Dear Diary,
29/04/2002

Monday, April 29 - Upon checking my Hitometer statistics, discovered that someone had found my site by searching Yahoo! for "arabs get fucked". Am somewhat disturbed.

Incredible Film Fest - Part Three.
27/04/2002

Story of Ricki - I don't often get to use the phrase "graphic and imaginative violence" and mean it, but this film features a fuckload of graphic and imaginative violence. A live action manga of sorts, it's the story of a tough young man, trained in deadly martial arts techniques, who gets sent to a privatised prison and has to deal with the gangs and corruption inside. By punching holes in them, snapping their limbs off and grinding them into mincemeat.

The violence in this film is a sight to behold. Witness Ricki punch guys so hard their eyes pop out! Watch as his enemies stuff his mouth full of razorblades, tape it shut, and then slap him around until the blades are all sticking out through his cheeks! See Ricki not be noticeably perturbed at the ridiculous amount of damage he sustains!

This film has been in the festival a couple of times before. I missed it the first time around, but when it was shown a couple of years later as a replacement for one they had to drop, I rushed along. Only problem was no-one I knew could make it at that time, and the rest of the audience didn't really get it - more "what the crap?!" than "hee hee - punched his head right off!" This time though, everyone got it. We giggled at Ricki's habit of producing bulky items (e.g. toy trains, flutes) out of his conspicuously not-lumpy-a-second-ago shirt. We guffawed at the ultra-violence. The phrase "best movie ever" was used more than once by more than one person. No-one could understand why the warden keeps mints in his glass eye, though.

Ah well. For a better taste of what this film is like, go read a more detailed review at badmovies.org.

Dark Side of the Rainbow - You've heard the story, right? How if you play Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon while watching The Wizard of Oz with the sound down, the former acts as a scarily appropriate soundtrack for the latter. There's a number of sites devoted to it, like this one. Well, this year they put it to the test, and I went along to see what the fuss was about.

It blew my tiny little mind.

Well, not really - no drugs, you see. Still, there are a couple of quite freaky coincidences (or ARE they?) - the music changes exactly as scenes change, and usually seems to suit the mood of what's happening in the film. People have been picky to the point of grasping at straws over the various supposed synchronicities between the lyrics and what's happening in the film, but most of them are pretty tenuous (except for right at the end, where Dorothy clicks her heels and returns to Kansas just as the lyrics get to "Home, home again" - freaky deaky).

Things I learnt from this: Dark Side of the Moon is a scary album. The Wizard of Oz is a fucking scary movie when you turn the sound off. The two together make for an interesting experience, if nothing else. On acid, I firmly expect one's head would explode.

Real Movies I've seen recently - Gosford Park is bloody good. The Scorpion King is the best movie ever (only of course it's shit). Mean Machine is a good'un too. Go see them.

Incredible Film Fest - Part Two.
20/04/2002

Spike & Mike's Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation - A good line in strange, perverse and bloody funny short cartoons. Not as good as last year's selections, I felt, but good all the same. The best thing about this year's was Don Hertzfeldt's Rejected, which, unfortunately was also the best thing about last year's collection, too (OK, maybe on a par with Monkey vs. Robot). For those of you who haven't downloaded it already (from, for example Instant Cool), they also show Ah L'Amour this year. No Billy's Balloon, Genre or Lily and Jim, though.

Continuing the theme of "would have been the best bit if I hadn't seen it before", you've got the video by Spumco of Tenacious D's song "Fuck Her Gently". Where Spumco is notable for being the animation company of Ren & Stimpy creator John K, Tenacious D are a musical comedy duo consisting of Jack Black (Shallow Hal, High Fidelity) and some other guy. You can download Fuck Her Gently as a Flash animation, if you want.

The good side to there being things in this year's Spike & Mike's that I'd already seen is that it boosted my feelings of becoming a more eclectic, experienced and interesting individual. Or possibly just an obscure cartoon wanker.

