Gig Review: Ginger Wildheart & Friends. Norwich Waterfront, 12/12/11

Norwich can be a strange place for gigs. More specifically, the crowds at the gigs. It's seemingly all or nothing with them. I've been to gigs where the crowd have been on fire, absolutely going ballistic. But, there have been times where the majority of the crowd seem to have been disturbed from an hours long slumber, and...just...stand...there.

The times I've seen Ginger (or The Wildhearts) in Norwich, it's seemingly the latter. The people at the front jumping around and having a great time, everyone else stood there. Fair enough, I guess, you pay your hard earned money, you can react how you like to the performance (or not, more on that later), but you do have to clap and cheer if you like what you see.

This time round, Norwich was thankfully a little more engaged. Whilst a lot of people at the back were doing their best tree impressions, loads of people were having great fun, and everyone witnessed a truly insane gig, one of the oddest I've seen, but also one of the best.

Things were off to a great start with the first support act, Exit_International, hailing from Wales. Their mix of huge old riffs (a common theme for the entire evening) and screaming, mental vocals are not my usual cup of tea, but I thoroughly enjoyed their set, and was disappointed when it came to an end. I shall be picking up their new album, 'Black Junk', as soon as possible.

The same can be said for Hawk Eye's (Formerly Chickenhawk), not usually my bag. Whilst I enjoyed the previous band ever-so-slightly more, I really dug Hawk Eye's and they provided some memorable songs and memorable moments, namely a quick Phil Collins 'Easy Lover' sing-a-long, and a fantastic instance where singer/guitarist Paul hopped the barrier, mic stand and guitar in tow and performed an entire song in the crowd. Not seen that before!

After that, it was time for Ginger & Friends, and while I'm not going to reveal what he played until after the tour has concluded (check back here after Sunday, or if you are reading this at a later date, just scroll down) there is plenty to say.

In my opinion, Ginger has assembled the best lineup I've seen him with (and that includes the stonking 2009 Wildhearts lineup.) Denzil, Rich Jones, Chris Catalyst, Victoria Liedtke and the simply brilliant 'Random' Jon Poole made up the cast and they performed a fantastic set of Wildhearts hits and rarities (think I'm OK saying that.)

As usual though, some of the best moments came in between the songs. Anyone who has seen Ginger live knows what an amusing guy he is, and surrounded by his mates in the band, he was on fine form. A bizarre song from the mind of Jon Poole was given an airing. It's hard to write about here, but just YouTube 'The Leafy Hand', and you may get a bit closer to getting it. A heartfelt rendition of 'When A Child Is Born' by Johnny Mathis was also hilarious, except all the words were changed to 'Massive Cock and Balls'. You had to be there.

Also par for the course for a Ginger gig is song requests that will never happen. I honestly believe some people think that a band comes out on stage with no clue whatsoever as to what they are going to play. This is not the case. Anyone who follows Ginger on Twitter or Formspring knows that the songs are rehearsed in advance, as some are quite hard to play, then whittled down to make the best set possible.

So, the couple of people constantly screeching for 'Miles Away Girl' were going to leave disappointed. Even if it was for the lady in questions 3 year old daughter ("I don't care if it's for your Grandmother whose in a coma, I'm not fucking playing it!", was the classic response from Ginger.)

This all led to a hilarious situation at the encore, when Ginger refused to play anything people shouted out. Even the person who shouted out the next song on the set list, that was abandoned for just some general pissing about. This may all sound rubbish to some people, a band not playing as many songs in an encore, but you just need to understand, Ginger gigs are not like regular gigs, they're better!

This didn't please some on Facebook, moaning about not getting the last couple of songs, due to the rather loud couple of audience members, but what they don't understand is what we are seeing, the band having a laugh instead, messing around with other songs, is all spontaneous and won't be repeated! And it's great fun!

Nothing at Norwich, of course, was like the following night in Bristol. I won't open that can of worms again, but it seemed to get very chaotic at the end, and a lot of people in the crowd seemed to come off very badly, whether it be on the night or the next day on the internet.

Incidents like that, and minor little quibbles like Norwich, I can see why Ginger is taking a break from touring after these dates. To be honest, I've seen him 3 times this year in one form or another, without having to leave Norwich, and each time has been wildly entertaining. And this most recent gig ranks up there with one of the best I've been to, certainly the best in Norwich, and I've seen a lot here. A fine way to end the gigging year, and indeed, Ginger's touring run for the foreseeable future.

