Retarded Reviews: Casino Royale

Published by Dead Badger on 30th December, 2006.

Retarded as in “late”, that is. En retard. Other retardation is strictly normal. Spoilers abound, because you’ve already seen it. Unless you haven’t, in which case: what are you; retarded? (readers in Chile exempt, of course…)

So. Saw the new Bond movie. It’s pretty good. It leaves every male audience member subconsciously doing swishy things with their jacket, and trying to emulate that sort of flicky-footed stride that Brosnan did so well. So, if you think you’ll be amused by a corridor full of dewy-eyed malcoordinates looking like they’re trying to kick to death a horde of invisible chihuahuas, I strongly recommend hanging around outside showings of this movie. The alternative is developing some sort of chihuahua cloaking technology and loitering at clinics for goths with household pet phobias, and I know which I’d go for.

We all know what we expect from a Bond movie by now, and by and large, this movie doesn’t deliver. This is a good thing. Granted, there’s still a fair bit of quippery and dubious seductive dialogue, but it’s all done with a healthy amount of (whisper it) irony to go along with the cheese. Things almost veer too far in this direction, in fact; at some points the movie seems to come crashing to a halt in order to send up some bit of Bond lore, as if the writers felt the need to sledgehammer the audience with the message that THIS IS DIFFERENT. Coming shortly after Bond (with a complete lack of irony) explodes the bottom of a man who was trying to drive an airport truck into a prototype passenger jet, this gets a bit rich*.

But still: there’s no Q. No-one tells Bond to “pay attention”. No missiles are fired from the front of an implausible car. There aren’t any lasers, let alone sharks. The only car chase ends in about 8 seconds, without the two cars getting anywhere near each other, let alone using their ejector seats. While the airport duel is pretty classic Bond, it’s almost incidental in the bigger picture. This could be because the bigger picture is rather confusing, the screenwriting equivalent of a Picasso; noses everywhere, other limbs wherever they fit.

This didn’t really matter much, because the plot was just an excuse to get the characters in one room, in tuxedos. This movie involved poker. Quite a lot of poker. Even if you ignore the double-entendre potential of the word “poker”, as the script remarkably does, there was more than enough to go around. Luckily for those not well-versed in the ins and outs of high stakes Hold ‘Em, there was a bumbling french character on hand to explain what was going on to the Bond girl.

“Zey are all in; zat means ‘ooever wins zis ‘and is ze winner.”

Ze Bond girl in question was of course a highly experienced international banker sent to oversee the management of $15 million, but it was still nice of him to fill her in on this basic matter of betting protocol. Nonetheless, Eva Green survived this outrageous patronisation and gave every impression of being really rather clever, despite spending almost all of her screen time being overtly leered over by both Jim and the surrogate Clouseau.

The last line of the movie is The Line, studiously avoided for the preceding two and a half hours. After about 45 minutes of false endings, a ludicrously tacked-on romance, betrayal, counter-betrayal, revelation and catastrophic loss, Daniel Craig finally shoots someone right in the fucking ankle (grrr!). He stands over their cowering form and says:

“The name’s Bond. James Bond.”

And he is.

* For those curious as to how one might ironically explode a potential terrorist’s bottom, the trick is to find a terrorist hell-bent on blowing up a liposuction lab.

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Rap battlin’ for Jesus

Published by Dead Badger on 20th December, 2006.

Oxford Circus EvangelistAnyone who lives in London (or who has committed the usual visitor’s error of heading straight for Oxford Circus on arrival) will be familiar with the Oxford Circus Evangelist. At possibly the world’s busiest pedestrian crossing, he does for the traffic islanders what his predecessors did for the Pacific Islanders. “Don’t be a sinner … be a winner!” he shouts. “Give up your sin … and let Jesus in!”

Rhyme is clearly important for effective proselytising.

I don’t think it’s so much about converting the poor souls trying to cross the road, though (they barely notice the buses bearing down on them as they risk their lives to reach the Nike Store, so threats on behalf of anything less corporeal than a number 52 go largely unheeded). I think it’s more about establishing who, in fact, is the biggest, baddest, rhymingest preacher on the block.

