What Will Robin Williams be Remembered For?

As I’m sure is the case for many others my age, my first real introduction to Robin Williams was via Disney’s Aladdin. A film that was being replayed in our house just last week. I remember being fascinated and highly amused by the originality and exuberance of this character of the Genie. Animation was probably the only art-form which could begin to contain this man’s effervescence.

The actual first film I saw him in was Popeye. I remember being amazed that he could do backflips. I recently found out that it was directed by Robert Altman!

I loved Hook as a boy. I thought it was such a great great idea. I loved watching Peter Pan rediscover his powers. I was fascinated by it.

Bicentennial Man was the first film we ever watched on DVD. We gathered round as a family and watched it on our Windows 98. I remember enjoying it. Especially some joke about bogies. Dad explained to us that it was not a happy ending that he dies at the end after two centuries (not a spoiler because it’s in the film’s title), death is the last enemy he told us.

We all loved Flubber too. That was great fun.

I remember watching Jim in school (a sort of Benjamin Button / Big type thing) and being heartbroken by the melancholy of it. A bit later on I watched Patch Adams, and actually liked it — again because of the sadness in his eyes. He was a ‘tears of the clown’ performer I think. No matter how funny he was being, there was always a sadness back there, especially in the eyes, that’s what made him especially engaging to watch in Good Will Hunting, despite the expected physical energy being absent.

I watched One Hour Photo this year. That’s another stripped back performance, but it ends up terrifying! Soon after that, Dad and I sat down to watch The Fisher King, and that’s a mix, a bit of the stripped back thing and a bit of the mad antics.

One shocking film he’s in is one that I think very few people have seen called Father of the Year World’s Greatest Dad. It’s about a Dad whose son kills himself, but he doesn’t miss his son, because his son was a horrible child. Despite this, Williams accepts all sorts of sympathy for the death of his son, (the gold and the girls) he even gets Bruce Hornsby — who his son hated, but he loved — to sing at the boy’s funeral. I think it was by the Donny Darko director.

All those films, but I’ve never seen Good Morning, Vietnam; Dead Poets Society or Awakenings!

My favourite Robin Williams thing I will remember him for is him being interviewed for the show Inside The Actors Studio. He is uncontainable. An interview with him one on one would have been mad enough, but put the guy in front of a crowd he’s on fire. 50000 impressions / riffs / jokes / physical tricks / slapstick gags / shouty wail things later, and I am a thoroughly impressed man. That same thing was what made him amazing to watch on Who’s Line is it Anyway too.

Another equally energetic, and — I get the sense — troubled actor is Jim Carrey. Dad always said that they should have done a film together, don’t know if that ever happened?

What does God think of Robin Williams? Someone on facebook said that Williams had sought some sort of evangelical soul-searching not too long ago, that’s interesting. We don’t know what happened in the last moments of his life.

I remember when Michael Jackson died, John Piper said that in the past minute 100 other people died too, 100 more souls going to meet with God.

Ultimately it doesn’t really matter how Robin Williams will be remembered. But it is important to acknowledge the extraordinary talent he had.

There are two great animated films that have completely differing messages. Incredibles says ‘if everyone is special, no one is’ and Lego Movie says ‘everyone is special’. But I think both are true. Yes, it’s true, there are the Robin Williamses of the world who are extraordinarily talented in an obvious way. But God has given every single one of us unique gifts, everyone is an interesting individual person. We mustn’t spend too long getting caught up with these celebrated heroes, because as we’ve seen today, they’re mortal. 

Really, it is we the living who must consider the question of whether the God who granted each of us these unique talents will be praised or passed by.

Not Jeff Goldblum as well.

I think God is choosing to show the western world how fleeting life is.

I appreciated John Piper’s tweet:

Farrah Fawcett (62), Michael Jackson (50) and 150,000 others: “A flower of the field; the wind passes, and it is gone.”

Like a thief in the night…

Top 5 reasons why men are 60% more likely to develop cancer in the UK.

A report out today suggests that men in the UK are 60% more likely to develop cancer than women. Why?

1. Men tend to prefer a more unhealthy way of living.

For example, men tend to prefer beer to wine, and:

Beer drinkers are more likely to buy unhealthy food such as chips and ready meals than people who prefer wine, a Danish study suggests.

2. More men smoke than women.

China Male Smokers: 50% China Women Smokers: 18%

US Male Smokers: 35% US Female Smokers: 20%

The trend tends to be the same in the UK also.

I’m sure you’ve heard some of these crazy rumours about smoking being bad for you.

3. Ignorance?

Women’s magazines are packed full of lists and articles all about the various different things that can cause you cancer; women are clued up about these things.

