Recent Articles
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
- 0 Comments
I guess it depends which side of the Atlantic you're on. In the US gun control is a hot button issue; a freedom sown into the very fabric of the state. Gun ownership is mainstream culture; led by the NRA, an immensely powerful organisation that wielding formidable political power. If you're a politician that wants to tackle the gun lobby, you're going to have to consider the negative consequences to your political future. The flipside of this enthusiasm is the occasional pile of corpses shot to pieces by deranged gunmen. Recent events have made this debate is about as serious as it gets: one side seeing a uniquely American cultural institution under assault and the other terrified of the frequent, random atrocities that occur whenever a lunatic with a gun collection snaps.
But here in the UK we couldn't really give a toss. A series of gun control Acts in 1903, 1920, 1937, 1968 and 1997 has resulted in the UK having one of the lowest rate of homicide by gun in the world. There's no detectable pro-gun lobby in the UK and any politician seriously proposing to relax laws on gun control would either be trying to sabotage their election prospects or have gone utterly insane. As it stands, the vast majority of British citizens will never fire a gun in their life and have little desire to.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
- 0 Comments
 |
| Tagline: "WHEN OUR FLAG FALLS, OUR NATION WILL RISE" blech |
Let me make one thing clear: Olympus Has Fallen is a film for morons. It treats you with utter contempt, secure in the knowledge that if it explodes a few heads and crashes a helicopter or two you’ll goober it up, gratefully slapping your hands together like an anaesthetised seal. But this isn’t just a shitty action film - it’s also disturbingly fascistic.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Sunday, March 24, 2013
- 0 Comments
It's a dark and stormy night. As a young couple cuddle in bed the mud of the garden is stirring. Slowly the earth tears itself asunder and someone - someTHING claws its way out of the dirt. The man gets up for a drink of milk. As he goes to the fridge he notices the back door's open. He takes a drink of milk, pausing for a moment, some deep animal instinct telling him that not all is not well. Quick as a flash a small black flash skitters past the camera. He shrugs, figuring it must be the wind. Climbing back into bed with his wife he cuddles her as she curls up under the blanket. Then his wife walks in from the bathroom. Who... WHAT is in bed with him? A shiver runs down your spine. It's a classically constructed horror set up. But this isn't a horror film; The Odd Life of Timothy Green is a (slightly confused) small town Disney fairy tale.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Thursday, March 21, 2013
- 0 Comments
Trance is one of those films. You know the type: a twisty turny psychological adventure where everybody's hiding deep secrets, reality gets well and truly mangled and every 15 minutes or so there's a shocking, mindblowing twist. I purposefully went into Trance knowing next to nothing about it, save that James McAvoy was in it and that it was directed by Danny Boyle, I hadn't seen any trailers or the original TV version either - this lack of knowledge turned out to be the right decision. Boyle has constructed an intricate jigsaw and then scattered the pieces far and wide. You can't help but try fitting it all together, aching to see the bigger picture.
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
- 0 Comments
“New York has the haircuts! London has the trousers! Belfast has the reason!”
So shouts record store owner Terri Hooley from the stage of a packed out Ulster Hall. The room is a sea of dyed hair, safety pins, studded leather jackets - sweaty, smiling youth, blissed out on the buzz of punk rock rebellion. In the 70s and 80s Belfast was a city divided; the sum total of your identity was Catholic or Protestant. But in this hall those boundaries mean fuck all - it’s April 1980, and these kids are united under a shared cultural identity: punk rock and they're kicking back against the sectarian bullshit that surrounds them.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Monday, March 18, 2013
- 0 Comments
Urgh, another epic, 3D, CGI laden adaptation of a public domain fairytale? Is there anyone that’s even a big fan of Jack and the Beanstalk anyway? I’m not even sure I remember it that well; kid buys magic beans, beanstalk grows something something giants. Also, the buzz from across the Atlantic was that this was going to be one of the year’s notorious flops - 2013’s equivalent of John Carter. Sitting in the boomingly enormous SuperScreen at the o2 on Saturday morning nursing a faint hangover I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about what was to come.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
Saturday, March 16, 2013
- 0 Comments
 |
| Marcus Orlandi |
My flimsy shoes have soaked through and my feet are freezing cold. Rainwater is running down the back of my neck. Shivering and shaking, my teeth chatter. I'm glaring at a man balancing on a folding chair, a bucket tied to his ankle. Here is the routine. He cuts open a packet of salt and pours it into the bucket. Then he balances on the chair and waits for the salt to pour out. Then he gets down, gets another packet of salt and repeats the process. A sensation of dread dawns upon me as I calculate that he has maybe fifteen minutes to go until he's out of salt. I realise numbly that I have no sensation in my toes.
