Category: General

Semi Pro (2008)

Morgan Avery

It’s 1976 and Jackie Moon (Will Ferrell) owns – & coaches, & plays in – an underachieving basketball team, in a second string league that is about to be consumed by the NBA.  The arrival on the scene of former NBA bench warmer Ed Monix (Woody Harrelson, playing it completely straight and quite possibly making the movie because of it), traded for a washing machine, changes the balance of play.

You see, Monix knows how to play the game, he wrests coaching duties from Moon – who is more interested in dressing his team up as sparkly flamingoes and seahorses and practicing choreography than basketball – and teaches the team how to win.

Much better than I expected – funny all the way through, but with a liberal sprinkling of genius tossed around the place for good measure.  The kitchen scene with the Monix fan (and his wife – actress Maura Tierney, who you and I will know best from ER) was dirtylarious.  Licking my sexy was sexylarious.  And the Russian Roulette scene was cringilarious.  (“Hey! I did get shot!”)

If you’re in the mood to laugh your fine arse off, and aren’t automatically turned off by the merest through of Will Ferrell, you should go along to your local and check this one out.

IT’S LIKE THE TITANIC BUT FULL OF BEARS!!!

Never Back Down (2008)

Morgan Avery

Very much like one of those ‘kid from the streets takes to dancing and becomes a star’ movies, only with No Holds Barred fighting instead of dance.

Better, without a doubt, than I expected it to be.  But I think that you’d have to like watching martial arts matches (i.e. K1, et al) for it to be even remotely likely that you’d enjoy it too.

Cheeseburger

Morgan Avery4 Comments

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A work of genius of such unremitting intensity that your brain will fall right out of your head.

How is it possible that I can be capable of such a creative endeavour, and yet be single?  Answers on the back of a postcard to yo’ momma.

Such a Sleep Disorder (3)

Morgan Avery

Last night was a good night, whether thanks for positive visualisation (which I did none of) or half a bottle of blackberry wine (which I did one of), it was all smooth sailing until dawn. Thanks to this I rewarded myself with a dollop of my very favourite head polish (so shiny), and pie for lunch.

Incidentally, it turns out that blackberry wine leaves a dark streak the length of your tongue that lasts all night and looks really fucking gross first thing in the morning.

Update: I thought you’d like to know that as the day has progressed my head has gone from a beautiful glossy sheen, down to a more satiny finish.  Still good, but nothing beats a good shine.

Such a Sleep Disorder

Morgan Avery

You will know, if you’re a long time friend of mine, that I’ve been known to do stupid stuff in my sleep.  Not just snoring, but laughing, trumpet playing, alien spotting, walking, hand grenade dodging, and sprint into the closeting.

So, if a normal person said ‘I had a terrible night last night, kicking in my sleep’ you’d think they were probably new to speaking English, but perhaps meant, tossing & turning & kicking the sheets off.  But if I said the same thing, you might know something more interesting than that was up, and unfortunately, yeah, you’d be right.

What I did was get up, plant one hand on either side of my wardrobe, and kick a hole through the wall.

You will recall that I used to train in karate a lot, a long time ago.  Apparently my karate retrained instincts still work, pushing my body into a pretty decent form, even in my sleep, which I guess is interesting – and probably means it’s still no problem for me to kick your arse.

Just one beautiful stroke, and no harm done to my foot.  But plenty of harm done to my wall.

Kicking in my sleep at night.

My foot was, in fact, only stopped when I hit the wooden boards that make up the far side of the wall.  So yeah, oops.

Please understand that this all seemed perfectly reasonable in the context of my dream – someone with a gun was on the far side of the wall, and had just locked me in, I figured I had to take any element of surprise I could, and attacked them through the wall.  Obvious, right?

Now, I might not be a doctor, but I have a hunch that this all means I’ve been living with some sort of anxiety.  What do you think?

Anyway, as I awoke, standing there holding my wardrobe, and recoiling my leg back to the ready position (for a follow on mae keage, always one of my favourites), with the slowly dawning knowledge of what I’d just done, wondering if I’d actually shouted what I dreamed I’d shouted (“You’re going to regret this!”), and then realising that even if I hadn’t actually shouted, I’d probably just shaken the whole fucking house with a mighty crashing thud…  And what would my neighbours think?

So embarassing.

I really far prefer laughing myself awake, or humming the star spangled banner to keep a calliope running, let me tell you.

To make up for it, today at work I put together a papercraft ceiling cat, and taped it up above my desk.  It looks osome. Here he is, gazing down on me as I w**k.

Papercraft Ceiling Cat

I also had a really fucking awesome night out tonight with my wife of two months.  But perhaps we can talk more about that some other time.  Right?  Right.

Rambo (2008)

Morgan Avery

You already know what I’m going to say about this movie.  You reckon.  I reckon.
So let me get it out there right up front: This is one of the best action movies I’ve seen in years.  It’s completely awesome.

You don’t know if you believe me, do you?  But it’s true – I dug the hell out of this damn movie.  The audience literally (I’m not kidding) applauded at the end.

You also don’t know quite how violent it is – with an average of one death every 23 seconds, there’s a lot of killing – and it’s not just killing, it’s incredibly explosive pieces of flying meat, bodies exploding in half, bursting head, killing.

And yes, John gets his bow out.  Oh boy, does he ever.

If you can put yourself in the right frame of mind to enjoy some ultraviolence, I strongly urge you to find the time to bask in the glory of this complete fragfest.

Quick Drink, Retread

Morgan Avery2 Comments

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I’ve got something extreme up my sleeve and ready to go as soon as I feel you’ve sufficiently prepared yourself. (You won’t even believe it.)