Author: Aaron

Review: THE THIN RED LINE

The Thin Red Line

Saving Private Ryan so thoroughly influenced action filmmaking that it’s easy to forget that not only wasn’t it the only war film released in 1998, it wasn’t even the best one. With each year, Spielberg’s war opus looks more dated, encumbered by its legendarily bad framing device and its inability to reconcile the numerous attitudes toward war into one coherent view of it.

By comparison, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line looks better than ever, and I’m not even talking about the DVD quality yet. Based on the book by WWII veteran James Jones, Malick’s film is one of the most honest ever made about the brutality of war. When soldiers are relieved of duty, they don’t make speeches about staying until the job is done; they make for the next boat out with scant hesitation. When a captain assures a sergeant that he’ll get a medal for his valor, the sergeant threatens to resign in protest if his actions are cheapened by a tacky piece of metal that will only remind him of the horror he witnessed in his duty.

Yet The Thin Red Line is also perhaps the most Romantic war film ever made. What sets it apart is that it never romanticizes war. Instead, Malick, that lover of nature, takes his graceful camera through the jungles of Guadalcanal (here played by several locations in Queensland, Australia). During battle scenes no less terrifying and bewildering than those of Saving Private Ryan, Malick’s impossibly fast dolly shots give way to unrelated close-ups of wildlife, often wildlife caught in the crossfire. The only thing romanticized here is the tranquil between battle, and the war serves only to scar this beautiful land and corrupt the human beings who fight it.

There is no glory in fighting. No one on the front line wants to charge when the Japanese stage an ambush that has them in perfectly hidden bunkers with a clear line of sight over the advancing Yanks. The aged colonel shooting for a general’s star on his helmet (Nick Nolte) orders men to keep moving directly up the hill. He wants his glory, and he’ll sacrifice hundreds to get it. Only when a captain (Elias Koteas) directly disobeys him does the colonel stop to consider what he’s doing, though not before he chews out the captain in front of God and everybody. Later, when the men break through, the colonel pushes the men far ahead of the water supply in the hopes of swift victory, compounding the soldiers’ misery.

Everyone who thinks of chasing personal glory ends up dead or disgusted with the very notion of such a thing. One soldier, Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel) goes AWOL at the start to live with Meanesian natives. He finds a spiritual purity in the jungle and even finds a spark of light in death, though he does not celebrate it. His story forms a loose tapestry with the thoughts of others, and The Thin Red Line breaks all ordinary conceptions of a war film by wrapping up nearly all the action with an hour to spare and focusing exclusively on how the brief experience has changed the men, who think thoughts that are perhaps too Emersonian for a bunch of guys who dropped out of high school to enlist but never seem false or intellectual. For all its open revulsion with violence, The Thin Red Line finds a certain beauty in its epic tragedy, managing to show how life goes on even in the face of atrocity. As such, it’s the first war movie to operate on an emotional level besides nationalism or fear. One of the great masterpieces of the modern age.

Blu-Ray Specs

Terrence Malick has never made a film that could be called anything less than sumptuous, and we’ve already been treated to one Criterion upgrade of the master’s films this year (the gorgeous Days of Heaven). I do not want to spring the trap of calling this Criterion’s best-looking transfer yet – mainly because I’ve done it three times already this year, from Days to The Leopard to The Red Shoes — but let me try to capture the power of Criterion’s Blu-Ray by relating an anecdote. I woke up fairly early in the morning to watch the film before my classes started so I could tackle the extras later. As I watched, I could scarcely believe how great the image looked. About an hour in, I needed to rub my eyes, so I went to take off my glasses. I wasn’t wearing them. In my half-awake stupor I’d simply put on the film and then been transfixed into sobriety. Upon actually putting on my glasses, the image looked twice as magnificent. Criterion thoroughly cleaned up a transfer that wasn’t bad to begin with (check comparisons here, resulting in a crisp, evocative picture quality that compounds the splendor and poetry of the film.

I was amused by a blurb of text that appeared when I selected the play button on the Blu-Ray menu. It said, “Director Terrence Malick recommends that The Thin Red Line be played loud.” As I soon learned, you don’t have a say in the matter. The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. mix is equal to the picture quality in overwhelming power. The bass will rattle your teeth. Rear channels pick up subtler sounds (especially the ambience of the flashback sequences), and no sound is ever drowned out by other noise. Zimmer’s score works in tandem with the sparse dialogue, which is crisper than ever.

Extras

When Criterion first confirmed The Thin Red Line (even before they announced a release date), fan speculation built to a frenzy. Would the fabled original cut – lasting some 5-1/2 hours – be included? Well, no, and the eight outtakes included only amount to 14 minutes of additional footage. But even these 14 minutes are arresting, especially a poignant cameo by Mickey Rourke as a sniper.

A number of other extras are partitioned according to an aspect of the film. There’s a feature on the astonishing cast Malick put together, a piece on the music, the editing, the actors’ own opinions on the film, even input from James Jones’ daughter. Old newsreel footage of the Guadalcanal siege is included, as is a brief collection of Melanesian songs with production stills. Rounding out the features are the theatrical trailer and a commentary track by production designer Jack Fisk, producer Grant Hill and cinematographer John Toll that details the storied production of the film, the themes and so on.

An accompanying, 36-page booklet reprints David Sterrit’s essay on the film and an old essay by James Jones in which he decries war films for glamorizing battle.

Final Thoughts

The Thin Red Line contains majesty without being majestic, because such an attitude would lend itself too much to a love of the war on-screen. It never loses its beauty no matter how many times I watch it and I continue to marvel at just how completely, yet subtly, Malick turns every big-budget war film trope on its head. I would not call myself psychic for being able to predict that Criterion’s Blu-Ray will make the short list of nearly every year-end poll for the best home video release. Image and audio quality are simply to die for, and the extras are dense and rewarding. Most of the extras were made for this release, and the majority of what wasn’t hasn’t been seen before. I don’t really bother writing pans for my contributions here, so it must seem that I’m generally in love with any Blu-Ray I pick up. I cannot sufficiently stress, however, just how incredible this release is. I’ll wait until the end of the year so I don’t have to take my foot out of my mouth later, but the other studios (and even Criterion) have their work cut out for them if they want a more impressive release by December.

– Jake Cole is a journalism student at Auburn University, where he regularly avoids people in favor of writing about film, television and music on his blog, Not Just Movies. When he is not writing movie reviews, he is inevitably writing something else and will continue to do so until he runs out of excuses not to go outside.

September 30, 2010
Review: THE WORLD

The World

Jia Zhangke has touches of Kiarostami, Ozu and Antonioni in him, yet he’s ultimately as singular as any of the three. The World, his fourth feature and first to be officially approved by government censors, is no less sincere, indeed scathing, a critique of China’s cultural displacement, caused by the advent of a highly capitalist economic system paired with a lingering dictatorial grip on the social liberties of the people.

Set in an EPCOT-like theme park that included miniature copies of the world’s most famous landmarks, Jia’s film juxtaposes the run-down, Communist housing with the influx of free enterprise capitalism of the amusement park, illustrating how the country is trapped between a system that failed the people terribly and one that does not offer much hope to the majority of China’s 1.3 billion people. Most of the film’s characters work in the park, and all of them lack the resources to leave to perhaps visit one of the real landmarks contained within Beijing World Park.

Tao (Jia’s muse and second wife Zhao Tao), works as a dancer in a theater troupe that dresses according to whatever nationality it’s assigned that day. Even the humans are made into simulacra of true culture so tourists can take their asinine photos by landmarks (at least this park could attract all the people of the world who think world travel is all about a few snapshots of the most famous building in sight). Workers speak casually of going to Japan or India because they are speaking about sections of the park, yet they view passports as magic tomes. Passports and visas represent freedom, the power to escape to a place that might offer some stable mode of life.

One could easily compare the alienation between the characters of the park to that of the heroes of Antonioni films, but Jia does not settle for copying the Italian poet, instead analyzing a modern way of life that even Antonioni could not have foretold. Tao cannot connect with her boyfriend Taisheng when they are together – her chastity symbolizes this – yet text messages launch animated reveries of flight and freedom. These segments represent truly personal fantasies compared to the broad fantasies offered by the park. Jia stresses this point when he shows Tao and Taisheng making out in a mock airplane, fulfilling a sort of wish to join the Mile High Club (as well as flying away from here), only to cut to an animated segment of Tao flying outside the plane that feels more sensual and liberated. Why should text messages, the most impersonal and brief of communication models, inspire such moments of emotion? Perhaps the gap in conversation for each person to read and absorb the message; after all, look at some of the correspondence of even the most uneducated soldier in the times before telephones, when a simple update from the field could be a work of enduring literature. Sometimes, the most indirect means of communication results in the most personal revelations.

The same holds true for the friendship between Tao and Anna, the only supportive and genuine relationship in the film. Anna is a Russian trying to reach her sister in Mongolia, and she doesn’t speak a word of Mandarin. Tao doesn’t know Russian either, yet the two find ways to communicate with each other. As Tao settles deeper and deeper into the futility of her life, the noose tightens around Anna. Someone steals her passport to make her more pliable, and when she and Tao run into each other at a karaoke bar that implicitly doubles as a brothel, we intuit that Anna has been forced into prostitution. Though neither knows what’s bothering the other, they share a moment of mutual grief that is as affecting as any exchange between lifelong friends.

Taken with a scene showing a family receiving workman’s compensation for the death of a loved one in a construction accident, the exchange with Anna clearly visualizes the director’s anxiety over capitalism, which China has embraced with such zeal that it’s inevitable that money will be able to buy flesh, in one form or another. Yet these are both searing, human moments, there for more than metaphorical weight, and Jia’s blend of humanism with visual poetry elevates him to the highest levels of modern filmmaking.

My only complaint about the film is not really a complaint at all. Its ending is elliptical, potentially a reference to Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou and just outright confusing. Yet it’s not antithetical to anything that came before and possibly works as the final means of freedom from a world that seems so stifling for those without the means to explore it. Even if repeat viewings don’t help me unpack these last three minutes, what came before is so beautiful, so masterful and so reflective that I will return to The World for the rest of my life.

Blu-Ray Specs

UK company Eureka! have released The World to their vaunted “Masters of Cinema” label. This Blu-Ray only release is region-free and will play on any Blu-Ray player.

The great joy of companies like Eureka! and the Criterion Collection is their attention to detail in restorations. The MOC Blus of F.W. Murnau’s silent classics, for example, imbue octogenarian films with new life. Yet one cannot deny that films shot on HD look even better in Blu (see Criterion’s incredible transfers of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Che), and the transfer of Jia’s HDCAM footage looks astonishing. Flesh tones are realistic while colors pop off the screen. Even the banality of the bunker-like homes where city-dwellers live look beautiful in high definition. The World is a gorgeous film, and it’s immensely satisfying to see it get the treatment it deserves with so many of Jia’s films resigned to poor-quality DVDs on both sides of the Atlantic.

Audio isn’t as big a factor, but I detected no pops or hisses, a necessity in a film that relies on space and uncomfortable silence so much of the time. Dialogue is crisp even in the most defeated whispers, and the subtitle track appears to be a thorough translation.

Extras

Tony Rayns on The World – Rayns contributes a beautiful essay to the Blu-Ray’s booklet written in the updated context of Jia’s full filmography to this point, and this 21-minute feature manages to rehash almost none of the details of the critic’s written contribution. Rayns’ taped segment gives a broad background of the director’s life as a government-educated filmmaker who got his start making unapproved, underground features and even saw the films that informed him via surreptitiously obtained bootlegs.

