Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Adam Sandler Guide to Making Movies

There are two rules you need to remember if you want to be a successful movie-maker like Adam:

1. Kissy kissy
2. Talky talky

1. Kissy kissy.
In order to establish our protagonist as an all-round good egg worthy of the audience's sympathies, you must have them behave in a friendly manner towards elderly people and children in the first 2o minutes of the film. You could have them help an old lady pack oranges into a brown paper bag at the grocery store, pitch a baseball for a loveable street urchin or shout a personal question about an pensioner's health across the street. 'Hey Mister Shapiro, how is your prolapse?' or something of that nature.

There is no other way to make your protagonist likeable, so if you fail in this, your movie is doomed. Ever wonder why nobody liked Tony Montana?

2.Talky talky.
Mercilfully, all Adam Sandler movies end sooner or later (even though you might have thought 'Click' would go on forever). When ending a movie, there is no need to wrap up the plot or think of a clever reversal. Simply have the character stand in front of a crowd, admit to all of their shortcomings and ask everyone's forgiveness, forbearance and understanding. They are bound to understand and release your inheritance for spending, grant you custody of a child or support whatever earth shattering outcome you desire. Easy as pie! And it works in real life too!

There are only two films where Adam has not followed his own rules: Punch Drunk Love and Reign over Me. The fact that they are his best movies cannot be explained using modern critical techniques.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Birthday Boy

It is my birthday on 24 April (possibly today or tomorrow depending on whatever time the server this blog is on thinks it is now...).

Anyway, I saw DJ Spiral's CD for 4.99 in HMV today, if anyone is looking for a gift idea. It had been moved from the retard section to the 'It's so cheap, you'd buy it just to prove how good you are at getting a bargain bin'.

I would also like a spider monkey trained in burglary (if he comes with a tiny rucksack even better), a wind-powered ice schooner crewed by elf maidens, and a black Harrier jump jet with artwork of the great god Cthulhu done on the wings in no less than 4 colours.

I don't have an ice cream van, but if you are getting me one, I'd prefer one like they had in The Man from UNCLE where all of the cornettos were really grenades and the music gets faster and faster the faster you drive.

If you are buying me drugs, I like Ibuprofen and Ventolin (Salbutamol, please, not that other muck).

If you are buying me liquids, I like that cream-coloured fabric softener. I like gravy, Horlicks and Stella Artois, especially if it is in one of those continental glasses with the stem.

When ordering a cake, remember, a light sponge with strawberries and cream is the way to go. I am partial to cakes where the main body is a swiss roll designed to look like a steam engine, and I prefer Shin Chan to Spongebob (although I like the grindcore remixes of the spongy one on youtube). Please nobody get me a cake with a dead hooker in it like you did last year (you know who you are and you know it was stupid).

I think penis shaped pasta is about as funny as Tommy Tiernan (see clamnuts.com for more on this), so don't get me that. I think advances in internet speed have rendered porn redundant as a birthday gift, so that is out too. I don't need it anyway, since I learned those transcendental tantra tricks from Cosmo. Ommmmmmmmmm!

Don't bother getting me a card - make one yourself ( a real one, not an e-card). Even if you think it looks shite, I will be touched by the fact that you made the effort. If you do buy me a card, get me the Cliff Richard one where he sings 'Congratulations'. By opening and closing it at the right time, you can make him say 'Cun... Cun... Cun'. Dirty beggar! Great fun. Try it in your leading high street card seller tomorrow and see! You will amaze your family and colleagues and win more friends than you had thought possible!

Liposuction vouchers and Transformer costumes are also accepted, especially if the latter are home-made.

Peace out homies!

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

The Third Bond Movie to Feature Daniel Craig

Following a discussion with the TinkTank ™ (that is, Space Cake, Hilbotron and Kong Nip) last night, I am in a position to make the following projections regarding the third James Bond movie to feature Daniel Craig.

We believe the movie will be set in India, based on the current interest in Bollywood, Slumdog Millionaire etc. It’s been a while since Bond has been there, too. There will be scenes set far to the north of the country in the foothills of the Himalayas (so they may well make it into Nepal). They’ll need some desert to do the obligatory scene where he walks through an arid wilderness in full evening wear, (and a posh hotel for him to turn up looking all dishevelled). There will most definitely be a ski/skidoo chase of some sort. Micro-light gliders may make a welcome comeback. By now, even the most myopic of producers will be aware that they have exhausted the boat chase and free-running rooftop chase. Snooze-O-Rama!

