John Carpenter's Elvis

Right, it's been a week or more since I last posted. I guess I've been a bit of a busy bee. By busy bee I don't mean I've done anything constructive. I also don't mean that I've produced honey and stung inquisitive young children. I mean I've just been doing a few bits and bobs that has meant I've spent a little less time online. I've also rediscovered my love for all things Football Manager. Mainly it was visiting people for Birthdays and what not.

I've managed to take in a couple of new (to me) films in the last few days though. These were When You're Strange and Elvis. When You're Strange is the Johnny Depp narrated Doors documentary that came out last year and Elvis is the 1979 John Carpenter film that gave Kurt Russell his first leading role. Both were great watches, with The Doors doc just being made up purely of old footage of the band whereas the Elvis biopic didn't include a single second of footage of the actual King. I'll stop there for a second as I'm currently listening to Sleeper. Just a random line that I feel that more people should appreciate, from Delicious, "We should both go to bed 'til we make each other sore...". Love it. For those not aware of the genius of Sleeper, check out this funky little tune. For those that are aware of the genius of Sleeper, I salute you:

Now, the above song most certainly isn't Delicious but Inbetweener seems to be the only song that I can find a decent performance of on YouTube. I found an acoustic version of Delicious but the recording's all a bit too quiet. Bah, Inbetweener it is then. It reminds me of my Louise Wener love. Her, Donna Matthews (Elastica), Sonya Madan (Echobelly), Lauren Laverne (Kenickie) and, a bit later on, Charlotte Hatherley (Ash) were the girls for me. All stunning and all liked to dabble with the guitar to varying degrees. I'm a sucker for a woman with a guitar. I'm not sure what it is, but it just does things to me. I could spend days locked in a room with Elastica although obviously Justin would have to either wait outside or just sit and watch. Right, now that I've gotten totally off on a random tangent, err, Elvis, yeah.

So, Elvis, John Carpenter's '79 biopic of Elvis Aaron Presley. Great film. Over the years there's been many different screen incarnations of the King. My personal favourite still stands as Bruce Campbell in Bubba-Ho-Tep, but I digress. Kurt Russell's portrayal of Elvis is ridiculously good, more so in the fact that he covers many different stages of Elvis' life. The film starts of with a very young Elvis, maybe 8 or 9 years old. This sets up him receiving his first guitar as a Christmas present and also highlights the financial struggle that his family is undergoing with making ends meet. We then skip forward about 6 or 7 years to Kurt Russell's Elvis in high school, getting bullied for his non-conformist hairstyle. Russell then takes you on through the rest of the film and through the various stages of Elvis. There's the shy but charming schoolboy with his sweetheart, there's the nervous teenager that's never performed in front of an audience but ends up in a school talent contest, there's the mama's boy Elvis that records a record for his mother, there's the cocksure Elvis that starts to know how good he is, there's the Elvis that gets rejected at an audition, then there's the Elvis that goes on the meteoric rise that ends up with him becoming the biggest musical name on the planet. The film doesn't follow right through on the Elvis story, choosing to end on his big Las Vegas comeback of the late '60's rather than to end with the King sat on the toilet mid-log and mid-burger. Kurt Russell's performance is fantastic, showing innocence, arrogance, loving, hating, introvert, extrovert. He does a brilliant job of showing Elvis getting wrapped up in the whirlwind rise of himself, only to then realise that due to this he can no longer be just a normal man. He can no longer go for a walk, go on holiday, go shopping. The performance is astonishing for it's range, from the country boy who dreamed of being a rock star to the King of Rock & Roll who has too much fame for him to deal with. The strut, gestures, characteristics and dance moves that Russell shows are unbelievable. Such attention to detail, just so much down to the little things like the way he moves or alters clothing. I'd definitely recommend it to all Elvis fans and to all music or film fans in general. That said, I'm a huge John Carpenter and Kurt Russell fan, so maybe take my words with a grain of salt. One thing that may put a few people off is the running time. The film was originally meant to be split up and shown in installments on TV, hence the long running time that sits at about 2 hours 48 minutes. That said, a shit load of people were happy to invest that amount of time in that Lord of the Rings: Two Towers bullshit which basically focused on 3 hours of walking. As a wiser man than me once said, "even the fucking trees walked in those moves". If you don't know what I'm on about, have a nosey at this (excuse the French subtitles):

