I found out, via a pal’s FB post, that Loretta Lynn died today. I’m not a big country music fan, but I did enjoy the movie Coal Miner’s Daughter. And Loretta’s sister, Crystal Gale, recorded One From The Heart, with Tom Waits, which is a sublime album.
So, in memory of Loretta, here’s my review of Coal Miner’s Daughter (originally posted to Amazon UK, some years ago):
Exactly how near the true facts of the Loretta Lynn story this is, I don’t know. For all that some difficult moments are depicted, I suspect it’s still a somewhat sanitised version. But, gol’darn’ it, it makes for a very entertaining and moving viewing experience.
Sissy Spacek is excellent in the lead role – both she and Beverly D’Angelo, who plays Patsy Cline, sing their songs (an album was released alongside the film) – and Tommy Lee Jones, despite shockingly dyed red hair, acquits himself well as her man, known variously as ‘Mooney’ (from a stint running ‘moonshine’), and ‘Doo’, short for Doolittle. Recently deceased drummer for The Band, Levon Helm, plays Lynn’s titular coal-mining father. ‘Ted’.
The real Loretta, plus ‘Doo’ and kids.
Director Michael Apted handles the whole film very well, evoking an America that one suspects is nearly vanished. At one point in the film they receive several telephone message by the means of a neighbour, who has a ‘phone, hollerin’ the news at them from his nearby property. How real all the hillbilly shacks, honky-tonks, pie-auctions, dungarees and dancing, the “coalminin’, moonshinin’ or movin’ on down the line” really are, is hard for me to estimate. But it paints a very evocative and charming picture.
I got to this via Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle, Gayle being Lynn’s sister (the Waits/Gayle collaboration for Coppola’s One From The Heart being an instance of a pretty duff movie paired with a beyond-words-brilliant OST), and the Levon Helm connection.
Even after watching this and loving it, I’m not sure I’ll be getting into Lynn’s music too deeply. But that just shows that this Country & Western star biopic has an appeal beyond Lynn’s fan base. As told here, hers is both an interesting and at times very moving story.
Wow! I have to admit I thoroughly enjoyed this Australian ‘Nam movie. They say ‘war is Hell’, and it sure is in this particular story.
Based on real events, of 18 August, 1966, during which an Australian force comes under heavy attack from a much North Vietnamese contingent. Rather like certain British military events, such as Dunkirk and The Charge of the Light Brigade, and albeit on a smaller scale, it seeks to wring victory and heroism from botched or incompetent actions (so it’s also akin, in that respect, to We Were Soldiers).
American films about ‘the ‘Nam’ are both very plentiful and very familiar to us, here in the UK. Australian films on the same war? Much much less so. To the degree that this might be the only one that I’m aware of (Attack Force Z, what was that all about?*).
11 Platoon, pinned down in the woods.
It being Australian, I didn’t recognise many of the cast. I think a couple of faces were recognisable from Hacksaw Ridge? But even the ‘big name star’, Travis Fimmel, was not familiar to me. That’s actually kind of refreshing. One isn’t sidetracked by the ‘star factor’.
But, truth be told, that this is an Aussie take on the Viet Nam war was just about the only surprising thing about it. In most other respects it ticked a lot of the genre boxes:
The commander, Brigadier David Jackson (Richard Roxburgh), at the top of the chain, struggles to assert his authority, and is a bit disconnected from his grunts on the ground. Major Harry Smith (Fimmel) is a hard-ass, who eventually earns his men’s love and respect. There are slo-mo explosions and blood splatters aplenty, and last minute relief arrives just as the seemingly never ending tides of the enemy are about to engulf ‘our heroes’.
Fimmel as Major Harry Smith.
And there are lots more clichés from the Big Book of How To Shoot Viet Nam War Movies, 101. But I don’t mind that in the least. I found it engaging enough, and believable enough. Despite it belonging, ultimately, to a lineage that goes back to the ol’ Cowboys vs Injuns formulae of Hollywood.
After the barrage of Royal Funeral TV propaganda we were subjected to today, a chest-thumping, grim and bloody war movie was exactly what I needed!
FOOTNOTE
Whilst looking for images from the film I found this rather interesting piece by an ANZAC veteran who says he fought and was wounded in Viet Nam. He rates the movie highly, for depicting the ANZAC role in Viet Nam at all, but laments what he views as historical inaccuracies.
