Star Wars, French Women, and Lying.

I've never seen 'Star Wars'. I mean, I've seen bits when it's been on TV, I can do a decent Chewbacca impression (ask me to do it, it's seriously pretty good), and I could probably name 80% of the characters. But................ I haven't seen it. To be honest, it looks shit. I prefer stuff like Lord of The Rings, y'know, a bit of realism.

Hmm. Strong look.

The thing is; (I'm not sure that should be a semi-colon there, it just felt right)

Anyway, the thing is, I have probably pretended to see 'Star Wars' about 30 times. I could be at a dinner party (shut up, I could) and someone would ask something about C3P0 or some fucking Ewok and I would KNOW what they're talking about. But...............still haven't seen it. 

It reminds me of one night at Uni, there was a film night for us students to 'mingle' and discuss our 'passion'. So I turned up expecting the worst, but it was even worse than that. A room of pretentious twats in berets, wearing long macs and occasionally trotting out phrases like 'mise-en-scene' AS IF IT WAS NOTHING. One particularly twattish beret wearer turned to me at some point and asked my opinion on Godard's 'A Bout De Souffle' (he didn't say 'Godard's', I just know this now know coz I like films 'n' that). When I told aforementioned bearded wanker that I hadn't seen it, the rage just welled up in his head as if I had just touched his grandma under the dining table.

This kind of tosser.

"You do know this is a film course right?! Did you think it was going to be repeat showings of 'Armageddon' at various Odeons for 3 years'?! 

          I searched deep within myself for a witty retort, something to show this bearded, bereted bellend that I was his academic equal, that me not seeing an 'important film' didn't make my love for cinema any less genuine than his. That retort never came, but I did tell him that at least my girlfriend didn't look like the Japanese chick from 'The Ring'. (In his defence, he appreciated the reference). But the point is this (colon/semi colon): Film can be snobby, as can the people who make it and invariably talk about it, and it's hugely unattractive. I do it myself, turning my nose up at people who 'don't do films with subtitles', or sighing deliberately loudly if someone lists 'Bad Boys' as anything other than utter shit. 

"Terrific"/ Not bad

I've seen 'Citizen Kane', still widely regarded as the best film ever made. Seen it twice, just to make sure I hadn't missed the point first time around. But I hadn't. Was it well made? Of course? Technically supreme? I guess for the time, it probably was. But fiercely entertaining? Hmmm......I prefer 'Die Hard' to be honest. 

But still, to this day, if there is a film I think I know enough about to engage in conversation about, I will still sometimes pretend I've seen it. It happened last year when over a drink a girl started talking about 'Babel'. 

She was exactly like this.

She didn't even ask if I'd seen it, she was one of these people (French) who assumed that if you were good enough to be in her company you simply must have seen it. But after 15 minutes of listening to her detonate bombs of boredom all over the place, I could not have given less of a shit. The potential for her to be someone massively interesting and enjoyable to listen to had disappeared, along with the storyline of 'Babel', up it's own arse. There's a lot to be said for loving a subject and knowing a lot about it, but when that love becomes elitist and pretentious, it's time to stick on 'Old School' and sit in your pants eating pizza for once like the rest of us*

LOVEFILM list of Top Ten films people pretend to have seen (2011) and a 'BladeRunner' trailer, to save you the bother.

1. The Godfather (30 per cent)

2. Casablanca (13 per cent)
3. Taxi Driver (11 per cent)
4. 2001: A Space Odyssey (9 per cent)  
5. Reservoir Dogs (8 per cent)
6. This Is Spinal Tap (7 per cent)
7. Apocalypse Now (6 per cent)
8. Goodfellas (5 per cent)
=8. Blade Runner (5 per cent)
10. The Great Escape (4 per cent)

* not me

Cameo-No.

'Django Unchained': For 100 minutes, it's funny, sharp, dramatic, classy, and deeply absorbing as all good flicks are. Then, utterly predictably, comes the inevitable Tarantino cameo. This is fine, he made the thing, can we really begrudge him (and his ego) a brief foray onto the screen to share a slice of the limelight? Ordinarily, no. But on this occasion he emerges towards the climax of the film, and COMPLETELY takes you out of it, because Quentin Tarantino and acting are about as compatible as Chris Brown and women's lib.

As dramatic as his face gets

With his stupid nose, ridiculous accent, and horrific sense of timing, it's the cinematic equivalent of a wedding videographer turning the camera on himself halfway through the best man's speech just to shout 'waaasssssuuuuuuupp'. If you want a cameo, and you clearly do QT, stick yourself at the start as some nondescript nobody, realise the effect you have of rolling in towards the end and reminding people that, for all your talent, you're still an egotistical bellend.

Of course, the big screen cameo is almost as old as the big screen itself, and directors such as Peter Jackson can frequently be glimpsed in their own work. But Jackson's style is 'blink and you'll miss it', non-speaking, and (most importantly) not intrusive. The fact that he's about as photogenic as roadkill probably dictates this, but still. 

