Babyshambles head Pete Doherty is more famous for being Kate Moss’ drug addicted boyfriend than for creating good music, which is a bit unfair really, as he was behind two of this century’s most important rock records together with his former friend Carl Barât. Known as The Libertines they released their debut “Up the Bracket” and its follow-up “The Libertines” to great critical praise in 2003 and 2004 respectively. “Can’t stand me now“, the brutally honest opening track of the second Libertines album, dealt with Doherty and Barât’s ambivalent relationship at the time, not unsimilar to the way the first song on “Down in Albion“‘, “La Belle et la Bête“, talks about Doherty’s relationship with Kate Moss (the star model provides backing vocals on the track), now more than a year after Doherty was kicked out of The Libertines due to his drug abuse.

It seems a fair question to ask if Doherty’s Babyshambles can propell him back up to the level of musical genius he had reached together with Barât. Doherty had written a big part of The Libertines’ songs, and when “Killamangiro“, the first single of his then side-project Babyshambles, was released shortly after “The Libertines” in summer 2004, a casual listener couldn’t spot any difference between the two bands’ sound. “Killamangiro” could easily be mistaken for a Libertines tune. This version of the song did not make it onto “Down in Albion“, however. Doherty decided to re-record the track, and when listening to the album it becomes immediately obvious why: “Down in Albion” is even more lo-fi than both Libertines records.

The music on “Down in Albion” being so reminiscent of The Libertines has more to do with Doherty’s unmistakeable voice and guitarplay. Because Babyshambles sounds far edgier and features new musical influences like Reggae (most apparent on “Sticks and Stones” and “Pentonville“, the only real let down on the album) - not unlike the music of british band The Clash in the seventies. That shouldn’t be surprising considering the fact that former The Clash singer Mick Jones produced “Down in Albion“. Actually, you feel almost compelled to say under-produced, for Doherty’s new sound comes across as very raw and hardly mixed, at least not to a fully satisfying degree. “Down in Albion” then is more like a diary than a self-contained album, a single moment in the band’s fluctuous musical journey recorded onto disc. There is no final or definite version of any one song, and Doherty seems very aware and supportive of this, releasing new samples of Babyshambles tunes on the band’s website time and time again.

In spite of this, and in reality probably exactly because “Down in Albion” sounds like a spontaneous single-session recording, the album flows very well. The opener “La Belle et la Bête” is followed by previous single “Fuck Forever“, a brilliant forey into the realms of grunge (the song quite ingeniously drops out of tune near the end while Doherty creaks “They’ll never play this on the radio!” - indeed, this bit did not feature on the single edit played on radio stations). The albums strongest phase takes place in the middle of the first half with the succession of three very strong tracks “Pipedown” (according to newspaper reports, Doherty had to tell his grandmother he was actually singing “Paddy put the pint down”), “Sticks and Stones” (which starts off with the whistling of the seven dwarves going to work in the morning) and the aforementioned “Killamangiro” in the new version that quickly grows on you after repeat listenings.

The album’s real highlight, however, is unveiled three quarters in - but unveiled might just be too strong a word in fact. “Albion“, the twelfth track, is preceeded by nearly one and a half minutes of excrutiating blips, beeps and knocks, prompting the impression that Doherty wanted to force listeners to skip the track, in order to protect and hide his jewel. Those brave enough to survive the initial noise (or those smart enough to simply fast forward the first 1:20) will be treated to a beautiful escapist road song that perfectly showcases Doherty’s lyrical craft:

Oh reebok classics and / canons at dawn / coffee wallows and pith helmets / and oh an English sun / but if you’re looking for a cheap tart / that’s glint with perspiration / theres a four mile queue outside the disused power station / ah come away, won’t you come away / we’ll go to margate, scarborough, wigan, shepard’s bush / ah anywhere in Albion.

Quite rightly, “Albion” has been selected as the new Babyshambles single.

