Rudolph, the red-nosed alcoholic

This Christmas season at the movies has left me feeling, well, slightly hoarse. Based on that pun alone you might have an idea of what I'm intending to talk about here, and if so, I apologise at the outset for inflicting such a stinker upon ye good people of the Internet straight out of the gate. If not, well, that doesn't matter, that just means I got away with it. Twice. Phew, I guess.

So it's summer blockbuster territory for those of us who are south-of-the-border, while it's non-denominational holiday blockbuster territory for all those, ahem, normal people up north. You may have noticed a certain picture focusing around a roving young stallion being sent off to fight and die in a miserable horrific conflict in Europe's past has been the recipient of a surprisingly intense marketing push given its competition with other, higher-profile sequels and followups that are due to hit theatres this season. Hmmm, I suppose that description reveals quite a bit in itself. Violence! People like violence. Give the people blood and guts and pinata parties gone horribly wrong in the Colosseum sands I say. Right?

The point is, the comparatively aggressive promotion for Steven Spielberg's War Horse has been the catalyst for me doing no small amount of head-scratching and wondering: are we seeing the emergence of a “horse movie” subgenre within the drama film category, and if so, what is it about the “horse movie” that holds so much appeal to a wide audience?

As soon as I started considering the former question I had a couple of early examples I could raffle off in somewhat arguably flimsy support of the whole sordid affair and here they are: The Horse Whisperer, Hidalgo and Sea-fucking-biscuit. Not much to build an empire on, for sure, but the Mongolians did it with less. Nearest as I can see, the narratives contained within these movies all hold the following in common:

They focus first and foremost on the horse as a character in its own right, if not the primary protagonist altogether. Perhaps given that a studio can't predict the subjective appeal/bankability of a particular lead human actor to one member of the audience or another, it's safer just to assume that everyone likes horses and will thus rally in support of an anthropomorphic protagonist. Animals can't speak (parrots and dolphins please place yourselves in the temporary self-designated Exclusion Zone visible in the corner) so to some extent, we as audience can project onto them whatever personality we relate to. Nonetheless...

The horse is an animal with recognisably human idiosyncrasies. This is what I could and will call the inevitable “cute factor”. Horses are also not unlike us in other ways - they're temperamental, they can feel pain and we can empathise with their suffering. There is also a sense of impenetrable loyalty in their actions, particularly in movies such as Hidalgo where a bond is shown gradually developing between horse and master (notably, this is subverted for comic effect in the Zorro movies) But...

Horses also possess attributes we ourselves would willingly possess. Strength, speed, majesty – who wouldn't want these as physical traits? Or, in a more abstract sense, the ability to literally just focus on a goal and run full tilt at it- bravely shrugging off whatever life throws in your way. We also project onto ourselves the desire to possess the characteristics of the person riding the horse. Aristocratic dashing cavalry officers, cowboys, knights in armour, impossibly regal elven queens moving soundlessly through the forest while a hapless courtier rides in front to throw his cloak or himself over muddy potholes so she can cross. None of these guys is exactly chewing the proverbial plankton off the floor of the food chain's country franchise outlet. (God that was a terrible metaphor, even by my standards) The horse functions as a symbolic metaphor for speed, power, courage and grace and it shares these attributes with its rider – they are ultimately inseparable as an image of subjective, abstract desire.

We recognise in the horse a yearning for the pastoral ideal. My childhood memories of playing the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time largely consist of gritted teeth, smashed tv screens (blatantly untrue) and generic little-shit frustration at being unable to win that bloody Golden Scale by coughing up a 20 pound hake to the capitalistic owner. But those that don't have a certain nostalgia for the times spent larking in Hyrule Field, galloping Epona in circles and firing fire arrows into the distance to hit some poor unsuspecting subsistence farmer's prize pumpkins, or riding to the crest of a hill to simply sit and watch the sun go down in all its 1997 graphics era-lens flarey goodness. Do all horses live such carefree lives as this? I would guess not. 

But that doesn't really matter. We assign the horse an idyllic existence, a place in the mind with the boundless freedom of wide-open plains. This is of course a whole world away from the cramped-cubicle office compartments, car interiors or concrete Fuhrerbunkers that many of us inhabit in cold stark reality. This imagined life of the horse seems somehow more “natural” or “essential” than what a certain cross-section of human life seems to consist of these days. It connects with us at a primal level, because we recognise our own yearnings to be out on those open plains with the freedom to go anywhere and do anything we want without a care in the world. It's a powerful association. 

