!POP! KORN

Immersing myself once again in the often shallow, and occasionally deep and thought-provoking waters of the prevailing zeitgeist, here are the latest media drugs to shoot up my sensory veins:

MOVIE

'War of the Worlds'

A week before seeing the latest masterpiece from Steven Spielberg, I was expecting another shoot-em-up-grab-a-dog-to-protect-you-from-mortal-danger-alien-invasion movie where the human race triumphs on or near July 4. This is naturally the only date around which you would lay waste to Planet Earth if you were an alien since you know from reading our books, and seeing our movies that your alien race will be defeated by water/computer viruses/budgies on acid quite quickly, and that the human race will emerge victorious, and needs an important symbolic date around which to stage a day of delerious celebration victory that totally ignores the fact that the world's economy/food supply/output of books and DVDs is terminally screwed.

Then the reviews started pouring in and I began to suspect that maybe, just maybe, this epic blockbuster may just have a brain (and a heart and a soul), a rarity indeed in the cinematic monsters that bestride Hollywood in the US Summer. It was said that Spielberg had imbued the classic story by H G Wells, which was initially written as a warning of the dangers of untrammelled imperialism, specifically that of the British Empire, with echoes of the Holocaust. It is only when you see this most atypical of alien invasion blockbusters that you realise that Spielberg has captured all the horrors of genocide in so horrifying a fashion that this movie sends chills down your soul as you witness the almost wholesale destruction of the human race by the imperialiastic Martians, who do not see people but rather inferior nothings standing in the way of commodity acquisition. Previous alien invasion epics like "Independence Day" are almost cartoonish by comparison - yes, cities are destroyed and humanity is in peril, but you do not get a sense of real doom and dread, and the very real flesh-crawling, heart-sickening horror that unfolds in "WOW" (yes they deleted the 'the' to appease the gods of marketing!) is nowhere near as clearly in evidence in "ID4", if it is there at all. I was asked if I had enjoyed the movie and I hesitated to answer, not because I didn't like it; on the contrary I was powerfully drawn into an amazing movie that dares to wear its social critique very much on its sleeve, but because I don't think its the kind of movie you do 'enjoy'. It is hard to enjoy watching a woman being vaporised as she runs for her life, her face frozen in terror; to grab handfuls of popcorn when people are tossed from the tripods onto the ground, only to have their blood sucked from them, and used as macabre fertiliser. BUT what the movie does do is make you think and realise that you can the heartpounding action and thrills of a big epic, and not leave your brain at the door.

So thank you Steven Spielberg for this masterful piece of cinema, that even though it veers into a great big field of corny sentiment at the end (all the world is destroyed but the one nieghbourhood in Boston where Tom's family is), still manages to tell a brilliantly engaging story while making us realise that we can never rest on our humanitarian laurels while even one person is in peril.

MUSIC

'The Alternative to Love' - Brendan Benson



Bright breezy pop with more contagious melodies than you poke a musical prodigy at, and with more than a passing nod to the 70s, this is the sort of CD that makes you glad to be alive (listening to it with chocolate and a glass of Shiraz also helps)! As an added bonus, Brendan's third CD is replete with very cool lyrics that explore the meaning of life, love and relationships in a way that isn't too precious, engages the soul and mind, and allows for the fact that life isn't always a happy skip in the park with sunshine, candy and bright flowers all around. In other words, he writes about life with the frankness of someone who just accepts that this is how it is, and wraps it all up in music so contagious you can help but singalong. Which I do...with the windows shut...and the doors locked.....no sense upsetting the neighbours.....