American Psycho Remake

As some of you may have heard, American Psycho is going to be remade. Yes, the window for remakes is closing ever faster, but this is one I'd actually like to see.

I liked the original film, and Christian Bale was so good as Patrick Bateman I can't envisage anyone else playing him. But it wasn't the book, and I would really like to see someone take a swing and making something closer to that.

But, no. This remake appears to be set after the events of the book, dealing with how Bateman survives in the modern day world. Vaguely interesting, sure, but it's not exactly a remake. But I'd rather see Bret Easton Ellis write the thing first, rather than someone try an original story.

I read someone on Tumblr say that the books of Bret Easton Ellis are unfilmable. It's been the case so far, no argument there. I mean the closest adaptation to the source material was The Rules Of Attraction.

Not even Easton Ellis himself could nail it, look at the disastrous version of The Informants that was released. At one point co-written by Easton Ellis, then mauled into a dull slog of a film, which left one of the main threads of the book out! It was probably one of the easier of his books to adapt, albeit totally pointless as the book was just a random collection of short stories.

I think if the right director came along, there could be great adaptations of his work. Look at Less Than Zero. Good film, but so far removed from the book it may as well have been called something else. I'd like to see a redo of that, also. Properly done.

Lunar Park is a book I'd love to see adapted, but while there are plenty of capable directors, I don't think any movie studio would bother with something so adventurous.

And as for Glamorama? Well that one is definitely unfilmable. Anyone would make a spectacular hash of that, and I'm glad no-one has tried.

At the end of the day, all we are going to be stuck with is another shoddy American Psycho spin-off, and all we can do is hope it's better than American Psycho 2: All American Girl...

Kevin Smith: From Genius to Crybaby

Time was, I had a lot of respect for Kevin Smith. In fact, he was probably one of my favourite directors out there. He had a run of films that most directors would kill for, which ran for almost a decade.

His first film, Clerks, speaks for itself. Shot in black and white, on zero budget, the vulgar look at convenience store life was unlike anything that came before it. Next was Mallrats, an attempt to replicate the style of Clerks, but with a studio budget, which didn't get the same critical reception, but I found it to be a tremendously enjoyable comedy.

Next up was my personal favourite, Chasing Amy, followed by the controversial (but brilliant) Dogma. Then he gave his Jay & Silent Bob characters their own film, '...Strike Back', which was also great fun.

After that, Smith left the 'View Askewniverse' behind and made Jersey Girl, which got promptly ripped to pieces. Personally, I didn't mind it, in a disposable, watch once kinda way. With that, Smith returned and made another great Clerks film, and things looked like things were back the way they were.

I guess the beginning of the end was when he made Cop Out. Essentially, Smith wanted to outlaw critics reviewing the film after it started to receive an absolute pasting from them. The argument was "why do critics get to see my film for free, and slate it, when the public has to pay?"

The answer, of course, is because if the critics like the film, they'll give it a good write up etc. which may encourage some people to go see it, who wouldn't have before. But this wasn't good enough, I guess. In Mark Kermode's new book, he actually tells the story of electing to pay to see it at the cinema, hating it, THEN blasting it.

Of course, critics weren't the only people who hated Cop Out. The vast proportion of people who went to see it did also. I didn't catch it until it came out on Blu-Ray, and rented it from LoveFilm, with a completely open mind. It was Kevin Smith after all, he deserved the chance, even if I found the whole critic rant thing a bit odd.

I thought Cop Out was fucking diabolical (see the review here) but, it was not as if I had written the guy off as a director (although I was a bit worried about his next film), I'm sure next time he would be back to his best. And he was. Red State (click here) was fantastic, really exceeded expectations.

But what finally did it for me was a by-product of Red State (and nothing to do with the rant against the airlines he had for them kicking him off the flight due to his weight. That rant was deserved, but he did milk it a LOT), and it was the nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards.

This years nominations include Drive. Now that's all I should say, really. Drive is probably the best film I have seen this year, and there has been a lot of good stuff out this year. Other films nominated include Take Shelter, The Artist, and The Descendents. Previous winners include Platoon, Pulp Fiction, Leaving Las Vegas, Fargo, Memento, The Wrestler and Black Swan.

