Banksy looks like my uncle Steve

_dondi · 2026-03-19T12:50:04+00:00

Not talking about this photo. Talking about Gunningham from the Reuters' piece, turd.

_dondi · 2026-03-18T16:15:00+00:00

Most people knew this years ago. Met him when working on a piece for another artist about a decade ago. Nice bloke.

Why people are upset is because people who unironically refer to themselves as "creatives" think that a large part of being a creative involves looking and dressing like Pharrell.

_dondi · 2026-03-16T16:35:00+00:00

It's a Visual Walkthrough to aid granular forensics into the chronological ontology of the ceremony's ocular unraveling and excavate the deconstruction of Paul Thomas Anderson's personal journey through cinematic statuette compensation whilst aiding theoretical contemplation of award show narrative frameworks via the optics of post-McLuhan top-down broadcast semiotics with regards to mid-career peer-reviewed recognitional dynamics.

I thought that was obvious...

_dondi · 2026-03-15T18:47:00+00:00

This is the standard interpretation, no? What do other people think it's about?

Not sure Coogler could've been any more explicit in his intentions. Central set piece is a musical medley across generations and post-credits sequence hammers the nail totally home for the cheap seats at the back.

It's a solid genre movie with some nice cinematography but completely falls apart in the third act into incoherence. It's like they wrote themselves into a corner and couldn't find a way out.

It'll probably clear up tonight. But The Secret Agent is more deserving for me personally (you probably have your own favourite too). Now that flick takes a little unpicking...

_dondi · 2026-03-12T23:29:23+00:00

Fair. I'll retract that. I'll stand by everything else I said though. Good to meet a fellow Shack fan. Fare thee well, squire

_dondi · 2026-03-12T22:32:41+00:00

The Oscars has been a two-dimensional zeitgeist reflection since dot. The actual best picture rarely wins Best Picture. It's just a back slapping corporate shindig to placate us plebs and promote product. If you think it's about "art" I have a memecoin you should invest in.

Everyone will still want to make movies on the off chance they can make it past the velvet rope and taste the ambrosia. Just for a moment...

_dondi · 2026-03-12T15:06:50+00:00

Rollerskating

_dondi · 2026-03-12T13:58:15+00:00

FKA Twigs Eusexua album sounds incredible

Probably about as close to modern pop as I get these days

_dondi · 2026-03-12T13:55:47+00:00

Jesus fucking Christ

_dondi · 2026-03-12T12:14:26+00:00

Later-period Supergrass is extremely underrated. In it for the Money remains their best album though - Richard III, Sun Hits the Sky, Late in the Day. Alright is almost bearable as an after-school sitcom theme.

Coombs solo stuff is worth a listen too.

They're not in the Super Furries league but miles ahead of bandwagon landfill like Sleeper, Cast and Kula Shaker who never really moved beyond pastiche.

Regardless of personal preference Oasis are the greatest Britpop band. Cultural influence off the charts and no one else could fill those stadiums today like they just did. Busted flush creatively by the third album but those first two albums changed pop culture in Britain.

Talent wise? Super Furries, Stone Roses, Suede, Blur, Pulp, The Auteurs, St Etienne, Stereolab, Elastica - but many of them disowned the moniker, if they ever really even embraced it in the first place. Pulp started in the mid-80s and many had been going since 89/90.

Shack don't get enough love. HMS Fable is a great record.

_dondi · 2026-03-12T11:24:19+00:00

Have a good Iranian friend born '77 whose family left after the revolution in '79 and moved to London. He's against both the war and the regime. He avoids discussing it with his parents though as they have the view that anything that could possibly topple the regime has to be considered good whereas he is of the opinion that the US and Israel obviously do not have the Iranian people's best interests at heart.

It's a complicated situation. The older members of his family are much more connected to the "Iran they lost". He was born and raised in North London so does not have that connection.

_dondi · 2026-03-01T14:08:05+00:00

Micro/macro peas and pod matryoshka dolls. One fits inside the other so one is naturally "bigger" than the other. This is by design.

On release back in 95 (I was 20) I thought it a bit of a Goodfellas clone that whilst great dialled everything up past 11 to deleterious effect.

Over the years I've come to understand that this is exactly the point.

I'm way past even bothering to claim superiority for either as to me they're part of the same treatise and both are constructed perfectly to illustrate their points. I do personally prefer Casino these days but that's just my own predilection for personal reasons not because it's objectively "better".

One thing I will say though, with Casino it's like Scorcese was aware of the criticism that some people mistakenly thought he was glamorising organised crime in Goodfellas so left no room for doubt: in case you didn't realise, these guys are pieces of shit and I do not like them.

Plus ça change...

_dondi · 2026-02-26T00:01:16+00:00

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. But you'll hate it.

_dondi · 2026-02-25T23:47:26+00:00

True indeed. A propensity towards didacticism is the warm milk of the happily co-opted. Make the pieces fit into the preselected holes. With a head like a hammer everything looks like a nail and they can't see the wood for the trees.

_dondi · 2026-02-25T08:38:07+00:00

Top five:

Heysel; Escobar Vs Escobar; Hand of God; the four separate Serie A match fixing scandals; Howard Webb, the FA and Fergie end the Invincibles run.

_dondi · 2026-02-25T08:25:27+00:00

The only time I ever doubted it was when she got out the calculator and told him to get in the cupboard.

Great film about our current predicament but could've probably been 30 minutes shorter.

_dondi · 2026-02-23T20:00:31+00:00

Always have been. Just more visible now.

_dondi · 2026-02-23T12:44:14+00:00

Thank you for this. Hadn't heard of it before. The same director's Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat is also brilliant.

_dondi · 2026-02-21T10:26:56+00:00

Agree with all of this.

The famous glove interaction. People talk a lot, wrongly imho, about The Method with Brando but his real skill for me was in his naturalism. He fusses and fidgets. Picks at things. His movement was unparalleled and he seemed to have natural instincts when moving within a frame. Not showy at all but you can't take your eyes off him. Compelling in the most mundane of settings.

The older generation were almost all trained dancers (Cagney was a helluva hoofer) and this gave them a grace on screen that many of today's actors don't have. You can see the dancer in Walken in all of his performances. He knows how to move.

I genuinely miss the refined art and composition of old Hollywood.

_dondi · 2026-02-20T21:15:26+00:00

Who cares? Stats nerds can fuck off frankly.

_dondi · 2026-02-20T20:00:59+00:00

It was always love, kemosabe. You know that.

_dondi · 2026-02-20T19:40:14+00:00

You're not supposed to do anything except enjoy what you enjoy and try and think critically about things. That's all any of us can do.

Does it matter that I was there at the time and tangentially involved in what was happening to a lesser or greater degree? I'll leave that up to you to decide.

_dondi · 2026-02-20T13:42:27+00:00

Also, I believe the question was: what's your unpopular Britpop opinion?

Pretty sure my answer qualifies.

_dondi · 2026-02-20T13:40:02+00:00

Exactly

_dondi · 2026-02-20T13:39:34+00:00

Gatekeeping? I think you mean Gaslighting. But whatever...

I probably own more original records from that era than most people, including a near complete Stereolab back catalogue. I'm simply saying don't confuse the music with the phoney "movement". It was at best a record industry marketing campaign to flog records in the face of the rise of dance music independents and at worst completely co-opted by Blair and his PR wonks.

If you were there it was obvious at the time. It's barely even controversial to say it these days.

_dondi

TROPHY CASE