Also, “The librarian and the stripper” sounds like a cool name for a film. (Not that kind of film.)

Working title: “Personality Defrag”

I’ve been to many places
Made them pictures in my past
Many thoughts and faces
All those traces last
I’ve paced a million paces
Couldn’t wait another day
Here’s not where I want to stay

I ran to find myself
Fled somewhere I thought I wanted to go
I ran to find myself
But I find that I’ve left myself behind

Now you’ve got so far
Yet you seem so sad
When the old wolves call
It’s a subtle warning flag
Now your old wounds bleed
And your act’s gone bad (~?)
What I think you need:
Personality defrag

“Personality defrag”. Make any sense?

Backstory/justification: I watched Star Trek and, inevitably, a period of S.P.O.C.K. obsession followed.

My Metallic Soul

Latest model, every detail engineered,
I am loved, admired, revered
Watch your smiling faces, mine does not betray
That I’d rather do this another day

The sun is high
Not a single cloud in the sky
But my light receptors are hacked
I see the world in black

Don’t you cheer me up, I shun your loving words
All you say, I have already heard
I stop listening long before you even start
My metallic soul’s not like your beating heart

The sun is high
Not a single cloud in the sky
But my light receptors are hacked
I see the world in black

The first robot with emotions
I was working yesterday
Now I’m going through the motions
Doing what I should — what does it matter anyway?

The sun is high
Not a single cloud in the sky
But my light receptors are hacked
I see the world in black

Please pardon the moody. It happens.

It is time for me to admit that I own fourteen DVDs and at least twenty CDs (there’s more at my parents’ home) that, for the above reasons, I need to get rid of. It makes me very, very sad, because not only do I love watching films and listening to music, but unlike some, I also love holding a physical representation of the ethereal in my hand, putting a shiny new disc in the player, flicking through the liner notes, watching extras/bonus materials, or just feeling the fascination and envy upon looking through someone’s CD collection.

Now, without further ado, here is the  unabridged list.

DVDs

• Moulin Rouge, 2-disc special edition
• The Illusionist
• In Bruges (this one hurts more than most. I positively adore this film)
• Music and Lyrics (another film that I really, really love)
• The Prestige
• Braveheart
• Schindler’s List
• Leon
• Shakespeare In Love
• Rob Roy
• The Phantom of the Opera (2004 adaptation with Gerard Butler and Emmy Rossum), 2-disc edition
• Charlie in the Chocolate Factory, 2-disc edition

CDs

• Sean Lennon — Friendly Fire (case slightly damaged)
• Les Fatals Picards — Pamplemousse Mécanique
• Barbara chante Barbara
• Thomas Dutronc — Comme un manouche sans guitare
• Sandrine Kiberlain — Manquait plus qu’ça…
• -M- (Mathieu Chédid) — -M- (case slightly damaged)
• Moulin Rouge soundtrack
• Robyn (with UK bonus track)
• Veronica Maggio — Vatten & Bröd
• Patrik Isaksson — Kom genom eld (single)
• The Ark — We Are The Ark (full-length album in ’single style’ cardboard sleeve)
• Aldebert — Sur place ou à emporter
• Aldebert — Les paradis disponibles
• Coldplay — A Rush of Blood To the Head
• Coldplay — Viva La Vida (this hurts )
• Coldplay — Prospekt’s March EP (this hurts even more.)
• Steps — Steptacular (don’t ask)
• The Blues Brothers — Best Of The Blues Brothers
• R.E.M. — Automatic For The People (case slightly damaged)

I am going to take them to BookEnds, the second hand book shop run by the Aberdeen Students’ Charities Campaign, in a couple weeks’ time (why be specific) and hope that I might get a pound or two for them. If you want to snatch them before that, please give me a shout.

It should be noted that I will keep the films and CDs that I have bought second hand — they were already sold once, so no extra money to the dinosaurs, hence I can forgive myself — and the ones distributed by independent companies who aren’t owned by ‘the Big Four’ — I’m only opposing the imbeciles who sue their customers for spreading their content. I wish that Featured Artists Coalition would publish their list of members somewhere, so that I could pick those off my list. Luckily for me, The Usual Suspects was bought second hand. Less luckily for me, I will not be able to buy Twilight or The Boat That Rocked for another few years.

