clint eastwood – Mark Bould

American Sniper (Clint Eastwood 2014)

41kcZZlsC2L and so anyway it turns out that the best thing about American Sniper (2014), Clint Eastwood’s po-faced remake of Stolz der Nation, is how it perfectly captures – both formally and narratively – the precise experience of getting bogged down in a fundamentally mistaken venture with no clear exit strategy…

Signs above urinals that make no coherent sense, cowniballism, 50s timeslip, the wicker cat, keeping small boys amused since 1977, and whatever happened to Mike Oldfield?

Highlights of a trip to Wells and a ten-mile walk across the Mendips plateau (there is even, it turns out, an escarpment).

With our bearers on the Mendip escarpment. — With our bearers on the Mendips escarpment.

Andrea's escarpment midadventure. — Andrea’s escarpment misadventure.

In the pub where the production of Hot Fuzz was based, they advertise food above the urinals, with pictures that make no sense:

It wasn’t easy making sense of the thought process behind this, either:

But then, we were lost somewhere in the 1950s:

In one of those villages with peculiar local customs, such as erecting giant wicker figures in which to sacrifice rather surprised visiting Catholic coppers:

Here’s a place name that has made small boys, such as this one, titter since 1977:

And whatever did happen to Mike Oldfield?

Nothing anywhere near as bad as he deserves, but it’s a start…