boss_kitty

Soooper Creeekit

I'm the only person watching the Cricket World Cup (well no-one's going to the games, mind you, would you stump a month's wages to see England v Ireland today???  If so, get to a rubber room quick).

To say the tourney hasn't caught fire yet is a massive understatement, I listened to NZ v W Indies last nite.  Like listening to paint dry (and watching it is bad enough eh?).  Viv Richards, Tony Cozier and Mike Selvey's voices are sooooo laid back and somnolent that you're not really going to be on the edge of your seats, so the fact the play (remember that?) hasn't picked up means this is the fivelivesportextra version of those "Whale Song you can sleep like the dead" CDs from the eighties.

Pakistan and India are a real miss for the rest of the tournament, and this ludicrous "Super Eights" idea just prolongs the agony for the underdogs, what's wrong with a straight knock out phase.  oh yeah some of the vested "test playing" nations might be knocked out.  The assumption they would all get to the Super Eight seems a wee bit previous now though.

Anyway I feel South Africa will win as the Aussies will get bored of being this good/be unable to sustain this sort of form and throw away either their semi or the final (not deliberately of course, that never happens).

I remember when one day cricket was "the exciting alternative to test cricket".  Odd that we now have an alternative to the alternative (in twentytwenty cricket) and people still ignore any non-test results.  Cricket administrators are stupid bastards.

Screen #136

Wedding Belles.

This was on C4 last night and was awesome, a real return to form for Irvine Welsh.  I've said before I'm a huge fan of his books, but felt he'd had a tendency to lose his way a bit.  Anyway this was a real treat.  Set in Leith as are nearly all of his books it followed 4 friends' lives in the run up to one of them's wedding.

So far so much the same you'd probably say, but the fact these friends were all women and Welsh has had difficulties writing female characters in the past (well he has in my opinion) made for an interesting twist.

And it works.  The women are believeable, he seems to have written them not as if they were women if you see what I mean.  Hell I can't describe why it works, but it does, maybe he relaxed into the writing more rather than thinking "these are women what do they do?".

The acting was really great, Michelle Gomez, Shauna MacDonald and Kathleen McDermott being particularly great, Shirley Henderson was oddly not quite up to the mark though, which is odd as I really like her as an actress (well I find her attractive and she was great in 24 Hour Party People and errr hot in the Harry potter movies sad old wanker that I am).

The film had lots of real emotional stuff towards the end and had started as a real visceral comedy, Welsh's ideas for humorous happenings are very good (snorting the dog being particularly good - maybe you had to be there eh?), and it hung together well for the 2 hours it was on (with addies though so running time as a film'd be shorter).

Recommended.

Screen #135

Watched Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back on TV on Sunday (I think).  I also have it on DVD but seeing it "coincidentally" reminded me of why I've watched it once in about 3 years.

I'm generally a big fan of Kevin Smith (particularly Clerks obviously, but also like Mall Rats and Dogma.  Chasing Amy I can take or leave and less said about Jersey Girl the better eh?) so looked forward to him tying up his Red Bank NJ/View Askewniverse (depending on which phrase you go with) films here.  It was a real disappointment he chose to do it with a Farrelly Brothers clone film like this.

The film features loads of cameos and references to previous films (both Smith's and others), and it looks like  it was great fun to make, but it's a bit of a mess, particularly the first hour or so.  It just seemed like a cash-in, rather than a necessary or fitting bookend to these movies (not really a series).

There are some really good bits.  Smith's dialogue can be inventive and funny (aware of the irony of me writing this about movies on the internet when that is a major dialogue bit in the fillum, maybe I should go and "share pornography" next).  The Will Ferrell character is good as is the "Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season" idea.  I have to say (major choke-age here) that Ben Affleck sends himself up very amusingly and is almost bearable in this (god it took a lot to type that).  Also nice to see George Carlin working, but don't think he'll be amazingly proud of his cameo here.

On the whole though the relentless homophobia, sexism and plain unlikeableness of Jason Mewes (maybe the drugs have changed him because he was pretty engaging in weird way in earlier films despite much the same juvey non-PC-ness) along with the hastily thrown together scripting and concept make this a very disappointing film.

COOKing With Gas

Nice to see Nicole Cooke winning again this season, she's taken first place in her first two races at the start of her World Cup defence, winning in Geelong, Australia and the Costa Etrusca race in Italy, which opens the women's season in Europe.  Nice one, she deserves it (spurious comment, but hey, she's Welsh, we take success where we find it).

Oh and Oscar Friere won di Classica di Primavera (Milan-San Remo) on Saturday, but I watched only about 20 seconds of it.  I feel very morally superior.  Let's see if I can resist the low countries classics to come.

I am the new Louis Quatorze

The random-ness (god I'm so street) of the last post (on the blog not the bugle call) could be explained by my new zenith of decadence reached last night.  I was sat on the "knitting sofa" at Gilb Palace listening to the England v Kenya cricket live on our new DAB radio (which is great BTW), eating a packet of Chupa Chups' Crazy Dip.  Crazy Dip is essentially a (miniature) foot shaped lolly which you dip into strawberry Space Dust.  I even did the Space Dust face while crackling away, much to Princess Rhi's amusement ("you look retarded").  Sugar-tastic!  I still feel a bit odd now.

