REVIEW - Joy Division Films

Film subjects are often like London buses. You wait around for ages, and then 2 or 3 turn up at the same time. It happened with generation-body-swap movies (Big, 17 Again, 18 Again, 13 Going on 30, Freaky Friday, Like Father Like Son, Vice Versa, and way too many more), gritty, modern remakes of classic Westerns like Open Range, Appaloosa, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, etc.), and it happened with Joy Division documentaries. I don't understand why, 16 years after Ian Curtis' death, 3 documentaries went into production at virtually the same time. In Hollywood, I'm sure it's down to one person hawking a script around several studios, not getting picked up but sparking other producers to assemble almost identical propositions. But this is (or was) England, and grimy Manchester to boot.

New Order Story (1994)

Shabby first 10 minutes, with toe-curlingly horrible excerpts from The No Show, hosted by Lily Allen's dad, Keith, doppelganging Noel Edmonds. Inexcusable inclusion of several Bono quotes. Starts with Blue Monday, then flashes back and forth in time. Good live studio stuff from the band, but repeated reminders that Barney Sumner could never fill Curtis' vocalist shoes. Definitely the weakest of the 4 band documentaries - and arguably shouldn't be held up alongside the genuine Joy Division films. Don't get me wrong, I like New Order, but the vignettes from Neil Tennant reveal where New Order's true comparisons lie. They lost their Mojo long before they slumped into Electronic, Monaco and Revenge. It was telling that the film closed with Joy Division's Atmosphere, perhaps unintentionally reminding everyone how deep was that slump.

Joy Division: In Review (2006)

Good, in that any film covering JD must be good, but band interviews have been substituted with music author and journalist reviews. Interviews with everyone BUT the band members. Even featured the ex Mrs. Tony Wilson, but no Wilson himself. Consequentially, has a more NME Review style of Joy Division's discography than the other films. Music journos being what they are, there are eyebrow-raising (but in the end, valid) comparisons between Joy Division's Atmosphere and The Ronettes' Be My Baby, and Love Will Tear Us Apart and Frank Sinatra's output. More of a critique than an homage to Joy Division. Footage of Sex Pistols and The Clash that I hadn't seen before, which was good. Not sure that anyone seeing this version, without an earlier exposure to Joy Division, would come away a fan.

Control (2007)

The best of the 3 or 4 Joy Division documentaries, by a squeak. Great live footage, interviews with band members, very atmospheric - goose-bump inducing. Focuses more on Ian Curtis' life than do the other films.

Joy Division (2007)

Not to be confused with the 2006 film of the same name, which is nothing to do with the world's best band, this 2007 documentary is almost as good as Control. "Which one should newbies watch first, Control or Joy Division?" is a question posed and answered on IMDB at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1097239/board/nest/108706429.

24-Hour Party People (2002)

While not dedicated to Joy Division, the band features heavily, and this is the best film of the 5. Fantastic collage of punk, Manchester post-punk, baggies and the Factory scene. And funny.

RANT - "Have you eaten with us before?"

I hate restaurants that say "Have you eaten with us before?", and then whatever you answer they proceed to explain about "family style" serving. If I want to share my meal with someone at the table, I can do that without a nod from the staff.

"Shall we split a salad?" - that's another suggestion I hate.

RAVE - Ghost Wars, by Steve Coll

A great story, and not just because I read most of it while floating in the pool in Fiji (look closely at the header image on this blog's home page).

This book goes into great detail about the attitudes, prevailing conditions and bungling of various branches of the intelligence services over years of engagement in Afghanistan.

The fact that when Russia had invaded and was occupying Afghanistan, the preferred method for encouraging the Taliban to oppose Russian forces was by sending them hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and military equipment, backfired in a big way. As soon as Russian forces retired back to their own county, the Taliban used that very equipment against American and allied forces.

If the book's too much for you, rent Charlie Wilson's War on DVD / Blu-Ray, as Charlie and his involvement in Afghanistan features in the book.

RAVE - Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing

This book presses all of my literary buttons: It's accurate history, written like an adventure story, about places and activities we fairweather adventurers dream about.

The efforts that Shackleton and his team made, and the conditions under which they traveled, are unlike normal humans will ever experience. The resilience and determination they showed are almost too much to comprehend.

When I read this and thought "what would I do if I was stuck on a rock in the middle of the Antarctic, with scraps of penguin meat for food and no fresh water, a leaky rowing boat, no maps or charts, with many of my crew injured and/or about to die of starvation and exposure?", I stopped thinking.

