my eyes hurt and my ears are broken

The Monkey is dead, here comes the Judge

2011-10-13T06:59:00.002-04:00

Here comes the Judge, the court is in session.

Bring forth the first defendant.

Monkeygeneral is dead.

Judge Onions (presiding) is taking over. Expect a makeover. More posts. Let's bring this shit back.

"Do you still hate me?"

2009-07-11T03:56:00.002-04:00

...as that dude in Jawbreaker once sang. Wow, its been a fucking while my little corpse humpers, but you have always been at the back of my mind.

My time is all taken up, and no, i have not defected to Twatter - Hey, I don't wanna know what you had for lunch, or whether that hot chick is gonna let you finger-bang her - I have enough grinding minutae of my own without reading about some cunt called 'xMothBall89x' or whatever telling me about his McFlurry. Fuck off. NOW.

I may change this shit up, as i really dont have time for reviews and lets face it, what can i add that probably hasn't already been said in a more articulate way. Instead i may point yo' asses in the right direction of the good shit, rather than enthuse like a fanboy with a raging boner. Probably go back to the ranting shit, give yo' the heads up on the skinny and use lots of other phrases stolen from 'Buddyhead'.

Maybe later.

Blame the Xbox 360...

2008-01-09T13:18:00.000-04:00

...and Guitar Hero cos its stealing all my time.

I solemnly promise to start writing reviews on here again, film reviews this time.

I know, I know, empty promises as ive said this before....

Please....give me one more chance baby.

Put some weight on it!

GAME REVIEW: skate. (EA)

2007-09-30T08:04:00.000-04:00

When I first heard EA had announced that they were making a skating game my first thoughts turned to their previous effort, the laughable 'Street Sk8ter', which was launched around the time the all-conquering Neversoft/Tony Hawk franchise was taking off. Of course, it bombed. Mainly because it was an awful, awful game which seemed like a cheap cash-in on the boombing sales of ..Hawk. Now EA have decided to try another toe in the water and challenge yet again to conquer the now globally established behemoth that is the Tony Hawk series, which is currently about to release its 9th (!) inception. So, looks like they are even going head to head and of course there can only be winner.

Being a huge fan (especially the first two games) of the ...Hawk series in general may present problems with reviewing as it may seem that I could be a little biased, but as anyone who has stuck with the series will tell you, things aint the same as it used to be in the land of ..Hawk. Project 8 was ok, but it seemed like a glossy repetition of previous versions, and I try and forget the two T.H.U.G entries, as they started the trend for the ludicrious stunts and daft objectives that took away the small element of realism that existed in earlier versions. I have also had the priveledge of playing a demo of the latest installment, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground on Xbox 360, and, well, it seemed to be more of the same. I then gave the EA skate. demo a try, just to see if it was any good, and well...read on

Wow. Simple as that. This is the skateboard game I have been waiting for. More realistic, in the sense that you really have to learn and put the time in. You can't just pick it up and start doing 900's all over the shop, you have to learn from scratch - no random button pressing - skate. uses the L + R control sticks for turning and tricks, and the L + R triggers for grabs. Taking time to master the various flips can be time-consuming but once you get it, its something else. It feels more natural and organic than...Hawk, more of a simulator than an arcade game. It is so utterly absorbing as you skate around the free-roaming and very realistic environment, choosing lines and spots to experiment with. And, when you hit a sweet running line, you can use the replay editor and edit your stuff which you can upload online for all to see.

skate. also has challenges and goals but you have no set time limit so you can just session away until you actually complete the challenge, which feels far more relaxing and less pressurised adding to the slack, laid-back attitude that the game presents. The graphics are great, soundtrack excellent but perhaps the only down-side is the game's camera angle, which sometimes obscures obstacles as you approach them, leaving you slamming to the asphalt. But, hey, thats a very minor gripe...

Online is fantastic as well - no cheats here, unlike the people on ..Hawk who seemingly fly through the air for the entire duration of the online match scoring unbelievably high. Nope, EA's online functions are excellent, my personal favourite being the spot battles - up to 6 skaters have 3 attempts to hit a spot. There is also a freeskate online mode, so you can hook up with a few friends and skate away to your hearts content.

EA's skate. is in my opinion, a breath of fresh air in the videogame skating genre, cos let's face it, ..Hawks dominance had gone stale and un-challenged for soooo long. This is truly a game for people who want to take things a little bit more seriously and it pays off in spades.

Slight Return...

2007-09-30T07:57:00.000-04:00

Its been a while since i last spoke with you all. "Whats the reason this time?" I hear all two of you cry - Well, its really quite simple - I forgot my log-in details. Duh.

So now I am back, and oh my brothers and sisters I have such things to show you.

Gonna try and do a weekly 'bit', keep shit more regular, keep you dudes in the loop. More TV, Film, Music and Game reviews coming your way, you lucky lucky people.

Plus, if you play Wii or Xbox 360, if you email me I will stick you on my friends list, so I can kick your arse.

Back in a bit,

Lots of love,

ghostmonkeygeneral.

2007-07-06T11:33:00.001-04:00

fuck, this whole thing needs updating....ive treated it like a red-headed step child.

2007-07-06T11:19:00.000-04:00

You know, i've just had a quick look at this blog, and realised i aint updated it for a while. ive also noticed that i aint reviewed a film for ages, and havent reviewed some mad ass obscure movie for even longer. truth be told, i dont have a lot of time to watch and review movies at the moment, i seem to have negelected them. i blame Sky + and the Wii, plus the fact that i am learning the drums. I recently got a couple more trailer compilations packed with weirdness and strangeness, so ill give them a spin cos that always leads to me trying to track down some cool cinematic oddity. That reminds me, i got hold of a excellent DVD copy of the rare Vanilla Ice movie, 'Cool As Ice', taken straight of a master tape, no shitty 4th generation VHS bootleg here my friends, oh no, so i may try and get that done. I dont actually know if anyone reads this blog at all, but i do get recurring hits so if its been lean for a while, i apologise - I hereby promise a film review a month at least, and not some high production hollywood nonsense. thats a ghostmonkeygeneral promise.

Review: Nintendo Wii

2007-06-14T10:33:00.000-04:00

At first, I wasn't going to buy one of these things for various reasons. 1 - I have never been a really big Nintendo fan. I had a SNES second-hand and a Gameboy, both old school and Advance, and 2 - it was the games - they all seemed too cutesy, kiddy or Mario -obsessed. I want gore, blood, destruction, etc etc. So, after selling my faithful and reliable PS2, i decided that I would get hold of a PS3 at launch. I placed my order, then began to worry - I would have to get a new tv, to get the best out of it, so thats another £600 - 700, on top of the £429 for the console. Then games at £40 a pop, second controller, HDMI cable - shit, you're looking at a lot of cash outlay. So i begin to look at the alternatives - a costly PS3 or a Wii?

To be truthful, I looked at the Wii and my first reaction was, "Yeah, pretty cool, but may just be a novelty". I looked at the price compared to a PS3, and decided, "Well, its pretty much half the price, it would be a nice stop-gap until i get hold of a PS3 when they are cheaper" - then came the hard bit (but fun) - trying to get hold of one of them! Luckily, my salavation came in the form of http://www.wii-consoles.co.uk/ , a site that updates live when stores have stock in. An absolute godsend. If you want a Wii, go to this site immediately.

After getting a great online deal from Comet, my Wii arrived. I had the day off work to mess around with a few games, namely Wii Sports and Wii Play. Yeah, i enjoyed playing, but afterwards i felt it would still be a little gimmicky and of course, I'm used to playing games lying on the sofa, not standing up and prancing about the living room. I then decided to play a few more titles, first was Red Steel, which involved using the remote as a sword and a gun - pretty cool, but graphically not so good. I was still a little undecided, and kinda thought i should have got a PS3.

Then I got hold of The Godfather: Blackhand Edition, and my entire view of the Wii changed. Although the game is a GTA rip-off, the control system really lent itself to the game, making an average game pretty damn good. Being able to control punches, attacks, grabbing people and throwing them out if windows as if you where actually doing it added a deeper dimension to the gamplay, and made the whole thing a totally enjoyable experience.

Now we are getting into the second wave of Wii games, that may appeal to more core gamers - Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles, Ghost Squad, Manhunt 2 are on the cards, along with new games developed with the Wii's unique control system in mind. Plus, Wi-Fi and online play is starting, with Mario Strikers Charged Football being the first online Wii game. It works well, i havent experienced any lag or problems when i have been playing (well, getting my arse handed to me everytime) online.

So, while i was sceptical about the Wii in the beginning, I can now honestly say i bow down to the church of Wii. Come join me my brothers, and Wii me - 3308 0039 9116 6968 -

Oscar Sunday

2007-02-23T10:14:00.000-04:00

Like millions of other bloggers, predictably i will be 'blogging' the Oscars as they happen - hey, im in the uk, it dont start til 1am and finishes around 5am, i need something to keep me awake during the fucking songs - and i will also reveal how my bets get on AS IT HAPPENS!

WOW! HOW EXCITING! I THINK I'VE JUST PISSED MYSELF!

Come back Monday morning.

LIVE: The Blood Brothers, 22/01 - Islington Academy

2007-01-24T19:58:00.000-04:00

Ok, now i wasn't going to write a review of this gig, but after reading this pile of unfathomable and pretentious arse-water on Drowned In Sound, I decided that i'd better tell the people what actually happened, instead of what some fucking wannabe NME scribe thinks people want to hear - clue: its not metaphors or the Right Now, or shimmering shards or how he is the oldest there at 27 (me and my mate are 33, so go figure) - put down the theasaurus and tell us about the fucking gig you stupid arse, as it seems pretty evident you have never even fucking heard of the Blood Brothers until that point, (the point being Right Now ..) which is demonstrated in the review by the lack of WHAT THEY ACTUALLY PLAYED. prrrrr-ic-kah.

Now, let's get down to the business.

On the past few occasions that The Blood Brothers come to these shores, for one reason or another I have missed them, so I leapt on these tickets as soon as they were on sale. 'Young Machetes' was my top lp of 2006, and its fair to say that 'Burn Piano Island Burn' is also a personal favourite. Also, in all my years of going to gigs I had never been to the Islington Academy (sponsored by Carling - so why is the beer soooo expensive? £3.70 for a fucking can? They make the fucking stuff, surely they can get i cheaper?) so excitement abound, we made our way to the gig.

The crowd seemed to be 75 / 15 in favour of fucking posers in too-tight jeans and back-combed hair circa a 1992 Robert Smith. Fellas - you look like idiots. In fact, from the side-on, most of them resembled golf clubs..but lets not dwell on this, otherwise I may end up with a job offer from Drowned In Spunk...

The Blood Brothers took the stage, and the young girl behind me remarked, "He looks a lot gayer than the last time we saw them". Arf. Anyway, that was soon erased by the sheer piercing shrieking 'FIRE FIRE FIRE!" of lp opener 'Set Fire to The Face on Fire', as the two staked and screamed across the stage. The majority of the set was culled from 'Young Machetes' - 'Camoflage, Camoflage' 'We Ride Skeletal Lightning' , 'Vital Beach' 'You're the Dream, Unicorn' 'Laser Life' - I don't recall them playing 'Spit Shine Your Black Clouds', but thats not to say they didnt - hey, if they did, I don't remember - a couple of tracks from 'Crimes' ('Feed Me To The Forest' and the song that got the warmest reception of the night, 'Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck') and only one (!) from 'Burn Piano Island Burn', but then again it was 'Ambulance vs. Ambulance' ('Fucking's Greatest Hits' would have been better..) so it weren't all bad. My collegue was gutted that they played nothing from 'March On Electric Children' , but I did tell him to download (legally) the new lp, but the lazy sod just couldn't be arsed - his loss.

Live, they rocked. They emulated the spastic battering-ram energy of their records, all of them pitching in on various instruments at one time or another. My only gripe was that the crowd was a bit static, but then again you can't throw that many moves to the Blood Bros, can you? They deserve to be huge, but think that their sound may alienate a lot of would-be fans due to its sheer post-hardcore abrasiveness, which is shame as they are truly one of the more inventive and innovative bands around at the moment. Catch them next time they hit these shores, you won't be disappointed.

GAME: Tony Hawk Project 8

2007-01-09T18:33:00.000-04:00

The chairman of the board returns once again, this time in his eighth incarnation. I been with him right from the beginning, back in the humble days of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater back on the original Playstation back in 1999. Jeaez, that game saved my sanity on occasions. I loved the original, as there hadn't been a proper skateboarding game, unless you count Atari's woeful 720 back in the days of the Spectrum, or even California Games that had a skating section amongst it (thats a point - why hasnt anyone made a decent X-Games game? Skating, BMX, Moto-X and others in one game? C'mon, we had EA's Winter X-Games on Playstation, and it took away hours from me and my housemates lives back at uni..especially the best snowboard trick comp...i fucking ruled at that) so THPS was a breath of fresh air.

Then came THPS 2, 3 & 4, and dutifully i bought them, but they were essentially the same game with different levels and perhaps some new tricks. Then the silliness crept in with Tony Hawk Underground 1 & 2, which seemed to have been influenced by the rise in Jackass and that annoying arsehole Bam Margera ("What ever will he do next?" Hopefully get the fuck off my tv, the twat.) which led to the focus of the game being to do stupid shit like throw tomatoes at a bull or other such nonesense, but still I remained faithful, even though I got bored of these before actually finishing them properly. Then came Tony Hawk American Wasteland, which promised continuous areas with no load times, but in reality meant you had to skate through long tunnels until you got to the other area - not what i expected. Again, the series was becoming a little tired of this but I carried on regardless.

So now we are on number 8, and I am still here. There are two reasons for this - 1) I sold my PS2 a few months ago, and only have a PSP (well, until I can get my grubby little hands on a PS3) so needed some games, and 2) I had read it had gone back to the early days of gameplay, so I ordered a copy from the US and awaited with bated breath...

So whats the deal? Well, it does hark back to the Classic THPS, and has a mix of other tasks to perfrom, but they are skateboard based, not stupid running around arseing about tasks. You have to progress through the rankings starting at 100 until you get in the top 8 - (I havent got that far yet, i'm currently around the 30's) and it is for the most part, quite enjoyable. The Special Trick meter is still there, and they have added a cool Nail The Trick, which is simialr to the Special but allows you to control your flips by using the d-pad as your left foot and the buttons as the right foot, letting you create new flip trick combinations, and for the most part this is pretty cool, but for some reason it took me a while to get the hang off (i still have a few problems now) but it is a welcome addition to the game. The graphics on the PSP version are excellent, and many of the objectives range from 'easily do it first time' to 'throw the PSP on the floor fucking annoying'. I have attempted some objectives over 80 times (i know this as the game tells you) and it still wont let me do it, even though I am doing it right (that fucking 'playground grind to ollie off the bench and grind the tree' just wont have it, no matter what i do) and it wouldn't let me move past the third level for over a day of constant playing, which REALLY pissed me off, then all of a sudden I unlock the next three levels in 30 mins!

Another gripe is the boards. I chose my board, then after I bail, it goes back to the default board! What the fuck! Whats the point in me getting new boards if it keeps defaulting back? Another problem i had was with an objective called 'Rooftop Rebel' - It took me a good will to reach the rooftop, then it unlocks a new objective, where i have to Nail a certain number of tricks. Easy? Oh no, because for some reason while I am trying to activate the Nail The Trick mode, it will not work. 27 attempts and I give up, save and turn off. I return some time later, and I have to get back up on the roof again. So more fucking about, and it does the same thing! I can Nail shit when not doing the objective, but not during it. I tell ya, i turned the fucking air blue. I eventually managed it, but my blood pressure was off the scale.

Also, at some points the Nail The Trick keeps kicking in although I havent activated it, which just fucks you up, usually during a good run. My first instinct in these situations is to throw my joypad to the floor, but I have to remember i have the system in my hands, and a epelectic fit could be costly. I am hoping that these are glitches, but they can be very frustrating and do make gameplay harder. That all said, Project 8 is a great game, harking back to the original in terms of gameplay, yet retains the all good bits from the previous editions. I am looking forward to getting this again when I get a PS3, although we may be on Tony Hawk 9 by then, but in the meantime, it is worth checking this out on PSP as it looks good, sounds good (Sonic Youth's cover of Red C's 'Nic Fit', Mogwai's 'Glasgow Mega Snake' ) and bar the niggles which I probably attribute to the PSP more than the game, is a very welcome return for the Birdman.

FILM : Rocky Balboa

2007-01-06T11:57:00.000-04:00

I used to be a big fan of the 'Rocky' movies. Hell, like every other boy my age I grew up with them - Watching Rocky and Rocky II several times over on home video back in the 80's, then Rocky III and Rocky V both at the cinema and many many times at home. Rocky was cool. The first match with Apollo Creed, the rematch and that ending in Rocky II, Rocky III had it all - Mr T, loads of fights, death of Mickey and the Survivor tune, 'Eye of the Tiger', which whenever it was heard acted as a bell for kids to start punching hell out of each other for the duration of the song, Rocky IV, not with its cold-war undertones but for Ivan 'If he dies, he dies' Drago, the steroid fuelled killing machine that killed Apollo in the ring, and not forgetting James Brown doing 'Living in America' - fucking great stuff.

'Hang on! What about Rocky V?' I hear you exclaim. Basically, its like Bruce Lee's 'Game of Death' and Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 + 3 - I refuse to acknowledge that it exists. I watched this about a year ago on TV, in a kind or re-evaluation sitting, and I came to the conclusion that it was still bloody awful. Its just so shoddy - the bad Don King-a-like, the crap Tommy Morrison (he was a big fat shite) and perhaps the biggest offence of all, the final fight. Hell, its not even in the ring. Watch it again - its fucking dreadful. All wonky camera angles and that stupid fucking lame-ass 'rap' song (# He's the eye of the tiger / Still a survivor #) - its like a fucking pop video at the end.

So when I read that Stallone was doing a final film, my inital reaction was 'Leave it. You've fucked it, now leave it alone, spare yourself the embarassment'. A few months later, a script was leaked on the internet and after reading a synopsis of it, it didnt sound that bad. So last week, I was loaned a MGM Screener DVD. I put the disc in my player and let it roll....

'Rocky Balboa' seems to be the film that Rocky V should have been. It seems like a nice book-end to the series. It focuses more on the emotional side of Rocky, having lost his beloved Adrian. We spend quite a bit of time visiting Adrian, and Rocky's attempts to get closer to his son, who feels he is living in a 'big shadow'. The film does spend most of its running time on matter of the heart rather than matters of the fist, and it is only when a 'virtual fight' between current champion Mason 'The Line' Dixon and Rocky declares Rocky to be the greater champion. Mason has been dodging decent opponents and has been getting stick from everywhere regarding this, so the promoters see an opportunity - lets do this for real!

