Movie Review - In the Loop

After rows over expenses, second homes and who should bite the bullet, ‘Bumbling’ is 2009’s dictionary entry for a Minister of Parliament. Apt then, that one the year’s best films, Armando Lannuci’s political satire In the Loop, should show Westminster as a proverbial playground full of bullies and spineless cowards with feet in mouths.

Based on Lannuci’s BBC comedy The Thick of It, he’s kept many regular characters, including acid-tongued Scottish spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker (Peter Capaldi) and wet-behind-the-ears ministerial aide Toby (Chris Addison), but had a slight cabinet reshuffle with the likes of Steve Coogan and James Gandolfini adding a dollop of Hollywood to the political shtick. Perhaps the biggest addition is lead Tom Hollander as the inept Secretary of State who accidentally tells a radio show that a war in the Middle East is ‘unforeseeable’, cue across-the-pond interest from Gandolfini’s uncompromising General Miller who aims to use the minister as a “meat-puppet” to stop the proposed war. But when other White House staff think differently Foster is ordered to travel to Washington for talks. While stateside Foster has to deal with Tucker watching his every move and calls from Blighty, where a livid Coogan campaigns at his constituency for a crumbling garden wall which he blames on the Minister.

Big screen outings for television comedies tend to run out of laughs after the time of an average episode, even more so for a crossover that’s aesthetically limited. But In the Loop revels in fly-on-the-wall filmmaking, sweeping shots of frantic politicians running past various landmarks are second nature to Lannuci who has stepped up from small screen to the big leagues with ease, helped by a great script. Written as if carved with a knife, the dialogue is sharp and violently hilarious, so horrible that “you’ll be shitting teeth”

No one profits from the political banter more than Tucker, a figure bore from fire and brimstone with an addiction for the torture of ministers. His head resembles that of a chicken with rabies as he cluelessly runs around Washington trying to control the situation and interfere with a UN resolution. Literally, a breathless performance.

Indeed Foster and his aide Toby also look lost in a shiny world that is there to eat them up as they arrive in Washington at the beginning of the second act. But straight after travelling in a motorcade, thinking they’re in a movie, it’s clear that satire is unforgiving: Unlike stuffy Whitehall, the U.S state departments are modern, slick, as are the fast-talking, better-looking equivalents of the British ministers. Fresh-faced 23-year-old’s don’t run errands for fresh coffee, as Tucker finds out in a White House meeting, they run the country. After being insulted by the age of his appointment, Tucker storms out to make an angry call to London only to get the response: “You know they're all kids in Washington. It's like Bugsy Malone, but with real guns.”

During the final act, miniature battles ensue, mainly between Foster and the British tabloids. The media shift interest from slip-up quotes of war to Steve Coogan’s nutter protesting outside Foster’s local constituency. Cameos like this are rare, funny and pertinent. Meanwhile, veins on Tucker’s forehead look set to burst as he goes about last minute meddling at the UN meeting before he gets an epic standoff with Gandolfini’s general, using swearing and gritted teeth delivery as ammo and wry smiles as shields.

Topical to a point that exceeds irony, In the Loop hands the spade to politicians who dig their own grave amid issues parallel to real-life. Using jargon they don’t understand, British politicians threaten Anglo-American relations by not doing as they are told in a terrifically funny film. A film which has not only made swearing an art form, but made it a reason to go to war.

5/5

Joe Ellison

WORKING DOWN A COAL MINE

We’ve not seen where all of our friends work (unless that’s your job). In fact, some people tend to think it’s nice to keep the mystery. You know, imagining what your pals are up to in that 9-5 mode. My friend Rob works in a Dementia Clinic, in Leeds. I like to think an old man named McGyver wears a tartan dressing and wanders around the clinic with one of those metal poles with some fluids attached calling my friend Rob, Bob while Rob smiles to himself, saying “Ah Mr M, you still got it”. I told Rob it would be interesting if you were the receptionist at the dementia clinic as you don’t have to remember any appointments. You can make them up! Because the people you’re giving them to will forget it anyway. And if they don’t, who are the bosses going to believe, a receptionist or a potential dementia case? You’d unknowingly be doing the clinic a favour.

