Venusberg | That's not your heart, it's a piece of helicopter casing

Tuesday, July 31, 2001

Well, say what you like about the Khazakstani police, but at least they menace hobbits.

Monday, July 30, 2001

Well, somebody is wearing the grumpy trousers today. Quality riposte, mind. Very Patrician.

Moving onto pastures less with walls and fences girdled round, I did enjoy seeing Ginger Snaps with Abigail last week. Sort of like Wendy the Werewolf Slayer directed by Todd Solondz, if that isn't the most horrifying concept ever. Intelligent scripting, engaging if archetypal characters, and really ropey special effects of the kind you just can't help but love. I can see it might not appeal universally, but the imposition of the narrative of a horror film (specifically, "An American Werewolf in London") onto the structure of a John Hughes coming-of-age drama (specifically, "The Breakfast Club" in open field), without allowing it to slide into that most misbegotten of genres, teen horror, is competently handled.

This for free, though: watching the performances at the heart of the drama, I realised how much I missed being a fucked-up teenager. You could do literally anything back then and nobody would really notice, because the teenager tag supercedes the fucked-up tag.

"What are you doing in there?"
"I'm getting in touch with my feminine side by experiencing common conditions of female teen angst. id est, bulimia and self-mutilation."
"Oh. Well, put the seat down when you're finished."

Heady days.

Sunday, July 29, 2001

Interesting bit of memery among certain webloggers - people who fill web-design niches in capitalist organisations, or who freelance for capitalist organisations, but believe themselves to be better than people who do the same things in other departments.

What do you think? Is HTML intrinsically a more moral pursuit than others? Would web design classes for our kiddies prevent teen pregnancy? Tell me.

Correction corner. "Plebian" is an americanised form of "plebeian", and as such is not, in fact, correct English usage in a passage otherwise using UK forms of spelling. Since "plebeian", or "plebian", is usually employed to assert one's superiority over the uneducated mass, to spell it incorrectly is...well, unfortunate.

Tuesday, July 24, 2001

Big Brother Tamagotchi. Unfortunately, I have yet to work out any way that you can make them puke, but you can keep feeding them until they die, a la Seven. Niiice.

Monday, July 23, 2001

Shit shit shit! Why do I never plan ahead? Had I known that Joe versus the Volcano, first mutant spawn of the Hanks-Ryan entente was on today, I might have sawn off my own leg in order to engineer a chance to tape it and watch it frame-by-frame, searching for the moment when the eerie glow of demonic possession first burned behind the eyes of Hanks.

Channel 5 is the source of all goodness, frankly. I would like to reassure the Capstan that he is missing nothing by being unable to watch Cleopatra 2525 but alas it rocks harder than mortal mind might comprehend. If proof were needed that this is the happiest thing ever, being as it is a massively derivative, high-camp, diabolically scripted mixture of the Terminator, the Matrix, Barbarella and Xena: Warrior Princess, one need only wait until the opening credits.

Charmed, shit Shannon Dochery/Alyssa Milano vehicle and pile of way sub-Buffy shagwankery managed to elevate itself from sheer mouldy old cockness by getting in a grunge-rawk cover version of The Smiths' "How Soon is Now". But to avoid confusing the special people who made up its audience, they cut all that stuff about a shyness that is criminally vulgar and there being a club where you'd like to go, and indeed the eternal question of how you can say I go about things the wrong way. So, the song in its entirety went:

I am the son and the heir....(ellipsis)
I am human and I need to be loved...just like everybody else does.

Beautiful. And, I had felt, untoppable. Until I heard the campy disco reworking of Zager and Evans Hippyschtick classic "In the Year 2525". Not since victim-of-allegations-of-art-crime-serial-killing epic "I have not been to Oxford Town" was half-inched for Starship Troopers has a culture-concept car crash left me so aesthetically tumescent.

Thursday, July 19, 2001

And, also from the Guardian, commentary on the "Will they? Won't they? Do they actually know how to?" Helen and Paul saga. Personally, I think it would be rather sweet if they did sleep with each other on the eve of their eviction.

And it was shit.

About thirty seconds of anticlimactic fumbling, a premature ejaculation, a terrible attack of cramp, an almighty farting noise neither of them will accept responsibiltity for, and a mood of barely-concealed revulsion and contempt in their remaining time together before going out to a lengthy period of jeering and mockery, followed by wretched obscurity until the decomposing corpse of Phil Jupitus digs them up for Top Ten: 2001.

Can I get a "Hell, yeah"?

Last night I was in the Porterhouse, an environment more comfortable for my management consultant companion than uncompromising new Hoxton eaterie FIST*FUCK, meeting an old friend's girlfriend for the first time. The old friend in question was, sadly, in Montreal, but that did at least mean we all got to spend all night viciously defaming him. Only joking. We actually talked at length about his cock.

Anyway, point being that while getting up from the table I managed to knock my mobile off it. The phone bounced once, dislodging the back, then skidded through the gap between two steps, landing with an audible thwack two floors down. Rather shamefaced, I trekked downstairs to have it rendered unto me in tres partes divisa by a fortunately uninjured table of diners. There followed a slightly awkward contretemps where I tried to explain to an incredulous and not particularly Anglophone publican that, no, there was no trouble, nobody had tried to steal/break my mobile, I was just a wankhands.

And, once reassembled like a very shit Voltron, the thing still worked. All hail Nokia.

Wednesday, July 18, 2001

Bloody typical. I make one comment about the tendency of webloggers to self-construct through public acts of text, and all of a sudden I am bitten on the arse by another piece of hyperreal self-creation. Irony burger...

Allow me to explain. I don't watch TV too much. Not in order to make myself feel somehow superior to those who do, just because I get more out of other things. However, my flatmate tempted me in to see the news, on the Portillo thing. Having then seen a group of retards elect two people to put before a popular vote he then suggested we might take a look at Big Brother, something I had not previously done. However, in a spirit of curiosity, I allowed myself to watch my first full half-hour of the House of Evil.

Evil? Let's unpack that slightly...

In general, I suspect that most of the acts defined as "evil", and many not so defined as well, spring from a combination of stupidity and bad taste, in various degrees. And, in my life, I have met people whose stupidity, in their failure to understand the particulars of a situation, or the benefits of cooperation, or in their inability to think clearly through a problem, or their penchant for inappropriate behaviour, has led to problems for themselves or others. However, although I might describe these people or their actions as pretty stupid, or strike myself in the forehead once in a while and call myself stupid, it was long overdue that I really went to Stupid School.

Helen and Paul are unbelievably stupid. Just phenomenally so. Half-witted. Addle-pated. Paul pretty much has the edge in the smarts stakes, as he does at least make an effort - his face is contorted by the scars of twenty-four years of strai-ai-ai-ai-ning to work out just what the rubbery cock is going on. Welsh lackbrain Helen, meanwhile, has clearly decided to embrace special girlhood, as she waits, tongue lolling, for a pause in the conversation, then artlessly drops an incomprehensible, clueless non sequitur in there. I think she may actually be too dim to process the idea that, while having sex with someone not your boyfriend on national television (one of her favourite phrases.."on national television", as if, were she to fail in repeating it to remind herself constantly, she would just forget and start unselfconsciously masturbating, defecating in corners and mooing) is a bad idea, endlessly talking about what a bad idea it would be while in bed together is perhaps even worse, because it strongly suggests that not only have you forgotten basic self-preservation, but also how to have sex.

