The Powerpuff Girls Movie
I've been trying to watch this film for ages, because I love the Powerpuff Girls. Where were all these fantastic cartoons when I was a kid, eh? All we had were revoiced Japanese ones, Looney Tunes, and Dangermouse. Now kids are exposed to Dexter's Laboratory and Pinky and the Brain. But I suppose they also watch Beyblade and that Pikachu shit, so maybe it all evens out.
Anyway, The Powerpuff Girls Movie is
good, but not as good as it could have been. I love the design of it all, and the score is excellent - it's like the bleepy casio bits from the Life Aquatic soundtrack, speeded up by a million. And on the DVD extras you get to see the three women who do the voices of the girls, and they are surprisingly foxy, let me tell you.
I never realised that Mojo Jojo wore a turban to cover up his big brain, either. That is disgusting. I hope Monty Panesar is not in league with him.
On the downside, there are some very long bits where nothing happens. Well, OK, things do happen in these bits, but it doesn't involve fighting or destruction. So I got a little bored. Also, there is quite a lot of talking and that whole dialogue stuff. And I wasn't too keen on that either.
There is one more thing about this film which I really enjoyed. It has got
Frank Welker doing some monkey sounds in it. I had not heard of Mr Welker before this movie, but basically he has built an entire career out of doing animal noises for film, TV, and computer games. Not necessarily actual talking, just the noises. Apparently if you tape real animals they don't emote. Whereas Frank Welker does. What a God. Maybe he is the next stage of human evolution? I bet women throw themselves at him.
So, anyway, I enjoyed this, but maybe not as much as The Incredibles or Toy Story 2. And if you don't already like The Powerpuff girls, maybe you might not like this. Damn fool.
Saved!
Or, I Was a High School Jesus Freak. Given that this is definitely a girl's movie, with a load of girl indie-rock on the soundtrack, it's surprising how funny and offensive it is. It does go a bit slushy in the last half hour when it turns out alright for absolutely everyone, and Macaulay Culkin looks more like Steve Buscemi's brother (it's the eye bag thing) than a teenager. But this is a
good film. And I'd forgotten how much I like Martin Donovan; I thought he had vanished, along with The Entertaining Hal Hartley Movie Period (hereafter referred to as TEHHMP, a period that terminated in 1994).
A Cock and Bull Story
This is the adaptation of the notoriously unfilmable - or perhaps that should be unreadable - smash-hit literary sensation of the 1760s. I was prepared for the worst, and not just because I was going to see this in that awful flea-pit, the Odeon Panton Street.
It's just that post-modernism is more than a little jaded. Two Brady Bunch movies and a
shit Arnold Schwarzenegger film have been at it, for God's sake. The textual awareness of textuality gets in the way of communicating anything to do with art, and one's normally left with the numbing sense that everyone involved in the project is awfully awfully clever. Which negates the whole purpose, if you ask me, so it's not really that clever after all. Oh yeah, and Jacques Derrida snuffed it
ages ago.
Look, if you're interested in that, you can go and read a load of books
like this. But it's not necessary for the enjoyment of A Cock and Bull Story, because although it's a film about making a film, it's not all about this. It's about vanity getting in the way of desire, and desire getting in the way of love. And a whole load of nob gags. Steve Coogan is excellent, but he's freakily good at playing schmucks. Rob Brydon's job is to steal every scene he's in, which he manages with aplomb. And Michael Winterbottom has a damn good thing going when he gets to cast the dashing Jeremy Northam as himself. If he'd had the budget I'm sure it would have been Clooney.
There are a few isolated moments when you think the film's going to disappear up it's own arse, and when I spoke to Adam about it he thought that he wouldn't read the book having seen the film. But apart from this, the film is
good.
They also showed the trailer for Herzog's Grizzly Man, which looks fucking fantastic.
That Car Advert
At the moment it’s quite easy to watch movies that are not complete bollocks, because everyone’s bringing out their Gyllenhaal flicks ahead of the oscars. Even though it result in you watching better movies, I still don’t like it, it’s like putting out a nice table-cloth for when your bird’s mum comes round, when normally you eat out of sweaty tandoori polystyrene.
Still, there is one thing that completely raises my ire. Not the people who laugh at the Orange Adverts. They are just dicks who would laugh at the same joke even if you tell it to them once a week for 900 consecutive weeks. No. I hate the car advert with the Frenchwoman and the public school, rugby-playing penis in a V-neck. This advert is scum on so many levels. As if smug yuppie couples trying to one-up each other about irrelevant cultural details wasn’t bad enough. These wee cars have been marketed to women for ages, by saying that you are a smart competent yet sexy young lady who has complete dominion over your fat sack of a boyfriend. Fair enough, but obviously no man could ever buy one of those hair-dryer motors without shedding at least an ounce of testosterone, and having to drink Dubonnet and lemonade for ever ever after.
So, the worst thing is this is a transparent attempt by the marketing men to try to reposition their product, and tell inadequate men (i.e. the sort who feel they need to validate themselves through automobiles) they’ll effortlessly able to put one over on some hot French chick whenever they want to, just to be able to watch her pout. And we lap it up. When this advert comes on next I’m going to spray the screen with arterial blood, that’ll learn those fuckers.
Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In
OK, you crazy kids, you caught me out again. This is not a movie, this is a book. But it's not so much a work of criticism, as a redneck soap-opera with a few breast-counts thrown in. If Flann O'Brien had seen Basket Case at an impressionable age, this may well have been the kind of column he would have ended up writing for the Irish Times. If Roger Corman is the Shakespeare of the Drive-In, then Joe Bob Briggs is his Johnson. I have just re-read that sentence and if you have a juvenile disposition you may think I am likening Joe Bob to Roger Corman's (ahem) unit. Strike that unworthy thought from your mind immediately.
