Kathryn Williams - The Quickening

I’ve only wonderful things to write about Kathryn Williams’ new record ‘The Quickening’. Whilst it’s easy to have a soft spot for dainty folk- the audible equivalent of wistfully gazing into candle flames- this album is all the more marvellous for being filled with unpretentious, devilishly pretty music.

Each song possesses an airy grace, and a pace as slow as the closing of heavy eyelids: consequently the whole record seems to twine into a wonderland of slow yearning. There’s humour there too though, the light hearted merriment of ‘Wanting and Waiting’, mixes against songs that sound like sighs of self-reflection.

Kathryn’s voice beguiles through simplicity, her songs are personal without being navel gazing, and the music grows to envelope the space you're in; one minute it’s a nice song in the background, next you’ve been charmed into paying attention to it alone. Great stuff; out in February, and she's touring too.

Here she is on a previous outing with Neill MacColl...

Film Review: The Box

Oh. Dear. God.

The Button Unit. Yes, that's really what it's called.

I tried to see the Men Who Stared at Goats yesterday. I really did. Even going so far as to briskly walk into the dark depth of shady Cardiff to the lovely, but badly located, Chapter cinema; alas it was only to find for some inexplicable reason (read as my incompetence) that it was on earlier on Wednesdays. As my friend and I hastily awayed to more civilised climes we settled on Paranormal Activity, a decision that was at least half popular (with me). Inexplicably and somewhat suspiciously we arrived too late, so by default The Box became our poison of choice, and by it we were doomed.

I'd rather eat my own curried optic nerve than watch this long winded, directionless drivel again. Indeed as one of the few people not to be crazy over Donny bloody Darko, I didn't exactly have high hopes for Richard Kelly's latest outing - The Box. I should of known better and pitched any sense of expectation in a subterranean cave; one so dark that the flickerings of life inside have never seen light. The only thing to like about this film was that it wasn't Sunshine ("for seven years I've talked with God": can you hear my teeth grinding out there?) which like The Box is a massive waste of life. Other geninue plus points? Frank Langella's make-up, maybe, certainly his tailoring; for the duration of the film I was a Woman Who Stared at Coats.... and sighed.

As to the nitty-gritty of the picture; I'll charitably say that the first twenty minutes are interesting enough; the trailed premise of a million dollars for sanctioning the death of someone you don't know is mildly thought provoking. More so when you hear the entire cinema to a man all whooping and shouting "yes!" - that made me worry, and I thought it was the civilised bit of Cardiff!

As for the rest; oh god no. No. No. No. Oh, it's awful; mystery is throw upon mystery until the whole thing creaks with the weight of its own tediousness, and instead of being engaged, you find yourself consigned to boredom. Just when you think it can't get any worse, trust me it does; the plot takes a turn for the utterly farcical. None of this film fits together - it feels as if it's been heavily edited to deliberately remove any coherence, and yet the bits that are left in labour heavily, like a ragtag child with a particularly splodgy potato print, just to make sure you understand what someone thought was obviously a fiendishly clever plot.

The Box is really, really, truly god-awful. I can't stress this enough. If I do one good thing this year I hope it's saving someone some time and money by dissuading them from going to see this pile of steaming offal.

Put it in a box, tie it with a ribbon, and fling the whole crescendo of dull down the nearest open sewer.

Film Review: Where the Wild Things Are

Directed by Spike Jonze, written - Spike Jonze & David Eggers, starring Max Records, James Gandolfini, Catherine Keener, Paul Dano, Lauren Ambrose and Forest Whitaker.

Looks good, doesn't it?

Yesterday I sniffled back a snuffle and tried not to get all maudlin to 'Where the Wild Things Are'. The plot, in case you don't know, involves the adventure of an angry young boy called Max; one evening he runs away from home, finds an island, and convinces the mosterous inhabitants that he's their king - 'Let the wild rumpus commence!'

