Sam Worthington on Avatar

'Strewth mate!'

Basically, I’m changing my pants five times a day right now, so serious is my anticipation for Jim Cameron’s Avatar. My geekgasm began to build when I met Sam Worthington (a man whose motto in life seems to be ‘Don’t give me any f***ing shit’) this summer on the set of Warner Brothers’ epic Clash Of The Titans remake (Due 2010 like all good things), and he just couldn’t help but gush a little about Avatar.

Here’s some selected mash from the man himself, taken from my Avatar cover feature for December 12th’s A-Men magazine with the Irish Daily Star Sunday.

“When you work with Jim you don’t sleep,” says Worthington, who spent more than a year shooting with Cameron. “You go to war with the man: you work 16 hour days on another planet.”

“Essentially you’re working in the most rudimentary style, The Volume, with the most advanced technology,” he laughs. “It was so detailed that when I went on to work on this [Clash of the Titans] I gave Louis [Leterrier, director] a hard time. I was always asking the same questions I asked Jim: ‘Why? Why? Why?’ So yeah, I’m fighting medusa, but how big is the medusa?” he asks. “Even though she’s not there, how does it move? That’s what we did on Avatar; to make that world work everything had to be questioned. Every single fucking detail.”

“Avatar is saying ‘Explore the world, don’t ever let people trample you down’.”

Lemmy’s Guide to Life

I had the pleasure of chatting to Lemmy Kilmister this week, and as a long-term ‘Head fan, he did nothing but deliver on my hopes: he was louche, husky and just ruddy kewel in conversation, and had a nice line in witty, anarchic one-liners. He also offered to buy me a pint, which made my toes curl in delight. But enough of my gabbin’ – let’s boogie as Lemmy gives his advice on…

Girls

“I like women, see – I don’t think I’m in competition with them, I don’t think I have to dominate them, I actually like women. I was brought up by two women, I didn’t have a father around for years, so I don’t have that problem. But how do you approach women? Just don’t. It makes them nervous if you approach them from behind.”

Starting A Band

“You just have to start the band! There’s no rules, there’s nothing I can tell you about my experiences that are gonna be anything like your experiences, because the world’s moved on. It was a lot easier in my time to get listened to, but it wasn’t easier to get signed. They seem to be signing everything with a f***ing hair on its head these days. You have to do all that touring. That is the secret of it all, is touring. It gets you in front of people.”

Drugs

“The only bit of advice I’ve got about drugs is that heroin is the only thing I ever saw people die on, and everybody died on it. So it’s a very bad idea, no matter how romantic and tragic you might think it looks. It’s not. It just makes you into a dog and then you die.”

His Looks

“I’m image conscious in as far as the fact that I’m vain. But I don’t dress up to be Lemmy because I am Lemmy. What you see is what you get with me, more or less. I don’t advise on having a really elaborate alter-ego, because it’s really a drag putting all that makeup on and all them funny clothes on all the time.”

Politicians

“New Labour is a wonderful thing, it’s managed to be right wing and left wing all at the same time, it’s a complete f***-up isn’t it? I thought I hated Tony Blair, but I hate Gordon Brown worse. He looks like a f***ing dead fish. They’re all bastards anyhow, politicians. The only the thing you can rely on a politician for is that he’s a c***.”

My full interview with Lemmy appears in this Sunday (November 1st) Irish Daily Star Sunday. Motorhead play the Olympia, Dublin, on November 8th.

Tim Wheeler Speaks

I remember handling my brother’s cassette of 1977 back in the day while listening to Girl From Mars, and while my interest in Ash dropped into the Stereophonics zone in the years that followed, I found Tim Wheeler to be a super gent when we chatted, and his new idea of the A to Z Singles series – releasing one every fortnight for a year – was a fascinating new way to beat the game. 

What can you tell us about the tracks we’ll be hearing over the next year? Writing 26 singles sounds like a tall order…

We actually recorded 44 songs, but we’re keeping our standards really high and we’re gonna record 10 more in January. I feel like we’ve got 20 out of the 26…we really want to make it work, we don’t want any tracks to feel like album filler tracks. They have to be singles and stand up by themselves every two weeks. It’s a lot of pressure, but it’s healthy pressure – it’s been creatively inspiring and it’s refreshing not working towards an album where everything has to fit together.