Competition for the OCE is sparse, though; he’s been keeping it moderately real for years now without a change in patter, but without a serious challenge for his crown. I saw him destroy one poor young girl who’d turned up without even a loud speaker to help her. Unwisely, she lets him get the first word.

“Don’t be a sinner … be a winner!” he crows, going straight for the tried and trusted line.

“Um, yeah,” his challenger starts, unpromisingly. “The thing about Jesus, right, is that, um, he really loves you…”

“God is likes Tesco’s. Every little helps!”

“And if you, um, love him back, uh, well…”

“Don’t be shy, give God a try!”

The audience know it’s all over bar the shouting (and they wish that was over too), and so, dispirited, our wannabe slopes off to less competitive climes; at least the GOLF SALE guys don’t answer back. The indomitable OCE (whose name, it turns out, is Phil*) is confirmed as the top dog of traffic island for another day.

Now, the big man wasn’t there yesterday, but a fresh-faced newcomer was to be seen indulging in a spot of freestyle in his absence. I’m not promising fireworks, but as an evangelical gambit this is easily the match of anything Phil has to call on, and was delivered with a fair bit more gusto. Yes, my ears nearly turned Episcopalian when I heard:

“EENY! MEENY! MINEY! MO! GOD! WILL NEVER! LET! YOU GO!”

I’m heading back this afternoon, and nothing short of a full-scale evangelical rap battle will satisfy me, complete with disses. “Your rhymes are so poor they’ll probably inherit the face of this earth,” suggests Penultimate on “Listen to This” by the Nextmen. But which of our couplet crusaders does he refer to? It’s going to be hectic, and nothing less than the soul of the high street is at stake.

* Some of the guys from b3ta.com did an interview with him, which you can read here…

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Why things are funny (1): Custard

Published by Dead Badger on 6th December, 2006.

CustardAs half-heartedly implied by the ”(1)” in the title, this is intended to be the first in a recurring series explaining why things are funny. It’s not going to be an ontological exercise in categorising all things as funny or not funny; that would be ridiculous. This is just a resource for those who frequently find themselves wondering what all the fuss is about while their peers fall about laughing (falling itself is very funny indeed, and will be covered in a later post). I have decided to start with custard.

Custard is funny for several reasons, most of which have to do with its name, and none of which have anything to do with being poured in to people’s trousers. That is not funny. Here are the reasons:

  1. Named in 1407, not after its maker but for the first person to die from it, custard was originally administered topically, with a skilled custardier earning more than two and a half groats per swannytide (excluding tips). This is about the same as a modern-day footballer at League Two level.
  2. Modern-day footballers consume 36% of the world’s custard output, applying it to their scrotums to maintain flexibility in the tackle.
  3. Long before the concepts of police oversight and accountability were born, the phrase “quis custardiet ipsos custardes?” was muttered sotto voce by many a rich family’s personal custardee, reflecting disquiet at the fact that the retainer in question would surely be facing a meal of gruel and hair while the lords of the manor feasted on the fruits of his labour.
  4. Custard has been responsible for numerous armed conflicts since its invention. The Boston Tea Party was originally intended to involve crème anglaise, but this was abandoned at the last minute in favour of a more robust clotted cream.
  5. Made thick enough, it no longer goes “splat”, but rather, “bonk”.
  6. It is reputed that if one holds a carafe of custard to the ear, stifled giggles can be heard, as one might at the funeral of Noel Edmonds.

Next week, old people: funny, or merely funny-smelling? We investigate.

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And share with otters

Published by Dead Badger on 15th November, 2006.

Otter Pope

I was an altar boy in my youth (misspent in a very real sense). Cassocks, monstronces, sacristies; such were my domain. I did a good line in self-effacing crossing of the altar that would stand me in good stead in later life (pitching up late for seminars is much like mistiming one’s walk down the aisle; a well-timed and immaculately judged bow in the speaker’s direction, and all is forgiven). On the down side, the incense used to make me pass out and I could never remember the name of the thurim- no, thumbi- ah, here we go: “thurible”. You got to nab the dregs of the wine if you were quick, though (naughty, yes, but barely alcoholic in any case), and messing with the charcoal burner was always fun.

