After the dark depths of making the new record, Biffy Clyro look like they're heading for superstardom.
New double album Opposites had a problematic manufacturing process, as miscarraiges and alcoholism made life pretty depressing for camp Biffy - it almost drove them to a break-up. But after making it through that, they've done the full Shawshank Redemption and come out the sewer pipe smelling of roses.
A number one album and a UK arena tour that includes a sell-out night at the O2 in London are exceptional statuses for any of band, and the big league could well beckon if they play their cards right at this summer's Reading Festival headline slot.
Night two of their arena trip brings them to a shiny pink shed on the outskirts of Birmingham. Here is the test - to see if they can get an arena of over 11,000 shivering Brummies on their feet.
The show begun well-restrained, with just Simon Neil in front of a white curtain as the church organ intro of Different People reverberated around the room. Through the curtain the band's stage show began to glow through it until the curtain revealed the band and the huge skeleton tree looming large. This was a mightily impressive feature, with one similarly impressive touch being the sheer number of people with high-vis jackets, hard hates and drills taking it down after the show ended.
A rowdy crowd lapped it up, and then went into overdrive as the pummelling sensory assault of That Golden Rule almost blew the roof off the venue. Not bad for the 2nd song.
The song was also the only old song in the first six, with all the others coming off new double record Opposites. Not that the crowd seemed to care too much. Crowds can often be tempermental with new stuff but this crowd lapped up a smooth trio of heavy rockers and was also appreciative towards the title track - the evening's first slower song.
Predictably a rather rowdy crowd went truly epic for the hits. A one-two of Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies and Bubbles sent the standing section into a mood beyond overdrive. It helped the performances were similarly well done.
The band piled in songs, with new ones sharing time with old fan favourites like A Day Of... and There's No Such Thing As A Jaggy Snake. More remarkable was the lack of a drop in quality, with the band sustaining a well oiled groove.
There was a brief period to chill too, with The Thaw accompanied by a blizzard visual that ironically predicted the weather forecast we were greeted with upon leaving the venue. This was sandwiched by solo performances of God & Satan and Machines, which both allowed the crowd to sing.
A final run through of all sort of music concluded the main set, with a euphoric Picture A Knife Fight and a well run rendition of The Captain closing things out. This preceded a well worked triple song encore, which ended the show.
This was a great show in every sense. There was a spectacular show that didn't provide an hold to a spontaneous show, while hits and fan favourites. The whole venue was able to slink off into the cold at the end of the gig sufficiently warmed by such a wonderful occasion.
4.5/5
Also in tow at the venue was City and Colour, which is the recording alias of Canadian singer/songwriter Dallas Green. They provided a 45 minute set of chilled out music which was reasonable, if a little bit forgettable. However the crowd was reasonably receptive and considering they'd just flown over from the USA they did well enough.
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Monday, 18 March 2013
Referees, Referees, Referees
The referee in football is undoubtedly the main figure who get a kicking.
Games of high incident that involve controversial moments often result in mass scrutiny of the ref, hence why any ref will have other refs to analyse his performance in ridiculous detail.
Logic dictates refs should have more to help them make difficult calls, but with goal line technology still causing lots of debate the likelihood of it being applied pitch-wide is even more remote. It is also unhelpful if linesmen do not provide aid.
There is often complaints that the standard of refereeing is plummeting. But weekends like the one just gone do not help their cause at all.
The headline decision was the antics of Mark Halsey, who was referee during Sunday's Wigan vs Newcastle game. The big talking point came after a horrendous tackle from Wigan winger Callum McManaman left Newcastle full back Massadio Haidara requiring a stretcher and extra medical attention. At the time, the Wigan winger escaped with the eventual Newcastle free-kick having been awarded for handball by the same player.
The referee can fairly claim that his view was blocked by a retreating Newcatle player but there is no excuse for the assistant linesman, who had an almost head-on view of the incident and completley ignored it.
Toon fans have been here before, with Kyle Walker, Sebastian Larsson and Antonio Valencia all getting away with awful tackles this season and the headline example from 2010 when Nigel de Jong got away with a rotten tackle that almost forced Hatem Ben Arfa into retirement.
Of course opposition fans can mock given that Cheick Tiote and Yohan Cabaye have reputations of their own for such challenges, plus an extremely idiotic Kevin Nolan challenge that led to Victor Anichebe - the recipient - sueing him.
Such a challenge can happen with any team and had the reverse happened few Newcastle fans could have complained if Haidara had been red carded, like Nolan was in 2009 and like Everton's Mirallas should have been for a poor tackle on Ryo Myiachi during the Everton-Wigan Cup game the week before. But all of this is beside the point - it happened here with these players and you would duly expect a red card.
But from the moment McManaman got away with it the game was immediately changed. No red card would have meant no half-time scuffle involving Newcastle assistant manager John Carver, a Wigan academy coach, several stewards and the last players to leave the pitch before half-time. It also would likely have meant Wigan would not have had the bodies to throw forward for a last minute winner that should have been chalked off anyway for a ridiculous handball.
If it had just been this game, the Referee Association could be purely concerned with what went on here and move on but aside from the long running threads of ineptitude all season long it was a pretty awful weekend all round for them.
Trouble began in the Saturday afternoon game between Everton and Manchester City, where Lee Probert got a number of decisions incorrect. Early on saw Everton get a goal incorrectly ruled out for an offside. While one player had been off, Marouane Fellaini was not when he received the ball moments before he fired it beyond Joe Hart.
Everton also had a valid penalty shout for a foul by Nastasic on Fellaini, and also felt aggrieved an unusually scrappy performance from James Milner did not receive the second yellow card some meaty challenges deserved.
But the most baffling decision came the other way when Fellaini handled five yards inside the box and Probert, somehow, awarded a free-kick outside the box. This decision defied logic, comprehension and general eyesight.
Sunderland-Norwich was the other game where the referee's decision making was integral to match reporting. This begun when away goalkeeper Mark Bunn was ruled to have handled the ball outside the box and duly earned a red card.
This is debatable because of the angle it hit the away keeper, and TV angles do not show it clearly hitting either his chest or his elbow. Based on this doubt, you can't be sure as to send the man off.
Already aggreived by this, Norwich then complained more with handballs at both ends. The first came when Sebastien Bassong's attempt to control the ball with his chest saw the ball hit his arm, and the second when Danny Rose was ruled to have punched the ball outside the box when he was about three or four yards in.
The bigger howler is the Rose one. Although not as clear as Fellaini's handball, it was definitley inside the box and it should have been a penalty to Norwich rather than a free-kick. However the penalty was one - it was unfortunate but it was a spot-kick for the hosts.
Norwich also could arguably have had Grant Holt sent off for a forceful dive into home goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, which was punished with a yellow. Had Bunn not earlier been ejected or had Mignolet been seriously injured then he might well have been.
Fans are always happy and ready to moan about the performance of the referee but moreso than usual, referees have become painted as incompetent figures who can't control football. There was wall-to-wall condemnation of the Turkish referee who sent off Nani during the Manchester United-Real Madrid Champions League tie for what was at worst just a foul.
Naturally, things spiral out of control when such poor decision making is abound. It is ridiculous to say Bunn and Nani's offences were more than McManaman's tackle.
All season long there have been repeated howlers that have screwed things up, and it has been a lot more noticeable than in previous seasons. Ironically, the chief gripe of previous years - the goalline technology debate - has not been wheeled out as much as in previous seasons.
Other sports seem to have grasped better disciplinary concepts to control things when they go wrong. They also seem to have more control on referees when they go wrong. But in football whole games still revolve on the judgement on referees and when they get it wrong, games are distorted beyond recognition.