It's melancholy rather than wild though; sad-sweet, like a terrible Jim Croche ballad that you shouldn't like, but that somehow makes you wistful, though this film is far classier than Jim and far more engaging to look at than his furry face. The verdit is: it's good. Jonze and Eggers capture the crushing inarticulacies of childhood: I know all the angst, rage, inability to continually do the right thing, not to mention the delightful inventiveness, flooded out from my deep dark past as soon as the silver screen started to flicker.

When watching you remember what it's like to be that little, and not just the bad parts of stomping, crying and slamming doors at the injustice of the world, though this gloomier aspect is firmly in the driving seat. I don't remember the book too well (wow, what pictures) but I'd have thought the process of being King of the Wild Things would have been more joyful. Then again, perspectives change. I don't like the idea of a tiger coming to tea anymore either! Regardless, the introspection isn't a bad thing. Chaos, forts, wrinkled brows and wobbling lips. That really seemed like the old days to me.

The island of the Wild Things is a surprisingly physical place; the cliffs are hard work for a small boy, there are long walks to take and the monsters throw themselves about with gusto, providing piquant moments of comedy. I loved the puppets actually, especially the way they were able to interact with weight since they're not just CGI. I did wish they'd cheer up a bit at times though; speak with some animation rather than their half-committed drawl. That said, the Wild Things are interesting fusions of children who need mothers and strangely unknowable adults, bundled into feathers and fur. Max Records also aquits himself very well indeed.

Would little ones enjoy this? I'm not sure; partly because it's quite slow, but mostly I think they'd find the monsters incomprehesibly sad indeed. Then again maybe not, as all my evidence points to the contrary; I sat in a cinema with 60 (very well behaved - well done) small children who watched enraptured - their only noise was laughter. It is, however, quite rightly a PG.

Where the Wild Things Are made me feel very grownup, despite giving me back a bit of my childhood; I constantly wanted to explain to Max and his chums what they needed, or to tell them off. It remind me how far away I've gotten from being able to visit that island, but I still remember the reasons why I'd have wanted to go - that powerful sense of rebellion came as a marvelous shock.

Incidentally the Karen O's soundtrack is pretty marvelous too and compliments the picture nicely.

You Can Do It With A Sailor from Peru to Venezuela

What's not to like about Alma Cogan's 1954 hit - 'You Must Never Do a Tango With An Eskimo'? It's festive, but not overplayed; there's cheesy horn section blowing whilst party girl Alma trips around witty lyrics, sounding as merry as gran tippling a Snowball, and what's more you can swing about to it under the mistletoe.

As for taking a turn with the Eskimo, who could resist?

• Alma Cogan - You Must Never Do a Tango With an Eskimo

Charismatically Challenged

I live in tent made of Beaver skin. Is good. Tsarina stiched it herself.

It's day two of the 'Hundred Days' project, and though I'm not intending to blog about all the rinky-dinky little pictures I'm planning to draw, I am taking advantage of striking whilst the inspiration iron is dazzlingly white hot. Well, luke-warmish. In all fairness I'm put to shame by some really great blogs, and some interesting self improving ideas, including; a classy art blog, limericks, learning about stuff and 140 character plays. So, I'm drowning not waving whilst trying to do my bit

Above is first sketch of a Rasputin caricature, object of my current fixation- I'm now on biography number two (in a week). This post was going to be about the nature of obsession itself, but it became a bit of a solipsistic drawl, blathering on about my amazing abilities at tetris and the price my compulsive, but crippled, thumbs have paid.

Then it was going to be about charisma, given that Rasputin was a one suave charmer, and charismatic people would seem, on the face of it, to be an interesting subject. I should confess though that this is the third draft, the quasi-educational number two has also been consigned to the great recycle bin in the sky; you'll never get to know charismatic facts concerning greek etymology, Rasputin's hypnotic eyes, the defunct charisma record label, or Jan Matthys the cannibalistic (and compelling) anabaptist of Munster - though he's an interesting character and well worth looking up.