This got me thinking about jobs in general. We have the Job Centre. The Job Centre Plus. The advert where Max Beasley shouts about a job recruitment centre that I can’t remember the name of but don’t want to as I like the irony of not remembering what he said but rather how silly his shouting was. Anyway it’s all very modern now but living Up North, every so often people talk about THE PITS (spoken loudly so that everyone knows you mined for coal and are therefore a real man who has gravy on everything and homosexual on nothing). But those days are long gone - men are called guys and call each other man in an American way, use hair straighteners and apply for jobs on a computer. But I can bring the pits back! THE PITS BACK! There are other types of pit jobs available that wouldn’t need a budgie or ambulance on standby either….

PIT CREW (for a Formula One team) – I wouldn’t mind the paycheque obviously, these greasers earn megabucks. I’d join McLaren, as they aren’t doing so well at the moment so are probably recruiting. And what a job, you only mess with a car for a second and then it’s gone, two times an hour if that. But I’d take it to a new level, to show my worth. Crews all look the same when they’re in sponsored suits and shiny helmets. So I’d lose the helmet, put on a suit, some nice loafers and when Hamilton or whoever pulls up, I’ll keep him there for a while, attract some cameras over, handkerchief and good-old-fashioned breath the onboard camera, so McLaren see how good I am. Kwick-Fit are branded so for their quick fitting but are famed for their openness. They leave their cars on view, showing off their mechanics ‘mad-skillz’. I’d want to adapt this mentality and even chuck in one of those pinecone fresheners now and again.

PIT BOSS – If Manchester gets a Super Casino it’ll create thousands of jobs, but Pit Boss is the top job - a name that mixes the words pit (like pitbull terrier) and boss. Surely the most menacing job title ever spoke of. You don’t need to go for an interview, you just drop off your CV with a pair of die that have been set on fire along with a deck of cards in which the joker’s been bummed. But more than that, you have to be a wily fox of a man who knows when someone’s been cheating. You’ve seen Rain Man two thousand times and had a director’s cut made especially for you where Hoffman was literally cut in half for his smart-arse antics. But Casino is you’re favourite film. You’ve actually put someone’s head in a vice and have experience dealing with loan sharks. Come to think of it, Manchester is a hotbed of potential candidates.

BRAD PITTS BABYSITTER – How hard can it be? He’s covered in kids; he and Angelina are running orphanages out of business. These shacks can’t keep up with the standing order from the Hollywood lovers. So if one went missing I doubt Pitt or his wife would even notice. My main reason for getting the kids away is that I’ve watched the movie Mr and Mrs Smith. Not for the frivolous gunplay as that was just acting of course! But in case the couple ever put the DVD on, it’d ruin a young life before it’s even got going.

Recession? What Recession?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a massive waterslide in the middle of a sunny city. It’s great for stopping pollution while the council gets to create new jobs ( the man at the top of it who says when you can go). The ad had premise. After all, you can swipe a Barclaycard to pay for your goods as above the counter you throttle down in that slipperiest of tubes…. But Barclays seem to have it in their heads that people want ‘life to flow better’. Well balls to that. Who’s going to collect my shopping as I slide away? If it’s home delivered, I could have done it on the Internet. Barclays should know that men like waterslides more than they will ever know, but don’t patronize us. We know when we want a good speedy splash and when we want to shop for groceries. Have they never seen an Erotic thriller? Rule one - never mix business with pleasure.

If that’s bad, then their latest advert takes the Michael Owen (for his crisp adverts of course). This guy is on some sorts of super crutches, obviously M&S branded, as they’re not just any injury-supporter, they’re aerodynamic, super-skilled crutches. But even with a supposed handicap he spins around on them like nobody’s business. But wait, what’s that? If you look closely he puts weight on both feet. Ah-ha, benefit fraud, right under our noses. It blows the mind how anyone can do this during a full-blown recession.

Forget Robert Peston (for now). Lets get one thing right. Nobody knows why there’s a recession. What, all of a sudden the cosy financial stability of every bank just collapses? If a debt filled borrowing-happy nation really is to blame, then why did it happen overnight? Couldn’t we have just gone on oblivious?

