PUBLIC HEALTH WARNING!!!

WHY GOLDMEMBER WILL DESTROY YOUR SOUL

I am a film buff. I know this because I go to the movies once a week, and have an extensive DVD collection. I know who stars in what, who directed them in it, and if you’re lucky, I can probably tell you who the director of photography was. I’m not saying that makes me cool (in the eyes of some, I’m the opposite), but it does mean I feel qualified to comment on film.
It’s important to note that I was once a fan of Mike Myers work. Waynes World will always occupy a fond place in my cold cynical heart, and I stand by the original Austin Powers movie. On a personal note, his upbringing diet of British 70’s era comedy was very similar to mine. All of which makes following even more painful.
I took my brother to see Minority Report yesterday (great film by the way). I always look forward to the trailers, the sense of anticipation. What will I see today? If only I’d been prepared. Goldmember can’t possibly be half as good as the trailer because… Well, the very idea is to hideous to comtemplate. I saw the trailer for the new Dana Carvey film last week (some Master Of Disguise horse shit), and as bad as that was, at least I smiled at the Scarface piss take. Momentarily. I saw the trailer for Kung Pow, and got a laugh out of the measured absurdness of it all, finding the very idea that someone would laugh at the film hilarious in itself.
But Goldmember was different. Never has a trailer been so unfunny. I’m shocked that Beyonce Knowles could maintain her balance in every scene, she was that bad. How can someone write and produce every track on her album, lead her group with such a formiddable iron fist, yet be incapable of reciting the most simple minded, inane dialogue ever to be hammered out by a studio monkey? Why is Goldmember Dutch? Are the Dutch amusing? Their very accents a source of mirth? How can a trailer for something that purports to be a comedy not have any jokes? I hated The Spy Who Shagged Me, but at least it had jokes in it, even if they were the microwaved leftovers from the first one. But the leftovers are finished, and all we’re left with is a cheap plastic container full of grease that badly needs cleaning. Once the trailer ended, I looked to my brother, my mouth open, ready to launch a witty riposte. But nothing came. The vortex, the sheer black hole nature of THAT trailer had sucked anything intelligent out of my brain. We both looked like we’d been sent down for life. Hard labour. No parole. A life of showering with our backs to the wall.
How can this be Mike Myers? Is he dead? Is this some cruel Paul is dead type ruse, and Toby Emmerich’s gonna admit on his death bed in fifty years time that it was actually a stand-in and Mike in fact died in a motorbike accident in 1998? To be honest, Goldmember looks so bad that the Mike is dead story does not only seem semi-plausible, it’s down right enticing.
Everything in the third film is worse. Mike stretched himself playing three different characters in Spy, but in Goldmember he plays FOUR. Too much. Liz Hurley was good, Heather was mediocre, Beyonce? Abhorrent. Madonna did the last one’s song- Britney does this one. That pretty much says it all. Snow Dogs had a better fucking trailer. And I can’t stand Cuba (The Academy called, they want the Oscar back).
Apparently, it made a lot of money in the states. This is hardly surprising. Mike could have filmed himself on the can for an hour-and-a-half, it still would have opened well. In fact, if New Line are serious about their profit margins, they’ll do that for Austin 4: Let’s face it, the humour would be of a similar level, the costs would plummet (you could get it done for, ooh, say, $20 million), and smart arse academics like myself would champion the film as a comment on the lack of audience expectation in the early twenty-first century, thus cementing the picture as THE critics choice of the franchise.
Alternatively, they could just take Dr. Evil, Agent Powers, Fat Bastard and the Dutch Crotch out to the back of the lot and unload two silver ones into each of their uninspired skulls.

PS- I also saw a trailer for The Road To Perdition. If you only see one more Tom Hanks film in your life (and you could be forgiven for taking that stance), see this latest offering from Sam Mendes. It’s looks nothing short of masterful.

The Simon Crean Societal Litmus Test (SCSLT)

Ever heard of Simon Crean? I have. He came into to my place of employment on Thursday to have a look around, inspect things so to speak. Initially I was surprised, but then, remembering that I had torn up my party membership six months previously, calmed myself, decided I would not give him any satisfaction, that I would remain cool and appear non-plussed by his sudden and unexpected surfacing.
After he had left it was a different story; I went round to everyone, to let them know that THE Simon Crean had just been in, and I had shot him down with all the cool nonchalance of Johnny Depp, thus putting a very important man in his place.
“Simon who?” Okay, so the first person I mentioned it to was hardly the sharpest tack in the box. But I persevered, deciding to push on through to the next person- they’d know who I was talking about, and I would surely be paraded through the work space, lifted high on their shoulders, a champion of the common man.
“So? Is he famous or something?”
I stuttered.
“Is he- Of course he fucking is! Simon Crean?”
“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell. He better not be like, a soap star or some shit, dude.”
Oh dear.
And so it continued. Person after person. I was beginning to get anxious, and I could tell by the looks on my friends faces that they were beginning to think I was a lunatic. I have muttered, along with others, that the current Labour leadership was suffering something of an identity crisis: But I thought that meant the common man didn’t know what they stood for, not that the common punter didn’t know who they were.
I had asked nearly everyone, and so far I had only received two positive answers (a 29yr-old single mum chef and 50 something ex-college professor). In my desperation, I started asking people if they knew who Kim Beazley was. Big mistake.
“Yeah, course. He’s the leader of The Labour Party.”
“AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!! FUCK!!!”
If they were suspicious of my mental state before, now they getting the strait jacket ready.
“He’s not the leader of the fucking Labour party! Crean is! Kim quit last year!”
“Oh. So? Why should I care?”
But it was too late. I had shut my associate out, whistling chirpy Sheryl Crow songs to my self to stop from beating his brains out with his own arms. If I had said Kylie was in the house, they’d all have lost their fucking minds. But because Crean’s a politician, and in the words of one of my friends “Polly’s can’t tell me what to do. I’m my own boss”.

In short? I weep for the nation.