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facebook

When I was four, I used to commission fact sheets from my dad requesting details such as hair colour, favourite food &c. My predilections and vital statistics were exciting, squeaky-new discoveries – and in later years, new bands and hair colours are wan substitutes. But it’s still fun for ages 9-99. If you're important enough, the Guardian supplements may one day ask you 20 questions, and you will answer them all with "Waking up next to my wife". However, us lesser mortals must sate our lust for immortality with online networking profiles.

Why?

Do we list your likes to try and even out the balance, when our life is so riddled with dislikes? What the French call "Metro - boulot - dodo"? You don't like showing your naked sleepyface on THE BUS every morning. You feel trapped in an unrewarding JOB, where true personality fears to tread. You lie awake at night reliving FIST BITING MEMORIES from your past. Nobody else remembers those moments, but that's no comfort, so it's important to count your blessings.

Is that what the facebook format is for? Taking your tie off and smelling the flowers? Or is it a mating ritual? I once filled in an "OKCupid" profile, and my matches - the people of similar morals who enjoyed the same books and videos as me - were not people who lent tumescence to my winkie (all turned me off either by liking Terry Pratchett or by being my brother). In the middle class UK branch of Facebook all the boys look like lab assistants, and all the girls look like Louise Brookes dressed as Minnie Mouse, and they all talk like effete uncles and tomboy aunties, and they all like Scrubs, Sufjan Stevens and Catch 22. What's to know? Vive la difference, add salt to my meat.

Is this a book you like - or a book you'd like to like? Is this film a foul-weather friend or a PR? Show yourself by listing your enemy films. Which do you dislike liking? Which of your dislikes do you like? Do you like to dislike? People list their favourite bands and authors - and emphasise that the list is incomplete. But of course! Who but an autist has finite tastes? Panic not, your omissions do not mislead me.

Give me a social networking system built openly on fear and loathing. Or a confessional. Show in your contact list a gallery of those to whom you owe forgiveness. A network of people you have dirt on - parochial kiss 'n' tells. Testify your pain and resentment. Confess and absolve. When people you don't like try to “friend” you, give negative testimony. "Your posturing sickens me". "The memory of our drunken sexual encounter is like knives to a blackboard". "I genuinely hate you just because you have nicer hair than me". I want to make "2facebook".

No, here's one. Assimilate the current popularity of genealogy and make familybook. If immortality is the attraction, let's do it properly. The Koreans think that we are squeamish about their dog farms because we have weak family values, and can only open our hearts and souls to capering, sycophantic mutes. Can you list 10 of your mum's favourite bands? Do you know what your grandad's first job was? After all, it's part of what made you who you are - the butterfly effect of your great-aunt's time in the ball bearing factories led to your love of Deerhoof, you know. The time for finding out your friends’ favourite telly shows is when you’re in the old folks’ home together. Imagine a WW2 facebook: Interests: Gardening, Oxo, NOT getting fucked or bombed. Back in the days before boredom. The only facebook they had was Schindler’s List.

Show me elliptical vignettes - blogs and flickrs - and send your meticulous personality meta tags to Tesco. Facebook’s supposed to be a friendfinder but it looks more like a factfest, like a pile of tellies.

I shouldn't scorn something that wasn't made for me. Just because I don't want to do it doesn't mean it shouldn't be there - that's homogenophobic. Plus I visit it every day. Is my ambivalence fired because it makes me feel competitive? Did I hypocritically turn up wanting to be discovered in the most nonchalant chair?

In my college's "alternative" yearbook I put "The Moon" as my future destination, with forced leftfieldery - and so did the trenchcoat boy who I bullied in film class.

If I list my favourite sandwiches on Facebook I know I'll feel compelled to add "And more..." because I don't want to be judged on incomplete evidence.

Have them carve "I could have gone on..." on my gravestone.

surprise

My last review was for a film nobody had seen yet and nobody knew what it would be. On account of it's a Surprise Film. Here it is.

