Monthly Archives: August 2009

Nice suits

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A few weeks ago I was at Hamilton Airport, waiting for my flight to Anywhere But Hamilton (a popular destination). I’d checked in and was waiting in the departure lounge, when I became aware of a vaguely familiar sounding song quietly playing on the airport’s PA.

I moved to a table directly under a speaker and listened. Soon the identity of the song became clear. It was “Break My Heart”, the 2001 single by En Masse.

Actually, saying “2001 single” is a bit deceptive because it implies that En Masse had singles in other years. And it implies they actually had other singles.

En Masse were an attempt at a New Zealand boyband. Eight years on they are almost ungoogable, so I’m going to have to rely on my memory.

The story goes something like this. A Christchurch businessman saw that overseas boybands such as Nsync, Backstreet Boys and Blue were rather popular, so he decided to make a local version. A group of five singers was recruited, the group formed, and they recorded “Break My Heart”. En Masse received a NZ On Air grant to make a music video, in the same funding round as “Sophie” by Goodshirt and “Bruce” by Rubicon, and the video was made.

It shows the boys dressed in nice suits (a quality product; not street), mooching around a palatial house, singing the song, while a pretty blonde woman goes about her business, oblivious to them, eventually driving off with an older white guy. The group looks tense and nervous in the video. And one of them is cross-eyed. And they can’t dance.

enmasse

At the time “Break My Heart” was released, I’d returned to New Zealand after spending some time in Melbourne. I was staying at my parents’ place and spent most of my days sitting on the couch watching music videos on Juice TV. Juice always had slightly strange playlists that didn’t necessarily reflect what was popular. Somehow “Break My Heart” had ended up as a high-rotate video, so I watched it far too many times.

When you compare “Break My Heart” with the stuff that was actually popular back then – songs like Kylie’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head”, Alicia Keys’ “Fallin’”, Blue’s “All Rise” and Afroman’s #1 hit “Because I Got High” – it’s obvious that “Break My Heart” never stood a chance.

By then the boyband phenomena had just past its peak. Nsync was soon to fracture into parts, Backstreet Boys took a hiatus but were never able to return to their former glory, and Blue also split.

And then there’s the New Zealand issue. For some reason – and I’ve been pondering this for years – New Zealanders don’t like New Zealand singers who don’t sing their own songs. We’re perfectly happy to love the Spice Girls or Westlife, but when it comes to local bands, our standards turn to those of a naive teenager. Somehow it’s not proper music unless it’s written by the person who sings it, no matter how good their voice and performance is.

If you want to see something that’s a little bit heartbreaking, watch this promo video about En Masse. The five band members and their management all talk about the future with such hope – they’re really going to be the first New Zealand boyband to be successful in Asia, Europe and America.

Back in Hamilton Airport, I’ve just had my boarding call (thank God) and “Break My Heart” is nearing its, end with the chorus repeated far too many times.

I wonder how the song came to be on the airport’s playlist of innocuous music. Perhaps it was just a result of some bulk music licensing deal. Perhaps it’s part of the general Faustian pact that Hamilton seem to have been built on. Or perhaps someone at Hamilton Airport is the one remaining En Masse fan in the world.

A fest of films

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I’ve always had this awkward relationship with the NZ International Film Festival. Sometimes I throw myself right into it, other times I ignore it entirely. In recent years, I’ve found myself overwhelmed by the choice offered in the programme, and cautious of leaping into see some film only for it to come out on general release the next week.

I’d more or less ignored it for the last few years, but this year, with my realisation that I’m still totally nuts about film, I decided to give the film fest a go.

But this year I based my film-going around two basic rules:

  • No planning ahead. All films are to be decided upon on the day and no tickets bought in advance.
  • No films that are due to come out on general release in the near future.

So I took it day by day and this is what I saw:

Best Worst Movie
Best Worst Movie is a documentary about a film that tried to be a good film but ended up a bad film which in turn made it a good film. The film in question is 1990 horror film “Troll 2″ (which has nothing to do with the original “Troll”). After languishing in home video obscurity, the film slowly gained a cult following, and the doco (made by “Troll 2″‘s child star) takes a look at the cast reluctantly revisiting the most embarrassing role on their IMDB profile. It was a little slow in places, but ended up being a joyful, kind-hearted look at films and fans.

The Camera on the Shore
This documentary by Graeme Tuckett looks at the work of New Zealand film-maker Barry Barclay. The only film of his I’d seen before was “Feathers of Peace”, but, as the doco shows, he had a significant career in both film and television work. Sadly, Barclay died during the making of the documentary, but the film includes footage from his tangi, including his friends telling stories about him. The doco’s style just lets the story of Barclay’s life unfold quite organically, without a power narrative pushing things along. The result it a really lovely, moving film about a great New Zealand film-maker.

