tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1325896600684346432024-03-13T21:08:08.079-07:00snakes are my life, in a wayalexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-82140179086809460012009-01-22T01:09:00.000-08:002009-01-22T01:18:18.328-08:00Venus<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cache-media.britannica.com.cdnetworks.net/eb-media/92/6792-004-C757C6D7.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 479px; height: 300px;" src="http://cache-media.britannica.com.cdnetworks.net/eb-media/92/6792-004-C757C6D7.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); text-decoration: underline;"><br /></span></div><div>Rubbish!</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0L7YqJEDI3U&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0L7YqJEDI3U&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object></div><br />That's more like it.<div><br /></div><div>More on THE ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN when I find my tape.<br /><br /></div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-12404142262558152312009-01-20T07:49:00.000-08:002009-01-20T11:07:34.608-08:00See No EvilThere are two films called SEE NO EVIL. One is a horror film with a wrestler in it which had the baffling original title EYE SCREAM MAN. Ugh. Whoever thought of that should be fired from using language. I won't be talking about that movie partially because I don't like anything frightening but mainly because I don't like shit.<div><br /></div><div>The other SEE NO EVIL, on the other hand, seems far more promising. I haven't seen it and I don't know if I'll ever get to - it was made in 1971 so it has probably gone on fire which, in case you didn't know, is what happens to films from history times. It looks especially interesting because it was written by Brian Clemens who is capable of being terrific (casting Diana Rigg in THE AVENGERS, possibly the worlds sexiest decision) but also of being wildly awful (HIGHLANDER 2: THE CONFUSENING). Not only that, but it was directed by Richard Fleischer who seems to have been capable of similar swings. It looks like it might be brilliant and I'd love to see it if either of you know where I can find a copy.</div><div><br /></div><div>Since it is probably some kind of lost masterpiece, I guess it's okay for me to spoil the story. Mia Farrow, having been blinded in a riding accident, goes to stay with her uncle. Everyone gets murdered by a mad killer while she's out and I expect it's very tense when she comes home because it will take her a while to find the bodies and then the mad killer comes back and it will be especially frightening because the mad killer is played by Paul Nicholas.</div><div><br /></div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 190px; height: 270px;" src="http://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/images/article/1097.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><div><br /></div><div>Paul Nicholas started his film career playing a bunch of bastards: the aforementioned lunatic, a scheming grandson in WHAT BECAME OF JACK AND JILL? and the cheerfully manic sadist, Cousin Kevin in TOMMY. He went on to become a household name opposite Jan Francis in JUST GOOD FRIENDS for which he also sang the theme tune. Jan Francis went on to star in STAY LUCKY with Dennis Waterman who (as if you didn't already know) <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">also</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">sang the theme tune!</span> I would like to see Paul Nicholas standing on one side of the stage with Dennis Waterman on the other and Jan Francis in the middle. They can sing their theme tunes at the same time and when they're finished we can measure which one has done the best job of attracting JF - the winner gets to toy with her emotions for a series or two.</div><div><br /></div><div>The horses/blindness theme of SEE NO EVIL makes me think of EQUUS and Alan Strang's effect on Dysart reminds me of the effect that Walter Kovacs has on Dr. Long in WATCHMEN. In WATCHMEN, Dr. Manhattan is in self-imposed exile on Mars. Earth is between Mars and Venus and, in a strange and disturbing twist of fate, Venus will be the title of my next entry! </div><div><br /></div><div>Shit, I think I snapped my shoehorn. </div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-16826516986569651792009-01-19T07:15:00.000-08:002009-01-19T09:04:37.035-08:00Emerge from your shelters and prepare to feign interest!I've decided to theme my blog this week. I'm not entirely sure if the theme will work but I am fairly sure that when I say 'week' I mean 'fortnight' and I put 'fortnight' in inverted commas to give me the option of extending it to a month if it's going particularly well or badly.<div>The theme is the Television album, MARQUEE MOON. I know it's rather a boring "critic's top five albums of all time" sort of a choice but I can't help the fact that I was near the front of the queue when they were handing out pedestrian and middlebrow aural palates.</div><div><br /></div><div>Luckily, there is no need to insulate yourselves against the anticipated wave of sub-NME bullshit because I don't intend to bore inelastic the few readers I have managed to accrue with extravagant and turgid rhetoric concerning the apparent influence of French symbolist poetry, syncopated, angular rhythmic structures or the contrasting yet complemental styles of the two "axe men", I believe they're called.</div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, the plan is to use the record as a kind of jumping off point - I'll go through the album one song at a time looking for any movie connections and I'll write about various scraps of celluloid thrown up during the course of this lazy and housebound investigative odyssey. Some will be easy - SEE NO EVIL, TORN CURTAIN and VENUS are all the names of films, PROVE IT is (kind of) about THE LONG GOODBYE and GUIDING LIGHT is a soap opera. Actually, this is starting to look a bit convenient - readymade, almost. Damn. Okay, so to make it half interesting I'll probably use most of those films as individual jumping off points as well. If anyone has any suggestions or connections of their own, please don't be shy in coming forward. And we're doing the album in order, in case you were wondering.