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Lucy’s been over for the past few days, so we’ve been around London playing our famous (it’s not, but it should be) Tube game: pick a random station with your eyes closed from the index, and then go there. Simple! This time the hand of fate directed us to Finchley Road & Frognal and East Putney, and on our travels we made two important discovered. One: Stiles Bakery near Angel station in Islington – don’t ask how we ended up there – does the most delicious milkshakes in the world. And two: The Forbidden Kingdom is the funniest film ever made. We spent the last 20 minutes or so literally in fits of barely-suppressed laughter at the terrible acting and hilarious clichés. Realising that no-one is going to read this blog and then go out and see the film just for it to make sense, I thought I’d perform a public service and provide a commentary to the plot as recounted on Wikipedia. Naturally, if you are planning to see it (why?) don’t read this. All right then, here we go…

“The film opens during a battle between Sun Wukong, the Monkey King (Jet Li), and heavenly soldiers amongst the clouds. It is then revealed the sequence was a dream when a young teenager, Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano), awakens in his room plastered with vintage kung fu movie posters. Michael Angarano is an actor who posses a single facial expression: whimpering distress. Every event in his life is met with it, including the discovery that he’s had a dream. After getting dressed, he makes his way to a pawn shop in South Boston’s China town to buy some new kung fu DVDs. This semi-derelict run-down pawn shop happens to stock brand new shrink-wrapped DVDs. Obvious, its customers were both very desperate and working in the entertainment industry. Like the makers of this film. There, he converses with Hop (a prosthetics-laden Jackie Chan), the shop’s elderly owner, and, while thumbing through some DVDs, he is drawn to a room full of antiques and notices a golden staff. Hop tells him that the staff is to be delivered to its rightful owner and then closes the door. As the door closes, slowly, we see Jason’s face enter its usual whimpering distress state.

On his way back home, Jason is attacked by local bully Lupo (Morgan Benoit) and his cronies who force him to take them to the store so they can steal some money from the old man. Several things here. First of all, the cronies of the local bully – and there are four of them – are content to spend their lives standing in a line behind their leader grimacing silently. Secondly, Lupo’s first move of bullying is to denigrate Jason’s bicycle as being a ‘loser cruiser’, which immediately becomes my favourite phrase ever for its sheer wickedness, had Lupo and Jason been seven years old. And finally, it should be noted that it manages to get very dark inbetween these scenes: obviously the boys went for a pizza with their victim off-screen to pad out the time. Feeling betrayed, Hop tries to attack the thieves with the staff, but is shot by Lupo (much to both Jason and Lupo’s cronies’ shock). And, ur, Lupo’s. Immediately after shooting, he starts babbling in a surprised tone and was clearly unaware that guns contain bullets. He tells Jason that he must deliver the staff to its rightful owner. Jason takes the staff and runs from the thieves. On top of a building, he is surrounded by the bullies, with Lupo warning Jason that he “saw nothing” (out of fear Jason may turn them in to police). Before Lupo can shoot Jason, he is suddenly pulled off the roof by the staff and travels back through time. Make a mental note of this moment: Jason is pulled off the roof of a building and falls – on his back – down to the concrete ground below. We’ll come back to this.
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In the interests of a nice random post to celebrate the completion of another weekly essay cycle, here’s a selection of some of my favourite song lyrics (at the moment, for various reasons) for you to go “ooh, I know that!” or “nah, not a clue” at…

People are just people,
They shouldn’t make you nervous
…
And if you kiss somebody,
Then both of you’ll get practice
– Regina Spektor, The Ghost of Corporate Future
Why? You won’t find many better philosophies for life than this.

Why would you lie about how much coal you have?
Why would you lie about something dumb like that?
– Vampire Weekend, Oxford Comma
Why? Makes me giggle and think about economics lectures.

I never thought it would happen
With me and the girl from Clapham
– Squeeze, Up The Junction
Why? I shiver as the song begins, knowing how it all ends.

In Birmingham, in London – what we need now is love
Not hate and fear, blood and tears – what we need now is love
– Hard-Fi, We Need Love
Why? Should be obvious

(Hey!) Us kids know
(Hey!) No cars go
– Arcade Fire, No Cars Go
Why? Less a song lyric, more a statement of public transportation policy.

So if you are a racist
Our friendship has got to end
And if your friends are racists don’t pretend to be my friend
– The Specials, Racist Friend
Why? Amusingly direct.

Run along with Captain Jack
Badidado, Badidado, Badidadidadidado
Badadadideidoooo
– Captain Jack, Captain Jack
Why? Because it’s (unintentionally) all about Torchwood (Which btw I’m rather enjoying!)

And do share some of yours too!