• home • about • twitter • archives • subscribe • email •

Back from WOMAD, grubby and tired but happy. Chic and Squeeze absolutely stormed their sets as you might expect but Dengue Fever and Paprika Balkanicus are well worth your time should they ever cross your path.

Anyway, so what did I miss? I see Gordon lost another by-election. Didn’t even make it to being a nine-day wonder did it, that story? Not much enthusiasm for it, is there? It’s as if the whole country is too hot and tired, and knows that it’s screwed no matter what it does anyway.

It’s the measure of the man that I can’t get particularly riled about his policies anymore (let’s face it, they’re not his anyway – they’re a stinking moth-eaten inheritance that he’s desperately clinging to in the vain hope they might be worth something someday – and we’ve been angry at them for far too long).

But he only has to stumble onto the television screen with his greasy hair and his suit that always looks like he’s slept in it and the way his tie looks like he’s just learned to tie it (badly), and I want to kick something. Preferably the loser in question. I know it’s just icing on the cake we’re talking about here, but it doesn’t matter what a cake tastes like if it looks like a pile of dog eggs – not many people will want to eat it.

I perused the front pages at a service station on our way home this morning and just one newspaper had Gordon’s plight on page one. I’ll put money on him taking the weasel way out – he’ll take the party with him when he evetually goes: ‘If I go, I’m taking the lot of you with me,’ he’s growling to himself right now.

Anyway. I returned home to 2292 unread entries on the RSS reader. Tell momma I won’t be home for supper. There were 19 stories from the website of Empire film magazine. It really gave a snapshot of how boned popular culture is these days…

1. Oliver Stone biopic (verisimilitude is not Ollie’s middle name)
2. Sequel to mediocre vampire franchise (without original star)
3. ‘Call-me-Sir’ Ben Kingsley in his forthcoming appearance in a video game adaptation.
4. An indie movie only getting a mention because you might know the people in it.
5. Comic-book adaptation takes a bajillion dollars.
6. Umpteenth Robin Hood reboot gets the boot.
7. Schwarzenegger franchise, now without Schwarzenegger, grinds on.
8. Another vampire franchise gets the go-ahead.
9. Sci-fi remake.
10. Critical success/box office failure hoves into view.
11. A sequel to a film made 26 years ago that’s not as good as you think/remember. The sequel’s been called TR2N by someone who will hopefull die a slow, lingering death.
12. Comic-book adaptation.
13. A Bridgette Nielsen remake (for God’s sake).
14. A third Harold and Kumar movie (one was too many).
15. Another vampire movie.
16. Comic-book adaptation.
17. Another sci-fi franchise reboot. A franchise that that choked after the first instalment.
18. Guy Ritchie is doing Sherlock Holmes (because he hasn’t defecated on our culture enough).
19. Jeopardy-free comic-book prequel. What is it with prequels anyway? You know none of the main characters are going to die because they have to appear in the chronologically later movies. They’re their very own spoilier. So, let’s pay our money to see which bit-player/stunt casting/thirty-second cameo gets the bullet.

Sci-fi remakes. Vampire franchises. Sci-fi franchise remakes. Sci-fi vampire comic book adaptations. Hollywood hates you. If a relative treated you with this amount of abuse and highly public insults to your intelligence, you’d emigrate.

No, I haven’t returned rested.