Stuff wot I've done

Bloody hell, I’ve not been here in ages. I do have reasons.

Saw ‘Jumper’ a while back. Verdict: not great, not very very poor, but somewhere in between. Good times: features wee Billy Eliot, all grow’d up and out-shining ‘I was Anakin Skywalker’ Boy as soon as he got there. Using The Streets’ ‘Lay Down The Law’ and opening the film with the bloody fab ‘Blackened Blue Eyes’ by The Charlatans. Bad times: Was I the only one who clocked (literally) that the clock on top of the Clock Tower (or “St Stephen’s Tower”) in London (the one attached to the bell called Big Ben) was showing half past the hour, but started chiming the hour anyway? And did someone edit out twenty minutes of much-needed explanation and/or reasons for… well, anything?

We saw Aaron (Aaron Kwok, Sing-Sing, Mr K., 郭富城, 城城, 舞台王者, 舞神, and any other nick-names he may have but I’ve forgotten to include) in concert last Saturday. To say he were bloody ace would be like saying “sea: big”. He danced, he sang, he bantered, he got all us girlies thoroughly, thoroughly drenched. By dancing in water, Gene Kelly style, I might add. Although we were quite damp in other places too, after watching him dance. Oooh, Mr K., you are bloody fab.

Ahem.

Also caught up on ‘Torchwood’ – last we saw were Martha Jones being absolutely bloody marvellous again, elbowing her way in and taking charge, being immune to certain things us normal people ain’t, and generally being fab like she used to be. Oh how we all love Martha. But did you clock wee Inspector Blythe, from the BBC series ‘Blackpool’ as Adam, just before? Hair’s all different, so it took me a minute, but there he is – DI Carlisle (David Tenninch Tennant)’s trusty sidekick research boy, in the flesh. Kinda.


But Owen? Owen? You’re going to kill him off? Really? Really? I’d just warmed up the stroppy bugger, and were even thinking he could be relied on for a few cheesy one-liners or simple distraction sub-plots while the big boys got on wi it. Now I’m pissed off – and I never thought I’d miss Owen. I’m just thanking the Powers That Be that it weren’t Ianto who got ganked – that would really have put me off the show for good. Pity it weren’t Gwen… Have to wait for this Saturday to get last week’s episode and the one just aired. Oh I hate time lags.

Talking of which, also caught up on (sort of) ‘Ashes To Ashes’. Episode three were ace, weren’t it? Weren’t it ace? I’m really warming to this Alex Drake bird, even if I found her a bit take-her-or-leave-her to begin with. With that slap and uppercut to the Gene Genie she really went up in me estimation – not to mention taking that toff home and shagging him to within an inch of his life, then turning up in shades the next day. Oh, my heroine. The Gene Genie’s still coming out with his Huntisms – I loved the crack about a kebab being “a pasty with its arse hanging out’. I’m sure there were hundreds more, cos I guffawed me way through it all, but I just cannot remember ‘em here. But Ray Carling and his sock puppets, eh? Who’d have thought?

And then onto other programmes as have been making me guffaw – and you knew this were coming, right? ‘Supernatural’, season three. How fucking fab is this series so far? It blows seasons one and two out of the water, hands down. Maybe cos it’s been in a ratings war, maybe cos its just got over the first two seasons’ familiarity and now has a chance to do more, but goddamn, if this ain’t some of the best writing and acting I’ve seen yet. Having Dean trapped in a basement with a demon, quietly discussing facts and futures (or lack thereof, in his case), was spine-tingling. His desperate clinging to every effort to make it seem like he’s relieved about going to Hell in under a year’s time is wavering between noble and heart-breaking. And if he has to tell Sam one more time to stop trying to find a way out of the deal, I’ll swing for Sammy on his behalf. Not a happy pair of Chuckle Brothers, those two, and it’s only going to get worse before owt’s sorted either way. The fifth episode, ‘Bedtime Stories’, had me in stitches at times, then thinking about blubbing, then jumping up and down ‘yay’ing as Sam took matters into his own hands.

I take back everything I ever said about Sam being a pansy-assed, book-loving pacifist. Oh yes. Sam is my new hero.

