Fillum Review - The Pentagon Wars (HBO 1998)

A bit of military historical hi-jinks here, courtesy of HBO.

                                                                       (DVD Cover)
"The Pentagon Wars" is a 1998 TV movie based on the memoirs of Colonel James Burton (USAF), specifically a period during the late 1970s/early 1980s in which he was assigned to oversee the acceptance into military service of the long delayed Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

Using mainly comedy actors, the film takes a comedic look at the corruption that is rife within US military arms development.

The story begins when Colonel Burton (Cary Elwes) is assigned by congress to evaluate the Bradleys development and to have the final decision about whether the project, which was well behind schedule and severely over budget, was fit to be placed into production and be accepted for Army service.
He becomes suspicious after the project manager, General Partridge (Kelsey Grammer) appears to be being deliberately obstructive to his enquiries about the vehicles performance under combat conditions.
After attending a demonstration at Aberdeen proving grounds, in which a live RPG round is shown to bounce harmlessly off the vehicles armour, his suspicion is further aroused when Partridges adjutants (John McGinley & Tom Wright) actively prevent him from examining the vehicle or seeing any of its performance data. He later leans from a concerned technical sergeant that many of the tests that the Bradley has "passed" were because the data was falsified due to using sub standard ammunition or substitutes.

Burton formally requests that all data and materials concerning the development of the vehicle are made available to him, and, when tons of paperwork is dumped on him, he gradually begins to realise that the Bradley "as is", is in fact a piece of junk, and that the project has continually been mismanaged by successive overseers ever since its inception in the late 1950s, due to the designer being forced to incorporate numerous ridiculous features on to the vehicle by a succession of armchair generals.

He sums up the vehicle as thus:- "Its a personnel carrier that cant carry personnel, its a scout thats so big it cant hide and its an anti tank platform with no armour."

Most of the film is relayed through flashbacks, as General Partridge gives evidence at a congressional enquiry into the mismanagement of the project, and it soon becomes clear that Partridge and his cronies were more interested in securing lucrative private sector work and promotions over developing a vehicle that is combat ready and safe for use by troops.

The film ends by stating that the Bradley Fighting Vehicle was introduced into service in 1981, having undergone extensive modifications in order to correct the glaring errors in its design and construction, however, Colonel Burton was "Blackballed" by the military, who saw his whistle blowing as a threat to the arms development industry.

If youre interested in this sort of thing, this film is a good watch, and the "dry" content is helped along by the films use of comedy actors and numerous farcical scenes (which incidentally really happened) in which Burtons progress is impeded by the conspirators.

This film is available to buy on DVD, but is quite hard to find, however it is available to watch "by other means" on various video sites.

Comedy Spotlight - Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers was a British comedy actor known for his many roles in film and on radio. Although he was christened "Richard Henry Sellers", his parents opted to call him "Peter", which was to have been the name of their first child, however this child was stillborn.

Sellers began his career on stage as a drummer whilst touring with his parents, who were both members of a touring variety troupe. Over time, Sellers developed a talent for mimicry and comedic performance, this would serve him well for most of his career.

Sellers himself led a rather odd life, from an early age, he developed a very close relationship with his mother, to the point at which his long time friend, Spike Milligan, regarded as being somewhat worrying and un natural. Sellers also had a rather odd relationship with religion, with his father being an adherent to the Church of England, and his mother being a non practicing Jew. He didn't find out about his Jewish ancestry until he entered a Catholic school, and took it upon himself to follow the tradition of Jews taking the beliefs of their mother, although it was not clear as to why he found it important to do this, as Sellers himself was never a practicing Jew. Spike Milligan noted that Sellers seemed to have a deep resentment of this Jewish heritage, and was once moved to tears when Milligan presented him with a Jewish candelabrum as a christmas gift, an act which Sellers misunderstood as being an anti-semitic insult.

Sellers joined the RAF at the age of 18 in 1943, although no record exists of whether he joined willingly or was conscripted but it is known that his mother attempted to have him exempted from military service on "medical grounds", this request was denied.
Due to his chronic myopia, for which he wore glasses his entire life, he was excluded from pilot training, and instead found himself performing mainly administrative duties, which he found to be exceptionally boring, although the experience he got from dealing with senior RAF officers provided the inspiration for "Group Captain Mandrake" one of the characters he played in "Dr. Strangelove".

To escape the dullness of administration work, Sellers volunteered to join the "Gang Troupe", a unit of performers who provided entertainment to troops and personnel throughout the UK and India throughout the war. Although Sellers toured extensively with the Gang Troupe, he was known to have greatly exaggerated the time he spent touring and entertaining, as well as his importance to the company.

Sellers was posted back to England in 1946, and eventually demobbed in 1947, however his attempts to get back into theatre were somewhat lackluster, with him only being able to secure work sporadically. Sellers, being somewhat vain and egotistical (something which caused numerous problems throughout his entire career), took all the rejections he recieved personally, and allowed this resentment to build up over the years, frequently resulting in fits of unfocused rage being directed against anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.

