Vampire's must have a bastard of a time in summer

Quite a long title but something I believe to be true, close to perpetual sunlight must really cut down on the amount of neck biting you can do. In fact certain places in the world were it never gets dark would be the perfect place to hide out when the world eventually gets destroyed by ravenous bloodsuckers.

Anyway, this rambling was bought to you by the fact I need serious distracting from packing my stuff up to move house. I have so many boxes for dvd's and books, yet I remain happy on that front as all my records and CD's are somewhere else being stored so I don't have to worry about moving that large bastard set of boxes just yet. Unfortunately as well I don't have my top hat which always helps with any cleaning/packing exercise.

How high is the water Momma? Just high enough for me to plug myself here (hehe plug), but yeah check 'THIS' bad boy out.

That magazine is who I am currently writing for and buried away in that link are my previews of X-files and the new Will Smith vehicle, Hancock. So yeah ch-ch-check it out.

To anyone who was looking for my normal scornful attempts at humour in this blog I'm sorry this really is just to pass the time and plug me :) By way of an apology, here is some cheese:



References and Fear,

Chris.


P.S anyone who gets that last reference bravo, pat yourself on the back and watch more Friends.

All the lights burning but no ones home

Long live self destruction, and long live music about such activities. Alkaline Trio spring immediately to mind, well their early stuff anyway, a trawl through alcohol induced loneliness and revenge fantasies involving radios and bathtubs.
But now welcome to the new kid on the block "Agony and Irony" due out in the next few weeks it is the bands 6th album (excluding collections and split albums, which actually contain some of the most wonderful material) and fans of the band, like myself, will possibly be slightly disheartened to hear that we appear to have encountered Crimson Mk.2. This isn't to say that Crimson was a bad album as such but there was something missing. The alcohol fueled revelry that flowed throughout the first few releases obviously had to be reigned in before they disappeared into a hole of damaged livers and speech impediments the likes of which Shane McGowan has never seen. But the new darkness on the trio's records seems to be coming from a new place, a place where there is no darkness, consequently making the style seem contrived and pointless.
Without the bile and wonderfully vitriolic joy that appeared behind the original songs, the teaser EP for "Agony and Irony" featuring three new songs seems, while musically proficient and effortlessly catchy, slightly empty.
But as attested to on Crimson, god bless catastrophe, as this might well be one...albeit a listenable one.

To happier, unhappier times.



Wings and Stolen ways,

Chris.

Not So Bad Lads

This is an old interview piece I did with a bunch of filmmaking types in Falmouth, hopefully it'l make you want to see a film and hopefully not want to kill me for robbing you of very precious time. Enjoy.


“It’ll fuck with your head”. These are the last words in my meeting with the team behind the film “Diary of a Bad Lad”. Locked in a hotel bar on the Falmouth waterfront at 2am, lounging on scratchy, multicoloured settees it’s a fair assessment of how my head feels.

By Christopher Upton

It’s hard to know what to expect looking at the work of Blackburn resident and director Michael Booth. In his latest film as well as directing, he portrays the director on-screen using his own name, so you could be forgiven for confusing fact and fiction. Meeting Michael in a trendy coffee shop on the Falmouth waterfront he is sat in a plush red leather booth, wearing clothing a similar shade of grey to the sky outside and sipping at a cup of tea. He is accompanied in the booth by various members of the crew for Bad Lad, the writer Jon Williams, actor Paul Birtwistle, and producer of Booth’s latest film, Paul Coppack. It’s quite intimidating to be walking into this group, the descriptions of the characters these people play on screen which appear on their website created a fairly unpleasant bunch. They are sitting around drinking coffee all of them wearing various shades of grey, apart from Jon who wears a suit jacket over his darkened clothes. Sprawled out over the booth Jon certainly looks like the man in charge of proceedings.

