Oldman Does As He Must

Join us on Facebook!

In many ways the problem with Gary Oldman's Winston Churchill make-up is how good it is. Because most of the time you stare amazed at how spot-on it looks, and then he takes his glasses off and you're distracted by the fact that Churchill is wearing Gary Oldman's fucking eyes. Obviously it'd be impossible to get the likeness completely perfect, but this film comes so close that whenever a minute imperfection appears you're distracted for a split second and reminded that it's all a performance. It's kind of like having a friend that's a reformed drug addict over for lunch and having the best time ever with them, but, despite how much you know they've changed their circumstances and who they are, if they were to even look at the medicine cabinet you'd get a momentary flash of them squirting Germaline into their gums and then burning the house down to hide your murdered corpse. As the hunched and bulldog-like Prime Minister paces through the shadows, you could be easily forgiven for thinking we were directly looking back through time at the real man. But then he'll lean too far forwards, his prosthetic jowls will hang slightly oddly and briefly you'll be expecting him to burst into song like Dame Edna's Goblin King from The fucking Hobbit.

Two Hours of Guilt

Horror movies don't horrify me for the most part because they're bland and shit and I tend to find myself relating to the killer. I think these days the studios generally care more about cheap shocks than actual scares and so spend less time creating relatable characters and more time deciding how many ways there are to stab a person in the tits. Instead of ‘characters’ we now have these airheaded mongtards that say and do things so stupid that you want them to get their face ripped off just to shut them the fuck up. To change the subject slightly there are also period films which I have issues with because they can also be a bit po-faced and worthy. I'll honestly watch any film with an open mind but if it involves a Queen who died over a hundred years ago then the odds are it's going to be a proper bitch to get through. Just three hours of people staring out of a window whilst contemplating their duty and whinging like the boring twats that they are. However I'm pleased to announce that in an effort to address both these issues, a character driven horror/period film has just been released which is set during the ever so cheerful period of the slave trade. If you're white and fancy feeling guilty as fuck for a couple of hours then I can't recommend 12 Years a Slave strongly enough.

Okay, so to summarise.. the film is set in America before their civil war and so at a time when owning people was a perfectly acceptable past-time. Solomon Northup is a free black chap just living his life and indulging in his basic human rights as though he thinks we're all allowed to be equal. Well as nice a thought as this is, he quickly ends up with egg on his face as he wakes up one morning to find himself chained to a floor after an evening out on the piss with two shady gents. Don't you just hate it when you treat yourself to one night of getting rat arsed with strangers and then before you know it you've been stripped and sold into slavery just because you had the God damn nerve to be black... It's happened to the best of us I guess! Anyway, from this point on Solomon finds himself being thrown from pillar to whipping post by his various masters who bat him back and forth like a dark ping-pong ball during a bigots game of wiff-waff. With his owners varying in unkindness on 'The Great Twat-ometer Of Evil' and over the course of twelve years Solomon patiently waits for an opportunity to escape as though all the horrendous abuse isn't quite his idea of a good time. I won't ruin what happens by saying whether or not he does manage to get away in the end and so to find out, you'll either have to watch the film or read the book that it's based on which was written by the man himself several years later... Or you could just work it out from that I suppose.

I can whip you or we can watch Jonah Hex.. you choose!

Anywho, so obviously this movie probably wouldn't technically be labelled as a horror film but after enduring it for two hours it really fucking should be. Like I said, it takes a lot to horrify me but the graphic depiction of how we crackers used to treat black people really was nothing short of demented. It's one thing to know that people used to get whipped but it's another to see it happen to a young woman whose only crime was being owned by a wealthy-but-mental knobend. Seeing pieces of her back flick off was absolutely horrendous as she screamed for death in an unforgiving sequence that was so much more powerful than any mere history book could possibly ever get across to me... and not just because I don't read history books. If this film has a purpose beyond simply re-telling the story of Solomon Northup it's also to remind our species of just how cruel we can be and have been to anybody we outnumber. In fact, the movie was so miserable in its depiction of our inhumanity that it reminded me of one of those dystopian sci-fi films in which society has gone to shit and we're all rounded up and tortured by either broken, naked robots or damned dirty apes. Except instead of being completely fictitious, this is a true story, has already happened and the evil cunts were us.

