Slumdogs And Millionaires

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Things didn't bode well for this new film version of Downton Abbey when I found myself sat next to a little old lady that had wandered to the cinema to watch the thing alone. “Don't mind me”, she said before cracking open a massive fucking bottle, “but I can hardly watch Downton without a Prosecco”. I've never seen a single fucking second of the show but it seems that even its fans need to get themselves fucking ratted to sit through it. I didn't even think it looked that good to begin with, so I figured that I'd need something stronger than a Prosecco to get me through it. I've never done cocaine in my life and I have no clue if it makes films more watchable but as the granny to my left proceeded to get herself twatted it seemed like now might be a good time to find out. Alas, the trailers had already finished at this point and I live such a sheltered life that unless Al Pacino had walked in with his Scarface costume then I wouldn't know what the fuck a drug dealer looked like. As the film went on and I found myself bored to fucking tedium I concluded that I was now faced with two options. I could remain sober and risk the film being so dull that my mental health might never quite recover or I could make a fucking move on the old lady and attempt to get pissed off the alcoholic fumes of her Prosecco-laced breath. 

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The Monster Book Of Monsters

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Did you see the remake of The Evil Dead? Do you know what I'd do if I found a book that was wrapped in human skin and tied shut with a piece of barbed wire? I'd throw it in the fucking bin. I read some porn that I found in the bushes as a kid once and that was fucking bad enough. Well.. I didn't read it but I was still frightened by what I saw. There are so many horror movies though in which the main characters find a clearly horrific piece of reading material and then start flicking through it like they've picked up the latest fucking Jack Reacher. I don't mean to sound too shitty but if you're hoping to pick up the latest best-seller for your book club then it's probably not going to be the one that you found in the bowels of a cursed fucking pyramid is it? The latest film to feature this as a plot device is the Guillermo Del Toro produced Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark in which a group of teenaged kids find a book that's written in blood and decide to take it home with them. Why would you do that? If I'm going to put myself at risk of catching AIDs then I can think of more fun ways of doing it than attempting a bit of light fucking reading. 

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The First Good Video Game Movie?

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Like googling the phrase 'two girls one cup', invading Poland, or visiting Toxteth, it seems that adapting a video game into a movie is one of the worst things that you could ever possibly do. Over the years we've been hit by a tsunami of shit after people have tried and failed to successfully transition one medium to the other and yet film-makers still persist in trying. This is despite almost every case attempted so far ending its life as a Tomb Raider or Super Mario Bros. shaped turd bobbing its way towards cinemas like a bloated corpse in a sea of piss. Assassin's Creed is the latest series to attempt the jump from games to movies, however if the reviews are anything to go by, it would appear that the success of this leap of faith has been equal to watching a drunk bloke attempt a 60ft bungee into a post-curry cesspool whilst using only his dick for a rope.

Go Forth And Multiply

Of all the big questions that humanity has pondered, the most important must of course be what species Piers Morgan is and how do we kill it? After that I suppose the next issue down the list might be ‘is there a God?’ and ‘if so, why is he such a twat?’ I should point out that I'm an agnostic and don't completely deny the possibility of the existence of the magical sky man. It would be arrogant of me to say there's no such thing as there's currently no chance that I can prove or disprove the concept either way. Having said that though, nor can I prove that in his spare time, God isn't a blacked up drag Queen called Sweet Latisha with diamond encrusted nipple tassels and a skull-shaped ivory cock ring. I can guess that, that is probably not the case in, as much as I can guess, he probably doesn't exist either but for now I suppose I just can't know for sure. Sadly however, a lot of the world is ironically a lot more closed minded than this, electing to instead believe a gut feeling or childhood indoctrination over something as silly as the freely available facts. Not only that but if you even attempt to point out the obvious ridiculousness of blind faith then they tend to get a little pissy for some reason. I don't know why this is the case but I'm going to guess it's possibly the result of an underlying insecurity that suggests they're worried we non-believers are probably right. Call a sensible skinny person fat and they'll just look at you as though you're stupid. Call a sensible fat person fat and they'll go crying to the ice-cream trough because secretly they know you might be right. 

