$10 Chardy

I probably should add that I watched Alfie while drinking a bottle of rather cheap wine - a fact that might explain a few of the confusing thematic leaps of the last two posts.

American booty

The previous post made me realise that 'the film of the 1990s', American Beauty, will suffer the same fate as Alfie. American Beauty is the Alfie of our time.

If you watch AB now, you'll see how it's one of those films that's already dated appallingly. Just think: when we were teenagers, we cared about the disintegration of Kevin Spacey's marriage. He is JUST like Alfie. Mark my words: the film will turn up in the 'well made Hollywood Bombs of the 90s' series - just beside cutthroat island.

What's THAT all about?

I just finished watching 'Alfie' with Michael Caine, one of my favourite movie stars, in the genuine sense of the word - i.e. someone with such a magnetic personality that you become obsessed with them against your will. e.g. Ben Kingsley isn't a movie star, he's an actor, while Michael Caine isn't really an actor (zero range) but he IS a movie star.

Anyway, 'Alfie' is about a hansome chap, who, due to a combination of looks & confidence, is able to have sex with lots of beautiful (& also homely) women. Hurray, you might say - but Alfie's life is as empty & desperate as yours or mine, perhaps even more!

Unfortunately, Alfie is a nasty, misogynist, extremely limited comedy that has gained its status because of the absolute magetism of its star, as well as its novel (for the times) themes and its clever technique of addressing the camera directly.

It's amazing, though, how tame it is compared to Hollywood films of the 40s. All 60s films are like this: hey folks, suddenly we're allowed to talk about issues! Let's talk about smoking dope and having sex with the next-door neigbour!

Of course, the problem with the above is that it dates really fast. The concerns of the central 60s Hollywood films (even The Graduate, which plays like a quaint, frivolous actor's showcase these days (a whole generation-defining film about having sex with the hot older neighbour? Wow, what a profound statement!). In this day and age, who cares? In contrast, 40s films noir are the closest thing that we 20th century moderns have to Macbeth (and I mean that seriously, not 'hey kids, I'm gonna be cool be comparing movies to Shakespeare!') It's only when a medium takes its subject matter seriously that the audience can become completely immersed in the work. The director of Alfie may have done so, but that doesn't mean that we have to.
What's it all about?
Sex, according to you, Alfie.
Who cares, according to the rest of us.

The Last Cricket Ball Artisan

It is said that dreams are the key to a person's soul. Very well, then, Dr. Jung: please explain what the corker that I had last night 'reveals' about my mind's innermost workings.

*
In this dream, I had started running a small shop in a busy arcade, selling only one product: cricket balls. These were not just any cricket balls, though - they were all hand-made by me. As the customers would walked into my shop, I would sit on a tall stool, lovingly stitching the meticulous seams. The balls were stuffed with straw, which I had harvested myself. For my customers and me, it was a pretty nice arrangement.

As I sat on the tall stool, I would sing a song to my customers. In a helpful bout of meta-commentary, the song was about the joys of stuffing and stitching cricket balls by hand. The song was sung to the tune of Outshined by Soundgarden (some things never change), and the first two lines went something like this:

I'll show you the cricket balls, I'd like to say
That they've all been hand-stuffed with hay. (Yeah)
*

Why is my brain thinking these things? Am I channeling a cricket-themed prophet? Answers, please.

Paintball Tycoon

Going to my friend's paintball-themed Buck's night was the best chance I'll ever have to make good on the dream of playing Bond (see 2 posts ago for the origins of this long-held, yet tragically destined to be unfulfilled, dream). The man in question is a Federal Police Officer.

Let it be known: there is something deeply wrong with a paintball hall.

Fill a derelict warehouse with approximately 50 men, all in the advanced stages of foaming bloodlust. The closest Australia comes to Cledus's family on The Simpsons, hardcore paintball fans look, well, different to the rest of us. It's the expression of pure joy that spreads across their foetal-alcohol-syndrome-ravaged faces that does it, I think - it's the type of joy that I only experience when I open the freezer door and realise that I've forgotten to consume the litre of Toffee-Pecan icecream that I bought the night before. It's far, far worse than you think. I am talking about a place where it is deemed necessary to politely remind the patrons of the following in the instructional video:

Please do NOT bring real firearms into the venue.

