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Grit's flagship customer model, the latest Mayhem park scooter features a threadless headset with upgraded Necco integrated headset, and a triple channel alloy deck for durability and stiffness to cope with all situations. White and Purple
Grit's flagship customer model, the latest Mayhem park scooter features a threadless headset with upgraded Necco integrated headset, and a triple channel alloy deck for durability and stiffness to cope with all situations.
6061 heat treated deck with semi integrated head tube and octagonal down tube for strength and light weight Exclusive Grit box section threadless fork with gussets and compression bolt, no fiddling with the headset any more Full deck grip tape covering any usable surface of the top deck for maximum grip Quad clamp handlebar clamp, for extra security 4130 Chromo Y bars are super strong and feature a slight rake for control when steering and performing tricks Soft feel grips made from Kraton rubber, no foam here 110mm alloy core wheels with machined spokes ABEC 9 bearings for smoothest running possible and sealed from dust Stainless steel flex brake. No rattle and replaceable
Skill Level - Advanced Rider Weight - 8.80 lbs, Deck width - 100mm Bars - 19.5" high x 19.0" wide Head Tube Angle - 82.5 Degrees for precise handling White and Purple colour option
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doc ref: tag=shipping 16/06/2013
Freestyle or Park Scooters have really taken off in the last couple of years, as more and more people use them not only to attempt the latest tricks in the park or on ramps, but also for the commute to school, work or quick trips to the local stores. In the main, but not exclusively, freestyle scooters are used by youths, and often purchased or funded by parents and/or family to some degree. So we have written a brief guide to help ensure you buy a freestyle park scooter that will last for the longest period of time, but also and importantly satisfy the needs of the end user!
With freestyle scooters, the mantra 'you get what you pay for' holds very true. Scooters can be purchased from £30 to £300+, the most expensive being for professional and expert use. It is a false economy to go for the cheapest option I am afraid; once the scooter is purchased, it will be used. A LOT! This means it will put a fair few miles in, be thrown around and dropped a fair amount, and subject to a lot of (ab)use, whilst being loved.When buying a freestyle scooter make sure to consider the following, and tick as many of these boxes as you can with your budget: The scooter needs to be serviceable, there needs to be easy availability of spare parts and upgrades as items wear out, such as bearings and wheels. All the more expensive scooters can share parts and spares, making servicing easier, giving you more value for money The scooter needs to be durable. Take a look at other people's scooters to see how certain brands fair. Scratches are fine, but do the wheels wear out, are the bearings dying quickly, is the brake rattling, and does the headset constantly come loose? Yes to any of this indicates the scooter will not last, especially if spares are hard to find The scooter needs to be light. Not as light as a feather, but ultimately freestyle scooters are designed to do tricks, so there has to be a balance of light weight and strength, as lighter scooters are easier to move around when learning to do all those wonderful stunts! It also makes it easy to be carried. Don't be fooled by folding mechanisms, these might make it easier to carry, but a folding mechanism creates a weakness that over time can fail! And most importantly, THE SCOOTER NEEDS TO BE SAFE. Failure of wheels or bearings, the headset (steering) components or the rear brake can lead to serious injury! That is why we always say to look at the headset, wheels and brake first, and why we identify what is on each of the scooters we sell to make your choice safely.
So we consider all of the above when selecting the freestyle scooters we stock, and the first thing ask is about spare parts, and then make sure to keep a stock of them! All of this allows you to buy a freestyle scooter knowing it will last longer than Christmas day, and that when things do get knocked or worn, spares are available.
Although some scooters are available in different sizes, a true freestyle scooter will come in a single size. The handlebar styles will vary, some with a bit of back sweep, some a little shorter. These tend to be the scooters aimed at new scooter enthusiasts, to allow them to get to grips with a freestyle scooter in safety. Generally from the Scooters we stock, the scooters we tag as "Ideal 1st Scooters" suit ages 5-6 upwards depending on height, and the more advanced scooters should be kept for ages 8-9 upwards. And by upwards we mean all the way up to adults! We can also supply handlebars of different heights to make adjustments for those who are shorter or taller for their age. Regards to weight, true freestyle scooters like the ones we sell have weight limits of up to 100KG, and some beyond! So if the temptation for dad to take one for a spin proves too much, you should be fine, just make sure you don't fall over!
We recommend wearing a helmet. It isn't so much the damage you can do to yourself, but the damage that can be done if someone or something hits you. Play it safe, wear a helmet. If you are practicing advanced tricks on a ramp or in a park, then elbow and knee pads can be handy, as can wrist protectors.
There are literally hundred of wheels available. Colour is of course important, but we are often asked why the wheels we sell are more expensive than some found elsewhere such as eBay: Cheap Wheels: These are often smaller (80mm) with less effective rubber. The rubber will be either super hard to make it last (making teeth rattle) or stupidly soft, leading it to wearing out very quickly, although you will keep your teeth. The wheel itself will be plastic. This is a weakness, and also flexes. Flex in the wheels leads to bearing wear and axle wear. The tyres (rubber) will have a basic mounting to the wheel, and glue might have been used. Long term, this can weaken and lead to separation. Finally the bearings will either be a simply brass sleeve, or basic unsealed bearings Better Wheels: These can be a variety of sizes, larger ones mean more roll, and suit cruising better. They may feature alloy wheels, much stronger and stiffer than plastic, without being heavy. The interface between the rubber and wheel will be more advanced, maybe with interlocking grooves to prevent separation as gluing rubber to anything never really works! The rubber itself can be different ratings, so you can choose comfort, or durability, or a mixture. Some are super grippy for ramps too. And finally the bearings will be high quality and sealed, the leading brand being ABEC. ABEX bearings are numbered, and generally the higher the number the higher the quality, with 5 being basic sealing, and 9 being super smooth, greased and double sealed
The rear brake is a critical component so it is important that it always works 100%. If you think your brake is damaged or it is not working, you MUST get it repaired! There are two key styles of scooter brake:
Cheap Brakes: Generally, the cheaper brakes mounted to scooters used a spring, and you press down on the wheel to slow the scooter. This works well, but there is a tendency for the brake to come loose over time and start to rattle. Better Brakes: The better brake option is a non sprung brake, or a flex brake. This is a section of metal bolted to the scooter with a couple of bolts, and this presses onto the wheel. The advantage here is there are no moving parts or spring, and the part is cheap to replace when it wears. So you do not get any rattling noises with this style of spring either
Another critical area which gets a fair amount of abuse, the front end of a freestyle scooter consists of the Fork, Headset and a Handlebar, all clamped together with a Handlebar Clamp. All of these parts on better quality scooters can be repaired or upgraded: Cheap Headsets & Forks: Cheaper versions will be of the threaded variety. Tried and tested for many years on bicycles, two nuts tighten together to adjust the headset, and there are threads on the fork. A great basic design, the limitations are weight, and on lower quality versions the headset constantly comes loose! The good news is that on many scooters you can upgrade to a threadless version as parts wear out or are being upgraded. Better Headsets & Forks: The better freeride scooters will feature a threadless (Also known as a compression) design. These can be 'semi integrated' where the bearing cups sit outside the head tube, or 'fully integrated' where they sit within the head tube. Parts and spares are very easy to obtain too! Threadless headsets and forks is becoming the most sought after feature on freestyle scooters, as they hardly ever come loose, are lighter, and in most cases a lot smoother We hope you find this basic guide useful, if you need any further assistance please contact us and we will be happy to assist. Author: Scott Hargrave About the Author: Scott is the buyer and owner of Bliss Outdoor LTD, and formerly ran a skate store in Stratford Upon Avon selling rollerblades, skateboards and scooters along with BMX. His focus is always on quality products that last, giving hours of fun!
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Pimento Cheese; a Southern Classic
June 13, 2012 - 12:04pm | by kateHands up who's heard of Pimento Cheese? Chances are that unless you're from the Southern United States, at this very moment your eyebrows are raised in puzzlement. At least mine were, when the cheese was first described to me.
However, last week I met with Martha Davis Kipcak, a Texas native, stellar cook, producer of Pimento cheese and general "tour de force". Martha, who moved to Wisconsin twelve years ago, is also thoroughly involved in the Slow Food movement as well as several other sustainable food and community oriented endeavors.
Upon her arrival in the Dairy State, she was amazed at the lack of availability or even knowledge of her favorite staple, Pimento Cheese. However, like most Southern cooks, she set about making it herself for home use, adjusting the recipe to her liking and finessing the final product.
Leave the Fish Tacos, Take the Roasted Cauliflower
May 15, 2012 - 10:26pm | by cheese_taster_2012Hello Culture readers! I'm Danielle, and I have the pleasure of being a 2012 Birth of a Cheese taste tester. Getting free, delicious cheese shipped directly to me from one of America's most highly regarded creameries is about the best thing that can happen in my book. And then I get to blab on and on about it to the world? Perfect.
I am the executive chef of a club at a military base in Texas. My husband, and co-taster, is also a chef and runs the kitchen of a catering company in Austin. Needless to say, we cook, eat, and talk a lot of food. But cheese holds a special place in my heart - I think it's alchemy is magical, and I am beginning to learn how to make it at home.

