Time for Judgement

I saw a crime happening once...

It was about 2:00 in the morning, I was sitting at the computer and rain was beating heavily against the window. I was probably searching for porn when in the corner of my eye I noticed a flash of light. Initially I assumed it was lighting but there was suspiciously no sound of thunder. I was about to ignore it when there was a second flash, and then a third. I looked out of the window to investigate and was stunned with what I saw.

Walking down the road was a young couple who had been caught in the rain. Because of how wet it was, the girl had done what any classy dame would and stripped completely off. There was another flash of light and I realised it was, assumedly, her boyfriend- he was walking ahead and taking pictures. Only a few seconds later, they'd turned the corner and were gone. I don't know what happened to them after that, but I'd have loved to have seen the photos the next day. Excited to see proof of their mischief, they'd have opened the photographs and then noticed it- in the background of every single shot would be my face pressed up against the window, breathing and drooling. I'm aware that wandering the streets with your clam-flaps out is illegal, but frankly it's a law that I feel needs revising.

One man who wouldn't have been seduced by this naked marathon of criminality is Judge Joseph Dredd. Dredd 3D is the latest film to be released about the fascist rozzer of the future and the first in which he's depicted by a fully evolved human. He received his original cinematic outing in 1995 when he was famously portrayed by the dopey-faced humanzee, Sylvester Stallone. Unfortunately the film was notoriously crap and further proof that Mongy Kong should stick to making his Rocky movies. They're crap too but at least he can successfully take a punch to the head without a risk of any long term damage.

Dredd is of course a reboot for the character who is now being played by Karl Urban. Not that you can tell of course as the character rightly spends the entire film with his face hidden from view. Considering how iconic his helmet is, to not have Judge Dredd wear it is a bit like having Indiana Jones without his whip or Lisbeth Salander without her anti-rape dildo. Of course this was therefore one of the many errors of 95's Judge Dredd in which Stallone spent the whole movie offending viewers with the sight of his Deliverence-esque face. In contrast however, Urban luckily proves himself to be very good at mouth acting by gurning himself up the cool list like a pissed off Popeye on bathsalts. His trick in projecting pure menace and cool seems to be simply fixing his lips to a grimace that suggests he's about to shit out a watermelon but then clenching tight, until his balls hurt. I actually did something very similar the other week by trying to force out a crap that I didn't really need. In the end I pushed so hard that my face turned bright red and I accidentally puked in my mouth.

Anyway, so the film starts with a brief history of Mega-City One. It has a population of 800 million people and a crime problem almost as serious as modern day Manchester. As a result, certain law enforcers have been granted the privilege of Judge Judy and Executioner. Dredd is one of those trigger happy authoritarians and one who has just been given the task of observing a new recruit called Judge Anderson played by Juno's Olivia Thirlby. Anderson is a young female mutant who, like all women, thinks she can read your mind and attempts to prove it by deducing that a criminal is picturing her naked. Although being honest, it probably doesn't take magic powers to know that anybody in Olivia Thirlby's company is thinking about shagging her.

Unlike famous British bullshitter Sally Morgan however, Anderson is an actual psychic and not just a manipulative cunt who takes advantage of vulnerable members of the public. So far my favourite Sally Morgan video is where she holds up a photograph of an old person and asks a member of the audience if the pensioners name was Bernard. The audience member then corrects Sally the Charlatan by informing her that it's actually their Nan. I'd hate to imply that all “psychics” are evil fakes like Sally Morgan is because that's obviously not true. At least a couple of them are probably mental too.

So Dredd and Anderson are called to a tower block to investigate the death of several junkies. It seems that this area has been flooded with a new substance known as Slo-Mo which has to be the most boring drug ever invented. I've never taken ecstasy but I hear it hippies you up with temporary joy and happiness, making music and people more tolerable. Slo-Mo however simply makes the brain perceive things at one percent its normal rate, which is a bit like watching Sex and the City 2 whilst trying not to fall asleep after a horribly failed attempt at masturbation. Despite the violence of Dredd, I ironically found that 2010 tart-a-thon to be a lot more morally offensive with its ignorant undertones of sexism and racism. Also, Sarah Jessica Parker spent far too long trotting around without a jockey for me to take it seriously. Every time her character referred to her writings, I wasn't sure if she was after a Pulitzer or a sugar cube. I'm currently in the middle of writing a fanscript for Sex and the City 3 which consists simply of a five minute visit to the glue factory followed by a round of applause. The encouraging thing is that I'm yet to type anything up and already my blank script is more insightful than the crayon-and-shit-smeared screenplay of the first two movies combined.

