A Person Is Smart, People Are Dumb

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I sometimes wonder what the worst thing someone has done, who I’ve randomly been in close proximity to is. I walk past strangers all the time, at least one of them must have been a fucking nutter. I mean, I must have walked past a murderer at some point but have I walked past a murderer who then went home and shagged a dog? It's not impossible is it? What about a murderer who shagged a dog and then worshipped a statue of Mel Gibson that they'd made out of shit? I have walked past a lot of people and so I don't think we can rule it out. It's one of the many reasons that I tend to assault people who attempt to shake my hand. To me a stranger is basically a cat locked in a box with a can of poisonous gas that may or may not go off. They exist in a hypothetical state where they could either be Earth dwelling angels of kindness or even turd-obsessed whore killers who believe that Cliff Richard wants them to burn things. I'm more of a ‘glass-is-half-empty’ kind of chap and so if a human is being presented to me as a blank canvas then I'll assume that they're all animal rapists, child killers and Michael Bay fans until I'm proven wrong. If I don't know you then I think you're scum and I'd like you to leave me the fuck alone. In many ways, I think that this is one of the biggest reasons that I love the 1997 family movie, Men In Black.

I Hope We Die Like This

I don't necessarily believe it myself but I have a theory in regards to alien life. So far, we've not been visited by little green men and anyone who claims to have seen one is either a nutter or a bullshitter. Therefore, what if the reason we've never found any hard proof for alien life is because we're actually alone? I guess everything starts somewhere so why not with us? As Earth dies we'll move to another planet and then eventually another and another until finally you've got millions of human colonies on a million different planets. As we travel about the galaxy like intergalactic squatters, we'll eventually all evolve to suit our individual planets until inevitably the colonies look nothing like each other. By living and shagging on various worlds we'll eventually transform into the aliens that we currently imagine, abduct and probe us. Basically my theory is that in a few millenniums time, humanity will have reached its peak and become Parasitic Space Gypsies. 

Pacific Rim has a completely different idea to this, instead presenting extraterrestrials as giant fish creatures that want us dead. A giant portal has appeared in the ocean and has started spewing out these freaky looking aliens who have nine rows of teeth, five arse holes and swords for fingers. In response to this, humanity has participated in the only logical defence which is to fund skyscraper sized mecha-suits controlled by little people inside who are psychically connected. So basically, what we're left with is the ultimate Power Ranger Movie in which huge, fuck off-sized robots punch the absolute shit out of massive gunk-filled monsters. It's kind of like some sort of sci-fi, medieval film in which ugly future dragons are fought by knights that have been bummed by steroids and then strapped into a suit of armour that has rockets for elbows. What's not to love?

Stick it up his anus!

The basic message of the film is that life would be so much better if we all just settled our differences and became friends. So fish aliens aside, it's very obvious that this is a fantasy that takes place in a movie world that's very distinct from our actual reality. I don't even get on with my own neighbours so I'll be damned if I ever have to work alongside the French. However, in a climate where every film makes an effort to be real and gritty, this was a very welcome change. In Man Of Steel, the destruction of Metropolis was laughably over the top because it had tried to ground itself in realism. When Superman dragged Zod’s face along a skyscraper, I began to total up the financial burden that this would place upon our already struggling economy. Lois Lane would end up working in a supermarket, Perry White would become an alcoholic and Ma Kent would become the most wrinkled whore in all of Smallville. However, when it all kicks off in Pacific Rim, nothing matters beyond the joy of seeing a robot twat a monster with a massive metal ship. I don't think about the innocent victims, I don't think about the cost of destruction and I don't think about the state of world politics. All I want is for the big mechanical man to shove the boat really hard up the alien’s arsehole so that we can see the expression on its gigantic, startled face. The movie is just fun as hell and yes, I am aware of my issues.

