Laugh While You Can, Monkey Boy!

Or Girl, We're Not Genderist Here
But Doctor Emil Lizardo is!  Or at least the evil Red Lectroid Lord John Worfin is, who currently resides inside the hijacked body of the good evil doctor.  You see, "Laugh while you can, monkey boy!" is one of the doctor's sinister asides to a hapless assistant at the secure mental home he's been restrained in.

Penny, Buckaroo, Doctor Lizardo and some film-making schmuck in the inset

     "I say, Conrad appears to be hitting the hallucinogenics in addition to the cooking sherry!" I hear you comment. 
     Not at all.  I refer, obviously - obviously! - to that landmark film "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension" and, rather than try and shoehorn an indecipherable synopsis here, the IMDB link is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086856/?ref_=nv_sr_1

     I urge you to go out and buy a dozen copies of BB.
     "But why?" I hear your cavilling tones.  "Funds are short, the rent is due, got no money, there's holes in me shoe."
     Use your sandals instead then.  I refer to a Tweet of Kevin Smith's over on Twitter, and since I can't get screenshots to work, here it is:

Go go Hong Kong Cavaliers!

     The supposed sequel to the original BB film, "Buckaroo Banzai Versus the World Crime League" didn't get made, so I wonder if Kevin's going to tackle that, or perhaps flesh out the BB world a little more.  After all, when your hero is simultaneously a rock star, brain surgeon and nuclear physicist, there is scope for development.
     Now, let the motley begin!

Conrad - Suspicious And Tight-Fisted
I have mostly abandoned my old practice of pouring venomous bile - or was it bilious venom? - onto the silly Suggested Posts over on Twitter and Facebook.  Mostly.  This one I couldn't quite let go.  Art?

     Tee-shirt pimping, or How To Take Aim And Shoot Yourself In The Foot, Twice.  Conrad's not allocating bullets to feet here, you can hit the same foot twice or distribute the rounds evenly.  Whichever, I've made a note of the (now hobbling) buffoons flogging this stuff and I'M NOT BUYING ANY!
     Thank you.  That is all.

"Ross Kemp On Afghanistan" By Ross Kemp
This is the book of the documentary series.  The "Ross Kemp" bit in the title probably gave it away, eh?  Conrad remembers seeing part of the first episode of this series, where Ross goes to train with a rifle, in case he and his camera team end up Last Men Standing.  He also remembers the first "contact" Ross and his cameraman run into, where they are a particular focus for the Taliban, who are extremely suspicious of the camera, deeming it to be a bit of space-age NATO kit.  Which it is, just not the way they imagine.

Ross, relaxing

     Ross makes no pretence of being a warrior, indeed he repeatedly makes the point that he was scared witless on many occasions.  Despite that, he kept going back to Helmand Province, so he's got some brass in him.  The gritty, down-to-earth realities of life in the province under fire or sitting in a Forward Operating Base are tellingly written:  the heat, which reaches incredible levels and all the more so if you're sitting inside a vehicle; the oxymoronic tense boredom of sitting waiting for something to happen; the flies, the latrines and the dirt; the occasional jarring beauty of a stark and unforgiving land.
     There is also the constant search for humour in even the grimmest of situations.  Ross was mercilessly picked on to begin with, to see if he could take it - and he could - and also because he'd played the part of an SAS soldier in "Ultimate Force" IIRC.
     He's also been in some soap opera, the name of which escapes me ...

That was it!  "Middle Eastenders"

Conrad Invents The World's Most Boring Hobby
Although "Pylon Spotting" might run it a close second*.  For this, you need to be aware of the Internet Movie Data Base - IMDB for short.  This is one of the internet's touchstone websites, absolutely essential if you have any interest in films, except for the Forums.  Avoid them.  Full of trolls and idiots.
     "Do continue, Conrad," I hear you say.  "The next episode of "Preacher"'s not for another thirty minutes so we're in no rush."

Preacher.  Every bit as tough as he looks.  Tougher, even.

     Okay.  Each entry on IMDB has a list of separate sub-titles, including subjects like Location, Box Office, Trivia and - the one we're** interested in - Goofs.  Goofs lists different entries from members about a film, and it is Conrad's delight to copy a list of these to Word, arrange them in chronological order and then watch the film to either confirm, handwave away or deny.  I've done this in detail for "Where Eagles Dare" and found that about a third of the Goofs are correct, a third can be explained away with little to no effort, and a third are mistaken nonsense.
     I am now working on "The Longest Day", because it's more manageable than "Saving Private Ryan", and I have found something:

During a very early scene in France, the back end of a Citroen 2CV can be seen parked at the side of the street as the German soldiers march down it.

No it cannot; at no point in this scene is there any sign of such a car.

The car in question

     The goof here is that this car wasn't invented until 1948 and the film is set in 1944.

*  Yes this is a real hobby.  As is "Bog Snorkelling".  Both get you out into the open air, so don't knock them
** I'm including you here.  Don't object.  Or there will be trouble.