The FA's disciplinary proceedings are also remarkably poor. They leave referees out to dry, but also by protecting them accept their mistakes as genuine passages, which helps nobody either. It's all a mess that needs reform or else it leaves further trouble a guarantee.
At some point there will be an incident that leads to the whole house of cards caving in. But until then this structure will remain.
More needs to be done to stop what is arguably one of football's hardest jobs becoming not so much harder as impossible. Instead, referee standards are decreasing at an alarming rate, and refereeing howlers are becoming a weekly fiasco. Unfortunately, it seems a few more tackles like McManaman's will pass before something's done about it.
Games of high incident that involve controversial moments often result in mass scrutiny of the ref, hence why any ref will have other refs to analyse his performance in ridiculous detail.
Logic dictates refs should have more to help them make difficult calls, but with goal line technology still causing lots of debate the likelihood of it being applied pitch-wide is even more remote. It is also unhelpful if linesmen do not provide aid.
There is often complaints that the standard of refereeing is plummeting. But weekends like the one just gone do not help their cause at all.
The headline decision was the antics of Mark Halsey, who was referee during Sunday's Wigan vs Newcastle game. The big talking point came after a horrendous tackle from Wigan winger Callum McManaman left Newcastle full back Massadio Haidara requiring a stretcher and extra medical attention. At the time, the Wigan winger escaped with the eventual Newcastle free-kick having been awarded for handball by the same player.
The referee can fairly claim that his view was blocked by a retreating Newcatle player but there is no excuse for the assistant linesman, who had an almost head-on view of the incident and completley ignored it.
Toon fans have been here before, with Kyle Walker, Sebastian Larsson and Antonio Valencia all getting away with awful tackles this season and the headline example from 2010 when Nigel de Jong got away with a rotten tackle that almost forced Hatem Ben Arfa into retirement.
Of course opposition fans can mock given that Cheick Tiote and Yohan Cabaye have reputations of their own for such challenges, plus an extremely idiotic Kevin Nolan challenge that led to Victor Anichebe - the recipient - sueing him.
Such a challenge can happen with any team and had the reverse happened few Newcastle fans could have complained if Haidara had been red carded, like Nolan was in 2009 and like Everton's Mirallas should have been for a poor tackle on Ryo Myiachi during the Everton-Wigan Cup game the week before. But all of this is beside the point - it happened here with these players and you would duly expect a red card.
But from the moment McManaman got away with it the game was immediately changed. No red card would have meant no half-time scuffle involving Newcastle assistant manager John Carver, a Wigan academy coach, several stewards and the last players to leave the pitch before half-time. It also would likely have meant Wigan would not have had the bodies to throw forward for a last minute winner that should have been chalked off anyway for a ridiculous handball.
If it had just been this game, the Referee Association could be purely concerned with what went on here and move on but aside from the long running threads of ineptitude all season long it was a pretty awful weekend all round for them.
Trouble began in the Saturday afternoon game between Everton and Manchester City, where Lee Probert got a number of decisions incorrect. Early on saw Everton get a goal incorrectly ruled out for an offside. While one player had been off, Marouane Fellaini was not when he received the ball moments before he fired it beyond Joe Hart.
Everton also had a valid penalty shout for a foul by Nastasic on Fellaini, and also felt aggrieved an unusually scrappy performance from James Milner did not receive the second yellow card some meaty challenges deserved.
But the most baffling decision came the other way when Fellaini handled five yards inside the box and Probert, somehow, awarded a free-kick outside the box. This decision defied logic, comprehension and general eyesight.
Sunderland-Norwich was the other game where the referee's decision making was integral to match reporting. This begun when away goalkeeper Mark Bunn was ruled to have handled the ball outside the box and duly earned a red card.
This is debatable because of the angle it hit the away keeper, and TV angles do not show it clearly hitting either his chest or his elbow. Based on this doubt, you can't be sure as to send the man off.
Already aggreived by this, Norwich then complained more with handballs at both ends. The first came when Sebastien Bassong's attempt to control the ball with his chest saw the ball hit his arm, and the second when Danny Rose was ruled to have punched the ball outside the box when he was about three or four yards in.
The bigger howler is the Rose one. Although not as clear as Fellaini's handball, it was definitley inside the box and it should have been a penalty to Norwich rather than a free-kick. However the penalty was one - it was unfortunate but it was a spot-kick for the hosts.
Norwich also could arguably have had Grant Holt sent off for a forceful dive into home goalkeeper Simon Mignolet, which was punished with a yellow. Had Bunn not earlier been ejected or had Mignolet been seriously injured then he might well have been.
Fans are always happy and ready to moan about the performance of the referee but moreso than usual, referees have become painted as incompetent figures who can't control football. There was wall-to-wall condemnation of the Turkish referee who sent off Nani during the Manchester United-Real Madrid Champions League tie for what was at worst just a foul.
Naturally, things spiral out of control when such poor decision making is abound. It is ridiculous to say Bunn and Nani's offences were more than McManaman's tackle.
All season long there have been repeated howlers that have screwed things up, and it has been a lot more noticeable than in previous seasons. Ironically, the chief gripe of previous years - the goalline technology debate - has not been wheeled out as much as in previous seasons.
Other sports seem to have grasped better disciplinary concepts to control things when they go wrong. They also seem to have more control on referees when they go wrong. But in football whole games still revolve on the judgement on referees and when they get it wrong, games are distorted beyond recognition.
The FA's disciplinary proceedings are also remarkably poor. They leave referees out to dry, but also by protecting them accept their mistakes as genuine passages, which helps nobody either. It's all a mess that needs reform or else it leaves further trouble a guarantee.
At some point there will be an incident that leads to the whole house of cards caving in. But until then this structure will remain.
More needs to be done to stop what is arguably one of football's hardest jobs becoming not so much harder as impossible. Instead, referee standards are decreasing at an alarming rate, and refereeing howlers are becoming a weekly fiasco. Unfortunately, it seems a few more tackles like McManaman's will pass before something's done about it.
Monday, 11 March 2013
The Repetitive Case Of Justin Bieber
When you want to avoid certain items in the news they seem to jump out even more.
Modern news is particularly notorious at creating firestorms of publicity. Whenever a story is big and the editors think it might get them attention they duly create some more leads on it. It also helps when the story gives them further cause to do so.
The case of everyone's favourite pop prat Justin Bieber can, at first glance, be filed under one favourite story - the stalking of gossip celebs as they implode. This was its worst when Britney Spears had an almost complete breakdown and everyone followed her with cameras, if not quite to the extent to the episode of South Park where she's actively hunted by paps to help the harvest.
His attention is amplified by his fanbase, who regularly pollute Twitter with vapid meaningless nonsense. All pop music fanbases have segments that act like cult worship, but the sheer numbers means other fanbases.
Until last Sunday, Bieber was enjoying a fairly straight forward tour on these shores. His fans were going home from arenas up and down the land happy, reviews were reasonable and it was all going incident free as he prepared for his birthday. Then, as the news and Twitter have been at pains to discuss, it all imploded from there.
In case you don't know what happened next, he then got turned away from a posh London nightclub for trying to bring in his 14 year old friends, turned up somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours late to his first show at the O2 Arena, fainted on stage during the 3rd night, got accused of faking fainting on stage and then got caught swearing at paps outside his hotel while dressed like an idiot.
He was due to appear on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway on Saturday but pulled out, choosing instead to mope round Harrod's about how he's never gonna return to our country. This has been predictably met with Twitter reaction, albeit more of the good riddance variety.
Sadly for them their hopes of a Bieber no-show have gone unheeded as it appears he will return to our country. He also denied rumours he skipped out on the TV appearance but at this rate it's all unknown how much of this is true and false, as it always is in matters like this.
