Green's Dictionary Of Slang

Green's Dictionary Of Slang, by Jonathon Green, is the most comprehensive dictionary of slang ever published. It traces English slang from 1500 to the present day, and includes full etymologies and citations for over 100,000 headwords.

The Dictionary is published in three volumes (A-E, F-O, and P-Z), and is an expanded version of Green's single-volume The Cassell Dictionary Of Slang (subsequently revised as Cassell's Dictionary Of Slang; further revised as Chambers Slang Dictionary). Green has also written Getting Off At Gateshead and other thematic studies of slang.

Masters Of CinemaAlfred Hitchcock

Masters Of Cinema: Alfred Hitchcock, by Bill Krohn, is the English version of Collection Grandes Cineastes: Le Livre Alfred Hitchcock, published by the excellent Cahiers Du Cinema magazine. Krohn also wrote the superb Hitchcock At Work and the disappointing Masters Of Cinema: Stanley Kubrick.

Krohn efficiently and concisely summarises Hitchcock's feature-film career (though not Alfred Hitchcock Presents) in a little over 100 pages. The text is accompanied by generally well-chosen images, with publicity stills kept to a minimum. My only caveat is that Krohn seems almost obsessed with comparing Hitchcock to Cecil B de Mille, who is mentioned, increasingly tenuously, throughout the book. There is a useful illustrated filmography, and a limited bibliography.

The Godard Week

Alliance Française in Bangkok will host The Godard Week, a short season of films by Jean-Luc Godard, from 16th to 21st November. The festival, organised by Dudesweet, includes a screening of Breathless (À bout de souffle) on 21st November.

The Greatest Films Of All Time

After their 1,000 Films To See Before You Die list, The Guardian and The Observer have now produced The Greatest Films Of All Time, a list of 175 classic films organised into seven broad genres. The list (selected by film critics including Mark Kermode and David Thomson) was published in daily installments, from 16th to 22nd October. Each genre is represented by a ranked list of twenty-five films.

The Greatest Films Of All Time are as follows:

Romance

1. Brief Encounter
2. Casablanca
3. Before Sunrise / Before Sunset
4. Breathless
5. In The Mood For Love
6. The Apartment
7. Hannah & Her Sisters
8. Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
9. Room With A View
10. Jules & Jim
11. All That Heaven Allows
12. Gone With The Wind
13. An Affair To Remember
14. The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg
15. Lost In Translation
15. Roman Holiday
15. WALL-E
18. My Night With Maude
19. Voyage In Italy
20. Dr Zhivago
21. Harold & Maude
22. When Harry Met Sally
23. Say Anything...
24. The Fabulous Baker Boys
25. A Matter Of Life & Death

Crime

1. Chinatown
2. Touch Of Evil
3. Vertigo
4. Badlands
5. Rashomon
6. Double Indemnity
7. Get Carter
8. Pulp Fiction
9. Cache
10. GoodFellas
11. The Conversation
12. Bonnie & Clyde
13. The Killing
14. The French Connection
15. The Big Sleep
16. La Ceremonie
17. Point Blank
18. Hard-Boiled
19. The Long Good Friday
20. A Prophet
20. Heat
20. Scarface
23. Miller's Crossing
24. The Postman Always Rings Twice
25. Le jour se leve

Comedy

1. Annie Hall
2. Borat: Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan
3. Some Like It Hot
4. Team America: World Police
5. Dr Strangelove
6. The Ladykillers
7. Duck Soup
7. Rushmore
9. Kind Hearts & Coronets
10. Monty Python's Life Of Brian
11. Airplane!
12. Election
12. His Girl Friday
12. The Big Lebowski
15. This Is Spinal Tap
16. Bringing Up Baby
17. There's Something About Mary
18. Dazed & Confused
18. M*A*S*H
20. Groundhog Day
21. Clueless
22. The Great Dictator
23. Clerks
24. The Jerk
25. Shaun Of The Dead