So Rocky is offered the chance once more to enter the ring, and of course he accepts. This in turn brings him closer to his son, who quits his job to work as one of his corner men for the exhibition fight. Also, as this is Rocky, we go the distance, all 12 brutal, pumelling rounds. I wont give away the winner of the fight, cos that would only spoil it for you, but the film has a great emotional ending and as mentioned earlier really completes the series, giving the ending it should have had instead of the awful Rocky V.

If you are a fan of the Rocky series, you are gonna enjoy it. Forget Rocky V. Forget it completely. It's not going to win many Oscars, although I thought Stallone gave a really great perfomance, one of his best since Copland, as he manages to convey Rocky's grief in an understated and convincing way. Ok, he may be a little saggy in the ring but overall, Rocky Balboa is a more than competent film, it makes up for the crimes perpetrated by Rocky V. The perfect bookend to this great series.

Film: The Departed

2006-12-30T09:40:00.000-04:00

FRANK COSTELLO:"I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me. Years ago we had the church. That was only a way of saying - we had each other. The Knights of Columbus were real head-breakers; true guineas. They took over their piece of the city. Twenty years after an Irishman couldn't get a fucking job, we had the presidency. May rest in peace. That's what the ni**ers don't realize. If I got one thing against the black chappies, it's this - no one gives it to you. You have to take it. "

When i first heard that Hollywood was remaking one of my favourite cantonese thrillers, the magnificent 'Infernal Affairs', i must admit it thought it was a very bad idea. The original was such a great film, twisting and turning all the way through the film, playing with the notions of good and bad, why bother remaking it? Then it is announced that a certain Mr Scorsese would be in charge of the remake - now i'm thinking "Y'know, this may not turn out bad..."

Scorsese's last few films have been great but there was a little something lacking that made them classics. 'Gangs of New York' is a great film, but has a few flaws along the way, 'The Aviator' with its brilliant use of colour didnt seem right - the CGI sections seemed to be more obvious when on screen and looked a little fake, plus it was a little overlong. So now Marty has remade a Hong Kong cop thriller, and to be honest, it is his best film in a decade and is nearly as good as 'Goodfellas' (I'm sorry, but that film is like the Citizen Kane of the 90's - it is perfect on every level). Yeah, its that good.

I wont divulge on the plot intricacies much, but a young gangster is placed inside the police force and an undercover cop is placed in the underworld and ultimately they must identify and out the other to save their own lives. The Irish Mafia boss, Frank Costello, is played by Jack Nicholson, and he is fucking superb - so good in fact, i'm sticking a £10 on him when (not if) he gets the Oscar nomination. For the first 10 mins of the film, we only see him in silohuette or in the dark as he goes about his murderous business, so when he finally comes into the light, you know he's is a bad fucker. DiCaprio is pretty good too, so is Matt Damon. In fact, the entire cast give good perfomances. As for the adaptation from the original, it sticks pretty close to the general story thread, with a few tweaks that can only benefit the film, and i would even say it is a better film than the original, which itself was brilliant. They have also changed the ending of the film slightly, but i wont say anything more, but it really puts the icing on this gem of a movie.

From its 2:20 runtime, it felt like an hour. It roars past the screen, and Scorsese throws in his cinematic book of tricks with some great editing used to competently fill in back-stories, his near trademark of a fantastic rock and roll soundtrack (The Rolling Stones 'Gimme Shelter' is used to great effect, much in the way they were used in 'Goodfellas') - its a film i can watch again and again, it truly is fantastic, the best thing i have seen all year - its been a long time coming Marty, but i am glad you're back.

Records of the Year

2006-12-17T08:09:00.000-04:00

Records of the Year
Initally, I had picked 5 and wrote a little about them, but then I started going back through everything I had aquired over the year and re-listened to it all. Why? Because sometimes you aint in the mood for certain types of music, and I always fear that a lot of end of year lists seem to focus on more recently released lps, and all the good shit that comes out Jan-March gets overlooked. Also, I really don’t like numbering favourites so instead I have a list of nine lps that I feel deserve attention (in no particular order), and I have picked my favourite of the year, and no, its not the fucking Artic Monkeys, all-reet? Read on...

Converge - "No Heroes"
This was the one I was most looking forward to: the brutality of 'Jane Doe' mixed with the sonic landscape experimentalism of 'You Fail Me' - I wasn’t as immediatley taken with this as much as the other two, but lets face it, it would have to be something pretty special to top those two. Still, it’s a good lp, and better than most shite out this year.

The Aquarium - "The Aquarium"
Its pretty much two people armed with a keyboard and some drums, but it sounds great, kinda b-movie hammond organ swirls meets indie pop. Its not going to change the world, but its bloody nice.

Pavement - "Wowee Zowee"
"What? Pavement? They broke up years ago!" I hear you cry. "So fucking what? They re-released this in 2006, so its going on the list!" I retort. This album sounds so good after all these years. Upon its intial release, I wasn’t too keen on it, it was no "Slanted and Enchanted" but after revisiting it I have revised my opinion on this. Every song is a classic: "Kennel District" "AT &T" "Fight This Generation", that loose slack-assed drumming, left-of-centre jagged guitars, stream of unconciousness lyrics: it’s a must have.

Dan Sartain - "Join"
I had been aware of this guy for a while due to the Swami's enthusiasm for him (well, he is on his record label AND he produced this) but something sorta stopped me getting hold of his stuff. After hearing 'Join', I feel an idiot cos I could have been listening to this guy ages ago. A genuine stripped-down rock-and-roll troubadour, in the vein of Jonathan Richman but very, very darker. The lp has a few tracks I aint so keen on, but the number of good songs well outweighs them. There is a lesson to be learnt here - if the Swami says its good, you'd better believe him. See if you can spot him in the video for "Replacement Man".

Mogwai - "Mr Beast"
Finally, a Mogwai lp that doesn’t take up half your day nor sound like you left the washing machine on. Haunting, emotive instrumental tunes that stick with you long after listening - "Auto Rock", "Glasgow Mega Snake" and the truly magnificent "Friend of the Night" show that Mogwai have grown up, learning that less is sometimes more, and it has produced perhaps their best and most complete lp yet.

Sonic Youth - "Rather Ripped"
Da Youth also seem learning the same lesson as Mogwai - stop pissing about with lengthy jams, cos everyone is doing it. Pioneers Sonic Youth have produced a quieter lp, but it still has the experimentation intact. A stripped down and more basic sound, the sound of the Youth finally hitting maturity with such tunes as "Jams Run Free", "Incinerate" and the bluesy-'Gimme Shelter' riff on opener "Reena", this is Sonic Youth on a welcome return to top form.

Some Girls - "Heavens Pregnant Teens"
12 short, no-longer-than-2-minute blasts of fast hardcore-esque breakdowns and riffing, and with titles such as "Hot Piss", "Bone Metal" and "Retard and Feathered" you kinda get the idea, then they finish off with a 9 minute sonic assualt/song, "Deathface" that is akin to viewing avant-garde movie 'Berlin Horse' 6 times back to back. while broken glass is being rammed into your eyes...and a tramp feels your balls and breathes threateningly into your ear. And they made one of the most fucked up videos of the year for single "Warm Milk"

Set Your Goals - "Mutiny!"
Ok, its like this - some hardcore guys formed a melodic punk rock band who are trying to pretend to be hardcore guys - Get me? What the hell - with tunes that catchy as theirs who really gives a fuck? Good fucking times are back on the agenda. Cool breakdowns, top tunes and references to pirates mean this is one of the most fun records I heard this year. Images of friendly circle pits and gang vocal sing-a-longs instantly fill your head and before you know it, you are grinning from ear to ear and practising your kung-fu moves in the front room. Less serious than Comeback Kid, as melodic as Kid Dynamite and Lifetime - sheer fucking enjoyment from start to finish. Feel good melodic hardcore pop punk - it’s a pirates life for me.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
The Blood Brothers - "Young Machetes"
Along with the new Converge lp, 'Young Machetes' was one of my most anticipated of the year. After previous lp "Crimes", I though they had lost it. Gone was the complex spastic madness of "Burn Piano Island, Burn", but when I heard they were teaming up with Fugazi / Rites of Spring legend Guy Picciotto, man, I got wet thinking about it. When some kind soul posted up some early mp3's from this, upon first listen my reaction was, "Fuck…." So what of the full album? Well, it could possibly be the best thing they have ever done. Schizophrenic-spazzy-hardcore mixed with disco-punk leanings, topped off with high-pitched harmonic shrieking and catchy yet pummeling riffs, 'Young Machetes' is easily the most inventive lp of the year. Each song seems to be a composite of several styles and tempo changes, both complicated and simplified - on paper it should be unlistenable, but it isn't. Every song has more ideas than most bands have in a fucking lifetime. "Set Fire to the Face on Fire" is a great slow building opener, the bouncy "Laser Life" sounds like pure MTV2 fodder put through a blender (also the first single to be released) "Camouflage, Camouflage" just decides to become a different song halfway through, and current favourite "You're The Dream Unicorn" with that fantastic spacey, trippy and melodic part slap-bang in the middle of all that carnage - fuckin pure genius - and 'Spit Shine Your Black Clouds" with its disco bass, organ stabs and piano rolls along giving the listener a slight respite from the art-rock mayhem, before throwing them headlong back into the rest of the lp. There isnt a bad song on here. Every time I listen to this lp I hear something new that I hadn't heard before, and come away with a new favourite song. It is a more accomplished and polished effort, yet doesn’t compromise their original sound or vision in any way. One of their best lps, and my lp of the year. Huge Gold AK-47's all round.

Film: Silver Dream Racer (1980)

2006-12-10T12:55:00.000-04:00

Back in the 80's, I recall the 'King of the Gypsies' (true - look it up) David Essex being on Top of the Pops singing the theme tune to the film, "Silver Dream Machine", and that the film was about motorbikes, and that was pretty much all that was heard of the film as it slowly started to fall by the way of obscurity, briefly appearing on the Rank Video label in the good old pre-cert days. To my surprise, I chanced across this being shown on Men and Motors on Sky, a channel that used to be gratious T&A but now really does just have motoring programmes in its schedules. So thanks to Sky +, I can now bring you a first on my eyes...., as you can sit down with me and watch the movie unfold as I review LIVE!

Ok, I've been watching this for about 40 minutes, and its not bad. Basically, David Essex is a garage mechanic whose brother died in a motorbike crash. His brother had been working on a prototype for an entirely new type of motorbike, which looks like someone just super-glued some silver panels onto a Kawasaki. Anyway, after testing this futuristic turbo machine at Silverstone with his good friend 'Cider' (who wears a wooly hat with his name crudely embroidered on it) he realises that this thing is quicker than a fat lass at a free buffet, and decides that he wants to race again. So he does just that. But Beau Bridges arrives and is all brash and American, and from what I can gather he is a little reckless having caused the deaths of a rider already in his quest for the top. So naturally, he wants the bike, but David Essex says "Sod off." Some bird that is hanging round with Beau says "I want to help you" and although David Essex is all mean and shit to her, I reckon he will end up porking her.

David Essex then goes to a club full of rude boys and yardies to find his mate Cider - I guess they probably won't wanna fight him cos of his gypsy connections: nobody wants a rusty white transit full of bog-trotters with pick-axe handles turning up for a straightener - but he's not there, so he does a few wheelies outside on someones bike for money, and ends up in a comical 'street fight', which includes the worst flying kick ever and weak-ass punches with car-door slamming sound effects. David Essex gets bit bloody, and the bird he was mean to suddenly pulls up to get him out of trouble. I'm pretty sure she was in '24' or 'The Wire' or some over US TV show.

Ah, that's it, she was in '24' and 'Prison Break'. God, even Harry H.Corbett was in this earlier, as David Essex's boss!
He's a reckless man is David Essex. He's just been sacked so rides his motorbike through the garage workshop, sending boxes everywhere. Now we got a musical montage speeding us through him getting on with the woman from '24' and the bike being developed. Its a jaunty little 80's ballad, I'm guessing its called "Someone to Believe In", cos they have only sang that line 129 times so far. Told you he would end up porking her.

He chats with his dad who gave up boxing when David Essex was born, because " ...you cant do dangerous sports when you got a family" but he regrets this decision. David Essex is gonna start racing again, on that new superbike! He's gonna beat brash yank Beau Bridges at Silverstone! Yay! UK! UK!

More musical montagery, bit of larking about, loving glances and silly laughter as the song says # I'll always loooo-ve yoooo---u # in its own syrupy way. ahhh. We actually get to see a bit of the bike as well. Glad about that. Thought it might be falling into the "Firefox" trap - having sit through Clint Eastwood mugging up the screen for 2 hours then you get just 10 mins with the plane. David Essex is now ready to race! Let's fucking go! DAH! DAH-DAH! DAH-DAH-DAH!

The 500cc World Championship gets under way, and David Essex is GO! 40 laps of sheer pain! Will David Essex win?!

One riders down!! David Essex in 7th, Beau Bridges in 2nd! Cue the ROCK!

35 laps, David Essex in 3rd, Beau Bridges in 1st!

Man! Its carnage out there! Bikes flying off the track, smashing into each other! Come on David Essex!

There are some dangerous tactics being played against David Essex, he could be in trouble....the pit crew hold a sign up, telling him to STOP! and get out of the race. But that idiot Cider (who now has added The Great onto his hat in retarded stitching...) held it the wrong way round. Instead, it said LOVE. wha?

But wait! He's out trouble and making his way through the pack! 3rd! 2nd! 1st! He takes the lead! The crowd cheers! Come on David Essex! The stirring music starts to build! Home straight! He's won! Arms aloft, he rides past the crowd. Freeze frame, and thats it? What a bollocks ending. He didnt even get off the bike and spray champagne, let us bask in his refelctive glory with him, after all, we made that journey with him too! Where's the pay-off? I feel cheated. David Essex, you have robbed me.

+++ UPDATE+++++ 13/12
Looks like I may have watched a version that has had the last 90 seconds removed to make it a 'happier' ending.
In the original ending, as David Essex crosses the line waving, he loses control of the bike and careers into the barriers, and explodes in flames and dies! Man, I'm gutted, totally gutted. I would NEVER have seen that coming. Seems a lot of people loved this film due to its unexpected downbeat ending, and have strongly been against this version. I, for one, wish I had seen this version as would have suprised me greatly. David Essex, you have not robbed me, but someone has of 90 seconds. Bastards.

Notes From The Blunderground

2006-10-30T11:14:00.000-04:00

#Hello, Hello /It's Good to be Back, Good to be Back # as glam rocker and famous kiddy-fiddler Gary Glitter once sang. And oh my children, how I have missed you. My time has been filled with such inanaties as work (hey, being punk rock may be cool but it doesn't pay the bills....or as Kevin Spacey put it in 'Swimming With Sharks'- "If you're not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven't turned establishment by 30, you've got no brains.") so go figure. Now, the issue at hand - lack of reviews recently. I know, i keep promising and promising but i really haven't had time to watch any DVD's lately, probably due to the combination of Sky + and the movie channels, but i am determined to get some stuff up. Thing is, backlog is a terrible thing. And i bought Bully (Canius Canem Edit) on PS2, which is slowly taking over my spare time. Hey, I may do another game review...be lucky

FYI

2006-10-05T18:47:00.000-04:00

The new Converge lp is coming, and judging by this 6 minute lp overview, you better hide.

They have gone to fuckin' 11. Thats one louder than 10.

Download or listen to mp3 HERE - its at the top of the tracklisting. Then scrub yourself clean afterwards, you'll feel molested. But in a good way, just like what your filthy uncle used to do at family get-togethers.

What with The Blood Brothers releasing the Guy Picciotto (Fugazi) produced Young Machetes - (click for streaming) coming out too, 2007 may be a good year after all.

News - Zone Horror Video Nasties Season

2006-09-19T10:32:00.001-04:00

ok, i really should have posted this up when i found out....

Zone Horror on Sky are showing several previously banned 'Video Nasties' this week

They are -
Last Night - 18/09 Night of the Demon
Apparently this was shown uncut, so the penis-ripping and the entrail-battering are all included in this hokey sasquatch horror. I havent watched the broadcast version yet, but reports are coming back that the print quality was bloody awful!

Tonight - 19/09 House on Straw Hill (aka Expose)
The only UK nasty on the list - this has been shown before, both on Sky and Channel 5 in cut versions. Also stars the great Udo Kier and 'Brush Strokes'/Flash adverts' Karl Howman as a rapist!

Wednesday - 20/09 Dont Look in the Basement
SF Brownriggs lunatics take over the asylum horror - Havent seen this, so I am looking forward to it.

Thursday - 21/09 Bloodsucking Freaks
Not technically a nastie, also has been shown uncut on Horror Channel.

Friday - 22/09 Mothers Day
Again, not really one the original nasties - slasher movie

Saturday - 23/09 I Spit on your Grave
Hailed as one of the most repulsive films ever made. Brutal rape-revenge movie that has bizarrely been hailed as a pro-feminist document in some parts. I'm guessing that this will be pre-cut for satellite.

Keep 'em peeled you sick fuckers.

Short Film: Requiem For A Drunk

2006-09-18T12:40:00.000-04:00

I've been threatening to do this edit for a while.
Lack of drugs and an abundance of boredom means i finally have got round to it.

If you havent seen the original, it probably means fuck all.

I Still Know What I Did Last Weekend

2006-08-17T15:24:00.000-04:00

Greetings my mortal friends.

Okay, I have been Mr Slack-arse on here of late - blame fucking You Tube. That motherfunkster has taken off, nearly 6000 hits on my shit for the first month. I am working on some of my own video stuff as well, which will be posted under the gunroomtelevision monkier. Fuck the link, look yourself fucknuts. Also, I hope to get some mp3's of some shit that was recorded at a studio in Reading a few weeks ago. So if you want to listen to sub-par drumming, a guitar thats a bit lost in the mix with production thats makes it sound like it was recorded in a fucking tin bath full of piss, then hold your breath no longer. Hey, they used to call this sort of shit 'lo-fi' and fuckers lapped it up...also, we got a fucking huge influx of visual delights to tell you about - Turkish super-hero rip offs, Indian sword and sorcery epics and a couple of grimy Mondo films are waiting in the pile at GMG Towers - man, i need a week off to catch up on my shit!

Tell you what, I'll thrown you a bone. Check out the soon-to-be-classic "Train Full Of Man Love" by yours truly!

Fuck ya layter!