And what am I going to do about all my books? … no, no, I just can’t. My dedication isn’t strong enough for me to get rid of my beloved books. I’m sorry.

As a sidenote, this obviously means that I will be writing significantly fewer reviews, unless I get to borrow CDs/DVDs from friends. Pity too; I like writing reviews almost as much as I like listening to the music/watching the films. Instead, I will have to get creative myself and get Tion/Imaginatron off the ground. Anyone got an old (but decent) voice microphone lying around?

I am disappointed.

Medium summary

When I pay to see a psychological thriller, I want a psychological thriller, and not Biblical prophecizing cock-and-bull. Please disregard my religion or lack thereof for a minute; Ezekiel meets Star Trek is not the ideal resolution to an intriguing supernatural and numerological riddle, and I find it hard to believe that I would have thought it was even a year ago, when I classified myself as religious. The catchline of the film was “Knowing is everything”, well, let me rephrase that: “Knowing” is apparently bloody pointless.

Long summary

All right, we’re talking about this film called “Knowing”, featuring Nicholas Cage doing his patent concerned face for 120 minutes in a story about an MIT professor who gets his hands on a numerical prophecy about the end of the world, written on a sheet of paper by a primary school lass named Lucinda, fifty years ago. Of course, we spend the first hour waiting for him to figure out that the sheet of numbers is an end-of-the-world prophecy, and only after that does the action really begin, with Cage’s persona running about trying to figure out, first whether the prophecy is genuine, then who the hell this Lucinda girl was, and finally, trying his best to save the world from impending disaster.

He is of course doomed to fail. Lucinda’s prophecy lists “all” major accidents since 1958, with dates, co-ordinates and death tolls, and when our hero goes to the sites of the two upcoming tragedies, try as he might he can only watch people kick the bucket around him. How he plans to stop the end of the world is unclear.

What is also unclear is how this so far relatively promising story along the lines of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable could so desperately paint itself into such a ridiculously stupid corner. I have a policy of not revealing the endings of films to people who haven’t seen them, however, this only applies to films that I consider at least vaguely worth seeing. Then again, sure, if you like embarassingly predictable plots, mysterious-looking guys who follow the main characters around and then turn out to be some sort of angels-cum-extraterrestrials or a-new-heaven-and-a-new-earth themed endings (literally), this film might just be for you. If not, then not.

LA Times, according to Wikipedia, writes that “Knowing” is “moody and sometimes ideologically provocative”. “Ideologically provocative”, are you kidding me? It’s ideologically propagandist, plotline intelligence challenged and a huge bloody disappointment. Alternatively just lame. Definitely a must-not-see.

The story begins with Mrs Kowalski’s funeral, and Walt’s scowling at his grand-children’s bad posture, navel piercing and Austin Powers quotes, respectively (the cinema audience giggles). Then, the young padre who Mrs Kowalski talked to before her death tries to get a confession out of Walt, who confesses “that [he doesn't] want to confess to a boy who’s just out of seminar” (the audience snorts). That’s about the most polite we see him.

One day, a gang convinces/bullies the boy next door, Tao, to go steal Walt’s Gran Torino, an expedition which ends with Walt very nearly shooting Tao but the car left untouched. This sparks a reluctant and rather weird connection between Walt and his neighbours, and when the gang comes back for Tao, Walt is there to back him up. That is the start of the War.

– — – — –

I was sure that Graeme had ruined 90% of the film for me when, upon Anna asking what it was about, he told her and everyone else within earshot how it ended. (For shame, man! You don’t tell the ending to someone who hasn’t seen the film. You just … don’t!) However, even knowing what was coming, I was on the edge of my seat from about halfway through on. Something else that impressed me was that while many films start off tedious and slightly forced before the action commences, “Gran Torino”’s subtle dry humour and Walt’s — mildly put — colourful language made the introductory bits not only bearable but a joy to watch. I stopped counting insults and bigot jokes after fifteen minutes and even laughed out loud at “So a muslim, a jew and a chinese walk into a bar. The barman looks at them and says, ‘Get the hell outta here!’” and our hero’s stout refusal to call one particular Chinese girl anything other than Yum-Yum (the audience tries, and fails, not to laugh). And the ending — whoa, the ending is just brilliant. If I hadn’t known it beforehand, it would have been such a shock. A brilliant shock.

