Sunday 25 July 2010

The one where we get V to fake labour in the middle of a busy airport in Berlin......

Hey hey hey,
I've decided to upload my new video at last, I think it's done, i'm not really sure but if I keep working on it I'll probably go insane and no one wants that.

Just a few words explanation - The music is by There's a Mountain - who not only rock hard at this myspace page but are also 70% related to me.

The star of the show is V - who I'm sure has a myspace which I'll find out ASAP!

The whole thing was filmed in record time thanks to V and Em, my beloved sister in law / best friend and the world's best fake pregnancy designer.

The concept was supposed to be an airport dash in the style of any rom com worth it's salt - I wanted to fuck around with the genre whilst celebrating all things cheesey - let me know if you think it works.



Bad Man by There's a Mountain

bunchofsavages | MySpace Video

Saturday 24 July 2010

top five movies where the sequel is better.....

Top five sequels that are better than the original:

I have been working on this post my entire life, I think I've nearly got it but please feel free to discuss any quibbles below (just for the record, the more you don't comment, the more I believe that I'm completely correct in everything I say and the closer to becoming some sort of maniacal dictator I become- therefore if you don't comment it's your fault entirely when I take over the world and make school children sing 40 boys in 40 nights by The Donnas in school assembly, make it a crime punishable by death to talk in cinemas and instil compulsory Zombie Tuesdays in all workplaces). (You've been warned.)

In reverse order.........

5. Grease 2.
I need a cool rider. A cooooool rider. If he's cool enough he can burn me through and through - woah woah woah.....

Okay I'm lying a bit. Grease 2 is not better than the original. But it definitely succeeds as an incredible stand alone shining piece of crap in the highest sense. Who would have thought that from these tiny potatoes Michelle Pfeifer (still can't spell her name) would go on to the lofty heights of Scarface and Batman Forever (ooh, that should so be in this list), followed by obtaining a facelift that would make Emmylou Harris wince with surprise (oh wait, that's her resting face) and Maxwell Caulfield would go on to The Colbys, Empire Records (sorry I fell asleep there for a second) and - oh pinnacle of pinnacles - Emmerdale (you think I'm joking but I'm not. I fucking LOVE Emmerdale. It's like a sitcom with more shagging and Patsy Kensit.)  The highlight of Grease 2 is the girl who played Doris Finsucker in Fame getting another acting role. We salute you.

4. Nightmare on Elm Street 3



Mom, I'm still having those awful dreams.

When Renny Harlin signed up to New Line Cinema's third Freddie franchise did he realise that he'd be steering that ship towards heaven? A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 (Dream Warriors) is a masterpiece, from the badly dubbed screaming of the goddess-like Patricia Arquette, to the electively mute pervert Joey, the embarrassing African American stereotype from a 60's blacksploitation movie Kincaid (see the scene where he and the Larry Fishburne have a little brother back and forth, if you don't wince slightly you're a big dirty racist and I'm going to report you to the PC gone mad brigade.) Not to mention the death by yucky needles (bleughhhhh) the death by head through telly, a guest spot by Zsa Zsa Gabor and the realisation that all you need to do to kill Freddie is to not believe in him (REALLY? Three fucking movies to work that out?). Rennie you pulled out all the stops and I love you, make the most of it, your next movie will be Cutthroat Island and I'm walking away.

3.  Lethal Weapon 2
But - you're blick.

I've already mentioned Patsy Kensit haven't I? Well fuck it I'm going to mention her again. I love Patsy Kensit. She's actually in one of my favourite movies ever (Grace of My Heart - watch it, watch it again, pretend the characters are your real friends and feel all warm inside before trudging sadly back to your shitty life), her south African accent is flawless - if you've never met or heard or even seen a real person from South Africa, and her lips inflate like tampons in adverts filled with blue fluid. Couple that with an evil Joss Ackland, Joe Pesci and a buddy relationship that makes you want to go and live in Murtagh's house forever and you've got one hell of a sequel.

