30 days of night

josh hartnett! that's his name! - i spent most of this movie trying to remember it... that probably happens a lot to him in all his blandness. too long, predictable, ridden with cliche and containing a very sloppy thread of a love story that shouldn't have been considered. and unforgivably in a gore-fest there were times when i was bored.

there were elements i liked: the traditional vampire design, the 30 days without sunlight... um... maybe that's it....

4/10

return to oz

this film is disturbed, perilous and genuinely frightening, and it shouldn't ever be watched by children. i actually know adults who refuse to watch this because of the childhood fear it recollects. return to oz is darker than its predecessor, but it well retains the universe created in the original 1939 film, albeit with a much younger dorothy. i love the character design of this film, especially the wheelers.. but i guess good production design is expected from the guy that designed star wars. i must read the books some day.

8/10

naked lunch

i'm not entirely sure if its possible to tell if this is a good film or not. that's quite standard for cronenburg films. to be honest, though, i'm not entirely sure of anything anymore. my mind is a wee bit screwed up after the last 2 hours of head-fuck.

my favourite bit was where an old lady ripped off her boobs to reveal roy schneider smoking a cigar.

5/10

it's raining men

i've got google analytics on this blog now. it means i can massage my ego everyday by seeing how often people read my infallible words. on average, people spend about 11 minutes on my site, which is about how long it takes for me to ejaculate. so it's got me thinking.

...

anyway, i did learn that a couple of people have ended up on my blog after some relatively obscure google searches:

ah laura, every day you rouse me from my sleep with your warm front.

star wars IV: a new hope

i try to review films in an objective way, but it's hard with the holy trilogy; it's been part of my life for as long as i can remember films even existing. as a kid i was entranced and enveloped by the galaxy far, far away before i was even conscious that i was going to end up loving films. you could say it was seminal in my film watching journey so i can't really give it anything less that 10 out of 10. i have just watched the recent re-edit though... now i can be objective and say that elements of it are awful. i have no idea why lucas decided to take a film that was widely loved as it was, and ruin it with lots of tiny little incidental expositional cut scenes. not necessary, and have ended up destroying the beats and rhythms of the story, and for the soul reason that 'now he can.' notable wrongdoings in this edit are: - a short scene between han solo and jabba the hutt that didn't have the technology to quite pull off without looking like badly superimposed CGI. - a rather stiff looking CGI C3PO sitting atop a land speeder. - the cutting of the famous 'stormtrooper bumping his head' moment. sad really, it pulls the original and best starwars movie further down towards the level of the horrifying episode II: attack of the clones.

10/10

a cock & bull story

i have two new nieces. they make me think that having babies is cool. not yet, though... christ, no.

judging by this article, i'll need to call mine mohammed and pang-pang.
my wang once grew by 2225 percent. which made it over 4-&-a-half inches long! it was a good day.

bmx bandits

wow, look at that bike. that is a nice bike, all traditional with white-wall tires and a proper "brrring brrring" bell. nice colour too.
oh, and that painting is okay. a bit of a 70's feel going on with the frame. it's all pleasantly old skool really. even the walls are a tasteful shade of magnolia. i could very happily hang out in that room, nipping out for a pleasurable summer ride whenever i feel the compunction.
maybe i'll contact these guys, to find out where that photo was taken, and sneak in under the cover of night to rub myself on the wall and.... oh!... there's a girl in her underwear! goodness me!

gremlins

i watched this again recently, and couldn't quite believe how good it actually is! i remember watching it a lot as a kid though... it is definitely not a kids film. or maybe it is in that "the simpsons has lots of jokes that only adults get" kind of way.

this film will now and forever have a special place in my heart as - through a strange sequence of events - it is largely responsible for the beginning of my relationship with S.L.R.

9/10

aliens (extended release)

i can't think of a more annoying character in any film ever, than bill paxton's "hudson" in this movie. um... perhaps that ginger goit in die another day.... anyway: not a bad sequel here. cameron manages to capture SOME of the believability of the first alien film, keeps the essence of the design and makes a true continuation of ripley's story. it's a very different film, though. less a creature/slasher/horror and more a gunfighting action film. and an alright one at that.

when i was a kid i thought this was the best of the trilogy. it's really not. it's not even in the same league. but it's not terrible, so... okay. i just watched the more recent extended release. nearly 2 and a half hours. that sort of length works with intelligent, atmospheric and consciously tense movies. this isn't one of them. my advice: stick to the original short release, cameron isn't quite clever enough to pull off the drawn out version.

