Ah, Gorgie. They call it ‘God’s Country’. The place is hardly the pearly gates. Lots of aggressive creatures, Chewbaccas on crack and all that jazz. It does look kind of cinematic, though, in a grim and manky way. A new Hovis advert should be made here with a tracksuit-clad junkie on a stolen tricycle.
This feature-length Netflix release garnered mixed reviews (63% on Rotten Tomatoes) but I was quite impressed by it. The film doesn’t have the romantic sweep and scope of Braveheart (1995) but it excels in details – its gritty and grim depiction of Medieval warfare and the violent politics at the heart of the Wars of Scottish Independence.
The movie is brooding and deadly serious, and, shockingly, well acted. Chris Pine might just be the only Yank capable of pulling off a half-decent Scots accent. Every previous attempt at a Scottish brogue made by an actor – save Jonny Lee Miller in Trainspotting (1996) – has been disastrous, Groundskeeper Willie in the flesh. Pine thankfully doesn’t go OTT.
There’s no Battle of Bannockburn (1314) here, the movie acting as a sort of Batman Begins-esque ‘making of’ Robert the Bruce, the first act of a broader narrative. It’s decent – no superheroes in capes or one-liners, just chain mail and chopped heads. Proper carnage. The Glory Days.
I was given a VHS player last month and a big batch of videos. I was always a DVD aficionado but realised something about 70 minutes into Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), this the movie in which Sean Connery plays Harrison Ford’s dad yet is a mere 12 years older than him in real life.
My thought was: I never skip scenes on a movie if it’s VHS because I can’t be fucked pressing the fast-forward button. It creates a whole new appreciative viewing experience, even if the film is pish.
N.B. The Rock (1996) is a masterpiece. I’m convinced a Michael Bay clone made the picture.
Abbeyhill/Meadowbank is a veritable toilet, by all accounts a shithole. George Best once drank here at the Artisan Bar when he played for Hibs. That’s the legacy of this ghetto. These days it’s a junkie paradise. However, this building is nuts, totally #peacocking. Scenes.
The Xmas Market is back, Edinburgh’s ‘winter wonderland’. Stalls selling tacky clobber, ‘German’ food and drink at Weimar Republic-level prices, and jingle bells noises.
Personally, I think it’s shite, but it lures in the tourists and scares away the junkies because they get too confused by bright lights and the smell of warm food.
Viewed through the prism of black-and-white, Charlie Chaplin-speed film footage, it’s axiomatic to view actors from the past as otherworldly, alien even, and simply not blessed with the smarts and skills we believe ourselves to possess. We forget they are people of their time using that era’s technology and science and its harnessing of military doctrine.
Then the grainy kaleidoscope of war gets colourised to the max and all hell breaks loose. You’d think this is GoPro stuff sent back to Flanders in a time machine and then propelled back to the future by Marty and Doc, such has been the collective hyperbole over Peter Jackson’s colourised tribute to our great-grandparents.
And that’s the thing – as the red, green and blue is blitzed the more we can relate. Yet war today is some distant thing we flick through on CNN or whatever. Fully realised 3D depictions of car bombs and RPGs ambushing armoured personnel carriers we have decided are too graphic, this in an age when students find clapping traumatic. But the carnage of the Somme is somehow acceptable because it’s a centenary old. Weird.
Perhaps we need a WWIII to make reality (people die, war is hell) more palatable to our viewing tastes.
Further reading/viewing:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-45910189
Dundee was briefly passed en route to Montrose; I didn’t like the look of ‘Yes City’ and I am most confused as to why the it has two football teams, their stadiums yards apart. Montrose was alright, though, and it has a Last of the Summer Wine feel to it (aside from the Lidl, Aldi, and Farmfoods). I went for morning runs in fields of wheat à la Theresa May, but mostly sat in a cottage all day drinking spirits and watching movies whilst my travel companions did stuff. How a getaway should be.
We also played cards using candles instead of chips. And it was so cold a fridge wasn’t required for the beers. And that’s Montrose.
Gorgie, Edinburgh is by all accounts a total toilet, a veritable shithole, a bloated haven of the tracksuit, the smackhead, and the football yob.
Sometimes it’s quiet and the sky looks nice.
I don’t really know what was happening here. Normally on a stroll by the castle I glance up at the beastly fortress and briefly envision the Wars of Scottish Independence as I whistle a chunk of James Horner. This Sunday, however, I saw some randoms chucking around a large fluffy dice. Weird.
Rose Street is somewhat like the famous York Shambles but with more pubs and less Romans. Princes Street is an adjacent hellhole – chav clobber galore and rickety buses – but Rose Street almost takes the stench away. A lovely street.
Wanderings and ... wonderings. 