Five "hot" comedians

I see that, in the US magazine Punchline's list of the five UK comics worth keeping an eye on, one's Irish and one's an Aussie. So that only leaves three - Robin Ince, Janey Godley and Laura Solon.

KILLER BITCH - "Unexpectedly well-made... Resolutely trashy"

The Massachusetts-based Horrorview website - surprisingly well-informed on British culture for a US-based site - has a well-balanced review of the Killer Bitch DVD which starts:

____

“Killer Bitch” is an unexpectedly well-made but ultra low-budget (and resolutely trashy) indie gangster flick that goes miles out of its way to offend as many people as it possibly can; but unless you happen to work for a British tabloid newspaper, it is very hard to take this video-shot flick’s ridiculously cartoonish portrayal of violent working class machismo all that seriously -- despite it playing host to an insidious sexism that borders on outright misogyny at times, relying on knowing humour and a lively sense of the ridiculous in order to undercut its more unpleasant excesses.

The film is simply a deranged, hormonally pumped-up celebration of testosterone-soaked psychopathy that revels in the bloody glamour of working class criminal thuggery and yob culture in all its foul-mouthed and spittle-flecked glory. From unlicensed boxing to no-holds-barred cage fights; from club land brawling to drug-fuelled beatings and brutal gangland hits: “Killer Bitch” is literally ninety fast-paced minutes of feckless punch drunk sleaze, crammed to bursting point with little more than a succession of leery, muscle-bound ‘blokes’ waving their big guns at people and yelling outlandishly overblown threats into their faces (“I’m gonna rip yer fuckin’ teeth out and shove ’em up your fuckin’ arse! ) before pummelling seven shades of shit out of each other while various pouty, pneumatic bimbettes, culled from late-night phone-in porn channel Babestation, stand around with their fake norks out being either shouted at, shagged or shot, and sometimes all three -- but not necessarily in that order!

If you’re a sullen, pimply fourteen year-old, who’s been driven half insane by inveterate sexual frustration and incessant nocturnal emissions, then this just might be the best film you've ever seen in your life!

____

The whole, lengthy review continues on:
http://www.horrorview.com/movie-reviews/killer-bitch

Malcolm Hardee Randiest Fringe Comic Award ?

I'm almost prepared to start a Malcolm Hardee Randiest Fringe Comic Award at the Edinburgh Fringe from 2011 but I might take some persuading on who the judges would be and the title isn't quite right yet. All suggestions gratefully received.

Malcolm would most certainly have approved and the whole idea of the Malcolm Hardee Awards (2005-2017) is to keep alive the true spirit of the Fringe (and Malcolm's memory). Testosterone, unreliability and rampant egos are the basic building blocks of the Fringe.

The Fringe has got far too respectable for its own good.

The Malcolm Hardee Awards this year will be presented during Nik Coppin's late night "Shaggers" show on Friday 27th August.

Mr Methane act blown off course in Italy

Mr Methane was performing in northern Italy at the weekend, by the Lakes, and was unable to demonstrate some of the more spectacular parts of his act because of high winds.

The irony. The irony.

www.mrmethane.com

FARTING RULES AT THE BBC

Mr Methane - the world's only professionally performing flatulist - tells me that, four or five years ago, there was a "three fart rule" on BBC TV children's shows - you could have no more than three fart jokes in any children's TV show.

Is this still the case?

What has the the world come to?

Another great British tradition under attack...

Once you've had three fart jokes, what is the unacceptability of a fourth?

KILLER BITCH - There's no accounting for (bad) taste...

There have been a lot of news features on the Killer Bitch movie, sight unseen, but very few actual reviews of the full film.

First there was the GoreZone 5-star magazine review:

"This is Grand Theft Auto meets I Spit on your Grave... A violent 21st century British pantomime for the MTV generation… A middle finger in your face attitude… This is a must-see… This film is in a league of its own and has to be seen to be believed… You may read this review and think the film sounds vile, disgusting and morally depraved and you’d be wrong - you forgot to add bloody fantastic as well."

Then there was the 1-star review from the News of the World:

"This is the shoddiest excuse for a film I've seen in my life... Highlight, of course, is the Reidernator's much-vaunted sex scene, where he's channelling the passion and intensity of Beethoven (the giant St Bernard)."

Now there is the 4-star review from the AVmaniacs.com website:

"A bad taste ultraviolent black comedy, loaded with cursing, screaming, yelling and a higher body-count than even most films it could be compared to… If sunny nihilism and anti-social behaviour (not to mention blood, biceps, big boobs, and a topless midget!) with a Cockney twist floats your boat, hunt down KILLER BITCH."