This is a Sam we’ve not seen before – and the whole ‘has he come back from the dead all evil, or has he not?’ thing doesn’t apply. It’s not evil, it’s desperation. No-one else can save Dean, that’s for damned sure, and if they could, how could Sam leave it to someone else anyway? This Ruby girl has her own agenda which is being toyed with by my imagination, but she’d better be careful if she thinks she’s just going to arse about with Sam, dangle carrots and then disappear like she doesn’t owe him owt. He’s nearly shot her before with the re-built Colt, and it’s a bloody good chance he’s thinking about doing it again, properly this time. Poor young men full of frustration and rage are not the people you want to stand in front of when they’re holding a loaded gun.

Having said that, he has dug up a lot of very useful info, some of which is going to be very instrumental in finding a way out of Dean’s deal. I am confident that, if anyone could find it, it’s going to be Sam. Although… Naw, forget it. I’m just grasping at straws. I just don’t want Dean to go down (at least, not like that, arf arf!) – who does? You know when you have a job, and you politely ignore that fact that, while it’s fun at times, it’s just not what you really want to do until you die? And then summat happens and you resign. Then it’s smiles all round – you only have to work yer notice and yer out of there. Excellent! No more caring about who’s going to be on shift in a fortnight, who’s going to get the parking space out by Smokers’ Corner, who’s going to have to perform the Month End shite. How fab is that? I mean, Dean’s in a similar post-resignation rut right now, but he can get out of it again. At least, I hope he can.

That’s about it, I think. Have to get to bed, this is getting on fer an essay. Just have to post shorter more often, I spose. I am trying, but this thing called ‘Real Life’ keeps getting int way. Don’t you hate it when that happens?

Soopytwist.

BBC ~ Hong Kong ~ TV ~ David Tennant ~ A2A ~ Torchwood ~ Supernatural ~ Sam Winchester ~ Dean Winchester ~ Aaron Kwok ~ Jumper

Choons

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Samuel Winchester. Or rather, the people as thought of what music to play whilst you were enjoying yerself in the second season episode ‘Heart’. No, not cos I were perving cos it were the one time Sammy proper got his kit off – I couldn’t perv, really. For exactly the same reason I really liked Sam Tyler but could never, never give him one. Girls, you know what I mean. I think. Anyway, what I meant were that they played a track over the top that I fell in love with – which, a quick trip to Google-land later, I discovered was in fact ‘Look At You’ by Screaming Trees.

Interest piqued and now armed wi the requisite details, I found meself a copy and then thought I’d skirt round the edges and see if owt else they’d done took my fancy. It did. Quite a lot did, in fact. ‘All I Know’ has to be the absolute best bloody song I’ve heard this week – which is actually saying quite a lot cos I’ve heard a lot this last week. I’m also totally made-up wi ‘Dying Days’. And now, an Amazon purchase later, I’m eagerly awaiting my delivery of their album ‘Dust’.

Then due to some London Live shitefest we were told that A-Ha are once more doing the rounds wi a new album. ‘Analogue’ got little or no promo over here, so until we saw this out-of-date broadcast on BBC Entertainment we had no idea. However, that said, Morten Harket is looking more ‘Morten Park-it Harket here’ than ever. He grew into that, didn’t he? Eh? He’s certainly not done bad for himself, that boy, not bad at all. Title track from the album is a corker, little bit new-ish, very much A-Ha-ish, and the only other track I’ve heard so far, ‘Birthright’, while definitely slower and calmer, is still a nice little choon. Will reserve judgement before aforementioned Amazon package is delivered, containing my Screaming Trees goodies and another album I’ve obviously missed out on until now: ‘All The Right Reasons’ by Nickelback. The tracks that persuaded me to buy it were ‘Side Of A Bullet’ and ‘Rockstar’, in that order. As I said, wingin’ its way to me as I type, mate. This is me, rubbing me hands in anticipation…

Just time to mention I stumbled upon another Steve Carlson album, this time ‘Groovin’ On The Inside’, which features the absolutely amazing track ‘If It Ain’t easy’, and that between that and songs like ‘Night Time’, ‘Wasted Jamie’, ‘Rocking Chair’ and of course the inestimably fine ‘Come Around More Alabama’, it’s been a fan-dabby-dozy 2008 so far, music-wise.

