After The Rain, Again

You May Skip This Bit If You're Not Feeling Arty
(although, be cautioned, I shall know if you do).
     A few days ago I was, as usual, promoting The Comsat Angels and that most excellent opening track of theirs from the album "Fiction": "After The Rain"
     It only struck me recently that I'd heard almost that very same title in connection with a painting, to wit "Europe After The Rain".  Art?

Not, I'll admit, a laugh-riot

     This is by the Teuton artist Max Ernst.  I say "Teuton" but he lived in France for most of his life, with a long interregnum in South Canada.
     Quite what the painting's meaning is has been the subject of much scholarly debate.  Very probably, a statement about the current Second Unpleasantness  raging during the painting's creation, which was in South Canada between 1940 and 1942.  Ol' Max had, after all, fled from the Gestapo when they'd rounded him up in France in 1940, because the Nazis generally had dreadful taste in art, and it got their hackles up when someone painted things like "Forest and Dove".  Art?  Art!

Very Chthonian

     You can see why Eugen Honig (Reich Minister for the Fine Arts) would have had an apoplectic fit at this, since it most definitely wasn't extolling the virtues of Aryan racist philosophy.  One can most definitely see Ol' Max decorating the insides of a concentration camp if the Gestheim Staat Polizie had kept their long, taloned fingers upon him.
     So!  There you have more of rain and it's aftermath.  Motley - bring me my umbrella, galoshes and anti-gas-agent-impregnated overcoat, for I feel like braving this "Rain" of which we speak!

More Of The Brave One
Which, by the way, is the translation from Greek of "Thrasybulus".
     When last we left him, Ol' Thras had dared to march on the tyrannical government ruling Athens, and ruling it extremely harshly, on behalf of their supposed enemy, the Spartans.  This gov, known as "The Thirty Tyrants", which you may characterise as "The Dirty Thirty", laughed at Ol' Thras for daring to invade with only 70 men.
     However - 

Phyle
(It was tidier back in the day)

     Thras was no dummy, and chose as his headquarters the old fort of Phyle, meaning he couldn't be easily or simply attacked; any response by the Dirty Thirty was further delayed by very bad weather, and probably their sneering dismissal, too.
     By the time their force marched out to contemptuously crush that of Thras, enough people who'd had enough of the D30 were present at Phyle to number over 700.  Thras further showed how crafty he was by making a surprise dawn raid on the D30 camp, utterly routing them and killing 120 Spartans who'd come along to enjoy an overwhelming victory.

Phyle dead centre

     Bolstered by at least another 500 people joining him - nothing succeeds like success - Thras marched on, not Athens, but that city's port of Piraeus, occupied key tactical ground and waited for the D30's response - which was duly crushed. Despite numbering over 5,000 men.
     At this point the D30 realise they are really deep in the doo-doo, and cannot get out of it on their own.  They send a plea to Sparta to come help them -
     At which cliffhanger we will bade farewell to Ol' Thras for a while.

BOOJUM! Reviews Films
Because who doesn't want to see an angry middle-aged man ranting wildly about things only very tangentially related to films*?  Or television shows*?  Don't forget, if you want a proper film review, go read Mark Kermode or Pauline Kael, because we here at the blog are about as reliable and impartial as <thinks> dysentery.
     Okay, let the slanderous scrivel begin!
"Last Christmas":  AGGGGGGHHH!  Another Christmas-themed entertainment and it's still only November, and mid-November at that!  I hate it already, no matter what it is or what it's about, and please PLEASE PLEASE let that title hold true.
     Besides, I thought that splendid role model The Grinch had completely removed Christmas from the scene?

Was it "inspired" by this farrago?  Then it is doubly-damned!

"21 Bridges": Conrad is unsure of this one.  One possibility is that it's a sequel to "The Bridges of Madison County", although I doubt such an arty film would justify a sequel based on box-office returns <checks out Box Office Mojo, since IMDB has redacted anything to do with budgets unless you pay them>
     - I take it back!  £115 million global takings on a budget of only £15 million; that's some good box office right there.
     However, it is 25 years old, so neither Clint nor Meryl are looking as attractive as they once did.
OR
     It's a biographical review of the Bridges family, starting with Lloyd, then moving onto Jeff and Beau, and all their various offspring, which could easily hit 21.

That's eleven right there

"Jack Ryan": Erm, let me guess, from the bus posters and also the INTERMINABLE AND VERY ANNOYING POP-UP INTERNET ADVERTS that this is about secret agents running around, blowing stuff up and shooting people?  Yup, thought so.  I remember an ex-SEAL critiquing "Navy SEALs", saying that what they cram into ninety minutes would take you twenty years to attain in real life, and I strongly suspect the same is true of JR.

No, Art, No.  But we'll let this one pass.

     Plus, after seeing the lead actor wearing a beard in "13 Hours", he looks all-out weird clean-shaven.  Or maybe that's just me?
     Anyway, regardless of what it is or is not, Conrad is not going to watch it, because of INTERMINABLE AND VERY ANNOYING POP-UP INTERNET ADVERTS.
     Heh.

Finally -
I did mention that I was now on holiday, didn't I?  In reality less a "holiday" than a "Dogsitting Dad" role, where Edna will never be more than three feet from my side, unless she's sulking (which happens a fair amount).  I shall also have to post lots of photographs of said animal on Facebook, so those absent will feel involved, yet won't have to get wet going walkies 'neath the thunderclouds.
     On the plus side, it does mean I now have total control of Netflix, so there is at least a bronze lining to said thunderclouds.

The furry fiend in question

     And you're only getting a single post daily during the week, so there.

     And with that, we are done!


*  Rhetorical question DO NOT ANSWER