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Wednesday 30 June 2010

Buffy The Vampire Slayer Review (Text)

Dear Fanboys

I had a brilliant idea for a review in mind. The plan was to pretend I was reviewing Twilight, and start off by saying how great I thought it was. This would generate shock amongst my readers, who would be disgusted to hear that I enjoyed Twilight. I would then start to explain what I liked about the movie, walking us through the plot and pointing out the good bits, at which point it would rapidly become clear that I had, in fact, been watching ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, but was apparently under the impression that I had been watching Twilight. I thought this would be funny, and that people would enjoy reading it. However, as always, there was a problem. I hated Buffy the Vampire Slayer.




I watched the first episode of the Buffy TV series when it was first shown on regular television in the UK, years and years ago (I was probably about 8 or something, but was told afterwards that I couldn’t watch the rest of the series as it aired because it would be “too scary”). I then watched a number of odd episodes from the show at various points over the next few years, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The show was funny, and yet also had some scary moments, to frighten you just enough that you would jump, but not so much it would give you nightmares. At a time in my life where I would have been watching Doctor Who religiously for my scares were I born 10 years later (or even 10 years earlier, I suppose – not that I don’t watch Doctor Who, you understand, but unfortunately I’m beyond the age where you can truly appreciate it. Like the Master Blaster series. MAN, they were awesome.), I watched “Buffy”. And this is probably why I was so disappointed by the film.

The movie was made several years before the show, and stars a completely different cast. However, it was still written by Joss Whedon, the guy who produced the TV show, and still had some fairly big names in. I therefore had high expectations for the film, despite not having seen the show in years.

The thing is, Joss Whedon has a rather rabid fanbase. He has an army of fanboys, who watch everything he has ever come out with, and who can’t help but sing his praises. He’s like the George Lucas of Television, if George Lucas had only made the original 3 Star Wars and Indiana Jones films. I’m told constantly that “Firefly” and “Angel” and “Serenity” and all manner of Whedon projects are fantastic, and should be watched, and although I never did get round to watching these, figured that the Buffy movie would be a great place to start. After all, it came before everything else he’s done, and my childhood memories insisted that Buffy the Vampire slayer would be worth a watch. Hell, that kind of character is timeless. She was the most kick-ass, awesome female character on TV at that time. Aside from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, of course.


Man, that talking cat sure was funny... Also, MILF!

But I think this is one of the main reasons I hated the film. It starts off focusing on a group of annoying, bitchy teenage girls. Obsessed with fashion, with a clear sense of self-entitlement, self-righteousness, and feelings of superiority over everyone else. They were a bunch of airhead bimbos, and were all cheerleaders. Perfect vampire prey. We follow these girls around, as they act like bitches, and speak using a vocabulary more annoying than those people who think adding the word “much” to the end of an adjective constitutes a legitimate question (Fuck you, muchophiles!). Hell, one of the girls even used this phrase at one point, and since it seems to have mainly arisen on the internet, this movie is probably where it comes from (being spread by Whedon-fanboys), so on those grounds alone, the creators of this film should be summarily executed.



But it wasn’t at this point that I was concerned. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know what was going on. We were following this group of bitchy, slutty, air-head teenage bimbos around, because they were about to get eaten by vampires. We see the girls in the cinema, gossiping, and pissing everyone else off, and then pan to the row of seats behind them, where we see two classic layabouts, played by David Arquette and Luke Perry, getting pissed off at the girls. Great, I thought to myself as I saw this; things couldn’t be more perfect.

On the one hand, you have David Arquette in the film, whose performance in Scream alone means his name appearing in the credits of a horror comedy movie is the equivalent to seeing Sam Rockwell’s at the start of an action-comedy sequel. And on top of this, the two of them were obviously going to be vampires, and kill the annoying girls when they wouldn’t shut up during the movie.

However, we see the girls leaving the cinema, with a disappointing lack of bite marks on their necks, and not even a trace of blood spewing, and one of them meeting her boyfriend; again, a stereotypical high school douchebag jock, like the kind of guy who is always the bad guy in coming-of-age films and Wheatus videos.


Strange they got the actors from 'Loser' back to make a video which had nothing to do with 'Loser' whatsoever...

