Let Battle Commence

News from the integrity frontline is not good. The bayonets have only just begun in their furious assaults, portions of flesh dancing in the air like a monk gone mad on the acidics. Hundreds of marching anonyms lined up in the vis-à-vis position, staring deep into ‘the other’ postured opposite. One side the heavy-hearted swarms of protest, people with the couplets of Chaucer spinning around in their skulls. The other side the gas-masked devils of dividend priority, the stooped and disfigured shapes of the studio execs. One side armed with DVD evidentials in remonstrate against the vicious attack on all semblances of decency being orchestrated by the suits. The other side with a large ledger filled with company memoranda authenticating the very intentions they aim to highlight.

One false word, one sneering countenance, one wind passed wrongly, is all that it will take to prompt those masses to advance straight into the atomising gulf laid out in front of them. It’s a dangerous time, who knows what will occur on the scarred earth where they are situated.

Hell, lets not beat that bush about, they are already warring. Conflicts erupting out of the ether at every temporal moment. There are even examples of malicious in-fighting, a once innocent remark such as “ah why not remake it,” is now justification for a venomous shoving of industrial revolution matter into orifices not more than one inch in circumference.

The battle lines were drawn when 20th Century Fox (yes Murdoch’s own pet mammal) announced it was to remake that most chilling of Satan-themed horrors, Richard Donner’s The Omen. The logic behind this move is weak even by studio standards, it isn’t the need for Americanisation of Asian cinema this time, it is none other than a date. This the year of 2006, a year that brings with it the opportunity to make marketing use of those numbers that feature so eloquently in the original The Omen, the three sixes. The release date stands at 6th June 2006. This is perhaps the first time a film’s release date has been set even before scripting and other pre-production activity have taken place.

And who are the actors in this cause of so much death in the trenches? Has it been designated a teen-orientation? Will we get Lindsey Lohan running about as a female Damien (well why not with all the gender line blurring these days)? Seth Green as Ambassador Thorn? The Olsen twins as two of those three sixes?

It’s not quite as bad as that, although Julia Stiles from such things as Save The Last Dance and 10 Things I Hate About You, is playing Mrs Thorn, alongside Liev Schreiber as Thorn himself. I don’t have any bad words to say about Schreiber, he was Welles after all, although I only saw about fifteen minutes of that film. And Knox Harrington from The Big Lebowski (ya know the art fellow), David Thewlis, is playing that inquisitor of obscure theology who befriends Thorn.

But do not let a few words lacking in the nefarious stance necessary here fool you into thinking thoughts such as, “hey, maybe this whole remake is a good idea, oh c’mon honey, lets spend that fateful day sucking the smouldering phallus of the studio bigwig with nothing more than a mindless brain-dead expression on our soon-to-be soaked faces.”

It’s not the way, I tell you. These guys need to be strapped to the most repugnant of throatily gunk and set off downstream towards the Angel Falls. Only that will cause cessation to their money-obsessed ways. When will the green-factor die? Will it ever? Maybe bloody battle is the only way forward. I can only envision knife fights between a fan of Bunuel and some random yes-man from the upper reaches of Warner Bros. How’s this for profit, a good stabbing in the bronchia? Hey I’m sure that can be sold itself, “New on Fox for this fall season, it’s Studio Middle-Management Deathmatch, brought to you by the good folks who will themselves partake in the brawls within, carnage guaranteed!”

It’s only a matter of time. Let the red spillage ensue!

Movie Review: Sour Grapes

"Comedy is an imitation of inferior people.
The laughable is an error or disgrace.”
Aristotle, The Poetics

We all know Larry David right? Infamous co-creator of Seinfeld, mastermind behind Curb Your Enthusiasm, all-round comedic genius. Seinfeld has those great, witty observations care of Jerry, but we’ll all be honest and say that what really typified the humour of the show were those little annotations accorded to various characters, whether it be a ‘close-talker,’ or a ‘bubble-boy,’ undoubtedly kindled by Larry. The snide misanthropic sanctimony dished out regularly, and brought back so irreverently (albeit somewhat shabbily) in the finale when our patriarch returned to his child.

