Snow is Cool in the Movies
House of Flying Daggers
This snow is ridiculous. Really, need I say more? Well, I want something to blog about, so yes! People are stuck at home and unable to come into work (yeah, right!) and we’ve had continuous snowfall in Edinburgh all day and yesterday evening too. And it’s the 31st March!
What was the point of all my hopeful, studious observation of sunset and the time of the last dwindling light of each and every evening throughout January, February and March? This?!
Well screw you, bad weather! In today’s post, I have decided to come up with a way to look on the bright side, so here are five snowy movie moments that tell us that snow is, after all, really titillating, atmospheric and above all, cool.
In no particular order:
1. Old Boy, closing sequence
Don’t worry, watching this doesn’t give the ending away. Well, come on, it is the ending, but you know what I mean. No spoilers here. This is a beautiful sequence and I especially love the waltz which forms the centrepiece of the soundtrack. If you like the look of it and haven’t seen this film, do so soon. It’s well worth it. Snow is beautiful and a little disturbing in Old Boy.
2. Gladiator, Germania battle sequence
Romans, furs, dogs, archers, testudos, Germanic barbarians, Germania, Maximus, lobbing olive oil bombs, flaming arrows, forests, slow-motion Saving-Private-Ryan-type what’s-it-all-worth footage. How dare anyone suggest that the perfect accompaniment is not snow? Snow is cool in Gladiator, and so is the desert. And both are definitely cooler than Maximus’s lame (ball-and-chain) Spanish farm.
3. House of Flying Daggers, closing sequence
This film, probably the first real manifestation of the slippery slope Zhang Yimou has been on over the last few years, has a truly sketchy plot. However, Zhang’s visuals are as beautiful as they are in any of his other films, and the snowy ending is no exception. Snow is beautiful in House of Flying Daggers. Is this a spoiler? Yes and no. It is, but the ending has very little logical coherence with the beginning of the film, or the middle, so it doesn’t matter. Anyway, truly stunning visuals, that’s the point.
4. Dr Zhivago, most of…
This is not really uplifting at all, and doesn’t help me with my point, but I don’t think you can discuss snow in film without reference to Dr Zhivago.
5. Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers, opening sequence
New Zealand, the Misty Mountains, whatever way you want to look at it, beautiful snowy landscapes. The film just gets better from there!
This list could really go on forever and I make no pretence to its being exhaustive. To be honest, I’m trying to complete it as quickly as I can before it stops snowing! Can you think of any others?
Art and Claymation pave the Road to Hell in Aberdeen
Sorry I missed you: Wallace and Gromit
Intentions, intentions, what is it they say about them? The Comely Banking Crisis drifted north along the granite-paved road to Aberdeen for a weekend in the glimmering Silver City, taking a turn (just the one is required) about Union Street, and the same for Belmont Street.
I really won't have a bad word said about the place. (Well, one or two maybe, but that's it.) There's plenty there to entertain, and to prove it, here are two notable things I didn't do:
1. Frances Walker - Place Observed in Solitude, Aberdeen Art Gallery
You've got to hand it to Aberdeen Art Gallery. Even if you're just running in for an urgent usage of their toilet or a last minute panick-bought birthday card, you can't help but notice that this a beautiful space, well managed, with a magnificent collection. I really like the way their contemporary collection is the main focus of the building and the first thing that greets you as you enter, despite a decent collection of older works.
The gallery is worth a visit just to look at Francis Bacon's disturbing but brilliant portrait of some pope or other (a study after Velázquez’s Portrait of "Innocent" X - see what I did there?) or the sublime horror of Ken Currie's Gallowgate Lard. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it's well worth the day-trip to Aberdeen from Edinburgh or Glasgow just to see these two paintings.
The temporary exhibitions here also tend to be outstanding. I was recently blown away by Ron Mueck's giant or tiny but otherwise freakishly accurate human figures lounging around in their underwear or pajamas. The current special exhibition is a celebration of Frances Walker's 80th birthday and is apparently the first showing of works from all the periods of her career. So going by this background, the Walker exhibition promised a lot. I never made it.