However men don’t know, and more importantly don’t really care if jelly beans kill you, and the other million things.

4. Men are more reluctant to seek medical help.

Men tend to be less eager to pay regular visits to the GP, they are often seen as wasting time and many males think ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. Whereas the issue could well be ‘it is broke and it needs fixing, but it don’t hurt right now so I’m not gonna think about it.’

5. It’s all about the X&Y!

According to Time magazine:

Women have two X chromosomes, while men have one. (Men have an X and a Y.) When cells go through aging and damage, they have a choice in terms of genes — either on one X chromosome or the other. Consider it this way: you have a population of cells, all aging together. In some cells, the genes on one X chromosome are active; in other cells, by chance, the same set of genes, with different variations, are active on the other X chromosome. Don’t forget, we all have the same genes — the reason we differ is because we express different variations of those genes, like different colors of a car. Now, if one set of variations provides a survival advantage for the cells versus another, then the cells with the advantage will persist while the other ones will die off, leaving behind more cells with the genes on the more advantageous X chromosome. So, in women, cells can perhaps be protected by a slightly better variation of a gene on the second X chromosome. Men don’t have this luxury and don’t get this choice.

Any objections?

Video: ‘No, Mr. President’ – a powerful answer to abortion.

I am fully aware that the readers of this blog are divided on this crucial issue. Everyone should watch this video to the end, post your views in the comments if you feel it necessary.

Can we really learn anything from such ancient passages as Deuteronomy 22:1-12?

Dad is slowly taking us through Deuteronomy on Wednesday evenings and it always surprises me how much wisdom we can draw from such passages. So even though with Jesus, we are under a new covenant, these passages are still relevant. Here are my notes on: Principles for maintaining life today.

Deuteronomy 22:1-4

¹ If you see your brother’s ox or sheep straying, do not ignore it but be sure to take it back to him. ² If the brother does not live near you or if you do not know who he is, take it home with you and keep it until he comes looking for it. Then give it back to him. ³ Do the same if you find your brother’s donkey or his cloak or anything he loses. Do not ignore it.

⁴ If you see your brother’s donkey or his ox fallen on the road, do not ignore it. Help him get it to its feet.

A Helpfulness Principle.

If we profess to be Christians we must always be helpful citizens. It reminds me of a poem we studied in school, it’s Not My Business and is by Niyi Osundare.

They picked Akanniup one morning
Beat him soft like clay
And stuffed him down the belly
Of a waiting jeep.

What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?

They came one night
Booted the whole house awake
And dragged Danladi out,
Then off to a lengthy absence.

What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?

Chinwe went to work one day
Only to find her job was gone:
No query, no warning, no probe –
Just one neat sack for a stainless record.

What business of mine is it
So long they don’t take the yam
From my savouring mouth?

And then one evening
As I sat down to eat my yam
A knock on the door froze my hungry hand.
The jeep was waiting on my bewildered lawn
Waiting, waiting in its usual silence.

It’s very easy for us to ignore our brothers and sisters when they are clearly in need. The Bible clearly shows us that this is wrong.

Deuteronomy 22:5

⁵ A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this.

A Gender Principle.

This has become quite a hotly debated topic in our current social climate. This has become, and I guess was always a very complex issue.

Why are some people born with tendencies in a certain direction?

How far one way or the other is too far?

All I know is that from this passage we can see that God does not see these issues as irrelevant, appearance is not irrelevant to God.

Deuteronomy 22:6 & 7

⁶ If you come across a bird’s nest beside the road, either in a tree or on the ground, and the mother is sitting on the young or on the eggs, do not take the mother with the young. ⁷ You may take the young, but be sure to let the mother go, so that it may go well with you and you may have a long life.

A Conservation Principle.

This verse has obvious enironmental connotations. It is very practical in confirming to us that we must take care in what we consume on this earth.

For example:

Scottish fishermen have become the first in Europe to implement a new voluntary scheme to conserve North Sea cod stocks.

Notice that at the end of these verses, we are told to do this that we ‘may have a long life’. This reminds us of the need to keep in mind the world to come, as well as where we are now.

Deuteronomy 22:8

⁸ When you build a new house, make a parapet around your roof so that you may not bring the guilt of bloodshed on your house if someone falls from the roof.

A Health & Safety Principle.

Clearly the idea of keep things healthy and safe is not a bad one. This is something that is beginning to affect us all more and more.

This point is as always, not purely practical – there are also spiritual applications. In the context of telling unbelievers of the spiritual dangers, as Christians we have a duty to this. I always remember a preacher saying once that we must never be able to stand before God on the last day, and faced with all our friends and acquaintances someone say ‘Why didn’t you tell me? You knew of a way out of this, and you didn’t tell me?’. This is an all important reminder of our imminent future.

