Top ten drinkers

Billy Bob Thornton as Willie in ‘Bad Santa’

Jack Lemmon as Joe Clay in ‘Days of Wine and Roses’

Ray Milland as Don Birnam in ‘The Lost Weekend’

Dean Martin as Dude in ‘Rio Bravo’


Paul Giamatti as Miles in ‘Sideways’


David Farrar as Sammy Rice in ‘The Small Back Room’

Susan Hayward as Angie Evans in ‘Smash Up: the Story of a Woman’

Ben Gazzara as Charles Serking in ‘Tales of Ordinary Madness’

The entire cast in ‘Whisky Galore!’

Richard E. Grant as Withnail in ‘Withnail & I’

Hellraisers

There are some film books that effortlessly pin down an era in cinema history, such as Peter Biskind’s ‘Easy Riders, Raging Bulls’. There are some that chronicle in car-crash detail the disastrous consequences of a misconceived, miscast, all round flop – Julie Salamon’s ‘The Devil’s Candy’. There are some autobiographies that are so staggeringly egomaniacal (Michael Powell’s ‘A Life in Movies’) or so elegantly persuasive (any of Dirk Bogarde’s memoirs) that the truth hardly matters. There are diaries that reveal the day-to-day frustrations of even the greatest directors (Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Time Within Time’). There are biographies that so effectively get under the skin of their subject (Kevin Brownlow’s book on David Lean; John Coldstream’s on Bogarde) that they remain unforgettable.

Then there’s a book like Robert Sellers’s ‘Hellraisers: the Life and Inebriated Times of Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Peter O’Toole and Oliver Reed’, which is an unapologetic way-hey-the-lads celebration of the collective boozing, brawling and bad behaviour (womanizing needs to be added but I can’t think of a synonym beginning with “B” which will preserve the alliteration) of four of the most devil-may-care talents ever to grace the silver screen.

Because believe it or not, between the bars and the arrests and the brawls with paparazzi and the on-off romances (mentioning no names, Mr Burton) these boys actually made the odd film or two.

In fact, between them, they clocked up some of the most visceral, intense, challenging, dynamic and kick-ass performances in cinema: think of Burton losing it on the pulpit in the opening scene of ‘The Night of the Iguana’, Harris looking like he’s about to ask the fucking camera outside in just about every frame of ‘This Sporting Life’, O’Toole casually announcing “we have taken Aqaba” in ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, Reed getting stuck into a little nude wrestling with Alan Bates in ‘Women in Love’. And that’s just for starters …

From next month I’ll be running an ongoing series on The Agitation of the Mind, celebrating the bad boys of British cinema. There will be booze. There will be blood. There will be some fucking great movies. It all kicks off first week in May but until then the bar is open at The Agitation of the Liver, so raise your glasses to these gentlemen, drink to their hellraising and rue the fact that we live in a world where Zac Efron headlines movies, launches a thousand merchandising products and doesn’t even have the common decency to trash a restaurant, shag for England (oh all right then, America) and wake up in a holding cell wondering what time the pubs open.

Top ten debonair villains

John Huston as Noah Cross in ‘Chinatown’

Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in ‘Die Hard’

Joseph Wiseman as Dr No in ‘Dr No’


Fernando Rey as Alain Charnier in ‘The French Connection’


Clifton Webb as Waldo Lydecker in ‘Laura’

James Mason as Phillip Vandamm in ‘North by Northwest’

John Malkovich as Tom Ripley in ‘Ripley’s Game’

Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter in ‘The Silence of the Lambs’

Dirk Bogarde as Anacleto in ‘The Singer Not the Song’

Orson Welles as Harry Lime in ‘The Third Man’

Apropos of yesterday's entry

I realised a year ago that I cheated by including ‘The Godfather’ Parts I and II as a single choice in the Personal Faves list, just so I could also shoehorn ‘Apocalypse Now’ in and not break the two-films-per-director rule.

I realise today that I’ve not so much cheated as sold myself (and the film!) short by trying to squeeze ‘The Godfather Part II’ into yesterday’s article. It deserves more thought, more consideration, more comment. I will revisit it next month.

It wasn’t personal, it was strictly laziness.

