I be watchin' stuff.
Well, I've been consuming a lot of TV recently, between dipping, or rather, diving headlong, into "Wolverine, Essentials Vol. 1" in which I've been asking whether Chris Claremont is a brilliance before his time, or really needs to learn when to shut up. I think the answer is somewhere between the two, but the man can certainly write! More on that as I go further through it.
The other thing I watched recently was "A world if Pain: Myra Syal on self harm." which I watched more from horrified facination more than anything else; any "celebrity" tackiling an issue as complex and varied as this one was certain to become a cropper, but then again, because I expected to little, I was plesantly surprised. Yes, she was as patronising as fuck, especially with people who came on camera to discuss how they came by scars and wore them with short sleeves and then kept asking them if it was all-right to talk about the specifics, which might have been different if she had met them on the street, but considering they'd already agreed to do the show and didn't have the scars hidden, then one would assume it would have been okay, or perhaps it would have been better if the people in question had been asked before shooting if they had any specific limits.
Another issue I had with it was the "oh-dear" style of reporting, with Syal constantly saying what poor dears these girls were. Yes, of course they're poor dears, but at the same time they are people who deserve to have their problem treated like a problem, rather than like a puppy that keeps pissing on the carpet. One of the girls even said, "Self Harm is not a metal illness - Self harm is a choice, like smoking or drinking" expresses the point that even at the end of the program, Syal didn't seem to understand: Self harm in itself is not an issue, in the sense that if one wanted to have tattoos, or piercings, the result is similar, but it is the inability to cope and the other impossible emotions that are the problem.
However, Syal also managed to cover this by showing a variety of women who suffered from self-harming activities, older women and asian women specifically, which in itself did the programme a great service. I was also impressed at Syal's ability to change her opinion as well as properly explore the issue without falling into the clishes which usually haunt coverage. But still, more of a programme for those who think self-harm is all about The Death Cult Of Emo rather than anyone with any actual knoweledge on the matter.
I also watched Liquid Sky for the first time recently. The Plot is pretty well known, even if the name of the film isn't: Alien's come to earth in search of Heroin, but discover that human orgasm's give a better effect and then go about killing people who have sex. And as predicted, the music is either horrible or brilliant, dependong on how one interprietes the use of the slightly-out of-tune synths, the dialogue and acting at moments seems to have been lifted straight from Garth Merengie and the outfits are brilliant and mad and beautiful and perfectly fitting, as are the set designs and Special Effects.
However, when you watch Liquid Sky, you soon find that this is almost a tack on: the real story is about Margaret, the bisexual model in the New Wave scene of New York. She dresses in fabulous clothes and lives with her heroin dealer girlfriend in a penthouse, where periodically men come around and usually make a move on her. The Alien's discover her and use her, much like everyone else in her life.
SPOILERY BITS:
The saddest part of the movie is that it seems as if Margaret is an oppressed women, regardless of if a man she met in the Club is raping her, her girlfriend is emotionally battering her or she is trying to fit in with the crowd. She kills five people in the film, "killing with my cunt", but as she realises at the end, she never had an orgasm of her own, it was entirely about other people's pleasure. In fact, all she had found was another version of the hell she had tried to avoid, to avoid becoming yet another middle class woman trapped in a loveless, ugly situation with boring obligations on herself. However, she is in a loveless relationship with a woman and the ugly situation of being at the mercy of the whims of fashion. In fact, the aliens are the only people to give her power of any kind, as twisted as it is, so she comes to believe that they love her, rather than yet again being a tool.
Another part which confused me was the choice to have Anne Carlisle play both Margaret and Jimmy, compeating models of opposite genders. Don't get me wrong, if I looked half as good as a boy as she does, I would be a very happy person, but the effect didn't seem to add anything to the film, though it was quiet fun having him proclaimed to be the beautiful one whilst she ugly was perhaps another feminist statement? The scene in question is less clear cut than it ought to be. In fact, unless Jimmy had been explained more, I question the validity of using the same actress to portray both.
The other thing I watched recently was "A world if Pain: Myra Syal on self harm." which I watched more from horrified facination more than anything else; any "celebrity" tackiling an issue as complex and varied as this one was certain to become a cropper, but then again, because I expected to little, I was plesantly surprised. Yes, she was as patronising as fuck, especially with people who came on camera to discuss how they came by scars and wore them with short sleeves and then kept asking them if it was all-right to talk about the specifics, which might have been different if she had met them on the street, but considering they'd already agreed to do the show and didn't have the scars hidden, then one would assume it would have been okay, or perhaps it would have been better if the people in question had been asked before shooting if they had any specific limits.
Another issue I had with it was the "oh-dear" style of reporting, with Syal constantly saying what poor dears these girls were. Yes, of course they're poor dears, but at the same time they are people who deserve to have their problem treated like a problem, rather than like a puppy that keeps pissing on the carpet. One of the girls even said, "Self Harm is not a metal illness - Self harm is a choice, like smoking or drinking" expresses the point that even at the end of the program, Syal didn't seem to understand: Self harm in itself is not an issue, in the sense that if one wanted to have tattoos, or piercings, the result is similar, but it is the inability to cope and the other impossible emotions that are the problem.
However, Syal also managed to cover this by showing a variety of women who suffered from self-harming activities, older women and asian women specifically, which in itself did the programme a great service. I was also impressed at Syal's ability to change her opinion as well as properly explore the issue without falling into the clishes which usually haunt coverage. But still, more of a programme for those who think self-harm is all about The Death Cult Of Emo rather than anyone with any actual knoweledge on the matter.
I also watched Liquid Sky for the first time recently. The Plot is pretty well known, even if the name of the film isn't: Alien's come to earth in search of Heroin, but discover that human orgasm's give a better effect and then go about killing people who have sex. And as predicted, the music is either horrible or brilliant, dependong on how one interprietes the use of the slightly-out of-tune synths, the dialogue and acting at moments seems to have been lifted straight from Garth Merengie and the outfits are brilliant and mad and beautiful and perfectly fitting, as are the set designs and Special Effects.
However, when you watch Liquid Sky, you soon find that this is almost a tack on: the real story is about Margaret, the bisexual model in the New Wave scene of New York. She dresses in fabulous clothes and lives with her heroin dealer girlfriend in a penthouse, where periodically men come around and usually make a move on her. The Alien's discover her and use her, much like everyone else in her life.
SPOILERY BITS:
The saddest part of the movie is that it seems as if Margaret is an oppressed women, regardless of if a man she met in the Club is raping her, her girlfriend is emotionally battering her or she is trying to fit in with the crowd. She kills five people in the film, "killing with my cunt", but as she realises at the end, she never had an orgasm of her own, it was entirely about other people's pleasure. In fact, all she had found was another version of the hell she had tried to avoid, to avoid becoming yet another middle class woman trapped in a loveless, ugly situation with boring obligations on herself. However, she is in a loveless relationship with a woman and the ugly situation of being at the mercy of the whims of fashion. In fact, the aliens are the only people to give her power of any kind, as twisted as it is, so she comes to believe that they love her, rather than yet again being a tool.
Another part which confused me was the choice to have Anne Carlisle play both Margaret and Jimmy, compeating models of opposite genders. Don't get me wrong, if I looked half as good as a boy as she does, I would be a very happy person, but the effect didn't seem to add anything to the film, though it was quiet fun having him proclaimed to be the beautiful one whilst she ugly was perhaps another feminist statement? The scene in question is less clear cut than it ought to be. In fact, unless Jimmy had been explained more, I question the validity of using the same actress to portray both.