How to be a Legend

Okay so I got these tickets for Les Miserables. I thought it was going to be a show about some sad lesbians who can only get happy with having themselves some girl on girl action.

This is not the case.  I seen Les Miz (Les is pronounced “Le”, no I don’t know why you’d stick an ”s” on the end when there’s no need either, that’s the French for you.) at the Edinburgh Playhouse.  I can call it Les Miz now because I’ve seen it and am all cultured and stuff, don’t you try it, you’ll sound pretentious.

There’s a few different reviews of it, or the movie, play, the soundtrack, the wikipedia entry. It seems it’s reasonably well known however those are all written by people with unknown Legend qualifications whereby this one isn’t going to be. So jack all those other reviews in, sit down and listen up and I shall pour How to be a Legend culture into your eyes.

In a moment I shall explain the plot and the storyline, there will be spoilers but honestly if you’re going to go see this, see if for the spectacle of it. The story is not something that’s going to really pull you in, written as it was by a clearly drunk cheese-eater. First off I shall go over the good bits.

The good bits : Everything except the story. Seriously, it’s awesome, the singing is fantastic, the costumes, the acting, the makeup effects, the lighting , the dancing and the sets. All are just really really well done and you can smell the quality two fingers deep. Everyones well into it so much they’re frothing at the mouth and firing spit at each other as they talk. No wonder there’s a fine net over the orchestra, they’d be getting drowned.

Now onto the plot of the story. This is from memory and so you might think I’m rememberng wrong. I’m pretty sure I’m not. The version I seen had Gareth Gates in it too, apparently he’s some wee stuttering dude who won that Prick Idol show. 

It starts off opening scene on a boat. There’s all these chained dirty blighters having a bit of a row. They’re singing about it, they’re sad. There’s a lot of sad in this movie incidently: Note title. Anyway they finish their song and the captain guy who’s a policeman turns out get one of them pulledup and dragged forward onto his knees.  He goes  “..” Actually just a note, this is a musical so all the dialogue is sung. I will be paraphrasing whenever someone has to speak. Ok, back to the review. He goes “Oi Bawjaws, you’ve finished being a prisoner now, so get off my boat. Here’s your papers that says you’re a scabby dog of a man who’s been rowing a boat. Don’t forget me, now toddle off”. So the guy leaves the boat with his pack on a stick sorta thing.

Now this boys name is Jean Val Jean.  Rubbish name. JVJ from now on. Turns out he’s been rowing a boat for 15 years because he stole a loaf of bread as his peeps were hungry, then tried to run away and the police didn’t like that (as they are want not to).  He cuts about a bit and doesn’t get much of a job because his papers say he’s a dirty thieving rowboat operator.  He takes a mental and punches a guy too. He’s quite a burly bearded guy. JVJ, not the dude.  So then he’s wandering about hungry and a priest takes him in and gives him some food. JVJ waits until they’re asleep and nicks the silverwear, chortling away to himself but he’s caught about 4 feet from the door. He gets dragged the 4 feet back to the door and the police go “This boy’s nicked yer cutlery mate”. The priest goes “nah it’s a present, forgot to give him these candlesticks, here grab these as well”. Then once the police go away the priest is like “Listen, ya beardy loser, you need to smarten up your act, sell those , make something of yourself”. No mention of wanting to bum him or anything by the way.  So JVJ feels all emo about this and is like “Oh I’m such a d*ck*. I’m going to sort myself out.” He then rips up the papers that say he’s a prisoner and  bolts away into the night.

That scene ends and people clap.

Okay now we fastforward on a bit and there’s a woman who works in a sewing factory or something and her boss is trying to fire into her and she’s always telling him no, so the other ladies don’t like her and think she’s up herself. They find out she’s got a kid and sends money to this couple who keeps the kid for her on the sly and they give her a total shaming for it and the manager goes mental. The mayor of the town who owns the factory pops in, surprise inspection and that.  ohohoh who’s this, it’s that cheeky rascal JVJ, done alright for himself, shiny buttons and everything.  He’s giving it “right settle down, i’m heading off, manager guy deal with this and be nice”. Manager guy doesn’t and sacks the girl who I can’t remember her name. We’ll call her Blondie.  She’s well upset cos the note says her kids sick so she needs money. So she sells her necklace, her actual hair and becomes a prostitute. This happens in the space of like 10 minutes.

