Originally published in The Bubble Music as part of Album Reviews #9, Nov. 7th 2011, available here.
There’s no denying that Lungs was big. Of course, Florence’s 2009 debut album achieved widespread critical and commercial success, but it also sounded huge – harps, relentless rhythm sections and choral harmonies locked in an interplay which was powerful, affective and rewarded multiple repeat spins. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say, then, that the benchmark for that ‘difficult second album’ was pretty high, and fans have been awaiting a follow-up with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. We needn’t have worried. It may not be perfect, but this is a bold, accomplished and beautifully-layered album which takes the best things about Lungs and runs with them – and if its predecessor was big, Ceremonials is simply vast.
From the moment that ‘Only If for a Night’ sneaks in with its distant piano and builds into a moody choral refrain, it’s obvious that this is a much darker album, and the lyrics abound with demons, spirits and ghosts. A new adaptation of Macbeth could easily soundtrack its witches concocting toil and trouble on a misty heath with ‘Seven Devils’, but for every haunting moment there is one of anthemic joy, like lead single ‘Shake It Out’, or an undeniably catchy pop song like ‘Spectrum’. By far the stand-out track, though, is ‘What the Water Gave Me’: over five minutes long, named after a Frida Kahlo painting and inspired by Virginia Woolf’s suicide. It’s every bit as atmospheric and epic as it sounds (and a little insane), and in the last two minutes when all restraint is finally thrown off it moves from whispered vocals to an astounding tour de force which may actually make you want to dance.
It isn’t without its flaws: it would probably benefit from one less song to prevent the sense of a slight dip towards the end, but that’s a relatively minor issue in what just might be the album of the year so far. It’s worth saying, though, that the instrument which stands out most on Ceremonials is one of the most distinctive voices in modern music, moving across octaves and dynamics with an ease which beggars belief. For fans, this will be known as the album where Florence discovered her quiet voice, as well as one that’s even louder.
Saturday, 24 December 2011
Saturday, 29 October 2011
The Bubble Drama: Zombiepalooza
Originally published in The Bubble Drama, October 28th 2011, available here.
You may have noticed an increased level of zombie-related activity on The Bubble of late, and in Durham City itself. In fact, it’s highly likely you’ve been warned of an imminent zombie apocalypse for which you need to prepare. For those of us who move in geeky enough circles to have already established zombie survival plans, this was finally vindication; for everyone else, time to panic and choose a weapon.
Don’t worry. It’s only a drill.
Zombiepalooza – the inspired title for this citywide scare-fest – is the brainchild of Carlo Viglianisi and Nick Malyan at Empty Shop, the Durham-based arts organisation currently working from The Gates shopping centre. It will in effect be three events in one: Enemy at The Gates, a tour behind the scenes at the centre which is destined to take a sinister turn; a screening of Dawn of the Dead in another empty shop armed with popcorn and marshmallows; and a flashmob beginning at an unconfirmed location and ending up at The Gates. Afterwards there will be cheap drinks deals in Studio for the undead – and yes, you will be expected to dress as a zombie if you’re not being chased by them.
According to Carlo, the idea for Zombiepalooza was born about two and a half years ago, when Empty Shop was running from another unit in The Gates. Early in the morning or late at night, they’d have to wind their way through the service corridors to pick up the keys – “it was just so creepy! An empty shopping mall, there’d be this Muzak-type stuff playing, and then an old lady would shuffle along or something… so we already had this joke about how it was just like Dawn of the Dead and it would be great to do some sort of zombie event”.
Beginning with the simple concept of screening the 1978 George A. Romero classic (“that remake was horrible”), a couple of months of planning have seen the introduction of student theatre company Ooook! Productions, whose members by the time you read this may already be busy making vats of sticky red liquid and practising looking a bit poorly as they prepare to provide the zombie action. There’s a good chance that this will prove the most memorable night of the city’s year. Unless, of course, your hippocampus ends up in an undead stomach.
For those readers who may be concerned about the logistics of the zombification process, a word of reassurance: there will be prizes for the best zombie costumes on the night, but it’s entirely up to you how far you take the transformation. “We’re going to post some Youtube videos that we’ve found quite useful,” says Carlo. “Fake blood-wise, just make your own. It will be cheaper and better. The fake stuff you buy from joke shops often looks too red; we use red food colouring, maple syrup or golden syrup and then some chocolate sauce, or even use some coffee granules to make a thick brown paste and pour that into the red mixture. That gives it that kind of dark, opaque colour. It’s not red – it’s reddish, then it dries dark – and it smells really sweet, but it comes off.” We’re also reliably informed that biting people might just be a bit too far.
It sounds, though, like the real danger actually comes with looking too convincing. “When we first got the zombie make-up we went for a walk around, trying it out. We just went out and handed out some flyers and knocked on some doors, and this one guy came out with his lacrosse stick, beating us back looking genuinely freaked out! We had to keep in character as well, so we got a bit of a beating, but it was all good fun really.” We’re not sure our weapon of choice would be a lacrosse stick, but it’s almost reassuring to know that, when there’s no more room in Hell and the dead walk the earth, there’ll finally be a use for some Durham stereotypes.
Although the concept is definitely transferable to other cities, Empty Shop has even bigger and better plans for Durham: depending on the success of Zombiepalooza, there’s the potential for repeats in future years as well as more “really fun events-based cinema” ideas, but Carlo is keeping them to himself for now. In the meantime, we’re glad they’re providing a much-needed public service – when the zombie apocalypse finally happens, we’ll be glad to have had some practice.
Now, for those who want to enjoy a night as the living dead in Studio, the most important question: Will the DJ play ‘Thriller’? Carlo smiles. “I’m almost certain they will- it’s sort of an instinct to do that. If anybody knows the dance that will be perfect!”
Check www.zombiepalooza.co.uk for remaining tickets for Enemy at the Gates and Dawn of the Dead, to provide contact details for the flashmob and for tips on zombie make-up.
You may have noticed an increased level of zombie-related activity on The Bubble of late, and in Durham City itself. In fact, it’s highly likely you’ve been warned of an imminent zombie apocalypse for which you need to prepare. For those of us who move in geeky enough circles to have already established zombie survival plans, this was finally vindication; for everyone else, time to panic and choose a weapon.
