Top 10 Tips For 2010 (The Year, Not The Film) According To 2010 (The Film, Not The Year)

Happy 2010 everyone! And welcome back to the rarely-updated Outland Institute. Well, wasn’t 2009 a big one? What with the Outland Institute radio show, the world not being destroyed by the Large Hadron Collider, and Peter Andre’s new single Behind Closed Doors, it was hard just to keep up.

So I thought I’d cheat a little for 2010 by watching the film first. This way I’ll be ready for all the hot new trends! Peter Hyams’ 2010 (billed on the poster as 2010: The Year We Make Contact, although not – oddly enough – in the film itself) was released in 1984, as was 1984 (the film, not the year. And not the David Bowie song either, which came out in 1974, a year before Space: 1999).

We’ll talk about the film in a moment, but first here’s our Top 10 Tips For 2010 (The Year, Not The Film) According To 2010 (The Film, Not The Year)!

• The Soviet Union Is BACK, Baby!

With the 80s revival in full swing it’s a clever move for Russia to get the band back together and reform for the first time since 1991. And speaking of which…

• The Cold War – It’s On, People!

Yes, they’ll be accused of rehashing their old hits but the new Soviet Union and the old United States will be bringing us to brink of nuclear annihilation again this year with that old classic, the naval blockade. Think navy blues and piped matelot pants!

• Calculators Are So Hot Right Now!

Nervous that HAL may again go on a killing spree – possibly caused by Windows Vista – Roy Scheider sets up a kill switch cunningly hidden inside his pocket calculator. He’s done this so he can carry it around without raising suspicion, and since no-one says “bloody hell, Roy Scheider, I haven’t seen a pocket calculator in years” we can only assume they’re going to be back in a big way!

• Dame Helen Mirren To Become A Cosmonaut!

A surprise move for the acclaimed British actor, who must be finding it difficult to fit in training around the seven feature films she has due for release this year (including a new version of Brighton Rock). At least she’ll easily be able to get around the immigration paperwork due to her Russian father, Ilyena Vasilievna Mironov, although there’s no word on whether she’ll be reverting to the original family name.

• Wide-Screen Televisions Are SO 2009!

This year 4:3 cathode ray tubes are back in a big big way. Throw out those plasmas now!

• This Year’s Top Pet? The Dolphin!
  

It’s unclear if this is just because in 2010 (the film, not the year) Roy Scheider’s wife is a marine biologist, but it seems that in 2010 (the year, not the film) you’ll finally be able to keep dolphins in your lounge room!

• Roy Scheider Says Shorts Are IN!

Seriously, does that man bring his own shorts to each film? Does he refuse to go on unless he can get his legs out in at least one scene? Also, he’s going to need a bigger boat.

• Pan Am Is Back In Business!

Like The Soviet Union, the American airline Pan Am went out of business in 1991, but according to 2010 (the film, not the year) it’ll be back this year. It’s offering flights into space with the advertising slogan “Where The Sky Is No Longer The Limit”.

• Academic And Military Software To Embrace Retro 80s Stylings!

The rise of retro indie platform games like vvvvvv has even reached the military, with spacecraft and universities alike embracing faux Commodore 64 style graphics (incidentally, I believe the message after this one was “All your base are belong to us”). While we’re on computers…

• Laptop Screens Will Get Tiny!

This year’s laptops will have tiny screens, but you will be able to easily use them on beaches. Or possibly this year’s iPods will be enormous, I’m not sure.

So there you go, the top ten trends for 2010 (the year, not the film) as predicted by 2010 (the film, not the year).

As for the film itself – as I sat watching it for the second time (the first being in a cinema in 1984 – the year, not the film) I found myself wondering “Is this the most pointless film ever made?”. The world was hardly crying out for a sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and how could anyone follow up such a cinematic classic, a dreamlike meditation on man’s place in the universe? More to the point, why would they bother?

2010 (the film, not the year) is a straightforward cold war science fiction film with very little to offer. The characters are dull ciphers who spend most of their time doing little and the movie’s conclusion suggests events would have unfolded exactly the same way whether they were there or not. Without Stanley Kubrick’s bravura filmmaking we’re left with some nice modelwork but not much else.

