Vivid theories, shame about the facts

On Newsroom SouthEast on BBC1 last night, the magazine for local issues had a piece on a J M W Turner museum opening in Thanet (an area, I learnt, he somewhat surprisingly described as having the best sunsets in all of Europe). But then it came to a ‘Turner expert’ (I wonder how that pays its way). He ventured to explain the reason for Turner’s vivid sunsets – “I have a theory, that as it was the start of the Industrial Revolution, he [Turner] was looking towards London and painting the pollution over it.”
Poppycock!
In 1815, in the archipelago that now encompasses Indonesia, an island called Tambora exploded. It was the most powerful volcanic eruption in the last ten thousand years. To put it into context, it shifted seven times more ash into the atmosphere than Krakatoa (which itself produced striking dusks itself all over the world) in 1883 and 150 times more than Mount St Helens in 1980. The thin level of soot in the air lowered global temperatures by two degrees Celsius as the sun was partially blocked out. Fred Pearce in New Scientist corroborates that this cataclysmic event was the reason that provided Turner with such rich backgrounds to paint. Some ‘Turner expert’ Newsroom SouthEast unearthed.

Two films I saw yesterday

Rango is an inventive animation that plays with your perceptions, with distinct echoes not just of westerns (e.g. True Grit), but also the films Apocalypse Now and, most pertinently, Chinatown. Clint Eastwood (and his clutch of Oscars) is cleverly referenced. It also has an eco-message (similar to the one botched in the Bond film Quantum of Solace) about tensions over water – the aquifers beneath cities like Phoenix are running dry and the extravagant use of H2O is speeding up this process. Johnny Depp is always watchable, even in dire films. Here as a lizard, he has a close encounter with his lounge lizard Hunter S. Thompson alter ego from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which is a refreshing touch for all those in the know. Depp heads up a fairly accomplished cast who fall into line behind him. The action sequences are expertly handled, topping off a very smart cartoon. Four out of five.

Source Code is what used to be called a B-movie. It is moderately diverting for its running time and stepped revelations open out the movie and the characters expertly, but these float away on the evening air after leaving the cinema as there is no great high concept – essentially, it’s we keep sending you ‘back in time’ until you get the information needed to stop a mad bomber. It mentions quantum mechanics and parabolic calculus as throwaways to bamboozle our curiosities and it could end with a multiverse being created, but I’m more of the opinion it is a paradox. All very Twilight Zone or the Outer Limits, but with a big Hollywood budget. Jake Gyllenhaal is a consistently engaging actor and we have Michelle Monaghan as a beautiful, if probably flaky, damsel to save – undemanding eye candy. Plus, it is always good to see Jeffrey ‘Felix Leiter’ Wright on screen. There are also some lovely panning shots of the more picturesque parts of Chicago (a bridge that passes under the unseen helicopter reminded me of its appearance in High Fidelity). Given the rubric of the plot though, it is just a B-movie. Three out of five.

Friendly fire? More like stupid fire

So the NATO planners did not know the Libyan opposition possessed tanks and so launched air strikes in error on rebel positions? I knew the Libyan rebels had tanks from television pictures and all sorts of media and I’m just a civilian! As countless people have said, ‘military intelligence’ is oxymoronic, with emphasis on the moronic.

Once again, Chelsea have bad luck with a penalty appeal in the Champions League. Sir Alex Ferguson says Ramires went down ‘theatrically’; yeah, right, as theatrically as anyone who has just been chopped at the shins by a pair of leg-sized scissors. Carlo Ancelotti criticised the referee without ever impugning the latter’s partiality, avoiding Arsene Wenger’s mistake. Essentially, the referee bottled it, unable to bring himself to award a penalty in the last minute. And once again, the extra official behind the goal proved that they are just time-servers and they know it – they don’t have the courage to challenge a referee’s decision. It was an interesting experiment by UEFA but it must be concluded that the experiment has failed because these extra officials lack legitimacy, even in their own eyes.
Goal-line technology may have to wait until Sepp Blatter stands down in 2015, but Michel Platini seems only slightly less reactionary and antediluvian. Mohammed Bin Hammam is an unknown quantity, even after securing the World Cup hosting rights for his home country. Referees shouldn’t be replaced, but the ability of computers and television replays to quickly adjudicate controversial incidents is rejected, bafflingly, by FIFA high command. All other high-level sports have introduced a measure of redress to aggrieved competitors – tennis, cricket and rugby among them- but football remains in the dark ages. FIFA may fear the salami-slicing of a referee’s role to virtually nothing but cricket and tennis umpires have felt no diminution in their authority. To keep the speed of the game, video help and/or other technology such as Hawkeye should be applied to goal line decisions, penalty awards and sendings-off of players, with each team getting one appeal per game on whether offside was right or not.
Chelsea-Manchester United seemed quite dull for stretches and I abstained from most of it, tuning in just to catch the only goal of the game – Wayne Rooney’s reward for his endeavour in making the runs but it was the evergreen Ryan Giggs that made it possible – and the final few minutes when Chelsea were unfairly denied and Fernando Torres was rightly booked for diving.
No doubt about the results in the other Champions League matches. Real Madrid will face Barcelona. Real’s match against Tottenham is a dead rubber and after ITV wetted themselves at getting as close to Premier League action as they will for a long time last night, they will have a real hard job of drumming up interest for Real-Spurs. Real have been beaten five-nil this season but that was by Barcelona and Spurs are not ‘More Than a Club’. As for Shakhtar Donetsk, I imagine they could have overturned a two-goal deficit in the Ukraine, say a 3-1 defeat in the Nou Camp, but 5-1 is too much of a mountain to climb. The final quarter-final is a done deal as well, with Schalke 04 scoring five away goals against the European Champions Internazionale, crushing them 5-2. An Italian team keeping an opposing team out is no great trouble but scoring four as well is another matter, given that Serie A is in serious decline and Italian teams do not have that mentality anyway. The Germans will maintain their UEFA co-efficient above the Italians, where the former have four Champions League spots in their domestic league and the Italians only three. Sir Alex Ferguson used to have a dictum that to win the Champions League you needed to beat an Italian team (in meaning, not in the Group Stages but when it counts in the knockout stage). That moment has passed. Since 2005, it has been the case that English teams were the one to beat. Last year, the mantle was in transition. This season - with a guarantee of one La Liga representative in the final - and probably for the foreseeable future, teams from Spain will need to be defeated in order to win the European Cup.

Best dentist's waiting room ever. A book in the reading list pile held the scripts (not original of course) of three episodes of Fawlty Towers. I read The Hotel Inspectors but as I came with just a few minuts to spare, I had to break my reading when the dentist aksed for me. Wish I'd turned up sooner!

Unknown is a superior, if disposable, action thriller. It first brings to mind the Bourne franchise but is a better fit to Total Recall in terms of memory and identity. Most of the villains get a satisfying pay-off and I spotted, before it was revealed, the chief baddie. You really notice how big Liam Neeson is in comparison to the women in the film but it is all part of the dissonance. It is also pleasing to see the trend continue whereby Hollywood movies locate in the not too familiar (though probably cheap too) environs of Berlin.