2. Wallace and Gromit ‘Animated Adventures', Satrosphere Science Centre
OK, it looks as though this one is aimed at the kids, mainly, but a couple of points should defy any reason-toting adults who may wish to claim this is anything less than great. You get to see real hand-made sets from Curse of the Wear-Rabbit - no mean promise. And Satrosphere also promises to provide an interactive experience which allows visitors to create and animate their own characters and a special exhibit on the process of stop motion animation. It's sponsored by Shell, but - hey - this is Aberdeen! I never made it.
Excuses? I had to go to a wedding and a birthday dinner, so really, duty called and won the day over art. But I'm not afraid to admit that I spent some time poncing about in the new-ish Peckham's on Union Street with a notebook and a coffee and, much worse still, sauntering around a certain new shopping centre near the train station. I wasn't even waiting for my train while doing the latter, so shame is in the air. Oh, mañana!
I thought I’d invented a new word…
A bolivious gesture? Velezuelan President Hugo Chavez presents Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with yet another replica of Simone Bolivar's sword
The Comely Banking Crisis was at some point in the last day or two attempting to tell someone that he was ‘oblivious’, but through some confusion of the mind or speech impediment, this came out as ‘bolivious’. Subsequent research into the use of this non-word on Urban Dictionary, corroborated by Cha Cha, has led me to the following definition:
“Believing that you are mindful or aware of something. But you’re not. But you SHOULD be.”
I must say I found this definition quite disappointing, to say the least. This is because I wanted a little bit for this new word to be my own creation, therefore granting me the authorial right to its definition (a little naïve there, I’ll admit). But mainly I was disappointed because I thought a much better definition would be:
“Believing that you are the great American Liberator Simone de Bolivar. But you’re not. But you SHOULD be.”
(And I mean 'American' in the proper sense here.) I would have preferred this one.
Can you think of any bolivious world leaders?
192 years ago this very day, Simon de Bolivar was passing baggage across a ravine in Venezuela and narrowly escaped a Spanish attack. Unfortunately, he lost the baggage.
Honestly, where would we be without the internet? Without useful knowledge like this!
St. Patrick’s Day plus Five: Some Reflections
The annual dilemma: where to drink on St. Patrick's Day
Almost a week has passed since Paddy’s Day. I’ve had time to reflect on my choices. Let’s face it, the final choice was likely to be a bad one on that particular night, but a choice it was.
What does one do in Edinburgh on Paddy’s Day? Go to work! Alright, but in the evening? If you're a type who likes watching sports in the Grassmarket and Cowgate area, especially on one of those really intense weekends when, say, Scotland and/or Ireland are playing rugby, and you’d like to grab that atmosphere, impose it upon an otherwise peaceful Wednesday night in Spring and go to work the next day, then the Grassmarket’s your man.
If you’ve ever been to Temple Bar in Dublin, it’s a very similar deal. Both of these districts in their respective cities have the role of ‘guest room’ and for many carry a strict ‘one visit only’ condition, especially those on longer stays.
What would Nesbitt do?
Maybe I’m being a little snobby here, so I’ll admit that the Grassmarket option, as intense as it is, provides by far the most accurate reconstruction of the event as it happens in contemporary Ireland (for better or worse). So it’s an understandable choice. What’s more I have indeed done it myself, and while doing so did run into one Jimmy Nesbitt, and had the privilege of shaking his hand in the lavatory of the Last Drop (oh, we were awash with that Paddy’s Day dignity – I waited until he'd washed his hands, honestly). This is an option with celebrity endorsement, is what I'm getting at.
Stockbridge
So needless to say, being a little seasoned in this city, my drinking companion and I decided to go elsewhere, and settled on the plan to slouch around in sleepy Stockbridge instead. We didn’t realise it at the time, but we might as well have stuck our middle fingers up at the whole event by making this choice.
Actually, that’s not true: the Stockbridge choice had more of an effect of ignoring St. Patrick altogether. Our livers probably didn’t notice, but our sense of all things Oirish certainly did. That’s not to say that there was anything wrong, per se, with the Stockbridge choice. A night in the pub is a night in the pub.
