Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (2020)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan (2020) – J. Temple

It doesn’t take much to pull me backwards into the ocean of nostalgia, letting its waves wash over me as I escape the present.  Better still, when I’m able to update the past and situate it in the here and now (or at least more recently than then), as you can with a good music doco.  But it’s a guilty pleasure, since I feel internal pressure to live in the present, aware of current culture (or at least those culture-makers of my own generation). With regard to Shane MacGowan, singer-songwriter of The Pogues, who it turns out was 10 years older than me (he died in November 2023 and Nick Cave sang at his funeral), I first came across him more or less contemporaneously in the 1980s.  I bought the band’s 2^nd LP, “Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash” (1985) around that time and then quickly caught up by purchasing their first, “Red Roses for Me” (1984).  Having some Irish heritage (through my mother) didn’t hurt the attraction to this punk version of traditional music from the Emerald Isle -- and MacGowan’s blend of poetry, history, and confrontation was simpatico with the English Literature, Philosophy, and Psychology classes I was taking then. In 1988, my sister and I saw The Pogues in Boston for the “If I Should Fall from Grace with God” (3^rd LP) tour – it was the summer, hot in the nosebleed seats of the Orpheum Theatre, and the show was shaggy, replete with a cover of “Honky Tonk Women” featuring Joe Strummer on guitar.  Little did I know (until I watched this film) that this was part of the year-long worldwide tour that broke MacGowan.  Indeed, the film is (not unexpectedly) a cautionary tale, charting MacGowan’s downward trajectory (a result of alcohol, drugs, and hard touring) to the point where he is captured in the film’s many on camera interviews and conversations (with various friends such as Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and movie star Johnny Depp) in a very sorry state, full of bile and slurred bitterness (but also fond longing and some misguided hope for the future). Personally, after the 1988 show, I began to lose interest – the band’s next album did not seem as good and I eventually sold all of their records when I moved abroad. Little did I know then that MacGowan had lost his mojo. Director Julien Temple, with many music videos and docos under his belt, uses a variety of styles and techniques (including new animation, repurposed footage from old movies, video of The Pogues, interview in pubs, etc.) to tell MacGowan’s story from childhood to the pre-Pandemic present, with most of the runtime focused on the late ‘70s to early ‘90s.  Pivotal moments include: MacGowan’s early childhood in Tipperary before moving to London at age 6; his engagement with the punk scene after seeing the Sex Pistols and forming his own band, the Nipple Erectors; his light-bulb moment when he fused Irish tradition with punk rock; and then the 1988 tour that extinguished his flame or so the story goes.  There are a few decades after that but MacGowan, although heralded by his contemporaries and followers, seems burnt out, a shell of a man, an ex-junky soon confined to a wheelchair, and now dead. After the film, I listened to some of his best songs, many of them sentimental but poetic ballads (“A Pair of Brown Eyes”, “Dirty Old Town”, “A Rainy Night in Soho”, “Fairytale of New York”, “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”) and I fell briefly into a reverie.

Incendies (2010)

  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Incendies (2010) – D. Villeneuve

I received this blu-ray as a gift (thanks Jen & Pete!) close to the release date back then and hadn’t watched it since – so I completely forgot the twists in the plot. I’m not quite sure whether I would have chosen this last night if I had remembered but there’s no doubt about its impact.  Director Denis Villeneuve handles the unfolding plot, which sees Canadian twins travelling back to an unnamed Middle Eastern country to find their unknown father and never-before-mentioned brother after being instructed to do so in their mother’s will, with aplomb. Although the terrain is dusty, Villeneuve dots the screen with teal blue, whether it be a bus travelling through the dangerous South in the flashbacks of the mother (Lubna Azabal) and her life during an early 1970s civil war, or the garments worn by those visited by Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) or Simon (Maxim Gaudette) in the modern scenes. Based on a play by Wadji Mouawad, the film is structured like a detective story, with the twins uncovering clues about their mother and her relationships on the way to a final revelation that plays like Greek tragedy borne out of the horrors of war.  I guess Mouawad didn’t name the war-torn country so that the themes could generalize to all war-torn areas in the world, which unfortunately seem to have increased since the film was made.  As usual, it is the poor and powerless who suffer the most. Worth a rewatch (if you are ready for serious fare).

