Movie Review: The Dictator - SBC provides some moderately juicy humour that isn't quite repressive enough for my liking.

The latest offering from the team Sacha Baron Cohen is what you would expect really, a tidal wave of gags involving SBC offending some group, country and organisation while getting his willy out at least once (which must be written into his contract for everyone of these films).

Getting to see this a few weeks early was a bit of treat though, piling into a packed fan screening full of smelly drooling SBC fans, iphones and androids at the ready. SBC even made an appearance to introduce the film (in character of course) with his bitches in tow, bagging a few Aussie political figures where possible and warming us up for his latest comical feast.

I hadn’t seen Bruno his second effort, which apparently was pretty average, but had seen Borat and from what I remember I was fairly entertained throughout. Here you have much the same thing though, some moments that aren’t really funny at all, perhaps too try hard, and some others that do have you chuckling a fair whack.

SBC has always had a soft spot for the Americans and here his character General Aladeen makes the trip over to the US from his beloved country ‘The Republic of Wadiya’ to attend some sort of United Nations meeting. His right hand man (Ben Kingsley) double crosses Aladeen and tries to have him assassinated putting a moronic body double in his place and enabling him to secure a deal that will bring democracy to The Republic of Wadiya. Never cries the General! And the rest of the film is spent with the Aladeen trying to hatch a plan that will allow him into this meeting to stop this ridiculous event taking place. He comes across a hairy arm pit organic shop owning dictator hating she/male that helps him on this quest to prevent democracy ever arriving in Wadiya. They team up pretty good, with him continually taking the piss out of her and her  really hairy pits, making for some entertaining moments.

But like I’ve said this is much of what you would expect, SBC keeps things trucking along and has some okay support from Kingsley and Anna Farris (Scary Movie franchise). Rumour has it that this was watered down after various test screenings in the states, not much to my surprise. Why though I asked myself? These films are meant to pack comical punch are they not?! Otherwise they just tend to struggle, drag a bit, with you feeling slightly out of pocket (well cheated shall we say if you didn’t happen to pay for it).

Damn those yanks.

4 Northern Thumbs out of 10.

Oh and check out an introductary video from the General, it’s titled G’Day Mahal.

http://youtu.be/v0gYK7vKm60

The White Rabbit Gallery - A cheeky hip Sydney gallery and a cafe that sells hot pond water. What more could some annoying Sydney sider who thinks he's into art possibly want?!

Well not a lot more I thought as I paraded into The White Rabbit Gallery to have a closer look after nattering with a work mate last week, who recommended it rather highly.

Tucked down the back streets of Chippendale near Sydney city, it's a gallery that's been open only a few years that hosts contemporary Chinese art and there are some fantastic bits and pieces hung up, projected and strewn around here.

It's not overwhelming either (I hate galleries with too much stuff in it), with only 45 an hour needed to cover everything and satisfy your artistic taste buds.  The work has a nice variety to it from video works, arts and crafts style pieces and some dude who decided to re-create an old Chinese painting by inserting 1000's of tiny needles into a canvas, as a posed to just trying to paint the damn thing again. What a patient fella.

They change all the works every 6 months (good call), shutting for around 3 weeks to install it all. So this latest collection will come to a close end of July.

There is even a nice cafe that sells gay tea, so check it out and you can feel all wanky and pretentious like me:
 
http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/

Book Review: Born To Run – These ultra marathon runners could out run a pack of wild cheetahs with breeze blocks strapped to their genitals!

I shit you not readers, smash this book and I guarantee you’ll be doing back to back marathons by this time next week!

Or at the very least you’ll pop out for a quick jog and realize that you are closer to having a coronary that you thought. Either way it’s an eye opener.

The author, Christopher McDougal, takes us into Mexico the Copper Canyons where a lost tribe (the reclusive Tarahumara Indians) of elite runners feed on berries, guacamole, and some strange beer that gets them all fired up and frisky, preparing to run one many endurance ‘fuck you up beyond belief’ runs into the jungle and beyond. These guys actually enjoy running 100 miles and do it without a twitch or even a slight tingle between their toes. It takes a closer look at the Tarahumara’s diet and also the evolution of the western diet. Not surprisingly we’re all too fat (...getting fatter) and need to get moving ASAP.

The book explores this tribe and also the races they partake in over in the states against super athletes who are almost as insane as they are, tackling not only the distance of 50 – 100 miles, but also stupid terrain, crazy altitudes and temperatures, whilst having to be very aware of wild blood thirsty animals. There are (were) even comedy long races that used to be only attempted on horseback, then these nutters started pitting themselves against the actual horses and bloody won!

Our author takes us through the history of running, the hunter gather era of our past and how we used to literally run and catch our food, but at intervals of mind boggling speeds. One day you could run 20ks and the next it could be triple that, depending on how crafty and quick your meat feast happened to be. If most of us attempted that before lunch or dinner, you’d either die or not walk properly for a week, let’s be honest.

