Can't say I'm keen - Albarn and Kronos, especially the latter, just can't stand anything they touch.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 21 June 2009 11:01 (fifteen years ago) link
I hope the future interweb stuff gets broadcast on TV.
The entire run is completely sold out already up here.
― piscesx, Sunday, 21 June 2009 13:03 (fifteen years ago) link
NI and myself saw the first night preview of IT FELT LIKE A KISS last night and chatted to the great man! I'd love to say more but i won't spoil the surprises.
― piscesx, Tuesday, 30 June 2009 23:41 (fourteen years ago) link
it was just the most incredible thing. when i left i was a gibbering mess. ive set up a group on facebook for people who've 'done' it.
at the end curtis was saying it wouldn't be transferrable to tv because of all the copyright issues. i wish i could've recorded my brain for the 3 hours i was in there last night.
― NI, Wednesday, 1 July 2009 10:39 (fourteen years ago) link
Wow - super excited for this now. Roll on the 9th! Seeing Kraftwerk tomorrow at the MIF too as "filler" until then...
― Bill A, Wednesday, 1 July 2009 11:47 (fourteen years ago) link
sold out too fast. gutted.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Wednesday, 1 July 2009 14:57 (fourteen years ago) link
MIF so far has been an absolute bobby dazzler - Kraftwerk were *awesome* and It Felt Like A Kiss properly ace too. Just got back from it and still mulling over the whole thing. I probably read too much beforehand so was ready for some of the setpieces (which removed a bit of the thrill), but as a whole it was so immersive and exciting: brilliantly conceived and staged, and the central film was amazing.
The reviews I've seen have a bit of a downer on the final section, but I enjoyed this part the best esp. the "do this" area and the final enforced separation from the rest of the group. Would really like to go through it again tbh to be able to spend more time nosing around the rooms and the "clues" etc.
― Bill A, Thursday, 9 July 2009 20:24 (fourteen years ago) link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2009/07/it_felt_like_a_kiss_the_film.html
― nate woolls, Friday, 24 July 2009 13:18 (fourteen years ago) link
brilliant, been waiting so long for this
Bill A, and anyone else who went to IFLAK in Manchester, there's a facebook group here: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98110067894
apparently it's been put on in London and Moscow - if anyone's even slightly interested, buy a ticket the moment they go on sale!
― NI, Friday, 24 July 2009 13:38 (fourteen years ago) link
I watched this this morning and am sort of shaky from it - it wasn't even that it was in-and-of-itself powerful, but it was exhausting because i kept having to try and work out what connections I was supposed to be drawing and whether I thought they were appropriate connections or conspiracist nonsense.
― la belle dame sans serif (c sharp major), Friday, 7 August 2009 13:52 (fourteen years ago) link
argh when i say 'this' i mean 'it felt like a kiss'
main problem i have with it is that the music is so great i zone out of whatever point he's making and enjoy it on a 'incredibly awesome 50 min music video' level. which is great, but means im gonna have to watch it again *properly*. i guess i need curtis himself to explain things more directly - at least an article by him would be good.
watched the trap again this week and was surprised to see he reuses quite a bit of footage in IFLAK
― NI, Saturday, 8 August 2009 15:01 (fourteen years ago) link
he reused a fair amount from Power of Nightmares in the Trap as well.
― The Devil's Avocado (Gukbe), Saturday, 8 August 2009 20:01 (fourteen years ago) link
Watching It Felt Like A Kiss again this morning. Still superb, formally his best film by some distance imo
― .. help? (admrl), Thursday, 19 August 2010 18:58 (thirteen years ago) link
Is it online somewhere? Still haven't been able to see it.
― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:15 (thirteen years ago) link
hi Col1n! I think the BBC was streaming it but probably not to overseas viewers. I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find a torrent (or fragments on Youtube), but I could always mail you a copy if you want to contact me off-list. Alternatively, are you on K4r4g4rg4 or any such sites?
― .. help? (admrl), Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:17 (thirteen years ago) link
Ah:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfIFeqScJz8
and so on...
― .. help? (admrl), Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:18 (thirteen years ago) link
Oh no audio!
try here instead:
http://www.greylodge.org/tracker/
― .. help? (admrl), Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:19 (thirteen years ago) link
Thanks Adam! Not on Karagarg@, don't really fuck with torrents unless I have to.
― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:20 (thirteen years ago) link
Yes, I see. I'm never sure about the ethics of torrenting (is this a word?) hard to see stuff, myself. It's not talked about much?
― .. help? (admrl), Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:23 (thirteen years ago) link
There is a ton of Adam Curtis's stuff available for download from archive.org. My favorites are "The Trap" and "Century of the Self." I tried watching "It Felt Like A Kiss on an airplane, on my ipod, and that was the wrong way to watch it. It put me in a funk. I had to listen to so much Real McCoy to recover.
― full of country goodness and green pea-ness (Abbbottt), Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:29 (thirteen years ago) link
I'm not so worried about the ethics -- most of the stuff I would want is more or less out of circulation. I just hate watching anything longer than half an hour on my computer.
― C0L1N B..., Thursday, 19 August 2010 19:30 (thirteen years ago) link
will 'power of nightmares' ever get a u.s. dvd release, i wonder? watched the first part of it in a college class a couple years ago and thought it was fantastically well done.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 19 August 2010 21:29 (thirteen years ago) link
FAO Curtis stans (kurdistans?!): he has a new show coming soon. According to Charlie Brooker's twitter:
1) It is called 'All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace'.2) Twitter shows up in it.3) It'll be on the TV quite soon.
Have really enjoyed his blog posts, but nuff excited for another series.
