Death Wish 4: The Crackdown / Soft Drink Shortage Hits Cactus World
The streets are filled with death and destruction. Ruthless drug traffickers prey upon the poor, the lonely, the helpless. LA is a city desperate for deliverance… until now! Charles Bronson returns as Paul Kersey, the original urban vigilante and one-man demolition force in this pulse-pounding, take-no-prisoners thriller! Two rival drug gangs have a death-grip on LA’s battle-torn inner city. But their brutal reign of terror is about to come to a violent end. One man is out to avenge the cocaine-induced death of his girlfriend’s teenage daughter. His name is Paul Kersey – and he’s armed, dangerous… and mad as hell!
1987 – Certificate: R – American Film
6.0 out of 10
The unseasonal run of warm days we’ve been having recently has put an unprecedented strain on reserves of cold drinks in Cactus World. In fact I’ve run out of normal soft drinks and the things I only drink in an emergency, like bitter lemon and ginger ale, have been in the fridge so long they’ve all frozen solid. I tried opening one this afternoon, but so much pressure had built up in the bottle that the contents started to explode everywhere; in fact I read this evening that earlier today America had briefly gone to DEFCON 1, as some military satellite had mistaken my attempts to get something cold to drink as a ballistic missile launch. I think it’s all okay now though. Fortunately, I also found some old bottles of Bacardi Breezer (Pineapple) in the back of the fridge that the alcohol had stopped from freezing. It tasted okay(ish), considering it was two years past its Best Before date. I also have to report the good news that the far worse scenario of there being a shortage of cold, alcoholic drinks, is not presently a concern.
Before we had mega-budget screen superheroes and nutters like Martin Riggs cleaning up urban scum, we had Paul Kersey. The original street-level vigilante, here’s a chap who reluctantly goes off on his own and sorts out bad guys. In many ways he’s a lot like Batman, a tortured soul who’s lost the ones he cares for most; except he’s not especially fit and strong, isn’t a billionaire and doesn’t have a flash car, cave, computer, utility belt or butler. Then again, he does use guns and he hasn’t got an annoying sidekick either. Last time we saw him, he was busy helping disadvantaged communities in New York become more resilient. This time he’s back in America’s other city, Los Angeles, sorting out corrupt police and drug barons; you know, the usual stuff architects deal with. Scarcely have I recovered from seeing Lieutenant Commander Chakotay turn up in “Night of the Comet” when along comes Lieutenant Commander Tuvok in “Death Wish 4”. Clearly working under cover for Starfleet in some sort of time-travel paradox, he inadvertently gives some drugs to some dumb bimbo, who promptly kills herself with them. She just happens to be the daughter of Charles Bronson’s latest love interest too. In another interesting parallel with “Star Trek” I would say it was at least as deadly being a friend of Paul Kersey, as it is wearing a red shirt as a member of a landing party. There’ve been five Death Wish films and nearly all of his ‘nearest and dearest’ have ended up being raped and/or murdered. You do see Bronson take out Tuvok’s car with a grenade in an underground garage, but I’m pretty sure I saw him being beamed out just before it exploded. Tuvok could’ve easily stunned them all with his phaser, but he probably didn’t want to contaminate the time-line or such like. I watched the hardcore, uncut version, not the old, UK cut one with its missing 54 seconds. Because of that I’d have probably turned into a serial killer by now, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was also a pan and scan version too, so half of it was missing. I hate it when they do that. It was mono as well.
There’s not a great deal of music in this movie and what there is has a tendency to sound like a reject from The Terminator. The theme music is horrible though; some nasty saxophone-heavy garbage that sounds like it escaped from an obscure, 70s porn VHS.
Recommend for architects, vigilantes, would-be superheroes and anyone who might make friends with Paul Kersey. And a warning to the latter; DON’T DO IT!
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations. However, someone does sort of explode into nothing after having a grenade fired into him. And you thought The Terminator came up with that one first?
Top badass moment? Dumb question. Charles Bronson IS badass. And when someone asks, “who the fuck are you?” and you simply reply (after a tension building pause), “death”, that’s badass too. And keeping a M203 grenade launcher attached to a M16 assault rifle in a cupboard behind your fridge is badass too.
Kicks / I’m Experimenting With Drugs
The feature debut of Lindy Heymann is a clever comment on modern celebrity culture. Nicole (Kerrie Hayes) a Liverpudlian teenager, spends her time hanging around the gates of Anfield and the Liverpool training ground, desperate for a glimpse of her idol, the star footballer Lee Cassidy (Jamie Doyle). There she meets aspirant WAG Jasmine (played by Nichola Burley from “StreetDance 3D”), instantly. They trawl the city and its nightspots, fantasising about a time when they might have Lee for themselves, yet when the news breaks that the footballer is a transfer target for Real Madrid, they take drastic action to prevent him leaving… Stand-out performances from the two lead actresses make this energetic, funny and tense film one of the best UK debuts of recent years.
2009 – Certificate: 15 – British Film
Rating Details: Strong language, sex and injury detail
8.5 out of 10
I’ve just drunk two big mugs of really strong coffee with Kahlúa poured into it. I’ve not had anything to eat for nearly 24 hours, (yes I’m still on my stupid ‘eat every other day’ diet), so I expect it’s about to have some sort of weird physical, emotional and mental effect on me. I’m about to experience the outer limits of human perceptions and experiences… There’s something weird about this film too.
