Two Quickies

Starlight

There were two moments that summed up my reaction to this film; after low-level bitching and grizzling throughout the film—in and of itself a bad sign, since I’m normally a total immersion kind of watcher—I turned to Maire and said, “You know, it’s actually pretty good when there’s no dialogue.” The other was when Maire summed up the problems we both had with the character of the Captain with “They got homophobia in my Gaiman!”

And that’s pretty much it. The Captain might have been appropriate if you were making movies in the Fifties. Or, if I was feeling really, really charitable, a Carry On film. Kenneth Williams certainly would have made it less icky than DeNiro, anyway. How you can get this character from the writing of the guy responsible for Wanda is beyond me.

Even if it weren’t for that rather grating point, though, I found the dialogue and delivery clunky; the often-stunning visuals and effective score simply weren’t good enough to make up for me wanting to hit fast-forward every time a character spoke.

I know it’s considered trite for some to say that a movie isn’t as good as the book it’s drawn from, but this isn’t subtle wrangling over fine points. This is just… bleh. It pretty much sucked.

Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey

I found this one a mixed bag. On the one hand, a potted history of Metal and Metal subculture sounds pretty cool. Interviews with various great figures in metal? Likewise good—and mostly it is.

Ronnie Dio comes across as a really sweet guy, albeit with a bit of a thing about Gene Simmons. Bruce Dickinson is, well, Bruce Dickinson. Lemmy is great value. Dee Snyder’s recounting of his battles with the PMRC is delightfully egotiscical. Alice Cooper, unusually, came across as a bit out of touch—when you’ve just had a bit about some Norwegian black metallers being involved in church-burnings, Alice looks a bit of a dick saying how cute and harmless the Scandanavian death metal scene is.

There are some strong speakers in the mix; some of the musicologists who is roped in are interested and worthwhile. Other interviews... not so much& discussions of “the devil’s chord” seemed cheesy, for example.

What probably made it end on a bit of a sour note was the conclusion—Sam Dunn’s argument is, essentially, metal is a great subculture because it has the characteristics of a subculture; he enumerates a series of virtues (clannishness, protection from outsides, and so on) that are shared by pretty much any subculture you care to name—gays, lesbians, survivalists, you name it. And that because it’s a great subculture, well, that makes the music worthwhile. Which seems like a pretty dumb argument to me, although obviously not to the people giving it awards; I’d rather see the value, if you wil, of metal asa form of music defended by stacking it up, as one of the interviewed musicologists does, against other forms of music, and noting its complexity, its tackling of big themes and so on.

Instead it comes down to “they’re a bunch of cool guys.” Meh.

The whole is worth a watch, but if you know much about metal, you’re probably going to be pleased and irked in equal measure.