Went to see Oliver Stone's 'W.' tonight. It wasn't nearly up to par for Oliver Stone, unusually linear and quite simply shot and put together. There was some talk that it was a bit of a rush job to have it finished before the election, and there is certainly some evidence for that. It lacked any of the pizazz you'd expect, but was however quite interesting for those behind-the-scenes war room cabinet meetings. Kind of strangely stale and flat compared to, for example, The West Wing (which I've never watched properly), but it was interesting to see those characters that caused so much shit and disaster for the world-at-large to be represented on the big screen. Some dodgy vocal performances (okay Thandie Newton looked uncannily like Condoleezza Rice, but what's the deal with her voice?!) threatened to turn the whole thing into the pantomime, and while its quite sympathetic to Bush, it felt like it really simplified everything too much. I refuse to believe he didn't have many more people as well as Carl Rove telling him exactly how and why he was corrupting the US - his thoughts could not possibly have been as noble as 'doing the job'. The father/son thing was done better in Alexander. Also, I kind of think Josh Brolin through no fault of his own just doesn't look dumb enough. He has too much charisma to play a convincing moron, though his efforts are pretty good. It was always something I found fascinating about Bush, just the look in his eyes bely a deeper stupidity. In fact, you can nearly see the rabbit in there working the controls. W. isn't exactly ground-shaking Hollywood fare (this from the same man who gave us the momumental epic Any Given Sunday), but more of an interesting companion piece to a thoroughly enjoyable election season. Oh yes and a disasterous White House administration.
It was also funny how Stone and writer Stanley Weiser managed to fit in all the classic Bushisms over the course of the movie, sometimes painfully so. (Though you may miss the 'misunderestimated' one). Of course, this is why we love him.
Well, Munster did extremely well against the All Blacks last night. Though the second half was a fairly messy affair at the best of times, and of course conceding the winning try in the last four minutes was never going to be easy, but fucking hell it was a great match. They were looking fairly shit-hot at times. Its not very often you see both teams getting stuck in like that, and Munster really held their cool on such a momentus occasion. Very enjoyable match! And as for the army bringing the ball in by helicopter? So classy.
Thomond Park looked savage, it'll look even better when this fella's in there -
Is it just me, or does this movie look really really shit? Oscar-assured performance and all . . . sounds more like TV3 "I want my baby back!" fare.
While we're on it, I wasn't overly enamoured with Million Dollar Baby, Clint's other big Oscar winner. That was quite boring also. Unforgiven and Mystic River were pretty good though.
Got a last minute call to play a support slot to Paul Heaton (of Beautiful South fame) in Dolans. Sure beats painting the bedroom! So chuffed that I ended up having something to do of a shitty November Friday night, I then went to see Messiah J & The Expert in The Trinity Rooms, and they were absolutely savage. Put on a kick-ass show, even at the start when the crowd was lacking, completely owned it. Don't want to do a whole "Irish rap/hip-hop" thing, so won't say any more, but you may be hearing from me again on the MJEX subject, I think they're fucking ace! www.myspace.com/messiahjandtheexpert
I'm playing a solo set at the ARTiculate Sessions tonight in Bakers. Gonna try one or two new tunes, and the usual loop magic and instrument hopping. Hope to see u there!
Went to see Oliver Stone's 'W.' tonight. It wasn't nearly up to par for Oliver Stone, unusually linear and quite simply shot and put together. There was some talk that it was a bit of a rush job to have it finished before the election, and there is certainly some evidence for that. It lacked any of the pizazz you'd expect, but was however quite interesting for those behind-the-scenes war room cabinet meetings. Kind of strangely stale and flat compared to, for example, The West Wing (which I've never watched properly), but it was interesting to see those characters that caused so much shit and disaster for the world-at-large to be represented on the big screen.
W. isn't exactly ground-shaking Hollywood fare (this from the same man who gave us the momumental epic Any Given Sunday), but more of an interesting companion piece to a thoroughly enjoyable election season. Oh yes and a disasterous White House administration.
