"Looks like you won't be attending that hat convention in July."

When I was eleven, and faced with another rainy childhood weekend on the west coast of Scotland, I happened upon something in the local general store - a video rental rack. Previously, our household VHS renting habits were restricted to three-a-week-for-a-fiver from the Video Van that parked up outside the station every Saturday. Great as Mr. VV was (he never batted an eyelid as I handed over cash for such age-restrictive titles as Total Recall and New Jack City), he lacked immediacy. And sat there on that rental rack of Loch Awe Stores was something I needed there and then in my life - "Hudson Hawk."

And so began an eighteen-year affair with what some people perceive as one of the worst movies of the twentieth century. I couldn't get enough of those snappy, sweary one-liners. I never ceased to marvel at that Swinging On A Star heist set-piece. And I found myself strangely attracted to Sandra Bernhard (which, to this day, is still a far more reasonable proposition than Andie McfuckingDowell). Bad feelings were frequently aimed in the film's direction, and I was always first to dive in front of those scathing word-bullets.

Late last night, after a weekend spent in forced isolation, I decided to switch off my tiny brain and succumb once again to the wonders of the '"Hawk." Imagine my abject horror 91 minutes later, upon discovering that - newsflash - "Hudson Hawk" is fucking terrible. Like, utterly catastrophically bad.

I'm sure this won't come as bombshell to most. The film's been dogged since production began, and it failed to recoup even a modicum of its overinflated budget. But as this weird, juddering vanity project unfolded before my eyes, I started to question if my ever-dedicated love had been some kind of mental fever dream. Even "Hudson Hawk"'s own mother couldn't love it, if it had a mother, which it doesn't, because it's a film.

Instead, it has conspirators. Chief of whom is a Mr. Bruce Willis. That smirk's a trademark, for sure - yet here it stops being a knowing smile and here turns into a full-blown Smuggest Cunt Of The Century tic. Bruce seems DEEPLY amused by what's unfolding on screen, in some kind of vague hope that you will be too. He rattles through the script (so desperate to please you that every line has to be either a joke, a pithy insult or outright nonsensical) with precisely zero effort, and it shows.

Danny Aiello - so fucking good in "Do The Right Thing" that he blows my mind every time I see that movie - looks simply baffled. I'm not even sure he knows he's in-shot for a good portion of the proceedings, as he just kinda grins aimlessly at Bruce and occasionally murders a tune. Bernhard and Richard E. Grant must be in competition for the Lamest Villains ever, committing little in the way of true dastardliness and instead just fannying about with their outdoor voices on at all times. The less said about James Coburn and his band of candy-named spooks (including, in a career highlight, David Caruso*), the better.

The whole thing unravels at lightning-quick speed, to the extent that I felt like I was missing set-ups for jokes throughout. Turns out I wasn't - it's just a good majority of the lines are completely non sequitur to begin with. Take the very headline of this blog, uttered by Willis after he lobs the nasty butler's bonce off - why would he have been attending that convention anyway? Why is it in July? And he still has a whole head (albeit one detatched from his body). Surely that joke only works if the top part of his head - the hat-bearing part, as I like to refer to it - was severed? It makes NO FUCKING SENSE. And yet somehow, it's synonymous with the rest of the movie.

It pains me a little to have to say this, but I'm divorcing you, "Hudson Hawk." The light that once shone brightly from you has been extinguished, and my love for you likewise. You are, quite frankly, shit.


*actually, Brad Anderson's "Session 9" is the highlight of his career. Fact.

James Cameron: You've got a lot to answer for (Annoyed Director Edition)

James Cameron: You've got a lot to answer for.

I made a shocking discovery about myself this week, and this time it wasn't even a rash . Rather, I was crushed to find out that - as it turns out - I'm not actually a fan of anything, at all. Ever.

Even for a grouchy misanthrope like myself, this came as quite a devastating blow. I've considered myself a genre connoisseur in the past; hell, maybe even a lower-level geek. Meeting Nathan Fillion gave me a thrill; I once squawked with delight when I glimpsed Hurley from Lost at a memorabilia fair. And don't get me started on the ever-expanding array of Street Fighter merchandise that's slowly taking over my house.

Yet all of this pales in comparison to the rabid bleatings of what nowadays constitutes entry into fan-dom. In this day and age, you've got to be willing to change your entire species just to be considered worthy of carrying out a little adulation.

