CLASSIC DVD REVIEW - O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU

FEATURING THE ADVENTURES OF STEWART & PAUL IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE… - a review by Stew.

Consider this a Public Service Announcement…

Please, if you have a spare few quid rattling around and haven't seen it, spare a dime, (or about a tenner in most of the sales), for 'O Brother Where Art Thou'.

Me and Paul first saw this film in Cannes; I had had a conversation at the Hollywood Reporter party with some dude responsible for publicity on it, and he said we'd never get in to see it - tickets were so tight he had allegedly been made to give his back, and people were literally begging in the streets to cop one. Blimey.

So anyway, we got our tickets the next day, (and trust me, we just asked for some at the box office and were given them - believe no one ever about anything ever; except for me, of course. Would I lie to you?), and filed in to the main Palais - you know, that great big building with the mammoth red carpet leading up to it that you always see on the telly. It was literally the biggest screen I have seen in my life - I'm not a man to get excited about auditoriums, but fuck me, I almost wet in my own strides when we took our seats in the back row and I looked down to see literally thousands of people swarming below me. Being aloof and detached about everything, I'd love to say it was simply a film, but it wasn't; it was the first time since I was a little kid that I've genuinely been awestruck and excited with anticipation.

I'll freely admit that, for a brief moment, the fact that I was in Cannes seeing a premiere of a film sank in so deeply that I realised, you know, for someone like me life don't get much cooler than this. The film itself being astonishingly amusing was just the capper - I'd have been chuffed to watch a Latvian documentary on shrew-culling in those surroundings, but the fact that I could then spend a further two hours justifiably grinning like a fucking goon at the movie in front of me was a bonus. While I may have been a little tipsy on the thrill of being there, I can honestly say that it was one of the best films I've seen in a long, long time - as anyone who's seen it and loved it will know, it's got the aesthetic qualities and skewed internal logic of 'The Big Lebowski', but the humour of 'Raising Arizona', and is completely accessible to anyone on the basis it is just very funny indeed. The soundtrack alone will cause even the moodiest old swine to crack a smile, and that's without George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson and John Turturro's utterly appealing lead performances. Please pick it up and give it a go if you haven't already - I can guarantee you won't be disappointed, and if you are then I'll gladly pay you back myself.

Will I bollocks.

Oh, and while it makes us sound like flash cunts, we were at the Hollywood Reporter party because we blagged it, not because we were meant to be there; I was wearing flared brown cords in a queue for the bog with Hollywood execs in dinner jackets, and I gave not a flying one on the basis that I knew I wasn't meant to be there, but they didn't, and were welcome to assume I'm some hot young wunderkind director who, like, has to wear flared brown corduroys as a statement of radical intent, man. We pulled nine parties in eight days, none of which we had an invite for. I'm not trying to be cool here, I just feel it necessary to let anyone reading this know that me and Paul as a unit are fully aware that we are absolutely nobody and not special or different or big in any way, shape or form. What we are, however, is very jammy. You can't buy good luck, but you can make it - I would advise everyone with a big film thing going on to take a trip to Cannes and give it a whirl. What the fuck, you know? It can't hurt.

I'm aware that none of this really has shit to do with shit, but I'm getting on one now, so allow me to tell you yet another self-aggrandizing Cannes anecdote - yes, dear readers, possibly our finest hour, the most daring stunt we have ever played just to get free beer…

It was our last night in the delightful resort of Cannes - we'd had every other night's entertainment sewn up by midday, but come seven in the evening the best we'd rustled up was a two-hour reception laid on at a pier by some German film magazine in honour of Korean cinema, for fuck's sake. To be honest it was actually a really nice do, seeing as how the sun was setting and a cool breeze was sweeping in off the sea, (and there was a bunch of free food and drink which I find always helps my enjoyment of any occasion immensely). However, there were only thirty people in attendance, including waiters, and the prizes they handed out were fucking horrible - lumpen glass structures bearing a remarkable resemblance to icey vomit. Add to that a raffle for Louis Vuitton luggage starting at a bid of a thousand dollars, and you can clearly see that we were in the wrong place to get wacky for the night. So, come nine, we were strolling the streets like Ocean's Eleven looking for some action, baby, but getting nowhere fast.

That night also saw the Slamdance beach party, a big shindig laid on by the Slamdance organisation, (its not just a clever name you know), in honour of independent American cinema; that's what it said on the ticket, but lets be honest, it was just a big fucking piss-up and we wanted in. So, we'd been trying to score tickets, passes and/or a spot on the guestlist all day - however, their offices in Cannes and the States were both uncontactable on the grounds that they were all setting up the party on the beach and had better things to worry about than being available to us bunch of wasters trying to scam them. The nearest we had come was getting photocopies of some girl's ticket - which had been rendered useless anyway due to us having no scissors and trying to cut them out with a carving knife. Paul and a Canadian friend of ours, Heron Hanuman, (who was there in his TV presenter capacity, with Paul helping him out with a bit of camera work while the 'real' cameraman was off ill), had been and interviewed the organisers early in the evening, but had been told in no uncertain terms that there wasn't a cat in hell's chance of them ever getting in when the party kicked off.

