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God will forgive them, won't he? |
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posted by
splush
15:10:04
1:13pm
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I went to see Warp Films' latest production, Dead Man's Shoes last week and I feel obligated to tell you that it's very much worth seeing. It's directed by Shane Meadows, who I admittedly hadn't heard of, but IMDB informs me he's sometimes credited as Lord Shane Meadows of Eldon which is pretty awesome by anybody's standards. Paddy Considine, who I'd only seen previously in the first Warp film (Chris Morris' short but draining My Wrongs #8245-8249 and 117), was one of the writers as well as playing the lead role: a mysterious character who returns from serving in the army to seek revenge on a local gang who abused his slightly retarded brother in his absence.
What begins as a straightforward gruesome revenge tale escapes melodramatic cliché thanks to simple camera work, bland acoustic guitar music and a down-to-earth rural setting. The film takes place in and around an unnamed English Midlands town, which goes a long way towards achieving an ambience which has film critics reaching for their theasaurus to avoid using the word "gritty". The protagonist's targets make up an unusually believable small-time gang of unsophisticated dealers and stoners, although the latter do verge alarmingly towards 'wackiness' a couple of times. Not that this film doesn't have a place for humour - there's a lot of dark comedy in the first 30 minutes which is increasingly marginalised as the body count rises. As the film progresses we learn more about the gangs' crimes through grainy black and white flashbacks, which is hardly original but it fits the modest look of the film and avoids unnecesary unnatural dialogue while polarising your opinions and emotions towards the various characters.
What makes me so enthusiastic about Dead Man's Shoes is how it rises above the straightforward revenge story at just the right moment, evolving into a beautifully measured meditation on guilt and punishment. This is implimented with a potentially irritating plot twist, but it is backed up so perfectly by a shift in the characters' emotions and intentions that it succeeds, for me, in creating a revenge film conseriably more intelligent than the norm, without being pretentious or preachy.I don't know if the writers intended it, or if I'm overanalyzing again, but I got the feeling as the camera swooped over the countryside to dramatic choiral music at the end that the film was, to an extent, an indictment of small rural communities, which put me in mind of of Dogville, one of my favorite films last year.
Dead Man's Shoes will please lovers of revenge films, gruesome murderous rampages, explorations of the extremes of guilt and punishment, or simply proffesional British films which haven't been tainted by the evils of Richard Curtis. Also it's never a bad thing to have a retarded film character who isn't an annoying gimmick put there to blackmail the audience's emotions. He isn't a retard with a heart of gold, he doesn't save the world with his little-known retard superpowers, He's just a guy who happens to be retarded. You can watch the trailer here.
And now for some political news, aww hells yeah!
If you're like me and don't really see eye-to-eye with Robert Kilroy-Silk's current employers, the UK Independence Party, you might enjoy this. In short, some Labour MEP I hadn't heard of wrote a pamphlet called "25 Things You Didn't Know When You Voted for UKIP" and published it. Now the UKIP are angry because, presumably, it makes them look like foolish racist thugs, and are trying to have the pamphlet destroyed. You can read a PDF of it here, it's a bit long but there's some choice quotes and facts, funny and scary in equal measure, showing (most significantly) the UKIP's connections with the BNP. I notice the BNP have a really ugly website, maybe you should offer to make them a new one, Ash? |
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Welcome to the world of tommorow! |
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posted by
splush
3:10:04
8:47pm
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Despite not giving it any real thought, I have been resolutely skeptical towards Microsoft's X-Box Live online gaming service since its inception. There's just so many things to be skeptical about, it's a logical
target for the informed nay-sayer. It caters to the hardcore 10+ hour-per-week nay-sayer and the casual weekend nay-sayer, and operates on your existing preconceptions with minimal
fuss.
Fuck you, Microsoft.
Consoles need online play like blogs need regular updates, which is to say: they don't. Nintendo agree with this, and Nintendo clearly love gaming unlike the bumbling Microsoft who made
Hover, and the evil Sony who basically crippled my beloved Sega with their trendy marketing
and that absurd boom-tisk music that kids seem to get so much out of. Nintendo made the Super Monkey Ball franchise, most notably the Monkey Bowling mini-game, so I'll side with those
crazy kids. Fuck you, internet! [Note: Sega were in favour of online console gaming but mentioning it would hurt my point.]
