The best of your comments on the latest films and music
For the benefit of those who were slightly baffled by the whole thing, we'll begin with a quick summary of the comments beneath last week's Beady Eye interview. (Some paraphrasing has been employed.) Liam Gallagher is a cock. Liam Gallagher is not a cock. Oasis were terrible. Oasis were the greatest British band in decades. Oasis ripped off the Beatles. Liam Gallagher thinks he's John Lennon. Liam Gallagher is no John Lennon. The Beatles ripped off loads of people. What do we really mean by the concept of heredity? Radiohead are boring. Radiohead are miles better than Oasis or Beady Eye. People who like Oasis and Beady Eye are stupid. People who don't like Oasis and Beady Eye are posh and patronising.
That dispensed with, let's move on to explosions, the subject of Anne Billson's column last week, in which she pleaded for more restraint when film-makers blow things up. Vercoda felt Anne didn't go far enough, that more surprising would be to eschew explosions altogether: "What would be much more explosive than another car, building, city or planet blowing up? A man and a woman in a film having a mild, mundane disagreement as happens between people every day, but then ? SLAP. For me, that kind of sudden, intense, visual violence ? a hand connecting with a face, is much more contentious, more explosive, more disturbing and more thought-provoking than any number of ? yawn ? Things Blowing Up."
Rob Boffard was upbraided by some readers for leaving Die Antwoord out of his survey of South African hip-hop. "Is it because they is white?" wondered disgraceful. "This article seems to have been an exercise in writing about SA hip-hop without mentioning Die Antwoord," added Swedinburgh, though CharlesSurface responded: "Die Antwoord? Sorry, but no. They're a comedy act compared to the guys in the article." More interesting, perhaps, was TClementsUK's consideration of one of South Africa's own forms of pop: "Is kwaito more the voice of the South African people than hip-hop is? I've always imagined it to be a sort of localised interpretation of hip-hop comparable to what grime music is over here ? ie the sort of sound that blares out of inner-city bedrooms. Hip-hop in countries other than the US seems to either be a derivative interpretation of US mainstream rap music or a very cliquey, select group of musicians devoted to turntablism and multi-styling reminiscent of the mid-90s."
SocalAlex wanted to know where the great British-Asian film-makers were after reading Sarfraz Manzoor's piece about how their work was changing as the years pass. "One of the things that puzzles me is that while, as a whole, ethnic minorities are better represented in public life in Britain than in most of the rest of Europe, there still aren't, IMO, any Asian or black directors who can really rank at the top of their craft globally," he wrote. "I sometimes wonder if it has to do with the British film industry in general, which seems stuck between chasing the American audience (� la costume dramas and Richard Curtis), mining genres for all they're worth, or the self-consciously political (ie Loach and, in his own way, Leigh). Where is the British Fatih Akin, for example? The Turkish-German director has almost single-handedly dragged his country's film-making into the 21st century, with his multi-faceted, multilingual vision of contemporary, multicultural Germany in a globalised world. What's more, he achieves the extremely rare feat of being both a domestic box-office hit and a film-festival and arthouse darling."
Finally, a word from music site regular DarceysDad, who wants to draw your attention to an album we haven't even reviewed, Cowboy Junkies' collection of songs by the late Vic Chesnutt. "Constantly surprising, very upbeat, there is a warmth to this record that positively powers out from the speakers. Chesnutt is celebrated rather than mourned, and it works a treat." You have been told.
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