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Viennale 2011 Trailer
Here's David looking back to his earlier lunacy in a trailer he was commissioned to make for the Vienna film festival this year;
It's been interesting to read that amongst the international critics that a lot of the British fare that got glowing applauds this year from the indigenous and American press have been shunned by continental Europe at 'second tier' festivals like this, with the likes of We Need To Talk About Kevin, Wuthering Heights and Shame getting the cold shoulder, according to some of the reportage in this months Sight & Sound. In response they have just published their films of the year list, a collation from contributors votes from around the world, which seems reflected in a global scope of nominees and probably stands as the first time I've actually heard of all the winners, even if I haven't seen them all – 6 out of 11 this year which ain't bad.
Ken Russell RIP
What a coincidence, on Saturday I was watching this, an above average horror portmanteau film from 2006 which paired up some interesting directors – Joe Dante, Monte Hellman, Sean S. Cunningham and Ken Russell – to have a crack at the old school Twilight Zone, Dead of Night type episodic movie. Russell's segment, probably the first thing of his I've seen for a while, was characteristically bonkers with a tale concerning a fading Hollywood actress who gets vampiric tits which help her maintain her career, so like much of Russell's work its at the very least memorable;
As the brother of a rabid fan of The Who I grew up with the sounds of Tommy reverberating around the family home, the film is that very rare beast for me – a musical I actually like – with a demented sense of glee that only Russell could formulate – he even got Jack to sing. He will be sorely missed as one of the great British eccentric directors, well versed in the classics, ranging from music to history to literature to art, all welded together with an idiosyncratic flair for big, sweeping bombastic movies packed with redolent imagery;
For genre fans cults have emerged around Altered States, The Lair of The White Worm and Crimes of Passion, if memory serves his Harry Palmer episode Billion Dollar Brain was also pretty good, despite being foisted upon him as a contractual demand. So farewell you glorious nutter, I've always remembered a story (I think contained in a South Bank Show Profile from a few years back) about how when some violent rain, howling wind and distressing weather was lashing his remote Surrey cottage during a particularly brutal English Autumn evening he'd enjoy pumping up the stereo and conducting along with the Ride of The Valkyries in some sort of deranged battle against the elements – here's the obligatory.
Back To The Beasties
I'm not entirely sure what this is, but it must be shared;
I liked the music. And the numerous cameos. And the Arrested Development moment was superb.
Room 666 (1982)
Watched this interesting documentary today, made in 1982 by Wim Wenders at Canne it's a collection of his contemporaries views on the history of cinema, filmed in a numerical hotel room of the title. As a historical document it is fascinating, not only for the appearances of those that have since left us (Antonioni, Monte Hellman, Fassbinder) and the perspectives of those at a particular juncture in their career (Spielberg ruminates on the rising costs of production having just made E.T., which cost an astronomical $10 million!!) but the opinions expressed are amusing with the benefit of hindsight, as many of the delegates bemoan the rise of VHS and the popularity of television as the death knell of the movies. As always, Herzog steals the show;
'You can't answer a question like that with your shoes on' is vintage Werner, and 'we'll be ordering food on our computers' – well, quite. You can watch the whole thing here, it's only 44 minutes so give it a whirl.
BFI Trilogy Of Terror – Cat People (1942), Dracula's Daughter (1936) & Son of Dracula (1943)
The BFI managed to deliver quite a wealth of horrific material to dominate this years Halloween weekend, as well as a re-schedule of the postponed John Landis Monster Movies discussion they also programmed an evening screening of the 1982 version of The Thing, one of the best creature features of the past few decades which was selected by Landis himself. Following a macabre Sunday then the 31st proper was on the Monday, not always the most popular weeknight for the movies, but the siren call of not one, nor two but three old-school chillers lured me over to the Southbank for a triple bill of the uncanny. A few words about the Landis event before we get into the reviews, he really is good value for money as host (The League of Gentlemen's) Reece Shearsmith explained, all you had to do was utter one mild question and Landis was off on a rollercoaster ride of references, thoughts and anecdotes about the movies. He made some prudent observations – horror movies, like comedies, are several times more effective at the cinema as fear and humour are infectious in crowds, that Jesus Christ was the first literary zombie, that when it comes to these hellions a 'follow the monster, you'll find a metaphor' mantra is essential and that he feels that these lumbering, moaning creatures are ultimately the celluloid representations of our fear of death, of the uncertain terror of the unknown. Werewolf got some kudos of course and Landis claimed that zombies are the preeminent cultural monster of the moment due to the fear of civilisation falling and the loss of control – I'm not so sure but lets not get into that – before he and Shearsmith reeled off some fine stories and anecdotes about horror and monster movies that they love which warmed the cockles of my fan-boy heart – they were both very funny with a particularly disgusted and hilarious attack on the Twilight atrocities. He also made a good conversation point about movies in general – isn't this the only art form where something 'bad' can actually be fun and amusing to absorb? That bad films can be entertaining in their own, idiosyncratically strange little way, as opposed to a bad play, or a bad book, or a bad painting? – it's food for thought. I thought about getting a copy of his book, autographed no less, but it looks like more a coffee table stills publication than anything with any sort of trenchant analysis, I'll reconsider picking up a copy when I'm at the BFI again in a couple of weeks. So you're probably wondering were in the arctic hell my The Thing review is given that it's one of favourite horror films ever, well I'm going to do a combined review with the prequel at the end of the month once it finally hits UK shores, it will be an appropriately epic affair to round off this years lengthy history of ghastly lurking. For now let's have a cursory look at the three abominations that the BFI unleashed to a grimly disgusted audience during this celebration of the eerie shall we?
Cat People - It's not often you get a freebie in life but membership does occasionally have its perks*, as the BFI decided to begin its Halloween trilogy of terror with a special members screening of Cat People, the RKO B-Movie classic from 1942, which was produced by the legendary Val Lewton and directed by B-Movie maestro Jacques Tourneur who was also responsible for such gems as I Walked With A Zombie (the definition of celluloid eerie) Night Of The Demon and Out Of The Past – one of the all time classic , hardboiled, chiaroscuro film noirs. Cat People is an economically taut, perplexing growl of a movie which is notable not only for its wonderful atmospherics and imaginative use of lighting (yup, it's the old expressionist influence again) to generate the prerequisite creeps, but also for its early incantations of psychology and psychoanalysis which started to seep into American cinema of this period – witness Hitchcock's Spellbound three years later. A young Serbian refugee (a feline Simone Simon) to New York fears that she is afflicted by an Eastern European family curse which will transform her into a panther should she become sexually aroused – she has something of a killer pussy if you will – although of course given its era these obscene elements are submerged and its merely her 'matrimonial duties' which are referenced in the script, but we know what she's talking about. Cat People is one of the exemplars of the 'suggest, don't show' strains of atmospheric horror where the action is all intimated off-screen, and sequences such as this are reference points for any macabre director over the intervening seventy years. It was a good print considering its age, although I think the BFI did a restoration on a print some years ago, all in all a purrfect start to proceedings. I'm sorry. If memory serves the sequel was pretty good as well…..
Dracula's Daughter - Given the vintage of some films you have to cut them a break as the aesthetics, technology and cultural codes obviously adapt and mutate with time. Certain films that were produced around the introduction of sound can feel very stagey and stilted, with a theatrical automaton feel to the performances, but pushing these facets aside you can still enjoy an interesting story with different visual codes, and if you're lucky you might even see the birth or early gestation of various forms of movie grammar (the montage, the shot / reverse shot for example) which have developed over the decades. Unfortunately Dracula's Daughter is not one of those movies, and it is my solemn duty to report that this was one of the most tedious 70 minutes I've spent at the cinema for a while. Released in 1936 it's the first 'official' sequel of its kind, being of course the next in the series spawned by the 1931 original classic with Lugosi in the title role, even taking into account the historical points above this is a brutality dull film, with dialogue that is ham-fisted even for its period, and considering this is a horror film it would have been nice to have some, y'know, horror in it? This is very little in the way of cobwebbed mausoleums or lightning illuminated gothic cathedrals, the plot as well as I could make it concerns a mysterious woman named Countess Marya Zaleska comes to England and attempts to break her curse of vampirism by stealing her brothers remains and seducing a psychiatrist – yes those mind boffins are rearing their ugly heads again in what must one of the professions earliest screen representations. Dracula's Daughter has some amusement, this is clearly a fictional England with accents that would make Dick Van Dyke blush and there is a certain vampish charm to Gloria Holden (some cursory reading around the film reveals that it has been seized as an early lesbian movie due to one strange seduction scene), but the most interesting facet to this mis-fire is that the main succubus is the grandmother of Laurie Holden, an actress I like who you may recognise from the latter seasons of The Shield, or The Mist or more recently The Walking Dead. Look out for the great Jack Pierce in the make-up chair as well.
