Clint Eastwood - LEGEND

The Clint Eastwood Republican conference incident stateside seems to turned people against The Legendary Film star. And since this incident took place he has been the butt of many a joke and ridicule, Well here is my two cents for what they are worth

Personally I don't get it, and this type of shenanigans pisses me off. I don't care what he said or tried to say. Clint Eastwood is responsible for some of 'THE' quintessential moments in Cinema. Who gives a fuck what his political standings are, or what he stumbles over in a speech. He is an Actor first and foremost, I take the same view on incidents like this the same way I look at Mel Gibson or Tom Cruise. I dont care what political party they support, what religion the follow as long as they dont come banging on my front door trying to get me to drink the kool aid let them at it, First and foremost these folks are Actors and when the do their thing as well as they are know to do it , be it Directing or acting they never cease to entertain.

 So when folks get down on an Icon of the unmatched caliber of Clint Eastwood who has just gone 83 in May of this year (could you imagine your 83 year old Granddad getting up at a political convention and making a lick of sense, cause I know mine wouldn't have he wouldve just growled and punched someone in the gut...very Clint like actually ) I am just baffled at the whole thing. I mean come on ! He is The Man with no Name, Dirty Harry Callahan, Josey Wales,Thunderbolt, and Walt Kowalski. I never ever thought I'd see the day I would feel sorry for the man who brought those characters to life, and the fact that he would need me to.  So say fuck the politics. And salute the Legend that this bad ass motherfucker was throughout most of our lives and hope that maybe all of our sorry asses can accomplish as much as this man has in his lifetime. So yeah he stumbled through a speech, he seemed to have lost his marbles a wee bit, To kind of redo the famous Yoda quote, "When 83 years of age you reach look as Badass you will not hmmmm"

Here endeth the Rant.

Lets all go to the Lobby during this 7 Minute trailer.

Howdy.


 Long time no rant, figured I was due so here goes.



    Last night I went to see Expendables 2 with a bunch of friends. It was in the largest screen of a main multi screen cineplex here in Dublin City center. We were all sitting snug and comfy in our seats some of us munching on popcorn, slurping on some ice cream shakes, but all of us psyched for the Testosteronefest we were about to be assaulted by. First though we had to endure the trailers, and oh boy what a test of endurance they were. They started off fairly nicely with the surprise trailer for the upcoming big screen adaption of 70s Brit Cop show The Sweeney starring Ray Winstone, this looked decent enough. Then a Still of the new poster for the remake of the total Recall popped up on the screen, there was a slight air of bewilderment amongst the collected cinema goers, A Poster!. Our bewilderment soon turned to normalcy and then into pure blind rage.
   
                                      The Poster then fell away and a trailer for the movie started, just your average trailer....but it kept going, it kept showing exciting bits of the movie, integral plot points, set pieces, nods and winks to Paul Verhoven's 1990 movie of the same name...It has now been playing for a solid 5 minutes and the crowd are getting restless. Myself and my friends turned to each other and started to do something that as a group we can never condone...We started talking in the Cinema. We talked about anything , the popcorn, the ice-cream, the colour of the floor tiles, anything to distract from the ridiculous display of bad marketing we were being subjected to without our consent. The shameful thing is, this wasn't the first time this has happened.

               Accompanying Prometheus into the cinema was a 5-6 minute trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man, this garnered the same reaction from a packed house as the Total Recall preview had as well "Oh ...Ive seen the best bits of the film now...no need go see it when it comes out" . This rang true with my Wife, I did go and see Amazing Spider-Man ( Granted it was a free press pass courtesy of a friend), but after seeing the extended trailer she opted out. I wonder how many other people felt this way ?


   I don't know what marketing companies are trying to do with these trailers, I will tell you this I doubt it was to garner the reaction received both times I was subjected to them. Please if by any teeny tiny chance someone associated or even someone who knows a person who once talked to a guy who sniffed someone from a movie studio or marketing firm, pass this message on..

            

Oh look Squirrel !

