Big Cheese

I just read an article on Yahoo Movies blog about films that're so bad they're good. And they do have some corkers! Highlights include Birdemic (the link in their blog doesn't work), which is so tacky it looks like a spoof trailer, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, which looks like possibly the most awesomist film ever, and Shark Attack 3: Megalodon, starring John Barrowman (which just about tells you everything you need to know: it's gonna be cheesy as hell).

And I can think of a few other films that definitely fall into the category of 'so bad they're good':

Ticks, a wonderful 90's horror film featuring Carlton from Fresh Prince trying to be a badass, Seth Green, and some giant mutated ticks. And plenty of unintentional hilarity.

Piranha, a stunning piece of late 70's cheese that followed in the wake of the success of Jaws. I love the buzzing sound effect they used when the piranhas attack. There is a remake out this summer, which instead of mutated piranhas uses 2 million year-old supposedly extinct piranhas! In 3D!

Zapped!, a large slice of 80's Stinking Bishop starring a very young Scott Baio as a science geek who accidentally discovers a formula that gives him telekinetic powers, leading to all sorts of hilarious high school hilarity.

Flash Gordon. Ah, Flash Gordon. A predictable addition to the list, I'll admit, but it is without a doubt one of the cheesiest movies ever made. And BRILLIANT. What's not to love? It has everything you need: Ming The Merciless, Brian Blessed, and a soundtrack by Queen. Job done.

Any others you think I've missed? There must be millions. I have discounted such gems as Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street, WarGames, Willow, Die Hard, Gremlins, Short Circuit, Dune etc., on the grounds that I think they are genuinely good.

Strange Ones

So that's it. No more Supergrass. My world has a little musical hole in it. Last night they said farewell to Scotland, at the Barrowlands (a wonderfully tacky old ballroom) in Glasgow, as part of their final tour.

And they were wonderful. They were always wonderful, of course, but last night in particular will forever stand out as a great gig for me. It was a true retrospective: starting with the most recent album and working backwards, they played 3 or 4 songs from each, and finished at the very beginning with the first song they ever wrote (Caught By The Fuzz, of course). They even had little video montages to introduce each album.

The crowd were great, by about halfway through the set...they were all a bit static to begin with, and it wasn't until we got to Moving that the whole room started jumping, and after that there was some pretty consistent moshing! But even when people were just standing still, the cheering and the singing along were pretty damn impressive! You could really feel the love in that room. The band played for a solid two hours, and every song was a gem. We got the hits, and some brilliant album tracks that they haven't played in the past when I've seen them.

It was all over far too soon, they took a bow, and then were gone.

Goodbye, boys. I will miss you.

EDIT 11/6/2010: I sat listening back through all their albums at work yesterday (enjoying the wonderfulness of them all over again, and discovering I like Road to Rouen as an album a lot more than I used to!), and have figured out the set list from the Glasgow gig. So for those who are interested, here it is (not necessarily in order within each album):

Bad Blood
Diamond Hoo Ha Men
Rebel In You
Outside
Tales of Endurance
St. Petersburg
Road To Rouen
Kiss of Life
Rush Hour Soul
Brecon Beacons
Grace
Funniest Thing
Moving
Mary
Pumping On Your Stereo
In It For The Money
Richard III
Late In The Day
Sun Hits The Sky
I'd Like To Know
Mansize Rooster
Lenny
Strange Ones

Encore:
Alright
Caught by The Fuzz

I think that's all of it! Pretty impressive. Particular highlights for me included...ah hell, the whole set was a damn highlight! How do you choose out of that bumper assortment of goodies?!

Some videos have turned up on Youtube now, so here are a few gems for your enjoyment:

D Is For Dangerous

OK, OK, I know I said I'd back off and leave Twilight alone, but that was before I read it. I was told by one of my friends that the books were much better than the films (she compared them favourably to the Harry Potter books, some of which I do really like (and some of which are a bit average)), so I thought maybe I should actually give it a go. And as she lent me the first book, saving me the embarassment and cost of going out and buying it, I didn't really have much of an excuse not to!

