Movie Review: Interstellar Overdrive

Space. The final frontier. Space is futuristic, no matter what the context. The eventual penultimate sequel of any series of horror film must end in space. Cheech and Chong went to space, Brian Blessed went to space, Michael Fassbender went to space, the potential future of humanity is seen to be in space. And it is with this sort of nostalgia for the future that the film Interstellar plays upon over the 190 million dollar blockbuster directed by Christopher Nolan out in cinemas...Now!

The film starts with actor Mathew Mahoney working as an uneducated farmer in New York city before catching a zip-line ride into a secret underground base and blasted in a rocket through the universe! The film pays homage to many classics of the sci-fi genre. Flight of the Navigator, The Last Starfighter, Man of Steel and 2001: Abe's Odyssey are just a few of the movies Interstellar 'parodies' for extensive lengths of its 120 minute running time. Mathew Majonnahugh literally weeps throughout the entire film as he battles ice beasts, alien planets and even Father Time himself as he goes on a quest to find the true power of love. I think the swashbuckling nature of the main characters in the film add to its charm. For instance, MacConeys crash lands his spaceship on an alien planet and stands in the water, leaning back slightly so that his six pack really pops in the light thrown from the binary star system overhead. He looks around at the horizon and his mouth slowly drops open, the cigar he was smoking falls to the floor.
"Those aren't mountains." he says, taking off his sunglasses that had reflected the tsunami approaching him to reveal the steely cool gaze of M.M. He runs back to his ship and clambers on top of it. "Here goes nothing." he mutters to himself, as the wave begins to hit him. The entire screen is filled with a wave and suddenly we see the star riding the spaceship like a surfboard. A Hans Zimmer soundtrack of surf guitars and organ music is so loud it literally rips the cinema screen to shreds and blasts the entire audiences heads back simultaneously. Another classy moment is when Mathew McConnaghey is playing bass guitar in his space pod, lazily rolling around and around as he plays a version of 'Space Oddity', letting the CGI hair and beard float around in the zero gravity. Space is shown as not being a glamorous place for super scientists, but a sort of hyper-industrial working class structure in which humans are disposable, which makes it glamorous again.

Nolan does it again with another terrific film that is so contemporary it will be looked back on as being a classic 10's action flick. Maybe you will understand Inception more after getting into the mad mind brain of Nolan. Film critics in the future will often talk about it fondly, just as we look back on Barbarella or Event Horizon. Scanning any nerds film collection one is bound to see either no science fiction or almost be entirely science fiction, because science fiction is the language of the future. You can barely walk anywhere now without seeing a Star Trek quote etched into a boulder or teenagers discussing The Prisoner on street corners as they share electronic cigarettes. By 2019 the world will be entering a time so futuristic it will resemble that of Blade Runner! Interstellar is less about humanity's literal place in the universe than it is a celebration of how much fiction influences civilization, it doesn't pretend to be real for one moment. If you move your head from side to side whilst watching you will see how the entire universe exists on a two dimensional shape. Most of the people in the film are even played by well known actors and actresses. How am I supposed to believe that the head of NASA is a scientist when I know that he is in fact Michael Caine, famous actor? Everyone in the film are stood around in clothes they don't own in a fake room saying things that somebody else thought.

One thing to take away from this film is its technological optimism in the face of democracy. People are dumb is the main message of the film, yet delivered in a audience driven market of Dumb and Dumber To and Nativity 3: Dude Where's My Reindeer it will be interesting to see how this sci-fi blancmange blemishes against the eye, blossoming the blood vessels around the iris like exploding planets around the films eponymous black hole; Megadrive. Regardless I will give the film 8 stars out of 10, go and see it, tell your friends about it, tweet about it. #seenit

Helping Hands

I walked around North Hollywood looking for an assistant. I needed someone strong, agile, with street smarts and not afraid to do some dirty work on the side should I need it. A renegade if you will. I was going to post an ad on craigslist but thought that such a person would be readily available on the streets. I stepped over parts of a wig lying on the walk of fame, it was like a nylon jellyfish that had washed up onto a black shore. I kicked it around for a while as I watched the traffic go up and down, lit in dusk. Most of the people I'd seen so far were totally unsuitable, a little too raw for my needs. Schizophrenics, drug addicts, the sick. I threw nickels and dimes at them but no job offers, I needed to make sure I had a free range being. My eyes locked with another. He was the one. I extended a hand out and introduced myself.

