ALL NEW Video Reviews!
Video one looks at a couple of OzSploitation classics and one recent B-Movie dud
I review Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, Wolf Cop and Fair Game
and
Video two is all Italian Exploitation movies from the 80s and 90s
I review 1990: The Bronx Warriors, it’s sequel, Escape From the Bronx and the legitimate cult classic Cemetery Man AKA Dellamorte Dellamore.
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Interview in the Wartooth Arena
Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for taking the time to join us as we spend another Thursday evening probing the mysteries of cult cinema with a megamind of exploitation knowledge, The Podcast from the After Movie Diner.
Why don't you start telling us about your show?
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
Well the Diner started life as a blog back in 2010 and then somewhere in 2011 we started a podcast. I have an eclectic and passionate interest in all film so while others might focus on one thing or another, we can always guarantee there's at least one show or a handful of shows we have done that everyone will like.
Our main podcast combines comedy, music and film discussion and then about a year and a half ago we started up the Dr. Action and The Kick Ass Kid Commentaries show which is my friend and I riffing on 80s and 90s action films but with affection and silly voices, it's sort of like Hollywood Babble-On meets MST3K.
Wartooth Arena
I know I'm jumping ahead, but do you have a favourite exploitation film?
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
I have a whole list of favourites from all genres. Hard to pick just one... I did get a list together of a selection of them... would you like to hear about that?
As I have just completed a month covering them, some of the best, boldest, bloodiest and most badass and brilliant Blaxploitation films I can recommend are:
Shaft (1971) – an obvious one maybe but it has a hard hitting, quick witted, one liner heavy script that reads like a Humphrey Bogart private eye noir from the 40s but plays out like a new form of urban, action cinema that would define the era.
Slaughter (1972) – ex-footballer Jim Brown plays a James Bond style lady slayin’ ass whooper that owes a debt to the spy movies of the 60s but has all the nudity and gun fights one expects from the decade.
Three The Hard Way (1974) – Fred “The Hammer” Williamson, Jim Brown and the late great Jim Kelly go up against white supremacists wearing all the damn fine threads they can find and warring with all the way out weaponry they can get their hands on.
Coffy (1973) – Pam Grier’s defining moment. Strong, sexy, sassy and vicious, Grier brings all the exploitation elements of her greatest women-in-prison-in-the-Philippines films but mixes it with the sort of hard-nosed revenge thrillers that would pepper the 70s and 80s. This is a whole year before Death Wish.
Some of my favourite, less obvious, exploitation movies of this era are:
Vanishing Point (1971) – For as much as it is an existential, bleak look at America in a post 60s funk it also contains drugs, nudity, awesome car chases, violence, surreal scenes, a kick ass soundtrack and an enigmatic lead performance, all of which are staples of exploitation and would inform films like Mad Max and The Blues Brothers
Race With The Devil (1975) – When devil worshippers and Winnebago’s collide! This is a great look at the middle class, white family’s paranoia of small town, rural America with some great horror, car chases, a snake and an awesome ending.
Profondo Rosso (1975) – Argento’s masterful giallo movie that not only would influence the thrillers of De Palma but the entire Slasher genre of the 80s.
Rabid (1977) – Cronenberg’s slice of vampiric, zombie body horror.
The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue (1974) - A fantastic, underrated, gory, violent, weird and atmospheric zombie film that takes place in the beautiful countryside of the lake district in England. The opening scene, for no apparent reason, features a naked, large breasted lady on a town street. The film continues in its gloriously dubbed, grubby, Eurohorror way with plenty of suspense and synth soundtrack, ending with a third act full of pleasingly gory dead folk.
and lastly, whenever I am asked about exploitation or b-movies I always recommend these two, fairly obscure, films (despite their coverage in the great documentary Machete Maidens Unleashed), They Call Her Cleopatra Wong and The One Armed Executioner, which are two awesome Philippines kung fu classics, inventive, weird, wonderful, hilarious, kick ass and with soundtracks that slap you about the face and make you sit up and take notice.
There is even a sequence in Cleopatra Wong featuring a bunch of
bearded nuns with machine guns. Definitely worth tracking down. A great double dvd disc exists out there with them both in.
Wartooth Arena Thank you for the serious schooling. I see several I'm going to check out. Machete Maidens is on my list for soon to be watched.
Back in the day of drive-in theaters and grindhouse cinemas, a movie producer wanted to be able to make a film quick and easy in order to turn a fast buck. They used gimmicks like sex, violence, gore, racism, and religion to fill the seats. Looking back, we call those throwaway movies exploitation films, and filmmakers churned them out for about a decade. In order to keep the audience coming back, producers had to gradually ramp up the sensationalism. Going back through the history books, what are some of the forgotten movies that ramped up the gimmicks? The ones that brought the next big wave of knockoffs?
The end of the 60s through to the beginning of the 80s is an exciting, fertile and experimental time in American cinema, which is why I think it still fascinates today. You have the movie brats, like Coppola, Scorsese, De Palma etc. some who come out of the exploitation stable of Roger Corman to then create bleaker, slower, more thoughtful and European style, movies that still have one foot in the crime cinema of the 40s and 50s. It’s the perfect melting pot that is, all at once, informed by the past, the present and looks to the future.
However, what we think of now as exploitation, grindhouse or b-movies of the decade, like the Blaxploitation movement, for example, or Roger Corman’s Philippines era, are actually, very often, telling the populist, crowd pleasing, action heavy stories that would directly inform the blockbuster action boom of the 80s. While, of course, traditional and spaghetti westerns and war films of the 50s and 60s would also influence the Rambos and John McClanes of the 80s, they wouldn’t be who they are in tone and spectacle without the Death Wishes, Shafts, Slaughters and Coffys of the world.
In terms of which movies were the forgotten ones that ramped up the gimmicks, any of the ones I mentioned in my list could easily fit that. There were little sub genres springing up all the time that had their imitators or knock offs. The zombie genre that Romero started with Night of the Living Dead, the Cannibal genre with films like The Mountain of the Cannibal God, Cannibal Holocaust, Cannibal Ferox and then you'd have the rape/revenge films like I Spit on your Grave, Last House on the Left and others
You tended to get a classic or semi classic first film (like Night of the living dead) and then the genre would runaway with itself and become crazier, more graphic and have different off shoots.
