There are so many things in this world that
we cannot currently explain, for instance; what was the real identity of Jack
the Ripper? What exactly did happen to the missing crew of the Mary Celeste?
And why whenever I'm about to have sex do I suddenly become desperate for a
piss? I'm not saying that these things will never be solved, but simply that we
just don't currently have the answers. One thing that can be explained pretty
easily however is the formation of ‘crop circles’. For years, people wondered
how these phenomenal patterns would appear over night with many suspecting the
work of something paranormal. Sadly there is a much more obvious answer that
doesn't require the involvement of mischievous little spacemen dicking about on
the sly. Basically, the truth is that some farmers are full of shit. If ever
some tractor-owning Worzel tries to tell you that aliens vandalised his field, then just punch the lying little
fucktard in the face and walk off. If publicity is what they're after then
there's no need to lie as those patterns are easily impressive enough to get reported on in newspapers and art columns. Also, if you're going
to make stuff up then why limit yourself to something as boring as aliens?
Untrustworthy farmers should be more creative and say that the crops were blown
down by a flatulent rainbow farting whimsy and colour-spunk into the world!
Signs was
released in 2002 and depicted this 'phenomenon' of crop circles as they re-occur
in the back garden of Mel 'Sugar Tits' Gibson. I say 'phenomenon' as here the
film obviously ups the dramatic tension by having them created by actual aliens. Not that that's the most
unbelievable thing about this film, I should point out. Despite everything in
his past, Mad Mel plays an ex-priest which would just never happen in reality.
It's not that I don't think that the church wouldn't allow the bigoted,
alcoholic to represent them but rather, for all his faults, I don't suspect him
to be a paedophile. Joining Gibson for the ride is a pre-mental-break-down
Joaquin Phoenix, the foetus of Abigail Breslin and also Rory Culkin. I don't know
what it is about the Culkin cult but for some reason every single one of them
has the detached look of a depressed smack addict and Rory is no exception.
Together however, this cast make up a happy family of gloomy dullards all
mourning the death of Gibbo's wife and the mother of his annoying children. In
fact, it's her death that's made the angry Jew-hater come to his senses by
hanging up his dog collar and denouncing the existence of the magical,
imaginary sky-wizard known as ‘God’.
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| I had no idea the circus was in town... |
Now things start off fairly well here, I
guess. It's clearly sub-Spielbergian guff but it's got a fairly tense
atmosphere and there are a few creepy moments. In fact, the scene featuring
home video footage of the alien is one of the creepiest things I've seen
reported on the news since Liza Minnelli married David Guest. There have been
plenty of alien invasion movies, however I can't think of many that don't deal
with the incident on a larger scale. Signs however decides to show
everything from the point of view of a clueless family learning everything from
rumour, guess work and society's collective gossip-whore, the ‘television’.
Despite his history as a violent Road Warrior, Mad Mel has no interest
in fighting the invaders, instead preferring to hide in the basement and
pretend nothing is happening. Sort of like what his real life father does
whenever anyone provides evidence of the holocaust. To his credit though,
Gibson is actually really good in this film reminding us that when not
screaming drunken obscenities he can actually be a pretty good actor. Also his
character seems to have formed a close friendship with the local policewoman
which adds an extra level of tension as you're never sure whether he's going to
offer her a drink or start ranting about the fucking “wetbacks”.
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| "Is it from a Jewish planet?" |
In fact, Gibson aside, virtually the whole
cast is very good here. I say virtually as like with so many other films, it's
significantly let down by the appearance of its own director M. Night
Shyamalan. When I say ‘so many other films’, I am of course referring to
anything featuring the pointy chinned wrecking ball that is Tarantino. I think
QT must be the worst actor of all time, with his bizarre cameo in Django
Unchained possibly being the clagnut cherry on top of a diarrhoea
coated cake of shit acting. In comparison, Shyamalan certainly isn't the worst
actor of all time but what really grates with him is just how indulgent his
role is. He's introduced to us when the rest of the cast spot him walking past
and all gasp as though directed to by an arrogant child now given a fat little
fistful of power. Unfortunately though he also has a scene later on in the film
which is all about himself and goes literally nowhere. Basically Shyamalan has
locked an alien in his house and for absolutely no real reason decided to phone
Gibson to tell him. I'm not really sure why, as I wouldn't call Mad Mel if I'd
had a visitor from another religion
let alone another fucking planet.
