The Luck of the Irish
It's been a busy weekend. Am about to chill out from it by settling down in the beautiful thing that is Camden Odeon to watch the new Pirates film, but in the meantime I'll report on the other two films I've seen this weekend.
'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' is, in the words of a colleage who saw it last week, 'two hours of gratuitous violence. He's right. It also made me feel mildly supportive of the IRA, and this worries me. The story revolves around Ireland's quest for independence in 1920/1921. The brutality of the occupying British forces, sent there to put down the rebellion, is horrifying (amongst other things, they pull out a young man's fingernails one by one, and kill another for refusing to state his name in English). IRA propaganda? Perhaps. But I also wonder if there are deliberate parallels to be drawn throughout the film with the current situation in Iraq. 'Independence' itself leads to Civil War, with the new 'Irish Army' to an extent taking the place of the British, splitting families into those who are happy with the way things are, and those who (understandably) are not happy with their country split in two and forced to swear allegiance to a foreign power. There is an almost Animal Farmesque feel to it, with the former liberators becoming the tyrants, but the IRA aren't exactly come across as Nice Chaps either, with a sort of mob rule attitude and displaying merciless violence themselves. I think perhaps this is why it is such a good film: it could have been too simplistic, it could have relied on the violence to make its reputation, but it just about manages not to. There's also a brief but telling dig at the Catholic Church: "As always the Catholic Church sides with the rich." No shit.
'Team America', on the other hand, is a film I've seen before and have been meaning to buy for ages, so when I found Fopp selling it for a fiver I couldn't resist. Even better, its warning on the back states: "contains strong language, violence and sex, all involving puppets" which is marginally better even than 'The Da Vinci Code's' 'contains mild flagellation'. 'Team America' is written by the guys who did 'South Park' and contains humour along the lines of 'My Hanky the Christmas Poo' as well as a bit of pseudo-politics and a dig at just about every race (their idea of Arabic involves the phrase 'durkadurkadurka' interspersed with the word 'jihad'). It's really the most brilliant film, I can't endorse it enough, because it manages to be both political and wonderfully childish at the same time, whilst taking the piss out of just about everyone concerned. It really does make me feel differently about Kim Jong Il, someone about whom I know absolutely nothing save for the fact that last week he was responsible for North Korea setting off a missile which 'could have hit Alaska', except that it fell into the sea just off the Korean Coast, because, you see, poor old KJI is 'so ronery' (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch the film.) Matt Damon's character is good as all he says is "Matt Damon", and keep a look out for the song about how shit 'Pearl Harbour' was.
To those of you who sponsored me today, I did the Race for Life this morning in memory of my friend Kirsty. It was quite sobering when I realised I had five names I could put on my back to say who I was running for, but Kirsty was the first person I knew who died from cancer. She would probably remember me as someone who was crap at sport (she did a lot of sailing and was quite good) so might have found the whole thing amusing. Personally, I felt quite smug. My time was 33 minutes and I jogged all the way, apart from having to stop twice when we all bottleknecked because there were bollards in the way. Had it not been for that I might have been under 30 minutes, which was my aim. Unfortunately, we were divided into 3 groups: runners, joggers and walkers, and I aligned myself with the joggers. Next year I'll definitely go with the runners as I spent much of the race navigating my way around other people. Anyway, thanks to those who supported/sponsored me, and if you still want to, it isn't too late! :-)
'The Wind that Shakes the Barley' is, in the words of a colleage who saw it last week, 'two hours of gratuitous violence. He's right. It also made me feel mildly supportive of the IRA, and this worries me. The story revolves around Ireland's quest for independence in 1920/1921. The brutality of the occupying British forces, sent there to put down the rebellion, is horrifying (amongst other things, they pull out a young man's fingernails one by one, and kill another for refusing to state his name in English). IRA propaganda? Perhaps. But I also wonder if there are deliberate parallels to be drawn throughout the film with the current situation in Iraq. 'Independence' itself leads to Civil War, with the new 'Irish Army' to an extent taking the place of the British, splitting families into those who are happy with the way things are, and those who (understandably) are not happy with their country split in two and forced to swear allegiance to a foreign power. There is an almost Animal Farmesque feel to it, with the former liberators becoming the tyrants, but the IRA aren't exactly come across as Nice Chaps either, with a sort of mob rule attitude and displaying merciless violence themselves. I think perhaps this is why it is such a good film: it could have been too simplistic, it could have relied on the violence to make its reputation, but it just about manages not to. There's also a brief but telling dig at the Catholic Church: "As always the Catholic Church sides with the rich." No shit.
'Team America', on the other hand, is a film I've seen before and have been meaning to buy for ages, so when I found Fopp selling it for a fiver I couldn't resist. Even better, its warning on the back states: "contains strong language, violence and sex, all involving puppets" which is marginally better even than 'The Da Vinci Code's' 'contains mild flagellation'. 'Team America' is written by the guys who did 'South Park' and contains humour along the lines of 'My Hanky the Christmas Poo' as well as a bit of pseudo-politics and a dig at just about every race (their idea of Arabic involves the phrase 'durkadurkadurka' interspersed with the word 'jihad'). It's really the most brilliant film, I can't endorse it enough, because it manages to be both political and wonderfully childish at the same time, whilst taking the piss out of just about everyone concerned. It really does make me feel differently about Kim Jong Il, someone about whom I know absolutely nothing save for the fact that last week he was responsible for North Korea setting off a missile which 'could have hit Alaska', except that it fell into the sea just off the Korean Coast, because, you see, poor old KJI is 'so ronery' (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, watch the film.) Matt Damon's character is good as all he says is "Matt Damon", and keep a look out for the song about how shit 'Pearl Harbour' was.
To those of you who sponsored me today, I did the Race for Life this morning in memory of my friend Kirsty. It was quite sobering when I realised I had five names I could put on my back to say who I was running for, but Kirsty was the first person I knew who died from cancer. She would probably remember me as someone who was crap at sport (she did a lot of sailing and was quite good) so might have found the whole thing amusing. Personally, I felt quite smug. My time was 33 minutes and I jogged all the way, apart from having to stop twice when we all bottleknecked because there were bollards in the way. Had it not been for that I might have been under 30 minutes, which was my aim. Unfortunately, we were divided into 3 groups: runners, joggers and walkers, and I aligned myself with the joggers. Next year I'll definitely go with the runners as I spent much of the race navigating my way around other people. Anyway, thanks to those who supported/sponsored me, and if you still want to, it isn't too late! :-)
posted by RLS at 2:29 pm
2 Comments:
What did you think of Pirates? I thought it kinda sucked.
I can think of worse ways to spend an afternoon, and after a 5K race, 3 hours in the cinema was kinda nice.
Not as good as the first one, but I have to say I like the way Johnny Depp plays Jack Sparrow. Reminds me of Adam Ant.
Post a Comment
<< Home