Son of Dracula – Well, now this is more like it. Widely speaking, the 1940's saw a second cycle of American horror movies birthed by the original Universal cycle of the previous decade, and this is where the now de rigour 'Son of' or 'Return of' of 'The Curse of' series of sequels and cash-ins first started haunting the drive-ins and sleepy towns of North America. Son of Dracula casts Lon Chaney Jr. in the leechlike role, son of the legendary Lon Chaney Sr. I have to say he is thoroughly mis-cast, with very little in the way of genuine, threatening charisma and the dude is just a bad actor. But the film is relatively good as these sequels go, it has an unusual deep south gothic charm from its Louisiana setting which is a potent location (indeed you can see my favourite scene linked below, it starts at 6:38) for the count to seduce a local plantation widower and usurp her fortune, it is also famous for the first on-screen transformation of Dracula from man to bat – a scriptwriter invention that like the silver bullets slaying the beast in The Wolfman are wholly Hollywood inventions – and it also has the first iteration of the now comical Count Alucard mirror name, that accursed Van Helsing (represented as a tubby Henry Kissinger by J. Edward Bromberg, one of the reds that Kazan snitched on) will never solve that complex obfuscation now will he? I also liked the inversion in this film, as the Count's blue blooded victim Katherine Caldwell (Louise Allbritton) actually becomes something of femme fatale once she's turned, even challenging the master himself, as she plots her own nefarious scheme to disintegrate her suitor, seize the estate and build her own twilight kingdom of the undead – I could go into one here about the link of female roles in film noirs during the war years and their portrayal as sexually and psychological manipulative sirens due to the emancipation of factory work as part of the war effort but that's a whole other blog post. Son of Dracula was directed by the fantastic Robert Siodmak and the noir and expressionist pedigree is evident through his teutonic eye, although it suffers an abrupt finale it has more bite than most of the sequels of its breed that I can remember.
*No word of a lie, as I wrote that sentence my phone chimed with an invite to a BFI special event, something which promises to be one of the retrospective film highlights of the year, in terms of a clue I'll just say 'War starts at midnight you fucking mook' -make of that what you will. I'm jolly excited about this, I just managed to get the last two tickets after 20 minutes on hold and its' s a terrific way of rounding off the year with a full review of a bonafide classic, from the mid 1940′s – that's your second clue……
Ulysses Reprise
After that dark and brooding take on Australian psychopaths let's have some amusement to raise the spirits, I'm not usually one for tiresome nostalgia trawls but I must share this;
….so I can share this cluster of unmitigated, concentrated, sweded awesome;
Now there's a kids TV show that would benefit from a 3D CGI heavy update. Speaking of kids stuff Hugo has been getting some amazing nods from the summaries I've skim read – one doesn't read reviews until they've seen the film and one has collected ones own thoughts – but it looks like it's visually dazzling and has a lot of submerged film nerd details to munch on. I'm really looking to forward to this now, thank god that horrendous trailer doesn't (allegedly) reflect the final movie. We shall see….
Snowtown (2011)
There has been talk of a mini-renaissance of Australian cinema this year, with a trio of strong, idiosyncratic movies that have charmed and challenged cinema fans both home and abroad, and even secured limited releases beyond niche festival screenings throughout Europe and the notoriously difficult to infiltrate North American market. Having seen and mostly enjoyed these three films, comprising of the ferocious Animal Kingdom, the noir Western Red Hill and lastly the horrifically oppressive Snowtown I detect a subtle theme, I'm not sure what has prompted this crisis of masculinity in Australian culture but this trinity have strong undercurrents of testosterone nourished paranoia, from Red Hill's meekly mannered cop finally rising to heroic status after a botched shooting exiles him to the antipodean version of Siberia, from the morally blurred violence of the cops and robbers of the neurotic Animal Kingdom and now the serial killing atrocities of Snowtown unleashing a litany of homophobia fuelled atrocities that come slithering from the working class suburbs of Adelaide . It all seems like a long, stuttering economy class flight from the blazing Gold Coast beaches, from the indigenous easy-going nonchalance and the brightly sun-kissed arches of the Sydney Opera House that decorate the Australian tourist boards pamphlets and posters, as the only koala bears in these films are road kill, the only barbecue some unfortunates scorched flesh.
Snowtown is based on the notorious 1999 'bodies in the barrel' killings where eleven unfortunate victims were tortured, killed and interred by serial killer John Bunting (a berserk Daniel Henshall, the films only professional actor) and his gang of indoctrinated and disaffected young men, an impressionable crew who accompanied him on his self proclaimed crusade against the local gays, drug addicts and paedophiles in the decrepit working class suburbs of Adelaide. His victims were often selected on the basis of rumour and innuendo, stretching from registered sex offenders to the mentally disabled, from desperate heroin addicts to leather skinned queens, his insatiable thirst to dominate and terrify snowballing out of control as the slightest transgression could result in murder. The film views the crimes through the eyes of Jamie Vlassakis (newcomer Lucas Pittaway), one of three sons of Elizabeth Harvey (Louise Harris), an affection starved single mother who took the charismatic Bunting into her home where he swiftly became a surrogate father to the boys, offering them the only male companionship and leadership of their turbulent young lives. This poisonous family unit is established shortly after the boys were sexually abused by a neighbour who was similarly involved with Elizabeth, and soon a campaign of intimidation against this neighbour is ignited by Bunting, forcing the local transgressor to flee for his life. Bunting however isn't satisfied with this small victory, holding court with his mates and hangers on he proclaims himself the paladin of the suburbs, and in a very creepy way he asks the fellow drinkers and revellers at his parties to describe what they'd do to the pedos and queers, subsequently almost physically relishing in the verbal cruelty of their responses. Psychologically fractured after being abused by the neighbour and his half brother Jamie falls under the spell of Buntings affection, and soon he is the coerced accomplice in a spree of abominable proportions….
With such grievous subject matter you'd expect Snowtown to be a sour, challenging and somewhat depressing experience and you'd be absolutely dead right. It's a heinously strong debut from video director graduate Justin Kurzel, invested with a perpetually overcast squalor courtesy of cinematographer Adam Arkapaw (who also lit Animal Kingdom interestingly enough), its less the sickening bursts of violence that turns the stomach its more the pervasive atmosphere of hopelessness and dread that permeates the film, it's a very claustrophobic experience with the constant threat of violence lurking at the flicker of every frame. Daniel Henshall's turn as the vile Bunting is truly terrifying, he's like a Toby Jug with rabies whom is affable and buoyant one moment, before exposing a bottomless gulf of vicious sadism the next, like a one man tabloid campaign he's like the Daily Fail personified in a densely compacted build of hatred, ignorance and bullying violence. Newcomer and first time actor Lucas Pitaway pulls off a remarkable coup, garnering sympathy and horror alike as he is slowly enveloped in Buntings sadism, there's something of a young Heath Ledger about him (both physically and charismatically), as even when he snaps and his psychosis is fully obscured by Buntings poisonous orbit he kills more out of kindness than vindictiveness, not to mention his sexual abuse victim status throwing a moral shadow across his actions. The decision to frame the whole movie through Jamie's eyes as opposed to a police procedural works wonders, with no key heroic figure of authority to align ourselves with our empathy immediately latches onto Jamie, a uncomfortable switch to a man who is worthy of a shred of sympathy but who is also instrumental in some horrendous acts of violence.
There's an unusual obsession with food in the film, as many scenes are constructed around the dinner table or food preparation, perhaps signalling one of the few moments of family cohesion or more depressingly perhaps the only highlight of the day as the kids and adults trudge remorselessly through a repetitive dirge toward a squalid and increasingly hopeless future. I must be totally desensitized by now because I didn't find the violence that harrowing* unlike the dozen or so people who left the screening as the film unspooled, indeed as is always the case the vast majority of ferocity is implied and is inflicted off-screen, and I initially wondered if the BBFC didn't get their draconian scissors an airing. But no, it appears they didn't, and quite honestly a subsequent viewing of the vomit inducing Drive Angry 3D the next evening left me far more shaken and distressed with its truly horrendous wallow in multiple homicides, all presented with a demented glee that has one praying for a cleansing nuclear conflagration. Snowtown is a challenging, uncomfortable and despairing work, but those with the requisite constitution will come away admiring a powerful and dare I say it orchestrated piece of work, with both actors and director as future talents to watch.
*Well, OK, the bit with the toe was a bit fucking harsh….
