Dialogue of the Day

Marwood: What about what's-his-name?

Withnail: What about him?

Marwood: Why don't you give him a call?

Withnail: What for?

Marwood: To ask him about his house.

Withnail: You want me to call what's-his-name and ask him about his house?

Marwood: Why not?

Withnail: All right. What's his number?

Marwood: I've no idea. I've never met him

Withnail: Well, neither have I. What the fuck are you talking about?

--From "Withnail & I" (1986)

Find Some Good Speakers...

...and play this shit loud. That is all.

JB.

Heroes to Humanity: #405 - Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards

I tell you, few things got me more excited, as a young nipper, than watching the Winter Olympics. The reason for that was simply one man. A god among men. A bird, floating effortlessly through the heavens, kissing the wings of an angel before gliding back to earth among us mortals. That man was, of course, Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards...

"Bo Selecta!"

Has there ever been a more English of heroes? With his movie star looks and sly wit, he had it all. I mean, when he wasn't doing death-defying dives off of enormous ramps, the man was a plasterer! How perfect is that?

Growing up in the West Country of England, god knows how Eddie got into Ski-Jumping as a professional pastime. Honestly, just dwell on that for a minute...a country with no snowy mountains. None. Couple that with the fact that the man was supposedly afraid of heights and you must wonder...how???

Anyway, got into it he did and eventually became Britain's representative in the 1988 Winter Olympics. In actual fact, Eddie can claim to be the only Ski Jumper our fair shores have EVER produced. Ever. Another miracle to hang his hat on.

I remember during the '88 Olympics, he was my undisputed hero. Every jump seemed to be walking the fine line between landing safely and decapitating himself. Oh, the excitement. Of course, our Ed came last in every event he entered, but he took that very British trait of dignified failure to entirely new levels and captured the nation's heart in the process. The man is simply a legend. I believe this interview excerpt sums our hero up nicely:

Eddie: "They said I was afraid of heights, but I was doing 60 jumps a day then. Is that the behaviour of someone who's scared of heights?"

Interviewer: "Well, were you afraid of jumping?"

Eddie: "Yeah, of course."

God bless that man.

JB.

Quote of The Day

"All governments are lying cocksuckers"

--Bill Hicks

Wildebeests

A bit of Billy to brighten up this Monday morning. Marvelous.

JB.

Things I Love: The King Of Comedy

Or as I like to call it, The Most Underrated Film of All Time.

You see, when this film came out in 1983 it was almost universally panned by critics and audiences alike. However, over the years and the test of time, this film is now widely regarded an unheralded classic. Of course part of the problem is that it is a DeNiro/Scorcese collaboration, and the world was clamoring for another Taxi Driver, Raging Bull type dramatic masterpiece . What they instead got was the story of a deranged comedian trying to crowbar his way into stardom by any means necessary. People were baffled. Where was the Scorcese touch? The DeNiro masterclass?

Aha! That's is precisely where their first mistake lied. You see, friends, this film is, in my humble opinion of course, one of DeNiro's finest performances, for the simple fact that you actually forget that is him at all, and instead get completely lost in the utter pillock that his character, Rupert Pupkin, is. Also, the reason why Martin Scorcese is the greatest director around is because he does one very simple thing every time. He lets the story dictate the style it's told in.

Goodfellas? Mafia. Loads of violence. Loads of cocaine up the hooter. Might want to speed things up. Lots of camerawork, music, fast editing etc. Same for Casino. Taxi Driver. Raging Bull or The Departed for that matter. However, in this film, there is absolutely no camera trickery. No crazy edits. No rock n' roll music. He just sits back and lets the story flourish. And as a result gives us a brilliant film.

Rupert Pupkin is one of the most subtlely creepy people ever put on screen. His equally mental friend, played by Sandra Bernhard, is only a shade less weird and Jerry Lewis (basically playing himself) is deadpan hilarious as the mega-star TV Host who is the object of their affections.

All in all. See it. Now. It is a hilarious, slightly disturbing glimpse into the world of celebrity infatuation that seems eerily even more relevant today than ever before. Perhaps that's why people only like it now.

Maximum respect.

John.

Tunes Currently Boiling My Biscuit

1) The Way Young Lovers Do - Van Morrison

2) Moonglow - Artie Shaw

3) Lonely Boy - The Black Keys

4) A Minor Incident - Badly Drawn Boy

5) Victory - Puff Daddy & The Family

6) Cocaine Blues - Johnny Cash

7) Danse Caribe - Andrew Bird

8) The Imperial March - John Williams

9) Night Train - Louis Prima

10) Calgary - Bon Iver

The Good Old Days...