Anyway unfortunately for Dredd and Anderson, the tower block in which they are investigating is run by a powerful gang leader known as Ma-Ma. Once she gets wind of their presence, she has the building locked down and orders her people to kill the two Judges. The rest of the film from this point on simply consists of Dredd and the rookie trying not to die as waves of tooled up residents head straight for them. It's kind of like walking into a busy high-street, finding a random stranger and then shouting, “there's the paedophile”. Within minutes the unfortunate cunt will be running for his life as each member of the public unquestionably chases after him with bricks and knives

There appears to be one big problem with the plot of Dredd and that is that it's apparently near identical to that of The Raid. Not only that, but from what I hear, The Raid may well be one of the best action movies of recent years. Of course nobody is accusing either film of copying the other with it obviously being just one of those things. Dredd's cameras may have been rolling almost five months earlier but The Raid was released first. Luckily for me though I'm yet to see that superior film and so was able enjoy the genius of Dredd free from the curse of comparison. Not only that but I've got another even better film apparently still to watch. It's kind of like fucking someone in the folds of their fat and then finding out afterwards that there's still a vagina to explore. I definitely had fun the first time and so can't wait for the the superior experience.

Dredd has several other things making it brilliant, with the most obvious being the character himself. Judge Dredd may well be a monosyllabic, unlikeable cunt but he's also fucking cool. Steven Seagal has been larding his way through action movies for years and he's never said anything even half as cool as any one of Dredd's three lines. “Ma-Ma's not the Law- I'm the Law”, may sound like something from an inevitably explosive remake of Psycho by Michael Bay, but here it becomes Dredds equivalent of, “Make my day, punk”. In the world of red tape and bureaucracy that we live in, it's nice to see a man of action. I think when Dredd shoots a flare into a criminals mouth causing his face to melt off, we get the impression that that's exactly what he is. Dredd isn't quite the kind of guy who shoots first and asks questions later. He's more the kind of guy who shoots first and then forgets about the questions altogether.

In recent years, action films have had their balls well and truly chopped off. Whereas once we were inundated with the adult orientated gunplay of Die Hard and Point Break, we are now smothered in a world of the suffocating bland. Our cinemas are full of films like Resident Evil: Retribution which clog themselves up like a stubborn turd that refuses to flush. What Dredd does to counter this is to include a little bit of politics and the goriest movie violence this side of an Al-Qaeda snuff movie. I can't stand real violence in the slightest but a film in which we see someone's cheek slowly rip open as a bullet passes through it is a real treat. In any case, it certainly provided an effective antidote to the decaying pain of brain-syphilis that is still infecting me from my viewing of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.

As for the politics- well, Dredd is of course an undeniable fascist. However, in the locked down tower, his lethal actions seem fairly justified with his violence being as a result of his need to survive. In future instalments I'd perhaps quite like to see him simply executing people as a result of his own judgement. Beyond the joyously head splattering violence that this would provide, it would also be an interesting exploration into the morality of his life whilst at work on the streets. Personally I'm against capital punishment, with my main objection being in regards to its ethical hypocrisy. I honestly don't know how a simple serial killer can be put on death row for their atrocious crimes whereas someone as evil as Piers Morgan gets his own chat-show. I know that a nutter with a knife may seem like more of a threat to society but in actual fact, Morgan's smug levels are so high that they're almost radioactive. I don't know if it's true, but I heard that licking his face is actually more fatal than sticking a poisonous frog up your arse and then trying to fart it out. Either way, it's the latter that certainly sounds a hell of a lot more fun.

