The Story of Cinema, Part 1: An Agoraphobic Reviewer 3-year Anniversary Special

The Hollywood ideal of beauty has changed dramatically in the last 100 years

Tomorrow marks the third anniversary of the birth of the Agoraphobic Reviewer. What better way to celebrate than to begin an epic history of cinema, ranging from the nineteenth century to the present day. And who better to narrate such a history than I, John Le Baptiste, a man who has never seen a single film:

PART 1: THE ROOTS OF CINEMA

The first film ever shown in public was projected on to the wall of a Paris basement in 1870-8 (or thereabouts). Featuring a lithe gentleman in a washing bonnet hanging over the English Channel from the side of a hot air balloon’s basket, wiggling his little Gallic legs and appearing to shout  ‘mere’, ‘merde’ or ‘mer’, this film established the blueprint for everything that would follow. Indeed, when any film of the last 150 years (e.g. Vertigo, Easy Rider, The Rush Hour Trilogy) is boiled down to its core, what remains except a little wiggly man in a perilous situation calling for his mother, shouting about faeces  or exclaiming that he can see the sea?

(As a footnote, the Le Baptiste family had a holiday tradition involving the spotting of the sea. Basically, whichever family member first saw the ocean from the car window, and then exclaimed ‘I can see the sea’, was rewarded with 1 pound sterling from the Le Baptiste paterfamilias. I have long suspected that this contest would make for a great film).

In general, the visual quality of the early films was very poor. This is because the first movie cameras were made out of wishes and were powered by the radioactive bones of Marie Curie. On the whole, however, this blurriness and fuzziness was a mercy, since most films just involved dogs jumping through hoops, women dancing, dogs dancing, women jumping through hoops and/or antisemitism. As an added affront to the refined sensibilities of the fin-de-siecle viewer, all dialogue was conveyed by means of post-it notes stuck to the lens of the camera at inopportune moments. What a crock!

IN THE NEXT INSTALLMENT: HOLLYWOOD, THE STUDIO SYSTEM AND ‘THE TALKIES’.

Logan’s Run – An Old Rope 30th Birthday Tribute Review

All good things must come to an end. But all bad things must come to an end too. And so it is, as we approach the thirtieth birthday of one of cyberspace’s most prolific, profligate and profusively-bearded bloggers, that we wave goodbye to Old Rope, and wish him a short, efficient and hygienic death.

Our society is a simple one, built on immutable truths and sturdy logic. Who among us would sincerely suggest that the life of a 30-year old is as productive or as valuable as that of a 21-year old or even a 28-year old? No-one (except for that gentleman there with the seditious moustache. Security: please detain the Hercules Poirot lookalike for re-education). That’s right, no-one. With the commencement of an individual’s fourth decade comes decreptitude, dependency and sensible pullovers. And so it is, that our simple rational society has decreed that there is no place more fitting for those aged 30 and over than the death-pod.

We take no pleasure at all in euthanizing the crow-footed and the bepaunched. Logic, not desire, demands that we do so. Except in the case of Old Rope, who, I think we can all agree, most heartedly asks for it.

But before we deposit his wrinkled, brown, homunculus body into the death-pod like a breached teabag, let us tarry a while and survey the life of this hirsute reprobate.

We first became aware of the existence of Old Rope when we: that is, I, the evergreen and perma-youthful John Le Baptiste, moved to the north-western wilds of Airstrip One. Even amid the unruly, rug-haired roustabouts of that place, Old Rope stood out as an enemy to decency and a nuisance to any high-minded, high-waisted citizen who crossed his path. Delicate and bird-like of limb, he hopped into my consciousness like a tiny punk goldthrush, chirruping his countercultural cantatas and flapping his little wings to a 3-chord backing. At that time there were many popular musical acts preaching their messages of irresponsibility and scruffy sartorial values. Their names have sunk deservedly into oblivion, but a few linger still in the neural spam box: The Dirties, The Naughty Club, Facking Rotters, The Earnests, The Little Lenins, Heil Humbert Humbert, Bad Attitudez. Yet the most pernicious of all of these combos was Fuzz-Wah, of which Old Rope was the frontman or, as he styled himself, the frontbum-man, sporting, as he did, a prosthetic pudendum and inviting, as he did, members of the audience to ‘return to the womb’ via his ersatz birth-canal.

Since those days, Old Rope has spread his seditious seeds to far-flung corners of the globe, partly through his blog, and partly through his own horrifically-ageing person.

And although Old Rope represents, in many ways, the nadir of everything that humanity is or could be, and although he is now 30 years old and suitable only for the death-pod, I would like to wish him a belated happy birthday and, assuming he survives the euthanisation process, invite him to join me for a moderately-priced bowl of nutrient-paste at the soup kitchen of his choosing this Monday evening.

Battle Royale

I watched Battle Royale the other day. Then I wrote a little poem to my local M.P. Then I woke up in a junkyard surrounded by cat skulls and empty Sunny Delight bottles. But that’s another story. Did I say I wrote a little poem? Well I didn’t, that was a lie. But if I had written a poem, here’s how it would have gone:

1.

Their posture is WEAK

Their handwriting is FLAWED.

O what will become of today’s youth?

When the hem of a boy’s trouser leg

Hangs below his ankles

Great shame is visited upon

His father and his mother.

My daughter lost her pencil case.

Great dishonour must follow.

2.

O parents! O progenitors!

O thin-lipped fathers

And tiny-hooved mothers!

Look at the pigs you popped out

Of your slack reproductive organs!

Are you not scandalised?

3.

I think the solution is pretty self-evident

4.

Battle Royale

5.

Billy Bunter, the Fat Owl of Greyfriars School

Was the first into the lists:

A symbol of the decadence of the west

Or, alternatively,

A proto-Harry Potter

But rounder

And a muggle.

6.

Yaroo. You fellows.

And Oooooh

He cried.

I’m fashed. Have you got any jam?

He added as they chopped at his trunk

With little Japanese knives.

7.

Bunter was the first of the gang to die.

Takiki and Naruto followed hot

On his plump and well-heeled trot

-ters

8.

Their pickled heads now sit

In the Trophy Cabinet of Michael Gove

To remind him of the sacred duty of his calling.

His strokes them sometimes,

Paternally.

I shall be the victor of Battle Royale and there shall be no tuck for you Lord Teddington.

RoboCop

With a big budget remake due to hit the big screens in a big way next year, now is the perfect time to take an ill-informed retrospective squint at Paul Verhoeven’s original.

PC Jim Murphy is a maverick (non-robo) cop on the edge, who plays by his own rules and lives by his own law. He plays hard and drinks fast – and he loves even harder and/or faster. He walks the line between right and wrong but he always gets his man and he lives by his own code – and it’s a very special type of justice indeed. He doesn’t always go by the book but he gets the job done, whether the bosses like it or not, and if they don’t like it… well, that’s their problem. He’s also getting too old for this shit.

After being brutally twatted by drug dealers, Murphy is rebooted by (non-robo) scientists as part of a bleeding-edge information technology project, led by a collaborative group of inter-disciplinary innovators. Essentially, they turn him off and on again. This is great news for Murphy, as his files had become corrupted.

Resurrected as the mechanoid death-dispensing bullet-shitter, RoboCop, Murphy proceeds to scour the sins from the futuristic streets of a bleak, neo-Gothic Detroit.

“ERROR X1R44, PUNK!!”, he bleeps, throttling a pimp. “DO YOU WANT TO SEND ERROR REPORT?!”

Murphy’s (non-robo) bosses aren’t happy. Doors are slammed, paper cups of coffee are thrown at walls, and brows are furrowed. An investigation is launched.

Robo-Murphy meets with his (non-robo) union rep.

“It doesn’t look good, Murphy,” says the bespectacled humanoid union man. “Three counts of cyber-violence and it’s only Tuesday. And you need to oil your knees – they’re too squeaky. No-one can concentrate on their work when you’re walking down the corridor.”

Murphy jerks up from his seat, upturning the desk in the process.

“RAM DUMP!! DEFRAG MAIN DRIVE?!”

He exits and journeys to the land of Oz in search of a heart, but finds only corruption, corporate greed and  bureaucracy.

Rage (Again) The Machine - Murphy struggles with the paradox of having human emotions and a brain made of spreadsheets.

The film ends with a point of view shot of Murphy suffering the dreaded ‘blue screen of death’, kicking spasmodically and gurgling a pastey, milkish gloop from his face-holes.

“It’s probably for the best. The world just wasn’t ready for him,” says a passing (non-robo) janitor, sweeping away the shattered dreams of a broken society.

An interesting film, but one marred by typically Verhoeven-esque scenes of rancid copulation between the machine-like Murphy and the soft, squishy (non-robo) lollipop lady, Rita.

I give this film 5 megs out of 10. BZZZZTTT!!

The Lost Boys

Being the sort of elitist snob who cares not a jot for mainstream mass media, I’ve never seen Joel Schumacher’s classic ’80s comedy horror The Lost Boys. Thus, I set out about reviewing it, in order that we can all move on and get over ourselves. Forthwith and anon.

Starring the glamorous media darlings of the decade, Paul and Barry Chuckle, Schumacher’s update of the sexy vampire myth was an instant hit with The Kids, who consumed unprecedented quantities of popped corn at the box office. The resulting food crisis in Central America led to mass starvation and three civil wars – and, ultimately, the dissolution of the state of Cuecas Novas.

Still, The Kids were happy. For now.

Or were they? (Yes, they were)

'The Kids'. But are they all right?

Controversially, the Brothers Chuckle didn’t play on-screen brothers – in a move deemed an act of sheer vandalism, Schumacher cast Barry Chuckle in the role of ‘Angsty Teen Guy #1′, and Paul Chuckle as ‘Edgy Vampire Rebel Awesome Dude #1′. Setting the sizzling siblings against each other, Schumacher had orchestrated a chemistry so nauseatingly smarmy that, for the next six years, only he could abide to be in the same room as himself.

Most notably, the scene in which Paul proffers Barry yesterday’s takeaway for a snack is oft heralded as a masterpiece of mise-en-scene, juxtaposing Paul’s chicken tikka masala with Barry’s lamb dopiaza and half-rice-half-chips.

“You’re eating maggots, Barry. Those are maggots,” Paul chides, gloatingly scoffing his tikka masala wrapped in a stale slice of paratha. Barry looks down to find his half-rice is in fact all-maggots.

Barry casts his spoiled sustenance aside in disgust.

“Gah! By ‘eck, Paul! You’re right – they’re chuffin’ maggots!”

Paul squirms and smarms in his seat, relishing the moment as he chomps gleefully.

“Heh heh, you ha’porth,” he quips, “It’s just rice.”

Barry looks at his ruined dinner on the floor.

“Crikey,” he replies, “You’re not wrong, Paul. It is just rice after all!”

The scene culminates in a perilous moped race along the coast of Skegness, at the end of which Paul is horrifically injured after he crashes his moped while trying to avoid some sheep.

One of the evil pair's victims. Note how every ounce of flesh has been stripped from the bones of this poor soul.

It’s impossible to talk about The Lost Boys without mentioning the parade of A-list cameo performances. Frank Carson is unconquerable as ‘Grampaw’, peppering his performance with obscene gestures and an extended dance routine. Rick Moranis and Chachi Arcola are indomitable as ‘The Frog Boys’, a duo so unstoppable that if you were passing them in a corridor you would step aside to let them past without a second thought. Or even a first thought.

Onto the soundtrack then. Opening with ‘Locofoco Motherfucker’ by Fleshies, it goes downhill from there, like a big sweaty meatball, fashioned from chopped innards for some insignificant country fayre, ceremoniously rolled down a hill and followed inanely by a horde of bumbling, tumbling oafs, bent on getting their hairy chops in the local rag.

Utter piffle.

Rampart

Woody Harrelson and Sigourney Weaver survey their 'stash' in Rampart

As a keen philatelist, as a vegan and as a male who claims to experience menstruation-sympathy cramps, I could identify strongly with Woody Harrelson’s character, Graham, in Rampart. In this film, Harrelson plays that rarest of creatures: a cop who is also a quiet man of conscience and a radical thinker. Graham enjoys nut roasts and can put forward convincing arguments for and against polyamorousness. He never lets his work responsibilities get in the way of his duties as a dweller of mother earth. In one taut scene, for example, Graham’s corrupt boss instructs him to beat up a suspect and steal his drugs. Graham, like a bearded vicar in jeans, replies that he would love to, but that he has to go and help some disadvantaged children sew turnip seeds on an inner-city allotment.

Graham once wrote a song about a cricket called ‘Mr Noisy Knees’.

His teacher said it showed real promise.

Harrelson is chiefly famous for his turn as ‘Dr Koulikas’ in Cheers. Before Harrelson joined Cheers, most episodes consisted of a pickled fatsack called Norm flirting with an uncomely postman, called Stan or Chief or something like that. It was pretty grim stuff, even by the standards of the alcoholic self-haters who constituted its target demographic. But as Koulikas, a barman living a secret life as a disgraced Greek doctor, doling out backstreet abortions like peanuts or pork scratchings in the tap room of the pub, Harrelson brought a tingling intensity to an otherwise insipid sitcom.

Now Harrelson can put Cheers behind him. His performance in Rampart will go down in cinematic history. Harrelson, as Graham, is an example to males everywhere. He shows us that we don’t have to punch women in their reproductive organs in order to earn the respect of our fellow men. We don’t have to eat meat or spread our seed far and wide like a defective piece of farming machinery. We can be sensitive and thoughtful. We can eschew the flesh of fowl and beast, and live instead on a hearty selection of lentil dishes and non-dairy quiche. At least I assume that’s what Rampart is all about. I wouldn’t know, of course. I haven’t seen it.

The Last Waltz

Recently, I didn’t watch ‘The Last Waltz’, a documentary about The Band’s last ever concert at the end of the 1970s. Here is my review:

After two hard decades on the road, Bob Dylan’s old backing band, ‘The Band’, decided to call it a day. After all, one can only spend so long on a single municipal thoroughfare. In order to mark the occasion, the pin-sized director Martin Scorcese agreed to film it. Previously, Scorcese had cut his chops making entertaining fictional films, including ‘Taxi, ‘Taxi 2’ and ‘The King of Comedy and I’. But in ‘The Last Waltz’ he threw away all of the childish flim-flam of fiction and dedicated himself to recording the hard, gritty reality of five hairy men singing songs about obese women called ‘Fanny’.

The concert begins with Ronnie ‘the Hawk’ Hawkins. Ronnie resembles a hawk in much the same way that that Martin Sheen resembles a housemartin, i.e. not at all. Even so, he has dressed for the occasion, and swoops onto the stage via a zip-line, sporting a huge prosthetic beak and devouring live sparrows by the bucketload. The only way that the Band can get him to stay still and sing is by means of a vision-obscuring hood. While crooning he perches on the wrist of the drummer, Levon Helm.

Confusingly, Helm has the smile of a nice old grampaw and the eyes of Charlie Manson.

Next up is Van Morrison, the Gospel-Pig: O he of swinish pus and souly, squealy yelp. His tight teddy-bear bod is wrapped in purple velvet pyjamas. While the boys excrete a wet dollop of funk, Van wiggles his curly tail at them. “Squee” he says, “squee”. Methinks this little piggy has had quite enough white nose-swill for one evening.

After Van has bounced off the stage like a noisy ball of bacon, his place is filled by the maiden aunt of folk-rock, Boney Joni Mitchell. Her bearded nephews strike up a shuffle and each vies to supersede the others in her affections. “Look at me, Aunt Joni” says Richard Manuel, “I can play real neat. Now can I have some Victoria Sponge”. “Nay, Aunty” shouts Rick Danko, “don’t give that beastly Richard any sponge, for he is a naughty boy. Give it to me, for I have said my prayers and combed my beard. I am a good boy.’

Then cometh Eric Clapton, the dapper CEO of blues. Clapton does a little powerpoint presentation about why he’s such a good guitarist. Before exiting, he gives all of his employees a bonus and then takes a vacation in the South Sea Islands.

Throughout the concert Robbie Robertson, the guitarist of The Band, struggles manfully to contain his rapidly-multiplying teeth within his mouth. Meanwhile, Garth Hudson, a brainy bear with a tiny face, copulates with his moog.

Among the other guests is Neil Diamond, whose name evokes an angry emperor ordering a precious stone to prostrate itself before his majestic splendidness. Diamond’s music evokes stomach cramps and sadness.

Finally, just as the concert is coming to a close, a strange little man runs onstage and commandeers the microphone. He bellows atonally and snickers, as if parodying the other guests. Strangely, no-one tries to remove him from the stage. Instead, everyone comes back on stage and sings along, embarrassedly. The evening is ruined. The Band sigh, shave their beards and exit the stage. Scorcese’s camera zooms in on a clump of hair as it falls from Manuel’s cheek.

Is it not true, my friends, that the careers of rock stars end not with a bang, but with a whisker.

 

Jaws

Hollywood teaches us one thing, and that is not to stick cotton buds in our ears. But if it teaches us two things, it is surely that every killer, no matter how far beyond redemption, was once a reasonable and sensitive person who was driven to murder by the cruelty of other humans. If Speilberg’s serial killer biopic, Jaws, is to be believed, the same is true of sharks:

Amadeus

Amadeus is sort of a film about the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but one that uses his middle name instead of his forename or surname, like a freshman undergraduate who is trying out something a bit different for a change, but lacks the courage to adopt a new name altogether (such as Pee-Wee, Robo-Muffin, or Daniel).

Everyone knows Mozart was a young Austrian with a gift for the ladies and a taste for potted beef. But what else is there to know? Only the following:

Mozart flops up, out and onto the podium, smacks the pianissimo bang across its snout (a pert al pugno), and hoists a petard (his own) just to prove that he can. He is cocksure. Real cocksure. Yes, there’s no denying it. Mozart is exceedingly sure of his cock, like a gynaecologist who won’t take no for an answer. This is an unorthodox entry but the judges cannot deny that he has something special. For Mozart, you see, has supped the buttercup’s sap of musical inspiration. Jeez, has he supped. You can practically see the yellow snot coming out of his eye cracks.

Mozart squeezes the far end of the piano with a pronged pincer. It makes a sound no-one has ever heard before. As a direct result, a Pope dies. But a new Pope, taller, sleeker and faster, rises to take his place. Mozart does a teasing tinkle on the other side of the piano – just a little flirtatious finger-twizzle for the ladies. They like that kind of stuff, the ladies. Next he comes on hard and piratical in the middle of the keyboard, pump, pump, pump, like a pneumatic Nordic loveboy massaging a sentient German blob. The symphony has begun in earnest now. A billion notes leave Mozart’s ten fingers at once. His thumb alone hammers out enough symphony in a minute to feed the population of Luxembourg for a week.

 Think about that for a moment. No, don’t think about that. You think too much. That’s your problem. One of your problems anyway. Don’t think. Give yourself up. Throw yourself athwart the thunderous plinkety-plonk of unadulterated symphonitude. Climb among the stars like a galactic dwarf. Plunge into the amniotic fluid of musical rebirth. Dance. That’s right, do a dance. Not a big one. Just a little one. Do a little dance. And make love. Not loads of love. Just a love. A little love. Make a little love.

GET

DOWN

TONIGHT!

You have your instructions. Now get to it.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

I’ve not seen the new Planet of the Apes film, but I heard a brief synopsis the other day and it sounds quite sad. It reminded me of Albert Camus’ The Outsider and inspired me to write a short story.

My name's not Jim and who you calling a pansy?

Cocker of snooks

He cocked a snook and yucked a yuck. He bounced in and flounced off. He was full of piss and vinegar. They took him with a pinch of salt and said he had a chip on his shoulder.

They smirked when he got irked and called him a berk. He dug deep and came off shallow. His field of dreams was fallow.

They played ideas tennis and he was the ball-boy. They jammed freeform while he played chopsticks. He fell from grace and lost face. They put him in his place.

And now he’s one of them.

The Expendables

I found this photomontage of the cast of the upcoming action flick ‘The Expendables’ on the screenrant.com website. I hope they don’t mind me reproducing it here and offering some comments about the Bosch-esque display of grotesques presented therein.

Top row, left to right:

Sylvester Stallone: 5 intersecting slabs of greasy barbecue meat on top of a stick of girth. He is confused because he has just seen a zebra for the first time.

Jet Li: licks hair straighteners. When they’re unplugged of course. He might be tough and dangerous, but he’s got streetsmarts too. You can’t frighten enemies with a straightener-induced lisp.

Jason Statham: trying to smile but thwarted by heavy-forehead veins. His mum made him wear that suit.

Mickey Rourke: in the delicatessen of latter-day action heroes, Rourke is the crispy turkey escalope to Stallone’s greasy rib bucket. When those guys go mano-a-mano it reputedly smells like an abattoir lavatory in hell.

Bottom row, left to right:

Dolph Lungren(?): has paperclips for pubes

Wide-jawed man: since starring in a school nativity play aged 7, this fellow has been exclusively cast as a prison rapist. “Well, it’s a living”, he laughs.

Forest Whitaker: likes to hang out with the big boys, but resents the chinese burns and the teasing.

Bald man with goatee: has just got engaged.

Invictus

Hi there readers, its your favourite Nordic MC, Spice to the Egg to the Nog to the pwee!

As I live precisely six months back in the past and my celebrity recognition software is in dire need of a reboot, the magic of the silver screen is often lost upon me. But this is not surprising - kinos are dark, wicked sinful places and whatever fi-lum is being squirted out the projector’s peep-hole is mere background chatter; I’m only there for the dark wicked sin.

Being a rugby man you’d think I would have made an effort to see a film which combines my favourite sport with the struggle of my Zulu brothers  but I haven’t so sit your honkey asses down and listen to how it might go:

Once upon a time there was a peaceful sun-kissed paradise where man lived in harmony in nature, game and snoodle toasties were plentiful and chicks went round bare breasted. Then the white man came with his fire water, bang sticks, snot rags and sense of shame and inflicted great misery on the tribes of the south and forced eaters of snoodles to bow down to their rule. So far many years this cruel bond was held.

Fast forward to the early 1990s, and the land emerges from the dark age of racial oppression. Bill Cosby is elected as President following a million year imprisonment for selling snoodle toasties at the wrong place at the wrong time. None thought he would see the light of day again but a covert supply of snoodles and blue literature kept his will strong like an iron rod. Then one day he used his rod to beat the guards to death in an opportune moment and escaped to lead his people to freedom. However as president he faces a new challenge of unifying a diverse range of peoples with varying culinary tastes into one nation.

