond what in this business is laughably called good taste and constituted a crime.
Errr the News of the World hacked into a dead girl’s mobile and deleted messages to make way for more anguished voicemail messages, which they could then presumably publish and profit from. They interfered in a police investigation, their hacking was seriously illegal, whether practised against her or against Hugh Grant – how on earth does Jenkins feel so comfortable with dismissing this behaviour? The editor of the paper at the time of the Dowler hacking has denied any knowledge of what went on, yet has admitted she paid police for information. News International is still paying the legal expenses of the private investigators already convicted of illegal surveillance. Should we dismiss their motivations and accept their apologies? No – noone’s been murdered, there’s no famine, but civil society’s been thoroughly subverted, corruption is endemic at the highest levels of the media, the police and maybe government; this criminality really matters.
Jenkins worked at the Times, a News International paper, so maybe his attitude towards yesterday’s grilling of the Murdochs and Brooks isn’t altogether surprising, but it still stinks. Check his next rant:
It is unsurprising that Murdoch’s fiercest critics should also be his fiercest competitors, notably the Guardian and the BBC. The Murdoch-owned Sky is the one rival to get under the skin of the BBC’s dominance of the radio, television and online market. The BBC led on the story every day for two weeks, despite the state of Europe’s finances, famine spreading across Africa and Cameron’s challenge to the welfare state. The BBC had its share of hard knocks from the Murdoch press and clearly could not resist hitting back.
Somehow he attributes the Guardian’s and BBC’s investigation of News International to a bizarre form of jealousy. Later in the article he writes everything the Murdochs’ firm has done as an ‘error’, out of ‘eccentricity’. Is the corruption at the top of the Metropolitan Police really just an ‘error’, and News International’s blocking of the investigation ‘eccentric’, where both should get away with just saying ‘sorry’? Neil Kinnock was being typically barmy when he suggested legislating balance of the press – I don’t hear the Guardian or BBC lining up behind him; what I hear is them doing their jobs. Maybe Simon Jenkins could learn from his non-NI employer and get the severity of what’s happening into perspective.
News of the Screwed
Absolutely priceless. This had me laughing at work (which is a difficult thing to do)!
John Finnemore on the NOTW Affair
NOTW’s Paul McMullen Digs His Own Grave
Just watch the News of the World’s former Deputy Features Editor Paul McMullen defend phone hacking. Then watch former BBC Director General Greg Dyke and actor Steve Coogan rip him to shreds:
Dyke is right. This isn’t about a question of freedom of the press. Television journalism is regulated, and papers like the Guardian abide by the NUJ’s code of conduct – both manage to fulfil the functions civil society needs them to without any difficulties whatsoever. McMullen skirts over the fact which Dyke brings him back to: the press should not be free to engage in corruption with the police, criminality with private investigators and to damage (and often destroy) people’s lives. Why should the press be free to hack into a dead girl’s mobile phones and delete messages to make room for more anguished messages which they can then exploit? Should the press be free to engage in immoral practices which also interfere in police investigations? I think his behaviour is outrageous. Should they be able to pay police officers huge sums for information?
Let’s remember as well that we don’t have a free press anyway. Our media is owned by increasingly few people, and our papers by even fewer – the playing field has been skewed horribly by the Tories and Labour alike, in the name of currying favour with tabloids, who they felt could win them elections. Regulating the tabloids which behave in an immoral and criminal way isn’t at all interfering with the freedom of the press – the responsible elements of said press are already abiding by regulation which helps the press. I hope attention moves on before terribly long to the HateMail and others (read page 9).
Coronation Street: Too Gay?
Brian Sewell, whom noone could ever accuse of being too gay *snigger* offers this deep analysis in the HateMail:
Is it true that the lives of heterosexual Mancunians are haplessly intertwined with transvestites, transsexuals, teenage lesbians and a horde of homosexuals across the age range? Is Manchester now the Sodom of the North?
Coronation Street has a gay scriptwriter, Damon Rochefort. Fine. Nothing wrong with that. Indeed, its very first writer, its inventor in 1959, Tony Warren, was gay and open about it when homosexuality was still illegal and the penalties dire — and had a tough time with homophobia.