PERSONAL FAVES: The Godfather and The Godfather Part II

‘The Godfather’ is not so much an adaptation as an act of alchemy, taking the base metal (or rather purple prose) of Mario Puzo’s potboiler and rendering it into cinematic gold.

‘The Godfather’ is quite simply one of American cinema’s finest achievements, an instant classic on its original release and a film that continues to improve with age. Its sequel, if anything, is even better.

Both films (let’s leave the occasionally inspired but mostly just average ‘Godfather Part III’ out of it) are about family, honour and loyalty. They’re also about how these concepts are variously rationalised, compromised and bastardised.

‘The Godfather’ opens with an extended set-piece in which Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) is obliged, on the occasion of his daughter’s wedding, to grant favour to any who seek it. “I believe in America,” the craven Bonasera (Salvatore Corsitto) declares, then goes on to ask the Don to do violence on his behalf where the legal system has failed him. Like anyone else granted favour, he is counselled that “some day, and this day may never come, I might call upon you to do me a service”. All of this takes place in a darkened room, while the celebrations unfold in bright daylight outside. Still, even as a heart-throb crooner entertains the crowd and guests applaud the bride, tension is in the air: the Don’s son Michael (Al Pacino) has arrived – in uniform.

Unlike his natural brothers Sonny (James Caan) and Fredo (John Cazale) and his adoptive brother Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), Michael Corleone has elected not to join the family business but enlist in the Marine Corps. And when the family business is crime and the credo, as the Don chastens Sonny early in the film, is “never let anyone outside the family know what you’re thinking”, this is a decidedly unSicilian thing to do. In fact, it’s downright American, patriotic and commendable. No wonder Michael’s the black sheep of the family. Oh, then there’s the matter of the white-than-white nice girl, Kay (Diane Keaton) he gets involved with.

Then there’s an assassination attempt on the Don and Michael finds himself filling the breech. What happens like is like ‘Richard III’ if the Richard III was quite a likeable and all-round kind of guy in the first act. Michael’s transition from war hero to mob boss, from hero to anti-hero, from humanity to villainy isn’t a gradual or incremental thing; it all hinges on one act. Michael proposes and carries out the execution of rival mobster Sollozzo (Al Lettieri), the guy who ordered the hit on his father, as well as Sollozzo’s partner, the corrupt policeman McCluskey (Sterling Hayden).

Michael is quickly whisked off to Italy while the heat dies down. Deserting Kay in more ways than one, he romances and marries local beauty Appollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli). When she dies in a car bomb meant for him, Michael returns to America and glibly takes up with Kay again. Sonny’s betrayal and death at a toll booth ambush (I’m not bothering with any spoiler alerts in this post – really, if you haven’t seen ‘The Godfather’ there’s no hope for you), and the Don’s retirement following a reluctant making of peace with his enemies, sees the family business turned over wholesale to Michael.

Here’s where the real ‘Richard III’ stuff kicks in: Michael becomes corrupted by power and villainy, not in an egomaniacal or even necessarily a psychotic sense, by characterised more by an utter coldness and inhumanity; a complete moral and emotion disconnection.

One of the most quoted lines is “it’s not personal, it’s strictly business” – a sentiment Michael certainly adheres to, and with bitter irony since those were Sollozzo’s words to him following the unsuccessful hit on the Don.

Coppola continues to chart Michael’s heinous premiership of the Corleone clan in ‘The Godfather Part II’, contrasting his barren life against the rise to power of the young Don Corleone (Robert de Niro). The Don’s actions, while undeniably criminal, are socially motivated (his murder of a neighbourhood crime boss is done for the betterment of the community). The seeds of the first film’s focus on family and loyalty are sown here. And also cut down as Michael alienates his wife – after losing her baby, Kay confronts Michael with the truth: “It wasn’t a miscarriage, it was an abortion. An abortion, Michael … I had it killed because all this must end … this Sicilian thing that’s been going on for two thousand years” – and, in the most shocking scene, orders the death of his brother, the weak-willed Fredo after he’s coerced into a business agreement than compels him to betray Michael. That he has this order carried out after feigning forgiveness and welcoming Fredo back into the household is the final bastardisation of everything his father held sacrosanct. It is this – and never mind the quasi-religious musings of ‘Part III’ – that completes Michael’s transition to the monstrous; that places him beyond redemption.

