Matt Tuckey is a writer from Oldham, England. He covers celebrities, night life, Manchester, fitness, creative writing, social media, psychology and events. Some of this may, in some way, help others. Or maybe it'll just entertain you for a while.
Last May I made a plan to get into as fit a shape as possible before the upcoming Comic Con in Yorkshire, where I planned (and succeeded) to get photos with 2 celebrities. (See Part 1 and Part 2 of this).
My aim was to get down to 72.2kg, a weight that I previously dieted to in order to fit into my 30” suit trousers some years ago. Coming back to 2024, I managed to get to 72.4, but ended at 73.7 by 22nd June .
I’d love to get down to that again. This time, instead of necking grotesque vegetable smoothies, I’m going to make a lot of soups with veg from Aldi’s Super Six range, and follow recipes from different cookbooks.
The next Comic Con is in Manchester, 27th July, at which I should be meeting John Connor himself Edward Furlong from Terminator 2, Xander Berkley from Heat, Candyman, Terminator 2, Air Force One and Apollo 13, and Tom Skerritt from Alien, M*A*S*H, Top Gun and, um, Poltergeist III.
It’s also my birthday weekend, so I’d like to be down to 72kg again. I’m currently 77.9kg. Piled it on in the space of 2 weeks. Oh well.
District 9, Neil Blomkamp’s directorial debut, tells of a Johannesburg taking on alien refugees, and government agent Vikus finding his loyalties tested when he’s infected with alien DNA. The film ended open, Vikus missing, as far as the authorities are concerned, and with the aliens moved to the titular District 10, sequel hinted.
The poster above and the respective sequel are long overdue. In the meantime, Blomkamp has instead made a string of sci-fi bangers with iconic technology. His Oats Studios anthology on Netflix hints to a plethora of other cinematic ideas - electronic bugs, TV kitchen disasters and more sinister alien invasions.
The hinting of a potential District 10 got me thinking: What other films are ripe for a sequel? What stories need continuing on the silver screen? I have a few suggestions…
Fight Club
David Fincher’s cult 1999 adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s debut novel defined a generation of young, lost men thrust into adulthood without a clue what to do with their lives. ‘Beat each other up,’ seemed to be the author’s recommendation.
Well, the book and movie both became cult hits eventually, and the book spawned 2 sequels, both in graphic novel form. Fight Club 2 picks up a few years later. Heavily medicated, the narrator has moved on from Tyler Durden, living quite a plain existence, until the enigmatic sidekick bribes a doctor and finds his way back into the narrator’s life.
Would you cast the same 3 lead actors? I would.
Midsommar
Ari Aster’s contemporary twist on rural Pagan horror (think Gen-Z Wicker Man in Scandinavia) ends with Dani (Florence Pugh) a sole survivor of a sinister massacre.
The Swedish Island commune saw all her friends done away with one by one in bizarre and macabre fashion.
But Sweden is still an ally of the States, and families are going to ask questions. Are authorities going to investigate? How long has this been going on? And where will Dani’s loyalties lie?
Would it kill the horror to drag the island into the 21st century? Possibly. Could Aster pull it off? Probably.
Predators
Okay, hear me out. Predators was not a great movie. It seemed to run out of ideas, despite the initial premise being a good one: the Predators visit contemporary Earth, scoop of a series of hardened warriors from far-flung corners – a US Special Ops vet, an African death squad soldier, a Yakuza enforcer etc – and drop them onto a game planet to hunt them down.
The movie doesn’t seem to go anywhere, though: some get killed, others don’t. The wild plan to commandeer their ship and somehow fly it back to Earth never materialises.
You’d think Hollywood would put together a sequel to this if they were going to touch the ailing Predator franchise, but instead they went with The Predator, Shane Black’s 2018 contemporary-set outing, a box office success but a critical dumpster-fire. Most hacks hated the story, branding it incomprehensible. I’m yet to see this.
Back to Predators: IDF sniper Isabelle and American soldier Royce head into the jungle looking for transport. Then what? That premise actually sounds more interesting than what happened in the rest of the movie.
With real-life current affairs, though, I can’t see that happening. Hollywood would probably want to, but the movie would be unquestionably boycotted. A good portion of the world does not want an Israeli Defence Force heroine.
