MEGA REVIEW: The Top Seven Movies The No Show Will Not Be Seeing This Summer

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FILM REVIEW: Moon

UK release date: 17 July 2009
Starring: Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey

Duncan Jones (aka Zowie Bowie, son of David Bowie). Sam Rockwell. Kevin Spacey (as the voice of the robot). The Moon. Put them all together and what have you got?

A recipe for one of the gayest romps ever to hit the big screen.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, they've only gone and done it: Moon will be the first film that finally - *finally* - explores the much-discussed-but-never-featured-in-a-mainstream-Hollywood-production love-that-dare-not-beep-its-name between a man and his robot.

It's been a long time coming [Ed's note: please refrain from bad sex-based puns]. After all, robots are totally gay. Just ask Bender. [Ed's note: Seriously. Stop it.]

Sure, we've all seen the erotic adventures of gay androids (gaydroids) in space (Star Wars). And we've certainly had same-sex couples in space (Han and Chewy, Han and Leia). And we've even had same-sex sentient animal-robot love (Chewy, C3PO). But this is the first time anyone has dared explore the nuts and bolts [Ed's note: final warning] of a hot and oily human-robot gay love affair in space.*

Oh sure, some have tried to tackle the subject in metaphor, but it's never been convincing or erotic enough. For example, the various Terminator models were obviously just mechanical stand-ins for big ol' leather-clad bulls looking for a good time on a 20th-century Saturday night. (Sometimes a cigar really isn't a cigar, is it Arnie? Sometimes, it's just a big stinky penis metaphor.)

And I'm pretty sure we all knew what HAL 9000 was after when he whispered, "Daisy, Daisy/Give me your answer do/I'm half crazy/all for the love of you" while slobbering over "a bicycle built for two", evoking images of daisy chains and hot, sweaty, throbbing red spots.

Until now, no-one has had the courage to turn the spotlight on the electromomechanosexual in us all.

Some would argue that society isn't ready for gay robot-man love. They would point to the fact that Adam Sandler's comedy pilot "Gay Robot" was never aired. They would be wrong. That show never aired because it was shit and based on a shit sketch from one of Sandler's shit albums. One horny gay robot trying to convince heterosexual human males to gay him. And I'm going to assume there was at least one joke involving a vacuum cleaner.

These naysayers are the same people who failed to see the love that blossomed between Dr Smith and The Robot in Lost in Space. The same people who ignored the undercurrents of rusty interracial love in Short Circuit.

Moon will set the record straight [Ed's note: I'll let that one go]. Based on the very little information we bothered to look up, apart from the title and the cast and the fact that it wasn't a biopic on Moon Unit Zappa, this film sees Moon-based miner Sam Rockwell probing for helium deep into the inner untouched parts of the Moon. [Ed's note: Seriously, enough.]

If that isn't sexy enough, he's alone and sweaty on the moon with a robot. A sexy, lonely robot voiced by Kevin Spacey who may not be gay but who is certainly prepared to stretch himself for his art. [Ed's note: Ok, that's bordering on unpleasant.]

Having not seen the film, we can only assume that the unspoken love between these two beings follows the tried and tested accepted

Hollywood Rules for Gay Love in Films, which are as follows:

1. Unspoken glances between same-sex persons are acceptable so long as one character looks uncomfortable with the situation.

2. Characters may brush up against each other by accident, but only crotch to butt - crotch to crotch brushes are not acceptable, even when one of the characters is metal. Lingering finger- to-metal digit contact will be tolerated. However, insertion of either digit into any part of the other being will cause the whole thing to be shut down.

3. Same-sex kisses must be quick, dry and inherently unsexy, usually followed by extreme hugging, hair tussling and, if pushing the boundaries, awkward and frankly ridiculous neck licking. In the case of gay man-gaydroid love, care must be taken as this may lead to electrocution and/or short circuiting. Under no circumstances will nipple/bolt licking be tolerated.

4. Gay sex encounters must be inherently seedy. Back alleyways [Ed's note: careful], cubicles in public toilets and tents on a mountainside are acceptable. Romantic settings with beds and sheets and candles and same sex couples are typically only seen when the same sex couple is female and there is usually another person watching and/or filming nearby. Probably in a closet with those slats they can peek through. And they usually join in eventually.

5. Gay sex encounters between men must border on violent - like really aggressive wrestling - and almost fully clothed. Unless you're Oliver Reed, in which case gay sex involves actual naked wrestling on a carpet in front of a large fire.

