Outside of a Dream

The writings of a Lynch-obsessed film lover var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-22923147-2']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-27793476-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

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Gatsby Considerations

Seeing Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby at the weekend reminded me that even when a film isn't absolutely amazing, it can still have a profound effect on a person.

I enjoyed the book but don't regard it as the Great American Novel as so many do (including Toru and Nagasawa from Haruki Murakami's Norwegian Wood). This meant I could enjoy the film for what it was and not necessarily see it purely as an adaptation of Scott Fitzgerald's novel. 

I haven't seen many of Luhrmann's films (I think actually only Romeo + Juliet) and so his style hasn't worn me down yet, though the frenetic editing early on did make me a bit dizzy! Gatsby is very stylish, the contemporary music gives it an interesting feel, and all the performances are fantastic especially those of Leonardo DiCaprio (Jay Gatsby) and Carey Mulligan (Daisy Buchanan). 

It is the final two points I just want to quickly discuss. Firstly, Carey Mulligan...

Her performance as Daisy is beautiful.

While the character is perhaps more innocent and less self aware than in the novel, her every word and move are said and played perfectly. Upon meeting Gatsby for the first time in 5 years and being shown around his magnificent house (which he built to be near her) emotions take over and both Gatsby and Daisy get caught up in excitement as they swim, play golf and throw shirts to the strains of Lana Del Rey. This entire movement is brilliant and the audience are able to feel the characters' need for each other. Mulligan fills every beautifully accented sentence with passion; "I'm such a brute" or "Oh Nicky, this is madness".

Mulligan's performance reminded me of when I first became aware of her. It was when Lone Scherfig's An Education came out and I noticed how pretty she was. I never saw the film, though I would still very much like to. I'm also told that I actually saw her in the great Blink episode of Doctor Who which aired two years earlier, in 2007, but much like Andrew Garfield's appearance in the Daleks episodes of the same year, I appear to have erased these performances from my memory. The two were great together in the adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go which I would highly recommend. They star alongside Keira Knightley - who is as good as she is in Atonement - and all 3 are captivating in what is a very sad film. Mulligan is also fantastic in Drive, but I've raved too much about that film on the blog already!

I mentioned Lana Del Rey earlier, an artist of whom a rather huge fan. Much of the music in Gatsby feels a little out of place, but Del Rey's track Young & Beautiful captures and compliments the emotions of the characters perfectly. Having heard the song in the trailer, an aspect which drew me in, I was unsure whether it would even be in the film, but it is and is essentially used as Daisy and Jay's theme.

For Del Rey it is a more simple piece but it may be the most powerful song she has recorded yet. Lush strings and military, crashing drums and THAT voice, sublime. If you haven't heard it, this is the song I'm talking about:

I believe multiple versions are used throughout but it is brilliant.

One final note, which sort of came out of nowhere (maybe the percussion on the Del Rey track, or the use of great music in a trailer), is that I was reminded of the brilliant trailer for Zack Snyder's Watchmen which used the Smashing Pumpkins song The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning. I enjoyed that film but the trailer is the best trailer I think I've ever seen:

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Hot Tub Cinema

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to attend a screening of Dirty Dancing.

"Why would you want to go and sit through that?" I hear you ask. Well there are three very important reasons: 1) I've never seen it before, 2) it was free, and 3) it was a screening where I would be sat in a hot tub.

The idea behind Hot Tub Cinema is that a bunch of people get together to watch a classic film on a giant screen while enjoying each other's company, relaxing in 40 degree hot tubs.

And it was fun.

The whole experience was really rather odd, however. From the moment I turned up at a disused factory in Shoreditch not knowing if I was about to get mugged or watch a cheesy 80s movie, mostly naked with a load of strangers, I felt slightly uncomfortable. Thinking about it, I'm not sure which scenario I imagined to be worse!

When my friend Grace arrived (the girl who had kindly offered me a spare ticket she had won) things got a little easier. We made jokes about how strange it all was and how it might have been less weird if we'd come with a big group of friends like everyone else did. Anyway, we queued up and walked into the cold shell of the building that was dressed up to be vaguely cinema-like.

