Movies Made From Arse Juice

I hate romantic films.
They literally make me so angry I want to puke venom. Whenever I watch one of those sloppy pieces of shit I can feel my stomach screwing itself up and a spiteful little ulcer starts to grow. Films like P.S I Love You, Dirty Dancing, Love Actually and worst of all The Notebook are love propaganda for those with a vagina and an unhinged brain.

Each of those films and more convince its audience that love is a schloppy, schmaltzy almost supernatural force. For every single person in this world there is “the one”. FUCK OFF WITH THAT SHIT! There is not just one person for everybody. That is pure unadulterated, fantasy crap. There are seven billion people on this planet- are we seriously expected to think that there is such a thing as a 'soul mate'? Not only is that absolute shite but due to our high population you can pretty much guarantee that there are about a million more perfect people for you scattered around the globe. They're even more perfect for you than your current partner but you'll never meet them... Ever!

Now that is not being cynical, that's being logical. However that doesn't stop a lot of people believing all the turd in those romance films. One of the worst that I have seen was a 1995 Chris Columbus movie called Nine Months. I'm not a huge fan of Hugh Grant movies but I do quite like Hugh Grant. I love his performance in About A Boy and I look forward to the day he does another film as good as that one. However Nine Months is one of the most evil films I have ever seen.

The plot of this piece of filth seems to be that Hugh Grant has accidentally gotten Julianne Moore up the duff and so spends the entire film getting used to the idea of reluctantly becoming a Dad, whilst at the same time falling in love with Julianne. Err- what? If that is not a film whose message seems to imply that trapping your partner with a baby is a good and effective idea, I don't what is.

The most annoying scene came when Hugh was psyching himself up to tell Julianne that he doesn't want the kid. He meets up with her and to his surprise she starts to talk about all the reasons she doesn't want to be a Mum. Hugh can't believe his luck! Maybe they can get rid of the child before it's too late. Excited, Hugh agrees with everything she says only for her to conclude by saying something along the lines of, “but despite all that I still want the baby”. If I was Hugh I'd have thrown her down the fucking stairs for that. For knowingly getting my hopes up only to reveal that she wants the child after all is sick. People said The Exorcist was evil but it's actually quite an uplifting film in a way. Watching Nine Months makes me wish for a meteoroid to hit the Earth and destroy our pathetic, weasely species.

Having said all that I'd hate to suggest that I don't like love stories. My issue is with the schmaltzy, formulaic, sentimental ones- not genuine and subtle films such as The Graduate, 500 Days of Summer, Brokeback Mountain or Monsters.

All of those above films (and more) depict a couple of people getting to know each other and at least one of them falling in love. They're all original and show the heartache, pain, stress and joy that can accompany a relationship. Out of all of them, my current favourite is probably Monsters. This tells the story of two people being required to walk through a zone of Southern America which is quarantined due to the presence of aliens. It's a love story set against the back drop of a monster movie but where the creatures have a total screen time of about thirty seconds.

Unlike something like Independence day the aliens are not in the film to smash things up- they are there to provide a common threat which will allow our two heroes to bond over. The creatures appear violent and scary but they are simply not the focus of the film, the characters' developing relationship is. Without giving anything away, the movie is tense, scary, atmospheric and sweet. The last scene is in my opinion, one of the most beautiful in cinema and more genuinely affecting than anything in any of that previously mentioned soppy shit.

Another of my favourites is the 2002 film Punch Drunk Love. In a way, it follows the formula of something like Pretty Woman, but instead features a man who has outbursts of anger and acts in a retarded manchild like manner. You know you're watching a decent love story when the most romantic line in the film is, “I'm lookin' at your face and I just wanna smash it. I just wanna fuckin' smash it with a sledgehammer and squeeze it. You're so pretty”. To which the response is, “I want to chew your face, and I want to scoop out your eyes and I want to eat them and chew them and suck on them”.

Lets face it- when I watch bullshit films like P.S. I Love You, I would love to see someone pull out their eyes and take a sledgehammer to their fucking faces.

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Who Watches The Watchmen?

Contains spoilers

So the other night I watched Watchmen for the second time. I saw it at the cinema when it was first out and wanted to buy it on DVD. Obviously though, being the geek that I am, I wanted the two-disc edition. Well in all honesty I wanted the directors cut but it seems as that's only available on Blu-Ray and I suffer from an allergy to buying shit machines that I don't need, I guess I'd have to make do.

However, for some unknown reason the two-disc edition of this film was stupidly expensive. The one disc is around £3 but for the two disc I would have to pay around £20. Now, unless those bonus features included a blow job and the promise not to spit, the chances are they weren't worth that much.

