Magnificent Anderson...

After internal turmoil over Darjeeling Limited, I went back and rewatched Life Aquatic and Bottle Rocket, the two Wes Anderson films I have negative feelings about. I'd only watched each of them once before. I still don't care for Bottle Rocket, but it has a nice, "this guy is gonna do great things" quality about it which is fun to see. The plot is weak, but the characters are developed in a really appealing, quirky, touching but not quite realistic way. It's also nice to see something so stripped down, considering how ornate and flamboyant Anderson's films have become. I liked The Life Aquatic a lot more than I remember, and unlike Darjeeling Limited, which I thought was strong in the beginning and got weaker toward the end, I felt Life Aquatic did the opposite -- it starts off real fluffy, all style and no substance, and grows into a very touching, emotional comedy-drama. This progression actually makes sense, given the subject matter. It's a really, really good film. Not as good as Tenenbaums and Rushmore, but still very good. All this rewatching has made me very curious to watch Darjeeling again. I can understand the critics more -- I see distinct plot elements swiped from all the early films in order to make the new one, and I wonder if I like it for what it is, or for what I want to believe it could have been. It is the first time I've come out of a Wes Anderson film with a clear idea of specific things that could have been done better.

The revisitation did reaffirm what a strong and nuanced actor Owen Wilson is -- I had forgotten the incredibly downplayed performance he pulled in Life Aquatic. It's really touching, especially contrasted against the irritating half-mad character he plays in Bottle Rocket, and (the same, only less mad and more just neurotic) in Darjeeling Limited.

There's something else I want to say about the lack of meaty female characters. Apart from Royal Tenenbaums, which had Anjelica Huston as a strong, fully fleshed-out character, none of the other films feature females as anything other than props for the male stars to react to or against. I have the same problem with Scorsese, who has never in a long, long catalog, written or directed a film with a decent female character. It doesn't make him a bad writer or director, it only makes him a bit immature and sexist. The same, of course, goes for Anderson. I don't think these directors should make movies about women, only that the female characters that do show up in their stories should be a bit more rounded, developed, believable. A bit more autonomous. But I digress.

Hey, I really like this HBO show called "The Wire." I just got the 3rd season, I'm gonna go watch it now. Also, I've got tonsillitis. So, you know, no making out for a little while.

Darjeeling Limited

I like The Darjeeling Limited. The more I think about it, the more I like it. I want to see it again. I like Wes Anderson, but I think he's a bit hit or miss. I didn't care for Bottle Rocket all that much, and I thought Life Aquatic was really good fun, but sort of forgettable and emotionally vacant. I think The Royal Tennenbaums is close to perfection, and I feel the same way about Rushmore.

The Darjeeling Limited is not perfect. There are some awkward moments, a few times when I whispered to myself, "er, that was a misstep," and the story seems to lose its way for a little while in the third act. But it is a warm, beautiful movie, with characters both flawed and familiar, a first act so brilliantly hilarious that I belly laughed throughout it, and a story arc that works, I think, incredibly well. Mark Kermode, who's opinion I agree with more often than not, said that the movie is flawed because it ends up falling in love with what it starts out lampooning -- Americans as "philosophical tourists" searching for a packaged spiritual experience. But I think Kermode is missing the point here, entirely. Westerners going to the east are always, in my opinion and limited experience, very hard-pressed to not look like completely ridiculous sore-thumb privileged outsiders. The fact is that the cultures are strikingly different, and fitting a western perspective into an eastern environment is always awkward, especially at first. Anderson beautifully captures this awkwardness, as well as showing how eventually, if the travelers can open themselves up, the awkwardness can give way to something like spiritual growth, no matter how ridiculous it looks from the outside.

Some little things bothered me -- the boys coming out of the tent before the funeral in slow motion to the Kink's tune . . . it seemed like a total misstep to me, bad timing, wrong music, too quirky. Also, the third act false ending and subsequent visit to the mother -- the whole thing seemed a bit jerky and contrived, even though in the end I think Anderson brought it all back together in a touching, sentimental way that just skirted being too sentimental, and I really liked that. When it comes down to it, I love Wes Anderson's films, because I love the way he sees the world, and I love (LOVE) the fact that through cinema, I can see the world through his eyes. His mis-en-scene is like a fantastic journey to a world that is just utterly gorgeous, and no matter my little quibbles, I love watching his films for the meticulous style alone. Even better, this film actually came with quite a bit of substance as well.

