blog me this and blog me that

Blog me this and blog me that. What's up with all these NWOBHM revival bands? They're alright but kind of pointless.

I saw the Tintin movie last night. I think the best word to describe it is charming. Snowy was awesome and probably the best bit about the movie. The villain was pretty great and overall it was an entertaining movie. I'll watch the sequel if there is one.

Been mostly watching a WWE show called Legends of Wrestling where a bunch of ex wrestlers and management sit around and gossip about various topics. The best stories come from Dusty Rhodes, Michael Hayes and Pat Patterson but the topics are all pretty interesting. Particularly the ones on "Bad asses," "worst characters" and "heatseekers." The American Dream, Dusty Rhodes has the kind of hillbilly accent that I thought was a put on but no, that's actually what he sounds like. Nekkid. It also reminded me of probably the creepiest thing I ever saw on tv as a kid back when WWE was still the WWF. Golddust. When I first saw this promo, I remember being creeped out and very uncomfortable and wondering why Razor didn't beat the shit out of him. Now when I saw it on the Worst Characters discussion, I simply admired Dustin Rhodes' promo skills, McMahon selling his own homophobia and the fantastic job The King does on colour commentary. "Golddust is here, he may be queer. Get used to it."



I also saw Maniac Cop with commentary. Not sure why and its going to take ages to seed this back but it was fun. William Lustig, Phil Cohen and Bruce Campbell on the perils on B movie making. Not as good as Brian Trenchard Smith's commentary on Turkey Shoot but close. For whatever reason, it made me want to watch Bubba Ho Tep again. Maybe over the weekend. I wonder if it ever got a commentary version.

Its become a sort of habit to finish work and head straight to the complex for a coffee before going home. There's an ancient dog here who every evening, just as I sit down also sits down on a bed of dry leaves and naps. Very cute.

eulogy for the damned

Onto week 3. so far so good. cleared the first hurdle and 2 more to go. Should be okay. I'm steadily getting back into the groove of things.

It's been a dull few weeks apart from work. Feels like whining is such an easy thing to do and I'm trying hard not to fall into that pit. Quitting smoking seems to have failed after a period of success. So much for that.

Not much else to report and now that I have this page open, can't really think of much to write about. So I guess this is it. Till next time etc. etc.

Transcendence

The karnataka chief minister decided he didn't want the state to be a part of project tiger. So no money or infrastructure from the centre and this in the state that has the highest population of tigers in the country. This after already having said no to a world heritage site tag for the western ghats. Is there any point in getting angry over this? Especially when the national media seems to think Salman Rushdie's freedom of speech is a far more important issue.



I'm getting blisters inside my mouth. Big water filled boils.

I'm also in a constant sense of anticipation. Something's going to go horribly wrong between now and monday. Paranoia only. Hopefully.

Met a friend yesterday and after the initial debate on the pros and cons of vinyl, we settled into a Tendulkar bashing dialogue. No one else seems to be doing it so why not. With Ponting's resurgence and his touching of the 13000 run mark it seems inevitable now that Tendulkar will carry on for another year or so. Maybe 2. Considering that the next test series is only in July and we don't play outside the sub continent for almost 2 years after this tour, it seems likely that Tendulkar will go on to hit the 15k mark. Doesn't matter if he doesn't win any matches for India or if he just plays for his records. In a country obsessed with numbers, Tendulkar is truly God. Just as unreliable too. I hope he proves me wrong but I doubt it. I'm just waiting to see when Boria and Arnab will finally start to grow some balls and criticise the great man.

Oh well, that's all for now I guess.

