Vague-a-ries: YouTube has been designed by idiotic monkeys.
Today, preparing for a future project when this blog has some video content created by myself on YouTube, I tried to set up a channel. This was easy, to a point. I wanted to have a channel called:
VaguestIdeas
however I managed to make a small mistake and typed:
VaguestiDeas
and hit enter. I immediately realized my mistake, and thought that should be easy to correct. I was probably momentarily seized by Steve Jobs syndrome, that annoying impulse to lowercase "i" as an initial letter (maybe I should get checked out, it may be indicative of something worse, what? too soon?).
Scrabbling around the menus I couldn't find anything to let me rename, change or delete my channel name, which depending on where you look in YouTube is suddenly my YouTube username as well. Using the "help" feature gives you a list of questions asked on a forum style help, with answers relevance voted on by users. This is even more frustrating as it forces you to pour through irrelevance to try to glean an answer, this does not constitute help in my book. The "answers" seemed to point to the idea that there is nothing you can do except close your account entirely and set up a new account, which would require a unique email address, not the one you already used, and you couldn't have the channel name you already used because, although they store the case of your deleted account that never had anything posted against it, the check is not case sensitive, and that channel name, though never used, can never be used again, ever.
When I selected an option to allow me to directly post my own question, it tries to misdirect you to a page that has already asked questions similar to your "summary", but doesn't have a text box, forcing me to hope that clicking on a link marked "Continue" would actually bring me to where I had intended to go in the first place. Here's what I submitted as a question:
I have just set up a channel, but have done nothing with it. When I set it up I mistyped the capitalization -VaguestiDeas as opposed to the desired VaguestIdeas. I cannot believe that there is no way to edit/correct this. That you've developed a system that 1. allows such a momentary mistake as when your finger happens to hit the shift key to be etched in stone, 2. doesn't at least warn you that "hey you better be careful here, because we're not going to let you change this, ever"
This may seem a trifling request, I appreciate, in my case at least, I spelled the channel as I wanted it, so I couldn't delete and recreate the channel, as, although there is no data associated with it, your system will see it as "used" already.
Most frustrating of all is that your help system directed me to questions about deleting my account, and suggested that was the only workaround, and that I'd have to use a unique email address, other than the one I already have. Help systems which return irrelevant or incomplete answers show both laziness and indifference on your part as a developer. You should develop a clear comprehensive reference explanation of how your accounts '/ usernames / and channels work, not rely solely on whatever partial answer pops into the head, of knowledgeable, but blinkered forum style responses.
In my case it is a cosmetic error, but one that any users would see against any videos I wanted to post. So I look stupid rather than Google/YouTube who should look stupid for sitting on a pile of money rather than having developers create the most basic functionality imaginable.
Now I'm pretty much pissed off at YouTube, a company that are clearly sitting back on the benefits of their one killer idea, and within the fold of GoogleEarth (not the software product from Google, but the new name they've given our planet, which apparently they own through one of their subsidiaries), they don't have to care. They may be burning all their money, or more likely just jerking off into wads of disposable 100's as they index all the porn on the internet.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Vague-a-ries
Ken Russell, R.I.P.
Ken Russell died yesterday, Sunday 27th Of November, 2011. Very sad news and a great loss to film making. A uniquely British talent. Shouldn't be remembered solely for the wild abandon with which he could attack or display the outré, or his indulgence in gloriously over the top imagery; all his films display a spectacular cinematic sense, an artist's eye, and a composer's sense of emotion, tone, and tempo.
He lived locally, and I had hopes of some day meeting him, if only to thank him. A friend of mine told a story of Russell driving up to our local Fish and Chip shop in his vintage car, flamboyantly entering and attempting to order a fish not on the menu, and turning on his heel and walking out.
Here's a run-down of his works I've seen, and for the little that it's worth, my appreciation of them:
1967 Billion Dollar Brain
I should give this another chance. Last time I saw it, I felt that it had let the Harry Palmer series down with its satirical jabs, and sub-Avengers-cum-Strangelove tone. On the other hand it ain't the train wreck some have described it as.
1969 Women in Love
It's a film I find hard to take seriously more because I just don't appreciate D.H.Lawrence. It's OK. but the plot lurches at the end are hard to take straight faced. Of course if your idea of homoeroticism involves naked wrestling Oliver Reed, you have a stronger stomach than I.
1970 The Music Lovers
When I was really little, I preferred the Grieg biopic Song of Norway to this; what did I know when I was 7? Not anywhere near as good as Mahler.
1971 The Devils
This was the first Russell I saw theatrically. I think I saw it as part of my Uni's on campus film program, and the followed it on at least two more occasions at the local rep house, the Theater of the Living Arts. Despite its highly stylized look, its earthy unflinching portrayal of medieval grue, really made me smile. All history should be like this. Python summed it up a few years later in Grail with "How do you know he's a king?" "He hasn't got shit all over him."
And that's even before you get to the machinations of corrupt church and state, and the portrayal of religious hysteria (and the politically motivated fomenting thereof), routinely denounced by religious hysterics. Really his sharpest film, most human and misanthropic simultaneously.
1974 Mahler
The first Russell I ever saw, and I saw it on TV, I was erroneously informed that it was made for television, and I thought if someone could make something this cinematic for TV they must be a genius. Strangely I've a memory of a travelling shot through trees to music that I was hoping to someday pay homage to, and on rewatching it recently I couldn't find it. Imagery so fantastic it permeates your dreams. A great movie about creativity and brooding morbidity, no wonder I loved it as a teenager.
1975 Tommy
Great kitsch fun as a pop object, not much cop as a film, but that's down to the source material. Ken makes a great fist of it all the same. Anyone who could convince Ann Margaret to swim in Heinz Baked Beans is all right in my book.
1980 Altered States
One of my favorite films. It manages to convey both the notion that reality is a solipsistic creation of our primal brains, and that love, literally, is all we have to hold it together. Some mocked the whole apeman thing, but how are American Werewolves more credible than psychoactive drugs combined with flotation tanks unravelling an evolutionary regression? I cannot understand Paddy Chayefsky's quite vocal and credit withholding problem with the film. Having read his own, inferior, novelization of his screenplay, I cannot imagine how the film could be a better realization of his themes. A stunning achievement by Russell, and a landmark score by John Corigliano (one of the prizes of my dwindling LP collection).
1984 Crimes of Passion
Some of us used to think Kathleen Turner was sexy. Proof of that is that I remember the poster more than I do the film. There's some over the top stuff with Anthony Perkins and a killer dildo, I'd like to see him duel the twins from Dead Ringers with their gynecological instruments for mutant women. A weird thriller satire on sexuality. Everything that Russell does in this film was done with much less style humour and panache by Kubrick in Eyes Wide Shut.
1986 Gothic
All I remember at the time was that the idea of the film seemed a bit better than what we got, and that Natasha Richardson made a very comely Mary Shelley. One of those, wish they'd had a couple more rewrites, they might have made it work, or not, films.
1987 Aria (segment "Nessun dorma")
I have little memory of this film, apart from liking the Robert Altman segment set in a theatre.
1988 The Lair of the White Worm
Anyone for Tennis, or Fangs? camp fun it certainly was, and made light relief of the tone of Gothic. I'd like to send Amanda Donahoe to eat up all these friggin' glitterin' vampyri who brood and take themselves so seriously. Maybe after that I'd send Lady Sylvia Marsh, the character she portrayed.
1989 The Rainbow
Didn't get around to seeing this one until this year. And it makes a nice D.H.Lawrence bookend with Women... , although its brief excursion into saphic-eroticism is not a patch on the former's sweaty alcoholic man love. It is nearly scuppered by Sammi Davis's acting in the lead role which is canny in naivete, but a bit all over the place the rest of the time. And, I still don't really care for Lawrence, wish Russell had done more Stoker.
