31 March 2014

Your Skin Makes Me Cry



In many ways, I often feel that Louis Armstrong and I don't exactly see eye to eye... For the last few years I've been living through some sort of existential depression where everything just seems hollow and pointless and more of a drama than it's fucking-well-worth. People make issues out of the smallest of things which is a shame because in the end, nothing really matters, so why not just shut the hell up and enjoy shit whilst you can? At some point the sun is going to expand and eat us all up like the great hungry bastard that it is and let’s face it, who can blame it! Our fiery death will essentially just be a galactic mercy killing so I'm not too worried...  Although that's obviously even presuming humanity gets that far without nuking itself out of existence or dropping down from some pissy little virus that started life up a mutant pigs arse. Whether you help a little old lady to cross the road or instead wander naked into a school and treat the kiddies to an eye full of cock, it ultimately makes no real difference so fuck it, let’s go nuts! Do you know why we, as a species, do the things that we do? Do you know why we drink, gamble, trade life for goods, worship gods, listen to shit-pop, commit suicide or worse yet, watch a Michael Bay film? We do it because society is a crap pot of misery and it's beaten us to the point where our mind has been murdered by mundanity. Provoking apathy is humanity’s way of holding chloroform up to the individuals face before throwing them unconscious to the ground and arse-fucking them into the grave. Life is short and then we're forgotten... And I think to myself, what a wonderful world!

So that's my view of everything, but what exactly is it that director Terry Gilliam thinks, I wonder? Set somewhere in the future, The Zero Theorem is his latest film and stars Christoph Waltz as Qohen Leth- a jittery bald fuck who sits alone in a wrecked church whilst waiting for a phone call that will give purpose to his life. Hmm... actually that's pretty much the entire plot to be honest so I guess explaining any more would literally just be for the sake of padding out this paragraph... oh.. erm.. So, as well as waiting for this call, Waltz also works for a shady corporation who have tasked him with solving a mathematical problem that will prove that all life has no purpose, which is something he is somehow struggling to do. I don't know what the mathematical way of saying “it just fucking is” is, but Waltz seems to be having trouble finding it. Fair play to him though, he does have a lot on his mind. When not sinking into his own existential depressions, waiting for his phone call or working, he is pestered by a few persistent members of humanity. His mate from work, the boss’s son and a tart-with-a-heart all bother him for some degree of human connection which, in this technological utopia, is something that, like your average mopey teenager, he really can't be fucked with. 

This whole party is going on Facebook!
Although Gilliam denies it to be intentional, The Zero Theorem can easily be seen as being the third part of a thematic trilogy beginning with both Brazil and Twelve Monkeys. The bullshit nature of red tape, big business, middle-management, Orwellian control, insanity, fantasy, dreams and the blinding power of the media are issues that are more than explored in each film. In fact, with his bald head, unhinged grasp of reality and rejection of a good job in favour of obsessing over a fantasy, Leth almost appears as though he's the result of a drunken night between Twelve Monkey's Cole and Brazil's Sam Lowry. However whereas those two films dealt with society as it was back in the 80's and 90's, this latest one is Gilliam's response to the world around us now. This film is set in the future although it's easily not that far from today with its depiction of isolation through connectivity. The more that we weld technology to the palm of our hand, the more distanced we seem to become from both reality and each other. As the film goes on Leth seems to get particularly addicted to an online porn type website however any hint of this becoming a reality is rejected instantly... Hmm.. I actually have a mate like that who I hope is reading this now. If you are, I'm sorry it's been so long and I hope we catch up soon! Anyway, as Leth walks down the road he is bombarded by adverts whilst those around him remain ignorant to the world and transfixed on whatever device has replaced their consciousness. Like a concert full of people pointing their iPhones at the band on stage before tweeting it to seven billion people who couldn't give a shit, this is a society that can no longer just live in the moment. To quote the genius of Gilliam himself, “if I were a Native American I’d worry. Every time you take a picture, a little bit of your soul is removed, and we’re soulless people now, having taken so many selfies for so long."