Following his exit from the television world, Larry, tired with the confines of network TV, tried his hand at making a movie. The offspring of that particular endeavour was Sour Grapes.

Critically panned when it emerged in 1998, it is still spat upon from high arches of snobbish perception, kicked and trodden by the bourgeoisie of comic farce. And unjustifiably so.

Larry drops us cascading into the tale of two cousins, Evan and Richie. They go off for a weekend to the Diet Vegas delights of Atlanta, with their respective lady friends in tow. In the spirit of conventionality, they fail to alight their gambling objectives, and end up in the dark shadows of the losing vertical. Slightly dejected, they retire to the slots to exhaust away those last few scampering coins. It is here that Richie ends up winning four hundred-odd grand of the finest American currency. And all is happy. But no, this is Larry David, mighty alchemist of the misunderstanding and awkward situation. Ya see, those three quarters that prompted all the successes, two of them were gifted from Evan. And so a yarn of bickering and one-upmanship unfolds for our laughing joints to get all out of synch over.

I return to that aforementioned criticism. It is unfounded in the extreme. Sure I felt a notch of unease with the number of familiar themes presented within the first ten minutes i.e. a mysterious growth which should or should not be checked out (seen in both Seinfeld and Curb). But after a while the repeated whack of everyday minutiae begins to embrace your very being into the wonderful world of Larry David. It’s a fantastic piece of cinematic comedy, do not listen to those heathens that’ll inform you otherwise while probably at the same time stealing the cotton out your mixed-fabrics.

Some criticisms arrived in the shape of nasty pejoratives aimed at Craig Bierko who plays Richie. He cheeses it up, but it works, and I found him nothing less than joyful to view. The joy was evermore increased when I realised what I knew him from, turns out he was Lacerda in Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, that madcap swine of a photojournalist. His opposite is Steven Weber playing Evan, who looks like a cross between Jerry Seinfeld (how fitting) and Christian Bale. If only Bale had played Superman rather than Batman, oh the metaphoric potential!

The film contains all the usual elements we’ve come to religiously expect from Larry, who else would think up something as brilliant as a man being accused of sounding a bit Spanish in mid-spoken exchange. And cameos from many familiar faces, actors who have had minor parts in the assorted shows from the antiquity of time. Larry himself even has a couple of cameos, although one is only a fraction of Larry running along the frame (the IMDB lists three roles, it’s either wrong or I missed one in a fit of laughing). The main one is as a studio exec, complete with moustache and hair makeup, just like his Scorsese character in season three of Curb.

Special mention to Philip Baker Hall in the cameo department. His Bookman character from ‘The Library’ episode of Seinfeld is hanging on the apex of guest appearances for not only that show, but any syndicated program in the history of mass communication. Hall plays Richie’s boss Mr Bell, the following is a transcript of their beatific dialogue, Mr Bell has just fired Richie:

Mr Bell: I’ll tell you another thing, you’re not a good sole designer.
Richie: Hey! I’m a great sole designer. Great!
Mr Bell: No, you’re not.
Richie: That’s your opinion.
Mr Bell: That’s right.
Richie: Well, we disagree.
Mr Bell: Yes, we do.
Richie: Well, you take care of yourself.
Mr Bell: I intend to.
Richie: I’m sure you do.
Mr Bell: Why wouldn’t I?
Richie: No reason.
Mr Bell: So, why bring it up?
Richie: Just trying to be nice.
Mr Bell: Oh, my mistake.
Richie: I’d say so.

Of course, it’s best witnessed on screen, but you get the point.

In the end do not avoid this film because of a few slanderous remarks, it’s positively shaking with hilarity. Larry David proves he is aptitudinally a deity of the jocular arts, Aristotle would have laughed off his last toga. If you found yourself writhing in chucklesome delights at interoffice calzone politics, or ‘re-gifters’, or house tours refused, then this won’t be of utter repellence to you.