So as I watched the film I pondered “is this film more pointless than Psycho 2?”. Yes. Psycho spawned the horror slasher film, a genre famous for its diminishing and endless sequels, so Psycho 2 simply completes the circle. It’s like break-up sex.

Then I thought “is 2010 – the film, not the year – more pointless than Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho?” Again, yes, as Gus Van Sant was at least conducting a cinematic experiment. That experiment was mostly “can I get Universal to give me 60 million dollars to do this?”, but at least it’s not dull.

Meanwhile, 2010 (the film, not the year) exists as a film so dependant on it’s predecessor that it makes no sense in isolation, yet so devoid of ideas or style that it removes itself from your memory even as you watch. Hopefully 2010 – the year – will be better than 2010 – the film.

I haven’t read the book.

The Naked Truth: A Night Out With Porn Stars

This piece originally went to air in episode 22 of The Outland Institute. You can hear it with added interview material and sound effects by downloading it from here, or why not go crazy and subscribe through iTunes?

Over the years, AIDS educators have tried many ways to get their message across. They’ve used fear, erotic photography, celebrity spokesmodels, real people’s stories, and even bowling. For the last year or so the Victorian AIDS Council has been using porn stars to inform and educate. Marco Blaze and Francesco D’Macho have already visited – probably not their real names – and last week Bruno Bond and Steve Cruz came to Melbourne. They were here to promote the VAC’s 2010 Protection calendar.

In the past, visiting pornistas have been used mostly for media promotion, and for live interview appearances. This time round there was something new. In what was possibly a world first, Cruz and Bond were to perform a live commentary on their porn in a gay sex club in Collingwood. It was an intriguing blend of private and public, combining the old world of the public gathering with the new world of the DVD extra. By extending the on-screen action into the audience it was oddly reminiscent of William Castle’s 1959 classic The Tingler, in which some of the seats in the cinema were hooked up to an electric current.

Incidentally, are all porn performers automatically “stars”? Is there such a thing as a porn “character actor”? Is anyone the William H Macy of porn?

So at 1am on Saturday the 28th of November I made my way to Club 80, for what promised to be a very special night. And let’s be upfront about this – partly I was genuinely interested in the idea of exploring the different ways in which audiences enjoy visual works, and partly I was hoping it would be hilarious so I could mock it on The Outland Institute radio show, like the angsty sarcastic self-loathing Gen X type that I am…

Narrelle M Harris: Happy Kwanzaa, Everybody!

On this week’s show Narrelle recommended some book-buying for Christmas (unlike the book-burning she recommended last year. Lordy, did that get out of hand).

Here’s your cut-out-and-keep guide of what she said.

Classics:
Breakfast At Tiffany’s by Truman Capote.

Vampire Fiction:
Dracula by Bram Stoker, Let the Right One In by John Lindqvist (or – I humbly submit – The Opposite of Life by Narrelle M Harris).

Fantasy:
Snake Agent by Liz Williams. Or anything at all by Neil Gaiman (perhaps American Gods).

Crime/Thriller:
Redback or Blood Guilt by Lindy Cameron (Blood Guilt has lesbian protagonists too, so bonus).

Graphic Novels:
The Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way. Or find a collection of The Sandman stories by Neil Gaiman. Or something cool by Alan Moore (Prometheus, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell).

Young Adult:
Mary Borsellino’s The Wolf House e-books! Vampires! Teenagers! Queer sensibilities! Did I mention vampires?
Justine Larbalestier is also cool, with sharp ideas, great writing and excellent characters.

Melburnalia:
Madame Brussels: This Moral Pandemonium (by LB Robinson) or one of the other Arcade Publications books on Melbourne’s history.

General suggestions:

Visit Twelfth Planet Press and try them out; visit an independent bookseller and support them – places like Readers’ Feast, Readings, Hares and Hyenas and Of Science and Swords – and you can’t go wrong with the Outland Institute’s favourite Look Who’s Morphing by Tom Cho, though I don’t know what category to put that under.

And if you know any writers, perhaps the first season of Castle! But probably not Misery unless you really hate the writer in question.