I am bringing this fantastic book to your attention because you can currently get a whole shed-load of them on British Amazon for about two pounds sterling (plus postage) each. Americans might have to pay a bit more. I submit to you most humbly that there is no better way of disposing of two pounds. No. Not even if you chanced across the cricket DVDs in the bargain bin. You will have to move fast, however. At that price I am going to buy up a whole load of these boys and distribute them in hotel rooms, like the Gideon Bible.
This book is
good. Check it out.
Jarhead
When I first heard about this movie, I really hoped that it would be about a head, in a jar. A little like They Saved Hitler's Brain. Unfortunately this was not to be. Jarhead is slang for a marine, and this is a Gulf War I movie. Plenty of scope for a sequel, then.
This film is particularly adolescent. Everything is booooring, no-one understands the hero, and the staff sergeant's an asshole, man. And while this is not particularly
a new approach, the film suceeds well, because it's very difficult trying to make a film about boredom without making a boring film.
This film isn't especially radical, but it is
good, and it serves up the basic elements well. Any film is improved by having a sadistic drill sergeant in it. Any film is improved by having the hero forced to swab the latrines. And it's not even a bad thing to bathe Jake Gyllenhaal in the Kurtz light from Apocalypse Now. It communicates the brutality of half a million grunts in the desert, and manages to make it seem almost enticing.
Jake Gyllenhaal does well as Swofford; he's an appealing actor, with his features that are slightly too large for his head. And he's also right on the cusp of parody right now. In a few years time he's going to get bored with his craft and lose it big stylee, but for now he's worth watching. And if he doesn't get bored, well, what's the point of having talent if you can't be bothered to piss it up against the wall?
England v Australia: The Ashes 2005
OK, look, I know this is not a movie, but it does come on DVD so I'm going to rate it. For England cricket fans this is
good. In fact it's so good it's probably better than porn. For everyone else, it's
shit. For Australians in particular, it's absolutely fucking appalling. Probably as bad as porno with your mum in it.
It is peculiar watching three DVDs, spending eight and a half hours (without extras) in front of the telly, and feeling that there's not enough, but there isn't. There's only the best bits, the big shots and the wickets. There's none of the brain-shredding tension, none of the build-up, nothing of the actual thrill of it. It's just a record of what went on. But. Let me get this straight. As a sporting achievement I had always dreamed of this, and England winning the World Cup, roughly on an equal basis. A world cup would be a bigger achievement, sure, but when you lost a world cup a nation of big-mouths didn't let you know about it for eighteen solid years.
Anyway, here are my top five moments from the DVDs, distilled for your pleasure.
5) Geoff Boycott purring "That's not hittin', that's batting" at a Flintoff off-driven four.
4) Ponting calling correctly and then opting to bowl, on the opening morning at Edgbaston,
with a completely straight face.
3) Being able to relive Ponting getting run out by Gary Pratt, over and over and over again. And then see his subsequent tiff about it, over and over and over again.
2) Australian batsmen shouldering arms, and then watching their off-stumps getting ripped out by savage reverse swing. Even thinking about it makes me laugh
1) The demented parrot noise that Boycott makes when he thinks no-one can hear him. Gilchrist drops Vaughan on 40, and there is satanic off-mic cackling. Then Glen McGrath bowls him next ball, off a no-ball, and the noise is so loud Tony Greig has to ask Boycott to calm down a little. Yorkshire schadenfreude is a beautiful thing.
Brokeback Mountain
OK, ok, given that this film is
good, and it's sensitive and beautifully shot and acted, and you could probably take your mum to it, couldn't it please be a little bit more offensive? I mean, it's putrefyingly obvious what's going to happen, and if they hadn't have been gay cowboys, but maybe autistic cowboys, everyone would have thought this was sooo three years ago. Plus there is big swelling music to tell you when to feel moved. So by the end I was in clear and present danger of being extremely fucking bored.
One good thing about this movie is that I really couldn't understand half the stuff Heath Ledger was saying: he rivals Brad Pitt in Snatch in the comprehensibility stakes. Another good thing is that
Ledger has an uncanny resemblance to England rugby legend
Johnny Wilkinson.
Finally, can I just say, can you imagine going to one of E Annie Proulx's dinner parties? Have another glass of Burgundy, she might say, it has a fine bouquet, and over the next 20 years it will set you spiralling downwards into alcoholic oblivion, tearing your dearest loves apart and even leading you to shave half your dog off in a drunken rage. I haven't got the slightest idea why people read more than one of her books because a) they are all the same, and b) even Schopenhauer would find them unnecessarily moody.
Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
When I was over at my sister's house for Christmas, my wee nephew mentioned he'd seen all of the Star Wars films, except for Episode III: Revenge of the Shit, because it contained "moderate fantasy violence and scary scenes". So I asked him which one his favourite was.
When he told me it was The Phantom Menace I almost undigested my festive turkey. Why would you say such a terrible thing as that, I asked him, and his answer was most interesting: because there's pod-racing in it.
It's beside the point that The Phantom Menace is a
shit film. George Lucas understands kids brains and marketing opportunities, and we do not. Even if you think back to the first Star Wars movie, everyone you knew either a) had Star Wars figures, b) wanted them or c), was a girl. These movies are about as innocent as a free Tetris game which, when you assemble all the blocks, spells out
stuff your sweaty cash into the dribbling Lucasfilm maw, little boy.
Raising Victor Vargas
I enjoyed this film, I thought it was
good. It's not as if coming-of-age dramas haven't been done before, but this is fresh and well acted. Even if the director is a precocious little shit. My only problem with the movie, is, why do they have to put
a picture of what happens at the end on the fucking box?