Don’t worry. It’s only a drill.
Zombiepalooza – the inspired title for this citywide scare-fest – is the brainchild of Carlo Viglianisi and Nick Malyan at Empty Shop, the Durham-based arts organisation currently working from The Gates shopping centre. It will in effect be three events in one: Enemy at The Gates, a tour behind the scenes at the centre which is destined to take a sinister turn; a screening of Dawn of the Dead in another empty shop armed with popcorn and marshmallows; and a flashmob beginning at an unconfirmed location and ending up at The Gates. Afterwards there will be cheap drinks deals in Studio for the undead – and yes, you will be expected to dress as a zombie if you’re not being chased by them.
According to Carlo, the idea for Zombiepalooza was born about two and a half years ago, when Empty Shop was running from another unit in The Gates. Early in the morning or late at night, they’d have to wind their way through the service corridors to pick up the keys – “it was just so creepy! An empty shopping mall, there’d be this Muzak-type stuff playing, and then an old lady would shuffle along or something… so we already had this joke about how it was just like Dawn of the Dead and it would be great to do some sort of zombie event”.
Beginning with the simple concept of screening the 1978 George A. Romero classic (“that remake was horrible”), a couple of months of planning have seen the introduction of student theatre company Ooook! Productions, whose members by the time you read this may already be busy making vats of sticky red liquid and practising looking a bit poorly as they prepare to provide the zombie action. There’s a good chance that this will prove the most memorable night of the city’s year. Unless, of course, your hippocampus ends up in an undead stomach.
For those readers who may be concerned about the logistics of the zombification process, a word of reassurance: there will be prizes for the best zombie costumes on the night, but it’s entirely up to you how far you take the transformation. “We’re going to post some Youtube videos that we’ve found quite useful,” says Carlo. “Fake blood-wise, just make your own. It will be cheaper and better. The fake stuff you buy from joke shops often looks too red; we use red food colouring, maple syrup or golden syrup and then some chocolate sauce, or even use some coffee granules to make a thick brown paste and pour that into the red mixture. That gives it that kind of dark, opaque colour. It’s not red – it’s reddish, then it dries dark – and it smells really sweet, but it comes off.” We’re also reliably informed that biting people might just be a bit too far.
It sounds, though, like the real danger actually comes with looking too convincing. “When we first got the zombie make-up we went for a walk around, trying it out. We just went out and handed out some flyers and knocked on some doors, and this one guy came out with his lacrosse stick, beating us back looking genuinely freaked out! We had to keep in character as well, so we got a bit of a beating, but it was all good fun really.” We’re not sure our weapon of choice would be a lacrosse stick, but it’s almost reassuring to know that, when there’s no more room in Hell and the dead walk the earth, there’ll finally be a use for some Durham stereotypes.
Although the concept is definitely transferable to other cities, Empty Shop has even bigger and better plans for Durham: depending on the success of Zombiepalooza, there’s the potential for repeats in future years as well as more “really fun events-based cinema” ideas, but Carlo is keeping them to himself for now. In the meantime, we’re glad they’re providing a much-needed public service – when the zombie apocalypse finally happens, we’ll be glad to have had some practice.
Now, for those who want to enjoy a night as the living dead in Studio, the most important question: Will the DJ play ‘Thriller’? Carlo smiles. “I’m almost certain they will- it’s sort of an instinct to do that. If anybody knows the dance that will be perfect!”
Check www.zombiepalooza.co.uk for remaining tickets for Enemy at the Gates and Dawn of the Dead, to provide contact details for the flashmob and for tips on zombie make-up.
The Bubble Film: In Praise of Steven Spielberg
Originally published in The Bubble Film on October 28th 2011, available here.
On May 31st 2002, a mature student graduated from California State University Long Beach. Dressed in cap and gown, he proceeded with his fellow graduates to receive a degree in film and electronic arts. As he walked onstage, the orchestra played the theme from an old-school adventure movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’d like to think that the student allowed himself a little smile at that moment: after dropping out of this course the first time, he’d gone on to make that film.
Indiana Jones is just one of the icons Steven Spielberg has given the world. There are others you’ll recognise too: an alien in the basket of a flying bicycle, unable to phone home; lower strings playing two bass notes as a dorsal fin breaks the surface of the sea; ripples in a glass of water while an ominous thud approaches. Popular culture is flooded with images, characters, and classic lines that have spilled over from Spielberg’s massively successful productions. That success, however, has contributed to a fashion among some critics asserting that box office success and artistic integrity can’t coexist, as if films that make money are automatically ‘bad’. The problem is that this notion crumbles under scrutiny. It’s been thirty-six years since Spielberg single-handedly cleared a beach with Jaws, but his career has repeatedly disproven the myth that commercially successful films can’t be ‘good’.
It’s possible that you’ve forgotten the extent of Spielberg’s oeuvre. A brief survey would include: Jaws, the four films in the Indiana Jones franchise, E.T: The Extra Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Hook, Schindler’s List, The Colour Purple, Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, Catch me if you Can and Jurassic Park. Most directors would be proud to have two or three of these on their filmography – even accepting that they sit uncomfortably alongside the likes of 1941 and Amistad. It’s nevertheless a remarkably high hit rate across a huge range of genres.
Significantly, however, there’s an even broader range of tone. There’s no denying that the Indiana Jones films are straight-up, old fashioned B-movie style adventures, and there is nothing wrong with that. Cinema as an art form was born out of the need for escapism and entertainment, and when the execution is as flawless as Raiders of the Lost Ark then that’s difficult to argue against. Saving Private Ryan is a far less comfortable watch by comparison, as anyone traumatised by the first act can testify. Jaws alternatively works like a slasher film at sea: given how water becomes frightening in the absence of a visible shark, I wonder how much Ridley Scott drew on Spielberg for his slasher in space, Alien.
Even within individual films, the combination of light and dark notes in the most family-orientated of tales is admirable. See the wrath of God as the Ark is opened in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the Frankenstein-esque undertones of genetic experimentation in Jurassic Park, and the terror of ageing and death which makes Neverland so appealing. Then think of “we’re gonna need a bigger boat” after the shark finally appears in Jaws, or of E.T., being drawn to a child dressed as an alien from the Star Wars trilogy. Those different elements are melded together seamlessly into powerfully affective cinema that stays with audiences of all ages long after they’ve left the multiplex.
