Home Is The Darkness

I don't know why but for some reason I'm drawn to the darker side of life. The nicer and more pleasant a thing is, the more I seem to subconsciously rebel against it. I recently bought Animal Crossing: New Leaf on the 3DS in which friendly, furry little creatures skip about making pleasant conversations and doing each other favours. Within a week of making me their new mayor however I'd fucked it all up for them. I swapped their town flag for a swastika, put them all under house arrest and succeeded in turning an initially chipper squirrel into one depressingly suicidal motherfucker. I know the drippy hippies strive for peace and love but I have to say that I much more comfortably subscribe to director Werner Herzog's view that, “the common denominator of the Universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility and murder”. I dunno... maybe I have trust issues and think that anybody who’s overly friendly is actually secretly hiding their more sinister intentions. At least when a person’s twattery is up front you can more accurately gauge where you stand with them.

When I was about fifteen years old I saw Danny Boyle's 1996 masterpiece Trainspotting for the first time which resulted in the Scanners style explosion of my mind. His film depicted the shit stained lows that society can sink to but didn't skimp on the humour, energy, love or empathy for it's naïve main characters. There's no denying that drug addiction is a cunts game but that's not to say it's without at least some initial appeal and the hinted-towards-optimism that's flirted with by the film’s conclusion therefore felt more real because the rest of the story felt so honest as well. Yes it depicted drugs as being a destructive needle-roulette of misery but it also showed the seductive short term peace that they can offer from the stresses of an otherwise fucked up world. I love Trainspotting for so many reasons but I think the ultimate one is probably its ability to find acceptance and humour as a defence against the misery and pain of being alive. As well as Herzog I suppose in that respect I also agree with Watchmen's The Comedian whose existential depression leads him to the conclusion that, “It's a joke. It's all a fucking joke”.

Rather than just being my favourite film however, Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting is also my favourite novel. Admittedly it is also one of the few books that I've read that doesn't feature the magical exploits of an orphaned dullard whose fame is a result of the shoddy Zorro scar on his forehead but still... I'm sure you can therefore imagine my excitement when I heard about the new film, Filth. Like Trainspotting, this is based on another unrelentingly bleak book by Irvine Welsh and was enjoying the best reviews that an adaptation of his has garnered since my favourite film was shat into cinemas. As you'd expect and hope from its source material, Filth examines the hushed-up guttural nature of our society and as such was made for a very small budget. As a result it has so far had a comparatively limited marketing campaign due to the bastard cash men being too pussy to push a film that dares to embrace its own shitty attitude. Filth does not want to attract the broadest possible audience but would instead prefer to earn itself a cult following after pissing all over the sensitivities of the uptight mainstream dullards. Within the first twelve seconds its trailer describes it as “Sick, Twisted, Sexy, Depraved, Bizarre, Warped, Dirty, Wild, Dark, Shocking, Weird, Obscene, Controversial, Psychotic, Kinky, Outrageous, Offensive, Disgusting and Insane”. For once this was a trailer that didn't lie. Filth was fucking amazing.

McAvey ready for his fucking close-up.

The film begins in what looks like a post-apocalyptic, dystopia that really just happens to be a modern day Edinburgh as a lone Japanese student is brutally killed by a demented gang of bleach-blonde twats. Subsequently tasked with solving this murder is Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson who is played by a fatter, rotten looking James McAvoy. Not only does he have the morals of a sewer cunt but his pink bloated face also hints towards the loving embrace of a dedicated substance addiction. As the story progresses though, the initial crime that sparks this story really slips into the background with the film naturally being more interested in Robertson’s free-fall into the dark arsehole of evil and madness. This may well be the performance of McAvoy's career as he vomits (an ability he can control at will) and fucks his way about town only stopping occasionally to spit out his racist, sexist and homophobic bile. Imagine the original Bad Lieutenant but with more humour and less of Harvey Keitel's manky dick and that's kind of what Filth is. With The Last King of Scotland, Welcome To The Punch and Trance, McAvoy has been hinting towards his more sinister side for years and so really makes the effort here to impress, by playing the pig in shit.