He looks at the running shoe (pointing his finger directly at Nike) and how the cushioning is now doing us more harm than good. The way that most of us run is totally wrong according to this guy and the lost running technique of bare foot running is a more sensible and practically injury free way to go about it. Take a peek at his demonstration at The New York Times head offices: http://www.chrismcdougall.com/barefoot.html

But I’ve said enough, this is a belter of a book that has a wonderful mix of humour, pure endurance tales, while bobby dazzling you with extreme running adventures that will have you worn out just by running your eyes across each page.

Born To Run? We all are apparently.

So pop a piece of loin cloth on, grab your spear and sandles and go out and catch ya dinner while purchasing this inspiring piece of sporting literature!

8 Northern ‘literature’ Thumbs out of 10.

Shame – a spot of sex addiction anyone? Michael ‘well hung’ Fassbender jack hammers it home in Steve McQueen’s latest tough drama.

Before heading into the screening of this film, one of the many things on my mind was that this film from beginning to end would have lots and lots of scenes with our leading actor in lots and lots of compromising positions. I’m not an expert on sex addition, but I gather if that’s all you thought about you would end up having a pretty wild imagination and the obvious pre- shagging introduction of ‘hey honey, let’s just go to bed and make some sweet, sweet love shall we? ’ wasn’t the first thing in his chocolate calendar before bed time!

The story revolves around Brandon a lonely New Yorker who spends his time, going to work and watching porn, going home and watching porn, wanking and perhaps calling in the odd hooker or two. He’s never held down a long term relationship and anyone he comes even close to having any feelings for, he runs for the hills...or the nearest hooker.

When his sister, Carey Mulligan, suddenly appears things don’t exactly improve and by the first night she quickly ends up bedding his dodgy boss. Brandon doesn’t take this too well and pops out for a jog (as people do when their sister is shagging their boss in your bed). He’s a complete clean / routine freak and the mess alone from his sister is enough to drive him to have some very traumatic and angry episodes.

The overall impact of this film though is a powerful one. The performances from both Fassbender and Mulligan are solid and very engaging. Fassbender plays his role top draw, pulling no punches and descending into what I can only describe as pure hell. The horny noose around his neck slowly tightens as he goes out for even bigger kicks, getting rather intimate with New York’s underground sex circus. I hardly recognised Mulligan at first, having only seen her play pretty timid roles before, but she gets stuck into her part big time and has no issues with getting her kit off in its entirety.

I certainly thought I would struggle through this a little bit and perhaps find it a tad slow! But the pace adds to the seedy intensity of our sex obsessed protagonist’s encounters. Even the long drawn out moments with Brandon gazing longingly at woman after woman had me pretty captivated (and perhaps feeling a little uncomfortable to boot). The sex scenes and most certainly the finale (a huge bonk-a-thon) just becomes purely animalistic and grotesque, leaving you feeling pretty exhausted. As I’m sure he probably was filming the bloody thing!

But this flick has stuck with me. Films rarely make that much of an impression and this certainly made its mark. So if you’re looking for a naughty movie with some raunchy sex scenes and a nice bit of acting thrown in, then avoid this at all costs. This is a flick that takes a baseball bat and clobbers you relentlessly with it, throwing you ‘sex mad’ head first into all the suffering that comes along with an addiction like this.

8 northern thumbs out of 10.

Gig Review: Arctic Monkeys – the cheeky northern chumps inject a bit of hot rock n roll into the southern hemisphere!

It’s taken me some time to get into the Arctic Monkeys I’ll admit. When they first arrived on the scene around 2005 with their debut album, 'Whatever people say about me, that’s what I’m not' (or words to that effect) which was the fastest selling album in UK chart history , I couldn’t totally understand what the fuss was all about. But was certainly very aware of Alex Turner’s genius ability to write fantastic lyrics and compose a pretty good song or two!

It actually took me until their latest offering ‘Suck it & See’ to wet my appetite enough to pop along and see these northern lovelies. There was a real buzz about the venue (Horden Pavilion) while we drank over priced beer (that tasted like watered down horse wee), watched & occasionally laughed at plenty of under aged kiddies get ID’d at the various bars dotted around the place. There really was a good age range that attended here, leading me to believe what a broad appeal the guys have.

Mr Miles Kane supported (‘The Last of The Great Shadow Puppets’ side project with A.M lead singer Alex Turner), who did a grand job of warming the audience up.  He was quite a lanky bastard and had real charisma waving his hands around a lot, as well as using his guitar as some sort of heavy based weapon or extension of his knob which worked pretty well.

The Monkeys didn’t come on until 9.30pm which is usually fast approaching my bed time these days (sad wanker, I hear you cry!), but perhaps even more pathetic than that was the bar closing at 10.30pm (Nanny State now I hear you cry!). The Monkey’s entrance though was fucking magnificent though as they ploughed into their single from the latest album ‘Don’t sit down cause I’ve moved your chair’. Turner’s presence on stage and timely banter with the audience was fantastic and had me chuggling into my beer every now and again. He also referred to Sydney siders as Sidders “come on Sidders, put yu ‘ands together!” he’d bark in a rather strong northern tone, proving that this once timid media shy little chap had come and out of his shell.

