Any Other Business: Part LXVI

As the title suggests, so forth.

The Sound of 2001…

I recently rediscovered a cassette tape from the 2004/5 academic year, and what a nostalgic blast it was listening to it. But along with the expected Morrissey, Killers, Franz Ferdinand, U2, Auf Der Maur, and Gwen Stefani tracks there was also a clutch of Smiths songs and Simon & Garfunkel tunes. Because discovering those albums were equally a part of my experience, musically speaking, of that year. Which led me to thinking about 2001, and how my musical memories of that year are largely the latter kind of listening: the Pixies B-Sides being released was really the only ‘new’ music that connected. The rest was finally listening to Bowie’s Scary Monsters and U2’s Rattle and Hum, rediscovering Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense, David Byrne’s Uh-Oh and the Doors’ first album. Because… in a world of Limp Bizkit rollin’ rollin’ rollin’, where the White Stripes and the Strokes were being feted for doing not very much of anything at all, it has to be said that 2001 was a pretty bad year for music. As it was, as has been noted previously hereabouts, also a pretty bad year for film. 2001 – what the hell was that all about? Some sort of psychic collapse or exhaustion from the anticipation of the new millennium?

St Vincent: Fear the Producer

Only three months to go until St Vincent releases a new album! And yet I am not doing the dance of joy, because I fear that bad production may have mangled outstanding songs. Listening to Masseduction and MassEducation in the last few days, along with a YouTube performance of ‘Savior’ and my DVR recordings of her appearances on Later… with Jools Holland with piano and band for ‘Los Ageless’, ‘New York’, ‘Masseduction’, and ‘Slow Fast Disco’, it has become apparent to me that the finest version of all of these twice-recorded tracks are actually the live ones. Annie Clark had produced Masseduction alongside Jack Antonoff, and MassEducation alongside pianist Thomas Bartlett, so I am at a loss as to what exactly went on that allowed drama and emotion to be swamped. But I still remember the dismay and shock I had when, after her appearance on Later… in late 2017, I heard ‘Los Ageless’ on the car radio, and didn’t recognise it till I made out familiar words in the chorus.

Any Other Business: Part LXII

As the title suggests, so forth.

I’m walking out of here with this Spotify list, kid, and getting fortune and glory in return

Spotify these 60 songs for an 80s mood

The Stone Roses – I Wanna Be Adored // Eurhythmics – Thorn in my Side // The Police – Every Breath You Take // Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal // The Clash – Rock the Casbah // Prince – Kiss // Pet Shop Boys – It’s a Sin // Talking Heads – Road to Nowhere // John Adams – The Chairman Dances // REM – Orange Crush // Tears for Fears – Everybody Wants to Rule the World // David Bowie – China Girl // Madonna – Get into the Groove // Violent Femmes – Blister in the Sun // Simple Minds – Don’t You Forget About Me // Eurhythmics – Love is a Stranger // Berlin – Take My Breath Away // Vangelis – Chariots of Fire theme // The Stone Roses – Elephant Stone // The Bangles – Eternal Flame // Tears for Fears – Head Over Heels // Huey Lewis – The Power of Love // Prince – Sign o’ the Times // U2 – With or Without You // Crowded House – Don’t Dream It’s Over // The Smiths – There is a light that never goes out // REM – Fall On Me // The Police – Invisible Sun // Talking Heads – Once in a Lifetime // Alan Silvestri – Back to the Future theme // The Police – Every Little Thing She Does is Magic // Queen – A Kind of Magic // John Williams – ET flying theme // The Smiths – How Soon is Now? // Tears for Fears – Sowing the Seeds of Love // Prince – Raspberry Beret // Madonna – Express Yourself // The Bangles – Manic Monday // Eurhythmics – Sweet Dreams // Talking Heads – Television Man // ABBA – Super Trouper // Duran Duran – A View to a Kill // Motorhead – The Ace of Spades // REM – It’s the End of the World as We Know It // Pixies – Wave of Mutilation // David Bowie – Scary Monsters and Super Creeps // The Smiths – Bigmouth Strikes Again // David Bowie – Absolute Beginners // The Bangles – Walk Like an Egyptian // Talking Heads – Naive Melody (This Must be the Place) // John Williams – Raiders march // Queen – Radio Ga Ga // The Stone Roses – I Am the Resurrection // Pixies – Monkey Gone to Heaven // The Firm – Star Trekkin’ // Madonna – Like a Prayer // Queen – Under Pressure // John Williams – Imperial march // Pixies – Where is My Mind? //Ennio Morricone – Gabriel’s Oboe

