I borrowed the animated film The Last Unicorn from the library today. The cast caught my eye, consisting of Christopher Lee, Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, Alan Arkin, and there was even a very young Rene Auberjonois from Deep Space Nine. It was released in 1982. It’s one of those Bass and Rankin Jr animations, though the main animators were Japanese, which explains why the film has a slight anime look. This was another thing that caught my eye – the anime look of the characters. There was also one more thing that interested me: the soundtrack was written by Jimmy Webb, songwriter extraordinaire. With all that, what’s not to love?
I watched it the same night and it was, in a word, adorable. The design of the unicorn, which is voiced by Mia Farrow, is beautiful. Its very thin and delicate legs have hair on the hoofs making them look like wings. And it has the biggest most feminine eyes this side of Matsumoto Leiji. The story is about its quest to find the other unicorns that have become lost, leaving her alone. This brings her into contact with a ‘failed’ wizard called Shmendrick (voiced by Arkin), who helps her, and King Haggard (voiced by Lee), who has captured the other unicorns and wants to catch her, too. But Shmendrick turns her into a woman to disguise her, and as she takes on more human qualities she falls in love with Haggard’s son, Prince Lir (voiced by Bridges). It’s a nice variation on classic fairy tale themes, and very meta in the way it uses them. I mentioned the music is written by Jimmy Webb, but the songs are sung by America (who were just Gerry Beckley and Dewey Bunnell at this point). I actually have a copy of the title track on a compilation. It’s a nice song, sung by Gerry Beckley, but I think I like it more now that I see it’s attached to this wonderful film.
A funny thing about the film, though. So much of it reminds me of Lord of the Rings, either the Peter Jackson films or the Tolkien novel. I guess this shouldn’t be surprising as the author, Peter S Beagle, had previously written the script for Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings film. It starts with the casting of Christopher Lee as a very Saruman-like baddie. The white unicorn itself, though female (and a unicorn!), has shades of Shadowfax, Gandalf’s white horse about her. There’s a sequence near the end showing the other unicorns coming out of waves on the ocean that’s not unlike the horse-head flood that engulfs the orcs in the Frodo’s Flight sequence in Fellowship of the Rings. And there’s a giant red bull that herds the unicorns into the ocean that could easily be inspired by the balrog. One of the weirdest things in the film is a large-breasted female tree that traps Shmendrick between its breasts. Could this ‘booby tree’ be a callback to the Entwives that Treebeard was seeking?
Anyway, I loved this, and can’t believe it completely passed me by all those years ago. I also watched it with the commentary track, which included Beagle and a bunch of others and was very informative. It seems the film was doing well in cinemas in the US, but then the distributors went bankrupt, and that was it. But the book and the video release of the film, plus later cinema revival showings, turned it into something of a cult classic. Beagle talks about people at meet and greets actually shaking and crying when they meet him, so great is the effect of the film and book on them. His response to these people? He shuffles around the table and gives them a big hug.
Had a listen to the first half of Gordon Lightfoot’s A Painter Passing Through. His voice had changed by that point (1998). It was less deep, more gravelly. There’s a definite theme of movement, with the opening track called Drifter and many others touching on escape. I thought the song Boathouse might be another of Gordo’s sea shanties, but alas, it’s another dream of freedom – and it’s played with a blues feel rather than waltz-time. Ringneck Loon, with its idyllic vision of flight on the sea, is the closest we get to the water. But what is it about: the thing itself, Gordon, or someone he knows?
Listened to the second half of Gordon’s A Painter Passing Through. The title track is nice but it features a passage that’s very similar to another melody I’ve heard elsewhere. Besides Gordo’s usual folky sound there’s a couple of country songs, one called I Used to Be a Country Singer, that’s quite nice. A story of a maid who enters a musician’s hotel room to clean it and tells him of the time she was the title Country Singer. She could sing like Patsy Cline and was a good friend of Kitty Wells. They share a duet sitting on the bed. It’s a pity it’s not one of Gordon’s originals.