In my humble opinion, the world is of course a purposeless place however as mentioned, another theme of The Zero Theorem is the search for the meaning of life. Leth is waiting for his phone call to explain it all whilst his boss simply wants to prove that everything adds up to zero. Scattered around the streets are posters for various fictional religions with angry nuns prowling the pavements like an army of pissed off and prudish penguins. Videos trying desperately to convince people that buying a particular product will result in some degree of happiness line every square inch of the outside of every building as though civilisation has itself been replaced by a nagging digital prick. The point is that everybody here is simply having their meaning dictated to them. Not only that but in each case, they're wasting what little life they do have by obsessing over it. In fact, Gilliam himself elaborated on this in the same interview I stole his last quote from, “Life has no meaning. It just is. It's atoms and molecules, which double and triple. That’s it. You give meaning to life in what you choose to do and believe in.” Presumably therefore the message of this film really is to not chase after meaning at the expense of simply living. Through an obsession with connecting through technology and chasing after rubbish dreams, people really are running obliviously through their own bullshit existence. The movie may have used a cover of Radiohead's Creep as its theme but it could just as easily have gone for Imagine by every-body’s favourite bullet-magnet and ex-Beatle, John Lennon,You may say I'm a dreamer... but I'm not the only one”.

So, yeah... I obviously thought this film was great and simply became another slab of celluloid evidence to validate my love of Terry Gilliam. If movies were edible then Gilliam's would very definitely be the lobster and caviar to Michael Bay's gruel pie with a side order of anorexic cat shit. A Gilliam film however can never be anything other than what it is and this is of course no exception. Twisted visuals, deranged characters and a warped sense of humour identify this as yet another obvious sliver of genius from his clearly mental mind. However a random thing that this did remind me of was David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis. Both films see a long championed auteur return to their favourite themes, feature a solitary character preferring isolation and disconnection to the world around and both essentially take place in the one room. Both as well attracted fairly mixed reviews with some people saying that they hadn't quite hit the heights of their previous work with others just boning off the fact that we're lucky enough to still have them making movies. Clearly I belong to that later camp although that's not to say I think this is as good as Brazil. The Zero Theorem is more ram-shackled than his previous work with the plot being like a trampy whore’s pubes in comparison to Brazil's elegant dame’s lady fluff. Despite that previous remark as well, there's a vein of smutty humour here that perhaps doesn't work quite as well as some of the satire. It's not like this has become Carry On Cyber-Tits or anything like that but just that perhaps the random boob shots just aren't as funny as we know Gilliam can be. Although it's still funny and you get to see some boobs so who’s really complaining?

Just out for a breath of fresh air...
However Gilliam, not up to his absolute highest of standards, still results in a film that towers over almost everything else that gets spunked onto a screen. The film has more insightful things to say in one paused frame than most people manage in a lifetime of blabbing which is impressive considering how much some people refuse to just shut the fuck up. Christoph Waltz is also really great in the lead role here too and really proves that he has the talent to match those two Oscars that he won for playing the exact same character in two of Tarantino's epic indulgences. I mean obviously all of the cast are brilliant to be honest, it's just that Waltz probably deserves special mention because he's in every fucking scene. Anyway, by now I guess you'll have either seen the film or probably already made your mind up about whether you should, so I'll wrap all this up. They say that the best films reflect back at you an aspect of yourself or society that you can relate to the most and this is definitely a good example of that. As I said at the start, provoking apathy is the date-rape drug of the individual however if there's one release then I'm sure it must be art. Art helps us cope with our issues which, on this lonely rock we call home, we definitely have plenty of. People ignore each other in favour of showing kindness. They tweet when they should talk. They hate when they should embrace. Everyday people die with their shitty un-ambitious dreams left completely unfulfilled and within the week it's as though they never existed. This film reflects all of that and for two brief hours Gilliam gives comfort to the miserable fucks like me who are convinced that life is a cunt... and I think to myself what a wonderful world!

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24 March 2014

It's Groundhog Day!!



