All posts by Thom Willis

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About Thom Willis

Thom is the curator of #microwrites - microwrites.wordpress.com - and writes his own stories for thomwillis.uk. He lives in London because, given the choice, who wouldn't?

Stumbling On

Cult Movies, Genre

Mr Moth on why modern zombies are rubbish.

'Rarr brains etc and all that'
'Right. Better go chase down the living to feast on their guts'

‘And you wonder why
When your heart has died
That your feet go stumbling on’
– Lal Waterson & Oliver Knight, ‘Stumbling On’

I think we’re all fairly au fait with the rules of a zombie outbreak, aren’t we? I’ll rehearse them, just in case. First of all – you get bit, you’re gone. Might not be a fatal bite, but it’ll kill you anyway. Something in the saliva, maybe? It’s never specified, but whatever. The first rule of Bite Club is: you do not talk about Bite Club. If you’re in a group and a zombie took a nibble, don’t say anything. It’ll make the surprise of your transformation all the more exciting. They’d just kill you if they knew, anyway, ‘for your sake’. And how would they kill you? Rule two: remove the head or destroy the brain. I don’t know any zombie that wouldn’t work on. It’s quite effective on non-zombies, too, so be careful. Rule three: zombies will be quite easy to eliminate mano-a-zombo, but in greater numbers will take you down, no survivors. Oh, yeah, zombie movies are pretty fucking bleak, my friend. If you do live, you’ll do so knowing that you’re just delaying the inevitable; which brings me to the fourth and final rule: zombies are easy to outpace, so just run away and you’ll be cool. For a while. Continue reading Stumbling On →

At the Mountains of the Night Garden

MF Recommends, Television

Mr Moth discusses CBeebies and the rational adult

We do step on bugs, really
MrMoth, third from right, goes for a nature walk

I am still on the island. Days pass, I have no idea how many, and they all seem the same. Every day brings fresh  madness, every day is my worst day ever, every day brings me closer to the source of that infernal music. The music! It haunts my sleep. I cannot dream.

When I became a father in May 2009, I thought I was at least slightly prepared for it. Like every parent before me, I found out very quickly that I was not. It’s not just the sleepless nights (not as bad as you’d think), or the dirty nappies (only sometimes as bad you’d think), or the endless worry (worse than you can imagine), it’s the time. There’s so much of it, and your child expects you to fill it for them. Hello, little creature. What do you want? Everything? Oh. Can I read you a book? Shall we play with these toys? Shall we sing songs? Oh god, I’m exhausted. More books? More toys? More songs? Can’t I just sit for … more books! More toys! More songs! Enough! I love you, but enough! Continue reading At the Mountains of the Night Garden →

Mostly Pop – September 2011

Mostly Pop, Music

Mr Moth, dispirited but unbowed, does his last Mostly Pop for the time being

Woo woo! All aboard the One Direction Bus!
The One Direction tourbus, yesterday.

One Direction – What Makes You Beautiful

I’m no fan of Grease. Really not. But I can appreciate an irresistible tune when I hear one, and so can whoever put this crap together. Whoever they are, they have appropriated the riff of Summer Nights in order to try and make this sound in some way fun or exciting and they have failed dismally. The song’s lyrics are just as unwelcome, with the central message boiling down to “There’s nothing hotter to me than a girl with self-esteem issues”. Continue reading Mostly Pop – September 2011 →

Mostly Pop – August 2011

Mostly Pop, Music

By Mr Moth

Britney Spears – I Wanna Go

Hurrah! This is possibly her best single since Piece of Me. It’s a blessed relief after the first two singles from Femme Fatale (neither of which have been even remotely interesting) with a catchy little whistled hook and massive, hands-in-the-air chorus which, all things being equal, would play brilliantly in a club. Plus, it seems to be about wanking. Winner.

But, well, the video. File this under WTF? I’m not even sure my descriptions would do it justice. It starts quite tamely – though “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, you’re cool, fuck you” is pretty great – with Britney being Acceptably Wild, pinching a guy’s arse and flashing a cop (the subsequent frisking by whom is enjoyed to an unseemly degree by Ms Spears), etc. Then the paparazzi attack, and it all kicks off, a bit. Continue reading Mostly Pop – August 2011 →

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows – Part 2

Books and Movies, New Releases

BY MR MOTH

NOTE: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE HARRY POTTER SERIES

Strangers in the night: Daniel Radcliffe and Ralph Fiennes

This is the end. Of course, it’s not the end, what with Pottermore and the inevitable afterlife any cult fantasy endures, but it’s the end of something, a cycle of, without wishing to sound like too much of a wanker, mythology. What started with a novel entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 1997 has finally ended with a film called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2. As the books grew darker and less whimsical, so the films have found their palette drained of the flat Technicolor and daylit hi-jinks of Chris Columbus’s first two efforts. Even by the end of Chamber of Secrets, Columbus was struggling with the tone. One dreads to think how he would have coped with the grim tortures, doomy politics and centaur gang-bangers of the fifth book. Maybe he’d fling in a bit where Ron gets hit with a bucket of paint and that would lighten the mood for everyone.

I came to Potter at book two, just as the fever was building. I knew nothing about it – a friend of a friend of my flatmate had written a book and it was sitting on our bookshelves looking short and fun. I read it in a day and immediately went out and bought the first one, and the newly-published third. Never looking back, I bought each successive book at launch (but not, like, at midnight the first day or anything; I’m not a weirdo, I promise). I’ve loved them all, even the overlong and undereventful Order of the Phoenix, which has its own ponderous charm.

