Just trialling a new banner I just threw together - my complete lack of design skills are more apparent every minute. It'll stand for awhile till I sort something more permanent out.
Big shifts on the book happening at the moment - seems being away from that evil little soul-sucking hostel in Exeter and being in ANOTHER evil little hostel in London is doing wonders for my productivity. Looking forward to shifting back into the Astor hostel in Hyde park Saturday. The place I'm in at the moment was all that was available Thursday and Friday night, and it's horrendous - no wireless in the rooms, patchy wireless downstairs (but no powerpoints), rude staff, full of obnoxious french tour groups, nasty showers, nasty rooms..... the list goes on. I've actually snuck back into the Astor to sit in their lounge, recharge the laptop and sponge some wireless to type this out - and escape that other dump.
More appealing than the Foreign Legion Headquarters I'm staying in at the moment
I'll be living in the wild for another 2 months now, since the Royal Marines aren't going to start training me till October 19th. In the mean time I'm going to try and annoy the delightful Miss Campbell on her week off this week (provided she doesn't pike out AGAIN), visit some old acquaintances from the living in the Middle East, head up to the Edinburgh Fringe festival to see with some of the gangfrom thePerth comedy scene and some of the other acts up there - scored a free room anytime I'm in Edinburgh from one of the guys I did the PRMC with, so I won't have to sell a kidney to stay there during the festival.
Also been hitting the "101 things to do before you die" list pretty hard (sitting on 40 completed at the moment), so all good news from there. They're mostly going in the book now, so don't expect any of that kind of stuff to pop-up anymore (other than the odd progress update). Got my list of editors together to pour over my drafts when they're ready, so great progress all round. Part of me wants to keep going hammer and tong, the other wants to stop and take stock of the chaos of the last month.
Fuck it, I've got 2 months to go - I'll just take it as it comes.
So, I’m back in London again – I use that term loosely because Greenwich is hardly London. Feels like it’s closer to fucking Paris after having to get out here.
Whatever, I’m drunk.
And for some reason firefox at this stupid internet cafe has caught super-Aids and refuses to open java script, so I have to type this into word instead of directly into blogspot - which also, subsequently, has caught super-AIDs & Giraffe flu because it’s formatting is fucked. That’s right blogspot, you heard me – you’re formatting is fucked. I try and post a video of Rhino the hamster tearing more ballsacks than Germaine Greer, and you can’t even expand the formatting to fit it.
PHILLEEEEEP! I EXPWECT THIS SITUATION TO BE RECTOFIED!
(I told you I’d been drinking. People say I’m no fun when I’m sober - they just haven’t met me on Bundy)
Anywho where have I been, what have I been doing you may be asking? Actually, I doubt ANY of you are asking that cau.... oooooh I haven’t checked facebook! Be right back... OK, cool I’m back. Where was I. Right, no one really reads this (although you’re all bound to spring out of the fucking woodwork now I’ve said that.... pfffft.
BUT HEY! I ENJOY WRITING IT SO SUCK MY SUGAR-COATED GINGER BALLS
Okay, the situation is this: I’ve just finished the Potential Royal Marine Commando course (the PRMC) where you basically get butt-fucked by big men with green berets for 4 days. It’s..... goddamit Silversun Pickups are playing in Vancouver like a month after I leave, I’m gonna go drown a puppy. Sorry – the PRMC is supposed to be a chance to see what training to become a royal marine is like, and for the training staff to assess you’re fitness and determination. Fitness is a big one – there’s a basic need for a high level of fitness obviously (at 32 weeks long it’s the longest and arguably the hardest infantry training course in the world), but more than that is a pig-headed determination to push on regardless of what they throw at you.
In a nutshell the first of the two testing days is to see if you’re fit enough, and the second day tests to see if you’ve got the balls to push through when the pain sets in. I blitzed through the first day, scoring consistently in the top 20 of 60 guys in everything they threw at us – 3 mile run, push ups, sit ups, chin ups, beep test, everything. Second day started off with jumping out of a 50 foot tower and using a short length of rope to slide down the main rope at a million mile an hour – fucking awesome. From there it was onto the obstacle course: charging over water traps, swinging on monkey bars and climbing 12 foot walls, ect.
Jesus I’m sobering up already – need to hurry and post this before more sweet, sweet alcamahol As soon as we finished the obs course, it was time for the determination test – with wet boots, heavy jackets and pants, and rooted from the obs course it started. It began with push ups, sit ups and burpies. Then they started us running up and down hills. Then more pushies, sits and purpies, Then through the water under the monkey bars. Then more runs up the hills. Then more pushies/sits/burpies – you get the idea.