Watching these two trying to form sentences in each other's company is like watching Jacqueline du Pre and Professor Stephen Hawking playing squash; it isn't pretty, and it takes a long time, but one is still seized by admiration that two human beings could devote themselves with such energy to something so far outside both their competencies. It was an almost transcendental moment when the reigning idiot of the village that is Wales, after pretty much saying "I fancy you, Paul. I would like to rub your thingy until it gets hard, then sit on it", adds coyly "we've got very good at talking in code, haven't we"?

Alas, they must be parted. Only two more days to enjoy Dumb and unbelievably brain-shatteringly mind-Christingly Dumber. And I could have been submerging my sense of self in this for weeks?

Damn, I'm stupid.

The interesting thing about the Tory leadership election result is not that Portillo trailed in third - any reasonably acute politician could have spotted that trend from the second ballot onwards - but that, before that second ballot, 13 of the shadow cabinet came out in his favour. Which gives the evential incumbent potentially something of a headache, even if he himself is now out of the game.

The words for the developmental stages of insects are strangely beautiful. Nymph. Imago. Thanks, Joe, for reminding me of this.

Sentence of the day thus far - "I've cleaned out the gubbing so it probably won't Turkish it this time".

Oh, yeah...

Mirabile dictu, Ian has had a haircut. Check it out, pilgrims:

He doesn't look like his dad. He does, however, look ever so slightly like Bruce Campbell. Which can only be a good thing.

Tuesday, July 17, 2001

Arguably very cool? A little too late-90s? A potential deathtrap? Opaque contacts exert a strange fascination.

Is Notsosoft going soft? Graybo demands to know.

I don't see what's so curious. The function of weblogging in such situations, as far as I can tell, is either to complain at length about not getting any magic cuddles, or, if the stars have aligned and magic cuddles are being had, to mention it as often as possible. References to "my boyfriend/girlfriend" are about central on a scale beginning with subtle allusions (Towelling myself down, I tried to restore feeling to my wrists as the door opened behind me to give entrance to the delicate aroma of Summer flowers) and terminating at the maniacal, mantric mandala of the loved one's name, repeated passim and with passion, along with hyperlinks where possible.

I rarely speak of my little amours. Then again, who wants to hear about little old me having his penis intubated by a race of intelligent, manlike lizards?

Quick pop quiz. Should I go to the bunfight in the park?

Pros: People, beer, satisfying curiosity, lots of bloggers.
Cons: Danger of sunlight. Getting out of bed and to Speakers' Corner for 2:30. Another lost day when I should be being productiveboy. Ants.

What say?

Monday, July 16, 2001

Two UpsideClowns to report on, both sharing that most heroic of features, the catalogue. First up, James could go all the way to the sandwich toaster:

It's like living a dream. Growing up, millions have watched people like me on shows like these. Contestants. we are always other, bland, normal, beige, people. Walking down the road, we would be the invisible ones. Not worth a second glance. Wouldn't fart if we needed a laugh type people.

Truckloads of Goodies for him. Didn't he do well?

Meanwhile, Matt is making a list of everything he doesn't own, but wants. This is just an excerpt:

A larger flat.

The ability to fly.

Full and free use of a crane (although, apparently, one can be hired for as little as 250 pounds sterling. I'm not sure for how long, but long enough I'm sure to go to somewhere extremely flat with a conspicuous lack of anything tall, and drop things from great heights, leaving people to find curious craters full of broken tins of spaghetti).

Enough exercise.

My own television show.

Fans.

A hunk of Canadian cheddar and a cup of tea.

Oh, you have fans, Matt. You have fans.

The weekend included more Shade-hunting, which was good, and managing, having had to soak my top to get rid of some rather unfortunate tomato spillage, promptly to get it spattered with blood. Which was bad.

Damn, but this is cool, and I had quite forgotten about it. Minipops - tiny 24-pixel images of stars of stage and screen. Almost Zen in its perfection.

Speaking of Zen, a year on and I still want to hit Sada from Big Brother the First with a coal scuttle. Is this wrong?

Friday, July 13, 2001

Is the Tory press dead?

Thursday, July 12, 2001

This is mainly a test of the new server hosting this site, but Mel and Sue still fucking rock. Especially Sue.

Wednesday, July 11, 2001

Although not averse to the occasional comic (he said, guiltily recalling emerging from the Book Exchange on Wednesday loaded down with back issues of Shade the Changing Man), but I don't really hang out with comics readers in general, or feel part of a community, despite the specialism of the interest or, if you prefer, perversion. One reason for this is that there is actual ambiguity over whether or not this is a piss-take.

A collaborative effort from Jim Finnis, Dave Colter, Mark Slater, Matt Finn, Lee Hill and the wonderfully-named Elly Kelly. Soon there will be fondue and film wackiness parties. Orgies. People will set up wacky film dating agencies. I have seen the future, and it works. In a highly specific sense.

There's Something About Mary Poppins
A singing Nanny joins an English family until an accident with a spoonful of
sugar and some medicine leaves everyone with an embarrassing sticky mess in
their hair.

Three Colours Red Sonja
Three Colours Blue Velvet
Three Colours White Christmas
A trilogy of French arthouse films about relationships, and how this relates
to the colours of the French flag, and the ideals of Liberty, Equality,
Egalite, women in chainmail bikini's, Dennis Hopper on Nitrous Oxide, and
Bing Crosby.

In The Line Of Firefox
An aging US Secret Service agent steals a high-tech Russian fighter aircraft
and uses it to thwart the assassination of the President.

The Unbearable Lightness Of Being John Malkovich
Utterly incomprehensible, your brains will turn to mush if you attempt to
decipher it.

The Invisible Man who fell to Earth
An alien falls to earth - but no-one notices because he is invisible. It is
a very short film (stars David Bowie).

Scream 2001 : A Space Odyssey
The much talked about Wes Craven/Stanley Kubrick collaboration. 20 years in
pre-production, thankfully never finished.

Call Of The Wild At Heart
A stranger than usual David Lynch outing, starring Nicholas Cage in his most
abitious role yet, that of an Alaskan timber wolf called Sailor. He and his
girlfriend cruise around the US, pursued by an array of bizarre characters.
Again, the plot doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but the soundtrack is
terrific. Loosely based on the classic childrens book by Jack London.

Lassie Come Home Alone
Mr and Mrs McCulkin bribe their pet dog with scooby snacks to lead their
annoying little brat of a son off into the wilderness during a camping
holiday. What follows is a rollercoaster ride of hilarious and zany gags as
the plucky pup tries desperately to ditch the little s**t.

Four Weddings And A Funeral In Berlin
Michael Caine returns as Harry Palmer investigating the activities of a
suspected Soviet spy, who's posh accent and floppy hairstyle can only be the
product of a KGB training centre in East Germany. He is eventually
neutralised by Palmers opposite number in the CIA (Andie McDowall), who
marries him, then garrottes him on their wedding night.

Austin Powers, the Spy who shagged Me, Myself and Irene
Cert 18

X-Men in Black
The X-Men are drafted to wear sharp suits and sunglasses and rid the planet
of illegal aliens by using their special powers and rapping abilities.

Earth Girls Are Easy Rider
Three aliens come to earth in order to perpetuate their race, and hook up
with a biker gang on a one way trip to self destruction. The plot makes no
sense at all, but the soundtrack is great.

