Blurg

It's been a week since my last post. I don't know what to write really. I'm feeling a bit blurg. Not ill; just blurg.

Went to the tattooist last Tuesday for my penultimate sitting on my backpiece. Loving how it's looking and can't wait for it to be done. Not cos I'm bored of it, but because I just want it to be complete and awesome. And then I can start thinking of my next pieces. Well, of course I already am thinking of my next pieces, and I have at least three ideas loosely sketched out in my head, maybe four.

Yesterday, the missus and I went for our regular constitutional at Whitstable beach. As ever, it was lovely, and a nice day for it. Rather too nice in fact, since I burned the fuck out of my neck. Then we went to see the movie Mamma Mia! I really don't know what we were thinking. Truly, truly awful. But I knew it would be, despite the rather glowing review it received in Sight & Sound. I almost feel like writing that revered journal of cinema a letter of complaint for misrepresentation.

What else? Meh, nothing really. Still v busy with work, hence my continued absence from both here and from your blogs. Sorry guys. I will get back on track soon, I promise. And I'm not even crossing my fingers.

Inland Empire

Now don't tell me you don't know what Inland Empire is. It's the new David Lynch film, and I've mentioned it here before.

I've just finished reading a great article about it in the latest issue of Sight & Sound, and I am more excited than I've been about a movie in yeeeaaars, let me tell you.

And it comes out on 9 March, perfect timing for it to be my birthday-week movie.

Trouble is, I feel bad for Wife. It's no secret how much she hates Lynch and his films (with the possible exception of The Straight Story), and she has previously told me in no uncertain terms that she won't sit through another. (Mulholland Dr. drove her to the ice-cream stand, and she doesn't even eat ice cream.)

I felt compelled to point out that she has hated the last two films we sat through as her birthday movies (Lost in Translation and Brokeback Mountain), so how much more fun should she expect to have watching a film that she didn't choose?

Looks like she might concede... as long as she can bring the iPod. Well, what more can I ask for?

Are you going to bark all day, little doggie, or are you going to bite?

A recent post at Adam's blog Counting Down The Hours got me to thinking. And I left a comment at his post about my thoughts. But I'm briefly going to mention it all here.

Films.

Good films, great films, action-packed films, intelligent-dialogue films, slow films, fast-paced films, high-octane chase films, etc, etc.


Compare Reservoir Dogs (pictured) with Pulp Fiction. Did you catch them both at the cinema when they were released? Sure you did, just as I did, and weren't they great? (In fact, if you live outside of Europe there's a very good chance you didn't see Reservoir Dogs at the cinema at the time of its release, since it did really bad box office in the States.) Anyway, like me, I'm sure you've watched each of those films several times since. And they're still the best of Tarantino's work.

But which do you like best? Which, for you, is the more enjoyable film to sit and watch on a Sunday afternoon, say?

I'll tell you now, for me the clear winner by a country mile is Reservoir Dogs. Yes, yes, I know Pulp Fiction is multilayered, multifaceted, multi-angled, multiracial, and multi-whatever-the-fuck-else, but fuck me it goes on, huh? The theatrical release clocks in at a whopping 154 minutes*, that's more than two and a half hours in proper money. And if you opt for the Special Edition, you can expect to remain seated for 168 minutes -- 12 minutes short of three hours. That's a whole lot of bed sores. Now, don't fucking tell me there's nothing in there that could be cut to make for a tighter movie.

Reservoir Dogs, on the other hand, runs to just 99 minutes. That's an hour and a half plus an extra 540 seconds. No time. Reservoir Dogs is so short, in fact, that you can almost always find time to squeeze it into your day, should you be so inclined. Small. But not only that, it's also perfectly fucking formed. It's tight as a motherfucking drum. There is nothing you can cut from that film to make it better in any way. It's that rare beast in cinema that you almost wish ran longer. And you know what else, it's absorbing for all of that time: you want to know who's double-crossed whom, just as Nice Guy Eddie wants to know. You are taken into this world.

Okay, of that last point you could probably say the same about Pulp... first time around. But the more you watch Pulp, the more you wish it was shorter. The more you wish you could fast-forward through some of those scenes that have become hackneyed. Not so with Dogs.

Of course, all of this is personal opinion, so let me know what you think: compact, bijou, and perfectly formed; or big, rambunctious, and a bit flabby around the waist? When it comes to films, tell me, what's your flavour?