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
- 0 Comments
Putting Hot Fuzz in the same sentence as Welcome to the Punch is a horrendous disservice to Edgar Wright’s brilliant comedy, yet it’s a comparison that must be made. Welcome to the Punch is, disastrously, pretty much Hot Fuzz played straight. At the core of Punch is a reasonable enough idea, let’s make a gritty, glossy, action-packed US style crime caper, but set in the heart of London. With a cast made up of hot British talent like James McAvoy, Mark Strong and Andrea Riseborough, you’d have to try pretty hard to screw this up. Yet screw it up writer/director Eran Creevy does! Quite spectacularly too.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
- 0 Comments
Wadjda is an astonishing film for two main reasons; it's the first feature film shot fully in Saudi Arabia and more on top of that the director (Haifaa Al-Mansour) is a woman,. Women directors are feature films are something that happens rarely enough in the West, let alone in the Middle East. The film tells us the story of Wadjda (Waad Mohammed) an intelligent, mischievously inclined 10 year old girl. She's got a rock solid sense of her own identity, a trait that sets her against the authoritarian society she lives in. Her ambition throughout the film is simple: to own a shiny green bicycle. There are two things standing in the way of this pretty small scale goal; firstly, raising the money; and secondly (and more importantly) that girls don't ride bicycles (the characters in the film seem to believe it will spoil a girl's virginity).
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
- 0 Comments
Robot & Frank is the story of a friendship between man and robot. It sounds a bit silly in synopsis; retired jewel thief Frank (Frank Langella) is given a carer robot by his concerned son. After his initial dislike of the nannying robot, the elderly man realises he can train the robot to help him revive his career as an expert cat burglar. But Robot & Frank quickly reveals a surprising amount of depth and sensitivity as it negotiates some timely and unique territory.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Sunday, March 3, 2013
- 0 Comments
Oz the Great and Powerful is a prequel to the 1939 classic, a prospect that didn't exactly fill me with confidence. There have been an awful lot of CG heavy reinterpretations of fairytales lately, and frankly, fatigue is setting in. Also, the world of Oz just doesn't seem like a place that'll benefit from having its back story fleshed out. My initial thoughts were that the film reeked of an attempt to repeat the enormous gross of Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland 3D. So, as the opening credits rolled expectations were not particularly high, but I was surprised to find the film quickly carving out a pleasantly light-hearted and not entirely serious niche for itself.
 |
| James Franco as Oz |
We open with Oz as a stage magician in a fairly grim dustbowl circus. Audiences are abusive, his fellow performers generally despise him and he lives in tatty poverty. Importantly we quickly establish that he's actually is an outstanding magician and showman, letting us sympathise with him when he bemoans his circumstances. The pressure in the circus comes to a head, with Oz running away in terror from an angry strongman and taking refuge in a hot air balloon. He cuts loose and flies away, waving his top hat and whooping "so long, suckers!" (I love a good "so long, suckers!"). But his celebration is cut short, behind him is a huge tornado. Before he knows what's going on he's been transported to Oz, where a prophecy talks of a powerful wizard who falls from the sky, saves the kingdom and becomes King. Oz quickly begins exploiting the situation, his head filled with starry-eyed dreams of gold, power and naive and sexy witches.
Your enjoyment of Oz the Great and Powerful will largely depend on your opinion of James Franco. This is very much the James Franco show from start to finish, the film taking great pleasure in bouncing him off a series of weird characters. Fortunately, the self-appointed mayor of Gay Town is perfect as a pleasantly egotistical would-be renaissance man. Franco plays a great confidence trickster; a huckster thrown into a fantasy world, not taking it seriously. This light cynicism works well in making the bizarre world of Oz believable to us, allowing us to laugh with the film at how weird things are rather than at it.
As a casual student of Franco-ology, I love the idea of James Franco as a man wandering into situations he doesn't know much about and smirkily bluffing his way through events. Additionally, he cements his reputation as the go-to man for films involving CG apes and monkeys. After this and the better-than-it-has-any-right-to-be Rise of the Planet of the Apes it's clear that no-one in the business can talk to an invisible monkey quite like Franco can. I realised partway through that Sam Raimi has essentially made this film already; the basic plot is very, very similar to Army of Darkness and the way Franco bluffs his way through danger has certain shades of Bruce Campbell's Ash.
 |
| Rachel Weisz as Evanora and Mila Kunis as Theodora |
The rest of the cast generally take the outlandish premise as an excuse to ham it up to various degrees. But then, if there's any time to ham it up a bit, it's when you're playing a cackling, green skinned witch in medieval fetishwear, commanding armies of winged baboons. The three witches, Theodora, Evanora and Glinda, are respectively played by Mila Kunis, Rachel Weisz and Michelle Williams. Kunis is pretty damn brilliant as Theodora, injecting what is essentially a pantomime character with some genuine pathos and a sprinkling of masochistic body horror. Weisz and Williams are slightly less complex, although as almost literal embodiments of good and evil they have much less wiggle room.