This year's mythopoeic SURPRISE MOVIE, lensed some time after the prehistoric age, is an unrecognisable reincarnation of the then amateur director’s directorial debut, SPOILT IT ISLAND, cinematographised in the 20th century. ISLAND, the film that inspired the adage, “Never work with children, animals or Val Kilmer”, explored anti-sexuality and the occult as well as exposing the hypocrisy of those who profess beliefs that they do not possess. This new version is more visually engaging than Aardman Animations' poignant summer hit MAUS, and funnier than Sam Raimi's political satire BUSH AND GORE. The cast comprises a troupe of thespians and performers whose actuality has to be seen to be believed. Structurally, SURPRISE could be compared to Riverchon’s TWISTER (2001), which was literally a rollercoaster ride with two peaks. However, the shooting style is camera focussed, paying slight homage to Russ Meyer’s documentary FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!; the sheer cinematography is undeniable.

The film follows a three-act structure, possibly dealing with themes of separation and return, of atonement and the quest for understanding. Its narrative is drawn as much from what is left unspoken as from what is revealed, and when the non-titular SURPRISE hits, there won't be a dry seat in the house. Can a killer with a 30 second memory span truly find redemption? Was Michael Jackson’s Moonwalk faked? Don’t look to SURPRISE for the answers. At the end of the day, if you laughed when you saw Rowan Atkinson flick THE BEAN, then this is not the film for you.

deliver us from evil

This is my review for "Deliver Us From Evil". I only really watched one section - it overlapped a shot of the Peedo smiling off-camera and licking his lips, a separately recorded voiceover of the peedo describing exactly what he did with little boys willies once he got his hands on one, and weedy wet flute music in the style of Ray McCooney. So I decided to judge the whole docko based on that, attempted to write a subtly pejorative review, and ended up writing a load of waffle. Don't read this - watch this clip from the Brass Eye paedophile special instead.

“Paedophilia” can describe behaviour at many levels, from the thought crime of submerging oneself in graphic descriptions of child abuse to performing the acts first-hand. Amy Berg uses the language and conceits of the horror film to successfully re-examine an ecclesiastical scandal through her documentary that follows the Brechtian concept, “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it”.

The subject is paedophile priest Father Oliver O’Grady, who felt “ill equipped to handle” the responsibility laden upon him by his parishioners. Perhaps we normal members of society are ill-equipped to examine the human need for affection or validation hampered by Catholic doctrine and extreme sociopathy.

Examinations of paedophilia are often diverted by the difficult examination of the cause of this aberration, or attempts to elicit sympathy for the devil. Who would want to watch a version of JAWS which followed a member of the reclusive, non-threatening 99% of the Great White population, who wakes up in the morning, eats seals and then goes back to sleep? Berg’s bold “exception that proves the rule” approach is vital when tackling the subject of predators of any kind.

A dictionary definition of “Survivor” describes one who prospers and flourishes after trauma. Many have thrived on the proceeds of feigned or exaggerated childhood trauma – genuine victims who are reluctant to relive their pain presumably did not “survive”. Through her work, Amy Berg allows her interviewees, or “characters” as she calls them, to survive vicariously.

south

This is my review for Frank Hurley's "South". If you want to read about the Trans-Antarctic Expotition (please note that I did not say "ill-fated") please read Alfred Lansing or navigator Worsley's book. Shackleton's is ghost written and includes a bit where he pretends to believe gentle Jesus turned up for the last leg of the trip. And if you want to see a proper pipe champing, unaffected hero, watch the fillum.

Polar exploration is a costly business, and it was as much for fiscal reasons as for posterity that Shackleton hired photographer Frank Hurley to accompany him on his trans-antarctic adventure.

Hurley was in later years criticised for manipulating his images for dramatic effect, but the grandeur of the Antarctic could never, and need never, be augmented by human imagination. Their ship, the Endurance, was caught fast in the grip of the pack. Hurley's simple footage of the magnificent ship subdued, crumpling in the fist of the ice, is deeply moving.

Composer and pianist Neil Brand provided live, improvised accompaniment for the film. The bizarre and hugely varied sounds made by constantly shifting ice really require a fully stocked BBC sound effects kit. However, Neil Brand conveyed wonderfully the otherworldliness of the terrain with grim, ocean-deep low notes and flowing streams of urgency; and also created spontaneous and charming leitmotifs for nature's not-so-silent comedians, the dog and the penguin.