The sound of my morning alarm would wake me up and then, as usual, it'd all be downhill from there. Being unemployed was possibly the worst period of my life with each day following the same shitty cycle as the last. Beyond the ritualistic combination of wanking and crying, the only other thing to do was apply for jobs with each failed attempt being like a kitchen knife to the horcrux. I'd send off cover letters, re-write c.v.’s, attend various open days and phone people up but it all felt like it was to no avail. Applying for jobs feels about as productive as using a sharpened turd to write the word 'help' on some bog roll before flushing it into the sewers and hoping for the existence of The Poop Fairy. Being employed isn't exactly peaches either but at least you now have some sense of self-worth and a few extra pennies to help block out the banality of our pointless fucking lives. When you're unemployed, not only can you not afford to go out but nor can you afford the suicidal cocktail of hardcore drugs that are essential to remaining sane when trapped between four bastard walls. At least in a job you've got your time off to look forward to but if you don't have any work to begin with then the days just merge into one depressing, limbo-like half-life. The only true way to acknowledge the passing of time is to carefully measure the increasing collection of piss samples that are kept brewing in a jar on the window-sill. Not having a job really is shit. Not having a job really is the closest you can get to Groundhog Day.  

As if it was all planned in advance, this neatly brings me to the film we'll be discussing in this blog... shock, motherfucking-horror, it's only bloody Groundhog Day!!! For any philistines who've yet to see this movie I'll summarise the plot, although seriously you need to just drop everything and watch it now because it's just that damn good. Bill Murray plays Phil Connors, a Weatherman who some might consider a little self-obsessed and who others might simply dismiss as being a bastard. He's not the only Phil though as by coincidence he shares his name with a small Groundhog that's used by the locals of Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania to predict the weather. Every February 2nd, people gather around the overinflated rat with tradition suggesting that if the furry fucker sees its shadow then there'll be six more weeks of winter. Because nothing boosts a person’s confidence like seeing an under-qualified rodent bluff its way through your career, Phil the Weatherman is sent to report a news story on it. He gets through the day, goes to bed and wakes up the next morning to mysteriously find out that he's about to live the exact same thing all over again. This happens over and over and over with Phil unexpectedly trapped in some weird time loop that forces him to continually relive the same twenty-four hours which were sadly quite shit to begin with. What a kick in the bollocks!

If there isn't at least one thing in this image that appeals to you,
then we have nothing in common.
Anyway, so many people have compared this film to things like It's A Wonderful Life or even A Christmas Carol with each involving supernatural forces teaching a man that he's a miserable cock-end. In my opinion though, Groundhog Day is better than both simply due to the fact that they're  severely lacking in the Bill Murray department. As the film progresses, Phil slowly changes his ways, realising that in a consequence free eternity, the only true satisfaction can come through complete selflessness. Ironically though, this became a career changer for the real Murray too with it acting as a kind of transitional film from his sillier, slapstick, films to his more subdued and artsy type stuff. Personally, Murray is one of my absolute heroes with his world weariness being something that my misanthropic self can easily relate to. Whereas some comedians get laughs from being over the top and attention seeky, Murray is the exact opposite instead adopting a persona that suggests he's already bored with all of life’s bullshit. There's more laughs to be had from him here from just one unimpressed look than there's ever been in the entirety of somebody as shit and annoying as Chris Tucker’s entire cinematic output.

However, Murray isn't the films sole asset with its ambiguous, relatively broad set-up possibly being its second greatest weapon. There's a theory floating about out there suggesting that our favourite films are those in which our personal baggage is most effectively reflected back at us. An example of this might be seen in Room 237 which is a documentary looking at The Shining and the various theories that some unhinged fans have decided that it is actually about. One person thought it was about the genocide of the Native Americans, another thought it was a re-telling of the Minotaur story and another thought it was Kubrick's way of admitting he faked the moon landings. None of them are wrong in their readings however each theory really tells more about those specific people than the film itself and it turns out they're all demented fuck-nuggets. Groundhog Day is open enough that almost anybody can relate to it because, let’s face it, who doesn't have an aspect of their life that they feel is going nowhere. As I mentioned earlier, it's unemployment that I was most reminded of whilst watching it but I reckon it could honestly be applied to pretty much anything. Do you have a partner with whom you feel things are getting a bit samey as they roll away from you with yet another headache? As you secretly try and toss yourself off without waking them up for the hundredth time in a row, you might think to yourself, “for fucks sake this is just like Groundhog Day”. You could even be somebody a bit more out of the normal like a serial killer for example... I'm sure when somebody has strangled a good few prostitutes, things must eventually get a bit repetitive for them and let’s face it, they probably only started their spree in the first place as a response to their own dull lives.

