Screen Scream

Bad film.
Bad cut n paste poster.

Perhaps it's the meedja hype that ruins film watching for me these days. You know, the hysterical reviews, the bandwagon bouncers, the 'must-watch' articles by hacks who wangled freebies in return for a stout fawn. Anyway, something sure as shit ruined two recent films for which I had the misfortune to pay Sky+: The King's Speech and Bridesmaids.
What utterly hateable films. I didn't get to the end of either of them, the latter being wildly predictable and indulgent and the former being as funny as an episiotomy (and I know because I've suffered one). So what the fuck were the many reviewers watching when they suggested that we drop everything and dash to our nearest multiplex to take in these two hour stretches of hell?
Take the King's Speech. My God, Colin Firth was so utterly bloody annoying. I wanted to kick him up the arse so badly that I after one hour in I went for an infinitely more enjoyable - and interesting - shit. That was where my negligible viewing pleasure ended, thankfully. Any more of Firth's jaw jutting and I'd have given myself a fucking stammer by biting off my tongue.
Then there's Bridesmaids. What the fuck was with all those reviews that called it hysterically funny and what women want from modern comedy? I swear on my newly formed stammer that I sat through over an hour without raising a smile. And by God I wanted to. I'm sick of my modern female humour coming from reruns of Sex and the City. I'm craving something new that doesn't involve the deeply unfunny Miranda Hart. But once again I had to be rescued by a bowel movement.
Perhaps it is the hype that's to blame. Perhaps, by the time I get to the opening credits I'm expecting something so mindblowing that anything less than a psychotic episode in the back row is disappointing. But then again, perhaps I have a finely tuned arsewipe antennae that cuts through the hype and sees these films for what they really are. Bollocks. And that's a review you won't find anywhere else.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier...Shush!

Pass the popcorn, Darlin'

Well, there's a thing. Went to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in the pickchures last night (thanks to an Ava-free night, care of her grandparents). Course, the film was a cracker, as you'd have guessed from the five star reviews being bandied about. But you know what was even better? The audience.
Thankfully the film attracted a rather different viewer to that of, say, Fast and Furious 5 (mostly illiterate hormonal-swamped boys who think the over-revving of a Saxo's engine makes them appear erudite). In fact, the queue for the film was obvious by the apparent age of its members. My 40 years actually reduced the average. I almost looked young(er).
The upshot was that during the film there was...silence. I know! Silence! There were no mobile phones beeping, wrappers crackling or teens sniggering at the vaguest whiff of nudity. There was no arsing about in the back rows, a Showcase minion didn't have to kick anyone out and there was a pleasing absence of the stink of plastic cheesy nachos. I didn't even have to tell anyone to shut it (which is what happened the last time I went to the cinema). 
You know those showings that cinemas run, where mothers can go in with their babies? Well, why the frig don't cinemas have showings that ban anyone wearing Impulse/ Lynx/ Clearasil? I'd happily police said scheme, sending the noisy fuckers away with a curt word about their laughable state of puberty. Mate, Fast and Furious 5 is thataway...