The plot will most likely be about an Indian power company that finds a renewable power source (maybe something where water is a by product – Woohoo!). Should they release the technology or use it to hold over a billion people to ransom? What would you do? I’d recommend Babs Broccoli give Ian McDonald a call. His novel River of Gods might give her a few ideas. Pakistan may also be used – (what kind of movie would it be if we didn’t have a crazed warlord with a world class collection of nukes?)

The Bond girls will be:

One from India - probably Deepika Padukone. We know she can kick and bite when she needs to. No Kardashians for this one, please. The role will require a beautiful actress, not an overrated gypsy.

One from Australia – a blond doctoral student who made the breakthrough. Not Nicole Kidman! She hasn't been good since To Die For.

The movie will be called Time Enough for Tears, or something like that, thanks to the fact that the project is called the Vishnu Project. The Pussyflap Dolls will do the song. (I’d prefer if they gave Cradle of Filth a shot).

Most likely, M will be annoyed with Bond for not following the rules. Like we aren’t bored with that one… With a bit of luck, John Cleese and gadgets might make a comeback.

That’s about all we have to say on the subject.… the film won’t be much of a success, and will probably lead to Daniel Craig getting his marching orders. Poor Daniel… he wasn’t that bad…

Let us know your suggestions and comments!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Lying Letter Home

The letter of Prester John, written back in the day, is an early medieval example of the ‘lying letter home.’

Dear Mum, wrote Prester John:

Our land is the home of elephants, crocodiles…white and red lions, white bears, crickets, griffins (spoofing right from the start…), tigers, lamias and wild men -- men with horns (heh heh), one-eyed men (anyone for tennis?), men with eyes before and behind (he is probably referring to maths teachers here), centaurs, fauns, satyrs, pygmies… giants, cyclopses, and similar women ( whatever they are).

Our land streams with honey and is overflowing with milk (historians believe PJ was living beside the Glanbia dairy on the Dublin road in Drogheda). In one region grows no poisonous herd, nor does a querulous frog ever quack in it; (the placid nature of the frogs in this region does much to recommend it ).

At the foot of Mount Olympus bubbles up a spring which changes its flavor hour by hour, night and day, (unfortunately, John noted elsewhere that he visited at a time when the waters tasted like Placenta-Pro, a Japanese soft drink made from 100% horse placenta). If anyone has tasted thrice of the fountain, from that day he will feel no fatigue, but will, as long as he lives (which was expected to be anywhere from an hour to 12 weeks if the griffins and pygmies didn’t get you), be as a man of thirty years.

In one of our lands… are worms called salamanders, which can only live in fire. They build cocoons like silk-worms which are unwound by the ladies of our palace and spun into cloth and dresses. These dresses, in order to be cleaned and washed, are cast into flames .. .(I have tried this method with a pair of Hilbo’s Penny’s pyjamas and the resultant flames were hot enough to crack the fire grate. Never again.)

John’s letter gave untold numbers the excuse they needed to escape their nagging wives and foray east and south into the wilderness. Funny enough, none of them ever found the mystical and legendary kingdom.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Wikilogisms

Wikspert -

(noun) - somebody who obtains information from Wikipedia and passes it off as their own.

- somebody who obtains information from Wikipedia and uses it an attempt to impress others.

The Quick and the Dead Redux

Seems like I'm always banging on about zombies these days...

By now, we all agree that slow zombies are the real deal. Huzzah! Fast zombies are out! Alas, no sooner have cleared that issue up when we are faced with a new debate:

Biological zombies Vs. Infernal zombies.

Resident Evil and 28 days later have taken the zombie mythos further into the realms of being a plague or virus bred phenomenon. These type of zombies are the result of gene-tampering and military research into viral warfare and mutagenics. They spread the disease through their bite, their claws and their infected blood. So when young Billy tells Sarge he won't make it home and coughs black blood straight into Sarge's face, we know Sarge is a goner too. Nice.

However, exceptional individuals like Astrodog, who spent their teens playing D&D and listening to metal, know better. Zombies are undead creatures with supernatural origins. They have either been raised by necromancy, drafted as warriors of Our Lord Below, or the result of a housing shortage in Hell. And that's the way we like it.

The Copenhagen Interpretation, Why I hate ordering in Restaurants, and Why you can’t tell God what to do.

As most of us know, quantum mechanics is the study of atomic and subatomic systems. Within these systems, we find a range of tiny particles, such as protons, electrons, neutrons, photons and neutrinos. Imagine you are squinting at an atom of carbon. Can you see the six electrons flying around the nucleus? Didn’t think so! They could be anywhere!