Wartooth Arena
To fill the seats, exploitation films needed to flirt with our darker nature. Posters at drive-ins and downtown theatres were one of the main ways these films seduced us. How about a little background on the role the poster played in the exploitation genre?
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
Art surrounding movie advertising, in general, was SO MUCH better 20 years ago and prior. If I may have a slight rant, poster art for modern movies is unadulterated crap biscuits. Bland, badly photoshopped tediousness that needs a good kick up the brown eye with a jagged metal boot.
For as long as there was cinema, up until computers, the posters were these awesome works of art. Just like one of the joys of exploitation movies is that, due to low budgets, everything was done, dangerously for real or hilariously weirdly using cheap back projection, wonky miniatures or superimposing, one of the joys of the posters were they were hand painted, bold, lively, exciting affairs that when put up against regular A-list pictures were either completely comparable or much much better. The poster art, if done right, could level the playing field between A and B films.
Of course this brings up the whole problem with that and the reason why the art work was so important for getting bums on seats and that is ‘promising something you can’t deliver on’. For every one of the great, genuinely awesome and artistic, kick ass exploitation films, there are ten slow, boring, weird films that seemingly don’t match the hype depicted on the poster. Writing, word play and font graphics became really important and eye-catching too, much like voice overs on trailers. The whole marketing of these low budget wonders became a genius, clever and, even, admirable art form of its own.
Take the great line from the Coffy poster "She’s the GODMOTHER of them all… The baddest One-Chick Hit-Squad that ever hit town!" Absolute classic sleaze marketing. Love it
Wartooth Arena
On your facebook page, I saw a trailer for a blacksploitation movie called “Slaughter” with Jim Brown. I was shocked to hear the word nigger in the actual theatrical trailer. Are there any other trailers from the exploitation era that might surprise a contemporary audience? Like · 2 · about an hour ago
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
Compared to almost any of the awful, generic trailers we get today, most exploitation era trailers would shock the uninitiated. A lot of the trailers for the Italian and American revenge thrillers, cannibal films or zombie horrors, for example, tend to be very graphic and nothing like what we get today. Of course these were only intended to screen in the Grindhouses and it wouldn’t be as if you were sitting in a shiny “safe” multiplex like today but even so, a lot of them show so much in the trailers you wonder why you’d then go see the films at all.
I found the trailer online for that famous schlockfest Make Them Die Slowly AKA Cannibal Ferox which is 4mins long, features the word ‘bitch’, nudity, the beating of women and tons of bloodletting. There’s even a warning at the beginning! It’s horrendously graphic just for a trailer.
Marketing was king with these movies, if you ever get the time look at the marketing of the movie Snuff. The director, changed the name to Snuff, did a tagline "A film that could only be made in South America, where life is CHEAP!", tacked on a fake snuff ending and organised protests to picket the premiere of his own movie and a cheap crappy exploitation movie went on to make him very rich.
All these exploitation guys were doing what Hollywood does now (trying to get that big opening and con peoples money out of them before the movie gets seen by too broad an audience) years ago. You want to see true innovation in movie making and marketing, you look to the B Movie guys
Wartooth Arena
Gradually the exploitation era of the 1970s evolved into the Blockbuster era of the 1980s. What films that get classified in the exploitation genre foreshadowed the coming change? What was the public’s response?
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
What happened, really, is Steven Spielberg. With Duel and then Jaws he took what would normally be exploitation tropes and made them big business. What’s funny, particularly about Jaws is the fact that it had so many B Movie imitators when it itself WAS a B Movie imitator. The other film would be something like First Blood. Another film which could quite easily be an exploitation film but instead ushers in the most lucrative era of action films cinema has ever enjoyed.
As for how people reacted and why it happened I don’t know completely. Like I said, I think American A movies had become bleak, thoughtful and artistic and the exploitation/grindhouse films were the crowd pleasers - the action movies, the monster movies, crime thrillers etc. and I think Spielberg, Lucas, Stallone etc. tapped into the idea of “well why can’t we make some crowd pleasers?” and I am not sure a real audience cared back then about budgets or stars so much as they would just a few years later in the middle of the 80s.
Wartooth Arena
Before we get to the big question of the night, I have one on sub genres. I have seen a lot of 70s flicks where groups of disturbed children kill groups of adults. The other night I watched The Devil Times Five. Are there any of these where the adults kill some of the little bastards?
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
There is The Brood, the David Cronenburg movie... but, doing a search online brought up this movie: Beware Children At Play from 1989 which is a Troma movie (so expect very low budget sleaze) and apparently that ends with all the townsfolk killing demonic children left and right. of course, in the original cut of Romero's Dawn of the Dead, Peter guns down two zombie children...
Wartooth Arena
I can get behind that... and if anyone cares to see it, many Troma films are FREE!
We’re seeing remakes of Craven’s exploitation classics The Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes as well as other exploitation favorites like I Spit on Your Grave. These are amped up versions, but in this age of media glorification of real life horrors, these movies don’t hold the shock they used to, so what do you think fuels this resurgence?
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
I am cynical and believe this whole remake craze is solely down to laziness, creative bankruptcy and money. I don’t think the producers of the remakes or the people at the studios have seen half of the original films their movies are based on and I think they are doing it in a vein attempt at name recognition and maybe a little shock value.
While the remakes of Friday 13th, Dawn of the Dead, Halloween etc. all make some sort of sense, for a studio, because they are all popcorn horror rooted in fantasy but it makes little to no sense to remake the violent, grimy, sleazy exploitation films of the 70s because you could never do them justice today and, like you say, they wouldn't have the shock value.
People need to remember that at the time the exploitation craze kicked off America was in turmoil, engaged in an unpopular war, lots of civil rights issues igniting riots and marches and a hippy movement in decline and depression as they felt 'it hadn't worked'
Films like Last House on the Left grew out of that scene organically... you can't just casually remake it like it was just another movie. B Movies and exploitation is very often an organic product of its time...
Wartooth Arena
Yep. Could not agree more.
Wartooth Arena 2: Revenge of the Fucking Bad Ass is a writing contest for stories inspired by exploitation movies. In order to help combatants create the best fiction possible, I’m speaking with experts like yourself to create THE 13 FUCKING COMMANDMENTS OF EXPLOITATION FICTION. I’m trying to isolate the characteristics that would make one mean motherfucker of a story. Other suggestions have been OUT CRAZY THE CRAZIEST, LIVE FOR REVENGE, and ALWAYS SHOCK. The combatants of Wartooth Arena would love to know what you think must be present for exploitation fiction to be as awesome as it can be?
