Category Archives: Movies

True Grit ? Not Much !

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Now that’s a proper movie trailer ! You can’t beat a good western. 40 years ago every Bank Holiday you could be sure one of the three tv stations would show The Magnificent 7 or High Noon. Alias Smith and Jones was the most popular tv show in our house (mainly cos my mum fancied Pete Duel) and The High Chaparral was high in the ratings, even though my dad reckoned it was a poor man’s Bonanza . “Saturday Morning Pictures” at the local cinema always showed Champion the Wonder Horse. It was fantastic.

As a spotty herbert growing up in south east London, me and my equally spotty mates would mosey on down to the Ponderosa, armed to the teeth with cap guns and plastic bowie knives, pretending to be Gary Cooper, Clint Eastwood or even Alan Ladd (the cowboy of choice for the shorter 6 yr old). Cum Christmas time everyone asked for a cowboy outfit, long before that phrase became synonymous with Virgin Media or the FA.

But few parents shied away in buying their offspring fake Smith & Wessons, dads happily made their sons bows n arrows and no one thought for one minute that they were nurturing little Johnny into the next mass murderer or serial killer. At the time of writing I have never shot, stabbed or scalped a single person who didn’t deserve it, even though as a kid I had every weapon the local toy shop could offer, (I regularly watched Tom & Jerry too).

Kids played in the streets for hours and hours, filling the air with “piow, piow” sounds and “woo woo woo woo” noises as the cowboys chased the injuns around the houses, up the avenues and down the alleyways until our mums called us all in for our tea. If you walked down my road during any school holiday you couldn’t escape the smell of sulphur from the hundreds of cap gun shots fired that day. You’d probably find the the odd sucker-tipped arrow in your garden, next to the empty Jubbly cartons and Jamboree Bags (cowboys and injuns ate on the go).

I remember one afternoon me and my mate Alan Martin were hiding behind Mrs Baker’s garden wall, waiting to ambush some redskins who were creeping up the road, baying for white man’s blood, using the Unigate Dairies’ milk float as cover. These braves lived in the block of flats at the top of the road and we knew they’d soon be off home to watch Pinky n Perky and Mrs Baker’s garden was the perfect spot to cut them off at the pass. I checked my holster string was tight around my thigh, I pulled my neckerchief (my mum’s paisley scarf) up over my nose and mouth and checked I had a full reel of caps in my gun.

As I did so a warm feeling overcame me. Alan must have had one Jubbly too many that day cos in the excitement he decided to relieve himself down the back of my leg. The unmistakable sensation of someone else’s tepid urine saturating my jeans caused me to leap out of my hidey-hole and my cover was blown. I turned to remonstrate with my once partner, probably should have pistol-whipped him, but chose to burst into tears instead. As the woo woo woos started up and the arrows rained down on on us, Alan ran away and I stood there in a puddle of piss, not caring if the injuns scalped me, skinned me or strung me up by my nipples. I squelched home, ignoring the cries of “you’re dead, Bealing, you’re dead !”. I was steaming. Literally.

Things were never the same after that. I went off being a cowboy and took up cricket instead, though I always refused to go into bat if Alan was wicket keeping. When I eventually got to see True Grit a couple of years later I absolutely loved it. Never having been a huge fan of “Da Duke”, this was the best thing I’d ever seen him in. He was funny, he was horrible and for once wasn’t taking himself too seriously. I wanted to go out and buy myself an eye-patch, and if it wasn’t for the spector of my mate’s weak bladder I probably would have.

Westerns were changing. The old white hat/black hat world of Gary Cooper was over. Even Clint, who was slick and sleek in Rawhide, was still the goody but was now unshaven, mean and moody. I wasn’t allowed to watch most of these nasty, bloodthirsty movies, and I had to wait some time before I could find out for myself if there was indeed any spaghetti in them.

