Weeding out the Idiots

The Wire (Yes that's right, I'm back for a 3rd go.)

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 15:24:00 +0000

Look at these 'stunted minds'. They're probably trying to
destroy that chess board because they're so stupid.
And they're probably swearing while they do it too...

Way back on 31st August 2010 I wrote my first post for this fine blog. My chosen topic was the critically acclaimed cult HBO series The Wire. Since then, my love for this series has only grown and I wholeheartedly agree with those that hold David Simon's creation to be the greatest work of television to ever hit our screens. Now, I'm back again to have a further go at anyone who slags it off for stupid reasons. For those who don't yet know, The Wire follows various characters and their interactions with the many problems of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. These characters centre on those in the police force, and the drug pushers on the corners in the early seasons before expanding to the schools, politicians and the media as it progressed.

Now we're all caught up, let's get cracking on the first review:

I have watched the whole of Season 1 which was very hard going (although I was told this beforehand so it was expected) (You found it all hard going? The first few episodes are I definitely agree. But after that I started to get a feel for the characters and the storyline and it all became much easier to follow.) but was told Season 2 really picks up and is amazing, probably best thing you will ever see (Yeah, season 2 is possibly my favourite. It's between 2 and 4 for me.). 6 episodes into Season 2 I am about to give up, just don't get what the fuss is all about, very disappointing (What? How can you not yet have fallen in love with it? Although at least you've given it a fair crack, so you are already head and shoulders ahead of most people who feature here. Congratulations!). Can think of at least 5 series I have watched (24, Lost, Prison Break, Soprano's, Breaking Bad) that blow The Wire away in terms of storyline/plots, characters, tension, excitement, basically what should keep you interested in a show such as this. (You have slightly ruined it there though. 24 is a borderline fascist, insane programme that became a parody of itself pretty quickly. Lost, I feel, is incredibly overrated and maybe if the writers had spent less time patting themselves on the back and smiling smugly about all the philosophers they'd referenced they could have made the last 5 seasons as good as the first one. Prison Break was possibly more insane than 24. The last two though are excellent that more than deserve the plaudits they have received.)

The Wire is quite frankly overrated and boring in my opinion (At least you recognise it's only your opinion. Again putting you ahead of most.). All the shows I have mentioned, when you watch an episode you want to watch another straight after (Oh. Like what I do with The Wire.). Not the case with The Wire, takes a big effort to sit through a whole episode in one sitting (For you. I don't believe I've ever stopped an episode of The Wire part way through unless I've suddenly had to go somewhere. Or that one time I came down with a bad case of death... Although the latter might have been a dream...). Unless someone can convince me that its worth the effort I cannot see myself watching another minute. (If you don't watch the rest you'll have a Wire-shaped hole in your life. Will that do?)

Well that was a surprisingly soft, profanity-free opener. Let's see if I can keep that up with a second:

This was bought on the strength of all the rave reviews (There were a lot of rave reviews it's true. Still, it's nice that you think you are cleverer than pretty much all critics...). Had we not had the subtitles, we would not have understood a single word (Really? Not a single word? I mean I could understand not understanding some words but all of them? I think that you're a liar.). The biggest turn off was the constant VERY BORING use of the F word (Oh fuck off.), totally unnecessary and showing a complete lack of imagination for good dialogue (It was necessary because, and I want you to listen carefully now, that is how people speak. Corner boys haven't had elocution lessons you know. People swear. Get over it. It was entirely in keeping with the scenarios and characters depicted, to have drug dealers and the cops who try to stop them not swear would have made the whole series laughably inaccurate. Diminishing the power of the show. Also, I find your use of block capitals totally unnecessary and showing a complete lack of imagination for good writing/reviewing skills.). Anybody want the DVD, as having sat through one episode, we will definitely not watch any more of it (For fuck's sake. How many times will people do this? You can't write a proper review for something if you have watched less than a tenth of the product. Look, you bastard, if you want to write a review for something you cannot stop part way through. If you do then your review is little help to anyone.). What a total waste of money. (What a total waste of anyone who reads this' time.)

Well, it was never going to last was it? Those previous reviews were both reviews for season 1 from amazon.co.uk, these next two are for The Complete HBO Seasons 1-5, also from amazon. He's the first, short, review:

Absolutely awful!! (I see. Presumably the rest of the review will detail exactly all the things that are wrong with the programme to deserve that opening gambit.) Every other word began with 'F' (That's a damn lie and you know it. I'm tempted to get the scripts and work out the ratio of words beginning with 'f' to words that don't. I'm willing to gamble the life of my flatmate that the ratio is lower than 1:1) - no need for such terrible language (You know, unless it was because it was necessary.). Total rubbish - no story line (What? I mean honestly. What? I realise that almost all of what I spout are my own angry opinions passed off as fact, but the idea that The Wire has no story is just downright wrong. It's a novel you can watch. The whole series is all plot.) - gutted I bought the whole series - will have to re-sell it (At least it'll go to someone who isn't too stupid to understand it.). I just cannot understand how people can give this a good rating! (Because they are much, much smarter than you.)

Well maybe the final review will be well argued and not stupid? I wouldn't hold my breath though...:

I have managed to sit through the first 3 episodes of series one and find myself bewildered as to why this is so highly rated (Because the story is strong, the acting is superb, the series has important points to make... that sort of thing). One of the reasons for watching films or reading books is to to meet interesting people (Surely then, The Wire is right up your street. There are as many interesting characters as there are, well, characters.). In this example we are presented with a collection of characters none of whom can construct a coherent sentence (Yes they can, the sentences are merely quite sweary too...). In fact there seems to be a relentless pursuit, almost a celebration of illiteracy in the interests of authenticity (Yeah, 'cause depicting things as they are definitely makes problems worse... Maybe you should be attacking the Baltimore education system for not teaching the the Queen's English.). Contact with stunted, undeveloped, unambitious, unoriginal minds is not going to create interest but simply a sense of waste (Well, like it or not, these people exist. And your plan of pretending they don't will only make the problem worse. Making these people feel further detached from society as a whole would only make conflict between the cultures worse. On the plus side, you are precisely the kind of mindless jerk who'll be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.) Watching for example the drug addicts constantly passing pills between themselves (Yeah that's not the sort of thing drug addicts do...), made me think this may be an inspired parody but I soon realised it took itself seriously (Why would it be a parody? Do you find poverty and drug addiction funny or something? What kind of monstrous cunt are you? Are you in Cameron's cabinet or something?). Everything is sacrificed to the god of authenticity (Not everything. Certainly not story or characters or anything important) - there can be no romance just sex (Well if you'd watched more than 3 episodes you'd know that romance breaks through), there can be nothing uplifting or generous just corruption (Well that's because it's corruption. It's a series with a message. It is not chewing gum for the eyes.). I am afraid I find this bleak view of life unconvincing and cheap. (Well it's real so you'd better get used to it.)

That's all folks!

Anthology of Idiocy VII

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:02:00 +0000

Kicking off our return to the anthologies that have thus far failed to make my name, we have The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman's 1973 update of Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel starred Elliott Gould (as in Ross and Monica's dad) as never-without-a-cigarette private eye Philip Marlowe. The plot revolves around Marlowe investigating the murder of his friend's wife, with all the evidence pointing to the husband as the culprit. This is no whodunnit though, this is an LA where no-one can be trusted (I know that's a pretty corny line, but I couldn't help it. I can only offer my humblest apologies for writing it and I hope you can forgive me). Here's what one reviewer for amazon.co.uk thought:

The opening joke takes about one tenth of the total film (It really doesn't. It takes less than ten minutes and the film is nearly two hours long.) time to set up and fails to deliver a laugh (for the simple reason that the punchline is entirely predictable and the delivery contains little else that is worth the trouble of watching (It raised a smile. And it is important in developing Altman and Gould's take on the Marlowe character.). After this, there seems no reason to continue viewing. (The fact that the story hasn't even really begun? That is surely enough? If not that how about a young, huge-armed, half-naked Arnie?) Already bored senseless, I couldn't take the insipid interrogation scene that follows. (Insipid? Where you watching a whole different film or something? A Stephanie Meyer-ish take on Raymond Chandler? Also, now please tell me I'm wrong here, but that little bit suggested that - haha you'll laugh at this - that you stopped watching at that point. But of course that would be impossible since you're writing this review of the whole thing. Ha ha. You and you're little jokes - of course you watched the whole thing. Didn't you?)

Reader, I buried this deadly dull dvd in the depths of my time capsule, only to be opened when life has lost flavour and time drags eternal (as it did for twenty minutes in front of this uncelebrated cure for insomnia). (You weren't joking were you? You really did stop watching didn't you? And now you're sitting there. Writing this twaddle. Probably beaming at how you're oh-so-clever. Well you're not clever. Though what you are does, indeed, begin with a "c". It's "cunt" by the way, if you found thinking of words beginning with "c" too tricky for you. When I'm in charge people like you who review a film without having seen it all will be sent to gulags. Gulags full of hungry crocodiles that have a particular fondness for testicles. Also, the film is not dull, it merely takes its time. Why do people so need fast-paced films all the time? Sometimes it's nice to just relax and let a slow movie just wash over you like the sea. In this moron's case I hope it is a sea full of jellyfish and sharks, but hey ho.)

I didn't come to this film for a Marlowe-in-the-flesh type experience (Then what, pray tell, were you looking for. It is a film about Marlowe directed by Robert Altman. What did you really think was going to happen? He'd have made a Michael Bay film?), but I was hoping for some sort of experience (Clearly you weren't looking for "some sort" of experience. You were looking for a particular experience. An experience that, with these people involved, was never going to happen. Because you are narrow-minded and this film was not what you wanted you never even gave it a chance.) I didn't come with an aversion for Altman, but I left feeling tired and full of no coffee (You watched twenty minutes. How is it possible to feel that after such a short time?). Advice for Chandler enthusiasts: even the hokey bemitchummed 'Farewell My Lovely' holds more charm and interest (There's nothing wrong with Robert Mitchum either.); even the enbogarted 'The Big Sleep' is not infested with ennui (There is certainly nothing wrong with Humphrey Bogart. He is absolutely one of Hollywood's greatest ever stars. And his The Big Sleep is a truly cracking film.). Advice for noir and film lovers: for dark and lovely detection in intelligent celluloid, go see Truffaut or Polanski (There are any number of directors you could have picked. Is there a reason why you picked two from the 60s/70s? The 40s/50s are by far the best years for film noir with Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, John Huston and Jacques Tourneur the directors that really put the genre on the map. The only reason I can think of is that you don't like or have never heard of these people. In either case you are certainly less knowledgeable than you would have us all believe. Also, actually using the term ennui makes you sound like the sort of pretentious prick who has no friends.) The cry goes round the terraces: anything but Altman! (Except it doesn't does it? Nobody says that. On the terraces or anywhere else. I'm willing to bet that you didn't shout it on the terraces either. You're a fucking liar that's what you are.)

Toshirō Mifune's bandit is slightly mad...

Next up we have an amazon.co.uk review of Akira Kurosawa's 1950 samurai masterpiece (one of many) Rashōmon. The movie, based on stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, tells the story of a court in Edo-era Japan and the different versions of the same story told by the different witnesses of a rape and murder. A study on truth and its subjectivity, the film won an honourary Academy Award in 1952 (the foreign film category was not introduced to the Oscars until 1957). Lord only knows what kind of moron could give it just one star...:

I was so disappointed (Well I was disappointed that there is a one star review, but these are our burdens to carry.), this was supposed to be a masterpiece (It isn't "supposed" to be anything. It is a masterpiece. Directors voted it the 9th best film of all time in 2002.), his other works were so amazing, like Seven Samurai and Ran (This, at least, is true. Except that this one is also amazing.). I guess every great director/writer is allowed one howler (I think most great directors have more than one howler. Francis Ford Coppola has made a load. Doesn't stop him being great. This, however, is not one of Akira Kurosawa's howlers.). Buy this if you have trouble sleeping (Yes. You may as well watch something quality whilst you can't sleep. Though this film will not cure your sleep problems I'm afraid.), the only good bit was the ending (The ending was a good bit...). It was just so lame (What does that mean? How was it "lame"?), I didn't care about the characters at all (Well you're not supposed to trust any of them, I suppose...), it was kind of predictable (Really? I found it was less predictable than many other films. But at least this is a proper point rather than just calling it "lame" so I shouldn't complain too much.) and really, really, really slow (It was slow, yes, but that is no bad thing. And since you profess to liking Seven Samurai, I really wonder how you felt that this was any more slow than that particular movie. Of the two, I find that one far slower than this. Half the three hour runtime is spent setting the scene.). One rubish sword fight (I'm beginning to suspect you like Kurosawa's other films more for their sword-fighting scenes, than the fantastic way they are put together or interesting storylines...). This one is going to gather dust on my shelf for about a decade, unlike his other movies. (Then more fool you. I hope one day you watch it again and realise what a fool you were to write this review. Well, I call it a review, but that's really rather stretching the definition of "review" as there is no insight to be found here at all.)

The visual image of the dvd and the container itself are good quality. (This much is true. The Optimum release does come in a rather splendid box and contain a rather nice booklet that includes the original Japanese story.)

Let's move on once more, this time to Philip K. Dick's novel Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. Like pretty much all Dick stories this novel centres around the loss of identity and set in a nightmarish alternate world. The plot follows Jason Taverner, a famous singer and entertainer who wakes up to find that he has no identity and none of his old friends know who he is. In a police state where to have no identity is a fairly major problem... This is widely regarded as one of Dick's finest novels with numerous film adaptations mooted, but never begun. Here's what one amazon.co.uk reviewer thinks of the book:

I read Philip K. Dick's "The Man in the High Castle" and absolutely enjoyed it (Good. I, too, hope to read it someday. Maybe if Penguin books remember why they were set up they'll reduce it's ridiculous £10 price tag...). Then I searched for other things by the same author and read them: "Now wait for last year", "The three stigmata of Palmer Eldritch" and finally "Flow my tears, the policeman said" with increasing disappointment and impatience (I haven't heard of the first one, but I understand The Three Stigmata... is considered to be one of his better novels. From what I know of the several Dick books I have read is that they are not for the impatient. They take their time creating the worlds the characters inhabit. So maybe the problem is not with the books, but rather with you?) All three of them display some brilliant situations (Flow.. does certainly contain good situations, to go with the equally good links between the situations.), particularly at the starting point, but then in all of them the author reveals his absolute lack of command of the plot, of or its goals and rhythm(To be honest, I don't think you could write a better novel. And also, his novels work best like that. That is his style of writing leave him alone.). As you go on reading, you get more and more entangled in a confusion of facts and characters coming out of nowhere (They come out of nowhere in the sense that the character meets them. What exactly did you expect? Notices at the start of a chapter with a biography of all the characters introduced in that chapter? What a stupid thing to say.). Reality becomes a kind of nightmare, yes, but not in any enjoyable way (at least for me) (Surely you recognise that going into any world that is described as a "nightmare" is not necessarily going to be "enjoyable" in the classic sense. Like a good horror movie this has a cathartic effect.). These novels appear to me as the genuine products of an intoxicated mind (Well it's Philip K. Dick. A man who used lots of drugs and was generally pretty mad. Would you also disregard Hunter S. Thompson's work as that of an "intoxicated mind"? To do this sort of thing would be to close yourself off from some wonderfully rich works.). Art is about control, and there's nothing of it in them. (What? Are you mad? Art is so much more than control. Art is whatever people make of it. Dick is a master of his art. A personal art. A paranoid art, perhaps, but art nonetheless. Your idea of "art" is so conservative as to be ridiculous. Let's be honest here. You liked The Man in the High Castle because it is widely held to be a classic piece of fiction. You dislike his other work because it is "mere" SF.)

That's enough for now I feel. Till next time faithful readers!

Easy A

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 11:02:00 +0000

Wish I'd gone to a fictional American school...

One of the flaws in my DVD collection has always been that I don't have that many films that aren't horribly depressing. One such non-suicide-inducing film is Will Gluck's 2010 teen comedy Easy A. The film follows Olive Penderghast (the excellent Emma Stone) as one little lie snowballs to take over her entire school life. The film was released to widespread acclaim and, obviously far more importantly, I loved it. I felt it was funny and charming throughout, with strong performances from everyone. Along with the aforementioned Ms Stone, Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci require extra praise for their roles as Olive's laid-back parents. Well, that's enough of my thoughts, let's see what the users of amazon.com made of it:

Easy A tries to be another Clueless (If you complain about this 'trying to be another clueless' then pretty much any teen comedy made since 1995 is doing the same.) but turns into a pile of garbage (Excuse me? A pile of garbage? Really? If you didn't find it funny, that's one thing, but to actually call it garbage?). The script is both bad and offensive (The script is not bad. It's funny and heartfelt. And as for offensive? This is not some raunchy sex or gross-out comedy. What's offensive about it?). The acting is absolutely dreadful from top to bottom (That'll be why the acting was praised and nominated for many awards then?). I deeply regret renting this movie (Then you're a fuckwit.) and more deeply regret letting two 14-year-old girls watch it unattended during a dinner party. (Why? Are you worried that they'll learn that they shouldn't lie? As far as I could see there was only positive things in the film for a teenager to see. There's not even much swearing, some "shitty"s and a couple of "twat"s but thats it. You really worry too much. You're probably the same type of person that calls for films rated R to be banned because "children can see it". And I hate those people.)

Let's see what else we can find shall we?:

This movie was one of the worst I have seen in a long time (Really? Though I suppose Pimp wasn't seen by many people...). A true piece of trash (It really isn't you know.). It glorifies sluts and promiscuity (Excuse me? Did you actually watch the fucking film? It shows what can happen if you just lie about promiscuity. It hardly comes down in favour of sleeping around. It is pro-choice on the matter, however. And, really, who's business is it but the people who are involved? Don't judge people for it.) while degrading those who believe in God or wish to save a certain part of themselves until after marriage (I think 'degrading' is a bit strong. In fact calling it that is ridiculous. The filmmakers didn't go all Sálo on them or anything. They were portrayed as fucking annoying. Which is fair enough, because people like that are fucking annoying. Especially those like the ones in the film, who delighted in thinking other people were going to hell. How Christian is that?). The plot was horrible and deserved an R rating (Really? So anything that deals with sex in any way should immediately be an R should it? Good God, America is sexually repressed. And I thought Britain could be bad...). It is because of films like this that I've started to give up on Hollywood (Things like this? Original, witty, well-made films are what started that? Personally I'm getting bored of Hollywood's incessant remakes, reboots and rehashed ideas. Each to their own though.). I got the impression that the profanity (Two words used probably less than a dozen times!) and sexual content was created first, and then the writers tried to build a plot around that. (You're an idiot. I hope you don't have children, because there is no way they are going to come out well rounded, free adults. They'll either be terrified of their sexuality like you and lead horrible repressed lives, or rebel against it and become massive sluts/man-whores. And I know what would be worse. You can always grow out of being slutty.)

Here's a little quickie:

One of the most boring movies. I guess most of the reviews are written by 19yrs old females lounging in their pajamas. (Holy sexism Batman! With a bit of ageism thrown in too, brilliant. It's always nice to see sweeping generalizations made by fucktards on the internet is a tradition that is still going strong after all these years...)

Let's go further down the rabbit-hole and see what we can find:

Another Sleezy Attack On Christians (That's not how you spell 'sleazy'. This is a less than auspicious start...)

Another childish attempt at shallow humor...The (There should be a space between the ellipsis and 'The'. And the plot is far from childish, it's actually very grown-up about the whole thing. The humour is far from shallow, too.) story of a teenager doing 'anything' to be popular is so trite (But so's everything these days. There are only so many situations. This film makes an old idea fresh. And that's a pretty difficult thing to do.) but what is really disgusting is the portrayal of the Christian students who are presented as dimwits...Anyone (There's that spacing problem again... Also, they aren't 'dimwits'. They're cunts.) who has any exerience in public schools will tell you that for the most part the kids who are influenced by the Christian, Jewish and Buddhist teachings are usually the school leaders (They are shown to be at the top of the class. They are also shown to be self-righteous, blow-hard [that's one Americanism I quite like] cunts.), great students and filled with common (Wait for it...) sense...but (There it is! Strike three! Many who come from these backgrounds are as you describe them. But many are not. Many at the top of classes are atheist [especially in areas such as science, since they can grasp the idea of evidence and burden of proof], it really doesn't matter. You're rampant prejudice against those without religion is stupid and your belief that you are under 'attack' borders on paranoia. People will disagree with your world-view. Doing so, and being hacked off by people acting like the Christians in this film, is a fact of life. How often do you see atheists on street corners with megaphones shouting about how we're all just going to die and this is all there is? How often do atheists or agnostics cut someone off because they disagree with a belief or lifestyle choice? Certainly not as often as religious people.) this character smirking must go on (If anyone can tell me what he/she means here, please let me know.) so as to diminish the influence of people who have found POSITIVE ways to live compared to these down graders of our civilization (Downgraders of civilization? This coming from a believer in Christianity? Don't make me laugh. Who was it who tried Galileo Galilei and banned his works because he dared to discover something and further the human race? Who burned people at the stake for believing a slightly different form of claptrap or for being a 'witch'? Who was it that propagated AIDs in Africa by lying about the effectiveness of condoms to prevent the spread of the disease? Who is holding back stem cell research that could potentially save millions of lives worldwide because it offends a mythical being? I'm pretty sure it wasn't atheists. And that's without getting onto the religious wars and crusades, or the effect on individuals' knowledge of the world around us because they believe books written nearly 2000 years ago. Yeah, who are the 'downgraders' now bitch?)

Yes, before anyone comments, I realise that I was preaching my beliefs in the manner I so despise in Christians. That was kind of the point. Also, he insulted my beliefs so I defended them. Somewhat robustly...

Here's one last review, this time from amazon.co.uk:

I am 17 years old and personally found this movie dull and boring.. (Another brilliant, in depth review that really tackles what the reviewer objected to. Certainly not a shit review at all.) well the start at least as i only managed to watch this first 30mins before turning it off. (For the last fucking time, don't review something that you've only seen 1/3rd of! It's ridiculous! You cannot extrapolate those 30 minutes to know exactly how good or otherwise a film may be. Some films take longer to get going than others, I felt this film kicked off pretty nicely, though many of the funnier moments are in the second half... Hang on... I think I know what happened. You read the blurb, saw the certificate and thought there were going to be breasts and dick jokes like in American Pie didn't you? After half an hour you realised you were watching the wrong film and, in your flaccid anger, posted that review didn't you? You make me sick.)

Well, that's an image you probably didn't want me to close on, but too late. You've read it. You can't unread it.