6/10

homeward bound

the view from work can be nice, though:

supersize me

i work in a bank.

there, i said it.

it's not something i'm particularly thrilled about and until yesterday i was very excited to be leaving on friday to start a new job with people who are less responsible for the pig-vomit in which we currently reside. i use the past tense regarding my upcoming job as i have just yesterday discovered i'm a victim of The Crunch before even starting employment, and consequently have nowhere to move to.

anyway, at least i can take some solace in the fact that i'm not directly employed by The Bank, only to work as a contractor for them in their HQ. very little solace, but some at least.

more solace came (past tense again) from the fact that it's one of the very few banks that have performed quite well and haven't taken huge wads of taxpayers' money to prevent liquidation and drive nice cars.

so why the past tense back there?

well, far more important, permanent and damaging to the population of the world than a shortage of money is the fact that we're rapidly approaching the day when we've gone past the point of no return on the whole climate thing. there are a fair few africans who'd suggest we've already done that, but, y'know, it doesn't matter until it reaches our plates does it?

pause for sanctimonious reflection

“but how does my bank's average financial performance have dick to do with my self-righteous attitude to climate change?” if you were reading this properly you might have asked. after I punched you in the crotch i’d explain that i just spent the last few hours of my shift listening to lord lawson. if you can’t be roused enough to click that link, i’ll explain that he gave a pre-dinner speech detailing the pros of global warming. the pros.

obviously he spent some time explaining that the problem is all a big lie and we don’t need to worry about it, this based on the fact that it’s a difficult science and can’t possibly be worked out using maths. this is backed up by at least one third of scientists.

and there will be an average temperature increase of between 1-4 degrees, but that's actually only a small issue really because people in the developed world are pretty good at adapting to their environment.

and as for the developing world, their average GDP will only drop from $95 to $85 per capita which is hardly any different. i expect this woman will be pleased to know that.

other benefits include the obvious: there will be a huge decrease in the amount of people who die from hypothermia. again, that woman will be relieved.

also, it means we can grow more tropical fruit in britain. although i thought we could do that anyway... with greenhouses.

some of his more interesting theories included the idea that all those trying to fight global warming are merely victims of a short term religious fad,
like christianity... wha?!

it concerns me quite a lot that this kind of conversation is taking place at all, with someone who genuinely thinks that it's not worth doing anything to combat climate change because china or india will never sign up to kyoto agreements. as britain's impact is only 2% of the problem, it's pointless to even try. what's even more concerning is that it's happening at the top level of financial institutions. i should mention that this dinner event was attended by 20 of the most senior bankers in the country, people who have publicly accepted personal responsibility for their part in the economic crisis.
to ease their guilty hearts - i suppose - he did suggest the silver lining on the environmentally deluded, un-economical mass-panic of the nation... that if we're all spending our time worrying about climate change, we'll be distracted from what the banks are doing.

yeah, i get to hang out with some quality people at work.

if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. i think that's fair and simple to understand. this twat is definitely part of the problem. this is a guy who (apart from being a lord, whatever that means) puts the economy far far above the environment. that's pretty easy to do in the current (economic) climate; you'll easily gain some followers. the way i see it though, is the economy is just information on sheets of paper. if everything really goes tits up and the world economy reaches an irreparable point, it's just an abstract concept that the human race can live through. as for the environment, if that goes we're screwed. seriously. we can't produce food. the end.

we survived millions of years without money, we'll survive a couple of weeks without water.

the trouble is, it's a hard battle. to all you readers (and if you've got this far through my ignorant pontification, well done), those of you who already consider climate change a problem then you'll perhaps be nodding in agreement to these words. otherwise, unfortunately our ammunition is made up of stupid sounding words and phrases, and self-regarding holier-than-thou attitudes that will make skeptics even more bloody minded.

i can't blame them. recently one of the most well-read, well-informed people i know told me "the gulf stream has already stopped, we are just experiencing 'echo' effects" which - frankly - sounds ridiculous and is a concept so out of my personal realm it becomes simply a random sequence of words. while she is most probably completely right, she is having to resort to these wacky, abstract, distant claims to get her point across. and that's where we'll always fail to increase our numbers.

tell someone their choice is between a load of ice melting in their lifetime, or not being able to pay next months rent, they'll make an obvious and forgivable decision.

oh god, it's 01:28. i should go to bed, i need to be up for work in the morning to help them talk about the money they make. then i'll work on my tan.

the simpsons movie

proving that the natural and perfect setting for the simpsons is in 20 minute episodes: not quite as good as i'd hoped, but still brilliant. watch out for the hammer joke, i applauded. (and bart's pwaanis).

