Melancholia

After Antichrist, dare we watch Lars von Trier's latest offering? I think yes....though we'll have to wait until July 1st.

John Stezaker

The John Stezaker exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery is a complete joy to wander round. You can absorb the ideas and aesthetics, and push them round your mind marinating on them without wrenching your brain into a achingly high gear (nice on a Sunday afternoon) yet still feel nudgingly challenged and provoked.

Most pictures are minimalist collages that take images of glamorous men and women, some movie stars, some in fact actual film stills, and montage them, often ever-so-slightly altering them, but to great effect. A beauty becomes a curious monster with eyes fanned out (very bottom); two faces are joined with only one perfect meeting place (below); silhouettes obscure an image but instead of a black shadow, the silhouettes is a second face that fits into the first one like a puzzle with the wrong picture. My favourite images were the  portraits with a wide square cut out. Some, like the above, give an almost surreal telescopic perspective into the mind of the subject - a picture perfect waterfall or a tunnel into the vacant distance. Others leave the square blank, a Tabula Rasa or blank slate where the viewer can project their formulation of the subject's thoughts or what might be happening in a scene or what a person's eyes might look like and signify, into the gaping hole that demands to be filled.

John Stezaker is on at the Whitechapel until March 18th.

Blue Valentine

I felt broken by Blue Valentine. It almost makes one never want to fall in love. almost. And yet, despite being heart-wrenchingly upsetting, it's also a beautiful meditation on falling out of love. The film opens with a couple (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams) about 5 years into their marriage. it's awkward to watch the subtle signs of their failing relationship, the willful miscommunication; the silences loaded with disaffection, frustration, disappointment and disillusionment; effort made by one party and its passive deflection by the other. slowly we flash back to how they met, how they fell wildly in love - it's like you imagine it being in the movies. what happens in between the two opposing points is left to circumspection, imagination: in between lingers a hazy void where the arc of the relationship is concrete in its invisibility - the journey from burgeoning beginnings to a sobering, grey flat lining.  Every look and touch taken from each side of the arc is painfully opposed; it's crushing. It's nominated for Golden Globes on Sunday. Michelle Williams in particular 100% deserves her award.

Blue Valentine is out today.

Killing Time

I'm not quite sure if I was killing time, wasting time, filling time, making time for, passing the time or keeping time but in the spare couple of hours before I had to be at a party in central London on Saturday evening I spent time watching Christian Marclay's video installation at White Cube: Mason's Yard - The Clock.

It's amazing - completely absorbing in a strangely mesmerising way. Created like a sort of video patchwork quilt made using edited cuts from mainstream classic films where clock faces appear, or during which times are mentioned, each sliver from the various films are sewn together to create a 24hour film which exactly follows the time kept by the viewers as they watch it. You're watching at 10am, it's 10am in the film, then 10.01 - each minute is marked by references to the time in various films.

During the early evening when I was there, (4.30 to 6pm) there were lots of catching of trains, clocking out of work, countdowns to explosions, fleeting meetings before hurried departures, eyes watching the clock and willing it to hurry up, appointments made and missed, tea time dates, children eating their supper, people heading out for the evening, radio broadcasts... i'd imagine at different times you'd have people doing very different things - in the morning they'd be waking up, at the dead of night there'd be zombies trudging about or people tossing and turning in bed.

It's a weird experience because there's no continual narrative thread; an episode from Psycho is followed by one from Pride and Prejudice. There's screaming, there's bombs, there's a civilised tea. Yet it works, becuase you're drawn into a world consumed by time, just as you are consumed by it in your own time because you're watching the minutes pass so very consciously. every minute us searingly significant. and that's the story, taking you into time, into every minute, in multiple directions and making you think about each second and rolling its significance around in your head just in the time it takes the scene, visual flash or comment to play out, because you can't possibly take everything on board.

Overwhelming, exhilarating, thrilling, confusing, fascinating, funny, weird and thought-provoking.

The Social Network

I'm not even on Facebook (stubbornly remaining part of the Faceless few) and i loved this film. 'The film that defines a generation' is the tag line (along with the above), and I'd probably have to agree in many ways. It's Mark Zukerberg's voracious desperation to achieve status, recognition and popularity that's really his motivation, his driving force: to be accepted, applauded, to get girls. tapping into that, and sharing it with everyone else is the key to his success, whatever the personal cost in the end. It may sound mad. it is. but that's just it. everyone wants a bit of exactly what he did, which is what has made his success.

