FILM REVIEW: LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL

Fuck it!..Another nazi film crept in through the backdoor..

I've read two books recently that have touched upon the wonderfulness of the film Life Is Beautiful. So respecting them both, i figured i had to watch it.

But i had no idea it was what it was....

And that is perhaps the genius of this film - that somehow it's title and then it's narration not only convinces the child of the game, but also the viewer. However as much as i can appreciate this on an aesthethic, artistic and cleverness level, I don't like nazi films full stop.

Fair enough, Life is Beautiful isn't disaster porn: There's no overt killings, no blood, no piano wire. This is - as far as i understand it - The Italian way (look good and look at the good!!). But I get really tired of this You have to go and see Aushwitz and/or watch Schindlers List to apprecaite just how bad nazism was..

Bullshit! I can appreciate that kind of evil from a far greater distance than that thank you very much, and no ammount of dramatic interpretations are going to make me any more contemptuos of it's inherrrent nastiness than I already am...

You reckon if Idi Amin had watched Schindlers List he'd have behaved any differently?? Shit, he'd have been taking notes, nevermind realising torture and systemnatic destruction was a bad idea and taking up flower arranging instead..

What's more, watching films like The Pianist, Schindlers List, Captain Corellis Mandolin just makess me racist against Germans. And though they behaved more than badly 60 odd years ago, they're not the only ogres in this world..

America will be bombing Iran before you can say 'Oh that's a nice nuclear reactor you've got there Mr President of I-ran' and the guys who'll be droppping the bombs and vanquishing the 'terrorists' as part of one of the greatest jokes of modern times (the war on terror) are descended from the liberators of the concentration camps..

Evil just goes around and around and the devil is a clever piece of shit. This being so, I think it's far better to recognise that and accept it rather than pretending it will ever stop or marching for peace with idiots like the holy Bono..

Well, Jesus, it's all a little heavy for this time of night I know, and I've got to get some sleep so I'm fresh for Bryan Ferry and Maximo Park in the morning, but Nazi films do my fucking head in..

SPAMALOT

Rather than filtering it, I'm getting into reading spam these days. Some of the nonsense you get in the text of adverts for Viagra etc is really quite something..I mean what the fuck has this got to do with anything and how did the spammer know or why did he bother to personalise it?? Or maybe it's just chance advice...

Date:	Fri, 23 Feb 2007 09:36:41 -0180
From:	"Erin Maynard" Add to Address Book
To:	pgfox2002@yahoo.co.uk
Subject:	Save on your drugs with us RIGHT NOW!

Christ without, as to exclude Christ within, as an evidence of enemy?” Tell them of the necessity of mortification and self-the devil, which, like so many spiritual chains, bind down our Secondly, What are the chief reasons, why so many are no you may observe some features in his picture, odious as it is, birth, and that Christ must come into our hearts, we freely covenant of grace and redemption, to object against it.riches leave not the owner, the owners must soon leave them; voice, “Paul, much earning doth make thee mad.” To which enjoying God. And think withal, that every degree of holiness

Erin Maynard

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BANKERS!!!

I read with interest that at last the gruesomely smug fuckers who rule our lives are being brought to account (ha ha!) on the issue of excessive charges.

But are they really?

If you want to reclaim back these illegal charges (aka series of petty thefts) you have to fill out forms and ask nicely, as opposed to the more normal porcedure of clubbing the greasey fuckers around the head and /or calling the police..

Is this is a new rule? When someone steals from you, you're only entitled to write them a letter and ask for it back?

If so, why is it that when I went into the bank today and tried appropriating my £10,000 inconvenience fee for them fucking up my direct debit, they clubbed me around the head, suggested i was a thieving shithead and called the police??

VERY RED

Well tonight I'm mostly sick and tired of celebrities with no souls rambling on about how they want to be Gandhi or reduce their carbon footprint or set up another concert to SAVE THE FUCKING WORLD and/or their dwindling and tawdry careers.