</div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-76887186980888013372009-01-17T03:21:00.000-08:002009-01-17T04:54:56.664-08:00You're my favourite waste of timeI watched my FLASH GORDON video a couple of times over the holidays. I love it more than ever, I think. I had to watch it twice because i had a gnawing suspicion that, although the film was playing in front of my eyes, I was actually watching my memory of it inside my head. Like a man in the stocks, I was struck by lots of things but Dale Arden's lovely piece of idiocy in the scene where Flash is chained up prior to his execution was especially special. Klytus tells her that time will be up when the big egg timer* runs out of sand and she wastes about half that time struggling to turn it over. She also grunts about how it won't turn over. Can you imagine getting a postcard from this woman?<div><br /></div><div><div>Hello. Gosh, these postcards are quite small, Alex Livingstone</div><div>aren't they? I'd better choose my words wisely 28 Success Gardens</div><div>because I'll be running out of space soon. It's Edinburgh</div><div>already about half gone. I'll write a bit where Ecosse</div><div>the stamp goes and you can steam it off when </div><div>you get it, okay? Really run out of space now</div><div>Love Dale x</div><div><br /></div><div>Of course, Dale's a genius next to Li Mu-bai from CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON. He's got one breath left and he uses it up saying "I've wasted my life"</div><div><br /></div><div>*They have big eggs on Mongo. Ming's daughter probably lays them - she lays everything else.<br /></div></div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-9954395957465818852009-01-12T16:57:00.000-08:002009-01-12T20:16:18.720-08:00Up From Sloth!I am dreadfully sorry for having been away from the computer for so long. I have been an atrocious host and I may never forgive myself. Well, I probably will but I faithfully promise to never forgive my parents for having made me this way. I will not bore you by listing all the different ways in which my attempts to make blog have been thwarted. Instead, I'll just bore you with one.<div><br /></div><div>I've been reading a lot of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_E_Howard">Robert E. Howard</a> lately. It's pretty terrific stuff, full of nameless horrors, flashing blades, grim countenances and (sometimes, but not always) sandalled feet. It's all out of copyright now so I was kind of hoping for a Conan movie which would be a big hit and trigger an avalanche of barbarian pictures. Well, I was <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">sort of </span>hoping anyway - half of me hoped they'd hold off a decade or two until I was ready to helm the bloodstravaganza. But it's bad luck for all of us because some stupid, impatient industry person hired Brett Ratner to do it instead. Now it will definitely suck and nobody will want to make barbarian movies any more and the oceans will become as boiling blood and the lamb will lie down on broadway and teen pregnancy rates will go up and it will all be ruined for ever because, like a one-legged cyclist with a poor grasp of grammar, Brett Ratner can only peddle crap.</div><div><br /></div><div>I have also been reading <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kennedy_Toole">John Kennedy Toole</a>. I haven't been reading a lot because there isn't a lot to read but what I have been reading, I have been reading very carefully. I read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces">A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES</a> - I avoided THE <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neon_Bible_(novel)">NEON BIBLE</a> because, although it was released (like all his work) posthumously, it is still juvenilia and I can't stand the work of precocious children, no matter how widely praised it is. Stick it on the fridge door, don't fucking publish it. </div><div><br /></div><div>Getting back to A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES though, it has taken me a long, long time to acquire a copy and the reason for this is rather embarrassing. First off, there are some books that I would order from the internet and there are other books I wouldn't. Basically, if I truly believe that I am going to love a book, I want to buy it in an actual, physical shop. I won't go into all the sordid, fetishistic details of why things have to be this way, of how I want to form a relationship with this book, of how I want to notice it from across the room, eventually sidling over to pick it up as if it were a girl in a bar - I''ll stop short of telling you how I'd take it to bed and open it up, hauling its inky scent deep into my lungs and so on and so forth. And that's not even the most embarrassing part of it. The embarrassing part is that, although I have heard and read the words "John Kennedy Toole" many times, my brain always read it as John Kennedy O'Toole. So for ages I was hunting amongst the O'somethings for a book that wasn't there. Then I would wonder if his surname mightn't be double barreled, propelling me to investigate the Kennedys with a Hooverish fanaticism. I can't ask for help in shops so when this search proved fruitless I would slink home, check the book was still in print, and resolve to try again another time. This has been going on, on and off, for years. I never once thought to check the T's. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_Pike">Stupid boy</a>.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So how does this tie in with my abominable and neglectful behaviour? Well, the long and short of it is that Howard killed himself at 30, Toole at 31. I couldn't stop thinking about it. My heart filled up with cold sick and I sank into a leaden stupor. Sorry.</div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-33669170076938866732008-12-08T14:45:00.000-08:002008-12-09T02:24:27.483-08:00Quantum EntanglementToday I went to see James Bond 22: THE QUANTUM SHOELACE. The baddies wanted to control the water supply, like in CHINATOWN. The main baddie was played by Mathieu Amalric. He looks a bit like Roman Polanski, I think.