I was rooted, but I certainly wasn’t pissing and moaning like some of these pommie fucks – I’ve never heard a grown man cry for his mum before, it was genuinely embarrassing. If we’d gone on for a few hours, I might have understood but this was 20 mins into it. About 30 mins into the determination test, they decided we needed to pair up with people of equal size (being a pygmy I wound up with someone 6 inches taller and 10kg heavier), and drag them on our backs for a hundred meters. Once one got to the end, we swapped over and the other dragged them back. THAT was fucking tough work – you could feel the legs burning and couldn’t breathe. But the second drag was with the dragger walking backwards and their arms under the other’s armpits. Pure pain. It was halfway through that I asked myself if I really wanted to do this. When the answer came back that I wasn’t going to let these limey English fucks beat me after I’d traveled so far to to do this, I knew I had everything I needed to finish it off. We finished the drags and it was all over - we'd passed.
I’ve hiked the tallest free-standing mountain in the world and reached the summit in -56 degrees, climbing a 45 degree hill (you could reach out and touch the snow standing upright) with a foot of slippery snow under foot in a fucking blizzard. I’ve dived in pitch black water to nearly 90m, breathing mix gases that would kill you in an instant at the wrong depth. But until that second drag I’ve never questioned whether I could do something before - whether it's all just too hard. It’s a hell of a feeling to be forced to ask that question, and come back not just with the answer of “Yes I can” but “Yes I fucking will do it, and I’m going to do it faster than the moaning bitch next to me”.
May have gotten a little angry with myself for thinking of quitting...
There wasn’t so much excitement as contentment when they handed me my pass certificate this morning – I knew I’d passed the moment I decided to drag that weak willed momma’s boy across the line the day before (he started saying he couldn’t do it at one point – I started screaming in his ear that if a ginger Oompa Loompa could drag him there, he could find some fucking balls to drag me back). For some of the guys it was their second time around, having failed the PRMC previously and sent away for 9 months to train up. Some others got through but will never make it through the 32 weeks – totally the wrong attitude. But at this stage it’s just a test of whether you’re fit and determined enough, and they were.
------------- The Next Day ------------- Okay so yesterday was pretty wild.
The PRMC went half a day longer than I was expecting, so I had a mad dash from the train to the hostel in Exeter to pick up the rest of my gear, charged into the local recruiting office to tell them I'd passed and ask when could I start training, and try and make another train to London all within 30mins. Obviously missed the train, and had to buy another at an absurd price. Add to that my phone dying and being unable to let Cian know what was going on, my hostel being in the distant colonial outpost of Greenwich, not knowing WHERE my hostel was once I was in Greenwich, and carrying more than my body weight in backpacks - the first celebratory drink was looking better every moment.
Finally got settled into the hostel, had a well earnt shower, had a Bundy and coke, and called Cian - to have the piker pike-out on mucho drinkys with me. In her defense though she had been "working" all day in an "office" and was "tired"; whereas I'd only been sleep deprived and tested to my absolute physical and mental limit for 4 days straight.
Little Miss Pike-Alot : "Hmmmm, do I go out and drink with Red or do I stay at home like an old nanna? Well I DO have alot of knitting to do"
So I started drinking in the bar below the hostel, and had some random Canadian chick drag me to where all the stragglers were drinking together. Cut a long story short: I got obscenely drunk with a guy from the old home town, chatted up this stunning American, but then somehow wound up passed out in the hostel's common area with no pants on - which is where the bar staff found me. And so far today I've had a late breakfast, went for a short walk that ended with me nearly throwing up said breakfast, and have been recovering and trying to type the last of this in the comfort of the common area's air con.
I fly to Vancouver on Tuesday for Boeta's last week there - he's pulling the pin after his plans went rather askew. Hopefully he'll go back when he's got some more money and things are more stable for him, but we're going to destroy Vancouver before he leaves. Going to tick a bunch of things off the 101 things list while we're there too, and hopefully leave all the women of that fine city emotionally scarred. It'll be freaking awesome.
NEWS JUST IN
Just got on Triple J back in the land of Oz, with the dreamy Paul Verhoeven on the phones and the Yeti-like Dave Callan in the studio, talking about my distinct lack of pants when the bar staff found me passed out in the common room last night. Also had them refer to me as "The Mighty Ginge" on air, rather than give my real name. Ended a little awkward though - I ran out of credit halfway through the call and got cut off.