The development of the site, in a pique of post-dump rage, via the girl rating 'face-mash', idea stealing and friend dumping is intercut with two law suits subsequently brought against Zuckerberg by his former best friend Eduardo Saverin and the Winklevoss twins (the Winklevei as Zuckerberg calls them in the film). With a script by Aaron Sorkin it's fast paced, taught and punchy - no one's a cardboard cut out; a nerd, a jock, a good time boy, a Jew, an over privileged brat they each may be, and that's important to their identity, but it's not painted  in a cartoonish way. Your sympathies flit between everyone - they're all clever, dynamic and driven yet also selfish, myopic and overconfident. the complexity of the characters leads to an oblique reading of the film - i imagine everyone will take away something different, and that'll change every time you scrutinise the story.

It's out on the 15th October. See it.

Secret Cinema: Lawrence of Arabia

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Despite it feeling more than a little un-PC to get dressed up in Arabian garb and travel on the train via Finsbury Park for Secret Cinema's screening of Lawrence of Arabia, once there it proved itself to be the most incredible experience in many ways. Walking from the station to Alexandra Palace (where the film was being shown in a vast exhibition hall, with 4,000 people sitting on the floor snuggled in blankets and cushions) everyone was in Bedouin inspired garb, walking in a line like some kind of mass exodus or sacred pilgrimage. We passed donkeys, camels and men and women on horseback who charged about with swords and herded us about or tried to barter with us for goods. Inside, there was a giant souk set up, with cushion and rug filled Bedouin tents, falafel and lamb kofte stands, market sellers hawking rugs and jangly trinkets and the sounds and smells and bustle of a colourful, frenetic, energetic Arabian market. Sort of a weird thing to do on a Friday night, but rather fun.
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I'd definitely recommend signing up to Secret Cinema. Shrouded in secrecy (their mantra is 'Tell No One', clearly something i'm ignoring) they'll email you when their next event is happening and send through clues as to where the final location will be, and what the film being shown is. Everything I've seen so far, The Warriors outdoors on London Fields, and Alien in an east end warehouse has been an utterly immersive and eye-opening experience. More than anything it's kind of wonderful to be a part of such an explosion of creative thinking and production. Yes, sure there are hitches and everything isn't quite perfect, but if you're game and up for it, it's pretty ace.

Next up, my vote goes to Fiddler on the Roof - not only because i basically grew up wanting to be in it (singing Matchmaker matchmaker...) but seems like it might balance the weirdness of this event out. or not.

Sex and The City 2

Even though i enjoyed Sex and The City 2 in the main, and there were some genuine laughing, gasping and shock moments, it left me feeling a bit depressed, it has to be said. Of course it was always going to be fun to watch, but it feels a bit desperate. everything that was originally sparky and cool about each of the characters has been transmuted into caricature - played out with zero subtlety or originality. they are parodies of themselves. Neuroses, sexual voracity, ambition become cardboard cut out characters, and it grates. it's not that I'm being a kill joy - it's just genuinely annoying. It's panto, which is fine in one way i suppose, but the reason the series was so great was that it was nuanced, wryly observed. i wanted to stand up and shout - God! not all women are like this, believe me! it just felt a bit cheap, tacky, heavy handed, with some casual racism thrown in for bad measure. some bits i literally couldn't watch i was so embarrassed. it was pun-tastic - worse than a Kathy Lette novel where you fall over several puns in every sentence. some puns in this were genius. some fell so flat you could hear them smack to the floor.

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then there are the costumes. the fifth star. ludicrous doesn't cover it. it's like every scene is set up so they can have multiple costume changes and can make wow entrances a quatre. what begins as familiarly fabulous, swiftly slides in to the ridiculous. ballgowns in souks and stilettos in sand don't rock - it reeks of look-at-me desperation.

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funnily enough, the stand out one of the four leads is Miranda, whose wardrobe is the most stylishly eccentric without being garishly outre and whose character has the most fun - grabbing the holiday spirit by both hands, refraining from leering at the conveniently placed man-candy, and who evolves in a way that's surprising and rewarding.

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Obviously I'm longing to talk about the plot - but i won't spoil it by revealing anything.

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One last point - the series is called Sex and the City. The city was seriously overlooked, and missed, in this film.

