Scott Walker: 30 Century Man

Tonight we see a film with my partner's parents. The film we see is 'Scott Walker: 30 Century Man', as her folks are big Scott Walker fans. The film tells the story of his transformation from teen idol Scott Engel, through his time with The Walker Brothers and then into his solo career. His records gradually got weirder and weirder and sales declined. Save for a brief Walkers reunion he disappeared until a record label finally let him do things his way. Even then his output was less than prolific, averaging about one record every ten years. His way turned out to be very avant-garde. It is described as exploring the boundaries between chord and dis-chord. I have to say that, although the programme probably overdid his later stuff, I found myself rather taken with the pretentious experimentalism of his material. Particularly with a song about the hanging of Mussolini, which for the recording required a percussionist to punch a slab of meat with his fists.



There are many gushing contributions from celebrity fans who you feel are courtesy of David Bowie's address book, he is credited as being as executive producer - Damon Albarn, Johnny Marr (yes him again), Julian Cope (no idea my favourite poet was a fan and even compiled an album of Scott's stuff), Marc Almond, Radiohead, Simon Raymonde, Jarvis Cocker and many more. Quite a cult following.

His songs are dark, depressing, daunting, discomforting and even disturbing, all the d's. My kind of stuff. I'm intrigued. I can feel a CD purchase or two coming on.

Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation is a bit of a disappointment. Even if you discount the short role that Avril Lavigne has in it, she is as bad as you would expect but at least she didn't sing and hers isn't the only bad acting in it. The dark side (is there any other side?) of the fast food industry is an interesting idea for a film but here it's very badly done. As soon as you think they’re going to get their teeth into a particular topic they abandon it and move on to something else.
It tells a number of stories that are linked but then doesn’t seem to connect them together. Instead the film jumps around and nothing is explored enough to become interesting. The film fails to add anything to what I already know about fast food. Although I admit I probably know more than your average fast food eater does, so it's perhaps an education for some.



Overall, it's a wasted opportunity. It is no Super Size Me. Most of the stuff in the film, immigrant workers, artificial flavourings, bad working conditions, animals being killed for meat etc are all common knowledge. The only two shocking parts of it were the fact that faeces makes it into burgers and that workers lose limbs in the factories but in the end both disclosures were brushed under the carpet. Disappointing stuff.