Ok, I thought to myself, I bet we’re going to see the vampires try to kill off the blonde and her boyfriend, and then Buffy will appear, and show these bimbos how it’s done. But again, this didn’t happen. And soon after, the moment when I realised how truly terrible this movie was going to be arrived. We see David Arquette and Luke Perry stagger into a bar drunk, which the same girls from earlier are in. They start talking, and when asked for her name, the annoying Blonde teenager states “Buffy”. That’s Buffy. The annoying, bitchy bimbo cheerleader who I wanted to see eaten by vampires the second she opened her mouth. Our hero was the least sympathetic and most annoying lead character since ‘The Hot Chick’.



Now, I could live with that in an all-out comedy like ‘The Hot Chick’, where the plot is basically “bitchy cheerleader type starts off as a bitch. Shit happens, she realizes how awful she was before, and turns into a good person; with the help of turning into Rob Schneider for most of the movie”. But here, they didn’t manage to pull it off. You see, Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a major problem in that it doesn’t seem to know what direction the movie should go in.

I honestly couldn’t tell if the writers were taking the movie seriously or not. Was it a parody of bad horror movies? Was it a camp acknowledgement of itself, a poorly scripted movie sitting in a bad genre with awful characters? Or were the writers actually taking it seriously? I don’t even think they know themselves. And here’s why:

Yes, the premise is ridiculous, and the characters unbelievable – but that doesn’t necessarily mean that its existence is ironic. Much like a Hipster’s haircut (as opposed to “Hipster’s haircut much?” you fucking retards).


This, but on a dude wearing Kanye-style sunglasses.

I was honestly reminded whilst watching this of the segment in ‘The Day Today’ where we see a clip of ‘American Rapper Fur Q’, with his new hit single “Uzi Lover”, in which Chris Morris, as Fur Q, discusses how he kills people on stage during the live performance of his show, before we cut to Morris in a different disguise, as a journalist for Rolling Stone, who says “The controversy is preposterous. These killings are clearly ironic”. Was I supposed to be viewing Buffy the Vampire Slayer as one of Fur Q’s killings? Was it intentionally bad, in order to highlight how ridiculous the horror genre has become, or was it actually just awful, with some poor comedy moments thrown in so that, when questioned why their movie was so terrible, the writers could just say “well, it was ironic”. I have no idea, but I honestly feel that the writers were under the impression they had written a good movie, and it has just become the next ‘Flash Gordon’.

Did you know ‘Flash Gordon’ wasn’t supposed to be a camp comedy? The writer honestly wanted to make it into an epic art-house space-opera, somewhere between ‘Star Wars’ and ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, and was outraged when he discovered how many people were viewing it as an outright comedy, under the impression it was, to quote Derrick Zikks of Rolling Stone; “clearly ironic”. I feel like Buffy has suffered the same fate, simply because I cannot see what it is parodying if it is meant to be ironic.

Scream was very clever, because it highlighted all the stupid clichés in slasher movies, and played off them. The Blonde with the Football player boyfriend who’s flirting with a stranger on the phone dies first, the virgin survives, one of the characters sits there whilst the killer walks up behind him, despite the fact he is watching Halloween at the time, and screaming “Look behind you, Jamie!” at the screen. Everything in that movie was flawless. And that’s how you do a part-serious, part-comedy parody. Buffy does not do this, however. Buffy takes what would ordinarily be a terrible vampire movie, and throws in a couple of stupid jokes. THAT’S IT!

Ok, some of the jokes were quite funny; almost Kevin Smith-esque at a couple of points, but the overall tone of the film made these impossible to enjoy. And there were only about four of them in the film, so it definitely wasn’t worth sitting through an hour and a half just to hear them. Watch Clerks and you’ll get at least one every 2 minutes, and the dialogue outside the straight humour is also funny as hell. Here, it was shit.


On top of this, even if the movie WAS a comedy (which I’m not sure it was meant to be), it doesn’t know what type of comedy it is supposed to be. Here are 3 examples of the comedy in this film:


1. David Arquette, having been turned into a vampire, is standing by Luke Perry’s bedroom window, asking Luke Perry to invite him in. Luke Perry is drunk, and does not yet know Arquette is a vampire, so asks him why he’s acting so strange (to use the Americanism). After about a minute’s worth of discussion, Luke Perry looks down, and realizes his room is on the second floor, and Arquette is floating in the air. This is probably the cleverest joke in the whole film.

