Watching interviews with Richard Ayoade is interminable. It's not that he's not funny, in fact some of the surreal asides he goes on are hilarious, but I just can't watch another interviewer stare blankly as he jokes about Ben Stiller being his driver. Part of the problem, admittedly, is the fact that the man only speaks in a single register which, unfortunately, appears to be so quiet that people actually think Ayoade is pronounced "Eye, oh, woddi," (which anyone whose looked at the spelling would find ridiculous). Somehow Ayoade manages to charm them anyway which is fortunate, because Submarine, on first viewing, seems to be the single greatest document of British teen-age ever to be displayed on a white sheet at my local nickelodeon.
Craig Roberts, from Tracey Beaker fame (I assume), plays Oliver Tate who's character can be summed up in the seemingly non judgmental opening lines:
"Most people think of themselves as individuals, that there's no one on the planet like them. This thought motivates them to get out of bed, eat food, and walk around like nothings wrong. My name is Oliver Tate."
Tate, who's matter of fact narration guides us through the film, appears to base his life on the idea that he is an individual case. He rationalities his very worst actions away on the basis that he can; His fifteen year old intellect allows him too. If he were any younger, he would have been unable to rationalise the shoving a girl into a pond to impress a second girl (Jordana played excellently by Yasmin Paige) and would have just felt bad. Any older and he would have surely been struck by the miserable reality that other people are the same as him and therefore probably don't enjoy being pushed into a fucking pond.
It's this fifteen year old mentality that has been brilliant captured in submarine, and it is such an achievement because it has been attempted so many times before. Never has it been done with such astounding insight. While the art direction is beautiful, in a small town in wales sort of way, and the performances are great throughout it is the identification one feels for Oliver that is the real leap forward. That and the skillful use of the word "gay," in the script, which, while homophobic, is completely and uncontestably accurate.
Friday, 8 April 2011
Friday, 11 February 2011
Four five free
I just got off the 453 from oxford circus at New Cross Gate and from the time I got on to two stops before I left there was a drunk man who wanted to be punched.
For him, everyone was the enemy and everyone who sat next to him got a hand shake and the offer of a fight with a moron. He was white, with a scar on his face and, as anyone who's ever got the 453 will tell you, he was on a pretty ethnically diverse bus, but that didn't stop him threatening literally everyone who gave him eye contact. If you ask me, he had a knife. Fortunately there was a negotiator in the bus.
Alright, so he was wearing a London underground jacket and he didn't appear to be affiliated with any formal police force but that man had skills. He'd put thought into the exact words a person might say to stop another person, who everyone within earshot had established was looking for a fight, from punching, or getting punched, in and around the face. Drunk man-boy had originally attempted to start a fight with the negotiator asking, shortly after shaking his hand, if the negotiator was laughing at him. He hadn't been, but not only did the negotiator refrain from pointing that out, he guided DMB back down from his stupid rage. He even managed to speak to him from a place of gentle authority, guiding him into promising to behave.
Each time DMB got into a confrontation with someone, which he did despite his promise to behave, the negotiator would gently persuade him that his aggression was unnecessary or else would persuade other members of the bus who refused to break eye contact "That there was a time and a place for everything," but a bus journey in the middle of the night wasn't it. When the negotiator did communicate with other members of the bus about DMB he did so under his drunk radar without him him noticing a thing.
Assuming he didn't have a knife a fight would have ended very badly for him. I work in a pub so I'd been picturing how I was going to get him on the ground since he'd opened his mouth but within ten minutes, everyone else was imagining a similar scenario. But the negotiator was still unwilling to embrace a confrontation. The man had the patience of a saint which is why after DMB had left and I made out the word religion from his barbados, London accent I winced.
But what he said, after a prompt from me to repeat was spectacular. He said that religion tells you, it's possible to repent your sins to abolish there consequences but you can't, and that all that's real is cause and effect.
And go you know where he'd been struck by this pearl of wisdom most recently? when, in the Hollywood film the Other Guys, the Rock was lying on the top of a thieves car being shot at he asks his partner: "how'd I get here?" and his partner, Samuel L Jackson replies "Through a series of bad life choices I assume." Awesome, some people are awesome.
For him, everyone was the enemy and everyone who sat next to him got a hand shake and the offer of a fight with a moron. He was white, with a scar on his face and, as anyone who's ever got the 453 will tell you, he was on a pretty ethnically diverse bus, but that didn't stop him threatening literally everyone who gave him eye contact. If you ask me, he had a knife. Fortunately there was a negotiator in the bus.
Alright, so he was wearing a London underground jacket and he didn't appear to be affiliated with any formal police force but that man had skills. He'd put thought into the exact words a person might say to stop another person, who everyone within earshot had established was looking for a fight, from punching, or getting punched, in and around the face. Drunk man-boy had originally attempted to start a fight with the negotiator asking, shortly after shaking his hand, if the negotiator was laughing at him. He hadn't been, but not only did the negotiator refrain from pointing that out, he guided DMB back down from his stupid rage. He even managed to speak to him from a place of gentle authority, guiding him into promising to behave.
Each time DMB got into a confrontation with someone, which he did despite his promise to behave, the negotiator would gently persuade him that his aggression was unnecessary or else would persuade other members of the bus who refused to break eye contact "That there was a time and a place for everything," but a bus journey in the middle of the night wasn't it. When the negotiator did communicate with other members of the bus about DMB he did so under his drunk radar without him him noticing a thing.
Assuming he didn't have a knife a fight would have ended very badly for him. I work in a pub so I'd been picturing how I was going to get him on the ground since he'd opened his mouth but within ten minutes, everyone else was imagining a similar scenario. But the negotiator was still unwilling to embrace a confrontation. The man had the patience of a saint which is why after DMB had left and I made out the word religion from his barbados, London accent I winced.
But what he said, after a prompt from me to repeat was spectacular. He said that religion tells you, it's possible to repent your sins to abolish there consequences but you can't, and that all that's real is cause and effect.
And go you know where he'd been struck by this pearl of wisdom most recently? when, in the Hollywood film the Other Guys, the Rock was lying on the top of a thieves car being shot at he asks his partner: "how'd I get here?" and his partner, Samuel L Jackson replies "Through a series of bad life choices I assume." Awesome, some people are awesome.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.7
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
The stumble experiment
A few years ago a group of behavioral scientists and neurologists did an experiment with live rats, as scientists are prone to do. By attaching transmitters to the pleasure cortex of the rats' brains the scientists were able to gauge the compulsive behavior of a rat that's been given the choice between food, liquid, sex and an instantaneous jolt of pure pleasure.
The rats, predictably, ended up choosing the artificial stimulus every time as opposed to living their little ratty lives, In fact the rats were so controlled by the pleasure that they would happily starve to death at the hands of pure pleasure.
For some reason whilst sat here in front of a computer hitting the "stumble" button again and again I can't help but be reminded of those pleasure seeking rats.
At least those poor bastards got a jolt of electricity to the brain and not just another fucking meme.
The rats, predictably, ended up choosing the artificial stimulus every time as opposed to living their little ratty lives, In fact the rats were so controlled by the pleasure that they would happily starve to death at the hands of pure pleasure.
For some reason whilst sat here in front of a computer hitting the "stumble" button again and again I can't help but be reminded of those pleasure seeking rats.
At least those poor bastards got a jolt of electricity to the brain and not just another fucking meme.
Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.6
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