It's interesting I think that as a country, Britain is kind of renowned for spewing out films that show how grim life is. However, usually they tend to be kitchen sink dramas like Vera Drake that depict the difficulties of starting up a back alley abortion clinic with nothing more than a kind heart and a rusted coat-hanger. Don't get me wrong, I think that people like Mike Leigh and Ken Loach are great directors but when it comes to how fucked up everything is, I prefer this alternate approach. If either of those two had made Filth it would instead probably focus on Robertson's best friend played by Eddie Marsan who is constantly being bullied by him. The difference between the usual grimness that we release and this is that they tend to show good people suffering at the hands of evil… this however more enjoyably shows the fun evil can have by punching the good in the face and then fucking its wife.

The other difference between this and the kitchen sink stuff is that this in no way indulges in gritty socio-realism. Through Robertson's descent into madness, we're treated to a talking tapeworm, screaming Nazis and a hallucinated psychiatrist with a massive fuck-off head. If I was to nitpick, I'd say it's kind of a shame that the film is quite so apparently inspired by Kubrick but that's only because so many others have been too. When dealing with anarchic main characters it seems kind of clichéd now to borrow from A Clockwork Orange when Filth clearly owes films such as Bronson and even Trainspotting a huge debt. Beyond the cheeky combination of humour and sociopathic violence, the film also starts with a glaring red title screen and makes constant use of classical music. There's also several fantasy sequences that take place in a room that could only be more Kubrickian if it had a splintered door and caused Shelley Duvall to have a breakdown. This influence is admittedly still acknowledged by the regular appearance of a 2001 poster and I am really being pedantic by pointing this out as an issue. This is still a complete original as can be seen by the bat-shit mental cameo from David Soul when the film temporarily and brilliantly becomes a fucking musical.

Speaking of music, the score here is absolutely phenomenal with composer Clint Mansell continuing to prove his genius. It seems odd at first that someone like him would do a small budget film like Filth but thinking about it, the fucked up material really fits his style. As can be seen from Requiem For A Dream and Black Swan, his scores not only strengthen when reflecting the madness on screen but also manages to kick the shit out of your emotions too. This is also very much the case here with the music even going someway to helping a 'what-the-fuck' concluding twist fluently achieve its cinematic goal. I won't give it away except to say that there's a revelation near the end that I completely bought which was partly thanks to how wrapped up I was in the intensity of Mansell's work. I should say that I know bugger all about music but because I'm a geek, the only shit that I listen to that isn't Morrissey tends to be film scores- with Mansell being a firm favourite. If I'm dicking about on the computer or need something to block out the irritating sound of somebody talking to me, then the score for Moon and The Fountain have been very useful in the past. I think that the next time that I want to relax to the twisted sound of a particular reality being fucked up beyond recognition, then the music of Filth will definitely be my first calling.

Scotland wishes you a very merry Shitmas.

So yeah- the film was amazing and you should definitely see it if you haven't already. Like I said, it's getting great reviews with the biggest criticism being that it is too unrelentingly dark. Although as I think I've explained, the darkness is where I feel most at home and so that really wasn't a problem for me. In fact I kind of felt like at the very end (mood-spoiler) it dropped the ball slightly by suggesting a chance of redemption for a character that I really didn't feel deserved it. McAvoy might not have made his sluggy bastard particularly sympathetic but with his blood shot eyes and constant hissing of abuse, he was always watchable. In fact, with all the spitting of his booze drenched slobber and the projectile nature of his pungent green vomit, I'm surprised they didn't try and fuck a little more cash out of me and make this film 3D. Actually speaking of which, the film actually takes place at Christmas which is a time of year that I particularly fucking hate. However, and I'm not just saying this, but there's a scene in which Shakin’ Steven's Merry Christmas Everyone plays on the soundtrack as a hungover Robertson pukes his guts up that actually made me feel quite festive. As anybody who knows me and my “hum-bugger off” ways will be able to attest to this may be this fucked up film’s greatest achievement.