If you can get a 5-star review and a 1-star review for the same movie, you know you must have done something right somewhere...

www.killerbitch.co.uk

KILLER BITCH, crime and Citizen Kane

I was talking to one of the Killer Bitch cast yesterday and (as one who knows) he came out with the legendary line: "I've got no money at the moment and xxxx xxxxxxx ain't got no money either. The bottom's fallen out of Crime."

Has Britain fallen this low? Sir Francis Drake made England great by robbing Spanish ships of their gold and the East India Company built Queen Victoria's glorious British Empire on the heroin trade.

We live in difficult economic times. Or do we? Opinion varies.

A recent report said organised crime caused "an estimated £30 billion a year in social and economic harm" to the UK. I'm not quite sure what "harm" means in this context. Presumably it means there is a £30 billion black economy underpinning the 'legitimate' economy. But it's all guestimates on guestimates. A recent report by the Association of Chief Police Officers claimed the UK underworld economy is now worth around £40 billion a year.

I'm more concerned that fake DVD production is now reckoned to be worth £300 million in the UK. I had vaguely hoped Killer Bitch might be fairly immune to this because I had hoped that the people most likely to rip us off were actually involved in the movie in some way - and therefore highly unlikely to rip us off. I had, however, reckoned without the international nature of modern movie rip-off-dom.

Still, I am filled with hope for the future of Killer Bitch because Michael Deeley, the highly-regarded head of British Lion Films reportedly said, when his company released The Wicker Man in 1973, that it was the worst film he had ever seen. Years later, the equally highly-regarded Cinefantastique magazine devoted at entire issue to The Wicker Man, famously calling it "the Citizen Kane of horror films", while the Los Angeles Times said it was: "Witty & scary! No one who sits through it to the end is likely to find it easy to shake off."

Likewise, no-one who sits through Killer Bitch with an increasingly dropped jaw and open mouth is ever likely to forget it. Bland it is certainly not.

KILLER BITCH No 6 in the Top Ten DVDs

KILLER BITCH was released in the UK and Ireland last week and became No 6 in HMV high street stores’ top-selling DVDs. Some animated family film called Avatar pipped us to the post.

The HMV placing came after Killer BItch was banned by the Asda, Morrisons, Sainsburys and Tesco supermarket chains.. and YouTube also banned the trailer.

iTunes did sell it last week… for two days... then they suddenly withdrew it from sale because their "global policy is not to have extra violence and frontal nudity within the store".

This is a tad surprising because, although Killer BItch is a merry British romp through an OTT plot with OTT characters and OTT violence, it features pantomime violence - really, honestly, how many times have you seen someone killed with a fish or threatened by a topless female dwarf with a large handgun and are these scenes likely to deprave, corrupt, incite copycat killings and topple British cultural values?

This is a description of Willem Dafoe's recent film Antichrist which was passed uncut by the BBFC and sold by iTunes:

"After knocking him unconscious, Gainsbourg bores a hole in Dafoe's leg with a hand drill and bolts him to a grindstone to keep him from escaping. Then, she smashes his scrotum with some sort of blunt object (the moment of impact happens slightly below the frame). We don't actually see his testicles become disengaged from this body, though it's implied. Next, she brings him to a climax with her hands and he ejaculates blood (yes, it's shown). But that's not all! Later, in an extreme closeup — lensed by Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle! — Gainsbourg cuts off her own clitoris with a pair of scissors."

Sadly Killer BItch violence fades into insignificance in comparison to this though I think we may have a chance in the Rocky Horror Show market.

At the Killer Bitch cinema premiere in Mayfair - attended by sundry policemen and surreally with two machine-gun-wielding policemen standing at the end of the street watching the comings-and-goings - Alex Reid’s sex scene was mightily popular. Sections of the audience started imitating his audible grunting and he got a round of applause halfway through the scene. I can see future screenings possibly being attended by people dressed as Alex who join in the fun by inter-acting with what’s on screen.

First there were Rocky Horror Picture Show nights; then Sound of Music nights; can Killer Bitch nights be far behind?

www.killerbitch.co.uk

KILLER BITCH - Alex Reid compared to Beethoven

Following KILLER BITCH's 5-star review in Gore Zone magazine, we have now received a News of the World review which compares star Alex Reid to Beethoven... http://tinyurl.com/y4w2hv8

I see on the reviewer's Twitter feed:

http://twitter.com/robbiereviews

he says: "The film everyone's talking about! Iron Man 2? Don't be daft! It's Killer Bitch, with Alex Reid!"

Why the English Legal System Creates Injustice

Click here