Dave & I
It was just a simple drinking game to go with watching an old favourite: Withnail & I. Keep up with Withnail, in essence, the bare essentials being: Your wine of choice for the wine, your lager of choice for cider and other beer-ish stuff, your whiskey for whiskey and sherry, and actual lighter fluid for the lighter fluid scene. A certain friend of mine, who we shall call Dave, is the only person I've ever known to have kept up with all of the drinking without filling a pint glass with regurgitated alcohol. Dave was an old mate, hung around with me during the drug days, we'd spent a month in a Class D prison together after being arrested buying coke (Class D is essentially a youth prison, it's open ground. Imagine Butlins, but even less fun). He's never denied me a penny when I was short rent or was a couple days short of my wages and was invited on a big night out. Golden hearted bloke, if a little, well, dim. This is his story.

It began. Knock on the door in the middle of the night - Dave grinning outside.
"Come in, good sir."
"Stick on Withnail & I."
"Certainly."
My flat was cold, and the first couple of minutes are spent with us sat on my shanty couch shivering and waiting for the booze to kick in. As the alcohol begins to influence our systems, we find ourselves teetering between the edge of anarchic mirth and a pit of empathy - caught between laughing at the indignance of our struggling compatriots and going beyond an appreciation of their pain, but sharing in it, believing in it, knowing even, that this film was the story of our pale and wet existence. Somehow we were topless, wearing only underwear and our shoes. Really shivering, I thought the alcohol would have been exacerbating my sensitivity to the cold, and so I missed a couple of drinks. We put the film on pause and set a small fire in the ashtray to warm our numbing hands. Rizlas and toilet paper do not make for good burning material, and the decision to share a joint was a bad one as all that light-paper ash glittered in the air like some postapocalyptic wasteland's rain, dry grit falling from the heavens, seeping into my flat under the evil wills of a God that no longer cared for a species that failed to cheer His work. We turned it on again.

A note, on lighter fluid. I knew from my youthful indulgences that Butane was pretty dangerous, and held no alcoholic content. I also knew that it could kill you if you didn't let it warm up a bit, so we poured half a shotglass of it each and decided to warm it up by settling it in the still smouldering ashes of our small fire. It didn't catch alight, though, which looking back on was probably less of a miracle than it might seem to you, dear reader, at the moment. The scene came and we both took a tentative drop of that disgusting substance into our mouths, barely an eigth of the half shots we had poured.

Imagine Satan, all nuclear and evil, ejaculating his chemical spawn onto your tongue. It the foulest taste of death you can imagine, not an old woman slipping away in the night, but some six year old child getting swept away in the radioactive winds of Hiroshima, uranium blisters burning his skin, condemning him to two weeks of torment before an agonising hour in which he'd beg to be put out of his misery if only he had a throat to it with. That's the fucking aftertaste.

We drank whiskey in moutfuls so vile was this stuff, we sucked icecubes and still this taste had just become an undercurrent, nothing but a provocation to keep drinking and smoking. So we did. And we did. And we did.

No plot points here, but the last scene involves a certain character drinking from a bottle of wine and shuffling into the distance. Thus did Dave, and I curled up under my coat on the sofa to sleep, telling him to get home safely, that there was nought but wolves out there. Packs upon packs, baying to taste his flesh. He left me his cigarettes and went out to meet the world. I fell asleep pretty much instantly.


Woke up Memento like. What happened? Where am I? This is my flat? Where are my clothes? Is this... ash? I tidied up as memories came back with no respect for the chronology of modern man's reminscing method, as they do, and then the phone rang.

"Hello?"
"Not Quite... oh God."
"Trish?"
"It's Dave..."
She was fond of her trailing silences. A dramatic woman to say the least.
"Did he get home alright?" I asked.
"No. He's been arrested."
"Drunk and disorderly? Do you need me to pick him up?"
"Turn on the news."

And so I did.

"No fucking way."

I can only thank the BBC for cluing me in on the second half of this story, so I'll let them do the same for you - well worth the click:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/coventry_warwickshire/7404582.stm

I haven't been to see him inside. Not too fond of prisons, which he understands. His girlfriend still doesn't know - she isn't the b3ta type, I don't reckon - that I got him drunk. She gave birth a week or two ago. Haven't been to see the baby. He should be out this time next year, thanks to overcrowding.

Length? 108 minutes. Download a torrent. Save your money for the booze.
(sorry., Sun 20 Jul 2008, 10:32, 8 replies)

Most memorable
Jurassic Park.

Friday afternoon - girlfriend and I have skipped work - what to do?

Get really, really totally stoned and watch a blockbuster at the cinema! Yeah!

Cinema empty - brilliant.

Smoke more, chomp mushrooms - buy sweeties - have snog - feet up - film starts.

Two minutes pass. Door opens. Sheepish looking woman pokes her head around the corner and then leaves.

Thats is odd, thinks I.

5 minutes later she reappears, this time with approx 16 mentally handicapped teenagers.

All sit three rows behind us.

We resist the peurile urge to giggle and get back into the film forgetting about our neighbours.

All good until about 30 minutes into the film. In case anyone has not seen the film, a goat is staked out as bait for the T-Rex and the cinema is silent. Music begins to very slowly swell - tension mounts - on screen goat starts to bleat quietly.

So does one of the children behind us.

(Muffled giggles from us)

Music gets louder and tempo quickens, the goat (who is the best actor in the film) starts to bleat louder.

So does the bleating kid - and a few of his friends join in. 'Baaaaa' (we have hands over mouths, tears rolling down faces, kia-ora squirting out of nostrils - we do keep saying 'awwww' and 'it's not funny' which only leads to more laughter.)

Music louder - music faster - goat bleats more - kids all bleating now - music even louder - tempo racing - goat is bleating in a manic fashion. LOUDER - FASTER - BLEATING - BAAAA! LOUD!FAST! BAAAAAA!

All of a sudden the head of the T-Rex shoots into screen and snaps up the goat in one swoop.

'AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!'

The kids go - er...well mental is the best way to put it - screams, panic attacks, popcorn everywhere, crying, hair pulling, self harm, cries for mummy, rolling in the aisles - they are screamimng and running everwhere. The woman in charge is crying and trying to round them all up, but they are in flight mode, heading out of exits, into toilets, trying to hide under seats etc.

Meanwhile myself and gilrfriend are doing our bests not asphyxiate due to the fact that we are so spaced we are unsure what is and is not real, or what to do, or say to anyone.

The story ends with the police helping round up the missing kids, the woman who brought the poor kids to see the film being picked up to no doubt find she is fired, manager closing the theatre to clean up the mess.

And best of all - we got a refund and 5 free tickets each! Hooray.
(Tugnut I got them all..., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 14:25, 8 replies)

My mother’s favourite movie is Superman.
There is one reason for this, and one reason only. Because it always gives her the chance to embarrass me with the following story.

I was a little wee Scarpe, a little four year old thing, when they took me to the cinema to see it. Apparently I sat wiggling with excitement in my seat, unable to contain myself. This continued right up until Lex Luthor has Superman, weakened by Kryptonite, drowning in his swimming pool. At which point, poor distraught little me, tears streaming down my chubby little cheeks, ran, screaming to the front of the cinema and yelled at the screen, ‘Come On Superman, You Can Do It!!!!!’ to gales of laughter from the rest of the audience.

To which I responded by having a tantrum and repeating in my snotty high pitched sob ‘stop laughing, stop laughing, stop laughing’.

Sadly, my embarrassment doesn’t end there, as the story has a post script.

Eight years later, I have friends round for my birthday party and we have Superman on video (or it may have been on the TV, I forget), which prompts my Mum to tell all my friends the above story.

Which results in 12 year old me stomping my feet and crying again while saying ‘stop talking, stop talking, I hate you, I hate you’.

I’m now 34 and my Mum still tells that story to anyone she meets for the first time.

Cow.
( scarpe We Stole Bikes, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 11:19, 4 replies)

"Mediocrities everywhere: I absolve you"
That is the closing line from 'Amadeus'. I've not had a chance to read all of the posts this week so I don't know whether anyone else has this masterpiece in their top ten. If you like drama, good acting, costumes, music, timeless classics and wigs, then this film is a must.

[Was that OK for an opening? I'm new here so please be gentle with me, even if it takes a while]

The first time I saw Amadeus was in 1985, soon after it came out. I was still on the rebound from my first real love, a charming love-rat called Sean who had robbed me of my virginity on the floor of the stockroom in WHSmith and then kept me available for him despite being engaged, then married and the store manager to boot. After 18 months of this, I had told him not to bother me anymore and moved jobs and to a bedsit in Brentford without giving him my new number. So, I was still bruised and hurting when Ben turned up.

We were both temping at the DHSS at the time and, despite me feeling pretty blue I could tell he fancied me: I kept catching him looking at me whenever I turned round, whereupon he would blush and look busy. When we were working together, I'd chat to him and listen to his traveller's tales, laugh at his jokes, flirt in a gentle way and enjoy the attentions of boy my own age (21) who seemed carefree and vulnerable as well as sort of self-assured. He was also pretty good looking.

