Sending it Back

An odd sort of weekend, really. Started Saturday morning with a 15 minute wait in a cafe, leading to us walking out just as the little woman deigned to come over and take our order. Later, to lunch at Spiazzo in Crouch End, which turned out to be an even bigger farrago. To begin with, we waited around 40 minutes between garlic bread and pizza, which was bad enough. However, when we asked the waitress how much longer she thought the order would take, the response was:

'Well, we're very busy - it's lunchtime you know. Anyway, we had to cook for people who came in before you...'

'Also,' said my Isness, 'There are people who came in after us who have received their food already.'

The waitress finally, begrudgingly, said she was on it - yeah, right. The pizzas arrived, served in 'artisan' fashion on bread boards, and I couldn't help noticing that my youngest wasn't eating with any gusto, which I put down to the large amount of garlic bread she had eaten (back in the distant past) and the length of time we had waited, which can often dull the heartiest of appetites. But I discovered that in actual fact the pizza had started to absorb some of the wood's aroma, giving it a rather unpleasant varnish taste. I tried one bite, and was instantly put off.

Then (it gets worse) my daughter asked for a glass of water, which the waitress brought over. In mid-pass between my daughter and the miserable woman with the apron on, the heavy pebbled bottom of the glass simply dropped off, and its entire contents spilled over the table and into the laps of both of my daughters. Luckily, there were no glass shards and no-one hurt, but this was still something of a calamity. Well, the waitress then proceeded to accuse my daughter of knocking the glass against the edge of the table, and for me this was the last straw. I shouted that this was not the case, and that I resented her saying it was. For this, an amount was deducted from the bill. Nonetheless, I will never set foot in the place again. 'kthxbai.

Later that evening, on the recommendation of one or two friends, we went to see Life of Pi. Though I have not read the book, which perhaps means that the comments to follow will do some injustice (as well as maybe displaying my own literary prejudices) to Ang Lee's effort, I absolutely hated it. That said, I believe that if you have seen this piece of nonsense, I feel sorry for you. If you haven't, please do not waste your time and money. There are so many things wrong with it that I almost don't know where to begin. Firstly, it is utterly pointless. After over two hours (though I admit that I walked out with 30 minutes still to go) the viewer is none the wiser as to what the thing is supposed to be about. There is almost no acknowledgement of the realities of life, with the story set in some fantastical hippy bubble of funny names and exotic fruits and flowers - a cosy world divorced from the poverty, racism, disease and struggle endured by so many in the world. The set-up of a ferocious tiger (whether it be a symbol or not) somehow stuck on a lifeboat while a young man builds a raft to float alongside for 7,000 days (or however long it is) and ultimately trains the feline is too ludicrous to countenance. Nonsense of the highest order, most egregiously demonstrated by the ridiculous flying fish/tuna scene. The whole thing, one feels, was purely put on to demonstrate the excellent CGI skills of the effects guys. In short - shite.

Finally, I was a little concerned about facing the Gooners on Sunday, and feared that we may have only just managed to scrape a draw. This fear proved totally unfounded, though a combination of their second half efforts, and a definite slow-down from our boys almost caused a few flutters in the second half. It was a surprisingly niggly match, with Arsenal setting the tone early on, culminating in Mr Dean losing control and making decisions based largely on crowd reaction. Vinnie's sending-off, though perhaps understandable with the way the game is going, was still absolutely ridiculous. I don't hold out much hope of the card being rescinded, with this - added to the list of absentees - causing some concern about the next few matches. And the Rags go marching on. Twats.

Taut

Having caught the buzz quite late, I went to see Dredd 3D. It was little short of excellent - as a stand-alone tower block thriller, and as a very loving and faithful attempt at rendering Mega City One - which does (ahem) justice to the creative talents of the creators and the fervent fanaticism of the loyal followers of 2000AD. Perhaps because of the lame attempts at opprobrium by a group of teenagers in the foyer after the film had finished, I now feel even more strongly about the quality of the movie, and sincerely hope that it is the first in a franchise which will bring Mean Machine, Judges Mortis, Fear, Fire and Death - and many others - to the big screen.

Karl Urban plays Dredd exceptionally well, and has the downturned mouth absolutely perfect. Hard as it must be to convey any emotion (though in truth, there is little emotion in Dredd at all) when most of your face is covered, when it's needed, it's there. This limitation is also offset by Anderson (again, immaculately played by Olivia Thirlby) who as it were provides the yin to Urban's yang. Three D photography is utilised brilliantly, with much use of vertiginous straight down shots of the city's tower blocks, and some stunning slo-mo sequences, although all the teens in the foyer could say was: 'They loved their slo-mo, didn't they?' Fuckwits. The slow motion scenes provide a neat visual story arc device, echoing their themes at the beginning and end.

The violence is powerful, though definitely paying homage to the source material and as such the impact slightly lessened through being a little over the top. This is not a criticism, I hasten to add, and the creativity behind some of the shots is absolutely stunning. The soundtrack is as spare and taut as the onscreen action, and drives the film relentlessly forward with hardly a pause for breath. Ezquerra co-wrote, and it was great to see a block with his name on it near the beginning. I also noticed (I think) a belly wheel, near a stranded fatty in one sequence, and some Chopper graffito on one of the walls. It is a British movie, and the cityscape has been described as resembling Tower Hamlets, but I think we see a nice contrast between the ultra high tech equipment and the sordid, miserable everyday lives of the Mega citizens.

