Meewella | Fragments

The Life of P

Month: March 2004

Forget The Bride… Meet Zatoichi

Its release slotted between the two installment of Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Kitano’s new film, Zatoichi, is perfect for anyone hungering for a little more katana-wielding action. Slower paced but equally stylish with the same attention to detail, it is a wonderful period piece from the director who made his name with violent Yakuza films. Er, and Takeshi’s Castle.

Read my full Zatoichi review.

For some unknown reason the Grants Warner Village cinema obtained a print, and has been showing it for a limited run. It appears there may be hope for Croydon filmgoers after all, even if the audience was a little on the small side when I saw it. I have to admit that I did feel more than a little True Romance-y going to see foreign martial arts film on my own with a big tub of popcorn, but sadly no carefully placed prostitute (sorry, call-girl) mysteriously turned out to be my soul mate. But the best thing about going to see alternative films is that the trailers have none of the usual trash at all…

I was treated to a teaser trailer for the second Kill Bill instalment, featuring a few tantalising seconds extra of Bill and the stetson-toting Michael Madsen. The majority was a black and white shot of The Bride in a car, discussing her own reviews, “a roaring rampage of revenge”, and basically promising us an even more impressive second half.

Troy is one of the few trailers to literally make my jaw drop. Beginning with a close-up of Brad Pitt (which was probably enough for some people) the camera panned out fluidly to reveal him standing on the deck of a massive galleon surround by about two hundred soldiers, then as we continue to pull back we see ten of these magnificent ship, then twenty, and then an ocean filled with hundreds on their way to Troy. Indescribably stunning.

And last but not least was Van Helsing which is looking as dark, creepy and action-packed as expected, and although I was somewhat dubious about a film that seemed to be drawing in legendry villains in a sort of cash-in move, it appears that it could well live up to the hype.

It’s Easy For Guys…

self portrait“It’s so much easier for guys,” Lily complained as we discussed finding a dress for the Old Palace Ball, “they just have to get a black suit and that’s it!”

It seems this misconception is actually a widely held belief amongst girls which I feel compelled to address. You see, far from making things easier, the narrow variation makes the selection far more difficult. With dresses it’s all too easy to dismiss a large section by colour or gaudiness or length or all the various obvious differences. Distinguishing between the finer points of two black suits, on the other hand, takes a far more trained eye.

Price-wise I can’t account for exactly how much a girl spends on average but I’ve been reliably informed it usually lies somewhere around the £100 mark. To be generous we’ll even throw in an extra £50 for accessorising (although generally accessories are comparable between the sexes, comprising of dress watches, rings, chains and necklaces where applicable, and so on). Lovely. Now let’s look at buying the guy’s outfit, involving a little trip up to Oxford Street (close your eyes and you can almost feel the bustling crowds of Europeans who for some reason think it’d be fun to come to London and pay more than they would back home). The basic dress suit came to £160 (Burton), plus a winged-collar dress shirt at £25 (Moss Bros.), a £15 silk bow tie (Suits You), and finally cufflinks for a further £15 (Tie Rack – although I may go more upmarket). Which comes to a grand total of £215. Makes you wonder who should be paying for the drinks really, huh?

dunhill pour hommeOn the plus side, Arena have thoughtfully provided my aftershave for the evening. I’m still not quite able to figure out how the maths works, but my £17 6-month subscription resulted in a free bottle of the new Dunhill fragrance being dropped through my letterbox last Saturday. The retail price? £25. So yes, the magazines themselves are cost me precisely minus eight pounts sterling. Not that I’m complaining, naturally, and it does look pretty, adding a little colour next to those stylish but rather grey Armani Mania bottles.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam

Bernard HaitinkTonight we received a set of perfect central Stalls seats at the Barbican Hall, courtesy of Philips, to see the Royal Concertgebouw conducted by Bernard Hitink, and I was happy to dress up and oblige. My sister, on the other hand, complained profusely until she discovered the first half was Debussy’s La Mer, which is, apparently, one of her favourite pieces ever. I, however, was far more intrigued by the Shostakovich Symphony No. 8 in C minor, especially in context given my interest in Russian history.

His Seventh Symphony, composed mainly in beseiged Leningrad, had been filled with power, encapsulating the nation’s fighting spirit. The Eighth Symphony in contrast is a beautifully tragic work (especially the extended mournfully heart-wrenching cor anglais solo amid brutal scherzos and frightening sustained climaxes) without the images of hope that framed the Seventh. But the composer’s decision to create this tragic work amid the post-war success raised doubts about his patriotism, and the Eighth Symphony was duly added to the officially blacklisted works forbidden from performance. But most of all, having been used to school orchestras for so long, it was great just to see a full bank of double-bass like heavy artilary in support, which really changes the dynamic of the orchestral sound.

The Musicians

Saw a remarkably successful production at Old Palace this evening. I hesitate to call it a play since there was a great deal of music involved, yet neither was it so gaudily irritating as most musicals. The frankly hilarious content was rather unusual for a school performance, featuring as it did references to Brighton as a place where businessmen take their secretaries for sex, and an orchestra who have had their instruments impounded by customs after they discovered a spliff hidden in a flute.