Grace Kelly

There are some lovely dresses in the V&A's Grace Kelly exhibition, there's no doubt, but I'm not sure anything (apart from some extraordinary headpieces she wore for the lavish costume balls she revived as a fixture on Monaco's social calendar) really wows. The collection on show takes key items from her wardrobe as an actress, both on screen and off, and charts her sartorial evolution into a princess - via her wedding, trousseau, pregnancies, state events and grand parties. Accompanying pictures show her looking undeniably amazing in the dresses, it's true, but she wears the dresses, not they her. The fashion houses of Madame Gres, Givenchy, Christian Dior all feature, but there's nothing stand out showstopping - you're never left slack jawed with awe at any single outfit. She favoured fairly demure, simple dresses, with devil in the detail so that her beauty was the main event. The dresses alone seem quite ordinary without her bringing them to life.

She did, however, seem to have a sense of playfulness which she unleashed in her accessories - imaginative hats and fabulous turbans, colourful glasses and giant sunglasses (she was one of the first to pioneer glasses as fashion accessory, being very shortsighted and keen on being able to actually see, and wanting to accessorise her glasses with her outfits) surprisingly eccentric brooches and curiously patterned shoes. and then there's the bag. the 'it' bag to end all 'it' bags, which is a legacy in itself. I say no more...

Kick Ass

Fucking Volcanoes. Not a phrase i though I'd be saying unless it was some fabulous new expletive affectation or other. that was until the Icelandic volcanic eruption stopped me from flying to New York for a weekend of hedonism. sob. I've been saying it a lot since about 8am on Thursday.

Anyway, after a super fun trip to Heathrow terminal 3 and back again with a bag so heavy it almost snapped my spine in two and squidged next to a drunk man who was asleep with his mouth open and snoring, the only option following the airport's closure seemed to be to drink copious bottles of wine in the sun, followed by a trip to see Matthew Vaughn's film Kick Ass, the story of geeky Manhattanites playing at being super heroes - mostly with hilariously limited success, but sometimes fricking rocking it. Anyway, the upshot of this was that i now have a new icon/crush: the 11 year old superhero Hit Girl, tag line “I Can’t See Through Walls. But I Can Kick Your Ass” which seems pretty cool to me. Her kick ass attitude and wickedly comfortable familiarity with ferocious expletives is nothing short of perfection. My hair isn't too far off being a purple bob either, so I'm theoretically on my way to a stylistic homage.

My stonking crush on screenwriter Jane Goldman (wife of Jonathan Ross) has also gone stratospheric. I cannot believe how unbelievably hot, sassy and damn cool she looked at the film's premiere - wearing a dress (below) that epitomises everything fabulous about fashion. i actually went in and lovingly stroked it in the Vivienne Westwood shop on Conduit Street this very Tuesday. then I threw up at the £800 price tag. 'want' is not really enough of a word to cover how much i need to own this dress. This is what my dream self (at least) will be wearing for the foreseeable future... so if you meet me in my dreams, be prepared to be wowed.

Icon

Nemesis

Hero

Dream Wardrobe

A French Picture Show

French art house film meets fashion shoot meets storyboard meets slide show meets silent film. A French Picture Show, by Thoman Zanon-Larcher and Jules Wright, showing at the The Wapping Project (11. Feb - 10. Apr 10), is an odd meeting of half realised artistic concepts, concepts which together test the limits of various forms of narration - fashion, photography, film, music and theatre - in a dreamlike creation. The overall effect is like a flirtation - a mysterious, intriguing flirtation that leaves only a hazy mark, much like the light lingering of scent after someone has kissed your cheek - barely discernible except to those who have been similarly kissed.

In The Wapping Project's draughty basement exhibition room, in the midst of a floor strewn with broken chalk (to evoke the landscape of Cognac, where the story is partially set), sit two rows of shabby chic, vintage, red-velvet covered cinema seats. Before them hangs a cinema screen, upon which 80 photographs are flashed up; photographs which silently tell a story - a love story of happiness, tragedy, loss, betrayal, passion, sex and disillusionment, and which, despite any absence of dialogue, manages to have a powerful narrative thread, even flashes of a back story where necessary. The scenes are a mixture of being invasively raw, in their unabashed stealing of seemingly intimate private moments, and extraordinarily stagey, as if having been literally taken from a fashion magazine (the clothes are all designer, and have been carefully styled, and have, in various collected groups, been featured elsewhere as stand alone fashion stories). The characters move from London to Paris to Cognac, from kitchen to vineyard, orchard to bedroom, school to metro carriage. With its captivating classical score that's dreamy, wistful, and tragic, it's a haunting story composed of elements which really stay with you... abandoned in a bar in a ballgown... staring out of the train window, glassy eyed as the world crumbles... the first kiss in an orchard on a crisp, cold day... how far apart two people can be from one another whilst sharing the same bed...

