Finishing off my little Rudy Ray Moore Binge (well…until someone properly re-releases ‘Shaoulin Dolemite’ and ‘The Dolemite Explosion’ I thought i’d revisit ‘Dolemite is my Name’ A dramatization retelling of Rudy’s early career covering his early days as an assistant manager of a record store, through to his work shaping up ‘Dolemite’ as a character, right the way through to the world premiere of the ‘Dolemite’ movie. With all the crazy and strange happenings that occured along the way.
It is, in essence like the Tim Burton movie ‘Ed Wood’, but instead of it being an aspiring film maker trying to make it big in the 50s, its a comedian trying to make it big in the 70s using records and the movies (neither of which he was particularly creatively refined for at the time)
And I think this ones going to be pretty short but sweet, I really quite enjoyed this one. The script is decently plotted out, with a clear 3 act structure with seamless transitions between the acts. The acts themselves are all nicely weighted, with no one act hogging TOO much of the limelight.
If I was nitpicking, i’d say the film does overrun a little bit (by about 15 minutes) and a lot of that sag is found in the 2nd act, the film kind of gets bogged down a little bit with trying to simultaineously cram in the logistics of how the events unfolded, explaining how some of the weirdness ended up happening, while also trying to portray Rudy as a well intentioned, somewhat timid character who pulls himself out of his shell when faced with adversity. Its essentially trying to juggle all this things AND maintain a healthy balance between comedy and pathos. Not an easy task…And while I Think it does a phenominal job of juggling all of those elements at the same time. it does start to get a little sloppy in the middle when it doesnt really know how to approach some of the subjects that are raised.
Other than some 2nd act pacing and consistency issues though, this is pretty rock solid, the opening takes its time to set up the table for whats about to go down, but once it gets rolling its got an unstoppable and VERY likeable momentum that carries it right the way up to the end.
I think tonally its pretty well tuned, much better than some other biopics of this ilk (im looking at you ‘The Disaster Artist’) and you get the feeling that a lot of research was put into trying to really nail the mannerisms of the characters, their history and motivations, it feels authentic and comes across as genuine, warm and sincere, which I think this movie really needed honestly.
Direction and cine are both rock solid, they recreate several scenes from both ‘Dolemite’ and ‘The Human Tornado’ (which…in itself is another minor nitpick. I love the ‘Dolemite’ recreations, but im the kind of anally retentive person who just cant let go that they showed scenes from ‘The Human Tornado’ during the ‘in film’ ‘Dolemite’ screenings…I’ll live…but im not happy) They do these recreations near enough 1:1, which is incredibly impressive, its a studio picture, so I didnt really have any concerns about this film on a technical level. It doesnt dissapoint really, draping the film in 70s chic, its got great colour choices, solid and creative cinematography, remarkable editing (seriously, I loved the edit on this) and the cast direction is next level. I really cant fault this film, it looks and feels great and has clearly had a lot of love and polish put to it.
as for the performances? Eddie Murphy I feel nails Rudy Ray Moore the person expertly, its a phenominal performance that really captures the more mild mannered aspects of Rudys personality…However; I do feel like Murphy struggles with the ‘Dolemite’ side of the performance, particularly the more anger driven sequences. he just…cant seem to help but slip into a bit more of a ‘comedic angry’ delivery on those scenes…when Rudy did basically just straight anger (which was why it was funny, and why it worked so well in ‘dolemite’) Its only a minor quibble because we spend WAY more of the movie with Rudy (the man) over Rudy (the performer) but it was noticeable enough to raise here.
As for the supporting cast? PERFECT. I honestly dont think i’ve seen a better cast movie than this in a LONG time. With Keegan Michael Key playing Jerry (A writing collaborator to Rudy) with conviction, he’s a great foil to Rudys more short term approach to doing things, and the two bounce off each other wonderfully. The same can absolutely be said of Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Lady Reed, Rudy’s long time partner in crime. they too have tremendous chemistry and her arc through this story is played with conviction thats both satisfying and emotional. Wesley Snipes as D’urville (the director of Dolemite) is near enough perfect, working a solid balance between someone who CLEARLY thinks they’re above the production, but real enough to acknowledge everyone has to start somewhere, he plays pompus, with a vulnerable streak…and he does it very well.
The rest of the supporting cast are equally superb. I dont really think theres a bad one in this entire production. its just a rock solid, entertaining and at times spookily accurate group of performances.
And the soundtrack…DAMN it sounds incredible. we have reworked tracks from ‘Dolemite’ given a bit of 2010s production polish, jukebox motown and funk tracks and a nice incidental suite that really bring the production to life and open the whole thing up to a new level.
I had an absolute blast with ‘Dolemite is my Name’ I enjoyed it the first time around, and I enjoyed it even more on the rewatch. HIGHLY recommended, particularly if you like these ‘lightning in a bottle’ type biopics about eccentric film makers (Like ‘Ed Wood’ or ‘The Disaster Artist’) or want a better idea of Rudy Ray Moore as a person and performer…I dont think you could go far wrong with checking this one out…It looks good, it feels great and it has fantastic story telling told by crazy and creative characters…definitely not one to sleep on.
As the 70’s drew to a close and the era of flared trousers, crushed velvet and funk was slowly echoed out of the room, Rudy Ray Moore would have one final big roll of the cinematic dice…and like Icarus, I fear he may have flown too close to the sun with this one.
‘Disco Godfather’ is in essence an extended PSA film about the dangers of Cocaine (euphamistically referred to throughout this film as ‘Angel Dust’) Moore plays ‘Tucker Williams’ one of the best DJ’s in town and headline act (and owner) of the ‘Blueberry hill’ the most happeningist nightclub in town! But theres a problem, pushers on the streets are getting kids scagged up on the devils marching powder, and when a near death experience happens RIGHT on the Blueberry hills doorstep, Tucker has to reconnect with his ex-cop roots to learn more about the deadly narcota, who’s supplying it, and to ultimatley put an end to the pushers, before the pushers put an end to him!
And…you’d think on paper ‘Rudy Ray Moore does an extended PSA against drug use’ Featuring crazy hallucination sequences, poor kung-fu and disco bopping hits would be a perfect combination for me…But honestly? I really just didnt gel with it.
For a starters the script takes all the WORST excesses from the first couple of dolemite films and drags them to the forefront of this production kicking and screaming. Its essentially just endless nightclub scenes, intercut with VERY serious dramatic numbers and the thinnest THINNEST skim of comedy i’ve seen in a long time.
As such, we’re RIGHT back into the tonal issues that plagued the first two Dolemite pictures as a result…With the production trying to both be INCREDIBLY serious and dower about a very serious issue LITERALLY killing people in real life…but not wanting to be SO dark that they kill, what is ultimately a comedians vibe vehical. It just cant balance the two tones for me, and winds up being weirdly lumpy and simultaineously too depressing to be entertaining and too unfunny to really keep me hanging on. The endless nightclub scenes only worsen things for me, and after seeing ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ I honestly cant believe we’re back to quality like this after it felt like so much progress had been made.
The act structuring is to the wall, we have a VERY brief first act which then just…basically gives way to sludge. the vast VAST majority of the runtime is stuck in the 2nd act with Tucker basically going site to site, doing a bit of awkward kung-fu…which…we’re 4 films in now, it was funny in the first film, titter worthy in the second and kind of ‘Done’ by the 3rd…here its positively grating. which is then followed up by either PSA style drama scenes showing Angel dust victims…or jive-esq nightclub scenes that did nothing for me.
The characters are all back to being one notw, with only Tucker getting any kind of further complexities…but those complexities dont ACTUALLY get picked up on until 10 minutes off the end…Oh! and thats also conveniently where the 3rd act just about starts.
The pacings SO slow, with only a half garbled finale offering anything in the way of ACTUAL interesting content. But the film ends pretty open ended and abruptly…which was a dissapointment and ultimately I just really struggled with the writing ont his one, the dialogues less memorable, the deliveries arnt great. theres a couple of solid hallucination sequences…but thats about it.
The vast majority of my rating here is going into technical ability on the part of the direction and cine. This looks like a relatively solid small studio picture. and is a nice further upgrade from ‘Petey’ and a whole different planet from ‘Dolemite’ we have creative direction utilising solid and creative lighting choices, track and dolly shots for the first time, creative composition, actual planned for the camera choreography on the nightclub scenes (not just filming an act that happened to be performing that night) the cast direction is equally solid offering decent use of the set space, character markers and solid prop usage.
I do feel b-roll is a little lacking in this one, but to compensate we get some interesting coloured lighting usage and, a bit of a first some basic attempts at rotoscoping and practical post production effects. Which definitely only enhances the viewing experience. Compositions alright, but a little uninspiring for sequence construction. I dont feel like the edit itself is as strong as ‘Petey’ either…But on the whole I’d say its probably the most cinematic looking Rudy Ray Moore film, and certainly the one that showcases the strongest technical proficiency.
Unfortunately its downhill again from there, the performances from all cast members (Moore included) feel forced, flat and fairly lifeless. This for me is really the first time where its felt like Rudy wanted in on an idea until it was actually time to do it, because he looks so tired and uninterested for most of this films runtime. The supporting cast are doing their best ‘Am-Dram’ presentations, but its just not enough, the whole thing feels like an exercise and a chore, rather than something im actively supposed to be enjoying.
Add to that a fairly mediocre soundtrack that really doesnt lift the film at all AND the obvious fact that, by 1979; Disco *was technically* still going, but was creatively basically dying. and you have a film that feels ill timed, unwanted and largely is pretty uninspiring.
I didnt really have a great time with ‘Disco Godfather’ I just kind of found it a bit boring and repetative, playing on the worst tropes of Rudys other movies and offering very little ‘new’ material from what had come before it. Its a bit of a whimper to end this 4 film/4 year journey unfortunately…If this was your first exposure to Rudy Ray Moores work, i’d heartily recommend ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ and ‘The Human Tornado’ as two examples of some of his greater works…As for this? It’ll be a while before im back to this one again…
Well, it took two movies for Rudy Ray Moore and his team to go from ‘Never held a camera before’ to producing not only what I consider to be the best film these guys ever made, but arguably a STRONG contender for one of the best ‘weird’ movies ever made. and given just HOW strange that list is. That’s saying something!
This film marks the start of Rudy experimenting with new characters on film. After two outings with Dolemite, despite how popular the character was…I do feel like Rudy had kind of mined the character to death by this point. And so, the world is introduced to ‘Petey’ who is essentially just ‘Dolemite’ again, but much MUCH less visibly angry and leaning much more into humour and comedy scares.
‘Petey’ is an oddity. Born during a storm, he arrives as a full size 10 year old boy and just…keeps growing from there, as a kid he gets bullied for his strange circumstances, until he meets a strange old man who, over several years, teaches him fluent kung-fu.
Petey grows up to become an entertainer, and a VERY successful one at that. TOO successful quite honestly…Because; when news that Petey is planning to return to his local city to play the clubs. He catches the attention of Leroy & Skillet. a couple of bumbling night club owners who are in MASSIVE debt to a financier, and were banking on a quiet weekend in the city to hold a huge launch party for their new nightclub, in order to pay off their debts.
With Petey back on the scene, and more importantly, with Petey NOT playing their club on their opening night. Leroy and Skillet are feeling the squeeze and staring down the barrel of potential legal action…So they start to plan on how they could get Petey out of the picture, even if its just for the one night. After several attempts to delay/shut down Peteys shows. The pair essentially hit the ‘nuclear’ option, and ask their door staff to intimidate some Peteys friends to try and get him to stop.
