Bridesmaids

(A Few Words)

Here's a fact: last year, Universal Studios, responsible for distributing Bridesmaids, had its best ever year, raking in nearly $1.4 billion in revenue.

Here's another 'fact': I've never seen Girls, I despised the whole concept of SatC and I quite fancied New Girl but didn't watch any in the end.

Here's a (rhetorical) question based on the two statements above: am I contributing to the continuing fusion of capitalism and conservative patriarchy?

 

TV and film matters. Maybe not as much as literature, or at a push music. History and technology are continually playing a large part here. But it is influential, it's trendsetting, and it's become a stimulator for conversation between dozens of interlinking social groups.

A small exercise: try to remember the last time you started a conversation with 'Have you seen' or 'Did you see'. Pretty easy isn't it? No surprise then, based on all of the above, that film makes a massive, massive amount of money through its central position in our daily existences. We don't need a number to tell us that's undeniably true.

It's not a small jump to suggest that an industry with that much traction gets a say in shaping what others think of each other. That's also a given - and that's mainly why I felt a bit guilty about Bridesmaids. I loved it - and then realised why. I'd never seen anything else like it.

Watching a film is supposed to be fun, so no one considers the implications when they buy  their ticket for whatever they're watching. And why should they? I don't want someone scrutinising my viewing choices (unless it's on here of course).

But going back to that last question: am  I, alongside a broad percentage of the male population, reinforcing a certain 'oeuvre', thereby eschewing a different set of films entirely, by 'opting out'? The $64,000 dollar question here, however, is of a chicken-egg nature: does audience influence output, or visa versa?

 

Take directors - the executors of 'Hollywood's' creations. A 2013 Neilson report highlighted the more or less even gender split in moviegoers in the US over three years. But the top ten highest grossing films in 2013 were all made by men. In 2012, only Kathryn Bigelow made the financial cut.

 

Whilst I'm not suggesting directors like David O. Russell or Steve McQueen are perpetuating a male capitalist hegemony (first and last outing for that phrase) it is coming from somewhere. Women are watching as many movies as men - so what are the reasons for the dramatic imbalance?

 

It could be something to do with genre. Neilson also notes that the most popular genre of film in 2012 was action/adventure, with 61% of moviegoers seeing at least one within the year. Discounting arthouse, musical and re-releases, the three genres least viewed by moviegoers was romances, kids/family films and romantic comedies with less than 25% people watching in each case. It's not unreasonable to suggest two out of three of these genres appeal to women more than men, although it is mighty difficult to prove.

 

Nonetheless there seems to be a correlative relationship there of sorts. Of course it's ridiculous to suggest women don't enjoy action films or comedies and there's obvious perils when matching men and women to film genres. So here's the part that can't be measured - at least accurately, or with any degree of impartiality: is there a top-down assumption on what men and women find funny?

I don't believe that marketing bods in Universal et al are out to reverse women's suffrage through the form of cinema. That was a joke. But budgets and spending constitute risk by necessity - and there are some huge budgets for films out there. And risk is only really assessed based on two composites. The first is unassailable knowledge - that is, empirical fact. Not even 'it is raining'. That's ultimately subjective, based on language, geography. I mean granular, like 'water is wet'. 

The other is effectively educated guesswork, increasingly done through algorithms, increasingly placed in the hands of the customer. That's obvious and everywhere. And that's where the really knotty question lies. We have almost no empirical truths left, beyond those that are irrelevant due to their mundane nature. Another day of existence invariably means progress of some sort in a particular field on inquiry.

So when people watch a film like Bridesmaids and argue over the reasons for its success, much of it does boil down to the fact it is an apparently honest appraisal of women in the real world, behaving normally. But how did Universal reach the decision that that was all it took for an economically successful film?

Tick a couple of obvious questions off: how many films are there like Bridesmaids? Of that pretty small pot, how many were successful and translated well culturally? How many of the actresses have a big following in media? Who was the director? Do they have cultural traction? Are you any closer to a definitive answer? Speaking objectively, it's a miracle this film actually got made, because none of those questions are definitive in any sense.  

The question is pretty obvious: how do you change a setup that's almost entirely based on perspective? Here's a more provocative question: when your best, most accurate consumer research is completed for you every day by consumers, with the author as such making almost no autonomous decisions based on the above, is the industry really the issue here? In a nutshell: is your audience unconsciously preserving a male-dominated industry through its economic decisions?

 

Of course that's all pretty obvious. So here's my solution: formative years are the most important. We should get as many kids watching women screaming about bleaching private orifices as they can. Want to see more films like Bridesmaids? Get films like Bridesmaids into schools. I'm only being a tiny bit flippant.

 

Thanks to artsclash for that awesome comic pic

 

Fat Chance

 

The first of three articles which looks at the effects of diet and budget on health

 

It seems perverse that phrases designed by the business and political classes to identify with shedding waste - belt-tightening, waste reduction, streamlining - seem in life to achieve exactly the opposite result quite a lot.

An unusually literal example of just that occurred today, when it was reported in the Guardian that half of British men and women are overweight. The British Heart Foundation had predictable palpitations, warning that lack of regulation around advertising of cheap junk food was contributing to the nation's expanding waistline, as well as bigger projects like town planning and public transport infrastructure.