So I've been in ye olde Devon for just over 2 weeks now, and I thought it high time to give the rest of you uncultured heathens a taste of life in the old country.
The Good Straight out the greatest thing about the UK is that every day seems to be "Tits Out Tuesday". What other first-world country has several high-distribution national newspapers that feature the likes of Lucy Pinder and Michelle Marsh cuddling topless staring you in the face as soon as you open the front page? And what the fuck are they feeding these women? The average nork here is GARGANTUAN.
Lucy Pinder - Relative under-achiever in the UK mammary stakes
The Monday I arrived in Exeter was sunny, warm and mind-blowing. The walk from the St David's rail-station was like a magical stroll through an erotic jelly factory – there were jiggly bits as far as the eye could see. I started getting really excited, thinking the UK might be so progressive that they celebrate Tits-Out Tuesdays a day early – turns out it was just a warm up, because Tuesday was a whole other league again. By Wednesday, I honestly started expecting to start seeing topless Valkyrie wearing white-flowing skirts riding around on fucking unicorns, because I'd clearly died in a train wreck on the way here and had instead arrived in Valhalla.
Unfortunately the valkyries never eventuated, and the norkage has died off a little after a few rainy days – seems limey fun-bags are fair weather fighters. But whenever the sun comes out for more than a few hours, so do the weapons of mass destruction. And we're not talking flabby jubblys either. Sure, a lot of the more boob-alicious girls are a little “cuddly” too, but given the number of bicycle and foot paths around, plus the restrictive traffic control - the general rule is growth hormone-induced super boobs (thank god they force feed battery hens steroids) on quite athletic women.
I'm going to destroy this town once my marines application process finishes
The Bad The one risk living here in Exeter though (besides suffocating under a breast of a Page 3 model) is the prevalence of jail-bait. Since the average hooter here is big enough to be used as a three-seater couch, it's impossible to tell if a girl is only 15 or she's brought shame to her family for only being endowed with double-D's. Combined with my complete inability to judge people's ages and I'm having to be especially careful. Even so, I was very nearly trapped in my first week here. Started chatting up an absolutely stunning girl at the recruiting office here when we'd both headed in to do our aptitude test. Got talking about what we were both applying for, what she was doing for work, where I was staying; all the while flirting horrendously.
And then the comment "When I finished school last year..." came out. She's was 17
Now I knew ALOT of girls from high school that regularly went out with guys who were 6 years older than them. Hell, I knew alot of girls who went out with guys who were 10 years older than them. But I vowed back in school to never to be one of those guys. Partly because it destroyed any chance I had in school with the girls myself, but mostly because 17 is 3 years younger than my sister and that makes it fucking creepy.
The Ugly It led to an interesting indication of the guys of Exeter though - or maybe just of the weirdos staying in this hostel. When I told them about hot underage recruiting girl, their collective reaction was "Awesome dude, did you get her number?" and "If there's grass on the wicket!". Very creepy. It's been a real struggle to write ANYTHING with these assholes hanging around too. Since I've been here blogging, emailing, book writing, anything, has become nigh on impossible because every one of these failed human beings seems hell-bent on stopping me (or any other member of society) from contributing anything to the rest of the species. I've automatically become the most interesting person here because I'm trying to work on my laptop. The moment I sit down to write something, some troglodyte is hanging around to;
Find out what I'm doing,
Stop me from doing it,
Read what I've written over my shoulder,
Tell me some inane story about them abusing a council worker,
Piss and moan about the hostel owner, or
Have the hostel owner tell me to go outside and get some exercise
Initially I thought listening to music might have stopped some of the conversation, but buying massive headphones and wearing them all the time doesn't seem to have done shit - suddenly everyone thinks you're "rude" because you're not answering along to another one of their bullshit stories about molesting a farm animal. No no, they still talk to me when I'm typing, wearing headphones and staring at a screen - they just think I'm ignoring them (which incidentally is true).
What part of "leave me alone" are you not getting here?
Oh and of course because I'm here to join the Royal Marines, every one of these flabby white poms suddenly either has decades of operational military experience or are a hardened gangster. I never realised a quiet little hostel in some backwater of the English country-side could be the central meeting place for every former Ranger, Commando, SBS, SAS, Recce and modern-day Al Capones that's ever existed. The funniest thing is though, none of them are travellers. None of them are on a world-trip, meeting new and exciting people, seeing the world. Instead these guys are mid/late 30 local dole-bludgers who are staying in a hostel because it's cheaper than renting. I thought I was being weird for staying in a hostel for a month during my application. One of them (the "ex-Ranger" who loves telling me he was involved in the real "Black Hawk Down" over and over and over again) has been staying here for over 18months now - he's a "rock band photographer" now (read: groupie with a camera).
