Category: Culture

05/04/2007 Food

Attack of the Green Testicle

Now I know what it feels like to be Fidel Castro. For some reason I ate an unripe avocado last night, which gave me a itchy swelling in the back of my throat. It seems I’m allergic to unripe avocado. Eventually the itching spread to the insides of my ears and finally subsided after a couple of hours. As I was searching online to find out how serious my situation would get and what to do about it, I discovered my adverse reaction is caused by an enzyme called Chitinaze, of which there is a high concentration in avocado.

More interestingly, I found out that the name “avocado” comes from the Aztec or Nahuatl word “ahuacatl,” which means “testicle,” assumed to be a reference to the fruit’s shape.

Thanks to Courtney for initiating this voyage of discovery ;-)

19/03/2007 Film

Quick Tip

Avoid Tom Tykwer’s movie The Princess and the Warrior. It would be a good movie if Tykwer had realised he’d written a black comedy. Sadly for us, he didn’t, and all two and a half hours is played with a schmaltzy, po-faced earnestness which makes it utterly, utterly laughable.

Particularly outstanding among a host of contemptible moments is the bath time electrocution. This is a set-piece I’d been planning to use in my imaginary remake of Parting Shots. I’ve not seen Parting Shots, and nor do I intend to; it’s directed by Michael Winner and it stars Chris Rea, the singer. I want to take just the concept and make a bad-taste murderous revenge comedy, because that’s the kind of movie in which you dispose of characters by electrocuting them in the bathtub with a toaster on a 30ft cable.

In its defence, The Princess and the Warrior is beautifully shot and tidily edited. Contrary to the old adage, it is possible to polish a turd.

17/03/2007 Culture

Armando Iannucci’s superheroes

This one is particularly great:

Creationist Kid
Jake Huckerman is by day a Baptist maths teacher in Alabama, but by night one of a new breed of superhero, the next stage in man’s evolution unleashing untapped potential within the brain. Unfortunately, Jake doesn’t believe in evolution because he thinks the world was created in six days from mud in God’s fingernails. Luckily, Jake’s unique special power is the ability to jump to a parallel universe in which he does believe in evolution. Unfortunately, he can’t tell anyone, because if he does, his friends and neighbours will hang him upside down from the neck of a negro. He channels all his frustrations into teaching a new kind of geometry to his pupils, showing them how quite literally to square a circle.

From his Guardian article.

13/03/2007 Film

Le Samouraï

Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samouraï has to be one of the coolest movies ever made. Just the production details offer a foretaste of its coolness: anything made in France in 1967 starring Alain Delon should at least pique a movie buff’s interest. Le Samouraï blends 40’s American gangster movie aesthetics, 60’s French pop culture and a dash of Samurai mystique.

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09/02/2007 Drama, Film

Ian Richardson, RIP.

I’m sad to hear of the passing of Ian Richardson, an actor with one of the greatest voices I’ve ever heard, and coldly hypnotic eyes. I never saw him on the stage, but his performances for film and TV were always mesmerising. Obviously he’ll be well remembered for House of Cards and To Play the King but for me his roles in movies such as Brazil and Dark City are just as important.

02/02/2007 Film, Travel

Playing Catch-up

Looks like I’ve not posted in a while. Here’s a summary of the last sixty-six days.

Those who saw me and possibly the missus during December will know how much we tired ourselves out having fun and visiting what feels like everyone (but actually wasn’t) during the festive season.

Discovering that I’m a little part of history in a photo in the Globe museum (along with Eyelashjam and a small bunch of others) was a happy experience. Somewhere within me a small organ swelled with pride. Seeing M & K happily set-up in Brighton made both of us happy, and reunions back in Worcestershire and Buckinghamshire were as sweet as always.

We’ve been back in Davis for a month now, and I suppose we’re back in the swing of things. The tiny PS2 Rev Rehash gave us as a Saturnalia present has seen a lot of use, and led me to discover a very 21st century relationship dilemma which I’ll cover in a later post.

I taught my Cornish pastie and Chicken Tikka Masala course at the Co-op for a second time. No-one died. Even better, I’m working with my friend Ellis on a video project which will stay under wraps until it’s ready to be seen. I’m still procrastinating over writing the script for the short movie I hope to make with Jeff. It’ll happen soon; I feel it bubbling up through the mire of my consciousness. I’ve also had an idea for a non-narrative piece which explores reproduction and degeneration.