I guess the only problem with these kinds of films is that when you've got apocalyptic sized bitch fights going on, the human characters can get slightly lost in the mix. It's hard to care about some fucktards’ daddy issues when we could be seeing an oversized Robocop get fist deep into some scabby Godzilla. However, for me, this film manages to avoid that pitfall by firstly making the characters interesting and secondly ensuring that their personalities are integral to the fights. The psychic connection that controls the machines means that any issues a pilot possesses could play a huge part in the outcome. If you get pissed off about something, the odds are you're going to fight better. If however you start getting flashbacks to some traumatic childhood event then I guess that'll become an influence too. As a child, I got my arm trapped in a fence and so just stood there crying until I was rescued by a passerby. If something as traumatic as this came to mind when I was in the middle of fighting a ninety foot creature with balls the size of the moon then the odds are that our world would quickly be fucked.

Everything about this film is just amazing, though. Being human, I'm obviously a huge fan of director Guillermo del Toro and although this might not be his best film, it's still absolutely brilliant. It's a big mainstream movie but it still contains all of his weird, quirky trademarks such as huge cogs, steampunk gimp suits and furless apeman Ron Perlman. Pacific Rim might aim for just being pure dumb fun but as big robot movies go, it shows crap like Transformers how it should be done. Where Michael Bay has banality and sexism, this has heart and style. There's a fight here between a robot and a lizard thing that starts in the ocean and ends up in space. After seeing something like that, it's obvious that Transformers 4 has got a lot to live up to. Sadly Michael Bay is such a talentless arsedroid that I'm not getting my hopes up. The neon colours of Pacific Rim are so gorgeous that it was like somebody had violently clawed at my eyes with a nail-file made of rainbows and glitter. Transformers, on the other hand, is so far away from being art that it's like watching an advert for overpriced cars, superficial tramps and lobotomies.

Humanity was not worth the fucking effort.

Speaking of bad movies, it's such a huge shame to see how badly Pacific Rim is doing at the box office. Despite being such a brilliant example of a summer blockbuster, it is currently being beaten by Grown Ups 2 which is about as depressing as being injected in the head with the blended up remains of Coldplay. Guillermo del Toro makes films that are genuinely unique and amazing whereas the quality of rival star Adam Sandler's cinematic output is equal to that of a particularly unambitious cauliflower. I'd like to hope that the success of shit like that at the expense of something as impressively imaginative as Pacific Rim is due to some sinister organisation subliminally brainwashing the taste out of humanity. Sadly though, I suspect the truth is that most people are fucking idiots all by themselves.   

Of course Pacific Rim isn't going to change the world but nor does it intend to. I'm sure there are plenty of plot holes and yes we can easily feign outrage at why the robots took so long to fight with swords instead of fists. Perhaps as well it'd have been better to stick the cockpits of the machines in the chest instead of the head considering how often they seem to get ripped off, but with something as big and glorious as this perhaps you've missed the point if all you can do is nitpick like a bell-end. Everything about this movie is geared towards pleasing the young child inside you and I don't mean in a Jimmy Saville or a rentboy kind of way. From the opening shot of the Roboteers tooling themselves up, my twenty-four year old mind just digressed twelve years and my excitement levels reached critical. I think I'm doing pretty well with seeing films released this year and so far this has been my favourite by far. I mean, I loved Furious 6 too, but with this I at least didn't need to over work my irony glands. In fact, the biggest disappointment with this film is just in how shit our reality seems afterwards. If we really were attacked like this in real life then there's no fucking way our governments would have either the balls or sense of fun to start funding giant metal bastards. Although when our destruction does come, I do hope it's at the hands of huge Japanese fish dragons. Not only would it be more interesting than our inevitable nuclear war but it'd be the most beautiful apocalypse we could ever hope for.      

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Cruise Control

Did you know that Jude Law was caught sleeping with a donkey for money? I heard the other day that Kevin Spacey got spotted bumming a tramp's dog in the woods. Is it true that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie conceived their last child by having him fist her with his spunk soaked hands?