So not only does this film have the comic genius of Bill Murray at the centre of it but it also has a story that's relatable to every kind of person, whether it is a rejected lover or a woman-hating fuckhead. Even the Buddhists bone off it with the films central message of selflessness and rebirth being fairly close to their own message of spirituality. I guess the film is saying that if things have started to get a bit dull then you need to investigate your inner-self rather than just relying on a change in external forces. To be honest, I kind of agree. So is this film a masterpiece? Well it's certainly one of my all time favourites and one that I very much love but sadly I don't think it's quite flawless. If it's ninety-nine percent perfect then I think that one percent anomaly would look something like the grinning face of Andie MacDowell. For a start, the fact that she's even in the film is annoying because to me she's that woman whose spent the last two decades trying to flog me cosmetic products in crap adverts for shampoo and anti-wrinkle cream. It takes her no less than thirty seconds to get on my tits in them as it is and so a full on feature film with her is taking the absolute piss.

News just in! Andie McDowell is shit!
I mean, this could well be a thing that's personal to me and maybe other people think she's really great but I just find her so annoying. I'm not even saying she's a bad actress but just that she does my fucking head in. There's that line in Four Weddings and a Funeral where she says “Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed”, but the thing is, as shit as that is, I kind of believe her when she says it. With that accent and her confused expression, she seems like the type of dullard that wouldn't notice the same kind of things as us more self-aware and sentient beings. I dunno... in Groundhog Day, there's an annoying kind of superiority thing going on as though her character thinks she's better than everybody else. This would be fine if we were meant to dislike her but we're not and as a result I just find it so unbelievable that Murray's character would spend so much time falling in love with her. As a result of her performance, I just can't buy into that central romance which is kind of key part of the film. I was told by my last girlfriend that my heart had been replaced with a brick on some rope however that's no excuse here as I did love Murray and Johansson in Lost in Translation. I think there's just something about Andie MacDowell that's really irritating and kind of makes me want to die.

I guess it's another testament to the film that even though I struggle with its romantic subplot, I still love it. I watched it again recently due to the sad death of director Harold Ramis although if it's any consolation it seems fairly definite that his film will long be remembered after we've all also kicked the bucket. I mean, how many films can claim that their title has become a short hand for something in the way that Groundhog Day now refers to being stuck in a rut. Well I guess Forrest Gump has become a handy insult for disabled people and “It was like Deliverance” usually refers to when you thought you were going to get gay-raped... But those probably aren't things that the makers tend to brag about. Groundhog Day is just great with a fun concept, a brilliant central performance and apparently a universally praised moral at the centre of it. Being unemployed was like having a bag of ice rest on my balls in that it was dull, uncomfortable and I just wanted it to be over but if there's anything I don't think I'll ever get bored of it is, ironically, this film. Groundhog Day is an institution and something that everybody should see. Feel good films can sometimes be a bit annoying for somebody like me but I think I can certainly get on bored with one in which a man repeatedly succeeds in killing himself only to wake up alive the next morning and exclaim, “Ah nuts”. Fuck you world, and thanks for reading.

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17 March 2014

I Approve Of This Union



Here's a quick test to work out how you'll feel about The Grand Budapest Hotel... Did you like the last film you saw by director Wes Anderson? If ‘no’ then I wouldn't expect you to like this one either. I mean, I don't like trifles and so when I'm presented with a new one it's not that I won't like it but rather I suppose that the odds just aren't in my favour. You can change all the little details such as the type of jelly and all that shit but at the end of the day you’re still only left with a trifle. If however you went for the correct answer of yes then congratulations because you are in for a hell of a treat. This film is the magnus opus of Anderson's puddings made by a chef at the top of his game and with such a confidence in his own recipe that it's the purest and most expertly crafted trifle that you'll have ever tasted. If you like trifles then you will seriously love this film. Wait… what? Oh- I'm talking bollocks. Just, err... Well, to put it bluntly, The Grand Budapest Hotel is fucking phenomenal!

