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February 14, 2005
Thought for Valentine's Day
"That is what has happened to me tonight. I am beaming Sex Rays across the world and my brain is all lit up with Holy Fire. If I felt like it, I could shag a million nuns and destroy their faith in Christ.
From my chair."
(From here.)
Posted by jonny at 08:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 08, 2005
In review: 2046 (dir. Wong Kar-Wai)
"It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back."
Chow (Tony Leung) used to be a newspaper man. Now he writes stories about 2046, where people go to reclaim memories. 2046 tells the interweaving stories of the women in Chow’s life in mid-late 60s Hong Kong; Zhang Ziyi’s good-time girl who lives across the hall, the hotelier’s daughter (Faye Wong), showgirl Carina Lau and a mysterious professional gambler (Gong-Li). In 2046, the past, present and future collide in the corridors of boarding houses, the Oriental Hotel and the trains forever heading towards 2046.
2046 reunites director Wong Kar-Wai with cinematographer Christopher Doyle and star Leung for the follow-up to 2000’s In The Mood For Love. The film is entirely related to its predecessor and yet, at the same time, it isn’t. While In The Mood… was a study of repressed desire, 2046 shows desire let off its leash: the spark for Chow’s new, libertine lifestyle comes from meeting a woman with same name as his earlier, forbidden love. For all his physical intimacy, Chow always seems emotionally distant from his lovers and it’s almost impossible to view this without reference to the tender relationship between him and Li Su-Zhen (Maggie Cheung). But it is possible not to refer to the earlier work, but without that reference it becomes hard to sympathize with Chow at all.
Visually, 2046 is another tour de force from Wong and Doyle. Each frame is suffused with detail and beauty. One of the major points of interest is the essential difference between the ‘realist’ sections and the visits to Chow’s 2046; with both areas featuring (mostly) the same actors the demarcation is hugely important. Here, it’s both obvious and unforced. 2046 is a luxury for the eyes.
It’s not quite as enjoyable for the mind. It is hard to sympathize with Chow, and the episodic narrative often frustrates with its refusal to provide resolution to its various parts, though this defiant lack of conclusion is a refreshing change. Overall, the various narrative deficiencies of the film are overcome by outstanding performances from Leung and Zhang Ziyi along with the sheer exquisite beauty of the thing.
It is said in 2046, nothing ever changed. The irony is that in 2046, Hong Kong will be enjoying its final year of political and economic freedom from mainland China. In 2047, everything will change.
Posted by jonny at 03:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 07, 2005
Commenting
A quick note: anyone wishing to comment on entries is going to have to register to do so. It's not supposed to discourage people from telling me how wrong I am: I'm enabling commenter registration to stop online casinos posting huge HTML ads as comments. If you want to blame someone, blame them.
Yes, all of them. The bastards.
Posted by jonny at 03:01 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 06, 2005
The Delgados
Scottish indie greats the Delgados play Aberdeen's Lemon Tree, 4 February 2005.
Posted by jonny at 01:41 PM | TrackBack
February 01, 2005
The glamourous world of life in the BBC
"PAPER CUPS, POLYSTYRENE CUPS
We're getting through loads more of the latter since the Free Tea & Coffee Bonanza and, no, they can't be recycled. But, apparently, they contain "no CFCs" and "Unfortunately, to use paper cups would be more costly and
One service provider happy to use paper cups is, of course, Pow Wow, who supply the water coolers. Those paper cups can be recycled: squash 'em into the recycling bins. Obviously, ensure they're empty.
Those of you who worry about such things can debate whether that balances Pow Wow being owned by Nestle. The rest of you can carry on eating Nestle's Kit-Kats and microwaving kittens and whatever else it is that you do."
Email of internal minutes of the BBC Worldwide staff Site Users meeting, or, possibly the funniest memo on really boring things ever.
Note the disclaimer: "As usual, this has been filtered through me and, especially since I dozed off during a 17-hour discussion about smoking in the Bistro, it must not be taken as gospel or as BBC policy."