Then for years the genre (yes, I used it) went missing. They went out of favour, certainly in Hollywood, with just the odd European oddity making it to cult status. The late 70’s and 80’s were littered with cheesey cobblers like The Long Riders or Young Guns. But when Lonesome Dove came along in 1989 there was some hope that somewhere, someone was thinking along the right lines. Dances with Wolves quickly followed, then came The Unforgiven, many people’s favourite “cowboy” of all time. Things were really warming up. Wyatt Earp, Tombstone, and Ned Kelly were all thoroughly enjoyable romps and Brokeback Mountain evoked memories of the time when men were men and other men were glad of their company.

But when No Country for Old Men was released in 2007, closely followed by The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford I could have happily have died with my boots on there and then. Surely it couldn’t get any better than this ? They looked beautiful and felt good. These were adult movies like they started making in the 60’s and the 70’s before they forgot how to. We were back to Little Big Man, The Wild Bunch and A Man Called Horse. That’s worth a Yee-Harr in anyone’s language.

Now, just when I was thinking it couldn’t get any better, look what they’ve gone and done. Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn and Matt Damon as, er, Glen Campbell. I’m in heaven ! I don’t need my old mate any more – I’m nearly wetting myself with excitement, waiting for the movie to open early next year. As I should have said to Alan on that fateful, moist afternoon: “Fill Your Hands, You Son of a Bitch”.

Kissing Hitler (and everyone else)

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Ok, ok, so it may not have been his finest hour. But for many of us of a certain age The Persuaders was our first real glimpse of the man that was Tony Curtis. The Boston Strangler out over-acting Simon Templar. Harry Houdini out safari-suiting James Bond. Whatta guy! Only then did we start to realise what we’d been missing. So this was who our mums had been swooning over for all those years, and this was the piece of manhood for which the young ladies of Hollywood had been gagging since the late 1940s.

Women (and no doubt some men) all over the world swooned as he wielded rope and handcuffs as the Strangler and Houdini, wore next to nothing in The Vikings and Spartacus and even melted when he wore a faux Herman Goering number in The Great Race. In Some Like it Hot he gave a wonderful Cary Grant impersonation and made for a pretty decent woman. If he’d been a young actor today he’d be labeled as both a gay icon and a smouldering gift to womankind. The one about who both your girlfriend and her slightly iffy brother would go to bed and thrash themselves to within an inch of their lives. One scene in Spartacus , when Curtis sensuously bathes Laurence Olivier, had to be removed from the original released edit for fear of multiple spontaneous combustions all over the US in movie theatres.

For every classic he starred in he also made a stinker. But by the time The Persuaders came into my life it dawned on me I’d probably missed his best bits, something which couldn’t been said of a legion of Hollywood starlets. Tony liked a bird, and the birds liked him. He’d go onto marry six times, underlining his reputation of a master swordsman, but he most famously had failed to bag the one that everyone wanted- Marilyn. He’s famously quoted as describing kissing Monroe in Some Like it Hot as akin to “Kissing Hitler”. Poor sod. Presumably Janet Leigh gave better lip service to him (perhaps more of a Himmler) as they married and produced Jamie Leigh Curtis, who years later would be, incredibly, at the centre of another gossip-led sexuality debate. (Anyone who’s seen the bedroom scene in True Lies could surely be in no doubt.)

“What’s the secret to a long and happy life? Young women’s saliva!” Tony Curtis

As his movie career waned Curtis took up art, for want of a better word, but never let anything get in the way of beautiful young women and magnificent wigs (some of his syrups would have done Phil Spector proud). But we shouldn’t dwell on the last rather sad few years of this once talented and likeable man, trying vainly to relive his youth and hold back the inevitable passage of time. Nor should we feel anything but mild envy for the life he led. Making 85 as he did is testament to the fact that you really can have your cake and eat it too.

I like to think of him running up and down those oars as that one-handed viking, or wearing a frock and playing the sax for Sweet Sue and Her Society Syncopators.

