People My Brother Jim's Brother Charlie Looks Like

A sensational contribution from Jim yesterday, one which has both fuelled the debate and taken it in an exciting new direction through the revelation that Boy Meets World's Ben Savage looks a lot like me. I won't deny the similarity, in fact I went further and uncovered earlier photos of Ben which would stand comparison with some of my early school photos - in other words, not only does he look like me now, but he has always looked like me. (Mum, would you be able to scan such a school photo and e-mail it to me? Thanks!) Better than looking like Lily Savage anyway. Or Robbie Savage. Or just plain savage.

I also used to look like the boy on the cover of Rage Against the Machine's Evil Empire album. Although sadly, I never had the same physique - or the uniform.

Even so, a sinister parallel emerges. Whereas my brother, as we have seen, seems to look like the majority of Jewish actors of recent times, one of my lookalikes on the other hand is a poster boy for Aryan supremacy. There's an edgy sitcom in there at least.

People My Brother Jim Looks Like #5: The Man Himself Speaks!

Jim says: And now a few words from the man himself. I cant deny it, some of those are similar and some tenous. As a person of distinguised features I pride myself on the quality of my lookalikes. Such a list of well loved characters makes me proud. Thank you all very much. Here are one or two of my own lookelikeys. I have been continually told that I look like a young Dustin Hoffman, esp. from "The Graduate".

I cant see it myself but if you feel like hunting down a pic, feel free. (I do - Charlie)

As a kid I was always told I looked like Screech from Saved by the Bell.

I was also told I looked like Ben Savage from "Boy Meets World" although I'm convinced he actually looks more like our very own Charlie. This one particularly freaked me out.

Snakehead Terror/DinoCroc

There's nothing like a low-budget horror movie to distract me when I should be doing something else, and Star Movies fiendishly showed these two offerings on successive evenings. I will treat them together as they are essentially the same movie, both from the category known back home as straight-to-video, or here as straight-to-your-cable-tv-aren't-you-lucky?

In both films the idyllic harmony of a lakeside town is shattered by a sudden spate of partially-eaten corpses washing up on the shore. Yet with tourism crucial to the local economy, the town's chief of police comes under strong pressure from the mayor to keep the lake open (does this sound familiar at all?) We get excellent public announcements along the lines of, "We don't have any proof of what caused these mangled torsos... so we feel it's safe to say it's nothing." And in both it's the chief's derided but demure daughter who finally saves the day. In fact I am not entirely convinced that the two are not actually the same footage combined with different visual effects.

Snakehead Terror in particular compares favourably to the superbly silly Piranha 2: The Spawning. The Snakeheads are fish which grow monstrous and belligerent due to local scientists dumping human growth hormone in the lake. (Oh you scientists, all you ever do is meddle meddle meddle!) I'm not quite sure what gives rise to the DinoCroc as I missed the start, but it was probably a massive dose of E-numbers from a freak Kia-Ora spill or something like that.

The Snakeheads are a great and versatile baddie, eventually proving themselves equally adept on land or in the water, with the old-fashioned virtues of a professional approach, teamwork and going for the jugular. DinoCroc on the other hand inevitably disappoints because it feels like a bit of a boring hybrid from the start really. After all, what is a dinosaur anyway but a crocodile that can stand up? A better combination might have been the DinaMole - not only a subterranean flesh-eating abomination but also a natty play on words. "Look what they've done to my damn lawn! One of these days I ought to- aaaaaargh! Euuurgh! Oh God! Waaaaaargh!" Or how about being carried off and devoured by an army of rampaging DinoMites?

What is nice about both films is that while they are both full of cliches as bloated as the victims' remains, there are also some very refreshing moments where they break with convention. For example, genre custom dictates that after an early initial attack, there should not be another for a good half an hour, to allow for setting the scene, introducing the characters and maybe a false alarm or two. Nobody has told this to the Snakeheads however, who happily chow down a new victim on every single occasion that anyone so much as looks at the water. Admittedly this makes for a considerable drop-off in tension, but the director has correctly apprehended that what his target audience most want to see is two-dimensional characters being chewed to a bloody pulp by foul wriggling beasties from the deep, and on this level Snakehead Terror truly delivers. DinoCroc for his part gobbles up a child which, while not an absolute taboo, is still generally not considered overly sporting. It is actually genuinely fairly difficult as well to tell which of the characters are going to make it to the end, as they have not entirely obeyed the usual moral compass commensurate with such offerings (Making sarcastic or bullying remarks = dead. Having illicit nookie = dead. Being a scientist = horribly and lingeringly dead). The police chief in DinoCroc clearly didn't reach his position in life by asking people's opinion - blessed with the enviable luxury of actually having an international crocodile expert on hand, he responds with "Will someone get Dr Croc out of here?" Five minutes later, he re-enlists said doctor's aid with "I lost five of my best men just now. So what's your big plan?" In the face of such gross incompetence, conventional narrative requires that he offer his badge to the mayor and his head to the monster, but here it seems enough that he has learnt his lesson and lives to the end of the film a wiser and chastened individual.

