Walliams writing autobiography The Britain's Got Talent judge reveals he is writing his life story and will call it Camp David.
Karzai 'plans talks with Taliban' The government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai is planning to meet the Taliban in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to jump-start peace talks, the BBC learns.
Gap between fuel prices widens The difference in price between diesel and petrol has hit a three-year high, according to AA figures.
• Wasn't that all rather dramatic? That's because this week we were all about Sundance! Our coverage included an interview with LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy about why the hell he ended LCD Soundsystem, full reports from all the most-talked-about movies, and phtotos galore. Also, the Oscars announced the nominees for Best Original Song at this year's ceremony.... all two of them.
• Here We Go Magic told us how they wound up in the studio with Radiohead superproducer Nigel Godrich and Jason PIerce told us why the Spiritualized album we've been listening to is a fraud.
At some magical moment during November 2011, Madonna and M.I.A. were in a New York City studio with producer Martin Solveig and the Queen of Pop told the Sri Lankan provocateur, "I really like the bridge that you did before, but you need to replace the last line, because we changed the line." She subsequently freaked Maya from behind while she was in the vocal booth. Like a boss. This is how the magic happens, kids!
After only hearing about Pariah, Dee Rees' smart, heartbreaking film of a young black lesbian growing up in Brooklyn, a friend of mine compared it to Boys Don't Cry. Meaning: It's obviously another one of those feel-good-about-feeling-bad, issue-heavy melodramas that pop up on the indie film landscape every few years. Pariah however, goes to great lengths to confuse and confound its potentially in-built audience of civic-minded, liberal cinema-goers.
Pariah begins in a strip club. Gritty, hyper-stylized shots of grinding dancers and dollar bills floating around are set to Khia's raunchy early-2000s hit "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)." It looks like a scene out of Hype Williams' high-contrast 1998 rap classic Belly. The club is girls-only, though, so here's a strip club full of women enjoying themselves, joyfully objectifying one another, and acting as obnoxious as men. And the film seems fine with that, reserving judgment even as it gradually introduces Alike (Adepero Oduye), whose concern is her curfew, not grabbing as many girls' phone numbers as possible.
Khia, "My Neck, My Back (Lick It)"
Pariah Trailer
Scene from Pariah
When Rees' camera eventually locates Alike — 17, gay, yet to be kissed, quasi out-of-the-closet at school, hiding it from her judgmental mother (Kim Wayans) and gruff father (Charles Parnell) — it's apparent that she's feeling out of place and perhaps a bit grossed-out as her best friend Laura performs "playa" (cuddling with girls), and boasting that she gets "more pussy than your daddy." Music, particularly hip-hop, and poetry play a significant role in Alike's life, not partying and hooking up. She's an aspiring writer — the film is prefaced with an Audre Lorde quote: "Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs" — and rap songs, usually female-fronted, are often playing in the background, soundtracking her coming-of-age.
One telling scene finds Alike watching rap videos before church, while ignoring her mom's orders to "put on a skirt." Rap's brash confidence has rubbed off on Alike. Her friend Laura (Pernell Walker) is a symbol of the under-discussed give-and-take between queer club culture and mainstream hip-hop style, as well as the subversive and communal aspects of both. Rappers like 2Pac and Lil Wayne, tough and gorgeous, rugged yet charming, have engaged in a fashion-conscious conversation with similarly-styled drag kings, AGs, and studs for years!
Given how brilliantly Khia's single is employed at the start of the film and Rees' sly deconstruction of thug imagery, it's unfortunate that this indie film's modest budget presumably prevented more use of, and commentary on, popular hip-hop. But that probably wouldn't ring true to Alike's character, anyway; she rather smugly tells Bina (Aasha Davis), an acquaintance she misreads as square, all about "underground" and "conscious" hip-hop. It turns out, Bina is more hip to underground rap and local open-mic events than Alike, and even introduces Alike to indie rock. This scene suggests a knowledge of hip-hop culture that few films feel comfortable enough to exhibit. Alike isn't portrayed as wise — she's the prototypical, insecure hip-hop snob.
Movies like Pariah are supposed to reject hip-hop's aggression, praise rock's elegance (or whatever), and at least celebrate conscious rap snobbery, right? Later on, in a sequence of events I refuse to spoil, it's the open-minded but flighty world of bohemia that hurts Alike in a way that hip-hop culture, with its in-your-face honesty and hard-headed provincialism just could not. "Gangsta" is not the enemy here. Laura, out and aggressive, sporting a rapper's style, is Alike's mentor, and remains her best friend when the film ends. It's the confluence of sounds — lewd rap, conscious hip-hop, indie rock — rattling around in Alike's adolescent mind, that elicits a stir of rebellion. Her family, an understanding but in denial dad and a well-meaning but cruel mom, have no reference point for what she's hearing, and try to silence it.