Howdy Folks

This is just a mini post. I got a proper earful from my Lovely Wife Irene over breakfast this morning, and rightly so. I have dropped the ball on this adventure. My viewing of the Shit Parade that is Sex and the City has pretty much come to a grinding halt half way through season three. I have been distracted by other excellent shows and movies. I could try and argue with the fact that its the Summer time, and some amazing cinema experiences have led to me not having enough spare time, but that's just bollocks. I have tried to deflect from this show by tempting Irene away with the likes of  the entire run of Twin Peaks, Californication and our personal guilty pleasure that is True Blood (fuck all y'all we like it)

Anywho, Irene has thrown down the gauntlet. I must now watch the remainder of the show and its two accompanying turds in a blanket that are the Movies all on my lonesome and in my spare time. The only bright-side to this is that now I will not be frowned at every time I question the logic and emotional fortitude of these four cuntrags as the traipse about their pointless saggy vagina existence.


   So the Blog shall return soon in all its profanity ridden glory, I promise ....TTFN


Wayne

Lost Irony 2: Electric Boogaloo

I have braved the Shit Parade of Sex and the City for another season. and boy what a puss filled axe wound of a show. As I sat through episode after episode I was reminded of something my good buddy Mike Murphy once said to me when I was trying to convince him to borrow season one of Babylon 5, he said " If you watch something long enough regardless of whether or not its good, you will eventually grow emotionally attached to some aspect in the show" . Well I am here to prove that theory wrong. I really couldn't give a flying fuck if a meteorite hit all of these useless bags of skin tomorrow and rid the world of their neurosis. The second season of the show has numerous ingredients that should by the laws of physics alone elevate it out of the unflushed toilet it so rightfully dwells in, but alas no not even a brief cameo from the shit eating grin of Bradley Cooper can save this car wreck.

   The Season opens with something you think would interest me Baseball!, but alas it was New York Yankees Baseball so the interest level goes from hmmmm to fuck you! in one swing of the bat. The following Episode revolves around some unfortunate woman and her extremely angry and abusive husband. And as this episode plods along you really think this woman is going to do the right thing and leave this mouth breather and move on with her life, but no they get back together and apparently patch up their differences by getting a yappy little mutt for the angry husband  to shout at....which is anti Peta equivalent of having a Baby to save a marriage, I reckon there was an un aired ending to this episode in which this dopey wench was found dead in a dumpster about a month later.

The next few episodes are fleeting attempts to divert the attention away from The fuckedupidness of the Female characters in the show by showing how Men can be weird, how its possible for a Woman  to actually branch out and be her own person while in the same breath show that it takes a fake cameo from Leo DiCaprio to fix a shitty sub plot. And also the return of the Hero of last Season Mr Big who in a downgrade has had his nice guy person removed in order to make the new Mr Nice Guy down to earth so nice no one can believe it Steve seem like the most ultimate orgasm inducing dude ever. The Season moves along through a copy & paste of the Carrie & Big plot from season 1 , which then shockingly comes to a head with the same result as the last time...they go their separate ways , this time with Big fucking off to Paris on very important work related stuff (those tailored suits don't pay for themselves you know) . Now the next scene is one of the worst examples of on screen symbolism i have ever seen crow bared into existence. The scene is Carrie in Bed with Blue covers ,blue pillows wearing a blue nightie all lit up by a pale blue moon...seriously!..this show goes on for another four seasons and two movies and Firefly only lasted for one! What the fuck is wrong with the world we live in.

 So Carrie does the impossible and actually manages to convince a few poor desperate bastards to actually sleep with her , even going so far as to call  an old tick as a ditch full of horseshit fuck buddy out of retirement  so she can feel good about herself , then she dates a recovering alcoholic who has serious dependency issues who low and behold Is called Paddy Mc Shaughnessy Michael D'arby O'Gill Ahern or something exceedingly offensive to every Irish man out there...of course we are all recovering alchos who want to find a woman exactly like their Mammy.....man I fucking hate this show. She of course fucks this poor cunt up beyond all hope and he hits the bottle hard. This is how the show continues , she meets a dude finds or creates a problem and then moves along,  that is until the last few episodes in which Big returns from Paris with a new taller,prettier,quieter, less crazy ....pretty much not Carrie Bradshaw , and announces that he is planning on Marrying her.

