Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Bugger

Lazy damn work force

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Inglorius Basterds

Once upon a time in Nazi Occupied France, Quentin Tarantino made one hell of a movie.

I first heard whispers of it in 2006. Quentin Tarantino would be doing a War movie. How did i feel, chuffed? Confused? Worried Excited? Slightly Horny? Well quite frankly all of the above. Quentin Tarantino is my favourite person in Hollywood by miles, he always has been ever since i first saw resevoir dogs aged 10 and fell about laughing whenever Nice Guy said DADDY. I moved from film to film that tarantino was involved with and 9 times out of 10 i loved whatever it was, true romance, pulp fiction, desperado i would add it to my favourite films list. The extent of my Tarantino obsession came about when i was turned away at the door of the cinema opening night of Kill Bill because i was to young.

I don't think i had ever been angrier in my life. Apart from when my dad chucked my N64 in the bin perhaps.I was 14 years old. A time when most of my peers were starting to develop their relation ship with Scotland's past time. Binge drinking. An idea struck. If Thomas (A chap in my year) Really could get a fake ID for people who wanted to go to nightclubs, surely he could secure one for me. I paid 25 pounds to tha avaricious little shit Thomas for an ID that looked like he'd drawn it five minutes prior. However through some miracle when i tried it again at the Grovnor Cinema off Ashton lane, the little beauty worked. Shaking slightly from my victory i sat through probably the most enjoyable cinema experience of my life.

Not everyone liked Kill Bill. They wanted more of Samuel L Jackson Shouting MUTHA FUCKA , more of Bruce Willis killing hill billes with a mental sword and more of Micheal Madsen showing his affection for stealer's wheels big hits. They claimed Quentin had not been loyal to his fans. Not to be too offensive to those people but well fuck you, you whiny little philistine turd stains on the intellectual underpant. That is what makes Tarantino brilliant. You do not see it coming your not ready for it its new and exciting and its over waaaay to soon.

His films are Guerrilla fighters in modern cinema hitting hard and fast with great precision quickly and in surprise, and Inglorious Basterds is most definitely the commanding officer.

The film begins with a fantastic character introduction to the aptly Named "Jew Hunter". An SS officer who loves his work, and admires his prey for their purpose (making him look good). Character introduction is a strong suite of Tarantino, he always makes you like his Villains as much as his hero's and likes to keep the lines between them either very shadowy or just out right obvious.

The Basterds themselves are a Group of Jewish Soldiers who specialise in Apache tactics of fighting ie quick complete brutal destruction of their foe. They are led by Lt Al Doerain. An instant classic with quotes a plenty "You may have heard, we aint in the taking prisoners business, we're in the killing Nazis business, and cus i can tell ya, business is a booming". They are there to cause pain and complete terror amongst the ranks of the National Socialist party and my word they do it nicely with such team members as THE BEAR JEW and a homicidal Nazi hating German staff Sergent.

The directors utter and complete disdain for the third Reich comes through so forcefully even Winston Churchill would probably have said, "BITCH BE COOL". If you thought the ear scene in Dogs was brutal quite frankly you will try to gouge out your own eyes to avoid the brutality (glorious brutality) of this.

I have to admit i have very little to say about this film that is not positive, errr i guess the scene with the British officers is a bit daft and slightly offensive to the part Britain played in the war however it is clearly done for comic effect and not done to ridicule. It actually captures pretty well Britain's cavalier attitude towards warfare...damn that was supposed to be something i didn't like.

At the risk of spoiling it i really am not going to go into much detail, however i will say remember you are there to watch a film, not just to see Eli Roth and co "Fenway park" the skulls of swastika clad nob ends, it is not 2 hours of constant shooting and mauling, it does have subtitles (More than you may think) but you stop noticing them pretty durn quickly.

Go and see this film four times. Once to say you have seen it. Twice to pick up some of the quotes. Thrice to jump up and down in your seat where appropriate and the fourth time just to make sure you know who was actually that guy in the box at the end...you'll know what i mean.

(Yea and if you think your clever pointing out the historical inaccuracies of several scenes you are not clever you are a tit)

Gonzo

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Noone gives a damn about twitter.

If someone constantly pestered you with texts or unbearably ran up to you every 5 minutes saying, 'i r eatin' a toastie' or 'i just let rip a massive trump on the bus' you'd quickly find your patience reaching the end of your tether quickly. What type of self obsessed, inferiority riddled idiot needs to update us with every trivial and mundane detail? I don't need or want to know about what all the boring rubbish you need to do today or the contents of your latest and greatest yet stool sample. If you really are that pathetic and can't keep these things to your internal though dialogue, go and have a lovely old chat with a tree, or preferably that steamroller coming ever so slowly towards you in the distance, and you'll realise how much a wasted life it is, and how we're all lost in a infinite void condemned to die, and how the world is doomed to end, and all human civilisation if for nought.