I like both of those ideas a lot - emotionally, they appeal to an ascetic side of me that also enjoys not using any form of transport at all and buying and freezing fresh produce for later consumption. It does, however, rely on a couple of key elements; quality and affordability. If the offer is no good, I will not buy it. However, if I was to be priced out of my usual shop, what choice do I have? I have to buy what is available.

The most recent example of this can be found in a 12 month overview of the ONS's annual average consumer price inflation index for 2013. This report highlights the annual average inflation per item in % terms. The only thing with a higher rate of inflation than food over 2013;is alcohol at 6.2% (interesting fact: more pubs closed in 2013 than 2012, when the inflation rate for alcohol stood at 6%)

The average rate of inflation above price for food and non-alcoholic beverages is 3.8%. That's higher than last year's figure of 3.2%, which was at least lower than 2011's all time high of 5.5%. In real terms, British people are paying more for food out of their salary packets year on year.

How do the British compare like for like with Europe? Poorly, according to the OECD, who suggest that the British pay more than their Scandinavian peers, France, and much of Central Europe as well as countries struggling with sovereign debt such as Spain, Italy and Portugal.

As a continent, Britain averages above Europe's inflation rates by.6%. It would be unreasonable to consider costs without means of spending, and this is where a relationship begins to form. The government's report on the issue reported that median income fell by 12% for low income households from 2002-03 to 2010-11. That picture has not changed since. Furthermore, the median income in every other income group - bar the highest income group level - dropped by between 1% and 7%.

It's important to recognise this fact -whilst people can put on weight quickly, it takes a long time for a country to change its national physique, and the downward pressures on real incomes added to the upward pressures on food and energy, particularly oil, which rocketed to above $100 a barrel during the second Gulf War, have begun to force this to happen. Equally important are attitudes to food and eating, which tend to be generational and change at a glacial pace. More on that in the next post.

If that wasn't enough, American nutritionist Dr Adam Drewnowski has made some interesting links between spending power and obesity, and his analysis of what a hypothetical dollar would buy from the average grocery shop is compelling, if disturbing reading. The picture is similar in the UK. The government's own research suggests that:

"Those on lower incomes tend to buy different food items to:

• those on average or high incomes but food prices for these different shopping baskets have risen at about the same rate"

I'll also go into more detail on what those products are, and some interesting information around what informs those decisions, in my next post.

It's pretty pertinent to look at what's available on the supermarket shelf for the average Brit. The Department For Environment Food and Rural Affairs notes that 25% of Gross Value Added in food and drink manufacturing in 2012 was beverages, including soft drinks.

The biggest group was baked and other 'farinaceous' products - which is shorthand for products with flour, starch or yeast in them, and therefore difficult for the human body to break down. The three smallest groups were grain, fish and crustacean and fruit and vegetable providers - which all provide fibre and vitamins A and C. There's also a preservative element to contend with - baked good produce this naturally through the process whilst fruit, veg and live meat and veg have a shorter shelf life, indicating faster turnover. Again it's not hard to see why people turn to Greggs and not the greengrocer.

Finally, British energy prices must also play a part here. As a recent Oxfam survey shows, Britain suffers some of the most volatile price swings For many items to be eaten, they must be cooked, which results in fuel of some sort. And again, despite much of David Cameron's posse deriding Labour's 'Marxist' strategy of price-capping energy bills to customers, there is some meat on the bones of Ed Milband's argument (that's the only food-related metaphor I'll use, FYI).

The same data from the OECD shows Britain paying a comparatively higher cost in real terms of take-home pay than much of their counterparts, and the overall figure for the OECD Europe area was 1.3% in 2013 versus Britain's figure of 3.4% - whilst that compares favourably to countries like Turkey and Norway, it pales in comparison to France and Germany's figures of .6% and 1.4% respectively, as well as Italy and Spain - again (though these last two have probably benefited from massive central investment from the ECB).

Food is a subject that should engender a more emotional reaction than it does. It's the difference between life and death, and everything in between. Yet all the evidence suggests the means to a healthy, sustainable life are being challenged like never before.

Up next: what makes certain food types so popular? What is the effect of branding when buying food and drink? And what can we do to recycle our food to ease cost pressures on manufacturers?

Sources

OECD: Consumer Prices, Annual Inflation Data

http://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?queryid=221

Dr Adam Drewnowski: Poverty and Obesity

www.niehs.nih.gov/...n.../supplementary_informationdrewnowski2.pdf

Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Food Pocketbook 2013

https://www.gov.uk/...data/.../foodpocketbook-2013report-19sep13.pdf

ONS wage inflation data 2013 

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/april-2013/sty-awe-dec-feb-2013.html

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/2013-provisional-results/stb-ashe-statistical-bulletin-2013.html‎

Pic courtesy of The Guardian

 

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Interesting things that I read today:

1. An article suggesting Danes are some of the most indebted people in the world
    
2. The same article stating Denmark has 'statistically' the happiest population in the world
    
3. An article stating that GDP in the UK had grown by 1.9% in 2013
4. An article showing customer satisfaction with businesses had generally improved in the UK

I also watched another episode of Season One of The Wire.