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The Girl Who Cried Pedo

There's no denying that if you're trying to get shit to stick then you can do a lot worse than calling somebody a kiddie fiddler. Take my friend’s neighbour for example who, about five years ago, was genuinely sent to jail for abusing his very young grand-daughter. From that point on he'll forever be known as a paedophile no matter what he does. Say the same guy wakes up one day and discovers that one of his kitchen cupboards contains a portal leading directly to heaven, he'd instantly become the most famous man on the planet- I mean, he would basically be discovering proof of God so how could he not? But if that did happen, now and after he's been to prison the printed headline most news papers would actually go with would still be something like, “Creepy Nonce To Definitely Burn In Hell”. I'm not saying that that's a bad thing either, by the way. I'm pretty much of the opinion that even if you did do something great like say... oh, I don't know... direct Chinatown... then as brilliant as whatever you've done might be, you'll still never be excused for your unforgivable rapeyness. However that's not also to say that as a society we aren't maybe a little bit over-paranoid about the boogeyman breaking in and you know... fucking our children.

Over the years there's been surprisingly few films that examine the sexual damage that a fully grown adult can inflict on a minor. I guess Hollywood just feels that those stories might not have the feel-good conclusions that audiences flock to piss their cash all over. As a result, each one that does get made kind of focuses on a different aspect of the world of the kiddy fiddler. For example, 2004's The Woodsman looked at what it might actually be like to be a paedophile whereas 2005's Hard Candy was more concerned with the joy of chopping off their fucking balls. I'm not sure if it's the most recent pedo-centric film to be released but the other day I saw a new entry on the subject called The Hunt. This movie was directed by Thomas Vinterberg who people may remember as being the co-creator of the pretentious dogma 95 movement along with the worlds most awkward Nazi, Lars Von Trier. Here however Vinterberg has kindly made a film in the conventional manner that this time tells the story of a school teacher who is falsely accused of being a pedo by some six year old little bitch.

"Can you show me on the doll how big his cock was?"

The teacher in question is played by the always phenomenal Mads Mikkelsen who is shunned from his community with more haste than a leper with an erection. As it turns out, the lying little tart is his best friend’s daughter who, to be fair, does deny her life-destroying claims as soon as she witnesses their consequences. However thanks to this blanket of fear that we all seem to live under, the adults don't care about her retraction and instantly set about finding proof of her evil teachers cuntish ways. They bombard the child with leading questions until she's so confused that she doesn't know what she's admitting to and then they tell her what they imagine happened. Within a couple of days the bastard-stupid school that Mikkelsen worked for has convinced every parent that their kid was probably maliciously jizzed over causing them to start an ill-informed rampage of revenge. At no point to us is the accused’s innocence under question with the film more interested in the escalation of the witch hunt and the idea of mud sticking. As I mentioned at the beginning, as hobbies go, society isn't too fond of child abuse and so we tend not to forget the name of those who practice it. I suppose that in the end the message of The Hunt is simply ‘who really needs evidence when you've got so much fucking hate?’

Before watching the film I kind of knew I'd love it because it was getting such a positive reception and I'm a huge fan of Mikkelsen however I didn't expect to love it quite as much as I did. I think I've mentioned it in another recent blog but I'm kind of a sucker for some self-controlled annoyance and so for me this was a field day of irritation. Every time some idiot parent jumped to the wrong conclusion or vilified the innocent man I wanted to scream at them for being such a fucking dickbrain. I mean, it is good that we care about the wellbeing of our younglings, but it's the way everybody is so happy to destroy a good man’s world with so little actual proof. The only evidence that they have is that the young girl briefly claimed it and according to them, “Children never lie”. I mean are you actually kidding me? I might be knocking on now but it's not been that long since I was a kid and I'd lie all the god damn time if I needed to. In fact I knew one little girl who took a dump in the middle of the street and told me to tell everybody a dog had gone and done it. Now that wasn't exactly the fucking truth was it?!