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
well I was going to be crass and scream BRING OUT THE BOOBS! hahaha but actually, thinking about protagonists, anti-heroes, the classic leading character in these movies I have gone with SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG GUN
Wartooth Arena
You get two! They both rule!
Thanks so much for joining us. It has been a pleasure. I hope everyone goes over and likes this wonderful page.
The Podcast from the After Movie Diner
Thanks for having me, sorry I went on a bit hahaha
Christmas Cinema Viewing - Pulpy Thrillers and Pointless Bum Nummers
The wife and I like to, over the Christmas period, visit the movie theatre and check out all the new films pushing and fighting their way into the multi-screen havens of stale popcorn, rancid piss smells and cough created germs at the hope of the almighty seasonal dollar.
This year was no exception.
Saturday December 22nd we strolled in and watched new Tom Cruise vehicle, Jack Reacher.
Now, firstly, a couple of things: I have never read a Jack Reacher book and I was only excited to see this film, initially for 2 reasons
1) Action Cruise tends to be good Cruise and
2) Werner herzog as a Bond style villain with a comically milky eye.
Apart from those things I had fairly low expectations and they were further lowered when I was set upon on Twitter and told that it was a load of old rubbish and I should avoid it.
Well I'll tell you the problem with Jack Reacher the movie and no, Lee Child purists, it has nothing to do with Tom Cruise's height you bunch of negative whiny bitches. The problem with Jack Reacher the movie was the marketing. As always marketing companies (who should really change their name to mismarketing companies or talentless hacks, they can take their pick) have fouled this up and advertised it as a relatively dumb action film. This is to do the film a disservice as it has a clever witty script, it trundles along at a decent pace, the performances are excellent and it's a good old fashioned pulpy, unpretentious, wise-crakin', ass-whuppin' good time of a conspiracy thriller.
It has a twisty-turny-yet-fairly-obvious-if-you-know-how-these-things-go type story to tell and it gets in and out with no fuss. The action is good, clear, tight and to the point too with a great finale that manages to amuse, thrill and surprise in a satisfying way.
In the shadow of the events recently in Connecticut it's a little tricky in parts because it does fall squarely on the side of the right wing where guns are concerned but, to be fair, that is hardwired into its western style, dime novel sensibility.
Lastly the casting of Werner Herzog is a stroke of sheer genius, every word he utters (and that's not a lot as he doesn't have nearly enough scenes) is the sort of nonsensical yet deep sounding babble that drips from the Bavarian's lips as easy as if he were reading a shopping list. It's an absolute wonder to behold and, actually, a little went a long way where he was concerned, any more and it would've veered into really questionable and confusing Bond style villain antics and that would've derailed the simplicity and succinctness with which Christopher McQuarrie told the story.
The wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this, sorry if you didn't that is a real shame because this movie is fun, aware of its cliches but written well enough to not over play them.
8 out of 10
Next up was This is 40 on Dec 24th
which really needed to be renamed 'Man these attractive white folk who are their own worst enemy really do whine ALOT!'
Ok, let's get started. I have a love hate relationship with Judd Apatow. I love that he has made possible some really great comedy films and that without him comedy in the last 10 years might have been just whatever Tyler Perry finds funny this week but I hate Judd Apatow because of his clear belief that, in his own directed films at least, that he is some Woody Allen like exposer of deep truths and a witty commentator on the silly little flaws of human nature. I also hate him because he seems to think showing naked bits of people that are usually, thankfully covered up is somehow hilarious and daring... oh and he produces that shitfest of incessantly pointless whiny drivel and mind numbingly shallow pile of arse 'Girls'... oh and he puts his famous musician friends in movies... oh and he needs someone to tell him to fucking stop once in a while.
Lets make something clear, hardly any film needs to be over 2hrs long and certainly not a comedy. OK. There are only a handful of stories in the world and the art form of film used to have a 90min standard because it worked. If you can't tell your story in a three act structure over the course of 90 minutes then you really shouldn't be working in film. You want to ramble? write a book, do a podcast anything but make a movie, let alone a comedy movie that is LITERALLY ABOUT NOTHING.
Are there exceptions to the 90min rule? sure - plenty.
Is there wiggle room where a movie at 105mins or even 120mins can be good or better? of course
Can you name a time you laughed for longer than 90mins? Probably not very frequently and certainly not at this Crate & Barrel catalogue looking mound of beige whining arse.
In fact John Cleese, the far too psychologically minded member of Monty Python, once said that, on average, people can laugh happily for around 40 minutes and after that there better be some plot, action or emotion going on to maintain momentum into the third act. The easiest example of this is Four Weddings and a Funeral because you laugh at the first three weddings, then there's the quiet bit where you are a little sad at the funeral, then end strong with a big, funny ending that ties all the story-lines together.
The trouble with 'This Is 40' is actually not that it isn't funny, it's actually, in places, very funny and when it comes to actual funny lines it is funnier than Apatow's previous effort 'Funny People' but the problem is it's not about anything.
The movie starts and two very annoying, idiotic, pretty people who live in a wonderful home, spend money like it's going out of style and with two daughters who are far cleverer and less annoying than them, have two Dads both of whom fucked up their first marriage and are now living with second families with varying degrees of success. When the movie ends this is all still true, except that Leslie Mann's Dad, played by John Lithgow, is a little more sympathetic and that's it. Nothing is learnt, nothing has changed and no one has said to these two whiny, whingey, stupid people "Shut the fuck up and sort yourselves out!"
The performances are fine too, although Leslie Mann, because of her high pitched nasaly voice, gets to points in this film where I could've quite easily beaten her to death with a shovel but all round there's nothing really bad about the way it's acted or shot.
It's just we're talking about a film where two people, because of their woeful communication, utter inability to manage their money and staggering lack of personal awareness and insight decide that selling their beautiful home is the solution to their problems rather than, I don't know, not spending $12,000 on flying a band no one has ever heard of ever to play in a tiny bar, not spending $10,000 on a catered Birthday party and suing the pilled-up, drippy girl who just robbed them of another $10,000.
I don't care about any of the people in this film and if the ending was that they were all mowed down by a hail of machine gun bullets from the arseholes of 8ft robot destroyers it wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest and, at least, it would've been an ending.