But the pendulum has swung to the other extreme, and where once we had no gaiety at all, we now, perhaps, have rather too much.
So a man who isn’t at all ‘too gay’ says it’s ok for the country’s premier soap opera to depict homosexuality, but not beyond a certain level. Gosh. Does he not understand what a soap opera is? For that matter does he not know Manchester?! But he goes on:
We have constructed a society that surrenders to the will of minorities that shout. We see it among ethnic minorities and sexual minorities, in the disabled lobby and in the funding, patronage and promotion of the arts.
And giving these minorities a huge voice is fundamental to the philosophy of those in charge of TV. As a result, TV is far too politically correct. It fosters all minorities and gives them a disproportionate amount of airtime.
In every kind of programme — be it drama, news, debate or for children — in this land of equal opportunities, minorities are given the opportunity to punch above their weight.
This is an art critic writing, who clearly doesn’t understand what art is about. Unsurprisingly perhaps, given that he’s writing in the HateMail, he’s ascribing a negative agenda to the proper and fair depiction of social diversity – a mean spirited agenda not born out by the facts. Charlie Condou points out:
There are only four regular gay characters in Coronation Street – I play Marcus Dent, who’s in a relationship with Sean Tully (played by Antony Cotton), and there’s also the young lesbian couple Sophie Webster and Sian Powers. That’s it. Hayley Cropper was once a man, but she’s been one of the show’s most popular characters since she joined 13 years ago, the first transsexual ever in a British soap. There is a cross-dresser in Marc Selby, but he is straight and in fact has two women fighting over him. Gail’s father, Ted, was gay – but he hasn’t been in it for years. I wouldn’t have thought four characters out of a cast of about 65 regulars was excessive.
Sewell seems to suggest there’s something morally reprehensible in being gay, and that there’s some kind of promotion of a gay agenda at work (led by a sinister-sounding “mafia”). But in fact you barely see a kiss from the gay characters, just like our heterosexual counterparts. It’s not a “sexy” show.
It’s not about ‘sexy’ of course, it’s about Sewell suggesting he’ll put up with homosexuality (and the HateMail’s readership should too), as long as ‘we’ don’t rub ‘their’ noses in it. That couldn’t be more of a homophobic stance to take. Soap operas may not be high art, but they have traditionally blazed trails worldwide in confronting issues and pushing boundaries, and most viewers have always understood this. Sewell says:
If the audience responds to the proselytising and is happy for the street to swarm with gloomy lesbians and happy homosexuals engaged in relationships ranging from intensely monogamous to brief, shallow and promiscuous, then it must be broadcast after the watershed.
But I don’t think the viewers agree. The days where the pro-Section 28 argument, that we ‘recruit’, could wash with the general public have long since come to an end. Why on earth should non-sexual same-sex relationships only be shown after 9pm? What era does this camp art critic think we’re living in? This argument isn’t really about somehow ‘purifying’ our culture from a homosexual excess – by using language such as ‘Sodom of the North’, Sewell has demonstrated it’s about his promotion of naked bigotry. He’s trying to gain legitimacy by pretending to stand up for a working class which is being misrepresented, but of course the working class in this country has traditionally stood up for proper gay representation better than almost anyone else. And of course he wouldn’t dare try to publish this hatchet job in the Morning Star or Socialist Worker – he and his sponsor Paul Dacre know just who they’re really aiming at. They can both fuck off.
Film Review: Green Lantern
Here’s the counterpoint to Captain America: Ryan Reynolds looks the part, Martin Campbell is an excellent action director (when he’s in the mood), and even DC co-publisher Geoff Johns – the ongoing book’s writer – is on board. But it’s a complete waste of time – all for nothing. The film is a garbled mess, it has no unique selling points, and noone clearly thought whether the highly successful comic property would work at all well as a film franchise. The moment where Hal’s mask is first seen in public drew hysterical, catty laughter in the cinema, for the few moments that people weren’t asleep from boredom or thoroughly insulted by the shoddy script and lazy acting. Martin Campbell has shown he knows how to direct blockbusters (‘Casino Royale’/'Goldeneye’), but either his eye was off the ball here or there was a far more serious series of failures. It’s not unwatchable but it is tedious, the script is terrible and far too much of what you need to know comes from endless exposition.