Eventually, I had to ask him to lunch as he seemed too shy to ask me. We did the old eye-gazing thing at a pub near the office in Ealing. Things gradually warmed up and he asked me out one evening to a film. He lived with his parents in Chiswick as he hadn't sorted out anywhere else since returning from his wandering, and as the film was in Hammersmith, I went to his place first. His Mum answered the door and invited me in; not wishing to appear rude, I accepted. His Mum sounded much posher than Ben did and I became very conscious of my East London accent, so I mumbled a bit and let them do most of the talking. Ben's Dad was away on business in Japan I gathered.

"So, what are you two going see?" she asked.
"Amadeus", I said, "it's about Mozart." As soon as I said it, I knew I'd sounded like an idiot. As if she didn't know. But I wasn't ready for:
"Oh, I really want to see that film, I've heard some very favourable reviews, but I know Daddy won't want to go." she said.
'Daddy?!' I thought!!
"Well," I said out loud, "why don't you come along?" knowing she'd not want to be a gooseberry.
"Oh, I'd love to, if you really don't mind". This is where I was hoping Ben would say something like: 'Tell you what, if it's any good, I'll take you at the weekend'. What he actually said was:
"You don't mind do you?" to me! Now what could I do?
"Of course not."

The film was magical, I was sat next to Ben with his Mum the other side of him. When the lights went down, I reached for his hand, which was on his lap, and throughout the film, I played gently with his hand, feeling the effect this was having in his 'lap'. After the film we got the bus home, his Mum getting off at Chiswick while Ben 'saw me home'. Once she'd got off the bus, I turned to him and planted a long, slow, gentle kiss on his fevered lips. More of the same plus a little light stroking went on as the bus thundered past Kew Bridge and we nearly missed my stop.

I asked him in for a-coffee-in-inverted-commas: my favourite blend as it happens. What then transpired I will not describe in detail, but he was only the second man I'd slept with, and the first for some months. He'd had a few girlfriends, but none like me. I didn't want him to leave and he didn't; we went to work together the next morning and were a couple from then on.

Skip forward four years or so, we're married with a baby and Amadeus was on the telly. As well as making sure we had a new tape in the video machine, we also made sure that the baby was staying at Gran & Grandad's for the night. That evening involved showers, candles, Italian food, plenty of wine, soft music and plenty of lovin'.

Now we had the film on tape, we tried to watch it at least once a year, and each time we'd pack the kids off to Gran & Grandad's for the night, or wait until they went off on school trips and sleep-overs. In 1991, I finally made it to university, having messed up my 'A' levels first time around. Ben was still at the DSS (as it now was), in a fairly senior position and being a student allowed me to look after the kids almost full time. As I got more and more into my History studies and made some good new friends amongst the mature students, I found it harder to really talk with Ben. I thought it was just me, but gradually I noticed he was distracted. I decided an Amadeus night was called for, so made all the arrangements and even bought some new, if highly impractical, underwear; well, sometimes you have to make the effort.

It was a Friday night and the onions and garlic were browning in the pan, the wine was open and I'd had an early glass when Ben got in. I was solicitousness itself, poured him a glass, made sure he was comfy etc, then got out the video. I knew something was wrong when he said he didn't fancy watching it tonight.

To cut a long story short, that was the night he told me he'd fallen in love with a girl at work. There was quite a scene and I gave him his marching orders; he slept elsewhere that night. I'd pretty much kept myself together until the moment he walked out of the door (though his recolection might be different) but did a pretty dramatic breakdown as soon as the door shut. I watched that damned video that night anyway and drank two bottles of wine, though I didn't bother finish cooking the meal I'd started. I was cried out by morning.

Now, I'm over the worst and the second worst, but if I ever feel really down, I still get in the wine, cook myself my favourite comfort food - a big dish of pasta with onions, garlic, mushrooms, bacon, cheese, olive oil - and sit down when the house is empty to watch Amadeus with the volume up really loud. I don't bother with a mammoth sex session these days, well, not usually anyway.

I'm still on good terms with Ben's Mum, and one time I invited her over and we watched it together. She's a good stick and felt really bad when Ben left. My only wish now is that he doesn't watch the film with his new woman; that would really feel like a betrayal somehow.
(K.W.A. Knickers With Attitude, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 13:53, 4 replies)

If it bleeds, we can kill it.
I'm thankful to this particular QOTW for allowing me to express my unashamedly enthusiastic love for a film that I've been completely obsessed with since I saw it 15 years ago. Here's 8 reasons why I love Predator.

1) The alien.

Pretty obvious this but you just look at it! It's got dreadlocks for Christ's sake. Like some sort of future ragga overlord.

It also has stealth camoflague, huge retractable blades, in built first aid kid, infrared vision, a shoulder mounted plasma cannon and a mini nuclear self destruct system as standard. It even has an audio sampler!!! Most importantly though it has mandibles. Proper realistic looking, non-CGI mandibles that spread out when he does his shit-scary war-cry type thing. It is a beast, the sortof being you have proper nightmares about.

2) Arnie.

Looking at the Predator's impressive stats they could easily have built a decent film around the alien itself with the other actors being pretty much superflous. But instead we have Arnold Schwarzenegger. The very fact that a proper mentalist like Arnie only barely survives and ends up looking like dog-chewed rag doll just goes to show how double-hard the Predator is. Pure genius.

3) Old painless.

Best gun ever. There's a scene in the film which is basically this gun leveling an entire section of forest. This is both awesome and an environmentalist's nightmare.

4) The gore.

I was 6 when I first watched the telly-friendly cut version of Predator. I recorded it off the television and watched it so much that the tape wore out. For my 7th birthday my Mum bought me Predator 1 and 2 on video not realising they were uncut. When I first saw the skinned soldiers I pretty much shat myself and by the time Dillons arm had been blown off I was in pre-teen gore heaven. Obviously this looks abit tame these days but back then it was the coolest, sickest thing ever and way better than any proper horror films.

5) The one liners.

Every line in this whole film makes me grin. It is perfect. No wasted dialog, no pointless drama. Every word is uttered at first to make the commandos seem like the most incredible bunch of double-hard bastards and then to make the Predator seem twice as hard as them. Almost every sentence in the script could be used as a tagline and that's the way action cinema should work.

6) The gunfight.

Near the start of the film the commandos pretty much start (and finish) what could only be described as a small war. Buildings blow up, a helicopter blows up, men run around on fire, Arnie impales some guy against a wall, bad guys go flying over cliffs. It's basically the best thing ever.

7) The wide angle shot firework display.

If I was told I could only ever watch another minute of film before I had to die, this would be it. The most beautiful, awe-inspiring piece of cinema ever made. Mid way through Predator and Arnie's showdown, the Predator goes apeshit and stands on a log-bridge firing his plasma cannon all over the place inadvertently putting on the best firework display on earth. Everytime I watch this my jaw hits the floor even after all these years.

8) Everything else... the arm wrestle, the pussy jokes, the scorpion, Mac's psychological breakdown, Arnie's war-cry, the music... just everything.

So that's my well balanced critique of Predator. It's a shame that they ruined the franchise by combining it with the Alien in the modern shit-fests but the original film will always be untouchable as the ultimate action/scifi/horror film of all time ever.
(Mr Eraserhead Why aren't you a lemon?, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 16:52, 9 replies)

The Postman Always Rings Twice
Years ago I met a girl in a pub and we got to chatting about movies. I was pretty keen on getting my leg over so I was plying her with alcopop and pretending to be interested in the same films as her. She was ranting on about some arty film noir piece that was playing in the local independent cinema. The Postman Always Rings Twice. I’d heard of it, but to be honest I didn’t give a toss – no helicopters, no explosions, no zombies = must be shit. But I bluffed and bullshitted and bought us another drink. And another. And another. I was really just seeking a cock warmer.

After a while we were getting pretty wasted and I was getting ever hornier. She was boring me shitless banging on about this old movie but she was responding positively to the flirting and the casual forearm touching that was increasing in contact seconds as the drinks went down. After a bit I suggested we go back to mine but she wasn’t up for that just yet. She wanted to go and see this movie. Fucksocks.

So I, ever hopeful, agreed to this. I calculated a grope in the theatre would be on the cards and after the flick we could get down to the serious in and out. Buy tickets we do and seated we get, right up the back. The Postman Always Rings Twice starts up. I’ve got a serious buzz happening from the beers and I’m pretty chuffed to have pulled this chick. I slide my arm across her shoulders and she nestles in. Nice. I give her upper arm a light caress and she snuggles in more and pushes her body against mine lightly but affirmatively. Game on. Just got to make it though this black and white borefest – praying it’s a 90 minute film, not 2 hours.

20 minutes in I’m in a doze and she nudges me and whispers ‘I need to go to the loo’. Me, being all class, replies, ‘Just squat down here and have a wee’. She gives me a funny look but I point out we are right up the back in an almost deserted theatre. She can see the sense in this given her semi drunk state and pulls her knickers down and squats on the floor. Unbelievable! I had only been taking the piss (pun intended) and didn't seriously think she would do it.

