Photo Blog #3 Red

Photos by naz, bluegerm and chezza

If you have a craving for ham this evening and find the butchers is closed why not take yourself along to see The Road To Perdition. It stars Tom Hanks as Michael Sullivan a kind, loving father and mass murderer. Paul Newman, the best thing in it, plays Rooney, a mob boss who views Sullivan as a surrogate son. When Hanks own son surreptitiously witnesses a hit carried out by Sullivan and Rooney’s son Connor, the families are set against each other and you know the rest, don’t you? With some of the Godfather’s style but none of it’s depth the Road to Perdition is really a western in gangster’s clothes - sort of moral bad guy has to kill all the other bad guys. Sam Mendes uses the same composer that scored American Beauty so we get ridiculous wistful music playing over an otherwise silent scene were five people are gunned down. It’s a supposedly climactic scene, I read a review that called it ‘virtuoso’ during the week, but it’s absolutely laughable. Rooney stands still through a hail of bullets and, I’m not ruining this for you, believe me I couldn’t, turns to Sullivan and in the face of death says
“I’m glad it was you”

As if he’d been dreaming about this all his life, for fuck’s sake, people! Jude Law plays a hitman sent to get Sullivan who seems to have a psychic ability to predict where Sullivan is going to be. Anyway Jude Law a hitman? Ooo scary, I’d beat the shit out of him with a dead fish. The film is bookended by an incredibly inane voiceover by the kid, who, we discover, is also a philosopher. It’s shot artily enough, but in a ‘look isn’t this a really arty shot’ kinda way. Coming weeks after Insomnia, a much better film but still a disappointment compared to Memento, the young bucks seem to have been tamed by Joe Hollywood’s dollar and become company men in record time. Of course Mendes is probably telling some poor interviewer that he was using the violence as a means of exploring the relationships between fathers and sons, but if you don’t think a father valuing his son more than other people is that blinding an insight then don’t waste your time on Mendes’ ‘exploration.’ Of course, it’s probably going to win about five oscars. As for myself, I’ll probably go and see signs next week, I don’t why, it’s probably just the masochist in me.

Q: A skinhead, a punk, a metalhead and a goth are in a car together. Whose driving?

A: Mom

Thanks to SheRa for the joke!

Think of the Children.

Portsmouth Mob
Event: 3rd Annual Name-and-shame-athon
Date: 22nd October 2002
Type: Ousting

A spate of random acts of violence against local paediatricians and that man who hangs around in the park, you know, the one with the coat. Free placards for under-10s when accompanied by a furious adult.

Via Napsterites

How indie are you?