On Thursday, we headed off to the Barbican to see a preview of Julien Temple’s new film about his friend Joe Strummer. I’d heard good things about it. If you regularly travel on the tube, you might have noticed big black and white posters of Joe on a lot of platforms coated with glowing reviews in a rather lurid green colour. Londonist also seemed to enjoy it:
“Even if you don’t give a toss for history, context and all the nonsense written above, go see this film anyway. Because it is an absolute riot of sound, colour and thoughts and it is the best music film you will have seen in a long, long time.”
They’re all right - this is a stonking film.
The film opens with some black and white footage of Joe placing a set of headphones over his ears, appearing to focus, before ploughing into White Riot. To start with, the soundtrack is just Joe’s singing (White Riot works surprisingly well a capella, it turns out) before the full force of the band’s backing comes storming through the cinema speakers and you know you’re going to be in for something of a treat.
Julien Temple has made some very sensible decisions about this documentary. Firstly, he’s done away with the subtitles telling you who each contributor is. At times this means that a relative Clash ignoramous such as myself can miss out on the relevance of each contributor. However, most of the time it means that you can just immerse yourself in the film without being distracted by names flashing across the screen. It also means that the film can focus more closely on Joe himself.
The second sensible, and appropriate, decision by Temple is to film most of the interviews around bonfires. Mr Strummer had a great affection for the levelling aspect of a fireside chat, and I think that Temple probably got more candied and honest interview because of this decision. It also makes for some great visuals as the camera looks through the fire to interview the dramatis personae of Joe’s life.
Besides the opening section of this film that I’ve outlined above, there were many, many other moments that sent shivers up my spine. Hearing the bass line of London Calling whilst watching the oh-so-familiar footage of The Clash playing on the Thames was one of these moments. The moment when Mick Jones unexpectedly joined Strummer on stage a couple of weeks before he died was another.
Although two hours long, the film doesn’t begin to feel like it as you’re thrown into the grimy punk world of seventies London and then dragged through the eighties and nineties, until you emerge at the other end, educated and filled with the fire that Joe Strummer seemed to be able to transmit to anyone he met. A special film about an extremely special man.
Just before we watched the film on Thursday, Julien Temple gave a little introduction:
“I really don’t care whether you like this film,” he said “I didn’t make it for you, I made it for Joe”.
It’s living up to that expectation that makes this the wonderful film it is.
“Mr Justice Peter Openshaw stunned prosecutors at Woolwich Crown Court by saying: “The trouble is I don’t understand the language. I don’t really understand what a website is.”
“Trial judges always seek to ensure that everyone in court is able to follow all the proceedings. They will regularly ask questions - not for their own benefit - but on behalf of all those following a case, in the interests of justice. In this specific case, immediately prior to the judge’s comment, the prosecution counsel had referred to various internet forums with postings of comments relevant to the case. Mr Justice Openshaw was simply clarifying the evidence presented, in an easily understandable form for all those in court. Mr Justice Openshaw is entirely computer literate and indeed has taken notes on his own computer for many years.”
Well done him.
OK, fair enough, but the Guardian article goes on to point out that if he’s trying to make things clearer, and this happens, then he’s not doing a great job.
Since I’ve been reading bits and bobs about scientology, before, during and after making the previous post, I thought I might share some of these with you.
I was prompted to write some more about these muppets by Yedna’s commentwho’s previously blogged on this subject. That led me to this interesting documentary, in which, weirdly enough, the scientologists use exactly the same technique as they did with the BBC, namely suggesting that the BBC had planted a bomb. Classy and imaginative.
John Travolta is a scientologist. According to this from the BBC website he brings his scientology people on set with him and won’t let any of his “regular” crew touch anything that he’s going to touch. He’s so much of one in fact that he thought it would be a good idea to make a movie of Battlefield Earth, one of L. Ron Hubbard’s books. I have to admit I haven’t seen it, but it gets 2.3/10 stars on imdb, and is the equal 12th worst film on Metacritic, which is quite some recommendation. Here are some of the reviews:
“”Man is an endangered species,” announces one of the titles at the beginning of the sci-fi lump “Battlefield Earth.” And after about 20 minutes of this amateurish picture, extinction doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.”
And, perhaps best of all, here’s Jonathan Ross’s take - a man, might I add, who can be rather partial to slightly cheesy sci-fi:
“Everything about Battlefield Earth sucks. Everything. The over-the-top music, the unbelievable sets, the terrible dialogue, the hammy acting, the lousy special effects, the beginning, the middle and especially the end. God above, it’s bad. Sweet baby Jesus, it’s bad. By all that is holy and sacred on the Earth, this is a bad, bad, bad film.”
Considering this was intended, both by L. Ron Hubbard in book form and, one can assume John Travolta for the film version to help persuade people to have an interest in scientology, it doesn’t sound like an overwhelming success. Indeed The Onion AV Club put it like this:
“Before its release, some of Scientology’s critics suggested that Battlefield Earth would be filled with subliminal messages in an attempt to recruit or brainwash viewers. They needn’t worry: Outside of marching on Washington in Nazi uniforms while burning crosses and clubbing baby seals, it’s hard to think of a worse way to recruit converts than to subject them to this surreal atrocity.”