Carry on Doctor Strangelove
Kenneth Williams stars in three roles in this comedy romp set in a hospital
full of randy nurses and awkward patients. A rogue matron (Hattie Jaques)
goes mad and administers enemas to all the patient on her ward which
triggers a Soviet Doomsday bomb. Sid James hurtles through the ward on a
trolley and crashed through a window, yelling and waving a cowboy hat before
it hits the ground.

Groundhog Day of the Dead
Somewhere in small town america, a group of killer zombie groundhogs
terrorise the local citizens. Everyone is killed and the town destroyed, but
then they all wake up again the next morning at 6am to "I got you
babe" on
the radio, and do it all again!

Sleepy Hollow Man
In his investigation to discover the identity of the headless horseman,
Ichabod Crane develops a method of turning himself invisible. This
unfortunately has the effect of turning him completely psychotic, and he
stalks and kills all the other remaining characters. He eventually teams up
with the headless horseman, thereby leaving the field open for limitless
straight to video sequels.

Henry the Fifth Element
Bruce Willis starts as the Tudor King of England trying to destroy a French
army from Outer Space. A strange young girl dressed only in bandages
appears, but is mistaken for Joan of Arc and burned at the stake. The French
win, and everybody dies.

Black Beauty and the Beast
The straight to video final film in the Black Beauty series, as her career
finally reaches the knackers yard. An ageing King Kong steals the show with
his cameo appearence in the final scene as the ravenous beast.

The Deep Throat.
Where porn actress Buffy Bigapples discovers she can only orgasm when
she is being attacked by giant eels whilst deep-sea diving, or something.

Gone With The Wind In The Willows
Against the backdrop of the burning of Georgia in the Civil War, a group of
loveable countryside creatures (and a Toad) amiably discuss the great issues
of the day over tea and cakes. Toad Hall is destroyed, but Ratty doesn't
give a damn.

House Hunt for Red October.
Where desperate rubber faced comic Lee Evans is drafted into the U.S Navy to
rid their Las-Vegas Class Nuclear submarine of an Evil criminal genius mouse
bent on destroying New york with its arsenal of Nuclear missiles. Sweaty
faced Evans gurns his way through dozens of almost amusing incidents before
the crew team up with the mouse to blast his stupid face out of one of the
torpedo tubes.

The Magnificent Seven Brides For Seven Brothers
Seven brides ride into a small village (in full wedding dresses), in search
of their missing husbands (who happen to be brothers). Unfortunately the
brothers are held hostage by the villagers, and unless the brides help them
to rid the village of the marauding gang of bandits who attack the village
and steal all the crops every year, they will not release them. The brides
train the villagers in the art of armed and unarmed combat. The bandits
attack, a bloodbath ensues, and casualties are heavy. Howard Keel
eventually wipes out the marauders by singing at them. Nobody lives happily
ever after.

It's a Wonderful Life of Brian
An angel called Clarence comes to Brian of Nazareth and shows him what life
would have been like if he *hadn't* been crucified, and he decides not to
go through with it, marries Judith and becomes the world's first insurance
salesman.

The Empire Strikes Back To The Future
Luke travels back in time in a souped-up X-wing, becomes Darth Vader and
fathers *himself*.

Wayne's World is Not Enough
In which Wayne's cable TV station is taken over by an evil dictator, and
Wayne has to use that room full of ninjas training to become a secret agent
and stop the bad man.

Interesting (a) that I no longer have the strength to edit and justify these things, and (b) that people are beginning to repeat.

There was an element of compulsion in my attendance at Lara Croft - Tomb Raider last weekend. Essentially, my three laydee companions all wanted, in a bizarre twist of fate, to watch Angelina Jolie bounding around in a halter top, and I didn't. Still, outvoted as I was, along I went.

And? Well, if movies were free, and time was infinite, I would firmly recommend it, if only for Chris Barrie changing his name to "Christopher" in the credits to show a serious, Hollywood side. The film has the feel of something the writers of which started at one end and completed in a single sitting without looking back. So, vague ideas are thrown in to plug earlier gaps, the entire plot is provided by two encounters, one textual and one personal, with Lara's father, and so on. And speaking of the father, the choice of Jon Voigt here is a curious one. This is not the type of film that will attract an audience curious to see Voigt and Jolie playing father and daughter, but rather an audience with no idea of who Jon Voigt is.

Jolie is, in fact, a major problem. Not because she does not do her best with the non-script, or fails to convince within those limitations ("OK, Angelina, I want you to convey simmering sexual tension, the possibility of a former relationship, professional envy, and a sense that you could redeem him from his moneygrabbing ways because you see in him a spark of decency unrevealed in the course of the film. In ten words. Go!"), but because no matter how CGIed the breasts, no matter how wasp the waist, no matter how pouty the pouty, pouty lips, she can never be Lara Croft. Her attraction lies in her very artificiality. Check out something I wrote on a related topic here.

It's a glorious mess. The four set-piece action sequences are accelerated to the point of hallucination, interspersed with scenes in which perfectly competent actors chew their way through largely impossible dialogue. There is no memorable dialogue, no rounded characterisations. In fact, this film may be a philosophical triumph for democracy, as it develops every single character exactly equally. Everybody gets one trait, regardless of how much screen time they have. Nobody has too much screen time. Occasionally, one wonders why a character is there at all. Why? Because it's his democratic right, darn it.

Seen in those terms, the film ceases to be a not-particularly good action film, and becomes instead an actively unsuccessful art movie. The problem is, nothing in this film has any affect. The characters are at best ciphers, at worst not even plot devices, and impossible to get up any enthusiasm for at all. Every scene seems modular, strung along a paper-thin premise. Half-arsed mysticism is dragged in without explanation or expansion as McGuffin or pure irrelevance. The set design and scenery are at times impressive but criminally underused. Because puzzle-solving is not something one can easily show in an exciting and dynamic fashion onscreen, Croft deciphers the riddles set in her path apparently by instinct, striding through the ingenuity of the ancients on her way to the next fist- or gunfight.

This is not a film; it is a support system for a few hyperkinetic, adrenaline-soaked action sequences. Like the Matrix, but more so, and without any strong performances, any strong characters or, to judge it by its own terms, enough action. Quite fun. Not enough fun to justify a tenner.

And still they come - I'm fighting a backlog here. There will, at some point, be a cut-off, possibly when we're down to three hardcore geeks trying to outfu each other. Joe will probably be among those last three.

Lair of the White Palace - bereaved posho Hugh Grant investigates mysterious paranormal goings-on in a branch of a burger chain franchise foolishly
located on a spooky English estate. He is forcibly fellated by demonic waitress Susan Sarandon and then fed to a giant snake that strangely
resembles a dustbuster.

(or)

Lair of the White Mischief - colonial posho Hugh Grant investigates mysterious paranormal goings-on amongst Kenya's wealthy elite. He is
forcibly ravaged on the beach by demonic trophy wife Gretta Scachi and then fed to a giant snake that strangely resembles Charles Dance.

Sex, True Lies and Videotape - super-spy Arnie tries to keep both his real profession and his impotence a secret from his wife and family whilst also
defeating some evil Arabs and watching homemade porn. Once Upon a Nick of Time in America - Johnny Depp's daughter is kidnapped by
Christopher Walken and he is given a terrible ultimatum: kill Robert De Niro, James Woods and every single Jewish gangster in New York, or the kid
gets it. This film takes place over about 60 years and is filmed in real time.