8/10

death proof

you can't just decide that something will be iconic. stuff becomes iconic and cult over a period of time, as people learn and live with it and come to realise the craft and heart that went into its production. unfortunately this film tries to bypass that, and jump straight into already having a cult fan-base. i'm sure it will, but i'm not one of them.

in this film, amongst so many faults, it just feels like tarantino is presenting his high school film studies project. yes, quentin, we know you know about films and your level of recollection and geekiness about them is second to none, but being able to pastiche a genre is not the same as making a good movie. i was hoping for both to be accomplished in this, but unfortunately the style just felt forced and it was too obvious that the old cine-reel effects were a very conscious addition in post production. it is very tarantino, but excluding pulp fiction and reservoir dogs this is yet another of his movies that fails to hit my spot. it's wordy without an interesting script, far far far too long, and nothing interesting happens until an hour and a half into it. then it ends with no reward for the viewer.

there are elements i like. not many. i like the abrupt ending. although not a great actress, i liked the kiwi girl's contribution to the stunts. and the main stunt was very well done with no obvious clues as to how they pulled off a lot of the shots. i liked the non-specific time setting - is it the 70's, is it the 00's?
i just don't want to have to sit through 90 minutes of boredom for ten minutes of excitement.

and i SO wanted to enjoy it. damn.

3/10

empire records

this has remained at the top of my list for a long long time: maybe it's the indie feel to it, maybe it's the nostalgic soundtrack, maybe it's liv tyler in her underwear, maybe it's the 'fighting The Man' plot, maybe it's reminiscent of a time in my life when i was without responsibility, maybe it's my inner desire to work in an independent record store, maybe it's rory cochrane's brilliant character, maybe it's the piss take of pop stars, maybe it's just the line "not entirely perfect" i just love it.

10/10

lost in translation

this is as close as i've ever seen to a faultless film. heartbreaking, beautiful and sublime; lost in translation never falters from the best opening shot of any film ever, to the final whispered secret. painting a whole new picture of japan, loneliness and sexual tension. the whole cast expertly portrays completely natural and convincing characters, bill murray is a lord of subtle comedy in this, and scarlett johannson makes my insides all gooey and stuff. it's just perfect.

10/10

the counterfeiters

questions and contradictions. it is both a harrowing glimpse at how the criminally minded might have cheated and betrayed their way through the war, but also a tribute to the strength of soul of the victims that they manage to stay level-headed and calculative in an environment of absolute despair. both of these things coming from the hero Salomon, and the supposed villain Herzog. as you watch this, and warm to protagonists (as you do in most movies), you can't help wondering about the needs of the many versus the needs of the few. of course you want the hero to achieve his goals and ultimately survive... but what about the thousands of unseen prisoners that go on suffering because of his actions. it is estimated that the works of twenty-or-so fine jewish craftsmen kept the war going for two years more than if they hadn't done the work they did. but what would you do?.. work to save your life and the life of your friends, or all face beatings and death for the thousands of unknown faces. tough call. brilliantly shot, the grainy handheld camera work puts you right in the camp, up close to the characters. harsh, uncomfortable tension all the way until the ultimate release. well defined and frighteningly real portrayals from the whole cast. terrifying, excellent.