So far this year I’ve caught the following movies at the cinema:

  • The Queen
    Well-observed performances from Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen, and subtly critical of both the traditional British establishment and Blair’s courting of populist sentiment.
  • Pan’s Labyrinth
    Visually stunning, and a top performance from Sergi Lopez as a sadistic torturing fascist.
  • The Curse of the Golden Flower
    A grand statement about China’s current regime disguised as a lavish period romp; largely disappointing when you compare it to House of Flying Daggers and Hero, but look at all those extras – and all those jiggling busts!
  • Children of Men
    Felt like a hard punch in the guts; at one point I almost threw up with anxiety. It’s very impressive and I was slightly hungover.
  • Volver
    Quirky and darkly sweet, but not as kinky as I’d hoped. Everyone’s talking about Penelope Cruz and she is good, but Carmen Maura’s better.

I’m going to make an effort to catch Notes on a Scandal, Little Children and a nice little American social realist pic (don’t see many of those) called Flannel Pajamas. The Last King of Scotland starts at my work in the next couple of weeks, which makes it easy for me to see and I’m hoping we can get Paul Verhoeven’s Zwartboek (Black Book) mostly because it’s guaranteed to be up-front steamy and sexual, and there has been precious little sex on American cinema screens since the end of the Clinton era.

February 18th is the first day of the Chinese year of the Boar. Mmm. Pork. I’m looking forward to it already.

30/10/2006 Film

Christ!

Yesterday was my mainstream movie day. I caught The Departed and The Prestige at my local evil five-plex. Both good movies, and The Prestige was particularly noteworthy for being a fantastic exploration of artifice and deception, a real puzzle of a movie where the structure of the movie is the same as the structure of its subject – magic tricks.

Of course, we were bombarded with trailers. When I’m putting together the programme at the Varsity I normally attach a maximum of four trailers. Any more than that and I feel like I’m taxing the audience’s patience. At the evil five-plex you get twenty minutes of advertising for products and TV programmes and then six or seven (I lost count) trailers for coming features. Each one is about two and a half minutes. Towards the end of the reel or trailers, just as Jeff and I were asking each other if we were ever going to see the movie, an extended version of this played. "One family. One journey. One child who would change the world… forever." It looks like it will play well to the churches by the interstate in most of middle America. It looks fairly well shot in a Milk Tray advert style.

However, just in case Americans are in danger of forgetting what Christmas is all about, here’s another movie to remind them, Christmas at Maxwell’s, "powerful story of Christian happenings" complete with a small boy with wiggly eyebrows and crackling dialogue.

Look at this neat album! All of the pages are blank.

And here’s a movie about the people who are most likely to watch the previous two movies, Jesus Camp. I feel I should preface this trailer with a warning. It’s almost enough to put you off your dinner.

22/10/2006 Books

Eagleton on Dawkins

In his review of The God Delusion in the London Review of Books, Terry Eagleton plays Devil’s Advocate for theology in order to make some pointed criticisms of Dawkins’ rhetoric. As a firm atheist, I’m looking forward to reading The God Delusion over the festive season, and as someone who respects Terry Eagleton’s scholarly work, I was equally interested to read what he has to add to the debate.

19/10/2006 Film, Music

80’s Flashback

Morrissey

For no particular reason, other than I’m in the mood and some of this stuff is classic, here are a bunch of songs (with videos) from early eighties Britain which prove the first seven years of my life weren’t all bad make-up, pixie boots and synthesizers (not that there’s anything wrong with a good Moog or an ARP).

1: The Clash – Rock the Casbah
To break everyone in nice and gently and to set the tone.

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23/08/2006 Culture

Shh…

Silent Library has to be the greatest exploitative TV game show of all time. Any show with a round entitled "Old Man Bites Tenderly" ranks right up with Vic and Bob in the pantheon of TV surrealism. Click and watch!

14/08/2006 Music

An Indian Summer

I was going to call this my Summer compilation, but I’m not sure how much summer is left in the UK, where I guess most listeners will be, so here’s the hypothesis: it’s early September, and an Indian Summer has arrived. A warm afternoon mellows into a balmy evening. This is what plays on your stereo as you enjoy a few drinks in the garden. Of course, these tunes work just as well for an ordinary summer day. It starts with some storming afro-beat, sashays into some latin grooves, takes an electronic turn and turns folksy at the end.

Click here to listen to my Indian summer compilation (61.5mb quicktime file). I’ll remove it after two weeks, just in case someone takes issue with me putting tunes here.

The link has been removed.

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04/08/2006 Music

Hurrah!

Victory for the Comic Muse album cover

There are few things that make me dance around the living room singing when I’m not already drunk, but I confess the arrival of a new Divine Comedy album is one of those things. I realise I’m a little behind, and that everyone back home is about three single releases ahead of me, but I’m surrounded by the uninitiated here in California. The album’s not even released in the USA, so last week I ordered it from a company based in Hong Kong.

So far it sounds like Neil Hannon’s most consistent piece since 1999’s Fin de Siècle but I’m only six songs in. It definitely starts strongly; I’m going to have to keep myself from singing "I don’t want to die a virgin!" in front of my staff at the cinema.

