The latest in line of 80’s revival flicks has brought us Rambo, following hot on the heels of Rocky Balboa. Sly Stallone is at it again, only this time, someone ought to have told the Vietnam vet that it was one battle too many. I finally saw this film and the result of his latest and surely the last outing is one of the worst films to ever hit the screens.
Sporting a very shabby physique that makes him look grotesque and weird, the overly violent and generally dismal offering has left even the die hard Rambo fan like me scraping the barrel for a good thing to say about the movie.
I have to admit that there is something strangely warming about Sly on screen and if it wasn’t for the name on top of the poster, this hapless effort would not even make it on backwaters of the movie screens.
Anyway for those under 30 here’s a quick recap. Rambo begins with our hero living in Thailand from his last outing in Rambo III when he helped kick the Soviets from Afghanistan. Our hero is called to help escort a couple of Christian missionaries up the river into war-torn Burma but refuses to get involved.
So when the do-gooders are captured by local soldiers, Sly takes a trip down memory lane and assembles a team and embarks on a rescue mission that is unnecessarily stretched with mindless violence. Sporting his trademark bandana and utility belt holding a gigantic knife Sly is at it again and wont rest until the missionaries are safe and sound and tucked up in bed with their cocoas.
And so there begins the journey for all those thirty something’s who’s staple movie diet throughout the 80’s were the Rambo, Die Hard, Indian Jones and Rocky sequels. Sadly, the nostalgic journey is one too many and best confined to the times in which they belong, in the past.
Sly ought to hang up his bandana and admit that he has been able to make the most of his limited talent and that his ridiculous looking body has long passed his spec by date.
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
Rambo: more mumbo-jumbo
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
We don’t need a FACup of our Premier League too
About 8 years ago, FIFA forced Manchester United to pull out of the FA Cup and compete in the now defunct World Club Championships. As a result, the competition went ahead without one of the leading teams. The damage it did to the longstanding tradition and significance of the FA Cup is still felt today.
Now the money mad Premier League bosses have come up with an equally damaging plan. They want to increase the number of games played in the season to 39, with the extra game being hosted aboard for mega bucks. Already, the Premier League is broadcast to over 200 countries and teams are forced to go abroad for meaningless friendlies during pre-season, often at the detriment of the players fitness and health. However, the latest proposals look to extend this foreign farce and make it an integral part of the league season and in return, the Premier league can sell its soul to the highest bidder.
The money men are out to completely ruin the national game. Already, many of our top teams are full of mediocre foreign imports, pushing home-grown kids further down in the pecking order. We have a foreign national team manager and now we are going to begin the process where our teams will play on foreign soil, thousands of miles away from the people who make the teams what they are.
If the FA goes down this road, it will be the start of a slippery slope and down the franchise route taken by many teams in American sports, where the teams have little or no connection to the geographic area of the people which their name suggests.
Interestingly, the Premier League now has a number of American owners who have bought into the English game with no real ideal of the history or traditions of the clubs. Almost every other confederation (Asia, Africa, South America) have resisted the idea of the Premier League gallivanting on their territory except North America. That’s right; the Yanks are the only people who want this ridiculous extra game to ‘spread the games appeal’. In a country where several attempts have been made to increase ‘soccer’s’ appeal and failed, taking our national sport to a amateur environment will do nothing other than expose some of our already overpaid failures to the riches that await them in Hollywood. Just ask David Beckham.
This move is not about spreading our game to global audiences, we already do this through TV, this is about selling the family jewels so that a few men can get their hands on yet more dirty cash.
We must resist them.
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Thursday, 29 November 2007
The things I miss: Part 1
Slowly, one by one, those things we held dear, related to, and grew up with are disappearing and with them, our own memories of the various stages of our life. Here is a list of the things I miss. Feel free to add yours.Amongst the things that I miss includes standing in terraces at football. It used to add so much more to the atmosphere of the game. I remember tales of people peeing through rolled up newspapers on the packed terraces and the stale smell of rotting burgers in amongst the cracks on the concrete but it all added to the stories you could tell after. Ah the good old days and not a prawn sandwich in sight!
I used to love seeing milk bottles at the doorstep, a site that was quintessentially British. A couple of years ago, a milkman knocked on my door and asked whether I would buy milk through him as it would help to establish a round in the street for the old folk. I was happy to do so until I realised that scoundrels would regularly nick mine before I got up and so with ever decreasing numbers, the service died out. Sorry old folks, I did try!
I used to like the ‘Wispa’ chocolate bar. Nowadays other chocolate bars try too hard to be tasty. The Wispa bar was uncomplicated and simple. There was a subtlety about the chocolate in a Wispa bar that I grew to love and miss so very much.