36

Olivier Marchal’s old-school police thriller ‘36’ takes its title from the address of a Parisian police headquarters, 36 Quai des Orfevres. The opening scene has the plaque identifying the building stolen by two motorcycle riders. They turn out to be police: the plaque is gift-wrapped and presented to a retiring detective. It’s a terrific scene, one that sets the tone for a film concerned with moral compromise, the thin line between the cop and the criminal, and the bad things that are done under the cloak of authority.

Think James Ellroy on a continental breakfast and a thirty-a-day Gitanes habit and you’re about there.

Two ambitious and unapologetically unorthodox career cops, Vrinks (Daniel Auteuil) and Klein (Gerard Depardieu) vie for a high-ranking promotion. Both have crossed the line, personally and professionally, on more than one occasion. The rivalry turns personal after Klein, trigger-happy and given to drinking on duty, spectacularly botches a take-down. The ensuing shoot-out is as jolting and visceral as the one in ‘Heat’, a film ‘36’ was justifiably compared to by most critics on its belated release (it was made in 2004 and didn’t show up in UK cinemas until late ’06).

The aftermath of this brilliantly shot and edited sequence takes ‘36’ into different territory, though. Vrinks uses Klein’s unprofessionalism against him, and the other officers send him to whatever the French version of Coventry is. Then fate intervenes and Klein finds something he can use against Vrinks … I’m going no further with the plot synopsis here. Suffice it to say that things get progressively darker and more interesting. And if the set-up seems to point to pure melodrama as the denouement approaches, don’t worry. The pay-off is as memorable as it is unpredictable.

‘36’ is dark, gritty, compelling stuff and when Hollywood gets its finger out of its arse delivers another long overdue Ellroy adaptation (‘White Jazz’, anyone?) it could do a lot worse than emulate Marchal’s blistering directorial style.

Top ten creative geniuses

Anatoli Solonitsyn as Andrei Rublev in ‘Andrei Rublev’

Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo in ‘Frida’

Colin Firth as Johannes Vermeer in ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’


Gary Oldman as Ludwig van Beethoven in ‘Immortal Beloved’


Derek Jacobi as Francis Bacon in ‘Love is the Devil’

Jennifer Jason Leigh as Dorothy Parker in ‘Mrs Parker and the Vicious Circle’

Daniel Day Lewis as Christy Brown in ‘My Left Foot’

Joseph Fiennes as William Shakespeare in ‘Shakespeare in Love’

Gwyneth Paltrow as Sylvia Plath in ‘Sylvia’

Stephen Fry as Oscar Wilde in ‘Wilde’

Jack Cardiff

I’ve sounded off on these pages before about the genius of cinematographers like Roger Deakins, Chris Menges and Robert Elswit. Yesterday, one of the giants of the art, Jack Cardiff, died of natural causes at the age of 94.

His debut as director of photography was Powell & Pressburger’s timeless classic ‘A Matter of Life and Death’, lensing half the film in sumptuous technicolour and the other half in steely monochrome. Of his two subsequent collaborations with Powell & Pressburger, ‘Black Narcissus’ and ‘The Red Shoes’, the former won him an Oscar.

He worked with Hitchcock on ‘Under Capricorn’, John Huston on ‘The African Queen’ and Laurence Olivier on ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’.

Jack Cardiff’s achievements in directing peaked early, with his D.H. Lawrence adaptation ‘Sons and Lovers’ in 1960. His fifth film as director, it was to be his greatest achievement in the field. Although he continued directing for another decade an a half, helming another nine films, perhaps the only standouts are boy’s-own action thriller ‘The Mercenaries’ (from a Wilbur Smith novel) and the Marianne Faithfull ogle-fest ‘Girl on a Motorcycle’.

He continued working as cinematographer, either in films or on prestige TV series such as ‘The Far Pavilions’, until he was in his 90s. IMDb gives his last credit as 2007 - 68 years after he took his first job in the industry (as a clapper boy!) in 1929.

He published an autobiography, ‘Magic Hour’, in 1996 and received an OBE in 2000.

in memoriam Jack Cardiff, 18th September 1914 – 22nd April 2009

Incoherence is the sincerest form of flattery

I posted a review of ‘The Damned United’ twelve days ago. Today, trawling the internet while I should have … I dunno … been working or something, I came across this.

