Resident Evil : Avon Calling

Whilst inbetween watching Rush Hour on channel 5 the other night, I had the delight of seeing a few adverts. As you are probably aware, I loathe television adverts and each time I see one that makes me want to suck my soul out from my loins, I loose a little bit of faith that there is a god. But now and again an advert hits a chord, or something has to be said/done about the advert in question. This brings me to the following:

Avon is a company that has been going for years and years and years. I know a couple of people who are actually Avon reps, and I've always seen it as a harmless money grabbing scheme. I've never seen them represented through TV advertisements though, so straight away my attention was grabbed like a schoolboy on holiday.

But before I continue with Avon, I need to let you know about another company... Umbrella.

The Umbrella Corporation, until recently in Resident Evil mythology, was a company that made various different things, from make-up to bio-weapons that created zombies!

N0w, Umbrella was closed down by the american government after a breakout of the T-Virus in "Racoon City" and I assumed the nightmare would have ended there. However, it seems that like when Woolworths went into Administration and started selling stuff off, so did Umbrella.

It seems that Avon, not content with slowly draining the money from housewives limp hands, have decided to step up their quest for global consumer domination and have bought from Umbrella, vast ammounts of biological weaponry that they intend on distributing to the general populace!

Is it just me or do the two products look pretty much identical? Next time you see an Avon rep, get out your handgun and aim for the head.

Left: Avon, Right: T-Virus

The begining of the end

My faithful blind, deaf, dumb and parapalegic manservant Manfred, who I bought off of an old chinese couple on my latest trip to Afghanistan, came up to me this morning with a newspaper.

I was shocked at first that he had managed to get out of the cage I keep him in, but my eyes were drawn to the attention of the newspaper in question. I read the paper and was shocked at the state of the world in general, and decided there and then that something had to change before things could get better. I thanked Manfred for this inspiration in the only way he understood, by beating him round the head with the newspaper.

So, I am intending to take over the world... sorry, I mean "unite" the world, under my leadership I believe that the world will be a better place, where children can run in the streets without fearing obesity, where the only kind of reality tv would be documentaries on how great the current world leader is and a world where Starburst is called Opal Fruits like they're meant to be.

But I can't do it alone, that's why I will be seeking out help in the form of my friends and close relatives in hopes that they can aid me... and if they can't, then I'll have to kil... reason with them... right, off I go to formulate a plan.

Cadbury's World - yum

If you were to look up on google "worlds worst ride" the top hit you would get would be a youtube video, for a pirate themed ride (I think it's a drayton manor one but I'm probably wrong as always) however, I would say that the worlds worst ride is in bournville.

I'm not talking about Mrs. Crockett, from number 42, although she's not great, she's still a better ride than any of the Alton Towers abortions that they've hidden away in Cadbury's world.

Firstly, let me tell you how dissapointed I was when I went to Cadbury's world in Bournville. I'm sure I'm not the only person who ever watched/read Charlie and the chocolate factory, and was suprised to find the reality of the Chocolate tour to be utterly boring.

It starts off ok, you're handed a few chocolates in a clear plastic bag and sent off into an aztec themed area that I think they stole off of the set of The Crystal Maze, either that or Ed Tudor Pole sold it to them for "crack" money after it went tits up.

But after reading a couple of plaques you realise that there will be chocolate river, there will be no special testing room, and no umpa-lumpas... my heart jumped at one point when I saw one, but it turned out that infact it wasn't an umpa-lumpa, the person in question happened to be mentally handicapped. Gutted. You realise, this isn't a fun fact finding mission to Alderan, it's a musem tour.

This is cemented when you go into one of the "attractions" of the tour which is where you're sat down in a kind of theatre, and have to listen to the waffling on of the Cadbury brothers who set up the business... I don't think it's actually the real cadbury brothers, but just some recorded actors portraying them.

Now and again the seats kinda move, probably trying to keep the kids from falling asleep, or to stop people falling into some kind of coma. At one point I saw a kid from a school try and make a break for it, but the doors were locked from the outside. It wasn't until I'd been to Cadbury's World, till I truly knew what it must have felt like to be in a concentration camp at shower time. I was about to use the plastic bag that the chocolate came in, to put my loved ones out of their misery, when the doors opened. I was so relieved when the doors opened and we were let out, that I'm sure a little bit of wee came out.

So then after walking through a different "zone" and going up what seem like eight flight of stairs, you get to the CADABRA ride. A ride that I believe is the worst ride ever made. It's like what I imagine Purgatory to be like.

You are sealed into a car with another victim, and then the ride begins. A music track that sounds like something Disney shat out, then beat to death due to it being evil, is played aloud whilst the bean car you are in is dragged along a rail round a "magical" cadbury's fairytale land. You get to see all your (favourite?) cadbury's characters like the downsyndromed cadbury's mini egg parrot and the STD ridden Caramel Rabbit.

The thing that baffels me the most, is they take your picture on the way round. Why? So they can see how bored you are? I have the unfortunate confession to make that I've been to Cadbury's world several times through circumstances beyond my control, and everytime I go on this ride to see if they've made it bearable... and no they haven't. But whenever I go on the ride I wait for the picture to be taken and try to look either overly excited, scared shitless or asleep.

This man refused to go on the ride, so they broke his legs!

THAT my friends is the worlds worst ride.