Alice in Wonderland

I enjoyed Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, don't get me wrong, but I can't help feeling that the furore surrounding it has somewhat eclipsed the film itself. Fashion's gone Alice bonkers, Robbie Williams' new video has a white rabbit theme going on, Mad Hatter Tea Parties are being thrown left right and centre, shops from Claire's Accessories to Selfridges have wondeland pop up shops Below are some of the things that have caught my eye, possibly slightly more than the film itself, which, while it didn't bore at all, didn't really live up to expectation either. and, dare i say it, the 3-D thing - events on screen just stick out a bit. so what? surely something more could have been done with the technology?

Still, the film... Brilliantly epitomising the curious innocent, Mia Wasikowska plays the now 19 year old Alice, who returns to 'Underland' in an altogether darker tale that's Return to Oz meets The Neverending Story by way of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: a shadowy evil has settled over this once-wonderous land, and Alice, the chosen saviour in the vein of a St George/Joan of Arc hybrid, must save it from eternal doom and restore goodness by battling the bastard child of Alien and Predator: The Jabberwocky...

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Given that the Underland framework sees Alice being proposed to in the buttoned-up Victorian era, it's not a giant leap to see the situation in Underland as metaphorical underground battle -ie a battle under her petticoat. The Red Queen, of hearts, a sexualised being with a big red head who controls the reptilian jabberwocky Vs The White Queen, who doesn't like pain, and is white and pure and would much rather study potions than take part in any heated physical activity. There's even a ferocious feline Bandersnatch who chases Alice, scratches her and makes her bleed but which she then tames (by returning his eye to him). Down in Underland Alice has an awakening, and she emerges only to run away from men. Enough said. (A lesbian fable! that would have been so much more fun. perhaps she and Anne Hathaway as The White Queen should have got it on.) But that might be sexing it up a bit much. or not. i sort of had to though, because there's not quite enough going on otherwise to get your teeth into (though it is undeniable lavishly gorgeous to watch, and The Red Queen's court could keep you entertained for hours admiring the intricacies of the heart motif). Still, the strangest hint of sex really happens between the mad hatter and Alice, between whom there's some definite flirting. it's weird. specially weird is the hatter's jubilant dance - the flutterwhack (or something), which sounds distinctly like another kind of physical activity that begins with an F the first time you hear it and which, when you see it enacted, involved flailing limbs to rubbish music (like many a deflowering i imagine).

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Curious. refocus on the merch, i say...

Eat Me Biscuit Necklace, £35, Anna Lou of London

T-shirt, £24.99 by Junk Food at Jukupop

Tea towel, £10, To Dry For


Porcelain Keys, £7.25 from Nonesuch Things.


Mouse's tail bag, £8.99, ICA


Queen of Hearts Dress, £69 Vivien of Holloway

Alice pocketwatch, £32, Etsy

Cushion by London Kills Me, £19, Rockett St George

Drink Me Necklace, £30 Tom Binns for Disney Couture http://www.truffleshuffle.com/

Apron, £15, Not On the High Street

Stripey Long Socks , £6.50, wonderland.claires.com

Pocket Watch necklace, £24 Urban Outfitters

The Killer Inside Me

It's rare that i'm so deeply affected by something that i'm virtually incapable of actually reacting to it for a while. stunned, in other words, is not something i'm familiar with. still, i was reminded of how this feels in a supremely visceral way yesterday afternoon when i watched The Killer Inside Me, a Michael Winterbottom film that's an adaptation of a Jim Thompson crime novel. It really took me until today to begin to understand how upset i was by it.

The film is an unquestionably disturbing noirish thriller centering on the character Lou Ford, a chirpy, unassuming small town deputy sheriff: a man seemingly preoccupied with being polite, gentlemanly and doling out inane platitudes and aphorisms, but whose run-in with a local prostitute (Jessica Alba) unearths repressed child molestation memories, subsequently unleashing sado-masochistic sexual desires and ultimately serial killer brutality. brutality which is mainly inflicted on women. ones he loves. this is where the problems lie for me.