On the negative side (and to draw up yet another comparison with The Libertines, since the author of these lines refuses to cease holding on to the tiny bit of hope that Doherty might yet turn his back on his decadent life style and be lovingly welcomed back by Barât), almost all of the rhythmic progress The Libertines made with their second album has completely been lost on “Down in Albion“. Doherty has a knack for continuing a song on the following album; “Tell the King” on “Up the Bracket” had a partner in “The Man Who Would Be King” on “The Libertines“, and “What Katie Did” is followed up with “What Katy Did Next” on “Down in Albion” (this Katy obviously refers to Kate Moss). But the second Katy song has nothing of the beautifully nostalgic sixties bubblegum rhythm “What Katie Did” had to offer. And when Doherty sings “there’s a lesson I have learned / if you play with fire you will get burned” on “What Katy Did Next” you have to ask yourself if Doherty is suffering from a seriously shrewed perception of reality or if that’s just his own very particular style of humour.

The fact that Pete Doherty has received more press in the past year than The Libertines did during their entire career could work very much in favor of the record’s sales. But there’s no reason to feel guilty about purchasing this album at all, as overall “Down in Albion” is good enough find appeal beyond the fans of The Libertines thanks to its authenticity and almost painful honesty. Be wary about attending a Babyshambles gig though, make sure you’d receive your money back in the case of the band failing to show up, something that has happened more than once on the current tour (in some instances Doherty later claimed he was never informed of the gig in question).

Posted in Reviews •

Before Harry enters his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, he joins Hermione and the Weasley familiy at the finals of the Quidditch World Cup. But the fun is soon cut short when a bunch of Death Eaters, the Dark Lord’s former supporters, rally and set the camp site ablaze. Back at school, Harry finds himself thrust into the Triwizard Tournament - a competition which will see him face off against contestants from other magical schools in three highly dangerous tasks - despite being underage. Only in the end does Harry realize that everything is an elaborate plot to draw him straight into the hands of his nemesis - Lord Voldemort.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth film about the bespectacled wizard, opened in cinemas last week and our staff has decided to review the movie collectively and synchronously. This review will offer three different opinions by two staffers familiar with the books (one liked the film very much while the other was let down) and one who has no knowledge of Harry Potter outside of the four movies.

The directing

Tai: Director Mike Newell is new to this genre of fantasy and spectacle (his former directorial efforts include Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco and Mona Lisa Smile, among others), but his work on the latest Harry Potter film is commendable. He brings to the series an insightful understanding of how the mind of a teenager at a boarding school ticks, and how their teachers tend to react to the students’ often mischevious behavior. Newell is also wise enough to understand what JK Rowling’s source material is about, so instead of following the book scene by scene (the way Chris Columbus approached the first two Potter adaptations), he emphazises the most important themes of the story and builds his film around that, leaving out more than a few subplots (see our article on what’s been cut and why). What Newell also adds is a sense of grandness to the Harry Potter universe, to the point that this film finally feels like a fantasy epic in its own right.

Sil: Mike Newell really had his work cut out for him in Goblet of Fire. Alfonso Cuarón did such an outstanding job with Prisoner of Azkaban which in my view had the perfect amount of suspense, character development and set pieces. He had a lot to handle on this project, one of the most difficult decisions being how to pace the action and whether a two hour movie could be created from the wealth of source material provided by Rowling.

Dave: Felt like he could have shown more warmth with the characters, but that’s a minor quibble. Overall, the focus of the story stays where it belongs - singularly on Harry Potter.

The story

Tai: Goblet of Fire is a thriller on the outside, but a coming of age story at heart. And because the main characters are entering adolescence, two themes are prevalent: sexuality and mortality. Harry, Ron and Hermione are maturing (as much as the series as a whole is), and starting to see each other in a new light. The first crush, jealousy, but also a fight among best friends; it’s all there and it offers the viewer a lot to relate to. But the new independence that comes with growing up is also accompanied with, for the first time, a sense that you are vulnerable at all times - there is no one who will always be there to protect you. Harry has long been familiar with the concept of death (his parents having been murdered when he was a mere infant, after all), but always as something distant, something that happened a long time ago. Goblet of Fire (and the return of Lord Voldemort) sets up the fact that anyone can die, at any time. As Hermione aptly says: “Everything’s going to change now, isn’t it?”