It's not that I'm particularly calous, or mean or that I want the world to live in endless starvation and war, so much as the fact that I used to rant on in this fashion when i was 16 and have now (thank fuck) realised what a complete load of shit this sort of talk is...

Crime and death and disease and humans pissing in the wrong places has happenned from Day 1 and it will continue, regardless of campaigns and initiatives and rock stars spouting off their blessed intentions from The Ritz whilst dressing their children in organic soup...

RED - How does spending more money on fashionable goods help anyone??

BONO - Shut the fuck up!

MADONNA - If you seriously want to end up like Gandhi, go and live in a fucking cut off village in India and spin wool all day and stop boring everyone with cheap and silly talk.

STING - Please don't reform The Police to fund your wifes spending habits, or for that matter, for any reason at all.

I've just had my brother and his wife up for a long weekend. Denise was born with her arms and legs frozen as if she were to remain foetal forever. She then had Polio, beat huge odds to survive and was later smashed into on a zebra crossing by some feckless idiot in a car - an accident which resulted in another batch of serious injuries...

If she can smile about the world and not bore me stupid with human doom and gloom then i fail to see why Bono and his band of worthy shitheads can't do likewise..

Be wary of these sucked out freaks...There's a lot of money, power and prestige in being charitable and this lot are lapping it up like milk slaves in the fucking dairy...

I'd like to nail them to the cross, but you get the impression that's just what they want..

THE BEST BLOG I KNOW

Does anyone read books these days??

Of course they do, but for how much longer paper and type will hold it’s own against ‘all wonder’ gadgets formerly known as mobile phones remains to be seen….

Personally, I couldn’t give a shit whether it’s one year or ten. A medium is a medium and if it works why not use it? I am however a little more concerned about changes in the quality and type of reading itself. You see, with attention spans shortening by the day and the publics interest increasingly lying in the ordinary rather than the extra-ordinary, the pursuit of excellence in the written word and for that matter the pursuit of any kind of creative excellence is becoming an irrelevant and outdated notion.

Yes boss, as we cruise through 2007, the written word is dumbing down. Rather than dipping into some huge and clever masterpiece like Crime and Punishment or even a slag rag like The Daily Mail, your average Joe now prefers to read a blog about someones visit to the chemist or some half cocked view of Middle Eastern Politics as sifted through a ringer.

In short: the once elite word is returning to the people.

So, am I against democracy of the word???

Too fucking right I am! How the hell am I supposed to make a living out of writing words if people are getting all their reading matter supplied by amateurs every time they turn the net on???

I'm not bitter, in fact I wuldn't mind at all if blogs were any good, but this is the nub of the problem with blogs: QUALITY: Specifically, how does one find the good blogs amongst the reams of shit that is put online daily by people trying to kill time at work?

Pure chance probably and that’s how I came along this one.

The premises of Hijackalopes blog is simple: Every now and then he tells a 2 to 3 line story of what he and Kenny G have been doing. For example:

Fucking Kenny G's house plant from hell

I had that flash of Deja Vu again about the last time I remember thinking I had a Deja Vu moment but not really remembering the event, just the feeling of Deja Vu.

Unlike visiting the strip club "Deja Vu" which if even I was too drunk to remember, I would still have the signs of...(i.e. bruises, sudden lose of money and unknown pubic hair stuck betwixt my dental work.)

Oh by the way, Kenny G's albino goat kid just took a shit in my potted house plant.

Or how about this one

Kenny G is a fucking fucker
Category: School, College, Greek

Kenny G's Indian friend Indian Johnny came by yesterday. He sat and watched The Price is Right. He did not blink once. I watched him from my bathroom through a hole in the door. I did not blink once. Unless he only blinked when I blinked. It is possible.

Now, what makes this great is that after about a year of reading these blogs, I still don’t have the first clue as to who or what Kenny G is. I of course have an idea, and this idea is that he's some kind of living sock with apalling manners and a beer belly - something like (for those of you olde and British enough to remember) Roland Rat.