2. One of the vampire leaders has his arm torn off in a fight with Luke Perry. He turns to his henchman and says “Kill him A LOT!”. It’s a funny line, but in the context of the rest of the movie, I’m not even sure it was intentionally silly. I mean, have you ever read the script for Natural Born Killers? When Mickey’s making his ‘Hostage train’, he points his shotgun at Wayne and says “put this to your solar plexus”. ‘Solar Plexus’, seriously? That’s some bad writing, right there. Ruins the pace of the scene, goes against Mickey’s character (intelligent, but still just a farmboy at heart; says it as it is), and is completely unrealistic. “Hold this under your chin” would be far better because it not only sounds like something he might say, but it also has the more gruesome connotations of blowing the top of Wayne’s head off if he shoots him. Even if you did want the gun in the abdomen area, the character should say “point this into your stomach”, or something similar. ‘Solar Plexus’ has only ever been used effectively ONCE in a film, and that was the scene in Miss Congeniality where she explains the “S.I.N.G” defence technique. But that movie had Shatner in, so could get away with bad dialogue. So, thanks Oliver Stone, good job re-writing that script. Natural Born Killers, that is, not Miss Congeniality.

3. Buffy stabs one of the vampires, and he takes about a minute to die, falling down groaning in pain, apparently dead, then getting up again, and doing it all over again, more dramatically each time. This felt like one of those gags they do in Family Guy where they take a bad joke, and keep it running until people decide that it’s actually funny, because it’s “clearly ironic”. They’ve done this in a few Family Guy episodes, and it pisses me off every time they do it, because it just feels like they couldn’t come up with anything intelligent to fill the time slot the show’s supposed to fit. Still, I guess if I wanted an intelligent and well-made cartoon, I would be watching King of the Hill or something instead. The scene felt way more appropriate for something like “Scary Movie 2”, and that’s actually what this movie reminded me of somewhat. Whilst the original Scary movie took a pardoy of the slasher genre, and parodied THAT (to Paraphrase Michael Swaim: “So it’s a parody of a parody? Does that make it funny again?”) reasonably well (I would say the original Scary movie was worth a watch if you’ve seen the Scream movies, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’, and ‘The Usual Suspects’, but didn’t know that you needed to have watched ‘The Usual Suspects’ to find it funny, because if you did it would ruin the joke, so had watched it incidentally to watching Scary Movie, and were unaware of the reference until you saw it, as I was), the second one took a series of poor jokes which were badly executed, and threw them into some bullshit haunted house story which didn’t really parody anything, given no-one’s made a haunted house film since about 1958. Except that animated kids one which came out after Scary Movie 2…


And that’s what Buffy felt like – essentially, it was Scary Movie 2 all over again. I went in with high expectations, expecting to see an enjoyable, if not great, Horror-comedy movie, and left severely disappointed. In fact, I almost switched Buffy off after the first half hour, because it was so bad. The only thing which stopped me from doing so was the fact that I realised just before turning it off that I had a duty to the people, to you, to watch the whole movie, and let you know how bad it was, lest you be tempted to watch it yourself the next time it is on.

Now, that said, there were a couple of good bits in the film which saved it from total disaster. The end scenes are all set at Buffy’s High School’s senior dance, and the vampires turn up to cause trouble, as you would expect in any horror movie involving a prom or a dance. What’s brilliant about this scene is the way that we see the vampires in the doorway, ready to attack, and Buffy (or possibly Luke Perry) says “they can’t come in. We have to invite them in.”, and Hillary Swank, who was organizing the dance, realizes that she sent them all invitations because they were all students. It’s a simple pleasure, but it really was an enjoyable line. Stephen Root also has a great role in the movie as the incompetent principle of Buffy’s School, and his recollections of the “Doobie Brothers” concert where he tried acid is one of the funniest parts of the film, as well as his interview over the end credits. However, he is criminally under-used, and has 3 minutes of screen time at the very most, including his end credits scene. Other than him, however, the acting is pretty awful.