Now, it has to be said, the performances are exceptional, even when what they are doing is virtually unwatchable. Casey Affleck's portrait of the deputy sheriff is the film's centrepiece: apparently so sweet and harmless he is in reality deeply, cruelly vile - Affleck pulls off nothing short of a coup, avoiding all serial killer cliches. Stanley Tucci in the abysmal The Lovely Bones should have ditched his comb over and NHS glasses and taken a lesson from his book. Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson as the virtual doppelganger good/bad girl lovers utterly convince with their blinded-by-love devotion, despite knowing the extent of the evil which is the object of their affection. the supporting cast of semi-curious small town oddballs manage to be both quirky individuals yet they never really make you shift your focus from the lead - which is pitch perfect as really it's all about him. his brazen, uncompromising, chillingly breezy brand of heinous, brutal savagery.

It's a fascinating portrait of a emergent serial killer, and it wasn’t the violence per se I had a problem with (though i found it unwatchable and spent a good deal of time hiding behind my fingers), but the sexualised nature of the violence. It seemed that there was a sexual nature to the brutality of the killing of the women (that you didn’t get with the men who were killed), in that there was a certain enjoyment in the killings, in sexual terms, which went beyond the actions/thoughts of the murderous character and transferred to the audience as a kind of sexual voyeurism. That I had a problem with. I rarely get up fired up about feminist things but I really found this aspect of the film so disturbing because it felt like a function of the direction, not simply the plot.

Had i read these articles before i went in, i might have been somewhat better prepared... though no less upset.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jan/26/the-killer-inside-me-sundance

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/2010/01/26/2010-01-26_jessica_alba_leaves_screening_of_the_killer_inside_me_stirring_outrage_at_sundan.html

Mat Collishaw: Retrospectre

And so, it seems as if my prejudice against video installation is being attacked from all sides: i went to the PV of Mat Collishaw's Retrospectre at the BFI and it turned out to be a video installation. and, again rather shockingly, I loved it - or at least i thought it was pretty affecting and i didn't want to kill myself while i stood to watch it, despite the fact that i'd just walked through a hurricane to get there, wearing high heels and flimsy mac, which speaks volumes, trust me. Drawing upon themes taken up by the late Georgian/Armenian film director and artist Sergei Paradjanov (1929 – 1990), who i have to confess i know precisely zero about but there's a BFI season in honour of, it's an incredibly theatrical installation - it's emotionally claustrophobic and almost has the feeling of a ritualistic sacrifice unfolding in front of you, through the impactful, sharp and aggressive cacophony/melange of life, death, pain, sacrifice, nature's fiery temperament, fear, agony and beauty, depicted via a montage of images of animals being killed, birds of both prey and pride, volcanic outbursts etc. the above picture poorly indicates the sculptural composition of the piece, but it gives an idea of the architectural puzzle of ornate mirrors, gilt bird cages, Gothic window frames and grand altar pieces, the panes of which (be they mirrors, glass or opaque) make up the screens for the video projections - from the outset there's an idea of images being framed, the artifice of the project, and the poignantly visceral exhibitionism of it. am i becoming a convert to video? who can say. i'm rather unsettled by such a the prospect at any rate, but maybe i should just go with it. Hmmm.

Mat Collishaw in Conversation
Tue 13 April 18:10 (tbc), NFT3 £5

Paradjanov Symposium
Saturday 6 March 11:00 – 17:00,
NFT3 £15.15, concs. £11.15 (Members pay £1.40 less)

Everybody's Fine

While enveloped in a certain melancholia, there's a sweet upturn to the film Everybody's Fine that's quietly comforting. Its understated charm is something of a surprise given its stellar cast (Robert di Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell), but perhaps this can be attributed to the fact that it's an adaptation of the Italian film Stanno Tutti Bene - and retains (to some extent anyway) a European sensitivity.