Um, anyway, you may have noticed the general tone of this entry is pretty downbeat. Well, what i can't really comprehend is, how people can like it. In fact, it seems to me it's overblown in it's use - i bet 2/3 of 'twiterrers' (JIZZCOCKS TO A MAN.) use it sparingly if at all. The only real reason it's so damn popular is it's given the already general awful institution that is British Journalism another tiny little teeny weeny peep hole in to what all those rotten-crotched, syphyllis infested celebrities had for lunch, and then puked up in a classy london club 20 mins later.

And even more so, the celebrities don't even do it to improve their status at all. They use it to stroke their egos and show off how many are listening to what they're saying. They're just masturbating their own egos and pandering to the good old power delusions.

Twitter is the high altar of wanker worship.

But then, look at me. I'm some half angry half apathetic deushbag whining about something lots of people enjoy. I suppose i'm worried as to how these people's minds and their personalities will develop, but essentialy, i'm an optimist. I suppose, now i hope, that most twitterers are sane, and after all, Stephen Fry is on it.....


Furthermore, noone gives a damn about blogger.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Oh, look, i've finally written something.

I thought i'd write a few thoughts down first. Yes i know this isn't my diary, but bear with me, i have a point to make and stuff. And no, i don't actually have a bear with me.


As i've gotten progressively older, more wiser, more manly and having a good shave every month or so to prove said increasing manliness, i've come to look upon the holidays with an increasing air of quiet desparation, the type not unknown to John Prescott's bedsprings.

Gone are the days when the summer basically consisted of continuous piss ups on strongbow in the local park. No more are the great continuous days on end replaying of classic games like GTA San Andreas. Tidings of regretful passing must be shown to the epic, midsummer gigs at the local town hall and the pubs that snuck drink to underagers at the bar, who'd go and get so drunk after a few jaegerbombs and then try and piss right in front of all the smokers in their courtyard. Adios, Sayonara and Farewell to laughing at all the wankers sweltering and turning beetroot red in their dark business suits.

And that's where my current chip on the shoulder is coming from; i am now one of those wankers. There's aI suppose i have to grow up and accept the responsibility, and i can't just have things handed to me on a plate anymore, but the crux of it all is that i can't bear to think that within a few years my life might be nothing but a world of P45s, personal fucking targets, and false enthusiasm that is drilled into us by team leaders spawned from Midas' wife's golden vagina.

I suppose the money is good though, and when you think about it nostalgia is a dangerous rose tinted lense and not to be trusted. It was bloody Pol Pot's love for Cambodia's medieval age of nothing but paddy fields that led that mad fucker to kill thousands (I say that though, but i'm just a speccy eejit, and he hated lads like me, so i've got a biased. I'm always interested in meeting the fine person who rises to the Saviour of the Cambodian Proletariat's defense though!)

Anyway, to take my mind off a potential late teens crisis or whatever my convoluted neuroses is fretting over next, i have recently joined a gym, which is an entertaining experience to say the least. There is something almost sacred about the gym - not just in the way people make it the focus of their life, but in their behaviour their too. Now, i cannot say the same for every gym everywhere, as that would mean i have been to every one in our fair isle, akin to a enraged feline who must simply destroy the whole nest of birds for the fun of it. But There is little to no chatter at all going on there, even when it is busy. It's almost churchlike in the way it is unheard of - as if everyone is devoting themselves, mind and soul, to Apollo, Hercules or some other effeminate metaphor. The machines are your pews, the mirrors are the altar, as your reflection will gradually change into what popular culture desires for men to look like. It can even be said that the blaring loop of happy hardcore music which doesn't strike a chord with 99% of people there are the Temple's hymns. The loop of 8 songs adds further credence, as these mangled trancey versions of 'Bridge over Troubled Water' (OH GOD NO.) and Put a Donk On It seem to be some sort of proscribed set for our beliefs, namely that of dancing like morons once the work out is over, and holding the extremist belief that God commanded Isaac to put a donk on the Sodomites.

I may seem to be making some sort of spiritual link here, but after you get over the initial thought of 'ohgodhowdidigetherewhyamidoingthistomyselfiamnotgoodwithcomputer'. You do end up feeling really good afterwards, at the least. TBH, it certainly isn't spiritual really. It's just the place for those trapped by soceities' expectations and sneers go to give in, give up, and redeem themselves.


Plus they also have Put a Donk on It playing, which is well sik bruv.




--PP

--Afternote: Goodnight MJ. Hope the dude's found some peace.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

My 3-point plan to save television

We all know that T.V is shit.

A dead medium, right now there are many millions of people on the internet more than watching Bell's invention.

But television is also like an old friend, you used to be good mates untill you started hanging out with his cooler broadband brother. And you still visit him ocasionally just to check up.

When we do visit our old mate though he's just broadcasting mind numbing, reach-as-many-viewers-as-possible-before-they-notice-its-all-balls-and-there-hasn't-been-anything-that-good-on-for-years, mundane tripe.

