THE DUKE ON CONSTANTINE
If I get in one more knife fight with disgruntled comic book fans,
just one, there’s gonna be the sorta hell to pay that nobody, not
even some genetically engineered hybrid of Chuck Norris and Jeff
Fahey, nobody, could possibly afford.
Stood outside the cinema, just about to touch the lighter-flame to
the end of this cigarette stuck in my yap, a cigarette I won’t even
taste, most likely, on account of I long ago lost the ability to
taste either nicotine or diet coke, I pause for a moment, close my
eyes. I think something along the lines of. . . oh shit.
Then, I gotta say, I think about maybe getting hold of the security
tape from off of some Bit Torrent site since, let’s be honest, that
was a cool as fuck pose right there.
Either side of me, and a couple yards ahead, comic book fans stood
as silhouettes gainst the last strands of sunset, and all of them
with carnage in their eyes.
The billboard thing behind me says CONS-AN-INE on account of some
motherfucker stole the T’s a while back, and I know there ain’t no
option but to lift my heel and take out the blade I got concealed
within.
The comic book fans all hold their breath. What’s it gonna be, The
Duke?
The cigarette still ain’t lit.
I say. . .
I liked it.
I say. . .
It was a whole buncha fun.
Six hundred flick knives flick in unison.
Right in front of me, a motherfucker seven foot tall and drenched
in the blood of folks who dug Daredevil, he steps right up. His
t-shirt’s all ripped and tattered, but I still know it says Batman
Begins Will OWN YOUR ASS!!!!!11111 since there’s a couple dozen
folks got one just the same to my left.
He raises his right arm, the one with the machete, and there’s a
roar from the masses.
Bring it on, I’m thinking, and then I think something else since
Bring It On is a thing of great beauty, and with Kirsten in mind a
man just can’t focus like he should on the sorta deranged violence
he needs to be engaged in right the fuck now.
The head honcho leaps on me, teeth gritted so tight I see nothin’
but gums, and then he starts shouting at me. “That was fucking
awful! Fuck Constantine! Fuck Keanu, see, fuck his arse!”
These comic fan types, they can get a tad uptight when maybe
Hollywood decides to make a flick from out these characters and
stories and ideas. If you were maybe planning on making a trilogy
from out The Adventures Of Shin-Face or whatever the fuck, you can
count on nothing less than pitch-black pessimism from these folks
for the duration of the production.
Sure enough, soon as Hellblazer got the green light, soon as the
chain-smoking cancer-suffering exorcist Constantine, a low-down
motherfucker from the back-streets of Liverpool, (a low-down
motherfucker who made his first appearance in a Swamp Thing comic,
so I’m told), soon as that part was handed to Keanu Reeves, the
folks from off the internet forums merged at the nucleus, a heaving
mass of spiteful digital abandon dedicated to nothing less than the
annihilation of Constantine – The Motion Picture, which, they
assured one and all, would suck all sucking fuck.
The big fella’s glaring right into my very brains. “That
abomination raped my one true love”, he’s saying.
I can’t help it. I can’t do a single thing except swing my arm
round, and next thing I know there’s a spurt of geek-paste spraying
up my jaw, and a wound on the fucker’s face, and what the wound
says is – Cinematography, Fucker!
Constantine looks stunning, is the truth of it all. Every couple
minutes there’s some image or some visual flourish that has a fella
coming out the eye-holes. Demons with melting faces, dripping water
hanging suspended in time, monsters made out of CGI locusts or
flies or some shit. They even go so far as to have Keanu step into
Doom 3 now and again. What the fuck’s not to love?
A meat-cleaver passes me, inches away from my nose, and right
there, across the blade, it says Fuck The Doom 3. The Film Is The
Work Of Imbeciles Who Never Once Read The Comic, I’ll Bet.
I had to assume the Comic, I’ll Bet bit, since the fella had run
out of room. My advice is to write it in pencil first, so as you
can rub it out and start again should you find yourself stuck for
space.