And so we come to the rub; finding new music int first place. Which is why, along with cimply wanting to kill time, we’ve been watching American Idol this evening. We’re down to twelve lads and twelve lasses, from what I can gather. The blokee I wanted to win, Drew from Alabama, has already gone home. Boo! However, I now have four blokes who I wouldn’t begrudge a win: David Cook (waistcoated rocker dude), Garrett Haley (long haired soft rock dude), Jason Castro (dreadlocked guitar dude) or Michael Johns (Aussie-goes-to-Hollywood dude). After having seen their ongoing auditions this evening, and seeing that the rest are much of a muchness, I’m favouring any one of my four. Apparently the birds are on tomorrow night, but don’t think I can stomach all that warbling and warning-ships-off-of-rocks-in-fog efforts. Absolutely not.

That’s it, I’m packing this in and going to bed. It’s going up to 2.30 int morning over here, y’know.

I’ve been busy though – went to the pictures again. But that, as they say, is another story.

So here’s a gratuitous picture of Jensen Ackles to keep me amused. This particular gem took me all of twenty minutes from conception to reality, via some melon-tasting vodka shots and Adobe Photoshop. Not bad, even if I do say so meself.
Even made the altered lyrics fit, too. What a genius I am.



Soopytwist.

Tags:
Supernatural ~ Sam Winchester ~ Screaming Trees ~ A-Ha ~ Nickelback ~ Steve Carlson ~ American Idol ~ Jensen Ackles ~ Dean Winchester

Telly Tussles

This week I have mostly been socialising and entertaining. Yeah, drinking and laughing a lot. Which is a good thing, int it?

Anyway, in between all this merriment and unexpected arrangements, I have actually been trying to catch up on all the telly goodness I’ve been missing. First though, a gripe.

I, along with a lot of other ex-pats and general viewers, pay to watch BBC Entertainment, one of five BBC channels available to cable or broadband subscribers over here in Hong Kong. As channels go, it’s pretty poor. Gratuitous repeats of ‘Red Dwarf’, ‘Little Britain’ (series one), ‘Life On Mars’ (series one!), ‘Hustle’ (series three), and complete and utter shite like ‘Footballers’ Wives’ (puh-leeeze…) make you wonder why you bother. Then they pull out all the stops for a fantastic, amazing February – and what do we get? ‘Robin Hood’. Series one.

Riiiiiiiiiight. “Saw it, tolerated it, turned off the pirate DVD and dropped it somewhere I forget,” would be the best summation of that particular series.

So it came as a shock – and not a pleasant one, I can tell you that – to find that ATV, one of the local Hong Kong terrestrial channels, is showing ‘Doctor bloody Who’ – SERIES THREE – starting February 14th and running fert next twelve weeks. Free channel. Free. No broadband boxes required. Just turn ont telly, and bam, there it is. Hmm.

Good for ATV. Bad for BBC.

And ooh lookie, they’re also showing ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’ on Sunday afternoon fert kiddies. Fantastic for Hong Kong kiddies, another point lost by the Beeb.

I’m not upset cos it’s free. I’m upset that I pay for a bloody channel run by the Beeb themselves, and yet they’d rather make money selling it to the local network to show for free (with adverts! Adverts!) than put it on the channel that people actually pay for anyway. Cos let’s see, ooh, letting Beeb subscriber’s in Hong Kong see it first COS THEY PAY FOR THE BLOODY CREATORS’ CHANNEL would be wrong, when you can make money selling it to ATV first. You do realise we will get ‘Doctor bloody Who’ series three eventually in Hong Kong. I say eventually – I mean 2009. I e-mailed em and asked the bastards when they were going to let us watch it on the subscribed channel. Could they afford to bump the 379th repeat of ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ or ‘Spooks’ to possibly squeeze in a little new programming? And I’m sorry, but ‘Robin Hood’? ‘Robin bloody Hood’? Are you taking the piss? This is the flagship series for BBC Entertainment in Asia? Really? Really?

And let’s not even get onto how they pixel out the merest suggestion of a patch of skin or flesh in any shape or form – and every single word that even falls into a grey area (‘crap’, etc.) is bleeped out or simply dropped from the soundtrack? I shit you not – the slightest mention of impropriety is vanished from the soundtrack or picture, Gestapo-style, until it defeats the object of watching the Gene Genie int first place. Gone are all those golden one-liners, replaced by background noise cos he called someone a ‘nonce’. Yes, ‘nonce’. Not the nicest of words, I grant you, but really? Really? Isn’t there summat else they could be doing to waste as much time?