Movie Review: The Underground (Starring Jeff Fahey)

I got a call last night at 3am. It was none other than Rita Hayworth on the other end. The conversation went something like this:

AF: Hey, aren’t you dead?
RH: Shut up cockface. Now listen here and listen good. I need three jars of Ron Perlman’s sweat, don’t ask why, just get it done.
AF: Well shucks, that sounds tricky. Will Tom Waits’ do?
RH: Yes but be snappy about it, my plan for the resurrection of the old Hollywood studio system will not wait.
AF: Actually if that’s what you’re doing then I’ll have to give you the big fuck off.
RH: Ok so I was a bit harsh I’ll admit…

It was then that I hung up the phone. Stupid fuck has all these grand ideas about giving the classic system the Lazarus treatment, an awry bunch of bollocks I say. She ain’t realising the full repercussions of her proposed action. Where the hell are down to earth actors like Jeff Fahey going to scuttle when old Hayworth succeeds in her maniacal plans?

I’ll tell you where, they’ll be shunted off into the Forbidden Zone before you could say “I hear Universal considered producing Parker Kane 2.” Off living in the wastes, eating trees straight out of the arid ground, roaming in search of that last studio exec to say no to a five hour biblical epic starring Cory Feldman as Moses. Bruce Campbell forced to battle Jeffrey Combs over who gets Brian Dennehy’s DVD royalties for FX2: The Deadly Art Of Illusion, a Dennehy now a corpse lying splattered at the bottom of a ravine after being ravaged by an angry Michael Biehn.

There would certainly be no The Underground, a Jeff Fahey outing from 1997. Tell me Russian formalists, what the hell’s the fabula all about here? “Well,” up arises Bakhtin from the carpet. “Fuck you,” I say, “I want Propp, you cunt!” Bakhtin dissolves into the ether, only to be replaced by the white ‘tache of Vladimir Propp. “Where the fuck’s the rest of you?” I yell. “I was told by the chief that this was all you needed," he replies, "Jesus Christ as long as those good people get the just of what Fahey’s up to this time, that’s all that’s needed.” A sneering gesture of the left hand was enough to prompt his exegesis on the subject. “A group of rap people start getting killed by some shootists in Abe Lincoln masks. Fahey is a cop, and he and his partner begin to investigate all this bloodshed. During an on-location visit, Fahey’s partner Scully is gunned down. Fahey is then teamed up with a young cop rap fan, and hijinks ensue.”

That Propp, he knows the score when it comes to informing of the story and plot and narrative and all that old fashioned babble. So Fahey and his Sammy Jackson Jr partner must attempt to solve the case, who’s doing all this low down killing? I’m sure if anyone could handle the mystery it would be Fahey, his powers of intuition amazed The Inquisition back in the day, and still have the voltage for it today. His partner was gunned down out of shot and far away but yet Fahey knew what had happened, and thus his yelling and general disdain.

As a side portion of the narrative we get a glimpse of Fahey’s love life. Ya see, he is a hardcore dedicated officer of the law, an upholder of those words and statements laid down by the guys with bulging wallets and top hats. This does not please his wife, the luscious Candy. Marital problems are only another concern of the man, on top of all that nasty death business. But it does show the mighty capacity of Fahey, only he could have the mental vigour to eschew time with his blonde, lingerie model wife to go off running around with his little cop friends. All power to him I say, I’m sure I wouldn’t have the fortitude for that kind of asexuality.

How does this rate on the filmography de Fahey? Pretty highly I’d say, pretty pretty highly. Fahey gets to indulge in a barroom brawl initiated by a few racist slurs spouted in his partner’s direction by some fellow bar patrons acting more rowdily than the commentary on The Goonies DVD. Marvel as Fahey is forced to give a biker/redneck the Harrison Ford punch to the jowls. I almost slipped out of time at that very instant, such was its velocity. Then later on, some more action during the final rapid car chase. Fahey, in order to get to the bad guy’s vehicle, has to take himself to the roof of his car (don’t worry his partner is behind the wheel), and, after a while of sliding about, jumps to another car using it as a springboard to get to our villain’s limo. It was all very exciting.