The treatment of the slaves is shown in all its mad bastard grimness with the owners and traders beating down on their hostages with more force and fury than a teenaged boy at a regional wank-a-thon. When I first got my dog she used to shit in the house and so to stop her doing it I was told to shove her nose into the mess. However because I'm not a psychopath I couldn't do that and so instead next time she took a kitchen dump I pointed it out to her and then flicked her on the nose. That was seven years ago and I still feel guilty about it now even though all she did was look at me with mild curiosity and briefly wondered why I'd just been such a bell-end to her. My point is that I really regret something my dog would have forgotten about a minute later and so how in God's name could those owners treat the slaves with such violence and so little empathy? Maybe this is one aspect that 12 Years A Slave doesn't really delve into as it seems more concerned with what happened than why it happened. Of his various owners, Solomon finds himself belonging to Benedict Cumberbatch who is depicted as being fairly sane however even he at his kindest still owns people and so is complicit to the cruelty being inflicted throughout the system. The basic equation to work it out is simply One person + People owned = One ignorant fucknugget. Although no reason for how we can be so horrible is suggested beyond a mass mental illness of the collective honky mind, though religion seems to be a common defence for it. Cumberbatch and Solomon's next owner Fassbender both quote the Bible as a way of justifying their own dickishness because if God says it's right then it damn well must be. To be honest, it'd be easy to blame God for allowing the slave trade to happen considering he's omnipotent but as he's also a fictional character that's been spunked into the world by our paranoid minds, I guess we're still at least a little responsible.

What do you mean Brad Pitt is in this film?!

These reasons above are why I think 12 Years a Slave is a pretty mental horror film and obviously also a great period piece. Somebody else could have made this as a bland, watered down slab of Oscar bait rather than the traumatic slice of shitty life that it is and so let’s all be grateful that Lee Daniel's and Oprah Winfrey were busy. Although that's not to say that it won't necessarily win any Oscars by the way, just that if it does it'll be by being true to itself and not because it was already lubed up and gaping for the voters pleasure. It's directed by Steve 'not that one' McQueen, who has brought the same kind of unflinching tone over from his previous films however this time adding the odd flash of influence from Terrence Malick. In case you've not seen a Malick film, this basically means that every time something interesting happens then you cut to a shot of some grass for ten minutes to highlight how important everything is. His previous film Shame very nearly put me off ever jizzing again and so if you've ever dreamed of legally being somebodies bitch then maybe give this one a bit of a miss. Everything about his direction here is pretty spot-on from the framing to the pacing to the performances with a hanging scene being a particularly great way of demonstrating the nonchalant horror of the time. In fact despite the hanging scene lasting a good few minutes, the film affected me so strongly that I'm not even going to make a David Carradine wanking joke about it... which is a shame because I have a good one too. However as well as direction, the other thing that makes this film so powerful is of course the cast who are all pretty much perfect. Chiwetel Ejiofor is brilliant, Fassbender is excellent, Cumberbatch is great and Brad Pitt... well he definitely turned up... so fuck it- lets stick Pitt’s face on the poster!

Anyway to wrap all this up I suppose I can't stress enough how important this film is and how much you should see it. I had a snack to eat during it and I have honestly never felt more awful in my life for chowing down on a chocolate flake as some starving black guy got branded by an evil land baron. I'd been waiting for the one moment I could have it but in the end I had to just eat before my treat melted. The whole situation was a real tragedy. Once a year we hold a minute’s silence for those who have died during all the wars however after seeing 12 Years a Slave I think we should start having one days silence a month to repent for our bastard ancestors actions during this unforgivable shit stain on history. Although having said that, I suppose it does seem to be coming kind of common place at the minute to make films about slavery. I won't bother comparing 12 Years a Slave to Django Unchained though because so many other people already have, this blog is already way to long and I'm dying for a piss right now. To summarise- they're completely different to each other. There was also Lincoln which came out recently but although I haven't seen it, I think I might have to if only to try and restore any faith in our horrible, horrible species. I used to worry about the inevitable expansion of the Sun one day destroying everything humanity has worked towards however now I worry that by the time it happens we nasty cunts might have worked out a way of surviving. See this film and feel the guilt!

