My last review of 'Joe Versus The Volcano' was somehow unsatisfying. It's a phenomenally difficult movie to talk about, not only because of its legend as a massive box office failure but also because it is a widely misunderstood film. This is probably because the movie misunderstands itself, just as we get confused as to the nature of the film. Despite all that, I have the quaintest kind of love for 'Joe' and its progress from a bleak and grimy grey beginning through the normally toned mid-section of discovery to the bright and vivid island landscape of deliverance and acceptance. The whole film is a metaphor, and should be viewed as one instead of a narrative. People get hung up on narratives, myself included, but sometimes they get in the way of things. That doesn't mean you just eliminate the story completely though, modern movies!
So once again we begin with a story: Former firefighter Joe Banks (Tom Hanks) is living a bleak life in a grimy grey factory in a grimy grey industrial world and going slowly mad from hypochondria and his own fear. One day he is diagnosed with a terminal 'brain cloud' and recruited by a billionaire to jump into a volcano and appease some natives looking for a good mineral rights deal. He does it in exchange for a marvelous journey which will finish out his days in wealthy leisure and provide some closure to it all. The beginning, the journey, and the destination comprise three distinct acts in the film, and Meg Ryan plays three different love interests in succession at her cutest. This is the first Hanks/Ryan movie after all and definitely my favourite. Her characters seem to symbolize Joe's temperament in each phase of the film, down the long and crooked road of destiny.
A viewer's reception for 'Joe' really depends on the level to which you adhere to the modern movie formula of 'laughs and explosions mixed to exact ratios', and 'Joe Versus The Volcano' certainly isn't one of those. It's a spiritual journey writ large but made imperfectly, with some extremely odd choices and some extremely well done moments. One of my favourite moments in all of film is in this movie, where Meg Ryan's final character Patricia shows him to his cabin on her yacht the Tweedle Dee and just talks to him. The words 'soulsick' will never be the same again, as now they really encompass what it feels like to be out of place, out of time, and out of love with yourself. She's soul sick, having compromised a promise to herself in order to gain the boat, and he's slowly recovering as his mistakes and fears ebb away with the tides. And before you start to think that this is a sad movie, it really isn't, and of course all ends well utterly implausibly.
The ending to such a movie as 'Joe' is always going to be difficult. If he jumps into the movie and dies then it's a triumph of the human spirit but a downer, and if he and Patricia jump in and get blown out to sea instead, where she reveals the possible fraud behind his diagnosis, then it's a potential letdown. They chose the latter and I don't mind that choice but some do. Letdowns aren't the worst things in the world. On to other things, the music is well placed, chosen and suited to the film being unpretentious and eclectic. The visuals are often sumptuous and also often bizarre, and the thematic symbol of the long and crooked road permeates the whole movie perfectly. The only problem is that the beginning is so grey and in parts unpleasant as to make it too hard to watch and derail the movie, while the end is similarly so silly as to minorly ruin the momentum of what came before. The structure arguably defeats the purpose. Arguably.
'Joe Versus The Volcano': A metaphor or a fairy tale or a spiritual journey? A work of sweet madness or of mad sweetness? A starry debut for Hanks/Ryan or a miserable flop? At the end of the day, only you can answer. Have fun, folks.
O.
PS That was much more satisfying than the first go-around.
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Back and Forth
The curse of Llanbadarn struck and all hope of a creative piece of writing went with the advent of that curse. Now all time out of mind is full of wrath and tiredness and pink elephants called Leroy who like to play jazz guitar. For the record, never ever turn back from Llanbadarn to get anything once more than halfway to that remote and barren location. Whiteboard markers are no excuse for turning up at your lecture in a hurried sweaty mess. Still, on the plus side, there is now a precedent for giving a precedent in Bermuda shorts and that is one of the most welcome things in the world. Shorts season! I just wish they wouldn't chatter on and on while I do my best to impart semi-interesting information while on the edge of a nervous collapse.
Sigh.
Problems just go back and forth as if they're attached to a rubber band of fate. Emergency marking - don't ask - gets returned after a huge mass of corrections and faulty marking schemes and then the Tuesday lecture gets completed as well as it can be but gets destroyed by a sunny day and faulty memory. However, optimism must be obtained so lets bring on the positivity!
Positivity...
Right, this is a tough one but the most positive thing is really the weekend to come, with its mass of writing and preparation for the end of my contract and, more importantly, the commentary for 'Cat Ballou'! Oh, this should be fun, as we see Lee Marvin steal a film so magnificently that you almost forget what everyone is even there for... Film Bin is generally getting tougher but it's still fun.