6. Spitting on the hand is now considered taboo because most non-gay persons didn't know what the hell it implied when Heath Ledger did it in Brokeback Mountain until it was too late. (See also Rule #3, re: electrocution)

Ultimately, this potentially groundbreaking epic will be let down not by its exploration of an unspoken moment between two sentient beings with similar genitalia, but by the sci-fi nerds in the audience who will giggle themselves to death while shouting "Danger Will Robinson" every time the Spacey gaydroid looks longingly at Sam Rockwell.

My only hope is that the ad campaign features Rockwell's builder's butt gracing billboards across the UK, revealing a tattoo that reads "All your butts are belong to us", enticing the audience in with the promise of the electromomechanical love that shall not beep its binary code. Maybe then this unnecessary taboo can be put to rest at long last.

It's not much, but it would be a start.

Must-see? Absolutely. This film must be given all the support it can, for the rights of gaydroids today and tomorrow.
Shatner Scale: TJ Hooker. Because he could have been a gaydroid.


*Battlestar Galactica doesn't count. There were no gay Cylons, just threesomes with two female Cylon models. Which is totally not gay.

FILM REVIEW: Inglourious Basterds

UK release date: 21 August 2009
but it's already premiered at Cannes so there's plenty of time to rubbish it completely before it ever sees the light of day here
Starring: Bradley Pitts and some less famous, less good-lookin' folks

Tarantino's fetish for all things Irish has finally come full circle. At long last, he's produced the film he's been threatening to make since he first exploded onto the cinematic screen with Riverdance Dogs, Jackie O'Brown, Kilkenny Bill and Kilkenny Bill 2 - to say nothing of his original Irish classic, Pulp Fecktion.

Now, he turns his attention to the little filmed, often debated, Irish-only sport of Hurling - a sort of cross between Rollerball, croquet, lacrosse and crochet. [Ed's note: We've never actually seen hurling being played. Or even pictures of it being played. To be honest, we might have made up this sport during one of our heavier drinking sessions. Independent verification would be appreciated.]


The film follows the ups and downs of the Inglourious Basterds, Ireland's worst ever hurling team (the title refers to the tiny Irish village of Inglourious and the hilarious fact that the Irish can't spell) - these guys just can't hurl.

As Tarantino might write in one of his trademark, self-indulgent, overly wordy, full-fat, static piece of "laugh at my own jokes" movie referencing monologues: 'These guys are the Liz Hurley of Hurling. Sure, you'd fuck 'em but you wouldn't put them in a remake of Bedazzled, because the 1969 Pete and Dud original was like fucking awesome and then, they stick fucking Liz Hurley as the Devil and, like Brendan 'Lantern jaw....' and so on.

Professional cinematic dreamboat, Lothario and international child gatherer Bradley Pitts plays a former Hurling grand master who was also once a member of the IRA (Sports Violence Division). He wants a shot at redemption and realises that coaching the Inglourious Basterds may be his final shot.

Along the way, he'll have to defeat his demons, spout a lot of meaningless movie in-jokes and train this team of lacklustre losers to beat rivals such as the Waterford Wankers, the Drogheads Dickwads, the Cork Suckers (funny, funny Quentin) and the Tipperary Twats.

This being a Tarantino "sports violence" movie, we see the Basterds' victory right at the beginning and Pitts is only introduced halfway through but is constantly referenced in the way Sergio Leone used to do in his films and that.

There's also a ridiculously hip and ironic soundtrack featuring La Roux, Senor Coconut, Black Flag and Sinitta. And of course, the meaning of "So Macho" is discussed at length, a la the "Like a Virgin" bit in Riverdance Dogs, as Tarantino shifts from referential to self-referential and comes very close to disappearing up his own meta-arsehole.

And won't that be funny when it's quoted ver-fucking- batim back at you in the pub? Yes, all the Tarantino trademarks are here and no Blarney stone of cinematic cliche is left unturned.

The writer/director says that this will be the first in a trilogy of "Micksploitation" cinema, in the grand tradition of Leprechaun, Leprechaun 2 : One Wedding and Lots of Funerals and The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns (for which Colm Meaney was forced to apologise to all of Ireland under threat of losing his nationality).

Tarantino will be following Inglourious Basterds with Da Lidl People, about midget supermarket workers who start a motorcycle gang and then Limerick Licking Lesbians, his first (and pray to your own god, last) excursion into porn.

At least, that's what we think it's about. Based on the posters and stuff. Remember, we haven't actually seen it or anything.

Must-see? To be sure, to be sure (because that's what Irish people say, don't they?)
Shatner Scale: Kirk (and nothing ever gets that)

Pictures courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Some terms and conditions apply, but we can't figure them out.

THE NO SHOW GUIDE TO SPOTTING COUNTERFEIT DVDs

In accordance with The No Show rules, we don't usually buy DVDs or spend any money on seeing any of the films we review or support the industry in any way, shape or form. But the last time we bought a DVD, we've discovered something. And what we discovered shocked and horrified us.