Now, I have to admit I am a bit of a twisted perve so this whole scene was really turning me on… her squatted down beside me, a stream of golden urine flowing from her lotus flower... in the local movie theatre no less! Most excellent result. So I lean forward and slide my hand along the back of her neck. She rolls her head appreciatively which is obviously a signal inviting me to reach further and venture down her top - and so I do. No resistance, so all engines forward. I take the other hand and reach down to her heavenly zone.

Muffness should be goodness, lets face it, but unfortunately I quickly discovered things are not right. Distinctly not right. Seriously wrong in fact because I have my hand around something between ‘her’ legs, and it is long and it is hard! Argh! Not good, not at all good. My blood runs cold and my heart rate accelerates to 250bpm. ‘What the fuck?’ I scream. Mostly my voice is internal but some of it comes out my mouth and some comes out my nose, together forming a squeak that pleads for a negative answer but still must ask ‘Are you a tranny?’ I feel like an ice pick has pierced my spine and time hangs while I wait for a response. But I need not have been so disturbed because she looks up at me and replies, ‘No, silly’ and winking coquettishly adds ‘I changed my mind… I’m having a shit instead.’

Been married 14 years and she is lovely.

edit: lies

( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Sun 20 Jul 2008, 6:14, 5 replies)

Final Fantasy?
“Would you like to spice things up a little?”

She trailed a scarlet red nail down my chest and expanded my brain and my cock in ways that only young women from the Home Counties can. I
gently sucked at her hardening pink nipple and she told me of her plans for a new art project.

I was Jarvis Cocker and she wanted to sleep with common people, people like me. I suggested we make it in a supermarket but she refused – only home-knitted, organically hand-reared MSG for her.

“I want you to make my fantasy come true” she said as she slid her slender leg over my body.

As she knelt astride me she went on, “Guess the film.”

She arched her back and her wet supporting actress devoured my throbbing hot leading man.

”Even Cowgirls Get the Blues?”

She shook her head as she bucked and reared against me, “Guess again”

My mind began to race with fantasies, of all the best films ever – my head was full of Channel 4’s ‘100 Best Films of All Time’ and as each z-list pundit appeared so my own Oscar seemed to be losing the plot.


“Don’t worry. It’s not a big deal. We can carry on later. Some other time. It happens to all men at some time you know. It’s okay. We can just cuddle.”

It had become a brief encounter.

She stood in front of the rear window the fading light fell across her naked form and I wondered if this was to be the last mimsy I would ever see.

“Don’t look now, but I think the police are turning up next door.”

“Is that it?” I demanded, “An Officer and a Gentleman?

Do you want me to wear a uniform, march into your office, sweep you off your feet and take you out to the toilets where I’ll sit you on the edge of the sinks, slide your skirt over your thighs, roughly push your lacy panties aside-“


“No. Not that one.”


“Does it involve other people?”

In my mind I saw her dressed in a long gown, her black hair held back by a single hairband, her red lips parted slightly and her pale skin luminous in moonlight as distant singing came through the forest where she stood. And then a group of men would appear, workmen, hard and sweaty from the day’s toils. Seven of them, each taking their turn to hammer into her as she writhes in ecstasy beneath and all the while another man, a taller man stands in the shadows with his horse – each engorged with their desire for the mewing nymph.


“No. Just one man actually.”


“Is it something more…depraved? Blue Velvet maybe? I’ve a friend who works in a hospital – I can borrow an oxygen mask, and maybe he’d hide in the wardrobe for us.”


“No. Doesn’t do anything for me.”


“Okay, something more traditional. What about Spartacus? Or Gladiator? I could wear a pair of leather thong sandals, hold a sword and you could tie me up with leather thongs and whip me with leather thongs until I beg to remain your slave.”


“No. I prefer something more…..modern.”


She began to get dressed. Silk was her favourite fabric and the wash of it against my skin always gave me wood…. silk wood, always the best type.


“One of my favourites is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. That scene where Katherine Ross has to undress while Robert Redford points a gun at her. The room is half-lit and he sits in a rocking chair. She wears a chemise like your wearing now, the ribbons are slowly untied and her milky breasts are revealed. She strips to her stockings, lays back on the bed and slips her fingers into her mouth then her dripping pussy while he is fully dressed. Then he unzips-“


“No he doesn’t. You’ve imagined that last part. And that’s not the film.”


She’s nearly fully dressed by now and I’m sporting a stunt man who needs to plunge into something dark, wet and hot.


“One last guess and then I’m telling you which one.”


My brain goes into overdrive. I have a vision of her as a singing nun being fucked on a hillside while I’m dressed as a Nazi, playing the banjo and taking her up the wrong ‘un, using religious dildos and throwing pea soup around the room, or maybe being more romantic and telling her I don’t give a damn while I fart under the curtains, rosebuds flit through my mind, mashed potato mountains, and even petals.

She can see I’ve given up – all that concerns me now is whether she’ll eat my hot dog before the main feature.

“The film is The Music Box. Ring me when you think you’re up to it.”


And with that she swept out of the room, slamming the door behind her. I had no idea what she was talking about but thoughts of Camberwick Green and Mrs Honeyman crossed my cerebral stage.


Then I realised what it was she wanted of me.

I had expected debauchery and perversion the like of which neither Meg Ryan nor Marlon Brando had ever seen but what did she want?



She wanted me to move her fucking piano.
(Stiff Richard, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 12:26, 1 reply)

I find that a lot of the time…

the movie itself is only a part of the whole experience that can make someone’s personal opinion of ‘the best film ever’. Frequently it is the circumstances and mood surrounding the person when they watch the film that contributes to the overall enjoyment.

Let me give you an example.

A few thousand moons ago, I was dating a delightful young lady who was intelligent, thoughtful, blonde and cute as a button… Life was good.

One evening, after a lovely meal and a few shandies in our local, we decided that we didn’t want the evening to end, but we couldn’t go to our respective homes because we both lived with our parents.

Henceforth we decided to go to the cinema.

Holding hands in the rain as we ran towards the picture house, it was a perfectly romantic setting as we bought our tickets and made our way to the back row of the packed pitch black theatre.

Before the trailers began, I thought I’d do the gentlemanly thing and offer to get the hotdogs in.

Struggling around in the dark, I made my way out and to the refreshments area whereby I bought a pile of the usual tasteless overpriced fayre and made my way back.

Going back into the theatre I couldn’t see a thing as I tripped, slipped and apologised my way across the back row. A few people got up, there was general movement in a sort of ‘musical chairs’ fashion, and I found the empty seat as we all settled down.

I handed out the food and (ever the romantic); I even did the old ‘yawn’ thing so I could put my arm around my young maiden.

Soon the film began and after a while I felt a hand upon my lap working its way into my inside leg. Although I was delighted, I was a little embarrassed as I didn’t want anyone to see such a public display. I was comforted, however, by the sheer darkness and there didn’t seem to be any other movement in the seats around me, so I let it continue.

Then I felt my zip being undone…I was excited, thrilled, but scared all at the same time as my bulging throbatron was released from the sanctity of my grundies and she began to work her fingers expertly up and down my grateful member.

Now this wasn’t like my girlfriend at all! She had previously said that she ‘wasn’t really in to that sort of thing’ but I wasn’t about to complain! In fact, I closed my eyes and prayed for her to take it further…and she answered my prayers with aplomb as I felt a beautiful moist pair of lips surround my mutton musket. The shapely mouth caressed my member as she proceeded to make a luncheon of my truncheon…but her mouth slid further and further down…

I was getting my first experience of ‘deep throat’ action! I moaned in appreciation but tried to keep my voice down as to not attract any attention. She just didn’t seem to care as she continued with the finesse and speed of a rabbit on tetrahydrogestrinone.

The schlong schlurping intensified with her tongue switching between delicately flicking over my rock hard shaft; and chomping at it like a horse on a gargantuan pink veiny carrot.

As it mercilessly continued I was now bucking in my seat as I felt the impending surge of the inevitable. Her mouth stayed stuck to my love muscle as I grunted and thrunged what seemed like a never ending river of pecker-paste into her cavernous, welcoming throat…and she chugged it all back as if her life depended on it.

Gently stroking the back of her head, I was about to whisper to her on her wonderful new technique when all of a sudden the house lights lit up, the film was over and I felt a tap on my shoulder. So I leaned to my right…

To see my girlfriend looking sternly at me….’that’s a bit odd’ I thought…so I looked down towards my lap just in time to see someone else’s head gently finishing me off by lapping down the last dribbles of jitler as it squirmed from my waning bell-end. As my eyes grew accustomed to the light I noticed that the hair colour of this head-giving goddess wasn’t so much blonde….as grey

Silently, I felt my tallywaggle being tucked back into my dunghampers, and watched as her head was slowly raised…before she looked me straight in the eye, gave me a gaping smile and a wink….then popped her teeth back in.

