“Lets be patriotic” Captain Britain and six other totally crap British Superheroes from Marvel and DC

Britain. Home of the Queen, Shakespeare, castles, London and nothing much else. A historic locale it may be but Britain is also a hotbed of crime and where there is crime there are Superheros! Or so DC and Marvel thought. Never a medium to shy away from offensive stereotypes, British comic book characters tend to revel wholeheartedly in trite pseudobritish upperclassness. Rar rar. With patriotism high thanks the to triple wammy of the Jubilee, Olympics and European Cup, I look back at some of the more stupid superheroes to be thrust upon our fair land. God Save the Queen.

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Deanna by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Deannas respond!

Googling your own name is a constantly popular mode of procrastination but what happens when you don’t like the results? When stumbling on the classic single Deanna by the brilliant Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, many Deannas found themselves less than impressed by the unsavory nature of the lyrics. With such lines as “I cum of death-head in your frock”, “I’m down here for your soul” and “we’ll unload into their heads”, many felt directly implicated and thoroughly insulted by the insinuation that they may, in fact, be mass murderers. Guilt by association.

Here then, for posterity, are their responses…

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The real Jurassic Park: The world’s crappiest dinosaur safaris

It is impossible to watch Jurassic Park without wishing that dinosaur safari parks existed in the real world. Unfortunately, with the science still a long way off, we have to try and make do with the next best thing: dinosaur models! There are plenty of places that have managed to pull this off quite well, but there are even more than haven’t. From the unscientific to the unspectacular, to the down right weird, here are some of the worse real life dinosaur exhibits.…

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Crystal Palace Dinosaur Court, UK

It seems a tad unfair to pick on dinosaur sculptures made in the Victorian Age, but this Crystal Palace exhibit deserves its inclusion here due the dark and embittered history of its inception. These models were originally meant to be designed by Hilary Mantell, the discoverer of the Iguanodon, but the work was eventually passed over to his competitor Richard Owen in 1851, when Mantell became too ill to work. Owen, though undoubtedly a great scientist, was a vindictive character and had famously tried to destroy Mantell’s career on a number of occasions. Discarding the heavily researched notes of his rival, Owen set about designing the creatures himself, basing his ideas on deeply held religious beliefs that god had only perfected a set number of animal types. This basically meant forcing the contradictory evidence found in incomplete fossils sets onto the shapes of modern animals, making his designs inaccurate even to his contemporaries. As ridiculous as these models now seem, them do make for a fascinating historical trip and the site is now grade I listed.

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Eleven alternative reasons why the Avengers is best movie in the Marvel universe….

Ok, I’m late to the party but the Avengers is pretty damn good (if you like that sort of thing). Exhilarating, well cast and funny in all the right places; Joss Whedon has made a film to rival Richard Donner’s Superman and Christopher Nolan’s Batman at the apex of the Superhero genre on the big screen. Finally Marvel has a film to rival DC and these are my alternative reasons as to why it’s so great. Warning, contains spoilers. Obviously.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Not since Superman (1978) has there been a more deliciously hammy and gleefully evil baddy. Loki is a delight to hate and makes the competition look down right anonymous. (I can’t even remember who the antagonist was in the first Iron Man?!).  His comeuppance at the end (at the hands of the Hulk) is all the sweeter for it.

Black Window. Finally a kick-ass female character in a genre that has become a bit of a sausage fest recently (since the X-men movies anyway). Scarlett Johansson has given Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman a tough act to follow. One small request though, can we have Wasp in the Avengers 2 now please?

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Bored of the Avengers? Sick of Superman? Some great none superhero comics to check out….

Ft. Fables, Lady Snowblood, The Sandman, Hellblazer, League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Akira, Preacher, Lone Wolf And Cub, Y:The Last Man….

Click here for the full list on my Wordpress site…

Pulp magazine covers part II: Nazi Pulp!