Sellers eventually decided to try and kickstart his career by auditioning for several BBC radio productions, and enjoyed a decent amount of success, being cast in various radio and TV broadcasts, however, it wasn't until he telephoned BBC radio producer Roy Speer directly, whilst pretending to be Kenneth Horne, a major radio personality, to "recommend" himself. Speer saw through this deception, but decided to audition Sellers anyway, admiring his cheek. This led to him becoming a top bill star on BBC radio, and introduced him to many lifelong friends, such as Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine, with whom he went on to perform extensive work with in "The Goon Show".

Sellers met Australian actress Anne Howe in 1949, and they later married in 1951, after Sellers had begun to find fame in films, with his first big break being cast as "Harry" in the 1955 film, "The Ladykillers". Their marriage started off seemingly idyllic, but as time went on, Sellers' strange behaviours and fits of rage, largely directed against his wife and children, began to erode the relationship.

Sellers career as a comedy actor plodded along, as did his rather strange home life, for the remainder of the 1950s, however a big turning point in his life came in 1960, when he was cast opposite Sophia Loren in "The Millionairess". Sellers was initially not interested in the role, however when he found out he was to share extensive screentime with Loren, he changed his mind. This was due to him having an obvious attraction to her, and seemed to be under the impression that she was attracted to him, despite both of them being married and also the fact that Loren couldn't stand him. This culminated in Sellers returning home one night and declaring, in front of his wife and two children, that he didn't love them as much as he loved Sophia Loren, and that he intended to leave them for her.
The "relationship" with Loren never materialised, and soon after, Anne Sellers began an affair with their decorator, having gotten tired of Peters continual abuse, humiliation, drug and alcohol abuse, and, above all, his flagrant womanising. Sellers was known to regularly have sex with female extras and production staff, and made no secret of it, even speaking about his sexual exploits to his children, both of whom were still very young and had no understanding of what he was talking about.
Sellers son, Michael, stated that his father once woke him up in the middle of the night and asked for advice on whether he should divorce or not, and later directly asked both Michael and his sister Sarah, who were aged 7 and 4 respectively at the time, who they loved more. Sarah answered she loved both parents equally, while Michael answered he loved his mother more, this response received yet another violent outburst. The marriage ended in divorce in 1962, with Sellers remarking that he hated both his children and never wanted to hear from them or their mother ever again.

Despite his off-screen antics causing problems for both him, his family and his work, Sellers continued to get regular work, being a "bankable" star in films and still a hit on radio, however his runaway success playing the inept French detective Inspector Clouseau in 1963s "The Pink Panther" served only to fuel both his egomania and his paranoia, but did establish a long term working relationship between Sellers and director Blake Edwards. This came after Sellers decided to relocate to America after the death of his father in 1962, and his close friends noted an increase in Sellers erratic behaviour and soon he became increasingly difficult to work with, as he became more and more dependent on alcohol and drug abuse.
More film success followed, with Dr. Strangelove in 1963, and A Shot in the Dark in 1964, which was a sequel to The Pink Panther.
Soon after, Sellers met and married Swedish actress Britt Ekland, based on a misplaced recommendation by his astrologer friend John Morris. They had only known each other for 10 days when they married.

During the filming of "Kiss me Stupid" in 1964, Sellers and actress Kim Novak butted heads over how things should be done, causing numerous problems on set. Sellers left the production as, on the evening of the 5th of April, he took copious amounts of amyl nitrate in preparation for sex with Ekland, which caused him to have 8 heart attacks over the course of three hours. Director Billy Wilder was quoted as saying he didn't care about Sellers heart attacks, as you had to have a heart in order to have them.

It took Sellers a fair while to recover from this, however he made appearances in several major successful films, including "Whats new, Pussycat?" and "After the Fox", in which he appeared with Ekland.
During the filming of this movie, Sellers tried to have director Vittorio de Sica fired for "disrespecting his wife", a move which was unsuccessful and led to problems on set. Sellers also caused problems by loudly and repeatedly humiliating and berating Ekland during filming (nobody disrespects my wife but me!)
Sellers career chugged along until 1967, when he was cast in the James Bond spoof "Casino Royale".
For some reason, Sellers was under the impression that he was being cast in the role of James Bond, and was to play the role straight, as he had constructed the false reality in his mind that he was now going to start playing "serious" roles in movies. Unfortunately for Sellers, this was not the case, and the film itself was intended to be a satirical comedy farce, lampooning the James Bond films.
On set, Sellers and Orson Welles openly hated each other, this stemmed from Sellers jealousy of Welles imagined friendship with Princess Margaret, as well as Sellers disgust at Welles being allowed to perform magic tricks on film, this, along with the director demanding that he ad-lib funny dialogue and do stupid things on film, angered Sellers as it destroyed his vision of the film being "straight". Sellers eventually left the production, it was never established whether he was fired or if he quit. The film itself was eventually reworked as most of it had been filmed, but as Sellers was no longer available to film missing scenes, a new storyline had to be woven together from both old and new footage, resulting in a bizarre farcical movie which made very little sense, but was still a hit nonetheless.
Later in the year, whilst filming "The Bobo", a poorly received comedy film in which Sellers starred alongside Ekland, Sellers mother suffered a heart attack and died, this affected Sellers greatly, as his scarily close relationship with his mother had always been there. It was at this point that Ekland said the abuse she received from Sellers began to get physical, and Sellers drug habits became more and more out of control.

