Tuesday 16 December 2008

Nucular Christmas.

Yesterday - twenty-four years too late - I finally got around to watching Threads, the harrowing UK docudrama about the aftermath of nuclear war. Man alive; that was one harrowing televisual experience and no mistake. It put me in a deep funk that could not be assuaged even with chocolate biscuits. There are only so many charred accountants and melted housewives you can stand on a Sunday afternoon.

Luckily for me, three hours later I had an appointment to see Wayne Coyne introduce his film Christmas on Mars at the Barbican. I was hoping for an antidote of sorts, but in fact it was suprisingly boring (imagine a student film aiming for “Plan 9 meets Dead Man meets Eraserhead” but ending up instead as a tedious semiotic montage of Nude Baby meets Giant Vagina meets Santa Claus).

Still: great nap. Best cinema nap ever! (Well, second best, after the one I had in 1997 during the re-released Return of the Jedi. That high quality hour of REM sleep - accompanied as it was by the roaring surround sound of speeder bikes zooming through the forests of Endor - remains one of my life’s high points.)

It must be said, however, that Christmas on Mars’s dullness was tempered by Coyne introducing it in person. He’s such a jaunty, life-affirming presence I’ll forgive him almost any transgression.

So at least I wasn’t thinking about nuclear winter when I left.

Which was nice.

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