Director Pete Travis and writer Alex Garland have done a great job of finally getting the real Judge Dredd to the big screen. Travis' back catalogue might not exactly be the most impressive, however I've been a huge fan of Garland's since he wiped out the population of London in 28 Days Later. Despite Dredd simply being Dirty Harry meets Die Hard-in-the-future, his script does its best to stay as grounded as possible, avoiding the trap of most action movie cliches.

If I have any criticism, it's during a scene in which Dredd is about to be killed. Rather than just shoot him, his attacker instead begins to gloat. Not just for a second either, he begins to waffle on and on like an attention starved retard for a couple of minutes. Although the entire film is brilliant, this one scene does accidentally turn into that Simpsons episode in which Bart delays Sideshow Bob by asking him to perform the H.M.S. Pinafore in its entirety. After Dredd obviously escapes this situation he tends to a stomach wound by simply stapling it up. I'm not a doctor but I'm pretty sure Dredd's staples wouldn't prevent any internal bleeding. I'm therefore going to assume that the moment the closing credits began, his adrenalin would have stopped pumping and he'd have collapsed unconscious to the ground. I once shaved my face so fast that it started bleeding to the point that I thought I should call for an ambulance so there's no fucking way he'd just 'be fine'.

A final compliment to the movie would be the price that I had to pay for it. When arriving at the cinema, I hadn't realised it was exclusively showing in 3D and so became suitably pissed off. Personally I hate this shitty gimmick that's being forced upon us and so can't wait for it to just fuck right off. I was also forced to watch Avengers Assemble this way which was a pain in the arse because of the way it reduces the light. That film apparently begins with Nick Fury surviving a night time assault but all I could see was his one fucking eye bouncing around the screen. When I arrived to see Dredd and was charged extra for both the ticket and glasses, I felt well and truly raped. Being forced to pay extra for something I didn't want in the first place must be like being forcefully arse-fucked up an alley and then told to thank your attacker for his effort. When the film started I was obviously still feeling dirty, annoyed and abused. The 3D adds nothing to Dredd whatsoever but within seconds I'd forgotten all about it. From the moment Urban's voice growls over the film's introduction, I was lost in the world of Mega City One. Dredd is a film with a cool, fuck-you attitude, as blunt and to the point as being kicked in the face. It has similar drug effects to Limitless, the action gore of Wanted and the gritty visuals of District 9. I can only assume that if The Raid is better then it must simply be two solid hours of watching someone machine gun Piers Morgan's lifeless corpse back to Hell. If I was to summarise this overly-long blog of waffle, it would probably be these five words, “Stallone should be fucking ashamed”. Now, I apologise for taking up so much of your internet-time. Please get back to enjoying some porn and hopefully see you back here soon.

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Kicking Against The Pricks

Prohibition was introduced to America in 1919 and is probably one of the most famous examples of a large-scale fuck-up in recent history. I fucked up once a few years ago when I accidentally crafted myself a homemade bomb. My granddad had just died and left me a gold ring which someone suggested I should wash. Their reason was that he may have had it on whilst having a wank... all very plausible, I suppose.

Cleaning newly-deceased granddad spunk off from jewellery is not something I'm an expert at so I decided to get creative. I popped the ring into a flask, filled with boiling hot water and introduced a little washing liquid. I then put on the lid and shook it to mix the bubbles. The bubbles quickly expanded, the pressure increased and the flask exploded into tiny pieces like a watery fucking pipe-bomb. I then had to quickly clean everything up before my Mum came home- nobody wants to have to tell a parent that they, “made a bomb whilst trying to clean up dead-granddad's jizz” so I sprang into action. I couldn't vacuum flask shards because the carpet was too wet so I started to dry it with a towel. Annoyingly though this just made the washing liquid froth up like I was at a fucking foam party. Just when I thought I might get away with it, my hand began to burn. When the flask exploded I'd scolded myself and within a few minutes the skin from my knuckles had completely peeled away.

I'm not suggesting that my adventure into the world of home-made explosives was as stupid as prohibition but both are clearly moronic situations. I'm not sure why America decided to ban the selling of alcohol but I bet it's got something to do with outspoken religious people. As a result of this, the consumption of booze in certain major cities actually increased and organised crime became a much larger, powerful threat to the nation. Like with my bomb incident, somebody decided to fix a non-existent problem and ended up creating an even stupider situation. I had to go to the doctors in the end and tell him that I'd tried to make a cup of tea and instead poured boiling hot water over my hand. I'm sure it took a lot of professionalism for him to simply not diagnose me as an 'incurable stupid, fucking retard'.