In 1979, the geniuses that are Monty Python dared to make a comedy which had the nerve to take place around the same area and time as when Jesus was allegedly performing his magic tricks. Despite The Life of Brian making fun of the fictional title character and actually treating the real words of the Bible with surprising respect, the religious folk unfortunately failed to see the funny side. In fact, many of them failed to see the movie at all instead deciding once again to just believe what they'd heard and wrongly protest the film on the assumption that it ridiculed their faith. Had they  actually bothered to see it then they would have realised that in reality it depicts a world that validates their beliefs and instead makes fun of people who act irrationally in the name of religion. By protesting the The Life of Brian without having watched it, the Bible-bashers inadvertently became the exact thing the movie was taking the piss out off. Imagine the 'don't worry about the vase' scene from The Matrix but played out between a bunch of hilarious but mischievous comedians and a gang of humourless God Botherers and that's basically what happened here... and now it's happening again.

Today is not a washing day...

Darren Aronofsky's Noah is the latest film to get a religious kicking from that vocal minority of brainwashed fuckwits with some countries even going as far as simply banning the film outright. The movie tells the story of Noah who lived in that first half of the Bible where God is portrayed as being a great angry cunt who, like an evil dictator, punishes those who defy him. He's basically a bit like Hitler but without even the redeeming feature of a funny moustache. Anyway, God doesn't actually appear in this film with Noah instead suffering from a series of hallucinations that suggest to him that he needs to build a big old boat before the world floods and kills everybody. Rather than putting this down to too much cheese before bed and not enough schizophrenia medicine in the morning though, Noah does as he thinks he's told and decides to make a floaty wooden box for every single animal that he can find... as you do. Anyway, this is all going quite well thanks to a fair bit of help from some giant rock monsters until, of course, King Ray 'I'm the Daddy now' Winstone finds out he's going to be drowned and doesn't quite fancy the idea. On top of that, Noah's three sons have started to worry that they might not have anything to fuck whilst on the ark whilst somehow forgetting that they'll be surrounded by a boat load of mostly sleepy animals. 

I should say at this point that, although I'm still yet to see his debut film Pi, I am a huge fan of Aronofsky's films and so was really excited to see this movie. However I'd also say that I was probably left feeling a tiny bit disappointed by it in the end which isn't to say that it's a bad film at all but simply that it just doesn't quite hit the extraordinary heights of Black Swan or The Wrestler. As the film went on, and I tried to work out why I wasn't quite connecting to it, I think I came to one ironic point. Despite all of the controversy from Gods angry cult, the reason that this film doesn't work quite as well as a masterpiece such as Requiem For A Dream does is simply because of the batshit stupidity of the original source material. Aronofsky can do his absolute best with this story but at the end of the day it's a morality tale in which every single animal on the planet hides in a boat as God punishes the naughtiness of man with a merciless global genocide. The irony of this being that for me, the biggest criticism is the ridiculousness of the Bible story that the film is based on, but for everybody else, the controversy centres around the looseness of the adaptation. 

Due to the fact that the original Bible story is a relatively short one, Aronofsky has padded it out with strange mutant animals, Helms Deep style battles and an environmental message that surely nobody could take issue with…? Well, issue with it they did take as some braindead church goers seem unable to understand the definition of the word 'adaptation'. Apparently in his mission to roll a turd in glitter, Aronofsky decided to combine several Noah-esque tales from various different cultures in an attempt to create a more cinematic and believable story. As a result of this, the religious obsessives have been throwing their shit out of the pram in anger because he dared to make some logical changes to their original holy text. However for me, this is the same argument that people make whenever any book is adapted into a film and the fans get all pissy about it. 

People assume that because both books and films have the primary purpose of telling a story that the two mediums should be easily interchangeable.. but they're not. What might work in a novel might not in a film (for one of a million reasons) and as such will need to be adapted. Incidentally, that rule applies both ways but you rarely seem to hear people bitching about how shit the novelisation of their favourite film is! Anyway, my point is that a film has the right to tell the story that it wants to regardless of the content of whatever it's based on, and as such should be taken on its own merits. Note the use of the word 'adaption' as opposed to 'replication'. Blade Runner and The Shining are two prime examples of great films that took significant liberties with the books that they were adapted from and last time I checked they hadn't been banned in any countries, so why should Noah? Considering the believers are so fucking obsessed with sticking to the text, it's also worth noting that the ark in this film is built to the exact specifications as is laid out in their book. However despite this being the case, filming on Noah ran into some delays when Hurricane Sandy struck New York producing both storms and floods that the set was unable to cope with. So much for sticking to the 'facts’, hey?