Also included is a 68-minute making-of documentary, “Made in China,” a fittingly wry title for a companion piece to a film as ironically named as The World. The documentary covers the film from preproduction as Jia finally decides to submit a script to the authorities to avoid imprisonment for working outside approval through shooting. The portrait we get of Jia is fascinating. We see a man who cares more for the social than the political concerns of the Fifth Generation filmmakers that put China at the forefront of cinematic invention in the late ’80s and ’90s. He’s an insightful filmmaker, as analytical about and emotionally invested in the actual process and the crews he chooses as he is the themes of his work. He’s so superstitious that he and his crew engage in Chinese religious rituals before shooting

So captivating is Jia, with his pudgy, childlike face and unforced intelligence, that I could watch this hour-long documentary and turn around and adore the best feature in the set, a 25-minute interview with the director. He offers a broad overview of his career to that point. He speaks of his films and what he wishes to say with them, the issues of censorship, his style and other matters. The interview is revelatory and presents Jia as a remarkably thoughtful man whose intelligence does not overwhelm his emotions and values.

The aforementioned booklet is one of the finest put out by MOC, perhaps second only to the jam-packed novella that was the booklet for Godard’s Une femme mariÅ½e. Besides Rayns’ essay, MOC includes an essay by Jia in which he argues for the re-emergence of “amateur cinema” in which filmmakers will tell stories that affect them in ways they envision rather than simply aping the preconceived notions of film technique. Critic Craig Keller contributes a piece on the film’s ambiguous ending and offers an explanation similar to my own, though his arguments approach the same conclusion from angles I did not consider. The most amusing inclusion is a government-sanctioned release about Beijing World Park originally included in the press booklet for the film. It’s the ultimate display of the Chinese government’s hypocrisy, using their Maoist control to essentially advertise an amusement park.

Final Thoughts

I cannot say whether The World is Jia Zhangke’s best film, but it certainly makes a strong case for consideration on the short list of the decade’s best films. Jia would go on to blend documentary and fiction with his subsequent movies. In the making-of documentary, Jia notes that China’s social control is lessening, that the censors who approved this feature were different from the ones who forced him underground for give years. He noted that this slight change was not worth celebrating, and he sounded like a man on a mission to see the country through to some form of freedom. With The World, he examines one possible method of delivery, capitalism, and concludes that it doesn’t fundamentally change anything any more significantly than the slight lenience of the censors signals artistic liberation. That’s why the film is so sad: its maker is unsure whether he’ll ever see a truly free China, or if the rest of the planet is in similar straits. But just because it’s meditative doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful, and Eureka’s transfer is one of the most gorgeous of the year, and the extras are truly about quality over quantity. Highly recommended.

– Jake Cole is a journalism student at Auburn University, where he regularly avoids people in favor of writing about film, television and music on his blog, Not Just Movies. When he is not writing movie reviews, he is inevitably writing something else and will continue to do so until he runs out of excuses not to go outside.

September 27, 2010
Arthur’s Day And Mic’s Heyday

Arthur’s Day And Mic’s Heyday

251 years ago the Guinness brewing company, headed by Arthur Guinness, began it’s trade from St. James’ Gate brewery. Last year, to coincide with the 250th anniversary, the Guinness company decided to throw a big bash on the 24th of September in various cities world-wide with special live music gigs and special offers. After it became a huge success they decided to do it again this year. It’s success is due, in part, to a clever marketing campaign you can see in the video below.

This year it takes place today (yeah, I don’t know why they changed dates either) and it has resulted in much Guinness talk around the office.

Most of the talk in the office, apart from “where are you drinking tonight?”, revolves around the many advertisements Guinness have given us over the years. Some good, some bad. Everyone is aware of the “Guinness is good for you” posters you can see in pubs (or Irish bars for the American’s among us) but Guinness really shines on the small screen.

As well as the video above, some adverts of note were treated to a round of “oh yeah, that was a good one” from our informal round table. The best? I guess the answer to that will change person to person. But the most recognisable for a lot of Irish was this little ditty.

Despite it being used way back in 1994 we all knew the tune and could instantly hum it upon mention. It’s like a brain worm. It may be noted that the advert was largely copied from a short film called Joy. But that’s not really what’s important.

Another add that came up, one that I like and one which is much more recent, is this.

The song you hear in the background is by the talented Irishman Mic Christopher. Mic toured regularly in the 1990s with a band called The Mary Janes and managed to make friends with pretty much everyone of note within the Irish music scene. Damien Rice, Lisa Hannigan and especially Glen Hansard all counted him as a buddy. Glen specifically having such a bond that they would do things like busking on a busy street together:

Mic is the one with the hat…

It wasn’t until 1999 when The Mary Janes split up that Mic started to record solo material. He released an EP called Heyday that featured the titular song.
Anyway, the talk of the ad brought back the memory of the song which brought back the memory of Mic.

Mic Christopher died in 2001 aged just 32 years old. He slipped on some steps and it caused some swelling to the brain which resulted in Mic falling into a coma that he never woke up from.
To this day there are musical dedications to him from his friends. Heyday is played by Glen Hansard’s band The Frames at most gigs. Several albums and songs have a “For Mic” note on the insleeve.

Despite the fact that Arthur’s Day is just a promotional marketing tool to sell a few extra pints, I’m very glad that an integral part of the event is live music. If for nothing else than to bring something like what is in the video below into our lives. That’s something worth raising a glass to.

– Aaron Poole is not just a pretty face. Sorry, I meant to say, Aaron Poole is not a pretty face. But he is an internet whore. Not only does he edit this here website but he also makes contributions wherever possible. You can find such things by visiting his blog http://aaronfever.blogspot.com

September 23, 2010
Review: SE7EN

Se7en

Undoubtedly meant to capitalize upon the eminent release of his latest feature, The Social Network, the reissue of David Fincher’s breakthrough Se7en is a reminder of both how far the director has come from a music video director and the de facto cartographer of late-’90s urban malaise and how much he has remained the same. His modern films, even the crime thriller Zodiac, lack the grime that cakes and festers in his early works, but they retain that sense of dreadful hollowness.

Underneath the aesthetic distance of his deep-focus photography, however, is a clear morality. Occasionally, it’s sneering, as it was in Fight Club, with its (justly) condescending look at emasculated fools, but for the more part he’s astonishingly sincere. Zodiac filled the gaps in the real-life investigation by focusing on the effects of unsolved murders on those trying to solve it. Contrary to the “Forrest Gump-redux” accusations leveled at it, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is ephemeral, not a lazy tour through important events so much as a meditation on how quickly those moments pass for those who experience them.

Looking back on Se7en within the context of Fincher’s second period, even the grisly murder-thriller can be said to be inherently moral. Its protagonist, Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman), lives on the brink of nihilistic despair, the same sort that grips Sheriff Bell in Cormac McCarthy’s later No Country For Old Men. With a week left until retirement, he doesn’t want anything remotely complicated to fall on his desk so that he can retreat to the countryside without any more ghosts that will already tail him out there.

Naturally, fate intervenes, and, despite his wishes, he cannot stop himself from helping his replacement (Brad Pitt), when a serial killer begins leaving crime scenes modeled after the seven deadly sins. Each of these murders is more sickening and disturbing than the last, and the extremity yet sound science of the setups positions the film neatly at the middle of the two most notable pop culture items to be inspired by the film: Saw and C.S.I.

Fincher, at last freed from the yoke placed on him for his feature debut, Alien3, displays the range of his visual talents and establishing many of his trademarks, from the aforementioned deep focus to low-angled tracking shots. Everything removes the audience even as the story grips us tighter and tighter, creating the effect of being pulled apart that only compounds the stomach-churning feeling that the film engenders. Yet by removing himself aesthetically, Fincher prevents himself from getting too into what he’s depicting. Because of this, he never focuses too lasciviously on the murders, even staging the horrific Lust murder in an ingeniously roundabout manner that gives us all the details but leaves the true image of the death for the audience to create in their minds. This remove would serve him even better on Fight Club, but it allows him to remain on Somserset throughout the film.

At its core, Se7en uses the perverted religious fundamentalism of the murders to restore Somerset’s humanity. Unable to walk away from the case in good conscience, he at last realizes that there is something worth fighting for, that Mills, for all his arrogance, is a young man with ambition and a wife (Gwyneth Paltrow) who loves him. Plenty of films use horrific events to restore a religious faith (see Signs), but the great irony of this film is that Fincher uses atrocity based in religion to bring about a genuine humanity, one free of any obligation to anything save the people around us. When Somerset tells his captain that he’ll be “around” after the shocking climax, we realize that, rather than retreat from a world that terrifies him, he will instead continue to help in order to prevent something like this from happening again. So, the greatest surprise and twist of Se7en may have nothing to do with the plot; the biggest revelation is its beating heart.

Blu-Ray Specs

It should come as no surprise that a David Fincher film would look good on Blu-Ray – the court submits Fight Club, Zodiac and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as Exhibits A-C – but I was blown away by Warner’s director-approved remaster. The sickly green and scabbed yellow-brown palettes pop off the screen, while the film’s attention to detail benefits from the heightened resolution. Black levels do not appear crushed nor blue, and the density of the film’s deep use of shadows has never looked so good.

The audio, too, has been bolstered impressively. The DTS-HD MA 7.1 track is both nuanced and powerful, with the incessant rain crashing around the speakers and the creaks of rotting buildings echoing until your brain rattles. Technically, this is one of the finest releases of the year, up there with the crop of Spielberg releases that hit the market in 2010 and pushed home theater systems to the limit.

Extras

Most of the supplemental features are reproduced from the Platinum Series DVD released all the way back in 2000. Fortunately, those extras were voluminous and so thorough that one could hardly expect any major expansion. Se7en comes with four packed audio commentaries, each involving Fincher and focusing on a specific section of the cast and crew. Remarkably, there is barely any overlap between the four, as Fincher is on-point in all of them and adapts perfectly to each scenario. Listening to him casually shoot the shit with his actors even as he displays a keen insight into their performances, as well as dissecting the nuances of Andrew Walker’s script helps one understand that the director is about more than the visuals. Deleted scenes and standard EPK material also makes the disc, but the addition of bonus material centered on the remastering job done for the Blu-Ray. If simply watching the film doesn’t convince you of the strength of this transfer, just take a gander at the comparisons offered between the old theatrical cut and this reissue. They even compare the audio tracks as well

Final Thoughts

Warner’s Blu-Ray collection has been exceedingly rewarding almost across the board, and Se7en is one of their finest jobs yet. I would have liked to see a supplemental feature about the film’s impact a decade later and how you can trace both torture porn and the rise of forensic shows to the film, but then that road also leads to a lot of back-patting and redundancy so perhaps it’s for the best that no real retrospective was planned. Even without much in the way of new extras, the transfer alone justifies any hesitation you might have over double-, even triple-dipping. Se7en has never looked so good, and if you’re like me, you might be surprised at how much more is going on beneath the plot turns that make this a film that warrants repeat viewings and deeper consideration.

– Jake Cole is a journalism student at Auburn University, where he regularly avoids people in favor of writing about film, television and music on his blog, Not Just Movies. He aspires to be a critic, partially out of his love for film but mainly because he’s always dreamed of living a life of extreme poverty.

September 23, 2010
Hands Down #14

Welcome to Hands Down, FRED’s own look into the world of the folks that frequent this sordid world of geekery. Follow Aaron, Brian and Colin (and a menagerie on the way) as they traverse the light fantastic or some such nonsense… What? It’s an online fortnightly comic strip, what kind of description did you expect?

VISIT THE HANDS DOWN ARCHIVES

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Written by Aaron Poole. Art by Aaron Poole. Copyright 2010.

September 20, 2010
Soapbox: A Night To Remember

A Night To Remember

For any band, getting back together after the loss of a key member is a huge gamble. Some, like AC/DC, emerge from the tragic loss of a lead singer to reach the utmost peaks of rock stardom. Others are not so lucky. In any case, no band is ever the same after the loss of a lead singer.