All of which brings me to the fact that the telly I’ve been catching up on has been ‘Ashes To Ashes’, ‘Torchwood’ and ‘Supernatural’. A weird combo, I know, but it’s all so very, very good.

Let’s start with ‘Ashes To Ashes’, shall we? Sat and watched a double-bill of episodes one and two of this shiny, shiny new series. First thoughts? Not exactly gelling with me at moments, and yet the Gene Genie is so very good. Back with a vengeance, except he’s also got a Sam side at times. Not bad at all, not bad at all. The settings and costumes, cars and wine bars, it’s all good. DCI Alex Drake? Not so sure… Didn’t take to her very easily int first episode, but during the second ep while the poor bird’s doing her ‘this is my fantasy, I’ll do what I want and you lot will bloody well listen to me’, I did start to like her a lot. And they have given us a new series so far – and at least they’re not trading on Sam Tyler to get em by with this new tart. Speaking of which, I’m not happy with poor Sam carking it in a river due to chasing robbery suspects, or whatever the excuse was for him having disappeared. It does throw up all kinds of metaphysical and quantum-related arguments such as just how linear Time is supposed to be, and how it’s supposed to pass in different situations. I was upset to see newspaper clippings in Gene’s office with headlines like ‘Force pays tribute to Tyler’ etc., after he’s supposed to have died in the river – except no body was found. Insert another round of ‘hmm’s here. Anyway, it’s doing the job at the moment, so I’ll be hanging on for all eight episodes (I assume the format will be the same), but I’m already hoping they won’t drag this out for two series.

‘Torchwood’ then. Cracking first episode, good second and third, but the hyowj alien space-slug ‘Meat’ episode was the best I’ve seen so far. Lots more ‘just who is this Jack person anyway?’ stuff, more Ianto being a bloody hero and getting most, if not all, of the best one-liners (the phone gag was ace, as was his penchant for slipping in comments when no-one else is supposed to be listening). Oh yes, we like Ianto for his derring-do sentences. He is well-liked in our house just cos he’s funny. Of course he couldn’t knock Jack off our top spot (ooh-err Missus), but that goes without saying.

And so to ‘Supernatural’. How absolutely cracking were that first episode of season three (‘The Magnificent Seven’)? Someone’s definitely whacked up the gain on Sam’s whole ‘Ah’m savin’ ma brother’ thing while throwing in new characters that are thankfully not going to irritate me, and then we have all kinds of personal hunts going on with purr wee Sam. And let’s not forget Dean’s new-found ‘live before I die – or rather, get sucked down into Hell’ kick. It’s all good. It’s all fab. And the second episode ‘The Kids Are Alright’ had me in stitches. There were so many hilarious moments as purr neglected Dean tries to believe that the wee kiddie he meets is not actually the result of one of his weekend chick-orientated roadtrips in his dim and distant past after all. But then him being all disappointed and doing the balloon-burst shoulder-sag manoeuvre as he finds out for definite that little Ben is not his kid was heart-breaking. Awww... it’s going to be a bumpy ride for both brothers before all this is sorted out, and no mistake.

Which, according to reports, may never happen. Apparently the CW channel has not yet commissioned the rest of season three for filming, post-WGA strike. We think this is wrong. We think this sucks. We think this series is in dire need of finishing its third season, and possibly another season after that. We think it’s the best telly to come out of the US since… er… hang on… let’s see… carry the one, add the three… oh yeah, since sliced bread.

Unfortunately, TV execs don’t seem to care. We hated them for cancelling ‘Firefly’ too, but who noticed? Well, Joss Whedon and his pals, obviously, seeing as he went about making the film ‘Serenity’ to produce some kind of ending for us poor neglected viewers. And although we had to make do with two hours instead of a whole new season and probably twelve or even thirteen hours of Cap’n Mal Sir and his crew, we snapped his hand off cos it was all we were going to get. Let’s just hope ‘Supernatural’ doesn’t go the same way.

Anyway, think that’s everything. Have to sort my life out and get down to the pub quiz.

Soopytwist.