You know something is wrong when Blake Lively is the best actor in the film. Reynolds simply isn’t up to the task of playing a hero, but he isn’t helped by being woefully badly written. Test pilot Hal Jordan crashes his boss’ super fighter jet – he’s reckless. We know he’s reckless because we have it drummed into us every few minutes. We’re also constantly told he’s unreliable – again it’s drummed into us. Then Hal gets the ring (he doesn’t even show the slightest awe when seeing alien Abin Sur), instead just goes on admitting he’s reckless and unreliable and unworthy – we’re even given a brief flashback to prove his confidence issues come from seeing his father die. So how is this supposed to be interesting? In short it isn’t.
Hal gets a spine when he defeats Parallax (seriously – how are kids with today’s sophisticated tastes going to be remotely interested in an amorphous ‘entity of evil’?), but until that point there’s no moral centre to the film. Bruce Wayne has his revenge, Clark has his upbringing, as does Peter; Tony was just plain cool, but Hal? Hal’s not interesting, and Reynolds offers nothing to make him interesting. It’s a film which does everything it can do badly badly, but even then clearly by committee. I can’t recommend anything about it really. I went off to sleep for about 15 minutes of it. Why didn’t they bother spending more than a cursory few minutes with Sinestro (Mark Strong)?
Hint to DC: if you want us to like your heroes on film, you have to give us nobility (nope, not from Hal), tortured past (nope, not for Hal), wry humour (Thor gets it, Hal doesn’t), or a likeable everyman quality. The Corps wasn’t needed this time around – randomly including huge numbers of characters who aren’t given remotely decent screen time (Kilowog is the moral core of the Corps for example) comes across as a cynical licensing opportunity. Only the post-credits sequence with Sinestro gives any hope for the inevitable sequel, but I can’t really say I care about the prospect.
4/10
Hugh Grant is Right
I couldn’t agree with Hugh Grant more. I think it’s remarkable that he’s playing an even better PM in real life than he did in ‘Love Actually’. How is that possible?
For the record, the story that he broke for the New Statesman is here. Andy Coulson has now been arrested, and it remains to be seen who the alleged second arrestee will be. Interestingly Rebekah Brooks was going to face a no confidence motion against her from the News of the World staff, except of course she then fired every last one of them before they had the chance. Expect the Sunday Sun or Sun on Sunday, and for Murdoch to use every weapon he has available in his arsenal to win full control of BSkyB. It’s a step beyond machiavellian – it’s a megalomaniacal act I’d say, to fire an entire newspaper’s worth of people – some of whom won’t be the scum of the earth – purely to win the biggest possible prize.
News International’s friend David Cameron, the man who had no problem with Andy Coulson as his Communications Director, really should think long and hard about allowing the takeover. Murdoch may have played a little trick yesterday, to ensure questions aren’t asked about plurality, but he also needs to assure his other friend Jeremy Hunt that he and his cronies are ‘fit and proper’ to run the Sky show alone. I think we’ve had it conclusively proven that that couldn’t be further from the case. How many MPs will have the guts to stand against the NI empire?
For that matter who buys James Murdoch’s argument that Brooks’ ethics are ‘very good’? Stephen Glover at the Independent argues:
My belief is that Rebekah Brooks will have to go, and that James and even Rupert Murdoch may not be safe. Temporarily closing a newspaper – for that is what this announcement amounts to – should not divert our attention from the main culprits. This is a desperate ploy by a dysfunctional company.
Film Countdown: Captain America: The First Avenger
Oh this utterly and totally rules:
This is totally what Cap is supposed to be about, and should make Thor and Iron Man look like bore fests, acting as an amazing lead-in to the Avengers film next summer!