Sil: Clearly GOF is the coming of age story of Harry Potter. Our heroes are beginning to discover the wonders of the opposite sex, and there’s tears and tantrums and a lot of story to get through. Those already familiar with the story don’t need it being retold here, but the gist of it is: Harry is entering his fourth year at Hogwarts University. This year, a special competition called the Triwizard Tournament is being held there. Competing alongside three other students, Harry has to battle dragons, merpeople, his own growing sense of unease about his nemesis Voldemort and asking a girl to dance! It all culminates with a certain baddy being reborn and a whole new outlook on the future.

Dave: This feels like a perfect transition - dark, blue and moody. Moving away from the frivolity and wonderment of the previous films into new territory, icy and disturbing.

The pacing and the cuts

Tai: The Goblet of Fire book is nearly twice as long as its predecessor, and yet both film adaptations run for about the same length. That obviously means that a lot of material from book four was left out. That the movie almost never feels jumpy and runs very fluidly speaks lengths about the effort put into this project by Mike Newell and screenwriter Steve Kloves. Viewers familiar with the book will notice the omissions of characters such as the Dursleys, Ludo Bagman, Winky and Dobby, Charlie Weasley as well as most of the scenes involving Harry’s godfather Sirius Black, and the ignorant reporter Rita Skeeter. But none of these cuts really screams out, the movie manages to flow seamlessly and retain coherence in spite of them. Indeed, leaving them out works in favor of the film, enabling the pacing to stay high and exciting throughout, but always perfectly balanced with lots of (naturally funny!) laughs in between (the Weasley twins Fred and George in particular finally live up to their characters in the book). There is one radically shortened scene that does jump out, however, at the beginning of the movie. The Quidditch World Cup took up a big chunk of the book, and in the movie you don’t even get to see the match: the film cuts from the two teams entering the stadium to the post-match festivities. An enstranging omission to many, probably, but ultimately the match itself offers nothing more than excitement, and there’s enough of that later on in the film with the Triwizard Tournament. And what is shown of the World Cup does fullfil its only important plot-related function, which is to set-up Viktor Krum as one hell of an athlete.

Sil: I think the film had very clear and definite pacing issues. With so many different characters to involve, it clearly becomes impossible to introduce the newcomers and to develop the existing ones. The focus has to be on Harry which relegates some of the most beloved characters to mere one-liners. Don’t expect to see much of anyone except Harry, Ron and Hermione - even Dumbledore seems strangely quiet. Cho Chang? Two lines in the whole movie. Fleur Delacour? I think she got three. Did Victor Krum even speak at all? The two characters who were given adequate screen time were Harry and Hermione and even Hermione’s part was significantly reduced from the books. Barty Crouch Jr was the one character which flew by me completely. We weren’t given any introduction to his character bar his malevolent lip-licking episode in Dumledore’s pensieve. With too many characters, GOF really suffers from being too shallow and fast-moving.

Dave: Having never read any of the books (blasphemy!), I can’t comment on any cuts, but the pacing felt fine to me. I never once glanced at my watch to see how much time was left. Newell kept the structure of the story tight and in motion at all times.