Director Kriv Stenders, Fimmel, and crew, on set during filming.
NB – The above photo comes from a series taken by veteran photographer Tim Page, who covered the actual conflict, and shot some very compelling black and white images of the film production on the very same 1965 Leica M2 he used to photograph the real war!
* I checked, Z is a WWII movie. But, what with links to Hacksaw Ridge, We Were Soldiers and, even if mistakenly, Attack Force Z, Mel Gibson’s shadow hangs over this post!
An interaction with family today has made me reflect on the incredible depths of penetration that politics really has. And how the establishment so totally owns and runs and controls the ‘status quo’.
The dominant narrative in the UK right now is that we’re all united in grief over the death of Queen Elizabeth II. And any dissent from this position is automatically negative and therefore despicable. This position silences debate, playing very powerfully into the interests of retrograde Conservatism.
And the ‘shut up and don’t complain’ card is very powerful. So I’m very happy to see and respectful of those few brave souls taking a principled stand against the ongoing propaganda and lies that swaddle our monarchy.
From Labour MP Clive Lewis to barrister Paul Powlesland, and the guy caught on film pointing out to Charles the costs to ordinary people of the monarchy, it’s refreshing to find that some people are not being hypnotised by all the pageantry.
Paul Powlesland.
Powlesland said “One of the many things that makes me proud to be British is our freedom of speech. It’s one of our most precious and sacred rights and it’s far more precious to me than the royal family is.” Amen to that! And, as he experienced, when making a very mild protest in London, these freedoms are being systematically attacked by our current Tory (mis)government.
And in the UK today amongst some of the most powerful groups serving and enabling Tory repression are those very large swathes of people who are doing alright. The ‘I’m alright Jack, don’t rock the boat, with your carping negativity’ crowd are helping silence dissent, or alternative views/possibilities.
And, lest we forget, we wouldn’t have things like weekends, holidays, sick pay, the eight hour day or 40 hour week, etc, if it wasn’t for the dissenting voices. Or even the NHS, which is really and fundamentally a response to the massive blood sacrifices made by the working masses in two world wars. If we’re required to make such sacrifices for the state/nation, shouldn’t that state/nation look after us? Damn right it should!
I like history, including the colourful Napoleonic wars, with the ridiculous peacock finery of uniforms that were often destined to be torn into bloody pieces, along with the ‘soft machines’ wearing them, by shot and shell. I love cathedrals, but I loathe religion. I can see the appeal of the pageantry. But I also see the oppressive institutionalisation of inequality such mummery represents.
Tory propaganda nowadays looks different, but is essentially the same.*
It’d all be fine if nothing meant anything – a position that appears to have escaped the genie’s bottle of left-wing ‘postmodern’ academia and infected the entire organism of modern culture with a very pernicious form of relativism – but alas, stuff does mean something. And in this case it means ‘shut up, know your place, and march in step with us, backwards towards a fantasy feudal past’.
No thanks!
I’m inevitably going to see some of today’s tomfoolery. Teresa likes that sort of thing. I can hear she’s watching it now. So I’ll get sucked in as well. Hey ho!
Gillray’s prodigious talent was very effectively deployed by the Tories.
As I’m typing this the soporific harmonies of High Anglican service waft up the stairs. It seems as if, thinking back to the ECW – what Royalist history calls ‘The Interregnum’ – with the Stuart Restoration, and then later the Glorious Revolution, England, or what became the UK, awoke momentarily from the stupefied slumber of monarchy, only to lapse back into a deep sleep. A sad state of affairs that continues to this day. Wake up!
* Gillray was a brilliant satirical political cartoonist. But his fabulous talents were deployed by the oppressor, to maintain a conservative status quo. Nowadays Gillray’s job is accomplished via the predominantly right wing media, be it print, TV, or online. At least Gillray left us something we can still admire and enjoy! The tawdry disposable ephemera of our own times barely exists beyond the few minutes or hours it’s required to do it’s job.
ADDENDUM
Ever since hearing the news of the Queen’s passing, I’ve been thinking, who else died that day? How many took their own lives, amidst poverty and despair? How many of those who died, anonymous unlamented (relative to the Queen that is), might have lived longer and better lives – richer lives, even if not in the fiscal sense – if our society was less wealth and power crazed, venal and uncaring?
