Texas 2012: Days 5-7

Or 'that time I walked on the turf at Cowboys Stadium and ate more stuff'.

Podcast Three: Creme Egg Swimming

Determined to get this week's 'cast out on time, James and I just went in planless and riffed on a single text message he sent me earlier in the week. It's da best shit. Now download it please thanks:

Click me. Save me. CONSUME ME.

Texas 2012: Days 3-4

I'm still alive and well (at least until all the cholesterol and sugar takes control of my organs), and I've had a pretty cool couple of days here.

Texas 2012: Days 1-2

I'm finally here. It's hot as hell. But so far so good.

Podcast 2: LANDED

It's late. It's late but it's here. It's not like the airport closes and the humans can't get in. Donavan joins us this week for the last of the 'test' podcasts (trust me, next week - mics and iTunes, internet). Football is at last discussed, as are some other things. Oh, and hey, if there's something wrong with it, I've had to steal this time online so make do. It only gets better.

Here it is. It is this link. Right click and save it, or listen in your internet browser of choice.

Goodbye. Thanks for listeningening.

Why do I even buy music anymore?

It seems that nowadays, a lot of people have absolutely stopped ever paying for any music at all, and some people have grown up without ever having paid for music at all. Today, Down (You know, the band with Phil Anselmo) put out their whole new EP for streaming, and my first thought was 'Oh Cool, I must go and buy that' despite the fact that I already ostensibly had it already, via the stream. I wonder why that is? I mean, bands keep saying that they make almost no money off record sales anyway, so its not like I'm doing it to reward the band for making the product; what is my four pence contribution even going to do? Especially now, when every other listener gave up paying anyway so the tidal wave of individual four-pences no longer adds up to a thousand quid or anything similar. Now the band'll have eight quid and four pence or whatever instead of just eight quid. Maybe you could argue that it's important to stay a part of the chain, but after it collapsed so badly... what's the point? The second thing is that maybe I'm doing it to 'keep record stores open' but I only buy music off either iTunes, Amazon or in a HMV store so that isn't it. HMV aren't even as much a Music store as a Games and Films store nowadays anyway, so it definitely isn't it even a little. The third thing is that I don't want to be bad, which has merit but doesn't really satisfy. Could just be habit. I don't particularly want to not pay for music, but I'd prefer if there seemed any merit to it other than just doing the right thing to keep Santa Claus happy. Its like cleaning the canteen at your job even though you know the next slobs will ruin it before anyone thoughtful will notice you cleaned.

Texas 2012: Day -8

It's close now. Time has somewhat crept up on me, leaving just over a week to go until I leave for Dallas/Fort Worth International airport. I feel bad for neglecting to write more about the trip, but I've had more immediate concerns which have left me more than a little unprepared with a week to go. Needless to say I've got a lot of planning to do this week so I can have my shit together in time. A part of this planning is working out my road trips, of which there are three major ones. The second takes me from the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex (my adopted 'hometown' of the trip) south, to the capital city of Austin. From there I make the shorter, southerner, journey to San Antonio. The first trip I make though, is the one that excites me the most. In the first days, I'll be heading west, to Odessa.

Taking In The Trash #1: Cannibal Apocalypse

This is actually a shot from the film in question, but curiously enough is also the exact image I wanted to use of myself as a header. Consider it, then, a placeholder.

Taking In The Trash (note: this is a clever clever pun. Chortle) is a feature I plan on doing as often as possible on our to-be-weekly podcast but on account of me watching more than one trashy film a week I’m going to throw some of them on here as well. There shall be zero overlap in the written and recorded word save for directional mentions from one to the other. Guaranteed. 

This entry’s not written as a recommendation though. I just finished watching 1980’s confused shocker Cannibal Apocalypse and if I get this article out of it, then it’ll feel like it was worth my while. Imagine for me, though, an alternate world, an alternate September 7^th 2012 where I watched Cannibal Apocalypse and didn't write about it. In this nightmarish pseudo-existence, where a man can watch a film and just not write about it, there and only there would watching Cannibal Apocalypse have been a pointless exercise. 

Commences the inquisition. Is it a good film? No. Is it a terrible film? Almost definitely yes.

Almost definitely?

