Lorene Scafaria’s Seeking a Friend for the End of the World appeals to that part of me – that very large part – that spends a lot of time thinking about what I’d do if an asteroid were heading for our planet, or if we were staring down the barrel of a grey goo situation. Usually it’s zombies, of course, but when you’re daydreaming it’s important to mix it up occasionally.

Since the snow began to fall a few days ago, I’ve been having these amazingly fucked-up dreams about the end of the world as we know it (a recurring theme in my subconscious), and in my dreams I manage to survive them. Patently ridiculous, sure, but all the best apocalyptic stories aren’t really about the end of humanity but the survival of the worst part of it in microcosm. What’s my brain trying to say to me?

Last night it was the rise of the snow golems, marking their first appearance in my dreams. I’d say they were analagous to the hrímþursar of Norse mythology, the frost giants of Niflheim, but you and I both know that they probably seeped in from Marvel’s Thor comics.

And I really want to tell you that I figured out the frost giants’ weakness – you know, fire – and tooled up with a flamethrower, but it wasn’t as good as all that. I probably just sat down and talked through my problems with the frost giants around a gigantic tea set. My dreams are like a pretentious indie film that fizzles out after I’ve exhausted the two or three scenes implied by the concept. You might recognise this phenomenon from my writing.

I reviewed Chronicle for CSICON →

Nobody has actually complained yet, so CSICON still lets me write for them. If you know what Chronicle is, you can probably tell that I enjoyed it. If you don’t, there’s an awesome review behind that link. As an added bonus, you can apply your own star rating to the bottom of the page!

I didn’t give it one in the review. I just rambled on.

Also, I wrote something about the return of Being Human the other day. I haven’t seen the new series of Being Human yet, in case you’re interested, but as outlined in that post, I probably will.

I finally got around to watching Red State, even though my days as a teenage Kevin Smith enthusiast are over (I’ve given it some thought and come up with the following reasons: I have terminal hayfever, which imprisons me inside all summer every summer with a DVD collection for company; I dabbled in recreational drugs and thus I found the continuous stream of references simply hilarious; there was another teenage Kevin Smith enthusiast at my school with, you know, breasts). It’s okay. It’s an okay film. As a satire it lacks bite, as an action movie it’s in dire need of a more skilful directorial hand, and there’s too much flab for a ninety-minute running time. Still, it’s an entertaining way to spend an evening. There’s a whole genre of films like this one. You watch the film, then you pack up your things and you walk away from it with no strong feelings either way. You’re no better or worse a person than you were an hour and a half ago. Then I gave it five minutes’ worth of thought, and I said to myself: self, what else did you want from a film? And a Kevin Smith film, at that. I saw Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece The Room last night. I don’t use the term tour de force very often – except to point out that I don’t use it very often – but The Room is a tour de force if you view it from a very specific angle. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about The Room. Nothing about that film works at any point along the spectrum that runs from “high art” and “just high.” It’s literally off the charts. It’s the Citizen Kane of bad choices, and I mean the choices of both the filmmaker and the audience. But I had fun watching it, because when you watch The Room with a friend, you have to find a way to make the experience a positive one. You’ve thrown your friendship into a trial by fire, and it’s either going to be the greatest decision of your lives or you have to avoid eye contact when you meet each other again, like soldiers who did awful things in the war or swingers who did awful things at the last whatever it is swingers do socially. So it evens out. Some films, like Red State, balance out all on their own, because for all its faults there’s still some explosions, there’s still some funny lines and John Goodman is saying some of them. Something like The Room becomes a neutral point or even something awesome when you have people laughing at it with you or if, like Dee and I, you pack a bottle of vodka to make yourself some cocktails for the drinking game you make up on the fly, which is one of the classiest ways to get hammered and yell at the screen for an hour and forty god damn minutes oh my sweet jesus how is it this long. As with many of the posts you’ll see here on this blog, I’ve long forgotten what my original point was. I came here to review Red State, I suppose? Let’s give it three stars. It would be two-and-a-half but I can’t abide when magazines give something half a star and I can’t tell at first glance whether it’s a full star or not. I don’t read your magazine for the content, Empire. Just give me a rating already and tell me if it’s worth going down to the cinema for. Yeah, that’s right. Boil down the moviegoing experience to a so-subjective-it’s-basically-meaningless rating system devoid of subtleties. Boil it right down.

I finally got around to watching Red State, even though my days as a teenage Kevin Smith enthusiast are over (I’ve given it some thought and come up with the following reasons: I have terminal hayfever, which imprisons me inside all summer every summer with a DVD collection for company; I dabbled in recreational drugs and thus I found the continuous stream of references simply hilarious; there was another teenage Kevin Smith enthusiast at my school with, you know, breasts).