There are lots of actors and actresses who get written about in those shitty, godforsaken gossip mags. With nothing but page after page of bullshit and sleaze you have to wonder who reads them and who cares? I'm interested in people in the movie world but only in regards to their professional output. In terms of who they're jizzing up, I really couldn't give a shiny shite. As far as I'm concerned, the only useful thing that we could do with magazines like 'Celebrity Cum Shots Weekly' is use them as fiery torches to burn the hacks who write them.

There are loads of different people that seem to have been particularly affected by them but one more so than many others must be Tom Cruise. Throughout the bulk of his career, he's been the centre of one particularly pointless rumour which is that he's gay. According to said rumour, the reason he won't admit to it and keeps getting married is to prevent any damage to his career. I'm putting it out there right now that, that is bullshit. The reason being because nobody fucking cares. Who gives a monkey-fuck if Tom Cruise takes a spunky shaft between the cheeks. As far as his reputation as an actor goes, I'm pretty sure he'll be fine. Weirdly when I go to see a film, it's to enjoy the art of cinema, not to try and second guess who's got the greasiest skin hole and why.

The main reason however, why Tom Cruise isn't staying in the closet to protect his reputation, is because he's a Scientologist. If it's his public image he's worried about then here's my advice, don't jump about on chat shows like a stupid fucking retard and don't admit to believing in dead aliens that live in our volcanos. Being gay these days is a socially acceptable thing to admit to. Being one of the most important members of a freaky E.T. church that's shrouded in secrecy and assumed to be a mad fucking cult is still a little abnormal.

Like I say though even that is irrelevant to what Tom Cruise is. If he wants to dress up as a xenomorph and wank over the night sky then by all means let him do it. What matters are the films he makes. Unfortunately I seem to be in the minority of people that think like that. Tom Cruise's career has been wrongly judged by millions for the last few decades based simply on his first few crappy films and his personal life. Maybe he does have weird beliefs and maybe he did start off by making Top Gun, Risky Business and Cocktail but things have moved on. Surely the work he's done since is enough to justify him as a great actor and not something for us to all stand around chatting about like some sort of fucking Wicker Man style gossip poll.

I'm sure he likes his films to make a lot of cash but I'm also sure that he cares a lot about the quality of those films as well. For proof just take a look at the directors he's worked with over the last twenty years or so. Oliver Stone, Michael Mann, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick are some of the most powerful people ever to make movies. I don't think they are likely to be bullied into a commercial decision at the expense of their vision by the midget actor from Days of Thunder. And that's even if he threatens to curse them into the mountains or bum them to death like the magazines said.

Regardless of any of his earlier “show me the money” shit, I love him for two simple reasons: Collateral and Magnolia. Both of these films are literally brilliant and both feature a stand out performance from Cruise. Both are proof as well that he really isn't too worried about being seen as the shiny, clean cut action star that some people think of him as.

Collateral was released in 2004 which makes me feel depressingly fucking old and tells the story of a poor unfortunate cab driver whose next customer happens to be a sociopathic hitman. Throughout the night the cabbie obliviously drives form one target to the next only becoming aware of the situation when like The Weather Girls predicted it starts raining men. Or at least it starts raining one man, onto the roof of his taxi and with a couple of bullet holes in his body. From this point on they continue the task of bumping off a couple of unfortunates with each murder being punctuated by a car ride and philosophical conversations about the meaning of life.

Cruise is literally amazing as Vincent and sails through the film like a slick, silver haired assassin. He's basically Philip Schofield but with a slightly more psychotic ability to kill. In a way this film is sort of like the anti Mission Impossible. Both are action movies in which Cruise plays a hired killer but whereas 'Ethan Hunt' is character designed solely to allow Cruise to show off his stunts, Vincent is much more talkey. With his philosophical views on life and what we should be doing, he's basically a selfish Tyler Durden.