My conclusion is that charisma is really boring to write about; you try to describe the kind of burning magnetism that brings people to their knees, and end up with verbose drivel, such as; "thank goodness it's a rare thing in a person; as a group we all lived to be moved, to be inspired beyond our humble lives, and history teaches us again and again that the transformation comes with the risk of losing one's way". Bloody hell, I can be pompous. So, just go away and watch Sunset Blvd. instead, Norma's got bags of 'it', whatever 'it' is, or listen to some Pulp.

Here's one of my favourites to get you started;

• This is Hardcore - Pulp

The Christmas Tree

Wherever I am in the world, and whatever I may be doing, there is one thing that stops me dead in my tracks and drags me to the family home.... the Christmas Tree.

Bertie and the Demon Tree.*

Last year my Mother decorated the tree. Melodrama on par with "so it was you behind the curtain all along!" My Mother decorated the tree, and no matter what you may think about me being lucky to have a mother and so forth, the melodrama is justified because -she just hung stuff anywhere. Yes, that's right, you heard me correctly, hung it anywhere, with no regard to size, shape or colour! That may not sound like the kind of disaster that opens a vortex to some evil dimension peopled with ducks, but- it was not not far off.

Tree decorating is an art. Shiny Christmas whatnot's simply cannot be flung willy-nilly onto branches; to do so is an abuse of the entire idea of Christmas. Hyperbole, I hear you cry, but no - the whole idea of dressing it is surely to produce nothing short of an ascetic delight akin to the Parthenon or the Mona Lisa. Maybe not the Mona Lisa, I've never liked that.

You think I'm taking this too seriously, right? That spending a couple of hours, possibly with a break in between to go out to get more of the right sort of baubles (Christmas 2005), is just shy of madness. Well, you're wrong. Like I said above, tree decorating is an art! I defy disagreement! Last year I spent three days scowling at the wrongly dressed tree before I secretly had to tweak it so it didn't offend my delicate (insane) sensibilities during Christmas dinner.

Where am I going with this? Last night my mother threatened to decorate the tree again, gleefully assigning herself the onerous task due to my convalesance (sounds so much grander than 'due to me lying on the settee, becoming one with a box of tissues'), and though I may be lying on my sickbed, all feverish and exhausted, that sort of fighting talk simply won't do. I may find myself sympathising more and more with a pre-Marley Scrooge each passing year, but I'll be damned if I let the tree go to hell in a handbasket. I know she bought new baubles and lights, and maybe she'd like a chance to decorate her tree by herself, with her trinkets, but no. She can't do a proper job. No one can. Just me. She knows this, I've told her so during many a pre-Christmas row.... and you can guess where this ends.

I've stayed up late and done it (ensuring that it was at least December before I began). Blame the insanity on me being an only child, but take into account that I'm forced to endure Christmas from an egregiously early date by my noel obsessed Mum.

On the plus side, I wasn't able to sleep anyway, and I did feel a bit more sprightly (i.e less snotty) when I began. It looks pretty good too, though the clashing themes of Victoriana (Christmasses 1990-2007) and funky modern woolly cats and such (2008-present) are causing some pain. Alas for the new lights however. My Mother, for reasons unknown, has bought red glowing orbs, which were no doubt designed by some delirious mind to resemble berries. Unfortunately the practical reality is that our tree looks like the devil's tree: full of red glowing eyes, reaching out to snare souls and unwanted Christmas pudding. The dog is both attracted and scared of it. He can't keep away, but whimpers when nearby, which I'm taking as a compliment of the highest order.

Seasons Greetings from an overgrown only child. Pinch, punch, first of the month and all that.

* Picking up a pen and drawing something is my hundred days pledge; in case you're wondering the Hundred Days thing is the brainchild of comedienne Josie Long, who urges us to do something for a hundred days to make ourselves better people. Find out more and pledge for yourself via Hundred Days.Net