But this isn’t just a piece of action celluloid. The mismatched partnership instigates many fun moments, such as the musical differences as the two argue over what musicology will rule over the car's acoustics. Or their mutual exchange of race-related humour. Almost as good as Seagal and Jackie Brown in Nico.

The Underground, an apt title if there were any. This film, despite the occasional explosion, is low-fi embodied, it’s a ground level attack on the industry. Fahey has always been a juggernaut of independent cinema, a mountainous paragon of the indie, continuously present for the proletariat of the world of the motion image. Fahey will crush the studios and their various hegemonies in time, with films like this, and the more recent Scorpius Gigantus, it’s only a matter of time. Hayworth won't get away with it!

I Come In Peace (aka Dark Angel) - Cinematic Cheese Series: #4

Sometimes you just know from the outset that a film is going to be great. Perhaps it’ll be a schoolgirl sleepover that ends in a mysteriously terrifying way as in Ringu. Or a couple of out of work actors knocking back lighter fluid as in Withnail And I. Maybe even the flowing tears of a Jeff Fahey in Revelation. Or a high speed car journey through the desert ala Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas.

I Come In Peace (aka Dark Angel) also falls into this category. Not only does the opening scene feature an unsuspecting man getting blown up by an eight foot tall alien, but the following scene has a criminal stealing a bunch of illegal substances from police HQ then blowing the building up (the blowing up of things and people will be a recurring theme in this movie). Then to top that off, as if any additional ingredients were needed, the very next scene has a slightly miffed Dolph Lundgren sitting in this car drinking coffee. I really couldn’t have envisioned anything superior.

This film, made in 1990, before Lundgren’s The Punisher black hair-dye had washed out, concerns a plot that surely must have been formed in the golden cauldron of cinematic delights back in the dawn of eternity. Lundgren plays Jack Caine, a harsh, rebel cop, who doesn’t play by the rules, but by hell gets the job done. He don’t lay down for no establishment, no authority is gonna order him about; he’s a man of the world, a PHD holder from the school of hard bastard knocks. An unexplained spate of mob murders leads him into the murky world of alien drug-ringing, yes turns out a large alien looking like Chris Lambert in Mortal Kombat is running around killing mob people and civilians in order to extract some sort of brain mush from their skulls. It’s up to Lundgren to stop the fucker.

Co-starring with Lundgren is the delectable Brian Benben as a whinny fed assigned to make sure Lundgren doesn’t go mad and start taking his testicles out. It’s a good partnership, one which, in the vein of classic team-ups, starts off despondent and hostile, but soon develops into the type of camaraderie that we’d expect from Danny Glover and Mel Gibson (except they’re getting too old for this shit), or Charlie Sheen and Clint Eastwood. And the alien guy’s pretty cool too, strolling around the neighbourhood killing passer-by’s with rampaging compact discs.

I first discovered this film one fateful evening last year. I had been watching a film by the name of Renegades starring Kiefer Sutherland and his old buddy Lou Diamond Philips, an old VHS that had been ripped from the eons of antiquity from an ancient video shelf. As my acquaintance and I finished laughing our gall bladders out our femurs, we noticed that the tape did not stop, oh no, it did in fact continue to play. Turns out there was another film on that there plastic. It was none other than Dark Angel (the UK title). And what a joyful time we had viewing it, turned out to be even better than Kiefer’s moustache!