4 out of 10
Lastly, Django Unchained on Dec 25th
I don't even know where to begin with this. Well, firstly, unlike this film, I'll just give you a quick bit of back story. I used to like Tarantino. My patience wained with him, however, somewhere around the middle of Kill Bill 2 and after the howling and irritating mistakes of Death Proof and the masturbatory Inglorious Basterds I was about ready to give up.
Then came Django Unchained. I have seen the original, Franco Nero starring, film which is an ambiguous, rambling, strange, pulp, cult spaghetti western and like it, for what it is.
So, there, a few sentences and you understand where I am coming from and can probably see I didn't enter the screening tonight with anything more than a glimmer of hope.
Well after what felt like 5hrs but was really, a still ludicrous, 2hrs 45mins later I left the cinema utterly frustrated because while half of me wants to scream, shout, break things and write Tarantino off completely as a tired, old, unoriginal, repetitive, long winded, self congratulatory, masturbatory hack, the other half of me found a lot to enjoy in this saga of a film.
Whichever way you slice it though, it's TOO DAMN LONG. It's not one film, it's about eight and like all of Tarantino's stuff it's ever so pleased with itself and the way it sounds. For the first 3 films Christoph Waltz wanders around with a case of, sometimes amusing but mostly incessant, verbal diarrhea and in the second 5 films he is joined in his eloquent verbiage by Leonardo DiCaprio. They both swan about spewing out endless dialogue for ages and ages and ages.
Then, after all the talk, there's lots of shooting and blood letting, just like there was at the end of the previous 7 films that make up Django Unchained and also at the end of Inglorious Basterds because, in the absence of plot or momentum, violence will do.
I felt like I was actually living the year that this film takes place in, every single day of it, every moment.
I firmly believe that Tarantino is so surrounded by sycophantic dribbling nerds in his infamous screening room in LA that no one has the balls to read one of his scripts and say to him "MAKE IT SHORTER" and no the answer, in this case, just like it wasn't for Kill Bill and isn't for the Hobbit, is not to make this two films, three films, eight films, whatever. It's to have an editor or a script doctor go over his work and tear vast useless chunks out of it and then say "there... go make that movie"
So enthralled is he with his own repetitive, obvious and not-as-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is dialogue that he believes every word must be left in, clearly! because, if not, explain to me how a fairly run of the mill rescue and revenge film takes almost 3hrs to finish.
Ok, so enough about the bloated running time, what about the whole 'making Django African American' thing, well considering the time period this film is set in (2 years before the civil war) it's an absolutely brilliant idea if he hadn't already done the same thing with the far superior Jackie Brown. Also, before everyone goes and gets confused, thinking that Django somehow has some big important statement to make about racism, slavery, hatred etc. it doesn't.
Honestly, it really doesn't.
I don't know about you but I didn't need 2hrs 45mins of N words and racist violence from Quentin Tarantino to know that slavery was wrong and despicable. Ok?
This is how the conversation went at Tarantino towers:
"The original Django is set just after the civil war and this is going to be a prequel. Well, you know how I like black people and am best friends with Samuel L Jackson? how about Django is black and we set it before the civil war... am I a genius or what"
That's it people, seriously.
If the film was more serious then I would completely take your point but, and I hate to sound like Spike Lee because he's an over reactionary idiot who needs to get over himself, sitting watching the film is a bit like watching a white guy relish getting away with a ton of harsh racist slurs and referencing things like Mandingo fighting while patting himself on that back for being oh-so-clever.
And on that subject, Tarantino, just because you know one German opera does not make you a cultural scholar, ok?! especially when you have so little faith in your own audiences intelligence that you spell out EXACTLY your incredibly obvious plot references.
Lastly, and then I'll get on to some good stuff about the film, Tarantino needs to pick: either you're making an exploitation film or you are making an epic western with a serious message. Never before have a mix of genres and styles from someone who is supposedly a master at it, been so all over the place.
Man it was a frustrating vast chunk of my time I will never get back.
On the good side the acting is showboaty but entertaining, the script has some genuinely funny and exciting moments and the direction, when he can be bothered, is decent. His use of titling and soundtrack however, is, by now, completely tedious and irritating.
The exploitation elements are fantastic, the gore is excessive, the gun play enjoyable and the odd comic asides, like a scene where early Klan members dispute their poorly made eyeholes in their hoods, are genuinely surprising and funny but would be perfect if included in an exploitation film length film.
Despite the length there was enough going on to keep me watching but it felt like plowing through a miniseries on a Sunday afternoon rather than watching a film. The cinematography was pleasing and there was some interesting use of the camera but if I am honest, I am struggling to come up with lots of really positive things about it.
We all know that Tarantino rips off other films but when he starts ripping himself off (the exploitation violence and Tarantino cameo of Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the African American switch from Jackie Brown, the epic length and revenge plot from Kill Bill, the shoot everything ending from Inglorious Basterds - shall I go on) it's maybe time someone call him on his bullshit.
All I can say is, despite how this review sounds, I didn't hate it and the things that are wrong with it come completely from Tarantino (and others) believing that his shit doesn't stink. There is a GREAT film in there screaming, kicking, clawing and endlessly nattering trying to get out but until he either gets an editor or someone cuts him down a peg or two, he's not going to make one again it seems.
As to whether I will ever watch another QT film in the cinema (I have seen every single one since Pulp Fiction) well when the next one comes out, if it's below 2hrs long then I'll think about it.
5 out of 10
This year was no exception.
Saturday December 22nd we strolled in and watched new Tom Cruise vehicle, Jack Reacher.
1) Action Cruise tends to be good Cruise and
2) Werner herzog as a Bond style villain with a comically milky eye.
Apart from those things I had fairly low expectations and they were further lowered when I was set upon on Twitter and told that it was a load of old rubbish and I should avoid it.
Well I'll tell you the problem with Jack Reacher the movie and no, Lee Child purists, it has nothing to do with Tom Cruise's height you bunch of negative whiny bitches. The problem with Jack Reacher the movie was the marketing. As always marketing companies (who should really change their name to mismarketing companies or talentless hacks, they can take their pick) have fouled this up and advertised it as a relatively dumb action film. This is to do the film a disservice as it has a clever witty script, it trundles along at a decent pace, the performances are excellent and it's a good old fashioned pulpy, unpretentious, wise-crakin', ass-whuppin' good time of a conspiracy thriller.