Michael finds Falmouth to be a friendly place “Last night there were some ‘youths’ on the street and they said hello to us, do that in Manchester and the reaction would be quite a bit different”. With his film being about a group of filmmakers attempting to make a documentary about a decidedly dubious business, how receptive will the audience of the Cornish film festival be to the violence that’s ahead of them? “To show it in Manchester and to show it in Falmouth will be two completely different beasts, where we come from it’s not uncommon for people to go round with guns and be horrible scumbags” but Michael say’s later that he does not just want people to sit through it. The scenes of violence, rape and drug abuse intended to have a very visceral effect on the audience. And indeed throughout the late night screening several people leave the film before its conclusion.

But is the person behind the scenes of this hour and a half presentation of violence and sexual assault, as depraved as some of the scenes in the film would suggest? It would appear that when not directing the genital mutilation of characters on screen, which is without the doubt the most wince inducing scene of the festival, he is a Cinephile like so many others milling around during the festival, who creates film’s out of love for the medium instead of the material gains. Once we had adjourned to the back room of a hotel bar just down from the festival site the conversation turns to what got Michael into films “People in the industry want to work, people want do what they enjoy doing”, he explains drink in hand, “when we were kids watching film’s we weren’t thinking, I want to make big bucks, they just thought that’s what I’d really enjoy doing”. The people Michael works with are friends who stick with the productions because it affords them opportunities to exercise a bit more creative input, a level of which could not be found in the major budget films.
A sense of community is something Michael wanted to instil right from the start of production, by introducing a web forum for people with an interest in the development, “We actually started out with a free forum, then we realised we had some interest and I purchased some forum software”, and with the web being so important today would the production of Bad Lad gone ahead without it? “I think if we didn’t have the internet we wouldn’t be as far as we are now” Michael explains “I think its vitally important that you have something that people can respond to, where you’ve got a set identity in a community”. The web forum for Bad Lad has continued to be used for the next film that Michael is producing, which is titled Bar Stewards, and continues to be an invaluable source for interaction with fans, and a vitally important tool in promotion. With the night drawing to a close, and the hotel owners join the table and its amazingly odd settee arrangement, it seems strange that the internet, a tool which had made me nervous about meeting these characters had actually been the most useful thing for finding out that they weren’t such Bad Lads after all.

A Burgeoning blog addiction

Lovely word there, I like big words for growing, especially cause it means I have more complex terms to reference erections with. Endless joy from intellectual innuendo.

But enough about my erection, I'm here today to discuss a very important topic: The way American Psycho was translated into a film destroying all that was intended by the book. I didn't realise until recently until re-reading the book that the film has put a very annoying line in a very annoying place.

BATEMAN (V.O.)
There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some
kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an
entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold
gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping you
and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably
comparable: I simply am not there.

This bastard of a line mostly removes the film of a point at the end, that Patrick Bateman is so inconsequential that his crimes are never realised and that in his abstract world there is no self and everyone is simply what they own, because you already knew he was never really there as such.
Or at least thats what I think, I'm aware for people just watching the film the line probably passes by unnoticed and only resurfaces in the brain at the end, but gosh darn it stuck right in my craw and if the internet isn't for venting then I'm just going to have to make porn instead.

On a porn note though the scene with the Sussudio sex video is absolutely amazing, thanks to Christian Bale's magnificent performance as the slimy, material obsessed arse that is Bateman.




Primo.


Chainsaws and Theatrics,

Chris.

Another one bites the dust...

"Tombstone hand and a graveyard mind, Just 22 and I don't mind dying."

Bo Diddley
R.I.P 02/06/08

A sad day for all fans of filthy garage rock 'n' roll music, the type of bluesy fuzz later performed by such luminaries as The Sonics, The Kingsmen, Green Fuzz and later bands such as The White Stripes and The Hives. Bo Diddley's music bridged a gap between rock and roll and blues and with its loud abrasive guitar, his deep, smooth and filthy vocals and all this combined a distorted blues jungle beat that influenced thousands of bands. He was more rocky than people like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker but still retained a Blues edge with songs like "I'm A Man" (performed with Muddy Waters as a different take on "Mannish Boy", a lovely ballad where Bo professes he can and will pretty much fuck anything).
For anyone who hasn't heard his music thats about the best description I think I can give, probably best to check it out yourself paying particular attentions to songs "Can't Judge a Book by it's Cover" and "Who Do You Love?" as a good starting point. But god speed Mr. Diddley, may your musical with continue to delight thousands more young scruffy tear aways. Originality was also reported to have died a little today.