I may of course be wrong, but who cares, the genius here is that the brevity and lack of detail - one of the hells of the modern writing epoch - is worked and adapted to good effect. With Hijackalope there’s no clutter of detail. No complex character development and no nonsense, and the result is very often perfect…

So, get along to Hijackalopes page and meet Kenny G!

http://www.myspace.com/hijackalope

GENERAL BOASTING

UPDATES
Current mood: accomplished

HERE WE GO WITH SOME MORE TRUMPET BLOWING AND GENERAL BOASTING

I've started up a new blog, or rather 4 new blogs here
BLOG
I'LL BE UPDATING THESE PRETTY REGULARLY WITH THE AIM OF FINE TUNING MY JOURNALISM/SHORT PIECE WRITING SKILLS...AT PRESENT YOU CAN FIND THE FIRST NOTE FROM FISH ISLAND, BOTH OF THE JAMES DEMAN DIARIES SOME PAUL GIOVANNI WORK AND OTHER MISCELLANEOUS CRAP..

WRITING ASIDE, I'VE BEEN INVOVLED WITH AROUND 20 FILM AND TV PRODUCTIONS OVER THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF.
ONE OF THE FIRST TO SEE THE LIGHT OF DAY COMES INTO UK CINEMAS SOMETIME AROUND FEBRUARY 15TH

CASHBACK

CASHBACK WAS THE FIRST FILM I WORKED ON. I WAS EXTRA FOR 3 DAYS AND FULFILLED A NUMBER OF DIFFERENT BACKGROUND ROLES

ONE SUCH ROLE WAS THE 30TH BIRTHDAY PARTY SCENE. HERE, I CAN BE SPIED HIDING UNDER THE RED CAP BIGGING IT UP WITH THE KID FROM SLEEPY HOLLOW



MY MOST RIDICULOUS MOMENT ON THIS ONE, WAS FILLING IN FOR THE CHARACTER OF STEVE JENKINS...

BASICALLY, THEY CUT THE SHOT OF SUZY (MICHELLE RYAN) WRITING THE PHONE NUMBER (VIEWABLE IN THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF THE FILM VIEWABLE HERE)


MEANWHILE HERE'S A PHOTO OF THE LOVELY EMILIA FOX (AND MY FEET) CHATTING AWAY TO HER BOYFRIEND DURING LUNCH.... BREAK



ANOTHER SUB PORNO FILM I WORKED WAS CALLED NIGHTJUNKIES THIS IS QUITE PROBABLY AWFUL, BUT INCASE YOU'RE INTERESTED THE TRAILER IS VIEWABLE ON THE ABOVE LINK AND TO (IN SOME WAY) BALANCE THE PREVIOUS SHOT HERE'S A STILL OF MY BIG BALD HEAD AT THE FEET OF THE LEAD ACTRESS RUBY AKA KATIA WINTER...



HAVING WORKED ON THESE AND MANY OTHER FILM RELATED PROJECTS, THE QUESTION I HAVE IN MY HEAD CURRENTLY, IS HOW COME SEX AND NAKEDNESS HAS BECOME SO ESSENTIAL TO FILM?? ISN'T THIS ENDLESS PROVACATIVE FLESH GETTING A LITTLE BORING?? AND ISN'T SEX ON IT'S WAY OUT ANYWAY??

I'LL BE DOING 2 FRESH NOTES FROM FISH ISLAND EXPLORING SUCH NOTIONS, AS WELL AS OTHER THOUGHTS GAINED FROM WORKING ON THESE TWO FILMS IN THE FORTHCOMING WEEKS....

