Actually getting at Scientology is notoriously difficult though; with their ‘fair game’, their crack legal team, and their masses of propaganda, anyone who goes against them is silenced or ridiculed pretty quickly. They have celebrities on board, and without celebrities the media industry would collapse, so when John Travolta goes on a chat show and talks about how great Scientology is it gets more airplay than the nobody who is trying to expose their unethical practices. Celebrities are an easy target for them because they’re insecure and open to bizarre practices which the rest of us think are weird (like colonic irrigation), so they can be made to feel good about themselves without really realising that they’re sending hundreds of their admirers into a cult, and probably bankruptcy.

Tom Cruise of course is the most insecure of all – he’s succeeded as an actor, but that ‘hole’ in his life still hadn’t been filled. And he’s a nice guy, he wants to help people and be important – so for Scientology he’s the perfect person to brainwash; he can spread the word (to ‘over 1 billion people of Earth!‘) and he gets to feel fulfilled inside because Miscavige has told him he’s L. Ron’s spiritual successor. He genuinly believes he’s an important religious leader, and that’s sad. The Scientologists have totally warped the poor bastard.

Anyway, it was his video that really started this shitstorm. This one. It was all over Digg, it got pulled from Youtube, and then people, finally, got angry. Scientology were pulling their legal stunts yet again, and the internet was fed up. So the video was uploaded on a whole load of other sites, and then this thing showed up.

I loved it. They were saying things I have wanted people to say for a long time. But of course, it was just a youtube video. It’s easy to say those things, get some spooky music and open up Microsoft Sam. Scientology are simply too powerful, and too well protected to be taken out by a strange collection of Internet users.

But, then…

Their site went down. And their ‘copyrighted’ documents started showing up on Digg. I mean, just go there and search for yourself. And then, it was on the news.

And my first reaction was, holy shit, they’re actually taking this seriously! And I imagined some stereotypical script-kiddie sitting in his basement freaking out that his funny youtube video had been picked up by the associated press.

But then I thought: maybe it is serious. Maybe this is the catalyst, this is when people started fighting back. Really causing some problems for these bastards. And I hope that it is.

So Anonymous, I support you. Hell, it’s about time we had a revolution. So count me in.

This is a band in the true garage-rock-revival style – punky, edgy, psychedelic, and so endlessly hep they’re totally unheard of. Download the album here.

It starts out with one of those great revival psychedelicly spooky songs, Inspector Clouseau In Outer Limits. One part Grieg (In The Hall of the Mountain King) and the other part marijuana, this is a typically raw and audacious beginning. We then go into some fairly standard (and therefore, good) eighties take-off sixties stuff – imagine Nuggets, but more self-conscious, and if possible, more fun. Most of the tracks fall into this genre, but with a good punky dose typical of post-punk/pre-grunge era garage rock, and these are some nice examples of the style. My Baby Went Away With The Midnight Train is a great showcase for the droning jangly keyboard-guitar combo that blurs the line between psychedelia and pop, and the Last November is one of those original-era emo songs that is a hundred-million times better than the stuff passing for emo today.

Special mention to track 12, In The Past, for being a prime example of a limited-ability garage band trying something a bit different, and pulling it off. Great track, great album, great band. Download, it’s free.

I’ll see you online, in 2008.

Well, for die hard Die Hard fans like me, today’s the day. After twelve years away, and three films of varying degrees of excellence, the fourth movie is finally here. And the verdict is quite surprising, because (literally) against all the odds, Die Hard 4.0 isn’t actually all that bad. In fact, I really rather liked it.

The Die Hard movies are so old now that adding another to the series is almost like those remakes that were popular a couple of years ago – Charlie’s Angels, Starsky and Hutch etc. – and as such, it runs the risk of trying to either parody itself or re-invent itself. Both of these things would have been disasterous, but fortunately Die Hard 4.0 is definitely ‘part’ of the series. Little things show that the producers have really done their homework – from the soundtrack; an excellently updated homage to the original, to the build-up of the story, and most importantly of all, McClane himself.

In many ways this film takes the best elements of each of the previous three and mixes them together to form a single movie. That is not to say it’s better than any of the originals (more on that in a moment) but there are certainly shades of McClane’s earlier adventures inside this new one. Once or twice a scene would feel out of place, but whenever I noted so I realised that the original films had similar scenes anyway – when McClane argues with his daughter early in the film you think, ‘this isn’t Die Hard!’ but then you remember the similar argument between John and his wife at the start of the first film. Sure, it was done a lot more smoothly (and a hell of a lot less obviously) in that earlier movie, but it’s the same thing. Again, when McClane has a heart-to-heart with his hacker sidekick Matt Farrell (Justin Long, from the Mac ads) it mirrors the Al Powell/radio scene in the original film – but again, less eloquently.

