72. Stormy
I.
The Olympic Games have begun. I enjoyed the opening ceremony, which conveyed a message of togetherness. Despite the rise of the far right, violence against minorities and wars, France welcomed everyone without exception to the opening of the world’s biggest sporting event. Regardless of origin, faith, gender and sexual orientation.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that there was still a massive outcry among the narrow-minded section of the internet. The image of a group of LGBTI+ people at a banquet proved enough to drive them mad. This was supposedly a mockery of Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. CU MP Don Ceder calls it ‘mocking Christians’.
The creator of the ceremony, Thomas Jolly, says he did not want to shock or mock anyone. He wanted to demonstrate the power of community. “In France, we have the right to love one another. To do so as we wish and with whom we wish. In France, we have the right to believe and not to believe. In France, we have many rights.” Nevertheless, the organisers issued an apology on Sunday. “If people found it offensive, we are truly sorry,” a spokesperson said on Sunday.
Is it really so offensive to depict The Last Supper? Or was it the man painted blue in a fruit bowl that caused people to take offence? The Olympic Games’ X account described the scene an interpretation of the Greek god Dionysus, which highlights the absurdity of people inflicting violence on one another. This god, too, is depicted in old paintings at long tables with people feasting. Bummer, that explanation isn’t exactly useful for stirring up the masses.
Whilst the conspiracy theorists and agenda-mongers were getting all worked up, I was enjoying a ghostly horse galloping across the Seine and a performance by Celine Dion on the Eiffel Tower. Eurosport put together a highlights reel.
---II.
The disaster film Twisters is a box-office hit. Although I haven’t yet managed to see the summer blockbuster, I have done my preparatory homework and re-watched the original Twister (1996) by Dutch director Jan de Bont.
De Bont initially worked for many years as a cameraman alongside director Paul Verhoeven. Among other films, they made Turks Fruit and Basic Instinct. De Bont then decided to take the director’s chair himself and made the successful Speed (and later the less successful Speed 2).
And so he made Twister. A true 1990s blockbuster about two meteorologists going through a divorce, but who, thanks to their passion for tornadoes, find a way back to each other. Well, the story works, but it’s rather thin on the ground. In a disaster film, you want to see spectacle and disasters. That’s what you get. Ultimately, not even that much, but that’s how it feels, because De Bont has managed to maintain a whirlwind pace in his film. Even when the group of storm chasers are sitting quietly having dinner, the camera whizzes around the room and all sorts of things are happening.
Almost thirty years later, even the computer effects still hold up. Probably because the film doesn’t rely on them too heavily. The blend of CGI and practical effects from this era of filmmaking remains magical (Jurassic Park was released a few years earlier).
---III.
Making a rubbish film about tornadoes is easier than making a good one, as the B-movie Firenado proves. Looking for something to satisfy my craving for twisters, but exhausted after a day of gardening, I watched this film on Amazon Prime Video. A group of people find a way to manipulate tornadoes. Using a device, they can make the whirlwinds bigger and smaller. Things get out of hand and a gigantic tornado forms, which bursts into flames when it hits a petrol station.
Firenado is hardly about the fire tornado, which is depicted with mediocre CGI and causes almost no casualties. It’s about a botched heist and some criminals shooting at each other. The aforementioned group finds itself caught up in this mess. The main characters can stand a good twenty metres from the tornado without a thing happening. The acting is subpar, the script is very poor. Rubbish.
The film did, however, prompt me to look for footage of real fire tornadoes. They are very rare, but they do exist. Especially near forest fires, where the rapidly rising air from the fire becomes entangled in rising air currents. The fire can then shoot into the air in a vortex metres high and rage across the land for a few minutes.
---IV.
Marvel has done it. Robert Downey Jr. is back. He is no longer playing Iron Man, but is slipping behind the mask of Doctor Doom. “New mask, same task,” he said on stage at San Diego Comic-Con, after revealing his face by taking off the villain’s mask.
The much-loved Downey Jr. is thus back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, after bidding farewell as Iron Man in the film Avengers: Endgame. As Victor Von Doom, he will in any case appear in Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. Who knows, it might not stop there, as the superhero team Fantastic Four is also reuniting. In that comic series, Doctor Doom is the main antagonist.
And so Marvel seems to be slowly building up to box office successes again after a few weak years. Deadpool & Wolverine is also doing very well at the box office at the moment. Go MCU!
---PS.
The Tiny Awards are being presented again. They are intended to celebrate the personal internet. “The web that is small and handmade and isn’t trying to sell you something,” write the organisers. Nominees include Infinite Craft and One Million Checkboxes.
The New York Times challenges you to look at a painting for ten minutes without distraction. A focus experiment.
Timothée Chalamet plays Bob Dylan in the film A Complete Unknown. In the first trailer, we hear Chalamet singing and, although he doesn’t sound exactly like him, I’m pleasantly surprised and glad he isn’t turning Dylan into a caricature. No idea what sort of film this will be. Director James Mangold calls it ‘not really a Bob Dylan biopic’. According to him, it’s more of a snapshot of a moment in time, in which Dylan just happens to be present. Dylan (the real one, whom I hope to see again this October) also read the script, by the way, and added notes for Mangold. That gives a fan hope.
---How science fiction films have changed over the past 70 years, illustrated with graphs and data. One of the conclusions is that nowadays they are more often set in an apocalyptic environment, as a commentary on contemporary society.
---Great Big Story visits a factory where sofubi are made. These are handmade soft vinyl figures. Marusan is one of the factories where these kinds of figures are produced, particularly monsters such as Godzilla. They sell for thousands of euros.
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