Andy Warhol - A monumental asshole, even during a firefight
Since I've been here, we've had just 2 other "travellers" come through - a pair of lovely Canadian girls on a working holiday who I chatted to quite abit. But they only stayed for a night then moved on. Which strangely enough is what people in hostels do. They were fun, but eventually I'd love to meet some other actual backpackers in this backpacker hostel.
The Conclusion Quite simply, the south-west of England is full of over-sized breasts on bicycles, under-age supermodels and neanderthals. I don't know whether to cup my balls, punch them or marvel at their staggering relative size.
Given that on the monumental Perth-Dubai flight (aka Logan's Run 2: Escape from Perthawitchz);
The sound crapped out on the entertainment system while I was watching "Bolt",
The flight attendants on board refused to admit there was anything wrong with it for an hour, and even when it was restarted the silence was just replaced with static, and
I have the attention span of a 4-year old at the best of times, made considerably worse by being jacked up on enough caffeine to kill a racehorse
I ended up reviewing not just Bolt, but every film playing on that god-forsaken 10hr flight in complete silence. And since I didn't watch many of them for more than about 30 seconds, that's the extent of the review for each. Enjoy
Frost Vs. Nixon First thing I flicked to after cracking the shits with Bolt. Only recognised it because I've been wanting to see it and knew the actors. However after 30 seconds I was just left with the impression it was about two grown men sitting around discussing how Nixon used to drown kittens.
Frost: Mr President there have been unconfirmed rumors that after the breaking of the Watergate scandal, you began drowning kittens in the Oval office to help relieve the stress - any comment?
Nixon: Yes I drowned kittens, it was a wonderful release to hold their adorable little heads under water, watching the life slowly drain from their eyes. Sometimes I'd let them get a breath, just so I could hear them scream.
Frost: Awkward. You realise of course that this will outrage animal rights groups all over the world, and is undoubtedly illegal?
Nixon: When the President does it, that means it's not illegal! People should be drowning kittens everywhere!
Frost: .....I'm sorry?
Valkyrie Wound up watching this again on a later flight, but I could have saved my time since my initial silent assessment was surprisingly accurate - 120 minutes of sub-par Nazis sucking so much at being Nazis they either killed themselves or got lined up against a wall and shot. Also, it appears Tom Cruise has sucked so much cock so hard, his left eye has imploded.
$10 for a gobby, $50 for bareback no kissing
Confessions of a Shopaholic The crazy ranga bitch from "Wedding Crashers" (the one Vince Vaughn couldn't get rid of) gets her own movie - only this time she plays a delusionalcrazy ranga bitch that runs around tripping balls and imagining that mannequins are convincing her to buy more bullshit clothing. This whole thing offends me on a range of different levels - not just because she feeds the "all hot gingers are meth users" stereotype, but because it tries to legitimises shopping addiction.
If you think you're addicted to shopping for the sake of shopping, trust me when I say you don't have an addicition.
You're just a moron
The snow leopard you skinned for that had a family, bitch
Bride Wars Anne Hathaway can make most things pretty watchable, but this looked particularly shithouse - almost as if Kate Hudson wrote a film she then starred in.
Oh wait, that's exactly what this is.
Marley and Me Over-grown, rude-headed beefcake wags it's tail and knocks shit over for 2 hours. Jennifer Aniston and a Golden Retriever also feature.
Owen Wilson recalling the taste of dog shit
Mrs Doubtfire Finally got to the Emirates "Movie Classics" channel, only to find it was showing a "classic" case of Robin Williams being boringly family-friendly. I thought Mrs Doubtfire was funny as hell when I was 8; now watching a man having to change quickly back and forward between being an old Scots woman and a homeless guy (sorry, "out of work voice actor") 15 times in 15 minutes gets old very quickly.
Brendan Fraser in "Something so mediocre it should have gone direct to DVD" Exactly what it says on the label
Transporter 3 Since any film Jason Statham stars in is about as dialogue intensive as a car ride to an abortion clinic, I was pretty sure the lack of sound wouldn't detract from the cinematic experience. Then I realised I was watching a Jason Statham film, and that there was nothing to detract from in the first place.