Meanwhile the Milky Bar Kid, born into a long line of snoodle oppressors, was leading the national egg chasing team to victory in the world cup. Cosby saw his chance to promote his carb-rich snack to the masses and ordered Kid to win the tournament. Kid and his crew were so good at the sport because they grew up rearing ostriches on the surface of the sun. The eggs they popped out were a billion degrees Farenheit and nimble rearers had to be masters in hot potato.  They reached the final to play the dreaded giant Kiaora Kiwi birds who could peck a man’s eye out in an instant and show it back to him so he could see himself.

But have no fear! Kid pisses in their half-time oranges, causing them to be sick and shit themselves like roman candles on the pitch. Groo!! In the midst of the avian vomit covered battle field, Fat Albert, the tubby little weirdo no-one liked at school, scores the winning try. His pudgy ham fist punches the sky and the team hold him aloft like a Nubian Caesar. But then they all give themselves hernias and die.  But Kid, with his last dying efforts, stands together with Cosby, and takes a bite out of a snoodle toastie  before expiring.  Cosby holds Kid’s pallid body and whispers tenderly into his ear “Goodnight Sweet Prince”.

As Barry Norman would say “Thumbs up!” before shortly being arrested by a midget policeman for inserting it into his starfish on Britian’s Got Talent. Peace out and do one you meffs.

Threads

Appen I've been atomised

‘Threads’ is a 1984 film in which Sheffield, a largely negligible city in the north of England, gets wiped out in a nuclear holocaust by the Russians. I saw it at school and it traumatised the living marrow out of my phalanges. Subsequently I have come to regard it in a different light. Here is a summary of its contents:

Sheffield, 1984. The electro-pop craze is in full swing, or rather, full beep. The casual observer is confused by the strange combination of thick, flat South Yorkshire vowels and chrome, polyester outfits. Has the planet been taken over by Hovis-based cyborgs? Have the cumbrous metal machines that ceaselessly whirr in the inner-city steelworks come to life and hit the nightclubs? ‘Nay, pal, nay’, as the Sheffielders say. ‘Appen young ’uns are gooin dahn tahn ferra futuristic discorr’.

Fastforward twenty years and the scene has altered. Out are the shiny robotic jerkins and synthesisers. In are twangly guitars and wry observations. Pustulent gawkers with muffin-top hairdos and sagsome anoraks stand around uttering aphorisms: “She were bangin mate, I’m tellin thee, reight, I bought her a tropical Reef, and a pound of beef’”. Another retorts: ‘Summat’s not reight, me skin-teight trousers are too teight’. In the gutters, old men shod in brothel creepers and embalmed in pomade shout encouraging slogans. The situation has not much improved.

Unbeknownst to most laypeople, in 1984 the leaders of the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. had access to a portal wherein they could view the future. Unfortunately this device could only offer a very partial view of the future: specifically, the future of Sheffield (the magical artefact was bequeathed to the premiers of both nations by an enchanted cutler from Rotherham). Both President Reagan and Chairman Cherchenko were naturally alarmed at the direction that music in Sheffield was taking at the time, and so they met in a secret underground supermarket to discuss what should be done.

“I sink vee should yoose the portal” said Cherchenko, strangling a kulak.

“Fuck yeah” said Reagan, high-fiving his own face.

The rest is history. Cherchenko and Reagan gazed upon the horror that was the future of Sheffield music and swore a solemn pact to obliterate the city for good. A million megaton H-Bombs were promptly unloaded on the city. People in Sheffield were sad and, largely, atomised. People elsewhere weren’t.

This is a sobering and thought-provoking film that offers a lesson we should all heed: to wit, if Sheffield does get nuked, its inhabitants have only themselves and their predominantly substandard music scene to blame.

Shallow Hal

Jack Black in Shallow Hal

Shallow Hal is a film about a nasty man who says horrible things about women. Here is a poem, copied and pasted directly from the script of the film in question. Needless to say I haven’t seen it (I copy and paste with my eyes closed).

All the feminine world

Is to me as a promenade of walking lard,

Of bipedded elephantine lump-legs

Of swinging bingo-wings

And quadruple chins.

When I think about these women defecating

I gasp.

What landslides of residue poot forth

From their levee-like buttocks

Clogging up the sewers and

Bringing a nation to its knees?

What slurries of destroyed dinners,

Of massacred million-course meals

Pass shamefully out of the back doors

Of these monstrous humongoloids

Like vicars who have outstayed their welcome,

Exceeded the original purpose of their visit,

And been sent unceremoniously on their way?

And then they pull up their hammock-knickers,

Waddle back to the biscuit tin

And begin again, pausing only to ask me

If I’d like a quickie in between Emmerdale and Coronation Street.

Nay, madam. Nay.

(On reflection, perhaps I’m being a bit harsh)

Nueve Reinas

I am not John Le Baptiste (I am simply Old Rope). But if I was, I would not have seen Nueve Reinas, the award-winning dollop of Argentine cinema. I might, however, have reviewed it. And so I have.

Nueve Reinas (or “Nine Queens”) is a comedy caper in the Lock, Stock and Two Wanking Mockney’s mould. But with less of the going up yer apples and pears stairs y mas de tu “arriba, che!”. It stars the ubiquitous Ricardo Darín, an Argie actor of some note, being as he is in every film ever made by anyone ever. In fact he is so ubiquitous he is practically omnipresent. Like god, but more handsome. And with an Oscar to his name. Kind of (he has to share it with the rest of the cast of Los Secretos de Sus Ojos).

Darín plays Evita Peron, a hard-hitting no-nonsense street-hustler and cardshark on the prowl for fresh foolhardy meat. “Give me meat, else I die from the wanton boredom of your straight society!” He cries, with his eyes. Evita is not a man to be trifled with.

Two queens

The year is ‘94 and his trunk is raw. In the rear-view mirror is the motherfucking law. As usual. But this isn’t the only problem facing Peron, who along with his sycophantic sidekick Diego Maradona (played admirably by baby-faced Paul Ross look alike, Gastón Pauls) must complete a most unusual challenge. In order to win a twenty peso bet, Evita must convince the Argentine president Néstor Kirchner that he has slept with nine real genuine queens. With a diplomats’ ball looming, Evita has the perfect opportunity to infiltrate the piss-up and make his move on the Premier. It’s just a question of how he will pull off the scam. For this is the juicy kicker: Our Evie does not have to actually sleep with nine queens, but only convince the PM that he has. It is a challenge too rich in promise for Evita to pass over and before long an elaborate scheme is hatched over a cafe con leche, which he makes Maradona pay for. That’s how much of a con artist he is.

The plot truly thickens when nine regal bitches rock into town for a queen conference at the Radisson hotel and Evita is presented with a chance to actually boff a bunch of them and win the bet to boot. Can Evita keep his eye on the prize, or will he have his cake and eat it, whilst Maradona hops about on the periphery of the regal romp hoping for some sloppy seconds. When it transpires that nine camp homosexuals are in fact posing as royalty, in an ironic twist too far, Evita smells a rat (as does the viewer) and realises that he is not the only one with his eye on the twenty pesos.

Though the premise of this film is evidently sound and watertight by the standards of even our own epic literature, one cannot help but feel that it is lacking a little something in the execution. In particular the actual execution scene, which was both baffling and incomprehensible in its inclusion as a musical interlude midway through the movie. I suspect that Fabián Bielinsky, making his directorial debut,  was ‘encouraged’ to include this segment, if only to sell more product-placement space. Renowned gallows manufacturers Nike and McDonalds receive more than ample screen time for their grotesque logos depicting contorted bodies and bulbous blue heads. But, like the film, I digress. I shant spoil the ending, but needless to say there are more twists and turns than a voyage to the centre of Jordan’s clart.

I give this film 3 steaks out of 5 and a Lionel Messi for effort.

Mulan

Mulan is an unconventional film, in the sense that it does not have any real people in it. Though it has moving pictures much like any other movie, these pictures are drawn rather than captured using magic boxes. It’s lack of people, however, is matched blow for blow by my lack of authority, for I have not seen this film. Here is a brief review.

Set in ancient China, the story concerns the eponymous hero, a strapping butch young man with long curling blonde locks and chest hair that would make a pornstar weep with jealousy. After being visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, Mulan goes to war to avenge his father’s death, riding his mighty steed, a powerful dragon voiced by the always versatile Eddie Murphy.

Mulan

Along the way Mulan fights and slays many foes and gets his end away virtually every night. Some would say this is not so much of a film as a macho wet dream. In truth the film ruminates on the nature of war, manhood, sexuality and brotherhood in a time of virulent feminist hegemony. As such it would not be possible to condone the overall message of the piece in the context of today’s more enlightened social climate. It is worth placing the narrative in context, however, remembering that the story was written by one of Britain’s most prized playwrights, Walter Disney, at a time when such views were considered more acceptable. Plus the drawings are nice and pretty too.

I give it an un-PC five spring rolls.

Furia de Titanes

Financed and produced entirely in Latin America, this new epic saga from French director Louis Leterrier makes the unusual decision to focus on Ancient Greece. Devotees of that cruel mistress History, however, need not fear, for the film is historically accurate and what’s more is a thoroughly gripping yarn to boot.

El Krakeno, played by Tony Hart's Morph in 1981

Attempting to cover the full plethora of Greek mythology (mythology is the same as history, right?) would be a foolhardy and impossible task and only a mad Frenchman with a budget of $125million would be crazy enough to try. Which is handy. Indeed Leterrier achieves just that, covering every single episode found within Hans Christian Anderson’s Greek Myths and Other True Stories and a few more tall tales that no one knew about an’ all.

All good documentaries need a hero and Furia de Titanes has them in spades. There is none more heroic , however, than Ricardo Miguel Perseuso, played by Sam Worthington  -  a man with a name so unbefitting of Hollywood it is a wonder he wasn’t physically drummed out of the Actors Guild by a bunch of thespians brandishing a Big Book of Names.

Sam Worthington on set of Furia de Titanes

For reasons that are never properly explained in the film (perchance they are lost in the mists of time) Perseuso has to travel around fighting monsters in a dress. Since he has to cover large distances his mode of transportation is a bus. That is until he runs into Pegasus the flying horse, voiced here by Liam Neeson. Pegasus serves not only as a more equestrian alternative to the vengabus employed by Perseuso previously, but he also provides the comic relief in what is otherwise a heavy and blood-encrusted thriller. This is in no small part thanks to the talents of Neeson, who infamously cut his chops on the stand up circuit of Lima, Peru. It was here that he acquired his now famous Latino accent that has made him so much cash and bagged him so much gringo tang.

Ralph Fiennes has the somewhat daunting task of playing all the women in the film (in a stylistic nod to the custom of the time), but it is one which he hurls himself into with such vigour that this scribe quite forgot that twixt her silky legs, Hera was in fact in possession of a titan of her own.

Jason Flemyng turns in a decent enough performance as Jose Hernandez, king of the gods and he is amiably supported by Danny Huston as Jose Maria Moreno, god of the sea; Leonard Nimoy as all of the Roman gods (about the only time the celluloid version differs from the Greek original); and finally a nice pair of trousers, which phones in a performance as Hades, god of the underworld.

All the usual suspects are also present and correct: Maria Lopez, the gorgon with snakes for hair; Senorita Aphrodite the whore of Babylon; and el Krakeno, a sort of big South American octopus with a bad attitude. Since this is a remake of the 1981 stop-motion plasticine classic (starring Wallace and Grommit as Zeus and Hades) we all know what happens at the very end  -  i.e. a giant singsong on mount Olympus, located at the heart of the Andes.  But suffice to say that the climactic final battle, populated by countless CGI Mexicans, a realistic chupacabras and employing some 900 million Inca extras, was so breathtaking I genuinely pebble-dashed my pants right in the middle of the cinema from sheer joy. Or at least I would have done had I gone to see it.

I give this film 12 tasks of Hercules.

Dos Hermanos

Going to the cinema can be an arduous ordeal at any time, not least when it you are in another country and the film is in a language other than your native tongue. Throwing caution to the wind, however, Old Rope braved the pictures once again in Buenos Aires. In one of my trademark displays of foresight and strength of character, I realised that The Agoraphobic Reviewer would require a write-up of the flick and took the necessary precautions. I bound my eyes with thick electrical tape (making me nostalgic for my childhood and the brutal caress of my mother) and stuffed my ears with popcorn, lest I see or hear any of the movie.

Alas, I made a schoolboy error, forgetting that I am in possession of an uncanny sixth sense, for which I know no method of successful suppression. As a result I can say with some conviction that the following account is true and accurate.

Dos Hermanos (literally ‘Two Brothers’, or in this case a brother and a sister… let’s call it ‘Two Siblings’) is the latest effort from the prolific Argentine film industry (Wikipedia lists twenty seven movies so far this year alone). At the helm is director Daniel Burman, who manages to steer this film from comedy to tragedy, from larfs to poignancy, from sweat-encrusted brows to spew-addled tramps glistening in the morning dew as the film tries to address what would happen if two human being were actually related to each other. Obviously we know this to be impossible, something confined to the realms of science fiction. But what with the recent developments in stem cell research and sexual intercourse, who knows what the future may bring. Before long the world might be full of ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’.

The film focuses on Lionel Messi (Antonio Gasella), the baddest brother in Buenos Aires and Suzanna (Graciella Borges), his louche and debauched sis. Between them they kick up a right storm, arguing, buying houses and burying their dead relatives. It’s a laugh riot. That is until Lionel drinks too much yerba mate, flips out and things take a turn for the fruity. Before long Christmas dinner is ruined and Aunty Maria Hernandez has had too much sherry and nodded off in front of the fire.

The action flits between Argentina and Buenos Aires (just like Old Rope did last week) and the subtle jokes and playful stereotypes of our aging hero’s attempts to behave like a Uruguayan are certain to translate well when the film is played out on the world stage. Either that or the light-hearted jibes directed at Montevideo will backfire and spark war. Argentina has been taking from Uruguay for too long now.

With war imminent we must choose sides, the proud but confused Argentina or the stubborn and steadfast Uruguay. You decide. In times like these film reviews seem trivial and pointless, worthy only of the attention of fools. So let’s crack on shall we?

Whilst Lionel is fucking about drinking yerba mate and trying to be an actor or something, Suzanna is getting right royally sloshed on champers, cavorting with art dealers and other highflyers and generally behaving like a strumpet. It’s like watching an Argie Joanna Lumley gambolling about like she used to with Jennifer Saunders, bevved up and working for the fashion industry, before she became general secretary of the Gurkhas Liberation Front or whatever it is. In other words it is absolutely fabulous, although of course I didn’t understand a word of it.

I give it 2point4 children.

Mutiny on the Buses

Blakey (left): 'Get thee in the hole Satan'; Butler (right, trouserless): 'All universal moral principles are idle fancies'

Those of you who have never heard of the On the Buses film franchise would do well to have heard about the On the Buses film franchise. It is a cornerstone of British filmic history, as culturally significant in its way as all of Shakespeare’s plays, all of Harry Potter’s films and that great book about those people who go down to the church but find out that it’s closed because it’s being repaired so they muck about in the graveyard then go home. Anyway here is a review of the third(?) of the On the Buses films, which, sayless to need, I never did saw:

Mutiny on the Buses is a tale of dark obsession in a time of explosive social upheaval. Like the Indian Mutiny or Mutiny on the Bounty, Mutiny on the Buses is about a mutiny. Unlike the Indian Mutiny or Mutiny on the Bounty, Mutiny on the Buses is set on a number of buses. ‘All aboard for the Revolution’ says the tagline. Never in Lenin’s wildest dreams did he ever imagine such a world-shattering cataclysm of double-decker class war. Never in all of Stalin’s entertaining coffee table books did he hypothesise such a humongous brain-fucker.

The hero is one Blakey, a melancholy wight whose harrowing experiences in a Japanese P.O.W. camp have cast a bleak shadow on the few remaining years of his life. He remembers the screams, the water torture and the water sports. Never again can he look upon a game of water polo without screeching like a duck. But most of all, he remembers the time his tiny comrade, Little Juan, was led away to be swung from the gallows like a filthy plum. Poor little Juan: thou wast not born to hang like a pendulous fruit.

Now Blakey is an almost broken man. His sole remaining raisin d’ etre as chief bus inspector is to protect bus passengers from the violence and horror that he experienced during the war. His is a lonely beat, a solemn and solitary charge. But it keeps his mind from clubbing itself to death and eating his face off.

Blakey’s fragile fiefdom is about to be rocked to its very rump. Into his world steps Balthasar Butler. His origins unknown, his countenance uncouth, Butler is a savage and lawless sensualist. Butler detects Blakey’s psychological vulnerability upon their first meeting, and sets about tearing it to shreds like a randy sheep-shearer on Valentine’s Day. Blakey starts finding crude little sketches of centaurs defiling nuns in his bus conductor’s bumbag. As he lies in his bunk at night he hears a mysterious and threatening voice whispering ominous obscenities, such as ‘Cor, look at that old love’s knockers, wa-hey!’ and ‘Phwoooar, I wouldn’t mind a Wurzel on her Gummidge’. Blakey is frightened and confused. What can it all mean?, he whimpers to himself, while Butler cackles malevolently like a bosomy witch.

Blakey finally cracks when he discovers Butler despoiling a gaggle of bus passengers, one of whom is his widowed mother-in-law, Mrs Juggers. Blakey gapes in horror like a gaping marmoset while Butler gropes greedily at Mrs Juggers’ knobbly knees with a horrid grin of triumph all over his disgusting greasy gaper.

The spectacle is too much. Blakey gurns like a cow, sighs like a horse, pecks like a goose, squats like a cat and shits like an angry god. He grabs his sexy tormentor by his pale white neck and throttles it like an overworked simile. As the last few puffs of breath squirt out of Butler’s horrid insinuating mouth, Blakey looks deep into his eyes. “I hate you Butler” he whispers, as the vicious beast dies on the bottom deck, among the cigarette butts and milkshake-stained Metro newspapers, like an expiring mammal.

In a time of change and transition, such as the present one, we need films like this to make sense of all of the change and transition. There are so many questions to be answered: how can I cope with all of this change and/or transition? Who should we vote for? Who should we turn to? How will the increase in National Insurance affect me? How can we reduce patient waiting times at GP surgeries? Will I ever get laid? This film has all of the answers, and more! Four out of ten!

Kung Fu Hustle

The Angry Punani

After reading Dangerous Meredith’s entertaining discussion of all things martial artistic, I have been inspired to write a poem ‘about’ Kung Fu Hustle, which is probably my favourite martial arts film. My second favourite is ‘Chop-Socky Charlatan and the Beefy Punchers’. This be the verse:

___________

When Sifu Beans launched a stealth attack

I chopped off his sausage.

When Old Man Kicking Mule came at me

I fed him a sugarlump.

____________

Someone should have told them:

I’ve got a move for any eventuality:

The Shanghai-Slap

The Kung-Po Chop

The Big-Daddy Bum Claw

The Angry Punani

The Indignant Azerbaijani.

__________

Come at me with a fist

And I’ll show you a crab.

Come at me with a crab

And I will stick a blizzard up your bum.

Come at me with a derek

And I will show you my muddy wanger.

________________

Whump. Swishoo. Ker-fump.

Bluff. Crump. Diggle-SKONK.

_______________

I cannot afford the luxury of friends.

Not Sifu Teddy nor Beijing Bill

Nor Guru Gary and his Deadly Whipporwhill

Style.

They must all dine out on my oaty fist.

Sifu Malcolm did however

Buy me a nice scarf for my birthday,

And as such shall be spared

According to the ancient Samurai code.

Batman Begins

Batman takes down a terrorist millipede

I might have seen Batman Begins, but let’s just pretend for the sake of consistency that I haven’t. Here is my summary of its contents:

Every story has a beginning. Except the ones they don’t make prequels for. We know for instance that Spiderman originated in Tanzania in the third millenium BC, and that the Punisher got into punishing via a youth training scheme. But what about Batman? Where did that piece of work come from? Gather round Batchums, and harken unto my prequel:

Bruce Wayne was just a regular bat until, one fatal Whitsun eve, he was bitten by a radioactive man. He woke up the next night feeling queer. For a start he was lying horizontally in a soft bed of eiderdown instead of clinging upside down to a flinty crag, as was formerly his wont. He glanced at a nearby sudoku and, feeling new powers of deductive reasoning swelling within his little velveteen brow, put the measly puzzle to bed in a hot minute. And, more than ever before, he felt the sharp affront of injustice. Where once his delight was in the tart tang of raspberries, the delicious shame of rabies and the glory of his leathern snout, now his only joy was in protecting the defenceless and punching knaves. ‘Watch out villains’ he squeaked and flapped off into the night

The next morning the Woodland Times was full of his daring deeds:

A deviant barn-owl has abducted some kids

The Batman fanged his beak and banged him back to Arkham.

A rogue water-vole stole a precious diamond

The Batman ripped off his whiskers and slagged him a new one in the pebbledash

Some sort of badger had been leaving menacing conundrums in the public bridleway

The Batman solved the puzzles (1: Henry VIII; 2: (d); 3: The Nile),

And castrated the hideous half-breed badger:

No sweat.

But oh no! Our hero has been tied up by an androgynous ferret in a mask, and is currently dangling above a really sharp acorn! Will Bruce escape? Who is this felonious ferret? Can he be stopped? What is a ferret? Are they protected by the National Trust? What’s for dinner? Find out next year in ‘The Dark Knight’.

Jailhouse Rock

I’ve not seen any of the innumerable Elvis Presley films. I prefer Howlin’ Wolf. Anyway, here’s a poem about what (presumably) happens in Presley’s penal film, ‘Jailhouse Rock’.

Elvis Presley in 'Jailhouse Rock'

1.

Elvis hit Alcatraz like a juggernaut of buggery

Rumping his way through the fields of felony:

Jump-suited, slobbering and masterful;

Savage, blubberous and terrible.

2.

Before twilight fell across the exercise yard

Where you see the sea-beams glint between stir and civilisation

Like the insubstantial but dazzling hopes of

A thousand leathery old lags on life without parole,

A million sequins lay bent and winking on the asphalt,

Blinking out a semaphore of sodomy

Where they fell from Presley’s rutting trunk

As he harrowed and hogroasted a hapless punk.

3.

Had his stable of bitches

Been a stable of horses

He might have kept

The French in steak for a decade.

His butterfingers caused

The warden of Alcatraz

To blow a year’s budget on soap.

His whiskers were oily with chicken fat

His mouth was greasy with hubris.

4.

And at the splintered woodwork

The screws they speechlessly stare,

For when Elvis couldn’t find a partner

He used a wooden chair.

Snakes on a Plane

Snakes in a Cave

Snakes on a Plane is so bad it’s good, according to the common consensus. I prefer things that are so good they’re good. I’m a simple man, see, and kitschy paradoxes get short shrift from me. Here is a scene from the film in question.

William:

‘I thaw the bathilithk Mithter L. Jackthon,

The anthient one, with hith Pharoah’th eyeth

And thupine majethty.