E4: undisputed winners of the stupidity in scheduling award 2020

Well then, after the insanity of doubling up on Buffy the Vampire Slayer so as to dash thru the best seasons and then inflict brain damage by dashing thru two of the very worst seasons of network television, and then coming out of hyperspace for season 7 by running Angel, having thus missed out on the continuity of all those irritating crossover episodes that bedevilled two seasons of both shows, now we find E4 propose running thru Buffy from the start again right after reaching the end, from episode 7.22 to episode 1.1 the next night, while Angel continues on its stolid midnight path so that all the crossover episodes will once again miss the Buffy train doing its best impression of the Circle Tube line. Can anyone work out mathematically if this nonsense goes on eternally whether the Buffy/Angel crossover episodes might ever actually just line up by accident?

Any Other Business: Part LIX

As the title suggests, so forth.

A Blacklist Darkly

Well, that was … unexpected. The unintentional season 7 finale of The Black List aired on Sky One last week. And it was half-live action, half-animated. Not at all the expensive rotoscoping over live action of A Scanner Darkly, but clearly that was at the back of someone’s mind as they tried to figure out how to finish the story with the remaining dialogue being phoned in by the actors, and a limited budget to render them and their environments accurately. Leading to such wonderful innovations as little title cards telling us the narrative and emotional import of the facial expressions of the animated characters when there was no time or money to actually make the avatars tell the story that way. One hopes that this approach is not going to catch on…

Golfgate, moral hysteria, and No Deal Brexit

Imagine a world where nobody in the media was allowed to use Twitter or report on Twitter. Imagine a world where government did not respond clumsily and frantically to frenzies whipped up by the tiny fraction of very loud people who use Twitter. In this world the Cork Examiner might still have taken out Dara Calleary, a target that remains highly suspicious, but not Phil Hogan. Instead the Twitter-led moral hysteria brigade have excelled themselves, and Phil Hogan is gone. Now nobody should cry over the end of Phil Hogan’s political career. The man was a boor of long standing and his disastrous quango Irish Water will outlive him. But to go now. For attending a dinner that was perfectly legal. As the Atlantic reported yesterday the rich in America are saving oodles of money because they have nowhere to go right now. If functions which separate people into groups of less than 50 and give them different exits, entrances, and toilets, are to be verboten because somebody might go mental on Twitter – who benefits? The hotels that cease to host such functions and shut down? The staff who cease to work such functions and go home? This is the self-defeating performance of austerity in another guise: where a billionaire decides not to buy a new yacht for fear of it being seen in a poor light, and a number of yacht-builders go on the dole because of the optics. So… less than 6 weeks to go until a deal needs to be ready to present to a top level EU gathering to approve Brexit with an actual trade deal. And the EU has no Trade Commissioner. And whoever comes in, with less than 6 weeks to appoint someone, will be totally clueless as to their brief as opposed to being on top of it from being there all thru the Brexit farrago. Good Job Everyone!!! A satisfying bout of righteous crucifixion during the silly season, and, well, come January, when we will be battling the flu season, the seasonal spike in patients on trolleys in hospitals, a surge in coronavirus as we all stay indoors without any preparation for proper ventilation, and probably another total lockdown we look forward to the final kibosh: 3 weeks of empty shelves, and an eternity of higher prices thereafter, as No Deal Brexit arrives like a tonne of bricks and all our imports from England become hugely expensive, and all our supplies perforce must come thru France at greater uncertainty and therefore a new model of supply chain management involving the resurrection of warehouses which don’t come for free, we can all content ourselves with the knowledge that the Bad Man Was Made Quit and that makes it all okay.

You really mean that this Spotify list is so highly classified you damn people would kill to keep it a government secret?!

