“In the old days, people used to be named after what they made, didn't they? Like, erm, Carter if they made carts, Cooper if they made barrels, Thatcher if they made people SICK!” Alexei Sayle, Alexei Sayle's Stuff (1988)
And The Iron Lady and vomit are never very far away from the text and subtext of Peter Greenaway's 1989 masterwork. The former of which, along with copious amounts of excrement, nudity, bullying, torture, and cannibalism ensured that the British iconoclast's…
Many of those who watch this hugely fun, supremely sexy Hitchcock flick will find themselves asking "well, just what does cause pip in poultry?" – a question voiced several times without response to The Memory Man at a grotty music hall in the film's opening scene. Well, perhaps, not that many; though many more will, no doubt, ask questions of The 39 Steps' numerous plot holes and contrivances. But art is generally lost on these poor, unfortunate, pedantic souls, whom…
A Christ-posed Vincent Gallo flies across the screen. As a 13 second film it (understandably) doesn't really add up to much, but watched on a loop for 7 minutes 36 seconds whilst listening to Melis László's Etude for Three Mirrors (1980) it proves sublime.
Empathetic and touching for the most part, but let down by a number of horribly misjudged dance sequences. The film-makers' camera really should have been distant, static, and dispassionate for these scenes. Instead, it was close, intimate, and dynamic. Consequently, the film made me feel almost complicit in its child sexualisation, rather than the sober witness that I'd prefer to have been. Ideally, the climactic dance contest wouldn't have shown any dancing at all, just the horrified reactions of the judges and audience.