Comics and Diversity
I’ve had a number of discussions in the last few weeks about diversity in comics, and this scan of the Young Avengers in Avengers: Children’s Crusade #3 highlights pretty much all of the points I want to make. The subject is at the top of the agenda right now because DC Comics have highlighted the issue at the heart of their relaunch in September. In a sense they’re trying to play catch-up – Joe Quesada changed the playing field in 2001 when he took over as Editor-in-Chief at Marvel – Garth Ennis broke every rule in the book with his Punisher, Mark Millar, Ron Zimmerman and Allan Heinberg all started introducing gay characters into mainstream Marvel books, Luke Cage took over the leadership of New Avengers, Christopher Priest broke all sorts of boundaries with his Black Pather, Brian Bendis started writing Jessica Jones in Alias, and Chuck Austen brought an out gay Northstar into the X-Men . It was by no means full diversity – check out how many of those writers are female, but Marvel certainly started to acknowledge that its readership consisted of far more than its white, thirty-something, hetersexual stereotype, and needed to be responded to. If I’d seen Billy and Teddy (above) in a book while I was in my teens it would have changed my entire life.
Looking at DC, they appear to be making similar moves. Wildstorm’s Apollo and the Midnighter are being reintroduced into Stormwatch by Paul Cornell, Cyborg is being placed at the heart of a rebooted Justice League, Judd Winick is writing Batwing and JH Williams III is finally back with the out gay Batwoman. But what effect will this have on the readership? Rich Johnson points out the fall in female authorship at DC across the relaunched line:
Of the 52 new number ones, 7 of the books are headlined by solo women or all-female teams, and several other team books feature female characters (most of them wearing pants, though Supergirl seems to have REALLY missed the memo and even left her skirt at home). But in terms of creators, it’s not a good situation. The 52 titles feature 160 credited creators, 157 male and 3 female.
So did accepting diversity made any difference to Marvel last decade? Dirk Deppey shows the answer was more complicated than just a change in attitude towards the single issue:
Asked in 2003 by readers of the online webzine X-Fan why sales had gone down so drastically in the previous decade, Jemas started out with the same answer he’d always given to the question: because the comics sucked. “My explanation is attached to an actionable and practical solution,” Jemas continued. “Start to write the kinds of stories that those millions of people used to like to read. When we get our mojo working, people will beat a path to our door.”
By this argument, as he continues, rebooting the line, Ultimate-style, could be a dramatic turnaround for DC. Without the same old, tired, comics memes and continuities holding kids and other back from reading the books, the company’s long-term fortunes could improve. Hiring high quality writers like Grant Morrison (one of Jemas’ success stories at Marvel), Scott Snyder, Jeff Lemire, Paul Cornell and others, and putting them on books well suited to their talents, may be a success. I would argue the jury’s out – for every Morrison there’s a Lobdell, for every Cornell there’s a Jurgens; then again Marvel’s approach to writing with the future in mind hasn’t stood the test of time either. Going back to what executives think works – the Spider-Man in-continuity reboot, the X-Men getting into ever more complicated, continuity-heavy, internecine wars, Bendis using the Avengers merely to break things, isn’t challenging anyone, and they may be defeating DC in market share, but they’re contributing inexorably to the long-term destruction of their market as a whole. Hopefully DC will see the value in Batwoman, start risking having far more women in high profile writing and drawing roles (there’s not exactly a shortage), and truly challenge their readership. Geoff Johns and Jim Lee will make a huge splash when Justice League relaunches but it’ll help the long-term market about as much as Joe Madureira on Spider-Man.
Ode to the Awesomeness of Rory Williams
This couldn’t be more priceless:
(via Steven Moffat…of all people)
Tracy Morgan’s Homophobic Rant
A man who attended Tracy Morgan’s recent show in Nashville claims the comedian launched an anti-gay tirade during which he said he’d “pull out a knife and stab” his son if he were gay.
In a Facebook post titled “Why I No Longer ‘Like’ Tracy Morgan — A Must Read,” Kevin Rogerswrote that he’d been a big fan of Morgan’s since he was a cast member on Saturday Night Live.Rogers, who is gay, wrote that he was prepared for “a good ribbing of straight gay humor” but was surprised at what he claims the 30 Rock star said onstage. GLAAD responds to Morgan’s anti-gay jokes.