And so, when I recently saw Sublime with Rome it is needless to say that I had mixed feelings about the whole thing – which I suppose I should explain. I began my love affair with Sublime at the age of 14. I thought Eric was so insanely cool that I even learned to play the bass guitar. I’d sit for hours trying to play along. In high school, among my group of friends, Sublime was always playing in the background whenever we hung out, or partied. Around the campfire, our usual repertoire included “Boss DJ”, “Scarlet Begonias”, “Get Out!”, and of course, “40 oz To Freedom”. I named my cat Ruca in homage to a Sublime song (also an in-joke with Spanish speaking friends… but anyway). I love Sublime. In my little microcosm of the universe, their music reigns supreme.

Getting back to the concert – Sublime with Rome. On the way to the concert, I began to get very anxious. My skin was crawling, and I could not sit still. Needless to say, this was very distracting to my boyfriend, who was at that moment fighting rush hour traffic. When we arrived at the venue around 8pm, I started drinking immediately. Around 9pm, when the opening band The Dirty Heads finally went on I was feeling pretty good, but still nervous. After their set ended, I started to get really antsy. What followed was the most excruciating hour and change that I have ever, ever endured.

Now, I’ve been to this venue (the Kool Haus, Toronto, Ontario) numerous times, and have never had to wait more than 25-30 mins in between bands. For Sublime with Rome, we waited for over an hour, with nothing to do but drink and wait patiently… I suppose the wait combined with competitively priced Molson Canadian and the abundance of strange smelling-smoke was getting to some of the other concertgoers as well, and the crowd got increasingly rowdy. After dodging a few hooligans on my way back from the bathroom, I even got to be the hero for one girl! A few feet away from me, I noticed her start to sway precariously and caught her just before she hit the floor. When I saw her going down, I reached for the first thing I could – which happened to be her boobs. Then, her genius boyfriend (presumably) sees what’s going on, and instead of helping me (boobs are not a great handhold foe keeping somebody on their feet, despite cup size) he starts yelling “Clear the floor!”. Excellent.

(She was fine, by the way).

So, the wait damn near killed me, and my large breasted friend, but the show that followed was, in the words of Barney Stinson, LEGENDARY. Despite the definite aura of not-cigarette smoke that hung over the crowd within minutes of Bud, Eric and Rome mounting the stage, I felt immediately sober when they started to play (in a good way). Rome nailed every song, and it was an amazing concert. My only complaint is that they did not play “Superstar Punani”.

I can’t say enough good things about the kid (and I can refer to Rome as “the kid” as I am exactly 6 days older than he is). I also can’t imagine what it’s like for him to try and live up to Bradley’s legend. What I can imagine is a 14 year old Rome, just as enraptured by Sublime as I was, singing and playing along on his guitar. Now that kid’s on stage, singing those same songs, and it makes me happy.

Check out www.sublimewithrome.com or follow @SublimeWithRome on twitter!

– Mary Hoffman

September 14, 2010
FREDagator: 2010-09-10

Islands In The Stream, in the style of FRED contributors Ken Plume and Aaron Poole (with Brian Fitzpatrick for moral support) at Dragon*Con 2010

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September 10, 2010
HANDS DOWN Competition: The Winner!

We asked who wanted to be in Hands Down and we were shocked to find out that, actually, some of you did! We got a bunch of great entries but only one could be crowned winner. So without much fuss or a do, here it is.

CONGRATULATIONS LEE HAMMOND! You’re going to be in Hands Down #15!

VISIT THE HANDS DOWN ARCHIVES

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Art by John Merker. Copyright 2010.

September 10, 2010
Hands Down #13

Welcome to Hands Down, FRED’s own look into the world of the folks that frequent this sordid world of geekery. Follow Aaron, Brian and Colin (and a menagerie on the way) as they traverse the light fantastic or some such nonsense… What? It’s an online fortnightly comic strip, what kind of description did you expect?

VISIT THE HANDS DOWN ARCHIVES

Follow Hands Down on Twitter

Written by Aaron Poole. Art by John Merker. Copyright 2010.

September 6, 2010
BIG BROTHER Blog Report: The End

Finished

This is the end my internet friend. The end.

Josie won – big shock, I know – and fun was had by all. I guess.

Personally, I was very underwhelmed by the final. Maybe it was due to the lack of tension. Because everyone knew how it was going to go. The only thing I was surprised by was that Dave came second. Maybe I’m alone in my hatred of him. Maybe everyone else in the world is OK with a man who thinks homosexuality is immoral. Maybe the chicken really did come before the egg. It’s a mystery I’ll never truly wrap my head around.

Anyway, Josie came out to big cheers and a psychopathic Australian eyeing her up. He has officially become Mr Creepy but before Josie could go on his wild ride she was thrust somewhere else. Straight back into the house. At first it felt like an obvious decision. Of course you want to spend two weeks in a house with famous folk and ex-housemates you might remember. Sounds like fun! And Josie’s quick answer to the question affirmed that she felt similarly too. Being on a high from her win meant that she would probably agree to shaving her hair off if you made it sound like it would be fun but that’s beside the point.

Full of giggles, smiles and the 20 minutes of freedom she got, Josie waited for the new housemates to come in. And who was to meet her? A whole host of “meh” to be honest. The highlights for me being Brian, Nikki and Nadia. They are the only ones to re-enter who had a big personality. I’m not counting the celebrity Big Brother re-entrants because… well… they’re not real people.

Hello and Goodbye

Josie seemed very overwhelmed the first night but that’s to be expected. She just won Â£100,000 and was greeting Coolio. It was an odd night. But that feeling wasn’t to go away and I’m going to place full blame on Big Brother for screwing the pooch on this one.

If they wanted to keep Josie around – and considering she won the show by over 77% of the vote, they really needed to keep Josie around – they should have given her a couple of days freedom outside the house. That way she would have been able to come down from the high of winning around friends and family. She could have gotten her head straight. Thus providing her with a bit of conviction for re-entering the house.

By leaving her in there, her victory quickly became a hollow one because she couldn’t celebrate it. Instead she had a bunch of strangers commenting on her life to her face. In her house no less (and lets face it, and that point it was her house). So I can completely understand

Now that she is gone, what do I think of the “Ultimate” portion of the show? LAME. Brian Dowling has been funny. If he didn’t go into the house it would have been a total washout. Boring, boring, boring. But what could we expect? Seasoned pros in this sort of environment know better than to do something stupid and embarrass themselves. Unfortunately that mean there is nothing interesting for us.

Oh well. At least the final series was a bit of fun while it lasted. Crazy Shabbys, posh Bens and horny Josies made it a laugh. It will be missed.

– Aaron Poole
Follow Aaron on Twitter – @AaronFever

August 31, 2010
Soapbox: Our Last Best Hope

Our Last Best Hope

Two months ago, I had never seen an episode of Babylon 5. I had heard of it, and I was a fan of a lot of the comic book writings of the Babylon 5 creator, J. Michael Straczynski but I had no desire whatsoever to watch the show. There wasn’t any hatred of the show or any real reasoning behind the fact that I hadn’t seen it. It was just one of those things that I hadn’t gotten around to in my life. There are plenty of things in this world that I haven’t gotten around to doing yet, and I have to be honest when I say that shortening that list by watching Babylon 5 wasn’t very high on my list of priorities.

But”¦.if I’ve learned nothing else, I’ve learned that I should listen to the advice of my friends. So on the advice of one friend and the insistence of another, I said I’d give Babylon 5 a shot and see if it was a good as they said it would be. Comparisons were made to Joss Whedon and Firefly, so the bar was set pretty high and I went in expecting to be disappointed. I had read Straczynski’s work on Spiderman and Fantastic Four and in particular his amazing, creator owned series Rising Stars so I knew that he was a great writer, but Whedon comparisons still seemed like they might be a bit far fetched.

Once I took the plunge and started watching, I was hooked. Babylon 5 currently consists of one hundred and ten episodes of the hour long TV series, seven ninety-minute TV movies and a short lived spin-off series called Crusade which lasted for 13 episodes (one less than Whedon’s short lived Firefly) and it took me less than fifty days to devour the whole lot.

Even before I watched the first episode, what struck me was the age of the show. Having premiered in 1993, the show is only one year away from being legally old enough to drink alcohol and vote, though obviously not at the same time. But given the state of Irish politics, that could actually happen more often than one may think. The reason that I was looking at the year of production was that in the initial recommendation of the show that I received, I was also given the caveat that the special effects, and in particular the exterior space effects were a bit dodgy by today’s standards. The effects that were used throughout the shows and the movies were revolutionary at the time, and Babylon 5 was the first science fictions show to solely use computer generated imagery for the exterior space scenes. While I will concede that the exterior effects aren’t quite up to the standard of Firefly or any Star Trek series since The Next Generation, the effects are not what the series is about. The main selling point of Babylon 5 has always been the quality of the writing and acting on offer.

The series’ time line ranges from the year 2245 to 2281 and though the majority of the one hundred and ten episodes of Babylon 5 happen within the five years between 2258 and 2262 we get to see glimpses of Straczynski’s universe as far back as one thousand years and as far forward as one million years in to the future. And in a million years’ worth of narrative, there was almost no errors in continuity save for a few who-met-who-and-when inconsistencies in the movie In The Beginning. Straczynski famously spends ten hours of each day writing and he clearly spent a lot of time sketching out the in-universe chronology, framework and character histories. Some of Straczynski’s planning was made apparent through big revelations like the history of Valen. Some of it was always present but never explained or even mentioned on screen, like the mystery of why Walter Keonig’s character never unclenched his left fist. Out of the one hundred and ten episodes in the show’s run, Straczynski wrote ninety two, and holds the record to this day for writing fifty nine consecutive episodes ranging from the second season through to the fifth. The run was broken by an episode written by Neil Gaiman, which is the only episode in Season Five of the show not written by Straczynski.

One of the reasons that I didn’t watch Babylon 5 when it originally started airing on this side of the Atlantic was that I felt that it was too similar, too much of a rip off of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But in fairness there was also a time when I didn’t listen to Bill Hicks because I thought his material was too similar to Denis Leary’s. You live and learn.

The similarities at first are obvious and plain for anyone to see. The two shows are about space stations that are located near a travel hub and have titles that end with a number Both space stations are home to a myriad of different races, some of which have been at war with one another in the recent past. But there are more subtle similarities than that. In the early days of each show, the story was primarily based on the respective space stations but after a few seasons, both shows introduced a top-of-the-range starship that was initially the only one of its kind but later would serve as the namesake for an entire class of ship. The two shows also heavily featured a storyline involving a war with a mysterious enemy from a different part of space, and in both series it’s arguable that the representative for the two respective enemy races was the main villain for both series. These may still see like fairly obvious comparisons but consider the fate of two characters, both of whom were minor players in their own universes but still managed to rise to prominence. Rom in Deep Space Nine and Vir in Babylon 5 both served much the same purpose and had the same fate. In both cases, Rom and Vir played second fiddle to a decadent master who seemed to embody the classical virtues of their respective societies.

Rom was the subordinate to his brother Quark. Quark ostensibly was the perfect Ferengi, dishonest, greedy, amoral and devious. But underneath all of Quark’s bluster and protestations was a being who knew the difference between right and wrong, whether Quark liked it or not. And most of the time, Quark didn’t like it. In the face of a crumbling society and a leadership that was less than capable, Quark fought to keep alive the traditions that he believed in and fought to keep alive the world that he believed in. No matter how much his home changed or how much his own people changed around him, Quark tried to uphold the principles that he was brought up to believe in. In Quark’s mind, contact with humans didn’t weaken him or corrupt him, it merely provided him with more opportunities for profit. Quark was an old school Ferengi who stood for everything that he felt his society should be.