Tangata Whenua 1
The film festival also included a retrospective of some of Baz’s films. “Tangata Whenua” was a television series from 1974, written and presented by Michael King. The Barclay-directed crew travelled to various parts of New Zealand and let groups of Maori tell their stories. The two episode in this series looked at kuia with moko (there were only 30 left at the time) and the Waikato. It was remarkable seeing footage of the Raglan golf course, with men in walk shorts and knee socks, while the old kuia talked about the great whare nui that once stood there.

Humpday
This was a very talky film, about two old university friends who suddenly become reunited as adults and decide to make a gay porn film together. No, really. The script was clever and focused on the relationship of the two men and the wife of one. The awkwardness and bravado of the conversations got a lot of laughs, though I heard that a daytime session of the same film screened to an almost silent audience. Really, the film isn’t about porn or sexuality, but more about male friendships – and not many films do that well.

Moon
The Tuesday night session (during the 40th anniversary of the first man on the moon!) was sold out, but I got a sweet seat anyway. “Moon” is directed by Duncan Jones (son of some famous guy who wrote some songs about space) and stars Sam Rockwell (who is my boyfriend). Moon exists in a sort of Kubrickian universe, as if the moon of “2001″ had been further explored, mined, and just left to get a bit crappy. The story centres around a man who works on the moon, and his discovery of, ooh, another version of himself. What’s going on, and what does Gerty the computer know? “Moon” is a really enjoyable, tense sci-fi.

Every Little Step
This documentary follows the casting process of the 2006 revival of “A Chorus Line”, with the idea of contrasting the ambitious contemporary actors with their fictional counterparts from the musical, as well as interviews with the team behind the original musical. Now, I’ve only seen “A Chorus Line” once so I was really surprised at how moving I found “Every Little Step”. But when you take what is quite an emotional musical and couple it with people are going through similar experiences to the characters, and then consider how rare it is for actor/singer/dancers to get good work, then you can see where the drama comes from.

It Might Get Loud
The Embassy was full of rock geeks – people who I imagine read Q magazine. This documentary was all about rock guitar, told through interviews with Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White. Mr Page and Mr Edge seem to have reached a comfortable place in their lives, whereas Mr White is still in a very self-conscious place and seems to want most to be an old black bluesman. The three are brought together for a “summit” – talking about guitars ‘n’ shit while seated on old brown couches – and a great highlight of that is seeing the look of glee on The Edge and Jack White’s faces as Jimmy Page rips into “A Whole Lotta Love”.

All Tomorrow’s Parties
Yeah, let’s finish with some more music nerdary. This documentary looks at the 10 years of the All Tomorrow’s Parties music festival, where indie bands play at British holiday camps. Most of the footage seemed to have been gathered together from bits and pieces incidentally filmed over the years, and much of the film’s appeal comes from the clever editing. All the film really concludes is that a bunch of bands have played at various ATPs over the years and most people there had a good time. But isn’t that all you really want in a festival?

Happier times

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I’ve been thinking a bit about memory. I recently had a conversation where I’d roughly described what I’d been doing for the last 10 years. And the next day I thought, well, that’s sort of how that decade went but it also didn’t go like that.

I could have retold the story of those years – entirely truthfully – but painted a totally different picture by what I’d left in and kept out.

I write things down here and I also keep a diary, but I’m conscious of how the act of writing about an event can shape that telling of a story as being the “official” version.

And what I write here is influenced by how I’m feeling at the time and who I have in mind when I’m writing it. So, what if I don’t write something down and eventually forget about it as it’s not in my official history?

There’s a day I sometimes think back on as being a good day – Thursday, 14 April 2005. I was on holiday in Australia, and that day I drove from Kiama (on the New South Wales coast) up to Wollongong, then on to Sydney.

I remember it as being a brilliant day, I visited the art gallery in Wollongong, and cruised down the coastal highway, listening to The Fall in my rented Toyota.

When I read back what I’d written online at the time (part one and part two), that more or less matches what I like to remember of the day, give or take a few minor details.

But what I’d written in my diary at the time tells a totally different story: I was utterly miserable!

The day had taken me from a lovely seaside town, along the coast and into a confident metropolis. This couldn’t compete with Auckland and so the thought of having to go home in a couple of days made me feel really depressed.

I have a vague memory of mooching around my hotel room that evening, but I only really know my holiday had this effect on me because I wrote it down at the time.

The happy stuff – the good memories – are what have stuck around. The other details, like being disappointed with seeing “The Interpreter”, are fading.

Ask me about any event in my life and I’ll tell you a different story every time.

The fun is in the telling and the retelling, the perspective that time can bring. Let’s sit, let’s talk – I’ll tell you a brand new story you’ve already heard.

Robyn in car

The authoress in happier/unhappier times.