2. Gremlins 2


How the hell do you top a film with Judge Reinhold in it? Many fools have tried and failed but Gremlins 2 is the exception. Joe Dante, the director clearly used everything that the great but mostly a bit shit Roger Corman taught him about stupid horror films - there's the spider gremlin, the lady gremlin, the gremlin that talks like Lloyd Grossman, there's Christopher Lee playing Doctor Catheter - the mad geneticist (greatest role he's ever played, fuck the Wicker Man), the flying gremlin, Hulk Hogan - or John Wayne for the British audience.  Gremlins 2 is arguably the greatest movie of all time and Joe Dante IS A GOD

1. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey


You may be a king or a little street sweeper, but sooner or later you'll dance with the Reaper.

This has been the longest running conversation in my mind - since the age of 13 I have been debating and debating, which is the best Bill and Ted movie? How could I choose? How could anyone choose? It's like choosing between your children, and really good children at that - not bratty snotty rubbish children that you don't really want.

Eventually I drew up a points system and Bogus Journey pips it - here goes:
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure -
1. Napoleon
2. The line "You killed Ted you medieval dickweed.
3. Socrates and Billy the Kid become firm friends
4. Waterloo
5. "Put them in the Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden? Excellent!"

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey -
1. The Reaper
2. Jim Martin from Faith No More
3. The good robot us'
4. The evil robot us'
5. Station
6. "What's the meaning of life?" "Every rose has it's thorn, every night has it's dawn, just like every cowboy sings a sad sad song."

So there you are. Science.

and just quickly - sequels that made me want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon, then eat my eyes, then poo my eyes out, then burn my poo, then jump on the burned patch of ground...)


5. The Lord of the Rings part 2
4. The Godfather part 3
3. The Cube 2
2. The Omen part 2 and 3
1.Be Cool

Sequels I will never watch on principle

5. Gregory's 2 girls
4. An American Warewolf in Paris
3. The blues Brothers 2000
2. Indiana Jones part 4 - whatever it's called
1. Clerks 2

Big news - woman puts on weight after having baby, then exercises

Is it because my body must always be a source of pain?
Bikini Kill

It's been ages since I had a feminist rant. I blame the art. Bloody art - creating stuff, no matter how rubbish looking and infantile it is, makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, I can almost skip through my daily dose of newspapers without screaming too loudly; I can look away whilst Gary Bushell still walks the earth and smile despite the fact that David Cameron and his shitty little mates are slowly taking apart the country and insisting that it's the public sector who are fat cats - because obviously people in the public sector caused the recession with their bottomless greed or lied about their expenses to pay for duck houses and .....grrrrr.

Anyway, I found myself getting a little bit angry the other day over this particular lovely. Apparently a weather "girl" made the heinous decision to eat food and get fat whilst she was pregnant and then had the audacity to work out in public with her belly on show.

The bitch.
This article was posted over every single tabloid last week.
Every single one.

So this is news? this is news? Really??? Is it fucking news? What - did you run out of broken down men with guns and a thirst for attention to glorify? I guess Winehouse hasn't fallen over for a little while.

Something else scared me about this, however, because the photo was in every single tabloid it's easy to get the passing whiff of a publicist around these parts. Let's look at it a bit more closely - a quick search of Clare Nasir on the Daily Mail website sees lots of conveniently placed stories about her pregnancy and it's apparently "miraculous" status. Clearly this has been a story to be told.

The outfit is skimpy, very skimpy indeed, at first I thought it smacked of an upcoming eating disorder, where you wear as little as you can whilst you compulsively exercise so that you can see every ripple and truly judge yourself. But doesn't it look more like the "before" on one of those before and after workout videos (think Sonia from Eastenders, Bianca from Eastenders, Laura from Eastenders, Dirty Den from Eastenders - okay I put that one in to increase the gratuitous imagery quota). Methinks there is publicity afoot - and when, in about 2 months, she's worked her ass out and lived off salad and is a skinny Minnie again she will be double blessed, with a new shiny baby and a new shiny workout DVD.