It's sunny here in Aberystwyth, horribly sunny. It's almost time to break out the sunscreen and hide in shadows all day in case of massive sunburn and giant carnivorous daffodils. Hmmm. I never did write about St Davids Day. Maybe next time, when not so horribly dehydrated and incoherent.
O.
Sigh.
Problems just go back and forth as if they're attached to a rubber band of fate. Emergency marking - don't ask - gets returned after a huge mass of corrections and faulty marking schemes and then the Tuesday lecture gets completed as well as it can be but gets destroyed by a sunny day and faulty memory. However, optimism must be obtained so lets bring on the positivity!
Positivity...
Right, this is a tough one but the most positive thing is really the weekend to come, with its mass of writing and preparation for the end of my contract and, more importantly, the commentary for 'Cat Ballou'! Oh, this should be fun, as we see Lee Marvin steal a film so magnificently that you almost forget what everyone is even there for... Film Bin is generally getting tougher but it's still fun.
It's sunny here in Aberystwyth, horribly sunny. It's almost time to break out the sunscreen and hide in shadows all day in case of massive sunburn and giant carnivorous daffodils. Hmmm. I never did write about St Davids Day. Maybe next time, when not so horribly dehydrated and incoherent.
O.
Sunday, 9 March 2014
Story: Wordspace, VI
(Part I , V , VII)
Cloud had never been so high, so high that down below he could see Sky looking anxiously up and hoping for his safe return. Upon his broad syllables rode Mystery, Club and the surprising Sorpresa. Sorpresa was grinning and pointing up, while the other two merely looked excited and concerned. Ever higher, did he go, until finally the loneliness made him shudder and roil and his letters quaked.
Above, a vast forgotten memory was stirring, the word they had all but forgotten. The great Space looked down at them and into them and through them, immaterial and absolute. The outlines of massive letters flitted in and out of vision. Sorpresa looked in awe, quite shocked and Space rallied her senses after a sleep of solitude so long that she had passed out of the ken of most words.
"Space..." Mystery was dumbfounded as the knowledge of Space filtered down into his mind. "Do you know how our visitor came to us, Space? How have you been alone up here for so long?"
"Sorpresa?" Space chuckled. "He came from another space, a world of his own lexicon. They discovered a method to cross the boundary between this world and theirs, and all others that exist in the greater multi-space." Space flexed her nothingness for a moment. "As for me... people find it hard to remember an absence... especially one who must of necessity stay apart." A pause. "I will make more of an effort."
"Sorpresa is from another place entirely?"
"Yes... there is a point at which the places interpose upon each other. A point where only the Silly Stone abides. Once you go to the point, and make your choice, what is up becomes down, and you fall to the new world you have transferred into. This I gathered while asleep, living in the small gaps all around down on the world below."
"We must go, Space. Where is this point?"
"Not yet, inquisitive Mystery. First we shall go aside, for there is one thing I must tell you alone." And with that Mystery vanished into the void that was Space, and Cloud jumped in shock.
To be continued...
Cloud had never been so high, so high that down below he could see Sky looking anxiously up and hoping for his safe return. Upon his broad syllables rode Mystery, Club and the surprising Sorpresa. Sorpresa was grinning and pointing up, while the other two merely looked excited and concerned. Ever higher, did he go, until finally the loneliness made him shudder and roil and his letters quaked.
Above, a vast forgotten memory was stirring, the word they had all but forgotten. The great Space looked down at them and into them and through them, immaterial and absolute. The outlines of massive letters flitted in and out of vision. Sorpresa looked in awe, quite shocked and Space rallied her senses after a sleep of solitude so long that she had passed out of the ken of most words.
"Space..." Mystery was dumbfounded as the knowledge of Space filtered down into his mind. "Do you know how our visitor came to us, Space? How have you been alone up here for so long?"
"Sorpresa?" Space chuckled. "He came from another space, a world of his own lexicon. They discovered a method to cross the boundary between this world and theirs, and all others that exist in the greater multi-space." Space flexed her nothingness for a moment. "As for me... people find it hard to remember an absence... especially one who must of necessity stay apart." A pause. "I will make more of an effort."
"Sorpresa is from another place entirely?"
"Yes... there is a point at which the places interpose upon each other. A point where only the Silly Stone abides. Once you go to the point, and make your choice, what is up becomes down, and you fall to the new world you have transferred into. This I gathered while asleep, living in the small gaps all around down on the world below."