It’s a really bizarre feeling when you see someone who really reminds you of someone else. You know it’s not the same person, yet you have a natural tendency to react to them as if it is. You can’t help it, it just happens. It’s futile to resist, as you’re trying to logically reason your way out of a whole lifetime of experience and memories, many of which you’ve subconsciously distorted over time to better fit your needs. (I’ve no doubt this is what’s behind the many incidences of random people coming up to me in the street and calling me names; or maybe that’s just how I am?) Kerrie Hayes (the blonde woman in the trailer) really, really, really reminds me of someone I knew years ago when she was a similar age; in fact we’re still close. (By “close” I mean we see each other three or four times a year, which for someone with a social circle as meagre as mine, makes us virtually Siamese twins.) They share the same mannerisms, the same look, the same intensity. It made watching this film probably a more unique experience for me than normal. This is a great movie. It takes a while to get going and the ending is a bit (and I’m using that word again, it must be the coffee) weird. You probably need to get drunk in ‘real time’ along with the characters, to get the most out of the latter part and to make their behaviour make sense. The two lead actresses in it are excellent and I love the whole look and feel of the film, depressing though it is. It’s basically a movie about a friendship between two young women, celebrity culture and living with this ‘illness’. Definitely recommended. I imagine if it isn’t already, obsessing over celebrities probably does has a medical name. The clinical test to determine if you suffer from it being that you can watch a new series of “Celebrity Big Brother” or “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” and recognise over 25% of the ‘celebrities’ in it. I’m pleased to say I’d struggle to recognise more than a couple. So basically what I’m saying is that the media has created a new disease for everyone to suffer from and deliberately spreads the ‘virus’ around in the form of gossip mags, Internet rubbish and fake newspaper stories, in the hope of infecting more people. What sort of sick bastards are they? Well it’s certainly crossed one of my red lines, so it’s just as well for them that I’m not World President Obama, or they’d be some serious consideration going on, relating to the arming of freedom fighters like myself with big pairs of scissors, so we can go into shops selling this rubbish and cut it all up into small pieces. Watch out News UK, we know who you are… even if you have just changed your name out of shame.
The soundtrack is all, slightly atmosphere indie rock. The individual tunes weren’t that exciting, but they surprisingly all hang together pretty well and nicely enhance the impact of the scenes they’re used in. They’re a really good fit into the overall feel of the film.
Recommended for bored teenagers, journalists who write about Kim Kardashian’s baby and professional footballers.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? There’s frequently a dearth of badass in movies like this. It’s all people with no real hope, no belief and no future. This one is no exception. So I guess the best I can come up with is the friendship that develops between the two main characters, Nicole and Jasmine. In a film about the shallowness of celebrity, it’s the one really meaningful thing in it.
Gwendoline / Changing Evolution
From acclaimed master of erotica Just Jaeckin (“Emmanuelle” “Story of O” “Lady Chatterley’s Lover) comes “Gwendoline”, one of the most sought-after ‘guilty pleasure’ movies of all time! Filled to the brim with enough female flesh and fetishistic imagery to satisfy the most demanding of voyeurs, this is one cult fantasy film you definitely won’t want to miss! Follow the adventures of the sweet and innocent Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen of “Bachelor Party” and those legendary Whitesnake videos) in which she travels as a stowaway to the Far East with her sexy friend Beth (played by French actress and model Zabou) on a mission to track down her father, who has mysteriously disappeared whilst on a mission to find a mythical butterfly. Rescued from a group of lecherous seamen by the hunky adventurer Willard (actor and male model Brent Huff), Gwendoline persuades him to make up their trio and embark on a daring journey to the land of the Yek Yeik, a country ruled by a diabolical dominant Amazon queen and an army of female fetish-clad Amazonian warriors! There, Gwendoline must defeat the evil queen and prevent Willard from being forced to spawn a new race of female warriors – or face certain death. Gwendoline is a bizarre adventure like no other, freely adapted from John Willie’s acclaimed erotic comic strip, which fans will be talking about for years to come.
1984 – Certificate: 18 – French Film
Rating Details: Strong violence
7.5 out of 10
Right now I’m sitting here drinking a bottle of Batemans Victory Ale; (6% and Vegan Society approved), thinking how great the summer is. I know, every year the weather’s a bit of a disappointment, but somehow it’s still loads better than the winter. However crappy the weather is, it’s still always a lot lighter in the summer than the rest of the year. In the summer, the sun goes down to the right of that tree over ‘here’. In the winter, it goes down behind the tree over there; (trying to hide its embarrassment, no doubt). It’s 8:42 pm right now, warm and light enough to sit and read in my lounge without a light or coat on. In the winter at this time it would be freezing cold, dark and depressing dank outside. If I ever own a time machine, I’m going to go way, way back, to the point where humans (or whatever we were then), evolved away from hibernating during the winter. Out will come a very sharp pair of secateurs and whatever genetically mutated freak of nature caused us to stay awake all year, is going to find itself well and truly snipped away from the evolutionary tree. Bastard! This film is about natural history too.
I thought this was one of those nature documentaries, where we’d follow an intrepid explorer searching for new species of something, in this case a butterfly. So you can imagine my surprise when I was confronted with a chisel-jawed anti-hero, two beautiful woman who’s tops fell off slightly more often than was strictly necessary, a lot of bald chicks in leather bikinis, a lost tribe of women and a quite imaginative torture chamber. Then again, I’ve never been on as expedition to search for anything, so perhaps Sir David Attenborough runs into things like this all the time. I guess that would explain why nature documentaries are so popular. Nevertheless, it is a film all about a hunt for a butterfly and without wanting to spoil the ending, it looks a lot like a blacker and larger version of a Swallowtail. Normally I’m not exactly inspired by trashy films like this. It’s certainly another of those vegan-unfriendly, birds-in-leather with whips films. However, this one’s funny enough (both intentionally and unintentionally), well-made enough, epic enough and silly enough, to provide a highly entertaining and fun watch. It looks really good and the acting is pretty spirited too. Brent Huff at the hero Willard is a hoot and Tawny Kitaen, (who goes from innocent convent-educated girl to kick-ass, gladiatorial warrior in less than 100 minutes), looks… good. The movie starts with an establishing shot in a busy, crowded, claustrophobic market near a harbour; I think it’s meant to be in China. In the first three minutes we see someone nearly get run down and his cart of fruit tipped over, a fight break out, a theft of goods from the quayside with some associated shooting as the crew attempt to stop the getaway lorry, a group breaking into storage boxes, someone stealing food and someone else having a trolley taken from him; whilst two mounted police look on magnanimously, clearly on the lookout for some real crime under their noses. That pretty well sums this movie up, as does the “Barbarella meets Indiana Jones” line on the DVD’s cover art. It’s interesting that the BBFC’s “insight” (that’s what we call the rating details), now just says “strong violence”. When it was first released it had 194 seconds cut out of it to enable it to get a cinema release in the UK; whilst America suffered from a version 16 minutes shorter. Clearly, chariots pulled by semi-naked woman have lost their impact in the 21st Century.