I had a slight problem with one huge set piece gun scene, which didn't really live up to the imagination of most of the others. A seemingly endless hail of bullets from several Gatling gun type weapons fails to nail Dredd as he simply runs just ahead of the barrage and then ducks beneath it before asking his Lawgiver for a High Ex shell to escape the trap. Even this was great fun, though, and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Go and see it, I urge you.

Brave

Did Barry Norman ever say: 'Hello, I'm Barry Norman'? I can't remember.

Anyway, I'm not Barry Norman, but here is my review of the current movie scene, film fans. I'm sure Barry Norman never said anything remotely resembling that, but I need to distract myself from the shambles that is Manchester City at the moment (despite - finally - the sale of Adrian Bayor, we still have Roque Santa Cruz on staff, so things will never be right while that state of affairs continue, if you ask me. If Liverpool hadn't insisted on Keystone Cops style defending, we wouldn't have got a point out of that) and present you with my review of the latest Pixar offering: Brave, which I went to see with the kids yesterday.

Wood Green is never the most salubrious of locations, and I have to say that my mood before going into the cinema wasn't lightened by an encounter with a group of rude and aggressive people outside the doors of the Mall, where the Cineworld 12 screen complex is located. I'm ashamed to say that I was so disconcerted by the behaviour displayed by this bunch of yahoos that I called them a word which I don't normally use, and of which I definitely don't approve. Mind you, I didn't say it very loud, because I wasn't keen on getting my head kicked in.

Which, I suppose, doesn't make me very brave, unlike the heroine of the piece on the big screen. There have been mutterings about comfortable corporate interference in the Pixar brand with this latest piece, which I'm sure the House of Mouse will carefully consider once it has finished banking the $67 million from its opening weekend and the other several million dollars from subsequent weekends, weekdays, consumer products, etc, etc... Sniffy references to Scottish stereotypes and cheap kilt gags are all very well, but me and the kids enjoyed it, so there.

In all seriousness, I think Disney need to be careful with the stupendous Pixar brand, because it really does have something special, and although I don't think any serious damage has been done with this, there are some troubling signs in the film's edging towards the more traditional Disney animation style of film. Some tremendous sequences were negatively balanced by exaggerated blocky characterisation.

Some talk has been expelled (who knows whether the Disney PR machine is responsible for this crap. It wouldn't surprise me) about Merrida being a lesbian because she doesn't want to marry any of the Jocko parody men laid before her as suitors. I call bullshit on this one, and would say that the story is ultimately a simple one about compromise and family love, given added weight by throwing in a witch and a giant psychotic bear. Hugely enjoyable nonetheless, and wonderfully enhanced by Billy Connolly's reference to Tatty Bogle (who featured in my formative years thanks to the Scottish fiancee of my City supporting uncle John)  in the opening few minutes.

Recommended ****.

Bleating and Babbling

More from Mr Cake now, and I for one think he is really getting into his stride here. Thanks Don.

In 2009 it was reported that Scottish seafood was being transported to China for processing and then returned to Britain for packaging and sale. A round trip of 10,000 miles.


Before the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003, British troops were tutored by BP in maintaining and running the oil-fields.

In June this year it was noted by ITN that Vodafone had paid no corporate tax the previous year.

Last year, according to The Daily Mirror, one third of Britain's public libraries were due to close because of government cuts.

"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."

For an effective magic trick, you need to mis-direct the audience. You don't want anyone around who knows how tricks work. Yuri Geller refuses to perform in front of professional magicians.

Our current economic system, our preposterous teetering ramshackle cathedral to Mammon, can only stay standing if everyone is made stupid enough to put their backs up to it and keep it up and swaying for longer. On no account must people be encouraged to ask, "Why?" or check, "How much?" or demand description or explanation from the people in charge. And certainly the bishops don't want anyone re-building it.

"This a test of lower-order thinking for the lower orders." - Professor Kelly, inventor of the multiple choice test, talking about multiple choice tests.

If profit is your motive, then a test that can be marked by a computer is very clearly the way to go. Who cares about communication, the only thing we do? In the fascistic environment of a corporation, the required skills are the ability to follow orders and not to ask your superiors for explanation. Keep your head down, don't rock the boat, and you will receive the rewards the system offers. And one of those rewards is entertainment.

In 1979 the following films were released: Alien, Being There, and The Life of Brian.

The first was a popular classic that owes much of its success to its originality of script and design. The second is a great essay on the poverty of our ability to communicate with each other. With laughs! The third was a magnificent parody of the stupidity stemming from religion. With huge laughs! The big movie studio refused to fund it. Fortunately, a top pop-star with a sense of humour wanted to see it. Hard to see any pop-star getting involved with something like this today. Not good PR.

In 2012, we get the following celluloid treasures with seemingly un-limited budgets: Prometheus, (an attempt to milk the Alien franchise) Expendables 2 (Big men shoot people who disagree with them.) The Avengers (Big men who are big famous brands destroy aliens in an entertaining fashion in a story meant for 14 year-old boys.) And, most damningly of all, The Amazing Spider-Man (where we are supposed to be amazed at a film that is a re-boot of a film from barely ten years ago that was based on a comic targeted at 14 year-old boys.)

"Monsanto, a chemical company, produces 90% of the world's genetically-modified seeds. Its GM crops need to be sprayed by a special chemical produced by.... Monsanto"

"Monsanto's aggressive tactics encourage farmers to turn each other in for using non-copyright seeds."

"Monsanto produced Agent Orange."

- Greenpeace.

If we must give our seed to Mammon, it becomes essential that nothing gets in the way of profit. Everything becomes subsumed to profit. Our systems and institutions naturally fall into step. The corporate institution can effectively only care about short-term gain, it is legally obliged to seek profit for its share-holders. What else can we expect? If we encourage a psychopath to go after money should we be surprised when non-performing environments, cultures and people get mown down before the money-harvester?

