To explain: The Year of Creative Engagement (#yoce) will be my attempt to document my creative journey, put greater stock in accountability and output, while also showing what new work I’m reading or listening to.
I bent to the will of the children and took them along to The Lego Movie the other day. Although the ‘word on the street’ I’d heard about it was quite positive, I went in to it with practically no expectations whatsoever, which turned out to be a good thing. It opens quite abruptly, getting straight into the story (slightly unusual for a children’s movie; they often take the trouble to set the scene and characters first) and the way they tie it up in the final third was quite affecting, requiring some emotional fortitude. Most of all, I appreciated its originality and humour. There was a bunch of teenagers in our screening laughing louder at the jokes than any of the under-10s, especially those jokes directed at the Star Wars franchise.
Adam recently bought me Bedknobs and Broomsticks as a present (naw) and one afternoon while he was at the football the kids and I had a ‘movie afternoon’. Introducing the kids to favourite movies of my own childhood has been one of the real treats of parenthood, and this was no exception. This was a real surprise, though. I was watching the DVD and there were times when I turned to the kids and said “I don’t remember this scene or song in the version I saw as a child”.
At first I wondered if the version we had – possibly taped off the television – hadn’t been paused properly in the ad breaks. (Remember pressing ‘pause’ and ‘play’ to get rid of them? Ah, memories.) Maybe we’d been our own movie editors.
Turns out, no. We have the ‘fully restored’ version: at 134 minutes, it’s longer than the flat two hour version of my memory. Those extra fourteen minutes were fascinating: we get more of Roddy McDowall’s subplot, David Tomlinson’s songs haven’t been as cut, we see terrible dubbing over of his voice in other scenes, more of the children’s backstory is given and a few other things that – frankly – you can see why they were taken out in the first place. What I did enjoy was the extended song and dance sequence of ‘Portobello Road’, which now goes six (!) minutes longer.
Last, there’s The Boston Strangler. (Quite a jarring departure from the other two!) Made in 1968 (three years before Bedknobs and Broomsticks) it stars Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, nicknamed ‘The Boston Strangler’, and depicts his capture and confession of murdering thirteen women.
Now, I love true crime. Anyone who’s seen my collection of books will understand that. I find it fascinating. Does nothing for my anxiety, true, but I can’t help myself. The Boston Strangler has an impressive cast (Henry Fonda, George Kennedy), but has been criticised for taking creative liberties with what actually happened, most notably depicting DeSalvo as having multiple personality disorder (he wasn’t diagnosed with it in real life), and assuming his guilt (he wasn’t convicted of the crimes).
Towards the end of the movie, where Fonda’s character is coaxing a break between these two personalities in DeSalvo, Curtis, I think, does a great acting job. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I was reminded of Edward Norton’s performance in Primal Fear.
Okay, from movies to art.
Before hopping on the Carnival Cruise for the Digial Parents Conference last month, I spent an hour or so in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. One of my favourite – and certainly the most photographed! – installations was Jim Lambie’s ‘Zobop 2014’ – a colourful floor made of vinyl tape, created for the 19th Biennale of Sydney. Here’s a video that’s worth watching about how it was set up. The kids were impressed – Keira wanted to do our floors!
So pretty.
