47 Groanin’

Traditionally on this blog film reviews go down like Nick Griffin on Robert Mugabe, i.e. very awkwardly. The comments tend to dry up rather quickly as people take the excuse “I haven’t seen that film / don’t plan to see that film so I can’t leave a comment anyway so I won’t even bother to read the blog at all. Job done”.

However, I’m bloody minded enough not to care and arrogant enough to think that the power of my writing can overcome any wilful lethargy in my readership. But to show I’m not totally uncaring to your plight I will keep this short.

47 Ronin.

I had high hopes for this. I saw it trailered at the cinema – it looked rather good – but life circumnavigated my attempts to see it on the big screen. So I bought a copy on Blu-Ray for my wife and I to enjoy at our leisure.

We watched it over the weekend.

And now I want to kill Keanu Reeves.

Because having seen his performance I have been left in the emotional state of permanent WTF?

WTF was he doing in that film? Just WTF? And I mean that conceptually, metaphorically and professionally. What. Was. He. Doing. [Big question mark.]

The original story is based on an 18th Century Japanese legend. 47 Samurai avenge their murdered Lord knowing that their own code of ethics will ultimately demand their own deaths via seppuku. There’s a poignancy and sad beauty to this along with scope for lots of action and martial arts choreography. In cinematic terms the story should be a sure-fire winner.

And the supporting cast – mostly Japanese / Asian – were excellent. No big names (by Western standards – but really, what do we know?) but still they impressed me. They gave it their all. Pathos and sensitivity at war in a culture where emotion is not meant to be overly shown. I’d argue that their performances were poised and subtle and damned impressive.

And then there was Keanu. Shoehorned into the story as a “half breed” with special magical powers.

Really?

I’m betting there’s no sign of his character at all in the original legend. He was just inserted because the producers decided they needed a big name to sell the film to the box office. So we get this bolted-on element to the story. An add-on that the plot doesn’t really require and, as a result, is totally imbalanced by. Keanu is like a bogoff deal that you want to refuse. No really. I don’t want the extra bit. I don’t want the freebie. Please, please keep it.

Now, if I was Keanu I‘d be thinking: I’m extraneous to this story; I’m superfluous to the requirements of the emotional arc, therefore, I’d better pull my finger out and act like I’ve never acted before and earn my right to be on the screen.

But I am not Keanu. Keanu is Keanu.

And that is the problem. Because Keanu is Keanu all the way through the film. Sullen. Unresponsive. Flat. Incongruous.

He talks in the same gruff monotone whether he’s been being beaten (a criminally too short scene), offering comfort to a dying comrade or exchanging romantic pleasantries with his love interest. He talks like the Hollywood voiceover man from the 60s and 70s. The one who invites you to come see the next Warner Brother’s [or whatever] spectacular in that voice that makes it sound morally imperative that you come to the cinema right now and have your life changed by the experience. You know the type of voice I mean. Now imagine that voice reciting a fragile poem by e.e.cummings and utterly ruining it, utterly disembowelling it with the barbarism of its relentlessly galloping speech rhythm. Now you have Keanu telling his lady love that he will search for her through a thousand worlds, through 10 thousand lifetimes. He spits the poetry out like a half chewed hamburger. In his mouth it becomes pure American gristle and the gentle lotus flower breeze of the Japanese love-story curls up and dies in the blast from his meaty breath.

And he has but one facial expression. The bearded grimace. That is it. All the way through the film. He grimaces. From behind his inexplicably dirty looking beard.

Death: grrr! Sadness: grrr! Fighting: grrr! Male bonding: grrr! Standing still and not talking: grrr!

And then, at the end, he becomes an honorary Samurai and gets to kill himself – along with the other Samurai – with full, painfully tragic honour.

In that single moment Bushido becomes bullshit and the entire point of the film is utterly destroyed.

Because, in my view, Keanu has no honour. Keanu is not a Samurai.

Not by a long chalk.

But he has more chance of becoming a Samurai than becoming an actor.

In fact he has more chance of becoming Japanese.

No More Merlin, No, No, No!

So the BBC’s Merlin closes its doors on Camelot for the last and final time on Christmas Eve.

After 5 series that have been smash hits all over the globe the Beeb now feels it is has “teased out all it can” from the Arthurian legend and it is finally time to knock the myths and magic bandwagon completely on the head.

No more Colin Morgan and his magic jumbo ears.

No more Bradley James and his pouty swordsmanship and swishy nipples.

No more Angel Coulby cinched so tight into improbably tight dresses that her kidneys grind up against her back teeth.

And worst of all no more Katie McGrath spilling her gloriously pale and fulsome décolletage out of impossibly black dresses as she icily stares wanton evilness over all who dare to cross her gaze.

I find the BBC’s decision unfathomable and unpalatable.