And I mutht join him.

He callth to me.

“William”, he thayth, “Little William,

Be my human prietht on thith earth,

Take thith apple Willy,

Thith delithiouth green apple

And know what it ith to be eternal

Like the thnake people

Like the Therpent Mathter-rathe.”’

Samuel L. Jackson:

‘This story has the ring of untruth about it.’

William:

‘He’th real I tell you Mithter L. Jackthon!

I wath wathing my handth in the cubicle

And thinking of the thtewardeth’th thick thighth

Thinking how I’d like to thqueethe them

Like a green-grother.

When I heard an enchanting voithe,

That thung with thenthual thibilantth.’

Samuel L. Jackson:

‘I’m still not convinced’

William:

‘You will be the firtht to feel hith

Punithing fangth, unbeliever’

Samuel L. Jackson:

‘I doubt it’

Snake-King:

‘Thurprithe!’

Samuel L. Jackson:

‘Motherfucking shit. It’s a motherfucking basilisk or some shit’

Flickan (The Girl)

Last week in Buenos Aires saw the BAFICI film festival. Thinking this a wonderful opportunity to get some solid reviews under my belt, I refrained from going to see any of the films. But oh, what a selection. Films from all around the world, some several hundred in number, showing in numerous cinemas and special locations. Why, someone even spotted Eddie Izzard strutting about like he owns the place (doesn’t he know there’s an election on…?)

‘The Girl’ is a Swedish film and, though Old Rope speaks all human languages, I cannot speak any vegetable dialects. As such, even if I had seen the film I would not have understood a word of it. Luckily, some thoughtful person had the good sense to translate the alien sounds and write their English equivalent on the screen in a white font. They needn’t have bothered. The characters in this piece spoke so seldom and to so little end, that it was almost certainly a waste of precious minutes attempting it. That time could have been better employed trying to find a sustainable renewable energy source, or eating cheese (some say the two pursuits overlap considerably).

Being little more than turnips that have gotten too big for their boots, it would perhaps be asking a little much of Swedes to truly understand human emotions. They give it a reasonable go in this movie, however, which focuses on the plights of the titular and unnamed girl.

A girl, innit

Original thought, something that has long eluded the human race, seems absent in our veggie counterparts. The plot is exactly that of Home Alone, with a little girl (affably played by a time-travelling eight year old version of that ginger Bianca from Eastenders) sort-of-kind-of-accidentally jibbed-off by her family who are away on their jollies. In a misguided attempt to distract from this blatant plagiarism, the producers took the baffling decision to cast Macaulay Culkin in the role of the little girl’s little friend. Unlike Bianca, no time-travelling or CGI work was necessary to make Culkin look like an eight year old boy, though he was required to spend seven hours in make-up each day to painstakingly hide the tattoo of Michael Jackson’s face that has graced his own visage for some ten years now. I am reliably informed there is a hilarious DVD ‘blooper’ outtake where he breaks down and cries for his dead friend on set. Priceless stuff!

Bugger all really happens in terms of a narrative arc and thus the film is a shoe-in to win every award it is eligible for. What little story there is could be described as “one girl’s quest to jump off a diving board” (PLOT SPOILER!!!! She does). She also breaks Culkin’s leg, get’s pissed and ends up facedown in a puddle, though whether this was actually in the script or just from the pressures of working with her co-star remains a mystery.

Apparently shot on antiquated film or a Holga camera, the story is set in the seventies. With endless vistas of fields of corn, all golden and faded, one cannot help being repeatedly reminded of a Shredded Wheat advert or Wurther’s Originals. The whole thing looks and sounds exactly like an extended Sigur Ros video. But even more tedious. Oh and the little girl grew up to be Tori Amos. And the little boy never grew up, as was his dream.

All in all The Girl was palatable. I give it one boy.

New Agoraphobic Reviewer Header

Behold the new header, forged by the AR’s own Old Rope in his virtual smithy. Thanks Old Rope! I should add that I didn’t request that he put my fat avatar in the header, but I’m sure you can all agree that it is nevertheless pleasing to look upon it and see my own blubberous mug smugging back out at you.

If you would like to see more pictures of me, John Le Baptiste, check out www.gunsandglutes.com/Mr_September.

Inside Deep Throat

I’ve seen neither ‘Deep Throat’ nor ‘Inside Deep Throat’. Here’s my review of the latter:

No longer humphappy, in Calcutta, with a basket of bhajis, and your mother’s admonitions thumping in your ear canals like barges laden with bad breath (how your mother would barrellise the Guinness from breakfast-time till church till she roared black liquid like an Irish storm-drain, and you were breached by the cannonballs of halitosis from the pickled onion jar), you tip the urchins a winking rupee and the holymen in nappies too. You came here seeking some straightening, a quick clean-up job in the godbasket of the world. But all you’ve got for your trouble is Delhi Welly (fill your boots with yesterday’s birijani) and the ventriloquisms of your old lush of a mother that somehow snuck through customs, despite her bear-like dimensions. Old Ma Lovelace – for all of her massive malodorous moralising, the old dame was right when she told you that video-cameras are evil.

‘Inside Deep Throat’ is the sequel to your first film ‘Deep Throat’ in which multitudes of mackintoshes queued up down the block – lank shanks of pervmeat skewered together on the sidewalk by the shish of their common pathology – yea, queued up and down the block for a glimpse of your lymphoid tissue. In which a fat, hairy rotter danced like a camel before dropping his heavy trip on you (a Hindenberg of horrors). ‘Inside Deep Throat’ tells the story of your first film ‘Deep Throat’ and lays bare the nastiness like an x-ray of Satan’s y-fronts.

As I watched this film it dawned on me that I have been working as a celibate under-paid porn star for the last two years. The catalogue of required postures and facial expressions, the daily submission, the over-familiarity of colleagues, the blank eyeballs working up a wood of sorts as they suck down the sad spectacle of my degradation – I too have been banged between bad folk like a bent stick of swingball, and for minimal remuneration. I’m going to go to the subcontinent to shrive my soul. I’m going to walk the path of Linda Lovelace. Old Ma Lovelace is breathing badly in my ears: ‘Make a documentary’ she says, ‘make a documentary and rip Pharoah a new one.’

Baron Samedi – The Movie

I’ve never liked James Bond films. I have no idea why anyone would want to watch a deranged maitre d’-type slinking about the world as if it were some kind of silver-service restaurant and shooting anyone who can’t pronounce escargot properly. Baron Samedi, on the other hand, is my kind of character. No-one leaps out of a buried coffin sporting a wonky Stovepipe hat like old Samedi. He should get his own spin-off film franchise. Hey! That’s the best idea I’ve had all afternoon. I wonder what such a franchise would consist of….

Baron Samedi in ‘Fascists Folk Off’. In this, Samedi’s debut film, our hero reads a National Geographic article about how fat British Nazis have been trying to infiltrate the English folk scene. Samedi is enraged: ‘Was it for this that Bert Jansch picked up his guitar and made it sing like a Whomping Willow? Nay sir!’. He leaps into a coracle and, summoning Ariel, his familiar, compels the airy sprite to spirit him to Blighty. After arriving and despatching a gaggle of twitchy immigration officials with a withering Wilde-esque put-down, Samedi heads to the nearest folk club. There he discovers the slimy, human marshmallow, Nick Griffin, hiding in a lute and waving a tiny soiled flag surreptitiously.

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After we have had a delicious tub of dairy extract and strawberry-flavoured preservative, we find Samedi using your standard Hogwarts ‘Revealatum’ on Griffin and exposing the blubberous boob in a hot minute. Griffin growls and roars like a castrated puffin and runs towards Samedi flailing his bingo wings. Samedi is unfazed. He picks up a nearby tin whistle and blows into it, causing Griffin’s thunder thighs to go apeshit, like charmed snakes or enchanted simian excrement or something.

Everyone is astounded: ‘why is the fuhrer of the BNP spanking around the floorboards and swinging his legs about like a rabid nun?’ they ask. Griffin screams ‘It were that voodoo witch what done it’. Samedi is not impressed by Griffin’s discourteous allusion to his widely respected Wizardly status and comes at him with a wild piledriver before decommissioning him with a textbook clothesline. His work is done. ‘Bye everyone’ he says, before calling a puffing dragon down from the steep heavens and flying off to wait for the sequel.

Shakespeare in Love

I’ve not seen Shakespeare in Love. Here is a review of Shakespeare in Love.

Shakespeare, with curlsome beard and firm, fruity quill. William ‘the Bard’ Shakespeare, with his bottomless codpiece of words and his wise vetinary surgeon’s understanding of human nature. Sir Shakespeare, with his enormous, wobbling genius, spilling all over Elizabethan England like a flaccid mountain of quince. King William the Shakespeare, who, like Doc Emmet Brown in Back to the Future III, travelled to the Wild West and shot a one-eyed bastard. Sweet Fucking Coast of Bohemia Mother. William ‘Jehovah’ Shakespeare is in the Motherfucking House.

Did you know Shakespeare fell in love? No, I didn’t either, but it makes sense that he did, really, doesn’t it, considering how definitively he nailed the concept on the head in Romeo and Juliet? Does it? When you think about it, there are many things that we don’t know about William Shakespeare, such as: what was he thinking? How did he think he could get away with it? Did Shakespeare even write Shakespeare’s plays? Of course not, no. But that was his genius, see. He knew only mugs write their own plays. So he paid Francis Bacon, the famous butcher, to write them for him.

Tom Stoppard has written a film about how Shakespeare fell in love with the tiny-headed, moustached Gwyneth Paltrow. The lighting in this film is very realistic, and reflects the strict laws that were in place at the time regarding the use of spotlights and floodlights (they were banned). The food in this film is also very well-observed. No-one, for instance, can be seen on camera eating such modern comestibles as hamburgers or poppadoms. Stoppard scrupulously avoids all such inauthentic period details and sticks to the historical facts. You can’t buy that kind of verisimilitude.

Joseph Fiennes plays Shakespeare tolerably I suppose, though he holds the quill much too limply. Do you think that the man who wrote such memorable lines as ‘To be or not’ and ‘I want a horse’ held his quill as if it were a mere chicken drumstick? No. Shakespeare held on to that quill as if it were one of God’s own whiskers, frazzling with a thousand megavolts of hot lightning and channelling the furies of creation. He tugged that fucking quill like a champion and banged out a thousand masterpieces. He did not, Joseph Fiennes, hold it like an atrophied spanner.

The script is pretty good. There are a few choice Stoppardisms in there, such as when Affleck says ‘I’m in a play’, and then another character says ‘I’m reading from a script’. Before Stoppard was born, all characters laboured under the delusion that they were real people, and no one had the heart to tell them that they were not. Stoppard changed all that, though perhaps those were more innocent times.

All told, this isn’t bad movie. It seems to do Shakespeare justice. Yeah, I like it. Check it out.

The Wrestler

Mmm. Sassy bob Mr Rourke

Nearly a year ago, I reviewed Aronofsky’s film Pi in the form of a poem. I still haven’t seen it, you will be relieved to hear. Nor have I seen his more recent film, The Wrestler, which I review here:

In this film, Mickey Rourke is an old porcine ex-wrestler with insane biceps and a slimy snout, who has failed to reassimilate to ordinary life. After considering a career as a low-rent gigolo, he decides to try his hand at grapplin’ and a-gruntin’ in the amphitheatres of the WWF. Herein lies the premise of ‘The Wrestler’.

In his first comeback bout, Mickey Rourke must do battle with ‘The Ladybird’. ‘Hey you, little Aphids’, The Ladybird shouts, more like a terrifying pig than a flying insect, ‘youse better get off m’stalk before I interfere with ya’. His signature move is the ‘Crazy Gringo’. Many brave men have been bested by the Crazy Gringo, but not Rourke. He triumphs, and The Ladybird shuffles off, red-faced.

Equally wrestley is Rourke’s next opponent, B.B. Jefferson Humongous, whose theme is difficult to work out. But you’d better not tell him that (his promotional material instructs us). The last wrestling fan who pointed out the incoherence of B.B.’s persona ended up Jimmy-licked in a wrecking parlour, and you know he never got it straight again. B.B.’s signature move is the ‘Big Biff’. He does it right in Rourke’s face, but Rourke comes back at him like a malfunctioning latrine. Good night B.B. Jefferson Humongous.

You would struggle to find a more accomplished wrestling technician than ‘Willy the Meff’. Willy whoops the crowd up then turns a tiger loose on them. He crushes his opponents into little flies then feeds them to his wife. He can come at you like a bear, a pudding, a mango, a dead crab, a punishing vicar, a dark wizard, a grouse or a slobbering ratbag. The result is always the same: total, massive death (not literally). His signature move is ‘The Full Grope’.

In ‘Willy the Meff’ Rourke meets his match. And though it is sad that Rourke gets pummelled in savagely, there is a sparse balletic beauty in Aronofsky’s cinematography. Rourke spins off the ropes and buries his face in the ring, falling from the heavens as if he were the minced-up carcass of a rebel archangel whom God had ripped into pieces during one of his bezerker rages and then drop-kicked out of heaven. Rourke’s family and his best gal witness the gigantic failure that Rourke has now come to represent, and leave the auditorium in shame. Rourke is now a pariah, and must shave his head and live on the outskirts of town, salvaging old plastic bags from the dumping ground and selling them for pennies. He is no longer a wrestler. He is an untouchable.

In conclusion, this film is better than all of those silly maths films that Aronofsky was always peddling, like some kind of blow-hard Open University lecturer. I give it a reasonable integer out of a slightly higher integer.

Pour La Gallery

Old Rope has not seen the film Pour La Gallery. The reason for this oversight is not due to some ineptitude or inability to work the DVD player (though I cannot), but rather because it is not a real film. Por La Gallery is a piece of musical theatre and an Argentine one to boot. Since most film versions of musicals are broadly the same as their stage counterparts – and since Old Rope has in fact seen this musical – here is a review of the non-existent film of Pour La Gallery.

Four Queens

The film (stageshow) opens with a rather crude duet that seems to serve little import other than to set up the evening’s entertainment. It becomes clear to the sleepy viewer that there is already little sense in what is taking place on the screen (stage). This production is more a series of musical vignettes rather than a coherent narrative whole. Oliver! this is not. In fact the whole play could be summed up with the subtitle: One Man’s Quest To Be In A Madonna Video. From the word go we are treated to an endless parade of fishnet tights, bowler hats, corsets and codpieces. There are legs akimbo and limbs a flingo! It’s all thrusting and a hustling, bustling and a cussing. If I didn’t know better I’d swear that whilst not rehearsing the cast were off borrowing brown babies from Far Away.

Though obviously I have not seen any  Broadway or West End shows, I would imagine the standard offered up in this home-grown production to be slightly inferior. It is, however, entertaining enough cabaret. The crowd of predominantly geriatric punters seemed in raptures over it, if that is at all possible (it’s not, this is a film remember). 

The general tone attempts to tread a middle ground between the dramatic and the light-hearted and for the most part it does not find its duel identity too problematic. It is safe to say however that, though he clearly prefers the camp and the overly dramatic, writer (and star) Anibal Pachano  is on firmer ground with his interludes of comic relief. The rambunctious number sung by three pretty and talented gals – portraying three different aspects of womanly love like a sort of Nancy if her psyche were hacked into three distinct and disparate parts – with its blend of wry observation and audience participation (if sitting on men’s knees can be described thus) has the viewer (audience) howling with laughter.  As do the vaudevillian mime artists, who put in a sterling effort and win Old Rope’s Best Bit Badge.

Legs!

When turning his sights on more serious matters, however, Pachano loses his way somewhat. The Lover & The Whore is crude, pompous, overblown and almost certainly a rather sexist portrayal of love and prostitution, whilst the business with the burkas beggars belief. A parade of women, their faces covered in shawls wiggle around in some sort of cartoonish belly-dance, before a backdrop of tear-jerking images from the Iraq and Afghan wars. Meanwhile the Prince of Persia, replete with scimitar and turban, conjures up a version of John Lennon’s Imagine that is beyond embarrassing. The whole segment was so poor in conceit and ridiculous in execution that Old Rope could not help but laugh uncontrollably throughout, much to the consternation of the present Ms Rope, who (unlike these clowns) hates to be shown up in public.

The singing and dancing stumbles to some sort of a juddering halt and our host and sometime star is wheeled out for a lengthy monologue on the nature of the show, his life on the stage and lord knows what else. Though a trifle unusual, this prolonged ego-trip is handled relatively well, delivered with wit and aplomb by a man who has no dearth of experience in front of a crowd. Despite this, one cannot help but wonder if the producers simply ran out of material to take the show to a decent running time.

Anibal Pachano is a very small man, standing approximately two feet tall and dressed in a luxuriously theatrical and camp suit, he is every bit the queen he wishes to be. Old Rope is not playing fast and loose with the homophobia here, Pachano is openly bragging about it in his turquoise finery, dismissing the attempts of his junior actors to outshine him. “They are not the queen. I am the queen” he drawls, each word curling off his lips with a sensuality only possible for a stunted gay thespian in a crown. And in terms of non-existent musical films that Old Rope has not seen, he certainly is the queen to my austere and regal king.

I give Pour La Gallery one Tate and a National.

 

Backstage video
Website of the show

Footnote: And no I do not know why it is “Pour” after the French word, rather than “Por” the Spanish word

Christmas Movie Round-Up

Christmas! Yaaaayyy!

Christmas brings with it a superabundance of festive films, bursting from the television like dirty stuffing from the seams of a sinister old teddy bear. Like that stuffing, many Christmas films are coarse and riddled with asbestos and broken glass. So here is a guide to help viewers distinguish the wholesome seasonal movies from the more satanic ones (I haven’t watched any of them of course).

Miracle on 34^th Street. This is an equal opportunities offender. Richard Attenborough staggers about on the titular New York thoroughfare in a stained red costume, denouncing ‘Papists’, ‘Saracens’, ‘Pantheists’, ‘Pinkos’, ‘Winkos’ (?), and his more likable brother David, whom he calls an ‘underbrush cretin’. At the end of the film he lightens up a bit and starts shouting more positive things about the various peoples of the world. This is the miracle to which the title refers.

Elf. Squeaky, shouty, bouncy, portly Will Ferrell, the Orang-Utan of American comedy, climbs into an elf suit and lets the fireworks rip, like mortar bombs of laughter in an Afghani fun zone. The bit where he hugs his dad then his dad shouts ‘pervert’ was challenging and difficult to explain to my children.

It’s a Wonderful Life. In this, Frank Capra’s piece de resistness, a nice man gets dragged screamingly across the very nadir of human suffering, pelted with the offal of defamation and repeatedly mutilated by a leering German in a bloody butcher’s apron, only to have his friends host a lovely Christmas party for him in which they all tell him what a ‘swell guy’ he is. He laughs and says, ‘it is a wonderful life after all, eh Beaver?’, but we can still see the blood stains on his shirt.

Santa Claus: The Movie. In this bleak honk of nothingness, Peter Cook plays an irascible old crank in a red suit and beard who mercilessly bullies a gnome with self-esteem issues, played by Dudley Moore. Christmas turns out to be a right old snafu, due to Cook’s copious intake of gin and his increasingly nihilistic attitude towards life and children. Moore cries in the Lapland cafeteria. Cook dies in the snow. The western world looks for a new religious occasion on which to hang their spiritual and material hopes and dreams.

Pasolini’s I Racconti di Canterbury

Did you know that Pier Paolo Pasolini made a feature film version of the Canterbury Tales? Well, he did. And what’s more, he replaced all of the pilgrims with talking cheeses. I shit you not. Here is a translation of an excerpt from the script:

[VOICE OVER:]

The cheese-board is displayed forth in goodly aspect. All of the old friends are there: Mr Stilton, Dame Gouda, good old Cheddar Chesterton, Miss Wensleydale, Cavaliere Gorgonzola, Roger Brie. Assembled are they all, like Chaucer’s pilgrims, or amateur thespians putting on their ruffs, rouge and puffs before treading the community centre boards. Oh, readers! Would that I could paint for you the fond bonhomie, the tender remembrances that are exchanged between these happy cheeses! Cheddar Chesterton recalls the time he was whirled down a Gloucestershire hillock and then snatched up by a sweaty schoolteacher. Dame Gouda remembers holidays in Sierra Leone. It is a gorgeous scene, friends, a heartwarming tableau. But listen! Their tales are just beginning:

Cheddar Chesterton is the first to speak:

Crumbly his countenance; yellow his cheek.

He clears his throat, every cheese has heard,

“Hark ye my friends to the song of a curd.

For negligible cheeses it suffices,

To slum it and mingle with Kraft cheese slices,

But from proud udder I originate,

Not a vulgar cow, of slatternly gait,

But a queen of bovines, a regal mooer,

Not walking kebab meat, doomed to the skewer.

Her udders like unto Venus’s bosoms,

So say the farm-folk who marry their cousins,”

At this point Dame Gouda interrupted,

“‘Bosoms’ and ‘cousins’”? Your rhyme scheme’s corrupted”

“Get bent” said Cheddar, and flipped her the bird

“I’ll tell it my way, the Whey of the Curd.

I was given birth by a milkmaid’s squeezers

Like Mary bringing forth the infant Jesus

And like J. Christ I reached maturity

Mouldless, tart and free from impurity

A handsome fromage, regent of the cheeses,

A lordly Minstrel among base Maltesers,

A golden eagle among rancid squawkers,

A high-class escort among cheap street-walkers

Apply whatever metaphor ye please,

But know, my friends, I was a shit-hot cheese.

1900

I have seen Bertolucci’s 1900 (or Novecento in common parlance) but only once, and many years ago. It’s a film so long that the DVD comes in a suitcase boxset with its own Sherpa. For those of you too busy to watch all 1900 hours of it, here’s a potted beef version:

My lad ‘e’s but a simple farmer’s lad,

In top ‘at and tails tha’ll not find ‘im clad,

And t’were naught but a fancy o’t boozy lords,

To unleash ‘pon’t peasants t’fascist zombie ‘ordes.

Yet tho’ young Olmo were faced wi’t ‘orrors o’t livin’ dead,

Sense ‘e ‘ad to shoot ‘em in’t ‘ead.

Wasted rounds on flappin’ limbs were not ‘is lot,

Oh, nay ‘ow squire, not one blinkin’ jot.

Wi’ chainsaw in one ‘and,

An’ boomstick in t’other,

He led t’workers against t’blackshirt zombie mothers.

And told he, to t’Communist Party,

Of t’nightmare o’ facin’ an army of undead nazis.