The two leads, a crazy Russian janitor and the inexperienced but dedicated English conductor, were particularly good, playing well off one another during their scenes together. The musical performances were all good, with various foreign language musical sections, but most impressive were an energetic virtuoso violin recitacion where the player never actually played a note, and the climactic full-cast orchestral performance that was fully mimed for around ten minutes in time with a soundtrack, but without a single instrument! It sounds crazily pretentious, and frankly it was. But with a cast who clearly enjoyed what they were doing, it worked.

Worked so well, in fact, that The Musicians has become the first Old Palace drama event to go on tour: they will be performing a slightly re-directed version at The Albany Theatre on the 23rd April, having been selected by a panel from a competition into which they entered the production.

Guestbook

P-2004 finally has it’s own guestbook. After the calamity suffered by the Crypt’s own guestbook when all the entries were lost as TheGuestBook.com turned to a fee-paying service, I was reluctant to set up another guestbook that was hosted off-site. So finally I plucked up the courage to begin my first forray into the wonderful world of CGI scripts, and so discovered a wonderfully intuitive and customisable script from active-scripts.net who I would thoroughly recommend for any webmasters with a cgi-bin at their disposal. And most importantly, now that the guestbook is stored on the site server, it’s blessedly free of advertising!

After much tweaking which ran on till around 3am, the final result can be accessed through the green button on the main page (formerly leading to the P-2004 Forum, which has since been put on hold). So what are you waiting for? You’re here. You’re a visitor. Go sign!

Miso

I’m no food critic, but I figure I eat out enough to qualify as having a decent opinion on food. So I figure I may as well share some of my experiences here. Now, when it comes to Chinese, I’ll give anything go. So it happeened that Toby and I ended up wandering into Miso for lunch for the first time today. Just a stone’s throw away from work (well, if you have a particularly aerodynamic stone and a bloody strong arm) so it was perfectly placed for us.

Immediately upon walking in, the cleanliness is striking. Not to say that most Chinese places aren’t, but here the spacious layout and shiny surfaces all in right angles (yes, rectangular seats and benches) are striking. Discovering they do take-away as well, we opted for that to ensure we weren’t late back to the office. We were waiting no more than seven minutes for out Egg Fried Rice with Duck, and were pleased to note two bags of complimentary prawn crackers too.

Toby was moaning about not being able to use chopsticks, while I argued that you needed chopsticks to eat Chinese, and it turns out Miso cater for both our views. Their sealed cutlery packs contain a fork, a spoon, a set of chopsticks and a few toothpicks (which were subsequently used for a Reservoir Dogs’ Mr. Blonde look during the ensuing game of pool).

So what of the food itself. As I expected, the clean, modern look of the interior was very telling of the taste. The prawn crackers were unremarkable and rather plain. The rice was of a high quality as was the duck. The servings were large and they were surprisingly generous with the meat. The sauce was good and every bite of the duck tasted wonderful, but even so, the flavour was all a little subdued. It was almost a sort of basic, sterile, default Chinese taste, with very little creativity.

While I would certainly recommend the place for quality of food, I think really one needs to eat in the restaurant because the experience is very different to the average resataurant. Labelling themselves a “noodle bar”, Miso are as much about the experience as the food, and the stylishly sleek and spacious environment is a testament to this. Some people will be disappointed at their quiet efficiency, with none of the bustling clamour that is often expected. But for the modern conisseur, Miso may well represent, if not the future of the cuisine itself, the future of the Western Chinese culinary experience.

And You Thought His Castle Was Violent…

Zatoichi - a film by Takeshi KitanoWith so many people I knew going on about this crazy Japanese gameshow called Takeshi’s Castle, I eventually thought I may as well look into it, since generally I’m quite a fan of their (admittedly derranged) culture. So in fact I was even more amazed than all of you because turns out that this Takeshi bloke is actually the same guy whose films I’ve been watching for years! So, since people seem to know this talented genius only through this amusing and actually rather inspired slice of Japanese dementia, I thought I’d share a little more about the mysterious “Beat” Takeshi Kitano.

In Japan he is best known for his roots in stand-up comedy as half of a duo called The Two Beats (the name came from their love of jazz music). As a result he has had much trouble being accepted as a serious actor and director, so his films tend to receive more critical acclaim abroad. That said, while many focus on popular themes like the Yakuza (Japan’s Mafia equivalent with a penchant for slicing off fingers to punish disloyalty or failure), they are not quite accessible enough to ever reach a mainstream audience.

Not only does Takeshi Kitano write, edit and direct his films, but he also stars in the majority of them too, which grants him an unparalleled level of control in his work. Kitano is an incredibly diverse figure, known throughout Japan but for different reasons in different circles. He has no real equivalent in the Western world (with the possible exception of Stephen Fry), with his talents including stand-up comedy, hosting game shows (in Japan it is not uncommon for him to be on television every night of the week, presenting a different show each night), writing novels, as well as having his own column in a newspaper through which he acts as a social commentator.

