Hungry Hungry Hippos

First of all, read a brand new interview with Abwehrschlacht conducted by Crucifixion 'Zine HERE.

He-who-cannot-be-named showed up at my house on Sunday morning and set fire to it. I ran out into the street with only the clothes on my back and everything else perishing in the fire. He stood there in front of me as I wept on the pavement and said 'You might as well come to and see a film with me, now that you're out of the house.' Being in an unstable state of mind I agreed and he dragged me bodily across York to the cinema to see The Hunger Games. He dumped my battered, charred and bruised body in the worst seat in the cinema and proceeded to masturbate throughout the film despite my protestations. I guess the sight of children killing each other is enough to get him going. He was quickly ejected by security as it became very apparent early on that two mid thirty year old men was not the demographic the film wished to reach. This is the first time I have been surrounded by adolescent girls since I was at school. I sank low in my chair just in case the Police decided to do a quick sweep of the theatre and my name ended up on their fucking register. Again.

Shoot the dirty old man!

The film is actually pretty good and explores some very adult themes for what is essentially a teeny movie marketed like Twiglet. The characters are fleshed out; in particular Woody Harrelson, as the former Humger Games winner and mentor of the new combatant kids. He starts off as a drunken oaf and as HWCBN pointed out, so would you be if you'd just had to kill 23 other children then spend the rest of your career teaching other children to do the same to other children. I'm not sure how much of the dystopian future, reality TV satire was recognised by the target audience, but it had two hunks competing for the beautiful heroine, so I guess they still went home happy. Over all I enjoyed it and would recommend that you see it if you were already considering going but don't break the doors of the cinema down to see it. Anyway, here is my in depth review:

Ratchet Formangler (Joe Bonomo) is an American First World War pilot flying for the Escadrille Layfayette in France in 1917. As a high scoring Ace, Formangler leads his squadron into a fray with the legendary Flying Circus of the Red Baron, he is separated from his flight during an unfair fight against 17 enemy machines. As he twists and turns above the French countryside, firing at the occasional Fokker that gets in his path, his plane is suddenly struck by lightening. Formangler is knocked unconscious by the strike and when he comes to he finds he is flying over a desert landscape unknown to him. He puts his battered SE5A down on a strip of land near an oasis and begins to drink from the pond. As he does so, he is approached by a beautiful woman (Yareli Arizmendi) dressed only in animal furs carrying a wooden spear. Initially cautious Formangler tries to make nice and discovers the woman only speaks in a primitive language unknown to him. She refers to herself as Ugg. Suddenly four men appear, dressed in furs and carrying clubs. One bashes Formangler unconscious and they drag Ugg off by her hair kicking and screaming. The hours pass and Formangler wakes to find Ugg gone but tracks leading off into the distance. He follows the trail, pistol at the ready and eventually comes across a cave dwelling where the four men and a tribe of others are gathered around a large fire dancing a sacred dance and banging drums made from human skulls. In the middle of the gathering is a large totem pole to which Ugg is bound. As Formangler watches, and formulates a plan of rescue, a Tyrannosaurus Rex appears above the mountain tops and advances on the congregation. Formangler suddenly realises that he was sent back in time during the dogfight! The crowd scatter leaving the struggling Ugg tied to the pole as a sacrifice prompting Formangler to run back to his plane. Quickly synthesising petrol from a nearby tar pit he starts the engine and takes to sky to do battle once again but this time against a dinosaur! As he presses home the attack on the T. Rex, a Pterosaur swoops down from the clouds and tries to bring the plane down. Quickly dispatching the flying menace, Formangler makes short work of the T. Rex with his remaining ammunition. Landing the plane again, he frees Ugg and plants a huge kiss on her. As this is a modern construct she has no idea what he is doing, but likes it. With the T. Rex dead the tribe return to their cave home and begin worshipping Formangler like a God, sacrificing the four men in his honour. Formangler marries Ugg in a primitive ceremony and lives out a long and fruitful life teaching the cave people the wonders of interpretive dance.

7 on 10

Fuck Yeah!!

I Adoor You

I have just dropped the car off at the garage. The problem? Well, on Saturday night as I pulled the car up outside the Charter's Arms in Rotherham to see Goat Leaf and 6Needles play, I went to lock the driver's door. The handle froze in the upright position and try as I might I couldn't get it unlocked again. Helpfully I had the back door unlocked as I had given Rhys a lift and he'd left it open he wasn't aware that the car wasn't blessed with central locking. I decided to leave the back door unlocked so I could at least gain access. You might be thinking I could have got in the passenger side door. Well, I could, had that door been working. It hasn't worked properly since I've had the car and only opens from within, as long as someone isn't pulling on the handle from outside, which is everyone's instinctual reaction to getting into a car and leads to me gesticulating wildly from inside for them to step away from the handle. Along with this, the passenger side back door has never worked either. So I was down to one door.

 And your exits are... well, nowhere, really.

