CLASSics: Deliverance.

Deliverance... the thin line between "civilization" and barbarism. It's about man versus nature, it's about survival, it's about self-preservation and it's about how we deal with traumatic events.

It's the age old story of men meet nature, nature bums men, men meet hillbillies, hillbillies bum men, men kill hillbillies, men hide in nature, nature kills bummed man.

Class:


Not Class:

Rec Turned Me Into a Wreck.

You know that bit in the Blair Witch Project? No, not the bit when the chick is crying and her nose is running like a squid sliding down a spiral staircase. The scene close to the end when the same snotty nose girl is hysterically running through the abandoned house and suddenly, for a split second, we see one of the other main characters silently standing facing into the corner of the room. As overhyped as the film was it's still one of my favourite "what the fuck was that!?" movie moments ever.

Well I've just finished watching one of my most anticipated films of the year "REC." This Spanish film is one of the recent dose of Shaky-Cam films that have been saturating cinemas of late. Though unlike its celluloid sister "Diary of the Dead" here we have a film that stays with you long after the last Spaniard has gurgled their final pint of the crimson stuff.

Being that entire film is utilised through the already tired POV technique, I kinda feel like I have to preface this entire comment with the statement that I hate this pseudo-artistic handy cam style that everyone seems to think brings realism to a story, when in reality is nothing more than a method of saving production costs. That being said, REC is an exceptional addition to this style. The tension of the story is built around people acting like people in an incomprehensible (to the characters) situation. A group of tenants and a few civil servants are trapped in a building by the Spanish Health Department without an explanation. Cue the zombies.

I love zombie films, there's something beautifully simplistic about the necessity to destroy your friends brain before he or she eats your head. As much as I adore them the problem I find with Zombie films is the lack of scares, most rely on the overpowering sense of dread that comes from a population sized army of corpses bearing down on you at the speed of a cow on Benalin. This is a problem that REC lacks and brings me nicely back to the last scene I described in Blair Witch. Thankfully our Spanish friends understand the menace a cinematic quick-cut suggestion can have on a subconscious mind racing to catch up with a horrific set piece. Toward the end of this mercifully short monstrous barrage there's a beautiful silhouetted scare just before the big "night vision" reveal, that had me reaching for the rewind button. It's so simply implied that it barely registers, but makes enough of a impression on your mind that you know something is terribly wrong, and this is so much more stirring than many of the in-your-face gore scares prevalent in today’s "torture porn".

Against my better judgement I've managed to find the scene in question, do your senses a favour and grab a copy of the movie, especially before the horribly turgid American remake is released.

R.I.P everything.

So that's Russia and the U.S at each others throats.

You'll get decent odds for it all kicking off round about 2012.

Bloody Mayans.

I Heart Music.

Me? I love music as much as Barrymore loves aqua bummery.

"So what kind of music do you like?"

It's a difficult one eh? I think most people find they don't have a definitive answer when it comes to their musical preference, sometimes when you look past all the trendsetting contrivances there's some obscure corner of your brain that just thinks, "yeah, that's cool." Of course there'll be a small assemblage of bands with a homogenous sound that will probably dictate a person’s taste, but as sure as Winehouse smells like fermented Giraffe piss, there'll be a copy of Michael Bolton's "Can I Touch You There" hidden away on a veiled Ipod playlist.

I'm an Eclecticist and a proud one at that. Like a drunken one legged clown in a minefield of musical ambiguity my sub consciousness hops around, every so often getting a limb blown off by an audio explosion. My Ipod content stands as a proud (and sometimes embarrassing) monument to 6 years of indiscriminate music accumulation and copyright rape.

A good indication of what really makes my sonic receptors glow is the music made by my favourite band, Bloc Party. I absolutely love their sound and apparent lack of direction they show with every new album. Like Glitter collecting his PC I always approach music from a familiar band with trepidation, but they've never disappointed yet and I'm definitely in their gang.

The last new material they brought out was a tune called "Flux" and was released as an EP. On the first listen I was in love and after 3 months of continuous play it had wrestled its way into my personal top 10. Flux cascaded with the usual tight guitars, insistent beats and looping vocals that Bloc Party have in abundance, what was new was an electronic manipulation only hinted at in their previous work, something which many mistook for overproduction. Imagine Megatron sexually abusing a synthesiser with Optimus Prime and the Autobots on vocals, all assembled into something tighter than Stephen Hawking’s sphincter... you ain't close.

So today I received a message from a friend telling me that Kele & Co are rush releasing their third album this Thursday the 21st of August. I sat in work really, really excited, and I asked myself, how can seemingly random waves made by air molecules vibrating lure a complete cornucopia of emotions from the human psyche?