It’s basically my ‘Damned United’ review, but as it would look if someone translated it into Serbian, translated that into Russian and had someone translate the Russian version into English only to demonstrate a notable lack of facility in either language.

I’m not sure who the blogger is, or even why they’ve done this, but it makes for hilarious reading. Two examples:

My original review:
So it was out of curiosity as to how well Michael Sheen’s performance captured Cloughie’s trademark admixture of charm and belligerence that me and my friend Aidy headed to the Broadway Cinema last Saturday night for a screening of ‘The Damned United’. Our better halves evinced no interest in the film and occupied themselves otherwise while we attended the screening, then enthusiastically discussed the film in the pub afterwards.

The plagiarist’s version:
So it was antiquated of bric-a-brac as to how cordially Michael Sheen’s portrayal captured Cloughie’s trademark admixture of assuage and belligerence that me and my bosom buddy Aidy headed to the Broadway Cinema up to date Saturday blackness as a servicing to a screening of ‘The Damned United’. Our cured halves evinced no fire in the mizzle cloud up and occupied themselves in another setting while we attended the screening, then enthusiastically discussed the mizzle cloud up in the saloon afterwards.

My original review:
The verbal stand offs between Clough and Longson, particularly when Longson suggests that Clough give Leeds an easy victory so they can play a stronger side against Juventus in a forthcoming European match, are tour de forces.

The plagiarist’s version:
The oral last offs between Clough and Longson, outstandingly when Longson suggests that Clough pass Leeds an unpretentious supremacy so they can subtract up a stronger side against Juventus in a anticipated European contest, are drive de forces.

“Antiquated of bric-a-brac”. “Our cured halves evinced no fire in the mizzle cloud up”. “Drive de forces”. Marvellous!

Top ten hard-ass military types

Robert Duvall as Colonel Kilgore in ‘Apocalypse Now’

James Coburn as Sergeant Steiner in ‘Cross of Iron’

Lee Marvin as Major Reisman in ‘The Dirty Dozen’


R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in ‘Full Metal Jacket’

J.T. Walsh as Sergeant Major Dickerson in ‘Good Morning Vietnam’

Clint Eastwood as Gunnery Sergeant Tom Highway in ‘Heartbreak Ridge’

Harry Andrews as Sergeant Major Wilson in ‘The Hill’

Tom Berenger as Sergeant Barnes in ‘Platoon’

Nick Nolte as Lieutenant Colonel Tall in ‘The Thin Red Line’

Nigel Green as Colour-Sergeant Bourne in ‘Zulu’

PERSONAL FAVES: Goodfellas

“As far back as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a gangster.”

Has any film ever set out its stall so simply, so iconically and with such cocksure swagger as ‘Goodfellas’?

Number 15 on IMDb’s Top 250, a personal favourite of virtually everyone I know, endlessly imitated by other film-makers (would Danny Boyle’s ‘Trainspotting’ or Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘Boogie Nights’ have such verve if it weren’t for Scorsese’s template?), there’s either a book-length thesis to be written on ‘Goodfellas’ or nothing more to say but simply take one’s hat off to a powerhouse cast, an ace cinematographer (Michael Balhaus), an editor whose contribution to the film verges on genius (Thelma Schoonmaker) and a director at the top of his game.

Aw, the hell with it. I’m taking the easy way out on this one. Here’s ten classic moments from one of the all-time classic films:

The 1950s-set sequence where the young Henry Hill (Christopher Serrone) is seduced into the mob lifestyle even at the cost of his pissed-off father taking a belt to him: “the way I see it, everyone takes a beating now and then”.

The twenty-something Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) on a date with Karen (Lorraine Bracco), jumping the queue outside a nightclub, sliding in a side entrance, waltzing her through kitchens and corridors, glad-handing and slipping twenties to the employees, emerging near the stage and catching the eye of the maitre d’ who has a table carried in and set up in the premiere position. Karen, agog at Henry’s panache and connections, asks him what he does for a living. “I’m in construction,” he says.

Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) having everyone in tucks with his foul-mouthed account of a beating he took from an overzealous cop. “You’re a funny guy,” Henry avers. Oh-oh. “Funny how?”