Also on a non-musical note Yves St Laurent died, and a million people with questionable morals and even more questionable hairlines wept heavy fake tears. I imagine in such a world they have wonderful coffins and everyone bitches about how they think that shade of lining is just so last year. Not I'm speaking ill of the dead, although they probably aren't going to have a pop back, it's probably just some deep seated jealousy at their massive expendable wealth while I devour microwavable greasy death. Also a recurring sad feeling in the pit of my stomach, when every celebrity death I hear about isn't Brian Connoly's.
Still we can't have everything we want.

Laughs and Pianos,

Chris.

Knights, Aliens and Rum

What are you rebelling against?

I always hoped that when Marlon Brando replied what you got? the country girl with a heart of gold would have replied with something innocuous like Bananas. Would the rebel without a cause still have wrought the same level of havoc in the small town knowing that the target was a fleshy yellow piece of fruit? Or simply just pop down the road to the nearest fruit seller and kick off leaving nothing but a trail of mashed peel and the smell of petrol in the air.

So come one come all and feast your eyes upon "The Ripe One", the almost true story of a man's rage against an oppressive but pleasant smelling regime.

That's just an example of anything that would be more interesting than what is gracing our cinema screens at this very moment. Now I'm well aware that independent cinemas exist as do independent filmmakers who are supplying the material, but when was the last time you saw the latest European thoughtful effort splattered across the side of a bus? And would you care if it was there? Point being that unless you have your head inside a specially manufactured tortoise-esque shell you cannot escape the magical big film machine, which has meant you have no doubt had to suffer the hideous features of the four vacuous icons of modernity that are Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha. Not that I hate the film particularly (although I imagine I would) but its an prime example of a tradition of dire film making going right back to those classic days of the big Hollywood production. You'd think that 80 or so years on maybe a few changes would have been made.

So lets have a quick run down of this weeks releases shall we?
The reasonable response to that being no, as it would involve tedious lists and you'd learn nothing except that you'd probably be better not venturing near a cinema any time soon. And to anyone who considers Indiana Jones an exception to this rule then I disregard your opinion, as I assume you are just a fan of the originals and this is film is the visual equivalent of having an old friend pop round. Sure you remember all the good times but come on, its not really the same is it? and you always get a sneaky little feeling that if you met them now you probably wouldn't be as good friends with them. Think about it and try and find me one single review which doesn't compare it unfavourably to the old films.

But despair not film fanatics as hope is on the horizon in the form of three films:

The Dark knight- Not just simply a boyish joy at another return from the ultimate costumed badass, but something that looks so slick, sadistic and over the top that is has the possibility to explode your eyes.

The X-Files Movie 2- This one actually is fan geekery, but as everything is so secret about the plot of this film all I know is that it's like the first one...and then some.

The Rum Diaries- I'm recomending this one purely because of the book, if they mong this one up I will not be the happiest of chaps.


So Cinephiles we end on a positive, while now that local multiplex might seem like a trawl through warm garbage, a salty ray of sunlight awaits you at the top of this pile.

Wait and then rejoice.

Heresy and Chopsticks,

Chris

Hangovers and Social Pornography

It's not like I'm the only person in the world who gets these but today id have prefered vicious Goat rape in my left ear, which by all accounts is my less favourite ear however i do not wish rape upon it, but instead of beastiality of the ear im stuck with the usual paranoia and the fact I've got more left over make-up on me than middle age hookers who have seen better days. The reason for that last one, was that it was my housemates birthday party last night where the theme for dressing up was things begining with G. A few rejected ideas before I carry on included Genocide, Gestapo, Git and various other implausble and frankly offensive ideas, but then I do associate primarily with some pretty warped people in the humour stakes. Finally after no effort whatsoever I went as the Goth prostitute who'd got into the cosmetics counter in Selfridges, fashionable yet slaggy.