The only actor with less expression than Keenu "What if I can't, what if I fail" Reeves
This film was made even worse by the fact that when I flicked over to it, some scraggy-looking skank was making Statham strip really awkwardly while she remained painfully clothed. Since these films are generally aimed at adolescent boys who are still checking for their first pube, I rightly assumed that any scene involving a bloke stripping would be a precursor to a particularly awesome sex scene, made even better by not having to hear "Bald and Surly" grunting while he bent Miss Venereal over the BMW's bonnet.
Of course that would have helped relieve the frustration of using an entertainment system with no sound, and Emirates wasn't going to allow that. Instead, I patiently endured 5 full minutes of male stripping, only for it to cut straight to the only downside to sex - cuddling afterwards.
Cuddling and cats drove Nixon to Oval-office psychosis
So in conclusion, make sure your mp3 player is fully charged and your headphones working before you board an inter-continental flight. Otherwise you'll wind up imagining dialogue for a political history film head that involves euthanising family pets.
About mid last year I was sitting in a cinema with my girlfriend at the time - enduring the monumentally poor advertising CineAds forces on movie-goers in Perth, waiting for the film to start (clearly the feature left a lasting inpression on me given I don't even remember what we saw). However, once the static image of two dipshits cuddling to the accompanied voice-over (by a guy who sounded like he was recovering from having just been hit in the face with a shovel) advertising some cut-price funeral home was finished, I witnessed something so fantastically awesome I had dip my balls in liquid nitrogen to prevent a cataclysmic nad implosion.
WARNING: The movie trailer below should not be watched by anyone who –
Has a heart-condition or pace-maker,
Willingly watches “Packed to the Rafters”,
Spends more than 5 minutes in the shower and uses conditioner (Unless it's because they're having a wank ofcourse, in which case FAP FOR GREAT JUSTICE!),
Doesn't believe Commando-trained hamsters could be an effective weapon against the Taliban
And with that out of the way – Ladies, Gentlemen and Hamsters, I give you the movie trailer of the the millenia.
Now that you're mind has been sufficiently by Bolt's life-altering trailer, I will attempt to review this cinemagraphic masterpiece.
Context ******** Before we get into the guts of the review, the one thing Mighty Ginge movie reviews always have, besides spoilers, is context – this one's context is a story in itself.
Rewind to 3 days before I actually saw it – last Friday was completely consumed doing the last of my packing and getting my house ready for my send-off party. I was running around moving furniture, eskys, firewood and digging trenches for the old man. Needless to say, when 5:30pm finally rolled around I was already rooted. Then the drinking started – Kiran was the first to rock up around 7pm and I was already plastered when he did. More people trickled in, and we finally finished up around 3:30am.
Most people would sleep in, but since Mum was heading away for the weekend it was my last chance to see her before I left, I was back up at 8am (4.5 hrs total sleep in 24hrs). More packing and more last minute errands, and then gorgeous high school/metal chick (henceforth “GHS/M Chick” for short) calls me up to appologise for not seeing me at the send off, and whether I'd like to come out to see a band and each other before I left. And while the band didn't happen, I did drink 3 cans of Mother (that's a 1.5L) on an empty stomach, and didn't leave GHS/M chick's mate's place till 2am. Race home for the very last of the packing, and at 3am decide to lay on my bed for “just 15mins” before Dad was to wake me at 3:15am.
When I woke at 4:30am (6hrs total sleep in 44.5 hrs) we both shat our pants, dumped everything in the back of the ute and flew to the airport. And I say "sleep", because it was more like shivering unconciously while my liver started shutting down from the Mother. Luckily the flight was near empty so there were no lines when we got to the airport. After clumsily checking-in, saying goodbye to Dad, then shivering and hallucinating my way through security because I had 3 times the recommended maximum daily intake of caffeine, taurine and guarana in my system (I was sweating and freaking out enough to get a explosives swipe test and a full bag search); I managed to board on-time and the plane flew out.
And once the flight was settled in and seat-belt signs came off, around 7am Sunday morning, that's when they decided to start Bolt.
So in short: I watched and reviewed a Disney film that features a delusional talking dog with John Travolta's voice, and a psychopathic hamster with a taste for adventure; all after I'd had no more than 6 hours sleep in the previous 47, and was hallucinating to the point where I thought I could taste the colour purple from drinking enough energy drinks to re-animate Stan Zemank.
It was truly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life
Review ******* First up, the character Bolt in the first hour of this IS a total badass. This film has more slow-mo in it than 300, just so you can actually see his badassery in action. He stomps on random hencemen, blows up helicopters and kills fucking EVERYBODY. Also, he has a black lightning bolt in his fur.
