Category: Entertainment

Maiden: Best British Live Act

Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden

I know I’m late mentioning this but I only just found out. After begging you to vote for them a few weeks back, it turns out that Iron Maiden were runaway winners of this years Brits award as Best British Live Act.

Their acceptance video is below, and I’ve pinched the following text from Metal Hammer. I couldn’t put it better – why they deserved to win.

  1. The award was for Best British Live Act. They ARE the best British live act.
  2. Twickenham. Moonchild was enough to make the toughest headcase blub into his pint.
  3. The Brits committee are paid to represent the best of British music and that’s truer of ‘Maiden than it is of anyone operating in British music. Shame it took them 34 years to realise it before finally nominating them, eh?
  4. Churchill’s Speech. Churchill’s ******* speech! If you don’t get chills from it, you’re not human. There’s not a better live intro tape going.
  5. Bruce Dickinson’s energy. I’m a 25 year old who goes to the gym regularly and he knackers me out just watching him. Hats off!
  6. The ‘Harris guitar/machine gun with foot on the monitor’ routine. If you’re a bass player, you’ll have done this at least at one point in your life. if you’re not a bass player, you’ll have done air-guitar like it countless times.
  7. The ‘Somewhere In Time’ tour. Unbelievable scenes. Woah, Leslie. Aye Carumba. Holy shitballs. Shall we keep going or have you got the hint?
  8. Eddie. Imagine a big, evil looking zombie c*nt popping out behind Chris pissing Martin? Didn’t think so.
  9. Iron Maiden are as relevant in 2009 as they’ve ever been. To be in your fourth decade as a band and to achieve that is something that cannot measured.
  10. Because the finest metal act and one of the greatest bands that the world has ever seen should be recognised in their own bloody country. the rest of the world have got it for long enough, it’s about time the crusty ******* that dish out mainstream awards realised this.
  11. Because they’re Iron ******* Maiden.

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Rambo 4

Rambo 4
Rambo 4

Rambo 4 is written and directed by Stallone, who’s wringing the last drops of headband sweat out of the second of his major franchises. After the sob story that was Rocky Balboa, he’s followed it with the imaginatively-named John Rambo. Rambo’s back and he’s still not a fan of being pushed. Not by inbred sheriffs, not by the Commies, and this time not by Burmese drug-manufacturing, Christian-kidnapping, young boy-buggering dictators.

The plot’s thinner and more see-through than a separated sheet of toilet paper that’s been dipped in water. Stallone’s performance is really pushing “special needs” and his diction’s just gone completely. I’m surprised it doesn’t include subtitles.

However, the action sequences (about half the film’s length) are about the goriest battle scenes I’ve seen since Saving Private Ryan. Obviously, as this film’s not “educational” or “historic” it gets a higher rating. And a jail term of 5 years for watching it, if you’re a citizen of Myanmar. I mean, it’s a bad film but it’s hardly criminal.

The stereotypes are all there. Thai people who play with snakes. Nice village people who run around and die. Bad soldiers who kill people for ***** and giggles. An evil warlord who never fires a shot, but wears sunglasses and smokes a cigarette as he watches his minions do all the work for him.

Oh, and just for good measure we have a scene which implies he shags teenage boys up the bumhole. In case he’s not evil enough for committing genocide.

The climactic scene where Rambo kills him is about the cheesiest thing I’ve seen on a video screen. Seriously, it could have been filmed in Glorious Gorgonzola-vision. Wallace and Gromit would be drooling over it. It’s so gut-wrenchingly awful that it’s as if I’d stepped through a dimensional warp and I was watching a parody of the self-same film I was currently viewing. In fact, it’s so bad that Weird Al’s Rambo piss-take scene from UHF is completely bland in comparison.

But somehow, I don’t know how, I watched the whole thing. Time passed. I stayed awake (it was late and I was tired) and I got to the end thinking “I could watch that again” though preferably with Dolby Surround and a bigger screen than my laptop. It’s just so bad it’s in the “few beers and some crisps” pile for another time.

Although what, I think, edged it was watching it in Myanmar. Where it’s banned. And yet everyone I’ve talked to has seen it.

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The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D.Salinger

Salinger's landmark 1951 novel, The Catcher in...
Book cover

The Catcher in the Rye is, apparently, a classic of (American) English literature. It appears on reading lists in schools all over the world. Will someone please explain to me why?

The writing style is – I suppose – not too bad. It’s written very conversationally in the first person from the viewpoint of a young man who’s just been expelled from his umpteenth private school. He’s obviously short of a few brain cells as well, judging by his attitude to a lot of things.

Set in, I guess, the 1950’s means the language is a little archaic but I don’t mind that – I’m currently ploughing through more Conan Doyle and loving it. It’s the repetition, and the rambling nature of the prose that gets so tiring after a while. Oh, and the fact that bugger all really happens.

It’s “a day in the life” of someone I really don’t care about. I didn’t at the start, and I still don’t now I’m finished it. Had it been much bigger, it would have been discarded by the time I got past the mid-point.

Mind you, I guarantee my old English teacher likely got a hard-on reading it. But that guy was a ******* freak who seemed to love everything that you’re “supposed” to love – Shakespeare, Chaucer and the like.

If you want to read a classic, check out the Sherlock Holmes stories – although even they get a little tired after a while, around the time Doyle himself was writing them purely for cash. I’d only read this if I had to as part of an English course. And even then I’d shop around to see if there was another tutor with a different reading list.

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Star Wars: The Clone Wars

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (film)
Movie poster

I’ve not see the “new” Star Wars trilogy so I was a little out of depth with The Clone Wars, but all the same I enjoyed it. I’ve no idea who the vocal cast are but they did a decent job. The visuals are stunning with sequences to match anything you’ve seen in the “proper” films, or indeed the Lego games.

Plot in a nutshell: Jabba’s son has been kidnapped and the safe use of a sector of space by the Rebel Alliance (or whatever they were pre-proper Star Wars) relies on their finding him and returning him. Of course, the Empire (or whatever they were pre-proper Star Wars) are involved somehow, so everything is not as clear as it could be.

For a cartoon, the plot’s got quite a few twists and turns which was a pleasant surprise. For me, though, it was the visuals and the battles that made it. Just like the original trilogy.

A worthwhile addition to the storyline – though I still think anything outside the original, unedited trilogy should just be classed as chaff.

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Herbie: Fully Loaded

Cover of "Herbie - Fully Loaded"
Movie poster

Yeah, OK. I watched the new Herbie: Fully Loaded film. I was on a long flight, OK? And… it wasn’t bad. Not just because of the lead actress (Lindsay Lohan) who’s rather hot and about 15 years too young for me. Ah, well.

What I really liked about this is it has all the character of the original films without going mad with the CGI. Herbie‘s mischievous, gets his own way and even moves the way he used to back in the 70’s.

Plot in a nutshell: Herbie turns up in a junkyard about to be scrapped. The daughter of a racing driver spots him and buys him. By accident, she ends up in a drag race with an Indy car driver who then demands a public re-match… which he will win by all costs.

The little spark between the lead actress and her mechanic is obviously one that’ll work out in the end. The good guys are going to win. Herbie’s going to mess stuff up because he’s stubborn. Someone will overcome odds to prove they’re better than anyone thought they were. It’s a Disney film, for crying out loud.

I don’t remember the details of the old films too well – it’s been many years since I saw the parade along Low Fell when Herbie Goes Bananas came out – but this is certainly an excellent addition to a classic canon. If Hollywood insists on dredging its history because nobody can come up with something original then this is how to go about it.

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