Hurley abandoned his cine-camera with the wrecked ship, and where the real adventure starts, the documentation continues in stills. These last few images are at least as powerful as the live footage - particularly the rescue ship viewed from Elephant Island. However, the story soon gives way to crowd-pleasing vignettes featuring grumpy sea elephants and busy bird-life.

Shackleton may have failed in his original intention to cross Antarctica, but his crew of 28 men survived flabbergasting hardships, and with Frank Hurley's help he succeeds in astounding us all nearly one hundred years on.

review #2

I also reviewed 3 Doctor Who episodes yesterday, but I didn't know what I was talking about so you're not seeing that.

"The Abandoned" is cool, but the twist in the tale (just before the snake eats it) will have you vexed and shaking your fist, and the final voiceover may inspire you to kick summat. Do watch it and let me know if you agree, or whether I am missing something... Oh, gosh, that wasn't my review. Click "continue" to see the official 250 words.

From the psychedelic pulp publications of the 70s to Devil’s Backbone, Spanish horror is an inimitable combination of passion, style and restraint. Even a lapse into self-parody such as Accion Mutante is worth watching, but this self referential irony is precisely what Nacho Cerdà strives to avoid with his feature film debut “The Abandoned”.

Peripatetic heroine Marie is going through a mid-life crisis when she inherits a Russian farmhouse from her birth mother, whom she has never known. Her search for the meaning of life, falling appropriately on the eve of her 42nd birthday, brings her to this derelict structure which draws parallels with Twin Peaks’ “Black Lodge”. Its deliberately obscure setting lies somewhere between Hostel’s Slovakia and Dracula’s Transylvania. As a physical manifestation of Marie’s psyche, when the floorboards of the house split, there comes to pass not only a ghostly family reunion, but a forced reconciliation of ego and shadow.

Andrei Tarkovsky’s influence lends a new vitality to the ubiquitous viridian hues of the 21st century horror film. From brown study and rusted tableau to bursts of verdigris, this is a place where gaming classic Resident Evil 4 meets Breughel. Composer David Kristian’s profoundly effective and original sense of Dies Irae sustains an overindulgent intensity, and the climactic un-destruction of the house is breathtaking. Does the past haunt us, or do we haunt the past?

Heraclitus said, “The soul is its own source of unfolding”, and unfold it does, rashly but beautifully. Let’s see what Cerdà does next.

review #1

http://memorythiefmovie.com/

Nyahhh I saw this before you. The Yanks saw it first but they don't count. You can see it on Jul 12th in Cambridge, if you like.

In an age where Hitler has lost his edge to Middle Eastern bogeymen, and Banksy does Belsen, Gil Kofman's directorial debut "The Memory Thief" calls into question artists who purport to expose, but inevitably exploit our numb prurience. Kofman cites Taxi Driver as an influence, but his character study in guileless, earnest obsession more closely evokes fellow voyeurs Mark Lewis (Peeping Tom) and Frederick Clegg (The Collector), or even Eminem's Stan.

Lukas watches life literally pass him by from his tollbooth annexe, snatching cursory human contact from the daily flow of drivers. A chance exchange with a concentration camp survivor provokes the righteous arrogance of youth to surface, and Lukas reinvents himself as an unorthodox Jew. He meticulously adopts the trappings of both obsession and Judaism, and with a yarmulka planted on his head, creates a psycho-collage on the wall of his apartment. Taking upon his shoulders a burden of plagiarised pain, he preaches in vain to the available masses of amused children and baffled peers.

The call and response of soundtrack and dialogue carries with a calculated elegance, counterpointed by actual survivor testimony. Ted Reichman's ambient jazz soundtrack chides, warns and ridicules a protagonist who is more misery magpie than culture vulture.

Can one only exist after experiencing the extremes of human suffering, albeit vicariously? Lukas develops emotional stigmata which prove unbearable, and ultimately this witty and clever film suggests that we follow the traditional Jewish example of allowing mourning to reach an end after grieving wholeheartedly and profoundly.

bumper honk

Today I invented a list of pretend bumper stickers, although I can't take credit for "Honk" and "Baby", and "Mewl" is a private joke for a chum.