The acting

Tai: Discussing the acting in the Harry Potter films always necessitates the need to focus on two poles: the mostly inexperienced children carrying the film on the one side, and a armada of Britain’s finest actors and actresses in the supporting roles. There’s simply no way you can compare Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint or Emma Watson to the likes of Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman or Michael Gambon. This hasn’t changed in Goblet of Fire, but: the difference doesn’t stick out that much anymore. That has partly to do with the supporting cast getting less time in this film than previously, but more significantly it really shows that Dan, Rupert and Emma have grown into their roles. Their friendship is far more dynamic in this film, and the three of them handle it very naturally and believably. You’ll find far less cringe-worthy dialogue delivery from them this time around. The supporting cast is reliable as ever, and out of the newcomers its Brendan Gleeson as Mad-Eye Moody who shines in particular. Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory) gets the most screentime amongst the three other Triwizard contestants and handles his role amicably: I genuinely felt for him in the end. The most surprising performance was delivered by Ralph Fiennes. His interpretation of Lord Voldemort was not the all-powerful, tyrannical evil incorporate, but much more subtle, somehow quietly noble.

Sil: All of the actors gave average performances, the best being Brendan Gleeson gleefully hamming it up as Mad-Eye Moody. Emma Watson also stood out for me, managing to show her transition from bookish nerd to graceful princess to misunderstood teenager in the blink of an eye. Newcomers Robert Pattinson (Cedric), Clémence Poésy (Fleur) and Stanislav Ianevski (Viktor) were clearly not picked for their acting prowess, but did well given the shortage of speaking scenes. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort was the single most underused actor on screen. His portrayal of Voldemort was unsubstantial; his meek voice and sedate pantomime of evil was a complete let down. Maybe they just didn’t want to scare the kiddies too much.

Dave: Casting staff took a gamble in signing up Radcliffe, Watson & Grint back in the day. The expectations for child actors are different than those for adults. Bottom line for kids is they have to show up, look the part, and remember their lines. Nuance and skill are nice if you can get them. However, the gamble seems to have paid off with these three — they’re doing a fine job moving forward and I really hope all three find a way to make it through to the end of the film series. Ralph Fiennes brought the necessary weight to Voldemort… hard to take one’s eyes off him.

The rest

Tai: The series’ visuals started shifting towards the gloomier side of the color range with Prisoner of Azkaban, but gone is the gothic, almost desaturated look from Cuaron’s film in favor of more colors and contrast to suit both the excitement and horrors that Goblet of Fire delves into. Patrick Doyle’s score lacked the finesse and leitmotif driven compositions that John Williams brought to the first three films but was adequate overall. The musical highlight of course was the performance of the Weird Sisters (comprised of Pulp lead Jarvis Cocker and Johnny Greenwood and Phil Selway from Radiohead) at the Yule Ball (but blink and you’ll miss them).

Sil: It seemed to me that every exterior shot of Hogwarts this time around was specifically shown in dark, wet conditions. Perhaps to echo the descent of the main story, the sunny fields and high spirits of the first few movies were nowhere to be seen.

Dave: I wondered about the punky rock band at the Yule Ball…. isn’t this supposed to be in the ’50s or ’60s?

The verdict

Tai: While I’m not sure if Goblet of Fire reaches Prisoner of Azkaban’s intricate poetry, I don’t think the film has to. Cuaron’s movie was a very personal, intimate jewel, but Newell has crafted a brilliant spectacle, which makes for a big diversity in the series taken as a whole. And this film offers the last real bit of fun before the dark times flood in with parts 5, 6 and 7. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire can stand on its own as an exciting, bedazzling and fun movie which I can’t wait to watch over and over again!

Sil: All in all, Goblet of Fire was a complete let down for me. The pacing issues and the general rushed feeling of the whole movie left me feeling it was a missed opportunity. Fiennes’ Voldemort was insipid, and most of the other characters seemed to play as if they were cast in a Christmas pantomime. Where’s Cuarón when you need him?

Dave: Does what it needs to do, and does it well.

Posted in Reviews •

Following “Mezmerize” in May, this week sees the release of “Hypnotize” finally completing System of a Down’s new album “Mezmerize/Hypnotize“. In spite of the two CDs being released over half a year apart, it is obvious that “Mezmerize” and”Hypnotize” are not two individual records but CD1 and CD2 of a double album. This is underlined by the fact that the two packages can be merged by folding out the extra sleeve inside the “Hypnotize” pack and slipping it into the opening (where the booklet is) of the “Mezmerize” pack.