John Waters ain't got nothin' on us

Aunt Toby with the racing schedule, and aunt Teddy behind her looking so-fist-i-cated.


Completely unrelated, I've been watching "The Power of Myth," the PBS series with Joseph Campbell from 1988 or thereabouts. It's about the history of mythology, and spirituality, and the line between the knowable and the unknowable. Campbell says that artists are the mythmakers, and of course as a lifelong student of mythology, he asserts that mythologies are our roadmaps, without which we are utterly lost. This is a nice counterpart to the moment I had on Friday, looking around my shared studio at college at what I was up to and what everybody else was up to, thinking 'what the hell are we doing here, thinking this work is so important?' Just making objects and pictures and feeling so serious and important about all of it, working so hard to make utterly useless things . . . I like Campbell's take, with all its historical ramifications -- this romantic notion that we have some sort of gift, we are called to the highest post, and that artists are, maybe, making the only things that actually are useful.





Which brings me to the last point, vaguely connected. I went to a concert on Saturday night that a friend invited me to. It was this singer/songwriter called Joseph Arthur, and it absolutely made my lips curl. I've been trying to understand what it is about this particular music, and music like it, that makes me feel so uncomfortable and displeased that I want to crawl out of my skin. I hate to be one of those people who harps endlessly about 'selling out' and 'keeping it real,' but when I boil it right down, that's where I end up. This guy -- he's got the hipster mullet, he's got this super attractive backing band of incredibly competent session musicians, he's got a voice that alternates between gravelly fullness and coked-out falsetto, he never misses a note, the band never misses a beat, the songs all progress in a predictable, familiar way. Have I, have I heard this before? It's so familiar, so comfortable . . . This bothers me because it doesn't feel like art, it feels like profit. It's like when a movie has been test-screened, and you can FEEL that it's been test-screened, that 1,000 imbecile's opinions have been taken into account in creating the final piece -- it is entertainment appealing to the lowest common denominator, with no heart or soul or purity of vision or intention, no honesty and no sincerity. But the thing is -- if I were going to a, say, Britney Spears concert (you know, if we lived in an alternate universe or something) I would have no doubt of the intentions of the artist and promoters, and would have no doubt that the majority of the audience was also aware of these un-artistic motivations. Nobody is being fooled, in part because nobody is trying to fool -- nobody is pretending it's anything other than what it is. The thing that got under my skin about this particular show, this Joseph Arthur, was that it was being packaged as something honest and pure, something with totally artistic intentions. It felt like a sort of malicious dishonesty . . . Now, I might be being totally unfair -- it could just be a lack of vision or a problem of fame causing one to lose perspective. I know nothing about this guy's back catalog. I just know that the show I saw made me feel a little bit like Mr. Arthur was telling me he loved me just to get me into bed.

Beirut

Do you remember the 5th of November? Vulpes Homosexual, aka Guy Fawkes day, took place amongst much explosive merriment last weekend. I watched fireworks from my friend Brian's pad, while enjoying a wee dram of Laphroaig Whisky and freezing my tuchus off (try to guess how long it took me googling to figure out how to correctly spell 'tuchus'... during my search I learned that the literal definition of 'bubkes' is goat droppings. Thank god for wikipedia). In the words of Allan Jardine, the tech-extraordinaire at my college who spends his days wiling away the hours in his wardrobe-lair, you will know it is November 5th because it "sounds like Beirut out there."







(watch closely for awesome transition)
Speaking of Beirut, I really like the band, Beirut. They just put out a new album last month, and it is really, really good. They are all very good -- a nice assortment of eastern european and jazz instrumentation (+ukulele!), a delightful handful of incredibly competent musicians, a lovely lady violinist, and a spectacularly talented, adorable, charismatic lead singer/songwriter. The music is a very accessible mix of gypsy traditional and indy-pop and I find it quite addictive. They've got a nice website too.