JVJ comes by as she’s getting arrested for attacking some guy who’s wanting a freebie.  He’s all “Aw naw, this is my fault, leave her alone police chaps, I’m the mayor. “ So she’s quite wounded and he sends her off to the hospital.

JUST THEN A RUNAWAY CART SMASHES ON and lands on some guy. so JVJ takes his coat off and lists the whole cart with the barrells and everything. Turns out one of the policemen, or rather the chief of them is the old boat policeman who is called Javert.  He goes ” That was impressive barrell lifting, I only knew one guy could lift barrells like that, a prisoner called Jean Val Jean!”. I kid you not, THAT was what tipped Cleuso here off. Not the fact it’s the same face and build or anything. JVJ goes “… Aye?”. Javert goes “Aye, but you cant be him, i’ve chased him ten years and found him the other day so we’re gonna hang him”. OOOO the drama!.

Fast forward a little bit.
JVJ goes to court. Says “I’m JVJ, not that saggy sack of crap there, check out the tattoo but you’ll need to check it out quick cos gbye!” and runs out court. He runs to hospital , visits Blondie, finds out about the kid and says he’ll look after it. She dies. Clueso shows up at the door saying “I’m well arresting you”. JVJ says “No you’re not, I’ve got to look after the kid”, kicks his ass and runs out. 

That scene ends and people clap.

I’m going to speed this up a bit now.

Open on a pub run by a fatty with huge beasts hanging out the place and a slimey weasel looking guy with  tache. Now known as Tache and Fatty. These are the girls parents, she’s like 8 or so I think. Her names Cosette .  They’re bad to her and good to their own daughter Eponine.  I had to look these names up.  JVJ shows up with a letter from the mum, gives them cash, then f*cks off with the girl. He’s got money but is on the run from the police obviously. Not the most sable of environments but probably a step up.

That scene ends and people clap.

Fast forward some years.  Tache and Fatty are living on the streets with Eponine, she’s got a well dressed young male friend called Marius. He bangs into some guy and his daughter, it’s JVJ! and Cosette.  Marius and Cosette look at each other and want to bang. They claim it’s love, but obviously there’s no way it can be since all they’ve done is look at each other. Blazing idiocy since it’s clearly a total lust thing with no conversation.

That scene ends and people clap…. except they don’t because it’s not a proper scene end bit. ONE person clapped for like 6 claps, everyone else was watching the play and then everyone was just looking at him so he obviously stopped with some raging shame going on hahaha. It was totally all Not another Teen Movie. I was laughing my ar*e off in the middle of the theatre. What a complete chimp. He then tried it AGAIN a scene later, 3 people joined in with him this time but still a bit of a small team. Everyone was a bit timid about getting the clap going after that. It was kind of a “well, will we now? … i will if you will” affair.

Eponine (EP from now on) wants Marius but he sees her as his dirty street friend so she’s no chance. JVJ and Cos were well rich looking.  Marius asks EP to find out who it is.  Something to note that despite being the biological daughter of two completely white parents, Eponine is rather obviously “black” or however you like to say it. No offence but that’s PC too far. It’s ridiculous since we’ve already established that she is def their biological daughter based on how they treat the stepkid! Now I’m not saying she’s not very talented, I’m just saying let’s not get to the stage of saying “I’m so liberal I can beat basic biology!, minds so open its changing the ethnicticity of my children”. Not happening is it.

Javert shows up and JVJ flees the scene….
Really JVJ ?… you REALLY went back to the same city the guy works in? I mean, you’re loaded, she’s got no ties, you can go anywhere and be alright and you decided to go back to the same city the guy who knows you is hunting you from?… Not smart JVJ.. not smart at all.    Downright foolish.

EP finds out where she lives,  JVJ starts packing, Marius shows up and finds Cos, she takes him upstairs to her bedroom after exchanging names. She, like her mum, is not slow to get down to the business it seems.  What. A . Slag.
Marius goes off when JVJ shows up since he doesn’t want his ass handed to him. He’s clearly thought to himself  “that guy looks like he can lift a wagon like no one else, I’m not messing”. 

He runs off, JVJ finds out they’re “in love” and is all “aww, but I’m shifting her”. Marius runs off to meet his young mates who are having a revolution in the street but just on their own because their leader is an absolute idiot who just assumed if they got some rifles and flung a bit of junk in the street, hid behind it and said “We’re free now” that the whole city would rally behind them instead of the police just battering them stupid with muskets and sticks.  JVJ shows up to help them out and keep Marius safe.  He does so but everyone else gets well stabbed up and killed. During this Javert gets caught but JVJ lets him go.  Javert says cheer but that he’s still going to rattle his head if he gets the chance. JVJ says “no probs mate”.   EP also dead.