"We must go, Space. Where is this point?"
"Not yet, inquisitive Mystery. First we shall go aside, for there is one thing I must tell you alone." And with that Mystery vanished into the void that was Space, and Cloud jumped in shock.
To be continued...
Friday, 7 March 2014
Atonement
Marking is one of those funny experiences where idealism clashes jarringly with pragmatism, leading to a hastily arranged vacation where they both go scuba diving and leave you utterly rudderless. As the hours wear on a strange haze descends over your vision and you start getting 'out of pie' errors, your toy giraffe starts talking back and your attendants start getting that funny look in their eyes. Enough of the wonderful beastliness of marking though. That can only be boring for the un-initiated, those who don't know the horror of looking down at a complete mess and knowing they'll have to at least try to understand it before just whooshing through it all with a vague ambition to do good and a dread of what is to come.
It can be all too easily to feel rudderless. Sudden changes and unfortunate events can overload our abilities to be in control of our directions as we struggle to reorient. My time is spent almost entirely on trying to set a direction as the whirlpool of duties spins around and around, wreaking havoc wherever it goes. I've had a new duty for a few weeks: The organising of a careers event for final year undergraduates in the department, and that organisation has been perverse in its progress. I think careers events are a means of atoning for past sins. I meant to do something on the word atonement but never got to it. And still my spin continues, a tumble from job to job to job...
Atonement: the act of atoning for sin or wrongdoing
Atonement seems to be something that has fallen out of fashion, except in the strictest religious sense of the word. When was the last time you atoned for something you did wrong? As someone who isn't functionally perfect my actions comprise numerous and often quite funny mistakes, but sometimes they do hurt people and so one has to atone. For the most part that just means saying sorry but sometimes it means more. Last week I did upset someone with a flippant, glib and stupid remark and then went away cursing myself. And then I cursed even more as I realised I was cursing my own imperfection rather than the effect on the student. Isn't that selfish? No, let's not be angry at letting ourselves down rather than causing hurt to someone else, but go the more humanistic way. And let's say sorry and that we were wrong and do the right thing.
'The West Wing' - excellent series in its first four seasons - had a major problem in its third season. President Bartlet's multiple sclerosis was revealed to the nation. Its concealment had been an awkward character moment whenever it was raised as it essentially didn't work with Bartlet's persona at all. It was an artificially imposed 'feet of clay' and the third season had a massive problem as the concealment and lack of subsequent repentance made his character essentially unlikeable, until he finally said 'sorry' and took the consequences. The show's fabric snapped back into place as if it hadn't ever been perturbed to begin with, and continued until another more organic tension was put into place with the good president. The point? Well, things feel better when you make up for your mistakes rather than make them over to look like successes.
O.
PS Patronising? It has crossed my mind, yes.
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
Clutter
I sit surrounded by clutter, forever disproving any notion of my being obsessed with purest tidiness. It's almost impossible to work as a university lecturer or researcher without clutter. Random scraps of paper, flotsam and jetsam sail around some offices at smallest breezes and rumours of monsters in professorial offices long abandoned to masses of paper persist. Whole tribes of ants, inspired partly by the Discworld, have evolved into ink-consumers and build nests out of mouldering printouts. Academic owls of inspired mental acuity have been known to collate article discards and form cogent arguments that stump the otherwise untouchable biggest bigwigs.
'What kind of clutter can really accumulate?', you may wonder, and so I will provide examples that I have seen in recent times: A mass of Rubiks cubes of various sizes, a departmental flying disc, a giant die, piles of empty water bottles, a giraffe, books printed in the antediluvian era, and some string. And yes, it's really mostly my own clutter. Clutter accumulates, gets swept away, and then accumulates again. It's one of the great survivors of any institutional rearrangement or restructuring. In my office alone there is left over tat from at least three different versions of a nearby laboratory and packaging that may well have been used to pad luggage in the Titanic.
Clutter attracts clutter. The act of clearing clutter leads to a clutter of clearing. A cluttering clucker clearly clashes cleverly. Clutter can only be dealt with severely, so severely in fact that the result is an environment so spartan that it becomes inimicable to work or life or sanity.
Harmless clutter is good. Long live clutter! And my giraffe agrees. He's called Gerald, and is not clutter at all.
O.
PS Beware the tidy academic; 'tis unnatural and indecent. I have access to an angry mob for such people. Not only do they have forks and burning torches but also forklifts full of old receipts, expenses and Christmas cards from 1993.
