Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
::Today's soundtrack: The Smiths "Nowhere Fast" ::
As many people who are familiar with me can attest, I am an avid watcher of this thing called the movies. I've seen many films in my time of many different types. I've watched silent and musical, sci-fi and documentary, serious drama and slap stick comedy, black and white and colour films. I enjoy movies that make me laugh, make me cry, think, or even just allow me to turn my brain off for a few hours and enjoy the magical ride that is cinema. There are movies out there which I utterly despise to the point of getting shaky with anger at them for having been made and subsequently me having watched them. Yes, I don't like these films. I might even say I hate them and wish they were living creatures so that I may be able to kill them. However, my anger and frustration at those terrible features pales in comparison to the magnitude of the emotional onslaught of another sort of reaction. While the movies I hate are something I wish dead, there are in fact movies that make me wish that I myself were dead. You got that correctly. There are movies out there which have the uncanny ability to make me want to kill myself. Don't get me wrong: the sheer fact that a movie is capable of evoking such a reaction out of me indicates that they are very powerful films, well made, and they get their strong point across. These are good movies.... they just make me want to hang myself. Here is the list so far (Yaar thar be severe plot spoilers! Fairly warned be thee says I...):
The Bicycle Thieves. This is an old Italian movie from 1949. Post World War II Italy was was in an economic depression and there are more unemployed than there are jobs to go around. Every day an employment agent has flyers for work he hands out to a large and desperate crowd of able men and only few get selected. One day, Antonio gets a stroke of luck when he is recommended for a job pasting billboards on the sole criteria that he has a bicycle. A bicycle is vitally important in order to get around town in between the traffic and hang the signs. Antonio confesses that his bike is being repaired, but the employment agent says no bike, no job, so Antonio promises it will be fixed for tomorrow, and he gets the job. It turns out, he pawned the bike to pay for food and he tells his wife the predicament. She gets out their good, high quality bed linens (a wedding gift) and tells him to go down to the pawn broker and trade for the bicycle, hoping with a steady job they can buy the linen back one day. With the bike, he heads down to get trained by an experienced billboard paster who shows him the ropes, Antonio does a fine job and is set out on his own. On his very first solo effort, his bike gets stolen while he is on a ladder pasting. He spends the whole day trying to track down the clever thief, only to discover there is a close knit gang of thieves who send him on wild goose chases and know how to avoid getting caught by police. In the end, he never gets his bicycle back and the thieves go unfound and unpunished. Antonio has to wander home to his wife and children jobless and ashamed, with no prospects or hope for the future. What, do you mean to tell me post WWII wasn't all singin' and dancin' like MGM wanted us to believe?? It looks like American studios were putting out Technicolor extravaganzas at the time because they knew if they made starkly real and authentic pieces such as this all of America would have locked themselves in their garages with the engine running.
House of Sand and Fog. A semi-recent American made film starring such big names as Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley and it goes a little something like this (as I remember it though some of it was emotionally repressed): Jennifer Connelly's husband has walked out on her and this left her in a deep depression, the kind where she hardly leaves her bed, there are take out food cartons all over and stacks and stacks of mail. It turns out in that mail was a notice from the government stating she owed money for a business tax, and she had six months to either pay the tax or to question it, and she having done neither, is now being evicted from her family home which they are collecting as payment on the tax. Jennifer Connelly is confused and angry as the tax was in error and she doesn't know what to do, a friendly police officer offers to look after her and to help. Meanwhile, an Iranian political refugee has been working three jobs to support is wife and children and saving money looking for a good investment so he can give his daughter a good wedding, send his son to university, and work less. He finally finds Jennifer Connelly's house up for auction, which he buys for a steal with the hopes of fixing it up and reselling for a large return. However, the Iranians find themselves the victims of harassment as the friendly police officer in his zeal to help Jennifer Connelly starts to cross lines. In the end, there are a series of escalating confrontations between the Iranians and Jennifer and her officer friend, which lead to the Iranian son being shot and killed. Jennifer Connelly finally sees what's been going for what it is and relinquishes her emotional bond to the house to let the Iranians have it in peace. But, at the cost of his beloved son's life, the price may have been too high. I'm not going to tell you any more about the end of this film or else you may well kill yourself while reading this. So. This movie was rather difficult to watch because you have no idea who to root for. Both parties have a legitimate claim to the house, but neither will relent. For Jennifer Connelly, she inherited the house from her father, it's her family home and it was taken away based on an error in a government office. For the Iranians, it was the way to a better life after years of struggling to make ends meet. The outstanding acting in this film makes it somehow even more difficult to watch as the tragedy unfolds. I suggest ridding your home of all prescription medication before viewing this film lest you should fall victim to an intentional overdose in its aftermath.
Grave of the Fireflies. An animated feature film from Japan. It is the story of World War II from the point of view of two young Japanese children. Their father is enlisted to fight. Then the United States starts dropping bombs. They lose their home and their mother is hospitalized. The children stay with relatives until their mother dies, then they are kicked out. The older of the two tries to take care of the younger, but she simply has no comprehension of their circumstances. The eldest is certain their father will return, but we, the audience, know that he has been killed in service. They live like desperate urchins on the streets, stealing to survive. Then, they gradually starve to death, destitute and alone. Yeah. The thing is, the film starts out at the end, with us witnessing the older child die and then backtracks, as though the filmmakers sadistically want us to root for the kids to survive, knowing for sure that they will die slow, horrible deaths. If this doesn't make you want to blow your own brains out then you must be doing pretty good in your life up to now.
Once again, I want to say that these are great films. They are outstanding, high quality work. I am glad that I watched them, they just made me so depressed that afterwards I almost smothered myself to death with a sofa cushion because it was the only thing handy. If you have a good life and are generally a happy person, you might be able to watch these movies and live to tell about it. However, if you even have the slightest bit of sadness in you, I suggest to hold off. Oh, you can try to view them if you think you can handle it, I just want it on the record that I made the attempt to warn you about the emotional hazards hidden within. I'm thinking of proposing a Surgeon General's Warning label for these films: WARNING: VIEWING THE CONTENTS OF THIS MOTION PICTURE MAY RESULT IN SUICIDE. VIEW WITH EXTREME CAUTION. I know I wish someone had warned me that the award winning animated feature I was about to watch was going to end in the arduous deaths of two innocent children during wartime. But maybe that's just me.
William the Bloody (depressed with delight)