This backfires MASSIVELY however when the first person they go to intimidate DOESNT back down and in fact tries to attack the doorstaff, resulting in the kid brother of one of Peteys gang getting gunned down. This action seemingly lifts some kind of taboo, because a few days later at the kids funeral, the doormen turn up again and waste the entire congregation of mourners, including the priest and Petey.
and its here really that the film ACTUALLY starts. as, while dead, Petey is visited cosmically by the Devil (here going by the name Lou Cifer) who offers Petey a proposition. He will ressurect all the mourners (including Petey) and rewind time back to just before the doormen killed everyone, ensure that the doormen arnt there AND give Petey a magical pimp caine with unrelenting power to do whatever Petey wishes…But in exchange, Petey has to marry Lou’s daughter and give her a son.
Petey was hesitent…then he sees a picture of her and its a flat no because she’s absolutely hideous. But the opportunity to try and restore some justice to the situation is just too much for Petey to resist, so he reluctantly accepts, and the rest of the film is just a playground, with Petey simultaineously getting justice for the killings while also slowly trying to figure out how he can double cross Lou to not end up married to an ugly bugly…thats…literally this whole movie.
And here? we really do have the best of all worlds. We have the vibe and tone of the more ‘off the cuff’ moments of ‘Dolemite’ combined with an even further improved technical level from ‘The Human Tornado’ AND they manage to tone down or finally nail the elements that i felt didnt work from those last two movies.
The films an hours and 39 minutes long, but it really doesnt feel it. The script isnt particularly doing anything new broadly speaking, but its all the smaller details that seem to have had a massive overhaul. the shift from blacksploitation action comedy to blacksploitation horror comedy I think works incredibly well. the pacing feels like its finally been nailed, with each act getting *about* 30 minutes to do its thing, and non of it ever really feels like it drags because everyone here is just so animate and always up to something strange. Do I wish Petey got the magic pimp caine 20 minutes earlier than he does? absolutely. But I also appreciate that the build up to that moment is what only makes the back half of the film all the more surreal and enjoyable.
They seem to have finally managed to nail the tone of the production, ‘Dolemite’ seemed a bit all over the place, ‘The Human Tornado’ picked a lane (comedy) but was still a bit inconsistent. This films clearly an out and out comedy horror, and it absolutely KNOWS its identity, and more importantly, it isnt trying to be something its not capable of duel weilding.
The moment I knew this film was onto a good thing was probably when I realised that they were going to redo the ‘Nightclub’ scenario from the last two movies again…But rather than it just being awkwardly crammed into a film with NO business doing that…here it was specifically woven into the story, with an actual reason to be there, and MOST importantly, its significantly toned down, we arnt made to sit and watch a 10 minute bad comedy routine in order to see Dolemite smash a guy with a chair…Here the routines are kept to a minimum, and the actual PLOT of the film IS centered around the running of the nightclub, rather than the acts involved in it.
The characters all have a LOT more depth and complexity compared to the last two films, they basically actually HAVE range to work with here, rather than just having one drive and 3 moods. most importantly, the script gives all the characters at least 2-3 genuinely fun moments. So it doesnt feel like Rudy Ray is carrying the entire production.
I suppose for me, the thing that really ultimately won me over is this seems to balance the sincerity of a film maker wanting to make a solid end product with the charm of seeing a slightly ramshackled production ACTUALLY trying to be the best it can be AND the comedy IS actually funny…CONSISTENTLY.
There are HUGE leaps in the quality of the direction and cine. scenes seem considerably better planned out, theres more B-roll being filmed, they play around with special effects and sound effects here. Cliff Roquemore seems to have had a strong eye for visuals and has taken this strange vision and manifested something truely distinct. his work with the cast as well is next level, really bringing the best out of all involved.
Yes, some of the make up effects are a bit hokey, yes, some of the practical set effects are a bit naff…But again, the sincerity of this production, the genuine unflinching drive to ensure that this is a movie people can go to to have a good time WHILST ALSO being able to just enjoy the film for being fairly competent. totally neutralises anything bad I could really say about them.
The shots are all decently composed with only a few minor wobbles along the way, the film isnt afraid to experiment with shot composition, editing styles and probably the most significant jump in quality for me, they really seem to have nailed the lighting kits, as several scenes have really nice moody lighting, and the use of coloured lighting gels only adds to the surreal and strange environment.
The edit isnt the *tightest* in the world, but they seem to have got most of the continuity errors under control. they have an effective use of consistent colour choices throughout which helps create a bit of a uniform end product
Performance wise, Rudy here is joined by ‘Wildman’ Steve, and honestly its a perfect match, they play a straight man/foil pairing perfectly and the fact that theres a surface level screwball comedy performance masking a deep dark bubbling malevolence on BOTH sides, only further enhances the viewing experience. they’re both amazing her and by the end, I think I honestly preferred the exploits of ‘Petey & Leroy’ over any of Rudys previous solo efforts.
The soundtracks kickass too! a definite improvement over ‘Human Tornado’ for me, this one has a slightly choral element to it, but is true funk combined with just a smidge of the motown/disco scene. its on a par with the ‘Dolemite’ score for me as being really quite memorable, with the title track posing a definite earworm.
After 3-4 years of developing skills, Petey Wheatstraw to me feels a bit like a lightning in a bottle moment. a film where all involved are aware enough to what to make a quality end product, but still limited enough IN their ability to realise it fully. The result is a slightly ramshackled, but very charming end product that has genuine laughs, a solid soundtrack, dedication (for better or worse) on the direction and cine front, BIZARRE performances and a script that starts strange and keeps getting stranger. not the ‘deepest cut’ in the world, but i’d definitely say its a hidden gem, if you havent seen ‘Petey Wheatstraw’, your missing out!
Hot on the heels of ‘Dolemite’ Rudy Ray Moore had developed a taste for cinema, and by GOD he wanted more. Taking his now ‘screen’ famous character ‘Dolemite’ back out on the road for a sequel that clearly shows growth and development from the budding film maker…But also a little more work to go.
The plot follows Dolemite getting caught up in a heap of trouble, a young white womans paying him to do stuff to her and Dolemites just the kind of cool cat who’ll do that sort of thing AND attend a happening party…or charity fundraiser…or…something?…its not clear. What IS clear shortly thereafter though is that the gathering is in danger.
When two local bumpkin racists flag to the equally racist townie cops that a load of black people are having a party up in the hills, they grab their guns and head up there looking to have the WORST kind of fun. and what does the sheriff find? his wife, in bed, with DOLEMITE. Naturally the Sheriff kills his wife…
Well, as you can imagine it all hits the fan quite quickly and Dolemite and his posse are forced to flee to California to try and lie low while the heats up. But on arriving in Cali and reuniting with the old gang, its revealed that one of Dolemites nightclubs has been taken over by a rival gang and that 2 of his ‘girls’ have been kidnapped and are being tortured ‘bloodsucking freaks’ style in someones ‘fungeon’.
Complicating matters further, the sheriff from the opening wont let it lie that his wife slept with a black man, and he and his deputies make it their personal mission to try and put Dolemite in the ground one way or another.
And, this reviews going to be a LOT more straightforward than my review of ‘Dolemite’. Because the big change here between that film and this, is that competency and coherency have had a VAST improvement…and thats ultimately good and bad for the movie in about equal measures.
For a starters, the script is much more coherent, structured and organised. Theres less random sequences of hamburger pimps and random cuts to Dolemite performing on the street, and the main emphasis is back predominantly on the main storyline. Which is good! its essentially a bit of a rehash of elements of the first movie, but I dont mind that so much as long as its made compelling enough for me to want to stick with the damn thing.
The first act opens strong with some solid fight scenes, a decent set up and its clear they’ve finally managed to nail the tone that they wanted to go for with this one. ‘Dolemite’ was all over the place being silly, aggressive, serious, sad, depressing, and erotic all in spikes and troughs.
‘The Human Tornado’ is a clean cut comedy. they have one or two serious moments, but nothings taken too heavy handedly, everythings nice and light and a bit manic. Which is good! im glad the films picked a lane and is working to its strengths. They even better intigrate the ‘lounge act’ sequences, which unfortunately do return for this film, but they all take place in a club dolemite owns, and a lot of the plot centers around the club, so when it starts to lean more into that kind of stuff through the second act, it doesnt feel as jarring or out of place.
In fact, its only the 3rd act really where it starts to come unstuck a bit. they have all these nice plot elements bubbling along across the runtime, and the finale is essentially supposed to be a free for all raid on the bad guys mansion with cops, dolemite and his gang, and the baddies all jostling to come out on top. The problem is, thats a lot of plates to keep spinning and even a more seasoned director would struggle to keep all of that afloat. and, as such, the last 15 minutes is minor chaos, random sped up fight sequences, torture, chase scenes,total incoherency on the screen, I imagine the last 3 pages of the script for this thing was essentially written like a novel rather than a script.
That being said it is, overall, improvements all around, with characters getting a bit more screen time, and with the tone being firmly picked it means that the complexities dont have to be quite so deep given its an outright comedy now, they give us ‘enough’ from each of the key characters here to make it feel like I know them relatively well. And even though Dolemites character has changed a bit here…he’s gone from shouting and angry in literally every scene, and kung-fu’ing in every other scene to now actually having a bit of a joke and a laugh in some scenes, and only letting the anger out every so often. He’s still overall some of the best parts of this movie and very enjoyable.
Same goes for the direction really, this feels much more technically proficient, scenes feel much more crafted, theres consideration for camera placement, prop usage, set design. They actually bother to try and utilize creative coloured lighting for scenes throughout the movie and it really makes a difference. The characters markers are more considered, there arnt nearly as many ‘booms’ in shot or random characters blocking the camera. this, for the most part looks like an ‘up market’ blacksploitation picture. Which is a pretty impressive feat honestly.
Same goes for the cine, composition is *mostly* better (there are still a lot of shots framed randomly or with a weird cropping put in place) sequences flow a lot smoother, the edit feels tighter, the whole thing feels like it builds on ‘Dolemite’ and you really get the sense that both the cast and crew have ACTUALLY started believing in this as a viable franchise production.
But! for the good, theres also the bad…and its a weird thing to mark a film down for, but a lot of the charm from ‘Dolemite’ came from the ‘thrown together’ nature of the picture, it came from Rudy randomly deciding to insert randome Dolemite improve scenes into the film, random line deliveries that just came across as weird, the rough nature of the fight choreography and Rudy basically just throwing crap at the screen and seeing what stuck. By polishing this production up, I cant deny that its overall a much more pleasent and better viewing experience, but losing that rough edge means losing some of the moments that genuinely made me bust a gut laughing in the last film. As such, It feels at times like its trying *too* hard to try and make people laugh, and while there ARE some unbelievable moments in this one. nothing quite hits as hard as ‘Dolemite’ for that weird and funny feeling.
Performance wise, its a similar problem, I wished characters had a bit more to go on in ‘Dolemite’, but here? they give those characters a bit more to go on, but its at the cost of losing their eccentricities. I miss the likes of ‘Hamburger pimp’ and ‘Willie Green’, the baddies in this are just kind of generic and other than some blatent homophobia here and there, NON of the characters really stand out. Even Dolemites been toned back a bit and doesnt seem to get as many BIG moments…well…barring the opening act where, thanks to freeze frame technology you can see Rudys Stunt mans ‘BIG moment’…
The performances are fine, but I dont think they reach the surreal and dizzying highs of ‘Dolemite’.
