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Reviews
The Glam Metal Detectives (1995)
Funkin' Justice For All!
...or something. Come to think, maybe funkin' wasn't exactly what they had in mind, but I was a dirty-minded child (about 9 or 10 around the time this was showing) and if it was I didn't pick up on it. As far as I can remember, Glam Metal Detectives set itself up as a post-pub trawl through various cable channels and programmes, the main one concerning a troup of old-school, mullets-and-fishnets rockers who toured the world (even reaching London, In-guh-land)solving mysteries. In a van. There was also Bloodsports Live, coming direct to your front room from car parks at kicking-out time nationwide; Betty's Mad Dash, a film about two fraightfully-fraightfully flappers on a NBK-style crime spree; George Yiasoumi, who thought he was the Godfather and was followed everywhere by two thugs who hummed the theme tune; Mick Jagger's Hamlet and, uh, not that many more. It was very funny, very sweet and very strange. Judging from its limited distribution and the fact that no one I've ever met has heard of it, it was also an aquired taste. Maybe I'm just recalling it through the rosy contact lenses of nostalgia but for this up-too-late 9 year old, GMD was a taste well worth aquiring. Besides which, it shoes the hell out of Smack The Pony.
Sinners (2002)
Not since 'Bottom' .....
************SPOILERS MAYBE************
Not since 'Bottom' when I was six have I felt this strongly about telly.It was on late and when it finished I just went and sat in my room.I couldn't sleep.I couldn't swallow.I thought I was going mad.Why hadn't I known? Why hadn't anyone told me that in Ireland in the 60s the church and state could imprison a woman for as long as they damn pleased for being raped at the wrong time of the month? Magdalen Laundries, where you sent your dirty linen to be washed by women who were pregnant out of wedlock.Who couldn't leave unless two men signed them out.Whose babies were given to nice rich families soon as they were born.Well, not THAT soon.They had long enough to get attatched to them.Broken glass and barbed wire lined the walls.Nothing was done to the babies fathers.Now I knew. As well as being a heart and brain tearing education,Sinners is well made drama.Great performances from everyone, including Ruth McCabe as the evil mother superior,Anne-Marie Duff as the new girl who starts to rail against the system that she always presumed knew what was best,and Elaine Symons, the bitchy ditz from Custer's Last Standup who was always funnier than her brother,here an 8-months-gone teenager jiving through the wrung-out hell of the laundry to Cilla Black with her best mate (who gets sent somewhere even worse when Theresa advises her to tell someone the truth about the resident priest.) By the late 70s most of the Magdalen Laundries-most of them-had closed down.Partly because of feminism,but mainly because by then most people had acess to a washing machine.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
"I'm fingering my head and talking like Clinton! Gis an oscar!"
You see a great film.You go off reeling with how dark and cruel and true it was, or the way the set made it look like you could step iinto the screen,or that bit that was so funny you splurted popcorn all over the row in front,or how cool,or better-than-oscar,or sexy,one of the actors was. You see a crap film.You go off reeling with how stupid the end was,or how funny that line was that wasn't meant to be funny, or how disgusting it was when you could see her implant scars. You feel SOMETHING.Usually. But A Beautiful Mind was the most BLAND piece of...er...film since someone dropped a camcorder in their Reddybrek.A film about minds,maths and love with no brain,content or heart.There was no feeling in the direction, and, due to the performances,no reason to add your own. I like Russel Crowe.I'd barely hit puberty when I saw L.A Confidential, and I still remember how scary and hopeless he was.But this job is a horse of a different colour.It's self conscious,calculated down to the last trudging step and head-finger.It's GREEDY. It's not possible to tell from this movie whether Jennifer Conelly can act or not.I bet she can, but they could've given her something to act with.The only actors who made me sit up were Paul Bettany as Nash's total-opposite,randy roommate and Ed Harris as the quiet,murderous FBI man, and they didn't even SPOILER ALERT SPOILER ALERT NEE NA NEE NA bloody exist,and so didn't have much to do outside of John Forbes Nash Jr's beautiful brain SPOILER OVER SPOILER OVER RETURN TO YOUR HOMES AND PLACES OF BUSINESS. Of the 4 other girls I saw this with-beautiful intelligent teenagers- 3 came out of the room dripping all over the nice red carpet.And the other one had enjoyed it, so I'm the odd one out in every damn respect.And I think I'm in a bit of a minority here too.Some people believe.Some people puke. It's the same with love I guess.
Jackass (2000)
You've Been Framed BY the people,FOR the people
...and without any footage of cats hilariously opening doors or people forcing little kids in bridesmaid and page outfits to hit eachother. Jackass is a group of trained professionals(cool git Johnny Knoxville,friends,aunties and hangers-on),skater dudes and prats with cameras doing things-biking off a ramp over a sewer-pipe trickle,artificially inseminating a really CALM cow,being used as target practice by the fire brigade,wrapping a thin man in steak and feeding him to alsatians,wrapping a fat man in bubble wrap and riding him through an olympic sized... you watch, you laugh, and after growing up on You've Been Framed and the like, you feel a bit like the innocent girl in some softcore romantic flick-"I didn't know it could be like...this.." Thank you Meter Fairy.