Shoot To Thrill

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is crap that only works in thrillers.

It's generally accepted that the laws that govern the fictional worlds of film and TV are quite different from the pesky logic that we real folk have to contend with on a daily basis. But there are recurring techniques in thrillers that surely don't work in real life, which our on-screen heroes are programmed to do by lazy writers. Here are 3 examples:

3. Spying from cars: Our protagonist Mr Lovely is tailing Mr Nasty, waiting for him outside his house. So where does Mr Lovely hide? In the bushes? Up a tree? In a bin? No, in a car, parked right outside Mr Nasty's house. Last time I checked, windscreens are see-through, otherwise people would crash more. But not in thrillers, where being in a car seems to turn you invisible. It doesn't work in real life and you'd get a parking ticket.

2. CPR: Mr Lovely's girlfriend, Miss Pretty, has been killed. She got run over, set on fire, shot in the face, run over again and then died of cancer. But wait, Mr Lovely knows CPR, and shouts things like "don't give up on me now!" while pummelling her suspiciously exposed chest and shoving his tongue down her throat. And Miss Pretty comes back to life, spluttering water even though she hasn't swallowed any. In our boring world, the chances of CPR completely working is around 2%, according to some website I just found. It's likely that those who are revived will die within a month, which puts a real dampener on the end of most thrillers. Imagine that, everyone who's ever been revived on screen has actually just died a few weeks after the credits rolled.

1. Using guns on your buddies: While it's true that most gunshot wounds aren't actually fatal, I'd still be cautious about shooting someone I cared about. But characters such as Sherlock and James Bond are happy to lodge a bullet in their friends, their expert marksmanship guaranteeing the survival of their loved ones. There are surely too many variables in play to warrant such a casual attitude to gunplay. And the reason I say using guns rather than just shooting is down to Lost. On the craziest island outside of all those party islands, characters are constantly thwacking each other over the head with rifles to knock them out "for their own good." Once passed out, Charlie can be carried to safety by Locke or whoever, and we get a few gloriously peaceful moments of Charlie being unconscious. This seems like another massive risk, given the high probability of them never coming round or being concussed. I don't really know what that means, but it sounds bad. They could become seriously brain damaged, but in the case of Charlie I'm not sure anyone would notice.

All You Need

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are five more of them.

5. Trains: Or more specifically, people on trains. No one wants to be on a train, we're all just getting from A to B so just shut up, leave me alone and fuck off. The amount of people who insist on shouting, taking up multiple seats or listening to their awful music obnoxiously loudly is completely baffling. And I hate those attention-seeking dickheads playing the pianos in St Pancras station, who assume that we must want to listen to them while we try to get on with our depressing lives.

4. "You can't come in, you're wearing shorts.": That's a phrase I hear quite often. But what do they expect me to wear in this weather? Jeans? A dress? I'm heartbroken that your shitty bar is too good for me because I'm wearing shorts, now where will I pay for overpriced drinks and mingle with a bunch of bellends? And they really don't like it if you offer to take the shorts off.

3. Man of Steel: It's the worst of both worlds; all the dumb CGI action of Zach Snyder and the pompous, pretentious, non-sensical dialogue of Christopher Nolan - "Evolution always wins!" What? At one point Zod goes "If you love humans so much..." and I honestly thought he was about to say "...then why don't you marry them?" Plus when I bought the tickets I was told I had to pay extra for the 3D glasses. I explained that I have my own 3D glasses (actually I have about 800 pairs which I deliberately keep in my bag to avoid paying for more) but apparently I still have to buy them. It's bad enough that I have to sit through this boring film, and even worse that I have to do so in headache-o-scope £D, but now I have to pay even more for the privilege and an 801st pair of flimsy light-loss glasses that I'm encouraged to return at the end so they can sell them back to me again next time.