Sellers career took a sharp downturn after this, with his marriage to Ekland ending in 1968 after she tired of his abusive attitude towards her, both at home and when working together, and a string of unsuccessful films, including a further three Pink Panther sequels. Sellers relationship with Blake Edwards deteriorated as well, with Edwards describing Sellers mental state as akin to that of an inmate in a lunatic asylum. Sellers himself had long become resentful of the fact that, in his words, "people didn't like Peter Sellers, they only liked the characters he played", and he soon began to describe himself as being little more than an empty, personality free "shell" into which various persona's flowed and channelled themselves.

Sellers married actress Lynne Frederick in 1977, and almost immediately their relationship was an abusive one, with Sellers being known to repeatedly physically abuse her. in 1977, Sellers suffered another heart attack, and was fitted with a pacemaker, as the years of drug and alcohol abuse finally caught up with him whilst on a flight from Paris to London.
Sellers filmed "Return of the Pink Panther" in the same year, and the film was a success, reigniting Sellers career as a film star, although by this time, Sellers was sick of playing Clouseau, and the head of United Artists wasn't sad to see him go either, as by now, Sellers mental problems were becoming a very serious issue, compounded by the fact that Sellers refused to seek any professional help.
1979 saw Sellers film "Being There", a film project he had wanted to do since the late 60's, mainly as he identified with the original books main character, the personality free gardener "Chance", struck a chord with Sellers, as "Chance" simply ends up being whatever other people want him to be, similar to how Sellers saw himself to be.
The film was a critical success, and led to Sellers appearing in various other productions, however the film caused a rift between Sellers and his 15 year old daughter Victoria, who, when asked what she thought of the film, said simply "dad, you looked like a fat old man". Sellers took an immense dislike to this description of his own "masterpiece" and after a violent confrontation, disowned both her and his other daughter Sarah.

Sellers final film, "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu", released in 1980, was critically panned as being an "inept attempt at comedy".
Sellers had numerous projects in the pipeline following this disaster, however his health worsened, and his marriage to Frederick ended in divorce. he did make an attempt to reconcile with his son, however on the 22nd of July 1980, shortly after taking lunch in his room at the Dorchester hotel, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack. Although he was hospitalised, he eventually died shortly after midnight on the 24th of July.



I first encountered Peter Sellers whilst watching one of the "Pink Panther" movies during my childhood, and although the inept behaviour of Inspector Closeau was funny at the time, when I saw Sellers in other roles, I realised that although Sellers was a brilliant comedy performer, his abilities were somewhat limited.
His life is interesting to me, as his "funny" personality on screen sharply contrasts with the dark off screen personality,  to which, by all accounts, meant he was a complete and utter bastard to everyone around him and was quite rightly despised by just about everyone who knew him.
He represents the physical fusion of the concepts of both the "unhappy clown" and of the stereotypical "diva", who is allowed to carry on doing as they please with no one willing to tell him "no".
He is quite rightly regarded as a comedy genius, as his ability to"nail" characters and get laughs is unparalleled, although this ability came at the price of his sanity, as he frequently was unable to "get out of character" once the need for it had ended, almost as if he enjoyed being someone other than "Peter Sellers".

Comedy Spotlight - Bob Monkhouse

Bob Monkhouse  (Full name Robert Alan Monkhouse), was a British comedian whose career spanned over 50 years.

I, like most people my age, first came across Bob when he was presenting one of many game shows he hosted throughout the 1980s, I forget which one exactly as he presented so many in my lifetime.
At first, I was not aware he was a comedian, but what impressed me about him was his extremely amiable and easy going manner, as well as his quick witted quips. The first time I actually saw him as a comedy performer was in 1994, when he was one of many comedians who ITV devoted one of their "An audience with..." programs to, and then a year later, the BBC gave him a series titled "Bob Monkhouse: On the spot". Both these shows highlighted his quick wit and ability to make just about anything amusing, particularly so when he performed a routine he called "Bobs comedy connections", where he would ask the audience to give him two completely unrelated subjects and would then perform a 10 minute routine in which he would make up a series of gags which would connect the two subjects (something which I have yet to see ANY other comedian do half as well as Bob could).Bobs showbiz career began in his teenage years, however he didn't begin with comedy, instead, he began as an illustrator, doing artwork for various British comics such as The Beano and The Dandy, nether of which he received any artists credit for, as was the rather odd tradition of the time.
Later, Bob and his life long friend Denis Gifford formed their own publishing company, specialising in comic artwork, gag writing and rather oddly, erotic fiction.
After he completed his national service, Bob tricked his commanding officer into signing a letter stating he was a war hero and recommending that the person reading it should give him a job, which Bob then used to secure employment at the BBC, thus beginning the career which would serve him well for the next 50 years.
Initially, Bob worked as a gag writer and comedy performer for radio shows, but soon enough he began to diversify into writing material for other well known comedians of the 1950s, such as Arthur Askey, Max Miller and Bob Hope,  he also began making a name for himself on the club circuit as a double act with Denis.
Bob began presenting TV shows in the mid 50s, mainly game shows, where his wit quickly garnered him a reputation as a household name in his own right, and thus secured him more work on stage and screen.
The early 1960s marked the real beginning of Bobs comedy career, as Denis, taking Bob quite by surprise, decided to dissolve their partnership and move to America where he had managed to secure work as a gag writer for numerous American comedians (although Bob admitted in his autobiography that he had begun to tire of having to carry Denis, who, although a good gag writer, was not a very good comedian or comedy performer, as he lacked the wit and charisma required to be successful on the comedy circuit)

