IM MEMORY OF RHIANNON

Gone too soon at just nineteen.

You'll be missed by family, friends and all.

All our love, always.

MIFF PART 2 - WHITE LIGHTNIN'

WHITE LIGHTNIN'

Friday night at MIFF and I was booked for two movies. The first was WHITE LIGHTNIN', described by Vanity Fair as "A white-trash psychobilly nightmare with midnight movie appeal". Fucking sign me up!

Inspired by the life of the "Dancing Outlaw", Jesco White, WHITE LIGHTNIN' chronicles his life and drug addiction in West Virginia.

The film goes through Jesco's childhood as he huffs gas and lighter fluid, and moves onto harder drugs, before becoming increasingly violent and sporadic and being moved to a number of institutions and psychiatric health clinics.

After getting (relatively) straightened out, Jesco decides to become a dancer, like his father, and whilst on tour, meets his future wife, 'Cilla (Carrie Fischer), before taking a very, VERY dark turn later in the film.

At first, I found the film slightly off-putting for its sporadic and episodic nature, but as I eased into it, I actually found this one of the films appealing aspects. While extremely dark, the film is also incredibly funny, due largely to Edward Hogg's largely unsettling and laconic performance and voice-over as Jesco. His southern drawl and dangerous eyes are provocative and mesmerising.

White Lightnin' is a film that benefits from only a brief description of the films wild content, and much credit must go to the writing team of Eddie Moretti and Shane Smith, whose first screenplay is at turns dazzling, hilarious, depressing and gripping. They create a sympathetic and whole portrait of all the characters involved, whilst never softening the edges or pulling any punches.

First-time director Dominic Murphy gets the most from all performers, with no one hitting a false note throughout the entire film, and manages to perfectly balance the films ofter incongruous tone into something palatable and fascinating at every turn.

While Edward Hogg's winning performance should rightfully garner much praise, the most surprising aspect of this film was Carrie Fisher, who's soulful and broad interpretation of 'Cilla is possibly the finest performance of her entire career. She is fucking wonderful!

This is a film that never outstays its welcome, is close to perfect in almost every respect, and is one which I can't wait to watch again and again. If every other film I saw at the festival didn't live up to this, which I'm expecting them not to, it would still be a satisfying experience.

10/10

MIFF PART 1 - HUMPDAY

HUMPDAY

I got myself a mini-pass to MIFF (The Melbourne International Film Festival) and have decided to do some small reviews on each of the films I see.

First up is what I saw last Tuesday - HUMPDAY.

Written and directed by American Lynn Shelton, HUMPDAY is the story of two guys who've been friends since their days at University. Through a series of events that sound highly convoluted when I try and write them down, but somehow flow quite naturally in the film, they decide to have sex for an amateur porn festival, although they are both straight.

Sweet, charming, honest and hilariously funny, HUMPDAY fires on most cylinders, delivering a lovely film about homoerotic desires, friendship and the self. Shelton gets incredible performances from the entire cast, who seem to largely improvise their dialogue. Each character feels completely authentic and three-dimensional, and there exists great chemistry and excellent dynamics between them all.

The pace clips along briskly, which is good, because the one downfall of the film is its tendency to over-analyse itself, as, while interesting, much of what is said between the characters is obvious to the audience anyway, and while natural dialogue is all well and good, it's not necessarily interesting to watch. Luckily Shelton and cast manage to stay on the perfectly charming side of good for the bulk of the film.

A great way to start the festival!

And even though these systems are flawed, I'm going to allocate scores anyway, because I love a bit of illogical ranking.

7/10

BLINK!

Got some stuff up at blink-ink.com, check out the site, some very cool fun stuff there.

Each piece has to be fifty words or less, and writing anything of any resonance that long proved to be a shit-load harder than I thought it would be...

It won't blow your mind or anything, but I feel I didn't embarrass myself.

Check it out, then check out some of the other stuff, cheers!

IN PLACE

HARD FEELINGS

The second book by Jason Starr I've read (fifth if you count the Max & Angela books he co-wrote with Ken Bruen - and you REALLY, REALLY should), Starr seemed to really be finding his own voice with this novel.

The first time I read a solo book by Starr, TWISTED CITY, I was struck by its resemblance to Bret Easton Ellis' work, specifically, AMERICAN PSYCHO, and founded it an equally worthy, if more entertaining version of that. So it's only appropriate that HARD FEELINGS sports a handsome quote from Ellis on the cover. And Starr deserves it, too.

HARD FEELINGS slowly draws you in, making you like and relate to its lead character just enough so that when he starts to unravel, you feel you just might along with him.

The book, though, is not without its flaws. There is a slight feeling of drag in the middle section of the book as the character's guilt and paranoia overtake him, which, while effective, interrupted the flow of the story a bit.

I can only imagine if I had read HARD FEELINGS before any of Starr's other work, the impact it would have had, because, as it stands, the similarities with it and TWISTED CITY are too large to overlook, yet, TWISTED CITY defied its more conventional tendencies, while HARD FEELINGS allows them to a degree. Although no fault of Starr's, it is the undeniable comparison to his later, more sophisticated and refined work that ultimately hurt the book for me.

That isn't to say it's bad, far from it, I tore through its pages greedily, and was left with what felt like a film of grease and shame upon finishing it.

