HELLO! My name's Messy and I'm a MONSTER!

G R A V I T Y
From deep water to deeper space; if ever there was a film than needs to be watched at the cinema, this is it.
Breathless, beautiful, vision of vast, endless space...
Ode to loneliness and the human condition...
Homage to instinct, resilience and survival, wrapped up in ace music and gob-smacking visuals...
Or deeply traumatic horror film with no monster?

One thing's for sure, I won't be booking a mega-bucks seat on Virgin's Space Shuttle in a hurry.

BLACKFISH
What happens when a youngster is brutally snatched from its mother and family, kept in a space the equivalent of a bathtub, along with two girls who bully him, and then has to perform tricks every day for a screaming crowd? Not only does he loose his mojo, he starts to kill people.
Hugely uncomfortable viewing about the nature of an industry that has whale, as well as human, blood on its hands. Also a stunning insight into a beautiful and majestic animal.

Two more tracks worth a listen…

Open Eye Signal: a compelling peach of a film for Mercury short-lister Jon Hopkins. I posted a beautiful animation a while back for a song he made with the inimitable King Creosote - this is a very long way from that sound/collaboration, but just as haunting.
It's also unsettling and ambiguous (including the litterbug moment, when I gasped, immediately showing my age.)

 

Life Round Here: super-smooth, enigmatic crooning from James Blake, cruising through an alternative suburbia with an edgy-looking Chance the Rapper. Someone a quarter of my age might call the track sweet. No, not sure that's quite right. Safe? 

Whatever…

Going all trippy with the next four duets - just in that sort of mood. So cold and wet out; let's move to warmer climes for the following golden oldies, some more golden than others and some considerably older…all have their unique qualities.

1. Some Velvet Morning - Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood sing two strange songs that blend into one soft focus film. With horses. And flowers. And some great '60s facial hair. And fulsome head hair…etc etc

2. Summer Wine - far and away the best version of this haunting song, sung by luscious-voiced/lipped Lana Del Ray and Mr James "Handlebar" Barrie O'Neil.

3. Who Built the Road - Isobel Cambell and Mark Lanegan - not sure what's happening in this video, no idea at all…but great track.

4. This one is really peculiar but aurally addictive. Impossibly louche Nick Cave and too-cute Kylie duet about death as he bludgeons her with a stone.

This post was inspired by the wonderfully eclectic mix cd a very dear friend made me for my birthday

"The strangest creatures are to me

the ones I love the best.

The creepy, crawly and the odd

are cooler than the rest!"

Read all about these Curious Creatures in the brilliant online magazine for girls called JUMP! which covers everything from archiology to Zen!

And watch out - another curious creature will shortly be added to the gang...

Lucanus cervus

Alytes obstetricans

"You'll find theatres and cinemas, markets and stalls, oh you'd better listen when next London calls!"

Page 12 of London Calls! 

Alex may have to change/hide the names of shows and the big cinema chain…but here's the original for posterity!

This is a film I initially resisted going to see because things have got so bad with my emotional threshold that I now sob at tv adverts. And you just know that anything even loosely based on an Oscar Wilde story, set in a bleak, industrial but hauntingly beautiful northern landscape that revolves around the friendship between two teenage boys and their tenuous relationship with the local 'Giant' scrap metal merchant - oh and throw in some horses - isn't going to end well. I don't even think that I need to say 'Spoiler Alert' before confirming that inevitably, it doesn't. Yet thanks to the sparkling and joyfully natural performances of the central  boys, the unsentimental yet tender direction of Clio Barnard and the exquisite cinematography of Mike Eley, the film never falls into hyperbolic cliche and the final mood is that of redemption rather than despair; reflection rather than melodrama. Silence, or rather the removal of any extraneous sensations at moments of unbearable intensity, heightens the drama without sensationalising it, forcing the viewer into the landscape, to reflect upon the smallness of life and the potency of it.

Perhaps, more than anything else, the film is remarkably full of love; carefully drawn in the loyal and affectionate relationship between the boys, in the strong bond they have with their caring, if despairing mothers, and then in that extraordinary, epiphanic moment, that act of instinctive sacrifice when the 'Giant' steps up wearily, as if it were something he should have done a long time ago. It is a moment when the director more than nods towards Wilde for the common threads that tie the film together; those of love and the acceptance of humanity, in all its shapes and forms, alongside the basic human need for forgiveness and absolution. It is, quite simply, a very beautiful film. And yes, I cried a lot at the end.

Bravo Alex-the-illustrator! The artwork for this now submitted...and off we go!