Hollywood Sucks Baws

Michel Gondry sucks in his strangeness while directing The Green Hornet - a reimagining of the TV show that brought Bruce Lee to the world's attention. Seth Rogen wrote the script and stars, unsuccessfully, as the playboy who takes up vigilantism after his industrialist Pa dies and he inherits the $ and his Pa's former coffee, kung fu & cars man servant Kato. It's not terrible, there's a few good lines & some touches of visual flair as the duo smash and crash about the city but it's so unremarkable and bland its hard to remember much about it after just 24 hrs. A waste of the not inconsiderable talents involved.

Paul is a fairly colossal cloud of guff - SOTD was funny and Hot Fuzz less so but still quite charming. Paul on the other hand has minimal charm and relies almost soley on dick/fart/pot jokes and unsubtle geek references for it's laughs. Two nerds pick up a foul mouthed alien after leaving comic con and get involved in a Starman-ripoff romp across the States to help him meet his Mothership. It does have it's moments but it's so unoriginal and the jokes so tawdry I was increasingly depressed and frankly a bit embarrassed by the end. Pegg and Frost need to extract themselves from the Hollywood machine before their talents are completely sanitised.

Sciencey Vids For Saturday

Dangerous Minds have a nice bit about Orson Welles' documentary bout E.T life.


Lovely but depressing time lapse vid of our nuclear detonations since '45.


Massive Solar flare caught on film by NASA's SDO spacecraft.

Pulp & Pith

The Gunslinger is the first in Stephen kings Dark Tower series and is perhaps unsurprisingly headed for the big screen. Set in a distant future on a degraded Earth a lone gunman chases a mysterious, ma- in-black across a never ending desert encountering mutants, cults and the shoddy remnants of a more advanced but now ruined society. It's not terrible, there's some nice ideas along the way and the protagonist occasionally minded me of Wolfe's Severian, sharing the same cool, detached view of humanity but sadly like most of Kings work it's spoiled by a heavy over cheesing and I was decidedly unimpressed with the time travelly bits that unfolded. I might pick up the next in the series but only if it's super cheap.

I really enjoyed Patrick Harpur's previous nonfiction books Daemonic Reality & The Philosopher's Secret Fire, two impressive, intelligent forteanish examinations of myths and our realities. However I wasn't sure what to expect from his earlier novel Mercurius, a lengthy split narrative about Alchemy told by a small town Vicar in the 50's and a contemporary researcher picking through his notes after finding them in the house she's renting. It's well written and is probably one of the finest, most exhaustive discussions about the work of alchemy (both chemical and psychological) that I've read but characters aren't exactly Harpur's strong point - Smith the alchemist is sparsely drawn and taciturn while Eileen unrealistically lacks insight into her new village life. I guess you could defend Harpur for these shortcomings as they're somewhat necessary for the plot but it doesn't help what's a long and tricksy read. Still a stunning book if you fancy learning about the secret art and there's enough detail and plenty of mysteries here to entice me back for a reread.

Digit(al) Distractions

Bogeymen Real & Imagined

The intersection between true crimes and urban myths are explored in the documentary Cropsey. Two Staten Island filmmakers start investigating the truth behind the local legends of a child snatcher that surround an abandoned mental asylum and soon uncover a complicated, tragic history at the very heart of their neighborhood. It's a decent film, well made with plenty of face time with key individuals but they failed to get the one interview that would tie the whole thing together so by the end it all seemed a little fruitless and more like a special on Crime & Investigation.

The Troll Hunter is a cracking Norwegian found footage flick about some documentarians who try to make a film about rogue bear hunters but discover far more deadly, mythological predators in the wilds of Norway. It's great fun with some nice creature effects and a well thought out mythos that's gradually unfolded as the filmmakers dig deeper into their government's secret Troll management scheme. These found footage films rely on poorly lit, shaky cam action to build the tension and it does get a bit tiresome but the film's quality pushes through and it's well worth a watch. There's plenty more juice in Trolling so I hope they make a sequel, shit I'll probably be happy with a prequel.

Lugs Luck Out

Weegies at War & Middle Age Madness

Peter Mullan is an excellent actor and his directorial efforts, Orphans and The Magdalene Sisters displayed plenty of talent and a grim, biting view of life in our cloudy Isle but Neds, his latest feature, doesn't quite match his earlier successes. Despite being a swotty youngster our protagonist follows his older brother's example and becomes involved in the violence and mayhem of Glasgow gangs 80's style and his life spirals down a tragic path. It's well acted and it clips along at a decent pace with plenty of realistic brutality but it felt limited by some paper thin stereotypes and an over worked patricide sub plot.

Day of the Wacko is a dark Reggie Perrin-esque Polish film about a man struggling to free himself from the repetitive mundanity of modern life. Suffering from OCD and an overbearing mother our misanthropic protagonist starts to break free from the shackles of his routine and look for a better life. It's a good watch with some nice pitch black laughs along the way and Kondrat's central performance is brilliant but there was a tonne of allusions, jokes and political references that went well over my head.

Psycho Killer Qu'est-ce que c'est

William Wyler's assured adaptation of The Collector succeeds mainly due to the talents of a young Terence Stamp. It follows the novel's plot pretty closely but they've had to excise the portions narrated by his victim so it's unsurprising that Stamp's unnerving performance of the disturbed, kidnapping entomologist dominates the proceedings, that's not to say Eggar's isn't good too, she handles her slightly reduced (& imo enfeebled) role with aplomb. I knew Wyler directed Roman Holiday and Ben Hur but I must have a dig around and see what else he done did. A chilling classic that needs more attention.


I like a bit of Korean cinema now and again and I Saw The Devil is another example of the stunning thrillers that they've been producing. A practised sex killer offs the pregnant fiance of a secret agent and unwittingly initiates a brutal cat and mouse game between the two. It's startlingly violent in parts and the cool calculated attitude of both heighten the merciless atmosphere but despite all the gore and blood letting there's still an intelligent, well acted thriller underneath that gives itself plenty of time to brood over the costs of revenge. An intense film that makes Oldboy look fluffy.

Psych 9 is a half hearted, hokey load of codswallop, purportedly a horror thriller about a troubled temp who takes a night-shift filing job in a mothballed hospital but finds herself losing her noggin after reading too many of the files oh and there's a lady killer on the loose. There's a fair effort in building some tension but it's constantly punctured by the crappy script, poor acting and contradictory plot turns and the whole thing just descends into a puerile guessing game. Only the appearance of Michael Biehn kept me watching to the end so to be honest so I'd give it a miss.