SPIDERBLOKE: SPIDERMAN UK REBOOT

Picture the scene...

The streets of London Village, gleaming with grease, stale lager and bodily fluids. A slender figure in blue and red flickers between grey and glass walls. Voices raised, an alleyway: an elderly couple tussle with a hooded youth apparently intent on snatching their precious valuables. Enter Spidey:

SPIDERBLOKE [JOVIAL]: What's occurring?
HOODIE: Fackin' ell. What the fack are you supposed to be?
WOMAN: Oh god George, don't provoke im, you know what these poofters are like!
MAN: Don't let im near yer ayndbag!
SPIDERBLOKE: What? Hang on...

We watch with increasing resignation as the hooded yoof proceeds to use the lady's shopping bags to knock Spidey to the ground, where - cheered on by the elderly couple - he kicks and punches our would-be hero to a a pulpy red and blue mess.

'Look - it's Spiderman!'
'What a wanker.'

Rescuing a small child's kitten from a tree, Spidey is confronted by the child's father, a great red bulldog of a man with a clean-shaven head and an English Defence Leage bin-liner style bomber jacket. Father and child watch blank-faced as their Staffy mauls Spidey for a good fifteen minutes. Some good close-ups of the dog's mouth tearing into Spidey's costume here.

Broken and bleeding, Spidey hobbles out into the gleaming sunlight of a London high street.

'Look at the state of 'im'
'Don't let 'im near ver kids.'

A collection of passing school-kids give Spidey a good shove and his legs give way. Soon he is surrounded by pedestrians eager to film his plight.

SPIDERBLOKE: Could... someone please... call me an ambulance?

'Spiderphile!'
'Knockin' abart dwessed like vat you deserve a kickin'!'

30 minutes in, Spidey is no longer able to move. He has become a human spittoon.

The following 1 hour and 15 minutes of the movie will consist of a montage of pedestrian legs and Spidey-pile. Occasionally, a dog will cock a leg and urinate on him. There is frequent derisive laughter and the sound of camera-phones snapping material for Vine and InstaGram.

Occasionally, garbled, plaintive noises will emerge from the wound where Spidey's mouth used to be, through bubbles of phlegm and blood.

At the 120 minute mark, Spidey stops breathing.

Roll credits.




Image credits:
http://www.comicvine.com/spider-man/4005-1443/forums/what-happened-to-spider-man-6989/
http://cdn.badassdigest.com/uploads/images/39696/1297182761-sad-spiderman__span.jpg
https://drawception.com/pub/panels/2012/11-13/ybeFPb1Pq2-6.png

Like TV shows but...Not

Grand Designs (but even more honest)

Kevin's gaze fixes on a complex glass shape off-camera. His eyes narrow; he is about to do a piece to camera.

"You know, when I first met Tarqule-quin and Edwina two years ago, I very much doubted they could make this work. Edwina in particular seemed to have little to no idea where she was going with this daring neoclassical Bauhaus mélange. But... looking at the finished product now, this..."

He pauses as if to consider his choice of words, when he is in fact quite obviously certain of what he is about to say, while the camera catches a quick view of the rounded glass cube adorned with scores of ionic columns. 

 "... this TURD of a house, I think it's fair to say I was absolutely bloody right."

Kevin gets hands-on with one of "his" projects

EastEnders (with glasses)

Lauren: "I'd be a prism if it weren't for you!"

Her cousin what she 'ad an affair wiv: "What the bloomin' 'eck's a prisum?"

Lauren (with glasses): "In optics, a prism is a transparent optical element with flat, polished surfaces that refract light."

Max: "She's a arse-manipulator, that one!"

Tanya: "'old on a sec, wouldya not need to use 'an' in that sentence instead of 'a'?"

Max (with glasses): "Actually, yes, in this case, you would indeed use the indefinite article 'an' to avoid a glottal stop. Thank you for correcting me, my sweet, my eternal flower." 

Max curtseys and kisses Tanya's hand delicately.

Random cast member: "GIT AHT MY PAB!"

Ian Beale (with glasses): "I think you'll find that, no matter how many times this public house changes hands in the fictional Walford universe, the set still belongs to the BBC and hence, use of the possessive pronoun in this case is somewhat presumptous." 

Ian proceeds to marry his research assistant (with glasses).