New draught-excluder curtain over the lounge to kitchen door.
Teresa’s been on at me for some time, asking that I put up more curtain poles and supports, mostly for doorway draught exclusion porpoises. Oh, and Teresa is making the curtains. So it’s a joint effort.
And we also have he added economic impetus of looking to rent a room, and needing to get the property as a whole up to snuff for sharing with a rent paying tenant. So we need, amongst a zillion other things, curtains in the bathroom.
I already did a draught-excluding curtain pole thingy in the kitchen some while ago. And I want all the ones I make around our home to share a design, which is based, I guess, at least to some degree, on the classic ‘ogee’ profile. Incidentally, I’m talking about the two pole supporting doodads!
Making these in the workshop is fun. Although that said, my workshop is in such an awful mess it’s not that much fun! There’s another ongoing project; the new shed, finishing the damn thing, and getting stuff moved into it! Using the router to create the profiles ‘caps’ was especially gratifying.
I did want them all to have curved grooves (is that ‘fluting?’) in the ogee profiles, so you’d get that classic, er… classical look, of fluted verticals surmounted by profiled ‘pediment’ (?) tops. The result is, as Teresa put it, a bit pedestal-like.
I like to paint all the house woodwork in oil-based gloss white. I just feel it’s a classic timeless style, and that it works well in Victorian properties like ours. So I’m doing so with these, inc. the poles, which are 22mm hardwood dowels.
The older yet unfinished kitchen/back door one.
Attaching the ornamental pole supports can be tricky , as getting wall-plugs in to walls reliably in old (or is that any?) homes is a challenge. Then there’s the depth of wood to get through in the wider top part. I’ve developed a method I’m happy with. And so far it’s worked well enough.
You can see on these thicker and as yet unplugged and uncapped kitchen ones the holes for the screws. These get filled with dowels, or just some filler. These kitchen ones are ticker than the others. So the ornamental caps will need to be bigger. Not gotten around to making them as yet!
The next sequence of four pictures shows how, despite masking around these fixtures, I tend to get white paint on the walls. And in this instance (in the lounge the original paint colour – Egyptian Cotton – still matches), rather annoyingly, the paint colour, Asian Silk, which is literally from the same paint pot, doesn’t match! Gaaah!
Later the same day…
Not so easy to see, on account of the use of transparent shower curtain (fabric curtain eventually get mouldy and disgusting!), with all the daylight flooding in! At least the blotchiness of the touched up paint is less noticeable.
A double layer of transparency protects our modesty.*
Over the last week I’ve binged on The IT Crowd. Having watched the entirety of the show, all four seasons, I’m, well… ?
I liked the way the series starts. I’m a Chris Morris fan, so his presence was immediately appreciated. The opening scenario sets things up nicely; Reynholm Industries boss Denholm Reynholm (Morris) appoints Jen head of IT. She clearly knows nothing about IT, just as Denholm knows nothing about, well… anything, his business least of all.
The IT Crowd set.
The core trio of Roy, Moss and Jen, played by Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade and Katherine Parkinson, are great. And the subterranean mise en scene , the IT dungeon, is terrific. But, like the whole show, it’s a peculiar collision of fantasy and reality in that absurdist vein Graham Linehan found fame with, via Father Ted.
Roy, Moss and Jen.
Father Ted is, or was, properly bonkers. Who’d have thought a show about the insane antics in a remote Godforsaken parochial house could make such great and successful TV comedy? By comparison The IT Crowd, like its subject, is a bit more obvious, mundane, humdrum… all that kind of stuff. But, in a funny old way, that’s a strength of the show; it’s more immediately relatable.
This isn’t going to be a full synopsis of the entire show. Far from it! I’m just registering my enjoyment.
I have to say I preferred Chris Morris, as Reynholm Sr, to Matt Berry, as Reynholm Jr. And I was sorry – although I laughed lustily – to see Denholm taking that infamous executive leap. Both Morris and Berry are portraying ludicrous caricature characters. But Berry seems to always be exactly the same, whatever I see him in, from Garth Marenghi’s Dark Place to Toast. Morris has more range, and is just funnier.