As much as I enjoyed Red State, it's not close to any of those films. And even though it's not really, it's still viewed as a horror, a genre which rarely gets any award credit. But regardless of that, it's a great film, with great performances, but it's not award worthy, it's just not.

So Kevin Smith tweeted the following...

"How the fuck did the @SpiritAwards not nominate Michael Parks? Nor John Goodman? Nor Melissa Leo? Fuck your idiotic organization. #FakeIndie"

Crash! Bang! Smash! The sound of toys landing after being hurled from Kevin Smith's pram. Is this guy actually serious? Even if his film contained performances not seen since the glory days of De Niro, you don't post a petulant, whining tweet about how "fake" the awards are. Is it because Smith chose to distribute the film himself, touring it nationwide, he felt that automatically should include him in any 'Independent' awards?

Emilio Estevez toured his film 'The Way' (a film that was better, in my mind, than Red State) across America, and it was never released by a huge studio, making that quite the independent project, but have you heard him pitch a fit because he didn't get any award nods? Nope. Because that's not what grown up professionals do. The accolades of the viewing audience should suffice, and any awards it garners are just a nice bonus.

To end, consider this final fact. Even though Smith had boycotted critics after the theatrical failure of Cop Out,  the UK distribution company for Red State still contacted Mark Kermode asking if they could use a quote from his positive review for the movie's poster. Considering Smith's hands on approach to the distribution of this film, he must have known that people were contacting critics for permission to use positive quotes right? The same critics he didn't need a couple of years back?

Apparently, Smith's next film (or films, if it ends up being a two parter) is his long awaited (for him) hockey film Hit Somebody, then it's onto just concentrating on his podcast network (and I'm sure he'll do well at it, he is still a funny guy when he's not repeating the same old stories), but after his behaviour and the total loss of respect I have for the man, this is one former fan that won't be watching. And that's a real shame. At least I have his back catalogue to keep me entertained.

Film Review: The Guard

All the reviews I read of The Guard when it was released earlier in the year compared to another film starring Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges, a film I still haven't seen, even though the world and it's uncle have been singing it's praises since it came out. I've been meaning to, honestly, but just never got round to it.

From what I know about In Bruges though, is that it appears that the only similarity between that and The Guard is the copious amounts of fruity language used. Other than that, they seem totally different apart from Gleeson.

In The Guard, Gleeson plays an Irish police sergeant, Gerry Boyle, who has a somewhat out there persona. He's quite the in your face guy, and he does things his way. Now that may bring to mind a big action movie cop like a John McLane, but when I say he does things his way, I mean has his days off when he's supposed to have them, even with a huge murder investigation open, as he's seeing some escorts in a hotel room!

After a seemingly occult killing in his Irish quiet town, Boyle attends a briefing by FBI agent Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), where the truth about the killing begins to present itself. Blackmailing, killings and corrupt cops are all involved in the ensuing mess that Boyle and Everett have to get to the bottom of.

The Guard is easily one of the funniest films of the year. The writing from director John Michael McDonagh is brilliant, and nary a scene passes without some hysterical dialogue. Much of the laughter comes from the comparisons to the buddy cop scenario, Doyle's refusal to look at Everett's baby photos is a particular highlight ("The only time a baby doesn't look like every other baby is when it's a really fucking ugly baby, so unless you're about to show me a picture of a really fucking ugly baby, I don't want to see it")

Also having an absolute ball this is the ubiquitous Mark Strong as one of the drug smugglers, Clive Cornell. Strong also gets some killer dialogue even in the bad guy role ("When I applied for this job of international drug smuggler, it didn't say anything about heavy lifting").

But as well as all the laughs, The Guard has real heart as well. The scenes between Boyle and his Mother (Fionnula Flanagan) are as touching as anything you're likely to see this year, and the films final scenes are equally powerful. It's a rare thing for a film to be so achingly funny and so heartfelt at the same time, but The Guard pulls it off effortlessly.

The more I write in this review, the more I realize I really don't have anything negative to say about it. Great direction, great acting, great performances from everyone and it doesn't outstay it's welcome for a second. I think I may have to dish out for the full score for this one. See it as soon as humanly possible!

*****
One of the best films of 2011. Funny, touching and just brilliant all around! The highest of recommendations!