Well, OK. There are only three of Ken Russell's films that I absolutely love, and boy do I, but I cherish the artistry in all of them. Even the pointless tasteless excess of the Nazi bits (can you imagine if he had collaborated with Russ Meyer?). There's some I need to seek out to see for the first time, and a few that I should review for pleasure and to note how they strike me now. All in all, I will feel grateful for his work and poorer for his loss.
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions, Reviews
My Life in the Movies: There Are Some Arguments You Don't Want to Win
OR being a social and
critical dilemma:
should you try to change someone's mind about a film they love, but you hate.
"Do not do unto others as you
would
that they should do unto you.
Their tastes may not be the same."
-- George Bernard Shaw,
Man and Superman (1903),
Maxims for Revolutionists
On the 30th of April 2011 I was part of the winning team at the
New Forest Film Festival's Fundraising Film Quiz. My wife and I were put with three other couples who had come on their own. While most of the other teams were made up of friends who were merely after a night out, we were four couples, with at least one film obsessive in each pair. Our mix of ages and knowledge worked greatly to our advantage, and we quickly became respectful of each other's expertise and where we had to guess, we'd cede to whomever's was most educated. The quiz was well balanced and had questions for all levels of interest. Even my wife's canine expertise came into play on a Lassie question. A soft spoken but sharp as a tack woman who'd come with her partner all the way from Winchester absolutely nailed the music round (an ingenious identify the movie theme based on the tunes as covered by the festival's resident
skiffle band).
So a good time was had by all, and we managed to come out on top by one point. (we would have won by two, but I allowed my team and my middle aged memory self doubt to shake my conviction that the first Royal Premier had been A Matter of Life and Death - despite, in retrospect, having seen footage of that exact event a mere week before in Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff).
We won a grab bag of recent release DVD's, which, in a grass is always greener fashion, couldn't have been as good as the runner ups grab bag of "foreign" films. Unless they were all sub standard actioners produced by Luc Besson, they had to beat the likes of The Hangover and Sex in The City 2, with Made in Dagenham the not terribly high point. In the battle to be the most polite on the divvy we ended up with Nowhere Boy, a good film, but not one I was desperate to own, and the last disc left which was Public Enemies, a film I absolutely hated, for being thuddingly dull, and abrasively ugly (particularly unforgiveable for a Michael Mann film with cinematographer Dante Spinotti, a real argument against digital videography). I did cheekily and perhaps ungratefully note on the feedback form, that 1st prize merited a better treasure trove than 2nd. The arguably better half of the prize was a voucher towards a slap up pizza meal at a
local pub favoured by the festival organizers, the tentatively happy upshot was that our impromptu band of usual suspects would have a brief reunion.
My wife set about organizing the meal the way a mother with a socially marginal child might arrange a geeky playdate. Things began convivially at the pub, it was early on a slow Saturday evening, and our meal party were put on our own in the narrow sidebar area. We determined which of us were the film obsessives and which were the long suffering other halves. Backgrounds were traded. One was a teacher of media studies, another couple had lived in LA for some time in the 70's and had frequented the club where Harry Dean Stanton regularly did music gigs. For some reason one of them thought I actually worked in the industry, which uncomfortably marked me out as another lifelong wanna be.
Tastes in film became a subject.
Now it should be noted that although I can normally talk about film until the cows wrap for the day, I usually suppress this urge, I don't want to be a film bore. I have a handful of filmy friends, unfortunately I see infrequently so I can indulge. Suddenly I was surrounded by reasonably like minded individuals, floodgates opened. I should further note that, with new acquaintances, especially amongst the British, I tend to be more circumspect, but, though sober, my tongue became more unhinged than a drunken sailor's.
They made the key mistake of asking my opinion.
We'd stumbled upon the customarily divisive topic of screen violence, as the lines that get drawn are so varied and erratic that a Jackson Pollock painting would suffice as a social graph of the phenomenon. After a pit stop to agree to abhor the Scorsese remake of Cape Fear, we landed on one of my bugbears, Natural Born Killers.
NBK as it was cheesily marketed, is the overrated nadir of Oliver Stone's canon. It is all too knowingly self-conscious stylized violence serves to make a single point about the collision between America's obsessions with celebrity and serial killers as an expression of our society's desensitization of violence. A point made over and over again, very very loudly. It continually uses bravura presentation, camera moves angles and editing akin to cartoons music videos and popular media, to continually wink at the audience, "you're alright with this because we're being so entertaining." I hate it particularly because for all of Oliver Stone's cleverness, his obvious mastery of the filmic art, he is using it here in the service of a sophomoric, would be satire of such hollowness, that the obviousness of its slim message is lost in the first ten minutes.
Only I probably wasn't that eloquent about it. I probably said it was an empty movie with one idea that it shouted at the audience repeatedly for its running time. I couldn't be shaken from this conviction. There were at least two on the team who clearly felt that NBK was a great film, and they fell back on arguing about its technique. I probably failed at that moment to express that it is precisely that it is full to the brim with technique, but devoid of value, that makes it a hateful exercise. Luckily our prize pizzas arrived before it got any more awkward. Although we hung out chatting in the pub afterwards for a couple of hours, to the point where my brain and throat ran dry, and we had to make our excuses, I still had the feeling I'd broken the bonhomie with my pompous, if correct, ass act.
A few years ago I did half a day of lounging around and shopping in pretty market cathedral town with a friend. Over lunch she told me that her favourite film was Hook, Speilberg's exercise in displaying all of his and Robin Williams worst excesses. While time has served to lower our expectations of the latter and appreciate the weak points of the former, at the time it seemed a missed opportunity, galling because it was built around the kernel of a great idea, Peter Pan grows up, but then is forced to go back to Neverland, potentially a dark idea, experience confronts innocence. Instead we got Dustin Hoffman playing flamboyant (something he should never do), action sequences akin to videogames, and the lost boys skate boarding and playing baseball. A panto colliding with a theme park ride. Frustratingly there were moments when the darker possibilities peeked through, but the disappointment has rankled ever since.
Naturally, I was unable to contain my disgust for the film, despite my then friend's obvious affection. I proceeded to obliterate it. There was probably a moment when wisdom belatedly prevailed, and I held back, but the damage was done. It was probably still her favourite film, but I was less than a favourite person.
You would think I'd know better. There was this guy at uni who'd tagged along when we went to movies, the jerk against whom we'd often profit by comparison. He loudly complained immediately afterwards how he'd hated Brazil and Blue Velvet, seriously marring the ecstatic bliss I'd entered by the end of each of those films. The rest had all loved them, but he wouldn't shut up. I came close to punching the guy.
I developed a terseness immediately after seeing a film with friends, not wanting to spoil that post coital glow from a film well enjoyed, even if I'd felt differently. You put out feelers towards a consensus, relief when you realize agreement, you aren't alone in your reaction. In the cold light of day, I will happily scrap over opinions of films. I am a relativist most of the time, I know when some of my favorites are "not for every one", or "an acquired taste". I'll proseletize for films I love, but won't budge on those I hate.
Personal taste is something I guard quite jealously. Good taste, which everyone believes they have, is all you have. They can take everything else away from you. But however well argued your stance may be, when you are trying to disabuse people of what they love, you are on a hiding to nothing. There are only three possible outcomes:
- They
will just punch you, if you’re lucky.
- They
will resist your every salient and carefully crafted point.
They will think you’re an asshole.
- They
will concede your well presented and thought out argument. They will acknowledge the folly of their
opinion, the depths of the flaws in their devotion to, as you most kindly put it, “that piece of shit” and how badly their championing of “that cinematic
turd” reflects upon them.
They will hate you forever for robbing them of what they love.
There are some arguments you just don’t want to
win.
Labels: My Life in the Movies, My Tasteless Opinions, New Forest Film Festival
My Annual Bafta Annoyance 2011
Another year in my rant against the BAFTA's for cheating their own eligibility requirements in order to nominate films that haven't actually been released and usually are merely imminent around the time of the award ceremonies themselves. I hate this because I feel that the general public should have a chance to have seen all the films before the nominations.