I just love the 'please'.

As soon as I was given the regulation snazzy 'outfit', I realised that paintball was not for me. Paintballs are small, hard and very painful when they hit you at speed. Yes, that is the idea. Very well - but it is a deeply flawed idea, and it's important to understand that. It is not, despite what the evolutionary psychologists might tell you, in our genes to express our basic urges in this way.
*
I have the rare talent of vagueing out at the most important moments of a conversation. Before the paintball shoot, everyone else heard a detailed analysis of the hazards of paintball. But I heard:

"Vitally important that you....necessary that your mask remains on at ALL times, or massive trauma will...vital that genitals protected to avoid haemoraging...under no circumstances...otherwise your testicles will be reduced to rubble..."

A guide said something vitally important about the safety catch - either to NEVER leave the orange bar showing or to ALWAYS leave it showing - and we were off. My team hid behind a big wooden barrier. I went out to have a look - a reconnoitre, as I wittily told my team - and got shot in the neck. It really, really, really hurt. 'Fuck!' I said.

Then I got shot in the nuts. I didn't say anything then, because I was bent over in silent prayer, thanking the Lord that I spent the $8 on a box protector. This was an optional extra. Pay some money and 'choose' to keep your reproductive organs intact. Excellent choice, sir.

I have to mention that I am a lover of films that resolve themselves by violent means. Not modern ones a la Tarantino; I mean Westerns & films noir - where the law of the gun is an accepted part of life. But that day, I found out that I wouldn't make a Western hero - I couldn't pull the trigger on someone.

So if a Western were made of my life, I'd be the city journalist who tags along with the hard-bitten gunmen saying things like 'golly!' and 'that'll be a scoop!', peeing his pants when the actual fighting starts. In this way, I identify with the Gary Cooper/John Wayne, WW2-dodging model of manhood: big fan of on-screen violence, not so much the real life sort. I spent the rest of the day in the paintball bar.

Best. Movie Blurb. Ever.

"Where's Dolph Lundgren these days?", I hear you say.

People, at the video shop yesterday I found the answer to your question.

Missionary Man
Full of vengeance and out for justice, a mysterious stranger with a score to settle rolls into a small town unannounced, forever changing life for its citizens caught under the oppressive thumb of a local tyrant. Armed with his Bible, his motorcycle and his thirst for revenge, the stranger faces down the evil dictator in true vigilante style, proving that justice still packs a mighty punch.

Written, directed by and starring Dolph Lundgren (from Rocky IV), Missionary Manis an action-packed, modern-day Western in the tradition of films like 'Walking Tall' and 'Roadhouse'.


Now we know who Bush's policy adviser was.

P.S. I did not make the above film synopsis up. Honest.

Living tissue over titanium endoskeleton

I wasn’t allowed to see Terminator 2 when it was released. Due to my natural abject subservience to all authority figures, in what was possibly the worst decision of my life I obeyed my parents and went to see a Richard Greico vehicle entitled If Looks Could Kill instead. (When I say 'vehicle', I'm talking 'Holden Camira'). I’ll leave it to future anthropologists to mull over which work of art was more enduring.

The T2 ban didn’t deter me for long – I had already seen part one on video, and had gotten the taste for robots. Rather than sneaking in to see the movie, however, I decided to do something even better – to become the Terminator.

This is a difficult task for a primary school child. Actually, I repeated the same mistake I had made with Bond: I got it into my head that my then pre-pubescent facial features bore some uncanny resemblance to the Terminator’s. (Those who are sniggering – not very kind).