In a B movie kind of way, this film has quite a decent soundtrack. There’s not a lot else I can say about it really.
Recommended for naturalists, lepidopterists, heroes and anyone with a convent-based education.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? Willard first appears in the film by crashing through a window. He then takes a few moments to adjust his hat and smile, before dispatching all the bad guys with a display of high quality, hand-to-hand combat and rescuing two women from human traffickers. That’s badass. I’ll never be that cool. :-(
Yoga / Keeping Fit With Indian Takeaway; and Beer
Striving for the ultimate inner beauty can be deadly. Six gorgeous yet narcissistic women, driven by their superficial existence, are lured to the most prestigious underground yoga studio. Their desire for beauty holds no bonds and each will stop at nothing to achieve it. As they settle in the studio and begin their quest, strange and disturbing events start taking place. Girls start disappearing and it is evident there’s an evil presence among them. Their quest for beauty brought them to this haunted studio; their will to survive is the only thing that can get them out.
2009 – Certificate: Not Rated – Korean Film
5.5 out of 10
My campaign to get fit, live forever, save the planet and save money, literally took a giant step forward this week, when for four days in a row I walked to work and back, a total of nearly 20 miles! To celebrate this and mitigate the worrying fact that I may be turning into some sort of boring, fitness junkie, today I ordered a giant Indian takeaway for my dinner, complete with beer. Oh well, it’s back to the starting line next week. This film is about something not altogether dissimilar.
Like me, this movie is all about people who only care how they can use their looks to get on in life. Consequently, it’s hard to sympathise with them when they start to ‘disappear’. They’re simply obsessed with being bitchy in the way adults are and being more beautiful than anyone else. They can’t even follow the yoga teacher’s simple rules. It doesn’t help that all of them are already gorgeous looking anyway. It’s very much an ironic case of, tough, but you can’t have your cake and eat it. Outside of its six babes, this is a movie that looks good, in a gloomy, haunted house kind of way, but commits the number one sin for a horror; it’s simply not scary. After I’d watched it, I didn’t have any problems going to the toilet via the dark hall outside my living room. The best horrors can have me checking inside the shower and not turning my back on the bathroom door, ‘just in case’. Testing the lock on the front door and looking inside the wardrobe are not unheard of either. It’s passable as a film to spend an evening watching, but its lack of really scary stuff makes it quite boring at times.
Music. There isn’t much, although it’s so forgettable that I’ve forgotten about it already.
Recommend for yoga teachers, TV presenters, shopping-channel aficionados and consumers of vapid, shallow, corporate-sponsored glamour and beauty. Not recommended for yoga students.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? Near the end of the film, Hyo-jung is in a subway station, where she starts to see people she thinks are dead. The symbolism of it was all rather lost on me. However, at precisely 1:33:37 she lets out a wonderful, nine second long scream. A great bit of movie mini-magic, which therefore makes it badass. You’d never guess she had lungs that big.
Blood & Chocolate / My ‘New’ Phone
A werewolf tale from the producers of “Underworld”, “Blood & Chocolate” tells the story of Vivian (Agnes Bruckner), a young teenage girl who must choose between her love for a young artist and loyalty to her werewolf lineage. Others may have secrets, but none as extraordinary as Vivian. One of the last of her kind, she comes from a line of loup garoux, shape shifters able to transform into the form of both human and wolf at will. When Vivian’s affections for a visiting artist threaten to reveal her family’s secret society, she must decide whether to prove her allegiance to their secret vows or follow her heart and betray them all.
2007 – Certificate 12 – American Film
Rating Details: Moderate violence, horror and drug references
7 out of 10
I’ve been provided with a new work mobile. Well it’s not really new, it’s one that’s been ‘reallocated’; but it’s new to me. Its predecessor, a seven-year-old Nokia 6300, had become a bit of an embarrassment, what with its unbusinesslike, tatty appearance and talk-time that struggled to get me past the ‘how are you?” stage of a phone conversation. You can probably imagine how my pulling that out of my pocket at a critical moment in one of the many, high-powered meetings I attend, can undermine my negotiating position. My new one is a Nokia E5. It’s the first smart-phone I’ve ever had. Something tells me it’s not a medal contender in the mobile coolness rankings, although as I don’t have a contract for it that includes a data allowance, this rather limits its use for anything resembling “smart” anyway. It does seem to be able to ‘talk’ to my network at home though. I’m not quite sure what all the buttons and icons are for yet, although I have managed to sort out the most important things, like the ringtones it uses. For calls it plays “Do You Like Waffles?” by Parry Gripp, whilst for texts it blares out “Marco Polo” by Guttermouth. The latter is 15 seconds of punk rock noise that when combined with its cheap, in-built speaker, is likely to send anyone else within 10m of it when it plays in an ‘office environment’, into an incandescent fury. There’re quite a number of people in this movie who get pretty pissed about things too.