I should re-emphasise too for the sake of fairness that it's not every religious person who is this narrow minded, with most, I'm sure, living perfectly social lives and having a good sense of perspective. In fact, according to the actual source of all information... I read on Wikipedia that the Arch-bishop of Canterbury referred to Noah as being, “interesting and thought-provoking”. It's just that the crazy ones tend to scream louder then the sane ones and it's easy to get pissed off by their manic and irrational hatreds. Not liking the film is one thing but banning it is something completely different. Just because they believe their bullshit doesn't mean anybody else should be dictated to by it as well. But like I say.. for the most part I'm sure religious people can see this film for what it is. It's just a shame for the odd nutcase, the American Bible belt, the worlds supply of creationists and the Governing censors of Pakistan, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Malaysia and Indonesia. It's also worth pointing out that in a few of the countries that it's been banned in, it wasn't banned because of a love of the Christian Bible but rather because they have their own different religion that this film seemingly contradicts. Like I mentioned above with my 'fatty and the trough of ice-cream' analogy, I guess you have to question the certainty of a religion that feels it has to deprive its members of an alternate perspective.

But ignoring all that, is the film actually any good? Well as I said, the story is a bit silly but by giving it a sense of timelessness, Aronofsky does a good job of making it fun. Set in a world that's kind of Star Wars-y and a bit Planet of the Apse-y this feels more like a sci-fi movie than it does any of those 1950's biblical epics that made a shit tonne of money and had a running time of about nine days. If there has to be a film about this story then I honestly think this is the best it's going to be although I kind of wish it had been more intense. Aronofksy is at his best when making a film that's just fucking brutal to watch and despite the apocalyptic theme of this, it didn't quite reach the horror of his previous efforts. However when things did come to a head, the film itself came into its own with Ray Winstone's character adding some much needed anger and Noah himself enduring a full on descent into guilt and madness. In fact when the flood does arrive, the film almost becomes a biblical remake of the previously mentioned film The Shining as the ark’s captain stomps about after his confined family with murderous intent. Before this however, the movie occasionally gets too close to taking itself a little too seriously considering the absurdity of the story. There's some scenes early on in which Anthony Hopkins obsesses over a quest for berries which was fucking hilarious and I still can't quite work out whether that was intentional or not. 

Speaking of taking-itself-too-seriously, people often slag of Russell Crowe for coming across as a bit up himself but fuck them because I think he's great. Although his Noah isn't exactly a sympathetic man, he's always watchable thanks to that mad ‘Travis Bickle’ glint in his eye that suggests he's kind of glad that a real rain has finally come down to wash away all the whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers and junkies. Perhaps more credit though should go to Jennifer Connelly who has the more thankless task of reminding the audience of Noah's hidden goodness by cowering from him and crying for an hour or so. Oh, and when she's not doing that, she's out preparing for the flood by trying to find a workable womb for her sons to impregnate whilst completely ignoring the option of simply taking one for the team. In fact, incest does seem to be another theme running through this film as in order to repopulate the world they only have one girl, Emma Watson, with them who’s not only been raised as a sister to the boys but also turns out to be barren anyway. Having not seen her in much else, it is nice to see Watson having a post-Potter career by competently portraying the anguish of a girl who has a Fault in her Chamber of Secrets. Still, the incest thing is again more of a problem with the Bible than it is this film with it here simply adding to the whole Star Wars-y vibe that I mentioned before.

Master and Commander: The Early Years

I suppose the real star of the film is, as is often the case with Aronofky's films, the composer Clint Mansell whose soundtrack is predictably phenomenal here. I guess I have nothing else to add to that point except that I recommend you check it out on YouTube... and then listen to everything else he's done whilst you're at it because his work is fucking amazing. Aronofsky himself too reminds us he's in charge here with the odd creative flourish such as a weird montage of birds flying and a cool scene in which cells divide and begin to evolve through time. It's kind of like that Fatboy Slim music video for Right here, Right now but here sadly ends just short of the creature turning into a short fat man in a T-Shirt saying, “I'm Number one so why try harder?” Anywho, as ever, I’ve waffled on for far too long so I'll end it here by saying that a lesser Aronofsky film is still a more satisfying prospect than a good effort from most other filmmakers. If you've not already seen Noah then my advice would be to ignore the religious criticisms and if anything, just make an effort to see the film if only to piss them off. But then what do I know? As I said in the opening paragraph, I'm not an atheist- I'm an agnostic, so maybe the fruitcakes are right all along. After all, God’s flood was designed to wipe out the evils of man and seems as the world is now run by such angels as the cuddly Putin, the maternal Mugabe and the self-deprecating Kim Jong Un, I suppose there must have been some divine help in creating our Utopian World of Peace. Ha then again... What a load of old shit. 