Bob began appearing in numerous films (The first "Carry on" film, "Carry on Sergeant" being one of the most notable) and on TV programs, although his presence on television didn't become secure until the mid 60s, when in 1967 he became the presenter of the hugely popular TV show "The Golden Shot" (again, Bob admitted in his autobiography that he, via a series of well placed negative comments to the producers, managed to get them to sack the original presenter Jackie Rae, and hire him, again, citing that Jackie was not really suitable for the job as he lacked the charisma and wit to engage with the audience both at home and in the studio). What followed from then was five years of uninterrupted work and huge success, however the good times began to turn bad.
Firstly, Bob had invested in a nightclub venture with an acquaintance of his, which seemed to be turning a decent profit, unfortunately though, Bobs faith was misplaced, as his "friend" ran off with a lot of the money and the nightclub ended up being an expensive white elephant that barely attracted customers.
Bob also engaged in a series of extra marital affairs during the 50s and early 60s, including an admitted single sexual encounter with a male-to-female transsexual (although Bob stated he was not aware of this until after he and the trans woman had had sex and Bob made a comment about her vagina seeming to be somewhat smaller than he was used to). Bobs most famous, and most dangerous bit on the side though was an affair with actress Diana Dors, who at the time as married to
small time gangster and all round bastard Dennis Hamilton. Bobs autobiography states that when Dennis eventually found out that Bob had been shagging his Mrs (via having people follow her and listening to her phone calls) he confronted Bob as he left a party in the early hours of one morning, producing a straight razor and saying he planned to "slit (bobs) eyeballs", to which Bob admits that purely out of terror he engaged in the only fist fight he had in his entire life, resulting in Hamilton receiving a knee to the groin and Bob dislocating his knee cap due to the sheer amount of force he put behind it.
The final nail in the coffin which saw Bob disappear from screens for a while came in 1972, when the producers of The Golden Shot came to believe that Bob was accepting bribes from companies to feature their products as prizes on the show, so he was "released" and replaced with black comedian Charley Williams. Bob stated years later that at no time had he accepted any bribes, and that the reason for his sacking was due to a misunderstanding when a friend of his, who happened to work for razor and knife manufacturer "Wilkinson Sword" was seen handing Bob an envelope which contained a rare book Bob had been looking for as a gift. It didn't help that a few weeks later some of the prizes featured on the show were Wilkinson Sword products, which Bob had seen and said he thought they would make a good prize for the show.

With work on TV suddenly drying up, Bob returned to stand up and gag writing, but also diversified into after dinner speaking. These projects did Bob well, but he really wanted to get back on TV, he didn't have to wait long as in 1974, the producers of The Golden Shot, who were unhappy with Charley Williams performance as host (and the subsequent massive drop in ratings), came and asked Bob to return to the show, Bob agreed, although his salary was drastically increased, and he was allowed to pursue other projects whilst working. Bob later wrote that he bore ATV (the company that produced the show) no ill will, but he was slightly miffed at the fact that he had been sacked without being given the chance to explain or defend himself from the accusations of bribery, and found it somewhat amusing that they came crawling back to him after he was told that he "wasn't important to the shows success".  The Golden Shot did enjoy renewed success after his return, but was eventually cancelled following the end of the 1975 season.

By the early 80s, Bob was still working as a writer and after dinner speaker, but had largely given up on stand up due to the proliferation of early 80s "alternative" comedians, whose material and routines he considered to be vulgar and no better than the extremely offensive "blue" comedians who dominated the club scene from the mid 70s through to the early 90s (throughout his career, Bob eschewed extreme racist and homophobic material, and very rarely used words such as "fuck" in his act). He also became an object of ridicule for some of the impressionists of the time, and suffered the humiliation of being branded as being "smug" and insincere whenever he made an appearance on TV, although he presented a few game shows in the 80s, including Family Fortunes and Bobs Full House, but had very little comedy related stuff going on on the telly.
Bob enjoyed a career renaissance in the mid 90s, when he found himself being booked for live shows on university campuses following his "Audience with...." appearance and a guest spot on "Have I got news for you". Following this, he also released a series of live stand up videos, which, unlike his TV appearances, featured much more "Adult" oriented material (such as frank discussions about his many sexual liaisons and various sexual problems he encountered as he got older), but still retained his signature quick wit and mastery of ad-lib material.
He returned to daytime TV by presenting a series of game shows, such as the £6400 question, Wipeout and Celebrity squares, and was a regular guest on chat and variety shows.