All of these concern two things: money, and the lack/ surfeit of it, and happiness (or in #BizTalk which is basically awful all you hashtaggers).

Does money equal happiness? Is it that simple? Can you measure happiness? Or rather, does it simply make us behave n different ways that result in more positive outcomes?

One doesn't appear to equal the other. Take Denmark. Danes pay the highest taxes in the world, but only earn the sixth highest salary. Effectively, they're losing something, somewhere. It's obviously possible that they get it back in kind - a kind of BIK - from their government through safe and secure neighbourhoods and borders, excellent housing, a flexible labour market and great health care. But where?

The HPI (or Happy Planet Index) seems a good place to start. That's got some big name fans - Zac Goldsmith, for one, although he seems a bit nuts. This looks at subjective well-being, ecological footprint, and life expectancy. Here, Denmark is ranked first on subjective well-being. Britain is ranked 19th.

It's when you look at GDP that it gets interesting. There's approximately 62 million British people, and they generate $35,866 per capita (or £21,641.70 by today's XE comparison) - just over 75% of what US makes in ratio terms.

Denmark, however, generates $40,163 per capita - or 85% of the profit generated by the US, in ratio terms - for its population of 5.5 million people. So 10% more appears to count for a lot, based on the HPI.

What about that great fear factor: after poverty, people are afraid of death. Denmark has one doctor per 294 of its population - by comparison, the Telegraph laments EC figures that state there's 2.71 docs per 1000 people in the UK. Denmark's figure is 3.40 - less than one better. Is that such a big deal?

Denmark spends approximately 9.8% of its GDP on healthcare - at least according to Wikipedia. The UK spent approximately £170 billion on healthcare in 2011, or 9.3% of its budget. Does .5% make such a big dfference?

What about quality of life? In 2012 the average Dane worked 1546 hours over the course of the year - or, assuming he gets five weeks holiday and weekends off, that's about six and a half hours per day. Wow!

By comparison the average UK worker did 1654 hours in 2012 - using the same figures, that's about seven hours per day. There's basically almost nothing in it - again, the only really big difference really does appear to be money, and how much of it people have.

The other interesting element at play here is how happy customers are with businesses. You might not be surprised to learn the least favourable satisfaction scores this year were generated by energy and utility companies - Ed Miliband has clearly been doing his homework.

By contrast, the only major group to have bounced back from declining scores was... banks and building societies. Weird, right? Even though I can testify from first hand and professional experience that some banks are making strenuous efforts to improve their products and services, that is a big jump in just 12 months. Link that in to the widely reported news that in 2013 the UK's GDP grew by 1.9%, taking it back to pre-recession levels, and there seems to be a pattern developing.

To return to one of the main ideas at the start then - do people make better decisions when they have more breathing room financially, and does this help achieve a snowball effect?

Looking at the opposite side of the coin, there is some scientific evidence that quick access to cash with little attention to creditworthiness tends to lead to a decrease in self control, increasing the chance of default. This can have an effect on mental health and result in depression, which is just one of many symptoms of poverty.

In conclusion:

How people achieve a constant state of happiness in an ever-changing economy is a harder question - and many people might not like the answer that comes to mind.

 

Thanks NME for your picture!

 

 

OSCAR CHAT

 

TWENTY EIGHT OUT OF SIX HUNDRED is less than 5%. Other things that are less than 5%:

• The number of voting members of AMPAS that are black.

Steve McQueen stands a great chance of becoming just the 29th black man or woman to win an Academy Award, and the first to win a Best Director award. Since the inaugural awards, there have been 600 Oscars handed out. Having suggested a nomination for handsome Hollywood hero Robert Redford here last week I now feel a bit embarrassed to have overlooked this weirdly archaic statistic. It seems difficult to believe that not a single black director has won an Oscar - in the entire history of the Academy Awards, only four films made by a black director have been nominated.

There are two ways to look at this. The first concerns the above numbers; whilst no one (i.e. me) is suggesting the Academy is institutionally racist, another statistic on their makeup is pertinent: more than half of the makeup are sixty or older. America has changed dramatically since 1953, when Sarah Keys became the first African American to challenge the 'separate but equal' race law in Carolina. That's important. From a demographic perspective it's hard to suggest America's rewarding it's film-making talent. Incidentally, McQueen is British.

The second is a knottier question and therefore a little more difficult to answer. How many films made by black directors deserved to win an Oscar? And, one step back, how many black film directors are there working in the industry? It's knottier because there are smaller considerations that flow into bigger subjects like national politics and macroeconomic policy, and those considerations are much harder to quantify.

For example: the age old debate on equality of opportunity and how that affects career trajectories. The US Social Security Administration (SSA) recently released data showing more than half of Americans earn below $30,000 pa, which is about $3,000 above the 'federal poverty line' (the line delineates who is in living in poverty and who isn't). That was for 2012. As this heat map shows, many Americans in the South live below the poverty line. The US Census Bureau suggests the majority of African Americans live in cities and suburbs within the South (although the suburbs are undoubtedly more affluent than they once were). CNN Money thinks the average public college education (i.e. open to all) is $8,200 pa per student. So allowing for a reasonable margin of error, a good percentage of African Americans will never get to college, and therefore find a door to film-making closed. And that's just part of the question - why are they in that position in the first place?