Massacre down under

Watching the cricket in Australia is a bit like watching a slasher movie. Except there are 11 screaming psychos at any given time going after 11 nubile and delicate brown beauties. This is exploitation at a whole new level. The last time India went to Australia it led to a purging of the old guard from the limited overs side. This time around it might well lead to a purge of the old guard from the test side and I think its about time. These guys won't go anywhere till they're pushed out. So push. Its become almost impossible to hide them on the field, their reflexes are down so having them catching in the slips is a risk and Laxman and Sehwag look like they have cement boots on. Of Sehwag, Sachin, Dravid and Laxman, Viru still has a few years of cricket left in him and the great Tendulkar will never be dropped even if its pretty obvious that he's only playing now for that 100th century and his own personal milestones. Dravid is still fit but is dropping catches and getting bowled too often. He might survive another season. Laxman I think will be the first to go. He hasn't been very very special since that last home victory against Australia almost 2 years ago. We're going to lose 4-0 in this series and Dhoni I suppose will be the scapegoat and lose his captaincy at the end of it. Replacing him with Sehwag will be a monumental blunder but that just might be what happens. If I was chief selector I'd tell Laxman and Dravid it was time to retire and bring in Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Ambati Rayadu. At least 2 of those guys should go on to have successful test careers and be good enough eventually to replace Dravid and Laxman.

Knowing Indian cricket though, the team will stay in its current form, Sachin will eventually get his landmark ton and the others will score on the flat pitches of India and prolong their career by another year or so. Kohli and Rohit Sharma will probably compete for the same spot till these guys decide to retire.

mood indigo

So what's happening?

I will be rejoining the corporate world shortly. About time. Irregular timing and 9 hour work days or nights. Can't wait.

The Djinn & Miskatonic demo sucks. If I was reviewing it for GD I'd be making all sorts of nasty comments. We got royally screwed by an incompetent sound engineer. The bass is too soft, the vocals too loud and the drums sound like someone's beating on a cardboard box with a wooden scale.

I want to get completely and utterly stoned and giggle at comedians being mean to each other and then have Herzog take me on a guided tour of the La Chauvet caves. 2 out of 3 will probably happen tonight.

Today, I was accosted by a young boy who was working for some ngo. He asked me if I knew Kannada initially and then proceeded to give me his marketing lecture rapid fire and pointed me at a website to investigate further and showed me the incense sticks his ngo makes and finally thanked me for my time and for speaking to him in kannada cause i was only the second kannada speaking person he'd met since morning and then wished me a nice day and walked off with a smile. If i had any money I'd have bought those fucking agarbhattis.

Film and Television and Alex de la Iglesia

I've been catching up on the movies of Alex Iglesia. Probably because I found out he was responsible for both Perdita Durango and The Perfect Crime. Wanted to see what else he'd made so...

La Communidad

Better informed people than myself say this is Iglesia's best film. A down on her luck real estate agent is living in an empty apartment that she's meant to show to potential customers because her own flat has no heating. One day, a million cockroaches fall on her from a crack in the cieling. This leads to a discovery that the man who lives in the flat above her is dead and peacefully rotting away, uncared for and unattended. We find out that the dead man was a recluse hated by the other people living in the complex and was also a winner of the national lottery. The woman happens to find the money hidden away in his flat and so begins a tense and comedic cat and mouse chase between the woman and the rest of the occupants in that building. There's an opening shot with a corpse and a cat that is simply fantastic and the movie does have its moments but of the Iglesia movies I've seen this is probably my least favourite. Still better than 90% of the crap out there.



The Day of the Beast

The movie follows a catholic priest and theology professor who has deciphered a code that tells him the anti-christ will be born in Madrid. He determines to summon the devil so he can ask him when and where exactly the baby will be born. Along the way he recruits a metal head and a popular TV medium to his cause. The movie plays out like a light hearted farce for about the first half and then things start to take a turn to darker territory. The performances are terrific in this film and the characters are likable. A very enjoyable dark comedy with a high body count.



