Is This The Real Life, Is This Just Fantasy?

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Bohemian Rhapsody tells the story of the band Queen with a particular focus on its lead singer Freddie Mercury. Having seen his smile, I also recommend that you see the film on the biggest screen possible as nothing less will be able to fit his fucking teeth on.. let alone his ego. The film charts the band's journey from their humble beginnings and goes all the way to their epic Live Aid performance in which it's implied that they single-handedly solved world hunger. Other than a brief stint in which Freddie leaves the band to pursue an ill-founded solo career, the group seems to conquer the planet with relative ease, which is even more impressive when you consider that most of their songs are total shit. I'm not a huge fan of Queen because I prefer it when music isn't overly-long, shallow, and self-indulgent drivel, which is a shame here because that's how I feel about films too. Despite having so much dirt that it could have dealt with, Bohemian Rhapsody instead opted to get down on its knees and give Mercury a two hour blow-job, with the movie glorifying the band as blatantly as Triumph Of The Will did the fucking Nazis. Not that I'm saying that Queen are as bad as the Nazis, obviously. Although to clarify.. nor am I saying that this film is even remotely as well made as their Triumph Of The Will.

Lifting Your Spirits

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Pixar's Coco tells the story of a Mexican family that have been dramatically let down by a musician, which is something that I'm sure we can all relate to. Especially if you're also a Morrissey fan and are finding it increasingly difficult to defend the mad-bastard comments that he keeps making. Here however they're simply hurt by a family member that picked up his guitar and fucked off to pursue his musical ambitions instead of staying to be with them. As a result the family has banned all forms of music from being enjoyed within their vicinity, which includes stifling Miguel, the youngest member of their family, and his dreams of playing guitar. All of this seems a bit harsh to me. Everybody gets fucked by something at some point but at no point did my great-grandmother ever ban me from being impregnated by a sailor with the clap. Despite this, Miguel still sneaks into the loft when everybody is asleep in order to practice guitar against his families wishes. Again.. what young boy hasn't hidden himself away during the night so that he can strum his instrument? Eventually his family discover his secret and in a moment of pure rage his grandmother grabs his guitar and smashes it against the floor. I actually got really angry at this bit. Miserable old knobhead. Miguel should have smashed something that she loves to teach her a lesson. Her fucking fragile bitch hips for example..

I Saw John Carpenter Live!

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As John Carpenter and his band launched into their live rendition of the theme from his ghostly masterpiece The Fog, some genius thought it'd be a good idea to turn on the smoke machine. And they were right. It was fucking genius. Seeing Carpenter play that piece of music with footage from the film projected onto a large screen behind him, while mist slowly descended over the room, was one of the many highlights of the Liverpool gig that I saw him at on the 28^th of October. I can't say that any ghost-pirates appeared from the fog this time, however it's been so long since I last ate any fruit that it wouldn't surprise me if I had fucking scurvy at this point. Getting into the gig had proven to be more of a ball-ache than I'd imagined thanks to Google-maps providing the wrong location, one Taxi-driver refusing to take us because “he'd be fucked by the Hackneys”, and then finding ourselves stuck outside the most badly organised venue that I've ever been to. People with paper tickets were allowed straight in whereas those with E-tickets had to stand outside until twenty-minutes past the gig's original start time for some reason. To quote a fellow E-ticket queuer; “it's like we're the working class and this venue thinks it's the fucking Titanic”.

Let's Be Frank

Frank starts in some fucking God-awful British coastal town where the beach is made out of broken rocks and the sky is constantly threatening to piss down. Life for Jon is predictably boring with his attempts at writing songs resulting in both unproductive brain-farts and well... shit. One day when out walking, he spots a man attempting suicide which, having seen the grottiness of the area, seems like common sense to me. Being both British and human though, Jon doesn't really worry and instead watches apathetically from the side in the vain hope that he'll suddenly be struck by some musical inspiration. Also, watching this breakdown with understanding nonchalance are the chap’s bandmates who are now in need of a new keyboard player. Jon plays keyboard. He joins the band... it's as easy as that. Sadly though, the band he's joined are so musically experimental that their sound is like listening to somebody angry fuck a dustbin and everybody except the lead singer hates his ginger guts. Oh, and just because that's not already enough of a set up for a ninety minute film, the lead singer is clearly fucking mental having made the common-as-muck life choice of permanently wearing a giant Frank Sidebottom mask on his head. Yep, it's another one of them... A film about the creative process as filtered through the deranged mind of a nutcase, hidden behind a papier-mâché symbol of musical old Madchester. God, I hate all the fucking clichés!