Rated X - Remember how I said the most common reason why people do things is because they can? Well the second most common reason people do things is because that's what they/everyone has always done. Case in point: this film, a documentary on the San Fernando Valley porn industry, features lengthy theorising on the ubiquity of the money shot in modern porn films. It's a male fantasy, it's a male revenge fantasy, it shows the man as all-powerful, etc etc. My theory is that the reason all sex scenes in pornos end with the money shot is that all sex scenes in pornos end with the money shot. I assume it started because people wanted sex scenes to end with obvious proof of an orgasm, and it's a hell of a lot easier to show a male one than a female one. And from then on it became the done thing - tradition, if you will.

But enough pontificating - this is an independent film about people who make films about people fucking. And like all such films (Sex: The Annabel Chong Story before it, Wadd: The John Holmes Story before that), it's a fascinating look at an industry populated by a variety of people, ranging from perfectly nice to scum of the Earth; from relatively well-adjusted to obviously damaged, but all disturbingly normal you sit down and talk to them.

Bits of it are hilarious (the director gets roped into filming a porno himself), bits of it are worrying (abuse statistics, blatant racism, HIV denial) and bits of it are sickening (dodgy, dodgy casting agents), but it's still one I wouldn't want to have missed.

Incredible Film Fest - Part One.
17/04/2002

Well, this year's fest is in full swing, so I better start getting reviews down, or it'll be over, they'll be irrelevant, and I'll have to come up with real content for this place. Two at a time, I think...

Happiness of the Katakuris - Fucked-up strange the way only the Japanese can do it. A black comedy musical, this film tells the story of a family setting up a guesthouse in the idyllic Japanese countryside, only to have their first few customers dying in circumstances of varying degrees of dubiosity. (Real word? You be the judge). In order to avoid bad publicity, they bury the bodies and try to get on with things, but a roving conman, a murderer on the run, and finally geological upheavals conspire against them.

And then there's the dance numbers. Surreal in their placement throughout the film if nothing else, they're what really gives the film its fucked-up feel (that, and the clay animation). Finding the body of a suicidal guest prompts a brief interpretive jazz routine (or something), and the "relocating bodies when it turns out the land they're buried on is going to be dug up" scene comes with a nice bit of song and dance on the part of both the family and the recently disinterred corpses. Stirling.

That does say "clay animation" above there, by the way - the opening titles are set to a particularly strange animation (which has almost no bearing on the rest of the film), and a couple of the harder-to-shoot-in-real-life scenes are replaced with claymation sequences. Just because.

All in all, a delightfully warped experience, even if it drags a bit towards the end.

Vampire Hunter D - A movie that lives up to its hype - this is indeed the best horror sci-fi western vampire anime film I've ever seen. Not overly burdened with character development and existential musing (as are some of its ilk), this is a fast paced, imaginative and ludicrously pretty romp about a half-vampire bounty hunter chasing across a post-apocalyptic Earth after a vampire who's kidnapped the favourite daughter of a small town (or HAS he? Etc). Great action scenes, amazing animation, and the voice of Mike McShane of Who's Line is it Anyway / that Robin Hood flick with Kevin Costner fame make it a must see for the anime aficionado.

A little bit low on penis imagery and rape innuendo to make a truly authentic manga experience, but you can't have everything.

My futuristic linguistics turn fools into statistics.
08/04/2002

What it is, is that the things I write tend to pop up more or less fully-formed in my brainmeats, and it's just a matter of me getting them down, fiddling a bit to get them sounding right, then adding links where appropriate. I keep a short file of amusing one-liners that I'll probably never have a reason to use (but fuck me they'll be funny if I can), but I don't really do the jotting-down-ideas-for-later-use thing. At the most I'll have two or three things occur to me at once, and I can just keep them in mind until I write them down. Trying to keep a list of notes usually just ends up like:

1. Had idea to update the Good Shit Guide with an entry on Good Shit Directors - Albert Pyun & Jim Wynorski, Sam Raimi & Peter Jackson (digression on little guys moving to big league/local lad made good). Was about to start on it when I read this week's Listener and cannot understand why the FUCK Philip Matthews has such a chip on his shoulder regarding Renny Harlin (this time it's Deep Blue Sea). Honestly - every film of Harlin's that he "reviews" has to include at least one jab at him (usually involving the word "hack"). Sometimes he spends the entire time wanking on about all the films that Harlin has made that he hates, and barely mentions the film he's supposed to be telling us about. The Long Kiss Goodnight is one of the best action films of the 90s, dammit! Long story short: thinking about directors leads to me being pissed off at the moment. Entry'll have to wait.