I could write an entire article on the deeper aspects of Spielberg’s work – leave a comment below about the significance of childhood, light the blue touch paper and run – but any fan will say that what really make his films special are the details, the stand-out moments that everyone remembers. A crony targets Indiana with complicated sword gymnastics in Raiders of the Lost Ark: sighing, he pulls out a gun and shoots him. Empire of the Sun’s Jim, having lost everything he has ever loved, touches the Japanese Zero of which he has always dreamed and sparks fly in the background. Near the end of Jurassic Park, a real tyrannosaurus supplants a skeleton and roars: the banner that falls around it reads “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth”. These are the grace notes, the dramatic moments which don’t need to be there but have the effect of lifting an entire film. In short, they’re the moments of cinematic magic for which this medium was designed, and Spielberg understands them better than most of his contemporaries. No wonder he’s still one of the most influential creative forces in Hollywood.
Spielberg’s impact is almost as great when it comes to the films that he didn’t direct: he was an uncredited supervising editor on Taxi Driver; executive producer on the Back to the Future series, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Poltergeist, and The Goonies. His producing credits are even more extensive, from Memoirs of a Geisha to Letters from Iwo Jima. He spent five months working on the script for Rain Man. He personally offered a debutant by the name of Sam Mendes a promising script called American Beauty. IMDB counts over two hundred technical credits on a vast array of film and television (who can forget Band of Brothers?), as well as eighty-eight thanks credits, and three hundred and eleven appearances as himself. Cast your eye around the entire entertainment industry: he’s everywhere. Our cultural landscape would look very different without his astonishing contribution.
When he finally finished his degree, Spielberg’s faculty accepted Schindler’s List in place of one of his assignments. That fact sums up his whole career – for nearly forty years, everything he has done has had to be bigger and better than anything else. The critical elite love to accuse him of allowing box office returns to take precedence over cinematic artistry; in truth, it’s too easy to assume that mainstream success nullifies talent. Sometimes it proves founded (I’m looking at you, Michael Bay), but it often amounts to nothing more than snobbery, and Spielberg’s popularity inevitably makes him a prime target.
Spielberg has been quoted as saying that “I believe in showmanship”, and that’s certainly borne out by his career. Asked in an interview if he was ever torn between making commercial and artistic films, he said “All the time, but when you have a story that is very commercial and simple, you have to find the art. You have to take the other elements of the film and make them as good as possible, and doing that will uplift the film.” Admittedly, his resume is not flawless, but his ability to do exactly that – find the art in a crowd-pleasing story, providing those magical moments for which audiences have been going to the movies since they began – is what I believe justifies his place among the world’s great directors.
On May 31st 2002, a mature student graduated from California State University Long Beach. Dressed in cap and gown, he proceeded with his fellow graduates to receive a degree in film and electronic arts. As he walked onstage, the orchestra played the theme from an old-school adventure movie called Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’d like to think that the student allowed himself a little smile at that moment: after dropping out of this course the first time, he’d gone on to make that film.
Indiana Jones is just one of the icons Steven Spielberg has given the world. There are others you’ll recognise too: an alien in the basket of a flying bicycle, unable to phone home; lower strings playing two bass notes as a dorsal fin breaks the surface of the sea; ripples in a glass of water while an ominous thud approaches. Popular culture is flooded with images, characters, and classic lines that have spilled over from Spielberg’s massively successful productions. That success, however, has contributed to a fashion among some critics asserting that box office success and artistic integrity can’t coexist, as if films that make money are automatically ‘bad’. The problem is that this notion crumbles under scrutiny. It’s been thirty-six years since Spielberg single-handedly cleared a beach with Jaws, but his career has repeatedly disproven the myth that commercially successful films can’t be ‘good’.
It’s possible that you’ve forgotten the extent of Spielberg’s oeuvre. A brief survey would include: Jaws, the four films in the Indiana Jones franchise, E.T: The Extra Terrestrial, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Hook, Schindler’s List, The Colour Purple, Empire of the Sun, Saving Private Ryan, Catch me if you Can and Jurassic Park. Most directors would be proud to have two or three of these on their filmography – even accepting that they sit uncomfortably alongside the likes of 1941 and Amistad. It’s nevertheless a remarkably high hit rate across a huge range of genres.
Significantly, however, there’s an even broader range of tone. There’s no denying that the Indiana Jones films are straight-up, old fashioned B-movie style adventures, and there is nothing wrong with that. Cinema as an art form was born out of the need for escapism and entertainment, and when the execution is as flawless as Raiders of the Lost Ark then that’s difficult to argue against. Saving Private Ryan is a far less comfortable watch by comparison, as anyone traumatised by the first act can testify. Jaws alternatively works like a slasher film at sea: given how water becomes frightening in the absence of a visible shark, I wonder how much Ridley Scott drew on Spielberg for his slasher in space, Alien.
Even within individual films, the combination of light and dark notes in the most family-orientated of tales is admirable. See the wrath of God as the Ark is opened in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or the Frankenstein-esque undertones of genetic experimentation in Jurassic Park, and the terror of ageing and death which makes Neverland so appealing. Then think of “we’re gonna need a bigger boat” after the shark finally appears in Jaws, or of E.T., being drawn to a child dressed as an alien from the Star Wars trilogy. Those different elements are melded together seamlessly into powerfully affective cinema that stays with audiences of all ages long after they’ve left the multiplex.
I could write an entire article on the deeper aspects of Spielberg’s work – leave a comment below about the significance of childhood, light the blue touch paper and run – but any fan will say that what really make his films special are the details, the stand-out moments that everyone remembers. A crony targets Indiana with complicated sword gymnastics in Raiders of the Lost Ark: sighing, he pulls out a gun and shoots him. Empire of the Sun’s Jim, having lost everything he has ever loved, touches the Japanese Zero of which he has always dreamed and sparks fly in the background. Near the end of Jurassic Park, a real tyrannosaurus supplants a skeleton and roars: the banner that falls around it reads “When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth”. These are the grace notes, the dramatic moments which don’t need to be there but have the effect of lifting an entire film. In short, they’re the moments of cinematic magic for which this medium was designed, and Spielberg understands them better than most of his contemporaries. No wonder he’s still one of the most influential creative forces in Hollywood.