2. All You Need Is Kill: The upcoming Tom Cruise movie has changed its name from the unbelievably stupid All You Need Is Kill to the much more sensible Edge of Tomorrow. This should be good news, but without the charmingly bad title what does it have left? Tom Cruise, that's what. And now there's a vacancy for the year's most terribly titled film, who knows how long it will be before it's filled?

1. The Way Way Back: That was quick. Here's Sublime:

Travelling Without Moving II: The Heretic

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is when people insist on telling you all the details of their fucking boring holiday (again).

So, I just got back from the USA. Here are the edited highlights of the journal I kept. The word "highlights" here being used loosely, as in: "Here are some highlights from today's local elections."

Day 1

• Flew to New York, managed to avoid being cavity searched in the airport. Result!
• Watched The Look of Love on the plane, here's my review: Lots of naked people. 
• Looking forward to meeting this Fiscal Cliff I keep hearing about. Apparently he never pays for a round.
• Saw this stupid advert on the subway:

Day 2

• Watched the Yankees play a game of rounders.
• Went to 30 Rock!

Day 3

• Enjoyed The Dark Knight boat trip, the Cloverfield subway tour and a go in the pram from Rosemary's Baby.
• No sign of Louise Mensch.

Day 4

• Went to the Natural History Museum where Alex discovered the world's funniest machine:

Day 5

• Got the bus to Washington D.C.
• Saw this great advert:

Day 6

• No sign of President Romney.
• Saw that white house from The West Wing, the building from Midtown Madness 3 and the bloke from Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Day 7

• Saw the PreCrime building from Minority Report! AKA the Ronald Reagan Building.
• From Reagan to Regan - went to the stairs from The Exorcist! My pilgrimage is complete.

Day 8

• Saw pandas at the zoo.
• Attempted a 1000 piece Beatles jigsaw.

So that was my brief trip to America, based mainly on locations from films and TV shows. I'll leave you with an American sign, an American cat and Tubular Bells.

Metabollocks

As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. One of those things that I love is films about films.

That's probably because I'm pretentious and awful, having already discussed TV shows about TV shows. A lot of cinema is about cinema, but I'm talking about films that actually revolve around the production of fictional films. So here, because I'm a complete sucker for postmodernism, are my top 5 films about films:

5. Berberian Sound Studio

The wonderful Toby Jones plays a foley artist who leaves his quiet English life to work on an Italian giallo film called The Equestrian Vortex. It's nicely atmospheric and unashamedly Lynchian, but the best thing about it is watching Jones create nasty horror sound effects by attacking the shit out of some vegetables. I know how he feels.

4. Seven Psychopaths

Martin McDonagh follows up his brilliant In Bruges with the less brilliant but still brilliant Seven Psychopaths. It centres around Colin Farrell's struggling writer, who happens to be called Marty, as he attempts to finish a screenplay, which happens to be called Seven Psychopaths. With its clever humour and impressive ensemble cast, Seven Psychopaths explains that films can treat people as horribly as they want, but the dog must not be harmed.

3. The Artist

Talking of which, The Artist follows silent movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) and his dog Jack (Uggie) as they attempt to save a career destroyed by the introduction of sound in cinema. Famously, filmgoers in Liverpool were refunded after complaining that The Artist was a silent film. But when I demand my money back because The Great Gatsby was too loud, nothing.

2. Mulholland Drive 

David Lynch's confusing masterpiece follows an aspiring actress (Naomi Watts) as she arrives in Hollywood and auditions for a film called The Sylvia North Story. And there's some weird stuff with a blue box and a lesbian.