Furthermore, I assumed X-Box Live would cost far too much, and I have a fear of paying monthly subscription fees for anything. This is also my reason for ignoring MMORPGS, although I
disguise it by making up additional reasons (It's just IRC with a 3-year old 3D engine and gnomes/You're just hacking away at frogs until you get a high enough level to hack at slightly
larger frogs!/I heard that some Everquest player got gang raped by his guild-mates when they had a real life guild meeting!). I paid something like £160 for your console, paid £25 for a
second controller, paid £20 to be able to watch DVDs on it and I put up with the year long blight of decent games which started immediately after I finished Halo, how dare you
charge me a monthly fee to play laggy online games with 12 year olds called D4rkSnyp3r. Fuck you, Microsoft!
Enough about my preconceptions, the point is that I just got X-Box Live and it's not bad, it's actually really, really good. It turns out it only costs £40 for a year which is approximately
what I spend on Trebor's utterly delightful Extra Strong Mints. I don't mean to imply that I traded my kissably fresh breath to be able to play console games online, I offer this only as an
illustrative example. For further illustration I could point out that Extra Strong Mints have 397kcal of energy per 100g, while X-Box live contains no calories at all. I think you're
starting to come round to my way of thinking now: Fuck you, Trebor!
An important thing Trebor forget to include with every £40 of Extra Strong Mints is a headset allowing real-time voice communications with your mint eaters. Maybe if they hadn't been so
sloppy I would be able to eat my mints while listening to two French men banter about their poor performance, or experience the much-lauded American phenomenon of 'Trash Talk' for the
first time. Thankfully X-Box live has welcomed me into a world of trash talk and let me assure you; it's such a beautiful world that the briefest glimpse of it will make you drop to your
knees and cry tears of Glenmorangie. I'd been playing Project Gotham Racing 2 on some German
guy's rather speedy server for some time, having announced that I was new to X-Box live and feeling fairly welcome. Suddenly, for the first time, I took first place near the start of a race,
stealing it from a thus-far silent player by rather inelegantly slamming him into a wall. Suddenly I heard an American voice say "So Splush, you're new to X-Box Live? Then you can get
your first taste of payback!". That was it, that was exactly what I'd needed for so long: no longer was I a guy playing computer games alone in his room, I was suddenly
playing a starring role in an '80s teen movie in which I had to overcome the odds and win the race to save the youth centre and get the girl! While I was fairly confident that I was a bad
enough dude to do all this and perhaps even save the President, my opponent hadn't read the script and easily regained his position, coming in first. My dreams might have been
irreparably shattered, but in the next race I claimed the very British moral victory when my Yankee nemesis left with a shower of curses after oversteering on an important corner
and falling to last place.
I'm afraid this has been a rather long-winded way of saying I got X-Box Live and I enjoy it, but this blog has never been anything other than long-winded and frankly you're a fool for
expecting anything else. My 'Gamertag' is SplushOne and it would be neat-o if you'd add me to your list, assuming you have X-Box Live (you really should get it, stop being negative!). I
have Project Gotham Racing 2, Ghost Recon and Crimson Skies, and I wouldn't be surprised if Star Wars Battlefront joined them. |
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Why trust one drug and not the other, that's politics innit? |
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posted by
splush
1:09:04
5:17am
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About 8 years ago I came across a fascinating full page advertisment in PC Gamer magazine (back when it was funny and informative, you'll note)
which featured an apparently naked lady carefully straddling a chair so that both the minor and major Sexbits™ were obscured by the chair's back. I
can't say for sure, but I have a nagging feeling that the game being promoted was the ill-fated Battlecruiser 3000 A.D. by notorious egomaniac Dr. Derek Smart, PhD. There was probably a cripplingly brilliant slogan like "Set thrusters to
hyperboobs!" or "Bogeys at vag-o-clock!", I can't remember, stop hassling me.
Anyway, the advert itself is not the interesting part of this indisputably vital anecdote. After all, boobs have always been employed in endearing bad
games to the adolescent readership of gaming magazines. The intruiging part of the story unfolded a few weeks later when I found the same ad in
rival (and let's face it, deeply inferior) magazine PC Zone. I'm sure you'll have no trouble believing that I had studied the first instance of the ad in
considerable detail, partly because I subconciously noted that I might like to write about it some time in the next century, and partly because I was,
like all teenagers, a despicably horny scallywag. Being so well versed in the intricacies of the piece, I instantly noticed the difference in PC Zone's
interpretation: while the photo was otherwise identical, the girl was suddenly wearing panties! Leather panties! What the snacks?
