Over-Smuggery

In early 2008 my primary contribution to the enhancement of the lives of mankind was a film review slot I had on a local radio station in Hayes, Middlesex. My first feature of the year was an excitable prediction that 2008 was going to be the best year at the movies since the halcyon days of 1989 (Batman, Licence To Kill, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade… I get a tear in my eye and a stirring in my nethers just thinking about it).

Because I am such an unbearable smartarse I called this feature ‘Two Thousand and Great’, and was so pleased with myself that I pulled several muscles in my face due to over-smuggery. However twelve months later my smug muscles had gone into atrophy and my reputation as a grand soothsayer of the future of movies lay in tatters. Of the ten films I confidently predicted to be truly gobsmackular, only one turned out to be so, and that was Cloverfield. The rest were mildly disappointing (The Dark Knight, Quantum Of Solace), heartbreakingly bad (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) or suicide-promptingly abysmal (Jumper, Vantage Point… I won’t even mention 10,000 BC. Oops).

As a result I am no longer welcome within two miles of the Middlesex boundaries and have had to assume a new identity in order to continue peddling movie twaddle without being arrested by the Serious Fraud Office.

So having well and truly learned my lesson and promised never to make such ludicrous and unreliable forecasts ever again, I thought ‘bugger it’ and can now confidently predict that there is a film that will certainly, definitely, undoubtedly be the best of 2009. I bet my remaining Star Wars figures on it and will eat my appendix if I’m wrong.

District 9 is a documentary-style sci-fi drama about aliens living in South Africa and being treated like slaves and third-class citizens by the people, the government and the multi-national corporation using the aliens’ technology for their own nefarious purposes, mwahaha. It’s basically an allegory about human rights and discrimination, but with massive spaceships.

My confidence in this film is based largely on the fact that it looks a bit like Cloverfield, which is surely a better basis than the ‘evidence’ that prompts other fortune tellers to predict the future. I mean, stars, tea leaves, lines on your palm and so on, as if that’s more scientific than a vague rumbling in my guts that indicates a solid gold classic movie on the horizon (or it could indicate something else distinctly less solid on the horizon, but let’s not go there).

So come back in September (and every day in between, obviously) for my no-doubt-glowing review of this awesome filmic event, and I shall look forward to keeping a firm hold on my reputation, my R2-D2 (with retractable sensorscope) and my beloved, but biologically pointless appendix.

Sweet Zombie Jesus

According to this article on the BBC News website, legendary minger Johnny Depp is so uninterested in watching himself in his movies that he “does not even check his on-screen appearance during the shooting of a film”. Now understandably he’s a busy chap, what with all those pesky movies interfering with his other activities like washing up, playing Facebook Scrabble with Orlando Bloom and making endless cups of tea for his demanding missus Vanessa Paradis, but it strikes me that he might be missing something here.

You see, he probably trusts his hair and make-up team to do their job properly, and as a result he thinks he looks like this in all his movies:
But somewhere along the line somebody’s been playing a cruel practical joke on the Deppster, and in some of these films he’s gone out looking, well, a little bit odd. A touch silly, you might even say. Occasionally, to be honest, he looks almost as ridiculous as when Ian Beale grew that moustache in EastEnders.

I felt it my duty to point out to Johnny what he looked like in some of his flicks, and I can tell you he was quite cross indeed. Here are some of the shots I showed him, along with his responses:

Sweeney Todd

“Oh dear me”

Pirates Of The Caribbean

“Oh crap, would you look at that”

Before Night Falls

“What in the name of Britney Spears?!?!”

Edward Scissorhands

“SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS AND A BUSLOAD OF BURNING NUNS ON A FLAMING CRUCIFIX, WHAT IN SATAN’S BOXERS IS THAT?!?!”

Alice In Wonderland

At this point Johnny threw up out of his eye sockets, which wasn’t a pretty sight I can tell you, so I thought it prudent to leave it at that.

With that valuable service selflessly carried out, I left Vanessa to clean up the mess and made a swift exit before she set their pet Tim Burton on me.

Piddly Witterings

Legendary James Bond actor and cantankerous old giffer Sean Connery this week apparently “blasted” the BBC for their lack of coverage of the Edinburgh International Film Festival. I love it when journalists say that somebody “blasted” somebody else. It makes it sound like there was a gargantuan conflict in outer space between The Legions Of Connery and the Benevolent Broadcasters of Compassion, and when the BBC willfully and callously ignored Dark Lord Connery’s demands to cover the EIFF he set his ultimate weapon of devastation to maximum killingness and BLASTED the beeb into tiny, impartial, London-centric crumbs.

