Warriors, monkeys and wolves, oh my

[alexsarll]

Finally saw cult 1979 New York gang classic The Warriors last night and dear heavens, was ever a film this side of 300 so stunningly homoerotic? All the gangs in their little uniforms - and the baseballers in Boosh make-up look positively hetero next to the Warriors themselves in their lovely little leather waistcoats. Any attempt to dally with girls instead leads to danger - and any resistance to the idea of eg pulling a train on a lone girl is taken to mean one is "turning faggot". Because we all know how straight it is for lots of men to share one girl, right? See also: footballists.
Then made the mistake of trying to watch My Monkey Baby, about Americans who treat monkeys as their children. Sounded cute, if fairly TV Go Home; was in fact deeply distressing. One woman who looked like every enveloping mother an insecure male author ever created to be feared talked about how, if she could, she'd have given her real children a pill to keep them babies forever - and now she had a monkey to dress up and make up, and that was the next best thing! A couple newer to the practice went to pick up their 'daughter' - and took her out through the breeding cages, where her real mother flipped out and ate the poffle from the microphone. And they were surprised. They were surprised that she didn't want her baby stolen by lunatics.

Still not quite sure what to make of the new Patrick Wolf album. Each of the others was a thing unto itself, a world entire - and I could see how people might like one album by him but not him as an act, which interested me. But the new one, for all the talk of how he had more creative freedom now and could do exactly what he wanted...well, it's mainly just a harder-edged Magic Position interspersed with Wind in the Wires ballads. Which doesn't make it bad by any means, because those are great templates of which I'm certainly not bored yet, but does make it less of a revelation than any of its predecessors. I've still yet to have an album really knock me over this year.

Comments

[suicideally.livejournal.com]

I watched that film the other week. It's marvellous. "Girls: they're evil and/or sluts"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a lot of people seem to have watched it recently on one of the ITV digital channels, I'd been meaning to get round to it for ages having grabbed the DVD from work, but kept forgetting to do so.
Looking at the IMDB trivia, it could have been even less subtle: "Swan was to be abducted by a homosexual and sadomasochistic gang who had doberman pinschers. He was scripted to escape and lead The Warriors home".

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

I liked the Manics, Sky Larkin and Micachu albums, but I'm really waiting for the new Wild Beasts record in August.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

The Manics album is good, certainly the best thing they've done in a decade, but it's still fundamentally a nostalgia project rather than "Wow, who are these guys?" or "Who knew this lot had it in them?"

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

True. The Wolf album is nothing but a disappointment to me, albeit one with a couple of compilation-worthy songs. The others I at least genuinely like, though only Micachu's is startling. I know the WB one will be great, even better than their debut, although they're a Marmitey band, because I've heard some of the new material and love it.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

With the usual disclaimer that I can take or leave Marmite, what I've heard of Wild Beasts before now does not fill me with hope for the new stuff.

I wouldn't go so far as to call the Wolf a disappointment. Like so many albums this year, it has lived up to my expectations - it just hasn't exceeded them.

[myfirstkitchen.livejournal.com]

Several tracks on The Bachelor are appalling and skippable (Vulture, Battle etc) - while the last record had weaker tracks, none induced me to be arsed to press the button to make them go away. He's bigger now than the music, which is a problem.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Those two are dancefloor or live tracks more than home listening ones, but I certainly wouldn't say that made them bad songs. I even got quite bouncy to 'Battle' when it came on my headphones during my Monday walk home.
But I agree that his personality can get in the way of the songs sometimes - it's why I don't tend to see him live, for instance.

[alexdecampi.livejournal.com]

I'm kind of obsessed right now with "Hard Times" off that Patrick Wolf album. Downloaded the rest of the album but haven't listened to it all yet.

The Paper Cranes album (Chivalry's Dead) - out next month, I think - is amazing, in a Squeeze-meets-the-Smiths kind of way. I'm also quite fond of the Ida Maria album but realise that it's probably a short-term pop obsession of mine. A shower not a grower, as it were.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I heard a few bits of Ida Maria but, while there was something there, the delivery was a bit jangly for me overall. The Paper Cranes sound potentially promising, though.

[angelv.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's why I didn't want to watch the Monkey programme. For all the cuteness of the premise, it's actually just some vain morons being cruel.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Precisely. And it was so horrific that when the ads came on it wasn't even a respite, because I realised that almost all of these products and ads were also aimed at thoughtless scum with more money and neuroses than sense.

[xandratheblue.livejournal.com]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pulling%20a%20train

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

It has a song about fisting, if that helps?