Cadbury's world in general is boring, tiring and dissapointing. Plus, at the start they make it look interesting with themed areas (Aztec, Victorian era ) but before you realise you're walking down white corridors that seem to be made out of some kind of paint that has a chemical property designed to suck the fun out of anything. I wanted to test the paint so I held up a copy of a joke book I had on me, and it turned it into the daily mail! The front end of cadbury's world looks great, but before you know it you're walking down sterile corridors and watching tv, it's like being in hospital without the free drugs and busty nurses.

All that for a tenner!

The amazing dissapearing Adam

Well, once again I dissapeared off of the face of the interweb, and did any of you care? No. I didn't get one single search and rescue party come look for me.

You see after I'd finished my previous status update in March, I was knocked unconcious by persons unknown, and when I woke up I was in a bathtub full of ice completly naked apart from a post-it note attached to my forehead "Thanx for your kidneys!"

You'd be suprised how many times this happens to me, so once again I had to track down my kidneys and seek retribution. (That's the last time I trust a chinese escort service!!)

But that's another story for another time, I'm back and will be giving you my opinion on current events, spinning you random yarns and of course showing my frustration with regards to film plots, adverts and government initatives.

More Films

After waking up in someone else's house covered in blood, I came up with the idea for a second Magic Bean Man movie, hopefully it'll have the same kinda "this could actually be a weird dream I'm having" feel to it. Oh, and this weekend we'll be finishing off the touches to the next/previous dark spirit movie which will be on my Youtube channel!

I'll keep you posted with post-its.

Oh and I know I keep saying this, but... Zombie Survival will be up soon!!!

Wanted: A non-predictable twist/villain

Before I begin, I must warn you that if you haven't seen the film WANTED, or it's on your "love film" rental list, do not continue reading this post. Instead, go out into your garden, dig a hole and plant a tree, the extra oxygen that it will create could save your life one day...


SPOILERS abound, ye hav been warned!

This film drew me in to it's world of superpowered assassins from the offset, it was funny, very stylish and pumping with adrenalin. The main character, an office drone who's live in girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend, was a character who just kept his head down and didn't rock the boat. Then he's discovered by "The Fraternity" and is trained (via montage) to use his hidden abilities. It's that old story that's been told a million times, but it was enjoyable enough.

Then Morgan Freeman, the honest reliable guy that he is, who is in charge of the Fraternity, shows the main guy how they choose their targets...

and this is where the film lost me. This is the point where the whole thing went from bordeline to full shit a brick crazy.

You see, the top group of assassins get their orders from a hidden language (which also happens to be binary) that is hidden in the (cloth?) of a weaving machine, that is constantly weaving.

Apparantly, x thousand years ago, a group of weavers got together, and somehow noticed binary in their weaving machine, deciphered it and then decided somehow that Fate was telling them that the name of whoever was deciphered was wanted dead. Riiight... so you're telling me that a bunch of fabric making loonies one day found imperfections in their (tapestry?) and decided to go kill whoever it was whose name happened to be in this hidden language they made up? How the hell did they get their superpowers from, pricking their fingers on needles?

It's not a bad film, infact the action sequences and the style are pretty top notch, however it also became predictable. For instance, I guessed pretty early on that the main target that had apparantly killed the main guy's father didn't kill his father because HE was his father! Yes, they went there, they did a Darth Vader.

Then, suprise suprise, Morgan Freeman turned out to be the villain of the piece. Now, I'd also like to point out that as soon as they told you that he was the person who dechiphered the binary language, then I knew he was a villain... My long suffering lady friend however, didn't guess he was the baddy.

Then that got me thinking, did they choose Morgan Freeman because you wouldn't suspect that he was a villain? I know that Morgan Freeman has played a villain in the past, however, he has a certain ammount of credibility. He's someone you'd usually trust, he's played the President of America, Robin Hood's islamic buddy and of course, God.
If it had have been Samuel L Jackson, you may have had suspicions, mainly because he's a badass, oppose to Freeman who is a fatherly figure.

Then my brain started to think about who they could have got that (due to my years of cinical film watching) I wouldn't suspect. What actors would I have an Empire Strikes Back "Holy crap Vader's his dad!" moment of suprise with?

Then it hit me, Tom Hanks.

Tom Hanks cleaning his toilet out after a vindaloo

Tom Hanks I then went on to realise has NEVER played a villain! He's the most credible actor in america and maybe that's because he's never crossed the line. I may be wrong, but I couldn't think of a single instance where on film he has done anything remotley evil... unless you were a nazi and watched Saving Private Ryan, then he'd be the villain, or saw Polar Express as Tom Hanks was abducting kids in his Paedo train. He was in road to perdition where I think he played a gangster and was a little gritty, but you still liked the guy.

So why hasn't Tom (cus I'm on a first name basis with him now) done an evil role? Usually I try to pry deeper, pondering if he really is as squeaky clean as you'd think he is, however on this occassion, I dare not. There are too many Hank-Lovers in this world, and he is an American Treasure, so I'll leave him to it... for now. But who knows what really is going on with Mr. Gump?

????

I know I know, I've not updated in a while, I'd just like to apologise for that, but I've been having a hectic couple of weeks, what with the new government initiative hunting me down...

Bit of advice, when you fill out a census form, don't put Jedi as your religion, apparantly the Sith that controls our small Island takes it seriously.

Will be back soon to conclude the (thrilling?) zombie survival section and to share some more thoughts from my over-evaluative brain.