Skyrim Slave
I know, I know, it's been quiet around here recently. Well, I and colleagues are in the midst of a critical period at work which has involved some precarious negotiations (and the attendant long hours), more importantly this came out at the weekend and I am thoroughly addicted;
I haven't got my teeth into an utterly riveting, sandbox game since Red Dead Redemption but Skyrim is another injection of digital heroin that can easily absorb a couple of ten-hour sessions over a weekend, especially given the increasingly ominous weather which posits an outside sojourn as tenuous at best. This comes at an interesting time in terms of my reviewing commitments, I do have a couple of things in the pipeline, I've just revised a previous review, I did manage to drag myself away from the console to see Snowtown last weekend ( I hesitate to use the word 'good' but its an assured piece of work) and I also have the BFI Halloween trilogy to finish. I kind of wish it was a quieter time of year if I'm honest, I didn't manage to see this, this is out this coming weekend and is supposed to be terrific then Hugo is out the week after then a certain prequel hits the week after that – gimme a break, huh? Still, Christmas beckons and I'm definitely going away again, I just need to confirm if I'm jetting East or West out of the country come mid- December. In the interim you may recall I expressed surprise at some audio of Stanley discussing The Shining being broadcast on Movie Geeks United, well they actually got in touch and gave me a welcome referral;
Thanks guys, plenty of YT links to follow from that – it looks like a new Italian documentary is out there in the wild and must be acquired. Anyway, I'll be back before the end of the week with another review. Promise. As long as I'm not tempted to just watch the world go by;
Alien Resurrection (1997)
Let me be upfront about this gentle reader, I tried my best to approach Alien Resurrection with an open mind, I really did. I've seen the film maybe once since its initial cinema outing in 1997 and I distinctly remember feeling sorely cheated and throughly unimpressed on first absorption, in particular the terrible iteration of the titular creature toward the end of the film heralding a rock bottom low in the DNA of the franchise. After the lacklustre critical reaction and more crucially the sharp decline in box office returns mustered byAlien 3 I had to give the producers some kudos for what on paper this could have been an interesting direction for the series, committed as they were to a hot new genre writer – Joss Whedon* – and retaining a solid commitment to visually arresting helmsmen, in this case the Gallic provocateur Jean-Pierre Jeunet who was a hot property after the success of Delicatessen and his follow-up The City Of Lost Children. Sigourney was lured back with a lucrative cheque and a genre attuned cast was assembled (no pun intended), including the likes of Ron Perlman, Dan 'Wolfman' Hedaya and Brad Dourif, not to mention the surprise casting of Winona Ryder whose star has waned somewhat over the past 15 years, but in 1997 she was at the height of her geek seducing powers – witness the equal billing on the poster. But where did it all go so wrong?
To continue the rigorous compliance of this pet project I opted again for the directors cut of the film and this was the first time I'd ingested it, and boy did that not improve the experience. These iterations of a movie can pollinate new facets and ideas that the filmmakers originally had, it can provide insights into abandoned concepts or deepen the thematic concerns of a vision hampered by time and budgetary constraints, in the case of Alien Resurrection I have to say that this version is ever worse that the standard cut, with an unnecessarily tacked on holocaust earth ending – complete with cliché abandoned world-famous landmarks – redundant, immaterial inserts to existing scenes and a horrible, sub-par direct to DVD opening which is a cheaper than a pound shop discount sale. Like Ripley I think I must regard myself as something of a survivor after clambering through roughly fifteen hours of documentaries, featurettes and interviews throughout the whole gnashing quadrilogy , and as per the hosts pedigree the quality of those elements for Resurrection is also inferior, with not a great deal of insight into the projects genesis, evolution or expulsion, apart from one lengthy piece on the construction of perhaps the films only really successful flourish – but we'll come back to that.
I'll start with some its strengths before we descend to the brimstone depths, as you'd expect from Jeunet the film does have an dementedly quirky, loose and breezy future steam-punk aesthetic which is nervously captured by the glutinous photography of DP Darius Khonji, it brings to mind the Victorian stylistics of a diluted Jules Verne funnelled through the clockwork, metronome beats that Jeunet excels at with his humorous, distinctive montage flourishes. The use of distorting, wide angled lenses also betrays an instinctive grasp of the hybrid genre and its visual grammar, with the hexagonal corridors being probed by a prowling camera, and the tempered design does seem to acknowledge a future world that has advanced beyond in years beyond the designs of Alien III. There is also one sequence that I'd mark out for distinction, the underwater chase at the start of Act 3 gives the xenomorphic critters a new environment to infect and the introduction of the membrane covered 'air pocket flanked by eggs' set piece is a nice touch, the sequence also has a historical element in that it's probably one of the last pre-CGI physical element shoots with real actors, actress and stunt-people in a genuine multi-million gallon water tank – more here – before the digital specialists came in and made the Health and Safety executives happy and the aquatic celluloid daredevils out of work. Titanic was to come two years later of course but I'm guessing that that behemoth was the near swan song of such practical expertise, as the new decade ushered in the CGI revolution. Consequently the chase and frenzied scramble up to safety has an aura of weight and dread in its execution, and marks the only really exciting thrill packed contraction of the movie – I'd provide a link but there is sod all permitted excerpts on the YT I'm afraid. The aliens sacrificing themselves to escape via their acidic blooded shows some intelligence and the early montage of Ripley's clone moving from chrysalis to birth is also paced and scored well, but that's about it.
The major problems in Alien Resurrection boil down to those usual ingredients that always prove so elusive to secure in a qualitative sense – characters, plot and narrative. The group dynamics that Whedon seemed to excel at in Buffy, Firefly and Angel are absent here, with a rag-tag crew bereft of amusing quips, compelling attributes or any sense of a measured group ensemble although I guess some of them have some unique weapons if that's your sort of thing. There are no definitive stakes at play as the anti-heroes meet their fate, a problem mirrored with the corporation crew who are unsympathetic corporate drones, not even a leaden Winona can save proceedings who is so obviously (gasp!) an android from the opening frames that you wonder why they bothered as this human / alien function of the milieu is not explored. This is compounded by the films biggest problem, the explanation and inflection of Ripley as an Alien chromosome clone, thus rendering her as an aloof super heroine with no empathy emanating from the screen – you don't care she's back, neither does she, and there is no character arc. I appreciate that after jumping into a molten industrial smelter in Alien III the scriptwriting department would face some significant problems terms of convincingly resurrecting her, but apart from some time travel machinations I can't think of a more lazily inspired solution other than 'err, she's a clone?' spit-balled solution. Clumsy, unironic dialogue exchanges along the quality of 'Don't make me do this?' to which the retort is 'Don't make me make you do this?' doesn't exactly help matters.
The film evidently had some problems when Jeunet was brought aboard as the budget was incrementally shaved leading to the loss of some potentially imaginative scenes (a fight through an Silent Running inspired eco-dome, that opening pull-back montage that lightly mocks the likes the SF 'epic' pomposity of the Star Wars opening for example) but if the production wasn't slightly curtailed and improvised solutions weren't executed on the spot then it wouldn't really be an Aliens film now would it? In simple, direct terms the twisted elegance, the sleek style and visceral bite of the first two movies, taken on either a pure horror or action movies basis is sorely lacking in Alien Resurrection. It's the same breathless meander through a smoke choked bulkheads with characters we care nothing about, there are no new thematic threads to follow and even simple inversions like the ship's computer gender switch from 'Mother' to 'Father' seem forced and lazy. The film has the ambience of standard fare SF studio films like Event Horizon or any Stallone or Schwarzenegger tent-pole piece of the Nineties, with no alien habitat to explore and the same dark chases through bulkheads and strobe lit corridors is just so tired by 1997, but then as the film moves out of its second act chase structure and accelerates up to the final dénouement on the escape ship we finally see the real stupidity on offer. There is no real contextually, the narrative is not taken into any particularly new thematic territory concerning parental fears, sex and death, birth and pregnancy or any other strand you can extrapolate from the other franchise entries, what we get in Alien Resurrection is some reborn alien 'daughter' of Ripley which looks terrible, in a plot strand not even activated until into deep into the film, which subsequently concludes on a shoddy anticlimax containing the worst prosthetics of the series – whoever signed off that final creature design needs to take a one way jaunt through the nearest airlock. Yuck.
So that's that, I can finally wash my hands of all this gelatinous slimy detritus and move onto pastures new for 2012, it's not so much that I disliked Alien Resurrection its more that I was very very disappointed, like a harassed parent scolding an itinerant runt. Jeunet was potentially a great choice – Danny Boyle was also on the shortlist at one point which could have been interesting – but he doesn't seem to care in the final product or the numerous featurettes on the disks, when you consider that some of Mobius designs informed the genesis of the project it could have come a full gallic circle but here we are. Still, in terms of one of the best Blu-Ray box sets out there I can't recommend the Quadrilogy enough, two terrific films and exemplars of the genre, two mis-steps with some intriguing elements, and an overwhelming background of DNA to each of the episodes incubations, insertions and explosions which should keep even the most ravenous cinephile sated. On a final charming note I have to say that Producer David Giler come across as a total fucktard throughout all eight hours of background material - I'm annoyed to see him on the credits of Prometheus I have to say - but let's hope that Ridley's return to the SF genre matches the lofty expectations, more on this with the annual round-up and look forward to next years potential cinematic treats. Speaking of which what's next years side project I hear you ask? Well, I've mulled over a few potential series for 2012, I even got a request to do the Three Colours Trilogy which has been superseded by this, but I always had a pockmarked ace up my sleeve, all together now 'WHAAH A WHAAH A WHAAH -WUR WA WA….'
*I quite like Joss Whedon and he has his acolytes, but when people talk of The Avengers naturally being brilliant because he's occupying the directors chair they really need to take another look at this runt.