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The Scum of the Universe?

Okay, so I'll say right now that it's going to be a pain in the tits to discuss Ender's Game without spoiling anything. The entire point of the film is more or less revealed during its conclusion which pretty much makes it a proper bollock-ache to talk about. Anybody who’s seen the masterpiece that is A Serious Man will know exactly what I mean by this... anyone who hasn't needs to sort their lives out and see it right the-fuck away. If you've not seen Ender's Game yet then don't worry because I'm like a smack-addict were blog hits are concerned and so will write this to suit everybody. I know you didn't need to know this but just like when Lucius Fox invented a cure to the Scarecrows fear toxin, I just want you to be aware of the fucking effort that I'm putting in.

So I guess we should get the controversy out of the way at the beginning... Orson Scott Card is the author of the original book that the new film Ender's Game is based on and he's a cunt. As it turns out he's a massive fucking homophobe who seems to have upset quite a few people with his stupidly shit views on same sex relations. To sum them up, he basically doesn't like the idea of people rubbing their matching genitals up against each other and that those who do “cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society." He's also a full-on God botherer which I assume must be where this twattish outlook is coming from. Personally I couldn't give a turd about what the guy thinks because I really couldn't give a turd about him... but if I have to pick between the bullshit morals of an unproven God or the acceptance of ‘real love between two real humans’ then I'm afraid that the magical sky-man can go fuck himself. Sadly though, by disillusioning so many people, several groups have been loudly shouting for us to boycott the movie adaptation of this demented twat’s book. Despite this though, and as much as I can understand their anger, I guess this is a stance that I can't really condone either as I do believe that you really need to separate the art form the artist. Polanski's Chinatown is a masterpiece but that doesn't mean the film in anyway endorses the director’s previous hobby of doping up kids and then fucking them up the arse. I actually do have some advice on how to get around this problem but I'll save it until the end because firstly, this paragraph is getting way too long and secondly I can never think how to end these blogs. Anyway so prepare yourself for paragraph three where I think I'll talk about the films plot.

"So.. I see you're a scrawny slab of nothing..."

Ever the man of my word, the films plot takes place in the slightly distant future when an alien race has invaded Earth. In the book, the creatures are referred to as 'buggers' although thankfully because not everybody is a gay hating arse-maggot, that's not the case here. Luckily for us the alien invasion is halted when a heroic pilot flies straight into their Queen's mothership and suicide-bombs the shit out of her. Just like every other alien movie, it seems that despite their vast numbers all you have to do to kill them all is simply kill off their boss. If that is the case and you're an alien race that's smart enough to master intergalactic space travel then maybe next time leave the fucking Queen safely at home, hey? If my life depended solely on the survival of another then I'd have them securely locked up in my basement Joseph Fritzl-style and not paraded about in a war zone like a massive neon retard. Anyway a few years later we war-mongering humans are pretty paranoid that the aliens will soon return but with the advantage of now being fully pissed off. To prepare for this a scheme has been implemented in which kids that may prove useful are located and trained up to become child soldiers. I'm not sure who thought this would be a good idea but it's nice to see that America will eventually adopt the militaristic policies of Joseph Kony. Anyway, so at Battle School a lanky kid named Ender is discovered who, despite having legs that seem to go all the way up to his shoulders, is quickly believed to be “The One”. Although I've seen so many films about “The One” now that the term’s exclusivity seems to have been completely raped into meaninglessness. Because of this, Ender is therefore put through a series of rigorous tests to determine whether or not he can save us from being buggered by the buggers. After their initial defeat the aliens are still weak and yet to retaliate and so our plan is therefore to find a way of heroically kicking the shit out of them whilst they are both down and still vulnerable.

