Throwaway novels - the best pitches of 2014 (so far)

 "And as I saw the next letter in the word, my whole body froze... it was a Z. AGAIN."

"Those two dots above the u still haunt my dreams to this day - they constitute what I can only describe as the doom-laut."

Keyboard Nightmares, a futuristic novel about a man who has an irrational fear of typing complicated words on computer keyboards.

***

“You think you’re hot shit, huh? Well, Harvey, I don’t like your fucking teeth.”

Swagger, a novella about a young actor who, in split-second decision, changes the final lines to a much-anticipated play during its opening night performance, thereby completely changing its meaning forever.

***

"If you look at the following picture (fig. 1) closely, you will see a perfectly aesthetic portrayal of a kiss between lovers by the very talented Auguste Rodin. What you will also see, in the lower right-hand corner of said picture, is a swastika. QED." 

Love is Shit, a collection of (non-)scientific essays on why love just isn't "all that."

***

"Tensely, they watched the news broadcast. It said that the thief had been caught and questioned, but nothing was found inside the teddy bear he tried to steal. There was really nothing for them to do, except neck each other passionately."

The Bunny Conspiracy, a novel about two teenage detectives who take it upon themselves to solve the case of why toys are being stolen from children in weird random incidents and who may or may not fall in love with each other while doing so. They may also turn into horses at some point.

***

"As I type this, I am much more occupied with looking out of the window, checking out the guys walking past. Erm. Where was I?"

title goes here lol, an autobiographic novel about a novelist who just cannot concentrate on her work, but gets published anyway.

 

An artist and a psychiatrist walk into a bar...

"Stay" is - you guessed it - yet another movie featuring prominent ethereal feministe Ryan Gosling in a starring role. I chose this movie to review since it doesn't seem to be that well known, which is a little surprising considering its cast, which also features fairly famous (usually) Scottish (usually) bearded (but neither in this movie) dreamboy (always) Ewan McGregor, as well as fairly famous female actrice Naomi Watts.

Though I know this movie quite well I haven't seen it in several months, so I hope that will provide a decent amount of distractedness for my review to not be too good.

(SIGHS)

In a daring move, Gosling chose to play himself in this movie - a sensitive, somewhat depressive art student with hair, while An McGregor (there is nothing, and I repeat, nothing, "Ew" about Mr. McGregor) slips into the role of a psychotherapist who has taken on art-boy as a patient and likes his trouser legs to end well above his ankles (he's trendy like that). Art-Boy Gosling tells Psych-Boy McGregor that he will kill himself in a few days on his 21st birthday, in a matter-of-fact way that suggests free will has nothing to do with it. He also predicts a hailstorm, so you know he's for reals.

(SIGHS WHILE FROWNING)

Naomi Watts plays McGregor's partner in this movie, who, coincidentally, also has a history of both suicide (attempted, that is) and art. She is employed in the movie to try and keep him sane while things get more and more confusing for all of us. Art-boy Gosling also gets a love interest to brood at sensitively from afar, so that's nice.

(SYNCHRONISED SIGHS)

I don't want to say too much more about what happens in the movie, because it'd be a shame to spoil(er) it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. 

My instructions would be the following: Watch it (to get it out of the way) and then re-wind your DVD in your cassette player and watch it again straight afterwards, in order to appreciate the things you missed the first time round.

(EVEN MORE SIGHING... THIS TIME IN THE RAIN)

Even if you don't appreciate the plot/message/whatever the movie is trying to make you think about (if anything), if you are me or a similar human you will likely love the visual quality of it. And believe it or not, that's not solely a reference to the dreamboy and -girl cast.

Maybe I should throw in the fact that there is an entire tumblr page devoted to Ryan Gosling's character in this movie (or does that not count for much these days)?

But hey, don't take my word for any of this. Let's see what ex-Marilyn Manson bassist and prominent film critic Tim Skold has to say about today's movie recommendation:

... or maybe not.

...Remind me to (try to) consult him on the next one.

so long
x

Image sources
http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/upload/yuiupload/995318343.jpg
http://www.felsefehayat.net/wp-content/gallery/stay-movie/stay-movie-felsefehayat-6.gif
http://gabtor.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/stay_4.jpg
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lv8m7qt2wX1r4fpjoo1_500.png
not sure about the Tim Skold picture, I've had that on my hard drive for ages because it's literally that good

Meet Doctor Skellington, the world's foremost Bone-ologist

(read the following in a raspy, Peter-Falk-does-Columbo-esque voice with a highly exaggerated American accent)

"Dammit, we don't have time! This is the worst case of Bone-itis I've ever seen. We need to perform a full skeletal lavage. I will be removing the skellington through the nasal cavity for the purposes of the lavage. Nurse Tibia, get me a bone-saw, stat!"

"Doctor Skellington, the patient has sustained a GSW to the teeth. What is your plan of action?"

"We can't risk his Bone-itis flaring up again. I need to remove the entire skellington via the rectum. Book OR 1, stat."

"But Doctor... are you even qualified to do that?"

"I have a double doctorate in Skeletal Proctological Surgery, of course I'm qualified you moron!!"

Dr. Skellington's emergency Skeletal Proctology field kit.

***

Stay tuned for the pilot episode of the upcoming Dr. Skellington comedy radio show.

***

P.S. This the kind of thing that happens when you watch one too many episodes of Grey's Anatomy.

Hipster Who?

 "I liked this band before they were cool. Because I went back in time to before they were cool and then I spent a while liking them and then came back here to brag about it. You know what? I liked them before they existed."

 ***

"Hipster! Hipster! The Daleks broke the coffee machine and killed 500 innocent people!"

"They BROKE THE COFFEE MACHINE?? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

***

"Unlike you, my dear, the TARDIS and all its contents are 100% organic, gluten-free, dairy-free and free-range, sweetheart."