Therefore, you can imagine my disappointment when I traveled all the way to Glasgow (alone, and with a raging head-cold) to see this promising young band in concert, and they totally, totally blew. The show was held in a venue called "The Arches" which is housed in a series of connected abandoned railway tunnels across the street from Glasgow's Central Station. Merge the obvious acoustic nightmare of trying to amplify and mix a 6 piece mainly acoustic band in a tunnel with the fact that the band is young and new to touring, they are not yet to the point where they can bring their own sound guy on tour (I HOPE they weren't using their own sound guy...), and whoever was doing sound at this event was obviously both deaf and slightly retarded (fetal alcohol syndrome, maybe?), and you have the makings for a miserable, cacophonous nightmare.



Here is my advice:
1. Hire a sound guy (or girl) who understands acoustics, mixing, amplification, has an ear for music, knows how to kill feedback...
2. Turn down the fucking horns and teach the horn players to pull their punches (for example, place the bell of the horn farther away from the mic when you want the sound to be softer...)
3. This lead singer/songwriter, Zach Condon, has a totally beautiful singing voice, but seeing the lot in concert made me realize how amateur his use of it is. He's using the same vocal style on every song, sort of giving it all he's got so that what he's got becomes a lot less impressive than if he sort of sang it straight, and then broke out with the awesomeness in a more controlled fashion. In other words, Zach's vocalizations need to mature.
4. Ok, I know the concert has turned out to be a total fucking disaster, but at least 'pretend' to be having a good time up there. You've got a sold-out crowd of adorable Glaswegian teenagers singing along to your shit. You're like, barely out of high school and you're touring Europe. That's AWESOME. Act like it. Geez.

As you can see, in addition to thinking I know something about film criticism, I also am apparently beginning to think I know something about music criticism. For shame. I'm going to go make some art now, to wash the critic-stink off of me. But yeah, if you're thinking of seeing Beirut in concert, my advice is to, I dunno, wait a year or two, unless they're playing a really small, well-run club with excellent sound techs and a good community vibe (for example, I'm sure they'd be great if they were playing The Vera Project in Seattle).

No, I take that back. Go see them if you want to. Support the band. They're super-promising, and I don't regret forking out for the concert. I just wish it hadn't sucked. I'll probably go see them again next time. And hopefully write an awesome blog about how much their live show has improved.

Arcade Fire

Today marks the end of British Summer Time for another year. The sun now sets at around 4:30 in the afternoon. Next month, it will be getting dark around 3.

I saw Arcade Fire in Glasgow on Friday. It was a good show -- the performance not quite as spirited and energetic as the Vancouver show I saw two years ago, but they were still very good. The new music is a whole lot darker than the first album, which might explain the feeling of lower energy. Anyway, it was a huge arena show, don't know if it was sold out but it felt that way. The band, especially Win Butler seemed very happy to be in Glasgow, and completely infatuated with its very special brand of Scottish enthusiasm.


The best thing about the show was the visual element. It is not a new thing for bands to project videos behind them, nor is it new for a band to project a live feed of the show, so the people in the cheap seats can get a good view too. But Arcade Fire have recently been playing around quite a bit with low-end video aesthetics -- the kind you find in amateur porn or cable access tv, or especially in surveillance and cctv. For the stage set-up, they've strategically placed lipstick video cameras on mic stands, drums, the floor and hanging from above.









The grainy, high contrast and fish-eye image is then projected on various large circular screens set up around the stage, as well as on the backdrop. The result is a fantastically creepy, voyeuristic peek into what it might feel like to be onstage, inside Regine's drum, or staring directly into Win's face as he sings about how his body is a cage.


I know the band has become very successful, deservedly so, and it may be less 'cool' to pledge allegiance to them now than it was, say, two or three years ago. But frankly, I don't care. The music is interesting and thickly layered, soulful and sincere. Despite their success they are absolutely not rock stars, nor do I imagine they ever will be. When I saw them in Vancouver, only a few months after they blew up, the sense that they couldn't figure how they went from playing tiny art galleries to sold-out hockey stadiums in a matter of months was palpable. I'm happy to report that this sort of wild disbelief of the level of success attained was still quite apparent on Friday.

