I Gotta Have Faith

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To quote the great Woody Allen, “to you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the loyal opposition”. It was therefore with great anticipation that I went to see Martin Scorsese's latest film Silence which deals with God's seemingly never-ending decision to stay mute in spite of his followers' needs. I was talking to a Christian friend of mine once, when I asked him some of the more cliched questions regarding his religion- “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, “How insecure must a super-being be to create an ant-farm planet of humans that he insists must either worship him or spend an eternity in agonising damnation?”.. the usual bullshit. In every single case he confidently answered me with, “I don't know”, as though these things didn't bother him. Finally, I asked, “Why has nothing Bible related happened more recently than the time of the Bible? Since the invention of the camera, there's been no parting of the seas, no talking bushes, no booming voice from the sky...” It was at this point my religious friend lowered his head and with a defeated tone answered, “I don't know.. I just don't know.. but I wonder that all the time too”. He then went silent. “Right”, I thought, “My job here is done. I'm off for a fucking cheeseburger”.

Bored Of The Rings

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The Ring is a film in which a video cassette exists that will send shivers down the spine of anybody that watches it. No, not that homemade sex tape in which Screech from Saved By The Bell supposedly gets a bit of poo on his finger and rubs it above his girlfriend's lip.. something much, much worse. Actually, if we're being honest, I don't think many videos can get much fucking worse than Screech's sex tape, and certainly not the one in The fucking Ring. It features shitty footage of some vaguely surreal and supposedly nightmarish imagery that looks like it was handed in on a lazy day by a particularly pretentious visual arts student. However once this footage has been viewed, things do get scary because soon you'll receive a phone call in which a girls voice simply says “Seven days”. Of course I'd just assume that this is the fucking take-away shop finally calling me back to tell me how much longer my pizza is delayed until delivery. However in the world of the film, it means that you have a week left to live... which if you eat at the same shitty take-away shop I constantly do is probably fucking true all the same.

Trainspotting Is My Favourite Film.. Now for T2.

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Trainspotting is without a doubt my favourite film of all time and so the last thing I needed was a shite sequel to it. As I saw something that I held so close to me thrown all over the cinema screen like Spud's post-piss up shit flung from his bed covers, I can only imagine the disappointment I'd feel. I can imagine the new film starting and as its crapness dawned on me, getting that sinking feeling in my stomach that dragged me down through the cinema floor as Lou Reed played softly through my mind. I might not have been the appropriate age to have seen the first movie during its original decade-defining release, but for about the last twelve years, there's only been one film that I turn to in times of need. Whether shit is going well or shit is going wrong, I don't just sit at home on the couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows. When depressed about my own failure to choose a family, a career, a starter home.. when I lie there wondering who the fuck I am on a Sunday morning, then I know it's time to watch the film. I choose Renton's destructive connection to his friends, Begbie's impotent rage, Sickboys unsuccessful schemes, and contrary to Vin Diesel's appearance as a giant human potato, I choose cinemas most iconic Spud.

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.

Ready For La La Love?!

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Musicals are a strange old thing. Especially the ones in which crowds spring into a huge song and dance routines en mass and then go back to their normal activities as though nothing had ever happened. It's sort of as though every musical like that belongs to a George A Romero-like apocalyptic sub-genre in which humanity has been infected with some sort of singing tourettes. If the afflicted in 28 Days Later were bitten by a rage infected monkey then I can only assume the occupants of a musical were bitten by whatever this genre's equivalent is. I don't know what that would be but I'm thinking.. probably.. Bonnie Tyler. As such, I can see why some people wouldn't like musicals. It is strange to see people express their inner thoughts and deepest emotions with what looks like a completely improvised song and dance that everybody knows the lyrics and choreography too. Although fuck it- I'm English, so I'm shocked whenever people simply express their deepest emotions regardless of how they do it.

An Emotional Kick

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Other than the global economy, the destruction of the environment, and our complete inhumanity towards the poor and needy, I suppose the most annoying thing about the world are those pricks that talk at the cinema. My problem with this is that I refuse to leave the screening to get a staff member because I don't want to miss any of the film and I can't shush them because I'm too busy holding in a fireball of rage. As a result, I worry that if I go over and ask them to be quiet I'll accidentally lose my shit and just throw battery acid in their face and then piss on their burning body. I suppose I should just stop carrying battery acid around really. However when I went to see A Monster Calls, some dickhead Mum had brought her melon-headed gizoid of a child and the little turd-monger just wouldn't shut the fuck up throughout the movie. I tried to hush the noisy little nipper with a polite word but in doing so I accidentally uncorked my own bottle of rage and before I knew what was going on I'd accidentally threatened the tiny mite with physical violence. Anyway, I felt a surge of adrenalin, he shut the fuck up, and I was able to get on with enjoying the film. The moral of the story? Sometimes it's okay to scare children.