When they’ve got over bitching about how much this film doesn’t resemble the book of the same name, people seem to then suggest it’s some sort of teen romance about werewolves. So let me tell you it’s really an out-and-out action movie; all it needs is Sylvester Stallone and it would be the whole package. Big explosive finale? Check. Some guns and stuff? Check? An unlikely hero who performs way beyond the call of duty? Check. Some cheesy one-liners? Check. Being able to write and draw (our hero Aiden is a penniless graphic novel writer) is pretty cool; if you think my writing is bad you should see my drawing. I took my last art exam when I was 14 years-old. I got 18%. I tried to draw sadness but it came out as a disgusting shambles of green, painted squiggles. I imagine the teacher probably thought I was taking the piss but really, that was the best I could do. Sadly (and somewhat ironically given the focus of my work), my canvas had all the emotionally resonance of a newly painted bathroom radiator, in magnolia. To this day my ability to draw remains at the level of a 4 year-old; and not a talented one either. I’m always a little in awe of those than can seemingly and effortlessly draw things; a genuine talent. However, I’ve never considered that the traits that make someone a good artist or writer, would also equip the same person to be an action-hero too. This movie is about a penniless artist/writer, who falls in love with a chick. Of course, like many potential in-laws, hers don’t really take to him, so being werewolves they decide to kill him. In the space of a day or two, our quiet, unassuming (although a little stalker-like) artist turns into one, badasss motherfucker, taking on half the werewolves in Bucharest. To explain these abilities, the movie provides a brief throwaway line about something to do with his relationship with his father not being that great. Bloody hell, poor guy. What a bastard he must have been! Aiden even manages to survive what looks like a good 50’ drop through a broken sky-light, before coming to a very sudden stop, dangling upside down, with his leg caught in a rope, without this causing him the slightest injury. He even has the audacity to blame Vivian for the situation he’s in, even though he spends half the film virtually stalking her. I’m certainly no expert on relationships, but something tells me theirs isn’t going to last much longer than the end credits. Fortunately, what all this means is that I can admit to seeing this movie without having to invent an imaginary girlfriend “who made me watch it” as an excuse for doing so. I have to say Agnes Bruckner does do a good, surly teenager, sulky pout. It’s actually a decent film, well worth watching.
The soundtrack has a sort of gothic-Klingon-“The Equaliser” vibe going on. Sadly it’s as ‘good’ as it sounds. Serviceable but forgettable.
Recommended for artists, writers, teens, chocolate-addicts and action-heroes. Not recommend for werewolves. They always seem to end up on the losing side.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? It has to be our mild-mannered, stalker/artist/writer/hero, Aiden. He utters the one-liner “Drink Up” just before he sets fire to a load of alcohol to burn a couple of werewolves to death, after a fire-fight with a gang of them. This is especially impressive as we’re not led to believe he makes a habit of this sort of thing. The ability to up your game when the time comes is definitely badass. It’ll be a brave person who gives any of the graphic novels he writes a bad review…
Night of the Comet / Walking to Work
It’s the first comet to buzz the planet in 65 million years and everyone seems to be celebrating its imminent arrival! Everyone, that is, except for Regina Belmont (Catherine Mary Stewart) and her younger sister Samantha (Kelli Maroney), two valley gals who care more about meteoric fashion trends than celestial phenomena. But upon daybreak, when the girls discover that they’re the only residents of Los Angeles whom the comet hasn’t either disintegrated or turned into a zombie, they… well, they go shopping! But when their day of malling threatens to become a day of the mauling, these two val gals flee with both killer zombies and blood-seeking scientists in hot pursuit!
1984 – Certificate: PG-13 – American Film
6.5 out of 10
Over the past year or so, I’ve become somewhat lazy in terms of travelling to and from work. Using the excuse that “I’m really busy” to justify turning into a fat, sickly, exploitative capitalist, I’ve got into the habit of driving most days. Fortunately, realising my impending metamorphosis into a fat, middle-aged asshole, along with the fact that at work we’re even more penniless than usual at the moment (it’s a company car), I’ve resolved to do things differently. Remember kids, ‘smashing the system’ starts at home! If you’re not part of the solution then you’re part of the problem. In an effort to save the planet even more than I normally do and increase the likelihood of my still being around to enjoy the fruits of my labour, I’ve started walking into work and home again. It’s 2.4 miles each way, so when I add a bit extra on for all the staggering I do that results from the exhaustion walking this far causes me, that almost 5 miles a day. After a week or so I have to report that the main effect has been to make my left knee really sore, although I’m sure the reduction in the amount of driving I’m doing has probably resulted in the reversal of Climate Change and consequentially the crappy, cold weather we’ve been having recently. I’m really sorry if I’ve spoilt anyone’s holiday. This film is also about something that has global consequences.
This is a cult movie. That means a lot of people have convinced themselves that it’s good, whereas in fact it’s pants. Two young sisters, the tall, attractive but slightly geeky Regina and the out-and-out bimbo Samantha, manage to survive a phenomenon that turns most people turn into a brown dust or a zombie. (I hate days like that.) They manage this as one of them had sex with her boyfriend in a cinema, whilst the other had an argument with her mother about something ‘teenage’ that I don’t understand and then spent the night sulking in a garden shed. Fortunately for them, they then manage to meet up with Lieutenant Commander Chakotay from “Star Trek Voyager”, although he’s a lot younger in it, nearly 400 years or so younger, given the date he was first aboard Voyager. But it’s definitely Chakotay and not some actor playing his part; the way he reacts to the zombie boy in his parents’ house is just so Star Fleet. Anyway, the sisters talk bollocks a lot, go shopping and foil a sinister plot of sorts by a group of Government scientists. With hindsight, I guess it was lucky that their absent father was in the military and taught them how to use a range of guns. Don’t mess with an armed cheerleader, good advice at any time. In its defence, this is a fun, über 80s film, which manages to lampoon many others without ever turning into a parody of them. I guess that makes it a bit of a geeks’ film too. The fact that one of its two main characters has the top ten scores on a Tempest arcade game, just goes to reinforce my point. (Tempest was crap; Asteroids was loads better.) Less impressive is the random survivor that turns up near the end. He’s driving a Mercedes sports car. He’s in Los Angeles, almost everyone else is dead and he’s probably got the pick of just about every sports car ever made within a mile of the city centre; and he’s picked a Merc. That’s so unrealistic, it totally undermines the believability of the whole film…
I like to moan about how rubbish most music is these days is, but in the 80s it was even worse. This movie features a lot of music from that time period and it’s dire. Trying to consider that it’s some sort of important cultural landmark and should be preserved, is rather like arguing we should keep a 60’s concrete tower block in place, simply because it’s an example of a certain type of architecture. No, no, no. The clothes women wore at the time were awful too.
