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Archive for October, 2008

diskant rewind: Mild Head Injury #12

Posted: October 3rd, 2008, by Simon Minter

(Originally posted August 2002)

Mild Head Injury by Simon Minter

Okay. OKAY! right. Moving on up! Woo. Here we go. I’m hoping that this column will be something of a halfway house between the shameless debacle of the last one (wherein I did write about nothing but gibberish), and those of the future (wherein I will cover interesting films in the hope of enlightening you to some non-Blockbuster fare.

I am now in Oxford, land of arty people and independent cinemas (or so I hope…) and yes! I have bought myself a shiny new silver space-age video recorder. This means that once I’ve got over slight agoraphobia and not-so-slight laziness, I will be making regular trips out to little steam-powered cinemas to catch all the weird and wonderful offerings available, and also scouring Blockbuster for the one or two good tapes they generally seem to have hidden behind the latest hit (with an ‘S’) movies. But this is yet to happen. So for now, I can do nothing more than present you with some reviews & opinions of the latest few films I’ve been seeing on video, which generally (although not exclusively, I hope) fall into the I’ve-already-seen-that category. Before I get going, a minor aside: is it just me, or has the quality of films being shown on television rapidly diminished lately? There used to be several ‘better tape that’ offerings I’d notice in the TV guide each week, generally on in the middle of the night, but just lately there doesn’t seem to be any action. Maybe it’s the gradual takeover of the airwaves by SPORT which is to blame. Grr.

First up: here’s an odd film which I felt compelled to buy upon seeing it cheap. GET WELL SOON (2001), starring Vincent Gallo (he of BUFFALO 66 fame) and Courteney Cox (of some programme called FRIENDS, apparently). According to the box, this is ‘a twisted romantic comedy in the spirit of There’s Something About Mary’. According to me, this is ‘a somewhat offensive attempt at making a quirky comedy, and simultaneously a waste of talent’. The premise is this – Gallo is a successful TV chat show host (in the mould of Leno, Letterman etc) who suddenly cracks on air, and decides to track down his childhood sweetheart (Cox) in New York, with a notion that getting back together with her will make his otherwise shallow, meaningless life take a fulfilling course once more. Not wanting to spoil the subtle, twisting plot, he does find her, and everything does turn out OK. Is that a surprise? It’s not a bad idea for a story – the weight of fame and adoration pushing a star to the brink of wanting to lose it all – but it’s strangely handled; Gallo’s particular reasons for losing it are not really explained, Cox’s initial reluctance to see him is not really explained, and the supporting characters are one-dimensionally ‘weird’. Several of the minor characters in the film reside in some kind of mental institution, seemingly for no other reason than to get some cheap ‘mad’ gags in there, and to reinforce all kinds of straight-jacket/mad-people-talking-to-themselves stereotypes. (Or maybe – hey – they’re sane, and so is Gallo, and everybody else is crazy. Huh ? No.)

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I like this animation

Posted: October 2nd, 2008, by Stan Tontas

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuGaqLT-gO4[/youtube]

I can’t imagine the work that went into this, first animation to make me slack-jawed since Princess Mononoke. I have an idea that it’s already been ripped off for a car advert but that’s hardly their fault.

Made in Argentina by some people / thing called BluBlu.

HEY COLOSSUS – Happy Birthday (CD, Riot Season)

Posted: October 1st, 2008, by Simon Minter

Killer album. Truly magnificent. Listening to this is like being dragged face-first into the deepest circle of Hell, via metal-drenched Birmingham and repetition-drenched Berlin. Fuck! Frighteningly addictive.

Hey Colossus
Riot Season