Makes you wonder what drove them to spend years in Antarctica freezing their bits off. Could their home lives have sucked that much?

REVIEW - Music your Dad hates

Watching The Song Remains The Same, on Palladia channel, and remembering my dad telling John Boyland and me that we'd break the record player if we continued playing Communication Breakdown that loud. Ha!

RAVE - Pandora

Maybe someone, somewhere doesn't yet know of this great site. Pick an artist or song, and Pandora uses its Music Genome Project roots to pick other songs you'll like. Save as many stations as you like, so that when you're feeling moody, you can pick the station to lift you, or deepen that mood.

There are also hacks that let you save Pandora's tunes as MP3s on your computer. There's one described here.

RAVE - Blip.fm

Build your own playlists and sets; you'll never find an easier DJ gig. Different from Pandora, in that here you pick each individual song to create your own playlist or station.

RANT - Google

I hate the fact that to Google became the generic for web search, when they neither invented it nor did the best job of deploying it.

RAVE - Slanted Door

It's hardly worth me adding my thumbs up for Slanted Door. Every resident or visitor to San Francisco already knows of this place, visits it as often as they can or stumbles into it when they're traipsing around the Ferry Building.

On the down side, it's one of those places where they always ask you "have you eaten with us before?", like we don't know the next statement is going to be "we serve family style here". If there's one thing that touches a raw nerve for me it's restaurants telling me whether or not I can share my food with my friends.

As a rule, I'd rather not. Not because I don't want them to taste what I'm tasting, but because if I order a plate of "barbecued willis ranch pork spareribs with honey-hoisin sauce", I want to eat that order rather than fight over it with everyone else at the table! 

But I digress .... Slanted Door is the real deal; fabulous food in a fun atmosphere, with lots to see inside and outside.

RANT - Greens

There are some vegetarian restaurants I've been to where the food is genuinely interesting - even exciting - for carnivores AND herbivores.

Greens is not one of them.

With all the ambience of a nursing home ward, the place is devoid of fun, unless slopping around in birkenstocks is your idea of fun.

The location, at Fort Mason, has all the potential of a cool, historical dock-side. In fact, the only real excitement I've seen at Fort Mason was a Robot Wars final, the one that used to be televised and hosted by that guy off Red Dwarf.

Anyhow, the lettuce and pea soup at Greens will bring you right back down to earth with a bland bump.

RAVE - Foreign Cinema

To describe Foreign Cinema as an oasis would be to suggest that everything around it is a cultural and culinary desert. True, there are some eyesores on Mission Street around 21st and 22nd, but the best restaurant experiences start like those at Foreign Cinema, where there's no hint outside of the wonders inside.

Pass through the night-clubbish entrance, skoot past the side door to Laszlo's, the cool pre- or post-dinner bar, and you're into the open air courtyard that houses 1/3rd of the tables and the projected movies - usually classic French and Italian fare.

The idea has now been copied by several other restaurants in town, but no-one has matched the accompanying food.

Once the novelty of the film-on-a-big-brick-wall has been absorbed, you can concentrate on the superior Mediterranean menu.

We've been here often - sometimes just to show visitors how much fun it is to socialize in San Francisco - and have always enjoyed the great food, atmosphere and company.

RAVE - Cyrus

Aside from Raffles in Singapore, Cyrus (Healdsburg) is probably the most luxurious dining experience we've ever enjoyed.

The scene was set by spending the weekend at Hotel Healdsburg, in the main square of this Sonoma wine region capital, and being able to stroll a couple blocks to Cyrus for our 9.30pm reservation.

We didn't leave until 1am, and there were still diners lapping up the decadent 5 or 7 course tasting menus.

We had the latter, but would probably have just 5 courses next time. Not for budgetary reasons - although it was far from cheap at around $750 for the 2 of us, including wine pairing - but because there was just so much food, so many flavors. With the 3 or 4 amuses bouches, our 7 courses became 10 or 11, and although we remembered how much we'd marveled at courses 1, 2, 3 and 4, towards the end of the meal it all became a bit of a blur.

Service was p.e.r.f.e.c.t, with the best organized dining room I've seen anywhere in the world. Without seeming to clutter the room, or hang around waiting to spot something that needed doing, the staff not only made sure our every need was anticipated, but whenever a course was ready, each of our meals was delivered simultaneously by two waiters. Big deal, you might think, but when this done by six waiters to a table of six, eight waiters to a table of eight, without interfering with the impeccable service we were getting, you realized how much effort went into the organization.

Each course was a joy, and the whole experience didn't feel over-priced.

Definitely one for very special occasions.