Once we had picked up our wristbands, we were guided to the changing rooms (small marquees) and instructed that in order to purchase drinks and snacks we would need to buy tokens. This was a good measure that saved our money from getting wet.

Drinks could be bought from the bar beforehand and ordered from waitresses during the film. I chose to drink cider, while Grace drank wine. Other people (though thankfully no one in our hot tub - yes we had to share) ate hot dogs which were also available from the waitresses.

Once changed, we began to freeze so we went via Marilyn to the screening room.

Unlike a traditional cinema, there were no seats. Instead we were presented with a room full of 20 hot tubs all steaming away and beckoning us in.

To say the initial moment of stepping into the tub was one of my favourite cinema moments would be an understatement. It felt fantastic. It was just a shame that the actual film element was less than successful.

For the twenty circular hot tubs there were two large screens, one at each end, both in sync with each other. Unfortunately one of the projections was far better than the other, meaning that only half the room could actually watch a decent version of the film while the other half watched a very dim and dull version. Not great for a purportedly cinematic experience.

The choice of films for this run of Hot Tub Cinema were, however, prime examples of the types of film that work in such an environment. Grouped under the heading 'All Time Classics' the run consisted of showings of Dirty Dancing, alongside Labyrinth, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Pulp Fiction among others. These feel-good or quote-along films allow everyone to have fun and engage in a communal love of cinema but beware Kermode and Mayo followers, many rules are broken at these screenings! Unlike traditional cinemas, everyone was having fun, chatting, engaging with the film and joking, eating popcorn and in the final ten minutes of DD standing, singing and dancing! As Miranda's mum might say, "Such Fun", but not in the traditional movie-going sense. Kermode might have enjoyed the fancy dress 'ushers' who very kindly accepted my tokens in exchange for far too many alcoholic beverages but overall it was less like watching a film for its content than going to a house party and laughing at the awful film you just rented.

The film itself was poor, as I had expected. It made Ghost seem rather good! The whole thing felt like a montage sequence with less story than The Karate Kid, but the dancing was nice and the final song and dance were every bit as cheesy and fun as all those Dirty Dancing lovers had always told me.

After the film had ended, a party ensued which was rather fun even though I tend to be very dismissive of current pop music. I was even having enough fun to take part in their attempt to record a 'Harlem Shake' video. No evidence of which has seen the light of day as far as I know (thank goodness!).

All in all, the idea was fun, it was well organised despite the weird location, the film choices were interesting and just right, and everyone appeared to have a great time. It's just a shame that it costs £20 odd per person and the screening wasn't perfect. I wouldn't recommend going purely the film, rather get a group of friends together and go for an occasion. You won't regret it...

I may not have had 'the time of my life' but it was certainly enjoyable!

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Jessica Chastain is back, again, thisn time in horror movie Mama. You can read my review for Shadowlocked here.

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Judd Apatow's latest is out now so here's my review from Shadowlocked!

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Oscar

In my bid to be as well informed about this year's Best Film Oscar contenders I caught up with two more last week, Django Unchained and Zero Dark Thirty. Two very different films but with plenty of great stuff to be said about them.

Django Unchained

It's always good to have a new Quentin Tarantino film out and Django was a huge amount of fun, if not quite up there with the likes of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. It was far more consistent than Inglourious Basterds though had no scenes that even came close to the tension of the opener in Inglourious. Like his last film, Tarantino rewrites history according to his own imagination, this time allowing black slaves to get their own back (in an extremely gory way). However, while it touches on slavery, it doesn't really have anything to say about it other than that it was bad. If you want a polemic on anti-slavery, Spielberg's Lincoln is also out and Oscar nominated.