PS I typo'd Crazy Dips as Carzy Dips first, not quite such a sure fire hit with that name.

Basket Case

Loving the NCAA basketball tourney at the mo (after a slow first round when there weren't many close games), but last night noticed that Ian Eagle (which, let's face it, is a great name to start with) prefers his first name to be pronounced "eye-un" not the trad "eeeee-un" (if you're Janette Tough [another great name, wasn't her son Marty in the Stupids?]) or "ee-un" (if you're not).

Iron Eagle faces off against Cobalt Vole tonight on CBS.

Ho Hum

Best keep you informed re the results from the 2 big cycling events of the last week or so.

Andreas Kloden won the Tirreno-Adriatico, his second stage race win (after Paris-Nice in 2000).  I like Kloden (partly due to the Jan link, part I just think he's a fun rider, likes to attack and is a bit gritty and spiky).  He now rides for Astana Wurth, who I feel a bit wary of rep wise (maybe due to their being banned from the Tour last year and links to the disgraced Liberty Seguros team).  Anyway despite all that well done him.

Lovely weather at the Paris-Nice this time out (makes a change from last year's snow) Alberto Contador of the despised (by me) Discovery Channel team winning after a breakaway on the last stage.  It was all quite tight apparently, meh.  Dave Millar won the prologue and I still like Dave despite the doping, given up hope of him developing into a genuine stage racer though, we just have to make do with odd Prologue or TT or maybe odd stage wins, he haemorrhages time over day-in day-out racing.  Shame.

Didn't watch any of either race, just kept an eye on results on Eurosport.com, I'll probably give in round Paris-Roubaix time.  Ah morals, so flimsy, like a young nun's shift.

Excuse me I need to go "lie down".

Youtubery 29

Arcade video games aren't what they used to be writes 1,000 year-old Gilbert.  My poisons of choice were Missile Command and Moon Cresta in the eighties arcades (UFO in the Con Club side room [dodgy licensing surely, no wonder they closed it], it's later location opposite Aberdare Market [now a bingo/bandit hovel] and the big M C cab in the one armed bandit joint on Commercial Street fact fans, It Must Be Love by Madness eternally spinning on the jukey, [it weren't me, honest!]).

YouTube has loads of guys cock measuring with their game playing dexterity, and I'd have to say (having singularly failed to ever get the hang of it since the early eighties) that the video which follows of a guy playing Defender is one of the greatest achievements man has performed (that's very badly put eh?).  Watch it and weep Keith-o.

Newer games such as Ikaruga are harking back to the old-skool and Ikaruga also demands co-operative play, dammit.  Except if you're this guy.  Fuck.  We have a winner?  Wish I could find some M C clips (from the coin op not the emulators).

Plug City

Used to quite enjoy the Adam & Joe Show post-pub in years gone by, but always felt maybe that Joe was OK and Adam may be a bit of a twat.  Gotta say though that having read Adam's blog I've completely changed my mind.  Check out his YouTube Channel too, some very good stuff (but it's all available somewhere on his blog).

Particularly like (on his blog again how many times am I going to fucking say that?) the story of him dieing (as in deceasing not changing colour I can never remember how you spell each one) on his arse while inadvertently headlining a recent gig. Also a nice Buzzcocks appearance story and insight into what it's like (2 hours with the show's writers trying to think up jokes about a Babyshambles video, fuck me!).

Anyway it's a good read and he comes across a whole lot better than he did on TV a while back.  Best blog I've read in ages.

Screen #134

Human Traffic.

First watched this eight years ago with Beth at the cinema, Beth suggested we revisit it as they've released a "remixed" version on DVD, so it eventually dropped thru the door off of the rental list.  "Remixed" filled me with the fear I can tell you.

It being a film looking at dance culture in the UK (mainly late 90s Pete Tong crowd) I suppose remixed makes some sense.  But you don't remix films and have them making any sense do you (how do you remix a story?)?

Liked the enthusiasm and Cardiff (old stomping ground) location first time around, but feel a lot has been lost in this or maybe it wasn't there in the first place.  Any way there's a litany of things that I didn't like last night.

John Simm is OK in a detached slightly lazy-ish type of way, but charismatic he ain't, and he has to carry this film.  He looks like a fucking tourist here, acting not living the role.  And main female actor Lorraine Pilkington is much the same as love interest Lulu.  When they bed each other the splinters really fly.  She has weirdly perfectly round, symmetrical nipples too which haunts me.  Supporting cast contrastingly is mainly pretty good (Nicola Reynolds and Shaun Parkes) although Danny Dyer as cockney Moff irritates quite quickly despite getting some choice scenes.

There are good bits to it Moff getting caught wanking and also his sex chat line bill story is mildly funny, the record store scene where Koop rips punters off for white label vinyl is really naturalistic and funny in a spoddy, human way, there's plenty of energy to the club/party scenes and the observations about minimum wage-slavery are funny even if too many of them say the same thing.

But on the whole it just looks like someone trying to capture a moment after the fact and missing the soul of it.  A picture can tell many stories but can also miss when it's vibes it's trying to show.  Could be I'm older, but I definitely didn't have anything like the same reaction as seeing it in the cinema.  It could be the recutting (or remixing) that's lost a lot, but if I'm honest I don't remember much that's gone, so suspect it's just a film that had a buzz at the time that carried it.  Nice to hear some Welsh accents though.