I'm no fool, I realise that publishers differ in the ads they'll print, but the problem which promted a good forty seconds of debate between my friend
Cameron and I was whether the underwear had been added or removed. If the world-shaking ramifications of this quandry don't make
themselves immediately apparent to you, don't feel too bad, some people are just innately simple-minded. Keep thinking about it and you'll get it,
champ. If it makes you happy you can look at it as a metaphor for the choice faced by American voters in their forthcoming election, whatever.
Having mentioned my school friend Cameron I'd feel bad if I didn't relate to you his most pronounced character trait: Cameron was a liar (yeah, he
did have a comedically oversized head but that's hardly a character trait, genius). Cameron wasn't the bad sort of liar, like a doctor
who keeps giving you a clean bill of health while you steadily accumulate a strong hand of horrible diseases, or a policeman who says your statement
is off the record while he crosses his fingers under the desk. Cameron was the good sort of liar, a genuine lie artist whose creations were
entirely harmless and consistantly hilarious. His glory days were in Primary school when both he and his audience were joyously naive, allowing him to
channel his pre-teen machismo into gems like: "One time I was bungee jumping and the rope snapped!". While high school did inevitably sap
some of his lie creativity, I do have fond memories of him trying to convince me that his mother's 1950s suburban bungalow was a listed building.
Cameron and I grew apart during high school, mainly because he was basically a rather loathsome idiot, but then weren't we all fairly abhorrent as
teenagers? I dedicate this tiny part of the internet to Cameron the Liar.
My shame in failing to update for two months is superseded only by the embarrasment of my return being marked by such a tedious, pointless and
irredeemably silly update. I guess the reason why I'm even writing this is that I've got a horrible cold preventing me going out (and, indeed, breathing
reliably), and the fan on my video card died, prohibiting me from wasting my time fighting zombies in the current installments in the Doom and Thief series. I've actually got some things to
say so hopefully I'll update shortly with something less likely to make you despise me, unless of course a replacement VGA fan arrives before I get
round to it. |
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Well it wasn't my fault I got so terribly ill I had to order you to cancel your birthday party. |
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posted by
splush
6:07:04
4:29am
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Hello unwary reader, please be warned that this blog entry is about me and mundane events in my unremarkable life
and you would be well advised to run away. Run away and don't look back.
Last week was my 22nd birthday, an unexciting year celebrated in uninventive style: in pubs. Edinburgh pub fans
will be fascinated to know that we went to the Holyrood Tavern and Nicol Edward's. I got birthday presents (I'll get
to that shortly) but don't feel bad because you get presents too, your presents come in the form of pictures of me.
Note that my presents were real and much better.
This is a photo of me sitting too close to the flash, and my friends Chris and Jamie sitting at a more appropriate
distance:
This is me getting some good wholesome manlove from Andy. Fun fact about Andy: he took a picture of his balls
while nobody was looking and I got an unpleasant surprise when I looked at my photos later, yep. Now you're wondering whether I can identify his balls by sight or he admitted to it, and I'm not telling.
This is a group of people whose names I can't be bothered listing, I don't think you'll lose any sleep over that:
And a good time was had by all. Well, by me at least. That's enough photos of pubs because I know you hate
seeing pictures of strangers drinking. I also know what you hate even more: photos of my awesome presents.
My mum got be this boxed set of live Björk called, conveniently, Live Box. It's four live albums, a live DVD and a book with
an interview. I love Björk and I love this:
My dad got me the new translation of Koji Suziki's Ring, on which the rather fantastic film was based:
It's signed by the author in some CRAZY language. Not signed specifically for me of course, its just one of the ones
from Waterstone's which got signed in a big batch, it still sounds impressive though:
And finally, my sister got me True Notes volume 1. A bunch of new tracks by members of the Okayplayer collective, compiled by ?uestlove from The Roots. Look at that
list of artists, it's a goddamn backpacker wet dream.
Okay I think I'm finished now, sorry about all that. |
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Don't call that dog "lifesaver", call him "shithead." |
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posted by
splush
1:07:04
5:45am
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Hello, friends. Every so often during my school days our class would be visited by various members of the local constabulary and other respectable organisations giving talks about various aspects of
sensible living. Of course, when I say 'various', I completely misrepresent the scope of advice given; 95% of the talks were about the horrible dangers of drugs, with the remaining 5%
devoted to more general safety information.
Some of the information might have been a little obvious (don't wear football colours in bad areas, don't stick your tounge in the electric socket, don't ever have sex ever) but as these
talks generally took place in lieu of normal lessons I was usually delighted to be there. The remarkable thing is that not all these lectures were purely an excuse to daydream all afternoon,
because occasionally, once in a blue moon we'd be presented with a nugget of genuinely interesting information nestled between tips on avoiding STDs. One such gem was this: how to
handle an attack from an angry dog.