It has a twisty-turny-yet-fairly-obvious-if-you-know-how-these-things-go type story to tell and it gets in and out with no fuss. The action is good, clear, tight and to the point too with a great finale that manages to amuse, thrill and surprise in a satisfying way.
In the shadow of the events recently in Connecticut it's a little tricky in parts because it does fall squarely on the side of the right wing where guns are concerned but, to be fair, that is hardwired into its western style, dime novel sensibility.
Lastly the casting of Werner Herzog is a stroke of sheer genius, every word he utters (and that's not a lot as he doesn't have nearly enough scenes) is the sort of nonsensical yet deep sounding babble that drips from the Bavarian's lips as easy as if he were reading a shopping list. It's an absolute wonder to behold and, actually, a little went a long way where he was concerned, any more and it would've veered into really questionable and confusing Bond style villain antics and that would've derailed the simplicity and succinctness with which Christopher McQuarrie told the story.
The wife and I thoroughly enjoyed this, sorry if you didn't that is a real shame because this movie is fun, aware of its cliches but written well enough to not over play them.
8 out of 10
Next up was This is 40 on Dec 24th
Ok, let's get started. I have a love hate relationship with Judd Apatow. I love that he has made possible some really great comedy films and that without him comedy in the last 10 years might have been just whatever Tyler Perry finds funny this week but I hate Judd Apatow because of his clear belief that, in his own directed films at least, that he is some Woody Allen like exposer of deep truths and a witty commentator on the silly little flaws of human nature. I also hate him because he seems to think showing naked bits of people that are usually, thankfully covered up is somehow hilarious and daring... oh and he produces that shitfest of incessantly pointless whiny drivel and mind numbingly shallow pile of arse 'Girls'... oh and he puts his famous musician friends in movies... oh and he needs someone to tell him to fucking stop once in a while.
Lets make something clear, hardly any film needs to be over 2hrs long and certainly not a comedy. OK. There are only a handful of stories in the world and the art form of film used to have a 90min standard because it worked. If you can't tell your story in a three act structure over the course of 90 minutes then you really shouldn't be working in film. You want to ramble? write a book, do a podcast anything but make a movie, let alone a comedy movie that is LITERALLY ABOUT NOTHING.
Are there exceptions to the 90min rule? sure - plenty.
Is there wiggle room where a movie at 105mins or even 120mins can be good or better? of course
Can you name a time you laughed for longer than 90mins? Probably not very frequently and certainly not at this Crate & Barrel catalogue looking mound of beige whining arse.
In fact John Cleese, the far too psychologically minded member of Monty Python, once said that, on average, people can laugh happily for around 40 minutes and after that there better be some plot, action or emotion going on to maintain momentum into the third act. The easiest example of this is Four Weddings and a Funeral because you laugh at the first three weddings, then there's the quiet bit where you are a little sad at the funeral, then end strong with a big, funny ending that ties all the story-lines together.
The trouble with 'This Is 40' is actually not that it isn't funny, it's actually, in places, very funny and when it comes to actual funny lines it is funnier than Apatow's previous effort 'Funny People' but the problem is it's not about anything.
The movie starts and two very annoying, idiotic, pretty people who live in a wonderful home, spend money like it's going out of style and with two daughters who are far cleverer and less annoying than them, have two Dads both of whom fucked up their first marriage and are now living with second families with varying degrees of success. When the movie ends this is all still true, except that Leslie Mann's Dad, played by John Lithgow, is a little more sympathetic and that's it. Nothing is learnt, nothing has changed and no one has said to these two whiny, whingey, stupid people "Shut the fuck up and sort yourselves out!"
The performances are fine too, although Leslie Mann, because of her high pitched nasaly voice, gets to points in this film where I could've quite easily beaten her to death with a shovel but all round there's nothing really bad about the way it's acted or shot.
It's just we're talking about a film where two people, because of their woeful communication, utter inability to manage their money and staggering lack of personal awareness and insight decide that selling their beautiful home is the solution to their problems rather than, I don't know, not spending $12,000 on flying a band no one has ever heard of ever to play in a tiny bar, not spending $10,000 on a catered Birthday party and suing the pilled-up, drippy girl who just robbed them of another $10,000.
I don't care about any of the people in this film and if the ending was that they were all mowed down by a hail of machine gun bullets from the arseholes of 8ft robot destroyers it wouldn't have bothered me in the slightest and, at least, it would've been an ending.
4 out of 10
Lastly, Django Unchained on Dec 25th
Then came Django Unchained. I have seen the original, Franco Nero starring, film which is an ambiguous, rambling, strange, pulp, cult spaghetti western and like it, for what it is.
So, there, a few sentences and you understand where I am coming from and can probably see I didn't enter the screening tonight with anything more than a glimmer of hope.
Well after what felt like 5hrs but was really, a still ludicrous, 2hrs 45mins later I left the cinema utterly frustrated because while half of me wants to scream, shout, break things and write Tarantino off completely as a tired, old, unoriginal, repetitive, long winded, self congratulatory, masturbatory hack, the other half of me found a lot to enjoy in this saga of a film.
Whichever way you slice it though, it's TOO DAMN LONG. It's not one film, it's about eight and like all of Tarantino's stuff it's ever so pleased with itself and the way it sounds. For the first 3 films Christoph Waltz wanders around with a case of, sometimes amusing but mostly incessant, verbal diarrhea and in the second 5 films he is joined in his eloquent verbiage by Leonardo DiCaprio. They both swan about spewing out endless dialogue for ages and ages and ages.
Then, after all the talk, there's lots of shooting and blood letting, just like there was at the end of the previous 7 films that make up Django Unchained and also at the end of Inglorious Basterds because, in the absence of plot or momentum, violence will do.
I felt like I was actually living the year that this film takes place in, every single day of it, every moment.
I firmly believe that Tarantino is so surrounded by sycophantic dribbling nerds in his infamous screening room in LA that no one has the balls to read one of his scripts and say to him "MAKE IT SHORTER" and no the answer, in this case, just like it wasn't for Kill Bill and isn't for the Hobbit, is not to make this two films, three films, eight films, whatever. It's to have an editor or a script doctor go over his work and tear vast useless chunks out of it and then say "there... go make that movie"
So enthralled is he with his own repetitive, obvious and not-as-clever-as-it-thinks-it-is dialogue that he believes every word must be left in, clearly! because, if not, explain to me how a fairly run of the mill rescue and revenge film takes almost 3hrs to finish.