So what about the no-more-albums thing? Is the format a dead duck?

The album just doesn’t feel the same as it used to. It used to be a real event, and now it’s got to the point where it gets given away with Sunday newspapers and stuff like that, which was unimaginable 10 years ago. I was quite inspired by The Wedding Present in doing this. In the early ‘90s they did 12 singles in one year, and I always thought that was brilliant. Nowadays with the internet you have such a fast distribution network you can record a song and get it to your fans the next day if you wanted to.

My interview with Tim appears in A-Men Magazine with the Irish Daily Star Sunday on November 8th. Blat.

Saw-ly Aggrieved at Continued Life of Franchise

Another year, another Saw movie – but am I the only one who’s bloody sick of all the carnage?

I’m a gorehound and a blood-soaked horror fan, raised on Day Of The Dead and the gorier excesses of mainstream Hollywood. I giggle at unfortunate and splattery on-screen deaths as though they were pratfalls. I’m a big lover of cinema’s ability to make the horrible comical and vice versa, and I love to catch horror movies in the theatre, no matter how unpromising.

In fact, I like to be disappointed by crap horrors when I go to the pictures. It’s more fun than enjoying a film, getting on your high horse and dissecting the latest no-hope schlocker with haughty disbelief.

I’m just the kind of guy the Saw movies are pitched at: problem is, I can’t stand them. I caught the first instalment in the cinema back in 2004 in just that spirit of down-the-nose entertainment, hoping for a decent bit of splatter and some hammy dialogue from Danny Glover, but came out with my face in wrinkles of disgust.

I wasn’t shocked by the gore, which was in fact rather tame, nor was I perturbed by the movie’s nihilism. I just thought it was shit.

The would-be twisty plot reeked of smartarse, the ‘mobile phone ad’ direction (spinny camera, sped up action, spinny camera again) was nauseatingly tedious, and the attempts at creating new horror icons (actually the doll-on-a-trike trundling into the room was one of the few laughs the movie packed in) were pathetically contrived and over-wrought.

He’s a serial killer who wears a pig mask AND has a spooky living doll AND cuts jigsaw pieces out of people AND has cancer AND he’s punishing people who waste their lives AND the cops are running out of time AND it’s a game?

“Sorry chaps,” I thought, “conceit overload. Stick with hockey masks.”

I was in no doubt that Saw was headed for the drain, what with Cary Ewles’ pathetically hammy turn, the waste of a good Glover and an ending that provided neither chills nor closure. How wrong I was.

Since then, Lions Gate have trundled out their box of torture instruments each Halloween, taunting me with their meta-marketing slogan ‘If It’s Halloween, It Must Be Saw’. That’s like saying ‘If It’s Christmas, You’re Getting Bummed’ on a billboard.

This year sees the franchise lubing up for a sixth time, and I’m already clenching in frigid anticipation. The series is of course aimed at males between 14 and 24, so I’m already too old to ‘get the point’. It’s ‘gorno’ and ‘torture porn’, the leader of a no-wave movement, and all that stuff. However it’s just no good.

Horror movies, in the American tradition, don’t franchise themselves well: generally, even the scariest shocker will descend into yawnsome patterns and self-parody by movie three, and inevitably go into space in chapter four, hoping for signs of box office life out there. Saw, however, is still in rude health and reigns as the most successful scream-series in history, thanks to a genuine ability on behalf of its writers to save tidbits of info ‘for next time’ and the general ugliness of the torture scenes.

How come we can’t see a smarter horror franchise take flight?

Wouldn’t a series with the visual flair of Italian Giallo movies, the hardcore brutality of new French shockers like Inside and Martyrs and the smarts of an independent writer and producer be much better? And genuinely scary?

Then again, that’s speaking as someone who’s too old to enjoy the ‘giant mousetrap on the head’ scenarios which are Saw’s stock in gory trade. Maybe Saw is just fine, and I and the other people with taste are the real maniacs. Except we don’t have a puppet.