The Crawl
We started out in Avoca on Dean Street. Admittedly, this is an Irish pub of sorts (but not in the decorative ceramic bed-pan, rip-off prices way), so this pub was the exception to the rule. It was pleasant, quiet, and a couple of pints of Guinness were inevitable – and tasted good if you like that sort of thing. The staff here had green T-shirts, perhaps with Guinness logos and something relating to the day in question, so it was a Paddy’s Day observed here, at least for us and the barman.
My companion and I proceeded to discuss how we’d both noticed an intriguing, purplish pub-looking place further up Dean Street, and had in fact both intended to try it out, but had been prevented by some fear of the unknown, so we decided to use our combined forces to rid ourselves of this fear and ended up moments later at the delightfully surprising Raconteur (previously the old Dean, I'm assured by a friend).
Really, this is where I should have started, because the Raconteur is possibly the one place on our Stockbridge Paddy’s Day crawl someone from Edinburgh out there might not have already been to. You’d better do this place justice by reading about it elsewhere for a more carefully researched account of their excellent cocktail menu and the enticing food menu, but take it from me that the atmosphere was great – very friendly and relaxed, with table service and pub prices! A very cool place altogether, and some complimentary pretzels never go amiss. (Ignoring Paddy’s Day)
The rest of our night we spent in the Antiquary, where we stumbled upon their weekly pub quiz (ignoring Paddy’s Day) and the Baillie, which was dead (ignoring Paddy’s Day), and then Hectors, which unashamedly ignored Paddy’s Day, my companion, and me.
To Blog or not to Blog, to Save the Planet and Other Such Clichés
There’s been a lot of talk recently about diaries. The BBC gave us a whole season on the subject, with illuminating programming which revisited the diary of Anne Frank, Roger Casement’s terrifically scandalous ‘Black Diaries’ and the undeniably fascinating journals of Kenneth Williams (pictured), among many others.
Whether the concern is historical, such as with The Diaries of Tennessee Williams on Radio 4, or espousing the merits of writing one’s own and tips for so doing, exemplified in the Dear Diary series, the message is pretty clear: we like diaries and we should all write one.
And then there are blogs – the public, showy-offy version. To say that blogs are de rigueur these days is so obviously an understatement that I needn’t even bother listing off recent examples; there are too many anyway. I’ll take it that you’re convinced.
But aside from settling on what’s worth reading, we quickly reach a problem when confronted by the plethora of blogs now online - a neurotic and especially modern problem. What value is there in setting up yet another one, taking up that little bit more space, making the internet one blog more cluttered than it was before? Surely one could adequately fulfil one’s sacred duty to the improvement of the internet simply by abstaining from the whole business, just as one might help the environment by laying off the beef or staying at home more (in the cold with the lights off, of course)? Simply put, is the best kind of blog these days one that is never started?
Well, aside from the obvious ‘just make it a good blog’ solution to this conundrum, I’m going by the principle given to me by the Beeb at the license fee-payers’ expense: that it’s good to write a diary, and by that I understand blogs too.
Anyone (read: me) who’s concerned that blogging has become clichéd and that we are overexposed to the habit should wonder whether all of those ladies and gentlemen of yore who gave us all the great diaries spent a lot of time worrying about such issues when they were writing. I suggest that they didn’t. Nor should we. And besides, those yore-folk were too busy worrying about wars, God, untreatable diseases and the illegality of homosexuality.
And as a final word in this little ode to the blog, I correct myself: blogs might well be public and ‘showy-offy’, but there is no reason to suppose that diaries are any less so. I grew up reading other people’s widely published diaries, for God’s sake. So, thanks Leither Magazine for setting up this timely blogging service which I now benefit from.
And so I begin yet another one, but this one doesn’t waste paper; instead, they have a big engine in California or somewhere that powers hundreds of computers. Oh Hell, we can’t win! At least they’re more efficient with home heating over there!
Good Call!
Congratulations! What a great idea it was for you to have a look at this blog - the site of many semi-relevant, sort-of witty observations to come.
Thanks for your interest, but apparently I have a good deal of writing to get on with.
If this little introductory ramble is leaving you feeling less than satisfied, then check out some of the links over to the right - these people have worked harder than me to date, but they'd better get scared - plenty more to come here!
Thanks for visiting - come again soon!