Ok, so enough about the bloated running time, what about the whole 'making Django African American' thing, well considering the time period this film is set in (2 years before the civil war) it's an absolutely brilliant idea if he hadn't already done the same thing with the far superior Jackie Brown. Also, before everyone goes and gets confused, thinking that Django somehow has some big important statement to make about racism, slavery, hatred etc. it doesn't.
Honestly, it really doesn't.
I don't know about you but I didn't need 2hrs 45mins of N words and racist violence from Quentin Tarantino to know that slavery was wrong and despicable. Ok?
This is how the conversation went at Tarantino towers:
"The original Django is set just after the civil war and this is going to be a prequel. Well, you know how I like black people and am best friends with Samuel L Jackson? how about Django is black and we set it before the civil war... am I a genius or what"
That's it people, seriously.
If the film was more serious then I would completely take your point but, and I hate to sound like Spike Lee because he's an over reactionary idiot who needs to get over himself, sitting watching the film is a bit like watching a white guy relish getting away with a ton of harsh racist slurs and referencing things like Mandingo fighting while patting himself on that back for being oh-so-clever.
And on that subject, Tarantino, just because you know one German opera does not make you a cultural scholar, ok?! especially when you have so little faith in your own audiences intelligence that you spell out EXACTLY your incredibly obvious plot references.
Lastly, and then I'll get on to some good stuff about the film, Tarantino needs to pick: either you're making an exploitation film or you are making an epic western with a serious message. Never before have a mix of genres and styles from someone who is supposedly a master at it, been so all over the place.
Man it was a frustrating vast chunk of my time I will never get back.
On the good side the acting is showboaty but entertaining, the script has some genuinely funny and exciting moments and the direction, when he can be bothered, is decent. His use of titling and soundtrack however, is, by now, completely tedious and irritating.
The exploitation elements are fantastic, the gore is excessive, the gun play enjoyable and the odd comic asides, like a scene where early Klan members dispute their poorly made eyeholes in their hoods, are genuinely surprising and funny but would be perfect if included in an exploitation film length film.
Despite the length there was enough going on to keep me watching but it felt like plowing through a miniseries on a Sunday afternoon rather than watching a film. The cinematography was pleasing and there was some interesting use of the camera but if I am honest, I am struggling to come up with lots of really positive things about it.
We all know that Tarantino rips off other films but when he starts ripping himself off (the exploitation violence and Tarantino cameo of Resevoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, the African American switch from Jackie Brown, the epic length and revenge plot from Kill Bill, the shoot everything ending from Inglorious Basterds - shall I go on) it's maybe time someone call him on his bullshit.
All I can say is, despite how this review sounds, I didn't hate it and the things that are wrong with it come completely from Tarantino (and others) believing that his shit doesn't stink. There is a GREAT film in there screaming, kicking, clawing and endlessly nattering trying to get out but until he either gets an editor or someone cuts him down a peg or two, he's not going to make one again it seems.
As to whether I will ever watch another QT film in the cinema (I have seen every single one since Pulp Fiction) well when the next one comes out, if it's below 2hrs long then I'll think about it.
5 out of 10
Hobo with a Shotgun - 8th May 2011
Oh Canada! Is this what happens when we leave you alone in the frozen north with your crazy ideas and nothing but time?
Hobo With A Shotgun started life as an independently made trailer for a competition run in conjunction with the release of the Tarantino/Rodriguez Grindhouse picture. It won the competition and when, for that limited time, Grindhouse was shown as one film, the way it was intended, Hobo proudly appeared before it.
Then later, much like Machete, it was turned into a feature length flick, only this time the film makers got a budget and completely re-shot and re-cast it.
This is nothing new, The Coen Brothers, following a little in the steps of Sam Raimi, used a trailer to secure financing for their first feature, Blood Simple.
When I sat down to watch this, despite being fascinated with the whole Grindhouse debacle at the time, I didn't know any of that.
I wasn't living in America back then, I didn't know there was a competition and I hadn't seen the original trailer.
I learnt about Hobo from a friend of mine in the UK who is a big Rutger Hauer fan and a fan of films that are so dark, sick and twisted that they become hilarious, for example he is a big fan of, the quite similar movie, Street Trash which is about sick melting tramps.
I think the people who don't really get exploitation or horror don't understand that attached to the gory, violent imagery is often a fantastically creative imagination, a great sense of humour and that life affirming feeling you get to make through one of these in one piece. It's a safe and enjoyable way to have an endurance test of wills to prove to the world, well if we're honest, mostly your friends, that you're not a pussy.
Well if ever there was a film that took a great title, the money and decades of previous exploitation offerings and attempted to over-do, out-gross and push the boundaries of b-movies in the most underground comic book, intentionally sick & grimy way then it's Hobo with a Shotgun. It's like an early Peter Jackson movie meets Death Wish. A live action Meet The Feebles or Dead Alive (Braindead to us Brits) meets Straw Dogs or a caucasian Foxy Brown. If there was more camp comedy in it and thank Christ there isn't, it would be a lot like a Troma film too.
Firstly the film looks great, the whole thing painted in bright vivid tones and neon hues and looks far more like an 80s exploitation B-Movie than I expected. They have got the whole tone of the film pitch perfect with good music, great set decoration and interesting and bizarre camera lenses and angles.
Secondly, throughout the whole grotesque, bloody and visceral film Rutger Hauer doesn't put a foot wrong in the title role. It felt very much like they had properly focused on and written his part well so he had plenty to do and his performance didn't disappoint.
Lastly I think the film was chock full of good, funny and disgusting ideas and most of them were realised well.
Where it falls down for me was in the plot, the writing of the other characters and especially the villains.
You see the whole city is over-run with crime and degradation. On every street corner there is something repugnant, sleazy or violent happening and this controlled anarchy is all the doing of one man, seemingly the only citizen of this land who knows where the dry cleaners is, and his two arsehole sons. They have the town in their back pocket, completely bought and paid for.