Sonny Bunz (Tony Darrow) discovers the reality of having Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino) as a business partner: “Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with the bill? He can go to Paulie. Trouble with the cops, deliveries, Tommy. He can call Paulie. But now the guy’s gotta come up with Paulie’s money every week’ no matter what. Business bad? Fuck you, pay me. Oh, you had a fire? Fuck you, pay me. Place got hit by lightning? Fuck you, pay me.”

Henry responding to a distraught call from Karen after she’s been improperly treated by a guy on the block. In future online editions of the Oxford English Dictionary, when you look up “pistol whipping”, there’ll be a YouTube clip of Ray Liotta stalking up a driveway and using a gun butt to turn some football jock’s nose into gruyére.

Billy Batts (Frank Vincent) recently released from prison and somewhat belligerent during his celebratory drink. Running into a clearly not-in-the-mood-for-it Tommy DeVito, Billy makes the fatal mistake of bringing up Tommy’s youthful employment as a shoeshine boy. “Now go home and get your fuckin’ shinebox.” Bad mistake. Baaaaad mistake.

Jimmy Conway (Robert de Niro) engages in a little housecleaning when he decides he can’t trust his old crew. Cue ‘Layla’ and a whole bunch of corpses. “When they found Carbone in the meat truck he was frozen so stiff it took them three days to thaw him out for the autopsy.”

The increasingly coke-addled Henry spending a frenetic day trying to take care of business, look after his wheelchair-bound brother and cook a family meal while nursing a case of severe paranoia exacerbated by the omnipresence of a police helicopter. Remember: it’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

Henry’s testimony when he sings like a canary to save his own skin: “When I was broke, I’d go out and rob some more. We ran everything. We paid off cops. We paid off lawyers. We paid off judges. Everybody had their hands out. Everything was for the taking. And now it’s all over … And that’s the hardest part ... Now I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schmuck.” Lessons learned: none.

That final, brutal, chilling image – superimposed – of Tommy unloading a pistol right into the camera. Right into Henry’s subconscious. What goes around, comes around.

The Castle of Cagliostro

Lupin III – the name suggesting antecedence in Maurice Leblanc’s famous creation Arsene Lupin – is, like his namesake, a gentleman thief. He’s also an inveterate (if sometimes hapless) womaniser and an aficionado of the kind of gadgets that make you wonder if he doesn’t have a trade account with Q branch. All in all, a pretty cool guy. Cool enough, anyway, that he can get away with a lime green sport coat, black shirt, yellow tie, blue chinos combo.

Assisted by all-purpose sidekick Jigen – a hulking tough guy who’s good with a gun, dependable in a scrape and so befuddled by plot developments that he spends most of the film asking Lupin to clarify exactly what’s going on – Lupin has effortlessly relieved a casino of its takings in Danny-Ocean-meets-the-Keystone-Kops stylee as the film opens. Making good their escape, Lupin and Jigen barely able to see through the windscreen of their getaway car for the bundles of cash that surround them, it soon becomes apparent that this is one big score that’s gone south.

The money is counterfeit.

Lupin sets out to track down the perpetrator, the trail leading him to the principality of Cagliostro. He and Jigen quickly get into trouble, interceding in the impending royal wedding between heir to the throne Count Cagliostro, and his less-than-willing bride-to-be, the Princess Clarisse. Something dubious is afoot and Lupin happily gets himself embroiled. The arrival in Cagliostro of Interpol agent Inspector Zenigata, intent on arresting Lupin, complicates matters. So does the presence of Fujiko, Lupin’s (also kleptomanically-inclined) old flame.

‘The Castle of Cagliostro’ was Hayao Miyazaki’s first feature-length film after more than a decade working in television. He’d already directed several episodes of the ‘Lupin III’ TV show, so ‘Cagliostro’ was a natural choice for his debut movie. A light, frothy, almost slapstick caper, with none of the deeper concerns that run through Miyazaki’s later works, its animated style is often very redolent of its small screen roots. Nonetheless, there are plenty of indications of things to come: exhilarating aerial sequences (flying, whether by machine or mythical creature, features in virtually all of his films); castles (‘Cagliostro’ is the first of three Miyazaki’s that have the very word in the title*); and, in the plucky Clarisse and the kick-ass Fujiko, his penchant for strong heroines is already evident.