I actually have some sympathy with this fella’s argument. I turn
round, my left hand shoved into the face of the first bastard, my
right hand brandishing a blade the size of a camper-van, and I look
the meat-cleaver-flinger right in the tartan eyes.
I agree with you there, I holler.
I know how those Hollywood types been assaulting your beloved
tales. They treat your literature with all the respect a drunken
sex-limb might grant an exhaust-pipe lined with toilet-roll. Like
you should be grateful they even took a second to read the stinkin
thing, and if they wanna change things they’ll change em, on
account of what the fuck do you know, anyhow?
They didn’t tell Baz Luhrmann to change a damn comma when he was
putting together that Romeo And Juliet flick. They didn’t say all
about “No, they can’t die, on account of The Target Demographic”.
They didn’t say “Leave the poison out, test audiences say”, yet
these producer cats change comic narratives left and right, and all
because of some mystical “market” who won’t accept that the main
character not only dies, but also, he probably dies in the middle
of a threesome involving the president of the USA and the pope,
whilst a couple Taliban wank themselves off in a circle-jerk held
next door.
I’m pretty sure that’s how Archie ended. Maybe you comic types can
fix me up on the details.
They forget that this flick will sink or swim depending on the
folks who made the stories popular enough for a flick in the first
place.
If ever they get that motion-film of Preacher up and running, I’ll
be right here with you sons a bitches should they change Arseface
to Butt-jaw or some shit, or have Cassidy a smooth
Travolta-circa-79 type from out Tha Bronx, instead of a filthy
drunken Irish vampire bastard.
So I respect that you fellas and gals are pissed off when suddenly
Batman has nipples or whatever. But sometimes you need to look
beyond the surface detail and take the flick on its own terms. A
million years from now, all that’s gonna matter is, is this flick
any good? Folks in the year 5034 aren’t gonna be yacking on about
the fucking geography being fucked-up.
Who reads The Odyssey and complains that the fucker with one eye
was supposed to have a limp? Nobody.
So you gotta step aside for a second, you bastards. Is Constantine
good, you need to ask?
No, is the answer, but it’s a hella lotta fun, man.
I figured I’d got some kind of control of the situation, but about
59% of these barbarians were still growling at my every twitch.
I support you in many respects, I told them. If you asked me to
sign an online petition about how the sequel needs to be more in
keeping with the source material, I’ll sign that fucker right the
hell up. Shit, I might even put up a link to it. But I enjoyed this
right here.
For sure, this Constantine ain’t no Hulk, and it’s nowhere near as
good as, say, X-Men 2 or Spider-Man 2 or Ichi The Killer, it
doesn't even deserve to be a trailer at the start of those flicks,
but it’s enjoyable, man. It’s got a great exorcism at the start and
it’s got cool time-standing-still effects and it even makes jokes
about how generic it is some times, like when Keanu’s walking down
a hall all fast like, and the lady-friend says to him about “I
guess you got some information, hence the pace”. It reminded me of
the bit in Baise-Moi when the two lasses yack about how they wish
they had some sort of quip after they kill a fella.
Sadly, the producers didn’t take this Baise-Moi theme any further.
I was hoping to see Keanu gettin it on in unsimulated close-up, or
maybe sticking a pistol up a fella’s arse and shooting his guts out
his face, but it never happened.
Maybe in the Unrated DVD he’ll do that.
There’s no doubting, however, that Keanu is indeed a bit miscast in
the title role, a bit too pretty, a bit too nice for to be trying
to convince us all that he’s a low-down bastard out to rid the
world of demons just so as he can get in God’s good books again.
All the chain smoking in the world ain’t gonna make him one ounce
more of a cunt, even if he is riddled with cancer.
In fact, if he didn’t have cancer the smoking would be all the more
hard-ass, I’d wager. He knows he’s fucked. Smoking with a pristine
bill-of-health, wilfully pissing a fine pair a lungs down the bog-
hole, that’s some credible self-destruction right there.
Maybe he’s not the Constantine you had hoped for, but he’s likable.
To be honest, I went in expecting a biopic of Paddy Considine, or
Cuntsidine as I’ve christened him post-Dead Man’s Shoes, but I
didn't get that, an so I just had to make do with what I did get,
which was a whole fuckload of Keanu, and it was fairly pleasant,
truth be told.
