Pieces of a Man Think it. Do it. Be it. Embellish.

67.68.69.70.71.72.73.74.75.76 77.78.79.80.81.82.83.84.85.86 87.88.89.90.91.92.93.94.95.96 97.98.99.00.01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08

A couple of snaps from our little halloween party. To the left is dad tucking into teriyaki chicken, and below is Hana from down the street posing next to Yani's make-up doll, which has been given some fake blood for the occasion. There should have been many more snaps but it was a busy old night trying to keep order between hunt-the-pumpkin (i.e. tearing the garden to pieces) and apple bobbing (i.e. trying to drown each other).

The night ended in suitable Halloween fashion with a house full of fancy dress bats, ghosts, skeletons and witches all wailing and crying. It kicked off during the musical statues with a dispute over the winner that was resolved with axe (plastic, of course). Who needs monsters when you have 6 year-olds?

Spike Lee's Bamboozled (2002) is the cinematic equivalent of getting hit over the head with a baseball bat. It stops you in your tracks.

It involves a smart, slick, black TV exec who has to come up with something new and 'more black'. Intending to undermine his bosses intentions, he creates a Minstrel-type review called Mantan with every racist cliche you can imagine; blackface, slaves, watermelon patches and more. Unfortunately the show becomes a huge hit...

One of Lee's points is that black Americans are partly responsible for perpetuating racist stereotypes; I noticed that it was black audience members initially reacting positively to Mantan. Later on there's also a faux commercial for a liquor called 'Da Bomb'. Even the bottle is missile-shaped and the ad could easily be a gangster rap video with the hip-hop, bling and booty-shakin'. Spike takes aim and ... BOOM!

The most unsettling scene for me is a pastiche of cultural appropriation where the black warm-up MC, dressed as Uncle Sam, hops about amongst the significantly white audience - who by this point in the film are ALL coming to the show in blackface - theatrically screaming at each and savouring every syllable, "IS YOOOOOU A NIG-GERRRRR?". A middle-aged Jewish woman shrieks with delight as it drips from his lips; it's chilling. BOOM!

No other film I can immediately think of provokes fascination and discomfort in equal measure. Only Spike Lee could do this, and only Spike Lee could get away with it.

NB: Lee is planning a new documentary about the handling of Hurricane Katrina:

No stranger to controversy, Lee has already stated his suspicion that the authorities were somehow involved in the flooding.

Macdonalds is entering the DVD rental market with a plan to exploit it's existing infrastructure to offer very flexible pick up, payment and drop off at its restaurants. It clearly kicks Blockbuster into a cocked hat, but the question is whether the immediacy outweighs the greater flexibility of postal rental (ironic on this side of the pond that they have chosen the name RedBox for the McService).

New Scientist has a story on some research claiming that email forwarding is the modern equivalent of gift exchange, carrying with it the same social connontations;

Forwarding a genuinely amusing or interesting link to a friend, for example, shows that you are thinking of them and are aware of the sort of content they like. But passing an irrelevant or out-of-date link on to contacts can be annoying, thus lowering the sender's social status in the recipient's eyes. If they are consistently wrong about what content is of actual interest to recipients their reputation may drop.

Stirring stuff from our leader reported in the Pink Un;

Togetherness is an ideal we are striving for but its not just about being all pals together when the going is good, it's about supporting each other during the difficult times.

At least it's a little different to the cliched footballer bullshit we've had to put up with every week in the PinkUn recently; 'We've got to stand up and be counted (in the next game)', 'I'm raring to get out there and pay the fans back (in the next game)', 'I promise it not to do it again, Miss (until the next game)'.

Recently I got an email out of the blue from Sean Fraer, my old boss in Japan. He'd googled himself, found Isogloss and got in touch. It was great to reconnect and the memories of the early 90s flooded back.

I was in Norfolk that year and at a low ebb having not done much since university; between short term TEFL jobs, and wondering when life would start to happen.

Then, all of a sudden, I was heading off to the exotic East; Osaka was somewhere I'd heard of vaguely, but it might as well have been Mars. When I opened that job offer, it was one of the happiest moments in my life. A brand new start.

The following months were brilliant. Hours at Norwich library researching Japanese culture. Flying to Tokyo with Aeroflot. Immersed in a job I loved. Meeting loads of new people who were all as excited as me. Every day was an adventure - finding food, taking the subway, shopping, drinking; all of it full of fascination and revelation.

I live that vivid, glorious Autumn a little every day and it always make me smile. Cheers, Sean!

Today is week 3 of my film studies course at the Cornerhouse in Manchester. So far we've looked at mise-en-scene (picking apart the introduction to a Douglas Sirk film, All that Heaven Allows) and Auteur Theory (looking at Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho).