Isn't it cute? Doesn't it make you want to jump up and down for 2 weeks before sending it to a charity shop? Adorable.

Now this leads me nicely to the second bit of my rant. I was talking to an acquaintance the other day and he started to admit his respect for Paris Hilton. He argued that she was a savvy business woman and had managed her product (herself) impeccably.

I've heard this argument countless times - Jordan is a savvy businesswoman, therefore worthy of respect. Paris Hilton has made a bag of cash, therefore is worthy of my respect.  Suffice to say that I think this is a fucking crock of capitalist shit lies. If someone wants to make money, if making money is the one thing in the world that they want to do, if it's the thing that floats their boat, the peanut butter to their jam sandwich - then they are a fucking shallow tossrag. If all you want to do is make money and you are willing to sacrifice your dignity, your intelligence and your self respect for it (and let's get this straight, we're not talking about feeding yourself or anyone else, we're talking about living a life of luxury) - then you have no soul.

If being a savvy businesswoman involves pumping your tits up, taking your top off, pretending to be stupid and having reality tv to prove it then excuse me while I sign on.

But that's not what my major beef is. If a load of stupid arseholes wanted to do this (and they do) then that's fine - but it's the wider impact that really fucks me off......

Because Jordan whoring herself, whilst it's entirely her business what she does with her arse, impacts on our society. She's a household name, people are looking at her, girls are looking at her and thinking that this is a valuable career for a woman to take. The papers hound her, she's famous. She's the cult of celebrity. You don't get famous by being a brain surgeon, you don't get famous by being a good writer, or a nuclear physicist or a goddamn IT nerd.

That's what pisses me off. Jordan / Paris Hilton / insert name here are perpetuating a culture in which women are judged for what they look like and anything considered unfeminine is deemed unattractive - therefore making aforementioned woman worthless.

Clare Nasir is either being exploited or she's exploiting herself - and fair do's to her on one side. If those photos were taken without her knowledge then I can't even imagine the pain that could be caused.

Even if she's organised the publicity - being pregnant is a mighty slog and getting big is part and parcel. Carving a body shape that you're happy with is also challenging and exercise is a bitch that will make you happy if you let it. If she can make a career opportunity from this then she is savvy. But what's also happening here is that someone is fuelling this tabloid fire and putting the message out there that fat women are here to be stared at like freakshows and mocked, that women's bodies are a display for the world to judge as they see fit.

The tabloid thirst for this shit makes me sick to my stomach. Whether the story was just - woman gets fat, how disgusting or it's leading up to - woman gets thin again, woopy do, we can oggle her again, fuel is being chucked on that fire, and with it the self esteem of another generation slowly ebbs away.

There's more to life than making money by any means necessary, there is art and love and a whole exciting world out there.

Man that felt good.
Have fun everyone. i'll be back with some silly pictures of angels, lots of lists of the cheapest films ever made (and possibly a song or two) very soon. xxxxx

Monday 19 July 2010

Let's talk turkeys......

Beach blanket bingo,
Beach blanket bingo,
Beach blanket bingo,
That's the name of the game.

One of my greatest bugbears is re-makes, Hollywood re-make good films and make them shitey - that's how they make money. They take good ideas and wonderful things and they wipe their greedy little bums with them. That's what they do. Simon Cowell does the same thing in the music industry - they're evil. But we know this.

But in the spirit of The Opposite of Hate I've decided to have a quick celebration of five films that I can almost guarantee (bar one, which has already been done) won't be being re-made. Ever. In the world.

Why? You ask - well it's because they're the greatest, cheapest, strangest turkeys known to the world. Crap movies I salute you.

