Reflections on William Morris

I went with friends to the William Morris Gallery on Saturday. It was a lovely day, the gallery had lots of beautiful things to look at, and items from Morris's personal and business history. Morris was for the most part a top bloke - against anti-Semitism in the left at a time when it was mainly acceptable, an opponent of authoritarian tendencies in the SDF and a genuine democrat, with awareness of the ironies of his position as a supplier of fancy furnishings to the idle rich.

So what is it about him that gives me the creeps? Partly I think it's the whole Merrie England thing. There is a long tradition on the right of celebrating a pre-industrial time of harmonious, organic community, before capitalism and industrialisation. Philip Blond, the 'red tory' and sometime advisor to David Cameron on 'big society', is one of the latest manifestations of this, but it has a long pedigree among both the mainstream right and the far right. Sometimes these people call themselves 'Tory Anarchists'. It's mixed up with a preference for Medieval art and craft alongside imagined Medieval social relations. Chesterton is a very articulate spokesman for this ideology.

The trouble is that there are those on the left who are attracted to this - they like the idea of small communities, simple life, self-sufficiency, localism, craft work rather than industrialisation. Of course there are left-wing versions of this too...and some versions that are just not too picky about who they hang out with. I don't have a problem with localism; I do have a problem with those who can't tell the difference between friends who advocate it, and enemies who affect to for entirely other reasons.

I think that my problem with Morris is that he is just too close to all this - the medievalism, the preference for craftwork over industrial production; even though he is himself a decent sort he acts as a sort of gateway drug for reactionary ideas within the left.

Review of Wadjda

This is the only Saudi film I've ever seen (well, a Saudi-German co-production) and it was thoroughly depressing. It focused on the life of a young girl in Riyadh, who is a bit of a tomboy and wants to have a bike so that she can race with a her young male friend - they are both about ten.

The depiction of the life of women - young and old - is so sad, and so oppressive, that it for once made me feel ashamed to be male. Every aspect of life is controlled and repressed; most of the repressing is done by other women - teachers, parents - and most of it is about conforming to an impossible code of modesty and honour.

Some of the posters for the film (not the one on the right, they must have used a different one in the UK) give the impression that there is a certain coming-of-age, feel-good dimension to the film; they show the girl's foot on the pedal of the bike. Actually it's nothing like that at all, just unremitting misery for most of the running time. The closest thing to it is The Handmaiden's Tale, except that this is real, not science fiction.

Good thing that the EDL are not smart enough to organise sponsored showings all over the country. It's hard to feel warm about Islam after watching this. Just as well that I know that the Wahhabism  that the Saudis are successfully spreading throughout the Muslim world is not the only kind that there is.

Review of BlancaNieves

A really enjoyable, beautiful modern black and white silent film - funny, sad, totally engaging. Loosely based on Snow White, this is a very Spanish film, with lots of heavy Catholicism and bullfighting. It's set in the 1920s (ending in 1929), that is during the proto-fascist dictatorship of Primo de Rivera - though there is no sign of this. Except for a brief glimpse of a Zeppelin over the bullfight ring, there is almost no sign of the modern world at all.

But it is really beautiful, lots of stunning composition and cinematography, great silent acting, and some really good visual gags. And the wicked stepmother Encarna (played by Maribel Verdu, and somewhat reminiscent of Joan Collins) is really, really wicked. I note in passing that she enjoys S&M sex with her lover, the family chauffeur, who she also collars like a dog in one scene. As I have written elsewhere, these days only S&M sex is transgressive enough to count as really dirty in films. Vanilla sex is just too commonplace to have any symbolic force.

Actually, they did tell me all of this when I did A level economics in the 1970s

...which is no reflection on Chang, just on how far mainstream economics has become dominated by ideology and equations. There is nothing in here which would be a surprise to any economist (or politician) from outside the Anglosphere. Neo-classical economics doesn't describe the real world very well and is a poor basis for economic policy or business strategy. Pretty much everyone seriously interested in economics knows this except the kleptocracy in whose interest the UK and USA are both run, and their lackeys who help them do the actual running. Come to think of it, they probably know this too, but it serves them well to keep the rest of us doped up on free-market fairy tales.

This is nicely written - very clear, ordinary language, not an equation or a diagram in sight. It's not by any means anti-capitalist. HJC says 'capitalist is the worst system apart from all the others', and he clearly means it. This view is not really examined, and there is no real consideration of any of the alternatives, apart from the way that the USSR tried to do socialism. There isn't even a proper evaluation of that.

Still, it does at least point out that there are other ways of doing capitalism, and that there is some theoretical justification for this within economics as well as from ethics and politics.  Perhaps some New Labour policy wonks will read on the flight over for their next fact-finding trip to America, and perhaps something will seep in and remain next time they have to write a briefing paper. Perhaps.