Far from being content to have a nightmare jaunt on our shores he's continued apace in Europe, preferring to spend time in Amsterdam than actually preparing for two concerts in Lisbon, and then duly cancelling one due to 'unforseen circumstances' - those circumstancs presumably being no one bought any tickets.
It does feel like we've heard this song before, a bit like with Bieber's music. There are stroppy sides to pop stars and to teenagers, of which Bieber fits in both categories.
It's unverified if he was being a diva but it would make sense given that pop stars are known for sulking when their outrageous demands aren't met, and teenagers are also privy to doing that same thing.
Pop stars are always in that situation of being love-or-hate figures that seem to struggle with success. They may well have money to burn and the adoration of millions but it can be a solitary lifestyle, not least the shallow nature of people who want you for the celebrity rather than the real person.
Obviously we all think pop stardom is a pretty sweet life, then duly watch the whole artifice collapse. Michael Jackson, an idol to billions, was the case in point as he changed beyond all recognition from being a teen star into a drug-induced plastic shell. It's cliche that pop stars go from fresh-faced cherub to posturing drug-addicted arses that the gossip pages attempt to stalk to the grave. But of course, if you sell 35 million records, you're bound to get attention.
Being famous is a strange case and it can fuck with your head. Certainly, being loaded skews your viewpoint on the world - hence trying to bring underage kids into nightclubs. It also doesn't help when there's a horde of paparazzi photographers, agents, minders, helpers and fans all following your every move like a real life TV show, and making sure that the show continuously moves on the road.
Bieber's annoying fanbase are also not helpful by constantly demanding more from their idol. This in turns means he gives them more, and in turn means more is wanted, leading to stalking for more information.
It's a long from the mystique of when idols like Jagger and Bowie were secretly (and not-so-secretly) on the drug wagon. It also means all melodramatic instances are playing out in public, leading to public meltdowns like last week.
Of course it could all be an act to drive publicity. I've never met Justin Bieber and for all the posturing and terrible music he's probably a reasonable chap underneath, even if some of his antics are the kind of acts a dick might get up to.
But the fact is the Bieber industry is supermassive. He's worth £35million, he and his label employs many people to ensure he puts on a live show his fans can scream themselves into disorientation at and he's one of the biggest names in pop. He's basically the key cog, sort of like Coca-Cola are in the fizzy pop business.
Being the big name also attracts attention. It's why there were 1430586 articles on him in the wake of his late show at the O2 arena, all examining his mindest, interview his fans, asking questions of his company, speculating on why he's done so. Anyone apathetic to the whole situation or not keen on his dull musical stylings is obviously not going to be as arsed to discuss a topic that seems to range from being exhausted to having an avalance of press.
With that sort of pressure its probably a wonder he hasn't gone on a bender like this sooner. Where he goes from here, bar fighting paps in bars at 3am, is anyone's guess.
Modern news is particularly notorious at creating firestorms of publicity. Whenever a story is big and the editors think it might get them attention they duly create some more leads on it. It also helps when the story gives them further cause to do so.
The case of everyone's favourite pop prat Justin Bieber can, at first glance, be filed under one favourite story - the stalking of gossip celebs as they implode. This was its worst when Britney Spears had an almost complete breakdown and everyone followed her with cameras, if not quite to the extent to the episode of South Park where she's actively hunted by paps to help the harvest.
His attention is amplified by his fanbase, who regularly pollute Twitter with vapid meaningless nonsense. All pop music fanbases have segments that act like cult worship, but the sheer numbers means other fanbases.
Until last Sunday, Bieber was enjoying a fairly straight forward tour on these shores. His fans were going home from arenas up and down the land happy, reviews were reasonable and it was all going incident free as he prepared for his birthday. Then, as the news and Twitter have been at pains to discuss, it all imploded from there.
In case you don't know what happened next, he then got turned away from a posh London nightclub for trying to bring in his 14 year old friends, turned up somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours late to his first show at the O2 Arena, fainted on stage during the 3rd night, got accused of faking fainting on stage and then got caught swearing at paps outside his hotel while dressed like an idiot.
He was due to appear on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway on Saturday but pulled out, choosing instead to mope round Harrod's about how he's never gonna return to our country. This has been predictably met with Twitter reaction, albeit more of the good riddance variety.
Sadly for them their hopes of a Bieber no-show have gone unheeded as it appears he will return to our country. He also denied rumours he skipped out on the TV appearance but at this rate it's all unknown how much of this is true and false, as it always is in matters like this.
Far from being content to have a nightmare jaunt on our shores he's continued apace in Europe, preferring to spend time in Amsterdam than actually preparing for two concerts in Lisbon, and then duly cancelling one due to 'unforseen circumstances' - those circumstancs presumably being no one bought any tickets.
It does feel like we've heard this song before, a bit like with Bieber's music. There are stroppy sides to pop stars and to teenagers, of which Bieber fits in both categories.
It's unverified if he was being a diva but it would make sense given that pop stars are known for sulking when their outrageous demands aren't met, and teenagers are also privy to doing that same thing.
Pop stars are always in that situation of being love-or-hate figures that seem to struggle with success. They may well have money to burn and the adoration of millions but it can be a solitary lifestyle, not least the shallow nature of people who want you for the celebrity rather than the real person.
Obviously we all think pop stardom is a pretty sweet life, then duly watch the whole artifice collapse. Michael Jackson, an idol to billions, was the case in point as he changed beyond all recognition from being a teen star into a drug-induced plastic shell. It's cliche that pop stars go from fresh-faced cherub to posturing drug-addicted arses that the gossip pages attempt to stalk to the grave. But of course, if you sell 35 million records, you're bound to get attention.
Being famous is a strange case and it can fuck with your head. Certainly, being loaded skews your viewpoint on the world - hence trying to bring underage kids into nightclubs. It also doesn't help when there's a horde of paparazzi photographers, agents, minders, helpers and fans all following your every move like a real life TV show, and making sure that the show continuously moves on the road.
Bieber's annoying fanbase are also not helpful by constantly demanding more from their idol. This in turns means he gives them more, and in turn means more is wanted, leading to stalking for more information.
It's a long from the mystique of when idols like Jagger and Bowie were secretly (and not-so-secretly) on the drug wagon. It also means all melodramatic instances are playing out in public, leading to public meltdowns like last week.
Of course it could all be an act to drive publicity. I've never met Justin Bieber and for all the posturing and terrible music he's probably a reasonable chap underneath, even if some of his antics are the kind of acts a dick might get up to.
But the fact is the Bieber industry is supermassive. He's worth £35million, he and his label employs many people to ensure he puts on a live show his fans can scream themselves into disorientation at and he's one of the biggest names in pop. He's basically the key cog, sort of like Coca-Cola are in the fizzy pop business.
Being the big name also attracts attention. It's why there were 1430586 articles on him in the wake of his late show at the O2 arena, all examining his mindest, interview his fans, asking questions of his company, speculating on why he's done so. Anyone apathetic to the whole situation or not keen on his dull musical stylings is obviously not going to be as arsed to discuss a topic that seems to range from being exhausted to having an avalance of press.
With that sort of pressure its probably a wonder he hasn't gone on a bender like this sooner. Where he goes from here, bar fighting paps in bars at 3am, is anyone's guess.
Monday, 25 February 2013
Black Mirror - Season 2 Episode 3 Review
*CAUTION: The following review contains plot spoilers for this episode of Black
Mirror. If you have not yet seen it and wish to do so, then proceed with
caution*
Politics is a cruel, frustrating and often confusing world that often passes us by.