These covers show an all American girl; trapped, stripped and tortured by the Third Reich! They come from pulp magazine serials such as Man’s Life, True Men and Men’s Stories all of which were very popular during the 1950s and 60s. Extremely offensive and uproariously silly; hold on to your hats people, it’s Nazi pulp time!

Click here for the rest of the countdown on my wordpress blog.

Pulp magazine covers part I: ‘Man vs Nature’

These covers show the typical 1950s American man; shirtless, bloody and defending his woman! They come from pulp magazine serials such as Man’s Life, True Men and Men’s Stories, all of which were very popular during the 1950s and 60s. Borderline offensive macho bullshit, but also uproariously silly, I look back on this long forgotten phenomena of men’s adventures:

Click here for the rest of the countdown on my wordpress blog.

Eleven great works of art, or atleast art that I like…

I would not normally dare write a blog entry about art, just because I know nothing about it. I do like art though, and I do love to visit art galleries. What I am sharing here is a selection of works that were either bright enough, funny enough or famous enough to have have stuck in my memory. A collection of unrelated pieces curated by my subconscious.

I initially made this list for myself, but I decided the images here are interesting and beautiful enough to want to share with everyone.

I hope that you like the pictures.

Images continued on wordpress:

http://thefollowingfilmisrestricted.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/eleven-great-works-of-art/

Eleven awesomely strange facts about Werner Herzog…

Few people have the strength of vision to imagine great things. Even fewer people have the strength of will to achieve great things, especially when told that these things are impossible. Werner Herzog is one of those people. When, at age 17, he was considered “too young” for funding, he stole a camera and started a production company himself. He has since made a film on every continent, often in arduous conditions, and has shot in some of the most extreme places on earth. His sense of adventure is remarkable.

As a director he says he hates to be associated with his own films, but it is impossible to separate them. He is not just an unconventional film maker, but a unconventional person and his films are thrown together from the (often semi-improvised) choas of his life. He has been called insane, had accusations of megalomania and is even said to be dangerous; but it is this maverick behavior that continues to fascinate and provoke. With 25 films and 32 documentaries made, it would be a thankless task to even try to scratch the surface. So instead, here are some of his more bizarre moments:

The 11 weirdest facts about Werner Herzog…

1) Herzog offered to dig up the corpse of serial killer Ed Gein’s mother for the documentarian Errol Morris. Morris was, at the time, researching a serial killer epidemic in the town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, and wanted to know if the rumors that Gein had stolen his mothers corpse (as depicted in Psycho) were true. The project was cancelled after Morris “chickened out” and failed to show at the cemetery.

2) During the filming of his masterpiece Fitzcarraldo (1982) he dragged an entire 320 tonne steam boat over a mountain top in the Peruvian rainforest. Where as most film productions would have achieved the shot via special effects and miniatures, Herzog insisted on doing the shot for real after witnessing the prehistoric standing stones of Carnac, a engineering feat of the megalithic era. The whole project took over 3 years of pre-production, and 5 years to complete………

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The Endless Hollywood Franchise Machine ™ Present:

Freddy Vs Alien™

“It’s summer again at Camp Crystal Lake and a group of attractive young counselors begin to ready the long abandoned cabins for the next generation. When one of the curious teen discovers 100s of eggs in a pantry, a parasite hatches and attaches itself to her face.  Meanwhile hunky Dale™ and virgin Belle™ are sharing the same recurring dream about a man with a badly burt face…and is that that a hokey mask wearing Alien™ hiding in the woods? Rated PG-13 for scenes of mild nudity, bloodless violence and slime”

The creators of “Battleship Board Game™ – The Movie™” present
Freddy Vs. Alien™.
Director: Uwe Boll
Producer: Michael Bay
Writers: Roland Emmerich, Paul W.S Anderson, McG, random assorted hacks.
Freddy Krueger™: Jason Statham
Jason Voorhees™/J-alien Voorhees™ hybrid: Channing Tatum
Dale: Robert Pattinson
Belle: Vanessa Hudgens
Token slut™/first victim: Lindsey Lohan
Crazy Ralf™: Rob Schneider
Also staring: Paris Hilton, Tara Reid, Kelly Brook as “assorted campers/Wet T-Shirt contestants”.