2. Warm up reviewing muscles for start of Incredible Film Festival. Film reviews = good filler, this I know.

3. Something on the Internet being full of fuckwits? (Shocking news there...) Idiot teenagers, geek pedants, etc. (Humourous links to sites frequented by idiot teenagers and pedantic geeks? Maybe not - these are the people who start flame wars and I can't be fucked screening me Inbox. And maybe one of them will actually be competent enough to hack Paradise and fuck up my account.) Opportunity to use the "physically preening jocks in real life = intellectually preening geeks on the internet" spiel - still need an intellectual equivalent of "machismo" to make it work. (One for "testosterone" wouldn't go amiss either.)

4. I like pie. Probably not a column in that. Probably.

5. Mr. Fuckin' Stupid and the Green Eggs and Ham! Both versions. Only I did say that last one was the last one ever, didn't I? So I lie to my readership - they love it (bitches).

6. Make entry out of miscellaneous notes, half of which I just made up now to make the list longer. Bugger, that's blown it.

Repeat Viewings
30/03/2002

The first movie I payed to see twice was Hot Shots 2 when I was 18. Before that I always figured it was a total waste of money, but what the hell, it was the holidays, we had nothing better to do, and it was a funny film, dammit. These days I've no objection to seeing a good film more than once (disposable incomes, eh? Love 'em) - the second time I saw The Matrix, it was because Richard and I wanted to go see something and figured that nothing that had come out that week could possibly be as good.

Some films you can just watch again and again and again - they're that fucking good. Some of them reward multiple viewings with little details that you didn't pick up on the first time, but which you know to look for next time, or which you're able to pick up on once you know what's going to happen next. The Sixth Sense is one of the better examples there. The Matrix has bits at the start that make much more sense once you know what the deal is.

And some films - good films - discourage you from ever seeing them again. When asked for my opinion of Seven or Cube I generally reply "brilliant film - for the love of God don't go and see it." I can appreciate that they're good works of cinema, but despite that (no, actually, because they're such effective mindfucks) I can't really say I want to see either of them again. Ever.

Now, The Big Hit I came out of thinking "bloody hell that was a good film - an action comedy that has damn good action and bloody funny comedy", but its just too excruciating to watch a second time knowing just how much of Marky Mark taking shit from everyone you have to sit through before things resolve themselves.

And finally there are the films that manage to be both enticing and repellent with respect to multiple viewings. Memento and Twelve Monkeys are the ones I'm thinking of here - both very clever, but it's just so fucking depressing watching through them knowing from the beginning that the whole thing's going to turn out badly.

No point here, I'm just pontificating. I'm pretty sure I don't have to be an actual pontiff to do that. I guess if I start getting dirty letters from the Vatican, I'll know why.

"You must stop with the caffeine or your head will explode right now" he says...
20/03/2002

So I quit with the Mountain Dew. Again. Unlike the last time, where I was mainly "worried" about my health and general well-being, this time I'm motivated by more immediate concerns.

See, I just came off Losec, the drug that was stopping my stomach acids from dissolving my oesophagus from the inside, and I'm a little antipathetic towards introducing additional acids to my system, be they citric, carbonic or hydrofluoric. (Yes, it was me that nicked all that acid - I used it to give my Raro a bit more kick. But no more.) I'm not actually off caffeine itself, but since I don't want it fizzy, can't stand coffee and think energy drinks are for wankers, I may as well be.

So instead of vague potential harms keeping me off the stuff, I am now motivated by the desire to avoid saying "oh fuck, there's a smoking hole in my chest." With any luck I might last - I'm not even noticing my tiredness (although daylight savings may have had a hand in that).

I think there's a lesson for all addicts here - you wanna quit? Make it immediately physically painful to indulge your addiction! Inject ammonia into your smokes! Mix ground glass into your alcohol! Hire Lithuanian midgets to beat you in the face with a claw hammer whenever you listen to Linkin Park! It's just common sense, really.

I'm really not sure where this comes from sometimes.
13/03/2002

It's not uncommon for America to be described as the school bully of the international playground - the big surly bugger who gets whatever the fuck he wants whenever the fuck he wants and what the fuck are you gonna do about it? Not bad, but here's how I like to think of it:

Remember when Pulp's Jarvis Cocker "invaded" Michael Jackson's stage show at the 1996 BRIT Awards? Sure you do - Jackson was prancing around on stage "dressed in Messiah-white ... surrounded by, among others, worshipping children and a rabbi." Look at this guy - clearly delusional, yet big enough and rich enough to get away with it, he struts his weird little pantomime in front of an international audience and honestly seems to think everyone will buy it. Not only that, but he seems genuinely unaware of the rest of the world's opinion of him (not, I imagine, that he really gives a shit). Sound familiar yet?

The guy quite clearly thinks he's Jesus. And there's your metaphor: America thinks it's Jesus. Which, as we all know is a common symptom of psychosis. Hmm.

In conclusion, Noam Chomsky is Jarvis Cocker. Bet you didn't see that one coming.

Hey kids, smoking is cool! And good for you!!
06/03/2002

While I'm from a family of non-smokers (my mother gave up when she got pregnant with me - ta, Mum), I'm going out with a smoker and plenty of my friends are nicotine addicts as well. It's stinky, but what the hell - most people I know are very considerate about it - only smoking outside when they're at other people's places, never smoking in cars or anything like that. And besides, they're not out home invading or selling their arses for their next fix (that I know of), so things could be worse.

At work, a couple of guys from the American office are over at the moment, and one of them - a smoker - was marvelling at the health warnings that the cigarette companies are required to display:

"Look at this - apparently, Smoking Causes Lung Cancer! And, Smoking Harms Those Around You! Let's bomb some Arabs!"

OK, I made that last bit up, but it was interesting to see his reaction. I figured things would even be more blatant state-side - maybe they all listened to Denis Leary when he said that "you could have cigarettes that come in a black pack, with a skull and a crossbone on the front, called Tumors and smokers would be lined up around the block..."

My personal theory is that the cigarette warnings aren't a health warning at all - they're a marketing ploy. So many different messages - Smoking Is Addictive, Smoking Kills, Smoking Harms Others, Smoking Makes the Baby Jesus Cry, etc. - they're collectable! Smokers have to keep smoking to collect the whole set!

They're tricky buggers, those tobacco-peddling corporate bastards.

Links, missing and otherwise.
03/03/2002

So I watched a bit of The Weakest Link the other day. Jesus fuck.

I understand that Anne Robinson, the dominatrix from the original British version, was a journalist much like our own Louise Wallace. The difference is that theirs was apparently known to be a genuine abrasive bitch - publicity on the show's site claims that "Writing columns in a variety of British tabloid newspapers, The Mirror, and later in The Sun, Today and The Times, she honed her caustic style and Rottweiler approach." Unlike ours - hard-hitting reporter maybe, but submissive's wet dream? Also, dear Louise is too well known in our country of a mere 4-or-so million, so we know the Mistress Bitch routine is all an act. Frankly it gets embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as the contestants, really. Almost.

"Name the colour of the rainbow whose name consists of two consonants and two vowels."

"Purple?"

Oh sweet Christ. I guess they deliberately screen hopefuls to find the dumbest they can get. And the most spineless - I long for the day when we hear:

"That was a stupid answer, Bob."

"Suck my balls, Louise."

Or:

"You are the weakest link, Timothy - good bye."

"Get fucked, Louise. No, seriously, get fucked. Jam your weakest link directly up your prissy, Gina Hardface-Bitch-wannabe arse."

That'd brighten my whole week no end.

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