Spun
====

Thursday 29 January 2009 04:38

The good thing about Spun is that it grabs your
attention when you flick through the channels. The
Sopranos does that as well. It's an important part
of getting viewers on TV so I think a lot of shows
try to have some kind of signature that makes it
possible for the audience to recognize what show it
is by watching only a single second of the show,
independent of what second in the show it is. CSI
has that pretty much nailed, so I never have to see
more than a single second of it to realize I dont
have to stop flicking at that point. But as I said,
Jonas Åkerlund manages with a lot of cuts and
sunshine and blow-ups to make you instantly think
it's something worth watching, at 0:51AM. It's got
John Leguizamoberg and Deborah Harry and a Volvo in
it, which is cool. But in the end it's not really
worth watching a 101 minute videoclip. It's to much
a collage of elements I've seen before, some in his
earlier work, but then also so the very same that
it feels like he just used the same settings in
whatever piece of software he's using to create it.
Just like Kill Bill it's not really a movie in a
story telling sense, but a showreel of cool scenes
the director has always wanted to create put
together in something that fails at being a movie.
If I would make such a movie I'll put something
like that scene from some movie where Sean Penn
falls smoking a cigarette into a pool in it, and
somehow make up some story where that would happen,
and bonus points if you'd manage to get Sean Penn
to play that role. That's how it looks like these
things get together, or rather not. It's an
enjoyable genre, but there are better movies that
do all that, and more.

Tonight on arte: Sailor et Lula/Wild at Heart. IIRC
that's the real deal.

by Roland van Ipenburg
http://www.xs4all.nl/~ipenburg/blog/posts/play/2009/01/29/spun/