Spielberg’s impact is almost as great when it comes to the films that he didn’t direct: he was an uncredited supervising editor on Taxi Driver; executive producer on the Back to the Future series, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Poltergeist, and The Goonies. His producing credits are even more extensive, from Memoirs of a Geisha to Letters from Iwo Jima. He spent five months working on the script for Rain Man. He personally offered a debutant by the name of Sam Mendes a promising script called American Beauty. IMDB counts over two hundred technical credits on a vast array of film and television (who can forget Band of Brothers?), as well as eighty-eight thanks credits, and three hundred and eleven appearances as himself. Cast your eye around the entire entertainment industry: he’s everywhere. Our cultural landscape would look very different without his astonishing contribution.
When he finally finished his degree, Spielberg’s faculty accepted Schindler’s List in place of one of his assignments. That fact sums up his whole career – for nearly forty years, everything he has done has had to be bigger and better than anything else. The critical elite love to accuse him of allowing box office returns to take precedence over cinematic artistry; in truth, it’s too easy to assume that mainstream success nullifies talent. Sometimes it proves founded (I’m looking at you, Michael Bay), but it often amounts to nothing more than snobbery, and Spielberg’s popularity inevitably makes him a prime target.
Spielberg has been quoted as saying that “I believe in showmanship”, and that’s certainly borne out by his career. Asked in an interview if he was ever torn between making commercial and artistic films, he said “All the time, but when you have a story that is very commercial and simple, you have to find the art. You have to take the other elements of the film and make them as good as possible, and doing that will uplift the film.” Admittedly, his resume is not flawless, but his ability to do exactly that – find the art in a crowd-pleasing story, providing those magical moments for which audiences have been going to the movies since they began – is what I believe justifies his place among the world’s great directors.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
The Bubble Television: The End of Torchwood?
Originally published in The Bubble Television, September 18th 2011, available here.
When Queen Victoria set up the Torchwood Institute following a nasty encounter with a werewolf and a Timelord, it’s highly unlikely that she foresaw what it, or the series which followed its agents, would become. To many, despite its mixed critical reception, Torchwood became the supposedly “grown-up” counterpart to Dr Who, with all the violence and swearing that the latter couldn’t show and darker, often shocking storylines. To me, it was that show that I always intended to watch, but was always on at the same time as something else. It was only with the excellent (but equally divisive) 2009 mini-series Children of Earth that I was finally converted: it’s rare that a writer has the balls to have their hero sacrifice his own young grandson, and Torchwood was a glowing example of what British sci-fi could be.
That said, I was slightly apprehensive when series four, Miracle Day, was announced, mostly because of the additional funding from American premium network Starz. After all, you should never trust a company that thinks a plural should end with a “z”. Worse, as with the current series of Dr Who, fans feared that the need to appeal to US audiences would detract from the inherent Britishness (or Welshness) which made previous series so unique. It has to be said, though, that the alternative was to have no Torchwood at all, and I for one am very glad of the decision that was made.
Miracle Day was a fascinating concept: death, the only certainty in the world, is removed, and the goalposts of life suddenly shift. Religions collapse, while new ones are formed; welfare systems and economies crumble as the population soars; the human race stoops to unprecedented depths. In exploring these avenues, it excelled. Where it failed, I would argue, was in forging a narrative which brought them together into a satisfying whole. As the final episode ended this week, I couldn’t help but feel that ten weeks of emotional investment and sacrificed Thursday nights had gone to waste.
Until about episode seven (‘Immortal Sins’), I sang the praises of this series. It portrays a race trying and failing to adjust to a new form of existence, where the justice system falls into chaos because murder cannot exist, and healthcare is stretched until people must be treated like cattle to be treated at all. Eventually, bureaucracy categorises people according to exactly how alive they are, until “overflow camps”, a conveniently sterile term for concentration camps, are established to incinerate those who should have died. It’s harrowing, and the Holocaust analogies are difficult to miss, but most disturbing is the logic with which horror follows horror until the world learns what goes on in the camps – and accepts it as a necessity. I actually understood how humanity had reached that point, and Torchwood forced its viewers to confront the dark side of human nature in ways that few other shows could get away with, much less at 9pm on BBC One.
Against the backdrop of the decline of civilisation it takes sharply drawn characters to hold any attention at all, but Miracle Day managed that too: Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) has turned into what can only be described as ‘a total bad-ass’ over the past couple of series, and alongside Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) she holds the entire series together. In keeping with the decay of humanity, however, the friends find themselves in positions they could never have predicted. In an impressive character piece, Gwen kidnaps Jack as a ransom for her family; out comes all of her bitterness, self-loathing and resentment, met by his cocktail of guilt, self-loathing and self-preservation. Ultimately, though, it’s Myles’ party: Gwen’s hard edges protect the core of a wife and mother, and the fact that her willingness to kill doesn’t make her a monster to us is remarkable.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, this would have been my summary of the whole series. Fantastic performances and quality writing, setting very personal drama in the context of apocalyptic chaos; friendships, love stories (including a touching homosexual relationship between Jack and his Depression-era lover Angelo), family tensions and politics in the foreground of a landscape of universal suffering. But things changed as the final few episodes brought the various plot threads together – or rather, didn’t.
We know that there is a huge chasm called The Blessing going through the core of the earth from Shanghai to Buenos Aires, which somehow calibrates the life spans of humans. We know that Jack’s immortal blood was fed to it by the mysterious Families who ‘bought’ him decades ago, making humans immortal. What we don’t know is how it works, why it’s there or what the Families are actually trying to achieve, which are all pretty major questions. What exactly are they planning to do when they’ve gained control of the planet?
And what about Oswald Danes? Bill Pullman has pulled out one of his finest performances as convicted murderer and all-round nasty piece of work Danes, who survives his lethal injection and becomes a bizarre poster-boy for the redemptive power of the Miracle. Jack becomes obsessed with tracking him down, is convinced that he is somehow at the centre of everything… and in the final episode, he turns him into a suicide bomber. His death is finally voluntary, but it comes at a point where it’s lost amongst the action and means very little. In fact, if his entire character was removed from the plot it would still hold together perfectly well, which leaves him as nothing but wasted potential.