And To Serve Man is a cookbook! Oh, whoops – spoiler. And if you want to send Christmas cards or presents to any of the Outland Institute’s presenters – you know, just, if you do, whatever – you can send them care of Joy 94.9, level 9, 225 Bourke Street, Melbourne, 3000. Incidentally, John has a DVD wishlist on amazon.co.uk that you can see here – just, you know, if you’re interested.

Hauntingly Beautiful = Ukulele

On the radio show this week I mentioned this YouTube video, in which the life of former Doctor Who producer/writer/director Barry Letts was commemorated through the medium of ukulele.

I am GENUINELY not being sarcastic when I say I found this quite touching, and I hope that when I leave this mortal coil someone will sing my obituary in an online ukulele tribute. Probably without references to Moonbase 3, though.

(My only reservation is that a huge string section should swell up in the middle of the song, while the camera spins around and around and around – but that’s my main criticism of real life, too).

So thank you, Will Howells, for taking the time to strum through the tears, and thank you, Barry Letts, for making my childhood more magical. You will be missed.

Podcast Crazy!!!

As you probably know, The Outland Institute is not my only podcast. Oh no. I pod around. And this week the Boxcutters podcast celebrated it’s 200th show – to put that in perspective, in dog years we’d be dead by now. Our guest was Myf Warhurst, meaning I’ve now interviewed two-thirds of the Spicks & Specks team (and Adam Hills did once hold a door open for me, which is much the same thing). You can hear Boxcutters by going here, and remember you can download The Outland Institute podcasts here. Curiously, the TV Tonight website ran an article about Boxcutters‘ achievement calling us “a guilty pleasure”, which surprised me. I think of guilty pleasures as “eating a whole packet of Deb instant potato” or “jerking off in a supermarket carpark“. I would have considered Boxcutters to be simply “a pleasure“. Or even “a delight“.

Anyway, reaching this milestone made me think – what are these podcast things, anyway? So I decided to find out what the crazy kids were doing by actually listening to some of them. They’re surprisingly good – I had no idea. Here are some I’ve been enjoying lately (click on the titles to go to their websites)…

In Memory of Alan Turing

Since I still haven’t finished setting up the Almost Fabulous site, I thought I’d give you a sneak peek at this week’s tribute to Alan Turing. You can find the audio version (complete with bonus jokes!) in episode 11 of the radio show, downloadable from iTunes or direct from here.

When we started the Almost Fabulous project, all those years ago, our goal was to bring attention and love to those potential queer icons who had been left out in the cold. At that time I considered including mathematician and cryptologist Alan Turing, but decided he was already a well-known and celebrated figure. After all, he has been the subject of award-winning plays and documentaries, and in 1999 Time Magazine named him as one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.
 
But since the comments of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown put Turing back in the media this month, I thought it was time to re-acquaint ourselves with this extraordinary gay man.
 
In the 1930s Turing was a mathematician working at Cambridge and later Princeton University, working on algorithms, theories of computation and – like any uni student – building simple electro-mechanical binary multipliers. Little did he know that years later his work would lead to the personal computer and the most efficient porn delivery system the world has ever known.
 
But as important as his work on computers is – and seriously, without him we wouldn’t be able to watch footage of cats on treadmills on YouTube, so for that alone, Mr Turing, we salute you – it’s his work during World War II that makes him a bona-fide hero.

Interview: Robb Reiner from Anvil

Australian cinema-goers have their chance this month to enjoy the glory of Anvil: The Story Of Anvil. This documentary follows veteran heavy metal band Anvil as they attempt to bring their sound to the masses. Glibly described as “a real life Spinal Tap”, Anvil: The Story Of Anvil is an exploration of the glory of music, and is full of heart. And hair. John talked to Robb Reiner (not that Rob Reiner), the drummer of Anvil, about fame, ambition and music.

You’re travelling the world, you’re supporting AC/DC, your albums are being re-released, all effectively on the back of a documentary about how you’re not successful. Is that ironic?