There have been many films over the years that deal with the organised crime that thrived as a result of prohibition. One of the most famous is of course The Untouchables in which Sean Connery played an Irishman from Scotland and Kevin Costner played a man with all the charisma of a cardboard dildo. The most recent to be released however is Lawless which was directed by John Hillcoat and written by Nick Cave. Apparently the script was based on a book if anybody remembers those. They're basically what people were forced to use instead of televisions before the invention of any technology whatsoever.

Set during The Depression, this film tells the true story of three brothers who earned a living through bootlegging. They were basically the weed dealers of the 1930's by selling a relatively harmless product to a public of responsible adults. With Shia LaBeouf as the youngest brother in their gang, the story is mostly framed by his desire to be taken seriously and given proper respect. Ironically that is presumably also why the actor is now appearing in films like this and featuring naked in pretentiously awful music videos. Although, if I'd been in Transformers: Dark of the Moon I'd probably walk around with my cock out crying to Sigur Rós too.

The older of the three brothers is played by Tom Hardy who mumbles his way through scenes like a big, pink Hulk. His role here is a matriarchal one, as like a giant Mummy Bear he watches protectively over his family. In fact, most of the film's highlights are when he snaps into action and starts stabbing people in the head and cutting off their bollocks. His character also wanders the movie refusing to die despite receiving potentially lethal injuries on several occasions. It's said in the film that he is an immortal and like Superman or Keith Richards, it certainly looks that way.

The third brother played by Jason Clarke is unfortunately not well known enough for his own story and so simply pops up as a sidekick now and again. If the film has any problem, it's in the characters that it accidentally neglects which, as well as Jason Not-so-Famous, also includes Gary Oldman and Mia Wonderland.

The main antagonist of Lawless is easily Guy Pearce who minces into the story like a pantomime psychopath. His mission to enforce prohibition requires him to stop the bootlegging business of the three brothers which he attempts to do with extreme force. It's hard not to be instantly drawn to a villain that seems to be part Harry Callahan and part Danny LaRue, but Pearce's character represents another of the film's issues. For the most part, the movie is a fairly grounded gangster/western with several gritty performances and a clear eye for period detail. By appearing as a demented member of the Village People, Pearce's performance appears slightly jarring. Having said that he does hint towards what he could have done as The Joker if cast in one of Nolan's Dark Knight movies. As Jeffrey Dahmer and Michael Barrymore have proved, there is nothing more creepy than a sinister gay.

If there was a reason to be excited by Lawless however, it was in the repairing of Nick Cave and John Hillcoat. The two previously collaborated on the Aussie western masterpiece, The Proposition and the end of the world joyfest The Road, for which Cave supplied the soundtrack. Being a generally hate filled person, I am of course a huge fan of Cave's music which includes such romanticised lyrics as, “They found Mary Bellows cuffed to the bed,
with a rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head” and “I'm a bad motherfucker, don't you know. And I'll crawl over fifty good pussies just to get to one fat boys ass hole”.

The music to Lawless is predictably brilliant. Despite being covers of songs from other artists, it's interesting to hear how a couple of them could easily fit onto the Pat Garret and Billy the Kid soundtrack. Since The Proposition, it seems to me that John Hillcoat could be our generation's Sam Peckinpah and now with Lawless, this still seems true. Both men make films about struggling masculinity in a nihilistic world and infuse them with a smothering sense of melancholia. They also deal with characters who have to bend their own morality to survive amongst the violence and brutality. I guess the difference would be that Hillcoat has the taste to allow his rape scenes to take place off screen. It's not that I'm against rape being graphically depicted and I do think Straw Dogs is a masterpiece. But I watched that scene with a couple of mates once and one of them squirmed about in an uncomfortable way that suggested he probably had an erection. Firstly, any film that puts my friends into heat makes me feel awkward, secondly a graphic rape scene shouldn't really result in a sweating chubby.

