A couple of Thursdays ago, I dropped the hockey sticks off at the Field of Platt and then made my way down to Howell’s place for a bit of a film evening.
Foiled was making its Manchester première, complete with selection of trailers, in Howell’s lounge.
Part of the deal was that we each had to take a vegetable along - the film featured a certain vegetable, and whoever got closest would win a prize.
I popped into Tesco on the way home and, in addition to a box of Baby Spitfire, found Mr. Potato (pictured, left).
Anyway, Mark, Julie, Jo, Torkjel and Mary (Howell’s mates from a walking group) were there, plus Howell and I, settled down in the living room, behind a veritable plethora of chips-and-dips.
Mr. Men
First up were a few short animations and films by a couple of Howell’s old mates. Film and animation studenty types, basically. Good stuff, followed up by a couple of Mr. Men cartoons - Mr. Bump and Mr. Tickle.
Mr. Bump. If there was ever a training video for those sodding ambulance chasers, that was it. Poor b*stard. Fortunately, it does all end happily ever after, with the Bumpster finding his ideal job. I won’t spoil it by telling you what it is, though.
Mr. Tickle. Now, he’s an entirely different proposition. A man with extraordinary long arms, who goes around tickling anyone he feels like. Definitely a relic from more innocent times. One thing we did notice, however, was that he only ever tickles blokes. No girly tickling whatsoever. Old men, adult men, young boys (eeek!), but no-one of the female persuasion. That’d probably have been far too racy!
My favourite Mr. Man was always Mr. Strong. Grrrrr.
Who was your favourite Mr. Man? Or was it one of the Little Tar-, ahem, Little Misses?
Grand Première
So, Foiled then. Basically, a complete B-movie spoof, complete with scary monsters and screaming girlies, set in studentdom. The website is probably your best bet, rather than me describing it all here.
Obviously, a drinking game had to be involved. Each of us got a character name, and had to swig whenever that name was said - Jo, as Scanner, did particularly badly.
Unfortunately, none of us managed to guess the correct vegetable. Mr. Potato was deemed joint second, however, together with Torkjel’s offering - a stone that looked suspiciously like a potato. “Get away!” said I…but no, it does look very like a potato! We had a tie-break question, which he won. Oh well.
We also had something of a quiz at the end - I was clearly robbed, again, as Jo (pictured, left) won that, and received a special limited-edition effigy of Foil Man, the film’s übervillian.
No, it’s not just the perspective - Jo really is incredibly tall. The fact that she’s rather slim just goes to make her look even taller!
Things took a slightly more macabre turn when Howell pointed out that three of our characters died in the course of the film. “Leg, arm or head?” he asked. Naturally, I went with ‘head’, only to regret it when Howell returned with some tinfoil - we were to become foiled!
Tinfoil is surprisingly warm.
All in all, an absoutely top evening’s entertainment. I think we watched another film after Foiled, but I can’t remember what it was 
More pictures here, on Howell’s photo site.