The Devils (1971) Strikes Back
Some interesting blasphemy from the BFI today, they are finally unleashing DVD print of Ken Russell's butchered 1971 film The Devils which caused quite the religious controversy over forty years ago;
I'm not a particularly big fan of the film, I've only seen the cut version once but it's certainly worth a couple of hours of your time if you're in the mood for Ken during his most outrageous and consequently most interesting period. Speculation mounted that this announcement would herald the lifting of a notorious ban but alas it's not the case, it's not been re-submitted to the BBFC and no cinema release is possible as they don't hold the rights – Kermode must be gutted. It's interesting to absorb from a UK censorship perspective though, I won't exactly be loading it up on the Amazon Wish List but I'm sure I'll get round to another viewing at some point next year.
In other news the Kubrick series gets to The Shining with a 3 hour podcast that is throughly exquisite, including some audio of Stan talking about the design of the film that I've never heard before – where the fuck did they source that from? I'm almost positive that it's not in the Making Of Documentary so I'm simultaneously bewildered and bewitched – good work guys – even if you do give airtime towards the end to the conspiracy Moon landing conspiracy mentalists…
The Adventures Of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn (2011)
Like many I've been mildly perturbed and amused by the Guardian newspapers bizarre vendetta against Steven Spielberg's latest project, his first punt into the virgin waters of motion capture film-making, grappled on to the swashbuckling activities of a strawberry blond quiffed journalist in the early 20th century – The Adventures of Tintin. Spielberg picked up the rights to Herge's popular creation back when he was shooting Temple of Doom, perhaps as a second generation template of his and George Lucas's tribute to the Republic serials of the 1930's, thwarted in his vision for the franchise in the intervening years due to the constraints of an accursedly primitive rendering technology. The breakthroughs of Avatar and the digital prowess of Peter Jackson's WETA SFX studio have now made these dreams a reality, as a whole new casket of digital treasures has been unleashed, enabling the reproduction of fully realised digital worlds on modest production stages, which had Steve jetting down to New Zealand in early 2010 to regain his purely glittering entertainment mojo after a decade of more serious, more adult projects. Some complain that this trend toward the fully artificial is extracting the soul and vitality of these tent-pole productions – a view I'm not averse to in the light of Lucas's artificially bland Star Wars prequels (although a script, acting, passion, excitement, ingenuity and sense of narrative might have helped) and other ersatz chores from the likes of his acolyte Robert Zemeckis – but although it gets off to a limp start this new vanguard of 21st century mass market cinema has some promising possibilities when manipulated by a true master of his species of film, the fantasy action spectacular.
Tintin is the story of an intrepid journalist cum adventurer, an inquisitive sort who battles with international counterfeit rings and nefarious criminal masterminds, whilst excavating ancient treasures and arcana in an early 20th century setting replete with stealthy pickpockets, dunderheaded goons, secret legends and precious heirlooms, with his faithful wire-haired fox terrier Snowy as his constant, loyal companion. Adapting one of the early tales in the canon The Secret of The Unicorn is one part franchise introduction and one part Mo-Cap showreel, as the titular explorer (Jamie Bell) purchases an impressive Galleon model which leads him on an adventure on land and sea, through deserts and docks, populated with a menagerie of Herge's creations including the bumbling Thompson Twins (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost), two ineffectual Scotland Yard detectives and more importantly the rum soaked Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) who surfaces as the central character of the film. The galleons secrets reveal a treasure map to Haddock's ancestors pirate hoard and the trio are soon on the hunt, but other flagitious forces are also in play, as the moustache twirling villain Ivanovich Sakharine (Daniel Craig, muted) emerges from the shadows as Haddocks historical nemesis. Ancient enmities are illuminated , shivers are timbered, as the gang of plucky heroes battle the foreign defilers of gentlemanly conduct….
In terms of some personal context let's get a few things out of the way. As much as I am a big fan of Spielberg and have seen every film of his at the flicks since Schindler's List (well, OK, apart from Amistad so I dodged that bullet eh?) the early glimpses of this did not seduce me, I thought it looked like a horrible CGI cluster-fuck populated with glassy-eyed mannequins that would distract mightily from the potential swashing of buckles. I read the Tintin books as a kid and enjoyed them (if memory serves this was my favourite, typical SF nerd eh?) but then I grew up and forgot about them, I've got nothing against a wispy nostalgia for ones youth but this whole cult of aged fanboys wailing at the audacity of a 21st century port from one communication model to another, from page to celluloid, really need to take a good, long, hard look at themselves in the mirror and ask if there aren't some slightly more important things to get fucking worked up about in the world. Um, anyway, as the mildly evocative Catch Me If You Can titles dissolved to the digital playground of Herges imagination I was not initially impressed, the visual texture is glorious (close-ups on characters faces reveal indentations in the skin and convincing hair, that glassy-eyed facsimile problem is mostly mastered) but the first hour of the film feels uncertain and glitchy, although Spielberg has the confidence to launch straight into the world without wasting time on origin stories or needless exposition the storytelling is uninvolving and rather staid, and quite frankly after a gruelling day at the cliff-face of local government I was struggling to stay conscious.
But as the adventure deepens and the narrative requirements of introducing the arcana's denizens are surpassed – the Thompson Twins (pretty annoying and unfunny despite Pegg and Frost in the digital chassis) and Captain Haddock (Serkis is the Mo-Cap god-king) - the film gets much more confident, it shifts up through its stuttering gears, and soon we're careening around the globe with some beautifully crafted transitions and throughly exciting set-pieces, including a fantastic flashback to Haddocks and Red Rackham's ancestral pirate battles, an amusing problem with a sea planes rotor blades (reminiscent of this) and a wonderful chase involving a hawk, a rocket launcher, a tank and a parchment. I'm not sure if the film was assembled in sequence but that's the ambience, as Spielberg's dexterous camera plunges through and around the kinetic canvass, it's a dizzying rollercoaster which disinfects the previous tedium. With a screenplay forged from a triumvirate of geek cred, including the Whovian favourite Steven Moffat, Attack The Block's Joe Cornish and Edgar Wright (too many citations to mention) the visual gags get more effective and finessed (I'm certain there is a host of in-jokes that went over my head), although the film needed a much more threatening villain to really elevate the stakes – more Toht and Ram next time around please - as incompetent henchmen should have really been beheaded with a casual wickedness by Sakharine to really impregnate the danger*. Personally speaking I also have a problem with Tintin himself, as a character he's a rather bland fortune hunter, more an insufferably posh, know it all gap-year speculator, like I said it's much more Haddock's film as his families quest eclipses the trustafrian's globetrotting escapades. It's not a fantastic film but once it accelerates into gear Tintin's charm and proficiency won me over, and the technological delivery method eventually suits the material, it seems that contrary to some opinions that there's life in the Spielberg sexagenarian 'old dog' yet;
*I know, I know, yes it's a kids film and that level of nastiness isn't in the source text but I think it would have made things more memorable and exciting, if delivered appropriately…..
11-11-11 (2011) Trailer
Anyone know when this is out?
OK, OK, cheap excuse for a post gag – and a poor one at that. I apologise, and I don't really have any interest in Hollywood's obsession with numerical palindromes. Tintin review up tomorrow, it was s'alright. In other news this is fun, with the Predator review being particularly amusing from a nostalgia perspective – comments thread included.
Contagion (2011)
In 1918, fresh from the horrors of the great war, humanity found itself reeling under the effects of a global pandemic of influenza, an outbreak of so-called Spanish flu which is estimated to have slain anything from 50 to 100 million souls almost a century ago. A repeat of this horrific scenario is the central gesundheit of Steven Soderbergh's latest film Contagion, as many of the miracles of 21st century life come to represent its greatest threat, with an interconnected, globalised world and it's dense and proficient transport infrastructure, its porous borders and unregulated, relentless hunger for communication accelerate the potential for a planet wide medical catastrophe intensified with a pandemic of panic, as the one of the greatest nightmares of the new century comes to fruition. They say that man is a mere three square meals from anarchy but this is not a proposition that is particularly tested in this curiously aseptic film, as Soderberegh with his screenwriter Scott Z. Burns (The Informant!, The Bourne Ultimatium) have opted for a quietly realistic portrayal of society in potential free-fall, as the disease spreads and the infected splutter the narrative darts between the lives of various people stratumed throughout the food-chain, from the average joe to the senior scientists, as a remedy is sought by the global intelligentsia.
Adulteress insurance agent Beth Emhoff (a snivelling Gwyneth Paltrow) is on business in China, after returning home with a rising temperature and flu-like symptoms she is rushed to hospital by her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) where she promptly dies of unexpected causes. Soon her death is being mirrored across the globe, from the business tracts of Bejing to the suburbs of Philadelphia people are dropping dead from a highly contagious epidemic and the scientists and public health officials seem powerless to dilute the virus's spread. Public health specialist Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) makes a heroic effort to isolate the source of the pandemic whilst contracting the illness, much to the concern of her boss Dr. Cheever (Lawrence Fishbourne). Meanwhile European epidemic boffin Dr. Orantes (Marion Cotillard) travels to Hong Kong in order to investigate the scene of the first recorded outbreak, prompting tourism fears from the foolish, shortsighted local authorities. A conspiracy theorist blogger asserts that the disease is government manufactured and that he can offer a cure (Jude Law with a ridiculously unnecessary accent), and local virologists improvise potential cures, offering themselves as desperate guinea pigs as the death toll rises and civilisation starts to teeter on the brink of total collapse.