---

---

The Girl Who Cried Pedo

There's no denying that if you're trying to get shit to stick then you can do a lot worse than calling somebody a kiddie fiddler. Take my friend’s neighbour for example who, about five years ago, was genuinely sent to jail for abusing his very young grand-daughter. From that point on he'll forever be known as a paedophile no matter what he does. Say the same guy wakes up one day and discovers that one of his kitchen cupboards contains a portal leading directly to heaven, he'd instantly become the most famous man on the planet- I mean, he would basically be discovering proof of God so how could he not? But if that did happen, now and after he's been to prison the printed headline most news papers would actually go with would still be something like, “Creepy Nonce To Definitely Burn In Hell”. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing either, by the way. I'm pretty much of the opinion that even if you did do something great like say... oh, I don't know... direct Chinatown... then as brilliant as whatever you've done might be, you'll still never be excused for your unforgivable rapeyness. However that's not also to say that as a society we aren't maybe a little bit over-paranoid about the boogeyman breaking in and you know... fucking our children.

Over the years there's been surprisingly few films that examine the sexual damage that a fully grown adult can inflict on a minor. I guess Hollywood just feels that those stories might not have the feel-good conclusions that audiences flock to piss their cash all over. As a result, each one that does get made kind of focuses on a different aspect of the world of the kiddy fiddler. For example, 2004's The Woodsman looked at what it might actually be like to be a paedophile whereas 2005's Hard Candy was more concerned with the joy of chopping off their fucking balls. I'm not sure if it's the most recent pedo-centric film to be released but the other day I saw a new entry on the subject called The Hunt. This movie was directed by Thomas Vinterberg who people may remember as being the co-creator of the pretentious dogma 95 movement along with the worlds most awkward Nazi, Lars Von Trier. Here however Vinterberg has kindly made a film in the conventional manner that this time tells the story of a school teacher who is falsely accused of being a pedo by some six year old little bitch.

"Can you show me on the doll how big his cock was?"

The teacher in question is played by the always phenomenal Mads Mikkelsen who is shunned from his community with more haste than a leper with an erection. As it turns out, the lying little tart is his best friend’s daughter who, to be fair, does deny her life-destroying claims as soon as she witnesses their consequences. However thanks to this blanket of fear that we all seem to live under, the adults don't care about her retraction and instantly set about finding proof of her evil teachers cuntish ways. They bombard the child with leading questions until she's so confused that she doesn't know what she's admitting to and then they tell her what they imagine happened. Within a couple of days the bastard-stupid school that Mikkelsen worked for has convinced every parent that their kid was probably maliciously jizzed over causing them to start an ill-informed rampage of revenge. At no point to us is the accused’s innocence under question with the film more interested in the escalation of the witch hunt and the idea of mud sticking. As I mentioned at the beginning, as hobbies go, society isn't too fond of child abuse and so we tend not to forget the name of those who practice it. I suppose that in the end the message of The Hunt is simply ‘who really needs evidence when you've got so much fucking hate?’

Before watching the film I kind of knew I'd love it because it was getting such a positive reception and I'm a huge fan of Mikkelsen however I didn't expect to love it quite as much as I did. I think I've mentioned it in another recent blog but I'm kind of a sucker for some self-controlled annoyance and so for me this was a field day of irritation. Every time some idiot parent jumped to the wrong conclusion or vilified the innocent man I wanted to scream at them for being such a fucking dickbrain. I mean, it is good that we care about the wellbeing of our younglings, but it's the way everybody is so happy to destroy a good man’s world with so little actual proof. The only evidence that they have is that the young girl briefly claimed it and according to them, “Children never lie”. I mean are you actually kidding me? I might be knocking on now but it's not been that long since I was a kid and I'd lie all the god damn time if I needed to. In fact I knew one little girl who took a dump in the middle of the street and told me to tell everybody a dog had gone and done it. Now that wasn't exactly the fucking truth was it?!