OK, I shall restrain myself. I shall not say that “Gran Torino” is the best film I have seen in a year. I have seen far too many films in the last year to be able to honestly say that without thinking it through first. It qualifies as a nominee, though, and it has a good chance of making it to the top. If you have the chance, don’t hesitate to go and see it.

Because films that surprise by having you sit there for two hours feeling like a question mark might feel if a question mark would be capable of having feelings is one thing, if most questions are answered before the end, that is. It is another thing entirely to see the end credits scrolling up in front of you, still feeling like a question mark might feel, wondering whether you were slightly stupid when you asked yourself if this film would get ever so slightly interesting at some point. What if there are never any grand, intriguing questions to start with?

Losing interest? Come, come, I’ve hardly made a start!

All right, long story short: “The Young Victoria” is a reasonably good-looking film played by reasonably good-looking actors, but having waited for two hours for it to even start I must confess that as far as I noticed, it has no plot whatsoever. The end came merely as a dull surprise, I mumbled “That’s it?” to myself and walked out the room feeling somewhat cheated of my money. Pity, really.

Conclusion: Not a complete disaster, but I don’t recommend paying to see it. The lasting impression is that it left no lasting impression.

The plot reeks of all sorts of conspiracies. Young slum boy scores big in “Who wants to be a millionaire”, upsetting another man, the first and until then only person to have taken the exact same from-the-bottom-up route, who would much rather keep the ‘title’ to himself. The big question is, how does a boy from the slums manage to get every question right? Is he a genious? Was he lucky? Was he cheating? Will a round of mean-ass torture open him up?

Films that surprise, for another, in the sense that such a relatively bland-looking (to my eyes, at least) concept turns out to be a big winner. (The poster even said “Feel-good film of the year”, for heaven’s sake. That genre is normally kept firmly out of arm’s reach, because they make me feel annoyed, not good. And by the way, for a very, very long time tonight, I was seriously wondering about that “feel-good” thing.)

Let us end here, before I accidentally start dropping spoilers. Conclusion: Highly recommended.

Let it also be noted that every film ought to have a dance number during the end credits. It doesn’t necessarily need to be Bollywood, it could be glitz disco overload à la “Mamma Mia!”, general silliness à la “The Love Guru” or whatever you like. Every film should also have a soundtrack as cool as this one. I would never have guessed I liked Indian-style dance music.

(And oh, did that dance number make me ache for Student Show … <3 )

It must have been during my Mathieu Chédid-surfing on YouTube in early 2008 that I came across track 5, “T’es beau”. I also managed to find a performance of “M’en voulez-vous ?”. “T’es beau” swept me off my feet, and just as with Viva La Vida (which I think we’ve heard enough about now), I watched that video about fifteen times a day for a couple of weeks, learned the lyrics, in this case even learned to play a decent version of it on the guitar (and impressed some friends) and found myself humming it, in my crappy French, more or less 24/7.

Perhaps it is the somewhat frail quality to her voice that makes her songs sound so special. Or the fact that she seems sometimes to be breating out the music, and sometimes to be almost screaming, forcing as much voice out as she can fit into her lungs (first she sounds a little like Gwen Stefani, then she suddenly sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before). Or, that I get the strange but inescapable feeling that the microphone seems to be (please pardon my excessive poetic imagery) directed at her heart rather than at her mouth (excessive poetic imagery ends here). Her voice sounds so close, and I know it’s not due to my expensive hi-tech sound equipment, because I’m listening from my laptop through the cheap headphones that I bought at a supermarket in 2004.

To conclude; I bought this CD for “T’es beau”, but have on first listen fallen helplessly in love with the other eleven tracks as well. (If I swinged that way, I promise you I would have fallen in love with the little black-haired lady who sings them too.) Congratulations, Pauline Croze. You have ripped my heart out of my body and somehow made me like you for it.