Hollywood Health and Safety

Continuing the discussion on Health and Safety practices in Hollywood movies (see Gere Change and Bottom Gere, below), someone (Simon, I believe?) comments: "Basic health and safety has long been overlooked by Hollywood with rare exceptions - such as the sublime moment in the otherwise execrable Alien 3 where one soon-to-be dead person explains to another the correct way of holding scissors."

I agree, and here's the thing: given the context of the situation, such a caution does indeed seem incongruous, even humorous. But imagine how bad you would feel if, having somehow escaped the relentless jet-black nemesis that is the Alien, you then go and have a silly accident with a pair of scissors? How futile would that be? You'd be gutted. Perhaps literally.

Can anyone think of other examples from movies where good health and safety procedure has been overlooked with tragic consequences? Or are there any cases where H&S standards have been successfully applied? Comments please.

People My Brother Jim Looks Like #4

Undeniably a similarity with this chap from a recent Bailey's ad. Thanks to Sean for the heads-up, he says "if it doesn't pass the stringent qualifying criteria I'll eat my shorts (and Jim's as well - as long as he's washed them first)!" A very sensible proviso there, Sean.

People My Brother Jim Looks Like #3

Chris suggests that Jim looks like Daniel Stern (Home Alone, City Slickers) - I can't see it personally, but judge for yourself.

Gere Change

A great job by Sean with both the photoshop and the pun, here's how Richard Gere should look in the last scene of A Health and Safety-Compliant Officer and a Gentleman (see Bottom Gere, below), the timeless story of a man torn between love, duty, and basic safety precautions.

A Haiku about Culture

Yanks! You talk too loud.
I would tell you to shut up
But I am English.

People My Brother Jim Looks Like #2

And people insist he doesn't look like David Schwimmer but I say in this one, he does.

(nb. please note my punctuation in the original post, I am not trying to say Jim looks like Glamorgan. Or England.)

People My Brother Jim Looks Like #1

People my brother Jim looks like: Jason Biggs from American Pie; Tom Green; Snooker player Anthony Hamilton; Adam Sandler; Simon Jones, Glamorgan and England.

Brokebrain Mountain

Our flatmate from Mars continues to infuriate with her utter gormlessness. Anna recently went to see Brokeback Mountain. She didn't know it was about gay cowboys. She was shocked. The conversation went something like this:

Anna: So I went to see this movie called Brokeback Mountain and it turned out it was about gay cowboys and I was like, Oh my God!

Me: Anna, you must be the only person on the planet who didn't know it was about gay cowboys.

Anna: Well, nobody told me.

Me: Okay, so even leaving aside word of mouth, are you seriously saying that there has been nothing in the last three months to alert you to the existence of a controversial gay cowboy movie? No mention in newspapers, magazines, television or radio? Was there nothing about it at all on that "internet" thing that you spend all day on? Failing all of that, did you not even catch a glimpse of the movie poster on your way in? There were absolutely no clues at all?

Anna: Well if nobody tells me, how do I know? I mean, I don't know what Capote's about.

Me: It's about Capote.

Anna: Well what's a Capote?

Bottom Gere

An Officer and a Gentleman was on the other day. I hate Richard Gere. I always have. I think it's the whole 'I'm a sex symbol and gosh, don't I know it' thing that gets me. Every woman wants him and even if he gets a hooker she turns out to be Julia Roberts. Bastard. But that final scene, where he walks into the factory in his full navy uniform and carries the girl off in his arms is just cringeworthy. It's porn for women is what it is. If it happened in real life it would just be embarrassing. Moreover, I don't think the foreman would let him onto the shop floor with all the machine tools without safety goggles on at least, maybe a hard hat as well. Health and safety first, romance second. On second thoughts, let him get a drill bit through the eye. He deserves it.