Toy Story

I’ve not seen Toy Story. I’m sure it is hilarious and subtle and great fun for big kids of all ages though. Here is a list of merchandise based on the favourite toys of Little Bobby, Toy Story’s pre-pubescent protagonist:

1) The Spinning Wizard Box. This small tin cuboid of infantile glee features a small slot wherein Little Bobby puts pennies. If he puts in one penny the hatch flies open and a tiny metal wizard jumps out and spins round. Sparks fizzle out of his sleeves and he shouts something that might be ‘Thankers’, ‘Pankhurst’, ‘Parkhurst’, ‘Danglers’ or ‘Bankers’. If he puts in two pennies the wizard does it twice. Little Bobby becomes confused as to where the pennies are all going as he is not able to retrieve them from the box. He begins to suspect that his Uncle Ignatius is stealing them and spending them on cheap cider and lady escorts. Uncle Ignatius’ death two years later, which bears all the hallmarks of a wizard revenge attack, seems to confirm Little Bobby’s theorem. RRP £11.99

2) Big Sword Masters. This is Little Bobby’s second favourite toy-set. It comprises a number of fat plastic figurines with anatomically incorrect muscles and bob haircuts. They each have improbably large swords and appropriate names to reflect their blade of choice: Broadswordigle, Scimitar Jim, Stu the Fusilier, and so on. With a stab stab here and a chop chop there, many is the happy afternoon Little Bobby spends making those Big Sword Masters mutilate and dismember one another. They are his gladiators and he is their little blonde bastard of a Roman emperor. RRP £8.99 per figurine

3) Little Jazzy Boy’s First Toy Saxophone. After Little Bobby has tired of playing Caligula, he retires to his den, which he has fitted out like a 50s New York jazz club. In tribute to his hero, John Coltrane, he picks up his toy syringe and spoon set and shoots up (don’t worry mums and dads – it’s not real heroin!). Then he blows out a sad scale on his Little Jazzy Boy’s First Toy Saxophone, cold and low. Badder-ba-DWEEP-bob, DWEEP-bop, GREEP-bob, squabadder-ber-badder. Hot shit Daddyo. Little Bobby is on fire! Tonight he is blowing for all of the down and outs and threadbare deadbeats and burned-out bumbears. Twiddle-eep-bomb. Thelonious Wow! Little Bobby is one hep cat. RRP £15.49.

Kes

A flock of oiks

The year is 1969 and Ken Loach offers us this, his second and most overtly political film. With little attempt to disguise it, Kes is a thinly layered allegorical tale reinforcing Loach’s belief that Britain should be ruled by an iron-fisted blue-blooded privileged elite.

Loach is famed for magnificent tales of the British nobility’s god-given right to rule over us, with a style that is both colourful and elaborate. Many believe that we can pinpoint Kes as the catalyst for his developing style, his epiphany, his moment of clarity. Personally I prefer Loach when he sticks to his saucy rom-coms, but there is no accounting for personal preference in the cold expanse of the Film Review.

The film focuses on the titular Kes, king of the Bird People, who pays a visit to the inhabitants of a little-known British backwater called Yorkshire. There he encounters many of the impoverished plebs who live therein and he gathers them together to make pronouncements on the nature of monarchy, religion, the feudal system and why it is important to have a true and proper ranking structure. Most of the dirty oiks pay no heed to the bird, a beautiful peacock (hence the name Kes), largely because they cannot understand his curious squarking. One small boy, however, furiously takes notes and soon a friendship of sorts is born. The boy’s name is Billy, in accordance with the rest of his family, all the people in the town and indeed every person to ever feature in a Loach film. Tradition is a marvellous thing in the working classes.

Naturally, a regal and majestic king such as Kes cannot be seen fraternising too closely with a boy from the lower classes, even if one is a bird and the other is a glorified ape, it just wouldn’t do for morality and whatnot, of either race.

Yes please, two

Young Billy is instructed to compile all the lectures Kes delivers and publish them in some form of anthology, so that the human people can read them at their leisure in their local library. Unfortunately, young Billy does not understand how to get a book published, where or indeed what a library is, nor does he know how to read and write. Indeed it emerges that Billy’s “notes” of the lectures Kes has delivered are in fact a series of crude Desperate Dan caricatures and doodles of birds with big penises. Furious, Kes punishes Billy by making him take a freezing cold shower, a custom he learnt from Billy’s arch nemesis, the cruel school-master ‘Sur’.

“Ur nur, Sur,” pleads Billy in his thick Yorkshire drawl, as Sur delivers the cruel punishment. “Twernt me Sur, never dun’t, Sur… an’ me mam sez mustn’t’tn’t  uv  sh’wers, tit be weerst uff good drinkin witter”. In this powerful, bewildering and slightly pornographic scene, we learn that young Billy, though possessing the body of a small 13 year old boy, has the voice of a grizzled 50 year old forty-a-day Yorkshire miner. Which is, of course, the future both Kes and the British institution has rightly laid out for wee Billy.

Love at first flight

Much of the film is unintelligible, at least when the paupers are speaking, though this is undoubtedly a political message from Loach, who has long campaigned for the vote to be withdrawn from those in possession of fewer than 30 acres of land. Indeed at times the political message of the film threatens to overshadow the storyline and as it finally shudders to a brutal conclusion with the murder of young Billy (whose neck is broken by his own brother) we are subjected to a lengthy lecture imposed over the end credits. Though notionally delivered by Kes, the narrative voice is clearly that of Loach himself, as the bird ruminates on the untrustworthy characters of the lower orders, the failings of “free-will” and the tirade essentially boils down to little more than a list of reasons why the introduction of the caste system in Britain might not be such a bad thing.

Since Old Rope was not alive in 1969 I have not seen Kes, but I give it two fingers.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

 

Van Helsing, driven by an obsessive desire for vengeance, pursues Dracula and his friends across Central Europe

In these times of True Blood and Twilight and The Vampire Diaries, when every bloodsucker is a brooding bag of hunksome repression and each of their paramours is a quivering, wobbling stick of adolescent longing, it is nice to come across a film that takes the vampire myth back to its roots. Bramblebum Barnabus Stoker, the author of ‘Dracula’, first conceived his story not as a tale of improbable romance nor as a horror-piece, but as a sort of proto-Top Cat. In this respect his novel was true to the original vision of Lord Byron, who used to draw little sketches on parchment of vampires wearing straw boaters and waistcoats.

So it is, in Francis Ford Scrofula’s adaptation that Dracula and his gang – Benny the Ball, Brains, Spicy Samuel, Fangmaster 2000 – root around in dustbins and scamper about on rooftops while suffering police harassment from an Officer-Gordon-like Van Helsing. Dracula is the coolest of all the quasi-feline street vampires, and he always knows how to get his kicks. ‘Hey Benny the Ball’, he says, ‘let’s have an illegal crap game in the alleyway and drink moonshine’. ‘Fuck yeah DC!’ replies Benny the Ball. ‘Hey Brains, let’s set up a pyramid scheme and fleece some chumps’ says Dracula. ‘Hey nice idea’ miaows Brains, ‘I’ll just rustle up some spurious business plans’. But their fun cannot last. Before long, that monomaniacal fascist pig Van Helsing is busting in on their scene and trampling all over their kicks. Eventually Dracula tears off Van Helsing’s head and sticks it on the railings outside town hall, but not before drinking monstrously of his severed arteries and exalting in the bloodfeast. No one catches out that old DC!

On the Coppola-ometer, this film rates above Godfather II but below Jeepers Creepers. It recalls the Sicilian hoodlummery of the former but fails to reach the winged beastliness of the latter. Keanu Reeves was a bad choice for Benny the Ball, although Philip Seymour Hoffman puts in a characteristically thoughtful performance as Fangmaster 2000. The script appears to have been written by a jive-talking bum-turkey, and is all the more authentic for that very reason. The score – a cacophony of boings, pings, and dwoinks – is a flipping disgrace. Tut Tut Coppola. Tut tut

Titanic

I’ve never seen it. Shan’t, either. It goes a bit like this though, right?

Crewman Jenkins sounds the foghorn, peering through the fusty nacht like a blinkered hoss at a barn fire.

“Blaggards ‘pon the prow, sah!” he oinks.

Captain Roscoe Holcombe enters the main-swale, engagingly flustered with a hot beefiness only fleetingly dreamed of by the dingo-muff clad savages of yore.

“Into the fray once more, Jenkins!” he cries, spilling not one drop of Earl Grey from his china cup.

Jenkins looks ‘pon his captain with smirking adulation.

“Yes sah!” he weeps angrily.

The pair flounce off, embroiled, onto the darkened poop-deck.

Below decks, a party ensues. Toffs and sloop-wallahs fandango their ponces about the floor like jaunty porcini, all the while pronging their head-flaps to some juicy grooves from the rhythm pit.

Unbeknowingly to them there folks, there loitered a grunt of the middlingest oik, that, would they knowst, them and theirs might lynch that piglet much as look at his potato-chops.

“Argh!” he scrotes. “Me jibber-horn does belt for thee, our Wendy!!”

Clutching his navel, he calls his betrovel from the shadowy meshuggah. She flits near, momentary-like, and flits away.

“Graaagh!!” whines he. “Thou art globbled in my harris!”

Wendy bustles near with an air of Moorish courage, in pignorance of the lordly disdain about her.

“Not to be is our musty sexing!” she wails smokily. “Not on this big buggering boat, anyhope.”

At this point the music stops as the ship hits an anomaly in space/time, causing the universe and everything in it to cease to exist. The end credits merely show a photograph of James Cameron’s childhood best friend, a stray dog called Scranton, along with the words: “I fucking told you so.”

Cecil B. DeMille’s Samson and Delilah

Beefy Landers and Slanket Wurzel in 'Samson and Delilah'

I have not seen Cecil B. DeMille’s ‘Samson and Delilah’ as I am not a member of its target audience (deranged 1950s fruit loops living in nuclear bunkers with corned-beef breath). Nor do I intend to review it. Instead, I have copied and pasted the following extract from Harry Pudlinger’s seminal biography of DeMille, entitled ‘16mm Jesus’. Here it is:

Cecil B. DeMille is sitting in a Hollywood office fellating a veritable Big Bertha of a stogie. “Nyeah” he says. “Nyeah. Bring in the next one.” The assistant shouts: “Samson number 13, please enter Mr DeMille’s office.”

A stooped-up dumpling pads in on a sad set of thunder thighs. This rough-edged hunk of Christmas chicken has seen better days (only slightly better days, mind).

“Turn round” says DeMille. The hopeful thespian obliges, revealing a slope of back-fat and a muff of greying hair spilling out of the seat of his trousers. He twitches his neck, causing his permed mullet to cascade about his shoulders like a dismal car wash manned by a blank-eyed mouth-breather. “I had it done special” says the actor.

“Read out these lines” says DeMille, passing the poor sap a segment of script.

“What have you done with my hair, you odious, hoofed frump?” the would-be-Samson intones with an ululating trill intended, no doubt, to emulate the furious passion of a cuckolded booby, but sounding, in actual fact, like a pubescent fishmonger at the midday market.

“You stink” says DeMille, “get outta my head you grizzly fuck”. The oaf obliges, impassively. “Next” he cries.

_______________________________

Two years later, DeMille is overseeing the shooting of the final scene of his Biblical epic ‘Samson and Delilah’. A bald, blind Teuton of a pseudo-Jew practically grooves the living Moses out of a polystyrene pillar, causing 20kg of cardboard temple to rain down on the heads of a multitude of under-paid Philistines. “Breeeooorgghhh. Barurgle. Graaarrrr” he exclaims, “Damn you Delilah you inconstant fatty. I should have left you at the auto-shop you tuppenny frowser. Curses upon the mother that popped out such a duplicitous pig. Curses upon the father who stumped up a Poundland Piggy-Bank of a dowry to be rid of such a bad egg.”

The set implodes, the philistines weep. Samson continues to bleat and huff in the wreckage, invoking the great Jehovah like a cat trapped in a duvet.  “Cut” shouts DeMille, and everyone – Philistines and Israelites, stars, extras and supporting actors – climbs out of the spongy ruins of the phoney temple. Everyone cheers and everyone claps wildly. Then there is silence. All eyes are on their captain. Everyone is looking at DeMille. But DeMille is staring at the sky.

“Beat that God you B-Movie Bastard” he screams.

The Ten Commandments

Dr Zeus Paedipus, eminent psychoanalyst

Good Gomorrah! I’m still on a Cecil B. DeMille tip. Here’s an extract from a psychoanalytical reading of ‘The Ten Commandments’ by Dr Zeus Paedipus, an influential Freudian critic from the 1960s.

DeMille’s preoccupation with the Old Testament reflects the essentially left-testicular bias of his mind. His psycho-sexual development, centred around the twin traumas of (a) being an only child and (b) harbouring, simultaneously, (i) an intense sexual desire for and (ii) a violent resentment towards his brother, gave rise to an imbalance in his testicular thinking. Left-testicular thinkers lean towards harsh moral dichotomies, long beards and violent apocalyptic fantasies. Right-testicular thinkers, on the other hand, have a propensity for forgiveness, slightly shorter beards, and engaging in sustained interpersonal communication on top of elevated topographical spaces.

The film, ‘The Ten Commandments’, is the most detailed picture we have of the scrotal neuroses of the adult DeMille. In his representation of the parting of the Red Sea, for instance, the improbable cleaving of a briny liquid mass into two, round, wrinkled spheres of salt water, is a dark evocation of DeMille’s impossible longing to separate his left testicle from his right testicle. Moses’ rod, poking up punily between the parted sea-stuffs, shows us just how much DeMille’s penis was dwarved by the overwhelming presences of his rival gonads. In the conflict between the two entrenched extremities of DeMille’s testicular personality, his penis was a negligible consideration.

In DeMille’s sexual life this gonadatrophic dissonance manifested itself in a puzzled aversion to penetrative intercourse, and a deep erotic engagement with round fruits. Numerous actresses, including Katherine Hepburn, report being asked to dangle two grapefruits in a hempen carrier bag just out of DeMille’s reach. Upon being presented with this spectacle, DeMille would gasp and yell “Gee Whizz! Two roundies in a flap-bag, look at ’em go boys, look at ’em go” before growing melancholy and irritable.

Elsewhere in ‘The Ten Commandments’, we see such obvious and facile images of the left testicle as the burning bush, the smashing of the stone commandments, God’s nose, Pharoah’s bumbag, Aaron’s delicate lute and innumerable golden calves sporting unwieldy udders. Indeed, the title of the book on which this film is based, ‘The Old Testament’, is Hebrew for ‘The Left Testicle’. What more evidence do you need?

Caligula

You know how fat insecure businessmen are always banging on about ‘the Art of War’ by Sun Tzu? Well I eat Sun Tzu for breakfast, except on a Saturday when my mum gets croissants from the supermarket. It is claimed (by morons) that Sun Tzu’s militaristic musings hold the key to effective business leadership. This is poppycock-and-balls. For my money, there is only one example from the ancient world that can impart true leadership wisdom, and that is the life of Caligula, as represented in the Tinto Brass biopic, ‘Caligula’. Heed the following and you will become king of the managers, or your money back!

The fragrant Helen Mirren in Caligula

The Art of Effective Leadership according to Caligula

Stick a horse in the senate

Impregnate it

Refuse to give it maternity leave,

Insist, on the contrary, that it dances for you,

While fulfilling all of the duties of office.

Grow weary of the pregnant horse dancing.

Shoot it.

Boil it down for glue.

Impregnate the glue.

Have glue babies.

Let them loose on the plebiscites.

When the glue babies come back to claim their reward,

Boil them down into a non-adhesive substance.

Stick it in the eyes of your sister.

Whom you love.

Cry.

Spend 15 minutes thinking of the most incongruous thing you could try to impregnate.

Fail.

Play pinball.

Increase taxes.

Blame immigrants for increase in taxes, horse deaths, glue-baby-attacks and non-adhesive-glue-in-eye incidents.

Start again.

The Nutty Professor

The Nutty Professor shoots the pedagogical shit

The Nutty Professor is probably a collegiate satire focused on the peccadilloes of a nut-obsessed academic, much like Kingsley Amis’ Lucky Jim or Clive Barker’s Nightbreed. I can’t be sure, of course, as I haven’t seen it. Here is a poem written from the perspective of the nutty professor in question:

Nuts 101

Hazelnuts are good for virility

Walnuts make menopausal women merry

Brazil Nuts can make you handsome like Tom Selleck

Or jowled and matronly like Matthew Perry

(It’s 50/50)

Pine Nuts can cause wistfulness

Hazelnuts are said to augur political instability

In extreme cases, Cashew Nuts

Have been known to cause severe mental disability.

Chestnuts are not suitable for children.

Peanuts are not a substitute for children.

Butternut Squashes are the cuckoos of the nut kingdom

And typically take over the nests of weaker nuts

And feast on their young.

In all of my research, the most intriguing specimen I ever discovered was a semi-digested peanut salvaged from the faeces of Napoleon Bonaparte. Truly, that nut had gazed upon the stomach lining of greatness. It now sits in a little perspex display cabinet in the British Museum. You should check it out sometime.

Now, class, please turn to page 3 of your handout…

Streetdance 3D

Ultimately, all living things must die. Time is infinite, possibilities are limitless and man is but an atom, attached to a louse on God’s fanny. Here’s a review of Streetdance 3D.

The musical genre has oft baffled cultural critics; seemingly meaningless and superficial, musical cinema explores (on the surface) themes of the adolescent journey and the eternal struggle of man to assert his identity through the media of song and dance.

Dance troupe Diversity perform the film's centrepiece: the Swiss Cottage Swagger

Streetdance 3D (or ‘Stree-Dee Dee-Dee-Dee’ as it has become known among Britain’s disaffected youth) explores these themes only as a nod to its trailblazing forbears: Wizardy Foz, Sound of Mu-Ha, Chic-a-gogo, Cabarum and Greasies are subtly referenced throughout the film. Most notably, in the scene where N-Dubz set off to score some crack, skipping as they go. Tilting his top hat to a jaunty angle, the group’s lead soprano Dappy proclaims: “Why, dis be just like dat film wid dat wizard ‘n’ shit.”

As with Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris, sexuality and identity are inextricably linked by physicality in Streetdance 3D. The simple popping of a collar, a carefully executed Hackney Hunker, or an extravagant Grange Park Power Grab can be read as an attempt by the protagonists to stamp their mark, not only on the screen, but on life itself. STEP-STEP-GRAB! I AM ME! WATCH ME SHUFFLE GAILY! IN 3D!

Streetdance 3D‘s true strength lies in its highly original plot. Using dance as their springboard, the proletariat rise up against their square oppressors, fusing street styles with ballet, Fortis Green Foxtrots with Gunnersbury Goose-steps. Of course, the state doesn’t like this desecration of traditional styles and massacres the entire dance school in a finale reminiscent of Tiananman Square and stuff.

To some, Streetdance 3D will be ‘just another dance movie’. To them I say this: “STEP! TWO-THREE-FOUR AND KICK! TWO-THREE-FOUR NOW SLIDE! TWO-THREE-FOUR AND JAZZ-HANDS!!”

In 3D.

Rocky Balboa

After the unmitigated failure that was ‘Rocky Balboa’, Sylvester Stallone was banned from ever making a film again. What was worse, they chopped him into little bits and sold the resulting Stallone-meat as merchandise to tie in with the DVD release. Most of Stallone is currently in frozen storage in a Hollywood warehouse. Here is the advert for the Stallone-meat in question:

Boxer Meat! Two for a pound! Get yer Rocky Sausages. Two Italian-American pugilist’s cheeks tubed and lubed into a sexy sausage skin. Stick it in yer hot dogs! Whack it in yer mash! Two long Rocky dongers for one pound sterling. Primo cheek-meat in a meaty donger. Get yer Rocky bangers here.

Balboa Burgers! You wanna ingest Rocky’s abdominal muscles? Now you can good buddy. Three fat patties spanked flat. No gristle. No grease. Just lean, mean Rocky-belly in a puffy bap. I’ll stick ’em in a carrier bag for you or you can hold ’em all bloody and bulbous in yer paws like Jackie Onassis clutching JFK’s exploded brains in her hands and wishing she would have had a snack before she got in that fateful Dallas limo. Look at you. Lickin’ yer lips. I don’t blame yer buddy. These Balboa burgers are so tasty I could regurgitate them up then eat them all over again. Yummo. Scrummo.

Stallone Bollock Haggis! It’s a traditional Scottish recipe. It’s organic. It’s hearty. It’s Sly’s big fleshy testes in a cow’s stomach lining. Each teste weighed 2 stone. There’s enough for all of the family. Yer kids’ll never starve again. Feed Little Bobby one of these Ballbag haggises and he’ll grow up to be a hairy colossus and the scourge of weaker children everywhere.

Congo

Did you know that the film ‘Congo’, starring Tim Curry, Bruce Campbell and a gorilla, was based on a novel by Robert Harris? It’s true. As I understand it, the novel was quite different from the film. In the original, a mysterious scientific organisation subjected a group of monkeys to strange scientific experiments to try to get them to produce art. It’s pretty weird stuff, and by no means a worthwhile read, even by the standards of Harris’s weak, sloppy oeuvre. Anyway, here’s the first chapter of ‘Congo’, by Robert Harris. It’s quite long, so I wouldn’t blame you if you stopped half way through for a gherkin break or something:

Simply feed this little mogwai after midnight and you got yourself a monkey sir!

Congo, by R. Harris.

Unsubtle monkeys. Their tongues lashing. Laughing from their guts up. One flicks a missile of shit up in a steep arc. Another stares at it in awe as if it were a shooting star. It lands in his eye. He screams. They scream with laughter. Unsubtle monkeys.

They begin The Dance Of The Gorilla Who Wished He Were A Monkey. They lumber forwards and backwards in rows. They pout and twist. One beats his chest and bows. The others bow to him as they pirouette round in circles which alternately dilate and contract. As it reaches its crescendo they dig snowballs of excrement from the mounds all around them and pound them into the sombre face of the one who is playing King Gorilla. Unsubtle, yes, but at least they are trying.

It is the job of Colin to deliver their injections. Colin got the job because he is ugly. Ugly, that is, to monkeys. His predecessors had suffered for falling within the parameters of the simian ideal of beauty. Paul’s eyes were ripped out as mementoes of a ferocious buggering that the chief perpetrators (‘an unruly minority’ say the directors of the project) still seem to remember with pride, if indeed their construction of a rudimentary display cabinet, in which to present the eyes, from bones, twigs and egg-shells can be interpreted as an index of their collective sense of achievement. Michael, a veteran of innumerable official and unofficial wars, shrugged nonchalantly after being informed of Paul’s fate, and stepped into the enclosure. The females toppled him and used him as a seven-foot rutting post (‘He was killed almost immediately when his head hit the floor. Thank God for small mercies’). Colin, with his squat porcine face and hairless head is of no interest to the monkeys. The males spit on the floor when he enters the enclosure and the females make retching sounds.

