This evening, I spent two hours eating chocolate.
OK, maybe not quite. But I spent two and half hours learning about chocolate, and there was tasting involved. Because zoo_music_girl and I were at a tasting at my favourite chocolate shop in London (and therefore, the world) L’Artisan Du Chocolat, run by the man behind the chocolate, Gerard Coleman.
I’m talking about food here, so obviously, I’m going to go on a bit…
It’s a bit of a mission, getting there and back. Forty minutes by train from Paddington, then queuing for fifteen minutes to get a five minute taxi ride, then doing the reverse at the end of the meal, to get back into London and then spend an hour and half on night busses to get home. For those keeping score, that’s about three hours forty minutes of travelling, total.
That’s OK. It took us a bit over five hours to eat the meal (which is, in many respects, the best way to think about the prices, but more about that later), and there were no pauses of longer than a couple of minutes between courses.
But, having told you that it took five hours to eat, you should be duly warned that this is going to be a very, very long entry. Strap in. And no slacking. There will be questions at the end.
You know what’s sexy? Confident people having fun.
I mention this because I am back from the Alabama 3, and this description applies to the band, the dancing girls on stage, and the crowd of people I was dancing with in the audience.
It was a very good gig. Country and Gospel music for a chemical generation, this is the cleverest dance music I know. If the KLF have successors, the Alabama 3 are very much it[1], only they’ve gone one better. The KLF were just very clever. A3, on the other hand, put a bit of soul and passion into what they do, and it pays off all the better for it.
I was idly thinking about another music type that sounds like it’s basically a weld of late 80s/early 90s dance and another genre (goth) – EBM (and I’m sure a few people are about to leap on me for that generalisation, but I don’t really care) and how the A3’s brand of music really shows that lot up as a bit basically joyless. Something to come back to another time, perhaps. The important thing is that D. Wayne and Larry and their friends preached a very fine gospel tonight, and I for one am quite prepared to shut down my chakras and shift Shiva offa my shelf. Yes indeed.
[1] And I note the most of the serious KLF fans I know are also A3 fans…
The Skeleton Key: avoid like the plague.
The best thing about it are the snatches bits of top class old delta blues that get played on a couple of creaky old record players, and The Dixie Cups version of “Iko Iko”. And while I might well buy the soundtrack, this really isn’t enough to carry a whole movie. I mean, I like voodoo mentalism as much, hell, probably quite a lot more than the next man. I should not be a hard sell for this. But this was poor. They spend the fiirst half of the movie setting you up for a “make-you-jump” voodoo fest with what looked to be first-act-guns for a showdown involving poor bastards with their eyes and mouths sewn shut, and animate severed tounges, and dead black men swinging from lynching ropes and looking for revenge. Top class nonsense.
This is not what it delivers, and the sudden gear change two-thirds of the way through is annoying. It’s got a perfectly sound basic horror premise, but it sets you up to believe it’s going to exectue it one way, and then does it another, and rather than the “Ah! Shock Twist!” reaction they were hoping for, I just felt like I’d been cheated out of my voodoo zombies.
Firstly: Many thanks to alexdecampi and davebushe for the preview ticket.
I loved it.
I’ve got to be honest: I wasn’t expecting it to be much cop. There’s a lot of dialogue/monologue in the comic that I just felt would be a bit iffy, when spoken aloud. The few clips I’ve seen on telly made it sound like yes, this was very much the case. And indeed, in a few places it did creak, although I do wonder if (in some cases, although not all) that was partly because they were the bits I’d heard on telly. But for the greater part of it, it carried it off pretty well.
But let’s face it, you’re not going to see this for the dialogue. This is a film that’s all about the visuals, and it delivers, in spades. Gorgeous looking, like nothing we’ve ever seen from Hollywood. Miller’s co-director credit is well deserved – there’s almost no shot in the movie that’s not in the comics. (Although I think I’m correct in assuming that Tarantino’s scene is the one between Owen and del Toro in the car – it’s certainly the one that’s least like the comic.) If you’ve got any interest in cinema beyond a “good stories” level, this is an absolute must-see movie. If you just want good stories, and like noir, well, you’ll still like it. It’s a caricatured noir, but still it’s a bloody good ride.
It’s an all-star cast, so let’s take a couple of seconds to look at them, shall we? Acting wise, Mickey Rourke is the obvious show stealer. Bruce Willis and Clive Owen both put in adequate performances – Owen never seems quite as on the edge as I might have liked, but then, I think if he’d been more obviously loony, there’d have been little to distinguish Dwight and Marv, and Willis, is, well, he’s doing he usual tough guy job, and while we’ve seen it from him a lot in the past, it’s exactly what’s called for here.