Yeah. Just almost. Look, I’m getting to it guy, OK? If you view this movie as a horror film (starring John Saxon off of Nightmare On Elm Street and Enter The Dragon), it’s a bit of a failure. Scenariowise it presents Saxon (my number one Bond That Never Was) as a Vietnam vet struggling with nightmares about the time he rescued two of his captured men and was bitten by one. The implication – and I’ve either imagined this or read it on the box – is that the ‘Cong forced these cats to eat, I dunno, each other I guess, and they developed a taste for it. It’s never really dealt with. Anyway, the film presents these two guys, these prisoners, as suffering from PTSD and Saxon living a subdued private hell at home with his wife and worryingly interested teenie neighbour. After a long, long time spent setting up the whole, you know, they-were-in-Vietnam-and-share-a-bond-and-have-ended-up-a-little-up-the-left thing, these dudes start biting people who themselves start biting people and you’re left with a horror film that’s no longer a considered study on the effects of war but a parable about the effects of war. Side A of Cannibal Apocalypse documents three men who came back emotionally and somewhat physically scarred from their fruitless military venture. Side B suggests that war turned them into actual monsters, completely ruined them and by extension the lives of those they came into contact with.

It doesn’t wash. It’s too obvious, right, as obvious as a cat offering you a sign that reads “look, I don’t like water, I’m even less fond of dogs and milk? Yes to all the milk, ta”. Antonio Margheriti directs a film that works best when it’s at its worst. Refresher O’Clock – you need to approach Cannibal Apocalypse the wrong way to enjoy it, and you get the most from it when it fools you into thinking it’s not a horror film for the first 45 minutes, and the least when it becomes a horror film for the last 45 minutes at the expense of some restrained social commentary. You buy it because it’s in the horror section, dig? The first half of the movie is just the last ten minutes of First Blood (which, in an unplanned coincidence, I watched right before it and have fallen hard hard in love with all over again. YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE PUSHED HIM TEASLE!) You think “sugar, this isn’t the zombiefest it was sold to me as.” You settle in though, and even if you’re not coming off the back of Rambers, the plight of young men who were shipped to another country and made into figurative monsters should elicit sympathy, OK, you big bastard? And yeah, you come to terms with it as a kinda subtle reflection on alla that with added non-bonus teen pubage. Then it flips on you and becomes the horror film you were originally sold and can no longer welcome. “Hi, awkward allegory. You’re late, everyone’s left, the soup’s gone cold and yeah you can still eatdrink it but it tastes like shit now and you kinda ruined the night. You can have the sofa if you want to stay but I don’t want to see you here when I get home from work tomorrow.”

Neither of these kids are Saxon's, which is especially helpful when he bones one of them. Also though it's regrettable that that happens. Still, though, incest-free...

Saxon sports a good line in turtlenecks, chinos and lumberjack shirts throughout, though I was surprised to learn afterwards that he claims to have never watched the film, supported it being banned and generally regrets being involved. Seems he signed on without, um, maybe reading it or something. I mean, how else does that happen? I can only presume the title stems from the Apocalypse Now/ Vietnam connection. You wanna talk exploitation, there’s exploitation. Not a single sign of apocalypse otherwise. Another writer contested that the film's six cannibals better merits the title 'Cannibal Inconvenience'.

Also I just read a little about the film there and it pretty much confirmed for me that I may have had a little sleepy while it was on ‘cause several things were not seen by me. Go fig.

In short – watch it as a horror film and it’s pointless. Watch it as a film with something to say and it succeeds half in, half out and is still a little pointless. Watch it and write about it and it's dingdingdingdingding straight to the bank. At first we got a few laughs from it because of poor editing, a completely unsuitable score and one shot in particular where four drops of blood accompanied four plucks of a guitar, and the gore effects are definitely enough to have earned the film’s place on the original UK list of banned Video Nasties, but by the end of the film I was just willing it to end. As a B to the A of First Blood is was a cool curio, but like I said, I’m not recommending it. What I am recommending is The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue, part of the same Original Video Nasties label from Optimum and also the subject of this week’s Pod entry for Taking In The Trash. I’ll see you again next week. Suggestions for this sort of thing are welcome and encouraged, so comment away and I’ll see ya soon. 'Til then... pleasant SCREAMS.

POD. CAST.

Here is the debut Four Dicks Podcast. We know not yet that which we do but here it is online for you. Knowing that this is doable at all is a Four Dicks milestone and only good things can happen in the future to any of us (if only I'd written this a few days back, maybe Donavan's car wouldn't have gotten busted into).

Click these very words to download and listen to it. Alternatively, you may need to right-click-save it. Rest assured, though, it is ON here.

Construct away with thine criticisms. Thanks, seriously, to anyone who listens to even a little bit of it. You're good people, you.