Today they are tired after their dance. Colin moves among them like Florence Nightingale: soundlessly, sexlessly, diligently. Forty-two monkeys. All respond to the injection instantly. Their arms sag and their knees curl but their eyes widen and whiten.

Colin is out in less than ten minutes. The technicians nod at him. ‘Let me show you some photos’ says the director. Moving to Colin’s side, he lifts an elegant leather-bound album from a table and opens it to reveal a sepia portrait of a shit mound. ‘Yes,’ says the director, ‘I know’. He turns the page. Another sepia photograph: the same faeces, but separated into two medium-sized balls.

‘I don’t need to ask you what you think’ says the director. Colin smiles and nods.

‘Well, what do you think?’ says the director, a little agitated.

‘Ohhhh… I don’t know much about art…’

‘..but you know what you like. Yes yes. Never mind the platitudes. What do you think?’

‘Well. The lens is a little out of focus. And better use could have been made of the available light source.’

The director grips the album. His head sinks. ‘You’re right.’ His face tightens. ‘Fuck these fucking monkeys. They’re a bad batch. We could have been miles ahead of where we are now if we had only chosen the monkeys more carefully.’

‘There was no way of knowing how any individual subject would respond to the injections’ interjects a technician, defensively.

‘Stop making excuses for yourselves’ shouts the director, throwing the album across the room. ‘Listen to Colin. He’s the only one here with any sort of disinterested aesthetic judgement.’ After the director paces off the technicians glower at Colin. He looks down embarrassedly and walks out of the observation room to the staff canteen.

Two years later, Colin has been promoted to the position of artistic adviser. He might be ugly, in monkey terms, but he has a keen eye for beauty. This, at least is the belief of his employers. His job is frustrating. The monkeys’ work has improved, but it is still substandard. ‘Look at this, for instance’, Colin sighs in his monthly report to the directors. He shows them a painting of a mound of shit next to a waste paper bin executed in the Vorticist style.

‘What is wrong with that?’ asks a director, awkwardly conscious of his own philistinism.

‘Humans were doing this 100 years ago. And when they did, they did so energetically, passionately. This is lacklustre.’

‘Have they produced anything you like?’ asks another director.

‘Yes. One of them painted a triptych showing the triumph of the monkey pharaoh upon his return from the bowels of hell.’

‘I see. So there wasn’t any excrement in it?’

‘No, no. There was, there was. As far as I have been able to infer from their artistic efforts, hell is an actual bowel in monkey mythology. So is heaven. Heaven, hell and earth are bowels. Bowels in the body of the universal monkey.’

‘It has three bowels?’

‘So it would seem.’

‘But can we use the painting?’

‘If you like. But it was a fluke. As I understand it you want to have a good body of work ready before you make this project public.’

The directors mutter and grumble. ‘What are we doing wrong?’ one of them asks. ‘Maybe the dosage is wrong’

‘It’s not the dosage’ says the chairman. ‘We need to keep going. Keep forging ahead. By next year we will have an academy of artistic monkeys to match the Royal Academy. And then we will be unstoppable!

(end of chapter 1)

Agoraphobic Reviewer 1 year anniversary!

The Agoraphobic Reviewer staff plus assorted chumps on a team-building exercise in Ipswich

Another year rolls round, disgustingly, like a fetid ball of putrid matter tumbling out of a tiny, grubby orifice in the fabric of reality, furtively imposing itself in all its rancid odium on our jaded, despairing attention like an unwanted dead Christmas pet returned from the grave and poking its necrotic snout through the catflap. Yes friends, that’s right! The Agoraphobic Reviewer is 1 year old! Hooray! Crack open the wet wipes! Turn on the air conditioning! It’s going to be one hell of a party!

The Agoraphobic Reviewer was first conceived as a means of gentrifying the internet and as an online haven for the world’s most tremendous minds. Very quickly it turned into a site wherein a little fat man with an overbite and a thesaurus (that’s me chums!) wrote pointless reviews of films he had never seen. Such is the entropic nature of all things, tending terminally towards decay and degeneration.

But hold your miserable horses mister! After an abortive beginning, things started to improve. The small, plump buffoon made some friends. He was joined first by the bluegrass bard Banjo Chutney (nee Fett), who seared his way onto our consciousnesses with a series of ‘Unnecessary Film Sequels’. My favourite Banjo Chutney piece to date is his poem on Omar Sharif’s beard of beef (check it out in the search bar to your right).

Next came Pariah Rustbucket, the mysterious scholar-visionary, who pumped her way into the minds of AR readers like a Puffing Billy steam train with a piece on the lost chapters of 1984. Rustbucket writes like Yeats would have written had he not wasted his life fiddling about with gyres in his potting shed. I recommend her review of Tron Legacy.

Spicy Eggnog touched down next with a hot slice of review flan on Invictus. This is Eggnog’s only contribution to date, but it is a devilish rectangle of Satanic genius. I demand more!

Last to join this motley band of reprobates was Old Rope. Before he became a contributor to the AR, Old Rope had already forged himself a large and loyal readership on his own blog, like a scientist creating an enormous titanium butler. Indeed, it was Old Rope’s site that inspired me to start up the AR in the first place. Thanks Rope. Of Ropey’s entries on this blog I would have to say that Kes is my favourite, followed closely by Furia di Titanes (Clash of the Titans to congenital gringos such as you and I).

Well, that’s all chums. Have a root round in the archives: see if anything wets your parched beaks. Meanwhile, the party plans are afoot! If anyone would like to join me tonight for a celebratory can of dogfood and a cry, I’ll be sitting outside WH Smiths in St Pancras Station, London, from 7pm. See you there not-watching-film-fans.

The Birds

I used to think Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ was a romantic comedy about a group of female friends in the Sex and the City vein. I erred sirs, I erred real bad. I have subsequently discovered that it’s actually about a demented redneck who is obsessed with a puffin. Check this out:

That's a nice crow Hitch, but it ain't no puffin.

Hey buddies. Let me tell you about m’Puffin. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me, no kidding. He’s got a proud feathered chest that swells out so sweet. People talk about Marilyn Monroe’s chest or Jordan’s chest, but they ain’t gots nothing next to m’Puffin. Sure, a Puffin’s chest ain’t everyone’s bag. But, I swears, it’s smooth and graceful and sleek, like a Ferrari’s hood. Sometimes, I looks up into the sky, where God the Cloud-Master lives. Then, all of a sudden, m’Puffin goes whizzing past and his shiny Puffin chest winks out benediction to all of the pathetic losers below, such as me, and I scream with happiness.

But, fuck, buddies, what about his beak! If God has a beak, I reckons it looks something like m’Puffin’s beak. You could imagine ‘Let there be light’ coming out of it, I’m telling you. You could imagine the Word coming out of it, get me? I once saw m’Puffin crack open ten snails with that beak, and those sorry snails screamed like Chinese peasants in the vice-like grip of an ancient dragon. KEEE-RRUNNNCCHH. That’s what it sounded like. You should have heard it. What a beak!

I used to be a real sap. I wore dungarees with the ass-pouch hanging down to my thighs and I had halitosis real bad. Everyone laughed at me and called me ‘Dogpants Brown’. My name’s not even Brown. It’s Winslow Porkwind. But still, they called me Dogpants Brown. I couldn’t even get my mother to spend time with me. ‘Dogpants’, she used to say, ‘I cannot believe such a deformed assemblage of broken atoms ever issued from my womb’, referring, of course, to me, her son. But then I gots myself a Puffin. Since then, everyone has given me respect.

Why, last week, three women gave me their phone numbers. ‘Call me’ they said ‘and let’s do lunch. But be sure to bring that Puffin’. I know they only want me for m’Puffin. But they ain’t getting their claws on him. I’m keeping m’Puffin all to myself. It’s jus’ me and my Puffin, buddies, jus’ me and m’lil’ ol’ Puffin.

If anyone tried to take m’Puffin from me I think I’d whack ’em with pa’s greasy skillet then drown ‘em in the creek in an ol’ swine sack. Yeah. That’s what I’d do. Drown ’em. Yeah.

The Graduate

Hello. Have you graduated from university? If so, have you subsequently been asked for money by the university at which you studied, as if you hadn’t already paid through the nose for a degree? Somewhat exasperating, is it not? Anyway,  in ‘The Graduate’ Dustin Hoffman plays one of those avaricious little flunkies who carry out their college’s wicked bidding by pestering its alumni for money. It is a grubby representation of an even grubbier world. Here is an extract from one of Hoffman’s speeches:

Huzzah! Bonking Good Show Chaps! Now let's go and see if there are any jobs going at McDonalds!

Hi guys. I’m an alumnus of the University of Mammon,

And I’d like to talk to you about supporting

Your university after you graduate.

Now, I know you’ve already paid upwards

Of $50, 000 for a degree.

And I know you had to flip scabrous discs of cow

In Big Teddy’s House of Meat Buttons,

Or some other fast-food inferno,

And pimp your own wretched frame

To gasping executives on

Disenchanted ground

In order to afford this abject travesty

Of an education.

But we want you to pay more.

Heaps more.

Why?

Because we are Beelzebub’s minions

And all our delight is in ungodly pursuits.

Now are you going to harvest your own kidneys

Or would you like us to do it for you?

Four Weddings and a Funeral

Wooed and married a'

Four Weddings and Funeral. Neffer seen it. Neffer will. Here poem:

Wedding 1: mother cried; groom chinese-burned bride.

Wedding 2: groom had fleas; vicar difficult to appease

Wedding 3: body-building theme; bride resembled He-M-

-an

Wedding 4: connubial bliss; best man smelt of piss

Funeral: Here lies John Le Baptiste, professional mortalitiste.

Days of Thunder

I saw ‘Days of Thunder’ yesterday and I was blown away. I know I am seriously deviating from Agoraphobic Reviewer practice here, but I felt it necessary to write a serious review of it. We cannot always jest and joke. Sometimes it is necessary to lay our reputations on the line and venture a heartfelt opinion. With that in mind, here is my review:

‘Days of Thunder’ is a trenchant and timely rumination on the social and occupational pressures facing a young stock car driver. It exposes the hazards that surround this glamorous career, and examines their impact on the lives of those who live and, alas, often die by it. But it tactfully and sensibly (this reviewer thinks) avoids passing overt judgement on the racers, sponsors and motor enthusiasts who are all, ultimately, complicit in the fatalities and casualties to which the sport so regularly gives rise.

Some critics have suggested that the role of Bruce Fastman is Tom Cruise’s most challenging to date. It is hard to disagree. Fastman is a deeply complex individual, who longs for speed and visceral excitement on the track, but who needs reassurance and stability in his domestic life. In one scene Fastman is sitting behind the wheel visibly ecstatic to have triumphed over the competition in an important race. In the next he is curled in his partner’s lap, the very picture of masculine vulnerability. Cruise handles these tonal shifts with aplomb. It is a forceful performance.

It is an unfortunate truism that sports-themed films often feature substandard dialogue. Not so this film. The verbal exchanges are as quick and noisy as anything on the racetrack. Nicole Kidman’s bon mots are really something to behold. She is truly the go-to actress for top-notch repartee in Hollywood at the moment. Aspiring actresses could really learn something from her flawless diction and masterful delivery.

This film belongs to a well-respected tradition of dramas based around the conflicted psyche of the classic American male. Its forebears are ‘Citizen Kane’, ‘The Godfather’ and ‘There Will Be Blood’. It reveals the lies men tell themselves, and the truths that they daily embody in the sweat of their brows and the ache of their sinews. ‘Days of Thunder’ should be on every secondary school syllabus in the country. Someone should put a DVD copy of it in a time capsule so that future generations will know what it was like to be a man living in the twentieth century. I cannot recommend it enough.

Bella Y La Bestia

Before television and cinematography were born under a blistering star on Broadway, blighting mankind forever with a series of curses akin to those unleashed by Pandora’s Box – not least of which being the unforgivable act of giving The Agoraphobic Reviewer cause for existence – plays ruled the theatrical roost.

Before the endless Hollywood cinematic remakes of his works became ubiquitous, Walter Disney was one of Britain’s foremost playwrights. Such heavyweights as‘ The Aristocats’ and ‘The Lady and The Tramp’ were famed the land over, from Riddlesworth up to Loch Skinnydippin. Many a renowned thespian trod the boards under the guise of Disney’s legendary characters. Sir Bruce Willis’ turn as Dumbo in the 17^th Century caused Samuel Pepys to note, “Ne’er afore has a role been lived with such vigour and virtuosity. Willis did serve the text well and honour the Bard Disney greatly. Elephant? I nearly cried!”

Of late, however, one is more likely to see a sexy and lithe young actor of the day, such as Brian Blessed or Zack from ‘Saved By The Bell’, flashing across the screen as a revamped Pinocchio; or Angelina Jolie as an oversexed and pornified Ariel, ‘The Little Mermaid’.

It was with joy in my heart and a lazy lob-on in my pocket, therefore, that Old Rope braved the Argentine autumn and the Bicentenario crowds, to watch ‘Bella y La Bestia’. Renowned as one of Sir Walter’s latter day masterpieces, “ByB” has been returned to the stage by the Royal Disney Theatre Company. And it’s about bloody time too.

Since Old Rope cannot make head nor tail of the fluid Porteno Spanish spoken here, I may as well not have seen it, thus ideally placing me to review it on these pages. Besides, I slept through four of the five Acts.

The play centres around the titular Bella, a scabrous and grotesque hag who likes to have sexual relations with animals, and Bestia a Geordie man who believes he is quite simply the “best here”. After much dicking about talking to the furniture (it talks back, who knew!) the two get on like a house on fire, before literally setting the house on fire. As the timbers turn to cinders and the crockery weeps for its shattered children, Bella clambers aboard Bestia and rides him the rude way, howling like a banshee as they frug on the talkative rug before the house collapses in on the star-crossed lovers. Warning: Plot Spoiler in the preceding paragraph.

I give this play one B&B (Bed and Breakfast)

Natural Born Killers

What is all the fuss about ‘Natural Born Killers’? Presumably this:

Malefactors

A Gentleman Shoemaker (Robert Downey Jr) was Today subjected to an Affront to His Person. The OUTRAGE took Place at 11am between The Strand and Stringy Lane. As the Shoemaker was plying his Wares in the Cabbage-strewn Thoroughfare, an UPRIGHT BEGGAR (Woody Harrelson) and his DOXY (Juliette Lewis) harangued Him with IMPERTINENT speech. The DOXY, described by One Onlooker (Sidney Poitier) as a ‘Lewd SLATTERN in disordered Petticoats’, demanded THREE Espadrilles of the Shoemaker in a Voice ‘Cacophonous and Hoarse, evoking THE SQUEALING of a Litter of Piglets’. The Shoemaker replied THAT his Espadrilles could only BE bought in Pairs, whereupon the UPRIGHT BEGGAR did a blasphemous DANCE with His Elbows that caused a Near-by AlderMan (Dirk Benedict) to PUFF and drop His Snuffbox. ‘But I wants free of ’em’ said the DOXY and then tugged the SHOEMAKER’S Wig (Tom Cruise), causing It to rest on his Pate in an ungainly and ASYMMETRICAL fashion.

The Malefactors were later APPREHENDED and HANGED.

A Fistful of Dollars

Inexplicably, I have never seen ‘A Fistful of Dollars’. Here is my review of it:

Bob Hope in 'A Fistful of Dollars'

Old Cow-Jaw gulps a happy laugh like a teenage donkey drunk on buffalo piss. Haw haw. Haw haw.  He grips a shotgun to his chest like it was the Virgin Mary and he was a crazy shepherd in heat. Haw haw. Haw haw. Old Cow-Jaw never had too much time for Bible-learning. Mount Sinai might as well be a cattle ranch. And Moses might as well be a steer.

Haw!

The sluice from his gums fires out in torpedoes of brown silt. SPITOINK. His jowls are juicy with puddles of tobacco. SPPPOINK. It splashes on the hooves of the beasts and the boots of the men. PER-TOING.

This here is Devil Town, and Old Cow-Jaw is the most salivatory, sacreligious son of a nickel-tickling sinner old Devil Town ever saw.

He smacks a horse on the snout quick and mean. “Stay down mare or I’ll whipsnake those purdy nostrils offa your smellin’-parts. I can read mares’ minds and you are one mean-minded mare.” He puffs pipe smoke into its eyes. Haw haw. Haw haw. Stupid mare.

Old Cow-Jaw is played by Bob Hope. Big Bob Hope, the Beefy Blimp of the U.S. version of Bollywood. Big Bob Hope who lived to the ripe old age of 146. Big Bob Hope who was completely hairless like a baby, even when he wasn’t a baby. His wife had to talc him top and tail every morning to prevent chafing. Secretly Mrs Hope longed for a swarthy hirsute gentleman.

The Man With No Nickname AKA Ralph Beasly, is played by Clint Eastwood. Many men have tried to give him a nickname and now they’re six-feet deep. Ralphster, Ralph-Malph, R-Man, Bease-Master, T-Bone – before any of these nicknames could stick, Ralph Beasly shot a hole right through ’em. He’s got one name, and it’s the name on his birth certificate. Reckless nomenclature can get a man killed round these parts.

‘A Fistful of Dollars’ is directed by Sergio Leone. It’s pretty interesting. Check it out.

Inception

Hot incinerating munchkins! Speculation regarding Christopher Nolan’s new ostensibly Batman-unrelated film, Inception, is at an all-time high. According to an secret poll carried out by shadowy people with mysterious clipboards, 67% of cinemagoers say that they are 43% more curious about the content of Inception than they were 3 days ago. At this very moment Nolan must be licking up those figures as if he were a fat Cheshire cat and they were llama’s milk! I think it’s fair to say, however, that the following things will definitely happen in Inception:

Roarrr! I am Inception, the Mysterious Brine Monster

Leonardo Dicaprio will look at his watch and say either ‘it’s time’, ‘we’re late’, ‘we’re not late’, ‘are we late?’, ‘it goes down in seven minutes’, ‘the clock’s ticking, boys’ or ‘we’d better synchronise this shit, fellas’. Then he will run across some kind of street or corridor or hall throwing his little fists up like a porky toddler. He will then (not in this order) look at an innocuous object and say ‘that’s strange’, look at a strange object and say ‘that’s innocuous’, and then say “well, how can we tell what’s strange anymore, Bunty?”, to which Bunty will give a comprehensive and plausible response.

He will probably eat something in the course of the film. Something like a quiche or maybe a packet of M & Ms. As he finishes the last of the M&Ms he will smack his lips and say “Ah! Magnifique! My compliments to the chef” causing hilarity among his dinner guests. Then he will grow melancholy and remove his wig, asking his friend, The Duchess, or maybe that tiresome buffoon, Braganzi, to dim the lights. “I have a terrible truth to tell you” he will say, with the candle light shining yellow on his youthful head like a massive luminescent buttercup. Then he will tell the terrible truth and everyone will say things like “Shiiiiit”, “Whaaat?”, “It cannot be!” and “I am very incredulous”.

Then he will put a cape on, more like that of a tawdry, down-at-heel Oxbridge lecturer than a full Batman-style Swoop-Master. He will probably then go to the doctors and say “Is it bad, doc?” and the doctor will say “It depends what you mean by ‘bad’”. Then he will say “By ‘bad’ I mean ‘not good’”. “Oh, I see what you mean” the doctor will say, “in that case you’re completely fucked.”. “You’re an ass doc, but I got no-one else” Leo will say. “Take your trousers off” the doctor will reply.

In the course of a routine endoscopy, the doctor will discover some kind of evil government chip in Leonardo Dicaprio’s colon. “We gotta get this out” the doctor will say. But he is too late. For the chip will already have been activated. “Run” the doctor will say “everyone out”. Then Leonardo’s little white bottom will explode with the force of an incendiary bomb. But this will only be the beginning…

Cat People

In Britain, the 1982 film ‘Cat People’ is best known as the movie that gave birth to the TV franchise, ’The Shoe People’. Many Britons of a particular age remember rushing home from school every Thursday to watch ‘The Shoe People’, in which a bunch of debauched brothel creepers, doc martins, espadrilles and ballerina pumps savagely bit each others soles off and acted out abject psychosexual scenarios involving shoehorns. They don’t make children’s TV like that anymore. Anyway, here’s a poem about ‘Cat People’.

The ancient ones tell of a legend,

A legend so powerful that it

Cannot be written down,

Although it can be made into

A low-budget film starring Malcolm Mcdowell.

(David Bowie: Reeeeowwwrrreeerrr)

And now the legend is becoming reality

For the zoo is honking and gnashing

And the cats in the vetinary surgery

Will not be put down

And are calling their lawyers

And citing scripture and telling of

The Coming of the Feline Jesus

(David Bowie: Wur-hur-hur, he’s com-ma-hing)

Mcdowell steps into the light.

Whiskers sprout where once spouted Nadsat,

Where once was a Roman robe,

Now is a fat mound of pink furze.

He yawns and un-retracts his claws.

He rolls his heavy cannonball of a head

And defecates upon a sandy throne.

(David Bowie: Oo-hoo-wurgh-hurgh, Cat People)

This velveteen man-mog will be the death of us all.

This wool-loving Magog shall eat our young.

Lock your catflaps.

Load your stun-guns

Bagpuss cometh.

Freaks (1932)

I have always wanted to see Tod Browning’s 1932 film ‘Freaks’. Not so much that I have felt compelled to seek it out and actually watch it, you understand. We don’t do that kind of thing round these parts. But review them? Do we ever Mister!

Normality is a relative concept. Our sense of what constitutes strangeness is a mere social construction, a figment of a fastidious and limiting ideology. This said, the cast of Freaks are a grotesque litter of horrifying abominations whose silhouettes alone make children cry and small animals die.

The first scene opens upon the spotlit face of ‘The Astounding Robot’s Midwife’. The frame widens to take in his pinstripe waistcoat and inkstained fingers as he lifts a pale rectangular sliver of flopping matter up to a bulky grey lady robot of square dimensions. He lifts the engine’s hat off mechanically and yet tenderly, as if he were removing his sedated wife’s bonnet, and slips the white material beneath it. An unearthly flash! A chthonic whirring! From out of its cold plastic pelvis, the engine gives birth to another new rectangle of whiteness, identical to the first. Yuck! The camera pans round to take in the gawping, gaping audience as they shiver with disgusted delight. “Behold the Ungodly Spawn of the Xerox Demon” the Midwife shouts. From here on in, all of our stickiest impulses are destined to be sated. Our minds will unravel with the breaching of every dark taboo, until all that is left in our skulls is a gourd of beastliness, a quantum of brain poo.

This is Sicko City, ambassador: you’d better stay away from the buffet.

