15 Oct 2007, Posted by Cat in News, 12 Comments. Tagged duran duran

Arena: what were they thinking?

Jeff Vandermeer once described me as a Duran Duran apologist and he’s right. I am, and I’m not going to apologise for my apologism. I love that band’s later music, although I do wonder how I ever came to hear it at all. By time my inner fangirl kicked in, their CDs were lining the five dollar bargain bins. Before Notorious, it was all just teeny bopper shite to my ears. Anyway, last year Rob bought me a couple of Duran Duran music DVDs from JB Hi Fi when he found them in the bargain bin and this weekend I decided to play them to accompany my daily treadmill routine. The first one, Sing Blue Silver was awesome. Footage from their big US tour 23 years ago. The boys were so goddamn pretty! Lipstick pretty with mullets reaching up to the ceiling. Awful hair and awful clothes. But the doco was good. All showing and no telling. I fell in love with them, their rouged cheekbones and their shocking trousers.

But the second deev, Arena, was a whole other kettle of fish. Made, apparently by our own Russell Mulchay, that artiste who brought us Razorback (aka Pig Movie) and most of the Duranies trail blazing MTV soft porn mulletextravaganzas, it was an attempt to turn some expensive live concert footage into a quasi sci fi movie. Interlaced with bits from Barbarella, the movie that inspired their name, and what looked like costume leftovers from Time bandits and a b-grade knock off set from Terry Gilliam’s basement, Arena sucked worse that anything I’ve ever seen before, including van Damme’s Cyborg which was the sci fi suck arse title holder up until this moment.

Seriously, Russell, what were you thinking? What were you on? There’s a making of Arena special on the deev too. I haven’t watched it yet because my treadmill broke down in disgust.