Here's the thing: Alike's mom is not a villain. She's a middle-class woman who desires normality more than anything, and obsesses over it to such a degree that she wrecks the family. After her mom refuses to say "I love you" back to a now-out-of-the-closet Alike, the camera lingers on the mother's Bible; as the shot continues, the film turns oddly sympathetic to the older woman's ignorance, cognizant of the fact that for now, at least, she's the one with a problem: She's frozen within a doctrine that makes it okay to reject her homosexual daughter. It's these moments, when so many other films reach for melodrama and audience-pandering condescension -- Brokeback Mountain's epilogue in which Jack Twist's father is portrayed as a mean-mugging Red Stater — that Pariah humanely holds back judgement.
The movie doesn't reward sympathies or make villains of anyone — it drops viewers into a situation that is at its breaking point and then pulls them out at the moment when it's not as bad anymore. As the credits roll, very little is resolved, and the sense that this situation will work itself out eventually, months or years afterwards, is not guaranteed. It's devastating because of its quotidian lack of resolution. Pariah begins with that quote from Audre Lorde, but a simple quote from a hip-hop classic seems more apt for its ending: "It's like that, and that's the way it is."
Last night at Radio City Music Hall, Antony and the Johnsons performed Swanlights, a one-night-only performance art exhibition commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art. The night featured interpretive dance, a laser light show, and a stage design that ought to have its own wing of the actual MoMA, not to mention frontman Antony Hegarty performing (in a breathtaking — as usual — white gown) selections from all four Antony and the Johnsons albums (2000's self-titled, 2005's I Am a Bird Now, 2009's The Crying Light, and 2010's Swanlights) with the assistance of the 60-piece New York Symphony Orchestra, light artist Chris Levine, lighting designer Paul Normandale, and set designer Carl Robertshaw. Having received high critical acclaim in the music, performance art, literature, and visual art fields — including a Mercury Prize for Bird and near-worshipful praise from collaborators like Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson — the two-hour event was predictably luminous. And totally sold out.
(Photo: Angela Cranford/MSG Photos)
SPIN was in the house, gawking at Björk and keeping track of the night by the numbers:
Seats in Radio City Music Hall: Roughly 6,000
RuPaul-Level Drag Queens Spotted in Attendance: 3
Celebrity Attendees Who Totally Would Be at a MoMA-Commissioned Antony and the Johnsons Show: A handful (Alan Cumming, Björk, Tilda Swinton, and either Michael Stipe or his body double)
Dude-Earrings In Attendance: Too many to count
Songs Performed: 16
Songs Actually From the Swanlights Record Performed: 3
Stunning Beyoncé Covers Performed: 1 ("Crazy in Love")
Times Antony Performed "Hope There's Someone": 0
Backdrop Layers Revealed Throughout the Performance, Including the Curtain: 5
Totally Dead Silences Between Songs: 4. Very. Quiet. Pauses.