The Last Circus

The latest film from Iglesia. This is a strange film about a boy from a family of clowns. His father, a "happy" clown is imprisoned and later dies in prison as a rebel of General Franco's politics. The son goes on to become a "sad" clown and joins a circus. Here, the happy clown is the star and is a cruel bully who mistreats his employees and beats on his wife (the beautiful Carolina Bang). Our happy clown falls in love with her and it all ends badly. Part camp, part comedy, part horror and part heartbreaking tragedy, the movie is held up by 3 superb performances from the sad clown, the happy clown and the woman. The hero's father, played by Iglesia regular Santiago Seguro turns in another wonderful performance. There's heavy use of CGI particularly for the set piece climax with the three main characters battling it out on top of a gigantic tower and the whole movie is set in Franco's Spain, starting from when he came into power and ending as his power was on the decline. This is a powerful film and worth watching.



Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

So I finally saw the film. It has one great central performance from Gary Oldman and a terrific supporting cast which makes even the smallest walk on cameo a pleasure to watch. The story is simple enough. Set during the height of the cold war, there's a mole in British foreign intelligence and Oldman is brought out of retirement to flush the mole out. Maybe its just in my head but it feels like Oldman is channeling Alec Guinness' performance in the TV series. His speech, the half smile, the delicate way he holds his cigarette all reminded me of Guiness's performance but Oldman is a terrific actor and he makes the role his own. Its a very tight movie at just about 2 hours and has almost no exposition. you need to pay attention to the dialogue and the seemingly thrown away little pieces of information that the director let's you have. The problem with this is that apart from Oldman's Smiley, the rest of the characters never really come alive and are just cardboard cut outs. Still, worth watching.



Homeland

Saw season 1 of Homeland over the weekend and its pretty good. An American marine sergeant held captive by a terrorist cell in Iraq for 8 years is freed in an unrelated attack on insurgents. He comes home a hero and one track follows his rehabilitation and settling into his domestic life with a wife and 2 kids. Then there's Claire Danes who plays a CIA agent with information that a POW has been turned by the terrorists and is planning something big in America. She's convinced that its the Sergeant and so begins a 12 hour cat and mouse game with various political and CIA intrigue thrown in. The acting is pretty great right from episode 1. The dude who plays the sergeant, his wife played by the whore from Firefly, Mandy Patinkin as a CIA consultant and Danes are particularly good as is just about every kid cast in this series. Homeland also stays away from any sort of propaganda and jingoism with all the characters dressed in various shades of grey. Overall, worth watching even if a touch predictable and succumbing to the rules of television and a possible second season.



Outrage

Takeshi Kitano returns to the world of the Yakuza after almost a decade with mixed results. The story is simple enough and almost an alternate version of Sonatine. Kitano plays the head of a minor Yakuza gang who gets used by his immediate boss. He's asked to constantly pick fights with a drug running gang who's boss is brother to Kitano's boss. Kitano's gang is used to further his own ambition and then thrown to the wolves when it suits him. Obviously, this doesn't sit well with Kitano and company after about an hour of set up we're left with a violent and bloody closing chapter that sees Kitano the director, completely unrestrained in the spilling of blood. Kitano the actor also seems to be having fun with his role and is a bit more animated than usual. The stillness I've come to associate with Beat Takeshi is reduced here. There's also a lot of familiar faces from previous Yakuza movies. Overall, fans of Kitano's more violent work will probably like this but it lacks in characterisation and the labyrinthine plot of double and triple crosses and political intrigue and power struggles within the yakuza need to be paid attention to, to follow completely. The man's well over 60 now but his energy seems to be boundless. Kitano fans will like this but everyone else should stay away.