It’s interesting to think how film premises are worked out and developed, what genesis leads to a film being made. Often it’ll come from a literary product (I read the other day that something like 30% of all movies are literary adaptations), maybe an idea of giving a famous actor a vehicle for him or her to show off whatever their particular niche talent may be. Rarely does a film originate from such profound and enlighten areas of thought as the one-liner. I Come In Peace is one such article. Our big bad alien dude, as he comes across a potential human victim, will often say the following words, “I come in peace.” There’s no reason for this, he isn’t luring them into a fall sense of security like in Mars Attacks, they’re right there, he doesn’t need to use intellectual tactics like that. No, the only reason for this plot point is so that at the penultimate stage of the movie, when the big epic final battle is taking place in what looks like a reject derelict from Darkman, the alien can say those wistful lines and Lundgren can hit back with the rejoinder, “And you go in pieces, asshole!”

It’s poetry right there running across your jowls. It makes sense, base a film around a cheeseball line your main character gives before he blows up the bad guy.

And that brings me back to the central theme of blowing stuff up. A good alien shows up on earth to try and stop the bad one (I know, this reads like Balzac). The aliens possess handguns that act more like the gatling guns of a warship; they’re the most over-the-top piece of film weaponry I think I’ve ever seen. And they’re brilliant for it. The guns can reduce a fine, upstanding concrete wall to the sort of dust found at the bottom of a Rice Krispies packet, infernal dust that ends up afloat on the surface of your milk.

And what of Lundgren asks yee? He’s in fine thespian form, just watch as he attempts to shake his dead partner back to life with cries of “come on!” Usually these kinds of resuscitation fail, and this was no different, but I’m sure if anyone could break the circle of mortality it would be Dolph Lundgren. Perhaps Lundgren is existence, I’m not sure, where’s Sartre when you need him? Probably riding the bumper cars in Brighton, or watching an imported DVD of Body Melt.

Concluding remarks, this film stands up there, shoulders back and head raised proud, a posture to rival Aristotle, right up there with the likes of The Punisher 89 and Commando, as a genuinely brilliant piece of fun movie cheese. It may not have quite the level of stupidity of Frank Castle’s adventures, or the sheer scope and magnitude of quotable lines from the John Matrix situation, but it nevertheless proves itself a hilarious zenith for films where big humanlike aliens come to Earth and pissed off rogues must an end to their massacring ways, well it sure as hell beats Suburban Commando.

Movie Review: Revelation (Starring Jeff Fahey)

What does The Bible say about Jeff Fahey? What does the so-called ‘good book’ (personally I prefer Kafka’s The Trial) expulse in terms of Faheyian culture?

Well, first there’s all that darkness in the beginning, darkness except for the shinning beacons of blue that are Fahey’s half-open crystal visual spheres. In fact the illuminating acknowledged on that first page was simply Fahey opening his eyes fully, and, such was the power of the light being radiated, the entire world became rescued from the darkness (except for night time, hush hush now, well he’s gotta rest those eyes sometime). Later on in that multi-authored pantheon of a book, Fahey saves nature from the ravages of a pile of liquid by building a large submarine to house all the land animals, not two of each as the legend tells us, but all of them, including those crap ones that no one really cares about i.e. stoats.

As we all know, The Bible is an edited collection of hearsay and myth (excluding the Fahey sections of course), and this is only once again reinforced when we look at how Fahey was childishly snubbed from inclusion into its last portion, that being the Book of Revelation. In an attempt to rectify this travesty, Fahey, and his rich egalitarian disposition, has went and made a film by the name of Revelation (not Revelations, as we all learned from Half Man/Half Biscuit).

The film concerns a society where all nuclear weapons, plus a bunch of people, suddenly disappeared one day, and consequently a man became famous claiming to be the messiah, the disappearances acting as some sort of rapture. Most people believe this guy to indeed be what he asserts, all except for a few rogue traditional Christian types who view him as the devil, which may be true considering his henchmen and such are often shown blowing innocent civilians away. Fahey plays Thorold Stone, a cop non-believer (in either) whose wife and child disappeared in the assumed rapture. He becomes locked up in a conspiracy by the big powers to unleash a mysterious computer program onto the masses, and has to ally his forces with a group of the ‘Haters’ (those who believe your man to indeed be Lucifer).