Spotify these 60 songs for a 70s mood

Edwin Starr – War // Talking Heads – Life During Wartime // Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear the Reaper // David Bowie – Station to Station // David Shire – The Taking of Pelham 123 theme // Led Zeppelin – Kashmir // Lou Reed – Sweet Jane live // Boston – More Than a Feeling // Iggy Pop – The Passenger // Bob Dylan – One More Cup of Coffee Before I Go // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Who’ll Stop the Rain // The Beatles – Across the Universe // Simon & Garfunkel – Bridge Over Troubled Water // Arvo Part – Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten // The Doors – Hyacinth House // Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue // Blondie – One Way or Another // Roxy Music – Love is the Drug // Talking Heads – Psycho Killer // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Up Around the Bend // The Doors – LA Woman // Lynyrd Skynyrd – Freebird // ABBA – Voulez-Vous // David Bowie – Starman // T-Rex – Children of the Revolution // Kansas – Carry On My Wayward Son // Alice Cooper – School’s Out // Blondie – Heart of Glass // Stevie Wonder – Superstition // The Rolling Stones –Brown Sugar // The Clash – London Calling // Pink Floyd – Us and Them // Led Zeppelin – The Rain Song // Creedence Clearwater Revival – Have You Ever Seen the Rain // Bob Dylan – Shelter from the Storm // John Lennon – Imagine // Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody // The Doors – Love Her Madly // ABBA – S.O.S. // Blondie – Call Me // The Kinks – Lola // The Buzzcocks – Ever Fallen in Love // The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again // John Williams – Jaws theme // David Bowie – Life on Mars // Van Morrison – Moondance // The Band – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down // Lou Reed – Satellite of Love // John Williams – Superman march // David Bowie – D.J. // Gil Scott-Heron – The Revolution Will Not Be Televised // Lou Reed – Walk on the Wild Side // Talking Heads – Memories Can’t Wait // David Shire – All the President’s Men finale // Glen Campbell – Rhinestone Cowboy // ELO – Mr Blue Sky // John Williams – Star Wars march // Led Zeppelin – Stairway to Heaven // The Knack – My Sharona // The Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant // ABBA – Waterloo

From the Archives: Control

From the pre-Talking Movies archives.

Ian Curtis (Sam Riley) becomes the singer for a band he quickly renames Joy Division. The band’s popularity explodes but Curtis becomes suicidal as he develops epilepsy and his marriage to Deborah (Samantha Morton) disintegrates because of his affair with groupie Annik (Alexandra Maria Lara)…

Anton Corbijn’s decision to film in black and white gives Control an unexpected quality. It depicts England in 1973 as almost identical to the society portrayed in the early 1960s kitchen-sink dramas like A Kind of Loving. We see Ian Curtis bored out of his mind in chemistry class in school, doing volunteer social work and, best of all, reciting Wordsworth poems to anyone who’ll listen when not moodily lying on his bed listening to Bowie records. All of which makes Curtis a very relatable figure. But of course this isn’t a kitchen sink drama despite the acute observation of period, at times in the first hour this also feels (to bounce comic book parlance) like we’re watching the Origin Myth of a musical superhero. Interpol are the most prominent of a number of current bands whose sound descends from Joy Division’s trailblazing sound and Curtis’ peculiar vocals in particular. It’s the odd mixture of these two approaches, realistic and mythic, that make the film so individual. A virtuoso long take following Curtis to work (wearing a coat with ‘Hate’ painted on the back) to the strains of Joy Division emphasises the dual life he leads as his normal life is spent working in the Employment Exchange placing people with disabilities into jobs.

His normal life, because of his deep empathy with the people he helps, seems a sight more heroic than his band life especially when he dishonourably succumbs to cliché and cheats on his wife Deborah (Samantha Morton) with Belgian groupie Annik Honore (Alexandra Maria Lara). The life of Joy Division, unlike the portrayal of The Doors by Oliver Stone, is made to seem a lot of fun. The actors warmly flesh out their thinly written roles of nervous guitarist Bernard Sumner and boring drummer Stephen Morris while Joe Anderson, who was so good in last week’s musical release Across the Universe, is wonderful as Hooky the sardonic bass player. Craig Parkinson is an utter joy as the recently deceased Tony Wilson, the flamboyant music mogul who signs Joy Division’s contract with his own blood to prove his dedication while Toby Kebbell hoovers up many of the film’s best lines as their sarky manager Rob Gretton.

Sam Riley channels Ian Curtis with frightening intensity, especially in the thrilling concert scenes. There is though an unsettling resemblance to the similarly motivated Kurt Cobain for the final 30 minutes as Curtis wallows in self-pity, neglects his responsibilities to his infant daughter, and uses his epilepsy as an excuse for suicide. Anton Corbijn deserves high praise for refusing to romanticise the suicide as being some final artistic gesture and for injecting such emotional realism into rock mythology.

