In the zone

I finally got to see Green Zone. I liked it.


Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's A Great Film; but it was fairly gripping and Matt Damon was giving another of those concentrated, Bourne-style performances which are all coiled tension and sweet, cold reasonableness.


The cinematography is -- with the exception of the over-enthusiastic use of wobbly Steadicam (er... sic) -- superb, and the recreation of Baghdad is excellent.


It's just that... while it taxis to the end of the runway, and you feel the jets being throttled up into life, somehow this film never quite achieves take-off. Maybe it's because all the characters are so lacking in depth: they are just ciphers representing a type. Which is a pity.

Give me more, more, more, more, more

I like a good sex scandal as much as the next man, but it helps if the "slebs" involved are reasonably well-known.


This it "Top Model" Travis Wolfe.

No, I'd never heard of him, either.


But Travis has now achieved a kind of immortality by featuring in a sex tape that he shot of himself and his new wife on their, er, Honeymoon.

Classy.


The tape is as long as it is tiresome, and his wife seems a bit whiney for my taste, but there's a goodly display of all Travis's good bits.


He has tiny, shrivelled-looking balls, but his long thin cock is rather a picture.


But I'd just find it more thrilling if I actually knew anything about him.

Place marker

The only reason for posting this solitary image is that I can't bear having politics being the first thing you see when you come to this blog.


So now you know -- politics will be the second thing you see.

You have been warned.

Swings and roundabouts

I despise the current Government's appalling record on all manner of human rights issues but, for balance, here Tory Leader "Dave" Cameron gets into a disastrous knot over his party's outrageous support for homophobia in the European Union where, presumably, he thinks none of us will notice (this is a Channel 4 News report, which included filming of Dave being interviewed by Gay Times magazine):



Part of me wants to give him credit for at least recognising the dreadful hypocrisy of his position -- presumably that's why he was squirming so much. But his party's record is so piss-poor that I believe they're just showing their true face.

Come again

Its been an absolute age since hunky fun-boy Joseph Sayers featured on one of my blogs.


So here's a fistful of fun featuring the Teutonic-featured lovely.


Joseph is a hulking manly man, all masculine manliness.


And he's not afraid of showing us his giant mutant winkie, either (although, er, not in either of these shots).


Which is jolly kind of him, really.


And that's reason enough to feature him on here. Again.

Thanks, Joseph.

Public squalor

The Great Eastern Railway built their main London terminus at Liverpool Street. It's a cliche to describe these vast Victorian termini as Machine Age cathedrals, but that doesn't mean it's not true:


Those soaring pillars lead to exuberant crowns gaily painted in the company's colours:


In Thatcher's Brave New World, all that public space was a waste of money and had to be flogged-off cheap to property developers. So it came to pass that one half of Liverpool Street was left with the soaring roof, while the other half had a vast bulk of cheap offices built over the top, crushing the platforms beneath depressingly low ceilings -- you can see the claustrophobic effect through a gap in the wall dividing the two halves:


All the overly bright lighting and shiny ceiling panels in the world can't disguise the meanness of these spaces:


And it makes photographing a train -- here a delightful Class 360 -- almost impossible, the oppressive space and the bouncing light flattening and distorting everything:


That's my excuse, anyway. Maybe I'm just rubbish at photographing trains.

Blimey

As anyone who knows me can attest, this is so not my cup of tea:


While I think the, er, subject of this attention appears to be a strikingly attractive young man, I am mystified by the whole pain/S&M/fantasy/gas mask thing (a gas mask...?!).


But the reason you get this trio of images becomes obvious when you see the last photo -- I just love the juxtaposition of the, er, gas-mask-and-whip-combo with the tacky, cheap-as-chips suburban "art":


At once, the poor boy's pain disappears as I contemplate the horror of that painting...

Brutal

No claims to originality here, but I spent a happy spare hour wandering around London's South Bank with my camera.


The most brutal of the buildings are the ones I find most photogenic.


Despite being Europe's biggest single arts complex -- a space designed for cultural expression and fun -- this can be one of the most depressing places in London, especially the spaces that have been sealed-off:


There's an air of hard, viciousness about the place:


An impression not softened by the dominant reading -- a modern castle in a police state, complete with overbearing, fortified guard-towers:


Not all the complex is amenable to this reading -- or, indeed, to any sort of reading, so mysterious are some of the massive concrete forms:


And even where it's obvious we're looking at a structural form, the sheer scale makes them overbearing:


And even the spaces to protect you from the elements are, when you glance up, hard and cold:


There's a sense of being overlooked, spied-on, controlled:


And much of the complex seems to be saying there's no place for you here -- this is a fortified place where you are not welcome:


And the sheer mass of the structural forms makes even playful geometric compositions appear inhuman:


There really is nothing for you here:


Possibly the single most successful element of the design is the stairs, which have an intriguingly sculptural form and (almost inevitably) more human scale:


But even here it goes wrong, with oppressively low headroom suddenly crushing you beneath the weight of concrete:


Although, from the outside, there is some pleasure to be had looking down at the interlocking shapes:


That's a small consolation for the disappointment given by what should be an open, gay complex, a space designed for the highest forms of human expression and for sheer pleasure, an adult (and children's) playground:


No, that's not what this building is telling me, either.

That's the pits

Can't bear the stuff myself, but these rather striking posters have been appearing all over London:


It's part of a disappointing new macho, aggressive approach to advertising fmcg (anyone remember "the slag of snacks"...?). Although, in the case of this new Marmitey iteration, I have to say I approve. Can't think why.

You're ruining my life

I Killed my Mother (J'ai tué ma mère) is that rarest of creatures -- a good film at the London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival.


Possibly because it's not, actually, A Gay Film.

While most of the central characters happen to be gay, that's not what this French-Canadian film is all about.


The film deceives another way, too: at first sight, once you've got over it not being A Gay Film, it appears to be a simple family drama, a tiny piece about the relationships between mothers and their sons. But it's so much more than that: it's funny and exuberant and ebullient, and it has moments of such raw passion that they are almost unwatchable.


Full of teenage angst (the real sort, the sort where everyday domestic things somehow become more important than life and death itself), the gayness is just there, matter-of-fact, but never hidden. But that doesn't stop it featuring three of the most gorgeous actors I've recently seen.


The annoyingly talented writer/director/star is Xavier Dolan. I'll come back to him:


François Arnaud plays his boyfriend:


François Arnaud is extraordinarily, lickably lovely.


For reasons I'm not going to go into, Xavier Dolan abandons François Arnaud.


This is an act of insane folly. But, bizarrely, Xavier immediately finds Niels Schneider.


Who is also rather lovely.


Xavier Dolan, besides being annoyingly talented, is also pretty. His bee-stung lips are so implausibly puffy that I rather fancied using them as a pillow.


Er... I rather feel as if this review has got a bit off-track. I Killed my Mother went down a storm at Cannes last year, and it's very easy to see why.



Go and see it. You'll thank me. And possibly also Xavier Dolan.