Supposedly Soderbergh's penultimate film before he hangs up his monocle, Contagion recalls the 1970′s disaster films with its star-studded cast of international famous faces, globetrotting travelogue and disarming trust of the government and medical institutions to hold the public's safety in the highest regard, when the contemporary trust of our rulers and the governing elites at an all time low it's almost quaint in its central philosophy of good people and efficient institutions struggling in the face of disaster, with the all prevailing power of science and man-made ingenuity able to make amends. As you'd expect from a film-maker of the quality and calibre of Soderbergh it is a well-made, mostly compelling film but it does lack a certain something, there is no overall sense of a true catastrophe or virulent global epidemic, and the film hops from one character thread to another, never fully engaging in anything than a surface glance at its myriad characters. In tandem with this approach the cast are all fine with the exception of Jude Law who feels utterly superfluous, his entire character could have been neutralised from the film and we'd be none the wiser, and perhaps Damon stands out as a slightly more rounded schlub, anxious to protect his daughter from even the merest hint of infection. Soderbergh's favoured colour palettes (as usual he acts as his own cinematographer under the pseudonym Peter George) are crisply anemic in one sequence then golden warm in another, and a seething, burpy electronica score shows just how popular Trent Reznor's Oscar-winning The Social Network soundscapes has been in already infecting the Hollywood scoring chambers. Contagion starts stronger than it ends, with some ludicrous and unearned character choices signalling a deteriorating ailment assaulting its nervous system – how some characters react to certain developments is throughly perplexing - and although it is not a film to be sniffed at this is not a strain of movie that requires inoculation. And with that clumsy sentence I'm off to get a shot….
LFF#12 Into The Abyss
In the context of the capital punishment debate the name 'Perry' invokes memories of Truman Capote's novella In Cold Blood, the acclaimed 1966 meld of journalism and literature which covered the brutal execution of the Clutter family at the hands of two criminal drifters Richard Hickcock and Perry Smith, both of whom went to the gallows three years later on a frigid and wintry November morning. In his latest documentary Werner Herzog treads similar ground to Capote with his latest documentary Into The Abyss, an autopsy of the state execution of Michael Perry, a death row denizen convicted of a horrific triple homicide in Conroe, Texas. Along with his possible accomplice Jason Burkett (who managed to get his conviction reduced to a life sentence) both individuals deny their primary involvement in the horrendous crime, apparently committed in order to steal a car from the home of a middle class family in a local gated community. After the woman of the house was shot dead the duo then kidnapped the families teenage son and his friend as they exited the enclave, as potential whistleblowers they were led into some undergrowth some miles from the original killing before being executed by moonlight, their uninterred bodies discovered some days later by a local dog-walker. Where Capote almost seemed to sympathize with his subject, fostering a sense of empathy with Hickcock and more importantly Smith and his traumatized upbringing Herzog takes a distanced approach and lets the facts speak for themselves, opting for an almost sociological view of the criminals and the emotional fallout suffered by the victims surviving relatives, an appreciation of criminality as a societal product spawned by economic and cultural conditions, rather than any notion of an intrinsic set of skewed morals or an evil disposition.
It's an interesting approach which unfortunately doesn't quite gel and the film loses significant focus as it progresses, with a muddled ideology that is difficult to ascertain other than the universally accepted (well, apart from the spittle flecked right-wing mentalists) truth that the death penalty is morally repugnant, that it does nothing in the way of deterrence, that is based on some questionable notion of state sanctioned revenge and the prospect of innocents being killed through corrupt or warped convictions surely disintegrates any claim for advocacy by any reasonable minded adult. After the criminal scenario is established through the documentarian interviews of talking heads of the victims extended families and a visit to the scene of the crimes (including some eerie police footage of the domicile with lights and TV blazing 48 hrs after the killing, like some domestic Marie Celeste) Herzog seems uncertain in what he's trying to achieve with this piece, and the result is somewhat muddied and perplexing. Like some sort of bizarro world sniffer dog his ability to divine the oddballs of the world are present and correct, in this case the unusual phenomenon of the women who fall in love with death row prisoners, or the sister of one of the victims who reels off a litany of death, suicide, fatal health conditions and accidents which have struck down just about everyone in her extended family, or perhaps most arrestingly the former death row warden turned campaigner against the process in one of the films more moving sequences are all intriguing and memorable characters, but these are the only scattered highlights in a rather lacklustre, scattershot affair. The differing recollections of Perry and Burkett of what actually occurred is not satisfactorily investigated, and a balanced debate from those whom support the penalty is severely lacking (I think you have to let people air these odious and incorrect views so they can be properly discredited), with such a potent and emotive subject matter you'd expect a far more involving and moving result which is sadly not the case. Herzog touches on the notion of a cycle of incarceration and poverty potentially being passed from father to son, a sort of poisonous genetic curse which is worthy of debate but not fully exhumed, even as we slowly learn the family background of Burkett (whose father is serving a life sentence for drug dealing and violence) you realise his chances were somewhat compromised, yet the elements of free will, of choice or any sort moral precepts are not activated in what you'd expect from Herzog's usual robust intellectual flair. A mis-fire then in relation to some of his recent non-fiction – if you haven't seen Cave Of Forgotten Dreams yet then you need to treat yourself – but then again it won the best LFF documentary prize so I clearly don't know what I'm talking about;
Phew, so that's the LFF for another year. It's taken me much longer than anticipated to finish off these reviews, in my defence you try delivering the most successful business conference in the region whilst being in the midst of re-profiling your £7 million EU programme in a fraction of the time required for such complexity whilst maintaining your sanity, as well as beginning to plan for numerous other developments you can see approaching on the horizon. Still, I managed fourteen films which translates roughly into a film a day, and I think I managed a good spread of material from the indie and mainstream US sectors, to the European fare, from a couple of documentaries to the highest quality indigenous UK offerings, including the likes of Shame, Kevin and my personal favourite Martha Marcy which will represented somewhere in the films of the year that I'm starting to put together.
Saruman Sings…
I'm revisiting the LOTR trilogy this weekend, so here is some fun;
It's scary to think that the trilogy is technically ten years old now give or take a few weeks. Fuck.
The Innkeepers (2012) Trailer
The only film I'm genuinely annoyed that I missed at Frightfest, this looks like great fun;
I've just realized that I missed my fifth birthday for the blog. I shall correct this with an extra special upcoming 700th post extravaganza, OK?
LFF#11 A Dangerous Method
When judged against his peers over recent years Canadian horror maestro David Cronenberg is the film maker who has undergone the most compelling metamorphosis. Where George Romero has suffered in a shambling quagmire offering increasingly putrid returns, where Wes Craven's chutzpah seems to have been slashed to pieces in an expired franchise, where John Carpenter seems to have hung up his monocle and is content to cash cheques from the increasingly inferior remakes of his works only Cronenberg seems to have evolved in an autumn period of work that has sublimated the flesh and the fury for the psychological study, delving into the minds of his subjects rather than spilling their guts, with a cast list of many of the more daring and dangerous actors of the era.
In his latest film A Dangerous Method the origins of psychoanalysis are exhumed in what on paper would seem to be a perfect marriage of subject and celluloid therapist. Vienna, on the eve of the Great War, and the evolution of a nascent medicine known as psychotherapy is slowly accruing more academic prestige due to the breakthrough treatments of Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen). Some younger aspirants can see the potential of this radical break with traditional remedies and are developing their individual bespoke treatments of the sanity deprived, chief among them the ambitious young Dr. Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) who has recently acquired a distressed new patient Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) who has medical ambitions of her own, should her anxieties be relieved by these subversive new treatments. Jung, married into wealthy and respective society by a wife who seems more concerned with providing him a male heir than supporting his neurotic crusade soon finds himself embarking on a radical form of therapy with Sabina, igniting a sexual relationship and abandoning themselves to the earthly desires of the flesh that violate the decorums of polite society, a dangerous method that flirts with disaster.
During his introductory remarks to a matinée audience at this years LFF Cronenberg explained how his film was culled from the correspondence of the period (in a 20th century precursor to e-mail the great and good would write and receive letters a half dozen times a day) between the three main characters, all genuine historical figures, which he stated as fascinating insight into the period but not necessarily the foundations of a great film. It's a brave and honest admission, as A Dangerous Method is handsomely crafted with a fine appreciation of detail and place, but like much of Cronenberg's work over the past decade it's a sterile affair, an antiseptic dissection of the anxious birth of psychotherapy, orbiting the figurehead of Freud as a distant patriarch, with a miscast Mortensen whom is more novelty than Nouveau. Fassbender breaks a recent streak of powerful performances having little more to do than toy with his phallic pipe in some blankly staged scenes and Knightley is frankly embarrassing to observe in the early spasms of the movie, writhing with a physical and vocal dementia, before growing more certain in the role as her relationship with Jung intensifies. The film seems uncertain of its intentions and the result is a uninvolving, dullen affair, with only Vincent Cassell as something of a film stealer as the rogue seducer Otto Gross, an appropriately named psychiatric maverick who appears as a proto beatnik lovechild of Keith Richards and Jack Kerouac. A scene where Jung and Freud visit America to incubate the therapy movement, arguably a defining moment of the 20th century, is not mined for its historical caliber before the film limps to a dry and emotionally neutered conclusion. In his latest film the method is flawed in this aberrant , minor Cronenberg.