And let us not forget who first stood up to defend Spartacus. I’m Spartacus! (and so is my wife).

“I wouldn’t be seen dead with a woman old enough to be my wife.” Tony Curtis

Reader’s Indigestion

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According to Pink Floyd it’s the route of all evil today. Liza Minnelli said it made the world go round. Apparently it can’t buy you love, but the Pet Shop Boys wanted to make lots of it. I suppose it must by funny in a rich man’s world, but I’m unlikely experience that. I’m skint and I need a cunning plan. And I ain’t really got one.

I was thinking of writing my memoirs: A no-hold bars account of my life so far, explaining my angst over all the bad things I’ve done in my life and the lies I’ve told, justifying some, defending others, but apologizing for none. I could include a chapter explicitly detailing the sex life with my wife, and throughout the book I could pepper it with references to my closest colleague who took over from me after I left the job. I could then reveal to the world that I always thought he was an idiot, unsuitable for the job, unstable and with a violent temper. I could distance myself from all the cock-ups he made and the disasters that befell the office after I’d stood down from my post. They were, after all, nothing to do with me.

The book would be a best-seller, I’d make millions (I’d ensure it was immediately marked down as half-price in Waterstones and on Amazon, just so even more would be tempted to buy it), and I could travel the country, nay the world giving interviews to the BBC, selling extracts to TIME Magazine and the like. I might even give book-signing sessions in popular stores in big cities.

But what if some of the unenlightened electorate, a section of the great unwashed take umbrage over what I’ve done and start heckling me, or worse start throwing shoes and shit at me. I wouldn’t like that. I want to be loved. I’d have to run and hide, and that wouldn’t look very good, would it? No, perhaps I need to come up with a better plan to make my fortune.

Or perhaps I don’t need to make millions? After all, work is bound to come my way sooner or later, right? Perhaps I just need a cash-injection ? I keep seeing those loan companies advertising on the tv. They offer short-term loans for a modest interest rate. One of the adverts says they offer “typical APR 2689%”. Not sure what’s typical about 2689%, but then again I’m not very good at money. I reckon £20,000 might tie me over til I get myself square. Hopefully that wouldn’t take too long, say a year. If I borrowed it at the typical rate I need only repay £79,565.39. Hmmm…

I’m 46 next month and creeping ever-nearer to the age when I can apply for one of those “Over 50 plans” which Michael Parkinson is always flogging on telly. But life insurance is no good to me, is it? Unless I can get third party.

My complete and utter confidence in my winning the lottery is beginning to wane a little. I haven’t had a sniff of even a tenner for weeks. I dunno what’s going wrong. In the first draft of my autobiography I have blamed The Incumbent for buying the wrong tickets. It definitely isn’t my fault, and I’ll make sue the world knows it. Unless we win tomorrow night then I shall amend the draft to ensure my genius is well documented.

I sought out a dodgy bookie to see if we might work out some way of spot fixing during my next cricket match. He came along to watch the game I was playing in at the weekend. He suggested, having seen me play before, that we might run a book on which part of my body would drop off or explode at any given time during the match. We agreed that on the third ball of the fifth over my right ankle would collapse from under me, leaving me to hobble around in agony. During the 7th over I would make a disastrous attempt of fielding the ball, allowing it to run under my body to the boundary and thus giving the opposition four runs. Finally, before the 2nd ball of the 20th over I would collapse in a heap in the outfield, having gone temporarily blind, and in need of re-hydration. For this I would be handsomely rewarded.

I would have made a fortune if I’d have remembered it was my right ankle that was to give way.Everything else went to plan. Inspector Smellie of the Yard wants to see me, once I have recovered.