4/5

Notes on The Current War

The late 19th Century duelling engineers drama The Current War was the film of the week much earlier today on Sunday Breakfast with Patrick Doyle.

Benedict Cumberbatch adds another name to his roll call of Sherlock Holmes, Alan Turing, and Dominic Cummings, playing another character with poor social graces and a conceited regard for their own high ability. Except that in this instance of course Thomas Edison is wrong. Simply wrong. As Michael Shannon’s George Westinghouse puts it if Edison gets his way and insists on direct current being the standard used then America will become a checkerboard of power plants as Edison constructs one every square mile because he refuses to use the superior system of alternating current. The film doesn’t hold back from how unpleasant Edison was in blackguarding Westinghouse’s AC because he lacked the mind necessary to solve the problem of its high voltage. The man, who once worked for him, possessed of that mind was Nikola Tesla; played here by Nicholas Hoult, and used sparingly, almost as if, like the Nolans with The Prestige, Tesla can only be a minor character in a film because there really is simply too much of the wizard about him.

Listen here:

From the Archives: The Prestige

Hugh Jackman is in the news this week just as I find in the distant past before even the pre-Talking Movies archives a review of one of his best films.

Every magic trick has three acts, every film has three acts, and Christopher Nolan has wittily combined the two by playing a three-card trick on the audience. Set in 1890s London The Prestige follows the professional rivalry and very personal enmity that develops between magicians Borden (Christian Bale) and Angier (Hugh Jackman) after Borden is responsible for the death of Angier’s wife (a tragically underused Piper Perabo) in a magic trick gone badly wrong.

Christian Bale brings his usual intensity to the role but as always so completely inhabits his character that, despite the presence of fellow Batman Begins alumni Michael Caine and Nolan, you will not think of his Dark Knight once as you watch his poor cockney try to upstage the aristocratic Jackman. Jackman is surprisingly good playing an equally driven and fairly unpleasant character while in support Michael Caine is reliably solid and the tragically overused (by which I mean she appears in the film) Scarlett Johansson is reliably pouty. Caine is pitted against Bale’s character, which for film critics with a chronic inability to focus makes some scenes look amusingly like an act-off over who has the best cockney accent. It has to be said on balance that Bale manages to out-Caine Sir Michael Caine himself. David Bowie could really have stirred things up on this front but he performs his cameo role as Niklos Tesla in a restrained Serbian accent.

The extreme lengths the magicians Borden and Angier are willing to go to in order to sabotage each other will make you wince and are genuinely shocking, one image at least should haunt you for weeks. But, as with all Christopher Nolan films, it is the telling of the tale and not the compelling tale itself that makes the film extraordinary. Narrated by both Borden and Angier the film is a Chinese box of narrative tricks. Christopher Nolan and his brother and screenwriting partner Jonathan Nolan are after all responsible for the intricately structured Memento, one of the defining films of the decade, as well as the frighteningly intelligent blockbuster Batman Begins.

M Night Shyamalan’s biggest success had one twist at the end that took people’s breath away. There are at least four twists scattered throughout The Prestige which will make you feel as if you’ve been punched in the stomach so completely do they reorder your understanding of what you’ve already seen. Which makes it damnably hard to write about without ruining the joy of its structure. When this film ends you will feel cheated. In a way that’s part of the trick. The real fun comes over the next day and a half when you realise ‘oh that’s what that scene meant’ and ‘so that’s why he said that’. While you’re waiting for The Dark Knight go see The Prestige and be the victim of masterful cinematic sleight-of-hand.

4/5

At least we still have… : Part II

The second entry in an occasional series in which I try to cheer myself up by remembering what still exists in the world and cannot ever be taken capriciously away.

Why, there’s Dom and Nic’s trippy video for the Chemical Brothers’ ‘Setting Sun’, prominently featuring the vocals of Noel Gallagher. The autumn of 1996 in a bottle. I still don’t really do dance music, but this was the first single I ever bought (and on tape!). It had the power to move me to cross the dug-in trenches of genre. It seems odd I never knew they were directing so many key videos; ‘Hey Boy, Hey Girl’, ‘Ava Adore’, ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’, ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’, ‘D’You Know What I Mean’; but it seems odd now that MTV played them!