However I suppose the main reason that I got so pissed off with these fucking idiots is because of Mikkelsen's performance as their victim. If I didn't care or couldn't empathise with the shitty-as-shit situation that he'd been forced into then the impact of the mobs retarded determination wouldn't be quite so powerful. The film constantly threatens to go into Straw Dogs, Rambo, one man against everybody territory, but intelligently never actually goes there. Instead, Mikkelsen's character withdraws from public only seeking to defend himself if directly accused. Considering the abuse he's receiving some might see him as being a pussy for this, but it does make sense. He's clearly suffering from the shock and stress of what's going on and any act of defiance really would cause the locals to run for their torches and pitch-forks. It is frustrating that he often fails to stand up for himself but it is perfectly believable behaviour considering the poor guy is also having the shit kicked out of his existence. I guess it would be the happiest day of the mobs’ collective lives if they could brutally murder a 'pedo' in self-defence and with no sense of mercy.

I don't want to spoil anything but this all builds to a supermarket standoff that is more emotional than watching a dying puppy get smothered by its sobbing doggy mother. It's at this point too that I noticed the similarities between The Hunt and another masterpiece; We Need To Talk About Kevin. Both films feature an adult being shunned by the town because of some fucking idiot kid and both depict the grimness of trying to do the weekly shop when surrounded by glaring, judgemental twats. I have basically no conclusion for having pointed that out but it's still worth knowing in case you ever fancied a gritty, grim-tastic double feature. I also enjoyed the emotion of the very end in which regardless of what actually happens, the mental scarring that the teacher has picked up is hinted towards. To be fair, if I could draw a face that represents a damaged psyche I would probably go for Mikkelsen's which is like a sunken eyed, Skeletor that's been garnished with a slither of Danish skin.

It's also a good time to see a film like this as we in England seem to be having a bit of a nonce-epidemic right now. Since the death of the pervy creepophile Jimmy Saville, pretty much anybody born before 1959 has been accused of sticking a part of themselves up someone who’s several un-grown pubes too young. Although there's no denying that pretty much all of them have the sinister face of a twisted pervert, some of them have also somehow been found innocent. However when it turns out that somebody like British television host Jim Davidson isn't guilty, the phrase we use to break the news is still, “He got off with it”… which kind of implies that even though he's been proven not to have done anything we still think he did and just got away with it. Even I can't believe that Davidson wasn't guilty although I suspect that’s more down to my dream that the hate-filled cunt would one day get shivved to death in the yard of some grotty prison. I guess the doubt that we retain about those sinister looking entertainers is the same doubt that the village would have for someone like Mikkelsen. Sadly for him though he doesn't have the expensive lawyers or high security walls that our great nations child loving entertainers can unfortunately afford.

"If you see it, you suck it!"

Despite having been released in 2012, it has just been announced that The Hunt will be entered as a candidate into the 2014 Oscar awards. This is an amazing movie and if we absolutely have to introduce a competitive element to art then I do hope it wins that giant golden dildo. The acting was amazing, the cinematography was gorgeous and the story was like a cattle prod to the brain, resulting in the occurrence of violently provoked thoughts. Having seen how little Mikkelsen had done to have his life come crashing down on him, I'm sure we can all empathise with his situation. The other day I was minding my own business when some wild toddler came running head first into my leg causing me to accidentally knee his face into the mudded, stony, ground. Although his grand-parents saw what happened and didn't give a shit, I'm sure in an alternate reality I could have been accused of attacking the stupid little knob. Having said that, I was also secretly chuffed about what had happened and the lack of any consequences simply became the icing on the child-assault cake!

Anyway, so as you can probably tell I'm waffling now which is usually a sign that I don't know how to end this shiz. So I'll just say that you should see this film because it's amazing. In Casino Royale Mikkelsen played a character called Le Chiffre who is one of my all time favourite Bond villains. Despite his character doing something as risky as gambling away his terrorist-clients money though the stakes in The Hunt are actually a lot higher for him. Le Chiffre suffers from a condition which causes his eye to randomly weep blood known as heamolacria. However if he went to prison for as long as your average paedophile does, it wouldn't be his eye that was dripping with blood but the rip in his systematically raped, arsehole. And with that image I'll call this a day. Bye everybody!

