Tag Archives: England

Taking It From
Behind The Scenes

all smiles from Adrienne Corri

…right before she’s about to get graphically raped onscreen by the intruding Droogs in A Clockwork Orange

bi the gay, how amazings is that house (aka the author’s ‘home‘) where Alex makes and gets into mad trouble!!!!

we’d so love to live there (btw, we hate rape!) or at least peek our heads inside to see what ever became of that there place

OH SNAP!

thanks to Neil Hall’s plummiest plum assignment

Looking for Stanley: Photographing Kubrick’s Film Locations

our prayers have been answered, as he got inside the home (aka the Skybreak House, in Radlett, Hertfordshire, England)!!!! and here she (doesn’t) blows!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wait, where are them crazy large light bulbs??!?!?!

apparently Roland Emmerich loves that their ‘home’ look too!

+ Horror’s Hallowed Grounds: A Clockwork Orange


& from our files – a not so simple goal in life accomplished: visit (some of) the shooting locations of A Clockwork Orange

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Anxious & Allies

The King’s Speech
Oh-Oh Oh-Oh Oh-Oh, Here Comes The Stammer
Official Website | Trailers & Mo

You know how the pre-WWII England royalty saga went down, right?  Qwik refresher course: King George V (Michael Gambon, who’s been dying on screen a bunch lately, no?) wasn’t getting any younger or healthier, but luckily he had two dashing heirs to succeed him.  The eldest was King Edward VIII (we keep 5getting how awesomes Guy Pearce is), but he was a reluctant sovereign, cause he was head over heels in love with a twice divorced American woman that went by the name of Wallis Simpson (Eve Best > Jahvid Best).  Ultimately, Edward had to choose between the well worn throne and the well worn her, and amazingly she won out!  GAWD SAVE THE KING!!!!!!!!!  So brother King George VI (Colin Firth, with an Oscar race that’s his to lose?) ascended to where his brother abdicated.  Good fodder for a flick, no?  Yes indeedy-do, but wait, there’s more!!!!!  George the VI (not Warshawski, but Bertie, as he was known to those close to him) had a terrible stutter!!!!!!!!!!  OH NO!!!!!!  Here’s a guy who’s suppose to be the voice of an Empire, and yet he has no voice!!!!  It’s a battle that’s almos bigger than the one about to engulf all of Europe, and then the world!!!

Poor George the VI/Bertie.  He’s the right man for the job, but for the life of him, public and even private speaking is juss not his Matt Forte.  He and his ultra patient wife,  The Queen Mum (Helena Bonham Carter) have tried everything, and yet they haven’t.  Enter Aussie vocal coach Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush, also with an Oscar race that’s his to lose?) and his unorthodox methods!!!  At first, Bertie aint a fan, and actually, at second, third, fourth and fifth he also aints a fan, but eventually, and again and again, is won over by the results that Lionel is able to coax out of him.  Awwww, our heart is pidder-paddering all over again and again at the thought of these two people and actors working in such great harmony to conquer a speech impediment!!!!!

Directer Tom Hooper (The Damned United) and writer David Seidler (a former stutterer himself!) have pieced together something quite marvelously winning with The King’s Speech (despite it’s bland poster).  The film is so darn delightful and delovely that by the end we wanted to give it a giant hug.  But how can one hug a movie????  It’s impossible, but we certainly tried!!!!  Triple bonus points for casting Jennifer Ehle as Lionel’s wife, and giving her a brief reunion scene with her Pride & Prejudice co-star Colin Firthypants!!!! But wait, she’s juss as capable as Bonham Cater, so why didn’t they give her the Queen Mum role?  And aint anything co-starring Timothy Spall (as Winston Churchill) probably worth watching, no???  YES! YES! YES!!!!!!!  Bestest stuttering movie since A Fish Called Wanda!!!

Beard Science: what happened to our leaders??? they used to all have awesome great big bushy beards, and everyone knows that beards rule!!! especially those of look-a-like first cousins King George V & Tsar Nicholas II!!!!!!