I'd like to point out that at that moment in the episode I burst out laughing pointed at the screen , guffawed..almost had an asthma attack due to lack of breath

  Of course The Cunt of the show (Carrie for those not keeping up) has a major issue with this , How dare he go to Paris after she told him again that it was over and they were through and find a nice non crazy girl to fall for while she whores around New York city fucking up Men beyond repair , how dare he...such an asshole. Have I said how much I hate this bitch.

Then we arrive at the final episode of the season (Thank fuck) which is the most ironic piece of television I have ever seen. Charlotte the prissy romantic uptight gallery owner of the group is trying to overcome her fear of horse with Carrie in tow...seriously this is either the most obvious play on the horse joke thing or the writers are really fucking dumb. Carrie herself is trying to come to terms with Big's engagement which comes to a head in a scene which had been so heavily telegraphed by the four main characters of the show in the previous scene I firmly believe it is proof that this show actually one giant outreach program for screenwriters who are recovering brain transplant patients , unexpectedly on purpose runs into him and his future docile Wife as they leave their engagement shindig. He tells her that he is marrying this Girl because she is simply and uncomplicated , which as we all know is a really nice way of telling Carrie that his new lady isn't a neurotic self obsessed over analytical cuntrag like she is. Carrie basically in an inner monologue decides to interpret this as something else  (I swear to God I ain't making this up) and declares that she is a horse that he just couldn't tame or break or whatever ...I was doing my damnedest to A) Give a shit and B) Stay awake at this stage . She was saying this in her head while she stared at this horse

 She then walks away while Big stares at her and it fades to black...I'm pretty damn sure he then hoped into his chauffeur driven limo went home and did all sorts to his new less complicated normal Fiance while Carrie headed off into the night to find the next guy she can fuck up.


Season 3 is up next..which I think I have actually seen a few episodes of before , We get introduced to the Nice Guy Handy man Aidan who becomes Carries new Love interest/Victim.

I just wanted to say thanks

I started Playing the Mass Effect series when it was first released on the Xbox. I instantly fell in love with the universe, its look and feel and its brilliant Sci Fi storylines. Five years and three games consoles later I have finished the epic tale of Commander Sheppard and his crew as they battle against the Reapers and their bid to destroy biological life across the galaxy. It has been a rocky road but I have loved every single second of it ending and all. So imagine my surprise when hordes of my fellow Gaming folk took to the internet to voice their displeasure with regard's to how Commander Sheppard's tale ends so much so the they pretty much bullied the games developers Bioware into releasing some free DLC to rectify the issue. This is dickery of George Lucas proportions , but instead of the blame resting with the creators of this brilliant franchise that asshole(s) of the year award in my humble opinion goes to us the Fans for being such whiney bitches. So as a sign of gratitude I wrote an email to Bioware, just saying thanks . Here it is for your perusal . Take from it what you will.




"Hi


I have noticed that since the release of Mass Effect 3 the internet has been awash with people claiming to be big fans of the franchise angrily denouncing the ending of the final game in the trilogy.  Well I will not be doing that in this email. Instead Ill just be saying thank you. Thank you for the hard work of everyone involved , from the designers to the programmers to the testers. In a market swamped with Calls to Duty in Modern Warfare and Creeds of long dead Assassin's your games are beacons of excellence in gameplay and longevity.

The Mass Effect games are easily my favourite franchise of this console generation . They are number one in storytelling , voice acting and design. This level of excellence can only be found with Bioware , who in the face of all this negativity have shown that they are a games company that care what the fans think by releasing DLC that will appease the enraged , now that is service at a standard rarely seen these days.

I myself had zero problems with the numerous endings of the third instalment of Mass Effect , after hundreds of hours of great game play it was a nice subdued ending that some Hollywood Sci-Fi blockbusters wish they could pull off.

So basically , to sum up my wordy email let me just say Kudos , and Thanks . thanks for Mass Effect from beginning to Middle , to The End. All of it . I loved every second and will continue to love it during numerous playthroughs


I played as Commander Sheppard and this is my favourite gaming franchise on the Citadel (And Beyond).


Sincerely



Wayne Talbot

Decent into Darkness.

