The Sound Of Silence

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I put a lot of thought into exactly when I'd go and see John Krasinski's A Quiet Place because people are noisy and I fucking hate them all. Horror movies are the worst type of film to see at the cinema because the posters for them might as well just read “All pricks are welcome”. Teenagers go in crowds to see them to show how brave they are to each other, accidentally get scared, and so to avoid seeming silly begin to openly mock the film to their gaggle of piss-giggling chums. My theory was that I'd likely be stuck with the largest number of fuckheads in an evening screen, with Friday and Saturday night especially being the cinema-equivalent of a bell-end's Mecca. As such I decided to go on a Sunday afternoon because who the fuck wants to spend that day relaxing to a sodding monster film? There are two types of 'Sunday people' with half the population spending it hungover and the other half praising God. Either way I figured I was safe. You can imagine my horror therefore when I opened the door to the screen and saw half of the fucking country sat and waiting for the film to start. I know I shouldn't think it when I go the cinema but I really did wish I'd brought a fucking axe with me.

Better To Reign In Hell

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There are lots of reasons that people didn't like Prometheus, however I'd cite the big smile on the zoologist's face as he attempts to stroke the fucking space-cobra as being one of the main ones. Rule number one of going into space.. don't stroke the fucking space-cobra! But before we judge that movie too harshly, perhaps we should have a quick look at the franchise as a whole. Alien is obviously a masterpiece; Aliens is one of the greatest sequels of all time; Alien 3 is like seeing a facehugger accidentally latch on to the anus of the franchise; and Alien: Resurrection is what happens when that misplaced Chestburster explodes. It should go without saying too that I don't acknowledge Alien Vs. Predator or it's even shittier sequel having agreed with its tagline of “Whoever wins, we lose”. So essentially I'd guess most peoples love of this series is actually down to just the good-will of the first two movies alone, with one of the franchise's biggest problems being its struggle to survive without Sigourney Weaver. I mean, just look at the fourth movie which jumped through so many fucking hoops to try and include her despite the fact that her character had died in the previous movie. If Prometheus should be credited for one thing it's that it figured out a way of continuing the franchise without her. If it can be criticised, it's that it forgot to put the fucking alien in it too.

Does This Survive The Cut?

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I'll say right now that The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 is the best second half of a film that I've ever been forced into paying full price to see. Generally it's nice for a film to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but thanks exclusively to the greed of the money grabbing studios, that's sadly not the case here. Occasionally a franchise will start spewing out billions of dollars in box office returns and as the thing comes to its inevitable conclusion, the money men will do whatever they can to drag things out for as much as they can. As has been the case with other young adult franchises, their solution seems to be to stretch the final book out for longer than it needs to be and then slicing it in half like a magician with a real saw and an assistant that he doesn't particularly care about. Fans of the book will argue that the final two films had to be extended like this to get everything in, but that's only because they lack an emotional distance. When adapting for the cinema, it's often required to trim, chop, and change things for the story to translate between the two mediums. Kind of like shooting a hostage's arm off to kill a suicide bomber behind them. As an impartial spectator, I can see how that would have been for the greater good despite the probable pissyness of the louder, screaming loved ones.

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.

A Journey Into The Mysterious Hole

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Science seems like a fairly interesting subject so I have to give credit to my school teachers for making it seem so fucking boring. In fact at this point, I think the majority of my scientific knowledge comes from Breaking Bad which I suspect was dubious at best. In school they taught me that friction will slow a tennis ball after it's rolled down a slope. How fucking mind blowing... In Breaking Bad though, I saw Walter White throw a bag of white shit at a wall and the whole thing fucking exploded. I don't even care if it's possible, that's science, bitch!! To be honest, I'm generally one of those people who doesn't care how something works so long that it does. Do I need to know how it's possible for me to get an internet signal on my phone wherever I am? Nope! But the knowledge that I can be anywhere in the world and still have access to hardcore pornography is more than comforting. 

