Creepy Pedro Reviews "Generation X Video"

I arrived early to Mistress Quickly's tavern and found Dr. Johnson, as anticipated, already arguing and drowning in his cups.

"A theatrical performance can be appreciated only from the height of a man's two eyes!" he was shouting at Quickley's dog. "Your opinions lack stature, in every sense of the word! The day I take seriously the theatrical criticisms of a BEAGLE is the day I deign to piss in the cup of a Scotsman!"

To this the dog expelled a fart so enormous it should have filled the very halls of Pandemonium (if not it had a natural inclination toward ascension), and so gusty that the lamps flared in a dangerous fashion, and so rank of gas that Madame Quickly must have feared for the health of her customers if she were not lost in merriment, cackling wildly, dugs a-heaving, one hand slapping the unfortunate Dr. Johnson's recently-singed peruke.

"Oh dear Samuel!" she whooped. "Put that dog's arse-trumpet i' your dictionary, under the letter BRAPPP! It hath twice the politic of all the Beedle's bollocks you've wrote so far!"

"'That fart was wise indeed," Dr. Johnson admitted. "Mingere cum bumbis, rec saluberrima est lumbis."

"Where be our guest tonight?" I asked the silent tapper, and the he nodded to the tavern door. A man of great distinction stood on the threshold. "Two bags of oats for my mount, and don't forget the sauce!" he yelled to the Hostler. "My mare doth love the sauce!"

"Dearest Pedro!" cried Dr. Johnson, raising his bulk and motioning to Mistress Quickley for another bottle of sack. "You've tarried so, we half expected to find ye lost or slain!"

"Only one of those briefly, and I charge each of you to divine which," he said, and even the Tapper laughed at so clever a jest.

"Lost, I gather! How now, Boswell, this shifty rogue in the sheepskin doublet is weaver Pedro, a man of wit, a master artisan, and the creepiest fellow I have ever had the fortune to meet."

"I have heard of you, slimy toady," said Pedro pleasantly as we shook our hands.

"A weaver you say?"

"Aye, the halls from St. Peter's to far off Araby are graced with my warp and woof."

Mistress Quickly, having arrived with the sack and seeing entry for another fulsome jest, shouted, "A better treat then we experienced not 'alf an hour hence, which were this doggie's FART and woof!" All fell about in that curious British way so often acted in Shakespeare's bawdy "Carry On, Dead King," of holding wide the mouth and turning head from viz to viz, accompanied by a scattershot laughing as loud and regular as Antwerp's artillery fire.

"Mistress!" Dr. Johnson wiped a tear from his eye. "I grant you, though art quick!"

"How could one doubt it...'tis my proper name!" And once again we cackled, as was our comick nature. But throughout the merriment our weaver, Pedro, had been wiping something from his eye, and afore long Dr. Johnson made note of his sad countenance.

"Enough of these quibbles. Pedro, what troubles you? Why the creepy frowning viz?"

Pedro shook off Dr. Johnson's embrace and rose from the table, commanding the attention of all in the tavern. "I mourn the death of an idea, a dream, the final passing of culture, the end of the most companiable banter on our old and noble isle...the closing of our beloved entertainment vendor, Generation X!" Pedro collapsed to the table and sobbed, schoolgirl-like, into his sack.

"Have you not grown reconciled, dear Pedro?" asked Dr. Johnson. "It has been sad for us, true, but 'tis no reason to cry in your drink. For everything there is a season and an allotted time. Even the jolliest of men shall die before he wish. May we all go in the manner of Generation X -- in our hearty primes -- before we descend into ignominity and penury, our metaphorical halls and stages used only for wenching and bear-baiting and games of 'Throw The Apple at The Captured Esquimaux.'"

"Oh, the porn, which I so craved..."

"Man can live without porn, and without arty foreign films too. I have explained all this to Boswell."

"Mr. Johnson is right," I said. "There is peer-to-peer file sharing."

"Pah!" said Pedro. "Barely 300 baud in my wattle-and-daub hut so far from the city. It's trouble enough for a man to play a full game of Hunt The Wumpus or Schmoo, let alone to download the entirety of 'Michael Palin's Dugs-a-Plenty' in high definition."

"Patience, Pedro...drink of my sack."

"And where will I see YOUR films?" cried Pedro. "This latest--"

Dr. Johnson slapped his brainpan, sending his peruke into the fire. "Blast it man, I told you, I am not that blackamoor actor you prate upon!"

"Snakes On An Omnibus, Dr. Johnson! 'Twas your finest role! Ever since I first set my viz 'pon the premiere performance of Pulp Fiction at the Globe--"

"I have said time and time again--"

"Three encores! And John Travolta dancing!"

"Enough!" Dr. Johnson bellowed, and the babble of anachronistic cross-generational dialect ceased. "My peruke is in flames once again, Pedro, as is so often the way when we meet. I will trade all the porn in the world if you will stop this tiresome contrivance of mistaken identity."

"I shall consent, Dr. Johnson, if only you would enact a bitter moment from 'Do the Right Thing.'"

At this the enraged Doctor lurched into the thousand ticks and vapours to which he was subject in times of distress. "A turd i' your teeth!" he shouted. "Johnny Bums in Scratchland!"