Now, my immediate conclusion for the next logical place that Hollywood could go as far as specific-animal movie genres was, naturally the dinosaur film, and I even had a snide joke lined up with exactly this slant. It would have involved me having a good chuckle over the outlandishness of such a thing and posting a jpeg of the Philosoraptor as guest star to end on a vaguely Platonic note. But then I realised it wasn't outlandish, and how close to the truth that idea actually was, and it kind of wasn't really funny anymore, if it ever was to begin with. Jurassicparkgodzilladinosauriceageserieskingkongjustaboutanymonstermovieevermade. Um, yes.

So there we have it, the outlines of what I would consider the horse genre in popular Western cinema. I hope that's something to build the foundations of a taxonomy on. Meanwhile, I've got to go clean my room and vacuum the carpet. Fresh straw doesn't replace itself, you know.

Your nuclear existence

A scant observation I'd like to borrow thirty seconds of your time to share, if I may: no, not to tell you the word about Jesus Christ, but to note that an increasing number of consumer technology advertising hooklines are deploying a very specific phrase as breezily as if it's the latest model battle tank.

Last year, you were buying gifts for “your family”, this Christmas season it's “the family”. I thought I was just getting a pair of socks for dad, but whatever. Oops, I guess I just indirectly invalidated my claims three sentences earlier. Bugger, I guess. You'll have to forgive me, my record for delivering on lofty assertions in which I have no stake whatsoever in upholding has been faltering as of late.

Now in this techno-savvy context, what does the use of “the family” as opposed to “your family”, or “my family”, connote?

First and foremost, the family appears as a kind of obligatory accessory, a mandatory ingredient in the life of the sophisticated, hip urban consumer. It's something that “everyone” has, whether they want it or not – regardless of and totally divorced from the reality that not everyone has a family, or even one they particularly want to associate with.

If you belong to the certain youthful socio-economic bracket that can afford hip-and-happening consumer technology like /Ipads/Galaxy S II's/miniature pocket keyring hydrogen bombs et al., then you have “the family” that has provided you with the lodgings, education, nourishment and home life throughout the course of your privileged upbringing presumably necessary to attain the stance in society whereby you have the disposable income to purchase such items.

“The family” is successful in its own right. It made you what you are, it got you to where you are today. You're successful, you've made it, and now you're going to build on that success by buying one of whatever Mr. Shitface is dangling like a droopy marshmallow on the end of his long pointy stick over your proverbial cage.

To be sure, I guess the element of depersonalisation in such a phrase is necessary for exactly the same reasons outlined above – the marketing boffins can't know for sure that whoever is reading their advert is going to fall into the aforementioned consumer demographic, so saying “buy a gift for your family” might ruffle some feathers and/or possibly be a bit un-PC.

But really, I guess the whole feel-good-about-yourself-because-you're-a-wealthy-urban-guerilla-connotation that comes with it is just an unexpected bonus – like finding that your laptop doubles as a place setter. Bon appetite, and don't you go handling those crackers irresponsibly, you hear?.

Built to last

Christmas time always seems to bring out the techno-head in me, so it is with a healthy suspicion when I say that for no particular reason, I decided today I would write a blog entry about Toughbooks. I may as well have chosen to write one about Siberian snow leopards. But I've spent the past year working with the damned things and for all their interminable bloody quirks, the things have grown on me, when I'm not curtailing my urge to put the manufacturer claims to the test in the most spectacular way possible and hurl them into the nearest solid surface or Atlantic maelstrom at warp factor 5. I like their old-fashioned quality. They're solidly built and well made, which I guess is appropriate and a real breath of fresh air when every other notebook and/or/ prosumer product in general these days is crappy plastic or some substitute thereof, cooked up in a chemical vat somewhere next door to the WMD factory. And they incorporate all the best elements of the wave of trendy tablety-stylusey computing-type thingy consumer devices that have hit the shelves in recent years. I don't think I would be making too outlandish a statement to say that they basically channel the spirit of the mouse-bot from Star Wars in notebook form. I won't use the word cute. That would be committing political suicide. But anyway, hopefully you get what I'm on about. I'm really not sure I do, so some help might be appreciated in this department. 