Unfortunately Lawless doesn't quite reach the brilliant heights of The Road or its brother film The Proposition, however that's not to say it isn't still great. LaBeouf's acting has been turned up a notch and even if he can't quite match the giants of Hardy and Oldman he clearly has a good old try. Apparently he's recently decided to become a method actor which means he's grown a beard and started sporting crappy looking knitwear whilst out in public. For Lawless, being a method actor led him to go out of his way to track down and drink some actual moonshine. I say that as though it's meant to be impressive but lets face it, it's really not. Plenty of people have to get pissed to go to work. I once genuinely found a teacher locked in a classroom, face down on a desk and with a bottle next to her drooling face. The only difference between her and LaBeouf is that he's on a better wage and she was responsible for a class of school children. In hindsight she could probably grow a better beard than him too.

Regarding LaBeouf's character I did actually notice something strange. There were several occasions when he'd had the shit kicked out of him and was left bleeding and broken. Presumably this was either for his character's outlaw ways or simply the actors association with Michael Bay's mechanical movie bollocks. After leaving the scene a blooded mess he would arrive at the next one without a fucking mark on him. Now either this is a rather obvious continuity error or his character has healing abilities as powerful as Jesus H. Christ. If it's the latter, then Lawless is officially the best Wolverine prequel I've ever seen.

Superpowers aside, the film is unfortunately a little cliched, not really adding anything new to the genre. It's still a good ride while it lasts however, and so certainly worth a watch. Highlights include a character getting his throat slit and Gary Oldman twatting somebody in the face with a shovel. With the world currently in an economic shit heap, you could look at the political relevance of a film that depicts depression-era ingenuity and corruption within the system. But really who can be fucked doing that with a movie that features a man getting boiling tar poured over his back. Despite everything mentioned, I thoroughly enjoyed Lawless and that's despite watching it in a cinema surrounded by cunts who wouldn't shut the fuck up. In fact I think being massively pissed off with the people there really helped me to enjoy the on-screen violence. People think that something like The Road is depressing because it shows the end of humanity, however after hearing people talk through Lawless I honestly can't think of anything more satisfying.

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How's It Humping?

There was this one time a while back that I almost fucked someone on top of a coffin- now, obviously as a 23 year old male I'm not proud of this. In fact I'll go further and say I'm actually disgusted with myself. Disgusted that I had the chance to shag someone on top of a coffin and for some stupid reason chose not to. I guess I should point out that there was no corpse in it at the time but that's really not the point. Apparently it used to belong to some old, dead, fat woman but she turned out to be so heavy that she fell through the bottom of it. Not that any of that was an issue for me. At the time I think I was more affected by my biological need to jizz than any morally imposed respect that I should be displaying.

The problem for me was that the coffin was in a garage which faced onto the street and the door wouldn't shut properly. Given the choice, I'd rather not be written about in the papers for grave-fucking in public and so in the end I guess we just had to find somewhere a bit more civilised. At the time the coffin was almost irrelevant and just a surface to use before I murdered someone through frustration. If I'd just gone ahead and done it though not only would I have a better story but I guess I would have found out too whether ghosts really exist or not. If ever you needed an excuse to haunt someone, then seeing some chap bang his girlfriend against a box your corpse was too fat for would probably be it.

In 2011, Shame was released depicting the grim life of a sex addict for whom a quick coffin fuck wouldn't even register as foreplay. To say this film was grim would be a bit like saying Piers Morgan is a sweaty cunt. That also might be true but in both cases, they're also massive understatements. Starring as the lead character is Michael Fassbender's penis with a couple of quick but memorable cameos from Carey Mulligan's tits. Despite all the inevitable sex scenes however, the depravity in which characters are depicted makes it almost impossible to knock one out whilst watching. I say, “impossible” but as the writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard once said, “No one gets very far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day”. I've achieved it at least once a day since I first got access to the internet and I wasn't going to be beaten by Shame.

The film starts with a montage highlighting Fassbender's disassociation from the rest of society. Although he mingles with the public, he lives in a state of lonely isolation. Excess fucking has left him soulless, hollow and obsessed with simply finding the next fleshy, shag-bag of skin and bone to screw. Kind of like an urban Sméagol but with his obsession being focused on fingering an even more precious kind of ring.

