PREFACE
This is the sporadically updated blog of reviews by Harriet, author of In the Aquarium: a londoner's life.
I have kept the reviews separate to enable them to be indexed and therefore more easily accessible (see listing below).
FAVE FILMS DEAD MAN What an idea, the man is dying for almost the entire length of the film, the music is fantastic, its black and white, ideology, mythology, funny, sad, Johnny Depp sex god...
THE DRAFTMAN'S CONTRACT The first Peter Greenaway film I saw and possibly the most accessible. Beautiful set, costumes, direction. Fantastic soundtrack.
MULHOLLAND DRIVE I knew exactly what was going on right up until the last 15 minutes and damn it but then I lost it.
NIGHT ON EARTH Jim Jarmusch made the only film with Winona Ryder worth watching and it had Beatrice Dalle (say no more)
O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU? Roar out loud with laughter and tunes that make you love country music. My sister had to sneak out of the cinema ahead of our dad and me cos she was so embarrassed at our laughing.
ORLANDO Quiet, passionate, time travel.
PITCH BLACK Bails and I watched this with its bleached scenery and its whoar factor star. We LOVED him, Mr Diesel take a bow.
RESERVOIR DOGS Tight Tarantino gang heist gone wrong. Great soundtrack. And there's something about Michael Madson, dancing just before cutting off the cop's ear...
ROMUALD ET JULIETTE Truely lovely romance comedy.
THREE COLOURS TRILOGY Blue, White and Red. I liked them all. Quiet stories, beautifully shot.
THE USUAL SUSPECTS Its a story told. And the first time I saw it I didn't get the twist until just before it happened.
Not new work exactly but many firm favourites. Nice to see them again. Gallery was empty - 7.30pm on a Friday night. Great time to visit.
Eclectic mix of artists:
Anish Kapour's Hole - slightly vaginal chromed steel for you to stare into and wonder at its depth going beyond the wall, reflecting you back fatly round its edges.
Patrick Caulfield's paintings - 3 flat colours and some black outlines managing to depict great depth and atmostphere.
Roger Hiorns, 2004 Nunhead - comprising 2 truly beautiful engines coated in copper sulphate crystals. Memories flood back of forgotten chemistry sets where you grew a copper sulphate crystal on the end of a string in a test tube. Blue and glistening. Seductive. Detailed. Like something from the bottom of the sea.
Gillian Ayres' 1963 Lure - patches of colour bleed out into the canvas like fractals. Sometimes blurred. Layers on layers. One colour seeps into and mixes with another, or splatters somehow onto another without mixing. Almost unnoticeable overpainting where the colour has seeped too far through the canvas threads.
Richard Wentworth's Toy 1983 - a galvanised steel bath containing a flat of steel water. Sunken into the 'water' surface an opened sardine tin with its lid unfurled. The tin mimicks the shape of the bath and contrasts with its colour. A vessel. Within a vessel. Like a ship on the sea.
David Hockney's We Two Boys Together Clinging (1961) - before the Californian realism, a sort of figurative abstraction, with words. More emotive.
Balraj Khanna 1984 Coming from Rajastan - beautiful layers of colour as if blown. Linear journey which seems to include birds and fish and flowers, buildings and people even though its really abstract form.
Kenneth Armitage, 1957 Figure laying on its side (no.5) - funny for some reason.
Michael Craig Martin's History Painting 1995 - a zingy line between red and pink. A pail of water and a green clipboard. Crisp.
Tim Head, State of Art, 1984 - very 80s seeming, glossy photograph of a still life depiction of a city made from dildos, lipsticks and novelty rubbers. The kind my sister used to collect in the 80s (for rubbing out with).
Roger Ackling, Five Hour Cloud Drawing, 1980 - clever, sunlight focussed through a magnifying glass onto carboard working in lines causing a burned brown line. When clouds obscured the sun no burn occurs. It seemed to start very sunny and become more intermittent sun. A remarkably intense brown.
Francis Bacon, Head VI, 1949 - the screaming mouth, eyes obscured, purple velvet. Religous. Horrified. Powerful.
Alison Wilding (one of my personal favourite artists) untitled 1980 - two brown paper bags, made from brass foil with pinked edges folded and glued crumpled in the way brown paper is when handled, lean together light glinting off them onto the wooden floor. They are inside a boundary made of zinc - a sort of 3D line. A line the shape of a puddle.
Ian Breakwell, Phototext piece 1-5, 1992 - from the early 70s IB percieved his work as a form of extended diary, full of amusing and poignant comments on his experiences. Sounds a bit like a description of blogging. Perhaps thats why I don't make art anymore - the creative outpouring is through this medium which doesn't, in my case, lend itself to seriousness.
Based on the story of Noah building the arc. A gripping read. Told through the eyes of the characters. From non-believing to having faith. Funny. Believable.
Despite it being a well worn play the staging here was simple but good, the stage was raked and split by a body of water that characters kept falling into, dark and brooding woods fitting for a grumpy Titania and proud & jealous Oberon with an elfin Puck. Something of Lord of the Rings about it. Never seen it before but Bottom not only had the head of a donkey but was also hung like one. Kept a good pace. Good job done despite the terrible seating.
Like all good fairy stories this has horror and joy. The story starts with a fix it man in an appartment block. We meet the characters from the apartment. He lives in a little house by the side of the pool. One evening a woman appears on his sofa after he goes out to find out who is in the pool after hours. Great story. Nicely told. With scary moments and funny. Liked it.
August 2006 Harsh Times Tottenham Court Road Odeon
Got to remember not to come to this cinema anymore - its cramped, uncomfortable and noisey from other screens.
This was a story with no redeeming features. The bloke who was American Pschyo was back playing a character with super repressed anger which boiled over into horrific violence. Joined by the actor who was in Six Feet Under - the body prep artist. A couple of losers job hunting in the city, spend their time drinking, smoking weed and getting into trouble. Everyone dies. Well almost. Grim.