Apparently, people are making counterfeit DVDs and then selling them on to unsuspecting punters.

But the shocking horror doesn't end there.

If the authorities are to be believed - and we always believe whatever the goverment or any highly-paid organisation in the pocket of big business tell us - some of the money being spent on these fake DVDs is being used to fund terrorism.

We're not sure what kind of terrorism that might be. Perhaps it pays for the terrorist's clothes, maybe their backpacks, or even the cell phones on which they record their terrifying messages to be broadcast on terror websites for other terrorists and media outlets.

For all we know, maybe the DVDs themselves are a kind of terrorism, scaring us with their poor quality and stopping us from enjoying the freedoms that some of our grandparents might have fought for if they were in one of the bigger, more important wars, the ones that were actually about freedom and not about oil or sand or religion or which kind of headgear is appropriate for women.

Once we discovered that the DVD we held in our hands might in fact be both funding terror fashion AND frightening innocent entertainment consumers with its terrifyingly poor quality, we knew we had to act.

On closer inspection, we found some telltale indicators that may in fact indicate the DVD in question was a questionable conterfeit, by all indications.

With this in mind, we present:
The No Show Guide To Spotting Counterfeit DVDs.

For the purposes of this Guide, we'll be using a copy of Gilmore Girls Season 4 DVD, which we bought with joy in our hearts from a well known online auction site, whose name rhymes with peeBay.

Keep in mind that we are trained professionals and that the counterfeiting pirates are cunning cons, with their eye patches and rolling DVD copying centres roaming the high seas.

Do not be ashamed or embarrassed if you miss some of the things we are about to point out.

As you can see from the cover, there was no reason to suspect anything was wrong when we opened the DVD. It looked just like any other DVD we might buy, with the title written in words and a photographs of the two delightful stars of the show. But then we began to notice things that made us think this DVD might not have been sanctioned by the honest and sensible people in Hollywood who took the time to make this show and broadcast it for all to enjoy.

First, we noticed something funny about which season the DVD was from. Season 2? Season 4? It confused us, and set our No Show senses tingling, though at this point we were happy to accept it was human error.


Something else caught our eye. We couldn't quite place it, but something wasn't right. Then we had it: the chunky non-English language bit under the title, possibly Chinese, maybe Japanese, we didn't know but it looked damned odd on this all-American TV series.


However, we knew that one of the characters (Lane) was Korean; we figured it was just possible that this was some sort of homage to her, since she features prominently in Season 4. If it was Season 4. We weren't sure because of that mix up at the top of the box.

It wasn't until we turned the box over that we began to really suspect there might be something piratey about this DVD.



Spelling mistakes. Horrible grammar. Poor kerning. Haphazard gaps and slapdash sub-editing. Easily missed by Joe or Jane Layperson but all clear indicators of the pirate to the trained eye. Plus a huge paragraph in Chinese or possibly Japanese or maybe even Korean taking up about a third of the back cover. It was at this point that we were overtaken by a horrible feeling that we were being terrorised.

But it didn't end there.

(And at this point, I should specify that I noticed everything that followed. My No Show co-star was overcome with grief that he might have funded terrorism. He immediately closed his eyes to avoid seeing anything else that might support terrorism and hasn't opened them since. It's making things difficult for him, but I admire his commitment.)

Beyond the horribleness of the typos, I noticed some clearly factually incorrect information. The kind of incorrect information that the pirates knew was incorrect and felt so guilty about that they couldn't even spell "information" correctly on the box (see typos above).



These blatant errors are as follows:

1. "Star5s Falls": Not only a typo, but everyone knows the Gilmore Girls live in Star's Hollow. Stupid pirates.

2. "the two share... a taste for literature": No they do not. They share a taste for bad films, bad food and bad men. Rory is the one who likes to read. Her mother may in fact be illiterate.

3. Kirk: The pirate text suggests that the emotional life of the Kirk character is important enough to highlight on the box. It is not. He is the court jester of the piece, a delightful loser. The pirates obviously sympathise with him. Because they are also losers. Terrifying losers.

4 and 5b. Subtitles: Make up your minds pirates! Is it "English, Francais and Espanol" or "English, French, Arabic, Hebrew"? You're not fooling me in ANY language.

6. Region 1: Lies, lies and more lies. Like the pirates on the high seas, this DVD has no country. Or region.

At this point, our suspicions were heightened: had we bought a fake, pirate, counterfeit DVD from online pirate terrorists? There was only one thing left the check: the moral integrity of the cover image.