An Infernal Waste Of Time

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The cinema I go to is near the sea and so when the wind picks up, it really fucking picks up. The other day I went to see a showing of the new Ron Howard film Inferno and, as the wind got stronger, it managed to find its way into the screen through a vent which could be heard throughout the entire movie as a high-pitched whistling. Or at least I think that's what that noise was?! Because in all honesty from about five minutes in I can't be sure that the sound wasn't actually the dying screams of my brain as the film spent two full hours mercilessly smothering it with a mouldy pillow of dumbness. Apparently this film is the third in the Dan Brown trilogy following on from The Da Vinci Code and Angels And Demons, which I'll admit I haven't actually seen. However from what I hear, Dan Brown is both Brown in name and brown in quality with his series being as shit as Tom Hanks's Da Vinci Code mullet. If that's true then I guess I'm here to report that Inferno hasn't broken that run of bollocks. Imagine the already crap Mission:Impossible 2 if they replaced Ethan Hunt with the boring version of Marcus Brody from Raiders Of The Lost Ark and you're not a million miles away from what this film is. But it's shitter than that... Somehow...

What Is The Chance Of Success?

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Whether it be The Scorpion King from The Mummy franchise or a bit of dog shit from a bike tyre, spin-offs are not always very enjoyable. Rather than being a cash-in however, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is like a kid on the last day of school. You're still attending class and therefore have to abide by the bulk of the usual rules but so long as you don't do something too stupid like reveal the teacher's blatant alcoholism or out the caretaker as a nonce, then you're mostly left to do what you want. Well, in that vein, Rogue One is still very much a part of the Star Wars universe, but one that's not shackled to every single one of the tropes of the main episodes. So gone are the old familiars of an opening text crawl, the Jedi, and incest, only to be replaced by a much more gritty, much more self-contained story of blowing up.. well.. the Death Star. I guess some things never change and although we might not be so bound to the intergalactic episode of The Jeremy Kyle Show that is the Skywalker family, you can never have too many films in which a rag-tag gang of survivors must fight to destroy cinema's most devastating disco-ball.

Face To Face With Greatness

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Disney's latest film Moana tells the story of a teenage Polynesian girl that wants to run away from home. However although most teenage girls that runaway from home do so for dangerous reasons, such as the fact that they've put their trust into an older man with a nice car and a predatory agenda, Moana simply wants to save her island from a destructive curse. To do this she must hunt down a demi-God named Maui who is essentially responsible for all of the troubles that she's suffering, which must be nice for her. I mean, as a society, we're all used to a God being at the heart of our troubles, but unlike everybody else that's ever been gullible enough to believe in one, at least she knows that hers isn't total made-up bullshit. Her adventure involves travelling overseas, which is something that her father has strictly forbidden her to do because it's dangerous and he has some common sense. However the girl's dying Grandma is at a point in her life where she clearly doesn't give a fuck about anything and so encourages our hero out on her suicide mission. The old woman also thinks that once she dies she'll turn into a giant stingray looking thing that'll no doubt help the plot out at some point. I don't know why she wants to be a giant stingray but I'm going to guess she's not a fan of Steve Irwin.

Have Filmmakers Run Out Of Ideas?

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It's easy to say that filmmakers have run out of ideas when screens are full of sequels, remakes, and whatever the fuck piece of shit Batman V Superman was meant to be. In fact, this is something I heard two middle-aged men bitching about the other day and I suppose it's easy to see why. I mean look at what's on right now... Ben Hur and The Magnificent 7? It's like we're into the remake part of the studio named 'Stuff that Dad's might like'. Sadly my Dad is more into drinking himself into an early grave and remaining married to his miserable bitch wife than he is in seeing films, so I ended up going to The Magnificent 7 with a friend instead. I should point out at this point too that as terrible as I'm sure it is to admit, I haven't actually seen the original. Sorry. I guess I'm rarely sat in front of the television on Easter Sunday. It's just one of those things that's been on my 'to do list' for ages along with completing The Wire and either figuring out what the fuck my life is about or finally going through with the car exhaust, hose pipe, window trick.

Food Banks And Soapboxes

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When Ken Loach won his second Palme D'or for I, Daniel Blake, it was presented to him by Mad Max director George Miller and Mel 'Sugar Tits' Gibson. This is ironic because as Loach's new film began, I presumed that I was watching one of those post-apocalyptic, world's-gone-to-shit movies. Then I realised that rather than being set in the ruins of the old world, I, Daniel Blake was actually taking place in modern day Newcastle. Meh, it's an easy mistake to make. In this film, the Mordor-alike Newcastle has its own Eye Of Sauron ensuring that the orc-ish Geordies are kept under control. However rather than being a giant flaming tower, it's the Conservative Government and its Orwellian benefit system that aims to bewilder the sick and the vulnerable into a conveniently cheap death. Times are tough and money is tight, and this movie aims to remind us of how Cameron once said “We're all in it together”. Although what we're 'in' might differ depending on where you fall within society. Where some people are finding themselves heading towards being in a poverty-related early grave, others are simply enjoying another bottle of champers whilst being shaft-deep in a dead pig's mouth.

