Author: Mosh

Help a friend

Pictograms of Olympic sports - Swimming
Come on in - the water's lovely

I’m not normally one to plug things like this, but this is on behalf of a very good friend of mine who’s doing something utterly cool.

Later this year Sharon is taking part in the Great North Swim, by far the biggest physical challenge she’s ever undertaken. She will be raising money, hopefully a lot of it, for Help For Heroes – a UK charity which helps the members of the armed forces and their families who are killed or injured in the line of duty… and then not taken care of properly by the government which sent them wherever they were when it happened.

It is a fantastic cause and the swimming will be done by a fantastic woman.

Please, if you have a spare few bob, head over to Sharon’s JustGiving page and make a donation.

Thanks, folks. Normal service will be resumed once I think of something disgusting or ranty to write about.

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Brüno

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. I confess I only went to see Brüno as it was the last English-language film on at the cinema that I hadn’t seen. I wasn’t too bothered about it, but it’s cheap here in Bangkok so what the hell.

I want my ninety minutes back.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: gay fashion icon loses his job in Austria so heads to the US to become famous by any means necessary. Side splitting laughs… erm… don’t really ensue.

OK, there were a couple of laughs but overall this was far more cringeworthy than the forerunner Börat. Sacha Baron Cohen has this time targeted the US’s seeming hatred of homosexuality rather than that of semi-Communist outsiders for what’s basically a re-run of the last movie. The thing is, despite the new character it’s an old joke. There’s even a weak companion character who’s almost a mirror of the fat bloke from Börat.

You’re still wondering how, in some scenes, the “innocent” people involved don’t query the existence of a camera/sound team. Couldn’t they have freed the two guys from the cuffs during one scene? Why is that question not even raised?

The high points of the film are – as in the first, very similar outing – the reactions of “real” people to the situations. Primarily the TV studio audience and the crowd at the all-in fighting match at the end. It’s also horribly indicative of the state of affairs in the US today when you see the lengths some people are prepared to go to to get their children a modelling contract.

I actually thing, in parts, the film is more scary than funny. The fact that these people are real, not actors. That PR advisers can have less brain cells than digits on one hand. That Bible-thumpers genuinely think they can “cure” homosexuality. That grown men will weep because they’ve just seen two males kiss. That people will genuinely consider cosmetic surgery for a 2 year-old.

Brüno is more shocking than funny, and it just doesn’t carry its one joke well. Cohen’s had his two shots – I seriously doubt I’ll bother with the next film (which sounds like another version of the same damn idea all over again).

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Sweep of film reviews

I’ve watched a fair bit here in Bangkok as the cinemas are both cheap and very good. I also can’t be bothered writing full reviews for all of them so here’s a quick run-down of the four I’ve seen in the last week.

Public Enemies

Johnny Depp struggles not to remind you of Captain Jack Sparrow in this gangster flick set in the mid-1930’s. He almost gets away with it as well. How closely it tells the true story of John Dillinger I couldn’t say, but the period settings and so forth are beautiful.

It is without a doubt a good looking film with a respectable cast. However, the story just didn’t grip me and I found it a little hard to follow in places. Not as good as I was expecting, but I’m sure others would enjoy it a lot more.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

A remake of a film based on a book. Who says Hollywood is short of ideas? It’s a simple enough plot – a subway car and its passengers are taken hostage under New York City by a rather insane John Travolta. Denzel Washington, as a city worker, tries to do the hostage negotiation thing.

Simple plot, simple film. Nothing’s really a surprise although the story has been brought up to date to include modern technology. I can’t recall the original 1974 version too well, but I would like to compare the two. I have a feeling it was a far more taut thriller.

Nothing wrong with the performances in this one, but it’s still a little vapid and had a really weak and sudden ending.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (IMAX 3D)

I’ve enjoyed the Harry Potter films up till now, much as I enjoyed the books up till this one. In this regard, the films are now better. This was the first of the original novels I didn’t like – over-publicised, over-long and the ridiculous “leak” about a major character dying had someone carking it in every second chapter. And then being resuscitated, or discovered to be a shape-shifter or something. Bunkum.