What really shocked me, though, was the presence of Gavin Rossdale,
i.e, That Fucker Out Bush. What the hell’s he doing here, I found
myself thinking. I ain’t been this shaken by a development in a
comic book flick since that cunt out Bros showed up in Blade II.
I got momentarily distracted, and the price to pay is a rock the
size of a basketball up the teeth.
It’s an insult to the comic, a girl with a beard shouts.
Right there, I hunched down for a second before making the kinda
gravity-defying leap only a fella with my knowledge of Pasolini
could dream of making, bounding through the dying sunlight, landing
right at the girl’s feet. She let a yelp of some kind, all
surprised, but I grabbed hold her collar and pressed my mouth right
up against her ear.
I know this is gonna be difficult for you to hear, I told her.
But I never even read the fucking comic.
Also, maybe when this is all over we can go sit in a café and I can
tell you bout how sensitive I am.
Demented sadistic carnage ensued.
They might’ve been willing to except the posthumous opinion of a
man who liked Constantine if he had read the comic. But a
motherfucker telling the world it was worth seeing when he hadn’t
even sat hunched over Hellblazer ever even once, even though he
knew that a couple issues had Shane MacGowan quotes at the start,
and that one of the graphic novel things is named after Rake At The
Gates Of Hell, one of the finest of all Pogues recordings, well,
that kinda shit wasn’t gonna wash, not here, not ever.
Fifty-three or fifty-four kicks to the guts later, I’m on my back
in a puddle of shit and puke.
In times like this, when all seems lost anyway, there ain’t nothing
a man can do but tip the scales that tiny bit further.
I got my hand round a police baton that not seventeen minutes ago
had been up the balls of a big lad with a blow-torch, and gripping
that handle, all I could do was grin and blink the blood out my
eyes.
I tell them. . .
By the way. . .
I fucking loved Daredevil.
I wasn’t lying.
Thanks folks.
Fling The Duke An Email or Sign The Mondo Guestbook
just one, there’s gonna be the sorta hell to pay that nobody, not
even some genetically engineered hybrid of Chuck Norris and Jeff
Fahey, nobody, could possibly afford.
Stood outside the cinema, just about to touch the lighter-flame to
the end of this cigarette stuck in my yap, a cigarette I won’t even
taste, most likely, on account of I long ago lost the ability to
taste either nicotine or diet coke, I pause for a moment, close my
eyes. I think something along the lines of. . . oh shit.
Then, I gotta say, I think about maybe getting hold of the security
tape from off of some Bit Torrent site since, let’s be honest, that
was a cool as fuck pose right there.
Either side of me, and a couple yards ahead, comic book fans stood
as silhouettes gainst the last strands of sunset, and all of them
with carnage in their eyes.
The billboard thing behind me says CONS-AN-INE on account of some
motherfucker stole the T’s a while back, and I know there ain’t no
option but to lift my heel and take out the blade I got concealed
within.
The comic book fans all hold their breath. What’s it gonna be, The
Duke?
The cigarette still ain’t lit.
I say. . .
I liked it.
I say. . .
It was a whole buncha fun.
Six hundred flick knives flick in unison.
Right in front of me, a motherfucker seven foot tall and drenched
in the blood of folks who dug Daredevil, he steps right up. His
t-shirt’s all ripped and tattered, but I still know it says Batman
Begins Will OWN YOUR ASS!!!!!11111 since there’s a couple dozen
folks got one just the same to my left.
He raises his right arm, the one with the machete, and there’s a
roar from the masses.
Bring it on, I’m thinking, and then I think something else since
Bring It On is a thing of great beauty, and with Kirsten in mind a
man just can’t focus like he should on the sorta deranged violence
he needs to be engaged in right the fuck now.
The head honcho leaps on me, teeth gritted so tight I see nothin’
but gums, and then he starts shouting at me. “That was fucking
awful! Fuck Constantine! Fuck Keanu, see, fuck his arse!”