In Babylon 5, Londo Molari shared a lot of character traits with Quark but ultimately was a much more tragic character. Like Quark, Londo stood for very thing that his world used to represent. Londo was never a child or at least he never had a childhood. He was brought up from a very young age to believe in the ways of his world and never wavered from the duty that the devotion to his world. Where Quark’s ambition always outweighed his ability to succeed, Londo ended up getting exactly what he always desired. Though as he said himself, he had all the power in the world and absolutely no choices. Londo is one of the greatest tragic characters in any form of literature.

Neither character though would ever have thought that their subordinates would end up rising to the positions that they did. But that’s only because neither Londo nor Quark knew that Deep Space Nine borrowed pretty liberally from the Babylon 5 series bible and scripts.

It’s difficult thing to write about a subject as expansive as Babylon 5. No matter how much you write, there’s bound to be more unwritten. Even if I wrote of character-trap doors, O’Neill cylinders, Newtonian physics, the numerous Lord Of The Rings references, the numerous 1984 references, the outstanding quality of the guest stars, the speeches that were in the show, and Straczynski’s naming of the show’s two main characters after himself; I’d still be leaving out more than I care to admit.

No matter though how much I write or how much I neglect to write, there’s no way that I could possibly cover the subject of Babylon 5 without mentioning G’Kar. G’Kar is, in my humble opinion one of the finest fictional characters ever created. Often serving as a counterpart to Londo Mollari, G’Kar ran the gamut from arms dealer to loud mouth comic relief Ambassador to resistance leader to leader of his people to prophet and explorer. On his own, G’Kar was a magnificent creation, but his constantly changing relationship with Londo was often the heart of the series. From the beginning, we are told that Londo is destined to die at the hands of G’Kar, so their evolution of rivals/enemies/colleagues/co-conspirators and finally ending up as friends was a joy to watch. Londo’s destiny was indeed fulfilled and we got to see it from a few different perspectives, but it wasn’t what he or we initially thought it to be.

More than any other character on the show, I think that G’Kar became the voice of Straczynski on the show. G’Kar was able to rail against tyranny and speak about the search for meaning in religion, extol the virtue of kindness to your neighbour and deliver one of the best farewell scenes that has ever been committed to celluloid. G’Kar got most of the best lines and best speeches in the show, and Andreas Katsulas who played G’Kar delivered the lines as few could have and brought the character on his odyssey in a truly believable and relatable way. Even if he did look like a snake.

Babylon 5 truly is a novel made for television with sweeping story lines, interweaving character arcs, joy and heartbreak Neil Gaiman, in the introduction to the first trade paperback collection of Straczynski’s Rising Stars stated that Straczynski had done the impossible with Babylon 5. Ironically enough, Gaiman’s Sandman comic book series was then one of the few times that a similarly impossible task had been achieved. And it’s no exaggeration to state that Babylon 5 paved the way for modern day shows like Lost which also have large casts and preplanned story arcs.

Throughout the five year run of Babylon 5, the opening monologue was different each and every year, changing to reflect the status of the story in each year. But one thing remained constant each year, and that was the use of the words “Our last best hope”. I don’t think that it was strictly accurate though, I don’t think that it was our last best hope, I think it was an example of how science fiction should be done, and how a story should be told. I think it’s our best example.

– Simon Fitzgerald

August 28, 2010
Hands Down #12

Welcome to Hands Down, FRED’s own look into the world of the folks that frequent this sordid world of geekery. Follow Aaron, Brian and Colin (and a menagerie on the way) as they traverse the light fantastic or some such nonsense… What? It’s an online fortnightly comic strip, what kind of description did you expect?

Enter The HANDS DOWN Competition

VISIT THE HANDS DOWN ARCHIVES

Follow Hands Down on Twitter

Written by Aaron Poole. Art by John Merker. Copyright 2010.

August 23, 2010
BIG BROTHER Blog Report: Day 73

Day 73

Just before I go into the finalists, I want to take a quick moment and look at something that has made me laugh this week. John James.

What’s the matter McFly? Chicken?

I have never seen a grown man piss himself so quickly and so satisfyingly (for me) than John James during the prediction task. He went from thinking he has a hard man after trying to make a girl cry to wanting to break the world record in distance running. He literally had the fright of his life. And you know what? Served him right.

From day one it appeared that John James has a problem with women. Especially women who care about their appearance. Because Rachel was considered attractive by the other housemates and because she expressed an interest in modeling, he took this as an affront to humanity. He took every opportunity to degrade her publicly and even create a few chances out of thin air too. I never liked her myself but his comments were always over the top and vicious.

We saw the same treatment with Corin. She kept out of his business (and lets face it everyone else’s too) but he could not stop himself from picking a fight with her whenever he felt there was an opening. And when he picks a fight with someone he will not let it go. Like a dog with a bone he will repeat himself until he is blue in the face. Hence why we heard his paranoid ranting about everyone being fake and wanting to win.

Well, you flew to the other side of the world to get on this show and you’re claiming you don’t want to win it? Fuck off crab eyes. I’m glad you lost. Now fuck off.

Seriously guys, I can’t tell the difference

On to happier things now with a quick run down on my thoughts of the finalists.

ANDREW

Nice guy but creepy when it comes to girls. I’m putting my money now on him getting charged for some sort of sexual deviancy in about ten years. Saying that though, he has been funny and unlike most has tried to stick up for people he likes (ok, he stuck up for Josie purely because he wants to get his geek on with her).

JJ

zZzZzZzZz. I wonder what he’ll do for the next four days without John James to agree with? He got here via mathematics.

DAVE

Glory. I hate Dave and I’ve made no secret of that. Glory. While people think he is a nice guy, I’ve seen him bitch about everyone with Ben, John James and anyone else who will listen. Glory. For someone supposedly so loving he has a negative thing to say about everyone. Glory. I really hope he goes early on Tuesday. Glory.

MARIO

I said early on in this blog that his mole status was going to do him the world of good in the long term but I’m not so sure I was right about that. He got a little bit moody a few weeks ago and could have gone if the nominations were different. However, he has recently perked back up and has shown the sensitive, quirky side of his that made me warm to him at the start of the show. I like him a lot and hope he comes second.

JOSIE

I know she is going to win. You know she is going to win. She had John James under her thumb and pointed out all his failings this week with a nice bit of gusto. Her main problem is that she is desperate for companionship so much that it really affects her ability to hold a grudge against anyone who is mean to her. It’s probably not a problem for her but watching it I would have liked to see her have a few enemies because she can argue with the best of them. Shame. It will be interesting how her “home advantage” against the new Ultimate Big Brother contestants works come Tuesday.

– Aaron Poole
Follow Aaron on Twitter – @AaronFever

August 21, 2010
TV News: Anticipation

Anticipation

I’ve heard a lot of folk say that this is their favourite time of the year. They like the fact that it’s still pretty warm out, the fact that the leaves are starting to turn a little bit brown, the fact that the nights are a little bit cooler and it’s easier to sleep but it still stays bright to a pretty reasonable hour so the days still feel a little bit longer. But me, I love this time of year for a slightly different reason.

Anyone who’s been paying attention will know that San Diego Comic Con happened in the course of the last few weeks. And no matter how you feel about the ever increasing movie and media presence at this “Comic Con”, you can’t help but deny that the convention is a fantastic source of information and generator of anticipation for the TV shows and movies that will grace our screens later in the year.

Every year, Comic Con seems to mark that start of the overload of information about what we’ll be watching and reading in the year to come. In the last week or so, I’ve been eating up every morsel of information that I can get my greedy little hands on about my favourite shows. And there’s a part of me that loves the run up to the return of the shows more than the actual return itself, because this time of year holds the unspoiled promise of what has yet to come.

Comics are obviously still a huge part of what Comic Con does, but the comic book world already has a pretty well established promotion machine. Comic books are solicited at least two months ahead of their release dates. Other comic related good like statues or the forthcoming “Earth One” graphic novels are announced and hyped months ahead of the time that they’ll be realized onto the retail market for public consumption. I think that a part of the reason for this is that the world of comic books exists on a pretty long timeline as almost all of the regular titles are released on a monthly basis. TV shows live week to week and they tend to live or die on the spin of a dime so announcing too far ahead of time what’s going to be happening isn’t usually possible.

But just like Christmas there comes a time once a year when the American TV Networks pimp their shows for all they are worth, sometimes for even more than they are worth. So in that beautiful area of time in between the “media event” that Comic Con has become and the Season Premieres we get teased, we get small glimpses of what has yet to come, tacit promises are made and we build up hopes that may take twenty episodes to be fulfilled. I’ve seen trailers and read teasers and vainly tried to avoid spoilers for the shows that I love. Normally I try to avoid an overload of spoilers, but the news that we get bombarded with at this time of year tends to be general for the entirety of the next televisual year. In no particular order of chronology or importance, these are the shows that I’ve been looking forward to the most and the news that has me anticipating them all the more.

HOUSE

One of the main pieces of news that we’ve received about the new series of House is something that delights me and deeply saddens me all at the same time. We’ve been told that when House picks after the Season break, House and Cuddy will still be a couple. Think about all the shows you’ve seen where two characters who plainly love each other just can’t seem to find a way to make it happen. We’ve seen it in Star Trek: TNG with Picard and Crusher, we’ve seen it in Smallville with Clark and Lana, we’ve seen it in Firefly with Mal and Inara. Hell, we’ve even seen it with Jessica Fletcher and every gray haired guy within a thousand miles of Cabot Cove. The general wisdom is that romances don’t work for the main characters of a TV show. In fact one of the only times that I can think of a TV couple actually getting together was in the 90’s Superman show “Lois & Clark“. Despite the fact that the main focus was always supposed to be on the relationship between Lois and Clark more than Superman himself, the producers and writers of the show seemed to be unable to cope with the corner that they got painted in to by the fact that Lois and Clark got married in DC Comics’ continuity. Let’s just say that it didn’t end well. And the less we speak about “Myrtle Beach”, the better off we will all be.

But with the sixth Season of House which premieres at the end of September, I honestly believe we’ll see a relationship that can work. It won’t work because DC Comics says it has to, or because a focus group says that it should, it’ll work because five years of foundation has been written into this, because it’s what the viewers have wanted since day one, because it’s what the characters have wanted since before day one. But most of all, it’ll work because it has to.

In fact the only thing that I’ve seen about the next season that I don’t like is the fact that I’m already being presented with (sigh) “Huddy”. Mankind has done many amazing things in the past few million years. We’ve invented fire, we’ve conquered flight, and we’ve been to the stars. But for some reason we still cannot resist defining two people in a relationship with one reductive, insulting name. “Huddy” sounds like a sexist marketing device to sell Hummers to women who can’t drive.

Some casting news about the new Season also indicates that Olivia Wilde will be absent for part of the Season due to movie commitments and Jennifer Morrison’s character of Alison Cameron will be returning roughly around mid-season. And without spoiling too much….she won’t be alone.

There’s also a part of me that’s really curious as to whether or not House will be rocking a new cane this Season, and if he does, will it be as instantly identifiable as the flame cane he used in half of Season Three and through all of Season Four.

DEXTER

OK, there’s not one single person in the entire waking world who saw the close of the last Season of Dexter who isn’t frantically anticipating the start of the new Season. What intrigues me the most about the new Season is that it picks up immediately after the events of the most recent episode.

If you’ve seen the last episode of the last Season, you know exactly what events I’m talking about. But what always fascinates me about shows that pick up immediately from the previous Season is the logistical issues involved. Yeah, I’m a nerd, but just humour me on this one.

Dexter has traditionally employed a “three months later” device when going from Season to Season. This allows for the actors to get new hairstyles, get tans etc. without having to explain why the characters suddenly look different. Back in the halcyon days before SDCC, one of the first things that I heard was that Julie Benz would be appearing in the new Season and that her appearance wouldn’t be in a flashback and that it wouldn’t be as a Harry-style ghost. If I’d put any amount of thought in to it, it would have made sense that Julie Benz would be appearing as the same character in the same time frame as before. The only other scenario that I could come up with was that she might be in a video journal with the kids of some description. Hey, nobody ever said that I was a creative genius.