In this situation most people, I'm sure, would just go for the one disc, but not me. When it comes to movies I'm pretty high on the autism-ometer and so there is no way I could buy a film without extras, when I know there are extras out there. I mean can you imagine that? Just lying awake at night wondering about what you've missed out on? Never knowing the mysteries of the second disc. Things like that could drive you mad. It would be like being Madeleine McCann's parents never knowing where there daughter is, but worse. (I say worse because in reality, I'm sure they remember quite clearly where they buried her.*)

Shocked at just how much Watchmen was, I decided to wait. It wouldn't stay that expensive for ever and so I would bide my time. Fill my life with other things such as socialising, light drugs and masturbation until that single day when the price would fall to a reasonable cost. Months and years rolled by but I never gave up hope- until the other day when finally and almost by accident I found it. Play.com, £5, add to cart, my life is now complete. Well, almost complete... for some reason the special edition of Total Recall and Iron Man 2 are also £20 but at least I've got Watchmen. For now those other two will have to wait...

Eager to watch this film again, I popped it into the machine and sat back for the next two and a half hours. Since its release the film has been met with some degree of criticism, which, to a point, I can understand. Although I haven't read it, the graphic novel seems to be considered one of the best of all time. Now under no circumstances is this one of the best films of all time- therefore, fans of the greatest graphic novel will feel nothing but disappointment when they sit down to watch a pretty good film that has to compete with their stupidly high expectations.

As someone who watched without the burden of already being a fan, I feel that all-in-all, the film Watchmen is really rather good. When compared to other comic book movies it feels a lot more epic and clearly stands out as being particularly original in a genre that, in its shortish lifespan, has already developed quite a few cliches.

The comic book formula states that in the first instalment the hero gains their power and learns to deal with it. As the first film in these franchises are setting up all the rules and establishing the new world, the second is generally a lot better. The second film throws us right into the action and lets us have fun watching our hero accomplish their potential. The third film in a superhero trilogy is, generally, pretty shit. At this point they have either become bogged down by plot strands from the previous two films or they simply try to out do themselves by throwing in too many characters and explosions.

Watchmen however avoids this by simply being true to the book, and so a stand alone film. Zack Snyder's movie avoids the above trilogy cliché by not following the pattern of the superhero film and instead seeking inspiration elsewhere. Like The Dark Knight drew heavily from Heat, Watchmen follows a path that is much more in line with something like Magnolia. Both have phenomenal soundtracks and running lengths that require you to really not be that busy a person. Both are also huge ensemble dramas with a perfect cast and several character storylines that weave majestically in and out of each other.

When it comes to the characters in Watchmen, their unique selling point is that they deconstruct the more famous equivalents. In this film, Batman is a fat, likeable loser who can't get it up. Superman is a giant dicked, blue genius who has lost touch with humanity and so builds his fortress of solitude as far away as he can- on Mars. Nick Fury is an ageing, sociopathic rapist who dies within the first ten minutes, and then finally we get to Rorschach. Rorschach is basically an angry Travis Bickle or The Punisher without perspective. Rorschach has learnt in his time not to let people get away with anything. To him, the world is black and white. Rorschach, like everybody else in this film, basically has a few issues.

Like I said- I understand why people who have read "the greatest graphic novel of all time" would be a little disappointed but in all honesty just get the fuck over it. To say that Watchmen the film isn't very good is just fucking wrong. Compare it to something like Transformers 3 and then maybe you'll appreciate exactly what this film is bringing to the table. Compare it as well to other comic book adaptations such as The Fantastic Four or Elektra and be grateful that fucking Watchmen was made by someone wanting to create something original for cinemas. If Snyder wanted to make your average comic book film thats focus was to make a lot of money, it wouldn't be almost three hours long, 18 rated, feature a giant blue cock and very little action.

Where Snyder himself is concerned, I'm fairly indifferent towards him. I love the original Dawn of the Dead more than I love most of my family, but I also like his remake. The only similarity between Romeros and Snyders is that people are hiding in a shopping mall from a group of Zombies. Everything else is different. They are different people, doing different things against a different breed of zombie. In fact it's hardly even a remake- more just a film thats basic plot setup is along the same lines. I haven't seen Sucker Punch but I have seen 300 which is okay. I like the fighting in 300 but I think its politics are a little bit forced. It's as though they didn't want to admit to just making a film about men who hit each other with swords and so forced it in for the sake of it. I think the politics is as out of place here as a naked wrestler would be in Frost/Nixon. 300 with its slow-motion, gore and stylisation is basically just eye porn. Not that that's a bad thing.

It might however be the reason that Watchmen has been accused of being 'style over substance'. In my opinion, this is just simply not true. Don't get me wrong- the visuals are very impressive, but they had to be didn't they. When you've got a big blue man in a glass dome on Mars, well... that's always going to look nice. However the things that impress most are the characters, the acting, the story and the way it deconstructs its own genre. Basically, everything that I hear that is good about the book is in the film. So get over it nerds- this film could be a lot worse.

*The views expressed in this joke in no way represent my own... Unless they're right.

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