I have no quibble with the films released in the UK in the calendar year being honoured, in this case 2010. However, a significant portion of those nominated have been released in 2011, and, as usual at least one even fails BAFTA's own requirements. This is an utterly craven pandering to the distributors.
Let's remind ourselves of this year's requirements:
Eligibility
Films must be released theatrically in the UK, within the Academy awards year:
1 January to 31 December 2010. Films that open between 1 January and 11 February 2011 inclusive may be 'qualified' by Distributors by being screened to Academy Film Voting Members by Tuesday 21 December 2010.
To be eligible, a feature film must:
- be feature-length, i.e. with a running time exceeding 60 minutes;
- receive its first public exhibition or distribution in the UK as a theatrical release;
- be exhibited publicly to a paying audience within a commercial cinema in the UK for no fewer than seven consecutive days.
Films from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the exception of Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Debut, Short Film and Short Animation which are for British films only.
Four quite heavily nominated films are released in 2011, all after the nomination announcements. These are Black Swan (11 nominations, release Jan 21st), Biutiful (2 nominations, Jan 28th), The Fighter (3 nominations, Feb 4th) and True Grit (8 nominations, Feb 11th). The first three squeak in and meet the late eligibility requirements. True Grit is released on the last day of Eligibility period, but it fails the "publicly to a paying audience... for no fewer than seven consecutive days." as the award ceremony is two days later on the 13th.
Previous years have seen these films so dishonourably nominated:
2008 Latest Open Date 8th Feb, Awards 10th Feb.
There Will be Blood (15th Feb )
2009 Latest Open Date 6th Feb, Awards 8th Feb.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (6th Feb 2009)
Doubt (6th Feb 2009)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (13th Feb 2009 released after the eligibility and the awards)
2010 Latest Open Date 19th Feb, Awards 21st Feb.
The Lovely Bones (19 February 2010).
This may seem horribly pedantic, but my main point is that awards should be nominated and awarded from a level playing field, say a given 12 month period, not skewed to only films which have theatrical, or now possibly DVD releases that create synergy with the date of the Awards ceremony. I don't begrudge the films or their makers nominations, but this should reflect merit, not the machinations of film distributors. This also leaves the BAFTAs open to the accusation that they are an irrelevant stop-gap between the Golden Globes and the Oscars, as they bend their eligibility to include films that have earlier release dates in North America and are more suitably eligible for those awards.
This year I will make a much more solid attempt to get this rant some traction, watch this space...
Labels: BAFTA, Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions
Recycled: My Worst Films of the Year 2010
[Author's Note: There are times I go on a bit when I comment on someone else's blog, but waste not, want not. This was original posted to the BBC's
Kermode Uncut blog. Mark Kermode is one of the UK's top film critics, he has a weekly BBC Podcast with seasoned radio presenter Simon Mayo. Kermode is sometimes referred to as (academically) Dr. K. In his video blog, he refers to Let Me In: "The most utterly redundant remake of the year, I've already Let the Right One In, why would I let you in?"]
I loved Dr K's remark about having already Let The Right One In, but it perhaps presages the remake's possible sequels, Let Me In Too, and Look Who's Letting Me In Now.
While I ordinarily would simply thank Dr K for taking the bullets for the rest of us, even the dullest of cinematic spidey senses would have warned us off these. I did consider seeing the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, knowing it would be a car wreck, but with that compulsion that makes you glance at the accident on the other carriageway as you drive by. Luckily I was unable to fit in a viewing before feedback from Dr K and others quashed that masochistic urge (the "original" is my favorite horror film).
I also find it much easier to make a bottom five list than a top five. If I really enjoy and love a group of movies, I find ranking them pointless. A worst list is easier because gauging a level of hatred is more straightforward.
The Road - I know it was extremely well made, acted, directed, etc. (not to mention stupefyingly worthy). But I just couldn't get past how utterly stupid its unspecified disaster and its aftermath seemed to be. What could possibly destroy almost all nature whilst leaving man alive? Did it also destroy all the outlet stores which would have provided an unending supply of fresh clothes for the surviving population rather than forcing them to wear homeless chic? Did it involve monsters (there's a mysteriously dead forest with trees knocked over and a boat that has somehow been put on dry land)? How boring does a film have to be for me to spend my time thinking of such questions? Mad Max Beyond Thunderingly Dull.
The Other Guys - I've actually enjoyed some of Will Ferrell's movies but I completely understand if you don't, and I'm not ever going to argue the pretty weak points. The films where his schtick works for me are the one's where he plays an over the top, arrogant caricature, usually abetted by the great John C. Reilly. Here he plays a low status schlubb (it's more of Steve Carell character), and it just doesn't work, and nothing else does either. Dr. K was very generous about Mark Wahlberg's comic potential, and I agree it's there, but it's as much on display here as it was in I (heart) Huckabees (which is saying so little, an electron microscope might be handy).
44 Inch Chest - Great cast squandered in lifeless predictable exercise of east end gangster talky artiness, Revolver for the middle aged. Stagey is the key word as the performances might have been electrifying if performed live on a stage in a way that might have lifted the material, but instead dull dull dull dull dull, had me pining for Harold Pinter's turn in the film version of Mojo, and that's not a good thing.
Alice in Wonderland - Great casting and art direction, no script or direction, and a fundamental ignorance of the source material (hint: the title is a lie, and the poem about the gruesome creature is the Jabberwocky, not the Jabberwock creature itself). Helena Bonham Carter furthers her resume/CV in hair acting (I see that she wears a hat in The King's Speech, so I'm hopeful).
Robin Hood - I was going to give this a miss (the Trailer had me imagining Gerald Butler intoning This Is Sherwood!), but something Billy Bragg said in his interview with Dr K and Simon made me briefly think it might be interesting. It was that Bragg had had a conversation about Forest Rights with Crowe implying some of that had possibly been integrated into the film. As a New Forest resident where these ancient rights are still practiced (and enshrined in modern law from the 1870's), I was intrigued enough to ignore my misgivings. I'm not blaming anyone for my bad decision to follow this tenuous thread, I'm making this comment long enough without delineating what a mess the movie is. It is enough to hate this film for making the Kevin Costner version look good.
Due to the economy, I was unable to see more bad films, so I'd like to list a few most disappointing movies:
Made in Dagenham - Formulaic cliche ridden script given the best airing possible by fine cast. To describe it as this year's Full Monty or Brassed Off, skips over the fact that it is a paint-by-numbers conflation of the two. There's the third act lurch into melodrama provided by the up to then unnecessary subplot, and the 11th hour argument between the lead couple which serves for one of those transportation related chasing reconciliation moments that have me convinced that the British can only express love through mileage. Well intentioned, good message, fitfully enjoyable, but very creaky (I pitied Rosamund Pike who manages to make her rubbish patronizing slightly posh middle class women need liberating too speech touching). I've no problem with the language, but Wooley's argument about accuracy kind of falls apart when they've invented an ensemble of sassy composite characters. Sadly, like much of this sort of output of British film industry, I enjoyed it the way you supportively enjoy your child's turn in the school play, in the knowledge that it's all a nice effort but doesn't stand adult scrutiny. Oh, bless.
Green Zone - Formulaic conspiracy thriller, might have worked if its topicality sell by hadn't expired in 2004. Rory Bremner covered all the same material before and within a year after the invasion 2003. Very well executed, just obvious and tedious, Jason Isaac's 'tache notwithstanding (perhaps he could have a tonsored acting competition with Helena B-C).
