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Julie Burchill forced to apologise for twitter comments , and pay out a fat wedge .

I watched The Wickerman for the first time the other week, and while I enjoyed it well enough I'm not sure it's deserving of it's reputation - that final scene is magnificent though, and I spent an enjoyable evening listening to different versions of Sumer Is Icumen In as a result.

I was underwhelmed the first time I saw it as well. But I've come to love after seeing the extended cut. I think if the whole idea of the pagan cult doesn't feel seductive to you, the film will fall a bit flat. Also it's kind of funny when you watch it again, with Edward Woodward's reactions to the naked flame dance, the maypole etc. "But, but they're naked" / "Well naturally...". Also it's a great musical.

Anyway I feel we've strayed from the topic of the thread. Can we please, please, please get back to more pressing matters!

Now what was this business with the swan?
 
Reminds me of one of my favourite jokes:
"Which of the slopes is best for slalom would you say?"
"Sorry, I'm not a skier, I'm a tobogganist."
"Oh, well I'll just have twenty Silk Cut then."
Great joke - but you missed out the whole build up where he keeps calling a zig zag a zig zog and infuriating his ski instructor - so they ask another bloke on the slope to settle the argument - "when you go in and out of flags or trees or whatever, is it a zig zag or a zig zog?" setting up the punch line.
 
IME people who're 'bothered' about halal slaughter practices but not bothered about standard UK slaughter practices aren't actually bothered about halal slaughter practices at all.

The thing that gets me about it is that it doesn't actually sound that bad. Sure, they don't stun the creature (IIRC), but then I'm kind of skeptical about whether electrical stunning really does much beyond stopping the animal from moving; my experience of being electrocuted tells me that you can most definitely still be aware and feel things, and I suspect it's more done for ease of handling by workers than for the animal's sake. Not sure about this so feel free to correct me, but don't they also have to kill the animal by slitting its throat with a very sharp knife? I've accidentally cut myself with blades so sharp that I didn't realise until the blood started dripping. Death by major and rapid loss of blood volume is hardly Rasputinian.

Plus the major giveaway is that the sort of people who complain about halal slaughter are also the same types who hardly ever even mentioned standard slaughtering practices before. So yeah, racists.
 
Ive remembered another episode in Burchil's long history of bile is her coming out with a whole boatload of transphobic bigotry a few years ago - think it lost her a newspaper column as a result.
 
I was underwhelmed the first time I saw it as well. But I've come to love after seeing the extended cut. I think if the whole idea of the pagan cult doesn't feel seductive to you, the film will fall a bit flat. Also it's kind of funny when you watch it again, with Edward Woodward's reactions to the naked flame dance, the maypole etc. "But, but they're naked" / "Well naturally...". Also it's a great musical.

Anyway I feel we've strayed from the topic of the thread. Can we please, please, please get back to more pressing matters!

Now what was this business with the swan?

it's the atmosphere of the whole thing, coming out of that period when the rebellious, politically awake spirit of the late sixties had partially collapsed, and people were drifting off into all kinds of esoterica, "looking within" for answers etc... and this filmed seemed to just open up a glimpse of this fully formed, alt pagan world out there somewhere ( and there seemed to be all kinds of culty charlatans / shamans / chancers at it back then ) .
 
Great joke - but you missed out the whole build up where he keeps calling a zig zag a zig zog and infuriating his ski instructor - so they ask another bloke on the slope to settle the argument - "when you go in and out of flags or trees or whatever, is it a zig zag or a zig zog?" setting up the punch line.
In the version I remember it was a zig zag or a zag zig & as I said before it was 20 B&H. :thumbs:
 
The thing that gets me about it is that it doesn't actually sound that bad. Sure, they don't stun the creature (IIRC), but then I'm kind of skeptical about whether electrical stunning really does much beyond stopping the animal from moving; my experience of being electrocuted tells me that you can most definitely still be aware and feel things, and I suspect it's more done for ease of handling by workers than for the animal's sake. Not sure about this so feel free to correct me, but don't they also have to kill the animal by slitting its throat with a very sharp knife? I've accidentally cut myself with blades so sharp that I didn't realise until the blood started dripping. Death by major and rapid loss of blood volume is hardly Rasputinian.

Plus the major giveaway is that the sort of people who complain about halal slaughter are also the same types who hardly ever even mentioned standard slaughtering practices before. So yeah, racists.
To stun or not to stun is kind of disputed wrt Halal and Kosher killing. Most halal slaughter is done with pre-stun in the UK now anyway. The best knowledge is that pre-stunning does reduce suffering, and I would support a complete ban on non-stun slaughter. I see no justification for a religious exemption. However, it is also true enough that there are important issues to do with slaughter in the UK other than stunning.

Humane Slaughter & Stunned Meat | RSPCA
 
Don't get me wrong, I really did enjoy Wickerman - I'm a big fan of shlocky exploitation horror films. But I suppose I was expecting something slicker. And I definitely wasn't expecting it to be a musical.
Long time since I've seen it but I thought it was the music that set it aside from just about every other horror film? Not just that it has pagan-folky-hippy-ish music throughout, it doesn't have any of the atmospherics of a typical horror film.
 
FWIW I recently watched Roddy McDowall's 1970 folk horror film Tam Lin, which also has an excellent sinister folk soundtrack (from Pentangle) and has similar production values - and an incredible central performance from Ava Gardner... and while it's not as singularly weird as Wickerman, it did seem odd to me while watching that Wickerman is often listed as one of the greatest films ever made, and Tam Lin is totally unheard of (you can watch it for free on youtube if you like)
 
FWIW I recently watched Roddy McDowall's 1970 folk horror film Tam Lin, which also has an excellent sinister folk soundtrack (from Pentangle) and has similar production values - and an incredible central performance from Ava Gardner... and while it's not as singularly weird as Wickerman, it did seem odd to me while watching that Wickerman is often listed as one of the greatest films ever made, and Tam Lin is totally unheard of (you can watch it for free on youtube if you like)

Try Blood on Satan's Claw.
 
FWIW I recently watched Roddy McDowall's 1970 folk horror film Tam Lin, which also has an excellent sinister folk soundtrack (from Pentangle) and has similar production values - and an incredible central performance from Ava Gardner... and while it's not as singularly weird as Wickerman, it did seem odd to me while watching that Wickerman is often listed as one of the greatest films ever made, and Tam Lin is totally unheard of (you can watch it for free on youtube if you like)
oh and it also stars an unexpectedly beautiful young Ian Mcshane, and Joanna Lumley as a satanist hippie. It's got everything really.
 
it's the atmosphere of the whole thing, coming out of that period when the rebellious, politically awake spirit of the late sixties had partially collapsed, and people were drifting off into all kinds of esoterica, "looking within" for answers etc... and this filmed seemed to just open up a glimpse of this fully formed, alt pagan world out there somewhere ( and there seemed to be all kinds of culty charlatans / shamans / chancers at it back then ) .

I've always assumed it's model is the Findhorn Community



Findhorn eco-community marks 50 years
 
oh and it also stars an unexpectedly beautiful young Ian Mcshane, and Joanna Lumley as a satanist hippie. It's got everything really.
I watched that on your recommendation. Very enjoyable, and deserving of more attention definitely. Ian McShane was famously beautiful as a youth, no? Villain is another where he parades his beauty. Another underrated film.
 
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