Blazing Saddles

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:53:00 +0000

Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little in a classic scene

Yes that's right, I'm back baby! After 3 months of inactivity your number one compendium of silly reviews is back in action! At least for this post. We'll have to see if I can keep it going this time...

In 1974 Mel Brooks released two fantastic comedies that were both stunning successes. Young Frankenstein was a spoof of old Universal monster films and, the one we're interested in today, Blazing Saddles. Blazing Saddles is a biting satire of the Wild West and America's attitudes towards it. Particularly in regards to race. However, it must be said, the film is seemingly open to misinterpretation as these reviews from Amazon.com show:

Racism, sexism. Every ism thrown together so as to almost induce vomiting (I don't recall any dry heaving or anything, but if you say so). I heard before watching that this movie was "politically incorrect" (Why do I suspect that you watched this film with the intention of being offended, just so you could complain about it? I hate people who do that.). That is not the half of it! (Yeah! There's all the jokes and the plot and everything too.) This is clearly only meant for the enjoyment of white men (That'll be why it was directed and co-written by a Jewish man with another co-writer being that infamously white racist comedian Richard Pryor then?) who have no sense of social equality or for the brainless of any race or sex, i.e. the kind of people who enjoy watching Family Guy. (To be honest, Family Guy makes fun of everyone and everything, so it is social equality in action. If it gave other 'races' [there's no such thing by the way, the Human Genome Project found there was as much genetic variation between individuals of a 'race' as between the 'races'. See? I'm informing as well as being fatuous and silly.] an easier ride because they are a different colour, then they'd be racist. Also, what you have done is generalize lots of people by what they watch, which makes you better than your common-or-garden racist how?)

This one's actually from amazon.co.uk, but they've still misinterpreted it:

If you like racist jokes you must definitely see this (The jokes aren't racist. The whole point of the film is to point out the racism that was prevalent in the West, but was completely ignored by the Western films of the time. Every single joke you claim to be racist is actually making fun of the racists. Why do you think the hero of the film is black? Surely if the film were truly racist then all the black people would be stupid, lazy and spend much of their time eating fried chicken. Clearly you missed all those bits where the hero beats the white men by being cleverer than them.) I don't so I rated this with 2 stars. It has nothing to do with the quality of the DVD or with the service rendered by the vending company. This latter was impeccable.

There are other reviews which make the same mistakes, but they're a little repetitive so I'll change tack and just go with someone who thought it was generally crap:

This Movie is so Not Funny! (That is a matter of opinion. Looking at this film's position on all-time funny lists I'd say that the vast majority disagree with you) I sat down and watched this flick with some friends who loved it and i have to say what a ~~waiste~~ waste of my time it was (You really should finish sentences you know... Also, dear reader, bear in mind that his friends 'loved it', I'll refer back to this later on.). This movie tried so hard to be funny but was not funny at all (Again, this is rather subjective, but this is comedy and everyone is different so I'll let it go. Could you at least say why it wasn't funny to you? Y'know, like in a review?). I know a lot of ~~rebiews~~ reviews were good ~~about~~ for this movie, so the film ~~maybe~~ may be good to the older crowd who are in there 40's and 50's (I suppose I should praise you for at least accepting that some people may find it funny...) but for the hip young generation (I know I'm fairly uncool, but who the fuck says 'hip' these days apart from middle-aged parents?) and sophisticated one like mine (Learn to properly spell/type and format a sentence before you go around calling yourself 'sophisticated' eh? For those interested, the correct grammar would have been 'but for a hip, young, sophisticated generation like mine') in the teens and twenties this movie is pure crap (But you yourself stated that your friends loved it. Assuming your friends are of a similar age you have successfully destroyed your own argument. You're an idiot. An actual idiot. You can't spell, you fail to grasp even slightly the concept of correct grammar and you consistently fail to recognise that your beliefs are not representative of all members of your generation). Nothing good about it at all (Except much of it...). I just can not believe people find Blazing Saddles such a great comedy (Because they have better senses of humour than you?). Oh well I hated the movie. (And I hate you.)

I think that'll do for this time. I'll try to get the next one out within the week!

Of Gods And Men

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:56:00 +0000

Bloody selfish monks...

Of Gods and Men was released at the Cannes Film Festival last year to ecstatic reviews, going on to win the Grand Prix. The film is based on the true story of a cistercian monastery outside Algiers, Algeria, during the Civil War. Now, as it is a French film, it is in French. I wonder how many Amazon and Lovefilm-based stupidheads will complain about this? Only one way to find out. First up, the only one star amazon review I could find:

Long (It's two hours. That's not long. That's a pretty standard length for a drama film, to be honest.),slow (Well, it doesn't hurry itself. But this story required a slow pace. It isn't a Bay movie, you know. This film has a plot, unlike his entire oeuvre...) ,uninspiring (Uninspiring? These people risked their lives for the community that they served. What isn't inspiring about that? Fuckwit.) and tedious (It is certainly not tedious. The film quietly builds the tension and sense of foreboding throughout the final act. That last meal is right up there with the opening scene of Inglourious Basterds for best sequence of the last few years.) film about a bunch of ageing (It's aging, and what the fuck has that to do with anything? Ageist.) cistercian monks caught in the islamist uprising in Algeria in the 1990s. (Well, yes it is. At least that's one thing you'll get right in this review...)
I find it impossible to have any sympathy for any of the characters (Really? What kind of psychopath are you? Their entire life was dedicated to peace and helping those who asked for it. Those bastards, eh?). These 8 christians (There were 9. And I'm the biggest atheist you're likely to meet, and I looked beyond that.),boring (They were interesting enough.), irresponsible (I wouldn't say that at all. They stayed out of a sense of duty to the community that needed them.) and selfish (Yeah. Putting what's best for the community ahead of what was best for their own personal safety. What a selfish bunch of cunts and tossers eh? Actually, no. How did you come up with all this?) out of touch freaks (SPOILER!! Seven men are dead. Please do not call them 'freaks' you ignorant prick) but with a clear conscience ,lucky them, are in my eyes as fanatically dangerous and reprehensible as their muslim extremist'brothers': willing martyrs to religous fanaticism (Yeah. If you're an atheist then please stop being one. It's people like you who give us all a bad name. Become a Scientologist. They're full of, often offensive, nutters like you.) Whether they end up basking in heaven or rotting in hell should not be any concern of mine (SPOILERS AGAIN!! These were real people you're talking about here. Real people who are dead. Show some respect you cunt.) and will leave many unmoved and exasperated. (Actually, the vast majority of the human race have something called 'compassion' and will be very moved by the monks' tale. That's probably why it won all those awards that it won...)

Well, at least he didn't mention the subtitles I suppose... Still, here's another, let's see if we can keep that up with this two-star review:

Based on real like events in Algeria (I'll let you off with that typo. Though I'm a small, petty man, so I'll still point out that you meant 'life'...). Caught the film at our local Film club. (Did you use a butterfly net?)
Michael Lonsdale was as ever, a treat to watch (He was indeed. As were the whole cast.) but he couldn't save the film for me (Well, surely he didn't need to did he? The film was very well made with an engaging, powerful story.) Overall we found the film dreadfully slow (Look. Some films take their time. A faster pace would have ruined the story. With the pace as it is, the film draws you into the lives of these monks and allows the personalities to become evident. Without that there would have been no significance to the end of the film.). From early on, the ending was evident (There are times where knowing the end does not kill the whole film. This is one of those times.). It was all terribly virtuous (It wasn't that virtuous. Certainly not as much as a film about monks could have been.) but there were far too many scenes of the monks simply involved in worship. Yes I know, that's what monks do (So wouldn't it be somewhat ridiculous to expect there to be no worship scenes? Besides, I quite liked the peek into a world I know very little about, and they were very nicely shot too.). I thought that the "Last supper" scene was particuarly mawkish & heavy handed (I don't agree with that either. I, as stated earlier, thought it was a wonderful scene.). Despite the fact that I'm an Atheist, I was hoping for some kind of spiritual enlightenment (From a film? If you want spiritual enlightenment, don't bother with celluloid mate.). I left the film feeling even more convinced of the futility & stupidity of religious belief & the fantacism that all too often accompanies it. (I, again, am a staunch atheist. But I can enjoy a film, regardless of the beliefs of the central characters. I might suggest that you attempt to do something similar in future.)

Oh my God. Will a foreign film pass by without any mention of its foreignicity? Let's have a look at Lovefilm:

I have seen some films that are slow (Oh not this again...). I have seen some films that are very slow but this film.... is....s...l....o...w (Oh how witty. Stick to Bay in future, peasant.). Over two hours of reading French subtitles (Well, it's mentioned but not as negatively as I was expecting...) when no one is saying anything makes for a long night in (Actually they say quite a lot of things...). A true story well told and beautifully acted (Yes it is. Well done on that, I suppose.) but s....l....o....zzzzz (Oh go away. It moves at exactly the right pace. Any quicker and the tension of the story would have been completely destroyed.)

Will that reference be the closest thing we get to a subtitle complaint?:

The most boring film I have ever watched in my entire life (Then you obviously haven't seen that many films then...). Seriously - unless your thing is watching French monks pray and give each other meaningful glances then avoid this like the plague (It's called subtlety, ignoramus. Maybe there should have been a few explosions and racist robots to lighten the mood...). It's an interesting story but my word this is an indulgent piece of nonsense (It is neither of those things. It is millions of miles away from being 'nonsense'. It is a properly beautiful film.). My wife and I ended up watching most of the singing/praying scenes on fast forward and it was still too slow paced (Then you haven't really seen it properly have you? I mean for fuck's sake there aren't that many worship scenes and they don't last that long. The pair of you need to find some patience before you attempt to review anything ever again.). Soul crushingly tedious. (And you're soul crushingly thick.)

Knock me down with a feather. We've got to the end without anyone complaining of subtitles.

I rate this so low as I didn't get to watch it as it was with sub titles. I didn't realise and I can't watch anything with subtitles

Oh shit.

The Descent

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 10:59:00 +0000

Even the poster creates suspense... TheCinemaSource

The Descent, released in July 2005, is a British horror film directed by Neil Marshall that follows six women who go spelunking in an unexplored cave in North Carolina. I suspect I'm giving nothing away when I reveal that things don't go entirely to plan... The film was a critical success, scoring 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, and being placed 7th in Sight & Sound's end-of-year top ten list. Amazon.co.uk is, however, once again a haven for those with no taste whatsoever, nor any kind of reviewing ability.
So. Here. We. Go:

First off everyones entitled to their opinion so I find it bizarre as to why their are so many people obviously like the film trawling negative reviews simply to slate anyone who dislikes it (Maybe it's why they don't like it that people dislike? Or the quality of the review. Or the fact that many, who will be featured later, treat their opinions as fact?). These people are WRONG the one star reviewers are RIGHT (Yeah. What you've certainly not done there is exactly what you just complained about...). This film is ridiculous (No more than most other films. You know that Dumbo? I don't think an elephant could use his ears to fly...). I felt rather embarrassed for the person who decided to comment smarmly by saying to the reviewer: 'My advice is to concentrate when you watch an intelligent adult film or even better stick to films more suited to your age group.' (I suspect he's right. This is an intelligent film for adults.). They've got themselves a wee bit mixed up here and its backfired massively...Its a borderline B-movie, it not supposed to be 'an intelligent adult film' neither was Dog Soilders, thats what made it so good (Dog Soldiers was absolutely not to be taken seriously. But just because they share a director does not mean that this film is equally frivolous. This is a straight-up horror and works as such. [slight SPOILER coming up here] I take it you missed the end bit where the women become as bad as, or worse than, the crawlers? Butchering them horribly, killing their young and sticking thumbs in eye-sockets is pretty nasty. Not many horror films have the guts to turn the heroines against each other and into murderous monsters themselves.). An intelligent adult decision would be to use the DVD as a coaster matt for your pint. (No, that would be a silly thing to do. Surely a specifically designed coaster would do the job far better...)
Jokes aside (Don't become a stand-up.). This is a poor effort (Except it just isn't, though, is it? It does exactly what it intends to do. Scare.). In fairness, the claustrophobic atmosphere created is not bad (Not bad? That goes beyond understatement, and into the realms of stupidity.) and the films grittyness is appealing. Why one star then? (Because you're a fool who wouldn't know a good film if he walked in on one fucking a version himself from a different universe?)
1. The premise has been done to death (What? The only one similar I can think of is the pretty shite Sanctum which came out this year...) so any new attempt has to be very unique and different (Different from what you utter arse? It's not like there's a cave-based horror released every day!). There's just nothing new here (All-female cast? Cave-based terror? Strong acting? Believable monsters?). I was pretty much spot on with the order of who would die before they'd even entered the cave. (You could guess who'd die, but you can do that with any horror.)
2. If you've seen "The Cave" you don't need to watch this. They were more adventurous in their filmaking and did it better, and that's saying something. (Excuse me? First of all, The Cave came out a month after this. And second of all, it was utter bilge. At 13% it is amongst the worst films of 2005. If you think that is better than The Descent, then you are clearly one ball short of an over.)
3. The plot's ludicrous (It's not that ludicrous. It's a horror film. There is such a thing as 'willing suspension of disbelief'. I'd suggest you'd give it a go.). Without giving too much away, who on earth goes down an uncharted cave system without any map (I believe you rather answered your own question there. The word 'uncharted' means that there is no map for them to take. Fucktard.), back up, safety failsafe and the excuse as to why is crazy (Not really. It was certainly a silly thing to do, but it fitted in well with the character.). Why would you then split up and continue to go deeper after being attacked? (They ran and panicked. One of them fell down a hole. They didn't split up on purpose. Did you even watch the bloody thing?) The ending, a totally unnecessary twist which, which makes zero sense and has no right to be there. (It made sense. [SPOILER] She'd been hallucinating a fair bit, so having cracked her head against the rock floor, it wasn't a surprise she did it again.)
4. Its blatantly obvious its filmed in Scotland not the US. (Actually, it wasn't filmed in Scotland either, so clearly wasn't that obvious... It was filmed in Pinewood Studios, near London with exteriors filmed in a park in Buckinghamshire. So quite far from Scotland really...)
5. Its only really about two people, the other characters are simply their for gore value, which is pretty cheap as you have no empathy for them (This is pretty standard for horror films though. It's very hard to flesh out all the characters without the film becoming bloated and overly long. Besides, this film does somewhat more for its supporting cast than most modern Hollywood horror fare, with the slashers and torture-porn genres particularly badly affected.). The main two main characters relationship is daft and very confusing, I might have caught Juno looking at Sarah's husband at the start for all of about 2 seconds and I think this has something to do with their fractured relationship (It's explained you ignorant prick. You really didn't listen did you? And their relationship seemed realistic and understandable considering the events that shape it.). The problem is for a film like this to work it has to be really character driven and the script's so weak, there's nothing for the actors to flesh out. (The script as as good as it needed to be. There was no exposition-heavy dialogue as far as I can remember, with pretty natural conversations between the characters both prior to the adventure and during.)

Neil Marshall did so well with Dog Soilders and its a great idea to be different (as mentioned) (This film is original) and have an all women cast, who do the best with the little they've got (They all did very well with the good material they received.). Its a shame its badly let down by a daft script and story and shallow characters. (What was it you said earlier? Ah yes, '[you've] got yourself a wee bit mixed up here and it's backfired massively'. Oh, the glorious irony.)

Here's a somewhat shorter review now:

This film starts off ok for about the first 5 minutes (If the next words aren't 'then gets even better' or somesuch, I'm going to hurt you.), then by the end of the film the starting has practically no relavence at all (Actually, it is massively important. How did you miss that? And now I'm going to have to hurt you. I'm sorry, but I warned you...). Amazingly bad acting (Except the acting was uniformly strong, creating believable characters who could exist in the real world.) and for people that have already seen the film (trying not to give too much away) (You pretty much fail. so major SPOILERS up ahead.) i have to ask you, why does she take her freinds leg out at the end?? it was an accident wasnt it? hmmm... (Several things. Firstly, she didn't see the incident, so she knew only what Beth had told her. Beth believed that it was not an accident, therefore neither did Sarah. Secondly, Beth told Sarah that Juno had been having an affair with Sarah's late husband, so she was pretty mad about that as well. And then there is that it was Juno that led them down the cave in the first place, so there was probably a bit of blame thrown in there too.) but i really wouldnt reccomend this film to any one (Really? I would. I already have in fact.)

Here, have another!:

Get grip people! This is terrible (I'll get a grip on your neck if you're not careful. If you think this is terrible then you aren't intelligent enough to deserve life...). Dull locations (The cave looked pretty spectacular in places. Especially at the start looking up through the hole.), 50 mins of tedium (The first 50 minutes were superb. The build-up of tension was excellent with some standard cave-based scares, like rock collapses ratcheting up the tension very well.) before the laughable monsters appear (In what way are they laughable? They look realistic and could feasibly exist.) and NO suspense at all! (If by 'suspense' you mean 'clowns', then yes. There weren't any clowns in the first 50 minutes. Or indeed any of the minutes. There was suspense though...) The creatures are feeble and not at all scary (Well the creatures on their own aren't scary, but then neither would pretty much anything else. Alien's Xenomorph wouldn't be scary if it was on its own in the middle of a brightly lit ice-rink. But in combination with the dark location of the cave, the crawlers are pretty scary.) and the location is dull beyond belief (Yeah you said that already, and I already said you were wrong.). This is a really awful film (That'll be why Sight & Sound felt it was the seventh best film of the year then... God, that must have been a shit year eh?). Dog Soldiers was great fun but this is pretentious drivel (It is neither pretentious, nor drivel. This review is drivel. The film really isn't.). I have NEVER been so bored in a film (You clearly have no idea what makes a good horror film then. I suggest you stick to films that give horror cinema a bad name, like Saw and Hostel.). BAD, BAD and bad again (And yet the only thing you can complain about is the 'dull' location and the 'feeble' creatures. Twice. Talking about two things twice, doesn't make a review I'm afraid...). The cast were average (Well, if comparing them against Daniel Day-Lewis I suppose...) and the plot motivation was just completely unbelievable from every angle (What? She wanted to discover a new cave. People actually do that you know. That's how caves are discovered...). Lazy script, lazy film. (And you're a stupid man.)

That's enough for now, I think. Till next time children!

Kick-Ass

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 11:25:00 +0000

"Okay you cunts... Let's see what you can
do now!"

The Matthew Vaughn comic-book film Kick-Ass was a surprise hit when it was released last year. With a strong box-office performance and meeting with a positive reaction from the critics too. The film is about the a high-school kid who copies his favourite comic books into a life of super-heroism and vigilanteism. Then he meets a foul-mouthed child and her crusading father who have a very different way of dealing with the organized crime in the city. Usually involving cutting blades and big guns... Some people, somewhat predictably, took against the film though. Including these weirdos from amazon.co.uk:

From the trailer and the various reviews, I was expecting a super hero satire that doesn't take itself too seriously and is simply good fun (with a few laughs thrown in) Boy was I wrong :( (No. Now you're wrong. Your expectations were correct. It is a satire of the superhero genre, the characters of Big Daddy and Hit-Girl are specifically a satire of Batman and Robin. And what isn't funny about a mini gun jetpack? Or attempting to get information from a man in a giant microwave?)

This film is completely devoid of humour (and there is nothing wrong with my sense of humour (Well clearly there is, because everyone I know found plenty of humour in the film. There is plenty of comedy from the interplay between Dave and his school friends alone.)). There is some quality action sequences (but then it does have the old rocket pack with mini guns attached nonsense Grrrr (Yeah. Rocket packs with mini guns are sooo overused...)). The odd moments of extreme violence are right out of left field and frankly odd. (Not really. They're necessary for the film to work. The violence is supposed to be jarring. Unfortunately, the mafia isn't very nice in real life...)

Overall the film is totally undercooked (I like the way you've just stuck this in here with no explanation. In what is, ostensibly, the conclusion. Surely you know that ideas shouldn't be introduced in the conclusion? This area is for tying up the ideas you've already discussed. Fool. Also, the film is not undercooked. It's very well polished. With the editing a particular highlight.) and mediocre (If it's so bad, why can't you say why it is 'mediocre'?), and whilst I don't think its terrible ir really is not deserving of the hype or indeed the "best film of 2010" title. (It is very deserving of the hype it received. It is a very well made film that is different to most of the other films around. Though the best of film of 2010 is Inception.)

Let's have a look at another review shall we?:

Started off very well (And then continued on that way.). The first 20 minutes were great (As were the next 100.). Then the so-called failed superhero became cool. (Well he wasn't a 'so-called' failure at the start. He was. That's why he had the shit beaten out of him. And he became cool because he lost feeling in most of his body so couldn't feel pain when he was hit as a direct result of having the shit beaten out of him. It's not like he became cool overnight for no reason.)

In my opinion this film wasnt funny (Well at least you realise that it's only your opinion. It's still wrong though...). What started off as a comedy, ended up more like a serious superhero film. Either that or it was neither, and somehow just didnt work for me. (One of the best things about the film is how well it keeps its feet in both camps, without feeling confused.)

You want a funny superhero spoof? Then watch "Mystery Men" (1999) starring ben Stiller. Now that is funny! (Mystery Men is average at best, slightly annoying at worst. It is certainly nowhere near Kick-Ass in any way.)

Here's another, fairly brief, review:

I want 2 hours of my life back after watching this rubbish (You know that's just plain impossible, right? That isn't how time works. Amazon don't sell time.). This movie has a great cast (It does indeed.) and the potential for a great story (Remove the word "potential" and you'd be right.), but instead we get a confused (In what way is it confused? The film works, the transition between comedic and more serious scenes is smooth, with none of the lurches in tone that could have occurred.), poorly acted farce (Poorly acted? Were you watching the right film? The young cast are more than solid, whilst Chloe Moretz is superb. It even has that most rare of things these days: a good Nicolas Cage performance... And you clearly have no idea what a 'farce' comedy would be if you think this is one.) and a 10 year old girl who says the ''c'' word (Cooking? Chorizo? Or do you mean cunt?) without breaking stride (Yeah. And? It's a film. She's an actress. Who felt uncomfortable saying the title of the film in interviews, preferring to call it "Kick-Butt" instead. It clearly didn't affect her at all. Probably because she's far more sensible and intelligent than you.). The violence in this film is utterly gratuitous and quiet frankly, alarming. (Except it isn't gratuitous at all. In any way. I'd also like to add that without the violence the whole concept of showing what a bad idea becoming a superhero would be, would be absolutely destroyed. Making the whole project pointless.)