Train Full of Man Love - movie

Film: American Hardcore (trailer)

2006-07-13T13:34:00.000-04:00

bring it.

You Tube Trailer Park is now open!!

2006-07-13T09:33:00.000-04:00

I have been considering compiling a DVD of exploitation, horror, obscure and cult movies for a while now, and have recently worked out how to do this. But then You Tube comes along, and makes life a helluva lot easier as i can now post these gems up for all to see! Click on the You Tube Trailer Park tab above to see what up up there at the moment - Trailers for Evil Dead Trap, The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin, Basket Case, Brain Damage, Zombie Flesh Eaters and Mad Foxes are posted up already, and keep an eye out for more over the next week or so.

Enjoy!

TV: Robot Chicken

2006-07-11T10:01:00.000-04:00

BRAVO on sky digital are currently showing loads of [adult swim] toons and programmes, and the best of the lot to my mind is Robot Chicken, a kinda stop-motion comedy show. I fucking love it. Keep an eye out, Saturdays 1:00 am (times subject to change)

Here, Optimus Prime warns us about Prostate Cancer....

Readers Wives

2006-06-23T11:43:00.000-04:00

I'm not just here for the bad things in life y'know. Thousands of you email me every month to ask my esteemed opinion on an assortment of things, from fashion tips to relationship advice, cookery recipes and love-making hints, I read them all. Here is just a selection of letters I recieved in the last month or so regarding my critques of popular bands in response to the mails I habitually obtain from my ever-loving hardcore fan-base. Enjoy.

"Dear ghostmonkeygeneral,

I recently purchased the new bakerlite platter by a new up- and-coming guitar troupe by that go by the moniker Sonic Youth, entitled "Rather Ripped", or perhaps they should call it "Rather Spiffing Old Chap", as it is an exceptionally good record to aurally ingest either via an ipod system or a home-based stereo / CD setup. However, upon looking upon the printed insert contained within the compact disc, I noticed that the band were in fact a lot older than their musical namesake would suggest - is this a printing error and thus making my copy valuable, or is it some sort of gimmick on the part of the performers (who I expect have a wicked sense of humour by having a juxtaposing image associated with the band?!) - Could you please let me in on the joke so that I can act smug in front of all the sixth-form lasses?

Love, Derek "

Dear Derek,

The latest lp from Sonic Youth is indeed a lot better than the previous few lps ('Murray Street', 'Washing Machine') partly due to the fact that they seem to have got back the days of writing songs instead of singing over a drone of feedback, ala "Goo / Dirty" era, but in a less muted affair. The trademark off-kilter drumming is there, and the distorted mangled guitar sound that only they can do well, but as noted earlier it is a more mellower affair. Traces of the past lurk in songs such as opener "Reena" (whose opening guitar line is reminiscent of the Stones 'Gimme Shelter') and Rats which has the same atonal guitar riff as "Disappearer" on my personal SY favourite 'Goo'. All in all, it is a good lp, and would recommended to anyone who left them to indulge in free-jazz and what-not to come back to.

In answer regarding your question - The picture is really them. If you want to impress the lasses in college, heres a nugget you could drop into conversation - "Did you know that Sonic Youth in Chinese means 'Impotent Cake Pant-Leg'?" - you be up to your makers name-plate in gash, guaranteed.

The gmg. "

Problem sorted. Next....

"Dear Mr Monkeygeneral,

I like bands that are noisy, shouty and sing about hate and war and death and horrible stuff. My uncle Ted gave me a cd by a band call the underoath. I liked it and then bought a t-shirt of them (as i was going to a party and wanted to show my credentials, and hopefully accure some scene points that everyone goes on about) but when i got there Quentin and George laughed at me cos they were an Christian rock band, singing about jesus and god and things like that. I was so sad i ran home and hid the shirt in a bush on the way home, then i wrote about it on myspace then cried.

I am so unhappy i want to die.

Help me, you are my only friend.

Ethan."

"Ethan,

Underoath produced one of my favourite lps of the past few years called "They're Only Chasing Safety" and must admit I was a little taken aback when i found this out, but the fact of the matter is I didnt hold it against them, cos basically you cant really make out what he is yelling about 50% of the time. The new lp "Define The Great Line" is a little more progressed than "..Safety" yet still retaining their sound. It kinda sounds more like ETID (especially in the vocals) to me, which is no bad thing. They dont really sing about God and listening to them is hardly gonna convert you. People listen to Shelter without being Krishna, and to Minor Threat but still have a drink and / or smoke. Its just an lp, not a complete lifestyle choice. Anyway, i like the new CD, and would recommend it to fans of the previous lp, Every Time I Die and all those 'screamo' bands (uurrgh - but thats the easiest/laziest way to describe it, and i am v.tired). As for your friends, just start a rumour saying you caught them bumming, that'll stop em.

With love,

Gmg."

So as you can see dear readers, i have a heart. A big, pulsating, blood-pumping heart just bursting with love. If you have a problem, be it social, musical or sexual, hit up the gmg - sometimes only I can help you.

FILM: House On The Edge Of The Park

2006-05-27T11:27:00.000-04:00

I finally got around to watching this after having bought it last year sometime (i got a freaking backlog, ok?) and as it was a particularly 'dark' day i watched this in the evening. Having seen the uncut version of Wes Cravens infamous 'Last House on The Left' a few years ago on pirate vhs I felt a little let down by the film, given its notoriety as one of the most repugnant films made, as it came across as being very slow and by the numbers, but that could be attributed to seeing the film 20 years after it was released, which probably helped diminish its shock value. "House On The Edge Of The Park" is essentially the Italian cash-in / rip-off / copy / homage (*delete as applicable) of the 70's shocker, which itself was a remake of Ingmar Bergmans "The Virgin Spring", and they chose Ruggero Deodato to direct, whom some may recall was responsible for bringing us the gut-munching, animal slaughtering and genuinely brilliant "Cannibal Holocaust", incidentally made in the same year as "House On..."

The film starts with Alex (David Hess - who actually played the lead thug 'Krug' in Last House on the Left) as a psychotic mechanic/ rapist attacking a young girl in a car and leaving her for dead. Later, a well-dressed young couple pull into his garage asking for help, but Alex wants to 'go and boogie' in his beautiful lemon suit with his mentally retarded friend Ricky (John Morghen - the most banned man in UK video history), so they agree to fix their car if they can go to the rich couples party. After reluctantly agreeing, all four set off to the house, where bad dancing, bad disco and general badness ensue.

Ricky is treated as a kind of retarded pet by the rich, as he dances around and disrobes to the music. This piss-taking infuriates Alex, who then tries to kop off with some slinky bird that evenutally gives him a pride-damaging brush off, which further winds him up. After seeing Ricky getting fleeced in a card game, Alex decides enough is enough, and he and Ricky start their own agenda of humiliation, torment and rape of the wealthy party goers with the aid of a straight raxor. But all is not what it seems, as it turns out that the wealthy party guests have planned for this to happen, and have their own little violent agenda for revenge...

"House On the Edge of the Park" is quite a slow-moving and relatively gore free movie, which given that Deodato is directing and that Italian cheap gore-soaked rip-offs were the order of the day, comes as a bit of a surprise. I expect this to be more violent and shocking than "Last House.." but it seemed to be much the same film. The one sequence when Alex is razoring the young girl is quite nasty, but the blood quota does not flow very freely considering the amount of razor slashes on the girls body. Some of the sexual scenes sit a little uncomfortable, probably due to some sections having a kinda love-jazz type soundtrack, which lends a more eroticised feel than that of fear or dread, which changes the context on-screen somewhat - It was these scenes that led to the film becoming one of the BBFC feted DPP 39 in its uncut form, which I guess only fueled the films notoriety. When the film was re-submitted by Vipco back in July 2002, the BBFC asked for a total of 11mins and 43 secs to be cut from the film, with nearly all all of the rape and violence either replaced or removed entirely.

"House On The Edge Of The Park" is basically a retread of the themes of "Last House On The Left", and I can honestly say that they are both as good (or as bad, however you want to look at it), but if i was to choose one over the other, i would probably go with Wes Cravens effort and would only recommend "House On.." to the curious or collectors.

TV: Maralee Dawn and Friends

2006-05-24T06:14:00.000-04:00

You know when you fall asleep with the TV on, and the sounds you hear as you doze bleed into you dreams, contributing to some very, very fucked up images? Well, the other night i kinda dozed off around 2:00 am, and awoke to the horror that is Maralee Dawn and Friends. And i tell you this - i was never so fucking scared in all my life when i awoke and witnessed this spectacle. And like a car crash, i sat and watched the whole thing, and felt bad for doing so.

This thing broadcasts on one of the religious channels, TBN (Trinity Broadcasting Network) which is way, way down the Sky dial. In fact, it is so far off the beaten satellite track, you really have no business being there. Its aimed at kids (what kind of Christian family would be watching TV at this hour, i dont know) but Maralee and her 'friends' are just too fucking creepy for kids. Or adults. Especially adults that have just woke up from a 10 minute drug-induced slumber at 2 in the morning.

Just take a look at the fucking puppets - its like that film with Tony Hopkins in, 'Magic' ...

.....and she is THE WORST VENTRILOQUIST IN THE WORLD! She 'claims' to be 'Canada's Premier Ventriloquist', so there must only be one in the whole fucking country. Jesus, she is awful. Her lips move, she cant do voices and looks like someone is jabbing a broken bottle up her arse all the way through. She is the perfect ventriloquist for radio (believe me, this has been done before). And whats more - all her material is bible-related, always preaching some kind of forgiveness or tolerance to her captive yet multi-ethnic and cute audience, whose faces are frozen in fear in case the crazy woman with the evil dolls speaks to them. I have never been so freaked out by a kids show before (well, apart from the 'Bobinogs' - those fuckers are evil incarnate) and I swear I had a nightmare after watching this. For a religious learning programme, it sure put the fear of god into me.

Watch the SKY's...

2006-05-08T08:46:00.000-04:00

i feel like an absentee father at the moment regarding this blog, but truth of the matter is i have had a lot on, and aint had that much time to sift through the cinematic debris that is my DVD collection. Recently i watched the new episodes (Season 4) of Family Guy, which deserve to be viewed by anyone who thinks the Simpsons is past its sell by date. Far funnier than those yellow cretins, by a long shot. Anyway, i have shifted from the reason i came here. If you are eagle-eyed enough and have Sky, then keep them peeled on Open Access 2 channel, as they have been showing the excellent mondo documentary The Killing Of America, and also The Devils Rain. Its one of those channels that just throws stuff on there with no warning at all. TCM have also been showing Hit Man, a blaxploitation version of Get Carter (which is way better that Stallones ill-advised remake), and occasionally Bob Clark's zombie movie Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things turns up (on the Horror Channel i think). Redemption TV often throws a few choice gems up late at night, but you have to wade through a lot of goth stuff before they show movies. That said, they do show a lot of footage from gigs around London venues, namely the Garage and the Underworld. They aint shown anything i have been to yet (Comeback Kid at the Garage would be cool, i was on the stage at one point..) but heres hoping....

2006-03-18T12:00:00.000-04:00

If you have any interest in 'alternative' music, then you HAVE to watch DIG! . Put simply, it is perhaps one of the best music documentaries i have seen. Basically, it follows two bands over 7 years - The Dandy Warhols (whom you may be familiar with) and The Brian Jonestown Massacre (whom you may not be familiar with). The two groups started out as friends and both bands garnered a lot of record company interest, but what follows is a documentary on the two sides of the record industry. Throw in a ego-maniacal junkie lead singer that is as crazy as a shithouse rat and starts fights with his own band / the crowd / anyone while on stage and you got yourselves a fucking damn good and utterly compelling documentary. After watching this, Anton Newcombe, the unhinged singer with BJM, is now officially one of my heroes - he's like Iggy Pop on Special Brew and Brown Tar Heroin laced with PCP. Fucking dude is a misunderstood genius and he is OUT there...one of the most enjoyable docs i have watched - yep, its even better and more psychotic than dickhead Troy Duffy and his exploits in Overnight - hell, you probably dont even care for the bands in Dig!, but after watching it, i am ready to worship at the blood altar of Anton Newcombe. Believe him, he really may be the second coming......

Game Review - ICO (PS2)

2006-03-10T13:57:00.000-04:00

This game has been knocking around for ages, and it has been one of those cult games that few had played but those that did raved and raved about it. It was in no way a big seller, which has only lent itself to the cult appeal of the game. In the wake of Shadow Of The Colossus being released, ICO (which is the first game by the SOTC developers) has been given a new re-release at a bargain price of £19.99, well worth it if the prices for the original version on ebay are anyhting to go by.

So why is ICO so revered and fawned over by games journalists and gamers alike? Apparently its a more emotionally involving and quite beautiful game, a perfect marriage of aethetics and gameplay in which neither one is compromised for the other. The main jist of the game is this - you are a boy with horns (Ico) that is taken to a castle prison and locked in a tomb-like ball. He manages to break out of his tomb, and spies a ghostly female figure in a cage (Yorda), so he decides to free her. From here on we are in control of Ico, and to a lesser extent Yorda, as you explore the castle looking for a way out. Ok, so its sounds like you heard it all before, but the puzzles are often complex and can take a good long while to solve and a relationship builds up between Ico and Yorda, as many times you have to guide and persuade her to follow you or protect her at all costs. The animations are superb, such as when Ico leaps a gap in a bridge and you have to call Yorda to jump - the way you pull her up from impending death looks so great, it really is a beautiful game to look at and play.

My only gripe with the game is that, well, it is a little short. I managed to finish it in just under 7 hours, which really isnt a long time. However, it is totally involving and at times can really punish you (i threw my controller at the wall twice in the early stages, but still went back for more). Like Farenheit, the games involves you a lot more emotionally, and the ending has a few theories as to what really happens at the end (don't worry, i wont spoil any of it). A great game, well worth £20 of anyones money. Now, bring on Shadow Of The Colossus.....

GAME: Fahrenheit (PS2)

2006-02-21T15:18:00.000-04:00

Now, I know i haven't posted anything up for a while, so here is summat to whet your appetite, and its a game review. "What the hell..?" i hear nobody cry. If you will just sit down and listen for one goddamn minute, you'll see how it all fits in to the grand scheme of things (and also allows me to start posting game reviews. Anyway, why do i have to explain myself to you, its my fucking blog..)

I have started playing games a bit more since I have (kinda) shed myself of one nasty addiction, it keeps me occupied and stops me thinking about things i want (and i want them, by christ i do..) in the twilight hours of the eve. I usually play stuff like GTA: San Andreas and sports sims such as Pro Evo 5 and Tiger Woods 06, but decided that i wanted something with a bit more involvement. I couldn't be arsed with the zombie mash-ups and puzzles that are the Resi Evil and Silent Hill genre, so i ended up getting hold of a promo copy of Fahrenheit off ebay, for £3.25!!

The game starts as you awake in a restaurant toilet with blood on your hands, a dead body in front of you and a cop on his way into the bathroom. Now if that doesnt throw you right in the deep end, I don't know what does. You have to get the hell out of there before you get caught red-handed by doing various things, such as wash your hands, and sneak out of the restuarant unnoticed. Not particularly exciting you may think, but having a timer running down and a small screen a la 24, showing you just how far the cop is away from walking in on you really amps up the tension. I must admit after getting past this first part, i was pretty much hooked. What happens after this initial murder sets the game up - you are the murderer, and you also play from the two investigating cops points of view.

What lends Fahrenheit its compelling gameplay is the style in which it is played out in an almost cinematic way, with the story unfolding as a film would. There are a lot of cut-scenes, but you have control of the characters within these scenes, either by choosing the responses in conversations via the analog sticks or having to move them in time with coloured directions to avoid or interact with certain elements of the game. Its simple to play, yet very very addcitive and involving. You actually start to care what happens to the characters, and you really pay attention to what is being said or it can lead to the game ending.

With its total emotional interaction, mulitple characters, easy controls, eerie atmospherics, stirring music and superb supernatural / murder investigation storyline, Fahrenheit is probably one of the best gaming experiences i have had in a long while, if ever. Its the brilliant little touches such as putting your clothes in the washing machine before the cops enter your flat, having to stop yourself throwing up in the morgue, choosing whether or not to save a drowing boy at the risk of the cops catching you, avoiding police suspicion by responding to questions, and the imaginative fight / chase sequences that play as a film yet you control. My only gripe is that it may feel a little short (it only took me around 8-9 hours to complete) but do not let that but you off in any way, as this game really has to be experienced.

FILM: A Dirty Shame

2006-02-05T11:45:00.000-04:00

"It's not safe out! People are shaving their crotches as we speak. There is pubic hair in the air! Everywhere! "

Ah, good old John Waters is back to form with A Dirty Shame. His recent output (Cecil B Demented, Pecker and even as far back as Serial Mom) seemed to be a little tame in comparison with his early stuff such as the notorious Pink Flamingos and Desperate Living, but A Dirty Shame is perhaps one of his best and funniest films. It sets out to offend from the word go, and pretty much doesn't stop until the credits roll.

Set (as always) in Baltimore, the nice suburb of Harford Road is being taken over by sexual perverts, all of which have been transformed by being accidentally concussed. The 'Neuters' (or 'normal' folk) try to stem this tide of sexual depravity to little or no avail. Every sexual deviancy under the sun is mentioned - Big Gay Bears ("Grown men with hairly legs prancing around half naked? "We're bears." What the hell is that supposed to mean? "), a woman how chronically masturbates, Ronnie the Rimmer, shaven crotches, big-tit obsessions, grown babys, Paydays (getting a thrill from shitting in public toilets and leaving it) tromboning, shitting while jacking off, frottage and micophila (getting off on eating / covering yourself in dirt) are just a few mentioned within the film. It is am encylopedia of sexual deviancy, and it is damn funny. A lot of people could easily be offended by this, and I guess that is what the self-styled "Prince of Perversion" Waters has set out to do - reclaim his crown after making a few more mainstream films, and he certainly does that, no mistake. I laughed pretty much all the way through this, as ludicrous and obscene as it is - nearly every line uttered refers to some sexual act.

The cast includes Tracey Ullman as a woman that always wants cunnilingus ("I'm Sylvia Stickles and I've got the itch!" ), Johnny Knoxville as Ray-Ray, the sexual healer who is trying to find a new sexual act, Selma Blair as Ursula Udders, a girl with Pandora Peaks type tits that has a rabid fan in Fat Fuck Frank, and of course no John Waters film would be complete without stalwart Mink Stole as an uptight neuter that eventually succumbs to Ronnie the Rimmer. With a (quite literally) climatic ending, A Dirty Shame is one of John Waters best and most re-watchable films, and I throughly recommended that if you are a fan of Waters earlier films or just a fan of sleaze, offensive humour, sexual deviancy and downright comic depravity, then you have check this out.

click here for Website and Trailer

An Apology

2006-01-31T10:48:00.000-04:00

Apparently, one of my posts for the 18th May last year was incorrect.