Maybe execs were right to green-light Prey, setting the next Predator film in 1700s native Appalachia. I’ve not caught this movie yet either. I think Hollywood could mine other historical time periods, dropping the intergalactic hunters into other conflicts: The Harrying of the North, with William the Conqueror seeing off the Vikings, World War II in perhaps Sudan, 1960s Vietnam etc. etc. Setting the films in the past gives us the opportunity to suggest an alternate explanation for how our history books turned out: a load of weedy Anglo-Saxons and Normans managed to see off massive, ripped Norse invaders. Were they helped by something they couldn’t see? Something with an invisibility shield? What if the Leonids meteor shower of 1833 was actually a tribe of descending Predators, hunting native Americans and European settlers alike?
World history is punctuated with extreme violence. The stories are ripe for retelling with predators.
Alien Resurrection
Ft.Lt Ellen Ripley’s story arc ended in post-apocalyptic Paris (In the director’s cut at least) with her rag-tag gang of space raiders – those who survived the massacres of Alien Resurrection.
In 2005, Titan Books published Michael Jan Friedman’s Aliens: Original Sin, a continuation of the story, in which we’re reintroduced to Ripley, android Call, mercenary Johner and paraplegic mechanic Vriess. This time, inexplicably, they’re in New Zealand. They soon find themselves on an orbital station above Earth, intent on breaking out. They commandeer a shuttle in which they find a stowaway journalist, who smells a story.
Could this film adaptation happen now that Sigourney Weaver – playing Ripley – and Ron Pearlman – Johner – are both 74? And Call actress Winona Ryder is 52 and busy with Netflix’s Stranger Things? I fear that boat – or starship – has sailed.
The Rules of Attraction
In 1998 Bret Easton Ellis published Glamorama, a 90s-set novel following Victor, a small character from his earlier novel The Rules of Attraction.
In this, the young man – now a successful model – is 2-timing his girlfriends and getting into fights with C-list celebs, all while trying to launch a nightclub. As this all comes to a head, he’s approached by an ominous, suited figure who offers him a cheque for $300,000 if he’ll go to Europe and find an old girlfriend who’s gone missing.
Soon Victor is immersed in a world of models, fashion, terrorism and ice sculptures that are as cold as his co-conspirators.
Ellis’ novels have had some success on the screen before: American Psycho became a cult classic, memed to death and idolised both ironically and unironically by Gen-Z. Rules of Attraction was a far better adaptation: much more faithful with more expert direction, and with a superior cast of ageing and fledgling stars. It’s a shame it isn’t as well-known.
The rest of his screen adaptations are atrocious. Don’t bother with The Informers or The Canyons, for example.
Glamorama could buck that trend with enough money behind it. It’s a novel as big as American Psycho, a generous serving of literature, but could be condensed to make an iconic movie, or kept at full length for an 8-part Netflix series, perhaps.
Kip Pardue, who played Victor in Glamorama, is now 48, so way too old to reprise the role. There’s always emerging talent, though. Who was Ian Somerhalder before he was cast in The Rules of Attraction? Not particularly well-known. He went on to be cast as Damon Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries, and I say you can attribute that to his brilliantly cold performance in Rules.
Reservoir Dogs / Pulp Fiction
Bucking the trend here, but these two films deserve a prequel. Tarantino confirmed that, in his universe, Vic Vega of Reservoir dogs and Vincent Vega of Pulp Fiction are in fact brothers.
A backstory of how these two got into the life of crime – one robbing diamond stores and the like, the other dabbling in cocaine and heroin, becoming a questionable enforcer for Marcellus Wallace’s crime empire - is ripe for investigation.
Tarantino had plans to write it, set in Amsterdam, but abandoned it.
Unfortunately, the only person who’s likely to write it is Quentin Tarantino himself, who has recently revealed himself to be a rabid Zionist, visiting IDF troops offering them ‘moral support’ while they murder children in Gaza. What a way to sully your reputation.
Human Traffic
Justin Kerrigan’s 1999 cult clubbing movie springboarded the careers of Danny Dyer and John Simm. Together with three other struggling millennials, they manage – with some challenges - to get tickets to a Cardiff club night in which they all take pills, rave, go to an after party, do coke and ‘talk codshit’ - as Simm’s Jip puts it - about Star Wars. Some develop relationships, others don’t.
20 years have passed since the movie came out. The club scene is largely over. Recently, in reality, I’ve been to a couple of 2000-era throwback nights featuring house music, singers and DJs from back in that period.