Bob only made national "scandal" headlines twice in his life, the first occasion in 1979 when he was accused of making and selling illegal copies of movies from his vast collection (Bob was an expert on early cinema, and had an extensive collection of silent movies and early TV programs on cine film, many of which had thought to be lost until the British Film Institute inventoried his collection after his death). The case went to court and he was eventually cleared, although he later wrote that he found the whole experience humiliating.
The second time Bob hit the headlines was when in 1995, a thief stole his archive of "gag books" containing a lot of his original material which he had written down since the beginning of his career. Bob offered a reward of £15,000 for their return, but no one came forward. The thief was eventually arrested and the books returned 18 months later.

Bob died in 2003 from prostate cancer, which he had been receiving treatment for but it was not successful as at the time, prostate cancer was not well understood and effective treatments had not been developed. Death didn't stop Bob from returning to TV screens though, as in 2007, Bob appeared in a series of adverts to promote "Male cancer awareness week", in which he made various quips about how prostate cancer kills more men than his wife's cooking. The campaign was a success and led to increased research and more effective treatments for the condition.

EPis0dIC! - Hyperdrive "A gift from the Glish" (Se1 E01 - 2006)

In the year 2151, the Wendover class starship HMS Camden Lock travels the stars, protecting and promoting British interests in the wider universe.

Captain Michael Henderson (aka "Mike", "Lucky Jack", "Hendo") and diplomatic officer Chloe Teal welcome representatives of the Glish on board (after he stops his weapons officer from firing missiles at their approaching ship) in order to conduct trade negotiations, with a view to the Glish setting up businesses in the Peterborough area.
Unfortunately though, the Glish are a repulsive species, whose various bodily orifices exude a disgusting mucus, and whose greeting ritual includes having them lick the hands of those whom they are meeting with.
The trade negotiations seem to go well though, regardless of this, however when a deal is about to be struck., the Glish announce that it is their tradition to lick the face of one of the representatives, which ends up being Officer Teal. Captain Henderson starts off being relieved that he didn't have to endure this, but then causes a diplomatic fall out by refusing to partake in the other part of the ritual, which would call for the Glish to rub their genitals on his face. It is also at the same time that the Glish admit that they have no interest in doing business with the British government, and instead are just killing time until they go to meet the Americans, and, as a big "fuck you" parting gift, they leave a small, but deadly, carnivorous parasitic creature on board the Camden Lock.

Hendersons superior is obvioulsy unhappy that the trade deal wasnt set up, and reminds Henderson that the captain of the space ship which shuttles school children on day trips to the moon (otherwise known as "The Brat Run") will soon be needing a new captain, as the current one is due to take early retirement due to stress.

Henderson quickly reviews all the available alien planets to find someone who would be willing to broker some sort of trade deal. Most of them are dismissed due to already setting up deals with other countrires, however Henderson finds that the planet Uberon hasn't yet set up any deals with anyone, mainly because they are isolationist and highly xenophobic, so, he orders the ships navigation officer to set course for Uberon at maximum speed, which he is unable to do, being as he has spilled coffee on the navigational computer (an accident engineered by the ships technical officer to prove the point about why drinks are not allowed on the flight deck), rendering it inoperative.
Hendo orders the computer repaired as soon as possible, however just then the ships paranoid and highly sociopathic weapons officer, Eduardo York, reports that the Glish creature has begun killing crew members, starting with the ships guinea pig. Hendo orders the creature to be hunted down and killed before they get to Uberon, a task which York relishes.

Henderson, getting bored by chief engineers Jeffers constant insistence of doing the repair job properly, over rules him and simply restarts the ships computer to factory settings, which although fixing the problem with the navigation system, causes other problems, such as making the ships toilets insisting that people wanting to use them input digits from their ridiculously long PIN numbers, and resetting the ships small arms to require a lengthy health and safety questionnaire to be completed before they will actually fire (The subject of health and safety concerns is a running gag throughout the series).

The ship finally arrives at the planet Uberon, where Henderson is contacted by Fasmoff, a representative of their government, who promptly tells him to bugger off. As Henderson launches into an impassioned speech to try and get to speak to someone about setting up a trad emission in Peterborough, but Fasmoff has no interest in speaking to him until he spots Chloe Teal in the background, and remembers her from his University days. After a brief bit of banter, Fasmoff says he will come aboard the Camden Lock to meet with Teal to reminisce.

When Fasmoff arrives, York still hasn't caught the alien parasite, so Hendo orders that it be caught quickly before Fasmoff notices it, but by this time, the creature has graduated on to killing actual crew members, starting with the "slowest", and York is relishing in the big game hunt, causing further problems as his over indulgence in the spirit of the hunt causes him to miss several good opportunities to capture or kill it.

Over thecourse of their talks, Fasmoff says he realises that a political shift at home will soon bring an end to his species isolationist stance, and that trade with Britain would be a good idea, but, Peterborough would be too small for their needs, so he would require Ealing, Doncaster and the entirety of Wales as well, Hendo agrees, just to get him to sign the trade agreement, but as they enter the conference room, he notices a severed leg on the table, so hurriedly escorts Fasmoff to "meeting room 2", which is in fact the ships urine reprocessing room, all while assuring Fasmoff he is perfectly safe.