I started reading the Modesty Blaise Mister Sun graphic novel. It’s been a very long time since I read one of these. Last time would’ve been as a teen reading the Herald/Sun funnies (which they don’t run anymore). The artist was Jim Holdaway, whilst Peter O’Donnell, as always, provided the script. Holdaway’s art is detailed and clear, if sometimes a little stiff. Modesty’s houseboy, Weng, looks older than he should be. The story involves Weng’s attempts to help his sister leave the South Vietnamese army by being a drug mule for Hong Kong drug lord Mister Sun. But Sun holds him captive as bait for Modesty, whom he wishes to punish for some prior dealings where she and Willie bested him. It’s a nice set up, made even nicer when Modesty again beats Mister Sun and the story pivots onto Weng’s sister and a journey into Vietnam. There’s some great details here. When Weng goes to meet Mister Sun he’s shown to a small waiting room. It turns out the room is an elevator that descends so slowly Weng doesn’t realise he’s going below ground to Sun’s lair. In another scene, Modesty and Willie have a vigorous sparring match in front of an amazed Sir Gerald that gets very physical. At the end of it, what do they do but light up a couple of cigarettes for a post-’coital’ fag! I’m loving this.
I finished the Mister Sun story of the Modesty Blaise graphic novel. The finale was pretty epic with Modesty and Willie and Weng and their friends taking part in a battle against some Viet Cong to help save Weng’s sister. It’s a big spoiler to say, but I gotta say it: turns out Weng’s sister is a traitor who has sided with the Viet Con, and when she threatens Modesty poor old Weng is the one who has to kill her. What a twist! What a story!
I finished reading the fourth volume of Bocchi the Rock manga. The Unidentified Riot arc comes to a conclusion. After the winnowing process does Kessoku Band get to perform? Not gonna say! But I can say they get a record contract with an indie company, which takes them into new and promising directions. There’s even a beach sequence that’s as cliched as every other anime and manga beach sequence (hello K-On!), with the exception that the girls don’t end up in an onsen.
The new Twice music video and song came out today. It’s the title track of their new album This Is For. While I’m happy about all this, and the video looks interesting, I’m not loving the song yet. For one thing, it’s very short, just over two minutes. It feels and sounds like something New Jeans might have done, if they were still recording.
I watched the anime film Vexille. It’s completely 3-D animation, including the characters. I don’t mind it, having gotten used to it with the earlier Appleseed films that this resembles. MC Vexille is cut from the same cloth as Deunan from Appleseed, right down to her hair. The story involves her military company SWORD infiltrating a future Japan that has closed itself from the world, ala Edo period Japan, in order to further its ambitions to develop banned bio-robotics. It’s a pretty grim vision of Japan’s future with the remaining populace herded into greater Tokyo and the rest of the country completely obliterated as the Wasteland. The mecha design is one of the highlights of these films. There’s even a touch of Tachikoma about some of the smaller fighting machines we encounter, with their funny little chatter and shouts. The back story has the people of Japan subjecting themselves to innoculations against disease that are actually a chemical that turns them slowly into robots, if you can believe it! This was 2004, way before Covid, but the sort of detail that’s gonna fire the conspiracy theorists. I can’t say I love the pro-military and uber-Capitalist elements of the story, but there’s some exciting action scenes. The giant metal worms that inhabit the Wasteland are straight out of Dune.
I watched the first story in the TO anime film I picked up from Dixons last week. It was called Elliptical Orbit and it was very good. Directed by Sori, who directed Vexille, it’s another 3-D animation set on an orbiting space station that doubles as a ‘gun’ that fires supplies to the Moon. It’s visited by an interstellar ship called the Flying Dutchman that has just returned from a 15 year journey to Alpha Centauri with a payload of precious liquid protons. But space pirates take over the station and try to steal the payload. That’s the basic story, but it’s the character details that really resonated. Maria is the Captain of the Flying Dutchman and, because she spent much of the journey in a hibernation pod, has only aged a couple of years. The scene where she meets her ex-lover, who stayed behind, is stunning. He’s aged 15 years, has married and his wife has died in the interim. Maria also left behind her son by him, and he also has died. It’s heavy time-shifting stuff. Then we find out that during the voyage she was having sex with the three male crewman in turn. Good gritty detail. I’m still not sure if I liked the bandanna she wears though.