What would work as a sequel: The 5 reconnect over Facebook, something that they rarely use, and mostly for one thing: a ‘Cardiff Clubbers’ private group for people who went to the clubs (featured and referenced in the first movie). An ageing promoter in the group decides to put on one last event, gathering together DJs and singers from back in the day. (I bet known singers like Steve Edwards – vocalist for Bob Sinclair’sWorld Hold On would be happy to cameo.) This time, they have to contend with reduced spinal fluid, drug dogs, smartphones, former sesh-heads who are now teetotal body-is-temple vegans, digital cameras, social media (and employers who might snoop on it) and friends’ partners. Some faces are missing: some are dead, some moved away, some just couldn’t face potentially relapsing and stayed home.
Question is, what time period do you use for the soundtrack? Maybe 1995-2005 would work. The characters were, in the original, young enough to still have some clubbing days in front of them. So leeway on the years around when the original was set could give some variety.
Scarface
Brian DePalma’s Scarface (1983) ends in a massacre. Cocaine kingpin Tony Montana, after his bloody rise from dishwasher to gang boss, is dead, so is his sister Gina, his best friend Manny, his close confidant Chichi, and probably all of his bodyguards. The only people we know to make it out alive are Tony’s mother, his wife Elvira (who walked away at the right moment) and Ales Sosa, Tony’s boss who ordered the hit.
Also still living, to the best of our knowledge, is Matos Gutierrez, a Bolivian journalist who’d identified Sosa and his cohorts as the source operatives of America’s cocaine trade. Tony’s insistence that he doesn’t blow up the car, containing Gutierrez's wife and two children, allowed Gutierrez to go to the United Nations and spill the beans to them too.
Hence, the assault on Montana mansion goes ahead. A handful of Bolivian goons are all that remains.
Surely an onslaught like this would attract the attention of the FBI. Not to mention, the police would still be wondering what happened to their (corrupt) employee Mel Bernstein, and this would lead back to one person: Sosa.
Sosa actor Paul Shenar died in 1989 and most of the surviving movie cast are in their 70s and 80s, so recasting would be somewhat necessary. Plus setting everything in the early 80s – or any time period after about 1890 – is expensive for Hollywood.
There are a lot of loose ends to be investigated. In reality, numerous people were importing cocaine from South America to Florida in particular. There are 3 ‘Cocaine Cowboys’ documentaries that lift the lid on that life, available on different websites. They’re all well worth watching.
Furthermore, cocaine wasn’t – and isn’t – the only drug being imported. As the 80s rolled on, more synthetic drugs like MDMA muscled in, which would have impacted on cocaine sales. Who were the players there? How did they interact? What happened as a result of the power vacuum caused by Tony’s demise?
*
Those are my 10 suggestions. What other big films were left open-ended, that deserve a follow-up?
Paul McGann. I in Withnail & I, Golic in Alien 3 and the 8th Dr Who
Giancarlo Esposito. Gustavo Fring in Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul, Moff gideon in The Mandalorian, Jack Bauer in The Usual Suspects, Stan Edgar in The Boys and Stanley Johnson in The Gentlemen.
Before the next Q+A begins, the cosplay competition takes place, which devolves into a conga line.
He tells us with Breaking Bad (playing meth distributor Gustavo Fring), it was the writing that made the character so memorable.
In his Q+A panel, Esposito also breaks down his Mandalorian character Moff Gideon. “Assume I know everything,” he tells us. (I haven’t actually watched it, so...) “You can’t lead unless you can follow. I was probably a good follower.”
He describes, as an actor, how the hundreds of cameras used during filming The Mandalorian allowed the different set pieces to move.
The roaming mic goes out to the audience, and the first question is suitably dark: How does it feel to die on camera?
GE: I die a lot! It depends on how we die: eyes closed, I take my last breath, sometimes the camera stays on me, and I have to hold my breath. With Breaking Bad, I spoke to Vince (Gilligan, creator). I said, Vince, don’t close the door. Vince said, the town is too big for Fring AND Walter. I suggested I (he mimes) straighten my tie. He gasped. When I got the script it was all in black and white. It was exactly how I suggested. The guy from (zombie TV show) The Walking Dead applied the makeup. We filmed it 19 times.
Audience Question: What was the most fun episode of Breaking Bad?
GE: Box Cutter. (The first episode of Season 4.) There’s 8+1/2 minutes with no words. You convey through attitude, like a Harold Pinter play. You connect with eyes. Fring changes to fisherman’s clothes and says, ‘get back to work.’ It’s a great scene. There’s a power in silence. How often are we able to connect with silence? It reflects the space when we breathe. It takes practice. When you practice, you’re more in tune with nature and each other.