Also, please check out the website for their latest album, www.neonbible.com. Even if you don't like the music, you must check out what they're doing with interactive web-based animation. Really awesome, inventive stuff. The band website is very good as well.

Speaking of websites, I'm currently in the process of uploading a complete interim artist website at www.culturedcuttlefish.co.uk. Unfortunately, as I don't really know what I'm doing, it is taking a very LOOOOONG time and has been fraught with technical difficulties. Hopefully it'll be up and running by the end of the night.

Ok, good for now.

Morocco

So, I wrote a couple things while I was in Morocco. I was looking for something, and strangely enough I sort of found it. The things I wrote were from the beginning of the trip -- I was cold, uncomfortable, nihilistic, unable to relate to people, including my travel companion. By the end of the trip, I had happiness and peace. I'm having trouble holding on to those now, but I at least have more of an idea of how to get them back. Something about opening myself up not only to new experiences and places, but to people. Once I found what I was looking for, I stopped writing. I've started again since I came back.

13 Sep, Marrakech:
I want to lay in the middle of the square and feel the eyes, the mumbles, the concern and confusion of 1000 people so similar and yet so far removed. Now I remember I have been escaping my prescribed world since I was a child -- climbing mountains to free myself from the deafening thoughts of others, hiding in the woods, a vantage from which I can see them but they cannot see me -- a hill, a rooftop, the canopy of a tree. I can see a scenario taking me further and further into the glorious mysterious foreign unknown, until it is impossible to find my way back. It is already begun. A donkey is braying -- in pain or frustration? I cannot relate to the place from which I come. But isn't it just natural, isn't it the way it's supposed to go? I will go further and further into the vast mysterious unknowable unknown and it will only make the answers muddier, only make the confusion more palpable. What choice do I have? I can't live that prescribed life, I can't go home, one never can. My parents will grow old and die, and in due time I will follow suit. There is now way around this, the process has already begun. I'd like to lay in the middle of the square, the drummers and the dancers, acrobats and beggars and storytellers, gawking white tourists surrounding me and devouring me piece by piece, digesting me and turning me into their music, their energy, their confusion and their obvious answers (humility, prayer, fasting, faith), the light from their lanterns, their wonder and amusement, their roasted goat heads and snail soup and 1000's of years of history that seem to give them something more solid to rest on than what I've got.








15 Sep, Marrakech:
It is a bit of a violent shock to see how much I've changed in the context of another. It was that I could not find anyone else I could stand to give so much time to. The reality today is that I cannot seem to give anyone that sort of time. But I'm jealous too. Everything seems so straightforward - a good plan, thoroughly enjoyable work. What am I . . . scouting locations for films I'll never make, too wound up in my own inner life to make any sort of step forward. What a bore it all is. Everything. I am over-ripe and not yet blossomed. It is an utterly illogical contradiction. This place moves me, it gives me hope, it alleviates some of the darkness. This place is all sunlight and blue skies bright colors mind boggling patterns sand and mud and smiling faces hand holding humility and worship sacrifice and cleansing. It is so different from how I thought it would be and so important because of it. I am still so much more naive than I like to think which is a fucking beautiful thing to discover. I want to weep and scream and dance and even the fact that I feel these things without acting gives me some solace because it means I can still feel something and I am not so far down that I cannot see some light but I cannot feel for any one only for an anonymous multitude but at least it's a start. The steam coming off the lantern-lit food stalls catching the light and lighting the night and I want to sit here and not speak for as long as it takes because who knows when I'll be here again if I'll be here again and even if I am it will not be the same it simply cannot be the same because no place is ever the same as the first time, it cannot be. I want the blue-frocked man with the barbary ape on a leash and the drum circles and storytellers and women so beautiful walking down the road with linked arms in beautiful bright flowing robes that make me long for a moment to live in their shoes -- I want these things to make an indelible mark and move me to a place from which I will not return - move me forward and block the retreat so the only possible direction to continue is forward. So how do I explain to an irony obsessed technophile with a brilliant mind but no context to process what he's witnessing (less context, even, than me) that sometimes sincerity is infinitely better than irony that sometimes you just have to let things wash over you and come into you and the context you're trying to place things in simply has no relevance here, that there is no shame in embracing your naivité, no shame in saying I know nothing I have all questions and no answers I cannot make heads or tails of this this but it's ok it's natural it's the first step in a positive direction. Do I believe all that? No, but I'm trying.