In art class one day, while the other students were making printed t-shirts with pretty patterns that resembled what Jackson Pollock might have come up with had he been forced to use a spirograph, I came up with the following design:
• A disembodied pair of sunglasses in middle of T-shirt, topped with a menacing cactus-like crop of spiky hair.
• Within each lens of the glasses: the red, glowing furnaces of the Terminator’s electronic eyes.
• Under this portrait, I had written the words: ‘Hasta la Vista….Baby!’ (Actually, my T-shirt originally said ‘Asta la Vista…Baby!’, but my art teacher despairingly corrected me, perhaps figuring that teaching a cretin who spelled correctly was better than teaching a cretin who couldn't).

The t-shirt was made slightly less menacing by my grade 4-6 propensity to draw the dots over my I’s and J’s as little circles. (Fortunately, we weren’t using puff paint that day.) I also drew a wavy green double underline under the word ‘baby’, which might not have been altogether wise for someone trying to cut a figure as an unstoppable titanium killing machine.

My t-shirt was made even less menacing by my choice of clothing accompaniment during my utterly sartorially retarded youth:
• A bow tie (navy blue, with red polka-dots)
• Corduroy pants
• 2-tone grey and black zip-up shoes

Even thinking about me in this getup makes me want to punch myself.

But a mere t-shirt wasn’t the piece de resistance of my youthful Terminator-ness. I also used to entertain the notion that I could complete the terrifyingly unsustainable Tim=Arnold illusion by creating a kind of electronic device to simulate a glowing red Terminator eye in my own head.

This was done with:
• a pair of gigantic wraparound sunglasses
• a 9-volt battery
• a battery connector
• an LED from a Dick Smith electronics set

To terrify and astound my vulnerable younger brother, I put on my newly Terminator t-shirt (ignoring the fact that real Terminators would be unlikely to wear white t-shirts featuring crude texta drawings of themselves, let alone bow ties). I hooked up the battery to the LED, fastened it with blu-tac, and started walking slowly, colossally and robotically towards my supine brother. To take care of all possible contingencies, I asked my mother to utter the following brilliant line to him just before I showed up:

“Have you seen Timothy recently? Well…I think he’s a robot.”

This was supposed to be delivered in the half-crazed tones of a parent who had just realised that they had been rearing a little Terminator in their nest for the past twelve years. So, the plan went as follows:

1. I would shuffle towards brother, LED-eye glowing furiously.
2. Brother would scream, become scarred for life, contract PTSD.
3. Mother would begin to wonder whether they might, in fact, have been some deep truth in her words…

Unfortunately, the mini-Terminator forgot one crucial fact: it is physically impossible to utter the words, “I think Timothy’s a robot!” without laughing. I lumbered toward my mother and brother, both of whom were doubled over. “You didn’t say it properly!”, I screamed at my mother, furious with robotic indignation.

There was a lesson learned from the attempt, though: I quickly found out why people don’t place Dick Smith electronics kits extremely close to their eyeballs. The battery wires had gotten so hot that I was lucky not to have permanently blinded myself with my pseudo-robot contraption.

I won’t be back.

The Bonds of Childhood

As an impressionable youth, I saw the opening sequence of a James Bond film. I don’t know which one it was, but it was definitely my first Bond, and mighty exciting it was too. Bond was running around a jungly obstacle course, being attacked by people with paintball guns for some reason. Bond rolled, ducked and dived with such Bondlike efficiency that his pursuers never had a chance. At the conclusion, Bond opened his violin case (he was carrying one for some reason – perhaps auditioning for the Philharmonic after the casual slaughter), pulled out a Tommy gun or something similar, and started brutally killing his paintball opponents with it. Hurray! Not very nice, not very fair – but dynamite when you’re four.*

I was very excited when I discovered that the Bond role was something of a moveable feast – in time, anyone could, in theory, get to play Bond. (If you’re white and male – which I fortunately was). Being of an impressionable primary-school age, and prone to massive egotistical delusions, I thought that perhaps…I could play Bond one day!

Of course, some natural disadvantages were working against me – if there’s a spinoff series featuring weedy 5’7’’ Bonds, I’ve yet to see it – but that particular fantasy stands as concrete proof of my fertile imagination.

Still waiting by the phone.

* I know there's probably no Bond movie that starts remotely like this. I was four, for god's sake. Cut me some slack.