Marius and Cos get together, that’s all happy and stuff, not much going on there.  Javert catches JVJ but lets him go. Then he’s all emo and sh*t on a bridge “oh I’ve betrayed my duty, I am a penis” and a robot sneaks up behind him to push him off. Least it looked that way to me on the left. I got quite excited and thought it was taking a War of the Worlds type shift but turns out it was to make it look like he was falling when he jumped off. This didn’t actualy work from my angle but would have from the front I think.

JVJ dies from being old and goes off with the ghost of blondie, even though once again they barely know each other but JVJ knows she puts out.

That’s pretty much it. 

Oh yeah at JVJ said to Javert twice during the thing that he’d come back and turn himself in. Totally didn’t do it. Ripped the pish right out of him there. What you thinking Javert, the boys made a clear career out of running away from the police?!

Loser, probably got lost on the way down off the bridge..

How Not To Be a Legend at Movies – New Releases 01/01/10ish

Okay I’ve seen a few movies recently that are bad, disappointingly so. I’d go even further and say in one case in particular it was closer to just plain soul destroying. I don’t believe in souls but if it I did I’d presently be sitting here considering it to have been completely and thoroughly wrecked.

The following words will contain what is known as spoilers. This means it tells you things about the movies not usually known in the trailers or whatever.

That is completely academic though because none of you b*tches should be going to see these atrocities at the cinema even if they were still available and if you’ve only rented it on DVD you’ll turn it off after a few minutes once you realise that once again I am right.

I’m always right.

I’m doing them in reverse order of horrendousness. There’s other crap movies out there but these ones have really pushed the boat out in terms of making you thoroughly regret leaving the house.

A Serious Man

This is a Coen brothers movie. That’s the guys who brought you Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy,Bad Santa, Burn after Reading and The Big Lebowski. The last of which is a genuine Legendary movie and will be on the list. So I was expecting something decent really. Quirky characters, cheeky dialogue and a small element of confusion was on my menu.

However despite what I actually ordered what I got was a wee Jewish guy getting b*ttfucked for an hour and a half. (Haven’t they suffered enough?). This movie is apparently a retelling of the Tale of Job from the most well known fiction book in the world, The Bible. Basically the God and The Devil have a wager or something that God can bully and beat up some guy called Job… Ya know what, I don’t like the name Job. I’ll pretend to be a church leader for a second and just edit church doctrine to suit my own agenda….

The God and the Devil have a wager or something God can bully and beat up some guy called Chip and at the end of it , Chip will still be loving God no worries. It’s a morality story I’m told to instruct that God likes showing off and will randomly sh*t on his best followers just for the lulz. I would never do that by the way, which is why God’s given it all up and started worshipping me

The guy in this movie I can’t even remember the name of gets random bad stuff happening to him while he tries to see various rabbis. Nothing actually happens that’s terribly funny. I’d like to pick out some highlights of something decent that happened but the movie isn’t really working with me on that one. Then it just ends. P*sh.

If you really want to see a Jewish guy get screwed over for hours then still don’t see this. See Schindlers List or something, it’s black and white like in The Olden Days. Pretty sure it even has a point and, like Star Wars, is based on actual history.

3 stars only if you know your religious fiction.

Daybreakers

I was expecting quite a lot from this movie. It’s a vampire apocalypse type movie where most of the population are vampires and the rest are food and kept in huge storage things like the matrix. This prompted some very VERY lazy reviewers to say it was a cross between Blade and The Matrix. It’s nothing like either of those movies d*ckwad!.

The main character is a vampire who’s sad he’s a vampire and is also a haematologist. A blood guy. He’s been trying to make a synthetic blood for like 3 years or something so that they can stop hurting and treating humans like cattle. The other reason is there’s not enough food (people) to last another month really so everyone is starving to death and turning into weird f*cked up looking vampires that are all mutated and batty. It’s kind of annoying writing this synopsis because it still sounds awesome, it’s even got Willem Dafoe in it!.

So why is it really cr*p?

