WordJam: July 2019

Tuesday 23 July 2019

Boris Johnson Becomes Prime Minister, or: "Waiting for the Worms"

I've spent the best part of eight hours trying to write a satirical piece about Boris' victory in the Conservative leadership election, but my sense of humour gave up on me.

Instead, on behalf of all my readers in Belgium, Egypt, France, Germany, India, the Republic of Ireland, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Palestine, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, I'd like to apologise that this utter waste of skin and organs has become the voice for the UK on the international stage. This man hates you, but not as much as he hates his own people.

(And this position, I must point out, has nothing to do with Johnson being one of the key architects of Brexit. I voted Remain in the 2016 European Referendum, but if there was a second ballot I'd vote Leave... There, I said it. My concern regarding the Conservatives is I don't trust their position. In their eyes, this has everything to do with neoliberal economic adventure and nothing to do with genuine democratic freedoms... Buuut, we'll see.)

As for my UK readers, specifically those who thought this "infant in a man's clothes" would be hilarious as Prime Minister (because nowadays everything is showbiz, even politics), let's see how amusing it is in 18 months' time. I'd like to say I find the prospect of Johnson stood next to genuine statespeople such as Narendra Modi, Xi Jinping, Merkel, Macron and Putin at the next G20 pants-wettingly funny (like Mr Bean at a science fair), but if I've got to step over corpses in the street to do so the price far outweighs the punchline.

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Trivial Shit That Really Pisses Me Off (AKA: 'It's a Conspiracy, I Tells Ya...')

DVD has long been a godsend for fans of world cinema, especially when the films you're interested in watching have either failed to pick up theatrical distribution in your country or are unavailable via streaming services. Having said that, it's not very reassuring to find the people responsible for marketing these home media releases either have absolutely no awareness of the content of the films they're trying to promote, or - and this is more likely - are quite happy to mislead undiscerning DVD hounds with cover art that bears very little relation to the flicks they're pushing in the hope of making a quick buck. (As a fan of German and Russian cinema, I find this tends to be a regular feature of my consumer life.) I therefore present some examples of this ignorant and, dare I say it, underhanded practice in the vain hope that someone at Entertainment One, Metrodome or the otherwise excellent Arrow Video is actually reading this.

Bring on the accused...

Gagarin: First in Space - DVD release

For some reason, the Entertainment One DVD shows Gagarin as a combination of Keir Dullea wandering around the Regency-era bedroom in '2001: A Space Odyssey', Sandra Bullock holding on for dear life in 'Gravity' and John Hurt about to be orally-raped in 'Alien'. The original theatrical poster may be a little clichéd with its profile shot of Yaroslav Zhalin staring into eternity, but at least it's trying to be awe-inspiring rather than suggesting - somewhat cynically, I think - that the first human being's journey into space was, well, a bit boring.

2. Anonyma: A Woman in Berlin - theatrical poster

Max Färberböck's adaptation of 'Eine Frau in Berlin', based on the anonymous memoirs of a female journalist caught between sexual violence and emotional dependency in the dying days of the Second World War, was immediately controversial upon its release in Germany, and it doesn't require a doctorate in philosophy to understand why. Although it may not be the most sophisticated of films to deal with this subject matter, it's still a very powerful meditation on identity and gender politics that's still horribly relevant wherever women are caught in warzones and forced to compromise themselves, either against their will or to guarantee the safety of the people they love.

Anonyma: A Woman in Berlin - DVD release

"Fuck that: let's put Nina Hoss in a beret and make it look like an espionage thriller instead! While we're at it, we'll make that bloke stood next to her look like a Nazi of some kind. It's all right, no one'll know he's from the Red Army - unless they're the sort of sad bastards who watch the History Channel. And why don't we stick a bunch of planes in the background? Everyone loves an aerial dogfight. Actually, we could do with changing the title, too. What was that really good flick that came out a few years ago called? You know - the one about Hitler in the bunker?"