MOVIES : Monty Python and the Holy Grail

I don't really like Monty Python. They're OK. This movie isn't. It's just a series of not very funny skits centered a little bit around the arthurian legends.
I think MP were mainly successful because they were the first, but their ideas and techniques have been evolved since then, so my frame of reference can't appreciate their acheivements.
Amusingly my feelings about this issue were very well described in a review of the movie that so incesed the MPs that they read it out aloud on the DVD! (With me nodding at each 'insulting' sentence)
The other DVD extra that made the movie worth watching was the Henry IV part 2 subtitles to the movie. The boys have gone and retreived large swathes of the original play that fit to the movie - and the shakespeare is funnier! I am not sure what percentage is actually from the play and what was made up to fit, but I now some of it is there because I checked out a few quotes that I could remember.
Pretty sad that my main source of enjoyment came from the subtitles named 'subtitles for those who hate MP and the holy grail' :)

MOVIES : The Woodsman

This was originally a play (given away in the titles by 'based on the play by...'). It is about a paedophile who has just finished his sentence and is trying desperately to become 'normal'.
That's about it really, though that makes me sound like I didn't like it, I did, but there isn't much more to the story than that.
I think that all the actors did a marvelous job, made easier by a great script that fleshed most people out very nicely (except maybe the secretary and the _other_ paedophile). The story moves the sympathising from character to character to character, making you think about all the different implications of this particular act and how many lives it destroys.
Possibly my biggest criticism is that you never really dislike the main character. When he is about to reoffend I was not dispising him, or watching horrified as an innocent child was about to become a victim, instead I was anxious that he doesn't do it for his own spiritual wellbeing.
This is because, as can be guessed by my 1 sentence synopsis above, the script follows the journey of the Woodsman as he tries to attone/heal himself. It can use this 'cart' as a method to look at the issue from many angles, but it can't really have the audience hate the main character, even though he's done a horrendous thing
(In fact, and maybe this is an american movie thing, they definitely try in some places to reduce the abhorence of his particular act - 'Oh I did some bad stuff, but the girls always said yes' and so on)
I liked it though, and listening to people leaving afterwards it did acheive it's goal; getting people talking intelligently about the subject instead of just mouthing off.
And Kevin Bacon really hated himself.

MOVIES : Hotel Rawanda

I am currently reading the book 'Collapse' by Jarred Diamond in which he investigates the falls of a number of civilizations, and tries to argue for a particular thesis about the major causes for such a failure. I had just finished all the 'historic' investigations and was about to read the chapter on the disaster in Rawanda when I heard the JJJ review of this movie. They liked it so I thought I'd get some pre-Jarred Rawanda information.
The film is the true-life story of a Hutu (the majority who performed the largest acts of genocide) who runs a very upmarket hotel. He is a very proud man, and has acheived a lot so is somewhat justified in this feeling, though he dismisses people's concerns about the impending disaster because he can't believe it would happen.
It's not until his family is attacked that he finally realisies the poo is flying, and so retreats to his hotel. The hotel starts to turn into a refugee camp in the middle of town, but is largely kept safe by the 2 assigned UN troopers (who can't shoot...), the pretense that the hotel is still a high-class establishment for the entertainment of international delegates, and plenty of bribes to the generals largely running the show.
From then on the story revolves about his attempts to keep the people in the hotel safe, even when the West totally abandons him (them) and he realises that he's "not even a nigger" to them - just dirt.
In fact, that was the most moving part of the film for me; the UN arrive to take all the whites out and leave only 400 soldiers in the whole country. The whites are all reluctantly leaving (including journalists etc) because there is nothing a journalist/tourist can do to change anything by staying, but they are all horrified and disgusted at the Western countries' giving up upon all the citizens of Rawanda. A wonderful scene where emotions on everyone's faces are beautifully played out; relief, terror, shame.
As an actual movie it was quite good, didn't feel too pushed in the way it exsposed the information that the movie creators wanted. The lead man was excellent, as were most of the black actors. Nick Nolte was aweful, and the white nurse woman was pretty pathetic as well. Jean Luc's 15 seconds of fame was quite well done.
The script was, in the main, excellent, only let down by 3/4 totally pathetic scenes that climaxed in horrendous single lines of dialog - mostly said by the white actors. Truely awful stuff which took minutes to recover from and get back into the film.
I think the soundtrack was excellent - what felt like authentic african music the whole way through, which set up some wonderful incongruities in some of the more harrowing scenes.
Mum and Dad, you should definitely see this so you can tell me how the feel compares to Nigeria (the feel of the people and so on, not the violence of course)
So what does one learn from this film? That all humans suck is a big one. But then there are some wonderful people, like the lead man, who risk everything. That an individual is incapable of acheiving real change. But then there are some, like the lead man, who save some 1100 peoples lives. That humans have an impossible ability to perform impossible acts of hatered, and love.
That a Hutu can look exactly the same as a Tutsi, to the point that you have to look in their identification papers before you can slaughter them.

So then I went home, and read the chapter by Jarred Diamond. Keep in mind he is looking at all of this from a historical perspective, attempting to promote his thesis.
At the time of the genocide Rawanda was the 6th or so most densly populated country in the world. The people had a typical farmer culture, inefficient because they couldn't afford western techniques, and getting more and more inefficient as land was split between children into smaller and smaller parcels. Large land owners had something around 2 acres each, while small land owners had something around 0.6 acres. This was to support the whole household AND be sold for profit.
Jarred looks particularly at one region in the North (?) of the country where there were almost no Tutsi (only 1 known one from one particular village) and yet 5% of the population was still culled (In Tutsi areas it was around 11%, for a total of about 800,000 people). He ends up arguing that a large part of the reason for the genocide was resource constraint, with the self-interest of the rascist 'big men' causing the tip into chaos.
It was good to see this well made film, and read an interesting alternate view (with more hard numbers) about such a horrendous, yet sadly typical, human tragedy.
The West, yet again, should be ashamed.