The soundtracks equally as funky as ‘Dolemite’, but lacks those big hitter tracks, the ones that’ll have you humming them out the door of your theater…which is a shame, but again the trade up is bigger, higher quality full sounding compositions, that are well edited and suit the film, even if they wont suit my CD player.
‘The Human Tornado’ is technically a HUGE step forward for the works of Rudy Ray Moore. its got a tighter, better composed script, decent direction and cine, consistent performances and a high quality original soundtrack. But the trade off is it loses a little bit of its heart and soul that really makes ‘Dolemite’ the over the top exploitation piece it is.
This film? I think i’d prefer to watch it over ‘Dolemite’ *JUST*…like, by a hairs Breadth. But ‘The Human Tornado’ does manage to just lose a little bit of that edge in the process of tidying itself up. And thats a bit of a shame. Non the less, if you’ve watched ‘Dolemite’ I compel you to watch the sequel. Its a good time and a solid follow up.
If your reading this, then its time again for my annual “How my year went: In review” blog, which started as a monthly(ish) way for me to try and focus more on honing my written skills, and annually as a way to try and condense a whole 365 days worth of feelings into one unweildy long blog, and…then I discovered ‘Letterboxd’ so…now its just a fun annual bonus. and to be honest; when it came to 2024, I debated whether to write one of these at all…
Not because it was a depressing year or anything. But moreso that, everything thats happened this year has basically been at the forefront of my social media presence. So I feel like putting it all down here seems a bit pointless…Anyone who’s invested enough to read a multi page “Year in review” blog from some random English guy on the internet, is probably invested enough to have read the various community posts I’ve done on youtube, the updates i’ve posted in my Discord group, or the actual shout outs i’ve done about progress on the various live streams i’ve done through the year, or in my reviews themselves.
But, I figured it would probably act as a good ‘end point’/’epilogue’ to cap off the year with an overview of what my last 12 months has been like on all fronts. Mainly so I can just link people to this if they ask how my year went, rather than having to bust out the ‘lore’ guides!
So! 2024! a year essentially swallowed by life events. and not much else! We bought a house! and its time for me to tell you the ‘full’ story!
Belive me; It gets WILD.
So, I suppose a little bit of back story is required for this one. I’ve been with my partner now for around thirteen and a half years (tweleve and a half where this story begins) and about 4 years ago, I took part in a project at my workplace whereby they garnish (upto) £300 from your monthly salary for either 3 or 5 years. and, assuming you dont touch it for the duration of your investment period, they not only guarentee the money they take, but they’ll add onto it an extra 20% if you sit out the full 3 or 5 year period. Its a bit of a scam because my workplace has a LUDICROUSLY high turnover rate, but 3 years seems like a not unreasonable amount of time to have a job for. So I decided to take part in it. and, in March of 2024 it came to fruition.
Now, me and my partner had been talking about finally biting the bullet and getting a place together for a number of years. But, if your a long time reader of these blogs (god bless you <3) you’ll know that my partner has several disabilities, both mental and physical that meant that looking for a place was a bit of a non starter for a while, and while my job keeps me comfortable, it wasnt really good enough to save up ‘deposit on a house’ level income…Not without basically giving up every other thing I enjoy in the process…So this investment piece at work seemed like a good way to save a bundle, without having to worry about my sticky fingers dipping into the jar (seriously, its a pain in the ass to end it earlier, and im WAY to lazy to fuck around trying to close an account early.)
So! in December of 2023, with just 3 months left on my 3 year plan. I went to my partner and suggested that 2024 was probably going to be the best chance we’d have of making a go of living together. There were other factors as well, my partner had become increasingly unhappy in her living arrangements, she had a nice apartment space, but it was rented, the decor hadnt been updated in decades and had literally just been walloped with white paint when she first moved in 6 years prior…so it was looking shabby…But more importantly, she wanted a change, she wanted more space, a garden, a nice community to live in that wasnt constantly being reported to the police (In the 6 years she lived there, the complex had had the police called out for (in no particular order) 3 counts of arson, 2 murders, AT LEAST 3 suicides, several car thefts/damages to cars and a dozen or so public assault charges…and thats only the stuff we SAW/know happened…GOD knows what went on behind closed doors.) As you can imagine, being mentally and physically unwell in that kind of an environment wasnt ideal.
The Police were always friendly though!
So. We agreed. The plan was to start looking from February of 2024, with the rest of December and January basically being used to tie off all the fucking DREADFUL business that happened in 2023, and to inform folks that we were officially looking to move in together. Christmas ’23 went about as well as it could have gone given the circumstances, January was all a bit of a blur really, I spent a good chunk of my time trying to get as many youtube videos for the channel over the line as possible ahead of February, because I knew that once we got stuck into house stuff, I wasnt seeing the light of my editing console for a WHILE.
We started planning up what we were looking for in a property, putting hard lines in on what we would and wouldnt accept in a house, and around the second week of February, we started looking. We ultimately only went to around 4-5 viewings. most were unremarkable honestly. 3 of them were basically just not the right fit for us, whether it was rooms that were too small or that the work involved in getting them to a standard we’d want to live with would cost too much. Our 2nd to last viewing was VERY promising, it was a 2 story semi detached house that was home to a young couple who both ran small businesses, She worked in organic vegetable productiona and homeopathy, he was in a successful local band and did production work on the side.
Why am I telling you this? Because the garden on that place was HUGE, and they’d converted the loft (attic) space into a fully fledged recording studio. It was a match made in heaven…Until we made an offer and got laughed out of the room by the real estate company selling the property, because when they put ‘offers in the range of’ on the listing. APPARENTLY, that means ‘We wont accept less than the listed price. and to be honest, adding ten grand onto whats listed on the site wont win it either.’ It was already kind of out of our budget. But that basically FULLY took it off the table. Which in some ways was for the best, because the next (and final) listing we checked, turned out to be a perfect fit.
At the end of February we landed on the home we were ultimately looking for. imperfect, but absolutely fixable. leading up to it, my partner had been considering widening our net and travelling further afield to find bigger spaces. But a hard line I had is I didnt want to go *too* far away from my family. We’ve always been quite close and after everything that had gone on last year, moving 30-45 minutes away by car from them was a bit too far for me. Things did get a little tense for a while until…well, the place im typing this now from showed up.
It was about 10-15 minutes away by car from most of my families places. But equally it was only about 15-20 minutes away from my partners families homes too. meaning it was really handy for keeping in touch with folks and being able to help out if needs be. It also meant that we were both only about 5-10 minutes away from where we were both living at the time too! Which made moving a LOT easier, AND meant we could loop the family in to help if we were running thin on the ground.
It was located in one of the more ‘prestige’ parts of the city, with two main roads not far away meaning we could basically go anywhere in the city in 20 minutes or less, without having to take shortcuts or worry about getting stuck in traffic.
Moreover, the place was on the market at a bit of a discount because it was being sold as a ‘fixer upper’, but not because it had huge holes in the roof, or asbestos carpet or anything like that…it was just VERY very old, had no modernisations and needed a bit of love and attention to help really drag it kicking and screaming into the 2020’s. It seemed like an ‘intermediate’ gambit. The kind of place where, we wouldnt be able to move in right away, but the level of skill required to ‘fix’ it seemed like it would be something we could have a genuinely good go at. With the possibility of ending up with a really cozy and welcoming place, that *could* in theory net us a tidy profit in the future if we DID decide to sell up (modernised houses in the area were selling for between 45 and 60k more than what we were potentially going to pay)
We spoke about it for a week, went to a second viewing, and decided to go for it. and after a little bit of haggling. The offer was accepted and this…well, this is really where things got a bit ‘nutty’.
When people ask me and my partner how we found going through the house buying process, my partner, without hesitation will say that its been the single worst experience she’s had in her entire life…and given that at LEAST a year of that lived experience includes multiple attempts to end her own life and half a dozen stays in a psychiatric facility…I sincerely hope that puts across just how MUCH she has hated the last 12 months. I on the other hand will jokingly say that I’ve had a really nice time with all of this, it’s just my partner thats been the problem! #redflag.
In all seriousness, my partners mental health issues effect her particularly when it comes to ‘Autonomy’, basically the idea that someone else is telling her what to do, at what time and how it needs to be done, makes her spiral into angry outbursts, deep depression, anxiety and…theres no other word for it, a deeply sad despair. And the one thing you probably should know if your going to buy a house is that for AT LEAST 4-6 months of the process, your life isnt your own. Your life belongs to the banks, the real estate agents and any tradespeople/surveyours/solicitors that happen to find you along the way.
By the end of the first week of the process, my partner was burnt out. We still had 5 months of paperwork, meetings, mortgage securments and more to talk through. NON of which could be done solely by myself because we were co-buying the place. During her calmer moments, she would tell me that she knew this all needed to be done, and that we were ultimately doing the right thing. But, without fail, every. single. time. ANYTHING. would come in that required actions from both of us, even if it was just signing a letter that we didnt even need to read, or even just saying ‘yes.’ on a phone call. My partner would death spiral, cry, scream, hurt herself, shut down. refuse to engage or co-operate. And it was hard, because…Banks, solicitors and real estate agents DONT fuck around unless its them doing the fucking. they’d set hard dates, threaten to call the whole thing off if we didnt provide evidence/information by set dates. and…all I could really do is essentially DRAG my partner over the finish line by hell or high water, sometimes with just minutes to spare.
It was a VERY difficult time for both of us, I was simultaineously my partners best friend, and the person she dreaded most for a while because she knew whenever i’d call her, it was because I needed her to sign off on something. The process seemed endless, and things went TRUELY off the rails in a BIZARRE moment when, 4 months into us doing paperwork, the owners of the property basically rocked up, shrugged and said ‘hey, y’know the deeds to the place you want to buy? yeh. cant find them lol.’ Let me tell you now, I thought I was raging, my partner was bereft. But the email from our solicitors AND the real estate agents (Who are supposed to be on THEIR side) that basically amounted to ‘Well, you better fucking find them dipshit’ was border unprofessional…and they were one of the more reputable solicitors, estate agents in the city. they. were. PISSED. Because, in the UK, if you cant find the deeds to the place you want to sell, it basically means ANYONE could rock up and claim to own the place, and if they had enough evidence to back it up. the law would be on their side. Insurance companies wont insure houses like that and it would have made the property value basically a moot point. We wouldnt have bought it without the deeds because it was WAY too much of a risk.
That email seemingly put a nuke up their asses because less than 18 hours later, their ‘What can ya do rofl!’ attitude turned REAL fucking quickly into ‘We’ve torn the house apart and found it, please dont pull out of this deal.’
And! it all worked out, the last of the paperwork was completed on July 1st, we were given a ‘key handover’ date of the 12th! and with the extra couple of weeks we had between the last of the paperwork and the start of the renovation work I ploughed every free hour I had into getting as many youtube videos for the channel for between September and December done and out the door (because again; when the FUCK am I gonna find time to do them after July?!)
It looks like this!…Well…no it doesnt…but it COULD do! (No it couldnt…)
Now for the plot twist, remember how I mentioned earlier that the house was a ‘fixer upper’? Well. We assumed that would be some minimal work, ripping down old wallpaper, taking up old carpets, replastering, minor electric and gas works…We had a budget of 24k from 10 years of on and off savings to work with. We figured we’d underspend given what we could see…We were wrong.