Buffy is terrible, with no emotional range (not that she needs it for the character, I suppose), and you wonder if they only hired her for her looks, or her ability to do the basic gymnastics required for cheerleading (which she probably didn’t do anyway, given how many stunt performers were involved). Luke Perry seems to be playing Mathew Lillard, though I suppose to be fair to him, this movie probably came out before Lillard ever did a film (anyone seen him in a movie made prior to ‘Scream’?). All the other girls (Buffy’s friends) are completely identical, as are the boys. Hell, they all look the same, too (except the guy who went to the prom in an outfit which clearly influenced Matt Smith’s style choices for The Doctor very heavily – mad props to him). Even Donald Sutherland was bland, uninteresting.

Now, in defence of the actors, I think this is more the script’s fault than anything else. All the characters are stereotypes; caricatures. There is nothing special about any of them. The girls are all typical bimbos, the boys are either stereotypical jocks, or else stereotypical ‘rebels’. Donald Sutherland is the stereotypical old guy who has to pass on advice, but whose student is unwilling, and the bad guys have been done a billion times before. Now, a truly great actor would take a role like that, and make it his own. They would add to the character themselves, build on them, invent a personality and a back story, make them fascinating. But in this, no-one did. And I can honestly see their point; why put in all that effort if the writer couldn’t be bothered to? Sure, the iconic scene in Taxi Driver where DeNiro tough-talks his reflection was just written as ‘Travis looks in the mirror’ in the script, but if Scorsese (and writing partner?) hadn’t put so much effort into creating the other aspects of the character, DeNiro would have had nothing to play off of. “so, should I do this as a paranoid psychotic practicing intimidating victims, or should I do it as a Guido who’s trying to show off his rip to the ladys? The Situation is in the House, yo!” (DeNiro is half Italian, and is therefore half Guido).


How it went from 'Goodfellas' to THIS, I'll never know...


On top of the poor acting and scripting, this movie contains nothing else of interest, either. The direction is poor, the cinematography is dull, but fairly conventional for the most part, and the editing is sloppy and occasionally confusing (It doesn’t help that everyone looks the fucking same in this film – it’s like watching The OC or Jersey Shore, or something…).


It's hard deciding which I'd rather watch for an hour...


Basically, there is nothing good about this movie in technical or actual terms, it just has a couple of semi-decent jokes in, and a few actors you will recognize from infinitely better films.




And now for the hard part. This movie wasn’t absolutely terrible, and did have a few redeeming moments. Hell, I even laughed a couple of times at things I was supposed to be laughing at, rather than just how bad it was! But I have to try and fit it into a scale.


Was this movie better than Iron Man 2?

No, it wasn’t.


Was it better than The Dark Knight?

Closer, but I would still say “no”. The scripting on both was equally poor, with some equally bad acting and effects, but the Dark Knight at least had a memorable score, and Heath Ledger was great in it (better than either Stephen Root or David Arquette, I would say). So, whilst this is probably better in terms of cost of film vs quality of film, I still think it was worse overall.


Now the big one – Was it better or worse than 2012?

The characters were as bland in each, the jokes were as poor in each, and the script was as awful in each. And yet, in 2012, I see some good. I can see why normal people would enjoy it; it’s just not for me. People want to see what the end of the world would look like without having to think about the depressing realities of everyone around them dying, and 2012 certainly achieved that. But can we really judge a movie on whether it achieves what it set out to or not? This movie spawned a series, and was undoubtedly popular, so does this make it better? The answer is no, I have to go on what I felt. And since I didn’t want to turn 2012 off after the first half hour, I would have to say that was better, even if I did mainly keep watching it for comedic value (which is why I SHOULD have been watching this, it just wasn’t funny enough!)

So, this has to be the poorest movie I feel I have reviewed so far. But then, it is infinitely better than, say, ‘Halloween Part 6’, ‘28 Weeks later’ or ‘Attack Force’ (the worst Seagal film I’ve watched! Hell, they didn’t even get him back for the voiceovers – it’s just some random guy!), and I would rate it way above Scary Movie 2, even with that “Christmas records for black people” joke. But there are so many better films out there, even in this genre. The Lost Boys was a far superior vampire comedy, and as I said, Scream was a much better horror parody.