Still, this didn’t excuse me from various Catholic practices (no, not those – back then the rhythm method and premature withdrawal were but dance moves and euphemisms for giving up my latest musical instrument). No, things such as First Confession, First Communion and the like, laden with Significant Capitals. First Confession was a good ‘un; a breeding ground for a lifetime of guilt. Being our very First confession (designed to expurgate all those original sins prior to First Communion), it obviously had a lot riding on it. A conscientious 8-year-old, I set about recalling all my sins to date.

Go on; you try it.

Perhaps not having quite passed Piaget’s Concrete Operational Stage of cognitive development (at least, this was my reasoning at the time), I found myself drawing a blank. What had I done wrong, exactly? Not only originally sinless, in my mind I was pretty damn clean since birth. Certainly any harm I had caused was deserved, no? This in itself presented problems. Clearly, God wanted me to admit something, so my failure to think of even one thing was rather serious. Brains were wracked, abortive diaries were ransacked, fictions were considered. Assuming I couldn’t come up with anything concrete, how creative should I get, I wondered? Generic selfishness seemed too prosaic – unlikely to fool a priest of as many years’ experience as Father Louis. Conversely, I was unwilling to ‘fess up to having violated a nun – too lurid; too Tarantino for a suburban diocese’s consumption.

My ruminations continued until the dreaded day – until the head of the queue even, many of my peers having gone forth and proffered plausible misdeeds, to be rewarded with the first of many doses of all-too-temporary absolution. Now I’m sat on the priest’s knee (no giggling), and still I haven’t concocted anything. “Well, my child?” says the priest.

Valiantly I stab out at the last criticism I remember receiving at school. Tragically, nervousness takes over, and I botch it.

“I … I, er, I don’t share well with otters?”

To his credit, the priest doesn’t bat an eyelid. A slight roll of the eyes later, a weary, “is that all?” and clemency is mine. 8 years of otter molestation are forgiven, dismissed with a wave of whatever appendage the Trinity might be said to possess. Relief; blessed relief.

On the way home I remember kicking over a young playmate’s toy farmyard in a fit of livestock-poor pique a mere week previously. In an instant I advance to the fourth cognitive stage, and reason to myself that in a very real sense, we are all otters, therefore this transgression too has been forgiven.

I go forth, and do unto otters as I would have them do unto me.

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Ageing by rail

Published by Dead Badger on 14th November, 2006.

The year is 2006. The month, November. The time, 16.55 (expected). I sit in my lavishly downholstered South West Trains bucket seat, accumulating other people’s dandruff from the headrest, and wonder how on earth my neighbour manages to snore, operate his Blackberry and emit a sort of whistling sound from an unknown orifice all at once (he appears to be attempting to orchestrate the Marseillaise for the Intestinal Discomfort, accompanied by the Polyphonic Ringtone). I don’t get the chance to ask, however, as he is soon distracted by the snack trolley, the inevitable Twix (“two, please”) adding a sort of projectile verve to his exhalations.

Manfully I drag my attention away from my overflowing companion, and return to my previous ponderings, to wit the fact that I am now 27. One age, indivisible. Tragic. Less time stands between me and my 30th birthday than I have spent on public transport*. I might turn 30 before I get off this train. By rights, I should be thinking about having a mid-life crisis soon, and I can’t afford a sports car. I can barely afford a Tonka Truck™. I have two fewer mobile phones than my neighbour (although why he needs to consult all three at once is a slight mystery). I do have considerably more hair than him, although by this point the headrest has ensured that a lot of it isn’t really mine. This cheers me nonetheless, although I worry that my inadvertent hairpiece will defect at the earliest opportunity; already my newfound strawberry blondes are shedding.

Realising my supposedly deep ruminations are getting continually sidetracked by the orca on my left, I attempt once more to focus. I fail. Apparently it’s quite difficult to review your life successfully without plummetting towards the ground at great speed or being otherwise terminally imperilled. Nor, it seems, does the slim possibility of contracting something nasty from the armrest qualify to have one’s life flash before one’s eyes. Perhaps if I ordered an egg sandwich … but no.

Sod it, then. I’ll think about it next year.

* I realise this is absolute cobblers, but work with me here.

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