Recommended for airheads, scientists, geeks, bimbos and Star Trek Fans.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? When the whole burden of civilisation has fallen upon you, it’s good to see that the Green Cross Code Man’s word still counts for something. After all, remember what he turned into. How the once mighty can fall… Even more badass is the fact that the traffic lights are still working so long after 99.9% of the world’s population has died.
Shooting Vegetarians / Vegans Top the Food Chain
Neil (Guillermo Diaz) has been a vegetarian for one thousand two hundred and sixty-three days. He and his girlfriend Daisy like to spend their days skateboarding, drinking organic coffee, and driving around talking about the state of the world. Their idyllic existence is shattered when Neil’s father, Vic, reveals his grand plan for Neil to become a third generation butcher and work with him in the Father and Son butcher shop. With no job to support himself and nowhere else to live, Neil is left with little choice but to report to work with his father. Faced with the bloody reality of slabs of dead meat, Neil runs screaming from the shop, and keeps running and running and running, until he ends up in a deserted skateboard park. There he has a visionary encounter with a Chicken Man, who kicks his ass and shows him how hypocritical his pseudo-political lifestyle has been. With the Chicken Man’s inspirational words ringing in his head, “You know what you are supposed to do,” Neil returns to his life with a mission to change the world.
2005 – Certificate: Not Rated – American Film
6.5 out of 10
As we all know, vegans are inherently more intelligent and all-around better than anyone else. We also know that we’ll eventually inherit the Earth too; (I’m afraid the meek will just have to piss off down the job centre and look for something else to do). True, it will probably resemble the inside of a Chinese takeaway’s wheelie bin by then, but it’s the principle that’s important here. We look upon mere vegetarians as uneducated children, people with the potential to become civilised, but who have many dark sides to overcome and quests they need to undertake, before they attain true enlightenment. Yes, I know there’re a lot more vegetarians about than vegans but really, they’re a bit like the Lib Dems, no one takes them seriously do they? One pizza or the whiff of bacon cooking and they’re slobbering like a St. Bernard, apologising for their dietary ‘aberration’, in an attempt to appease their cannibalistic, meat-eating friends, in case the latter get offended. If a vegan walks into a room, people take notice; think The Terminator. (That’s probably not the best analogy, but it’s all I can come up with right now.) When I walk into a room, people make their excuses and leave. If I spot a non-vegan woman who I feel shows ‘potential’ and I explain to her that as a vegan we can’t actually breed as we’re basically different species so it’s okay for us to ‘do stuff’ together, she will inevitably make her excuses and leave too. I guess the offer is just too awesome and mind-blowing for them to cope with. I can appreciate that viewpoint; I have each and every one of the 453 times it’s happened. This film is about a mere vegetarian. One who realises that trying to negotiate your enemy into surrender isn’t always possible.
A lot of the time there’s not much really going on in this drama/comedy/horror; the characters mostly sit around and talk about uninteresting stuff. In fact it’s so bad, Neil even speaks directly to the viewers, to give us some insight into what he’s thinking. There aren’t a lot of films like that. There aren’t a lot of films without a trailer either, but I think this might be one of them. Actually, I think Neil is probably a sociopath; he really doesn’t seem to care a lot about those around him, even his family, girlfriend and best mate. He looks like he does but really, it’s all for show. A typical, serial killer personality trait. I personally blame it on all the milk and cheese he probably eats. I suspect there’s a tendency for all vegetarians to be that way inclined; can eat this, can’t eat that, I’m a lacto-ovo-talkbollocksaboutfoodo vegetarian so I can basically decide what I eat depending on what mood I’m in, etc. It’s so complicated, no wonder it messes with their heads. All that angst and guilt about everything. Even the word vegetarian is (if you’ll excuse the pun) a mouthful; does it really need five syllables? And vegetarianism? That’s seven. By the time you’ve explained what you are to someone and what you can and can’t eat, you’ll have starved to death. No wonder they’re all so thin. Look what happened to Robocop in “Robocop 2” when he had too many Prime Directives to deal with. They should all just be vegan, it’s a whole lot simpler; if you like it you can’t eat it. Even I can understand that. Oh the film? Actually it’s not bad at all; I’ve probably made it sound worse than it is.
The film sports a great soundtrack made up of songs by numerous and mostly obscure punk rock bands. It’s good.
Recommended for vegetarians, skateboarders, coffee shop workers and punks. Not recommend for butchers or pet shop store owners.
One cat, no chainsaws or decapitations. There’s a cute cat on a cushion in a pet shop, which does have to do a bit of acting. Stretching your paws out take real timing and effort to look good.
Top badass moment? In the most poorly hidden plot development of the century (especially as I’m about to blab it now), vegetarian Neil kills his butcher father and feeds him to the customers. Sorry, but that automatically qualifies as badass, regardless of the moral implications.
Satanic Sluts: The Black Order Cometh / Piñon Pine Incense Cones
The Satanic Sluts are an all female collective (similar to the Suicide Girls), numbering up to 666 of the world’s most sexual, attitudinal, confrontational, creative and challenging women that have ever chosen to walk down the left-hand path. In this exclusive and unique DVD six members of The Satanic sluts have bared their corrupt souls for your delectation and their dubious pleasure. Featuring real bloodletting, Japanese rope bondage, whippings and satanic crucifixions, through to fantasized sequences involving torture, medical experiments and vampirism. Watching this DVD will be akin to having your eyeballs licked – prepare to go blind!
2008 – Certificate: 18 – UK Film
Rating Details: Very strong language, nudity, bloody gore and fetish
3.0 out of 10
I’ve always quite liked scented things for rooms. I’m not talking about those dreadful air freshener sprays that appear to be a close relation of tear gas; or them plug-in abominations, whose mere existence confirms the inevitability of environmental Armageddon. No, I’m talking about things like incense and oil burners. A couple of years ago, two friends came to stay with me and gave me a gift of some piñon pine incense cones. They were lovely, but sadly they ran out ages ago; (the cones, not the friends). I hunted around on the Internet looking for a supplier, but they were all in America and the idea of paying zillions for shipping wasn’t that appealing. All I could find closer to home were piñon incense sticks, which just weren’t the same. However, I finally came access a cone supplier on eBay a month or two ago, based in the UK. My flat now smells like an open wood fire in New Mexico. Apparently it also repels mosquitoes. The only smells likely to emanate from this film are rubber, latex and leather.
