The best of 2006

~ Inquisitor

I’m not doing a best of list for new music 2006 because I have heard too little of it (being away in Germany during prime release season does that to you). Movies, however, I’ve seen a lot more of, so here’s some of the best of the year (and sorry about not reviewing them at the time):

  • A Bittersweet Life – OK, so it’s no Oldboy, but this Korean tale of a mob enforcer having a fatal mid-life crisis is still kinetic, occasionally daft, visually stunning and extremely watchable. Fans of black humour and suddenly unleashed screen brutality will find much to enjoy here.
  • Borat – No, it’s not tasteful. Yes, it is funny. And it has a Laurel and Hardy visual gag, which makes up for everything. Fun Easter egg: which language is it that Borat is speaking to his assistant?
  • Casino Royale – At last, the Bond producers have listened to what fans have been saying for ages and brought Bond back to earth, and got a decent screenwriter (Paul Haggis) in to do it too instead of Purvis and Wade. If the next one’s more like this than Die Another Day I’ll be very very pleased. [Also, those danielcraigisnotbond people really need to go figure.]
  • Children Of Men – It’s fantastic dystopian SF from a very British point of view. The scenes of day-to-day life in this movie have more resonance than all of the sadly over-Hollywoodised V for Vendetta. Alfonso Cuaron directs some stunning multi-minute apparent single takes. And Clive Owen is forced into acting, which is worth the cost of the movie alone.
  • Clerks II – It could have been a complete waste of time, but unfortunately for Kevin Smith haters it turned out to be very, very funny. My favourite Smith film is still Chasing Amy, and I accept his limitations as a director, but he does know how to construct a good running gag and this has some very, very good ones. Also, he has got better.
  • The Departed – No, it’s not as good as Infernal Affairs (which it is a pretty much expanded remake of) but it’s still really good and it’s still Scorcese. It’ll be a shame to see him denied the Oscar again, but if he gets it I’ll be cheering.
  • Good Night And Good Luck – It could have been a vanity project, but George Clooney is a very good director and he didn’t let it happen. Beautifully shot in black and white, with its moral compass very much in shades of grey.
  • The Host – Truly wonderful Korean horror with an initially dodgy monster and a serious case of genre confusion, expanding through horror, black comedy, political satire, slapstick, melodrama and countdown-clock thriller. As an added bonus, the hero’s search for his daughter is often thwarted by the most nasty case of unhelpful bureaucracy since Brazil.
  • Pan’s Labyrinth – Guillermo del Toro’s adult fairytale manages to evoke both time and timeless within its short runtime. Beautiful film, fantastic child performances, and a very convincing look at the realities of the Spanish Civil War lie within.
  • The Proposition – A beautifully savage, brutally adult “Australian Western”; Ray Winstone and Guy Pearce especially stand out here amongst a sprawling ensemble cast of some of the best actors in European and Australian cinema. Very well written by, yes, that Nick Cave.

Movies that I liked much more than I should have: Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Sorry. And V for Vendetta, despite my review.

Things I really should have seen: Far too many; I missed the summer season (everything was dubbed in my part of Germany, aaargh). At the very least: Superman Returns, United 93, Inside Man, An Inconvenient Truth, Snakes on a Plane.

Awful awful movies: Thankfully nothing I can recall. Hopefully it’ll stay that way long into 2007.

A “tribute” to Saddam Hussein

~ Inquisitor

“At night, he heard the sound of weeping from other parts of the building, and asked a guard what was going on. “Those are the Anfal prisoners,” the guard replied, “and they are leaving the prison.” Halabja, in other words, was not part of the Anfal operation. “Where are the Anfal prisoners being taken?” Faraj asked another guard the next morning. “That is none of your concern,” the man answered. “If you ask that question again, you will be sent off with them too, to be lost forever.”

[Human Rights Watch, “Genocide in Iraq: The Al-Anfal Campaign against the Kurds” (1993), ch. 8]

“…all persons captured in those villages shall be detained and interrogated by the security services and those between the ages of 15 and 70 shall be executed after any useful information has been obtained from them, of which we should be duly notified.”

[“Chemical” Ali al-Hassan Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin, Iraq Directive SF/4008, 20th June 1987]

Am I glad we’re rid of the bastard, the same way I was with Pinochet? Sadly, no.

This one is a bit harder than the Pinochet “tribute” because Saddam is a very different case, since we’ve killed him. Whilst the world is better off without him in power, this is only in that the world is better off with one less mass-murdering, genocidal despot. Unfortunately, we have managed to screw up so badly in Iraq that hundreds of murdering wannabe genocidal despots have taken his place, and this death will not change that one bit.