It’s bit harder to judge the women, to be honest – there’s a bit less for the actresses to work with, as the women in Sin City seem to chiefly exist to spur very manly men to action. Although I felt Rosario Dawson was a bit of a let down – I didn’t feel that she and Owen had much chemistry between them (compared to Owen and Murphy), and as arguable the lead female role, that’s a bit of a flaw. Top marks in the villain category have to go to Nick Stahl and Rutger Hauer, for two pleasingly mental bastards. Elijah Wood’s role is suitably creepy, but other than maybe trading off casting against type for his eyes, he really doesn’t have a lot to do to make it creepy.
Still, all these people are pretty/grizzled, and do at least adequately, and to be honest judging their performance is quite tricky, given the extremely stylised nature of the whole movie, from plot and dialogue through to the stunning, stunning visuals. And as I say, it’s the visuals that are the star here, and deservedly so. A perfect job of translating the look of the comic to film.
All in all: A must-see movie.
(Although I still want to know who stole Rosario Dawson’s nipples. I mean, it looks like she’s meant to be wearing fishnet, and I don’t see any evidence of her wearing something under it, and yet she has no nipples. Someone must have stolen them…)
Shane MacGowan was “stuck in Dublin Airport” last night, so The Popes did not perform. This was, well, a bit rubbish, but still, they were only the support act for the Alabama 3.
The Alabama 3, in case you’ve been living under a rock, play “sweet, pretty, country acid house music”. A dance/country/rock fusion, I guess. (If you watch the Sopranos, then it’s them that did the theme tune.) They are, like any band worth the bother, even better live. I don’t know if they extended their planned set list to make up for The Pope’s absence, but it was an excellent set – all the big singles, and several storming numbers off the new album.
It wasn’t all perfect – the sound quality was a bit iffy, especially for a couple of the mics, not helped by the fact that joint-lead vocalist D. Wayne Love was clearly extremely the worse for something. I ran into an old mate on the way there, who’s been to see them many, many times before, and according to him, the guy was as wrecked as he’s ever seen him, but still, they did an excellent set. The amount of energy in their performance was impressive – I don’t think lead singer Larry Love ever stopped moving, and the various guest vocalists/musicians were clearly out to match him. And when you’ve got four vocalists, two guitar/bass players, a drummer, a percussionist, a digeridoo player, and a man with a harmonica all on stage, giving it their all, that’s some pretty impressive stuff right there.
I am, however, getting fucked off with venues that don’t allow “professional” cameras in. I don’t own a professional camera, just a very good consumer one, but I’m not allowed to bring it into gigs at Carling venues, it seems, because the door monkeys can’t tell the difference between it and a pro camera, and will not take my word for that fact that it isn’t one, which leaves me stuck with the Ixus, which isn’t up to the job.
Anyone out there ever tried to get permission to take a half-decent camera in to gigs in advance?
(Oh, and I got hit with a flyer for the Nouvelle Vague, playing the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the 11th of July. My ticket is duly booked. Anyone else interested in some bossa nova/jazz covers of old New Wave stuff?)
And madder than a particualrly lunatic crop of badgers.
Queen Adreena were storming. I might attempt a proprer review tomorrow. electricana watchers will almost certainly get a few photos from the gig over the next few days. Short version: rockier than a very lumpy rock garden, and sexier than the second coming of an extraordinarily sexy messiah.
I think I may have sprained the bit of my brain that does the metaphors.
Menlo Park: good. Sound quality: rubbish, so it was a bit of a let down. Support act were a cross between Frankie Goes To Hollywood and The Streets (I quite liked it). I may write it up properly tomorrow. (It’s not Sunday until I’ve gone to bed.)
Stopped in at Slimes for an hour or two on my way home, but wound up remaining entirely sober, in a shocking break with tradition, and opted for an early nightbus after a couple of hours dancing. It’s a sufficiently nice morning that I hopped off the bus in Balham, and walked home from there, just to enjoy the dawn. I’m such a fucking hippy.
Zzzzz….
Gosh, that’s a surprise: it’s exactly as bad as the previous two. Actually, that’s not fair. It’s better than II. So is dental surgery.
Still, it’s nerdstalgia, and it was a laugh. I don’t begrudge the time or money. Which is damning with faint praise, but it really doesn’t deserve more. Portman and Christensen were rubbish, which didn’t help, since they were supposed to be the emotional core of that film. Portman did her best with some of the worst lines I’ve ever heard, but Christensen still has no discernably personality, charisma, or indeed, acting talent. (McDiarmid was having a good laugh, though – I haven’t seen sets that thoroughly chewed since Jeremy Irons got at the Dungeons and Dragons ones.)
Oh, and the lads behind Yoda’s CGI did a bloody marvellous job – the little green muppet managed most of the few emotional moments that actually worked.
And now we can all get on with the rest of our lives, and George Lucas can retire in order to work on growing that chin he’s always wanted.