Demographics do make a huge difference - the most recent American census put the African American population of the US around 12%, so naturally more white Americans will be getting the opportunity to make an Oscar-winning film. But 12% of 381 million people is just under 45 million people - that's the equivalent of Ukraine or South Africa. It also doesn't answer the much more subjective question of quality - how many black directors are making Oscar-worthy films?

So in short, there does seem to be something wrong with the current set-up - but how much of that is in the Academy's hands is difficult to say. One final and interesting thing: the four previously nominated films made by black directors/ producers are The Color Purple, Precious, Django Unchained and The Blind Side. For anybody who's seen those films, there's a certain underdog theme to each, and three explicitly concern slavery. I think the Academy's right to promote these films as great social commentaries but they should be broadening the net more - it does ask an awkward question of what the voters are interested in watching.

Pic from Shetland Arts

 

ALL IS LOST

 **A FEW THOUGHTS**

This was the second of two films I saw last week which focused on imperilled humans at the mercy of their environment. The other film was Gravity, which I posted about below.

Sarah and I discussed both films whilst eating delicious (healthy) Malaysian food at Ning NQ, in Manchester. She hasn't seen either film and does not want to, which I think is a pragmatic reaction to two scenarios which I found very unpleasant to watch.

Sarah said she felt like being adrift in the ocean was much more preferable to space and I am inclined to agree, but on reflection, it seems the defining factors have an air of irrelevance about them. I found myself thinking again that most of the universe, including the planet Earth, is totally intolerant to human life.

I really admired the way JC Chandor set his tale up - with (what may be) the ending at the start of the tale. Throughout this, I kept returning to:

~How do people understand and process a tragedy in their lives?~

As the viewer, did I pity Redford's character because I (thought I) knew of his fate? If I'm under no illusions as to the ending, is the emotional journey more or less satisfying? The main reason I loved this is down to Redford. He invests so much into the character and creates connections with an audience through a full appreciation of, and reaction to, his environment. Another thing I unconsciously noted about All Is Lost is how out of touch almost all American cinema is with its surroundings. You could probably do World War Z in a music hall in the Caribbean, it's that focused in on itself.

Robert Redford should win Best Actor at the Oscars, no doubt. I also think JC Chandor should win Best Director, but with him, McQueen and Cuaron all up for the same thing I don't think the Academy people will make the 'right' choice. History is heavy. Now I have said that Scorsese will win again.

One award I do feel the film will walk away with is the cinematography and sound. It is gloriously expansive, and approaches its human subject in an almost alien manner - the wide underwater lenses observe Redford's plight impassively, almost benignly, from below the ocean surface. It looks and sounds like the world is watching itself.

I did feel the practical attentions of Redford really upped the ante emotionally. Lots of people have come out and claimed the science is bogus in Gravity but what mattered for me there was the fragility and the expertly unravelled storyline, as Ryan's paradox regarding her loneliness is revealed. Just watching Redford pack away glassware and wash items before the coming storm created a tangible, scary foreboding that many directors could learn from. And that's not mentioning the ordeal suffered in his lifeboat following the storm.

This is a great film and, I feel, ought to be remembered in years to come. It is lean, subtle, beautifully shot and will reduce you to an emotional wreck. A must see.

Pic thanks to Athena Cinema, Athens.

 

G     R     A     V     I     T     Y

It was as good as everyone said. I saw Gravity once everyone had come back down to Earth (yes I did that) about the astonishing special effects, the knuckle-shredding tension, the superlative performance from Sandra Bullock (I know!) which will probably see her up for another Oscar.

The biggest draw for me, though, was the 3D element. I have seen four films (I think) in 3D. Gravity is the fourth and so far it's the only one to do anything interesting with the format. And interesting is probably putting it lightly. It was great to feel so directly involved with something, watching a film that made superior use of its environment, much like All Is Lost in fact.

Leaving aside the physics and the chemical side of things, I feel like Cuaron handled the 'space is the ultimate metaphor for the human condition' thing adroitly. Ryan's loneliness is the mirror image of Matt's; but Cuaron riffs on the same sensation through both of them in smart, character-building ways. Matt bounces around the vast nothingness as he tells his story about floating, alone, through the crowded streets of Mardi Gras trying to find his lost love; Ryan stays attached to the dock, focusing down on the one thing in front of her, in the same way that she does with her daughter.

Cuaron finds ways to create drama in a lean, clinical fashion. He has excellent manners when creating drama. He also employs action at strategic intervals like he is conducting an orchestra. The crash sequence is astonishing and has to be seen on a big screen; nothing else will do it justice. This might be the best film I never buy on DVD.