Inception - if only I had steered clear of the hype, I might have been less bored. Pretty much an excuse for an elaborate overlong multilayered action set piece, convoluted is not the same as clever. Its notions of dream world are restricted to the fantasies of city planners and Bond villians, not a hint of Dreamscape or Imaginarium in sight. I might have been able to suspend my disbelief in its easily pick apartable premises had the wafer thin characters moved me to care in any way. And even giving its due for its ambition and how well executed it is, I hated the sophomoric cheesy pseudo philosophical are they really? final shot, which could only appeal to those who thought the Matrix was deep. In fact, while I don't mind others declaring it the best movie of the year, I'd nominate that last few seconds of Inception as the Worst Movie of the Year.
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions, Reviews
Life Irritates Art: Inception Deception
Herewith the obligatory: SPOILER WARNING
This article discusses the logical fallacies and inconsistencies in the otherwise entertaining movie Inception. It contains spoilers that whilst not revealing key plot details, will definitely detract from your enjoyment of the film if you have yet to see it. As such, I'm intentionally putting in some space to make you scroll down to the rest, so you can't blame me...
...
...
...
...
Oh, you made it. Look, I'm not trying to be a kill-joy here. The movie is great to look at, is fitfully entertaining, and hopefully will allow other allegedly cerebral films to be made. But it's not as clever as it wants us to think it is. So here's a few things (based on my single viewing of the film) I think they got wrong:
Time Dilation 1. Compound nonsense.We're told that time in dreams passes more quickly, the brain processes dreams faster than a waking state. I think this is a reasonable conceit. However, they then go on to say that this effect is compounded for each level of dreaming within the dream, so that where a dream might be a day for an hour in the waking world, a dream within a dream might be a week, and a level further down a year, etc.
This is total rubbish. The reason for this is simple, the "you" in the dream doesn't have its own brain, it has your brain. A dream within a dream is not being dreamt by the dream brain, but the original brain, which can only go as fast as it can go, so no faster than the original dream. I'm sure Roger Penrose could explain it more accurately, scientifically and cogently. Perhaps the geek analogy would be that you couldn't run an operating system in a virtual machine any faster than it would as native on a given machine.
This scenario is still true even if, as in the movie, different brains are joined together doing the dreaming. Unless one brain is capable of 10x the speed of another, and yet another at say 100x. Processor chips may have come on in leaps and bounds in the last two decades, 200,000 years development of homo sapiens has only given us the brains we have; short of genetic engineering or electronic augmentation, we're not due for upgrades anytime soon.
Time Dilation 2. InconsistentOK, even if we were to accept, under the "if you say so" rule, the time dilation level on level as they posit it, their application of their own logic is dreadfully inconsistent. When the van tumbles over in the level 1 dream, the corridor in the level 2 dream revolves at more or less the same rate. Contrast this with the van falling off the bridge, taking forever to fall in relation to level 2 where Arthur must adjust for the "weightlessness" effect caused by the van in free fall, he has time to manipulate the rest of the crew into a lift so that he can create thrust to cancel out the seeming lack of gravity. By the difference in time at this point, we can see that the revolving corridor should have turned at a very leisurely pace, more like the gimbled room that Astaire taps around in Royal Wedding, than the shuttle in 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Inner Ear, Aint that a kick in the headWe have explained to us that the "kick" needed to prematurely wake a dreamer relies on the inner ear's sense of balance, equilibrium, and position. Because of this, when the van rolls over in dream level 1, the corridor rotates in dream level 2, when the van falls off the bridge, everyone is sent into weightless freefall in level 2. Why doesn't this affect level 3, or the "limbo" level? There is a level 2 explosion that seems to set off an avalanche in level 3, but otherwise the impact of the levels is absent.
What if the plane hit turbulence? They don't seem to account for that, or if they do it's further muddied by the notion that the sedative that the chemist comes up with may eliminate the inner ear problem. However, if that is the case, how is anybody experiencing free fall, the tumbling change in the direction of gravity, or any other positional sensations in other dream levels in the first place? Sure, you're allowed to make up the rules as you please, but they should apply them consistently.
LimboIf "limbo" isn't populated by subconscious projections, how is Mal there? If Mal is there, then anyone with the dreaming/architecture skills trapped in Limbo, could imagine anything they want and while away the time productively so their brains don't turn to mush. Then again , Saito has his army of dream thugs, his tastefully modernized Samurai palace, and he's a newbie. So why is the "limbo" city unpopulated, and why doesn't Ariadne have any projection baggage?
Idea TheftThere is something really slim about the initial idea in the first place. Do any of us have special information that is boiled down enough to be an idea worth stealing in dream form in the first place. Let's say we have secret plans. For them to be stolen from a dream, we'd have to have eidetic memory to have memorized them precisely, and the thief must have similarly photographic memory. On top of this, your dream would have to access that memory in a waking form, as much in dream is symbolic. The dream thief might end up with, say, an eternally weeping sculpture of the Virgin Mary, but no way to translate that image back into the schematics of the nuclear submarine.
That leaves us with much more basic ideas to steal. Passwords. However, if you have the tech to do all that dream manipulation, surely you have easier ways to just hack the passwords in the first place.
The convenient notion that if you build a safe or a bank vault, the dreamer automatically puts their secrets in it, is a bit daft because not everyone would think those were the safest places. Think of those who don't trust the banks. I'm sure there's a few people now who wish they'd kept their equity in the mattress instead of in sub-primes. Also, if you build a safe in someone else's subconscious you should know the combination to it, or is that simply too easy.
Imagination DeficitFinally, a niggling note, not actually an inconsistency problem of the film per se, but why are the dreams so mundane? They seem to be the dreams of someone who is either an urban planner, or has just endured serial viewing of all the James Bond films (without some of the Roger Moore's there's little humour on show here). OK they play around with physics a little bit, Paris goes all bendy, a specialist "forger" can impersonate another.
Where are the World of Warcraft Avatars? The people who turn into snakes or talk backward? The melting watches? Why does everybody look like themselves (exception noted)? In my dreams, I'm taller, younger, better endowed, and have my hair back. Where's Freddy Kruger and the Lady in the Radiator, and even the Darth Vader that turns into Luke when he's decapitated? Where's my fucking Imaginarium, Dr. Parnassus?
I appreciate that the "architects" in the film have to build a "maze" for the purposes of a heist or an inception, and that may mean that things need to be more "real" for it to come off. It is a bit of a disappointment that these dreams seem to be so much about interior design. Even when in the godlike dimension of limbo Dom and Mal rebuild their favorite houses, they set them in the middle of an urban reflecting pool, surely some of them had gardens or lawns. No wonder they wouldn't want to be trapped in limbo indefinitely, it's completely boring, there aren't even any multiplexes.
Sorry, if by "planting" all these ideas in your heads, I've destroyed your enjoyment of Inception. It's being touted as a thinking person's thriller. So, you should have thought of all this on your own, without my sorry-ass help.
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions
Groundhog Day: My Senseless Predictions for Lost
Well, it's Groundhog Day, more famously known for the Twilight Zone meets Bill Murray film now than the annual winter length rodent prediction tradition. It's also James Joyce's birthday, the author whose stream of dreamconsciousness novel Finnegans Wake finishes in the middle of and begins in ending the same sentence, and uses numerical symbolism throughout with many other Jungian tropes. It's NOT the day traditionally used by Americans to make pork burgers (see Ground Hog Day).
However it is the premier day of the first episode of the 6th and final season of Lost, the enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a conundrum of sci-fi TV phenomenon. There's so much going on remembering all the plot threads and possibly significant details would be like cramming for a law exam, and you might as well hope for the knowledge helmet from the Spock's Brain episode of Star Trek which allowed McCoy to perform naked brain surgery on our vulcan friend as if "a child could do it". I vaguely remember that the 5th series ended with the white flash of a hydrogen bomb, exploded on the theory of the physicist Daniel that it would act as a huge reset button -- ostensibly averting the original Oceanic Airlines flight 815 disaster and much of what has happened in five series of WTFuckery, not to mention the circumstances that sent half the characters including Juliet back to the 1970's so that she could try to detonate a nuclear bomb WITH A ROCK!