I bought some goodies at the op shop in Healesville while I was working there today. They were the dvd of film Interstellar, the book Conan the Warrior, and the cd of The Bryan Ferry Orchestra’s The Jazz Age. I watched Interstellar on Netflix not that long ago, but it’s such a good film I want my own copy (and this was a brand new, complete with shrink wrap, never been played before copy). I think about those scary landscapes and planets in it often and will return soon. The Conan book is the second in the series, and I have the first book Conan the Barbarian, plus some later volumes. It’s one of those completest things, okay? The Ferry album isn’t actually Bryan on vocals, but him directing jazz-flavoured instrumental versions of some of his Roxy Music and solo songs. I wasn’t aware of the album, and I’m intrigued by the concept, so I grabbed it. All in all, not bad for three bucks!
I dug out a bunch of cds from my to be listened to pile, which includes Tori Amos’s Ocean To Ocean, a couple of Captain Beefhearts and Harry Nilsson’s Schmilsson album. I started with the Harry Nilsson album, mainly because it’s relatively short. I already know a couple of the songs, namely the big hit Without You and the rockin’ Jump Into the Fire, which I have on single. There’s also the song Coconut, which I know I’ve heard in passing and is famous in its own way (it was featured in that episode of Bones where the character Sweets died). First impressions of the rest is he’s a fantastic singer, and the album’s incredibly eclectic. How do you go from inspired silliness of Coconut to the heaviosity of Jump Into the Fire? But it’s an extremely likeable album. The last track, I’ll Never Leave You, is a bit woozy though. Sounds like Harry (a renowned drinker) in his cups.
I watched the first ep of season three of Squidgame on Netflix. The aftermath of the failed rebellion sees our main character Seong Gi-hun in the doldrums and wondering why the Controller hasn’t killed him. The main answer is he wants to see how he fairs in the rest of the games and to manipulate him further for this own ends. Meanwhile, outside the policeman Hwang continues his search for the island and his brother the Controller while being informed the boat Captain may be a traitor in their midst. The show is great at turning the screws on the characters, and at the episode’s end we prepare for what should be a brutal round of hide and seek in the next games.
I watched the second episode of Squid Game. Boy, this was a brutal episode with the inmates having to play a game of hide and seek where the seekers had knives and were instructed to hunt down and kill the hiders. It was brilliantly shot in a multi-story warren of rooms and hiding places. My only complaint was with the subplot that had a pregnant woman, one of the hiders, giving birth in the midst of all the carnage. With the game only lasting thirty minutes the timeline doesn’t add up. She breaks her water around the fifteen minute mark, and about ten minutes later gives birth. And then she’s up and walking around to make her escape. Is that possible?
I had a binge of the last three episodes of Squid Game season three. So many twists and turns and a nice satisfying denouement (although there is still scope for sequels – LA Squid Games, anyone?). I have to agree with a lot of commentators about this, I really didn’t love the ‘guest’ characters when they showed up in episode four. The way they acted, the way they were written, the whole thing, was so stilted and phony. And they were such awful people, entertaining the idea of putting a baby at risk of death and enjoying the prospect. I really hoped they would get their comeuppance and be put into the Games themselves, but it was not to be. Despite its flaws, I really enjoyed this show, which has become something of a cultural touchstone.
I’ve been listening to the Beach Boys themed Sail On podcast lately. Mainly taking in a recent ep about the Carl and the Passions album. Man, those guys go deep! The focus has been on the track Marcella, which was written by Brian but mostly sung by Mike and Carl, and produced by Carl. I gave it a listen afterwards, and it’s still an okay song to me, but not great. It seems Brian wrote it for a prostitute he liked who worked at a massage parlour. Too much information? For me the highlight of that album is the song All This Is That. So I gave that a listen while I was at it. So good. One of the things I like about it is it quotes Robert Frost’s poem I Saw Two Paths Diverging. In a case of synchronicity, not long after listening to this I was doing the NYT mini-crossword and one of the questions was ‘Poet Robert with a ‘cool’ last name’. There was also ‘poet Robert with a ‘hot’ last name’. Cute.