Well that concept is fine enough, even if it does open up more questions than it answers (like why would you do anything these weedy and obnoxious ring pieces say anyway?) but I think it would have been of huge benefit to the film if the actors chosen to play these roles were genuinely terrifying, or at least menacing in a sort of Gary Busey type way. I mean the two sons are quite the most annoying pair of squeeky voiced, whining, sickening turds you've ever witnessed and while, obviously, that works in the film's favour because you side instantly with the Hobo, who is equally lacking in moral fibre if we're honest here, it doesn't help that they look like the sort of pair who could be over powered by a particularly pungent fart rather than leaders of a rain of terror. Plus I think with Hauer in the lead you'd side with the grizzled son of a bitch anyway, you don't need to amp up the annoying factor on your villains.
As for the lead baddie 'The Drake' well I am sorry but he's the real lame duck. He's about 70 if he's a day and a tennis ball to the face would probably disorientate him long enough for you to steal all his clothes and kick him into next Friday! With these kind of adversaries you'd think the Hobo would have the streets cleaned by dinner.
Alas this is not the case and this malevolent leprechaun has the chance to not only use the TV to turn regular folks, if there are such things in this hellish wasteland, against the hobo but also to summon The Plague, a pair of possibly robotic, possibly demonic bikers to come finish off him and his new found prostitute friend Abby.
This is actually where it all starts to get good again and the climax piles on atrocious and gleeful gore upon gore. It's also where all pretense of normalcy, or at least even movie logic, has well and truly flown out of the window, especially with the briefest, random and surreal appearance of a giant octopus.
Look I know that to poke holes in Hobo with a Shotgun for its non existent plot, its crappy villains and its lazy writing is completely missing the point but personally I think the strength of the best kind of B-Movie is their ability to tell the stories and ideas that you can't in A pictures, not just to see if we can push the boundaries of taste to ludicrous levels. Ok so, plot wise, there is some mumbled nonsense about the Hobo's desire to run off with Abby and run a lawn mowing company but that only goes to emphasise the ridiculousness of the situation. He rode in on the rails, why doesn't he just ride out again when he sees what the city is like and that there is no money to be made here? If there are places you can go where lawn mowing is a lovely peaceful occupation, why isn't he there?
I also think that films are cult films when they are good enough to gather a following over time and because there's something about them we haven't seen before, there's just a part of me inside that dislikes the fact that this film was so obviously made specifically to be like that, it feels cynically manufactured almost.
Then there is another part of me who tells that part of me to shut the fuck up and enjoy the magnificent splatter fest for what it is. After all it does exactly what it says on the tin and it features plenty of things we haven't seen before.
I have seen my fair share of horror and exploitation films and where most films would draw the line, in terms of what they'd show, this one seems to start. The opening death is the sort of thing another film might end with and if they did, they certainly wouldn't show it in all it's red drenched splendor.
I can't go into all the ridiculously hilarious and jaw-droppingly, delicious and twisted moments in this film for fear of spoiling it.
All I would say is that if your idea of amusing is an upside down human piñata being beaten silly by three giggling topless women, which is then split open from balls to chin, much to their glee and the scene ends with them happily dancing in the unfortunate man's innards then I would give this film a watch at least once.
Also, for you fans of all things Canuk, look out for a few cameos by famous Canadians, those wacky sick funsters.
7 out of 10 - donkey balls in a bap drizzled with pervy Santa's semen.
Points from The Wife - 5 out of 10.
Red State (live at Radio City Music Hall) - 5th March 2011
I have been a fan of Kevin Smith since seeing Clerks and apart from Cop Out, which I don't feel necessarily counts, I have pretty much enjoyed, liked or loved everything he has ever been involved in and yes, that includes Jersey Girl.
There are many reasons to like the man and his work: he is funnier and cleverer than he or any of his critics give him credit for, his candid, foul mouthed honesty, he keeps his friends close, the fact he can seemingly turn his hand to anything (Film making, blog writing, shop owning, podcasting, stand up, hockey, TV & Radio show hosting and now distributing), he gets the best from the casts he works with especially Ben Affleck who is rarely better than when working with him, his films attempt to and very often achieve a balance between crude comedy and a heartfelt message without being sentimental and, after Red State he may just have shown himself to be a better writer than Quentin Tarantino.
Yes, when I hear a detractor or critic of his I can see where they are coming from but very often they have either missed the point or a simply not wired the right way to appreciate Smith's little corner of the entertainment business.
I first heard of Red State as this horror movie idea he had been kicking around for some time, it seemed odd because while he is vocal about many things, politics was not one of them and yet, to me the idea of a film that was seemingly going to go after the extreme religious right got my liberal leaning atheist saliva glands excited but then with another thought I wondered how Kevin Smith could even pull it off, not being a director known for dark, moody, horror films.
Then, I had been ferociously absorbing the myriad of podcasts on his ever expanding Smodcast network for the past couple of years. Years which certainly seemed to be a bit turbulent for Mr.Smith, I don't know how much the public are even aware of any of it or if they care but for dedicated Smod listeners like myself it has been a hectic soap opera of dashed hopes over the box office for Zack and Miri make a Porno, of Kevin Smith doing the unthinkable and directing a film he didn't write with a star who turned out to be anything but helpful and of being kicked off a plane for being too fat to fly. Then, seemingly as if his life was an inspirational film about a schlubby kid from New Jersey who made good and because an audience demands a happy ending, he bought a bus to continue touring, built an entire network of increasingly popular podcasts that included getting a theatre, a regular spot at a famous comedy venue and which are soon to become a live streaming radio station, announced that he had the funding for Red State, makes Red State with an all star cast, gets Red State into Sundance 17 years after he debuted there with Clerks, confounds, confuses and amazes people by announcing that he will distribute the film himself (why that upset anyone I have absolutely no idea, that was just plain weird) and finally on March 5th, only a few months since they started shooting the thing, Red State premiered at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
Pretty bloody incredible by all accounts and the fact that he did it without, seemingly, stepping on anyone's neck, I personally think is admirable. I honestly scratch my head when people criticise him. You can criticise his work, of course, you can debate his talent and you don't have to like his films or shows but nitpicking, bitching and moaning about the man himself and his actions when he is a fairly shining example of the American dream that everyone bangs on about and getting stuff wrong about him when he is also a completely open book who is always explaining himself clearly and eloquently, is just plain odd.
Now, during all this time, listening to the podcasts on my daily commute I have attempted to keep up with all this stuff but without finding out too many spoilers about the film itself. I have to say, with all honesty, I turned up at the theatre last night with very mixed thoughts and not knowing what to expect. I wanted to be there to have the experience and then see the Q&A but I was not expecting a brilliant film.
