gibberish

I saw her on the BBC News at Ten tonight…

I’M GOING TO HAVE TO WRITE THIS IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO REFLECT THE TONE OF THE TWO GEEZERS WHO PRESENT MASTERCHEFF THESE DAYS.

What was wrong with the lugubriousness of Lloyd Grossman?

ANYWAY, AFTER AN ENTHRALLING FINAL (BUT A NOT GREAT FORMAT OVERALL) THE GORMAN FAMILY AGREED THAT THERE WAS NO DOUBT JAMESY DESERVED THE TITLE.

HURRAH!

How could I possibly support such a notion?

An ad campaign that says life is better without the ads.

I’ll tell you how…

Put together a hugely compelling idea, a brilliantly to the point proposition, fabulous direction and a song to kill for. (Gene Wilder as Willie Wonka.)

And this is what you get. Advertising at its best.

The irony is that it’s anti advertising. But, you know what? That ultimately is why it is genius and will win lots of advertising awards.

LOL.

And you know what? I was able to repeat view it on our temporarily working Sky + (2 months now - a record!).

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I had so been looking forward to this movie and had to bide my time to see it.

However, on a wet Monday afternoon in Glasgow my chance arrived.

PT Anderson is right up there among my favourite directors of all time with Magnolia in my top 5 films, ever! News of Daniel Day Lewis’ performance and his (as it turns out justified) favouritism for the Best Actor Oscar only added to my anticipation.

The film’s position as No. 23 EVER on IMDb’s review list (my filmic bible) meant it had to be a total classic.

So I’m afriad I have to beg to differ.

Whilst much of it amazes there is just too much indulgence in this movie. The first 20 minutes when, famously, not a word is uttered feels to me like film wank. It is overlong as well and I felt the cinematography failed to reach the top drawer; it’s simply too dark in places.

The theme of greed is interesting but it feels a bit derivative of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand - the famous book of the 50’s - although I gather the inspiration was drawn from a little known novel called ‘Oil’. And there are rather too many moments where Daniel Plainview played, mostly magnificently, by Daniel Day Lewis, is symbolised as the Devil incarnate sheathed in shards of flame and plumes of smoke. OK PT, we get it…

The context in which this greed is acted out is Oil Boom America (the first third of the last century). It centres around an oil prospector’s run ins with an unnamed fundamentalist Christian outback church.

The parallels between Bush and Iraq are not difficult to see.

Whilst the congregation may be innocent worshippers, the relationship between the young pastor (Dano) and Plainview, is the real axis of the movie and it meets with mixed results. Partly because Dano’s performance is not 100% convincing. Close, but no cigar.

Indeed the denoument was, I thought, verging on the absurd.

Daniel Day Lewis’ descent into madness is well observed and he manages to avoid the excesses of Bill the Butcher in Gangs of New York. However, having seen most of the big movies of the year his was probably the best male lead performance - although I felt Ellen Page in Juno and Javier Bardem in A Country For Old Men were better, purer, more believable constructs.

Which brings me to my final point. The Coen’s movie beats it hand down on every level except for the score, which is stunning.

Jonny Greenwood was responsible and this is the standout moment…

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Verdict?  7/10.  (Still an A in old money, but I was expecting a straight 10)

This great band from Brooklyn NYC were in Glasgow last night playing at The Garage. Ian Dommett and I attended and were blown away by their passion, energy and sheer musicianship. An outstanding gig by a top notch band.

They even did Chips Ahoy justice. Boys and Girls in America, the first encore was peerless.

And Stuck Between Stations? Well, judge for yourselves.

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The support were excellent too, look out for them. Good old Rock and roll. The Haze, from Maybole,

First single out next month.

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=54002023 

You probably heard about this guy’s life work, setting up a seed store 150 metres into a mountain in Greenland on the news yesterday.

I think this is really a very important piece of scientific persistance and it smacks, to me at least, of Nobel Prize winning work.

The essence of his idea is that all of the world’s seeds are collected in one place; in theory, at least, the situation is immune from earthquake, nuclear war, global warming’s greatest extremes and power cuts.