An American Psycho In London - crazed yuppie murderer Patrick Bateman works his way through lots of hapless stereotypical Cockney yokels. The sequel, An American Psycho In Paris, is considered inferior, although it does feature a scene in which Bateman bungee jumps from the Eiffel Tower wielding a chainsaw which he promptly lops off Julie Delpy's head.

How High Noon - upright sheriff Gary Cooper must defend his small town single-handedly from Method Man and Redman, a couple of rappers made
super-intelligent by genetically-modified weed.

Manic Street Preaching to the Perverted - three fat, naive Welsh virgins infiltrate the BDSM scene on behalf of Tom Bell's puritanical MP, only to
find that they quite like pain and leather after all, especially when Guinevere Turner is involved.

A.I, Movie - Kathy Acker, back from the dead as the world's first artificial intelligence, journeys through a surreal and awesome futuristic world
looking for love, acceptance, and the chance to shoot Hemingway with a harpoon gun. Jude Law plays Lacan, a khaki-clad gigolo robot. The ending is
reportedly sentimental guff.

That last is an in-joke.

Tuesday, July 10, 2001

This, on the other hand, is well worth obsessing over. Bonsai Kittens. Niiiice.

Silver Plated Boy's twin obsessions are, as far as I can tell, David Bowie (understandable) and golf (really not).

Titles. Chris. Very funny.

A Few Good Men In Black: Special Agent Will Smith goes before a Marines tribunal for murder, and is sassy and irreverent in the process.

All About My Mother Night: Imprisoned American spy Nick Nolte reminisces about his Nazi mother and her worldly ways.

The Breakfast Fight Club: Troubled teen Judd Nelson starts a terrorist faction with his schizophrenic alter-ego Emilio Estevez, until a chain-smoking Ally Sheedy drives a wedge between the two.

Jurassic Park - Bigger, Longer, and Uncut: Tyrannosaurs tear Kenny to shreds and then satirize Broadway musicals. Warning: some profanity.

Kiss Of The Dragonheart: Jet Li (voice of Sean Connery) overcomes his monstrous nature and saves a medieval village, with the help of some Quaid or another.

The Thin Red Square: Richard Gere is detained by Chinese officials, then turns into a palm frond which the camera fixates on for over four hours.

The Princess Mononoke Bride: Willfull wild-child Claire Danes is wackily seduced by Cary Elwes, until a wolf god (voice of Gillian Anderson) devours
him.

Escape From Autumn In New York: In a post-apocalyptic future, convict Kurt Russell is sentenced to watch a truly abominable tearjerker.

Hollow Man Without A Face: Kevin Bacon is a disfigured man who compensates by showing us his digitally-generated invisible wang.

Forget Last Tango In Paris: Billy Crystal and Debra Winger lube with butter.

For The Love Of THE GAME: Kevin Costner is psychologically tortured for our amusement.

Wayne's World Is Not Enough: Hopeless loser Mike Myers makes the least interesting Bond film ever. Denise Richards co-stars as a pile of shit.

Deep Blue Velvet: Sharks do really weird shit in a small town. LL Cool J takes helium and says "Daddy wants to fuck."

Star Wars Episode One: Don't Be A Phantom Menace To South Central While Drinking Your Juice In The Hood: Next.

Mystery Trainspotting: Two cult classics combine and destroy each other in the process. Also, heroin.

Ghost Dad: Way Of The Samurai: Bill Cosby becomes an avenging gangsta samurai upon his death.

Bring It On The Waterfront: Kirsten Dunst and Marlon Brando as competing cheerleading squad leaders.

Six Days, Boogie Nights: Harrison Ford and Anne Heche are stranded on a desert island with Ford's 14-inch penis.

The Lost Boys In The Hood: Says it all, really. And now, the ones I'd have to bend the rules to use, but still really like:

Ran Lola Ran: A hyperactive re-imagining of King Lear starring a crazy German chick.

Friday The Earth Stood Still: Ice-T stars in this uproarious urban alien-invasion comedy.

The L�on King: Young Simba watches his father murdered by deranged CIA lion Scar (voice of Gary Oldman), and becomes a hitman.

It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Planet Of The Apes: George Burns looks like a monkey.

Grumpy Old X-Men: Cyclops and Wolverine go ice-fishing and battle over sexy senior Jean Grey (Ann-Marget).

Like Water For The Chocolate Factory: Nine-year-old Charlie discovers the erotic power of cooking.

The Cider House Party: Two wacky friends fall for Charlize Theron while her husband is at war, and learn a little something about themselves.
Plus, a plug for abortion.

Crouching Tigerland: American soldiers in Vietnam take off their shirts, fly through the air, and barely restrain their homoeroticism.

The Mirror Has Two Faces Of Death: Snuff film of Barbra Streisand being brutally murdered.

The Good Will Deer Hunter: Matt Damon gets into Harvard and plays Russian roulette with Ben Affleck. (That one's kind of cheating; hunter/hunting)

Pretty In Pink Flamingoes: Molly Ringwald eats shit.

The Drugstore Cowboy Way: Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland knock over drug stores on horses to feed their habit.

Dancer In The Dark City: Bjork awakens to find herself in a shifting nightmare world, so she sings about it.

The Se7en Samurai: Seven warriors defend a village from a crazed serial killer and a lot of rain.

Light It Up Close And Personal: An inner-city school explodes into turmoil when Celine Dion sings the film's original song.

And back to movies, with Fat Reggie. Just email me when you get sick of this....

They shoot all the pretty horses, don't they? - Two young Texas cowboys on the cusp of manhood ride into 1940's Mexico in search of experience. What
they find is an inhumanly grueling dance marathon.

One Crazy Summer of Sam - a wannabe cartoonist and his friends get caught up in the 1977 'Son of Sam' murders. With hilarious consequences.

The Straight Story of O - A young woman in love declines her lover's kinky offers and sets off across America on a lawnmower.

Demolition Mannequin - Thirty years in the future, a madman escapes from cryogenic imprisonment and wreaks havoc. Only Kim Cattrall can stop him.
Music by Starship.

Anna and the King of New York - A former drug lord employs an English governess to educate his children. A subtle and moving romance develops
amongst the highly stylised, cocaine-fuelled violence.

The Magnificent Se7en - Yul Brynner and co are killed off by Kevin Spacey in highly original, gruesome fashion.

Magnolia Force - 'Dirty' Harry Callahan investigates the murders of nine people whose connections with one another are too tenuous to suggest a
coherent motive, or for the movie to be comprehensible.

Schindler's List of Adrian Messenger

The Unbearable Lightness of Being John Malkovich

Dead Man Walking With Dinosaurs

Mother, just killed a man...

Monday, July 09, 2001

So, Dan, what have you been doing while not acting as a conduit for stardust recovered memories?

Well, good question...no, don't go!

Pretty quiet on the western front, really. I had something of a moment of madness in the Book and Comic Exchange in Notting Hill, leaving me with, among other booty, "The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age". I tend not to share the reading habits of my fellow webloggers, but there is a lot of stuff in this account of the development of the home computer and the first strugglings of online communication which might be of interest, along with the Harawayan (Haraway-ey? Harawavian?) theory and the rather embarrassing Anne Rice references. It also reminds us the Kaycee Nicole was just homage to the lamented, dented and gender-bented Julia Graham.

Thursday saw UpsideCrown, of course, and also new purchases from the White Stripes, the Strokes it's still OK to like, and Laptop. Now, it is a well-known and popular fact that I would drink a beaker of Jesse Hartmann's piss. But. But.