These comic fan types, they can get a tad uptight when maybe
Hollywood decides to make a flick from out these characters and
stories and ideas. If you were maybe planning on making a trilogy
from out The Adventures Of Shin-Face or whatever the fuck, you can
count on nothing less than pitch-black pessimism from these folks
for the duration of the production.
Sure enough, soon as Hellblazer got the green light, soon as the
chain-smoking cancer-suffering exorcist Constantine, a low-down
motherfucker from the back-streets of Liverpool, (a low-down
motherfucker who made his first appearance in a Swamp Thing comic,
so I’m told), soon as that part was handed to Keanu Reeves, the
folks from off the internet forums merged at the nucleus, a heaving
mass of spiteful digital abandon dedicated to nothing less than the
annihilation of Constantine – The Motion Picture, which, they
assured one and all, would suck all sucking fuck.
The big fella’s glaring right into my very brains. “That
abomination raped my one true love”, he’s saying.
I can’t help it. I can’t do a single thing except swing my arm
round, and next thing I know there’s a spurt of geek-paste spraying
up my jaw, and a wound on the fucker’s face, and what the wound
says is – Cinematography, Fucker!
Constantine looks stunning, is the truth of it all. Every couple
minutes there’s some image or some visual flourish that has a fella
coming out the eye-holes. Demons with melting faces, dripping water
hanging suspended in time, monsters made out of CGI locusts or
flies or some shit. They even go so far as to have Keanu step into
Doom 3 now and again. What the fuck’s not to love?
A meat-cleaver passes me, inches away from my nose, and right
there, across the blade, it says Fuck The Doom 3. The Film Is The
Work Of Imbeciles Who Never Once Read The Comic, I’ll Bet.
I had to assume the Comic, I’ll Bet bit, since the fella had run
out of room. My advice is to write it in pencil first, so as you
can rub it out and start again should you find yourself stuck for
space.
I actually have some sympathy with this fella’s argument. I turn
round, my left hand shoved into the face of the first bastard, my
right hand brandishing a blade the size of a camper-van, and I look
the meat-cleaver-flinger right in the tartan eyes.
I agree with you there, I holler.
I know how those Hollywood types been assaulting your beloved
tales. They treat your literature with all the respect a drunken
sex-limb might grant an exhaust-pipe lined with toilet-roll. Like
you should be grateful they even took a second to read the stinkin
thing, and if they wanna change things they’ll change em, on
account of what the fuck do you know, anyhow?
They didn’t tell Baz Luhrmann to change a damn comma when he was
putting together that Romeo And Juliet flick. They didn’t say all
about “No, they can’t die, on account of The Target Demographic”.
They didn’t say “Leave the poison out, test audiences say”, yet
these producer cats change comic narratives left and right, and all
because of some mystical “market” who won’t accept that the main
character not only dies, but also, he probably dies in the middle
of a threesome involving the president of the USA and the pope,
whilst a couple Taliban wank themselves off in a circle-jerk held
next door.
I’m pretty sure that’s how Archie ended. Maybe you comic types can
fix me up on the details.
They forget that this flick will sink or swim depending on the
folks who made the stories popular enough for a flick in the first
place.
If ever they get that motion-film of Preacher up and running, I’ll
be right here with you sons a bitches should they change Arseface
to Butt-jaw or some shit, or have Cassidy a smooth
Travolta-circa-79 type from out Tha Bronx, instead of a filthy
drunken Irish vampire bastard.
So I respect that you fellas and gals are pissed off when suddenly
Batman has nipples or whatever. But sometimes you need to look
beyond the surface detail and take the flick on its own terms. A
million years from now, all that’s gonna matter is, is this flick
any good? Folks in the year 5034 aren’t gonna be yacking on about
the fucking geography being fucked-up.
Who reads The Odyssey and complains that the fucker with one eye
was supposed to have a limp? Nobody.
So you gotta step aside for a second, you bastards. Is Constantine
good, you need to ask?
No, is the answer, but it’s a hella lotta fun, man.
I figured I’d got some kind of control of the situation, but about
59% of these barbarians were still growling at my every twitch.