 It has Begun. The social experiment that is my foray into the world of the TV show that is Sex and the City. I have completed the neurotic fluff that is season one of what I can only describe as the worst TV show I have ever had the misfortune of watching. There is nothing there, no redeeming features not one stand out episode, nothing.

     Season one of this shit parade is short and swift. We are introduced to the main Cunt of the piece one Carrie Bradshaw , ironically in a Ferris Bueller style first episode (SJP is married to Matthew Broderick for those not in the know) now if the rest of the series had kept this format and ran with it I reckon it would've been more bearable but sadly no. Episode numero dos slithers into view and its the format that I have witnessed before on the rare occasion when I walked in on my Wife Irene watching the odd episode. Three friends obsessing over the fact if they will ever be worth the attention of the Perfect man While somebody who resembles Kim Cattrall's Grandmother tells them to cop the fuck on and just grow a pair of balls and just fuck everything like a guy. Now I know I am not the demographic for this show, I get it I am a man...hear me roar with my endless lack of knowledge regarding the female psyche ….but hang on one second, I've met real life honest to goodness women , I am married to one after all and none , not a one acts or goes on like these four sex crazed neurotic psycho hose beasts in this show.

    During season one Carrie is dating a successful business man of Donald Trump like proportions , and after only two dates she turns up on his doorstep at some ungodly hour pissed as a horse fart demanding to know that he is in it for the long haul!?...seriously ? after two dates .....Is this how real women go on ? . If this had happened t o myself at any stage of my life I would've done one of two things, A) told the girl to fuck right off or 2) FUCK RIGHT OFF!  So the season staggers along through neurosis after neurosis following this self important clothes horse on numerous "adventures" passing itself off as a smart and funny TV show for the sassy Woman of the age while all the time she is just pinning for an answer to whether or not she will end up with Mr right or Big or whatever and raise a gaggle of big nosed horse faced children so she can justify her pointless existence.

Now My lovely Wife pointed out that the four main "Ladies" in the show are meant to represent the four sides to every Woman, The Neurotic side(Carrie) the Logical Side (Miranda) the Romantic side (Charlotte) and the Slutty side (Samantha). That's fair enough and would probably work if each of the individual characters weren't just down right annoying and idiotically written. The overall plot arc of season one is basically Carries inability to just chill the fuck out with regards to her relationship with an uber rich dude that right up until the end of the season is the most patient motherfucker I have ever seen grace the TV screens. He puts up with constant questioning and badgering about where its all going. by the end of the first season she does what every man fucking despises and gives him an ultimatum. He either tells her that he is in it for the long haul or else she isn't going away on this luxurious holiday that he has paid for in advance with his money so he could whisk her away and be romantic and loving, and The Dude like a fucking boss just looks at her gets into his chauffeur driven car and goes without her , Mr Big The Fucking Hero of this show...SCENE.

Roll on season two , and if none of these bed hoping slutbags doesn't contract some sort of STD soon I'm going to scream bullshit from the highest rooftop

Cons,Movies and Deals

Over the last week and a half I have met a Timelord, A Man sent back from the future to fight an unstoppable mechanical menace, A Commander of a Space Station and a Telepath.  None of this could prepare me for what was to come. I should've been prepared, I knew it was coming. After all I had struck a deal , I shook on it, swore I would uphold my side of the bargain....was I a fool to think it was going away, that it was going to fade into obscurity? I'm going to go with Yes.

             Let me take you back about a year and a half, I had received a gift , A Box set of epic proportions .Battlestar Galactica in all its Frakking glory , and I was determined to get My lovely Wife Irene to sit down and watch it with me. I asked nicely I was shot down , I pleaded I was shot down, I offered baked goods I was shot down . Then a sly grin appeared on my Wife's face, a glint  in her large blue eyes. She proposed a compromise , a deal of sorts. She would watch Battlestar Galactica from start to finish , but I had to watch something of her choosing without a grumble or a gripe. I foolishly saw this as a victory and took the offer with reckless abandon . That was until Sunday last week, Myself and Irene had gone to the cinema to see a Special screening of The Goonies , We were in the Pub afterwards and Irene decided that now was the time to spring her well matured trap. I was like Indiana Jones miraculously surviving the few obstacles at the beginning of Raiders , but instead of seeing the Boulder come crashing towards me and deftly out running it , a good year and some change later I was about to get run over. The Series I agreed to view from start to finish and its two follow up movies as well .....