A BLACK MOTHERFUCKING LIGHTNING BOLT
And even once he's off the show and into real-life he's still a badass, just no longer a super-powered badass. He literally headbutts himself retarded on a steel locker trying to escape; he swings onto a moving train from a bridge; at one point he holds the cat over a freeway till she tells him what he needs, another he knocks out the whinging cat then drags her unconcious body around like he's some kind of canine Sam Fisher. Paticularly the 10 minutes right after Bolt arrives in New York, which is essentially 10 minutes of Bolt running into fences, he's a total badass. Some might descibe Bolt in the first hour as “the boss”. Other's might say he's “totally sweet” - it's hard to say who's right.
That's a live mine Bolt's running with there - he jumps over the chopper and sticks it to the roof.... seriously
Unfortunately though, this is a Disney film and hence has to be fucked up by the weakening of the characters to fit Mickey Mouse's bullshit “feel good/happy endings/family friendly” horseshit. After the first hour of badassery, Bolt suddenly turns into a whinging pansy, pissing and moaning about how hard it all is, sooking after his owner Penny, and generally being a fucking sad-sack. He winds up being the only emo I've ever seen who a) wears a white sweater, and b) has it permanently attached to his skin. Plus he develops this look which is errily similar to what one of my uncles permanently has plastered on his face – constant bewilderment, with just a hint of retardation. And as with everyone that suffers mild retardation, he lives out the rest of his now boring life with his family and friends.
Very disappointing character development.
His owner and TV show co-star, Penny, has an equally good start, only to fall victim to becoming a minor character when she's convinced to let Bolt go and move on. Now I don't want to say anything I'll regret here, so I'll simply say that Penny is the finest piece of animated jail-bait I have ever laid eyes on.
I will make Miley Cyrus my whore, just so I can shut my eyes and pretend it's Penny
Other potentially great characters (although none as tasty as Penny) that get the minor character treatment from Disney include: the New York pidgeon that's dropping feathers and looks like a long-time methamphetamine user; Penny's manager who after a hollow attempt to comfort her over the losing Bolt, tells her “I bet Bolt would want you to do the Tonight show interview”; the fantastically sarcastic cat that's also in the TV show that mind-fucks with Bolt through the sunroof of Bolt's trailer; and ofcourse - Rhino the hamster.
500 grams of pure psychosis
Oh Rhino – you were the reason I wet myself seeing the Bolt trailer all those months ago. The sheer concept of a psychotic hamster in a glass ball trying to kill people and cats alike is enough to give me a rather inappropriate chubby. Unfortunately, just minutes before Rhino's appearance on-screen, the Emirates entertainment system decided to have an aneurysm and lose all sound – no sound for movies, music, nothing. It wasn't my headphones or the seat I was in - it was plane wide. Unfazed though, I pushed on soundless.
Now this may come as a surprise to many of you but watching a Disney film with talking animals, while sleep deprived and tripping balls on caffeine, and then having the sound drop out is a rather interesting insight into your suppressed unconscious - you start to naturally fill in the conversation with all the depraved shit in your head. Now I obviously missed the sound to this next clip, but you wouldn't want to hear the dialogue I imagined in it's place.
And this was just unnerving
Rhino slips into stealth mode, winning the "Creepiest Hamster of All-time" award
On the whole Bolt is a Disney film. I should stop getting my hopes up that Disney will actually release an animated film that features a truly demented character that doesn't get nerfed to become family friendly - I reacted the same way when I saw the "Lilo and Stitch" too. The trailers had Stitch running around fucking up every classic animated film Disney has ever made (Aladin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King and The Little Mermaid), only to be reduced to lameness and family values in the actual film. Bolt is a good clean laugh for everybody, it's just a shame the family values side of things was shoehorned in for the last 20 mins about as subtley as Lindsay Lohan climbs out of a car.
See it for the Rhino scenes but don't expect him to actually kill anyone, even with quotes like "I'm going to beat your pancreas with your spleen" or "There's a guard, I'll snap his neck". Also, probably skip the last 10 to 15mins - you already know how it's going to end, and Bolt really is pathetic toward the end.
Overall: 3 out of 5 Ginger Teabags
Oh, and if you don't watch any of the videos above, arn't interested in Bolt, or despise Youtube in general - please, make an exception for this one video. I'm pretty sure it's impregnated me from just watching it.
More appealing than the Foreign Legion