In the entry, "Shit Gigs", i wrote -

"Jimmy Eat World - Astoria - What the fuck is it with 'emo' bands and gigs being shit? I only went to this to placate a friend. Personally, I thought they were a bit too FM rock for my liking. They are shite live as well. The crowd stood still for the most part. Get a fucking ruck going at least, you pissant crybabies. Jimmy Eat Shit, more like."

Said person pulled me up on this the other week - I apologise, it seems as if my recollection has altered through time, drugs, booze etc. I did not go to placate a friend, i went because i wanted to see them. I can only apologise for my incorrection and subsequent publishing of said untruths.

Doesn't change the fact they were shit though.

A Cheery Wave from a Stranded Stranger

2006-01-26T11:03:00.000-04:00

Merry fucking new year to all you bitches.

Again, no new 'reviews' have been added. Why? Because i have a fucking MOUNTAIN of dvds to get through. All those ones i said i would get through months ago? Still sat there. Xmas and my birthday brought in more dvds, this time mainly huge boxsets and complete TV series, and you know how long these things take to get through. Add that on top of having to watch 'current' releases via Screenselect, online PS2 gaming and my attempts to 'lay down' and record the greatest fucking album never yet recorded, and i reckon you are gonna be lucky to read anything new for about a month, but i promise when i do post something, it'll be a fucking whopper of a read, one you can print off and read on the toilet. Hell, i may even have a tune for ya.

A Message from GMG HQ

2006-01-09T07:30:00.000-04:00

Alright people, heres a little heads up - the best cop show on TV (no, not The Shield, thats the second) is back on the vastly-improving Sky channel FX. What am i talking about Willis? The Wire, you dumbass. Series 3 starts 9pm on Jan 17th, so you got just over a week to get season 1 and 2 on DVD. do it. you need it.

FILM: Bumfights 3: The Felony Footage

2005-12-24T13:38:00.000-04:00

Bumfights returns with the third installment in their much-reviled series with Bumfights 3: The Felony Footage. Following on from the notorious Bumfights and the sequel Bumfights 2: Bum Life, we see the return of my favourite hobos Rufus and Donnie, along with the obligatory clips of jocks and skaters fighting between themselves and each other in the car-parks and on the beaches of the good ol' U. S. of A.

Much was made of the original Bumfights and its rise to notoriety. I won't sit here and explain the whole court-case or whatever suing went on, I will leave that to CNN and BBC News to explain all that in more detail. What Bumfights 3 says it is is the felony footage shown in the trial of Ryan E. McPherson and the other members of Bumfights producers Indecline, but what we really get is lots of brawling, violence and people urinating in McDonalds, which is something I can see whenever I want by merely going out for a sherry in Watford on a Saturday night. And believe me, this footage contitutes the majority of the 60 minute run-time. That said, some of that shit is pure brutal, but I aint into dudes fucking each other up and trying to be all macho, I get enough of that at hardcore gigs - I wanna see the bums at it, drunkenly scrapping for dregs of booze.

I get my tramp fix in the form of Rufus, Donnie and of course, the one that is crazier than a shit-house rat and with a face to match, the man Bling Bling. Fresh outta prison as well, the Bling Bling will do anything for crack, which is mainly crap rapping (which involves making a gun-cocking sound every 5 seconds and mumbling). Rufus and Donnie, however little they may be in the film, just fucking slay me every single time. Getting Donnie a huge black hooker for his birthday and the following humilation when he can't get it up is bad enough, but when the hooker and Rufus start slapping him around and making him get his arse beaten while having a ball-gag stuffed in his mouth, it looks like some kind of weird niche porn film, but in nooo way good to look at.

There is some really funny stuff on here, which is kinda outweighed by the scrapping which kinda disappointed me a bit as I didnt want a fight video. If you have seen vols 1 + 2, it is a lot better, funnier and not as depressingly bleak or sick as Vol 2 Bumlife, but no where near as funny or as re-watchable as the first. If you aint seen the first, why the fuck not? Seen as exploitative, abusive and cruel by some factions and members of society, but c'mon, face it, there aint nothing funnier than two drunken dossers arguing over spilt Kestrel Super Strength or seeing them fall about after drinking furniture polish, is there?

Records of the year

2005-12-01T07:35:00.000-04:00

Like every other two-bit punk bitch on the internet, here is my records of the year.

yeah, some shit is reiussed or old, but what the fuck - its the first time i heard it, so it counts.

In no particular order -

Dungen - Panda (single)

Stars - Ageless Beauty (single)
65 Days of Static - Radio Protector (taken from One Time For All Time lp)

Les Savy Fav - 3/5 (lp) *
Modern Life Is War - D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S (taken from Clarity lp)
Some Girls - The DNA Will Have Its Say E.P

The Bled - My Assassin (taken from Found In The Flood lp)
The Blood Brothers - Crimes (lp)
65 Days of Static - The Fall of Math (lp)
My Chemical Romance - I'm Not Ok (single)
Youth Group - Shadowland (taken from Skeleton Jar lp)
Alkaline Trio - Mercy Me (taken from Crimson lp)
Every Time I Die - Bored Stiff (taken from Gutter Phenomenon lp)
Horse The Band - Birdo (taken from The Mechanical Hand lp)

Hella - Chirpin Hard (lp)

The Wedding Present - I'm Further North Than You (single)

The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower - Love In The Fascist Brothel (lp)

Converge - Unloved and Weeded Out (reissue lp)*

Embrace - Embrace (reissue lp)*

Autolux - Future Perfect (lp)

Rites Of Spring - End on End (reissue lp)*

Latterman - No Matter Where We Go...!!! (lp)

Andy Votel - Komedahead (single)

now go out and buy something.

Pre-Cert Videos

2005-11-16T10:03:00.000-04:00

Pre-Cert Videos

This site / database / forum is absolutely indispensible for anyone an interest in collecting, or merely interested. It is perhaps the most compreshensive site for pre-cert video covers anywhere!!

The guys that run it (Marc Morris and Francis Brewster) also wrote the excellent Shock! Horror! book which details the 'glory days' of pre-cert video. Check it out and give them some money as well.

FILM: The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin

2005-11-11T08:23:00.000-04:00

"I am the greatest lover in Africa. I am the sex champion!"

Idi Dada Amin, also known as Big Daddy, Dada, or his preffered title being His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, Victoria Cross, Distinguished Service Order, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular. Now if that isn't the name of a tyrannical despot, I dont know what is. Amin's reign was littered with tales of beheadings, voodoo, cannibalism and brutalisation of the innocents, so what better subject can there be to make an exploitation movie than The Last King of Scotland (another of his aliases), Mr Idi Amin!

Joesph Olita plays Amin as a kind of despot clown, always laughing maniacally and reacting to threatening news to his country in a totally off-hand manner. Some violent and shocking scenes are unintentionally funny. One scene where the doctor opens the fridge to reveal two heads in the freezer, is initally shocking as you don't quite expect it, then Amin appears and smirks, "Doctor! For an African you are looking very white!" The scene when Amin is speaking to the Archbishop is also great. They are both sat down when Idi gets a little riled-up so puts a gun into the Archbishop's mouth and pulls the trigger, sending brain and blood everywhere. As Amin's sidekicks rush in to see what has happened, he bellows all wide-eyed in his heavy Ugandan accent, "I lost my temper! I have killed the Archbishop! What do I do now?!" Also, another great scene to look out for is when Amin eats the flesh of one of his dead enemies - it looks like a big piece of pastrami...

The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin is by no means an insightful look in the crazed world of the crackpot dictator. It is a cash-in in exploitation movie that pretty much does what it says on the tin. You won't really learn anything about the Ugandan situation from this film, but then again I no way expected to. It's a fast moving piece of trash cinema that was quire enjoyable - Amin tortures, shoots, and in one scene even eats his enemies (although it looks like pastrami..) and the film moves along at a brisk pace, going from one action scene to another and Olita's performance is quite enjoyable in a made-for-TV movie kind of way, and grindhouse fans will enjoy the ludicrousness of the whole thing. Interestingly, director Sharad Patel later became the director of the early Tom Hanks film Batchelor Party, but i doubt very much he had any scenes from this on his showreel.

The film itself is quite a hard find (it took me nearly two months to locate a copy) and I only managed to come across an unoffical DVD release from Parc Video, of which the quality is quite good, clear and watchable although it appears that there is quite a lot of print damage throughout the film, which given the obscurity and difficulty of finding an original VHS is not to be sniffed at. The Parc DVD has the European title on the cover, yet the film itself bears the US title (Amin: The Rise and Fall) and also includes two great trailers. Keep em peeled on ebay and you might happen upon this gem of a movie.

Look Out For...

2005-11-10T10:07:00.000-04:00

...top satanic grindhouse movie "The Devils Rain" starring Ernest Borgnine, William Shatner and chief satanist Anton La Vey, with special effects by the people that created Planet Of The Apes - I saw the (fantastic) ending to this cult gem on the Open Access Channel on Sky (sorry, cant remember the EPG number) - but they showed it just after 9pm!! What with this and Welcome Home Brother Charles (on Bad Movies) occasionally turning up late at night, its a fucking exploitation fans dream!!

Comeback Kid + Bane, Camden Underworld 6/11/05

2005-11-07T09:28:00.000-04:00

Judging by the size of the crowd snaking around The World's End pub in Camden before the doors had opened, the indication was that this was gonna be a good night. Hardcore legends Bane and current hxc darlings Comeback Kid on the same bill? It's Sold Out? In the tiny Underworld? Shit yeah, its gonna be a good night.

Inside the cramped Underworld the room was just fucking vibrating with excitement and no sooner had we got in there when Bane took the stage. If you have never been to the Underworld, let me explain something - the stage is in a pit-like area, you go down into it via some short stairs, and you can also near enough stand right behind the stage and look down on the crowd - its a good venue to see bands really close up. Anyway, from the first chord, Bane went fucking off. I was never that big a fan of them - sure "Give Blood" is a good album but i can honestly say it didn't grab me. Live however, Bane played with such an energy that it would be hard not to like them, bouncing round the tiny stage, telling the fucking meatheads to stop beating each other up and enjoy the fucking show, and throwing down some great breakdowns. "Ante Up" was probably my highlight of their set.

After a quick trip to the bar and a have a piss, we went back into the pit and took our positions for Comeback Kid. It was during this point that some dude with a backpack spilled some of my beer - ok, no harm done. Then a couple of bitches started whining that i got beer on them when someone barged into them, thus knocking into me again. "Watch it." one of them said. "Hey, i'm just trying to drink my beer" came the civil retort. Then these two nuggets start whispering, but loud enough that i heard them - "He's a fucking beer head, the fucking drunks do my head in". Now, let me get this right - i am in a club, that sells beer, and i am seeing a band - what the fuck is wrong? I dont know if these dudes though they were 'edge', but what about freedom of lifestyle choice? This comment pretty much fucked me off. As i took my glasses off ready to go to fucking war with them, one of them disappeared. "Not so fucking hard now without your mate, are ya?" I said to him. Thats when he started stuttering and shitting himself. "Get down in that pit then if you are soooo fucking hardcore," i said " and we'll see who the fucking bitch is." - All he could do was apologise and walk off. Jesus, what a fucking pussy - tough with his crew but shit it when it was mano-a-mano. Then Comeback Kid hit the stage, and in all the excitement i guess i 'accidentally' punched him in the side of the face. twice. one-nil to me. Not that i advocate any violence in the pit, but if you want it, i will give you it. All i wanna do is enjoy the show, not wail on people.

Comeback Kid hit the stage, and the place went up. Good sing-alongs, chants, breakdowns, change ups and all the things that make hardcore great. They played with speed and energy which the crowd just fed off. Bodies cascaded from the stage, people were grabbing the mic and singing the parts before diving back into the crowd. A couple of circle pits formed but didnt last long due to the enclosed pit area, and everyone was just having a good fucking time. They played "Die Tonight" "All In A Year" "False Idols Fall" all right on the money. They may have done "Lorelei" but don't quote me on that. "This is our last two songs" - which was the cue to get down the front. As they started the last song, "Wake The Dead", everyone surged the stage and within seconds the entire band was engulfed in the crowd, who were forming small circles protecting the band so they could still play. I was stood covering the guitarist and taking turns on the mic with the other guys who were also covering him. There must have been around 40 people on the stage around the band, it was fucking chaos, but they still kept it tight. Then it was all over - handshakes with the band and others, then time to go. Next thing i know i am outside in the cold Camden night, grinning like fuck at the thought of the insane stage invasion. That was probably one of the best hardcore shows I have been to - Bane impressed me and Comeback Kid were amazing live.

LIVE: 65 Days Of Static, Rhythm Factory 19/10/05

2005-10-30T09:11:00.000-04:00

After spending about an hour and a half trying find the fucking venue (it isn't difficult to find, except I got off at the wrong station and was going round in circles cos i was a bit wasted - duh..) I eventually got there about 30 mins before they took the stage. Support band Youth Movie Soundtrack Strategies were on stage - I have the bands ep "The Pitch and Yaw of Satellites" but haven't really listened to it that much, purely because 10 minute songs begin to bore me a little. Thats not to say that they are a boring band - what i heard live was pretty good, they were on the money but like i say, my attention wanders too much.

65 Days of Static have a sound that is not to easily definable. Its easy to say 'they sound like Mogwai' - they do, but there is sooo much more to it than that. For a start 65 D.O.S. do play post rock / math rock / whatever you wanna call it but here is the rub - they keep the running times down. They say what they want and they do it quicker and a hell of a lot better than bands that take double the time. The mix of heady electronica and beats colliding head-on with heavy guitars and frentic drumming while all the time throwing in erratic time-signatures may sound like a recipe for disaster but believe me, it shouldn't work but it just fucking does.

Having seen the band live before, i kinda knew what to expect but this time i had been listening to the first lp "The Fall Of Math" quite a lot since then, so had more familiarity with some of the songs played. "Install a Beak in the Heart..." "Hole" and the fucking brilliant "Retreat! Retreat!" sounded fuller and the new stuff, while unfamilar, sounded pretty cool. Having now had chance to listen to new lp "One Time For All Time" the new stuff was played to perfection, including my new favourite track by them, lp closer "Radio Protector" - that track is fucking epic. Onstage the band are like a sonic fucking tsunami. They get louder and louder as the gig progresses, the drummer going fucking mental, samples and fucked up loops being thrown in by all members of the band and they are soooo fucking tight - to me, they are one of those bands that you just have to see live to really appreciate what they are doing, that's where it all makes sense.

Tonight saw them play older and new stuff together, and they even did an encore which at one point veered between being a beautiful discordant orchestra to re-creating the sound of an exorcism in the blink of an eye, then in a wall of howling sonic torture they left the stage, leaving my fucking ears ringing but also a big fucking smile on my face.
65 Days Of Static - one of the best live bands around at the moment, bar none.

65 Days of Static play Camden's Purple Turtle on 17th November

FILM: Star Wars Holiday Special (part one)

2005-10-26T14:17:00.000-04:00

George Lucas.

Some say he is a film visionary, his imagination knows no bounds, he is a god to some people. He created the Star Wars universe and totally believed in his vision when everyone around him, from peers such as Brian de Palma and Francis Ford Coppola, berated him for creating a pile of crap. That pile of crap turned out to be Star Wars, a film that had such a cultural impact that its aftershocks are still being felt today.

Then again, he is also responsible for Howard the fucking Duck, Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Two fucking Ewok movies, the crap spin-off cartoons Ewoks and Droids, Jar Jar Binks and this pile of clag - The Star Wars Holiday Special. George Lucas once remarked at an Australian convention that "if I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every bootlegged copy of that program and smash it." Having endured this 'thing', i totally agree with the bearded fuckwit.

The bootlegs in question are the only way anyone is going to be able to view this abonamation. Lucas famously attempted (and failed) to buy up all master copies of this special to ensure it was never broadcast again, thats how embarrassing this is. So, sitting through a 4th generation copy of a 25 year old programme transfered to DVD is hard enough, and when the whole thing is tripping of its balls, it makes for pretty hardcore viewing. Christ, its not often I have to turn something off - I grew up watching grainy video nasties where if you squinted you could see what was going on, and the amount of shite cinema i purposely watch is staggering - fuck, i have even sat though the insane and abstract Berlin Horse in its dischordant entirety - but this, this is a fucking test, that I can guarantee.

I turned this off after an hour - I was stoned, but obviously not stoned enough as this thing fucking hurt to watch. I had to lie down in a darkened room before considering going back in and watching the last 40 mins or so. I didn't, I couldn't face it and watched Family Guy instead. So why is this soooo bad? Ok - how does this sound....

It starts off all well and good, with the announcer saying "The Star Wars Holiday Special! Starring,,,," - we have the roll call - (the very embarrased-looking) Harrison Ford! Mark Hamill! C3PO! (you get the drift..) then we get the guest stars.. - Art Carney! Bea Arthur! Diana Carroll! Jefferson Starship! - oh. my. good. god. With all that out of the way, the 'action' gets started. We are on some planet, with Chewbacca's wife, dad and his little kid. Yep, Chewbacca lives in domesticated Ikea hell-hole just like the rest of us. That's Chewbacca apparently. Quiet family man, you wouldn't think it to look at him. In this scene of domestic bliss, I really do not know what going on, because the first ten or so minutes, they all speak in Wookie!! RARRRRR! ARRR! BRAAAWWWRRRR! WHAT THE FUCK? And they just look sooo fucking odd as well.

Anyway, from what I can gather, Chewy is missing (his tea is in the bin if he don't get back soon) so his wife, Marla (!) contacts a load of people using an old BBC Micro and a kalediscope (which aids us in getting the stars involved) so she contacts Luke and R2D2, who are doing some crap attempt at comedy. Carrie Fisher (trippin her fucking balls right off if her eyes are anything to go by..) is up next, talkin some shite. Awww fuck, i give up with this thing. It is fucking AWFUL.

zzzzz....more tenuious links lead us into shitty disco and disco funk interludes provided by the musical stars. I cannot watch the fucking thing anymore. Hang on...whats this. A cartoon! I am saved!!!

Oh fuck. It is the worst cartoon ever made. Its got Boba Fett in it (the sound of a hundred fanboys ejeculating..) and I seriously cannot bear to watch this, so fucking dull, tediuos, and most of all, its a big fucking cash in. Lucas - you really are a cunt. You really are a dirty bastard. You fucking rotter.