Angry that York hasn't killed the creature, Hendo and Teal leave Fasmoff in the urine reprocessing room and grab some weapons to join the hunt, but Fasmoff, knowing that something is wrong, radios for pickup and heads to the nearest air lock, where he is attacked by the creature.
Hendo, Teal and York save him, but as they try to kill it, the creature attacks Jeffers, and their weapons insist on a long health and safety questionnaire being completed before they will fire. Eventually, Fasmoff kills the creature with his own gun, which is hardly bigger than a small dog, and insists on returning home in a state of shock, and not being really interested in trading with Britain after the days problems.

Hendo, understandably angry about the prospect of being captain of the Brat Run, orders Teal to do whatever she can to get a trade deal signed, so she resorts to cold calling random planets to try and sell the deal, which results in the whale people swearing at her as they hang up.

Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014) - CONTAINS SPOILERS

So, nearly 5 years (well, 8 years if you count the fact that he came up with the idea some time in 2006) after it was announced, its finally here....and, unlike Ashens film "Quest for the GameChild", you have to pay to watch it...so therefore it must be good eh?, eh?, eh?....

Costing $325,000 (approx £201,576), which was entirely accumulated via crowd sourcing means, including Kickstarter etc, the film represents James Rolfe's ambition to make a full length movie about the subjects he cares most about, namely films and video games.

The plot is very simple, the Nerd (James Rolfe ) is beginning to get sick of people asking him to review the Atari 2600 game E.T , widely condemned as the worst video game of all time (although throughout the film the game is referred to as "EEE TEE", in order to avoid having to pay Steven Speilberg a lot of money) , however one day, a video games company, "Cockburn Industries" decides to make a sequel to the game, imaginatively titling it "EEE TEE 2". However, in a twist to normal video game marketing practice, they decide from the get go to make the game even worse than the original, as their marketing manager, Mandi (Sarah Glendening ) has noticed that the influence of the Angry Video Game Nerds video review series on "YouPooed" has led to gamers actively seeking out and playing games that are crap in order to rage at them.

The Nerd and his never seen before friend Cooper (Jeremy Suarez ) accept a deal from Cockburn Industries to travel to New Mexico to dig up the supposed site of where Atari buried 2 million unsold copies of the original game in order to firstly prove that it never happened, and then for the Nerd to review EEE TEE 2 and say its crap, which will therefore guarantee millions of sales worldwide. Cockburn Industries sends along Mandi, who is posing as a gamer girl/nerd to act as producer for the documentary and to ensure nothing goes awry, however, things are not all as they seem, cue lots of bizarre occurrences and wacky subplots.



So, was this film worth waiting nearly 5 years for?...in a word...

No

Its good that Rolfe got to realise his dream of making a full length movie, him being interested in film making since an early age and all that, however the film has numerous problems that someone who claims to love film as much as Rolfe really should have spotted and nipped in the bud during planning and production...

1. The film is advertised as a "Comedy/Farcical" film.
O.K, I can go with that, the AVGN review videos are the same, however, this film falls into the trap of many an attempt at farce....it takes itself too seriously.... No this isn't me being a cunt and not "getting it", there is a difference between playing a role "tongue in cheek" and playing the role as a "straight man". Rolfe spectacularly fails on both counts, as during many scenes where obviously ridiculous stuff is happening, Rolfe over plays his character to the point at which the Nerd becomes an overly cynical and unlikeable character. In this respect, he is out acted in his own film by literally everybody else in the damn thing. You cant even argue that the excessive cynicism and strait-lacedness is in keeping with the character, because it isn't, and trying to cover up the flaws with lots of swearing doesn't work in a feature length movie the same way it does in a 15 minute Youtube video, because it gets tired and stale after the first few attempts.

2. The film cant seem to decide whether its going for the "B-Movie" look, or the "Hollywood blockbuster" look.
The film is brilliantly shot, with extremely high quality camera work, lighting and locations, well worthy of anything that a major studio would put out. The films special effects go for the "cheapo" look, with dead obvious scale miniatures and cheap looking effects used for comic effect, as well as heavy use of green screen to show locations where the producers couldn't afford or just didnt want to go to. This is good, however, the two styles of film making clash horribly with each other, and don't mesh very well. Granted, this film is a low budget production, and they had to work within their means, but by going all out for slick filming and then having crap and cheap looking special effects filmed in the same way doesn't add to the films charm, it makes it look decidedly amateurish. Again, this isn't a case of me "not getting it" this is a case of me being able to spot the difference between a well shot movie and a movie that has been cobbled together with poor planning. Again, this bizarre meshing of filming styles makes the film farcical for all the wrong reasons, to the point at which some scenes are just painful to watch.