Posted by jonny at 04:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In review: KT Tunstall - Eye To The Telescope
Imagine popular music as the menu in a café. You’d have your straight-up, no nonsense Americano rock, heading towards hard-core and art-rock at the espresso end of things. Hip hop would probably be a hot chocolate, if only so R&B could be a mocha. Indie would have to be a latte, which leaves us with the cappuccino. Warm milk, froth, and then a question as to whether there’s really any substance at all.
Eye To The Telescope is the debut of Edinburgh-born chantreuse KT Tunstall. It sits firmly in that cappuccino genre of soft-edged, jazz-influenced pop that has made Norah Jones’ mantelpiece heavy with Grammies and given Mike Batt a Katie Melua-shaped, Womble-free success. This was going to be said at some point, so here’s as good as anywhere: this is not a groundbreaking album. It won’t change your life, unless you only need one more CD to complete your sun-reflecting, world-destroying death ray, in which case the actual choice of CD is rather less important than its intrinsic shiny roundness.
This is not to say that the album is without merit. Tunstall’s songs are, almost without exception, excellent and more than worthy of the praise heaped on them in the national press. Her voice is variable enough to cover by-the-numbers pop thrash (‘Another Place To Fall’), Beth Orton-esque alt. folkery (‘Suddenly I See’) and smoky balladeering (‘False Alarm’). Standout tracks come when Tunstall takes elements of the rock, jazz and pop influences that pervade her work and mixes them with a little something extra; the hint of blues on bonus track ‘Black Horse and the Cherry Tree’ or the chunky guitar riff and chanted backing vocals on ‘Stoppin’ The Love’. Throughout, this album surprises and delights.
It’s like when you get to nearer the bottom of a cappuccino. If you can get past the froth, you’ll find there’s definitely something in there and, if you’re not expecting it, it can knock you sideways.
Posted by jonny at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
In review: Athlete - Tourist
If there’s one thing that the British music industry is good at, it’s indie. Sure, it does shallow transient pop as well as anyone, but when it comes to melodic introspection, no-one does it as well as the Brits. It’s in the well-worn footsteps of Coldplay that Athlete follow, with their second album.
The Deptford-based group’s 2003 debut, Vehicles & Animals was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, and Tourist offers more of the same, only more so.
Hold on a second. “More of the same, only more so”? Try making some sense.
The fact of the matter is that Tourist exhibits a whole new bag of musical tricks that Vehicles lacked. Somewhere between then and now, Athlete gained a more epic sound. You mean they added strings. Well, yes, but the orchestrations are well judged…
And entirely predictable, too. So predictable, in fact, that you could have orchestrated the album. You did, didn’t you? “Hmm, about time for a swelling crescendo, methinks…”
I think you’re being a little harsh. Some of the tracks are remarkable, musically speaking: ‘Modern Mafia’ and ‘Half Light’ for example.
I’ll give you the music, but indie is all about words and music, and the lyrics don’t live up to the accompaniment. ‘Half Light’ is all Flaming Lips guitars, tinged with a flute-led middle eight, all of which is let down by stereotypical whinging. Meanwhile, “Modern Mafia’ – for all its post-hip hop posturing – is as lyrically interesting as a phone directory. In fact, the closest Tourist gets to being anywhere near as good as Vehicles is ‘Wires’.
Are you done?
‘Wires’ is Tourist’s trick up its sleeve. For once, the strings don’t do what you expect them to, and the chiming guitars on the chorus seem nearer A Silver Mt. Zion than Coldplay. Lyrically, it constructs its story in fragments of detail: “you’ve got wires going/ you’ve got wires coming out of your skin”, “I see hope is here/ in a plastic box”. The tension is palpable in the chorus (“down corridors/through automatic doors”) as the narrator races to see his newborn child. ‘Wires’ cannot help but be affecting. It is an exquisitely crafted pop song that transcends the shortcomings of its companions.
So, you’re saying “just buy the single,” right?
Don’t cheapen the moment.
Posted by jonny at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)