Even without the enticing lure of Katie McGrath’s curvy cleavage of evil bouncing across Camelot’s ferociously defended borders and causing fruity mayhem and musky spillages among the goody-two-shoe knights the BBC can’t fail to have noticed that Merlin has been rather good for their revenue stream.

In these days of financial hardship and the tightening of belts I find it inconceivable that any kind of corporation would willingly cut off a single cash supply. Oh I’m sure Merlin costs millions to make – the sets, the locations, the lingerie, the tight security around Katie’s Winnebago that repulsed my siege engines of love countless times... but I bet you it recoups twice that in international TV rights and DVD sales without breaking a bank manager’s sweat.

“Teased the legend out as far as we can?”

What rot.

There’s loads more they could have done. Loads. I mean, Christ, I could write them a few episodes by next week – provided they were willing to overlook the incongruity of Katie McGrath shod in leather and fishnet stockings sitting astride a vibrating waterbed.

She’s a high priestess of the old religion, for Heaven’s sake, there’s bound to be perks.

Seriously though I find it very sad. Merlin started off a bit too whimsical and kiddie-friendly but then magically matured into a glorious sword and sorcerific drama that restored my faith in the BBC after its appalling run with Robin Hood a year or so earlier.

And now some mealy-mouthed TV exec has drawn up the portcullis on one of the most popular shows of the last 5 years without batting an eyelid or even newting a toad. Or something.

Idiots.

On the bright side though it does mean that when I part with my cash for the Merlin boxed set I know I’ll be getting the complete and entire production output. Unless, of course, they run with my idea for a Christmas special next year (but that all depends on Katie learning to pole dance by then)...

*sigh*

Saturday nights just won’t be the same.

You’ve given me one hell of a sword, BBC, but taken away the stone I liked to fantasise driving it into.

Curse you!

The Grand Opening Of The Shed

As a race our expectations of life must surely be the single biggest contributor to our general unhappiness.

As adults we are well acquainted with reality and yet we constantly expect and hope for far more than we know can ever be delivered. This is idiocy and arrogance. We know how the world works, how much it costs and how people like to cut corners. A little thought and a little logic would rein in our runaway dreams and ensure that we are never disappointed again. No more will we be glass-half-full or glass-half-empty people. We will just be a people grateful for having a glass.

Take the opening of The Shard during the week. London's newest, biggest building. In fact it is the tallest building in Western Europe. For the time being.

According to news reports the general feeling was that people - i.e. the hoi polloi, you and me and your mama too - were a tad disappointed by the opening ceremony. It was something of a let down.

I must admit I didn't watch it but just caught the highlights on Newsround (I have kids, OK, what scope do you think I have to watch News24 these days?) - enough in itself to remove the high and the light from any ceremony.

I saw light displays from within the building itself and a laser show from the extremeties of the building. Admittedly there were no fireworks (that I saw) but I dare say they are stockpiling those for the Olympics.

The opening ceremony seemed perfectly adequate to my mind. It's a building, for God's sake. What were people expecting it to do? Develop rocket thrusters Autobot style and blast off to the moon?

It's a building.

Back when I was a kid a new building was opened by having a local celeb cut a pink ribbon in front of the doors and then everyone downed a cheap glass of Liebfraumilch in the foyer and that was it. You counted yourself lucky if you were presented with a sausage and a pineapple chunk on a stick.

It's a building. It doesn't do anything but stand there and gradually fall into decay by the unstoppable effects of entropy.

Be grateful for the coloured lights and the lasers.

Even if they'd installed nude can-can dancers on the top floor no-one would have seen them.

At the end of the day this building is nothing more than an icon and a trophy for the rich and smug affluent enough to live and work there.

Personally I have already re-christened it The Shed and I do hope you will all assist my attempts to see that this new monicker soon catches on.

As for the aesthetics of the building itself... well, I've seen worse. At least it doesn't look like a car park.

One thing does worry me though.

I'm sure London's newest erection has a twin somewhere in Mordor.

Should we be worried?

Sniping The Snipe

The Snipe is clever.

The Snipe is patient.

It waits by the kettle, by the radiator, by the computer monitor occasionally ticking its eye like an ancient lizard. It is in for the long haul. It plays the long game. It plays to win.

It waits for its prey with a lipstick smile and the bat of an eyelash. It lures its victim in with a sticky tongue of kind words, of sweetness, of sugary betrayal. It offers the sharpened claws of fake friendship. The piercing tooth of confidence.

Once you are in its cooing clutches it sucks out every intimacy, every near silent secret.

It doesn’t digest. It doesn’t consume.

It stores them away. It stockpiles them. Hardens them into little balls of armour shattering ammunition. While the world sleeps the Snipe is up all night making bullets.

Being a coward, afraid of its own dirty work, it offers these to a greater power. With instructions of where lies its victims palpitating heart.

It has no mercy. But it will offer a shoulder to cry on so that it may take suck again. Its appetite is insatiable.

But some of us are prepared. Some of us have been bitten before and have learned from the bites.