Similarly impressive are the voice-acting of the CG characters, particularly Zach Braff as the flying monkey servant, Finley and Joey King as the 'China Girl'. Zach Braff sounds an awful lot like Danny DeVito as Finley, and makes what would be an exceptionally annoying character surprisingly enjoyable. But it's the China Girl that makes the biggest impact; everything about her screams fragility and King's voice work goes a very, very long way towards pulling the character from the uncanny valley and giving her genuine pathos.
 |
| Zach Braff as Finley the Monkey |
There's an awful lot of CG in this film, a huge amount of the production must have been James Franco wandering around a big green green room talking to no-one. There's so much that it becomes self-indulgent, and you sigh inwardly when for the fourth or fifth time the film finds an excuse to show off some fancy 3D trickery or yet another artfully composed fantasy landscape. It all looks great, but this film is probably a little too long, and by the end you find yourself fatigued by endless scenes of the camera swooping around the landscape and just wishing they'd get on with the plot.
Sadly, the most disappointing aspect of the film is the workmanlike direction. I am a huge fan of Sam Raimi's earlier work: Evil Dead II is absolutely fantastic, and there's much to admire in Spider-Man 2 and Drag Me to Hell. But, even though there's a Bruce Campbell cameo and Raimi's yellow Delta 88 Oldsmobile apparently makes an appearance (although I couldn't spot it) Oz could be directed by any jobbing big budget director. You get a tiny taste of Raimi's trademark kinetic style in the tornado sequence and there's a few Dutch angles that I doubt another director would have put in, but that a once exciting director like Raimi could put out something as blandly shot as this is quite depressing. Perhaps the ever-present corporate hand of Disney on his shoulders stifled some of his natural creativity.
 |
| Very pretty. Back to the plot please. |
This aside, I had a surprisingly enjoyable time watching Oz the Great and Powerful. I'm generally wary of prequels, finding them largely devoid of dramatic tension and filled with annoying winks to the films that come after it chronologically. Aside from a few jokes and references, Oz this, being both a self-contained narrative and a clever way to set up the events at the beginning of the 1939 classic. Thematically it's tightly constructed, with over-arching themes of the skill of showmanship, the relation between performer and audience and appropriately, given that it associates itself with one of the most iconic films of all time, the immense power of cinema. I'm lukewarm on the recent trend for CG drenched interpretations of classic fairytales; but this the best so far.
***/*****
Oz the Great and Powerful is on general release from the 8th of March
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Saturday, March 2, 2013
- 0 Comments
On the 8th of January Suzanne Moore made a crack that women were expected to look like “Brazilian transsexuals”. This throwaway remark struck a nerve in the transgender community; between 2008-2011 426 transgender people have been murdered in Brazil - the highest rate in the world. An astonishing 80% of murders of transgender people worldwide between 2008-11 occurred in Latin America. Beyond the physical threat, transgender people routinely face social exclusion and discrimination. Why is this region of the world so dangerous for transgender people? More pressingly, what can be done about it?
So I was happy to accept the invitation of the The Latin American and Caribbean Network of Transgender People (REDLACTRANS) and the International HIV/AIDS Alliance to attend the launch of The Night is Another Country: Impunity and violence against transgender women human rights defenders in Latin America. This report lays bare the chilling reality of life for transgender people in Latin America, with numerous personal stories and interviews that paint a depressing picture of intimidation, exploitation and victimisation in these countries.
The launch, generously hosted by Doughty Street Chambers, featured an impressive panel of activists and politicians. Chairing the evening was Shaun Woodward MP, Labour representative for St Helens South and Whiston; the speakers were Marcela Romero, Regional Coordinator of REDLACTRANS; Monica Leonardo, author of the report; Christine Burns MBE, political activist, health advisor and former Vice President of Press for Change and Sue Breeze, representing the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
A short and powerful film shown by REDLACTRANS at the evening.
The launch, generously hosted by Doughty Street Chambers, featured an impressive panel of activists and politicians. Chairing the evening was Shaun Woodward MP, Labour representative for St Helens South and Whiston; the speakers were Marcela Romero, Regional Coordinator of REDLACTRANS; Monica Leonardo, author of the report; Christine Burns MBE, political activist, health advisor and former Vice President of Press for Change and Sue Breeze, representing the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Shaun Woodward MP was an impressive speaker, explaining both his moral and personal convictions in relation to transgender rights. He famously crossed the floor from the Conservatives to Labour in 1999 after being sacked for supporting the repeal of Section 28, the regulation preventing promotion of homosexuality in schools. As a result of this defection, the Conservative Party sicced the press on his transgender sister, resulting in a front page of the Sun covered in doorstep pictures of her. His anger is palpable when he recounts this, and he seems a passionate and sincere defender of human rights (although interestingly he didn't vote on the gay marriage bill...).