Review of The Company You Keep

I absolutely loved the book, and I only quite liked the film. Even though it was an independent production, it still felt Hollywood-ized. At times I felt the book was just a tad too sympathetic to the Weather Underground, but there was no such danger with the film. I haven't done a textual comparison between the book and the film's dialogue, but it felt like most of the politics had been squeezed out of it. There wasn't much sympathy for the Weather people at all - all of that was reserved for those who wanted out of it. It was much more of a conventional 'clear my name' and 'fugitive' type film. The FBI agents didn't seem menacing - the close-ups humanized them. The Osbornes didn't have the right-wing populist politics that they had in the book. And the actors were all much too old - Robert Redford looked at least 70, which made the chronology a little nonsensical.

Still pacey and enjoyable, but a missed opportunity.

Review of The Bling Ring

Bit of a disappointment. The review in the LRB (of the book, not this film) made the whole thing sound terribly post-modern (well, post-post-modern) and interesting, about the intersection of morality, celebrity and criminal justice - but it was mainly just an annoying brat-movie. Occasionally it showed the film it could have been, which somehow made it worse. Curiously, apart from the stealing thing, these kids are model teenagers; they do a little under-age drinking (it wouldn't be under-age in the UK - they are mainly 18 plus) but that's it. No drugs, no sex. Not even a snog, although they all look like models. Can they really spend all that time on the internet without ever looking at...well, you know...

A fast-moving industry

Last week I demonstrated to my colleagues how cool and down with the kids I was by knowing about the Dark Internet, and proposing that we collaborate on a report incorporating stuff like encrypted digital cash, Silk Road, and the ToR network. I had the satisfaction of discovering that they hadn't heard of most of this.

This morning the ToR network and the subject of the Dark Internet was on BBC Radio 4's utterly mainstream middle-of-the-road Today program.  Even mentioned the way that ToR was created by the US Navy. I feel very superfluous.

Review of 'Behind the Candelabra'

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Review of 'The Great Gatsby'

At times this seemed sort of empty and dragged a bit - too much sweeping footage of the beautiful houses and gardens, too many CGI aerial shots of 1920s New York. But it comes to life in the depictions of the dark side of city life - the ash dump between Long Island and Manhattan, the speakeasies, and so on.

Not sure why the party scenes had to have hip-hop tracks - to bring Fitzgerald to a new generation? Since the yoof now seems to be rather fond of 1920s music, albeit with a drum and base overlay (electroswing) that seems unnecessary.

Liked the casting - though Daisy seems a bit dull, so that it's hard to see why Gatsby is so infatuated with her.

Liked the way it actually brought the text of the book into the film, through words (typewritten and handwritten) scrolling across the screen. Loved the way that it captured the despondency of the ending - Fitzgerald's greatness is surely his ability to not succumb to the relentless optimism that seems to characterize almost all cultural output in America.

Review of Michael Lewis's "Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World"

I loved The Big Short, and I liked this a lot. Lewis has the knack of bringing complicated financial stuff to life, and making it comprehensible, through a combination of anecdote and analogy. He's really great at this. Unlike the other books, though, he's on political territory here, and I suspect his instincts are not so sound. He's also writing about people other than Americans, and I suspect he is not immune from the kinds of prejudices about other nations that make for easy shorthand. He knows this, and he makes it apparent that he knows, but even so there is a bad taste in the mouth. Are all Greeks really lazy and venal? Are all Germans really obsessed with shit, and does this explain what happened with their financial system?

I think he's particularly unfair to the Germans, as indeed so many others are. Once you get passed all the shit stuff, what the Germans really stand accused of is believing the ratings agencies. If they shouldn't have, then surely the offence is with them rather than with Germany's modest, local banking system.

And it's funny the way that the final chapter, about America, has to end on a note of optimism, even though just a few pages earlier he was lambasting the 'something will turn up' attitude that allowed so many people to indulge in so much stupidity. I don't think Americans are aware of just how ingrained this need to find a bright note to end on is part of their national character. Optimism is nice, but stupid faith that something will turn up is actually dis-empowering and in itself leads to more bad decisions.

Still a very good read though.

Review of 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'

I really enjoyed this, though I am not entirely sure I should have. It's very violent - lots of people get killed, though they are mainly baddies. There's quite a lot of gore, too - they don't just get quietly killed off-screen. On the other hand, it's quite witty, and more inventive in form and structure (lots of talking direct to the audience, some moments that make it explicit that you are watching a film, and so on). And apart from the structure, there's quite a good whodunnit/whydunnit plot, interesting characters, and some good LA locations that veer between the glamorous and the seedy. And I like Robert Downey Jnr much better as a nebbech that than I do as a tough-guy.

Review of Drugs 2.0

A great book.

Full of lots of new information and powerful insights. Worth reading for the chapter on the Dark Web alone, which introduces the reader to the subject of Tor, encryption, and virtual currencies.