GIG - The Donnas

I arrived relatively early to find the Astoria packed out - about 40-50% women, which is much higher than normal, and they were all trying to get decent positions, though most had been taken by a line of huge teenage boys all up against the barrier.
First band sucked. Not slick, droning songs that all sounded the same, just plain dull. Sorry guys, but you're only really good for backing music.
Second band had a great stage presence, struting around like Mick Jagger, really enjoying themselves. The music wasn't too bad, good and rocky which is what you want from a support for the Donnas. I'll admit I got a bit bored towards the end, but I think that was impatience rather than because the music was boring. They were called Mondeo something or other.
While waiting for the Donnas to come on (scheduled to start at 9:30 so we can buy more beer - well, not me :) I chatted with the Brazillian guy next to me, about all things brazillian, australian, londonish and rock'n'roll. The Brazillians are usually into really heavy stuff, so I was surprised he was coming along to see the Donnas, who are just hardish rock. Anyway, might catch him again at the Velvet Revolver or something.
Finally the Donnas started, and did an excellent set, 1 hour this time instead of the 45 minutes they did last time, and the whole crowd was jumping in time, and singing along. The girls (in the band:) really got off on our reactions, so I think we were one of the livlier audiences they've had.
For about the first 1/3rd us softies managed to keep the 'mosh' pit organised so the short girls and so on wouldn't get stu[idly crushed. Then some skin head tosser decided he was bored and started pushing everyone around to make it into a 'proper' mosh pit. I was close enough to the front, once all the girls fled, to not be too battered, though I am sore today. I did manage to get my elbow into the ribs of some of the dickheads behind me though, so they are hopefully more sore than me...
The Donnas have really learnt how to entice the crowd, offering sweets for screams, doing some good call response stuff and taking advantage of 80% of the audience knowing all the words so we can sing along.
They finished with their most successful songs, and left us wanting so much more. Good stuff, I will always try and see them if I can!

GIGS : Mika Bomb

Went and saw this gig with Mat from work
First Band - forgotten name.
These guys played a really tight set of punk stuff. Very professional and neat. Boring. The lead singer was just annoying and the guitarist was the only one with personality (remind you of anyone mark?), but ultimately it was the unimaginative old-school punk tracks that they played that bored me silly.
The Barbs
These guys were unprofessional, dissorganised, but great fun! Once they started they were pretty tight (I think they had to be - they had a crappy sequencer for some of their songs) but they totally wrecked the atmosphere by taking upwards of 3 minutes between songs.
Fun stuff though; the last three songs rocked with titles such as 'I live on vampire time' and ' I only do it for the Danger, Man' (which is all about the reason they play in a band).
They had a male and female singer and, while they were both really hot, they did 2/3 times actually take advantage of that doing some interesting stuff with call/response and canon.
Mika Bomb
Tight, professional and fun. Mat actually left halfway through because he didn't find their sound very interesting, which is a fair call as they were fairly formulaic (after bashing the first band I guess that's a bit hypocritical). I just have athing for cute Japanese girls singing in English, knowing full well that they can't pronounce stuff so they make sure their chorouses have words with Rs and Ls in them!
I bought their CD whcih is good, quite a different sound from live and so an interesting experience to have two takes on the same songs. Oh! The bass player rocked too! He was the only visible guy, and was one of those classic neo-Japanese with white, heavily layered hair and a 'fag' (Actually nicorrete straw thing) hanging from his mouth for the whole gig ; ultra-cool!

MOVIES : Casshern

Wow.
I don't really know what to make of this. I think if I wasn't into Japanese story telling, and didn't delight in deciphering plots, I would have found this film quite boring. But maybe not.
It's what Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow should have been : all sets (bar one) are 90% digital, with real actors; the technology is retro/steam-punk/mix of cogs and mobile phones; the politics is heavily Stalin Russia, though of course with some Japanese honour thrown in for good measure.
The atmosphere was one of the most enjoyable aspects of this film, from the sometimes classical, sometimes heavy metal soundtrack, to the magnificent Russian/Communist propaganda inspired statues and iconography, to the high status, ponderous, match offs that the Japanese are so good at. In fact the only thing that took away from the atmosphere where the pathetic fight scenes which they sped up for some reason, and used so many cuts you couldn't work out what was happening; I suspect because they didn't have actors who could do decent looking martial arts...
The first third of the film is setting up the reason everything else matters, giving background to the characters and world, and nicely implies a lot of stuff without saying it. The second third devolves into a japanese comic fantasy with the main character becoming super powerful (very Matrix/Neo style). Then the last third takes off again as more twists than a corkscrew come thundering down as we try and decipher why, or for that matter what, the hell happened.
And it is this deciphering that was both the most intriguing and most unsatisfying part of the film; I never did work out what was going on, though I got close. I don't know if this is a miss translation from japanese culture to western, or a miss translation from the comic to screen, or simply an attempt to make the story more interesting by making it indecipherable (god I hate that!)
Anyway, while I wouldn't recommend it for all, I'd love someone else to see it to let me know what they thought was going on!