The performances were stellar all round with the stand out being Christoph Waltz who revels in his bad-ass but likeable bounty hunter role. Leo DiCaprio shows a different side and is great fun for it, hamming it up and turning the typical plantation owner character into an effeminate, sister-loving crazy. Many critics have picked out Jamie Foxx as the weak link, which I don't agree with, he is good if slightly overshadowed by the others. Samuel  L. Jackson puts in a funny yet sinister turn as DiCaprio's loyal servant Stephen and keep an eye out for Amber Tamblyn as a lady who peers round a curtain as Django rolls into town.

The films is essentially Tarantino's ode to Western films though as he is has said himself, it's more of a 'Southern'! It was very fun spotting references to other Westerns and actors in small roles such as Jonah Hill, the baddy from Wolf Creek and the original Django himself, Franco Nero. While there was much fun to be had,  it was occasionally punctuated by emotional moments, mostly in relation to Bromhilda, Django's wife, and they serve to spur the story on to it's inevtiable conclusion. This conclusion comes perhaps 30 minutes too late and unfortunately provides the time for the director himself to cameo. Which was odd and jarring. Nevertheless, Django Unchained was great, bloody Tarantino fun which almost certainly won't win Best Picture at the Oscars. I predict a Best Screenplay win though.

Zero Dark Thirty

On the other side of the coin however, is Kathryn Bigelow's latest Zero Dark Thirty. Starring Jessica Chastain the film deals with the hunt for America's most wanted terrorist, Osama Bin Laden.

I'll say it outright, this is my favourite of the Best Film nominations I've seen this side of Christmas! At a running time of 2 and a half hours, the film never feels long or drags at all. We see the hunt from start to finish and take in waterboarding, suicide bombs, Whitehouse conversations and full on action all the while relating to Maya, the CIA agent who has devoted the entire 12 years of her service to hunting this monster down.

Chastain (who is fantastic in everything from Take Shelter to Coriolanus) is brilliantly understated as Maya and wrings every bit of emotionm out of her character and the situations she faces in her bid to secure her target. As John Barrowman (who pops up inexplicably) says in his two lines, "I want to hear her talk"..."she is clever". I paraphrase but he nails exactly what it is about Bigelow's film that keeps the audience hooked despite the fact that we all know how it's going to end. The movie begins and remains incredibly interesting and tense and Chastain is ably supported by a cast of fantastic actors amking the miost of their limited screen time (it is HER story). Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, James Gandolfini and Stephen Dillane rank among the great cast of CIA, Whitehouse and Navy S.E.A.L operatives yet never take the focus away from Maya.

The film starts dark and proceeds to get darker the closer the team get to locating "UBL". The final showdown as the Navy S.E.A.Ls fly in and go about their business is as tense and nerve-wracking as any of the set pieces in Bigelow's previous film, The Hurt Locker. While that was impressive, it felt mostly like a series of set pieces while Zero Dark Thirty felt a more cohesive whole with this amazing pay off at the end.

A fantastic, intriguing film.

As someone who knows very little about politics, especially American politics, I was still utterly enthralled and would highly recommend this as the one Oscar-nominated film anyone should see before the 24th February. If you choose any others, try Beasts Of The Southern Wild before QT.

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Isabella Rossellini and David Lynch by Annie Leibovitz (87)

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Les Misérables

And came it did on Friday 11th January. I'm sure that people will still be talking about it for months to come.

Having never had an interest in seeing it in the West End, I was very surprised to find myself being drawn towards the film the more I saw and heard of it. I think what most attracted it to me was the fact that the singing we hear was done live adding a very 'real' element to proceedings. That and the stellar cast of Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne among others.

If, like me, you're not particularly familiar with the story, go and read Victor Hugo's novel upon which the musical that the film is based on, is based! Kidding. The film is set over seventeen years in the lead up to the French Uprising of 1832 and concerns the relationship between a wrongly imprisoned man named Valjean and the prison guard, Javert, who releases him after nineteen years. Finally free, Valjean (Jackman) takes refuge at a welcoming church but makes the bad decision to steal from them and is promptly caught by the guards. The kindness of a priest, however, inspires him to turn his life around and it is this vow of goodness that leads him to start a new life in which he helps a young employee called Fantine (Hathaway) and her daughter Cosette.