But what I’m most excited and terrified about in the upcoming Season is the inclusion of the fantastically talented Irish singer and actor, Maria Doyle-Kennedy. Anyone who’s ever seen The Commitments knows that Doyle-Kennedy can act rings around most anyone and has a wonderful, natural Dublin accent (yeah I’m biased here). This is the reason that I’m excited, the reason that I’m terrified is that there’s a fierce tendency to use a stereotype when portraying the Irish on TV in America. I still weep when I think of the scenes in Heroes a few years ago that were set in Cork where Peter got involved with some gangsters who were looking for their stolen OiPods.

But keep your fingers crossed that the writers and producers will keep their wits about them and let Maria do what she does best. Also, if she happens to break into a rendition of “Son of a Preacher Man”, I won’t be overly upset either.

STARGATE: UNIVERSE

There was a time when I wasn’t sure if there actually would be a second Season of Stargate: Universe Don’t misunderstand me, I loved the show right from the start, but we live in a world where Firefly can get cancelled, so it’s best not to be overly cocky about the survival of any good science fiction show.

The first piece of news that came out about the new Season is that the Season’s recurring villain is going to be played by Robert Knepper who played T-Bag in Prison Break. The character that he’ll be playing is designed to butt heads with Louis Ferreira’s Colonel Young. Though that’s not to say that things between Young and Robert Carlysle’s Doctor Rush will get smoother any time soon. We learn pretty soon into the new Season that Rush has made a pretty huge discovery relating to control of The Destiny. But Rush keeps the discovery to himself and the eventual revelation brings major conflict between the two characters and leads to a scene that runs to eleven pages. That scene won’t be happening until the seventh episode of Season Two but it’s going to be worth the wait, that much is almost guaranteed.

Before the advent of SDCC this year, there was a half-news item what was released by the producers of Universe revealing that there would be a Universe / Atlantis crossover roughly mid-way through Season Two. There was no indication at that point as to exactly what cast members from Atlantis would be appearing on Universe or even in what capacity. At SDCC, it was announced that the two guest stars would be David Hewlett and Robert Picardo. Hewlett was sort of obvious, seeing as his character is the most loved character from Atlantis and has more in-series knowledge of the technology than anyone else in the world.

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

I don’t think that there’s ever been a time when I wasn’t looking forward to the next episode of How I Met your Mother. But this year, the writers and producers basically went out in front of the world’s press and admitted that they screwed up on some things in the last Season. I’ve publicly declared my love for How I Met Your Mother, and it’ll take an awful lot for me to fall out of love with the show, but I will admit that there did seem to be an absence of forward momentum in the area of finding out who the Mother is in the last Season.

The producers have stated that there will be more forward momentum in the new Season, and they’ve also gone out of their way not to confirm or deny the possibility that the Mother will be introduced at some stage and that the show will keep running after the revelation and introduction.

But for my money, the biggest and best announcement about the new Season is that there will be a new future. Not an alternate future, just a look at a different timeframe in Ted’s future. This could potentially be amazing. We might get to see Future Barney, we might get to see Future Robin and if I’m at all correct, we might get to see that Future Barney and Future Robin are a couple. We still don’t know exactly how far in to the future the new scenes are going to be, but I have a feeling that they are going to give us answers to some old questions, answers to questions we didn’t even know that we had. Mostly though, we’ll be entertained and we’ll get to see that it doesn’t matter how you tell a story, and that sometimes different parts of a story need different details.

So what shows are you looking forward to in the upcoming year? What storylines? What guest stars? Let us know!

– Simon Fitzgerald

August 20, 2010
BIG BROTHER Blog Report: Day 68

Day 68

Things have gotten a little predictable in the house. There have been no shock evictions. New people have entered and left without really making an impact (apart from Keeley impacting the floor, obviously). John James and Josie are a steady couple so the “will-they-won’t-they” interest has gone. In essence… I’m bored.

Not that there hasn’t been good bits but most of them have been tasks devised by Big Brother to help with the tedium. It’s all a bit too lovey dovey. I blame Dave for a lot of that. I also blame Dave for everything else in the world that I dislike but maybe I’m taking my hatred of him too far. WHY WON’T YOU PEOPLE EVICT HIM?!

Alas, with only a sliver of hope for some fighting or at the very least a bit of drama, I must turn to one man. Or should I say, one boy. Sammy Pepper…

In many ways, I don’t like the guy. But I have to give him credit for injecting some interest back into the show. With his hyper energy, whiney voice and his inability to use tact in any shape or form he has single handedly taken over Big Brother’s cameras as the only person doing anything.

Now I must be clear. I’m not saying he is a fantastic watch, because he is not, but at least he’s doing SOMETHING. Andrew sits about, Mario does nothing but moan, Dave is too busy laughing at his own jokes, Corin is loving it, John James and Josie are under a duvet, JJ is too busy checking himself out and Steve… is Steve still on the show? So yeah, it’s not so much about Sam being a brilliant watch, it’s just that the others have become so dull.

I think a partial amount of the problem is the average age in the house being so high. Half the house is over 30. You know as well as I do that most people do dumb things in their early 20s and it’s the dumb things that are entertaining to watch. Also the lack of good looking people who are single has reduced the amount of drama when everyone gets a few drinks into them. So when Sammy Pepper (I still think it’s a great name) gets 3 cups of coffee into him and starts running around like Cornholio then at least something is happening.

I felt for the kid when he heard JJ, John James and Dave bitching about him in the showers because it was a typical “olders boys are being mean about me” scenario. I can understand that the guys felt he deserved the bad things being said but I think they forget that they are the grown-ups in the situation and Sam isn’t. Bitching like school girls in the shower doesn’t make you look good.

And yes I said the words “school girl” and “shower” without making a pervy joke. I’m just going to have to live with that.

Couple of quick notes:
– Josie is in the final. Lets face it, she is going to win by a landslide.
– Until I see the guest list for this “House of Champions” Big Brother final, I feel a bit pessimistic about it.
– Seriously John James, you’re a lunatic and I’m tired of your paranoid rantings about every housemate. Get over yourself.
– Could someone punch Dave in the face for me? Please? Can we make that a task?

– Aaron Poole
Follow Aaron on Twitter – @AaronFever

August 16, 2010
Review: THE GHOST WRITER

The Ghost Writer

The Film

Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer reconfigures his magnum opus, Chinatown, for the modern era. Like Jake Gittes, the unnamed protagonist (Ewan McGregor) is an acerbic, indifferent middle class working man who finds himself wading into a conspiracy that dwarfs him until he cannot hope to get the truth out. The difference is scale: made in the ’70s and set in the ’30s, Chinatown was about the total corruption of city government, collusion between business and authority until the aristocracy could do as it damn well pleased. But The Ghost Writer takes place in the present, in a time when everything is multinational and conspiracies can be worldwide.

Ostensibly about a titular ghost writer hired to edit the memoirs of Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan), former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, following the death of his first ghost, Polanski’s thriller quickly exposes its hilariously off-kilter setup for the MacGuffin it is. Instead, he delves into daring political material, taking the knowledge of America’s involvement in installing puppet leaders in Third World nations to a terrifying possibility: what if the United States performed similar covert operations to ensure the cooperation of our strongest allies, and is that not why they are our allies to begin with?

We travel to meet Lang in a hideaway island off Martha’s Vineyard, in a locked-down complex with far too much security to protect the manuscript of a memoir that the Ghost himself notes no one will want to read anyway. Soon, however, the reason for the isolation becomes clear: back in the UK, Lang faces charges for war crimes for allegedly turning over British citizens of Arab descent to the US for torture. The Ghost, who railed against political soft shoeing in the memoirs of public officials, suddenly finds himself a part of Lang’s inner circle, even drawing up a press release to deflect this attention. As Lang’s assistant/mistress Amelia (Kim Cattrall) tells him, “That makes you an accomplice.”

Like Scorsese’s Shutter Island with a political instead of emotional interest, The Ghost Writer above all else shows an aged director at the top of his visual game, reworking Hitchcock pictures like Notorious where Scorsese dabbled with Vertigo. Nothing moves quickly in The Ghost Writer, and each shot is as visually sumptuous as anything seen in the last few years. Polanski uses the mise-en-scene and lighting primarily to lay on the word ghost: light sources do not illuminate the darkness so much as create tiny balls of pale white light floating in the middle of pitch blackness. Lang’s compound conveys a purgatorial feel, always covered in clouds and a cold wind as wall-sized windows make it impossible sometimes to tell if people are inside the house or out and a servant constantly sweeps leaves into a wheelbarrow as the wind scatters them again. The opening montage alone, communicating the death of the first ghostwriter without showing any action, is a masterful way of documenting the idea of a ghost, showing all the signs of Mike’s death long before he finally gets to a shot of his corpse washing up on the island beach. And then there’s the playfulness, from a security drill going off just as the Ghost starts snooping, and a tracking shot at the end that last so long it becomes comical, until it keeps going and becomes tense once more.

Polanski also retains his gift for working with actors. Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach give fantastic cameos, while Brosnan perfectly captures Lang’s shameless self-promotion, his vacuous deflection of serious charges leveled against him. McGregor, one of the more reliable actors of his generation, does not make us care all that much about him as a person, though we’re not meant to. Instead, he serves as our proxy for shock and revulsion as he follows the clues to the truth. But it is Olivia Williams who steals the show as Lang’s wife, Ruth. Tasked with the most complex role, Williams plays Ruth as an ice queen, resentful of the political aspirations she sacrificed for her husband. The great irony of Polanski’s career, given his personal issues, is that, more than nearly any English-language director, he understands women. Just as he used his horror filmRepulsion to subvert the image of the Hitchcockian ice queen by showing how men like Hitchcock tortured her into her emotional distance, so too does he undermine the image of the politician’s wife. He gives Ruth an air of tragedy, a strong woman far more politically capable than her husband who had to become nothing but a prop because that was expected of her. And then Polanski undercuts the character yet once more, and suddenly Williams’ performance becomes even more layered.

On some level, Polanski intends The Ghost Writer to expose the hypocrisy of the United States, who demands his extradition so they might put his head on a stake yet are one of the few nations to refuse to recognize the International Criminal Court and extradite wanted people there (along with such places as Israel, North Korea and Iraq). On one hand, this is incisive, communicating the disgust of the director, who narrowly escaped the Holocaust in Poland as a child but lost his mother to the camp at Auschwitz, at America for so openly embracing war crimes as a foreign policy. This is more confrontational than nearly anything made about the War on Terror to this point, and his refusal to soften the message when so many Hollywood directors cannot commit to their supposed liberal screeds (depending on which pundit is discussing them) even as he never lapses into polemics makes for the best political thriller since perhaps the heyday of Alan J. Pakula’s ’70s work. On the other hand, it is yet another example of Polanski’s decades-long pity parade at being unable to travel where he pleases for bailing the States to escape from his rape sentence. He may have a point that his individual crime does not warrant the level of outrage that should be directed toward certain members of government would instantly receive life imprisonment from The Hague (when Polanski was a child, they’d be swinging from gibbets), but there is still a subtext of rampant arrogance that nags at me as a fan who would still like to see him brought to justice.

Still, there’s no denying the slow-burning thrill of a master at work, and Polanski is truly one of the greatest and most intuitive directors of all time. He never forces anything, leaving so much of the film out in the open that his scathing critiques only sink in later instead of hampering the plot with proselytizing. In the vein of masterpieces like All the President’s Men, The Insider and Zodiac, The Ghost Writer creates tension in the expectation of something happening, and when practically nothing ever does, we remain tense for fear that we’ve missed something, and the film is not empty just because it continues to lead you on until you reach the end and realize you could have relaxed the whole time. From top to bottom, this is the work of a man who no longer has to impress anyone, and there is a joy in watching him refuse to take the easy, unoriginal path at every turn.

