We wanted to be there for the explosions

[alexsarll]

First things first: October 10th, Royal Festival Hall - Magnetic Fields. Go on, you know you want to.

Ben Watt has done a "bittersweet bass-driven nocturnal" remix of Low's 'Tonight' which will apparently "go deep on the dancefloor". No. Really, just no.

With its third episode, The Long Firm finally came into its own. Yes, the constant references to Sixties iconography were a bit Wonder Years. Yes, the basic plot (two villains gone to seed attempt to redeem themselves as detectives). But hang it on two performances like that and I don't care. Phil Daniels takes his Chirpy Geezer persona one step further, to the point where the Geezer has become a bit too much of an old embarrassment, and plays it ruthlessly. Play this against Mark Strong as Harry Starks, the series' brooding lynchpin, and you'd have drama even if the whole hour consisted of them going down the caff for a cup of char.
The fourth and final episode is as much pastiche of what has gone before as denouement, but still strong. It overdoes a few things which perhaps worked better in the book (the homoerotic element to the middle class fascination with gangsters, for instance) but it's no disaster. I notice that of all the characters, only Harry never seems to age; if this was done deliberately, to emphasise his mythic qualities, it was a wise move. My only real objection was to hearing the line "comedy is the new rock'n'roll" in 1980 - surely that was a nineties phrase?

At first, Big Fish set my teeth on edge. It was something of a return to form for Tim Burton after Marky Mark and the Monkey Bunch, but that's not saying much, and all that estranged father/son stuff made me feel as though I was watching his family therapy rather than his new spell. Thirty minutes in, I was convinced this was Baron Munchausen if Terry Gilliam had played the Hollywood game, and I don't think that assessment was entirely unfair. Burton even makes nods to it himself; Bloom's Charger is stuck up a tree after a flood just as the Baron's charger was stuck up a church steeple after a thaw. And too many of the scenes with Karl the giant are just Dennis Waterman gags from Little Britain. Albert Finney and Ewan McGregor are both marvellously charismatic as Edward Bloom, and have similarly wonky accents, and Billy Crudup is suitably Cheap American Christian Bale as his son. It built itself up to become terribly moving but for those of us who already know to distrust stories which have "all of the facts and none of the flavour", is there really anything there? And does anyone who prefers the facts to the romance watch Tim Burton films? Hasn't he already made this point?


It has come to my attention that some people interpreted my last post rudely. I am fully aware that nobody will believe me when I say that reading hadn't even crossed my mind, but it hadn't.

Comments

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Alright alright. How much stinking money do the Mag Fields want from us THIS time?

I second your "no, really, just no" comments re: Low remix.

Er, that's all.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Anyone unfortunate enough to have to *pay* for a ticket will be spending a purple. (/smug)

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

So what's that in real actual English, g4yf4ce?

Yeah yeah you get freebies, well done, I'm very impressed, I will probably sacrifice a chicken to your AMAAAAZING 'getting stuff free' skills in the next hour.

Sorry that's a bit snotty, but you know, come on, a lot of us pay for gigs and don't actually mind it, and sneering from a position of freebies is a bit crap, eh.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

£20 (purple because they are purple, hence also greens and browns).
I try to keep the smugness to a minimum; I think it escaped here because I am so badly paid I couldn't afford to go last time when no such option presented itself.

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Hah, to be fair it only really gets to me for gigs under a tenner when people just go ON and ON - and this is often people with fulltime jobs who seriously CAN afford it, IME, grrr. Twenty nicker is harsh though, I'd be trying to scam into that one if I could, but alas and alack, unless I pretend to be Stephin's mum, I doubt it :)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, when a friend's band are playing for a fiver I don't really mind forking out, especially since they're, like, friends.