Sunday Sports Day

I mean, really, how am I supposed to get any work done on a day like today? First England struggling against India in the second Test as the audio background to my Sunday afternoon mah-jong game, then a stonker of an opener to the new Formula 1 season, Alonso grabbing victory after edging out pole-sitter Schumacher. Man United beat Newcastle 2-0 but it should have been a rugby score, France beat England by - well, a rugby score - and if that's not enough, South Africa beat Australia by one wicket in THE greatest One Day International of all time. And you seriously expect me to get any writing done?

Cheating the Hangman?

Slobodan Milosevic has been found dead in his cell this morning. I am hoping that the autopsy shows he was gang-raped to death by a group of militia, as that's the only fitting end for the man I can conceive of.

Aragorn's Uninspiring Speech

Just watched Return of the King again and it occurred to me, not for the first time, how bad for morale Aragorn's pre-battle speech is as his troops line up in front of the Black Gate of Mordor.

To quote a couple of lines:

• "I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me." (Great, so you're scared shitless as well!)
• "There may come a day when we forsake our oaths and throw off all bonds of brotherhood.." (Well if we're all going to fall out later anyway, then frankly what's the point?)

Surely it would have been far better to say, "Men, you've already had one rousing call to arms in this film, can you try to remember it? I can't think of anything else to add. Raaaaaargh!"

On top of this it was to be considered that the massed ranks of Gondor are still having to swallow that this guy they've never seen before is now leading them into a seemingly unwinnable battle. (Sorry, who are you again? Strange elves reforging broken swords is no basis for a system of government! If I claimed to wield supreme executive power just because I turn up shortly after the last incumbent decided to set fire to himself and throw himself off a cliff (which I'm still a bit dubious about, frankly), they'd put me away! And another thing, why the hell did you let that ghost army go? They kicked arse! And you let them go! Bugger this, I'm off!)

Capote Review

Is it possible for a film to be gratuitously non-violent? Or more precisely, lacking the requisite violence? This for me was a real undermining flaw in Capote, where the film's inciting incident, the savage and senseless murder of a family in their home in Kansas is treated with far too much restraint. It was precisely because the case was so shocking and indeed sensational that it attracted the morbid attentions of effete New York sophisticate Truman Capote as the subject for his seminal non-fiction novel In Cold Blood. In the film's treatment, his attraction to sensitive perpetrator Perry Smith is the basis of his desire to humanise the two men responsible. Am I missing the point then? No, because it seems to me that we have no sense of revulsion when we see the two killers in the early part of the film. Even when they are shown laughing and smiling at a photo shoot organised by Capote in the presence of the local lawman who was a friend of the murdered family, the effect is more awkwardness than the visceral sense of disgust which seems more appropriate. My point is that these two men are victims even from the outset so there is nothing to humanise.

Of course the film is not about the killers or the family. Like Capote's work, it is about him, and Philip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal captures his vanity and self-absorption very well. When Smith's tragic background strikes a chord with his own, it is not sympathy that comes across but rather a mirror for self pity - as a writer, any pain of others is really his own and he will shape and express it as he chooses. Consequently, his determination for the condemned men to stay alive and friendship towards them while he garners material for his book turns to frustration and resentment when they receive stays of execution that deny his book the final chapter. When, having reluctantly attended their hanging, he whines on the phone to Harper Lee that he will never get over it, she makes the point that he at least still alive.

Another trick has been missed in not calling the film 'In Cold Blood' as his book's title is of course the central irony to the film - Capote himself is the one who acts 'in cold blood', a point made explicit if anyone missed it by Chris Cooper's policeman. I've also always felt it a bit lame to simply name a biopic after its subject, relying on whatever connotations that name evokes, eg Nixon. (nb. have since learned that there was movie based on the book in the sixties).

It's unfair to say the film produces insufficent emotional response. What it provokes above all is a strong desire to punch Truman Capote's self-serving, self-obsessed, lying, arrogant, effeminate, whining face. His vanity is contrasted nicely with the genuine modesty of Harper Lee, whose book is better than his in any case in my not at all humble opinion. But since you can't punch him, you might as well do what my friend did and fall asleep.