Because y’see, construction on the house began in 1963, It was put on the market in 1966, was purchased in 1970 and the same couple lived in this house from then, until their unfortunate passing at the end of 2023. In that time almost NOTHING had been done to the house to modernise, improve or safetify it. What does that mean in real terms? Well. it means the electricity was installed in 1968, there was no fuse box, just a wall of random black boxes all along the cloak room with bright yellow DANGER! stickers attached to them, best we can see they were last checked in 1992 and hadnt been checked for safety since.
It meant that the gas feed into the house was installed using lead piping that curved in several places (apparently a major no no as lead erodes over time making a gas leak VERY likely), It means some rooms didnt have radiators, they had gas line fed heaters that we were assured by our gas technician ‘Would kill anyone who struck a match near them’.
And it meant that almost all of the rooms were in some degree of degredation. Its a 3-4 bedroom house and the most modern room in the whole place was the kitchen (which we *think* was refreshed at some point in 2002/03) followed closely by the bathroom which we think was 2000/01. All the other rooms had either been decorated twice (once in the early 70s, and then papered over in the mid to late 80s, with just a lick of paint going every decade or so to keep it ‘fresh’) or, in some cases, it had NEVER been redecorated past its initial wallop (what is now our bedroom, literally was plastered, painted eggshell blue in the early 70s, papered in the late 80s and then wasnt touched again till we got to it)
Putting a 2000’s ribbon across the top of the wall wont hide that this is ’90 wallpaper, ’94 carpeting and mid 80s mirror tiles…Still…I think this has potential…
The oldest room in the house was probably last touched in 1987 (based on what evidence we could find) and compounding the issue, it looked like, for at *least* the last 15 years, anytime anything broke, or ripped, or needed repairing; it was stuck down with blutak, if it wouldnt STAY stuck down, they’d nail it down, and if THAT didnt work they went for the cheapest, lowest quality possible fix to just, get the job done in a way that meant it couldnt be said that it was STILL broke.
All I know about the previous occupants is that they were elderly (80s), didnt leave the house much and had vision issues. I dont want to cast aspurtions, but what we found made me feel quite sad honestly…
But, back to the main story. So we got the keys on the 12th of July, we got in, looked around, started to plan and the next day we had an electrician drop in because, we didnt want to do ANYTHING until we KNEW the electrics were safe to use. Friend, when I tell you I havent heard a cackle HALF as dirty as that electrician gave when he looked at our setup. He looked at it, stood back agog. went in for a closer look, touched it with a pen to test live wiring, cackled multiple times and said ‘you didnt have any plans to move in soon did you?’
It turns out that the ENTIRE house and garage was live. as in, you touch the socket the wrong way, your gonna meet Jesus. NOT helping matters, it seems that the husband had a passion for doing his own DIY electric works, and had just run live, unsheilded wiring ALL OVER THE HOUSE AND GARAGE STRAIGHT FROM THE MAINS. We laugh now, we could have died…or at the very least burned the house down. In short, the entire house needed to be fully rewired, that involved getting all the wallpaper and carpets up ASAP, for work that was estimated as taking (roughly) 2 months to complete (it ultimately ended up taking 3 months) and for a month and a half of that we would be completely without power or heating.
Dear Reader, they put LIVE FUCKING WIRES…behind wood pannelling!…EXPOSED! I CLAW HAMMERED into this…
On top of that, we also had to bring in a gas engineer and plumber to remove 2 gas powered heaters from rooms in the house because of gas leak risks AND we had to have him disconnect an old 80s gas fireplace from the living room as it TOO was apparently set to either gas us, or blow us up (it hadnt been used in decades). This guy ALSO had to install radiators all through the house, because someone at some point had smashed up all the thermostats on them, meaning they were permanently stuck on the highest setting. AND mangled all the pipes so they were leaking…Not to mention that the radiators themselves were AT LEAST 35 years old, one of them was at least 40.
So. we began work, My partner was basically comatose after the paperwork, so I largely led the ‘tear the fucking house down’ side of the work, every day after I finished at my job, i’d go down to the house for 4-5 hours with a hammer, a chisle, a wallpaper steamer, a scraper and a box cutter, and i’d hammer the absolute fuckery out of the place. This was my life, every day for (at least 4.5 months). On the weekends, if she was well enough, my partner would join me in trying to clear some of the rooms, my mum and sister very kindly offered to help too. we amassed a bowl full of blutak, a bucket full of nails ranging from the 60s through to fairly recently, I bled, sweat and damn near killed myself AT LEAST 3 times stripping this house back to the brickwork and floorboards. But by the end of August, we’d just about done it. Which then revealed other problems.
It turns out that, while the house had been decorated once or twice in its 60 years of existence…it hadnt been plastered since 1969. As a result, every single room we went into, the second we tried to take the wallpaper off with the steamer, the wall would just collapse into a sheet of smashed plaster, revealing the bare brick behind. It was a mess. But, it also meant the budget we had allocated for plastering works skyrocketed. That combined with the other unexpectedly high cost of having some bricklayers come round to brick up a large front window, a small side window and to fill in some gaps in the brickwork in our attic basically SUPER drained our funds in ways we didnt really expect.
In late August, the rewiring work began in tandem with the gas and plumbing works. we went into september with no power and no heating. Work continued. we focussed our attention on rubbish removal, taking five 5 TON skips worth of rubble and household waste away. Which was another cost we’d underestimated.
In this time we’d also booked in a plasterer for a weeks work to resurface and skim the entire house. Which in turn led to another issue. Y’see, the thing about plaster is, once it goes on the wall, it needs a warm, dry environment in order to properly dry out so that you can paint or paper it. This is England in mid September, we have no heating or power, the weather is cold and raining 95% of the time and the humidity doesnt drop below 78%. So now, on top of being cold and only being able to use hand tools, the air is wet to the point of tasting chunky and we CANNOT dry the house. No matter what we try to do. This then starts pushing things back. We cant get the plumber back in to finish the radiator works because the walls wont dry, the electrician cant finish the works till the walls are at least dry enough to not pose a safety risk.
By early october, after 3-4 weeks of DESPERATELY trying to dry the place, we manage to get it 75% of the way there, or at least dry enough that the electrician and gas/plumber man were happy to just finish up their works. And by mid to late October, we had the power back on and…no heating still…the main reason being that we wanted to paint the walls before the radiators went on, because we knew we wouldnt have the bandwidth to do that during the winter…so we agreed to leave getting the heat back on until we painted all the radiator walls which we estimated would take about 2-3 weeks.
What we DIDNT know at the time, was that apparently the plumber HAD set the central heating unit to give us hot water…However, because the previous owners had got someone in who wired the boiler up incorrectly, we ended up not having heating OR hot water through this entire process. and let me tell you, the only thing worse than having to work in a house approaching freezing tempratures…is having to clean 3 brushes 3-4 rollers, 3 paint trays and all manner of mixers, stirrers and smaller brushes in ICY cold water for sometimes up to half an hour at a time because wall paint doesnt come off easily in ICY cold water.
Entering the painting stage, my partner decided to re-enter the ring. And, it was abject torture for her, a sensory nightmare, she couldnt stand being cold, she couldnt stand being up a ladder because she doesnt like heights. She didnt like the threat to her autonomy for having to paint 9 walls in two weeks. She didnt LIKE painting walls (she initially agreed because she liked painting, but found house painting to be completely different from the canvas) She felt ill through the entire experience, she had multiple mental breakdowns, one so severe she basically dissapeared from the project for a week and I had to rope family into fill in the gaps. This was arguably her lowest point, im grateful for the work that she did because she really pushed herself well beyond breaking point, and had their been any other way, i’d have told her to stay out of it. But we were at a crunch period. we’d burnt through 22k of our 24k budget up to this point and there was still TONS to do.
So, we kind of broke ourselves a bit to get it over the line. And on the 30th of October, with only 6 hours to spare, we finished it. Got the plumber in to get the radiators on and we dissapeared for Halloween…The radiators wouldnt work. The plumber left us saying they were working, and they were! until they didnt. I damn near killed a british gas agent when he kept me on the phone for 90 MINUTES promising me an emergency gas repair man would come out to us ASAP to resolve the issue at a £300 charge (+ parts and £60 an hour labour) only to THEN be told that ‘ASAP’ here means 3-4 business days even though we had someone in the house who was disabled and effected by the cold. Seriously FUCK British Gas. and we had to rebook our plumber in to fix it (at cost) with a week and a half wait. On the phone to our plumber, he mentioned that we definitely should have hot water, So I got our electrian back in who THEN revealed that YES! we COULD have had hot water for the last 2-3 months, but because of the botched wiring job on the boiler, we didnt! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA*Cries*
Through a sheer act of kindness, he agreed to rewire the boiler correctly at no charge, and then, it all came together. the radiators randomly kicked back in, we had hot water in the taps. it was early November and we quite literally were cooking with gas!
The rest of November was the home stretch, I spent most of it painting ceilings and block rolling the walls with paint while my partner cut in on the edges. we had a joiner come in to fit all new doors downstairs to replace the ones with holes punched through them and door handles missing that must have been there since the late 80s. As we started to wrap up, I made my partner take more rests while I doubled down to try and get stuff over the line. The carpets went in in mid November, followed immediately by our new bed. and this leads us to ANOTHER b-plot.
See, While all the house crazy was going on, from September through to the end of November I helped my partner move all of her stuff from a 2nd floor apartment with no elevators to a storage locker 2 miles away from the apartment, and then from that locker into our home. the staircase at my partners apartment complex was outdoors, with no covering, it was mossy, tight and given this was the tail end of August through to mid October, it rained. A LOT. I got soaked through on many an occasion, my partner (who was already in the midst of a breakdown over the paperwork) was basically dying on her arse at this point, there’d be days where she could advise on what needed packing where, what needed to be thrown away, and what order to pack things…And days where she’d basically gesture at a room, scream cry about it being ‘too much to think about’ and she’d just leave me to it to get it gone. Honestly, thinking back, im amazed she was able to do so much in her condition. and im even more amazed at just how much we got done in such a narrow window of time.
Why is this relevent to the story? Well, because the landlords who rented the apartment to my partner were part of a charity network that aims to offer housing to vulnerable people. my partner qualified as a vulnerable person, and it was around the middle of September we encountered an issue…y’see, it turns out that this charity had NO policy in place for people wanting to leave their apartment…the assumption was if you were there, you were there till you WERNT there (if you catch my drift). and they basically had no system in place for someone just…moving out. the default position was that if you told them you had bought a house, you had 24 hours to pack your shit and leave. and we just couldnt work to those timelines as, as you’ve probably figured from this blog entry. My partner basically started self harming if she was asked to confirm her identity on a phone call just so that I could deal with the ACTUAL reason for the call. it would have been impossible to clear an entire apartment completely out in 24 hours even if we were BOTH fully able bodied and mentally well. I wont go into detail about how managed to circumvent this rule. But I will say that we had some very good people on our side, and that human kindness is a rare and wonderful thing these days.
it was the last week of September, we were exhausted, but we emptied the apartment into the locker, and my partner came to stop with me for what was initially supposed to be 4 weeks (it ended up being 6) My apartment was TINY. big enough barely for 1…nowhere near big enough for 2. and given the high pressure we were coming out of. as you can imagine. it was not a fun time. BUT! we tried to smooth things over with plenty of movies through October and clinging to the idea that this would all be a distant memory come December.
And lo! by mid November, the bed went in, and my partner agreed (somewhat reluctently) to go down to the house for a week or two to try and settle things in while I began to empty MY apartment.