It is an interesting world from the outside looking in at how these people really do control what goes on and how much they can mould the world the way want to. It is even more fascinating and extremely worrying how little a largely apathetic public knows or cares about what they get up to, and how little politicians seem to care about getting them back on side.
Voters are becoming more cynical. A lot of news nowadays seems to be being gathered through the buzz around the news, and how it is also being diluted into immediate opinions, jokes, and how it affects us. Politics is ignored in a way like never before, especially by the younger generation who have been turned off by a largely homogenised blend of politicians who look the same and have similar policies.
Or to amend the words of Waldo the animated blue bear, none of us know what these people are for anymore.
Having tackled the dead and the criminals, Black Mirror moves onto a scene Charlie Brooker is more renowned for sinking his claws into - that of politics. The scene is going to be a lot different because politics is an easier subject that is less likely to cause depression as much as the other two.
It's a lighter subject because we are more used to politicians as figures to be mocked as much as figures to be respected, and ironically satirists are one of the targets for this one.
The show is centered around Jamie (Daniel Rigby), a struggling comedian. He works for a late night news comedy, providing the voice and the central animation for an animated blue bear who takes the piss out of politicians. Early on we see how keen he is on his role - not very. This mood is certainly not helped as the main host of the show keeps nicking the main zingers for his monologue.
Despite this he is the show's most popular character. With his normal show taking a break, and everyone wanting more and more of him, he's duly handed his own show. Figuring out how to do a pilot, his producer sends him to try to run for an MP.
Jamie is reluctant, feeling he knows too little about politics to attempt this. It also doesn't help that the main canditate was recently one of Waldo's targets. But before long he's off on the campaign trail in a fictional Surrey seat.
There's something quite amusing about a van with a big blue cartoon bear pursuing an actual politician down a high street. Naturally the humour is the somewhat childish-smart we've come to expect from modern comedy - while not quite the pig-relations antics of the first season opener, one gag involving the bear's boner appears - but there is still some amusement in watching a blue bear stalking a Tory.
It also feels weird - this is after all from a series that has produced heartbreaking sci-fi romance and a psychological torture, and has now gone to more conventional ground, if played with unconventional toys. Obviously Brooker wants this to be an anthology series but this does play like the odd one out.
In confidence to the Labour MP canditate, the comedian says that he is unhappy and is also dissatisfied with the whole system. Strangely though the idea of a dissatisfied anarchist comedian becoming a big political player is not as far fetched as you think - one look at Italy, where one is being talked as a serious canditate in their presidential election, proves this possibility.
After falling in love with and then being ditched by said Labour canditate, things get out of control. A student Question Time/"meet the canditates" session sees the Tory canditate reveal Jamie's past history - ironcially referring to advertising, which Rigby is most famous for - and this incentivises him to go forward with a rant where he dismembers each individual canditate.
Aside from making him even more miserable, it also catapults him into notoriety. Suddenly he's the big star the world is talking about. Feeling embarassed and even more upset, he wants to pull out of this whole charade but the momentum is against the view and his producer's promptly cajole him into carrying on.
Suddenly, the momentum takes an even stranger turn. There's no denying disssatisfaction with our politicians is out of control everywhere but recommending him to be a global revolutionary like Occupy is a surreal tone, and one clearly too much for him.
He tries to rebel against his own creation, only for his producer to overrule him and even get people to maul him for trying to betray him. To general surprise, and the prompt sparking of a riot, Monroe gets the seat. But the more surreal and faintly unnerving touch is the future-set end coda, when a now homeless Jamie sees what he has created - a global phenomenon inspiring revolutionaries worldwide.
The trouble with the episode is that, as politics is now a subject we more easily mock, the only way political stuff can be genuinely affected is if we have full blown crisis stuff. As the subject doesn't feel as close to home, it doesn't feel like as rough, which reduces the character somewhat. So although the set-ups are very well sculpted and the actors all do exceptionally well, it's not really in the same league as it's predecessors.
The episode was developed when Brooker and Chris Morris did Nathan Barley, a 2005 sitcom about hipsters. This does follow the trend of it, with a voice of reason overruled by a "aint-it-cool" loon, with a loon victory leading to dire consequence, but it's easy to feel it may have worked better either as that or starting with Waldo the all-knowing revolutionary global force rather than creating him.
It could have been a lot harder hitting, although the points it did make - not least in Waldo's rant - were rather accurate. The idea of a big blue bear running amok in Westminster would be interesting but as Boris Johnson basically lives this, the idea of satirising it was lost in nob gags and swearing. If the premise had been a malicious individual using his cartoonish points to gain votes, it may have hit harder. But in its guise it just lacked true elevation to get it to the standards of the other episodes and it just felt too weak to be a series finale.
3/5
Politics is a cruel, frustrating and often confusing world that often passes us by.
It is an interesting world from the outside looking in at how these people really do control what goes on and how much they can mould the world the way want to. It is even more fascinating and extremely worrying how little a largely apathetic public knows or cares about what they get up to, and how little politicians seem to care about getting them back on side.
Voters are becoming more cynical. A lot of news nowadays seems to be being gathered through the buzz around the news, and how it is also being diluted into immediate opinions, jokes, and how it affects us. Politics is ignored in a way like never before, especially by the younger generation who have been turned off by a largely homogenised blend of politicians who look the same and have similar policies.
Or to amend the words of Waldo the animated blue bear, none of us know what these people are for anymore.
Having tackled the dead and the criminals, Black Mirror moves onto a scene Charlie Brooker is more renowned for sinking his claws into - that of politics. The scene is going to be a lot different because politics is an easier subject that is less likely to cause depression as much as the other two.
It's a lighter subject because we are more used to politicians as figures to be mocked as much as figures to be respected, and ironically satirists are one of the targets for this one.
The show is centered around Jamie (Daniel Rigby), a struggling comedian. He works for a late night news comedy, providing the voice and the central animation for an animated blue bear who takes the piss out of politicians. Early on we see how keen he is on his role - not very. This mood is certainly not helped as the main host of the show keeps nicking the main zingers for his monologue.
Despite this he is the show's most popular character. With his normal show taking a break, and everyone wanting more and more of him, he's duly handed his own show. Figuring out how to do a pilot, his producer sends him to try to run for an MP.
Jamie is reluctant, feeling he knows too little about politics to attempt this. It also doesn't help that the main canditate was recently one of Waldo's targets. But before long he's off on the campaign trail in a fictional Surrey seat.
There's something quite amusing about a van with a big blue cartoon bear pursuing an actual politician down a high street. Naturally the humour is the somewhat childish-smart we've come to expect from modern comedy - while not quite the pig-relations antics of the first season opener, one gag involving the bear's boner appears - but there is still some amusement in watching a blue bear stalking a Tory.
It also feels weird - this is after all from a series that has produced heartbreaking sci-fi romance and a psychological torture, and has now gone to more conventional ground, if played with unconventional toys. Obviously Brooker wants this to be an anthology series but this does play like the odd one out.
In confidence to the Labour MP canditate, the comedian says that he is unhappy and is also dissatisfied with the whole system. Strangely though the idea of a dissatisfied anarchist comedian becoming a big political player is not as far fetched as you think - one look at Italy, where one is being talked as a serious canditate in their presidential election, proves this possibility.
After falling in love with and then being ditched by said Labour canditate, things get out of control. A student Question Time/"meet the canditates" session sees the Tory canditate reveal Jamie's past history - ironcially referring to advertising, which Rigby is most famous for - and this incentivises him to go forward with a rant where he dismembers each individual canditate.
Aside from making him even more miserable, it also catapults him into notoriety. Suddenly he's the big star the world is talking about. Feeling embarassed and even more upset, he wants to pull out of this whole charade but the momentum is against the view and his producer's promptly cajole him into carrying on.
