ONAR APPRECIATION WEEK!

















Bit of a busy week for Poptique, so if I may be so bold I'd like to point you in the direction of Worldweird Cinema - doing the greater good for the globe by devoting a full seven days to Bill Barounis' ONAR FILMS, purveyor of the rarest pop-cinema from the lost archives of Turkeywood!

Worldweird's humble host Jared has been delving into the Bill's current and future releases in an abundantly enthusiastic fashion and linking to reviews all over the web, so you don't just have to take his word (or mine) about how outstandingly outrageous Onar's limited edition DVD releases are!

IF IT AIN'T BROKE...

Let's Go For Broke - the missing movie plot thickens...

So far this Summer the substandard blockbuster fare that's been served up has left me cold.

A much more interesting story has been unspooling over at Booksteve's Library, as he continues his one man search for titbits on the seemingly evaporated Let's Go For Broke - a C-Grade 70s Spy flick which proved to be the one and only starring role for blighted blonde bombshell Christa Helm.

We've taken in a retrospective of his research so far, but more information has been provided by an enlightened individual who caught the film three times during the incredibly brief period Let's Go For Broke exposed it's charms to an unsuspecting audience - a two week run in Cincinnati, 1974.

Two important facts have been revealed. Firstly, the Bondesque adventure had a typically Bondesque theme song - sung by Miss Helm herself - and secondly, the plot revolved around a wheelchair bound über-villain plotting to take over the world with synthetic dog food.

Not just any kind of ordinary synthetic dog food, I'll have you know. Anyone foolish enough to chow down on the phony foodstuff would swiftly be transformed into a twitching pile of mincemeat. Incredible.

If only a trailer for this long gone grindhouse epic could be located I'd be a happy chappy. Who needs 200 million dollar budgets when you've got killer dog food to bandy about?

SUPERMAN'S MOST STUPENDOUS SKIRMISHES Part II

Continuing our exploration into the more fiendish foes faced by the legendary Superman we feature a truely dastardly adversary...

SUPERMAN VS. SMOKERS!

If you're a fan of the tenacious tobacco plant then you're no friend of Superman! During the late 70s he fought a part time battle against the Cigarette industry when not facing down regular villains, such as Lex Luthor and the like. The dangers of smoking were eventually personified into the character of Nick O'Teen - perverse purveyor of ciggies to unsuspecting youths. Nick O'Teen featured in a series of commercials starting with this one in 1980. Don't take my word for it, but the fluid animation looks to be the work of the amazing, Soho-based Richard Williams Studio.



These were highly influential to an impressionable mind like mine - I wanted to rush out and buy a pack of fags straight away. Not to smoke - but to crush to a pulp, just like good old Superman! Hooray!

WORLD CUP FEVER SUBSIDES

Nearly 24 hours after England's ignominious exit from the 2006 World Cup and things are slowly returning to normality. Travelling back home from the coast today I noticed a slight reduction in the number of St. George's Crosses flying from cars - the atmosphere out and about certainly more subdued than the tangible excitement buzzing around before yesterday's game.

The English love their Footie and during a World Cup the blanket coverage infiltrates every facet of daily life. Ad breaks are littered with product placements, tournament tie-ins and celebrity footballer endorsements (particularly painful to witness Michael Owen, just after being stretched off against Sweden, prancing about an Asda supermarket brandishing a take-away curry with a mixture of bemusement and embarrassment).

Society is now so enlightened and/or celebrity driven that during matches we get unwarrented cutaways to Mrs. Beckham, the former Posh Spice, and "World Cup Widows" can find their own footballing entertainment through the exploits of the WAGS posse, splashed all over the pages of glossy mags and tabloid newspapers.


When it comes to tournament itself, all that ceaselessly snide Cup chatter from Tabloid journalists proves to be the biggest taxation, the entire event being treated like a Roy of the Rovers comic book.


A genuine Football comic book is the one thing I haven't seen during this year's festivities - you'd expect to find the 21st century a far too sophisticated era for the innocent jollity of the Football Family Robinson or a "Death Match" between Chelbridge Rovers and Inter Mazio, but the pocket sized Football Picture Story Monthly (represented here with a few early covers) ran from 1986 until three years ago.

Wayne Rooney even featured as a back cover star in one of the final issues, although I doubt any characters pre-empted the poor chap by frustratedly stamping on someone's personal tackle in that particular edition...

Ultimately though, when you think of what might have been this year - a Beckham captained England winning the World Cup, in Germany, 40 years after 1966 - it's a shame life isn't a bit more like a comic book at times...

Boo-bleedin-hoo.