This is a horrible,horrible,horrible film on every single level. (You're supposed to have spaces after a comma. Also, you're wrong. Very wrong. The only film I can think of that is horrible, horrible, horrible on every single level is Cannibal Holocaust. It's not only shit but also racist, sexist, sadistic and with rape scenes that, unlike Salò or Straw Dogs, eroticise the horrific act. And then, just to cap it all off, they murdered a number of animals to make it. You may have guessed that I disliked the experience of watching that particular film...)

Anyway, after that last little diversion, it's back to Kick-Ass with one final review:

Ok..started well..amusing blah blah (Blah blah? If you can't be bothered to write the review properly then don't bother at all. No-one's forcing you to be here.), then rapidly descends, with (That first comma probably could have been a full stop and the second was completely unnecessary. And the quality of the film does not descend) the arrival of a horribly foul mouthed 12 year old female psycho killer (She's not 12, she's 11 and she's not a psycho. She's been conditioned by her father to believe that what she's doing is right and acceptable. And Hit-Girl is an awesome character.), supposedly the heroine (Well, she's not supposed to be a role-model. The film hardly comes out in favour of what her father has done.), into a piece of fascist nonsense (Fascist? In what way is it fascist? Vigilanteism is not exactly supported by the film.), which I can't believe a British director would have produced...Oh sorry, yes I can..look at Guy Ritchie's latest Sherlock fiasco... (Excuse me? First of all Sherlock Holmes is pretty good. Have you read any Holmes? Because that is what they are like quite often. And secondly, are you suggesting the film is fascist as well? Because if you are then you clearly have no idea what fascism actually is.)
What is it with you folks and super violence? (The fucking violence is fucking important to many movies. Especially this one.) Leave it in the comics for goodness sakes so I don't have to watch it (How about you just don't watch films that are violent? Why should the rest of us suffer because you are a squeamish moron?). And no I'm not against swearing, I'm for innocence at a certain age please (This review jumps around more than Jessica Ennis. And, even worse, it's very wrong.). And no it's not ok for violence to occur only against the bad guys (But it didn't occur only against the bad guys. Did you actually watch the fucking thing? Not only does Kick-Ass get beaten up several times in the movie, but [SPOILER] one of the 'good guys' gets killed...)..this is the excuse the US have been using for torture and mass murder for years. (Excuse me? What's that got to do with anything? Are you mad? You're reviewing a fucking DVD not reviewing US policy.)
Avoid at all cost. (I urge any readers who have not seen it, who are not offended by violence or language, to watch this. To annoy this clown as much as anything else...)

That'll do for now I think. See you next time!

Christopher Tookey Special

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 12:20:00 +0000

The Daily Mail's main critic, Chris Tookey, is a bit of joke really. The man who started a campaign to ban David Cronenberg's Crash (the one about people turned-on by car crashes, not Paul Haggis' dull, preachy, Oscar-winning Crash) has plenty of howling reviews for me to look at. When Tookey gets it wrong, boy does he get it wrong... Let's start with his 2-star review of the French prison drama A Prophet, considered one of the best films of 2009/10 (depending on which release you want to pick):

If you want your melodrama red in tooth and claw, Jacques Audiard's prison movie A Prophet has been wowing critics and winning awards around the world (I'll say. It has an approval rating of 97% on Rotten Tomatoes. It won the Grand Prize at Cannes, Best Film at the London Film Festival, the Louis Delluc Prize and best foreign language film awards at both the BAFTAs and the British Independent Film Awards. It was also nominated for 13 César awards, winning 9, and nominated in the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars.). I'm only sorry I can't join in the chorus of wholehearted approval. (Yeah, you are quite alone here...)
It's the story of Malik (Tahar Rahim), a 19-year-old French thug with Arab origins, coming of age within a brutalising prison system. It's partly a story of self-education, partly a tale of a man descending into a kind of amoral hell. Most reviews emphasise the first aspect. (Well that's because it is a very important part of the film. It is what separates it from other crime films and Rahim's ability to change from learning to brutality freely is central to his wonderful performance.)
Very few point out that the behaviour of the protagonist - which includes several gruesome murders - makes him extremely hard to identify with. (He is a man who has made mistakes in his life, partly as a result of his poverty and illiteracy, who is forced to do horrible things to survive in the brutal world of the prison. Once he has set out on this path, he is drawn in ever more by money and power.)
In a film that lasts for more than two-and-a-half hours, this makes the movie a long haul (It is a tough watch, but who watched this film for light entertainment?). Impressive aspects include an intense performance by newcomer Rahim, and an unforgettably malign one from Niels Arestup as a domineering Corsican crime lord who continues to run his empire from inside prison. (The acting is uniformly excellent, and yet these two do, indeed, stand out.)
Audiard is at his best when dealing with well-observed, quirky detail. There's a lovely little sequence when Malik flies in a plane for the first time and behaves in inappropriate ways learned in prison - opening his mouth when he is scanned by security, and grabbing extra croissants on board when he has the chance (This, too, we agree on. Though my personal favourite scene was the one where Malik is shown how to hide a razorblade in his mouth).
Audiard is less confident with his story's surreal aspects, such as our anti-hero's unexplained prophetic powers (This is the film's only real stumbling point. But not one big enough to knock it down from five stars, let alone down to your 2...) and the repeated appearances in ghostly form of his first murder victim (I attributed this to his guilt at what he has done, and what he has become. And I felt they generally worked pretty well really. I think there was one appearance that didn't work as well, but that's really it.).
Some of the story-telling is muddled, and no attempt is made to imbue the proceedings with any kind of morality (Look, I know that you love morality, but a lot of people in the real world are immoral. It is ridiculous in the extreme to expect every film to show only moral people and moral acts.). We are presumably meant to admire the leading man's opportunism, resilience and ability to cast off and reassume his Muslim identity at will. (I think you're supposed to admire his self-education more than that, to be honest...)
I found the film's reluctance to examine Malik's inner life and personal beliefs irksome (But were such details necessary? No. All they would have done is remove some of the mystery surrounding him, and added to the already long running time.). The picture is also extremely lethargically paced, especially in its first hour (Look, it's bad enough when amateurs complain about films that take their time to develop, but from someone who is supposedly a professional is even worse. No wonder Rotten Tomatoes don't class you as a top critic like they do reviewers from other newspapers like The Guardian...).
A Prophet glorifies crime (Yeah. It all goes so well for everyone...) and regards murder as a perfectly normal response to being a member of a racially abused underclass (What? There's no such thing as 'normal' for a start. And I think you'll find that such a response is an all too common one.) - which may be a fashionable doctrine among film critics, but may not strike quite such a responsive chord with the general public. (Well this is an arthouse film, so the general public won't watch it anyway. They're far too busy watching dross like Transformers and Pirates of the Caribbean...)

Now let's have a look at his 'review' of Che: Part One. This film is flawed, but is enthralling nonetheless, and has attained a score of 66% on Rotten Tomatoes from everyone and 79% from Top Critics, so where Tookey gets his score of 0 from I don't know...:

A strong early candidate for the most agonisingly tedious film of 2009 is this first part of Steven Soderbergh's hagiography of Che Guevara. (Look, just because a film takes its time does not make it tedious. How old are you? Five? And Guevara is a saint to many in Bolivia, so technically it is a hagiography...)
He is presented throughout as a secular saint (It may not delve too deep into his flaws, but it never suggests he was perfect), rather than the Stalin-worshipping (He actually became pretty anti-Soviet after the Cuban Missile Crisis.), mass murdering (According to the award-winning biography by Jon Lee Anderson, no innocents were ever put to death by Che or on his orders. He executed only agents of cruel and oppressive dictatorships, dangerous criminals and those guilty of treason or desertion. All of which were common reasons for execution at the time. Especially during times of war.) Communist (Actually he is presented as a communist. It would be quite difficult to tell his story and leave that out. And being a communist is not on a level with mass-murder.) who helped to destroy industry (He actually supported a China-like rapid expansion of industry in Cuba, so how does that work?), society (He did destroy the old Cuban society. One where 1% of the population controlled nearly 50% of the wealth. Clearly a society worth saving...) and the rule of law in Cuba (The rule of law in Cuba? You do realise that Batista was a monster?), and believed he had the right to imprison or execute anyone who disagreed with him (It was war. Such means were not only common, but pretty much required. And the CIA were so much better in executing Guevara weren't they...).
Benicio del Toro poses rather than acts in a series of outfits which seem surprisingly clean for a guerilla. (Yeah. That'll be why legendary critic Roger Ebert described de Toro's performance as "heroic" and "self-effacing".)
The main hint as to why he won Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival is that the chairman of the jury was that well-known armchair revolutionary Sean Penn (Yeah, couldn't possibly because it was a really good performance. And the chairman only has one vote anyway, clearly at least most of the rest of the jury agreed with him.).
Peter Buchman's slack, disorganised screenplay (It was intentionally disorganised. Soderbergh pointed out the stupidity of complaining most films are too conventional, then turning on a film for being unconventional.) never probes Che's character or challenges his beliefs (Perhaps not as much as it should, but this is hardly a heinous crime.), and sparks into life only in the final half hour: a prolonged action sequence in which Guevara captures the town of Santa Clara. (That was a good sequence, but my friends and myself were all entertained throughout the film's running time.)
The rest is as insanely long-winded as a speech by Che's old mate, Fidel Castro (That'll be Castro is so beloved by pretty much everyone in Cuba then...).
Amazingly, I gather that the second half of this movie - to be released on February 20 - is even more turgid than the first. (Really? I heard it was better, though I haven't yet watched the second, so I cannot say for certain.)
Verdict: Radical chic at its dullest
A turkey (Oh, piss off Tookey you right-wing hack. Do you even know what film criticism is? It isn't disliking a film because you dislike the main character.)

You may have noticed that the last point is a running theme here, a theme that looks set to continue with his review of the small British film Bronson. The film depicts the criminal Charles Bronson (not to be confused with the actor) who is renowned as the most dangerous man in the British prison system:

British Lottery-funded projects don't come much more barking than Bronson (Well it is a strange film. Especially the bits with Tom Hardy on stage in make-up. But those eccentricities are what make the film as great as it is.), a heavyweight contender for most unpleasant, ugly and pointless film of 2009 (Can a film be pointless? I'd argue not. Every film has a point, even if that point is merely to entertain. They may fail, but they still have a point.).
Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's ill-advised excursion into art-house brutalism (Except he did very well with it. His "ill-advised excursion into art-house brutalism" has a score of begins with the actor playing Britain's most violent prisoner saying to the camera: 'I am Charles Bronson, and all my life I've wanted to be famous.' (Well that is a possible explanation for Bronson's otherwise inexplicable bouts of violence against prison staff.)
Well, now he is (Actually, he already was. The tabloids have been talking about him for years already.). That's one of the most obvious gripes about the movie. In taking a studiously nonjudgmental, fashionably nihilistic line, it will prove to morons the world over that attacking people for no reason is one sure fire way to attain celebrity (Do you really believe these things, or do you just write what The Daily Fail want you to write? Anyone who comes away from this film thinking "Yes, that's all a good idea" has some major psychological problems).
Mr Bronson's offences outside prison have been armed robbery and robbery with violence. Inside, however, he has distinguished himself with such bestial conduct that he has had his sentences extended to 34 years, 30 of them spent in solitary confinement. (Exactly. This strange man was always a likely candidate for the movie treatment. The public have always enjoyed watching criminals. Just look at The Great Train Robbery from 1903.)
Why on earth such a creep should be glorified, I cannot imagine, especially as the film makes no attempt to understand him or derive any lessons from his behaviour (It does actually. He commits one robbery to steal an engagement ring, for a woman who then rejects him. This reignites the anger inside. But when the man himself refuses to say, how can the film just guess? It does a very good job considering.).
It would be churlish to deny that Tom Hardy gives a powerful performance, but it's necessarily one-dimensional, since Bronson appears to have no redeeming virtues whatsoever. (Doesn't he? He is a complex individual who can be intelligent, is a talented artist and yet performs these brutal acts for no gain whatsoever.)
In addition to celebrating violence, this most brutal of biopics is virulently homophobic (Excuse me? It's not homophobic. The character is, not the film. And anyway, it's more than a little rich for you to claim homophobia whilst writing for a newspaper that is demonstrably homophobic.). And its other disagreeable overtones of pretentiousness and precious fringe-theatricality make it a uniquely gruesome experience. (It isn't pretentious. It is just as clever as it thinks it is. It is a fringe film, but that is all that it ever aimed to be. Such a violent film was never going to be a blockbuster.)
Especially distasteful is the use of classical music, in the questionable tradition of Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, to add a pretence of ironic nobility to Bronson's thuggishness. (It actually works rather well. It reinforces the idea that this is the 21st Century's A Clockwork Orange whilst being very much its own film.)
I gather that a worldwide petition is in circulation to free Mr Bronson (That is silly, but is hardly the film's fault.). I would happily sign any petition to keep this ludicrous lout off our streets, and indeed off our screens. (Yeah, but you seem to support the general censorship of all cinema, a la the 1980s. Because you're a fool. Who doesn't understand films he doesn't want to like.)
On the strength of this movie, both Mr Bronson and the Lottery panel need their heads examined. (Yeah, how dare the Lottery panel provide funding for such a successful film.)
Verdict: Could be a big hit... among psychopaths (And, indeed, 77% of critics. Are you saying that most other critics are psychopaths? Pretty sure that's libel...)

I think that'll do for now, but there are plenty of other dreadful excuses for reviews in his canon, so I will be back.

Transformers

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 18:23:00 +0000

These Transformers were cool.

With the release of Transformers: Dark of the Moon to the audible sound of critics tearing out their hair in desperation, I thought I'd revisit the original. And mock anyone who gave it 5 stars. While not the gangrenous, pus-filled wound that the later films become, it is by no sane man's measure a great film. These Amazon.co.uk reviewers aren't sane men...:

This was this summer's best film (Harry Potter 5? That was a better film. So was The Simpsons, Die Hard 4.0 and The Bourne Ultimatum. And then there were smaller films released in the summer of '07 like 1408 and Rescue Dawn which are both way ahead of this trash.) and the best action film I've seen in ages (Really? I take it you missed the Bourne trilogy then? And the first 2 X- Men movies. And Batman Begins. I really could go on, but this post would just become a list of films released in the few years prior to 2007...).
Forget 'Independence Day' this movie has FAR MORE PACE THAN THAT (No it doesn't. It's overly long and drags in a number of places. Plus, Independence Day is a film that has better actors, directors and scriptwriters. And far more humanity.). More like the first Terminator film. (Did you really just liken this piece of crap with one of the best and most important action films ever made? James Cameron is a piece of shit, but at least he used to make good films. Unlike Michael Bay who is a piece of shit who doesn't even know what a good film is, let alone how to go about making one. Now, if I ever catch you likening a Bay movie to a stone-cold classic ever again, I will take the largest Optimus Prime toy I can find, and force it up your urethra. And then I'll beat you to death with a Megatron...)
I saw this with my 4 kids aged 11, 8, 6 and 4 in the cinema. They along with this 45 year old just loved this movie from start to finish (The children can be excused for youthful inexperience. But you should go back to school. Preferably a film school... One that still uses corporal punishment.).
It is visceral (It isn't, though, is it? Bay even manages to make robots hitting other robots dull. Probably because in every fight it is impossible to work out which robot is which, or which bit of metal belongs to which robot.) without being scary and funny (in places) without being naff (The attempts at humour are cringe-makingly awful.) and it just looks GREAT! (The CGI is pretty good. But what's the point when you can't tell what's what?)
I would agree with the comment made earlier - Big screen TV for this along with surround sound or you'll have wasted your money. (Whatever you watch it on, you've wasted your money. And given that hack director some more money to butcher cinema.)
p.s Female lead is pretty fit, too! (She has a name. It is Megan Fox. Though thank you for summing up Bay's lecherous and misogynistic attitude to women.)

Here's another one:

I was expecting alot from this film (For the love of God why?). Michael Bay & Stephen Spielberg? (Michael Bay directing made you want to see this film? Michael Bay is very probably the worst director this side of Uwe Boll) Rich source material (It's a children's toy!) and enormous transforming robots (These are cool.)? This should be the best movie ever! (Anything that has Bay involved is automatically in the bottom half...)

I went along to the cinema with my wife (yeshy-mesh (?)) after watching all of the other Summer "blockbusters" and we were both blown away! (Clearly you have no taste whatsoever)

It was funny (If you find wooden acting and one-note direction funny, I suppose...), exciting (Not that exciting. Repetitive maybe...), loud (Now that's true. Except that I would say being loud was a negative...), expressionate (That's not even a word.), did justice to the original cartoon (It shat all over the, from what I remember, brilliant cartoon.) and captured my attention for the whole movie (It was dull!).

I loved it, I enjoyed every aspect of the movie especially the "lubricating the human" scene (This is a children's movie. A human peeing on someone was only shown on television for the first time in 1980, I refuse to believe that in only 30 years it has become acceptable for children to see such things.). I won't be buying the DVD (Nor will I. Unless as a punishment for something...). Because I made a resolution to myself that i would buy a HD-DVD/Blu-Ray player so i can watch this movie in all of its glory. (I've got a blu-ray player. I hope it will never have to touch this rubbish.)

Best film of the summer (I already explained why it wasn't. Look up there ☝ for a list.)

Lastly, I'll cast my eye over this one:

No words can possibly express how TOTALLY OUT OF THIS WORLD this movie is (Are you serious? I really hope you're taking the piss.). Transformers 2007 is the most amazing (How is it amazing?), exciting (I've said before that isn't as exciting as big robots being hit by other big robots should have been.), emotionally-heart tearing (What? When? The film had all the emotion of a porn film), tear-jerking (Are you lying? Paid by Bay? Or just in denial?), action-packed (Well there was plenty of 'action' I'll give you that), the most funniest (Most funniest? Learn your language.), coolest, just....WONDERFUL movie I have ever seen in the history of movies (Don't watch many films do you? This will never replace The Godfather an Citizen Kane at the top of Best Movie lists. And for a very good reason.). At this present time, I can't tell you anything about the special features on the DVD as it's not even been released yet, so I can only give you a review on the actual movie itself (What a pity. We could have been treated to you telling us that the 'making of' was also better than Taxi Driver...).

To put it all into a nutshell (Even a detailed synopsis would take a few sentences.), the story revolves around a young man named Sam Witwicky. He's not very popular at school, but he's in love with a beautiful young lady named Mikeala (I think you'll find he lusts after her. Bay wouldn't know love if he fell over it. Unless it appeared as a woman's arse or an explosion.), who's in his class. His dream has always been to get his first car and hopefully impress the woman he loves at the same time. He gets his new car, (as well as the lady), who just happens to be the autobot, Bumblebee, who saves his life and they become best friends (As you do.). Eventually, Bumblebee introduces Sam and Mikeala to his other friends, Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Jazz and Ironhide (who is extremely trigger-happy in this movie). Optimus explains the important role that Sam has to play in order to help the Autobots save the human-race and the world from the Decepticons and...well, you're gonna have to watch the rest (Well that's really about it.). I've already gone to the cinema to see it...FOUR times, LOL! (Then you are one of the many responsible for the sequels. When I come to power anyone who has paid to see these films twice or more will be crucified. Literally, there'll be a cross and some thieves and everything.)

Michael Bay certainy did a MAGNIFICENT job on making this movie (But you can't see what's happening most of the time.). This is truly a masterpiece in the history of the Transformers (This film and "masterpiece" should never be in the same paragraph. Except right there where the inverted commas make it okay.). The selection of music and songs they chose for the soundtrack also makes an exciting listening experience and fits each part of the movie perfectly. (It's over dramatic and too loud.)

The acting, computer animation and real-life robots look INCREDIBLY AMAZING and VERY, VERY, VERY REAL INDEED. (The acting is piss-poor from pretty much everyone. How is it even possible to get bad performances from John Turturro and Jon Voight? And you know the robots don't exist in real-life right?)

Optimus Prime: FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL SENTIENT BEINGS! (Except those who believe this to be an excellent film. They should be put to work in mines where they'll never get to see the sun again. That'll learn 'em.)

Right that's enough for now. I may well do some reviews for the second one too, if I can work up the courage to watch the hateful thing...

L.A. Noire

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 11:01:00 +0000

Sorry, a combination of being on holiday and being lazy has resulted in fewer posts than usual this last few weeks. Or indeed any posts. Still, we're all here now so lets press on.

L.A. Noire was released in May to rapturous reviews and strong sales. If you don't know, the game centres around the player's character, named Cole Phelps, as he rises through the police ranks. Along the way you have to solve various crimes using clues and the facial expressions of the suspects during interviews. Oh, and there's a fair amount of shooting things too, to keep those expecting a 40s GTA happy. But, of course, there were some attention-seekers who decided to write some bad reviews on Amazon.co.uk:

Firstly, anyone who has give 3 or more stars needs to be treated like one of the victims (What have your body investigated, cut open, put in a morgue then buried? I'm sorry but you're comparison fails miserably), and those who give 5 must be rockstar employees looking to tot up some sales and get a healthy christmas bonus.. (Or maybe they just really liked it? Like all those critics...)

The graphics are great granted, but so what!! (It matters because it's a whole new way of doing faces.) if i wanted to watch something with amazing graphics id dip into my toy story collection! (Except, again, you're comparison is somewhat shit...)

Every investigation is tedious, every victim has died in the same manor (I don't recall seeing any kinds of country manor...), its like groundhog day! (I found them pretty interesting, myself. Some of them are similar, but that was intentional.)

Fighting is a joke (In what way? It's not exactly Fight Night Round 4, but it's perfectly fit for purpose.), and chasing people is also a joke as no matter how fast you go or nifty you are, u always catch them in the place determined by the game storyline (Actually, you can get them early. I know because I've done it). its about as much fun as eating flour and salt together. (Wow, if eating flour and salt is as fun as L.A. Noire then I'm there!)

