WordJam: November 2020

Saturday 7 November 2020

The 50 Greatest Books I've Ever Read

1. Divorce, Suicide and Other Forms of Closure by Ingmar Schnitzel (short story collection)
2. The Tyranny of Soap by Martin Loofah
3. Legs: Your Forgotten Friends by Perry Ambulate
4. Oliver Twist Rides Again by Charles Dickens (no relation)
5. Oliver Twist Goes to Monte Carlo by Charles Dickens (still no relation)
6. Haiku Mania (poetry anthology)
7. Yellow is the Color of Cowards and Sick by Sax Rohmer
8. This Banana is Loaded by Aurora Snark
9. Bucephalus Doesn't Live Here Anymore by Lawrence Equine
10. Harry Potter and the TERF Defamation Wars by J. K. Rowling
11. Gangrene vs. Mould: A War of Attrition by Siegfried Götterdämmerung
12. Stormy Jockstrap by Jackie Collins
13. Paper: A User Guide (pamphlet)
14. Five Go to the Planet of the Apes by Enid Blyton
15. Why Does it Hurt When I Watch You Pee? by Frank Zappa Jr.
16. The Complete Works of Shakespeare by Christopher Marlowe
17. Applied Heuristics in A.E.N. Language Structures by Prof. Jeremy Magrs
18. Heuristics for Beginners by Prof. Paul Hoad
19. The Oxford English Dictionary
20. Velcro for Dummies
21. Roger Moore's Breath Smells Like Coffee and Old Leather by Albert "Cubby" Broccoli (memoir)
22. Prepucially Challenged by Howard Stern
23. Euphemisms Aren't the Only How's Your Father by Chortle Gusset
24. The Glory of Nylon by Dame Cynthia Croptop
25. I've Never Seen So Many Carrots by Stephenie Meyer
26. Bum Party by Col. Arnold Trubshaw (Rtd.)
27. The Dandy Christmas Annual 1993
28. Eagles May Soar But Weasels Don't Get Sucked into Jet Engines (trainee pilots' handbook)
29. WordJam by Richard English (plug)
30. Eggbound in Paris and London - George Offal
31. Oliver Twist Meets the Wolfman by Charles Dickens (the other one)
32. Tawdry Otters by Aldous Huxley
33. Pork Scratchings for Christmas by Mrs Beeton
34. Chairman Mao's Vasectomy by Rev. Ernst Blofeld
35. Nancy Drew in Bangkok by Carolyn Keene
36. The Oranges, Lemons and the Bells of St. Clement's are All Bastards by Richmal Crompton
37. The Shetland Pony Murders by P. D. James
38. Transformers: Dark of the Moon by Michael Morpurgo (novelisation)
39. Crazy Paving: The Silent Killer (safety poster)
40. Donkey Hotel by Miguel de Cervantes (pidgin English translation)
41. Tintin at the Nuremberg Trials by Hergé
42. Tintin in Spandau Prison by Hergé
43. Tintin Refuses the Blindfold by Hergé
44. Wedgefast and Trouser: A Gentleman's Guide by Alexander McQueen
45. Laughing Gear: My Life in Comedy by Noam Chomsky
46. Docile Phlanges by Lillian Muffwrangler
47. Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People Who've Read 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race' by Coleman Hughes
48. Doctor Who: Privilege of the Daleks by Paul Cornell
49. Shit Happens (car sticker)
50. An Apple a Day is Another Victory for Our Reptilian Overlords by David Icke

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Trivial Shit That Really Pisses Me Off (AKA: 'It's a Conspiracy, I Tells Ya...')

DVD has long been a godsend for fans of world cinema, especially when the films you're interested in watching have either failed to pick up theatrical distribution in your country or are unavailable via streaming services. Having said that, it's not very reassuring to find the people responsible for marketing these home media releases either have absolutely no awareness of the content of the films they're trying to promote, or - and this is more likely - are quite happy to mislead undiscerning DVD hounds with cover art that bears very little relation to the flicks they're pushing in the hope of making a quick buck. (As a fan of German and Russian cinema, I find this tends to be a regular feature of my consumer life.) I therefore present some examples of this ignorant and, dare I say it, underhanded practice in the vain hope that someone at Entertainment One, Metrodome or the otherwise excellent Arrow Video is actually reading this.

Bring on the accused...

Gagarin: First in Space - DVD release

For some reason, the Entertainment One DVD shows Gagarin as a combination of Keir Dullea wandering around the Regency-era bedroom in '2001: A Space Odyssey', Sandra Bullock holding on for dear life in 'Gravity' and John Hurt about to be orally-raped in 'Alien'. The original theatrical poster may be a little clichéd with its profile shot of Yaroslav Zhalin staring into eternity, but at least it's trying to be awe-inspiring rather than suggesting - somewhat cynically, I think - that the first human being's journey into space was, well, a bit boring.

2. Anonyma: A Woman in Berlin - theatrical poster

Max Färberböck's adaptation of 'Eine Frau in Berlin', based on the anonymous memoirs of a female journalist caught between sexual violence and emotional dependency in the dying days of the Second World War, was immediately controversial upon its release in Germany, and it doesn't require a doctorate in philosophy to understand why. Although it may not be the most sophisticated of films to deal with this subject matter, it's still a very powerful meditation on identity and gender politics that's still horribly relevant wherever women are caught in warzones and forced to compromise themselves, either against their will or to guarantee the safety of the people they love.

Anonyma: A Woman in Berlin - DVD release

"Fuck that: let's put Nina Hoss in a beret and make it look like an espionage thriller instead! While we're at it, we'll make that bloke stood next to her look like a Nazi of some kind. It's all right, no one'll know he's from the Red Army - unless they're the sort of sad bastards who watch the History Channel. And why don't we stick a bunch of planes in the background? Everyone loves an aerial dogfight. Actually, we could do with changing the title, too. What was that really good flick that came out a few years ago called? You know - the one about Hitler in the bunker?"