In regards to the above, I quite like the first and last Lord of the Rings films. That said, it riles me when people go on about them being the best films of all time or describing them as "The Trilogy". There's only one trilogy and that's "The Holy Trilogy", as in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.

I'm off to take in Wrexham's World Peace Day now so I guess I'll maybe write a bit more on When You're Strange on another day.

Fuckin' A!

The Inbetweeners Movie

Right, so I've finally gotten around to watching The Inbetweeners Movie. Until last night I was in what felt like the 5% of the population that hadn't seen the film. It wasn't that I didn't want to see the film, it wasn't because I didn't like the TV show. For anybody that knows me, I'm a very, very crude and sarcastic person most of the time. So a TV show such as The Inbetweeners is right up my alley. The reason that I put off seeing the film for a few weeks is that the cinemas were constantly rammed with people who were seeing this film. Normally I'd pop along on one of my days off in the week but with it being the summer holidays then it still meant that students were in the cinema. Call me a grumpy old man but I like my cinema to be as void of people as much as possible. When I go to the cinema then I go to watch the film, I pay attention and take in as much detail as I can. So, add in a load of people who are chatting amongst themselves, dicking around on their phones or just generally being cocks, then it annoys the piss out of me. Hence me waiting for a few weeks to catch this film once some of the hype had died down. My cunning plan worked flawlessly as there was a grand total of 9 people in the cinema and I was one of those. It's a good film, an entertaining way to pass 80 odd minutes. It most definitely had some very funny parts, some brilliantly crude lines. The plot was stupidly predictable but that's to be expected with this sort of film. It works as a film in the same way as an American Pie, Private Parts, Dodgeball or a Kevin & Perry Go Large. It's not going to change your life but it's a fun way to pass the time. It's entertaining, pure and simple. Obviously the film's helped in the fact that it already has a solid and established audience. People know what to expect from the characters, from the script and from the dialogue. It's not for everybody, but I'm sure that people who have found the show to be a turn off won't bother to watch the film. In theory, that means that everybody that watches the film should enjoy it. That said, my mum was talking to me yesterday about going and watching it even though she's never watched the TV show and has no idea of the concept of the show or the film. That should be fun for her.

I feel a little let down by myself as I've had the last 5 days off work, and with those days I was planning on catching 5 different films. The plan was to take in, in no particular order, Fright Night, The Inbetweeners, Cowboys & Aliens, Apollo 18 and Conan. Final Destination 5 was also possibly on my hit list. I've only managed to get through 2 of those, although I did spend one day watching Wrexham play (and all that comes with it) so I guess that wasn't a total waste. Apollo 18 really had my interest until I listed to Turek on the Shock Waves podcast at Shock Till You Drop (Click here to listen to Shock Waves). They really buried the film and it got a brutal review. Normally I can take or leave reviews, but those guys normally get their shit spot on. I may still try and catch Apollo 18 at some point, although my interest has waned a lot. Final Destination was on my agenda until I read about there being a scene involving laser eye treatment. As a specs wearer, the thought of that kinda freaks me out. I'm not a fan of things poking round my eyes, hence why I choose not to wear contact lenses. Cowboys & Aliens has been on my hit list for a few weeks now but I was more warm to the concept and idea than the practicality. It just doesn't look right. I dunno. I'm pretty sure I'll end up catching it before it's cinema run ends. Conan, I'm not so sure.

