By BigBrother in All posts No Comments Tags: Fillums
My departmental administrator – or “secretary”, as they used to be known - has today been diagnosed with labyrinthitis.
Having seen the execrable 1986 Jim Henson movie Labyrinth, starring David Bowie, I am not surprised that the illness it induces is a medically-recognised phenomenon.
By BigBrother in All posts 1 Comment Tags: Fillums
There’s a fascinating interview with Dustin Hoffman in today’s Sunday Times. It’s hard to imagine one of cinema’s greatest ever actors regretting much about his career (Ishtar excepted, natch) but Hoffman admits his regret at turning down the chance to work with Federico Fellini:
“I turned him down? To look back now and think I could have spent three months with one of the great – I don’t want to start crying here – but one of the greatest film artists of all time? I don’t care if he was doing doo-doo for 12 hours every day.”
It seems that Hoffman – like so many of the best actors – is driven by a personal fear of failure. Suffused with that fear, the conclusion of the interview (with Ariel Leve) is lovely:
“Someone once said to me, ‘Some of us choose to live with a lifeboat just a little bit out of our reach.’ I’d like to reach a point where I no longer bullshit myself. I think that’s the natural human condition – to lie to yourself. Because the truth is painful.”
By BigBrother in All posts 2 Comments Tags: Fillums, Law, Media, Society
Marcel Berlins doesn’t like the Borat movie. But he “admit[s] to laughing quite often because parts of it are very funny”. Jesus wept.
“My objection is to the exploitation of the… ignorant for the sake of a joke.”
Marcel, luv, if we can’t poke fun at the ignorant, then who the Hell is fair game?
“What Borat did was to inveigle ordinary, harmless people into participating in what was promised to be a documentary; the real motive was to abuse their cooperation by making them the objects of ridicule… Borat, Sacha Baron Cohen’s character, managed to extract from a few of his pathetic victims some loutish behaviour and racist remarks; they may not have been nice people, but that hardly justifies the effort put in to make them look silly.”
So “ordinary, harmless people” are racist louts? Not where I live they’re not, Marcel.
And since when are we not allowed to make racist louts look silly? For what other reason do they exist? (Apart to beat savagely.)
Fuck me: and this man’s a lawyer, supposedly able to argue a case semi-coherently.