Should I ever get round to watching the last hour of this fucking abomanation, i'll be sure to post it here. Chances are i am never going to bother. I need some mind-soap and a brain shower, i feel violated and abused. It is just embarassing.

BAD MOVIES on SKY DIGITIAL

2005-10-26T06:01:00.000-04:00

keep an eye out for blaxploitation / grindhouse classic Welcome Home Brother Charles which was shown last night on Bad Movies Channel

Eine Kliene Punk Rock Musik

2005-10-21T07:13:00.000-04:00

the platters that currently matter:

The Bled - "My Assassin"
taken from the Vagrant lp "Found In The Flood" - not to keen overall on the lp, but being fucked watching MTV2 when the video came on made me listen to this song with new ears. Kinda THURSDAY meets UNDEROATH. If you have heard of either you know what I am on about.

Modern Life Is War - "D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S"
taken from the lp "Witness" and being lauded by some sections of the internet of being the future of punk rock. having seen them play live with CONVERGE i was not impressed at all by them. Then i heard this fucking song. Shit, it is too fucking good. Just a cool, fast, shouty, catchy, intelligent, different sounding punk rock song. Contender for one of my songs of the year.

Dungen - "Panda" - single
again, another stoned MTV2 find. Swedish psyche-folk heavy-rock. yep, thats what i said. this tune fucking rules. Nothing better than singing catches of it when you have no fucking idea what you are singing cos its in Swedish. Like The Who if they had a smorgasboord laced with LSD.

Stars - "Ageless Beauty" - single
guess where i heard this - yep late night MTV2 again. Reminds me of My Bloody Valentine and that whole Slowdive / Ride / Chapterhouse shoegazing thing. Such a cool mellow indie tune with ghostly female vocals. Could be my song of the year which may suprise some - its fucking beautiful.

Don Cabellero - "For Respect / What Burns Never Returns" - lps
back in the day every intelligent band seemed to cite these dudes as an influence, which for a band just at the beginning of their short career must mean they are doing something right. Steve Albini is a major fan and helped bring them to prominence. And listening to them now its pretty obvious where Albini got the idea for SHELLAC. Jazz-tinged heavy repetitive yet math rock signatures with constant time changes and moods? That make sense? It shouldn't but it does. Just when you think you know whats coming next, they throw you off the scent. All hail the Cabellero.

The Biz vs The Nudge

2005-10-10T08:12:00.000-04:00

Hey kids!

Apologies for the lack of updates in recent weeks - the films are just piling up to the point where i am gonna have to take a fucking week off and watch them all back to back. Add the fact that i am pretty much addicted to Burnout Revenge online (monkeygenera if you wanna play me, girls) and yet more stuff flooded through my letterbox this very morning. So upcoming in the next few weeks will be such delights as Luigi Cozzi's Star Wars rip-off Starcrash, Ruggero Deadato's italian remaking of Last House on the Left, House on the Edge of the Park, Roberta Findlay's (of the notorious Snuff fame) Tenement (aka Game of Survival), japanese schoolgirl zombies in Stacy, Aussie zombie flick Undead, grindhouse thriller The Candy Snatchers and Mancunian 80's gangland thriller GBH to name just a few (well those at the top of the list) Who knows when I may post something up. Keep em peeled though.

Over the weekend I managed to watch Mean Creek, a film which could be described as a mix of Deliverance and Stand By Me. Teenage kids take a retarded bully out on the river to teach him some lessons, and the trip ends up with fatal consequences. The film has quite an arthouse feel and look about it, with the director deciding to utilise the lack of sound to help build up the tension but this fails the film slightly as it seems as if nothing is happening and everything is all looks, glares and quite beautiful camerawork which lends itself to a contemplative mood surrouding the film. At only 88 mins, the film does seem to drag a little and could do with being a little bit more pace, which is a shame as it is well acted and well directed and shot. Well worth a look if you have the time, but be warned as it is quite quiet in places.

Thats it from me - I may post up Part One of the Star Wars Holiday Special Review later this week - "Why is it only Part One?" I hear you all cry - Wait until you read it, then you'll understand.....

DVD Blowout

2005-09-26T12:51:00.000-04:00

Due to quiet spots throughout the weekend I managed to catch up with a few films that have been sat waiting to be watched. Christie Malry's Own Double Entry is a British film starrring Lock Stock's Nick Moran in a mix of what I can only describe as Billy Liar meets Fight Club. The film focuses on Malry and his rather extreme double-entry accounting methods - everytime he gets fucked over in some way it goes in his ledger as a debit, and when he fucks someone over, it goes in his credit. Malry initally starts of small, little bit of office sabotage here and there but it really starts to escalate when he kills thousands by poisoning the water supplies. Malry lives the life of a nihilstic fantasist, and for the most part the film is quite absorbing, sucking the viewer in to Malry's twisted little world. But the downside is the plot invloving Leonardo Da Vinci and the monk that invented double-entry accounting - i found these segments of the film superflous and didnt really have much to do with Malry's eventual demise, as it seems as if it is a seperate story very tenuiosly attached to the main film by way of accounting. Bit of a shame really as this sort of spoils the whole feel of the film. But, if you liked either Fight Club or Billy Liar then its probably worth renting.

Another rental that has been sat for a week is the cult Euro-horror Mark Of The Devil, starring Udo Kier and Herbert Lom as blood thirsty witch-hunters rampanging through the land seeking those in league with the devil, then torturing them in the most brutal way possible. This film has long been a favourite of fans of cult and European horror cinema, and while the subject matter may not be to everyone's liking, I spent a sunday afternoon plonked down in front of this, and for all its faults I found it quite enjoyable. Bascially, the witch-finders roll into town, and torture innocent people accused of witchcraft and fornicating with the devil. The accused are then tortured using racks, water, knives and in one memorable scene a witch has her tongue torn out graphically. The soundtrack is so inapproriate, at times sounding like Riz Ortalini's amazing Cannibal Holocaust score but somehow this didnt seem to sit well with the visuals which adds to the eurotrashness of the film. The version I watched was the BBFC cut version which has 32 seconds (which is probably gore-based) which i couldn't understand why it had been cut - it wasn't particularly violent or gory for that matter so the extra seconds would have probably added to the film more (mind you - the previous version submitted to the BBFC was cut by over 4 mins, so thank yourselves lucky for only 32 seconds trimmed) - On the whole in enjoyed the bad acting, bizarre soundtrack and of course the out of synch dubbing, torture and blood. This is a film that boring sunday afternoons are made for.

From medival torture we go onto what could be one of the biggest cult hits to emerge from Russia - Night Watch (aka Nochnoi Dozor) This film has been garnering plaudits from directors such as Tarantino and it is currently the biggest grossing Russian film ever. The story gets a little complex, so i will just kinda brush over the plot details for this one, as some things may have been lost in translation, or they may just not make sense after one viewing! Night Watch starts with war between the Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness who decide that as they are both equal, they call a truce. They set up a Day Watch (to watch over the good - wizards, shapeshifters etc) and a Night Watch (vampires, werewolves etc) and they are in place to keep the balance. The birth of a chosen one in thousands of years time could lead to the balance being tipped one way or the other, which could mean the earth descending into total darkness. Thats the basic premise, but this film has so many head-scratching yet brilliant moments that it was well worth the watch, the sort of film that gets under your skin and you sit there thinking about it for hours after, much in the way Donnie Darko got to me. It has touches of Lord of the Rings in the battle sequences, and a touch of The Matrix and LOTR when the characters inhabit the gloom, much like when Frodo puts the ring on, its a sort of netherworld between good and darkness which also provides some of the best images in the film, such as a boy falling back with red smoke spewing from his eyes as the gloom starts to take him. It gets a bit confusing about two-thirds of the way in, but the end makes so much sense that it really is worth perservering with. Set to be a huge cult classic, until those dirty Hollywood bastards get there hands on it and fuck it up, so get hold of the Russian cut of the film - the US version is cut by twenty minutes and it's dubbed.

Click Here to View Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor)

FILM: The Dinah Shore Portal To Hell

2005-09-20T05:37:00.000-04:00

This is only a short review, because the 'film' itself only has a runtime of 60 mins - but what a 60 mins.....

The Dinah Shore Portal To Hell is basically an collection of clips taken from outakes or stuff you really weren't meant to see. It shows the horror of celebrity and those moments that just didn't make it onto TV. It starts off with musical appearances by guests on the Dinah Shore show, featuring William Shatner talking his way through some song, Jeff Bridges with an acoustic guitar, David Carradine doing his Dylan impression and Andy Kaufman performing as his crazed showbiz alter-ego Tony Clifton, among others. While none of these clips are particularly shocking, they amuse purely on the curiousity value. The rest of the DVD is where it's at - we get Orson Welles, giant of the cinema and in this clip, giant all round. The sozzled Welles is advertising Californian Champagne (when he can remember his lines..) and is generally a shadow (albeit larger) of his former self.

Then we hit the motherlode in a trio of clips. Richard Pryor is first, being interviewed on (i think) the set of Stir Crazy. Thing is, he has just free-based a load of coke. What ensues is 10 minutes of some of the funniest coke-babbling i have heard. Pryor just does not give a fuck. Next up to bat is Sly Stone on the Dick Cavett show, tripping his fucking balls off. The cat is ripped to the high-teeth on LSD, sitting there in his own little world as Cavett tries to make sense of Sly's world. And the icing on the cake surely must come from James Brown. Recently arrested on drug charges and assault, Soul Brother Number One is interviewed on the Sonya show. Brother James however, is PCP'd up to the tits. He sits there grinning like a mad fucker, bursting into song at every opportunity, and is generally a shambling drugged up mess. He is also absolutley fucking hilarious.

Other clips include US TV Film critics Siskel and Ebert bitching at each other during the recording of a promo, Zsa Zsa Gabor flipping out over someone putting a clapperboard in her face, and the bonus inclusion of a high-school education film on periods, which just has to be seen to be believed. Dinah Shore... is a good little compilation of little of never seen before clips, well worth watching after a few. Note that some of the clips are not the best quality, but given the nature of them it is hardly suprising. It's oddity and curiousity value make this something to look out for. Copies are available from 5 Minutes To Live or have a scout around the internet. It's worth it.

FILM: The Last House On Dead End Street

2005-09-10T04:33:00.000-04:00

This film had been, until a few years ago, shrouded in legend and myth. Some people puported it to be a genuine 'snuff' movie due to the fact that everyone in the film used a pseudonym, no-one knew where the film came from and no-one could find out anything about anyone involved in it. The film itself had a very minor run on the grindhouse circuit before completely disappearing, only to emerge in the video boom in the 80's as a tenth-generation, badly bootlegged copy that had been taped from Venezulan TV (who apparently had shown it uncut) - this washed out, over-played bad quality recording added to the notion that the film was itself an underground snuff film.

Last House... deals with the subject of the snuff film, which only serves to fuel its grimy reputation even more. Terry Hawkins, the film's protagonist, is one of the most loathsome and repelent individuals you could ever come across. Having been released from prison, Terry has a real chip on his shoulder about everything, and he wants to show the world by making films. He contacts his old buddy Ken( recently out of the asylum for fucking a dead cow when he worked at the abbatoir), porno cameraman Bill and two girls who are attracted by the life of sordidness and violence that surrounds Terry, and they set about making their sick films.

The gang murder a blind man and film it, and use this footage as a "showreel" to pornographers that are looking for something to appease to their jaded appetites, with a view to them backing some more of Terry's movies. In a drug comedown, Terry reveals that he has been burned by pornographers before, and that they are not going to get away with cashing in on his snuff loop, so he invites them to 'watch' the filming of his new movie, unaware that they themselves will be the stars.

What happens next is an absolute orgy of sickening violence and hints of surrealism. A woman is branded on the forehead and her throat cut, then they move their attentions to the pornographers wife. She is tied down to a bed, her face slashed several times and then her legs amputated in a long, lingering bloody scene. And if that was not enough, the group then give her smelling salts to wake her after she passed out, and she wakes to find her legs reduced to bloody stumps. Pliers are then jabbed into her stomach and the intestines removed and thrown around between the group, as she lays there still bleeding. Her husband is made to simulate fellatio with a deer-hoof, and later has his eye removed with a power drill.

It's this last sequence of events that, even for the most jaded horror fan, that are a tad shocking. Due to the films raw and rough style, it looks like one of the Manson Family home movies. The whole torture and amputation sequence lingers in the memory more than it should, in is more in the style of a Guinea Pig movie, revelling in the bloody mess and torture of the victim for way little longer than needed, adding a sense of unease and sick voyuerism, making you feel that you played a part of it.

Every character in the film is repulsive in some way - the pornographer that is killed expresses an interest in having dogs fuck his wife on camera - so no real sympathy is felt when they are killed, yet you do not view Watkins as some kind of anti-hero, he is merely a deranged fucking psychopath of the highest order. The similarities between Terry's gang and the Manson Family are quite close, as the Chuck and the Family apparently made snuff films out in the desert (yet none surfaced) and helped create the notion that they exist. Terry has a powerful hold over the others and they always do as he says, however sick and disgusting.

Interestingly enough after over 25 years of myth and heresay, details of who actually made the film came to light. "Victor Janos" was a psuedonym - the directors real name was Roger Watkins, and it is also himself who plays psycho Terry Hawkins. A former SUNY student who if stories are to believed, was not a million miles away from his on-screen persona. Last House...was his first feature film after making ends meet by making porno movies, just as Terry had done so, which adds a sick and violent catharsis that mirrors Watkins' own life. Last House On Dead End Street is a film of extremes that definitley stays with you for a long time after viewing, possibly for all the wrong reasons.

BREAK UP: Rocket From The Crypt

2005-09-03T05:25:00.000-04:00

Speedo's Army

1989 - 2005

FILM: Thriller (aka They Call Her One Eye)

2005-08-16T05:40:00.000-04:00

Thriller: A Cruel Picture is citied by Quentin Tarantino as being the inspiration behind his Kill Bill character Elle Driver, this film was also a firm favourite among New York's 42nd Street grindhouses where it played under the title They Call Her One Eye, and also appeared in a grindhouse double bill along with soft-core porno The Photographer's Model under the title Hooker's Revenge. There are two versions of the film that did the rounds of the scuzzy fleapit cinemas, one with the sex cut out and one with the violence trimmed. The version I watched on the Synapse Films DVD seemed to have both of these elements fully restored.

Swedish director Bo Arne Vibenius apparently studied under fellow countryman and internationally respected director Ingmar Bergman, and the art film sensibilites have been applied and are present in the look, feel and pacing of the film, often opting for little or no dialogue, and utilising a minimal yet discordant soundtrack only when needed. The film also has minor touches of cinema verite about it, giving it a more brutal realism, playing as if a Ken Loach had decided to make a film about an abused raped deaf mute that seeks bloody revenge on her captors.

As the film starts, we see a very young girl of around 7 playing merrily with an old man, laughing and running together. This very quickly turns into something more sinister as the old man begins to rape her - luckily we are spared seeing any of this on camera as instead we have a more tasteful shot of her discarded dress in the leaves interspersed with POV shots of the old man lustfully baring down on her.

An older girl is now working on a farm selling milk to old ladies. As the old ladies walk and chatter, it is revealed that the girl, Frigga, is the one that was abused at the beginning of the film, and since that day 15 years ago she has never spoke. Her parents are sending her to the Doctors to help her speak again, but this is something they can ill-afford. As Frigga sets off for her next appointment, she misses her bus and is picked up by a smooth dude with a Jeremy Beadle beard and cravat called Tony. As she cannot speak, he tells her he will take her for a meal which consists Champagne and herrings. He plies her with booze and takes Frigga to his 70's Ikea bachelor pad and then proceeds to inject her with heroin.

Frigga awakes days later, and realising what happened, tries to escape but fails and is drugged once more. A few more days pass, she awakes and makes a break again, this time getting outside but yet again she is captured and drugged. After her latest drug coma, she rises and then finds a letter addressed to her parents, apparently sent form her saying she is leaving and is never coming back. As the horror of this sets in, Tony arrives back and tells her just how it is gonna be from now on - she pulls tricks for the clients and in return she will get the heroin she now desperately craves. When her first client arrives, she attacks him and scratches his face. Tony, not very happy with this decides to cut out her eye in a scene which is viewed from the POV of Frigga, staring directly at the scalpel as it gets closer and closer. Just as the scalpel is about to pierce through the screen, we cut to the blade popping her eyeball in close-up.

Now known as 'One Eye' to her clients and wearing an eye patch, she serves a client that likes it rough, and he takes photos of himself strangling Frigga while having sex with her. She comes across another girl that is held, and soon finds that life is not gonna get any better. Frigga is then made to have sex with paunchy David Hasselhoff look-a-like in red Y-Fronts, and suprisingly this contains hardcore penetration shots (well, it was made in 70's Sweden..). The other girl gives Frigga a letter that her parents cannot live without her, as her Father has already had one suicide attempt. Frigga returns to her home town to find her parents have now poisoned themselves and are being buried, as the old ladies chatter that her leaving broke their hearts.

Frigga now begins to plot her revenge by taking up self-defence, rally driving and firearms training with the money she has made so far, while still working for Tony. What the film does now is very similar to the technique used in Requiem For A Dream, in that a series of repetitive yet progressive montage scenes are melded together and illustrate how she is becoming stronger in her revenge training yet her abusive life is getting more and more depraved. We see her progressing quickly in martial arts, driving, and firearms, all being inter-cut with sexual images slowly become more violent, more hardcore penetration shots, rough lesbian beatings and even a cum-shot which seems to end this long cycle of peverseness. Its around 15 mins of constantly changing positive and negative imagery, and certainly hammers the point home.

Now she is ready to wreck her revenge - she has guns and a motor, saws the barrels of her shotgun, and even tapes a handgun under her long hair in case it goes down. Her first kill is fat Hasselhoff, and he gets two barrels in incredibly slow motion, like John Woo on valium, as blood spurts from his fat body. Word has got out, and now Tony is shitting himself. He and his other two remaining clients meet up in bar, but she has followed them there. She guns down the filthy photographer and the violent lesbian in violent slow-mo, but Tony escapes.

Restocking up on weapons, she is set up and is led into a trap laid by Tony. Two goons are shot in the usual way, and the cops arrive. As they grab her, she fends them off with her karate skills, again in a slow-mo fight that leaves blood arch-ing across the screen in a violent yet almost balletic way. Stealing the cop car, she makes her way to the Harbour to find Tony, on the way crashing and swerving all over the Swedish countryside to get there. When she reaches the harbour, it is eerily deserted, and the image of Frigga walking along the dusty road, shotgun by her side is like something right out of any western, as the shots of a hitmans rifle start to ring out across the street. After a slow-mo gunfight, the hitman makes his escape pursued by Frigga. He escapes, but Frigga has other plans.