All this said, the film seems split into two halves. The first hour is in fact extraordinarily good – all those moments from the trailer that we all sighed at, thinking they’d ruined the series, are actually fine – but the second hour flags a bit. The situation is introduced in true Die Hard style – someone’s causing big problems, and no-one can figure out who they are, why they’re doing it, and what they’re going to do next. McClane is drawn in after a routine pick-up of a suspect (the hacker, Matt Farrell) turns into an ambush. After disposing of the baddies, upon delivery of the suspect all hell breaks loose. Traffic control in the city is taken over by the bad guys, as well as the Wall Street computers and communications networks. No-one has any idea what the hell is going on – but McClane soon finds out, they’ll go to any length to kill Farrell, who protests his innocence.

In this first hour everything is great. Throwaway references to obscure characters in the first film (Agent Johnson) and a cross between the ‘at-the-whim-of-the-baddies’ techno-fear from Die Hard 2 and the open-city chaos of Die Hard with a Vengeance makes for a very entertaining experience. McClane is at his best, struggling to understand the situation but with better instincts than those around him, and he’s still capable of a few wry chuckles every time he drives a car into a helicopter – the climax of an almost-realistic and quite scary scenario inside a closed-off tunnel.

The second hour lets the film down. The usual Die Hard ‘twist’ (read: discovery of the motive) is in place, but it draws McClane away from the epicentre of the chaos for far too long. Also, some of the things that happen in the second hour border on the ridiculous – but then, I suppose it was quite ridiculous for McClane to drive a cab through Central Park in Die Hard 3, too. It’s still entertaining of course (and the action scenes – especially at the climax of the movie – are superb) but the film never really reaches the heights set in the first hour.

There’s a lot to like about this film – the action scenes will blow you away and it’s very funny (‘enough of this kung-fu shit…’). How does it fare as part of the series? Well, obviously it doesn’t come close to the first film, and it’s not quite as tight as the third – but it certainly rivals the second. It’s Die Hard done the modern way, and I suppose that’s the only way it could be.

All-in, I was expecting something a lot worse than this. Hell, it’s really entertaining and that’s reason enough to see it on its own – but if you love the Die Hard films the way I do, you’ll find there’s a lot here for you to enjoy.

The summer solstice at Stonehenge is one of those really cool things that we all know about, and actually going there and experiencing it is a surreal, magical experience. I have no druidic beliefs and I don’t see Stonehenge as a place of worship, but man… it’s a hell of a good place for a party.

Getting there was easy enough on the train, and cheap too, so by nine o’clock on Wednesday evening I found myself sitting a few feet away from the stones themselves. Sally and I had brought some beer and I had a bit of rum, but before the first hour was up fate deigned to bestow a gift upon me in the form of a little brown bottle of liquid, and for five pounds I found myself back in Lucy’s company for the first time in – well, too long.

This caused deep reflection throughout the night. The history of summer partying at Stonehenge is torrid – the mixture of hippie ethos drugfest raves and ‘World Heritage Site’ is not the most stable, and in 1985 the whole thing exploded with the infamous Battle of the Beanfield. Since then festivals at the site have been banned, and it was only in 1999 that access to the stones was again allowed for the solstice. This was presumably the result of pressure from actual Druids who see Stonehenge as an important religious site, but the majority of the people who turned up were like me and just looking for some free-spirited fun.

In fact it seemed exactly like I always imagined the Stonehenge Free Festival was like – lots of drug people having a party a la 1960s; free entry, total acceptance of substance use, live music and a very positive atmosphere. I didn’t see the police arrest anyone despite the copious clouds of marijuana smoke (I think just standing in the centre circle was enough to get high) but when the stewards grabbed the ankle of a reveller trying to mount one of the stones and yanked him down to the ground hard, we were surrounded by angry cheers of disapproval from the crowd. It nearly kicked off as they dragged the guy away; a couple of skinheads got very angry about it. I felt like these guys were amongst the original partygoers twenty years ago, still getting the shit kicked out of them by the man – fascist-like Thatcherites who stand for everything that these people hate; consumerism, capitalism, anti-drug, anti-fun.