Late November to me was an absolute blur. my average day would be spent working 8:30am till 5:30pm then spending 2 hours packing my own stuff up, having an evening meal, bringing my stuff down to the house, then heading over to the locker for 8:30pm to cram AS MUCH stuff as I could fit into my car, into my car. before getting back to the house for 9:30pm(ish) where i’d spend till 1-2am unloading boxes from my car into the house and trying to find their appropriate home. I’d get home between 2-3am where i’d have to tie off my own shit, before getting ready to wake up at 8:30am the next day and do it ALLLL over again, while my partner started unpacking and moving some of the boxes around during the afternoons (she was very much trying to recover from burnout during this time). The weekends were considered a blessing, because it meant I could do multiple trips to the locker AND bring more of my stuff down to the house, uniterrupted between the hours of 10am – 3am. IT. WAS. NUTS. and I hope to GOD I never have to do it again, or I swear it may ACTUALLY kill me.
I moved out of my place on the 28th of November 2024. my partner had been living at the house for just over a week and a half by this point, and essentially between the 29th of November and the 19th of December, we were unpacking. We did the essentials first, furniture, heavy stuff like sofas and hard wood storage came in first, we had a joiner come in and put us all new doors upstairs and a full set of shelving for my office room to house my film collection. Once that was in place I was able to unpack my movies (which you can watch LIVE right here!) and then it was basically everything else, as and when we found things. on the 19th of December, I swapped from unpacking, to cleaning, we wiped all the excess plaster from the windows, sweapt and mopped all the floors, we got a TV mounted to the living room wall, along with several sets of curtain poles fitted. Me and my partner both agreed that after the 23rd of December, we’d down tools for the year, and that would be that.
And. On the 24th of December. We did just that. We didnt touch a goddamn THING till the W/C 6th of January this year. and honestly, that 2 weeks break was frankly lifechanging. I have NEVER appreciated rest so much in my entire life. I have done FUCK ALL since the 24th of December other than occasionally doing a bit of cleaning and trying to get my office/film room setup even more perfect. and I have ZERO regrets on that. My partner needed this even more than me, she’s still not well, it’s…going to take some time for her to fully recover from this, but she’s better than she was.
Ahh…I KNEW I saw potential…The Reviews have a new home ❤
And thats…kind of where things have been left, current status is ‘Big jobs have all been done, we’re about 75% of the way unpacked, we still have some small random jobs to do to the place in the immediate future. but otherwise, we’re prettifying the house now until it gets warm enough to tackle the garden.
We ended up going about 2 grand over budget ultimately…I mean, when it comes to house reno work, where do you even stop the tally? technically we have works that still need to be done, but they arnt anywhere near as urgent as ‘get power to the house’ or ‘get rid of that gas device that could blow the houseup’…So we’ll deal with them in time.
I dont think I fully anticipated the ups and downs of renovating a home, and home ownership for that matter. I knew it could be intense at times, but I didnt *quite* realise just HOW intense it could be. I get a comfort in knowing that the monthly payments I make now will ultimately mean this place will be ours by the end of it.but in the same breath, I have a ‘to do’ list on this place longer than the gangees honestly. But! I have a lifetime to do it in…so…yay? I guess?
In all seriousness, despite the stress, HUGE financial cost and struggles, Im incredibly grateful to be as privilaged as we were in being able to buy this place, and i’d say if you can, do it. But be prepared, because even the nicest places could have HUGE things going on just underneath the walls…
I know I usually go here, there and everywhere with these blogs, but this house has basically been my last 13 months or so. Thats been my year, one big lifechanging event for good (I hope) that has really taken the sting out of a bastard of a year that was 2023. I will however for prosperity do my other usual updates.
On the Job/Work front, theres not been a whole lot to report. When I last spoke to you, i’d just been introduced to a new manager and I was still trying to find my footing to figure things out. Well; January to September could best be described as ‘tepid’ on that front. my manager seemed to think I had some kind of confidence issue (despite me telling her I do this in my spare time) so she decided to put me forward for any and all speaking opportunities within the business..Whether I wanted to do it or not. See, the thing is, I can speak enthusiastically about something I love. I can put the razzle dazzle on, no trouble. But I cant fake it. So her putting me up to talk about projects I had NO love for, that actually were likely to cause me a lot of trouble in the form of either MORE work coming my way, OR things that would overcomplicate the job I already do…Well, as you can imagine I was having a ‘great.’ time.
I also started to hear murmured rumblings from my boss trying to encourage me to (voluntarily) return to the office one day a week. Which I tried to bat away as much as I could (my job literally has no function that would benefit from an office presence…Even before covid I worked from home 3-4 days a week because I just, wasnt needed on site…)So that added to the anxiety a bit. The worst part of it came when my boss decided I needed to raise my profile to HER boss, so she started making me present all my projects to her, whether they were ready to go or not…she made it sound like me NOT getting my face in front of her boss was the difference between me keeping and losing my job. Made all the worse, when her boss got the wrong end of the stick on one of my projects and thought I was doing something externally to raise the companies social media presence. So I suddenly got propelled into senior manager meetings where they wanted to hear all about my ‘social media tips & tricks’…my guy, I suggested setting up a ‘workplace’ group page for our team to raise awareness of what we do…Im not Kylie Jenner.
Yes my dear friends, Im an Idiot…But I can be YOUR idiot!
It gets even better really, because just over a month after than instance, in early October, my boss announced she was leaving the business, and HER boss announced she was taking early retirement and leaving the business also. Thus rendering my March – October of trying to butt kiss up to people who literally didnt give a shit, when *I* literally didnt give a shit, but was made to. Ultimately pointless…There was no point building ANY of those false relationships and a whole year at work near enough was ultimately for naught 🙂 *Scream*
Well! Things do have a happyish ending I guess. In November my Boss left her role, I was assigned a new manager who ONE day before she was supposed to take up the reins, suddenly couldnt anymore…So I got ANOTHER manager who had me for a whole TWO WEEKS, where at least a week of that, I was on vacation…Before I got back to find it had been decided without consulting me to move me COMPLETELY OUT of my current team, into a whole new department, with ANOTHER new manager…But I was keeping my existing job role, title, pay etc…For those of you who have been keeping track over the last few years. Not including managers who had me for a day or less (theres been a couple of those now…) That makes my latest manager, manager #11…in 6.5 years…That works out at near enough 1.7 managers a year at this point…or VERY nearly one manager every 6-7 months. I swear its not me…Honest…
I’ve been with the new team now for coming up to 3 months, and its been kind of unremarkable, but nice. for the first time in a LONG time, im surrounded by neurodiverse people who gel with my vibe, which, I dont think i’ve had that kind of working relationship now in AT LEAST 2-3 years…they’re essentially a bit of a crisis team, when the bat signal goes up, they’re first on the scene. But that suits my style quite nicely and…So far at least, if this is how its going to be, I could get used to this quite nicely! Though, as always my place of work is renowned for sudden mass redundancies with no rhyme or reason and everyone on the chopping block…Soooo…as with every year, if im still here by this time next year in the same conditions, I’ll consider it a BIG win.
Has there been anything else significant to me and my world this year? I got into the Youtube Partner programme after 7.5 years of making movie reviews. Im honestly super proud of that. Yes im making (approx) 0.10p-0.30p a day and at this rate it’ll be 3 months before I get my first paycheque of £60…But Y’know what? anything that takes money OFF youtube and puts it into MY hands is alright by my book…
We had 2 elections…one a bit shit, in the sense that it kicked an evil EVIL group of bastards out of office…but replaced them with a group of people who’s idea of a ‘significant revolution’ is taking welfare away from disabled people and forcing the mentally ill into caring roles…
And the other?…well…we all know about the other…so the less said about that the better.
Im not gonna lie…the political landscape is FUCKING bleak right now…It can at times feel all a bit hopeless, but im trying to pull back and think of the bigger picture, that im here, and then gone in the blip of an eye. nothing matters *ultimately* other than the here and now, so as long as I ensure I have a tomorrow. Im sure as hell going to have a today. and I advise you do the same.
Oh! and for those of you who read of my tales of woe in 2023 with my sinuses, the medication worked, and continues to work! am I 100% back to how I was and pitch perfect in every way? No. but i’d kind of prepared for that…But! the sore throat stuff now only happens if I well and TRUELY TRY to run my throat into the ground, my sinusses are much less inflamed, I can breath freely and in the last few months, I think the swelling has reduced significantly, as my partners commented that i’ve stopped snoring. So…y’know! I’ll take 90% cured over whatever the hell happened to me in ’23!
And that…rather simply, was 2024…the year of ‘house’. What will 2025 bring to the table? I couldnt even begin to guess in my wildest ravings…But heres some things i’d like to do.
*I’d like to get back into pacing out making my show on youtube how I used to do the show between 2017 and 2022. Where production is slow and year round, the last two years, its been just cramming as much editing into the free time I had as possible, it takes the fun out of it. So this year? I want to use the fact I have a lot more space and free time to take my time in making the show, get a good backlog going and hopefully have fun with it this year.
*I’d like to FINALLY release my ‘After Dark: Volume 2’ set. I wrote those scripts in October/November of 2023 with the hope of getting it out there in time for Valentines 2024…THAT didnt happen! So its the first thing to tackle on my dock right now…In fact, by the time you read this (and with a bit of luck) it should already be underway! I’d also like to write and possibly even record my next audio book for a 2026 release this year. it wont be erotica, but im not firmed up on what I *would* like it to be just yet.
*I’d like to do more collaborations if I can, every year I try to work with as many folks as I can, but I always feel like I can do more! So if you have a video in mind, feel free to hit me up!
*I want to try and get on top of the garden this year, with all the ‘in house’ stuff going on since we got the keys, the garden got TOTALLY neglected. we tried to hire a gardener in in September to try and tame some of the more aggressively grown plants…but they basically kept cancelling on us and ultimately went radio silent from the end of November…essentially; as soon as it starts getting warmer in March, I want to be out there trimming, pruning, mowing, junking and jetwashing the crap out the garden because, to my next point…
*I want to have an enjoyable summer. Thats probably my biggest hope for this year, last summer I was sweating my tits off steaming walls in 36 celcius weather, with no home comforts and every day was a work day, or a job day. This year, I want to get all our jobs out of the way as soon as possible, so that I can spend the summer lounging in the back garden in my hammock, going for decent walks with the missus, racking up some decent hitters on ‘Pokemon Go’ and i’d like to go on a few daytrips too if I can find the time…Nothing astounding, but It’s been a year or two now since I’ve been to the beach, and last time I went it was raining…It’d be nice to go again in good weather.
and, as a final LONG range forecast…I’d like to have a chilled christmas next year. This year we were hammer and tonging it until 10pm on December 23rd…and while everything after that was nice and chilled out, we missed basically all the pre-gaming leading up to christmas. The decorations were thrown up in a rush, the christmas food shop was done in a panic, we didnt get much time to watch many christmas films until after christmas because we had so many jobs to do. Hell, I didnt get my film collection back until the morning of the 19th of December…I usually enjoy baking around christmas, making pumpkin pies, cookies, nice treats to give as gifts, I like to buy new decorations and spend time crafting the christmas ‘look’ for the house…This year it was whatever was available to hand + a lot of panic shopping, hell, because we went over budget on the house, we couldnt afford gifts for anyone…which was upsetting…So December 2025? I want to have the MERRIEST fucking christmas this side of lapland!
