READ MY WORK

Ideas Above Our Station
new collection of shorts, one of which was written by me,
http://www.route-online.com/routev7/page.asp?idno=292

Nine Stop Trip
even newer collection of shorts, all of which were written by me,
http://chipmunkapublishing.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=65

So I'm still off work, Got myself in on Monday but my manager sent me straight home again so here I am, just bumming about waiting for test results and wheezing.

Had a pretty rough weekend emotionally, sights and stories regarding my ex (who I'm still stuck here with for the next few weeks and fuck me is it dragging,) really sticking it in and breaking it off but feeling stronger this week thanks to a bit more sleep and lots of support from friends near and very, very far.

As I'm not allowed to do anything physical I've been putting in some hours on the XBOX360, a bit of reading, bit of writing and watching DVDs.

Got myself the first series of The Thick Of It, which is totally worth the pain in my side when it cracks me up. It is damn funny :)

Also been down the cinema a fair bit. For some reason, ventilation, shape of the seats, I find it really uncomfortable in their at the moment, sets my lung off a treat. However, I love being in there so much that the psychological good it does me makes it worth it.

I'm a big fan of film but not, generally, big ass cinemas. The Hyde Park Picture House however, self described art house cinema, is old school, cosy, and mint. Pretty much ever since I moved to Leeds I've been a regular visitor and I can't recommend it highly enough, check it out:

http://www.hydeparkpicturehouse.co.uk

Anyway I've seen four films over the last few days and thought I'd note down a few thoughts about them, so here we go.

Sunshine

Wasn't sure about this one. Looked a bit too big budget and cheesy to have any depth but just wanted to get out of the house.

As it turns out I was actually very impressed, (despite some pretty dubious astrophysics here and there, but not so much that I couldn't suspend disbelief.)

So here's the setup: our sun is dying, gradually fading away and with it any chance of survival for mankind.

Seven years previous a crew was sent in the Arthur C Clarke style ship, Icarus, to deliver a vast nuclear device, (the size of Manhattan,) to the heart of the sun to reignite and save us all.

It didn't work and they never came back.

Now everything mankind and the earth has left has been put into one last ship and one last bomb, the imaginatively titled Icarus 2.

It's all or nothing, they succeed or we all die.

I found this to be a classic sci fi film in the true sense of the word. Not derivative or unoriginal, but just sci fi as it was originally, a microscope cast on mankind against the awe inspiring backdrop of the inconceivable hugeness of space.

As the mission proceeds not all goes to plan, especially once they get so close to the sun that they can no longer communicate with earth and promptly pick up a distress beacon from the first ship!

Tough decisions and tragic sacrifices abound as the old lesson that man is at once his own worst enemy and yet his own greatest saviour is retold with subtlety and confidence.

I found myself really giving a shit about these people and their mission. When things went wrong I was cringing, desperate for hope, any hope at all. When things were pulled round I was genuinely relieved. Then back to despair, and back to hope etc.

In short it was a rollercoaster that managed to swing me back and forth without becoming irritatingly regular. I'm tempted to put this down to the fact that it's a film adaptation of a book but that's not necessarily the defining factor.

Despite the incredibly limited cast and scenario, (you can't exactly have long lost relatives or mysterious government agents popping up out in space can you,) the film manages to surprise and produce unexpected plot twists.

Things seemed to fray a little towards the very end and I felt a few minutes could have been shaved off to make it a bit punchier. Also there's a character or two that I felt were just thrown away in the end as if they ran out of time to bring their stories to a conclusion.

Overall though I found it a rewarding experience and would watch Sunshine again.

This Is England

I fucking love this film! Made me laugh, made me cry, it is a beautiful piece of cinema that everyone should see. Just brilliant.

I loved it so much in fact that I've been back to cinema tonight to watch it again!

It's a shame that the way the film's been marketed gives completely the wrong impression as I suspect this will mean it ends up being seen by far fewer people than it deserves.

Looking at the posters and the trailers you'd think it was another skinheads-battering-asians Romper Stomper style piece.

We seem to have a bit of a middle class obsession with skinheads. They're the monsters we just love to hate aren't they?

Full of all the visceral violence part of us secretly longs for we love to see them go then, after the excitement, tut and shake our heads, condemning them utterly and feeling so fucking good about ourselves up in our ivory towers.

Well if that's the kind of trip you're looking for you will find yourself entirely unsatisfied by This Is England. In fact if that's the trip you're looking for you will find yourself distinctly disturbed by this film as you will, I guarantee, leave the cinema feeling both affection and sympathy for the booted, tattooed 'thugs' you'll see on screen.

I cannot think of a film that lives up to it's title more accurately.

This Is England attempts to paint a picture of what it was for certain sections of society to live under Thatcher in the 80's and succeeds gloriously.

Against the backdrop of conflict in the Falklands, much of the commentary on which sounds sickeningly familiar to our current involvement in Iraq, we follow Sean, a twelve year in a small coastal Yorkshire town.

Still grieving for his father, who we gather died fighting Mrs Thatcher's war in the South Atlantic, Sean is miserable and alone.

At first the story seems both familiar and sinister. Outcast from society and simply craving those things that all human beings do, to be loved, respected and to belong, Sean finds everything he wants in a local skinhead gang.

