Farkin' Links Vol. 139 8/29

I got around to watching another Paul's recommended movie selections, Sexy Beast. The story involves a sociopathic gangster thief who's trying to convince his old partner to come back from retirement in Sunny Spain to do another job for a big mover and shaker back in England. It's one part character study, one part crime caper film, and one part gangster redemption film...unfortunately, it doesn't do any of those parts well. The most interesting character, the sociopath named Don Lugo played by Ben "Ghandi" Kingsley, was hyped to be a very intimdating and frightening character. He might have been frightening in grade school, but that's the only place I can think of where a grown man acting like a petulant, whiny child with ADD and Tourette's syndrome would be intimidating. No offense to Ghandi, because he tries really hard, but he's just not scary. He's actually a little pathetic, so it's hard to see why these other characters are so frightened to be around him. The caper is such a small part of the film as to be a throwaway and you don't ever really get the feeling anything is going to go wrong. The main character, who I can't even remember the name of, is completely uninteresting as a person. They try to do this weird inner dialogue as well as dream sequences that makes me think the director had been watching too many Ingmar Bergman movies while stoned. For instance, he's plagued in his dreams by this hairy monster that looks like a cross between the goatboy on SNL and Beastman from Masters of the Universe; I'm still not sure if they're going for comedy or not. This whole mess is compounded by the fact that you can't understand half the things that are spoken by the characters; they all have a crazy cockney accent that's about as unintelligible as Brad Pitt's in Snatch. I can't say I didn't enjoy parts of it, but as a movie, it's an almost...and as the old saying goes,"Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." Final grade, 5/10...or as Tristan would grade it, D+.

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
--Mark Twain


I'm not sure I ever wanted to know what's in Cheez Whiz...but, it ain't gonna stop me from eating it. "Gettin' crazy with the Cheez Whiz!"

Not much of a sense of humor in New Hampshire, I suppose. Then again, it's not a very funny prank.

For the "Japanese people are crazy" link, we have a page dedicated to the images of Kamikaze pilots from both the Japanese and American point of view. Blowing yourself up is pretty crazy; I'd put more stock in Patton's line,"No bastard won a war dying for his country; he won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

Ha...and they say chimpanzees are smart. Look at these chimps...smoking their lives away.

I can think of better ways to spend the weekend. Still, this is yet another fool who broke a cardinal rule of crime; never photograph the evidence.

Here's a list of 101 things not to say during sex. All very good advice, as I can attest to.

Wowzers...talk about frontier justice. Only in India could the cops consider fighting crime with lions. Well, OK, Africa has probably considered it, too.

You know, this is actually a pretty good idea to put a warning on beer mats. These are the people who are most likely walking off cliffs in a drunken stupor.

Athletes must hate Onterrio Smith now that he blew the lid off the Whizzinator industry.

I dunno...if I owned a Real Life doll, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want people to take pictures of me with it.

This isn't exactly news, but it's still pretty funny. Scientists have found that Cleopatra was a broke lookin' slut.

Well, sex does sell, but I doubt this ad is gonna keep Mexican men from eating turtle eggs...unless they get to bring this photo to bed and paste it on the face of their actual wives.

What a way to go...at least it was quick...going to hell at about 155 miles per hour.

Yikes! Talking about a way to go...I do not want to go out like Darth Vader! Noooooooooooooo!

There goes China again, trying to take the title for craziness from Japan. Rhino man here puts another point on their side of the ledger, though...