I'll leave the rest of the story a mystery in case you're unfamiliar. Needless to say the film continues to get rather depressing and sad. It is the sad moments that are the most emotional, and Anne Hathaway's brief performance delivers plenty of heart-wrenching warbling. Her frail presence on screen and the beautiful renditions of the few songs she's given reduced me to tears. If she doesn't receive the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress then blow me down!

I cared less about the older Cosette (Amanda Seyfried who I realise I now really quite fancy), and had more fun with the young Cosette as her story introduced the comic relief, courtesy of Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter. Their hilarious introduction initially took me off guard (was this actually in the stage production?) as it seemed so out of place, but it was very funny with two great performances that briefly distract you from the awful events of the rest of the movie.

The relationship between Javert and Valjean is brought fantastically to life by Crowe and Jackman with both performing their songs with gusto and emotion. Much criticism has been directed Russell Crowe's way with regards to his singing, but I really rather liked his style and thought it fitted with the character perfectly. Everyone repeats their name in song form too many times, but for Javert it works very well as he is a self-important, righteous bastard: "And I am Javert / Do not forget my name!" As an old hand at the singing malarky, Jackman proves once again that he can take a familiar song and make it his own even within the constraints of a musical that has been runing for nearly 30 years. His performance did however occasionally remind me of Julian Barrett's in Matt Berry and Richard Ayoade's Nativity Musical AD/BC:

If I have any major criticism it is that the running time was maybe ten minutes too long; we didn't need Valjean to sing about the fact he needed and wanted to save Marius as it was blatently obvious! There was, however, a marked improvement in the look of the film compared with The King's Speech which goes to show that Tom Hooper is still improving and honing his craft. The stage version cannot get right in the face of the characters as they reach their emotional climaxes while Hooper shows skill in using mid-shots and close ups to allow us to recognise the pain and anguish on the faces of Fantine and Éponine.

Les Misérables is rather good, if not the type of film I would usually watch or even reccommend. I don't think it will win the Best Picture Oscar though. That will probably go to Lincoln even though it should go to Beasts Of The Southern Wild.

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Bill Murray reads poems to construction workers!

Fantastic video courtesy of Guardian Film

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2013

Happy New Ear as Michael Ball once mis-covered Abba

And so 2 weeks into 2013 I've not yet been to the cinema. But there's plenty of good stuff out so my next post will most likely be a review of something. For now, however, I shall talk briefly about film in 2012.

Thinking about last year reminds me that I'm in yet another city. In 2012 Bristol was my home and it offered me a plethora of options for cinema-going. I could choose from independent cinemas such as Watershed and The Cube (which played more arthouse and obscure films) but I also had the choice of chain cinemas such as the small, cheap and very 80s Orpheus, an Odeon as well as the massive Showcase Cinema De Lux. I could even go to free screenings of silent movies at local pubs thanks to Bristol Silents. To put it simply, whatever I fancied watching, Bristol had it covered.

I had a year of film viewing ranging from The Bridal Party In Hardanger to A Useful Life, from The Hunger Games to American Pie: Reunion and from LOVE to Amour. Fantastic! Bristol, I will be back.

It may not have been the best year for movies, but there were still some corkers. My picks of 2012 (roughly in order of release) are:

Coriolanus The Hunger Games Cabin In The Woods Sound Of My Voice Take Shelter LOVE Beasts Of The Southern Wild Skyfall 

I think variation is the key to a good cinema experience. Hence why I didn't see all of the blockbusters or all of the critics favourites. There was stuff for everyone to enjoy, such as the fun and action-packed new Bond film, but there were also those films that were a tougher watch and perhaps didn't get such a wide release like the Angels & Airwaves backed LOVE or Michael Shannon's Take Shelter.

My biggest surprise came courtesy of the Curzon in Soho where I decided to kill a couple of hours one weekend and found myself completely sucked in to the cult of Sound Of My Voice.