A story that’s much more entertaining is the back story of scientology itself, also of course written by L. Ron Hubbard. I think the folks at South Park explain it best:
Scientologists everywhere, if you don’t want people to think that you’re a cult, don’t:
Follow them to every interview a BBC reporter makes, shouting most of the time
Attempt to sabotage every critical interview by (briefly) reuniting “disconnected” children or reciting the criminal record of another investigator
Blow up every time anyone mentions the word “cult”
Get a load of celebrities in to tell the reporter how wonderful scientology is, and then don’t let him use any of the footage because he used the word “cult”
The looniest of all of them, a man whose looks would suggest that promotion into the cult of scientology is nowadays based entirely on how much you look like Tom Cruise, attempted to explain, whilst very angry, that scientology was a religion, and deserved respect as such. In a way he’s right, a cult is a very small religion with more efficient money collecting abilities and far fewer sane followers. Religions also don’t spend as much of their time trying to prove that they’re not cults, and this is where scientologists fall down.
Give it a few thousand years and perhaps there’ll be millions of people whose holy teachings include the words “intergalactic warlord dictator” and whose leader is the now thankfully deceased writer L. Ron Hubbard, who once said
“Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion.”
Look, don’t get me wrong, I’m as worried as the next man about my country’s rather terrifying collapse into Islamophobia, however, there are times when it doesn’t quite apply:
“One of the alleged July 21 bombers said he was only accused of being a suicide bomber because he was Muslim, a court has heard. Yassin Omar, 26, said the “bomb” he detonated in a rucksack at Warren Street Tube station in London was a protest against the Iraq war. “Because I am Muslim, straight away that meant I was a suicide bomber,” he told Woolwich Crown Court.”
Personally, I think blowing up a bomb on a bus is a relatively clear sign of a suicide bomber, however inept your bomb-maker might be, or whatever religion you may choose to follow. There are other ways of protesting about wars that might not lead to those sorts of accusations. A letter to your MP perhaps? Going on a march?
I think it might be advisable, for all those that aren’t clear, to avoid blowing things up on public transport in the current climate. Your “protest” might be misinterpreted. Just look at these people - and they didn’t even blow anything up.
Well, at least my stomach might get a little smaller. It seems that Mars, in their wisdom, have decided to start adding animal products to their line of products. Therefore, products such as Mars bars, Snickers, Milky Way or Minstrels have now got rennet in them (a product made from the stomach linings of young cows).
While the rest of the food industry are trying to take animal products out of their ranges, Mars have decided to buck the trend, and get rid of 3,000,000 customers in the UK in one swoop.
Personally, I don’t really care. If Mars don’t want me to buy their products any more then so be it, I can cope without. The thing that’s really been getting my goat is this:
“Masterfoods said the change was due to it switching the sourcing of its ingredients and the admission was a “principled decision” on its part.” (From the BBC article)
Principled? Fuck off. Firstly, they started adding these products on 1st May, so it’s taken them a good couple of weeks before their principles cut in. Surely, though, if they were oh-so-principled, they would actually have endeavoured to help their vegetarian customers by not adding cow stomachs to their products.
Of course, it’s not just vegetarians that this affects. Many Hindus do not eat food products from cows, and I would guess that the cows that they have been using have not been killed in a Halal fashion, which cuts out many Muslims as well.
All that Mars have to defend their sales is the fact that most people are pretty dreadful at knowing what goes into their food, thereby meaning that to trump their general trampling of their customer’s wishes, they’ll be making many a vegetarian, Hindu or Muslim break vows that are very dear to them. Great PR.
My suggestion is this - regardless of whether you’re vegetarian or not, stop eating Mars products - they’re bad for you, poor quality, and every one has cow stomach lining in it. Mmmm tasty.
As you may have noticed, song of the week has died a bit of a death. Don’t cry, it’s life was never destined to be long with someone as much of a procrastinator as I am. Still, I do still want to force my musical tastes on you, so I thought I might start doing a few short album reviews.
First off is the debut album from Swedish trance producer, Axel Willner. You know him right? It’s a hypnotically beautiful album that feels a little like being rocked to sleep. It is, in many way, amazingly austere, but there’s a real stark pleasure in this album.
I’m not a huge dance music fan, not least because I never dance, but this appeals to me so much that it’s won me over. There’s little I like more at the moment than sticking this album on when I’m on the way to work or coming home on the tube. It just alters your perspective, like all the best art, and I love it.
I actually found out about this through one of my newest favourite sites, Metacritic - it seems to do a pretty fair job of picking the wheat from the chaff and it’s pointed me towards most of my favourite albums of the last six months or so. If for some strange reason you haven’t seen it before, take a look.
On Thursday, we headed off to the Barbican to see a preview of Julien Temple’s new film about his friend Joe Strummer. I’d heard good things about it. If you regularly travel on the tube, you might have noticed big black and white posters of Joe on a lot of platforms coated with glowing reviews in a rather lurid green colour. Londonist also seemed to enjoy it:
