There are good things....

....happening this week.

Firstly, someone from my recruitment agency called me to say he may have a job for me (like, a proper one with wages and stuff) that's good.

Second of all Mrs Algo's play started tonight and was really good.

Thirdly, the Terminator TV show is back on so all men like me who have a thing for Summer Glau get to have a whole forty five minutes of her on telly.

Hmm... anything else I wonder... hmm...

Oh well, have a picture of the lovely Miss Glau, though it does look like she has pissed on the floor.
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Should I be insulted?

I was at a casting today...

I don';t know what my agency's malfunction is but surely there is usually a good argument to be made in favour of actually finding out what it is a casting for and telling the guy who has to go there?

This particular one was for a B.. sigh.. a Boris Johnson lookalike thing for a chocolate company. Look, I accept I'm a little portly and fair skinned, but I really didn't want to think I look like that moron.

The other thing is, I usually have a beard. Not a Brian Blessed beard, but significant facial hairage. If the agency told me I'd have shaved for the cxasting. As it is I turned up for a casting to be Boris Johnson with a full beard. Needless to say I haven't heard back. they were very pleasant and kind and said they could "look through" the beard. Bless them for being nice but I haven't heard anything so it may be that my agent managed to cost me the job. Sigh... rant over.

A
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Quick Movie Review: Mallrats

Everyone likes Kevin Smith, right? Not his films though.

Maybe the likes of Clerks, Chasing Amy and Mallrats are an acquired taste after all, and I'm just a freak. Sure the loose series, consisting of, in order

1. Clerks
2. Mallrats
3. Chasing Amy
4. Dogma
   
5. Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back
6. Clerks II

This loose series is patchy in both tone and quality (Chasing Amy is notably entirely different in tone) and some of the geekish humour and injoking turns a lot of people off and I'm not unsympathetic to these views.

I do, however, disagree.
Lets look at Mallrats itself. It's not going to climb all the way to the top of an Empire poll any time soon, it's just simply great fun. More accessible than maybe any of his other films it concerns a John Hughes style relationship drama as its two main protagonists are ldumped by their girlfriends and go hang out at the mall for the day to cheer themselves up.

Really thats all you really need to know - mayhem ensues, some of which is Jay and Slent Bob centred and they are always worth the entrance fee for me just on their own.

Smith is a star at writing realistic yet simulaneously pretentious dialogue ("Lois could not have Superman's baby") and I'll always be a fan. If you want to check out Smith's films, and are prrkpared to overlook Claire Forlani's appalling performance then this is a great place to start. It's not the best (for me that's Clerks) or most polished (That J&SBSB) but it is the most accessible.

See and enjoy.

A
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Movie Review: Enter The Dragon

4/10A

OK, nostalgia and kitsch aside, Bruce Lee's breakthrough movie is actually, sigh... a bit pants.

IT has been a while since I first saw it, and I am under no illusions that when I saw it then I was sober. It also doesn't help that, it is impossible to watch without laughing out loud at moments from the at times shot-for-shot parody, Fistful Of Yen, which is the star attraction of Kentucky Fried Movie.

The plot, such as it is, centres around Bruce Lee's character, Lee (imagination not high on the agenda) who goes to Dr Klahn's... sorry, Han's island on behalf of a shady international organisation who want him stopped. He is to compete in a tournament and while doing so, investigate the island and if he finds a radio he should contact the organisation who will send in the marines.

Sound hokey? Yup.

It's even worse when you realise there's no reason why they don't send in the marines already and get it over with. Actually, there is a reason, and its so they can fit a movie in the middle of things.

It gets a special A on the rating since it's really, really funny. The acting goes so far towards the bad end of the scale that it actually goes past bad and ends up back at being incredible again. Add the fact that it is dubbed to this and the mental plot then it achieves a perfect storm of awfulness.

So what we have is a terrible plot with terrible acting that becomes an unintentional laugh riot.

So why should you watch it? Simple. Bruce Lee was a kung fu God - he arranged all the fight scenes and does things with his body that simply should not be physically possible. It's frankly beautiful to see him fighting. This is famously one of the criticisms of the movie, that Lee makes violence seem exceptionally cool and attractive. The bit with the nunchucks caused countless injuries...

Look, it's sad but there's not much else to say... apart from to bemoan the laughable blaxploitation subplot with the other two nominal heroes of the piece.

Ah well... I remember Fist Of Fury being much better.

A
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Missed Me?

Yeah, I decided to take a few days off since I was in Essex doing some >ahem< charity work...

Actually I had a serious hankering to get back to the blog after a couple of days away.. I must be a blog junkie or something.

Anyhoo, business resumes as normal tomorrow.


A
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Fly your cruddy ships across the galaxy....

I know, I know, you hate me talking about Board Games, but this one is a little special.
Many of the "gamers games" out at the moment are very serious, and have dull themes... you know the sort of thing, creating postal routes in medieval Germany for example, or trading bits of cardboard at auction.... so far so YAWN, right?

Sucks sometimes, if you don't let yourself get into it... so hoorah for the genius, Vlaada Chvatil who designed another of my favourite games, Through The Ages, who has in this case created the rather wonderful "Galaxy Truckers", which gave me one of the most immensely fun Wednesday evenings I have had in ages...

What's the game about? Well... it's mainly in two parts... the first is you, against the clock, trying to build as good a spaceship as you can from the parts available and in the second yhe ships you have built are sent across the galaxy encountering meteor storms, space pirates and the like and for the most part getting smashed to bits.

It's not a game for people who like reliable strategies and predictable gameplay since it is impossible to build a ship capable of withstanding everything the game throws at you and is even harder to guess what the trip across the galaxy is going to throw at you in the way of laser blasts, potentially lucrative cargo and meteor storms...

There are lots of bits to choose from when making your ship, but there's a catch - everyone is grabbing them in a time limit from the same pile of parts, creating competition... especially since there aren't enough pieces for everyone and each person to finish gets a headstart on those behind them. Yowzer!

So in fact it is purely a game of trying to protect yourself from all hazards, but this is impossible so you come to rely on crazy luck based guesswork... bearing this in mind though, it is ridiculous amounts of FUN! I lost this first game by an absolute mile as my poor little ship was absolutely smashed to bits on the final run through the galaxy and I lost half of my ship to a wayward asteroid. Nevertheless it was the most chatty, laugh out loud and friendly experience I have had for a long time. It has for the first time in ages led me to really bemoan the lack of funds I have at the moment (so anyone looking for Christmas inspiration....).

Thanks for listening,

A
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Quick Movie Review: The Magician

5/10

Oh dear oh dear. This 'Classic' black and white Bergman gets a lousy five from me.

It's not that it was bad.. it was totally ok. Beautifully shot and very finely acted, this is the story of a troupe of "magnetic healers" who are in trouble with the authorities after strange events in their last perforance... the film is wonderfully ambiguous about whether they are actually capable of any of the things that are their act, certainly the grandmother is much more than she seems. This seems to be the interesting angle tyo concentrate on, but the film mainly focusses on the (in my opinion at least) less interesting story of the local police chief and his buddies mocking the troupe and their attempts to show them as charlatans.

The best thing in it, as was the case with The Seventh Seal, is Gunnar Bjornstrand (the squire in TSS, by the way) as the medical chief fascinated by the motley band's claims, but really I finished the film with no real idea what its point was, or why I should care.

There are at least three fascinating tales here, but all are merely hinted at, with a far larger amount of time spent on lame innuendo and the frankly hideous Tubal chatracter who is more or less Jack Black in black and white. I wanted more of the magical ambiguity, I wanted a showdown between the two men at the centre of events to be absoltuely apocalyptic, I wanted the married couple to fall back in love, I wanted anybody to get their comeuppance.... didn't happen.

There are a couple of chuckles, a marvellously creepy scene of psychological torture upstairs in the attic/autopsy room and a great atmosphere, but these things alone do not make a good movie. Bergman's ability as a filmmaker is not in doubt, but I doubt this will be high on anyone's list of classic movies.

The ending is appallingly slight and rushed (rain stops so immediately no trace of it can be seen anywhere), with no moral message or anything else interesting to show for the end of the tale. What was Bergman's point? No idea. It seems to me like the ending was perhaps changed and reshot at the last minute. The news everyone receives at the end is ludicrous to the point where I threw up my hands in despair.

Not that good, I'm afraid.

A
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Song Lyric Game - Round two

Right, it's been a week so here as promised are the second lines of these songs for you to guess. NO cheating now - since you have twice as much to guess from I am knocking points scored down to halves. Sorry"

1. Stand Back! Stand Back! What are those dogs doing sniffing at my feet? They're onto something - picking up, picking up this heat...
   
2. What shall we use to fill the [title] where weight of hunger gnaws? Shall we set out across this sea of faces in search of more and more applause?
   
3. She'll let you in her house, when you come knocking late at night, she'll let you in her mouth if the words you say are right (these are the genuine words!!!)
   
4. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, maybe I've been here too long the songs on the radio sound the same, everbody just looks the same...
   
5. The mind has so many pictures, why can't I sleep with my eyes open? The mind has so many memories, can you remember what it looks like when I cry.
   
6. I can only speak the words as quickly as they're coming now, believe me. Woo oo oo oo. Looking down upon the bed suspended by a silver thread I'm dreaming...
   
7. Anthony works in the grocery store, saving his pennies for someday, Mama Leoné left a note on the door saying sonny move out to the country...
   
8. Light switch, man switch, film was broken only then, All the night fused tomorrow, dancing with a distant friend, filming and dreaming....
   
9. When you're in love, you know you're in love - no matter what you try to do. You might as well resign yourself to what you're going through...
   
10. There are better things to talk about. Be constructive. There are weapons we can use. Be constructive with your blues...
    
11. What's wrong baby? Don't they treat you like they should? Did you take em for it? Every penny that you could?
    
12. My little girl... drive anywhere. Do what you want. I don't care. Tonight, I'm in the hands of fate I hand myself over on a plate. Tonight.
    
13. When you laugh it just makes me cry. When you cry it just makes me smile. when you mile that just makes me mad. when you're mad it just makes me smile...
    
14. I am waiting 'til I don't know when.. cos I'm surely gonna have been then time is creeping through my [title] killing old folks, waking babies....
    
15. Hey kids, shake it loose together, the spotlights hitting something that's been known to change the weather...
    
16. Skinny white sailor the chances were slender the beauties were brief... shall I mourn your decline with some thunderbird wine and a black handkerchief?
    
17. Suffocating eyes and fast hellos and last goodbyes surround the night of me, moustache large like smoke from his cigar, coughs up a joke and laughs a net of sound...
    
18. The moment comes and he is off again, just look at this one go, they all see it but he's gone so fast just look at him go...
    
19. Look outside your window, the darkest sky you ever saw and here am I and there are you and that's all.
    
20. I fell asleep on a late night train, I missed my stop and went round again, why would I want to see you now?
    
21. Some people stay far away from the door if there's a chance of it opening up, they hear a voice in the hall outside and hope that it just passes by...
    
22. Somebody told me just the other day, that you're leaving me - we're through. If you knew how I love you so, then you'd change your mind, i'm sure.... - Roxy Music, Name still awaited
    
23. Well the cops are at the door and you know that they want more, they've got spears made for arms tried to lure you with their charms...
    
24. Hey look yonder coming - coming down that railroad track...Hey look yonder coming - coming down that railroad track...it's that [title] bringing my baby back...
    
25. [Title] I can almost remember the funny faces, they're telling me truly that you're gonna be marrying soon...
    
26. Would you like to say something before you leave? Would you like to state exactly how you feel? You've said goodbye before we've said hello.
    
27. I want to tell you a story, about a little man, if I can, a [title] called Grimble Gromble...
    
28. I shuffled through the city on the fourth of July, a firecracker waiting to blow, breaking like a rocket that was making its way to the cities of Mexico...
    
29. I stood there beside myself thinking hard about the weather, thihking bout a friend of mine suggest that we go out together.
    
30. Falling, falling, gonna drop like a stone, falling through the atmosphere on a warm afternoon
    
31. When I call you up your line's engaged, I've had enough so act your age...
    
32. If I was beautiful, if I had the time, they would flock to me, bathe me in the wine...
33. Loaded like a freight train, flying like an aeroplane, speeding like a space brain one more time tonight.
    
34. Boys, now the times are changing the going could get rough. Boys, would that ever cross your mind?
    
35. I can't believe what is happening to me, my head is spinning, the flowers and the trees are encapsulating me and I go spinning...
    
36. Huffman don't take no nonsense, He's here to rectify. He's got his black belt buckle... and the red man's fire in his eye...
    
37. Now everyone is going out, but I'm staying in, see I gotta nurse my lonely heart, with [title] gin. It's not that my baby is mad at me - no. For doing something wrong.
    
38. Voices from a photograph laugh from your wall, scream through your dreams, wake up [title] and wipe your weary eyes.
    
39. Every day I get up in the morning go to work, do my job whatever. I need some [Title], Everybody's at war these days.. lets have a mini surrender.
    
40. I was bruised and battered, I couldn't tell what I felt -I was unrecognisable to myself.
    
41. All these accidents that happen, follow the dots, coincidence, makes sense only with you. You don't have to speak - I feel emotional landscapes they cover me....
    
42. Seems you created your own illusion, fueled by an image of me, I couldn;t stay by your side - it wouldn't be right....

Best of luck this time!

A

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An explanation...

The Downfall review is now up.

Please read it and tell me your views on the issues raised.

More than ever I wanted to walk away from this particular review for a few days before posting it to make sure I had said what I wanted to say properly.

Let me make one point even clearer. I am not a Nazi sympathiser.

Any belief that the views expressed in the review show me to be one is incorrect.

I'm hoping no-one will think so, but I can't keep rewriting and rewriting in the hope I can avoid all accusations to the contrary.

I hope if you do see the film you'll understand where I am coming from.

Thanks

A
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Joe The Plunber

I love this guy, really I do.

If you're not as obsessed with the US election which began early voting today (in Florida, home of the racist old people seen on the Daily Show), you probably still heard about Joe the Plunber, who had a go at Obama's tax plans by poiting out that if he achieved his dream of owning his plumbing company his tax would go up. This implicates Obama in a very un-American plot to tax the successful, something that is potentially very harmful to his message.

So good an opportunity was this for points scoring that McCain referenced our Joe 20 times in the last debate, in fact he barely talked about anything else! Thing is... Joe The Plumber isn;t a McCain voter... he's not admitted who he's voting for and, get this, his names not Joe (it's Sam)... and he's not qualified to be a plumber. Oh, and he owes $1200 in back taxes.

Is this really who McCain wants to be the centrepiece of his last two weeks of campaigning?

Who cares anyway? It turns out that Joe (or Sam) couldn't buy the plumbing firm he works for even if he came back in twenty years. How "ordinary" is such a voter anyway? How many Americans have enough capital to buy a $250,000 company?

It's a sad fact of political campaigning that massive issues usually get reduced to tiny levels, the whole American populace cannot be represented by one man after all. I hate to sound like a bleating political type, but this genuinely is the effect of the media, who like their story to take place in a very small area so they can really be lazy about it.

Me, I'm surprised that noone takes McCain up on the issue of contradicting himself over the current economic situation. He says on one hand it's caused by lack of effective regulation, but on the other hand he says he wants government to keep out of banks business in future. How does that work?

I am also sick of the Republicans trying to make Obama a terrorist - based on nothing but his colour and his name. That's just plain racism guys!

As for who I want to win the election, I think it's probably Obama - I have no real problem with McCain as a presidential candidate, by the way - my beef statrted when he picked his VP candidate. More on that, no doubt, at another time.

A
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Another great day to be a Spurs fan....

Best Spurs Joke I have heard so far?

Q: What's the difference between Spurs and a triangle?

A: A triangle has three points.

You know, I'm starrting to think that I have a knack for picking games to watch that truly destroy my desire to ever see a football being kicked again.

Today's involved frankly Marxian slapstick (as in the brothers, not socialism's founding father) of outrageous proportions as, not content with having hurt himself in training, our maniac of a goalkeeper managed to hurt himself badly again, refuse to come off despite looking like his ribs had turned to powder in his chest not move at all to stop the opposition's winning goal then seriously hurt our defender, Vedran Corluka in the ribs so he had to be treated at length - then, not content with badly hurting Corluka's ribs he proceeds to knee him in the face immediately after his return to the pitch and knock him cold.

We also had two players sent off, gave away two penalties (one of which hit all three bits of the woodwork on its way to being missed) and generally looked forward to a year in the Championship instead of the premier league next year.

Well.... no.

I can't think of anything else to say, we are now a full win on points behind the divots at Newcastle and thing can't possibly get any worse... can they?

A
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You know you're poor when....

1. You rely on period extras casting for your haircuts
2. You have to weigh up whether to take two buses or three on your way home
3. You decide maybe chickens aren't that important and buy the cheap, factory farmed stuff after all
4. The new Bond film comes out, and you can't afford to even get the train to stand outside the cinema...
5. You suddenly remember every frivolous purchase you've ever made (why do I own so many cardboard pirate ships?)
6. You decide to put on a second jumper instead of turning on the heating for half an hour.
7. You've had cereal for breakfast and lunch every day for a month.
8. You live in terror that your printer ink will run out before someone accepts any of the job applications you've sent because you can't afford to replace it.
9. You resent having to replace the enormous bag of rice you bought six months ago... who's been stealing it???
10. A happening Friday night consists of an episode of The Wire and a good sulk.

Hope you guys are having fun!

A
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Movie Review: Downfall

9/10

Occasionally a film will come along and totally blow me away on an emotional level.

This is such a film, as was The Lives Of Others, both made in Germany, of all places.

I also, and this is a fact, never cry. I haven't cried at a film in years and years, but I found myself welling up at the end of this wonderful piece of important, and historically relevant, cinema

Don't get me wrong, the lump in my throat does not relate to how the Nazi's were misunderstood geniuses and how I feel sorry for Adolf and Goebbels and all the rest of them. I want to make that absolutely clear straight away.

It was, in fact, because an old woman was admitting that while she wasn't truly a Nazi in her heart, she now felt that she should have tried to find out what was going on outside her bubble and done or felt something about it.

The realisation dawned in my mind that she had lived 60 years with this terrible self-knowledge that at the time she could have been outraged, upset, angry... but she never bothered to see what was truly going on. I found that profoundly moving, so sue me.

The old lady in question is Traudl Junge, Hitlers secretary and one of the people with him in the Berlin Bunker at the time of his self inflicted death in 1945. She was acquitted as being a "young" collaborator (i.e. brainwashed) and did not face the same fates as her employers.

The story of the last days of Hitler and of the German resistance is told from several viewpoints, those of Junge, of a doctor who refuses to leave Berlin with the SS and from that of a young boy, an idealistic Hitler youth.

These viewpoints serve to give us a far more manageable and empathetic story than we are used to and the film's origin in Germany is probably the absolutely crucial factor in its success. The central theme of the movie for me is not "look at the bad men running away from their comeuppance" as is the typical Western Allies thinking, it is a far more important message.

This message is the reason why I loved this film. It is very simple - "we are all human".

Every single person, be it Himmler, Goebbels, even Adolf Hitler himself, is a human being. This may be controversial for some people and I am not unsympathetic to that viewpoint. The Nazis under Hitler and his governemnt commited some of the worst acts ever perpetrated by human beings - you really don't need me to run through them. The film, like me, chooses not to really mention these either, and we are actually momentarily shocked when Hitler dictates his personal "testament" describing how he was proud of taking the Jews head on, and later when his marriage to Eva Braun is delayed by the racial purity tests ("are you of pure Aryan descent?") it's almost blackly comic.

The central reason for this omission of the detail of Nazi atrocities is perfectly in keeping with the realism inherent in the film's story - it is highly doubtful that the German high command went around chatting about the gassing of millions of people, especially during the defence of their own capital.

The humanity of each of the characters in the sense that I am referring to it, is that none of these people were inhuman monsters - deluded, yes.... psychotic, yes.... extremist, yes... but not inhuman. In fact, the factors that led to the rise of national socialism and the atrocities these men were guilty of are not so hard to sympathise with, economic crippling after the first world war by the allies being a huge part of it.

It's an important point I am trying to make, so forgive me if I labour it a bit now. In a movie like, say, Cloverfield, your enemy is not human, they are simply reacting to animal drives that make them amoral killing machines. In contrast, all of the people in Downfall really believe that their cause is what is right and necessary for Germany. They aren't just inhuman monsters. It's very naive to think that a human being is incapable of being just as monstrous as a 50 foot reptile.

For example, Goebell's wife breaks down and wipes out her entire family because she cannot accept a world without National Socialism, and this is the feeling of the characters - their dream has died and there is nothing left to live for. This is no different in my mind, to any deeply held belief system, religious or otherwise - if you truly believe something is right, who are others to say that you are wrong? If the Nazis had (shudder) won the war and succeeded in wiping out the Jewish race, would we still see them as two dimensionally as we tend to? Of course not - we would have been brought up in their way of thinking, or at least to accept their beliefs as a "valid belief structure" as we do with Christianity or Islam, or Scientology for that matter. This is because our understanding of the world is immeasurably coloured by the education and the indoctrination of our youth, as was the youth, such as Junge or the yound boy, Peter, during Hitler's time in Germany.

For this reason we can, while not agreeing with their beliefs, understand what is going through the minds of Frau Goebbels, or the Hitler Youth manning the defences in Berlin who choose to kill themselves rather than be captured or to surrender.

Despite it showing the end of the tyranny of Nazism, Downfall never feels like it has a traditional "happy" ending.

The film never overreaches itself in scale, keeping very much to those individuals' fates that we were introduced to in the opening ten minutes this means we have time to really buy into the characters and see through their eyes, as it were, the death of Nazi Germany.

The acting is absolutely flawless, obviously the main plaudits have to go to Bruno Ganz who, as Hitler is believably the man who turned an entire country mad with anger and rage, yet giving him depth and nuance where it would be so easy to go for shock value. He is kind to his staff, loves his dog and is truly distressed at the destruction of his vision. It's what they used to call a "powerhouse" performance.

Alongside him, his Eva, played by Juliane Kohler, is equally wonderful - totally out of touch with reality at times (she holds a party while Berlin is being bombed, for example), utterly devoted to her love and well aware of her fate it's a part so easy to fail miserably and yet it becomes one of the star attractions.

While these are the obvious standouts, Alexandria Maria Lara as Traudl Junge and especially Ulrich Matthes' Goebbels show that every character can have depth and humanity, however insignificant or monstrous they seem.

It is also a film of moments to remember forever - a boy wakes up in the shell hole he sheltered in overnight, only now seeing that he has slept next to a fresh corpse. After murdering her family, another character sits calmly down to play patience while awaiting her own death and throughout the bombs are falling outside... it's impossible to avoid having these images stay with you.

I haven't given it a ten simply because it's message may well be too much for some to swallow. How can it be so sympathetic to these people for whom history has little mercy or consideration? My personal feeling is that now, in this time of terror and fundamentalism more than ever, this point is relevant and important to remember - however wrong they were in our minds, they believeid they were in the right.

Highly recommended!

A
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Simple Pleasures

I spent a very fine day today at the ultra-mature pastime of rollercoaster riding at Thorpe Park with the inestimable Mrs A.

Now, like all Theme Parks there are an awful lot of complicated rides available to serve a lot of tastes, X:\ for example is a backwards rollercoaster in the pitch dark, Nemesis is one where you hang down and twist and turn through several silly curves and Colossus apparently is the only one in Europe with 10 loops.

So why was my favourite ride in the park the relatively simple concept of Detonator, which does the following?

1. It lifts you up about 50 feet.
2. It drops you.

That's really all there is to it, and there's nothign like the sudden realisation you are dropping straight down in free fall - and despite having seen it going up and down several times I can't avoid the thought on my way down "what if this is the time the hydraulics don't catch us"

The other majorly impressive ride on show this time was called Stealth, which is ironic because it may well be the least subtle ride in history in that it's 205 feet tall! Why is this ride so tall?

Two reasons - one is that it is very very fast. It accelerates you to 80 mph in less than two seconds. It does this by being mag-lev based rather than simply being track and momentum based like many. The second reason is for this nature... you need a way to slow down from that first acceleration - the camera for this one is right at the start by the way - the fact that they do it in a giant arch is just good marketing. After this its back to momentum to come down from the arch.

That these were my favourites says a lot about me, but what about my readers? Are you a thrill seeker? DO you like your thrills simple or complex? Keep it as clean as possible please.

Incidentally, if you are planning going to a theme park, I really can recommend the late september/early october period between the start of term and half term. To show just how good this period is, just bear in mind that today me and Mrs Algo were unlucky enough to hit a school "incept day" (huh> what a weird term... they used to be called Baker Days in my youth) and the park was still 95% empty with queue times virtually nonexistent on the less famous rides and less than twenty minutes on the biggies (Colossus, Stealth and Nemesis).

Hopefully I will see a movie tomorrow and you'll get a review instead of the lame story of my life. Til Then...

A
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What are those people doing on the stairs?

Hmm... If you have any kind of nerves over self image I would not recommend the world of Extras to you. Consider my day today.

I was representing a sperm. Yup, the Male Gamete. Great.

I'm not really complaining, I love the fact I've had three weeks with work in and I've had several absurdly easy jobs recently.

Let me explain in more detail;

By Waterloo Bridge there are two of my least favourite buildings in London, The Hayward Gallery and The National Theatre, awful ugly homages to concrete blocks, they exude all the artistry and beauty of a hazardous chemical spill. Next to them is the Royal Festival Hall and South Bank Centre, nicer buildings and our base for today's filming. Dressed all in white, and and male and female, we headed for the awful concrete steps of the two concrete monstrosities, to run up and down on the sperms way to the womb.

By the way if you, like some people, were asking why both male AND female, biology fans will know there are Xs and Ys in Sperm, unlike the X purity found in the female gamete, the egg. Hope that helps answer that issue.

I'm not very fit.

OK... I'm unfit. Running up and down stairs is not my best suit. But I did as much as I can and felt at the end of the morning as if I'd really worked properly for a change. I even got a little starring shot later on (as the worlds greasiest sperm - don't ask). It wasn;t a job for those keen on personal space either since we were all jammed togther in a thirty person in 5 square foot huddle for much of the afternoon, really confusing passers by, who must have thought a really strange fully clothed orgy was going on. weird.

Oh well. I did win for once at the evenings game night so hurrah for that.

A
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Song Lyric Guessing Game - No Prizes!!!

Thanks to the glorious GABSTAR for this idea. Basically what you do is play your music player on random (in my case mine is broken, so its my entire CD collection on the PC) and write the first line of the first bunch of songs down, and when people guess the title and artist right they are showered with sod all.

See how many you can get - I've done fifty since some of my collection is a bit obscure.

For my email readers, follow the link at the end of your email (it says "Posted by Algo to Wall Shadows") and comment on the site rather than send me your guesses by direct email so everyone can see your answers.

I know its easy if you just do a lyrics search online, but that's hardly the point. This is supposed to be for fun!

Oh, and the first one that came out was "Could it be this chemical attraction provokes an equal and opposite reaction?" which no-one should get, so I ignored it.

If you can, have a biscuit. There is one of my songs sitting in here though...

1. Stand Back! Stand Back! What are those dogs doing sniffing at my feet?
   
2. What shall we use to fill the [title] where weight of hunger gnaws?
3. She'll let you in her house, when you come knocking late at night...
4. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, maybe I've been here too long...
5. The mind has so many pictures, why can't I sleep with my eyes open?
6. I can only speak the words as quickly as they're coming now, believe me...
7. [title] works in the grocery store, saving his pennies for someday...
8. Light switch, man switch, film was broken only then
9. When you're in love, you know you're in love - no matter what you try to do
10. There are better things to talk about. Be constructive. There are weapons we can use.
11. What's wrong baby? Don't they treat you like they should?
12. My little girl... drive anywhere. Do what you want. I don't care.
13. When you laugh it just makes me cry. When you cry it just makes me smile.
14. Oh... The word's on the street you've found someone new. Jarvis Cocker - Bad Cover Version
    
15. I am waiting 'til I don't know when.. cos I'm surely gonna have been then...
16. Hey kids, shake it loose together...
17. Skinny white sailor the chances were slender the beauties were brief...
18. Suffocating eyes and fast hellos and last goodbyes surround the night of me...
19. The moment comes and he is off again, just look at this one go...
20. Look outside your window, the darkest sky you ever saw...
21. Got a feeling 21 is gonna be a good year - The Who, 1921
    
22. I fell asleep on a late night train, I missed my stop and went round again...
23. I follow the Moskva down to Gorky Park..., the scorpions, wind of change
    
24. Some people stay far away from the door if there's a chance of it opening up...
25. Somebody told me just the other day, that you're leaving me - we're through... - Roxy Music, Name still awaited
    
26. Well the cops are at the door and you know that they want more...
27. Hey look yonder coming - coming down that railroad track...
28. [Title] I can almost remember the funny faces...
29. Would you like to say something before you leave? Would you like to state exactly how you feel?
30. I want to tell you a story, about a little man, if I can...
31. I shuffled through the city on the fourth of July, a firecracker waiting to blow...
32. I stood there beside myself thinking hard about the weather...
33. Falling, falling, gonna drop like a stone, falling through the atmosphere...
34. When I call you up your line's engaged...
35. If I was beautiful, if I had the time, they would flock to me, bathe me in the wine...
36. Loaded like a freight train, flying like an aeroplane..
37. Boys, now the times are changing the going could get rough...
38. You remind me of the babe.... - Dance Magic, David Bowie (yes, from Labyrinth)
    
39. I can't believe what is happening to me, my head is spinning...
40. (good luck with this one) Huffman don't take no nonsense, He's here to rectify...
41. Tin Soldiers and Nixon's coming... - Crosby, Stillls, Nash and Young, Ohio
    
42. Did you ever see the faces of the children they get so excited... - The Who, Christmas
    
43. Now everyone is going out, but I'm staying in, see I gotta nurse my lonely heart...
44. Voices from a photograph laugh from your wall, scream through your dreams...
45. Every day I get up in the morning go to work, do my job whatever...
46. I spy in the night sky, don't I? Phoebe, Io, Elara.... - Blur, Name still pending.
    
47. I was bruised and battered, I couldn't tell what I felt...
48. All these accidents that happen, follow the dots, coincidence, makes sense only with you...
    
49. Virgil Kane is the name and I served on the Danville train... - The Band, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
    
50. Seems you created your own illusion, fueled by an image of me....

Good luck and enjoy!!!

A
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Movie Ratings Now Link To Reviews

Some of you may have casually glanced at the "last 25 films I saw" sidebar and thought "huh?" well now I have finally bothered to go back and sort the mother out, so now any film I have reviewed or substantially referenced gets a link to the relevant post.

Please feel free to try reading a few you never saw.

I have for the short term kicked the list up to the last 50 films I have seen and I am pleased to see there are very few I haven't reviewed, with he main culprits being while I was in Cornweall and half dead with the flu. I'll try and fill in the gaps over the next week or so, when I will also drop it back to just 25 films on that list.

If you find any broken links or want to make any other comment about the way the site is arranged, please comment below. Cheers!

A
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Movie Review: [REC]

7/10A

It's a guilty pleasure.

I love horror movies. Especially the original Zombie movies by George A Romero (Night Of The Living Dead, Dawn Of The Dead and to a slightly lesser extent, Day of The Dead).



Remade in various forms countless times they concern chiefly our fear of death and madness, and the taboo subject of cannibalism and, in some readings, biological contagions of some form or another. All of us hate to be "dirty" or "infected" and whether we like to admit it or not are very cautious about approaching someone who is diseased in any way - it's built in through evolution to abhor sickness and stay as far away from it as possible.

The really nasty thing that separates the zombies from, say, alien invaders or giant bugs or tentacled monsters is that they are, quite literally, us. All that a zombie (in the movie sense) is, is a human being whose brain has been reduced to two primal drives, aggression and hunger.

This really scares you because our 'higher' brain functions, as we are constantly reminded, are all that keep us from such a bestial way of life - we are no longer creatures of pure drive and response - but wth that extra knowledge comes the fear of giving into those primal desires and going, for want of a better word, mental.

As an aside, it's less common for the sex drive to be included here. If I remember it was in Cronenberg's "Shivers" that this was explored and that's something of an oddity. The creatures in most Zombie movies are purely hunger driven, and then, only for fresh meat - something that cannot have evolved since it is entirely unsustainable - they eat faster than their prey reproduce leading, as shown in in 28 days later, to eventual starvation. They won't eat each other as a usual rule of thumb, and I can buy that. You usually keep your ingroup safe if you can.



Now, I've been looking forward to two recent "first person" zombies movies, [REC] and Romero's "Diary Of The Dead ". I was entirely expecting that zombie horror sunbgenre, disturbing and claustrophoic as it usually is would be even more terrifying and downright plain ol' scary than before when given the "Cloverfield" treatment. For those not in the know, this is usually done by having a major character holding a camera for the movie, not literally seeing through their eyes, as in (thanks Gary) Lady In The Lake.

This offering, from Co-Writer-Directors Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza, along with scriptwriter Luis Berdejo does not disappoint. It is genuinely, arse-clenchingly, pant-wettingly scary.


The horror cues that seem cliché when invoked in a more traditional way (things moving in the back of shot, bodies disappearing and reappearing, sudden screaming attacks etc) just seem ten times less yawnsome and thirty million times more awesome when it feels (as it did for me) like you are looking through the eyes of the poor saps involved.

The set up is almost a classic Romero style moral joke - the "star" of the piece is young Angela, who is presenting a local TV show on the fire brigade and what they do, but on this quiet night finds the whole thing a bit dull, and is wishing for something exciting to happen for her to comment on.

Be careful what you wish for, Angela.

As in Cloverfield we are heightened in our involvement by not seeing the owner of our 'eyes', Pablo. In fact this film goes one better than that movie and you NEVER see Pablo's face at any stage. The insistence on keeping the camera rolling seems also a bit more justified here, as the plucky young reporters insist on recording and showing the situation to condemn the authorities.

They are called to an apartment building where a woman has been heard screaming in her room. All the other residents are downstairs in the hall. The firemen go to investigate and... well... you can more or less guess the rest.

Sure, there are a couple of liberties taken with common sense, and the creepy last location and final sequence seem like they came from a different movie in an attempt to explain or at least raise questions about the origin of the outbreak - this hardly matters because the film never loses sight of its central mission, and that is to be total terrifying bedlam. This is helped by the "neo-zombie" approach where the previously shuffling and pathetic (in both senses of the word) dead are now very, very angry and move like bloodied lightning.

It's easy to try and draw comparison with Blair Witch and yes, there are a few new horror clichés that crop up all the time (night vision being the usual one) but where that (also very good) film pulled its punches and is really a ghost story for the most part, this doesn't and you get the gore you would expect from this type of film, albeit in a sudden and jerky way.

In the short time of the movie (around 80-90 minutes by my watch) we still have time to connect with every character to some extent and sympathise with them. I'd really recommend this to horror lovers everywhere. Oh, and see Cloverfield as well, the people who were down on it, were those who previously attributed more depth to it than was ever promised.

Til the rental folks send me it, I look forward to seeing if Romero's "Diary" can beat this one.
I've stuck an Algo special "A" on it, because while it may not be the best film ever, it was certainly a blast and a half. In its specific subgenre it probably rates a 9 on my usual scale.

Til next time!

A
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I've been in the studio again....

this weekend, so sorry for no funny post. I thought that since I am half asleep I would inflict song lyrics from Mr Scott Walker on you for today's entry:

They're form Farmer in The City of his Tilt album... and while odd, they gain a lot from his delivery. This is just the last section.




Can't go buy a man in this shirt.
Go buy a man in that shirt.
Can't go buy a man with brain grass,
go buy his long lost eye glass

and i used to be a citizen
and I never felt the pressure
I knew nothing of the horses
Nothing of the thresher.

Follow.

Take me with you.

It was the journey of a life.
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Quick Movie Review: The Wrong Man

6/10

See, being a fan of Once Upon A Time In The West, it's hard for me to sympathise with Henry Fonda, so when he is arrested in a case of mistaken identity I was almost grateful.

This is a Hitchcock movie in black And white (wait.. come back!) and features the only Hitchcock narration - to introduce the film.

Fonda's performance is monumental, simmering with silent anger at the injustice of it all, and this is pretty much the entire plot of the movie described here. Alfred Hitchcock introduces it as "true - every word" and I'm not sure how real a claim this is... It's similar in presentation and tone to the (vastly superior) Strangers On A Train and other early Hitchcock and not really in the same vein as, say, Vertigo or Rear Window.

The concession to character development is that his wife totally loses it halfway through and goes severely AWOL in the brain department. It's pretty well acted, though the understanding of this situation seems a bit archaic now
(lock her in a room to cure paranoid depression? that'll work)

So what we find is a club's double bass player accused of robbing some places on the dodgy eyewitness testimony of a couple of ladies. What was quite cool is how the are so shocked at seeing the man again they don't really look at his face properly, and this is a nice way of showing why they were so wrong. Fans of funny Hitchcock sexism will laugh out loud when they say that the reason he didn't try and rob them again is that in addition to the 10 women behind the counter in the bank, there is a MAN fixing a typewriter. Thank goodness for that!

The Wrong Man is not a glowingly positive view of American justice, I must say, and come the end there's little in the way of comeuppance for the witnesses or the lazy cops, just a return to scraping by and trying to repay the bail money lent by his brother in law.

Harsh... but true.

A
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Can't complain

Well... I spent most of this morning in bed (after my 5am start yesterday) and the council guy was nice to us, and we may well be benefits bound. Embarrassing but I'd rather eat than avoid shame.

The worst thing that happened today was that Tony Morgan, the bounty hunter was sent insane and devoured by Y'Golonac, and that was only in a game (Arkham Horror, Mrs Algo's favourite) so whoop!

The Zen's busted up good still though.
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ALGO RANT: I should have stayed in bed... this week.

Turning into a tough week this one - just when I was feeling good as well.

It started out looking peachy, I was offered extra work on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, which is quality - BUT!

Sunday was Mrs Algo's birthday - NO MATTER! Says I, since I still have four days in hand thanks to kind hand of fate.

So things were looking good for a busy but profitable week. Now I feel like Wil E Coyote just after he's run off the cliff, but before he starts falling. Do I really want to get out of bed and see what new "fun" happens tomorrow?

Anyhoo... read on and you'll understand why I rant.



Shock horror, the Monday and Tuesday work is cancelled. No harm done, me and Mrs Algo decide to visit the Museum In Docklands the relatively short trip it is away on Monday. BUT! Mrs Algo loves the DLR - it is cool - and we decided to go on that. I hit on the idea of strolling along the river from London Bridge to Tower Hill to get the DLR from there. The station has been shut for ages. I am a fool. So we think again and try the boats for the Thames view - they're expensive, yes, but fun. Oh... we just missed one and the next one is in half an hour. Damn.

Ah well... we walk to Bank and get on the DLR there. It doesn't move.

The man closes the barriers for people coming down to the DLR. Still it doesn't move.

Man says a train ahead has broken down. Will take 30 mins to sort out.

We go back to London Bridge and just take the Jubilee line.

Time of trip if done the way we meant? 30 minutes. Time it took us on Monday? 2 HOURS and 30 minutes. ARGH! At least we were so late for the museum (only an hour and a half before closing) they let us in for free. Must go back there.

Ah well, I think, at least I still have two days work on Weds and Thursday!
(note me trying to look on the bright side)

BUT! then at 6:30 ish on Tuesday night, my Wednesday work is ALSO cancelled, leaving me with a single days work on a well known police based TV show on Thursday. I was almost willing that to be cancelled too, so I could curse the world as being completely against me (a good moment for anyone who thinks I am a sinner to pipe up), but I got to spend 11 hours in the company of a wonderful bunch of extras/supporting artists/background performers (delete as appropriate) and be in the background in two shots. In eleven hours. Oh, and despite only being on set for an hour in total (in two half hour "bursts") it is during one of these periods that my agency text me to say they may have some work and would I please call them. I do after filming (just 25 minutes after he text was sent) and they have already filled the job. AAAARGH!!!

Now, I was still trying to feel ok and philosphical about all this lost work - after all I get to go to my games club on Wednesday instead of cancelling the exciting game of Through The Ages we have planned, and I was looking forward to trying something new with the rise of my Empire...

...only to botch a very basic part of the game and cripple my civilisation for a third of the gameplay. I was not amused, but kept soldiering on stupidly in the face of the adversity in question. It's such a good game that I didn't have a bad time playing it, I loved the challenge, but oh damn was I humiliated in final scoring!

And to cap it all off my venerable old 20 gig Creative Zen Touch (carbon dated to 2004) has finally given up the ghost - during playback it started playing bits of other songs and skipping (a VERY bad sign with digital!) and a quick inspection has revealed an ominous rattle from within - it is my guess that a problem has arisen with the spindle or arm in the hard drive and it can't read properly any more. It is now stuck in a permanent reset loop. I am waiting for the battery to run down, and it feels like watching a pet go to sleep (in the permanent sense).

This piece of archaic technology is like a fifth limb to me, and has seen me through countless hours of what would otherwise have been abject boredom. I am going to try and save it, but I don't hold out much hope. If anyone has any ideas please help me save my little Zen!!!

So all in all, this week (well, Monday to Thursday) can F**K OFF. And tomorrow we have to go explain our financial woes to the benefits people. What fun.

Bring on next week.

Hope your week has been better!

A
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A point of order - isn't Algo an Agnostic?

Well, as the "chair" of this debate one sided as it is, I was watching the rather spiffing free video of "The Four Horsemen" over at the Richard Dawkins Foundation discussing their atheism over what looks like lots of lovely coffee. One of the points they didn't address specifically, but which interests me is the question of where the barrier lies between agnosticism and atheism.

All of the participants in said discussion descibe themselves as atheists, and yet as scientists during this discussion they have to admit the uncertainty principle - that they cannot be 100% sure of anything and must admit that they MAY be wrong.

This miniscule level of uncertainty is used frequently by the other side of the argument to batter atheists (or agnostics if you prefer) as not being able to prove anything and just guessing.

Well... I have always described myself as an Atheist (i.e. I don't believe in God) and yet I too must share the position that, believing in the scientific principles that I do I must admit to the same minute chance that I am wrong.

Even the arch Atheist, Richard Dawkins, is prepared to admit that all it would take to severely wound the conventional wisdom on evolution would be proven human (as in Homo Sapiens) remains dated to the Jurassic period. However, while the current evolutionary thinking would be proven wrong by such an unlkely find, such a finding does not destroy the scientific method.

The scientific method, in stark contrast to this thinking, REQUIRES contradictory evidence to develop new ideas and findings. It is beyond reasonable doubt that while conventional wisdom would be rewritten, a new scientific theory would emerge and explain the data far better than the holy book of any religion would. I would also add that the mechanisms of evolution would not be destroyed by such a finding, only the course of events.

What I would clarify though is that the chances (of humans playing catch with the T Rex, of a God) we are talking about are so absurdly small by any conceivable measures that to treat them as anything other than an infinitesimal dust speck of a fraction of a millionth of a percent would be stupid.

Here are things I consider more likely than the existence of a god:

• A brick gaining sentience and establishing its own version of Pythagorian mathematical theories.
• An invasion of Earth by aliens who by an obscure chance look exactly like us.
• Gravity suddenly reversing
• A sudden confluence of atoms creates an exact sphere out of thin air

The above happening do not, of course, render the scientific method incorrect - all have scientific (if unlikely) causations - a silicon based learning neural network is not inconceivable, neither is convergent evolution or a bizarre trick of fortune causing atoms to rearrange impossible - the sudden reversal of gravity is actually the least likely of these ideas since it represents the total change in one of the fundamental forces in our universe (and would destroy everything under its forces that currently exists) but I STILL consider it more probable than the God described by any monotheistic religion you care to choose.

Needless to say, I view the likelihood of there being an almighty creator who rewards us when we are good and tortures us forever when we are bad as ridiculously unlikely. I regard it as millions of times more likely a creator would be some kind of hyper evolved Alien than a benign supernatural deity and the old Athur C Clarke saying goes -

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

of course, he also said

"Science can destroy religion by ignoring it as well as by disproving its tenets. No one ever demonstrated, so far as I am aware, the non-existence of Zeus or Thor — but they have few followers now. "

But! If I accept the possibilty that God may exist (however unlikely) surely that makes me an Agnostic? If I accept that no-one can be "certain" of anything surely that makes me an agnostic? Well, no.

Think of a line... we're going to call it a continuum.

In the following (rubbish) figures, Belief is blue, Agnosticism is Red and Atheism is green.

Rather than thinking of belief as a three option questionairre (belief, agnostic, atheism) think of it as a continuum where absolute 100% belief is at one end and 100% atheism is at the other. Where is Agnosticism on this scale? Surely, somewhere in the middle? Think of several different possibilities... if agnosticism is not being certain of anything, and noone can be sure of anything then EVERYONE is agnostic. Even the current Archbishop of Canterbury probably.

Here it is (fig 1):





Now, think about the difference between someone at a point half an inch in from belief and someone half and inch in from atheism. How do they differ? They certainly do, but both are Agnostics, they don;t know, but they differ in what their opinion is. There are on amy continuum an infinite number of points mathematically, and any number practically you care to divide it into. The main thing I want to get across is that there is a a long corridor, not three rooms divided by locked doors.


In another version it is divided into thirds - one third belief, one third agnosticism and one third atheism. Is that more like it? (fig 2)




Now agnostics are defined as the middle ground, the Goldilocks porridge of religious debate... I am not happy with this though, since we still have the mushy bit in the boundaries between each word...

The version I have been introduced to frequently (not in these terms) is one where belief is 90 percent of the continuum - anyone who "sort of believes" is counted as a "believer" and counted as religious by those who measure such things (fig 3).




In this continuum the Atheists are only those who absolutely 100% do not believe in God, some are Agnostic but most folks believe to some degree.

Which version is right? In the most simple sense it is entirely fatuous to argue the point and you may feel it's irrelevant semantics.

That is of course your right, but I riff on this subject here just to explain my use of the term.

I don't believe in god or the teachings of those who do - therefore I call myself an Atheist. Ignoring the tiny % possiblity that I am wrong is the same as not referring to myself as believing in talking trees or fairies at the bottom of the garden- hey may be true, but it's not easily conceivable. I'm a bit hazy on the agnostic term, and think it's used either as being pretty much synonymous with the Atheism I describe, or to describe someone for whom the chances are more or less even either way - a fence sitter (or less kindly, as Dawkins feels, a self deluding atheist coward). Consider this alternative (fig 4), where the agnostic represent ONLY the exact 50/50 position. Is that better? Why am I still persisting with these terrible figures?




As you may have guessed this is not my world view, mine is represented as the exact opposite of figure 3, an atheist dominated world, with only the very few actually believing (remember, observing ritual does not make you a believer - belief is very hard to fake) with the agnostics just not letting go of their fence position. This is how I think the world IS, not how I want to make it.

Important note: That's not to say that if you describe yourself as an agnostic then you are nearer the belief side, I say merely that in my world and in the terminology I use on this blog, you're not an agnostic, you're an Atheist.

I am saying that many who believe themselves religious are agnostic, and many who believe themselves agnostic are in fact atheists. Ick.. that sounds controversial...

These continuums also do not include the people (millions of them must exist) for whom the question is irrelevant, who simply don't care. My solution to this? I would claim anyone who doesn't care if there's a God or not as an Atheist in all but name. This is because if you thought there was a God and an afterlife you would care deeply about it - that's part of being a believer!

With those shocking depictions of my inability to use even basic CAD programmes, I bid you goodnight.

Now then... what's your opinion where the boundaries lie? Are we all agnostics? Or is that just a way of avoiding the Jesus Army?

Over to you folks.

A
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Movie Review: Pi

8/10

I wish I could have used the symbol for Pi, but on my system it's coming out as a squared off n

My apologies.

Right at the other end of the scale from "Kate And Leopold"'s high concept, genre defined approach to fimmaking we have sundance darling and Fountain making screwball film director Darren Aronofsky's Pi - a film about obsession with numbers. This is at least a hundred times better than the Jim Carrey dud "The Number 23", which clearly attempted to tread at least some of the same ground of bizarre numerical obsession.

Pi is a much more focussed and brave piece of film than that celluloid dust mote, and is the story of Max Cohen, a migraine suffering maths genius who is obsessed with finding a predictable pattern in the New York stock exchange (would be quite useful right now, really) and meets two strange factions who want to use his skills for their own ends.

As he gets deeper into his obsession the lines between paranoia and reality blur, and we share his POV as he goes off the deep end.

It's a small, ultra low budget piece and is shot in ultra low-fi black and white, centred entirely around a magnificent central performance from Sean Gulette as Max - he manages to survive the hideous task of depicting such a complex and lonely character and carrying the entire movie (which would make or break everyone's careers) on his shoulders.

It's also one of the few movies that believably depicts hallucination and dreams (for me, anyway) and these are suitably frightening and discomforting. It's Lynchian without his wilful obfuscation, it's artistic without being pretentious. It's like watching the director try and balance on the fences between these extremes and for the most part he succeeds.

It is a marvellously twisty, eccentric movie and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a bit of variety, and needs a break from the many genre movies we watch 95% of the time. It's not long, and it's not simple, but I highly recommend it.

A
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Movie Review: Kate And Leopold

5/10

Now... a curious decision this was, to watch a romantic comedy wstarring well past her time Meg Ryan and a very stick up the backside Hugh Jackman.

I thought it was OK, though, a rare "high concept" R.C., in which Jackman's stuffy 19th century Duke (who, incidentally invented the lift... elevator) sees a strange man acting suspiciously and follows him, finding out the hard way that this man is a time traveller, albeit a somewhat haphazard one.

The two of them tumble through a split in the space/time continuum (very plausibly explained although in a Star Trek Pseudo-scientific way) and I found it quite a refreshing concept. They also introduce, very subtly, the effect of taking this man out of the past (all the elevators stop working - in the background) and the time traveller's sudden removal from the story precipitates a crisis, in that the time "hole" or whatever will close on Monday.

Unfortunately almost immediately the film falls back into the conventions of the romantic comedy and the man out of time falls very quickly into the everyday surroundings without too much culture shock - he's a clever guy thoguh, so this is a bit more forgivable than usual - he's prepared to admit the truth of his own eyes and accept his situation.

It's also a shame that Meg Ryan has squandered her career so badly - while the film "In The Cut" is fairly awful, it signalled that maybe there was a serious actress somewhere there, but nothing I have seen since has reinforced that impression. Often this says more about casting directors playing safe than it does about actors, but there it is.

The peripheral characters are two dimensional, the story is conventional to a hilarious degree - lets look at it:

1. Mismatched couple meet
2. They instantly dislike each other
3. One becomes intrigued
4. Then they persuade the other one to like them
5. A few minutes of bliss
6. Conflict arises and they fall out
7. They (or usually the one who broke it off) realises they were wrong to end it.
8. They chase the other one to try and renew the relationship
9. There is some kind of adversity making this difficult
10. They manage it and happily ever after

Try applying this formula to the next film you see in this genre... it's quite funny to see how the conventions are followed. The reasons for the slavishness to this formula is simple - it works - you can't wish the relationship would get back together as much in (10) without (5), for example.

I'll explain in terms of Kate and Leopold

1. The 19th century Duke meets Kate, who happens to be the time travellers ex girlfriend and a very clichéd power suit woman.
2. they dislike each other instantly
3. then the duke becomes intrigued
4. his constant chivalry overwhelms her dislike
5. They spend a day and night having a wonderful lovey time.
6. He gets hacked off with her job (marketing - lying to people essentially) and they fall out.She tells him effectively to sod off
7. She realises she was wrong
8. She tries to get him back
9. Problem is, he's already gone back since the time/space continuum would implode without him
10. She goes back too (this is presented as a twist, but is so obvious my head hurt NOT thinking about it) and they live happily ever after.

It's a strange thing that the time frame is always reaaaaaally cut down - this whole love affair (and love they call it) takes place over a week.

But you don't watch romantic comedies for the realism, and this is a fairly inoffensive example, so if you're facing a girly night in and this is the chosen film, don't feel alcohol is the only way through the evening.

A
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Movie Review: The Cave

3/10

Oh dear. I don't know what's worse, that this irritating-tossers-get-trapped-underground film had such a high budget, or that I watched it.

I was expecting a fairly hokey "The Descent" rip off, with a sort of grimy, gore heavy approach. As it is, this is one of those terrible movies that achieves none of its aims. A pointless, CGI heavy prelude sets up a creepy cave that weird noises happen in. We're then introduced to your classic group of macho types, in this case instead of the usual marines or expert soldiers, we have a group of expert cave divers (in this case, diving is literal, as in underwater) who are hired to explore this creepy cave and map it. Wooo!

Cue a lot of posturing and C-List actors (Piper Perabo, Cole Hauser, Lena Headey) competing for the "most clichéd performance" award, whether as the feisty alpha female, the macho boss or the English scientist.

It's clear about twenty minutes in that we are in for an obvious and sub-par Alien "homage" with a fairly cool creature (wisely for most of the movie only seen in shadow and out of focus - a trick they fail to keep up for the end) stalking them through the tunnels they've been trapped in.

The "twist", that these are mutated people, is so obviously telegraphed it's barely a twist so I don;t even worry about it being a spoiler, the character deaths are so obviously influenced by other films (Alien, Jaws) it's almost like the writers and director just stuck scenes from films they love into their movie as well.

It's not all atrocious - some of the action cues are fairly effective, and TV star (of Invasion and recently Ugly Betty) Eddie Cibrian is fairly OK, but any hard work they have done here is totally undone by the films other flaws, which include an ending that, despite all of the silliness of the rest of the film actually manages to jump the shark!

As for any comparison with The Descent, the fact that they are underground is the only similarity, The Cave has none of that movie's originality, style or grittiness. It's also clearly hampered by its 12 rating, making it have all the terror and bloodiness of an episode of The Outer Limits. It's a sad fact that so many films that require, as this one does, a more gritty and harsh approach are instead lumbered with a "populist" rating to maximise its viewers. In this case, it;s probably since fifteen or eighteen year olds require a bit more maturity fromt heir plots and characters!

Don't waste your time - this is a film with all the depth, characterisation and tension of "The Core" and is just as hokey.

Til Next Time!

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The New Bond Theme

Argh! NO!!!

In a fine bit of keeping up with convention, Jack White and Alicia Keys are the latest musical talents to totally fail at writing a decent Bond Theme.

It's a tough job for anyone, as Chris Cornell found out and as Madonna simply shut her mind to. I mean the last really satisfactory example for me was the frankly genius theme to Goldeneye written by Bono and the Edge for Tina Turner as well as the lost theme written by K.D. Lang and heard at the end of "tomorrow never dies".

The problem is that people want too much from a Bond theme - it's got to be original and exciting but also slavishly following the conventions. White and Keys' effort is heavy on both, but comes out sounding like a total mess - the song would have benefited from one of them admitting defeat and letting the other one sing the whole song instead of an ill advised duet (in the same register, for some bizarre reason).

