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How To Be Romantic and Male Too

It may not be a pernicious trend, but it is a trend none-the-less. Whether it shows a growing sensitivity in male moviegoing audiences, the interchangability of female leads or is just a sign in the death of the romantic comedy genre, something is changing in the rom-com genre. What am I talking about? The rise in romantic comedies with male leads.

The rom-com, as has been established over the last twenty years, is about the only genre of film where woman can successfully headline the project. You can think of Sandra Bullock, Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore et al, with their name above the picture. Sometimes they are double billed with a bloke – often a comedian to show this is going to indeed be funny (enter Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler). But usually in a romantic comedy the viewpoint character, namely the one without wacky tics and spunk in their hair, goes to the female lead. She is the one who eventually makes the decision to be with the thoroughly unsuitable bloke, usually dumping the nice Baxter she was supposed to be married to. If there is an ostensible male lead (and often in the case of love triangles there can be two) he doesn’t have a lot to do but accept his fate. … read on …

Blog ‘92: YOU’D BETTER SHAKE YOUR BONES

18. 2 Unlimited - The Twilight Zone

The last couple of tracks on Rave ‘92 have been grounded in everyday settings - mild frustration over misplacing small items, feeling a bit dizzy, epic clubbing fail, slumping in front of kids’ telly when you get home at 5am. Songs that paint a daft picture of the things frazzled clubbers must deal with on a day to day basis. It’s all very British: muddling through life and attempting to make the best of it with good humour.

Then suddenly AWOOGA AWOOGA the warning sirens blare out and we’re blasted off into space! … read on …

LENA MARTELL - “One Day At A Time”

Like so many of 1979’s chart-toppers, Lena Martell was a new face: but this time trailing no stylistic or cultural shift. In fact “One Day At A Time” is one of those occasional Ronseal hits you got back when the buying base for singles used to be huge - a plain sentiment, quite plainly expressed. If it struck something true in you, you might buy it; otherwise just hunker down and wait for it to pass. Relatively unbowed by life’s trials, and with no great interest in Jesus, I’m in the second camp. In fact after a year so stuffed with delights - or at least interesting failures - this sticks in the craw, feeling like a refugee from grimmer times: it would have fitted into the more erratic, unlucky-dip lists of the mid-70s. … read on …

BUGGLES - “Video Killed The Radio Star”

A self-fulfilling prophecy: Buggles’ MTV-launching promo clip for “Video Killed The Radio Star” is as extraordinary is it had to be. Had to be not because of that particular historical coincidence, but because if they’d got it wrong they’d have turned the track into the novelty it almost sounds like. Instead the film - unlike a lot of music videos - enhances the song, stays true to its contradictions and tensions, threats and regrets. So, for once but I hope aptly, this is a review of a video not so much a record. … read on …

Ted Williams’ frozen head has a myspace page

this week the slugz of time talk cryostuff as the inspiration (?) for futurama gets read out and discussed, interspersed with a forgotten olivia newton-john classic about fate and “the gift of life extension”.

as for Ted Williams’ frozen head, it’s all true. it doesn’t have the same ring as “Andre the Giant has a posse” but times have changed and memes move on. Williams, the slender and irascible baseball player once known as the Splendid Splinter, author of The Science of Hitting, and generally agreed-upon greatest hitter of the last 60 years, was swindled by his son on his deathbed to sign his body over to Arizona-based Alcor Life Extension Foundation, who, upon the death of Teddy Ballgame in 2003, froze him up real good so that perhaps one day he could redon his spikes and dig his heels into some futuristic batter’s box. in the meantime, his frozen head rants on myspace.

A Bite of Stars, A Slug of Time, and Thou - Episode 12

Magnus Anderson joins the Slug Lords to talk about Arsen Darnay’s short story, “Such Is Fate”. It’s about a gypsy, a sailor, a tank of liquified gas, and what we can learn from the past. Music comes via Olivia Newton-John and Prince, and Elisha reads the story at the front of the programme in case you don’t have your copy of the September-October 1974 “Worlds of If” to hand.

THE POLICE - “Message In A Bottle”

The number ones of 1979 look from one angle like a beauty parade - a line-up of ambitious talents sniffing a chance at genuine, lasting superstardom. Whether punk rock had actually cleared any decks, or whether disco had changed the market, or whether simply the enormous surges in singles sales led smart operators to look again at the medium’s potential for making names, there’s a feeling in the air of a brass ring up for grabs - for the first time maybe since Bowie and Elton’s early-decade breakthroughs. … read on …

Blog ‘92: RATPACK DON’T IMITATE

17. Ratpack - Searchin’ For My Rizla

“I am the magnificent! The most prettiest! The baddest Mexicano of all times!”

A crackly Dave Barker successfully shouts down the echoing authority of The Bouncer, protesting Ratpack’s right to enter any nightclub they choose, guestlist spot or no. Pushing into the queue, MC Everson Allen rudely interrupts Barker’s ancient bragging for some of his own. “Now I
originate!” Translation: Push off grandad! … read on …

“Stephen, what do you think of the whole man love thing?”

Amanda Hamilton just asked of Stephen Gately on live sunday morning telly. Excellent stuff there.

(The context of the question, best forgotten, sadly is from plugging an unusually shit and unncecessary book by a DJ of similar qualities.)

GARY NUMAN - “Cars”

“Here in my car I feel safest of all” - this is what marketers, bless us, refer to as a ‘consumer insight’ - one of the unspoken reasons people buy what they buy, do what they do, crystallised in a one-liner that seems obvious as soon as you’ve heard it. It’s no wonder this track enjoyed such a prosperous second life via advertising: the message is barely even subliminal. Okay, Numan is going out of his way to sound chilly about the prospect of Cartopia, but the gleeful clunk-click of the synths gives him away: compared to the messy, shabby confusion “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” left him in, “Cars” is pure liberation. … read on …