 *“Freddy Vs. Alien™ – Alien Dreams™” video game, licensed trading card collection, official soundtrack, “Freddy vs Alien Ice lollies™”, J-alien Voorhees™ hybrid Lunchbox and Camp Crystal Lake Spring Water™ also available. Whoever loses, we win™.

** The EHFM™ is a subsidiary of Rip Off Films™ PLC. “Why pitch ideas when you can pitch franchise”™

Gushing praise for Dellamorte Dellamore….

I tend to have a fondness for weird and interesting films, and one of these weird and interesting films happens to be cult movie Dellamorte Dellamore AKA Cemetery Man AKA Demons 95 AKA Of Death, Of Love. A surrealist (almost existentialist) graveyard romp about love and death, finally released for the first time on DVD in the UK.

How can I explain it? Think of an ambitious mix of Brain Dead, Withnail & I and Luis Buñuel’s Un Chien Andalou. The basic plot features a pre-hollywood Rupert Everett as a cemetery attendant, charged with the job of dispatching the towns returning population of living dead. A job he approaches with, instead of fear, the same detachment any worker would have for a typically mundane 9-5. Why are the dead rising? How long has this been happening? Will it ever stop? Dellamorte (Everett) doesn’t care, he just wants to get on with his life.

My slight synopsis can’t go anywhere near to conveying just how virtuoso and original Dellamorte Dellamore actually is. It’s like a ghost train threatening to de-rail, with the plot careering everywhere and no-where at the same time.  The arrival of a personified death half way through (if you don’t want the dead coming back to life, why don’t you just kill the living?) acts to tip everything over the edge, and we end up falling into a senseless (but sensational) dream world of lost love.

Ok, maybe I am just a little too enamored. I have gushed quite a lot of praise about what is essentially just a horror comedy. Don’t worry people, it’s still plenty grizzly in places, and funny too! And there are even boobs, if you are the kind of person who JUST watches a horror movie for the boobs (do those people exist?).  But what I’m saying is that there is much MORE to it that this.  What I’m saying is if you want to watch a meditative-art house-horror-dream-romantic-comedy film, this is the meditative-art house-horror-dream-romantic-comedy film to watch.

What do you mean Rotten?

Rotten Tomatoes is an invaluable resource for sifting through the numerous film releases to find the cream of the crop. Sometimes, though, the website loses its fresh perspective and ends up reading as totally rotten. There are way too many films to mention that have a fresh rating that I would gladly argue as rotten*. So instead of ranting, here are a selection 4 genuinely great films that do not deserve the stigma of a rotten tag:

*Crystal Skull (2008) and the Star Wars prequels for example.

Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas (Terry Gilliam, 1993)

Reasons for low score: Accusations of a lack of ‘moral judgement’, complaints of repetitiveness, migraines.

Reasons to re-evaluate: Gilliam’s film manages to capture the mood of the book rather beautifully, a well as much of the writer Hunter S. Thompson’s personal philosophy. Johnny Depp channels a personal affinity with Thompson into one of the performances of his career, and Benicio Del Toro is also impressive as personal attorney Dr Gonzo. Once you stop looking for a conventional movie, you can appreciate the film for what it is. Very well made and very, very funny.

Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994)

Reasons for low score: Sex and violence…mainly. There was a lot of controversy when this film was originally released.

Reasons to re-evaluate: Ok, so Oliver Stone does go a little over the top with the cinematic tricks. One minute we’re in widescreen, the next we’re staring at 33mm print. And yes, this can be annoying. But at least it is INTERESTING. 1994 is the year of overhyped Forest Gump (71% FRESH), perhaps one of the least interesting best picture winners of all time*. Therefore it’s nice to see a bit of experimentation in the mainstream. The satire may be abit obvious, but its message is timely and (still) very much relevant.  The main reason for NBKs success, though, lies with its main characters: Mickey and Mallory. I can’t think of any other film outlaws that have managed to be just so immorally cool, over the top and pulpy. It’s difficult not to get so caught up in the whole excessive mess.