7/10

the lord of the rings

ages ago i found a video of a very attractive lady taking her clothes off in public. what a delight it was to see her live on monday night at le clique. the whole show is pretty much what it says in this description; but i want to pay particular attention to the best act of the night, captain frodo.

here's a little video of his act. unfortunately it is bastardised by the presence of graham norton and the low attention span attitude towards television editing. the real act has a wonderful bumbling pace, far more verbal jokes and is well worth the ticket to see in person.

also i managed to nab seats with the troubadour that were about 80cms from the tiny stage, so when the sparsely dressed lady performers were on i could almost see their breakfast. some of them had hula hoops.

day watch

like it's predecessor this film is visually busy, the stories are hard to follow and it beats with an odd rhythm that i can't quite step in time with. nevertheless, and still like the first in the trilogy, day watch looks amazing, the setting is full of depth, and there is one of the best CGI car stunts i've ever seen. and the subtitles are pretty cool too.

7/10

johnny mneumonic

my friend chris, the troubadour is making a website with his "other friends." it looks quite good, but then one of his "other friends" designs websites for a living.

it's called spirit of the stairwell which is based on the french phrase l’esprit d’escalier for describing that thing where you think of the best thing to say well after the event.

i can never think of the french phrase when i'm trying to explain l’esprit d’escalier to people, which leaves it very difficult to complete the description. i usually end up remembering it later that day.

i'd be honoured to have this blog fed into it, perhaps appearing on one of the pages or something. www.spiritofthestairwell.net will probably get more traffic than me as chris is a budding socialite and i am a grumpy bastard who lives in a cave.

the fixer

now, you see, this is the problem:


you get these nice looking bikes, and guys who have great skill and can do cool stunts on them... and then you get to the "interview" at the end and they turn out to be verging on brain dead.

arrgh! i guess it's similar to what it's like to be a woman.

the kingdom

you can't make an all action movie nowadays by just filming schwarzenegger firing a machine gun for two hours. nowadays you have to have a story and a moral and some sort of important social commentary. this film does that reasonably well with no real faults. it looks good, it's genuinely unpredictable (apart from the obvious "four americans can save the whole world from al quaeda" thing). jennifer gardner has an awesome fight scene and hollywood have managed to make a movie that doesn't portray all 'towel-heads' as evil for a change, which much as i liked jarhead, is long overdue. is does imply that they're all a bit simple though. one step at a time i suppose. (this film also features the sexiest primary school teacher that has ever, and will ever exist).

i wrote this before i started going out with a primary school teacher, so not all of the above remains true.

6/10

ratatouille

these pixar chaps are getting quite good now aren't they? y'know, pushing the abilities and ignoring the limitations of animation. ratatouille really sets them apart from the likes of dreamworks and warner. this film looks incredible, there is a definite beauty to the way it lights up the screen. never did i ever imagine that my jaw would drop over the level of attention in an animated egg, for example. but that's not all, rising far above the likes of shrek and even the (genius) ice ages, 'rat-a-too-ee' is filled with out loud laughs, subtle wit, hundreds of energy and a depth and a level of detail that is quite simply unobtainable in any other film-making. i loved this. can you guess?

9/10

crocodile dundee

this is one of those films i remember loving when i was a kid, but re-watching has left me feeling disappointed, cheated and full of regret. saddening to say, it's slow and dull and not very funny. maybe i loved it because i was 6 and it had a lady's bottom in it.

4/10

red eye

i've been keeping my eye out for a suitable donor vehicle so i can build myself a single speed. i love my hybrid: it's durable and practical and has mudguards and panniers and stuff, so it's also useful. but part of me does also want a light, minimal, fast bike that i can just scoot around on, when i'm cycling more for pleasure and not carrying my laptop and suit to work. despite the stigma, the lightest, most minimal bikes around are single speeds and fixies; and complimenting my enjoyment of mechanics and customisation it seems likely that i'll head towards building myself one.

unfortunately they're also classed as the most trendy transport out there at the moment, which is great for the environment but not so great for me as i want it to be more of an inexpensive hobby than a fashion statement; so that when it gets stolen i can just shrug it off and make a new one. when something becomes this fashionable, the world of idiots comes out and boosts the price up. so for this bike =>
i found on ebay recently, that looks like a bunch of crap... someone ended up paying £131. that's about nine dollars! and there's me thinking an ancient, basic, no frills bike should be pittance.

a few of the american bloggers i follow seem to have no difficulty in finding bikes & parts in skips or on wasteland or in local scrap yards, but as far as i know the only things we have that are anything like that are the canals in north-east london. and i'm not about to go diving in those open sewers for the chance of accidentally grabbing hold of a rusty frame, when it's far more likely i'll drag up someone's thigh bone.