Down in the IT dungeon, Roy is almost the straight guy. Although, having said that, Jen is also almost the straight gal. Although they both goof aplenty, there’s something almost distressingly ‘normal’ about them. The character that really makes the show work, when it does work (and it doesn’t always), for me at any rate, is Ayaode’s Maurice.
One Mozza I can stomach.
And yet I think Moss is flawed. And I’m not meaning just in the obvious ways in which his character is supposed to be flawed. Perhaps the entire show is? It’s often funny, sometimes very funny. But it’s also a bit rote. And Richard Ayaode, as much as I love his whole style, is nearer Matt Berry than Chris Morris, in terms of range. Nonetheless, in Moss The IT Crowd has a character I can love, albeit in a muted slightly awkward manner.
I wonder if the Linehan factor has anything to do with the ‘great but also slightly disappointing’ feeling I’m trying to get at? Whilst I love Father Ted, I think he was totally the wrong guy for Count Arthur Strong (the radio and stage versions of Strong are so much better!).
Anyway, it’s nice to find relatively recent TV that I can bear to watch (there’s so little of it!). Especially so when it can supply much needed chuckles in what are, in many respects – Covid, Brexit, never-ending Tory misrule, the ‘cost of living crisis’, etc. – very trying times.
Ah, Denholm Reynholm, a true Captain of Industry.Oh, and thingy from Boosh and baking stuff is in a few episodes.
Some time later… Well, I’m nearing the end of a second run through the entire series, and, whilst I think it started out pretty strong, towards the end it was fizzling. Father Ted is Linehan’s best work, as far as I’m aware/concerned. The IT Crowd has its moments, but ultimately is too weak and inconsistent.
Well… what the absolute feck was that!? Just heard a very long supersonic jet or rocket type rumble in the skies overhead. And it’s coming back…
The main episode seemed to go on for ages, maybe five, or even 10-15 minutes. Oddly and disconcertingly long. Not just a simple fighter jet flyover type deal. And it seemed to get closer, move away, get closer, move away, return… it was really quite alarming!
It sounded like what I imagine an incoming nuclear missile might sound like, or a huge jumbo jet, heading for an unscheduled crash landing!
The set of the 2005 War Of The Worlds movie jet crash scene.
It was so scary I got dressed – I was still in bed – and went outside, with a mind to try and film a bit. But my iPhone memory was full, so I wasn’t able to do so… dammit! I noticed our neighbour was also outside, looking worriedly skywards.
I googled ‘just now roaring in the skies overhead march cambs’, and a gov.uk/MOD low-flying complaints website came up, top of the search results.
There was a tel. number, which I rang, only to be told ‘nobody home, please email’! So I emailed. And I await a reply. This isn’t the first time this has happened recently. But it was the loudest, longest, and most discombobulating!
It’s the sort of evil apocalyptic sound that I imagine would precede nuclear annihilation. And it makes one think, would that be it!? No warning!? A terrible ‘tearing the heavens in twain’ roaring, and then either evaporation type obliteration, or poss’ much worse? Very scary!
UPDATE: I got a reply to my email…
Thank you for your e mail regarding aircraft noise on 8 September 2022 in the March area.
I have checked our records for the date and time you quoted, however, this does not indicate any military jets operating at low level in the area. The disturbance on this occasion may be attributable to military aircraft operating at medium or high level, which for fast jets can range between 2,000 to 30,000+ feet Above Ground Level.
I can advise that some military aircraft activity does take place over the sea, but weather conditions are not always suitable and due to its flat and featureless nature the sea does not always provide the realistic environment necessary for aircrew essential training needs.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) takes its responsibility to the public very seriously indeed and would prefer not to cause any disturbance to those on the ground. Unfortunately, there are no uninhabited areas of the UK large enough to cater for essential training needs. I hope you will understand that the MoD would be failing in its duty if it did not ensure that aircrew were fully competent in a wide range of flying skills and tactics before they deployed on operations.
I apologise for any concern caused on this occasion.
Regards, Sarah Hodgkinson
Low Flying Complaints & Enquiries Unit, SWK-lowflying@mod.gov.uk
Well… that was a typical government response: opaque and ultimately more confusing than illuminating!
What would the sound be just prior to this?
Whilst looking for images for this post I found this, an article on sound used as a weapon, in which the author of the article, (?), says, of fighter jets flying overhead, “their unnatural volume and the coarse noise of their engines triggered a palpable and overpowering sense of unease and distress.” Too damn right!
