Month: July 2017

For The Love Of… Drugs (T2 Trainspotting review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Against all odds, the protagonist survived the whole ordeal and came out the better for it.

 

T2 Trainspotting (2017)

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Shirley Henderson, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, Kelly Macdonald, Anjela Nedyalkova
Director: Danny Boyle
re-released on blu-ray June 27, 2017
******** 8/10

IMDB: 7.4
Rotten Tomatoes: 78%, Audience Score 82%
The Guardian: ****/*****

Danny Boyle is an English director, producer, and screenwriter; best known for Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and Steve Jobs. He has won BAFTA Awards and Academy Awards for his films and generally prefers to keep the genres and ideas he works with separate from each other, but he has dabbled with sequels having now created continuations of story arcs with both 28 Weeks Later and T2 Trainspotting.

Boyle admits that while his films are all over the map, a consistent theme runs through each – about overcoming insurmountable odds. As Dave Chapelle’s impersonation of Rick James would say, heroin is a hell of a drug.

Courtesy of Wikipedia…

In the 20 years since Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) stole £16,000 in drug money from his friends he has married and been living in Amsterdam. After going through a divorce which renders him homeless and being diagnosed with ACS, he decides to return to Edinburgh. Daniel “Spud” Murphy (Ewen Bremner), still a heroin addict, has lost his construction job and is estranged from his girlfriend, Gail (Shirley Henderson), and son, Fergus. Simon “Sick Boy” Williamson (Jonny Lee Miller) now abuses cocaine, owns a pub he inherited from his aunt, and engages in blackmail schemes with his Bulgarian dominatrix girlfriend Veronika (Anjela Nedalkova). Francis “Franco” Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is serving a 25-year prison sentence and is denied parole due to his violent temper.

Renton stops by his childhood home, where his father (James Cosmo) tells him of his mother’s death. He visits Spud at his flat, preventing him from committing suicide. Spud initially resents the intervention, but Renton offers to help him out of his addiction, telling him he needs to channel his addiction into something else. Renton then visits Simon at the pub intending to apologise and pay his share of the £16,000. They fight, but ultimately make peace.

Begbie escapes from prison and reunites with his wife and university-bound son, whom he wants to join him in burgling houses. Begbie visits Simon, and learns that Renton has returned. Simon keeps both Begbie and Renton unaware of his contact with the other.

Renton, Simon, and Veronika become partners in various crimes, using the proceeds to renovate the second floor of Simon’s pub into a brothel. They fraudulently apply for an EU business-development loan. Veronika begins an affair with Renton. One of Simon’s blackmail targets reports him to the police and Renton seeks legal advice from his former girlfriend, Diane (Kelly Macdonald), now a solicitor. The proceeds of their crimes are used up in legal fees. A menacing encounter with the owner of a rival brothel intimidates Renton and Simon into abandoning their brothel scheme. Veronika tells Renton and Simon that the business-development loan was approved and they have £100,000.

Begbie and Renton accidentally meet in the toilets of a nightclub, resulting in a chase from which Renton barely escapes. Begbie visits Spud and discovers he has been writing his memoirs, with Veronika’s encouragement. From the pages spread throughout Spud’s apartment, Begbie learns for the first time that Renton had left Spud his £4,000 share of the drug deal earnings. When Veronika stops by, Begbie takes her phone which he uses to trick Mark and Simon into meeting him at Simon’s pub.

Veronika asks Spud to leave with her, promising him half of the £100,000 loan money. He declines, but helps her steal the money by forging Renton’s and Simon’s signatures.

Simon and Renton meet at the pub, and Spud arrives to warn them of Begbie’s trap. Begbie arrives and knocks Simon unconscious. Renton hides upstairs, then falls from the rafters and gets caught in cables, which strangle him. As Begbie attempts to finish killing Renton, Simon revives and uses pepper spray on Begbie. As Begbie retrieves and loads a shotgun, Spud knocks him unconscious with a toilet bowl.

The three leave Begbie trapped in the boot of a car parked outside the prison from which he’d escaped. Veronika returns to Bulgaria with the £100,000. Spud channels his addiction into his writing and begins mending his relationship with Gail and Fergus. As Gail reads his writings, the implied title of the book is “Trainspotting”. Renton and Simon resume their old friendship. Renton moves back into his father’s home and embraces him before going into his bedroom and playing “Lust for Life” on his record player.