Well that’s the story, but I know what you’re really dying to know, how bushy are Fahey’s eyebrows? I’ll tell you this, those eyebrows are a twitching wonder of modern cinema, and they're no different in this. They move around like Miles Davis running the voodoo down. It’s balletic arabesques superimposed into a forehead paradigm. Perhaps not quite at the eyebrow pinnacle of Sketch Artist 2: Hands That See, but nevertheless they still command attention and respect.

Fahey’s real talent lies in bringing in disparate conceptions and notions all under one unilateral banner, and fusing them to run synchronically within that single medium. Here we get the kind of thought provoking discourse on the utopian vision that resulted in A Brave New World and 1984 each being regarded as high watermarks in literature. Indeed Fahey goes beyond each. He is able to maintain the treatise nature of Huxley’s ode to joy, and also the more balanced story basis of Orwell’s terrifying disquisition. Is mindless acceptance of the establishment, but while being happy, the only way to a true utopia? Is it total freedoms in speech and act? Who should have power to decide? Is institutional hegemony a scar on humankind? Fahey answers none of these fundamental questions in such an overt manner as to make those answers obscured by his own humanistic perfection. He realises that for true understanding and handling it is no good to hand the correct answers to the masses; it is only up to him to guide and mentor us in the right direction, a direction where the only absolute is that of Fahey.

The highlight of the picture is a scene where an ignorant peon strapped to the boot of Fahey’s good side challenges Fahey’s own atheistic sensibilities. It is a powerful plot point, just witness as our man elucidates on the absurdities of faith, and how he, through that glimmer in his eyes, develops a postulation of how the concept of god is but a humanly constructed idea taken, via great historical movements and many many years, to extreme lengths of belief to become the ultimate myth all in the name of a fear and rejection of mortality.

His eyebrows were alive with fire and the spirit of Feuerbach as he shouted repeatedly at the mystical deity to knock over his cup. Of course no reply was forthcoming, that is until Fahey himself knocked it over on his way past it. Now if this isn’t an overt reference to the divinity of Fahey, then I don’t know what is. However the fixity of Fahey’s integrity and talent should be evidence enough.

Revelation then. The big question for the plot is whether this self-labelled messiah is the god incarnate, is he? Or is he the dark lord Beelzebub? Or perhaps an extraterrestrial alien from a far off galaxy? Or is he just a twat?

If you really want to know the answer I suggest watch this flick. But even if you don’t want to know the query rejoinder, and I wouldn’t blame you, I would still suggest you capture this cinematic product in your mind right now, the presence of one Jeff Fahey, and his sweet omniscience, are firm reasons to join an ever increasing audience of those who will one day help to set the sun in the name of Jeff Fahey.

Late Night Mutterings and the Cold

What is going on here, what is this madness? This metaphorical voodoo as you may have it. Don’t you know who am I? This is a discrimination born of a prejudice reaped in a thousand annals. I blame those Carthaginian bastards! They only want you to think they were annihilated back in the day, I bet they’re hiding round the back of Lou Diamond Philips’ shed. Probably conjuring atrocities so vivid and deranged they would cause Ballard to be committed whilst attempting to post his house first class to Freud.

Nah it’s madness, something which no lumps of circumlocution can possibly rectify, something trapped in the chasm of physiology, gasping for air, with no chance of escape. A terrible quandary I know that much. Well, ya see, and hear this, let that inner voice ring the fuck out, I have the cold. Yes, that viral strain of common cuntery. But not only that. I’ve had it about two or so weeks now. This is where rational sequences jump the hell off the wagon. It’s got worse over the last two days. OK, so it incubated for about four or five days, and then the nose stuff and throat convulsions hit me. Following a suitable period it dissipated, leading me to conjecture that “oh, things must be easing off now. The worst is over.” Like hell it was. I’m in the pit right now. Well actually last night was probably less favourable, but I won’t jinx things.