Fassbender's character wanks and fucks his way through the film's opening like a disgraced glam rocker on a school open-day. However his routine of joyless cumming is ruined by the appearance of his equally messed up sister. As it turns out, she needs somewhere to stay and his den of debauchery is the only place for her. Unfortunately she proves to be a burden to his habit and so tensions quickly begin to rise. Although what she's doing looking at a single man's laptop is anyone's guess. It doesn't take a sex addict to have a hard drive full of porn. These days going to the computer repair shop is akin to going to confession, which is assuming you even bother attempting to get the machine fixed at all and don't just burn everything in the garden to avoid a potential prison sentence.

From this point on, the film simply shows us the depravity of a man hell bent on self-destruction. If you simply must have a mental breakdown, then too much wanking might sound like the most fun way to do it. However it's presented here in a similar grimness to how drinking and drugs are in films like Nil by Mouth and Requiem for a Dream. Although, on the bright side at least he's good-looking and charming enough to pull most women. With sex as his sole goal in life, the character would have easily killed himself within minutes if he'd been played by Gary Busey. I'm not saying that Busey is ugly, just that I'm not sure we as a species were designed to be 90% teeth. I imagine that his method of giving head would be similar to that of the shark from Jaws. A few sinking bites before he realises he doesn't like the taste, spits you out and then simply leaves you to die... just picture that for a moment...

With Shame being more character than plot-driven, the acting therefore needed to be particularly impressive. Of recent years, Fassbender has fast become one of the most respected actors of his generation. I think the first thing I saw him in was 300 in which he played one of the camp warriors defending their land from an even gayer army of offensive stereotypes. Although the chances are that most people probably know him from X-Men: First Class as super-villain Magneto. That was of course the prequel film in which we first got to see him show off his now iconic shiny, red helmet.

Here Fassbender is, predictably, brilliant, expertly portraying the sadness and hatred that his character has for himself. It's the kind of shameless performance you'd expect from a single mother pole-dancing at three o'clock in the morning in order to feed her kids. It's raw, honest and despite the nudity, smacks more of desperation than sexiness. With him constantly being linked to the role of 007, it's also kind of fun to watch this film as though it's about James Bond but where MI6 forgot to hire him. Without the licence to kill, all that would be left of Bond would be a socially retarded, misogynist with nothing to do but fuck about until he catches AIDs and gratefully dies. Thank God M hired him in time, is all I can think. The obvious message too being that no matter what your situation, when shagging around you should always be cautious of Pussy Galore.

The rest of the cast are also equally brilliant in their various supporting roles. A complement to Carey Mulligan would be that her performance was so riveting that not once did I rewind to that shot of her vagina. To do something as crude as that would be an insult to the dedication and brilliance of her acting. Admittedly I did pause it and zoom in. Fuck it- I'm not a monk. It was only for a few seconds and only to save the image for later. Good acting or not, you can't argue with the efficiency with which things get logged in the wank-bank. In fact I've probably seen that image so much since that whenever I close my eyes it has become my brain's default screensaver. Unfortunately she only appears naked for the one scene which is presumably what the title of the film is referring to.

For now, this is the only film by Steve Mcqueen that I've managed to see. However on the strength of Shame I think I really need to go back and check out Hunger. From lighting, framing and simply the pace of the film, it's obvious that McQueen's background is as an artist. Kind of like with the work of Julian Schnabel there's an experimental feel that suggest that their inspiration is simply not from other films of a similar genre. Despite the themes of sex in Shame, McQueen wisely chose not to have a cheap jazz funk soundtrack and a cast of Eastern European junkies. Instead of making typically grotty porn or smutty sexploitation, he has instead made a gritty, character drama highlighting a kind of addiction which might not be as fun as it superficially sounds. Having said that, I give it about five years before Michael Bay has this remade in 3D as a full blown horror, complete with semen shooting out of the screens and into our eyes. He's spent a career shitting all over cinema so jizzing into the audience's face seems the next logical step.