It seemed like so much defiance. Here we were, two decades later, finally allowed back on Salisbury Plain and having the time of our lives. There was so much in place to try and restrict the fun – no camping equipment allowed, no sleeping bags, no large rucksacks, no amplified music – a real ‘Go on then, have your party, if you can’ sentiment that was totally trounced by the people who were there. All we had was a field, a couple dozen portaloos, and some large stones. But that was all we needed, as the sound of acoustic instruments filled the air and the sheer energy of the participants kept everyone awake.

Of course, this was my first trip to Stonehenge and all these things I was thinking were a combination of my nostalgic nature and the powerful drug, but it was good fun at the time. I was essentially a non-particpant in every capacity except my very presence – but even just standing in the centre circle at two in the morning was a completely primal experience. In the dark to the beat of the drums and the throng of the crowd it was celebration of the most ancient kind; awaiting the rise of the sun. In my kaleidoscope eyes the crowd were performing all the rituals my imagination could come up with for such a prehistoric place – they were making human sacrifices; they were dancing to celebrate a harvest, they were praying for the souls of dead relatives - and with the light bouncing up and off the warping stones, away up into the starry night sky, all I could do was hold onto Sally for dear life as she danced; a childish grin plastered on my face and my mind racing.

It was an incredible experience, but after a while I think the rush became too strong. I asked Sally to take me away from the centre to see what else was happening, and looking down at my hand it was clear I still had a bit of juice left in the trip.

(this image is an edited combination of three different images, used without permission)

We walked for hours – a group doing performance poetry here, hip-hop druids rapping there, just tasting everything. These guys had just shown up and with nothing more than what they could carry in their hands they were entertaining hundreds of people. It felt good – it felt liberating and bohemian and genuine, unlike most modern festivals with their sponsors and their sell-out headliners.

I tripped a while sat beside one of the fires situated around the perimeter, listening to Syd Barrett and Iron Butterfly whilst Sally made me laugh at silly things like the number 12, and fire kept in cages. And eventually I came down, just in time to see the sunrise – albeit obscured by clouds - and we decided to go home.

We had to wait a while for a train back, so we wandered into the town centre, to Salisbury Cathedral. The building was magnificent; the after-effects of the acid causing the numerous effigies of Saints and Bishops to look at me with amusing expressions and imperceptable movements. Sat alone inside the courtyard, it occurred to me that really, this building was more of an achievement than Stonehenge is. It was kind of absurd.

Ah, what fun. I will definitely be going back again! And so should you.

I’ve got some tasty updates coming up for you, but there is one tragic loss as well – those goddamn Sunday Reviews. They’re gone. I hate them. Hate!

I mean, I’ll still write reviews. Just not every fucking Sunday. We’re both relieved, right? Of course.

So I’ll let you get back to the party, and I’ll mingle presently. Wooetc.

Here there be spoilers.

This third and hopefully final installment to the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is a very frustrating movie. To put it simply, when it’s good, it’s excellent. And when it’s bad? Well, it’s awful.

The plot is confusing: Jack is stuck in pirate limbo in Davy Jones’ Locker, so his faithful crew sail off to find him under the command of a resurrected Barbossa. In the style of Dead Man’s Chest, it’s not quite so simple as just going to the Locker – first they must go to Singapore and get a map from Captain Sao Feng. Shennanigans occur, but they succeed in obtaining the map. Then they go to rescue Jack – but none of them really know how to get back home once they find him. They figure that out just in time to reveal that everyone is, of course, trying to achieve their own objectives – Barbossa wants to call a gathering of the nine Pirate Lords so they can release ‘Calypso’, the Goddess of the Sea who was imprisoned by the first pirates into the body of a woman. She just happens to be the same woman that Davy Jones tore his heart out over, but that’s another story…

Anyway, no-one agrees on what the best course of action is to deal with the problem. The problem. Which is, in this film, the combined forces of Lord Cutler-Becket and Davy Jones, who are attempting to eradicate piracy. My head is swimming right now as I try to recall the other plot threads of this story, but believe me when I tell you that I’ve covered less than half of them here. So I’m going to stop.

It’s clear that the biggest problem this film has is the massive over-burdening of the plot. Dead Man’s Chest had a similar problem, but At World’s End dwarves its predecessor. At times it’s impossible to figure out what is going on – who is doing what, what side they’re on, what their motives are… and this is a bad thing.

The film makes up for this, but only just. In this installment, Jack has finally gone around the bend – he’s spent too much time under the sun in the Locker, and begins hallucinating clones of himself. This sounds awful, and indeed when I read about it before the film I thought it would be – but it’s actually hilarious, and a highlight of the film. When he sails his ship across the sand and runs into his ‘dead’ former-shipmate Barbossa, it’s easy to understand that he thinks he’s still hallucinating. “Alright Hector!” he greets him with a grin, much to the pirate’s annoyance.