     ...........Sex in The City.

Now I know What you're thinking....

                                          (Yes this is a none to subtle Sarah Jessica Parker Jibe)

  But My good Friend Graham Doyle softened this blow for me. He suggested that I use this opportunity to record a unique view on what a lot of guys consider to be a no go area. And yes I do see the slight irony that i will be posting the odd Blog post about a shoe obsessed Shergar impersonator who spends most of her time blogging or writing an article about the female condition .

 Currently Myself and Irene are finishing up our run through Aaron Sorkins excellent The West Wing. We are currently on Season 6 and with only one season to go Irene is dusting off her Sex in the City box set and two Movie collection , every now and again I swear I hear a quiet cackle while she does so. Once Bartlett has finished his second term in the White house my reprieve will be over and I will thrown head first into the world of Carrie Bradshaw and her three sex craved friends. Here's hoping I can liquor myself up good and proper to dull the pain.


Wayne



  


      



       

Stargazing - A Retrospect

Last week I was clearing some boxes out of my attic and I stumbled across a box containing some old notebooks, pieces of paper and what not. This always seems to happen to me when I try to "clean" I find something that rips me from the task at hand and I end up sitting cross legged in the middle of a floor reading or staring at pictures , remnants of a yesteryear I always seem to forget ever existed . This particular bunch of pages caught my eye and when I started reading them I was surprised to see what it was. It was an essay I had written when I was 17 , an English paper from a long forgotten time in my life . My final year at Secondary school.

We were doing our mock essays for our leaving cert (end of secondary school exams for any non Irish folk) . My English teacher handed out the list of available titles that we could choose from, One of the titles on the list jumped off the page at me "Stargazing" 

Immediately I knew what I wanted to write . The one topic that I had spent my entire childhood fantasizing about, Science Fiction. not only was I going to write about science fiction , but I was going to write about how Hollywood has represented this genre over the years and how it influenced me as a person. I figured I could be smart about it and instead of taking a literal interpretation of the title I decided to fit it to my needs.
So here is the essay as It was produced by my 17 year old brain, bear in mind this is from a time devoid of prequel trilogies, Jungle dwelling Na'vi and shameful Hollywood remakes and reboots. It is strange for me reading this again after such a long period. In my world at the time I was about to leave school and head off to college. Star Trek TNG was on TV every evening at 5pm and Star Wars had only just made its reappearance in popular culture through a small selection of novels set in an expanded universe. The prequel trilogy was nothing but a rumor filled with hopes that had yet to be dashed upon the cavernous turns of beggars canyon like a pod racer who had lost a power coupling.  I was about to travel to an undiscovered country all of my own. And for myself right now as a 34 year old so called Adult it is a long time ago and a galaxy far far away. 

   Stargazing: How the Stars of Hollywood showed me the Stars in the sky.

      "Space the final frontier.These are the Voyages of the Star ship Enterprise . It's Five year Mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations , to boldly go where no one has gone before."

With these words the TV show Star Trek kicked off its journey into the stars, and zoomed with warp speed into the hearts and minds of countless people across the world. It gave the average "Human" a glimpse into the unknown and the fantastic . For a lot of fans of science fiction Star Trek was the beginning , the launch pad if you will , into a universe of wonder that captivated child and adult alike and made them ask the question "What is out there?" . Star Trek is still going strong today, with a new crew and new adventures out amongst the stars . And while this generation of fans are lapping up tales of peaceful exploration under the leadership of the most English Frenchman in the galaxy , I for one prefer the days of Kirk and his fisticuffs with large lizard men with bulbous eyes and Spocks unwavering logic in the face of overpowering emotion. This was the original and in my humble opinion the best Star Trek, because it boldly went out into the dark of space long before we had even heard of the likes of Jean luc, Riker and Worf , they were the pioneers and the rebels of starfleet.

