Put me in Coach!
Greetings, gentle readers.
Having trudged through London under gloomy, overcast skies,
and accompanied by the appallingly morose complaints of my father for the past
few days, I was cast back to the carefree days of my last visit, when I only
had to endure Julie and Carla’s whinging about their sore feet. At least they didn’t incessantly complain
about the nuances of hostel living (sanitation, privacy, heating, water,
electricity, clean air — or the lack of all of the above), didn’t have to use
the restrooms on an hourly basis, and didn’t blurt out virulently offensive
things about people who are blatantly within earshot. His rants about how much he finds London
oppressively numbing and soul-crushing were entertaining for the first couple of
days. After that, every new observation
that led to the conclusion that people would be better off dashing themselves
into the Thames rather than suffer the purgatory of this
cigarette-smoke-filled, baleful existence became just another figurative nail
in the coffin in which my sense of wonder and excitement was interred.
That being said, I have time to write now, since I`ve
purchased a funky portable Wi-Fi hotspot.
At last, I am no longer dependent on little hotspots here and
there. I am a Wi-fild Party, as Kim
Mitchell might have exclaimed, if he`d wanted to be beaten to death by
punfriendly geeks the world over. So, in
effect, I`ve become one of those spoonheads from Doctor Who, routing mobile
data signals into all sorts of sinister data centres. Incidentally, if you ever see the Shard in
London, I`m sure that you`ll agree that it would be greatly aesthetically
augmented by the addition of Sauron`s lidless eye at the top.
So what we find is this:
My father and I walked through Hyde Park, past all of the
monuments, halls, and museums in Kensington, past Harrod`s at Knightsbridge,
past Buckingham Palace grounds, and finally past the theatres of Victoria
Square to finally reach the Coach Station that would whisk us off to
Merseyside. Hours of walking. Hours of belly-aching, moaning, and bathroom
breaks.
But at long last, we`re on a coach that had passed numerous
signs covered with directions, distances, and destinations. The one thing that they all had in common was
the ominous descriptor worthy of a George R. R. Martin narrative: ”The NORTH.”
Every other geographic feature was described in specific fashion. That way to the Ring Road. This way to Epping or Theydon Bois or Bumming
Scroatley or whatever. We`re going to
Liverpool, and that way lies North.
Apparently.
And so I have time to write as the coach rumbles onward up
the motorway and I`ve got my headphones on with Dire Straits dialled way up to
drown out the obnoxious folk with overly loud mobile conversations around me. And that means that I can do my quick film
review of the brainless pap to which I subjugated myself during the 11-hour
flight from Cape Town to London. I`ll
get that lot done and dusted, and then I can try and wrap up any dangling
thematic strands from the South African portion of the expedition in my next
epistle.
Seven Psychopaths
I imagine that if one had a small group of screenwriters
embittered by the industry success of Quentin Tarantino, and they all
self-abused themselves vigorously whilst watching “Barton Fink,” the puddle of
cold wank left over would probably have more artistic merit than this
film. Sam Rockwell must have fun going
completely over the top as a stupid and pointless character. Oh, and Abbie Clancy gets a wet T-shirt
scene, so I guess the film is rescued after all. The next time you see photos of Peter Crouch
being caught in another tawdry affair with some rancid prostitute, you can
think of Abbie as his “gland slam” and despise him just a little bit more. Oh, right.
The film. 0.5 jellybeans.
Warm Bodies
This film was rather stupid, but thankfully, it became
stupid in a profoundly less stupid way once I realized that this is not really
a zombie film. It isn`t even a bad
zombie film with an abhorrently ghastly Shakespearean reference that made my
oatmeal hit the wall. It`s a clumsy plea
for humanity to treat goths, fans of The Smiths, and Winona Ryder’s character
in “Beetlejuice” with compassion and love.
