Spooks

Like many people, my previous standard for TV-drama-as-crack-cocaine-substitute was the early seasons of the Amercian series 24, a programme that started good, got better in its second run, and then gradually, sadly, descended into a mire of repetitive plots and neo-con torture porn fantasy.

Despite this sad demise, I never really expected to find anything in TV quite as breathlessly exciting as 24's early classic moments, such as the villainous Nina Myers holding Jack Bauer under gunshot whilst demanding a pardon for his murder in echange for crucial information, prior to actually committing it...

I'd reckoned without the British spy series Spooks. Having discovered Spooks about 7 or 8 years to late, I've happily had a lot of DVD box sets to catch up on. For those that don't know, Spooks follows an anti-terrorist unit in the British domestic secret service MI-5. Unlike most such series (and the above-mentioned 24), Spooks is not afraid to kill off its heroes; whether someone makes it to the end of the season or not is never a certainty and that ramps up the tension considerably.

Spooks' finest moment for me so far has been season 7, the opening episode of which sees the leading man of the last 4 years killed in a car bombing and which then accelerates through multiple twists and turns towards the discovery of a mole in MI-5 in the penultimate episode. Had the series stopped there, it would have already rated as one of my favourite spy dramas... but then comes the final episode in which the world is turned upside down, no-one can be trusted, villains turn to heroes and all join a frantic chase to prevent the destruction of London in a faked terrorist incident.

Try getting to sleep after you've seen that one.

Banlieu 13 (the original)

Seeing the sequel to this film made me want to watch the original again.

To be honest, I'd actually forgotten quite how awesome this is. Of course it's not so much a film as an 80 minute demonstration of the art of parkour - and that's just perfect. The action, courtesy of Cyril Raffaeilli and David Belle, is pure visual poetry.

Banlieue 13 - Ultimatum

Is it as good as the first Banlieue 13? Of course not, that would be too much to hope for, but it's still the best free-running, martial arts-fighting, police conspiracy action flick you'll see until the next time Luc Besson deigns to do something like this again.

Rent

As I write this, I am listening to the Pet Shop Boys song Rent, from the 1987 album Actually. I've written earlier in the this blog about being a big fan of the Pet Shop Boys, and how their last couple of albums restored my faith after a rough period in the late 90s / early 00s, but this 22 year-old single remains their finest moment and my easy answer to the question 'what's your favourite pop song ever?'.

This song is the perfect example of everything that makes the Pet Shop Boys great: Superior, yet chart friendly, melodic synth music underpinning Neil Tennant's bored-sad speak-singing voice (making it comfortably easy to ignore what the song's actually about); combined with lyrics that, if you actually bother to listen to them, are like being punched very hard in the heart.

Derek Jarman's video was just the icing on the cake.

Star Trek

It's, um, really good actually. I hadn't quite expected that.

Anton Mauve at the Teylers Museum

Today I visited the Teylers Museum in the beautiful city of Haarlem, in order to see their exhibition of the work of Anton Mauve (who tutored Vincent van Gogh). The show is part of a joint venture with the Singer Laren museum, which together forms the largest ever exhibition of Mauve's work, with many pieces flown in from foreign collections (particularly from the US) and including works from private collections that would not normally be shown to the public.

The result, at least the part that can be seen in the Teylers, is stunning: A luminous (the term is particularly appropriate in the context of the oil paintings) collection of works from a master who, it seems, could effortlessly succeed at everything: Magnificent large oil paintings, oil sketches, drawings, etches done as a hobby... all present, all wonderful.

I can't wait to see the rest at the Singer Laren.

Incendiary

Had I read the reviews before hiring the DVD on a whim, I probably wouldn't have bothered watching this film about a grieving mother in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing that killed her husband and child. According to most of the aforementioned reviews, the film is a mess rescued only partially by Michelle William's convincing performance. I'm glad I hadn't read the reviews because, whilst I agree the script is messy and the dialogue poor in parts, the film as a whole is still worth watching and contains a couple of bravura moments.

One of those moments is the scene in which the two men left in the heroine's life (her journalist neighbour, with whom she was having an affair, and her husband's boss in the police force) meet for the first, and only, time. Played by Ewan McGregor and Matthew MacFadyen, this is one scene where the dialogue definitely doesn't let the actors down and both give a pitch perfect performance as two strangers who already know everything about each other and are already at war.

Builders

There are builders outside my window laying new paving. My thought: Why must most pop music be so terminally average?

Angels and Demons... and Lancia.

The other night I watched Angels and Demons on DVD. It was quite a pleasant surprise after The Da Vinci Code. Whereas its predecessor was an overcomplicated, leaden affair only really worth watching for Ian McKellan's excellent villain, the newer film is a simpler, more straightforward, thriller and all the better for it.



Much of the film is spent with the protagonists chasing across Rome in a sleek black Italian car, racing to get to the next plot point on time. The sleek black car in question being Lancia's rather lovely new Delta model:



This car features very heavily in the film (succesful and presumably expensive product placement by Lancia) and was of interest to me because, while I'm less interested in cars than I was when I was younger, I'm still a big fan of the Lancia marque - despite its dismal history in recent decades.

In the first half of the 20th century, Lancia was an ultra-luxury brand that competed with few others to build the best motor cars possible, irrespective of cost. In the 1950s they combined pioneering technology (including the world's first V6 engine) with beautiful, innovative styling in the Aurelia B20 coupe, to create an entirely new class of car - the Grand Tourer:



If I had to pick one car as my all-time favourite, this half-century old coupe would be it. It has everything: A great history, competition succes, innovative mechanicals and one of the most beautiful shapes of any car - with room for four adults inside. The Aurelia B20 was astronomically expensive when new; it was what you bought when you wanted the best and cost was no object. I can't think of any other car I'd like to have more.

Later on, in the 60s and 70s, Lancia (now owned by Fiat) moved downmarket and built cheaper, more mainstream cars. At first, this was a succes - producing compact gems like the Fulvia, the coupe version of which is car number 2 in my dream garage. In the longer term, however, the rot set in. Despite the odd exceptional product like the famous Delta Integrale (one of the most succesful rally cars in history) in the 1980s, Lancia had fallen from making the finest cars on the planet to making badly-built, boxily-styled rebodied Fiats like the Dedra and Thema (though the latter was not entirely without charm). In export markets, Lancia's sales plummeted. Right-hand drive versions for markets like Britain were cancelled entirely. In recent years, Lancia have only sold well in Italy.

The new Delta pictured above is Lancia's attempt at a real comeback. It's being marketed heavily and they're even being reintroduced to international markets long since abandoned, like Britain. Though mechanically related to a model from parent company Fiat, the Delta is a quite different beast - longer, sleeker, roomier, better finished and equipped. All petrol models are turbo-charged and even the most basic version sprints to 100km/h in less than 10 seconds. The initial road tests of the car are positive and it bristles with interesting details like the elegant LED lighting. Far more importantly however, having seen examples of this car driving around several times now, I can confirm: It looks like a Lancia.

Musical serendipity

While in Madrid, I bought this CD on a whim - wanting to sample something 'local'. I had never heard of the group Vetusta Morla or this, what turned out to be their debut, abum En dia en el mundo ('A day in the world'), but just picked it up as it was in the Spanish top 5 and had a cool cover. Occasionally, such randomness can make for a nice surprise, but more often than not it leads to disappointment.

In this case, I needn't have worried: This CD is a delight. If you ever wondered what really good Spanish indie music sounded like, this is it. Particular gems are the subdued and lovely tracks Copenhangue and Al Respira. Very strongly recommended.