Tonight, however, is the first full course screening; Sam Peckinpah's Western, Ride the High Country. The 'homework' was to consider our expectations of the genre in advance of the screening, so I watched a Channel 5 stock western over the weekend to get the schema going;

SETTINGS

• One-horse town (saloon, hotel, barbershop)
• Ranch or farm
• US South-west/Mexico
• Fort
• Railroad
• Prairie, mountains, plains, desert
• Environment hostile and threatening

EVENTS

• Indian attack
• Chase
• Double-crossing
• Fistfight
• Shootout
• The ride west
• Gold rush

CHARACTERS

• Hero - male, white, 30s-40s, strong but silent, fights for good, brave, loner, itinerant, prevails through violence
• Villain - indians, outlaw dressed in black, landowners, bandits.
• Women - Good women: weak, pure, domesticated, needing protection, shown in soft focus. Bad women - town whore, busty, kind-hearted but immoral.
• Stranger in town
• Gambler
• Town drunk
• Sheriff
• Cavalry

THEMES

• Vengeance
• Justice
• Small man vs the government
• Good vs evil
• Threat of 'other' (e.g. indians)
• USA defending the world
• Moral decay
• Individualism
• Urban vs rural
• Modern vs traditional

Article in Wired about the growth of e-tutoring, whereby kids in the US are getting live school coaching from graduates in India

Koyampurath Namitha arrives for work in a quiet suburb of this south Indian city. It's barely 4:30 a.m. when she grabs a cup of coffee and joins more than two dozen colleagues, each settling into a cubicle with a computer and earphones. More than 7,000 miles away, 14-year-old Princeton John sits at his computer, barefoot and ready for his hourlong geometry lesson. It's called e-tutoring -- yet another example of how modern communications, and an abundance of educated, low-wage Asians, are broadening the boundaries of outsourcing and working their way into the minutiae of American life.

Sideways (2004) is a poignant mid-life crisis movie about growth and change, which sees college buddies Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church) on one last hurrah before Jack gets hitched. Intense Miles, preoccupied with a publisher's decision on his first novel and still unable to come to terms with a divorce, and is a dead-weight to care-free Jack, who's just desperate to get laid one last time. The ensuing problems bring to mind Swingers and are used as a means to explore the tensions that time bring to friendships of our youth. It's routine stuff - Jack's bravado is exposed, new hope suggests itself for Miles - and the romantic interest is rather weak, but nonetheless it's an occasionally touching excursion in the Napa Valley.

Wallace and Gromit's new feature-length smash, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, is a brilliant homage to classic horror from Hallam old boy Nick Park. It has simple narrative and slapstick for the kids, but it's also a sharp intertextual feast for grown-ups, referencing films like King Kong, The Fly and (of course) American Werewolf in London. I especially loved the angry Frankenstein mob of Northern villagers running around with pitchforks, led by the hysterical vicar. Another Oscar is in the post.

I don't know why I find this kind of thing interesting but... the Noguchi Filing System is an alternative to subject-based filing which automatically optimizes itself for putting most urgent documents closest to hand.

New documents (envelopes) are added at the left end of the "envelope buffer," and whenever a document is used (i.e., the envelope removed from the shelf), it is returned to the left end of the bookshelf. The result of this system is that the most recent (and frequently) used documents migrate to the left, while documents that are not used often or not used at all migrate to the right (and) can be removed and disposed or filed away in permanent storage (having much poorer accessibility).

James Earl Jones' reminiscences on the making of Dr Strangelove comment on the troubled working relationship of George C. Scott and Stanley Kubrick;

The irresistible force met the immovable object when Stanley asked George to do over-the-top performances of his lines. He said it would help George to warm up for his satiric takes. George hated this idea. He said it was unprofessional and made him feel silly. George eventually agreed to do his scenes over-the-top when Stanley promised that his performance would never be seen by anyone but himself and the cast and crew. But Kubrick ultimately used many of these 'warm-ups' in the final cut. George felt used and manipulated by Stanley and swore he would never work with him again.

This 2004 road movie from Walter Salles is apparently based on Ché Guevara's account of a trip he took in his 20s. Lush scenery, attractive protagonists and some amusing incidents and characters; I loved the dance parties in the villages. Where it falls short is in assumed knowledge of its subject. For example, Che and his pal turn up at a mine to harangue the bosses and demonstrate their evolving revolutionary credentials. Why? Who knows? We can fills in some gaps through the knowledge we bring, but we don't get much commentary. As in life and T-shirts, Ché Guevara probably remains an icon and a blank canvas for many.