So what did we do? In the words of Brian Blessed: "Dive my hawkmen! Diiiiive!"

One of Heron's buddies, Ty Russell, bore a remarkable resemblance to an actor we had seen on posters along the main drag all week, which we had been commenting on for shits and giggles throughout our stay. Ty is Canadian entertainment lawyer, and looks like some sun-bronzed surf bum/daytime soap actor; he is one handsome dude, and a wow with the ladies, and a very funny, laconic man to boot. However, he is also the owner of the world's gayest belt - a thin red leather strap worn in conjunction with black shirt and trews that makes him look like a member of Kraftwerk; (for those who don't know, Kraftwerk are Teutonic dance overlords, essentially the root source of every kind of electronic music with a beat since 1978; hip hop, techno, house, you name it, the clammy German calculator-tappers have got their cybernetic fingerprints on it somewhere. Their influence can not be denied, but at times their monochromatic dress sense and impenetrable stage-craft has been truly cuntish - when they can be bothered to turn up, that is, and don't just piss off down the pub and leave four shop-window dummies on-stage with a DAT tape running, Kraut chancers…)

Anyway, when composing this sonnet in clothing form, Ty allegedly turned to Heron and said, "Heron; does this belt look too gay?" Incidentally, he also has a tattoo which, according to Heron, features heavily in adverts for homosexual butt plugs back in fair Canada, which you don't need to know but I thought I'd tell you anyway - essentially, he is so uncommonly pretty for a man that his sexuality is called into question on a frequent basis, which is wholly unimportant in the grand scheme of things, a little unfair, and very prejudicial of all who do so, but quite frankly the bloke don't help matters getting ass-bung designs carved into his arm.

The actor in question, David Wenham, is some sun-bronzed surf bum/daytime soap actor (who's since hit it big in 'Lord Of The Rings'), so no big stretch there; in the poster for the film we had seen knocking around, he was even wearing the exact same make of glasses as Ty. So, we skeedaddled to the Palais, took down one of the posters, (the police even helped, which was very good of them seeing as how I was committing a blatant act of theft), and hatched a cunning plan…

Come eleven, Paul and Heron walked up to the crowded entrance and elbowed through with the camera, hooking up with another film crew actually down on the list. I came up behind them, holding the rolled up poster. We then planted Ethan, (an actor friend who we met up with out there as he was scouting a role in a Samuel L. Jackson movie that never came off), and Phil, (Phil Winram, Heron's other buddy - a 6'8" shaven headed stoner with a brilliant sense of humour and a Silver Surfer fetish), in the crowd. We had managed to pilfer two actual tickets from some American girls by this time, and had given them to these two boys on the grounds that they were panicking a bit about trying to pull off the elephantine degree of bullshit about to go down. Meanwhile, Rich, (an amigo of ours who had come out with me and Paul for film-based shenanigans), and Ty were stood five yards behind the heaving public, who were waiting to catch a glimpse of 'the talent' arriving. It should also be pointed out that Rich was wearing his sunglasses, despite it being pitch black, for reasons we shall come to shortly…

The film crew were called through; me, Heron and Paul filed in after them, without a word, and stood at the entrance; the girl on the door asked why we weren't going in - to which I answered "I'm waiting for my client". Heron unfurled the poster and showed it to her - he pointed to Mr. Wenham and said "I'm meant to be interviewing this guy's client inside - David Wenham - he's a very famous, very hot, up-and-coming Aussie actor". He then pointed towards the back of the crowd, were Ty was stood looking nonchalant with Rich as 'Security', dark glasses set over a face like stone. The doorgirl looked back and forth between Ty and the poster for a few seconds, then stood on her chair and screamed: "let him through! Let David through! Mr. Wenham is coming through! Make room!" I started to shout "David - come through! Let my client through!" Rich started pushing his way through the crowd - no one shall bar the entrance of David Wenham! Ty louchely sauntered into the party, looking a million dollars, and we were home dry.

To add a little icing to the occasion, as Ty was walking through the crowd, Ethan and Phil were taking pictures and going "my God! That's David Wenham!" When Ethan reached the door, he asked the doorgirl: "was that him? Was it really him?" To which she replied: "yes; that was David Lemmon".

It's beautiful to realise that this girl on the door was so unwilling to admit she didn't know who the hell David Wenham was that she quite happily let seven men with no business being there into her party, rather than look 'uncool'. With hindsight, I'm kind of willing to concede that it's rather sad and pathetic to admit we went to such a ridiculous degree of trouble just to get a free beer, but sometimes its not why you're doing it, its how you're doing it, don't you think?

So there we have it. Hope you've not been too stultified by me wanking off for ages about nothing - if you've been entertained then here's to you, old amigo; if you've been bored, then its not like there's a gun to your head is it. Go read about Colin Farrell or something instead.