Thursday 9 September 2010

Martorial elegance # 39



Okay, so the whole skinhead-to-psychobilly metamorphosis in This Is England '86 is on-point judging by what I remember of my old childhood pack of cheeky little bastards getting legged by former local skinheads who'd made the transition to horse-shoe hairdoos and Guana Batz t-shirts (is there anything which quite signifies BRITAIN IN THE MID EIGHTIES! like a powerstation with The Meteors daubed onto it in white emulsion paint?), but what's up with Shane Meadows giving that kid a Bad Music For Bad People Cramps tee to wear and then raiding the old Brookside costume department box at the C4 studios for Jimmy Corkhill's black pleather jacket and stonewashed jeans for the rest of his outfit?





"My fresh, don't it look nice?
Your DNA ain't the same, pimp, so, nah, you don't look right.."


As far as movie-to-tv conversions go, the first episode of This Is England '86 was more the "you don't think you're stretching the format a bit too thin here, guys?" Ferris Bueller show than the Anthony Michael Hall helmed Dead Zone series which was spawned from Cronenberg's flick (the third best Stephen King movie adaption after The Shining and Carrie? Difficult to choose between that and Stand By Me, personally), but I'll stick with it because there's nothing else on tuesday evenings and the breezy who plays Lol somehow manages to pull off looking pulchritudinous despite the fact that Meadows apears to have based her '86 steez on what Rhona Cameron with a bottle of bleach would look like.

The Cramps - Sunglasses After Dark



My stomach churns when people lump The Cramps in with British psychobilly bands because it's just so abhorrently wrong to compare the group of Ohio-to-New York fuck-ups who made Sunglasses After Dark to bands of quiffed up, double-bass strumming Waynes & Kevins knocking out Stray Cats karaoke numbers (yo, don't worry rap dudes, we'll be back to posting videos of the time Masted P & The No Limit Soilders joined WCW and made their wrestling debut against La Parka and Psychosis soon). I read an interview with Ian MacKaye once where he talked about a Cramps show in DC sometime in 1979 being the entry point into punk for him and Henry Rollins and thought it was an interesting revelation because, while that means The Cramps were the impetus for Minor Threat/Fugazi and Black Flag, it also means they were evenutally responsible for Ian's terrible this-is-me-and-my-missus-farting-around-on-acoustic-guitars-and-a-toy-drum group The Evens and Rollins's many terrible books of self-pitying twaddle (every book of his bar Get In The Van, basically). What a tarnished legacy to leave.

11 comments:

d said...

no love for shawshank? its a bit bitch-made as prison films go and the fact morgan freeman was suppossed to be irish is completely brushed over bizzarely (hence "red") but it was still pretty great i thought.

fuck all that "only men's weepie" bullshit tho, matter of fact fuck the word "weepie"

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Shawshank being so ludicrously overrated ("2nd bestest film of all time after the godfather part 2!!!" etc) puts me off it. It's a good flick, no doubt, but not that good, and I wouldn't put it up there with The Shining, Carrie, The Dead Zone, and Stand By Me as far as the top tier King Adaptions go.

It's in the 2nd tier with Misery and Christine for me. Can't front, I used to really like IT too.

d said...

you seen the mist? its directed by the same fella that did shawshank (green mile too unfortunately), its pretty decent for some low budget shit but id definitly put it in that second tier. i havent seen christine or the dead zone, they worth checkin out? i liked the cronenberg films ive seen already

if they ever adapt the dark tower i hope to christ they dont pussify it like the others-
im not one of them "stay faithful to the book" types but i wish they wouldnt censor em every time, king was at his best when he got raw.

an i hate that "best film ever" shit, what ever happened to favourites?

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Dead Zone is a must-see, imo.

I think Dark Tower is near-unfilmable, personally, but then people said that about Dune and David Lynch managed to make an incredibly entertaining if completely messy go of it.

d said...

i always thought a series of animated films could be good if they get the right director to commit to it. it would probably fuck up eventually due to the sheer volume of the story and the fact most directors fall off at some stage

2SHIN said...

Someone tell Rollins to leave stand-up the fuck alone.

"boohoo DJ's boohoo"

Where's the punch line faggot.

Yeah, fuck that guy.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Yeah, his stand-up sucks too. Fuck him other than the S.O.A 7", Black Flag up to Slip It In, Get In The Van, the books he released by Joe Carducci and Glen E. Friedman, and his roles in Bad Boys 1 + 2.

Then again I think I loathe 95% of all stand-up. You got jokes? Then write a movie or sitcom, son.

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

Ayo Done. Re : Paid In Full and Fresh from Tumblin'erb.

Agreed on Fresh and you need to watch Paid In Full asap.

d said...

yeah think i will, wanna buy it for posterity first tho, dont trust the internets to keep it up.

weirdly enough i actually just bought dune yesterday, along with little shop of horrors, game of death, donnie brasco and didnt even crack two quid! (vhs is the future!) iv also never seen those either, yea im a peon

Kelvin Mack10zie said...

I've not seen Game Of Death myself and I still pick up the odd vhs tape myself if I come across something cheap.

If you do buy Paid In Full, be warned it's only available as a region 1 dvd from America.

d said...

cheers i needed an excuse to get the universal joint anyhow