Minority Report (2002)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Minority Report (2002) – S. Spielberg

Apparently, Spielberg meant this as an homage to old films noir – or at least they are a stated influence on this film (which is a mélange of many influences). This allowed me to get over what seemed to be a flawed ending, too obvious, too slow to play out once the villain is already exposed – but, in actuality, many of the old noirs (especially those with late-breaking villains) also played out in this way. And Minority Report’s ending, when you ponder it, isn’t quite as simple as it seems because the villain’s choice really could have gone either way, cementing the fact that it was a choice (i.e. the key to the whole film). Seeing this film again (decades later) made me think I really need to read more Philip K. Dick novels, having only read A Scanner Darkly, which was great, claustrophobic and paranoid, but great.  Minority Report is also paranoid, about a future where three “pre-cog” individuals (led by Samantha Morton) lay in a milky pool in a Washington DC office building having visions of future murders, either premeditated (brown ball) or crimes of passion (red ball). This has enabled a “pre-crime” task force to apprehend murders before they actually commit their crimes.  The Year is 2054 and they chase criminals using jetpacks.   Of course, this is also a Tom Cruise action film, but don’t let that dissuade you – he’s playing a drug-addicted father of child who has been abducted (and presumably killed). So, there’s a grimness to the film that is solidified by its murky cinematography (by Janusz Kaminski) providing glimpses to a high tech but grimy future (with shadowy burnt out areas not unlike those in Escape from New York). Once the plot kicks into high gear, there are some action scenes, allowing Cruise to strut his stuff, but the vibe here is dark, not fun. Worth a relook, if it has been awhile.

Floating Weeds (1959)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Floating Weeds (1959) – Y. Ozu

After a stressful week, I was looking for a calming film and finally settled on this late colour classic from Yasujirō Ozu, which I hadn’t watched in ages. It always felt a bit different in his oeuvre from the well-known and very familiar-feeling classics (Late Spring, Tokyo Story, Early Summer, even Late Autumn which is also in colour). Perhaps this is because he had the opportunity to make this film for Daiei studios rather than his contractual home Shochiku.  Or maybe it was working with celebrated cinematographer Kazuo Miyagawa (Rashomon, Yojimbo, Ugetsu, Sansho the Bailiff, etc.)? Also, it was his first time working with Machiko Kyô and Ganjirô Nakamura (two Daiei stars) – they play travelling actors, presenting rough and ready kabuki shows to country towns in Japan.  Nakamura was actually a very well-established kabuki actor so he pressed Ozu to change the name of the film from “The Ham Actor” because he thought that might tarnish his reputation.  He also refused to appear on stage in the film so his badness is only implicit.  The plot sees the troupe arrive in a small seaside town where Nakamura meets up with an old flame (Ozu favourite Haruko Sugimura) with whom he had an illegitimate son, now a young adult. When his latest flame (Kyô) cottons on to this, she causes trouble for the son and for Nakamura’s “Master”.  So, it’s a family drama of common people (shomingeki) just like Ozu’s other films -- and the “family” here is under stress and falls apart just as in some of his other films.  Other Ozu trademarks – static tatami-level shot-reverse shot combinations, red objects in the frame, still life “pillow shots” as punctuation, are all here.  Yet, the film (for all its sadness and conflict) feels light-hearted and often breezy, possibly due to the Nina Rota-like (Fellini-esque) music and the bright colours.  With this combination of emotions and especially the film’s ending, where life goes on, I guess we might agree it is wistful (perhaps mono no aware?). So, as an antidote to a stressful week, it worked a charm.

Life in One Chord (2025)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Life in One Chord (2025) – M. Gordon

Shayne P. Carter is probably best known for leading the Flying Nun band Straitjacket Fits in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, as singer/guitarist/songwriter.  They were part of a New Zealand music scene (along with the Chills, the Clean, the Bats, the Verlaines, etc.) that became popular in the college radio scene in the US while I was a d.j.  I don’t think I ever saw them live back then but I admit that they weren’t my favourites from the scene, tending toward something more dramatic, possibly like arena rock (if Flying Nun could ever reach that scale), which wasn’t exactly my cup of tea. That said, songs like “She Speeds” and “Hail” were on heavy rotation in my world.  I didn’t know them at the time but Carter’s earlier band, the DoubleHappys, fit my indie-rock mold better (I discovered them later). Perhaps the difference was in Carter’s collaborators, trading bassist and songwriting partner Wayne Elsey for David Wood (bass) and Andrew Brough (guitar/vocals), retaining drummer John Collie. Tragically, Elsey had been killed while on tour, falling from a train in Carter’s presence (they were both only 21), which had a traumatic impact and affected Carter’s life as well as his musical direction.  A moving single, “Randolph’s Going Home” (in collaboration with Peter Jefferies), was Carter’s way of paying tribute to his friend and documenting the tragedy.  Later, Straitjacket Fits got signed to Arista Records before imploding and subsequently Carter founded Dimmer who have had continued success in New Zealand.  In 2019, Carter published his autobiography which inspired filmmaker Margaret Gordon to track him down to make a film out of it.  Like many Kiwis, Gordon has spent time in Melbourne and has contacts with some of my friends who were drawn to collaborate on the film (Reece Sanders worked on motion graphics and Simon Wright helped with some editing, I think).  When the producers struggled to afford to pay for the music rights for some of the clips, I contributed $50 to their kickstarter campaign (and have my name in the credits – is this a conflict of interest for this review?). Although I didn’t get to see the film on the big screen when local shows happened here last year, I did see Carter’s solo show at the Northcote Social Club (which was great). I also bought his solo album from 2016 (Offsider) on bandcamp, which is a stark piano-based affair, an instrument Carter apparently taught himself for this release (recommended!); he’s also recorded with an orchestra, provided accompaniment to stage performances, and generally taken artistic challenges and risks rather than played it safe.  I finally had the chance to watch the film on Amazon Prime last night and, having spent the last year refamiliarizing myself with Carter and his music, I found this a deep and moving experience.  He’s an amiable character, funny and self-deprecating despite his success. Beyond the music (which is well-documented here from the early Dunedin scene to beyond), Gordon’s film takes us into Carter’s personal experiences growing up half-Maori/half Pakeha (European), feeling that he didn’t belong in either culture.  Since he didn’t feel comfortable reading passages from his memoir aloud for the film, he recommended NZ newsreader Carol Hirschfeld to do this instead, an odd conceit but well explained (and which also informs us a bit more about Carter’s character and the walls of defence he has erected, which may also include his humour). At any rate, I am pleased to say that the doco is never less than engaging, finding a way through editing, music, graphics, found and shot footage (visiting old haunts), and carefully chosen talking heads (archival and new) to flesh out Carter’s story and the adjacent stories of his bandmates and other scenesters (he volunteered as a carer for Chris Knox after the latter’s stroke!). This is a film and an artist that you should definitely check out!  I’ve been re-evaluating Straitjacket Fits and Dimmer now in this new enriched light.