Here's my top 5 (in dramatic reverse order):

5. The Boy in the Plastic Bubble.



If often find time in the day to celebrate the work of Randal Kleiser. Randall Kleiser directed Grease, Grease is a musical that celebrates girls who unashamedly smoke, drink and sleep around and tells nice girls that they should also smoke, drink and sleep around. Nowadays, of course, high school films tell you that you should be pure in thought, word and deed, until someone leaks a tape of you giving someone a blowy on the internet. Nice.

Kleiser started off, however, with this particularly incredible piece of cheap filmmaking.
Starring a young and confused looking John Travolta, as the kid who no one can touch, the Boy In the Plastic Bubble is entirely worth the 75p my friend Pauly spent buying me a copy, for the scene in which he goes to the beach in a portable plastic bubble. Chump doesn't begin to cover the facial expressions of the man who would one day sell the most perfect arse in musical cinema to a strange cult. JT's sickly gurn makes me want to live in a bubble of my own, but a concrete one, which I can't see him through. 

n.b this has already been remade as the amazing musical "Bubble Boy" - which fully utilises all gags inherent in the porta-bubble. Dang we need more of those.


4. When Dreams Come True

Okay, if I find anyone in the entire world (who isn't one of the actors in this astounding piece o' shit) who has seen this film and isn't me or Emily, then I will be thoroughly impressed.
I bought this movie for a pound in my local corner shop when I was the most hungover I have ever been. I watched it, I ate crisps, I threw up.

Somehow, When Dreams Come True ended up being a hangover special in an old house sharing set up, mostly down to it's frankly rubbish electro synth soundtrack (someone got a Casio for Christmas and got no further than the "dream" setting. Not even a bossa nova) and the very odd sub-plot involving gypsies who look a bit like Tom Seleck. Not to mention the starring role from the guy who lets the virus out in Twelve Monkeys.

It was written by William Bleich though - which sounds a bit like the noise I make when I'm hungover. Maybe he knew this.

You can read my rubbish review of it on the IMDB here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090313/
Although I wouldn't bother.

3. Beach Blanket Bingo.



Beach Blanket Bingo is the greatest film ever made (apart from the two movies above it in this particular countdown.) Not only does it star Frankie Avalon AND Annette Funicello (yes you heard it here kids, Frankie AND Annette - in a rare appearance together apart from the 200 other films a bit like this one and probably a long running tv series and some pretty ropey public appearances)  but it has a young Linda Evans and the best soundtrack a 60's beach movie has ever had.

Over the years BBB has come to become shorthand for "shit film" - being the film that the characters laughingly go and see in such lesser classics as The Outsiders and Good Morning Vietnam (both the poor man's Beach Blanket Bingo if you ask me. I've never seen Robin Williams realistically driving a fake car and C.Thomas Howell never retired from movies to launch his own range of delightful teddy bears - no siree).

But, as we all know, the world is full of idiots. One day this classic will be re-discovered and held up as the Citizen Kane of movies shot in cold places whilst all the characters, dressed in bikinis, are pretending to be warm. 

2. The Room.


Seldom does a film actually change my life, but The Room changed my life.
I don't think I need to say anything else.

Oh hi doggie.






1. Beyond Control - The Amy Fisher Story



For some reason me and my big sister spent and entire summer working our way through every movie that was stocked in the Felixstowe branch of Blockbuster. We had our minds veritably blown by the incredible shit on offer. But The Amy Fisher Story has always held the place closest to my heart.

I love Drew Barrymore, I always have, in her autobiography she states that making this film (straight after rehab number 1) was how she saved herself.

Thank fuck it saved someone. It's incredible in it's crapness, from it's Oddessy Home Videos special tinkly piano music soundtrack through its "creepy real life" plotline (teenage girl shags older man, shoots his wife) down to the fact that it stars a man who wears, what I now know as Paedophile trousers. The acting also gives A Nightmare on Elm Street 3 a run for its money.

It was directed by Andy Tennant, who now works as an actual director in Hollywood.
All of these things make me blissfully happy.

