Tunes Currently Tempering My Psychosis

1) Breakers - Local Natives
2) Finger - TY Seagall
3) Get Lucky - Daft Punk
4) Reverse Running - Atoms For Peace
5) Glad Tidings - Van Morrison
6) The World Is A Ghetto - George Benson
7) Winter Birds - Ray Lamontagne
8) Begin The Beguine - Artie Shaw
9) Seek It - Richard Hawley
10) Daytona 500 - Ghostface Killah

Michael Shannon - Legend

So this week I went to a screening of Michael Shannon's new film "The Iceman", a biopic of mob-hitman and all around lunatic Richard Kuklinski. I already knew a bit about the man so I went in with high hopes. However, I'm sorry to say the film was a massive disappointment, the only highlight being seeing David Schwimmer playing a mafia villain, which was fecking hilarious.

However, after the screening they had a Q&A with Shannon himself, an actor who I personally think is one of the best working at the moment (for further proof, check out "Take Shelter" or "Boardwalk Empire"). I couldn't help but be engulfed by the man himself, who - despite his often borderline insane on-screen persona - just oozes charisma and, most importantly, class. I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see a successful actor who has the right attitude about it all. Just a very down to earth human being, to the point where - after fielding moronic question and moronic question from the audience (free screenings attract LA's finest mentalists, including a pony-tailed man who I caught drinking out of the bathroom sink) - the orator wanted to call a halt to proceedings, only for old Mikey to offer to stay and answer more inane questions from the geek squad before him. That alone, friends, is worthy of my applause.

Anyway, this dealing with a man who's career is about to skyrocket, came at the perfect time for me personally as lord knows I am getting severely jaded with the bottom-feeder crowd here in Hollywood. It reminded me once again that you don't have to be a twat to succeed in life and if there is any further doubt as to Shannon's legend status, just watch this video - which is him reading a REAL letter from a Sorority girl to her chapter. Brilliant:

Cheers,

JB.

Proper Ganda

So, away I have been once again from this here blog space. Largely because I'm getting a little sick of all the "anonymous" comments from Nigerians offering me free money and/or a penis enlargement. I'll tell you what I told them...it's fine the way it is, thanks. My money situation, I mean.

Anyway, so in my time away I managed to finally sit down and watch Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty". Now, since it's release I have purposely avoided this film like the plague. This would be because, as anyone who cares to know me knows, I am staunchly against the politics involved in the whole sordid affair (if you care to know more, drop me an anonymous line offering penis goodies). 

So, against my better instincts and partially out of pure boredom, I decided to sit down and give it a whirl. For anyone who doesn't know, the plot is based entirely on the hunt and, ultimately, destruction of one Osama Bin Laden: bad guy numero uno of the last 10 years. 

For the entire first ten minutes I sat with my finger hovering over the stop button as some absolute moron mercilessly tortured a man for information while spouting absurdities like "everyone breaks, bro". I was appalled and so far, the film was exactly what I had first feared - nothing more than a piece of self-gratifying propaganda for the United States and their foreign policies. "Rah, rah, rah, aren't we all a jolly bunch of trained killers"-type stuff. 

Once the first ten minutes subsided, I found myself unwittingly swept along in the frankly quite pulsating storyline, told with absolutely expert direction by Bigelow (who, let's face it, knows how to make a film). By the end I was positively gnawing at my fingernails, such was the amount of tension that had built up in that time, this despite me knowing the end. Obviously. 

The performances were first class, the score brilliant and the cinematography pretty flawless, particularly in the final "storm the compound" sequence. As the credits rolled, I found myself taking it all back and declaring it one of the better films I'd seen in recent memory. Forget all the politics, murky moral waters and potential debate involved, that was just a bloody good yarn. It was sensitive to the material involved and overall a very well made film which wasn't exploitative at all. And, with that, off I went to live my vacant little life once again. 

However...when the clock struck late and I rested my head on the pillow a thought suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks and that thought went something like "OF COURSE IT IS!!!" 

You see, when engaging in any form of propaganda the key ingredient is for it not to look like you're engaging in propaganda. That's the whole point. In this day and age, and wise as people here in the US are, of course they're not going to back some ridiculous Bin Laden-baying gorefest directed by Paul Verhoven. No, that would be far too obvious. Of course, as Goebbels did in fascist Germany, you hire the best filmmakers to make the best film possible to further the agenda of those who want it furthered. Now, I'm not for a second comparing the US Government to Nazi Germany, I'm just saying, what better way than to document the murder of the boogeyman than to hire an Oscar-nominated director to adapt a best-selling novel into something that will most likely serve as 99.9% of people's account of what really happened the night OBL got smoked. 

Daniel Day Lewis said of his role in "Lincoln" that it gave him sleepless nights because he knew that for an entire generation of people, his portrayal of honest Abe would be the only one that people would ever know. It's true. When you ask people how Bin Laden went down, you'll think of a bunch of muscular, cool, wise-cracking Americans wiping him out with ease and panache. What you will not remember, nor ever care to actually find out is the truth. And why would you? You know what happened, you now know a spectacularly slick version of how A got to B, so why would anyone ever need to know, or care to know, anything more? Job done, and in a manner that George Orwell would be mighty proud of. 

As a method of propaganda, the film could not be more effective. It gleefully ignores the fact that women and other people (who are unknown) get casually shot in the face on the way to the end of the film. It joyously glides over the fact that some numpty gets choked, drowned and put in a small box, because they got what they needed. Delightedly it dances by the sheer facts of how many innocent, repeat innocent, women, children - and men for that matter - died in the search for this twat. Instead we find ourselves going..."Oooo, I hope Jessica Chastain doesn't get humiliated in her next meeting. She needs results, and quick". The absolute perfect distraction. Fuck, even I didn't care about the innocent souls lost in this fight by the end of the film...and I care...a lot! A masterful job by all involved.

Yes, the film was sensitive to the potential molotov cocktail of emotions that could be stirred by it. No, it wasn't half as "Rah, Rah" as it could have been but I think the makers (and backers) of this film were smart enough to know that it doesn't need to be any of those things. We already got him, we already celebrated. Let's just show everyone how we think they should think we did it. It's very existence is enough to permeate the minds of the masses in this country and will absolutely leave everyone who's seen it with at least a subliminal feeling of "America...fuck yeah". 

Maybe I'm a lefty, commie, nut. Maybe I'm the only sane man in the room. I don't know. The one thing I do know is that Baked Potatoes are delicious and mine just finished cooking. So we'll leave it there.

Cheers,

JB.

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.