More fun is to be found in the action scenes – which are plentiful, and in a way are the only solution to the convoluted plotlines. As things get more and more confusing, swords get drawn and a course of action is finally decided. The most exciting of these scenes can be glimpsed in the trailer, when the Goddess Calypso, finally freed, creates an enormous whirlpool in the middle of the ocean; the stage for the final battle between Jones’ Flying Dutchman and the Black Pearl.

Jack’s witticisms are back of course, to a welcome reception. But Elizabeth Swann is overused, becoming pretty much the main character in this film – and Sao Feng, criminally, is entirely underused. These factors annoy, but they’re saved by the few short minutes of screentime given to the greatest pirate of all – Keith Richards. His grizzled turn as Jack’s father is, simply, brilliant – and just in case you don’t recognise him in pirate garb, he sits down to strum on a guitar.

As for the ending, well… I liked it, such as it is. But they’ve really left the doors wide open for a sequel, if they can convince everyone to go for another trip on the ride. That is a bad idea. But who am I kidding? When Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is invariably announced – assuming it has Depp and/or Rush in it, anyway – I’ll be first in line.

I think in time At World’s End will grow on me. As it is, it stands out as the most overwrought, plot-laden, fantastical movie in the Pirates trilogy. It makes Dead Man’s Chest (which, admittedly, I loved) look a lot better than I remember thinking it was when I first saw it. And neither of them are a patch on the first movie. But it is entertaining, and I suppose you can’t ask for more than that. And despite everything else, it does feel piratey.

 Tidying my room a little yesterday, I found an old notepad filled with strange scribbles and drawings. I soon remembered what I was looking at – mementos from my very first LSD experience. It was September 2004, in Manchester (where else?) and I had finally managed to track down the elusive drug I so desired. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly strong stuff, and that first experience wasn’t my ‘break-through’ experience. Nevertheless, it affected me so much that I couldn’t walk down the metal staircase leading out of our crummy flat (it was, for all intents and purposes, not connected to the ground), and my co-trippers Alan and JT weren’t handling it so well (although, JT had been up almost twenty-four hours when we dropped, and he’d probably been on pills the night before) so I did the only thing availble to do - I drew some drug-induced pictures.

There are four pictures here for you to peruse; I won’t waste time trying to explain what they ‘are’ because I didn’t draw them with any particular aim in mind – they just came out. They don’t necessarily represent ‘what I was seeing’ either – I think it was just the liberation of my artistic (ha) sensibilities as a result of the drug allowing me to just let my imagination run wild. Still, there was a curious sense at the time that the pictures were ‘right’, whatever that means. Pay attention also to the fact that everything seems to be ‘flowing’ in one form or another in most of these images.

For the record, I’ve groovied the images up a bit in Photoshop, because my artistic flair leaves a lot to be desired. Click on each image to see the full size version, or if you want to see the original untouched version click the link below each image. So, in chronological order:

(original version)

I think it’s interesting to note that the first two images are more like conventional ‘pictures’ – I was probably trying to draw something in particular, or at least make it appear like I was. The latter two images represent the drug taking a deeper hold on me, as they veer further into abstraction.

Quentin Tarantino is probably the most hip director around. This is a double edged sword. He can pretty much do whatever he wants, based on what he thinks is ‘cool,’ but in doing so he always runs the risk of alienating his audience. With Kill Bill, he’s created (two) movies that push this envelope further than ever – but in doing so, he’s created one of the most original pieces of cinema in years.

When I rewatched these films this week, I was impressed by Tarantino’s audacity even with the opening credits. The cast were listed, sure, but not in any conventional sense. Here they were listed – and indeed, numbered – according to their place within the ‘Deadly Viper Assassination Squad’ – a name in itself loaded with kitsch. This is a director who, like Kubrick before him, has stopped being influenced by other film-makers. Or rather, he has taken his influence from other film-makers to the absolute max – everything here is (presumably) an homage to another underground film from the seventies which we’ve never seen.

The story is simple enough – revenge. Uma Thurman’s The Bride (or, Beatrix Kiddo) is out to get the titular Bill, an enigmatic hitman/mentor figure, and his crew (the aforementioned Deadly Vipers) who tried to murder her after she quit ‘the life.’ Along the way we get to see all kinds of wondrous things – the Tokyo underworld; a flashback to Kiddo’s training with the ancient Pai Mei; a desert showdown with Bill’s brother Budd. But what makes the film actuall good?

It’s hard to say. And I’m tired. So I’m going to bed, and I’ll answer that another day.