I saw the first film at a public preview screening in a packed Odeon in Oxford. The atmosphere was unlike any I’ve experienced before or since in a cinema, the auditorium humming with excitement, grown men dressed as wizards brushing past tiny children dressed as slightly less convincing (though much cuter) witches. The film, it’s fair to say, was a slight disappointment, but the sheer goodwill of the crowd was enough to lift my opinion of it. Since then we’ve had bad (Chamber of Secrets, Goblet of Fire), passable (Half-Blood Prince, Order of the Phoenix) and genuinely great (Prisoner of Azkaban, Deathly Hallows – Part 1) films. Deathly Hallows – Part 2 has a huge weight on it, not just the expectation of rounding off the film series in triumph, but of closing the book on the creation of Harry Potter’s world.

With that in mind, then, does David Yates pull it off? Continue reading Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows – Part 2 →

Mostly Pop – June 2011

Mostly Pop, Music, , , , ,

by Mr Moth  

Nicola Roberts – Beat of my Drum

Nicola Roberts was always my favourite Girl Aloud, in spite of the repeated criticisms slung at her – she can’t dance! She doesn’t smile! She can’t sing! – so when I became aware that she was launching a solo career I can honestly say my heart sank a little bit. “Stick to your legacy, Nicola!” I thought. “Be remembered as the slightly awkward redhead  in the best pop band ever, the one with the flat but oddly appealing singing voice!” Mostly, though, I thought “Don’t release a bunch of anodyne shit like Cheryl and Nadine!”

Continue reading Mostly Pop – June 2011 →

Great TV you’ve never seen: Man v. Food

Television,

by Mr Moth

A crowd of hyped-up regulars, bemused tourists, small children (always small children), drunks and staff cheer relentlessly for a man they’ve never met performing a feat they’d never attempt for a prize they would never want. At one point a – probably drunk – young man steps up from the audience and whoops ‘Come on, you can beat this, you’re a MACHINE! WOO!’. If he was in a football stadium he would have his shirt off, and writing painted across his torso. If he was in a war, he would be charging at the enemy, balls-naked and armed only with a pocket knife. A pretty young woman – let’s be honest here, also drunk – dashes up to the man at the centre of the attention, kisses him and yells ‘You can do it, I believe in you!!’. The man at the table looks up, briefly, from his task, smiles like a man facing a firing squad and dives back in. Seconds tick by, minutes pile up, discarded husks of the man’s enemy pile up too. Something momentous is going to happen.

He’s going to win. The crowd’s belief, their simple willingness to cheer him on, has been rewarded. He stands on a chair to take in the final moment. His face a burning, greasy, sweating mask of triumph, he bites down on the last chicken wing and looks at the camera. ‘In the eternal battle of Man vs Food,’ he intones, his voice conveying the solemnity of the occasion – he is Adam, the first man, doing battle with Man’s oldest friend and most ancient enemy, Food – ‘this round GOES TO MAN!’

Then he is given a T-shirt.

Continue reading Great TV you’ve never seen: Man v. Food →

Mostly Pop – May 2011

Mostly Pop, Music

by Mr Moth

"Hey, good looking"
"Chris Brown warms up for a date"

Charlie Simpson – Down Down Down


Oh, Charlie Simpson off of Busted. You broke my heart when you left Matt and James, you really did. Why did you split up the band, just when you were reaching your peak with “Thunderbirds Are Go!”, from Thunderbirds Official Soundtrack? To form Fightstar? Really? No, really?

Anyway, now you’ve put Fightstar on hiatus – literally tens of fanboys will no doubt be rending their clothes as we speak – to, in that dread phrase, “pursue solo projects”. And this is yours. Well done, you. You sure showed us you’re a true renaissance man. Why, this sounds like.. god, Charlie, it sounds like soulful Busted. You can’t help it. Bit of acoustic strumming. KNOT THOSE BROWS. OK, Busted after having listened to a bit of Noah and the Whale or whatever, but still. There’s something inherently naff about all the ex-Busted members – something which Matt Willis has worked to his advantage, but which works against Charlie every time he tries to be A Serious Artist.

Continue reading Mostly Pop – May 2011 →

Mostly Pop – April 2011

Mostly Pop, Music

by Mr Moth

Britney Spears – Till the World Ends

Britney! Yeah, Britney’s back again. Hurrah! There’s something fascinating about Britney Spears; the self-destructive bête noire of the glossies never seems to connect to the airbrushed dolly of the videos. She’s fat! She’s a terrible mother! She’s bald! She has terrible skin! She’s losing it! Yet put her on a set and she’s the most professional, presentable pop star on the planet. This disconnect keeps people coming back to her, whether she turns out something perfunctory (Circus) or revelatory (Blackout). How long this can last is uncertain, but here we are in 2011 still excited for her return so she’s doing something right.

Comeback single Hold It Against Me, sadly, fell into the perfunctory category for me, being immediately forgettable and weak in the chorus. Even the video, directed by Telephone and Smack My Bitch Up auteur Jonas Åkerlund, had little to say for it beyond high production values (woah, really?) and, again, the appearance of Robo-Britney where you might expect a broken husk. Second single Till The World Ends is slightly more interesting but, you know, only just. With a video which on first glance appears to be a low-rent Black Eyed Peas clip (I mean that to sting), but on repeated viewings shows itself to be even less than that, the song chugs along without ever becoming something more than album filler. A wordless chant of a chorus lifts it slightly out of the mire; it’s not enough. Britney needs to get way crazier to come back with something this ordinary.

Continue reading Mostly Pop – April 2011 →