Critics have thrown many complaints at this series, but most of them matter very little. I don’t care that there are no aliens involved: to say that sci-fi needs to be extra-terrestrial is just plain wrong. It makes no difference whatsoever that it doesn’t cohere with events in Dr Who. More serious are the loose ends which are never tied up. I don’t know what would constitute a worthy conclusion to a drama on such a massive scale, but it isn’t what we were given – and this was only exacerbated by the potential for a sequel suggested in the final scenes. Nevertheless, until its disappointing resolution, Torchwood was an absorbing study of a race in crisis, and by far the best thing I’ve seen all summer.
When Queen Victoria set up the Torchwood Institute following a nasty encounter with a werewolf and a Timelord, it’s highly unlikely that she foresaw what it, or the series which followed its agents, would become. To many, despite its mixed critical reception, Torchwood became the supposedly “grown-up” counterpart to Dr Who, with all the violence and swearing that the latter couldn’t show and darker, often shocking storylines. To me, it was that show that I always intended to watch, but was always on at the same time as something else. It was only with the excellent (but equally divisive) 2009 mini-series Children of Earth that I was finally converted: it’s rare that a writer has the balls to have their hero sacrifice his own young grandson, and Torchwood was a glowing example of what British sci-fi could be.
That said, I was slightly apprehensive when series four, Miracle Day, was announced, mostly because of the additional funding from American premium network Starz. After all, you should never trust a company that thinks a plural should end with a “z”. Worse, as with the current series of Dr Who, fans feared that the need to appeal to US audiences would detract from the inherent Britishness (or Welshness) which made previous series so unique. It has to be said, though, that the alternative was to have no Torchwood at all, and I for one am very glad of the decision that was made.
Miracle Day was a fascinating concept: death, the only certainty in the world, is removed, and the goalposts of life suddenly shift. Religions collapse, while new ones are formed; welfare systems and economies crumble as the population soars; the human race stoops to unprecedented depths. In exploring these avenues, it excelled. Where it failed, I would argue, was in forging a narrative which brought them together into a satisfying whole. As the final episode ended this week, I couldn’t help but feel that ten weeks of emotional investment and sacrificed Thursday nights had gone to waste.
Until about episode seven (‘Immortal Sins’), I sang the praises of this series. It portrays a race trying and failing to adjust to a new form of existence, where the justice system falls into chaos because murder cannot exist, and healthcare is stretched until people must be treated like cattle to be treated at all. Eventually, bureaucracy categorises people according to exactly how alive they are, until “overflow camps”, a conveniently sterile term for concentration camps, are established to incinerate those who should have died. It’s harrowing, and the Holocaust analogies are difficult to miss, but most disturbing is the logic with which horror follows horror until the world learns what goes on in the camps – and accepts it as a necessity. I actually understood how humanity had reached that point, and Torchwood forced its viewers to confront the dark side of human nature in ways that few other shows could get away with, much less at 9pm on BBC One.
Against the backdrop of the decline of civilisation it takes sharply drawn characters to hold any attention at all, but Miracle Day managed that too: Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles) has turned into what can only be described as ‘a total bad-ass’ over the past couple of series, and alongside Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman) she holds the entire series together. In keeping with the decay of humanity, however, the friends find themselves in positions they could never have predicted. In an impressive character piece, Gwen kidnaps Jack as a ransom for her family; out comes all of her bitterness, self-loathing and resentment, met by his cocktail of guilt, self-loathing and self-preservation. Ultimately, though, it’s Myles’ party: Gwen’s hard edges protect the core of a wife and mother, and the fact that her willingness to kill doesn’t make her a monster to us is remarkable.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, this would have been my summary of the whole series. Fantastic performances and quality writing, setting very personal drama in the context of apocalyptic chaos; friendships, love stories (including a touching homosexual relationship between Jack and his Depression-era lover Angelo), family tensions and politics in the foreground of a landscape of universal suffering. But things changed as the final few episodes brought the various plot threads together – or rather, didn’t.
We know that there is a huge chasm called The Blessing going through the core of the earth from Shanghai to Buenos Aires, which somehow calibrates the life spans of humans. We know that Jack’s immortal blood was fed to it by the mysterious Families who ‘bought’ him decades ago, making humans immortal. What we don’t know is how it works, why it’s there or what the Families are actually trying to achieve, which are all pretty major questions. What exactly are they planning to do when they’ve gained control of the planet?
And what about Oswald Danes? Bill Pullman has pulled out one of his finest performances as convicted murderer and all-round nasty piece of work Danes, who survives his lethal injection and becomes a bizarre poster-boy for the redemptive power of the Miracle. Jack becomes obsessed with tracking him down, is convinced that he is somehow at the centre of everything… and in the final episode, he turns him into a suicide bomber. His death is finally voluntary, but it comes at a point where it’s lost amongst the action and means very little. In fact, if his entire character was removed from the plot it would still hold together perfectly well, which leaves him as nothing but wasted potential.
Critics have thrown many complaints at this series, but most of them matter very little. I don’t care that there are no aliens involved: to say that sci-fi needs to be extra-terrestrial is just plain wrong. It makes no difference whatsoever that it doesn’t cohere with events in Dr Who. More serious are the loose ends which are never tied up. I don’t know what would constitute a worthy conclusion to a drama on such a massive scale, but it isn’t what we were given – and this was only exacerbated by the potential for a sequel suggested in the final scenes. Nevertheless, until its disappointing resolution, Torchwood was an absorbing study of a race in crisis, and by far the best thing I’ve seen all summer.
The Bubble Columns: Lego in Space
Originally published in The Bubble Columns on August 18 2011, available here.
Once again it’s been a while, readers. I’m hoping that over these summer months, when you really should be outside or doing as little as possible, your patience will extend to another odyssey through the more unusual side of world events. In fact, this article may be more summery than the weather wherever you are – after all, the Sun always shines in outer space.
