Tag Archive: Roger Waters


ARCHIPELAGO – WISH YOU WEREN’T HERE

Filed under: Movies, Parenting, Theatre — 1 Comment
May 6, 2014

ARCHIPELAGO directed by Joanna Hogg (UK, 2010)

In the age of digital cinema and crowd pleasing blockbusters, social realism has largely gone out of fashion.

Top grossing movies are often those with the most elaborate special effects. while modest, people-centred dramas or comedies tend to rattle along at such a rapid pace as though directors are worried that if viewers are given time to draw breath they’ll realise how superficial these  ‘entertainment’ packages really are.

Thankfully, there are still filmmakers out there who focus on stories with genuine substance and depth. Joanna Hogg is one of them.

Archipelago is a slow-moving, at times static, film that many could lose patience with but which stands as a welcome antidote to the contrived story-lines and stereotypical characters you find in so many so-called ‘serious’ dramas. Continue reading →

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Boyracers: Going nowhere fast

Filed under: Books, Fiction, Movies, Music, Parenting — Leave a comment
August 24, 2013

BOYRACERS by Alan Bissett (Polygon Books, 2001)

Cover

“Like characters in a plotless novel, we race through night after night, story after story, film quote after film quote, eternity stretching out before us like an open road”.

The above quote may sound like a romantic dream, but this rambling, albeit entertaining, tale is set in Scotland not America so the symbolic open roads have a nasty tendency of going in ever decreasing circles or else ending up at brick walls.

The ‘boyracers’ of the title are groups of teens who race cars in industrial wastelands in the city and exemplify the speed of life which is a double-edged sword of excitement and terror. A kind of modern equivalent of the ‘chicken’ game played out in Rebel Without A Cause.

This is not the story of the racers themselves but of four young male onlookers whose beat up car named Belinda is not built for speed. The Falkirk friends are soccer mad Irn-Bru addicts in pursuit of any combination of sex, booze and rock’n’roll that they can find.

Continue reading →
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DELVING INTO DESERT ISLAND DISCS

Filed under: Books, Music — Leave a comment
May 23, 2012

Roy Plomley

The BBC are not renowned for their generosity with regard to their broadcasts. They are ever protective of their global markets so, for example, You Tube is subject to rigorous patrols to ensure TV shows are not posted without their permission.

Even when it comes to their radio shows, the listening rights for which are not subject to the television license fee, you can usually only listen again to a programme for a week after the transmission date.

One of the longest running shows is Desert Island Discs which began on 29th January 1942 and is as much of an institution as The Archers. It was devised by Roy Plomley and he presented it  until his death in 1985, after which, presenters have been Michael Parkinson, Sue Lawley and, the current host, Kirsty Young. Continue reading →

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STARING AT THE WALL

Filed under: Movies, Music — Leave a comment
May 1, 2011

Today I spent two hours staring at  The Wall.

I watched Alan Parker’s 1985 film of Pink Floyd’s concept album.

Probably it  would be more accurate to call it Roger Waters’ concept album since by this time Pink Floyd had ceased to be a band and had become a vehicle for his bloated ego.

It is fitting that another bloated ego, Bob Geldof,  was chosen to play the part of Pink in the movie.

He plays a burnt out rock star going slowly nuts in a hotel. Even the carpets outside the room have rectangular brick-like patterns to emphasise his feelings of mental enslavement.

Pink shaves his eyebrows, drives his wife away, mopes about his lonely childhood, trashes his room, becomes a fascist dictator and winds up heavily sedated in a loony bin. Continue reading →

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