The Daily Grind

Curious as to what a cuttlefish does in the day-to-day? Here are the things I have done this week:

1. I drank a two litre bottle of Strongbow Cider in the Meadows park with my best friend. I was attempting to give him the authentic Scottish experience. This was followed by quite a bit of playground playing and silly-picture taking.
2. I went to a party at which both sushi making and naked dancing occurred. I am sorry to reveal that I neither made sushi nor danced naked. I was mainly a spectator, though I did participate in more silly picture taking.
3. I won a hat and a snack in a game of pool.
4. I hosted a pizza party.
5. I watched a movie by Jan Svankmajer called 'Little Otik'. I found this movie to be delightfully strange, but not entirely satisfactory. I also watched a movie by Alejandro Jodorowsky called 'The Holy Mountain'. I found the first scene to be quite satisfactory, as well as a scene involving the destruction of a toad and chameleon circus. However, the rest of the movie was a bit too psychedelic cheese for my taste.
6. I put my best friend on a bus to an airport to go back to the place where he lives and promptly had a total meltdown, after which I stayed in bed for the better part of several days.
7. I went to a contemporary dance performance at the Festival Theatre, which was incredibly lousy, the only redeeming qualities being that I got in for free and that there were some very fit male dancers to look at. Oh, I also had a couple free glasses of cranberry juice.
8. I went to a hipster concert in Glasgow featuring a band from Portland, Oregon called 'Menomena'. They had very nice posters inspired by the film, 'The Neverending Story' which is a good film. I participated in a conversation with the guitarist/keyboard player during which the following topics were discussed: the evolution of language; the existence of an ancient and tiny race of humans; the film 'The Neverending Story'. I also got drunk on Mexican beer and then took a cab back to Edinburgh with five other people because we missed the last bus and the last train.
9. I went to an introduction meeting at my college, had a little bit of a breakdown, kicked a wall, threw my coat down a flight of stairs, and in the end stacked six tables and eight chairs on top of each other in the middle of a large room. That last bit made me feel a little better. Nice symmetry I had going, too bad I didn't bring a camera.

Now you know.

art

About a month ago, I climbed up a mountain and cut off my hair. A little while after that, I went to Morocco for a week.

More in a bit. Meanwhile, please look at this: Yves Kline and some naked models.

useful tools

You know what? This blog needs more links. I've been reading some of my favorite blogs lately (like this one, and this one), and they all seem to pretty full of interesting, thought provoking, or just plain bizare links. It's time I started providing more than just my meandering thoughts on various insignificant matters. It's time I also provide useful tools to my faithful readers.

Half Nelson

Right, lest you think that I like nearly every movie I see, I must first say that the truth is, the good movies are the only ones I generally feel compelled to write about. Of course, that said, it is also true that I can find something redeeming in a huge percentage of the movies I watch. But then again, I'm not hitting the cinemas every weekend to shell out £8 on the latest big budget money-maker from the states...

I'm not sure why I'm going on about all this. I watched the movie "Half Nelson" the other night, and it's stuck with me like a hearty oatmeal spiked with razorblades. It's stuck with me in a way that no movie has in a long while. The more I think about it, the more impressed I am with it and its sort of pitch-perfect approach to incredibly rough subject matter. I've not been as moved by the climax of a film in a very, very long time (in fact I can't remember when I've been so moved), and I honestly can't remember another time that I've been moved to tears by a film and not felt at least a little bit ashamed or manipulated. This movie made me cry rich, wholesome tears I could be proud of, which were not brought about by the slightest tinge of sentimentality. It's not a pleasant thing; it's a squirming thing, but it is brilliantly executed.