someone i met ages ago has just released a film called age of stupid, premiered yesterday in a solar-powered tent in leicester square. she also made mclibel, if you've seen that. i haven't, but i'm sure it shares my sentiment that big american
corporations are largely a bunch of cunts - only it does it with real footage and evidence.

anyway, i only mention the film premier as i saw that the main star pete postlethwaite arrived on a single speed. quite a nice one, actually - if it wasn't for the spoke cards that make him look like a 9 year old newspaper boy. and i reckon you could get away with removing the back brake.

anyway, it all links together nicely doesn't it?

or something.

finally, look at this. i hope these dancers do it all with an ironic smirk across their faces. if not, the world is a bad place:

the wizard of oz

it's nigh on impossible to believe that this was made nearly 70 years ago. i mean, it does look old, but no where near that old. despite being ancient, this is far from dated. this is the definitive version of this story, judy garland is (pardon the homosexuality) fabulous, and the whole production design is stunning (if a little drugs-vision weird).

8/10

war

please tell me you’ve seen this before. if you have not, please enjoy it. and laugh wildly at the young man.

i work with a hungarian. my inside source tells me ‘speak’ is absolutely serious and spent a lot of money hiring the singers. also, those singers are all from famous hungarian metal bands, and not opera singers. who would have guessed it.

you?

no.

what you may not find very easily, is the follow up single where he did actually hire a real opera singer; who looks about as comfortable in this video as i am sitting here on this dildo.

mean girls

one of very few teen college 'geeks v jocks' comedies that is actually genuinely funny. probably due to ex-saturday night liver tina fey's brilliant wit (she also writes 30 rock, genius). the one thing i didn't get was; a great deal was predicated on the fact that lindsay lohan is ridiculously pretty... a bit like the reverse of 'she's all that' where we're supposed to think that rachael leigh cook is fugly, when she's clearly gorgeous even through [gasp] GLASSES. by saturday night liver i don't mean that walnut feeling you get in your abdomen after a heavy night.

7/10

alien

there will never be a creature thriller film as good as this ever again. absolutely phenomenal film making here, from the first scene showing off the faultless, groundbreaking and believable production design to the fantastic performance by sigourney weaver as a resilient and brave space trucker forced into desperation and heroism. the whole thing is a masterclass of tension and anticipation, design and cinematography. and it has ian holm in it and he's my favourite.

10/10

short change

as i spend a bunch of money on a .mac account, i thought i'd try and use a bit of it. look to the right to the right, there's a link to my website.

there's not much there at the moment, but as soon as i have an idea what to do with it, there will be.

ummmmm.

twins

i just opened a 'fun-size' curlywurly to find they've double-stacked them. fucken' a.

the hills have eyes

the hills do not have eyes.

3/10

slow ride

is this a really slow-burn version of dropping GHB into someone's drink?

and is 'sex patch' a really cool name for something?

copacabana

i've got a little electronic key-ring hanging on my bag, that displays a tiny-wee slide show of pictures. one of those is a polite message to those guilty parties that insist on playing music from the speakers on their mobile phones.

perhaps they should heed the warnings of judge paul sacco of colorado, who had a brilliant idea. i'd welcome a sentence like this, and would gladly be issued with a warrant for the arrest and sentence of any greasy little kid with a nokia who insists on wheezing hip-hop out of its pathetic 1/2" cone. maybe the colorado police even use a half decent sound system, so the whole education also includes a lesson in quality of sound.

two words, you idiots: frequency response

though my idea of a punishment fitting the crime would involve submerging their heads under water until they go limp.

sky captain & the world of tomorrow

i haven't managed to take any pictures of my bike yet, so have a look at this little number that i took to remind me the best possible way to mount it to my car.

it sits really high because of the sloping top tube. perhaps i should consider one of these. then i'd be able to carry my hybrid, a fixie, a chopper and sexy road bike.

you can see i've already mounted the tow bar i mentioned a little while ago. i was going to document my comedy attempts to fit it, but it turned out to be ridiculously easy. what an interesting story.

pushing tin

it's rare that i don't finish watching a film, but i was so bored by this i had to leave the room. YAAWWWNNNN. cusack is the only watchable element in this, but the rest are just a bit irritating. ooh, and the incidental music is the worst i ever remember hearing, like some sort of financial training video or something.

you'd do much better to read the original article it was based on.