I don't know why Cuaron has been called out for bogus science by those in the know: this seems stupid and self-effacing by those who've said so. Of significantly more interest were the remarks made by overtly Christian writers who suggested a belief in (a) God in the film. Ryan's numerous monologues do appear to be referring to an unconscious belief in someone/thing that's not present: but as the admirably brief intro makes clear, an inhospitable environment's the natural catalyst for humans to reconnect with their absent brethren too. I felt like Cuaron took the humanist route in his treatment of Ryan's grief and both sides should probably feel there's some merit in the others perspectives. Which I suppose is pretty much humanism in a nutshell.

Besides those elements the running time was a pleasant and effective surprise, lending some urgency to the whole enterprise and giving a 'real time' element to the story.

This is also the first time I've loved watching Sandra Bullock in something - her Ryan was full of faults, imprecise in the most unforgiving of environments, and blinded by emotion for her colleague and daughter, both absent to some extent. But getting mad somehow seemed brutally careless - as Peter Bradshaw said, this is the first space film happening now, with real live humans, rather than the past or future, with a faceless android, or a Vulcan. As such empathy was a much more direct sensation - easy, familiar, and it gave the film a powerful directness.

The best expression of Gravity's effects? Afterwards I craved familiarity. Much as Ryan squeezes wet soil between her fingers following re-entry, I wandered around Manchester in the rain, glasses in my bag. You'll never want to go into space again. 

(Pic from Alt Film Guide)

Twenty fourteen (2014) will be EXCITING. If you want it to be. I want it to be. Here's what I'm excited about.

Lord of the Flies - in ballet

 

That's right. Matthew Bourne, him of the winningly solid pudgeface (not a word but it ought to be) and sixth form gelled fringe brings Golding's societal piece to the stage. I know almost nothing about ballet, besides watching a very impressive Natalie Portman performance in the very impressive Black Swan back in 2011, but I've caught snippets of Bourne's version of that (check out the trailer here) which I wish I'd seen live as it looks excellent.

Equally LotF was never one of the books I got to read at school but I've since atoned for that criminal gap in my formal education and am 'intrigued' to say the least what he will do with characters like Piggy. Extra incentive, if needed: it starts round the corner from me at the Lowry Theatre in Salford.

The Premier League

 

Being a Manchester City fan, I've enormously enjoyed the first half of this English season, watching a renascent side destroy opposition defences (my highlights, since you asked, were the 6-3 v Arsenal, the 3-2 v Bayern away, and of course that first Davey Moyes derby) at home.

But it's no real wonder the Premier League managed to blow even its own astonishing rights deals out of the water when there is finally some sporting drama on Saturdays again. Who's going down? Who will win the league? Will Levy keep Sherwood? What is going on with Mata? Will Thud go to the World Cup? And will Luis Suarez ever just bundle one in off his arse? The quality's great, but the stories are many, varied and seemingly endless. We might not see another one like it for a bit, so catch it if you can.

Dave Eggers does Bill Bryson

One of my favourite ever books a historical collection of food writing, in all of its literary forms, in The New Yorker magazine. Composed of pieces by writers, not cooks or chefs, I quickly realised that you don't need to know your subject as much as needing to know how to write - but some subject knowledge is important.

I'm guessing 'some' is precisely the right amount for Dave Eggers. The novelist formally collects his memoirs of his trips to Thailand, the Sudan and the northeastern states of America amongst many, many others into Visitations, a piece of work I will presume to contain more than its fair share of breezy metaphysical rhetoric slung around  'some' interesting perspectives on, say, mini shrines on the street corners of Bangkok.

Obviously Eggers is known for his forays into parts of the world untouched by much of the professional writing class, and his sharp eye and goofy wit will undoubtedly bring to life much of a planet still perused through the 'World' section of broadsheet newspapers.

Visitations is out in November 2014

The Men Are Back In Town

 

To misquote Thin Lizzy, but it sort of feels like they never left. The hardest woikin' band 'n sho'bidness has got to be these guys right now, who are on for their fifth album in as many years in between tours. Anybody can knock an album together in under a fortnight - several bands made it sound like a skill in the early noughties - but The Men's range has broadened in parallel with their ever-longer tours, and New Moon is a soulful echo of Neil Young's early years, without losing their belt and braces steely punk sound around the fringes. For a band that appears hellbent on challenging normal concepts of time, the record's title - Tomorrow's Hits - feels entirely appropriate.

*!* Tomorrow's Hits is released on Sacred Bones Records *!*

An Oscars Worthy of an Academy Award

 

For those complaining that the Academy Awards is getting carried away with populism, the decision to drop the aforementioned name last year and replace it with the catchier and more vacuous 'Oscars' was the proverbial red rag. OK so: I enjoyed Silver Linings and Bradley Cooper is deceptively good at this acting stuff. I admit it.

Anyone still out there?

Anyway, onto the American mantel goes Oscar next to buddies Tony and Emmy (what's up with a Golden Lion guy?) and does the debate over whether this is an awards or an entertainment product intensify? Who knows and it's probably a silly argument anyway - the irony won't be lost on anyone when the inevitable drama ensues from some no-hoper claiming the Oscars 'has lost its allure'. All except the Americans of course, who we all know have never understood irony, as long as Woody Allen and Jerry Seinfeld have lived. 

