Look out! He's got a knife!

Review: The Aviator

In the 1960s, there was a sub-genre of drug freak-out movies involving coloured lights, hallucinations, scenes from movies being projected over people's faces, and other such fun. You know the movies I mean: The Trip, Mantis In Lace, etc.

If you like those movies, you should probably see Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes bio-pic The Aviator. Most of the movie is a better-than-good movie with the famous people of today impersonating the famous people of yesterday (Cate Blanchett does a fun cartoon version of Kate Kepburn; Jude Law is hilarious as Erroll Flynn), but then there are those Other Scenes.

I avoided this movie because it stars Leonardo DeCaprio. I always forget that he's actually a pretty good actor. He's better here than he was in his last Scorsese movie, Gangs of New York. His best role is still the retard in What's Wating Gilbert Grape? - a movie where he managed to out-shine Johnny Depp.

So yeah. 90% a good normal movie, 10% a great stoner movie. Points off for the mis-casting of Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner - what in Hell were they thinking, casting someone merely cute as that smouldering temptress?

Knowing nothing about Hughes mught be a slight handicap.

8 out of 10.

Awwww cute

This is really damn cute.

Lindsay Shonteff died

Canadian-born director Lindsay Shonteff (who died aged 70 on 11 March, the same day as Slobodan Milosevic) was known for making cheap and crap, yet weirdly compelling, genre movies. Not one of them is a classic - or even a cult classic - but they're part of a small tradition of down & dirty British exploitation flicks. I would put Shonteff in a similar category to Pete Walker, Norman Cohen, and Norman J. Warren: all distinctive auteurist Brit directors, none of whom have made anything that's actually any good.

Starting with a one-actor sort called The Bum, Shonteff's first splash was with the horror picture Devil Doll, a silly but lively cheapo. He went on to make more horror movies (the fun voodoo-themed Curse of Simba), an imitation of Italian giallo movies (Night After Night After Night), a couple of spy spoofs (Licenced to Love and Kill, Number One Gun), one of Harry Alan Towers's international Fu Manchu knock-offs (The Million Eyes of Sumuru - not as good as its companion piece, Jess Franco's Girl From Rio), and various others.

Probably his best were Big Zapper and The Swordsman, both starring Linda Marlowe as gun-toting private eye Harriet Zapper. A blend of of British sex comedy and ITV-style action/adventure, these unique movies should appeal to those with a nostalgic yearning for '70s Brit comic books. Sadly, they don't appear to have been released on DVD anywhere.

The poor bastard was so obscure that over three months on, his official website doesn't even mentioned that he died. But he's still remembered.

R.I.P. Lindsay Shonteff. May your movies, one day, bring you immortality.

fluffy bunnies

Maybe things around here have gotten too serious lately. Maybe we need fluffy bunnies.

Speaking of The Atrocity Exhibition

"If the wanton murder of civilians is what it takes to complete your mission, there is clearly something wrong with the mission."
- Gary Younge, The Guardian

Amazing!

There's a movie version of The Atrocity Exhibition!

This is a link to a review of the DVD, with pictures. I like howin the part about J.G. Ballard's audio commentary (!) it says that he worried about the director's identification with the main character...

If you don't know what The Atrocity Exhibition is, ask Billy. He has it with pictures...

Quotage

"Wow, your niece is hot! Uh, that was probably inappropriate..."
- Steve

"Fcku the whales"

says Japan and cronies.

"Nah nah, I cant, I cant kill no whales. Oh man, I heard they were here before us man," says the RZA.

"Stop the bloody whaling!" says a t-shirt buzzandhum used to wear. (Maybe he still does, I haven't seen him lately.)

"Oh i'm whaling, out on the green - i'll never get used to the sea. But i'm whaling - manning my harpoon, not where i wanted to be," says Dave Dobbyn.

"Whalers all have small penises," says Joey Narcotic. "Except for the ones who have no penises."

Weekend Worrier

This weekend, I:

* Watched A Boy and His Dog, The Day After, and Cherry 2000 all in a row.
* Did some boring stuff.
* Met exactly one new person.
* Broke hearts and noses.
* Seem to have fixed my fckued cellphone by smacking it on the desk.
* Made up for that by fckuing my iPod software again.
* Gave up on a lost cause.
* Possibly caused a new loss.

Only one of these things is an outright lie. The rest are as "true" as any "truth" I am likely to utter. In any case, my short-term plans appear to have changed a wee bit.

Unrelatedly: Warm Fuzzies to my sister, who's having a hard time at the moment.

Quotage

Haven't done this for a while.

"Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it."
- John Lennon

"The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things - but above all we must dare to fail. You must be willing to risk everything to really express it all."
- John Cassavetes

"I want to tell you a terrific story about oral contraception. I asked this girl to sleep with me and she said 'No.' "
- Woody Allen

"I don't pray because I don't want to bore God."
- Orson Welles

"We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace."
- Michael Franti

"I'm not offended by dumb blonde jokes because I know that I'm not dumb. I also know I'm not blonde."
- Dolly Parton

"So cheat your landlord if you can and must, but do not try to shortchange the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal."
- William S. Burroughs

"You know, performance is communicating. You've got a song you're singing from your gut, you want that audience to feel it in their gut."
- Johnny Cash

"Johnny Cash was plenty good enough to fool his fans. They believed he felt it in his soul when he sang the Gospel while stoned on drugs."
- Suzanne Fields

"I think people need to be educated to the fact that marijuana is not a drug. Marijuana is an herb and a flower. God put it here. If He put it here and He wants it to grow, what gives the government the right to say that God is wrong?"
- Willie Nelson

"Why does there have to be a soundcheck? I don't have a songcheck. You don't have a clothescheck."
- Prince

"Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end."
- Kris Kristofferson

"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
- John Lennon

"The gratification comes in the doing, not in the results."
- James Dean

Book Review: The Wu Tang Manual

Jesus. The whole building just shook in the mind.

Anyway. In 1977, Robert Anton Wilson wrote Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati. In 1981, Philip K. Dick wrote Valis. In 2004, The RZA wrote The Wu-Tang Manual.

This book, like the other two, is an account of the spiritual path of its writer. The RZA takes us through the philosophical importance of Islam, Marvel comics, Zen Buddhism, capitalism, martial arts, Shaw Bros. kung fu movies, and of course hip-hop.

I can't get behind everything he says (see: capitalism above) but there's a lot of good thought in here. Plus there's an entire great chapter just geeking out about samplers, and some good anecdotes about scoring Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai. Lots of mysterious Wu-Tang slang is also clarified, and there are interjections by several members of the Clan (most notable the GZA).

For those interested in the further thoughts of the RZA, here he is interviewing a Shaolin monk: link

and here he is guest-editing the Spirituality special issue of Bold Type: link

Edited on suggestion from clubmix.

New Orleans continues to get fkuced

Link.

Nice one, stealing from disaster relief money. But more importantly - nice one, setting up such a half-assed organization to deal with it.

Just the latest "Who gives a fkuc about the poor black people who are most affected anyway?" - it's the American way don't you know.

Joe's a-coughin'

Hey, check out my namesake: Coffin Joe.

He's a good looking fellow.

He's got my eyes.

He's a dab hand with my favourite weapon.

And he's coming for you... and for you!

I love that Joe. He really brings home the bacon.

Callow on Welles pt 2

I see that the second volume of Simon Callow's big fat biography of Orson Welles is finally out. Much as I'd love to stick it on my shelf next to vol. 1, I'm disinclined to spend $80 on a book right now. Has anyone else read it?

I am pleased to noticee that it's now going to be at least three volumes, as this one only takes us as far as MacBeth. The first ended with the release of Citizen Kane, and it would have been a shame if Callow had followed the usual biographical model for Welles: half a book on his first 24 years, and half a book on his last 44.

The myth that Welles only ever made one good movie has been growing mould on it for years, and in my not-terribly-humble opinion he made at least three better movies in his later years (Touch of Evil, The Trial, and Chimes At Midnight) and even most of his lesser projects (like F For Fake and Mr. Arkadin) are fascinating and under-documented.

Mind you, although Callow is an interesting writer with much to say he's also very critical of Welles and some of his research in vol. 1 is a bit dodgy (especially his reliance on John Houseman's memoirs), so maybe his books aren't the best place to look for insights. On the other-other hand, many Wellesians are way to fucking precious about Our Hero and criticism does not equate to condemnation, and Callow certainly does not deny Welles's epic levels of sheer talent and bravado.

Speaking of Arkadin, the Criterion Collection have just put out a 3-disc edition containing the two previously released editions and a newly put together "integral" version. Welles never got the chance to put this film together himself (a real shame, as his greatest talent - for all his genius behind the camera - was in the editing room) so we'll never have a clue what he would really have done, but this should be interesting. They did a splendid job with the F For Fake dvd, and I can't wait to check out this one (which features interviews with, among others, Simon Callow).

I decided recently that my two favourite American filmmakers are Orson Welles and John Cassavettes. (I also decided that Ray Carney deserves a kick in the bollocks, but that's another story, and besides I'll probably never get a chance to swiftly connect my steel caps with his nut sack.)

For those who love to click things: here is Welles's infamous voice-over tantrum. The page has many other bizarre MP3s.