And then I found this, a more local/recent piece, in which they discuss exactly what I was thinking about:
“The sight and sound of heavy bombers and fighter jets in the skies above the UK have taken on an extra resonance following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Urkaine. Military training flights regularly take place but conflicts and tensions mean more attention than normal is being taken of these RAF and USAF missions.
Across the country, people have been reporting planes such as B52 bombers and F-35B and F-16 fighter jets. Bases being used include RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire, RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk and RAF Marham in Norfolk.”
And since first posting this, I’ve heard similar sounds on numerous occasions. Although as yet none quite as long, loud, and frankly terrifying, as those that prompted this post. Strange and scary times
Out of the blue, after a long of spell of excellent sleep, I’ve just had a pretty awful night of insomnia. And, ironically, I’ve finally gotten around to starting to read Robin Walker’s Why We Sleep. So I’m more than usually aware of how bad losing sleep is!
Anyway, after several hours of just lying in bed, fully awake, I figured I might as well do something, since I wasn’t apparently able to sleep. So I wrote a bit, for the blog, and I listened to 1969 (and some other stuff, inc. Mizrab), by Gabor Szabo. Holy guacamole, 1969 is really good!
A glowing accolade from Leonard Feather!
Before getting into it track by track, here’s the track list and personnel credits:
Dear Prudence Sealed With A Kiss Both Sides Now Walk Away Renee You Won’t See Me Michael From Mountains Stormy In My life I’ve Just Seen A Face Until It’s Time For You To Go Somewhere I Belong
Gabor Szabo - guitar Francois Vaz - guitar Mike Melvoin - keys Louis Kabok - bass Randy Cierly-Sterling - bass Jim Keltner - drums/percussion George Ricci- cello Gary McFarland - arranger
It’s pretty stunning to think that stuff like this is how drummer Jim Keltner, who I first grew to know and love through his long term associations with Bob Dylan and Ry Cooder, got started! And everything about the whole musical package is so great I want to know more about all concerned. Didn’t keys man Mike Melvoin play with Tom Waits, on Nighthawks At The Diner?
Some of the other names – Francois Vaz, Louis Kabok – are new(-ish) to me. Gary McFarland I’d heard of. Along with promoter Norman Schwartz and Cal Tjader, Szabo and McFarland founded the short lived Skye Records, for which label this absolute gem was recorded.
They used the Isle of Skye’s coat of arms for the label!
Having dipped into this album frequently recently, I’d still not listened the whole way through. That is until my recent bouts of insomnia. The night before last, during which I didn’t sleep at all – until I caught up a bit during the day* – I listened to the entirety of 1969 in one sitting (or, to be more accurate, one laying!).
* As a teacher on school holidays I’m lucky I can do this!
The version I listened to, a full-album rip on YouTube, doesn’t have the best audio quality. I’m hoping when I get this on CD it’ll be better! This YouTube version is rather muddy, sonically. And most Gabor Szabo stuff is immaculately recorded. But that aside, the quality of the performances is superlative.
Still from film or video of Szabo with Kabok.
The group is an interesting one, as all the players have jazz chops, but are also very comfortable with and attuned to pop/rock sensibilities, such that they can play with a stripped down minimalism most out and out jazzbos very rarely manage. Although Gary McFarland isn’t a player here, it strikes me that perhaps his arranging and producing skills are instrumental in achieving the sounds and the, er… vibes?
Gary McFarland, feelin’ those vibes!
I’m going to come right out and say it; I do believe this one of Szabo’s greatest records. Oft times it’s belittled (albeit not as much as his late ‘70s stuff; Doug Payne calls much of Faces ‘disco trash’!), particularly by those who prefer his more overtly trad’ jazziness. (I don’t mean Dixie!).
Part of the charm of this particular album is the material. There are four Beatles numbers, two of which – You Won’t See Me and In My Life – are from Rubber Soul (possibly my favourite Fab Four album?). And, as well as several more obscure choices, there’s the oft-covered Stormy.
But what’s this? Two Joni tunes!? Both Sides Now has been covered umpteen times. And Szabo’s version is brilliant. But Michael From Mountains? This latter ranks with Mark Murphy’s Barangrill, and Don Sebesky’s Song To A Seagull. Simply having the good taste to pick such wonderful material, never mind the required skill to make such a unique artists’ unusual music one’s own… fab!