So! yeh! that was 2024, By no means a bad year…a stressful one, a busy one, but ultimately a rewarding one. As far as years go…i’d say this one was up there, and I can only hope that my 2025, like your 2025, will be a fun, pleasent, safe and happy one.
When it comes to blacksploitation films, I feel no list of ‘key’ titles is complete without a Rudy Ray Moore film in there somewhere, Whether its the power packed punches of ‘Dolemite’ and ‘The Human Tornado’, the surreal horror of ‘Petey Wheatstraw’ or the downright campy funkadelica of ‘Disco Godfather’ Rudy worked a wide breadth of styles across his movies while maintaining a consistent badassery.
Honestly I have only the highest of respects towards the guy, he was a somewhat quiet, but to the point gent who decided to put himself out there, creating a larger than life standup persoanlity called ‘Dolemite’ who was basically the broad opposite of Rudy in real life. small gigs led to larger gigs, larger gigs led to a comedy record deal, which led to multi album deals and in 1975, Rudy took Dolemite to the next level in his own power punching, lady loving, gun toting movie. and man…its a trip and a half to be sure.
The film opens with ‘Dolemite’ in jail serving 20 years after getting framed up by cops for trafficking illegal furs and half a million dollars of narcotics. we’re 2 years into his sentence when the jail owner summons Dolemite to his office. There, he’s reunited with his ‘eyes on the street’ and business partner ‘Queen Bee’ who’s been speaking to the warden and has managed to convince him that Dolemite WAS framed, and that the bad mother behind it is non other than the notorious ‘Willie Green’ the baddest gangster the streets have EVER seen…well, unless you count DOLEMITE.
It turns out, since Dolemites been away, things have gotten much MUCH worse. Willie has taken over Dolemites old club, he’s kicked Dolemites ladies onto the streets, and he’s pushing drugs and guns into schools harder and faster than ever before. The wardens offer is simple. If Dolemite can stop the pushers, and find evidence that ties it to Willie, he’ll be a free man.
So! Dolemite accepts, he’s let out of jail and the next hour and 15 minutes could AT BEST be described as a thrown together comedy action romp. Seriously, this things all over tha place. with Dolemite kung fu fighting gang members, doing extended comedy sets in clubs and making 50 shades of love to every fine woman with a pulse. ‘Dolemite’ is blacksploitation taken to its silliest and most extreme conclusions this side of ‘Black Dynamite’.
I have a real love/hate relationship with this movie. Its ‘highs’ are largely unrivalled, there are moments in ‘Dolemite’ that will leave your jaw on the floor and keep your eyes firmly locked to the screen. But the ‘Lows’ for me are many and frequent. Which is a real shame, because had it had just a *bit* more consistency, this could have easily become one of my favourite blacksploitation movies of all time.
I think the thing that trips it up, is also the thing that kind of saves it, and thats the thrown together nature of it all. It feels like a script was written, and then Rudy just kept adding bits to the film, whether it made sense or not, whether it ACTUALLY would fit into the movie or not. If Rudy wanted it in there, you better damn well believe it went in there. For better or worse.
It means you’ll have sequences like Dolemite getting out of prison, mouthing off to the guards at the gate while half a dozen of his ‘ladies’ come to greet him with fresh clothes, he strips off AT the gates into his civvies, only to get into a limo and taken them all off again so he can make love to 2-3 women in the back of the cab.
You’ll get sequences like him walking into his old club, while the new gang keep cussing him out (but not doing anything) while he casually rips a hole in the floor and pulls out huge rolls of money, but rather than mention it, or start fighting him, the rival gang just continue walking/talking at him until Dolemite decides he’s had enough and destroys 4-6 gang members in one fluid motion…Moore was 47/48 years OLD when this film was SHOT. he’s wearing a gurdle through most of this for gods sake.
And…all that stuffs magnificent, its the character manifest, and its funny, bizarre, original and entertaining in equal measures. Which makes it unfortunate that the thing that hits this film like a train hitting a cow at a crossroads…is Rudys ACTUAL live standup material.
Yes, the film periodically stops and cuts to Rudy doing a live show in the character of ‘Dolemite’ each one is just him doing a comedic monologue, usually scewed on black stereotypes. and they are SO so slow going, not helped by the fact the camera movements are all so stripped back, over basic, fixed or pivoting camera shots with next to no b-roll. and it hits this film HARD, it slows everything to a halt for 3-5 minutes and THEN the film has the uphill battle of trying to reignite itself when…it’s DOLEMITE. How the hell do you reignite the enjoyment of a film where Rudy takes out 3 gangsters while wearing a full arm sling, when the previous scene was a 5 minute unbroken not particularly funny monologue?! Well, somehow Rudy just about manages it…but its a strain.
The script itself is scattershot, as mentioned the pacings all over the place in the best and worst ways, but the tone is kind of messy too. I know its *trying* to be funny. But the issue is HOW funny is it trying to be. It gets pretty serious in places and touches on issues facing black people at the time and to this day. Indeed the film has several moments where it gets unusually serious, before snapping back into Dolemite making a someone dance by shooting a machine gun at their feet.
And the problem with that, is that it makes it hard for me to know when they’re playing on a stereotypical issue for fun…and when they’re ACTUALLY saying ‘this is a problem.’
Add to that that the act structuring is basically non existent, the first act establishes itself pretty well, but then we get to about 20 minutes in, and the film kind of locks itself into a loop of Dolemite dishing out the pain, right up to the last 20 minutes when they haphazardly throw together a resolution while CONTINUING to have Dolemite dish out the pain. Its an unusual approach that I dont know if it fully works for me. But I cant say I was particularly won over by it.
The characters are all one note parodies. Dolemite himself probably gets the lions share of emotional range and complexity, but its never elaborated on. They just have scenes where Dolemite will get angry, or sad, or horny…and once he’s done the ‘Sad’ scene or the ‘Horny’ scene, its just…done. Never revisited, not used for character building. One and done, on to the next one. and thats your lot. The supporting cast LITERALLY only exist to give dolemite exposition. which is hilarious in its own right…Its like when Homer Simpson tries to advise the makers of Itchy and Scatchy how they could improve his character (Poochie) by suggesting that when Poochie isnt around, everyone should be asking ‘Wheres Poochie?’. Only in this instance, its ‘Wheres Dolemite?’
The direction is a shambles, boom mics, crew members, Cast members who arnt even SUPPOSED to be in the scene, somehow make it onto the camera, the direciton of the cast is even poorer with people literally ALWAYS starting a scene by walking into a room. floor markers are in full effect and noone DARES move off them in case they ruin the shot, items jump around the room regularly, because noones keeping tabs on continuity…and DESPITE the inconsistencies, this film produces at least 2-5 of THE defining cinematic images of the Blacksploitation movement. Which…is BLOODY impressive.
The cine fares the same as the direciton, you have folks who’ve barely if ever made a movie, learning in real time how its done, its ‘Ed Wood’ level bad in terms of framing, compositional choices and the aforementioned continuity/bad directional choices. It hangs together loosely with little to no B-roll, but…and I cannot stress this enough, its FUN. Everyone seems to be confused, or HAVING fun. and that manic energy of a load of people making their first film and feeling that the worlds about to open up to them and their world is frankly palpable.
As for the casting…does it really matter? the two to watch out for are Rudy Ray and D’Urville Martin as Willie Green. Moore is a stone powerhouse frankly. The man cannot act. he has one emotion. ‘Still.’ and thats. it. he locks himself down to the spot, unless its pivotal to the scene, and delivers cold, stoney lines with all the aggression of a wasp in a turbine. He IS this movie. and everytime he’s on screen is a moment you wonder ‘Where the hell is this going?!’ with a GENUINE concern for the safety of people on set.
Martin by contrast plays over the top, nervous and aggressive wonderfully and acts a strong contrast to Moore. But given the film sets him up as Moores nemesis. He’s barely even in the film. Which I feel is a shame, as i’d have loved to have seen him grow more into the role.
And what powerhouse flick would be complete without one of THE funkiest scores around. And arguably of the best parts of this film! The scores perfect tonally for the production, and edited in place incredibly well. With the titular ‘Dolemite’ theme being a personal favourite.
‘Dolemite’ Was Rudys first proper foray into film making, and…its kind of obvious honestly, this is a fun, but VERY flawed production that, even after my 4th watch now, I STILL cant say I know exactly how I feel about it. on the one hand the unintentional comedy, Rudy himself and the surreal moments he put into this film make me really love it. But on the other hand, the chronic technical faults, the ‘Live standup’ segments and the total lumpiness of the script, tone and lack of depth to the cast really puts me off this one…
His next film ‘The Human Tornado’ irons out a LOT of issues I have with this film. But as it stands? I’d absolutely say its worth checking out. But your milage may vary by the time the credits roll, In either case, i’d stay stick with Rudy, because his best films are yet to come…
When they announced back in 2019 that there was BIG news in the world of ‘Caligula’ (and believe me…there is RARELY. ‘BIG NEWS’. in the world of ‘Caligula’) I dont think many were expecting the announcement that was given. That after years of fearing it destroyed (and even an ‘on and off’ attempt by Tinto Brass and his archivist to refilm large chunks of it.) that over 90 hours of original rushes from the labourious shoot that was this movie BEFORE Guccione got his dirty porny hands on it. Had not only been recovered, but that enough footage had been found to successfully restore the film to a *roughly* 99% approximated version of the original cut BEFORE penthouse messed with it.
Needless to say, I was excited…Then the pandemic happened.
And, everything went quiet for quite a while, then in 2023 completely out of left field and with no build up, ‘Caligula: The Ultimate Cut’ was dropped into Cannes unceremoniously, THEN it VERY quickly did a VERY limited theater run (that didnt include ANY screens in the UK even REMOTELY close to me) and then it vanished again.
And even NOW, its STILL not readily available in the UK or Europe, with only ‘Umbrella Entertainment’ (an australian company) releasing the film for ALL of europe (its bloody expensive for what it is)…And ‘Drafthouse Films’ releasing it in the US, with controversy swirling around it because the ‘Theatrical cut’ which was billed as ‘uncut’ was in fact missing 6 minutes of footage.
So faced with bankruptcy, or an inferior release, I chose the inferior release. MAINLY because, I already own the uncut ‘theatrical’ version on bluray from Arrow, and I didnt need a box the size of a loaf of bread taking up shelf space on my film shelf…letalone having to pay between $30 and $50 for the privilage. And…well…was it worth the 4-5 year slow build wait for this to see the light of day? Well…I know a lot of folks wernt particularly ‘impressed’ But y’know what? I had an actually pretty good time.
This new cut of the film essentially removes all the hardcore sequences, leaving only softcore erotica and a few genitle shots, but no penetration or ‘spooge’. There are neumerous new scenes inserted, some extend sequences from the theatrical cut, some hadnt been seen in 40 years.
They rejig the sequence running order, reframing the narrative and allowing for a much MUCH slower burn (the theatrical cut is about 2 hours and 40 minutes, whereas the ‘Ultimate cut’ is basically 3 hours long). They COMPLETELY redid the sountrack to something more ‘earthy’, orchestral and period appropriate. and they’ve added some very light cg elements here and there in the form of artificial smoke, slickers of hot ashes, light digital pans or zooms on shots.
Essentially, the aim was to reimagine the film, moving it away from its seedy, campy and exploitational roots, and instead presenting the work as a more serious ‘flawed character’ period piece that doesnt shy away from the full decadence of the ‘peaks’ of rome. and…with that brief, I feel that really kind of succeed what they’re trying to do here.