However I suppose the main reason that I got so pissed off with these fucking idiots is because of Mikkelsen's performance as their victim. If I didn't care or couldn't empathise with the shitty-as-shit situation that he'd been forced into then the impact of the mobs retarded determination wouldn't be quite so powerful. The film constantly threatens to go into Straw Dogs, Rambo, one man against everybody territory, but intelligently never actually goes there. Instead, Mikkelsen's character withdraws from public only seeking to defend himself if directly accused. Considering the abuse he's receiving some might see him as being a pussy for this, but it does make sense. He's clearly suffering from the shock and stress of what's going on and any act of defiance really would cause the locals to run for their torches and pitch-forks. It is frustrating that he often fails to stand up for himself but it is perfectly believable behaviour considering the poor guy is also having the shit kicked out of his existence. I guess it would be the happiest day of the mobs’ collective lives if they could brutally murder a 'pedo' in self-defence and with no sense of mercy.

I don't want to spoil anything but this all builds to a supermarket standoff that is more emotional than watching a dying puppy get smothered by its sobbing doggy mother. It's at this point too that I noticed the similarities between The Hunt and another masterpiece; We Need To Talk About Kevin. Both films feature an adult being shunned by the town because of some fucking idiot kid and both depict the grimness of trying to do the weekly shop when surrounded by glaring, judgemental twats. I have basically no conclusion for having pointed that out but it's still worth knowing in case you ever fancied a gritty, grim-tastic double feature. I also enjoyed the emotion of the very end in which regardless of what actually happens, the mental scarring that the teacher has picked up is hinted towards. To be fair, if I could draw a face that represents a damaged psyche I would probably go for Mikkelsen's which is like a sunken eyed, Skeletor that's been garnished with a slither of Danish skin.

It's also a good time to see a film like this as we in England seem to be having a bit of a nonce-epidemic right now. Since the death of the pervy creepophile Jimmy Saville, pretty much anybody born before 1959 has been accused of sticking a part of themselves up someone who’s several un-grown pubes too young. Although there's no denying that pretty much all of them have the sinister face of a twisted pervert, some of them have also somehow been found innocent. However when it turns out that somebody like British television host Jim Davidson isn't guilty, the phrase we use to break the news is still, “He got off with it”… which kind of implies that even though he's been proven not to have done anything we still think he did and just got away with it. Even I can't believe that Davidson wasn't guilty although I suspect that’s more down to my dream that the hate-filled cunt would one day get shivved to death in the yard of some grotty prison. I guess the doubt that we retain about those sinister looking entertainers is the same doubt that the village would have for someone like Mikkelsen. Sadly for him though he doesn't have the expensive lawyers or high security walls that our great nations child loving entertainers can unfortunately afford.

"If you see it, you suck it!"

Despite having been released in 2012, it has just been announced that The Hunt will be entered as a candidate into the 2014 Oscar awards. This is an amazing movie and if we absolutely have to introduce a competitive element to art then I do hope it wins that giant golden dildo. The acting was amazing, the cinematography was gorgeous and the story was like a cattle prod to the brain, resulting in the occurrence of violently provoked thoughts. Having seen how little Mikkelsen had done to have his life come crashing down on him, I'm sure we can all empathise with his situation. The other day I was minding my own business when some wild toddler came running head first into my leg causing me to accidentally knee his face into the mudded, stony, ground. Although his grand-parents saw what happened and didn't give a shit, I'm sure in an alternate reality I could have been accused of attacking the stupid little knob. Having said that, I was also secretly chuffed about what had happened and the lack of any consequences simply became the icing on the child-assault cake!

Anyway, so as you can probably tell I'm waffling now which is usually a sign that I don't know how to end this shiz. So I'll just say that you should see this film because it's amazing. In Casino Royale Mikkelsen played a character called Le Chiffre who is one of my all time favourite Bond villains. Despite his character doing something as risky as gambling away his terrorist-clients money though the stakes in The Hunt are actually a lot higher for him. Le Chiffre suffers from a condition which causes his eye to randomly weep blood known as heamolacria. However if he went to prison for as long as your average paedophile does, it wouldn't be his eye that was dripping with blood but the rip in his systematically raped, arsehole. And with that image I'll call this a day. Bye everybody!

---

Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.

---