Hoo-ray for Hollywood

Wednesday 15th April 1998

Cash | Films | Adverts | URLs | Haiku | Fridge Update | Competition | Japlish

Hey! You there! You there with the computer! You were going to e-mail me and ask me what happened to the next Tokyo Tales, weren't you? You weren't, huh? Thanks. I don't know why I bother, sometimes.

Cash

I've been away for a while, y'see. It's been due to lack of funds again, but it would have been six hours sooner if the computer I was using at an internet cafe this morning hadn't decided to punish me for writing this cack for fully an hour by refusing to let me send it. Or save it. Or print it. Or do anything other than scream obscenities at the screen. (A machine with taste, you're probably thinking.) Is it hypocritical for someone whose main method of keeping in touch with his pals is by e-mail to become a Luddite? Do they have a website I can check out?

Still, I've now been paid. Those of you out there who are my parents will be relieved to know that I can now start paying off my credit card bills. Those of you who aren't my parents - I'd buy you all a drink if I could, but I'm on the wrong side of the world, I'm afraid; I'm not doing it at Tokyo prices.

The worst film in the world

I saw the worst film in the world last month. It was about 2am and there was really no reason for me to watch it. I was drawn in, like a fly to dung. But *what* dung. Then, a week or so later, there was another one that was even worse. And again, the next week. In short, there seem to be plenty of these movies out there. They seem to fall into two main categories:

a) American "erotic thrillers", i.e. Made-for-TV soft porn, featuring girls with unconvincingly-large breasts and many guns.

or b) Undercover motorcycle cop movies starring George Clooney with long hair.

Here are some of the culprits:

1) Sunset Beat (1990)
George Clooney plays Chic Chesboro, an undercover motorcycle cop who plays in a band and has long hair as part of his cover. He discovers a lot of money. The money belongs to a very nasty man who wants it back. We know he is very nasty because he speaks in a migratory Scandinavian / German / Andaluscian / South African accent and wears expensive suits. We know he wants his money back because he says things like "I want my money back" and even has LA Zoo's elephants killed, leaving a piece of paper saying "I want my money back" behind their conveniently-sized ears. He captures one of the policemen and drops him from a helicopter onto the stage of a charity gig that Ceorge's band are playing at to further demonstrate that he wants his money back. George throws down his guitar, breaks his cover, and gives chase with his colleagues. The baddie dies in an impressively-spectacular helicopter explosion for no good reason. Without getting his money back. George drops from the same helicopter to the safety of the ocean, a mere 200ft below. The remaining policemen literally ride off into the sunset.

George's catchphrase:
Other: "How did you play last night?"
George: "I played great."

2) T-Force
A team of super-strong anti-terrorost robots rebel and go on the rampage, killing lots of people. The lead cyborg looks like a cross between Wolf from Gladiators and the bloke who plays Captain Sheridan in Babylon 5. The hero chasing them looks like Bobby Ewing from Dallas all those years ago. The lead male cyborg has sex with the lead female cyborg, who sports a pair of particularly believeable nipples on her otherwise unbelieveably-large breasts. Lots of people die.

3) Fit to Kill (1993)
Two female undercover agents posing as DJs in Hawaii unite to stop a diamond being smuggled off the islands. One of them has particularly unrealistically-large breasts, while the other's are merely incomprehendably-big. They run around a lot in ineffective bras with big guns and impressive sunglasses. All the bad guys fire their guns wildly, whilst grimacing, from the hip, and fail to hit anyone. All the good guys fire their guns sparingly, with both hands and a kind of serious look on their faces, and are unswervingly accurate. The final chase sequence involves two speedboats, a 4x4 and two remote controlled helicopters armed with rockets. There are many loud and impressive explosions, after which the good guys all celebrate with a glass or two of champagne in a hot tub. God bless America.

4) Executive Target (1997)
Roy Schneider, Angie Everheart and Michael Madsen star in this EXCITING thriller. Terrorists (who are WELL-FUNDED and RUTHLESS) kidnap the president (Schneider) only to have their driver (Madsen) MUTINY, save the president, who gives him his watch and a swat team, and break into the terrorists' stronghold, where his best friend SACRIFICES himself by running towards a lot of heavily armed men screaming "Cherry Soda", firing wildly yet killing them ALL, before Madsen goes on to kill several hundred more terrorists, PUNCH Angle Everheart and RESCUE his girlfriend. All good guys subscribe to the same school of looking-SERIOUS-whilst-firing-their-weapons-meaningfully as the characters in "Fit to Kill".

Important Update!

There's a new Antonio advert for the Forester! This time, he looks at his watch, and says "It's time!". The rest of the advert then follows exactly as before. I thought you should know.

Another Important Update!

There's a new Winona Ryder advert for that estate car! This time, she's playing the saxophone very badly in a park, then walks to her car and says, "Alright!". The rest of the advert then follows exactly as before, but without the Tai Chi or wizened blokes.

More adverts

* There's an advert for something called a hair sensor. It appears to sense hair when pressed close to someone's scalp, as long as there's hair there, of course. It all looks frightfully impressive, anyway.

* A cutesie Nintendo game where your cutesie character runs around throwing cutesie bombs at your cutesie opponents. The cutesie name of the game? "The Throbbing Nightmare" - play it with a hangover and maybe it will start to seem apt.

I feel I'm gonna hURL...

For those who don't know, an URL is a website address, and boy do I have some beauties for you here. These have either been mailed to me by services who get to look for this kind of thing on a professional basis, or just found whilst wandering aimlessly around the web. If your mail program is clever, it'll let you click on the screen and you'll go there automatically; if you're using Pine, you'll just have to go and find a piece of paper and a pencil or something.

* Pocky Sticks!
Yes! A picture of a pack of Pocky Sticks on the Web! Admittedly the pack displayed here is of the dark chocolate variety, but you will at least get the idea. There are many other examples of interesting Japanese snacks to keep you amused, too. check out the rotodesign main page for some other priceless links, too.

* Spice Girl Haiku
can be found here and include such gems as:

To kill a Spice Girl
It wouldn't be very hard
You can use my gun

by Oregano, apparently. Some of them get rather pointlessly obscene ("oh, good!") but there are quite a few good ones hiding there.

* Completely false news stories are written by a newspaper called The Onion , and their really very funny website is definitely worth a look.

* If all that proves too much for you delicate souls, then try popping some bubblewrap here.

Hope that helps in some small way.

Haiku

Here's my favourite;

The problem with haiku
Is that you just get going
Then run out of

Fridge Update

I currently have no way to reach my fridge. It is hidden behind the piles of rubbish that I haven't yet had time to move out into the street; I think, as I have said before, that I need to wait for a full moon or something.

Competition

Well, Alex, seeing as you were the only entrant, you win, despite being hopelessly wrong with your answer of 17 exits. Ikebukuro station has at least 55 exits, although I haven't yet counted them all. Just trust me on that one. I can't think of a new question this week, but feel free to try and send me the answers anyway.

Japlish du Jour

(another pencilcase:)

YouthFur Incorporated

We're Intellect
Cultivation
and Sensitivity

(Of course you are, of course. Just lie down while the nice nurses come and give you some more happy-juice...)

Well, that's it, really. I hope, again, that you're all well. I will write an e-mail which isn't just addressed to everyone, one of these days, so please email me and complain that I haven't done so for far too long, at which point I will either repent and write to you personally.... or not.

Chris

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