Barbarella

Last night I watched the 1967 movie Barbarella based on the comic book by Jean-Claude Forest.  The movie was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda as intergalactic agent Barbarella who is ordered to investigate the mysterious disappearance of scientist Durand-Durand and his latest invention, a weapon called the "Positronic Ray".  Along the way, Barbarella faces feral children, carniverous robot dolls, a labyrinth which absorbs people into it's walls and the Great Tyrant (Anita Pallenberg).  However she has help from a hunky blind angel (John Phillip Law), and a dim-witted revolutionary (David Hemmings).

This film is so sixties.  The whole tone is set in the famous opening credits sequence where Barbarella peels off a spacesuit in a zero gravity striptease in her fur-lined spaceship, to a cheery song (called "Barbarella Psychadela"). The film mixes science-fiction, fantasy, comedy mild eroticism into sexy, campy, fun nonsense.  At times it feels like a big budget porn film with all the sex scenes cut out.   It's fun if you're in the mood for it, the special effects are ropey, and some of the acting is pretty hammy, but it is fun.  Also in Barbarella, you have a female lead character, who enjoys and very much takes control of her own sexuality.

It's a massive cult film now and very much part of popular culture.  By the way, the 1980s band Duran Duran took their name from this film.

A Small Town in Germany

I finished reading A Small Town in Germany by John le Carre. The book, first published in 1968, is set in Bonn, West Germany during the 1960s, a town in turmoil with radical groups and riots in the streets. When Leo Harting, second secretary at the British Embassy in Bonn, goes missing along with over forty confidential files, embittered Foreign Office agent Alan Turner is sent from London to investigate. As Turner learns more about Harting's secret life, he finds himself increasingly drawn into the murky, dangerous world of Cold War espionage.  

The story is predominately told in a series of abrasive confrontations and interrogations between Turner and members of the Embassy, with a minimum of action. The book vividly depicts the enclosed world of the British Embassy (le Carre himself worked at the British Embassy in Bonn for several years, so he knew what he was talking about). It may be slow moving for some, and the nominal "hero" is pretty much a complete dick to everyone he encounters, but it is a beautifully written novel and paints a powerful, deeply cynical portrait of the 1960s spy world.

I'm a huge le Carre fan, and this isn't really his best, but it is still worth checking out, and as it goes along it becomes quite involving.

Hello

Hi,

Welcome to my new blog.

I'm a cartoonist and I have a couple of blogs for my webcomics Landslides and Tales of the Weird.  In this blog I'm going to be talking about books, movies, and anything else that comes into my mind really.

Enjoy!