Well, it’s ironic that we have been successful in my point of view, the fact that we’ve recorded 13 albums and we’ve been touring for 30 years. But mainstream success is what’s now coming about. It’s a great thing, the movie shows the truth, it tells the story, people are engaging and it’s a great thing.

List-mania: Observer Film Quarterly

On the radio show today, Glenn and I discussed the Observer Film Quarterly’s recent list of the top 25 British films from the last 25 years. Here is the list:

• 1. Trainspotting (1996)
• 2. Withnail and I (1987)
• 3. Secrets & Lies (1996)
• 4. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988)
• 5. My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
• 6. Nil By Mouth (1997)
• 7. Sexy Beast (2000)
• 8. Ratcatcher (1999)
• 9. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
• 10. Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
• 11. Touching the Void (2003)
• 12. Hope and Glory (1987)
• 13. Control (2007)
• 14. Naked (1993)
• 15. Under the Skin (1997)
• 16. Hunger (2008)
• 17. This Is England (2006)
• 18. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
• 19. Dead Man’s Shoes (2004)
• 20. Red Road (2006)
• 21. Riff-Raff (1991)
• 22. Man On Wire (2008)
• 23. My Summer of Love (2004)
• 24. 24 Hour Party People (2002)
• 25. The English Patient (1996)

Having done no actual research, we said the list felt a bit like it was thrown together by some people in the office, effectively “here are 25 films we can think of”.

Turns out that’s about right – according to The Observer “we asked more than 60 experts – directors, screenwriters, actors, critics – and a few smart “outsiders” (novelist Jonathan Coe, for instance; musician Nitin Sawhney) to name their top 10 British films since 1984″.

So there you go.

Interview: Alan Brough

For the seventh episode of the Outland Institute Radio Show we were joined by comedian, actor, musician and New Zealander Alan Brough. It was a pleasure to have him in the studio, as we chatted about Spicks & Specks, growing up, acting, terrible stories, and Alan’s pearls of wisdom such as “What day isn’t made better by Haysi Fantayzee?”. You can hear the full interview by downloading it from here, but here are some highlights:

Every time I mentioned you were coming in, people would say “That Alan Brough, I’d like to hug him”. Are you Australia’s most huggable comedian?

I never really thought about it before, but I’m willing to test that out. I do – after I’ve had a couple of glasses of red wine – and anyone who knows me will know that’s very seldom – I do like to hug people. Particularly small people. Just lifting them up, picking them up and holding on to them. Rove McManus is good for that. Not for name-dropping, but he was the first tiny person who sprung to mind. But that area of person. I love to pick them up. Cos they’re helpless. They can struggle all they like, but they’re like a salmon caught in the claw of a bear.

You and Myf Warhurst seem incredibly nice on Spicks & Specks, are you like that in real life?

If this is possible, Myf is even nicer in real life than she is on the telly. It’s quite difficult to understand. I thought it was physically impossible to be nicer than she comes across on the TV, but she is. I, on the other hand, am just sad. And when I’m not sad I’m fuelled with a rage that comes from an incalculable depth.

But that’s comedy, isn’t it? Many comedians seem to be bitter, nasty individuals who hide behind a thin veneer of humour…

My veneer is being redone at the moment, so it’s just pure rage for me.

Everyone on the show – bar me – is genuinely nice, and we do get on extremely well. And to be perfectly honest I don’t see the point in people being awful to each other on the television. You get enough of that in life, from your family, from people on the tram, in bars… I was reading about Masterchef, and someone said what they loved about it was that you wanted these people to be your friends. As opposed to a lot of reality shows where you want to find these people and kill them.

Beverage-Based Insults

Today’s guest lecturer, Tim Richards, looks at the controversial topic of libation vilification…

“You are going to have a piece of policy that comes direct from the manic monkey cafe of inner-suburbia nirvana-ville straight to you!”

Well, crikey. When Senator Barnaby Joyce frothed over (like a vigorously prepared cappuccino) with these words in Canberra in June, a few thoughts occurred to me:

1) Canberra has that effect on people.

2) Where can I find this Manic Monkey Cafe?

3) And do they do good lattes?

Which then led me to reflect on the time-honoured practice of conservative commentators using beverages as insults…