Eight months after the death of his wife, Frank Goode (Robert de Niro) feels emotionally distanced from his grown-up children. So, despite a dicky heart, he sets off on a trip around America to make surprise visits to see them. But, busy with their apparently super successful lives, they shuffle him on. It’s heartbreaking to see Frank desperately trying to take on his late wife’s role of family communicator, unifier and supporter, but to no avail. Little does he know his children are distant because they are trying to protect him from life’s tough truths - their tough truths. The upshot is that they inadvertently cut him out and everyone's left isolated and alone, putting on a brave face: Fine. Everybody's Fine. This is a thoughtful, sensitive film – although touched with humour it meditates with poignancy and insightfulness on the tragedy of a loving but pushy father who’s grown apart from his children as they’ve grow up, and the agonising irony of pretending you're OK when inside you're anything but. a bit weepy, basically.

MY KultureFlash Recommendations this week

KF recommendations - click to read why :

Micmacs - Jean Pierre Jeunet's latest cinematic outing (above)

Jewish Book Week - especially the following:

27th Feb, 8.30pm Sex, Lies and Regal Japes; The story of Esther, the sex-crazed king and his evil counsellor - David Aaronovitch, Katte Lette and Simon Schama amongst others Chaired by David Schneider
28th Feb, 2pm A Beginners Guide to Jews on the Edge – Adam Thirlwell and Will Self
28th 6.30pm Clarice Lispector - Benjamin Moser on the glamorous Brazilian woman who “ looked like Marlene Dietrich and wrote like Virginia Woolf”, chaired by Ed Caesar.
1st March 7pm Voodoo Histories - Davis Aaronovitch and Frances Wheen
1st March 8.30pm Judeities - Helene Cixous, Chair Nicholas Royle
5th March 1pm Chez Elles - Agnes Desarthe and Claudia Roden
6th March, 7.30pm 36 Arguments for The Existence of God – Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker
6th March, 9pm True Tales - John Canter, Esther David, Rachel Holmes, Ed Kritzler and Irma Kurtz, hosted by Lana Citron.
7th March, 12.30pm The Human Condition - Lionel Shriver and Amy Bloom

Factum Kang

From the series Factum 2009

Edition of 5

Dual-channel installation: 2 hard drives

Duration: 69 minutes 10 seconds looped

This exhibition, which i only ended up going to because i was so let down by the William Eggleston (see below) and wanted to find something halfway good to see, turned out to be INCREDIBLE. spontaneity can work in my favour, as it turns out.

normally i hate video installations, and my heart initially sank when i walked through the doors of White Cube, but the pieces on show were fascinating, completely compelling and mischievously provocative from the first moment you stepped into each darkened room.

Artist Candice Breitz filmed 4 sets of twins and one set of triplets (i didn't have time to see the latter, but i'll definitely be going back) - each twin for up to seven hours. During filming, she made each twin wear the same thing, and sat them in the same position. she asked them exactly the same questions. after transcribing their answers she then edited each set of twins' narratives, running them together into a film of about an hour - but with each twin kept separate from the other: the videos of each sit side by side as in a diptych (above) with the narratives/answers of each twin inter cut. Thus the scene is set for comparing their responses and thus their personalities, mannerisms, manner of expression, from where you are able to see how they create both an individualised sense of self and a joint identity. each set of twins explore different issues through a discussion of the things which have had a profound effect on them during their lives - be it fanatical religion, marriage, tattoos, sexuality (one set of twins are both lesbians), parental bullying... they also obviously cover what it is like to be one half of a whole - one set of twins describe it as like a sexless marriage: they even took photos, for an art project, of their wedding to each other: a sort of macabre inevitable union they cannot break nor would want to. the whole thing is wholly absorbing, darwing you in with its devilishly fascinating exploration of identity and also portraiture - it's a sort of horror, but also wonder to watch. as each video is one hour i obviously only watched each one for a bit, as i imagine would most people. one could, in theory, pop in to the gallery again and again and catch different parts of the film that would illuminate both the artistic and personal story in different ways. [or, as i've just discovered, you can watch some videos via her website...]. stilll i'd definitely recommend going.

Candice Breitz: Factum

Candice Breitz

12 Feb—20 Mar 2010
White Cube, Hoxton Square

Valentine's Day

Jessica Biel

Jamie Foxx

Ashton Kutcher

Jennifer Garner

Jessica Alba

Eric Dane

Patrick Dempsey

Anne Hathaway

Queen Latifah

Julia Roberts

Bradley Cooper

Topher Grace

Kathy Bates

Taylor Swift

Shirley MacLaine for GOD'S SAKE...

