Better Looking Than Mickey Rourke

I haven't seen the critically acclaimed movie The Wrestler, nor do I have any great ambition to do so, movie actors with IRA tattoos turn me off a tad or any terrorist organisation based ink for that matter, but I do want to see The Calamari Wrestler.
Only from Japan would they make a movie about a giant squid who wrestles for a living. Below is the trailer for this deeply moving tale of a cephalopod who can manoeuvre out of any wrestling hold, but his personal life and sporting career clash as he prepares to take on a Mantis Shrimp called the Squilla Boxer. If this movie doesn't make you laugh, cry or make you tad bit hungry, then you are dead my friend. Dead!

Patrick Swayze Does Not Look Well

Unless you live under a rock you'll know that the star of Dirty Dancing and Ghost has cancer and is deteriorating fast. This picture pretty much proves how ill the 56 year-old actor is and how much weight he has lost due to his treatment. In true Swayze style though the man is still working on his new show The Beast and taking chemotherapy at the weekends. Legend.

More pics HERE

The Hangover

Todd Phillips is a director who came to prominence after his films Road Trip, Old School and Starksy And Hutch and now it looks like he's onto another winner with his latest offering The Hangover. It stars three largely unknown actors who are forced to piece together the night before in order to find out where their friend, (and groom to be), has vanished to. I of course have no idea what the morning after the night before feels like or what alcohol even tastes like. Drink is, as everyone knows, the devils' urine.

'Hangover' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

The Tragic Death Of Imagination

A few days ago we posted up details of how Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice had been totally trashed re-written by some geek who thought it would be uber clever to include zombies, (I mean really, are we still flogging this undead horse?), re-naming it Pride And Prejudice And Zombies.

Just when you thought this premise couldn't be any more pathetic Sir Elton John wheels himself and his piano into the ring by announcing that his film company Rocket Pictures is to make a
science fiction re-imagining of...yes, you guessed it.

Pride And Predator, (*standing up and applauding enthusiastically*), will tell the story of an "alien dropped into the middle of a costume drama, where he stalks and slashes to horrific effect". David Furnish who will produce the film, while his husband Sir John Elton will supervise the music, told variety magazine: "It felt like a fresh and funny way to blow apart the done-to-death Jane Austen genre." RIP imagination, we knew you well.

Pegg & Frost Lite

This trailer is awful, make no bones about it. I'm reliably informed that James Cordone and Matthew Horne are brilliant in Gavin and Stacey, but this effort reeks of shit. Entitled Lesbian Vampire Killers it looks like a direct rip off of Shaun Of The Dead, only this time the gifted writers have taken that premise and turned it entirely on it's head by substituting zombies for....yes, lesbian vampires. Genius.
Really, is this what we are prepared to sell our cousins across the Atlantic? Is this all the British film industry can come up with, Guy Ritchie London gangster films and now comedy/horror/ Laurel & Hardy style romps? At this rate it won't be long before we start re-making the Carry On films...wait, we already tried that.

Another Piece Of The Jigsaw

I constantly come across moments in my life where I find myself thinking: "Ah right, now I get it." These moments usually centre around trivialities, but I love the little sense of satisfaction and achievement I get whenever it happens, like I've just solved an ancient mystery of life.
For example, I was watching an old movie last night called The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie directed by John Cassavetes. There is a scene in the movie where the main character Cosmo, played by the brilliant Ben Gazzara, is talking on the phone to his club's bartender and shouting: "Are there letters on the wall that say p-a-r? There's another card that says moon. Well, what's he singing? Like being hit by a bolt of lightening I instantly realised I had heard this phrase before and it wasn't long until I had figured it out.
In the music video for David Gray's song Sail Away, (where David is staggering home from the pub during a typical Saturday night), there is a scene where a man on the street with a broken nose is talking on his mobile asking: "Are there letters on the wall which read p-a-r? There's another card that says moon. Well, what's he singing?" Since that video first aired I always wondered where that phrase came from and now nearly ten years later I discovered the answer. Just another little piece of the jigsaw.

This Week In Film/Verbal Diorama

Vicky Cristina Barcelona/The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

by Frisbee Dog

I'm going to do both films at once for some good reason. Benjamin Button is brilliant, so brilliant in fact that after I finished watching it and was waiting outside for my driver Pepe to pick me up in the town Bentley, I could not for the life of me remember what the first film was that i went to see earlier that day. Eventually I rummaged around in my pocket and found a ticket stub to find it was Kinky Christian... or whatever. And the thing is, the first film featured Scarlet Joehansome gubbing into Penelope Pitstop and I had completely forgotten about it. Three choices 1) early onset mad cow, 2) brain penis blockage (see 1), 3) Benjamin Button is such a well crafted, magical, deeply moving, incredibly poignant film, that just steamrolled the best film Woody Allen has made since Deconstructing Harry, which features chicks winching.
I'm not going to even mention the special effects, because after about half an hour you just forget they're there. Like Nazis always speaking English.

Word of warning - expectant fathers beware. Be prepared for a new nightmare, (to add to the legion of others), where your progeny is born a tiny old pruney dude.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm blowing smoke up Benjamin Buttons ass, but it also happens to be part of a very rare breed of film now-a-days that actually knows how to end. The closing coda alone is worth the three hours and brings the film full circle in a way that just seems so right.

Cant recommend this highly enough.

Bring on Crank 2

Abysses Is Plural For Abyss

Way back when things were a lot less strenuous and complicated, I was a wee boy running around in my Transformers t-shirt and grass stained jeans. I cared not a jot and lived every day without worry or fear. The only three things I was frightened of back then were Great White Sharks, Malky "psycho eyes, McMasters and large holes in the ground. Now, I'm not talking about holes which were made by diggers or ones I had dug myself, I'm talking about deep chasms, bottomless craters and never ending abysses, (that's actually the correct plural for abyss, so don't leave any comments calling me a mong).
These types of holes made me feel very uneasy and would leave me with an overwhelming sense of panic. I was fearful for what lay at the bottom of these chasms, they might be lairs for demons, large horrific monsters, or just one massive, over-sized tentacle. My biggest fear was that the hole would just keep widening and the earth around it's perimeter would continue to crumble into it, until the hole itself had engulfed the entire planet.
There was a reason for my fear back then and surprisingly enough it wasn't connected to chronic drug abuse or an abnormal addiction to sherbet or slush puppies, it stemmed from a low budget horror movie made in 1987 called The Gate.

The Gate tells the story of three young American kids who bury their dead dog in a large hole in their suburban back garden, a hole which has mysteriously appeared following the removal of an old tree. After their pet's burial lots of strange, horrific things start to happen, all of them centred around the hole in the garden. (Yes, that's a very young Stephen Dorff with a red jacket in the trailer).
Needless to say I soiled myself when I first watched this. I'm not good with horror movies and I'm a hysterical mess with horror movies about deep, mysterious holes. So you can imagine how tight my sphincter muscles moved when I read about Hollywood re-making this movie. Apparently Alex Winter, (he of Bill and Ted fame), will direct, with Stephen Dorff rumoured to reprise his role as Glen and the whole movie will be in shot in glorious 3D. I'll probably go see it for the nostalgia aspect alone, but there's no guarantee I won't end up autographing my own gusset.