His next project ‘Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind’ (reviewed by my better half on these pages last year) would raise the bar in terms of theme, content, intellectual concerns and quality of animation. It would also prove the first of his deadly serious works (the hugely acclaimed ‘Princess Mononoke’ falls into this category). Personally, I prefer my Miyazaki served with a seasoning of humour and a twinge of the wistful (‘Kiki’s Delivery Service’ achieves a nice balance) and I find both ‘Nausicaa’ and ‘Princess Mononoke’ a bit of a long haul.

‘Cagliostro’ is flat-out absurdist humour, from the boiiiiiing sound effects as Lupin and Jigen athletically hurdle a series of obstacles while fleeing the casino, to a car chase that makes ‘Wacky Races’ look like an exercise in kinetic realism. Miyazaki gleefully crams the 100-minute running time with perilous escapades, hair’s breadth escapes, fiendish plots and last-minute rescues, homaging everything from Leblanc’s original Arsene Lupin adventures to the big-budget absurdities of the post-Connery Bond films by way of ‘Raffles’ and ‘To Catch a Thief’.

That ‘Cagliostro’ is Miyazaki’s first and (by comparison) least accomplished film is beside the point: it’s thirty years old and delivers more fun, flair and imagination than any American animation outside of Pixar.



*The other two being ‘Laputa: Castle in the Sky’ and ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’.

Top ten foul mouthed fellas

Words (very strong ones) not pictures on today’s top ten.

Cheech Marin as Chet in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’
“Come on in pussy lovers! Here at the Titty Twister we’re slashing pussy in half! Give us an offer on our vast selection of pussy. This is a pussy blow out. We got white pussy, black pussy, Spanish pussy, yellow pussy, we got hot pussy, cold pussy, we got wet pussy, we got smelly pussy, we got hairy pussy, bloody pussy, we got snappin’ pussy, we got silk pussy, velvet pussy, Naugahyde pussy, we even got horse pussy, dog pussy, chicken pussy. Come on, you want pussy. Come on in, pussy lovers. If we don’t got it, you don’t want it. Come on in, pussy lovers. If you can find cheaper pussy anywhere else … fuck it!”

Joe Pesci as Tommy DeVito in ‘Goodfellas’
Tommy: What do you mean I’m funny?
Henry: It’s funny, you know. It's a good story, it’s funny. You’re a funny guy.
Tommy: What do you mean? You mean the way I talk? What?
Henry: It's just, you know. You're just funny, it’s ... it’s funny, the way you tell the story and everything.
Tommy: Funny how? What’s funny about it?
Anthony: Tommy, no. You got it all wrong.
Tommy: Whoa, whoa, Anthony. He’s a big boy. He knows what he said. What did you say? Funny how?
Henry: Just, you know, you’re funny.
Tommy: You mean … let me understand this ’cause, ya know, maybe it’s me. I’m a little fucked up, maybe. But I’m funny how? I mean, funny like I’m a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I’m here to fuckin’ amuse you? What do you mean funny, funny how? How am I funny?
Henry: Just... you know, how you tell the story. What?
Tommy: No, no, I don't know. You said it. How do I know? You said I’m funny. How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is so funny about me?

Jack Nicholson as “Bad Ass” Baddusky in ‘The Last Detail’
Bartender: I’m gonna call the shore patrol.
Baddusky: I am the motherfucking shore patrol, motherfucker. I am the motherfucking shore patrol. Now give this man a beer.
Meadows: I don’t want a beer.
Baddusky: You’re gonna have a fuckin’ beer.

Brendan Gleeson as Ken and Ralph Fiennes as Harry in ‘In Bruges’
Ken: Let’s face it, Harry – you’re a cunt. You’ve always been a cunt. The only thing that's gonna change is that you’ll become an even bigger cunt. Maybe have some more cunt kids.
Harry: You retract that bit about my cunt fucking kids.
Ken: I retract that bit about your cunt fucking kids.
Harry: Insulting my fucking kids! That's going overboard, mate.
Ken: I retracted it, didn’t I?