The worst film I saw must have been American Pie: Reunion, or Pitch Perfect, but I am quite choosy about what I go and see which really means these were the worst of a decent bunch. I know there were worse films out during the year, I just chose not to go and see them!

But that was the year that was, and this is the new ear. This afternoon I must choose between The Hobbit, Gangster Squad and Life Of Pi, but due to London prices, I'll probably go for the non-3D one.

Let me know what you did and didn't enjoy in 2012 and what you're looking forward to in 2013. I for one cannot wait for A Good Day To Die Hard, Kick-Ass 2, Elysium and Anchorman: The Legend Continues. Mostly sequels I know but hopefully good ones. 2013, it seems, will be yet another year of sequels and remakes but I will be seeking out those original features too, ones I don't know about at the time of writing. Exciting times ahead!

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Get those Spirit Fingers ready for the New Year!

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Christmas!

That must mean it's Home Alone time! Yay!

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Cheap Thrills

You may have noticed that I post the odd review of straight-to-dvd horror movies either here or through Shadowlocked. While I would never expect to pay a tenner for any of these pretty awful films, I was slightly disheartened to see a whole shelf of the ones I either reviewed or had the option of reviewing this year in the Poundland in Bristol City Centre.

Now, as has become apparent, I enjoy getting interesting films for a quid. I get a weird thrill every time I walk into the shop and see a film I vaguely remember reading a review of in Empire. But poor old After Dark, no one seems to have bought the likes of Hidden, Prowl and Hybrid at all, possibly due to my less than brilliant reviews. They also had Uninhabited, an Aussie horror I watched a preview of which was poor and some random others including Tenure (with Luke Wilson), Fragments (with lots of famous people) and the Coen Brothers' Intolerable Cruelty. That last one was what I would call interesting, and indeed I nearly bought it, but the star film to pick up from Poundland this week is another horror from Down Under, Wolf Creek, a scary backpackers meet serial killer movie.

I think it's fine for films as big as those starring Catherine Zeta Jones to be on sale for £1 and even those less well known films from a few years back that people can discover, but there's just something a bit sad about DVDs released this year already in the bargain shops. Not to worry, I guess, since at least some people will end up seeing the films regardless of my influential reviews. The more people that get to see Wolf Creek though, the better!

I never reviewed Hybrid, but it's a killer car movie. There are no words...

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One of the best documentaries to be released this year comes to DVD on the 27th December and I gone wrote a review of it for Shadowlocked. Click on the title to check it out, and while you're there, why not take a look at all the other great stuff on the site, including my other reviews!

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Melissa George

I started watching the recent BBC series Hunted the other day and I'm enjoying it so far. What originally attracted me to it was the central character played by former Home and Away star Melissa George.

Over the last decade, George has carved out a nice niche for herself in the film world as something of a 'Scream Queen', i.e. she has appeared in many a decent horror or thriller movie. So in honour of her recent transition back to TV, albeit prime-time, big budget telly I thought I'd do a quick retrospective of her body of film work so far.

Her first big American movie actually came out of a planned TV series in which she was to become a more integral character, but the pilot episode soon became one of David Lynch's most celebrated films, Mulholland Drive. In the film she plays Camilla Rhodes, an aspiring actress who lands the part Rita (Naomi Watts) should be a shoe-in for. 

The title of my blog comes from a scene in said film and needless to say there are some dark, even horrific moments in Mulholland Drive. Perhaps this is what set Melissa George on her way to becoming such a prominent fixture in the horror business. But before we move onto the scary stuff here is her brief appearance from Lynch's classic:

I suppose her first foray into horror proper was with the 2005 remake of The Amityville Horror where she starred alongside Ryan Reynolds and a young Chloe Moretz. This is one of those films I've picked up for £1 in Poundland and as I've talked about on the blog before it's also a remake of a popular 70's horror movie. When old horrors get remade something about what made it scary the first time round gets lost and in this case that is partially true but not quite to the same extent as with remakes of absolute classics such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween.