AQ: If you could play another character in the Breaking Bad universe, which would it be?
GE: Mike Ehrmantraut. He’s a former cop, and represents morality and integrity, like a soldier. I respect this. He can follow. You can’t lead unless you can follow.
Compare Tom Finkell: If you could have a dinner party with all your characters, who would you sit next to?
GE: Gus Fring. He has integrity. He comes from a rich, African family in Chile, and comes up against the Salamancas, thinks things are sloppy and takes over.
TF: Would you revisit Gus?
GE: I would. We’d love to see the rise of Gus. He grew up poor. Better Call Saul shows how lonely he had been. How vulnerable. In Breaking Bad we know he survives. In Better Call Saul I could imbibe him with another side.
The next audience question asks about his work on the video game Far Cry 6, in which he voices arch villain Anton Castillo.
GE: That was acting, not just providing a voiceover. They shot me in a green room; I was moving like in a film, with a camera in front of my face so they could modify it. It told me a lot about the future, and AI. They could make another character of me. It’s surreal. They can make you taller, leaner. In the game, Castillo starts to get sick from meds that he thinks are helping him, and you can see this in the visuals; all while he’s trying to bring up his son to take over from him.
A question is asked about the kinds of themes he’s keen to explore within acting.
GE: If we try to make films that explain the suffering, the use of alcohol, drugs etc., we can start to experience the trauma. You can say, we might move people to be exposed to the generational trauma.
TF: How have you not been a James Bond villain yet?!
GE: I love that! I saw Thunderball as a kid; that’s my favourite Bond movie. My favourite Bond is Daniel Craig, but I love Roger Moore.
The mic is handed out to the audience at this point for their questions, during which Esposito hints to his upcoming involvement in Captain America 4.
A question comes in via social media: How do you shake off characters once you’ve finished filming?
GE: My daughter went to university. I met up with her; she said, “we were raised by Gustavo Fring. You gave us ‘the look.’” I do! I give them that look, they freeze! They say, “now you’ve become Gracián Parish (titular character in Danny Brocklehurst’sParish), you’re a much better father!” People are afraid of speaking to me. I give off this Gustavo Fring look, which can be good! "Get off me!"
The conversation weaves on to British habits and attitudes. “You guys say, ‘you okay?’” notes Esposito. “I check myself. ‘Do I look okay?!’”
Tom asks about who his fans think of when they meet him. Which characters do people associate him with?
“It takes time to let characters melt away. Many people know me as characters. People call me Gus. That’s what you want to be reflected back to you. I’m a people person. I’m convinced people want to be seen as they want to be seen. I encourage people to uplift each other, to make the time and space to see people. Look up from your phone. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s a long answer, but I hope it satisfies you.”
The ending applause certainly sound like a satisfied audience. To be part of a future audience, see Monopoly Events.
Predator cosplay
Book of Boba Fett throne
Walking Dead wall
Heisenberg cosplay
Simpsons set
Bumblebee, Transformers
Breaking Bad set
Bumblebee, Transformers (not the same item)
Aliens Colonial Marines cosplay
Stranger Things set
Mara Wilson, the titular Matilda. Her bodyguard busted me taking a shot
Frank Harper. Dog in Lock, Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels. Armed robber in Kevin
and Perry Go Large. Billy Bright in The Football Factory. Jack Whomes
in the Rise of the Footsoldier franchise.
Psycho's Couch, not sure the franchise
Los Pollos Hermanos set, Breaking Bad / Better Call Saul. Chicken / methamphetamine not included
Hagrid's bike, Harry Potter
Ghostbusters wall
Craig Fairbrass. Delmar in Cliffhanger. Pat Tate in the Rise of the Footsoldier franchise.
Well, here we are, half way through 2024. I’ve got 2 burgeoning Meetup groups, more conventions planned, I’ve seen Scandinavia, met loads of celebrities, and I’ve beaten gym records that I’d been stuck on for years. I tried to give blood last week but was denied because I’d been for a run in the morning. Weird. I’ve cooked loads of exotic recipes. (More to appear on the blog soon).
I’ve been to 2 conventions (another blog post is due soon), I’ve visited different cities as a result, and there are further events I’m keen to get to.
I’m hoping people at these Meetup groups might want to get involved too.