Ben (with glasses): "I'd take these off, but look what happened when you took yours off..."
Ian: *sadface*

Downton Abbey (with foul language)

Lord Grantham: "Oh bugger, the shitwits from the village are refusing to let me knock down their cunting houses so I can expand the family's grounds."
Lady Mary: "Father, you really musn't listen to those shitforbrains. Oh dear, I think fucking baby George shat his nappies again. Nurse, get your fat arse over here immediately and take care of this for me."
Mary ushers the two of them out of the room, whilst avoiding touching the child at all costs.

Mr Bates: "You are the best fucking thing that has ever happened to me, Mrs. Bates."
Mrs Bates: "And you, Mr Bates, are one fucking magnificent bastard."
They kiss timidly.

Lady Edith: "Fuck you, Mary. Fuck you so hard."
Lady Mary: "I would say the same, but I think someone's already done that to you, and yet I see no fucking ring on your finger, do you? This is the 20s you know, we got morals n shit."
Mary snaps her fingers in Edith's face and struts out to the soundtrack of Beyonce's "Single Ladies".

"Fucksticks"

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/

The COCKNEY Bat-Man

The International Cheese-Fries Review presents:

COCKNEY BATMAN

a.k.a.

BatEnders

a.k.a.

Gotham Square

Here it is, people, the mash-up of all mash-ups. Do me a favour. Imagine that, one day, the Bat-Man universe was suddenly transported to Albert Square. What if Bat-Man had been a cockney? What if the heroes and villains who prowl the streets at night were not endowed with supernatural powers or expensive gadgetry? What if they were just people… geezers, tossers, girls with huge hoopy earrings in leopard print tops… gangsters and barmaids, car mechanics and market stall gals?

This, my friends, is what it would look like. Take a step into the world of the Cockney Bat-Man.

STARRING:

Alfie Moon as the Cockney Bat-Man:

 

    With ‘batman’ only a typo away from ‘barman’, Alfie is the prime choice for the role of Cockney Batman. With his dark plastic coat swaying behind him in the dark alleys of Albert Square, he is out to solve crime and bring peace into the hearts of the people – mainly by selling booze to punters in the Vic.

(Some of you may have thought that being called Alfred, he should have been the Bat-Man’s ageing butler, but we here at The International Cheese-Fries Review think OUTSIDE of the box).

Kat Slater as Kat-Woman:

  With her burning love for low-cut tops, high heels, heavy make-up and starting a good old fight in the Vic, Kat Slater was born for the role of Kat-Woman. Her relationship with Cockney Bat-Man is, as ever, complicated: she can’t live with, and she can’t live without him. This doesn’t stop her from seducing and snogging other men on a regular basis – they just can’t resist the leopard print and those massive hoopy earrings…

Phil Mitchell as The Philguin:

 Come on, Phil Mitchell was the natural choice here. No one, and I mean no one, does being a chubby bald git and pissing people off better than he does.  It’s no secret that this geezer’s various business dabblings are all a front for criminal activity, and not even the good kind.

We liked it when the Philguin did crack.

 

ALSO STARRING:

Michael Moon as Two-Face:

Outwardly charming, Moon-Face’s other face is on the inside, where other people would have warmth and empathy. Aaaaand it ain’t pretty, man.

Janine Butcher as Talia Al Ghul:

Raised to be a cold-blooded, emotionless killer, Janine is Walford’s version of assassin Talia Al Ghul. Although in a certain way, she does bring people together. In what way? In the way that we all hate her. We hate you, Janine Al Ghul.

 Bianca Butcher as Poison Ivy:

Ever the fiery one, we have long since been suspecting that Bianca Butcher is hiding plant-based evilness behind that utterly annoying façade.

Lauren Branning as Harley Quinn

Mischief, alcohol, crime, boys. She wants it all, and she wants it now. And if you don’t give it to her, she’ll go full mental on you.

Masood Ahmed as Police Commissioner Gordon

 

He is the only person on Albert Square that actually has any real human qualities, and you know it.

WITH:

Dot Cotton as Alfred the Butler

Literally serving everyone. As the voice of morality.

 

AND:

Iain Beale as the Green Goblin

Iain Beale: He’s the greatest tosser you’ll even come across, and he usually puts his foot in it SO hard, that…well, that he could easily land himself in the wrong superhero universe.