Action

1. Apocalypse Now
2. North By Northwest
3. Once Upon A Time In The West
4. The Wild Bunch
5. Deliverance
6. City Of God
7. Paths Of Glory
8. The Wages Of Fear
9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
10. The Thin Red Line
11. Raiders Of The Lost Ark
12. Ran
13. Bullitt
14. Die Hard
15. The Adventures Of Robin Hood
16. The Searchers
17. Goldfinger
18. The Last Of The Mohicans
19. Full Metal Jacket
20. The Deer Hunter
21. Gladiator
22. Rome: Open City
23. Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid
24. Where Eagles Dare
25. The Incredibles

Arthouse

1. Andrei Rublev
2. Mulholland Drive
3. L'Atalante
4. Tokyo Story
5. Citizen Kane
6. A Clockwork Orange
7. Days Of Heaven
8. Wild Strawberries
9. The White Ribbon
10. The Gospel According To St Matthew
11. Aguirre: The Wrath Of God
11. Pather Panchali
13. The Conformist
14. Death In Venice
15. The Godfather I-II
16. The Graduate
16. There Will Be Blood
18. Battleship Potemkin
19. The Rules Of The Game
19. Shadows
21. Distant Voices, Still Lives
22. The Passion Of Joan Of Arc
23. La Dolce Vita
24. Breaking The Waves
25. Spirit Of The Beehive

Sci-Fi/Fantasy

1. 2001: A Space Odyssey
2. Metropolis
3. Blade Runner
4. Alien
5. The Wizard Of Oz
6. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
6. Solaris
8. Spirited Away
9. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
10. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
10. King Kong
12. Terminator I-II
13. The Matrix
14. Alphaville
15. Back To The Future
16. Planet Of The Apes
17. Brazil
18. The Lord Of The Rings I-III
19. Dark Star
20. The Day The Earth Stood Still
21. Edward Scissorhands
22. Akira
23. The Princess Bride
24. Pan's Labyrinth
25. Starship Troopers

Horror

1. Psycho
2. Rosemary's Baby
3. Don't Look Now
4. The Wicker Man
5. The Shining
6. The Exorcist
7. Nosferatu
8. Let The Right One In
9. Vampyr
10. Peeping Tom
11. The Innocents
12. The Ring
13. The Haunting
14. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
15. Dead Of Night
16. The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari
17. Halloween
18. Bride Of Frankenstein
19. Les Diaboliques
20. Audition
20. Dracula
22. The Blair Witch Project
23. Evil Dead I-II
24. Carrie
25. Les Vampires

The #1 films in each genre were ranked as follows:

1. Chinatown
2. Psycho
2. Andrei Rublev
4. Annie Hall
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey
6. Brief Encounter
7. Apocalypse Now

The #1 films in the horror, comedy, sci-fi/fantasy, and action categories are also my four favourite films of all time. However, two genres - animation and the western - are under-represented, having been subsumed into other categories, and musicals have been completely excluded.

Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are counted as a single entry, as are The Godfather I-II, Terminator I-II, Evil Dead I-II, and The Lord Of The Rings I-III. Scarface is the Brian de Palma remake, Carrie is de Palma's 1976 horror film, and Dracula is the Terence Fisher Hammer version. Also, Some Like It Hot is the 1959 comic masterpiece, not the obscure 1939 comedy; and Psycho is the original version.

Survival Of The Dead

Survival Of The Dead is George Romero's sixth zombie film, following Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead, Day Of The Dead, Land Of The Dead, and Diary Of The Dead. While the first two films in the series remain horror classics, the others have been relatively disappointing. Survival Of The Dead is perhaps the worst in the series, with unthreatening zombies and a scenario more reminiscent of a western than a horror film.

[Warning: plot spoilers.] What's the point of the million dollars, except as a set-up for a potential sequel? Why does the twin sister appear out of the blue, for an inconsequential emotional reconciliation? Why is the zombie horse-rider initially smarter than other zombies, and why does she suddenly lose her sentience? And what, if any, socio-political comment is Romero making this time?