I loved Whole Wide World, as much as I did when it was a B-side. Likewise Generational Pattern. Likewise Social Life. And I loved Cool Scouts when I heard it on his first mini-album. And Myth America. Seeing a pattern forming? The desire to re-record old songs with the benefits of new studio technology is admirable. A Laptop tribute album starring Laptop is on the verge of taking the piss. Get Opening Credits first, if you are in any way swayed by me. Then, since the songs on this album fucking rock, in a techno-bedsit White-Town-can-suck-my-fetid-unused-Yonkers-bangstick way, get this as well.

Oh, and Tomb Raider, of which more later. After the latest six entrants to the films schtick.

So, Dan, what have you been doing while not acting as a conduit for stardust recovered memories?

Well, good question...no, don't go!

Pretty quiet on the western front, really. I had something of a moment of madness in the Book and Comic Exchange in Notting Hill, leaving me with, among other booty, "The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age". I tend not to share the reading habits of my fellow webloggers, but there is a lot of stuff in this account of the development of the home computer and the first strugglings of online communication which might be of interest, along with the Harawayan (Haraway-ey? Harawavian?) theory and the rather embarrassing Anne Rice references. It also reminds us the Kaycee Nicole was just homage to the lamented, dented and gender-bented Julia Graham.

Thursday saw UpsideCrown, of course, and also new purchases from the White Stripes, the Strokes it's still OK to like, and Laptop. Now, it is a well-known and popular fact that I would drink a beaker of Jesse Hartmann's piss. But. But.

I loved Whole Wide World, as much as I did when it was a B-side. Likewise Generational Pattern. Likewise Social Life. And I loved Cool Scouts when I heard on his first mini-album. And Myth America. Seeing a pattern forming? The desire to re-record old songs with the benefits of new studio technology is admirable. A Laptop tribute album starring Laptop is on the verge of taking the piss. Get Opening Credits first, if you are in any way swayed by me. Then, since the songs on this albumfucking rock, in a techo-bedsit White-Town-can-suck-my-fetid-unused-Yonkers-bangstick way, get this as well.

Oh, and Tomb Raider, of which more later. After the latest six entrants to the films schtick.

So, Dan, what have you been doing while not acting as a conduit for stardust recovered memories?

Well, good question...no, don't go!

Pretty quiet on the western front, really. I had something of a moment of madness in the Book and Comic Exchange in Notting Hill, leaving me with, among other booty, "The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age". I tend not to share the reading habits of my fellow webloggers, but there is a lot of stuff in this account of the development of the home computer and the first strugglings of online communication which might be of interest, along with the Harawayan (Haraway-ey? Harawavian?) theory and the rather embarrassing Anne Rice references. It also reminds us the Kaycee Nicole was just homage to the lamented, dented and gender-bented Julia Graham.

Thursday saw UpsideCrown, of course, and also new purchases from the White Stripes, the Strokes it's still OK to like, and Laptop

Speaking of UpsideClown, why should Neil be excluded just because he doesn't represent as Ebert in the house?

They're all off to Genoa this month, G8. I'd wanted to go with them but I've got this friend coming down who I haven't seen for ages and you know how important people are to me. Yeah, a guy I knew from school- he was a great laugh, used to piss about something chronic. No, I was a bit of a goodie-goodie tragically. I mean, I had this kinda underlying seething rebelliousness going on but never really managed to break my programming until later.

Rock. It's the nature of rebellion on the UpsideClown.

Luke is back, fiercely defending his crown as most prolific compiler of tinseltown miscegenation, but this time he is with Catherine:

The Cider House Rules of Engagement - Coming-of-age medical drama, in which Samuel L Jackson relentlessly beats up Tommy Lee Jones.

Knight Riders of the Purple Sage - Western, with talking saddles.

The Man From Snowy River Wild - Devon Sawa as horseman non pareil.

Picnic at Hanging Rock And Roll High-School - IN which the Ramones visit a picturesque turn-of-the-century school to play a gig. Unfortunately, they wander
off and disappear, leading to debate as to whether the farmhands did it, or aliens. Arthouse.

The Creature from the Blue Lagoon - Christopher Atkins resorts to harsher measures to ensure he Gets Some.

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes at the Whistlestop Cafe: Heartwarming family drama, in which Julia Roberts meets her end when a tin of tomatoes decide
they're not going to be the house special.

Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai Pizza Cats - Think "Space Jam", only for hired guns.

Backdraft to the Future - Michael J Fox travels through time - only to discover that everything is on fire. Still.

A Room With A View To A Kill - Love amidst the stunning architecture of Florence, until Julian Sands makes eyes at Grace Jones, who proceeds to kick
fuck out of him for the film's remaining three hours. Impeccable costuming.

Howard's Neverending Story - A family falls into disrepute after one of the daughters is impregnated by a giant flying dog-like creature, working as a clerk
by day.

Hard to Kill A Mockingbird - Steven Segal stars in a tense courtroom drama. In the crucial scene, he convinces the jury of the defendant's guilt by kicking a
fencepost out of the courthouse floor.

At Upsidecrown on Friday, Matt grabbed me and, eyes dilated with booze and the triumph of a hundred perfect baby Upsideclowns, screamed in my face "You're a slut! You've whored your weblog out to other people's content. Slaaaag!"

And, you know, he's right. I feel dirty. Very dirty. It's niiiice.... So, go Paul:

The Toy Story of O

The Devil's Advocate in Miss Jones

International Blue Velvet

Around the world in 80 days of Thunder

The madness of King George of the jungle

Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence of Arabia

The Deep Throat Blue Sea

Attack of the Driller Killer Bees

American History X-Men

You know, I used to be other than a conduit for aggressive displays of geek-fu by others. Ah well. The fix is in from Dave. Apparently there is an online competition involving some sort of challenge along these lines, so you may want to crib...

Lion King of New York - An ex-con returns from prison determined to wipe out all his competition, become
the biggest cat in the city and share the wealth amongst the poorer members of
the pride.

Cool Hand Look Who's Talking - A baby refusing to stay stuck in the womb takes to eating as many eggs as he can
to gain a reputation as a hard man.

The Ten Commandments I Hate About You - A family decrees through ten sacred laws that their youngest daughter cannot
date until her older sister finds a way to lead them to the promised land.

A Midsummers Night of the Living Dead - A complicated plot intertwines a plethora of characters trapped within a house
surrounded by zombies as they attempt to declare their feelings for one another.
Unknown to them though, the nearby forrest dwellers have other plans for them.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Film Festival - The tale of a gunman who spends his time running from the media. Culminates in a
shoot-out between himself and the entire Bolivian paparazzi.

Bullitts Over Broadway - An idealistic young detective takes an undercover assignment in a theatre but is
torn between catching the killer or the thrill of performance. Includes the
world's greatest on-stage chase sequence.

The Rocky Horror Picture of Dorian Gray - In Victorian England a young man is given a portrait by an admirer that slowly
transforms from the conservative clothing he wore when it was painted to garish
and outlandish lingerie. As he grows older his friends do not notice his attire
changing to black and red underwear until they are all zapped with tri-pronged
lasers.

John Carpenter's Do the Right Thing - An isolated research base in the heart of Brooklyn explodes in violence when the
hottest day of the year brings a shape-shifting alien out of hibernation at the
local pizza parlor.