* Of course, for the sake of this post, I'm not considering PAL speed-up for those of us watching on home cinemas that use the PAL system.

The Oscar nominations: my twopenn’orth

Yesterday afternoon, Salma Hayek came into my living room to tell me the Oscar nominations for this year. It was nice to see her, but Salma dear, what was with that godawful dress? You looked pregnant and ready to drop. (Don't even ask what's going on in this picture either, cos I sure as hell don't know!)

I'm not going to rehash the list in full, because that would be silly when you only need head over to Oscar.com to find everything you need. But I will say something about it all. Well, you knew I would.

Best Actor:
Fuck off, DiCaprio, you freaky cunting man-child. Sure, you once showed promise. Now all you think you need to do is put in a fuck-awful accent and Bob's your fucking uncle. Like I say: fuck off.

Fuck off, Peter O'Toole, you old no-good-acting motherfucker. That shit you pulled in Troy? You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Fuck off, Will Smith. Even though your Happyness movie was directed by a cool Italian director with some real promise, you bore the bollocks off me.

So I guess that leaves Forest Whitaker and Ryan Gosling. I hope Forest gets it. I've liked him ever since Smoke. Gosling boy: You were good in The Notebook, but I'm not sure it's your time yet, old son.

Best Actress:
Oh, has anyone mentioned that the Brits are coming? Fuck off.

Helen Mirren as QE2. Do I give a fuck? Well, other than the film's director being (apparently) the uncle of an author I worked with a few times, no, I don't much care. I guess that makes me three degrees away from Daniel Day Lewis, for those who like that sort of thing.

Winslet: Stop boring me, boring me, boring me.

Streep: Like, whatever.

Dench, I used to hate you. Sorry, but I really used to despise you when I was an angry young man. Now I figure you're okay.

But I really want Penélope Cruz to win, if only to see how fucking excited Salma Hayek gets then. She could barely contain her joy simply at La Cruz's nomination.

Best Supporting Actor:
This is a tough category, and as usual, it's the most interesting one. Thank the maker that that hammy old cunt Jack Nicholson ain't there; in his stead we get Marky Mark. Fuck off.

I'm hoping for Alan Arkin or that Hounsou chap from Blood Diamond.

Best Supporting Actress:
Sorry ladies, I have no opinion here, although it would cool to see Jennifer Hudson get it for Dreamgirls. I liked her in American Idol a couple of years back, and the fact that she's being recognized and that dull cunt Beyoncé isn't is music to my ears.

Best Director:
No David Lynch this year, unfortunately. Still, there's that Iñárritu bloke who directed Amores perros back in the day and 21 Grams. I hope he gets it. But against industry stalwarts Eastwood and Scorsese it might be a tough job. I'd also like to see Paul Greengrass get it for United 93. Well, you know, the Brits are coming. Stephen Frears probably has no chance.

Best Picture:
Having not seen any of these but hoping to see them all in the next month, I currently would like Little Miss Sunshine to get the gong, though I'm sure Letters From Iwo Jima must be great.

Word on this side of the Atlantic is that US fave Babel is a load of old bollocks masquerading as worthy cinema.

And you know I don't like remakes and think that Marty has lost the plot, so I shan't be rooting for The Departed either.

So, that's what I think. Thank you, and good night.

Post #500, wherein I pay tribute to Richey Edwards and consider whether my idea of love comes from a childhood glimpse of pornography

Richey Edwards, chief lyric writer for Manic Street Preachers, was a genius. I am thinking about him right now for the same reason I do every December. On 21 December 1994, Richey played his last gig with the group, and so ended an era. So we saw the demise of the most important rock band Britain had seen in many years. On the very cusp of world domination. At the top of their craft. Well, where else can you go but down when you're at the top?

I was there that night, at London's Astoria. I recorded the gig for posterity, just as I had several Manics gigs before, on a portable tape recorder. I didn't know this would be Richey's last gig and that within four months he would disappear, never to be seen again.

But as one fire ended, another began. I returned home that night to an answerphone message telling me that my first nephew had been born. And on the subject of babies...

I'm unsure now, but it's likely that the Manic Street Preachers song "Little Baby Nothing", from their debut album Generation Terrorists was what introduced me to the "charms" of Traci Lords. Shortly thereafter I first saw some of her work, but only snippets buried among other scenes on "Best Of" tapes borrowed from my boss at the comic shop where I worked. Of the seemingly thousands of Traci Lords films out there, a great majority are actually compilation videos that contain scenes from her films. To add further confusion, many of these videos are known by more than one name: issue 1 (1990) of the UK Traci fanzine Norma K says, "Talk Dirty to Me 3 has three other titles", and it goes on to list them as Trials of Traci, Sensual Mermaid, and Irresistible Siren.