So given how un-clued up I am, you might want to take my predictions for the episode with a pinch of salt, or a vial of Strontium 90. Luckily for me I won't get to see the episode until the winds of broadcasting, or the internet waft it over the pond.
4. The First Episode of the Sixth Series is The Pilot episode. The atomic reset button hasn't quite worked as planned and the events are the same for about the first ten minutes, then the writers cleverly throw in slight differences that only the obsessive fans will notice until the last ten minutes where all the plotlines veer into distinctly new directions. This is a tribute to both Groundhog Day, and the first series of the Harry Hill show.
8. Aperture Science = Dharma Initiative
Enter the numbers --> Get Cake!
15. Gilligan, the Skipper, the Movie Star, the Millionaire and his Wife, The Professor and Mary-Ann land and are soon integrated into the Others. The Professor contructs an atomic fusion reactor using coconuts. Ginger and Mary-Ann have their Dharma Initiative coveralls ripped to skimpy shreds as they flee the smoke monster, Thurston Howell the 3rd, is revealed to be Charles Widmore, Lovey Howell goes feral as Danielle Rousseau, and Gilligan, Hurley and the Skipper share a bong.
16. Juliet, holding the rock tries hitting the bomb for the ninth time. "Owwwww, that FUCKING HURTS!" She stands up and climbs out of ground zero. "I'm sick of this shit, I'm off to V, you sort it out yourselves!"
23. Tatoo climbs the Dharma compound bell tower and points to the sky, "The Plane, The Plane!" Oceanic Airlines flight 815 appears in the sky before exploding spectacularly. Mr Roarke warmly greets Jack on the beach, "Welcome to your FANTASY"
It later transpires that the Kahana is Captain Stubings boat and Kate becomes the new Cruise director....
42. If on Groundhog Day John Locke sees his shadow.... is it really his shadow? is it Jacob? is it the shadow of some unrevealed doppelgänger? is it a tame version of the smoke monster, playfully lapping at his heels? Is it really John Locke? Is it...???
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions, Vague-a-ries
My Nominations For the Kermode Awards
Great BBC film critic and serious hair product consumer Mark Kermode has asked for nominations for his film awards. The usual top categories, but with the notion that we should nominate both the best, and likely to be ignored or unappreciated by the likes of the BAFTAs and OSCARs. (see his video blog
here)
This has been a fairly slim year for films, and I've certainly missed seeing a lot of those that I'm hearing good things about. But the quality of the films I've really enjoyed has kept my faith. Anyway, in the spirit of waste not want not, I present the nominations I posted to the Kermode blog.
Best Film- Moon OR A Serious ManMoon I simply enjoyed more thoroughly than any other film this year.A Serious Man might be the first Coen bros film actually about something other than their cleverness at making films.
Best Director- Duncan Jones (Moon)A really solid debut.With the references to the likes of 2001 and Silent Running could have easily slipped into pastiche, which it never does. I think Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) ought to get the big awards, well deserved, and also to get one up on her ex and his pretty blue people. Also Terry Gilliam, even when he puts out an uneven film, it's a joy to behold.
Best Actor- Sam Rockwell (Moon)I think this may be the most underappreciated dual role since Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers. Andy Serkis (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll) and Michael Sheen (The Damned United) are close favorites. Also agree with those who've mentioned Stephen McHattie's lynchpin performance in Pontypool. Matt Damon (The Informant!) and Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) were similarly essential in their respective films.
Best Actress- Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist)Whatever else you come away with from the film, a blistering performance, it's almost too much too bear. Close in the trauma stakes: Melissa George (Triangle).
Best Supporting Actor- Bill Milner (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll)Serkis performance would have overpowered everyone else in the movie (much as Dury seemed to), but for the relationships portrayed excellently with his son.Olivia Williams and Naomie Harris also deserve praise within this ensemble.
Also Tom Waits (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassas), I could have done with more of him and Christopher Plummer and their feud in the past than the Heath and his regrettable understudies bits.
Best Supporting Actress- Anne Marie Duffy and Kristin Scott Thomas (Nowhere Boy) and only if they can share it.
OR Olivia Williams and Naomie Harris (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll) with the same proviso
OR Meryl Streep (The Fantastic Mr Fox) her dead on performance grounded the quirkaholic Wes Andersons film on the enjoyable end of the spectrum.
Also, Milla Jovovich (A Perfect Getaway) -- perfect B movie acting, Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin (Zombieland) another dual nomination, Kristen Stewart (Adventureland) maybe it takes a particularly good performance to make Jesse Eisenberg credible, Zooey Deschanel ((500) Days of Summer) don't quite understand why Mark slammed this cineliterate update on Chilly Scenes of Winter, he clearly dislikes certain American female inflections and the actresses who possess them.
Best Score - Clint Mansell (Moon) Honourable mention: Chaz Jankel (Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll)Most Disappointing Movies:Public Enemies and Inglorious BasterdsI know Mark didn't ask for this, but I saw these films with lowered expectations, which neither managed to rise to. Public Enemies unforgivably ugly videography from a director and cinematographer who should know better, and boring. Inglorious Basterds, too few good bits surrounded with boredom and pointless grandstanding, I hope its success doesn't prompt more of the same from QT. I was slightly disappointed by the excellent The Damned United, but only because it wasn't a zombie film.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Reviews
Brokeback Pandora: The Hidden Secret of Avatar
You know, all this time we've just been blindly assuming that the Na'vi have the same sexual distinctions as we do, even though they have alien physiology.
Neytiri
Sully, now that you're one of us I should tell you...
These bumps on my chest aren't breasts....
...they're my testicles...
Do you think Ang Lee has time to direct the sequel? Will the Village People re-release their hit, "In the Na'vi?" Will Neytiri admit the things that the Na'vi priests did to Sully's Na'vi body while he was "asleep".
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day
5 Things That Could Ruin Avatar For You
There are times when you watch a movie, you try to give it the benefit of the doubt. You've invested a certain amount of your time to watch the movie so you want it to succeed rather than suck. This means you may sometimes forgive it for its flaws. Tropic Thunder was brilliantly hilarious but I got the fear in me when Matthew McConaughey appeared on screen, luckily I let it slide, and he was actually quite good. The Wrestler had great performances from Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei, who should have clinched their respective Oscars, but the film sunk to its knees every time Evan Rachel Wood came onscreen to whine and live up to her surname, but I forgave the film and enjoyed what was good about it.
Oddly enough, when I recently saw the much lauded The Road, there were too many logical inconsistencies in it, which I was unable to keep to the back of my mind, despite Viggo Mortensen and his incredible beard acting. It's a shame but there you are.
I'm pretty generous, however. I went into Avatar with pretty low expectations. This was mostly because I hated Titanic. And I mean hate with the depth that causes feuds several generations after an insult. I've otherwise enjoyed all Cameron's previous films (didn't see Piranha 2), although, tellingly I felt that both director cuts of Aliens and The Abyss were inferior to their theatrical release. With Cameron longer ain't better, so there was some trepidation.
Avatar worked enough for me to enjoy it. I liked the characters well enough, or at least their actors. Sully's a bit of a bland pill, but not off-putingly so. And for the most part I let the story carry me along so I could look at the pretty, well-rendered visuals. There were some moments that this too delicate concoction nearly came crashing down, but I managed to forgive these flaws. A good thing, otherwise I would have had to sit there like a grump for nearly three hours, which is as bad as sitting through Revolutionary Road once.
5 Things That Could Ruin Avatar For You:1. Sully's brother was killed for "the paper in his wallet".This is the whiz bang future. They probably don't even have credit cards anymore. It'll be subcutaneous credit chips or retinal scans. I mean you're telling me mankind has reached the stars, and can genetically engineer alien-human hybrids that can be controlled via some sort of telepresence couch, but they still haven't eliminated folding money? The only explanation is that as they later hint that earth is no longer green, that paper itself is extremely rare and valuable, like "unobtainium".