I’ll get my biggest gripes out of the way up front, I feel like this re-edit is HORRENDOUSLY over long. I know they’re striving for the feeling of an ‘epic’ and I will say that it doesnt ‘feel’ 3 hours long to me, but it still DOES feel overlong, and with it almost pushing 3 hours, I almost certainly wont be able to rewatch this one again in a hurry…purely from a logistical standpoint.
The pacing is a bit patchy here and there, I feel like the re-edit has added a lot more pathos and complexity to the characters all involved. But it still feels a little rushed on the ‘Caligula is fine/Caligula is now doing boat orgys with the senators wives’ piece. It would have been nice to have that madness more gradually creep in, because here, it feels like a switch goes off just over halfway into the 2nd act and we dont really come back from it.
I feel like the reordering of the sequences however DOES improve the overall flow of the film as a serious work. But I’d be lying if I said I didnt miss the slightly more thrown together, campy, overt horniness of the theatrical cut. The tone is much less scattershot when compared to the theatrical cut, which is nice…But at the same time kind of left me wishing things would just lighten up a bit more.
As for the new footage itself? Its amazing to see it honestly, and the alternative takes, alternate angles and extended sequences I think have been VERY masterfully curated to help enhance the narrative without stealing the show.
Its just lots of little things (mild spoilers for this paragraph so scip to the next break to avoid) like how they use an alternate angle of the murder of Caligulas daughter. I always howl in the theatrical cut, as they clearly just smash a jam smeared mannaquin onto the steps, but here, they use an alternate angle from further away which is much more effective. the boat orgy sequence is dragged from seedy ‘porn’ flick to ‘tasteful erotica’ terratory. the murder of caligula himself is done in a much more toned down, but effective way.
Honestly? I really quite like how they’ve managed to take these rushes and, using modern editing tools combined with ‘period authentic’ editing techniques, they’ve managed to create something that feels like it was just waiting to be scanned from a 1980’s film print. in fact barring the new titles and credits, which feel VERY out of place for a film shot in the 70s. I can say that on a technical level, given this was strictly a ‘reconstruction’ job, they’ve been pretty excellent honestly.
The new footage doesnt really change my opinion of the performances, I think McDowell and Helen Mirran here are astoundingly good, and while the theatrical cut focussed more on the campy and bizarre, this cut gives them much more time to breath and we get some really nice pieces that do showcase not just how good Vidals original script was at giving these characters a bit more complexity…But just how talented these performers were in their prime. The lack of grotty grotty porn here too allows our supporting cast more time to really shine and define themselves. Which added a whole new layer to my feelings about there characters and performance choice.
Which…leads me to my only other gripe here, the score. Now…in the context of it scoring the film itself, its pretty solid. I actually think it suits the tone of the film moreso than what was used to score the ‘Theatrical’ cut. The issue? it sounds SO dull on its own. the drafthouse release contains the new soundtrack in its entirity, and, to me? it was basically unlistenable. Im smitten to the theatrical soundtrack, I think it works with the film, as much as it works blasting out of my car stereo as I head to the supermarket. The ‘ultimate’ score is too cool for its own good and, for me, is a flat experience outside of this production.
It would also be amiss of me not to mention that Tinto Brass has sworn off this film, claiming its a compromised vision due to his lack of involvement in the restoration. Information about his EXACT involvement with this production is scarce, with Tinto claiming noone contacted him until the edit was basically complete, and that they were basically looking for a ‘signature’ to put his name on someone elses work. While the production argue they reached out multiple times to him to ask him to help advise (but not have final cut) on the production, which he refused to do.
Having watched this cut now, it DOES feel a LOT more like Tintos work in the early 80s (‘The key’ specifically springs to mind) than Tinto would probably like to admit. But I feel its a real shame that he had limited/no involvement in this restoration. As it was one of his (self proclaimed) greatest achiements…Its one thing to be cut out of the editing process once…but to have it happen twice is unforgivable frankly.
In the end, I think I like the ‘Ultimate’ cut about the same as the ‘Theatrical’ cut. But they both have VERY different tones and vibes and i’d need to be in a specific mindset to watch this version again.
The work they’ve done here is very impressive, they’ve managed to really blow the cobwebs off this production and presented a crisp, technically delightful production that feels WAY more on brief than what the original production spat out. and I really REALLY like it for that.
However, that 3 hour runtime, the lack of tinto and the scoring issues hold this back from really *truely* being something I could love. If you’ve seen the ‘Theatrical cut’ or you’ve been put off by how ‘porny’ this film has sounded, the ‘Ultimate’ cut offers a viewing experience that I feel is much more palettable to contemporary audiences.
However, if you only like Caligula for the graphic boat orgys, mutant sex scenes and mannaquin Jam smashing…you likely WILL be quite dissapointed.
15 Years after their first cinematic outing, The Aqua teen gang are back again, this time in TV/Streaming movie form for a 2nd feature length outing. and its kind of just ‘Business as usual’ honestly.
The plot is set in between the latest 2 seasons of the show and the Aqua team have disbanded after frylock (once again) has pushed Shake too far. As such, Master Shake is currently homeless and sleeping in a box fort on Carls lawn, Meatwad is working at a dog sanctuary, Carl is purposfully trying to flatten the Aquas old house so he can raise the price of his property, and Frylock is now working for a 4 foot tall tech bro called ‘Neil’ who owns ‘Amazin’ (Essentially, this is a mashup of Amazon and Elon Musks various ventures)
When Frylock gets sent on an errand to work for Neil, the pair hit it off and eventually grow a friendship, especially when the Fry man mentions he can splice Neils DNA with taller DNA to help him grow to a non hilarious height.
Of course, the tech backfires and before you know it, plant people are running rampant in downtown New Jersey…Same old Same old.
And…to be honest? I didnt dislike this one, but I do wonder why THIS plot got a feature runtime. This could have easily just been a 2 parter of the normal series, and probably WAY more consistent for it.
The actual plot itself groans a little bit under the stress of trying to break that 70 minute runtime, and while the actual content of the film is fine enough, it doesnt really push the envelope in a way that I’d have found satisfying. Compare this to their first film (which DID get a theatrical release) and its relatively low stakes. The first film at leasst TRIED to put a bit of new ‘lore’ in there, it felt like a bit more of an event. It went the way of the 1966 ‘Batman’ movie by just making an episode of the TV show, but with bigger plot points, celebrity names and a few more interesting twists and turns.
This? well, like I say, it just feels like an extended TV episode. If it were the last thing ATHF related to come out, it wouldnt be going out on a high by any means…it would just be ‘an end.’
Because its plot is kind of fragmented up until the last 15-20 minutes or so when everyones re-connected, it also means the amount of characters who can appear is limited. Essentailly we get the 3 Aqua Teen mains, Carl, the landlord (who is only very fleetingly in this) and the Mooninites. Who have one random cameo in the 3rd act, but are forced into the film via 4th wall breaks all the way throughout, they have very little to do with the rest of the movie however.
But the other characters? Mothman, M.C Pee Pants, Handbanana? all abscent…and notably so. Im not sure if this was an attempt to go back to the shows basic roots, but it leaves the project feeling distinctly stripped back in a way that had me wondering hwere everyone was.
As for the script itself? well…as mentioned its a bit overlong, the 1st and 3rd acts are fine, but the 2nd act goes on a bit longer than i’d have liked, and it starts to get a bit confusing towards the end of it as a load of ‘Mad Max’ references get dropped in out of nowhere. The tone is *pretty much* in line with the TV show at this point, but you do get the feeling the cast are a *little* out of practice.
The direction, cine, all that stuff? its basically the same as the TV show, basic…a little more fluid here than usual (im assuming an inflated budget helped that) but unremarkable is the honest answer.
The performances were fun, but not particularly memorable or quotable. The character of Neil was (while watching) fun enough, but the ‘tech bro billionair’ trope thing has LITERALLY been done to death (it was dead pre-pandemic…letalone in 2022)
All in all? eh…I like Aqua Teen, even the later seasons are at least consistent. And this is basically just that…Consistent, but not really trying to push any boundaries, develop any new ideas or really do much of anything other than bring the characters back one more time.
Its fine…But I just wish given the feature running time it was a bit more of a grand affair, rather than a shrug and a ‘see y’er next time.’
Watched as part of an upcoming podcast (no clues) I hadnt heard of ‘Colony Mutation’ prior to watching this, and I chose to go in as blind as possible…Im not 100% certain what I just watched, but I like to think in a spiritual (and erotic!) way…I know EXACTLY what the director was going through when he made this.
The plot follows Jim, a…fairly nasty piece of work, and thats the kind way to put it! Jim is a scientist working at a facility experimenting with RNA and DNA mutations. his wife meredith is specifically working on mutating RNA into a parasite that has the ability to regenerate the hosts lost tissues and even drive the host when its no longer concious. Its a promising piece of work into regenerating lost limbs, but has a way to go.
Anyway; Jims cheating on Meredith with his secretary? Lab assistant? junior researcher? Who knows, the film doesnt make it clear. But what it DOES make clear is that Jim is basically being a bit parasitic himself, going with his secretary just long enough to dump Meredith and go with her…and then move on from her when he gets bored.
Well, Meredith cottons onto this when she finds out Jim has been charging the couples account for ‘Holiday inn’ rooms that have no explanation OTHER than Jims an Ass hat. Meredtih confronts Jim, only for him to blatently lie to her. When he pushes her one too many times, she grabs a vial of mysterious fluid and throws it in Jims face…Only, that wasnt just ANY mysterious fluid! it was a live culture of the parasite!
And within 20 minutes Jims wolfing down raw packs of bacon, raping and murdering women and has seemingly developed a parasitic killer penis. and…thats kind of the rest of the movie. Jim meeting up with strangers and then letting the parasite murder them and feast on their flesh, while the secretary becomes increasingly frustrated that Jim wont commit to her and is being way more evasive.
At first I thought this film was trying to be an imitation of elements of J.R Bookwalters ‘Ozone’, then around the 2nd act I began to wonder if this was some kind of exploitation comment on the AIDs epidemic or on the proliferation of STDs as a form of control. and by the final act I was convinced this was heavily influenced by the works of Frank Hennenlotter…But as the credits rolled, I had to admit, I had NO idea what the intention of this movie was actually.
With it being shot on 8mm with no synch sound, the entire film had to be redubbed from the ground up, sometimes the actors can be bothered to move their mouths, but sometimes the dub that runs over the footage isnt even close to whats happening on screen. Complicating matters further, the version I watched (via Tubi) appears to be a ‘star wars special edition’ type affair from Visual Vengence.
It appears they’ve cropped the film into ‘widescreen’ added a load of ‘bad film’ filters, colour corrected everything into murkey brown or barely visible dark blue. They’ve remade the opening and closing credits with CG and they’ve created some new CG effects for the final act, and all of this looks and feels AWFUL. It makes the movie even HARDER to watch coherently because some of its been so drastically colour corrected that is basially just a block colour screen with occasional eye balls. I dont know whether my enjoyment of this film would be heightened had it been presented in its original aspect ratio, and with all the colour grading and CG reverted back…But I KNOW it didnt help it here.
The script is quite slow and plodding, there are sparks of good moments here and there across the runtime, but the film has a really bad habit of making our characters go for extended walks, have dream seqeunces that dont really go anywhere or do anything. And in the 2nd act in particular, the film gets locked into a bit of a loop of Jim hunting down women and homeless people on dates to murder and feed to the parasite, but then it doesnt really even show you the murders or parasite stuff…So we (as the audience) basically spend 40 minutes watching a guy go on a load of first dates with women, he offers to take them home, he’ll release a parasite, the woman will scream, and then it’ll hard cut to Jim on the phone the next day to his secretary, trying to arrange a dinner date between them and her sister.