The main reason Connery upped his cantankerosity was because, he claimed, there were 300 technicians covering the Glastonbury Festival and none at Edinburgh to record his rare appearance outside his tax haven, oops, I mean, idyllic home in the Bahamas.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do kind of love Sean Connery, not least for being the joint-second best James Bond ever, but also because he’s such a curmudgeonly goat these days. The only times he pops up any more is to moan about something, which of course is his right as he’s 78 years old and if you’re not moaning when you’re 78 then you’ve lost your marbles and think you’re a bus conductor on the Isle of Sheppey.

But Sean also winds me up because he seems utterly dismissive of the role of Bond that made him a legend, but hasn’t proved himself to be any better than that since Goldfinger in 1964. The closest he’s come since then was as Indiana Jones’ Dad, and that was 20 years ago. What’s more, the sheer arrogance of playing Greeks, Irishmen, Spaniards and Russians, all with the same Scottish accent, is almost up there with Bono’s self-belief that he can save a doomed Spider-Man musical with his magic golden Bono-dust.

So, sorry Sean, I know you’re hacked off because you think the world hates Scotland, but you know what? While 300 BBC employees were getting sorted for Es and whizz on the Glasto gravy train, none of them – NONE OF THEM – covered the launch of the most beautiful movie blog in the room, The Incredible Suit. What’s worse is that I know a few people who work at the BBC and at least one of them could easily have pointed the viewers of their daily TV politics show or the listeners of their Five Live radio show towards the centre of the blogosphere, but no. I remain scorned by a corporation more interested in a massively popular, hugely successful, genre-crossing music festival than a collection of piddly witterings. At least I’m not bleating about it in some kind of public forum. Er…

So viewers, keep your eyes peeled for tomorrow’s headlines: “The Incredible Suit yesterday METAPHORICALLY BLASTED Sean Connery for being a whiny old codger, then FIGURATIVELY BLEW THE BBC TO SMITHEREENS for not even noticing it existed. Then it had a nice cup of tea to calm down.”

Daniel Craig Needs Tighter Speedos

You can’t open the virtual pages of the interwebs these days without reading about another evil soldier of Beelzebub planning to remake a perfectly good film that needs remaking about as much as Daniel Craig needs tighter Speedos.

It used to make me quite cross but now when I read these stories I just sigh and throw a half-hearted punch at the nearest person to alleviate my mounting apathy. The irony of remaking movies is that they rouse the ire of bloglodytes and forum-dwellers the world over, forcing them to spew out their own remakes of posts they’ve written several times already, except with more exclamation marks and ‘O’s than in the original “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!”

This week alone my sensibilities have been offended by forthcoming remakes / reboots / re-imaginings / re-configurations / revisits / rehashes / retardations of classic ‘80s horror-comedy (I’m trying to coin the term ‘horredy’ but nobody’s having any of it) An American Werewolf In London, and Swedish kiddy-vampire flick Let The Right One In. Which, I hasten to add, was released about ten minutes ago.

Now I might be going out on a controversial limb here, but it seems a trifle hasty to be remaking a film that hasn’t even finished its cinema run yet, wouldn’t you say? It’s really only a matter of time before these remakes start turning up before their original counterparts. They could be called ‘retro-makes’, and people could get all their anger and bile out of the way before they’re then ‘originalised’, and everybody will be happy that the retro-director’s vision has been unsullied and the spirit of the first film yanked harshly out of a stinky cesspit to be polished off as a shiny, new, original work of art.

So just to be obstreperous (one of many things my old history teacher used to call me), and with everyone crying vinegar from their blub-holes about how there are no good remakes, The Incredible Suit takes Hollywood’s side and pulls from its incredible sleeves the Top 5 Greatest Re-Whatevers, Like, Ever:

1. Moulin Rouge! (1952 < 2001)
2. Casino Royale (1967 < 2006)
3. Batman Begins (1997 < 2005)
4. Star Trek (2002 < 2009)
5. King Kong (1933 > 2005)

Actually King Kong doesn’t count because it’s not as good as the original. Which, in effect, means there are only four decent re-somethings in the entire movieverse. The bloglodytes and forum-dwellers were right all along! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

Ambassador Of Bloggery

As if the excitement of yesterday’s revelation that Singin’ In The Rain was voted The Greatest Musical, Like, Ever by almost five readers of The Incredible Suit wasn’t enough, I can now bring you more earth-shattering news of a poll result! I know!! So sit down and have a stiff drink handy because you might not be able to withstand the exhilaration of the next paragraph.