Crouching Tigerland, Hidden Red Dragon - During bootcamp training for the Vietnam war a mystical jade sword is stolen by
a terrifying murderer among the grunts. The grizzled sergeant enlists the help
of a zen monk imprisonned for his homicidal impulses to help identify and catch
the culprit.

Priscilla, Queen of the Damned - A large bus is roused from sleep when the vampire Lestat takes to covering Abba
tracks.

Get Martin Short - An obnoxious broadway actor is tracked down by a floridian mafia stooge in an
attempt to have him read a new script with a gun to his head.

Friday, July 06, 2001

I hope it goes without saying that I will not be indulging in a raindance at 7pm today. I will instead be upstairs at the Crown, 64 Brewer St, London W1, at UpsideCrown. Perhaps you will be too. If so, or even if you aren't, why not enjoy a smooth smoke of UpsideClown, this time around featuring a guest appearance by none other than the former Blind Faith sticksman, God:

See that guy speeding round the corner in front of your house, middle of the road, shades on and drum 'n' bass blaring? Mutter 'God, I hope he crashes', and I'll probably make sure he does - right into your best friend. Or when you wake up after a night on the tiles, mouth like a urinal full of fag butts, and you joke 'That's it, I'm never getting that drunk again', you know what I'll say? 'Too right Joe. You're dying tomorrow.'

Under Silk Wood - A touching tale in verse of a young girl growing up in a small Welsh nuclear power plant.

I logged on to America Online one night, as I had done many times before, to start researching for this paper. I sat, mostly silent, and watched as people interacted with each other by typing their words and clicking "send". This was the first time I had ever just watched while in a chat room. I started to realise that I could not make any sense of some of the dialogue as it scrolled by my screen and off of my printer. I could not always determine who was speaking to who, or make sense out of the order in which conversations flowed. (From a not particularly enlightening essay on fantasy online)

This is what always gets me about open online chat. It is, in a Barthesian sense, noise. The limitations of the authors, the endless fragmentation of conversation, the lag between posts - all these demand a level of competence which is generally not in existence, leading to endless degrading simulacra of conversation as soon as numbers swell or a small circle is breached. As far as I can tell, it exists for the sensation of interaction without actually interacting. Or am I wrong? Tell me.

Here goes with the Brooke and James show:

Roustabout Last Night

Knute Rockne All American Psycho

Who's Afraid of Virginia Teenwolf?

The Muppets Take Manhattan Murder Mystery

Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song of Bernadette

School Daze of Thunder

The Emerald Forrest Gump

They Died with Their Boots On Golden Pond

Forget Paris Is Burning

Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures in Babysitting

Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey to the Center of the Earth

Some Like It Hotshots

Bullitt Over Broadway

The Philadelphia Story of O

Excellent

Carry On Dr. No

Khundun and Dumber.

Oh God, I need a drink.

Brooke, not satisfied with one shot at this, and James bring even more portmanteau bits of celluloid. But, like a special boy, I have just deleted it by mistake. What is the correct terminology to describe me? James, babe, could you resend? I have "Dad's Army of Darkness" stuck in my head.

Thursday, July 05, 2001

And still they come. Meg hereby terrifies us by her knowledge of the more krill-like end of the film market. Operation Dumbo Drop and Drop Dead Fred? Harsh...

Betty Blue Velvet - In which Daddy wants to fuck a pouting french temptress.

Operation Dumbo Drop Dead Fred - possibly the worst film of all time.

Die Hard Day's Night - In which a fab foursome from the northwest of England take over a Japanese party in a towerblock and George Martin abseils from the
roof.

Snake Eyes Wide Shut - In which Nicholas Cage plays a professional gambler having marital difficulties.

Homeward Bound - In which a group of stray lesbian animals trek across the country having sado-maoschistic encounters and breaking the law. Voiced by John
Travolta.

Independence Day of the Jackal - In which evil aliens plan to assasinate Charles de Gaulle.

or

Groundhog Day or the Jackal - in which evil aliens plan to assasinate Charles de Gaulle again and again and again.

Picture Perfect Storm - In which Jennifer Anniston pretends rough fisherman George Clooney is her fiancee.

The Thomas Crown Affair to Remember - in which a skilled art thief ends up broken-hearted in a wheelchair.

Big Blue Juice - In which a french record depth-diver takes up surfing in Cornwall with Catherine Zeta Jones.

Cape Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - In which a dangerous psychopath takes a lot of hallucinogenic drugs.

Pelican Brief Encounter - in which Julia Roberts meets a stranger on a train and uncovers a government plot.

or

Brief Encounters of the Third Kind - In which a woman meets an alien on a train and is tempted to cheat on her husband, while making shapes in her mashed potato.

Pretty in Pink Panther - In which a noted jewel thief from the wrong side of the tracks desperately wants to go to the prom.

Battlefield Earth Girls Are Easy - In which John Travolta's 9' alien scientologist character accidently lands in california and discovers sex.

Funny Face/Off - In which Audrey Hepburn is discovered by a modelling agency working in a dowdy bookshop in greenwich village, and then swaps her face with
Nicholas Cage.

Singing in the Rain Man - In which Gene Kelly and Dustin Hoffman dance and sing the contents of the Philadelphia PA telephone directory.

While You Were Sleeping With The Enemy - In which Sandra Bullock falls in love with Julia Roberts' dangerous husband while he's in a coma.

Dying Young Sherlock Holmes - In which the spritely Holmes and Dr W discover a pyramid of fear and egyptian ritual sacrifice beneath London, and then Holmes
gets Leukemia.

St Elmo's Fire With Fire - In which Steven Seagal and his teenage friends struggle with growing up, going out, environmental concerns and evil
mega-corporations.

A Time to Kill a Mockingbird - In which a legal team try to defend a black man accused of rape (innocent) and murder (guilty) in the deep south.

Strangers on a Trainspotting - in which Scottish heroin addicts meet and plot to kill one of their wives.

Air Force One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - In which Jack Nicholson plays a man sent to mental hopital who finds the head nurse is not only more dangerous than
the other patients, but is also the President of the USA.

Ah, wank. There was something I really wanted to link to, but all this cinematic gubbins has driven it clean out of my head.

From the mists of murky Brighton, Camel has lobbed yet more portmanteau films. Is anybody still out there?

War Games of the Roses � a divorcing couple battle over the marital home using the Russian and US strategic defence systems.

The Pillow Talk Book � Doris Day can�t stand sharing a party line with sleazy Rock Hudson. So she flays him and uses his skin as a parchment on which to write a chirpy musical number.

Dead Poets Society Presidents � after a harrowing tour of duty in Vietnam, Robin Williams reluctantly turns to English teaching to support his wife and child.

Kind Hearts and Coronets of Darkness: A Filmmaker�s Apocalypse � Documentary on the making of Apocalypse
now reveals that Coppola murdered eight cast members who stood between him and the film�s completion.

A Bronx Tale Of Two Cities � Dickens� classic tale of a young boy forced to choose between his life with his honest father and glamour of gangland life.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarves Samurai

If� You Knew Susie

Dancer in the Dark Side of the Moon � you can imagine the horror for yourself.

True Romance � Ridley Scott follows a French woman as, frustrated by her lover�s refusal of intimacy, she
embarks on a darkly erotic journey of discovery. And takes up drug-running. Arthouse.

Catherine is unhappy with my comments re: stalking. I can only apologise. The sentence should, of course, have read:

I am loath to trust the opinions of a woman who joins in calling another human being the Little Meerkat in any case.