Here however This Is England breaks with convention and, instead, paints a picture much more controversial but realistic in two key ways:

joining the gang is a hugely positive thing for Sean,

the gang, including a young Jamican lad called 'Milky,' may be suited, booted and tattooed, but has no interest in racism or far right politics,

It's not until an old acquaintance of the gang is released from prison that the more traditional skinhead cliche is fulfilled.

Even at this point however, where the viewer think: finally, right, here we go, it never really happens.

As things darken there is no great build up to a spectacular or brutal climax, just the far too common petty agonies of ordinary people and terrible mistakes that are made far more shocking by the fact that they're so unimpressive they could be real.

If you want middle class race hate snuff go elsewhere.

If you want to really feel the futility of a society that ignored huge swathes of it's own people; if you want to really understand the dull, grey truth behind violence and hatred and if you want to really know what England is, this is it.

Fast Food Nation

So how do you make a fictional film from a non fiction book? How do you describe all aspects of a monolithic industry from top to bottom in graphic detail while maintaining a personal, one on one connection?

Well, you get the almighty Richard Linklater to do it!

Ever since was mesmerised by 'Slacker' as a kid, (a film in which nothing happens, the camera simply floats around a town listening to people's conversations,) I have been fascinated by Linklater's work.

In fact, earlier today I purchased A Scanner Darkly on DVD, yet another of his triumphs.

What blows my mind about the guy is his approach to film making. Almost every project he approaches breaks the mould in one way or another, be it a real time film set in a single room (Tape,) or using a cross between live action and animation to create a literal dream world, (Waking Life) so Fast Food Nation is not such a surprise after all.

As I left the cinema, having been moved and shocked even though I long since stopped going to burger chains, I was trying to put my finger on what it is the Linklater does.

I realised that his talent is in creating another reality as opposed to a film. Despite the star studded cast, (you're bound to recognise at least half the people in their, from Bruce Willis to Avril Lavigne!) you find yourself thinking you're watching real people have real conversations.

It's another story about real lives and real people presented with a marked lack of cinematic convention or comfort.

A rancher who won't sell his beef to the meat packers, illegal Mexican immigrants working at the meat packing plant, the suburban teenagers working behind the counters and the marketing executive on a mission to find out why "there's shit in the meat".

By dipping in and out of the lives these and various other people, and delighting in very subtly crossing their paths, Linklater builds up a picture of the industry as a whole. While maintaining an unavoidably human perspective on the whole thing.

Engrossing, moving and occasionally genuinely shocking, Fast Food Nation is worth a look even if you don't feel you need / want to be saved from the Big Mac.

Amazing Grace

As with Sunshine I really wasn't expecting much here it was just something to do away from this here pressure cooker. Not sure this was a great film as much as a great story.

I think you would have to work pretty hard not to make this a moving and ultimately uplifting film. To be fair it wasn't as cheesy as i was expecting and features some truly great performances from several of the cast.

I was a bit miffed that the story of slavery was presented as a classic Hollywood 'one man's struggle against the evil British Empire' style yarn when one of the main things about the British abolition of slavery was that it was the first real popular political movement, ie. the first time a change major political change came about because so many people wanted it! rather missed that point out I felt.

Was also a little pissed that William Wilberforce, the hero in question, showed absolutely no traces of his Yorkshire heritage. The fact that he hailed from my very own beloved White Rose county was actually mentioned only once, and then only briefly in passing.

It was what it was I guess, a Hollywood blockbuster. My old hack of father often reminds me of the journalistic maxim: "never let the truth get in the way of a good story".

I was interested and uplifted, moved and amused, but couldn't shake the feeling of sticky violation.

What I tend to find with a lot of mainstream cinema is that it plays to the back of the brain rather than the front.

Instead of challenging and engaging your mind, requiring some effort from you, as the films described above do to varying degrees, Hollywood tends to just ram it's thick, clumsy fingers straight into your chest to pluck your heartstrings or into your groin to tickle your fancy.

I welled up in places but resented it because I knew I was supposed to, it felt like someone tapping your knee with one of those little hammers, as if my body were watching the film and I just happened to be there.

Of the four I'd probably have to place this last but that's not to say it's actually a bad film by any measure. It's worth watching, just bear in mind that it's popular entertainment rather than a history lesson.

So there you have it, four in a row.

Coming up at the Hyde Park Picture House are various great films but I'm intending to see the following over the next few weeks:

Zodiac,
true story of the failed hunt for a San Francisco serial killer,

After The Wedding,
Danish drama I wasn't sure I fancied until I saw the trailer, main reason I was tempted was because Mads Mikkelsen is the lead. Best known for his recent role as the bad guy in the latest Bond film Casino Royale, (which I loved btw,) I saw him in a Danish black comedy called Adam's Apples (absolutely brilliant!) at the Leeds Internationl film festival before last and he just blew me away!

El Topo
apparently insane 'western' with huge cult following,

Magicians
from the writers of Peep Show think Mitchell and Webb as rival magicians, I'm sold! oh and it's got Jessica Stevenson from Spaced in it too!

Can't wait! :)