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The Insect Who Dreamt He Was A Man

I would say that in general, film remakes are a lazy bag of wank that are made as cash-ins on the fame and success of the superior original. I could rattle off the ones that I hate and why but really, what's the point when we all know which they are and the rage would only result in me rupturing something and shitting blood. However on principal I'm not against the idea of somebody doing a film again so long as there's an actual creative reason for doing it- some Hollywood Executive needing a quick buck to pay off a pimp whose whore they've just murdered is an example of a non-creative reason. However there's surely no denying the fun of something like A Fistful of Dollars which took Yojimbo's idea of a Samaria gang war and then turned into a western starring Clint Eastwood. In fact, ignoring the genre switch, I can't think of a single film that couldn't be improved by having Clint Eastwood simply replace the lead character. Well, not other than Deep Throat, anyway.

However, if A Fistful of Dollars is one of the few morsels of nutrients in a steaming pile of remake shit then there is one film buzzing around it that I probably love even more. The Fly was released in 1986 and was itself a remake of a 1958 film starring Vincent Price. In the original, a scientist swaps heads with a fly after an experiment goes pretty fucking wrong. In the remake, Jeff Goldblum slowly becomes a fly in a transformation that involves his ear and dick dropping off. This is very much an example of creative reasoning for remaking a film. Just in case you've not seen the remake, Goldblum plays an eccentric scientist who believes he has invented a teleportation device that will revolutionise our ability to travel, nullifying concepts of long-distance trains, planes and automobiles. After testing the machine for himself, a freeloading fly gets in with him and as the two are zapped about, their DNA splices and recombines to create a being that is a juicy cocktail of them both. Initially, Goldblum's scientist is empowered by some new found strength and so spends the first half of the film literally fucking his energy away, however as things progress he begins to mutate with his appearance disintegrating at a speed even more rapid than that of Mickey Rourke's real life pork-chop face.

...I think my rash has spread..

In fact, possibly one of the main differences between the original film and the remake is the more recent effort focuses on the horror of a person literally falling apart. Due to its creative effects and intense gore, the film has been labelled as an example of 'body horror' which is a sub-genre pretty much invented by its director David Cronenberg. To quickly explain this term, it's basically exactly what it sounds like with a story depicting a graphic degeneration of our flesh and often as a way of exploring some greater metaphor. I like intelligent films as much as the next person but if we can express big ideas through the use of vomit and a rotten wanking hand then all the better. In the case of The Fly, I suppose the obvious subtext is of the transformation through diseases such as cancer or even everybody’s favourite post-monkey-fuck illness, AIDs. As has been recently pointed out by Cronenberg in an interview, the film is about a man who falls in love and then begins to suffer from a terrible wasting disease. However by wrapping all of that up in sci-fi and horror it becomes more appealing to both producers and a wider audience. I guess from this it can be assumed that on mass we either don't like to be depressed by realism or rather that if we have to watch somebody die then reality just isn't fucking grim enough.

Speaking of interviews, it's interesting to see how much people like Cronenberg have spoken about the love story between Goldblum's turd like scientist and his girfriend Geena Davis. Although it might not initially be the most memorable thing amongst all of the loose limbs and jars of cock, it is, I suppose, the spine of the film. Generally I'm not a fan of romance in movies because it tends to be sappy and unbelievable however here, the relationship is filled with an excess of fucking, unwanted pregnancy, constant fighting and at least one death. I can't relate to any of the saccharin bullshit that Richard Curtis pisses out into cinemas, but all of that bile between a woman and her man-fly does seem depressingly familiar. On which subject it is also worth noting how good Geena Davis's performance here is as she perfectly captures the horror of having a scabby eunuch for a boyfriend.

Introducing the Astonishing Puking Fly-Man!

Also in regards to the DNA of the film, I quite like to think of this as being a kind of deconstruction of the Superhero genre. Like most comic book characters, Goldblum's scientist is involved in a tragic accident but he's sadly not gifted with any powers at all. I mean he does have the ability to dissolve things with his own puke but that shouldn't count because after a heavy night, out so does Lindsey Lohan. The film is sort of like a twisted version of Spiderman but instead of gaining the beneficial ability of climbing walls, Peter Parker grew six more eyes and started shitting out his webs like a sticky net of arse-jizz. The other way to look at The Fly in regards to comic books is that instead of following what could have happened to someone like Spiderman, it's actually following one of the genres villains. People like Doc Ock also have tragic back stories involving scientific fuck ups but in Goldblum's case, the only difference is that there's nobody here to fight him. Well nobody more powerful than some bearded, yuppie twat with a shotgun who wants to fuck his ex anyway.