Let's recap. You call her the Little Meerkat. That is not a strong bargaining position. You call her the Little Meerkat. You get together with your friend and call her the Little Meerkat. Maybe you have parties where the secret codeword is "the Little Meerkat" and the crockery all has meerkat inlay. I honestly don't know. The Little Meerkat.

You know it's bad when things wander outside the tinyverse. Anna, who to the best of my knowledge has no online presence and may even not fancy Matt, has thrown herself into the ring with some absolute screamers into the top left-hand corner of the net from thirty yards out. Ahem. Sorry, mixed a metaphor there, Ted.

Breakfast Club at Tiffany's- five teenagers dressed impeccably by Givenchy and from oh so different social groups are locked in Tiffany's for the day
by their teacher, a famous Hollywood actor playing a Chinese person in an embarrassingly anachronism. Throughout the day they bond through smoking
joints on very long cigarette holders and performing amusing dances to Henry Mancini's swirling strings. In the end they are busted out by a very
young looking A-team.

Gone With The Wind In The Willows- Epic drama set at the end of the era of the Old South, where endangered species such as water rats and Southern
Belles swish around in big dresses and fancy motor cars as the Yankees come and take over Tara and burn Toad Hall. Most famous line, from a handsome
and moustachioed beaver not found in the original Kenneth Graham version "Frankly my deer, I don't give a dam" (sorry, couldn't resist)

American Beauty and the Beast- Big hairy suburban beast is tormented not only by visions of his beautiful abducted village girl rolling around in
his rose garden, but the fact that he hears household objects talk and sing. He eventually realises that the root of his problems is that he's a
homosexual, but too hirsute and fat to be accepted by the at times cruelly image-conscious gay community. Angrily he smashes a talking plate against
the wall, prompting a rousing chorus of "Our Brother's A Crackpot" from the assembled surviving crockery.

This is fantastic! I may never have to contribute original material again!

(Like you ever did, cry a dwindling chorus of readers)

First up a correction. Luke meant "Rosemary's Baby", not "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane", although that has in turn given us "Whatever Happened to Rosemary's Baby", which is pretty rock. And, just in case we were running low, Luke has also donated some more:The Long Hot Friday The Thirteenth

The Long Kiss Goodnight Moon

Heaven Can Wait Until Dark

Live and Let Die Hard

Remains of the Day of the Dead.

I want to see Remains of the Day of the Dead, if I have to make it myself.

"Some have books too," Luke appends to his list. Some do, indeed. I may start charging rent for this...

A Man In Full Metal Jacket - An exploration of impotence. You fuckin' useless
maggot.

The Mission Impossible - Meditation on religious conversion, suffering and
exploding sunglasses. Ving Rhames plays the Pope.

Young Guns of Navarone - Featuring Kiefer Sutherland and an enormous firearm.
(Firearm nominated for Academy Award, Sutherland not.)

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Man - An invisible horseman attempts to terrorise a
small town, but is foiled because nobody can see him. Special appearance by
Kevin Bacon's cock.

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane Eyre? - Merchant-Ivory. Orphan-cum-governess
discovers that she is actually Satan's offspring. Helena Bonham Carter stars. It
should be noted that Ms Carter performed all her own head-revolving stunts.)

Apocalypse Now And Then - Touching tale of a reunion of childhood friends amidst
the cessit of jungle warfare. Kurtz played by Rosie O'Donnell.

Hana-Bi Bitches In Heat - Hard-edged asian cop drama in which a grizzled veteran
with dying wife reveals sensitive, arty side, intercut with scenes of hot
chick-on-chick action. Arthouse.

Ferris Bueller's Day Of The Triffids - Loveable rogue Ferris skips school - but
can he stop the evil plants from taking over the world?

Dr Who Dares Wins - Due to a breakdown in the navigation systems of his TARDIS,
Tom Baker finds himself drafted into the SAS.

Zabriskie Point Break - Keanu Reeves plays a concerned young protester, in touch
with the needs of his student associates. Who all decide, by vote, to protest by
surfing.

Although I think he and I watched very diferent versions of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? Perhaps one of us saw the inexplicable TV Movie remake.

Ok, this is getting absurd. Tom gives us his portmanteau picks:

The River Wild Bunch - Peckinpah directs Streep in an elegiac,
blood-soaked canoeing tale.

The Cool as Ice Storm - Ang Lee directs Vanilla Ice (together at last!) in
a complex seventies family drama. With a rap soundtrack.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert Rats - WWII
cross-dressing thriller.

X-Men of Honour - Mutant diving drama.

Dirty Harry and the Hendersons - a family discover a maverick cop, alone
in the woods save for his cardigan and Magnum, and take him in to live
with them. Comedy ensues.

Saving Private Parts - WWII drama starring Howard Stern in a rare serious
role.

The Last Picture Show Boat - Stunning musical about teenagers
rites-of-passage. On a steamer.

Wednesday, July 04, 2001

And still they come. These from the encyclopaedically knowledgeable Brooke:

Gregory's Girl in the Red Velvet Swing

Father of the Bride of Frankenstein

Go Fisher King

Tampopopeye

Das Booty Call

Jules et Jimmy Hollywood

Child's Play Misty For Me

Goldfinger on the Trigger

Porky's Chop Hill

Lust for Life of Brian

Niiiiiice.

These just in from Graybo:

Two Lane Blacktop Gun - in which a bunch of loners travel across America is
souped-up F-15s, and nobody figures out quite what Warren Oates is doing
there.

Big MaMa Vie En Rose - big black guy dresses up as a woman, and then has
problems when his dad doesn't approve, resulting in great upheaval within
the family.

It's A Wonderful Bug's Life - depressed and suicidal computer generated ants
are saved from themselves by Clarence, a guardian angel, and the whole
audience cries at the end.

Tomb Raiders Of The Lost Ark - Harrison Ford with HUGE breasts. Hmm.

Air Force One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - not sure how this would work, but
I have been laughing to myself about this for ten minutes.

I would respectfully point out that "Tomb Raider" is Harrison Ford with huge breasts.

Meanwhile:

Saving Private Ryan's Daughter

Saving Private Benjamin - Goldie Hawn in a rare serious part.

Mulan Rouge - A Chinese Princess runs away to Paris and becomes a stripper. Eddie Murphy plays a wise-cracking garter belt.

These just in from Graybo:

Two Lane Blacktop Gun - in which a bunch of loners travel across America is
souped-up F-15s, and nobody figures out quite what Warren Oates is doing
there.

Big MaMa Vie En Rose - big black guy dresses up as a woman, and then has
problems when his dad doesn't approve, resulting in great upheaval within
the family.

It's A Wonderful Bug's Life - depressed and suicidal computer generated ants
are saved from themselves by Clarence, a guardian angel, and the whole
audience cries at the end.

Tomb Raiders Of The Lost Ark - Harrison Ford with HUGE breasts. Hmm.

Air Force One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - not sure how this would work, but
I have been laughing to myself about this for ten minutes.

I would respectuflly point out that "Tomb Raider" is Harrison Ford with huge breasts.

Meanwhile:

Saving Private Ryan's Daughter

Saving Private Benjamin - Goldie Hawn in a rare serious part.

Mulan Rouge - A Chinese Princess runs away to Paris and becomes a stripper. Eddie Murphy plays a wise-cracking garter belt.