Conclusively, the sound on “Hypnotize” is intentionally no departure from “Mezmerize“, indeed all the tracks on both albums were recorded and mixed simultaneously, meaning the songs on the later release had been ready when the first half of the album went on sale. The cumulative length of both albums doesn’t exceed 80 minutes, and why the band didn’t release everything in one shot is anyone’s guess. Going by their social-minded lyrics and their efforts towards fair trade, one would assume that it has nothing to do with marketing and bigger revenues.

Compared with the real last studio release, “Toxicity” in 2001, the new double record does enter new dimensions and sets almost some new standards. The tracks are still unmistakeably System of a Down, meaning successions of speed metal riffs alternating with melodious outbursts of energetic vocals, but the 23 new songs sound far more polished then their previous work. Disillusioned fans of the “Toxicity” era can complain that producer Rick Rubin took some of the edge off the sound, others might be glad that System of a Down’s tunes have become more accessible. What’s really important, though, is that despite this slight shift towards pop the band has not lost its artistic integrity in the process.

Long time fans of System of a Down need not be worried about band member’s heads plastering the covers of teen magazines anytime soon, the heavier parts of their music is still enough to scare away most people with superficial listening habits. Which is those people’s loss, really, as the band’s feel for polar emotions, the range that’s spanned within a single song, is quite astounding. And following up an almost unlistenable speed riff with a chorus full of pathos, anger and agony makes both parts stronger and more interesting, by the sheer power of the contrast.

The band’s lyrics don’t shy away from political commentary, media critique and social satire. A song like “Cigaro” starts off like a shallow tale about genitalia and faeces

My cock is much bigger than yours / My cock can walk right through the door […] My shit stinks much better than yours / My shit stinks right down to the floor

until it suddenly changes into a powerful allegory about corrupted government policies

We’re the regulators that deregulate / We’re the animators that de-animate / We’re the propagators of all genocide / Burning through the world’s resources / Then we turn and hide

“Holy Mountains“, one of the album’s highlights, is the band’s attempt to deal with one of their birth country’s most painful chapters: the Armenian genocide. So when lead singer Serj Tankian screams out “Freedom, freedom, we’re free, free” after singing about how “Someone’s blank stare deemed it warfare / Liar, Killer, Demon / Back to the river Aras”, you can’t help but feel at least a little bit shaken and chilled.

“Mezmerize/Hypnotize” also has considerable aesthetical value to offer. The record’s artwork, painted by lead guitarist Daron Malakian’s brother Vartan, is obscurily haunting and matches the band’s view of a an anachronistic and timeless society with depictions of messed up clocks and numbers. Furthermore, the double album is circular in that “Hypnotize” ends with the track “Soldier Side“, the full reendition of “Soldier Side - Intro” that opens “Mezmerize“.

Overall, “Mezmerize/Hypnotize” is strong enough to stand up high in a list of this year’s best rock records, and the total of 23 tracks should offer enough variety for any friend of modern rock music.

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‘And lo, the beast looked upon the face of beauty. And it stayed its hand from killing. And from that day, it was as one dead.’

He stood alone on the forecastle of the hulking SS Dog, an indistinct figure lost in the fog and choking oily breath of the steamer’s churning engines that swarmed about him. Then, as the bow of the ship punctured the dam of haze that encircled the lapping periphery of Python Bay, Mr. Burden first set eyes upon the Island. The startling diorama that emerged from the ether was a Mesozoic landscape that rose thousands of feet from the thrashing surf. Upon the dramatic skyline, brutal volcanic vents brooded, their mantles splashed in a covering of verdant green blankets that swept down onto bare mineral crags and an arcing belt of fine sand at the oceans brink.