While this movie doesn’t have quite the same bite and rawness as its predecessor, it is a pure sequel, with the emotional pull between its ensemble cast and Boyle’s treatment of middle-agedness making this movie a worthy installment and bookend of these burnouts in a far off corner of the world.

Pros: It retreads what preceded in glorious fashion, we are happy to revisit the same characters twenty years later, and while the actors have aged themselves, each of the four leads provides the goods. Begbie and Spud in particular shine.

Cons: The constant references to the first film are a bit jilting at first and only feel necessary upon post-mortem reflection of the plot. I struggle with the limited screen time for both Spud and Begbies estranged wives. The relationship between Renton and Sick Boy feels strained, and not from the twenty years after the betrayal.

Runtime: 1 hour 57 minutes

Points of Interest: Robert Carlyle decided to stay away from his family during filming because he took on so many traits of Begbie. Ewan McGregor and Danny Boyle had a falling out around the time that Leonardo DiCaprio was cast as the lead for The Beach, and only recently reconciled. During filming, the movie was titled Porno, just as the second novel was titled.

Sometimes what follows an opportunity is a betrayal, but fortunately for us this was not the case with T2: Trainspotting. Danny Boyle does continue his theme of having his character overcomes all odds and walk away a better person for it. Realistically, Renton should have died this time around, but as luck would have it, he gets to walk away. It’s a mesmerizing film to watch, and even as it features some caper flick elements towards the end, it makes sense for the story.

theories Summarized

I’ll admit that I had not seen 1996’s Trainspotting until just before viewing this film, so maybe I can’t hold onto the nostalgia as tightly as some other viewers might, but I think in this case it afforded me with the ability to appreciate both films upfront and without the rose-coloured glasses. This is a solid sequel, which no one should feel ashamed in indulging. And unlike drugs, you won’t feel the effects of withdrawal.

But that said, if you are feeling some Watch Culture aches and pains, fear not creative cuties, we have another serving for you below. Enjoy and I’ll see you tomorrow with some wisdom!

Tim!

Arm Chair Philosophy (Vince Staples, Big Fish Theory review)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

Philosophy is a wonderful thing. Rich, compelling, and full of room to experiment, because there isn’t one world view per se.

 

Vince Staples – Big Fish Theory

released Jun 23, 2017
******* 7/10

Vincent Jamal Staples, better known by his stage name, Vince Staples, is an American rapper and member of the hip hop group Cutthroat Boyz. He has also been associated with Odd Future and gained attention by making appearances on their albums as well from a mixtape he worked on with Mac Miller, Stolen Youth.

Staples debut album, Summertime ’06, was already released two years ago, which is why his sophomore effort, Big Fish Theory, has a lot to say for itself and about this new renaissance of hip hop, EDM and pop. Much like his contemporaries, Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and Childish Gambino (who is supposedly leaving music behind), Staples is perfectly comfortable with living in the weirdness of our generation. That means producing a record which could be ethereal and amelodic or one that combines sounds of the past to propel us into the future. Big Fish Theory is the later.

And I have to wonder if calling upon his previous skills as a documentarian, celebrating a self-proclaimed posthumous guardianship of Amy Winehouse, who features on Alyssa Interlude, and his hyperawareness of his own mortality/celebrity are the driving factors of Staples’ successes here or merely a perk when listening to the record.

The weirdness shows throughout the whole album, and might be best demonstrated in one of the later songs, Party People. Staples raps about how you can either move to the music if it hits you right OR you can sit there in your depression swimming with thoughts and a heavy heart, after all, the world is dark for some of us. This is not your baby sisters hip hop, nor is it aunties or grandpas. These beats are different then pretty much anything I’ve ever heard, and it works well, most of the time.

Not only that, but Vince Staples is happy to push his collaborators into the backdrop and have them as part of the song rather then front and centre, in fact he even pushes himself into a minor role on one of the songs. Kendrick Lamar fits nicely inside Yeah Right, an attack on the chest-puffing of most rap tracks. And there are definitely blink and you might miss it appearances from Juicy J, ASAP Rocky, Kilo Kish, Ray J, Ty Dolla Sign, and Damon Albarn.