(0) comments

The Last Rocky Horror Picture Show

A Hard Day's Night of the Hunter - In which an insane murderer and preacher played by Robert Mitchum wins over the press and the kids on his way to a sellout London gig. Particular frightening are the tattoos across his knuckles - "J-O-H-N" and "P-A-U-L".

Robocopland,

Loneliness of the Long Distance Blade Runner

Super Mario Brother, Where Art Thou?

John Carpenter's The Sure Thing

1984 Weddings and a Funeral

Buena Vista Social Fight Club

Game of the day in the office: find two films with a common word and combine them employing that commonm word, then attempt to articulate the plot of the new creation.

Thus, Betty Blue Thunder - In which Beatrice Dalle's drunken, emotionally unstable character commandeers a prototype attack helicopter to eliminate a group of criminals.

Give my Regards to Broad Street Fighter - Fun-loving cannibal Paul Macartney, aided and abetted by sleepy, slurring Ringo Starr, attempt to take on Jean-Claude van Damme and Dead Raul Julia in a brawl for it all.

Remains of the Day of the Jackal - In the guise of a humble butler for an ill-tempered, Nazi-sympathising blustering buffoon of a lord, a sinister assassin closes in on his ultimate target...Adolf Hitler.

Little Women in Love - Say no more.

And, my personal favourite so far:

Bad Boys don't Cry - Will Smith and Martin Lawrence work through their cross-dressing and gender identity problems with the aid of an attractive woman and some big guns.

Mix and match with the world of books, and the possibilities are limitless. Last Terminator at Malory Towers, anyone?

Tuesday, July 03, 2001

And speaking of badgers, imagine my joy when this thing of almost poetic beauty appeared during a routine search. Some might raise eyebrows at the description of a page of poetry being described as "of almost poetic beauty". You would be right to.

Envision the world of Anne Rice or Clive Barker with an erotic taste, mixed with the imagery of a NIN video.

Hmmm....nice.

Gothicsites is fucking hilarious, although the above text demonstrates that its general hilarity comes to a definite point at the Dark Erotica project. They need photographers, writers....well, girls, really. They need girls.

Forunately, help is at hand. Send somebody you love a horse-faced Goth transvestite.

Something I tend not to talk about on Venusberg is my love life. This may be because I am saving it up for the Upsideclown. Or maybe not:

That was the hundredth time we have made love. Counting the three times, two early on and one when you came back a day late from that weeklong conference in Leiden, when it was over almost before it started. Definitely not counting that one time when it actually was over before it started, which you were very kind about. And not counting the one time last week when you said that it didn't feel right, and asked me to stop.

You were teary and jittery all that night, and couldn't really explain why.

I wanted this piece to have a sense of drift, but I think I fucked up the timing, and I could have done with some more time to go over it, but c'est la vie. Shambolic and rushed - maybe this is the true spirit of Upsideclown.

Mine eyes have seen the glory. The East London line carries one smoothly and seatedly from glamorous New Cross Gate in the south to Shoreditch in the north, providing a rest for the sinews of peace and a gentle stroll up Brick Lane. Pause at the home of cheapos bagels for their legendary two-minute breakfast (they give you a bagel. You eat it), and on to Hoxton Square, taking your seat as Princess hands you a mug of steaming hot coffee and Tiny gets his dick stuck in the ceiling fan. Again.

Life is good.

Monday, July 02, 2001

The site which housed the Nancy Drew link below is an absolute treasure trove of cheap sensationalist exploitica. Check it out:

Drugs hell of America's sweetheart!

Diner dolls who do it for free!

The road to ruin is paved by concrete enemas!

Sex-starved cesspool slatterns!

Glorious.

The site which housed the Nancy Drew link below is an absolute treasure trove of cheap sensationalist exploitica. Check it out:

Drugs hell of America's sweetheart!

Diner dolls who do it for free!

The road to ruin is paved by concrete enemas!

Sex-starved cesspool slatterns!

Glorious.

Finished House of Leaves a while back - a pretty entertaining book, but hardly the life-changing experience I had been led to expect, but then it seems the fanbase would in most cases not need much to change their lives.

Perhaps a better idea might have been House of Leavis, in which an American photojournalist discovers that his copy of the Great Tradition is getting slowly larger....

I should now be ploughing through the Master and Margarita and an introduction to Wittgenstein, but in fact there is a Nancy Drew novel sitting in my bag begging me to use it roughly...

Oddly compulsive and extremely relaxing. Thanks, Darren.

Paul is both elusive and allusive. Is this a reference to a particular person or an entire subgroup? And why am I fascinated by other people's lives all of a sudden? Must be a singular lack of incident in mine. Other people's heads are always more interesting...

Personally, being as I am a large-chinned, useless, dim-eyed, vague wanker, I'm profoundly glad I didn't go to public school, nor belong to the upper middle classes

Ah, one misses so much as a semi-detached weblogger. I should keep up with people more effectively. Still, at present I feel like a semi-detached human being - too hot for sleep - so now is probably not the time.

Graybo's is the first weblog I check today, and I find (a) that a small but enthusiastic group want to see him naked, and (b) a small but vocal minority of one thinks that he is pretty, and wants him to get a webcam.

Ahem. I'm sorry, I'll restate that. More than one person thinks Graybo is pretty, as a matter of almost mathematical certainty. Of the set of those who think Graybo is pretty, one has also proposed that he get a webcam.

Now, I'm thinking we could combine these two entries with...the GrayboNakedCam! OK, so it might make his work a little trickier, and his gardening occasionally a trial, but 24 hour nude Graybo would put an end to this "One weblogger and one weblogger to be seen naked only" masonism, and give the vocal minority perhaps even more than it could have hoped for.

Prove that I lie.

Actually, thinking further on this. The Amazon wishlist is a phenomenon which always confuses the Hell out of my three-dimensional friends.

"So, people have lists of books, DVDs and CDs that they want people to buy for them? And you can?"

"Yes."

"If it's somebody's birthday or something?"

"I think just in general."

"So you buy the gifts just because you can?"

"I suppose. I don't know if anyone habitually sends people items from their wishlist. Maybe if you really like someone. Or they have breasts."

"I still don't get it. If it almost never happens, why put them up in the first place?"

"I think as a kind of shopping list. You know, a reminder of stuff you want to buy."

"Oh. And why make it public, then?"

"In case somebody buys something for you? I don't know. Oh, and because it's part of the autobiographical project. It tells you something about the person whose wishlist it is."

"You mean, how clever or culturally aware they are?"

"Precisely."

"By listing all the books and other media they quite fancy having, but are sufficiently unenthused about to hang around sort of hoping somebody else will buy a copy for them?"

"Well, I....look, just fuck off, Martin frigging Heidegger!"

However, for a stalker the wishlist invites both study (to find out more about the object of one's unhealthy affection) and satisfaction - delivered by a third party, and definitely something they'll like, since you do not know that much about them outside the quality of the underwear they throw out. It's perfect. If only I had thought of this earlier I could be rolling in DVDs by now.

I have no DVD Player.

Of course, it is worth noting that my stalker has pretty much skipped straight to the obsessive hatred and bad-mouthing stage, which is a shame as I had vaguely hoped to get some candy before the duct tape phase began. Still, you can't have everything. And it could be worse. Robyn doesn't even know what the face against the window will look like. But, just to clarify, I very much doubt that "cute" will be it, given that fry is manifestly wrong about the guy being a wackjob, and I am loath to trust the opinions of a man who joins in calling another human being the Little Meerkat in any case.

Are you a stalker? Have you ever b