“I have very thick skin when it comes to humor; I can dish and I can take,” Rogers wrote. “What I can’t take is when Mr. Morgan took it upon himself to mention about how he feels all this gay shit was crazy and that women are a gift from God and that ‘Born this Way’ is bulls-it, gay is a choice, and the reason he knows this is exactly because ‘God don’t make no mistakes’ (referring to God not making someone gay cause that would be a mistake). He said that there is no way a woman could love and have sexual desire for another woman, that’s just a woman pretending because she hates a f–king man. He took time to visit the bullshit of this bullying stuff and informed us that the gays needed to quit being pussies and not be whining about something as insignificant as bullying.”
Morgan allegedly added that “gay was something kids learn from the media and programming” (Rogers’ words).
Continued Rogers: “He said if his son that was gay he better come home and talk to him like a man and not [he mimicked a gay, high pitched voice] or he would pull out a knife and stab that little N (one word I refuse to use) to death. … Tracy then said he didn’t f–king care if he pissed off some gays, because if they can take a f–king d-ck up their a–… they can take a f–king joke.”
Rogers claims that “none of this rant was a joke. His entire demeanor changed during that portion of the night. He was truly filled with some hate towards us.”
(from Hollywood Reporter)
If this is exactly what happened (I can’t imagine how the comments could possibly have been misconstrued), Morgan needs to lose his job in ’30 Rock’, it’s very simple. Homophobia like this needs to be stamped on and stamped on fast. I doubt anything will happen though, because of course Charlie Sheen had to lose his dignity entirely (and repeatedly) and trash his bosses in public for that to happen to him – why should Tracy Morgan face any significant consequences for naked anti-gay hate? He’s since apologised:
“I want to apologize to my fans and the gay & lesbian community for my choice of words at my recent stand-up act in Nashville. I’m not a hateful person and don’t condone any kind of violence against others. While I am an equal opportunity jokester, and my friends know what is in my heart, even in a comedy club this clearly went too far and was not funny in any context.”
But I don’t think his apology should be accepted – it’s abundantly clear what’s ‘in his heart’. He clearly meant what he said (it wasn’t the first time – read the whole article) and only apologised to get out of trouble. This being the Internet, I’m bound to get a number of Americans bleating about the First Amendment, and it’s a worthwhile point to raise. Firstly my country has no such thing – freedom of speech isn’t absolute here (as it isn’t in America), but secondly by all means let the homophobe say what he likes. Hate speech should have social consequences and he should lose his job anyway. Also there may not be legal consequences to hate speech like this in America, but in the UK what Morgan said would be enough to (rightly) generate criminal charges.
Thoughts on the DC Comics Relaunch
So here’s what I’m going to be buying:
Action Comics by Grant Morrison & Rags Morales
Superman by George Pérez
Wonder Woman by Brian Azzarello & Cliff Chiang
Batman by Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo
Batman Inc by Grant Morrison & Chris Burnham
Batwoman by JH Williams III, W Haden Blackman & Amy Reeder
Justice League by Geoff Johns & Jim Lee
Green Lantern by Geoff Johns & Doug Mahnke
Aquaman by Geoff Johns & Ivan Reis
Flash by Brian Buccellato & Francis Manapul
Stormwatch by Paul Cornell & Miguel Sepulveda
Demon Knights by Paul Cornell & Diogenes Neves
Swamp Thing by Scott Snyder & Yanick Paquette
American Vampire by Scott Snyder & Rafael Albuquerque
I’ve got to say this is the biggest haul of DC books for me in many years (at least 20). Thing is though I don’t think it’ll stay stable for very long. Both Cornell books will be cancelled within 18 months (unless Stormwatch in particular really pushes boundaries), Batman Inc will have delays (as will Justice League), and I can’t see Johns & Reis staying on Aquaman for more than a year or so, but the Snyder books are a guaranteed awesome read, Batwoman looks likely to be free to push boundaries and if the creative team on Wonder Woman get it right that book could be very interesting indeed.
The risk of course is that this is all a gimmick. Are the executives at Time Warner (DC’s parent company) really prepared for Superman to look like that for good? Is this a follow on change from Flashpoint which, Heroes Reborn/Return stylee will just get reset after a year or so? They say ‘no’ but I’m not sure.
Dr Who s6: pt 2 Theories (Spoilers)
I have a very strong suspicion this one is completely correct. But first…