'What kind of clutter can really accumulate?', you may wonder, and so I will provide examples that I have seen in recent times: A mass of Rubiks cubes of various sizes, a departmental flying disc, a giant die, piles of empty water bottles, a giraffe, books printed in the antediluvian era, and some string. And yes, it's really mostly my own clutter. Clutter accumulates, gets swept away, and then accumulates again. It's one of the great survivors of any institutional rearrangement or restructuring. In my office alone there is left over tat from at least three different versions of a nearby laboratory and packaging that may well have been used to pad luggage in the Titanic.
Clutter attracts clutter. The act of clearing clutter leads to a clutter of clearing. A cluttering clucker clearly clashes cleverly. Clutter can only be dealt with severely, so severely in fact that the result is an environment so spartan that it becomes inimicable to work or life or sanity.
Harmless clutter is good. Long live clutter! And my giraffe agrees. He's called Gerald, and is not clutter at all.
O.
PS Beware the tidy academic; 'tis unnatural and indecent. I have access to an angry mob for such people. Not only do they have forks and burning torches but also forklifts full of old receipts, expenses and Christmas cards from 1993.
Monday, 3 March 2014
Story: Wordspace, V
(Part I , IV , VI)
A few days later, after extensive and arduous interviews with Sorpresa, the Council of Lesser Abstracts had reached the conclusion that firstly their visitor was mostly harmless, and that secondly full communication would eventually be possible. No conclusions as to the cause of the first hole had been reached, predictably, although there were worries that the first visitor might be much less friendly than the second.
The Wordspace had not seen open conflict in many eons, not since the destructives had been imprisoned in the Zone of Accumulated Meaningless Jargon, a region impenetrable to all but the most concisely and flexibly minded. Locked up there for time almost uncounted were War, Chaos, Violence and all the most unbending destructives known to the wordspace; Words as predictable in their behaviour as Order and Bureaucracy but with the most disruptive of intentions.
Our protagonist Mystery had been staring up at Sky for ages now. Sky occasionally winked back a massive syllable but otherwise was silent as ever: She only ever talked to Earth and Air, or other words as massive in their importance. Ideas were sparking within our ambiguous abstract, ideas that he could never fully follow through himself without violating his own nature. Sorpresa had fallen from on high, from on very high, and that meant that the lessons he alone had received from wise old School and Education had some truths behind them after all. There was something up there... something no-one else could even conceive of, dedicated as they were to their own meanings. Mystery had always been one of the exceptions and now his role was to seek out a truth previously unsuspected.
Mystery set out for the island of Truth, the great sage, who spent his time surrounded by his friend Water, whose fluidity comforted him in his quest for all that was knowable. Walking on Water, he approached Truth for the first time since Lies had been put in the Zone and their triangle had been broken.
"Saged Truth, I have news of others from on high. A word fell from elsewhere, outside our Wordspace, causing damage to the land and surprise for the Council."
"From on high?"
"Yes, a word called Sorpresa, although a prior is also at large with intentions unknown."
"Then you too must go up, or send an agent."
"But how to come back?"
"We must ascertain how they came here, or how to go there, before we know how to make the return."
"I understand, sage."
"Go now, and be careful, words from abroad can be unpredictable in their unknown natures."
Mystery departed, and crossed Water once again before summoning Cloud and Club for a journey. A very long journey.
More...
A few days later, after extensive and arduous interviews with Sorpresa, the Council of Lesser Abstracts had reached the conclusion that firstly their visitor was mostly harmless, and that secondly full communication would eventually be possible. No conclusions as to the cause of the first hole had been reached, predictably, although there were worries that the first visitor might be much less friendly than the second.
The Wordspace had not seen open conflict in many eons, not since the destructives had been imprisoned in the Zone of Accumulated Meaningless Jargon, a region impenetrable to all but the most concisely and flexibly minded. Locked up there for time almost uncounted were War, Chaos, Violence and all the most unbending destructives known to the wordspace; Words as predictable in their behaviour as Order and Bureaucracy but with the most disruptive of intentions.
Our protagonist Mystery had been staring up at Sky for ages now. Sky occasionally winked back a massive syllable but otherwise was silent as ever: She only ever talked to Earth and Air, or other words as massive in their importance. Ideas were sparking within our ambiguous abstract, ideas that he could never fully follow through himself without violating his own nature. Sorpresa had fallen from on high, from on very high, and that meant that the lessons he alone had received from wise old School and Education had some truths behind them after all. There was something up there... something no-one else could even conceive of, dedicated as they were to their own meanings. Mystery had always been one of the exceptions and now his role was to seek out a truth previously unsuspected.