Delicious.

I should probably sleep...

SHIT DAMN ASS FUCK CENSORSHIP

I've been helping with the GetUp! anti-internet censorship campaign for the last few months, helping bounce some ideas around, and here is the final advertisement they've developed.

They're a non-profit, community-based grassroots organisation that isn't affiliated to any political party, but has put together some pretty cool stuff.

I particularly support their anti-censorship campaign, and love their plan to get this onto all QANTAS flights to and from Canberra in the coming months.

Have a look, and, if you're so compelled, donate, or give your time.

The link is FUCK CUNT POOP PORN DICK VIOLENCE here

(Image from the banned cover to the TISM album 'AUSTRALIA THE LUCKY CUNT')

TODAY THE WORLD A PEDARIST MOURNS

IN A TELECAST seen the world round, Michael Jackson, entertainer, experiment, brother and sex offender was filmed today, one final time, in a solid gold coffin.

"He's going out the way he lived," said a distraught fan, "looking like a corpse and eccentrically entombed within his vast wealth, whilst surrounded by undulating minors and overage enablers."

Al Sharpton was at hand to yell a few randomly selected words at mourners in his own wistful, aurally offensive manner, "Vanilla! Toast! Rhapsody! Functional! Leaf! Onion!" he said, then pausing, raising his hands to the lord above, before repeating, in his own, still-kind-of-loud, reverent way "onion."

The 7th place holder of Britain's Got Talent then tried consolidate his minimal fame by appearing on stage, although honestly, I wasn't really paying attention by then. I'm pretty sure he was demonstrating how Jackson liked his omelets.

Although, there was only one person who truly captivated the hearts and minds of the audience that day, who brought the crowd to tears and allowed them to grieve in the manner to which they're accustomed - this person who was, perhaps, personally closer to Michael, having, in a way, been brought up by him, and that, of course, was Trey Lorenz, former back-up singer to Mariah Carey. When asked for some words, Trey looked visibly confused as to his whereabouts, and screamed upon turning around and seeing the seventy-foot effigy of Jackson projected overhead.

A sentiment surely shared by all those present.

ASS

SHANE MEADOWS' NEXT FLICK

After the fucking brilliant DEAD MAN'S SHOES, starring the man I'd turn for, Paddy Considine, and the equally impressive THIS IS ENGLAND (which, tonally, oddly reminded me of Alan Moore...) writer/director Shane Meadows is making a fucking horror movie.

I think I'm going to die of happy.

Apparently it will "mak[e] Dead Man’s Shoes look like Play School". Sign me up!

Check it

And I'm not sure I'm reading this right, but I'm getting the impression that Considine will be in this too?!

I'm Beginning To Think Robert Kirkman Doesn't Like Me...

Don't read all of this is you wanna avoid spoilers.

To be fair, he has given me an unreasonable amount of entertainment for a number of years, but, as comic readers are wont to do, I feel some sort of sense of personal entitlement when he upsets me.

I just did a huge binge of the awesome INVINCIBLE, his creator owned series through image.

Then I read the latest, issue #63... and without resorting to hyperbole, it exploded my skull with the force of being punched with a thousand orgasms that somehow became corporeal and flew jets.

Simultaneously heartbroken, intrigued, outraged and dying for the next issue... you prick, Kirkman.

Kirkman loves killing his characters, as we've seen in THE WALKING DEAD, where the it has become apparent that the rotating cast is doing so because they're actually trapped in some sort of meat grinder, but certain characters are ones you just don't want to lose. And now, killing Atom Eve... well, not to get creepy about it, but I kind of considered her my girlfriend. We'd be going steady a while, I suppose, and sure, she didn't return my calls, or accept my demands of marriage, and may have issued a restraining order... and sure, even in my deluded fantasies I may be getting court orders... but Atom Eve, Kirkman?!

If I didn't love you so much I'd actually sign the waiver my hitman requires before he takes up the contract I put on you...

NOTE: Liam José and (most) known associates do not condone the killing of Robert Kirkman, and are probably able to actually have a point to their ramblings at 1am. If anything, they're only calling for a vigorous slapping.

FLASH FICTION OFFENSIVE - 850 non-refundable words of mine

This week has given me a special kind of buzz, the kind that only comes with a trifecta of win (and a receding hangover) - those being, not failing uni, offered a waged position at the company I've been doing contracts for, and now got a piece up at The Flash Fiction Offensive.

It's called BABY FOOD, it won't show you God, but I think it's kind of fun...

Check it out and shoot a comment. It's short, sweet and a little sexy.

While you're there, scroll through - some great stuff.

Flash Fiction Offensive

ACTUAL SIZE. FEIGNED EMBARRASSEMENT

I always seem to be a bit behind when it comes to technology, and I'm hoping that now that I'm blogging, it has crossed over into some kind of retro-cool nostalgia-trip for all the jaded eight-to-nine-year-olds who seem to be running the porn sites and calling me gay in the comment sections of youtube while their guardians write complaint letters about playschool and the fluoridation of water.

Looks like I'm off to a good start.

Tune in for reviews, random thoughts, shameless self-promotion, shameful self-promotion, and anything that gets stuck in my teeth that I use my keyboard to scrape out.