Blu-Ray Specs

The Ghost Writer is available on home video in a Blu-Ray/DVD flipper disc from Summit Entertainment (U.S.), and single disc Blus from Paradox (Canada) and Optimum Home Entertainment (U.K., where the film is known only as The Ghost). Transfers appear to be identical across the board, and my copy looked incredibly faithful to the theatrical presentation. This is a beautiful film that is rich with color even as everything has an intentionally cold, ethereal look as if shot in a hospital. It makes for near-reference quality material, crisp and sharp for extreme detail but with a nice balance of grain to prevent any waxen smoothing. The audio track is equally impressive in the same unexpected manner as the picture quality. The Ghost Writer spots a nuanced soundtrack, filled with faint background noises that test the subtlety of a surround-sound setup while Alexandre Desplat’s kooky, glockenspiel-heavy score reflects the unorthodox tension of the movie.

NOTE: Be aware, however, that the U.S. release of The Ghost Writer hit theaters with an overdubbed soundtrack to censor swear words to secure a PG-13 rating. Why is beyond me, considering that anyone who would go to a film this subtle has the emotional maturity to handle language, but Summit has inexplicable included this censored track — and only this censored track — in their home video release. I would urge interested Americans to import the Canadian disc, which of course plays without issue on all Region A players.

Extras

Sadly, none of the releases of the film appears to carry anything other than a handful of Electronic Press Kit material, all simplistic, pat-on-the-back stuff that barely goes into the film’s complexities other than to briefly touch upon the themes and style. The cast interviews are the worst, luvvie back scratching of the lowest order.

Final Thoughts

If the extras were more substantive, this would easily qualify as one of the best releases of the year. Picture and audio quality is superb, and the film itself is one of the few great works of an incredibly weak year. I’m still fuming over the censorship though, and the dubbing really is so obvious that I must insist that Americans import a Canadian copy. Polanski himself offered a summary of his career that he did not know what kind of movies he made other than to say that he made films for grown-ups. There is indeed a maturity to this film lacking in genre film today, and to see it made more childish through obvious and clumsy dubbing is outrageous. I know that Roman Polanski is a hot-button issue, and I certainly respect those who refuse to watch his films on principle more than I do those who look for justification for his crimes because they love his work. But I can only offer my sincere enjoyment of the movie and its ideas, and anyone in search of a great throwback to Watergate-era thrillers owes it to themselves to check out this superb piece of art.

– Jake Cole is a journalism student at Auburn University, where he regularly avoids people in favor of writing about film, television and music on his blog, Not Just Movies. He aspires to be a critic, partially out of his love for film but mainly because he’s always dreamed of living a life of extreme poverty.

August 12, 2010
Soapbox: America’s Serial Killing Sweetheart

Dexter Morgan: America’s Serial Killing Sweetheart

Since it’s premiere in December 2007, the hit Showtime series Dexter has been immensely popular – and immensely controversial. I have no desire to debate the merits and drawbacks of viewers identifying with or even liking a character who is, in fact, a serial killer – but I feel I must address why Dexter and his Dark Passenger are so captivating to so many.

Many of the greatest characters of all time have been evil, murderous and generally horrific people. Though they may be fascinating, Hannibal Lecter and the Wicked Witch of the West are not the most relatable characters out there, and the same holds true for most villains in popular culture. Dexter however, minus the occasional slicing and dicing of evildoers, is very relatable to anybody who has ever felt less than comfortable in society. We are all guilty of faking certain human interactions at some point or another during our lives, and Dexter’s character takes this to the utmost extreme. He’s a better faker than any of us could hope to be, because he fakes everything.

Fantastic writing is the key ingredient in the fabulous formula which is Dexter. Though the Dexter book series differs immensely from the television series (which is based solely on the first book, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, and the character Dexter himself) they are both fantastic. Since I have managed to keep this article spoiler-free in terms of the television series, I may as well keep the book spoilers out of it as well. Suffice it to say that if you liked the show, you will like the books ( I have just started the fourth novel in the series, and I promise to write a full review of the Dexter series when I am finished). But be warned: the books are a bit more unsettling than the series, in a number of ways.

A big part of Dexter’s charm also comes from Michael C Hall’s immense acting talent, which was obvious from his portrayal of David Fisher in HBO’s Six Feet Under – a faker in his own right, just in a much different context. The talent of the entire cast is not to be taken for granted, either – just look at John Lithgow’s stunning (and award winning) performance as the Trinity killer, or Jennifer Carpenter’s always amusing portrayal of Dexter’s foul mouthed sister Deb.

The next ingredient? Humor. Though upon first glance Dexter will not strike most folks as a comedic show, Dexter’s inner observations are not only quite often very humorous but also very astute. All aspects of the show are extremely well written, but Dexter’s inner observations steal the show in terms of laugh out loud moments as well as biting social commentary.

I have seen many different reactions to Dexter (and no, none of them have resulted in murder, fortunately) but the one that always surprises me is when people say that this show glamorizes or even encourages murder and vigilantism – not just folks giving a shallow read of what they think the show is about, but people who have actually watched the entire series. Yes, we all know Dexter only kills “bad guys” – but not for one second do I feel like this show has ever glamorized killing. If anything, this show illustrates just how difficult it is to successfully get away with it – especially if you look at characters other than Dexter. Dexter is never presented as anything other than an anomaly – because of Harry’s influence. Dexter would be just another killer, no different from one of his victims without the introduction of “Harry’s code” into his life.

The much anticipated 5th season of Dexter begins airing September 26, 2010 on Showcase. (Click here to view the trailer) Until then, check out the Dexter: Early Cuts Webisodes available here.

– Mary Hoffman

August 9, 2010
Hands Down #11

Welcome to Hands Down, FRED’s own look into the world of the folks that frequent this sordid world of geekery. Follow Aaron, Brian and Colin (and a menagerie on the way) as they traverse the light fantastic or some such nonsense… What? It’s an online fortnightly comic strip, what kind of description did you expect?

Enter The HANDS DOWN Competition

VISIT THE HANDS DOWN ARCHIVES

Follow Hands Down on Twitter

Written by Aaron Poole. Art by John Merker. Copyright 2010.

August 9, 2010
BIG BROTHER Blog Report: Day 52

Day 52

Well, lots to talk about but let’s start with the obvious:

Ben is gone.

He was a bitch, he was a lover, he was a child, he was a mother, he was a sinner, he was a saint (remind me I owe Meredith Brooks a cheque) but damn it he was good television. I said before that Ben was a people pleaser but more so than anything else he was a self pleaser and I’m not just talking about what he does in the mirror. Ben was lazy at the tasks because to exert effort would mean he cares and he just couldn’t care less. Sweat wasn’t something on his radar because he led a privileged life and didn’t really have to work hard to get anything, so why start now? All he really worried about was whether or not people thought he was a good person because if he was soon positively he could do what he wanted.

Ironically for someone who wanted to be liked by everyone so much Ben got evicted by the public because of his bitchy remarks about the people around him. Ben liked to think that he wasn’t bitchy but honest. The problem with his theory is that it’s only honesty if you say it to the person you’re talking about. When you say it behind their backs, that’s when you are perceived as devious. One particularly bad comment he made this week, which it appears was the last straw, was directed towards Josie. Ben made the very bad judgement of making this comment in the presence on Josie’s reluctant lover John James. Essentially, Ben said “She has been dressing up in more revealing clothes and I don’t think she can get away with that with her figure”. Ouch.

Good bye good sir. I’m sure we’ll see you pop up in the written media somehow. You can’t keep a good dog down, especially when he’s a purebred.

In other news, Dave is a moron

He’s been winding me up more and more as the weeks go by. He thinks he’s hilarious. He thinks he a genius. He thinks a lot of things. He’s wrong all the time. So, here are a few things I would like to say to him to set him straight.

– If you’re doing a task where you have to ignore the distractions in the house, RUNNING UP TO THE DISTRACTIONS AND LOOKING DIRECTLY AT THEM is failing the task.
– Telling Josie she needs to lose weight because she isn’t as skinny as yout wife isn’t a nice thing to say.
– When you’re told to ignore a new housemate in order to pass a task, saying I WONDER IF WE’LL GET A NEW HOUSEMATE IN is neither big nor clever. Shut up.
– You’re a minister? So is it very holy to look up your wife’s skirt on national television? Do you think that’s respectful?
– I don’t care how full your belly is with love, it’s mostly fat so you’ll have to run a hell of a lot faster in the garden to work that shit off.
– Fuck off home now, please.

Walk The Line

Shabby walked.
Caoimhe walked.
Keeley was carried.
John James walked. But walked back in.
Laura walked.

We’ve almost had as many housemates leave as we have had evicted. It’s all getting a little pathetic. I’m all for people removing themselves from bad situations but this year it’s all been whiney, moany, prissy little problems that has everyone leaving.

Shabby couldn’t handle the fact that there was someone in the house she fancied. Caoimhe couldn’t handle the fact that her boyfriend might think she was a bit of a slut. Keeley couldn’t handle the fact that she twisted her ankle (ouch). John James couldn’t handle the fact that he fancied Josie. Laura couldn’t handle the fact that she was still sad after her boyfriend cheated on her (ouch).

Real feelings and body injuries aside, can people not deal with their emotions anymore? It’s been noted that this year the housemates are extremely tactile and cuddly. Hugs are often associated with people needing affirmation and assurance. Are they all so fragile? Is this a magnifying glass on modern society as a whole? It’s hard to tell. Maybe I’m being heartless, but god damn it people, get over it!

– Aaron Poole
Follow Aaron on Twitter – @AaronFever

July 31, 2010
Review: BLACK NARCISSUS and THE RED SHOES

Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes

The Films

You have to feel sorry for Britain’s film community. Directors don’t get recognized until they make it to Hollywood, at which point they become absorbed into the American system. Hitchcock and Chaplin were not only English by birth but by nature, predisposed to dry comedy and, certainly in Hitch’s case, dark irony. Yet they’re among the purest examples of Hollywood filmmakers, two of the five most influential directors funded by the American system, and they’re but early examples of America’s way of denying England its own cinematic glory.

As such, the relative obscurity into which Michael Powell and his frequent collaborator, Emeric Pressburger, have fallen is at once tragic and completely foreseeable. In their heyday, the British director and the Hungarian ex-pat screenwriter, operating under the moniker The Archers, could easily have secured work in Hollywood, but Powell never elected to move, perhaps aware that he was just too British. Fortunately for the British, there may be no director in the history of the medium more cinematic, save perhaps Nicholas Ray: both were first-class Expressionists, masters of color, shadow and the freedom of cinematic editing.

Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes comprise the second half of the most impressive four-year period of any director, each year marked by its own masterpiece. Starting with 1945’s I Know Where I’m Going! and continuing with A Matter of Life and Death (also called Stairwayx to Heaven, Powell and Pressburger’s gold run by no means makes up their only great films (to the edge of both bookends are masterpieces like The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and The Tales of Hoffmann) but condenses everything the pair had to offer into four capital-R Romantic melodramas that will tear your soul to tatters.

Black Narcissus, timed with the independence of India in the same year, uses classical melodramatic technique to demonstrate why British occupation failed in the first place. A formalist triumph, the film contains arguably the greatest use of color in cinematic history (the only contender that comes to mind is Johnny Guitar). Not a single frame was shot in India, a jarring notion when faced with matte paintings, miniatures and studio sets so seamlessly combined that they look too real for a film made in the 1940s. Frankly, I cannot think of another film that uses miniatures so convincingly until I arrive at Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy over a half century later.