So far my favourite lyric is from Diva Lady

She’s got a famous boyfriend
They go out in style
She makes him look hetero
He helps her profile

02/08/2006 Culture

Time Trumpet

Mouse climbs out of Anna Ford's throat

The forthcoming Armando Iannucci series, Time Trumpet, looks like my kind of programme. It appears to be a nostalgia show set in 2031, in which celebrities reminisce about events like the shooting of Tony Blair, a beautiful fireworks display over Baghdad, the day Dale Winton exploded, and a home shopping channel that sells nothing but bacon.

A bit like the incontinent elephant on Blue Peter, but even more so. Golden memories!

20/07/2006 Film

La Science des Rêves

Gael Garcia Bernal as Stephane inspects his woollen horse in The Science of Sleep

It looks like we’re seriously pursuing The Science of Sleep to screen at the Varsity in late August. I love Michel Gondry’s work, so I’m really excited. Check out the trailer here.

It looks as if both a French and English-language version were shot, which is unusual, but not unprecedented. I seem to remember a lame Gerard Depardieu comedy Mon Père ce Héros / My Father the Hero being shot in two different languages. Or maybe it was dubbed and my memory is inventing things.

19/07/2006 Music

Inside

Once in a while I discover a song which sounds like the inside of my head. The latest of these discoveries is from the Talking Heads 1979 album Fear of Music. Mind sounds much like a superior version of one of the tunes that my head creates but never expresses.

07/06/2006 Culture, Rights & Wrongs

Fuck me, America is weird

There has just been a tenfold increase in the fine federal government levies against broadcasters who violate “decency standards.” It used to be $32,500, now it’s $325,000, with a maximum of $3m for repeated violations.

Chris Langham as Hugh Abbot in The Thick of It

The rules do not apply to satellite TV or radio, or to cable TV (such as HBO, which makes the Sopranos). I don’t know why, but it does mean that my new favourite programme, The Thick of It, is being broadcast on BBC America (because the channel is available on digital cable and satellite only). For those who don’t know, it’s a political satire with a shitload of fucking good swearing in it. An example:

Hugh Abbot, minister of Social Affairs, has been savaged in the press by a reported call Simon Hewitt. He discusses the matter with his staff.

Hugh: So, how do we respond to this?
Terri: Right, we don’t exchange insults with bloody Simon arsepipes tittytwat.
Ollie: Is that honestly the best swearing you can come up with?
Terri: Or…
Glenn: This is a bucket of shit. If someone throws shit at us we throw shit back at them. We start a shit-fight. We throw so much shit at them that they can’t pick up shit they can’t throw shit, they can’t do shit.
Hugh: That’s top swearing, Glenn, well done.
Ollie: Watch and learn.

If only it were playing on conventional US TV, it would be the most expensive sitcom ever made.

18/05/2006 Music

John Barleycorn Must Die!

Cover art for John Barleycorn Must Die by Traffic

Today I picked up the appropriate soundtrack for the fast-approaching long weekend of drinking in the Catskill mountains with Courtney’s family. John Barleycorn Must Die is an ancient song which has a number of well-established interpretations. Most obviously, though, it’s a song about barley and the drinks one can make from it – beer and whisky.

Traffic’s 1970 version is highly regarded. I think it was in an issue of Mojo that I read Steve Winwood was reincarnated was Paul Weller without actually dying. The comparison is particularly relevant when you compare John Barleycorn… to Weller’s Wildwood. There’s a similar pastoral tinge, and Weller’s instrumentation is almost a direct lift – with bluesy piano, gutsy hammond organ and fluttering flute augmenting guitar, bass and drums.

Lyrics for John Barleycorn Must Die are the other side of the link below.

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17/05/2006 Books

First impressions of Black Swan Green

It’s very good for homesickness. I can see all the locations. I know Jason Taylor’s route to school. I remembered that he would have attended the Hill School (it’s called Upton upon Severn Comprehensive in the novel), and not Hanley Castle until he was older.

I’m amused at the way Mitchell has turned place names from the area into names of teachers: Mr Kempsey, Mrs Wyche, Mr Inkberrow. I wonder if I’ll start recognising some of the teachers? I’m also amused by the mention of “the pork scratchings factory in Upton on Severn.” I knew the manager’s son. The gossip was that he was illiterate, and his son certainly was.

I’ll post some notes on its literary qualities shortly, but right now I’m wallowing in the nostalgic smell of ashtrays in the school bus and the fear of being at the bottom of a pile-on on the playing fields.

Suddenly I’m reminded of how a friend of mine got barred from a Worcester music shop owned by one of our ex-teachers. My friend P walked in and was greeted by Mr. C with “Hello P, you’re looking fatter.” P wasn’t too impressed and responded with “Hello Mr. C, you’re looking balder.” And that was the end of that.

Back to the book…