Particle physicists describe the probability of the location of such particles as a wave function.
This is, in effect, a set of the locations in which the particle might be found. Sounds pretty lazy, huh? It is more natural for us to believe that everything is observable and has a definite position.

But what happens when we actually observe the particle? Now we know where it is, so the wave function is no longer useful to us. The set of locations collapses into a single location. A dot. This theory of the collapsing wave function is known as the Copenhagen interpretation.

So what has this to do with ordering in a restaurant? When I look at a good menu, there could be up to a dozen things I want to try. A set of menu items, arranged in my mind like a gastronomic wave function. All possibilities are equally tantalizing, equally probable. Belly of pork dripping with pear jus, steaming lobster glaring in beady-eyed recrimination, paella pretending it is not just leftovers in rice, cruel and tempting jalfrezi scattered with landmine chilies, overrated sea bass drizzled with cheap olive oil and the ever-present, dumb slab of cow arse with choice of sauce.

I ride the wave like a rollercoaster. I send the waiter away three times. I demolish all of the bread and ask for more. Finally, I opt for the safe bet, boring old cow arse. The wave collapses. Out of all those dazzling possibilities, I have chosen steak for the 172nd time in my life. The disappointment is crushing. Maybe I shouldn’t have ordered at all.

Now, Einstein would argue that you can’t play dice with God. Things are as they are and all those possibilities never really existed. The electron was only ever in one location. I was always going to order the steak. Niels Bohr (who was from Copenhagen and therefore probably knew more about this than anybody) told Einstein to shut his cake hole. ‘Don’t tell God what to do,’ was his response.

I believe you should be able to tell God what to do. After all, he’s our God, isn’t he? I’d tell him to get his ass into the kitchen and get me a plate of everything. With mustard, gravy, strawberry sauce, and a fried egg on top.

The Quick and the Dead

Has anyone else noticed the latest trend in zombie films? The dirty feckers are getting faster! Used to be you could walk backwards away from them and pick them off with a twelve gauge. Or put a box in their way. They'd be so busy looking at you that they'd trip over it like the brain-mashed gobshites they are. Or you could just sit in your 'jacked helicopter and laugh as they took the tops off their heads walking into the rotors.
Now they all can all cover ground like Linford Christie on nandralone. Allegedly. Some of them have even been seen jumping onto the roofs of cars and adopting a frog-like pose for some strange reason. Anyway, the point is, that you'd never outrun them. Your only chance would be to see them from miles off and start running in the other direction. And the boarded up house would need to be only 30 or 40 metres away.Most people would hold that the fast zombies are scariest of all.
You can't outrun them, and so if you end up anyway near them, one of your party is a goner. At the very least, someone will incur a bite in the arm and turn at the start of the third act.My thesis is that slow zombies are actually scarier, and to find out why, we need to examine the metaphors involved. In short, we must ask: What do zombies represent?
Fast zombies operate in much the same way as gang members or psychopaths. Chase and kill. They play on our fear of a generic 'attacker', intent only on harming us and with whom we can't reason. To be afraid of such attackers is entirely natural and universal. However, it is not a fear that is 'activated' or called to mind frequently. How many times a day does an average person in Western society dwell on their fear of attackers? How immediate is the fear that is subsequently felt? How much does it mean to you in your everyday life?
Slow zombies play on a different fear. They amble around shopping malls or stand on their own in rooms trying to remember what it was they used to do. You can evade them for a while. You can board yourself in, outwit them or cut a path through them as long the ammo holds out. Doesn't seem too frightening on the surface, does it? But they will never stop. They are inexorable, and in the end, will overwhelm by sheer weight of numbers. Whatever you do, the slow zombies will triumph. Therein lies the metaphor. Slow zombies represent the great unwashed, uncaring masses you share the world with. This is a group that is constituted differently for everyone, making the fear individual and immediate.
For some, they are the people who wear tracksuits when they aren't going to the gym, the stoaaarrrry bud shitehawks of Dublin, the Bush voters of America, or the faceless business leaders who do all for profit. Whatever. You've probably just thought of another three groups who fit the bill. Chavs. Jocks. Westlife fans. Shoe-bangers (you'll have to ask me in person who they are!) Yes. Your fellow citizen who knows the world isn't the way it was supposed to be but just got new curtains and is going to pull them and watch Celebrity Roshambo 4? If you like. It is an easy list to populate.Remember: There are more of them than us. They always win.
Isn't that scary?