“Who’s stupid now?”

Live it! Live it!

My own condensed John Hughes-style American summer soundtrack.

Bruce Springsteen – Radio Nowhere

Prince – Raspberry Beret

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – American Girl

The Gaslight Anthem – Great Expectations

Sophie B. Hawkins – Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

Stevie Nicks – Edge Of Seventeen

Stevie Wonder – Part-time Lover

Five Unbelievably Bad Duets

From my monthly blab-column, Five to One in AU Magazine.

Gareth Gates and The Kumars at Number 42

Spirit In The Sky

Combining the worst singer in Britain (Orville made flesh) with its worst comedy family (oh goodness gracious me, etc) was a plan so devious Ming The Merciless himself could have conceived it as a weapon against sanity.

Though this was an effort for Comic Relief, the only comedy is in throwing eggs at the radio, and the only relief is in the song finally ending. And who actually likes this bloody song anyway? Apart from substitute teacher-alike Alison Goldfrapp of course, whose entire career is based on  this song’s hokey sub-Spiders From Mars riff.

 

 

K.Os and Michael Buffer

Let’s Get Ready To Rumble

If you thought it was a bit odd when footballers get wheeled out to the mic to perform with a band, how weird is it when they do the same thing with a boxing referee? Buffer is famous for his long drawn-out catchphrase, but in this frankly bizarre slice of europop, he simply shouts the names of various boxers while some tarts sing his catchphrase back at him. It’s like getting a brain injury, listening to this. But less sexy.

 

 

Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder

Ebony and Ivory

What better representatives of racial harmony are there than carrot-botherer Paul and first man of funk Stevie? When they get their egos together, sparks fly – but sadly not good sparks, more like the sort of sparks that set fire to orphanages, hospitals and wedding receptions with no fire exits. The song is a bit of a toe-tapper, but we dare you to watch the video – complete with giant keyboards – and not want to pull your eyebrows off with rusty fish hooks.

 

 

Madonna and Justin Timberlake

4 Minutes

When we first heard this song, we thought it was some sort of Flash Gordon tribute, where funky Timberlake and his golden oldie companion were going to save the world in their own danceable way; then we realised it was telling us how soon JT would be off the radar again. In that way, this was eerily accurate.

And does anyone need to see Madge proving once again that she can still wear tight clothes, though only carbon dating can now age her accurately? No, no one does. Here’s hoping she launches a range of knitwear soon and covers up all them ropes.

 

 

Bono and Frank Sinatra 

I’ve Got You Under My Skin

This mismatched squawking match is the sonic equivalent of velvet and sandpaper. He may have been ancient, but Ol’ Blue Eyes still had the pipes that made him famous, while Bono’s hopeless showboating makes the limits of his vocal talents embarrassingly plain.

At points it sounds like Captain Sinatra is trying to take the joystick away from his shrieking, egomaniacal copilot, but it’s too late: this song has crashed into the side of the mountain and those who survived the carnage must feast on the icy buttocks of the dead to survive.

Do You Wanna Funk?

I’m an evangelist for Skreemr, a lone voice crying in the desert, eating locusts and all that jazz while telling people it’s the best website in the world. It supports my ‘give me entertainment and give it free’ lifestyle nicely. This week it’s all been funky with me; my longterm interest in cheesy dance culminating in a geekgasm of 80s club anthems. They’re all here to d*wnload, enjoy a funky week on me.

Sylvester – Do You Wanna Funk

Walter Murphy – A Fifth Of Beethoven

Jermaine Stewart – We Don’t Have To Take Our Clothes Off

Eddie Murphy and Rick James – Party All The Time

The Pr*digy – Warrior’s Dance

Jay-Z – 99 Problems

Grace Jones – Pull Up To The Bumper

Top Of The Pick ‘n’ Mix Pops

Going to the flicks is second only to going to see a band you’ve been dying to see in the Great Night Out stakes. I often go to films I believe will be completely shit, just to enjoy pouring scorn on them and laugh at their self-fulfilling awfulness. And when I do, I like to visit the Pick ‘n’ Mix stand. A time-honoured tradition that shows no sign of dying out even in the frightening age of  Simon Cowell, I never feel well-armed without a bag of the over-priced treats under my arm. Here’s my top 5.