Both Vincent and Durden can see how shit our world is and how stupid we all are. They can both see how we allow ourselves to be repressed by the rules we don't necessarily agree with and how we might accidentally fall into an averagely boring life simply because it's the done thing. The difference is that Tyler wants to change this, he wants to shake up the system, have us all revel in anarchy and be who we want. Vincent on the other hand is quite happy to exploit it for his own gain. When Durden finds a man in a job he hates he shoves a gun into his mouth and tells him to become a vet within the the next few weeks or he'll come back and kill him. When Vincent finds out that Jamie Fox has been a driver for 12 years he simply mocks him for it.

The way that Cruise plays Vincent is as though he's a lone wolf lost in the city. He's hunting for survival in a environment that he doesn't belong in. As things go slightly wrong he starts to look uglier and angrier and any likeable charm that he may have been displaying is instead replaced by a sociopathic need to kill. With his grey hair and sunken eyes Cruise basically looks like how he's going to in twenty years time when the aliens really do land here and just point and laugh at the notion of Scientology.

Likeability aside though there's no doubt that Vincent is cool. He's got an answer for everything, a decent sense of humour and he couldn't give a shit about the consequences of what he's doing. You get the impression that he's not even killing for the money rather because it's simply the only thing that there is for him to do. In todays economy and with jobs being as scarce as they are, a man with that “can do” attitude for work should only be respected in my book.

His performance in Magnolia however is the complete opposite of this again. 'Frank TJ Mackey' is a smug, slimy, misogynist cunt. He's exploitative, defensive and if it wasn't for his shitty past, he'd be pretty much morally unforgivable. Justin Bieber is the kind of celebrity maggot that exists simply to make a lot of people a lot of money. Bieber is an artistic vacuum, a talentless product and a commodity for young girls to drool over before they realise that vaginas are for more than just pissing with. Basically that punchable muppet is the kind of dislikable, money whoring tool that Tom Cruise is wrongly accused of being. I say wrongly because if Cruise was even slightly part of the system that Bieber is he wouldn't have done Magnolia. Think of the audience Bieber aims himself at and then try and imagine how disillusioned they would become if they heard him say lines like, “Seduce and Destroy will teach you the techniques to have any hardbody blonde just dripping to wet your dick.”

Magnolia is a slice of genius and one of the best ways to pass three hours that won't result in a dead hooker and a cocaine addiction. It's a modern epic with one of the best casts of all time doing their best to give the most memorable performance within a particularly mental but heartfelt story. However it's Cruise that runs away with the movie for simply throwing himself into the character without a worry for his dignity or reputation. By the time the credits come up we've seen frogs fall from the sky, a random musical number and a young boy piss himself. Despite this though, most people are still thinking about whether they actually heard that young warrior from Legend telling a crowd of sweaty men to, “Respect the cock and tame the cunt”.

'Frank TJ Mackey' is what people would for some reason call a brave performance. I fucking hate that though as to call a performance brave is to basically admit that you don't understand acting. We're not judging Cruise for the things Mackey says because unless you're remedial it's kind of obvious that they're two different people. The only performance I could think of as being brave would be The Deer Hunters Russian Roulette scene and that would only be if it was done for real. I don't think that playing Mackey was brave because of what it might do to Cruise's public reputation. Rather, I think that it was a good move for him to show off how good an actor he actually is. It's a basic rule that if you shout cock and cunt for long enough we'll eventually forgive any cheese that an actor may have made in the 80's.

Either way though, I guess nothing is going to change anytime soon. The people who read those fuck awful trash magazines will continue to lap up all of the bullshit celebrity sex and misery that is printed in them. Tom Cruise will continue to be disliked by many for reasons other than his films and the world will continue it's downward spiral of stupidity, shallowness and self-destruction. In fact the only celebrity whose sex life should maybe be mentioned is Roman Polanski or Richard Gere's. The day Tom Cruise bums a child or shoves a rodent up his arse is the day I'll show mild but passive interest. Until that day though I'm pretty sure there's a new Mission Impossible to catch up with.

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We Are The Gods Now

Just so you know there's a few little spoilers in this.