Hamas Poor Yorick

January 27th 2006

I bought the paper today after the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. The picture on the front had a group of Hamas members looking euphoric, but what was interesting was, one man in the near background was clearly listening to an iPod (the white headphones were the giveaway). What could he have been listening to? Here are some thoughts, in decreasing order of likelihood:

• The Killers
• Green Day: American Idiot
• Franz Ferdinand (not the band, a recording of the 1914 assassination)
• Audio book: The Five People (Not Including Your Forty Virgins) You Meet in Heaven
• Go West (bank)
• Al Aqua-eda: Al Zarqawi Girl, in Al Zarqawi World
• Wham: Baby, I'm Your Imam
• Ricky Gervais podcast
• Carpenters: Yesterday Once More (an outside bet, but he did look like he almost had a tear in his eye)

Simon Dillon also suggested Kaiser Chiefs: I Predict a Riot

Disclaimer: this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the author and should not be reprinted in any major French newspapers.

Doom and Doomer

If you see just one movie about a rough and ready space SWAT team despatched to investigate something gone horribly wrong at a outer-space facility possibly involving genetic experiments this year, make sure it's DOOM. As ever this classic conceit is fresh and original and this offering provides a crisp new take. And we really have to ask, given the slew in the 90s of such well-crafted and well-received releases as Super Mario Bros, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, why on earth has it taken Hollywood so long to make more movies based on computer games?

The Rock looks like a demented Nasser Hussain -- possibly one who's been told he has to tour Zimbabwe again. Here he puts in his most convincing performance since 2004's Walking Tall, which was critically acclaimed, or at least acclaimed with criticism (What the hell did you rent that for?) Make no mistake though -- this man's eyeballs can act. Their dynamic screen presence alone more than makes up for any supposed inadequacies in The Rock's other thespian credentials. How Brendan Gleeson somehow fluked the part of Professor 'Mad Eye' Moody in Harry Potter is anyone's guess. The Rock for goodness' sake has not one Mad Eye but two! -- either of which would have excelled in the role. Perhaps he was deemed to be over qualified?

This seems as good a time as any to lament the paucity of pro-wrestlers in major cinematic roles. Surely anyone who has seen WWF or WCW knows that these men are some of the finest actors of our generation. Yet if they continue to be overlooked as at present, a vast body (literally) of talent may never make the transition from the canvas floor to the silver screen at all. That would be a great loss.

Karl Urban's portrayal of the brooding Reaper meanwhile demonstrates how his masterclass in moral fortitude and conflicted loyalty as Eomer in The Two Towers was clearly a stepping stone to this similar but much fuller role, possessing mythic stature and an elemental resonance far surpassing anything within the limited creative powers of that hack Tolkien.

The skilful handling by the director of some of the story's trickier points is also worthy of note. For example the fact that of the eighty or so scientists and civilians (including children) the team has been sent to rescue they fail to save a single one of them from being mutilated, eaten and/or turned into zombies -- could potentially be problematic. However this difficult issue is brilliantly resolved by having the viewer deeply and genuinely not care about them. Furthermore the inevitable but often unconvincing sciencey explanation bit in this case has been thoroughly researched and is startlingly believable (something about chromosomes or something). Other questions are really too straightforward to warrant serious response -- we know that scientists are a bit funny and not like the rest of us, so naturally they would build their research facility with mazes of dark corridors, sewers and seemingly vast complexes with only one small airlock in or out. Indeed I am embarrassed to even have mentioned it.

Let us not however forget the essential humanity of this film, which for this viewer was embodied in the moment near the end when one creature about to be blown up by a proximity mine in the final second realises his plight and performs a comedy double take. In that instant, this vile corruption, facing his imminent transport to that Undiscovered Country to which we all of woman born or otherwise created in a lab by accident must someday go, becomes as frightened and vulnerable as a little child.

Finally, great credit must go to the writers and the production team for their masterful use of cliché throughout. Everything -- every line, reaction, pause, fake shock, real shock, discovery of the truth of what-the-hell's-really-been-going-on-around-here-anyway to final denouement is so well observed and executed that it is difficult to be sure that this isn't a film we've seen already. Even the noble tradition established in the Alien/Predator franchises of having a black crewmember ill advisedly take on the monster in unarmed combat mano a monstro is reprised to good and welcome effect. To create a piece so artful that it can slip so easily, indeed almost unnoticed into its viewer's consciousness, must surely be the work of a master filmmaker.