Here’s one for Harry Potter fans. I was doing some research for the upcoming England trip and discovered there is an actual Quidditch League in existence. It’s an international league with teams in England, the US and even Australia. They apparently play it on a flat field holding broomsticks between their legs. The Golden Snitch is a ball in a sock that’s carried by an umpire who runs around the field trying not to be caught. Crazy stuff, but I love it. I thought I might try to catch a game whilst in Derby where I’ll be stopping, but I could catch a game here, too.
I’ve started the fifth volume of Bocchi the Rock and I’m really enjoying it. I like where the story’s going for the Kessoku Band girls. They’re working on songs for their recording company, dealing with new work buddies, going on shopping and eating sprees. Hitori seems to be growing out of her social anxiety – well, seems. Progress is slow, but she’s getting there.
I read online today that Pearl Jam’s long-time drummer, Matt Cameron, was leaving the band. This is a pity as they’ve really benefited from Matt’s continuity (and drumming). It seems the parting was amicable, and the band intends to continue without him, so all good.
I finished reading the Tori Amos book Resistance. After a slow start where I didn’t really get into it, it came very good for the last half. The change happened because Tori stopped writing about political issues and got more personal. She especially detailed her mother’s declining health in a way that was quite affecting. After her death she imagines her mother communing with her (accompanied by a raven, a personal symbol of her mother) and taking her back to various key moments in her life. There’s also a nice side-story about her husband Mark’s father’s death which gave a good insight into his family and Tori’s role in it. The last section contained some brilliant writing about creativity and the role of the artist. I really like her line ‘the real estate of the universal creative spirit is infinite’. So inspiring and positive. So, a good book for fans and maybe even non-fans.
After I read the book I looked over my Tori Amos cds to check that they all contained lyric sheets, and they do. I’d never really paid much attention to her lyrics, finding them sort of impenetrable, containing her private mythology. But the book made it clear to me that her lyrics are decipherable, if you have the code (as in, if you have an idea what they’re supposed to be about – it’s not always obvious). I looked again at my copy of her best of album, Tales of a Librarian. A cute concept, with Tori looking librarian-ish. I guess I hadn’t noticed before, because I bought the album well before I became a library worker myself, but the album artwork really runs with the library theme, right down to including a list of the major Classes of the Dewey Decimal system we still use. And the lyric booklet has each song assigned to whatever Class its subject refers to. Thus, for example, Cornflake Girls resides at 170 for Ethics and 177 for Ethics of Social Relations (Betrayal). The 100s Class covers Philosophy and Psychology. I love this idea!
I watched a fantastic couple of Nmixx themed episodes on Youtube called Welcome To Lilyland. These were shot during their recent concert tour out here, which I attended. The entire group visited member Lily’s parent’s place in nearby Marysville the day before their concert. I remember that day because it was quite sunny, while the day of the concert was wet and windy and dreary. The first episode has the girls starting out in their bus on the way to Marysville, with Lily very excited about bringing everyone to her home town. It was quite surreal as they passed Chirnside Park, a shopping centre near me, and Lily pointed it out, saying she’d gone there many times. She even name-checked nearby Lilydale, which when you think about it, could be Lilyland, but isn’t.
The visit with Lily’s parents was fun but a little cringe. Some relatives and friends stand by awkwardly in the background while the girls gush over Lily’s home. The second episode is more fun, having the group visit Lily’s old Primary School and meeting the new generation of students. It’s a very small school, with perhaps twenty kids in all. They sing a song (We Are Australia) and the girls repay the gift with a rendition of Run For the Roses? Many of the kids managed to get a hug from the girls, with Sullyoon seemingly being the most popular. The shot of a group of them drawn to her for a group hug was one of the most wholesome and adorable things I’ve seen in a long time. Just imagine how those kids will get to brag in years to come how they got a hug from Sullyoon! A visit to a nearby waterfall rounded out the visit. I liked how, when Lily started showing off atop an embankment, the other members had clearly had enough and went ‘We’re going now’. This was an awesome little visit and looks like it could inspire a whole series where we’ll see each of the other members in their hometown settings.
