Album a gift that goes down easy
beginning with Kennedy’s assassination, before rattling through musical touchstones that brought the culture to life in the years that followed.
Dylan’s poetry and prose have always been dense, littered with literary references that will be picked apart for years. His voice cuts clear though the mix and lyrics are specific, rather than shrouded in metaphor.
Death is here. From wilting flowers in the opening lyric to the catalogue of cultural icons in the closing chronicle, but, if we aren’t experiencing life through the lens of death, are we really living at all?
Phoebe Bridgers, the 24-year-old songwriter from Los Angeles, expands her craft on Punisher, pushing past the acoustic sketches of her debut to a lusher, fully formed sound.
She’s confessed to obsession with the late Elliot Smith and the title track is an imagined conversation with his ghost. She drifts through his old haunts in an accelerated state, like a hallucination. Wandering latenight streets on the east side, hiding in plain sight and forgetting why she went to the shops.
There is romance occasionally, but mostly
Bridgers focuses on her innerworld, giving the record a sense of isolation.
On Kyoto, she’s bored, restless and buzzing out that there are still payphones in Japan. These are the small, silent, forgotten details and moments she draws on for inspiration.
These observations are cloaked in hushed, yet undeniably gorgeous arrangements, featuring strings and horns.
Much like her hero, she finds beauty in sadness and these slow, fine-drawn songs are to be savoured.
Chelsea, Wimbledon, Cannes. Thanks to Covid-19, popular global events have either been digitised, deferred or downright cancelled for 2020.
Same goes for the much-loved (and loathed) Eurovision Song Contest. Its 65th edition, scheduled for Rotterdam last month, was postponed until next year. The continent’s (and more recently Australia’s) annual celebration of culture, cheesiness and patriotic pride, has helped launch the careers of Celine Dion, Abba, Lulu, Sandie Shaw and, um, Bucks Fizz.
Thank goodness then that we’ve at least got Will Ferrell’s star-studded spoof Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (now streaming on Netflix) to fill part of the void. Essentially a fitfully funny, predictable romcom, it hits all the right parody notes and is laced with Ferrell’s signature surrealism, man-child schtick and self-deprecating humour that made movies like Old School, Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Elf such successes.
At its heart, Fire Saga is the story of Lars Erickssong (Ferrell) and Sigrid Ericksdottir (Rachel McAdams). Friends since childhood, the pair have spent decades working towards Lars’ dream goal of representing Iceland and winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
However, when even the fellow villagers of Husavik (especially Lars’ father Erick, played here by a virtually unrecognisable Pierce Brosnan) have little faith in their songwriting skills, it seems like a pipe-dream. But hope is rekindled when they are randomly selected to take part in the nation’s qualifying competition in Reykjavik. Unfortunately, their big night goes pear-shaped, ending in humiliation rather than triumph, that is until a horrific tragedy gives them an unlikely second shot at glory.
While it’s the musical setpieces that deliver the biggest laughs, Fire Saga’s true delights come from the chemistry between Ferrell and McAdams. Canada’s former Mean Girl builds on the comedic chops she displayed in 2018’s Game Night, delivering a fabulous performance as a talented ingenue who believes in elves and wants to make another kind of beautiful music with her bandmate, a fact he seems oblivious to. Ferrell is his usual committed, inventive self and clearly has an affinity and love for his comedic quarry.
Yes, it’s sporadically hilarious, more Zoolander than Spinal Tap, but with a showstopping Moulin Rougestyle mash-up of Madonna, Cher, The Black Eyed Peas and Abba, the pitch-perfect Volcano Man music video and a flaming Demi Lovato, it’s guaranteed to get you smiling – and eagerly anticipating Eurovision 2021.
Elsewhere, one annual fixture that has gone ahead unaffected is Rialto Channel’s annual Unlocked event. That’s when
Sky TV’s now 20-year-old arthouse movie and TV Channel 39 opens up its wares to all Sky’s subscribers. Running until Tuesday night (June 30) and also available on SkyGo, the lineup features a range of awardwinning and crowd-pleasing fare well worth checking out, including:
Shane Meadows’ haunting, compelling four-part series is very much a showcase for underrated English actor Stephen Graham (Rocketman, The Irishman). He plays Joseph, a quiet, nervous labourer who temporarily relapses into alcoholism after his son moves to Australia with his ex. Shamed by the state it leaves him in, he heads to southern Ireland with £4 to his name, determined to confront events from his past.
The eight-part, 2018 BBC series that made James Norton a contender to be the next James Bond. He plays Alex Godman, a Russian-born, British-raised businessman caught between a rock and a hard place when his family get him involved with some shady customers. A thrilling watch filled with provocative gestures, portentous moments and the same gripping tension that made fellow recent British series Bodyguard and The Night Manager so bingeworthy.
First screening at the 2018 New Zealand International Film Festival (and tragically, subsequently disappearing without a trace), this is a fascinating and riveting character study. A luminous Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Lisa Spinelli, a Staten Island early childhood educator and motherof-three who believes her mundane life transformed when she meets 5-year-old Jimmy Roy. Convinced he is a child poetry prodigy, she begins a one-woman crusade to ‘‘nurture his talent’’.
Set in the less-than-affluent neighbourhoods of Tokyo, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s 2018 Palme d’Orwinning tale is the story of three generations of the Shibata family. Crammed together in a chilly, tiny space, everyone tries to contribute to the household’s costs. However, they are becoming increasingly reliant on the family matriarch’s pension, daughter Aki’s ‘‘modelling’’ and some five-fingered discounting. The result is a sumptuouslooking, languidly paced, lovingly created gentle drama that deceptively packs a powerful narrative punch.