Im honestly so disappointed its untrue (I'm sure Rockstar will be crying themselves to sleep. In their Sunseeker yachts.), the constant quizzing of suspects is boring after one go (Maybe to those with the attention span of a goldfish.), and the concept of truth, doubt and lie is pathetic, doubt and lie are pretty similar in my eyes... (Not really. Doubt is used for when you think they're lying but have no proof, lie is for when you can prove it. So maybe they are different after all eh?) and you have to watch their reactions to gage if ~~there~~ they're lying, its either a straight face for truth, or rolling of eyes and a shifty glance here and there for the suspect lying. (There's waaay more to it than that. It can be very subtle differences)

hardly mind boggling detective work, poirot won't be getting in a pickle over this! (Well no. Probably because he's dead. And fictional.)

another thing about this game, however rubbish you are you still solve the case, wats the point (No that's just flat-out wrong. You will arrest someone, but that person can be innocent if you've cocked up somewhere)! just give me a gun and let me start shooting people up when there lying, or at least a couple of slaps! but nothing! (Yes. I think we may have hit the crux of the problem. This is a mature, story-driven game for mature gamers. Not spotty 13 year-olds who are only excited by explosions and breasts.)

all the cars are the same (Except they look and drive differently don't they? So really they're quite different.), and apparently you can drive over 100, wow, as they all look the same... (Except they aren't! Some oversteer, for example, while others understeer) and they all drive slow! (They're from the fucking 1940s! What else were you expecting?! Hovercars going mach 3?)

the game is just a lost concept (Nope. It's a concept that works spectacularly), in fact im feeling guilty about selling my copy on ebay. (Don't be. Somebody else will love it. Probably someone with more than three brain cells.)

the only good thing about this game is that it cud save you money on your heating bills as it warms your ps3 console up to the same temperature as centre of a mcdonalds apple pie! (I've never had that problem myself, thus I'm obviously a far better human being...)

one final word!!! checkout the outfits option......you can change your dark minging suit for another one...woo hoo, how exciting.... ;) (They all have different effects on the character so there is a purpose beyond cosmetics)

its the only playstation game you dont really need a controller for, just a huge box of maltesers, to assist you through this soul destroying game! (Oh piss off. You're just embarrassing yourself in front of the whole internet)

rockstar.... watch the film the mechanic and then build a game based on that type of thing!! good lads! (Oh for the love of God. Just stick to Saints Row, Rockstar's recent discovery of intricacy and maturity is clearly far beyond your small mind.)

Here's another:

Like any PS3 owner, I was really looking forward to this game (And so you should have been. I'd been excited since it was announced). So on the day of it's release, I went out and bought it, got home, and started playing. I'm not going to drone on about the "wonderful graphics", "facial programming" or the "stunnig gameplay", as it only really has one of these boxes ticked (Well, the graphics are wonderful, the faces are superbly recorded and the gameplay, whilst not stunning, is very good. So I make that 2 out of 3, maybe 2 and a half.). The look of the game is stunning, HOWEVER, it may have been a better use of the programmers time and energy if they had worked on anything else!!! (It took seven years to make. They spent plenty of time on everything. That's why everything works very well.) A new patio prehaps? Of just taking the dog for a long walk (Oh you're so witty. To steal a line from Blackadder, I thank God I wore my corset, because I think my sides have split. You could only be funnier if you learned to type.). This game has not delievered the promised yardstick. (That's not really how the word 'yardstick' should be used...)

Here's why. (Oh thank the heavens you and you're various game awards are going to tell these rank amateurs how to make a game!)

1/ The gameplay is far too easy (In what way? The fights etc. are easy, but some of the clues can be pretty hard to find)

2/ There is no challenge in ANY of the missions (Except there is. As I pointed out, just because you've got the evidence to finger someone, it doesn't mean its the right person)

3/ The story thread is so weak, I'm surprised that the disc isn't made out of granite, just to give some backbone (I thought the story was pretty strong and engrossing)

4/ The missions are all the same, just different characters. (This is a big problem) (True, I suppose. But that could be said of pretty much every game around. Call of Duty is just shooting people in rooms. Only the people and the rooms change. Bioshock is just hitting people with wrenches and running away from Big Daddies. What a stupid point to make, it's the characters that make it interesting you twerp.)

5/ There's no fun in the game whatsoever (And yet, I find it fun. Please refrain from passing off your opinions as facts in future. They aren't. In your case they're pretty far from fact...)

6/ The game is to short (Ha! Got you! You must have enjoyed it a little bit if you were sorry it ended so soon!)

And the big one (I bet it's stupid...),

7/ There's no imagination!! (And I was right. How is there no imagination? How many other games set in the 40s where you are a police officer who has to, get this, do actual police work? I can think of none.)

You really do get the feeling that the whole story was thought of in a matter of moments. (I think it was years actually...)

If this is the best that Team Bondi can come out with then please don't bother anymore (Yeah. I mean if a metacritic score of just 89 is really all you can do, then you'd better just go and shoot yourself...). My copy of the game will be on here for sale very soon, as I want to get rid of it before everyone else!! (I hope it went for tuppence ha'penny.)

Here's a review from an Xbox 360 owner, so he's probably a high-pitched whiny pre-pubescent...:

Having been a massive Rock Star fan I looked forward to LA Noire immensely (Well you'd be mad not to. Rockstar have become the become the best in the business at mature games since they grew up with GTA IV). But I have never been so disappointed (Your parents have...). They have concentrated far too much on the facial recognition, interviewing and cut-scenes and not enough on the game play (The game-play is fucking fine! Much of it has come straight from Red Dead and GTA for fuck's sake.).

I would have loved to be on the opposite side of the fence from their other games, driving round reacting to criminals doing their thing (Well this is it!). Jumping over bonnets and tooling up my arsenal (What you wanted was a Die Hard game. This was never going to be that. It didn't want to be). But what do you get, a linear procession through boring crime scene after another (I found all the cases absorbing, myself. As did most critics). The facial thing is good, but the novelty wears off quickly (It's not a novelty. The game would not work without it.) and then you realise that its just not any fun to play. (Like the other guy, this is your (incorrect) opinion, not fact.)

Rockstar have really dropped a brick here and I can only hope this is not the sign of things to come. (They dropped, not a brick, but a bomb. With a gloriously tight bombing pattern (sorry, Catch-22 reference again). If this is a sign of things to come from Team Bondi and Rockstar then the future looks bright)

Very upset (It's just a game you're too stupid to understand properly. No need to take it so personally. Not like my personal attacks...). Right then lets go and watch some emulsion on a wall... (If that's your idea of fun then I think we can all ignore you're review...)

I think that'll do there, till next time dear fans and admirers!

Black Swan

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 11:00:00 +0000

You'd think that bloody great crack would tip
some people off that this would be a little mad...

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan was released last year to very strong reviews. It even collected Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Natalie Portman's excellent central performance, as well nominations in many of the other major categories. The film depicts a young ballerina who has to get in touch with her darker side to succeed as the lead in a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. I shan't spoil it, but anyone going to the cinema expecting a modern retelling of Swan Lake or a nice story about ballet performers would be disappointed and surprised... But the reviewers have no such qualms, so tread carefully. Speaking of the reviewers, here is some from amazon.co.uk:

This film is a travesty and an insult to hard working ballet dancers, ballet teachers and musiscians (How? It doesn't say all people involved in ballet are nuts, just that it can be incredibly tough to reach the top. Which is certainly true. I haven't heard of any ballet performers complain about their depiction in the film.). It traduces (Who the fuck actually uses the word 'traduce'? How pretentious are you?) an honorouble art and profession (It doesn't attack ballet. It comments on the lengths performers [of any dramatic profession] will go to for their roles. That is it.) and will undermine the teaching and practise of ballet for a generation of young hopefuls (Your 'young hopefuls' shouldn't see this film on account of it being handed a 15 certificate by the BBFC for 'strong sex, strong language and bloody injury'. Any ballet hopefuls should not see the film until they are 15. Well after they would have started ballet. Your point is stupid.). I found the film ludicrous (Well it is a bit. It's an homage of sorts to the horror films of Dario Argento [particularly Suspiria] which were also mad. But the madness was pretty clear from the trailers, if you thought you were getting something else then that's your problem.) with childish computer generated effects (They were pretty good. Certainly they were not 'childish' in any way.) and exagerated psychological problems as if audiences are so stupid they need have to have each point underlined, printed in CAPITALS, and hammered into their heads or they wont understand (Actually the psychological angle was exaggerated to make the film exciting, visceral and Argento-ish. In real life, most psychological breakdowns aren't really that exciting though...). The film dwells on sexual deviation (Being a lesbian, or exploring those avenues, is not 'sexual deviation' you homophobic piece of shit cunt. The term 'deviation' is used when talking about paedophilia, voyeurism or sadomasochism, that sort of thing. Not homosexuality.) and gratuitous self harm (The self-harm was pretty important to the plot really, taking it out would have vastly reduced the impact of the picture.) with all the gory details in a way that is more in keeping with third rate pornography (What pornography have you been watching to have gory self harm in it? Maybe it's you who's the sexual deviant...). I would not encourage any child to watch it (Well, once again I will divert your attention to the 15 certificate. In the UK it is illegal to supply a film to anyone under the age of the certificate. So what precisely is your point?) and would rate it lemon of the year (Really? You feel this was worse than drivel like Sex and the City 2 or The Last Airbender?) and possibly the least deserving Acadamy Award winner of all time! (First of all, Portman deserved her award. Second of all, I would like to draw your attention to Braveheart which is by far the least deserving Academy Award winner I can think of. As it's a racist piece of trash.) I hated the film (Really? I hadn't noticed. Thanks for pointing that out...) and would ask for my money back if I could. The film is mis-sold not clearly pointing out the inapropriate nature of the content (IT WAS GIVEN A 15 CERTIFICATE how much clearer could it be? I suggest you either stick to films with U or PG ratings in future, or check the BBFC website where they say precisely why they have handed out the certificate they have.) and relying on the Swan Lake reputation to entice the unwary (Look, don't blame the film because you are an idiot. It merely makes you seem an even bigger idiot.). The acting was ordinary and certainly not worthy of an Acadamy Award (Really? So you know better than pretty much every major critic in the field then do you? And most of the voters for the various academies etc. that gave her awards? Because I doubt that very much. Hell, even my ego isn't that big.). Two big thumbs down from me.

Having taken a minute to calm down, here's the next one:

I have given it one star because I had no choice (I think you have to click at least one). (You had a choice. You could have chosen to not review it at all. That would have saved me from feeling obliged to write this too...)
The ballet scenes should upset real ballet dancers (And yet... They don't. They were generally praised as being pretty good for a film.). Natalie Portman flaps her arms about, I don't really call it dancing. (Well that's ballet for you...)
The story is so pretentious it is laughable (When, precisely, is it pretentious? It's a horror/thriller film. A genre film. Pretension is not a part of it.). I think those who loved the movie perhaps liked a bit of voyeurism (e.g. the gratuitous lesbian sex scene). (I see. So everyone who enjoyed it [an awful lot of people lets not forget] are all peeping toms? It certainly couldn't be because of the exciting story, excellent acting and beautiful cinematography could it...)
Don't waste your money. (It wouldn't be a waste.)

And another:

In contrast to other reviews here, I will give an unpretentious and honest assessment of Black Swan (I think all the reviews on amazon will be honest, misguided or flat-out wrong sometimes, but honest. Well except for the trolls, obviously, but I can't see any for Black Swan. And just because someone likes a film you don't, and can quantify why they like it by citing cinematography etc, that doesn't make them pretentious.). It should have been more accurately entitled 'The Emperor's New Clothes' (How very droll and original. How many times have I seen that sort of phrase since I started doing this blog...), since it is devoid of any meaningful content and has been feted by reviewers who really ought to know better (Maybe, and I know this is a far-out suggestion, but maybe they do know better. And it's you who's wrong?). True, it looks stylish (It is indeed) (though the insistence on using hand-held camera for long periods has a tendency to make the user feel seasick (The user?)), but is essentially meaningless tosh (Not really. As I said earlier, it comments on the search for perfection by the extremely driven.). Worse than that, at key moments it is laughably awful (Name one such moment, and explain precisely why it is laughable, then we can talk.). Portman emotes like her life depends on it (She does a little more than that...), but she can't help the stilted script (When is it stilted? I found it all flowed quite nicely) or the director's clumsy handling of his denouement (Excuse me? How was it clumsy?), which in turn says nothing and was foreseeable through the entire film. (It says plenty, and perhaps it wasn't overly difficult to predict, but what ever happened to just enjoying the ride? Even when the end is a foregone conclusion?)

Ignore the accolades (Or don't. They are well deserved, and awarded by more intelligent and cineliterate people than this chump. Or even me.). This is truly a movie worthy of the Razzies (No. Just... No.). Please, please do not buy it on DVD (Since it would clearly cause you much pain I'm going to buy it as soon as I can afford it.) and if you were thinking of venturing out to the cinema, stay home and watch Polanski's Repulsion (Repulsion is indeed a superb film. But Black Swan has just as much right to exist. It tells a different, though in some ways similar in other ways very different, story in an entirely different way.). Now there was a director who knew how to hit nerve endings and portray a descent into madness credibly and scare the audience witless (Polanski is a very good director. But, despite your inferred accusation, so is Aronofsky. As you would know if you'd seen Requiem For A Dream). So in short, there are no redeeming features (None at all? Really?) - this really is a film that could have been decent in the right hands but which has been sabotaged (It could have been more than decent in the right hands. Fortunately, it was placed in the right hands, so it turned out very well.). Please save your hard-earned cash! (What if your cash isn't hard-earned?)

I think that'll do for now, but I may well tackle some reviews from America at some point in the future so keep your eyes peeled!

Man Bites Dog

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Tue, 31 May 2011 15:32:00 +0000

This is not a nice man... image via Spectrum Culture

At the 1992 Cannes Film Festival those who attended were faced with two tough films. One, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, was accepted into the mainstream. The other, a Belgian film named C'est arrivé prè de chez vous (known as Man Bites Dog in the English speaking world), was not. This was probably due to the almost constant violent acts committed by Benoît, including a brutal rape and the smothering of a child. The film is a mockumentary with a young film crew trailing Benoît, a serial killer, who become ever more involved in the acts they're filming. The film was met with strong reviews and won the SACD Award and Special Award for the Youth at Cannes. Funnily enough, these reviewers weren't on the Cannes panel... Let's start off with this one from amazon.co.uk:

While one can intellectualise and justify the presentation of gratuitous (But the violence in this film is not gratuitous. Without it, the whole thing wouldn't work. It is intended to make you question why you watch violent films and documentaries.) and extremes of violence in the name of art you should tread carefully before watching this film if you think you are going to be treated to some thought provoking 'black comedy' that will make you look at life in a subtly different way. (I wouldn't use the word 'treated' about the film, but it is humourous in places. And it is most certainly thought provoking.)

I thought twice about writing a review as I turned this film off about 20 minutes in, believing I had no right to write about something I had not watched in its entirety, and there in lies my point. (Right, let me get this straight. You know that you should not review something you have seen less than a third of, yet you did it anyway? How can you possibly 'know' that the film would not 'make you look at life in a subtly different way' when you haven't seen the end, or indeed the middle? You missed the ridicule heaped on Benoît for most of the second and third acts.)

If you want to spend your time watching a film of cold calculated disturbing violence I suggest you get out more. (Well, that's ironic. That is pretty much the message of the movie. See, if you miss most of the film you also miss the whole point of the bloody thing. Fuckwit.)

In the comments section the reviewer is chastised, rightfully, for reviewing something he'd seen almost nothing of. Then this guy tries to defend him:

The reviewer is perfectly justified in giving an opinion after viewing only a part of the film (No he isn't. It's stupid. He may as well review something based entirely on rumour and hearsay.) - no need to watch to the end (I did) to assess that it's just a collection of violent and complacent (I don't think you mean complacent to be honest.) acts under the iffy pretence (It isn't a pretence or iffy.) of "criticism of media and society" (But that's what it is. It's quite clear if you watch it.) and "dark humour" (It is dark, and it is humourous. Ergo, it is dark humour.), bla bla. Excuse me but I don't need to watch that trash to know there's something wrong with the world (I see. So in your world art is not allowed to criticise society? Should only vacuous tripe like Transformers be produced then?). I just need to look at Abu Ghraib pics or videos of humiliated Palestinians to know we live in a hell on Earth (I think you may be taking a cynical worldview slightly too far now...) where most people behave and think psychopathically (No they don't. A psychopath is someone who has no emotions or empathy and can feel no remorse. Most people could not behave this way even if they wanted to.), to the point of finding the depiction of a woman brutally raped on screen "disturbingly interesting", or "thought provoking". (The rape itself is certainly disturbing, but in and of itself is not 'interesting' or 'thought provoking' it is only when it is included as part of the whole film, with its associate ending, it becomes thought provoking.)

Thankfully, there's the "elite" who will explain to me that it is "art" and I'm too stupid to get it (Yeah, what do all those professional critics know, eh? You clearly know more about film than they do...). Sheesh. What a good job the pathocrats have done. (You realise that the world isn't actually controlled by sociopaths and psychopaths right? Are you really that paranoid?)

Now, let's move over to see what we can find on amazon.com shall we?:

This review is for the Criterion collection DVD edition of the film.

Man Bites Dog, released in Belgium as "C'est arrivé près de chez vous" which translates to "It happened in your town" (Neighbourhood, not town) is the worst film yet released through the Criterion Collection on DVD (I'll admit to not knowing all other films that have been released by Criterion, but I doubt this...). It recieved an NC-17 rating in the US and damn well deserves it (Yes. It does. But that is not a bad thing. Some films are intended to be watched by adults. Films that are aimed at adults should not be prejudiced against just because you're all so terrified of children seeing it. Children shouldn't see it, any parent that does allow their child to see it is an awful parent.). Too bad there is not a more strict rating (Yeah, stopping legal adults watching this film would be as ridiculous as preventing adults from drinking alcohol for three years. Oh, wait...). This film contains extremly graphic depictions of rape, murder, and even torture (It does. All of these acts are necessary to the trajectory of the film.). It has been banned in several countries including 2 in Europe (As far as I can see it was passed cut in Australia, and banned in Sweden. But Evil Dead was banned in the UK so I wouldn't hold any stock in that...). I could not help but turn my face away from many scenes (I think that's kind of the point...)

This film, shot in documentary style presents an "interview" with a serial killer
(It's not so much an interview as a shadowing of him. That's why they follow him around so much...) and he demonstrates how he kills his victims. In a shockingly cold manner, he notices while in the home of an elderly woman, that she takes a medication for a heart condition. Instead of shooting her, he pulls out the gun and yells in a threatening manner, she has a heart attack as a result (Of course it was shockingly cold. The character is incredibly cold to his victims. That's why he murders people. And the film needs to shock to get its point across). He notes that bullets cost money and not worth wasting when they aren't necessary (Clearly an economically sound man...). There are also scenes where he smothers a child to death with his pillow and murders his parents. (And your point is? Yes, we get that you found the actions of the lead character [a serial killer let's not forget] deplorable. You are not supposed to admire him in any way. Your point is stupid!)
This film was an attempt to satirize media violence but all it does is glorify it. (No it doesn't. Movies that glorify violence are the ones that portray it as repurcussionless or glamuorous. Films such as this and Natural Born Killers go nowhere near glamorising or glorifying anything to do with killing or killers.)

[NOTE: paragraph deleted as it was just a list of the extras on the disc]

Avoid this movie unless you like similar films. (I suppose that is a legitimate point, but I don't like you so I'm going to call you a wanker anyway... Wanker.)

From now on, I will get more info about Criterion DVD's before watching them, I will still note and rate the special features of each one though. (I would suggest that as a general rule for all films. That way you don't inflict a stupid review on the rest of us for a film you would never appreciate.)

And here's another, also from across the pond:

This movie is sick. (No it isn't. The character in it is undoubtedly an unwell man. But the film does not glamorise him in any way, so it raises itself above such accusations) Really! I am not a prude (You sound suspiciously like one...). But, there are some very distateful scenes that are unnecessary with the sheer objective of making the viewer sick (Two things, first the 'distasteful scenes' are necessary because of the reasons I have outlined above. Secondly, the main objective is not to make the viewer sick, it was to comment on reality documentaries and the audiences' obsession with violent film and TV). I'm not sure if the director was under a great delusion the he is so ironic or bold or shocking (But the film is ironic, bold and shocking in places. You've already said some of the scenes were distasteful, surely, then, you must have been shocked by them.). But this movie is total trash (That explains those critic awards at Cannes...). I remember walking out of the theatre when I saw it (So you didn't even see the whole thing? Why won't you bastards stop doing that? It's a really fucking thick thing to do.). I suggest you walk out of your home if it is playing on your tv (You could just switch it off if you didn't like it...)..... and then move to another town, take an hour long shower and burn your clothes. (What. The. Fuck? I mean I overreact but seriously man. We get that you didn't like the film, but Christ almighty get a grip.)

Well, I think that'll do for today. See you next time!

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Sun, 29 May 2011 10:46:00 +0000

Get it away from me!
Image via pirates wiki

To, ah, 'celebrate' the recent release of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides I thought I'd look over a few reviews for Captain Jack Sparrow's previous adventure, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (don't exactly go for pithy titles do they?). Now when this film was released I refused to see it on account of how shit the previous one was, however I was eventually forced to watch the bloody thing. It was at this point that I realised that I had been wrong! It was far worse than even I had imagined. Sparrow is even more annoying than ever, with Depp's accent still sounding like a yank doing a bad impression of David Bowie. Whilst Knightley and Bloom were, and I had thought this impossible, even more wooden than in the previous two. And the plot? God only knows. Still, PotC:AWE proved to be popular with the general populace, netting nearly a billion dollars. Thus proving once and for all that people are idiots and that I need to be put in charge. Oh, and it was popular on amazon too as these reviews attest:

I found Pirates 3 to be a far more satisfying viewing experience than the previous two films in the trilogy (Really? I mean the first one was alright, the second was garbage but this one is a still steaming dog turd of a movie.). The mood is much darker and grittier than One or Two (But it's ostensibly a family film. Why should being 'darker' be lauded?), apparent from the opening scenes which feature graphic (for a Disney/12 Cert film) mass executions as large numbers of pirates and their associates - including women and children - queue up for the gallows. (Ah, nothing quite like the brutal hanging of children to complete a family night out. Honestly, which brainiac thought that was even remotely appropriate?)
This is followed by an almost surreal voyage beyond "World's End", lots of mysticism and rather less in the way of pirate yo ho ho and silliness that made the first two movies rather cliched (At least the first was fun in places, the second started the move away from that, but this is just grim.). All the characters have their own agendas, everyone is double crossing everyone else (To such an extent that you just stop giving a fuck about them.) and the producers have no qualms about killing off several characters as the movie progresses. (Just a shame I didn't care what happened to any of them. I honestly think I could care more about the fate of a louse in my nether regions than a character in this heap.)

The battle scenes are quite graphic - not particularly bloody or gory, but certainly more violent than before and, again, people die on both sides. (Again, who did Gore Verbinski think he was making this for?)

The Blu-Ray transfer is superb (Well you'd hope so for how much the film cost to make...), crystal clear picture on the Sony PS3 (Don't sully the poor machine with this festering pile of manure. I should phone the RSPCPS3...) to a Hitachi plasma screen. The movie would really have benefited from a DTS soundtrack but the Dolby Digital 5:1 does a fair job. The music score from Hans Zimmer really immerses you in the action and at times is quite moving.