Standing at about five foot one and weighing maybe one hundred and sixty pounds, Bill Williamson wasn't the most physically impressive person I'd met, but was pleasant to be around. He told me of his recent troubles, especially with drinking, though I dismissed these as his own particulars. He had hands like lump hammers, the knuckles criss-crossed with scars from street brawls. His head was slightly large and appeared to be of a decent weight, his forehead and jowls were especially prominent. He had a vertical scar just beneath his lip that went halfway around his head.
“I'm glad you're giving me a job. I gotta wife and kids to feed.”
“Don't mention it.”
“You want me to do anything for you?”
“Relax Bill. We'll get some food, clean you up, start tomorrow refreshed. How about it?”
“Sounds good to me.” he said, drinking the malt liquor I'd bought and lighting up a cigarette.

Later I cut his hair and gave him a shave, picking out some clothes on a catalogue online.
“We'll go to Rodeo Drive tomorrow, get you a suit, some shoes. You play squash?”
“Nope.”
“Any sports?”
“I used to play football back at school.”
“How about golf? Maybe we should get you some golf clothes. I saw this cute waist coat that I think you'd look good in, it'd be a shame for you not to wear it.”
“I ain't never played no golf before.”
“Relax, we aren't going to play. We'll go to the members lodge, shoot the shit with celebrities, do some shots. It'll be fun.”
“You're the boss.” said Bill. I nod.
“And your first duty to me can be to stand watch overnight, in case of trouble.”
“What you want me to do?”
“Sit at the end of my bed and keep watch.”
“Is someone out to get you?”
“Maybe. Maybe someone's out to get you? It's hard to say, but we'll see by morning.”
“Whatever you want.” he said. I nod and change into my pyjamas as he washes. I have a feeling that this assistant will be just what I need on the streets of L.A.

The next day Bill drives me towards Beverly Hills and we do a few hours of window shopping. I explain to him my philosophy on fashion. Work what you have. I demonstrate it by buying Bill a green blazer with flared sleeves in order to emphasize the size of his hands. I take them into mine and talk to him directly.
“Bill. I know you may not be used to this high standard of living. Fashion, art, fine dining, you know, but neither am I. But once you get a taste for the finer things in life, you can't help but expect a certain...je ne sais quoi. You feel me?”
“Yeah.” he says. I release his hands and turn back to the rail of clothes.
“What do you think of this?” I say, taking out a vintage eighties leather jacket. He shrugs. I spend seven hundred dollars on various outfits and we leave. I can't help but feel somewhat giddy, wanting to pirouette out of the store and sing. Once we're in the car I hum the The Rite Of Spring to myself, wondering what I would need assistance with.

A few hours later Bill and I are drinking white wine on a terrace overlooking the Pacific. It is quiet yet I feel as though both are content with that.
“What is it you're doing here anyway?”
“I am trying to find the edge. The edge of Los Angeles.”
“Hell, I can drive you out of the city tonight if that's all you want.”
“Can you?”
“Sure, we can take the interstate north, go through the mountains. I ain't been there for...say, coming on fifteen year.” he says. I shake my head.
“I'm from England, you know. And there's a funny thing about the coastline. You measure it in miles it's such a number. Let's say six hundred. But then you measure it in feet it's going to be....thousands of feet. You measure it in centimetres, it's going to be even higher.” I say.
“What now?”
“It's a paradox. The more fine the measurement, the higher it'll be. But the same applies to the city. Who's to say where Los Angeles ends exactly? Sure, it's on a map. But if I was to stand where the map said Los Angeles ended, would that necessarily mean that if I took a step forward I would no longer be in L.A?”
“Yeah.”
“No Bill. It's nebulous. It's a constantly shifting, the border between the city and the not city. Is a building or road what makes Los Angeles Los Angeles? Or do cars, trees, people, do they make up the city? If I was to get a microscope and examine a proton, am I looking at an individual proton or just a minutely small part of Los Angeles?” I said, gesturing in the air with my wine glass at the ocean view.
“I dunno man, I ain't never been to college.”
“Being academically inclined doesn't help answer these questions. Where is the edge? If the boundary of Los Angeles is so malleable, we could hypothesize that the length of the city limits is theoretically infinite. Which makes any part of Los Angeles a potential centre or edge. The only way we'll know is by investigating which areas are and aren't Los Angeles, and in through doing so I hope for a better understanding of not just this city, but all cities.”
“Well, that sounds good to me. So we could be at the edge right now?” says Bill, refilling his glass. I laugh heartily.
“This doesn't feel like the edge of civilization just yet. I'm sure we'll find it sooner or later though.” I said. We are quiet once again as I look out onto the constantly folding waves coming from the East.