1. Wes Craven's New Nightmare

Having already redefined the horror genre at least twice, Wes Craven returns to Elm Street for the seventh, and second best, instalment in the iconic franchise. New Nightmare sees the cast of the original A Nightmare on Elm Street terrorised and tormented by Freddy Krueger (credited as "Himself"; Robert Englund plays Robert Englund), who seems to be breaking out of the films and into the real world. It's up to Heather Langenkamp (Heather Langenkamp) to stop him, with the help of Wes Craven (Wes Craven) who is apparently writing the script that they are following. It's all fascinatingly self-aware, at once celebrating the franchise and criticising its over-commercialisation over the years; "the story gets too familiar, or too watered down by people trying to make it easier to sell," to quote Wes Craven (Wes Craven), who redefines the genre in the process. He would go on to redefine the genre again with the even more postmodern Scream. Incidentally, Wes Craven's twitter feed is a glorious mix of horror films and birdwatching. I love him.

And here are 5 more that I chose not to include:

5. Adaptation

Charlie Kaufman's super smart but super smug Adaptation follows Charlie Kaufman (Nicolas Cage) and his twin brother (Nicolas Cage) as Charlie struggles to adapt The Orchid Thief into a film, self-referentially writing his script as the events unfold.

Why I didn't include it: Aren't you reading? It stars Nicolas Cage. Twice.

4. Inland Empire 

Three hours of Lynchian madness including rabbits, dancing and another actress, this time in a film called In High on Blue Tomorrows which is cursed, or something.

Why I didn't include it: It makes Mulholland Drive seem straightforward.

3. Scream 3

If you hadn't guessed, I would have loved to include a Scream film but the only one that actually centres around the production of a film is the third, and worst, instalment in Wes Craven's franchise. Ghostface is back and this time the victims are the cast of Stab 3, the franchise-within-a-franchise based on the events of Scream. It sounds confusing, but Wes Craven did redefine the horror genre.

Why I didn't include it: It's written by Ehren Kruger, who insists on doing to Scream what he did to Transformers.

2. Hitchcock

This shouldn't really count, as the film-within-a-film is not fictional, but Psycho. But unlike that Hitchcock classic, this sucks, not to mention being completely overshadowed by the excellent TV movie The Girl starring Toby Jones as Alfred Hitchcock.

Why I didn't include it: Scarlett Johansson.

1. Timecode 

The interesting thing about Timecode is that the screen is divided into four quadrants, each showing a continuous 90-minute take, following some incredibly boring Hollywood people trying to make a film.

Why I didn't include it: It's shite.

Thanks for reading! The title of this blog comes from the Slipknot song Metabolic. But you got that. 

  

Money For Nothing

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them. 

Another trip to the cinema (Dead Man Down, crap), another bunch of awful adverts and trailers.

3. 

Everything about this advert is loathsome; their smug fucking gurning, that awful ad-rock music, the weirdly disgusting name Freederm...

2. 

"Wouldn't they sound better facing the right way?"

No. 

1. 

Just when I thought I'd found this year's film with the dumbest premise (Upside Down), along comes this big pile of stupid. Why would making all crime legal for one night a year make unemployment fall to 1%? How would it stop people committing crime the rest of the year? What stupid fucking government would do that? Apart from ours maybe. It just seems like the makers of this film haven't stopped to think about it for a single second.

Oh, ok.

Yep, got it. 

Then I watched the fantastic Stoker, and my faith in the world was (partially) restored. Here's Dire Straits. 

Tower Seven

As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. One of those things that I love is films set in tower blocks.

Last year there were (at least) three films set in tower blocks, presumably because they make good settings for confined action, while making a comment on broken promises of post-war affluence. Or something. So here are my top 7 films set in tower blocks, because of the name of the Thievery Corporation song. 

7. Dredd (2012)

Karl Urban's chin fights its way up a 200-storey tower block in this explosive comic book adaptation that's loved by people who haven't seen The Raid. 

6. The Negotiator (1998)

Samuel L. Jackson and Kevin Spacey star in a gripping thriller about a hostage negotiator who ends up taking hostages himself in, you guessed it, a tower block. According to IMDb, Sylvester Stallone was meant to star but turned it down, as part of his ongoing refusal to be in good films. 

