Off The Fucking Chain


Monday 25 January 2010

Vampires

Unless you've been hiding in away in a bin for the last couple of years you've probably noticed that vampires have saturated popular culture. They're on TV, in movies and even in the music scene with tubby super producer Timbaland as some sort of weird vampire in the video for 'Morning After Dark' where he twitches around like some sort of un-dead bell end with toretts. It seems you can't turn around without the pale blood sucking bastards staring back at you. But at what point did they start pissing everybody off?

Well let's not waste any time dancing around it...Twilight. Yes this not just a movie but a phenomenon, or cult to you and me. Now I know the target audience for this movie is tween girls who can think of nothing better than teasing one out over Robert Pattinson, but a lot haters haven't actually seen the movie. I feel to truly hate something properly you need to have seen it so you can get genuinely angry at the mere though of this sorry excuse for a vampire move. Otherwise your just pissing and moaning like the goons in this movie. If you do make the choice to embrace the hate, download it or watch it on TV otherwise the film studio will make money and put the next god awful movie into production. So anyways, Twilight focuses on the unbelievingly boring Bella and comb-less albino Edward. I'm sure there's a plot in there somewhere but it's not obvious to anyone outside the aforementioned target audience. The main issue I have with the 'Twilight Saga' is they've taken something as bad ass as vampires and turned them in to whiney pussies. Instead of running around killing people and fucking shit up they go to school and drink deer blood. Lame. Unfortunetly the series won't be stopping anytime soon because of what I like to call the Titanic effect, which is where tweens are not content seeing the movie once at the cinema and flock in mass which means these movies are grossing upwards of 200 million dollars. The bastards.

At the other end of the vampire spectrum is bloodsucking fuck fest True Blood. True Blood is set in the cliche southern small town of Bon Temp in Louisiana. The main characters are the ridiculously named Bill (rugged southern vampire gentleman) and Sookie (short skirt wearing mind reading loon) played by Steven Moyer and Anna Paquin. Unlike Twilight, True Blood is full of fucking, literally full of it. The lions share of the bonking is carried out by ex-Home and Away man meat Ryan Kwanten who can't seem to go an episode without getting his dick wet. The rest of the boning is done by Sookie and Bill. Sookie starts the series a shy virgin but around mid season she's fucking Bill as he rises out the ground butt naked covered in dirt, which I'm sure would just create some kind of horrible fanny mud. The show is actually quite entertaining although its not without it's flaws. Alan Ball is so unsubtle with his handling of this project he may as well just scream "the vampires represent gays" straight into the camera every five minutes just incase someone doesn't pick up on the subtext, and for some reason I'm able to accept the concept of a universe where vampires exist. But when you throw in a bar owner that can transform into a dog? That's not even useful. Why not just have every supernatural thing you can think of just show up? Fuck it, have zombies and wizards running about bumming each other. Go nuts.

Now I couldn't bang on about vampires without mentioning the really rather good Let The Right One In, a swedish film directed by Tomas Alfredson based on the book of the same name by John Ajvide Linqvist. Let The Right One In doesn't depict vamps as the cliche blood hungry kung-fu Matrix outcasts we've seen a million times before, instead the vampire here is a mysterious little girl called Eli who forms a special bond with fellow loner 12 year old Oskar, set to the backdrop of snowy Switzerland circa 1982. Although this sounds lamer than watching a two hour documentary on the history of paperclips it's genuinely awesome and engrossing. Because this movie is so good a Hollywood remake is already in the works and will no doubt do its best to shit all over the original. I suggest seeing it soon so you can talk about how cool you are and how Hollywood is raping world cinema.

Wednesday 13 January 2010

Celebrity Big Brother AKA Zombie TV

The term 'Celebrity' is loosely used here by channel 4 to describe the contestants or victims (take your pick) of Celebrity Big Brother. While channel surfing one evening I flicked it on for what seemed like a second only to discover it was actually 40 minutes. So what happened to that 40 mins of my life that I can't get back?

As uninspired as the premise for the show is, there is something strangely hypnotic about watching failing celebrities on their way down delude each other about their status, talking about how they hate that they can't leave the house without being mobbed by the paparazzo when in reality most people wouldn't even recognize the daft bastards.

From what I can gather from my initial viewing the king of the loons is agent of God Steven Baldwin - you know that Baldwin brother.......no not that one the other one. I'm actually one of the few people that enjoyed his movie 'Bio Dome' despite the fact it co-starred Paully 'The Weasel' Shore and Kyle 'Horses Teeth' Minogue. Steven's conversational topics are along the lines of how he'd rather his daughter was murdered than have her say Jesus doesn't exist aloud, not merely a conversation but more an expert demonstration on how to make everyone around you feel horribly uncomfortable.