She sends Tony a letter, demanding he meet her for a duel. Frigga sets her trap, by tying a length of wire to a grenade then attaching the other end to her leg. Tony arrives and demand she drop her trusty sawn-off. When she does, pulls out his gun. Frigga detonates the grenade with a pull of her leg, then shoots Tony in the confusion, then approaching him and shooting him in the knee twice.

Her final revenge is yet to be exacted. She drags him behind a horse, and he then finds himself buried up to his neck. Frigga ties a noose around his head and ties the other end of the rope to the horse. She then places a bucket of food in just in front of the horse, so that he has to move to eat it. And if the horse has to move, the rope gets tighter...Frigga sits staring at Tony in quiet solemnity as the horse begins to walk. She glances away for a second, her reaction telling us that the end has happened for Tony. With all her enemies dead and buired, she drives into the horizon in the stolen police car, as the sound of the howling wind and seagulls pierce the air.

Thiller: A Cruel Picture has all the elements of the explotative women fighting back movies, and showcases them in a film that while in its style is very dissimilar to the way they would ordinarily be shown. The film has an autumnal feel, very cold and simplistic in its compositon, and emotions are conveyed through looks and reactions rather than dialogue giving it its comtemplative art-house feel. The violence is shown in a slow and balletic way, much in the same way Michaelangelo Antonini used his slowed-down explosions in arthouse fave Zabriskie Point, viewing a violent and destructive act in the most beautiful way possible. The degradation of Frigga (played brilliantly by soft-core actress Christina Lindberg) is brutal, and the inclusion of the hardcore style shots really add to this feeling of sickness and shock a hell of a lot more than simulated sex (incidentally, the hardcore stuff was done by doubles). I would recommed this film to anyone - its has its arthouse style and explotative content, but anyone viewing it should be warned of its quite unforgettable graphic and violent nature.

LIVE: Every Time I Die - London Garage 14/08/05

2005-08-15T05:21:00.000-04:00

As soon as we walked in the Garage, two things hit me. 1 - the heat. Jesus, the walls were fucking sweating, probably due to fellow label support bands Twelve Tribes and A Life Once Lost. 2-the immaculate haircuts and the spray-on black jeans. I hope to fucking good god that this is a trend that will soon die out. Anyway, we didnt get to see the support bands cos we were getting nicely toasted in the park round the back.

Around 9:50, hardcore punk metal band Every Time I Die took to the small, cramped stage, hit the fucking ground running and stayed there. Kicking off with Hot Damn! opener Romeo-A-Go-Go then straight into Off Broadway, the place just went fucking nuts. Pints went everywhere, the fucking dickhead metal jocks started a circle pit (which at times looked like a hardcore-stance preening contest, dudes taking turns standing in the middle to show off there best kicks and windmill-punches, and generally being dicks) so it was hard not to get involved in the punching and general violence going on as the band played the soundtrack. People who didn't want to get involved with the meatheads had no choice but to defend themselves with punches to stop the bodies constantly coming your way.

When they started Ebolarama, it really went off - by this time I was pissed, and pissed off with lame-ass jockery going on in front of me, so i had no choice but to don my pit-boss hat and start fucking giving it out to all and sundry. The chinese guy with the rucksack that thought he was something - he got a running elbow in the face that sent him to the floor. That'll fucking teach you. Sweaty dude with no top that caught me in the stomach when he was doing a roundhouse (what a fuckin prick..) - grabbed his belt and threw him to the floor and administered a small kicking. The prick in the Legacy t-shirt that thought he could windmill punch the innocents (including catching a 16 year old girl just stood watching in the face) - punched that fucker right in the face twice and sent him on his arse, for which he then got few boots from other members of the crowd.

Things settled down a bit when they played old track Emergency Broadcast Syndrome, but picked up a bit more with the two new songs (Guitared and Feathered, and Bored Stiff) they played from the forthcoming album Gutter Phenomenon. The band were giving it their all, playing as if their lives depended on it, thrashing gear, hitting the poses, all that shit. They may have played Godspeed Us To Sea and I've Been Gone a Long Time around this time, but i may be wrong, that could have been earlier. They finished with a fantastic version of Floater, which gave way to more fucking mentality on the floor, this time every one out to settle their old scores. The chinese rucksack dude came looking for some afters, and got ragged round by his bag then beat-down for his troubles. idiot. Vocalist Keith Buckley ended up in the crowd as the last notes screamed out from the speakers, and it was all over. Good fucking gig, quite an impressive band live, just a shame that the dickheads that kept the circle pit going ruined it for those that just wanted to watch. I got a bruised knuckle for my troubles and it is hurting me to type, my body feels like hamburger, but hey, what the fuck, it was a good night and there is nothing better than getting ruined, listening to some fast, hard, punk-metal and unloading a few smacks to dickheads who deserve it and want it, to soothe away the stresses and strains of hectic London life, a lot like a Fight Club disco.

FILM: The Garbage Pail Kids

2005-07-22T13:52:00.000-04:00

The bastard offspring of 80's craze the Cabbage Patch Dolls, The Garbage Pail Kids was a series of collectable cards that portrayed such foul characters as Messy Tessie, Ali Gator, Windy Winston et al, with a stick of cheap cardboard tasting chewing gum thrown in just to keep the kids happy. Shit, I even remember collecting these back in the day, and to my surprise my girlfriend still has a load of hers. They aint worth shit these days, as ebay demonstrates. These grossed-out caricatures must have been making some moolah for the Topps Trading Card company, as they decided to make a movie to capitalise on the success of these little bastards.

The film itself has gathered a very minor cult audience, partly due to the increasing unavailablity and obscurity of the film.
It had a release back in the 80's on home video, but disappeared from view as quickly as it came. Tapes have been trading hands over on ebay for around £20 a pop, as it is quite a rarity. Now the film has been released in the US on DVD, which gave me the opportunity to view this curiousity.

Starting with a really bad title sequence involving the said cards depicting the characters and spinning around in space, my heart began to sink a little. Then the ripperd-off fake-ass Harold Faltermeyer / Beverly Hills Cop music starts up. What the fuck have i let myself in for? We are introduced to the main players - a young 15 year old dude called 'Dodger' who is getting bullied by some 80's punk dudes, all resplendent in mullets, string vests and fingerless leather gloves. The leader of these 'bad dudes' (Juice) is noticable by the shades he wears, and his harsh threats which consist of two insults - "creep" (which is used to end every sentence he utters) and "scuzzbone" - look out - this dude is hardcore. Obviously, Juice's chick, 'Tangerine' (who looks like a bargain-basement Kelly le Brock), has a ounce of pity when the dump Dodger in a puddle. I reckon something may happen between them judging by the look of pity she just gave Dodger..

Soaked and muddy, Dodger goes to see his friend Manzini, an old magician that runs an antique store (cos we all got friends like that, right?) played by Mr ex-Joan Collins, Anthony Newley, who when compared to the rest of the scenery-chewing cast is positivley Shakespearian in his role. Manzini has a lot of fucking junk in his shop, including this bin that is like "...Pandora's Box - it should never be opened!". So for safe keeping he puts it on a shelf. Half hanging off. duh... Next, the little weiner is at the shop when the chick with the flourescent lycra dependency turns up and he tries to impress her with buttons and shit. Then Juice and the dudes turn up, they run around a bit and....oh no! They knock the bin over! That's gonna be bad! Enter the Garbage Pail Kids.

Basically, the Garbage Pail Kids look like midgets in bad expressionless cartoon heads. They begin to creep the fuck out of me by the end of the film. Needless to say, they are pretty 'gross'. One constantly pisses himself, one is constanly snotty, one keeps farting in peoples faces and even blows someones hat off their head with a ghastly gust. Ali Gator, the crocodile boy (see what they did there?) eats body parts and has a fondness for people's toes. They introduce themselves, and Dodger is receptive and friendly to the freaks in front of him. If it was me, i'd be having a hammer party of their fucking ugly midget asses.

The bad dudes chick Tangerine, (who, judging by her chest is more like sqaushed satsumas) who looks about 20 - 22 happens to be a 'designer' of bad 80's fashion atrocites, which she sells outside of nightclubs. She takes that little weiner along, he sees her bra and nearly blows his load in his pants. Back at the store, he is recounting his story about how he fancies her, so the Kids wanna help. So what do they do? Make him look a proper fucking twat by making him a Michael Jackson -style jacket complete with gold braids and shit. She loves the jacket, he says he designed it, she wants more like it to sell outside the pub, he agrees. He then gets the Kids to produce more jackets for him, in exchange for food. (Fuck me - i bet Nike wished they had though of that - The sweat-shop exploitation and slavery of deformed ugly midgets)

Two of the kids decide to have a night out, and end up n the toughest bar in the world. No, seriously, thats what its called. I pretty fucking sure i wouldn't go in any place by that name and that has people being thrown out of the door as you enter. The kids get in, raise a little hell by generally farting and biting toes. This earns them respect from the gnarly bikers who decide to give them a lift home. The rest of the kids have made the clothes, and considering they have been in a bin for years and not really seen the outside world they have fucking nailed 80's ladies high fashion in next to no time. Now they can make a deal - they will make more clothes if the weiner can find the rest of their friends.....who are locked up in the "State Home For The Ugly". (complete with ugly catchers that run round with nets, grabbing ugly kids of the street..just like in Brazil). They all agree to help each other. awwwww.

Tangerine is back, she's got a fashion show and needs more clothes. She is taken into the basement where she meets the kids, and makes some comment about them not being able to come to the fashion show cos they are fuck ugly. What she also realises is that weiner boy doesn't make the clothes, its the kids, so she plots to steal them with the help of Juice and his generic bad dudes, and take all the credit and money for herself! MWAAAH -HA-HA-HA! She evens offers to fuck the weiner dude - fer chrissakes, he's too young! Its borderline illegal! Dude, she is just using you to get the kids and the clothes, can't you see!?

The bad dudes turn up at the shop as Manzini is working on a spell to send them back to the bin forever. They manage to get the kids and take them to the State Home For The Ugly, and sell them to the ugly catchers. Inside the home, we see society's worst examples of ugly - too bald, too hairy, too crippled, too weird, and for some reason, Santa. The kids are put in a cage marked 'Too Ugly' and are told that they are gonna be crushed to a pulp (Surely thats illegal, what with the Human Rights Act and all..) When weiner boy turns back up at the shop and Manzini tells him what has happened, weiner boy runs back to "the toughest bar in the world" and asks the bikers to help him save the kids (in a very, very brief exchange) -

Dodger - "I need your help! They got the kids!"

Bikers - "Yeaaaaargh! Let's Go!"

They all pile towards the state home, where the bikers help free the kids. Farting in the face seems the best way to stop the guards, as the other prisoners are also freed, including for some bizarre reason, Gandi (?) and a Clown incarcerated for being 'Too Silly'. The kids want revenge, and they want it bad. They head for the fashion show
The fashion show is all bat-wing sleeves and lycra, so the kids steal into the show using a (trojan) clothes horse, where again they fart in peoples faces (this gag never gets tired, does it?), fart some more, and vomit all over people. The only thing missing is the guy who urinates himself pissing on someone. Sadly, this doesn't happen. Weiner boy starts smacking bad dude Juice around the face and neck, while Juice just takes it like bitch. The kids are victorious, and Tangerine feels sorry about how she has acted, and apologises to weiner boy. He tells her that her doesn't think she is pretty anyomre. haha - ZING! He means your inner beauty, you superficial harlot. Get lost or get bent

Back at the shop, Manzini has composed a tune that will send the kids back to the bin, but it has to be played backwards, bit like a Judas Priest record, to get them in the bin. While he is engrossed in the tune, the kids slowly walk out of the shop, and he foolishly thinks it is working. A quick glance up from his piano, and he seems them leaving the shop. He resigns himself, turns to the weiner boy and says. "Well, You can't change the world by locking yourself away" , as they wave to the kids as they ride away on their quad-bike and trailer into the night and onto a new life, farting and puking and probably pissing everywhere. Cue the ultra crap 80's theme song...

Put it this way - yes, it is a fucking awful film but on the right side of awful. The 1hr 37 mins run time felt like no time at all, as there was always something going on, something to marvel in disbelief at (the use of god-awful cliches are there, including the drunk rubbing his eyes and throwing away the bottle), or something that just seemed oddly funny. The voices of the botox-faced kids are obviously dubbed over and make them look unintetionally funny, especially the jive-talking, toe-nibbling Ali-Gator. Windy Winston gets most laughs purely for farting in faces and blowing off hats, etc. So, if midgets in freaky heads, pissing, eating human remains, snot, fart jokes, vomit, a bad 80's hollywood synth score, stero-typed bad dudes and all round general low production values are your thing, you are gonna love this. A midly entertaining film for all the wrong reasons.

Deep Elm Records

2005-07-08T06:03:00.000-04:00

the loverly people at Deep Elm say that if i keep this link up for a month, i'll get some free stuff. shame they signed ex boyband / fake emo-rock wannbes Fightstar though. "Palanhuiks Laughter"? talk about trying too hard to impress...

that aside, they got some fucking good bands. give it a click and i may get more free stuff.

help a brother out.

BREAK UP: Hot Snakes 2000 - 2005

2005-07-03T06:36:00.000-04:00

It saddens me to learn this morning that Hot Snakes have broke up.

In the Swami's own words -

Yeah, I know they were often referred to as a Rocket From The Crypt side-project, or the second incarnation of Drive Like Jehu but that was just a little lazy, wasn't it? After three albums of frentic downstroking, they have called it a day. Look on the bright side - RFTC may be back, so it aint all doom and gloom.

FILM: Danger: Diabolik

2005-06-30T05:56:00.000-04:00

Danger: Diabolik is one of those films that I have been waiting to see for a long, long time. Not previously available in this country on VHS, I got a hold the newly-released DVD version from the States. And after all this time was I dissappointed? Hell no! Diabolik is the probably coolest thief you will ever come across. He's got the underground lair, a couple of Jags (his and hers), a hot lady on his arm, and a shit-load of cash at his disposal. He foils the attempts of the government and the mafia to catch him while he brazenly steals cash, jewels and gold from right under their noses. The guy is a first-class rascal. Directed by cult Italian director Mario Bava (Black Sunday, A Bay of Blood, Planet of the Vampires among others), the film looks and sounds great - loads of saturated technicolour, eleborate sets and a super-cool 60's score by none other than Ennio Morricone make it a joy to watch. The action is pretty pacey and very rarely gets dull, there is always something to look at. John Philip Law plays Diabolik as a bit mean and broody and Marisa Mell must get a mention as, well, she is pretty hot. Brit actor Terry Thomas is also great as a bumbling politican who is fired due to the devious Diabolik stealing $10 million that was under his watchful eyes.

This is quite a quick review - I'm not going to into the film in that much detail, as it is basically an easy to watch treat - no maddening plot-twists, no complicated inter-twining storylines - its just pure fun from start to finish. The influence of the film can be seen in more recent works such as Austin Powers, and also included on the DVD version is the Beastie Boys homage to the film in their video for 'Body Movin'. A great film to stick on when all you want is some groovy 60's spy action.

FILM: Evil Dead Trap (aka Shiryo no wana)

2005-06-23T09:24:00.000-04:00

This gory 1988 Japanese Horror movie really failed to live up to its expectations. I was expecting a sickening bloodbath (of which the Japanese are experts at) but instead this felt like a film of two halves - the first half being a standard slasher / stalker movie then the latter half turning into some kind of fucked-up Cronenberg body horror movie, which resulted in a fucking mess of a film.

The story involves a late night talk-show host, Nami, who recieves a tape of what looks like to be some sort of snuff movie. The tape also has clues as to the location of the killer, so she and her all-female production team (and token bloke) head off to see if the murder is real. Pretty good idea. When they end up at a disused industrial plant, they get a little scared. Then in continually increasingly gory fashion, one by one they are skewered, garotted, strangled, slashed, beaten, sexually assualted etc, you get the jist.

So, up until then it is a pretty decent, gory, horror film.

Then it just goes fucking so wrong.

Nami is the only one left, along with some dude who is looking for his brother, Hideki. The man says that "this place is similar to the place i grew up" and then leads Nami out of the industrial maze and into the light. She then sees the killer (all dressed in Army poncho and combats) dragging the bodies of her dead friends back into the complex. She is faced with a choice - "Tell you what - all my team are dead, and i got a car here. I'm outta here!" or does she decide to follow the killer? Yup - the dumb fucker decides to go it alone...

She again meets the dude that helped her escape and he has a type of heart attack, which later on turns out to be a little fucking maniac baby bursting out of his body - apparently this is his brother Hideki. A lot of talky bollocks, few crap explosions and a body bursting scene later (in a scene that really reminded me of the end of God Told Me To) and Nami wakes in a hospital bed, and the copper asking her questions just says her story doesn't add up but thats ok, go back to work. (hang on - five people have been brutally murdered and the only witness tells you this bullshit story and thats the end of the matter? what the fuck?) In the final scene, and be warned cos I am gonna spoil this for you - Hideki comes out of her vagina and calls her mother - so there's the fucking sequel (apparently there is another 2 films..)

IMDB say it is a great horror film and mention such luminaries as Fulci and Argento - yeah, i could kinda see that in some of the shots, and the soundtrack seems to be a bit of a Goblin / Suspiria rip-off. The film totally slows down after the inital killing spree, and becomes just fucking ludicrous. Overall, i wouldn't watch it again due to the final 40 or so mins really ruining what potentially could have been a good film.

You can view the trailer here courtesy of Synapse films.

FILM: Deranged

2005-06-21T09:09:00.000-04:00

Deranged is one of those horror movies that time seems to have since forgotten, which is a great shame because this low-budget shocker is worthy of more attention. The story deals with Ezra Cobb who lives and looks after his over-demanding and sick mother Ma, who is confined to her bedroom. When she passes away, Ezra's behaviour becomes more and more odd, if you define odd as exhuming his mothers corpse, digging up fresh graves and then dressing as an old woman in a suit made of skin as being odd.

Made in 1974, the same year as the seminal Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged has that same kinda low-budget grimy feel to it. Both films contain a 'dinner party' scene featuring corpses littered around the dining table, and masks made of human skin are both prevelant features in both films. The similarity of both films is mainly due to them both using the same subject matter as the basis to the story, the life and 'work' of serial killer and necrophile Ed Gein.