One thing that has gotten my giddy, that I forgot to mention a few blogs ago, is that the trailer for Shark Night 3D was shown when I caught Fright Night. Now, I'd seen the trailer online before so there was no major surprise in that sense. The surprise to me was that the trailer was being shown in my little Odeon in the first place. The cinema here, the Odeon, isn't the biggest. It shows all of the major movies. A film like Shark Night, I thought, would fall by the wayside and not get a cinema run in my neck of the woods. In my head, by showing the trailer for the film then it's basically them committing to showing the film upon it's release. At least that's how it works in my head. That said, I wasn't expecting them to run Fright Night. Maybe I should give the Odeon a bit more credit. If they want to make a good impression on me then they'll somehow manage to have a word with Kevin Smith and get hold of Red State. Still, I'm looking at getting up to Manchester to see Red State and then attend a Q & A with Kev afterwards. I just need to think of a question to top my friend's previous question of if you were half man/half sausage, would the sausage be the top half or the bottom half. That's a deep question right there.

For those that haven't seen the Shark Night 3D trailer then have a little click below. I'll hold my hands up and admit it looks shit, but it's my kind of shit. As a man that has a completely irrational fear of sharks (so much so that I get freaked out on airplanes due to the thought of sharks), I still get intrigued and interest in every single shark film out there, regardless of how shitty it is. Maybe subliminally I'm watching all of these to make sure that I have every single option covered when it comes to ways to kill a shark so that I'm fully prepped for when I have my face off with those grinning motherfuckers. Here's the trailer:

Anyways, on that note I should shoot off as I've got a report type thing to do for the end of this week that I really need to pull my finger out on. That and Wales are playing England at Wembley in a few hours. There's optimism there from me, but then I've never been a realist.

Cymru Am Byth :)

Fright Night

Right, so I got around to checking out Fright Night yesterday. I say got around to but it was only out yesterday and I managed to get to the first showing at 1:45pm. The cinema had about 25 people in which is cool by me. The more empty the cinema then the more happy I am. That way there's less people to dick around with their phones or to just chat throughout the entire film.

Anyways, the film! It was surprisingly OK. The first 20 to 30 minutes were a bit bland but then it got going surprisingly well. It really surprised me how well it was done. It wasn't a direct carbon copy of the original Fright Night and actually changed things up quite well. I don't mean change things up in the "let's have Michael Myers talk" way, but they added scenes, removed scenes, threw in new bits. I'm not sure when writing my random thoughts whether I should talk fully about the film or try to avoid spoilers for people. I guess I should be kind and watch what I say. There's an interesting take on the whole vampires-can't-come-into-your-house-without-being-invited notion. Very clever. There's some parts that are a totally different from the original, and they work. The whole Evil Ed thing seems over a little quick initially, as in he's basically turned within the first 15 minutes or so and then doesn't pop up until about the hour mark. I'm not classing that as a spoiler as anybody that's seen the original Fright Night is expecting that. If you haven't seen the original Fright Night then fuck you, it's your own fault for not watching an '80's classic. One thing that was a little off putting is that I can never really buy Anton Yelchin as a school kid. I mean he's very baby faced but he's got massive wrinkles on his forehead whenever he talks and looks like one of those dudes who always partially look about 65 regardless of their actual age - like there's an old man waiting to burst out. They do manage to even throw in nods to the original film's make-up work, such as the genius big grin below.

Right, I think that covers it for now as I'm about to shoot off out to grab me a pie, pint and some entertaining Wrexham football. The Town are genuinely playing well at the moment, keeping possession, finding men, prepared to wait to find the right ball. It's a genuine joy to watch. Let's just hope we can keep it up against Kidderminster today. Fingers crossed that the Williams brothers don't come back to haunt us. Anyways, time for me to pop across the road for a pre-match pie and pint :)

First and foremost...

Hola! Well this is all new and confusing. Excuse me if I seem a little lost, this is the first real time for me trying this blog type stuff. Basically, it's something that I've debated doing for a little while, just a way to get my thoughts down on the random shit that goes through my mind from time to time.