Just for a moment, think about your favourite, male, movie action-hero. Okay, now imagine him in a tough spot; his gun’s out of ammo, he’s securely tied up with the film’s beautiful heroine and they’ve only got five minutes before the nuclear bomb they’re sitting on explodes, killing millions of innocents in Los Angeles. He might say something along the lines of, “this is bad… really bad”. Now, forget about the bomb and stuff and plonk that same action-hero in front of a TV and make him watch this film for a bit. Spot the difference in the dialogue? No, I can’t either. Part drama and part documentary, this movie is made up of a series of quite random short scenes and interviews with some of the ‘cast’. It’s probably supposed to provide an insight into an alternative lifestyle, whilst exciting the parts other films can’t reach. Well it did neither and it all felt strangely old-fashioned to me too. I’ve never quite understood the appeal of all that gothic, dominatrix in leather stuff; I suppose that comes of being vegan. I did find myself wondering at one point how hot it must get wearing all that latex. I use to have a pair of PVC trousers in my more flamboyant days and they used to really warm up if the sun got on them; they were good in wet weather though. I can only imagine the 170 seconds of footage that the BBFC insisted were cut from the film to enable it to gain an 18 certificate, must have all the plot and ‘good stuff’ in them. Yes, the compulsory cuts that were required to remove the “unsimulated sight of restrained woman’s arm being cut with a scalpel” must be where it all is. I guess the sight of someone having needles pushed into various parts of her face is okay though, it was probably just something to do with acupuncture that I’ve misinterpreted. And as I never open the security grills on the windows in my office at work, the stuff with the cages didn’t seem that big a deal to me. However, the scariest thing about this film is that it’s the first part of a trilogy. That will give me sleepless nights.
I’m not sure what sort of music soundtrack this film had. Industrial techno? Who knows? Anyway, it wasn’t very good.
Recommended for acupuncturists, nuns, birds in leather and nurses.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations. However, one of the ‘stars’ calls herself Chelsea Chainsaw. I hope she has the proper ‘industry tickets’ for that name, at least CS30 and hopefully CS31 too.
Top badass moment? Someone has lots of needles pushed into her face, for the entertainment of others. It’s not made entirely clear what she gets out of it, but whatever, that’s kind of badass. I might give it a miss myself; there’re some reruns of “Bargain Hunt” with David Dickinson I’m keen to catch up with this weekend.
13 Going On 30 / New Town Kings Gig
Jennifer Garner (“Daredevil”, TV’s “Alias”) and Mark Ruffalo (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) star in this hilarious flash-forward romance about a pre-teen girl who goes from geek to glamorous. With the help of some magic wishing dust, 13 year-old Jenna Rink (Garner) becomes 30 and gorgeous overnight, with everything she ever wanted, except for her best friend Matt (Ruffalo). Now, this grown woman must create some magic of her own to help the little girl inside find the true love she left behind.
2004 – Certificate: 12 – American Film
Rating Details: Moderate sex and drug references
8.0 out of 10
Went to see the New Town Kings last night at the Camden Underworld in London. It’s probably the best ska band in the country. (Quite why people listen to stuff like Coldplay when they could be listening to bands like the NTK entirely escapes me, but I think it’s probably just another symptom of the fall of humanity; the signs are all around us after all, this is just another scream of terror from the depths of hell into which we’re falling.) The gig was great, had a little bit too much to drink but managed not to be too uncoordinated or tread on too many feet. I really like going to gigs in the summer, as when you leave at the end in a sweat-soaked t-shirt, you don’t walk out into a dark night that has a wind chill that wouldn’t feel out of place in an Antarctic winter. I hate that and hanging about at Paddington Station afterwards, waiting for a train that’s either packed and you can’t get a seat, or freeing cold. (I know it’s partly my fault as I wear the same things all year, but cloakrooms are a pain so if I can’t wear it under ‘combat conditions’ or tie it around my waist, then it’s too much hassle. I’m sure regularly undergoing a freeze-thaw cycle is good for something; it’s good for some seeds anyway.) Have to say I’m feeling pretty fit at the moment. I remember seeing NTK a couple of years ago and I was knackered at the end. This time it didn’t feel that big a deal. I truly have the body of top sportsman! (Darts probably).
I can’t believe it, but this is the fifth comedy I’ve watch in a row. What’s come over me? Then again, I do choose the films I watch entirely at random, although there are a lot of complicated rules that govern this process, but at the end of the day it’s still pretty random. Anyway, let’s not consider how clichéd or stupid this film is. Let’s just consider it and its (I think for me) unique, pink DVD case. To deflect the fact and consequent embarrassment that comes from my sitting and watching a chick-flick on my own, I like to consider this as a movie with a hard science fiction storyline, that just happens to have some sort of romance built into it somewhere. We first meet our hero Jenna around the time of her 13th birthday, just before she travels about 27 years into the future, into an alternative time-line. So okay, the ‘time-machine’ consists of some sort of ‘fairy dust’ that we never get an explanation for, but that’s the nature of these things, apparently. Then in the future she does stuff and it all works out okay. Right? It is actually an excellent film, even though it’s rubbish too; I did feel myself getting emotional once or twice, (just a tiny bit of course). It also has one of those brilliant, so-crap-it’s-good dance routine scenes in it; Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” being the victim in this case. (You should check out all the people at IMDB seriously discussing how realistic this scene is and how poor the choreography is; and I thought I had trouble living in the real world sometimes.) Technically I like how this film looks and sounds on DVD.
This movie uses it’s soundtrack to strongly emphasise its 80s vibe. In this, thanks in part to the way the sound blasts out every time a song is played, it succeeds well. Even I have to begrudgingly admit that it’s not that bad.