One can never know the potential value of this, but it is hard to underestimate.

Good on you mate (and the Norwegian Govt).

It’s hard to take people with you to do what is the right thing.

This is a bit different. A modern take on folk as a kind of folk supergroup. They could have called themselves Sky Ba’tat!

Led by Martin and Eliza Carthy and featuring Sheila Chandra, Benjamin Zephania, Paul Weller, Trans-Global Underground, Billy Bragg, The Copper Family and Tuung it maybe shouldn’t work, but it does.

However, even though it’s a new take on folk if you don’t like folk you won’t like this. If you’re ambivalent it might just swing it for you.

They are The Imagined Village. What’s most interesting is when they meld olde English Folk with ‘World Rythms’ so that the percussion can be really interesting and exciting, particularly on the song “Cold Haily Rainy Night.”

The other thing that’s heavily rotating on the car stereo is the soundtrack from Juno featuring a bunch of quirky off-beat stuff. “A bit kooky” would, I suppose, sum it up and no better demo of that is the Velvet Underground’s “I’m sticking with you” which is, for those of you that know it, is not typical Velvets.

In addition it features Dearest by Buddy Hololy which is really rather good and A Well Respected Man by The Kinks, thereafter you’re into Belle and Sebastian territory with a couple of contributions (Expectations and Piazza. New York Catcher). But the real backbone of the album is a bunch of college bands from the US that I’ve never heard of but would like to find out more, principally Kimya Dawson, but also Barry Louis Polisar, Antsy Pants and The Moldy Peaches.

Here’s some Kimya…

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It’s all good fun, feelgood stuff.

Well worth a tenner.

The Ting Tings. Mark my words, you saw it here first. (Well, if you’re over 40n taht is, they’ve been building a big fanbase of myspace for a while and have played Glastonbury and played Jools as you can see from this vid.)

It’s a really interesting and original act from Salford.

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First single (proper) is out on March 3rd. This is it…

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I was in the pub watching the Rangers v Panathanaikos match amnd got talking to an English bloke.  He told me his home team was Southampton and now that he was living in  Edinburgh he followed Hearts.

“Ah! so you’re a Saints and Sinners fan then.”  I quipped.

He laughed.

James McLaughlin!

You are a very naughty boy for sending me this awful link and I warn you, dear reader, that this is a nasty, obnoxious and bigoted piece of communication that nobody, but nobody should watch. So don’t. Especially if you, like me, are a Catholic.

Unless, of course,  you want a laugh.

Aunty Margot -  you’ll hate it, so don’t bother; you’ll hate it too Mum oh, and Father Tony, best watch Corrie.

I hope this doesn’t condemn me to a life in purgatory.

Intrigued?  If you end up offended don’t say I didn’t warn you…

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I am occasionally accused of being a bit OTT in my enthusiasm for things. I don’t really consider that a weakness. What’s wrong with as bit of enthusiasm?

However, this guy, Steve Bawbag (I mean Ballman) takes it to the nth degree. Thanks to Steve Douglas for pointing me in the right direction.

Enjoy…

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I was at the parliament last night. Pumping my gums. If you’re interested you’ll have to subscribe to my business speak here.

So does Obama it seems.

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Quite a neat, if transparent, move.

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My blog has been infected by Eldon Tyrell wannabees. (See he’s at it again comments.)

One is an asswipe (although I must admit I hadn’t copped the Bladerunner reference at first and I was probably being bated, so maybe he’s actually a great wit).

The other is my pal, agent provocateur and known asswipe, Rob Morrice, feebly attempting to pass himself off as Mr T. For those of you who work for a living it’s probably too much to either keep up with or care about. For the rest of us (me) it’s rather amusing.

The question is; Do sheep have electric dreams?

Northern rock is a comedy.

Poor Ally.  Wee Darling.

A pure dead hospital pass from Broony.

See ya.  Wouldn’t wanna be ya…

My sister is in China just now.

She went to the beach on Sunday.

That’s her 257th from the left.

You know as well as I do that Ansell Adams is a great, really great, photographer. I suspect that the difference between you and I though is that, as of Saturday, I have seen his work in the flesh.