But let's go way back for a minute and think about my earliest exposure to pornography. I think I was about 12 years old. It's difficult to be sure now that so many years have passed. Some neighbours of my parents came to visit and they had a Betamax tape with them. I didn't know what was on the tape, but I seem to recall that we kids were ushered out of the lounge so it could be viewed. Later I was told it was a horror film, and I had no reason to disbelieve that. At a later date, though, probably during the school holidays, these neighbours' kid found this horror tape; it was labelled "Blood on Satan's Claw". Sounds like a horror movie, and it is a horror movie (known as Satan's Skin in the US). But what was on the tape turned out to be my first exposure to porn.

I don't recall anything about that film now. Through the years that followed, though, I (as many young men do) acquired various porn videos from various sources. A few of them are now long gone, unfortunately. But I can't quite bring myself to trash what I still have on tape, even though they sit in the cellar, virtually unloved, waiting for me to transfer them to disc. The quality is so poor, though, that it seems pointless putting them on to DVD. So titles such as Sex Boat, 19 and Nasty, Mr John Makes Candles at Home look set to lay there until the end of time. Okay, that last title doesn't actually exist; it's what my supplier wrote on the label to hide the fact that it was porn. "Mr John" is of course John Holmes, but I don't remember why the reference to candles. This same chap had about 30 three-hour videos of porn. I mean, he was quite the collector.

I remember one time when he came back from the States, one of his suitcases got lost, and it was the case full of all the porn he'd picked up there. This was back in the days when porn was literally outlawed in the UK -- about 1992. There was no legal hardcore porn back then. All you could get was badly cut versions of hardcore or terrible simulated stuff. He called me up; he was in a terrible state. He'd had to leave his key with airport officials, just in case they needed to do a random routine check of his baggage when it finally arrived. I stayed at his house with him, his dog, cats, and a couple of other pet things that rhyme with cats but I won't write down because Red can't bear even to see the word. We waited until about 11 o'clock, playing video games and watching his pirate copy of the extras from the Alien laser disc. And finally the suitcase arrived, unopened, no questions asked.

A couple of years later, and I was working in London as the manager of a betting shop near the Holloway Road. One morning when I was alone in the shop one of my punters came in. He was probably in his mid-50s but looked a bit older. Typical old-school London bloke. "Oi," he said. "You like blue movies?" Despite trying to be a professional businessman, what could I say? "Yeah, course," that's what. He produced a couple of tapes from his pockets. "You want these for a tenner?" So I bought them blind, little knowing that one of them would contain my first full-length Traci Lords film (although she is only in it for a couple of scenes, I think): Black Throat. It's a film in which Rosco, "a typical white guy", sets off to find Madame Mambo, an expert in fellatio. What follows is "an odyssey of sexual rendezvous". It's a good movie!

Porn flicks these days are not really as good as those old ones, are they? Don't we all feel that way? Indeed, this is part of the tale told in Boogie Nights. Video saved the industry undoubtedly. Made it bigger than ever. But despite the huge budgets bestowed upon porn these days, they still look pretty cheap compared to the movies that were shot on film. And with very few exceptions -- Jenna Jameson, for example -- surely there aren't the same sort of stars out there these days. I guess, though, it's horses for courses, and people will be nostalgic for what they first encountered, much as they do for music and (non-porn) films and actors.

Certainly, it's true to say that I am not extremely well versed in modern "blue movies". Some of what I've seen is pretty good, though, so maybe someone out there reading this can point to to the true classics of 21st-century porn cinema -- the stuff that a whole generation will look back on and say, "Y'know, that's where my idea of love comes from"...

Post #499, wherein I ponder where the differences lie between exploitation cinema and some arthouse films

Specifically, I'll consider the likes of Irréversible, Baise-Moi, and Man Bites Dog in the arthouse camp, and I Spit On Your Grave, Ms. 45 and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Before getting under way, though, I should mention that I've seen only three of the aforementioned films. This post is more an open question than an analysis of particular films.

Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the rape-revenge flick was a staple of exploitation cinema. Films such as Last House on the Left, I Spit On Your Grave, and Ms. 45 revelled in inflicting as horrific a spectacle as possible upon the public. Some of these films may have some merit; others may not. Like any genre, the more it filters through into the mainstream, the more diluted it becomes. In some cases, the only point of interest is that the director went on to bigger and better things.

The nature of many of these films meant that they fell foul of the Video Recordings Act 1984 here in the UK, a massive blow to the video industry, which was burgeoning at that time, with exploitation movies making up a good deal of the trade. In one fell swoop, dozens of films were made illegal, deemed to contain obscene material. At one time or another, a total of 74 "video nasties" appeared on the list, and 39 were successfully prosecuted.

The Exorcist was only awarded a nationwide UK release in 1999, since the all-pervading feeling of horror would have been impossible to remove, regardless of cuts made. (Can you believe this shit?!) What seems to be a comprehensive list of all these video nasties can be found here.

Fortunately, things changed for the better when former head James Ferman left the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). Since his departure we have seen the un-banning of many of those nasties, as well as a more liberal approach to censorship in general. To a point... What is apparent, though, is that arthouse cinema (and particularly foreign-language cinema) has more freedom than English-language fodder with mass appeal.

This was most apparent in the early 1990s when Henry and Man Bites Dog suffered entirely different fates. Of course, it can be argued that the latter film was heavy on black humour, while the former was a miserable affair from beginning to end. Another factor came into play, though, soon after Man Bites Dog was granted a video certificate. (Note to US readers: we do not have an Unrated certificate here. All films must be rated; first for the cinema, and then for video. And it is not uncommon for a different rating to be given to the home-video version than was given to the exhibition print.)

I have previously posted (albeit briefly) on the Jamie Bulger case. What this led to was a sort of revitalization of the "video nasty" scare. Films started disappearing from video-store shelves. But worse was the BBFC's decision to amend its own guidelines. And it was all about timing. Man Bites Dog had had its home-video certificate granted before the death of Jamie Bulger; it was passed uncut. Reservoir Dogs -- considerably less violent and, in the words of BBFC head, Ferman, "what [violence] there is is contextually justified" -- came to the Board just after Bulger's killing, and it received an outright ban for home viewing.

All of this blew over again, of course, but I do find myself wondering. And this is where I come back to the question posed at the beginning of this post. Would the liberties granted for recent French fare Irréversible and Baise-Moi be held up for English-language pictures? Sure, Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs was unscathed, but the BBFC has always had a problem with sexual violence, and yet the central and horrific nine-minute rape scene in Irréversible was spared the knife. In the same film, within the first few minutes, a man's head is pummelled repeatedly for probably at least two minutes with a fire extinguisher. Smashed and smashed and smashed until it resembles a pile of roadkill or watermelon that has been driven over. These two scenes are among the few I've ever seen that make me unsure that I want to keep watching. And I absolutely do not believe they would ever find an uncensored place in an English-language film here in the UK, even an English-language arthouse film.

Is that right, though? Should there be one rule for one and another for someone else? This privilege also extends to individual film-makers, believe it or not. Natural Born Killers was passed uncut over here only after James Ferman met with Oliver Stone, a director who he believed had artistic integrity. This integrity was what swayed the chief censor not to wield his axe.

And we're still not in Utopia yet. This page of Melonfarmers.com details the latest BBFC cuts, including Casino Royale news. And this page goes into great depth on the status of many of the video nasties.

Films of the past few days

Caché (Hidden)
Michael Haneke is fast becoming one of my favourite directors. I think of him as the David Lynch of "foreign" cinema. Indeed, so much so that this movie starts with a couple receiving video tapes of their house under surveillance, à la Lynch's Lost Highway. A little further in, a dinner guest tells a story about a dog, the punchline of which is identical to Jack Nance's canine tale in Wild at Heart. A fair amount of the film plays out in near darkness, as does much of Lynch's oeuvre, especially the last third, apparently, of his upcoming Inland Empire. So, is Haneke a dirty robbing bastard? Well, I rather think not. What he is is a great film-maker creating often challenging pieces of work that play with notions of time and personal interrelations. Hidden sees a return to the theme of rewinding time, in this case, videotape, much as he did so brilliantly in one key scene in Funny Games. It also adds fuel to my belief that he is obsessed with doorways. I really liked this film, despite having to watch it in three sittings. Just think how much more I would have liked it in one. 80 out of 100.

