Tag: Glasgow

Now Playing: ‘The Angels’ Share’

On By chrisbarsantiIn Film - NewLeave a comment

The-Angels-Share1

For a film that starts with a young Glaswegian man getting arrested for public intoxication and includes plenty of fighting-drunk altercations, Ken Loach’s The Angels’ Share curiously puts a lot of faith in the power of careful and professional imbibing of spirits, particularly whiskey.

It’s a mostly tolerable and uplifting story with a few descents into the expected makwishness, but possible worth your time if you can seek it out at the local arthouse.

My review ran in Film Journal International.

Here’s the trailer:

Quote of the Day: Churchill on Government

On By chrisbarsantiIn Omnium Gatherum, WorldLeave a comment

churchill1In 1906, Winston Churchill was a mere Undersecretary of State for the Colonies. By that point, the 32-year-old had already been taken prisoner as a journalist during the Boer War and published four of the books that would later win him the Nobel Prize in Literature.

That year, the future Prime Minister gave a speech in Glasgow where he laid out a philosophy of what liberal government means.

We want to draw a line below which we will not allow persons to live and labor, yet above which they may compete with all the strength of their manhood. We want to have free competition upwards; we decline to allow free competition downwards. We do not want to tear down the structure of science and civilization but to spread a net on the abyss.

It’s an eloquently stated argument, given the current debates over what exactly government is for.