So, perhaps we need some new institutions? Some better ideas?

Except, the ability to consider new ideas through describing and explaining and asking and checking has fallen under the maniac's thresher.

And the most marvellous thing in the universe!

The most amazing thing in the universe!

The thing without which we are nothing, the source of all our pleasure!

A huge amount of time effort and money is expended to encourage us to... pour beer in it .

For the human brain is public enemy number one.

I expect The Avengers will be after it in the sequel.

Hoo-grah

Lovely win for City yesterday. Smashing match and all.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. It's been a while, so apologies to those in my readership who are fans, but I am at last able to return to the Planet of the Apes theme, having watched the latest Hollywood offering over the weekend. I speak of course of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which explores the question of: how did it happen? How did Charlton Heston (my spellchecker returned 'charlatan' and 'festoon' for the great man's [irony btw] name, amusingly enough) return from his space trip to find the primates in charge?

I have checked the canon (as some of my readers will be well aware) and the original French novel posits that the ape-dominated society of the films was actually on a planet (near Betelgeuse) called Soror. There, the ancient human inhabitants used primates to carry out menial tasks for them, being eventually overthrown due to their greed and cruelty. A further twist then has it that the human who had discovered the Soror ape-controlled planet escapes to Earth, 700 years in his own future, only to find that the same thing has happened there and the primates reign supreme. As far as I can tell, not having actually read the novel, there is no attempt to explain how the apes could have risen up and defeated the superior humans. The latest 'reboot', as I have heard it tiresomely described, attempts to address this glaring gap.

Warning! There are spoilers after the picture, so don't read on if you want to watch the film.

The premise of RotPotA is that a brilliant young scientist is developing a cure for Alzheimer's Disease (ALZ-112), which he is testing on chimps. A terrible mishap with a rampaging super ape during his big presentation to the board means that he is fortunate to keep his job, but he nevertheless has his project stopped, and all of his lab chimps are ordered to be destroyed. However, one baby chimp (Caesar - son of the aforementioned super ape) survives and is smuggled out by the scientist, to live with him and his (Alzheimer's afflicted) father in suburbia.

At the same time, with his father's illness worsening by the moment (he at one point - shock horror! - shouts at his carer) the scientist decides to secretly give him the ALZ-112, with immediate and startling results. His faculties not only return, they actually greatly improve, in tandem with Caesar starting to display the cognitive abilities of a human child some years his senior, even though he is kept shut in the loft at all times (the chimp, not the father). The crucial moment comes when the power of ALZ-112 wanes, and the old man begins to deteriorate at an alarming rate. This forces the scientist to try a risky development of his formula, coming up with... ALZ-113! in order to circumvent the immune system attacks which are rendering the original drug ineffective. With yet-to-be-revealed dreadful consequences...

Then, during an episode of dementia confusion (handled with a slightly uncomfortable, almost slapstick touch) Caesar loses his rag in defence of dear old dad, and attacks the next-door neighbour, biting the tip of his finger off. Despite the lipstick-y effect on his muzzle, it's never clear whether he swallows the tip or spits it out, but the neighbour is shown at the end of the film with a bandage on his digit. Caesar is not shot, but is taken to the animal refuge, and I am surprised that the state of California hasn't sued News Corporation for the ridiculous way in which the facility is portrayed. It is run by a sly and sadistic father (phoned in by Brian Cox) and sons group and houses about 300 chimps, one gorilla called Buck and an orangutan who is able to sign fluently thanks to his circus past (?!).

The upshot of it all is that Caesar nicks loads of ALZ-113 from the Gen-Sys lab (the brain-building effects of which can be passed on 'vertically') and up-skills his simian crew, while humans (notably, the next-door neighbour) exposed to the drug (now in handy smoke form!) start sneezing blood and dying horribly. Primate world domination, we can see, is not far away, requiring only a trip to New York, and a similar leap of faith in the audience's credulity, to close the circle.

The film is s-fx heavy, and some of the set pieces (especially the scene on the Golden Gate bridge) are quite entertaining - if more than faintly ludicrous, while the movement of the apes, as if they are superheroes or supernatural, rather grates. Caesar's face is too CGI, and he is less believable for that, although there was some genuine power in the moment of his first word - appropriately enough - NO! All in all, not a bad effort, even if not canon.

Baltic

One of the greats - no doubt about it. From The Magnificent 7 to Once Upon A Time In The West, to - of course - The Dirty Dozen. A mean, brooding presence you wouldn't dare cross in a hurry. I was never a huge fan of the Death Wish movies, but naturally Charlie Buchinsky played the part perfectly. If ever you needed a vicious psycho who is nonetheless basically good, you could always count on Charlie.

Typically for America, despite serving as a B29 crewman in the Pacific War and receiving a Purple Heart for his (literal) pains, Buchinsky changed his name to Bronson during the McCarthy era because anyone with a 'Slavic' name (he was, in fact, Lithuanian, but such details were - and are still in some cases - irrelevant) came under immediate suspicion of harbouring Communist sympathies. The fact that he couldn't speak English until he was in his teens doubtless gave his voice that unique timbre, which seemed to epitomise the tough guy archetype.

In The Dirty Dozen, he is plucked from Death Row, where he has been since being convicted of murder, to join the crew on their mission behind enemy lines.

He married his second wife, Jill Ireland, who was previously married to David McCallum, after reportedly telling McCallum on the set of The Magnificent 7:

"I'm going to marry your wife"

And that is about as direct as you can get.



