News/posts
Notes on 'Memories of the Future' seminar
During my postgraduate degree I took a great seminar called 'Writing the Disaster', taught by Professor David Pascoe, that investigated various forms of disaster literature over the 20th Century (from Wells to Vonnegut to Ballard). I presented during the 'Memories of the Future' seminar, which covered Resnais' Hiroshima, mon amour and Marker's La Jetée...
'Poetry is a game of loser-take-all' : On Pierrot le fou
Of course Im basing this on something a friend mentioned a few weeks ago - he was getting up early to stand in a queue to get tickets. And my initial reaction, of course, was Oh, shes still alive?
I should have followed him and...
Watched: Christmas day edition
It's Christmas time, and I've been spending it staring at the TV. I'm currently locked into a weird existence where I've been staying up past 4 AM, and then sleeping through any small bits of daylight we might be granted here. It's an easy pattern to fall into when you don't have windows anyway. And now that I'm on Christmas holiday from the day job, there's...
Watched: Frost/Nixon, Unreported World, Milk, Americathon, The Possibility of Hope, Amos Vogel
When he has finished speaking I can never remember what he has said. there remains only an impression of strangeness, darkness … On television, his face clouds when his name is mentioned. It is as if hearing his name frightens him. Then he stares directly into the camera (an actor’s preempting gaze) and begins to speak. One hears only cadences.
...
A long weekend and 'War, Inc.'
Thoughts on A Perfect Couple (Robert Altman, US, 1979)
Last night I attempted to watch William Klein’s A Model Couple but I accidentally put on A Perfect Couple, directed by Robert Altman in 1979. OK, I love Altman and here’s one that I haven’t watched yet, still from his 70’s period but the tail-end, that post-Nashville, starting-to-lose it phase that produced films like A Wedding and Quintet, culminating in (the brilliant)...
Bruce Conner R.I.P.
The found footage...