Steve Martin as Neal Page in ‘Planes, Trains & Automobiles’
Receptionist: Welcome to Marathon. May I help you?
Neal: Yes.
Receptionist: How may I help you?
Neal: You can start by wiping that fucking dumb ass smile off your rosy fucking cheeks. Then you can give me a fucking automobile. A fucking Datsun, a fucking Toyota, a fucking Mustang, a fucking Buick. Four fucking wheels and a seat.
Receptionist: I really don’t care for the way you’re speaking to me.
Neal: And I really don’t care for the way your company left me in the middle of fucking nowhere with the fucking keys to a fucking car that isn’t fucking there. And I really didn’t care to fucking walk down a fucking highway and across a fucking runway to get back here to have you smile in my fucking face. I want a fucking car right fucking now!

Al Pacino as Ricky Roma in ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’
“You stupid fucking cunt. You, Williamson – I’m talkin’ to you, shithead. You just cost me six thousand dollars. Six thousand dollars and one cadillac. That’s right. What are you gonna do about it? What are you gonna do about it, asshole? You’re fucking shit. Where did you learn your trade, you stupid fucking cunt, you idiot? Whoever told you that you could work with men? Ooooh I’m gonna have your job, shithead. I’m going downtown to Mitch and fucking Murray … I don’t care whose nephew you are, who you know, whose dick you’re suckin’ on, you’re goin’ out. I swear to you … What you’re hired for is to help us. Does that seem clear to you? To help us. Not to fuck us up. To help men who are going out there, to try to earn a living. You fairy. You company man.”

Tom Cruise as Les Grossman in ‘Tropic Thunder’
“First, take a big step back and literally fuck your own face! I don’t know what kind of pan-pacific bullshit power play you’re trying to pull here, but Asia Jack is my territory. So whatever you’re thinking you’d better think again, otherwise I’m gonna have to head down there and I will rain down in a godly fucking firestorm upon you. You’re gonna have to call the fucking United Nations and get a fucking binding resolution to keep me from fucking destroying you. I’m talking about a scorched earth, motherfucker. I will massacre you. I will fuck you up.

Hugh Grant as Charles in ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’
“Fuck fuck fuckitty fuck!”

Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth in ‘Blue Velvet’
“I’ll send you a love letter - straight from my heart, fucker. You know what a love letter is? It’s a bullet from a fucking gun. You receive a love letter from me, you’re fucked – forever. You understand, fuck? I’ll send you straight to hell, fucker.”

Quentin Tarantino as Mr Brown in ‘Reservoir Dogs’
“Let me tell you what ‘Like a Virgin’ is about. It’s about this cooze who’s a regular fuck machine. I'm talking morning, day, night, afternoon: dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick …Then one day she meets this John Holmes motherfucker and it’s like, whoa baby! I mean, this cat’s like Charles Bronson in the ‘Great Escape’. He’s diggin’ tunnels. Now, she's getting’ this serious dick action and she’s feeling something she ain’t felt since forever: pain … It hurts just like it did the first time. You see, the pain is reminding a fuck machine what it once was like to be a virgin. Hence ‘Like a Virgin’.”

The Arrivals

My thanks to Tony Passarelli for the following article:



The prospect of writing about ‘The Arrivals’ is daunting. How do you review a 50 part online internet documentary that has turned into a global phenomenon? A series that for all of its fifty parts has drawn only one major criticism: that the series is too short!

I guess I can only attempt to rise to the challenge and direct the reader to the door that will open their mind to ‘The Arrivals’.

‘The Arrivals’ can be seen from any computer that is online for free. Google and YouTube video sites have many different uploads of the series from various users. There are also torrent sites from which you can download the entire 2 hour DVD version and burn onto disc. This gives you the option to watch ‘The Arrivals’ in the comfort of your living room on the television set, which might be the best option for those who get a little faint of heart at times because the pause button freezes the information download for a short while. Why only a short while? Because you’ll just have to know more.

So what is ‘The Arrivals’? It’s a documentary that exposes hidden truths and meanings about your very existence. It opens doors to truths that are hidden by their own clarity. The eyes of a population can be blind by their own sight. ‘The Arrivals’ is more than information to be uncovered: it is new knowledge and awareness, waking one’s inner consciousness.

From the very first episode the viewer is taken on a ride to a new awakening, with some very big shocks along the way as lifelong hopes and beliefs are catapulted to a new destination. This is not so much a journey but an inner leap to an unknown destination point that is way out of the average person’s comfort zone!