The audience continued to salivate though as they tore through hits such as, ‘I bet you look good on the dance floor’, ‘When the sun goes down’, ‘Teddy Picker’, ‘Brainstorm’, ‘Crying Lighting’, the list rocked on. And interestingly so did the smell, as sweaty body after sweaty body leapt out from the mosh pit rubbing up against me and my lady friend, causing me to snarl a couple of times. I'm all for a bit of mosh sweat, but after body number 10 I started getting a bit disgruntled and showing my age. I’m all for open air rock concerts in the future, as the stink towards the end of the show was getting a bit too much for my poor little nostrils!

But here is a band that demand to be seen live, the energy I found quite infectious and Mr Turner is a stellar front man. So nice one fellas the years have been good to ya! Just play an open air arena or something like that next time yeh? Or my nose is going to drop off.

8 Northern ‘musical’ thumbs out of 10. 

Gig Review: Fleet Foxes - Sydney Opera House the setting for some festive folk fornication!

Happy New Year! And a massive big blogging man-thanks to anyone that reads or has read this blog EVER so far...thank you.

My next waffle (rather than the usual movie ramblings) happens to be on the saucy folk outfit the Fleet Foxes, who kindly dropped in to smash out a few shows at The Sydney Opera House. The Foxes were down under tinkling their way through the ‘The Falls’ festival in both Victoria & Tasmania http://2011.fallsfestival.com.au/lineup/ which I’ve yet to indulge in, but what looks to be a smashing festival.

Fleet Foxes over the years have become what appears to be a bit of a sensation. From seeing them at the Camden Round House 3 years ago - where my girlfriend kindly pointed out that they must be getting big because Stella McCartney’s boyfriend is in the crowd. And along with the big (then) Radio One DJ Jo Whiley wanking on about them on a regular basis, they had certainly become hot property in the UK - and now it appears well and truly abroad. So for me a first timer to their shows all those years ago it wasn’t hard to see why! The superb musicianship, the fantastic vocal harmonies and just the shire impact of their songs really had me hopping and skipping out of Camden thinking, "I need to pick up my guitar again and start writing me some crap songs!"

Fast forward 3 years and I must admit I had lost a bit of enthusiasm. The second album, although not totally shit, had left me feeling a little flat compared to the EP and their first album, which I’d listened to constantly when it first landed. However a chance to see them at the Opera House didn’t dissatisfy my musical taste buds. These guys truly are a live band and although we were seated, which just didn’t seem right initially, I still quite happily sat there and moved my knee and head around like some retiree for the 90 plus minutes they played.

The crowd really loved these guys, cheering and applauding heavily after every song as they ploughed through corkers such as Mykonos, Sun Giant, Helplessness Blues , Shrine / The Arguement as well as hundreds more strange song titles. They were bloody tight and delivered a powerful performance, with main song writer/ lead singer Robin Pecknold again providing the audience with the most impressive musical hand-shandies.

Not all will enjoy the Foxes tuneful woes I'll admit; some will find them even a little self indulgent. But you cannot deny they are a talented bunch with some splendid genius thrown in. I certainly came out of this show feeling a little ripe and ready to write some crap guitar songs again! 

A solid show though in a folk fucking fantastic setting- 8 Northern 'Musical' Thumbs out of 10.

Movie Review: The Adventures of Tin Tin – Tip top 3D action that perhaps falls a little flat in the end.

Director Steven Spielberg and producer Peter Jackson have both teamed up on this one to produce a visual melting pot.  The team producing all these wonderful effects is Weta Digital who were responsible for the Lord of The Rings trilogy & Avatar.

For those who don’t know Tin Tin was a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist Georges Remi . Our story here revolves around Tin Tin (voiced by Jaime Bell) an overly inquisitive young reporter and Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis) in their search for the hidden treasure of Haddocks ancestor, and in hot pursuit the evil villain Red Rackham (Daniel Craig). I could waffle on a little more about more story / plot detail but really doesn’t matter, or certainly didn’t matter all that much to me!

The film is action set piece after action set piece, barely taking a moment to breathe before it heads into the next rip roaring sequence. I also saw this in 3D, which was okay I guess. I really don’t think (perhaps apart from Avatar) anyone has really explored 3D as yet.

I also felt like they’d tried to cram too much in here though, there literally doesn’t feel like there’s a break and with three Tin Tin stories all woven into one film here, it’s not difficult to see why. Don’t get me wrong, the action is fantastic and well worth a look. Andy Serkis as the whiskey glugging Captain Haddock keeps you chuckling along for most of the way and Daniel Craig does a nice creepy vocal job as the baddy Rackham.

I certainly think the younger crowd will lap this one up. It’s good fun and will do well I’m sure, but for me it was all a bit of a spectacle in the end and with it crying out for a sequel at its closure I have no doubt that Tin Tin will be gracing our screens once again!

6 Northern Thumbs out of 10.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz3j8gKRUTg