Crazy As Hell

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There are two directors with similar names and who have had two very different careers. The first is Paul Thomas Anderson and the other is Paul W.S.Anderson. Paul Thomas Anderson is the man behind such masterpieces as There Will Be Blood and Magnolia whereas W.S. Anderson is responsible for such shite as AVP: Alien Vs. Predator and the ball-haemorrhagingly dull Resident Evil. Anyway, so if you too find it difficult to keep track of which is which, I have a handy little tip to help you remember. Just imagine that P.T stands for Pretty Terrific whereas as W.S stands for Wanky Shit. It works for me, so you're welcome! Anyway- bearing in mind that I know the poor fucker as Paul Wanky Shit Anderson, I was always curious about his 1997 sci-fi film Event Horizon. There really is no denying how crap his films are however this one seems to have become a bit of a cult hit and not just in a The Room style 'what-a-load-of-shite-that-is' way. Not only that but I listen to a lot of podcasts because they're easier to deal with than real friends and Empire Magazine's one bangs on about this film almost every week. I therefore decided to gamble an hour and a half of my life on their recommendation... Although fuck it, I'm single so it's not like I had anything better planned than tossing off and having a cry.

Spring Break Is The American Dream?

In all honesty I have no real idea what a Spring Break actually is and from what little I do know, I suspect I'd completely fucking hate it. I think it's like a big beach party in America where all the newly legal teens migrate to in order to get off their tits and bone each other.. but I'm no expert. In England the weather doesn't really permit us to strip off outside and even if it did, our fun would no doubt be spoilt by a hosepipe ban or an unchecked sex offender. To be honest with you, I'm only twenty-five now but I think that mentally I've been Arthur Dent since probably about birth. If I ended up at one of those teeny beach raves I wouldn't be joining in because it just seems a bit too vacuous and tribalistic for me. Kind of like if MTV had been involved in the last days of Rome. Instead I'd probably just be stood clothed on a nearby jetty, enjoying a nice cup of tea, as the youths frolic in the water and I wait to see if a rogue speed boat ploughs through and kills them all. It seems that it's the kind of place where nubile airheads go to do something 'crazy' as though the word 'crazy' really means exciting! But it doesn't mean exciting... It means completely fucking retarded.

With that in mind, the chances of me being able to relate to any single character in the film Spring Breakers seemed about as likely as those types of people giving any kind of shit about me. I know that we're all human but with their impulsive, extraverted nature and my crippling sense of cynicism, I refuse to believe that we're actually the same species. That being said, a movie doesn't necessarily need a sympathetic or relatable lead character if it has a particularly gripping style or story to pull you in. I mean, believe it or not but even at my age I still haven't been raped or even raped anybody in a quiet country house but that doesn't mean I can't love Straw Dogs. However the story of Spring Breakers begins with a group of young, shallow, tarts desperate to go to this ‘Spring Break’ event thing so that they can whip out their titties and start shoving some boys up themselves. Initially they don't have enough cash for the trip but by combining their five brain cells, they decide to just steal the money from some other people... which they do. After a few days of partying they end up in jail having been charged with the crime of being an irritating, coke snorting herd of slags. Lucky for them though, they've caught the eye of a dreadlocked freak named Alien who bails them out and takes them under his wing. There isn't a character here that doesn't represent everything that I hate about the world... To quote my hero Morrissey, “Come! Come! Come - nuclear bomb!”

I wonder what could be popular about this boobs.. I mean... film..

The film was written and directed by Harmony Korine whose previous efforts include Trash Humpers, Mister Lonely and the legendary Gummo. I actually saw Gummo for the first time last year and was shocked by how much I loved it. I'd been promised a film in which, “some weirdo's have a fight with a chair”, and so I was prepared for some morally dubious piece of shit in which disabled people are exploited for giggles... like they are on The X-Factor, however what I got instead was a beautifully shot and dreamlike film in which a town of impoverished hicks crack on with their simple lives of skinny dipping, theft and chubby-whoring. Obviously I enjoyed the chair fighting stuff too but there's no way that I can't love any film that concludes with a Roy Orbison song as some kid in bunny ears runs towards the camera whilst holding a dead cat. As a result of my love for Gummo I was looking forward to Spring Breakers. Also after the tragic death of the year 2013, people began including this film quite frequently in their top ten lists... So I was kind of excited.   