I'LL KEEP YOU POSTED

VB
p USING THE ORIGINAL ACTOR, BUT ON THE LAST DAY OF TIDYING AT PINEWOOD STUDIOS THEY WANTED TO REDO IT, AND WITH THE ORIGINAL ACTOR NOT BEING AVAILABLE, THEY PULLED ME IN AS THE CLOSEST MATCH..I CAN'T BE SURE IF THE VERSION THEY'VE USED IN THE FINAL CUT OF THE FILM IS THE ONE I DID OR THE ORIGINAL...I'LL REPORT BACK WHEN I'VE SEEN IT ON THE BIG SCREEN

8:2

WATCHING A SLOW CAR WRECK.....

I noticed the beached Volvo by accident.

The glass that makes up one side of this flat, looks down across an artery of Londons main sewer onto a barren parking yard and then finally to a roundabout on a slight slope. It's a desolate perspective and one that, short of the kids racing stolen and unlicensed motorbikes, rarely sees any kind of action...

You see, the road is rarely busy and certainly isn't anything approaching fast.

So when i noticed the Volvo sitting half on and half off the roundabout, apparently stuck from a moments ill concentration, I decided to see what might happen next.

Wasting as little time as possible, I got my binoculars from the bedroom tree, trained them on the scene and waited for an event...

I scanned up and down and tried to work it out.

It was certainly nothing serious - the car was just beached like a suicidal whale. One good hump would see it clear and on it's way. Yes, it was a nothing type of crash, most likely caused by a moments misjudgement, either that or the car was stolen and had been dumped...

The only thing that was strange, was that no-one appeared to have got out of the car. They must be in there revving the engine, they're trying to get enough power to jump it back onto the road I thought. I checked the exhaust, but there was nothing doing.

First on the scene was the driver of a small van. He pulled up and had a look and stayed with the car, meanwhile all other traffic simply steered around the semi obstacle and without a serious glance went on it's way..

When a mini digger appeared and placed itself at the front of the car as if it was going to lever it back onto the road I felt content that I wasn't wastng my time. This is just the ticket, the police don't need to be involved with a mishap of this sort. Just get the thing levered up and moved and get on with it...Come on Digger boy hoik it up!

But seconds after it arrived, the digger sped around, off and over the roundabout like a naughty child who'd stolen a bag sweets.

Wierd..

5 or more minutes later, a police car showed up...Here we go, here comes the over reaction I thought.

Next a fire engine....then another.

Stop blocking the fucking road! Jesus!

Then an ambulance, then another ambulance and a couple of what looked like CID cars and another police car and a policevan...

Haven't you lot got paperwork to complete?!

10 minutes later it was dark. The road was completely closed off, the lights of the vehicles made a mini rave out of the roundabout, and it was when the third fire engine arrived that i realised that somehow this was very much more serious than it looked...

But how? There hadn't even been a collision? The car was simply sat half on and half off a roundabout. Perhaps the driver had passed out or had a fit or a heart attack...Shit, maybe he was strapped in there like a crash test dummy oblivious to his luck..

Whatever it was, there was definately something or someone in there - 15 firemen were stood around the Volvo as if it held a popular market stall or the dead body of Anna Nicole Smith...

I kept concentration, resisting Princess Paolas demands to hand the binoculars over.

Ten or more minutes later, the firemen peeled the roof up and over like a can of sardines...

WOW!

There were stretchers and more stretchers and after a manoeuvre up and then down, they pulled someone out and onto it. He wore an oxygen mask and he looked stiff.

Well there he goes I thought, poor bastard was probably on his way home from work wondering about dinner or football and the next thing he knows he's in a-

But it wasn't over. The fireman still ringed the vehicle and then they were down and back up in the same manoeuvre and out came another motionless body..

What next??

More of the same was what next. Again, they were down and then back up and out came body number 3

And then that was it.

The fireman stood back, the police returned to their banter, the ambulances slunk off with their heavy cargo and in another half hour all that was left was the Volvo, still beached, but now looking like it had been dropped by godzilla....