Pedro rose from his seat. "Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure, but I must be off...Generation X is disclosing its wares and I must secure 'Michael Palin's Arsey-Turvy' before it is gone. You will excuse me." I tilted my hat, and Dr. Johnson, unable to cease his strange hopping perambulations, merely scowled from beneath his armpits.

"Let's rob a carriage and dominate a play!" shouted the fat knight in the corner, but for once nobody was listening to him.

Mike D Watches a Movie #3: The Human Centipede

Yup, I finally got around to watching this one. Not that I didn't want to see it, just that with the amount of hype surrounding this movie, I felt the need to wait until they hype subsided before finally watching it.

That being said, you can't wait as long as I did to watch a movie with as much hype around it without hearing about it. By the time I finally watched The Human Centipede, I already knew what seemed like a large chunk of the plot, so there wasn't a whole lot of the movie that really shocked me.

For those who don't know, the movie follows two American women traveling in Germany who find themselves kidnapped my the Mad Surgeon Dr. Heiter, who surgically connects them, mouth-to-anus with another, male, also kidnapped by Heiter. Heiter attempts to domesticate his new "pet", with obvious results.

I found the movie very predictable, and rather boring. Once you get over the mouth-to-anus bit, there isn't really much else it does to scare the audience. There was one very suspenseful scene, that I felt was done well, when the Centipede tries to make an escape near the end of the movie, but as a whole, it kinda fell from the fairly low expectations I had of it. At several points throughout the movie, I kept wanting to scream at my TV, because the characters kept either making incredibly stupid decisions or weren't making the decisions they should have. For example, trying to turn a human centipede made up of 3 people you kidnapped and surgically connected against their will, that's a stupid decision; *spoiler alert* slitting your throat with a shard of glass instead of a)killing said mad scientist with it and/or b)cutting yourself free from the centipede, that's just being stupid.

Between the predictability and the stupidity of the characters, I just didn't enjoy the movie, but at the same time, I didn't really expect to enjoy it either.

Maggie's Top 10 Movies of 2010

I watched just over 300 films last year, though the bulk of them were older numbers, and I didn't get to see certain films around which there is still a tremendous amount of buzz--so before getting indignant about Black Swan and The Social Network not being on this list, didn't see 'em! Sure they're fantastic! Will get around to them in time.

In the meantime, what I did see from this past year was pretty darn awesome:

1. Toy Story 3



An existentialist children's film with shockingly well wrought symbolism and metaphor. 'Nuff said! (Chris said it best anyhow!)

2. A Prophet



Jacques Audiard's stunning treatise on the function of prison in creating hardened criminals. Full review here.

3. The Secret in their Eyes



A tremendously graceful fluidity between past and present marks this Argentinian film about a retired legal counsel's pursuit of a long-unresolved murder investigation. The stylization of this film brings viewers quite unawares to its chillingly conceived resolution. Sadly, I only wrote my review for this film in my head, but I'm sure a couple of the reviews here aren't entirely brain-numbing!

4. My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?



A lifetime's narratives are condensed in this latest work by Werner Herzog. Full review here.

5. Exit Through the Gift Shop



This documentary follows the man whose compulsion for filming brought him to the world of street art, and Banksy. Or is this film at all what it seems? Full review here.

6. Inception



I gripe a lot about suspension of disbelief being key for my enjoyment of film. Well, Nolan masterfully handles a concept of immense fantasy in a gripping and detail-oriented manner. It doesn't matter that you know where this film is going to take you. It matters that this film makes you more aware of the devices at work in story-formation throughout all contemporary film. Sadly, I didn't get around to reviewing this film at the time, but the internet is abuzz with people still trying to "make sense" of the piece. (Hint: It doesn't need to be analysed to be enjoyed, so if you don't "get" it, you're fine. Relax already.)

7. True Grit



Everything I didn't like about A Serious Man--the intelligently wrought scenes pushing towards an overwrought argument for the absurdity of trying to find meaning in our lives--was honed to a point in this startlingly self-aware western. Again the Coen Brothers prove to be experts, too, at literary adaptation. I don't have the most accessible of reviews for this piece, because it immediately set off the literary critic in me, but I do have a review of sorts here, if you don't mind the academic tone.

8. The Kids Are All Right



This film, following a lesbian couple as their full-grown children seek to reconnect with their biological father, is an eminently familiar "dramedy" with a few expert twists on age-old genre crises. Full, nit-picking review here.

9. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World



Our abiding desire to find what is good in life amid the hyperbole of modern technology finds a beautiful home in this graphic novel adaptation (set explicitly in Toronto!) about a meek band member and videogame geek who suddenly has to defeat seven evil ex-boyfriends. Playful, sweet, and self-effacing, this film is eminently re-watchable. In fact, I was too busy re-watching it to review it. Sorry!

10. Restrepo



Documenting a combat scenario in which we are currently embroiled is never an easy task, but this effort is impressive. Its approach to foregrounding footage of a year with one platoon stationed on Afghanistan's deadliest front line cannot fail to sober viewers as much as it informs them of the complexities of this unending, unjustified, and un-winnable war. I didn't even know where to begin with a review for this piece, so let me just emphasize that this is a hard, but essential film to watch.

YOUR TURN, FOLKS! What did you watch and enjoy most from 2010?