Forty-two years ago, the sight of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon changed the world forever (right, conspiracy theorists?), and ever since, countless children have dreamed of following suit, myself included. Of course, for a brief period in between my time as the sixth member of the Spice Girls and digging up dinosaurs I was destined to travel at warp speed and talk to little green men, boldly going where no man had gone before. Gargarin, Armstrong, Kirk, Skywalker, Parkin. Alas, life hasn’t quite panned out the way I envisioned – I haven’t even found a pterodactyl under Palace Green yet – but it turns out that another relic from my childhood is finally living out my dream: NASA’s latest flight crew are made from Lego.
The spacecraft Juno launched on Thursday, beginning a five-year journey to discover the origins and development of Jupiter. It carries no human crew, but does contain Lego figurines of the Roman gods Juno and Jupiter as well as Galileo Galilei, the Italian Renaissance scientist who made several of the earliest discoveries about the planet. Carrying his telescope and rocking an impressive beard alongside his deified friends, Galileo is one of many Lego characters produced by the partnership between The Lego Group and NASA which began last November.
The two organisations are working together under a three-year Space Act Agreement to undertake educational and public outreach projects aimed at increasing participation in engineering, science, technology and mathematics under the title of “Building and Exploring Our Future”. As a result, this year’s Lego City line includes four NASA-inspired sets including educational materials, while the space shuttle Discovery carried a commemorative Lego shuttle on its November flight. NASA also sent special Lego sets to the International Space Station in February to be assembled by astronauts as well as earth-bound students and children. Sadly, the Pirates of the Caribbean play sets were out of stock.
It’s the kind of partnership which makes total sense. The Administration has had a rough time of late. The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed for the final time in July, marking the end of a thirty year era for the shuttle programme and making way for an age of commercial space flight. Controversial budget cuts have threatened the scope of its research. NASA has to demonstrate value for money in years to come, continuing to deliver the benefits to mankind for which it was established; consequently, the education and public outreach projects which go along with its missions are becoming more important than ever before. A generation of future voters and politicians fascinated by space exploration can’t harm its chances of survival either.
Meanwhile, Lego is the perfect choice. Space, the final frontier, is full of the unknown and a perfect canvas for the imagination, while Lego is designed to encourage creativity. However, the process of realising a design from the imagination teaches principles of engineering which NASA uses every day to build crafts like Juno and the upcoming two-craft lunar mission GRAIL. It may make little sense to lock plastic people into a scientific instrument in which they are unlikely to be seen again, but it’s encouraging to think that there may be children around in 2016 still following the mission in the hope that Galileo and the gods reach their destination. We can only hope that Toy Story 4 will feature their wild parties as they dance around the magnetometers.
As Douglas Adams once told us, “space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” It’s staggering to think of how much is out there, waiting to be discovered. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this universe – and is it really the only one? – so here’s hoping Lego inspires a generation to finally build me that Starship Enterprise.
Once again it’s been a while, readers. I’m hoping that over these summer months, when you really should be outside or doing as little as possible, your patience will extend to another odyssey through the more unusual side of world events. In fact, this article may be more summery than the weather wherever you are – after all, the Sun always shines in outer space.
Forty-two years ago, the sight of Neil Armstrong walking on the moon changed the world forever (right, conspiracy theorists?), and ever since, countless children have dreamed of following suit, myself included. Of course, for a brief period in between my time as the sixth member of the Spice Girls and digging up dinosaurs I was destined to travel at warp speed and talk to little green men, boldly going where no man had gone before. Gargarin, Armstrong, Kirk, Skywalker, Parkin. Alas, life hasn’t quite panned out the way I envisioned – I haven’t even found a pterodactyl under Palace Green yet – but it turns out that another relic from my childhood is finally living out my dream: NASA’s latest flight crew are made from Lego.
The spacecraft Juno launched on Thursday, beginning a five-year journey to discover the origins and development of Jupiter. It carries no human crew, but does contain Lego figurines of the Roman gods Juno and Jupiter as well as Galileo Galilei, the Italian Renaissance scientist who made several of the earliest discoveries about the planet. Carrying his telescope and rocking an impressive beard alongside his deified friends, Galileo is one of many Lego characters produced by the partnership between The Lego Group and NASA which began last November.
The two organisations are working together under a three-year Space Act Agreement to undertake educational and public outreach projects aimed at increasing participation in engineering, science, technology and mathematics under the title of “Building and Exploring Our Future”. As a result, this year’s Lego City line includes four NASA-inspired sets including educational materials, while the space shuttle Discovery carried a commemorative Lego shuttle on its November flight. NASA also sent special Lego sets to the International Space Station in February to be assembled by astronauts as well as earth-bound students and children. Sadly, the Pirates of the Caribbean play sets were out of stock.
It’s the kind of partnership which makes total sense. The Administration has had a rough time of late. The Space Shuttle Atlantis landed for the final time in July, marking the end of a thirty year era for the shuttle programme and making way for an age of commercial space flight. Controversial budget cuts have threatened the scope of its research. NASA has to demonstrate value for money in years to come, continuing to deliver the benefits to mankind for which it was established; consequently, the education and public outreach projects which go along with its missions are becoming more important than ever before. A generation of future voters and politicians fascinated by space exploration can’t harm its chances of survival either.
Meanwhile, Lego is the perfect choice. Space, the final frontier, is full of the unknown and a perfect canvas for the imagination, while Lego is designed to encourage creativity. However, the process of realising a design from the imagination teaches principles of engineering which NASA uses every day to build crafts like Juno and the upcoming two-craft lunar mission GRAIL. It may make little sense to lock plastic people into a scientific instrument in which they are unlikely to be seen again, but it’s encouraging to think that there may be children around in 2016 still following the mission in the hope that Galileo and the gods reach their destination. We can only hope that Toy Story 4 will feature their wild parties as they dance around the magnetometers.
As Douglas Adams once told us, “space is big. Really big. You just won’t believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist, but that’s just peanuts to space.” It’s staggering to think of how much is out there, waiting to be discovered. We’ve barely scratched the surface of this universe – and is it really the only one? – so here’s hoping Lego inspires a generation to finally build me that Starship Enterprise.
The Bubble Film: The Death of the American Horror Film, or, Why the World Needs Scream
Originally published in a very edited form in The Bubble Film, May 6th 2011, available here.