And then there’s the immortal Snoopy Dance. Some weeks ago a younger co-worker did an end of shift dance which I thought was like the Snoopy Dance. She was highly offended by this, which was puzzling. When she did it again later I used her term, the end of shift dance, only for her to call it the ‘Stupid Dance’. Ah! Sorting out this mishearing involved grabbing a co-worker closer to my age who knew what the Snoopy Dance was and instantly pulled up on his big-screen laptop the above clip to showcase the glory of Charles Schulz’ creation. On seeing it there was a pause, and then an admission that that was kind of like her dance alright… On reflection the end of shift dance is probably closer to Jenny Lindberg’s dance in Warpaint’s ‘Disco//Very’ but that’s another post.

Wes Anderson @ the Lighthouse

Wes Anderson has a new movie arriving soon, so the Lighthouse will spend the month of March presenting a full retrospective, finishing with a massive Wes Anderson party on opening night of Isle of Dogs on 30^th March.

Tickets : https://lighthousecinema.ie/EVENTS/fantastic-mr-anderson

Bottle Rocket

March 5^th 3pm & 8.45pm

Based on his short black & white film of the same name, Bottle Rocket was the world’s first introduction to the colourful world of Wes Anderson and his frequent collaborators the Brothers Wilson. Bottle Rocket is a crime caper and a road movie about three friends who embark on a (mis)adventure in the world of crime, with James Caan playing what we would now recognise as the Bill Murray role.

 

Rushmore

March 9^th 10.45pm

March 10^th 3pm

The film that got Wes Anderson noticed internationally, Rushmore follows Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman), a student obsessed with his school, Rushmore Academy, but less for its academia than for extracurricular events. Rushmore features the first of many superb supporting performance for Anderson from Bill Murray. Here he is a wealthy industrialist who becomes a friend and love rival to Max for the affections of teacher Miss Cross (Olivia Williams). Anderson’s aesthetic started to develop its mature style in this icon of 90s indie cinema.

 

The Royal Tenenbaums 35mm

March 13^th 3pm & 8.30pm

March 16^th 10.45pm

March 18^th 3pm

Arguably Anderson’s masterpiece, The Royal Tenenbaums is an elegantly told story about a family of child geniuses who grow up to be, in their own ways, disappointing. It earned Anderson the first of his three Oscar nominations for best original screenplay, although more than a few reviewers thought JD Salinger’s stories of the Family Glass were an inspiration. Anderson’s trademark camerawork; all whip-pans and tracking shots; stylised production design, and autumnal colour palette do not swamp the deeply flawed characters brought to life by an ensemble cast led by a combative Gene Hackman.

 

The Darjeeling Limited 35mm

March 14^th 3pm & 8.30pm

March 17^th 3pm

Anderson made a notable comeback after The Life Aquatic‘s treading water with The Darjeeling Limited. The film follows three American brothers (Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody) as they try to reconnect with each other on an epic train journey through India. Darjeeling is a gorgeous film, making use of an extensive colour palette based on the Indian setting, and where could Anderson’s propensity for elaborate tracking shots find a better home than the carriages of a train. More impressive was the emotional maturity in tackling weighty themes of grief, abandonment, and romantic and filial resentment.

 

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

March 21^st 3pm & 8.30pm

March 23^rd 10.45pm

4 films in and Wes Anderson experienced the cinematic equivalent of difficult 2nd album syndrome. Expectations were high for the adventures of a rag-tag bunch of seafarers led by Bill Murray. But, despite a soundtrack that uses Bowie innovatively, and some wonderful comedy from Willem Dafoe, this ramshackle Moby Dick; Zissou aims to track down and exact revenge upon a mythical shark who killed Zissou’s partner; is to Wes Anderson’s oeuvre as Dune is to David Lynch.

 

Moonrise Kingdom

March 24^th 3.30pm

March 28^th 3pm & 8.45pm

Anderson’s films have all had a certain nostalgia for a past that never actually happened outside the pages of the New Yorker. And Bob Balaban’s fantastical narrator here brings us a tale of young love set to the music of Benjamin Britten on a New England island in 1969 just before a major storm is about to hit, the least of the forces of law and order’s worries as they attempt to apprehend two runaway underage teenagers with amorous intent. Moonrise Kingdom features a wonderful turn by Ed Norton and a devastating existential riddle on the goodness of dogs.