The film starts with a young girl opening a book near a monument dedicated to its author. The film starts with that author talking about his life. The film starts in the 1960's with the author as a younger man in a hotel and chatting to its current owner. The film starts with that owner as a younger man in the 1930's when he began his tutorage as a lobby boy under the current concierge, Mr. Gustave. The film starts... the film starts with a lot of fucking openings. The stuff in the 30's seems to take the bulk of it though with Gustave running The Grand Budapest Hotel with the precise efficiency of an obsessive watchmaker suffering from a bad case of the autism. He attends to all his clients’ needs ensuring that everybody has a pleasant stay and that all of his staff are at the absolute top of their game. Also because he's a true British gent, Gustave takes special care of some of his older female visitors by paying them a little extra attention and then occasionally fucking them stupid. Sadly, the sudden murder of his one favourite dodderer disrupts everything when it's revealed that she'd left him some significant inheritance in gratitude for fiddling with her leathery old lady wallet. As the main suspect, Gustave and his lobby boy then go on the run in a land that's so stylised it's like boiling Wes Anderson's brain on a rusty spoon and then injecting it straight into your fucking eyes. This is some good shit...

With pleasure, M. With pleasure.
I'm a huge fan of the James Bond franchise to the point that I once had a dream where, by sheer coincidence, I happened to meet both Sean Connery and Roger Moore at the exact same time. I know full well that this incident took place entirely in my own head but I still think it's a good contender for the best day of my life. What a fucking depressing fact... anyway, considering how many of those films there are, how important they've been and how blatant their formula is, I think there's a genuine argument that the Bond franchise should be classed as its own sub-genre. At this point and having now seen The Grand Budapest Hotel, I almost think the same could be said of Anderson's films too, to a degree. Any single frame of any one of his movies is so impenetrably his own that it's as if all he's done is stick a torch against one of his ears and then project the beam out through the other and onto a screen. Whether this latest film is his best I suppose is up for debate but at the very least it's certainly the most Wes Anderson film he's ever made. Kubrickesque camera movements, use of stop-motion, yellow titles, characters dressed up like himself, precisely symmetrical framing and quirkiness coming out of its arse are all more than present. If this was a Bond film it would definitely be his Goldfinger in which all the elements of his previous films have come together with such a confidence that the final product is a brick shit-house of his own unique style.

However, like marmite, rap music and un-consented titty fondles, Wes Anderson does seem to be a little divisive. Whereas some people go into a full-on jizz-fit over his shit, others seem to struggle to feel the hype and I therefore presume also find his style too distancing to get into. As I'm guessing has been made clear at this point I'm very much on team jizz-fit for his work and so I struggle to understand how people can't like him. I understand that they think he has style over substance but that's not too say he doesn't also have a lot of substance. People also claim that his characters aren't so much characters as they are simply walking quirks but my response to that is simply that it's just bollocks. I admit that perhaps this might be slightly true of some of his side characters with Willem Dafoe's psycho here being a good example of that I suppose. Although even to defend that, he's no less a character than a million others like him in other films... Perhaps the grizzled biker in the Coen Brothers Raising Arizona might be another one and that has been scientifically proven to be a masterpiece. Well, not by any actual scientists but certainly in my own head it has. I think the silent nutter is just a trope that gets dished out now and again and so what? At least in the case of both the Coen's and Anderson, I'd suggest their use of it is done somewhat ironically. Take almost any main character in any one of Anderson's films and I'll bet you that they're more well-drawn than almost any you'll find anywhere else. Richie Tenenbaum, Steve Zissou, Max Fischer and now Gustave H. I don't know what the rest of the year has in store for us but presuming Russia doesn't nuke us off the planet then I guarantee that Ralph Fiennes’ performance will become one of the more memorable of 2014.

Beyond his style, the written characters, the crazy amount of amazing actors, the story, and the soundtrack however, there are two other reasons that I love Anderson's films. Firstly they're just hilarious and secondly they're also heartbreakingly sad... again this latest one is no exception. Depending who you are, the odds are you'll think of Fiennes as the noseless bastard who tried to kill a magical child or even the fat slice of fuck who succeeded in killing a hell of a lot of Jews. The closest he's come to doing comedy that I know of is In Bruges and even in that the humour comes from how fucking demented he is. Here however there's a side to Fiennes that has remained untapped as it turns out he's as natural at performing comedy as he was being a hate-filled Nazi cunt. What a range! This might be the most Wes Anderson film that Anderson has ever created but I don't think it's my favourite with The Life Aquatic possibly retaining the top spot for me. Having said that, I think Gustave may be my new favourite character from all of his films which is quite the statement considering that's contending with at least seven lots of Bill Murray. There's just something about Gustave with his complete Britishness, his politeness, his sweary rants, his appreciation of life's niceties and then these random fucking existential outbursts that I loved. This questioning of life also comes back to the sadness however as, like all the others, this is a film that's drowning in melancholy. Everybody knows that nothing lasts forever and it's obvious that all of these people are coming to the end of their relevance. In many ways, this really is The Wild Bunch of nostalgic old hotel employees.  