But! What is this garbage, I hear you mumble. Fair point. And now I'll come to it: this year, more than any I can ever remember, I'm sort of excited. Alright, another David O. Russell film (see above for my swooning heart). BUT. What about Steve McQueen, riding into the postmodern American West, hat not on head, cardie round shoulders, shorts above knees, with a film so deserving of superlatives that you can actually use them without fear of unintentional hilarity. Tremendous. Magnificent. Etc. 12 Years A Slave looks rich with promise - and who doesn't want to hear a Steve McQueen acceptance speech?

Elsewhere another of my favourite guys - Alfonso Cuaron - might win something for Gravity (and Sandra Bullock could win another Oscar. Yeah.) And what of films like Blue Is The Warmest Colour, Blue Jasmine, and All Is Lost? Not to mention interesting curios like Upstream Color and Only God Forgives. You can probably count the last two out, sadly. Nevertheless there is - finally - justification for that furious Monday morning scowl and four espressos from your local café after an all nighter getting passionate, alone, with Mr Oscar. About damn time.

Pix thanx to Douban, Style Weekly, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and Sky Sports.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Upon seeing The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, here and forever known as Mitty, It seems as though I broadly disagreed with my favourite source of film trivia and news. But I don't think I'm in the minority here, although I do feel like Peter Bradshaw was excessively mean-spirited towards my birthday - sorry, the film. Which I saw on my birthday.

And of course that explains the general hurt anyone feels when someone or something they respect and have faith in turns on them, however misplaced those sensations are. For Walter Mitty, the titular protagonist, this represents a moment to get on a skateboard and walk out of an office to Arcade Fire. A touch harsh? Well maybe.

This Mitty, the second on screen following Danny Kaye's 1947 version, is played by a Ben Stiller who I will describe as handsome and mild-mannered, neither of which are qualities that particularly stand out in films I really enjoy watching over again.

Mitty is a 21st century version of the character from writer James Thurber's whimsical, sentiment-free short story. He is the sad and logical end of the man who began the start of the 20th century dreaming of conquering the Nazis (as the original Mitty does) and begins the 21st agonising over whether to wink at a pretty lady on a dating site; eHarmony, which is a real thing. The film's got more where that came from - Papa John's also play a big role as Mitty's employer in an earlier, more miserable life. Kickstarter's not for everyone it seems.

The lady, Cheryl, is played by Bridesmaids' Kristen Wiig, and prompts numerous fantasy elements to be introduced to the viewer as Mitty dives into buildings, rescues kittens, walks out of the Antarctic with a weird Latin accent and a parrot and various other bemusing moments.

But the really interesting parts are not the humorous bits. Adam Scott plays Ted, a brand junkie, management-speak-extraordinaire who exudes horrible from every pore as the man come to wreck Mitty's life following the closure of Life the magazine and the opening of Life the website, with the commensurate number of jobs to be shed in the name of 'cost effectiveness'.

Scott is a disgusting guy and the scenes he is in are a delight to watch - for me it also included the best fantasy as Mitty beats the crap out of Ted whilst both are waiting in the lift. The bone of contention? A Stretch Armstrong toy. It betrayed a goofiness in Stiller's direction that I always liked about his other films and just because it is something he has excelled in previously, I don't think it's a good enough reason to try something else.

Other highlights include the floor huddle where the unfortunate Life staff are informed of their doom - think The Office with added awkward as hand signals and weird emphasis on stuff make for richly satisfying viewing and a charming short scene where Mitty demonstrates incredible skills with a skateboard in the background as the woman he dreams of chats to her ex-husband. I think the stunt double for that scene is Rodney Mullen, incidentally.

The rest of the film follows Mitty as he traverses around northern Europe and the Middle East in search of the aptly named Sean O'Connell, a Life freelance photographer who kicked the whole shebang off back in America with a missing photo, the last to ever grace the Life cover and one that each party within the film is quite interested in. Ted's interested because he'll get shouted at if he doesn't get it. Cheryl is because she needs something to keep talking to Mitty about, and Mitty - well, Mitty because he hasn't really been anywhere but Phoenix, as he tells eHarmony's customer services team, and he basically needs to get the hell on with his life.

The cinematography is absolutely great, there's a lovely scene where Stiller skateboards down the side of a volcano, a very well filmed oceangoing scene with what may be a porpoise or a shark, and a moment with Sean Penn, a good fit for the rugged photographer who Mitty sets out to reach for the accursed photo number 25, which is totally predictable and so easy for Penn he practically sleepwalks his way through, but it's nice to watch two actors doing their own thing.

The film's moments of naturalism blow away the more absurd, intricately concocted elements and I particularly enjoyed the scenes that are not really integral to the story. There's truth in Stiller's work when he does not force the pace, and a lot of this bears the look of a guy forcing it as a fairly green director.

That might feel a little unfair, but it seems as though much of the heart of the original is held up to a clever-clever 21st century perspective that just doesn't possess the same throwaway intellect as its predecessor. A shame, particularly as I'm only 29 once.