Prepare yourself for revelations that will shock the foundations of your soul. Are you feeling frightened? Has this review made you turn in an opposite direction? Is life better lived inside a comfortable shatter-proof box? Is your inner self speaking right now and telling you that what you don’t know can’t hurt you? Then maybe it is time to watch ‘The Arrivals’.

‘The Arrivals’ takes you on a trip through our world’s history, as well as its present and future. Then it drags you into the computer screen as you realise that your life story is being laid bare before your very eyes. You will lament. You will be enraged. You may be a little scared ... But above all, you will wake up the following day with a new awareness and a greater reason to live your life.

Enjoy the ride.



For more information on ‘The Arrivals’ visit www.wakeupproject.com. The stated vision of the Wake Up Project is “to create powerful and meaningful films and multimedia projects, aimed at increasing positive change, social awareness and cross-cultural understanding. Their influence is to be positive, constructive, inspirational, and appealing to a global audience.”

Little Miss Sunshine

Meet the Hoover family: patriarch Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a motivational speaker who insists that everyone has a choice between being a winner and a loser, even though his personal success rate relegates him to the latter category; his wife Sheryl (Toni Colette) juggles a day job, motherhood and running a chaotic household; their children number Dwayne (Paul Dano), a goth who wears a ‘Jesus was wrong’ t-shirt and refuses to speak, and Olive (Abigail Breslin) a precocious pre-teen who dreams of being a beauty queen. Unexpected guests in the Hoover household are Richard’s father Edwin (Alan Arkin), newly expelled from his retirement home for drugs related offences, and Edwin’s brother Frank (Steve Carell), a brilliant but neurotic scholar recuperating from a suicide attempt.

Which doesn’t add up to the stuff of which feelgood comedies are made, but ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ – directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris from a literate and witty script by Michael Arndt – is second only to ‘Sideways’ (up soon on the Personal Faves project) in mining a seam of humour from a melancholy set-up, and emerging, in its final scenes, as life-affirming.

Like Alexander Payne’s masterpiece it unfolds as a road movie, the dysfunctional sextet crowding into a beat-up old VW Microbus as they head for California where Olive is to compete in the final of the Little Miss Sunshine contest. Everything from mechanical failure to hospitalisation conspires to prevent them, and when they finally make it to the pastel-decorated hotel hosting the event, Richard, Dwayne and Frank - at odds from the outset - find themselves united in abhorrence: the beauty contest verges on exploitation, prepubescent girls made up and paraded more in the manner women ten or fifteen years their senior. Olive, however, insists in competing.

Melancholy pervades the characters, the journey, the film itself: virtually all of the Hoovers are defeated in their ambitions. By the end, it’s all down to Olive to win one back even though everything seems stacked against her. The ending doesn’t pan out quite as you’d expect ... but it’s an absolute delight all the same, gloriously sending up the beauty pageant for what it is.

Abigail Breslin (aged ten at the time of filming) turns in an astounding performance, but so does the whole cast; in particular, Toni Colette, striking the right note between flustered and dependable as a woman trying to be all things to all family members, and Alan Arkin, an absolute hoot as the foul-mouthed, sex-obsessed Edwin “Are you getting any?” he asks Dwayne at one point. “What are you, fifteen? Just the right age. You're jailbait and they're jailbait. It doesn't matter. Leave it till you're eighteen and you're looking at three to five.” (Bear in mind that it's Edwin who coaches Olive for the dance number she performs at the contest and you might get some idea of how unorthodox her routine is.)

Greg Kinnear, insufferably smug in most of his characterisations, convinces as a man trying to cling onto the positivity he peddles in his seminars even as he suffers one setback after another; while Steve Carell, in a performance devoid of the mugging and tomfoolery that often defines his onscreen persona, achieves a career best that you wouldn’t have thought possible. Both turn moments of cringe-making embarrassment – one involving the purchase of a pornographic magazine, the other the discovery of same by an overzealous traffic cop – into absurdist highlights.

And – proudly reversing into a parking space alongside a forecourt full of automotive icons including Herbie, the General Lee, Inspector Morse’s Jaguar Mk II and a certain Aston Martin DB5 “with modifications” – the Hoovers’ unpredictable yellow VW Microbus manages contain the entire family and all their differences and run away (almost literally!) with some of the funniest scenes.