This film has everything from huge laughs to effective prison survival methods!
So yes, as usual, Anderson's style is more eye catching than a giant ballsack made of rainbows but so what? In our boring world of the bland, why is such an obvious sense of identity such a bad thing? Visually, I can't really distinguish between a Michael Bay movie and a Roland Emmerich one and yet despite also being shittier than a fat man’s undercrackers, they make a fuck load of cash. I can't tell from looking whether a film is by either of those two men although if it turns out to be Michael Bay then I can generally guess from the crippling pangs in my soul. Anyway, to go on a slight tangent, I once spent a long time chasing after some girl who was clearly a bitch and I knew it. To find out why I wasn't listening to my brain I did a little post-porn internet research and found a psychological thing called The Halo Effect. To sum it up, it's basically a disease of the mind that allows you to like people you think are fit despite the fucking grief and kicks to the heart they might cause. The girl kind of took the piss with me but I couldn't just walk away because I'm a nice guy and she had nice tits. It happens. I mention this because, to a degree, I think this Halo effect has sort of consumed me for Wes Anderson's films too... except he's done nothing wrong for me to need to ignore, I guess. I love his stuff so much that I struggle to see how somebody can't like them at all. It's not that I don't agree with them, it's that I literally can't work out what's not to enjoy. If you're one of those people then please send in your issues on a postcard to help me understand... Or better yet, there's always the comments section below. Otherwise we should all just assume I'm right and accept that like everything else he's made, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a fucking masterpiece.

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10 March 2014

Shifting Bricks



Quantitative Easing, how aeroplanes actually fly, and Mickey Rourke's face are just a few examples of things that I don't understand. Another example might be the message of The Lego Movie which to me seemed about as conflicted as a by-the-book Bishop with both a cum stained collection of jazz mags and the words “cunt off” etched into his forehead. In case you've not seen the film yet it centres around the journey of a run-of-the-mill everyman named Emmet whose friendliness and positive attitude more than make up for the fact that he's also a massive thick fuck. Through a series of unfortunate events however, our cheerful average Joe becomes embroiled in a conflict between the films uber-villain known as Lord Business and some free-thinking hippy radicals. Where they want to simply sing and dance and revel in their anarchic creativity, he just wants them to be glued into place and to shut the fuck up. Oh, and because everybody believes Emmet to be 'The One' prophesied to bring down this villainous capitalist bastard, Lord Business has released Liam Neeson's schizophrenic Policeman to track them down and twat them into oblivion. So basically this film is sort of what a person might see if they choked on some Lego and then spent a few seconds hallucinating their way into the afterlife.

I suppose before we get into the nitty gritty of things I should say that, above all else, The Lego Movie is more than enjoyable. As somebody who'd have to think twice before swerving to avoid driving over a lost child during a busy school run, I'm glad that we're tricking them into seeing the world for the massive, evil bollock that it really is. Personally I can't think of a better way to introduce kids to the horrors of both fascism and the oppressive nature of big business than through the movie adaptation of some interlocking plastic bricks. Which is lucky because this film is littered with genuinely enjoyable satirical jabs at pretty much everything from logo'd coffee shops to the brain-dead fuckwits who pay for those drinks that, let’s face it, taste as though they've been blasted across a dirty wall from the arse-end of a scabby goat. The film also seems to poke fun at society’s obliviousness to the world around them, as Emmet casually dismisses death threats from his leader when distracted by a shitty catch-phrase based comedy show. If you've ever laughed at a fat Italian American man mumbling the phrase “how you doin'?” then this film basically thinks you’re a fucknugget... because you are!