However, if this was a reaction to the superhero genre then the genius of Cronenberg is that he managed to subvert them about twenty years before they started raping cash at the box office. Although this is probably my favourite of his films, it is a pretty close race with all his work exploring themes of transformation, identity and obsession. I suppose that for me the thing that pushes this above any of his others is the performance from Goldblum as it manages to remain both human and hilarious whilst he continues to grimly rot into a giant, talking scab. Thanks to him there's an unmissable, kafka-esque tragedy to this which is brilliantly depicted during a speech on, “Insect Politics”. But like I say, Cronenberg is one of my favourite directors and I'm almost equally as fond of Videodrome, Crash and Existenz. He's basically the go to guy if you're in the mood for a film about people putting random shit inside their bodies.

So to end on the topic I started on, if a film has to be remade then The Fly demonstrates exactly how it should be done. Whilst maintaining his artistic integrity, Cronenberg has taken a pre-existing movie and updated it for the audience of its time by applying his own iconic sensibilities. I guess in the end, the key to a successful remake is to make sure that the director has a legacy that they just don't want to piss all over. 

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I Just Blue Myself

I hate having to go to a 3D movie. If it had been forced upon us for artistic reasons then perhaps I'd be more forgiving but the truth is that it was a gimmick designed to combat piracy. If that's the case then fine but it seems a bit shitty to whack the price up and charge more for those of us who have bothered to actually go to the cinema. Not only does the film itself cost more to see but they then also charge extra for use of those mongo looking glasses too. I understand the staff there are doing a menial job for exploitatively low wages but if they're going to fuck me up the arse then the least they can do is smile whilst it's happening. Plus based on its entire concept, 3D is clearly the Chris Tucker of gimmicks in that it's both irritatingly unnecessary and distracts the living fuck out of me. I really don't need a film to shoot things out of the screen unless we're in the unlikely situation that it stars Angelina Jolie and the script makes constant use of the word “squirting”.

Of course though, 3D is actually half the age of Joan Rivers having been used as far back as 1915. This new wave of extra-dimensional cinematography however, was kickstarted in 2009 when James Cameron's Avatar was thrust upon us with more excitement than a free shot of heroin to the eyeball. To their absolute credit they did manage to create a hell of a lot of hype for a film that most of us didn't really know anything about. At least I'm guessing it was the genius marketing that caused people to flock to it because it sure as fuck wasn't the story. For anybody who somehow doesn't know, it's pretty much just Pocahontas but with an Alien species called the Na'vi as a stand in for the Native Americans. I should also possibly clarify that by Pocahontas I mean the cartoon and not the true story that involves significantly more kidnap, rape and death than Disney bizarrely seemed to mention. Although I'm sure I don't need to have said any of that considering that Avatar is currently the highest grossing movie on the planet. Still, as the mega-rich Donald Trump has proven, just because something makes a lot of money it doesn’t mean it can't also be a fat lump of shit.

Cheetara says: "Don't share needles."

So Avatar, to me, was fairly annoying because it both brought back 3D and also had a story that was about as unique as a toothless whore in a hardened cock-factory, however the real achievement is not in the films 3D technology but in its ability to believably render some fucking ridiculous looking aliens. The Na'vi themselves are at times completely photorealistic and that's despite their design reminding me of an AIDs riddled Thundercat. I think this was the first film too that managed to solve the problem of CG characters having that weird dead-eyed thing. For anyone who has forgotten, this was a kind of glazed over disconnect that characters used to have in films like The Polar Express which really made it difficult to believe in them. Since the progress of Avatar, this dead-eyed problem seems to have been solved and can only now be found in interviews where Bruce Willis has been forced to talk about his latest shit action film.