So there we go - re-make my arse Hollywood. I'm happy with your finest rejects and I suggest everyone go and celebrate each and every one of them.
xxxx

Wednesday 14 July 2010

The opposite of hate Dylan and Andrew special

I've heard wonderful news today, my big stinky brother and his wonderful boyfriend are getting married after being together for at least 1 million years.

So I've decided to dedicate this blog to them. Dylan and Andrew ..... NOW can I be a mans-maid?





Tuesday 13 July 2010

Showing off.....

Good morning pop pickers, I trust that everyone is well rested and happy.
I'm currently about to start editing a music video that I shot in Berlin but until that particular gem can be proudly placed before you I'm going to have a little gloat about how much I love love love love my camera. Here are my favourite pics from the summer so far. Camera, we salute you:











Thursday 8 July 2010

HACK!

I've been doing some thinking and I think I'm going to change things.
This blog has been amazing so far, it's picked me up from the artistic slump that I was languishing in and has got me doing lots of different things, it's got me thinking in different ways and creating and blah blah blah. Basically it's been doing everything it should do.

But I think it's time to evolve a little bit.
I'm finding the monthly task thing a wee bit restrictive, basically I'm feeling the pressure to shove out loads of different things without really thinking about them. The last few cartoons I've done have sucked a bit and I know I can do better.

So I'm removing the time restriction.

I have a ton of things in the can and ready to perfect, there are cartoons and two more films and a half baked novel, then I have my one woman show to work on, as well as a full soap opera made out of cups. I don't think it would be wise to rush these any more. So I'm going to take a bit of time and work through them at a proper pace, with re-writes and drafts and all that stuff that they taught me at school.

Hopefully this way I'll escape turning into a total hack.

In the meantime I think I'll fill in time by blogging about stuff that makes me scream. That should keep you people happy.

Everyone agreed?
Good! xxx

Thursday 1 July 2010

Today I will mostly be waffling strangely......

Hello people. So I've decided that instead of just sitting in Jake and Emily's living room watching endless hours of Degrassi Junior High on the internet (best programme ever. Strangest addiction ever. Catchiest theme tune ever with a moral compass that is firmly pointed at happy liberal Canadianism.)

A footnote is that now I want to move to Canada in the hope that everywhere in Canada is like Degrassi Junior High - I fear I may be disappointed, like the time I expected all of San Francisco to be like Tales of the City and was then irked when I didn't see one man dressed as a nun on a bike, roller disco or eight foot drag queen. Very disappointing. Although I still want to live there too, because they have giant trees.

I also want to move to Alaska, having bought the box set of Northern Exposure. I now expect Alaska to be full to the brim of interesting hippy types who lurch from strange experience to strange experience whilst eating moose burgers and listening to Chris in the Morning (sigh). Although Baggy has already told me that he's definitely not moving to Alaska. He's probably right - Sarah Palin lives there and she's a massive, insane twat bitch from hell. 

There I go digressing again. Although I am on holiday so perhaps it's suitable that I waffle on aboot (there I go again with the Canadian thing) shit that means nothing to no one.

So anyway, tomorrow I'm going to pad my best friend up to look like she's nine months pregnant and we're going to make a music video.

Is this what Scorsese does at the weekend too? He's probably got a better camera than me, and Robert De Niro instead of Emily, but I bet Em can fake a pregnancy better than De Niro. And she's prettier.

Maybe Scorses likes Degrassi Junior High. Maybe he'll be up for moving to Canada with me. Do I want to live with Scorsese? He made Goodfellas - one of the only movies I've ever watched, rewound and watched again. But he did go through that annoying coke phase in the 80's. Would Baggy be happy living in Canada with Martin Scorsese?

Margot Kidder used to hang around with Scorsese during his coke phase and she was Lois Lane, so she should be infalible. Although I wouldn't listen to Terri Hatcher, and she was Lois Lane too.

I'd definitely live with Spielberg, I bet he makes excellent wholesome evenings fun. Would Baggy mind living in Canada with Spielberg? .........................................