Along with ‘The Astounding Robot’s Midwife’, we are introduced to ‘The Intrepid Hot Black Liquid Swallower’ who imbibes an entire medium-sized Latte before the very eyes of the audience; ‘The Mood-Swing High-Diver’, who takes a death-defying leap from the very heights of happiness to the nadir of depression. We look on and gasp as he gets in a huff half-way through the performance and leaves early, taking his ball with him. Other freaks include: ‘Herman the Penguin-Devouring Eskimo’, who eats at least 4 McVities Penguin chocolate bars every night; ‘The Amazing Brothers’ who, due to an improbable and troubling genetic coincidence, look slightly similar; and, finally, ‘The Human Saxophone’, who suffers from Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

The plot of the film is your basic thrust-and-waggle crime riff, topped off with a melodramatic sprig of romantic ringworm. Someone murders ‘The Human Saxophone’ with a cork. The manager of the freakshow, Hubert T. Rockerwallah, hires a private eye to investigate. It transpires that the murderer was his ghastly new wife, Linda. Much weeping and scenery-chewing arises therefrom. After the scenery banquet is over, they all have a round of Rennies to help them digest it.

‘Freaks’ is a new sort of film for our, or rather Herbert Hoover’s times. It is contemporary, it is relevant, it is cutting edge, or rather it would have appeared so in 1932. It points out the future, or rather the past, of cinema. To discerning cinema audiences, ‘Freaks’ will always be like a deeply beloved but hideously grotesque kitten who prompts spontaneous violent vomiting wherever he shuffles his foul furry body.  

As Snoop Doggy Dogg would have said before they hauled him off to the Siberian labour camps: ‘Get your freak on!’

Henry Fool poem competition – Bessie

Here’s my entry to the Agoraphobic Reviewer poem-off with a Henry Fool theme. Of course, having insider information as I don’t, I can’t confirm that the following poem isn’t in fact the actual poem that Simon wrote and that Henry championed.

Bessie

The winds were bitter,
The air unstill,
And the PE teacher’s face,
Held the darkest chill.
But on that lonely woodland path,
I held you aloft,
As we trudged,
From vale to croft.

Splashing through puddles,
I gasped and whined,
To keep your pace,
And stare.
At your grand, jubbling, ocean-like behind.

The other boys may mock,
Or ignore you,
Bessie.
But you stiffen my cock.
And in my dreams I implore you,
To make my shorts messy.

Henry Fool poem competition – call for entries

Hal Hartley’s masterpiece, Henry Fool, is one of the few films that Banjo Fett and I have watched. We are busy men, who take our Pig Rodeo business very seriously. But we can always make time for a film about a laconic binman who befriends a scoundrel and, as a result, becomes a famous poet. In the film in question, Simon Grim, the binman, writes a poem that makes him a cause celebre among the literati as well as notorious among the prudish and reactionary. Frustratingly, we, the viewers, never get to see or hear the poem.

Consequently, I hereby announce a competition to see who can write the most plausible approximation of this unseen poem. The five consecrated Agoraphobic Reviewer contributors will I trust contribute their own entries (if they please) in the form of posts. If any of our considerable readership (2 and counting!) would like to enter the competition, please do so in the comments section. The winnerwill receive the Nobel Prize for Literature and a book token worth £3. I am the judge. Here is my entry (the current frontrunner):

‘Creepy Babies’ by Simon Grim

1.

Creepy Babies, Creepy Babies,

Flick knives ‘n’ bicycle chains

Tiny leather jackets ‘n’

A heavy mist of pomade

Upon their wispy quiffs.

It’s a Baby Fight!

It’s a Baby Fight!

2.

I cannot cry

Since the Creepy Babies

Duct-taped my eye

And grouted my tear ducts

3.

Creepy Babies, Creepy Babies:

Peeking through the letterbox.

Creepy Babies, Creepy Babies:

Hiding beneath your bed.

Waiting to shiv you.

Waiting to feast

On your face-meat

4.

Rusks on the gravel,

A solitary bib:

This Baby Fight is over.

Henry Fool poem competition – The Grate American Poem

Unlike the former entrants to this competition, I have not seen the film Henry Fool. Thus I am ideally placed to surmise the contents of the unspoken poem that is not seen nor heard within. It is regretfully long, for which I make no apology. This is it:

The Grate American Poem

Prologue

Henry fool

Standing proud

So hip and cool

I wanna be him but I can’t

***

Henry Fool

Henry Fool my friend the tool

Did raise and rear my intellect

But beat it cruel

Abused my school

And left my anus bloodspecked

Kitchen

During the sluicing hour

I shiver to the kitchen

Linoleum floor cold on my bare feet

The draft planting icy kisses on my bare balls

Something wet runs down my leg

Drawer

I rummage in a drawer

For something I might use

Job

Listen to the rustle of the cutlery

This job needs not pen nor pencil

Poem time is over for this smug bastard

I need a cold and sharp kitchen utensil

Floor

I have it in my hand

And crawl upon the floor

My testes dragging on the shag

As I head t’ward his door

Juice

In his room I quiver with fear

Or maybe it’s the thrill;

I set to work

‘Pon the bumfuck’s face

Awake

I don’t know how long I worked

But Fool began to stir

“What are you doing there,

Kneeling on the floor?”

I brandished my tool,

My Excalibur

My pen

It is a cheese-grater.

Face

“My face”, cried Fool through grated lips,

“All in strips and bits ‘pon my floor

With you, Simon, grating more

Grating and gyrating

Rubbing and grubby

Kneeling amidst

The shreds of my face

What for?”

Love

I hate you, I spat

Though I rate your work

And I am going to grate you all to bits

Like a carrot or some cheese.

“Your poems suck balls”

He drooled through bloodied face

As slivers of flesh and fat

Flicked about the place

Rewarding

I grated on and on and on

My hands soaked crimson red

His former face was quite a mess

A mush of fleshy threads

They spelt out words, to my tired eyes

‘Write a poem’ is what it said

I wrote these lines upon the wall

My clothes now long since shed,

Dedicated to Henry Fool

I’m glad the bastard’s dead.

Henry Fool poem competition – second call for entries

Nnnnnggggghhhhhh. Must write poem!

Drop your children! Shoot the dog! There’s a Henry Fool poetry competition going on! In Henry Fool, as I have hitherto reported, a binman becomes famous by writing a poem that blows everyone’s minds away, as if everyone’s minds were nought but discarded grains of sherbet on a fat man’s moobs. And yet the viewer is cruelly denied knowledge of what the poem might be about. So, put on your thinking homburgs and write the poem that you think the binman should have written (in the comments section of this post).

Thus far we’ve had an entry from me on the subject of wicked, beastly babies; one from Banjo Fett on an enchanting wench called Bessie; and one from Old Rope in which the titular Henry Fool gets his face grated off in the name of poetic endeavour. We’ve also had an entry from Simon Armitage, but I disqualified it because he obviously got his mum to help him (note: this is forbidden).

The winner shall receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, a £3 book token (expired) and a piggy-back from Brian Blessed.

Here are a few suggestions for subjects you might want to address:

The Littlest Hobo

Brain Death

Chinese/ Indian Burns

John Coltrane’s Prostate

Potato Salad

Fingermouse

Bloodletting

Working Titles 4

To put off writing the two film reviews I have lined up, here is another installment in the Working Titles series of posts. Be warned, this is in fact a duplicitous ruse to lure the other AR writers and regular readers out of their dark dank holes and enter the Henry Fool poetry competition, since I know no one can resist the allure of posting Working Titles. I need not ask people to make suggestions in the comments section, for like the slavering dogs you all are, you will be all over it like a puppy in it’s own poo.

Batman = Bruce Almighty!

Sex and The City 2 = Fucking On A Farm

Jason & The Argonauts = Jason & His Technicolour Dreamboat

Date Night = Brothel Hour

Marley and Me = Rocksteady Doggy

Pinocchio = Pedophiles and Puppets

Sin City = Sheffield

Sister Act = Black Nun Boogie

Sister Act II: Back In The Habit = Shire Act: Back In The Hobbit

Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

The 1990s are a sinkhole in the swamp of time. A peculiar, embarrassing sinkhole. No film franchise reflects the weirdness of that time better than the Bill and Ted sagas. Although I have watched the Bill and Ted animated series box set numerous times over, I have never seen the original films. Why? Because I am a discerning connoisseur of quality televisual entertainment. Here is my review of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure…

Bill: "Incongruous polysyllabic word"; Ted: "Bowdlerized heavy metal-themed expression"

…“Frugalicious” says Bill

“Bumkins” says Ted

“Most superlative” says Bill.

“Fantastic” says Ted

“Audacious” says Bill

“Woah” says Ted

“Sententious” says Bill

“Perpendicular” says Ted

“Avaricious” says Bill

“Gastric” says Ted

“Fallacious” says Bill

Yeah!

Bill is wearing bodacious dungarees and a chic trapezoid scalp-muff. He is accosted by a stiff in shoulder-pads. They exchange pleasantries in the hip esperanto of the day. A kind of fumbly claw-fondle ensues, culminating in a furtive fist-bump. Hey, this guy knows how to parlay. Perhaps the stiff isn’t so stiff after all, eh Ted?

Perhaps you’re right, Bill, perhaps you’re right.

Ted is the tinier portion of the rocking pair. He sports a truckman’s dinner-smock and curly wurls of burnished gold. He brings a thoughtfulness to the cinematic table, but he is always ready with an uplifting and contemporary slogan should the situation require it. “Bobba-doo-doing, Woah!” he sometimes says. “Diggly-day, Dudefriends” he says, at other times.

In the course of their travails, in which important life lessons are learned and much sloganeering is sloganeered, Bill and Ted go back in time and meet Hitler. “Woah, Hitler dude, like, icsnae on the final solutionae”, they say. Hitler speaks in a funny accent and shrugs. Bill and Ted depart, groping at the air as if they were playing phantasmagoric ukuleles.

Later on, Bill and Ted meet Mary Queen of Scots just as she is being led to her execution. “Woah, babe, have you got any, like, haggises?”. Mary speaks in a funny accent and pretends to play an imaginary ukulele. “Yeah” Bill and Ted shout. “Yeah” shout the executioners. “Yeah” shouts Mary as her head comes flying off and lands in a basket of turnips.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure’ is an abomination and the loathsome fruit of a hideous mind.

Dirty Dancing

Being an OCD sufferer, I have studiously avoided watching the film ‘Dirty Dancing’. I like my choreography germ-free. Here is a poem about Dirty Dancing.

Always use this before dancing

1.

With pirouette dainty and pliet tight

He squelched his way into the ballroom light

His colostomy bag swinging majestically

So pendulous, so pendant, so testicley.

This cumberbund is the same strip of ermine silk

His great-grandfather used to go graverobbing in.

That bow-tie was once digested by a Great Dane.

The bow-tie was salvageable

But sadly the hound

Had to be put down.

His armpits blossom with fungus.

His breath smells of Chernobyl.

2.

Ah! Here comes his enchanting partner.

See how her hair flutters and flickers,

See the discolouration in her knickers,

See the cornflakes in her beard

See the tripe beneath her fingernails

See the grace in her step.

3.

Let’s dance, my love, in unhygienic fashion,

Two mucky pigs in the pigsty of passion.

Judge Dredd

Apparently they are making another Judge Dredd film. Why not? The last Judge Dredd film was such an unmitigated success it would be churlish not to pump another version out. This poem might be about the last version, or the new one, or maybe the comic. I wouldn’t know; I haven’t seen/read any of them (thanks to boingboing.net for the image).

Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd

1.

The Grark fragged off a grafted lawgiver

Right in Dredd’s judicial fizzog.

Dredd got real mad.

Dredd growled “I am the law, by Grud”

But the Grark shot off on a gimpfloat.

“Drokk” squeaked the Grark,

Receding into the orange twilight

Of Mega-City One.

Dredd got real madder.

Not so real madder that he showed his face

Mind,

Not so real madder that he actually

Took the unprecedented step

Of taking off his helmet

And actually showing his face.

2.

But had he showed his face

It wouldn’t have looked anything

Like Stallone’s meatfragging mutie’s mug,

You understand?

3.

Dredd’s face is all chin.

If you remove his hard-ass helmet,

Like a trembly sex-change surgeon

In a jacked-out meatwagon

Lopping off the tip of

A superfluous fragstick,

You will see two stubbled chins

Where his eyes should be.

Instead of nostrils,

You will see two perforated chins,

Just south of his chin-eyes,

Snorting up the pungent bouquets of

The post-apocalyptic evening breeze.

4.

Instead of a mouth,

Dredd has a concave chin

(Judges don’t need to eat.

They subsist on justice

And perpmeat).

5.

Who would win in a chin-off

Between Dredd

And Bruce Campbell?

Drokk, buddy.

Y’got me.

Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of The Ring

One bling to rule them all

Having read all 600,000 pages of the Lord of the Rings Role Play instruction book (Spanish Edition) I consider myself reasonably well equipped to review the first instalment of Michael Jackson’s adaptation of the Roald Dahl classic novel.

The Fellowship of the Ring is a film about four little Irish Leprechauns and their quest to return a piece of defective jewellery to an Argos Extra store several towns over.

Along the way they are helped by Father Christmas, who’s jolly laugh, beard and spells enliven the trip no end. Since Santa is on his jollies the leprechauns call him by his old school nickname of Merlin and he does not wear his distinctive red pyjamas outfit, preferring instead a rather more shabby grey shawl. This does nowt to refute Santa’s rep round the estate as a dirty old paedo.

The first film of this expansive and in no way tedious triptych focuses on the plights of the wee bairns as they walk through a list of fictitious names and geographical locations, encountering all manner of pixies and gnomes who insist on reciting poetry in made-up languages. A little known fact is that Roald Dahl did not accurately and painstakingly create a new language especially for the books, he just made up some words as he went along and pretended it was authentic pixie-speak. I know a pixie and he says that what you see in the films is just a crude pastiche of Sprite-ish mixed with some stereotypical Nymph-like idioms. He also said the film was the most racially offensive thing he’d seen since the Smurfs. But I thought he was being too harsh. Some of my best friends are Smurfs and they don’t mind when I call them Blue Bastards. Don’t get that humourless pixie prick started on Slavic fairies or you’ll never hear the end of it.

Anyway, Frodo Ballbags and his pals are being chased through what is essentially the Lake District by some Goths who really like cheap catalogue store jewellery and don’t want to see the ring go to waste. After a detour to visit the Peak Cavern (also known as the Devil’s Arse) in Derbyshire where they saw some rocking stalactites and bought nattie hats in the gift shop, our diminutive friends decide to get lost in the woods. It is here that they meet the wife of a drab ‘rock-star’ who has swallowed all her husband’s studio effects processors after a particularly heavy party, causing her to talk with lots of echo and behave all funny like. Cate Blanchett turns in an admirable performance as Gwyneth Paltrow.

Actual size

Since Santa fell down a hole in the Peak Cavern (which boasts the deepest pitch in Britain) this rocker bird takes pity on the little lads. “Christmas shalt cometh early to our shortarse ring-bearing heroes, for fate and some mystical magical things devoid of coherence and substance decree ‘t! ” she drones, eerily before breaking into more poetry in a made-up language. She proceeds to give each of the Fellowship (named such because all of this sexist boy’s club are ‘fellows’) crappy chrimbo presents. “Does she not understand that a shitty fake gold gift was the very reason for thine quest in the first place?” cusses one of the Humanoids, anachronistically.

Still a couple of the lads get flick-knives, which might come in handy when they have to head back to the estates of County Armagh, the pixie gets a plastic bow and arrow kit and the gnome gets a pair of Paltrow’s soiled panties which he is understandably chuffed with. “These fair undercrackers shall sell for a pretty fortune on ebay methinks!” he chuckles whilst wanking into his own beard. Poor old Sam (played here by footballing dwarf Sammy Lee) gets nought but a rope to hang himself with, but fails to get the hint even when his so-called bezzie mate Frodo tries to do a runner on him. “Fuck off Sam,” spits Frodo, “This gang is only for cool people with Fila trainees and whose mam isn’t poor”.

As the credits roll the joke is on Frodo cos everyone knows Fila trainers are shit.

I give this film one ring to rule them all.

Coming soon: parts 2 and 3

See also: Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers

:: Lord of The Rings – The Return of The King
:: Lord of The Rings – The Two Towers

Gosford Park

The imposing grounds of Gosford Park, as painted by Canaletto in the 17th century

Gosford Park is a murder mystery featuring an ensemble cast. This means that there are a lot of people in it. Here is a list of the main characters. Can you guess whodunnit?

Flatty Zuster, Red Moo, Grahamz, Hot Whiskers, The Geoff, Monkey O’ Brian, Bloodcock, Rough Barbara, Mr Cuddles, Theresa Plop, Jesus Crabtree, Rice Pudding, Joan the Juggernaut, Wesley Wellington, Zoink Pweep, Goddy Froo, Pete the Meat, Pete the Teat, Pete the Peat, Robert Mugabe, Muff, Old Jenkinson, Missy Mugwump, Dr Bread, Fanny McCluskey, Big Brute, Round Marvin, Suppurated Prudence, Ross Bill, Rubber Johnny, Robert Johnny, Hunk Peterson, Snorgrart the Quest-Master.

The Reaping

Some say that ‘The Reaping’ is a substandard horror film starring Hilary Swank. I say they are liars who have not even seen the film. I have definitely seen the film, I think, and I am pretty sure it is about a man who has to reap a big field of corn, and who falls in love with his delicious employer, played by Julie Christie. Here is my review:

The Shearing

Gabriel Oak wiped his greasy wrinkled brow with the hem of an ale-stained smock. “Oi ’ad been reapen at these ’ere corrn earrs since Whitsuntide last. Oi ahm toirred of this bahk-breaken laberrrr”. “Here,” said Bathsheba, the comely shepherdess who had lately inherited the Winslow-Porkwind estate, “have a sausage”. Gabriel furtively fingered the bulging wurst. “Whoi thahnkyou Ma’am” said Gabriel, and flicked the cylindrical pig nugget into his own hairy mouth. Wow! Gazoinks! It was a magic sausage. Gabriel’s old, beaten, West Country swede-sack of a body hummed with new vigour. Whoosk! Brrriinnngg! Gabriel felt like a spicy young stag in the heat of the pumping season. Like a crazy egg-whisk, Gabriel reaped up and down the field at a stupendous rate. His scythe was a maelstrom of metal magic. His smock was a hempen whirligig. Within half an hour the whole field was reaped, and Gabriel’s work was done. “Now moi Bahhthsheba,” he said “Oi’ve got a mahgic sausage forrr you”.

This is a sensual and passionate film that tickles the seat of Eros like a wiggling and intrusive ear of corn. It exposes the beating red heart of the English countryside, like some kind of gigantic cardiovascular surgeon who has inexplicably mistaken a huge landmass for a human patient. It takes us out of the entropic conurbations and Brutalist urban hives where we all, alas, live, and lets us stroll about in a windy rural Eden of melancholy swains and melting maids. It is a weekend vacation of a film that lasts an hour and a half. It is a two-dimensional eye holiday. It is less of a feast for the eyes and more of a film for the mouth. Whenever you look up, thar shall it be. And whenever it looks up, thar shall you be. What more do you want out of a film?

Teen Wolf – The TV Series

Cling ons were a source of much discomfort to the Teen Wolf during his adolescence

Hot Pedigree Chum! Have you heard that MTV are making a television version of Teen Wolf, in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer vein? Well, they are. These are exciting times, friends. All of the old gods are returning from their respective twilights to inaugurate a new age of Saturnian delights. I refer of course to the A-Team, Judge Dredd and the no-doubt soon-to-be-commissioned remake of Labyrinth, featuring Sam Worthington as the rough roustabout Goblin King.

Anyway, should the producers find themselves short of ideas, here are some suggestions to make the new Teen Wolf show a real success:

1) Everyone loves that bit in the original film in which the Teen Wolf poses and preens on the roof of a moving truck. But this is very dangerous, and MTV obviously don’t want their main star to be injured in a road accident, only to be mounted and frotted by the kind of perverts one finds in J. G. Ballard’s novel, Crash. From my own experiments, I have found that a whippet sellotaped to the roof of a fast-moving vehicle is virtually indistinguishable from a hairy Michael J. Fox.

2) Teen Wolf has to be very very sexy when he is the wolf. From my own experiments, I have found that women find Antonio Banderas highly sexually attractive, especially when he wears high-waisted slacks and whispers mysteriously into their ears. MTV should seriously consider casting Antonio Banderas in the lead role. Granted, he is not a teen. But James Van Der Beek was 46 when he starred in the first season of Dawson’s Creek, and no-one gave a hoot (except the predominantly underage actresses who had to kiss him). MTV have to ask themselves: do they want sexiness, or do they want verisimilitudinousness? They’re not making a Ken Loach film. They are making a spicy saga full of lupine larfs. Go sexy, MTV, go Banderas.

3) In Teen Wolf 1, the Teen Wolf was a basketball player. In Teen Wolf 2, the Teen Wolf was a boxer. In the TV show, he needs to be associated with a different, more contemporary sport. May I recommend, MTV, that the Teen Wolf be a champion show-jumper? From my own experiments, I have found that the sight of a hirsute, fanged gentleman wearing jodphurs on top of a lithe and well-groomed horse is a great way to grab young viewers’ attention. “Wow. Wicked! Check out the way Teen Wolf is clutching that Martingale”, they will say. “Teen Wolf’s dressage-style is sick” they will exclaim, somewhat ambiguously. “Oh man”, they will protest, “T.W. clocked up a rail down with front hooves. That bums me out.” Show-jumping. Yes!

Well then, MTV, whaddya say?

Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers

Argos, Mordor branch

Though I have not seen Samuel L. Jackson’s second film to be adapted from Enid Blyton’s bestseller, I did once hear a radio play of the same name, starring Richard Briars as the Ring. From this I can accurately surmise the contents of the 2003 motion picture.

We open on a sorry note, with the protagonist leprechauns split up and scattered like semen after a particularly careless wank. Furthermore Santa is dead, his magic charms unable to save him from falling down a really big hole. Oh, and one of the humanoids gone done all dead an’ all, all arrowed to bits he was. Still, at least he had an honourable death – or as honourable as death can be when you are shuffled off this mortal coil by a man dressed as an ork.

It is with heavy heart, therefore, that Freddy Ballbags must carry on with his quest to return some substandard jewellery to the Argos Extra store several towns over.

Saddled by totally unfounded accusations of having produced a lumpen work of protracted tedium with the predecessor to this film, Jackson has taken the necessary steps to jazz up The Two Towers. In order to up the pace and jolly along the action the director has inserted a cast of slow-talking, slow-moving trees. It is a move that would baffle even the smallest, thickest child. Meanwhile, as the trees are lumbering about achieving fuck all – as is a tree’s wont – the pixie, the gnome and the non-dead humanoid make a detour into a lacklustre faux Shakespearean play. It’s all betrayals, poisoned minds and birds wanting to fight alongside the menfolk.