Copycats

The Dillinger Escape Plan have covered Justin Timberlake's mighty epic, Like I Love You. Link.

Are they copying Wellington hardcore band Idle Faction, who have been known to cover Britney Spears's towering achievement, Toxic, in live performances?

We may never know for sure.

DVD review: Eko Eko Azarak - Wizard of Darkness

Well, this was a nice surprise.

Something awful is happening at a Japanese high school. Ominous monks chant Latin in the basement, and young girls are being killed in mysterious accidents. When the locations are connected with straight lines, they form a pentagram¹ - with the school right in the middle! Mix in a mysterious new student, Misa Kuroi, who has witchy powers and has come specifically to try and save the students who are being set up to be killed.

It all sounds a bit like Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Japan with more sex and gore, but this is very much its own thing (and was actually made in 1995, and based on a Manga that first appeared in the '50s). It bears no relationship whatsoever to the appallingly-name "J-horror" phenomenon² that sprung up after the success of Ringu.

Director Shimako Sato had previously helmed the chic British goth/angst snooze-fest Tale of a Vampire (starring reliable Eurotrash regular Julian Sands), which was nowhere near as good as this. Sato, who is female, lingers on the exploitative elements as luridly as any male director so kudos for that. In the accompanying featurette she talks about how much she likes blood (this comes through vividly) but also claims that it's not really a horror movie and she's focusing on the "romantic" element.

That's pure bullshit. This is old-school horror through and through. Dead teenagers galore, with serious lashings of nicely photographed lesbian sex. There are some fun Omen/Final Destination-style creative deaths (the opening scene is particularly good), and the movie is ruthless about killing people off.

It's also nice to see Western occultism being used as the exotic foreign Black Magick, rather than West African Santeria or Caribbean Voudoun or South American Nagualism or whatever.

Highly recommended to anyone who likes '80s horror of the Night of the Demons variety.

_{1. Or, to be honest, it could form a pentagon. From Hell this is not.}

_{2. "J-horror" movies are really just ghost stories that happen to be made in Japan, usually very much in line with the English ghost story. One of the most prominent, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Seance, was even based on an English novel that was previously filmed in England by Brian Forbes and starring Richard Attenborough. Some of the filmmakers associated with "J-horror" have expressed their extreme displeasure, and have pointed out that apart from setting there is very little to seperate their work from, say, The Haunting (1963).}

Why I don't watch television

"The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore, the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television."
- Dr. Brian O'Blivion, Videodrome by David Cronenberg

I don't capitalize "tv" either.

أبومصعب الزرقاوي R.I.P.

Yes, even he is less beautiful in death. Rest In Pieces, Inshallah.

Straight Up

Does anyone except for Morgue remember a Canadian tv show called Straight Up, about a group of teenagers, that took place over a period of a day or so surrounding the murder of one of them?

It had the gorgeous young actor Sarah Polley playing against type as a goth.

I'd like to see it again some time.

'Flying Discs' do not 'fly'

There is no element of self-propulsion involved. They are thrown objects.

'Flying disc' is not a technical term. It is a nick-name.

Go on, try to prove me wrong.

Frisbeetarianism is another matter entirely.

In any case, 'Frisbees' are gay. In the homosexual sense. Evidence.

Peeping Tom

I'd just like to say that Mike Patton's new project, Peeping Tom, has about the coolest gimmick digipack cover I've ever seen. If you can find a non-plastic-wrapped version, have a wee play with it (but be careful, it's probably a wee bit fragile).

The album's good, but far from his best or most startling work. It is a very good showcase for his ridiculously versatile voice, though. There are not many genuine virtuoso vocalists (in the sense of being able to sing pretty much anything) but Patton is one, and he shows off his range quite well here.

It's being touted as his return to radio-friendly material for the first time since Faith No More. Rubbish. Lovage (2001) was more radio-friendly than this, and a couple of tracks on General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners had radio potential. It's be nice to hear the Norah Jones duet get airplay though.

I've got my thinking head on

Reading this, you might want to be aware that I have no children (that I know of). I don't think that invalidates what I say in any sense.

Slavery is illegal. Hence, legally, you do not own your children. Noone owns another person.

Yet many parents behave as if their children are their personal property. I believe that this is a source of many problems, with the most serious probably being the (hopefully usually) unconscious assumption that "I own my kids, so I can do what I want with them (or to them)."

Up to a point you are responsible for your children - both their well being and their behaviour. It is only good and natural that you should feel protective towards them. But just because you are a child's parent, doesn't mean that you automatically know what is best for the child.

Maybe you do, and maybe you don't. You possibly know the child better than almost anyone else alive, but I reckon we've all known many families where the parents and children don't understand each other at all.