But there is a chink of light, a glimmer of hope. There’s a knight in shining armour on the horizon. The 7th Cavalry have arrived and they’ve brought shedloads of cash with ’em. There’s a letter on my dining table which says that Reader’s Digest are going to give me, give me £100,000. All I have to do is wait for a big orange envelope to pop through my letterbox and post back my lucky prize winning numbers. I dunno what I’ve been worried about all along. No bookies needed, no publisher required. Just good, honest, old fashioned, non-intrusive Reader’s Digest. The Milky Bars are on me. Break out the purple quilted smoking jacket and johdpurs.

How many lottery tickets can you buy with £100,000?

The Git & The Galla

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Sir Ivor Cullen and his wife Betty had ham hock for supper last night. I know this because yesterday afternoon I was sitting in front of a guy that was off to dine with them later and I overheard him telling his friends.

In Buenos Aires (that’s in Argentina) a salad starter, followed by a 400g lomo steak (that’s spelt l-o-m-o), with sauteed potatoes, a glass of red wine, then finally rice pudding washed down with a desert wine costs £12.45. Were you aware of that ? No ? Oh well you should have been with me yesterday because you would have learnt all this and more, all from the same dull bloke.

Carluccio’s in St John’s Wood don’t take reservations for lunch – they don’t get very busy. A bottle of Wolf Blass Unoaked Chardonnay costs £22 in Tescos, yet one’s able to buy a bottle of, albeit a plastic bottle here today for just £19. I think that’s very reasonable, don’t you ? He did. It was, he said “one of my favourites”.

So where was I yesterday ? At a meeting of my wine club ? No. Cookery class ? Afraid not. Dining with friends at the Savoy Grill ? Not even close. I was, in fact, watching a cricket match at Lords cricket ground. Or rather I was trying to watch a cricket match, but my concentration and enjoyment was constantly ruined by this bloated English dullard sitting behind me, ‘entertaining’ friends or clients, though who could have been entertained by this fat git, Thomas Lord alone knows.

Ever been at the cinema when a bloke sitting behind you comments or commentates on every scene, recites every punchline or preempts every key scene ? Well you get the gist of my morning at the Home of Cricket. This bloke was boring. I mean he was DULL. Every shot, every ball, every catch, every run: not only did he have a comment or opinion on it, it was clear he knew absolutely sod all about cricket (though I guess I would have to bow to his gastronomic expertise. Judging by the size of him, he worked hard at it). He was wrong or boring or both on a number of subjects. When he produced his holiday snaps from his trip to Buenos Aires, my jaw hit my knees.

I lost count of how many facts and laws of the game he got wrong, and how ignorant he was, well, about everything really. I just know that when he explained what made Shane Warne “one of my favourite swing bowlers” I went for a pint. On my return to my seat he was waxing lyrical about the time in South Africa when he shared a whole bottle of sherry with “some coloured chaps” who were “frightfully charming”, then segwayed into an explanation of the apartheid system and why the coloureds and blacks had come out of it all right in the end. I got up and went for another pint.

The day didn’t going well from the get-go. The Aussies were in town and that only ever means one thing: legions of yellow-coloured cobbers, lugging eskis of laaager around with them bellowing encouragements and insults to their team in equal measure. One such groups of individuals had parked themselves near me. Within a couple of tinnies their leader (another fatty) was droaning such gems as “C’mon Ricky, yer big Galla !” or “Nurdle, nurdle ! Nurdle, nurdle! ” It was as if he’s swallowed a vuvuzela. He was painful to listen to.

He also fancied himself as an authority, not just on cricket, but on the Lords ground itself. He’d obviously been here once before and didn’t hold back taking his companions on a virtual tour of the ground, all conducted from where his fat arse was perched in row 2 of the stand and punctuated by gulps of the amber nectar. Again, his knowledge of the history of the ground was less than spot-on, but that didn’t stop him relaying the ‘facts’ that the Ashes were brought back to England by WG Grace (nope) and the ground was named after the House of Lords who used to play cricket matches here in the 1800s. Wrong again, mate.