Lasers Used Throughout the Show: Approximately a bazillion, give or take
Times Antony Said the F-Word Between Songs: 1
Times Antony Tapped the Conductor on the Shoulder to Ask Him to Restart a Song: 1
Times Tilda Swinton Held Up Her Arms Like Football Goalposts During a Round of Applause: 1
Times We'd Wished She Had Simultaneously Yelled "Gooooooooooooooooal!": 7,000
As Sundance winds down, it's time to take stock of the surprises. Some of the most buzzed-about films turned out to be disappointing, while others broke out of nowhere. Beasts of the Southern Wild, which concerns a six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy who lives with her dad Wink in an apocalyptic town, was barely mentioned before the festival — probably thanks to that description — yet ended up at the center of a bidding war (Fox Searchlight acquired). Lauren Anne Miller's comedy For a Good Time, Call?, about roommates who start a phone sex business costarring Ari Graynor, was unexpectedly popular, selling for a rumored $2 million, while Compliance, in which fast-food employees are coerced by a police officer into strip searching and sexually assaulting their coworker (The Good Wife's Dreama Walker), caused the most controversy. SPIN discovered that Josh Radnor is very popular with the ladies despite Ted's quest for love on How I Met Your Mother — although the mob that surrounded him while here promoting his second film, Liberal Arts, were mostly teenage girls — and that Safety Not Guaranteed's Aubrey Plaza is a lot like her Parks and Recreation character (this may or may not be a value-neutral statement). Below, a roundup of our final day at the festival:
Haverchuck Is Hot
Debatably misogynist fare aside, women were well-represented this year. Like Graynor, Bachelorette's Lizzy Caplan had a good run. Of the many indie dramas focused on modern-day relationships (Liberal Arts, Nobody Walks, Smashed), her Save the Date was the most thoroughly charming. Directed by Mike Mahon and cowritten by comic book artist Jeffrey Brown, Date features a cast of actors who deserved more than their endangered or cancelled television shows: Caplan (Party Down), Alison Brie (Community) and Martin Starr (Party Down and Freaks and Geeks). The latter two play Beth and Kevin, an engaged couple in the midst of planning their wedding when Beth's sister and aspiring comic book artist (Caplan) breaks up with Kevin's Wolfbird bandmate (George Arend). Sarah's rebound romance with Jonathan (Mark Webber, whose film The End of Love was also a hit at Sundance) complicates the relationship between the sisters and forces Beth and Kevin to reconsider the cost of marriage. It's just the kind of ordinary story that fits this appealing ensemble, although both Date and another favorite, Your Sister's Sister, frustrated us with a similar parting gimmick (enough said). Also, Starr as a shaggy-haired drummer proves that Freaks and Geeks was just an awkward phase.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead Wets Herself
Speaking of television stars who don't get enough love: Aaron Paul. Because he's so frequently outshined by his Breaking Bad costar Brian Cranston, Paul doesn't get enough credit for his alternately comic and excruciating turn as Jesse Pinkman so we were really looking forward to Smashed. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a lot to work with and the movie belongs to Mary Elizabeth Winstead. As the alcoholic Kate, Winstead must do her best drunk acting, which is never the easiest feat to pull off, though the Scott Pilgrim star manages pretty well (she inappropriately urinates a couple of times, so the "problem" aspect of her drinking isn't up for much debate). When Kate decides it's time to get clean, she gets more support from her reformed coworker (Nick Offerman, a.k.a. Ron Swanson!) than her hard-drinking husband, Charlie (Paul). As a whole, Smashed would make a better short story: The skeleton was there, the actors have some great scenes together, though there's never a sense of the couple's bond beyond the fact that Charlie loves Kate enough not to mind when she pees the bed. But even if it's missing a more fleshed-out purpose, their struggles are suggestive and sad and Smashed only makes us want to see more from both of its leads.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead on January 22, 2012 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images)
Katie Aselton to Lake Bell: "Want to Go to the Woods and Get Weird?"
Finally, SPIN's coverage wouldn't be complete without one horror movie, although Black Rock only sort of counts. When Sara (Kate Bosworth) connives to bring her two warring friends (Katie Aselton and Lake Bell) together for a weekend on a remote island, things can't help but go terribly wrong. "It's what I wanted The Descent to be," says Aselton, who also directed, referring to the terrifying 2005 film in which a group of women explore a cave only to discover certain secrets once trapped in one. "I loved how that movie was set up. But the second those albinos came crawling out of the crevices, I'm like, 'What the fuck is going on? We don't need you.'" Inspired by Deliverance and The River Wild more than what she calls "the cheap scares of the found-footage trend," Aselton wanted to try something on the other end of the spectrum from her touchy-feely debut, The Freebie: "Lake and I were friends going into this and I was like, ?Do you want to go to the woods and get weird?' "
Kate Bosworth and Lake Bell on January 21, 2012 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by George Pimentel/Getty Images)
With a loose script written by Aselton's husband, Sundance golden boy Mark Duplass, and improvised by the actresses, Black Rock took its stars on a one-month shoot where actual injuries were sustained. Read no further if you don't want any plot spoilers, but once on the island, the women run into three soldiers who've been dishonorably discharged from the army, villains that Aselton decided upon after seeing the baby-faced veterans in HBO's poignant documentary, Restrepo (though there's nothing heroic about these guys — if anything, their lunacy is nearly cartoonish). Aselton and Bell must put aside their tensions if they want to survive. They might also have to huddle naked in the woods for warmth.
After five days in Park City, there were still so many movies that we didn't get to see, but SPIN will be bringing you more culture coverage going forward so keep checking back in for movie reviews and more.