Another mind bending character that stood out to me was Jonas 'Basshunter' Altberg, a man who revealed that he has wanked off more times in a day than Ashley Cole has fucked rough hairdressers. To be fair though he is Swedish and they are far more relaxed with their attitude to sex, just look at footballer's sperm dumpster Ulreka Johnson.

The weirdest of the bunch is Katia Ivanova who's only reason for being in the house is she has sucked off an elderly piss head. Now what separates her from the thousands of sex workers across the land is this particular piss head is in the Rolling Stones. I couldn't help but wait on the edge of my seat for her to explain why she's a celebrity to the other housemates.

Last of the vessels that caught my attention was Heidi Fleiss, who incase you don't know was a Hollywood madam - which is just a fancy name for a female pimp. If your like me and expected her to run around backhanding the female housemates and calling them bitches you'll be bitterly disappointed as she just sits around doing bugger all with a face that looks as though she's permanently sat on the worlds scariest roller coaster.

While my encounter with Celebrity Big Brother was brief it certainly left it's mark. No doubt I will be caught under it's brain raping spell again as Devina McCall slips metaphorical Roofies into the Bacardi Breezer that is my mind.

Wednesday 6 January 2010

Meth Breath

If your currently feeling at all down about yourself or life in general, then help is at hand in the form of Louis Theroux's latest documentary The City Addicted To Meth. It focuses on a place called Fresno in California. A place so shit that there's nothing to do but smoke crystal meth.

In the show we are shown a range of users of crystal meth, from the young hoodlums, to the long time users....and that's it. But one thing all the users in the show have in common is their horrific up bringing and current situation, which they seem to treat extremely lightly. Whether their parents were too busy smoking meth till their brains turned into a carbonated drink, arrested or were generally not around, or were raped by meth dealers as kids (yeah it gets mentioned in passing, no biggy), which to you and me sounds horrific but in Fresno thats just life as usual. Perhaps it's this casual attitude to the darker side of life which becomes so creepy and unnerving.

Louis gets to spend some quality time with a group of guys who all smoke meth, one of which started when they were 11. I preferred video games but what ever floats your boat. They go back to the one mans house where they're joined by more guys to hang out and smoke. While they're hanging out there are a bunch of kids running around. Then some more of this guys friends turn up with a bunch of electrical equipment, stereos, DVD plays and Louis asks "where did they come from?" and one of them replies "someone's house" while this is hilarious you can't help but think some poor bastard's just been robbed. At one point one of the mash heads asks if Louis is temped to try some meth, needless to say he doesn't but in the name of impartial journalism I can't help but feel he should have.

Another thing you'll notice as the show progresses is that these meth heads all have kids. Not just the one kid though, five. For some reason meth makes you want to get down and jiggy. So you end up with drug heads with five kids who they can't look after because they're too busy smoking meth or slammin meth, which is injecting it. This is the method of choice for Carl, one of the individuals featured in the show. He and his wife Diane are long term users, they don't see there kids or have jobs, yet some how they go through $100 a day on meth. It's not clear if that's each or as a couple but i'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say couple. So somehow this couple rinse through $700 of meth a week, $2800 a month, $33,600 a year. If that alone doesn't make you pull your poo face then this will; the woman is training to become a drugs councilor. Yeah that's right, the woman who pisses thousands of dollars a month on meth is training to become a drugs councilor. Well at least she'll know her subject matter, it's like having alcoholics anonymous meetings hosted by a pissed up tramp.

The last quarter of the show Louis catches up with some of the people he's met throughout the show. One lady in particular Sentika, who Louis met at a drug rehabilitation centre, then again when she got to visit her daughter is in jail. After leaving drug rehabilitation she moved back in with her boyfriend who is a meth head. Well there's your first mistake. She reveals that after meeting Louis the second time while visiting her daughter she went and got high. Nice.

Just when you think you've seen all the horrors and depravity mankind can offer, the show starts to wind down. The police just happen to come across a nut case going crazy at some woman. When they search the man the police find a big knife. Then the mans wife shows up and reveals that the woman he's fighting with is his sister and he has sex with her. Thats right, you read correctly. The meth head who's carrying the big knife is fighting with his sister who he also has sex with. So next time you think your life has shit the bed just think back to Louis Theroux's City Addicted To Meth and think hey at least I'm not having sex with a close relative and addicted to meth.