I personally find him extraordinarily inspirational.
His ego must be bananas but it’s justified – he started from zilch and made it to the summit through body and mind. I would buy him a pint. I’d vote for him also.
Despite some big boo-boos that he openly admits to, he remains the definition of hero.
This type of music is not really my cup of tea, save the band’s forever catchy ‘I Disappear’ from Mission: Impossible 2 (2000). I was expecting a sort of This Is Spinal Tap (1984) farce but what I found was an endlessly rewarding slog, and it is that exhausting, through the Dr. Melfi-infused (yes, the band hire a therapist) sessions of a troupe in full-blown crisis, trying to wrestle with a monster bigger than its human components.
It’s a document of the creative process – you actually see how music is made collaboratively, the hours that go into four minutes of a completed song, and the constant bickering that accompanies the undertaking. The chief treat here is drummer/co-lyricist/band founder and victor of Napster Lars Ulrich, who seems beguiled by most of the nonsense spewing from the therapy sessions, one step ahead of the psychobabble. He’s a totally self-aware uber-brat and utterly hilarious.
I’ve never listened to the album (St. Anger). This doc will suffice.
I know zilch about basketball, though I have seen Space Jam (1996) four times. Apparently, The Last Dance has just broken viewership records on Netflix, and it comes as no surprise. The series is a masterpiece in the assembly of archive footage, modern-day interview, and appropriation of soundtrack-ready tunes that I suspect can make taking a shit in a pre-lockdown Burger King somehow transcendental (my new ‘life goal’). This stunner, for example:
There is a current debate as to whether this is ‘real’ documentary or not as Michael Jordan had editorial control, but this an afterthought; it’s entertaining as hell, and I venture that all documentary is representation. The mere sight of a nonchalant Jordan sat there on a leather throne with his tumbler of whisky, in hysterics as he views on an iPad disparaging statements made against his worship by teammates and opponents, warrants an entire episode.
Not a very likeable bloke, but an entirely admirable one – he is scores above his supporting cast, and doesn’t seem bothered that he is derided as a prick. I’ll never understand the baying criticism of ruthless athletes; the sports supermen aren’t signing death warrants or invading countries, and one could argue that Jordan’s will to win put trophies in the hands of mediocre colleagues.
And for the record, I almost purchased a £6.99 basketball in Home Bargains last week. But I didn’t (there was no hoop available).
I am fond of the cheese that is alliteration – the bombast of these doc titles grabs my attention. You are usually guaranteed a slice of the surreal, and Tiger King features some of the oddest (real-life) characters Netflix has ever plucked from the fringes. One baffling subplot after another shocks as it entertains, and there are moments that are so … frankly nuts one questions the verisimilitude of it all. The resultant memes have been off the scale.
And this song is an addiction:
Further reading:
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a31925589/tiger-king-netflix-tweets-memes/
https://www.gamesradar.com/tiger-king-netflix-true-crime-documentary-joe-exotic/
This video (gone viral) nails the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Whoever made it, kudos.
Personally, I’ve always despised the thing. It’s merely an invitation for dumb-as-a-stump tourists to clog up the streets and gaze at the castle with this eternally perplexed idiotic expression as if it were an alien spacecraft. The drinks prices go up, the shows are a shower of shit, and there’s a 400% influx in the number of scruffy art student wankers congregating on street corners like pseudo-bohemian jackals, sharing their very limited ideas (like taking a dump on a canvas) with anyone who will and won’t listen.
We don’t need them. I am not aware of anyone who lives here who actually enjoys this pish. We just tolerate the circus because apparently it brings the money in. I doubt that.
Shot in Fabijoniškės, Lithuania, this 5-episode mini-series by HBO is a cracker so far (one episode in). It puzzles me how there’s not, to my knowledge, been a major TV series or film about Chernobyl until now. One wouldn’t expect this would come from the Russian slice of the former Soviet Union, but you’d think Ukraine (its ‘western-oriented’ regions) would have put something together.
Documentaries have been galore, the main theme that the disaster was indicative of the pitfalls of communism, and a metaphor for the swift end of the USSR in the Gorbachev era of glasnost and perestroika.
This is mind-blowing, though, a real-life 28 Days Later (2002) with wild animals replacing the ‘infected’:
I know a good lad I met in Budapest, a fellow traveller named Paul. He’s the only person I’ve met who’s wandered into Pripyat’s Zone of Alienation with a Geiger counter. I have an epic image of him strolling about in a Walter White biohazard suit, with a beer hat atop the garb.
Further reading/viewing:
https://variety.com/2019/artisans/production/hbo-chernobyl-lithuania-nuclear-plant-1203208391/
An excellent wee doc here from DW, the anything-goes bacchanal of the Weimar Republic captured in all its glory. What a time to be alive – left vs. right, paramilitary chaos, Fritz Langesque serial killers, rampant crime, easy credit, and in the middle of this ‘Golden Twenties’ expressionist bonanza, Berlin’s loonies shagging, drinking, and sliding down poles. Just lovely.
Further reading:
I finally got around to viewing this epic 26-episode series from 1964. It’s an incredible compendium of WWI in all its participants’ hubris and misguided adventurism, and is majestically narrated by Sir Michael Redgrave (this bloke sounds more Laurence Olivier than Laurence Olivier himself).
This is how to do a documentary – with sweeping scope and intricate detail, no half measures. With terrifying archive footage and an expert use of primary sources read by contemporary actors, as well as interviews with those serving on the military and civilian fronts, it set the benchmark for such works, acting as a precursor to The World at War (1973).
The wonders of the Internet ensure it is free to binge-watch.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 