The big question about Prometheus since its conception has been whether or not it's an Alien prequel. The way the two films relationship has been repeatedly confirmed and denied it was like listening to a reluctant father trying to dodge child maintenance. They would admit there might be similar strands of DNA but refused to simply confirm it as the original’s offspring. In all honesty, having seen the film, they are kind of right - if Prometheus was conceived via turkey baster then it wasn't just Alien spunk that was shot up there. It seems that somebody's also wanked a mouthfull of Blade Runner, 2001 a space odyssey and also bizarrely Sunshine.

The film starts with the creation of the human race. Now, if the Bible is to be believed, our species was created when God invented Adam and Eve and their children all went mad and fucked each other. However according to Prometheus, we began thanks to the sacrifice of an Alien who drinks some black goo, falls into a lake and explodes out our genetic make-up. The Alien in question is who we geeks have referred to as the Space Jockey since 1979 and who we now see prancing about in the buff. It turns out those elephant-man fossils found in the original were his suit and not actually his head. When out in the nip, he looks less like John Merrick and more like the ivory statue that would have slid out of Liza Minnelli's vagina had Michael Jackson been biologically able to fuck her. Like everybody in the production for Prometheus, I'm going to ignore the similarities between this set up and the theory behind the costly, new-fangled religion of Scientology. However seeing a film that confirms our existence as a result of aliens would probably give John Travolta an erection so big you'd assume he's about to spread open his arse cheeks and ask for a massage. Again. Although to be honest I'd rather do that than sit through the suicidally awful Battlefield Earth again.

Cut to some years later and suddenly evidence of our creators is found by the girl without a dragon tattoo. Noomi Rapace discovers cave paintings from them which show the location of their home planet and what she assumes is an invitation to come visit. I'm no scientist but if I was her, I'd probably learn the alien for, “Stay the fuck away” before I just popped round for a cup of tea and a chin-wag. However being a religious character, she obviously assumes a whole lot of things and so instead of doing the proper risk assessment, follows her gut instinct and sets off for a catch up.

The mission to visit our ‘engineers’ is financed by the Weyland Industries who are flying the crew there on their ship, which is stupidly named Prometheus. Whilst the crew sleeps through the journey they are watched over by David- an android butler played to perfection by Michael Fassbender. David's personality is that of a slightly pissed of David Bowie possessed by Hal 9000 and designed by the Nazis. With his Aryan good-looks and willingness to follow any orders, David is basically Hitler’s one-balled wet-dream and consequentially, the best thing about this film. Knowing Fassbender is an android definitely explains the milky white substance shooting out of him in Shame. For one horrible second I assumed it was jizz but I guess he was just malfunctioning - kind of like how Gary Glitter malfunctioned in Vietnam, when he shagged all those kids, if you remember that.

When they arrive at their destination, it doesn't take long to figure out that things aren't going to end very well. I don't know if it's the moody landscape, the gothic architecture or the aggressive snake monsters that snap peoples arms and bleed acid, but something just isn't right. Nor for now is there any sign of the steroid infected Voldemorts who supposedly invited us to the party in the first place. As the crew explores the area they start to suspect that our Gods are dead and were most likely nasty cunts in the first place. This would be a sign for me to leave right away and reflect on the trip at home by uploading my LV-223 holiday photos to Facebook and laughing about them. Commenting that Millburn deep throated a snake like a ravenous Paris Hilton, or that Holloway died of terminal pink-eye sounds like fun. However curiosity killed the cat and these inquisitive twats just won't take a hint. If I went ‘round to a mates house and all I found was his decapitated head, I'd probably assume it was a bad time and leave. Scientists however, being nerdy and socially maladjusted simply stick the head in a bag and continue rummaging around like a randy Schwarzenegger with the key to his house keeper’s knicker-draw.