This is a long film at around 1619 mins (It just never ends! 2001: A Space Odyssey is shorter than this, and that takes you from the birth of mankind through to the creation of a whole new species!) and could probably have benefited from a bit of pruning (Yes. In the same way that Justin Bieber could do with 'a bit' of shooting, or Nixon could have done with 'a bit' of jailing...). However it is a credit to the story (Story? What story? I've read children's novels with a better, tighter plot than this.) and production that things never really flag (They fucking well do! The whole bloody thing is just flag.) and you are not looking at the clock as with some longer movies. (The clock would be far more entertaining though...)

Buy, Buy, Buy! (If you fancy nearly three hours of grim badly acted, badly directed shite then by all means do as he suggests.)

I hope that this is not a serious review, I really do:

This is another spectacular film (It isn't. It is staggeringly far from spectacular. I suppose it could be acceptably described as 'spectacularly bad', but that is really the only time that word and this film should be used in the same sentence.), stunning conceptualisation (Using big words doesn't escape the fact you've given an abysmal film 5 stars. It just makes you sound like a prick. A stupid prick.), and great conclusion (Yes, I too felt that the closing credits was the best bit of the film...). Firstly, the incredible conceptual realisation (You're being a prick again.) of Jack Sparrow wandering the Realms of Madness in the Domain of Davey Jones' Locker. This alone is worthy of 4 of the 5 gold stars (That should have been shortened slightly to one sentence. It's more stilted than Orlando Bloom the way you've done it.). The deeper reality (Good God you're a pretentious prick. A pretentious prick that doesn't even have the common decency to be pretentious about good films.) of how lost souls are bound to the corrupted Flying Dutchman is amazingly well done (No it isn't. I don't recall anything 'well done' about the film. At all.). The way the loose ends from the earlier films are sorted out and tied off is masterful (If by 'masterful', you mean stupid and convoluted, then yes!). Bringing in the Calypso Mythos was novel (It was fecking stupid.), and very well done (It was fecking stupid.). And the final twist, involving THE Pirate's Life for one of the lead characters, is really compelling (It was not compelling. Turner had never been more than an annoying plank of wood throughout, so why should I care what happened to him?). This is another worthy example of a "fantasy film for youngsters" for adults (Well it certainly ain't for children. Or adults whose brain cells outnumber their limbs, for that matter). If anyone makes the mistake of thinking the plot is erratic (It is.), then they are obviously a) not paying attention (I was.), and b) expecting modern films to be made for people whose lips move when they read - which this is not (Now look here you little shit, I understood Inception first time around. I class intelligent films such as The Godfather, 2001, Moon, Memento and, hell, Tarkovsky's Solaris among my favourite films. I am much, much smarter than you. This film is shit. The writers made it up as they went along without bothering to check over what they'd already written. Twists don't make a film clever. This is barely above Bay, if that.). Nevertheless it doesn't try to be anything more than outrageously larger-than-life entertainment (Then why does it fail so miserably at even that low target?). There are many levels of humour (None of which are funny), twists (That you stop giving two shits about after the nth one.), and stings (Against characters that it would be kind to describe as two-dimensional.), and, in the main, the sharp witty script (Ha!) which we have come to expect (I already said it was worse than even I thought it would be.). Worth watching again and again. (If you're a masochist.)

And another:

Everyone is saying how bad this film is... (Because it is bad. To show it at Guantanamo Bay would contravene the Geneva Convention it's so bad. Not that the US would care mind you...) but I disagree (Are you a moron, or just deliberately contrary?). I thought it was fantastic (Why? Why would you do this to me?). The special effects are amazing and I didn't find the plot hard to follow at all (It isn't really, it's just stupid. Putting in so many twists merely serves to diminish the impact of the twists. You end up knowing there will be twists, which defies the whole point of the fucking twist! You might as well have not fucking bothered!). I thought it was very easy to follow!

Johnny Depp was superb as always (He can be superb. But not in this. Why Johnny? Why do you agree to shit like this and The Tourist? You can't need the money and surely you get enough offers to keep you occupied doing things that aren't shit? Why can't you go back to being in good films? You were good in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, why can't you be in more things like that? Why Johnny? Why?), and supported by an incredible cast- Jack Davenport, Tom Hollander, Mackenzie Crook, Bill Nighy etc. Even Keira Knightley seeed to have come into her own in this film (Yes it's definitely this film she became good in. Not her Oscar nominated roles in Pride & Prejudice or Atonement, but his.). The weak link was Orlando Bloom, who did nothing for me except make me cringe every time he opened his mouth (Well we agree there). the real star for me though was Naomie Harris. I just loved her portrayal of Tia Dalma and she stole every scene that she was in. (Was she the one that was borderline-racist? No, not the the Chinese guy who was like Fu Manchu, the woman...)

I thought the ending was very successful (I'd certainly take Knightley's fate, only having to see Bloom every 10 years...). They could have gone for a soppy, 'happily ever after' ending... but they didn't and that really impressed me. It would have ruined the whole thing if they had. (Trust me, the whole thing was already ruined beyond all hope of redemption by then.)

OK... this film is not an intellectual film (I'll say)... but it doesn't pretend to be (That's no excuse.). It's a film you go to see for some lighthearted, swashbuckling fun (Then why, pray tell, is it neither of those things?). That's it. If you go in expecting anything more... you will be disappointed. (I expected less and I was still disappointed...)

Ah what the hell, here's one more:

What can I say? I mean, 3 hours is a BIT long...! (About 3 hours too long if you ask me...) And the storyline falls apart like porridge if you think about it too hard (Or, indeed, if you thin about it quite softly...), but you've got to admit that Johnny Depp's done himself proud (No he hasn't. He's sold his integrity for a bit of dough.) - I don't think I've ever laughed so much! (Children being hanged are hilarious...)

Ok, so POTC 3 is the least funny of the lot (Jack Sparrow only says savvy once!!! (The horror! The horror!)), but it's definately the most epic (Well it certainly meets the length requirement for that tag...). I mean, there's a blooming great whirlpool! (Who needs plot, acting, direction, editing, characterisation or plot when you have a whirlpool? Someone needs to phone the Academy quick!) And there's a sea battle thats acted out with entirely graphic sea! I mean, clever or what?!? (No. The aforementioned Solaris is clever. Inception is clever. Even The Hangover is clever in places. This doesn't get anywhere near.)

I defy you to find a funnier trilogy then Pirates of the Caribbean (Back to the Future.). It's basically impossible! (No it isn't, it took me a few seconds.) OK, there are bits that you get a bit lost in, but WHO CARES!?!? (Me. Because it doesn't know what's happening or why either.) Becuase, quite frankly, it's a laugh, and that's the only thing you want from POTC apart from the WOW-factor of the animations. (But why can't it be more? I like fun films. If they are good. This meets neither of those criteria.)

So get it (No. You can't tell mw what to do.). It's one of my family's favourite and most-watched films! (Your family is stupid then...) I mean, there are a few people who are disappointed (A few? There are loads of us) (so if you're worried you'll be one of them, rent it) BUT YOU'VE GOT TO SEE IT!!! (No you don't. Think what better things you could do with that three hours. Like attaching your scrotum to the back of a drag racer.)

I think that'll do to be honest, but don't worry, I haven't even looked at reviews from amazon.com yet...

Black Books

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Blanchard) — Sun, 29 May 2011 01:22:00 +0000

Image via WikipediaI like Black Books. These people don't. I may have gotten just a little, tiny bit angry at them towards the end, but you probably won't notice...

Amazon.co.uk:

Only gets 1 star because that's how many times I laughed through all 3 series (Once. Yea, if you considered that sentence to be a witty piece of wordplay, then I think I know why you didn't enjoy the series). "One of the few genuine british comedies" they said (Who? Are there voices in your head? Advertising nuns at your door?). After watching this rubbish, that statement is funnier than anything in this (That's not really a very good sentence. I'm being petty, I know, but there we are.). Can't even begin to describe how bad this is (Yea. That's because it isn't bad, you dick. Also, if you find the task so unimaginably difficult, why write this fucking review? I'll eat your sofa). Was totally sucked in by all the good reviews (Well, finally. You've said something sensible.). I must be on a completely different comedy level to the people who gave these reviews (Almost everyone else, anywhere. You're one half of all the negative reviews of Black Books on any Amazon site, did you know that?). I want my money back NOW!! (I'm not actually in charge of dealing with refunds, and neither is anyone else who would read this review, I imagine. You'd probably have to contact Amazon directly for a refund. And I doubt they'd give it to you, because you're stupid. And stupid people don't get refunds.)

Amazon.co.uk:

Had heard that this was good so got hold of first series on DVD (Yes, I gathered from the review you've written. But thanks for the backstory. It really fleshes out your character). Watched the first episode and had to remind myself to be patient as the first episode of Father Ted had also seemed awkward and strained (Maybe a tad. But let us see what other pearls of wisdom you have to offer.). Unfortunately, whereas Father Ted became a classic, which I have watched countless times (Good for you. You're really developing your character, aren't you? I can just picture you now, watching your Father Ted and hearing good reviews of Black Books, sitting in front of a roaring fire.), Black Books fails badly (Well, no. It doesn't.). Realised halfway through the second episode that this was no classic (Well, it isn't Citizen fucking Kane, is it?But then again, what is?) - which was evident from the fact that the canned laughter was louder than the dialogue. (I don't remember it being that loud. But maybe I'm some kind of special moth-man. Maybe I have special powers, granted to me by a radioactive moth. Who knows?)

Lovefilm:

Mistakenly (Obviously) thought this was a film (Great title. Clearly demonstrates you're not an idiot.)

Turned off after 15 mins as hadn't laughed once, and hated the canned laughter. (Ok, when will people start listening to me? You've reviewed the whole series here. But you watched half of the first episode. So you've seen 1/12 of the product you're reviewing. That's 0.083 of the product. 8%! Why do you think that your analyses of less than 10% of the product will help anyone decide whether to purchase it? Did you watch 15 minutes and turn it off because a man ate a baby then vomited on his mother? No. When you see that, come back to me, and I'll accept your 8% of a review.

I didn't like Father Ted series, although I could see how fans of that may like this too. (Yea. Actually, the second half of that sentence makes some sense, well done. Did you make the baby-eating vomit film yet?

Lovefilm:

Really expected to like this (Yes, we all have hopes and dreams. Makes us human.) - I love Bill Bailey and Tamsin Grieg, love Father Ted and Spaced (Then why don't you marry them? He he...) - everything said I should enjoy this, but I just didn't. (Yes, it's a trend amongst these reviewers. I assure you, it's merely chance I gathered all these negative reviews for scorn.)

Dylan Moran's character is just annoying (No. He's not JUST annoying. There's far more to it than that. You fucking moron., Bill Bailey's (after a promising first episode) surprisingly bland as the straightman to Moran's curmudgeon (Fuck... You've put me in a bit of a pickle - I admire your use of the word 'curmudgeon', but also want to point out you're really pretty wrong.) - why employ someone so funny to play it straight? (It's not exactly straight, to be honest. I mean, did you actually watch it? It's more of a father-son relationship, for one thing. I mean, a hideously malformed one... but still) The slapstick bits were overdone (Maybe YOU were overdone.), the dialogue just not sharp enough (Really? It's pretty sharp, and better than most of the lines you hear in sitcoms these days - witty exchanges, amusing one-liners, that bit where Manny sits on himself and uses a high-pitched voice? You tosser), and the hysterical canned laughter only served to emphasise that it simply isn't as funny as it should be. (I get the subtle feeling the canned laughter wasn't everyone's cup of tea. Well, maybe in future you should go to more live recordings and laugh yourself.)

Perhaps I should have stuck with it for longer but after two episodes I had laughed once (Well, you're an improvement from the first guy I suppose. And you watched a whole 3rd of the product you're reviewing! I'm a broken man now. I actually feel you've accomplished something. I want them to give you the Croix de guerre for this.), and wanted my hour back... (Seriously? You'd have just waisted it combing your leg-hair or something)

Lovefilm:

First 3 episodes were hysterical thanks to Dylan Moran (Good start. I like you), the second 3 died a death thanks to Bill Bailey (Ah, well now you've gone and broken my heart, haven't you? So, this being a review and all, why not offer some description of the product. How, for instance, did Bill Bailey ruin it for you? Did he strange your grandmother, thus distracting you from the viewing experience? Fellate a cat in front of the TV? Nope, you're just going to stay quiet, aren't you? I assume you didn't like him, then. So you didn't find it funny when he ate those Bees, or when he got stuck in that phonebox and a bee bothered him, or any of his other bee-related antics? You fucking nonce.). Not being funny (forgive the pun (No. I will forgive this sir. You've gone too far.)), but the series died out (What, like a dinosaur or the Polka? Really it didn't. Then they made those other two series. Those were good as well. You aren't good though. You're evil, like Stalin's mustache).

Lovefilm:

bored! (Ugh... Use some grammar) was totally uninterresterd i can not state how boring this series is nearly as bad as the mighty boosh! (Well, I didn't want to put a comment in the middle of your eloquent speech. At first I thought you were an idiot who didn't have a basic grasp of grammar, but then I realized you were a bold young other experimenting with free-flowing narrative, obviously representant of the thought-process of an idiot writing a fucking shit review. I mean, you wrote a few words, would it have been hard to use a comma or two for your ol' pal Paul? Honest to fucking God. And the Mighty Boosh was pretty good. The Crack Fox scares the shit out of me though, but that isn't the point. I forget the point. Oh yea, here's your review, rewritten with the years of experience bestowed upon me of writing a series of bad first chapters of books:

I am bored! Instead of being out, engaging in wanton acts of terror, I am forced to stay in due to the confines of the British penal system. I am in jail, you understand, because I have robbed many elderly ladies of their pensions. I do not need the money, nor do I have any reasons to be coerced into acting this way, except that I am a cretinous oaf. One evening, during our recreational period, we watched a television show entitled "Black Books". I at first thought it would be a humorous documentary detailing the attempts of missionaries to teach the coloured peoples of Britain how to read - believing as I do that such people lack the intelligence to read, because I am a racist. However, I was disappointed to discover it was a television situation comedy set inside a fictional book store. I found the show to be incredibly boring, as I usually enjoy a higher class of television; one which features acts of wanton cruelty towards animals and laughs drawn from the act of slipping on banana skins. Also, I think Hitler was right.

Yea. That's what that guy meant to write. What an absolute wanker.

.

Buried

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Fri, 27 May 2011 11:00:00 +0000

He's not having a good day... image via The Guardian

2010's Buried stars Ryan Reynolds (and except for a few people the other end of a phone, only Ryan Reynolds) as an American truck driver in Iraq who is kidnapped by terrorists and buried alive. The entire film stays in the coffin for the full running time, with Reynolds becoming more and more stressed by the situation as time goes own. The film was very well received by critics, but obviously it took no time at all to find some contrary opinions on amazon.co.uk:

A man makes phone calls in a coffin for an hour and a half (Yes I suppose that is true, but every film would be simple if you whittle it down to a single sentence. The Godfather saga would be pretty simple if you described it as 'A man becomes a crime boss and things don't go well for 9 hours.')

I'm surprised there are customers on here giving this film 5 stars (Really? I'm not surprised that there are 1 star reviews. Peoples opinions differ.), i.e the highest rating possible suggesting this is some sort of amazing film (Yes, and? They obviously felt that it deserved those 5 stars. Personally I'd say four stars would be more appropriate but I can see where they are coming from.). Even if you liked the film could you really say it was that good and mean it? (What? Obviously they did because otherwise they wouldn't've given the film 5 stars would they? People didn't give the bloody film 5 stars just to hurt you.) You would want to sit through it more than once? (Yes I would. Indeed I almost certainly will.)

Anyway, the title of my review pretty much sums up the film (Again, you shouldn't just describe a film in a sentence. Citizen Kane could become 'A dick dies.' But that would be stupid.), which creates unrealistic (Unrealistic? How so?) suspense and for the most part is Ryan Reynolds making increasingly frantic phone calls (Yes. The phone calls are excellent at introducing fresh tension through his not entirely successful phone calls.). All the while the background music is ramping up and the camera spins about a bit trying to convince you this is a thrilling film (It's not trying to 'convince' you of anything. It is a thrilling film.). I found it actually quite tedious (Well you are very much in the minority there I'm afraid), especially as most viewers know the camera never leaves the coffin (Many will know that for sure, but you can't possibly claim that 'most' will know that. Not if you expect to be taken seriously anyway.), nothing else is going to happen, so in the end all you want to know is if he gets out or not (I knew that the camera never left and it didn't ruin the film for me at all, there was still plenty of tension.). The only drama that unfolds for the protaganist is dealing with annoyingly stupid/heartless people on the phone (The annoyance of being put on hold/coming across unhelpful phone operators is very much at the heart of the film, at least as much as being buried alive.) and a ridiculous scene where a snake comes out of nowhere, providing something for our hero to do (I believe it had come into the coffin through a small hole whilst he was sleeping).

I really wouldn't bother with this film, it was brave attempt but turned out to be an empty film with little point. (Well it has as much a point as any other film. Is to entertain and to thrill no longer good enough? Besides this film does have messages. That innocent people are often made to suffer during times of war, and that being put on hold is really fucking annoying...)

Here's another one for your delectation:

This is a film that is far too in love with its own cynicism (I don't think its 'too in love' with anything. I mean I could get it if you complained that it was trying to be too clever with its stripped back story, but too in love with its cynicism? Give me a break.). That causes two major problems (I bet that they aren't that major...), but first, the good things, which others have touched on ('Others' being intelligent people probably...);

The script is, by and large, pretty good. (The script was very good. No 'by and large' about it.)
There is a VERY tense atmosphere. (There is. Congrats.)
The lead and solo [visible] actor is excellent. (He is indeed. Not many would have thought that Ryan Reynolds could have pulled this off, but he did. Expertly. Also, I would throw in the direction by Rodrigo Cortés as being superb. He got that camera into every conceivable spot.)

BUT...the film doesn't want to you to feel good about anything (It doesn't beat people up for being happy. I mean it isn't by any means a happy little number, but I've seen far more depressing films.). Anything at all (It's probably okay with you being glad that you aren't buried alive...). Our hero, Paul, phones several people. He's constantly put on hold. Whilst this adds to the tension, it soon becomes clear that rather than using a jaded worldview to create dramatic effect, the writer is more interested in making his character suffer because he can't think of something else to do (Look, films rely on interesting events. Sometimes, those events are not happy events. The film would be pretty dull if Reynolds just went around doing a bit of shopping and driving his truck around. If you want to watch something that makes you feel good inside stick with Disney. Not a film entitled Buried about a man who is buried alive. I'm forced to ask, how fucking dimwitted are you?).

So enter the plot holes: we are presented with some incongruities that never amount to anything (I'm curious to see how bad these are... Oh, and SPOILERS ahoy);

-A woman mad at Paul...though we never find out why, making his angry outburst totally unsympathetic (Pretty sure it is explained actually... And he's buried alive. I think he was pretty upset about that so his outburst is really quite understandable...).
-A woman knowing Paul's name then pausing dramatically before telling him HOW she knew it, making you suspect something is wrong (I think that is what is known as a red herring.).
-The counter-hostage guy man acting very suspiciously on the phone, again leading you to think that something larger and more devious is happening (That is a continuation of the previous red herring. It is perfectly acceptable for a film to lead you to question another characters motives, when they are in fact clean.).
-A video of a fellow hostage (NOT buried, by the way (Well they didn't bury her so that they could force him to do as they asked by threatening her.)) who is killed. Yet the story she gives and the story given by the people on the phone don't add up. This too goes nowhere (I don't remember anything like that, personally. And besides, not one of those is a plot hole. A plot hole is something that disrupts the flow of the plot. Things such as the omission of relevant information, direct contradiction between two parts of the film, events which are impossible or otherwise do not sit with the established world, or such things as characters performing actions that contradict past actions etc. could all be plot holes. What you have listed here do not fall into any of these categories.).

And then Dramatic DevelopmentsTM ('DevelopmentsTM'? What the fuck?) that DO lead to something, namely two F-16's levelling part of the city where Paul is buried. Why are they flattening part of a city? Because the scriptwriter wants the character to suffer, logic be damned. (Because there are lots of insurgents there? That might be a reason...)

And so we come to the ending (SPOILERS aplenty here too, funnily enough...). I could have forgiven the flaws above- even the silly use of a Zippo lighter in an enclosed space that doesn't eat up the air at all- (But it does use up the air. He says repeatedly that he can't breathe properly when he has it on. And then someone else tells him to use it sparingly because it uses up oxygen. There is plenty of air in a coffin though, he would last a little while.) if the ending hadn't been so bad, so WRONG (An ending cannot be 'wrong'. You may dislike it, but it is not wrong. Besides, the ending sits perfectly with the rest of the film. If the rest of the picture had been a rabbit doing a merry jig in a field, then perhaps you could have a point. But it wasn't, so you don't.). Rather than amount to anything, even in a tragic or dramatic way that moves the story or your understanding forward, all we learn is that the [END] happens, then the film finishes. (Because the story has been told. Paul is dead so there's nothing else to say.)

No aftermath, no consequences (I think the aftermath is pretty obvious. Why does it need to be shown?); just pure, hateful cynicism for it's own unlovely sake (Why can't a film be cynical? And as I said up there ☝, there is plenty of purpose for this film). The sake of cheap shock (It's not cheap. In many ways this is far more terrifying than Saw or anything like that. Gore is cheap shock, tension and suspense are the true kings of horror). And that is why I despise this film.

It goes nowhere then stops. (I wish your review had stopped about 8 paragraphs ago...)