Happy New Year to all. See you in 2011.

The Long Walk

Feeling as though I've been stumbling through the Cursed Earth over the past few days, plagued by a terrible cough which just won't go away, I think I am about ready to hand in my Judge badge and turn away from the Law once and for all. Still the wretched cough hacks at me, over one week after I came down with it, and the wind blows impotently against the blackened piles of snow lining the roads while that fucking Mariah Carey song comes on again in some shop or other. The chances are that I'll pick up the paper in the morning and read that some great actor has passed away.

But then - it's just Xmas after all. Building up and building up like some poisonous boil beneath the skin, only to be lanced in a moment, sometime after 3 o'clock. It has been a filmic few days (selected highlights: Avatar [8/10]; Where The Wild Things Are [5/10]; Megamind [7/10]) if truth be told, with my out-and-about-ness severely curtailed by family visits, this cough and the persistently awful weather. I have rated above a selection of the movies I've watched recently, and was most surprised by Avatar, which I've resisted since it came out. It was a highly watchable romp with a good message and some interesting pseudo-science. Where The Wild Things Are was an intriguing experiment from some very thin source material, but it wasn't really ho-ho-ho fare.  At the cinema, Megamind was good for a laugh and had a little bit of depth in exploring the concept of good and evil in a more mature fashion than many 'adult' films.

That's 399 posts completed since I started this thing, and only one more to go for 2010.

Crocker Shit

You may have noticed the presence of a ghost on here recently. Aptly enough, this ghost is a Toffee, so congratulations to his ectoplasmic form also on a barely deserved victory at Eastlands the other evening, which I had the misfortune of watching with him. Even if I had tried to punch him, my fist would have passed right through, but I didn't even get angry. Just goes to show that we do indeed bottle it at crucial moments. Or something like that. With 27 or so shots on goal (alas, only 4 on target, which - though decent - probably explains a lot) and 11 corners to their none, you would have expected a little more than the one solitary goal and no points to show for our pains. But, them's the breaks. We need better finishers (I'm looking at you, second only to Messi, Mario Balotelli...) I suppose you could say, though Kolarov came mighty close a couple of times; Tevez had one good shot well saved; Howard enjoyed one of his better games and Phil Neville got away with playing the bloody octopus all night long. My only criticism was that there was too much hopeful belting of the ball from the edge of the area when a bit more thought and craft might have delivered a more telling blow. Oh, and Tim Cahill really is an annoying little Aussie twat.

Moving on, we're well on to the meat of the Dirty Dozen now, and with the meat, time to bring Maggot into play. Who loves ya baby? Hero of many a boy from my generation as Kojak, Telly Savalas was a top star of the silver screen. During the mid 70s, every playground in England must have echoed with the word 'Crocker'; a million lollipops were surely brandished in the faces of fat kids with curly hair, and we even had our own 'Stav' who didn't seem to mind the sobriquet too much. He was a tough guy in Kojak - though of course with a heart of gold - and his character in the Dirty Dozen surprises somewhat if, like me, you saw the two things in the wrong chronological order. A nasty, racist rapist is Maggot, well suited to the horrors of war. Which I think sets the tone nicely for the climax of the festive season.

Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas!

Do Look Now

In a varied and interesting life during which he found time to not only father Kiefer but also Kate Bush as well, it is a challenge to historians to work out exactly what Mr Sutherland was up to in WW2.

As a vital cog in the well-oiled Nazi plan to assassinate Churchill, he thrilled his Irish compatriots with his eerie ability to control dogs and amuse grave-diggers. Yet our hero also found time to impersonate high-ranking officers as a vital member of the Dirty Dozen. And then serve in Korea.

Some clue as to what drives such a man might be found in the mob riots that Mr Sutherland was caught up in during the Great Depression. His part in the horrible murder of a hugely annoying child and subsequent brush with the law may well have led to a strong desire to stare down danger in the European Theatre. We might also see the heavy cloak of guilt in consequent experiments with orgone and the presentation to Albert Einstein of a Sex-box of his own invention.

In middle-age, Donald Sutherland would taste the fruits of all his deals with the Devil, as family tragedy resulted in a series of supernatural horrors leading to his own demise at the hands of a dwarf.

The fact that he continued in movies after this is surely a testament to his professionalism.

Cleveland Brown

After a night of yet more shameful Euro racism at City's draw with the Old Lady, I thought it would be worthwhile jotting down a few words in celebration of a great black man. Where the fuck do the Italians (and Spanish for that matter) get off with the fucking monkey noises? I mean, Russia, Serbia, Croatia... Though you can't condone it in these places, you can perhaps see why the vicious meatheads have some traction, what with the history of war and totalitarian regimes, as well as the lack of exposure to any kind of multi-culturalism. But Italy? All that stuff with Paolo Di Canio. It makes the blood run cold.

So, on to our celebration.

A football player for the Cleveland Browns, Jim Brown (b. 1936 - just a year after my own father's birth) went into acting after his sporting career had ended. He was a supreme athlete, excelling at (American) football, basketball, lacrosse and running. He is often described as the greatest player in NFL history, and that's going some. He was good at rushing or something - I've not really been a fan of NFL since I was a teenager, but I can of course appreciate how talented the guy must have been to receive such an accolade.

His character in The Dirty Dozen - Robert T Jefferson - was convicted of killing a white officer in self defence, and of course is deeply disliked by Telly Savalas' racist and psychotic Maggot (I don't mean that Telly had a racist psychotic maggot for a pet. He may have done, but I don't think so).