Since Prometheus's release the reviews have been average to good with the usual backlash from the internet geeks, however I personally really enjoyed the film and although it might not be the classic that Alien is, it's certainly the third-best film in the franchise. Compared to Alien Resurrection’s blockbuster sensibilities and shitty looking new-born, with its Skeletor face and saggy milk tits, Prometheus drags us back into ‘classy’ territory. Like Alien, this is a slow burning horror thriller with an eye for detail and a weird (but understandable) fear of pregnancy. However like 2001, this has grander ideas which aim to look at the meaning of life and who we are as a race. The original was less interested in these themes and more interested in who’s going to have a giant dick poke out of their chest next. People think that Alien is about the male fear of rape however with John Hurt’s pink helmeted protrusion, I think it's more about involuntary erections and the trouble they can cause.

If there's one thing I don't understand, it's why the ship they travel on is called Prometheus… They're going to meet some Gods and so name themselves after a guy who did the same and ended up having his liver pecked out for eternity. It's the same issue with Icarus in Sunshine! In that film, they are flying to the sun in order to nuke it back to life and so name their ship after some tosser who died flying too close to the sun. Is that not just tempting fate? Surely that's like us naming the Titanic the “Ice Breaker” or inventing a gas powered bathroom and naming it “The Holocaust”. I wouldn't use a type of condom called “The Cum Leaker”, so why would they fly on those ships named after their own failure?

The other issue I had with this film was the appearance of an old Peter Weyland played by Guy Pearce. At no point did he appear in a younger guise so why not just have some old actor play him? According to the IMDb trivia, a sequence was filmed involving the younger Weyland but cut from the final film. I would say that you could just have Guy Pearce play the younger version separately however also according to IMDb, Max Von Sydow was considered for the part first. Now bearing in mind he hasn't changed a fucking wrinkle in the last 40 years, I'd buy him as both the older and younger versions of himself. At least more so than old man Pearce who looks like someone's sculpted a live action statue of Mr Burns out of dried up shit and stuffed it into a speckled condom. I can only assume that this is another one of Guy Pearce's films we're not meant to notice he's in like The Road and Hurt Locker. I can't be sure but by the amount of roles he's secretly played, I can only assume he's running some sort of crafty benefit scam. You might be able to take the boy out of Australia but you can never remove the reinforced criminal attitude out of a boy raised in a prison.

What I did however like was how upfront Weyland Industries were in their sinisterness. Having seen four films in which they prove themselves as trustworthy as Winona Ryder in a clothes store, I guess there was no point hiding it anymore. This ulterior motive is made open by Charlize Theron's ice-bitch Meredith Vickers who considerately flame throws one character to death like an impatient fatty on Summer’s single barbecue day. By doing this, she comes across as a heartless trout for not allowing an infected character back on board the ship, however if you ask me, a person turning black and screaming “kill me” is probably grounds to suspect their illness is more than an iffy tummy or a precursor to the shits and so should be quarantined. What's interesting is that Ripley in Alien does the exact same thing regarding John Hurts character. If only she had the balls to go as far as Vickers did then it wouldn't have been the entire crew that died too.

Speaking of Vickers’ balls, I'm not sure why the medical pod in her private room was set to male only. From the moment she turns up it seems there is more to her than she's letting on but I assumed the secret was something to do with Peter Weyland and not that big slab of cock and bollocks down her pants. Unfortunately, that meaty secret is never revealed however the medical pod is the setting for the films best scene. Noomi Rapace's whimsical abortion was a scene of sheer horror genius. The way the pod’s arm removes a squid out of her stomach like a crappy claw machine was amazing. If the grabber games were that good at our arcades, I'd consider going more often. As it stands, our arcades are depressing places filled with old men losing their saved pennies, eating oranges and dribbling. Although this scene might not quite match the terror of Aliens original, it's still brilliant and shows how our technology has evolved from soapy water and a rusty coat hanger. It's also good to see a woman who thinks pregnancy through logically and refuses to let her decision be decided by girly old emotions. If I could only sleep with girls like that, I'd feel much happier about it all. In fact if any girls would just sleep with me full-stop, I'd probably feel much happier about things in general.