Robert Blossom plays Ezra with such conviction that it really adds to disturbing aspects of the film. His perfomance displays both moments of pure black comedy and disturbed psychopath to a very convincing degree, his face telling us just where Ezra's mental state is at that moment. Ma Cobb is also fantastic as the pure-hating bitter over-protective old woman that controls poor Ezra's life even after her death.

The film, quite like Texas Chainsaw.. does not rely on buckets of blood to gain its shocks from the viewer, and whereas TCM sometimes felt a cinema verite in its use of camera and sound, Deranged employs a different techinique by having a reporter pop up in in the forefront of scenes and narrates certain parts of the story giving the film a little more pace, and while some may this may detract from the involement of the film, I found it quite measured and did not intrude into the film that much.

Deranged has some great macarbe scenes within it, one being when he is discovered dressed in skin having a party with his dead mother and several other freshly dug-up corpses stick in the mind quite vividly. Some of the dialogue is fantastic, such as the old drunk in the bar talking to Ezra about the barmaids tits - "They is tits with a capital T" and his mothers deathbed rant damning all woman-kind is a really bitter and twisted woman at work.

This film was never banned in any country, but i guess due to it being released at the same time as Texas Chainsaw it must have kinda got over-looked, which is a shame as this is quite good engaging horror film. I hope that DVD will revive interest in this film, having just been re-released in a 30th Anniversary Edition which features the 'brain-scooping' scene. Well worth having a look at and although the story has been told many times, this film tells it better than most.

FILM: Mad Foxes (aka Los Violadores)

2005-05-31T14:25:00.000-04:00

Nazi bikers? check. Karate fights? check. Badly dubbed? check. Mad soundtrack? check.
Softcore porn? check. Violence, rape and murder? check.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome the exploitation classic, Mad Foxes!!

At last, a full uncut version (for us brits at least) of this trash classic from the 80's. I saw this a few years ago after getting hold of the ultra-rare pre-cert copy on Merlin Video off ebay, and while enjoyable, it seemed to cut away from a couple of the obvious gore shots (such as the 'penis removal' scene). This DVD on Swiss label ABC DVD is totally uncut, and the print used is absolutely crystal-clear, not like the grainy VHS I witnessed. Now - lets get down to it...

Directed in 1981 by Paul Grau, this trash classic bears all the hallmarks of exploitation gold. The story is basically this - Hal and his bird have a spat at some traffic lights with some nazi bikers, so he rams one of them off the road with his super-cool Stringray car. They get revenge by beating him and raping his virgin girlfriend. So he gets his karate mates and they beat up the bikers and castrate the leader. So the bikers shoot all the karate guys. Meanwhile, Hal does a bit of shagging, then retires with a new bird to his families estate. The bikers find out where he is and kill everyone on the estate, including his parents (this really made me laugh - his wheel-chair bound mother is shot in the head, so travels backwards at great speed in the chair until she hits the walls and falls over..) and the servants while he is out having crap al-fresco sex. Now properly pissed off, he goes after them one by one, maiming, shooting and blowing them up. He drops a hand grenade down the toilet while one nazi is taking a shit. He shoots one nazi while he is having gimp-sex with a sexy chick in an erotic SS uniform. When all are dispatched, he returns to his flat to find the now-dickless nazi in his flat with his woman, and a bomb - he puts his finger on the trigger- cue very crap explosion effect -The End.

Now, that took me about 5 mins to write and I have gone into the story way too much. This film could have been over in about 30 mins if it wasn't for crap scenes full of padding, such as some people jive/disco-dancing, three bouts of (long) soft-core sex, a helluva lot of driving around Barcelona (it looks like the car is the most expensive thing in the film, so they are gonna use the fuck out of it) and drunk nazis trying to get onto motorbikes. Then again, this isn't Citizen Kane so what do you expect? The production values are so cheap, you gotta love it - during outdoor scenes the nazi armbands are devoid of swastikas, they have plain white discs covering them up!

The soundtrack is a fucking mess - hair metal band KROKUS provide the RAWK, while the rest is a fusion of 70's porno and crap lounge jazz. I mean, if my virgin girlfriend had just been raped in front of my eyes, i am pretty sure i wouldn't go home, pour myself a whisky, then listen to some upbeat nightclub jazz while plotting revenge on 'those....bastards'. Mind you, he can't be that bothered as he is shagging some other bird in a matter of 5 mins so i guess jazz must have been just the thing to cheer him up. The dialogue (or rather the dubbing) is superb - in these cases it only adds to the sheer crapness of the film. For instance - when the nazi in the gimp mask is asking to be punished, the SS mistress rubs his face and utters solemnly, ' I loathe you. I loathe you' - not really punishing is it?

If you love no-brainer films that are just plain fucking trash with every scene, then this is one for you. Some of it is a bit slow - there is at least 15 mins of real fucking pointlessness about 20 mins from the end, even the DVD chapter is called 'sex' - but do not let it put you off. It is trashy, grindhouse, exploitation cinema at its finest.

FILM: Ong-Bak

2005-05-25T05:07:00.000-04:00

My interest in this film was peaked by the fact every review i had read mentioned the same thing - the new Jackie Chan. We need a new Jackie Chan, as the old one has started using wires and making terrible Hollywood movies that just aren't a patch on the likes of Police Story, Project A, Dragons Forever, etc, plus he is getting on a bit. So Tony Jaa has been thrust upon us to take his crown. Does he deserve it? Juding by this offering, he may well be the successor.

Right then - lets get the plotline out of the way. From what i can gather (this film is in Thai and the subtitles weren't all that reliable..) some dude is stealing buddhist statues of Ong-Bak. Villages that have their statues stolen (or in the case of Tony Jaa's village the head cut off) start to have problems such as drought, crops dying etc so Tony decides he is going to get the head of their statue back the only way he knows how - by kicking the shit out of everyone he comes across.

The fight scenes and the stunts are what really make this film - no wires, full contact Muay Thai kickboxing all the way. His trademark seems to be a flying knee to the head, which looks pretty spectacular when it lands and when it is repeated in slow-motion in case you missed it. Some stuff is truly amazing - the scene where his legs are on fire (literally) and he continues to kick some guy around the face still sticks in my mind, and there are various incidents like this throughout the film. The first 15-20 mins set up the story, but from there on it is pretty much clobbering time. This film is a f**king good martial arts movie that doesn't use crappy wire work. I certainly look forward to more from this guy.

ps - If you look closely during one of the fight scenes, written on a big green shuttered door is -
"Mr Speilberg, Lets Do It Together!"

(yeah, i know - i'm a sad trainspotter...)

Nothing Worse Than A Shit Gig

2005-05-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

How many shit gigs have you been too? I must admit that my good gig to shit ratio is probably 8:1, which aint too shabby. I was sat in the bath (it wasn't full, i just like the feeling of the cold iron on my naked arse) and was thinking about gigs i went to that where proper shite. So for your delectation, here are a few from recent memory -

The Promise Ring - London Garage -Emo dudes The Promise Ring played the small capacity venue a few years ago, around the time they released 'Wood Water'. Now, I hadn't heard this record before seeing them, as i was a fan of their earlier lps (Very Emergency, Nothing Feels Good) which are melodic, poppy emo type affairs. Anyway - they decide to play the new stuff. The new stuff about the singers fucking brain tumour. Considering the venue was half full when they took the stage (and if you have ever been there, you know thats pitiful), and they hadn't played the UK for a few years, you kinda expect a few 'oldies'. Oh no. I had never done it before, but this night i had enough. I fucking walked out halfway through, it was that depressing.

Limp Bizkit - Finsbury Park -Yeah, i know - i fucking deserved it. My defence - I got a free ticket (the whole thing was free anyway), it was an outdoor gig, and i would have a chance at throwing piss at that fat fucker. They fucking sucked. The gig was shown 'live' on MTV as well, which would explain why they would play two songs, then wait for the adverts on MTV to finish before playing another two. And it was full of cunts. What could have made it a little better would have been going down the front and busting some fuckin heads.

The Ataris - London Astoria LA2 - Again, new album syndrome. And the new album was fucking awful. They fucking sucked major dicks. And the LA2 is the shittest fucking place i have ever seen a band play. I hate that fucking raised floor thing - i'm not the tallest man in the world, but if i am paying money to see a band i would mind having a fucking half-decent vantage point. Mean Fiddler cunts. And they did that fucking lame-wad cover of Don Henley's Boys of Summer. Never mind scene points, you get 100 gay points for that.

Jimmy Eat World - Astoria - What the fuck is it with 'emo' bands and gigs being shit? I only went to this to placate a friend. Personally, I thought they were a bit too FM rock for my liking. They are shite live as well. The crowd stood still for the most part. Get a fucking ruck going at least. you pissant crybabies.
Jimmy Eat Shit, more like.

The Weakerthans / Brandtson - London Garage - I had gone along to see the support band, Brandtson, in all fairness played well live. Not much stage action as the drummer sings. It was like Phil Collins going punk. It was no bad thing, just a little bizarre. A loud of weiner pure-emo bitches were there for The Weakerthans, which i will admit, i knew pretty much nothing about and hadn't heard anything. After talking to a fan at the bar, I decided to stay and catch them. Jesus - they fucking had me asleep in 10 mins, quicker than The Promise Ring. Needless to say, i drank up and fucked off sharpish.

More Ten Second Record Reviews

2005-05-09T07:34:00.000-04:00

The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower - 'Love In A Fascist Brothel' 4/5
Spazzy-jazz punk hardcore hybrid in the vein of early BLOOD BROTHERS, SWING KIDS et al. Tight drums, thrashy guitars and more time changes than if you criss-crossed the equator in rubber dinghy all day. Pretty good cd, would recommend if you are a fan of the above bands. Short but noisily sweet. Check out mp3 Exile on Vain Street at Three One G records.

Evan Dando - 'Baby I'm Bored' 2/5
Former LEMONHEADS frontman Evil Dildo (as i like to call him) returned last year with this solo lp. I was a big fan of the Lemonheads as that dude has a knack for simple, catchy songwriting but this lp falls a little short as it tends to be mainly acoustic backed tunes which are all a little flat. Some good stuff, some duff. Dude, just reform the Lemonheads...

Bloc Party - 'Silent Alarm' 5/5
New indie darlings on the bloc(k). I heard a lot of these on MTV2 when they started out and i liked them back then. 'Little Thoughts' is an amazing song, and all of their singles (bar that slow one) have inpressed me. So what of the lp?. I like it. Not groundbreaking, but sounds fresh and a little different to the norm. Their brand of scratchy, staccatto indie punk and great melodies looks like they are onto a winner. And i didn't mention the lazy comparisons to Wire or Gang of Four.... oh balls.

Some Girls - 'The DNA Will Have Its Say" ep 5/5
Oh fuck - they have only gone and signed to Epitaph..luckily they haven't been forced to sacrifice their brand of mental short sharp noisecore. With members from such bands as The Locust and Give Up The Ghost, you know what to expect. 7 songs delivered in a break-neck 6 and a half mins. Just as good as the ep's they put out on Deathwish. Can't wait for the full length. Listen to title track 'The DNA Will Have Its Say" on the bands label page here

Clair de Lune - 'Marionettes' - 4/5
I haven't heard this cd fully, but what i have heard of it is pretty fucking good. Yeah, its on Deep Elm but don't let that fool you into thinking its some weedy little emo band. Ok, they have a touch emo about them, but this falls more into the post-hardcore variety, but the arrangements are what make this cd stand out a bit more from the rest. For fans of Appleseed Cast, Braid and Seachange

Songs of the month -

Unsane - 'Committed'
Burning Airlines - 'Outside The Aviary'
Saul Williams - 'List Of Demands'
Deerhoof - 'Heart Failure'
Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower - 'Lipstick SS'
Hot Hot Heat - 'Goodnight Goodnight'
Underoath - 'A Boy Brushed Red...Living In Black and White'
Blood Brothers - 'Under Pressure'
Main Source - 'Diary of a Hitman'

Ebay Blow-Out part 2 - Music

2005-05-09T05:47:00.000-04:00

I always vowed that I would never sell another cd or record again, due to selling my entire 'madchester' 12" collection (which had loads of rare stuff like 'Sally Cinnamon' 12", "Madchester "ep and "Bummed" by the Happy Mondays, which you can't even get now never mind on vinyl) hungover for £20. The dude is sold them to made about 4 times as much. I bought 'Delaware' by yank shoe-gazers Drop Nineteens with the proceeds. So tell me who did the better out of the two of us, cos i know it wasn't me. But looking through my cd collection the other day, I realised I had a lot of stuff that I didn't even listen to, and never intend to again, so i have bunged it on Ebay. Here's whats on there -

Emery - 'The Weak's End' CD
Badly Drawn Boy / Doves -'Road Movie' 7"
Badly Drawn Boy - 'EP3' 7"
Stephen Malkmus - 'Stephen Malkmus' CD
Butthole Surfers - 'Locust Abortion Technician' CD
The Warriors - 'War Is Hell' CD
The Interpreters -'I Should Have Known Better' 7"
Muse - 'Showbiz' cd
Folk Implosion (Lou Barlow) - 'One Part Lullaby' CD
Less Than Jake - 'Borders and Boundaries' CD
Downset - 'Do We Speak A Dead Language? CD
Deftones - 'Deftones' CD
Doves - 'Lost Souls' CD
KMD - 'Black Bastards' CD
Beatsteaks - 'Living Targets' CD
Burning Airlines - 'Identikit' CD
Pussy Galore - 'Corpse Love: The First Year' CD
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - 'Jon Spencer Blues Explosion' CD

Happy bidding you fucks.

Ebay Movie Blow-Out

2005-05-04T09:54:00.000-04:00

I'm having a bit of a clear out. I always vowed never to buy DVD's that I will never watch more than twice. Unfortunately, due to cheap prices and drunken purchases, i have this little lot that i want to get rid of via Ebay. Prices are cheap, so knock yourself out -

Deadly Weapons / Double Agent 73 (Chesty Morgan) - rare double disc presentation courtesy of the good dudes over at Something Weird 73-inch breasts that have a camera in them? thats a gagdet and a half!

Scarface classic gangster film, uncut version

Goodfellas the greatest film of the 80's? Scorsese's career defining moment.

Exit The Dragon, Enter The Tiger Bruce Li is Bruce Lee!

The Dynamite Brothers The cat from Watts teams up with the tiger from Hong Kong in exploitation veteran Al Adamsons kung-fu hustle flick

Suburbia 80's punk rock movie starring Flea from RHCP, and sets by TSOL, the Vandals and DRI

Friday the 13th Classic teen slasher horror, See Kevin Bacon get sliced.

The Toolbox Murders Vipco re-re-release of previously banned nastie. Not the shitty remake by Tobe Hooper.

Trick or Treat Ozzy and Gene Simmons star in a tale of dead rock star comes back to life via playing a record backwards. Death by stereo!

Make a bid - there is other stuff on their, and i will be adding to this list with more films in a few days.

FILM: Spun

2005-04-29T07:35:00.000-04:00

I caught this film on Sky the other night. It was one of those films that when I first heard of it, sounded pretty cool due to the people involved. Directed by pop video genius Jonas Ackerlund, (who has directed such videos as the controversial Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up, along with heavyweights such as U2 and Madonna) and starring Mena Suvari, John Leguizamo, Mickey Rourke and Jason Schwartzman. The film itself focuses on a group of individuals who all use crystal meth, and follows them over three days of mayhem, drug abuse and arrests.

The first thing that struck me about this film was its style. From the first few minutes it was obvious that the guy had seen Requiem For A Dream more than once, as every action in the film such as closing a car door cannot be done in less than 7 quick close-up edits, with accompanying loud eccentuated sound effects. So when shutting a car door we get - CLICK! Door opens. BLAM! Close up of lock CLICK! Key goes into lock BLAM! Shot of door closing. SCRAPE! Key removed from door CLICK! Door shuts. The drug taking scenes are also similar to that of Requiem.. - all zoom-in shots of dilating pupils and loud gasps for air, then blissed out trippy camera work as they descend into drugdom. Even though the style is very close in ways to Requiem.., it also has elements of Trainspotting and evidence of Ackerlunds pop work - some of the film is shot not unlike the Prodigy video, and the driving scenes echo the shots used in the 'Your Favourite Game' video he directed for swedish band The Cardigans. The film has a lot of frenetic energy, too much energy in fact- it gets a little weary and the tricks and gimmicks don't add anything to the story, unlike Requiem.. which used them to progress and aid the narrative. Hell, Mickey Rouke even buys a porno called 'Rectum For A Dream' so I guess Ackerlund is knowingly paying a sort of homage / rip-off to Darren Adronofsky's cult masterpiece, and the last few scenes are virtually a carbon copy of the end shots of Requiem.. - every character is shown either being asleep, hugging themselves on a bed or sat in prison.

Blatant similarities aside, the film does have some redemming moments - the scene were Spider Mike is having phone sex and masturbating into a sock while his girlfriend is next door taking a shit is quite funny, Ross forgetting that he left his stripper girlfriend tied up on the bed for three days is amusing yet disturbing, Mickey Rourke gives a great performance as The Cook - the man that makes the meth and keeps blowing himself and his makeshift labs up, and Brittany Murphy looks great as a trailer-trash stripper, and the cast in general give good performances throughout.
If you have seen Requiem.. and / or Trainspotting, it is glaringly obvious where Ackerlund's influences come from and in a way it kind of affected my viewing of the film for at least the first 40 mins or so, but after that I accepted it and just enjoyed the film. Not as brilliant as it could have been, but worth a look should you come across this on TV.

10 second record reviews....

2005-04-23T12:20:00.000-04:00

What's goin downtown in Chinatown -

Ted Leo and Pharmacists 'The Tyranny of Distance' (4/5)
One of those bands that I had heard of, but never heard. I eventually downloaded this lp from Emusic (as it was recommended as the best one..) and it is great. Not my usual stuff, but every now and then you get the urge for some simple stripped-down indie pop tunes. Very Kinks, Elvis Costello kinda stuff. Nice when you need a break from men in tattoos shouting about death (and the ladies like this stuff) - this was originally released in 2001, so I guess I am a little slow to cotton on to them. Click on the band link for web page and audio links. 'Biomusicology' , the first track, is available here.

Reggie and the Full Effect - 'Songs Not To Get Married To' (3/5)
Reggie is back - which is no surprise considering his 'day job' in the Get Up Kids just broke up, as well as his marriage - double whammy - which this lp proports to document. Not the best Reggie lp (which much surely be Promotional Copy) but at least half of this lp is in that vein, unlike the piss-poor Under The Tray. Keyboard-led emo-pop-punk with skits, german rock and disco tunes thrown in for good measure.