Photo: The Guardian

Review: Richer Than God (David Conn)

David Conn's portrait of a club, city and sport transformed by money is required reading for any fan

When reading David Conn's odyssey as a fan of football and Manchester City on my flight out to Rome, I recalled an article I read almost by accident one freezing Saturday afternoon whilst Googling my stream of conscience. I'd suddenly realised I had no idea how my cat knew who I was. Or how any other animal knew what its family consisted of, and what it could mate with. The same day, I watched all 12 rounds of Joe Calzaghe vs Roy Jones Jr without really meaning to.

I didn't get a definitive answer, but I did stumble across an interesting New Scientist piece about kin recognition, which theoretically seeks to explain how a family of animals essentially recognise each other as their own, even if they have never met. There's some, largely inconclusive evidence that it definitely exists.

That faintly primal sensation struck a chord with me when reading the book. This is not the same as identifying with a Haruki Murakami character, in an intuitive, sensual way. It's like I was the person writing this book. Everything described about the club, its tumults, its highs and lows, its wild successes and unbelievable farces, of which there are many; I experienced everything in exactly the same way.

It's somewhat fitting that City started life at a church in Gorton under the direction of Anna Connell, both in spirit and form, as leaving aside the puerile contemporary 'cathedral' metaphors garnered by Sky Sports and the like, support does mean a community of people held fast by steadfast belief in one thing.

It also provides a neat jumping off point for analysing the slow disintegration of the more Corinthian aspects of the game. Conn's forays into the grimy world of early Premier League club policy, and their machinations to slip the grips of an amateurish, complacent Football Association to glean enormous profits for small groups of very wealthy men (and women in the case of Nina Bracewell-Smith) make for revelatory and deeply troubling reading.

Conn's forensic style is well tailored to the broader, less personal elements of the story; how a sport became a business, how whole demographics were priced out of a game they loved and grew up on. The lens pulls back for a wider picture of economic malaise in late 20th century Britain, and how its northern English cities were cut to ribbons by a Conservative government hellbent on implementing economic ideology over pragmatic, means-tested solutions to age old problems.

Walking through east Manchester on the way to the Etihad, newly named and spruced up with Arab money, Conn's nuanced points on wealth distribution jar. How does a local government win finance for a one-off sporting event, as Manchester did with the Commonwealth Games in 2002, and the funds to build an enormous stadium, but it cannot win the same funds to regenerate an area classed as the fifth poorest in the entire country?

Conn's bafflement at the impossibility of City winning the biggest every lottery resonates in every fan of the club, and its this sense of emotional contradiction that really made the book mine personally. Much derided, and infamously coined by that footballing blunderbuss Kevin Keegan, is the City fan's belief in their club's ever-present status as one of the movers and shakers; that, under the heaving weights of debt, inept administration and such essentials as a working gym (Conn's interviews show just bare the cupboard was before the coming of Mansour), a massive club was waiting to take its rightful place at the top table of the league.

In this way the story brings home a familial element; Conn's descriptions of his trips to see City destroy the genuinely great AC Milan and Manchester United 4-0 in the 1970s are stories I've heard from my dad, and thus the emotional connection is given form by bricks, cement, boots and mud.

To his great credit Conn does not tread lightly on history. Former players like Bell, Book and Summerbee are rightly held as the heroes City fans revere them as, but he decimates the myth of the latter-day Franny Lee, a darling in the Championship-winning Sixties but a ruthless corporate man come to oil City's wheels for the slippery rails of the London Stock Exchange in the Nineties. The interview with Lee feels like a watershed moment in Conn's, and the club's, life, and subsequently paints Lee's predecessor, the miserly, scrimping Peter Swales in slightly less darker hues than many fans held him in their hearts. Former owner Thaksin Shinawatra, the disgraced Thai Prime Minister, by turns appears a deeply cynical and perhaps dishonest individual, and becomes another nail in the coffin of Conn's unwavering belief.

To the modern day then, and perhaps Sheikh Mansour provided Conn with the last nudge he needed to annotate his odyssey in the shadow of his god football club. He is no less objective in assessing the merits of a man living thousands of miles, literally and figuratively, from the destitute slums of east Manchester.

And here Conn's assessment is again eerily close to that of thousands; four years in, with an FA Cup, a Premier League title, almost £1 billion spent on footballers, a wholesale renovation of a sagging administrative structure, the greatest irony is that this distant billionaire is both competent and caring of the history he has bought. It feels too good to be true and, given City's former laughable travails (given sharp form by the songs Conn relays - and fans still sing to a title-winning team - about love, death and nothing in between), the emotional schism is again laid bare; a massive club's continuous success should not be blinked at by its own fans, and yet it still is.

In the final pages Conn returns to the roots of football, and visits Andy Walsh of FC United, those disenfranchised, debased fans of City's greatest rivals, and the yardstick which the blue half beat itself half to death with in the darkest days. Walsh talks about the diminished role of fans in the modern game; the idea of shareholder power and a club owned by its fans (as is the case in Germany and Spain). Even with one of the world's oldest and best supported clubs, only 2,000 attended FC United's first meeting at the Manchester Apollo, more befitting of punk than prawn sandwiches.