Tags:
BBC ~ Hong Kong ~ TV ~ Doctor Who ~ Robin Hood ~ A2A ~ Torchwood ~ Ianto Jones ~ Supernatural ~ Sam Winchester ~ Dean Winchester ~ Firefly ~ Serenity

Fun to funky

I know possibly everyone int English speaking world were watching watching ‘Ashes To Ashes’ Thursday night ont Beeb, and most of the reports I’ve heard have been nowt but good. So I’m waiting even more eagerly than I were before for my copy. Hopefully it’ll arrive before next week’s episode, eh. Seen the trailer, and can’t wait to see what’s going on wi The Gene Genie, Chris ‘sorry boss’ Skelton and Ray ‘porn-‘tache’ Carling. And whoever the new bird is. Going to be… interesting…

Harking back to the fact that it’s the third day of New Year over here, and as such I’m still off till Monday, I’ve been trying to review what I’ve managed to accomplish since I went home from work determined to sleep as much as possible. Well I’ve done the impossible, and that makes me mighty, as Cap’n Mal would say: I’ve crossed off a whopping nine out of the twelve things I had to do. Not bad, eh?

One of them things was to watch all of the movies I’ve wanted to as they’ve come out. I’ve seen ‘Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’, ‘CJ7’, and now last night I saw 'Enchanted’ – admittedly, for the Patrick Dempsey element (otherwise known as Dr McDreamy, or ‘that Grey’s Anatomy dude’), cos trust me kids, I ain’t watching bloody Disney crap without a reeeeeeaaaaaally good reason. That said, I did kinda giggle and smile all the way through, mostly cos half of it seemed to be tongue in cheek, half of it seemed to be going for smooth sarcasm. Or was that just me? There were laugh-out-loud moments, and of course you have to have obligatory ‘oh no, I’m no longer in love with my handsome Prince, whatever can be the matter with me?’ moments, and the evil Queen monster moments, etc., etc. However, it mashed it all together pretty well, and Timothy Spall popped up fert second time this week as a toad. Funny, that. Who’d have thought purr wee Barry the bricklayer would end up in cash cows like Disney flicks and Johnny Depp musicals? The mind boggles.

A pretty good flick, really, if you ignore the love angle that’s laid on pretty thickly throughout – well it is a Disney effort, after all. I did enjoy the rather obvious but fun alternative to ‘Whistle While You Work’ as she uses rats fromt sewers and pigeons fromt park to clean up Robert’s flat. And making dresses out of curtains, the running gag, did have a kind of logic to it. The sing-along in the park with perhaps half the population of New York was extremely fun – a few ‘Seven Brides For Seven Brothers’ moments, methinks, and of course poor Patrick Dempsey’s ‘I don’t dance. I don’t sing’ and the 'does everyone know this song?' moments. He did a pretty good job of it all, being convincing as best you can in a flick where the girl runs about whistling and singing and doing that wrist thing, holding her fingers out as she skittles around on her toes, like cartoon princesses do. Although, if I could make one suggestion, it would be not to wear white trousers when you’re sat in the pissing rain on top of a skyscraper.

One other thing I had to accomplish before I go back to work was to finish off my ‘Supernatural’ boxed set of season two. I know the rest of the world has seen it, and most of the USA are waiting for every new episode of season three as they're let out, one by one, by studio execs (rest assured though, ‘Supernatural’ fans support the WGA strike, so waiting a few extra months for new episodes still witing to be filmed is not a hardship. Especially when it means people like Ben Edlund, who’s given us episodes for both ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Firefly’, and as such is a Big Damn Hero in our books, can get the contracts they deserve. It’s only right, after all).

Anyway, going back to finishing off the boxed set: tricky. I picked up the end of season two on Hong Kong’s AXN channel over here, so I’ve already seen the last four episodes. What I missed were the few eps before it. So last night I ploughed into the box and came up with the very last unseen ep. It was a Moment – I really, really wanted to watch it cos I’ve been waiting to see it all season, but I really didn’t want to watch it cos it would be the last one ever. Well, until season three hits our shores, anyway. But I had to open it and watch it. And, oh my dog, was it a complete and absolute gem – ‘Hollywood Babylon’. No, not the possibly spurious Kenneth Anger book, but another fun look at how spirits can really give you a bad day. Or not, if you’re Dean Winchester and you love to eat and play with radios.