Rory's dead, evil eyes are a clear giveaway. Clearly, this otherwise unimpeachable DVD has been in the hands of pirates.

That, plus the fact that every episode on the DVD featured the logo of the WB network, having been recorded badly off the TV. Probably a stolen TV. And a guy stood up halfway through one episode and went to the loo. Stupid pirates.

Having finished our inspection and delivered out verdict, we felt dirty, but glad to have revealed these pirating types for what they are, with their garish colours and questionable morals. And even though we have funded terrorism via online shopping, we feel vindicated, having provided this much needed public service.

And ultimately, we hope that the next time you're buying DVDs from one of the many authorised vendors selling DVDs out of a duffel bag in the local pub, you'll take a moment to ask yourself: was this hand-drawn cover drawn by terrorist pirates? And if it was, we hope you'll have the strength to leave that copy of "The Darks Night" or "Start Wrek" behind.

Eat that, pirates.

FILM REVIEW: Wolverine

UK Release Date: 1 May 2009
Starring: Huge Aackman. "Huge" to his friends.

I cannot begin to describe how disappointed I was when I found out that Wolverine was not going to be a musical.

This is a colossal mistake. After all, it has all the ingredients of a classic Hollywood musical: Mutants. Wolves. Conflict. And a gigantic hairy Huge Aackman.

I was convinced this was going to a West Side Story for the next generation, a brutal metaphor for our existance, with "animals" battling for survival, as gangs of "Wolves" fought it out with "Sharks" in a bizarre and inexplicable land-sea crossover, with Huge Aackman spinning, diving and ducking at the heart of it all like some delightful and not at all gay Puck in a wolf suit.

My vision of a madcap tap-dancing pelt-wearing Huge Aackman flashing adamantium-clawed jazz hands has been shattered forever.

How could the ridiculous megalomaniacs at Marvel let this happen? Aackman clearly - clearly - wants to do nothing but musicals forever and ever. Preferably with sassy female backing singers and buff male back-up dancers with well-oiled nipples.

His many fans have made it clear that they would rather he did musicals than action hero flicks targeting 12 year old boys. Just listen to the fans applaud as he takes the stage at the Tony Awards in 2004, reinterpreting his role as The Boy from Oz, wearing nothing but gold lame trousers and a leopardprint top, flirting shamelessly with P Diddy who squirms with delight at the attention.

Or at the Oscars, as Huge Aackman flails about in a tight fitting Man Tux and tails. Read their sweaty little comments on Youtube as he grinds his firm buttocks into Barbara Walter's skeletal thighs to the point where, for the briefest of moments, she is reminded what it means to be a woman. The fans want the inner Hugh to sing and dance and generally camp it up until he Aackmans all over them.

And, obviously, the comic book nerds have been begging for a musical adaptation of X-Men for years.

But does Marvel appreciate this groundswell of nervous excitement? Do they answer the giggling masturbatory call of Aackman's surprisingly mostly female fanbase? No. Instead the first superhero musical adaptation we get is Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark featuring music by U2's Boner and The Edger. A musical about a boy wearing pyjamas who climbs walls and fights crime. (Let's just call it what it is, shall we? Peter Parker Pan.)

So Wolverine will not feature Huge Aackman wearing a sad little loincloth, singing about discovering the wolf inside the man. 

We will never get to see an insane whirlwind of well-choreographed dance violence as Aackman clicks his adamantium claws while facing a violent, albeit tongue in cheek enemy, played to perfection at various points in the show's run by David Hasselhoff, Richard Gere and/or Tilda Swinton.

We will never enjoy the pleasure of a surprise duet with Barry Mannilow, singing "Looks Like We Made It" and drowning the audience in their hairy innuendo.

Without the dancing wolves, the scantly clad, bullet-nippled, backing cast and Tony Award winning musical score, what are we left with? 

Huge Aackman in sideburns, that's what.

The fact that this is a filmed version of some kind of comic book prequel to the X-men, which was itself a pretty cool idea that was eventually stretched thinner than Bea Arthur's skin and ended up inspiring things like Heroes, The Incredibles and David Attenborough's The Life of Mammals, doesn't change anything.

Basically, Wolverine without dancing and classic show tunes is just another teenage werewolf film. Which is entirely pointless since everyone knows there is only one believable teen wolf and that is Michael J Fox in the film about a teenager who turns into a wolf, called Teen Wolf.

And that's just tragic.

Shatner Scale: Miss Congeniality 

Worth seeing: Not unless you enjoy disappointment. Or Huge Aackman not dancing and singing. 

Photography: Wikimedia Commons. Wolf image by Cm0rris0n, some terms apply. Image of The Boy from Oz by zesmerelda. Some terms apply.