Cold Sweat

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is this film poster.

No not because of Zac Efron, though that doesn't exactly help. It's the way that "SWEATY" is being used as a selling point. Is that something that audiences look for in a film? Are there people out there saying: "The Godfather is alright, but not nearly sweaty enough"? If so, might I suggest pornography.

This is part of a trend of increasingly stupid boasts on movie posters. Look at Movie 43, described by Richard Roeper as "the Citizen Kane of awful."

The idea that a massive cast is somehow virtuous is like bragging: "The most paint ever used in a movie!" or "The loudest film ever!"

Speaking of which... 

You may have seen the poster for the new "comedy" film The Guilt Trip which claims: "THE FIRST MOTHER-SON ROAD MOVIE!" At last, the sub-genre we've all been waiting for has arrived, and in the form of Barbra Streisand and Seth Rogen. If it's a mother-son comedy you're after, I highly recommend the Stallone movie Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot. 

But it's not just poster boasts that are getting out of hand, film titles themselves are increasingly ridiculous. I'll let these three speak for themselves.

This one just shows a basic misunderstanding of what words mean...

Presumably Part III will be called: Definitely The Last Exorcism This Time Probably.

That's Tom Cruise in some sort of robot suit in my favourite worst titled film ever: All You Need Is Kill. The fact that Cruise went for a curry in St Albans during shooting is a happy bonus.

The Summer Soldier was probably deemed slightly too camp. And as we know, Christopher Nolan brought an end to the camp superhero movie. Mind you, Man of Steel does sound like a gay porno.

Incidentally, we put up with the underwhelming Captain America and Thor films because we knew they were just there to set up Avengers Assemble (talking of shit names). They were placeholder movies, and so we forgave them their mediocrity. But now that Avengers Go For A Coffee has been and gone, our tolerance of distinctly average superhero sequels may become seriously tested.

And while I'm ranting, why do we need the same old-people-singing movie twice in the space of a few weeks? 

If I want to watch a film about old people, I'll go with Dawn of the Dead.

Time for a quick Louise Mensch update: the former MP and social network overlord has turned her Tory hand to fashion blogging. Unsurprisingly, the blog just seems to be pictures of herself, but it has provided me with a new favourite YouTube video.

She was probably going for something like this: 

But it ended up more reminiscent of this:

Thanks for reading my blog looking at some pictures, here's James Brown.

Chez Madame Louise

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

"But what is menshn?" I hear no one ask. In fact, the only question to which "menshn" is the answer is: "Why did all those people commit suicide?"

Menshn is the illegitimate brain-spawn of everyone's second favourite chick lit author turned MP, Louise Mensch (the first is Michael Gove, who just really gets teenage girls). Here's Menzch's to-do list:

✓ Have name that sounds like an STD.
✓ Have written more books than have read.
✓ Launch a rival to Twitter.


That's right, Louise Menxch has founded a social networking site called menshn. But if you're thinking that she just named it after herself like a weird power-mad egomaniac then think again, because it's actually nothing to do with her creepy name but merely a play on the word "mention." See, there's no C in "menshn" you big idiot, can't you even read? It's definitely got nothing to do with her name, despite it being almost identical to her name. Stop assuming that it's got anything to do with her name when she keeps insisting that it absolutely hasn't. It's not vain to the point of disturbingly sinister at all, because again, "menshn" and "Mensch" are obviously entirely unrelated words. Now stop going on about it.


So what is menschn? Well, apart from being nothing to do with the name "Mensch", it's a microblogging site where posts can be no more than 180 characters in length. I'm going to preempt you again a bit here; it reminds you of Twitter, right? BUT IT'S NOTHING LIKE TWITTER YOU DICK! Because menschn has an 180 character limit on posts, while Twitter has 140. That's a difference of a massive 40 characters! The two websites couldn't be more different. 


But wait. Because menschn differs from that, let's face it, now obsolete "Twitter" thing, by making sure that every post is "on topic." Because that's what Twitter needed; censorship. Censorship controlled by Louise Menzxch. She identified that the problem with Twitter is the freedom to talk about whatever people choose. It seems so obvious now, doesn't it? That's why we're all over at menschn, having forgotten about whatever that lame 140 character shit was.


Sarcasm aside, it's one of the worst things to have ever happened. It's just downright bizzarre. The tagline is "talk on topic", lending the whole thing an eerie school-vibe, which isn't exactly what you want on a Twitter-style website. But then, what do you expect when it's run by a Conservative MP? This is free speech, Tory-style; talk about whatever you want, as long as it's this. In fact, menschn is a beautifully bleak insight into a dystopian future in which the internet is controlled by the Tories.


Glancing round the website (I'm not going to join due to genuine fear), there's a weird crypto-fascism on display and I'm not just being a silly lefty; it's really fucking strange. The fact that users are called "menshners" and that topics are "menshnd" doesn't help the whole Inglorious Basterds thing, and there's a list of "high rated users" which resembles something of a high command, in which Louise Menzxsch ranks second.


The rules had to be called "the menschn rules" just in case you weren't already reading all the content in a bad Nazi accent. "The first rule of menschn is you do talk about menschn." Now, as you probably know, Fight Club is my favourite film, and if you have to add to the steaming high pile of "first rule" jokes out there in the world, it best be worth it. This is more like brutally murdering Chuck Palahniuk, David Fincher, Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and everyone else before digging them up and mensching all over their corpses.


I stopped reading soon after that, as it continues in the same Project Mayhem style vein of cultish fascism and I got angry and then scared and then confused and then eventually angry again, but I skipped to the end which perhaps best sums up menschn, the website founded by someone who has never had fun but deems themselves worthy of controlling online discussion but definitely, DEFINITELY did NOT name the site after themselves:


"Have fun - talk on topic!"


Thanks for reading, I'll leave you with the Puggy song that this blog is named after. Enjoy - talk on topic!