In my opinion, our children's well-being is everyone's concern. Everyone is someone's child. We are all potentially everyone's problem, just as we are all potentially everyone's inspiration.

And I'm very pleased that most of my friends with families are clever and sympathetic people who seem to do very well indeed by their kids. I hope to God that when (if?) I have children, I'm not so arrogant as to not ask them how they've managed.

OK, I'm taking my thinking head off again and replacing it with the usual turnip.

Kammal the Abstract

One of the great unreleased albums. Click here to listen.

Ken Loach shakes his cage

This is interesting. Apparently Ken Loach's new movie (which won the Palm D'Or at Cannes) is being denounced as propaganda by media muffins who haven't seen it.

If they were to look up the work propaganda in the dictionary, they might find that they were practicing it.

I've loved Loach's movies ever since I saw Kes as a kid. No doubt that was evil propaganda too, in the days of the miners' strike.

It Is Later Than You Think

As much as all things are subjective, beauty in particular is in the eye of the beholder. So if you can't see it... it's not there.

I am not afraid of my own death, but I am terrified of other people's.

American Beauty was full of shit. Yes there is beauty in the every day; but in my eyes a dead body has lost beauty, not gained it. If only Chevy Chase had not pulled out of the lead role, this movie would likely today have the reputation it deserves. (Kevin Spacey is a brilliant actor, but it's interesting that both the movies he has won Oscars for are glib masquerading as deep.)

Death is over-romanticized. Death is not the opposite of life - it is merely the absence of life. (Much as dark is not the opposite of light; try asking a physicist about "the speed of dark" sometime.)

Everything that makes us special and beautiful and unique ends with death.¹ That's fine by me, for myself. I can't see anything in myself that is so precious and unique that it deserves to endure while everything else atrophies. However I am unhappy when I consider that there are some unique and precious people whose company I will never enjoy again.

Death kills. That's all it does. It ends potential. It ends beauty - if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the beholder dies, there is no beauty.

And yet despite death, life goes on. So live. Don't just hang around waiting for the day to end, enjoy it while it lasts.

If you love someone, tell them now. Maybe you won't die before you get a chance, but then again maybe they will.

*ahem* Just felt the need to share. Enjoy the rest of your day.

_{1. Unless you subscribe to one of these foolish afterlife/reincarnation religions.}

The Great OMEN rip-off

From Rue Morgue magazine, here's David Seltzer, scriptwriter of the original verion of The Omen, the remake of which opens today in America but not here:

"They credited another writer who tampered with about eleven pages, did no more than that, so they basically Xeroxed my script and did it over again."

The Writer's Guild of America has apparently given Seltzer sole screen credit, despite the fact that he was not even approached to work on it.

The only reason I could think of to see this remake is if you saw it on that 6/6/6 opening date. As it's delayed over here, there's no reason to see it. The original sucked donkey dick to begin with, and Seltzer claims they've dumbed it down, so let's all drink to a new low in creative bankruptcy.

6/6/6

For the benefit of those in backwards countries who haven't hit the Day of the Beast yet, here in New Zealand we're all drinking each other's blood in glorious rapture at the coming of the Anti-Christ. Tea and biscuits at Nana's afterwards.

Too bad it turned out that the real number of the beast ws 616. All that virgin blood, wasted! Oh well, better five months late than never.

So...

Sex this weekend?

Good interview with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by German paper

is here. Thanks to Billy for the link.

Try and look past the Holocaust controversy that opens the interview. Ahmadinejad has interesting things to say, among them:

"We're fundamentally opposed to the expansion of nuclear-weapons arsenals. This is why we have proposed the formation of an unbiased organization and the disarmament of the nuclear powers. We don't need any weapons. We're a civilized, cultured people, and our history shows that we have never attacked another country."

"Our stance with respect to Palestine is clear. We say: Allow those to whom this country belongs to express their opinion. Let Jews, Christians and Muslims say what they think. The opponents of this proposal prefer war and threaten the region. Why are the United States and these two or three European nations opposed to this? I believe that those who imprison Holocaust researchers prefer war to peace. Our stance is democratic and peaceful."

"For eight years, the Western countries provided arms to Saddam in the war against us, including chemical weapons, and gave him political support. We were against Saddam and suffered severely because of him, so we're happy that he has been toppled. But we don't accept a whole country being swallowed under the pretext of wanting to topple Saddam."

"We're concerned about the American soldiers who die in Iraq. Why do they have to die there? This war makes no sense. Why is there war when there is reason as well?"

I can't get behind everything the guy says, but he still comes across a lot better than certain Western leaders.

Topic: Menstruation.

Discuss.