4/10

down to you

if i ever express a wish to watch this again, please strangle me with a prophylactic.

1/10

cats & dogs

absolutely genuinely, two of the funniest videos i've ever seen on youtube. neither of them need much introduction, but i like the sound of my own typing:

a little while ago i learned that the bit of your brain that stops you carrying out the physical actions you experience in your dreams can be removed from cats and dogs. it's quite weak in some animals, which is why you get this sort of thing.

"crunch"

i have two new nieces courtesy of one of my brothers and my sister. to the untrained eye that may read like an incestuous relationship has spawned twins, but actually it's just by coincidence that my little sister and kid-brother's-girlfriend have both given birth to their first born in the last few weeks. the resulting little packages of joy are both insanely cute and wonderful and i'm a bit over-thrilled by it all. with any luck they'll both grow up providing us all with the utter jubilation that this does:

love & sex

brilliant early date movie, despite the presumption of the title. absolutely love this intelligent and witty rom-com filled with lines that i wish i could remember when i'm trying to impress someone. the dialogue sparkles constantly.

8/10

multiplicity

if, like me, you waste your life and ruin your integrity by occasionally watching channels like e4 and ITV, you've probably had your pupils grazed by the new adidas ad campaign:

...which offers the advice to which we can all aspire: celebrate originality (2.37).

like me, you are probably confused after watching that. the last time i went to a party where everyone was wearing the same brand of clothing was in the changing rooms of TopShop; and i was the only one who knew it was a party. whatever the dubious nature of that situation, it was very definite that if a group of people are all dressed in the same clothing then 'originality' is not the first word on the lips of the average onlooker.

"alcoholism", "burglary" and "abortion"... yes. but not originality.

nor intelligent design.

perhaps it's just a simple spelling mistake, a slip through the keen eyes of the adidas marketing team. though these people are probably pretty well paid for their highly valued creativity and deep knowledge of the psyche of the average sports-wear consumer, it can happen from time-to-time.
perhaps it was supposed to say "celibate originality" and was using the visuals of these STD-ridden hipsters to send a subtle message of abstention to the masses.

or perhaps "celebrate origins" - suggesting you hold a themed party in your house and invite similar neanderthals evocative of this high budget get-together. you may have noticed that quite a few pre-historic creatures with only basic practical skills were in attendance: 50 cent (fiddy-sapian), katy perry (aduro meretricis) and david beckham (goldenbalsa-saur).

this campaign reminded me of a joke that went around many years ago, when the rest of the country started adopting the term "chav" (originally from my home county):

Q: how do you get 20 chavs in a phone box?
A: paint three stripes on it.

american psycho II: all american girl

if you're going to make a sequel, you should really try to understand the original film. i won't even suggest the film-makers have a look at the book as reading might be a bit advanced for them.

this is the exact demonstration of money-hungry-film-execs funding a movie for the cashback, without any regard for the integrity of the source material or the "little-people" working on the film.

anyone involved in the production of this: you are absolutely unforgivable and you suck turd pie.

1/10

double team

the worst film of all time. it's not even a "so bad it's good" thing. it's just utter crap-bag.

1/10

judgement day

aw fuck.

the worst news, guys.

i mean, it's been in the public sphere of knowledge for a while, but i only just found out the other day: "mcg" directed the new terminator film. fucking mcg!, of charlies angels: full throttle infamy. yes, he did give us the pussycat dolls search for idiots and for that we are SO thankful. but... this was the guy who tried to do an american remake of spaced for which only one word will suffice: cunt.

he's also trying to do an adaptation of the brilliant philip k. dick novel do androids dream of electric sheep?... which is interesting, because it's already been turned into one of the best sci-fi flicks of all time.

in anger i've added my invaluable, infallible input to his wikipedia page, although i don't reckon it'll last very long before some self-righteous do-gooder sticks their dick in:

you arsehole, mcg, why don't you stick to music videos as you're so good at them? like this Top Gear themed Korn gumpf:

disturbia

'ere, that shia laboff is turning out to be a pretty good all rounder i'n't he? pretty enjoyable movie. at the intelligent end of slasher flicks, whilst still including the 'hot girl in a gratuitous bikini' element. but where did all those binoculars come from?!