Take this whole crazy-as-a-shithouse-rat phenomenon currently surrounding Avatar. Film Drunk ran a piece last week about the film's fan forums, where people are laying claim to experiencing post-Pandora depression, and are wistfully bemoaning that it's a total bummer the planet doesn't really exist. One of them - as referenced in FD's article - even suggests inducing a coma, so they can continue to live on in a dream world populated with big blue Catsmurfs.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. WHAT? Run that by me again? A coma, you say? You're telling me that no matter how poxy your current existence is, you'd prefer a vegetative state in the off-chance your cortex decides to conjour some shit-hot 3D IMAX visuals? That your rapid eye movement might just rustle up a Na'vi for you to poke your tail in until the end of time - and by the end of time, I mean the moment when someone in full possession of reason decides you're wasting our oxygen and yoinks the fucking plug on you.

This kind of talk scares me. And it's not fear born out of lack of understanding - it's fear born out of pity for the increasing decline of mankind, and its burgeoning need to retreat into some lame-ass fantasy world because out here "shit," as Martin Lawrence would so succinctly put it, "just got real."

Think I'm being overly-harsh, and wrecking people's fun? Let me point you to a past example of this nonsense spiraling out of control: in 1950, a pulp sci-fi writer published a vaguely new-age self-help manual, that suggested other worldly influences were the key to maintaining a righteous lifestyle. Skip ahead half a decade, and countless poor bastards have had to sit through Battlefield: Earth. Oh, and there was some other dodgy stuff going on as a result, too. Sure, maybe it's a churlish analogy, but it still frightens me all the same. If this shit keeps up, then expect a Holy War to ensue within the remit of this century. I can see it now - the Avatards versus the Twi-hards. It'll all be a blur of blue body-paint and those plastic fangs you get from Poundland at Halloween.

I can name countless movies where I felt a coma might have been the soft alternative, but none of those desires were from outright love. Fact is, there is nothing in this world - certainly not in the medium of entertainment - that is ever going to inspire that level of churlish devotion. Hell, I'd even commend it if it wasn't so damn knee-jerky - the fucking thing hasn't even been out for a month yet. Come back in six months, and if you still feel the same way, I have a tyre iron that'll be more than willing to help grant your wish.




With thanks to Film Drunk and the posters of those stupid Avatar forums for fuelling my indignation.

Golden Globes: Predictions

I don't really care about an awards ceremony that was originally conceived back in the 1940s by, of all things, the Daily fucking Mail. If Nikki Finke (and countless others) is to be believed, then these puppies are easily bought - which renders them pointless, really.

That said, predictions are always fun - especially when people get to launch a rebuttal and tell me how utterly clueless I am. As such:


Best Picture - Drama: Up in the Air will probably bag this, but don't think for a second the voters are ignoring the international numbers for Avatar. Or the fact that they're made up mostly of those new breed of furries that get all boo-hoo about Pandora not being a real planet. Ugh.

Best Picture - Comedy or Musical: Nine leads what is an incredibly shitty handful of noms. Of course, it made the shortlist before it tanked and got roundly hated on by everyone (even Felini telegraphed the Weinsteins a "WTF?" from beyond the grave), so perhaps they'll just give it to The Hangover.

Best Actor - Drama: Clooney walks off with this one, and as such pretty much locks in Jeff Bridges' Oscar chances at the same time.

Best Actress - Drama: Sandra Bullock for the win, possibly because Globes voters are riddled with guilt for not giving her one last time she was nominated - for Miss Congeniality. Fuck my life.

Best Actor - Comedy or Musical: Justice would see Michael Stuhlbarg win for A Serious Man, but the Hollywood Foreign Press Association are not a just or fair mistress. So, Daniel Day Lewis.

Best Actress - Comedy or Musical: Probably Meryl Streep. She's nominated for two movies, after all. I haven't seen either, but that's because Streep to me is a bit like my hoover is to my cat - disorientating and frightening.

Best Supporting Actor: Tucci. Why not, he's a talented guy and I just love the way he creepily rolls his eyes in the What Dreams May Come 2 Lovely Bones trailer.

Best Supporting Actress: Vera Farmiga. Again, haven't seen Up in the Air, so I can only base this on the fact that I'd quite like to have sex with her. Educated picks, these.

Best Director: Give it to Bigelow, but build it up so it's like Cameron's won it. Maybe announce, "Kathryn Bigelow for Avatar!" So they both get up at the same time. There's nothing like ex-spouses thrown into confusing turmoil at shit awards ceremonies. Nothing.

Best Screenplay: What, we get twenty lead acting nominations, but they can't even be bothered to split this into "I thought it up myself" and "I copied it out of a book"? Give it to Basterds; I want another Tarantino tantrum a lá '95.


Check back Monday to see if I'm right. Or don't. In fact don't, I probably won't even follow this up. That's how much you matter to me, Golden Globes. I'm a giant fucking loser, and even I can't be bothered to blog about you.