Jim has had quite an illustrious film career, going on to appear in such movies as Ice Station Zebra, The Running Man, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Mars Attacks!, and Any Given Sunday, among many others. He was also a regular in stuff like The A Team, TJ Hooker, Highway to Heaven, CHiPs and Knight Rider and would have spent a great deal of time gracing British TV screens on Saturdays and Sundays during the 80s. In the film 100 Rifles, he was lucky enough to play in supposedly the first interracial love scene with Raquel Welch. Lucky bastard. Still going strong as some sort of adviser to the Cleveland Browns, he seems also to be still making movies, with - according to IMDb - The Sandy Creek Girls currently in production. I mean, what's not to love about a guy like that?

I'm glad Jo got the equaliser to stick it to those fascist cunts.

Samson Posey

Here we go again with Samson Posey, a 'meek' criminal who is 'sentenced to death by hanging for the accidental killing of a G.I. in a bar room brawl' (I love that. What an excellent crime). Clint was best known for his role in Cheyenne during the 1950s, one of those strange phenomena, the cowboy weekly series - like Bonanza and High Chapparal - which were all the rage once upon a time.

Today was just running around and running around. Contradictions and challenges, not a moment to myself. You know the kind of thing: struggling through the fuckers at Victoria; receiving a phone call when you finally get there telling you that the meeting's delayed by twenty minutes; sitting in a meeting, tense as a piece of cheese wire, which goes on and on and on; getting back to the office and eating a cardboard egg sandwich; traipsing back through the fuckers at Victoria; sitting in a meeting where people point their faces at you; and back through the fuckers; and then again to play pool and darts in false bonhomie. Victoria Line delayed and the phone rings when you're getting your keys out. And Payroll fucks up and doesn't release your HR fucking record so you don't get your (first) pay cheque with a week till fucking Xhristmas.

Merry Clint-mas fuckers.

Lopez Tevez

I did say that Clint Walker would be up next, but events have conspired to make me consider a change. I hope all will become clear as the post unfolds and I introduce you to Trini Lopez.



Rooney set the tone, and now it seems that there will be no way back for the precious few who can command the total control of their employers with their celebrity status. When SAF rolled over and showed his soft Glaswegian belly to the blood sucking scumbags who 'run' professional players, it was the end of the beginning. If even this famous boot throwing disciplinarian would cave in to the rapacious demands of his Scouse prima donna's handler (use of the word 'agent' in these matters should of course be studiously avoided) Paul Stretford, then everyone else is sure to follow suit.

'Oh, I miss my kids so much. It's really nothing to do with money...' Bullshit. Pure and simple.

It's always about money in the end, and everyone knows it. If Carlos was really pining for his little darlings so much, why did he piss off to Tenerife during his recent ban instead of back to BA for a paternal cuddle and distribution of expensive plushes? The highest paid player in an extremely highly paid squad, in the middle of a 5 year contract, and agitating - or at least the odious Joorabchian, with his well-known links to Cook, the Sheikh, et al, is doing so - for more at the point of a virtual gun. It stinks like Rooney's cock after a night out in Kirkby. And if anyone can make any sense of this in the middle of a global recession, I'd like to hear it. I know that loyalty counts for little these days. The mercenary element of modern football is well and truly established, and there's little that can be done to change that, but I feel sick just watching it. The average City or even Rag (yes, you heard me!) fan may as well be spat on from a great height by these fuckers as they fork out their hard-earned cash for overpriced tickets.

I said it (or at least reported someone else saying it) when the Rooney saga was in full swing, and I'll say it again about Captain Carlos:

'Get rid!'

Now, Trini Lopez. An international chart topping recording artist (If I Had A Hammer) Trini was not so successful in film. He left The Dirty Dozen early, and the script was hastily re-written to accommodate his departure. For that reason, I thought it appropriate that this post should be about him and not Clint Walker. Dirty.

Busby babe

Buoyed by not one, but two compliments on Twitter about this thing yesterday, and (by the sound of it) a real stonker from Yaya against the Hammers, I'm still carrying a warm glow and feeling ten feet tall. But the fact remains that the pressure of compiling 12 posts in a busy month is beginning to tell.

Nearly through the Back Six now, with number 5 - Tom Busby. Tom (1936-2003) was a Canadian actor who played Milo Vladek in The Dirty Dozen. Looking at some of the comments on his iMDB page, it seems that Tom was something of a character, described as 'not a saint' but nonetheless a real human being. He spent the final years of his life in the West End of Glasgow, where he shuffled off this mortal coil. His career doesn't appear to have been particularly illustrious, but I think I would have liked to have had a bevvy or two with him and listened to some of his stories.

Just like Ben Carruthers' character, Milos was sentenced to 30 years' hard labour before being picked for the suicide (well, for almost all of them anyway) mission on the bridge.

Next up, Clint Walker.

Not With A Bang

I've more or less given up now. Ben Carruthers - number 4 in the Back Six - played Glenn Gilpin, who was sentenced to 30 years' hard labour. He died of liver failure at the age of 47, and his son played drums briefly with Megadeth. That is all.

I spent much of my formative years (defined for me as between 16-35ish. Challenge this if you like) angrily railing against the current set-up of the Capitalist military-industrial complex and yearning for some kind of anarchist state.  (Apart from an early, brief, and – as I look back on it now – rather bizarre fixation with Nazism. Please don’t judge me. I was young and foolish, had grown up in a very provincial town where even now the BNP poll double the votes [3.2% against 1.6%] of the Green Party, and knew less than nothing about the world. I discovered socialism at about the same time as I discovered pot and patchouli. In any case, if you read this regularly, you’ll know that I’m as left leaning as they come, so I really don’t need to explain away my spotty 15 year-old self) This I suppose was never explored in any great detail, but rather grew out of the sense of anger and sadness at the inequalities in our world. Things just weren’t (and aren’t – let’s face it) right, and something had to be done. However, what that something was did not take shape, and did not seem in any way imminent. Now, after watching the hundreds of police queue for their free breakfast in the staff canteen this morning, as I listen to yet more helicopters hovering above, and as I keep an eye on the Guardian website for updates on the latest student protest, it all seems just that little bit more tangible.