*Except fro Crash (2004) obviously.   

Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1997)

Reasons for low score: That old chestnut: too much sex and violence. Also, incoherent plotting and the fact is “doesn’t make sense”.

Reasons to re-evaluate: In retrospect LH is the first film where Lynch fully discards the need for a conventional plot and instead dumps his characters into a dream-like version of reality. It is, hence, the first film where he goes all the way. It also contains some of his best and creepiest sequences and, in the form of Patricia Arquette, one of his most alluring Femme Fatales. Though it may be off putting to many, it’s a great film and worth checking out, especially for fans of Mulholland Drive (2001) and Inland Empire (2006).

Sympathy For Mr Vengeance (Chan Wook Park, 2002)

Reasons for low score: Complaints (again) of too much violence. Accusations of style over substance.

Reasons To re-evaluate: Rather than the quality of the film, the low score actually represents an early confused reaction towards new Korean cinema. Though initially appearing excessive, Mr. V now fits comfortable alongside such contemporary Korean classics as Oldboy (2003), Tale Of Two Sisters (2003) and The Host (2006). Just as Phantom Menace has since been revaluated rotten (80% to 57%), a re-released version of Mr. V would deserve a similar turn around.

Any more suggestions? Find me on twitter @_kill_yr_idols.

Oscar voters are 85% aged 50+, 98% white and 77% male. Are we so surprised by the very narrow demographic of winning movies?

Congratulations, though, to A Separation for winning for in the “Best Foreign Language” film category. A very under-appreciated movie.

By now everyone knows that (deservedly or not) The Artist is going to clean up at tonight’s Oscars. The same people also know that Drive has been unfairly omitted, and that Incredibly Loud and Incredibly Close should never have been nominated in the first place. This I can handle, but no Best Director nomination for Lynne Ramsay? Really? Have the Academy been watching the same films as the rest of us?

Does David Cameron want our films to “go mainstream” because he fears the British film industry?

It’s a disgrace that David Cameron can sit and speak with such pride about British films after slashing the budget of the BFI and removing UKFC. It’s even more of a disgrace for him to claim that British funding should “focus on the mainstream”, especially when filmmakers such as Lynne Ramsay, Mike Leigh and Shane Meadows are bringing such international acclaim. His attitude must therefore be considered as either ignorance, or as a politically motivated move. After all, how can you predict what will be successful or not?

When he talks about “mainstream” is he talking in terms of economic impact, or is he talking about films that portray a Britain that doesn’t really exist. A Britain where Hugh Grant is constantly charming, the Royal Family are heroes to all and wizards attend boarding school. What about the Full Monty? Financially successful, Oscar nominated even, but featuring a plot revolving around the destruction of British industry. Would David Cameron approve of such an honest portrayal of problems (especially as they were introduced by his own party) just because it was financially successful?

Take two more examples. Ratcatcher (by Lynne Ramsay) portrays the appalling conditions of a 1970s Glasgow and This Is England (by Shane Meadows) explores the rise of the far-right National Front movement during the 1980’s. Despite the fact these movies have reignited foreign recognition towards British artistry, they do not represent the picture-postcard view of our country David Cameron seeks to sell. Is this what he is really attacking? By “going mainstream” does he seek to rob certain Britishness from our art? This is an ironic move for a governement that loves to scaremonger about British identity loss.

With rising unemployment, social realism is likely to become a prime concern for British film makers once again. Maybe this is what Cameron really fears. That someone will come along, point a camera, and betray his lies about fairness and social commitment. Someone who shows the devastating impact his cuts have been having on this country and someone who immortalises him forever as an unjust and idiotic buffoon.