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Fifty years ago today, Lady Chatterley’s Lover’s status as an obscene book came to an end in the UK, and D.H. Lawrence’s novel was published as a Penguin paperback in an unexpurgated edition. The Obscene Publications Act had been revised in 1959, adding a stipulation that any material under scrutiny must be considered in whole rather than in part: no longer could selected passages be taken out of context, and a legitimate defence of literary merit could finally be made.

In his opening address at the 1960 obscenity trial, prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones pointedly dismissed arcane Victorian pruderies, telling the jury: “do not approach this in any priggish, high-minded, super-correct, mid-Victorian manner”. But his legal objections to the novel were themselves somewhat priggish and Victorian: he disapproved of Lawrence’s putting “upon a pedestal promiscuous and adulterous intercourse”.

The defence called a great many witnesses — who each attested to the literary merits of Lawrence and, to a lesser extent, Lady Chatterley’s Lover itself — though they were rarely cross-examined. In his account of the proceedings, The Trial of Lady Chatterley, C.H. Rolph writes: “‘No questions’, said the surprising Mr Griffith-Jones... he was to say it many times”. The prosecution called no witnesses whatsoever, and Rolph notes that the consequent “gasp of surprise in Court was reprehensibly audible”.

Griffith-Jones took the trouble to keep a detailed tally of the novel’s profanities, informing the jury that the word ‘cunt’ occurs some fourteen times. What he did not mention, however, was that the word was used by Lawrence (albeit unrealistically) as a term of endearment: “Th’art good cunt, though, aren’t ter? Best bit o’ cunt left on earth!”

But the most notorious moment of the trial came at the beginning, when Griffith-Jones asked the jury: “would you approve of your young sons, young daughters — because girls can read as well as boys — reading this book?... Is it a book that you would even wish your wife or your servants to read?” There were so many outdated assumptions in these questions — that girls’ reading abilities were in question, that husbands controlled what their wives could read, and that people still had servants — that Rolph called this moment “the first nail in the prosecution’s coffin”.

Jackass 3D

Jackass 3D is the sequel to Jackass II, and is again directed by Jeff Tremaine. Like the previous film, it contains violent and scatological pranks; it's actually surprising that Paramount would distribute a film that features a volcano of excrement. As the men are now reaching middle-age, this will presumably be the final Jackass film.

Johnny Knoxville, clearly the most professional group-member, now acts mainly as an announcer, excusing himself from most of the stunts. After being punched, or even urinated on, the men always laugh with (and at) each other, and I wonder how much of this camaraderie is genuine. In addition to the 3D, many stunts were filmed with ultra-fast cameras, resulting in plenty of slow-motion action footage, and this makes the film more cinematic than its predecessors.

El Alma Nunca Piensa Sin Imagen

A diptych of photographs depicting two Brazilian presidential candidates by artist Roberto Jacoby was removed from the Sao Paolo Biennial last month. Election officials claimed that the installation, titled El Alma Nunca Piensa Sin Imagen, constituted propaganda, and it was therefore banned from the exhibition.

A Siam Theatre Presentation

Siam Theatre, destroyed by arsonists earlier this year, held a farewell open-air film screening yesterday evening: the first half of Gone With The Wind played to an audience watching from Siam BTS station. The film was last screened in Bangkok (in full) three years ago, during Lido's Festival Of Classic Movies.

i

Today, The Independent launched the i, a new national UK newspaper. Much of the content is adapted from copy written by journalists from The Independent, and it will be interesting to see if the i cannibalises The Independent's readership, because - judging from its first issue - the i seems like a more attractive package than its sister paper.

The editor's letter on page three announces that the i is "not only a new paper, but a new kind of paper, designed for people with busy, modern lives. Colourful and accessible, concise and intelligent, it's your essential daily briefing." The first issue successfully lives up to that description: it is colourful (printed in full colour throughout), accessible (tabloid format), concise (with an emphasis on short news articles), and intelligent (with decent coverage of business and world news).