It’s okay. It’s an okay film. As a satire it lacks bite, as an action movie it’s in dire need of a more skilful directorial hand, and there’s too much flab for a ninety-minute running time. Still, it’s an entertaining way to spend an evening. There’s a whole genre of films like this one. You watch the film, then you pack up your things and you walk away from it with no strong feelings either way. You’re no better or worse a person than you were an hour and a half ago.

Then I gave it five minutes’ worth of thought, and I said to myself: self, what else did you want from a film? And a Kevin Smith film, at that.

I saw Tommy Wiseau’s masterpiece The Room last night. I don’t use the term tour de force very often – except to point out that I don’t use it very often – but The Room is a tour de force if you view it from a very specific angle. There is absolutely nothing redeeming about The Room. Nothing about that film works at any point along the spectrum that runs from “high art” and “just high.” It’s literally off the charts. It’s the Citizen Kane of bad choices, and I mean the choices of both the filmmaker and the audience. But I had fun watching it, because when you watch The Room with a friend, you have to find a way to make the experience a positive one. You’ve thrown your friendship into a trial by fire, and it’s either going to be the greatest decision of your lives or you have to avoid eye contact when you meet each other again, like soldiers who did awful things in the war or swingers who did awful things at the last whatever it is swingers do socially.

So it evens out. Some films, like Red State, balance out all on their own, because for all its faults there’s still some explosions, there’s still some funny lines and John Goodman is saying some of them. Something like The Room becomes a neutral point or even something awesome when you have people laughing at it with you or if, like Dee and I, you pack a bottle of vodka to make yourself some cocktails for the drinking game you make up on the fly, which is one of the classiest ways to get hammered and yell at the screen for an hour and forty god damn minutes oh my sweet jesus how is it this long.

As with many of the posts you’ll see here on this blog, I’ve long forgotten what my original point was. I came here to review Red State, I suppose? Let’s give it three stars. It would be two-and-a-half but I can’t abide when magazines give something half a star and I can’t tell at first glance whether it’s a full star or not. I don’t read your magazine for the content, Empire. Just give me a rating already and tell me if it’s worth going down to the cinema for.

Yeah, that’s right. Boil down the moviegoing experience to a so-subjective-it’s-basically-meaningless rating system devoid of subtleties. Boil it right down.

This evening’s screening: She’s Gotta Have It.

This evening’s screening: She’s Gotta Have It.

50/50 hasn’t been nominated for any Oscars, but it has been nominated for several Jamie Awards in the following categories: Most Effective Mood Whiplash Least Obviously Shoehorned-In Romantic Subplot Best Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a Starring Role The Manly Tears Award Writing That Made Me Want To Give Up All Those Stupid Dreams of Running Off to Hollywood, Selling Out, and Becoming a Screenwriter Because What the Fuck was I Even Thinking

50/50 hasn’t been nominated for any Oscars, but it has been nominated for several Jamie Awards in the following categories:

  • Most Effective Mood Whiplash
  • Least Obviously Shoehorned-In Romantic Subplot
  • Best Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a Starring Role
  • The Manly Tears Award
  • Writing That Made Me Want To Give Up All Those Stupid Dreams of Running Off to Hollywood, Selling Out, and Becoming a Screenwriter Because What the Fuck was I Even Thinking
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

If anyone tells you Adaptation failed in the third act, they missed the point.

[.gif via youveescaped/bobbyfinger]

Six Great Indie Sci-Fi Movies You Might Have Missed →

Let me talk about my gigantic man-crush on Sam Rockwell which has burned like a hellfire within me ever since Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and hasn’t even been swayed by the Geneva Convention-defying The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Also, Primer. Who doesn’t love Primer, other than everyone I’ve ever subjected to it?

Film nights being one of the best (and classiest) ways to spend a Saturday, last night’s showing was small-release indie Skeletons. A synopsis would ruin the experience of watching it a little bit, so I’m not giving you an outline. It feels like a low-budget Inception or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Midlands accents. It’s an entertaining film, quite funny at times – intriguing, even – but the methods of worldbuilding give the impression that writer/director Nick Whitfield was just making it up as he went. Will Adamsdale’s protagonist is cartoonishly played; the cast of secondaries find themselves in dire need of more development. But it’s good. It’s an interesting idea played out well in a tight script, which is all I wanted, really.

Film nights being one of the best (and classiest) ways to spend a Saturday, last night’s showing was small-release indie Skeletons. A synopsis would ruin the experience of watching it a little bit, so I’m not giving you an outline. It feels like a low-budget Inception or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Midlands accents.

It’s an entertaining film, quite funny at times – intriguing, even – but the methods of worldbuilding give the impression that writer/director Nick Whitfield was just making it up as he went. Will Adamsdale’s protagonist is cartoonishly played; the cast of secondaries find themselves in dire need of more development.

But it’s good. It’s an interesting idea played out well in a tight script, which is all I wanted, really.