[violentbec.livejournal.com]

not that i have evidence to back it up, but 'comedy is the new rocknroll' was very common in the stand up heyday of the 80s, stemming from the observational comics who became famousn in th 90s (seinfeld, hicks, etc).

but this was in the states, so maybe it was diferernt here.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Fair enough, I may be wrong there.
(It's very strange after seeing actors play Joe Meek, Johnny Ray and Judy Garland to see one playing Alexei Sayle, even though that's perfectly consistent)

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. What was rude?? :/

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Some flithy minds thought it was about 'fighting off attempted possession' by another entity physically present.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

oo-er! well thats understandable given your rep, i suppose. :)

[pippaalice.livejournal.com]

Ah.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

forgot to ask - did you sleep ok last night?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Badly, but that was down to weather rather than spookiness.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

Ah well.
And remember: possession is nine tenths of the law!

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

My only real objection was to hearing the line "comedy is the new rock'n'roll" in 1980 - surely that was a nineties phrase?

definitely 90's. circa baddiel and newman playing wembley(1993? i think)

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

That's what I thought.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

although judging from above comments i'm probably wrong.

[fugitivemotel.livejournal.com]

big fish was rub.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

See, I wouldn't go quite that far. It was a bit trite, and the family stuff definitely needed editing, but it still made me cry like a babyManics fan.

[kiss-me-quick.livejournal.com]

I liked it. I don't analyse films, I just enjoy them for what they are.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I've never been any good at putting my brain out of gear.

[guntrip.livejournal.com]

Manics fans don't cry. They articulate their sadness into poetry and fanzines.

[p-dan-tic.livejournal.com]

big fish is spectacular and magical

it made me cry.....

you are the cristian is erik the viking and I claim my 10 pounds

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It's well past a decade since I saw that film - remind me?

Big Fish made me cry but most Tim Burton films do that, and usually without leaving this hollow Hollywood aftertaste.

[johnnybrolly.livejournal.com]

I thought Big Fish was excellent. Burton can make and remake that particular point as long as he keeps making it with dazzling imagery and story telling. There were quite a few other points to Big Fish. One which I kind of saw, but an interview with Ewan McGregor solidified is that Ewan plays the Bloom as Bloom's fertile and rose saturated imagination thinks he was as a younger man. I think we would all like to be convinced, when we get to the age where we are p!ssing our kecks in the corner of the pub, that we were as good looking and charismatic as Ewan McGregor in our better days. Thing is, I won't need a runaway capacity for self-delusion to manage that. Nyahahahahahahaa!

I watched the last episode of Long Firm on BeeBeeBeeThree, and thought it SKILL and WELL WICKED. And I was drunk at the time.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I thought it was on Four?

Also - the girl from Spectre still had him as Ewan, and at the funeral everyone else was much as they'd been in his stories, albeit slightly toned down, so I'm not sure that works.
The thing is, it still doesn't really say anything beyond 'romanticised versions - yay!' and given I already agree with that, I want something more. You can pare that one down to Jeanette Winterson's "Trust me - I'm telling you stories." Or you can build it up to James Branch Cabells' The Silver Stallion which gives a more balanced version of how mythic, heroic tales can be a curse to those who hear them or are their subjects as often as they're a blessing. This came a little close to polemic.

[johnnybrolly.livejournal.com]

It was on Four. I stand corrected. Look, I did say I was a bit drunken. It's a very weak defence I know, but it's truth cannot be denied.

Ewan said that he thought is was very interesting to play a character who is only a version of the real young man, as taken from the fertile imagination of the old man.

As for wanting more, I thought it was a cornucopia of visual delight, but I guess I am easily pleased.

One thing I am still vexed about - the village where they steal your shoes, and chuck 'em over a line? The lotus-eaters theme is used in loads of stories, but the shoes over the line image - I know it, but where is it from?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

See, that bit I did think was new. Do any of these ring a bell:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319061/movieconnections
Also:
"When Young Edward first visits Spectre, the camera pans upwards and we see shoes hanging from a wire above the city. On the left-hand side hangs a pair of ruby slippers, a reference to Wizard of Oz, The (1939)."