73. Twists, Twisters and Twisties
I.
Director James Mangold is making A Complete Unknown, the film about Bob Dylan. The lines of communication with Dylan are apparently short. “I spent a few very charming days with him,” says Mangold in the podcast Happy Sad Confused. “He loves films. When I sat down with Bob, one of the first things he said to me was: ‘I love Cop Land’.”
Now that’s a film you don’t hear many people talking about. Despite the star-studded cast, including Sylvester Stallone, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta and Robert De Niro. On Dylan’s recommendation, I gave it a watch this week. I saw a fairly simple crime story that nevertheless suffers somewhat from the script and its acting heavyweights. Despite its weaknesses, I enjoyed it. This is a film that dares to go all out on grandeur.
Cop Land is about a group of New York police officers who run the show in their home town in New Jersey. Corruption is rife here, and when a young officer shoots two black boys dead, they cover for one another. Sylvester Stallone plays Sheriff Freddy Heflin, who had wanted to join the New York Police Department but was deemed unfit for service because he is deaf in one ear. As sheriff, he still has to deal with the officers from New York. He turns a blind eye to corruption whilst mediating in the neighbourhood. When an inspector from outside the force (Robert De Niro) gets involved in the case surrounding the young officer, Freddy is finally forced to take sides.
With Cop Land, Stallone was given the chance in the late 1990s to revive his career. In this film, the action hero plays a restrained, nuanced role. A friend to all who looks the other way until he can no longer do so. His performance alone makes it well worth watching.
---II.
Here at home, we were captivated by the gymnastics at the Olympic Games for a few evenings. It will be difficult to top the return of superstar Simone Biles as the highlight of this tournament. She won three gold medals.
There’s a two-part (rather American) documentary series about Biles on Netflix, in case you want to see what demons she had to overcome before she could even compete in Paris. Biles was always the undisputed best on her own, but during the last Games in Tokyo she was forced to withdraw after one of her routines went wrong. She was suffering from ‘the twisties’. A terrifying term in the world of gymnastics, where an athlete loses control of their body whilst spinning through the air. This can have rather dangerous consequences.
It took Biles years to process her trauma, get her head straight psychologically and regain her self-confidence. So now that she’s outperforming everyone and everything in Paris, it’s one of the greatest sporting comebacks ever. In doing so, she’s silencing all the critics who said in Tokyo that she shouldn’t make a fuss. What a wonderful example Biles is. The GOAT.
---III.
One of the first games I ever played was Super Mario Bros. 3. In a neighbour’s attic, there was a black-and-white TV on which we experienced Mario’s first adventures in his Tanooki suit. And if you crouched on a certain block in the level, you could end up in the background. You’d then find yourself in Toad’s house and could skip entire worlds.
Mario games are full of secrets and shortcuts. That’s why they’re so much fun to speedrun. After a bit of practice, you can complete Super Mario 64 in half an hour without too much trouble. And this week, I sprinted through the first Super Mario Bros. in under 7 minutes. That doesn’t even come close to the world records, though you don’t need to break them to feel like a proper speedrunner.
The newly released Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition on the Switch lets you race through all sorts of segments from Nintendo classics. Usually, the challenges last just a few seconds. The task is to grab the first mushroom in Super Mario Bros.. Or to get a power-up in Metroid. Or to set a top time in Excitebike. Or to defeat four enemies in Kid Icarus. And so on through dozens of challenges.
Every week, a handful of these mini-games are selected and you can compete online in tournaments against the top seven times set by other players to win. The game is incredibly frustrating, but it does feel good to improve your best times. Nintendo has come up with a clever idea here: the only way to get the TikTok generation interested in these kinds of outdated games is to package them as dopamine hits.
---IV.
Last week I mentioned the 1996 film Twister and this week I saw the sequel Twisters at the cinema. A textbook summer blockbuster. And one that pointedly avoids any mention of climate change. This caused quite a stir, but director Lee Isaac Chung says he deliberately stayed away from it . “As far as I’m concerned, films shouldn’t be about messages.”
You can take his word for it, but there are clearly messages in there. If you avoid mentioning a subject so emphatically, you’re still addressing it indirectly.
For example, there are also storm chasers in the film who make fun of weather apps. And the people in Twisters who rely too heavily on their technology are sent into the woods. The main character, Kate, relies on her intuition, on dandelions and the wind in the grass. Chung’s message is certainly not to live a little more in the moment. To be a little more present in your surroundings. So I’m not claiming that either.
---PS.
Artist David Choe (you’ll know him from the Netflix series Beef) has a YouTube show in which he takes viewers on an artistic journey. It often has a bit of a daft atmosphere, but this episode is lovely. Best quote: “I am a human being, not a human doing”. Allow yourself to just ‘be’ for a while sometimes.
---As a fan of bizarre online experiments, I can certainly appreciate this one: someone put in an incredible amount of work to appear as a realistic virtual clone of themselves in Minecraft.
---I think I’m one of the few people watching The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime Video. The second season is due out at the end of this month and, judging by the first footage, we can expect a bit more action.
---There’s also a first teaser for the Yakuza series. I hope it’s just as mad (bizarre fights and crazy side stories) as the games. Coming to Prime Video on 24 October.
---A couple of musical surprises. The Smile have just released two brand-new tracks on vinyl: Don’t Get Me Started and The Slip. They’re not on Spotify yet.
Christopher Owens is suddenly back. Years ago, I was a huge fan of his band Girls, those indie darlings who were held in such high regard by Pitchfork. I saw them once again in the small hall at Paradiso. Since then, Owens has faded from the radar a bit, but now there’s the track I Think About Heaven.
And slightly less surprising, but still out now: the album Cellophane Memories by Chrystabell and David Lynch. Perfect for daydreaming.
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