While I may be a little biased by the fact I enjoy watching anything with Reynolds or George in, Amityville has sufficient scares and decent enough acting for it to work as a modern horror movie (even though its set in the 70s). And for a pound I'm not going to argue.

Next up was Paradise Lost the following year. No not a film version of the Epic Milton poem, but a horror formerly known as Turistas about a group of backpackers in Brazil who get killed off by a group of people intent on harvesting their organs. This wasn't as bad as I was expecting even though it treads a lot of old ground in the 'young people get misled and killed' genre. There are some grisly scenes of torture and organ harvesting which will please the gorehounds, and plenty of bikini action from George and Olivia Wilde which will appeal to young men:

In 2007 Melissa George joined Stellan Skarsgård, Selma Blair and Tom Hardy in the boring wΔz. I bought and watched this on the basis that it was supposedly a horror/thriller in the same vein as Saw, and while the story has more than a passing resemblance, myself and my girlfriend were just completely bored throughout. Give this one a miss.

George fared better that same year with the ace vampire movie 30 Days Of Night. Based on the graphic novel in which vampires attack the Alaskan town of Barrow which, as the title suggests, is blanketed in darkness for 30 days straight each year and directed by David Slade, the film was a success. 

After Hard Candy had shown Slade to be a director to watch, this follow up displayed the same visual flair and tension he had developed on his debut but on a much larger scale. This was a properly scary film with horrifying and intelligent vampires and comes third to Let The Right One In and Stakeland in my mind as the best vampire movie of the last decade.

When I was at university, going to the cinema was a routine occurrence and it just so happens that Triangle came out during this period of my life. Having been a fan of horror films for a while I thought it might be worthwhile checking out the latest Melissa George offering especially as it was directed by the guy who did Severance and Creep, two decent if different types of horror movie.

Triangle sees our girl and some friends take a trip out on a yacht when they are hit by a storm. They capsize and end up boarding a mysteriously deserted cruise ship. As the new passengers start to take a look around, all manner of crazy twists and turns occur as people die, men with bags on their heads appear and the audience struggle to distinguish fact from fiction. 

This film came out three years ago and I admit that I can't quite remember exactly what happens, only that it was scary, thought-provoking and ultimately rather poignant. Check it out.

More recently, last year in fact (2011), came A Lonely Place To Die which premiered at Film4 FrightFest. Here, George and a group of mountaineer friends find a young girl trapped in a box in the middle of the wilderness. Their attempts to get the girl to safety provide the main action of the film as the group struggle with sheer cliff faces, streams and scary men with guns.

Two thirds of this film were effective. Everything up to the moment they find the girl is creepy and there are some excellent and thrilling chase sequences, jumpy moments and a nasty villain played by Sean Harris but the film falls flat when it tries to explain why these people want the girl back. Nevertheless, it is a short and enjoyably tense thriller.

And that's where we are up to with Melissa George's career in horror.

I have just read that Hunted hasn't been recommissioned for a second series which is a shame as I am at episode five and really getting into it. If you can, catch up with it on iPlayer as there is a lot to enjoy regardless of however it is going to end. But if you'd rather see George on the big screen she is due to star alongside the great man that is Nicolas Cage in a film called Marble City scheduled for release next year which will be worth watching just for it's stars.

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Michael J. Fox

So the other day I walked into what, this year, has proved to be a fruitful place for finding cheap, decent films; Poundland. Weird I know, and it drives my girlfriend crazy dragging her in there every time we walk past one, but some of the movies I've bought this year for a pound include Pusher, Manderlay, Anything For Her and Perrier's Bounty.

This time however, the DVD selection was poor (it's been Halloween so the shelves are full of the crappest, cheapest straight-to-DVD horror movies around, ones that even I won't watch for £1) but something else caught my eye, a book. It had Michael J. Fox on the cover and claimed to be his autobiography - which it was, albeit, his second one titled Always Looking Up: The Adventures Of An Incurable Optimist. Thus I snapped up a copy and began trawling the charity shops for his first book, Lucky Man, as it made sense for me to read that first. I'm pernickety that way.