5. Tower Block (2012, again)

This aptly-titled British thriller sees the residents of a decrepit tower block (where else?) trapped by a sniper. It's a nicely tense piece of writing by James Moran, who joins Caitlin and Dylan in the ranks of great Morans. 

4. Attack the Block (2011)

Joe Cornish's debut feature is a quotable comedy in which aliens invade a South London bungalow. Just kidding, it's a tower block.

3. Shivers (1975)

A sexually-transmitted parasite spreads through a Canadian tower block, causing rampant sexual desire and icky bodily mutations in its residents. This was the breakthrough film for the master of body horror David Cronenberg, and bizarrely was co-produced by his friend Ivan Reitman, who would go on to make weird comedies starring Arnold Schwarzenneger. Actually, the films of Reitman and Cronenberg aren't so different; Twins is like Dead Ringers (which was even going to be called Twins until Reitman bought the title from Cronenberg), Kindergarten Cop is like Eastern Promises (spoiler alert) and Junior is like The Brood (and practically everything Cronenberg has done). 

2. Die Hard (1988)

I don't need to say anything about Die Hard. Bruce Willis, tower block, increasingly shit sequels. Next!

1. The Raid (2012, again, again.)

The best tower block film has to be this head-hammeringly violent Indonesian martial arts movie, about a police squad's brutal battle up a run-down high-rise. Watch it. Your jaw will be in your throat and your heart will be on the floor. I can't wait for the sequel - and that's a sentence I never thought I'd say.

Thanks for reading, and there's a prize for whoever can spot the odd one out, visually speaking... I'll leave you with the Thievery Corporation song responsible for this whole sorry affair. Next time, my Shed Seven!

  

You're Gonna Pay

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is adverts. Again. Again. Again. Again. The word has lost all meaning.

Blah blah blah here are three more shit adverts. I didn't get much sleep...

3. 

"Over 2,000 visual effects" boasts Iron Man 3, another meaningless brag about quantity that's almost up there with Movie 43's "The biggest cast ever assembled". But not quite. 

This idea that only spectacle and special effects are "worth paying for" is complete nonsense and is basically insulting to films that actually give a shit without having "an amazing stunt team." Films like Good Vibrations, which actually deserves your money and, best of all, doesn't star Gwyneth Paltrow. 

2. 

The advert is fine, it's just the music. That boring fucking noise of nothing that can only be described as Ad Rock. If your rock music can be used to sell BlackBerrys, you're doing it wrong.

1. 

Fuck off.

Here's The Toasters. 

Ape Me

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are five more of them.

The more time I spend at the cinema, the more I become convinced that the film industry is just taking the piss. Here are five more stupid pieces of movie marketing.


5.

That's right, the follow up to Rise of the Planet of the Apes is to take the equally cumbersome title Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. If there are any marketing people reading this: There should be no more than one "of the" in a title. You fucking idiots.


4.

"Gravity: They say you can't fight it. Well I disagree." 

Jump off a fucking cliff then.

3. When does music stop being music? I reckon it's about here:

 

2. I have a new worst movie I've not seen:

 

 

It looks uncannily like Ken Korda's Speeding on the Needlebliss from The Adam and Joe Show. And that's not just me being rude, it actually does. Look:

 

1. Here's quite a famous scene from quite a famous film:

 

And here's Sam Raimi talking about it:

Why the fuck would Dorothy throw acid? Where would this acid have come from? Why would she be throwing acid on the Scarecrow to extinguish the flames? Let's hope Sam Raimi never becomes a firefighter, in a weird Fireman Sam reboot where he just sprays acid everywhere and destroys entire cities. That still wouldn't be as horrific as his Spider-Man trilogy. 

That scene is one of the most famous moments not just in The Wizard of Oz, but in cinematic history. And apparently Sam Raimi hasn't even seen the film. Oh well, it's not like he's just directed the prequel or anything.

Oh. Here's Rape Me by Nirvana.