The other night, while I was uploading a YouTube video, Twitter was keeping me up to date with the anonymous DDoS attacks on VISA, and for a moment I was very conflicted. Here was the potential for real progress at last – a sophisticated attack on one of the very pillars of the establishment in response to government efforts to stem the tide of transparency oozing out through the Wikileaks gash. The power of anonymous seemed quite stunning. Out of the blue, a major financial institution was temporarily brought to a standstill by a group of internet users. And this was a good thing. Something which I could applaud as a demonstration of activism and the ability of ordinary people (who know a fair bit about computers) to strike back.

But then a nagging doubt began to claw at the back of my mind. My cash card carries the VISA marque. I remembered the original financial meltdown as Alastair Darling announced the cash injections to save the banking system, and the genuine fear I felt at the time that it really could go tits up. I was on the verge of withdrawing the paltry sum which resided in my bank account at that time, because it all seemed terrifyingly close. Those DDoSs reminded me of that time. I began to think of those things involving VISA on which I – and those close to me – depend, and it all seemed so terribly inconvenient, so bloody scary if you like. This is obviously related to my advancing years and the fact that I have realised just how vulnerable I am, just how potentially close to a life on the street. All my youthful exuberance evaporated.

Roscoe Lever

Well, I always intended to add something extra into these Dirty Dozen posts, so that they were not simply mini bios of the actors in the film (though some of the more famous ones would surely make interesting reading) but having reached number 3 in the Back Six now with Stuart (sometimes known as Stuart W) Cooper, who played Roscoe Lever (sentenced to 20 years in prison - note the absence of the 'hard labour' element) without an idea as to how I can avoid shoehorning (or even Shoestringing) the usual bilious guff about Man City or politics or commuting into a piece about an ageing American thespian from Hoboken, New Jersey (that is one cool place name) I'm no longer so sure.

The previous post on Alan Mancini was something of a shoo-in (or a Shoestring-in) given the perhaps too obvious connections with the great Italian saviour of a city's pride, as well as the eponymous opportunities, but Stuart is proving to be a little more problematic. What's more galling is that I have placed myself behind a fence of my own creation, with this silly idea of completing 100 posts a year - 88 to be done by December - just to continue a tradition I started a couple of years ago by posting tenuously on the twelve days of Christmas theme.

I've already made a decision to revamp this thing in the new year, but am forcing myself to finish off the current crop in the style to which my loyal followers have grown accustomed (which is, with a lot of meaningless waffle) and so am gradually painting myself into a corner. Therefore, I'll try something outside the box.

This week, I laughed with my friend Charlie about Scott Parker's obvious association with the Thunderbirds. I read a particularly amusing atack on West Ham's throbbing gristly heart in the previous week's NOTW, in which the hack ripped 'skipper' apart for being a prima donna, and I have no great love for the player in any case. So Charlie and I were imagining Scotty receiving a hand job from Lady Penelope, where the usual Thunderbird trick of using a human hand for close-ups is employed. Charlie (and he is an authority on such trivia) told me that the hand used was Sylvia Anderson's, and so we extended our fantasy by having this hand the current one on the end of Sylvia's arm, all twisted and liver spotted with age as it feverishly pumps away at Scott's knob. Charlie took things a little too far I thought by introducing Avram Grant as an interloper who proceeds to stick it in Scotty's poo while Sylvia continues her work. I pointed out (perhaps a little ungraciously) that Avram's penis would undoubtedly require string to hold it up if he did indeed plan on sodomising his midfield general.

Stuart Cooper has a long history in film and theatre, which - as far as I can tell - is still a history in the making. He appears to be directing a film called Magic Man, starring Billy Zane, although it itsn't clear if there is a release date yet. Apart from the Dirty Dozen, Stuart appeared mostly in various TV series before moving into directing (again, mostly for TV movies) and producing. He also has a few writing credits, largely within the documentary field. Unlike Al Mancini, he didn't feature hugely on the British scene.

Alan Mancini

On to the second of the Back Six, and there really couldn't be a more suitable choice at the moment, combining as he does two of the great football references of the moment for any City fan - Al Mancini.

Let it roll around your palate for a while. Say it a few times. Al Mancini. The great Al Mancini. OK, he may not actually have been called Alan, but that's a minor detail. Born 1932 in Ohio, Al was a real trooper, rather more prolific than Colin Maitland, and definitely more recognisable, even to the hopeless Bing (actually, I don't wish to labour a point, but compare the two results for Al Mancini at the links [Google] here [Bing]. One brings up a good selection of images for the actor, while the other throws up a load of cats and the Manchester City manager. I will say no more...) than the Shoestring man. His character - Tassos Bravos - was, like Colin, sentenced to 20 years hard labour before being drafted into the Dirty Dozen. Needless to say, he dies defending the bridge at the end of the movie.

Al appeared in TW3 in the early 60s and had a hugely varied career, appearing in many of the staple TV programmes of my youth, such as Special Branch, UFO, Rhoda and The Protectors - to name but a few. He even did a few Jackanory slots, and towards the end of his life appeared in some big box office films like Miller's Crossing and Falling Down. He died of Alzheimer's disease shortly before his 75th birthday in London Ohio, not far from where he was born.