To conclude, Shame is 90 minutes of watching a man broken by the needs of his body. It's sort of like a modern day version of Alfie that is unsurprisingly much better than the actual modern day version of Alfie. I guess it's a film to make the rest of us feel better about not shagging as many people as we'd like to. My vadge-spaffing quota might not be hitting its depressingly low targets, but at least I'm not resorting to being sucked off by truckers in some gay dungeon. Not that I'm saying there's anything wrong with people who enjoy that kind of thing. What John Travolta does in his own time is completely his own business...

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Why Are You All Wet, Baby?

Sometimes having a twist at the end of a film is a great idea; Who'd have thought it was the cripple? They were they same person all along? So Sarah Jessica Parker wasn't a horse? Twists are clever little devices that make a film seem smarter and change the context of everything. The trick to a good twist is to therefore allow the film to stand up to repeat viewings with the audience’s fresher perspective. A good example of this would be Christopher Nolan’s Memento in which we find out who has been giving Lenny the duff information regarding John G.

When the culprit is revealed, it is both shocking, logical and character building. Although if you're going to give dodgy facts, why hint towards killing John G? If it was me, I'd tattoo clues like ‘fired as editor from the Daily Mirror’, ‘name P. Morgan’, ‘face like a lesbian toad that's been moulded onto a fresh poo’.

However, in the same way as having a cock shaped like a pigs tail, a twist at the end isn't always a nice surprise. A bad example would be finding out that Bruce Willis was a ghost all along. I know we were all impressed by that the first time around but the more you watch The 6^th Sense the stupider it seems. For a start, if he is dead then how did he find out about the kid’s need for a psychologist and why was the kid not seeing a real psychologist too? And secondly, how did he not notice that since being shot by the nudist nutter, nobody has spoken one word to him. If I was Bruce Willis and I walked the streets for more than two minutes without someone shouting, “Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker” then it'd seem only logical I was as dead as a turd. In fact, I think the only person who shouldn't assume they're alive when ignored for so long is Tarantino and that's only because he seems to not shut the fuck up long enough to allow anybody else a word in edge ways.

Shutter Island is the fourth film to be directed by Scorsese and star DiCaprio who since 2002 seems to have been prescribed like methadone to wean him off heavy doses of DeNiro. The story begins in 1954 with DiCaprio's Teddy Daniels heading towards a large prison island which unfortunately doesn't mean he's on his jollies to Australia. Instead he's about to investigate a mental asylum for a prisoner who has allegedly escaped their cell and disappeared. In charge of this island is the chameleonic Ben Kingsley who is once again physically unrecognisable. This time Sir Ben has cunningly taken on the guise of a bald man with a large nose and a little goatee beard.

As Teddy investigates the island he starts to suspect there is a larger conspiracy at play. It seems that each clue he uncovers points to the Asylum actually being a cover for holocaust-like experimentations. This is a theory which seems to be confirmed in Teddy's mind by the appearance of acting legend Max Von Sydow. Personally I think the most suspicious thing about Sydow is that he hasn't aged a fucking day since about 1973. However, what grabs Teddy's attention is that he speaks with a German accent and.. so.. therefore, must be a Nazi. To be fair whenever we meet a German, that is what we all think isn't it? Even if I was talking to the German humanitarian of the year as they received a pre-death saint hood, I'd still be picturing them with a toothbrush moustache and a swastika arm patch.

It's not that I think all Germans are Nazis but that I can't help but associate the two. In fact the last time I met a German the first thing I did was wave in a manner which I couldn't help but think accidentally looked like a Nazi salute. Meanwhile my friend tried to impress them by speaking the German phrase, “Arbeit macht frei”. In English that means, “Work sets you free” which, as he realised too late, was the slogan above the gates to Auschwitz. I guess we just kept putting our foot in it which is a little bit different to Teddy who seems to want Sydow to be condemned at the Nuremberg trial for simply having a bit of an accent.

Teddy however has a genuine excuse for his more violent out bursts of racism having witnessed first hand the atrocities of a concentration camp. In fact, it's Teddy’s flashbacks and hallucinations which prove to be the most interesting aspects of the film. Not only is he traumatised by his experiences of World War 2 he is also haunted by the memory of his now dead partner. Once again Michelle Williams pops up as a pain in the arse wife having perfected the role of rent-a-frump in both Brokeback Mountain and Blue Valentine. This also makes her the first of two dead wives to haunt DiCaprio's subconscious after Marion Cotillard wouldn't fuck off in Inception. I guess this just proves that it's true when Louis C.K. says that, “Women are non-violent but they will shit inside of your heart”.