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Speech talks the talk this Friday in limited release


Rental Round-Up Dawg:

Harlan – In the Shadow of Jew Suss

[website | Netflix | Amazon]

Imagine for a second that yer father or perhaps grandfather was the greatest film director that thrived under Nazi Germany.  And no, we’re not talking about Leni Riefenstahl, cause she’s not a man.  The man in question is Veit Harlan, and the man for butter or worse, was the Nazi’s Steven Spielberg.  He made a not so lil antisemitic film called Jud Süß (Jew Süss) that both made and ruined him.  When the war ended, and he was absolved of any wrongdoing, life goes back to normal, right?  Nope, it doesn’t, and the Nazi stain and the shadow of Jew Suss that was cast are two thangs that are quite hard to remove.  Juss ask his kin and their kin.  That’s what this Harlan doc is all about.  And ya wanna know who one of thems kins is?  A not so lil lady by the name of Christiane Kubrick.  Interesting!  Wife of the self-loathing Jew Stanley marries a relative of a Nazi propagandist!!!!  Well, the whole doc is verrrry interesting, and we’re sorta secretly in love with one of his granddaughters that looks like a German Björk (the one in the middle).  Maybe she should marry this self-loathing Jew????  Only THE SHADOW KNOWS!!!

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

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Scotland Yarns!!!

if yous knows us, yous already darns wells knows hows much we suffer from Anglophilia.  you would be wise to catch the sickness too, cause the ye Olde Countrye is churning out some mighty stunning material these days, which you can anglo-file under ‘A’ for AWWWWWWWWWWWESOME.  one such filmed entertainment that has so captured our hearts and thighs is the 3 part modern-day Sherlock Holmes mini-series called…

SHERLOCK!!!

it’s, as the English say, ‘brilliant’!!!  5reals, yo!!!  6reals, yo!!!!  it makes Guy Ritchie’s Holmes look like a broken Holmes!!!!  and it stars 2-time Fenella Woolgar Bestest Names Award winner Benedict Cumberbatch as the super sleuth IN MODERN TIMESSSSS!!!!!  and not only does he own Holmes in the name game, but he owns the role too.  he relishes in it so dangs much that he may have to start his own relish company!!!!!!!!!! CUMBERBITCHES!!!  and to make matters even bester, his Watson is played by the wisecrackin Martin Freeman, aka Tim from The Office, aka Bilbo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  the beyond thighnamic duo haves so many clues that it’s no mystery how fanastic this mini-series be!!! and it’s all so elementary my dear Emma Watson, and there’s no face like Holmes + a million other Holmes clichés and puns!!  and the good news for you is that if you missed it on BBC this past summer or on PBS for the past 3 weeks, shiz is being released on DVD like NOW and STUFF!!!

but wait, there’s mohr from their shores!

pissed at how lame Running Wilde is as a pseudo-answer to the Arrested Development blues??  yeah, we three, but be pissed no further lads, and turn your attentions to IFC’s abroad broad comedy…

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret!!!!!!!

David Cross crosses every London Bridge and glorifies every refarted British stereotype as an American fish well out of the chippy water.  it’s, as the English say, ‘brilliant’!!!  9reals.  it’s the perfect combo of British dry wit and American slapstickery.  it’s also the funniest show we’ve seen in 2010.  and remember, we think NOTHING is funny, so that statement hactually means something! + Neil from The Inbetweeners (the 2nd funniest show of 2010) is on it AND the theme song is by Johnny Marr.  and luckily for you, IFC renewed it for a 2nd season AND be re-airing all 6 eps starting this Friday.  make it happen future Anglophiliacs!!!

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Hyde & Seek

it was the best of times, it was the breast of times. OK, so there weren’t a lot of breasts to be had and fondled on our most recent trip to the ye Olde Country (didn’t happen on the last one 4 years ago neither), but that didn’t stop us from partying like a cockstar and a rockstar and a rollstar, and fulfilling our wildest wet dreams of visiting some of Kubrick’s choice Clockwork locales, and the whole reason why this trip slap-happened in the first place…

Blur
Hyde Park
July 2nd


dat’s right folks. Damon, Alex, Dave and Graham, back together again, like they always should be (all dough we didn’t so mind the Gorillaz and the Good, The Bad & The Queen side projects in the interim), belting out all klissasics in the very park that inspired the song (and album) Parklife