If I was a meal then films would be the steak, football would be the chips, music would be the mushrooms and onions, with food popping up as the condiments. I hope that's a clear enough analogy. If not then tough, I'm not awake enough to think of an actual decent analogy. Deal with it.


I'm just going to use this blog to give my random thoughts on random goings on. I can't promise a precise structure or that what you read will be relevant, it's just a case of whatever pops into my head or whatever I feel like getting off my chest. There may even be tapeworms involved, just to warn you. That's something that I'm working on at the moment, although I'm not entirely sure where that came from. I think it came from a discussion about urban myths. Anyways, I'll get to that in a later blog. For now, this is just an introductory blog type thing. I hope to add pictures and videos once I've got into my comfort zone with all the fangled options involved in this blogging stuff. I was thinking of possibly going through my 10 favourite film scenes or favourite uses of music in film. Just ideas at the moment, but that's the type of thing that I'm looking at doing. I may even throw a few funky pictures of real life into this. Well, as real as it gets living in the 'hood' of Wrexham.


I guess that kind of gets the first post out of the way. Nothing too exciting but mainly just a way for me to see what this is all about. I'm off out on little trip to the cinema shortly. Fright Night's been released today and, as a huge horror geek, I'm all kinds of excited about seeing it. I know, I know, the original Fright Night is such an awesome film. I'm not really for re-makes/re-boots/re-imagings of films but, whilst I'll bitch and moan, I'll still go along and watch these films. I guess that keeps the studios happy - "All of these fans are bitching about how shit our film is and how it's sacrilegious to re-make 'insert film title here' but these same people pay to go and watch these films, meaning I can afford my monthly holiday to my own private island full of curvaceous, willing ladies". Yep, that gets the studios right where it hurts...


Anyways, I can feel myself going off on a slightly random tangent. Time to get it back on track. I've now got urges to talk about the films that I've seen in recent months, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Captain America, Thor, Green Lantern, Submarine, Scream 4, but I'll resist the urge. I'm even getting urges to blog about the sad loss of Mikel Arteta. On a quick note there, I'm still gutted about Arteta moving to Arsenal. I'm not an Everton fan, I'm a Wrexham fan. Over the years I've built up quite the soft spot for Everton, mainly down to a huge dislike of anything related to Liverpool FC and also down to my love of all things Mikel Arteta. There's not many players like him in the British game, a central playing midfielder who can pull out tricks and also put a ball on someone's toe from 60 yards. Now I'm not saying he's a Paul Scholes when it comes to passing, and I'm not saying he's a Cristiano Ronaldo when it comes to tricks, I'm just saying Arteta is different to most players that you see in the British game. Granted, at times he was used on the right, even on the left on occasions, but he is just a very special talent. It only dawned on my over the last few days that a good part of the reason that I have this soft spot for Everton is purely down to Mikel Arteta. Logically, out of the bigger players that could've gone, then it makes sense for Mikel to be the one. Losing Baines or Jagielka would've been a big blow, whereas Everton are blessed for numbers in midfield. Arteta, Cahill, Osman, Neville, Rodwell, Barkley and Fellaini all battling for 3 places in the middle of the park. I guess it makes sense for one of them to go, and I suppose the positive spin on this is that it finally gives Rodwell his chance to prove if he is going to be good enough. Rodwell's had potential for years. For years he's been talked about as a future England player, yet he struggles to get 20 games a season. Maybe this is the chance for him to step up, for Ross Barkley to stake his claim. I'm still gutted to lose Arteta, but it makes sense in a way and no Evertonian can really begrudge him his move. He's getting the chance of Champions League football and, at 29, it could be his last chance at really getting to play at the top level of club football. I'd have loved for him to have gotten Everton back to that level but the problems at Everton are to be saved for another blog. I'm just going to go out and say how sorry I feel for David Moyes. The guy has an impossible task.


And stop. Death breath. I can feel myself going off on another rant. Right, time to wrap this up. The Odeon is calling me so I best get my shit together, grab a quick shower, possibly a KFC, and get myself to the cinema.


And that was the end of his first blog...