1/  JAZZLES

Small white chocolate coins (available in brown, but screw that: the cinema is a white chocolate kinda place) covered in what is called non pareil, or wee coloured crunchy balls in my own language. Wafer-thin and delicious, they infect other confections with their sprinkly bits, leaving a kiss-mark of sugary goodness wherever they go.

2/ SKULLS

Made once again from white chocolate, these heavy metal tidbits also have a sweet strawberry-flavour milky chocolate vein running through them, and look like cool Mexican Day Of The Dead Calavera skulls. I doubt that was the cultural reference the folks at Matlows were going for when designing them, though. You only need two of these to last a whole movie, like nuclear bombs in a war.

3/ WHITE MICE

Only a pervert would go to the cinema and forsake these wonderful edible rodents. Milky but somehow powdery, they’re at home nowhere as they are in a white paper bag. When I was a kid they made little tools (spanners and hammers and saws) in brown chocolate, which I think are related in some way to the White Mice. I bet the same caped, disfigured genius came up with both.

4/ COLA BOTTLES

Fizzy, coated in abnormally large crystals of sugar and pleasingly translucent, surely these are the most post-modern sweets in the world: a sweet designed to look like a drink in a container? It’s positively absurd! The bluey-red ones are rotten though, only cola / clear and black / red are acceptable.

5/ FRIED EGGS

Yes, the chewy Teeth are fun to stick in your mouth and the liquorice laces can be used to inflict tiny and painful whippings to your cinema companion, but I find the gelatinous Fried Egg tastiest of all. However, as number five on this list it doesn’t warrant a love letter. You’re alright, Fried Eggs.

What’s Wrong With Bruno?

Holds a baby with slightly more skill than he does my attention. Twat.

Recently browsing the middle shelf in a newsagent, I caught the chucklesomely decadent Bruno cover of Attitude magazine, questioning whether the movie was ‘the funniest comedy of the year or the most homophobic film ever made’.

It was a question that promised explosive potential for the movie: I had images of comedy so brazen and brave that sensitive types would storm from the cinema clucking like miffed hens. Having now seen it, it’s clear that worrying about this limp, ineffectual movie having the power to offend any particular demographic is like being worried a gibbon with a xylophone is going to discover the unified field theory.

To be brief, it’s dreadful. While Borat followed a standard adventure plot, all the while tickling the sensibilities of America’s hicks, Bruno’s plot is a rambling series of misadventures that make it seem that Baron Cohen’s celebrity has shafted his attempts at high-profile chaos.

Paula Abdul, the one celeb he manages to rope into his ‘kerrazy’ pranks, leaves without giving a suitable pay-off, before he resorts to ribbing non-starters Ron Paul and (yawn) a load of hicks on a hunting trip.

There’s a sense of dread in Bruno. Each scene unfolds with a nail-biting inevitability that makes you feel like you’re constantly on the edge of some vomit-covered rollercoaster, looking down into a dour abyss of knob-sucking jokes and Hitler references before being dropped headfirst into the murk for another protracted ham-fest.

Bruno’s visiting a psychic…and miming some very fruity oral sex…for three full minutes.

Bruno’s at a swingers party in an attempt to ‘get straight’…he’s dragged into a bedroom by a leathery dominatrix…cue a multi-cut scene of Baron Cohen being whipped with a belt while shrieking.

Even his patented ribbing of Americans’ prejudices doesn’t hit the mark. Seeing Yanks scowl at his harmless faux-homosexuality is such an unpleasant reminder of the sexual status quo, even in Obamerica of the 21st century, that it outweighs the cheap titty-jokes Baron Cohen has to offer.

While fans have been asking ‘where to now?’ for the man who already brought Ali G and Borat to the screen, I’m pretty sure I know where he’s headed: Cheaper By The Dozen 4. At least there’d be less dick jokes and we’d all sleep better knowing his hands were off the creative reigns.

So in summary, Bruno gets a ‘nein’ out of 10. Sorry.