At this point you may note that searching for "angry dog" on Google finds you this picture drawn by
a Norwegian 10 year old called Roy. With further exploration, you will discover that the drawing actually depicts the website's owner, a dog called Tessa. Tessa is evidently an incredibly
intelligent animal who would certainly not be fooled by any tricks taught to you at school. If Tessa wants to bite you in the throat, you'd better just resign yourself to the reality of your
fate and try to make the best of it. Assuming you are facing a dog other than Tessa, feel free to impliment the battle strategies I'm about to pass on.
Apparently, according to the policeman, when a dog leaps to attack you it leaps forward with its two front legs extended. I'm in no real position to question this but I will anyway, because
I picture the leap of an attacking dog to be more like an arrowhead with a terrifying point of hundreds of gnashing teeth. That is to say, the dog jumps forward and tucks its legs inwards
like an olympic diver or something. Attacking paws-first seems inefficient, because we humans aren't really scared of claws, we're scared of teeth. Big, sharp saliva-dripping teeth that
clamp onto our faces and don't let go. I pray no dogs read this, lest our secret be exposed.
The next part may be disturbing to dog lovers. As you see the angry dog flying towards you, you aren't to cover your face or kick wildly at the aggressor, no matter how much you want
to. Instead, you should remain calm and composed, and simply reach forward and grab the incoming dog's front legs. The dog isn't expecting this, at this point he begins to feel that the
assault may not be going entirely smoothly. This confusion won't last long however, so it's essential you execute the final stage of your counter-attack before the biting starts. What this
policeman told us, a class full of impressionable ten year olds, was that once you have a dog arm in each hand, you simply pull each leg outward, thus breaking both limbs.
Next time you have an opportunity to examine a dog, you will indeed notice that its legs simply don't work that way, and a sharp outward movement could indeed immobilise the dog
entirely. Next time you have an opportunity to examine a ten year old boy, you will notice that schoolboys are not ninjas (pupils of ninja schools excepted). To expect an
unprepared child to preform a move so demanding in agility, strength and composure is like ordering Jet Li to give a speech on 16th Century agriculture legistation without notice.
Schoolboys just aren't any good at Kung Fu, they're good at throwing spitballs and joining clubs called Pen 15.
If all that talk of canine limb-rending and agriculture legislation upset you, here's a beautiful photo of a beagle being tossed towards a camera:
Needless to say, I've had misgivings about this advice ever since I received it, I generally have a problem with any advice which involves you having to
execute a difficult technique perfectly the first time you try it, such as using a parachute or burning down your rollerdisco for the insurance money. To set my mind at rest, I researched
the issue of dog-defence with the greatest tool at my disposal - the internet. The internet told me many things, but I didn't really listen to any of them beyond the first result: this thread on a site called Fighting Arts. Back in febuary 2003
member "regriffin" was a confused individual, he wanted to know how best to handle himself in one-to-one combat with an angry dog "in the middle of an oval". A summary of the
advice offered by his fellow members follows:
-Run away
-Do not run away
-Go for soft tissue
-Show no aggression
-Allow the dog to bite your arm and snap his neck with the other arm while he's busy (Note: retarded)
-Pretend to throw an imaginary rock at the dog (Note: works on retarded dogs)
-Pepper spray
-Wrap your jacket around your arm and allow the dog to bite it (I quite like this one)
-Wrestle and choke the dog
-Prop open it's jaws with a stick (This might go in the 'ninja' category)
-Shoot the dog (top tip!)
-Kick it in the head
-Grab both front legs and pull them apart!
Well, I got bored after so many ideas from theoretical dog-slaughtering internet badasses, but fortunately some guy called "Iron fist" repeated the advice I recieved all those years ago in
his first and only contribution to the forum.
So what did we learn? We learned how to theoretically disarm (yes!) an attacking dog, but more importantly we learned that the lessons taught by policemen on school tours are 100%
reliable (verified by the internet!). Yes, I'm afraid so: MDMA, marijuana and sex will each kill you now, especially sex. Never have sex, ever. You will get a series of nightmarish diseases, your sex bits will never
function again and you will be forced to marry the girl you never really liked anyway because you got her pregnant, you terrible fucking monster. It will be twins and both of them will be
horribly disfigured. |
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Random Link: |
Nebulus
Flash verion of fantastic C64 game |
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