Ultimately 1969 hits that eargasmic G-spot for me: musical perfection. Everything is just so. You could try to label it: it’s partly jazz, partly pop, partly rock, bossa, easy-listening, psych, etc. The joy and the magic lies precisely in rendering such categorisation efforts totally footile*. It’s just great music.
* The Fenland yod-dropping way!
I’d love to get this Cherry Red comp.
Whilst writing this post I discovered that Cherry Red did a reissue/compilation called Sketch For Summer, which focussed on McFarland and Szabo’s richly creative partnership. Like almost all the music I’m getting interested in lately, this is OOP and hard/expensive to find! It only covers their 1964-‘68 collaborations, so nothing off 1969 is included. Interesting to see two tracks are with Brazilian maestro Tom Jobim!
But to round off, back to ‘69! The album starts with Dear Prudence, and ends with the only Sabor original in this particular set, Somewhere I Belong. I’m giving this disc my rare accolade of six stars. That’s a bit like Spinal Tap’s amps going up to eleven: the normal range is 0-5 stars. Only the crème de la crème attain the hallowed six!
Watched this during another insomniac wee small hours spell. A spoof documentary, or, as they call ‘em now, a mockumentary, FUBAR follows a film-maker, Farrel Mitchner (Gordon Skilling) who is himself following two white-trash stoner headbangers, Terry and Dean.
Set in suburban Alberta, Canada, it takes a while to get used to, and was filmed on a Canon XL1, giving it a very lo-fi verité flavour. With a core cast and no script, the movie was largely improvised, some scenes involving ‘John Q Public’, unaware it was actually a work of fiction. Apparently the fist-fighters, for example, were genuine.
Terry (Dave Lawrence, who made the film) and Dean (Paul Spence) are two young long-haired rocker slobs. Continually shotgunning beers, smoking (fags or weed), and living on diets of appalling junk food. They’re dumb, foul-mouthed and pretty nihilistic.
At first I found myself thinking, what’s the point of this wallowing in the kind of hippy dream turned sour that has created zombie hordes across the US, and – this is set in Canada – North (and no doubt also South) America?
Dean and Terry.
It was horrifyingly salutory to see how large a part of the MAGA/Trumpite crowds of Jan 6th were longhaired losers looking very like the two chief protagonists of this film. But there’s also everyone else; the lads’ families, partners, friends, co-workers/employers, etc. And Farrel and his documentary crew.
All these others, inc Troy/Tron, a former party animal gone ‘square’, are the ‘straight’ world. Dean’s mom [sic!] recites a poem, ‘Woman Is A Danger Cat’, by her son, whilst he plays his sensitive acoustic ballad ‘Rock & Roll Is My Guitar’. Terry’s employer (or is it Dean’s? I forget!) corrects his delusional embellishments on his professional responsibilities. And Troy’s partner tells it like it is, regarding women and their effects on slacker slobs!
In some ways this film, as awful as it is in many ways, has a resonance for me, in that I lived for a while a life a little bit like theirs. The ubiquity of ‘cuss-words’, the aimless boozing and smoking, and the ‘us against the straight world’, were all part of my early twenties hippy-dream-gone-sour interlude.
But whilst we were naive, we were never so moronically dumb, nor so grotesquely ignorant and hypocritical. These dolts love to trash stuff, leaving a trail of litter in their wake (‘the park ranger’s’ll clear it up’). This particular brand of white trash rocker types seem peculiarly American (or Canadian; I have Canadian ancestry*) in their boorishness. From their ‘hockey mullet’ hairdos (very obviously wigs!) to their mix of heavy metal and ‘sportswear’ clobber.
* My grandfather and one of my uncles were Canadians. I still have relatives over there.
Hangin’ out on the stoop…
But, not unexpectedly, several threads are introduced to being a bit more depth. First we learn Dean has testicular cancer. And is kind of in denial. And second, the interactions between Farrel and his crew and their subjects lead to… well, we’ll get to that.
The whole cancer thread is, kind of ironically and paradoxically, the saviour of this movie, which otherwise might’ve been a pointless exercise in Ali-G’esque social satire. In the end it’s awkwardly straight Farrel whose reaction to Dean’s medical emergency catalyses the catatonic headbanger into taking appropriate action, with some chiding from his ex, Trixie.