3. The whole point of the film is its downfall.
Right from the very beginning when it was announced that this film would be made, it was hinted that the plot of the film would centre around the Nerd finally reviewing the game he had been most requested to review, but as yet, had not, supposedly because he didn't want to review it.
After sitting through the length of the film, the Nerd finally gets round to reviewing the original "EEE TEE" as the films credits roll, however, the "review" is nothing like the Nerds traditional review style, instead, he adopts a more mainstream "good points/bad points" style of review, and then launches into a faux inspirational monologue about how whether a game shouldn't be judged on whether it is good or bad, but on how it makes the user feel while playing it. I can agree with him to a point, however, I find it disappointing and somewhat laughable that Rolfe would decide to go against everything he has built up with the AVGN character and produce a mediocre review in someone elses style without adding any of the touches he has spent over 10 years incorporating into an established persona. Much less, you have to sit through nearly one hour and fifty seven minutes of fairly unentertaining storyline to get there.
As much as people hate him, I have to say that the "IrateGamers" Review of the game is much funnier, and to the point, and was produced on a significantly less high a budget than AVGN: The movie, simply because it doesn't take itself as uber seriously. I know it is a bit of an unfair comparison, but when it takes AVGN nearly 2 hours and $325,000 to do something someone who is blatantly copying off him managed to do in 10 minutes, you're doing it wrong.

4. Tampering with an established successful formula is usually a bad idea.
AVGN became famous because of his short skits in which he gives a foul mouthed review of crappy games before launching into over the top scenes of violence or ranting...this film contains very little of this, and, introduces new characters for no apparent reason. The character of "Cooper" exists seemingly to firstly provide a token black protagonist character to the piece, but also ask questions in order to fill in or move the plot on. For no apparent reason, the other two people most associated with being secondary characters in the AVGN shorts, namely musician Kyle Justin and illustrator Mike Matei, receive less than 10 seconds of screen time in a cameo role in the mid to late film.
Of course, the "road trip" is used as a plot device in order to place the Nerd and his two new friends into an unfamiliar locale in order to take the Nerd out of his basement, because a 2 hour long film in which the Nerd sits in front of a camera and talks about crap games would get boring, however, the convoluted and cliched plot used to get them from A to Z really doesn't make this film a spectacular must see.




So, to sum up, this film is a very disappointing watch, but its good that James Rolfe finally managed to make his dream of making a feature length movie a reality, and every penny of the money that was donated towards making it has been well spent, but, that doesn't mean that the end product is a good one. In many ways the film ends up being a parody of its premise by hyping itself up but then delivering an average result.
I cant say this is a film that I would watch again and again for laughs, and it is certainly not worth the value of renting it for viewing via Vimeo, If anything, it, like "Quest for the GameChild", is more of a curiosity than a serious attempt at breaking into the film industry.

Aint War Hell? - Dr. Strangelove (1964)

Dr. Strangelove, or, to give it its correct and full title, "Dr. Strangelove Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb" is a seminal film made in 1964, directed and co-written by Stanley Kubrick.
Based on the book "Red Alert" (also published under the title "Two hours to doom") by author Peter George, the film takes a satirical look at cold war politics, set against the backdrop of attempts to prevent the mutually assured destruction of the human race in a global nuclear conflict.

Peter Sellers, who at the time was considered to be a "bankable" name in films, crams in three roles, fistly as US president Merkin Muffley (a slang name for a pubic wig) , then as RAF exchange officer Group Captain Lionel Mandrake,  and then finally as the titular character of "Dr. Strangelove", the ex-Nazi scientific advisor the the president.
Sellers was also cast to play the role of Texan bomber commander Major T.J "King" Kong, however his inability to mimic a texan accent, coupled with an injury which would have prevented him from working on the mock up set of a B-52 bomber meant that the role was recast with veteran western actor Slim Pickens in the role (Pickens was kept unaware that the role was part of a comedy film, so thus he played his part completely straight, or, to put it more honestly, he played the role as himself).

 James Earl Jones makes an early film appearance as one of the B-52s crew, and actor George C Scott plays the role of fanatical US General Turgison (Kubrick tricked Scott into playing the role of Turgidson in a far more OTT manner than Scott was willing to play him, simply by telling Scott that he wanted him to do an OTT performance as a warm up to shooting the main scenes, then Kubrick used the scenes in which Scott behaved in a ridiculous manner in the final film. Scott was not pleased with this and refused to ever work with Kubrick again as he felt that Kubrick didn't take his talents seriously)

This film has, quire rightly, been lauded as one of the best films ever made, simply because it presents the very real concern of the outbreak of world war 3 in a manner which, even though acted out in a comedic and somewhat farcical manner, was a very real threat throughout the 60s and 70s, and even though a caption at the beginning of the film states that a situation such as the one presented in the film could never happen, it turned out that findings found after the cold war ended showed that indeed such a situation could have easily occurred on both sides.

The plot is fairly simplistic, but also complicated at the same time, requiring some knowledge of the circumstances of the cold war in order to fully appreciate.
Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (USAF) blames Soviet fluoridation of drinking water for a single episode or premature ejaculation and the humiliation that resulted from it, and thus his paranoid and ultra nationalistic mind arrives at the conclusion that the only way for hm to be able to preserve the "precious bodily fluids" of honest Americans is to start a nuclear war.
To this end, he uses a little known "Emergency plan R", which would allow air force commanders to make nuclear strikes on Soviet target following the destruction of Washington D.C without authorisation from the president.
To this end, he orders the 843rd bomber wing under his command to proceed to attack their pre assigned targets within the Soviet Union, and, to ensure the bomber crews do not deviate from the plan, their communications are all to be routed through a device called the "CRM-114 Discriminator", which will automatically ignore any radio signals which are not preceded by a three letter code, which only Ripper himself knows.
Very quickly, the forces of the USA and the USSR realise that this isn't a training exersize, and begin frantically working together to stop the mutual annihilation of the human species.