As usual, we get a teaser about someone dying before the opening credits. This time, right from the word go, I were giggling and bouncing on the sofa – the plot is that Hollywood is making a cheap and cheerful scary horror slasher flick with obligatory sex scenes, and guess what? Oh, the misty log cabin, the swing chair banging against the cabin’s wall, the girl in the woods with her torch… calling for ‘Ashley’ – yes! It’s an Evil Dead piss-take! All of it! I was so incredibly made-up wi the fact that the movie in the background was meant to be Evil Dead 2 that I had to go back and watch it again to make sure. Even The Book (not called the Necronomicon here) is used – and that’s where us Evil Dead fans spotted the immediate cause of the ghosts returning in present-day Hollywood to kill cast and crew. But woah woah woah, it’s not what you think, and seeing as how Sam Winchester is not a connoisseur of films, horror or not, and Dean was too busy trying to get into Tara Benchley’s pants to take note of her script in the horror flick, it was not surprising that the boys managed to salt-n-burn the wrong bones this time.

This episode did have some of the best one-liners – kicking off the moment they walk onto the studio lot, Sam complaining the weather is not really conducive to Dean’s plan for prowling the swimming pools looking for hot chicks – cos the weather’s “practically Canadian”. Nice! At last they just own up to the fact that everything is shot in B.C… Dean’s ‘bite your tongue, heathen!’ at Sam’s snarky comment that they dig up Joey Ramone, the whole ‘I’ve got a radio, I’m not listening to you, Sammy’ gag, Sam coming a-knocking when Dean’s in Tara’s trailer and it is a-rocking and the consequent “you’re one helluva PA”, and pretty much every time one brother turns on the other. It was kinda touching to see Dean awkward and shy, trying to talk to one of his seemingly many film idols, and then the true film geek in him comes to the surface – he’s just as bad as the rest of us, for all his huffing and pretending he’s not interested… Bloody funny stuff.

And then we come to more in-jokes – the posters. In every exec’s office, int background, were posters for their previous works, etc. Except if you look closely, they’re not. Every one were an old ‘Supernatural’ episode given a suitable horror flick name. Season one’s episode ‘Scarecrow’, and the infamous Fugly Dude on the scarecrow frame, became ‘Cornfield Massacre’ – even though it happened in an orchard. (And that was the point of the antagonist’s plight – what you produce for Hollywood gets changed, tinkered with, balls-up by producing execs, until you don’t recognise it any more.) Also season one’s episode ‘Route 666’ (famous for Dean finally getting his kit off and proving he does have biceps the size of Baltimore) was immortalised as ‘Return of the Monster Truck’ (cos of Sam’s earlier protest ‘I miss conversations that didn’t start with “this killer truck”?’). There was even a ‘Carnivore Carnival’, in reference to season two’s ‘Everybody Loves A Clown’. And in a very ‘Yes Virginia, there is a Hercules’ Xena kinda way (“Welcome to Camp Wannachuk, where every day you’ll see a sunny day – cos that’s ma name, Sunny Dey!”), everyone behind the scenes on the real TV production of ‘Supernatural’ seemed to be represented onscreen for a change – McG, ‘Jerry’ (thee Jerry Wanek?), etc. Wonder why there was no dude called Eric… But let’s not forget, it also guest starred none other than ‘American Gothic’, ‘The West Wing’ and of course ‘Midnight Caller’ dude, Gary Cole. How fab is that? He dunt change a bit, that’s all I’m going to say…

Crikey blimey Charlie, it’s been fab. Going to catch up on ‘Torchwood’ this evening with Bestest Mate, and hopefully ‘Ashes To Ashes’ sometime before Thursday. Desperate for some new Huntisms. Can’t sleep – Gene Hunt will eat me.

That’s just about all I have time to squee about today. Peach and lube, everyone! Lots and lots of lube!

Tags:
Enchanted ~ Patrick Dempsey ~ Ashes To Ashes ~ Gene Hunt ~ Huntisms ~ Supernatural ~ Dean Winchester ~ Sam Winchester ~ Hollywood ~ Gary Cole

Sweeny Todd and CJ7? Ace!

Don’t think that just cos I’ve been off since Friday I’ve done nowt. Oh no, no, no, my friends, I’ve been hairing around getting as much done as possible. Take for example me leaping out of bed at the crack of noon on Friday to get me hair straightened. Three hours sat in a hairdresser’s chair will take it out of anyone, unless you have yer copy of H.G. Wells short stories to entertain you (it’s got ‘The Queer Story of Brownlow’s Newspaper’ in it! How fab is that!). Anyway, that done I had to find a way to make myself feel better. So sitting and getting through all six episodes of ‘Revelations’ starring none other than Mr B Movie himself, Bill Pullman, was a good move. A little boring in places, a little too talky-talk-talk religion blether, but not uncomfortably so. And Bill was ace, as he always is.

