BlogalongaBoldly #1 Star Trek: The Motion Picture

So, I'm doing this now.

Smash all the Clocks

The grieving period had finished. Stop your snivelling and get back to work. Grief’s easy, really: couple of weeks to sweat out the shock of loss, before you move on politely with your life. That duration where everyone treads gingerly around you, offering you hugs or tea or tear-absorbent shoulders, mindful of your fragility – that’s almost like a holiday. Some time off, and it ends with a bit of a knees-up.

Then reality sets in. Oh, they really are gone. Forever. The world keeps turning, the season changes, and everything’s the same as it was before, only completely different. This is the hard bit.

A quick check of your own lifespan. Blimey, that’s a probable lot of life left remaining without that person. A lot of lost memories. A lot of catching up with yourself, as you idly make plans with them in mind, until the actuality returns with a swift gut-punch.

A lot of coping.

This isn’t grieving. It’s pining.

What to do? Wallow in loss, nostalgia, and sorrow? Drown yourself in attention-diverting pop culture ephemera and nonsense? Start time-managing bereavement in easily-digestible chunks on a daily basis? Or just pretend it’s not happening, and bury your subconscious under a facade of grinning and pretence, with eyes so wide you can sometimes hear them crack?

I don’t know. But if you do find out, you’ll let me know, yeah?

Saturday Night at the Moovies: Milk in Film

Milk: cow’s gift to humanity. As well as their delicious flesh, of course. Plus their leather, come to think of it. Not to mention those giant horns Texan oil barons attach to the hoods of their cars. Blimey, those grazing, cud-chewing chumps have served us humans pretty well over the centuries. I could rip a cow to pieces just thinking about it.

So, sit back, pour yourself a tall glass of semi-skimmed (or gold top if you’ve basically let yourself go), and read on, as I take you through this not-at-all arbitrary rundown of milk in film.

23. Psycho (1960)

Congenial host Norman Bates, always offering his motel guests a giant pitcher of milk and a plate of sandwiches. If only he hadn’t followed it up with slicing them to ribbons in the shower whilst wearing the dress of his dead mother he’d probably be remembered a little more fondly.

22. Ghost World (2001)

Spiteful, self-absorbed bitches mock Steve Buscemi’s downtrodden Seymour for buying a “giant glass of milk”, whereas it’s actually a vanilla milkshake. Ha! In your face spiteful bitches!

21. Grease (1978)

The cast swallow lots of milkshakes. We swallow the fact that they’re thirty-somethings playing at being teenagers.

20. Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Spilt milk! Don’t cry about it though. Cry about all the much sadder stuff that comes later.

19. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Here’s Colonel Hans Landa. As well as hunting Jewish people, he likes to smoke a pipe and drink a glass of milk. My Uncle Quentin is also a milk-drinking pipe-smoker, but is categorically not a Nazi. He does, however, hold some pretty strong views on women in the workplace. Just kidding Quentin! I hope.

18. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)

The person-to-milk ratio of this film is off the bloody scale really, considering this shrunken bastard nearly drowns in the stuff. He’s then nearly eaten by his Dad, Rick Moranis. Terrible really. I mean, imagine Rick Moranis as your Father.

17. The 400 Blows (1959)     

The French, eh? Always doing something symptomatic of the stereotypical values assigned to their country by racists, eh? Anyway, this child has stolen a bottle of milk, the petit merde.

16. Trainspotting (1996)

Even smackheads occasionally take time out from injecting “shit” into their veins to enjoy a sugary strawberry-milk concoction. They then return to heroin. They’re addicts, see?

15. There Will Be Blood (2007)

Daniel Day-Lewis’ booze-soaked Plainview bellows proprietary claims concerning a non-existent milkshake at the quivering Eli. Just think: if he truly did love milkshakes more than alcohol, he probably wouldn’t be acting this crazy in the first place.

14 Pulp Fiction (1994)

Mia's five dollar shake elicits the spittle-lipped attention of John Travolta's rubber mouth. Bet he did give her cooties.

13. Back to the Future (1985)

George McFly: his milkshake brings all the courage to the bar.

12. The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Dude might hate the fuckin' Eagles man, but he sure loves milk-derived alcohol beverages, as in his ubiquitous White Russian. He also loves bowling, cannabis, and Donny.

11. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

News anchor Ron Burgundy knocks back a carton of full fat, only to declare it, “a bad choice!” No it wasn’t Ron; it was bloody lovely and you know it.

10. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Quite possibly the worst thing that can happen to you whilst you guzzle milk. No respect, those bloody T-1000s.

9. Leon: The Professional (1994)

Our third film in a row with a colon in the title (milk must gravitate naturally towards the colon). This is a film all about a paid assassin who drinks only milk. Some consider this a slur on milk’s good name. I say if it’s implying that milk sharpens the senses, improves your aim, and deadens the soul to cold-blooded murder, then that’s fine by me.

8. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Is Kubrick’s futuristic masterpiece another cinematic knock at the bovine brew, given its use as “rape fuel” for anti-hero Alex and his band of vicious droogs? No, because the milk they drink is packed to the centilitre with mind-curdling drugs. Normal milk would never arouse sexually deviant urges, probably.

7. Barnyard (2006)

I’ve not seen this, but there is a cow in it. Chances are that milk is also in it then, even if only tangentially.

6. The Calcium Kid (2004)

A much better role model than poxy old Leon here, with puberty’s very own poster boy Orlando Bloom pretending to be a boxer. A boxer whose strength is derived from necking vats of creamy white. This film has a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But what would they know, eh?

5. John Wayne

“Get off your horse and drink your milk” he said once, apparently, though no one where seems to know from where it originates. Even the internet isn’t much help and I hate Westerns so am not about to check so let’s just say that he definitely said it and move on.

4. Breastmilk: The Movie (2013)

I don’t know the first thing about this, because I am not interested in tit-soup. I sometimes hear the phrase, “breast is best.” Frankly, that’s bollocks: I’m an arse man myself.

3. Kingpin (1996)

Woody Harrelson's Roy Munson was startled to discover that his delicious milky treat wasn't squeezed from a cow’s udder at all: it was spunk wanked from a bull’s cock.

2. The Living Daylights (1987)

Timothy Dalton’s debut and penultimate Bond movie features a murderous milkman by the name of Necros, a geezer what lobs exploding milk bottles, and strangles victims with his hi-tech Walkman headphones. Real milkmen don’t do this, of course. They merely whistle, deliver top quality dairy products, and on occasion, shag your missus.

1. Milk (2008)

A film starring the only twice Academy Award winner whose head is the shape of an inverted Toblerone chunk. Disappointingly, Milk isn’t a rattling narrative about the nutritious delights of liquid lactose at all: it’s about a man who was gay for a bit. Oh, pull the udder* one Hollywood! Let’s hope that one day, Tinsel Town sees sense and the wonderful drink of milk is given the proper cinema adaption we all deserve. Especially me.

BYE

*other