Those were both pretty long, so we'll close today's edition with this shorter one:

I was'nt (Wasn't, the apostrophe denotes where letters have been removed, not where two words have been joined.) expecting much before watching this film (Always good to go in with an open mind...) - but the fact it had Ryan Reynolds in was the factor that made me watch this / very disappointing (That is so very not how forward slashes should be used...) - we never left the coffin (Not necessary. Indeed, I would say the fact we never leave the coffin brings us closer to Conroy's plight.), we never saw the introduction of him getting into the coffin (Because that would have been completely extraneous and unnecessary. He's in there, so we can safely presume he was put in there, why would we need to see it?), lots of completely black screen moments where you're mind just drifted away (Your small mind might have drifted away, but I felt the black screen bits with only the sound of his ragged breathing pretty damn effective.), his air supply seemed to last an awful long time unless he was getting air in (It was a fairly big box. It would have taken a while for the air to run out.) - because somehow a snake got in ?? (It came in a hole, yes, but underground, so little air would come in through there) He fell asleep at least twice (So? What point are you trying to make here?), he was tied and gagged in the coffin - the abductor took a big risk, that he would wake in time before suffocating and could then release himself (He was bound and gagged, one suspects, so that he couldn't shout for help or anything should he wake up before they had got him into the coffin.) and get to the items they left for him at his FEET ? (They probably just chucked them into the coffin) He had the poorst (Good God man, learn to type...) quality battery in the phone, it only took one or two calls before losing charging bars (It was an old model, that had only half battery when he found it.). He was told to use the phone sparingly - but the guy who told him to do this ended up telling him a long story (I think he weighed up the options and decided that making him feel better was more important. Especially since he had already realised they probably wouldn't find him in time).

Theres lots more i could add (Bet you've run out of things to say...)- but this film was nonsense from start to finish (It wasn't really... It made perfect sense.), made on the lowest budget of any film i could imagine (It was made for less than $2 million. I've seen films with smaller budgets. Paranormal Activity, for example. But just because it has a small budget doesn't make it bad. In many ways it can be a plus since there is less pressure to be hugely successful to recoup the funds there is more artistic freedom. I'd rather see this than the multi-million dollar train wrecks that are the Pirates of the Caribbean or Transformers movies again...).

If you want a good film about a guy buried alive - try "Buried Alive" & "Buried Alive II" starring Tim Matheson. (Films so good they don't even have wikipedia pages... Even IMDB, the world's worst site for sensible ratings, can only muster around 6 and 4 out of 10 respectively for them.)

I think that'll do for today, though there are plenty more reviews for this film, so we may be returning some day in the future!

Richard Littlejohn's House of Fun Pt. II

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Thu, 26 May 2011 10:48:00 +0000

RL mourns the passing of 'Great' Britain - when a man could
be homophobic and racist and be celebrated for it...

I was glancing through my old posts when I saw my old post on Richard Littlejohn's fine book House of Fun: Thirteen Years of (Labour) Madness and noticed that I'd left the door open for a sequel. Well here is that said sequel! Obviously it'll be worse than the original (unless it's a Godfather Part II, or Toy Story 2, but I don't hold out much hope) but I'm lazy, so I'm going for the usual easy target. Anyhoo, here's a couple of 5-star review from amazon:

I have to say that this is a genuine five star review. You'll notice there are many but some are oh-so cleverly masking negative reviews that are not only cringeworthy and unoriginal but patronising (Some of them are pretty funny though... And the people who do that are at least people with views that aren't horrible...). These people should do stand up. (The 'do' isn't needed in that sentence.)

As A. Birchall said, "there's clearly a campaign to slate this book. No doubt by Labour loyalists or Con-Dem haters" (Sensible people who are left-wing then...) Another said "my friends got brain damage so he loved it!". Which says alot (That should be two separate words. And yeah, because RL has never mocked disabled people...). If you hate the Mail and RJ (RJ? His name isn't Richard John. His fans are so thick they even don't know the rat-bag's name...) fair enough, say it. Even if you haven't read the book - which some admit to. You're opinion of him can still help someone to dicide to purchase or not (That is true, except I would say almost everyone who buys this book has also read his columns, so it really doesn't matter). But it's a different realm altogether when a number of people are scrambling for the 'no' button after every positive review (Perhaps that is a little far). Some positive reviews are very descriptive, intriguing and to the point and make me want to know more, yet for example only "0 out of 10 people find this review helpful" ...why? (Maybe other people felt differently?) Who can these people be I wonder? (You have no possible way of knowing, but I suspect that won't stop you jumping to conclusions) Sometimes a negative review is placed and followed by positive one, these are then mysteriously blanked out through the mass of people who "don't think this adds to the discussion" - when it clearly does - in a poor attempt to hide what's great about this book (That's not how Amazon reviews work. I think you mean Amazon comments. And maybe, just maybe, the comment was insulting or otherwise wasn't adding constructively to the discussion). These actions, frankly speak volumes and indicates that his work clearly hits a nerve somewhere (Yes it does. Because his views are offensive and hateful.).
Both the positive AND negative reviews made me want to buy the book because of how much he clearly annoys the followers of the self-serving crooks who were massively part of the mess this country is in (or all because they simply don't like a certain newspaper) (That's a bit petty isn't it? And the mess the country is in is a result of a global economic crash. Not the Labour government. Indeed, Gordon Brown is considered one of the favourites for the vacant position as head of the International Monetary Fund [IMF], except Mr. Cameron has said he won't support him. He is also currently an advisor for the World Economic Forum. He didn't do this by being incompetent. He got it by being so highly respected by the economic community as a result of his safe leadership and economic recovery packages that were copied by most of the rest of the world. Unlike Mr. Osborne, who isn't highly regarded by anyone.)

As a hard-working Brit taxpayer who's never relied on benefits (People who rely on benefits can still be hard working you know. They may have been laid-off and can't find a job as a result of the swingeing cuts made by the current government. Not everyone on benefit is a work-dodger. Though you and RL will probably never accept that...), who's fathers' pension was stolen (I don't think Gordon Brown nicked your dad's pension somehow...), who was fined for using fog lights in dense fog (That would have been the police, moron. As much as Brown doesn't steal pensions, he also doesn't go around fining people for using fog lights either...), I could go on. Reading it was so enjoyable to the point it reminded me there was someone with a voice on my side, someone who, ok, knows he can't make a difference but can simply, like me, sigh, roll my eyes and chuckle at the madness we've witnessed from a government of a once great country. (Out of these many lines, only four of them are an actual review. And a really shit review at that. It's entirely subjective and about as in-depth as a character from a Dan Brown novel...)

Thoroughly recommend it! (And yet you never say why I should buy it...)

And here's another one, somewhat shorter than the last:

Judging by the number of faux reviews from guardian munching (I don't know about the Daily Mail, but people usually read the Guardian rather than eat it...) leaders of the proletariat (How dare people be middle-class, but champion the cause of those less well-off and influential than themselves?) who are obviously uspet enough by LittleJohns (He doesn't have a capital J. It's not like McRae or anything...) musings to take precious time out of their busy schedules to mock him (Actually it's just really, really fun. It's certainly worth taking time out of my empty schedule to do.), this is a read I will thoroughly enjoy (So you have not only not read it, but not even purchased? I really don't think you should be 'reviewing' anything. Really this is as much a 'faux review' as anything by any 'guardian munching leaders of the proletariat'.). Thanks again to the above mentioned persons, what would I do without you. (nb - thats not a question) (And what would this website do without Littlejohn and his followers? Pick on other people obviously, but there would be no go-to idiot for when I'm feeling particularly lazy...)

That's really it for good reviews that aren't fake or two lines long, so we shall have to end it there. But there are other Littlejohn books to mock!

Monty Python's Life of Brian

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Sat, 21 May 2011 10:52:00 +0000

Those poor innocents... This isn't a subject fit for
entertainment! someone should stop them!

1979 not only saw the release of The Clash's London Calling, but also Monty Python's Life of Brian. Life of Brian is a satire of organised religion and excessive religiosity in which the titular Brian is mistaken for the messiah as a result of a few unfortunate coincidences. Since a lot of Christian inspired hoo-ha upon its release, the film has become recognised as one of the finest comedies ever made as well as one of British cinema's best works. However, some people writing amazon reviews don't agree. I'm sure you're all deeply shocked by that revelation, so take a moment to compose yourself. Ready to continue? Good. Then let's start with this chump from amazon.co.uk:

With the majority of reviews I've read concerning this movie being almost uncannily positive (You have decided to admit that, whilst you dislike the film, you can still appreciate that it is well made with good gags that just don't float your boat?), to the point of being overblown, I'd say it falls into an undeniably popular camp (Maybe that's because its good? Just throwing that out there...), making it appear to me to be far from 'controversial' (I see. Because if something is popular it can't be controversial... Abortion is popular among many, but is still seen as controversial in some quarters. So's Family Guy come to think of it). Unless the lovers of Jesus are being surprisingly mum over this one! (They really weren't. They actually made a lot of noise back when it came out. There were protests outside cinemas and debates on TV with some of the Python team. Of course all the pickets did was make more people go to see it out of curiosity...)

Now lets move over to amazon.com, shall we?:

After finding many Monty Python skits-and British comedy in general-hilariously funny (Let's be honest though, many Python skits are just awful.), I bought this movie, expecting 90 minutes of uninterrupted laughs (Don't you think you were expecting a little much? I think it would be pretty much impossible to do that...). To my great disappointment, I did not so much as smile throughout the entire movie (Really? Not once? Not even a little? What about the "Bigus Dickus" bit?). In my opinion, the movie was completely devoid of anything clever (The whole damn thing is pretty clever really...), original (I'm pretty sure no-one has a had a catchy song being sung by people being crucified before...), or witty ("He's not the messiah. He's a very naughty boy"?). It's very incongruous that Monty Python can make so many brilliantly funny skits, but could put together such complete rubbish into a full-length movie (Did you really mean incongruous? It sounds like your trying to use big words in an attempt to seem cleverer. And if you liked the sketch-show, I fail to see how you didn't find any of this funny. It's very obvious the two came from the same minds). This DVD went into the trash after I saw it once (Why didn't you sell it eBay or give it to a charity shop? Wasteful prick...)-definitely one of the two or three worst movies I've ever seen (Clearly you've only seen three or four movies then...). It's utterly beyond me how anyone could be entertained by the idea of innocent people being crucified (Only some of them will have been innocent. And humans have always seen the funny side of horrible things. It's how we deal with them.), to say nothing of the numerous other completely failed attempts at humor that fill this movie. (Name one. I've cited several examples of funny lines/ideas in the film. You name one that 'failed'.)

Be advised that, if you're of the Christian faith, you will find this movie very offensive (Not necessarily. It mocks the Church, not the beliefs that underpin it.). I'm not religious and so the satire of Christianity didn't bother me (Nor I)-my animus (Animus? Animus? This isn't Assassin's Creed you know. I believe you were trying for animosity. Stick to 2 syllable words in future, eh?) towards this movie has nothing to do with that (No it doesn't. It does have everything to do with you being an idiot though...). Religious or not, I suggest you pass on this movie and save your money, your time, and above all, your dignity. (Dignity? This film doesn't strip you and force to walk down the high street of the nearest city.)

Let's have another!:

I have liked other Python films (There's only one other good one: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. And Now For Something Completely Different was just sketches from the TV series re-shot. And The Meaning of Life is pretty bad.), but this? BLECH! (That's not a word...) The whole family was bored to tears. (Not finding it funny I can accept, if not understand, but bored?) (and yes, we DO have a sense of humor! (Maybe people wouldn't question your humour senses if you laughed at funny things...)) The funniest thing was the space ship because it was so unexpected (Yes it was funny. And unexpected. But so was the gladiator having a cardiac arrest in the middle of a fight, Pontius Pilate's lisp or Brian's Latin being corrected in his anti-Roman slogans by a Roman guard.). We wanted to turn it off after 10-15 minutes, but I rarely give up watching a film, so I saw it through to the end (That's something I suppose...). Now I wish I hadn't! Can I please have my 90 minutes back??? (No. Can I please have the time I've had to spend mocking you back then?)

Let's finish with this eerily familiar one shall we?:

With by far the majority raving over this trite and predictably British schoolyard humour (Well they are British, so I would have predicted them to have a sort of Azerbaijani humour...) since its release, I would hardly ever have called it 'controversial' (Look you're the same guy as the first one, so I shall tell you again: It was and is controversial!).
Seems the vocal Christians were surprisingly mum over this one (But they weren't! As I said there were pickets outside cinemas in New York). Could have sent this 5 star rating down a few pegs if they'd spoken up against what they would have called mockery and blasphemy. (It isn't blasphemy. Terry Jones [the Welsh Python, not the nutjob American pastor] has pointed out that blasphemy would be the mocking of God or Jesus. This is something the film does not do. It is, however, heretical as it mocks the Church.)

Well I think that'll do for this excursion into internet-based idiocy. Till next time loyal readers!

London Calling by The Clash

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Fri, 20 May 2011 11:35:00 +0000

Best. Album art. Ever.

Sorry for the big gap in the posts, but I've been busy wrestling bears and wolves. Or exams and essays. Whichever you believe... But anyway, here's a fairly long one to make up for it.

The Clash's 1979 third album, London Calling, is considered by almost all as one of the finest records ever committed to plastic. Put at number eight in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, as well as the same magazine's 1989 poll for the best album of the 1980s (despite having been released in December 1979) whilst Q magazine named it as the number 4 british album in 1999. However, the strength of songs such as London Calling, The Guns of Brixton, Brand New Cadillac and pretty much all the remaining 16 tracks, failed to touch these reviewers from amazon.co.uk:

I would love someone to explain to me the appeal of this album (Get in touch with any major rock critic, I'm sure they'd be very obliging). Its not bad, just deeply mediocre (I, personally, would say that 'mediocre' was worse than 'bad'. But whatever, this album is neither.).Another reviewer has compared it to pub-rock, which is accurate (Well, Joe Strummer started out in pub-rock band the 101ers, but this so much more than that. A pub-rock album would never have so many diverse elements that compliment each other so well). I live near a church hall where local bands practise. Many of them are as good as this, honestly! (Then the record labels need to get down there right quick! Clearly there are some of the best bands ever in that church...)
Presumably you had to be there, and if you were, it's your own past you are listening to, not this dull music. (I wasn't there - I was born nearly a full decade after this was released - but feel it be one of the very best records in my sizable collection. How would you explain that?)

And let's have a look at another:

amount of tracks:12 (Actually there are 19 tracks. Lord only knows where you've got 12 from...); excellent:0; v.good:0; good:0; fair:2; poor:10 (These are your opinions I suppose, but what of the other 7? Did you find them so bad that they did not even register?)

i wrote a review of this before but it mysteriously vanished. maybe it got some complaints and amazon, in their wisdom, took it offline? (Don't you think that's a little paranoid?) ok - i'll try another, without resorting to inflammatory content(!), hard as it may be (How about you don't go around knocking one of the best albums ever made then...). here goes.

this album? well, just like all this bands albums, this is spineless,tinny and pretensious fare (That's not how you spell pretentious... And it isn't pretentious anyway. Just because it is political and musically diverse does not make it pretentious. You thinking it does makes you a moron though). a hopeless mish-mash of cod-white boy reggae (Not really. I think white people are allowed to play reggae. We did steal black people's music after all... Oh, and reggae was influenced by 'white' music in the first place), godawful attempts at rockabilly (And yet, everyone else thinks quite highly of their 'attempts', I wonder why...), hints of doo-wop (So? What's your point? That it isn't pure punk? Cause punk was dead by 1979. Quite frankly, it was dead by 1977. Certainly it died by '78 and the explosion of The Sex Pistols).the majority of the time its just pop (If you think The Guns of Brixton is 'pop' then you need your head examined). but its not even good pop (It isn't bloody pop at all!). its pop-punk by numbers (Oh fuck off now. I've grown bored of your stupidity). the kind of stuff that jonathan king mightve come up with as a punk joke! at no time whatsoever does this album ROCK (London Calling? Brand New Cadillac? Spanish Bombs? They all 'ROCK'). and as for punk, well this has none of the attitude,power or sincerity of real punk albums (Several things. First, this is real punk. Punk was a varied genre to start off with, including the likes of Buzzcocks and The Pretenders alongside the hard, fast and angry lot. Second, if you think this was insincere and without attitude or power then you are either deaf or a fuckwit.) like offerings from the pistols,the damned,the adverts,sham etc. (Well, by the release of this album the Pistols had been killed by America and John Lydon had formed the even less punk Public Image Ltd., The Damned had started to move away into goth-rock, The Adverts had broken up and Sham 69 were about to do the same. So what else would you expect The Clash to do? Stagnate playing the same old stuff?) fact none of their albums do. (Right. Are you saying that White Riot isn't a punk song? Because that is literally the most ridiculous thing I've heard in hours.) and why? because the clash were always pretenders (No they weren't. They were crucial members of the movement. Always will be.). middle class art school (I think the whole point of punk was the destruction of class boundaries and prejudice. So really, you're an awful punk.) pub rockers who jumped on the bandwagon (Yeah, because The Sex Pistols came up with the whole genre alone, they weren't heavily influenced by The Ramones, Patti Smith or Richard Hell... They certainly didn't start because Malcolm McLaren set them up and dressed them to sell clothes in his shop...) and declared themselves as the 'peoples band' (I think other people claimed that of them first...) - and the people bought it! just like they bought u2 and oasis (What's that got to do with the price of cheese?)! talk about the great rock and roll swindle! this band WAS it. (Oh sod off.)

i say it again. weedy (It's not), tinny (Maybe this all stems from you having some crap headphones...), passionless (It's not fucking passionless you bastard motherfucker!), souless (Or that you cunting cunt!) dirge (Please toddle off this mortal coil now...) from one of the most over-rated bands of all (Who would you put alongside them? The Beatles? The Rolling Stones? The Beach Boys? You're the kind of cunt who would think those things...). they dont deserve the place in punk history that journalists and the public alike heap on them (But they do. It's a provable fact that they were instrumental to the evolution of rock in the last 30 years.). wake up! (I'd like it if you didn't. Ever.)

Here's a couple of reviews from across the pond in Amazon.com land:

I bought this after reading all the raves below - "Greatest rock album ever," Rolling Stone's Album of the Decade, etc. etc.... (Well it was named best album of the decade. I mentioned it just up there ☝ Surely that would make you think that maybe it's just you, not the album...) now I remember why I never bought it when it first came out (Because you're an idiot? That's my suggestion. My excuse is that I wasn't born...). Half of it is cruise ship in hell reggae (Only a couple of songs are actual reggae. Some of the others use the off-beat rhythmic style [known as the skank] but so do lots of genres and bands.). There's no real tension in the songs (like on the best ones from their first album) (I hate to keep mentioning it but Brixton...), and Joe Strummer is one of the worst singers in the history of recorded music (On technical ability, I suppose he's not going to be at the top of the list. But there is allot more to singers than that. There's heart and soul, for example, which Strummer has in spades. In a technical level Bob Dylan can't sing. Doesn't stop him being perhaps the most important artist in musical history.). Kids- this is what smoking will do to you! (Become a legendary frontman for a legendary band? I should take up smoking...) Throw in the Clash's usual muddled politics (They're pretty straight-forward really...) and you've got an undigestible messy sprawl of a double album set that really should have been whittled down to a single album (So that'll be why infamous critic Robert Christgau said it was "the best double-LP since Exile on Main Street then...). There were so many great English bands during the period (Yeah. And The Clash were the best of them...)- Sex Pistols, Wire, Buzzcocks, X-Ray Spex, XTC, Elvis Costello, Pretenders... and yet the Clash made it bigger than any of them in America. I'll never understand it. (Because you haven't got two brain cells to rub together.)

And another:

blink 182? good charlotte? the clash? (Never. EVER. Let me catch you likening The Clash to Blink-182 or Good Charlotte ever again. If you do I'll put you're head in the wall. And then I'll stick my Hi-Fi so far up your arse that the speakers will be in your ears. All you'll 'get' is Strummer, Jones, Simonon and Headon for the rest of your days. You'll either hear their brilliance or hang yourself from the rafters of your parents basement with a noose fashioned from Clash t-shirts that I will gift to you for just this purpose.)

isnt it all the same 3 chord pop nonsense (No. The Clash actually used quite a few chords. And they brought various genres to the ears of many who had never strayed out of rock, such as reggae and dub. Oh, and The Clash were intelligent men with intelligent things to say in their music.)

fashioncore mall pansys with hot topic gift cards (What the fuck does that even mean?)

And one last one, I'll try to stay calm after that last one...:

Sorry, boys and girls - London Calling isn't punk and it isn't very interesting, either (Actually, as I've already mentioned more than once, this album is punk. Just not your idea of punk. And how is it not interesting? It crosses into about five different genres for Pete's sake.). Clash's first album, Janie Jones, Clash City Rockers, Career Opportunities - now that's the real deal, along with Never Mind the Bollocks, Ramones, Richard Hell, the Strangler's Black and White, and the Buzzcocks (THINGS MOVE ON! Why can you people not get that?). London Calling gets one star for the title track, especially Strummer's rooster crowing - now that's incendiary and revolutionary, carefree, wild, young and sexy (London Calling is a very good track. But many of the others are too). The rest of this is basically folk music with electric guitars, the Grateful Dead of post-Punk, like a bunch of old men playing (You do realise that The Grateful Dead are a really good band, right? And yes, this is post-punk in some ways. But it isn't terribly folk-y.). Sandinista is even worse, what a chore it is to labor through that record (That, I must confess, is an album I'm yet to pick up. But I heard pretty good things...). Anybody who takes themselves so seriously they can record and release Spanish Bombs is a bore (Yeah. How dare they try and tackle serious issues... You certainly wouldn't have caught them doing that on their debut...). While the Clash were busy as the house band for Vanessa Redgrave and her unilateral nuclear disarmament rallies, the English voter went out and voted for Thatcher and John Major (Are you trying to blame The Clash for Thatcher? Because that's more than a little bit silly... And The Clash had separated by the time Major was voted in). So much for "the only band that matters!" (Just because politicians they didn't like were elected, doesn't make them unimportant) For some real post-punk with real Punk energy: the Jam's Sound Affects (I like Sound Affects, but it really isn't in the same league as London Calling). I'll stick with Janie. (You do that. And I'll enjoy an all-time classic and laugh derisively at you.)

See, I was calmer that time... But I'd best be off, though we shall do our best to keep the gap down next time...