 

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Prosecco and Patisserie

March 24^th 12.00pm event, 1pm film

Andrew Marr quoted a joke that if you put a few Viennese people together for long enough they will do two things: found a University, and start a patisserie. The Lighthouse are thus appropriately hosting a very special “prosecco and patisserie” afternoon screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel on Saturday 24th March. Your ticket will include a glass of prosecco or a Grand Budapest-themed cocktail, along with beautiful patisserie treats inspired by the film, and a ticket to a screening of The Grand Budapest Hotel at 1pm.

 

Fantastic Mr Fox

March 25^th 3pm

Behold Anderson’s first foray into the world of stop-motion animation. Based on Roald Dahl’s short novel about a fox whose main thrill in life is baiting three farmers who live nearby, Anderson injects more of himself into the story than one would have thought possible. George Clooney voices Mr Fox, who, despite his love for his wife and teenage son, can’t quite bring himself to move on from his glory days of chicken-killing and settle into domestic life. There is a tremendous tracking shot to the strains of the Beach Boys as well as a peerless critique of songwriting by Michael Gambon’s antagonist.

 

The Grand Budapest Hotel

March 29^th 3pm & 8.30pm

Anderson’s most recent film The Grand Budapest Hotel is a curio: it tells the story of an old writer remembering when he was a young writer who met an old man who told him a story about when he was a young man and knew the hero of this film, Ralph Fiennes’s M. Gustave. An uneven tale, Anderson showcases an unexpected flair for sinister suspense, but there is a sourness to the comedy that is unexpected, and not really a showcase as promised for the world of Stefan Zweig.

Wes Anderson Party + Isle of Dogs

29th March Party – 9pm, Isle of Dogs Screening – 00.00am

The Lighthouse will be hosting a Wes Anderson Fancy Dress Party on 29th March. Don’t miss your chance to share a cocktail with fellow fans and walk amongst a plethora of Tenenbaums, Zissous, Lobby Boys (and girls!), and maybe even some fantastic Mr Foxes, topped off at midnight with the first chance to see his new film, Isle of Dogs, Anderson’s second foray into stop-motion animation with an all-star voice cast on hand to bring to life a boy’s quest to find his lost dog on a polluted Japanese island.

 

***Season artwork at the Lighthouse is by Steve McCarthy is a Dublin based designer and illustrator. His style is bold, colourful, and a mix of practical and digital techniques that he describes as feeling most comfortable somewhere between the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and Dumbo’s pink elephants. In 2016 he won best illustration at the Irish design awards, and in 2017 his second children’s book ‘A Sailor went to sea’ won the Bord Gais children’s book of the year. He also worked as a background designer for the Oscar-nominated animated feature Song of the Sea.

Demolition

Director Jean-Marc Vallee returns with a considerably less ‘prestige’ tale of mental disintegration and rejuvenation than his previous film Wild.

Davis (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a jaded investment banker so inattentive he hasn’t noticed his refrigerator leaking for 2 weeks. His wife Julia (Heather Lind) is reminding him anew just before a fatal car-crash. Work is no escape from his grief because he works for his disapproving father-in-law Phil (Chris Cooper), and also he doesn’t really have any grief. A confession Davis makes in a series of over-sharing letters tangentially seeking a refund from a hospital vending machine. The letters touch stoner customer services rep Karen (Naomi Watts), and soon Davis is hanging out with her and mentoring her troubled teenage son Chris (Judah Lewis). This does not impress Karen’s boyfriend Carl (CJ Wilson). Phil and Margot (Polly Draper) are even less impressed, especially as Davis disdains their plan for a scholarship in Julia’s name; being busy demolishing Julia’s open-plan house.

Bryan Sipe’s script appeared on the 2007 Blacklist of unproduced gems, but it feels like a script that should have doing the rounds in the late 1990s. There are similarities with Fight Club, American Beauty, and, as Joe Griffin pointed out to me, Falling Down. Jay M Glen, editing his first movie, offers some terrific disjunctive cuts but this does not have Fight Club’s bravura nihilism despite Davis’ enthusiastic destruction of all the consumer comforts of his oh-so-modern abode. Instead, with Yves Belanger lighting his third straight film for Vallee and casting a warm sheen over everything, it’s more akin to American Beauty’s concern with the beauty of the quotidian. The slight note of Camus’ L’Etranger in Davis pointedly not crying at his wife’s funeral deceives; this is as philosophically facile as American Beauty’s plastic bag flapping in the wind.