The reason I picked this book up was because, essentially, it's about the real life of Marty McFly from Back To The Future. I had recently been reminded of how good an actor Michael J. Fox is when watching Rescue Me from start to finish - all 7 seasons - where he popped up hilariously in season 5 as an angry paraplegic boyfriend to Tommy's wife Janet.

Aside from other guest appearances in The Good Wife, Scrubs and Curb Your Enthusiasm, Fox has been mostly off screens as an actor since he finished on Spin City which was just before he wrote Lucky Man. This has to do with the fact he has Parkinson's Disease which the book deals with in great detail, talking about when he first realised he had it, how he dealt with the news, the fact he hid it for so long and what a lucky guy he feels he is despite this so-far incurable disease.

I found the book to be a very interesting read, a real rise from normal Canadian kid to Superstar story but with the added emotional resonance of his later (although early onset) situation. I would recommend a read if you've ever enjoyed any of his performances, and it shouldn't take you long. I'm going to start on Always Looking Up shortly, but for now let's relish a musical scene featuring one of the greatest performances from a fantastic sci-fi movie that I grew up loving, Marty McFly in Back To The Future:

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Even Dwarfs Started Small

Today I watched another early Werner Herzog film. Even Dwarfs Started Small concerns a groups of dwarfs who escape from some sort of institution in a remote location and begin to wreak havoc in the grounds. The film gets crazier as the dwarfs engage in ever more chaotic activities including food fights, setting fire to flowerpots, playing tricks on blind dwarfs and even killing a pig.

This is easily one of Herzog's weirder films but it is fascinating and the actors are all amazing, especially the girl who left her shoe inside the building and the pint-sized man in the above video, Helmut Döring, who cackles his way throughout the entire film. Apparently Herzog told him that he mustn't laugh at all but as soon as they began shooting he would pull silly faces and make him laugh anyway!

The video is taken from the end of the film and gives some idea as to the tone Herzog established.

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Logician: Let's pretend that this is a village. In this village live people who tell only the truth. Here is another village. The people here only tell lies. Two paths run from these villages to where you are standing and you are at the crossroads. A man comes along, and you want to know which village he comes from the village of the truth-tellers or the village of the liars. Now in order to solve this problem, to solve it logically you have one question, and only one. What is the question? Nurse: That's too difficult for him, how can he know that. Logician: I admit, the question is thorny. If you ask the man whether he comes from the village of truth and he does, then he will say, truthfully, yes. But if he comes from the village of lies, he will lie and also answer yes! Yet there exists one question which will solve the problem. Nurse: That's much too hard, too complicated. Logician: You have one question, Kaspar and only one, to solve this problem of logic. Nurse: I wouldn't know either. Logician: lf you can't think of the question then I shall tell you. If you came from the other village would you answer 'no' if I were to ask you whether you came from the liars' village? By means of a double negative the liar is forced to tell the truth. This construction forces him to reveal his identity, you see. That's what I call logic via argument to the truth! Kaspar: Well, I know another question. Logician: You do? There is no other question, by the laws of logic. Nurse: There isn't? Kaspar: But I do know another question. Logician: Let us hear it, then! Kaspar: I should ask the man whether he was a tree-frog. The man from the truth village would say “No, I'm not a tree-frog”, because he tells the truth. The man from the liars' village would say “Yes, I'm a tree-frog”, because he would tell a lie. So I know where he comes from. Logician: No, that's not a proper question. That won't do, I can't accept it as a question.

The Enigma Of Kaspar Hauser

This is one of my favourite scenes from the Werner Herzog movie I watched this afternoon. The story (mostly based on fact) focuses on the way in which a 19th Century German township deal with the titular character when he is left alone in the town square after growing up in a cave devoid of any interaction other than that of the horrible man who kept him there.

I much preferred this film to Herzog's Heart Of Glass which I also watched recently.