Deuteronomy 22:9-11

⁹ Do not plant two kinds of seed in your vineyard; if you do, not only the crops you plant but also the fruit of the vineyard will be defiled.

¹⁰ Do not plow with an ox and a donkey yoked together.

¹¹ Do not wear clothes of wool and linen woven together.

A Separation Principle.

A bit of a strange one it seems on the surface of things. Making us thankful that we are no longer bound to such ceremonial laws! This is because with Christ we are free from these laws, they are fulfilled in him.

This section also reminds Christians of this verse in the New Testament:

2 Corinthians 6:14

¹⁴Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?

Paul probably took inspiration from these very verses when he wrote this to the Corinthian believers

Deuteronomy 22:12

¹² Make tassels on the four corners of the cloak you wear.

If you are in any Jewish part of the world, if you look carefully they still follow this law, they have tassels on the corners of their garments called Tzitzit or tzitzis (Hebrew: Biblical ציצת Modern ציצית).

 

Jesus would have worn them, and it is probably what the woman touched in this passage:

Matthew 9:20

²⁰Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak.

Jesus followed all these laws in his perfect life. What a challenge to us as Christians. We have such an abundance principles in the word of God. Are we using them?

A very powerful way of representing the number of deaths resulting from Khmer Rogue Policies 1975-79.

Film: Millions

Millions is a 2004 British film, directed by Academy Award winning director Danny Boyle, and starring Alexander Etel, Lewis McGibbon, and James Nesbitt.

Just wanted to say that it was on TV last night and I absolutely loved it. It was brilliant. You should watch it.

I won’t write a review but I’ll give you a nice list of the themes that the film brought out:

• Money (obviously).

• Death & Loss.

• Imagination / Fantasy & Reality.

• Morality / ‘being good’.

• Saints.

• Consumerism.

• Greed.

• Children & Adults.

25 things that are DEFINITELY true about me.

These things are very popular on the book of faces at the moment, I thought I could share with you my 100% factual attempt at sharing with you 25 things about me.

1. I was once able to witness a Gregale, which is a Mediterranean wind that can occur during times when a low pressure area moves through the area to the south of Malta and causes a strong, cool, northeasterly wind to affect the island.

2. I was born in Cachy, which is a commune in the Somme département in the Picardie region of France.

3. My favourite thing in the whole world is ‘Iolanthe’, or ‘The Peer and the Peri’, it’s is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert.

4. I own the The Yamaha OX99-11 sports car.

5. My favourite song of all time is called ‘Linda’. It was written by Jack Lawrence, and published in 1946.

6. My hero is Carl Johan Fredrik Skottsberg who lived from 1 December 1880 – 14 June 1963, he was a Swedish botanist and explorer of Antarctica.

7. I often read poems by João de Deus Ramos who died on January 11, 1896. He’s better known as João de Deus, the greatest Portuguese poet of his generation.

8. I invented the wind-up radio.

9. 6631 Pyatnitskij (1983 RQ4) is a Main-belt Asteroid discovered on September 04, 1983 by L. V. Zhuravleva at Nauchnyj. This is something that inspires me.

10. I went to Stiftung Louisenlund, which is a privately run boarding school for boy and girls in Güby, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany.

11. Philip Douglas Taylor (born 13 August 1960 in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent) is a 14 time world champion English darts player whose nickname is The Power. He is my mentor.

12. My favourite work of art is April Love, a painting by the Pre-Raphaelite painter Arthur Hughes which was created between 1855 and 1856.

13. ‘Chunklet’, which is an American music and culture magazine edited and published by me. According to Pitchfork Media, issue #16 has sold more than 10,000 copies. How or why Pitchfork records the sales of a magazine is a mystery.

14. I once woke up in Arts et Métiers, which is a station of the Paris Métro, serving Line 3 and Line 11.

15. I took down Richard Porter (1965 – January 3, 1990) he was one of the most notorious New York City drug kingpins.

16. I created and regularly draw, Mordru (also known as Mordru the Merciless or The Dark Lord) he is a fictional character, a supervillain in the DC Comics’ main shared universe.

17. I am related distantly to Bruno, Brun, or Braun (died 2 February 880) he was the Duke of Saxony from 866 to his death.

18. I taught Jeff Alexander everything he knows. He lived from July 2, 1910 to December 23, 1989. He is an American conductor, arranger, and composer of film, radio and television scores.

19. Isolée is the best microhouse artist working today, his real name is Rajko Müller. I was the one he played his first track to.