Suddenly, the momentum takes an even stranger turn. There's no denying disssatisfaction with our politicians is out of control everywhere but recommending him to be a global revolutionary like Occupy is a surreal tone, and one clearly too much for him.
He tries to rebel against his own creation, only for his producer to overrule him and even get people to maul him for trying to betray him. To general surprise, and the prompt sparking of a riot, Monroe gets the seat. But the more surreal and faintly unnerving touch is the future-set end coda, when a now homeless Jamie sees what he has created - a global phenomenon inspiring revolutionaries worldwide.
The trouble with the episode is that, as politics is now a subject we more easily mock, the only way political stuff can be genuinely affected is if we have full blown crisis stuff. As the subject doesn't feel as close to home, it doesn't feel like as rough, which reduces the character somewhat. So although the set-ups are very well sculpted and the actors all do exceptionally well, it's not really in the same league as it's predecessors.
The episode was developed when Brooker and Chris Morris did Nathan Barley, a 2005 sitcom about hipsters. This does follow the trend of it, with a voice of reason overruled by a "aint-it-cool" loon, with a loon victory leading to dire consequence, but it's easy to feel it may have worked better either as that or starting with Waldo the all-knowing revolutionary global force rather than creating him.
It could have been a lot harder hitting, although the points it did make - not least in Waldo's rant - were rather accurate. The idea of a big blue bear running amok in Westminster would be interesting but as Boris Johnson basically lives this, the idea of satirising it was lost in nob gags and swearing. If the premise had been a malicious individual using his cartoonish points to gain votes, it may have hit harder. But in its guise it just lacked true elevation to get it to the standards of the other episodes and it just felt too weak to be a series finale.
3/5
Sunday, 24 February 2013
NME Awards Tour at Brixton Academy - Live Review
Every year, in the run-up to it's award ceremony, the NME magazine sends four acts on the road to test the adulation of it's magazine's readers.
Looking back through previous line-ups is always a fascinating experience to see some of the biggest names in contemporary music playing such low positions. The biggest example of how a low-down act has eclipsed all after it came in 2000 when a little known band called Coldplay have gone through opening act to stadiums. Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Florence and the Machine and The Vaccines are also names that have begun their way to the big time as an opening act here.
This often givens a lot of line-ups a baffling retrospective look - it seems preposterous that Maximo Park were above Arctic Monkeys, for instance - but it can often be a chance to find future stars. Alternatively it can be a chance to see if the NME hype machine's targets are as good as they say they are. Often they are hit-and-miss - for everyone bona fide superstars worthy of their hype come acts that don't quite warrant the hype.
After a year or two exploring other gestures, all the acts on here are guitar-heavy. It's still the standard NME sound of recent years, but a sound that has not had the same popularity as it did in the indie heyday of 2005. Nevertheless it's been touted 2013 is the comeback of indie and the hype machine turns back to guitar acts to see if the old formula of getting them high still works.
Much hyped, not least by NME, are the evening's opening pair on the last night of the tour. Birmingham act Peace, who open, are very highly hyped. There is some confusion as to what their actual sound is - grunge, 80s music and Britpop have all been touted as potential sounds.
There's elements of all of these sounds but the sum total is all that matters. On that score, they do very well. A driving mixture of sound creates some very impressive music. While lacking on record, here it sounds massive, leaping out of the Brixton Academy's PA. The bass riff and pounding drums provide an immaculate soundscape the guitars growl on top of.
Particular delights are Bloodshake, which is teased in with the snippet of annoying dance craze Harlem Shake, and California Daze. These songs provoke a frenzied reaction amongst those who have come early, and even provide one of the best reactions an opening act has wished for.
Frequent NME cover stars Palma Violets are the other act seen as heralding the much-hyped "guitar comeback". This is the final show before their debut album comes, and the Londoners are on one of the biggest stages they've been on - bigger than the corner of the room stance they normally wind up in. Touted by many as the new Libertines, this is a chance to prove such expectations.
However their set is not quite the same class as before it, or at least at first. The first two songs don't get the crowd going. But as they progress the songs get heavier and happily ditch the melodies earlier tunes were reliant on.
This is good as the band's heavier moments get the crowd jumpier and the class of song improves. It all begins to make sense towards the end, as the music begins to get more and more lively.
Following on is Miles Kane, whose already had a big contribution this year with the sublime Give Up. New material indicate there's more where that came from on top of his impeccable debut record.
Give Up serves as a grand opener as Kane, dressed like a French jockey, leads his band on a merry charge through his catalogue. The crowd takes time to warm up but when they truly awaken for Rearrange it's a grand reaction, with what feels like the whole venue joining in for the chorus.
Stretched to prog-rock levels, closer Come Closer is a final rush through after a masterful set. There's even some cliche rock posturing as Kane hurls his guitar to the ground at the end, but there's no denying he's had the tunes for a good set.
Finally the headliners. Django Django may have hit number 33 with their album but it got massive acclaim, including a Mercury Prize nomination. There music is led by synthesizers and percussion as much as by the guitar, and the band from all corners of the UK - Northern Irish singer, English bassist, Scottish keyboard player and drummer - were looking to take the place by storm.
There'd been some debate as to who should have been on top between Kane and the Djangos, with the latter even booed by some fans when Kane said it was great to tour with them.
While the Djangos weren't bad, their music seemed to lack something. As much as the crowd lapped it up, it just lacked the power the three before it managed and as a result it took longer to get going.
The songs with less reliance on guitars was certainly the more interesting, and also the best of what they surfaced. But ultimately the feeling Kane should probably have topped the bill just kept surfacing too frequently.
Overall though the acts were still rather impressive. People may mock the fact the NME has again reverted to going heavy on guitar-based music, but the bands provided do lend credibility to the theory guitar music is about to embark on it's 40908th revival. A few more bands like could help provide the spark music has been crying out for in the past 5 years.
4/5
Looking back through previous line-ups is always a fascinating experience to see some of the biggest names in contemporary music playing such low positions. The biggest example of how a low-down act has eclipsed all after it came in 2000 when a little known band called Coldplay have gone through opening act to stadiums. Franz Ferdinand, Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Florence and the Machine and The Vaccines are also names that have begun their way to the big time as an opening act here.
This often givens a lot of line-ups a baffling retrospective look - it seems preposterous that Maximo Park were above Arctic Monkeys, for instance - but it can often be a chance to find future stars. Alternatively it can be a chance to see if the NME hype machine's targets are as good as they say they are. Often they are hit-and-miss - for everyone bona fide superstars worthy of their hype come acts that don't quite warrant the hype.
After a year or two exploring other gestures, all the acts on here are guitar-heavy. It's still the standard NME sound of recent years, but a sound that has not had the same popularity as it did in the indie heyday of 2005. Nevertheless it's been touted 2013 is the comeback of indie and the hype machine turns back to guitar acts to see if the old formula of getting them high still works.
Much hyped, not least by NME, are the evening's opening pair on the last night of the tour. Birmingham act Peace, who open, are very highly hyped. There is some confusion as to what their actual sound is - grunge, 80s music and Britpop have all been touted as potential sounds.
There's elements of all of these sounds but the sum total is all that matters. On that score, they do very well. A driving mixture of sound creates some very impressive music. While lacking on record, here it sounds massive, leaping out of the Brixton Academy's PA. The bass riff and pounding drums provide an immaculate soundscape the guitars growl on top of.
Particular delights are Bloodshake, which is teased in with the snippet of annoying dance craze Harlem Shake, and California Daze. These songs provoke a frenzied reaction amongst those who have come early, and even provide one of the best reactions an opening act has wished for.