Death From Above 1979 - 'You're A Woman, I'm A Machine' (4/5)
Basically if you heard anything from these two dudes and liked it, then you are gonna like the album. All the songs sound the same - hey, if it aint broke don't fix it. Like the White Stripes on hard drugs, with a little touch Jon Spencer Blues Explosion thrown in, which has gotta be good.

Despistado - 'The People Of And Their Verses' (4/5)
The farewell record - scratchy angular indie punk type rock , touches of At The Drive-In, Gang of Four, emo-core, and art-punk. Download MP3 'Burning House' by clicking the link.

Current Playlist -
Killradio - 'Scavengers', Interpol - 'C'mere', Mark Lanegan Band - 'Hit The City', Bloc Party -'Helicopter', RATM - 'Renegades of Funk', Ricanstruction - 'Borinquena', Sonic Youth - 'Swimsuit Issue', Converge - 'Homewrecker'
Leftover Crack - 'Nazi White Trash'

FILM: God Told Me To

2005-04-20T11:07:00.000-04:00

Written and Directed by the infamous cult movie maker Larry Cohen (It's Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent and recently Phone Booth) back in the 70's, this cult gem still makes for good viewing. The premise is this - a sniper sits on a water tower picking off innocent New Yorkers, a man brutally murders his wife and son, a cop shoots several of his own during a St Patricks parade, someone goes on a stabbing rampage - these acts of senseless murder all have one thing in common - when asked why they did it, they reply "God Told Me To", just before dying....

What seems like a quite engrossing supernatural police thriller suddenly turns a little surreal - a devout Catholic cop Peter Nicholas (Tony Lo Bianco) is on the case of these god-approved homicide sprees when his trail leads him to a man named Bernard Phillips, who by the sound of it dresses a bit like Jesus, and he seems to be the last person the killers talked to before they went postal. As Nicholas delves deeper he discovers some alarming news- the mother of Bernard Phillips was abducted by what would seem like aliens back in the fifties and artificially inseminated by them (which also leads to a 'Virgin Birth') - and other revelations based on the scientific notion that God was in fact an astronaut.

A small sect that was chosen by Phillips (a kind of 12 disciples..) arrange for Nicholas to meet them, as they believe he has some kind of power as he himself feels that he is closer to God than most men. After a brief confrontation that reveals that Phillips knows a bit more about the cop than he really should, Nicholas then follows up on a lead that takes him to another woman who was abducted back in the fifties - only to find out that he himself was a Virgin Birth, and possesses the same power as Phillips - the power to control mens minds, and the power to play God.

Nicholas tests his powers over mortal man by going to a bar and making a pimp kill everyone around him, then heads off for a final confrontation with Phillips who tells him that they are the same, and in an even more bizzare twist, suggests that they should start a 'new race'. Now, two dudes dont make a right but don't worry - Phillips lifts up his ecclesiastical robes to reveal a small vagina type opening in the side of his chest. Nicholas flips out, they have a rumble as the entire building collapses around them, and it looks like Phillips is dead. The cop walks out unhurt, and in the final scene as he is being marched up the stairs to the police precinct in handcuffs, the throng of reporters ask him why he did it. With a smirk on his face he replies -
"God told me to. God told me to."

God Told Me To (aka God Told Me To Kill, Demon) is quite an engaging film with a surreal twist that I really didn't expect, this shoestring exploitation actioner is quite a good film. The level of acting is quite high given its limited production values, and it is a cult oddity that i would certainly recommend should you come across it. There are a few plot holes that could be patched up a little, but the general idea of the film is something quite original for its time. Be warned however - the 'Collectors Edition' DVD (on the St Clair label) I watched 'allegedly' had remastered sound, but I sat with the player on full blast and still some dialogue could not be heard. I suggest picking up the Blue Underground DVD, and also avoid the abysmal Vipco version that is currently doing the rounds for a few quid in HMV

View Trailer for GOD TOLD ME TO here! (coutesy of Blue Underground)

Temporary Living

2005-04-12T09:49:00.000-04:00

Ok, bitches get stiches....

The blog is going through the change at the moment - i am learning HTML code so that i can change the layout and make it look a bit more eye-catching so people may stop and have a look, so bear with me on this, it may take a bit of time....

..speaking of which, i got a load of films / cds / stuff that i need to get stuff done for, so i may do a 'condensed' version or reviews (especially for the cds) so i can get shit out of the way.
Reviews for this little lot will be done soon (i promise...) -

God Told Me To..
SS Hell Camp (aka Beast In Heat, Horryfying Last Days of The SS)
Contamination
Tenebrae
Old Boy
What Have You Done To Solange?
Cat In The Brain (aka Nightmare Concert)

So come back in about a week, i may have something for ya.....

FILM: The Food Of The Gods

2005-04-09T19:49:00.000-04:00

I originally wrote a fanatastic review of this film, but the f--king server crashed and lost the entire thing, and i really cannot remember nor be arsed to re-write the whole thing again...

Basically, this film is a total fucking exploitation trash classic. Huge killer chickens, bloodthirsty wasps and killer rodents are the beasts on heat here. The cheap / super-imposed special effects are so poor that they totally make the film, although i'm not sure if the rats are actually being killed for the camera (drowning, being shot, blown up by grenades, etc..) .The killer rats attacking are about as scary as an episode of Tales of the Riverbank, as they roam the minature sets in a comedy style - even ransacking a VW beetle in a scene that resembles putting a toy car in a hamsters cage - and they even have a chicken the size of a man... Shame really, as the gore effects aint too bad and the film is on the very, very enjoyable side of crap. I loved it, cos of its pure unadultared naffness. No surprise that this film is hard to find (perhaps because of the supposed animal cruelty) and is only currently available in Japan (on the Stingray DVD label) as this truly is an obscure oddity of a film. I tried to put the trailer up on this site but failed, as watching that got me interested in this (courtesy of the excellent Horror On 42nd Street trailer dvd) so you will have to do by viewing a few clips on the Stingray website by clicking here (note - please be aware its all in Japanese, but the clips are in English Quicktime or Windows Media) - you won't be disappointed...and remember - it may happen one day....

LIVE: Converge / Modern Life Is War - 01 Apr 2005

2005-04-07T13:47:00.000-04:00

This was a gig at probably my least favourite place to see bands in London, the Mean Fiddler LA2 which is situated underneath the Astoria, one of the best places to see a band in London. The reason i hate it is the layout - they have a stupid raised floor so most people stand on / balance on there, while anyone watching from the back or the sidelines has a foot lower disadvantage, and when you get on the raised bit, everyone is usually 'going off a little' so you got to try and fucking stay on there as well. So when i found out Converge were playing I couldn't wait - when i found out where, i was a bit gutted as the layout spoils the atomsphere (having seen several bands here, its the same for everyone) - plus the place shuts at 10:15pm and turns into an 'alternative disco' full of twats in Marylyn Manson tops and chain wallets that are just too long. This means bands usually start around 6:15pm so you miss a lot of the support slots cos you are trying to get fucked up before you get in there (and pay £3:50 for a fucking CAN!!!)

So due to getting wasted on beer and dope in the park behing Tottenham Court Road (it was a nice night, i'm not some park-dwelling piss-can) I missed William Whitmore and also Red Sparrows so i couldn't even begin to tell you what they were like. Modern Life Is War took the stage as i got in there, and i had only heard the one track by them, Clarity, which didn't impress me much in the first place, and they pretty much continued in that vein for the rest of the set playing standard punk-metal rock that was clearly nothing new.

So around 9pm, after a quick pint of red wine, it was time for Boston's finest hardcore art noise merchants Converge to take the stage. As the intro of 'First Light' faded out, they hit the stage with 'Eagles Become Vultures' and pretty much fucking owned it from then on. On record, they are a pretty intense act and the live show only proved this further. J. Bannon was in the crowd, screaming, shouting and generally going fucking mental - divers were on the stage, and people were generally punching the shit out of each other. They ran through old stuff such as Forever Comes Crashing, played several from latest lp You Fail Me, including a speeded up version of the latter's title track and the excellent Black Cloud, and of course they played stuff from the seminal Jane Doe such as Homewrecker and even (if i remember rightly) finished with Concubine.

And then that was it - 50 mins of sheer fucking intense brilliance. They played one of the best shows I have seen in a long time. They played it like they meant it and seriously did not give a fuck.

CD: Comeback Kid - "Wake The Dead"

2005-03-26T08:30:00.000-04:00

Victory Records- remember when they used to be one of the hardcore labels? Remember how they lost their way over the last couple of years trying to cash in in the emo boom by selling Thursday to Island Records for a very large sum and struck it lucky with emo-punk poster boys Taking Back Sunday, then decided to fill their roster with pale imitations of both bands (Silverstein? The Reunion Show?Action Action? fucking please....). They went from being straight up hardcore punk to emo-coreand pop-punk in a matter of months and the obligatory cry of 'sell-out' was thrown at them by the punk community.

They need a shot of credibilty to get them back in favour with those that it offended. So who do they go sign? Comeback Kid- A band that built up a loyal following on the back of their first album, a band that has everything a hardcore punk band should have - breakdowns, change-ups, shout-a-longs and the balls to back it up. Their first lp, Turn It Around, was a fresh sounding melodic hardcore lp, and won a lot of new fans over (myself included) - it wasn't anything particular ground-breaking but it put a new twist on an old formula. So, having poached CBKD from ultra-h/c - metalcore label Facedown Records, Victory may just have a band that can regain them a bit of respect, and Comeback Kid have got the label backing and the potential to (dare i say it...) cross-over into overground.

So what of the lp? It's good, quite good in fact. While not totally disimilar from the first, it has the trademarks of a good melodic hardcore lp, touches of current tour-mates BANE and perhaps a little bit of MADBALL / NYHC style in the breakdowns. It's a more accessable hardcore sound (something that the bean-counters at Victory will relish) rather than the heavy, heavy H/C sound that so many bands seem to be adopting these days, and this lp really could make Comeback Kid next big thing in punk rock.

LISTEN: "Wake The Dead" and "Talk Is Cheap" at the bands purevolume page

TV: Dog The Bounty Hunter

2005-03-23T19:57:00.000-04:00

TV f**king gold!

This screens on the BRAVO channel on Sky tv channel 125, usually around 10pm, but is repeated later on (and knowing Bravo, probably repeated until you are fed-up with it) and it is unintentionally hilarious.

The Dog, (real name Duane Chapman) is a Bounty Hunter / Bondsman along with his wife, his son and some other dude and they roll around the states not unlike the 'A-Team' in a big black 4x4. Dog looks every bit like a refugee from a WWF training camp, and is full of the 'talk' that goes with it, spouting pearls of wisdom such as "Six men can carry you or 12 men can judge you. You decide!” , and "Do I carry a gun? No. Do I look like I carry a gun? Yes. In fact i carry only mace but I look like a mean dude" preferring preaching to the perps rather than bustin their heads in. I have watched three of these shows so far, and no-one has had a beating. Dog keeps telling fugitives that he has a heart, instead of macing them in the eyes. Last night he broke down and cried in what was quite an emotional moment when he went back to the house he was raised in, the one his grandfather built with his owns hands and was now derelict. He told of the love for his grandfather and how he was reconciled with his own father when he was 21. A lump welled in my throat. He then told the story of his fathers last words on his deathbed, and with tears in his eyes repeated those words for the camera - "Dog, I'm proud of you and you are the greateset bounty hunter in the world."

I spat my ki-ora all over the floor in hysterics.

Don't get me wrong - I like the Dog and his posse, but he makes out to be this kick-ass-gung-ho dude who keeps finding it in his heart to let people go. I hope in the rest of the series he starts really f**king people up, cos he is a big dude. And i love the way he keeps calling everyone 'Bra'.

FILM: The Mutations

2005-03-23T16:30:00.000-04:00

An instant lunatic exploitation classic!

After seeing a trailer for this on the excellent Horror On 42nd Street dvd I just had to see this. Donald Pleasance is Dr Nolte, a 'Mad Professor' - (always a good sign..) who is so bonkers he cross-breeds humans with plant life, with horrific results. Tom Baker is his facially-disfugured assistant who also runs a freakshow. Baker uses the freakshow as a means to bring the professor new bodies to work on, and in return the prof will give Baker the facial reconstructive surgery he desires to make him normal, and to take him away from the freakshow where he is branded 'one of them'. But everything does not go to plan when it is discovered that Nolte has been experimenting on his students, and the others try to uncover the truth....

This is one of the wildest films I have seen in a very long time - if you take a film with a mad professor, 'the human pretzel', a bearded woman, the worlds skinniest AND fattest women, a man who can make his eyes pop out of his head, pinheads, loads of assorted midgets and contortionists, plus the 'Venus Fly Trap Woman' and a monster mutation that looks like a 6ft piece of broccoli with sprouts for hands having his revenge, then you pretty much got my attention for an hour and a half. This is a true exploitation flick - its badly made, badly directed, and exploits those with physical differences in the name of entertainment. Hell, it even introduces all of them in the way of an actual circus freakshow - The plotline of the freakshow being cover for Baker to kidnap bodies is itself just a flimsy way of getting 'freaks' onto the screen. Apparently, the Japanese absolutely love this film. Well, they would wouldn't they?

Politically correct critique aside, i f**king loved this. It is just a mad, mad film and I cannot wait until this is available uncut on on crystal clear DVD, as the VHS copy i sought out goes to black and white in the last 5 mins.

FILM: Haute Tension (aka Switchblade Romance)

2005-03-22T15:06:00.000-04:00

I had been looking forward to seeing this film for a while, mainly due to the reason that the gore effects were supervisied by none other than Gianetti de Rossi, the man responsible for so many of Italian horrors greatest moments (Zombie Flesh Eaters, City of the Living Dead) so you know that you are gonna get a horror film with some good set-pieces. Haute Tension (aka Switchblade Romance) is a rather effective horror film, eschewing the usual jumps and cheap gory shocks, instead opting for a slow-burning, tension-cranking film. Although the film is French language, the film has little dialogue and a minimal soundtrack which only adds to the tension more. The film itself looks good and as a real arthouse quailty to its aesthetic, not like some cheapo eurohorror movie you would expect from the continent.

My only gripes with the film however are -
1) the use of Muse on the soundtrack. It kinda disrupts the etheral quality that the film had built up throughout, but that is a very petty, minor gripe

2) *****SPOILER ALERT*****

The 'twist' ending - I didn't get it (at first), and thought it was a touch ill-thought out, and judging by the responses on imdb a lot of people where in the same boat. I guess with a second viewing it would all come into place (something i will definitely be doing at some point) but i agree with the explanation that ***SPOILER ALERT**** she is recounting how she saw events, not how the events actually happened and the film begins to make a lot more sense. ***END OF SPOILER ALERT***

That aside, the film as a whole is a great horror film, one of the best i have seen in while. Go check it out if you get the chance.

FILM: SS Experiment Camp

2005-03-20T03:35:00.000-04:00

What better way to start than with one of the most vilified and reviled 'Video Nasties' of all time?

Sergio Garrone's 1976 'SS Experiment Camp' is perhaps one of the most sought after Video Nasties and is often citied as one of the worst. The sheer imagery that its title alone conjures up only adds to its replusiveness, and its lurid video cover certainly doesn't do the film any favours in the 'good taste' stakes. To some, SS Experiment Camp is seen as what could be the epitome of the Video Nasty - deplorable, shocking, filth that should be banned, and anyone who watches this sort of thing must have serious mental issues. In fact, self-appointed moral guardians The Daily Mail often citied this title during the book burning, sorry, the Video Nasties era of the early eighties. It made the DPP 39 list, films which if any video propietor had it stock could face a jail sentence. Many shops got rid of their stock immediatley by either selling it on or worse, burning the actual tapes. Video companies even had film masters taken away and destroyed. However, it was the clued-up collectors that would stand to make a fortune on the back of this notoriety, and as films such as this and Cannibal Holocaust became banned films in the wake of the 1984 recordings act, the more horror fans wanted to see such stuff.

So, SS Experiment Camp became one of those films that just had to be seen and due to its super-scarce unavailabilty become so sought after that prices still reach in excess of £100 for a copy the GO Video VHS cassette on ebay, some 20+ years after it was banned, that getting your greasy little paws on this often meant dealing in very unsavoury circles and often paying an arm and a leg just for a 4th generation copy that if you squinted at the tv, you could just about make out what was going on. Imagine my joy when i discovered that i could get a copy on DVD from the US! At last! A chance to see one of cinemas most wretched and foulest pictures!

So, upon viewing this, I whole-heartedly agree with puritans and the moral safeguards in this land to make sure that this film is never available to anyone ever again. Why? Because of its overtly exploitative themes and its cheapening of the holocaust as something for mass entertainment? No - because it is one of the worst films full-fucking-stop. It's all tits and ass. It's fucking truly awful. It has nothing. It is slow, boring, titilation at best. If this film wasn't banned nobody would even fucking bother with it.

The story concerns women prisoners and male nazis being brought to the 'Love Camp' to create a super race. They shag in a water tank, they shag in a bed. They shag some more (this is all super-softcore shagging as well..) A couple of women are killed during operations to remove their reproducitve organs, or by 'terrifying' experiments such as having pressuried air blown into their ears (all the while very little or no blood is shown on-screen). The dialogue is deplorable - in fact perhaps the only high point of the film is a single line - The Nazi Commander who runs the camp had his wedding tackle bitten off in flagrante, which we see during a flashback (and consists of a woman snarling while what looks like chicken skin hangs from her mouth...) and arranges for a cock transplant from the camp stud. When the stud tries to make love and can't (for the obvious reason) he goes after the Commander, and upon catching up with the owner of his dis-membered member, asks the question - "You Bastard! What have you done with my balls!" The film is pretty much over after that, and as soon as the last man is killed, the closing titles roll over his body and the shitty synth score breaks into life - it's as if the director just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

SS Experiment Camp is one of those films that would have not even registered on the bad taste radar had it not been caught up in the nasty furore and subsequently banned in the UK. Its not shocking, its just cheap unredeeming worthless crap.

Relive the Magic...Bring the Magic Home

2005-03-19T19:31:00.000-04:00

This is the red-headed stepchild of the dirty, foul bastard father blog iwakeupscreaming, but without the tourettes or the narrow-minded ranting about nothing in particular in general. Come here if you want to read reviews of movies, music, tv and other pieces of flotsam that should come our way.

If you are looking forward to reading in-depth critique of the use of mis-en-scene in the movies of Hitchcock, or perhaps a particularly scathing yet informed review of the new Kaiser Cheifs cd, then you had better fuck off now - this is low culture baby - if movies dredged from the cinematic sewer and bands that sound like your favourite records being played through broken speakers while being urinated on are your thing, i'll hear from you soon.