*** 

"Who will be........*drumroll* the new HIPSTER? #hipsterwho #regeneration #countdown" (twitter campaign)

***

Promo shot of the Hipster's personal barista at work inside the TARDIS

Hipster Who is a spin-off of a popular long-running BBC sci-fi drama series. BBC programme directors wanted to bring the concept of the Doctor "into the modern world" to something more up-to-date, more hip, with more coffee, more ironic retro-sexism, more moustaches and more steampunk gear than the original (and, for that fact, than you could ever imagine), and so, ignoring the fact that the show was basically already veering into this direction, commissioned a spin-off for the "younger generation" (mostly early 30s white males with pretentions upon being/becoming an artiste in their own right). Thus the Hipster Who concept was born. 

An early sketch of the exterior of the TARDIS bicycle

Featuring the same core elements - an overly wacky white male upper class hero with hair, the time-travelling TARDIS, the trusty and ever-rotating female companions, the Deus-ex-machina element that is the Sonic Screwdriver (albeit modified slightly, to Steam Screwdriver), evil alien monsters the Daleks (with a new steampunkesque styling), as well as the most important thing: a complete lack of appreciation for the possibilities travel through time and space opens up narratively - Hipster Who takes us on mind-bogglingly tedious and one-dimensional journeys through space (yawn) and time (snore) via the TARDIS bicycle, the size of an everyday bicycle on the outside, the size of a spacious artisanal coffee shop on the inside (complete with an array of pastries and a toppings buffet), accessed via a portal in the horse-leather mahogany brown saddle.

As Douglas Adams once wrote in the fifth part of his Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy: "Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again."

With that, I leave you to your thoughts.

***

But not, of course, without planting one little seed of an idea in all of your minds: The International Cheese-Fries Review's perfect fictional/alternate universe Doctor Who. Doctor Who as it should be, with markedly less of that old bow-tie wit:

 Vod from Fresh meat IS The Doctor:

Moss from the IT Crowd IS The Companion:

Graham Linehan (Father Ted, the IT crowd, Black Books) IS The writer:

Everything else is immaterial.

x

Image sources

Artisanal coffee shop - http://www.londoncoffeefestival.com/trueartisancafe.aspx

Steampunk bike plans - http://www.deviantart.com/art/steampunk-bike-plans-81090809

Vod - gentlenodes.tumblr.com

Moss - http://www.bandmleisure.co.uk/blog/ties-2/famous-ties/

Graham Linehan - http://blogrestandplay.com/2011/11/21/today-on-twitter-hugh-grant-and-the-leveson-inquiry/

Watching another movie. Eurgh.

So, I just came into the bedroom a while ago and Milk had the laptop set up on the bed and was watching this movie and he says "it's about this guy who falls in love with his phone... or something".

I am really reluctant to watching movies I haven't seen before. Also, I was afraid it might be something like a short film he once linked me to about a man who gets a bathtub pregnant (it's weird in an unsettling way and you should totally watch it).

Turns out this phone-love movie has got Joaquin Phoenix dressed as Leonard from the Big Bang Theory (that actor, by the way, played the kid Rusty in the Griswolds' Xmas vacation. I know right? Mind blown.) in the leading role, because in this version of the near future everyone dresses like a stereotypical nerd and one of the first things I actually pay attention to is what has to be one of the best puns ever.
This woman says to him, to Joaquin Leonard Rusty Phoenix, she says:

"Keep walking!"

.....Get it?..

"Keep Joaquin!".....HA HA HA HA HA HA

IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE I SAY SO.

So right now, he's having a romantic conversation with his phone/operating system and she (Ms. OS) is close to OSgasm and I think this might actually be an interesting film. Too bad I'm not paying a lot of attention to it.

Yeah... come to think of it, I think all of my reviews are going to be written from the perspective of someone who is too distracted to actually concentrate on the subject matter.

He's having an awkward morning-after conversation with his operating system. Dudes. His OPERATING SYSTEM. You guys should totally watch this movie and tell me if it's any good.

x

P.S. I have been reliably informed that this film is called "Her".

That movie 'Drive'. It's a bit stabby.

Hello kids.

Although this blog is called The International Cheese-Fries Review, we haven't done an awful lot of reviews to date. So just for a change, I'm reviewing a movie today. This is the movie 'Drive' which was new about 2 years ago (look at us, always up to speed with what the kids like! ...it was on iPlayer, y'know.)

Synopsis.

Prominent feminist Ryan Gosling is a stunt driver slash getaway driver slash monosyllabic hottie boy next door. When he takes on a getaway driving case that he is personally involved in (because he's taken a shine to his equally hot female neighbour and her recently returned husband), things turn bad, and from then on in, lots of people get stabbed. Ryan also does some of the stabbing and/or kicking someone's head in with relevant sound effects. Then he gets in his car and drives away.

Verdict. 

I did not understand this movie. In my non-understanding (which is not to be mistaken for non-liking) of this movie, I noted the following things:

1. This movie definitely does not pass the Bechdel test, which, for a movie starring the prominent feminist Ryan Gosling in a starring role, is frankly an utter disgrace. (Bad.)

2. Carey Mulligan stars alongside the prominent feminist Ryan Gosling, which is rad because hey, she's like, a cross between me and my cousin, and that's about the hottest thing anyone can imagine. (Good!)

3. Not unlike Carey Mulligan, Sin Tucker and myself, the soundtrack to this movie is the sex.

Here is one of the tracks that is the most sex (also Good):

And on that note, I wish to end, and invite further opinion on this movie, and enlightenment that may clear up my non-understanding of this movie's intentions, which was possibly caused by the distraction that is touchscreen puzzle games, woe is me.

x