Frequent NME cover stars Palma Violets are the other act seen as heralding the much-hyped "guitar comeback". This is the final show before their debut album comes, and the Londoners are on one of the biggest stages they've been on - bigger than the corner of the room stance they normally wind up in. Touted by many as the new Libertines, this is a chance to prove such expectations.
However their set is not quite the same class as before it, or at least at first. The first two songs don't get the crowd going. But as they progress the songs get heavier and happily ditch the melodies earlier tunes were reliant on.
This is good as the band's heavier moments get the crowd jumpier and the class of song improves. It all begins to make sense towards the end, as the music begins to get more and more lively.
Following on is Miles Kane, whose already had a big contribution this year with the sublime Give Up. New material indicate there's more where that came from on top of his impeccable debut record.
Give Up serves as a grand opener as Kane, dressed like a French jockey, leads his band on a merry charge through his catalogue. The crowd takes time to warm up but when they truly awaken for Rearrange it's a grand reaction, with what feels like the whole venue joining in for the chorus.
Stretched to prog-rock levels, closer Come Closer is a final rush through after a masterful set. There's even some cliche rock posturing as Kane hurls his guitar to the ground at the end, but there's no denying he's had the tunes for a good set.
Finally the headliners. Django Django may have hit number 33 with their album but it got massive acclaim, including a Mercury Prize nomination. There music is led by synthesizers and percussion as much as by the guitar, and the band from all corners of the UK - Northern Irish singer, English bassist, Scottish keyboard player and drummer - were looking to take the place by storm.
There'd been some debate as to who should have been on top between Kane and the Djangos, with the latter even booed by some fans when Kane said it was great to tour with them.
While the Djangos weren't bad, their music seemed to lack something. As much as the crowd lapped it up, it just lacked the power the three before it managed and as a result it took longer to get going.
The songs with less reliance on guitars was certainly the more interesting, and also the best of what they surfaced. But ultimately the feeling Kane should probably have topped the bill just kept surfacing too frequently.
Overall though the acts were still rather impressive. People may mock the fact the NME has again reverted to going heavy on guitar-based music, but the bands provided do lend credibility to the theory guitar music is about to embark on it's 40908th revival. A few more bands like could help provide the spark music has been crying out for in the past 5 years.
4/5
Tuesday, 19 February 2013
Black Mirror - Season 2 Episode 2 Review
*CAUTION: The following review contains plot spoilers for this episode of Black
Mirror. If you have not yet seen it and wish to do so, then proceed with
caution*
Having started off the series with a show about talking to the dead, Black Mirror naturally progresses to a show with roots in the living dead.
In one of Charlie Brooker's many previous projects - the 2008 zombie show Dead Set - there was a graphic scene of a man meeting his grisly end at the hands of a zombie while a bunch of kids happily got video on their cameraphones.
This is another extreme but more and more cameraphones are around and everyone is documenting their lives. Every gig is a sea of cameraphones recording the artist, even when the gig is being professionally filmed. It's not just these sort of events. The grimmest extension of this came in 2011 when the still-warm corpse of Colonel Gaddafi was surrounded by people on cameraphones, but whenever a big story breaks, chances are a cameraphone will be nearby.
What they're filming is also getting more outlandish. People are willing to go that extra mile to entertain their audience, and often play up to their audience to encourage certain traits. It is also guaranteed anything and everything is on YouTube, and people will not stop plumbing further depths to find more unsettling things to put for their friends to see. Where these keepsakes could lead is anyone's guess.
For the first two-thirds of the second installment of Brooker's anthology show, this nightmare is played upon at blistering breakneck pace. White Bear begins with a young woman called Victoria (Lenora Crichlow) who wakes up disorientated with no recollection of who she is and suffering seizures triggered by a signal that has replaced images on every screen.
She leaves her house and quickly runs across a man in a mask with a gun trying to kill her. They're promptly pursued by the entire neighborhood, who instead of trying to stop her instead are filming her and taking pleasure in watching the events, sort of like the terraces at a football match.
During this period of the show, she runs around in the company of a young woman called Jem (Tuppence Middleton) that has seemingly escaped the camera signals and adjusted to this new world. They're taken on by a man called Baxter (Michael Smiley), who seems to be their friend but is actually about to kill them. Jem escapes and is able to kill Baxter just before Victoria can be hung, all the while the audience continues their grim fascination with filming it.
Things begin to point in the direction of a solution when part 3 rolls around and Victoria and Jem head onto the White Bear transmitter. They get into the control room where two assassins quickly follow, and move in for the kill. Victoria thinks she has a salvation as she nicks the gun of one and pulls the trigger, only for a burst of red and silver confetti to emerge instead of a bullet. At this point proceedings change in an even more outlandish direction when the doors open and she's revealed to be in a theatre, presented to a whooping crowd.
As this is all from her point of view we still have absolutely no idea what the fuck has gone on. But then all becomes clear when Baxter returns and is revealed to be the comprere for the audience. She's not a lost woman in a world full of zombie voyeurs, and the girl she kept seeing in polaroids was not her daughter.
Instead the truth is far grimmer. It's revealed she and her fiancee abducted the girl from a school, dumping her favourite white teddy bear in a layby and sparking a nationwide manhunt. They took her to a similar forest Baxter had taken them too in the simulation, where he tortured the little girl and she filmed everything on her phone. Said fiancee had a tattoo in the shape of the signal she thought was used for the brainwashing, and is revealed to have hung himself in prison, while she was sentenced by the judge to be the subject of this cruel and unusual situation.
The progression is bizarre, having seemingly hitched zombie movie to a pontification on potential future criminal justice operations. It does have a point though, and it's perhaps even more hauntingly relevant in the current age where witch-hunts and campaigns basically fuel the news. It's a disturbing progression on the already unsettling scenario posted above - photoing the dying and then decaying remains of Gaddafi was horrible enough, but openly fucking around with the heads of these people is even more horrendous. It's hardly a way of condoning this - the sort of crimes Victoria is complicit in are just as nauseating and deserve punishment. But matching it in the gross out stakes is just as horrendous.
Even more unsettling is when all the phones return. Again, crowds of gleeful people video and photo her. This time, Baxter acts like Davina McCall and encourages them as she is loaded into a Popemobile-like vehicle along the road back to the house where it all started in for the crowd to leer at her like the stocks of ye olden days, replete with rotten fruit to hurl at the perspex. At the end of the road the procedure begins again, when the producers re-dress the house and her bloodcurdling noisy screams fill the room as she is shocked back into a catatonic state ahead of the re-starting of the simulation the following day. It's a truly horrific note to end on, and for lesser shows that would be that.
But for those who need a bit more, the unsettling factor is raised to peak and immeasurable bleakness during the end credits. Here it's revealed she's actually the main attraction at the White Bear Justice Park, sort of like a zoo of criminals. We get cheery behind the scenes vignettes of visitors being welcomed, the set pieces being curated, the auditorium getting ready for the big reveal, the return to the house, and then it ends on Victoria waking up again stuck in this cycle forever.
The streak of bleakness makes it probably the one thing that has ever made The Road feel like optimistic feel good television. In the hands of lesser actors it would all feel silly, and at times it does feel like it's stretching the boundaries of plausibility.
Credit to the actors is due - Lenora Chrichlow is very good at conveying both the confusion and the anguish, and her talent at layering scream after scream helps convey the emotion superbly well. The other actors also play their parts very well, both before and after the game changes away from what we thought it was.
While not quite as good as Be Right Back it is nevertheless an engaging and delightfully dark hour's worth of drama. Just don't watch it before bed or else you will have nightmares all week.