This in conjunction with the venerable Lumix dynasty of compact cameras convinces me that Panasonic are quite capable of making some good stuff and quite possibly one of the key players that will cause DSLR's to become a thing of the past for the enthusiast or hobbyist in the conceivable future. I splashed out for a Canon 550D approx. 7 months ago (just before the 600D landed and caused the price to drop, grr) and now kind of wish I hadn't – the range of compact cameras that are on par with DSLRs in terms of image quality is steadily increasing every time I turn my head to look, like some kind of aggressive mutant algae on the colourfully exaggerated mural of my perceptions of the camera market.

Funny how neither of the invincible heavyweight duo (Cannikon)'s offerings in this area have caught my eye quite as readily. Powershot and Coolpix are names that are known to me, but they just don't have the same up-there or trendy connotations of something like a Lumix, Olympus EP-series or a Finepix X100 (drools) Which reminds me... Anyone want to trade? Kiss X4 plus two lenses, Tamron 17-50 & Canon 50mm 1.8, both with hoods & 52mm polarising filter for the latter. Chuck Fujifilm's second-to-latest offering, duly mentioned above in my direction and I'll consider. No, I'm not talking about the X10. None of that popcorn-snack-sized Roman rubbish. (Disclaimer: Above offer may not actually be propositioned in seriousness and may possibly be the result of the author talking glibly out of his ass, as usual)

I do digress, don't I? I may have to amend my initial statement about this blog post being about Toughbooks, because as it turns out, it's really not. I would have bored you all senseless if it were, anyway, because no-one's heard of the damn things who doesn't shoot terrorists or chase dinosaurs for a living. But I suppose there is a common thread here, and it goes something like this: Build quality is a drawcard for the lay consumer as well as the professional, and when you mix quality build with antique retro aesthetics, more often than not you get something really rather nice. My 550D is not really built for outdoor shooting. I know the 5D Mark II (now there's something I really would trade my entire camera kit and quite possibly a substantial number of other valuable things in my possession for as well) has that beautifully constructed magnesium-alloy body and all the other trappings of professional ruggedness much like the 1D Mark IV, the Nikon D700, D3s or whatever else have you. Whenever it starts raining, I run for the nearest solid object between me and the man upstairs taking a leak. I guess it's not all about the camera body, there's no way you can keep an expensive lens swaddled in cotton wool forever, and if you're going to be shooting in downpour or thunderstorms or lava flows or biblical apocalypses you would probably be best off throwing in your lot with the Canon camp and dropping multiple weeks' worth of pay checks on an L lens that is specifically weather-sealed. But I like things that are metal or alloy or wood or solid fibreglass, things that seem to be well-made, things that seem to come from the real world that you can picture some old guy sitting in a room spending hours polishing and buffing to the extent that he can look in the front panel and see his own reflection and remember that he forgot to put his monocle on that morning and shrivel up in embarrassment.

It's not just about the functional properties of the build. When you own an item that you perceive to be quality, you are inclined to look after it better, you anticipate the results it delivers with a more positive outlook. There is a definite market out there for lay-level consumers who like products that affect an air of quality construction, whether or not they actually are, or whether they have any idea of the technical intricacies that define it as well-made or otherwise. I definitely bloody don't. The Leica M9 could be stuffed with newspaper and old Cheezels inside and I wouldn't have a clue.

As a side note, I'm wondering if this has anything to do with an infusion of the steampunk aesthetic popularised in recent films like Sucker Punch or the Bioshock franchise? The technology in those textual worlds have a common, definite sense of the internal workings of devices being made transparent. You can see all their gears and knobs and levers going like the inventors were using the Incredible Machine as their prototype simulator. Mousetrap hits see-saw which strikes match which lights rocket fuse which blows hole in wall causing water to flood through and power turbine. You might not get exactly the same effect with a Cf-18 Toughbook or a Fujifilm X100, but you still get the undeniable impression that it was made using real materials not mined on the Moon, it has a real weight and substance to it. It's part of the built environment, it will last when your 50mm 1.8s or school-lunchbox notebooks are biting the carpet.

Oh and Digitalrev fixed their site! This is worth celebrating. I am impressed mucho.