As everybody seems to be pointing out; this film isn't perfect, however even if you hate everything else, it's worth the time simply for David. He's an android whose actions and likeability lie somewhere between Ash and Bishop, however I have no idea what he was doing throughout. I don't know why he was spiking drinks and then refusing abortions like the Chinese bitch in Juno as he seemed to pay no attention to Rapace removing the thing herself. I'm sure though that this is my problem and I just missed a few plot points. People have said he was acting on behalf of Weyland but even he didn't seem to give a shit about her successful visit to the medical pod. If anybody knows what was going on then let me know as £7 is quite expensive to have to see a film again. It's not that I'm tight with my money but seeing people donate money to street-tramps does make me feel sick. And want to vomit down my chest. Onto my own balls. Hate it.

In the end, Ridley Scott’s return to sci-fi has, in my opinion, been successful. Sure, this isn't up there with Alien or Blade Runner but really, what is? Compare this to George Lucas's attempts at making a prequel to a 30 year old sci-fi film and suddenly things look a lot brighter. Prometheus has big ideas, impressive set pieces and takes place in a world so visually brilliant that it could only come from the mind of Scott. Sure it doesn't have the same suffocating sense of dread as the original but nor has it introduced an offensive Jamaican stereotype that's meant to provide humour whilst acting like a cunt. Based on this new film, I'm looking forward to watching what will hopefully be a separate franchise, especially because I've no idea how they will do the sequel. Judging by the fact that it could simply star Rapace and Fassbender's decapitated head, I'm hoping it will switch genres like Aliens did and become a romcom. As a couple in love, they'd certainly be more believable than Katherine Heigl was in any film she's ever been in with any man ever, so why the fuck not?

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Super Trooper

Nostalgia is a drug that turns the past into a dream. This world is a shitty place to live but thanks to that rose-tinted antidepressant, we remember things a little bit better than they where. In all honesty I think we can credit it for being the sole reason that people from the 1980's haven't committed suicide yet. If Margaret Thatcher’s reign of terror wasn't enough to be ashamed about there was also AIDs, racist skin-heads and worst of all nobody trimmed their pubes. It was a decade in which John Lennon was shot dead and yet human-gremlin Chris De Burgh was allowed to warble his nauseating cries in a shockingly bullet free environment. However, as well as being a sort of self-prescribed Lithium, nostalgia is also one of the main ingredients in plenty of films. One movie that relied heavily on it that I happen to have recently seen is J.J. Abram's monster movie Super 8.

Super 8 starts in a warm suburban area during the 1970's as a gang of pre-pubescent kids plan to make a short film. These days they'd just record themselves happy slapping and then stick it on Facebook, but this gang have instead bizarrely decided to make something with a story and zombies. As a scene is to be shot at a railway station in the middle of the night, the kids sneak out one evening to get the footage and without telling their parents. Thankfully, the 70's were a time in which paedophiles didn't exist and so the only thing the kids have to worry about is a train being de-railed and an alien escaping from one of the carriages. Unfortunately for our young Ed Woods, this is exactly what happens with the entire crash being captured on their camera.

After that night the kids make the decision to keep the incident to themselves. Partly because they believe they'll get into trouble, partly because the man who caused the crash waved a gun at them and partly because the army is looking to kill any witnesses. Despite this threat however the kids instead decide, “fuck it, let's finish the film”. They grab their parents’ porno camera and continue filming their amateur zombie flick. At this point too, the Alien starts acting like a proper fucking scallywag by playing silly buggers with the locals dogs and stealing car engines. It's basically a thieving Winona Ryder but with six arms and scales.

As I mentioned, the movie relies heavily on nostalgia. Nostalgia for the 70's and nostalgia for the childhood that we all wish we'd had. The decade is lovingly recreated with old cars, disco music and not a mention of the Bond movie Moonraker. I don't care how bad Idi Amin's dictatorship got, it can't have been worse than watching a bird do a double take as Roger Moore rides a boat through the streets of Venice…

In regards to childhood, this movie takes the Stand By Me approach. It shows being young as such an independent, adventurous time that I wish I'd occasionally ventured into the mythical land of ‘outdoors’ and gone exploring myself. In reality I would go out occasionally but only if my Mum had spitefully hidden the Nintendo hand-controller. The closest I got to a nostalgic childhood adventure was watching a young girl from my road doing a shit under a slide. She told me it was “our secret and if anybody asks we should say it was a dog”. I informed her that as far as I was concerned, “it was done by a dog” and we never played out together again. Hardly the fucking Goonies was it?