Mystery set out for the island of Truth, the great sage, who spent his time surrounded by his friend Water, whose fluidity comforted him in his quest for all that was knowable. Walking on Water, he approached Truth for the first time since Lies had been put in the Zone and their triangle had been broken.
"Saged Truth, I have news of others from on high. A word fell from elsewhere, outside our Wordspace, causing damage to the land and surprise for the Council."
"From on high?"
"Yes, a word called Sorpresa, although a prior is also at large with intentions unknown."
"Then you too must go up, or send an agent."
"But how to come back?"
"We must ascertain how they came here, or how to go there, before we know how to make the return."
"I understand, sage."
"Go now, and be careful, words from abroad can be unpredictable in their unknown natures."
Mystery departed, and crossed Water once again before summoning Cloud and Club for a journey. A very long journey.
More...
Saturday, 1 March 2014
The Imbalance
There's an imbalance. The total given out has far exceeded the amount absorbed, and now a correction must take place. Five hours of teaching in one week may not sound like much but it actually is enormous once you consider the amount of preparation that goes into two lectures, a practical and a tutorial. That is a massive amount of writing if you haven't taught your course before! Tiredness springs eternal.
Funny events of the week: On Wednesday evening (or perhaps Tuesday) there was an Irish blokey student with a gaggle of five French female students in tow touring parts of Wales in my hotel. Five French accents and one Irish being blokey as they prepared to go out on the town. It was strange and funny and odd. The practicals were very strange too, as it seems that typing the commands one at a time into R is infinitely more understandable than writing a list of commands in a text file. What alien madnesses! Also there were bird migrations and a massive amount of walking.
Away from the copious work there was a bit of reading, a bit of listening and a lot of staring at the sea from the promenade. The high tides continue seemingly endlessly whenever my feet turn toward the sea, and there's never a chance to go down to semi-solitude near the waterline and sing a little or talk to oneself with the correct abandon. What a nuisance it is to not have that vital avenue of unusual self-expression! Correspondence and communication have largely dropped by the wayside too, with the consequence that some blues may be in the offing. The blues must be averted, for no good can come of them, but whether now is a good time to steer into the curve or not is questionable.
Continuing to read Patrick O'Brian's naval series the idea of reaching the bitter dregs at the end is becoming very worrying. Obviously it must happen but the approaching cataclysm of the last few books is scaring, especially for an author with such a clear sense of time and age built into his characters. What will Aubrey and Maturin go through before that final ordeal in 'Blue at the Mizzen' in eight novels' time? At least Sayers apparently ended the Lord Peter Wimsey novels gracefully. Such drivelly thought on my part is negative though; There are still eight novels to go and they're bound to be awesome! Positivity, positivity, positivity.
Pessimism shall be cast out.
"Press the button, Max."
O.
Funny events of the week: On Wednesday evening (or perhaps Tuesday) there was an Irish blokey student with a gaggle of five French female students in tow touring parts of Wales in my hotel. Five French accents and one Irish being blokey as they prepared to go out on the town. It was strange and funny and odd. The practicals were very strange too, as it seems that typing the commands one at a time into R is infinitely more understandable than writing a list of commands in a text file. What alien madnesses! Also there were bird migrations and a massive amount of walking.
Away from the copious work there was a bit of reading, a bit of listening and a lot of staring at the sea from the promenade. The high tides continue seemingly endlessly whenever my feet turn toward the sea, and there's never a chance to go down to semi-solitude near the waterline and sing a little or talk to oneself with the correct abandon. What a nuisance it is to not have that vital avenue of unusual self-expression! Correspondence and communication have largely dropped by the wayside too, with the consequence that some blues may be in the offing. The blues must be averted, for no good can come of them, but whether now is a good time to steer into the curve or not is questionable.
Continuing to read Patrick O'Brian's naval series the idea of reaching the bitter dregs at the end is becoming very worrying. Obviously it must happen but the approaching cataclysm of the last few books is scaring, especially for an author with such a clear sense of time and age built into his characters. What will Aubrey and Maturin go through before that final ordeal in 'Blue at the Mizzen' in eight novels' time? At least Sayers apparently ended the Lord Peter Wimsey novels gracefully. Such drivelly thought on my part is negative though; There are still eight novels to go and they're bound to be awesome! Positivity, positivity, positivity.
Pessimism shall be cast out.
"Press the button, Max."
O.
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