LittleBigPlanet 2

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Thu, 05 May 2011 20:33:00 +0000

How could you hate him? He's so adorable!
image via LittleBigPlanet wikia

LittleBigPlanet 2 was released at the beginning of the year to rave reviews. The sequel to 2008's Game of the Year (according to, among others, Edge, GamePro and Eurogamer) is also a strong challenger for similar awards this year. The game, featuring the voice of the adorable Stephen Fry and the the perhaps-even-more-adorable Sackboy, holds scores of 92.38% and 92% at GameRankings and Metacritic respectively. In the game you play as the aforementioned Sackboy as he embarks on various adventures through the strange lands of LittleBigPlanet, meeting equally strange characters on the way. These adventures usually involve solving puzzles and suchlike. However some people, such as the following reviewers from amazon.com, didn't like this game. The heartless bastardly cunts...:

Little Big Planet games are not for kids (as well as most adults (They are for kids. That is their primary target, but they also reward any adults who give them a shot. That is a rare thing. And they've done a remarkable job)). My kids (9 and 5) play Mario games without a problem but can only get passed the first dozen levels in this game (LBP is challenging. It's good for a child to have to work to get something rather than complete everything first try. It's character building.) The difficulty gets ridiculous after the first few levels (They don't get massively hard. They're challenging, yes, but far from impossible. I felt the game had quite a nice difficulty curve...) . As a big gamer myself, I find most levels to be TOO challenging (Mebbe you're just a really shit self-proclaimed 'big gamer'?). I think the main issue though is the "controls" (Yeah the controls are pretty simple to grasp...). This is not a Mario game... (No. It isn't. Congratulations on noticing that. Also, Sackboy is far cooler than that bloody plumber.) the character movements and controls are terrible (They really aren't. I got used to it in about 10 seconds flat.) so imagine what can happen during a difficult parts of a level (The Sackboy does exactly as you tell him? That doesn't sound too bad to me...). After you lose all of your lives (which are very few), you have to retry all the way from the beginning. UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Yeah, because that's never happened in any other game, and certainly not in a Mario game...)

Great graphics and a lot of potential wasted with difficult levels and clunky controls (The levels are well designed and pitched at just the right difficulty! And the controls are more than fine you moron.)....almost the worst controls in gaming history, in my opinion! (And your opinion is wrong. Very wrong.)

And here we have another:

I was rooting for this game to blow me away, as I am a loyal PS3 owner (Ah! So you will have been satisfied then? It is, after all, a game of immense quality.). I read (like you) the Amazon reviews and noticed the high marks (And those marks are more than deserved, my friends. More than deserved.). I immediately made my mind up and purchased the product (And may I commend you on your good choice!). Biggest mistake of my life (What? Really? Do you not like slices of fun? And surely you've made worse decisions. Like writing this review for instance...). What kind of game is this?? (It's a fun game. More helpfully, it's a "puzzle platformer" [wikipedia]) There is nothing to do!! (Actually there's quite a lot to do. My friend has spent literally days making space-ships, submarines and bombs...) It's just a bunch of fictional voodoo doll characters moving left to right with no purpose or reason (Yes. I can totally see your point. Because all other games are full of real-life people. Like that documentary-game Street Fighter IV that you gave 5 stars to...). I am sitting here with tears streaming down my face as I write this (Pussy crybaby.) for I will never get this [...] back ever again!!! (You could always trade it in for something else y'know... Perhaps you could get a more realistic game. Like Mortal Kombat...)

And our final stop today is here. Though be warned, I do get quite angry towards the start...

Sackboy is awful (Ri-ight. I'm curious to see where they goes with this. How that statement is justified.). No he isn't awful (Leave it there. Seriously, just leave it there.), he's a [----] (I don't know what that was going to be, but if it was anything other than 'a lovely' I'll brutally murder you with Thor's hammer Mjölnir). The Jar Jar Binks of gaming (What did you just say? Did you just liken Sackboy to Jar Jar fucking Binks? You did didn't you? Yes, I've gone back and read it again and you definitely did. Look you snivelling piece dog excrement. I'm going to track you down like a dog. And once I've found you I'm going to force feed you Jar Jar Binks toys until they stick out your arse like some kind of perverse Playboy bunny tail. And then I'm going to dowse you in petrol, flick a lit match at you and dance around your burning corpse. No. I don't think that's mad at all.). Painfully boring and overated (What Sackboy? Or the game? Either way you're an incompetent idiot with Jar Jar Binks' head as a tail.). What is this? You've triggered my trap card (And you've triggered my You're a cunt card.). Prepare to jump on platforms and lose an infinite number of lives of bad camera and wonky controls on a never-ending cycle of repeat (Clearly you're more than a little bit shit...). Sony's worst piece of work (Surely Heavenly Sword, for example, is worse?). You make things. (Yes you do. And it's really rather fun.) To jump some more and die some more (Again, maybe you're just not very good.). Nothings ever good (Don't want to labour the point or anything, but maybe you're really shit at making shit). NOTHINGS EVER GOOD ENOUGH (Have you got daddy issues or something?). Why bother? There's already Mario Galaxy and Epic Superman on the other console; play those instead. (But this involves more creativity on the gamer's part. Maybe they want that?)

Barney, The Dinosaur says :
There is no choice at all. Here at the end. Give in. (I don't know what the fuck that means)

[Down with E rated games] (Down with you. Prick.)

I think I'd better go and take my medicine after that...

David Cameron Shows What A Homophobe He Is

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Tue, 03 May 2011 10:47:00 +0000

Some media sources (such as the Daily Mail and random news websites, such as pinknews) are reporting that David Cameron intends to ban same-sex kisses from appearing on TV before the 9 o'clock watershed. That's right, not "normal" kissing or kissing in general, but just gay kissing. Apparently such images are 'indecent'. Cameron is, in effect, saying that seeing two people of the same sex expressing their feelings for one another is as damaging to children as the word 'cunt' or seeing someone eat babies. The leader of the enquiry, Reg Bailey, said that:

'For some parents, what has been considered acceptable in the past - such as that Brookside kiss - is not appropriate for children to see early in the evening.'

The Brookside kiss being referred to here is the one from 1994 where two lesbian characters kissed on screen. So what he's saying is that rather than society becoming more liberal and accepting homosexuals for who they are, we should return to the old system of mass homophobia. Perhaps after supporting this ban he will stop gay marriages, reintroduce Section 28 (this stated that local authority "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship", y'know a generally pretty horrible thing) or perhaps we should just go the whole hog and ban being gay again.

What's great about this story, though, is the response on the Daily Mail website to the story. There are the usual horrible comments, such as:

Good, we also need to stop the BBC from pushing out all their gay agenda. Which TV station has the most cameras out at any gay, demo, walk, parade and is allways the first with gay news. The BBC. Up until 10.00 pm. only hetrosexuals kissing should be shown, and show that it is the normal for a man and a woman to live together, not pushing their gay agenda down our throats - Geoff Fuller, Devon, 01/5/2011 07:59..... it's because of people like you that i'm glad human rights laws exist

But, shockingly, rather than receiving praise by the other site users, that comment got a rating of -162. On the other hand, this comment got a rating of +179:

A lesbian kiss or a gay kiss, i.e. a simple peck on the lips or a more romantic kiss in the context of a relationship isn't going to harm anybody - children or adults. It might just make some kids grow up more accepting of gay and lesbians - it won't make them gay if that's what worries you. A small homosexual kiss is not indecent - I find the notion that is indecent offensive. If a simple gay kiss is to be banned then I'd expect the same for heterosexual kisses before the watershed - you can't have it both ways.

When even the Daily Mail commenters are saying you've gone too far, then you really are in trouble...

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Mon, 02 May 2011 11:45:00 +0000

It's a bloody film, not a documentary...
image via panicposters

One of the most famous western movies of all time (if not the most famous), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly stars Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti western to end all spaghetti westerns. An epic and sprawling film set in the Southern States during the American Civil War, the plot basically boils down to three men trying to find some Confederate gold. But there is so much more to the film than that. Though, predictably, there are those who disagree. Like this amazon.co.uk-based chump:

Is this film supposed to be a comedy ? (No. Not at all. Which is why it isn't funny.) (eg with Eli Wallach from the New York clasical school of over acting (The Ugly was supposed to be larger-than-life, it wasn't bad acting on Wallach's part.)). If so, it is in poor taste with the butchery of the civil war prominent. (But it wasn't, so it isn't. Though, of course, it wouldn't have been in poor taste even if it had been a comedy. Comedies have and always will be set in wars. They help us deal with the horrors of war, such as films like Catch-22 and M*A*S*H and even Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator are those movies 'in poor taste'?)

The civil war was not fought on the sand dunes of the Canary islands (It's a good thing the film was neither set, nor filmed there then...).
Moreover, able-bodied young men in civilian dress would not be able to freely prance around in the civil war 'theatre'. (Actually, they would. The film was set in Confederate lands. The Confederates did not introduce conscription until 1862, and even then they could hire substitutes. Only 50,000 were true conscripts, with nearly 120,000 substitutes in the Union Army. Also, the South exempted many groups, including planters from the conscription, so it would probably be pretty easy really.)

Clint is burnt to a cinder in the sun and yet within a few days has a baby soft complexion (It's a fecking film. Not everything will be absolutely accurate). Eli is beaten to a pulp and yet somehow manages to keep all his teeth and his engaging smile. (Again, film!)

A overlong, overrated lot of nonsense (It really isn't overrated. The shots are just beautiful for a start). Clint only made two good westerns:
Josey Wales and Pale Rider (Those are both good films, but neither is as good as this. And he made plenty more good westerns including High Plains Drifter and Hang 'Em High alongside the rest of the Dollars Trilogy). The only Leone western worthy of a repeat viewing is For a Few dollars More due to Lee Van Clef , a better script and better music. (I very much like For A Few Dollars More, but I maintain that The Good... is the better film. And all of Leone's westerns are excellent.)

Now, we move across the pond to look at some reviews from amazon.com:

Sergio Leone plumbed his greatest depths of nitwittedness when he essayed the script for this travesty (And how are you going to justify and explain that opening gambit?). Still, people are watching it 35 years later, so his financiers got something out of it (And so have most of the people who have watched it. They got 3 hours of enjoyment for whatever price they paid. Fair trade, I'd say). It would take the film's full running time to detail how bad it is but one scene captures some of the flavor (Oh I bet it wouldn't take that long to explain...). Prisoner Eli Wallach the Ugly is being transported to the gallows by Union troop train when he throws himself and his guard out the door of a crowded boxcar. Nobody says hey (Maybe they were just pretty shocked about the whole thing?), train never stops (I think it unlikely that the driver/engineer would notice someone jumping off the train. It's not like they have wing mirrors), and neither does another express coming the other way when Wallach uses it to cut the cuffs between him and his dead captor, despite the fact that the deceased is laying in the middle of the tracks (Again, there is no windscreen to look forward out of. And besides, have you ever tried to stop a train? It takes quite a lot of time). Leone knew exactly nothing about the American West (I'm pretty sure he knew at least a bit...) and neither do the people who enjoy his ludicrously mismanaged fantasies about the time and place. (Actually, I think it's fairly safe to say that Leone's violent and brutal westerns were far more true to the reality than John Wayne's jolly cowboy delusions.)

And here's another:

I have seen many pathetic films in my life. This topped them (Clearly you haven't seen any pathetic films at all. Or your film appreciation senses are wa-ay out of whack.). Did I rate one star? (Yes you did. And I think you know you did. Because you're a dick.) Sorry- I meant negative 11 stars (Then you really are a moron without hope of redemption.). It was the absolute worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life (Really? Was it? You've never seen a Uwe Boll movie? Or a Michael Bay movie? Because they knock on that particular door. Not this.). It was a total waste of three hours when I could have been sleeping (That's the only other thing you can think of to do in three hours?). There was no point (The journey? Entertainment? They're 'points'). The script and storyline were pathetic (They are not the strong point of the film, but they are very far from 'pathetic'). The gore was overdone- too much blood, killing, and the like (I don't remember much blood at all. When are you reviewing this from? 1966? Have you seen modern films?). It was totally historically inaccurate (It's a piece of fucking fiction! It really doesn't matter!), and the Civil War scenes were so grossly unrealistic that it was laughable (In what way? I've seen far less realistic depictions of war). All Civil War veterans are rolling over in their graves (Trust me, they won't be.). Any scene that was supposed to be touching was pathetic (Examples? Why were they 'pathetic'? Please explain yourself). One of the abolsute bombs was when Clint Eastwood fires off a canon twice with his cigar- yet he does not even load it- either time (Oh the horror! The horror!). And somehow, without even aiming the canon, he knocks his 'friend' off his horse. (Suspension of disbelief?)

The movie is a failure. F-A-I-L-U-R-E (And you're an idiot, a.k.a I-D-I-O-T). Crappy. Junky. Just plain DUMB. STUPID. PATHETIC. (In a freaky coincidence, those are the words I'd use if I were reviewing you review. Which I am. So, sir, you're attempt at a review was crappy. You're analysis was junky, you're opinions were dumb, you're complaints were stupid, and you're conclusions pathetic.)

I am not going to waste any more words on it. Just....whatever you do....save your money (So you have 'wasted' some more words then, haven't you?). Don't buy it. It's not worth 50 cents. (No it isn't. It's worth far more than that.)

Well, I think I'm going to stop now, since I seem to have managed to avoid actually threatening anyone this time...

Catch-22

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:12:00 +0000

Image via wikipedia

Joseph Heller's first novel, released in 1961, was Catch-22. A biting satire of war, the military and bureaucracy, the book quickly became regarded as a classic as well as one of the most highly acclaimed works of the 20th century. It tells the tale of Captain Yossarian, a bombardier in the US Air Force stationed in Italy during the Second World War, a man who desperately wants to go home and get away from the madness of the war. It is however, I shall concede, a slightly tough read as it is told from quite a few perspectives and non-chronologically. But is well worth putting the effort in. These people from amazon.co.uk clearly disagree though:

Just because a book is a classic doesn't mean it is good (It kinda does actually... That's why it becomes a classic. Because it is both critically hailed, and popular). Maybe at some point it was good and maybe in the future it may well be good again, but presently it just seems a bit over rated. (I'm sorry, but books don't just stop being good. They can stop being relevant, but the anti-war, anti-bureaucratic message is as important today as it ever was. Maybe you're just too thick to 'get it'?)

Here's another with clear anger management issues:

I wasted three weeks of my life reading this book (I bet you didn't though. It's not like you read for every minute of every hour of every day. You have lost some number of hours. That is all. And you'd have only wasted them anyway.). The main reason I persevered is that everyone (even the people giving it five stars) seems to say the beginning is difficult and it take a while to get going (Actually, I've never found that, to be honest. It does take a while to get used to the seemingly haphazard chronology, but if you're intelligent it shouldn't take that long to grasp what's happening). In my opinion, if it's a good book you shouldn't have to trudge through the first third of it (I certainly never felt I was 'trudging through'.)(otherwise maybe only give it 3 stars?). (Maybe they felt that the start didn't drag as much as you imply, or that the second two thirds more than made up for any slow start?)

Well, I read it. I lost count of the times I threw the thing at the wall in frustration. (Really? You threw it at the wall that often that you literally lost count? Why didn't you mark notches on the bed post?)

I finished it. I wish I'd never picked the damn thing up in the first place. (If it's been thrown at the wall as often as you suggest, the book probably wishes you'd never picked it up too...)

And another who seems to be unsure of the age of the book:

Catch-22 is an anti-war book for the easily led and the ignorant (I think you'll find the ignorant usually read Dan Brown...). It's for people who just say "War is bad" without really thinking about why it's bad. (I think most people know why war is bad. It probably has something to do with all the death and whatnot. Just spitballing here...)
The book is basically Dilbert in World War II (It is a bit actually. Of course, since Catch-22 beat Dilbert into existence by some 28 years, you're argument is somewhat weak.). As in the comic strip, all the people in charge are unbelievably stupid, don't care about the people they command, and are extremely selfish (Since Heller based his novel on his own personal experiences in WWII, I think its fair to say these people do somewhat exist, though obviously the novel versions will be highly exaggerated.). The common soldiers are of course much smarter than the commanding officers and try their hardest to get out of work (Well, that is where much of the humour comes from). Their unwillingness to fight is justified (by the book, anyway) because their commanders are just so evil and stupid (Well they are. If Yossarian was a member of any other squadron he would have been sent home for a rest some time ago). Everyone's behavior is cartoonish and annoying (Cartoonish was intentional. It is, after all, a blackly comic book. I found none of the characters annoying).
This edition of the book includes a preface by the author in which he, instead of saying anything useful, writes mostly about how everyone thinks his book is wonderful. Well, it's not. (There are so many people who seem to think that they are the ultimate deciders of what is good or bad. Maybe we should have a big Royal Rumble to see who wins that right...)

Finally, we have this guy who, I suspect, may be a somewhat right-wing American...:

There are many myths that persist in modern life. One myth is that war is "meaningless", "useless" or "insane." (Okay then, what is the meaning or use of the deaths of millions in war?) Another myth is that Catch-22 is a good book (Oh I see. All those critics and authors haven't actually read the book, it's just a myth they subscribe to. Well, thanks for telling me that. Jackass). The reality of this second myth was brought home to me when I attempted to read this book (Hmm... I don't like that 'attempted' in there...). I gave up in disgust after 80 pages (Then what the holy fuck are you doing on here reviewing it then? I gave up on Moby Dick at a similar point - I didn't have the patience - but as a result I refrain from commenting upon it. You can't possibly give a fair and balanced review from such a small extract). I felt as though I was reading a children's fairy tale rather than a serious piece of literature (Really? It's not exactly a child-friendly book...). This is a horrible and insulting book (In what way is it insulting?). The "plot" (if one can call it a plot (Yes you can. Because that's precisely what it is)) is pointless (Well you would think that. Having read just 80 shitting pages! How the fuck do you know where the plot goes, you didn't give it any chance to develop. Prick) and the writing is sarcastic and juvenile (It is sarcastic. It's called satire, look it up. I think you'll find that it is a widely recognised technique of 'serious literature'. It is juvenile in places, but so is the military, so what are you complaining about?). We are told by fans of the book that the author intended it to be read this way, as a clever statement about "the insanity of war." (Well we say that because its true. That was kind of the whole point of the novel, really)

What a load of rubbish. War is ugly and brutal, but it is not "insane." (Except the very concept of war is insane. Killing ordinary people doing a job to free people is, at the very least, stupid. Those who die on the front have played no part in the politics that began the war. Why should they be the ones to suffer?) Many American wars were fought because people believed passionately in a noble cause and were willing to fight to defend that cause against those who would vanquish it (Yeah. Just look at Vietnam. Or Cambodia. Or the Gulf. Or Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Libya...). Among these were the Revolutionary War (democratic government (They didn't like some laws.)), the Civil War (individuals' rights vs. states' rights (That's an incredibly simplistic view. There were economic causes that were just as important as rights.)) and World War II (the defeat of fascism (That'll be why they joined in 1939, and not two years later when they were attacked then...)). Catch-22 is an adolescent little book which is applauded by people who believe that nothing is worth fighting for. (Curse us pacifists! How dare us hold a contrary view to yours?!)

I think that'll probably do, eh? Till next time!

Pimp

noreply@blogger.com (Paul Blanchard) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:48:00 +0000

A bad actor. Image via Wikipedia

Pimp is perhaps the worst film I've ever seen. As simple as that. Now, most of you out there probably haven't seen Pimp, because I fed all the copies of it to dogs. Or perhaps because it only grossed £205 in cinemas and had some decent DVD sales when twats bought it. Anyway, go look it up at Wikipedia or something, then put on your mocking pants as we go on an adventure through the mindset of fans of this Dyer (Because Danny Dyer's in it. Twas a pun) piece of sheep faeces.

Amazon.co.uk:

Slow to start (If by that, you mean you wished you were dead rather than watching it, yes) but once it got going reminiscent of Lock Stock (Except that was a good film. And pretty dissimilar to this piece of... art...) (Hello, Ben here. It really isn't like Lock Stock you know. Lock Stock featured lovable rogues being forced into doing bad things to avoid being brutally murdered by Hatchet Harry. Pimp, on the other hand, featured cunts doing cunty things for money.), for me a good gritty British film full of unfunny one liners. Dyer played a typical Dyer role (No he didn't. He played an atypical Dyer role because he was cast as some sort of porn Godfather. Like Don Corleone, except he isn't one of the greatest actors of all time.) (I'm pretty sure Dyer didn't change acting forever, like a certain Mr. Brando...)but for me was the star of the show, Wil Johnson showing he has talent in more than one area (You know you've got a good film where you call a minor role "the star") (Why is Johnson even in this? He's in Waking The Dead for God's sake, surely that pays the bills?). Thoroughly enjoyed - well worth a watch (What, if you want to be reminded there's no worth to human life? Yea, ok.).

Amazon.co.uk:

Definitely one to whack on once the kids have gone to bed (No! People like you shouldn't be allowed kids. When I'm in charge...). Pimp is dark, seedy, edgy and thrilling (Well, gloomy, seedy, attempting to be edgy and thrill-less. See what I did there?). Quality acting (Oh, I'm sorry. This must be the first film you've ever seen. I didn't realise you were new to the concept) particularly by the man Dyer (What's a man Dyer? Like a manray? Aww, now I'm imagining how much better the film would have been if it starred an actual manray). You need to be open minded to appreciate this film though (No, you need a closed mind. You need a mind that is closed to any kind of thought about culture, art, acting, women's rights, morality, race-relations and gorillas) - its very controversial and pretty sick in places (Yes, those places being the plot and message). As a bloke I thought it was great but I don't think the Mrs was so keen (Maybe she doesn't get "blokes", and doesn’t see casual misogyny for what it is - a great big laugh! Who cares about these prostitutes and porn actresses, let's focus on the moral dilemmas that face Pimps! They're the real victims here!). I'd say give it a go it and make up your own mind. I did and I have. I've been encouraged to make my own film, 2 hours of a man defecating on a baby. The only moral dilemma faced will deal with the problems of a low-fibre diet. And you know what? That sounds like a better film than Pimp.

Next, a man who lies to me.

Amazon.co.uk:

PIMP encompasses everything you could want from a film (No. No it does not, sir). It's gritty and real, sexy and exciting, terrifying and action-packed. (Oh, I see what happened here, you've watched the wrong film. Or, perhaps, you are a moron. Who should be eaten by bears) The film sees Danny Dyer running the show in the criminal underworld of Soho (And yet you claimed it was "real" only a sentence ago), which by the way should definitely be used more as the setting of films(Really? If anything, this film convinced me Soho should be consumed with fire so nothing like this is ever made again. But yea, lets remake Sleepless in Seattle, in Soho.), a wonderful backdrop for a film (wonderful might be pushing things a bit far champ). It is an incredibly intimate environment and gives the viewer a greater sense of immediacy and realism (Does it? Oh, I missed that. I was probably too busy not being stupid). Danny Dyer is his usual self (So he wrote another column where he recommended slashing a woman's face then?) (It's funny because he's a horrible human being. Beware though, he may come and 'smack [us] round the fucking cannister', whatever the fuck that means, like what he threatened Kermode with...) and that is not a bad thing at all (Yes it is.), he suits this exciting film perfectly and his performance reflects that (Yes, his performance did suit the film. Because both are shite). Robert Cavanah is however the star of the show (In a technical sense). Written, directed and Starring Cavanah (I prefered him when he was in the Royal. Yes, I like Heartbeat spin-offs set in 1960s hospitals), the film highlights this man's versatility and ability in all three departments (Yea. Definitely didn't watch the same film).