So what, you might say.

So everything I would retort.

Have you ever seen a real life Tission? A Boticelli? A Caravaggio? A Canaletto? Have you ever seen a reproduction of them? If you have you will understand how visceral the experience was of seeing the real thing is in the flesh. So imagine seeing not one but 150 Adams’ in the flesh.

Here, In Edinburgh, for only £4, with no more than 300 people in the gallery.

All of his most famous work is on display (until April). The first surprise is the size of the prints, few are larger than 10 x 8.

The second is the low lighting conditions. (Quite challenging, but these prints need to be protected.)

The third is how gobsmackingly brilliant the execution of these photos is. It’s one thing composing and capturing these brilliant shots, it’s another thing entirely developing and printing to this level of excellence. I actually cannot describe how breathtaking it is. The skies are often black, pitch black, against grey mountains and small pools of razor-sharp, piercing light.

One can concieve, just, how this can be achieved in Photoshop world, but in 1945? Honestly, the techical achievement is unreal. Almost literally.

As for the photos, what more can I possibly add to the huge body of slavvering adulation?

Nothing.

But, for the record, both Jeana and I had these shots as the highlights.

You simply would not comprehend how beautiful the effect of the moving water is in this image.

No, not ‘Half Dome’.

Your computer screen will not even remotely do this photo justice.

There is only one way. Get on a plane to Edinburgh.

Now!

PS. He is not perfect. A significant chunk of the exhibition features his experimental work on parchment coloured Kodak paper that, for me, killed his shots. The paper does not hold the contrast of his skies and they appear insipid compared to his silver Gelatin work.

Jeana asked me to save an old photo of her gran holding her and her twin brother Roddy (as babies) and then put it on Flickr.

It got us thinking that we had a very similar photo a generation later. Here it is…

Spooky…

Gosh.

I’ve just seen back to back breathtakingly good movies (No country for old men and this) and I’ve got “There will be blood” to come.  This is a vintage movie year, make no mistake. There will be no embarrasement like “Crash” in 2008’s Oscars (The Scottish remake is “Pish”)

It was really interesting that every award at the BAFTAs last week seemed justified and yet Atonement’s first award of the night was “Best Film”.

Made sense to me.

They say it’s all in the writing; and of course it is.  Of course it is - because that’s where the ideas lie.

Juno is quite extraordinarily written by this year’s original screenplay Oscar winner (if not I will eat my hat) Diablo Cody - great name by the way: well written.

The script apparently has a bit of an autobiographical streak to it but who cares really because this script hums, zings, kerpows, shocks, amazes.

It is the best written movie I can remember.   I don’t buy that old school Casablanca was genius approach - because I think the writing was wooden - hence the acting.

The Coen’s movie from last week (which is brilliantly directed and acted) is largely lifted from McCarthy’s novel, so that maybe doesn’t compete as a “script”.

Juno, the film and the character, is ascerbic in the extreme, but that is where the film’s second great quality kicks in - Ellen Page.

In the hands of a lesser actress this would have turned into a vitriolic, acidic, bitchlike performance.  Instead it is funny, charming and endearing.  She too has a chance of an Oscar (I’ve not seen Julie Christie, so can’t comment, and as much as I loved Keira Knightley’s Atonement performance I do believe this is superior.)

This film is much funnier than I expected and when I say funny I don’t just mean “funny”, I mean “Dad, shut up you’re the loudest person in the cinema.” funny. (Said Tom.)  In a completely different way it is as funny as Borat.

And that’s funny.

I laughed out loud 20 times.  That makes good value for money in my book.

But it is also poignant, beautiful, well observed and has the kick-assest soundtrack you could ever conjure up from the fey fraternity, led by the likes of Belle and Sebastian who feature twice.  I will (sadly) buy the soundtrack (as will Kenneth Fowler).

Sorry to be so unoriginal but it really is another 9 out of 10 movie.

It really is.

In the comments to my previous post I am accused of being ’snarky’ by some American burd.

Now, I take offence at that.

Sarcy? Oh yes.

Snarky? Not a chance.

Oh, and she called me an idoit too. Idiot!