Lies (Jang Sun-Woo 1999) - The only other Jang film I've been able to see is the corrosive A Petal though Lies is the only one to get a US release, due to the subject matter probably. Based on his Director's Statement, Jang was apparently trying to head into Bataille territory but this is instead mostly tedious and while it might be revolutionary in Korea or Jang's head, hardly anybody else will care.



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The Time review of the new Insomnia barely mentions the original in passing towards the end of the review. Now maybe that first film is possibly irrelevant to the remake (though would a remake of High Noon fail to get reviews barely noticing the original?) but you can imagine the editorial staff thinking "Norweigan film" was something of a joke. If they didn't and decided to downplay it anyway then they're worse journalists and practically incompetant critics.



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Andrew Hussey The Game of War: The Life and Death of Guy Debord (2001) - Well it's hardly news that Debord was an unpleasant control freak which may be why I probably shouldn't have been surprised that he was also a wannabe aristocrat, justifying his leeching off the wealthy to support a high-class lifestyle by claiming it was anti- (or at least non-) capitalist. That's not entirely untrue--patronage does predate capitalism by centuries--but still there's something a bit creepy about it. Hussey does effectively capture a sense of adventure and conflict but also a kind of sadness for somebody who seemed so fundamentally out of time. No doubt some Situationist buff will attack the bio for slighting Debord's writing/thought or otherwise denying his applicability to whatever year is on the calendar but this placing into history has its own value.