With the total number of votes running a close second to the previous poll’s tally (this time over five of you put mouse to mousepad), Buster Keaton’s masterpiece The General scored 50% to become readers of The Incredible Suit’s Greatest Film From The 1920s. Hooray! I’m particularly ecstatic because that was my favourite, and this result vindicates my choice and proves that I have my blogging finger on the entertainment pulse of the nation – nay, the world.

Because of this I now await the inevitable government invitation to become Minister of Movies, or perhaps Mrs Queen herself will ask me to be some kind of ambassador of bloggery for this great nation. Fear not though viewers, if this happens I shall endeavour to continue blogging as much as my schedule allows, for I know that your hopes and dreams rest on the well padded shoulders of this, The Incredible Suit.

Hairy, Barking Beast

Well viewers, the results of The Incredible Suit’s inaugural poll are in! Try to contain yourselves, because this is, for some, more important than the Oscars, the BAFTAs and Crufts all rolled into one hideously gushing, terribly modest, hairy, barking beast.

Yes, following this post, which literally millions* of people read, I asked you to pick your favourite musical from the only five musicals that matter, i.e. my favourite musicals. It’s my blog, remember? Good.

And so I can announce that, in a staggering refusal to agree with me, you, the voting public, have chosen Singin’ In The Rain as The Greatest Musical, Like, Ever!

Upon receipt of the award, Singin’ In The Rain thanked all four of you who made up the record-breaking 57% winning vote, then it gave us a spectacular 20-minute dance routine that had nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of its speech.**

Come back soon for the results of The Incredible Suit’s poll to find The Greatest Film From The 1920s. So far The General is, quite rightly, in the lead, but literally anything* could happen between now and when the polls close. So get voting!

*not literally
**this sentence is approximately 86% more relevant to those familiar with the film. Everyone else should go and watch it now to get full value from this blog. Off you pop!

Pitchfork-Wielding Troglodytes

The new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is out soon, and in preparation I’ve been enjoying a Harry Potterthon at my local cinema, the Joeyplex. I love the Harry Potter films, despite the fact that they’re all a bit rubbish. This is a problem for me because I don’t like admitting that I like rubbish things. I know I should stand my ground and fart in the faces of those who ridicule me, but that’s just too difficult, both mentally and anatomically.

The series has many faults, but there’s only room for me to whine about the two biggest ones before you wander off somewhere less negative. Firstly, it’s quite clear that nobody in the Harry Potter films can act, least of all Daniel Radcliffe (Harry) and Emma Watson (Hermione) – in fact she’s probably the worst actor I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen Spiceworld: The Movie.

Secondly, like Roger Moore’s kisses in a Bond film, they’re waaaaaaay too long (but less capable of inducing a messy breakfast-reappearance). Goblet of Fire, the one with the tri-wizard tournament, is like a two-and-a-half hour edition of The Generation Game; the bits of it that matter could have been condensed into a five-minute pre-title sequence in the next film.

Having said that, the positives outweigh the negatives like Hagrid outweighs Dobby the house-elf. Harry Potter films are all about friendship, standing up for – and by – your mates, sticking two fingers up to the man once in a while, learning to listen to your elders occasionally and negotiating the treacherous terrain of teenage life, all of which resound deep in the lining of The Incredible Suit.

For these reasons I’m prepared to forgive the atrocious acting and long-winded storytelling because the Harry Potter films make me feel all warm and gooey inside, like somebody’s filled me up with cute sleepy puppies and crocheted blankets.

There’s some controversy these days over whether it’s socially acceptable to say that Emma Watson is actually quite fanciable (as long as she doesn’t speak), because if you say that out loud somebody will point out that she’s only eleven years old and before you know it you’re on the front page of the Daily Mail and your house has been burned down by pitchfork-wielding troglodytes. So it seems the answer is no, despite the fact that she is in fact 19 years old. I know because I visit her Wikipedia page quite often.

Anyway that chick who plays Ginny Weasley is much nicer.

See?