A Not So Typical Post

So usually I focus on the music, and I might...in a second but right now I want to write something about the films I've watched an re-watched recently. I'm mainly talking about the ones I can remember, so here I go.

Unashamedly I begin this session of film watching in ace 90s grunge/alt. mood. Part one of my essays on Sound will clarify this. So we begin with mid nineties comic-book adap Tank Girl which reins in a lot about that particular times' sub-culture and, like most films that desire to be set in a future reality, actually spend the entire time reflecting the current state. And this is no different. Focussing on the worlds lacking of fuel and water and gearing up for apocalypse (5 years before Y2K we can already see this happening). Of course, by this point we are already in post-apocalypse mode where the Man (Malcolm McDowell) here is confronted by an edgy Lori Petty aka Tank Girl and a bunch of kangaroo-man half breeds (remember the mid-nineties gene splicing craze...no?...remember Dolly the Sheep...cloning comes under that too...). It was fun but at the end I tend to remember Jamie Hewlett's artwork and girl-groups-gone-bad such as Hole more than I do anything that actually happened.

Hexed by this nineties obsession I had growing, I begin watching Daria, the MTV spin-off from Beavis and Butthead. I won't go too much into that but it did lead off into watching both Extract, a Mike Judge (creator of B&B) film and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

Firstly, Extract. Mike Judge is clearly not a director held in too much esteem. And it's pretty good he's not either otherwise he may be expected to rifle out non-comedic tripe and that's good for no-one. Thinking about it, Extract is probably Judge's least ambitious project. Forgetting his cartoon related projects, Judge's previous films, Office Space and Idiocracy have been pretty special. Office Space, which hit screens in 1999 was a late bloomer. It did nothing at the cinema yet became a massive cult thing in the U.S. (not so much over here but it still has its followers. Again, it appealed to both the baby boomers and the Y2K generation with its tale of anonyminity within the workplace and boring yourself to death. It's question of "what would you do with a million dollars?" still floats around and from time to time I give the same answer Peter Gibbons did. Fuckin' a. I seem to remember going to the U.S. a few years back and seeing O.S merch in Hot Topics all over the place. It's been a big favourite of mine for a while and then I saw Idiocracy a film which actually makes more sense if you know a bit about Nietzsche. Funny, no? Well I saw the film about three years ago and, strangely, it cropped up when I wanted to tackle existentialism for my dissertation and my tutor brought up this film and its very simple plot-line of stupid people running the world, which has happened very slowly for a very, very long time. So the idea is that in 1000 years, Joe Average (played by a brilliant Luke Wilson) is now the world's smartest man. It's an amazing simple idea and executed like gold dust. Mike Judge seems to be a genius at making the mundane look interesting. But saying that, I'm still unsure about Extract. Firstly, Jason Bateman seems to be reining in a performance, or should I say, he just play's Jason Bateman. Then the affiliation with JK Simmons brings back echoes of Juno, for a minute I genuinely I though Jennifer Garner was going to play his wife (before I realized it was Kristin Wiig, not playing a weirdo but someone actually fairly layered. There relationship reminded me of the one in High Fidelity. There was a lot good about this film. Mila Kunis was so hot it was untrue and the thick gigolo Brad (don't know his name, but he was very convincing as a dunce) was probably the best character in it. I'm still not ruling out Judge though.

The same day, actually earlier, I saw B&T. Weirdly, I used to watch their Excellent Adventure possibly once every six months but never saw the Bogus Journey. To be honest,it was entertaining but never really went anywhere and was quite forgettable. Also, what was about George Carlin turning into Pam Grier. I love a bit of Pam but she was nowhere near the kind of funny that Rufus was in the first one...damn.

Erm and on with the week. I actually started a job this week so I've only seen a few more (two of which were tonight) but the other one was the magnificent Empire Records. It was probably the third or maybe fourth time I'd seen it and I loved it even more. The musical interludes, the breaking of the fourth wall. Rory Cochrane. Say No More (Mon Amour) is probably worth the DVD price on its own. If you have yet to watch it, do so soon.

Next was History of Violence a film I've probably watched in excess of five or six times. Still doesn't slow down. Reminds me of the grinding atmospherics of the darker Coens like No Country for Old Men and Blood Simple. The more I see it do I notice the fantastic references to Norman Rockwell and the twisted vision of the tiny American town. Cronenberg is probably my third favourite director. I'm no fan of his early work (including Scanners) but Crash, Naked Lunch and Dead Ringers all mark highly in my books. I even thoroughly enjoy eXistenZ.

So lets move on to tonight's viewing where it was very possible that another three hour film has made it into my top ten after Heat and Gangs of New York (although in complete honesty, Gangs didn't really impress on its latest viewing, it's really a bit like the Daniel Day-Lewis show a lot like There Will Be Blood which is very tedious and although atmospheric, it loses pace unlike the magnificent Magnolia. So anyway, that film is Betty Blue a sprawling film about the entirety of the relationship between Betty and Zorg. I've never held out so long on a film and STILL be blown away. Three hours is usually enough to send me asleep. Two is usually good enough, if not pushing it still. The film is essentially split into three parts being the beach, the city and the countryside. For some reason I can't really explain why I dug this so much, but it was very, very cool. But this film has been sitting pretty in my DVD collection for a long while. It took the re-airing of Read My Lips to want to check out the subtitled film. I don't know why, I just need to be in the mood. On re-watch I still really enjoyed the Vincent Cassell film. He's always good for my money (bar Ocean's 12 of course) and it's just the kind of film that wouldn't get made in England or the U.S. (it's main character is a deaf woman who is constantly teased by her male co-workers. I mean, the lefty's over there would have a massive paddy before a female character was degraded in such a way. Especially when the plot develops to show her slightly made and stalker-ish for ex-con lout Paul. It's a great film nonetheless.

That's me done I think, this post has taken me about an hour so I think I'll leave talking about music tonight. Take it easy.