Change Your Image
TechnoTom
I bought my first pistol, a Mauser C96, in 1898, and then travelled around the outback of Australia examining the salt and pepper mills of the indiginous people. Left bitterly disappointed three years later after learning that the aboriginies, as they are known, have no use for pepper.
Shot myself through the neck with my Mauser on June 14 1903 after returning to London. The bullet, quite vexingly, passed through me and into my butler Grieves, striking the fellow in the heart, which quickly ceased proper function. Grieves left my employ soon after in a teak and mahogony coffin and was interred in the family mausoleum.
On February 29th 1907, Grieves's decayed corpse was reanimated by a powerful blast of something called "radiation" - a frightfully invisible and quite baffling force. His spirit was none too restful and after a night's clawing at the leaden windows of my 18th Century manor, he managed to break in through the wine cellar, smashing, I gathered from the commotion, a crate of my finest reserve Port, aquired from my first overseas trip to Spain, where I shot my first native. Myself and the remaining help tracked him down with a pair of old 8-gauge Webley shotguns and a brace of cartridges, first taking care to saw off the excess barrel length in accordance with an American fad I had recently noted. We finally tracked Grieves to the decaying West Wing of the house. There I found him, in a most disagreeable mood, gnawing at the freshly killed corpse of my night porter, Mither. Mither had, until very recently, a fine silver tray upon which were a selection of sandwiches for our hunting party. The tray and, most importantly, the sandwiches, were nowhere to be seen. More unexpected than this, however, was the completely unresponsive attitude of Grieves when we opened fire upon him. Between six and fourteen cartridges we spent upon his diabolical form, but to no avail, he was as strong and as hungry as ever. It was only when Qualms, the gardener, pinned him to the floor with his trusty pitchfork, that we could recouperate enough to decide on a more permenant course of action. It was the local priest, Galloway McGalloway, who proved most confusing. With an old manuscript in one hand and the twisted, craven skull of some great hound in the other, he mumbled strange words in a wierd tongue. He then left, leaving us in no better state than before he had arrived. In annoyance I ordered my help to send a salvo his way. I understand his peppered body was eventually laid to rest in the crypt of the nearby monastary. We eventually burned Grieves's still animated remains in the furnace.
December 25th, 1910. Christmas. I believe it was this time last year that I gave my heart to someone who would not return my advances. This year, to save myself from a sorrowful countenance, I intend to give it to someone special.
January 18th 2010 my time machine is a success! I sit here with my great great great grandson. He's 30 now and, though his dress is strange and his speech is less than up to par with what I'm used to, his cellar is well stocked and my antique Mauser is still hidden in the loft!
Zcarian 47th, 8732. A terrible mistake! The air here... unbreathable! Water... like acids. My skin... it shimmers upon my bones! Light itself bends where it should not! I see everything, yet nothing. The time machine... out of.. control..
Reviews
Shopping (1994)
Great movie, bad script
Shopping is set in a shabby, dark, crumbling post-industrial UK city in the early 90s. Blast furnaces and abandoned factories line the roads, battered old Ford Escorts, Sierras, Capris and early 90s BMWs are everywhere. The plot centres around a grim inner city estate of dilapidated tower blocks and deals with the aspirations of some of its residents.
Jude Law plays self-destructive Billy McKenzie, a 19 year old nihilistic man who despises his society and hates his life. His older girlfriend Jo (played by Sadie Frost) is tired of the scene Billy is involved with, car theft, joy riding and ram raiding, but cannot drag him out of it. Sean Pertwee gives a good performance as another petty criminal Tommy, whose interests have grown to include shifting stolen goods, drugs, organised crime and generally more aspirational ideals.
After being released from his first three-month tenure in prison, Billy immediately seeks out his old mates and gets back into his old ways. Tommy initially tries to make an ally of him with stories of organisation and easy money, but Billy is only interested in getting respect from the estate and destruction and adrenaline and soon makes himself an enemy of Tommy and his crew, with ultimately tragic consequences.
Whilst the screenplay and direction are excellent, the film is totally let down by its script. Many of the character's exclamations and reposes are less than natural, some are downright baffling and some leave you cringing in your seat. It's not consistently bad, there are also genuinely heart wrenching moments and some excellent quotes, but you will also find yourself burying your head in your hands at other points and thinking "nobody says that!". Billy's two mostly annoying mates are stereotypes of stereotypes and there's also some representations of dark and dingy illegal "raves" that are... well, preposterous.
But when all's said and done, despite the cheesy moments in the script, it's a good movie. The story, all the action aside, is really about Billy's seething self-hate and unwillingness to love and be loved. The cars, the ram-raiding, the police, Tommy, the estate... it's all just a backdrop to the story of the slow and tragic destruction of an depressed young man caught in a world he has learned only to hate.