I left the car unlocked as described before and went to the gig, which was wonderful. Surprisingly nothing was taken from the car as it sat outside unlocked in Rotherham. I got the car home eventually and thought of dealing with it in the morning. Problem was, when morning rolled around, to gain access to the mechanism that I needed to unlock the door entailed me taking the door panel off. The door panel would not come off with the door shut and I couldn't open the door with the door locked. You see my predicament? I gave it up as a bad job and I spent some part of Sunday morning cleaning the interior as it had been pointed out to me that my car was in quite a state, not that I think there's anything wrong with have a foot-well full of my finger nail clippings. I mean, it's not like they're someone else's, is it? But, apparently this does not constitute clean. I gained access to the vehicle as I had left the rear passenger door open overnight and cleaned the car. I thought, as I was out and about (I was using a vacuum at the local garage to clean the car through one open door and the windows...), I'd get on with some shopping and drove to Morrison's. The passenger door appeared to be working when I unlocked it from outside now, so I was confident that I'd be able to get back in again after buying my post-nuclear fallout supplies ready for when the balloon finally goes up and locked all the doors as I don't really trust the clientele of Morrison's. After buying my tinned foodstuffs I tried to unlock the door. Would you know? The fucking door wouldn't open now I was in the middle of a busy car-park on a Sunday afternoon.

 What I needed, but not what I got...

Mild panic set in as it appeared that I was now locked out of the car with two bags of shopping. This panic was replaced with delirium as I then realised that I could get into the boot to open the doors from within. So I opened the boot, took the parcel shelf out and lowered the back seat to facilitate ingress. I crawled into the boot (remember, in Morrison's Car Park on a busy Sunday afternoon), over the back seat and as I couldn't reach the front door handle, wound the window down of the rear passenger side door. I then clambered back out and thrust my hand through the front window and tugged like a demon at the door handle. This door handle is particularly tricky to open even from sitting in the driver's seat, so it was like a puzzle on the fucking Crystal Maze having to open it from the back window. All that was missing was some middle aged investment banker in a jump suit shouting 'Get the Crystal! Get out! Get Out!' at me

You are now entering the 'Car Zone'

Further to this, my boot is full of archaeological tools and hasn't been cleaned for a while. There was muddy Wellington boots, muddy low ankle boots, a muddy shovel, a muddy drawing board and a muddy waterproof coat. This mud gave me a khaki coating of dust and mud as I scrambled around in the boot. So there I was, in the middle of a busy car-park on a Sunday afternoon, covered in shit and tugging away at a door handle through the rear window. I managed to get in the car and away before the Police arrested me for TWOCing.

Mars Bars

I just went to see John Carter at the cinema. I haven't been to the flicks for a while so I thought I'd take myself off and have a look-see what was going on. As it's a Science-Fiction movie the cinema was empty except for a group of about ten Role Playing Sci-Fi nerds. How could I tell they were Role Players? They all appeared to be single, middle aged and fat. When they sat down the entire seating row groaned under their combined weight (which was to be added to by the copious amounts of popcorn and fizzy drinks they had) and they got with debating the heated issues of the day, mainly does Ewan McGregor play a better Obi Wan Kenobi than Alec Guinness? 

This adds nothing to this blog post

Anyway, here is my review of John Carter:

Set in a textile factory in Northern China in 1924, John Carter (Duke R. Lee) is a lowly stitcher with a young family of forty three living a hard but happy life. His story is told in dramatic flashbacks cutting between his happy family life and the tragedy that is to befall them. Tibetan Monks invade from the north capturing the factory and destroying the village of the workers. As John is away on a company business, selling patchwork quilts to hapless Japanese tourists, he survives the massacre but returns to see his family home burned down and the charred remains of his family buried in the rubble. Erecting a hastily built tomb of marble blocks, John swears vengeance on his family by going after the evil Dalai Lama (三船 敏郎). Whilst travelling into Tibet he hooks up with a hitchhiking student from Germany, Mittle Braun (Xenia Seeberg). The two soon fall in love, but greater issues are pressing when they are captured post-coital in their tent by the Lama's henchmen. 

 Neither does this

Taken to his Holiness' Great Golden Temple in the Eastern hills of Kathmandu. Carter and Braun are separated, Braun being treated to a life of sumptuous living in the Lama's harem, where she is prepared to marry his Holiness, whilst Carter is thrown into a rat infested well. It doesn't take long for our plucky hero to find a way out of his prison (I won't spoil the surprise for you, but watch out for one death defying moment involving a fez wearing, cigarette smoking chimpanzee!) and he gains access to the Lama's wedding ceremony disguised as a badger. Just as the (un)happy couple are about to exchange vows, Carter throws off his disguise, runs the evil Lama through with a flaming spear and escapes with Braun under his arm. With the Great Golden Temple burning and slowly melting behind them Carter and Braun make their getaway back to Northern China. With his ex-family now long forgotten Carter makes a new life as the boss of the regenerated textile factory and soon becomes President of Earth by rigging the vote. 

2 on 10

The cuts caused by the recession hit Disney's promotional team hard