6/10

war of the worlds

hello you.

yes you, with the wet-look leggings.

are you wearing them for a joke? or a bet? are you off to a fancy dress party? perhaps you’ve decided you’ll ironically wear some of the most retarded bottoms in recent history so that people look at you and say “hey, she must be really cool because she knows how to wear ironic clothing in an ironic way.” and we all know how awesome people who wear clothing in an ironic way are; all thick rimmed glasses and vintage t-shirts and first edition casio calculator watches that they’ve hunted all over eBay for (you rock that look, wigger), and, girl, that baggy shapeless wool cardigan (because you’re so not bothered about body-image) and black wet-look leggings that kate moss wore once, and she’s so retro post-ironic chic-trash. in an ironic way.

or maybe you’re just wearing them because you saw them in Marie Claire, or on the topshop website, and they looked shiny on the professional model and you thought you’d look the same, even without the studio lighting or the photoshopping. or the pretty face that detracts from the hideous wet-look leggings.

although it turns out actually she doesn’t have a pretty face after all; she has the face of a malnourished 45-year-old serial killer.

i mean, good for you, forget the fact that they looked fucking idiotic in the 80’s, the truth is they were around in the 80’s and therefore are automatically retro-awesome-cool, now. please don’t worry that they objectively make you look like a slut-whore. forget that whatever else you wear with them, adorning them will encourage all the men in your new media office to finally resolve the suspicion they had that you’d let them do anal if they bought you a balsamic-dressed salad from claridges. forget all that stuff, because you’ll be asserting your originality and fashionista by defying rational thought and wrapping your stick-likes in a stretchy fabric not unlike bin-bag plastic.

no, you wear them. actually, why don’t you ROCK them? as that’s probably what you’ll call it because that’s the latest way of saying something’s whack. or cred. or as i still enjoy, despite its passé-ness: shit.

maybe if you’re really brave/fashionable/easily-led you’d have found ones with bits of glitter, to give them an extra shimmer. we all know rad clothing with glitter is.

christ, you look like a twat.

airplane!

every joke you've ever seen in a film, was in this movie first. and it was funnier then.

10/10

better the devil you know

faiths a funny thing.

one of the most memorable sunday school tasks i was ever given when i was growing up was to condense the entire bible down into a paragraph, then a sentence, then a phrase, and finally a word.

it's memorable because the result pretty much fits like a glove with the conclusions i've drawn in later life, and try to live my life by. in really simple, brief terms (without writing at length about all the details of my life's philosophy which, let's face it, is never very interesting to hear about from anyone other than mahatma ghandi, nelson mandela or jade goody)...

1. don't think that you are the greatest thing in existence.
2. be nice to people.
3. don't consciously be a dick.

outside of that: no religion is completely right, but if one of them helps you in the pursuit of fulfilling rules 1 & 2, then go for it.

i've never heard the term 'christ follower' before. but i have met many 'christians' who basically use christianity to revile and judge things & people they don't like. a bit like the ku klux klan and muslim fanaticists, but hidden behind middle-class suburban innocence. i guess i'm a follower of christ, because whether you believe he was the son of God or not, he was a dude who suggested we be nice to each other and love god.

in that same vein i could say i'm a follower of my dad because he taught me to turn bolts clockwise to tighten them, and anti-clockwise to loosen them.

and that's pretty much led to me living a life of peace and harmony in the world of bolts.

2 days in paris

heartwarming tale of two unlikeable characters. excellent comic performance from goldberg and intriguing direction by delpy, relying soully on actors and script and not having to resort to long lingering shots of the scenery. natural and believable acting from both of them.

5/10

practical magic

i'm quite practically minded as a rule. most of my consumerist choices are based on whether or not an item will do the job properly. like my recent purchase of a witter tow-bar for my car, the fitting of which will need to be documented as my decidedly amateur mechanical knowledge may prove highly comical.

aside from my garishly patterned fabric choices, i'm pretty utilitarian with my clothing choices too. if only i could branch out further, into less functional design; i might be able to convince myself to make a few purchases from this unusual and surprising clothing designer.

my favourite (though not enough to spend 400 £nglish pounds) is the support shirt, which has a certain poetry to it. and ladies.