<br /><div><br /><br /></div><div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 269px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_qXlI6M5P-z0/ST20kXRb7HI/AAAAAAAAAAM/bjL8ConNf2w/s320/Blog+Art+-+Roman+Polanski-2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5277572875163528306" /><br /><br /><br /><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 228px; height: 171px;" src="http://www.buzz-actu.com/public/mathieu-almaric.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">You might think that's enough coincidence for one day, but no! There are stronger, stranger forces at work here: the <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">families of</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">both men their</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"> have their roots in the same Polish village!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Yes, even as I type, THE QUANTUM SHOELACE snakes through the eyelets of probability, intensifying the pinch of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Schrodinger's brogues</span> around the bunioned feet of existence. Where will it strike next? When? <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Are any of us safe from its probing </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aglet"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">aglet</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">?</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-71075690091840837372008-12-07T04:57:00.000-08:002008-12-07T11:20:35.729-08:00I can't believe I missed this<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Pretty much the first thing I do when I get up in the morning is go on the internet and </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2008"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">check who died in the night</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">. I'm obsessed. </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_live_in_fear"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Ikimono no kiroku</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> that, if I take my eye off this morbid ball for even a second, my favourite people will stop living and will go unmourned into the bargain.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Imagine, then, my shock, shame and sh...sh...shit, why can't I think of a third one? Anyway, imagine all that when I caught a few minutes of SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT this lunchtime and resolved to find out what Jerry Reed had been in lately - the last thing I really remember him being in was 1983's SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT PART 3 so maybe "lately" is the wrong word to use.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Well, it turns out "lately" is exactly the right word to use because Jerry Reed became The Late Jerry Reed on September 1st of this year. I feel especially guilty about missing this because now <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">I have wronged him twice over. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "> </span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:'trebuchet ms';">You see, as a little kid, I loved<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; "> </span>SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT (ditto CANNONBALL RUN, HOOPER and anything else with car chases where the authority figures end up in a pond) but I did NOT love Jerry Reed's character, Cledus "Snowman" Snow. In fact, I thought he was a bit rubbish. I thought he was rubbish because he wore red trousers. I thought he was rubbish because he wore a bodywarmer. Most of all though, I guess I thought he was rubbish because he was a normal man, because he was not The Bandit.</span><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Well, I was a fool. I was a fool to fall under the spell of that vainglorious lout, The Bandit but I was double the fool to deny the value of this decent, dependable everyman. The Snowman was cool and I should have realised it sooner. From now on, every time I slide SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT into my VCR, it will be to appreciate the understated heroism of the man in the truck, bodywarmer and red trousers.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I wanted this to be more of an apology than an obituary so i wasn't going to put a clip up but he seems to be having such a good time in this one, I thought it'd be a shame not to. And if you don't like the music, just turn the sound off and enjoy the suits!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YCE48O6U4Yw&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YCE48O6U4Yw&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-45580922214727653132008-12-06T03:37:00.000-08:002008-12-06T14:33:17.306-08:00Childhood Traumas 1-3 or: How I Became the Man I'm Not<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Dum-dum-dum-dum-dum</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Dum-dum! When I was just a little boy...</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">...I saw some stuff that scored deep grooves in my subconscious. But you can relax - I'm not talking about sex stuff. I would </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">never</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> talk about sex stuff. I'm talking about small, scary snatches (not </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">that</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> kind of scary snatch - I would </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">never</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> talk about scary snatch stuff) of sound and light sundered from their wider cinematic contexts. The type of moment (found most commonly in the mind of the Human Parent) which, in the middle of certain movies, whizzes from the memory vault to the talk box, inducing the viewer to blurt out "Wait a minute - I've...I've </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">seen</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">this</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">before! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">And it was horrible!"</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">What's so interesting about that? Maybe nothing, except that I experienced it </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">twice</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> in one day! Almost thrice! Sort of!</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> It was an alarming example of synchronicity which, I am reliably informed, is not just an album by The Police. I'm not the best </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">conceptu</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">alational explainologist</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> so I have engaged Robert Duvall to feed you the basics:</span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EkDaZ-t6gBg&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EkDaZ-t6gBg&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br />Have you got it yet? Okay, let's go.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">As a kid, I would sometimes be allowed to stay over at my friend's house. He had a television set in his bedroom! This meant that we could watch terrifying things late at night! Two I can definitely remember watching were THE DEVIL RIDES OUT and THE SWARM. Nothing too horrible there, unless you're scared of safari jackets and corrugated hairstyles.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 195px; height: 145px;" src="http://www.michaelcaine.com/tmpl_files/images/bio/swarm.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">But Old Man Terror eventually crowbars his way into every young life and one dark night he got his jimmy into me! A late film featuring an unseen assailant, a tenderising mallet, a bloody kitchen, a dead woman and small, bloody handprints on a white balustrade all added up to the TV being switched off and Trauma Number One.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">The groping claw of Trauma Number Two found me at my parents' friends' house. I must have been really young for this one because i can remember real excitement at being allowed to change the channels on the TV. I found a channel where some people were looking at a water-wheel. Great! There were some soldiers there. Greater! Then the water-wheel rotated a bit further and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">everything went horrible! </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">There was a mangled soldier caught up in the blades and some of them had bitten into his back. Mum! Mum! I don't like this!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">trauma number three is written in lower case because I was a bit older and knew what the film was. It still carries unpleasant memories, but for different reasons: I was playing outside and a barbed-wire spike went through my fingernail and come out of the other side. It hurt so I went home. After getting cleaned up, I watched BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI with my dad. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Flash forward a decade to my 20th birthday. I receive three videos: THE BROOD, THE EAGLE HAS LANDED and BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. Great! I'll watch them all today! </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I put THE BROOD on first and THIS happens:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dLZTeodTuoo&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dLZTeodTuoo&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I eject the tape with pounding heart and shaking fingers. I still haven't watched the rest of it.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Next, I put on THE EAGLE HAS LANDED (a film with the mystical power to make it Sunday afternoon no matter what day it is) and, at around the half-way mark, A SOLDIER GETS MANGLED BY A WATER WHEEL! It's not really such a bad image when taken in context by a human adult and I manfully sit through the rest of the movie. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">What are the chances, though? Two in one day! I eye the next video case with suspicion, half expecting some barbed wire to appear from nowhere and pierce my digit, like a very mild, rural version of what happens at the end of HELLRAISER.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI makes everything all right again. Either that or it shames me into adopting a stiff upper lip about the whole freakish episode.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Is this what Robert Duvall was talking about? I must admit, I didn't quite follow him.</span></div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-63782889995837387742008-12-05T01:57:00.000-08:002008-12-05T08:50:04.125-08:00Imaginary Titles<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Don't get too excited - I'm not talking about </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Dante"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Count Dante</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Rolfe"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Baron Corvo</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> or <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexis_Brimeyer">Prince d'Anjou Durazzo Durassow Romanoff Dolgorouki de Bourbon-Conde</a>.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I'm talking about titles for biographies. There are a number of biographies boasting titles so wildly awful that I'm surprised the dust jackets they're printed on didn't catch fire out of professional shame. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"> </span></div><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 157px; height: 236px;" src="http://www.thelmagazine.com/lmag_blog/files/Images/clint.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I actually own a copy of this but mine has a different cover: Eastwood is (thankfully) less nude and "Sexual Cowboy" is stamped across his forehead, presumably as some kind of warning.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 500px; height: 500px;" src="http://dcairns.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/law.