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: 190 pages.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 251 pages
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 320 pages
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 636 pages

If you’re adapting serial source material into the movie format and you’re suddenly faced with the problem of the next installment having twice the amount of content of the previous one, you’ll be forced to ask yourself whether it might not be smarter to split it up into two films, keeping the proportions intact. This was a fact that had to be strongly considered by WarnerBros., the financial backers of the Harry Potter films’ production. It was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’s director Alfonso Cuaron who strongly suggested to the fourth film’s director, Mike Newell, to fit the 636 pages long (original UK Bloomsbury edition) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire into one single movie. Mike Newell agreed with his predecessor when he found the book’s essence, it’s red line he could hold onto and focus on within his motion picture: the book is a classic thriller. This was the notion on which writer Steve Kloves started adapting J.K. Rowling’s book into a screenplay - set up the antagonists and their shrouded plan in the beginning, then show how the main characters get more and more entangled in it. Any side plot that is only secondary to this process is prone to be left out of the script.

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Coffin loads of black humour, refreshingly fun dialogue, great acting performances, and a touch of film noir: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang has the making of a cult classic.

Running from the cops after an unsuccessful looting attempt, Harry Lockhart (Robert Downey Jr.) finds himself in the midst of a movie audition, where he’s discovered to be a natural acting talent. To shape him up for a role as a movie detective, Harry is paired up with private detective Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), who takes Harry along on one of his jobs shadowing a suspect. After Harry reencounters an old friend from highschool - Harmony Faith Lane (Michelle Monaghan), a struggling actress - at a sleazingly glamorous Hollywood party, his training soon gets intertwined with a real case when her sister is found dead.

Writer-director Shane Black marks his return to Hollywood with his directorial debut after almost ten years of abscence. He is probably best known for scripting Lethal Weapon 1 (1987) and 2 (1989) and The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996). Teaming up with producer Joel Silver, not less successful with Die Hard and The Matrix, Black’s film is inspired by a series of trashy detective novels you’d usually find at airports and train stations. The novels even feature prominently in the film, Harmony having been a rabid fan of them since childhood, while Harry sees parallels in the books to what they’re going through.

What Black essentially does is a deconstruction of detective novels and film noir, rearranging elements and themes from them and placing them into his own narrative. So while Black borrows common patterns, he also develops them further and goes beyond genre conventions (by featuring a gay lead character for instance). The unique style of narration is one of the film’s strong points; Black actually delegates it to his protagonist Harry, who talks the audience through the movie, occasionally cutting short a new tangent he’s just started on to double-back and show (anecdotal but vital) backstory first, suddenly jumping back to the initial focus immediately after (what sounds complicated here is hilarious on film). And as with most detective novels, the many intricacies built up in the course of the film entangle themselves to be majestically untied in one big resolution in the end.

Also enjoying a strong, possibly career redefining comeback is actor Robert Downey Jr., after years of drug abuse kept him away from cameras. Even the sublime Val Kilmer is overshadowed by Downey’s funny and ultimately show-stealing performance (a lot of that also stems from the story being told from Harry’s point of view). But their chemistry is undeniable, all the more surprising given the fact that Kilmer and Downey Jr. had not worked together or even met eachother prior to this project. The way they play off eachother almost turns this film into a buddy comedy that you’d like to go on watching for hours just to hear their newest retort. It’s an astonishing feat of Michelle Monaghan that she manages to keep up with the two of them, being allowed to play moody, sexy, bitchy, distressed, helpless, badass, umcompromising, teasing and a plethora of other facettes her character is blessed and cursed with.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang is highly fun to watch, the ideal movie to see with your friends so that you can throw quotes at eachother after the viewing. And it’s also so smartly told and played out that you’ll find this hard to consider a guilty pleasure; you’re bound to leave the cinema feeling entertained without having had the need to shut your brain off for the past two hours.

Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang opens November 11 in the United States (wide release) and the United Kingdom.

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A Californian company believes that the release of the Disney picture Chicken Little on November 4, the first ever feature to be released using their patented 3D projection technology, will herald an exciting new age in cinema.

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