Whilst he has dabbled in comedies like Getting Any? (DVD release 29th March), Kitano is best known for his violent flair in films such as the bleakly amusing Sonatine and the incredibly moving Hana-Bi which received many awards including the Venice Film Festival’s Golden Lion. His idea of violence is cold and brutal rather than glamourous, always occurring in sudden short controlled bursts. Recently his style has matured with the more reflective and astoundingly beautiful Dolls.

His newest offering is fusion of both these elements and has been described as rivalling Tarantino’s much anticipated second volume of Kill Bill. His first period film, Zatôichi is the story of a blind swordsman (played by Kitano himself) on a quest for vengeance, and has already collected a series of awards including the Toronto People’s Choice Award.

But for those of you who are still just tuning in to Takeshi’s Castle to watch crazy people fracturing their skulls (I mean this quite literally – Stepping Stones anyone?), keep your eyes peeled in the last game with the Emerald Guard outside the castle. One of the vehicles is a goldish colour and if you look at the driver, you may spot the elusive Takeshi himself. So now at least you know who he is. Even if it is for all the wrong reasons…

The Breakfast Conspiracy

And the award for Best Argued Case in a Pointless Role goes to… The Breakfast Conspiracy. You all know how sometimes I get an idea into my head which I don’t really believe much at all, but feel like arguing just for the sake of it (don’t look at me like that: I’m a lawyer, what do you expect?), and I end up really quite attached to the notion. Well, the most recent particularly well-articulated example is the aforementioned conspiracy, and I thought I’d share it with you here.

I don’t believe in breakfast. You see, far from being the most important meal of the day, breakfast doesn’t actually exist. Oh sure, that’s what they want you to believe, but in fact the truth is far more sinister. The name itself gives away the fact it is both a recent and artifcial construct; clearly one could not ‘break fast’ unless the norm involved a fast in the first place. So if our ancestors were able to function perfectly well without gorging themselves so early in the morning, how can it possibly be so important, let alone essential.

The question you must ask yourself is, “who benefits from this so called ‘break-fast’?” The answer is both transparent and unsurprising: the very corporations who designed this pseudo-meal. Yes, every time you eat a “breakfast” you pay towards these commercial giants, such as K.E.L.L.O.G.S. (Kill Everyone Living Logically with Our Great System) and N.E.S.T.L.É. (Nobody Eats Stuff To Live Efficiently) for the nutritionally questionable food you consume (they can’t even state cohesively whether it should consist of carbohydrate or fibre or fruit or just a mug of cow-juice…so naturally they produce them all and leave you, the confused and helpless consumer to decide!)

So is this highly organised long-term project solely a profiteering scam? If only it were. In fact these corporations are targeting no less a goal than world domination. How? Well, what may appear to be a simple meal is a carefully disguised ploy to control the masses. Waking groggy and dazed in the morning, immediately you are presented with this utterly unnecessary choice between dozens of cereals, toast, eggs (boiled, fried, scrambled or omelettes) and much more. This system is designed purely to confuse and reduce the functional efficiency of every human being on the planet – or rather – those human beings unaware of the conpsiracy.

In recent years some have come to realise that this extraneous meal is entirely unnecessary, forcing the corporations to adapt to this new threat in the form of the cereal bar. A carefully constructed product that is more convenient than the standard cereal but still attempts to confuse the consumer through the range of flavours and styles, along with “low fat” varieties as if this somehow makes eating this extra meal “healthy”.

So rise up, my friends, and join me and the other few enlightened in challenging the companies who claim to have brought you the most important meal of the day. Show them that we do not blindly eat at allocated times purely because that is what we have been told. Challenge the evil consortium of corporations. Boycott Breakfast!

The Phoenix Cinema

Phoenix CinemaNo, I haven’t just opened my own cinema (although come to think of it, this may be a good future acquisition for Phoenix, Inc.) dedicated to my weird and wonderful taste in films. Actually the Phoenix Cinema is a highly successful independent cinema tucked away in the middle of London. Why am I suddenly a big fan? Well, truth be told, I have yet to actually see a film there.

However, having written a short email to them with my name and address, I’m already a huge fan because of the package that dropped through my letter box this morning. Without paying a penny, I’ve been sent their membership card for 16-19 year olds which entitles me to see any film for the ridiculous price of £2.50, and their Sunday double-bill matinées for just £3.50. Crazily, the cost of travelling into London is actually more than double the price of admission now (but still not incredibly expensive when compared to the price of a film at Grants for around £6.50).

The films shown a very varied, from mainstream movies like Love Actually and School of Rock to more out-of-the-way foreign flicks like The Dreamers to big screen re-showings of older cult classics like Crumb or Tokyo Story. The double-bills are especially good value where they pick two films in a similar vein and show them together on Sunday afternoons.

Once I’ve actually been, I’ll let you know what I think of the place, but if you’re interested in helping me test out their facilities, let me know and we’ll find something to watch…

"Civilization now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has."

(CC) BY-NC 2004-2023 Priyan Meewella

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