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Thanks to David Cairns, benevolent dictator of <a href="http://dcairns.wordpress.com/">Shadowplay</a>, for this misbegotten mess*. He's really said everything that needs to be said about the title, so I'll just draw your attention to the excruciating mishmash of typefaces. Why is the author's name written like that? It's a book, not a Nazi crate.</span></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 380px; height: 380px;" src="http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2008/09/Memorabealia.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">It's not the pun that distresses me so much - it's the cumbersome explanation underneath it. If you have to explain who somebody is on the cover of their biography then the title you wrote hasn't done its job. Frankly, I'm a little surprised Walter Newkirk hasn't popped an expository sentence under his own name too. He is probably too famous for such clumsy elucidations. Perhaps this Edie Beale of Grey Gardens, First Cousin to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, should have written a book about him instead?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Although there are tens of tens - possibly even <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">hundreds</span> of dreadfully feeble biography titles polluting paper across the globe, there must be trillions of others just begging to be born. For example, idiotic publishing types have consistently failed to ask the widow of wrestler/actor/writer/ultimate bald-headed, rough-looking Yorkshireman, Brian Glover, to write a memoir detailing their life together. Imagine a world where "The Bri Who Gloved Me" sits on top of the hardback charts! I could be happy in a world like that.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Other unwritten gems include:</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">"Jude, Glorious Jude: I am the Law" (autobiography)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">"Simply Ned" (a touching tribute to Ned Beatty written by his brother, Warren)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">"Has Biehn?" (Michael Biehn details his 24 year decline)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I'll post any other ideas as and when they come to me and I invite you to do the same. And yes, I <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">do</span> realise that nobody reads this blog but I just want to be polite, that's all.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">*I should also thank David for a number of other things about this blog including the subject matter, the pictures and, quite possibly, some of the phrases.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-511334000282227912008-12-04T14:22:00.000-08:002008-12-05T08:43:13.081-08:00WOW!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">I just caught the most unbelievable sequence of words leaking out of my television set: </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">"The plutonium was stolen from a secure nuclear installation outside Croatia."</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Really? Christ. Right then. We'll assemble a crack team of specialists and deploy them...everywhere, I suppose. We'll have them kick down the doors of every building on every street on Earth simultaneously. We should give the order to strike at dawn - hopefully these thieves, wherever they are, will be too sleepy to resist.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Luckily for humankind, closer inspection revealed it to be a line from Tsui Hark's DOUBLE TEAM and not, as I had initially feared, BBC news 24.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">Further research tossed up an interesting piece of <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">intel</span>, I believe it's called: every single nuclear installation in the world is outside Croatia. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" font-style: italic;font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The stupid line was right!</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-132589660068434643.post-58092136661747846772008-12-03T07:32:00.000-08:002008-12-05T07:13:03.332-08:00How to solve a misery<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><div>I've never had a blog before. I don't really know what to do with it. I think I'll just copy the format of other blogs I like until I get some ideas of my own.</div><div><br /></div>I feel ill. I want to watch a film in bed. I want to watch something with Eugene Pallette in it, principally because i suspect the profound rumblings of his voice might loosen whatever it is that's making my lungs rattle. If I am very lucky, he might even agitate my bodily atoms, causing them to leap around, rub against one another and generate valuable frictive* heat. He will be a warming and welcome panacean presence. </span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><img style="text-align: left;display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 242px; " src="http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/j/Eugene%20Pallette.jpg" border="0" alt="" /><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">And what a presence! Good grief, the man's built like a planet. Maybe it's this which makes him such a reassuring ingredient in comedies. His colossality* gives the other characters licence to zoom around in all kinds of screwy orbits - the gravitational tug of his mighty bulk prevents them from spinning off the edge of the screen. He's buried in Kansas and I'm amazed that more of America hasn't been sort of sucked into that state the same way a swimming pool cover disappears when you throw a breezeblock into the middle of it.</span><br /><div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">God, I feel awful though. I'm going to lie down in the dark. I'll have to watch the film later.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';">*not real words</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'trebuchet ms';"><br /></span></div></div></div></div>alexhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18310218123370488473noreply@blogger.com0