For me the warning bells started sounding way back when it was obvious Scott Mosier would not be involved with first Cop Out and then Red State, couple that with the fact that I had been lead to believe it wasn't at all funny, that it was Kevin Smith working outside of his usual genre and some of the reviews out of Sundance that I just glanced at (so as not to get any spoilers) seemed to be less than stella and I have to say my expectations were, by no means, high.
Well, of course, I was dead wrong, it is a fantastic film.
I don't want to give away too much at this point because I really want people to see it but basically it is a horror, action, religious satire that is both completely unlike anything Kevin Smith has ever done and yet, through the script, decidedly and obviously Kevin Smith.
Actually, scratch that, what Red State ACTUALLY is, is a brilliant independent spirited exploitation film, the kind which Tarantino and Rodriguez have been desperately trying to make these past few years and have failed miserably because they keep screaming at the audience through the films "look at how grind-house this is! look we are making ironic exploitation films, aren't we clever!" well Red State doesn't do that, it doesn't have to because it IS an exploitation flick that harks back to the amazing gritty B-Movies of the 70s instead of trying so desperately to be that. I call it an exploitation film because they were the ones that had the freedom to happily blend genres, tackle taboo subjects, could feature violence and black humour, looked different and took chances. Well that's what Red State does and a whole lot more. Yes, of course, like an exploitation movie, there are parts which are cliche but it also succeeds in being dark, disturbing, violent, exciting, unflinching and also, surprisingly, hilarious. From saying it wasn't a comedy but a horror movie what Kevin Smith does is set aside the dick and fart jokes that were Jay & Silent Bob's stock in trade and reveal himself to be very clever and even, in places, witty.
So, it centers around a small nondescript, fairly redneck town in the south where there is a family of religious extremists that are modeled on both the Westboro Baptist church (those vile hate mongers who protest the funerals of gay people) and the Branch Davidians from Waco. Three boys from the local high school, who are looking for sex in all the wrong places, answer an ad online from some dodgy website and through a series of circumstances actually end up inside the church's fortified land and in deep trouble. From there all hell breaks loose and the film takes a number of unexpected turns. I really don't want to go on because the fresher you can see the movie the so much better that it is.
Overall it has a vibe that I would pitch somewhere between the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Fargo, if you can imagine such a thing. Now, pretend those two films got in bed with the more serious parts of Dogma and you're probably half way there.
The cast in this film, which includes John Goodman, Stephen Root, Kevin Pollack, Academy Award winner Melissa Leo and the sublimely perfect Michael Parks, are, each one of them, just wonderful.
On his Red State podcasts, Kevin Smith was saying that he used to think he had to work actors like a puppet, give them line readings and instruct them what to do, especially when he was working with initial amateurs like Jason Mewes but on Red State he just took a step back and watched the monitors, trusting his professionals to bring their best game to the screen. Well whatever he did it worked, I mean you can always trust these actors, which include some of my favourite of all time, to be marvelous and this time they were fairly flawless, wringing every drop of either dopey innocence in the case of the boys, charming malevolence and brainwashed insanity from the church folk and anger and sarcasm in the case of the cops out of the well crafted words on the page. The younger cast members too are uniformly excellent and watchable, more than up to the task of keeping up with their older, more established cast mates.
To see them all up on stage last night and to hear Goodman drop 'Shut the fuck up Donny' onto the crowd was a joy.
A lot has been made about the look of the film and it would be fair to say that this is Kevin Smith's grainiest and grubbiest looking film since Clerks and I mean that in a good way, that's what they were obviously going for, the colour palette of the movie also is very interesting tonally, being filmed on what seemed to be exclusively overcast and grey days but the real revelation here is the camera shots and movement in this film. When it needs to be the camera work is frenetic and exciting, other times, when it's called for, the camera is hovering and eerie, like a fly, almost, buzzing about inside this gloomy, foreboding church trying to find some sort of light or warmth.
If I have one criticism of the film at all, it is that it almost zips along too quickly, after it finished, I personally felt I could've spent at least another 20 minutes with these characters.
In fact, in an alternative reality, an HBO style gritty TV Show about the subject would not have been a bad idea, plenty of things could be stretched out to fill a 10 show run. You've got a possible murder mystery, religious extremists, people's reactions to the antics of the church, the horny teenagers and John Goodman's agent and his relationships with the bureau, his men and his home life. Sort of like Big Love meets True Blood meets Homicide. Just a thought.
The opening build up and the 'horror' section of the film could've been expanded, the film could've been more violent and more suspenseful before the second act gets underway.
A lot of critics, especially after Sundance, who appear to critique Kevin Smith and his fans rather than the film itself, do go on and on about the changes in tone and plot that take place in the film but like I said earlier, it's an exploitation film with a heavy dose of satire, it's meant to cram a hundred unfinished ideas into it's running time and bombard the audience with different imagery, that's its genius. To call it a mess or uneven is to entirely miss the point. These are the same people who probably went on and on about the Social Network being the greatest work of cinema last year. The films structure is actually solid and while it raises more questions than it answers, the few it does answer, it does with style, wit, charm and good grace.
It all basically boils down to good writing being said by good actors with a camera pointed at them and I don't know about anyone else but I find that refreshing nowadays and when I come across it, I could watch it forever.
Lastly, to the family, friends or whatever the four muling, brain dead, arse clowns were in front of me that apparently thought Radio City Music Hall was the best place to go in New York just to drink beer and text, I hope you all suffer slow and agonising torment possibly involving some garden implements and your rectums. They didn't spoil the movie so much as not really watch it, leave half way through for beer, then come back to their seats for the start of the Q&A only to talk very loudly through it, some of which involved repeating jokes and comments to the person sitting next to them who would've heard them by themselves if these flappy-mouthed bastards had shut up for a second.
I wouldn't mind but the tickets weren't cheap, all in all I worked out the probably spent about $20 a beer and sat in their seats a grand total of an hour out of the three. I wish their drinks had sedatives in them!
Suffice to say we moved seats quickly so as to watch the Q&A in peace.
9 out of 10 strawberry flavoured communion wafers (well they are red and religious right?)
Points from The Wife 9 out of 10
SEE MY PHOTOS FROM THE NIGHT