So what are we having for dinner then? I asked Princess Paola

EXHIBITION REVIEW: FROM MANET TO PICASSO

I was wandering about town inbetween appointments. A limited fountain of cash suggested i was best off using my time for free, so i wandered into the National Gallery....

It was the first time I'd been inside the NG for a good long while and I found myself wondering why..

The thing is, though I love art, I don't quite know what to do with galleries. I'm not a painter, so i can't carefully study the brushstrokes until the inspiration bullseyes me and I run out to grasp a brush. Neither do i find much value in starring at things that aren't moving at all...

Art aside, each time i venture inside a gallery, I always find a host of wonderfully beautiful people wandering about. Indeed i find this to be so consistent, I fear I have some kind of art lovers fetish. This fetish does of course provide an immediate reason to go in, but also a strong reason to avoid all galleries full stop. An infatuation is a fine thing, but abandonning one is like tearing your heart out and spitting on it, and pain of this type can be only tolerated occasionally...

Anyway, this time I went in, and soon found I was in for a very special treat. Not only did i feast my eyes upon a chiselled face of such unprecedented beauty it outshone almost all of the art on show, but there was a small and strangely positioned exhibition in the basement called 'From Manet To Picasso'..

'Oi, Oi,' I thought. Here's something i can deal with...

So, I glided down the stairs as if some kind of regal princess and found a set up of such simplicity and smallness containing such bigness that it confused me immesureably..

I mean, there I was in the very center of central London in one of the biggest and most pompous galleries of them all and stashed away in the basement - as if it were an afterthought - was an exhibtion full of paintings from the archives...

The word 'archives' susually makes you think of the sort of things you keep in the back of the wardrobe/cardboard for a rainy day: Things like old leters or badly fitting trousers and unwanted christmas presents. The National Galleries 'archives' are however really rather large and not at all embarassing..

Yes boss, we're not talking small unknowns here, but the very biggest of big boys. There's one of Van Goghs 'Sunflowers' and a room full of Monets in this exhibition..There's also several beautifully fine Seurats, a single and lonely Picasso, Manet at his best, Gaugin and Rousseau

In short, this exhibtion is a gem and a mystery..I mean, Wow and Great!!!

But why are such big and important works hidden away in the lowest ceilened room of the lot???...The space is barely the size of the cloakroom, there's no bulletproof glass or heavy spies watching you watching the paintings..And best of all you pay nothing..

V
e
r
y

strange....And worth a look...

SATURDAY NIGHT

Bored and tired on a Saturday night, trying to focus steamed concentration on the words and the bees whilst a Song Thrush sits upright in the remains of the trees, like some kind of proud and dignified soldier.

It's singing.

It sings all night everynight and I don't know why it bothers.

Perhaps to jump the queue for a girlfirend for Spring.

Or perhaps it likes to do what it does

Or perhaps it thinks it's a fucking musician or something

THIS IS PROFESSIONAL CYCLING AT IT'S BEST..

Borrowed from www.cyclingnews.com

Italian Salvatore Commesso is entering his tenth year as a professional cyclist, and the skills that garnered him two national championships were just what Omar Piscina and Oleg Tinkov wanted when forming their new team, Tinkoff Credit Systems. Gregor Brown of Cyclingnews spoke with Totò about his off-season transfer right after the team's training camp, on the day of its presentation in Rome.

"I have one child, a boy; he is three years-old," the 32 year-old explained to me as we sat down on a couch in the lobby of Hotel Victoria Roma on the day of the team's presentation. "His name is Dylan. My wife and I actually selected the name because it was a name that we liked from Beverly Hills 90210, the name of the character played by Luke Perry. When we heard it, we immediately liked. You know he drove a Porsche in the show, and, of course, at the end he had a drug problem but it was the name we liked.

"We are expecting another child around June. Maybe it will be a girl," he proudly continued. Will it be a 90210 name for him or her? "No. We have been thinking of the names. 'Ginevra' we like a lot. Like the wife of King Arthur."