Let me start with the good (because I do strive for balance, and I really did go into this thing wanting to like it, despite my poor opinion of the films): the last 100 or so pages are quite gripping. Once the action gets going, the pace is swift, and it is pretty tense. Unfortunately, this change in gear occurs 328 pages into the 434-page book. The first 327 pages are little more than disturbingly schizophrenic teenage obsession dressed up as love. Bella falls over a lot (she makes endless complaints about her clumisness, which is obviously supposed to demonstrate her ordinariness next to the godlike, graceful Edward (just two of the many adjectives used to describe him in the book)), at least 5 boys fall in love with her (much to her surprise because, again, she thinks she's so very ordinary), and Edward spends a lot of time warning her that he's dangerous and that they should keep their distance, while at the same time stalking her (seriously. It's creepy). But there is very little evidence of a story. 'Girl meets vampire, girl begins unhealthy, obessive relationship with vampire' about sums up most of the book.

Which may suit some people fine - and it obviously does, because these books are highly popular best-sellers - but I'm afraid it lacks the depth of storytelling needed to hold my attention. There is very little subtlety or intricacy to the writing here, and the cast of supporting characters have so little page-time or dialogue as to be interchangable. It is easy and quick to read, but that's not particularly a good thing...it's quick to read because you don't need to be paying much attention to follow the 'action' (or lack thereof), and even the main characters are so unrealistic and poorly drawn that I cannot really get emotionally involved with either of them. They are cliched caracatures, not rounded human beings, and the endless overuse of superfluous adjectives/adverbs to describe everything about Edward (including his eyes, skin, hair, muscles, smell, movement, voice, smile, laugh, chest, teeth, breath (I'm not kidding)) really begins to grate. I know it is teen fiction, so my criticism of it for being simplistic may be a little harsh, but these days there are some very smart, complex teen novels out there (including works by Philip Pullman, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and Catherine Webb), compared to which Twilight is something of a disappointment.

Sorry. I read it, I tried to like it, I failed.

It was OK, but I didn't love it. It's possible that the books get better as the series continues - I wasn't overly enamored of the first few Harry Potter books either, but the last few are cracking - but I'm not sure if I have the willpower to battle on and find out! At least the first few HP books were short!
 

Next I think I'll move on to The Twilight Watch (the similarity in title is purely coincidental - Twilight Watch is the third book in the superb Night Watch series by Sergei Lukyanenko) for some seriously good, intricately-plotted, character-driven horror fantasy.

This Summer

OK, add Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to my list of films I wanna see this summer. Just watched the trailer, and it looks great. It's a superhero movie (of sorts) based on a comic book, and it's directed and co-written by Edgar Wright, so it's bound to have lots of in-jokes and fan boy movie references. And plenty of nerdiness, because it also has Michael Cera (of Juno fame - love that movie), who must be in his mid-20's by now but still looks about 12!

I've now seen Prince of Persia, and it was pretty good. The dialogue felt a little stilted in places, but you can't fault the action sequences, or the impressive shape Jake is in (there may have been drool). Plus, it has Scary Jeff from Coupling in it (who is almost unrecognisable)!

In It For The Money

Films I do not want to see this summer:


Sex And The City 2
Why, Lord, why? As if the first film wasn't excruciating enough. And there really was no need for a second movie, except to squeeze one last chunk of cash out of the franchise. The first movie tied up all the loose storylines in a nice little bow and gave everyone the Happily Ever After the audience wanted. So why not leave it there? And yes, I have watched the first movie, but I stress that I did so under duress.
I liked the series when it began, because it was very funny...the characters were broadly-drawn caricatures who got into ridiculous situations and had lots of sex. Fair enough. But then suddenly people started taking them seriously, and wanting to be like them! And that's when it all went wrong.


Twilight: Eclipse
I'll keep this brief, because I've already rubbished Twilight elsewhere in this blog and it would be mean to do it again. But, really, what IS all the fuss about? The movies are dull and slow, Bella is an annoying sullen brat, Edward ditto, and Jacob is just there as a piece of inappropriately fanciable jailbait ass. Where is the plot here?!


