a seemingly random journey through cinema's heart of darkness. so to speak.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

YouTubing-to-Obscure-Shameless-Self-Promotion...Sunday Evenings

I'm pretty sure this blog has devolved into either me plugging my writing alongside quickly chosen YouTube clips or me apologizing for not plugging my writing alongside quickly chosen YouTube clips. Meanwhile, as my sidebar now says in bold, I actually do update my Twitter page, figuring that something (i.e., 140 characters or less) is better than nothing at all. I've not decided where this blog is heading, but I feel, in the spirit of the recent, violent change of the seasons here on the Northeast Coast, I should decide on something. You'll hear about it soon as I decide what that something will be.

Anywho, treading on. In honor of Anton Corbijn's Ian Curtis biopic Control, for which I have mixed feelings, here's possibly my favorite stretch from another movie partially about Joy Division, Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People. Winterbottom's rollicking, pomo-heavy style is lightyears removed from Corbijn's flat and forbodingly gray work, which plays like one of his photos of Joy Divison sprung to (inert) life. All things considered, I think I prefer Winterbottom's worldview, at least here. All across the film, he's about knocking legends off their pedastal, reducing famed meetings and landmark decisions to tossed-off, anticlimactic occurrences. Here, Martin Hannett (played by Gollum) agrees to produce Joy Division purely for the cash and in mere seconds. Later, Winterbottom shows them listening to the final mix of "She's Lost Control" in a beat-up car. It's a moment the movie Once stole then completely fucked up by letting the song take over the soundtrack -- not, as here, recording the shitty sound from inside the car along with the band oohing and ahhing over it.

Sorry for the anamorphic squeeze:



Weekly! From 10/31 A Six Pack on Godly movies for the Godless (mostly Dreyer and Dreyer-influenced), reviews of Terror's Advocate and the Branagh/Pinter Sleuth, and Rep.

From 10/24 A Six Pack on sightly B&W movies from the last decade in honor of Control, which I review here, along with Reservation Road, O Jerusalem and Bella, which are all big pieces of shit. Also, Rep.

posted by matt prigge at 6:13 PM |

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