The challenges with this album come in on the structure and organization of the songs, which can be heard best when you listen to tracks like Crabs In A Bucket, Love Can Be…, and Ramona Park Is Yankee Stadium. The questions I have immediately are around the experimentation. Exploration is awesome, but do these really compliment Staples cadence and content? It’s interesting for sure to have the bird calls, sirens, and whistling winds, but where is this going? Crabs In A Bucket sets the stage for a complex album, but it doesn’t feel like his strongest work, for sure.

That said, there are some really surprisingly fun tracks like 745 and Rain Come Down that intrigue despite shortcomings. Tonally these suit Staples well and the melodic choices sync up well with the speed at which he lays down his lyrics, but the best parts come from the verses and his rapping.

It is an experimentation of electronic music and hip hop, the kind of thing which metal-hip hop hybrid groups of the 1990s tried to accomplish but never really pulled off. And maybe that’s because those artists were metal first and hip hop second. Vince Staples confidence is so much more convincing.

Pros: Big Fish, the aforementioned Yeah Right and Party People are absolutely necessary on this album. An exploration of suicidal thoughts, the nature of hip hop, and what needs to happen next, Big Fish Theory is conscious hip hop, even if it isn’t labelled as such.

Cons: Rain Come Down is a little off in its warbling and takes the album into weird territory just as Big Fish Theory ends, much like how Crabs In A Bucket has a shaky start, it’s the middle of this record that does best.

Runtime: 36 minutes

Points of Interest: Influenced by house music and Detroit techno, Big Fish Theory calls up avant-garde electronica, funk, industrial music and a host of other sounds to afford Vince Staples with the creative expression he needs to transcend his environment. That Def Jam supports this sort of experimentation is fantastic, despite how discomfiting it is for most hip hop fans.

When music separates itself from it’s environment for even a second, acknowledges the world around it, and then zooms back in, it’s often a pleasing experience, and luckily for us world weary philosopher Vince Staples shared his Big Fish Theory with us.

theories Summarized

Keeping an open mind and heart is a wonderful philosophy and I hope Staples inspires other musicians to continue this trend. Yes, there will be blips in the road along the way, but how wonderful it is that we can have some good hip hop and EDM combined together for once, rather then remixes and overdubs. And that’s my personal big fish theory.

Tim!

Movies You Love To Hate (Cross Talk Ep. 27)

Posted on by Tim Kuefler

We all struggle with things in life. Things that we hate and which everyone else seems to love. It can be summed up in word – inexplicable.

I don’t really know why this happens, but there are a few camps on the matter. The most common belief being that over-saturation of something can lead to hatred of that same thing. We see pictures, memes, and discussions of something that we don’t know much about, nor do we really care for it, and the repetition grows and grows over time. To the point where resentment begins to set in.

It is especially true of very popular characters like the Minions, Harry Potter or Batman. When this content shows up in your social media feed over and over again, but you have no love for it, you slowly grow to hate it because others glorify it and raise it on a pedestal which doesn’t agree with your sensibilities.

Now psychology might say something completely different about this matter, telling us that hatred is often tied with difference. Difference being things which are separate from our own identities, and that when we hate something because it is different it says a lot more about us then the thing.

But I’m going to urge you to ignore logic today and look at the facts; Chris, Mike, and I all have a huge hate-on for some select movies and we are going to make some excellent points to justify for ourselves we why love to hate popular movies. And of course, we each bring an example that burns close to the home fires.

Yes hating things is usually bad, but sometimes its fun to hate something too, and if you aren’t directly hurting anyone, then it might even be cathartic to let it all out, dear readers. So this one is for the haters, to all you haters reading this post, take a minute and watch this video. This one is for you. And me. And Mike. And Chris.

And it just might awaken something in Andre leading to a contribution or too! This is Cross Talk episode number 27.

That was probably one of my favourite episodes to record creative cuties. Andre implemented the sliding camera in the wideshot, AND we had a four person conversation going at a couple of different moments. But what did you think? Do you agree that Meet The Parents is the worst? Or Unbreakable? How about Pirates of the Caribbean? Maybe you hate all of them equally…

Please let us know what you think? And if you liked this video, please share, comment, and subscribe! I’m out of theories for the day, but this has been Cross Talk and timotheories has even more in store for July!

Tim!