‘She’s So High’
‘Girls & Boys’
‘Tracy Jacks’
‘There’s No Other Way’
‘Jubilee’
‘Badhead’
‘Beetlebum’
‘Out Of Time’
‘Trimm Trabb’
‘Coffee & TV’
‘Tender’
‘Country House’
‘Oily Water’
‘Chemical World’
‘Sunday Sunday’
‘Parklife’ (with Phil Daniels!!)
‘End Of A Century’
‘To The End’
‘This Is A Low’
‘Popscene’
‘Advert’
‘Song 2’
‘Death Of A Party’
‘For Tomorrow’
‘The Universal’

all we can say to that set list to end all set lists is WOW (all dough we had our own set list in mind… see the comment at 16:44… that’s 4:44pm to us and yous, when the concert was first announced back in December), cause we really can’t remember that much else since we were more wasted than an American education, but that matters little cause we danced, like on a wave of emotion, romanced. if yer looking for a more concise wrap up from an American’s point of view, peep the Snob’s review from the show on the 3rd


if only we didn’t drink so much GAYmers pear cider cause maybe our memory wouldn’ta been in such a hazy shade of summer, but irregardless, we’d never take back the 100+ high-fives we give the blokes and the birds and the bees and the bidness


no one had any idea what our shirt meant since they don’t have Mountain Dew over there (or air conditioning or Kleenex or napkins or proper beef or Hispanic people and their fine food). odd looks were probably also had for the dudes sporting the Seahawks, NY football Giants and Phoenix Suns tees + the 2 Mets and the (current ugly) Blue Jays hats

and now for some random pics from the rest of our short and not so strange trip…


sadly no pigs or other animals were harmed in the taking of this curvy pic


people think American food sucks, well try getting a good pizza anywhere outside of the US (or Italy) and then talk to us. OK, so we’ll admit that we did eat Dominos whilst there, but we didn’t trust the English pizzerias for one second. apparently the big style over there is ‘American Hot’, cause you know how all of us crazy folks over here love the combo of hot peppers & ‘roni. hactually, maybe we should cause the Dominos version was quite tasty, but sadly their idea of an XL pizza is our equivalent of a kid’s meal


our English mate was mad pissed at us when we told him that these crumpets are what we refer to as English Muffins, which obviously doesn’t eggist in their neck of the woods. he proceeded to tie us up and throw us in some nooks and crannies and then we told him that their beef sucks and so we were even


the proper fi and chi helped to ease our need for some local ‘good’ cuisine. the mashed peas were delish, juss like yer mom’s crotch. we also had curry twice, and to be honest, it’s juss as good as we have it here. Britain’s bestest foods will always remain thier crisps (potato chips) and chocolate bars (Chomp Bars in particular)


we think this is what they call ‘Japanese food’


that’s right, Dallas is the American home of chicken AND pizza! then again, in NY we have Dallas BBQ, and those two don’t necessarily go hand in hand job with each other, so what does anyone know?


and yes, we even ate at Maccy D’s on the 4th of July, in the very same country we gained our independence from. had no idea wha the fork a Miami Melt was, but had to try it. and even if it didn’t taste like an old Jewish Cuban bottle of sun tan lotion dressed in pastels, it was still purty effin and geeing good. LONG LIVE AMERICA(n food)!!!!!!!!!!!!!


we have an American friend living and working over there and he was glad to spend the 4th with another of his kind. and what would ya know, as we strolled in the Heath of Hampstead, we spotted 6 clueless UKers ‘trying’ to play American football, and being Americans, we barged right in and showed them a thing or 7 about our game. we both played QB, and both of us couldn’t get any of them to run a play. we’d be like, take 10 steps and turn around. they kept running beyond 10 steps, and by the time they turned around, they didn’t understand that you had to put your hands out in order to receive the ball. it was like playing with 2 year olds, but we’ve seen 2 year olds play better football then these fellas. but ya know what, good for them for even trying, as most of these pale people on the Isles hate American football and only like soccer cause they hate things that are really cool like endless commercial time outs and punting! it’s kinda sad how soccer is not big back home. it’s even more sad that we have a basketball league that’s called ‘professional’


and
nuttin sez HAPPY 4TH OF JULY quite like seeing Benny Andersson of ABBA fame and his kick ass beard bust out some Swedish jams in the Heath! we only caught 4 songs, but him and his folk group did play ‘I Do I Do I Do I Do I Do’. man, ABBA are truly the forking balls. they really need to reunite, for the sake of their fans, and wear those tight tight tight assed satin outfits, but not for the sake of their balls and ba’ginas


guess since this was a Swedish affair they had to cover up the fact that the meatballs are usually Italian


nope, she wouldn’t let us inspect her carpet to see if it matched the drapes


man, are our arms tired. nice to be back in the States, but England is the effin shaz-natz and if you’ve never been you owe it to yourself to (and if yer in college and can, study abroad there like we did), but don’t expect to eat like we do back here in the land of plenty… of napkins

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