Gritty, sexy and real, PIMP is well worth checking out. I'm going to eat your face. I'm actually going to take it, and cook it on my George Foreman grill. Well not really, because that would be mad. But you get the point.

You used to be cool. When you
were Adam Carnegie in The Royal.

Next, a review comparable to Stalin's purges

Amazon.co.uk:

By virtue of its subject matter alone, any movie like this is going to divide opinion (Yes, between raging cunts and normal people). And as it seems to currently be Open Season on Danny Dyer it's easy to let these sentiments taint anything associated with him (I’d like an actual open season on Danny Dyer. We could lure him out of the woods with beer horns then shoot him when he tries to drink from a lake) (A man can dream though... a man can dream...). I think some of the Press reviews are blatantly falling into that trap. (What, of recognising he’s a barely competent actor, whose small talent is squandered by him being miscast in a terrible, badly-written stupid film? That was a trap?) First of all, Pimp is not for the faint-hearted (Arrgh! My angina!), and if you are easily offended then please look elsewhere because you won't like it (Incidentally, if you’re like me and not easily offended by films, you should still look elsewhere) (I second that motion. This film has no redeeming features whatsoever.)and you certainly won't be buying it for Auntie Gladys' Birthday (You’re right. Mainly because I don’t have an Auntie Gladys. And I don’t hate the aunts I do have enough to make them watch Pimp). It has loads of swearing, unsettling violence, sexual references, scenes of the nude female form, and otherwise material that one might safely describe as being of an adult nature (Yea, those can all be used in a way that is acceptable, artistic, thought-provoking or at least entertaining. Not in this film though. How could they make saying cunt and looking at boobies depressing?). This is one 18 Certificate richly deserved. (You know, I like our system of age ratings. But just sometimes, I come to support a total censorship programme, where films like Pimp are thrown into a big hole. Or the Sarlacc. I want Pimp to be thrown into the Sarlacc, and in his belly, it will find a new definition of pain and suffering as it is slowly digested over a thousand years)

On the plus side it has plenty of swearing, violence, sex... OK, just kidding (You prankster! You had me going for a minute!You wiley trickster, you. I should run you down with a van for being so funny).

I think to merely describe the movie in these terms is actually to unfairly misrepresent a great first feature from this British team (Usually, I would agree. But that’s because films often use these things to illustrate a point, and have some substance bellow the violence, swearing and sexy sex. But Pimp didn’t. It just had the moral message that Pimps are people too, with problems and hardships. Which might be ok, if the problems didn’t usually concern women not being good prostitutes. And, to take a moderate, liberal moral stance, Pimps aren’t people, they’re parasites. Prostitutes are people, not that that really came across here when we watched an assortment of men leering at naked women, where we were supportive of beating women into compliance, or when gorilla-costumed rape and murder was advocated as an appropriate solution to the continued existence of Danny Dyer). What we have are some stellar performances from the likes of Wil Johnson, Billy Boyd (You were a hobbit! Why would you do this?) and Robert Cavanah, and even Danny Dyer (not altogether my cup of tea, either, usually (finally, you say something sensible. Unfortunately, it is the recognition that Danny Dyer isn’t a beverage. But still...) is gifted with some great one-liners and some of the best use of the four-letter-word yet committed to celluloid (What 4-letter word? Cunt? Fuck? Oats? Because I’m certain there are much better uses of all these words out there.)... And he is perfect for the role. (For someone who enjoyed this misogynistic, laddish piece of trash, you seem to have quite the erection for Danny Dyer.)

I wanted to take issue with the remark about the film's opening box office as I am surprised by the figures quoted here. I do know that it was top ten in the week of release in many UK outlets (e.g. the local ones I went to (then I guess that was the one cinema everyone who saw it went to then. On a slow week. When the cinema caught dysentery), which was virtually simultaneous with the cinema release, so I checked up on the practice of a "multi-platform release" which apparently is what this is called (Yes. Because it is released on multiple platforms). Once again, the (one might innocently imagine) well-informed professional critics are guilty of painting a grossly misleading picture here. The truth is that this release model offers a better return for low-budget independents (Yet people usually turn up to see them). The film's brief cinema run unsupported by advertising satisfies the requirements of distribution, but I'm pretty sure the lack of posters, marketing, advance word, primetime slots and other promotion might have more to do with poor takings at the till than any lack of quality on offer. The movie was released on DVD, Blu-Ray, Filmflex, iTunes, Lovefilm etc and notched up 30,000 sales in 3 weeks. Not too shabby, if you ask me. (The point, I think they’re making, is that it was advertised in advance, but still no-one went to see it. Well, 24 people... And sales do not make it praiseworthy as a piece of work.) (Also, 30,000 sales in 3 weeks is fucking awful. That's less than half a stadium. Hell, that's less than my town)

While this movie might not have the heavy gloss and slick styling of Hollywood (No. Nor the dazzling veneer of the 1980s), what it does have is an unflinching honesty (despite the fact, of course, that it is a work of fiction. So actually, it’s a lie) and b*lls to put it bluntly (I think it has to be uncensored to be blunt. For all I know, you could think the film has bills. I imagine it has a lot of bills. I'd sent it a bill. For being crap). It's like the difference between a sexy girl you pass in the street that sets your pulse racing versus the heavily retouched and apparently unblemished supermodel pouting at you from the cover of Cosmo (What? What does that mean? That’s a stupid comparison. You’re stupid.). Which is more real? (Neither, you made up both these things. You're a fucking liar! How do you expect me to trust your review if you keep lying. Have you ever even SEEN a woman?) So many of the reviews I have come across are simply gutless, lazy, misinformed, or often all three (And yet, people pay them for their opinion. No-one pays you, because you’re an idiot. Although this review is literally stuffed with guts, energy and information...). And a valiant undertaking from British talent deserves better (Yes. Yes it does. So when you find a valiant undertaking from British talent, let me know). If you are offended by Anglo-Saxon oaths, naked breasts and misogynistic attitudes, what on Earth would possess you to watch a movie called Pimp (Wait... Did you just argue in favour of misogyny then? Because it wasn’t being presented ironically, or as a subject of ridicule, or even just as the opinions of characters within the film. This film itself was misogynistic. It never suggested there was a deep down problem with the porn industry, or with pimping women. The hero is rewarded, at the end of the film, by being made a big pimp. El Head Pimpo. Yes, these things exist, but this film suggests all we should do is leer at titties and torture the Chinese.)? And expect to like it? The fact is that it is the very truthfulness that underpins the film which so upsets people (How was it true? Do you think Danny Dyer is in charge of organised crime? I doubt he could organise a woman's face-cutting competition in a women's refuge. Because he approves of cutting women's faces, you see. Because he's a bad little man.). And to lambast the production for correctly portraying these facets of Soho's sex industry is frankly disingenuous (but it wasn’t an accurate portrayal of anything that has ever existed anywhere).

Really I think we might just be witnessing the emergence of a British Tarantino (I don't think so. Because Tarantino is good, you see. That's the difference here.), or the new Ritchie (Again, generally good. Except Swept Away. In fact, let's remake Swept Away starring Robert Cavanah. Then kill ourselves), and I believe Robert Cavanah is going to be someone you'll want to watch in the future. (Yup. I certainly want to know where he is at all times. Don't want him near my family)He's also a face you'll know from British TV even if you don't recognise the name immediately, having featured in the likes of Cracker, EastEnders, The Bill and Casualty amongst others, not to mention a clutch of big screen roles (And The Royal. Why does everyone forget The Royal?). I feel we should champion and celebrate our homegrown talent because that is something we are very bad at in this country (You raise a valid point. Do go on), and it's in all of our interests to support the creative industries if we want grown-up quality entertainment instead of the mindless mental bubblegum we are typically subjected to (usually by way of US imports). (Ah yes, I agree. So in favour of promoting home-grown talent, I’m taking a stance against home-grown pieces of shit. And I’m sure that’s something even Auntie Gladys can enjoy, from her rocking chair in your imagination) (Britain is in possession of a very fine movie industry. Just look at the success of The King's Speech. And our actors have been taking over America since the beginning, with the current crop including Christian Bale, Andrew Garfield, Henry Cavill and Mark Strong all at the forefront of major franchises. So why praise mediocrity like this?)

The Daily Mail, Charles Manson and the Environment

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:12:00 +0000

The world's second most popular online news site reported the other day on an interview with Charles Manson by Vanity Fair Spain. Manson is, of course, the man responsible for the murder of 8 people (including Roman Polanski's pregnant wife Sharon Tate) in 1969. You would expect, then, that it would just be an article discussing what a horrible man he is or somesuch non-story. Instead we are treated to the following headline:

Global warming must be true, Charles Manson believes in it. Killer breaks 20-year silence on 40th anniversary of gruesome Sharon Tate murders

Yes that's right. The Mail are actually using the fact that a nutjob believes in global warming as proof of its fallacy. I would also like to point out that it is in fact the 40th anniversary for his conviction, not the crime themselves. They occurred in July and August 1969 as you actually point out in the article. And that he didn't kill anyone, he ordered the murders. Pretty much the rest of the article is concerned with discussing his crimes, or quoting some of the mad things he says about the environment. Such things as:

'If we don’t change that as rapidly as I’m speaking to you now, if we don’t put the green back on the planet and put the trees back that we’ve butchered, if we don’t go to war against the problem...'

or:

'You have to accept yourself as God. You have to realise you’re just the Devil just as much as you’re God, that you’re everything and you’re nothing at all. Europe is the United States just as much as the United States is America and America is Europe.'

Of course you will all be shocked to learn that the DM resolutely refuses to mention the fact that almost all scientists agree that humans are having an effect on the environmental climate. There is some debate as to the level of human influence, but the idea that there is warming of the Earth is an irrefutable fact borne out by every major study into the area. I am studying Environmental Geography at university and have seen the global temperatures for the last few thousand years. They've gone up quite a bit. Look at this composite graph from the New Scientist (via climateaudit, click the image for a larger version):

As you can see, all of the graphs collated here are higher at the right-hand side, than the left-hand side. The downward trend in the middle is what is known as the Little Ice Age. Since then, the climate of the Earth has risen incredibly quickly, reaching higher temperatures than at any other point in the last 1000 years. This is not normal. Also, despite the claims of some people, and indeed the Daily Mail itself, there is no great debate amongst scientists. There is no recognised body that denies climate change. The odd scientist that does deny climate change is generally one that does not publish reports in peer reviewed journals such as The New Scientist or any of the others I read every week for my degree, but newspapers and websites where their findings are not subjected to the same scrutiny from fellow scientists. These scientists are not ones taken seriously by their fellows. They are generally shunned by the greater scientific community as an embarrassment. But that's probably enough science-y stuff for now. Let's instead get back to mocking the Mail.

Alongside the quotes that clearly come from a troubled mind, we have pictures that show a man that couldn't pass as normal under any circumstances. The swastika tattoo on his forehead, for example, doesn't exactly scream environmental scientist, but that's all to make sure that the reader picks up on the idea that global warming is a sham and a lie only believed by madmen. There are also two images of a very attractive Sharon Tate, just to make sure you know that Manson is a monster who's opinions are not to be trusted.

Before I finish for today I shall cast my eye over the commenters on this story. There were I think 4 posts that were sensible among the many I read. All of those received highly negative ratings... These, however, were generally well-received by other site users:

If a maniac like this criminal believes in global warming,then I know I'm being right in being sceptical. That is stupid. As you can see above, global warming is a fact. Anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves that everything will be alright if they shut their eyes and pretend nothing is happening.

And here's another:

Manson and Al Gore... perfect pair! Both whackos with their beliefs. Yeah, one man ordered his followers to kill people, another tried to be President. Both believe in global warming. They're practically the same...

And another:

makes about as much sense as anything Al Gore has ever said. Actually, Al Gore says very sensible things. Indeed, he is campaigning for measures and ideas that the EU came up with upwards of a decade ago. It's just that the US' environmental record is as awful as their humanitarian record.

More? Here you go:

That has got be a really good endorsement of the insanity of anthropogenic global warming. Because an insane man agrees with a concept, doesn't mean that it is automatically insane you ignorant pissant. Hitler believed in gravity, doesn't make it any less true.

And here's one more. I have my limits after all:

What a degenerate. It pains me this guys gets to take a breath every day. At least lonely Algore has a new ally in the "global Warming" farce. Pretty sure his name is Al Gore, not Algore. And he's not alone. As I've said, every scientist agrees with him that climate change is a real and worrying fact. In fact, he has far more intelligent allies than you. He probably doesn't read and agree with the Daily Mail either, which is always a good place to start...

How can people just ignore all the evidence?

Oldboy

noreply@blogger.com (Ben Tyson) — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:37:00 +0000

Why's it in Korean?... Image via wikipedia

South Korean cinema has been enjoying a pretty good run of late, what with films like The Host, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance and The Good, The Bad, The Weird getting good reviews and enjoying something of a cult status here in the West. The film considered by many to be perhaps the best of this pack, however, is Park Chan-wook's Oldboy. Based on the Japanese Manga of the same name, it was collected the Grand Prix at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival and championed by the President of the Jury that year, a certain Quentin Tarantino. The film stars Choi Min-sik as Oh Dae-su, a man held captive for 15 years in a hotel room before being released and attempting to track down his captors. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't exactly tricky to find some morons on amazon.co.uk:

Cant believe the positive reviews on this awful film (Really? Not even a little? Are you that clueless?). Ham acting, highly unlikely but easily predictable plot (The acting was not hammy. It was stylised. As was the whole film. And yes the plot was highly unlikely, but it never pretended to be a true story. And if you predicted every single aspect of the story from the first 10 minutes you deserve a medal. I very much doubt you do.). Poor poor attempts to 'suprise' the audience, at least for the more diserning amoungst us (Are you suggesting that the Jury at Cannes are less discerning than yourself? Because that's pretty fucking egotistical.). The usual ridiculous fight scenes where the main character has developed super hero powers by punching a wall in jail (Again - stylised and not real.). I am so sick of purile films like this (It isn't puerile. Roger Ebert described it as a 'powerful film not because of what it depicts, but because of the depths of the human heart which it strips bare'.) and so saddened by an easily impressed bunch of reviewers ('Easily impressed bunch of reviewers'? Are you including the likes of Mr. Ebert and Mr. Tarantino in that sweeping generalisation, or just Amazon reviewers?). Compare this nonesense to films like 'the seven samurai' (Not all films should be compared to The Seven Samurai though. That would be beyond ridiculous.) or even good vengence type movies like 'death wish' (original only) (I'm not even going to point out the stupidity displayed here), or 'unexpected twist' style movies like 'the usual suspects' (I really liked The Usual Suspects. But I wouldn't say it was miles better than Oldboy. They are two very different, very good films). Old boy is rubbish compared to even these relatively average films (Death Wish is below average and The Usual Suspects is above average. It is rubbish compared to neither. I'm just hoping you weren't including The Seven Samurai in the average films...). What happened to movies of the quality of '12 angry men', 'the grapes of wrath','to kill a mocking bird','inherit the wind','ben hur','khartoum','el cid', etc, etc. (Films of that quality are still being made you fool. Just because movie-making has moved on in the last half century, doesn't mean they're crap now. If you had your way I'm sure we'd still be using Edison's Kinetoscope.) Okay I loved 'the matrix', 'the lord of the rings' etc but there are so few nowadays that the reviewers such as the ones for this film are so accepting of utter tosh! (No. You're just looking at the past with rose-tinted glasses. There were plenty of shit films in the 50s. And there are plenty of great films in the 00s and 10s[?]. Just look at Gomorrah, There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, The Hurt Locker, The King's Speech...)

Let's just go straight into the next one:

To mention this contrived, ridiculous, absurd and laughable RUBBISH in the same breath as "Sympathy For Mr Vengeance" is a CRIME!!! (If this is contrived, how is Mr Vengeance not?) To group these two films together as part of a so-called 'Trilogy' is an ATROCITY!!! (Once more I'm forced to point out what is and isn't an atrocity. That is not. The murder of around 20 million people by Stalin was an atrocity. Some perspective please people!) And the fact that so many people adore this tripe while dismissing the one of the most brutally realistic, beautiful, powerful and disturbing movies ever made almost literally makes me want to WEEP!!! (I'd rather you did that then expound your ill-conceived arguments here. I personally enjoyed both. Though I felt that Oldboy was the more engaging, powerful and visceral of the two)

The two films might have been directed by the same person and they are both based around the concept of 'Vengeance.' But beyond that, the similarity ends (There are actually quite a few stylistic similarities as well. Along with the not-quite-reality-but-not-fantasy feel). Indeed, "Old Boy" is the kind of unbelievably clichéd and 'Hollywood-esque' rubbish that made me turn my back on Western cinema in the first place! (There is absolutely nothing 'Hollywood-esque' about Oldboy. See the attempted US remake for proof of this. And you really shouldn't turn your back on Western cinema, excellent films are still produced here. Why can't you watch both?) Having studied psychology myself, I have no doubt that any professional hypnotist or psychologist will confirm that the final denouement is a JOKE!!! (Well, again, it's not supposed to be realistic. Park Chan-wook's films are always somewhat fantastical - not to mention fantastic) So as much as I struggle to find something positive to say about this movie, the final scene was quite touching, and that's it! (Well, I suppose that's something we kind of agree on)

Watching this film, I felt almost nothing but disappointment and disgust at having wasted two hours of my life (Oh, you'd only have wasted them anyway.), except of course when the protagonist found the secret prison where he'd been held for the last fifteen years.

Other people were being held there for no just reason, and yet the protagonist made absolutely NO attempt to release them! (Well, he used them in his plan, so he couldn't very well kill all the captors) Being held like that for one and a half decades would have made me MORE sympathetic to the prisoners' plight, not less! (I think it was more to do with him being incredibly driven to find the man who did that to him. He did go a bit peculiar in that 15 years...) But of course, this was just one of the completely contrived, meaningless, laughable and absurd plot devices which are supposed to carry this film forward (I'm sorry, but this is a film. They are almost always full of contrivances and plot devices. If you can't suspend your disbelief I suggest that you stop watching films altogether.). And as soon as the local 'DVD Exchange & Mart' opens tomorrow, I'm getting rid of it once and for all. (Well, your loss, someone else's gain I suppose)

If you love this film, then I pity you (Don't you condescending little shit. I seek no pity for any of my feelings from the likes of you. Now piss off before I seek you out and hold you captive for 15 years. Wanker.). But of course, the real nightmare is still to come. Because having bought the third movie on DVD as well, I've been told that "Lady Vengeance" is even WORSE!!! (Well, I heard it wasn't as good as the other two, but is still a perfectly acceptable film. But then, I imagine that the people who told me that weren't fucking twats.)

Sorry. May have lost my rag a little there... Still, let's move on to America, shall we?:

this is a sick and disgusting movie that just took great ideas from other movies and mashed it up and added the "shock" factor (I see. Of course you will be discussing why the film is 'sick and disgusting' and will be looking at what films and where Chan-wook stole ideas. Won't you?). Really? I mean is this what movies are coming to? don't waste your time on this.... (An ellipsis should be 3 dots, not 4. And watching this film would not be a waste of time.)

its really sickening that a movie like this is even being made... really it is. (No it isn't. It wasn't like it was supporting incest or anything...)

I kept waiting for a redeeming moment like waking up from a bad dream-- only reason I kept watching (Not the interesting and engaging story then?). I wasn't waiting for a "good" ending because that's not always what makes a movie, or even a fairy tale ending (Wow. Clearly you're not a complete moron. Just an almost complete moron.). But when the end hit I was actually mad, strangely enough. I never get irritated from movies? (I don't know if you normally get mad at movies. Surely you're the person best qualified to answer that... Frankly I don't give damn. The fact that the ending of this made you mad is bad enough.) but to have however many hours sucked out of my life only to be suckered in by good cinematography was really irritating. (2 hours. And really, what would you have done in them? Probably watched some shit you believed to be good. I doubt you'd have cured cancer or anything)

a 5 year old with a camera and some glue could have made a better movie... (Okay. I'll bet you any amount of money that the said five year-old's film couldn't win the Grand Prix at Cannes...) I agree that anyone can just copy paste great angles and colors and orchestrate complete trash--exactly what this was (Except it really wasn't. It was an original story, with original direction done excellently). Good composition + Stabbing people - any sort of good plot = good movie?... nope. (Good composition + emotional heart + good plot = good movie?... Yup.)

And lastly we have this idiot:

a wanna be action film (It's more an action-thriller actually... And there's certainly nothing 'wannabe' about it), with subtitles (Subtitles aren't a criticism you half-wit!) 5 stars i think not ill give it one star for few good fights , while looking very fake they did take few chances here and for that ill give them a star (I really hate you. The fight scenes were supposed to be video game-like and look slightly fake. It's called interesting cinematography.) , as far the rest these reviews , they seem paided off cause i saw nothen to warent 5 stars (Do you mean paid off? I highly doubt a South Korean company has the funds to pay off over 400 Amazon reviewers. Maybe you're just really shit at reviewing films?). wanna see a good movie on revenge try payback (Really? Choosing an action film remake with Mr. Racist himself Mel Gibson, over the Lee Marvin original Point Blank? You do surprise me...). want to see sick movie about stored hate check out american history x , the bite the curb part at start of that film (But they're two entirely different films! With entirely different aims! You're an idiot! An actual idiot!).this movie could have been 5 stars with a real budget cast and no subtitles (Well actually it did have a big budget cast. Choi Min-sik is one of Korea's biggest actors at home and abroad. And if you disparage the subtitles again I'm going to make you bite the fucking kerb.). dont be fooled by reviews here u can tell which reviews paided for , and which people bought the dvd with there own money and didnt get what they paided for (You are a paranoid, crazy little man.), and often movies that get poor reviews from critics the ones to see, fight club for one (Sometimes, but not always. Sex and the City 2 got awful reviews and deserved every single one. And more. And anyway, Fight Club didn't get poor reviews. It got polarised reviews, with some unable to see past the 'excessive violence', whilst feeling the film itself was well made and told etc. And it currently holds an 82% score on Rotten Tomatoes. So err... Shut up.). this about 10th time i have been fooled by these good reviews that someone paided their writers to hype up movie on this site. (Oh fuck off and learn correct grammar, how to spell and how to use punctuation. 'Paided'? Seriously? You've got to be fucking kidding me? I mean really, 'paided'?)

I think that last one has to take the biscuit for worst attempt at writing I've ever seen.

Who thinks fucking 'paided' is a fucking word?