In The Matrix, Neo was offered a blue pill and a red pill. He took the one that turned his desk job into a world where he lived in a gooey pod and as an escapee would live on a ship with Joe Pantoliano (and no-one wants that). Drugs are really bad. Neo didn’t have to take a pill; it just would’ve been an awkward shuffled exit for Morpheus and co. But where’s our pill? Gordon Brown should of offered every Briton a vote – red, you live in a debt ridden yet happy society, blue, you have to put up with 20% of all newspapers and television news talking about economics, people you don’t know getting sacked, – but they are - going to Orange Wednesdays to afford the cinema, shopping at Aldi and Robert fucking Peston. Personally I think he’s the master saboteur. He’s the only one who’s come out of this for the better. Also, if you play his broadcasts backwards, he confirms he is the apocalypse in the shape of a moron.

If I wasn’t a member of Barclays with a maxed Barclaycard, an unpaid student loan and 8k-career development loan with the bank, well into the dark side of my overdraft, I for one would be outraged.

Response to Quinny's adverts

My friend Quinny makes a fine point in all of his blogs, and someone a fine husband one day. But I was writing lots of feedback, silly jokes, and tattle in his comment box when I felt it deserved its own blog. So let's call this a semi-homage to the themes Quinn brilliantly picked out.

Let's go through some of your adverts Quinn, as I felt they needed some analysis.....


Are you kidding me. First off, I don't care where the milkmen come from, that's unhygienic - being in someone's cereal.
"I've Got The Power’ is only heard in gay-bars (so I’ve been told). I’m sure It's never played in 9-5 society, and I'm as sure as Sugapuffs make your wee smell, that I’ve never heard it over breakfast.

As for the Argos ad - ‘At Argos we make a little less fuss’……talk about the understatement of the fucking year! The only gift-wrap you get is when an employee leaves his subway wrapper in that overly bright bag they give you. And I like to think that if you play the advert backwards Steven Fry is actually speaking Latin and saying "I'd never shop here, it's ghastly". To finish my Argos analysis I'd like to quote Michael McIntyre's view regarding the bingo system/in-store collection point: "It's the theatre for poor people"

Quinn. You made a sound argument about the porn/food advert regarding M&S, but did you ever see the video you uploaded all the way through? toward the end it cuts to a scene where it sounds like that punk Peparami off TV has car jacked and kidnapped someone. Well, he is a bit of an animal…

As for Northern Dad! Well, he’s Dave Ellison (my dad), Ray Quinn (Quinny’s dad) and Peter Kay rolled into one. Yes like that Jason Manford fella. There’s a couple of Northern Dad’s in adverts now I admit, but I fear it’s due to the credit crunch, advertisers just can’t afford thespians in the current economic climate.

Weetabix - Britains ..
Watch the ad...

And as for this Weetabix advert being voiced by a Northerner, well, I think it’s dangerous. Do advertisers not know that Northerners count Fish and Chips as 2 of their 5-a-day?

Woah! This cancer research advert stuff. All the women on it said they were invited to the event, but I don’t even know if they went? Surely if they were that excited they’d be running past a park bench rather than getting their hair done. Maybe they're getting a Goody. Does the advert want me to pick them out of that massive crowd at the end? I’ve no time for that. And it’s a bit sexist anyway.

REVIEW: WATCHMEN

OK, so finally out of development hell and creator Alan Moore isn’t watching the Watchmen. But neither is anyone under 18 because from the opening apartment-wrecking scene where you hear bones breaking, its clear to see that director Zack Snyder, 18-rating in tow, has stuck to the acclaimed graphic novel - where a group of masked vigilantes once heroes, now outlawed are being killed off by a unknown assassin, in an America on the brink of Nuclear war led by Richard Nixon… who got four more years!

As the opening credits roll Synder demonstrates his move away from 300’s purely green screen, mixing it devilishly onto real, almost touchable sets, quickly highlighting a bleak society that bleeds and cries to a pumping rock soundtrack. But that’s its only weapon. It gets the pictures to move. After about an hour of frame-for-frame imitation, the novel wears off.

Lucky then, that the performances are outstanding from a fairly unknown bunch who treat Moore’s characters like they’ve known them their whole lives. Particularly Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup and Jackie Earle Haley as Nite Owl II, Dr. Manhattan and the pitch perfect husky anti-hero Rorschach.