I support you in many respects, I told them. If you asked me to
sign an online petition about how the sequel needs to be more in
keeping with the source material, I’ll sign that fucker right the
hell up. Shit, I might even put up a link to it. But I enjoyed this
right here.
For sure, this Constantine ain’t no Hulk, and it’s nowhere near as
good as, say, X-Men 2 or Spider-Man 2 or Ichi The Killer, it
doesn't even deserve to be a trailer at the start of those flicks,
but it’s enjoyable, man. It’s got a great exorcism at the start and
it’s got cool time-standing-still effects and it even makes jokes
about how generic it is some times, like when Keanu’s walking down
a hall all fast like, and the lady-friend says to him about “I
guess you got some information, hence the pace”. It reminded me of
the bit in Baise-Moi when the two lasses yack about how they wish
they had some sort of quip after they kill a fella.
Sadly, the producers didn’t take this Baise-Moi theme any further.
I was hoping to see Keanu gettin it on in unsimulated close-up, or
maybe sticking a pistol up a fella’s arse and shooting his guts out
his face, but it never happened.
Maybe in the Unrated DVD he’ll do that.
There’s no doubting, however, that Keanu is indeed a bit miscast in
the title role, a bit too pretty, a bit too nice for to be trying
to convince us all that he’s a low-down bastard out to rid the
world of demons just so as he can get in God’s good books again.
All the chain smoking in the world ain’t gonna make him one ounce
more of a cunt, even if he is riddled with cancer.
In fact, if he didn’t have cancer the smoking would be all the more
hard-ass, I’d wager. He knows he’s fucked. Smoking with a pristine
bill-of-health, wilfully pissing a fine pair a lungs down the bog-
hole, that’s some credible self-destruction right there.
Maybe he’s not the Constantine you had hoped for, but he’s likable.
To be honest, I went in expecting a biopic of Paddy Considine, or
Cuntsidine as I’ve christened him post-Dead Man’s Shoes, but I
didn't get that, an so I just had to make do with what I did get,
which was a whole fuckload of Keanu, and it was fairly pleasant,
truth be told.
What really shocked me, though, was the presence of Gavin Rossdale,
i.e, That Fucker Out Bush. What the hell’s he doing here, I found
myself thinking. I ain’t been this shaken by a development in a
comic book flick since that cunt out Bros showed up in Blade II.
I got momentarily distracted, and the price to pay is a rock the
size of a basketball up the teeth.
It’s an insult to the comic, a girl with a beard shouts.
Right there, I hunched down for a second before making the kinda
gravity-defying leap only a fella with my knowledge of Pasolini
could dream of making, bounding through the dying sunlight, landing
right at the girl’s feet. She let a yelp of some kind, all
surprised, but I grabbed hold her collar and pressed my mouth right
up against her ear.
I know this is gonna be difficult for you to hear, I told her.
But I never even read the fucking comic.
Also, maybe when this is all over we can go sit in a café and I can
tell you bout how sensitive I am.
Demented sadistic carnage ensued.
They might’ve been willing to except the posthumous opinion of a
man who liked Constantine if he had read the comic. But a
motherfucker telling the world it was worth seeing when he hadn’t
even sat hunched over Hellblazer ever even once, even though he
knew that a couple issues had Shane MacGowan quotes at the start,
and that one of the graphic novel things is named after Rake At The
Gates Of Hell, one of the finest of all Pogues recordings, well,
that kinda shit wasn’t gonna wash, not here, not ever.
Fifty-three or fifty-four kicks to the guts later, I’m on my back
in a puddle of shit and puke.
In times like this, when all seems lost anyway, there ain’t nothing
a man can do but tip the scales that tiny bit further.
I got my hand round a police baton that not seventeen minutes ago
had been up the balls of a big lad with a blow-torch, and gripping
that handle, all I could do was grin and blink the blood out my
eyes.
I tell them. . .
By the way. . .
I fucking loved Daredevil.
I wasn’t lying.
Thanks folks.
Fling The Duke An Email or Sign The Mondo Guestbook