― sktsh, Saturday, 2 April 2011 17:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Adam Curtis on the death of Bin Laden
― Alba, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:26 (thirteen years ago) link
read headline, clicked back to this thread
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:27 (thirteen years ago) link
ok went back in
he's kind of getting a lot worse as time wears on
When communism collapsed in 1989, the big story that had been hardwired into citizens of western countries – that of the global battle against a distant dark and evil force – came to an abrupt end.
now... was communism a 'story', or was it on some level an actual historical reality?
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:28 (thirteen years ago) link
sorta don't see what the omg what an asshole thing is with trying to sort out historical/cultural narratives
― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:31 (thirteen years ago) link
like there's a GOP narrative of People Are Being Taxed to Death! which is bullshit, but if you show me a guy whose taxes are a burden that doesn't validate their narrative & undermine any detailing of it
― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:32 (thirteen years ago) link
he's a broken record on some things
kinda baudrillardwave solipsism
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:32 (thirteen years ago) link
do i have to point out the obvious and say curtis has a big narrative he puts on everything?
manipulation of sheeple with invented narratives employing a corruption of freud -- something like that
― lloyd banks knew my father (history mayne), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 17:34 (thirteen years ago) link
of course he does, everybody who believes in narrative as a functioning trope knows that they have to work within that framework, except for Joan Didion who believes that narratives are inherently broken
― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 18:07 (thirteen years ago) link
it's not the narrative that's the problem, it's the rehashed version of False Consciousness
― bell hops (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 18:13 (thirteen years ago) link
It was a story born in the US and Britain at the end of the second world war – the "good war". It then went deep into the western imagination during the cold war, was reawakened and has been held together over the last 10 years by the odd alliance of American and European politicians, journalists, "terror experts" and revolutionary Islamists all seeking to shore up their authority in a disillusioned age.Barack Obama seems to be rejecting this story already. The Europeans still cling to it, though, with the return of "liberal interventionism" in Libya, but it is anxious and halfhearted.
Barack Obama seems to be rejecting this story already. The Europeans still cling to it, though, with the return of "liberal interventionism" in Libya, but it is anxious and halfhearted.
lol yes, obama's nascent pacifism is certainly striking, and the europeans are making all the running in libya.
― joe, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 18:20 (thirteen years ago) link
wish someone would put to rounds in curtis' head :D
― Romford Spring (DG), Tuesday, 3 May 2011 21:19 (thirteen years ago) link
xpost. i think he is referring to Obama's rejection of the terminology of the "war on terror" and the use of fear-based explanations for pretty radical policy changes etc.
― everything, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 21:28 (thirteen years ago) link
so... curtis just wants better PR? he's got no problem with using massive military resources to destroy the organisation called al-qaeda - which he maintains either doesn't exist or isn't important - as long as you don't use the precise term "war on terror"? instead you say:
We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Al-Qaeda - an organisation headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against Al-Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
not really a decisive rejection of the notion of a "good war" against an evil enemy. and what the fuck is he on about re: libya? the "liberal intervention" couldn't take place without the US.
― joe, Tuesday, 3 May 2011 23:48 (thirteen years ago) link
All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace
― Gukbe, Sunday, 8 May 2011 04:09 (thirteen years ago) link
that trailer induces the traditional blend of mild queasiness and actual excitement, but i think this might be the series that proves that he is actually quite genuinely mad.
Wiki tells us where the title comes from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace
― piscesx, Sunday, 8 May 2011 22:59 (thirteen years ago) link
im all for him just being mad and letting it hang out, kinda
leads to some cool sound-image combinations, drawing random connections between things
what i will not abide is him writing ostensibly serious comment pieces/being quoted as an authority/etc
― reference + ilx meme (history mayne), Sunday, 8 May 2011 23:33 (thirteen years ago) link
while the soviet union was certainly as evil as states get, it's disingenuous to pretend that U.S. leaders didn't exaggerate the soviet threat for political reasons, increasingly so in the late '70s and early '80s and arguably even from the beginning of the cold war.
the first half of the article anyway is OTM.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, 8 May 2011 23:46 (thirteen years ago) link
back back back! new show starts in 90 minutes on BBC 2.
― piscesx, Monday, 23 May 2011 18:30 (thirteen years ago) link
looking forward to some prize bullshit
― Romford Spring (DG), Monday, 23 May 2011 18:31 (thirteen years ago) link
Great filmmaking, incoherent premise. It's so hypnotic though - it's like trying to argue with a lava lamp.
― We need to talk about Bevan (DL), Monday, 23 May 2011 22:00 (thirteen years ago) link
The "at the same time, fifty years later" schtick does get annoying.
― England's banh mi army (ledge), Monday, 23 May 2011 22:03 (thirteen years ago) link
more annoyed by his usual 'there was this idea that...' routine. his o-level history practice essays must have come back scrawled with WHO? WHEN? (etc) in frenzied red ink
― Romford Spring (DG), Monday, 23 May 2011 22:09 (thirteen years ago) link
only saw bits of it but seemed fun -- as docs on the financial bubble/crash go, this at least had some imagination and ideas, even if you don't subscribe to them, and i often don't with adam curtis
wouldn't take it straight, which is why i think he gets misfiled (by himself, sure) as an authority rather than a creative artist
― if opinions about ofwgkta could fly this place would be the wtc (history mayne), Monday, 23 May 2011 22:11 (thirteen years ago) link
Must check this out, DG hates it so I'm bound to love it.
j/k <3 DG :-)
― StanM, Monday, 23 May 2011 22:16 (thirteen years ago) link