Mark Kermode describes 'one of the most bizarre own goals in recent cinema history' ... Mario Van Peebles' admission that he was involved in a sex scene at about the age of 14 in his father Melvin's classic, Sweet Sweetback's Baad-Asssss Song. The film has now been censored. Doh!

A film of the James Herbert book, The Fog, is coming out soon (in the States at least). I read that book when I was about 14 and some images were burnt in my memory forever. I wonder, for example, if the movie will recreate the schoolkids hanging their teacher up on the bars of the gym and chopping off the part of him he'd need for making his own little future schoolchildren. I doubt it.

Roberto Benigni seems to be making a follow-up to the great Life is Beautiful. Again co-starring his wife, Nicoletta Braschi, The Tiger and the Snow is another comedy in an unlikely setting, this time present-day Iraq.

A photo-manipulation service for prisoners which can Photoshop couples into happier times;

Prisoners, Families and Friends... Are you tired of seeing you and your family in dozens of photos taken in the visiting room over the years, all with the same old boring visiting room backdrops? Children can show their friends 'dad' or 'mom', husbands and wives can take their loved one to work, and best of all... no more explaining where the photos were taken!

Consumerism; from the cradle to the grave. This morning Oscar captured the zeitgeist perfectly while waiting for Noddy;

Oscar (watching Lego ad): I want one of those.
Me: Why?
Oscar: I don't know. I just want one!

Update: Guardian article on the kids' advertising industry;

Today's average British child is familiar with up to 400 brand names by the time they reach the age of 10. Researchers report that our children are more likely to recognise Ronald McDonald and the Nike swoosh than Jesus. One study found that 69% of all three-year-olds could identify the McDonald's golden arches - while half of all four-year-olds did not know their own name.

The latest email from Planet Unison ...

... following a motion at a recent Branch Committee meeting, Aung San Suu Kyi has now been granted Freedom of the City of Sheffield.

Let's not hold our breath or get a round in. I wonder how much of my union subs this month will be going towards a champagne reception for her at Cutler's Hall?

Joy-to-stuff ratio (joy-too-STUF ray.shee.oh) n. "The time a person has to enjoy life versus the time a person spends accumulating material goods". This definition and others are on Word Spy, site devoted to new phrases such as; cyberbalkanisation, Hispanic paradox and debt porn.

What has become of OJ and the nation he divided? This is an article by Gary Younge which locates the trial and its aftermath at the intersection of black and white anger peculiar to the times.

Anna has started to knock her new blog, StarBelliedSeech.com, into shape. It's ironic that the first thing she did when I gave a quick tour of the control panel was to replace the customised, minimalist, Zen style that I'd slaved over with a big, flash Blogger template. Probably a good plan, though, and a reminder not to give up the day job. I also like the profile links to other blogs that get created when you go for the company look. Might have to plumb that in here somewhere when I have some play time.

This is more like it, a win at the Withdean without Dean, and a first reminder of the happy days of 2003-04, when away games were a walk in the park and footie was fun. Now the season's really started and I can look at the fixture list with intent rather than dread.

Got some new speakers yesterday and set them up bang in front of my treadmill. The woofer is six inches from the end of my nose, it's great. This morning's run just rattled by with Everything Must Go and Amplified slapping me in the face, a fine distraction from grumbling calves.

Now I'm planning an expansion of running tunes, particularly in the hip hop and heavy metal departments (ACDC is still the best running music I've ever come across). First on the list are Arular, Come and Get it and The Love Movement.

It's official - one month and not a drop of booze has passed my lips. The last beer I had was a warm Kronenburg in a Paris motel on August 31st, the day before we went to Disneyland. It hasn't been that difficult, to be honest, but Tuesday night, when Dad and Jon sat to my right with cold cans of Stella at the end of a very stressful day ... that was a real tester.

What now? Undecided whether to treat myself to a first-of-the-month beverage tonight or not. At stake is the chance to have a totally dry and self-satisfying October vs a piss-up to mark the first family get-together for ages (and it would have to be a piss-up to make it worthwhile breaking the fast). Mmmmm ... let's see how I feel later.

Update: I did it!

This is priceless. I posted a link a couple of months back to an article describing how trailers are nonsense, and how any film, no matter how crap, could be made to look interesting. On a similar tack, this guy in LA has cut a trailer for The Shining, only it makes it look a little different...

In his hands, it became a saccharine comedy about a writer struggling to find his muse and a boy lonely for a father. Gilding the lily, he even set it against 'Solsbury Hill', the way-too-overused Peter Gabriel song heard in comedies billed as life-changing experiences, like last year's 'In Good Company'.

Watch the trailer (.mov)

Update: Guardian Film article on how to manipulate a movie poster campaign when desperate for decent comments...