20. I won the Open Tarragona Costa Daurada, a tennis tournament held in Tarragona, Spain in 2006.

21. The Baldwin apple is a bright red winter apple, very good in quality, and easily shipped. I regularly eat it.

22. Annabouboula is a Greek-American musical trio that flourished in the 1980s and 1990s. Their members are Anna Paidoussi, George Sempepos and myself.

23. The greatest album of all time is ‘Pots and Shots’, the debut album of J-ska band Potshot. The album was released in the USA by Asian Man Records in 1997.

24. I am currently engineering ‘The Incheon Bridge’ (also called the ‘Incheon Long Bridge’) which is currently under construction in South Korea.

25. My favourite species of bat is The Broad-eared Bat (Nyctinomops laticaudatus), it is from South and Central America.

Film Reviews: ‘Ed Wood’ & ‘Annie Hall’

I watched two pretty famous films this weekend, two very different films from different time periods and more or less different genres despite both being comedies.

Annie Hall

Director: Woody Allen

Leading Roll: Woody Allen

Key Quote: “A relationship, I think, is like a shark. You know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies. And I think what we got on our hands is a dead shark.”

Year: 1977

Ed Wood

Director: Tim Burton

Leading Roll: Johnny Depp

Key Quote: [On Phone] Really? Worst film you ever saw. Well, my next one will be better. Hello? Hello?

Year: 1994

Thoughts

Apart from the quite brilliant Match Point, Annie Hall is the first Allen directed film I’ve ever watched (though I have watched Antz). This one seems to be everyone’s favourite and at the time it seems this film was a real change of direction for him in style.

It’s extremely funny and Allen’s worldview is laid bare for the viewer to clearly see. A man obsessed with death and highly unsatisfied with life.

I feel that life is divided into the horrible and the miserable. That’s the two categories. The horrible are like, I don’t know, terminal cases, you know, and blind people, crippled. I don’t know how they get through life. It’s amazing to me. And the miserable is everyone else. So you should be thankful that you’re miserable, because that’s very lucky, to be miserable.

Allen’s character is also filled with anti-Semitic paranoia, he seems to think that everyone is out to get the Jews.

I should stop babbling and let you watch the first scene. I loved it. I may watch it again and write some more.

After watching Ed Wood I was satisfied. It was quite funny, and brilliantly acted. But unlike after a really good film like Annie Hall I didn’t go ‘YEAH!’, or — even better — the sign of a really really good film, if I can’t actually say anything and I get angry if anyone talks to me. With Ed Wood I was just sort of happy.

However I read up about it afterwards and found something that was probably really obvious to the whole of the rest to the world but had somehow skipped me out. ED WOOD WAS REAL!

Knowing this fact gave the film a whole different tragic yet touching angle. This man won the award for Worst Ever Film Director. Now I like the film more. Whether it would be worthy of a ‘YEAH!’ is another question.

Here’s the trailer:

Both of these films made me smile and laugh at times and both made me think. I wouldn’t force these films upon anyone but if you wanted to watch one then Annie Hall would be my pick, as it would have far more probability in making you think about worthwhile things, despite its failures of philosophy.

Arts Week

I know thousands of you have been utterly devastated at the lack of posts here this week. I’ve been working in my old school on a thing they call Arts Week – it’s pretty much what it says on the tin. The whole school was divided up into little groups and given various Art based projects. I was involved in a few of the more Drama-ish project.

The year 9’s were given the task of making a film, fortunately they were given a pretty good script (based on Woody Allen play Death, later made into film Shadows and Fog), a very good director and some state of the art filming equipment. Another teacher involved in the film; behind and in front of the cameras was multi talented man – who is a good actor and also has a band who are very cool and have some good tunes.

So in this film project I was mostly running errands or moving lights or telling kids to shut up, but on the last day someone didn’t turn up so I actually ended up playing the part of a relaxed homicidal killer; stabbing a small child – but all in a very comedic way.

I also helped out a bit with a cabaret taking place on the Thursday evening, there were various dances, comedic sketches and musical performances taking place throughout the evening.

I directed a small group of kids on a comedy sketch about rivalry between Geography and History teachers ending in a break-dancing clash!

Little brother Dylan was involved in another sketch about teachers, where they try to ‘get down with the kids’.

Another project I dipped into was the making of a radio play,  An Archers style drama, set in a small country town. It was to be broadcast on the school’s new podcasting station Switch FM but thus far I haven’t spotted it. I did some narration for them, which was fun.

The last big events of the week took place on the Friday night, there was an Open Air Festival / Rock Concert type thing – called ‘LiveStock’, they also had Ibiza – an entire beach was made (!), there was a traditional Garden Fete and also some exhibitions documenting the weeks events. During the LiveStock event lots of kid rock bands had their moment.

Anyway, it was a pretty good week – and all good fun, if not slightly stressful at times.