Another plus are the fight scenes. The jailbreak midway through spills guts with gusto, lending heavily on the dry humour encapsulated in the comic to take a breather from storyline.

Even at over two hours, the plot is fitted into such a short time that even fan boys will wish they were reading it so they could skip back a couple of pages. Because of the time-factor the ending may disappoint faithful fans that want to see ‘the squid’. Perhaps if Miramax were producing, Synder would of cut it in two and an explanation could be given, worthy of a more mutant ending. But first-timers who keep up with the plot certainly won’t mind.

Except for ‘the Squid’, Synder shows the famously unfilmable is filmable and should be happy that not many could of done a better job. But like many remakes before it, it just aint’ the original and you can actually judge a book by it’s cover as its always better than the DVD.

4 Stars

Joe E

SUPER-DOG OR SUPER VILLAIN?

When I saw this video of the dog saving the other dog, I thought I had a new hero. Or at least a fury one. I like to throw the word 'hero' around somewhat freely, but really I thought this mutt was the dealy. Then I watched it again without the sound on…

The muteness changed everything. It didn’t look right. Why was the injured canine on the road in the first place? And more importantly why was the ‘hero dog’ (Lets say its a guy dog, and lets call him Rex) so close behind the unfortunate. Was he being chased? Or even worse, was he set up? Did we even see the driver? It could have been Rex himself. Then when he’s sped from the scene, pulled over, paws on the brakes and went back to get his dinner.

And when he gets to his sprawled out prey, he looks around for witnesses, (check it out!) he looks in both directions, not for cars but for witnesses. Then the authorities find them, and now like Gary Sinse from the movie Ransom, I bet Rex is taking all the credit, getting badges of honour and a sweet TV deal, hoping the other dog never wakes from his coma.

Lets hope there's a 24-hour guard in that veterinary clinic, because I maybe getting carried away but it is a dog eat dog world.

GRANITE THEFT AUTO

Having taken History at GCSE level I am qualified to say that the smudging of dirt to read: ‘CLEAN ME’ on cars goes back to the 14^th century. I didn’t turn up for most of the A-level classes so I can offer no explanation how or why this happened. But it did.

On the march between train stations in Wigan last month (just over the road if your wondering) I saw the back of a passing van had OUTTATIME written in a big mud font (it’s the licence plate on The Dolorean from Back to the Future). I was smitten with some early morning 80s movie referencing.

Walking in the same town the following week I noticed a van had flames on its side. The driver was in little danger as someone had sketched them with a digit or two. All it needed was a coat of Tom-Cruise-Days-of-Thunder advertising and racing stripes to finish the job. I was delighted for the man inside, who probably didn’t even know.

I took the two offences as coincidence thinking it’s perhaps a Wigan thing. After all, it’s an industrial Northern town that’s proud of its smoggy roots and celebrated dirt-collecting history.

But today…my jaw literally didn’t hit the floor (as that is impossible). I saw again in Wigan, a van with a spacehopper - complete with eyes – etched on its back end. Now I couldn’t ignore the truth anymore, I had to admit that there is a muddy Banksy running around Greater Manchester.

I know it sounds crazy but I think ‘Manksy’ is highlighting rising pollution levels that cause the world harm. He’s an eco fighter with Michael J Fox referencing and what’s more? He’s moved up a level. The spacehopper had detail in the eye that a thumb could never pass off. Manksy fingernails have dug new ground and we need him in our lives.

Ok so I’m essentially saying we need more criminals, but this is a fun crime, and they’re usually ok, it’s one step ahead of throwing pic’n’mix at strangers but doesn’t cross the line into happy-slapping territory - undoubtedly the cause of Broken Britain.

Hold on to your hats, I’m going to coin a phrase to help boost the profile of this rogue vigilante Manksy - ‘Granite Theft Auto’. I’ve submitted it on Urban Dictionary so it’s too late to stop me. Currently it sits in the lap of the moderators. Like Batman, Manksy needs to be hounded by the police so people will know environmental risks. WARNING: Do not attempt to copycat this urban hero. Greater Manchester doesn’t need have-a-go-Citroen Picasso Picasso’s.