“Eeeeh, lovely dearie! – That was so much better than popcorn” the warty old trout crowed at me as she stood up, wiped her wrinkly mouth and started to shuffle off.

So hopefully you can now see what I mean…I can’t even remember what the movie was now…but it was the best.film.ever.
( Pooflake braces for an onslaught..., Fri 18 Jul 2008, 10:38, 12 replies)

To lighten it up for the grumpy old men
So Steven Spielberg has plans for a new actiondocodrama. But this one is a bit out of left field and he wants to make it about famous composers. So he has called together Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Steven Seagal and Arnold Schwarzenegger and he is talking to them about the various roles for the new flick.

Spielberg is looking to make this film his best ever and he really needs these actors onside so he lets them see the script and then says they can pick which famous composer they want to play.

Stallone, like a bull at a gate, mumbles “I've always admired Mozart. I would love to play him."

Willis, with the lemonsucking face of a veteran, says "Chopin is my all time favourite and I love the piano so I'll be him."

Seagal, wooden and boring, says "Given my martial arts have a certain affinity with the fluidity of the waltz, I’ll be Strauss."

Spielberg is very happy about all this. Three great movie names on board. But he really wants the fourth. So he turns to Schwarzenegger and he asks, "Who do you want to be Arnold?"

Arnold growled, "I'll be Bach."
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 10:16, 6 replies)

That was no boating accident..

(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 20 Jul 2008, 12:09, 2 replies)

The best film I never saw*.
I have never seen Jackass: The Movie. Most likely I never will. I do own a copy that was given to me as a present, but it remains encased in the shiny cellophane and I would have to be really, really bored before I would ever consider actually watching it, because I am certain it will be shit. But I love the film dearly anyway, because of the tangential amusement it has brought me.

My brother is five years younger than I am. In 2002, when Jackass came out, he was 17. And our parents were away. There was really no choice in the matter, he had to throw a party, and as a mature, responsible adult of 22, it would be my job to supervise**. In due course his friends began to arrive, bearing with them skateboards, a camcorder and a plan: they would create their own Jackass movie.

I swiftly declared indoors out of bounds for this sort of activity, and settled back in the garden with a cold beer.

I am hard-pressed to choose a highlight from that evening. The repeated falling out of trees was funny, certainly, but lacked flair. The drunken climbing frame adventures held my attention for a few minutes, but I don't feel that all the possibilities were explored. Falling through patio furniture is rightly considered a classic, but lacks innovation, and flinging oneself into a thorn bush is frankly rather old hat. Attempting to ride a skateboard down a child's plastic slide to get up enough speed to use an upturned galvanised steel wheelbarrow as a jump? Absolutely, if briefly, superb***. Never before or since have I seen someone fall of a skateboard in such a way as to fling it so far straight up that it landed upright and quivering, one end embedded in the turf.

The thing that will stay with me from that evening, though, is the vodka. Simply drinking the stuff was not considered sufficiently EXTREME, so rather than witness a vodka bong (and the inevitable ambulance ride to follow) I suggested that they might like to snort it. This, they decided, was a stroke of genius.

Picture, if you will, a succession of plastered 17-year-old skaters hurtling around my garden, a spoonful of vodka in one hand, a plastic drinking straw in the other. Periodically one would stop, snort the vodka through the straw, choke, cough, scream, collapse, cry and finally stagger back to their feet, eyes bloodshot and watering, nose bleeding, and announce "That was BRILLIANT!" before running off to get some more.

This went on for nearly an hour before the vodka ran out, and at no point did I stop sniggering. So thank you, Jackass: The Movie, for one of the most entertaining evenings of my life.

* It's tenuous, I know, but rather than posting another dull list I thought I'd try and shoehorn a story in somehow.

** Purchase beer for them, with a frankly excessive "I have ID and you don't" surcharge.

*** It actually looked like someone was going to break a leg doing this, so I felt obliged to stop them. I'm not a monster.
(wellgroomedwookiee is a filthy-minded hobgoblin, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 14:28, 3 replies)

My most important film isn't my favorite one.
It's not the best film I've ever seen.

However, the most important film in my life is a fairly obscure Russian film from 1938: Alexander Nevsky.

This film, along with Ivan the Terrible Parts I & II, is my father's favorite movie of all time. It's directed by Sergei Eisenstein, and has all sorts of political subtexts (Russians v. Germans, a simple fisherman rising up to lead his people etc) that seemed tailor-made to appeal to Stalin's tastes. It was fantastically advanced for its time, and is still fantastically dramatic and exciting today.

Why is it important to me: well, when I was a child, living in America whilst my parents were lecturing at various universities, the local library in Boston started to show matinee films every Saturday, projected in one of the reading rooms. I must have been about 5. My father heard that it was on, and decided that since it was his favorite film, I simply had to see it whilst I had the chance (it wasn't even available on VHS back then, so it was a rare chance to see it).

I vividly remember everything: the musty, dusty smell of the leather seats, the utter silence from the small but reverential audience (most of whom were in their 50s or older: I was the youngest in there by a good 40 years), and the occasional creaking sounds of bookshelves settling. The film started, the crackly strains of Prokofiev's score crept out, and I was lost for the next 80 minutes. When the scene of 'the battle on the ice' got into full swing, I was almost jumping up and down in joy, such was its effect on me. The room was completely dark, but by the flickering light of the projector, I could see my father's face in profile; he was utterly rapt, and at the end, we both just sat in awed silence for a few minutes, before gathering himself and taking me home. Usually I'd want to go to the children's section and get a book out, but today I just wanted to walk home with him and talk about the film. He asked me which bits I liked, and was gratified to hear me say "every bit!"

This wasn't the first film I remember seeing, but it was the first that I wanted to talk to my father about again and again, asking him all about Alexander Nevsky, who he was, and why he was so important. This was also the first classical music that got into my bones, flowed through my veins and made me want to play an instrument. I felt like the orchestral textures had been hot-wired into my body, and was desperate to experience that sound again.

It's a film that makes me supremely happy that my father is my father: he exposed me to culture extremely early (well, both my parents did), and took me to see a film that many parents might think too grown-up for their 5 year-olds; by having faith in my ability to understand, he didn't patronise me as so people his age seemed to do, and made me realise that he thought my opinions and tastes were worth consideration, even though I was a child.

So, this film is important to me because it is a reminder that my father is simply a wonderful man. No matter how many arguments we've had in the past, or how many times he's infuriated me (or I him), all I have to do is start watching it, or listen to a recording of the score, and I'm transported back to that darkened library, sitting next to the comforting presence of my father and having a whole new world of images and sound opened up to me.

I'm welling up a bit as a write this. How soppy. I'm going to think of a list of other films I love later.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 15:23, 2 replies)

In The Spirit
of making this QOTW amusing I've just remembered this tale. I'm sure I've told it here before but fuck it.

An ex and I used to go to the flicks every Tuesday, usually to watch terrible horror movies - 'cos we liked them. This was in the days when you'd get two movies for your money with an intermission between them.

So there we were. Sitting in the back row of the movies, first flick finished and the lights came up while they were changing reels for the main movie. An employee of the house appeared at the bottom of the aisle, in front of the screen, with ice-cream goodness to sell.

Me and the ex chatted while we waited for the next flick and I was casually watching the other cinema-goers. One strapping Geordie lad bought a couple of ices off the purveyor of ice-creams and was walking back to his seat, one ice in each hand.

Then, suddenly, from one of the curtains covering the fire exits, a shambling monstrosity appeared. Off-green skin tone, ripped clothing, lots of visible festering wounds, head to one side - the whole Zombie experience. And it was moaning.

The strapping Geordie lad, Cornettos clutched proudly in each hand (thus rendering him almost defenceless),did what any other full-blooded Geordie would do. He screamed like a girl and kicked the Zombie right in the knackers.

Zombie dropped like a bag of shit and now the moans sounded much more real.

It turned out that the Zombie was a member of the theatre staff who was dressed up to promote the next weeks horror offering.

To be honest, it's the best thing, EVA, I've seen at the movies.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 15:11, 1 reply)

The tragedy of Police Academy
Oh Mahoney, can no-one tame your rebellious streak? Will you never find your calling in life? Are your pranks from boredom, or do you deep down want to be punished? Will you forever continue to find comfort from woman to woman? Where will you be when your looks are gone? Where will your friends be then? Are you that self-conscious of your image that you can never relax, never be yourself? Do you hate yourself? Who will cry at your funeral?

Oh Hightower, will no-one see through your beastly physical mass and see the sensitive man within? With a personality so often wrongly judged from your external appearance, do you never hate the person you've grown into? Do you feel as though you are the freak? You are the one that no-one can relate to? It is you at fault for these misconceptions? Will you die alone?

Oh Tackleberry, will no-one point out that your gun obsession is just repressed sexuality? Will you never overcome your crippling shyness? Why will no-one hear your cry for help that you emit when turning to your safety pillow of firearms? Does no-one care about the hours of practice behind your saxophone playing? No-one knows the true you, so why do you bother?