Kill List

Act 1. A family. Husaband and wife love each other. They have a son they love as well. But. Husband has no job and they're broke. Wife is upset about this. They fight constantly but they still love each other and love their son. Then one day, husband's old friend turns up with a new girlfriend for a dinner party. Offers the husband a new well paying job. We find out then that the husband and his friend used to be soldiers, then dodgy mercenaries and now are hit men. There's also something a bit off about the friend's new girlfriend. Act 2. The husband and his friend take on the Kill List. Everyone on it is involved in a kiddie porn ring so no problems in disposing of this scum. But. Husband seems to be on the verge of a breakdown and each kill is more violent and gory than the last. Act 3. Everything goes to hell with a crazy fucking twist ending. Honestly, a tense, superbly acted little British film with an ending that left me asking "Why?!" Completely unnecessary. Shades of A Serbian Film, shock cinema, whatever you want to call it. A film worth watching but with an ending that left me quite disappointed.

Spun

Jason Shwartzman, Mickey Rourke, Mina Suvari, Brittany Murphy and John Leguziama makes for an interesting cast. Put them in a movie made by a Swedish music video director and what you get is a hipster druggie movie that's part Requiem for a Dream and part Tarantino wannabe. Shwartzman goes to his dealer Leguziama to score some crystal meth. There he meets Murphy who takes him to meet The Cook, played by Rourke. Shwartzman spends the next 3 days driving the duo around in exchange for drugs and that's pretty much the story. There's also a disturbing sub plot involving a girl that Shwartzman's chained up in his house. There's Shwartzman's neighbour and phone sex operator played by Debbie Harry, Rob Halford as a porn shop clerk, Ron Jeremy in a thankfully non speaking cameo and Eric Roberts in an embarrassing, over the top cameo as a gay drug lord. The most likable characters here are Leguziama as the meth dealing Spider and Rourke as the meth cooking "Cook." Both are competent and over the top when they have to be but both have been way better. Shwartzman, Suvari and Murphy are all at various levels of annoying although Peter Stormar turns up in a fun little role as a coke head cop. Credit where its due, the movie isn't as bad as it sounds. The director uses a shit load of edits, dilating pupils and animation to add visual flair. Unfortunately, the story isn't much. Still worth a watch if you want an over the top flashy ride with very little substance.

Here's Rourke and Halford in the same scene. Sort of.



A Lonely Place for Dying

Tight action thriller about a group of mountain climbers out on a climb in Scotland who come across a little girl buried in an underground chamber. Who she is and who put her there makes up the story with some stunning cinematography. The movie plays out like a more cerebral Cliffhanger with a couple of great action set pieces. Doesn't flinch on the violence and the acting is pretty decent. Overall, worth a watch for action fans.

Triangle

From the guy who did Black Death and Creep, this movie was quite entertaining. A group of friends take off on a boating trip. The weather suddenly changes and a sudden storm overturns the boat. The stranded survivors see a cruise liner that drifts along and manage to get on board but its not a normal ship. Released the same year as Time Crimes from Spain, the similarity in theme is undeniable. However, thanks to a great lead performance, the movie holds together and as it unfolds, manages to be gripping in spite of the fact that genre fans should figure out the plot quickly. Nothing special but worth a watch for sci-fi fans.

screaming at the moon

I read today that there's been an increase of 50% in the number of men who have acid reflux at least once a week in the last 10 years.

Cyclone Thane has arrived but everyone's too busy with the Lokpal. Our leaders have let us down. We're in the shadow of a dying world and we're watching it on television.

January my love, arrive already.

The look of disembodiment in her lifeless eyes
methadone and wine and distant death's bleak lullaby.

What a dull fucking start to the new year. Like seriously. It took just about every bit of energy I had to get out of bed. Now I'm sitting around worrying and brooding about 2012. From a purely escapist point of view I welcome the coming end.

I hope the first day of the year isn't a sign of things to come.

I miss having cats around at home. Maybe its time to bite the bullet again.

The look of disembodiment in her lifeless eyes
methadone and wine and distant death's bleak lullaby.

Its bright and hot and sunny outside. Winter seems to have disappeared along with 2011.

I'm angry a lot. A kind of seething bitterness at the world at large and some self loathing to go along with it. I hate this.