Which leads me onto the next fantastic adventure amongst the Stars, a tale of a small band of rebels pitted against an evil galactic empire. If Star Trek was the launch pad then surely Star Wars is the hyperspace shuttle that blasts off to take us to the destination that all Sci Fi fans My age want to go to , A Galaxy Far Far away. This is the film that pretty much created the summer Blockbuster. The craze that was Star Wars while not as prominent nowadays as it used to be defined a generation of Sci Fi fans and created so many more along the way , so much so that pop culture references bleed into every other type of medium. I myself am a true fan of Star Wars and all it's tales , be it on screen or off. The early years of my childhood were filled with pretend lightsaber battles against Darth Vader and his endless supply of Stormtroopers. Star Wars was also responsible for the birth of what is now a Hollywood staple Merchandise!  I remember the day I got my first ever star wars figure clearly. I was five, standing in the hallway of my grandparents house as my mother arrived home from a trip to the city center . I remember her handing me a brown paper bag , I also remember me ripping the bag open like a wookiee tearing off a limb revealing the toy surprise held within. A Luke Skywalker Figure in his xwing pilot uniform. I was over joyed . Two weeks later Luke was beheaded as my grandfather ran him over with the lawnmower, I had left him out in the garden while I was in having lunch and the force was not strong enough to save him. To ease the pain my Dad rushed out and picked up a new figure for me , this time I got the co pilot extraordinaire Chewbacca...the crying stopped almost instantly.

  If Star Wars and Star Trek were my Sci Fi childhood began then two films define my Sci Fi adulthood

Bladerunner for me is the quintessential brainy Science Fiction film, when I first saw it I was blown away by the amazing special effects depicting the city of tomorrow in all it's dank and dingy glory. Offering glimpses into a future where earth is over populated and polluted and artificial life is a commodity. It takes from the best film noir and mixes it with visuals of the future that even by today's special effects standard still amazing to look at. Bladerunner asked questions about mortality and humanity and leaves the viewer wondering that even if we have evolve to the stage that we are traveling amongst the stars have we lost sight of the value of what makes us human, and who are we to play at being God.

The second of the two films also offers a dark look at mans space quest 

Aliens is the sequel to the 1979 movie Alien. Unlike Ridley Scott's claustrophobic slasher in space move, it's follow up is part action movie part horror and all science fiction. Where as Ridley Scott frightens using atmosphere  and tightly wound tension set around a single organism intent on killing everything in it s wake, James Cameron scares us by using volume of numbers, loud noises and the premise that they are all coming for you and you will not survive , and boy did it work on me. It tapped into the psyche and stayed there like a xenomorph waiting to burst forth, it is a dark and dirty look at mans exploration into the stars and the consequences of trying to tame the unknown.  

These films tap into the darker side of science fiction , but it wasn't always down to trips to the cinema to blast us into the unknown, I spent countless nights sitting in my grandparents sitting room watching episodes of The Twilight zone, with episodes like Nightmare at 20,000 feet. The episode made famous for William Shanter's "There is something on the wing " . Shows like the twilight zone which first aired in the united states in 1959 , but is still shown around the world to this day allowed people to experience short tales of science fiction and fantasy more often than not with an Alien twist, without having to leave the comfort of their armchairs or if you look at a show like Doctor Who from the comfort of hiding behind the sofa. The Doctor has been off the tv screens for a while now, but it makes a return later this year in a made for TV movie starring Paul McGann, here's hoping it can garner enough interest to mark a revival. Doctor Who as a show had a unique formula that not only took in traveling through the stars but also time, allowing it to jump back to prehistoric man or forward to thousands of years in the future when man had reached out and touched the stars. 

All in all Hollywood has always had a love for all things Science Fiction. Sometimes it showcase the fantastic, sometimes the horrific. But one lesson that the Stars in Hollywood have thought me about the stars burning millions of miles above our heads that sticks with me to this day ........


                                                      In Space no one can hear you Scream.

This essay was the only time in my entire five years in secondary school that I ever received an A grade (A- to be precise ) for writing it never happened before and would never happen again. I was extremely proud of it back then, and reading again now , I'm still extremely proud of my 17 year old self for writing it.