The Omen
Previously I've only ever seen snippets of The Omen, like, 25 years ago. We all know what The Omen is about, don't we? The devil's son is "adopted" by Lee Remick and Gregory Peck and marks the beginning of the end of the world, apparently. I've gotta say, despite being a pretty old movie, this was still quite good. You have to ignore the fashions of the time, of course, but the story is strong and the film well acted. Hell, it's even got Patrick Troughton in it, who was the second Doctor Who, back in the '60s! Speaking of the 60s, I'll give this 62 points.

Last Party 2000
Philip Seymour Hoffmann fronts this documentary following the 2000 US elections, the ones that Bush and his brother rigged so that Dubya would win the presidency. It's pretty much what you would expect, given that we all know the outcome only too well, but it is interesting, and there are some great quote, like this one from GWB himself: "If we don't win the state of Florida, my brother Jeb will be in big trouble." Oh, that plays great now, don't it, Georgie Boy? There are also celeb talking heads such as Noam Chomsky, Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Bill Maher, and others. Somewhat of its time, this film, but interesting nonetheless. 62 points.

Dog Soldiers
The British film industry has been closely tied to horror for some 40 years, and Dog Soldiers was widely held up as a return to form on its initial release. I saw this on the Sci-Fi channel, and unfortunately it was pan-and-scanned and had commercial breaks, but at least it wasn't cut for language or violence. It was a reasonably enjoyable romp, played well by all concerned, and it was far better than the director's next film, The Descent. A middling 60 for this.

Movie dream team

So, let's say you were making a movie, and let's say money was no object in terms of getting the cast you want for it. Let's also assume that anybody whose work you have seen and admired is available. You've got the pick of the bunch. Whether your thing is low-budget Belgian cinema or overinflated Hollywood stylings, what would be your dream cast?

The only limits I will put on your imagination is that you must choose six actors or actresses. They can be any mix you like, any age, etc, but they must all be alive and you must use them at their current age. So you can't say "a young Robert De Niro", for example.

Here are mine:

Christopher Walken
Johnny Depp
Eamonn Walker
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Giovanna Mezzogiorno
Jennifer Connelly.

(What's great -- and this is totally coincidental -- is that all of these people have previously been mentioned in my writings in blogland. Click the links to refresh your memories if you wish.)

Walken has to play Depp's dad. Giovanna and Jennifer are best friends who met while the latter was travelling in Europe. Not sure what roles to give Walker and Hoffman yet, but they're great at everything, so it really doesn't matter.

Join in the fun... Leave your six in the comments box! I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Eastern film fix(ation)

Back in the day I used to love Hong Kong action movies. I first got into them in, oh, I don't know, 1994? The first ones I saw (other than Bruce Lee films, obviously) were in a midnight double bill at the Prince Charles cinema in London's Chinatown, just off Leicester Square. They were the martial-arts classic The Barefoot Kid and the heroic-bloodshed masterpiece A Better Tomorrow 2. Both still have a special place in my heart, although I've not seen TBK since. ABT2, though, for me, is one of those rare sequels that outshines the original. Love it, love it, love it.

Over the years I have bought and watched more HK flicks than I can remember, but still not enough of them. I continue to pick up the ones that interest me, ready to watch when Wife is tired and goes to bed early, cos she just don't be diggin' on them there fillums. Chow Yun-fat was -- and will surely always be, despite such dross as The Replacement Killers and Bulletproof Monk -- the king of HK moviedom.

So it was normal for me to jump on the Japanese horror-movie bandwagon when it came along a handul of years ago. Well, y'know, I'd seen The Seven Samurai back when I were a lad, and I loved that. How bad could the Japanese film industry have become in the ensuing 35 years or so. Well, the answer seems to be "pretty bad", actually.

Despite all the critical acclaim and the countless American remakes, personally I feel a bit misled by the likes of Mark Kermode and Jonathan Ross, two critics whose opinions I usually trust in matters of cinema. Anyway, here's some of the films I've seen over the last four or five years. I just feel that Japanese horror movies don't go anywhere quickly enough, and then when they finally get to where they are dawdling, the denouement is usually so silly as to be laughable.

To be honest, I've even forgotten half of the J-horror movies I've seen because they were, quite simply, forgettable. And because I don't like to tar everything with the same brush, I'm going to throw all Japanese movies into the same wok and write down some that I've liked and not liked of late.

Some that I liked:
Battle Royale; Zatoichi; The Happiness of the Katakuris.

Some that I felt were disappointing or downright rubbish:
Audition; Ring; The Grudge.