Okay so despite all the controversy, the main thing to say about this film is that regardless of all the clichés I actually thought it was really good. I hadn't read the book, I didn't really remember the trailers and if anything I went in thinking that it probably wouldn't be worthy of Harrison Ford's nerdgasmic, sci-fi legacy. Well, I came out still thinking that too, to be honest, but although this might not be Blade Runner or Star Wars, that's not to say he doesn't elevate the thing by simply turning up. For the most part, the film is just Harry Potter in space where our fate depends on the adventures of some pale young gonk as he attends a suspiciously paedophile-free but magical boarding school. There's even a gravity-free room here in which everybody floats about playing a dumbed down version of Quidditch. Although considering that the rules of actual Quidditch are about as complicated as a Victorian tarts’ anal pubes, this is really no bad thing. However, what is predominantly an averagely good film is donkey-punched into being a hell of a lot more interesting by a game-changing last act twist. Ender's Game deals with the morality of war, what it means to be human, the battle between ethics and victory, the merits of genocide and the theft of childhood. For a film that's based on the works of such a prejudiced fuckwit there is also a surprisingly blatant theme of tolerance present here as well. Like Starship Troopers before it, Ender's Game is further proof that a book shat out of a twats mind can still make an unrelatedly entertaining movie.

"You're the fucking problem you fucking Dr. White honkin' jam-rag
fucking spunk-bubble!"

Starring in the lead role of Ender is Asa Butterfield who has to have the dandiest fucking name I've ever heard. However considering the complexity of the character, he doesn't do too badly for someone so young. Not only does Ender have the burden of humanities survival resting on his frail cracker shoulders but he's also got his own sanity to deal with as he tries to decide whether he's a leader or a sociopath. I won't say he's great in the role but other than a de-pubified DeNiro, I think a lot of people would struggle with such a range. Like I said before, Harrison Ford is as great as you'd expect him to be, being both stubborn and sort of understandable despite the curse of a fairly two dimensional character. There's a bunch of other kids too but most of them are fairly forgettable leaving only a vague memory of irritation. The girl from True Grit was alright I guess but as a devout hater of children I'd still keep her shackled up in an attic until she was old enough to be interesting. Viola Davis is somebody that's usually really good but was given fairly little to do beyond argue ethics with Harrison Ford and then storm out like a trampled wife whose realised the dinner is burning. This therefore only leaves Ben Kingsley to leave an impression which is obviously achieved when he opens his mouth and reveals the random fucking accent of the week that he's been playing with. It's also amusing to see that despite the extremism of his Darth Maul-style face tattoos, Sir Ben is still maintaining that bald head and goatee combo that he's been rocking since the dawn of time.

I guess the only thing left to mention is the action and quality of special effects which here are both capable and engaging. I mention the effects only because director Gavin Hood’s previous film was X-men Origins: Wolverine which looked so bad it was like the CG had been shat out of a pixel factory during national 'fuck-up at work day'. It also goes without saying that Ender's Game is significantly better written than Hood’s previous film although that's probably obvious considering that a fat man could produce a better script if he farted a few pebbles across a keyboard. I was a little confused about why they were rearing child soldiers when adults could just as easily do the job. However, because I'm in a generous mood I'll assume that must be because I missed something and not because the film didn't explain enough as to why this was the case. The action is as engaging as any half decent action film ever is although it does lack the jizzy-rainbow of imagination that made Pacific Rim such an artistic twat-hammer to the eyes.

I understand that people don't want to see this film because they don't want their hard earned cash going into the original authors grubby, hate-filled pockets, but due to its brain, discussions on morality, themes of tolerance and Harrison-fucking-Ford I do think that the film deserves to be seen. The news hitting the web right now suggests that Card won't receive a penny of the films profits which, if true, is surely enough of a reason to at least not intentionally boycott it anyway. If however that's still not enough for you then here is my potential solution that I promised you earlier on. Say you spend about £9ish on a cinema ticket then why not also/instead simply post a steaming pile of dog shit to Card’s house? That way you get to see the film and he'll spend the money he may have made on carpet cleaner and air-freshener. Maybe this doesn't sound harsh enough considering that he basically has a Hitler-esque hate for a large portion of members of our species, however there was this one time that my dog sprayed a chocolaty soup of shite onto the kitchen floor that was so fucking rancid that cleaning it up caused my Dad to unexpectedly expel a mouthful of vomit down himself. I promise you that watching that was both the funniest and lowest moment of my entire life. Ugh, see even after setting myself up for an easy end this still doesn't feel conclusive enough because that last bit wasn't really about the film. I guess therefore I'll just give up and say that the next sentence will be the actual end of this week’s blog. And ever the man of my word, it is.

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Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.

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