To anybody watching this film, my advice would be not to have the high expectations that I did and then afterwards wait at least a day before making any decision on it. You know when you eat some burgers that are so old that they've turned slightly green and, true story, you have to give it twenty-four hours to see if you shit yourself to death?… Well that's kind of what the movie is like. It needs time to sink in but when it does you'll either have had a good time or a really fucking terrible one. After much mulling over though, I can thankfully conclude that eventually I thought it was great! It's no Gummo but it's certainly fucking something... I think the main problem is that it depicts this stupid event as a kind of Mecca for knobheads but then doesn't seem to have an obvious opinion on it. I mean I think it's a satire because there's a voiceover in which the girls claim to be having such an enlightening time as a montage shows them pissing in the street but then maybe I'm just seeing that angle due to my own prejudice? I imagine that the kind of smooth skinned braindead fucktards that the movie depicts could probably watch Spring Breakers and take it completely at face value... as though it's a full-blown tribute to their shallow, unimportant and shit lives.

I think that for me the key to deciding how I felt was a scene near the end in which the twattish looking Alien plays the piano whilst his gang of trollops prance around him. They ask him to play something that will show his emotional side and so to prove how tender he can be he plays a song by Britney Fucking Spears. The scene then transcends into something bizarre as though Britney's music is the path to their enlightenment … As though her songs have any kind of meaning at all, let alone a deeper one. I mean, we do all remember who Britney is right? The talentless skank that went mad, shaved off her hair and then made a career out of flashing her gash. I mean I know there are scumbag members of the paparazzi lying in the gutter to get the flange-shot but she could still wear some fucking underwear. Have you seen her vagina? It's like Mother Theresa’s wrinkled arse hole... All rank and gross like a dying Sarlacc as it strains painfully for one last gasp of life. From this alone I had to conclude that the film was taking the piss because surely nobody could seriously treat Britney as some kind of white-trash deity? Surely they couldn't? Jesus- I hope it's taking the piss!

Well he looks like a lovely chap...

The other thing that deserves praise is this Alien character that I keep referring to or to be more specific, James Franco's performance as him. Franco is almost unrecognisable in this role having hidden himself beneath a head of hair that resembles the Predator's pubes and a set of gold teeth that suggests he's sucked off King Midas. Alien is a gangster but his heart is in the right place even if his brain isn't...  He's one of those morons that watches Scarface and idolises the career path having clearly not watched the end and seen that.. spoiler alert... Tony Montana doesn't end up as a rich and happy old man. Also I heard Franco say “y'all” so many times in Spring Breakers that I now have a permanent twitch in my eye that I'm sure suggests the phrase has become a trigger for me to go on a kill rampage. It's a great performance and one that is rightly gaining praise from most who see it however it does seem to have rubbed one chap up the wrong way. In July 2013 a rapper named Riff Raff sued the makers of this film claiming that the character of Alien had clearly been based on him and that he had not been paid or received credit for this. Beyond the fact that I'm pretty sure you don't need a person’s permission to portray them in a film I thought I'd Google him anyway and to be fair he has a point....When I first saw a picture of Riff Raff I was struck by two thoughts, the first was “Jesus he looks the spitting image of Franco's Alien” and the second was “Fuck me this guy looks like such a cunt”.

Franco's performance was great but nothing probably helped it more than surrounding him with an ensemble of dull actresses and characters that were completely devoid of any personality. It was the acting equivalent of standing next to the town munter just so that you can look better in a photograph. However with my reading of the film, these boring girls are intentionally this way to highlight the kind of insufferable dullards who enjoy this crap lifestyle. Again I'm pretty sure that some real life fucknuts could watch this and relate to the irritating skin-puppets on screen, however as much as I get this message, it's still pretty hard to sit with them for ninety minutes and so, for me, the other appeal of Spring Breakers was also in its style. Although to be fair, even that's garish and crass with all the colours set to eye raping levels of intensity. Remember when people first got dodgy copies of Photoshop and suddenly everybody thought they were a photographer because they could take a shit picture and then crank the curves and colour saturation up to such an extent that it looked like they'd been caught in a nuclear blast? Well that's kind of the look the film is going for too although again I'm hoping that this is another example of demonstrating the shallowness of this whole event.

To kind of conclude, there was some controversy after the film was released with some people claiming that its depiction of females was sexist but with others defending this saying that it was actually empowering for them. For me though the films refusal to have an obvious stance on its subject kind of results in it having its cake and eating it. On the one hand yeah these girls become tooled up bitches who take what they want and ultimately answer to nobody but on the other hand they do it with their arse out and their tits bouncing. I do recommend this film but if you watch it and decide that you need to go to a beach rave, I don't think that we can ever be friends again.

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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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