This story would have ended sooooo differently...
... if it had been a Penny Arcade cartoon.
Reg hack bumps into Cockfighter
It's Friday, so we need no excuse to bring you the slightly strange tale of how this hack unexpectedly bumped into Cockfighter in a Spanish petrol station. The cover of the Spanish DVD release of Cockfighter Years back, I wrote a piece about Monte Hellman's 1974 cockfighting flick, which had to be pulled from the Edinburgh …
-
Friday 13th July 2012 15:51 GMT Mister_C
What just happened there?
I thought I'd have a look at my fave techie website to see if they'd picked up on today's Rasberry Pi video but it seems like I've stumbled into a film buff blog spiced with subtle references to "I'm sorry I haven't a clue".
Ah, its Friday. Carry on.
PS Eben just called your website simple. In a good way. As in loading / rendering.
-
-
Friday 13th July 2012 18:09 GMT Dave 126
Re: Having not seen this, the poster has made me curious...
I miss airbrushed (I do mean airbrushed, not photoshopped) movie posters of the '70s and '80s.
National Lampoon's Vacation is a favourite, though it is taking the piss out of the medium.
Check the image on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Lampoon's_Vacation
Yeah.
-
-
Friday 13th July 2012 16:36 GMT Lester Haines
Re: WTF?
As they say around here, ODFO. It's pretty arrogant to think that El Reg has to deliver just the content you're interested in. I like the Journo with a capital "J", though. Makes me feel all important and stuff... As a qualified journo, though, I can tell you it's written "you're", FYI, acronym boy.
-
-
-
-
-
Tuesday 17th July 2012 01:29 GMT Aaron Em
*Accurate* grammar pedantry
If you're going to play this game, please try to learn and follow the rules.
Correct construction with a conjoined pronoun and noun in the subject of a sentence is "[the other person] and I"; in the predicate, it's "[the other person] and me". In either case, the conjoined nouns can be swapped without losing correctness; "I and [the other person]" is also correct in the subject, as is "me and [the other person]" in the predicate. The former is often awkward, the latter rather informal, but both are just as correct as the more commonly encountered forms.
How can you tell if it's right or wrong? Remove the conjoined "other person" and see if it still sounds right. For example: Joe and I went to the game becomes I went to the game and remains grammatical, whereas Me and Joe went to the game becomes *Me went to the game, and does not. Similarly, They came along with me and Joe becomes They came along with me, which is correct, while They came along with Joe and I becomes *They came along with I, which is obviously not.
Pronoun case in English: if you understand sentence structure, it is not as hard as it looks. (Bonus marks: write a sentence containing a correct use of 'whom'. Double bonus marks: explain why it's correct.)
-
-
-
Monday 16th July 2012 16:27 GMT Aaron Em
Re: A new low for Lester
Don't you have a battery farm to be protesting or something? Believe it or not, everybody in the whole damn world doesn't care to behave like so many Boston Quakers -- nor should -- and if that truly bothers you, sir, I would strongly recommend you go to the effort of acquiring a slightly thicker skin, because expecting the whole world to satisfy your prejudices so far transcends mere hubris that I'm not even sure I know a word for it.
-
-
Friday 13th July 2012 20:45 GMT MacroRodent
Saw it at Sodankylä
Monte Hellman was a guest at the Sodankylä film festival years ago (or rather decades) and at the time I was enough of a film buff to go there. This film was naturally in the programme, as were almost all other Monte Hellman films. I must admit I don't remember much of it, the round the clock filmathon + beer was taking its toll (at the time the festival is held, just before Midsummer, the sun never sets in Sodankylä, which lies in Lapland). I dimly recall the man himself claimed (in response to an audience question) that no cocks were actually killed during filming the fight scenes: The usual steels spurs attached to cocks were replaced by rubber ones.
-
Friday 13th July 2012 22:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
We should be thankful ...
he decided to write a nice article about a film extoling violence and animal abuse .. it could have been kiddy fiddling ...
Seriously, theres a reason films like this are banned in the UK .. its because in general we find them distasteful and abhorent, along with the people who enjoy them ...
-
-
Saturday 14th July 2012 09:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: We should be thankful ...
MacroRodent is wrong. Look it up, not all the the fights were mock-ups although it wasn't down to Hellman. The producer Roger Corman wasn't happy with the film if it didn't have real cockfighting so went out and did some extra filming of real fights and also put in extra blood. Hellman himself was repulsed by the sport.
-
-
Sunday 15th July 2012 23:58 GMT Mephistro
Re: We should be thankful ... (@ AC 22:17)
" theres a reason films like this are banned in the UK .."
AFAIK cock fighting and other similar forms of animal abuse are forbidden in all of the EU, but the UK is the only place I know of where watching a film depicting them is illegal. Now, following the reasoning used to ban this kind of films, and to be coherent, they'd have to ban also any film in which murder, burglary, theft, drug abuse or any other illegal activity is depicted.
Summarizing: Your government treats you as if you were retarded, and you applaud. Great!
-
Monday 16th July 2012 10:12 GMT Lamont Cranston
Re: We should be thankful ... (@ AC 22:17)
If the comments about Roger Corman making additions to the film are correct, then surely the film is banned because it features actual cockfighting (regardless of the director's intent)? OK, the original ban may have come about because cockfighting=naughty (much like we couldn't watch Bruce Lee waving nunchucks about), but I would imagine that the ban has remained in force because what's on display is reality, not fantasy.
-
Monday 16th July 2012 11:58 GMT Mephistro
Re: We should be thankful ... (@ Lamont Cranston )
So, if the film includes documentary footage that includes real cockfighting, the film is illegal? And if said documentary footage is about a bank robbery? Prostitution? Drug abuse? No matter how you look at it, it doesn't make much sense.
This kind of censorship stinks of contempt for the citizens, as most other kinds of censorship.
-
Monday 16th July 2012 12:48 GMT Lamont Cranston
Re: We should be thankful ... (@ Lamont Cranston )
Context is everything, Mephistro. The BBFC tend to take that into account.
Of course, the film was put to the BBFC quite some time a go - who am I to say that they wouldn't pass it if it were resubmitted now?
By the same token, all my Steven Seagal DVDs (don't judge me) have been cut to ribbons - they'd more than likely pass uncut, now, but there's not much money to be made in resubmitting them, so it's not going to happen. Less "oppresive state censorship" than the whims of the market, I'm afraid.
-
-
-
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