It’s boring. That’s the long and short of it. Everyone seems really dull, even the main character. It doesn’t come across as terrifically believable and I’m not sure but I’m pretty sure a case could be made that the dude is the worst haematologist in the world. He’s f*cking about for years trying to sort synthetic blood and can’t do it, he f*cks off to get cosy with the humans and his assistant cracks it in two weeks!. Plus turns out you can change back to a human if you get just the right amount of burning by the Sun but then, even easier, if a vampire drinks the blood of such a turnback, it turns into a human again also. This comes as a big surprise later in the movie even though I’m reasonably sure that any haematologist worth his salt would think of mixing the returned human’s blood with some vampire blood to see what happens. We’ve already established that he’s totally useless in his chosen profession though. Still at least he’s not a total whiny boring wimp. Ah no, he is.

There’s a lot of chat in this movie. I don’t mean good quality dialogue either. I mean chat.

Chat: The opposite of banter or “fun and exciting cheeky conversation”. The kind of talking you do with store assistants when buying a bag of peanuts.

It felt like it was about 3 hours long, but it was only hour and half I think.

It’s only getting two stars due to the sheer botched potential of it.

The Road

Finally we are here. The worst movie I have seen in a long time, even more than the above two movies I’ve shredded. Viggo Morteson and his son are in a post apocalyptic world in a struggle to survive. The real struggle to survive was me to survive to watch the end of this movie, in a desperate bid to see if something,anything, would happen. There’s basically like 4 things going on in this movie and then it just repeats. There’s bands of cannibal rapists cutting about. Sounds pretty exciting right ? Correct!, so they’re barely in it. No need for thrills in this movie, nope not when we can have…

1. Long panoramic shots of rusty cars and bleak landscapes, looking very grey and brown, accompanied by a weary Viggo talking in a monotone voice about how sad everything is but how he’s chugging on, for the sake of the boy. There’s a good 3-4 of these sequences. All dull, bleak and depressing.
2. Shot of him and the boy scrounging a living with food. Again a good 3-4 of these. With them shivering or making *isn’t this good* faces at each other over the fire, the boy asking irritating stupid questions because he’s 10 and that’s what they do.
3. Viggo telling the boy they have to get moving along the road. There’s a lot of that. I thought the boy would get the gist of the idea pretty early. They’ve apparently been f*cking about for some years.
4. Flashbacks to Viggo and his missus back in the day and at the start. She walks away to die in the snow and tells Viggo to go south to the coast because its warmer. Pretty sensible advice from Suicide Suzie all in all.

Viggo gets naked a couple times too, to show how scrawny and starving he is and that he’s a real actor. It’s minging. At one point he starts messing around with a gold ring and I thought he’d got mixed up what movie he was in. So they’re basically spending the whole movie going south to the beach. Common themes include Viggo training the boy to last on his own because he’s not going to be around forever and the boy never listening and just having friendly chat with whatever total freaks happen to be cutting about.

They get to the beach and Viggys coughing loads. Dies. Leaving the boy alone. Boy meets a guy (that is Guy Pearce who’s already done some cannibalism in his time) who has a family and they’ve apparently been following him the whole time and waiting for him to be alone. Despite them actually telling him these things that make them sound like the Rapist Brady Bunch the boy decides to stay with them. Hooking up minutes after his dads scrawny ass died.

Everyone in this movie is absolutely f*cking stinking looking too. It’s authentic that way, they look totally unwashed and scummy as anything. They’d not be invited to a garden party for sure.

On top of this everything is just so absolutely depressing and hopeless you really can’t feel much sympathy for either of the main characters. I mean genuinely what is the bloody point of it when you’re going to be dead soon, chances are in a horrific way.

I just wanted this movie to end after about 10 minutes, instead I spent what felt like two hours being raped by a Dementor. I was cheering the cannibal rapists to get ahold of them and just kill them because I wanted the movie to be over so much.

Minus stars.

All these movies share a couple of common things wrong with them I’ve since realised after writing this. It’s all dull characters that you don’t care about if they die, in fact because of how boring they’ve managed to make things that should be actually good in the movie you just want them to fail and die to get things over and done with.

I watch these movies so you don’t have to, but some people who don’t realise how completely Legend I am will still want to check them out and you should go fill your boots and do that. However when you’re about 10-15 minutes into them and getting the terrible feeling I’m right, just leave then, I am.

It’s not going to get better.

Remember , reviews are opinions and not fact. Except my reviews. These movies all suck.

FACT.