When was the last time you can remember watching terestrial T.V and being really interested? Actually caring what was going to happen rather than just waiting for the programe to finish for your mum's sake?

Music has always been an important part of our culture- from medieaval jesters with their lutes to the 19th century cockney family round the "al' joanna" to today's drug soaked clubs, and the level of coverage offered to it by television is dispicable.

Not since Top of the Pops finished have the terestrial T.V watchers of the nation had an outlet to watch up-to-date pop music. The best you can hope for is five minutes at the end of Jonathan Ross's chat show or stay up burning the morning oil to watch Jool's Holland.

So heres my suggestion to save T.V -are you listening BBC?- 1. Bring back Top of The Pops ridiculous presenters and all. It was always meant to be for kids and kids like crap music, everyone does when they're a kid, so put on all the charts on TOTP and occasionally a band the grown-ups will like.

2.Get Jools Holland's show on at a reasonable prime-time slot. The only time most people have the chance to hear new music is on the radio if they're driving somewhere, bring it back to peoples living rooms.

3. And lets get musicians into everyday sort of situations. Why not Morrisey running a fruit and veg stall in Eastenders for a couple of episodes? Or Pete Doherty on a cooking programme explaing how to make Tiramasu? Or even the Arctic Monkeys entering the Eurovision song contest?

Well, maybe not the last one...

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Tranformers -Revenge of the fallen

There are many things a man may fight for, love of his country, revenge or the allspark, creator of all life...like ever. This is Micheal Bay's second outing into the Transformers series and after the huge success of his last film with its fantastic blend of a teenage ROM com with sentient robotic beings kicking the coolant out of each other thrown into the mix; expectations were pretty high for the sequel.

The films plot is somewhat Jumpier, and forgive the obvious ridiculousness of what i am about to say, less realistic. Basically the good old autobots (originals like Bumblebee, Optimus Prime, Iron Hide) are all still on earth and have teamed up with the American and for some elusive reason British special forces to create NEST, the much loved task force from the cartoons. A few new auto bots are on the scene. Three take the form of motorbikes and have feminine personalities. Also two robots known as the twins have made their way onto the scene.

For any one familiar with the hatred Jar Jar binx received after SWe1 times it by 10,000 and you will share the distaste i felt for these two. It was unnecessary and ineffective comic relief the film suffered greatly for it.

That's not all that was bad, Bay's direction is terrible in the emotional scenes, at the death of a very central character i was complacent and not really upset at all, and i am a lifelong fan of the franchise. It was poorly pieced together there were massive plot holes. Unexplained time lapse and sam pulling a combat knife out of thin air stuck in my mind, at one point involving a taser i actually made myself roll my eyes. The worst however was the insertion of a new kind of deceptacon, disguised as a beautiful girl who nearly assassinate sam, but then is gone soon after her brief yet huge amount of screen time.

Shia Le Beouf and Megan Fox's obvious chemistry seems less obvious initially with Le Beouf's character Sam Widwicky appearing more confident (the status quo returns in later scene). The pair's acting talent shows throughout the film and was extremely compelling it could have saved the film were it not for the poorly edited soundtrack which gave most of the film a cheesy second last scene of Armageddon kind of feel to it.

The Film had obvious shortcomings and as a true fan of the franchise it was a huge leap for me to admit to being a fan of the first blockbuster film and i really have been excited about a sequal since i saw the original but now i feel betrayed.

With a third film in the works lets just hope this trilogy is like Indiana Jones good to start, Poor In between, Great to finish. Fans of the original should go but don't expect to prove me wrong, i went in with a mind more open than a monk on acid and i was sorely disappointed.

One and a half eggs out of five.

Gonzo

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Gordon Ramsay and that naked swine quine.

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has criticised TV star Gordon Ramsay after the chef made insulting remarks about TV host Tracy Grimshaw.

Ramsay, who appeared on Grimshaw's TV show on Friday, made the comments at a Melbourne food fair the following day. He showed an image of a nude woman on all fours with a pig's face and likened the image to Grimshaw.

Mr Rudd said Ramsay's remarks reflected "a new form of low life". Ramsay has played this down saying his comments had been "blown out of context". Mr Ramsay believes this because he is among the most arrogant of gods (Buddha’s, Mohamed's, Giant Pumpkin’s) creatures. I mean really Gordon (why is every Gordon we know a git?) your comments don’t count for much anyway here. You likened the woman to the image of a naked pig humanoid that was crawling around a floor. If you showed me that picture and said Grimshaw’s name, I would be thinking of that picture every time I heard her name, even if you were speaking about her wonderful charity work, I would still think...Hmmm where have I heard that name? Oh aye the naked swine quine.

God bless you Australia, personally I hope you sue the ostentatious cook for every single pound sterling he has squeezed out of the worlds collective pocket and a couple more.