I want one

I am so getting one of these when I finally make it...
http://www.ministatements.co.uk/

Trust No One (especially the critics)

I finally saw new X-Files movie this weekend. It seems the film has disappointed a lot of people, and the gangsta sitting behind me in the theatre declared it the 'worst film he had ever seen' as the credits rolled. I can see where these naysayers are coming from, but (and I admit I may be a little biased) I really liked it. It's a small, understated, movie in a summer of CGI-Laden blockbusters and, although not perfect, didn't let me down.

Chris Carter, a man who knows how to tell a story, has this time decided to to forgo the UFOs and liver-eating monsters and has instead produced a creepy old-style thriller, dealing with issues of faith, and full of human drama. My main gripe is that the film didn't really contain an X-File. Sure, there was Billy Connelly's 'is he, isn't he?' Pyschic Priest and the modern day Frankenstein plot was cool, but the X-Files 2 is basically just a solid murder mystery featuring some familiar characters and some slightly out-of-the-ordinary events.

Having said that, having Mulder and Scully back was enough for me, no matter the particulars of the case they find themselves wrapped up in. Mulder's return to the world after 6 years in hiding was dealt with quickly, simply and, I feel, realistically (Scully's suggestion that if the FBI wanted to find Mulder they probably could added to the believability of the situation). David Duchovny was great as ever, although I did miss Mulder's funny side (not much humour in this film, and the X-Files was great when it did humour).

One thing about this film that I loved was the cinematography. Bill Roe rightly won a heap of awards for his work on the show and his work on this film really stands out from the bright, high definition images modern cinema has inflicted on us in recent years. It was nice to see a film that actually looked like film for a change.

All in all this is a solid horror/thriller movie and a welcome return by some of my favourite screen-characters, but, if I'm honest, it's little more than an average episode of the TV series stretched to feature length and you can probably tell from my review that I wasn't blown away by it. X-Files 2 felt to me like a stepping stone between the series finale and a third movie in which, having now bought Mulder and Scully back to active duty, Chris Carter and Co can send them on a proper X-Files adventure. Bring it on.

P.S. Here's some news on X-Files 3. I really, really hope they do it.

http://www.hollywood.com/news/David_Duchovny_Ready_for_X_Files_3/5281671

http://www.movie-moron.com/?p=642

Dead Man in the Dirt

A horse-drawn cart
On rain-hammered tracks
A field of wheat
Shades of amber and earthy brown
And a dead man in the dirt
His skin yellowed, marbled
His limbs separated from his body
Bloody stumps of bone and gristle
And over it all, an autumn sun
Hanging low in the sky

Blackheart

The rain relentlessly lashed down on deck as Captain Blackheart wrestled to control his storm-sieged ship. With the sea violently crashing around him, Blackheart tried in vain to block out the agony of the icy water lapping at his feet, chilling them to the bone. Perhaps Flip Flops hadn't been such a great idea after all.

The Lollipop Graveyard

Lollipop sticks mark shallow graves.
Here Lies Snowy, 88-89.
Spanning 2 years - he had a good innings.
Not like Smokey. He didn't last one night.
Had his eyes ripped out by Fluffy.
His guts too.
Nobody told me you don't put two males together.
And then there was Mr T.
Flattened when the dog sat on him.
I should have remembered to shut his cage.
I don't keep Hamsters anymore.
Dead Fish are much easier to dispose of.

X-Files 2

I've been waiting for the X-Files movie to come out ever since I heard it was greenlit, and now it's on general release I just haven't found the time to fit in a viewing. I better get my arse to a cinema before they take it off...

Can I just go home please?

I said I wouldn’t be able to keep up a blog and, seeing as it’s been 65 days since my last entry, it seems I was right. However, today I was suitably irritated by certain events on my way home from work and decided to once again pick up my virtual pen and set about putting the world to rights. I never intended for this blog to be a platform for moaning, but let’s face it, that’s what it is.

I work in Victoria, in the wonderful, yet sometimes stressful, city of London. For those of you who don’t know, Victoria is a political and business hub, and it is bloody busy. At 5pm, thousands of people, myself included, all have just one thing on their mind – getting to the train station and getting home. Yet before we can make our well-earned retreat, we must contend with two extremely annoying and, I feel, unnecessary obstacles.

The first of these is the Charity Mugger, a strange breed whose job it is to stop people in the street, often with a blatant lie along the lines of ‘this will take 5 seconds’ or ‘I just want to talk’, and then try to convince them that we should donate to a given charity. At first thought you might wonder why this irks me. What is it about giving to charity that vexes me so? Well, fundamentally, nothing. I already give to a charity, of MY choosing, via direct debit and, while I don’t claim to be a saint on this basis alone, at 5pm, after a hard day’s work, neither I nor my fellow drones wish to be accosted by a just-scruffy-enough-to-be-trendy young man or woman reeking of ‘I just got back from travelling during-my-gap year and Daddy said I had to get a job’ who is being paid handsomely (so I hear) to coax our bank details from us.

The mere sight of these ‘Chuggers’ is enough to cause me to break out in a cold sweat – has he/she seen me? What do I say? How do I get out of this? Is it too late to cross the road? Maybe I should just run away? Fortunately, at present ‘Chuggers’ generally dress in brightly coloured tops emblazoned with the name of whichever charity thought it would be a good idea to unleash them on a weary public, and that is a small blessing for which I am thankful as it gives me an opportunity to pre-empt and hopefully avoid their imminent attack. I fear, however, that it is only a matter of time before they start dressing in black and pouncing, ninja-like, from the shadows.

The second on my list of Victoria Street inhabitants worthy of assassination are those ‘Freepaper’ vendors. Do I look like I want a fucking London Lite (sic)? And could you possibly find a less convenient place to stand? Seriously, on one of the busiest streets (in terms of pedestrians) in one of the busiest cities in the world, do we really need somebody standing directly in the flow of people-traffic handing out newspapers? (and I use the word ‘news’ extremely loosely) I feel like I am being bombarded from every angle as I walk down the street, and that is not good for my blood pressure or general temperament.

I always said I would hate to do a job that a machine could do, but that job, quite frankly, could be done by a large box. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the distribution of newspapers was the sole reason for the invention of the Newsstand, so why they are now deemed unfit for the task at hand I have no idea. In fact, I am not sure that we even need these Freepapers at all, let alone the people employed to dish them out, although that’s a matter for a whole other blog entry (my friend Mark seems to like reading them at any rate).