This means I’m in a constant state of nose tissues and mad spasms where I swear to fuck my lungs are trying to lunge out my crusty mouth. And of course you don’t want to be the cough-person, we all hate those. While we all know exactly what it’s like, we nevertheless think, “fuck I wish that coughing bastard would shut his yelping jowls, or at least die.” What can you do? I’m the coughing person. When you’re asleep, dreaming about Hegel, or whatever the fuck kids dream about these days, I’m there, coughing like a smoker, yet I never touch the things, senseless.

So here I am at 3am expulsing those viral thoughts, while Bobby Dylan mutters some high quality poetry from my Winamp. This is mainly because last night I must have had a good hour of failed sleep due to intermittent coughing spurts. Hell and I didn’t even approach the bed till near 4am. It’s a disgrace. Not even a Nytol can save me tonight.

It’s an awful debilitating of all enthusiasm as well. There’s plenty to be going all energetic over and rolling around in while undergoing a fit of pleasant disposition. Activities that warrant a smile (or at least a close-mouthed smirk), maybe a yippee in the vein of old misogynistic Felix there, a rousing chorus of upbeat verbal exchanges. Yet nothing beyond a “meh”. I agree that meh is a useful response to many a conundrum and query, but there are times when it should be holstered up, kept back like the Oscars owed to Jeff Fahey.

Oh, I just felt a yawn, often a dirty low-down tease, but it comes with an intimation of forthcoming possibilities. Luckily right there and then the song ‘Voices In My Head’ by Denis Leary, a particularly upbeat tune, just beckoned from the Winamp. Here’s to Bill Hicks.

Fahey for 2008?

Source: Reuters

Hollywood thespian Jeff Fahey denied comment yesterday when ambushed by a horde of fervent journalists each intent on deducting as much information as possible from his azure optics. They sprang their reporting trap on him as he left an upmarket restaurant where he had been dining with close pal and fellow actor Ken Foree. Upon reaching his car the writhing masses descended on him with no relent and only their various hack tracts in mind. Fahey was heard to pronounce shuddering yelps from his facial orifices in the vein of: “No comment, now fuck off you fuckers.” It was lines of similar manner that were to garner him dramaturgical kudos during his acclaimed one man shows on Broadway last year.

This was all genesis-ed last week when a rumour began to circulate the internet about Fahey’s proposed intention to run as an independent candidate in the 2008 Presidential Election. It’s unknown the exact origins of the hearsay, some say it was a deliberate leak orchestrated by Fahey’s PR people, others say it was created by a few prankster CNN reporters in order to fill time on a slow news day, whilst others muse that it may have come from a Jeff Fahey webzine.

It must be noted that although these are, at the current moment, simply unconfirmed rumours, neither Jeff Fahey, nor any of his representatives, have denied the content of what has been thus far circulated.

What has been ascertained in the journalistic milieu so far are a number of distinct details. Firstly, Jeff Fahey will use his financial power and widely recognised physical features to propel his campaign for White House supremacy. Secondly, he will run as a non-partisan independent, hopefully fulfilling a necessary third option for potential voters. Thirdly, he will run on a platform of championing civil rights, free speech, the dismantling of the industrial military complex, and a unity of the human race in the name of intellectual inquiry. Finally, it is thought that his running partner will be none other than Matt Frewer, yes the very same individual who stepped into the massive footwear of Jobe in The Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace.

But do remember 2008 is two years away; in the meantime Fahey has his hands full with his latest cinematic project, Existentialist Knucklefuck. The film takes its cue from the back and forth battles between Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus within the pages of Les Temps Modernes during 50s Paris. The film sees Fahey step into the slick plimsolls of Camus, and Steven Seagal into the hardy phenomenological clogs of Sartre. However proceedings are given a modern twist with the setting being the west coast conurbation of Los Angeles, and instead of precisely chiselled prose being utilised to damage ones opponent they will have epic battles across the downtown area that will involve harrier jump-jets and rocket propelled grenades. With filming just beginning it’s shaping up to be one of the big hits of the summer.