thought of the day.

  

You will never lovingly embrace a naked Sofia Coppola in a pool.

box (art) frenzy.

For your enjoyment, a selection of quality covers from the late, great Video Classics collection that will (and have) served as inspiration for many a struggling young artist.

If only today's covers had half the flair.

the price is right!

tough on crime...

Captain Marvel tells it like it is.

people you fancy but shouldn't part 29.

Guardian teevee critic and all round clever lady Grace Dent.

I'll let our Dutch pals sum her up:

Ze studeerde Engelse literatuur en werkt sinds 1996 als freelance journalist en columnist voor jongerentijdschriften, zoals CosmoGIRL! en kranten als The Guardian, The Daily Mirror en Glamour.

Roughly translated:

Meow!

blind date.

Occasionally dear reader a film comes along that is so powerful, so disturbing that it leaves you speechless.

This is one such movie.

Tho' possibly not for the reasons the director intended.

Megan is Missing (2010).
Dir: Michael Goi.
Cast: Amber Perkins, Rachel Quinn and Dean Waite.

Opening with a very serious title card that informs us that the movie we are about to see is based on a true story (scary), the film then hedges it's reality bets and throws all hope of suspense to the wind by revealing this:

And not a single fuck was given.

Yup, two minutes in and we already know the ending but we can still live in the vain hope that we'll probably get some top-notch Larry Clark 'Kids' style acting or at the very least a Home Alone style chase scene where Amy gets to outwit Josh with some homemade booby traps and the like.

But all chances of these things happening quickly disseminate into the ether when the film starts good and proper and you realise that you're about to experience an incredibly dull seventy odd minutes of the horse faced, Bratz doll made flesh Megan (Quinn from Gene DePaul's Chicago-based stage version of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) whining constantly about school, her hair, parties, boys and the sex.

In arse numbingly graphic detail.

Amazingly all the close-ups of Megan's luscious lips and scarily elongated face as she chats in-depth about blow jobs, descriptions of spunky undies and tales of underage nookie to anyone that's listening are so tedious as to make the thought of doing anything remotely sexual again nay on impossible thanks to her nasally voice as it burrows ever deeper into your brain like a bloated cranium worm.

Cheers for that hen.

"You want me to do WHAT in your cup?"

And rather than make us care about Megan with all these heart felt teenage chats, writer/director/closet fetishist Goi only succeeds in making her not only totally repulsive but also deserving of a bloody good kicking.

To be honest you actually start counting down to her abduction, knowing that you'll finally get a break from her constant, self-absorbed bollocks.

At one point I honestly thought that moon-faced best buddy Amy had done it just so she could get a word in edgeways the poor cow.

"Crap chat police! You're under arrest sugar!

Anyways, between all this talking shite and applying lipgloss it appears that Megan has been flirting online to a hunky skater-boi named Josh and has arranged to meet him.

Surprise, surprise Josh is a bad man who violently snatches Megan away never to be seen again.

And worse than that is the fact that Josh isn't even his real name!

The bounder!

She might look upset now but just you wait till arse banditary starts.

Amy upon realising that she has no idea how to start a conversation now motor-mouth Megan has gone decides to turn all Nancy Drew on us (minus the pop socks obviously) and investigate the disappearance of her pal.

Weeks later tho', Amy also vanishes.




So far, so TeeVee movie of the week but hark! the director has one final trick up his sleeve.

 You see it appears that after weeks of searching that the police have discovered Amy's camera in a bin.

And someone seems to have been posting vaguely embarrassing pictures of what could be Megan on a bizarro bondage fetish site.

"Shite in mah whiny American mooth!"

Bring on the real-time footage of Amy, stripped to her undies, caked in mud and chained up in a cellar as she's systematically abused, raped and sworn at by 'Josh' in gloriously unflinching eighties nasty style sleaze-arama.

But if you think that this is all a wee bit too exploitationy for a public service mocumentary then you ain't see owt yet because dirty boy Goi has an ace in the bag.

Or more precisely Megan's rotting corpse in a barrel.

Which I'll admit was unexpected.

Bored by all this torture and tears, Josh decides to pop Amy into the barrel too as our family friendly director closes the film by filming Josh's feet as he digs a hole big enough to put the barrel in as the soundtrack is filled with Amy's screams.

for almost twelve and a half minutes.

"Laugh now!"

Like a living, breathing copy of Chat Magazine with it's wholesome, family friendly tales of holiday rape and cheery infanticide stories, Megan is Missing seems to exist in a bizarre void where public safety films and early eighties sleaze, both drunk on cheap gin and high on poppers have shagged each other senseless in a grimy back alley before spewing forth an ultra-foul, faux Cinéma vérité baby, misshapen, and twisted yet still managing to vomit ill-conceived torture porn cunningly masquerading as scaremongering public service propaganda from it's lipless mouth.

Available from all good newagents!

Utilising the by now criminally clichéd found footage scenario, Megan is Missing is made up of around 70% camcorder and mobile phone stuff, 20% CCTV footage and news reports with the final 10% appearing to be the directors private fantasy files made flesh.

Possibly.

If so then he wont have been the first director to put his wildest sexual dreams on film but at least the others were a wee bit more honest and didn't wrap them in public service cotton wool.

