Soapbox Moment

A terrifying fact.

JB.

Bad Motherf*cker

This is, without question, the best short film I've seen in years. Absolutely mindblowingly good...especially seeing as I have completely no clue how on earth they did it. Bravo, sirs. Bravo.



JB.

Talking Comedy

This is amazing. Ricky Gervais, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Louis CK sitting around talking about comedy and taking the piss out of each other. What more could you ask for?



JB.

Quote of the Day

"I probably got into music through our kid (Noel). I never used to like music, I used to f*cking hate it....anyone who listened to records and that I thought was a f*cking weirdo. I was into football....football and running around people's back gardens and being a little c*nt"

-- Liam Gallagher

Revenge Of The Sith

Now, the experience of watching this film, at a midnight screening the night it came out I might add, is one that will haunt me forever. The most angry I think I have ever been at a film in all of my 32 years. In fact, so angry have I been at this film that I haven't watched it again since. Indeed, so furious was I that I literally couldn't put it into any sort of articulate form beyond aggressive swearing. It was the final straw after staunchly defending the other two Star Wars prequels. "It'll come good in the end" I thought, "Lucas must, repeat must, have an Ace up his sleeve for the last installment, otherwise how could he possibly justify the first two being so unbearably bad?"

Turns out his ace up the sleeve was Darth Vader screaming "Noooooo" at the top of his lungs. Not the saviour I was looking for.

So, you can imagine my delight when stumbling across this review online. With just a few logical questions, this bloke completely tears apart George Lucas' 'masterpiece'. I highly suggest, if you've got a spare half hour, you watch this. Genius.


JB.

Quote of the Day

"A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic" 

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Heroes to Humanity: #821 - Richard Harris

Born in Limerick in 1930, old Dicky boy was one of the few at the time born into a relatively privileged background (Ireland was pretty feckin' poor in those days). However, as a youth he decided to escape the trappings of his life on the Emerald Isle to head to the badlands of London, where he wished to pursue a career in acting.

"I would consider myself an excessive compulsive. Everything I do has to be excessive. Like for instance if I fall in love, it has to be excessive. I overpower the woman with devotion and love and sex, to such an extent I exhaust them"

After arriving in the big city, Harris tried to find himself a place to stay. In doing so, he stumbled across an ad for a bedsit which read "Black or Irish need not apply". In response, he smashed his fist through the window and stole the sign - which he kept for the rest of his life as motivation. From there he went and applied at the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (LAMDA), finding the headteacher and proclaiming "I've done my fuckin' research on you lot, and you haven't had one star graduate from here. I will be your first star". As a result, they let him audition and he got in. Later on, Harris saw the same headteacher who told him that his was the single worst audition he'd ever seen, but "anyone who had the balls to perform that badly in front of a room full of people had to have something"...and a legend was born.

Upon graduating from LAMDA, Harris quickly made good on his promise, landing several leading man performances and becoming a full-blown Hollywood star with the release of "This Sporting Life" wherein he put in a great performance as a disgruntled coal miner who becomes a rugby star. From there, Harris really started to move through the gears.

"The difference between me and someone like Tom Cruise is that if you see pictures of me going to one of my premieres, you'll see a bottle of Vodka in my hand. If you see Cruise, he's holding a bottle of Evian water. That's the difference - a bottle of Evian water" 

Now, while still in his teenage years, Ricky suffered a terrible bout of Tuberculosis, almost killing him. It was after surviving this experience that he decided to live life to it's maximum capacity, and if there's an industry in which life is fully allowed to be lived at this capacity, it is the good old entertainment industry. The perfect storm was created and one of the most notorious Hollywood Hell-Raisers flourished. He would turn up to set drunk, disappear for days on end (only to re-surface with bevvy of beautfiul birds on his arm), piss off untold movie stars, go to premieres drunk, fight any and all and generally behave like an absolute lunatic on every level. However, as is the way in this town, the studios allowed all of this behaviour because he was a proven money-maker and an actor of the finest pedigree.

Indeed so legendary was his debauchery that, after flying 12 hours across the world for a shag - getting royally battered the whole way - he ended up at the doctors, who informed him that his blood-sugar was dangerously high and he was to give up drinking at once. So what did he do? In his words..."So, I went out and did Coke, Heroin, LSD, Speed, anything I could get my hands on". Brilliant.

"I was a sinner. I slugged some people. I hurt many people. And it's true, I never looked back to see the casualties.... I hate movies. They're a waste of time. I could be in a pub having more fun talking to idiots rather than sitting down and watching idiots perform."

It wasn't all fun and games however. One night, our Richard did so much coke that he collapsed and overdosed. Again, almost dying. This time though, he decided enough was enough and became teetotal for 15 years, in which time he enjoyed a renaissance in his acting career, starring in films such as "Unforgiven", "Gladiator" and "Harry Potter". However, his role as professor Dumbledore was to be his last, as his health devolved rapidly - concluding in a collapse at London's Ritz Hotel. However, even when being stretchered out of the building, Harris managed one last joke - yelling to mortified guests of the Hotel Restaurant "It was the food!". What a fucking legend.

Anyway, I could write for weeks about this man and still not remotely do him justice. An actor whose career is littered with magnificent performances, a womanizer of the highest order, and possibly the greatest storyteller of all time. What a refreshing thing it is to see a man who had it all, did it all with charm, style and class, and found himself completely unaffected by being a "performer" or an "artist" or however else you with to aggrandise the whole thing. And surrounded as I am by the boring, synthetic,  wet mops that we are treated to today, I think it is a damn shame that more like Richard Harris don't come along - just normal blokes who like a bit of a drink, a bit of a shag and don't get caught up in all the self-involvement of it all. Yes, he may have been a lunatic, but the best kind of lunatic, wherein he leaves a trail of incredible stories and smiles across the faces of all who knew him.



I shall drink a pint of Guiness in your honour, sir. You should too my friends.

Cheers,

JB.