Abrams has made no secret of the fact that this film is a love letter to the works of Steven Spielberg. As such it contains elements of everything from Close Encounters, E.T., Jaws and even Jurassic Park. It's kind of an odd film in that way as by being intentionally derivative of Spielberg it contains everything that is great about his films but in a way that is not quite as good. It's the equivalent of somebody now going around Whitechapel to chop up some whores but wearing a Jack the Ripper costume. On the one hand you can see the loving references to everything you enjoyed the first time round but on the other you can't help but wish that it was a little more original. Maybe instead of boiling their organs he could deep fry them or eat them with a Pot Noodle? The point is you can't do better than the things you're replicating so rather than carbon-copying them, why not do something a little different? If it was me I'd probably stick the whore’s heart in the microwave and then have it with a cup of tea and some chocolate hobnobs. But that's just me...

The other problem with Super 8 is that you don't see the alien for the majority of the film. Generally that's not a problem as in the case of 2010's Monsters. In that film, the beasts were just slime-ing around in the background doing their best to avoid the plot. Here though the creature is sort of forgotten about and then returns as the centre piece of the movie. The only problem is that by the time he comes back I've already lost interest in him. It's a little bit like having a respectable dinner party and just before dessert, Mr. Blobby runs in, smashes the place up and has a wank. It's not that we don't like Mr. Blobby but rather that things were going really rather well until he ruined it by spraying the post-meal trifle with his presumably pink spunk.

I guess the issue is that the film is composed of two genres. Half of it is a sci-fi movie and the other a coming of age drama, however by being so character heavy, it's the latter aspect that works the best. A relationship starts to blossom between two of the kids however they conclude the film by going alien hunting. A more natural progression of their story arch would obviously be a disastrous attempt at finger banging each other followed by estrangement and then probably suicide. With its Stand By Me cast of kids trying to make a movie- one of the films that this closely resembles is Garth Jennings Son Of Rambow. Super 8's last act becoming The Goonies from Space is a little bit like if Stallone had turned up as Rambo in that other film, slit the two kids’ throats and then skinned them. Obviously Stallone murdering two children in order to wrap up a family movie would be a disastrous decision. He's an awful actor and would no doubt ruin it with his post-stroke, gorilla grunting.

Despite that, in my humble opinion, Super 8 is still a really good film. If you want to celebrate everything that is great about Spielberg without watching any of his work then this is the DVD for you. I'll definitely be watching it again simply because of how much I enjoyed the company of those characters. They were brilliantly acted, realistically written and for kids, they were unrealistically likeable. Where child actors are generally concerned I think most people start praying their film’s plot is about to incorporate infanticide. Even as a kid, my thoughts when seeing the young Anakin were, “what an irritating twat”.

There's only one point in which the Sci-fi and the “coming of age” combine and that's in the magnetic jewellery conclusion. I know it's the sweet music and the manipulatively sentimental imagery, but fuck it- I enjoyed that too! Perhaps this film is in too much of a debt to Spielberg but at least it's not a franchise. In a land of sequels, prequels and remakes, anything even close to new should be celebrated. It's made by a phenomenal film-maker who will do even better when one day working with his own material. One of the best things about Spielberg’s films is the fact that they're clearly made by a man full of love. Like the boiling pot in Jack the Rippers final murder, plenty of heart is definitely what this film contains. If anybody deserves a nostalgic letter of admiration for their work then one to Spielberg from JJ Abrams is the one I want to see. Having said that, one to Ken Loach from Michael Bay might be fun too. Who wouldn't pay to see the bird explode at the end of Kes 2: Revenge of the Fallen.

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