The Deer Hunter
(Dir. Michael Cimino) (1978) How war tears a small, close-knit community to shreds. Beer-drinking buddies from a steel town in Pennsylvanian hinterland, totally committed to going off to fight in Vietnam, all black-and-white in a world of grey, find themselves traumatised, humiliated, chewed-up and spat out, coming home completely changed and with a darker world-view. Cimino’s best (one might say, only decent) film is a remarkable, potent effort, one tending to galvanise heated reactions in the viewer. There have been objections to its length. Certainly, the initial wedding ceremony and celebrations are long but whilst The Varnished Culture generally much…
Continue Reading →10 Things We Hate About Gadgets
As follows: Buffering. Appliances with no ‘on/off’ switch. Planned obsolescence. They don’t do what they say. They don’t do what we say. Blenders…that are so much more. Buttons with (impressionist) pictures. Artificial lack of intelligence. The zoning of DVDs. They’re no good!
Continue Reading →Ace in the Hole
"There's three of us buried here."
Politics love disaster: ‘”Ace in the Hole” aka “The Big Carnival” directed by Billy Wilder, with a great star turn by Kirk Douglas, could just be the best cynical disaster film ever made. [UPDATE: With a general federal election now called in Australia for 2 July 2016, the Beaconsfield Mine collapse has appeared as part of the opposition’s political campaign. Ten years ago (Autumn 2006) Brant Webb and Todd Russell left the pit, triumphantly clocking-off, after spending a fortnight trapped underground. There had been an earthquake and the tunnels didn’t hold. 14 other miners escaped early on; of the three…
Continue Reading →Terry Wogan
Programme Name: n/a - TX: 20100101 - Episode: n/a (No. n/a) - Embargoed for publication until: n/a - Picture Shows: - (C) BBC - Photographer: Lorenzo Agius
Michael Terence Wogan (3 August 1938 – 31 January 2016) The Varnished Culture farewells this mellifluous long-standing caller of the Eurovision Song Contest. He obviously loved the event, but that didn’t stop the old smoothie from dripping the occasional cup of acid, particularly when hosts gave too much of themselves or acted like ‘eejits’, or when anticipating the voting predilections of each country, which he did with uncanny accuracy (and sardonic smugness). You’ll be missed Woges.
Continue Reading →1984
"We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness."
(by George Orwell) [films by Michael Anderson (1956) and Michael Radford (1984)] “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” Thus does George Orwell dare start his last book with the dreaded weather line (cf. Bulwer Lytton), yet it works brilliantly. All of this Miltonian tract works brilliantly. It does because George was a certified seer, a genius. As Anthony Burgess wrote of 1984: “a mere novel, an artefact meant primarily for diversion, has been scaring the pants off us all. It is possible to say that the ghastly future Orwell foretold has not come about simply because…
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