Tabby and I

When I finally tracked down Tabitha she was sitting in the front lawn of her new house with a fat old boxer named Oliver. They were drinking tall cold glasses of milk. Drinking the warmth right out of the hot and sweaty afternoon....

I was lost in a haze of smoke and the smell of stale bitter coffee when the call had come. All I had was a name and a photograph. Tabitha. Find her, bring her back home and maybe make enough to leave the city to its dark unpleasant future. A pretty face when I thought they'd all disappeared. A pretty face in a city buried in ugliness. Should stick out like a vegan at a meat packing plant. Should be easy.

The city was bleeding. Thick waves of black sludge slowly but surely seeped through the cracks in the pavement. The sun had forgotten the city and the rain beat down in sharp drops that could cut your skin if you let it. I pulled my coat closer and walk on. Avoiding the puddles of sludge, the puddles of rainwater and looking for a pretty face to improve my mood. It was tough. The last pretty face in the city had left when the sun was still out. Why am I still here? Hope. And one last job. Scouring the clubs and the alleyways, back room poker games and all night blues bars, one thing was certain. Getting to Tabitha meant finding Oliver. A fat mean spirited boxer who had seen better days and now ran a protection service. Tabitha was his client and everything I heard about him led me to believe he wouldn't go down or let go without a fight.

I learned of an alley that Oliver frequented. An alley for dogs and hobos and women of ill repute. You know the kind. Every city has them. I dressed for the occasion, hoping to be just another face, a nobody looking for scraps. I hung in the shadows and waited. Sure enough, my information was correct. Oliver came lumbering in sometime past midnight. His rolls of fat jiggling with every step he took. Every step he took seemed like it could be his last. I'd met boxers like this before. A lifetime spent being a punching bag and with nothing to show for it but aching limbs and a meanness of spirit that would be the last to go. I'd met this kind and handled them. No problem.

My over confidence was my first mistake. Seeing only the meanness in his eyes and overlooking the intelligence. I stepped out of the shadows and called out to him. Second mistake. I was surrounded by a pack of 3 young cruel products of the street. Nothing more than strays but when in a pack, more dangerous than a herd of lions. The leader lunged at me. I fell and as my head hit the pavement I noted the cracking sound with a sense of detachment. When I came to it was raining again. The sharp cold rain cut through the pain in my bones and I stood. Blood. All of it mine. My head ached, my body ached and I seemed to be bleeding from a dozen different places.

I'd been set up. Lucky to still be alive and maybe Oliver thought a warning would be enough but this old dog had the bit between his teeth and wasn't letting go.

It took me a few days to get back on my feet. Get back on the street. I'd underestimated Oliver and was back at nothing. Every fresh lead I'd dug up had run into a wall and I was clutching at hope and Tabby's photograph. Yeah, she'd become Tabby in my mind. A pretty face will do that to you. Make you lose perspective.

I was on my fifth white russian and just about ready to throw in the towel. I reached into my pocket to pay and leave when I found a little scrap of paper. An address and nothing more. On the outskirts of the city and not a place that would welcome the likes of me. It had been slipped in without me noticing. Getting old and soft and primed for another trap. I had no choice though. I had to follow up on it.

I found the house easy enough and there she was. Sitting on the front porch with that mean old dog for company. She looked at me. Imperious with her green eyes and snow white fur. Took a last lick of her milk and darted in through the open door. I had to follow. Had to see this through. Tabby knew this and so did Oliver. He was standing on the porch, face split into a wide evil grin. Daring me to climb up the steps. Daring me to go after Tabby. I did. I had no choice.

Now, lying in my own pool of blood with Oliver looking down at me with amusement and Tabby calmly licking remnants of milk off her whiskers. All I could do was curse myself. I thought this was going to be easy and I thought I could leave the city. More fool me. In my line of work there's never an easy job and once you've lived in the city there's no leaving it. Like my ma used to say, "boy, you sure picked a hard way to make an easy living."