3.5/5
Having started off the series with a show about talking to the dead, Black Mirror naturally progresses to a show with roots in the living dead.
In one of Charlie Brooker's many previous projects - the 2008 zombie show Dead Set - there was a graphic scene of a man meeting his grisly end at the hands of a zombie while a bunch of kids happily got video on their cameraphones.
This is another extreme but more and more cameraphones are around and everyone is documenting their lives. Every gig is a sea of cameraphones recording the artist, even when the gig is being professionally filmed. It's not just these sort of events. The grimmest extension of this came in 2011 when the still-warm corpse of Colonel Gaddafi was surrounded by people on cameraphones, but whenever a big story breaks, chances are a cameraphone will be nearby.
What they're filming is also getting more outlandish. People are willing to go that extra mile to entertain their audience, and often play up to their audience to encourage certain traits. It is also guaranteed anything and everything is on YouTube, and people will not stop plumbing further depths to find more unsettling things to put for their friends to see. Where these keepsakes could lead is anyone's guess.
For the first two-thirds of the second installment of Brooker's anthology show, this nightmare is played upon at blistering breakneck pace. White Bear begins with a young woman called Victoria (Lenora Crichlow) who wakes up disorientated with no recollection of who she is and suffering seizures triggered by a signal that has replaced images on every screen.
She leaves her house and quickly runs across a man in a mask with a gun trying to kill her. They're promptly pursued by the entire neighborhood, who instead of trying to stop her instead are filming her and taking pleasure in watching the events, sort of like the terraces at a football match.
During this period of the show, she runs around in the company of a young woman called Jem (Tuppence Middleton) that has seemingly escaped the camera signals and adjusted to this new world. They're taken on by a man called Baxter (Michael Smiley), who seems to be their friend but is actually about to kill them. Jem escapes and is able to kill Baxter just before Victoria can be hung, all the while the audience continues their grim fascination with filming it.
Things begin to point in the direction of a solution when part 3 rolls around and Victoria and Jem head onto the White Bear transmitter. They get into the control room where two assassins quickly follow, and move in for the kill. Victoria thinks she has a salvation as she nicks the gun of one and pulls the trigger, only for a burst of red and silver confetti to emerge instead of a bullet. At this point proceedings change in an even more outlandish direction when the doors open and she's revealed to be in a theatre, presented to a whooping crowd.
As this is all from her point of view we still have absolutely no idea what the fuck has gone on. But then all becomes clear when Baxter returns and is revealed to be the comprere for the audience. She's not a lost woman in a world full of zombie voyeurs, and the girl she kept seeing in polaroids was not her daughter.
Instead the truth is far grimmer. It's revealed she and her fiancee abducted the girl from a school, dumping her favourite white teddy bear in a layby and sparking a nationwide manhunt. They took her to a similar forest Baxter had taken them too in the simulation, where he tortured the little girl and she filmed everything on her phone. Said fiancee had a tattoo in the shape of the signal she thought was used for the brainwashing, and is revealed to have hung himself in prison, while she was sentenced by the judge to be the subject of this cruel and unusual situation.
The progression is bizarre, having seemingly hitched zombie movie to a pontification on potential future criminal justice operations. It does have a point though, and it's perhaps even more hauntingly relevant in the current age where witch-hunts and campaigns basically fuel the news. It's a disturbing progression on the already unsettling scenario posted above - photoing the dying and then decaying remains of Gaddafi was horrible enough, but openly fucking around with the heads of these people is even more horrendous. It's hardly a way of condoning this - the sort of crimes Victoria is complicit in are just as nauseating and deserve punishment. But matching it in the gross out stakes is just as horrendous.
Even more unsettling is when all the phones return. Again, crowds of gleeful people video and photo her. This time, Baxter acts like Davina McCall and encourages them as she is loaded into a Popemobile-like vehicle along the road back to the house where it all started in for the crowd to leer at her like the stocks of ye olden days, replete with rotten fruit to hurl at the perspex. At the end of the road the procedure begins again, when the producers re-dress the house and her bloodcurdling noisy screams fill the room as she is shocked back into a catatonic state ahead of the re-starting of the simulation the following day. It's a truly horrific note to end on, and for lesser shows that would be that.
But for those who need a bit more, the unsettling factor is raised to peak and immeasurable bleakness during the end credits. Here it's revealed she's actually the main attraction at the White Bear Justice Park, sort of like a zoo of criminals. We get cheery behind the scenes vignettes of visitors being welcomed, the set pieces being curated, the auditorium getting ready for the big reveal, the return to the house, and then it ends on Victoria waking up again stuck in this cycle forever.
The streak of bleakness makes it probably the one thing that has ever made The Road feel like optimistic feel good television. In the hands of lesser actors it would all feel silly, and at times it does feel like it's stretching the boundaries of plausibility.
Credit to the actors is due - Lenora Chrichlow is very good at conveying both the confusion and the anguish, and her talent at layering scream after scream helps convey the emotion superbly well. The other actors also play their parts very well, both before and after the game changes away from what we thought it was.
While not quite as good as Be Right Back it is nevertheless an engaging and delightfully dark hour's worth of drama. Just don't watch it before bed or else you will have nightmares all week.
3.5/5
Tuesday, 12 February 2013
Black Mirror - Season 2 Episode 1 Review
*CAUTION: The following review contains plot spoilers for this episode of Black Mirror. If you have not yet seen it and wish to do so, then proceed with caution*
Technology is beginning to take over the world.
Every laptop, phone, tablet, music player and others are a further step to the closer intergration of human life into the machine, and innovations are piling up like horse lasagnes in a returns bin. The chances of the world's technology suddenly going all Skynet on us is remote, but there are still some worrying and plausible ways human life is changing in the face of all this technology.
The first series of Charlie Brooker's bleak technology films Black Mirror was especially notorious at providing some of the possibilities. Obviously the scenarios are unlikely to happen - no matter how unpopular David Cameron gets, it is unlikely he will be forced into a sexual relationship with a pig - but they did provide an intriguing satire on modern technology and worrying omens of what could happen.
The first two episodes were primarily satires on where we are now - the development of social media into a political and cultural force. While the third episode was the series' weakest, it also provided the most plausible and scary development - chips inserted into your skull that can record everything. Aside from the fact Robert Downey Jr is interested in making a feature length film out of the concept, the most bizarre thing is that similar innovations are being launched now.
One other more plausible possibility is the idea that our digital footprint - Facebook statuses, Tweets, e-mails, text messages, YouTube uploads, etc. - can be manipulated upon death into a programme that mimicks our personaility when we're gone. Episode one of the second series concerns this worryingly plausible future, and how it might work.
The main protagonist is an artist called Martha (Hayley Attwell), who moves in with her husband Ash (Domhall Gleeson) to his parent's old house. The first few minutes show the back-story of their relationship. He's constantly on his phone using social media, while she lightly chides him for heavily using the "thief".
They live in the near future, where said phone is thinner than a credit card - as are laptops and highly sophisticated graphics tablets - and can be revived after dropped on a sort of resuscitation pad, while couriers now use biometric scanners to record delivery, dashboards are replaced by video screens, pregnancy testing kits having dancing babies instead of a blue light, and so on.
A number of these innovations gradually reveal themselves over the course of the piece. But the storyline is thrown into motion when Ash dies in an accident returning their moving van, and her friend signs her up to "something that can help".
Originally she tries to ignore it, protesting it is sick, but then comes the revelation that Martha is pregnant - hence dancing babys on the testing kit - and this is the catalyst for her move into the unknown. Stage one sees Ash's sizeable digital footprint animated purely as simple messages, sort of like Twitter for exorcists.