I’m watching a teenage girl stand in an average American high school. Alone in a lengthy corridor, she looks down to see a broad trail of red streaking the floor. Her eyes follow it to its source, a large, leaking load being dragged by something unseen. I’m trying to tell her she shouldn’t, but she follows it anyway, and finally realises what it is – her best friend, sealed in a bleeding body bag.
I’m 14, and I’m watching A Nightmare on Elm Street. This is the moment when I vow that I too will never sleep again.
To this day, Elm Street remains the scariest film I’ve ever seen – Wes Craven delivered a suspenseful masterpiece which unapologetically swims in the blood of its victims (ask Johnny Depp), but which terrifies because of the psychological depths it plumbs. Freddy Krueger, like an unconscious desire or repressed memory, will never stop invading your dreams, violating your own mind to bring about your slaughter. That’s why it’s so unique and inspired: a truly original cinematic milestone.
Of course, it spawned a ridiculous number of sequels, as did many of the other seminal slasher flicks – Hallowe’en, Friday 13th and the like – none of which came close to the standard of the originals, but then few films managed to attain those heights at all. Prom Night, My Bloody Valentine, House of Wax… by the early 1990s endless, repetitive, clichéd mass murders of articulate, hopelessly pretty white teenagers were so much the norm that the genre was old, bloated and ripe for parody. And then Craven gave us Scream.
If you haven’t yet seen the seminal horror film of the 1990s, go and do it now. It’s genuinely frightening, with plenty of blood and guts to go around, but more importantly playing on the idea that your own home isn’t safe – the violation of the safe place which makes Elm Street and Hallowe’en so effective. What really makes it interesting, though, is the metafictional element. It’s a parody of all the films that came before it. Ghostface, the guy with the white mask your mate probably wore last Hallowe’en, is a horror fan obeying the rules of the genre, but his victims all know them too: girls with big breasts realise that they shouldn’t run upstairs to hide (Jamie Lee Curtis in Hallowe’en, why?), sex, drugs and alcohol always make you a target, and you should never, ever, say “I’ll be right back”. Combine this with a healthy dose of social commentary – if caught, the killer insists that they can blame everything on the corrosive influence of the movies – and you have a vital, brutal and wickedly funny shot in the arm for Hollywood’s horror industry.
But I don’t think it worked. If Scream and its two sequels were intended to revive American horror, it’s hard to see how they succeeded. Eleven years have passed since (the admittedly inferior) Scream 3, and in that time the genre has become dominated by ‘torture porn’ such as Saw and Hostel, finding new and even more twisted ways to make victims suffer. Once the idea is established, there’s always enough profit to justify a sequel – and another, and another, and another until the law of diminishing returns kills a series – and running out of ideas is never a problem, because every film recycles the one before it. That’s how we ended up with seven Saw films, each almost identical to the others but with different (usually more horrific) traps. Then, of course, once a franchise is dead and buried or a film is almost forgotten, you can resurrect it with the remake, or ‘reboot’ if you’re planning on changing things around. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes, The Amityville Horror, Hallowe’en, Friday 13th, Dawn of the Dead, Black Christmas… the list is endless, and none of them were either warranted or worth the effort required to drag the dead from their graves. Worse, most are just not scary.
Nearly six years after I discovered Elm Street, I found myself in a cinema watching it again with an even prettier and more suicidally stupid cast. By the time I’d realised that the true massacre was the one visited upon the plot, script and entire final act of the original, I understood why this was happening. There are no scripts in circulation which can match their antecedents, so executives are just using the same plots again. If there are similar genre films that will also make money and fill release dates, then they’re fair game as well, especially if like House of Wax they provide an excuse to kill off Paris Hilton. Although world and even British cinema still offers some innovative and intelligent output, Hollywood, movie capital of the Western world, has run out of ideas. In short, it sounds like we need another Scream.
As it happens, it’s just arrived in cinemas. Scream 4 may not be the most original of concepts itself, but that happens to be the first point it acknowledges. It targets all of the conventions and formats of recent horror – remakes, unnecessary sequels and even the influence of its predecessors. Characters discuss films within the film (the Stab series, based on the events of the original Scream) to a point where someone actually says “it’s so meta”, and this time Ghostface is filming every death. Torture porn comes under fire, too; as one articulate, pretty white teen points out, Jigsaw may kill “creatively” but there’s “something real about a guy with a knife who just… snaps.” The film bears this out: the comedy-horror balance may lean towards the former, but there are still real scares to be had and it hasn’t toned down the gore in the slightest, even though it’s the first in the series to bear a 15 certificate. After years of Saw and Hostel we must be desensitised to a good old fashioned stabbing.
It won’t have the same impact as the original, but for an unnecessary sequel it’s still a breath of fresh air to a disheartened horror fan like me. There’ll never be another Nightmare on Elm Street, but I don’t see any replacements either. While I’d like to think I’m wrong, unless something fresh and exciting appears soon, I suspect the future is bleak for the American horror industry. Meanwhile, we’ll have to look back to answer Ghostface’s infamous question. So, what’s your favourite scary movie?
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
The Bubble Columns: Superman - The Model Global Citizen
Originally published in The Bubble Columns, available here.
You may have noticed a rare burst of British sunshine of late. It may not be all that warm yet – you can’t have it all – but summer is just about on its way, and slowly but surely the thoughts of the nation are turning to ice creams and seaside road trips or, if you’re a shameless film geek like me, the summer blockbuster season. Those of us yet to discover a life and who like to spend sunny days in a darkened room with popcorn-chomping noisy teenagers await a season of action, explosions and, inevitably, superheroes. We’ve long been in the era of the comic-book adaptation, and if (again like me) you like to plan your cinematic experiences way, way in advance you may already know that Anne Hathaway will play Catwoman in the next Batman film, and Henry Cavill of The Tudors fame has been chosen to play Superman in the Man of Steel’s outing next year (funnily enough called Man of Steel).
Superman in particular has played a central role in the modern obsession with superheroes. In 1978, a vast budget, cutting-edge special effects and a brief cameo from Marlon Brando (which somehow earned him an Oscar) made the late Christopher Reeve the first bona fide big screen superhero, and every genre film yet is in its debt. By that point, though, the character was already forty years old and had long been established as one of DC Comics’ most popular characters. Ever since, resplendent in his primary-coloured spandex, flowing cape and inability to wear underwear correctly, the classic foreigner-emigrates-and-makes-good-in-America trope has made him synonymous with American culture, so much so that Captain America was designed to compete with him and never achieved the same heights.