Warner Brothers Studio Tour

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People think that you have to be chosen to go to Hogwarts. That an owl will fly to you on your eleventh birthday with a letter inviting you to begin your education in the wizarding world. But fuck that. I'm not eleven any more and I didn't get invited to go and learn fucking magic. My friend Kris and I went down to London last weekend and as we wandered aimlessly around, we bumped into a street magician as he was about to begin his show. He used his mind to bend cutlery, he made foam balls disappear from under a cup, and he made the corner of a random card that he'd ripped appear on the inside of an uncut lemon. Did he learn to do this under the guidance of Professor Dumbledore? No. Of course not. Who needs the first rate education of Hogwarts when you have a childhood as lonely as his must have been! Anyway, he finished his show, asked us all for a fiver and so me and my friend performed a magic trick of our own and fucking disappeared. We needed all of our money for something much more exciting that weekend because although we might not have been invited to go to Hogwarts, we'd decided to do a Malfoy and buy our way in instead. Whether Malfoy would stay in a small room at the Premier Inn in Watford before going to school, I don't know. But after a good nights sleep in which my friend assures me that he didn't masturbate, we were both ready to go to the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio Tour.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

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This is the first film in a new series of non-Harry Potter Harry Potter films and, to cut to the chase.. it's fucking brilliant. Do you know what a Niffler is? Well it's basically a creature from the magical world that likes to steal gold which looks like the bastard offspring of a mole that was gang-raped by pack of rowdy mallards. In many ways, that little bastard sums Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them up in that he's charming, full of energy, and when you shake him upside down he begins shitting out gold. In the way that he runs about causing trouble and trying to steal as much money for himself as he can get his stupid little hands on, he's also a magical creature for our new Trump-Era. In fact... you have to wonder if the makers of this film could predict what the polls couldn't and somehow knew that we'd now be living in a world in which the American President would be that gassy haired fuck. I mean, this film features winged snakes, invisible monkeys, and a giant, horny, horned rhino-thing.. but if you wanted to know where to find the most dangerous of creatures then it apparently looks like an Umpa Lumpa crossed with a down-syndrome Guinea Pig and it's soon to be living part-time in the fucking White House.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part Two

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Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2- What the fuck is it about? (Spoilers)

So this film begins with the Harry Potter trio breaking into a bank, because the movie came out during the recession and so fuck the system!! They're helped into the building by one of its employees who then proceeds to betray them and leave them trapped. Who'd have thought that a banker couldn't be trusted?! Anyway, they escape the bank with a horcrux and then destroy it. They then quickly find and destroy a shit tonne more horcuxes in half the time that it took them to fuck up that single one in the previous film. As much as I quite enjoyed The Deathly Hallows Part 1, I think this is proof that it had been affected by the curse known as Cyniculous Cash-In-ious.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part One

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Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part One- What the fuck is it about? (Spoilers)

To be honest I've never seen British camping depicted better in a movie than in this one. As much as we'd like to pretend it's true, we don't actually do a little exercise in the afternoon sun as a bra flies across the field and Barbara Windsor flops her tits out. Like this film, the reality is that we actually just sit in a tent as it pisses down outside, we all start to snap at each other, and we wonder if this will be the night that we die. At this point in the series, everything Harry has ever known and loved, including Dumbledore, has gone straight out of the window. So along with Ron and Hermione, they all set off on an adventure to find and destroy several artefacts that contain Voldemort's soul. Sadly they don't really know where to start because Dumbledore figured that setting up little riddles would be more fun than not being a difficult bastard.

Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince

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Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince- What the fuck is it about? (Spoilers)

Essentially this is the film in which Dumbledore has assigned Harry the special mission of allowing the new teacher of potions, Professor Slughorn, to take him to a variety of parties and then eventually seduce him. Well, I suppose it is a boarding school after all. Slughorn has a memory that Dumbledore needs in order for him to discover a secret that might help them to defeat Voldemort. Although if this film had been set in our modern day world, it would have been pretty fucking easy to do considering everybody now posts their every waking thought as a status on some form of social media. 'Can't believe I just taught Voldemort how to live forever lol #WatANob'.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

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So in this, film Harry is confused and disturbed by the fact that he's found himself dreaming of an older man. Sure it might be the man that killed his Mum, Dad, and at least one fellow student, but I'd still make fun of him for it if I was his friend. Hey, I have a joke that I thought up whilst watching this film. It goes...

Q- Voldemort has no nose. How does he smell?

A- Of the blood of Harry's parents!