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger (2024) – D. Hinton

Martin Scorsese is omnipresent talking about film, particularly classic films and film preservation. He has 493 “self” credits on iMDb which is probably an underestimate.  Occasionally, he has made his own documentaries or essay films about his relationship with cinema and the influence of movies he’s seen on his own oeuvre, such as A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies (1995) or My Voyage to Italy (1999).  This time, as directed by David Hinton, he talks us through his feelings about the films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (and their production company The Archers).  I’m also a big fan of this duo – there are 16 reviews on my two blogs for films directed by Powell and often also written by Pressburger. I gave 5 stars to The Thief of Bagdad (1940), I Know Where I am Going (1945) and Black Narcissus (1947) and 4.5 stars to The Edge of the World (1937), A Canterbury Tale (1944), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), and Peeping Tom (1960). Scoresese has a particular affinity for the ballet films, The Red Shoes (1948; 4 stars) and The Tales of Hoffmann (1951; which I still haven’t watched all the way through) as well as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943; which I need to watch again and review). He narrates his way through all the films with a healthy dose of clips and also links them to choices he made in his own films (primarily Raging Bull, 1980). He highlights the risks they took -- their experiments with plot, Technicolour, composition – and their fierce independence (leading to many ruptures with producers and companies). Scorsese also discusses his real interpersonal relationship with Powell who became a friend and mentor and who eventually married Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker. He talks a lot about Powell’s love for England and his embodiment of the stereotypical English reserve.  Pressburger, a Hungarian Jew who moved to Berlin and then escaped to England, also gets his fair share of behind-the-scenes stories and clips. In all, it’s a touching and insightful tour through the Archers’ body of work, although inevitably it contains an arc that moves from success to decline and disregard. Fortunately, Scorsese isn’t the only voice heralding the cinematic output of this great duo (and they were finally re-appreciated in their lifetimes). If you haven’t checked out any of their great films, what’s stopping you?

We Jam Econo (2005)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

We Jam Econo (2005) – T. Irwin

I’m pretty sure I didn’t really appreciate the Minutemen when I saw them open for R.E.M. at the Mosque Theatre in Richmond, VA, in the Fall of 1985 (except perhaps their Creedence cover “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?”). This turned out to be their final tour before singer/guitarist/lyricist d. boon died in a van accident in December of that year.  Knowing that outcome adds a lot of extra emotional weight to this otherwise straightforward doco about the band – even the predictable ex-punk talking heads seem to have an extra level of tenderness toward the band.  Of course, a lot of that devotion is due to the striking contribution of this band to music history.  They were punk, yes, but not in the stereotypical sense. Instead, they were flying flannel as self-professed corn-dogs out of San Pedro, CA, ready to absorb classic rock, country, jazz, and everything else they heard into their short sometimes abrasive songs; they grew into musicians with superb creative technique (drummer George Hurley gets many kudos here). Our guide through the band’s history is bass player/singer/lyricist Mike Watt, now an elder statesman of the music scene (as well as in 2005). I guess I did not realise how many of the band’s songs he wrote himself (nor the fierce rivalry between him and d. boon) – thinking about it now, you can see the difference between boon’s political lyrics and Watt’s more narrative take (esp. on “History Lesson Part 2” of course). He’s down to earth, switched on, and authentic in his spiel. I’ve got 3 or 4 of the band’s albums, including their opus Double Nickels on the Dime, which was designed not only to compete with Husker Du’s Zen Arcade, another double LP, but was a reference to Sammy Hagar’s “I can’t drive 55” because his driving might have been crazy/exciting but his music was boring – the Minutemen opted for the converse, boring driving (at 55 or below) but crazy/exciting music.