At the end of the day I don't give a toss, I heart the infinite variety of melodic stimulation, I heart the random vibrations of air molecules, I heart music.

Looky Looky Likey Likey.

I'm back.

Yup, I’ve returned from my former country and new head of operations that is "Glasgae".

I planned to pen a little bit of what my thoughts were on this city that is simultaneously fucking scary and pretty cool. Today though I plan to get drunk and slide tackle a Swan, so here as an update are some lookalikes.

I watched "In Bruges" last night. Absolutely brilliant film and possibly one of the best I've seen this year. Half way through the excellent Colin Farrell karate chops a racist dwarf in the neck. The reason I loved this was as soon as the poor little blighter landed on his compact sturdy little arse, I realised that I also wanted to karate chop a midget.

I love midgets; seriously they are absolutely fucking brilliant. Now I know this might sound slightly patronising and my "love" for these little people may seem like some sort of derogative view of what at its base roots is a medical condition, but in all honesty, they give me joy. Everytime I see one, my internal organs all start hugging each other and my brain turns into some kind of mushy happy glee yoghurt. I have some kind of unconscious need to grab one and squeeze him until he tells me how he gets money from the ATM. I yearn to have a dwarf buddy, I'd invite him to stay over and in the morning I'd sit at his bed quietly waiting for him to wake so I could wipe the sleep from his eyes and give him a collie bucky into the kitchen where a tiny cup of coffee is waiting for him... Decaf of course, as I wouldn’t want his tiny junked up little frame sliding from room to room as he desperately tried to lick all the wool jumpers we have. We'd talk about sport and the current issues affecting the verticly retarded demographic, and after we'd all go to the park to meet his tiny posse where like Gandalf, I would lead them on a merry adventure to the local H&M.

Anyway, the little Dwarf dude from the film looks uncannily like a tiny version of housewife’s favourite "Maaaatt Daaaamon".









Now everyones favourite Albino is still in the big brother and I know I kinda pick on him but to be honest if you're daft enough to go on a reality TV show your fair game for anyone. Well again Bec thought so and she called me to tell me he looked like a Weresheep from the Kiwi film "Black Sheep".












Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Bloc Party: A Weekend in the City.

Evening.

I've been away for the last week or so in Glasgow and I'm flying back out there tomorrow for another week. I did promise myself when I started this blog that I was gonna give it regular input or not at all. Therefore before I sit down and write a little exposé on the joys of Glasgow, here's another album review I wrote a while back.

It's early 2005, and I'm watching Keraang. Sitting through a brutal assault of rip-off British faux-Emo music and rock pretension. That all changed when Bloc Party's unapologetic sex anthem "Banquet" thrust it’s way into my consciousness with its unashamedly melodic chorus that dared you not to take notice.

And with that I bought "Silent Alarm" an album that was so under the radar, that not even the most optimistic music insider would have predicted it as a critical and commercial success. Yet it was, and still is, a benchmark of Original British Punk Nuveau (tm). Unlike anything ever heard, the album violated your expectant senses with an eclectic, archaic, varied yet strangely familiar set. From the haunting "Compliments," to the anthemic "Modern Love" it was the soundtrack to my generation and quite honestly unpigeonholable (tm).

Now, whether it be the bitter disappointment in the commercial anticipation of the Killer's "Sam's Town," or the bands legendary reticent attitude towards the media, their album has approached the stage with minimal interest. And does their scarcity of commercial posturing indicate an album without confidence? Quite the opposite, I believe that here we have a band so at the peak of their ability, so convinced of their music’s relevance that their shy almost taciturn approach to self promotion belies a dauntless belief in themselves. Many people hated Bloc Party on the merit of Kele’s sententious and abrupt disposition. An indication of a society in which the quality of bands music is measured by the listener’s ability to idolize, and live the Rock Star life by proxy.

But what of the music…?

My main critique of Sam's Town was that Flower and Co used everything at their disposal to make their sound different, yet Kele and Co have spent 2 years writing music that sounds identical to their first offering. Lack of originality can't be said when a bands sound is so incomparable to any other music that listeners have difficulty comprehending its genius. Again there is a mixture of atmospheric, anthemic and communicative music that makes their lyrical eccentricity a joy to listen to. This time they have a theme of city life running through the album, linking songs which are musically eclectic into clear social comment. From their first single "The Prayer," an ode to basically getting drunk and trying to pull, to the beautiful "Sunday," a lazy story of waking up hung-over, the album never loses focus.

If they keep up this high standard of original lyrical and current music, whilst retaining their reticent attitude toward media whoring, they could well be the new Jam.

Last year I waited 10 months to be disenchanted by The Killer's. This year I was waiting for nothing... long live Kele and Co's indifference to popular opinion