Beyond that, looking for my Eastern fix, I have also ventured into Korean and Thai cinema. A few years ago the critics were already saying that Korea was the "new Hong Kong" as far as cinema was concerned. Films being touted were things such as Volcano High, which I still haven't seen but really should. My views on Oldboy (pictured) and Sympathy for Mr Vengeance are posted elsewhere on this blog. And A Tale of Two Sisters was great -- far better than similar ghost-themed Japanese stuff.

My luck with Thai films has not been so great; indeed, I can report that the only two I have enjoyed to any extent are Bangkok Dangerous, which is currently (surprise surprise) being remade with Nicolas Cage, and The Eye. Bangkok Haunted was unwatchable.

Edit: I tell a lie here. The best Thai film was actually the Thai/Jap joint venture The Last Life in the Universe, which was so different to most any film I've ever seen that it not only defies categorization, it almost defies nationality. At least that's my reason for forgetting to include it, and I'm sticking to it!

I haven't really bothered going back to HK cinema for a while. I bought Infernal Affairs on import from Hong Kong when it came out there on DVD largely because it was being named as a return to form for that territory's film-making. I was a touch disappointed, but it certainly had a lot of style to it. And, I suspect, far more than the Martin Scorsese-helmed remake soon to be hitting our screens. My blogmate Soupdragon has something to say about that...

Well, that's all I want to say on Eastern cinema for now. Except to say happy birthday to John Woo, who's 58 today. Please John, go back to Hong Kong and make good movies again, instead of that shit you've been churning out in Hollywood...

Pictures on a big screen

Wife and I took the afternoon off yesterday and went to the cinema. We still had free tickets to a screening of our choice (see this post if you want to know why), and they were burning a whole in our pockets. Or, rather, in Wife's purse.

So, burning... Did we go and see the new Nicolas Cage version of The Wicker Man? The fuck we did! You know -- where did I hear this? -- when it came to remaking The Wicker Man, the producers decided that a 30- or 40-something man couldn't possibly still be a virgin, so instead of that being the lynchpin of the plot, as it was in the 1970s original, they have given the character -- get this -- an allergy to bees!? What the fuck is that?! There is no way I'm paying for cinema seats to see that! (Even if they're free cinema seats, in fact.)

Instead, we went to see Adrift, which seemingly in the States is called Open Water 2. Shame they've given it a sequel name over there, actually, because the two films have very little in common other than people being lost at sea. I quite enjoyed Open Water last year. I thought it was good to see a good idea win out over big budgets (à la El Mariachi and The Blair Witch Project, two of my favourite films). So when I discovered that this Adrift film was being touted as a sequel (even though it isn't), it didn't put me off.

The plot: Six friends hook up for the birthday of one of them, to party on board a massive yacht. Before long, all of them are in the water, but no one remembered to open up the ladder, so they can't get back on deck. Panic and desperation ensue, coupled with accidents and tragedy.

(The experience: Apart from the couple talking most of the way through it about 10 feet behind us, it wasn't too bad. I sort of forgive them cos they were quite old and the woman was in a wheelchair. I think the guy was explaining stuff to her. There were only about a dozen people at the showing, anyway.)

The score: 65 points for this. A good little movie.

“Well, there’s Technicolor and Cinemascope / A cast out of Hollywood”, part 3

You can find part 1 of this post here, and part 2 is here.

In this third post, I'm going to talk a little about the pirate and bootleg "industries".

When I was in my mid-teens, so we're talking 1985/86, I loved bootleg audio tapes. I would buy concert and demo tapes of bands I liked (Adam & The Ants, Bauhaus, The Cure, Sex Pistols) and discover songs that were almost legendary among fans but that had never been officially released.


Before long, I found that a similar market existed for film, and I began looking into it. It's funny... I said in a previous post that The Wicker Man being aired on BBC2 in late 1986, I think, was the film that sparked my interest in cinema, but I have just realized, now that I put my mind to it, that I must have already been interested in "video nasties" and the like, since I was still at school when I ordered my bootleg video tape of A Clockwork Orange.

This Kubrick classic was not officially available in the UK, for either cinema or home video, for some 30 years. Kubrick himself withdrew it from circulation shortly after its original release in the early '70s due to bad press blaming it for some street violence of the time. It was not until after his death that the self-imposed "ban" was lifted. So getting a copy on tape was a hugely significant moment in my film collecting. It was probably the most bootlegged movie in the UK at the time, I'd guess.