I give Bill the rest of the night off to go and see his family whilst I go for my evening perambulations. My phone rang. Again, it was the distant sounds of animals breathing and the low talking. I sat on a bench and listened for a few minutes, wondering if it was even English, before the line went dead again. The Los Angeles night was drawing in, all lit bright orange all around me. I watch a coyote slink from out behind a diner and run across the road clutching something in it's mouth. In a trash can I find a shoebox full of love letters and take them up to my room to read whilst I sit in bed. Once I have finished I throw them around the room, ripping some in half, eating a few others. I had a busy week ahead of me.

Noughtilus

As the new century emerges from the fug of time like some kind of mewling premature child, several inconsistencies have been noticed in it's chronobiology. The holistic approach to the entire universe seems to have been ignored in certain examples;

a. new forms of sexuality beginning with porn addiction that leads to entirely new forms of onanistic romance which in turn can lead to potential schizovorce
b. shared dreams across the entire population, missed by insomniacs
c. a Spanish volcano that erupts blood
d. that the entire Iraq war has been staged by government officials as a cover-up for the attempted assassinations of an invincible man
e. the entire universe is in fact tiny and the stars seen in the sky are only as large as footballs hovering a few miles above earth
f. cocaine has trace amounts of coca-cola in it
g. the internet is funnelled through whale brains stationed hundreds of miles apart sending signals telepathically
h. hubris

Complex Hypershapes And Others

Columns swing overhead as if some giant pendulus, a sculpture part of the Revgerfev exhibition at Towneley Garden Centre. Every piece of ceramic lawn decoration has had it's face caved in by artist Johnny Gloves, the savage. The mystic.

The gates of Midian.

The great gates of Midian, home of the Queen of Heaven. Hounds made from platinum carry things in their maws as ridiculous brass squelches out some kind of melody. Maybe. Midian. Mesozoic. Meta.

The name's Bond. Bond Bond.

James Bond has been the subject of interest in the latest exhibition by The Triangle Collective. 'Fuck Face Fetish' takes place inside the Royal Observatory in which paintings of James Bond iterations replace the scientific equipment. When looking through the telescope viewers are greeted by a miniature James Bond (in this case Roger Moore) who re-enacts the opening sequence of the film in which he shoots the camera, or in this case, shoots a miniature ball bearing at the viewer in order to achieve maximum 'License to Kill' artstyles. When leaving the observatory people are then chased by an Aston Martin and assaulted with red paint. The Triangle Collective has really raised the bar with 'Fuck Face Fetish' leaving viewers shaken but not stirred!

Chrononaut Lesson

/And now I return to a classic. Perhaps one of the nicest classics in the whole of the history of science, which would be time travel. In part of the lexicon for the laymen, time travel can be explained as something travelling through time as easy as it is travelling through the three dimensions of space we currently think about. There are as many dimensions of time as there are physical, if you can imagine a cube made out of time we experience it in a single direction as if we am slug? Currently time travel has been restricted to those in the future. People from the future walk amongst us, sometimes as observers, sometimes to enjoy our freedoms and post modernism and sometimes to manipulate events so that they are guaranteed to be born into success and happiness. There are things such as the grandfather paradox, in which if you travel through time there is a chance you have sex with your grandmother.

Another fact about the future is that we have replaced most of our standard senses with bizarre augmentations such as flesh paddles used to detect and manipulate electromagnetic radiation or a tesseractoid exoskeleton. Advertising companies have manipulated viruses which give the symptoms of thirst or dizziness, the only cure being found inside the product. Some people will choose to be machines like cars, televisions or pylons. Another fact about time travel is that the government are currently sending people back and forwards through time in experiments carried out beneath the Large Hadron Collider. Though they can only travel relatively short distances like a few hours, this technology lead to early time crimes and enormous boosts in lost sport almanacs.

Aut

1973-2008

Surrounded By Zero Vibes

Armitage Shanks stops his car, unsliding the key from the ignition. Sitting motionless, less is more and he begins to vibrate. Supercooled lasers at different angles engage him, ultimate parallax into a wormhole. Thin black veins shoot across the atlas of his brain sphere, tesseractoid segments in space unfold before him like origami to reveal the infinite metadimensions. He gasps, audibly.

Meanwhile a dozen Roland SH-101s throb to the strobing beat of the pulsars. “It's so...funky.”

armitage shanks lights a cigarette looks in his rear view mirror and sees a ghost am I dreaming or is this virtual reality it says he shakes his head there is a twist in the end he says the intellectuals called this the pigs Tail a pun about how a pig has genitals shaped like corkscrews ghost evaporates into ectoplasm never to be thought of again he recycles a pair of polarized glasses and drives off after leaving a scumpled up polaroid of a woman showing his rosebud.