Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

Okay, first and foremost, let's get this out of the way: I liked this film. Yes, you heard right - you'll get no high falutin' derisory cineaste sneering from this critic. No siree. In fact watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - the second attempt to reboot the franchise after the vaguely abortive TMNT in 2007 - made me re-appreciate the value of enjoying films in the company of others. God forbid I should combine film-watching with socialising, but it happened. And it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

I should point out that this 'watching films with other people' malarkey was largely due to the movie in question; coming under the banner of Michael Bay's sidearm Platinum Dunes, it was my friend Adele's voracity for anything Bayhem-tinged that crowbarred me into the cinema, much to my initial chagrin. Why weren't we going to see Gone Girl? Fury, per chance? Hell I'd even take The Maze Runner. But no, Turtles it was. The Transformers-lite teaser trailer had hit all the right buttons for her, and the lady wasn't for turning. Once the film got underway though, it would appear I was for turning.

Jonathan Liebesman's 2014 iteration is by no means a masterpiece, nor is it even great - but as an exercise in ticking the right boxes in the right order for what is essentially a big, goofy kids' film, it's pretty damn faultless. Compare it to The Amazing Spider-Man 2, for instance (which runs with a similar tone on almost double the budget), and it comes off like Renaissance art next to a panicked Etch-a-Sketch drawing. Yes it's silly. Yes it has its flaws. But it's got heart and it's got soul, and for a film that feels the need to awkwardly insert Victoria's Secret product placement into its end credit sequence for no discernible reason, that's high praise indeed.

Despite the basics of the plot being somewhat moot (mutated turtles, a mutated rat, blah blah etc etc), it does throw a few curveballs into the mix by way of having roving reporter April O'Neil (a surprisingly emotive Megan Fox) linked to their gestation/survival, her father being one of the geneticists behind their mutation. Of course he had a partner in kryme (I couldn't resist) with ulterior motives (William Fichtner), who's still pursuing said motives in a quest to ensnare the turtles for their mutated blood. I could go on but I'm boring myself writing this shit. In essence, it's a comic book plot with a kid-friendly bent, ridiculous but perfunctory with enough twists to keep the kids amused and the adults engaged (except for when Shredder says he wants to 'dine on turtle soup' - you'll roll your eyes, but give the film a break; it's for the kids, not for you).

This kid-friendly charm extends beautifully to the turtles themselves, their newly-minted CGI incarnations proving to be characters you can emotionally invest in (that said, avert your eyes during their childhood training sequences - Michaelangelo (Noel Fisher) break-dancing to Hollaback Girl is THE scariest thing you'll see this year). They're akin to Bay's Transformers in that respect; no matter what you may think of the films themselves, it's hard to deny Bumblebee and Megatron have far more charisma than LaBeouf, Fox, Wahlberg et al. It's to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' credit that Will Arnett (as O'Neil's trusty cameraman Vern Fenwick) manages to keep us interested in the human element as well as the CGI wizardry - well, just. None of the actors are stretched by any degree, but a few decent gags and a zingy (if slightly cringey) script keep things afloat, the pace never letting up but never getting too ahead of itself either. In an age where action films are seemingly vying for your attention at every spare moment, it's refreshing to see a film placing a modicum of emphasis on character development as well as the next explodey bit (though you may be surprised how few explosions there are for a Bay-produced film - hand-to-hand combat is the pizza order of the day here, though quite why Shredder had to be exo-skeletoned up to the tits is beyond me).

It should be easy to mock Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as many of the broadsheets already have, but I'm afraid I can't - when you've genuinely enjoyed yourself for an hour and a half, it'd be a betrayal to all involved if I was to scoff in its face, brushing it off as forgettable frippery. Though in some ways it is; this isn't a film trying to reinvent the wheel, in fact it's the umpteenth film to utilise the old "I'll infect the city with a virus because I'm evil and shit" gambit, so much so that we spent a fair chunk of time after the screening thinking how many other recent films have used it as their MacGuffin (X-Men, Batman Begins, The Amazing Spider-Man - do send other answers in on a postcard, please). But its potential forgetability is routinely saved by the chemistry between the four green leads, each of them so solidly defined in their predetermined roles (the leader, the loose cannon, the science geek, the comic relief) that you remember why everyone had their favourite growing up. They're designed to let children see part of themselves in each of them, children both big and little... I know I know, this all sounds suspiciously rose-tinted. Fuck it, it probably is. But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has, for this critic, breathed fresh life into a franchise that never got the chance it deserved first time around. Leave your cynicism at the door and enjoy the ride - you might not love it, but you'll be hard-pressed to say you weren't entertained. And that's good enough for my money.