Spring Break Is The American Dream?

In all honesty I have no real idea what a Spring Break actually is and from what little I do know, I suspect I'd completely fucking hate it. I think it's like a big beach party in America where all the newly legal teens migrate to in order to get off their tits and bone each other.. but I'm no expert. In England the weather doesn't really permit us to strip off outside and even if it did, our fun would no doubt be spoilt by a hosepipe ban or an unchecked sex offender. To be honest with you, I'm only twenty-five now but I think that mentally I've been Arthur Dent since probably about birth. If I ended up at one of those teeny beach raves I wouldn't be joining in because it just seems a bit too vacuous and tribalistic for me. Kind of like if MTV had been involved in the last days of Rome. Instead I'd probably just be stood clothed on a nearby jetty, enjoying a nice cup of tea, as the youths frolic in the water and I wait to see if a rogue speed boat ploughs through and kills them all. It seems that it's the kind of place where nubile airheads go to do something 'crazy' as though the word 'crazy' really means exciting! But it doesn't mean exciting... It means completely fucking retarded.

With that in mind, the chances of me being able to relate to any single character in the film Spring Breakers seemed about as likely as those types of people giving any kind of shit about me. I know that we're all human but with their impulsive, extraverted nature and my crippling sense of cynicism, I refuse to believe that we're actually the same species. That being said, a movie doesn't necessarily need a sympathetic or relatable lead character if it has a particularly gripping style or story to pull you in. I mean, believe it or not but even at my age I still haven't been raped or even raped anybody in a quiet country house but that doesn't mean I can't love Straw Dogs. However the story of Spring Breakers begins with a group of young, shallow, tarts desperate to go to this ‘Spring Break’ event thing so that they can whip out their titties and start shoving some boys up themselves. Initially they don't have enough cash for the trip but by combining their five brain cells, they decide to just steal the money from some other people... which they do. After a few days of partying they end up in jail having been charged with the crime of being an irritating, coke snorting herd of slags. Lucky for them though, they've caught the eye of a dreadlocked freak named Alien who bails them out and takes them under his wing. There isn't a character here that doesn't represent everything that I hate about the world... To quote my hero Morrissey, “Come! Come! Come - nuclear bomb!”

I wonder what could be popular about this boobs.. I mean... film..

The film was written and directed by Harmony Korine whose previous efforts include Trash Humpers, Mister Lonely and the legendary Gummo. I actually saw Gummo for the first time last year and was shocked by how much I loved it. I'd been promised a film in which, “some weirdo's have a fight with a chair”, and so I was prepared for some morally dubious piece of shit in which disabled people are exploited for giggles... like they are on The X-Factor, however what I got instead was a beautifully shot and dreamlike film in which a town of impoverished hicks crack on with their simple lives of skinny dipping, theft and chubby-whoring. Obviously I enjoyed the chair fighting stuff too but there's no way that I can't love any film that concludes with a Roy Orbison song as some kid in bunny ears runs towards the camera whilst holding a dead cat. As a result of my love for Gummo I was looking forward to Spring Breakers. Also after the tragic death of the year 2013, people began including this film quite frequently in their top ten lists... So I was kind of excited.   

To anybody watching this film, my advice would be not to have the high expectations that I did and then afterwards wait at least a day before making any decision on it. You know when you eat some burgers that are so old that they've turned slightly green and, true story, you have to give it twenty-four hours to see if you shit yourself to death?… Well that's kind of what the movie is like. It needs time to sink in but when it does you'll either have had a good time or a really fucking terrible one. After much mulling over though, I can thankfully conclude that eventually I thought it was great! It's no Gummo but it's certainly fucking something... I think the main problem is that it depicts this stupid event as a kind of Mecca for knobheads but then doesn't seem to have an obvious opinion on it. I mean I think it's a satire because there's a voiceover in which the girls claim to be having such an enlightening time as a montage shows them pissing in the street but then maybe I'm just seeing that angle due to my own prejudice? I imagine that the kind of smooth skinned braindead fucktards that the movie depicts could probably watch Spring Breakers and take it completely at face value... as though it's a full-blown tribute to their shallow, unimportant and shit lives.

