ALL THE ANGLES

 

A small but striking selection of traffic signs, signals and markings by German artist Winfred Gaul (1928-2003)

DISCO IN CAPTIVITY

Here's Wild Fantasy: three people of various ages and mixed abilities, all wearing animal print and sporting Anita Dobson haircuts, singing and dancing whilst in seemingly uncomfortable proximity to some bored looking but nevertheless dangerous apex predators. Why is it the lions I feel scared for?

Jungle Drums was the title track of their sole album. It was a bit hit in the USA, where they like being cruel to big cats, as well as in Europe, where they like being cruel to horses, bulls, foxes, badgers, rabbits and non-Europeans. This list is not exhaustive.

Everything in this clip is now dead*. How's that for perspective?

*Probably. 

NOT FOR CHICKENS

When I was a little boy I loved to draw, so much so my parents got me a little slanted desk with a paper roll attached so I could just sit and make foot after foot of art. Ostensibly, I specialised in war and action scenes but, actually, I just liked to draw people getting killed - by knife, by gun, by pit filled with spikes or quicksand, by ravenous crocodile or angry shark, run over by tank or steamroller, crushed by falling bricks, bombed by plane, set alight: a grim cavalcade of death on a seemingly never ending piece of paper, like an X-certificate version of the Bayeux Tapestry, or primitive sketches for the Chapman Brothers 'Hell'. 

Nowadays, I'd probably be made a ward of court but, back in the 1970s, this grisly obsession revealed not a disturbed young mind, but simply a fairly standard diet of war films, horror comics, disturbing public information shorts, James Bond, Tarzan, Dr. Who, Tom and Jerry and World In Action.

Turkey Shoot is an Australian film that could have sprung fully formed from my six year old head, so relentless is it in its mission to show us as much violence and horror as it can. Amazingly, it isn't grim, but instead has a basic innocence and cheerfulness - a joie de mort, maybe, a childish glee at the anarchy and messiness of death.

Set in the year 2000, it features a dystopian world where a moneyed class dominate the vast majority of citizens by using draconian laws and violence to keep them underfoot. 

Science fiction, eh? How do they come up with this stuff?

The regimes primary weapon is the detention camp, where prisoners are kept indefinitely on trumped up charges, undergoing humiliation, torture and assault before, ultimately, being hunted by rich people on some sort of sick human safari. 

Hunts are perfect for cinema, full of peril and suspense and, once the film has spent about twenty minutes showing us who to root for and who to hate, it puts it foot down hard and drives at breakneck speed toward the end, accruing an enormous body count as it barrels along. I must admit I even felt quite excited towards the end, so effectively did it tap into my inner six year old, or maybe something even more primeval and basic than that.

At the end, battle over, baddies dispatched, the newly liberated prisoners cheer and punch the air: they've won. But what have they won? They are on a remote island and their accommodation and supplies are all on fire. They are still outlaws, fugitives from the wider world. So what happens next, and just how long will it be before the next class system kicks in? 

MORE CLARITY

More exploitative S*ientol*gical bullshit. I hate / love this stuff.

CHANNEL CLEAR

The Church of S*ientol*gy absolutely KILLING the mid 1990's corporate training video aesthetic with this feature length 'How To Spend Thousands of Dollars and Go Insane' film. Unfortunately, it's from 2009. Come on, people, aren't you supposed to be super advanced and from the future or some such shit?

Shots are from disc one of a two disc set. I illegally downloaded it off the internet, but I'm sure you can still get copies direct from the source. They probably only cost about £700.

I wouldn't normally censor myself, but I'm too old and tired to have some fucking psycho who thinks he's an elite, immortal alien going through my rubbish and writing shitty e-mails to my employers. 

I'M INTO C.N!

I like Chuck Norris. Not in an ironic, post-modern way, I mean I genuinely and sincerely like him. He was 37 (although he looks younger) when he made Breaker! Breaker!, a huge hit that was the start of almost two decades as a leading man in American films. He's a nice, all American hero: blond, quiet, capable, likable, he's respectful to the ladies and nice to the Village Idiot. He's slow to rouse, but dangerous to cross. It even takes him twenty minutes and a huge amount of provocation before he unleashes his first roundhouse kick.

Chuck plays a trucker whose little brother goes missing while driving a delivery of TV meals across the country. The kid has been tricked into driving through a corrupt one horse town, arrested on trumped up charges and given a choice: a $250 fine, or 250 days in jail. When he tries to escape by crashing through a window (he's Chuck's brother, alright), he is badly beaten, tied hand and foot and chucked into a barn. Big mistake.

The town is a Kritarchy, presided over by an erudite but alcoholic judge called Trimming, who is not only the Law and the Religion there, but also the store keeper, bar keep and everyone's Boss, like a Hillbilly Roy of Wroxham. He and his toothless serfs make a living crushing impounded vehicles and selling them for scrap, as well as making moonshine that they distribute by helicopter.

When Chuck eventually comes to town, driving a Ford van with an American Eagle airbrushed on its side, the whole dirty enterprise comes tumbling down. The Judge's men keep Chuck pretty busy, and there's a wonderful sequence where he walks along the unmade street being attacked by every guy in town, each of whom he beats up and throws to the ground. He's so assured in his mission he even has time to fall in love. Finally, fed up with the hassle, he finds his brother and a CB and calls in his truck driving pals, who trash the place and leave it in smouldering ruins. 

Chuck has a final face off with a fairly secondary figure who is elevated to chief villain at the last moment. They have a slo mo slug fest in a corral that is also home to an angry, tethered horse. When Chuck finally kicks the guy to whatever Valhalla hicks go to, the horse jumps over the fence, free at last. This is America, man, fuck with freedom, you'll get the flat sole of the wrathful boot of REAL justice.

Two additional features that particularly struck me about this homely but never hokey production: 

1. Chuck is no ordinary trucker, also being a Karate instructor who specialises in Third Eye Manifestation. He does this wearing a black open necked shirt with a gold sequined collar.

2. Secondly, the brilliant Jack Nance is featured in a supporting role. This film was made in 1977, the same year that Eraserhead was finally finished. Nance keep his cowboy hat on at all times, presumably to hide his Lynchian pompadour.  I miss that guy a lot.

A fun film, but then, hey, I like Chuck Norris, we've already been through that. 

CAGNEY

Best movie actor ever. No question mark necessary.