Psychodependents

There was an interesting two-part piece by David Aaronovitch on this (and last) week's 'The Westminster Hour' (a regular BBC Radio 4 political magazine programme). The segments concerned the public's relationship with politicians and, while asking the question of whether the populace should actually heal itself instead of holding politicians to unattainable standards, offered the thesis that we-the-public are engaged in an unhealthy psycho-socio-sexual feedback loop with political power, prompted all-the-while by our own irrational, consumer desires and with a shrill, goading media acting as an echo chamber and exacerbating the problem.

The programme starts on similar ground to, and follows on from, the fourth episode of Adam Curtis' "Century Of The Self", but it goes further than that, in that it offers (of necessity, superficial) attempts at psychoanalysing the relationship concerned.

In parts it seemed to stray into the area of unfalsifiable pseudo-intellectual waffle, but not entirely; there's certainly enough of substance there to act as the basis for serious discussion.

[Link]

Fillums

I've been catching up on some of the bigger (mostly super-hero) blockbusters from the last few years, not least because nieces, nephews and cousins have been visiting as it's the Summer. I seem to live my life three years behind when it comes to the hot new (shite|mint)y goodness of the entertainment industry's output, but that's OK; I like it that way.

There now follows some quick capsule reviews:

• The Fantastic Four - Probably brilliant if you're ten years old. Unfortunately, I'm not. Pretty awful. [3/10]

• V For Vendetta - Probably brilliant if you've not read the graphic novel. Unfortunately, I have. Disappointing. [6/10]

• Ray - Deservedly acclaimed performance by Foxx; rest fairly mediocre, I thought. [7/10]

• Batman Begins - Ermmm - Actually quite good. I enjoyed it more than any other Batman movie. Some obvious MTV-generation touches, and the whole ninja-training-in-the-east thing was a bit "stock" as ideas go but they can be overlooked. The trouble with these types of franchise/universe-initiation movie is that they always have to balance a super-hero's 'genesis' story with a present-tense villain or conflict of some sort, and it's hard to mesh the two without one of them looking somewhat runt-ish, underdeveloped and/or hacked-on. On the whole, it managed to do this moderately well; it's certainly been done worse in countless other super-hero flicks. [8/10]

• Spider-Man 2 - There's something I don't quite like about Raimi's Spiderman franchise. I think it's the unrelenting psycho-melodrama of "being good" that does it: no opportunity to wring some more emotional injustice out of the situation is let slip and it teeters on the edge of inducing a vulgar surrender in the viewer ("Fuck this for a game of soldiers; I'm off ..." etc.). It's a hard balance to strike: The more you show Parker's torment at the consequences of his actions / abilities and the more impotence in the face of these you thrust upon him to crank up the psychological burden, the more you veer towards an area where he risks antipathy as 'deciding and acting' would become a better course of action than voluntarily keeping yourself in that masochist's position. Do you think Takeshi Shimura's character in 'Seven Samurai' would vacillate the way Parker does? Hell, no. He'd have tried to rectify things earlier.

  Having said that, the whole situation is predicated on the idea that Parker'll eventually sort it out, thus bringing a greater sense of emotional resolution, and indeed he does; although the extent to which this mechanism is akin to wearing barbed-wire underwear just to experience the relief of removing them is by no means nil. I guess I just don't like Spidey as a character, or find him interesting, to the same extent as others.

  Overall, though, the cheap psychological tricks work in much the same way as they always have, and you can't help enjoy the way the situation "comes good" at the end. The 'Doc Oc' storyline, in this instance, does feel unambiguously secondary to Spidey's character development, but it's a deliberate decision rather than a script failure. On the whole, it's pretty good. [7.8/10]

• War Of The Worlds (The Spielberg / Cruise one) - This is the type of film upon which you could write theses if you were so inclined — a slice of pop culture that lends itself to endless knob-buffing analysis — and I'm sure numerous film students have, but I'll resist the temptation here.

  In some ways, this is a fairly un-Hollywood film as it adopts a Pilgrim's Progress odyssey format, where the protagonists are barely in control of their own destiny, and the characters are made much less deliberately likable (for instance, I would have happily bumped-off the children myself by about half way through) than the standard Hollywood fare. Surprisingly or not, this makes it a much more interesting film.

  It contains several obvious plot holes and celebrates the (at times, quite incredible) special effects for their own sake. I liked the way that Spielberg didn't milk certain situations as much as other directors might; For instance, the section where they're on the boat and get attacked by a submerged tripod -- an occurrence largely from the book -- is revelled-in, exploited, developed, and then done away with quite quickly as it becomes superfluous; many other film-makers would have lingered much more on the situation, if for no other reason than the cost of setting it up in the first place.

  Despite a number of qualms, I liked it. It was complex in areas where it could have been more simple; realistically grim in areas where pure blockbusters would have been more sanitized. Sure, certain things don't quite add up, and Spielberg takes the opportunity to re-do a number of his previous set-pieces but, for me, it managed to succeed somewhat in spite of these, and in spite of the presence of Tom Cruise — if anything, those aspects of Cruise's personality and style which are irritating a priori just added a naturalism and realism to the on-screen character; the part being practically tailored to suit. [8/10]

Fantasy Football

Given Bob Abooey is kicking off with a USian football league, I was curious if anyone was interested in a "proper football" one. Unfortunately, the BBC stopped running their (generally excellent) competition a few years ago, so the only one which seems to suggest itself is the official one at the Premier League's webshite. I'm kind of torn on this as I imagine all kinds of abominable spam and data mining operations occur during sign-up (plus I think they're generally a corrupt and ineffectual outfit), but if anyone's up for it, or has alternative suggestions, chime in.

Personal

Stuff's cool. I've just come off a period of working my feckin arse off to meet two deadlines; so much so that my sleep cycle tripped out of normal temporarily and I was pretty irascible for a period. Having just delivered, I'm taking the day (and, probably, the rest of the week) largely off. Haven't had cold beer for breakfast in aeons.

In addition, season three of 'The Wire' dropped through my letterbox yesterday, so have been enjoying the act of not-watching-it-just-yet, savouring the prospect. No doubt my will shall break half-way through this afternoon. I also got some new books, which I'll end up reviewing in due course.

Random Web Video Link Of The Day

Dave Chappelle's 'For What It's Worth' stand-up special [~58:00], Categorically NSFW.