Peaches Christ's Bearbarella

Not for the first time in my life, I was surrounded by scantily-clad males; their thick make-up, pore-clogging body glitter and intimately-placed microphone packs forming the apex of my evening. With my miner’s headlamp turned on full, foraging under the immense wig of Lady Bear herself, my shaking fingers desperately fondling the thin stem of her headworn mic in a vain attempt to get it to clip around her ear, I paused for a moment to consider the words of David Byrne: how did I get here? My God, what have I done?!

Such was my Saturday evening on the 11^th October in the Year of Our Lord Twenty-Fourteen. I wasn’t in the bowels of a Canal Street flesh pit, nor off on a whistlestop tour of London’s Torture Garden; I was lost in the green room for the Manchester finale of Peaches Christ’s Bearbarella, a bespoke theatrical cinema performance taking cues from Roger Vadim’s Barbarella, her one-hour pre-show taking a captive audience to new highs (and lows) of camp excess before a screening of Vadim’s insane 60s sci-fi spectacular. And as already noted, this was the second time I’d worked with the legendary San Francisco drag queen – otherwise known as Joshua Granell – armed with her cohorts Hugz Bunny (Ric Ray) and Shemantha (Sam Sharkey) under the production steerage of Bren O’Callaghan, a man so passionate about the project that he battled influenza for the entire three-date tour (both Belfast and Glasgow bore a brute force attack from the be-Barbed Christmistress) before allegedly collapsing in a doctor’s surgery minutes after the wrap party. He hasn’t been back to work since. Drama queen, much?

It’s inspiring in many ways that Cornerhouse – ever the bastion of chin-stroking director Q&As and gallery exhibitions that by their very nature can struggle to find an audience – can still put on a show like this without batting a fake-lashed eyelid. Coming under the banner of the BFI’s Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder season, it was in many ways a ridiculous show that outstripped its predecessor, 2010’s Midnight Mass, for sheer filth and debauchery. But when paired with the film, it all slotted into place; Vadim’s absurd but visionary sexual adventure is in many ways sillier than the pre-show that came before it, its high camp values a perfect match for the performance that Peaches and Co. brought to the stage.

An array of superbly-outfitted Manchester drag queens filled out the cast of characters, from the blind angel Go-Girl (Cheddar Gawjus) to the lamé-caped Dildongo (Anna Phylactic), all expertly choreographed by the Ultra Violets. To see all this unfold from my vantage point behind the mixing desk, headlamp’d up to the nines, adjusting mic levels under the watchful eye of señor Sharkey (a man who could well be considered the ultimate calm at the centre of a very crazy storm) was nothing if not a pleasure. Any nerves I had dissipated as soon as the curtain came up on Peaches, her fierce opening song kicking off a succession of equally fierce lip-synced numbers, strung together by the lurid sexual exploits of Lady Bear (whose real name remains a deliberate mystery). There was even time for some audience participation in the form of The Orgasmatron Challenge, though I guess the less said about that the better; what happens with Peaches, stays with Peaches.

Whether it be for Cornerhouse, Abandon Normal Devices or for HOME in 2015, working on these insane events is one of the reasons I love my day job. Unplanned emergencies, such as getting stage lighting to work with less than three hours to go until showtime, are all part of the fun; any stress falls by the wayside when you see a 300-strong audience from a myriad catchment zones having an absolute ball on your watch. Gushing my words may be, but for good reason – I loved it. And I’ll shout it from the roof of my blog for all to hear.

Long live Peaches. x