I paid £12 for this tape out of the classified ads in the back pages of the NME. It would have been a tenner, but for an extra £2 I could have a second film on the four-hour tape, too, so I chose another banned classic: Wes Craven's Last House on the Left. I hadn't seen either movie when I ordered the tape. I watched A Clockwork Orange many times, though, once it arrived. I don't think I watched LHOTL more than once. Bit grim, I thought.

I wish I still had that tape. Not least because the recently released-for-the-first-time-in-the-UK DVD of LHOTL is still missing footage that was probably on my tape version. And those old habits -- of wanting unreleased goodies -- die hard. Even though it's not a film I've returned to since, I still bought it cheap on DVD. Y'know, for the collection.

You see, for years, we in the UK have been treated like babies when it comes to the cinematic arts. Violent films and pornography have long been subject to cuts or outright bans. Ostensibly these bans are to protect the young, into whose hands they might fall. No thought was ever given to the possibility that an adult might not let his or her kids have sight of them. Or that a couple might not have kids, so why shouldn't they be able to watch what they want. No; the kids come first, even at the cost of the rest of the nation's civil liberties. Grrr. (By the way, Melon Farmers is a great source of information regarding cuts made to UK film releases.)

But it's not just "extreme cinema" that suffers. The UK releases of the Indiana Jones and Rambo trilogies are both cut, for example. I never knowingly purchase a cut copy of a film or TV show,* unless it's at a bargain price. As such, websites like Rewind are totally invaluable.

At this point, I'd like to make a distinction between bootlegs and pirates. Some people argue that they are one and the same. Those who are interested in collecting bootlegs feel otherwise. A bootleg offers something to the collector that is not available officially (or legally, if you want), while a pirate is a straight rip-off of an official release.

If something I want is available officially and legally, I will buy it. If it is not, then I resort to bootlegs. Simple as.

So, with that in mind, there is something I just don't understand. Back in the '80s and most of the '90s, we had video tape. It was a bit shit and it wore out before too long, but it was better than nothing, right? The advent, though, of the DVD in the late 90s (via the clunky and inconvenient LaserDisc format), coupled with the Internet's global marketplace, has led to a wealth of films being available to us all in pristine quality.

If I want to buy Ichi The Killer, I don't have to buy the UK version, which is cut by more than 3 minutes; I can import an uncut copy from the US, Australia, or Holland. And yet, with all that is available to us, and with release dates of discs getting closer and closer to the cinema release dates (indeed, we can often buy US discs of films before they hit UK cinemas), why do people still buy pirate copies of films from car-boot sales or Islington street corners?

The quality is shite. Someone I know -- in fact, a couple of different people -- constantly say to me that they have this film or that on DVD and do I want to borrow it. It is always a film that has yet to come out at the cinema, and it is always a pirate copy.

Do these people not realize that the point of DVD is the great picture and sound quality. That is the reason we have switched to DVD from tape. So to get a DVD with a shit picture on it and crappy sound -- not to mention no extra features or subtitles -- and to pay £10 for it is ridiculous! If I wait four months I can pick up a legit copy with fuckloads of extras for the same money.

If we wanted bollocks quality, we'd've stuck to the old ways, you buffoons!


* On the subject of cuts, but of a different kind, the US releases of the second, third, and fourth seasons of Quantum Leap, one of my all-time fave TV shows, have all had their music altered. Y'know, the period music that helped set the scene. It's been replaced with generic music cues. We in the UK were spared this abortion ... up until season four, and now the cunts have done it to us too.

“I’m gonna pick my baby up / And take her to the picture show”, part 2

If you haven't read part 1, you can find it here.

As many of you have guessed in your comments to part 1, the problem with going to the pictures these days is the same as the problem with many other pursuits: other fucking people. I probably shouldn't complain too much; from what I hear of cinema-going in Hong Kong, it would make even the rowdiest UK cinema seem like tea at the Ritz, but still... If I had my way, these would be the rules for cinema-going:

1. No admission after the Coming Attractions trailers have started. No exceptions.

2. No food allowed. No, not popcorn either: it smells like dirty old socks; and certainly not fucking Chinese takeaway, oh Wife of mine! Water is the only acceptable beverage.

3. No mobile phones. No, not even set to vibrate; and no, not even for texting, you cunt. (Although I did find it amusing to see kids playing games on their mobiles while at a screening of Scooby Doo. Yes, the film was that fucking bad.)