Needless to say, before long they are all bored to tears of the incoherent dawdling melodrama transpiring in this medieval castle and so some of the faces about the place fix up a good old fashioned ruck with a firm from the next town over.

It’s a day out for the lads and everyone gets to feel the rush once more, just like the glory days. What’s more, Santa shows up alive and well. It seems he’s not dead after all and he makes out like he always meant to fall down that big hole. He is eyed with all the suspicion due to a man telling fibs and wearing a white a dress. “Fuck off granddad, or I’ll tell the king you touched me” cusses the gnome, unreasonably.

“It’s not my fault!” wails Father Chrimbo, aka Merlin, “It’s the other bad santa. I think he’s on a register or something…”

The people of Middle Earth are a principled folk and though they will allow crude fiery metaphors for Satan to pervade the place and trees to be granted lengthy soliloquies, they wont stand idle whilst an old man in the neighbourhood faces tenuous accusations of paedophilia. A lynch mob is gathered, a minibus hired and we’re all off to Isengard for a good old fashioned tar and feathering.

But when our intrepid band of heroes arrive they discover a burst water pipe has flooded the gaff putting the kibosh on their plans. Over in the larder, two of the tousle-haired leprechauns are getting stuck into the ale and honking on their ‘special’ pipe-leaves. It is a scene so familiar it makes this critic homesick for his native Liverpool and thus unable to complete the review.

To wit, I give this film two towers.

See also
:: Lord of The Rings – The Fellowship of The Ring
:: Lord of The Rings – The Return of The King

The Little Mermaid

Salty sex

Old Rope is allergic to fish and therefore unable to watch this motion picture. I have a doctor’s note. On the back in barely intelligible scrawl is written the following.

The Little Mermaid is a film about grooming. It focuses on Captain Birdseye, an all American antihero and fisherman on a large dirty trawler, christened the Furtive Tug. Onboard are a crew of foul-mouthed degenerates, each an amorphous fleshy collection of tatty beards, beardy tats and toothless grins. Daily these brigands cast their nets into the murky dark seas, the salty brine lashing their faces and the cold chilling their bones. It is on one such stormy day, with the wind howling about the prow and the deck awash with water and fish flapping about in the final throes of death, that Captain Birdseye (self-styled, he is not the ship’s real captain) makes the catch of a lifetime.

Entangled in his net is a creature of rare aquarian beauty: part haddock, part beatific feminine perfection. Her soft skin and damp hair, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment and fear, her pert breasts barely concealed by two woefully small clam shells – it is enough to make Birdseye’s beard bristle with a coruscating masculine electricity. “Fresh fish is on the menu tonight boys” he murmurs breathlessly to no one in particular.

I said this was a film about grooming and indeed afore long the barnacled Birdseye is grooming this mermaid’s fishy scales and curling her red hair twixt his calloused fisherman’s fingers. The girl is scared but cannot take her eyes from his. Oily, rainbow-streaked scales flake off as old Birdseye strokes her tail harder. Naturally, she cannot speak English but rather attempts to communicate with a series of dolphin-like clicks and hisses. Such aquatic nonsense is beyond the comprehension of Cap’n B, who vows in his head to make this salty strumpet his wife.

After a time the mermaid stops trembling and begins to stroke the molluscs on her captor’s pockmarked face. He smiles revealing a mouth of yellow teeth littered with bits of half-chewed bread-crumbed cod. Apropos of nothing and totally at odds with the film’s tone, the mermaid breaks into song: “I used to be a carp, but I’m all woman now!” she opines like a diva in her dolphine dialect.

About the edges of the boat, riding the crests of each frothy wave and looking on forlornly are a sorry-looking racially stereotyped crab and an exotic looking fish. They are sad, for no more will they spy on the mermaid as she urinates behind rocks and washes her frilly gills when she thinks no one is looking. No more will this maritime Lolita see her family, nevermore shall she swim with the seals or jamboree with the jellyfish at dances on the ocean bed. And it is upon these two jealous friends that the sorry task of relating this sickening Stockholm syndrome style love story between man and fish shall fall. It is they who shall face her father’s wroth, heartbreak and tears.

Back on the boat, Birdseye is deciding whether to sear, sauté or poach.

I give this film 3 fish fingers.

Bird

Whitaker and bereted colleague as Bird and Diz.

‘Bird’ is a Clint Eastwood film about the jazzy genius Charlie Parker, starring Forest Whitaker as the titular hornsman. Naturally, I haven’t seen it. Here is a poem about it:

1.

Bebop bustard,

With your experimental eggs

And your beak wet with worm-blood

And heroin,

2.

How can I scat with you?

Squeep ber squeep?

How can I keep

Up to the steep beep

Of your deep

Horn? I lie in a heap

Below the birdsong of morn.

My poems are also somewhat childish.

3.

The Man tried to clip your wings

But you blew a hotheaded hoot

Into his ridiculous beakless face

And then, as is the wont of your species,

Did a flying shit on his head.

4.

And now Forest Whitaker

Is playing you.

Some say Forest only got

The job because he is named

After a place where birds live.

But if that were true,

Why didn’t they give the role

To Aviary Brooks (who played

Captain Sisko in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,

The beakiest of all the Trek franchises.

My favourite episode was when the shape-shifter,

Odo, turned himself into a massive puffin

And killed a huge Romulan kingfisher)?

5.

I give this film

(though I didn’t watch it)

7 quavers

And half a crotchet.

The World Cup

A new television programme has started on TV, I have been informed. It is called ‘The World Cup’ and it follows the adventures of a team of sportsmen who long to triumph in an international tournament. As with ‘Lost’, there has been intense speculation regarding the way in which this TV show will end. Will the team win? Will they lose? Will it transpire that they are in fact in purgatory, and can only hope to escape by beating the devil in a high-stakes game of soccer? Will the tournament go on for 18 seasons? Don’t look at me, chum. I’m just a pundit. Here is my review of one of the episodes of ‘The World Cup’, entitled ‘Phantoms’…

Dennis Hopper as 'The Coach'

Kickoff! Each of the teams assumes the top-secret formation that they discussed secretly before the game commenced, in a secret room. The good team are arranged in the shape of a fleet sparrow. The bad team lounge and lope in unseemly fashion, as one might expect of a group of foreigners. The ball is coveted deeply by each of the participants. Shall I be the one to guide the ball into the snug silken weave between the goalposts, each of the players scarcely dares to ask him or herself. Touch! Pass! Dribble! Shoot! But, alas, no goal. Good effort, young man. Try not to be dispirited. There will be other opportunities to demonstrate your skill-set.

It is half-time. Yes! The hearty, barrel-chested sportsmen punch the air. A well-deserved break. They bound away on round pork-joint calves to the changing rooms, where a heavenly bowl of the finest porcelain awaits, replete with the juicy quarters of a thousand curvaceous oranges. “Scrummo” shouts the team captain and plunges his hand into the sensuous citrus well. He pulls out a wet specimen and bites into it. The orange sap runs down his chin and becomes enmeshed in the sweaty pubic mat that adorns his well-honed teats. It is a religious experience. The others are shyer. They glance furtively at the oranges and twiddle their whiskers. “Come on boys, tuck in!” shouts the coach. Now they have the all clear from Coachy, it is a free for all. They gorge themselves bloodily on the meat and viscera of a panting, perspiring orange grove. Scrummo indeed, Captain. Scrummo indeed.

The second half rolls around. They put on a good show, and every man pulls his weight. The victors have the edge over the opposition. As the whistle blows, there are tears. But don’t be sad: the tears will dry before bedtime, and each of those brave, hearty boys will dream happily of the bright oranges of Ceylon.

This pivotal episode features standout performances by Michael Cera as the maverick and yet moralistic ‘Left-Winger’ and the late Dennis Hopper as ‘The Coach’. Hopper obviously knew he was going to die when the final scenes were shot, and so he played them like a crazy kamikaze spatula, flipping out pungent lines as if they were hunks of dramatic mackerel. He did not go gentle into the good night, readers will be relieved to hear.

There is an extremely suspenseful moment during the second half, in which Cera discovers a shoe full of genetic evidence behind the football stadium. He runs an analysis on it in his portable laboratory, which he sets up in the changing rooms, and discovers that the referee was the rapist. After the game is finished, Cera informs the authorities, and the rapist referee gets put in rapist prison where he belongs. Shortly after, a FIFA representative tells Cera he is sticking his nose into dangerous waters. Cera says “this shit goes deep, doesn’t it?” The FIFA representative says “Take this as a friendly warning, Left-Winger” and walks off with a studied insouciance.

In short this is pretty exciting stuff. I can’t wait for the box set!

Lord of The Rings – The Return of The King

Tevez..................................Orc

Old Rope has not seen this, the third instalment of Jackson Pollock’s adaptation of the Ted Hughes fantasy classic. But I am wearing a pair of Spanish Señor De Los Anillos pyjamas, which imbue me with a magical power to accurately predict the storyline.

The film picks up where the last one left off and the viewer, muttering a terse “oh, fuck…”, is reminded that this nonsense still has a long way to go before trudging over the finishing line. How many more hours must we sit through, crying of boredom till our sodden eyes rot in their sockets?

Back on screen, we are treated to a cautionary tale of how one little shit, way back in some sun-kissed fantasia past, really wanted some bling so bad he done kill his bezzie on a fishing trip. His crime of continually referring to himself in the third person like Rio Ferdinand, was so heinous that he was cursed to wither and corrode, till he looked like a strange mixture between the dirty old man with a comb-over and soiled trousers who used to hang around and offer you sweets at the school gate, a teenager, and an aging member of Status Quo. Serves the grotbag right. Does he want to grow up to be a professional footballer or something?

Fast forward to the present, but without mobiles, MTV or the internet and a fuckload more chainmail, i.e. some unspecified Ancient Times. Half the leprechaun’s have been busy getting tanked on ale and honking on their crack pipes, while the other half are up a mountain somewhere being followed by a walking bogey who talks to himself. The viewer should take heart for small mercies, since this introduction provides brief respite from what is to come.

The third and final part of this cinematic triptych takes the form of one prolonged interminable battle, presumably a stylistic homage by Pollock to the Fast Show’s famous epic fight scene, but with more swords and less purpose. It’s one endless déjà vu as a handful of orcs, played by football’s Carlos Tevez (for which he won an Oscar) are slain and slewed over and over again until everyone watching has forgotten why, where and what for.

A little known fact is that Tevez was only filmed in five different poses, then cutting-edge BBC Micro computers used by cutting-edge computer geeks in non-cutting-edge glasses were used to digitally photocopy and gaffer tape him onto the celluloid seven million billion times. As a result, the orcs all look like they are doing some sort of synchronised dance. But forever. And ever.

Whilst researching this review, Old Rope must have made some sort of egregious error and stumbled upon a director’s cut or deluxe edition. For it was only after aging by several years and growing a beard longer than that of Santa (now apparently some sort of bad-ass swordsman?) did the horrific realisation that this flick was over four hours long sink-in to a mind numbed by tedium.

There are human men everywhere. It’s as if audiences at the previous two films had been so turned off by the over-abundance of poetry spewing pixies, that the producers felt their plot should refocus on some Humanoids, to give Johnny Popcorn something to empathise with. Remembering that the prole scum stumping up to see this drivel like nothing more than some forelock-tugging  monarchist propaganda they crammed in more kings and regents-turned-bad than you can shake a spear at.

Whilst the gnome, the pixie, Santa and the Humanoids are slashing and hacking in their endless dance of death, the other two leprechauns finally make it to the Argos Extra in Mordor and attempt to return the defective jewellery. After waiting in line with a load of goblins for two hours (shown in real time), our homoerotic heroes get to the front of the queue only to discover that they left the receipt at home. “You fucking thick bastard Sam!” spits Friedrick Bargains at his rotund chum, “What did I tell you? Argos has a strict returns policy!” There was nothing for it but to walk all the way home and do the whole cunting thing again.

I give this film a cumulative 8 wasted hours.

See also
:: Lord of The Rings – The Fellowship of The Ring
:: Lord of The Rings – The Two Towers

The Colour of Money

Yesterday someone asked me if I’d seen Martin Scorcese’s ‘The Colour of Money’. I said yes, then ran away. The joke was on them, though. I hadn’t seen it at all. Tee hee hee. I do love a good prank. Here is my review of ‘The Colour of Money’:

‘The Colour of Money’ belongs to the noble tradition of ‘Rain Man’, ‘I am Sam’ and ‘Forrest Gump’. It stars Tom Cruise as an endearingly handicapped man, who, in spite of his handicap, or perhaps because of it, succeeds in brightening up the lives of the normal people around him. Dustin Hoffman provides support as Cruise’s brother, Brucie, fulfilling the clause in the Rain Man contract stipulating that he would have to ‘play the normal’ in his next film, and that Cruise would ‘get to be the disabled [sic] this time’.

When we meet Cruise’s character, Teddy Redbrown, in the first scene, his condition is undisclosed. Through the subtle inclusion of understated cues by the director, however, we begin to suspect that there is something compellingly wrong with Teddy. Note his khaki shorts pulled up to his ribs. Mark his child’s combover. Observe the way he says “Hi I’m Teddy” and sticks his hand out rigidly in a sort of actor’s approximation of a child’s approximation of an adult greeting. See how he squints at traffic lights in anxious perplexity. Teddy seems to tick every box on the movie checklist: he is really shaping up to be a Classic Hollywood Savant! I can’t wait to see what kind of scrapes he will get into! (contd. below the picture)

Tom Cruise's acting in 'The Colour of Money' was reputedly inspired by Al Jolson's performance in 'I am Sam' (pictured)

Sadly, the viewer’s (that is, my) high hopes prove (that is, proved) to be premature. Teddy’s handicap is decidedly underwhelming. He is colour blind. Screenwriters take note: this is really scraping the barrel as far as disabilities are concerned. Teddy’s distinct lack of a severe behavioural disorder and/or genetic condition make it very difficult for me to sympathise with him. A harsher critic might say that he is just a normal with defective eyes.

The plot of the film concerns Teddy’s quest to perceive the hue of an American dollar bill. “I got to know what colour that note is, Brucie” he implores, “I got to see the Colour of Money”. Brucie and Teddy set off on a road trip. Teddy finally gets to experience the vernal greenness of the dollar bill. But at the very moment that he learns what it is to be a normal, he loses all of his innocence. “We gotta go back, Brucie” he says. So they get in a time machine and go back to the time before Teddy was able to see the colour green. His innocence is successfully restored. The conclusion is somewhat confusing and inconsistent, but these are the vagaries of time travel, no?

I was very disappointed by this film. It promised to do a full Rain Man but it did no such thing. Who cares what the colour of money is? No one. Who cares how many matches fell on the floor? Everyone. Tom Cruise has the acting ability to play a convincing challenged person, but he is wasted on this film. His heart-rending squinting does little to render Teddy interesting to the sensitive and broad-minded viewer. The sensitive and broad-minded viewer knows that Teddy’s problem is only eye-deep, and so the sensitive and broad-minded viewer is thwarted in his attempt to feel sorry for him. The sensitive and broad-minded viewer deserves much better. Give us a savant we can get our teeth into, Hollywood.

Watership Down 2: Rab-bot’s Revenge

Sequels are difficult things. Will the sequel retain the pace, spirit or charm of the original? Will it be sufficiently different from its predecessor to justify its existence? Will the characters and storyline of the first be meaningfully developed in the second film?

The writer and director of Watership Down 2: Rab-bot’s Revenge has clearly pondered these questions. He has clearly lain awake at night, staring at the ceiling, deeply interrogating his motives and vision for the film. Evidently he has sat at his desk, head cradled in his hands, searching within himself for the answers.

The writer and director of Watership Down 2, searching within himself for the answers.

And then, the writer and director of Watership Down 2: Rab-bot’s Revenge has clearly thrown all of these questions into the bin (a metaphorical bin, not an actual bin as might be made of plastic, or steel, or wicker-work) and made the film anyway. I didn’t get the number 18 bus into town, where I didn’t pass through the foyer of the large multi-screen cinema, past the large posters bearing the sad, pallid, haystack face of Robert Pattison, past the popcorn (sweet and salty), overpriced bags of Jelly Babies and medium drinks. I didn’t purchase my ticket, didn’t enter the darkened auditorium, and didn’t see this film. Here is my review.

“General Woundwort was never seen again. But it was certainly true, as Groundsel said, that no one ever found his body, so it may perhaps be that after all, that extraordinary rabbit really did wander away to live his fierce life somewhere else and to defy the elil [enemies] as resourcefully as ever” (Richard Adams, Watership Down (London: Penguin, 1974), p. 477).

So reads the Epilogue to Watership Down, and so ends the first film. No one ever found Woundwort’s body. But what if his body had been found? Such is the premise of Watership Down 2: Rab-bot’s Revenge.

Woundwort’s injured body is discovered by a renegade veterinarian who takes him back to the laboratory and, through many hours of labour, painstakingly rebuilds him. So much the better to defeat the elil, the veterinarian rebuilds him as stronger, faster, more fearsome than before. He creates a cyber-rabbit. A rab-bot, as the title punningly states. This rabbit has legs of steel, lasers for eyes and craps grenades.

Woundwort returns to the now-thriving and co-operative Watership-Efrafan warren. He looks about with disgust and disdain at the cheerful scene. A young buck lops by, happy in the warmth of the sun and the verdant grass. Woundwort powers up his lasers. Pew! Pew! Within seconds, the young rabbit is a small heap of smouldering carbon. Woundwort moves on towards one of the many entrances to the warren. He positions himself strategically, and fires a couple of grenades into the opening. Holy cow! Soil and the corpses of dead rabbits fly up into the air.

The film continues in this vein, and is by all accounts a worthwhile action flick if somewhat lacking in depth and profundity. The animation, being CGI, is more polished than the original, and lacking some of its wistful charm. However, the kick-ass SFX more than make up the difference. You want explosions? You got explosions. After all, isn’t shit being blown up what any movie-goer asks for in a film? Indeed, the original starts to look inferior for its sheer lack of red-hearted, smoke-billowing detonations. Sure, the plotline of Watership Down 2: Rab-bot’s Revenge is a little weak in places, and by that we mean it is entirely non-existent, but this takes the very essence of the original and boils it right down to the bare bones. It doesn’t sugar coat it, nor (thank God) include any instances of the Brillo-haired Art Garfunkel singing ‘Bright Eyes’. This is a film about survival and about having balls. Balls made of reinforced concrete. Balls you could cut diamonds with. It doesn’t pull any punches. It defies the inevitable wrath of the animal rights activists, some of whom have already delayed the film’s release by beating the writer and director to a pulp outside his home (an ironic event, given that the writer and director is in fact a chimpanzee – see image above).

All in all, this is wholesome family entertainment, and sure to be a hit with the kids and grandma alike. I give it conkers out of ten.

Superhero Catchphrases

Grant Morrison, tense with catchphraser's block

Sorry agoraphobia fans: I have been culpably inactive on the writing front. Here’s an inadequate wisp of an entry to tide you over until Season 4 of The Agoraphobic Reviewer hits TV screens in September.

Everyone has a catchphrase these days: nuns, hairdressers, miners. I haven’t decided on a catchphrase yet, but I’ve managed to narrow it down to “Shingles!” and “Thank God it was Roger” (I’ll let you know which I settle on). But back before everyone else got on the catchphrase bandwagon, the only people keeping the noble art of catchphrasing alive were superheroes. Here are some of my favourites (write your own in the comments section):

Superman: “Satan’s horses are strong. But Superman is stronger”.

Red Kryptonite Superman: “Stick it in your ear Lois”

Spiderman: “Back to the Arachno-Pod!”

Fantastic Four: (said in unison) “No-one messes with El Cuatro!”

Batman: “Take heart, young man”

Captain America: “Here come the sanctions”

The Flash: “Hold on to my magical hamstrings, children”

Yellow Submarine

The iconic Yellow Submarine

Every fool knows that the Dave Clark Five were the most successful band to ever roam the face of this our planet Earth. Their name is synonymous not only with the swinging sixties, but with pop music itself. It is them we have to thank for literally millions of billions of trillions of songs; songs that we sing in the bath, the shower and on the bog, pooing in time with the catchy idiosyncratic melodies.

The DC5 were not only Britain’s foremost popstars, they also made a bunch of films, including this animated psychedelic classic, Yellow Submarine. Drawing from the group’s extensive catalogue of hit records, the film was based on a their finest work, their masterpiece, their greatest gift to the artistic cannon of the human race: a shitty cod nursery rhyme sung by the drummer.

This 1968 arthouse magnum opus happened to be showing at a cultural centre not 20 blocks from my house and I availed myself of the opportunity to swing by. Since Old Rope believes moving drawings to be an affront to god, and furthermore one that can make your brain overheat and explode, I elected not to watch the film itself. Rather I confined myself to reading the Spanish subtitles. From this I could hazard a guess as to the film’s content.

Epitome of cool

Largely spoken in Aramaic, the plot focuses on the travails of a fictional group, not altogether dissimilar to the Dave Clark Five (DCF), and their attempts to sanitise the world. In a universe populated with lunatics and bedlam, our heroes must insert rods up backsides and make sure everyone gets a proper job and returns to their natural place in society.

Since DCF were unavailable or unwilling to disentangle themselves from London’s more exclusive opium dens, a number of former US presidents were exhumed to voice the protagonists.

As Benjamin Franklin croaks “Hey, fellas, look at this fab moteycar!” and Roosevelt chirps “Gear!” through a dusty, wormy voice, it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the real deal. It is exactly as though the DCF are in the cinema with you, synchronising their own voices with the moving pictures.

I shant spoil the ending, but suffice to say that there is a parade of rheumatic lepers, a horse with three willies and a banana that talks (possibly the illusive and never-explained allegorical “Yellow Submarine” of the title?). Goodness, it was enough to remind me of college and my own ill-spent youth, time divided between a gang of lepers, talking to a banana and looking at horses willies. Happy days indeed.

From what I could discern from the faces of those around me, the drawings were well rendered, and perfectly captured the straight-laced, uptight style of the time. Indeed the slight drooling of one viewer positively cried out “I am watching a perfect period piece”.

With cast-iron casting, high-art visuals and lashings of DCF’s finest concertos, it is a unfathomable that Yellow Submarine failed to win more awards (a mere 14 Oscars seems an insult in its paucity). I enjoyed not watching it immensely.