Oh Hooks, is a shout really necessary to get your point across? Is there no room for politeness in today’s society? Do you feel people don't take you as seriously because you're a woman? Why do you only get one angry line per film? Why do you keep repeating history and never learning from the end of the previous film the benefit of your new assertive attitude? Are you stuck in a Groundhog Day until death? Do you want to end it now?

Oh Sweetchuck, will life never be easy for you? You try to live an honest life, yet always others take advantage of you. Will you never win? Why do those who consider themselves your friends end up hurting you the most? At what point will the meek inherit the earth? Why are you cursed with your puny physique? Why can't we all just get along? Do you just want to turn the lights out?

Oh Lassard, will your undiagnosed dementia eventually be your downfall? Why will no-one listen to your calls for help? Why do they not notice your odd behaviour? Is it ageism that makes them believe that this is acceptable behaviour for a man in your position? Will no-one take you seriously again? Is the future all downhill from here? Is there anything you're good for any more?

Oh Jones, will you not grasp your true vocation as an entertainer? Are your cries for attention not enough? Do you crave attention so much because you hate yourself when you're alone? Do you think that unless people are laughing at / with you then they don't like you? When will anyone take you seriously? Will a church organ sound effect of the funeral march be hint enough?

Oh Harris, will your ambition get the best of yourself in the long run? Do you fear others realising your true incompetence eventually? Do you take pleasure from taking exception with particular cadets? Is your obsession with power something deeper? Does it relate to your childhood? Would no-one listen to you? Do you need to be this person to feel important? If no-one respects you, why do you bother carrying on?

Oh Fackler, is your clumsiness genetic, or do you subconsciously enjoy causing others harm? Is that why you joined the academy in the first place? If you pretend your infliction of pain didn't happen, can you get away with it? When will you be unearthed? What makes you want to hurt people in the first place? Will you hurt yourself?

I cried.
( ma0sm, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 15:51, 5 replies)

My idea of a trip to the pictures
by Bert Sexmonkey, aged 26 and three quarters.

To save on cash, rather than actually see the latest Batman film everybody seems to be raving about (and because I know I will be bitterly disappointed if it doesn't live up to all the hype you lot have been propagating), I've decided to make up my own Batman film. In my head. For FREE.

*Opening credits*
A dark, shiny bat symbol appears over a grey, cloudy cityscape, and the theme music begins ever so softly and quietly in the background.

*dunananananananananananaNANER BATMAN!*

A poor defenceless young lady is being mugged by a gang of hoodlums with knives, the Dark Knight swoops in and engages them in bloody combat.

ZIP! KA-PLOOEY! BIFF! ZAM! KA-BLAMMO!

Young lady who has now been rescued: Thank you, Batman. You saved me!
Christian Bale: dunananananananananananaNANER BATMAN!

SCENE TWO
Failed circus entertainer and drug addict Heath Ledger (sounds like a fucking mossy overgrowth on a window sill if you ask me), is deeply upset with life in general, decides to go a bit emo and covers himself in silly face paint.

Heath (to his parents): You don't understand me!
His mother (played by Una Stubbs): That's because you iz a bit mental isn't it? lol.
Heath: Raaaargh!

Heath then kills his parents using an umbrella that fires poisonous purple gas

SCENE THREE
Bale arrives home at Wayne Mansion.

Michael Caine: Awright guv'na? How are ya, me old china plate?
Christian Bale: dunananananananananananaNANER BATMAN!
Michael Caine: Crivens and gadzooks and lawks-a-mussy! There appears to be some trouble down at the old green poison gas factory!

Bale lifts the head on a bust of William Shakespeare, and slides down a pole to the Batcave.

dunananananananananananaNANER BATMAN!

Bale kills the Joker (without actually meaning to), Morgan Freeman provides wise words about life, that bird in it fancies the pants off Wayne and Batman but can't decide between them, Police Commissioner Gordon smokes a cigar, the Batmobile jumps some orphans, and Harvey Dent accidentally answers the iron.

Dent: Yeeeeaaaarrgggh!!

Bale: dunananananananananananaNANER BATMAN!

*END CREDITS*


( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 13:54, 23 replies)

Best Films Ever
1. Four Weddings And a Funeral
I fingered Judy Baker in the Astoria when this was on.. It was around the time that Kristin Scott-Thomas was telling Hugh Grant that she fancied him and could never love another. I thought I was helping myself to a handful of buttered popcorn. Instead I accidentally inserted my index finger in between her labia majoris, and through a comedy of errors, bought her to an earth shuddering orgasm, whilst thinking I was actually scrabbling madly for the last piece of popcorn, swimming in the buttery juices of it's departed brothers.
(At least that's what I told the jury)

2. 28 Days Later.
This film was so frightening I actually prolapsed with shock!
Imagine if you will, my embarrasment as the pretty usherette with the not unappreciable rack was called over, armed with a warm shoe-horn, she crammed my sagging anus back into its correct position, and I penguin walked out of the auditorium.
I was able to make use of this though, in my temporary career change to a Charlie Chaplin impersonator.

3. Superman III
During this pathetic follow-up to a pathetic follow-up, Timothy "Fatty" Wilson clumsily attempted to commit suicide off of the circle into the stalls below.
He acheived the unwanted side-effect of landing head first between the more than ample thighs of a local fat girl, from whence he spent the duration of the film uttering muffled protestations and acting as an impromptu table for her dustbin liner full of popcorn and bucket of cola. He married her 10 years later. I remember we had lard at the reception dinner, paramedics were on standby.

4. Legends of the Fall.
This marathon bum-numb furnished me with ample opportunity to catch up on my sleep, after an entire week spent bouncing up and down on the naked form of my new girlfriend.
I hadnt slept properly for days and the repose this film afforded me enabled me to recharge the old batteries and replenish my stocks of zinc before another evening spent shooting bollock-load after bollock-load of spunk up her crimson flue.

5. Please Sir! The movie.
I laughed so hard whilst watching this film I required medical attention and a defibrillator. Even after this narrow brush with death I still went home with my underpants liberally filled with feculence, so forceful was my cachinnation. Mind you, I got a whole carriage to myself on the tube, which afforded me ample time to reflect on the comedic genius of the scriptwriters of the movie..
(Vic Flange, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 21:52, 3 replies)

Religious Films
I am of the belief that our early experiences shape us in some way or other.

I have always had a thing for French Existentialism - well someone has to.

I know where I got it from and I can't believe I'm writing about it on B3ta, however, I've never let shyness come between me and telling a story, so here goes….

At the age of 13 my parents took me and my sister on an unusual family holiday.

As many of you will know, I was brought up as a Roman Catholic. I went to Catholic convent schools from the age of four to 18. I had my first communion at the age of seven and attended mass at school on a weekly basis - not on Sundays because my dad often worked weekends and my mother couldn't be bothered to go, neither could I, so we were Catholic in name but very much of the Can't Really Be Bothered Sect.

But the holiday when I was 13 that was to change all that for a week at least.

We went on a Pilgrimage.

A proper Pilgrimage.

To Lourdes.

For those of you who don't know Lourdes is a small village in France near to the Basque region of Spain. It's very mountainous and is famous for a little girl called Bernadette who saw Our Lady. Bernadette was an uneducated child yet she managed to tell the village priest that the lady she saw was the Immaculate Conception - words that she would not know. Over the last hundred and thirty or so years since then Lourdes has become a very popular destination for thousands, if not millions of people praying for a miracle or simply wanting to visit somewhere holy.

At the age of 13 my response to my parents telling me we were off to Lourdes was not positive. The idea of spending a week going to mass and praying with a net curtain over my head was not appealing. However at the age of 13 I didn't have much choice in the matter.

In all honesty I don't remember a great deal about the trip; I remember not taking any make up because I was sure my father would disapprove, I remember being mistaken for 18 by a group of elderly nuns, I remember being chatted up by loads of students who had come as volunteers, but most of all I remember the sheer joy and party atmosphere of the place.

On our first night we went down to the grotto where Bernadette saw her visions and we took part in the candlelit procession - just imagine thousands of people, many of whom were in wheelchairs, each carrying a single candle and walking while singing. This wasn't a place for non-believers or 13 year old cynics, not because they weren't allowed but because of mass hysteria, the strength of faith, whatever, everyone was swept away by the atmosphere there.

For that one week I was a fully paid up believing member of the Roman Catholic God Squad.

Our second night was spent going to the one and only cinema in the town.

It showed only one film on a permanent loop.

"The Song of Bernadette"
In black and white and in French.

The cinema was packed with a multitude of people many suffering from disabilities which then in the 80s prevented them from being visible members of society. I don't remember the film, I do remember the rapt audience - many of whom had never been to a cinema before.

The rest of the week passed in a buzz of religious rugby songs, cheers, laughter, and sheer joy of being alive.