Yet the falsity of the film’s construction aids Powell on thematic and aesthetic grounds: this is a movie about what happens when people attempt to remake the world into their own image, and its chief atmosphere comes from the total control Powell and cinematographer Jack Cardiff exerted on color and lighting, control they enjoyed precisely because it was all staged. A group of nuns take residence in a palace — a former harem, no less, much to my amusement — where they seek to start a school for girls and a hospital.

Soon, however, the splendor of their surroundings begins to affect the sisters in strange ways. Juxtaposing the plain, oatmeal-colored habits with the bright dyes of the locals clothing, Powell stresses how alien the British women are, perched as they are on the face of a cliff 9,000 feet above the ground in their whitewashed, palatial whorehouse.

Rather than use the exoticism to lure the women away from their vows, Powell stresses how the environment simply unlocks latent memories and desires in foreign agents, removed from their own surroundings and more capable of seeing what’s left behind. Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr), the young and condescending leader of the group, starts to daydream of a past romance that drove her to the order when it failed, while another nun becomes so absent-minded and focused on something deep in her mind that she plants flowers in the vegetable patches.

Then there’s Sister Ruth, played by Kathleen Byron. Where Clodagh sours in her repression, Ruth has become a bundle of nerves, crackling buried desire with every look. Bryon’s performance is one of the great performances of madness in the cinema: you can see it when she runs into a room early in the film covered in the blood of a local patient, looking oddly pleased with herself, and the mounting of her lust for Dean (Jack Farrar), the shorts-sporting government agent and symbol of arrogant imperialism, begins to twist her physically as Byron’s mouth twists into feral grins and makeup gives her flesh the pale green/purple hue of Sleeping Beauty‘s Maleficent. Combined with Powell’s masterful pacing and artistic staging, the simple act of putting on lipstick can be more horrific than any violent action.

Films about lost faith and buried sexuality are somber affairs, the realm of Ingmar Bergman and Carl Dreyer. But Black Narcissus is a movie of passion, sensuality popping off the screen in every shot as the tightly structured plot takes unperceived twists and turns until it winds up a full-blown opera. Powell’s approach lifts the feature out of any single message, blending in its critical study of imperialism and its suggestions concerning the effect of religious piety on the mind and body into a sumptuous feast of color and emotion, making for what may be Powell’s most gripping adventure.

But if Black Narcissus combined eroticism with politics, the Archers’ masterpiece, The Red Shoes, filters sensuality through its purest form: art. The climactic sequence of Powell’s previous film choreographed the action to the score, preparing him nicely for a film about ballet. But just as Black Narcissus quickly broke free of its social message to spiral off into far grander territory, so too does The Red Shoes use ballet as a springboard for a larger commentary on all art.

Lermontov, the strict ballet impresario played by Anton Walbrook, is modeled after the great leader of the Ballets Russes, Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghliev was a demanding taskmaster, but he also revolutionized the art form of ballet by seeking out the newest and most innovative talent – it was Diaghliev, after all, who introduced the world to Stravinsky and supported him even when the composer’s work sparked riots among the intelligentsia.

Lermontov is no less unforgiving, but Powell digs into the character, explaining such cruelties as firing the lead ballerina for getting engaged not as the whims of an artistic tyrant but the side-effects of a dedication to art. He tells an upper-class art patron that ballet is a religion to him, and when he finally acquiesces to her wishes to audition her niece, Vicky (Moira Shearer), he asks her a test question first. “Why do you want to dance” he asks with a hint of danger, but he soon learns that Vicky isn’t just some feckless relative relying on her aunt to get famous. “Why do you want to live?” she responds immediately. “Well, I don’t know exactly why, but … I must.” “That’s my answer, too.”

Powell & Pressburger frame the central conflict of the film around this idea, making an odd love triangle with Vicky at the center. On one hand is Lermontov, representative of art; on the other, Craster (Marius Goring), the young composer who falls for the dancer. Thus, the choice the dancer must make is between physical love and love of the abstract, love of artistic expression. When Lermontov expresses jealousy toward Craster, it is not out of sexual competition but a desire to see the greatest conduit for dance he’s ever seen dedicate herself fully to the arts.

Not that sex and dance are ever separated in the course of the film’s 135 minutes. Craster, already a wunderkind, finds writing even easier with Vicky as a muse. For his part, Lermontov clearly receives his physical and emotional gratification from watching ballet, and the reason he pushes his dancers, composers and designers further than anyone else may be that he must see bolder and bolder art to continue satisfying unaddressed biological needs.

This unorthodox approach to sensuality makes the naked repression of the nuns in Black Narcissus look quaint by comparison. Despite the setbacks of social norms, The Red Shoes contains the most flagrantly sexual moment in the cinema, and it’s a sequence that has no overt connection to sex. The film’s centerpiece is an epic dance number than breaks the rules of physics, much less ballet, to communicate how Vicky views art. Earlier in the film, Powell wryly touched upon the social nature of box seats in theaters, designed to allow the higher-ups to view each other rather than watch the show, yet Vicky never took her eyes of the stage. Once she finally appears with the group, the screen explodes into Expressionistic, libidinous freedom. Vicky’s dance partners vanish into costumed outlines that exist only because Vicky must acknowledge at least that she’s interacting with an object, and at one point her chief partner morphs into both Lermontov and Craster. This is what it looks like to see a genius attuned to the craft, and Powell stresses that Vicky doesn’t care an ounce for fame when he imposes a shot of waves crashing on a rocky beach in place of the applauding audience: the crowd is just background noise behind what really matters.

Brilliantly, Powell allows the audience to truly ponder the question of choosing romance over art. Vicky, confined by gender roles of the day, should not have even been given the option of following her career at the expense of a relationship, but the director understands genius. Had Mozart not died at 35 but instead given up music to appease a lover, would we look upon that act as a romantic gesture, or the denial of a world-class talent to appease the whims of one lovesick individual? As Powell gave his nuns the freedom to have physical desires in Black Narcissus, he also gives Vicky the option of making a choice between two equally viable options. Whatever choice she makes will be tragic, and the film is made even more heartbreaking through Powell’s effortless control of empathy, an emotional counterbalance to the cold tricks of the other British master, Hitchcock.

If you’re still on the fence about these films, I can only point to Powell’s biggest fan to try to sell you: if you like Martin Scorsese, I can personally guarantee you will love these movies. Marty includes something of Powell into all of his films — the shadowed boxing crowds in Raging Bull reflect the subjectivity of a master focused solely on the craft and not who’s enjoying it, and Shutter Island contains open homages to both Black Narcissus (looking down the cliff) and The Red Shoes (the spiral staircase Leo climbs at the end). Scorsese even befriended Powell after the Brit found himself out of work after the better-than-Psycho psychosexual thriller Peeping Tom and his editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, married Powell. If I ever met Scorsese, we might end up mutually gushing over the Archers more than Marty’s own work, but that’s the effect Powell has on you: less cynical than Nick Ray, Powell belongs in the pantheon of directors with a pure grasp on emotion along with Griffith, Kurosawa and other rarefied names. I cannot promise that you will like these two films but — arrogant as this may be — I can say that, if you don’t, the problem doesn’t lie with Powell.

Blu-Ray specs

The restorations for both Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes were joint efforts on behalf of Janus Films (Criterion’s parent company) and the British ITV, who put out their own Blu-Rays a year ago. I’d been wondering when Criterion would finally get around to releasing copies Stateside. The wait was worth it. ITV’s single-layer discs are, judging from screenshot comparisons, perfectly suitable transfers of the restoration. The Criterion discs, however, use dual-layer BDs and take up nearly all the bitrate. The result is a crisper image, not to the point that those in Region B need to seethe but noticeable enough in places, especially on Black Narcissus. Either way, these images are breathtaking, restoring the impeccable color of Jack Cardiff’s cinematography fully. I’m happy that Criterion brought their old method of restoration demonstrations out of the box after a few studios complained in the past to show just how completely ITV and Janus cleaned up the film.

Both films were stunning even in their damaged versions, but now the imagery achieves maximum effect. The blue sky that catches Clodagh’s attention while praying in the drab chapel is even more arresting in its new clarity, as is the close-up of Vicky’s made-up face while dancing. Criterion’s restorations are often revelatory, and the work they did earlier this year with Nicholas Ray’s masterpiece, Bigger Than Life, demonstrated clearly what they could achieve with old Technicolor movies, but these are vital upgrades to two of the most beautiful films ever made, looking better even than Ray’s visual tour-de-force.

The audio is strong to boot, communicating the boisterous scores of classical filmmaking and leaving the dialogue crisp. But it’s the imagery that will suck you in time and again, eradicating the many issues of fading, scratches and blurring that plagued the weak transfer of the three-strip Technicolor when Criterion first put these on DVD.

Extras

Most of the two films’ extras come from the original DVDs, but they were among Criterion’s best supplements. A commentary track for Black Narcissus featuring the director and Martin Scorsese in particular is one of the greatest DVD extras of all time, and the discs have been fleshed out with updated pieces on the restorative efforts that went into cleaning up the film, all of which are worth a look to those who respect what specialty companies like Criterion and ITV do for classic films. There’s some inevitable overlap between making-of features and individual interviews, but overall the extras pad out the most impressive one-two punch Criterion has released this year.

Final Thoughts

Both of these films are true masterpieces, and I count The Red Shoes among my 10 favorite films of all time. I tried to keep my reviews short this time, finally remembering that my usual style is meant for those who have seen the movie, not those thinking of buying it. But I also held back because it’s all too easy to lose oneself in superlatives when discussing Powell & Pressburger. People tend to view classic films in a vacuum, as if standing behind a velvet rope in a museum, and even when people say, “They don’t make ’em like they used to,” they slip in an undercurrent of relief beneath the perfunctory regret. But Powell is one of those old filmmakers who, like Ray, could slip under your skin and break boundaries so completely that you didn’t even realize just how many risks they’d taken until you reach the end. The vibrancy of these two films, made clearer through the nearly perfect restorations, is arresting in the way that few modern films are, not because people don’t try as hard or because somehow things are only good when they’ve aged or other nonsense, but because Powell & Pressburger were as attuned to their art form as Vicky Page was to the ballet. Cinema was in their blood, and not the tragedy of Powell’s eventual artistic exile can undercut the majesty of their work. Regardless of what Powell film I watch, even ones not written by his Hungarian friend, I think of a conversation the two shared in preparation for I Know Where I’m Going!: Pressburger wanted to make a movie about a woman on an island, and the director wanted to know how she got there. Without missing a beat, Emeric replied, “Let’s make the film and find out.”

– Jake Cole is a journalism student at Auburn University, where he regularly avoids people in favor of writing about film, television and music on his blog, Not Just Movies. He aspires to be a critic, partially out of his love for film but mainly because he’s always dreamed of living a life of extreme poverty.

July 31, 2010
Hands Down #10

Welcome to Hands Down, FRED’s own look into the world of the folks that frequent this sordid world of geekery. Follow Aaron, Brian and Colin (and a menagerie on the way) as they traverse the light fantastic or some such nonsense… What? It’s an online fortnightly comic strip, what kind of description did you expect?

Enter The HANDS DOWN Competition

VISIT THE HANDS DOWN ARCHIVES

Follow Hands Down on Twitter

Written by Aaron Poole. Art by John Merker. Copyright 2010.

July 26, 2010
Essential Sounds (2010/07/22)

Essential Sounds (2010/07/22)

Here to help? I certainly am, banging on your ear drums this week we have five fine cuts of the freshest audio around ranging from summery shoe gazing to blazing brass sections. All your musical needs are covered for another seven days this is the soundtrack to your week this is Essential Sounds.