One of the real gems in this film is the way in which the military types are portrayed as being both warmongering and unable to think for themselves, as they blindly follow orders to the letter with no regard or interest in what they are actually doing. The encounter between Mandrake and Colonel "Bat" Guano exemplifies this splendidly, as Mandrake is the only person realistically capable of stopping world war 3, but yet Guanos rigid adherence to his orders delays Mandrake in preventing the war while they argue over semantics and nuances in the orders given to Guano, resulting in some believable and very dark humour which I could actually see happening in real life.

The final scene, featuring Dr. Strangeloves idea for preserving human life after the war, is simply brilliant, and showcases that even as the world is ending around them, the idiots in power are more concerned about staying in power than they are about stopping disaster, especially as it means that they will all basically become entitled to a lifetime of consequence free indiscriminate sex with young female survivors.


D.R Strangelove is most definitely a film that EVERYONE should watch, as aside from beautifully illustrating the total pointlessness of war, it also beautifully points out the uncomfortable fact that most people in positions of power are either completely incompetent, completely inept and/or are only interested in furthering their own gains.

I give this film 10 out of 10 Teller/Ulam devices!

Your face, my FARCE! - The Big Bus (1976)

It became rather fashionable during the 70s for films to be made about large scale disasters, and thus the "Disaster movie" genre was born.
Films like "The Towering Inferno", "The Poseidon Adventure" and "Airport" drew hundreds of people to cinemas worldwide and told melodramatic stories of situations gone horribly wring in various settings.
Inevitably though people got bored of this type of film and satirists began making parodies of the genre, "The Big Bus" being one of them.

Ostensibly a farcical parody of disaster movies in general, "The Big Bus" takes a familiar disaster movie trope, that of a new and untested vehicle intended for public use (similar to how The Poseidon Adventure used a large ship), and subjects it to a series of farcical events in order to maintain a coherent plot, an endeavour in which it is largely successful.


The plot centres on the efforts of the "Coyote Bus Company" (An obvious parody of the Greyhound  bus company) to create a bus capable of travelling from New York to Denver non stop, a feat which has never been done before and is considered to be a milestone in human engineering (stay with me on this one...).
The end result is the "Cyclops", a ridiculously massive double decker bus, powered by a small nuclear reactor and containing such luxuries as a swimming pool, restaurant/cocktail lounge and even a bowling alley. The irony of this is is that although the bus itself is massive and contains all this luxury, it can only really carry a small number of passengers, and even then its cramped confines don't allow for them to travel in comfort, even though the bus is classed as being a "1st class luxury conveyance".
Things don't go according to plan though as even before the Cyclops sets off on its epic journey, an iron lung bound billionaire named "Iron Man" (Jose Ferrer) conspires with Arab oil sheiks to destroy the Cyclops in order for them to maintain their monopoly on petroleum based energy.

The film stars some bigish names, Stockard Channing plays the Cyclops' designer and acts as the films love interest, John Beck stars as the inept co-pilot of the Cyclops, Larry Hagman stars as a hapless and rather inept private doctor, and even Rene Auberjonois stars as a priest who wants to break with tradition and actually go out and get laid, much against the wishes of his cardinal.

Most of the films humour comes from the farcical situations the bus crew and its passengers find themselves in, and from a series of visual and auditory gags, for example when the Cyclops sets out on its journey, they test the aerodynamics of its hull by accelerating to its theoretical maximum speed of 90 mph, which allows the bus to break through the barrier encountered by air resistance, which is referred to by the bus's captain as "Breaking wind".

This film performed extremely poorly at the box office due to its farcical nature and a barely coherent plot, which in honesty consists of a series of sketch based comedy routines and non squiturs.
I just love how all the actors and actresses manage to deliver their lines deadpan, even though the stuff they are saying is simply nonsense most of the time, but they all manage to deliver it in such a manner that they really do sound serious.
The film also contains a series of running jokes, which, if I'm honest, aren't particularly funny, they probably sounded great on paper but did not translate well on to film, for example the numerous references to "captain" Torrances supposed cannibalism, which he is said to have committed years ago when the bus he was driving broke down in a remote area and he and his co-driver were said to have eaten the passengers in order to survive, something which he strongly denies but admits he did inadvertently eat someones foot in a stew that was cooked up by the co-driver.

I recall seeing this film on TV only once during the mid 90s, where a slightly edited version (to remove some of the films sexual references) was shown on BBC1 as a piece of Sunday afternoon filler in between the"Eastenders" omnibus and "Songs of Praise". It left a big enough impression on me though that when someone mentioned it on facebook i just had to hunt it down and watch it again, even though I knew it wasn't a good film.

To sum up, "The Big Bus" isnt going to give you jaw ache from constant laughing, in many ways its a somewhat cringe worthy effort at comedy, but it does have its moments, especially in its faux action sequences.
The main star of this film though is not the actors playing the roles, but the Cyclops itself, which was actually built as a fully functioning roadworthy vehicle, although one not capable of actually transporting passengers.