Anyway, because of comments like that, Harry spends most of this movie being pretty pissed off. At one point he even worries if his anger is proof that he has a lot more in common with Voldemort than he'd like to admit to. I wouldn't worry about it mate.. being constantly angry isn't proof of a magical connection to your parents' killer. The other day I nearly smashed the office up just because I was the only person in work not to get offered a fucking biscuit. To add to this however, he's probably also pretty pissed off that nobody believes him about Voldemort's return which seems fair enough on his part. The last film ended with him having won what was essentially his school's sports day when he returned holding the corpse of a fellow competitor. I guess the idiots watching just assumed that was what you won in that competition. In which case, fuck them.. I'd take my prized Diggory home and mount him in the bathroom where I keep my other fucking trophies.

Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire

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Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire- What the fuck is it about? (Lots of spoilers)

The film begins with an attack at a sports event. Only Harry sees the attacker and yet when pressed for details responds with “I don't know who it was. I didn't see his face!” I wouldn't worry about it mate. If the last three fucking films have been anything to go by it'll probably be your new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher. I honestly don't know how that school gets away with its hiring policy for that position. We're four films into this franchise and so far there's been a radicalised child killer, a pathological liar, a man with a violent split-personality, and now an imposter. In the real world, and despite being innocent, Filch's appearance alone would spur the papers to out him as a nonce and incite a mob to burn his fucking shed down.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

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Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban- What the fuck is it about? (Spoilers)

So Harry begins his third year of magic school and finds out that a serial killer has broken out of prison and wants him dead. Not exactly a relatable issue for most of us and so the film cleverly throws in a grim little subtext for all the teenagers in the audience. Like most kids of Harry's age, the boy wizard is finding himself a little hounded by the black dog. However in his case it's not simply a metaphorical term for the depression he feels as it dawns on him that the world is a shithole. Rather, his black dog is quite literally a big black dog that seems to want him dead. Oh, and in an attempt to protect Harry from this escaped killer, Dumbledore has opened the school to a bunch of grim-reaper like pricks known as Dementors. The Dementors however also seem pretty happy to kill Harry too if he happens to get in their way. So.. basically, Harry has to go through another year of school in which most of the things at that school want him dead. But oh fuck... he better get a parental signature on his Hogsmeade form or he won't be allowed to visit the quaint little village to have fun with his friends.

Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets

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Just to get you up to speed

Believe me or don't but the first Harry Potter film was riddled with subtext regarding the time in a young boy's life when he learns his favourite new hobby of whacking off. If you don't trust me then you can click here to read my previous blog which should explain.

Well, it seems that the second film in the saga continues that train of thought and wonders.. 'hmm, so what might a young boy become obsessed with once he's learnt how to knock one out?” The answer of course being the lifelong search for vagina. Or as this film calls it... The Chamber of Secrets!!

Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone

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Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone- What the fuck is it about? (Spoilers)

I wonder if the entire success of this franchise is down to simple wish fulfilment? Harry Potter is an eleven year old child when he finds out that not only is he famous for having saved the world but he's also as rich as fuck. You find me an eleven year old child and I'll show you a superficial little bastard that'd give his right nut for all of that. Send me to a mixed-gender boarding school and throw an invisibility cloak into the mix and fuck it- I'm sold. So Harry finds out that he's a wizard and on his way to magic school, which is lucky because his complete cluelessness makes spoon feeding the audience exposition pretty fucking easy. It's just a shame that they then go on to repeat everything about a million times. So Harry'll say, “You told me they died in a car crash” and just to emphasis this important point, Hagrid will then repeat “A Car Crash!!”. “You're a Wizard Harry”, says Hagrid. “I'm a Wizard” Harry repeats to make sure that all the thick people in the audience got the point.

I Saw John Carpenter Live!

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As John Carpenter and his band launched into their live rendition of the theme from his ghostly masterpiece The Fog, some genius thought it'd be a good idea to turn on the smoke machine. And they were right. It was fucking genius. Seeing Carpenter play that piece of music with footage from the film projected onto a large screen behind him, while mist slowly descended over the room, was one of the many highlights of the Liverpool gig that I saw him at on the 28^th of October. I can't say that any ghost-pirates appeared from the fog this time, however it's been so long since I last ate any fruit that it wouldn't surprise me if I had fucking scurvy at this point. Getting into the gig had proven to be more of a ball-ache than I'd imagined thanks to Google-maps providing the wrong location, one Taxi-driver refusing to take us because “he'd be fucked by the Hackneys”, and then finding ourselves stuck outside the most badly organised venue that I've ever been to. People with paper tickets were allowed straight in whereas those with E-tickets had to stand outside until twenty-minutes past the gig's original start time for some reason. To quote a fellow E-ticket queuer; “it's like we're the working class and this venue thinks it's the fucking Titanic”.