Bugsy Malone

For a bunch of lawless infants they sure is well dressed

I haven’t seen Bugsy Malone and by God I never shall. Or have I/will I? Here’s what I imagine the film is all about: 

Today Dandy Dan, Fat Sam and Bugsy came to tea and Dandy Dan put a bogey on Fat Sam and Fat Sam cried. Bugsy said he was the tallest boy in his class but he isn’t. Fat Sam drew a picture of his dog Bonker it had five legs it looked stupid. It’s not a leg it’s a tail he said but we said leg leg leg and he said tail tail tail until he started crying again. What a baby. Fat Sam sat in the den and wouldn’t come out so Dandy Dan said let’s make a new den that Fat Sam can’t come in and Fat Sam heard him say this and ran out of the den like a fat rabbit and he said it’s my den too but Dandy Dan said no it’s not. Fat Sam gripped Dandy Dan’s cheeks and Dandy Dan screamed. Mum came out and said play nice boys or you’ll have to go home. They stopped fighting then Bugsy said I know a new game and we all stopped and listened and Bugsy said it’s called the moonshining liquor game and he sang a little song about it like this:

The prohibitionists have got us in a squeeze boys

But I gots an idea so listen to me please boys

Let’s brew us up some devil water and open a speakeasy

With an entrance so labyrinthine it coulda been drawn by Piranesi

He’s an old Italian artist, don’t fret your dumb-bum noodles

Just thinka the money boys, we’ll be making oodles

All we gotta do is learn about the fermentation process

It can’t be too difficult, what do you boys supposes.

Then Bugsy did a little dance. It was strange. Mum wouldn’t let Bugsy come round to our house anymore after that and Fat Sam trembled and whimpered whenever Bugsy tried to talk to him.

Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson

Sherlock Holmes, literary heavyweight; a character who stalks the corridors of English fiction like a goliath. His name, exploits and intellect are renowned, the tales of his adventures famed from Alaska to Adelaide. His name is synonymous with deduction and reason. Not for nothing is there a popular sarcastic colloquial expression that evokes his name, “No labial mucus Sherlock, what you just said was cunting obvious”.

With over 6 bazillion existing adaptations of the classic stories at the last count, some may baulk at the idea of wheeling the Victorian sleuth and his suck-up dweeb of a mate out for another airing. Such deluded critics can go hang, for you will find that Holmes has been described by all and sundry as ‘begging’ for a modern retelling. Which can surely be interpreted as “no one has thought of rehashing this old story in lieu of new ideas yet”.

With such admirable motives the BBC coughed up a three part primetime mini-series this summer, destined to win awards before it was even scripted, as these things so often are.

The show is set in modern day London, though the viewer would be forgiven for forgetting, since they are only subjected to tourist board shots of the ‘quintessential’ British sights and interior scenes of black cabs every five fucking seconds.

As usual our heroes, Sherlock Holmes the famous baker of Detective Street and his eternally perplexed room-mate, Nurse Watson, have a curious relationship charged with homoeroticism.

“Homosexuality is perfectly acceptable in this day and age!” exclaims Holmes, apropos of nothing. The odd couple quibble and dribble over each other as they attempt to solve various riddles (and bake lots of cakes). One such crime was the ‘Extraordinary Case of The Murdering Murderer (Best Served With Scones)’, documented meticulously by Watson in his blog:
“I asked Holmes how ever did he know the culprit would be in the ladyboy brothel at that exact time. ‘A ringtone, my dear Watson!’ he exclaimed, throwing in a modern reference that has become so characteristic of him of late”.

After a wasting an hour on Facebook together, they returned to the case.

“He has a penis”, cried Sherlock, grabbing the cadaver’s crotch. “Ergo we can deduce he is a man”. Holmes is doubtless being sarcastic, Watson tweeted immediately, using his brand new modern Blackberry, I’m sure he has ascertained far more information than us mere mortals could fathom with that rather prolonged cock-rub. Lol!

“iphone my dear Watson!” scoffed Holmes, spotting his thick colleague’s confused expression, a look perfected during the actor’s time in the company of Ricky Gervais. “People like Doctor Who,” he explained impatiently, “Ergo they want more of the same thing: long-coated smart-arses with shit hair pontificating to a moronic companion. No offence, John”. “None taken,” said Watson between mouthfuls of Sherlock’s arse.

“But how will we solve this murder in a plausible yet modern way?”  Sherlock flicked back a lock of his carefully sculpted ‘idiosyncratic genius’ hair. “Spotify my Dear Watson!” he exclaimed, whilst watching an HD television and doing his banking online, as though the producers had not considered that such nonsense would date his exploits in less than ten years.

“The victims jumper is blue,” explained Holmes, smugly, “Therefore we can deduce that he liked the colour blue… ergo ipso facto obvio, the killer does not like blue. Watson what is your favourite colour?”

Watson’s face, formerly the very picture of fawning sycophancy, once more looked perplexed. “Why Holmes, I must confess it has always been red…” he stammered. “Really…” mused Holmes, manically, “You CONFESS it to be red… Sergeant, I think we have our man!”

As the rozzers dragged the hapless Watson to Belmarsh to rot with all the other paedos, he just had time to log-on to Twitter one final time and note: I am beginning to suspect Holmes is not all he’s cracked up to be…

The Breakfast Club

The cast of the original Breakfast Club movie (L-R): Emilio Estevez, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Humbert Humbert, Joseph Goebels, Baron Harkonnen, Silvio Berlusconi

All around us, the 1980s revival is gaining momentum like a landslide of discarded school dinners. Soon we shall all be buried under a slurry of Turkey Twizzlers and A-Team lunchboxes. Hooray. In the spirit of this horrific and unstoppable cultural phenomenon I hereby propose a remake of ‘The Breakfast Club’. Roll up your sleeves, my honorary script consultants, and let’s work up a treatment for this badboy:

In the main, the changes will concern the teenage archetypes represented by the central characters. The original Breakfast Club featured a Jock (a Scottish person), a Geek (a performer of grotesque or depraved acts at a carnival), a Prom Queen (a man who dresses up as a woman), and some other chumps. But these categories do not apply to today’s youth. Today’s youth runs in a different set of packs, which the new Breakfast Club will have to reflect. Here are the characters of the new Breakfast Club, for your consideration:

Higher brain functions are for lame-os, right? Right! That’s certainly what Benny thinks. Benny is a Lobotomoid. The members of this youth clique shun intellectual exchange and scientific endeavour as if they were last year’s faeces. They listen to the Ramones and dribble. They hang around the swimming pool and groan. The really hardcore ones wear soiled surgical gowns. But Benny isn’t one of the really hardcore ones. In the course of the film Benny realises that he is just insecure about being annoying, but that it’s ok to be insecure and annoying.

Our next pubescent hero, Tilly, belongs to a subcultural group known as The Chucklers. These cheery chappies listen exclusively to novelty records and dress like children’s TV presenters. They each have their own hand puppets (Tilly’s puppet is a skunk called Teddy Tuppence). But watch out! Like orthodox Sikhs, The Chucklers conceal sharp curved blades beneath their brightly coloured garments, lest anyone try to interfere with their puppets or their limited edition Timmy Mallett ‘Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini’ 7-inches. In the course of the film Tilly loses her virginity to a meaty man-giant and burns Teddy Tuppence in a bid to distance herself from her former fellow gangmembers. Poor Teddy Tuppence: thou wert a martyr to the passing of adolescence.

The joker of this flimsy piece is Roland, who is a Tiny-Mouth. Tiny-Mouths register their disapproval of mainstream culture by refusing to open their facial orifices more than half a centimetre. It is through this narrow aperture that they issue withering put-downs, such as “Check out those Gapers” (in Tiny-Mouth-speak, a Gaper is a non-Tiny-Mouth). Tiny-Mouths subsist entirely on small seeds and tic-tac mints. At first Roland is hostile to his fellow members of the Breakfast Club (whom he refers to as “Gaping Fritzls”), but by the end of the film he has got over himself and eats whole Weetabix biscuits in one bite, like some kind of pornographic snake. Good for him.

The Average Student is represented in this film by the character of Bob. Bob likes sheds, pork chops, checked shirts, his uncle Colin, volleyball and masturbation. He dislikes death, being bored, indigestion, people with crazy eyes, his uncle Ernie and Saturday afternoon television. Although he is initially sceptical of the other students, with their high-concept lifestyles and eccentric mannerisms, he comes to accept them for their individuality.

By the end of the film all of the characters dance together in a liberating and affirming way, and collectively express their individuality in such a way as to challenge our preconceptions.  The film comes to be viewed as a seminal expression of the hopes and dreams of a whole new generation, until it is remade again in 2032.

The Human Centipede

Recently I saw the trailer for ‘The Human Centipede’, a Dutch horror film that makes a very convincing case for submerging the entire nation of the Netherlands and all of its population beneath a sea of holy water. My soul almost prolapsed in a tiny tsunami of moral horror. I started to imagine what this film might look like if it were made in a parallel universe, where people weren’t prurient and cruel and where entertainment was entertaining, rather than dreadful and traumatic. So here is the redeemed version of ‘The Human Centipede’, baptised in the waters of niceness and born again:

The film opens upon a wide-angle view of the outside of a prison. Inside, a six-foot creepy-crawly dressed in prison suit is led into an office, where he is presented with a box of his pre-incarceration belongings. Prison regulations require that he stands behind a line, a foot from the desk, when signing for the box. He leans over comically and marks his ‘x’. The prison official lists the contents of the box contemptuously. Ten dollars. A breath mint. And a harmonica. Sweet. The tall centipede picks up the harmonica and blows out a tremulous solo. The prison official frowns. The tall centipede puts on a trilby hat and sunglasses and exits the building.

Outside the prison, the tall centipede’s brother, played by Dan Ackroyd, is waiting outside a beat-up police car. They embrace rigidly, nay, robotically, then get into the car. Sam and Dave’s ‘Soothe Me’ floats from the radio, and off they drive, with a cigarette casually pincered in each of the centipede’s many legs. The adventure has just begun!

The plot of this film centres around the attempts of the tall centipede and his brother to re-unite their old band and, in so doing, rescue their old orphanage from closure. In spite of the attempts of piggy-eyed Nazis, Winnebago-driving hicks, and spurned ex-squeezes, the brothers triumph and rock the gussets off a baying crowd of music enthusiasts. First they throw down “Shake” by Sam Cooke, although their version owes more to the Otis Redding interpretation than the original. When the tall centipede sings “A ring-a-ling-a-ling, honey shaking is the greatest thing” you know he is singing from experience, as each of his many legs (each shod in its own exquisitely polished loafer) wobble to the idiosyncratic Stax-inspired rhythms.

Eventually, our heroes wind up in stir again, but not before they have saved the orphanage and struck a blow for Blues Power. There may be prisons and Nazis out there, but it is comforting to know that the spirits of the heroes – Gaye, Cooke, Redding, Wolf and Waters – are looking out for us from a heaven that is equal parts Detroit, Chicago, Clarksdale and Mount Olympus.

Sex and the City 2

Holy Overkill! It's your special day!

M’lady. An infinitude of lavendiferous blessings to you on this most special of days, when you are to pledge your troth to your hairy big-dicked brute of a bridegroom. As you stand, glowing in the lilywhite rapture of your wedding-dress, while the plainer womenfolk nip at the fluffwork with loving, sisterly pincers, allow me, your humble servant, to convey the well-wishes of the guests:

From Hindustan, the Rajah of Bombay has sent you the soul of a tortoise, embossed with the golden teardrops of a dying wizard.

From Bedfordshire, the Guild of Orphans has sent you a packet of Monster Munch and a balloon. Enclosed within the balloon (which cost them a year’s gruel money), was a petit-parcel of parchment, on which was written “we love yoo Carry”. Bless their little dirty faces.

From the Republic of Texas, President Houston has sent you a Cherokee Sooth-Sayer and with it a note in which he expressed, in his characteristically rambunctious fashion, disappointment that you had declined to be his First Lady (cf. Sex and the City, Season 2). What a rascal, eh M’Lady?

From Libya, Colonel Gadafi has sent you an exploding muff. They do things differently there.

Your good friend Charlotte has sent you a Latvian baby.

The enchanting Miss Miranda has sent you a Fraggle Stick. I’ll put it with the others, shall I?

Samantha has sent you a rude pun. Tee hee. She is incorrigible.

Unfortunately, your standard-issue gay friend sent you the same pun, but he did include a receipt so you can take it back to the shop and replace it.

…oh my m’lady. You look like a cross between Greta Garbo, Princess Diana and the Virgin Mary. I could cry. I really could.

I’m Still Here

Hip hop enthusiasts! Put down your uzis and stop spelling letters with your fingers! There’s a hot new sound busting up the aural spectrum. Forget your Marky Mark, your Shabba Ranks and your MC Handpump. All of the real rap fans are grooving to a whole new scene. If you like your rhymez [sic] sick and your beatz [sic-er] dope, get down to your local record shop and ask for the latest ‘Joaquin Phoenix’ single. You can trust me, or my name isn’t Timothy Westwood, the famous rap historian. But if my word isn’t enough, check this out:

‘Rap-Scallionz, a rap’ by Joaquin Phoenix

The sweaty breath of sorrow

The mutton chops of madness

The swollen popsicle of motherly love.

I am a son of a tough bitch,

Popped out like a leathery parcel

From a mad dog’s vagina.

Boingle boingle boingle.

The Rap-Scallionz are descending on St Petersberg.

“And whoosh,

And whoosh”

He cried.

“Even God’s bidet

Could never rinse

My sins

Away.”

Joaquin Phoenix, who put on 40 kg for his role in 'I'm still here', with his pocket-sized buddy, Pascal Diddy.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

This befel in the year of the Great Pussy Christ 2010 when the Bandy-Legged Gentile Babies fell into the land of the Mennonites Retail Park that formerly did shelter the Cursed Offal Eaters when they were banished from the Land of Tripes by the Black Pudding Jesus. And the littlest of the Seed-Bearing Mammalians, a smirksome Caucasoid, hight William, was tempted in that time by the bulging figs of confection that fell from the Whirring Fingers of that Womb-Wearing Lucifer, hight ‘The Witch’. “Ha Hee” cries she. “For your betrayal you shall live with me in my Sexy Hell with the Frosty Philistine Babies for a sweaty eternitude”. “But” says the recalcitrant sinner “it wert only fudgelumps good dame. Ye art o’er-hasty with talk of damnation”. But his protestations boot nothing. Bootless it were to fumble in wordy-ruffianplay with that terrible Busty Witch. Off to Sexy Hell with thee tiny scabrous infant.

Shortly in the afterwhiles, Jesus the Lion, that sleek, whiskered Messiah (lock up your springboks), did come to know of poor William’s fate. “Miaow” he spake. “To the Crucifixion Machine, children”. Leaving a devasted platter of breakfast bones jangling in his wake, Jesus the Lion sprang forth to sacrifice himself. “Checkmate” he roared at the sky, as he died on a special cross made for cats, thus absolving little William and a thousand other freckled satsuma-faced Sons of Adam with him. “Yeah” cried William. “I got to eat Turkish Delight and I escaped Sexy Hell. Double Whammy! Thank God for the Quadruped Christ!” And that is how, once again, the world was saved from unChristian folks.

Merry Christmas everyone.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Narnia time again my DLFs. Here’s a poem about the second of the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

Chaos Reigns in Narnia

 

1. This badger has a mouth full of words,

But he has no ‘yea’ and ‘nay’,

Only ‘gimswatch, plank and purds’

As the forestfolk say.

I hate them mummy I hate them I do.

(You can see in the hell of their snout-black eyes

That they hate you too).

‘Gimswatch, plank and purds!

Frogballs!Beaversnatch the birds!’

They say, incriminatingly

You will find no Dear Little Friends here Susan.

Aslan done a bunk and bought himself

A keyboard.

We are at war with the Mexicans.

2.

The forest is filled with beastly muck.

Edmund stole my tuck.

I’m ashamed to say it,

But he really is a beastly cunt

And I want to go home.

My Name is Joe

If it weren’t for Ken Loach none of us would know what reality looks like. That’s a fact, fact-fans. Here is the opening voiceover to his (presumably) realistic social-realist film, ‘My Name is Joe’:

Follow me, gentle viewers, through the fizzing membrane of your teleportal to a twilit realm that I have named Proleworld. Make sure you pack woollen-wear and health-restoring flapjacks, for this is an untamed and inhospitable landscape, from which many never return.

And now as we secrete ourselves by the greasy windows of a sub-Tweedian cavern in the heart of Proleworld, known to natives as ‘The Glasgow Unemployment Office’, let us gaze in and marvel at the anthropological wonders now taking place…

See the tense crisp-fed jaw of the mother-prole honk out a cacophony of indignant vernacular noises. See the appointed elder, steadfast behind a gleaming Perspex shield, parry her prating with a Government incantation. The warrior, whose charge it is to maintain the dignity and solemnity of the Glasgow Unemployment Office, turns the awful oleaginous splendour of his white tumescent gut towards her as if to say ‘Fishwife: desist’. The bones of his former foes are stuffed in his capacious navel. His piglet eyeballs squeal curly-tailed murder.  Mother-prole effects a retreat. This is just another hard-luck tale from the Mean Streets of Proleworld.

Black Swan

Here’s a monologue from ‘Black Swan’, in which Natalie Portman’s brain explodes like a thousand angry goslings. Note the fragmented syntactical stumps, which betokeneth the onset of insanity:             

Natalie Portman, goose-stepping in Black Swan

Get your beaky bits off my pumps

And give me three pliets STAT

Scrap that

Battu, Bras. Bras bas.

Just stick your arm out like a beak

You clumsy meff.

Adagio.

Fiddly-dee. Dieu!

Puff it out. The swan is proud now.

Why are your knees bent

Like a be-ricketed Crazy Legs Crane.

Sur Les Demi-Pointes you terrible arse.

Ronde de jambe.

Ronde de JAMBE!

Oh for God’s sake just get me a ham and mustard.

And a can of Lilt please too.

It’s my birthday.

A poem about one of those Shane Meadows films

 

The cast of This is England

Here’s a poem about one of those Shane Meadows films. I forget which:

Urchins at play

1.

The 80s aren’t like they were in the 80s,

But, nevertheless,

Boggzy, Danno, “Grandma”, Milkmouth,

Kneesy, Weggso, Darren, etc.

Went down to the canal,

Booted, skinned and trim,

Whereupon a ruffian got lairy

And shook an old love

By the duffel coats.

I’ve caught a Thatcher he said

And his mates went wurrrrgh.

2.

One of the skins chucked a muffin

On to the train tracks.

What else are you going to do?

3.

With a hey nonny alright mate,

Watch out mumble mumble.

You can come round to mine for tea

Mam’s making proletarian crumble.

The Homilies of John Travolta

Here are some aphorisms, authored by the venerable Scientological theologian, John Travolta. I have found them a source of solace and guidance when troubled by the iniquities of the world. I hope you feel the same:

What are the wind, if not a gassy blowing?

Love as you would love a pig.

Dance as if you had no legs.

The wise man knows that wisdom is foolish.

Follow folly and you will find a fool.

We would all like to have clean pants, but who among us deserve them?

God is a dream, dreamed up by an alien.

Realise your hurt.

Argos is a brothel and its brochures are the brides of Satan.

‘SNEEE’ is the only word you need to know. All other words are frivolous.

SNEEE.

Give your children to a bear. He would do the same for you.

Beneath the smiling veneer of the sitcom ‘Happy Days’ lurks a bottomless abyss of unholy unhappiness.

Superheroes and Advertisements

 

Half-Price Sale on Dumplings at M&S

Advertising and comic-book superheroes have always gone hand in hand. But imagine what the advertising would look like in a world populated exclusively by superheroes. You know, like the one in that film “Superworld”. Now imagine you are travelling down a highway in Superworld, looking at all of the billboards, like a freckle-cheeked, travel-sick little boy in small blue shorts, peering out of the back window of his parents’ car, while they reproach each other monstrously in the front seats. Here is what you, i.e. poor little freckle-cheeks, might see:

A dogfood billboard advertisement. Thor has rabbit’s liver on his Nordic chin. “If it’s good enough for a god it’s good enough for your dog”.

This confuses the dyslexic superheroes.

Another billboard. The X-Men are in their underwear. Professor X kicks back in a chrome bathchair, aiming his jockstrap at the viewer, giving the psychic come-on to the brief-buying demographic.

Another billboard. Superman sucks on a red-Kryptonite cigarette, letting the misty vapours of meteor-induced moral ambivalence weasel up and all around his curious kiss-curl, like a sexy, curly weasel.

‘Wonder-Woman says “Drink mead from the teat of the sun”’

‘The Fantastic Four relax with a “Round-Eyes Plump-Crust Pizza Oval”’

‘Daredevil dares to use “No-Blobs Happy Tiles Roof Sealant”. Do you?’

The Dark Knight Rises – exclusive photos!!!

Anyone with a basic awareness of the existence of the internet will be conscious this week of one thing and one thing only. The Nolan-Batman-Franchise Leviathan has awoken from its 3-year slumber. And it’s horny as hell. We, the public, are but trembly Jonahs. We shall all be swallowed by an irresistible mountain of publicity blubber (blublicity) and transported beneath a boiling sea of hype, flee as we might. We’ve seen the trailers, the teasers, the titillators, the spoilers, the limited edition tie-in Doilies. Now, friends, see the new batch of exclusive Dark Knight Rises photos:

Pic 1:

Batman and Bane face off, with devastating consequences!

Pic 2:

Batman upbraids a scoundrel, while Alfred zips past, Chagall-style

Pic 3:

Batman visits a convalescent Commissioner Gordon in hospital

Spy Kids 4D

 

 

Hairy Spy Kids are Watching You!

Spy Kids 4D is an espionage thriller for our post-Wikileaks times. Starring the 2-year old Timberlake DuFont as Binky, an old-school (spy code for pre-school) CIA agent, and the 2-and-three-quarters -year old Princess Snortums as Ruthy, his fast-talking, incontinent partner, it offers us a terrifying opportunity to listen in to the baby monitor of modern-day spydom. Here is a little poem about it.

Peppa Pig Colouring Books

(Ah! How I remember delicately

Dragging a stubby pink crayon

 Across the inky borders of

Peppa’s regal concave snout

Back before it all got out of hand),

Donkeys, ice cream,

Hopscotch, dolls

-That shit doesn’t cut it anymore.

These days you ain’t nobody

In the nursery

Unless you can hold your own

In the high-stakes game of

International espionage.

Binky surveilled that fat man

That fat man, you know him,

That fat man with a funny broken mouth

And the dogs and the car

That goes ‘zoooom’

Passing a mysterious piece of paper

To the newsagent.

24 hours later he was being waterboarded

In an unspecified former-Eastern Bloc state.

Watch what you pass to newsagents.

That’s all I’m saying.

The kids are watching.