As a result of the book’s size, a lot has been stripped out which gets rid of some of the unnecessary padding. The cast have improved with age and the series simply must have every single good British actor ever to tread the boards in it.

The one thing is that as a result of the stripping, you finish the viewing feeling like this was just the opening for the grand finale. I mean, it is. But that sensation is just a little too much. You expect to see “to be continued after the news” instead of closing credits. No bad thing, in a way, as it’s left me gasping for the final instalments (the last book is being split into two films).

A word on the IMAX 3D experience, though. And that word is: WOW. Only the first 15 minutes are in 3D, but they are staggering. Absolutely staggering. Simply the best 3D I have ever seen at a cinema. It’s just a crying shame that the whole film couldn’t be rendered in this way. I assume it’s a cost thing – maybe one day.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Oh, this is a silly one. It’s as comic book as you can get and utterly, totally, sublimely ridiculous. Never before has the phrase “leave your brain at the door” been more apt. You can tell it’s by the director of the Mummy films simply from the insane amount of half-cocked CGI that’s been used. But the thing is, you don’t care.

For every shonky “cartoon motorbike” there’s a collapsing Eiffel Tower. For every “heat-haze to disguise the rush job” there’s a kick-ass fight scene. For every horrendous piece of acting (Christopher Ecclestone – you should be ashamed of that “accent”) there’s a phenomenal pair of boobs to stare at to make up for it (Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols just made my “must do when I’m incredibly rich and famous” list).

From what I gather, if you’re a fan of the comics then it will hurt you to watch this film in the same way that Sylvester Stallone‘s Judge Dredd made me whimper and want to drive nails into my own head. However, for the rest of us it’s an eye-opening, ridiculous, explosion-filled piece of pure sugar-coated entertainment.

Utter crap. But in such a great way.

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LOL – actual genuine lol

I picked this up from Scatmania. Make sure you read right through, slowly. The last line’s a punchline – don’t jump to it!

My job is so ******* unbelievable. I’ll try to sum it up by first telling you about the folks I work with:

First, there is this supermodel wanna-be chick. Yeah, okay, she is pretty hot, but damn is she completely useless. The girl is constantly fixing her hair or putting on makeup. She is extremely self-centered and has never once considered the needs or wants of anyone but herself. She is as dumb as a box of rocks, and I still find it surprising that she has enough brain power to continue to breathe.

The next chick is completely the opposite. She might even be one of the smartest people on the planet. Her career oppertunities are endless, and yet she is here with us. She is a zero on a scale of 1 to 10. I’m not sure she even showers, much less shaves her “womanly” parts. I think she might be a lesbian, because every time we drive by the hardware store, she moans like a cat in heat.

But the jewel of the crowd has got to be the ******* stoner. And this guy is more than just your average pothead. In fact, he is baked before he comes to work, during work, and I’m sure after work. He probably hasn’t been sober anytime in the last ten years, and he’s only 22. He dresses like a beatnik throwback from the 1960’s, and to make things worse, he brings his big ******* dog to work. Every ******* day I have to look at this huge Great Dane walk around half-stoned from the second-hand smoke. Hell, sometimes I even think it’s trying to talk with its constant bellowing. Also, both of them are constantly hungry, requiring multiple stops to McDonalds and Burger King, every single ******* day.

Anyway, I drive these fucktards around in my van and we solve mysteries and ****.

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Water, water, everywhere

Green Eggs And Diarrhea
Mine smells like eggs

…and all of it flowing from my poop-chute.

It’s been over a week since anything remotely solid passed from between my bum-cheeks. Leah came down with something when we were on Gili Trawangan and I think passed it on to me so that by the time we got to Gili Meno I really wasn’t feeling well. And I’m a really bad ill person. Leah will vouch for this.

Similarly to her, after some time with the runs a good old vomit suddenly made me feel better. I expected to perk up within a day or so and indeed since then and until now I feel pretty good in myself.

However, I still don’t think I’ve passed anything that wouldn’t pass through a reasonably-graded collander since. In face in the last day or so I’d go so far as to say sieve.

With an eye operation coming up on Saturday I could really do with ensuring my stomach, at least, is in working order. Here’s hoping the Immodium I have in my medicine bag is in date. At least they have Boots in Bangkok so I can get new ones if necessary.

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