I ran a joint Meetup between Manchester Nightlife and Manc Mates on Friday night, starting in Counter House, and we dabbled around in the gentrified Ancoats area, eventually straying into the Northern Quarter and ending up in Guilty By Association. It was the first time I’d drank in weeks, months even, and I was a little worse for wear by the end. I enjoyed it, though. I tried to keep people updated as to where we were, so if people wanted to stay with the group they could, or they could splinter off to other bars. I’m not going to try to plait fog keeping everyone together. I just left updates on the Meetup pages.
On the issue of Manchester nightlife, Spinningfields restaurant Sakku Samba has closed after a year. This was a month ago, but they assure us they’ll be back in a different form, as relayed by the M.E.N. Also in Spinningfields, Provence has shut shop. I never got a chance to go.
I also never got a chance to try iKaro, the restaurant that took over the old Panacea unit. That’s gone too. It only lasted 9 months.
New burger bar SuperAwesomeDeluxe takes over the old Lono Cove unit in the Northern Quarter, (again, see M.E.N.)
Who fancies doing a few Deansgate bars? This Saturday both Manchester Nightlife and Manc Mates groups are meeting in Slug & Lettuce and taking a look around the bars in that area. Might not be a massively late one but is still an opportunity to meet new people and get out and see some of Manchester.
“I tried to make it as real as possible,” says Craig Fairbrass. “I heard it on the radio.”
He’s referring to The Rettonden Murders, on the night of 6th December 1995, in which 3 cocaine dealers were shotgunned to death in their Range Rover. The murders inspired countless documentaries (including a lacklustre radio doc I made in college) and a string of movies, most notably the Rise of the Footsoldier franchise. In these movies Fairbrass has been playing Pat Tate, one of the murdered dealers, since the first film came out in 2007.
“There was a 10 year break between the first 2 movies. It was so successful because of the fans. We took half a million on the first one. It was an exciting part to play.”
Wikipedia says the original Rise of the Footsoldier took 220 grand, but okay.
The Rise of the Footsoldier panel also includes Frank Harper, who portrayed rival dealer and gunman Jack Whomes, and this is the first panel of the day at Comic Con Yorkshire.
The event has returned to Yorkshire Event Centre for a second year, this time also featuring 4 Dr Who actors from differing time periods, plus actors from other franchises.
Compare Tom Finkill starts the questions, which tease out behind-the-scenes stories about Fairbrass having a handful of hair gel when he got to meet Denzel Washington, and another incident when Harper was taken to meet real-life gangster Ronnie Kray. (“He brought out a pot of tea. He said, ‘Shall I be mother?’ and started pouring for everyone.”)
To round off, it’s revealed that Terry Stone’s wig, transforming him into cocaine dealer Tony Tucker, we learn cost 17 grand to make. A questionable investment, if you ask me.
“It looks like a box,” explains Nicola Byrant, “But it’s not a box. It blows your mind.”
Byrant, who plays assistant Peri to the 5th and 6th Doctor Whos, camps it up for the audience, a good portion of whom are kids, giving us a rundown on the Tardis. She’s on stage today with Christopher Eccleston (9th Doctor), Paul McGann (8th Doctor) and Colin Baker (6th Doctor).
“I wanted to do something for the hearts and minds of younger people,” says Salford-born Eccleston. “Something fun.”
Colin Baker, as it happened, wanted to tell us about a knock on his trailer door one day. “This girl wanted me to sign her old breast implant. I should have said, ‘I feel a right tit!’”
“I was sent a lock of someone’s body hair,” claims Byrant. “A part you can cut it off with scissors. Not a part you’d normally see. Another guy wanted me to sign his arse. I did. But where do you put your other hand to stabilise it?”
“Today, during the photo opp,” Eccleston reveals, “I was given a knitted COVID germ! The girl said, ‘I want to give all the Doctors COVID!’” He goes on to tell us he was once told he ‘dances like he’s recently assembled.’
Tom proposes a game of ‘Never Have I Ever,’ the results of which raises a few eyebrows.
“When I got pulled over for speeding,” Byrant says, “the police said ‘Oh my god, you’ve got a Tardis, you can go as fast as you want.’”
“That’s an advantage of your gender,” gripes Baker. “When I tried it, they were like, ‘Oh, you think you’re famous, you can speed…’” He goes on to tell us he admires Jennifer Lawrence, and her body, he pauses, of work.
None have watched Love Island.
McGann nearly got the titular role of Napoleonic TV series Sharpe, but broke his leg in Ukraine. This role then famously went to Sean Bean.
Eccleston tells us of his career regrets. “I’ve done so much shit for money. But still, it was good money. Well, I lost it.”