Not given over to unthinking liberalism on drugs either - the author makes it clear that 'research chemicals' can be really, really dangerous, and the fact that it is almost impossible to control the supply does not automatically prove that legalization is the only option.

Can't help thinking (a) that it's mad to have driven our kids from herbal substances on which it is hard to overdose towards synthetic ones the effects and correct dosage of which are poorly understood and (b) that part of the solution must surely be for the pharmaceutical industry to pull its finger out and develop a proper recreational drug program.

Review of 'The Sessions'

Just your regular polio-victim-sex-surrogate film. Well, not formulaic at all, then, and occasionally very uncomfortable to watch. Lots of detail about the mechanics of polio, and also about the mechanics of having sex when you are severely disabled. Worth watching, but not a whole lot of fun - though there are some great cameos and some nice moments of humour.

Based on a true story, and on an article written by the subject of the film Mark O'Brien.

Review of "Ginger and Rosa"

Two teenage girls grow up in 1960s London with liberal, progressive parents. The famous left-wing intellectual dad turns out to have feet of clay and shags the main character's best friend, even though she is a young teen. Everyone (even the other liberal parents and godparents) is shocked. A coming of age film, with some nice scenes and settings, but a bit empty.

Review of "Hope Springs"

A sad film about a middle-aged couple in a relationship that was gone stale. Packaged as if it is a comedy, but actually not funny at all. The male character (well played by Tommy Lee Jones, though I wonder if Jack Nicholson was considered for the role) is so emotionally constipated and frightened of any kind of intimacy that he needs some more serious psychotherapy than the touchy-feely “couples therapy” on offer here.

Not a bad film though. Meryl Streep isn't in many bad ones, is she?

Review of "Great Expectations"

Did we need another film version of “Great Expectations”? Why? I'd say the David Leanversion had it down properly, and was certainly atmospheric enough. The story hasn't changed. Well, cinematic technique has moved on, I suppose. And you can use new actors – that'll make it more accessible, won't it? A bit like Borges' story in which Paul Menard re-writes Don Quixote, using exactly the same words – but his version is richer in allusions to more recent events. So this was quite enjoyable to watch but feels completely superfluous.

Review of 'What happens in Vegas'

Dull, stupid romcom. Formulaic. Only surprising aspects: the sympathetic depiction of alcohol and drunkenness. Usually when characters in this sort of film use/abuse alcohol there are bad consequences. Here there mainly aren't. Sure, the annoying yuppie that Cameron Diaz plays gets married to the slacker male lead because she's drunk, but that turns out well in the end. No-one who gets drunk seems to have a bad hangover or take foolish risks, let alone vomit into a gutter. Also, surprising in that the male character has a family and a back-story but the female one just doesn't.

Review of 'The Adjustment Bureau'

One of the worst films I have seen for a long time. The presence of Matt Damon ought to have been a clue. A mixture of conspiracy thriller, supernatural/religious themes, and the 'American ideology' that anyone can rise above their fate if they are determined enough. Truly awful. I was pleased to discover that the Philip K Dick story on which this is very loosely based, 'The Adjustment Team', is nothing like this at all. I like his work, and usually like the films it is made into. This is a dreadful exception.

Review of all of those Stieg Larsson "Girl With..." films

I watched these last week while recovering from a neck/shoulder injury. I think I enjoyed the injury more. These films, like the book, are violent but dull. I know that I ought to like Stieg Largsson, but I don't - not the books, and not the films. Despite the plot lines they are devoid of dramatic tension, and the characters are uninteresting. The plots are full of holes, and apparently intelligent characters do the most stupid things.

At least now I understand why there was a US remake so soon after the release of the Swedish film; given the success of the books someone thought that they ought to be able to make a film that was at least not boring. I don't know if they succeeded. I am not going to watch the Hollywood remake - I have already wasted enough time on this. Well, that's seven hours of my life I'm not getting back.

Review of "Love and Other Drugs"

A romcom with degenerative diseases. Jake Gyllenhaal is a smart young man from a good family but he's working in sales because...something about not wanting to give his doctor father the satisfaction he would get from Jake finishing med school. So his start-up millionaire geek brother gets him a job as a medical rep, where he meets early-stage Parkinson's sufferer Anne Hathaway. They engage in the kind of verbal sparring that always means they are about to have sex in this sort of film, and then they have sex. Very energetic, young-people sex. Anne Hathaway's condition is very mild (her hand twitches a bit every so often) but it hangs over them.

He works for Pfizer, so soon he's pushing Viagra rather than Zoloft, and becomes much in demand. Cue some stiffy jokes, and an orgy scene. Then it all gets serious when he realises he really really loves her, and she doesn't want him to take on a future in which she will degenerate...and on to the resolution, which there's no need for me to spoil. Not quite your usual romcom - slightly more gravitas, but still plenty of dick and wanking jokes.