Ultimately unconvincing, since it seems to imply that said
self-ostracized groups require some form of rehabilitation, and I reckon most
Morrissey fans are beyond that sort of treatment. The soundtrack, Rob Corddry, the Canadian
content, and wholly shameless plug of vinyl LP technology made the film
tolerable. Oh, and the actor who played
the lad from “About a Boy.” He does a
good American accent. Has he done any
films in the intervening period between these two films, or has speech therapy
conquered his adolescent years? Two jellybeans.
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
This is a film with a single schtick: what if the Grimm`s Fairy Tales used 20th-century
cuss words? The humour wears off before
you realize that it`s the whole point of the film. By then, it`s too late to laugh, and you`re
stuck with a pack of nonsensical action
sequences, some gratuitous violence perpetrated on Peter Stormare’s character,
and a plot so ludicrously stupid that Famke Janssen can almost be heard to
stifle a retch as she does the voice-over narration of the flashback
explanation of the conflict in the film.
Yes, she has to explain it to you in an expository flourish of cinematic
incompetence. Will Farrell produced
this, and he seems like a nice sort, so I hope he didn`t lose too much
money. Just enough to prevent him from
finding funding for a sequel. I spent
most of the film staring curiously at Gemma Arterton, whose artless and bland
performance was matched by her face`s unnerving lack of any character or
identity. In “The Invasion of the Body
Snatchers,” if you found a pod under someone’s bed while it was in the process
of duplicating a human, you would find a pale, half-formed specimen that hadn`t
fully developed into a replica of its target.
Someone needs to put the being attempting to be an actress back in its
pod. Zero jellybeans.
The Look of Love
I`m generally a fan of Steve Coogan, but his choice of
characters begins to smack of the sorts of decisions that Emilio Estevez
makes. All of his characters are
essentially himself with a twist or two.
His characters in “24-Hour Party People”, “Tristram Shandy”, “Alan
Partidge”, etc. can probably be distinguished by their taste in red wine, but
precious little else. Even “Hamlet 2”
contained the same mannerisms – dithering and rambling speech dotted with oddly
juxtaposed historical and literary quotations, shrouding an insecure and
neurotic individual who constantly operates in a state of disconnection between
himself and the world of others. The
comedic impact of this is found in the repetitive deflation of any arrogant
pretences the characters try to portray.
This film is a pathetic aggregate of anecdotes, bereft of
continuity and development. Something tragic
happens to character C. Flash forward
ten years to find something good happen to Character C. Flash backward to watch him meet a
person. Flash forward five years to see
that they`ve become business partners.
Flash forward again to watch their relationship disintegrate. These little vignettes are obviously
well-documented and corroborated by witnesses, but there is no narrative to tie
them together. There is no reason to
like or hate any of the characters particularly, because none of them
develop. Coogan`s character is self-involved
and selfish. That’s pretty much it. He might love his daughter. There`s some evidence, but nothing really
substantial. And much as “Leaving Las
Vegas” was flawed because it would take a suspension of reality of Mitty-esque
proportions to believe that Elizabeth Shue looks so trampy and dissolute that
she would get ejected from a casino, it is equally implausible to believe that
a male could be emotionally motivated by anything other than some sort of
existential oblivion to leave and divorce Anna Friel. One may as well reject the virtue of incandescence. The film is thus neither engaging, nor
particularly interesting. Cameos by
Stephen Fry and Dara O’Briain are thoroughly wasted – Fry in particular is
squandered in a flashback courtroom re-enactment that made “The People Vs.
Larry Flynt” look like cinematic masterclass.
A single jellybean.
Right. Enough of my
bitter ranting. I`m going to relax for
the rest of this coach ride and start thinking about other purposeless,
rambling diatribes that I can foist upon unsuspecting dwellers of the
interwebs.
Coming soon: the
Ballad of Paul Tagg: Roland the Headless
Thompson Gunner’s Pal.
Until then, goodnight England and the colonies.
Cheers,
—mARKUS
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