2. "Unobtainium"When I heard this, I thought, you have no imagination at all Mr. Cameron. Sure you've created this pretty world taken off a prog-rock album cover, and given it a name from Greek mythology which suggests that someone knew that nothing good could come of it, but you couldn't even come up with a proper name for your McGuffin, the stuff the human big bad is so turned on about. Perhaps you could have called it Reallyvaluableacite, Morallybankruptium, or Couldntthinkofanythingbetteron. When I got back to base I did look Unobtainium up on the pile of execrable lies known as the internet, and apparently it is a real term that some scientist use to refer generically to an extremely rare element or compound. That said, if we needed a particular thing so badly we'd go to war for it, I'm pretty sure we'd have more than a generic name for it, otherwise we'd still be calling oil -- "blackstufffromground" or "Texas Tea".
3. Tunnel of LightReally, doesn't Stargate have dibs on this? Or hyperspace? Or Poltergeist? (No wait, that's don't go into the light.) Anyway, I found it a completely unnecessary device and a waste of seconds of screen time in an already massive running time. It only shows contempt for the intelligence of the audience that even though they've been shown and told about how the alien puppet body couch thing works, they somehow won't work out that you've hit the on switch. It's like those mid '90s films that showed the internet like cyberspace with equations floating untethered in mid air.
4. Floating MountainsHere we are, back on that Yes album cover. I'm surprised that Cameron, such a geek tech head would create something scientifically impossible like this. There's already an Avatar wiki out there and it claims that something about the "flux" zone of magnetic fields and the lightweight carbonfiberlike strength of unobtainium accounts for all this. I say BULLSHIT! The magnetic fields necessary to float land masses with vegetation and WATER (water ain't so light in volume) would probably tear soft living type things apart, I don't care if their skeletons are unobtainium enriched.
Leaving that aside, there are WATERFALLS. We're not shown any of these so called mountains that have say, a lake, so where the FUCK is the WATERFALL coming from? If the magnetic field etc. was so strong, would water even fall in a straight line? And finally, we're told that the magnetic fields are unstable so that instrumentation fails to compensate and can't work there. If that's the case why are the mountains in fixed places, vegetation neatly and conveniently growing between them?
Of course if these mountains are floating 'cause they're made of unobtainium, why don't we just tether them and drag them away? Then we could leave the pretty blue people and their shiny white tree alone.
5. My Big Blue Love DollNeytiri seems like a nice enough girl, but would you let yourself begin a relationship with a soul-less puppet that becomes lifeless when not being controlled by its human host? It's not like she's some pathetic loner that needs to get her rocks off with some latex molded in the shape of a porn star's genitalia. She has prospects, she's a catch. She believes deeply in her culture, yet she abandons the path it arranges for someone who cannot provide any sort of future. Ahh love and spurious plot devices....
Missed OpportunityFinally, what almost is number 6 on this list, Avatar is a missed opportunity. I was annoyed that too much of the so called biology of Pandora is directly analogous to what we're familiar with. It's really taking this great new technology and making Star Trek style head ridges on it. So the Na'vi are humanoid, the "females" have mammary like bumps although we're told they're not even mamalian, their faces have eyes nose and mouth arranged as ours are. The land animals have 6 legs instead of 4, ooh that's different, but they are deployed as if they had 4, not as they might be on 6 legged insects. The animals used as we use horses, look like horses. The likelihood of extraterrestrial life is slim enough, that its evolution should be so utterly parallel in such different conditions is virtually impossible.
O.K. this is something we forgive in almost all science fiction, but this has mostly been because make-up and visual special effects, and their costs have been prohibitive in making more realistic depictions of aliens on this scale. The other factor is that the audience may need a modicum of familiarity, so as not to be too distracted by the new surroundings. However, if Pixar has taught us nothing else, an audience can anthropomorphise and identify with almost anything. Cameron should perhaps given the audience a little more credit. He has pushed the tech envelope greatly but merely tapped the visionary one.
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions, Reviews
My annual BAFTA annoyance 2010
Well there are fewer nominations to cite this year in my rant against the BAFTA's for cheating their own eligibility requirements in order to nominate films that haven't actually been released and usually are merely imminent around the time of the award ceremonies themselves. This is an utterly craven pandering to the distributors. I have no quibble with the films released in the UK in the calendar year being honoured, in this case 2009. However, a significant portion of those nominated have been released this year, and, as usual at least one even fails BAFTA's own requirements.
Let's remind ourselves of this year's requirements:
Eligibility
Films must be released theatrically in the UK, within the Academy awards year:
1 January to 31 December 2009. Films that open between 1 January and 19 February 2010 inclusive may be 'qualified' by Distributors by being screened to Academy Film Voting Members by Thursday 17 December 2009.
To be eligible, a feature film must:
* be feature-length, i.e. with a running time exceeding 60 minutes;
* receive its first public exhibition or distribution in the UK as a theatrical release;
* be exhibited publicly to a paying audience within a commercial cinema in the UK for no fewer than seven consecutive days.
Films from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the exception of Outstanding British Film, Outstanding Debut, Short Film and Short Animation which are for British films only.
This year's Best Actress category includes Saoirse Ronan for The Lovely Bones (19 February 2010). O.K., this is released on the last day of Eligibility period, but it fails the "publicly to a paying audience... for no fewer than seven consecutive days." as the award ceremony is on the 21st.
Previous years have seen these films so dishonourably nominated:
2008 Latest Open Date 8th Feb, Awards 10th Feb.
There Will be Blood (15th Feb)
2009 Latest Open Date 6th Feb, Awards 8th Feb.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (6th Feb 2009)
Doubt (6th Feb 2009)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (13th Feb 2009 released after the eligibility and the awards)
This may seem horribly pedantic, but my main point is that awards should be nominated and awarded from a level playing field, say a given 12 month period, not skewed to only films which have theatrical, or now possibly DVD releases that create synergy with the date of the Awards ceremony. I don't begrudge the films or their makers nominations, but this should reflect merit, not the machinations of film distributors. This also leaves the BAFTAs open to the accusation that they are an irrelevant stop-gap between the Golden Globes and the Oscars, as they bend their eligibility to include films that have earlier release dates in North America and are more suitably eligible for those awards.
I will attempt yet again to get this rant some traction, watch this space...
Labels: BAFTA, Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions
BAFTA Annoyance 2010: Director Nominations
This year's BAFTA Nominations themselves are more frustrating than usual, particularly in the Directors category. (you can read my separate perennial Annual BAFTA annoyance rant
here)
2010 BAFTA Director Nominations:
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Neill Blomkamp, District 9
James Cameron, Avatar
Lone Scherfig, An Education
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Really???
I enjoyed Avatar, District 9, and probably just under half of Inglorious Basterds, but best director for any of them? You have only to look at BAFTA's Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer category to find at least two that wipe the floor with them Duncan Jones (Moon) and Sam Taylor-Wood (Nowhere Boy) (I haven't seen Eran Creevy's Shifty or Stuart Hazeldine's Exam).
Cameron for Avatar would be like nominating George Lucas for Eps 1-3 of Star Wars. Sure they've pushed the technological envelope, and in some ways that is to be applauded, it doesn't make their films any more worthy. On this basis William Castle should have been given Best Director for "The Tingler" with its innovative use of electrical shock delivered to each cinema seat. Mind you Avatar is a better film than the last 3 Lucas outings, and better than Cameron's overpraised cinematic turd "Titanic" ("You will believe a ship can sink!"), but that's only because he came up with a decent story, a fully formed if slightly dodgy world, and bland but heroic characters to go with the spectacle of pixels being pissed against the screen.
As a fan of Tarentino, I'm beginning to worry that his first three films are the best he'll ever direct. Encouraging him, or Cameron for that matter, for uneven output is evil and counterproductive.