On our final morning my dad and I rose early and went down to the one and only mass that we attended - while there we had got to know a young priest from Yugoslavia - as it was then - and he had been given the opportunity to say mass in the grotto itself with two other priests.
So at 4.30 am my dad and I stood amongst a handful of others in the cool shadow of a beautiful mountain grotto and listened to a Latin mass. The walls of the grotto are covered with crutches and walking sticks handed in by those who are cured and the hills echo at that time of the day with the songs from the women who work in the baths where the faithful are plunged into the ice cold water taken from the spring that Bernadette was shown by her visions.


I can't say that the trip changed my opinion of the Church and my ever diminishing faith but it did leave me with a sense of wonder at the unexplained in our world and a continuing love of French black and white films.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 18:48, 7 replies)

Well..
Someone has to make the effort to liven things up in here so here a few significant films for me - and why.

Bambi

Because I watched it in the cinema while pissed and stoned on all day session. I'd never seen it before I became entranced. Remember the bit where Bambi's trapped by the fire? And the flames are getting closer and closer and poor old Bambi is looking terrified? Well that's when I said:

"RUN BAMBI, RUN!!"

Two hundred people laughed at me. Bastards.

Soldier Blue

I saw this when it first came out (yes, I am that fucking old). I blagged my way into Newcastle Odeon and settled down to watch the flick. About half way through I felt the need for a piss and headed for the bogs. As I was standing at the urinals, squeezing a kidney, the door swung open and a middle-aged bloke entered. He made a bee-line for me and stood next to me, unzipping his fly. Fucking great. A willy-watcher. Loads of empty piss stalls and he has to stand next to me.

"Enjoying the film" he asks.

"It's OK" I mutter

"Tell you what, why don't you come and watch it with me. There's a seat free right next to mine" he leered.

"No thanks." I said. "I shouldn't even be here. I'm on probation"

"What for" he asked looking puzzled

"I stabbed a bloke who tried to pick me up"

Exit one running man.

And a couple of cinema tales that I like. Didn't happen to me but I wish they had. They both concern the Piracy ads that they're so fond of running. Picture the scene:

Ad: "You wouldn't steal a car"..

Member of Crowd: "I WOULD IF I COULD FUCKING DOWNLOAD ONE!!"

I have to do that one day. And another:

AD: "Piracy is a crime!"

Heckler:"Arrrrgghhhhh"

Another one to try when I get the chance... Both tales courtesy of the Heckles QOTW.

OK. I've done my bit to make this QOTW more interesting. Over to you. Be creative man! Don't just give us a bloody list of films....

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 9:47, 1 reply)

Spoiler T Shirt
What every movie buff needs, an awesome T shirt.

Spoilt by Oliver Moss:



Why not start your Christmas shopping now?
because they have sold out, that's why not
( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 20:44, 7 replies)

Candleshoe
I think I was about ten or eleven and I was taken to the Saturday morning pictures by a friend of my mother’s. Mrs H used to work as a childminder and foster carer so she was always surrounded by hoards of children, one more was no problem.

Off we went to the tiny cinema in Herne Bay – it’s been knocked down since to make way for a car park.

Maybe we had sweets, maybe popcorn or even squash. To be honest, it was so long ago I don’t remember. It’s more likely that we had nothing – sweets had only just come off rationing to be a treat.

So there we all are, a cinema full of pre-pubescent boys and girls all watching the big silver screen expectantly.

The organ plays – yes, not only was this a Long Time Ago but as a seaside town the cinema had an organ – although I don’t think it was at the front with flashing lights and a man in a sparkly jacket, but it could have been…in my head, at least.

And at last the curtains go back to reveal the first film.


Back in those days there were always two films show – the Feature Presentation and a B-Movie. Not like the heyday of American Cinema where the B-Movie would be something like ‘The Thing’ or ‘Killer Tomatoes from Mars’, no, here in the UK as recently as the 80s we would get a B-Movie all about the Water System. Twenty minutes or if you were really unlucky, half and hour of mind and bum numbing facts about how water gets from the reservoirs to our taps, all explained with the help of line diagrams and the occasional clip of ‘action’ from the processing plant.

Thrilling stuff!



Then the intermission.

Organ again.

Ice cream if you were lucky.

Loos.

If you’re about 11 and easily bored then you slip off to the loos just to stretch you legs and see if there are any nice boys sweets to be had.

Into the ladies with one of the girls – Jackie - who was being fostered with Mrs H, quick pee and we’re standing side by side washing our hands.

“Have you got ten pence?” Jackie asks me.

“Why yes I have. My mother gave it to me this very morning with the express request that I purchase some sweets for myself.”*

Two ten pence coins are then inserted into the rusty looking machine upon the wall. The machine promises a little box with flowers upon it in return for the coins.

Sweets! We think…

The knob is turned and “Clunk” the box falls into the dispensing chute.

The box is very pretty. It is white with pale green leaves and ribbons upon it.


We open the box – maybe the sweets are inside.


No sweets.


Instead a rather strange item is removed – it’s oblong, about an inch thick and of similar size to a house brick.

It appears to be made from cotton wool wrapped with toilet paper and each end sports a natty little loop.


“Oh look!” Says Jackie, “It’s for when you have a headache!”


She slips the loops over her ears and brings the brick to settle upon her forehead.


“That looks silly” I say in my pre-pubescent wisdom.


The door opens, in walks Mrs H.

“You’re missing Candleshoe!”

We ask about the headache brick. She tells me that my mother will explain it to me.


Soon we are sitting back in our hard chairs watching the young Jodie Foster be a charming orphan in England.


It was a dull film, yet I’ve never forgotten going to see it. I still wonder to this day whatever those things were that we bought in the ladies toilets….and my mother never did explain it to me.



*My recollection may not be exact.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:28, 8 replies)

Old Geeks
.
I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Sun-servers on fire over the shoulder of Ryan. I watched tape-reels glitter in the dark near the Mailgate. All those backups will be lost in time, like tears in rain.

Time ... to die.

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Tue 22 Jul 2008, 0:23, 6 replies)

Terminator - Hull redux
I live on a cul-de-sac, and every day when I go to work rather than do a 3 point turn I like to reverse down the street and pretend I'm in terminator.

I just wanted to share a tip for making your mornings more interesting.
( willenium Fist bump for verification, Sun 20 Jul 2008, 18:47, Reply)

Films eh?
When i was little, my mum used to be a cleaner in the local hotel. With no-one to act as childminder, and with my dad working all the time, I had to go with her. Sitting in an empty bar playing with the dominos on my own was the dullest way to spend a saturday possible for a boy.
One day, the owners took pity on me, and showed me into their "cinema" room. The walls were covered in shelves, all filled to capacity with vhs tapes. each had a little number on the spine. The guy showed me a school excercise book, which had a number on each page and listed all the films that were on that tape.
Several hundred tapes...there must have been thousands of films.
WOW.
We were poor. We had a 14" black and white telly at home and I had never been "into" films as a result. trips to the cinema were rare ( i think I went twice in my childhood - the disney version of Robin Hood was one of the ones I saw)
He showed me how to work the tv and video, and showed me how to wind the tapes forward to the right place (each film had the timer number written next to it in the book) and left me to it.
From then on my saturdays were changed forever, I loved going there.
I had no idea at all what the film titles were about, no idea what ones were recent or old, no idea what ones were rated for kids, or 18+, I just picked out tapes at random, or film names I liked the sound of.
I was aged about 10 or eleven at the time, but I can still remember those days perfectly clearly. They had one of those kitch coffee tables with the smoked glass top and the fibre-optic fluffy thing under the glass that changed colours. Awesome.
Anyway, This is how as a boy, I saw some of the best films I have ever seen.
Robocop - wow, an indestructable cyborg cop, big guns, car chases, a glimpse of ladyboobs in the shower, a guy getting melted by toxic waste. Had a few nightmares after this, but it didnt lessen my love of the film.
Mad Max - I think I held my breath for the whole opening chase sequence. Matchbox toy car chases acted out in real life... FANTASTIC, although I was rather shaken by the bit where Max`s wife and child were mown down by the biker gang :(
Ice Cold in Alex - OH NO, IVE BROKEN THE TV! then I realised it was supposed to be in black and white! what a cool film, A boys adventure comic come to life in my eyes.
Star Wars - Speechless. I was 100% transported to that far away universe. It seemed so beleivable to me.
Indiana Jones - another Boys Own adventure come real.
Alien - Terrified me, really scared me shitless, but I couldnt stop watching it from behind the cushions. Despite being scared to the edge of tears, I left the tape running to watch Aliens straight afterwards. Not as frightening as the first, but awesome sci-fi.

