Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006; d. Michael Winterbottom)

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is possibly the best movie I've seen this year (which is only half over, but I doubt I'll engage with and enjoy another quite as much). Even now, as I think over the movie, I find myself laughing out loud remembering a visual joke here, a bit of slapstick there, the clever dialogue all throughout, the ridiculous yet pointedly observant scenes.

It's got a set-up that could be as pretentious and boring and badly done as anything you could imagine - it's a film adaptation of a rambling 18th century English novel that has been dubbed "unfilmable", packed with top British actors (and one well-known American actress), and also a film about the film of an adaptation of a rambling 19th century novel...but it's very very funny and clever and hits just the right note of arch without being wanky. While trying to sound profound, the lead actor gives an interview about the greatness of the novel he's in without having ever read the novel and says, "This is a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post about."

You don't have to have read the novel either, and that's one of the running jokes of the film, that no one on set has actually read the 600+ pages of novel. Very few people have, really, because while it is supposed to be about Tristram Shandy's life but because of the author's passion for digressions and moving between past and present on tangents it also ends right after the main character is born! Thus in reflection of this, the movie that is shown to the producers at the end (ie. the movie we've just watched) is also so digressive that very few of the originally scripted and pitched scenes (ie. the ones from the novel) actually make it into the film. Confused? Now, the movie itself is set on the film set of a movie adaptation of this novel with some of the actors playing characters on this film-within-film as well as playing the actors themselves (eg. Steve Coogan, the actor and comedian, plays an actor and comedian named "Steve Coogan") while other actors are playing crew members (eg. Jeremy Northam plays a director named Mark, who is really a stand in for the real director, Michael Winterbottom). Now completely confused? However, don't worry - it's a lot more understandable when you see it unfold wonderfully on-screen, as they break fourth-wall and talk to the camera, and move between scenes and sets and "real life", all with a funny, hyper-realistic script that flows naturally between all the different modes.

One of the ideas of the film is not just to give a sense of the shambles of the novel (which is does wonderfully, thus being a great adaptation in that it gives the atmosphere if not the plot) but also to revel in the process of film-making and a feel for the little bubble world a film set is. While outside events unfurl - a radio news report gravely reports on the Iraq insurgency - the actors and crew members are tangled up in their petty worries, fretting over the latest crisis on set; whether it be the battle of egos between two actors ("we're co-leads", Rob Brydon insists, while Steve Coogan sharply replies, "well, we'll see in the edit!") or Steve coming to terms with his new family unit of girlfriend and child while trying to hold onto his old life by flirting with a pretty film runner who has the same name as his girlfriend or the producers insisting they not use money they don't have to refilm a diastrous battle scene in which extras - in anachronistic costumes - stroll across the screen desultorily! The inside jokes are great for anyone who loves film, and I'm told there are even inside jokes in the inside jokes for those who really love their movies.

The cast is amazing. A veritable list of great British actors, doing good work no matter how big or small their part. In particular, Steve Coogan is great - he's such an vain, insecure man as an actor, but he also shows a softer side playing a new father, and it makes him endearingly human and thus likeable - plus he has a difficult job playing three parts as Tristram the narrator, Walter Shandy his father, and Steve Coogan the actor. Rob Brydon plays very well opposite him, and their bickering from who looks taller or has the bigger part or does the better impression of Al Pacino (a great end-of-credits sequence) is a cack. Kelly McDonald is beautiful and lovely and warm as always, and Gillian Anderson in a brief cameo is breathily sexy in an 18th century way (and funny as herself, wondering where all the scenes she shot over two weeks went).

But apart from the clever ideas, the great acting and the tamed chaos, there's also a lovely sense of the visual joke. One of the craziest, most memorable, lasting images of this movie for me is a scene where Steve Coogan is asked to test out a giant fake womb for a scene later in the movie (that doesn't actually make it into the "movie"). As he is lowered head first, complete with his 18th century costume, into a big pink uterus model, he has an argument with the production assistant about how he is positioned.

"[Mark, the director] wants it to be as realistic as possible," they say in defense of having him upside down.

"He wants realism. Yeah. I'm a grown man, talking to the camera, in a womb." Coogan yells back, through the plastic window, still stuck in the grossly overlarge and pink fleshy cavity.

Visually and in words, it's a great summary of the sublime ridiculousness of this movie.

Snow Patrol - 24 Jul 2006 - Enmore Theatre

So, let's recap: cute rock boys with dry senses of humour and Scottish accents playing guitars and singing awesome songs = a good night.