And thou shalt definatley not watch programmes such as Skins, as it makes this lifestyle seem humourous and oh so cool with a bizzare sense of being punched in the face for an hour of pretentious pretty kids, whos lives resemble what a 30 year old screen writers imagination of a students life is. Looking like a dishevelled Amy Winehouse, bumming cigarettes and waking up find you've eaten moudly bread and all you can manage to do is think about water or poorly played out sexual scenarios which you can't hold in your head anyway. When this is shown on tv it appears fancy and something which can be shown on a poster that makes people slow their car and have a butchers and think ooh that looks realistic. I'm thinking of sending these people who pitch these programmes a picture of me with my underwear on backwards trying to find my glasses stepping over a horse mask and smacking my head off a desk, hopefully they shall pick it up and I shall become a one tv show wonder who loses his youth soon enough and falls back into the life of "that bloke who was on tv once". They get in early and they get out even earlier. I'm waiting for ex-teen star suicides on channel 4 handled in a sad documentary style where your meant to feel sorry for these icons of showy perversion whos life can be summed up in a song by John Cooper Clarke song "Twat".

Suicide notes from the rich and famous: presented by Derek Acorah

I like the sound of that actually. So why is being a discraceful mess such a good life to aspire to? night outs judged on how terrible its been. "I literally fell down and smashed my teeth off a kerb, I was so wasted it was like soooooo funny", a sotry non too disimilar you'll hear every monday morning in coffee shops, student unions and bus stops and wherever wankers inhabit. Any story starting "and i was so drunk..." should end with the story teller being destroyed in an "accidental" stabbing. I'm not sure even being a youth why it's good to be youthful, I think it lies in the fact that at least your not a pensioner yet.
And now im off to be ever so cool and nurse my headache like the narcasist with god complex that I am.

Tracksuits and Casuality

Chris

Chicken soup for a sole

Disregarding my previous statement, here is an old writing i did about relationships. I reckon it still holds up now nearly as much as it did when I wrote it, except for time changes of course. So enjoy one of my only myspace writings worth transferring, laugh and cry in equal measure remember.





First things first here I've changed the time on this so that it has the post time in the good ol u.s of k (good ol u of k doesn't work so bite it before you complain, tongue bites!!)

But yes it's been a while since i did this of an evening, but when the sun is out (lies) and the stereo is playing songs about hand sweat on the wheel (?), it seems like the time to write one.

Also thanks to working in a monotonous job were i serve food to ungrateful people, who don't even appreciate funny hat day, i haven't had a lot to focus on except myself.

So here goes an indepth analysis of what i have noticed about myself and my changes over the past year or so (ooh he's talking in retrospect, retro is so kewl!). But I believe it takes yourself to notice something before you can change it, until you believe something yourself its not a problem.. like gambling I suppose.

But over the past year i have gone through a metamorphosis of sorts, from the out of place geeky person with big hair, a killer pair of glasses and an ass you could bounce a dime off* (not that you would). To the self obsessed evryman who's ambition lies in obtaining material goods and having more front than a wheelbarrow.

But whoa on the gas maisy! i fort dis kid was lyk all pro-capitalist. Well yes I am still in a way (more to piss off the self righteous anti-capitalists, who are worse in my experience than any right wing multinational owner.. of which i know none, sucks to you on bashing my comparisons) but I've come to realise that clothes don't make the man.

In my head my thoughts I genuinely believe fly round to moog music based on characters in old snes games. This is not to say im one of these new "geeks" who dress with glasses they don't need (i destroyed my vision by playing computer kid! how hardcore are you now) and tops with wonderfully ironic pictures of old computer games that the wearer never even played. Cardigans do also not make the man, they merely enhance.