4. Any talking louder than a whisper and the culprit will be evicted.

Does all that seem harsh? I think not.

Another problem with other people sharing your movie experience is one of perception. A case in point, if I may be so bold as to venture one, is what happened when I went to see Blue Velvet.


The venue was the wonderful Prince Charles cinema off Leicester Square in London; a great little place -- cheap as chips and home to many a wonderful film-ogling session. Blue Velvet was not one of them. You see, I'd previously watched Blue Velvet on telly and it had scared the shite out of me. Clearly I scare easily, because David Lynch has a habit of doing that to me. And yet almost every line in this most masterful of masterpieces was laughed at.

I sort of understand why, because it is a parody of sorts in some ways; but this shared viewing has effectively spoiled the movie for me in a big way. Because when you take away the tongue-in-cheek script and the hammy acting, the plot and the action of that film are all darkly terrifying. These are truly horrible, vicious people doing horrible, vicious things to innocents.

Oh well. I just wanted to say, really, that I wish I had my own cinema where just Wife and me and a few select friends could go. Of course, I'd have to ensure they were going to abide by my rules and I'd let them know when they could laugh, snigger, and cry, but you get my gist.

In the absence of enough funds to do that, we will have to settle with either DVDs at home or the rowdy crowds at the moving-picture emporium. Neither is truly the cinematic experience we all hope for, but what can you do?

Furthermore, when tickets can cost up to £10 each, it is always cheaper to buy the DVD on import from the States. At least that way, if the movie sucks arse, you can always sell the bloody thing after and recoup some of your outlay! Who says I'm a cheap bastard?!

Coming up in part 3: Bootleg and pirate movies

“Saturday night at the movies / Who cares what picture you see”, part 1

Today, the BBC has reported, ad nauseam (you'd think it was a slow news day), that cinema attendance in the UK is better than in most other Western countries.

These are the figures: one in four of us UK types go to the flicks at least once a month, and 75 per cent of us have been to watch something on the silver screen in the past 12 months.

Well, colour me hard to please, but it ain't that fucking impressive, is it? When Wife and I lived in north London, we used to go to the Odeon in Camden Town every Sunday. That's four times more often than is being raved about in the press. As Big Brother's Imogen might declare, "What the fuck, beb?" Were we singlehandedly keeping the UK cinema industry in business?!

I must say, though, that even before leaving London, our cinema-going had dipped. The main reason for this was the unexpected and frankly shocking closure of the wonderful George & Nikki's cafe, almost right next door to the cinema mentioned above. To use a phrase that appears only once on Google, and that will lead you back here, too: Cunt me with a cunting stick, their all-day breakfasts were to die for. Even the veggie version was phenomenal. But that's probably a post of its own.

So, getting back to the pictures...

The inimitable Candy Minx recently said, in a comment at Mister Anchovy's blog, that the cinema is "the chapel of image and community experience in imagination". Essentially I do agree with that. I believe that the movie theatre is the only place to see a film as its director intended. In practice, though, things start to get a bit rotten in the state of Denmark.

To be continued...

Carry on screaming

The Electric Cinema in west London has set up "Electric Scream!" – a film-screening slot to which parents can take their children that are under one year old, so they don't need a babysitter. Obviously those of us without children would avoid this like the plague; although I suspect we wouldn't be allowed in anyway, thank the Lord.

Incidentally, Wife and I went to see Brokeback Mountain a couple of months back. Now that she and I are in our mid- to late 30s, the joy of cinema-going has become tarnished somewhat. We rarely get the pleasant viewing experience that we expect for the fucking ludicrous sums of money we have to part with to go to "the pictures". (Indeed, it's usually to cheaper to buy the import DVD, and you probably get to see the film sooner too). But Brokeback was a horse of a different colour in that the viewing experience seemed fine... until we got to a quiet, moody section around halfway through. And then we heard the quiet gurgling of a child.

"Was ist das?", we would have exclaimed if we were German. Lo and behold, there in the row behind us and about 10ft away was a baby in a pushchair sitting beside its parents. And it continued to gurgle and make baby noises all the way through the remainder of the increasingly quiet and moody film.

So, being the kindhearted types that we are, we protested vociferously to the management, asking how it was possible that a babe-in-arms can get in to a 15-rated movie, and detailing how it ruined our movie-going experience on Wife's birthday (which it was).

And this is the true and riveting story of how we got some free tickets to a future screening of our choice.