The lead singer, Gary Lightbody, made me giggle like a charmed schoolgirl - it's partly the accent, and partly because he sounded so natural at drawing the audience in. He chatted to the them throughout the night, with extended riffs about being in Australia and how things weren't what they expected; from the rain ("we didn't think you got that here") to the fact they still hadn't seen any kangaroos ("[Nathan, the guitar player] got punched in the face the other day for saying kangaroos don't exist. Discuss. [longer pause as audience yells various answers] Well, we haven't see any ...ergo."), to attempts at surfing ("Well when I say surfing, I mean swallowing a lot of sea water, but hey, at least I didn't get eaten by a shark.") Also, he plays his guitar and bounds all over the stage like he's possessed.

Onto the music. Gary's voice has been plagued by nodules/polyps, and it was kind of noticeable. He started off by saying "I shouldn't really say this 'cause it's kind of admitting defeat, but I've not been feeling...well, nevermind. My voice hasn't been the the best the last couple of months, so sing along if you know the words." And usually, it meant at the beginning of each song he would sound a little off key and hoarse, but usually by the end it would warm up and become a lot better, apart from the odd high note. The concert itself followed a similar pattern - the energy wasn't quite there at the start, but it really hit its stride after the first few songs and it was so awesome in the songs people knew best when everyone stood up and clapped and danced and sang.

I was estatic when they played my two favourites back to back, especially because Somewhere A Clock is Ticking isn't that well known (as evidenced by the suddenly quieter crowd) but I just love this song and it's weird fluttering and clockwork rhythms behind the falsetto in the verses and the choir-like chorus building and building. What I love about the songs are that they are so melodically dramatic, rises and falls with the emotions while retaining a lush beautiful and catchy sound, and paired with Make this Go On Forever, I think I made a fair few happy squeaks as the beginning chords of each song rang out.

A real crowd favourite was Run, which sounded great and had this crackling energy, and at the end it was just really sweet - they kept playing and the audience just launched as a whole into one last repeat of the chorus and the band just looked so chuffed at the response.


Spitting Games
Wow
Chocolate
It’s Beginning to Get to Me
Headlights on Dark Roads
?
Chasing Cars
Shut Your Eyes
How to be Dead
Somewhere A Clock is Ticking
Make This Go On Forever
Ways and Means
Run
You’re All I Have

Open Your Eyes
?

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 20 Jul 2006 - Enmore Theatre

The band is known for being crazy and having really energetic shows, so I was a little apprehensive of the crowd and just really unsure of what to expect. The band came on a little late (about 10:15pm) and played a relatively short set for an hour, almost half-half from their two albums. And though Karen O sounded...spacey...the show was pretty tight and had a real energy to the sound.

Her voice was not always in tune, but it worked with her vocal style and the music, and it was still really lovely during Maps. They played it with the full backing at first, then Karen O said they were going to try something they'd never done before because she felt like it (I may have taken a few obscenities out for that paraphrase) and that was a great acoustic version of Maps, just her voice and an electric guitar, and it really is a great love song, with an indie rock feel. And the band seemed like they were having fun, with Karen O throwing herself all over the stage (without any mishap) and wearing crazy sparkly pompoms on her head and at one point spinning half a disco ball on her head in time with the music. All in all, a fun experience.


Phenomena
Date With the Night
Art Star
Way Out
Cold Light
Modern Romance
?
Gold Lion
Cheated Hearts
Dudley
Maps
Maps (acoustic)

Warrior
Y-Control

Death Cab for Cutie - 16 Jul 2006 - Home

A strange choice of venue, sparse with minimal security, but that said, it was such a small space that the concert felt really intimate.

The support band was Belles Will Ring, who I've never heard of before. All through their set, I had this niggling feeling that they sounded like some other band, and that was the problem with them - while they were a perfectly competent and decent rock band, they sounded so generic as to be unmemorable while inoffensive.

Death Cab came on with minimum fuss, just four unassuming guys on a small stage. But they played awesomely, the rhythm section loud and strong and great, the band sounded tight and together, and Ben Gibbard's voice sounded excellent over it all. Even with the softer songs, they have the ability to build this wall of sound, warm and enveloping and strong.

Marching Bands of Manhattan
The New Year
We Laugh Indoors
Title and Registration
President of What
Soul Meets Body
Summer Skin
Crooked Teeth
Company Calls
Company Calls Epilogue
Photobooth
A Movie Script Ending
Styrofoam Plates
Blacking Out the Friction
All Is Full of Love
Expo 86
The Sound of Settling

I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism