"Brutal Spirits" review Log Out | Topics | Search
Moderators | Edit Profile

RAMSEY CAMPBELL » Discussion » "Brutal Spirits" review « Previous Next »

Author Message
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 02:17 pm:   

Just in case anyone hasn't bought it yet and is teetering on the edge:

http://www.ookami.co.uk/html/brutal_spirits.html

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.157.94.235
Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 05:01 pm:   

A good (and very well-deserved) review Gary - well done mate.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.240.83
Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008 - 12:37 pm:   

Thank you, kind sir.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.50.90
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 12:23 am:   

This place gets knocked down soon. They just had an open weekend wherein you could go up it and have one last look. Missed it, sadly.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.50.90
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 10:49 am:   

Zed - have a look through this site. It'll make you shiver.
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/pipexdsl/o/aouq09/getcarter/carpark.htm
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 11:10 am:   

I surveyed that place 10 years ago. Just me and a colleague in the empty car park, access to all levels. It was great! :-)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.50.90
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 04:07 pm:   

The idea of the restaurant that was never ever used really freaks me out. I hate (i.e. love) things like that. Wonder if anyone ever did anything in their, i.e. have a shag, have a talk? I want to write about it now.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.219.8.243
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 04:24 pm:   

I already have... (see above). ;-)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.50.90
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 04:58 pm:   

I'd better not read it before I do anything, then! And mine, sadly, will have to be totally imaginary.
BTW, what was it like in there? Did the restaurant feel all ghostly with things that never happened there, a perpetual crossroads into potential events that never transpired?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.50.90
Posted on Wednesday, April 30, 2008 - 05:01 pm:   

Sometimes roads have dead ends, places where things never happen. We sense this when we encounter them and realise that life stands utterly still in them, like premature births. I get that eerie feeling when i see a call centre that never gets bought or used. Newcastle is full of such buildings, empty for decades no matter how much they're dolled up.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Zed (Gary_mc)
Username: Gary_mc

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 81.96.249.146
Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008 - 08:42 am:   

That's exactly how the car park felt, Tony. The caretaker bloke sat in a tiny concrete box on the ground floor, watching daytime TV and listening to an old radio.

The resturaunt floor was very creepy indeed; a ghost of potential, a spirit of never-was.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.147.50.90
Posted on Thursday, May 01, 2008 - 10:56 am:   

Ooh! Just found out it's still open. At least up to floor seven.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.8.76
Posted on Friday, July 10, 2020 - 09:00 am:   

But now it's not. And this place is very much like it.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.8.76
Posted on Friday, July 10, 2020 - 09:01 am:   

And this...
https://www.ookami.co.uk/html/brutal_spirits.html
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.84.67
Posted on Friday, July 10, 2020 - 03:52 pm:   

"Oops! That page can’t be found."?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.8.76
Posted on Friday, July 10, 2020 - 07:45 pm:   

No, that was my point after reading the above, about things going away...
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.86.82
Posted on Saturday, July 11, 2020 - 12:53 am:   

Oh. Yes, they do, but come around again too like comets or the Goldberg Variations.

There's a museum of very old websites which is worth a look. The '90s were all about gradient filled colours and repetitive wallpaper. Actually just watching Friends again recently and much of that decade's style seems quite feminine in retrospect.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.107.182
Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2020 - 12:39 pm:   

I remember the first search result I ever had was for a man and his shed. No ads, no links to shops showing up first, just a man and his shed at the top of the list. An ordinary man. And do you remember chatrooms?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.72.183
Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2020 - 06:13 pm:   

I don't remember chatrooms. By God, the future is old.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.107.182
Posted on Sunday, July 19, 2020 - 07:21 pm:   

I found the internet could be amazing today. A friend in the US, his great uncle was Lizzie Borden's chauffeur towards the end of her life. He said she was so kind. She put his kids through college. They think she probably did kill her father and stepmother. And just now, I spoke to a friend who once taught a woman who was at Hiroshima when the bomb dropped.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.117
Posted on Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - 10:02 am:   

I'm enjoying David Lynch's daily activity on Youtube now. He does a weather report every day.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.107.182
Posted on Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - 11:43 am:   

I have lost track of the days. I thought today might be Thursday this morning. Started the day backwards, watched a horror film at seven. Black Rainbow. It's become fantastic. No single great or even eye catching scene but a great whole, with an ending that makes the beginning as terrifying as anything.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.76.255
Posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - 11:07 am:   

Mike Hodges directed, I seem to remember. I do have a strong memory of the denouement. Hodges seems like a person who's remained true to himself.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - 11:53 am:   

Yeah, he was interviewed about the film yesterday. One of these directors, like John Boorman, who feel to have actual depths. The ending of Get Carter, when the young man walks off with his gun across the cliffs (up the road from where I am writing this) and you realise we are in a perpetual loop, this kid is just the next Carter, is so profound. I used to long for Hodges to make a ghost story/Carter kind of film but I think he already did, and the whole movie is an end of life flashback.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.195
Posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - 10:17 pm:   

I had to not read what you wrote about Get Carter, I'm afraid, as I haven't seen it yet! I'll read it when I do see it though. I know, it's about 50 years old!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QVvecybFO4
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.195
Posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - 10:18 pm:   

(Figgis is 3 minutes into that link by the way.)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.195
Posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2020 - 10:20 pm:   

(Oh, he's also at 1:40 into it.)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 09:25 am:   

Be quick! I was shocked to hear he's only made nine films. At this rate you or I could catch him up.
Olive Stone was on Radio four yesterday. He has a memoir out. What a fascinating guy. He thinks film is dead.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 09:26 am:   

Oliver ffs. Olive Stone's oeuvre might be interesting, though.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.73.165
Posted on Thursday, July 23, 2020 - 01:58 pm:   

I'll check out Oliver Stone. Yes, he seems interesting too.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.78.176
Posted on Friday, July 24, 2020 - 01:02 am:   

Just listened to it - Stone is one of those very raw people that are interesting to listen to because even if they're wrong you sense they're telling the truth as they see it.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.78.176
Posted on Friday, July 24, 2020 - 01:05 am:   

(Up there I just realised I wrote Figgis instead of Hodges.)
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Friday, July 24, 2020 - 08:57 am:   

I like that he liked his early horror films. And the speech he wrote for Midnight Express was so relevant and moving. And the stuff about Michael Caine, who always sounds interesting, too.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 172.112.29.83
Posted on Saturday, August 01, 2020 - 05:00 pm:   

Oliver Stone is right - film IS dead. Film as we know it, as we were raised on, is dead.

My own theory is that Hollywood knew it was dying, and used the opportunity of this pandemic to go all in in killing it off itself, by insisting on closing the theaters. I know, I know - they had no choice? I am suspicious. VERY suspicious. Lots of stuff is open; theaters remain closed, Hollywood seems to have no interest in re-opening or releasing anything. They pulled the plug themselves so the stink of death wouldn't become attached to their industry - it was a mercy killing, so that maybe something can be salvaged later. Again, all imho.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.79.64
Posted on Saturday, August 01, 2020 - 05:26 pm:   

He exactly didn't say film was dead in that interview, he said that the theatrical experience isn't what it used to be, and that's true.

It is possible that Hollywood (whoever that is at the current time) sees the cinema as a gangrenous limb right now and is lopping it off. I might even agree with them, but that's more to do with the types of films that get a lot of funding rather than the cinema itself.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Sunday, August 02, 2020 - 04:44 pm:   

I went to a drive in the other day, always wanted to go to one, but when I got there the screen was miles away and we were side on, and it was the afternoon and the film was Lost Boys. I had hoped it was going to be on in the evening ( I hadnt booked it) but we got given headphones and when it started I was totally immersed. There were quite a few people there and I realised that was the key, of course. I wondered why this should be, always have done, how the quality of a film can be raised by this. I still dont know.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Monday, August 03, 2020 - 12:18 am:   

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/20/movies/movie-industry-future.html
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.149
Posted on Monday, August 03, 2020 - 10:47 am:   

Interesting. I don't know what's happening with the theatrical experience, but never has popcorn looked more like rotten teeth.

Every time I look at the state of the industry I get confused by trying to predict where it's all going. I favour quality over quantity, which is why I still like the traditional two-hour film which has tens of person-years of work put into it's development. I think you can feel the difference, like a sauce on a hob that's been reduced many times. I think we're damaging the art by pursuing the money, to the point where it changes your film to adjust for people watching on a mobile phone. Imagine trying to make music that has to work for people listening on a nice home system and those hearing it from the speakers of a lift for 30 seconds.

Another telling thing from that article was that young people seem to have no interest in movies. The conversation has moved elsewhere.

By the way, I found Alan Parker's documentary "A Turnip Head's Guide to British Cinema" refreshingly opinionated, and it's from 1985.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Monday, August 03, 2020 - 10:55 am:   

I remember someone in Empire magazine saying how he finally caught up with Gravity but saw it on his laptop, where, he said, you realised it was simple spectacle and there was nothing to it or in fact going on. And the New Beyonce movie on Disney has been described as the first film you can watch while scrolling on your phone, there's no plot or anything.
Aa few years ago I had a sense this was all coming. We had friends around and decided to watch a film. We put one on, me sat the the front on the floor. After a while i noticed the room was quiet and looked around to see EVERYBODY on their phones. I can't describe how horrible it felt, I don't know why. I think I realised we weren't together and didnt really want to be.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.149
Posted on Monday, August 03, 2020 - 12:13 pm:   

That's a good story, and it's how I feel with what's going. I've watched videos of some people, probably in their 20s, react to a crowd-pleaser like ALIENS. Being filmed probably isn't the best way to watch a film, but the reactions aren't visceral, it's very much like they've been dragged to a percelin museum on a Sunday and see the odd thing that perks their interest, but are thinking about doing something else. Perhaps whatever they're doing, they're always thinking about doing something else.