He lays out some of the more alarming statistics in the report, the most disturbing being that rates of HIV infection are frighteningly high in the transgender community in Latin America. 35% of transgender people are infected, which, when compared to the average rate of adult HIV prevalence across Latin America, 0.5%, makes this the most unequal region in the world.
Cold statistics like these are shocking and effective, but the problem in this particular field is that there isn't a huge amount of data to work with. One of the aims of REDLACTRANS is to put pressure on Latin American governments to legally acknowledge the existence of transgender people. That they don't means that data is scarce, with transgender men and women being recorded in statistics as their birth gender rather than what they identify as. So the conclusions of the report are primarily derived from interviewing transgender people from across Latin America about their experiences. These voices tell some pretty damn grim stories, for example:
"About six months ago, I got in a car with a man who I know is a policeman. He hired me to provide my sexual services, but afterwards he didn't want to pay and he wouldn't let me get out of the car. He shouted at me, "Today you really are going to die, hueco!". I told him to kill me, because I knew that sooner or later I'd end up dead, because for me, life is a bonus." - [Transgender activist in Guatemala, July 2012]
Things continue in this vein as Monica explains to us the levels of violence and murder against transgender activists and transgender women, crimes to which the state turns a blind eye. Many transgender women in Latin American countries gravitate towards sex work; discrimination in society making it difficult for them to easily find other sources of income. This places them in an intensely vulnerable situation, with little options available.
A near universal theme in these interviews is intense distrust of the police. There is countless testimony of the police exploiting transgender sex workers, blackmailing them for free sexual favours and attacking or even killing them if they resist. After all, if you're viciously beaten by a policeman, who do you report the attack to? In many cases the victim would be making the report to the colleagues of the person you're accusing. In one example we hear how someone wishing to report a crime was told that "the computer system is down", and to go to another station to report it. In each station the person visited, the same thing was heard. To know that the police couldn't give a toss about your safety and that you have no means of reporting a crime leaves you feeling intensely powerless.
A near universal theme in these interviews is intense distrust of the police. There is countless testimony of the police exploiting transgender sex workers, blackmailing them for free sexual favours and attacking or even killing them if they resist. After all, if you're viciously beaten by a policeman, who do you report the attack to? In many cases the victim would be making the report to the colleagues of the person you're accusing. In one example we hear how someone wishing to report a crime was told that "the computer system is down", and to go to another station to report it. In each station the person visited, the same thing was heard. To know that the police couldn't give a toss about your safety and that you have no means of reporting a crime leaves you feeling intensely powerless.
A trailer for a project by Ivan D'Onadio shown at the event
Reading the report you feel the weight of misery pressing down on you. Example after example of humiliation, disfigurement and rape, a litany of crimes committed by state actors, or with the state's sinisterly implied consent. Changing the course of monolithic organisations like the police, the courts, the church and the government looks like an almost impossible task. So how can things improve?
Predictably, the answer is slowly and with great difficulty. One of the objectives of RELACTRANS is to get Latin American governments to allow people to change their gender and name in their identification documents. This sounds like a fairly reasonable request, but laws like these provide the bedrock for further anti-discrimination legislation as proof that the state officially recognises their existence. Earlier in the evening we're told that police find it difficult to identify murdered transgender women as they tend not to carry ID. Under existing laws, any official ID they could possess would carry their birth name and gender, which isn't going to be particularly useful for someone who's undergone or is undergoing transition. The most significant advance in this area of law has been in Argentina, whose Gender Identity Law came into force in May 2012; if the momentum from this can be harnessed it would be the first light in a very dark situation.
It's rare that I feel a sense of patriotism, but when the human rights activists speak glowingly of the UK's progress in human rights for transgender people I felt a slight glow of pride. We were shown how far the UK has come since 1992. Back then transgender people were unable to change their birth certificate, marry, have employment protection and most disturbingly, legally unable to be raped. In 2012 all of these have been overturned, thanks to the efforts of organisations like Press For Change. It's efforts like these that serve as a template for political action in Latin America.
It wasn't exactly a cheery night, but all the panellists spoke with clear-headed conviction. For the transgender activists in Latin America it takes an enormous amount of bravery to stand up to a society that apparently doesn't care if you wind up dead in a ditch or not. This report will function as a keystone in highlighting the danger and oppression that transgender people live under, and as a foundation for further activism in Latin American regions.
You can read the full report here: http://issuu.com/aids_all
Many thanks to Doughty Street Chambers for hosting this, and to all the panellists for speaking so eloquently, intelligently and passionately.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