In short, Al was one of the greats. Even without the fabulous Alan de Carvalho stuff after the Salzburg match, I would pay homage to such a great actor. With it, there is just so much added weight to my love.

Colin

Fresh from the hilarity of the City fans chanting of my name at the Salzburg match the other night, it's time for my annual festive 12 parter to start. This year, I am writing about a great war film. Hope you enjoy it.

I used to watch Shoestring regularly. I think it was about a sleuthing DJ in Bristol. Some light research proves me correct, and adds the forgotten detail that he was a traumatised computer expert before becoming Radio West’s ‘private ear’, and the programme was possibly shown on a Sunday night, around 9 o’clock. I actually really enjoyed it at the time, but (and Dave Gorman recently mentioned this in relation to a strange episode in his life where he watched the pilot of The Six Million Dollar Man at the Cannes Film Festival. The programme, he said, just looked so terribly dated, and ended up causing much hilarity among the audience) I’m sure the same would not apply now. A regular contributor to Shoestring was The Sound Engineer, played by Colin Maitland. I had a great deal of difficulty turning up a picture of Mr Maitland via Bing image search (it’s extremely irritating to be directed towards people who are either a) Colin Maitland, but not the Colin Maitland; b) people called Maitland but not Colin; or worst of all, c) people called Colin but not Maitland!) and, although his images appear to be in short supply (fame is fickle, isn’t it?) Google demonstrated its superiority by displaying two pictures of the main man immediately. Followed by loads of people who aren’t him.

Colin was born in 1942 in Birmingham. He played perhaps the least famous member (one could perhaps say even, the least famous of the 'Back Six') of the Dirty Dozen – Seth Sawyer. All I can seem to discover about the character is that he was sentenced to 20 years hard labo(u)r. And that he dies (by means of a very specific weapon) after being shot down from a roof. It looks as if Colin’s personal life after the Dirty Dozen may have been just as much of a slog. Well, not really, but you get my drift.

Prior to his big break, he appeared as Charlie Sedgewick in Lolita (1962) and as Seaman Jones in The Bedford Incident (1965) which is a ‘highly rated Cold War submarine thriller’. I saw Lolita, didn’t particularly enjoy it, but can’t recall watching The Bedford Incident, though reading about it, I think I would like to. In neither film can I remember Colin Maitland.

It just goes to show how hard it must be to break into the big time. The Dirty Dozen was the number 1 box office film of 1967, and made a net profit of over $18,000,000 – a pretty tidy sum over 40 years ago I would imagine. How much of this money got through to someone like Colin is anyone’s guess. Probably not a huge proportion of it, but one would have thought that the part would at least look pretty good on the guy’s CV and provide him with a springboard for greater things. But it was not to be.

Capitulation

It's a sterile world these days. I've always hated lunchtime kick-offs for 'derby' games (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean these days) and lunchtime kick-offs on a Sunday simply add insult to injury. "Ooh, we can't have those nasty football fans getting drunk and fighting each other, now can we?" Fucking load of shite. I only expected us to lose today in any case, but it's more the manner of the defeat than losing the game.

That's what sticks in the throat.

You may as well not put your team out if you're not going to have a go at it. Where was the fire for today's shameful performance? Nowhere t0 be seen. And it's not as if the game didn't have any importance (stuffing the Rags always aside) as we could have perhaps sowed some seeds of doubt in their title hopes, and push us forward into the frigging Europa League spot - poisoned chalice as that may now be.

To cap it all, the weekend is slowly oozing away and heading towards the inevitable car crash of another day in the office tomorrow. Bollocks to that.

So instead of taking the optimism of at least a decent City performance with me when I go in, I will be haunted by the visions of Coraline (a film I would recommend highly, btw. So good that even French & Saunders were amusing) and dream of buttons getting sewn into my eyes.

Counter-strike

With thanks to www.quinn.echidna.id.au/.../index.html for this stunning and very depressing image.

Conscious as I am of the - shall we say - lack of effort in my last post (though I stand by my right to sing a paean to the boys from Charterhouse, who were such an important part of my teenage years, I do admit that a little more time could and should have gone into the piece) I will now attempt an immediate rebuff with a review of Disney/Pixar's latest offering - Wall.e, which I saw yesterday afternoon. I may well end up dropping a spoiler or two, so please be warned.

Much has been made of this movie, backed up of course with the usual juggernaut of House of Mouse publicity, and having watched it for myself now, I can see where some of the more thoughtful reviewers were coming from. As we have come to expect with the Pixar crowd, the quality is superb (though still somewhat lacking in its depiction of humans) with some truly stunning scenes for us all to enjoy. The film is also immensely brave by modern standards, with the first 30 minutes or so capturing a post-apocalyptic world of discarded waste and the tiny details of the life of the waste collecting robot - Wall.e - as he continues his 700 year long 'directive' of compacting and stacking the massive quantities of rubbish thrown away by the long-departed human race. There is no dialogue for (I think) 23 minutes, and some very touching moments illustrating the utter loneliness of Wall.e's life, by the use of (of all things) Michael Crawford in Hello Dolly.

The logo of the mega corporation Buy 'n' Large is everywhere, from shopping malls to railway stations and airports. It even supplants the President's seal in a TV broadcast - given by the CEO of the company. All of this is superb, and gives the film a bleak and sinister feel, though this is leavened by a good bra gag, and some cute moments with the cockroach sidekick. All in all, extremely promising, and not exactly what you would expect from a mainstream movie of this kind.