1. Boyfriend by Best Coast

This week we kick off with this lovely lo-fi fuzzy gem from US indie duo Best Coast. “Boyfriend” is a slice of understated magic with its soaring harmonies and sunshine swagger. The best thing about this track is its simplicity with an infectious vocal delivery, shuffling rhythm and surf rock guitars this is the best summer you ever had captured in two and half minutes, actor Bill Murray considers himself a fan and so do we

2. Who Dat? by J.Cole

Hot off the heels from last years Warm Up mixtape and the first MC up to bat for Jay Z’s newly founded Roc Nation is J.Cole and alongside Jay Electronica he is hottest commodity in hip-hop right now. “Who Dat” is the first single from his forthcoming debut album Cole World and with so much pressure on his shoulders it shows that J.Cole really is living up to his expectations. A thumping rhythm propelled into orbit with its astonishing brass work proves that there is still a creative flare within the game. Part old school joint mixed with the gusto of a marching band “Who Dat” truly flies the flag for the up and comers in this industry.

3. Where I’m Going by Cut Copy

Looking to build upoun the success of 2008’s “In Ghost Colours” the Australian electropop group have returned with new single “Where I’m Going”. Staying true to their musical roots but aiming a little more mainstream “Where I’m Going” shows shades of New Order’s latter work with a feel good chorus thrown in for good measure. This has a more sugary feel to it than previous material but thats not a bad thing in the slightest as it shows a real sense of fun within their work ethic. The final third of the track displays a more progressive side and has us wondering what the rest of the forthcoming album will sound like.

4. Can We Go Wrong by Hesta Prynn

Side stepping from her all girl New York rap troop Hesta Prynn has spread her wings and put forth this solo endeavour. The interesting thing about “Can We Go Wrong” is that like every good palette it has a little bit of everything. Fuzzy distorted bass lines and funky drumming is the core to its rhythm but over that we find almost chip tune like synth leads and a guitar riff that would make most garage bands green with envy. Hesta also drops the MC’ing for this to deliver a solid pop vocal performance. This is a brand new look for her and she seems to pull it off flawlessly.

5. Oildale (Leave Me Alone) by Korn

Digging themselves out from a pit of depression and the black hole of musical obscurity Johnathon Davis and his nu-metal pioneers really deliver with “Oildale”. It sounds like classic Korn but because that quality has been missing for sometime it also feels brand new again. Heavy percussion and rattling bass lines form a really solid background for Davis to balance delicate vocals with full on aggression an equilbrium that this group have truly mastered. If the rest of the forthcoming album Remember Me can match the quality of this then the once disgarded figures of rock could be back in buisness.

– Mal Foster

July 22, 2010
Hands Up Who Wants To Be In Hands Down?

Hello and welcome to the first ever Hands Down comic competition!

Have you ever wanted to feature in a comic? Well, Hands Down features some of the lovely people who frequent the FRED forum and now it can feature you too! All you have to do is fill in the blanks from Hands Down #8 below. The writer of the best dialogue will win a cameo appearance in Hands Down #15 later this year.

So get writing! You can enter the text simply with applications like MSPaint, Photoshop and hundreds others. Then send it to us via handsdowncomic@gmail.com. All entries must be in before September 1st and the winner will be announced soon after. Don’t forget you can enter as many times as you like so don’t restrain yourself to just one idea.

Go on! Put me out of a job and get your comedy hat on and maybe you’ll get to be a web comic character!

VISIT THE HANDS DOWN ARCHIVES

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Art by John Merker. Copyright 2010.

July 21, 2010
Soapbox: Lackluster

Lackluster

One advertising slogan that never really applied to me was “If you only see one movie this month…”. I spend a lot of time in the cinema, and it’d be a very rare turn of events that would lead me to not go to see a movie at least once a week. Going to the cinema with such regularity means that I get to see everything that I want to see and I get to see some films that I don’t necessarily want to see, but am willing to take a chance on. And now, here we are again almost at the end of “Blockbuster Season” and I haven’t really been awesomed by many films.

As I write this, there is some small hope left in the Season, hope that we might go from somewhat-lacklustre to absolute-blockbuster. Inception went on general release last week in most countries around the world and it impressed the hell out of me. So far, it’s been the saving grace of the summer. Toy Story 3 went on general release in Ireland and the UK on the 19th of July (yes, it went on general release on a Monday for some stupid reason) and is riding high on stellar reviews from America where the movie has been out for quite some time. The A-Team and The Karate Kid have both yet to be released here and both have gotten very mixed reviews but still carry with them some small promise of salvation, but that hope is very small. I think that when all is said and done, Inception and Toy Story 3 could be the winners this year with a special mention for How To Train Your Dragon. That movie was released in March of this year, so it was probably too early to be considered a summer blockbuster, but hands down it’s been my favourite movie of the year and probably my favourite animated movie of all time. And as such, I’m allowing it for consideration in this column.

Dependant on what part of the world you’re reading this in, your experience of the blockbuster season could well be different to mine. In Eastern Europe, The A-Team went on release weeks ago and Toy Story 3 is out but Inception is still a week away. In this age of instant information when a movie can live or die on the strength of reviews, there’s still a huge discrepancy in the release dates of certain movies. There was a time when I was really looking forward to seeing The Last Airbender, but after reading consistently awful reviews from both viewers and critics in America, I’ll be giving that movie a wide miss. The practice of staggering releases around the world also has a hugely detrimental effect when it comes to internet piracy. There are certain people who will want to see a big blockbuster movie as soon as it’s available, no matter how it’s available. If I felt a burning need to see The A-Team before the 28th of July, I could very easily have a good quality digital copy of the movie sitting on my hard drive by now and let’s face it, if I have the movie on my hard drive there’s very little chance that I’d pay to see it on a bigger screen upon it’s cinematic release in Ireland. But illegalness isn’t my style, and I enjoy going to the cinema far too much, so the closest I’ll come to piracy is a Pirates Of The Caribbean marathon over the course of a weekend at home.

Looking at the listings for this week at my local cinema, it strikes me that there’s a smaller choice of movies now than there is at almost any other time during the year. I think that part of the reason for this is that studios are afraid that “smaller” movies will be steamrolled over by the bigger blockbuster movies. But another reason for it is 3D. At present, Shrek Forever After and Toy Story 3D account for four movies even though they are obviously only two. Having to accommodate 3D versions of movies, and not even the summer blockbusters, means that the movie will take up two spaces on a schedule and that just means that someone has to lose out. And the “someone” who loses out is usually the audience.

The only movie with which I can compare the 3D version to the 2D version is How To Train Your Dragon. I got to see that movie three times in the cinema and the second viewing was in 3D, due to scheduling more than any desire to sit in the cinema wearing a set of plastic glasses over my own prescription glasses. And I have to say that I really didn’t notice any discernable difference between the two versions. Though I think the movie is pretty much perfect either way. I think and I hope that 3D will come and go as it has before, as its main purpose at the moment sees to be purely to clog up cinema schedules or delay the release of movies. Joss Whedon’s new movie, Cabin in Then Woods would have been released by now were it not for the studio’s desire to have the film released in 3D.

But 3D still holds little sway over the world of DVD/Blu Ray and home entertainment. I can’t help but wonder if four or five months from now when the blockbuster movies are released on disc how we’ll be looking back at this summer? Predators was a worthy sequel but didn’t quite live up to its initial promise. Shrek Forever After tried to breath new life into the franchise but did more sucking than blowing. Prince Of Persia tried to be Pirates Of The Caribbean on sand but didn’t have any of the charm of the pirate movies. Iron Man 2 set the standard high early in the season, but couldn’t help but suffer from comparisons to the universally loved original movie. Twilight movies are just horrible, and send the worst possible message to it’s target audience of teenage girls. How To Train Your Dragon would be the standard bearer if it had been released a little later in the year, but it did have the advantage of being able to enjoy a very lengthy run in the cinema sue to it’s release before the lacklustre blockbusters.

So here we stand, near the end of another blockbuster season with only Inception to hold aloft as the example of what a blockbuster should be. It’s an unusual position to be in, given that Inception is also the smartest film of the year so far or indeed of the last couple of years. I’ll be going to see Toy Story 3 later this week and I have high hopes for it. Maybe high hopes are dangerous, but it’s high hopes that keep us going. And more importantly… keep us going to the cinema.

– Simon Fitzgerald

July 21, 2010
BIG BROTHER Blog Report: Day 41

Day 41

Caoimhe is gone. And good riddance. Never have I hated a countryman so much since Andrew Maxwell let the team down. She was bitchy, boring and devious. The world will turn without her.

Josie’s recent problem with Caoimhe was blown out of proportion and the result of a woman becoming obsessed by her love/like/hate relationship with John James (delete as applicable to the day). And on some levels I do feel that Josie needed to drop it a long time ago. But the problem is, Caoimhe knew she did something stupid by flirting with JJ and rather than tackle the problem head on she weasled away from the responsibility. Her efforts to avoid the situation were so deepset that she even threw up in the bathroom out of sheer embarrassment.

She has left to carry on her crazy love for the infamous “Dave” outside of the house. So good luck to her. Let’s hope we never hear from her again.

And don’t come back

Now that we’ve reached approximately the half way point I thought I’d go through the housemates with a quick update with my thoughts and feelings on them and how they’re doing.

ANDREW
Bless his cotton socks. I wanted to high five him when he told John James to “take it easy on Josie”. One of the few people to actually stop and think “hey psycho, stop”. Nerdy and shy he shouldnt be as entertaining as he is but it helps that he seems to be genuinely growing confidence from the experience. Could go far.

BEN
The posh git has some life in him. I thought he was in trouble from Day 1 and lets be fair he got himself into trouble since Day 1 but he has managed to endear himself not only to the housemates but to the public. He’s still desperate to be loved but his desperation is what made him human and I guess we’ve connected with that a little.

CORIN
Roll up, roll up and get your living Corin doll complete with four whole phrases! Just pull the string and hear “Oh my god”, “Loving it”, “Buzzing” and “Can’t believe it”. That’s all. Nothing else. Corin doll also comes with removable eyebrows.

DAVID
Another one who really bugged me at first but who I’ve warmed to over time. He has a similar opinion to myself about a lot of the housemates in regard to their revelry in negativity (also known as being bitchy the whole time). The only problem is, he still thinks gay marriage is immoral, I thought this would come back to bite him but obviously no-one gives a shit. It’s been while since he was up for eviction so we’ll see how he gets on.

JOHN JAMES
Dumb as a pile of rocks. His budding romance with Josie has kept me fascinated and frustrated for weeks. However, I’m tired of his anger. He’ll shout at everyone who gives him an opportunity and is obsessed with who is “real” and who isnt. He won’t let anything go and it’s exhausting. Plus, any real man would have kissed Josie by now. Seriously, grow a pair, you little girl.

JOSIE
Hello me old mucker. She has kind of lost her marbles with this John James stuff. It doesn’t help that she sucks her thumb constantly. For a woman of her age she has not handled any of this stuff like a grown up. Hasn’t really gotten many nomination votes and I can see her making it to the final. She’s my favourite to win the show but all could fall apart depending on how she reacts to the stress of her “relationship” over the next few weeks.

KEELEY
Came into the house with loads of swagger and claimed she would rule the roost. Nothing. Not a jot of that. But she has been a firm voice and a competitive spirit so she has a good place within all the kids who run about. Has a weird flirt thing going on with Steve but I would hazard that this is because she’s trying to move herself up the social ladder within the house. A go getter. Lets see if she gets it.

RACHEL
She fancies Ben… I just… I just can’t get past this.

STEVEN
Will make it to the final by default and I have a little bit of a problem with that. Ben pointed out early on that nobody will nominate him for fear of being seen as a bastard by the public. The thing is, he’s not entertainment. Yeah, he has 8 kids and he misses them but thats it. So if he wins this purely out of sympathy I’ll be pissed. That being said, his fawning over Keeley is freaking me out. Maybe something interesting will result of it.

– Aaron Poole
Follow Aaron on Twitter – @AaronFever

July 20, 2010