Some of us also wait.

Cleverly.

Patiently.

Waiting for the Snipe to look up and smile and catch our eye. Waiting for the Snipe to gulp in fear as it realizes we are blinking at it like smarter lizards through the steady lens of a telescopic rifle.

It will not hear the shot ring out.

It will not feel the impact.

It will not understand the cheers of jubilation.

But it will recognize the bullet.

The Inevitable Kick In The Teeth

The first time is always the worst. I don’t think you ever get completely hardened to it.

You send all your hopes and dreams off out into the world and expect the world to instantly be dazzled by their worth and startling beauty. To recognize their barely disguised merit – ‘cos if there’s one thing you’re not going to do it’s hide your light under a bushel.

Instead the world flicks you off its tabletop like a ten day old mouse dropping with the smallest of sneers.

If you’re lucky.

Most of the time the world doesn’t even realize you’re there and merely brushes you away accidentally along with all the other crap and detritus that has built up around its privileged higher echelons.

My latest novel, The Great Escapes Of Danny Houdini, received its first rejection slip yesterday.

Polite, polished and perfunctory.

Simply not what the agent was looking for.

This particular agent dealt with writers who guarantee a huge audience and generate a good income. Or so it said between the lines. Well, duh! If I’d known that I’d’ve sent my novel to an agent who was looking for little or no success and hoping to earn just enough to buy a baked potato from the marquee operating in the square outside.

*slaps head in frustration*

So it’s back to the drawing board. Back to the writer’s yearbook to pull another random rabbit out of a bottomless, unknowable pit of a hat. There’s so many to choose from and you never know you’ve chosen the wrong one until you’ve paid for the postage, sent off your novel and they write back to tell you so.

They want this, that and the other – not what you have presented them with. But they’d like you to try somewhere else because another agent might see things differently.

*sigh*

Normally I can cope with the rejection. I’ve become pretty immune to its bloodsucking effects over the years. But sometimes, just sometimes, it sneaks a punch in below the belt. Wallops your tenders like a couple of cathedral bells at a Royal wedding.

It gets you when you’re at your most weakest...

When you’re at your most hopeful.

Sir Richard Branson Giveth And Sir Richard Branson Taketh Away

I had an email from Virgin Media on Friday. One of those “hey we’re your best mates, we are, and to illustrate this we’re going to give you an amazing deal to show how much we love you, bud, pal, matey, mucker, fellamelad”. I read the email with the kind of indifference that only a longstanding Virgin Media customer can muster and it transpired that dear Old Uncle Rich – Sir Richard Branson to you – was about to “more than double” my broadband speed but for less than the price I was currently paying. And he was going to do it because I was such a loyal longstanding customer. Because, let’s face it, me and Rich have been going steady ever since he took over NTL half a decade or so ago and renamed it Virgin Media.

Well, it was a nice start to the weekend if nothing else.

Cue Saturday morning. Another email from Sir Rich arrives. This one less chummy and rather more apologetic in tone. Turns out Friday’s email was a mistake. Mr B apologized profusely, nay cheesily. It was sent out by mistake. They were sorry. He was sorry. But there would be some good news for all loyal Virgin Media customers in the next 2 weeks. Honest. About something else. Something else equally as good. Probably.

Yeah right. Another Virgin mobile phone offer or extra sports channels on Virgin Media TV, I should think. I’m not a big fan of shot-put, Sir Richard, you can stick it.

But this whole debacle got me thinking. The poor sap who pressed Send on all those emails (because surely I wasn’t the only one who received such a missive) must be up to his neck in hot water right now. That’s assuming he still has a job, of course, and that Sir Rich didn’t drop-kick him out of a hot air balloon somewhere over the Atlantic. And someone – some graphics design geek – obviously created the email in the first place. Which says Virgin Media were planning this broadband upgrade thing for some time but then just decided to change their minds.

Was it something I said? Or didn’t say? Was I supposed to have replied to Sir Rich’s original email profusely oozing my thanks and attaching a tasty Polaroid of my freshly oiled up genitalia? Did he consider my lack of response to be a singular act of monstrous ingratitude and consequently cancel the broadband upgrade?

That’s rather petty, Richard.

Or was the whole email a scam? An act of in-house sabotage from a disgruntled employee? Sir Rich has banned his marketing team from downloading stuff from the SKY BSB web site and they’ve hit back with an email to drop Sir Richard in the shite?

Hmm. To be honest, that scenario doesn’t work for me. If you were a disgruntled employee you’d send out a far worse email than “we’re going to double our customer’s broadband speed for half the price”. It would be along the lines of “hey, did you know that Sir Richard Branson molests disabled baboons in his personalized spaceship paid for with your hard earned money?”

Now that’s the kind of email that would have made my weekend a good one.

But no.

So, a double-dip disappointment on the Virgin Media front, then.

*sigh*

Situation normal. Thanks Rich.