...when Kings of Leon sounded (and looked) like this:

JB.

Timing Is Everything

So, I am still deep in the mire of editing, re-editing and re-editing my new film. It is a very interesting process. This being despite me almost continually wanting put my foot through the computer screen in a blind rage. You see, when editing comedy, it is very difficult to "find the funny" as I seem to keep finding myself saying. It's all well and good putting together the various parts so that you have at least a cohesive piece of work, as in, it tells the story and gets us from A to B with minimal fuss. However, the real art is in finessing each cut so that things which were originally intended to make people laugh, do. Not as easy as it sounds my friends.

It lis literally, with dialogue at least, a matter of frames. One minute it's "meh", the next, you shift if one way or t'other a few beats and you're laughing. A very odd phenomenon. It is all about the timing. Now, watching a film, or indeed TV show, while in the middle of this process is enlightening in itself. Because my eyes have been fixated on continuity, timing and all that jazz, you start to notice these things in proper films...and how 90% of them are just as shabby as yours.

So, while watching multi-academy-award winning "Kramer vs. Kramer" this week, I found myself rather appalled at the absolutely shocking editing of the film. The style of editing seemed to be the absolute antithesis of everything we'd been trying to achieve. Yet, interestingly (or not) enough, this matters absolutely not one bit as I finished the film thinking "that was bloody good...could've been better, but still good".

This left me wondering what really makes a good film. It is apparently not the editing. So, what is it?

The answer lies by my observation of the film "Gigli" - the universally derided turkey starring Bennifer (Affleck and Lopez). I went in to this thinking it would be hysterically bad and inadvertently genius , in the vein of "The Room". However it was not. As I sat there watching, I thought "Script's fine. Shot well. Editing's fine etc" however I also found myself at the same time thinking ".....it's just cack". And it is. Not for any other reason, it would appear, than the fact that it's rubbish. Not in a hilarious way either, literally in a "I will never get that two hours of my life back" kind of way.

"Hi, I'm a twat" "Me too. Let's fuck"

When suddenly it hit me. You see, the one thing Kramer vs Kramer had was Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep at the top of their game (not to mention the little kid, who was great). Gigli had two absolute twats preening at each other. Therefore the answer can only lie in one thing. Acting. For all the sweat and painstaking attention to detail that goes on behind the scenes, it doesn't mean a thing as the audience only sees one thing, performances. That and a not insignificant amount of luck. I can only pray that I have both on my film.

Pointless exercise over and out.

JB.

Dance of the Gods

If the rumors are true and there is indeed a God. This is how he would dance...

JB.

In The Cannes

'Scuse the pun. Mwa ha.

Sorry (Adam & Dan) for being away so long. I have been deeply mired in the post-production of my new short film. My god what an ordeal. Not an ordeal in the sense that I f**ked everything up like last time - thankfully it would appear that my lesson was learned and learned well in that respect - more an ordeal in which we had to get a great deal done in very little time in order to hit the deadline for competition entry into the mighty Cannes Film Festival.

My best "deeply concerned" face

In just one week, we went from having about two scenes cut to having an entire picture lock, an audio-mix, music and sound effects. All of which equals much stress for me and much distain from everyone in my circle. However, the quest was a noble one and was achieved at the latest possible hour. This being confirmed by an email I received from the festival itself, which I must say was very exciting. All that remains to be seen is whether the French Art-house crowd will respond to my own brand of aspirational toilet humour (they love the word "c**t" aswell, don't they?) or whether it'll be just another also-ran. At this point I could not give a hoot (...lie)

Mike looking astonishingly creepy. No effort required.

Of course, since submitting it I've already seen several things that need immediately changing so the finishing line, it would seem, is a far way off yet. Also, when deep in the forest, as I currently am with this project, an interesting thing begins to happen. You see, when I wrote the thing I thought to myself..."That's not bad you know. Could be rather good if done right". From there I began to assemble a crew and slowly started to think..."This might actually turn out to be the Citizen Kane of short films you know". The we filmed it and I thought "This is going miles better than I ever imagined, I am positively filled with the pure joy of creation. Mega-stardom awaits". Now, after weeks of editing I find myself thinking "Oh my god, this is the worst fucking film ever made by anyone. I should probably go and jump off a building for being such a talentless hack". An interesting personal journey which I'm assured all filmmakers go through, even the best ones, but feels rather a lonesome one when in the thick of it.

So, here's hoping I will soon be able to see the wood for the trees and we'll have a nice little film for everyone to laugh at and enjoy.

Until then, friends...Salute!

JB.