But now he doesn’t like it. In the new edition of Action Comics, after standing silently in support of protesters at a Tehran demonstration, Superman is accused by Iran of causing an international incident. “Tired of having his actions construed as instruments of US policy”, he decides to renounce his US citizenship.
He may not get past talking about it in David Goyer’s nine-page story, but that alone is definitely a Big Thing. The staunch, incorruptible saviour who was raised on a farm in the ‘Bible Belt’ doesn’t want to be American anymore, and for many fans that is inconceivable. The move has been broadly criticised around the world.
It’s been seen as a deliberate attempt to distance the figure from US policy, which does have a precedent – none other than Captain America denationalised himself in changing his name to Nomad in the aftermath of Watergate – but that falls down because in this case, America hasn’t actually done anything wrong (now there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write). Superman can’t act freely internationally when all of his actions reflect on a single country; he’s doing them a favour by preventing them from taking the flak for his actions. In fact, I see this as an interesting development which could prove to be a positive move. He’s the quintessential superhero, and although according to the publishers he “remains, as always, committed to his adopted home and his roots as a Kansas farm boy” he wants to shift the focus of his fight against evil to a global level: in effect, he wants to be a citizen of Earth. When we’re quite happy to refer to him as the Last Son of Krypton, an epithet which also acknowledges a planet but no nation, why is that so terrible?
Earth (apparently unlike Krypton) is a planet comprised of nation-states, and nationalism persists as the strongest level of group identity. I may spend a lot of my time defending Yorkshire (the Motherland) to other Brits as Official Greatest Place on Earth, but when asked by a foreigner I would always identify myself as British. We all have different levels on which we identify and differentiate ourselves from others – if you’re away and you meet someone else from your region, don’t you ask them whereabouts? – and the nation remains the highest: I’m always British, but rarely European. The truth is we are scared of the idea of universal global citizenship, because it identifies us on a level where nobody can be different to anybody else, and we don’t like that very much. My question is, are we justified in that?
“’Truth, justice and the American way’ – it’s not enough anymore,” Superman says, “The world is too small, too connected.” Given the role he has to play, I think he might have a point – after all, America can’t have him dragging them into more international intrigue. Were Superman real, I’d probably shake his hand. Now, if anyone wants to introduce me to Henry Cavill for this purpose, I strongly encourage you to do so.
You may have noticed a rare burst of British sunshine of late. It may not be all that warm yet – you can’t have it all – but summer is just about on its way, and slowly but surely the thoughts of the nation are turning to ice creams and seaside road trips or, if you’re a shameless film geek like me, the summer blockbuster season. Those of us yet to discover a life and who like to spend sunny days in a darkened room with popcorn-chomping noisy teenagers await a season of action, explosions and, inevitably, superheroes. We’ve long been in the era of the comic-book adaptation, and if (again like me) you like to plan your cinematic experiences way, way in advance you may already know that Anne Hathaway will play Catwoman in the next Batman film, and Henry Cavill of The Tudors fame has been chosen to play Superman in the Man of Steel’s outing next year (funnily enough called Man of Steel).
Superman in particular has played a central role in the modern obsession with superheroes. In 1978, a vast budget, cutting-edge special effects and a brief cameo from Marlon Brando (which somehow earned him an Oscar) made the late Christopher Reeve the first bona fide big screen superhero, and every genre film yet is in its debt. By that point, though, the character was already forty years old and had long been established as one of DC Comics’ most popular characters. Ever since, resplendent in his primary-coloured spandex, flowing cape and inability to wear underwear correctly, the classic foreigner-emigrates-and-makes-good-in-America trope has made him synonymous with American culture, so much so that Captain America was designed to compete with him and never achieved the same heights.
But now he doesn’t like it. In the new edition of Action Comics, after standing silently in support of protesters at a Tehran demonstration, Superman is accused by Iran of causing an international incident. “Tired of having his actions construed as instruments of US policy”, he decides to renounce his US citizenship.
He may not get past talking about it in David Goyer’s nine-page story, but that alone is definitely a Big Thing. The staunch, incorruptible saviour who was raised on a farm in the ‘Bible Belt’ doesn’t want to be American anymore, and for many fans that is inconceivable. The move has been broadly criticised around the world.
It’s been seen as a deliberate attempt to distance the figure from US policy, which does have a precedent – none other than Captain America denationalised himself in changing his name to Nomad in the aftermath of Watergate – but that falls down because in this case, America hasn’t actually done anything wrong (now there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write). Superman can’t act freely internationally when all of his actions reflect on a single country; he’s doing them a favour by preventing them from taking the flak for his actions. In fact, I see this as an interesting development which could prove to be a positive move. He’s the quintessential superhero, and although according to the publishers he “remains, as always, committed to his adopted home and his roots as a Kansas farm boy” he wants to shift the focus of his fight against evil to a global level: in effect, he wants to be a citizen of Earth. When we’re quite happy to refer to him as the Last Son of Krypton, an epithet which also acknowledges a planet but no nation, why is that so terrible?
Earth (apparently unlike Krypton) is a planet comprised of nation-states, and nationalism persists as the strongest level of group identity. I may spend a lot of my time defending Yorkshire (the Motherland) to other Brits as Official Greatest Place on Earth, but when asked by a foreigner I would always identify myself as British. We all have different levels on which we identify and differentiate ourselves from others – if you’re away and you meet someone else from your region, don’t you ask them whereabouts? – and the nation remains the highest: I’m always British, but rarely European. The truth is we are scared of the idea of universal global citizenship, because it identifies us on a level where nobody can be different to anybody else, and we don’t like that very much. My question is, are we justified in that?
“’Truth, justice and the American way’ – it’s not enough anymore,” Superman says, “The world is too small, too connected.” Given the role he has to play, I think he might have a point – after all, America can’t have him dragging them into more international intrigue. Were Superman real, I’d probably shake his hand. Now, if anyone wants to introduce me to Henry Cavill for this purpose, I strongly encourage you to do so.
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