In which the world ends, anonymously

If there's one thing cinema has taught me, it's that sooner or later we're going to face one almighty fuckaroo of an apocalypse. And if it's taught me two things, then the other is that not knowing how the planet buys the farm is a far scarier prospect than being clued-in to our imminent demise.


Take "The Road", for example. All we're given is a bright orange glow through Viggo Mortensen's window, and then BLAM. It's toe-tag time for 99% of the populous. Were the film not so rigidly stuck to Cormac McCarthy's original prose, then you could maybe accuse the film-makers of being cheapskates and skimping out on showing us wanton global destruction. Fact of the matter is, I don't know what happened prior to enduring (and as good as the movie is, you do endure it rather than enjoy) two hours of Aragorn and his whiny brat traipsing towards The Coast. And for that reason, it's an ultimately more terrifying situation.

Far too many movies are geared towards finger-wagging as they bring about The End of Times. Roland Emmerich has had the bare-faced cheek to scream "Finish him!" at the planet twice in the last decade alone, and both times it was our own damn fault. I'm very aware that global warming is an ongoing threat, but showing me just how fucked we really are is less likely to encourage good recycling habits, and more likely to make me spend the next thirty years cowering under my bed.


One of the greatest apocalypse movies I've seen is Don McKellar's 1998 film "Last Night." A character piece through and through, it takes place during - hey! - our last night on Earth. Eschewing any kind of explanation, instead it gives us vignettes of how ordinary people are spending their final hours. By keeping the apocalypse as a backdrop rather than making it the central plot of the movie, it keeps things constantly uncertain and perpetually intriguing. At times I even questioned if the world really was about to end. Spoiler alert - it does, or at least the film ends right when it's supposed to.

"Donnie Darko" employed a similar tactic, although the later director's cut went someway to unraveling any air of mystery. Compare and contrast with a film like "28 Days Later..." - okay, pretty gripping throughout (save maybe the third act, when it derails horribly), but the whole time I'm thinking, "All this? From monkeys?" Not exactly the most fear-inducing catalyst for the apocalypse, surely?

Point being - unless you've got Bruce Willis and a space rocket on hand to fill out your plot, then don't bother explaining why exactly it is we're doomed. Things are far scarier that way. It's the end of the world as we don't know it, and I feel terrified.

2009 was so last year...

Oof. Just realised that, despite blurting it all over the various other web-hovels I hang out at, I never actually upped my top twenty of 2009. So here it is, at a juncture where precisely nobody cares about end-of-year lists any more.

1. Where The Wild Things Are (Jonze)
2. Inglorious Basterds (Tarantino)
3. A Serious Man (Coen)
4. In The Loop (Ianucci)
5. Antichrist (Von Trier)
6. Synecdoche, New York (Kaufman)
7. Fish Tank (Arnold)
8. Milk (Van Sant)
9. Coraline (Selick)
10. The White Ribbon (Haneke)
11. Up (Docter / Peterson)
12. Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle)
13. Avatar (Cameron)
14. Pontypool (McDonald)
15. The Hurt Locker (Bigelow)
16. Zombieland (Fleischer)
17. Looking for Eric (Loach)
18. Away We Go (Mendes)
19. An Education (Scherfig)
20. District 9 (Blomkamp)

Eight Film-y People You Should Follow On Twitter

I love Twitter. It's like Red Bull for the ego. And it's particularly great for ensnaring the random burbling of various film-type people, as well. Here are eight that may be worth your attention.

• @johnaugust - the screenwriter of the brilliant "Go", as well as the brain-twisting "The Nines" (which he also directed), and - um - the "Charlie's Angels" movies. Frequently provides updates related to his rather ace writing blog, too.

• @diablocody - another screenwriter (who'd have thunk they made good tweeters?), this time behind the Oscar-winning "Juno" and the - dare I say it - under-rated "Jennifer's Body."
  

• @LWlies - updates from the UK's best movie magazine, including heads-ups about Q&A's, screenings and their latest reviews.

• @wittertainment - the official feed for Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode's radio film show, currently airing on Radio 5 at 2pm on a Friday.

• @devincf - currently the head writer for CHUD.com. Comes complete with a refreshingly-snarky honesty that most line-toeing web critics daren't utter.

• @jrichardkelly - he wrote and directed "Donnie Darko", you know. And "Southland Tales."

• @ebertchicago - quite possibly our greatest living film critic. Tweets range from focused to bafflingly eccentric.

• @david_lynch - look! He really is bonkers! In quite a brilliant way!

Of course, you can just shrug off all these people and follow me instead - @nethknowles - because I'm funnier than your crazy uncle at your sister's wedding.