So dear reader i hear you asking why am i reading this for so long when you've come to quite an obvious conclusion?

Fuck you!!

Don't be so impaitent you whooping fool.

There is a point, I for one am sick of hearing people complain about relationships. It has to be the number one gripe in the world (if myspace is anything to go by) and I don't know why people feel they need to be honest and open about them. I don't care about so and so "like oh my gosh I've gone down a space on a friends list, SHHIIITTTTTTT!!!" so keep that to yourself,. Geniune eloquent conversations about relationships i may listen to.

But maybe the problem is like me your lying to yourself, being something your not exactly, I am not someone who was built to follow fashion. This I have decided has led to my recent relationship dry spell (ooooh the nitty gritty right here). I meet people who like my dress sense but they have nothing in common with me personality wise, but people who like me personality wise don't seem to agree with my self-centered fashionita ways of late.

So basically Im saying (fucking finally) that maybe being yourself however hard to do is the only way to find someone you actually like.


And the only reason I'm writing this is so peeps will be quiet about how heartbreaking their latest 2 month life-changing love was.

It's your fault all the time, to fit you must aquit.


or something like that

piece

Christoph


*That's not true about my ass

Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby- A Cornish Film Festival Retrospective

Well Cinephiles, thats the another fine mess we've finished with.

Must say this was the first film festival id ever actually been to, and to be writing about the thing it makes me think of being thrown to the lions. But in place of lions we have a strange, squat man with an unfeasibly high waist-band, while a woman decked head to toe in brown hippy clothing, speaking the wonderfully growing (and possibly pointless) language of Cornish. Frankly I'm thinking Leo would be a piece of piss after having to sit through that, but then maybe im being retrospectively bastardish... which in all fairness is quite probable.

Gotta say the festival felt a bit "Cornish or GTFO", but then i suppose they are their own country (why?) with their own language (double why?). So yeah, I can hear all of you out there going "oh but Chris what was the standard of production at the festival?", well young children and people who have the minds of small children (maybe in jars) it wasn't a bad spread. To be fair though whatever person thought showing the contents of a portaloo and poorly conveyed sexual congress combined with a girl I wanted to smack two lines in, should be forcibly removed from the profession of director.

Honorable film mentions must go to two films, the Cornish production of devil in your kitchen thanks the face of Philip Schofield, and the film with the best introduction of the whole festival- Diary of a Bad Lad, but thae stories related to that are not of this blog, maybe later once ive finished working on it.

Finally thankyou to the providers of free wine throughout the festival, you saved me large amounts of money and gave me a rekindled love of Tortilla chips, banging!. But seriously the most pissed person at the party and who do they choose to interview? I imagine my thoughts were far from sensible. Probably along the lines of "If Cornwall wants to be its own free state why doesnt it just raise a rabid monkey army and invade Devon?", not ideal when asked about Uni policy but fuck that for a game of bollocks (thanks Neil Morrisey for that one).

And for anyone keeping track thats a lot of thankyous, my inspiration goes firmly to the clap heavy (ooer missus) final celebrations, ill always try to forget you *salutes*

For now im off to collect my thoughts and eat fishfingers

Grims and Fairys

Chris

The old Arctic Monkeys album is better than the newer one

Its true that right there, fella

Good afternoon fair maiden of the spit, and any one else whos reading I suppose, discrimination is a very ugly thing. I actually had a look and thought about transferring old writings into this new Blogspot, but after reading I actually came to the conclusion that my earlier writings are non-too disimilar to the writings of illegitimate chimps who quite stranegly have confidence and character issues. Exactly what confidence issues an ape would be dealing with I don't think im the one to say, probably more in the field of Dian Fossey.

So yes this will be the new home to outpourings of the mind of Chris and his mechanical monkey which turns the cogs in his head. I wish such a thing existed, and that it could be sold on for profit.