So thank heavens there is another film in Demolition’s DNA: Vallee’s own towering C.R.A.Z.Y. Davis, in preferring to pay contractor Jimmy (Wass Stevens) to allow him destroy condemned properties than engage with Julia’s scholarship recipient Todd (Brendan Dooling), is quite obviously dynamiting his career and life, but Vallee’s skilful use of music magicks this nervous breakdown into a spiritual awakening. And even more importantly the ‘rejuvenation’ of a bored career man by a disaffected teenager would be a tired retread (not just American Beauty but Meet Bill) were it not for Judah Lewis. Lewis, in some shots reminiscent of the young Tina Majorino, gives a star-making performance as the Bowie-adoring androgynous teenager who bonds with Davis. There are notes of Edward Furlong’s John Connor in his bravado, but the notes of vulnerability sing, and Gyllenhaal matches them with nuanced despair.

Demolition is a good, engaging film that you keep hoping will find a higher gear but when it never does its obvious good nature predisposes you to liking it more than it arguably deserves.

3.5/5

Sing Street

Writer/director John Carney builds on his American debut Begin Again’s success with another funny can-do tale of musical swashbuckling, this time set in 1980s Dublin.

Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) is a rich kid whose cosy private school adolescence comes to a crashing halt when parents Robert (Aidan Gillen) and Penny (Maria Doyle Kennedy) announce an austerity drive. A fish hopelessly out of water at Synge Street CBS he is viciously bullied, but after being befriended by entrepreneurial fixer Darren (Ben Carolan) he meets aspiring model Raphina (Lucy Boynton) and ascends the pecking order at school after forming a band to impress her. Older brother Brendan (Jack Reynor) provides sardonic mentoring while multi-instrumentalist Eamon (Mark McKenna) provides the musical foundations over which Conor, soon renamed Cosmo, lays lyrics about Raphina. Cosmo increasingly clashes with school Principal Brother Baxter (Don Wycherley) as the band ‘Sing Street’ become increasingly disruptive in their appearance and attitude. But will Conor’s increasingly ambitious efforts be enough to stop Raphina emigrating to London?

“But is there a difference between liking a thing and thinking it good?” – Brideshead Revisited

Bridey’s question is extremely pertinent for Carney’s movie. The original music is great, especially the band’s first song ‘The Riddle of the Model’. Carney’s script is very funny, and Reynor is on terrific form as the stoner older brother. But this feels like a backward step from Begin Again on a number of fronts. Reynor’s character is almost a mash-up of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Zooey Deschanel’s roles in Almost Famous, and, though Sing Street captures elements of the period perfectly; school exercise books, constant smoking; there is also an air of total fantasy (doubly odd in a film which so obviously wants praise for its grittiness) which has Brendan as its focal point. He’s almost a time-traveller from 2015 landed in 1985 in the social critique he lays on his parents’ marriage and the Christian Brothers’ ethos. His dismissal of Genesis makes a nonsense of his affection for Duran Duran, and then you realise his taste is temporally inconsistent. Brendan ought to be agonising over whether Bowie, Springsteen and The Clash have sold out on their latest albums, and avidly listening to The Smiths and REM, not watching Top of the Pops. And then there’s U2… Never mentioned, never listened to, in 1985 Dublin.

Raphina never convinces as a real person, she is merely an object of desire, and the film has so little interest in Conor and Brendan’s sister; especially her reaction to their parents’ separation; that you wonder why she’s there at all. But while the female characters fare poorly, compared to Conor and Brendan, they’re not alone. Ngig (Percy Chamburuka) is also sidelined, and Larry (Conor Hamilton) and Garry (Karl Rice) are interchangeable comic relief. Sing Street’s set-up recalls The Inbetweeners but pretty boy Cosmo, living in a three storey house, is not likeable. He humiliates the school bully; fully aware said bully is a victim of abuse; and aggravatingly ‘rebels’ against Brother Baxter; who has to contend with regular students’ violent behaviour without Cosmo’s New Romantics nonsense; with Carney stacking the deck by creating an uncomfortable unfounded expectation of molestation.

Sing Street is an entertaining film made with much confidence, but that doesn’t excuse its many puzzling artistic choices and the most ridiculous ‘upbeat’ ending since The Way Back.

3.5/5