Recommended for magazine editors, freelance photographers, 13 year-old girls and anyone who thinks 80s pop music is of any value; (yes, you there at the back, I can see you).
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? Biach Tom-Tom getting her comeuppance. So she gets a drink spilt on her, a few harsh words and some work ripped up in front of her face; but when you’re 13 and have a social position to maintain in front of your friends, that’s probably not dissimilar to having your head blown off with a big gun by the unsung hero in the climatic final scene in a bloody action film.
Tom and Jerry: Shiver Me Whiskers / Fruit Salad
It’s a swashbuckling pirate adventure when Tom sets sail as a lowly cabin cat for the biggest, baddest pirate on the high seas: the infamous Captain Red. Tired of swabbing the deck all day, Tom thinks his luck has changed when a mysterious bottle containing a treasure map washes on board. Tom’s dream of finding the treasure for himself is ruined when he discovers the bottle also contains stowaway mouse Jerry. Poor little Jerry has been guarding the treasure map and now has a greedy cat on his paws. Will Jerry be forced to walk the plank? Will Tom make it to the deserted island first? The race is on and Tom and Jerry must work together to get past coconut-throwing monkeys and a giant slimy octopus, then outsmart the pirates to find the buried treasure!
2006 – Certificate: U – American Film
Rating Details: No material likely to offend or harm
5.0 out of 10
From time to time throughout my life I’ve eaten fruit salad, which often came out of a tin. At its worst, tinned fruit salad is a euphemism for an unpalatable assortment consisting of squidgy bits of cheap apple, cubes of gritty pear and a few other, unrecognisable lumps, floating about in a sugary gunk. If you were lucky you’d get the single, half cherry that was always immersed in this slime, or a random fragment of what the ingredients list claimed to be peach. Certainly it never looked like the picture on the tin, which normally manifested itself as a lush, green jungle of exotic fruit trees. Now, I really like oranges, a lot. In fact, if I could find a woman who wanted to dress up as an orange in bed, I’d marry her tomorrow; even a satsuma or a clementine would do, I’m not fussy. Despite the half cherry normally attracting everyone’s attention and desire, it was the occasional bit of mandarin that really sailed my boat. Absent from all but the ‘better quality’ tins, I used to desperately search for these elusive segments. Although frequently disappointed, I never lost the urge to keep on searching, like some sort of hardened gold miner, panning the streams in an arid wasteland for that one strike that would change his life. Now I’m an adult I have the luxury of being able to buy whole tins of fruit, containing nothing but mandarin segments in their own juice. I buy about six a month, just to quench my perverted desires. As Harold Macmillan said, I’ve “never had it so good.” This is a movie about searching for treasure too.
I’ve tried to work out why this isn’t one of my favourite Tom & Jerry Films. On the surface it seems fine; they don’t talk, there’s plenty of brutality, it looks right and the music and effects sound like they’re supposed to. Then it dawned on me; despite all the violence, most of it consists of Tom and Jerry crashing into things or being squashed. Where’s Tom being blown up in an oven, turned inside out, or sliced up into lots of bits after being sucked into a jet engine, etc? There’re only so many times you can watch them running into things or being thrown against something hard; the variety of animal cruelty on show is sadly lacking. When the rating details say “no material likely to offend or harm” then you know there’s going to be a problem. For Tom & Jerry I want them to say, “very strong bloody violence, strong torture and sadism theme featuring animals cruelty”. The pirates and their parrots are a bit crappy too, although the skull is pretty cool and the treasure hunt part of the film does make up for its somewhat generic first section. Oh, and the overview above isn’t accurate; Jerry’s already on the boat; he doesn’t arrive in the bottle at all! Did the person who wrote it even bother to watch the film?
The music is pretty authentic classic Tom & Jerry. Job done.
Recommend for pirates and parrots; and skulls that can talk like Luke Skywalker with a Spanish accent, although there’s probably not many of them about.
No chainsaws or decapitations, but one cat, (Tom of course). And I guess there’s a good chance the skull was the result of a decapitation.
Top badass moment? Tom gets so much shit from everyone, it’s unreal; the pirates, Jerry, Spike. In return, he really doesn’t do that much and it’s not like he wasn’t provoked. If it ended up in court I bet he’d only get a suspended sentence, given all the mitigating circumstances. For one brief moment he gets rewarded by the Red Pirate for giving him the treasure map. In fact this scene feels really out of place, it’s so unusual. When your life’s an endless round of crap, bad luck and failure, any moment of happiness is badass. And has anyone noticed just how fit he is? At one point, he rows a boat with five pirates in it (plus a mouse and a parrot) for what looks like hours and hours through a storm and then still manages to escape.
Hot Fuzz / English as a First Language (and 2nd, 3rd, 4th…)
When top London cop, PC Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), is reassigned to the quiet town of Sandford, he struggles with his seemingly crime-free world… and oafish partner Danny (Nick Frost). When several grisly accidents rock the village, it’s not long before Danny’s dreams of explosive, high-octane, car-chasing, gun fighting, all-out action become reality! It’s time for these small-town cops to hand out big-city justice!
2007 – Certificate: 15 – UK Film
Rating Details: Very strong language and strong comic bloody violence
9.0 out of 10
I went to the local chemists yesterday. To get there I had to walk up a steep hill. As I was doing so, I passed a young guy (I guess he was about 13) having a conversation in the street with a friend. (I say conversation; they were actually shouting at one another across the road and into an adjacent playground. Maybe it was just a new type of cheap, limited range not-very-smart phone they were trying out; who knows?) So anyway, I got to hear quite a long exchange between them, as I staggered, wheezing, red-faced and exhausted, up the near precipice I was attempting to climb. Maybe my physically overtaxed body was to blame, but I could barely decipher a word of what they were shouting to one another, despite the fact that I think they were speaking English. Today I went to a meeting in Redhill; (which despite the name, doesn’t appear to have a hill of any colour in it, just some shops and offices). I had to get up at the unwholesome hour of 5:58am to give me time to get there and the train was too crowded for me to get in a decent sleep on the way too. Maybe my mentally overtired mind was to blame, but I sat in a meeting with four other people who, although very nice, used so much ‘management speak’ that I could barely decipher a word of what they were saying to one another, despite the fact that I think they were speaking English. I guess I’m not cool enough to ‘hang out on the streets’ with ‘the kids’ or clever enough to exchange ‘intellectual banter’ with ‘corporate leaders’. The film features a number of language issues relating to the “metropolitan police vocabulary guidelines”.