I think that for me the key to deciding how I felt was a scene near the end in which the twattish looking Alien plays the piano whilst his gang of trollops prance around him. They ask him to play something that will show his emotional side and so to prove how tender he can be he plays a song by Britney Fucking Spears. The scene then transcends into something bizarre as though Britney's music is the path to their enlightenment … As though her songs have any kind of meaning at all, let alone a deeper one. I mean, we do all remember who Britney is right? The talentless skank that went mad, shaved off her hair and then made a career out of flashing her gash. I mean I know there are scumbag members of the paparazzi lying in the gutter to get the flange-shot but she could still wear some fucking underwear. Have you seen her vagina? It's like Mother Theresa’s wrinkled arse hole... All rank and gross like a dying Sarlacc as it strains painfully for one last gasp of life. From this alone I had to conclude that the film was taking the piss because surely nobody could seriously treat Britney as some kind of white-trash deity? Surely they couldn't? Jesus- I hope it's taking the piss!

Well he looks like a lovely chap...

The other thing that deserves praise is this Alien character that I keep referring to or to be more specific, James Franco's performance as him. Franco is almost unrecognisable in this role having hidden himself beneath a head of hair that resembles the Predator's pubes and a set of gold teeth that suggests he's sucked off King Midas. Alien is a gangster but his heart is in the right place even if his brain isn't...  He's one of those morons that watches Scarface and idolises the career path having clearly not watched the end and seen that.. spoiler alert... Tony Montana doesn't end up as a rich and happy old man. Also I heard Franco say “y'all” so many times in Spring Breakers that I now have a permanent twitch in my eye that I'm sure suggests the phrase has become a trigger for me to go on a kill rampage. It's a great performance and one that is rightly gaining praise from most who see it however it does seem to have rubbed one chap up the wrong way. In July 2013 a rapper named Riff Raff sued the makers of this film claiming that the character of Alien had clearly been based on him and that he had not been paid or received credit for this. Beyond the fact that I'm pretty sure you don't need a person’s permission to portray them in a film I thought I'd Google him anyway and to be fair he has a point....When I first saw a picture of Riff Raff I was struck by two thoughts, the first was “Jesus he looks the spitting image of Franco's Alien” and the second was “Fuck me this guy looks like such a cunt”.

Franco's performance was great but nothing probably helped it more than surrounding him with an ensemble of dull actresses and characters that were completely devoid of any personality. It was the acting equivalent of standing next to the town munter just so that you can look better in a photograph. However with my reading of the film, these boring girls are intentionally this way to highlight the kind of insufferable dullards who enjoy this crap lifestyle. Again I'm pretty sure that some real life fucknuts could watch this and relate to the irritating skin-puppets on screen, however as much as I get this message, it's still pretty hard to sit with them for ninety minutes and so, for me, the other appeal of Spring Breakers was also in its style. Although to be fair, even that's garish and crass with all the colours set to eye raping levels of intensity. Remember when people first got dodgy copies of Photoshop and suddenly everybody thought they were a photographer because they could take a shit picture and then crank the curves and colour saturation up to such an extent that it looked like they'd been caught in a nuclear blast? Well that's kind of the look the film is going for too although again I'm hoping that this is another example of demonstrating the shallowness of this whole event.

To kind of conclude, there was some controversy after the film was released with some people claiming that its depiction of females was sexist but with others defending this saying that it was actually empowering for them. For me though the films refusal to have an obvious stance on its subject kind of results in it having its cake and eating it. On the one hand yeah these girls become tooled up bitches who take what they want and ultimately answer to nobody but on the other hand they do it with their arse out and their tits bouncing. I do recommend this film but if you watch it and decide that you need to go to a beach rave, I don't think that we can ever be friends again.

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