Farrel starts out mostly off camera, but gradually becomes a more and more key character, until… blam! He’s gone. I won’t say more, not wanting to spoil it too much for those who haven’t seen this. But everything around this crucial episode is very well done, and, like the revelation re Dean’s monster nut, it elevates an otherwise mundane movie, bringing pathos and a degree of subtler human observation that’s actually both well observed and quite moving.
The film was a success at Sundance, and has spawned a sequel, Fubar II, a TV series, and some sort of online offshoots. So it’s done well for a super low budget indie affair (financed by a maxed out credit card and a parental re-mortgage; phew… that could’ve ended very badly!).
Dude’s got style…
It’s very sad to say this, but the film’s low key trashiness, and the imbecilic Everyman types it portrays, make it perfect for the efflorescence of serf-culture that’s been so assiduously cultivated by the evil machinations of recent populist governments – Trump in the US, BoJo in the UK – in the so called developed Western world.
I genuinely didn’t know which way it’d go at the end. And it was nice the way it did turn out. But maybe that’ll be the aspect that makes it so very much a work of fiction? And perhaps the rise of the kind of cultures it documents in the real world won’t turn out to have such a happy ending?
Far from essential or classic, nonetheless, not too shabby. And, whilst I’m not sure I’d say ‘worth watching’, it wasn’t a total waste of time.
AI generated – I think? – by the lyrics of the ‘Polygondwanaland trilogy’, by King Gizzard & The Wizard Lizard.
I was all set to not even watch this. Then to dislike it… and now I’m bemused, as I really rather like a lot of aspects of the resulting ‘art’. And I’m intrigued as to how it’s done.
When I replaced the bath taps we inherited with the property with the shower mixer taps we now have – themselves now broken and in need of replacing (the new/replacement parts arrived today) – I took off the side of the bath housing, to access the plumbing.
That was ages (poss’ even years?) ago. And for a long time since we’ve had an open sided bath. And we started, inevitably, to stash stuff in the new space. We’re now being forced, economically, to consider letting our spare room again. So we’re having to address the rent-ability – or otherwise – of our home.
Relocated this. It needs a kick more paint!
Other bathroom bits ‘n’ pieces include: moving the home-made towel shelf, putting up three new little floating shelves, and moving out the metal shelving unit (that’ll most likely go in our new shed) trybat used to be by the radiator. The latter just accumulated clutter, and never really worked in the bathroom. Plus the humid conditions meant it got rusty!
Already full to overflowing!
These three floating shelves – pictured above and below – are useful Amazon Vine freebies. Not at all to my tastes aesthetically. But they do the job for now. And the job? Getting stuff up and off the window sill and the shelf next to the bath, all of which were overcrowded and really quite dizzz-gusting. So another small job is cleaning the vacated surfaces, and repainting where necessary.
Ought I to paint these little shelves?
Perhaps I should paint these three floaters? As much for mould-resistance and easy cleaning as to improve aesthetics.
I’ve also been making more little curtain pole hanging fittings, similar in style to some I made for the kitchen. I’ve made two so far, for the larger bathroom window. I need to make a good few more for elsewhere around the home, inc the smaller bathroom window, and – at Teresa’s request – for several draft-excluding curtains across a few doors.
Curtain pole support #1, left.
These were made from a batch of high quality marine-ply I got via Freecycle many, many moons ago. Useful stuff! Here they’re pictured having just been attached to the wall. Awaiting a few coats of oil-based high-gloss white paint.
I filled the screw-access holes on these with wooden plugs. Something I haven’t yet done with the similar pair in the kitchen. So that’s another job for the never-ending home/DIY list of tasks! I’d also like to embellish them all a bit, in a Victorian style. I have a few ideas for that!
Curtain pole support #2, right.
Teresa was a bit miffed with me for stopping her making some ordinary fabric curtains for the bathroom. but I think they need to be waterproof. Kitchen and bathroom curtains that ain’t waterproof or water-resistant/repellent quickly get mouldy and manky, and generally very dizzz-gusting!
In theory regular washing of said curtains might address this. But, 1) our washing machine (and now the plumbing to it, apparently), are jiggered, and 2) we hardly ever washed the kitchen curtain, with the result being it was mouldy and rank!