Gotta love a good cum face...
In many ways you really have to admire the Lego company who have shown such expertise in attracting kids to their product that in an alternate world, they could have made one hell of a pedophile. In the past, children have existed in a grim black and white land of boredom where their only toys were broken sticks, dead animals and unexploded German bombs. To that generation, being introduced to the concept of a plastic brick must have seemed like a golden shower of creative joy... but not anymore. Nowdays our youngsters are frightened of reality preferring instead to face-plant some sort of technological device and absorb its flashing lights with the crazed desperation of an electronic crack-whore. It's to Lego’s huge credit then that it's kept up with this by taking the basic concept of their design and applying it to video games which, fuck me stupid, actually also turned out to be pretty damn good. Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Harry Potter are all surprisingly good fun. I mean, if you've played one of them then you've played them all, but movie tie-in games are generally shitter than shit and for Lego to do as well as they are with them is quite an achievement. Sure, the idea of a Lego film might on paper sound like a load of old wank in the same way that a porno based on a bashing game of Marbles also might. However in reality it seems like the company knows exactly what they're doing with this movie only being further proof of that.

However this is where my confusion regarding the film’s overall message kind of comes in. I think things are going to get a little spoilerific about now so if you've not seen the film you might want to toddle off for a little bit. Or not... up to you but don't complain when I ruin the ending in a second. So basically, Fox the corporation accused this film of being anti-capitalist which, to be fair, for the most part it does seem to be. It's not a subtle film and so if the villains name is Lord Business and he acts like a total cock-end then that might be a clue as to the movie’s overall theme. However despite having what Fox thought was an anti-capitalist agenda, the other thing that it very obviously is is an advert for Lego which is itself a big fucking business. So on the one hand the film is saying that people who can be manipulated into buying things for the shear balls of it are unthinking mongtards but then on the other it's saying STOP THINKING AND BUY OUR SHIT!!! At the same time as being shown how evil Lord Business is, we're also shown every possible Lego product you could possibly imagine in a musical montage that repeatedly sings the lyrics, “Everything is Awesome”. What a sly bastard this film is!

And then to confuse things even more, the concluding twenty minutes reveal an extra layer to the movie that kind of comes out of nowhere and possibly changes the message? Basically the entire world that our story is taking place in seems to be located in the basement of some real life boy’s house with the kid facing a parallel crisis with his father. The child wants to be creative and fuck shit up whereas his Dad wants everything segregated to their various themes and glued into place. So I guess that means that all the anti-capitalist stuff isn't actually an anti-capitalist message but simply just metaphorical of how some kid views his uptight and workaholic Dad? Considering the film ends with the father and son bonding at the same time that Lord Business realises the error of his ways and undoes all his evil work, I'd guess it has to be. Because if this film really was trying to make any sort of political comment then there's no way it could end with a corporation changing its ways and basically ruining its own business. If the end of this film was to be applied to the real world it would be along the lines of Donald Trump giving up his money before ending his life as a massive evil cunt. Although I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, do you?

I suppose therefore that the politics of this film aren't necessarily the politics of the filmmakers but instead the ill-informed brain rambles of a young boy with daddy issues. Which I guess means that the film isn't quite the hypocrite that it might initially seem. But surely we can still slag it off for trying to subconsciously manipulate the viewers into buying its shit can't we? Well I guess you could but then what the fuck did you expect? The film spends its first half openly admitting how evil large businesses can be and so if you weren't expecting a Lego film to promote its own products then more fool you for being such a fucking stupid knobhead. On the bright side though, and yes I'm aware this is still to help it sell stuff... but on the bright side, the other thing the film seems keen to celebrate is the power of the imagination. One second we're seeing a dance routine around a construction site and in the next, Batman and a deformed Pirate are chilling out on a bunk-sofa in the middle of a Lego sea.

His hair is still less stupid than Donald Trump's
To kind of conclude, I guess an obvious comparison to this film might be The Transformers franchise which is also based on a toy and is also obviously also an advert for them. However if the message of The Lego Movie is that ‘imagination is good, oh, and buy our shit’, then it beats The Transormers franchise hands down. Don't get me wrong, as Michael Bay's cinematic cancer does agree with the bit about buying their shit but prefers to replace the celebration of the imagination with racist robots and images of women that add nothing to the film but wanking material. Fox business might not like this film but I did and so I reckon you should check it out too... although hopefully you've already seen the thing considering I warned you earlier to stop reading before I gave away the entire end. In which case, just... I don't know...  stop reading now and let’s all just get on with our lives. Bye-bye!


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