That report quoted above is 1993, describing actions that took place in 1987/1988, at a point in time where Western arms manufacturers were happily selling production capability for VX and mustard gas to Saddam’s Iraq (at the same time as surreptitiously selling arms to its main enemy at the time, Iran, perhaps purposefully in order to prolong the war.) We had a responsibility then to the world not to support Saddam, and we blew it big time. The Guardian’s obit makes clear the extent of his depravity throughout his career, all well known and televised; yet it was ignored until Kuwait made it impossible to ignore. The world should never let such a thing happen again, but it will.

James Brown has died.

~ Inquisitor

As the Tom Tom Club nearly put it: he was the Godfather of Soul, you know, so check it out.

And if there wasn’t James Brown, there wouldn’t be a “Funky Drummer” sample and there’s so much hip-hop that would simply not have happened without him; without soul  and funk samples, after all, a lot of music wouldn’t have happened at all, especially stuff like “Paul’s Boutique” or “Endtroducing”. It’s a great loss to music. Besides, anyone in The Blues Brothers deserves our lasting respect.

Merry Christmas, everybody!

~ Inquisitor

Yes, it’s Christmas Day and I haven’t posted for weeks. Sorry. More stuff coming up over the Christmas period as I finally start remembering to write again…

As penance, here is a Youtube video of something funny: Mystery Science Theater 3000’s “Let’s Have A Patrick Swayze Christmas”.

Golden Globe nominations

~ Inquisitor

It’s as per usual: lots of films we haven’t seen, having been released for One Week Only in New York and LA in order to qualify. Interesting spots: the amazing Chiwetel Ejiofor for Best Comedic Actor (for Kinky Boots, which he was by far the best thing in), two Leo DiCaprios for Best Dramatic Actor (Blood Diamond and The Departed), two Clint Eastwoods for Director (his Iwo Jima pair), lots of nominations for Inarittu’s Babel, good nominations for Dreamgirls and The Departed, Apocalypto and Eastwood’s Japanese-language Iwo Jima film for Best Foreign Language (Pan’s Labyrinth should win) and Borat in the best musical/comedy section.

On this evidence, the Oscars should be interesting this year- and much harder to predict than usual (except Scorcese not getting it, which is becoming close to an unfortunate yearly event.)

Merciful release

~ Inquisitor

I’ve just picked up the digipak rerelease of the Sisters of Mercy’s First and Last and Always – I’m not a goth, honest, I just like some of the music. Others have commented on the much improved sound quality on the Sisters remasters (all distinguishable by digipak cases and sleeve notes taken from a recent Uncut magazine profile) and I’m going to confirm that: there’s detail on this thing which was just completely inaudible on the previous CD release, and it’s got that proper oppressive tone that the album should really have. Worth £5 from Fopp, definitely, as long as you like that sort of thing.

It’s interesting that this is a Warner/Rhino release with the Merciful Release logo prominent – Andrew Eldritch infamously burned his bridges with Warner in the early 90s at the same time as many other artists were doing the same thing (Prince also with Warner, resulting in that symbol and ‘SLAVE’, George Michael with Sony) by giving them in lieu of his contracted recordings a truly horrendous dance album, and since then the rotating Eldritch+session players Sisters lineup has been touring new material and releasing nothing. So this could possibly be a sign of reconciliation: the detail in this release (including embossed Eldritch lyric sheets and recording studio tape orders obviously from his personal file) indicates that they might be back on speaking terms and so could finally record again. It’s an intriguing possibility, as long as any recording is better than Vision Thing.

A “tribute” to Augusto Pinochet

~ Inquisitor

“My husband was under arrest. I went to see the commander of the regiment, and he told me not to worry, that they were going to release him for Christmas, that he was a good person. I went to see him December 31, but they told me he was not being held there any more. I came home. A truckload of soldiers had just left a sealed coffin at my front door a few minutes before.”

[Report of the Chilean National Commission on Truth and Reconciliation, Part Three, Chapter Four ]

Good riddance to the bastard. And isn’t that video of Baroness Thatcher cosying up to Pinochet in 1998 (long after we knew what he’d been up to) just sickening?

The Guardian’s obituary, the report above, the various Wikipedia articles on Pinochet’s favoured methods of disposal of troublesome opponents and these tables provide the necessary context to appreciate this statement. Good thing we aren’t supporting any mass-murdering dictators anymore.

[I was intending on putting this little tribute to Maggie’s own favourite dictator up the second I heard of his death, but my net connection was down over the whole weekend. Oh well, just as apppropriate now.]