Thankfully for all in the vicinity, he and his mob decided to move to a more sparsely populated part of the stand, presumably so they could spread out their cheeks in comfort, and my sanity and eardrums were saved. Until Sir Bufton Tufton sat himself behind me, that is.

Then came the last straw- he started telling jokes.
“One of my favourite examples of chitchat on the field – the Australians call it sledging- is the one when there was a rather rotund bowler bowling at some batsmen-or-other when the batter asked the bowler how many jaffa cakes he ate? ‘I have one every time I sleep with your wife’ retorted the bowler. Very funny, very funny”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone cock-up a story quite so spectacularly. As sledging stories go, that one’s probably the funniest and most famous, and only a complete berk like the bloke behind me could have fcked it up so completely. It really took the biscuit. Or the jaffa cake.

I made my excuses, picked up my rucksack, and watched the rest of the match on the tv in the bar. As I stood there watching the match, in peace and content to be 200 yards away from the Git & the Galla, I wondered how Sir Ivor Cullen and his wife Betty were getting on? I reckoned they’d probably made good progress with the meal preparations as they had been without the distraction of their evening’s dinner guest’s fascinating stories, a pleasure enjoyed by us poor sods in that section of the stand at Lords today. I just hoped that when he finally arrived at their house, if he was as charming and as entertaining as he’d been to us, Sir Ivor would insert a ham hock into him. I suspect that wouldn’t be one of his favourites.

The Rock Hitters

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Well what did you expect ? A sporting contest ? A great spectacle ? A fair fight ? It was a fight but it didn’t look very fair to me. Last time I saw anyone drop-kicked in the chest Kent Walton was commentating on it. I, like so many others, turned up at the pub to watch it, not giving a monkey’s who won, just as long as I watched a great match. Ok, ok, so nobody wanted Arjen Havey Robben to win, but apart from that I was pretty uncaring as to the final result. By the end I was pleading for the bald Tyke with the whistle to send any or all of them off, and to be fair to Mr Webb, he did his level best. If that was soccer’s showpiece I think I’ll start watching showjumping or women’s tennis (no, not really).

So I woke up this morning feeling pretty flat (silent ‘l’), in need of something to cheer me up. The sun had disappeared after a week of sweltering weather here in Railway Cuttings, my body aching like buggery from my sporting excursions on Saturday (yes, I survived) and still no signs of any work on the horizon. Still, there was cricket on the telly today, and the Open Golf Championship is only a few days away.

So, I turn the tv on for the cricket, except there isn’t any. Rain in Birmingham had delayed the start of the England vrs Bangladesh match. Since you ask, it’s the deciding match in a 3-match series, which on Saturday saw The Tigers beat England for the first time ever. Saw the highlights on Sunday morning and it was a terrific encounter, full of passion, guts and sportsmanship with a fantastically entertaining finish. A bit like the football apart from the passion, guts and entertainment. It was also conspicuous for the lack of chest-high attacks by the wicket keeper on the batsmen.

So with no sport to broadcast, SKY reverts to lengthy chats and analysis and serveral, long commercial breaks. I notice HSBC have re-released that great advert where the Russian washing machine salesmen is sent to India to find out why the company sales are doing so well down there. Superb ad, not least for the music, so I went searching for it. Meandering my way through Itunes, various forums and Youtube I bagged myself Eena Meena Deeka by Asha Bhosle (bear with me) which got my feet tapping, with the occasional Bollywood sideways nod of the head (currently one of the few movements my frail body will allow). The lad in HSBC’s ad agency who found this deserves a house point. (Now there’s a job I could do.)

But the real prize was the video below. There’s so much to enjoy here, from the trumpet which sounds suspiciously like 3 clarinets, to the magnificent performance by the singer, called Kishore Kumar I believe. He out-Ronnie Barkers Ronnie Barker. Never mind The Bay City Rollers or the Flip Flop guy, this is a true classic. I’ll be singing it all day, but I’ll do myself a mischief if I attempt the dance.