The problem is, I don't think that it's just a case of moving from one medium to another. I think that these new methods of watching (e.g., spending the evening at a Youtube all-you-can-eat buffet) are simply inferior. The content and viewing habits don't reward deeper attention. They lead to content that's shallower and of lower quality than, for example, the classic two-hour theatrical experience.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.149
Posted on Monday, August 03, 2020 - 12:14 pm:   

"Porcelain", I meant.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 172.112.29.83
Posted on Tuesday, August 04, 2020 - 05:25 pm:   

So true Proto! I was just expressing the other day, how... see, I part-time read scripts for AFI (a job that slowly dwindling away as it is), selection judge for a scholarship award. And I've noticed, this year it's stark now... how all the scripts have gone utterly political, or "woke" - they center around social issues, or political issues, or political figures. They're making points first, telling stories second - and that's what's jarring: the telling of stories feels like it's gone. It's certainly not like years past, where the vast majority of screenplays were just spinning yarns about characters, or plot - character development, story development. It feels like the word's gone out, we're all over that - the word's not gone out, it simply is.

And another thing I noticed - not to be taken the wrong way, I am simply doing an analysis - the scripts are vast majority being written by "non-whites" and women. Let me be clear - I am not decrying that in any way whatsoever - I am simply noting, how the demographics have changed. Used to be, majority male, and white. Extrapolating the data: the country is still majority white; and film used to be heavily male-centric, especially in areas like, well, screenwriting. So what has happened?... the majority has shifted - it's a bit of data to support: the young people have moved on, film isn't important to them anymore. I've been sensing this for some time, myself as Item 1. I simply care incredibly less about film than I did - now, one could say, age-related. But - anecdotally - I have looked at my parents, avid film-goers/watchers. They too, only in the most recent years, have similarly lost interest in much film-dom. But when they were my age, no... so what happened? I don't know... but something is going on... maybe the natural life-cycle has run its gamut....
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Wednesday, August 05, 2020 - 09:01 am:   

And yet look at the amazingness that is Us and Get Out... two movies that gone be gone back to for many reasons.
I think for me when I see people of colour in a movie I think it's for specific reasons now, yes, political ones, whereas white people are not comforting or preferable, just invisible - I don't have to think about them, just what is happening, it's not that I prefer them, just I don't have to overanalyse. Tokenism in films bugs me too.
Someone tild me recently that there are a lot of black writers who just want to write ordinary stories but white publishers turn them away because they say people WANT the issue stuff, not realising that the non issue stuff will help remove the issues.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Wednesday, August 05, 2020 - 09:06 am:   

But about youtube, my wife watches it in bed and I have overheard films/shows by women on walking and making things, DOING things, and there is not a word about issues, just living. Issues almost stop people being "people".
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.137.12.110
Posted on Wednesday, August 05, 2020 - 09:16 am:   

This sounds terrible. Like I don't care about the problems.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 172.112.29.83
Posted on Saturday, August 08, 2020 - 05:39 pm:   

No, Tony, the "problems" are being foisted on us WAY too fucking much - I have no guilt saying that. We think of Puritan times, old Medieval times... and we think, God, how oppressive it was! They had no surcease, they had to live and breathe their religion 24/7, no escape from it. We are practically there now! There's no escape from the oppressive all-encompassing political issues! They think they're HELPING, the people trying to push this stuff down our throats every moment? Don't they know what happens when you do that? Huge backlash! People revolt, and you get the OPPOSITE of what you intended! Everyone needs to calm the fuck down and get off their soap boxes and their hobby horses and let people live their goddamned lives, fer crissesakes!

Rant over.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.153.35.179
Posted on Sunday, August 09, 2020 - 10:58 am:   

You are right. I saw this Dr Who last night and the way it was promoting good was SO manipulative and cheap it just made me feel dirty. It would have made me feel more uplifted and positive if it had been more entertaining, because quality creates energy, lifts us. I had a strange time yesterday, a kind of huge spiritual moment (i have told you already), and it made me realise everything is energy, there is good and bad energy, and we can create or destroy both, and that art plays a part in this. I watched Dr Who and felt awful, then watched Goldfinger and felt I could save the world. It's JOY folks, it's an element.
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.153
Posted on Sunday, August 09, 2020 - 03:47 pm:   

Which Dr Who ep?
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 213.205.241.35
Posted on Sunday, August 09, 2020 - 07:12 pm:   

Rings of Akhaten
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message

Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 212.129.75.153
Posted on Sunday, August 09, 2020 - 07:55 pm:   

Okay, I haven't seen that one. That must have been after I gave up watching.

Add Your Message Here
Post:
Bold text Italics Underline Create a hyperlink Insert a clipart image

Username: Posting Information:
This is a private posting area. Only registered users and moderators may post messages here.
Password:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Automatically activate URLs in message
Action:

Topics | Last Day | Last Week | Tree View | Search | Help/Instructions | Program Credits Administration