Just some of the seemingly endlessly list of starry names who utterly fail to save Valentine's Day (out feb 12th) from being anything that even comes close to being a watchable film. The intersecting romantic vignettes make Love Actually seem deeply philosophical and profound. why, you may ask, did i even watch it in the first place? lack of sanity due to this week's diet of lemons, maple syrup and cayenne pepper.

Shutter Island

I was morbidly creeped out by Martin Scorsese's latest cinematic offering; a very stagey Gothic film noir thriller set on an inhospitably craggy island that's home to a mental correctional facility in the early 1950s. Leo di C plays a US Marshall, a war vet who has experienced the traumas of the liberation of the death camps in Germany, who is sent to investigate the escape of a patient, but who, in reality, has quite another investigative agenda - one with far reaching, and damaging, national and governmental implications.

Right from the get go the drama is terrifyingly intense; the deep, rumbling score sends reverberating tremors down the spine (even before you know anything whatsoever about the plot), the imposing, grey-green shadowy sweeping vistas as the camera circles the island set the scene for a drama of deeply sinister, suspenseful and disturbing substance - swooping over the unkempt graveyard, electric fences, waves crashing on the glistening black rocks and steely grey walls of the ominous lighthouse. there's almost a deliberate heavy-handedness to the direction - a certain revelling in the setting and stereotypes of the film noir genre - the German psychiatrist who sees to the core of Ted (LdiC), the slightly too charming English professor who heads the correctional programme (Ben Kingsley), the cheeky chappy police partner (Mark Ruffalo), the idealised wife presenting herself in visions to Ted at night (Michelle Williams) and the unhinged inmates running amok.

It all gets interesting (and i promise I'm not giving too much away) when Heller-esque notions of sanity and insanity begin to weasel their way into Ted's investigations. The paranoia and conspiracy theories make it viscerally claustrophobic - and almost unbearably tense to watch, so impatient are you for some clarity. it all comes together brilliantly in the end, and you're left thinking about the film's cunning plotting well after it is over. But as with so many films and books that truly come together in the finale, there's always that niggling fact that the bits which sits slightly uncomfortably are a bit annoying while you are watching them.

still, what the film does do is continually provoke you to unravel the evolving and increasingly complex mystery, which meant it worked for me, certainly.

Centurion

Whatever happened to the Ninth Legion of the Roman army in AD 117 who were sent to wipe out the natives in Britain? Supposedly they vanished without a trace and their legend of their disappearance continues... and is 'unravelled' in Centurion (out april). after watching this gratuitously violent film - all spurting blood, rambunctious decapitation and hours of breathless chasing across wild and unforgiving terrain, i can say that the answer could have been given in one simple sentence and not a terribly interesting one at that. the mystery is pretty flaccid, there's not enough human drama to really get your teeth into and the gory battle scenes pretty much make up the entire film. not a girl's film. well, not this girl, anyway.

Whip It

Ok, so first off it has to be confessed that i am completely pissed while i write this. even so, it was before i had shamelessly quaffed about 5 glasses of red wine at a book party this evening that i saw Whip It, a totally ACE film starring Ellen Page (of Juno fame) and directed by Drew Barrymore about the wonderful world of ROLLER DERBY (out April). you know, Roller Derby: that violent girls sport which involves skating round a ring in teams while basically trying to shove each other off the skate path with as much undignified loutish thugishness as is humanly possible. All team members (hot girls, natch) are all called names like Iron Maven (here played by Juliette Lewis), Babe Ruthless (Ellen Page), Smashley Simpson (Drew Barrymore) and Maggie Mayhem (Kirsten Wiig). I'm not sure i can adequately describe my overwhelming adoration of this film. OK yes, it's essentially an adolescent flick about a teenager grappling with parental vs personal expectation, and finding and being true to herself, but my god, it involves women on roller skates wearing sexy punky outfits, covered in tattoos, with goth makeup and being incredibly cool - it's fucking amazing. totally empowering and i am LITERALLY DESPERATE to dig out my roller skates and get all psycho physical and confrontational. female contact sport worth indulging in. unlike something say, like lacrosse - which i loathed and terrified me when i used to have to do it and definitely didn't involve lashings of makeup as part of the uniform. i am thinking roller derby would be THE MOST FANTASTIC theme for a party. or actually the most fantastic thing to actually take up. or at least watch, anyway, courtesy of the London Roller Girls.