My youngest, who is seven, said that she thought this was not a movie for children, and I tended to agree at that point, though there came a noticeable change after about 40 minutes. Eve, the sleek iPod to Wall.e's SE, arrives and - needless to say - catches the eye of the little rubbish collector. There are some stand out moments of what I suppose you would call courtship between the two robots and then we end up on board the Axiom, which is the equivalent of one of the Golgafrinchan arks from H2G2, equipped as it is with the long-departed Earthers, who have been sitting in a gas nebula waiting for the home planet to heal itself, growing immensely fat (though not as fat perhaps as the current US population) and increasingly insular as they hover around on their electric chairs, their every whim attended to by an army of robots. An unanswered question for me is: what happened to the poor people? Could everyone afford to go aboard in this capitalist society? I think not, and it would I think have been far more intriguing to have explored this angle.

There has been some criticism of the film's premise from some on the right in the US, which - surprisingly - I find myself agreeing with. It's as if the director chickened out and opted for a softer direction as the Ark returned to earth (thanks to a rebellion led by Wall.e and Eve, natch, with a fairly disappointing HAL story line to boot) to start all over again, producing, consuming and dumping. What's to stop this new earth ending up the same as the old one?

Is it really likely at the end of the day that Disney is going to send out a message of moderation whilst pushing 15 billion tons of Chinese made plush on the back of each release? Sad to say, it all ended up feeling a little hollow.

Animated

I have a friend who says he doesn't like animated films. The subject arose as a result of my visit to the local Odeon to see the latest Pixar outing, Ratatouille ("rat.a.too.ee" - how annoying is that? Are we really so dumb that we can't pronounce that word?)

Anyhoo, some of the reviews I've read were very complimentary about the film (in particular of Peter O'Toole, and who can argue with that?) saying (yet again) that it was as good as Toy Story. How many times that's been said I don't care to remember, and so far - including Ratatouille - it has proved to be false. So I took the kids along and was a little disappointed.

Don't get me wrong - this is an accomplished film, IMO - with some goodish gags, nice animation and reasonable characters. I'm not sure about the female love interest, and the fat brother could do with further development, if you see what I mean. He's fat. Ha ha. It just doesn't reach the heights of perfection that TS (and to a slightly lesser extent TS2) achieved. There are a couple of reasons for this, I think.

Notwithstanding the Great Mr O'Toole's performance, the idea of an arch-villain (I know that he doesn't end up as an arch-villain - hoping I'm not dropping a spoiler here - but he does take that role until just before the end) being a critic doesn't really curdle the blood or shiver the spine in the way that an arch-villain should. Think of Sid. No food critic he.

Second, and this is endemic these days, the film was too damn' long. Second act syndrome badly effected the pacing, and like most modern animations (and even live action) movies, it could and should have ended at least half an hour earlier than it did. I don't feel that it's right that I'm itching to get out of the cinema when I'm watching a children's movie.

But, it was better than The Incredibles (what's the point of that film?) better than Finding Nemo (good moments, not strong enough over the entire length) not as good as Monsters Inc... wait... Not only is this a little Pepsi Blue (and do Disney Pixar, like, need any more promotion?) I think it would also benefit from a little listifying.

So here, in reverse order, are my top 10 modern (since 1994, so that excludes Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and Beauty & The Beast - all good) and mainstream animated movies. Classics (this term does not include Oliver & Company, no matter what it says on the DVD packaging) are a whole other bottle of bees and for another day. As for my animation unfriendly friend. Pshaw! The films listed are at least as good as any live action movie, so there!

10. Small Soldiers. Scary. I like the bit where the dolls are climbing all over the girl, and the sinister corporation element is always a winner for me, no matter what the film.

9. The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. There are a couple of annoying things about this, namely the smudgy finish to Quasimodo's face and in particular his all-American voice and demeanour. However the darkness of Frollo is genuinely dark, he is a well rounded villain. And the early scene with Quasimodo's mother is wonderfully done.

8. Wallace & Grommit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit. English. Great gags. I'm extremely saddened that the Nick Park venture with Dreamworks didn't take off in the US, because we are talking pure quality. Nuff said.

7. Antz. Woody Allen. Bit of Ovitz digging at Mouschwitz. I need to watch it again.

6. Ice Age. Apart from Sid's too zany face (you don't have to try that hard, guys) this has some tremendous slapstick moments, a brilliant running gag with the squirrel, and a decent villain. Close contender with No. 5.

5. Monsters Inc. Some pointless filling I felt, but overall a real barrel of laughs. The door concept is superbly realised, and Billy Crystal excels.

4. Two in a row, followed by two in a row. Shrek 2. What's not to like about Mike Myers? Not even the Cat in the Hat. Although a little more mannered than the first in the franchise, it's still a stand-up film.

3. Shrek. Rightly generating a franchise. Having seen all three, the deterioration hasn't been too terrible at all. Shrek makes me laugh. A lot.

2. Not in the best tradition of Sir Jimmy Saville, I have removed the suspense from this countdown with my earlier comments. At Number 2 is the mighty Toy Story 2 (please read that link. There are some seriously crazy people in the USA, and the pastiche is not too far off the reality, I can assure you). Where it falls behind its even more illustrious forerunner is hard to define. I used to think it was to do with the music, but I love Jessy's song. Perhaps it's the overly retro nature of the Woody franchise... In any case, I'm splitting hairs.

1. Now then, now then guys and gals. In with a bullet, and not likely to be dislodged for some time yet, in a Bohemian Rhapsody kind of way... It's... Disney Pixar's timeless masterpiece... Toy Story. I thank yew.

disney

animation