So Saturday I had tea and ‘Supernatural’ with a friend, who shares my love of all things Dean Winchester creepy, and then I put myself through the inestimable torture of going into town and getting a manicure (‘Ten Ten’, halfway up the Mid-Levels escalator, Cochrane Street, I believe). Believe it not, I’ve never had one before, so it was kinda fun to watch the girl. To make up for all this very girly stuff, went out and got tickets for ‘Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’. Thought it only fair, considering what I’d had to put up with fert last two days.

So Sweeney Todd then ~ how fucking ace were that? The songs, the characters, the scenes, the costumes, the whole bloody picture. Seeing as how we weren’t exactly enamoured of London int first place, the opening salvo about it being a pit of shit was absolutely bang-on. The moment of the “Is this piss?” and then the “This is piss! Piss wiv ink in it!” had me in stitches. There were so many cool moments in it, I don’t know where to start.

The music – excellent, excellent songs, cunning lyrics, wonderful moments (“Have a priest!”), marvellous little scenes. Loved it, loved it, loved it. So what if the gore looked more like stage blood than stage blood – and there were a lot of it, I know. But then it were done so bloody well, if you’ll pardon the pun. Absolutely fab. And I think they still had less blood in it than yer average ‘Evil Dead’ film, so we hardly even noticed.

Supporting bods like Sacha Baron Cohen and wee Jamie Campbell Bower (who did not look like a girl int film. Which is why I did wonder if he were Keira Knightley in drag, or praps a very young Justin Hawkins) were excellent. Alan Rickman gets more and more sinister as time goes on, Timothy Spall did yet another good job of being a repulsive little oik, and Helena Bonham Carter were really good in her role. Of course Johnny Depp were fab – how can the Deppster not be better than everyone else in it? We did agree that he were praps the only one who kept his Mockney accent even while he were singing – wee lad and sailor-boy kinda lost it once they went into full-on trained singing mode. However, it were all good, all good.

So the very next afternoon from watching this, we went along to the new Stephen Chow film ‘CJ7’. Where oh where do we start wi this one? Excellent cast (familiar faces from previous Stephen Chow flicks abound), wonderful scenery, excellent repartee and some genius little moments. How many films can make you cry wi laughter, and then cry for real just half an hour later? It’s not just about the little alien, not just about the comedic moments of hard-hats and making faces, it’s also about a little boy (played so very well by a nine year old girl, Xu Jiao) learning to live with his father, despite everything.

Anyone who’s ever seen ‘King of Comedy’ will be familiar with the “I can act, just watch my faces” moment with the wee alien thing at school. I’m not entirely sure, but I’m thinking the list of faces he’s ordered to produce are exactly the same ones Stephen Chow’s character had to make to impress his casting agent from ‘King of Comedy’. Laugh? I thought I’d die.

Two big thumbs up for both ‘Sweeny Todd’ and ‘CJ7’, then. And then Sunday evening went down the Winchester White Stag fert pub quiz as usual, came a blinding second place, so also got my free Purple Nurple courtesy of a newly-trained barman knowing he dunt he even have to ask my particular brand of poison for occasions of winning. Such a nice lad, too. Very handy wi a cocktail shaker an’ all. Anyway, a few celebratory drinks later and we’re off to the local dive of a hovel to dance the night away to rock covers by a really underrated band. The odd Alice Cooper track, some AC/DC, Queen, and even a fantastic rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Down South Jukin’ had us bopping along till roughly half four int morning. Getting home was easy. However, today has been the worst hangover in the history of bad hangovers. Put it this way, I’ve spent all day sleeping and hurling for England. I’ve not eaten owt since I got home after last night’s debacle, and I don’t think I will till probably tomorrow. It wasn’t till me mate called me to make sure I wont dead that I realised I had some strange bloke’s number in me phone, an’ all. Hmm.

Anyway, that’ll be it then. It’s just past 1am, so I can finally go back to bed without having to make an excuse.

Go easy ont sauce, everyone, and I’ll see you all again very soon. ‘Time for bed, said Zebedee.”

Tags:
Hong Kong ~ asian cinema ~ Stephen Chow ~ CJ7 ~ Tim Burton ~ Johnny Depp ~ Sweeny Todd ~ Xu Jiao