However it's not just the Na'vi that have been created inside a computer but from what I can tell pretty much everything else was as well. The sets and background creatures are phenomenally well rendered considering everything was filmed in the kind of empty warehouse that might once have been used to kill chickens in. In fact it's the imaginative colours of the various different species and plant-life in Avatar that is one of my favourite things about the film. It's as though all those tree fucking hippies actually managed to impregnate Mother Nature and eventually all their various children came out tie-died. The only downside to this is that near the end there is a lot going on in terms of big battles and it stops being quite so convincing. It is all still fun, it's just that with so many colourful and obviously computerised images fighting the shit out of each other it sort of turns into a kind of psychopathic movie from Pixar.

The other thing that deserves to be praised is the performances. Like I said, the whole thing was filmed in an empty room and so the actors did very well to be able to imagine their surroundings and play off things that weren't really there. I guess it helps when the kind of people that you've hired are as amazing as Sigourney Weaver but still... Actually now that I think about it, Weaver’s blue Avatar kind of looks like the corpse of Ellen Ripley if you were to drag it out of a polluted lake and then punch it in the face. All of the characters are fairly clichéd but its cast do well to make us forget. I guess this just means that James Cameron is better at directing than he is at writing which might also explain why he invents words such as Unobtainium. If you have to come up with the name of a valuable mineral and you're happy to use something as shit as that then you may as well go one further and just name it CuntsRock. The other thing that I really hated in regards to the script was the voice-over from Sam Worthington. I'm not sure if it's in every version of the film but it is in the extended cut and was like having a dribbling fucktard sitting over your shoulder and badly describing everything that you could already see. If that's the kind of experience you’re after then I strongly recommend listening to Arnie's commentary for Total Recall which is actually hilarious.   

The other thing about Avatar that I really hated was the score which was really god damn awful. If I have one pet peeve, it's those Gladiator-esque themes that sound like an African woman wailing after she's been hoofed in the fanny and this film is full of them. Also the soundtrack was composed by James Horner who I hate at the best of times because it seems that his music is permanently set to shit. To make things worse though, there's a piece in Avatar that sounded strangely familiar. After a few seconds of scanning my autistic movie-brain, I realised that the film Troy had used the exact same fucking theme. Amazed by this shocking level of shoddiness I quickly went to YouTube to see if I was right and it turns out that I was. Not only that but according to a video that somebody had made, Horner had used this particular theme in loads of his other movies over and over again. If you remember at the start of this blog I said that people working in a cinema do a menial job for exploitatively low wages. Well in contrast, Horner gets paid loads of money to do his dream job and yet is squandering this gift to be a proper lazy twat about it. However even that is nothing in comparison to the bloody awful Leona Lewis song that plays out over Avatar's credits at the end. I don't know who wrote that sappy ballad of bollocks but it's so offensively crap that I can only conclude that they must have committed some sort of crime in its creation. If you can imagine what notes you'd use to replicate the feeling of having barbed-wire dragged through your bleeding ears then that's basically what this shit song sounds like.

Check out this sexy blue alien monster!

Still, I hope it doesn't sound like I don't like the movie because I really do. I mean yes, it's way too long, features cardboard characters and has a familiar plot that's derived from one of the crappier Disney films but you know... I hate to nitpick. In regards to the CG, it is technically brilliant and the creativity involved in designing creatures and environments was so cool that it was like having my eye balls slit open with an LSD-lined razor blade. I really love films that explore jungles full of exotic species and like Jurassic Park and King Kong- this film does just that. I really don't need any of the Pocahontas shit, even if it has a fairly positive ‘treat the world with respect’ type message. Just show me a colourful creature with nine legs, an arsehole full of teeth and an angry dick and I'll be more than entertained. The writing of the film is rubbish but we can't deny the impact if its execution. Plus the Na'vi use this weird thing in their head to both fuck each other and ride animals. Other than the whole eco thing, the message of this film seems to be that you should stand up for your right to make love to any species whether it be horse, bird or alien. Whether I agree with that or not, I have to admire the balls of a big budget movie that is clearly pro-bestiality.

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