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Turquoise pleated bust party dress
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This turquoise party dress from Debut is styled in sheer chiffon with a pleats along the padded bust, adjustable shoulder straps, a sequinned empire line and a waterfall ruffle along the front.
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Lunch Tours
Sustainable Sack Lunches Provided
Saturday, September 21, 11:30 PM-2:45 PM; University Center S Ballroom
To enjoy the sunny (we hope!) Rocky Mountain weather we will offer a choice of four tours and exercises:
~Affordable Straw Bale Housing Tour and Project, with Dusty Szymanski, Executive Director, Community Rebuilds Central Rockies. For more information, please contact Dusty at email@example.com
~Coldharbour Sustainable Living Center Tour, with Dr. Brooke Moran, Western Faculty and Coldharbour Board Member. For more information, please contact Dr. Moran at firstname.lastname@example.com
~Gunnison Food Security Tour, with Ian Oster, Mt. Roots Community Food Project, please contact John at firstname.lastname@example.com
~Ecological Security Tour, with Dr. Jonathan Coop, Western faculty member. For more information please contact Dr. Coop at firstname.lastname@example.com


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There are park alerts in effect.
show Alerts »
Christmas Eve Hours
The Gateway Arch will close at 4:00 pm on December 24th and will reopen on December 26th at 9:00am. Enjoy the holiday.
The civilians who made the journey were primarily the guides and interpreters. Among the more well-known were Sacagawea, her husband Toussaint Charbonneau, their newborn son Jean Baptiste Charbonneau ("Little Pompey"), William Clark's black slave York, and an interpreter named George Drouillard (pronounced Drewyer). Sacagawea Toussaint Charbonneau Jean Baptiste Charbonneau York George Drouillard |
Did You Know?
The Museum of Westward Expansion at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial contains over 150 quotes from diaries, journals, letters and speeches. The designers of the museum felt the actual words of nineteenth century pioneers were the most powerful way to tell their story. Click to learn more. More...


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This book covers a variety of topics in mathematics as they relate to industrial technologies including manufacturing, electricity/electronics, graphics, communication, transportation, industrial management, materials and related science principles. Organized by topics, the main objective is to develop strong, logical problem-solving skills. A brief description of each math principle is presented with step-by-step examples. The explanations are designed to emphasize the correct use and application of math principles. Graphs, drawings and charts relating to the applications reinforce the use of the skills developed.
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Supporters Mourn Travyon's 18th Birthday
A group of supporters gather outside the Seminole County Courthouse on Feb. 5, Trayvon's 18th birthday. That same day, after months of back and forth between prosecutors and Zimmerman's defense, the judge denies Zimmerman's request to delay the start of his trial. A trial date has been set for June 10, 2013. (Photo: Courtesy of Martin Family)
Remembering the Victims of the Aurora Shooting Massacre 07/23/2012
America's Cities Are in Financial Peril 07/18/2013
Bring That Week Back: June 27 06/27/2012
Bring That Week Back: July 17 07/17/2012
And Another One: George Zimmerman's Legal Troubles 11/18/2013
Bring That Week Back: Mayor to Settle Central Park Five Suit 11/14/2013
BET Wire: Is There a Cure for Obamacare? 11/01/2013
Bring That Week Back: Al Sharpton Meets With CEO of Barneys 10/30/2013
Bring That Week Back: Malcolm X's House to Be a Landmark? 10/09/2013
Terrence J Hosts 100 Single Mothers at Disneyland 09/26/2013
Bring That Week Back: Homeless Man Gets New Home for Deed 09/10/2013
Bring That Week Back: Teen's Tech Business Worth Millions 09/05/2013
On the Scene: March on Washington 08/24/2013
20 Iconic Milestones in the Fight for Civil Rights 08/23/2013
Bring That Week Back: Police Presence at "The Butler" 08/21/2013
A Guide to the Game's Tattoos 08/20/2013
Celebrities Who Have Been Racially Profiled 08/15/2013
Trayvon's Father Named Honorary Football Captain at FAMU 08/13/2013
Celebrity Quotes: Nicki Minaj Blasts Alleged Ghostwriter 08/09/2013
Ted Nugent's Craziest Quotes 08/05/2013


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We've already seen a bunch of prettifiers for Safari, but here's a new one that… that… you just have to look at it. Pixel specialist Na Wong (artist profile) has hand crafted the most beautiful Google Reader restyling of modern times. Pure Reader.
Personally I never quite got into the whole "Helveti" trend, so I just ended up avoiding Google Reader on the web altogether. But this new extension… it… it recrafts Google Reader into an application, but at the same time not mimicking desktop UI.
It's free, it's awesome, it's here. And for those who don't use Safari for whatever reason, you can also grab the CSS file to style it your own way.
Pure Reader for Chrome
If you'd like to see this on Chrome, I've created a direct port of Na Wong's work. Download it (Updated to v1.4), use it, and while I'm not making any promises, I might even update it as and when updates come along. All credits Na Wong.


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I don't like him, but I'd take him, that would be a kind of player we need.
It's a thin line though. Over the past two seasons there were only eight teams which went over the threshold. (amount over in parenthesis) NBA Salary Cap FAQ
Knicks ($37.2), Mavs ($17.3), Magic ($7.8), Pacers ($4.7), Grizzlies ($3.7), Spurs ($0.9)
Knicks ($45.1), Mavs ($7.2), Nuggets ($2.0), T-Wolves ($1.0), Spurs ($0.2)
The only two teams that were successful when going over the threshold the past two seasons were Dallas and San Antonio. And San Antonio barely went over the threshold.
Most of the other six teams which went over the threshold suffered from fiscal irresponsibility, there was really no need for them to do so with the exception probably of Denver.
In Weeden We Trust


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This classified ad has expiredClick here to view current advertisements similar to this one.Online Pharmacy Technician Trainingand Orientation Course The training program will introduce students to the very basics of the pharmacy profession. The course consists of 5 modules: General Pharmacy Information Abbreviations Brand & Generic Drug Name Association Prescriber Handwriting Recognition Basic Self-Assessment Quiz Students will receive a Certificate of Completion on successful completion of the course. For more information and to start right now click on: Online Pharmacy Technician Trainingand Orientation Course | |||
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Joel Cohen uses the tools of mathematics to deconstruct questions of life.
Joel Cohen uses the tools of mathematics to deconstruct questions of life.
A century's worth of collected butterflies shed light on how climate change threatens the survival of early-emerging species.
The state assembles a task force to try to slow the growth of burgeoning populations of the ecologically destructive invasive species.
New evidence indicates that invasive Asian carp have bred in the Lake Erie basin.
The European Parliament rejected a proposal designed to fund the construction of new fishing boats, instead opting to fund a project that aims to curtail overfishing.
Ruth Patrick, who pioneered freshwater pollution monitoring, has passed away at age 105.
Researchers have detected the fungus responsible for white-nose syndrome, which decimates bat populations, in Arkansas.
Military bunkers along the US East Coast may serve as sterile overwintering sites for bat populations threatened by white-nose syndrome.
Inside the Cold War bunker where wildlife biologists tried to create a safe haven for bats at risk of contracting a deadly fungal disease
Bottlenose dolphins can recognize and respond to their own "signature whistles," strengthening the evidence that these whistles function like names.


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Domani Motor Cars is thrilled to present this replica creation, a 1955 Porsche 356 Speedster! Finished in Black over Beige interior. This Speedster... More
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A rare find with only 50K miles,non smoker with Books and Manual. The6 speed manual "S" Model is the one to own and drive... More
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One of Chuck Beck's early production replica spyders out of his Upland California factory, fully optioned with a Pat Downs CB Performance 2175cc VW... More
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Noisy fridge. Hard to be understood from waiter. Fast food takes 20 minutes.No coffee. And finally pricey.
Noisy fridge. Hard to be understood from waiter. Fast food takes 20 minutes.No coffee. And finally pricey.
very informal, good food, great pizza, good family atmosphere
Went on a quiet week night. Service was prompt and friendly. Pizzas are pretty good value, and the standard red wine was reasonable.
I live in the area and have been ordering take out from this place at least once a month for the past year. I can count on one hand the number of times my order was property done. And none of the orders are complicated. The last straw for me was ordering a pizza. At the time of order I... More
Great restaurant!! Pizza is truly the best ever! Donairs awesome...service from Lori was amazing she is great at her job! Ignore the old comments or you will seriously miss out!
The Bacon Double Cheese burger pizza is fantastic and only take 30 mins for a pick up. Best Pizza in Town.
Nothing worse than waiting forever for terrible food. Awful understaffed service. My spaghetti was cold, bland and tasted like dish soap when it eventually arrived after close to an hour after ordering. Pizza was subsandard and cold. Beverage glasses had dried food on them. The final straw was using the washrooms that, like another review has said, probably violate even... More
This was one of the worst experiences I have had at a restaurant. Absolutely terrible service, and although the restaurant was not busy (most tables were ordering drinks, not meals) our two meals took an hour to be served. When the food finally did come, my Irish Nachos were so over-cooked and burnt I could not eat them. I left... More
The service was pleasant. The food was good and reasonably quick.