I could go on forever listing the stuff I watched that had an impact on me then. Every saturday, I would sit and watch 3 or 4 films, often skipping through the dull ones till I found something that grabbed my attention.
Now Im 30, I till love films, and watch anything I can at any opertunity. I have a pretty big dvd collection now, but am more interested in seeing new stuff than re-watching stuff I have already seen, apart from the real favourites.
The internet has opened up a whole new means of accesing stuff I want to see. logging on to limewire or similar sites always makes me think back to that excercise book with the numbered pages and the carefully written titles.
(dave likes cheese, Sat 19 Jul 2008, 18:08, Reply)

Can't Remember the title...
The best movie ever was the one where there were these three kids, about twelve years old, and they were all going on an adventure, and they were getting ready to go and the one kid (he had glasses) says 'Boyo! What fun we'll have on our adventure!' and then he falls over because he has been poisoned with a bad cheese sandwich, so the other two pick him up and quickly put him in the back of the car and one of the kid's dad drives them to the campground which is really a launchpad, because hidden behind the bushes is the spaceship they built out of old washing machine parts and a television set.

So even though the kid with glasses is sick, they take off and discover there is an alien on board, who got stranded by his spaceship whilst he was looking for plutonium and still water, and so now there were four people on the spaceship and because it was built for three, the ship fell back to earth and crashed in the Pacific Ocean, and they paddled the remains of their spaceship to a nearby volcano island where there were hundreds of cows who could only speak French, so the alien took out his translator pod and converted everything the cows said to English.

It turned out the cows were all being held prisoners by and evil Wizard who insisted everyone who didn't hop on one foot forever would be turned into cows that could only speak French, but the Wizard had died, so the cows were stranded on this volcano island, and cows have no opposable thumbs so they couldn't use the phone to call for help, so they tried to get the boys to call for help but they only had Canadian Loonies, so they decided to break into the shopping mall (because it was closed) and they robbed the WalMart and built a Ford GT40 out of barbeque grills, salad and paracetamol.

They were too young to buy petrol, so they just poured in apple juice and they drove the GT40 and when it hit 88 mph, the tires caught fire and they were transported to a world where there were lots of cyborgs battling each other, saying 'I come in peace', and then they'd blow each other up.

The one cow that came along (not much room in a GT40) was shot, so the vet came, and he was played by the guy who did Father Ted, and he blessed the cow, and then the cow fell over and he turned out to be made of jelly beans, so they ate the cow.

Just then, Han Solo came on the back of a Taun-Taun, and chastised them all for not killing the cow in a Halal fashion. The kid with glasses was feeling better, so he told Han to bugger off, so Han left, but he left the Taun-Taun, so the boys climbed on and struck off to find where the armoury was, because they knew they’d need firepower in order to escape the island, and they found a prison where everyone had been cut up with laser guns, so there were a few shotguns and smoke bombs just lying there, so they picked them up and then taught each other Kung Fu, so they trekked across the desert until they got to the dragon’s lair, and they confronted the dragon and it turned out the dragon was a monk who was just trying to learn the meaning of life, so they started singing that song about trees and mountains and sheep.

Then the guy from Lord of the Rings came out, what’s-his-name, Dumbledore, and he does some dancing, and then this guy jumps out of the bushes and points a spear at them, and tells them they are all under arrest so they run for their lives, and the guy with the spear turns out to be an army, and there’s like a hundred of them, but they get to the edge of the city, where the canal is, and they jump on the boat, and blow into the sails, and they escape just in time!

The boys then find that the washing machine spaceship needs some adjustments to it’s defibrillator, so the kid with glasses turns the knob on the front of the television, and they take off, and fly back to the campsite, and they get there way back home, and the kid’s dad is like ‘What are you doing here? You’ve only been gone an hour!’ and it turns out they were only gone for an hour, so they look at each other and laugh.

Gosh, what a great movie that was.
(w4I4q1O1 was hard at work on, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 15:54, 7 replies)

Would have to be...
cling film
( Mr Nerdy-Speccy-FuckNuts Ouchy ouchy wa wa!, Mon 21 Jul 2008, 16:09, Reply)

Ten movie scenes
Seeing a movie as it's meant to be, at the cinema, is going to beat watching it on DVD. It's about who you're with, getting completely immersed in the experience, and, eventually nostalgia. In entirely non-chronological order:

1. Reservoir Dogs, Bracknell. The only time I've ever walked out of the cinema, gone straight back to the desk and bought another ticked to watch it all over again. Remember, this was the first Tarantino movie. The dialogue, the twists, the music, the sheer style. Seeing that without knowing what was coming. The best two hours of my cinema life. The delight at discovering I could still be exhilarated by stuff.

2. Ghostbusters, Basingstoke ABC. The teachers were on strike, several hundred kids laying siege to the front doors of the cinema with nothing evenly vaguely like a queue. Popcorn and crisps flying backwards and forwards in the projection. The kids have taken over the cinema.

3. Candyman, Aldershot. On my own, during the late afternoon, so scared I thought of leaving. Getting into the car in twilight, so affected I looked in the boot to check nobody was hiding there. Later watching it with my girlfriend on DVD, wondering what all the fuss was about.

4. Jeepers Creepers. Balham. Sitting next to the girl I was about to have the best sex of my life with. Both pretending to be scared as an excuse for our first hand holding.

5. Return of the Jedi, Southampton. Arriving ten minutes late, with my dad. Hiding in the cinema when it ended so we could watch the bit that we'd missed.

6 Crash, Camberley. The David Cronenberg one involving people getting off on sex with accident victims, not the more recent one. Watching people leaving the cinema in waves - first the ones who were revolted, then the ones who were bored.

7. Dances With Wolves, the Directors Cut, Bracknell. Getting into a bet at dinner beforehand that I couldn't eat a 64oz steak. Sleeping for the entire four or five hours.

8. Star Trek marathon, also Bracknell. Sneaking in pizza, finally falling asleep during the seventh one.

9. Citizen Cane, Brighton. Putting off seeing it for years, so I could watch it properly at the cinema. Being somewhat disappointed.

10. Casablanca, London. After years of watching it on video, seeing subtleties on the big screen I'd never spotted before. Sly pickpockets, littel details at the back of the room.

Perfect length? 89 minutes.
(Bowens, Sun 20 Jul 2008, 6:26, 1 reply)

Lists
For years now I've hated timelines. Not general timelines, like, say, the timeline of a historic event, but STUPID timelines. Especially pictoral ones. Especially ones in The Sun, or Heat (alright I read it in the dentist).

So, for example, The Sun, neglecting for a moment their usual gritty journalism, had a timeline of Victoria Beckham's hairstyles over the years.

The timeline went thus: 1994..1997...2006, Sept 2007, Nov 2007, Jan 2008, March 2008.

That's a SHIT timeline. 3 years between the first two pictures, bloody 9 years between the next two and then three within months apart.

It fair makes my blood boil. They should have done it yearly . That's a fair timeline. Yes I know, I'm not quite right. But we all get irritated by something.

Anyway over the years my hatred of timelines has evolved into a general dislike of lists as a whole. Especially nonsensical ones. Like, someone listing to you, verbally, what they have done that day, like you give a toss ('and then I put some laundry in, and I used that new comfort creme, and then at ten past, no, twenty past, the phone rang and it was one of those window men, so anyway at half past I...ARGH SHUTUPIDONTCARE) or seeing top 10 most tasty ice cream flavours on a website, I don't care, I still like Rum N Raisin, I don't care vanilla is no1, it is boring icecream, boring and pointless, like YOUR STUPID LIST.

This leads me onto this QOTW. By all means tell us WHY you like a film, what IMPACT it had on you, as a person, what SIGNIFICANCE it holds. Make us understand, because films are a matter of opinion and QOTW is meant to be you know...not a load of lists.

I hate lists :( (and timelines).

Edit: my favourite film is Planes, Trains and Automobiles because John Candy was an absolute joy to watch and because when I was little I had a top-loading Betamax and this was the only non-recorded-off-the-telly film I owned. When I met my fiance, he had it on double video-CD. Clearly he was the one for me.
(Northern Lovely, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 13:33, 1 reply)

The SOM
I'm serious - the Sound of Music is a great film. I was in Amsterdam for a stag weekend a few years ago, and was renting an apartment with four other blokes. It came time to think about going out for the Saturday late afternoon drinking/smoking shift, when lo and behold! The SOM on dutch telly!
"I'll catch up with you guys, I haven't seen this for a couple of years..."
Cue massive pisstaking, from 4 guys looking over my shoulder and seeing what I was about to settle down to.
"Fuck off, the lot of you" I replied, politely.
An hour later, I turned around to find 3 of the 4 still standing, watching over my shoulder.
Even better, when we later caught up with no. 4, who had joined the rest of the pack, he admitted that he had left after 45 mins because we were coming up to a bit that "always makes me cry".
I rest my case.
( blyerkit e k trilby, Fri 18 Jul 2008, 11:32, Reply)

Love Conquers Oil
A wide beach at sunset. A woman resembling Meg Ryan (for it is she) walks along the water's edge, her bare feet pressing into the sand. She thinks back to her childhood when she threw a message in a bottle into the sea. That message read "I love the earth/I love the sea/We must protect it/To keep it free".

Melancholic strings soar in the background.

In the comfortably yet masculinely furnished lighthouse, the lighthouse keeper who looks a lot like Tom Hanks (for it is he) reads the paper, plays with his golden retriever Goldie and polishes his bulb. He thinks back to the day he found a message in a bottle with a poem in it. He ponders on the simple beauty of this poem as he feeds his tame, one-legged pet seagull named Cap'n.