Shyamalan is known for his twists although
these traditionally happen near the end of a film. In Signs however it
appears midway through during his extended cameo. Up until now we've been
tricked into believing that this is a good movie, however here it's revealed
that the whole thing is actually a load of bollocks. Never has something
descended so quickly into a load of shit since Tub Girl took a bath and
arse-fired a fountain of turd-juice onto her own face. For anyone unsure of who
Tub Girl is then you should type it into Google images and see just how grim
humanity really is. I don't know about you but I'd rather be probed into Hell
by an alien from the planet Dildo than belong to the same species as that fat,
shitting bitch.
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| Scarred for life. |
The next big problem with Signs is
that it slips into sentimentalism with about as much subtlety as Freddie Kruger
at a fingering competition. I mean the syrupy bollocks is kind of sprinkled
throughout the film to start with but for the most part it's more like a
bearable feeling of nausea. However things get really bad when Gibbo starts
reminiscing about his children’s births as though it was a thing of Heavenly
beauty. I mean seriously, the way he describes it, you'd think the little
fuckers had hatched out of golden eggs having been delivered personally by the
angels. Mel bangs on about how his babies curiously looked around the hospital
room as though this is something to be in awe of. But what he fails to point
out is that all they'd have seen there was Mummy violently bleeding out, having
just had her vadge torn apart like a warm jam sandwich. If she'd have been
snipped from pussy to arse then at best, the massive hole might have made her
look like an expensive but fucked up novelty hat. Either way though, her pain
is proof that this wouldn't have been the mawkish scene that he described.
Unless, to be fair, he's drunkenly remembering it wrong which isn't unlikely.
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| "Since when did Earth have water?!" |
This gushy tone and schmaltz sadly continues
throughout the remainder of the film leading us conveniently to my final huge
problem. In the same way that we can be burnt by acid, these aliens apparently
suffer the same pain when touched by ordinary water. Just to reiterate that-
the flesh of these aliens literally burns off and kills them if touched by a
little drop of water. I mean what kind of stupid fucking creatures are these
that come to Earth with that kind of allergy? So apparently they're smart
enough to master intergalactic space travel but they're still retarded enough
to pick the worst possible planet to stop at? Beyond the fact that over two
thirds of our surface is covered in water we also have plenty of rain where it
randomly falls from the sky. I mean they didn't even wear protective clothing
so how did they expect to survive? I don't die when it rains but I'll still pop
on a cagoule if I'm nipping to the shop and it's drizzling. However these
aliens decided instead to ignore the huge and very real dangers simply so that
they could perform their invasion in the nude. The only way I can think
attacking whilst naked would be a good idea is if it was to aggressively show
the galactic size of your balls. Considering these invaders seem to have
travelled all the way from the Eunuch system, their lack of intimidating
genitals only adds to the stupidity of their plan.
In the end, Signs is a film that
starts off promisingly enough but sadly ends up as a lump of contrived shite. We
all presumed that the title was referencing the crop circles but in reality I
think it was a warning that Shyamalan's talent was about to disappear. His
career started of well with his first two films but by the time we got to The
Happenings’ farting killer plants, I think something had gone very wrong.
I'd warn people not to waste their life with this movie but considering it's
now kind of old I presume we've all probably seen it. I mean, don't get me
wrong, it's not as bad as those films that cost a quid to buy and feature ex-porn
stars but it's still very crap. I saw Signs when it was first released
and then saw it again more recently because I was with some friends who
apparently don't care about quality. There's a line in the film in which
Joaquin Phoenix says, “This is exactly what the
nerds want” but as a twenty-four year old male with Star Wars toys populating my
bedroom I can confirm it actually really
isn't.
Follow this blog or I'll fucking cut you.