In all honesty, everything about Shutter Island is great. It's a well made throw away B-movie with great acting, a suitably gloomy mood and a cool 1950's Hitchcock kind of look to it. It sort of exists in that little genre somewhere between thriller and horror. On the one hand it's a mystery movie and on the other it's set in an asylum where Ted Levine is a prison guard. You know if Silence of the Lambs’  Buffalo Bill is one of the sane ones then the inmates must be pretty fucking mental. There is in fact one scene in which the power goes down and they are all released from their cells. It's a bit like that scene in Jurassic Park but instead of dinosaurs running around, it’s people who like to paint pictures with shit and masturbate to their granny’s knickers.

If there's one thing that could make or break this film it is the inevitable twist at the end. For anyone who hasn't seen this movie then I'm about to ruin it for you so please stop reading. Seriously if you haven't seen Shutter Island and you're still here then just fuck off! What kind of cunt happily ruins a film for themselves? If you're up to this sentence and have never seen Shutter Island then I officially hate you. I bet you're the kind of cunt who goes hunting for their Christmas presents and can't keep a secret. Well, I've got a secret for you, your Mum has AIDs and she caught it from slipping your granddad’s warty cock up her arse. The twist is that not only did she love every second of it but your granddad caught AIDs from you when he cradle-fucked you as a baby.

…

For those who have seen the film, then of course that above paragraph doesn't apply to you. I'm sure your mothers have never even slept with your granddads, let alone been sodomised by them. Anywho, so as it turns out, Teddy has been a crazy all along and Sir Ben has given him the freedom of the grounds to live out his detective fantasy. Now… is it just me or is that also a little bit mental? I mean, where did Sir Ben learn his managerial skills? When I was in school, the headmaster asked me to pick a half eaten hardboiled egg out of a play-ground grid with my bare hands. Just that act alone made me want to tell the cunt to get fucked and do it himself. So how Sir Ben managed to convince his staff to free one of their violent inmates, allow him to run around in a frenzy and suspect them all to be Nazis I'll never know. As Teddy first arrives at the island he say's, “You seem a little on edge Marshall”. I'm not fucking surprised he's on edge. There's a freak running around inventing a holocaust conspiracy and the boss has clearly gone fucking nuts too. If I worked on that island, I'd have the unions so far up Sir Ben's arse that they were wearing him like a Gandhi condom.

In a way, the twist doesn't really work because it's just so stupid. However the film still survives its repeat viewing simply because the characters are so strong. It's also worth it just for the moment Sir Ben randomly asks Teddy, “Why are you all wet, baby?” I'm not sure about that sexy bald beast but where I'm from that's an awfully personal question to ask a psycho with a gun. For more of Sir Ben's randomness, fans may want to check out Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Not only does that include him sharply turning his head like a fucking meerkat on acid but he also shouts, “Quickly” with a tone that can only come from a man about four seconds away from shitting his pants.

For any other director, this film might be like a day off from work. With its B-movie sensibilities, it could easily be cheap and not worth a repeat, however Scorsese shows as much care and craftsmanship here as when he's making films in which Jo Pesci explodes into fits of what doctors call ‘violent cunt syndrome’ (VCS). Yes it's a little bit silly but it's also good fun. Even when the story might be a little bit unbelievable, the emotions of the characters are convincingly legitimate. The film ends with DiCaprio heading for a lobotomy. If this was Leo with his brain then I'm assuming his character in the sequel will be intellectually on par with the Leo who thought Titanic would end up being a decent movie. Despite the twist, which says more about Sir Ben's judgement than Teddy's sanity, this film is still worth a watch. It might not be up there with Raging Bull but it's good to see Scorsese isn't resting on his laurels in quite the same way that his former muse De Niro is. If you've got a spare few hours and want to see film featuring another one of DiCaprio's disastrous on-screen marriages, then this is the film for you.

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