The Associates - Sulk (1982) WEA

One doesn’t enjoy listening to The Associates the way one luxuriates in other groups with the tacky ‘New Romantic’ tagline, that is to say you're not snorting nose candy line dancing with that bird in neon stripes and spandex. This isn't bloody Adam Ant. No, with The Associates you're leaning over that chick in black you just spouted Nietzsche's Death of God parables to. Leaning over to make sure she isn't gone for good. Fucking Junkie. Never mind, actually, you don't listen to The Associates with gals. Not even the blond. That's a bad association. Wrong, you listen to The Associates in solace, in your loneliest lonely. A world apart, when Joy Division isn't cutting it but the cut is needed. The Associates drab and dreary tone forces open ears to closed minds. Sulk is the bleakest album to receive the fallible New Romantic/New Wave genre tags by jerky journo’s seaside. Be weary. Be mystified. Be nihilistic. Be nothing, now. Just blimin’ Sulk.

Young & Tragic

“I wish that we were magic so we wouldn’t be so young and tragic.”

Knowing full well author Louis Lowry’s clampdown on ever allowing her dystopian classic, “The Giver”, to grace the silver screen, children’s science-fiction fans must accept the movie adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go” as the next best thing. Starring Carey Mulligan (An Education), Andrew Garfield (The Social Network) and Keira Knightley (Pirates of the Caribbean) unfortunately, the movie itself was not captivating. By the third act it loses all semblance of reality. It frivolously explores the metaphysics of the soul, shows the graphic loss of spleens and all together loses any amusement it spurns in the first act where none of the main actors are present because the viewer observes them in childhood as students of the strict boarding school called Harrow. The story itself however, is incredibly thought provoking. Tracking the lives of three outsiders from grammar school to their final days, it is the perfect blend of British norms of responsibility and class structure with that of Japanese wisdom and emotional sentiment. Although the children are born for the purpose of someone else’s gain (being the eventual donation of their organs in order to preserve the life of the leisure class), throughout the film director Mark Romanek does his best to show these hopeless hopefuls do indeed possess souls. Doomed from the get-go the movie raises issues of love and loss, not being able to acclimate to the outside world after being subjected to such a rigorous regime, subculture as permanence, art as a political action, unrequited love, the struggle to mature, jealousy, deceit, reflexivity and the suppression of emotion, to name a few. In “Never Let Me Go” closeness and community revolve around myth. By not mentioning anything on their predetermined future, the children of Harrow are able to escape from their somber and dreary reality, at first. Although this becomes a burden to most, Kathy H. played by Cary Mulligan, has the most fulfilling life between her and her doomed friends yet somehow maintains a steady head amongst great adversity including losing the only person she loves various times throughout her short life to another girl and then to death. Some may consider Romanek and Ishiguro sick and morbid for only giving their main characters a fleeting glimpse of a fantasy ending. Those who enjoy the film appreciate the anti-fantastical theme the writer and director explore because they feel the outside world isn’t such a happy place either.

I'm Still Here (2010) directed by Casey Affleck

Prefacing his unorthodox documentary as a meditation in self-indulgence, Casey Affleck captures the zeitgeist in a movie that is strictly that. Hoax or not, in 2008 the double Oscar nominated Joaquin Phoenix decided to pack up acting and turn to hip-hop as means for a career, giving up his sanity and civility along with it. Affleck, who happens to be Phoenix’s brother-in-law documents the entire trainwreck in what turns out to be a more probable telling of the demise of Jim Morrison than Oliver Stone’s adaptation in The Doors (1991). Becoming a reality-star outside the guise of a reality show, Phoenix still acts an apathetic prick on Letterman, punches a fan at his own rap show in Miami, and snorts coke off a hooker’s tit. Whether a fictive character or not, these are not fictive incidents and their effects rippled through the press. Nauseating movie-goers feel the film nullified simply because a 2010 clean-shaven and seemingly logic stricken Phoenix told audiences his 2008 persona was a joke, however this does not subtract from the message of the film. If anything, it augments a reality-crazed time when Jersey Shore and I Love New York are cable’s top billing.

Acting sheepish and self-effacing around his professional peers, when in close quarters with his seemingly delicate inner-circle, Phoenix shreds them apart taking out all his accumulated stress and pressure on to the only people there to help him. Audiences can thank Affleck for this mindful manipulation, which deems results better than any reality star could dream for. If this was a show on cable, it would finally surmount to more viewers than the beloved New York and Jersey combined. After defacing his closest friend to the point of public scrutiny, he retaliates by defecating on Phoenix’s head. This is one of many stones on the rock bottom hit by Phoenix in this sentimental journey through an A-list celebrities downfall.

What makes the movie worth watching though is Phoenix’s analysis of himself and his breakdown. Almost predicting his future Aldous Huxley in a essay on leisure stated “the majority of human beings can hardly fail to devote their leisure to occupations which, if not positively vicious, are at least stupid, futile and, what is worse, secretly realized to be futile.” Phoenix’s self-analysis of his futility is by far the greatest quality of the film. Figuring out his place in society, and his inescapable career as a puppet leads him to vomit, rage, and even make snow angels. Despite this bump in the road, Phoenix remains one of the finest actors in cinema and deserves an Oscar nod for this performance.