Demob Happy

Journey to the ends of the Earth (and back)

9/10
The fifth Paul Theroux travel book I have read (i’ve posted reviews of ‘The Kingdom by the Sea’ and ‘The Old Patagonian Express’ here and here), ‘The Great Railway Bazaar‘ is in fact his first and arguably most rewarding. If you are familiar with Theroux’s writing you [...]

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Good karma
9/10
‘Spring Snow‘ is a 1966 novel by Yukio Mishima, the first in his Sea of Fertility tetralogy that concerns itself principally with themes of love, death and reincarnation. It’s an evocative and at times philisophical novel, rendered into English with the apparently painstaking care and meticulous spirit in which it was written. [...]

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Letters from Iwo Jima
7.5/10
The main obstacle to engaging with Clint Eastwood’s admirable ‘Letters From Iwo Jima‘ is the saturation of battle imagery in modern cinema. This is a front-line war film which, while dealing with notions of memory, compassion, cowardice and honour, takes place largely on the battlefield. From the misguidedly mawkish ‘Saving Private [...]

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The best summation of Murakami’s talents?
8/10
‘Dance Dance Dance‘ is probably the ideal place for any Murakami novice to start as it is a compelling summation of the author’s singular moods and preoccupations. It combines some of the themes of grief, loss and memory of novels like ‘Norweigan Wood‘, but less oppressively so, and the [...]

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Another View Point
7/10
Keigo Oyamada - aka Cornelius - has a curious sound that is at once lush and acoustic, but proudly synthetic and occassionally a little sterile. Point’s mix of funky house, beach boy harmonies, garage rock and other electronic ephemera feels somehow both spontaneously breezy and painstakingly intricate. The digital production is so fine, [...]

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Geishas go to Disneyland
3/10
Memoirs of a Geisha represents the Disneyfication of Japanese culture and the utter debasement of Arthur Golden’s fine book. Although the book is written in English by a westerner, that does not excuse the lazy stereotyping in this film: the variable accents, the use of popular Chinese actresses (as if it doesn’t [...]

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Tokyo dreaming
9/10
One of the best soundtracks in recent memory (the best since Morvern Callar - great music, shame about the movie), Lost in Translation is an evocative collection of tracks that recall the unique atmosphere of the film. My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields complements tracks by the likes of Squarepusher (in one of his more [...]

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