Shyamalan - Creepy looking fucker isn't he?

Alfred Hitchcock famously appeared in 37 of his own films, and I doubt there would have been anyone around ballsy enough to try and make him change his mind. But, again, he was mostly peripheral, rarely distracting enough to make you stop and think about what you're watching. 

More recently, 'The Sixth Sense' director M. Night Shyamalan consistently popped up his pictures (drug dealer in 'Unbreakable', doctor in 'The Sixth Sense'). Shyamalan is equally as shit an actor as QT, but seems to realise this, and take himself back behind the lens before too much damage is done. (He also gives himself the glory of revealing the twist in 'The Village'. Smarmy little shit). 

During the late Eighties Spike Lee who took the cameo to new lengths, almost playing a supporting role in films such as 'Jungle Fever' and 'Do The Right Thing'. Lee isn't the greatest screen actor around, but compared to the likes of Shyamalan and Tarantino, he's positively Brando-esque.

Mean Streets. Like Tottenham, but with better hair

But perhaps the most dramatic cameo impact comes from the old master Martin Scorcese in 1973's 'Mean Streets'. Appearing right at the end as an uncredited hitman, he then proceeds to blow the film's two major characters away. (If you haven't seen it, and I've just ruined the ending for you, then you probably shouldn't wait 40 years after it's release to watch it. Also, at the end of The Sixth Sense, turns out he's a ghost. Soz.) Scorcese also shows he can really act by confidently sharing the screen with De Niro, playing a neurotic cab passenger in 'Taxi Driver'.

But cameos should be brief, funny, and do we actually know what the director looks like half the time anyway? 2003's 'Old School' this perfectly, director Todd Phillips turning up at Owen Wilson's door and simply stating: "I'm here for the gang bang". Brief, concise, and then gone. But let's end this how we started, by criticizing decent people. The worst cameo in history (and it is the worst) doesn't come from a director, but from Matt Damon. In 2004 he was pretty much at the top of his game, a true A-lister, respected, rich, and could choose his projects. So fuck knows why he did this:

Sex. Cinema. Rules.

So I'm having a drink with a friend who I haven't seen for a couple of months. After about 20 minutes covering work, where we live, how having no money is depressing, and what a cock the bloke by the bar wearing wristbands is, she tells me she's going on a date the next night with someone from a dating website.

"Cool, where you gonna go? We live in London, dates can get pretty creative".

"Yeah.........that's true. But The Great Gatsby is on and he really wants to see it, plus I love Leo and he knows a cool place to eat nearby" 

WHOAH THERE A FUCKING MINUTE.

This is the problem with society. Ok, apart from class divides, crime, poverty, etc, this is the problem with society. Cinema is not for dates. Let me attempt to tell you why:

Wood Green. Dreadful.

1) I've been in a cinema whilst an obvious 'date' has been going on behind me. I remember it well. I went to see 'Blue Valentine' in Wood Green (don't judge). They talked through the ads (fine, we all do), then chuntered on about their mutual friend well into the trailers (pushing it), but then had the AUDACITY to talk like giggling little shits a good 5 minutes into the picture. Sorry folks, but just because there are credits on the screen doesn't mean the film hasn't started. This isn't fucking EastEnders. 

Disgusting behaviour

2) There's one thing arguably worse than the chatters. There are those (my mate Phil is one) who just see the cinema as a kind of dark, short stay hotel, a place where it's ok to touch the inside of your dates thigh whilst watching 'Avatar'. Obviously the Na'avi were a bigger turn on than I'd realised. This has only happened to me once, at a midnight showing of Public Enemies, with a guy and a girl so obviously not there for the film it was untrue. It was possibly more uncomfortable because I had taken a seat on the back row, blocking their first choice. So they resorted to Row H, which was great as my view of the left half of the screen, Johnny Depp, and Marion Cotillard were obscured for about 20 minutes by this girl's bobbing head.

3) Because the first two points might seem a bit bitter, let me redress the balance. A few years ago I was going out with a girl and we decided to go and watch Iron Man. Being a bit of a romantic, I went the extra mile and paid an additional £2.50 so we could watch it somewhere with a slightly bigger screen. And with less pikeys. So we are in there about 15 minutes, she'd had a drink (twelve drinks), and whispers 'come on let's just go back to mine'. I realise now that maybe I should have gone, maybe she was The One. But...............

I'VE PAID £28 FOR THESE TICKETS SO YOU WILL SIT THERE AND YOU WILL FUCKING LOVE IRON MAN UNTIL I SAY YOU CAN STOP.

Iron Man. Not a sex film.

But even though these points are slightly stupid, the fact remains that cinema is a different social medium compared to, for example, being at a gig, or a football match. Cinema often relies on detail, a momentary glance, a background movement, or a telling mise-en-scene. Film regularly demands attention to be fully appreciated. Cinema as a social experience is, at it's best, sublime. But it's also something that can be equally enjoyed in isolation, and lose nothing for it. The idea of a cinema 'date' is flawed until you are (minimum) 4 months in.

