Bullshit Jobs
- David Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs is a gem. His left wing political views mark him out as a critic of Capitalism, but there’s a lot to be said for his amusing comparison of organisational hierarchies in both the west and late USSR with medieval feudalism. I found myself chuckling along to Graeber’s take on ‘managerial feudalism’ – even though this isn’t supposed to be a comedy.
Notes
- Watching some low budget romcoms – Adventureland, The Edge of Seventeen, Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (which is also an overnight story). To summarise the story elements, there’s ‘the ex’, initial feelings of loss and depression, being young / misunderstood, a false romantic interest, a new or overlooked person, helpful friends, spiteful enemies, a meeting of two minds, the fear of betrayal, the magical kiss, the world seen in a new light (the spell is broken). What was incomplete becomes whole… cue the credit sequence and uplifting music.
- I was thinking about the overnight story, which is one of my favourites. It has a simple structure, evening to sunrise with a tonal / pace dip somewhere in the middle. By definition it ends at the dawn of the new day, so it’s time limited. There’s often a quest element or a romantic motivation to the plot. I was surprised how many overnight stories there are. Here’s are few: The Warriors, Die hard, Assault On Precinct 13, American Graffiti, Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolfe, Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, and Escape From New York.
- Martin Scorsese’s After Hours (1985) isn’t regarded as one of his best films, but it really surprised me. The story takes place overnight (in realtime). It’s a classic journey into a strange land. The result has a slightly surreal, New Wave quality to it that anticipates films like Jim Jarmusch’s Mystery Train.
- Tom Sharpe’s satirical comedy feels like a document from a bygone age, but the last in the Wilt series, The Wilt Inheritance was only published in 2010. It’s hard not to hear the echo of Sharpe’s satirical voice in Jonathan Coe’s What a Carve Up!, and even Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (which is Tom Sharpe in space). My issue with Sharpe-world though, is that while the selfish characters facilitate the anarchic comedy they also create an unappealingly grotesque environment for the reader to inhabit.
- Andrew Hunter Murray’s novel, The Sanctuary, is intelligent, dystopian science fiction. Tonally, it reminded me of The Warehouse, and The Wall. There’s a decent twist at the end as well. It’s an enjoyable but difficult novel to place – advertised as a ‘high-concept thriller’, while having genre science fiction plot tropes, and a literary fiction prose style.
- Silent Land doesn’t make my list of all time great swimming pool films. (On the list are: A Bigger Splash, Swimming Pool, and La Piscine, which share the same basic story concept. The Swimmer is different, but worthy of inclusion.)
- What is it about Yves Klein International Blue? It never looks as good in print or on a screen as it does as pigment on a canvas.
- Lee Child’s skill is making a genre mystery thriller feel vaguely like literary fiction. The precise descriptive detail is reminiscent of Ian Fleming. The pace never slips. This kind of writing sophistication is incredibly difficult to achieve.
- Nope is Arrival meets Jaws. It puts a new twist on the first contact film, playfully fusing social commentary, with the Old West, horror, and 1950s science fiction tropes. Like Get Out, it intelligently confounds genre expectations, but this time the result isn’t as satisfying and its over-ambitious scope ends up feeling superficial and occasionally ridiculous.
- The Infernal Machine – loved the first half, but then it turned to a confusing medley of Angel Heart meets Saw meets Cell meets Secret Window.
- The rise of literary science-fiction, from Machines Like Me, and The Wall, to Doggerland, Station Eleven, and Klara and the Sun.
- Serendipity and writing – the more I write, the more I realise that, for me, breakthroughs in storytelling (tone, character, and plot) happen accidentally, through serendipity. They rarely emerge from a conscious process.
- What films for 2023? – there’s Rebel Moon (Netflix, 22 December), Dune: Part 2 (3 November), The Killer, a film by David Fincher (Netflix, 10 November), Leave the World Behind (Netflix, 10 December)… I can see a pattern emerging.
- Watcher is a creepy psychological thriller, which explores female anxiety. The cinematography and production standards are impressive considering its relatively low $5 million budget.
- Is Hollywood in crisis, or is it business as usual? Is the mid-budget film dead? Did #metoo shame the film industry into ‘wokeness’? Does Hollywood hate men (video contains adult language)? What comes after the superhero movie? Questions, questions. And… does anyone care, if we’re all watching Netflix?
- In praise of feel good movies… comedies like The Way Way Back, dumb comedies like Land of the Lost, dramas like The Ice Storm, war movies like Ice Cold in Alex, romcoms like 500 Days of Summer, action films like Die Hard, science fiction films like Blade Runner, and art films like Last Year at Marienbad.
- Confess, Fletch made me laugh in a few places, but I was disappointed it wasn’t more of a film noir parody.
- Peter Doig’s paintings are wonderful – colour, space, and painterly playfulness.
- As economies flounder, autocracies flourish. The Rachman Review on How to Fix our Flawed Democracies.
- Understanding the culture and biology of why girls outperform boys in school: Richard Reeves on male inequality.