Films I DO want to see this summer:


Prince of Persia
Yes, it's based on a computer game (a version of which I think I once played a demo of many years ago on my friend's Playstation), and yes, it's made by Disney. But it's got Ben Kingsley (sorry, Sir Ben Kingsley) playing a goateed baddie and doing his very best Ming The Merciless impersonation! What more do you need? Apart from Jake Gyllenhaal, looking lovely as ever. The trailer actually looks quite impressive. Even if it turns out to be a plotless piece of shite (a la Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3), it certainly promises to be visually stunning.


Inception
I know nothing about this movie, except that it's written and directed by Christopher Nolan. But that's enough for me! I just watched the trailer, and I'm still none the wiser!


Films I've seen recently that blew my socks off:


Iron Man 2
It rocks. It's got Mickey Rourke as a Russian badass physicist, Sam Rockwell as a sleazy company asshole, and an AC/DC soundtrack. And Robert Downey Jr. Who is superb. As ever.


Four Lions
Geeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeenius. But due to its subject matter I wouldn't be surprised if somebody tried to ban it*. Chris Morris has that effect on people.


*And surprise, surprise, there were calls to ban it! But that doesn't seem to have hampered its ratings.

Feeling The Pull

You may have noticed this blog's been kinda quiet lately. And that's not due to laziness on my part, I swear, I have had no internet for the last few weeks due to a delay while switching suppliers. And during this internet down-time, I have had an opportunity to reflect on the fact that the internet is a dangerous, addictive, albeit useful, waste of time.

Yes, I have been inconvenienced by a lack of iPlayer and the instant gratification of having the sum of human knowledge at your finger tips (which I use mainly to find out what I've seen actors in because I'm sure I've seen them in something before, but I'm not sure what and it's really bugging me), but I have also not been a slave to the insidious nuisance that is Facebook. Being connected to the entire world 24 hours a day is not, I'm sure, entirely a good thing. I resisted joining Facebook for a long time, but after I did I would spend half the day thinking up things to write in my status, and would rush to the computer as soon as I got home to inform the world what I'd been doing all day. Which, when you come to think of it, is tragically sad. And rather egotistical: as if the world cares! I'm sure most of the world has better things to do than 'like' my status updates, so why do I make the effort to (try to) write something witty and amusing?! But that's the thing - most of the world actually doesn't have anything better to do, based on the evidence. Not content with spending all evening on Farmville or posting random nonsense and LOLcats (I love them, I'll admit it!) all evening at home, some people spend all day on Facebook at work as well! Leading many companies (and Universities) to block FB on their networks because they're losing countless hours of work time from their employees.

And having spent 3 weeks without internet, what was the first thing I did when I discovered it was back up and running today? Yes, update my Facebook status! Followed by writing this blog to tell the world about my feelings of disgust at myself for updating my Facebook status. Having discovered that life without the internet IS possible, I'd like to think that I will now spend less time using it, but let's face it, it's not going to happen. Boredom will suck me back in, and I will be its bitch again in no time!

This Is A Low

Been sitting here listening to Parklife (because To The End was used in an episode of Misfits I watched earlier - brilliant show!) and wondering how I could have forgotten how good Blur were. I loved them intensely when I was a teenager, but then kind of forgot about them. I don't even own Think Tank. Maybe I'll have to rectify that next time I'm in Fopp. Because they really were bloody good. I missed them at Glastonbury last year (one of my two great Glasto regrets, the other being missing David Bowie in 2000), not because I didn't have a ticket - I did - but because we'd had a bit of a disastrous weekend and by Sunday evening I was so knackered that I was just ready to go home. And I thought Blur would just be a bit of a nostalgia-fest...amusing, but irrelevant. So I went home and watched the set on TV. And immediately wished I was back in that field. I'd have been squashed and hot and probably falling asleep on my feet, but I'd have been there. At the start of every song I was sitting there going "Oh, wow!", and I still remembered all the words, even after so long. Blur were one of my first musical loves, and are one of the few bands that I always wanted to see that I never did. It's a short list, and they're somewhere near the top.

I don't regret going home early, because I really think I'd have been dying on my feet if I had stayed there, but I do regret missing Blur. I need them to do a few more smaller gigs so I can see them! But it won't happen. They are now firmly retired.

So that's my little Sunday evening reverie. I'm gonna go dig out Modern Life is Rubbish.