It's quite shocking, given the millions of options available to them, that White insists on playing a typical Jack White guitar solo halfway through (sounding, as always, like a screaming wasp) and Key's wails in a call/response mode a la the most irritating Robert Plant moments.

It doesn't do anything new or interesting with the "bond theme" genre. It's a real disappointment, just like the last three times. Ah well... at least the film is going to be awesome.

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Have you heard it? What did you think?
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Acceptable advertising act two

REMEMBER THIS?

Well I just sawthe advert again and they've reverted to a less obviously offensive tone.

If only I had actually sent a complaint in, then I could pretend it was all down to me.

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My Movie Pitch continues...

OK, I'm still working on my Election 'o8 movie... here's the cast so far.

I am a freak for this election - damn Biden and Palin for not messing everything up in a really filmable and exciting way last night in the debates.

This is also a rsponse to not having a better idea for a post today... sorry about that.

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• John McCain - Bruce Willis

• Barack Obama - Will Smith (obvious casting, but the look is good)

Sarah Palin - Parker Posey

Joe Biden - John C. McGinley



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Quick Movie Review: KM31

3/10

It's a Mexican ghost story, heavily influenced by lank haired J-Horrors like "Ringu" and "The Eye". It wears it's influences on its sleeve and this just serves as a constant reminder that it just isn't anywhere near as accomplished as those it tries to emulate.

A woman thinks she's hit a kid on a dark road at night, turns out he's a very creepy ghost, and has lured her into the middle of the road to be hit by a truck and slips into a coma. Her twin then begins to investigate the road where the accident took place in an attempt to solve the puzzle of the strange visions she begins having soon after her sister is hit.

Influence is a tough beast to conquer, do it well and you have a homage or a "nod", do it badly and you're just ripping off - we have the creepy lank haired thingy from "Ringu", the ghost from "Devils Backbone", the Scary woman in the bathtub out of "The Shining" and several other less intersting references (the old shadow behind a curtain and when you pull it back nothing is there gag is used a couple of times). The other thing that hampers this movie is that the "heroine" is not very good at acting - her terror is pretty much as convincing as Jessica Alba's (in the trailer for the Eye remake - I am avoiding seeing the full movie in that version).

When you are making a formulaic horror movie, there are many pitfalls you can fall in and as well as making the "homage as rip off" mistake the film just manages to fail to be interesting - there isn't a single twist that isn't hackneyed and telegraphed (ooo.. turns out it was a ghost, and you thought it was a person... ooo!), a single attempt to fill any plot holes and by the (admittedly, admirably bleak) end I was ready to ask all the ghosts to sod off and go haunt the writer and director.

A formula horror movie doesn't have to be this derivative. For example, "The Eye" in its original form is basically a "Ringu" rip-off, but it is so well put together, and the scares are so disturbing, that it transends its obvious influences in precisely the way KM31 does not.

Not one to recommend.

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Movie Review: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

9/10

Yes, it's a 9/10 movie. "G.B.U.", as I shall call it because I am lazy, is a great film. Really really great.

That has to come with two caveats. Firstly, it's not my favourite Leone western (that's "Once Upon A Time In The West") and secondly it's not even my favourite of the Dollars trilogy (that's "For A Few Dollars More").

In the first case, it is simply outshone by what is one of my top ten movies of all time at last check. "G.B.U." and "...West" are very different beasts, for sure, but they deal with a similar theme, that of the decaying of the American dream, a theme he runs with right through "Once Upon a Time in America".

The quest for financial gain that was almost a side effect of honour for Van Cleef's vengeful Colonel Mortimer, and a fun challenge for Clint's Man with no name is now nothing more than pure greed.

For pub quiz fans: The "man with no name" is, in fact, named in every film, in Fistful it's Joe, in Few Dollars more it's Manco, and here it's Blondie.

Our first protagonist, The Ugly, or Tuco Ramirez (etc etc) AKA "The Rat", is introduced in classic Leone fashion with a meeting in a dusty no-horse town between a man and two others, who look pretty mean, and have some serious gunnage with them. Just when you think they're about to draw on each other they move on Tuco (who is first seen in one of the great movie entrances jumping out of a window) - it's a brilliantly tense and well filmed scene, from which any single film still would look great on your wall - the punchline is timed excellently and really sets up the fact that, unlike "Few Dollars More", this is going to be a little more light in tone.

Incidentally, like the later "Once Upon a Time in the West", this film contains no dialogue for the first 10 minutes.

The Bad is really bad, and it's Lee Van Cleef again (which is really confusing if you connected with his character well in Few Dollars More) out on a cold blooded contract kill - his character's name, "Angel Eyes" is just about the most misleading nickname anyone has been given... ever. He's a ruthless, money driven man, but with an immovable code of honour - "when I'm paid, I always see the job through". And what a pay packet is waiting for the lucky person who finds it. $200,000 dollars in coinage is hidden somewhere, stolen from the civil war chest of General Lee. It's this that is the main plot. Three guys on a treasure hunt. Not your typical Western - where are the injuns and cows? NOWHERE. Thank goodness.

The civil war hovers in the background like highly destructive set dressing throughout, and is incredibly depicted more as an obstacle than a central device. The protagonists hunt down their prize, all the while running into wounded soldiers, drunken Captains and idiotic troop massacres ("I've never seen so many men wasted so badly", says Blondie) but never really taking part.

So that leaves us with the "Good". Er... he's not really that good though. Oh, the character that is, Clint's been playing variations on this character all his life and we all know he's good at that. Here he's introduced taking someone in for a bounty and then helping him escape, scamming the authorities who then put up his reward to be collected in EXACTLY the same manner next time.

What amuses me is that in this film, the only thing that marks Clint's Blondie out as particularly good is that he wears a light hat for some of the early part of the film - the bad wears a black one, obviously. This is one of those little backhanded references to Hollywood's treatment of the situations that Leone exposes as nothing more than fanciful make believe.

So there you have it, a career bandit, a cold blooded killer and a con-artist who can shoot three men in a second. That's your Good, Bad and Ugly. Quite a change from John Wayne cleaning up the bad injuns and black hearted (and hatted) villains, that's for sure.

The performance that really marks this film apart from Leone's others is that of Eli Wallach as Tuco. His antics are a constant source of light hearted entertainment, be it taking a bath in a bombed out building at the height of the tension, his quick banter ("if you have to shoot... shoot! Don't talk") and most of all his chemistry with Eastwood's Blondie. The film really hits its highest peaks during the scenes when these two are together and luckily this consists of most of the movie - they bicker, they fight and my oh my do they distrust each other - this just makes their information based chaining together crucially tense and constantly crackling with energy.

Poor old Angel Eyes, by contrast, gets very little in the way of back story and is pretty much exactly the sort of pantomime villain the film mocks with its black hat approach. With all this running time at their disposal, couldn;t we have some better idea how he joins up with the Yankees? Or at least what he plans to use the money for? This, along with the sometimes appalling dubbing work (a real annoyance in all three "Dollars" movies) is what keeps it from being as classic in my mind as "Once Upon A Time in the West".

It's still an incredible movie, and pretty much required watching for anyone with even a passing interest in Westerns - it's the longest of the loose trilogy as well, because of the focus on more than one strand and the civil war's interference, though I have never had a problem with this as some others do. It's even.... dare I say it? ...quite funny.

The quite wonderful Gian Maria Volontè, so superb as El Indo and Ramon Rojo in the first two Dollars movies was apparently considered for Tuco's role and while the film would have been tantalisingly different in that form, I think they made the right choice going with the dark humour of Eli Wallach's performance. This decision also avoided having exactly the same major cast as "Few Dollars More" in this film, as opposed to just two thirds of them, which would have just been silly. If you've seen this one only, PLEASE take the time to see the first two - they are superb too, and they are all different enough to warrant your time. And if you haven't seen "Once Upon A Time In The West" then you realy are missing out on one of the true all time classic (and early "revisionist") westerns.

Overall, it's excellent, but not quite a 10.

Til next time folks.

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