This is a genuinely great action-comedy. If you’ve never seen it, rectify the situation now. If you have seen it, go and watch it again, now. That’s all I’ve got to say about it really, because it’s one of those movies you really ought to have seen already and it’s got Scotty in it. It’s also one of those rare British films where you want the police to win. If you think the locals as characterised in the movie are just a bit over-the-top; well, I’ve met people like them for real. Most of them are parish and town councillors. Lovely people, but a bit scary too… The Shires of southern England have a lot in common with the Wild West…
Between the inspired use of Adam and the Ants’ “Goody Two Shoes” at the start and Supergrass’ “Caught by the Fuzz” at the end, the music settles down into a more mundane but fun mixture of mostly 60s and 70s brit-pop songs, which often reinforce the images on the screen through their lyrics. Actually it’s a pretty good soundtrack.
Recommended for police officers, town/parish councillors, florists, journalists, publicans, hoddies, supermarket managers and anyone associated with a neighbourhood watch group.
No cats or chainsaws, but two decapitations, plus one head totally splattered with a church spire.
Top badass moment? Trashing your local supermarket has to be badass. (Is there anyone who hasn’t at some point wanted to pull the bottom can or packet out of one of those ‘food towers’ they build them from?) Doing so in the name of law and order simply gives you access to the moral high ground too. Imagine all the bargains there the next day, on the ‘slightly shop soiled’ shelf? (Actually, do they still construct those towers? I half think they’ve been done way with in the name of health and safety. Those “Tin of beans and it’s toast for toddler” types of headlines don’t look good.)
Bandwagon / The Roberts Stream 83i
“Bandwagon” is a fresh and exciting indie comedy about four unlikely characters, who together form a band. Tony Ridge is a tragically shy singer and songwriter who can barely discuss his songs, let alone play them in public. He meets up with Charlie, an anxious young drummer with a practice space and a mom who makes them snacks. They seek out Wynn, a perpetually stoned lead guitarist, and finally, Eric, a feisty bass player who’s just given away his instrument as collateral on an overdue bet. Once the bass is retrieved from an unforgettable drug-dealing redneck the guys are ready. But ready for what? Is their band about the music, about getting the girls, or just something to pass the time? They decide that the best way for them to get noticed is to hit the road so they procure Linus Tate, the elusive, but legendary, road manager. The group soon realizes that life, confined to the space of their not-so-trusty van, isn’t always an easy endeavour. First-time writer/director John Schultz, a native of North Carolina, has taken full advantage of the striking local scenery during the peak of fall. Witty dialogue and clever plot twists punctuate a well-crafted story. An expertly produced sound track, including original songs performed by the film’s band, Circus Monkey, as well as other independent bands, gives the film an edgy, contemporary sound. A mix of familiar faces (Kevin Corrigan from “Living in Oblivion” and Steve Parlavecchio from “Amongst Friends”) and refreshing new talent round out an energetic ensemble cast. “Bandwagon” is a good-time venture into young artistic expression.
1996 – Certificate: Not Rated – American Film
7.0 out of 10
My new Roberts Stream 83i has arrived, as a replacement for my old but now sadly broken, Logitech Squeezebox. It plays FM radio. It plays Internet radio. It’s a DAB radio. It streams music from my NAS Drive. It sounds nice. It’s very easy to work out how to use it. It looks a little too like it was designed by someone with an over enthusiasm for 50’s sci-fi spaceship control panels; Buck Rodgers would feel right at home with it. What’s there not to like? Well, two things so far. Despite giving access to thousands of radio stations available on the Internet, it only give you 5 pre-sets for them, which is a bit perverse; was that bit of the specification sorted out on a Friday afternoon by some thickie on work experience with the company? Also, and far more annoyingly, it won’t shuffle music from my NAS Drive unless there’re less than about 2,000 tracks or folders in a folder, so it expects me to rearrange my whole, digital music collection to convenience this crappy bit of its design. I’ve e-mailed the company for a solution; let’s see how long it takes to reply and what it says. It never fails to amaze me how those that design things never seem to get the details quite right. This film is about music too.
Wynn, Eric, Tony and Charlie are four losers that have little else in common. They form a band, go on tour, fall out a lot, deal with loads of angst and in the end come good. So pretty much like every other film ever written about a band. Having said that, it’s quite a lot of fun and, critically, feels fairly authentic. Their enigmatic road manager, Linus, also adds a slightly surreal feel to things too. It’s often hard for actors to look like musicians in films, but in this case they generally do a pretty good job. It does feel bit dated at times, mainly because these days so much independent music is promoted and distributed on the Internet. There is a bit near the end where the band is being spoken to by the head of a record company, who’s explaining, quite convincingly, how the band has to do this, that and the other to be successful. Sometimes it feels like that at work; I spend more time playing the game that doing anything that’s actually making any sort of difference. It doesn’t matter how many times I have it explained to me, I’m still left with a feeling that there’s a better way to do things.
A film about a band needs to have good music. With a number of decent, mid 90s, American indie rock songs, this movie does manage to be convincing enough on this level. In fact a couple of them are actually pretty good.
Recommended for garage mechanics, dope-heads, record shop assistants and construction vehicle manufacturer workers.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Top badass moment? The record company president meets the band and offers it a recording contract. It turns it down. That’s defiantly sticking it to The Man, and that’s badass; and in many ways stupid too, but there’s something to be said for keeping you integrity and principles intact.
Penny's Gallery
Saving the Planet – July 2010
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