In a circular fashion the game now returns to its roots; made by normal working people for those people, but with the skyline now dominated not by the factories of Victorian England but the skyscrapers and towers of a country weaned off manufacturing and onto financial services. Earlier in the book Conn makes the point that Germany, still an EU powerhouse, places manufacturing at the heart of its economy, with banks providing the oil to smooth the gears. Manchester, football and Britain now occupy the inverse position, with actual oil now helping turn the gears on a once-great football club with little left to give to its unwavering supporters.

'At a football club, there's a holy trinity - the players, the manager and the supporters. Directors don't come into it. They are only there to sign the cheques,' said Bill Shankly, born a century ago. David Conn's book captures a culture that is older than the oldest club, that gives rise to ancient urges that ripple through Shankly's unflinching assessment, and answers with an admirable lack of grandeur, what happened to a game once described as 'beautiful'.

Picture courtesy of Without A Dream In Our Hearts

Review: Only God Forgives

Pouts, prostitutes and 'pornographic violence' abound in Ryan Gosling's vaguely interesting new film

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a favourite of film director Nicolas Winding Refn. In an interview with the Director's Guild of America, he described it as the definitive formative moment of his career, when he decided on his choice of role in the film industry. He describes the film itself as 'not a normal movie.'

As far as the 1970s go, it can be considered the great show-off movie. From the title right through to the brain-splattered ending, there's an almost tangible relish in it's unrelenting attitude, never more visible than in the shocking violence done to other people.

As the director of the Pusher trilogy, Bronson and Valhalla Rising, it's not really surprising to hear Refn's such a fan. In the same interview he describes how he railed against his parents love of French nouvelle vague. It seems he's been railing against that ever since by directing films that are heavy on violence of both the physical and emotional kind.

All those years of Street Fighter 2 were finally justified

Only God Forgives assumes a similarly unambiguous intent. The title calls on big themes: redemption, errors past and present and perhaps some sort of collision between good and evil. Say it out loud - it needs a movie trailer voice behind it. It belongs in the oeuvre of the western or samurai film. It is another example of Refn's very conspicuous sense of style.

And broadly it does trade on those themes, but this is a film heavy on atmosphere but little in the way of story, and even less character. It appears Refn wants to challenge himself first, then his audience, in making a film with no discernible development, only intimated through the above. It also appears there's a funny joke to be had about the rebellious son unconsciously turning into his parents.

Some of it works spectacularly well; the opening, a sweaty, pugilistic scene of intensely violent Muay Thai boxing, is set to thrumming percussion and a swelling bass which brings the heat and pressure to life better than any spoken word. Cliff Martinez, responsible for scoring the superior Drive, deserves lots of credit for an immersive auditory experience.

And Refn's use of colour and place is also exceptional. Ryan Gosling, playing Julian, one half of a drug-smuggling-sibling duo, resides in an apartment saturated in a hellish red with gods carven into grand furniture. Gosling's almost catatonic passivity throughout the majority of the film is amplified by this looming, macho environment.

The fun (my term) starts when Julian's brother Billy rapes and murders a young prostitute and is then murdered himself by the deceased's vengeful father. What follows is a domino-effect tale of revenge as characters are savagely disposed of to get to the film's rock-hard nub of a core.

The film teems with fascinating elements; Kristin Scott Thomas repulses as Crystal, a grief-stricken mother whose relationship with Julian's brother appears Oedipal. In one deeply surreal scene, Crystal infers to his partner that Julian has an inferiority complex based on the size of his brother's penis. Julian's one-man mission to avenge a brother he felt deserved to die suggests a similar Oedipal feeling in the younger brother.

The mainstay of Only God Forgives, and the reason it doesn't completely collapse in a mess of half-explored psychodramas, comes in the form of the 'Angel of Death' Lt Chang, played with insuperable hardness by Vithaya Pansringam. A looming, vaguely atavistic presence, Chang expounds brutal and clinical retribution on those he deems as sinners, regardless of guilt in the eyes of the law, which appears to be a useful enabler for his police officer role.

As is Refn's objective wont, there are no real good and bad guys throughout, only those who have forgotten their morals through violent compromise. Cops are blasted near in half; in one memorably unpleasant scene, an ally of Julian's is staked to his armchair by tongs, then has his eye and ear removed with unflinching efficacy.

And of course Julian himself is nearly pounded into mincemeat by Chang in a scene that, once it gets going, is thrillingly good to watch. Timeliness is a major issue with Only God Forgives; almost 50% of the film is completely silent and no one moves or indeed does anything at all.

As others better qualified have pointed out, there's a good chance that if David Lynch, say, had directed this, we may all be saying something quite different (but this would probably be a radically different film in execution too). And it has prompted some histrionic adjectives; 'sadistic and voyeuristic' from the Mail, 'pornographically violent, neon-dunked nightmare' from the Telegraph. Anything described so loudly is surely worth a look.

But when you can leave a newspaper open to suggesting 'that being a star means you don't have to act anymore, you can just stand there looking moody,' it doesn't really matter what anyone else says. You probably don't have a very good film on your hands. Perhaps they should have brought a chainsaw.

Picture courtesy of  The Daily Telegraph