The act structuring is a little melty too, the first act is SUPER short, but the transition between the 1st and 2nd acts is painfully long and padded with all sorts of random conversations. Then, as mentioned, the 2nd act locks into the ‘first date/kill/call secretary’ loop…before finally about 20 minutes off the end we crash into a 3rd act that feels like a poor mans ‘Brain Damage’ where things get a little more humerous? But that quickly gives way to an extended final fight that ends abruptly and felt dissatisfying.
Oh also; the film has about 8 minutes of titles and credits…which, given the films barely an hour and 15 to begin with…is a bit much.
I think this film struggles to find the right tone to attack with. I feel like it wants to be seen as an outright horror, it has moments where it wants to explore comedy, but seems reluctant to do that, theres a sci-fi element that isnt really explored much. and the drama element is probably the only thing thats genuinely stuck to across the whole runtime, and it falls flat by the half way point.
The characters arnt particularly interesting, Jim is the only character that really GETS a character and it takes 2 acts to really start to get going…So again thats a bit of a busted flush.
I do have to give some credit to the direction, while it may not be a pretty film, theres absolutely a layer of creativity running throughout this thing. Its not quite a professional end product. But I will say this is a film that DOES seem to be TRYING. especially in the final act as the parasite becomes a more ‘physical’ being, I think the effects work, and the way they mask the parasite are effective and do offset the budget limitations somewhat. Is it perfect? absolutely not. But again; I’d rather a film maker that tries and fails, than one that just shoves slop out the door every 12-15 months.
That being said, other than the creative techniques put out by the director, the cine itself is mixed to poor. shots barely have a focal point, 90% of the shots feel like it was just a case of ‘pop the camera down, check its vaguely in focus, Go!’ which…is not the best way to make a movie, the colour correction does the film absolutely no favours, crushing all the colour out rendering half the film sepia and the other half looking like 1920s ‘tinted’ film. theres a significant lack of B-roll here, noticable by its sheer absence. Alongside at least a few moments of janky editing, where footage slows down, tears or reverses briefly before cutting to the next scene…I have to assume this is done by accident because it only impact 2-3 points in the film for no longer than a second and a half each time.
But the whole thing really could have benefitted from a couple more pass throughs on the edit. I think at sub an hour it would have felt smoother, 45 minutes would probably be its optimum run time. But I get it. You cant sell a short, but you can sell a feature…I do wonder sometimes though if hurting your film to get it out to audiences does any kind of favours to both the film or its creator.
Performance wise, its a game of two halves…LITERALLY, the 8mm visuals showcase poor performances, a lot of neutral faces, even in extreme situations. noone really emotes properly and physicality on screen is through the floor. its a very drab set of scenes on display.
The dub makes the whole thing feel more quirky, but it never quite reaches the delirious nature of ‘Things’ settling instead for deliveries that are WAY too mild mannered, to the point that they feel out of place with the physical actions on screen, only to then occasionally deliver one of the weirdest line deliveries i’ve seen in a good while, out of the blue, with no reasoning for it seemingly. I will say this, it may not be the most vivid script in the world, but my GOD this is weirdly put together…Fascinating from an editing perspective honestly.
And the soundtrack? at times it sounds like early 90s lofi midi, at times it sounds like a 1:1 rip of the ‘Things’ Soundtrack. THAT is the kind of area we’re in ladies and gentlemen. its clunky, ill fitting, it synchs with whats happening on screen maybe 25% of the time.
Colony Mutation is an underwhelming, but surreal at times piece that I feel a bit conflicted on. I dont think its particularly well made, but there are moments here that just scream ‘bad movie’ gold. I didnt come away hating this one. But I dont think i’d actively choose to watch it again. If your a fan, gods speed. But I dont think this one was for me.
‘Grown Ups’ isnt really my usual rodeo. I dont dislike Adam Sandler, but I find as a creative, he dances a VERY very fine line between being ‘sincerely watchable’ and being absolutely and totally unbearable in any capacity. So when I went to visit family this weekend and they put ‘Grown Ups’ on…I was ready to basically spend 100 or so minutes on my phone waiting for it to finish. But what I actually watched astounded me.
Obviously; Red Letter Media have discussed at length how they have a ‘conspiracy theory’ that Sandler makes films that basically do the double whammy of being a tax break, while allowing him and his friends to go do some crazy fun weird stuff that normal people just dont go and do. While passing it off as them making an actual movie. They used ‘Jack & Jill’ as their example. But ‘Grown Ups’ is MUCH more glaring of that in action…
…Because, if you didnt know any better, you’d assume that Adam Sandler basically asked a dozen or so of his friends if they fancied 2 months of hanging around in serine log cabin/woodland locations, getting free food and entertainment most nights and free passes to water parks for most of the summer season. Because thats basically all this film is. Sandler and his friends hanging out and doing crazy stuff on a studios budget for 112 minutes with a SUPER thin veil of ‘plotting’ going on about it.
So; the whole plot of the movie is that a group of friends find out that their childhood basketball coach has died, and this prompts them to all reconnect at his funeral, and in turn, agree to dispose of his ashes in a place he wants it being disposed of. Which means they all head out to the wilderness to reconnect with their inner childs, whilst ALSO trying to break their ACTUAL children OUT of being addicted to social media, ‘posh’ water and games consoles.
Cue a runtime that mainly consists of fart jokes, slapstick, innuendos, gratuitous perving and gentle snarking. But its mainly a vacation video.
The best way I can describe how this entire movie feels is to say that it feels VERY much like the scene in ‘Planes Trains and Automobiles’ where Del and Neil are sat in a motel room driking the mini bar dry and talking rubbish, only, while ‘Grown ups’ manages (at times) to capture a degree of sincerity. Its missing almost ALL the weight and emotional development needed to make me actively care about these people and this situation…That, and dragging something that was a 5 minute ‘bit’ in ‘Planes Trains’ into a 112 minute slog here doesnt really help anyone.
My biggest issue with the script is its really just way too ‘soft touch’. The point of a movie (generally speaking) is to introduce some characters, give them a problem to solve, make the problem *seem* like it has the upper hand, and then let our characters resolve it AND ideally grow from the experience, ending the film with them being better people for it.
This film has NON of that! its a modern miracle in that sense. All the characters start off a little run down from their jobs, they drag the whole family out to the woods to ‘reconnect’ and all that happens is they goof about a bit, and then feel a bit brighter at the end. That *isnt* how thats supposed to work!
The film is INCREDIBLY avoident of ANY kind of conflict or issue that last more than one scene. Im not kidding when I say the entire movie is literally just our characters encountering a problem, and then IMMEDIATELY resolving it. OR! Our characters encountering a problem, it getting put on the back burner for a scene while they set something else up, and THEN them solving it almost immediately with no effort.
Probably the best example of this is with Chris Rocks character, who, probably has the ‘rockiest’ (no pun intended) relationship with his spouse. in the 2nd act they show a scene where his wife sees him talking to Adam Sandlers Nanny, and they basically try on EVERY level to establish that, because Chris Rock is talking to another woman, he MUST be being unfaithful. Fast forward not TWO scenes later, and the wife confronts him about what she saw, only for Chris Rocks character to basically say ‘Talking is talking, your my wife’ and then that plot line is just…resolved. gone…and I should point out, theres no maturing that issue, its not like in the scenes in between his wife goes to speak to the other wives about the issue, or that we get to SEE that Chris Rocks character isnt really chatting up ther Nanny…its just created, and then solved as soon as its made. And thats like…90% of the tension in this film. Made to fill time, and solved as quickly as its created.
The tones a bit all over the place, its really trying to create that quasi nostalgic feeling of old friends reconnecting and ‘remembering the good times’. But they dont even really do THAT particularly…they just sort of, talk about stuff that happened after the friendships drifted apart. and they dont really even focus on HOW that happened in the first place. While its doing that, its also trying to be a comedy, but the humours SO all over the place and has SUCH a strong emphasis on gross out (Breastfeeding gags, ugly feet and dry heaving) and slapstick (people in full body casts getting pushed around, people smashing into trees) that it really kind of mutes out the comedy that ACTUALLY HAD heart and feeling behind it. the more subtle moments just get lost to conversations about ‘botch toe.’
Add to that that the pacing seems all out of whack to, to the point that it seems like the film gets more and more improvised as it goes on. We have a very tightly scripted first act, but then the second feels a lot like they just left cameras rolling inbetween takes and told folks to stay in character. The film fully trails off by the third act, and by that point I really was sitting there wondering what the hell the films message actually even was? I mean they loosely try to put a point in there about how the parents realise that spending time with their family has to come above any work or travel commitment. and at the very VERY end theres an incredibly half hearted attempt at trying to sell the idea that ‘everyone deserves a win sometimes’…But its so undercooked that it just comes across as sloppy and thought up in the moment.
The direction and cine are both studio grade for the time. I have next to nothing to say about them honestly, the film looks fine for what it is. The fact it isnt intensely into CGI for the time it came out was a nice addition. It looks fine. It isnt pushing any boundaries, but I wasnt expecting it to, they use colour relatively well, but nothing standout. The cast direction largely seems improvised, but these are (largely) comedians, so the ‘off the cuff’ stuff is a little hit and miss (but for my money) *is* more hit than miss.
The edit is solid enough, I do wonder why they broke 90 minutes for this, it could have easily been 80-90 and probably a little better than what there actually is.
Performance wise, everyones pretty much fine. I feel Sandler and Kevin James have some good chemestry and most of the scenes where they’re together feel the most sincere and humerous. Chris Rock I feel gets downplayed here really, he has a few good moments to shine, but I feel giving him a bit of a ‘down’ personality because of his home life, kind of undercuts the potential he had to really get on top of this casting. Because, when he does shine here, he delivers some of the best moments of the film.
David Spade and Rob Schnider?…ugh. But! a Steve Buschemi cameo WAS very nicely recieved.
On the whole, everyone on screen in this thing seems to have a good personal relationship with each other, and it felt more like watching old friends catch up and LARP a scenario where they all grew up together, than them actually turning in a performance. It means that while I believe these people were having a nice time, I dont believe the characters, I dont believe the scenario. and thats a bit of a problem.
And, the soundtrack was so good, I literally cant remember anything about it (womp womp)
Grown ups is a bit of a rare thing these days, a family oriented movie about a group of adults reconnecting with not only each other, but with their own childhoods and the warmth that can come from remembering where you came from. It evokes series like ‘The Wonder Years’ and most of John Hughes filmography…And yet it really fails to fully understand WHY we so fondly remember those tv shows and films…it ISNT just because the cast talk about what they got up to as kids, its because the cast WERE ultimately well fleshed out, complex characters who the audience got to spend a lot of time with, and the nostalgia factor was a brief window into their souls at some point in the movie/series, rather than the whole point of the movie/series.
Because we dont really KNOW anything about these characters beyond a bullet pointed ‘what they do now’ and a couple of flashbacks to the late 70s, we dont feel the same kind of connection, and that makes a lot of this film feel a bit hollow ultimately. I dont really regret catching this one, as it does have moments. But all I can say is, I hope I get to be friends with Adam Sandler and go on vacation on the studios money some time sooner, rather than later.
TYTD Reviews 