Would love to support a family business. but there was nothing good about this place. Service was terrible (there was one waitress to work cash, serve and prep drinks during lunch) and only one person in the kitchen. The waitress came out with a klennex and was wiping her nose while taking our order and grabbing our menus. The bathrooms,... More
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affiliate marketing
In 325AD, Constantine the Great, the first Christian Roman emperor, introduced Christmas as an immovable feast on 25 December. He also introduced Sunday as a holy day in a new 7-day week, and introduced movable feasts (Easter).
In 354AD, Bishop Liberius of Rome officially ordered his members to celebrate the birth of Jesus on 25 December. However, even though Constantine officiated 25 December as the birthday of Christ, Christians, recognizing the date as a pagan festival, did not share in the emperor's good meaning. Christmas failed to gain universal recognition among Christians until quite recently. In certain Protestant areas the celebration of Christmas was even banned. In England, Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas festivities between 1649 and 1660 through the so-called Blue Laws, believing that Christmas should be a solemn day. When many Protestants escaped persecution from the Catholic Church by fleeing to the colonies all over the world, interest in joyous Christmas celebrations was rekindled. Still, Christmas was not even a legal holiday until last century. And, keep in mind, there was no Father Christmas (Santa Claus) figure at that time.
The popularity of Christmas was spurred on in 1820 by Washington Irving's book The Keeping of Christmas at Bracebridge Hall. In 1834, Britain's Queen Victoria brought her German husband, Prince Albert, into Windsor Castle, introducing the tradition of the Christmas tree and carols that were held in Europe to the British Empire. A week before Christmas in 1834, Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol (in which he wrote that Scrooge required Cratchit to work, and that the US Congress met on Christmas Day). It was so popular that neither the churches nor the governments could not ignore the importance of Christmas celebrations. In 1836, Alabama became the first state in the US to declare Christmas a legal holiday. In 1837, T.H. Hervey's The Book of Christmas also became a best seller. In 1860, American illustrator Thomas Nast borrowed from the European stories about Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children, to create Father Christmas (Santa Claus). In 1907, Oklahoma became the last US state to declare Christmas a legal holiday. Year by year, countries all over the world started to recognize Christmas as the day for celebrating the birth of Jesus. According to Daniel Boorstin in his book The Americans, Christmas was largely a non-event in America until the 1860s. 1867 was the first year that Macy's department store in New York City remained open until midnight on Christmas Eve. 1874 was the year of the first window displays with a Christmas theme at Macy's. It has snowballed from there.
The custom of sending Christmas cards started in Britain in 1840 when the first 'Penny Post' public postal deliveries began. (Helped by the new railway system, the public postal service was the 19th century's communication revolution, just as email is for us today.) As printing methods improved, Christmas cards were produced in large numbers from about 1860. They became even more popular in Britain when a card could be posted in an unsealed envelope for one half-penny - half the price of an ordinary letter.
Birth of Jesus
In the western world the birthday of Jesus Christ has been celebrated on December 25th since AD 354, partly to replace the pagan worship that was commonplace in those days. However, we can be fairly sure that Jesus wasn't actually born on that date. (See also The History of Christmas) The Bible tells us that shepherds were staying out in the fields overnight when Jesus was born (Luke 2:8), but in that part of the world it would have been far too cold at night to do so in December. What is more likely is that He was born in the Spring, perhaps between March and May. Whatever the time of year, it is virtually impossible to identify the actual date. This situation is further complicated by the fact that the Christian scholar Dionysius Exiguus was asked by the Pope in AD 525 to calculate new cycles for fixing the date of Easter. However, he decided to base his calculations on the date of Jesus's birth. Unfortunately, it wasn't discovered until the 9th century that he got it badly wrong, by which time it was too late to change the calendar. He fixed the birth in the year 1 BC or AD 1 (Historians apparently can't agree which.) and began counting from the latter. But both earlier and later scholars agreed that Jesus was born at an earlier date. Indeed, it was eventually established that Herod the Great died in Spring of 4 BC. If Jesus had been born at the start of AD 1, as we currently have it, then Jesus would have been born some 4 or 5 years after Herod died. There is no way of accurately establishing the actual date of his birth, but it is most likely to have been between 5 and 6 BC. The important thing is that he was born, and his nominal birthrate of December 25th seems as good as any to celebrate his birth and his message. It also a wonderful catalyst for enjoying the precious and simple pleasures of being, if only for a brief time, close together in the warm familiarity of friends and family, renewing relationships and sharing memories.
From November onwards, it is impossible to forget that Christmas is coming. Colored lights decorate many town centers and shops, along with shiny decorations, and artificial snow painted on shop windows. In streets and shops, 'Christmas trees' (real or plastic evergreen 'conifer' trees) will also be decorated with lights and Christmas ornaments. Shopping centers become busier as December approaches and often stay open till late. Shopping center speaker systems systems will play Christmas 'carols' - the traditional Christmas Christian songs, and groups of people will often sing carols on the streets to raise money for charity. Most places of work will hold a short Christmas party about a week before Christmas. Although traditional Christmas foods may be eaten, drink (and plenty of it) means that little work will be done after the party! By mid-December, most homes will also be decorated with Christmas trees, colored lights and paper or plastic decorations around the rooms. These days, many more people also decorate garden trees or house walls with colored electric lights, a habit which has long been popular in USA. In many countries, most people post Christmas greeting cards to their friends and family, and these cards will be hung on the walls of their homes. In UK this year, the British Post Office expects to handle over 100 million cards EACH DAY, in the three weeks before Christmas. Traditionally, Christmas cards showed religious pictures - Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, or other parts of the Christmas story. Today, pictures are often jokes, winter pictures, Father Christmas, or romantic scenes of life in past times.
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After less than a year in operation, the Ridgepointe at Pineview retirement residence has been sold.
Chartwell Retirement Residences purchased the 109-suite facility in Sahali for $21.5 million.
But its tenants will notice no difference in lifestyle, said Donna Marasco, regional manager of operations at Chartwell.
"It's not going to change at all," she said. "What's in place will remain in place at this point, absolutely."
The services and activities provided through the facility will not change, nor will its staff, nor will the lease rates in the immediate future.
Chartwell representatives made that clear to residents during a meet and greet earlier this week, said Marasco.
Chartwell operates many similar facilities across the country, including the 97-suite Kamloops Renaissance in North Kamloops.
The Ridgepointe opened last year and is now only about 52 per cent occupied. But that wasn't a deterrent in the deal.
"The Kamloops market right now has a lot of new builds . . . for seniors to move into. So there's a little bit of a glut in the market for options so it takes a little longer to lease up a building," said Marasco.
But, she said, Kamloops has an excellent demographic for its needs since so many retirees choose to city as their home.
And that's why the potential for an 80- to 90-suite expansion made the acquisition that much more attractive.
"In part of the purchase of Ridgepointe we most certainly looked for opportunities in the future," said Marasco. "We would most certainly build out the rest of the building when the time is right to do so."
Chartwell has arranged a five-year mortgage at 3.65 per cent to pay for $11.8 million of the purchase price and the rest will be financed through a credit facility.


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KANGAR : RAJA of Perlis Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin Syed Putra Jamalullail has advised farmers, breeders and fishermen to make full use of Federal and state government aids to increase production and improve their socio-economic status at the same time.
Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin told them to adopt best practices and work ethics, use new technologies, make optimal use of land, market network install proper infrastructure and ultimately, deliver high-value products.
"We need to look at ways to inject greater dynamism and freshness into the growth and image of the agriculture sector.
"For example, in terms of technology, farmers can use seedlings developed through research and development (R&D) by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) and other agencies, while fishermen can also use new technology to increase fish landings. This will maximise their yields," he said in his speech at the state-level Farmers, Breeders and Fishermen Day, here yesterday.
Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin also urged farmers to discard the simple "plant, leave and reap" mentality.
"Success will not come to us if we sit and do nothing. We will have to find ways to ensure we are successful.
"Currently, one hectare can yield about four tonnes of padi but with high-quality hybrid padi species, the farmers can produce up to three times that," said Tuanku Syed Sirajuddin.
He said the respective government agencies should also have their staff observe, help and advise the farmers, breeders and fishermen so that they can enjoy better earnings, which is in accordance with the vision of Perlis becoming a developed state by 2015.
Meanwhile, Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Md Isa Sabu, in his speech said more than RM6.9 million had been allocated this year for agricultural development projects in the state, which will also contribute towards a higher income for farmers.
In the fishery sector, the state government and Malaysian Fisheries Development Board (LKIM) were working together to build a fish landing complex in Kuala Perlis -- a project that will at the same time turn the fishing village into an international fish landing port known as Kuala Perlis Maritime City.
Isa said the state government planned to increase the land for padi planting by 1,250ha to 12,250ha by 2020 and had last year invested more than RM4.3 million in building the infrastructure for the sector.