Tho' maybe I'm being too harsh about the poor guy (harsh, me?) and Michael Goi  did actually have his heart in the right place whilst making this.

If that's the case then it's just a pity he appeared to have his free hand shoved firmly down the front of his underpants for the last twenty or so minutes really.

Fuck I really need a bleach shower now.

storm in a teacup.

Been asked to review this terrifyingly realistic action flick for the dear Mr. Nick Frame but because his site is very grown-up and actually read by more than six people I've been asked to tone down the mooth shite-ing and laugh now's.

Gonna be a fucking short piece then.

Meteor Storm (2010).
Dir: Tibor Takács.
Cast: Michael Trucco, Kari Matchett, Kirsten Prout, Brett Dier and Emily Holmes. There are obviously a few more folk but I really can't be bothered listing them. What do you think this is? Halliwell's?

Sexy science type Dr. Michelle Lynman (pointy visaged Matchettan of Cube 2 fame) is getting fairly excited about a big meteor shower - sorry, storm -  that's due to light up the skies over San Francisco (expertly played by a bit of Canada), you see she's an expert on space rocks and stuff which may be useful later.

Like all good disaster movie heroines Michelle has a fraught home life, her two 'teenage' kids are visibly the same age as her whilst her husband Tom, a hunk-tastic Harley riding retired air force colonel and current head honcho of San Francisco's Disaster Management Agency (lucky that) is just about to finalise their divorce.

Poor lamb.

"Nope, no mooth shite-ing to see here!"

Anyway, enough clichéd background filler as we're here to see San Fransisco burn and burn it does as the aforementioned pretty lightshow turns into a full scale bombardment throwing large clumps of CGI building and all manner of toy cars heavenward as the poor lowly paid extras scream and point a lot whilst running for cover.

Confused as to why everything is exploding and angry at the fact that Tom didn't pick up the kids as promised (tho' I've no idea where he'd put them...in his saddlebags perhaps?) Michelle heads back to the observatory to run some tests or something as scientists are the want to do in these situations.

Probably.

Meanwhile her two annoying teens, Kara and Jason (the moon faced Prout and granite chinned Dier) are trapped on the river front as dozens of steaming computer generated turds rain down on them with one even hitting Kara's secret boyfriend in the arse leading to an exciting subplot involving them trying to get a comfy seat to sit on whilst they attempt to get him to hospital.

"I really don't think you should laugh right now".

Michelle is quickly grabbed by the military (which isn't as painful as it sounds) to try and come up with a reason for the bombardment whilst Tom is tailed by two fame hungry news reporters desperate to get the story of the century.

And if that wasn't enough to keep you glued to the settee in a way usually reserved for damp wank tissues there's also Michelle's sister nurse Laura (teevee stalwart, Mrs. Tom Cruise and fictional literary detective Holmes) who's decided to wetly drive around the city helping passers by find comfy chairs to sit in.

Marked for death anyone?

"How'm I gonna explain that to my nan?"

Working out some complex equations and 'hm-ing' a lot, Michelle figures that San Fransisco is now safe and that Denver (fantastically portrayed by Google Maps) is next in line for a computerised kicking.

So imagine her surprise (and the directors relief at not having to find any new locations) when at the designated meteor strike time even more rocks start falling on San Fransisco bay.

Almost as if the city was somehow being targeted.

Scary biscuits.

With time (and budget) running out and even larger bits of brick fast approaching it's up to Michelle to save the city and stop the army blowing shit up whilst Tom rides around aimlessly looking for the kids inbetween shouting at various folk to clear the city whilst standing against various green-screen shots of model buildings.

Will Michelle save the city and maybe the world in time?

Will auntie Laura survive or fall off a collapsing Golden Gate Bridge to sombre soundtrack music?

And will Tom save the kids before saving his marriage?

Well what do you think?

Font.

When he burst onto our screens back in 1978 with the almost Lynchian metaphysical music masterpiece Metal Messiah,  Tibor Takács became the darling of the lo-fi indie scene in his adoptive home of Canada (yes you can), his career taking in the lost classic I Madman before hitting the big time with the fantastic The Gate, launching the career of professional sexy man Stephen Dorff along the way.

So who the fuck did he piss off in Hollywood to end up making stuff like Ice Spiders, Mosquito Man and Mega-Snake for sweetie money on the SciFi channel?

Saying that tho' if his IMDB profile is anything to go by it's not affected his earnings that much seeing as he's obviously bought a huge pie shop.

"Don't worry, we'll CGI the phone in later".

Anyway, back to the 'film' (I know but I have to), it might be cliché ridden crap with an effects budget that doesn't even stretch to giving Kari Matchett a properly fitting bra, dialogue that a twelve year old would baulk at writing and acting so wooden I actually got splinters in my eyes but, just like that Gin sodden, overweight,  short skirted girl at the bar you always take home when you're feeling lonely it's a painless and fairly enjoyable to spend an hour and a half.

And is considerably less shameful.

Especially if you take a drink everytime something totally expected happens.

Tho' keep away from spirits as you'll probably die within the first fifteen minutes.

Which when you think about it is exactly what it's like when you take that girl home.

Hopefully his next movie, the Christa Campbell starrer Spiders 3-D will deliver more of the same.