I don't begrudge Blomkamp for District 9, he does manage, in my opinion to stretch the conceit of his previous short over the feature length (others may disagree with this point), and it is better than the other entries I've derided, but still, it should be a filler nomination in some weaker year.
A non exhaustive list of Directors more worthy of nomination for this year's BAFTA than Cameron, Tarentino and possibly Blomkamp:
Duncan Jones, Moon (it's also criminal that Sam Rockwell didn't get the acting nod, the best unappreciated dual role since Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers)
Sam Taylor-Wood, Nowhere Boy
Ethan Coen, A Serious Man (probably one of the Coen's best)
Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassas (I'd take an uneven Gilliam opus over a dodgy Tarentino any day)
Stephen Soderberg, The Informant! (Also thought Matt Damon was incredible in this very slight but well constructed movie)
Spike Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are (not the most enjoyable film, but a unique distillation of the neuroses of childhood).
Tom Hooper, The Damned United (though disappointingly not a zombie movie... and where is Michael Sheen's nod for acting?)
Bruce McDonald, Pontypool (a cerebral and claustrophobic zombie horror with a contagion spread by language)
That's just those I've seen, I missed the likes of Jane Campion's Bright Star, Kari Skogland's Fifty Dead Men Walking or Armando Iannucci's In The Loop. That's without even mentioning the non-English language works, when you have Almodovar, Haneke, Claire Denis and Chan-wook Park on top form.
Perhaps all this is be taken as moot point as Katherine Bigelow should win for The Hurt Locker. But how on top of the world will she feel if all she does is beat her ex and his big dumb blue skinned friends?
Labels: BAFTA, Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions
The 5 (or 6) wives of Jacob Zuma
BBC World Service - South Africa's President Jacob Zuma takes another wifeAfter controversially taking his 5th wife, there are plans for him to marry a 6th later next year. He is also divorced from his government's Home Affairs Minister. Another of his wives killed herself.
An easy mnemonic for future history lessons:
Married
Divorced
Suicide
Married
Married
Married (pending)
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions
My annual BAFTA annoyance 2009
Last year I had a small email argument with BAFTA personnel over the barely eligible "There Will Be Blood" (disregarding the merits of the film, which amongst other things contains a "spoiler" in its title).
This year I've decided to take my beef to a higher authority, I've sent an email to the BBC Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode BBC Radio Live 5 Film Review show, in the vain hope that they'll give the argument airtime and publicly bollock BAFTA for their weaselly unprincipled distributor led inclusion of films up for OSCARs(tm) but not properly released in the UK within the awards year.
The letter reads as follows
Dear Charters & Caldicott,
As you no doubt remember a few years ago the BAFTA's were moved to occur after the Golden Globes but before the Oscars, in a desperate/transparent/pointless (delete as appropriate) attempt to seem more relevant and boost their profile as a supposed predictor of Oscars (the position queasily held by the Golden Globes). Along with that BAFTA then bent the eligibility rules to include films that were released theatrically in the States (i.e.. up for Oscars), but which hadn't actually had a proper UK release within the awards year:
"Films that open between 1 January and 6 February 2009 inclusive may be 'qualified' by Distributors by being screened to Academy Film Voting Members by Thursday 18 December 2008."
That means that films released two days before the actual ceremonies may qualify. However, another eligibility rule states:
"To be eligible, a feature film must be exhibited publicly to a paying audience within a commercial cinema in the UK for no fewer than seven consecutive days."
By that logic the following three nominated films should be disqualified, as they won't have fulfilled this obligation by the time of the awards ceremony:
(UK Release Dates according to IMDB:)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (6th Feb)
Doubt (6th Feb)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (13th Feb -- this actually fails both tests)
Now we all know that the timing and use of the BAFTA's by the distributor's is merely to give these films a marketing bump. They probably will have had small pseudo releases in some small cinema for a preview week to qualify.
The real point of all this nitpicking (which leaves the merit of these films in the dust): Nominated films should have received their release in the year in question in the UK. The public, including idiots like myself, should have had a proper chance to see the films, so that there is interest in the supposedly laudatory outcome of the awards, not an opportunity to have trailers for coming attractions foisted on us. By bending the rules to account for the North American release schedule, the BAFTA's seem less relevant, more like a "me too" exercise. If the distributors wanted their pictures qualified over here as well, they should release them at the same time in the UK as in the US.
Meanwhile on the other side of the pond AMPAAS, are allowing Brad Pitt his Best Actor Nomination for Benjamin Button when they denied Andy Serkis a chance at the Best Supporting for Gollum on the basis that his performance was altered through digital manipulation. I may enjoy Benjamin Button when I can finally see it if I just imagine Gollum in the place of Pitt (theory: is every other film by Fincher rubbish/genius?)
Perhaps Pointlessly Pedantic,
Cheers,
Brian Tarnoff, the New Forest.
PS. This is the whole eligibility bit from the BAFTA website:
ELIGIBILITY
Films must be released theatrically in the UK, within the Academy awards year,
1 January to 31 December 2008. Films that open between 1 January and 6 February 2009 inclusive may be 'qualified' by Distributors by being screened to Academy Film Voting Members by Thursday 18 December 2008.
To be eligible, a feature film must:
* be feature-length, i.e. with a running time exceeding 60 minutes;
* receive its first public exhibition or distribution in the UK as a theatrical release;
* be exhibited publicly to a paying audience within a commercial cinema in the UK for no fewer than seven consecutive days.
Whether this reaches the airwaves is to be seen....
Labels: BAFTA, My Tasteless Opinions
No God, Faithful want Proof.
And now, another, through-the-looking-glass moment:
ASA News: Atheist bus ad campaign is not in breach of the Advertising CodeThe British Humanist Association (BHA) started running a series of ads from last October on various city buses throughout the UK with the line: "There is probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer, co-created the campaign and financial contributors included Richard Dawkins.
The Advertising Standards Authority received over 300 complaints that the ad "broke the advertising code on the grounds of substantiation and truthfulness."
The ASA ruled that the campaign did not mislead consumers and that it would not launch an investigation.
"The ASA Council concluded that the ad was an expression of the advertiser's opinion and that the claims in it were not capable of objective substantiation."
Ostensibly the complaints came from people who have proof of God's existence. Where are they hiding this proof? Perhaps we're just meant to take it that they have it, on faith.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day
Now we are sixless.
'Prisoner' star McGoohan dies, aged 80His memory will likely be desecrated by the remake, which will likely steam ahead without his input, or objections. With the utterly charisma free Jim Caviezel taking THE number, I sense that the clueless remakers will balls this up worse than HHGTTG. They clearly don't get the essence of the original.
I wonder if there will be a memorial service at Portmeirion (actually they do note the passing on the website:
http://www.portmeirion-village.com/, and are offering free admission to sign the memorial book).
Even "rover" is sad. You don't want to see what that big white ball looks like when it cries....
Labels: Life Irritates Art, My Tasteless Opinions, Vague-a-ries
My Dog World War! (part 3 !!!)
Today at Blackpool & District Canine Society Championship Dog Show, at least three people congratulated me on, and otherwise agreed with my letter published in Dog World this week.
This is amazing for one particular reason:
No one knows who I am.
O.K., I should qualify this, my wife uses her maiden name for many things: work, dog showing, and writing about gardening for the dog show press. I probably go to less than half the dog shows she attends and during the course of the 16 years, 8 months, 2 days and approximately 12 hours of our relationship, only a few of those in the show ring side of her life have more than an inkling of my existence, let alone the notion that I am NOT Mr. Barnes.
Well, there is the fact that one of Dog World's professional photographers did our wedding, but that was a favor from Ruth, and it was before Finuala became a writer for the paper (Ruth introduced her to them, another story....). And some people showed up at the wedding to form the Welsh Springer Guard of Honour outside the hotel before the ceremony (a case of my brother in law's joke taken literally too far). Anyway, that was nearly ten years ago, surely the whole thing has blown over by now, we own the negatives, so apart from those of us in on the whole secret, nothing really has to see the light of day.