By this point, you should know enough about each other that, if you have another question or something you want to talk about, you should be comfortable enough to shut the fuck up with each other for two hours. Conversely, I often look around cinemas and see the couples so far gone who have given on up creative dates, for whom cinema is a chance to say 'yeah we went out for the night together' without actually having to look at each other for an extended period of time.

In the end my friend didn't really enjoy the date. Apparently he turned up twenty minutes into the film and then tried ordering for her at Masala Zone afterwards. 

I love being right.

Sport/Life/Etc

Sport is, with some admittedly colossal differences, life. Rules exist, and are invariably broken, despair often outweighs triumph, and you generally need to be a Sky subscriber to enjoy either. It's because of this alignment that sport is perpetually such a fertile subject matter for film. The drama, the heroes, the villains, the glory, elements equally suited to describing 'The Dark Knight Rises' or the latest Champions League Final.

He's not exactly Nadal.

        Unfortunately, a lot of films purporting to be about sport (and for the purpose of this blog I'm not counting the likes of Happy Gilmore, Dodgeball, or anything with Will Ferrell clowning as a film rooted in sport) are...............well, shit. Anyone who has sat through Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst in 'Wimbledon' will know the film has about as much to do with sport as Sepp Blatter's advice to female footballers to 'wear shorter skirts'.



Perhaps the lack of truly great sports films has to do with the compromise needed. To elicit real drama, inevitably dramatic license with the sport in question is taken. Simultaneously, the show a sport as it truly is will frequently mean losing something cinematic in the process.
       But sometimes, just sometimes, like your favourite club who lose eight on the bounce then win 3-0 away at the league leaders to 'keep you believing', cinema gets it right. Spectacularly right. One of the most recent example of this is Clint Eastwood's 'Million Dollar Baby'.
       A-Listers such as Will Smith and Denzel Washington both tried their hands at boxing flicks, but neither got close to delivering the kind of punch/knockout blow/other cliche that 'MDB' does. And when the easiest, most dramatically viable option in a sports film is usually to have the protagonist finally overcoming struggle and achieving victory before the credits roll, 'MDB' destroys it's own premise, confounds expectations, and emerges as something pretty special.

      In the same vein, the criminally underwatched 'Friday Night Lights' takes a small Texan high school football team and creates the best American Football film ever made. It was so good that NBC picked up the story and converted it to a series still smashing viewing figures on US TV. As much about a town's obsession with their team and the responsibility placed on young men as it is about football, it captures machismo and heartbreak in a way Adam Sandler could only dream of.

Even the poster is offensive.

    With the subject matter being a US sport, maybe UK audiences don't quite connect with the likes of 'Friday Night Lights' and 'Moneyball' as much as their American counterparts, but, as with all great sports films, the drama and spectacle are far more important than the sport in question.
But for every 'Any Given Sunday' there has to be a 'Mr Baseball'. If you haven't seen this, please don't. It's basically Tom Selleck as a superstar ball player who goes off to Japan and spends 90 minutes being horrifically racist to Japanese people whilst twiddling his 'tache and then finally deciding 'oh actually Japanese people are ok' and then tries to bang one.
           In the UK we've been pretty starved of decent sports films over the years. 'Fever Pitch' and 'Match Point' may pass the time, but then again, so does sleeping. 'When Saturday Comes' had Sean Bean in it. That's literally all I remember about the film so I'm doubting it was brilliant. 'Bend It Like Beckham' passed the time, but then so did 'Fever Pitch'. 'The Damned United' did show that we have the capacity to produce a powerful, authentic sports biopic, but was very much an exception as opposed to a rule
   So, for great cinematic sporting fare, we have to look to the States. Boxing and fight sports feature heavily, and whilst the first 'Rocky' was actually pretty damn good, the likes of 'The Fighter', 'The Wrestler' and particularly 'Warrior' blow it out of the water.
Gritty to the point of watching with gravel in your eyes, the template for this type of film is now set for years to come. But it's 'Raging Bull' that still sets the bar for the genre, and maybe sports films on the whole. Brutal violence (in and out of the ring), one of the world's best actors delivering one of cinema's most memorable performances, and a mesmeric tale of riches to rags, it hasn't been bettered since.
    But not many films got as close as 2010's 'Senna'. It has everything. Drama, obsession, danger, rivalry, heartbreak, and, ultimately, sickening tragedy. It's a real life story that defines sport better than any script. This was a film so good that I nearly came to blows with two different people to have the cheek to say they wouldn't watch it because they 'didn't like documentaries' and 'thought Formula 1 was crap'. I haven't spoken to them since. The best sports films don't rely on an inherent love for baseball, basketball, or American Football. They rely only on your capacity to relate, to feel something. And that's the thing about sports films. As with certain parts of life, you don't really need to understand it to enjoy it.