A few weeks later, both independent people co-incidentally find themselves in a court room. Environmental journalist and activist Meg is accused of causing an oil spill by attacking an oil tanker belonging to evil oil tycoon Kevin Costner (for it is he). Lighthouse keeper Tom is giving evidence, for he saw the whole thing from his lighthouse.

"I could never cause such damage," cries blondie Meg. "For when I was a child I made a pledge to the sea. I wrote a poem and I put it in a bottle and I swore that my love for nature would guide my life."

Strings soar again as Tom realises she is, in fact, his Dream Woman. But Oh Noes! He is giving evidence against her!

Tom risks it all for love, and shows his contempt for the court by refusing to testify against brave, fluffy Meg. Violins reach a crescendo as they embrace outside the courtroom. But Kevin the evil oil tycoon has other ideas. he instigates a riot and second-tall-man-with-pipe-wrench (for it is he) hurts a lawyer and poor Meg is blamed for causing controversy.

A month later, Meg has cleared her reputation and the happy couple are cuddling on the tastefully-furnished-but-now-with-a-woman's-touch-like-scatter-cushions couch in the lighthouse. The blond dog lies at their feet.

"There's a storm a-comin'," remarks Tom. He gets up to check his equipment. All of a sudden - what a startlingly dramatical coincidence enhanced by ominous cello strains! - he espies the Kevin the oil tycoon's luxury yacht in trouble.

"I must help him!" he cries "Even if he caused trouble for us and blackened our reputation. We are good people with good consciences!" and he grabs his oars and pulls hard.

Meg stands, alone, alarm bells and hands wringing. She paces the floor, then the stairs, then the beach. She peers through binoculars as the storm gathers force, and wraps herself fetchingly in a blanket as she weeps in concern.

Daylight ends. Night falls.

It is dawn. An eerie silence and the absence of orchestral score signifies something is wrong. Meg stands, forlorn, on the beach and the wood from Tom's dinghy washes up at her feet. She sinks to her knees clutching the dog and sobbing.

But wait! What is that? It's a life raft, and a helicopter, and the coastguard and uplifting music! Tom has saved the day! As he is brought to shore the joyous couple both abandon their blankets and rush into each other's arms where Tom kisses her tenderly and swears they will never be apart again. In gratitude, Kevin the oil tycoon realises the error of his ways and vows never to harm the environment again.

Tom and Meg are married on the clifftop by the lighthouse in the evening sun with the dog as a witness and an audience of seagulls. Happy music to fade.

Note: this film does not exist so I had to make it up, but it would be the best film ever if all other films were even more rubbish.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 17:32, 4 replies)

Conan The Barbarian is the greatest film of all time because…
Conan The Barbarian is the greatest film of all time because…

The film opens in a winter scene in what we’re assuming is a Sumerian village in the deep, deep BC’s. The scene is idyllic; Young Conan helps his mother do laundry or something while his seriously badass Dad breaks things. You can tell he is badass because of his badass beard. It’s badass and he is wearing furs.

However, interspersed with this idyllic scene is the onset of an advancing horde whose intention is clear; rape, pillage, plunder. Once Conan’s Dad realises this, he does the only thing a proper badass should do; he grabs his sword and starts slaying horde members as well as their horses. Eventually he is mowed down as the village burns, all of the adults slain and the children taken as slaves.

Before this, however, Conan’s seriously hot Mother grabs a sword and attempts to protect Conan from James Earl Jones, heretofore known as Falsa Doom. Even though she is both severely hot and badass, Falso Doom decapitates her whilst Conan watches. There’s even a slo-mo of his Mothers decapitated head falling as Conan watches and her hand slides from his. It’s completely awesome.

We cut to the children being marched across the steppes or plains or whatever until they reach a mill of sorts. It’s wicked windy and the thing could probably be run by wind power but this is not important as what follows next can only be described as completely awesome. The children are tied to the mill and ordered to turn it by a 6ft 6” version of Gimley from LOTR and a time lapse sequence of probably 5-7 years occurs as Conan gets fucking huge. Arnie had just won his millionth Mr. Universe competition and was freakishly large.

As Conan reaches the pinnacle of his hugeness, Giant Gimley cuts his bonds and takes him out on the prehistoric ultimate fighting circuit. At first, Conan is timid and he takes a whuppin’ but realising taking a whuppin’ means getting dead, he gets his arse in gear and puts a kimura on a dude so bad, he smashes his fucking arm off. It is, quite frankly, completely awesome.

Giant Gimley starts to really dig Conan and treats him like a son insofar as he would send his own son out to fight to the death whilst he eats chicken. Eventually though, he gets him Ninja lessons and Conan becomes a serious badass with a sword just like his Father. Giant Gimleys affection is finally confirmed however over desert BBQ one evening when Giant Gimley asks all present, “What is best in life?”

Various badasses come up with nonsense about eagles soaring over plains and fine wine and such but Giant Gimley is having none of it so he asks Conan.

And in an Oscar worthy performance, Conan says (correctly), “Crush your enemies. See them driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women” in a near flawless Sumerian (Austrian) accent.

The next morning, Giant Gimley sets Conan free. Well, free insofar as his chains are cut but he is still bound in them and he’s being chased by murderous looking dogs. He jumps into a cave and discovers the throne of Krom. Cue flashback – Conans Father explaining to him ‘The Riddle Of Steel’ and how Krom is his God. It’s total gibberish but it doesn’t matter. Conan cuts his binds with Kroms sword and heads off into his new life.

Along the way, he meets a tiny oriental looking fellow who trains him in the art of thievery and survival and such. They get mashed drunk, have a grand old time and whilst pissing himself laughing at a dude fucking a camel, Conan knocks the camel out with one punch. It’s awesome.

Meanwhile, more and more pilgrims are arriving in the town in which they find themselves. They have come to worship Conan’s nemesis; Falsa Doom. Falsa Doom has a giant snake protecting a diamond the size of a basketball to which he sacrifices willing virgins in his temple. Conan and his mate decide to steal it.

As they are climbing into Falsa Dooms castle, they discover a hot badass blonde chick with a sword with a similar plan. Rather than neutralise each other, they collaborate. They pull the heist off but not without some glitches. Conan has to kill the giant snake and yer wan has to pretend to be a virgin. The giant snake is about the thickness of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s torso and 50 feet long or so. For a film made in 1980 something, the animatronics are not rubbish. They are however, no match for Conan.

So the three of them set about having a jolly old time on their winnings as they cross the country in pursuit of more and more jolly old times but Conan’s thirst for revenge appears unsated as his path seems to be leading him once again to Falsa Doom.

Having made camp on the coast nearby with his two allies, they befriend a wizard played brilliantly by the Japanese actor; Mako’ (he was in Tora! Tora! Tora! You know!).

Conan then infiltrates the pilgrims in order to see Falsa Doom speak but he is spotted by one of Falsa’s henchmen and taken captive. After some torturing and lecturing in a shoddy attempt at a wholly unnecessary plot twist, they crucify him. For several days, Conan hangs on ‘The Tree Of Woe’ (for that is its name) whilst vultures attempt to gnaw at his flesh. Conan battles even then, biting vultures and sucking their blood when they rest on his shoulder.

Eventually, his little oriental bud arrives and rescues him. The wizard attempts to heal him but Conan must first do battle with the spirits. They tether his body to the ground and paint him with cuneiform lettering. As the spirits arrive to take him to death, blonde chick tries to fight them off and unwittingly saves him by promising her own life for his in a fit of devotion.

When Conan awakes, he is resolved to take on Falsa Doom once and for all. You can probably guess the rest.

Now, whilst most of this summary has detailed the plot, there is much more yet to speak of. Conan’s screenplay was written by Oliver Stone and John Milius had a hand in both its direction and production. Conan The Barbarian stood alone as a comic book/graphic novel long before the film and is thus one of the first ever ‘comic book movies’ thus trailblazing a now promulgated genre.

It is beautifully shot, the costumes, swordplay and acting is excellent. James Earl Jones is a thoroughly convincing bad guy despite an utterly appalling hairdo. His bloodless expression and his eyes were piercing pools of blue in his youth - utterly hypnotic. Not to mention, THAT voice! If you look up the pics from the film, you will also notice his two henchmen look like Lemmy (of Motorhead) and Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden). (It’s not them though – shame).

So, see this film and do not judge it as an Arnie flick – it is so much more and Arnie, pre-superstardom is brilliant in it.

Apologies for my use of Merkin-style phraseology like ‘badass’ and ‘awesome!!!’ but these words are completely accurate in this case.

Other bonuses include a smashing set of boobies or two.

Admittedly, this film is not for girls.

rafter!
baz

EDIT: Conan The Destroyer is shit as is Red Sonia. They sully the masterpiece that is 'Barbarian'.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Thu 17 Jul 2008, 16:30, 6 replies)