I suppose I do have my unusual, and strangely non-ancestral surname (taken by my Russian grand-parents as their free gift from the immigrant experience). So those few people in the know would have worked it out. But as far as I can tell, only one of those three people, are "In" the in-the-know subset. My surname does appear alongside my wife's "showing" name in the index of the breed yearbook, so perhaps the others merely had too much time on their hands.
I thank them all for their support, but there is the possibility that the universe is lulling me into a false sense of security before the true gauntlet is laid down.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day, Vague-a-ries
My Dog World War! (part 2 !!!)
The letter to the editor of Dog World was published!
Dog World(you'll have to select "View Editions" from the top left, select 20/06/2008, navigate to page 6, it's the third letter published).
For those of you who didn't read my
previous post (scroll down or click the link, lazy ass). I've been compelled to respond to a nasty insinuation by a dog judge that infirm people using assistance whilst showing their dogs are appearing in the ring for calculated (and indeed spurious) reasons that he was, heaven forfend, insulted by.
There are a few edits, the one that niggled slightly:
Mr. Brace's limited and cynical imagination can find only one motive for this
became:
Mr. Brace can find only one motive for this
However, one of the other letters on the same subject already labels Brace's attitude as cynical. There is a slight edit, an insertion of the words "and were" before "not hobbled by pain" by someone who clearly doesn't understand the use of a comma, and the word penalize is given it's anglo spelling penalise. The strangest stylistic edit is that every single sentence is given it's own paragraph, which, as the author, I find jarring as it discards some of the cohesion of the original.
After a quick look at Mr. Brace's article, I commented that he hasn't responded yet, but I wouldn't expect him to. Finuala suggested that he probably writes a couple of weeks in advance, but also thought it unlikely that he'd respond at all. Well, I will keep my eyes peeled for an apology, nonetheless.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Smile of the day, Vague-a-ries
My Dog World War! (part 1 ???)
In last Friday's edition of Dog World, one of two (can you imagine) UK weekly newspapers entirely devoted to dog showing and other canine competitions, Andrew Brace, a judge in the upper echelons of the dog showing world, expressed in his regular column his bad opinion of infirm people who use another handler to move their dogs in the ring: "Personally I dislike this intensely" and finds it "just an insult to the judge." To read his full two paragraphs on the subject, follow this link:
Dog World June 13th(you'll have to select "View Editions" from the top left, select 13/06/2008, navigate to page 8 and skip to halfway down the third column near the end of the article, zoom in). I will quote the lot directly after I have obtained permission from Dog World.
Naturally, Finuala and I found this opinion pretty offensive. As (full disclosure) she writes a semi-regular Gardening column for the paper, she felt less in a position to respond. So, I have taken up the cudgel, which I have emailed to the letters editor of Dog World:
Letters Page: Runners in the Show Ring (response to Andrew
Brace's June 13th column)
In his "Going Around" column in Dog World, June 13th, Andrew Brace rails against the possibly rising practice of "employing 'runners' when they presumably feel they are not fit enough to gait their dogs."
Mr. Brace's limited and cynical imagination can find only one motive for this: "...the exhibitor does not trust the judge to find their dog without their face behind it." This ignores the fact that not every exhibitor is a "face" in their given breed; many successfully show only one or two animals at a time who are primarily their pets, without joining some cliquey coterie of breeders with many champions. Many owners feel that their animals are most comfortable with their handling, and, perhaps a newsflash to Mr. Brace, take pleasure and pride in their display in the ring as a result of their effort, time and expense.
My wife, for example, suffered increasingly appalling arthritis in one of her hips whilst waiting for diagnosis and a subsequent operation. During this time she tried to continue enjoying showing our dog to the best of her ability and felt most qualified to stack the animal, and confident that he would move like a dream alongside someone who could actually move, not hobbled by pain. If she was having an off day, she would ask a friend to run the dog in the ring.
With the increasingly average age of the general population, and inevitably of the showing community (not to mention waiting lists for treatment), the practice of using runners cannot help but rise. I would hope that we can expect judges to look at what they should be looking at, the animal, it's confirmation and performance, not who happens to be standing behind, or along side it. Strangely this seems to be something that Mr. Brace may not be willing to do as he vents his "intense" dislike.
We can only hope that Mr. Brace can swallow his pride, look past what he sees as an "insult to the judge", and not penalize the animal or exhibitor for what is a completely irrelevant factor. Otherwise all his prejudices should be published on any schedule that lists his future judging appointments. Let's also wish him continued good health so that he should never know where his true insult lies.
Brian Tarnoff
Hampshire
I will of course update here should this letter be published. And follow any possible repercussions.
Labels: My Tasteless Opinions, Vague-a-ries
My annual BAFTA annoyance
Every year I get annoyed by the BAFTAs (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) Awards. This is not the same sort of annoyance you might have about the Oscars (why was THAT nominated?), its based on the absurd timing when they moved the BAFTAs several years ago to be awarded between the Golden Globes and the Oscars, a really pathetic
This year has been better than recent years in terms of having nominees that have received genuine releases within the qualifying calendar year. However, and this is not to debate the relative merits of the nominated film, There Will Be Blood does not qualify under the
eligibility rules:
ELIGIBILITY
Films must be released theatrically in the UK, within the Academy awards
year,
1 January - 31 December 2007. Films that open between 1 January and 8
February 2008 inclusive may be 'qualified' by Distributors by being
screened to Academy Film Voting Members by Thursday 20 December 2007.
To be eligible, a feature film must:
* be feature-length, i.e. with a running time exceeding 60 minutes;
* receive its first public exhibition or distribution in the UK as a
theatrical release;
* be exhibited publicly to a paying audience within a commercial
cinema in the UK for no fewer than seven consecutive days.
Films from all countries are eligible in all categories, with the
exception of Best British Film, The Carl Foreman Award, Short Film and
Short Animation which are for British films only.
There Will Be Blood has not been released by 8th of February 2008, it's
UK release date is the 15th. I saw a free preview on the 11th. So the
film fails to meet the requirements of by the 8th of February, and seven
consecutive days to a paying audience within the allotted time. OK,
there's the possibility that the distributor has done a faux release
somewhere, just to qualify ahead of the actual release in order to gain
kudos before it gets in the theatres. Really, these sort of loopholes
should be closed, films should only be eligible within the calendar year
and with one week of actual commercial release within that year.
Perhaps they should even revoke eligibility if a film is given a proper
release near or after the BAFTA awards themselves.
I should add that I thought Daniel Day-Lewis performance was very good
and should happily enjoy nomination. But lets not kid ourselves about
how distributors are using awards.
I concede that given that vagueness the film just squeaks in, but should we have a system so open to such abuse? I was aware that there was a limited release starting on Feb 8th (the last qualifying day!). The film does not have a full week run within the period (OK, the rule vaguely doesn't stipulate that the run must be within, but my point is that this part of the rules is simply dodgy).
My real point is still that eligibility should be limited to a given calendar year. This artful method of qualifying only serves the distributors. It also makes the Academy seem desperate to make sure that their nomination list seems relevant against the Oscars and the Golden Globes by including films that were released in the US in the year but not in the UK (and yet get to "qualify" from either a proper January or early February release, or, and I've been to screenings where a film has had a special one-off one cinema release to get qualified before its actual wide release). Actually these films that qualify this way, are still qualified for nomination in the subsequent year, and this in particular makes a nonsense of this system.
Finally, I don't begrudge the actual filmmakers their honors. Recognition of excellence, regardless of which "year" a film appears in, can only be a good thing. Keeping the playing field tilted to end of and beginning of next year release dates only serves to reinforce the notion that the UK and European market are only the poor cousin to North America. And whilst this may be true, the Academy shouldn't be complicit in its confirmation.
Labels: BAFTA, My Tasteless Opinions
