Happy 83rd Horace

Lord Luton's Right Load of Cossacks

Taras Bulba , based on the novel by Nikolai Gogol, is hailed as one of the greatest Russian stories of all time. Bulba is an old Cossack with two sons, he sends them off to be educated in Kiev and through the length of the story we see the destiny of the two sons change. One falls in love with a Polish girl and betrays his father and fellow Cossacks and while the other grows up to be a good Cossack. Now you know the basics lets chat about the films. Yep, plural. First is the 1962 version starring Yul Bryner as Bulba and ....wait for it.....Tony Curtis as the 'bad son'. As you can imagine there is lots of action and the whole thing rattles along at a fair old pace with the usual sped up horse scenes but you end up feeling sorry for old Bulba. A bit of a Hollywood epic with a difference, not on the massive scale that you sometimes expect from Hollywood but they certainly capture the feel of the wild but proud Cossacks.


The second version is a Russian made epic from 2009. They seem to be pumping out these sort of things now (see 1612 for example). As you would expect this version seems far more historically accurate and the battle scenes are far more gory and realistic but unfortunately what it gains in realism it loses in pace and fun. Where the original had legs and the ability carry the audience along the Russian version gets bogged down in preaching and speeches. Those evil Poles! etc etc. If your looking for a rip roaring adventure go for the 1962 version. If you want a historically accurate version with cheap synth soundtrack......


Before we abandon Cossacks altogether I'm going to come over all Sister Wendy and show you a painting that I love.
The reason I'm so taken by this picture is not so much the image itself but the story behind it. Basically the Cossacks were being such a pain in the arse that the Ottoman Sultan, Turkish Sultan Mehmed IV, wrote to them,

"As the Sultan; son of Muhammad; brother of the Sun and Moon; grandson and viceroy of God; ruler of the kingdoms of Macedonia, Babylon, Jerusalem, Upper and Lower Egypt; emperor of emperors; sovereign of sovereigns; extraordinary knight, never defeated; steadfast guardian of the tomb of Jesus Christ; trustee chosen by God himself; the hope and comfort of Muslims; confounder and great defender of Christians—I command you, the Zaporozhian Cossacks, to submit to me voluntarily and without any resistance, and to desist from troubling me with your attacks."

The painting shows a group of cossacks writing the reply and having a great deal of fun composing the following

Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Turkish Sultan (4?)!

Thou art a Turkish imp, the damned Devil's brother and friend, and a secretary to Lucifer himself. What the devil kind of knight art thou that cannot slay a hedgehog with your naked arse? The devil shits, and your army eats. Thou son of a bitch wilt not ever make subjects of Christian sons; we have no fear of your army, by land and by sea we will battle with thee, fuck thy mother. Thou art the Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, goat-fucker of Alexandria, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, Armenian pig, Podolian villain, catamite of Tartary, hangman of Kamyanets, and fool of all the world and underworld, a fool before our God, a grandson of the Serpent, and the crick in our dick. Pig's snout, mare's arse, slaughterhouse cur, unchristened brow, screw thine own mother!

So the Zaporozhians declare, you lowlife. Thou wilt not even be herding Christian pigs. Now we shall conclude, for we don't know the date and don't have a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year in the book, the day's the same over here as it is over there; for this kiss our arse!

Hands up who thought trolling started with the Internet!

Boffiny

A Tale of Two Remakes

It's hard to imagine but somehow the remake of Conan makes the Milius/Arnie version seem Oscar worthy. Sure the remake has more and better staged swordplay, bloodletting and Ron Perlman in it's favour but it just can't match the atmosphere of the original and it all plays out like a fey EA video game. As you'd expect the plot doesn't amount to much; Conan is orphaned & wanders the planet until picking up the scent of his nemesis and his freaky witch daughter while they hunt for some pure blood maiden. Maybe with a lead actor who didn't look empty & lost and a bit more conviction to string things out for more than it's 100mins this might have been worth a look. As it stands I wouldn't waste your time.

However Fright Night, another 80's remake, shows how it's done and manages to surpass the original with gusto. Funnier, bloodier and better acted than the McDowell version this shows what can be done with a little common sense. Former nerd Charley and his girlfriend end up in some bother when the new neighbour turns out to be cleaning the town of pesky kids with liberal fang use and they enlist the help of a jaded, faux vampire hunter. With Toni Collette, David Tenant and Colin Farrell all turning in excellent performances and the script rattling along with plenty of laughs this hokey 80's number has been regurgitated as a funny, richly dark, highly enjoyable addition to the canon of vampire flicks.

Shiny Dim Bulbs

Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig star in genre mash up Cowboys and Aliens a big budget little brain Hollywood travaganza. Wanted criminal awakes in the desert with an natty wrist band but no recent memories, on wandering into a nearby town the truculent hero finds himself defending it with his newly acquired bangle & soon begins a cliche riven quest against the alien visitors. It's not terrible just depressingly formulaic and despite the insertion of some "wit" and the aforementioned actor heavyweights it never shakes off it's paper thin plotting and reliance on gaudy special effects. It gave me the distinct impression of being built around the title, probably pitched at some meeting of awful, facile minds. Sigh.

Scifi is big business in Japan so it's quite surprising they've produced so few live action space operas. Space Battleship Yamato aims to rectify this with a tale of a ruined Earth besieged by a powerful alien race, only one ship survives and begins a epic journey in search of some alien tech that might help turn the tables. Based on a cherished anime series the film is stuffed with predictably cartoonish characters and a shed load of CGI and SFX to wash it all down with. I dunno somehow the I'm more willing to accept Japanese cheese than Amurican maybe it's their innocence or naivete that makes it palatable but anyways it's a decent enough watch and certainly didn't depress me as much as Cowboys and A's . Maybe if I'd seen the original anime I might have enjoyed it more. It's big glossy fun I guess but boy is it dumb.

Musik fur Ihre Mutter

Paper Profundities

Modern suburban living and it's concomitant anxieties are revealed in the darkly comic, rather brilliant White Noise by Don Delillo. Jack Gladney, his wife Babette and their extended brood of children live a peaceful life off campus but their media soaked lives come under increasing strain when the town is threatened by a toxic cloud. Delillo is a superb writer and his stunning interweaving of threads like our relationship with technologies, foolish niche academia and the psychological encroachment of the media effortlessly fill page after page of this skillful satire that's as funny as it is tragic. If I was to find fault it'd be that despite being richly drawn individuals the main characters became a little tiresome in the final third and maybe the pacing of key events could have been improved. Still this is one fine book and given it was written 26 years ago a startlingly prescient one. I can't wait to read one of Delillo's more contemporary novels. Thanks to Sir J for the tip.

Crashing a plane into water near the town of Shepperton a young man transcends and transforms reality in J G Ballard's The Unlimited Dream Company. Quite unlike his early scifi dystopias or his later near-future prophecies Ballard's fantastical, William Blake inspired novel is a exhilarating fantastical narrative about nature and religion, er I guess. After the fatal crash our protagonist is imbued with great power and with the local populace under his sway they become witness and participants in his ascent into a strange, brooding Demigod. Unfettered and plunged into the mystic Ballard's writing has never been better as he creates dizzying scapes of preternatural fecundity, orgiastic metamorphoses and their flipside of fetid decay and insistent absorption. It's a hard novel to explain so you're just better off getting yourself a copy and diving right in.

Gid Vids

Animated Sheet of So What, via Dangerous Minds


Amazing Sand art via Neatorama


392 seconds of August fails, via reddit