Rather than stopping there, she is soon encouraged to embrace the second stage - a full digital recreation of voice to go with the initial text. It's a perfect tonal recreation of his voice that provides further character simple text doesn't provide. This was where a lot of the implications and staggering pondering questions begun to pile up.
However, Martha begun to live her life fine. Her boyfriend sounded like the way she imagined it and it goes along mimicking his views on scenery, his jokes, his opinions, even what he might think of her UltraSound scans. This techno-romance functioned right up until the moment she dropped her phone and thought she'd killed 'him'.
This panic encourages the full plunge into stage three, and then things get out of hand a little. At the start, somewhat unnoticed, is a news report that "synthetic flesh" is in full production. Sure enough a box of synthetic flesh parts are delivered to her house. As commanded she leaves it the bath in a mixture of water, salts and electrolytes, and overnight it reanimates itself into a physical copy of Ash using his digital app as a brain.
Something about this just seems like a step too far. It doesn't feel too far removed but it ultimately feels like trying to grow your own boyfriend wouldn't work, no matter how hard gossip sites Tweeted they'd go along with it if they could have options to grow their own copies of celebrities. However this step too far feeling is an opinion not confined to viewer alone, and what helps rescue this bit - after a while of living with her reproduced lover, Martha starts to feel her new creation is too perfect. A textbook attempt at boyfriend, even down to the robotic sex, just isn't a substitute for a flawed but genuine human love.
Things seemingly reach a spectacular end atop a cliff when Martha brings Ashbot 2.0 to the position and she tries to persuade him to jump while he tries to fight after at first seeming keen on doing it. It's a truly unsettling sequence that is pretty well crafted and it would've been a pretty good way to end just on her screaming at the organism to jump.
But it doesn't stop there. There's an awkward coda when a few years later, where Martha allows her daughter to spend some time with 'daddy', who now lives in the loft. The idea of this is certainly worrying purely for the idea of having a robot guard your kids, and having said child develop an attachment to their fake guardian. It's a worrying gambit of thought-provoking questions.
Brooker's script is pretty well formed, allowing a very well worked and intimate portrayal of love and death, and how technology is making it's presence felt in these matters. The principal actors are certainly expert at managing his vision, with Attwell doing fantastically well to carry the show and balance a delicate range of emotions in her circumstances, while Gleeson is a good counterpoint both as a real person and his consequent digital re-animation.
The rural setting is also very well selected and utilised. The isolation of the setting rams home Martha's loneliness and helps the story progress at a sharper pace than it might in a city, where moving on is a more straight-forward affair.
All in all this terrifying vision is fantastically well formed. It engages supremely well with the viewer in providing thought-provoking and troubling technological visions, while providing a very well acted romance - replete with sci-fi overtones.
4/5
Technology is beginning to take over the world.
Every laptop, phone, tablet, music player and others are a further step to the closer intergration of human life into the machine, and innovations are piling up like horse lasagnes in a returns bin. The chances of the world's technology suddenly going all Skynet on us is remote, but there are still some worrying and plausible ways human life is changing in the face of all this technology.
The first series of Charlie Brooker's bleak technology films Black Mirror was especially notorious at providing some of the possibilities. Obviously the scenarios are unlikely to happen - no matter how unpopular David Cameron gets, it is unlikely he will be forced into a sexual relationship with a pig - but they did provide an intriguing satire on modern technology and worrying omens of what could happen.
The first two episodes were primarily satires on where we are now - the development of social media into a political and cultural force. While the third episode was the series' weakest, it also provided the most plausible and scary development - chips inserted into your skull that can record everything. Aside from the fact Robert Downey Jr is interested in making a feature length film out of the concept, the most bizarre thing is that similar innovations are being launched now.
One other more plausible possibility is the idea that our digital footprint - Facebook statuses, Tweets, e-mails, text messages, YouTube uploads, etc. - can be manipulated upon death into a programme that mimicks our personaility when we're gone. Episode one of the second series concerns this worryingly plausible future, and how it might work.
The main protagonist is an artist called Martha (Hayley Attwell), who moves in with her husband Ash (Domhall Gleeson) to his parent's old house. The first few minutes show the back-story of their relationship. He's constantly on his phone using social media, while she lightly chides him for heavily using the "thief".
They live in the near future, where said phone is thinner than a credit card - as are laptops and highly sophisticated graphics tablets - and can be revived after dropped on a sort of resuscitation pad, while couriers now use biometric scanners to record delivery, dashboards are replaced by video screens, pregnancy testing kits having dancing babies instead of a blue light, and so on.
A number of these innovations gradually reveal themselves over the course of the piece. But the storyline is thrown into motion when Ash dies in an accident returning their moving van, and her friend signs her up to "something that can help".
Originally she tries to ignore it, protesting it is sick, but then comes the revelation that Martha is pregnant - hence dancing babys on the testing kit - and this is the catalyst for her move into the unknown. Stage one sees Ash's sizeable digital footprint animated purely as simple messages, sort of like Twitter for exorcists.
Rather than stopping there, she is soon encouraged to embrace the second stage - a full digital recreation of voice to go with the initial text. It's a perfect tonal recreation of his voice that provides further character simple text doesn't provide. This was where a lot of the implications and staggering pondering questions begun to pile up.
However, Martha begun to live her life fine. Her boyfriend sounded like the way she imagined it and it goes along mimicking his views on scenery, his jokes, his opinions, even what he might think of her UltraSound scans. This techno-romance functioned right up until the moment she dropped her phone and thought she'd killed 'him'.
This panic encourages the full plunge into stage three, and then things get out of hand a little. At the start, somewhat unnoticed, is a news report that "synthetic flesh" is in full production. Sure enough a box of synthetic flesh parts are delivered to her house. As commanded she leaves it the bath in a mixture of water, salts and electrolytes, and overnight it reanimates itself into a physical copy of Ash using his digital app as a brain.
Something about this just seems like a step too far. It doesn't feel too far removed but it ultimately feels like trying to grow your own boyfriend wouldn't work, no matter how hard gossip sites Tweeted they'd go along with it if they could have options to grow their own copies of celebrities. However this step too far feeling is an opinion not confined to viewer alone, and what helps rescue this bit - after a while of living with her reproduced lover, Martha starts to feel her new creation is too perfect. A textbook attempt at boyfriend, even down to the robotic sex, just isn't a substitute for a flawed but genuine human love.
Things seemingly reach a spectacular end atop a cliff when Martha brings Ashbot 2.0 to the position and she tries to persuade him to jump while he tries to fight after at first seeming keen on doing it. It's a truly unsettling sequence that is pretty well crafted and it would've been a pretty good way to end just on her screaming at the organism to jump.
But it doesn't stop there. There's an awkward coda when a few years later, where Martha allows her daughter to spend some time with 'daddy', who now lives in the loft. The idea of this is certainly worrying purely for the idea of having a robot guard your kids, and having said child develop an attachment to their fake guardian. It's a worrying gambit of thought-provoking questions.
Brooker's script is pretty well formed, allowing a very well worked and intimate portrayal of love and death, and how technology is making it's presence felt in these matters. The principal actors are certainly expert at managing his vision, with Attwell doing fantastically well to carry the show and balance a delicate range of emotions in her circumstances, while Gleeson is a good counterpoint both as a real person and his consequent digital re-animation.
The rural setting is also very well selected and utilised. The isolation of the setting rams home Martha's loneliness and helps the story progress at a sharper pace than it might in a city, where moving on is a more straight-forward affair.
All in all this terrifying vision is fantastically well formed. It engages supremely well with the viewer in providing thought-provoking and troubling technological visions, while providing a very well acted romance - replete with sci-fi overtones.
4/5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)