Rating:

*


1 Star


I feel really mean not giving this 2 stars, because it was clearly shot on such a low budget, and therefore is undoubtedly better than most of the movies I gave 2 stars on a proportionate scale. However, if that was how ratings worked, ‘Colin’ would be regarded as the best movie ever made, and they wouldn’t make these summer blockbusters any more. But, in the end, I had to follow my heart. Plus, you know, totally diss the fanboys, and make a statement.

To be honest, if I had never watched the show, and therefore had no fond memories of it, and if nobody went on about how great Joss Whedon is, I probably would have given this movie 2 stars – but my crushing sense of disappointment forced me to deduct one (and before anyone shouts Hypocrite, yes I did still give The Dark Knight 2 stars despite being severely disappointed with it, but at least The Dark Knight has spawned countless amusing parodies, rather than people saying “angry much?”, “The Dark Knight much?”, and other such phrases). This movie isn’t absolutely awful (hence it wasn’t given 0 stars), and I reckon on the re-watch I might actually enjoy it (I hated Hot Fuzz when I first saw it, but actually decided it wasn’t that bad after seeing it again – I think you enjoy this sort of movie more if you know what to expect), but it really didn’t do it for me, and much in the same manner as I rated the Jonas Brothers’ movie 1 star on IMDB without seeing it, I must counter the constant praises thrown on Whedon by his fanboys. Take THAT, bitch!



I am now seriously considering watching Twilight, just to see if I actually enjoy it more than this film (hard to imagine, but possible). I mean, it’s meant to be quite good. I saw a clip from it which looked really impressive, where the bully’s older brother comes into the sports centre with a knife, and holds the main character’s head under the water, then the vampire arrives and kills the bullies. Made me really want to watch the rest of it.




Voice


Seriously, though; watch The Lost Boys instead.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

2012 - Review (text)




Those of you who read my “Knowing” review (I hope SOMEONE did), may well have been under the impression I’ve lost it. I spent almost the entire review discussing the impact of the special effects, and completely glossed over the theological implications of the script. But I can assure you, I have not gone completely insane just yet (as evidenced by my comments on Twilight in my previous review – when I start screaming about how much I love 17 year old Werewolfs, THEN you’ll know something’s wrong with me. Oh, and so we’re clear, when you come to kill me – I want it in the FOREHEAD, so the exit wound’s at the back, and I can still have an open casket if they put a trilby on my corpse – which they’d fucking better!). No, the reason I did this was simple: Despite my comments on how retarded it would be to write these two reviews as one massive one, and cross-reference the movies throughout; I decided that this was actually a pretty sweet idea – and since they basically have the same religious connotations in their endings – I figured I would tackle those together. So, heads up – Spoilers for “Knowing” as well as “2012” (though, in the context of explaining 2012 – I’m not gonna review Knowing again here!). Also, since 2012 is pretty well ALL about the effects, I figured that going into detail about why I loved the effects in Knowing would help me to better explain why I hated them in 2012.

That’s right. HATED. And here’s why:

2012 was supposed to be this huge spectacle, in which the main driving force was the incredible effects, showing us what the end of the world would look like. It was essentially sold as a movie all about special effects – the story was unimportant – it was all about how spectacular everything looked. And, bearing that in mind, this just led me to severe disappointment.

I mean, don’t get me wrong – I wasn’t expecting a huge amount when I went in. I deliberately didn’t go and see this in the cinema, because I knew that any movie selling itself entirely on its effects wouldn’t be any good. I also knew that it wouldn’t hold up to “Knowing” in terms of realism, nor “Avatar” in terms of the sheer scale of it all. But what I DID expect was for the effects to have improved on those used in “The Day After Tomorrow” – which came out at least 5 years before this!


Was this really THAT hard to improve on, Emmerich?

Seriously – NOTHING has improved on those effects. In fact, in many ways, 2012 is actually WORSE than “The Day After Tomorrow” for effects value. Whilst my main complaint in “The Day After Tomorrow” was with the terribly animated wolves, with the actual storms being fairly well done as far as I can recall, “2012” cannot even handle the simplest of effects.

Seriously; there is a scene fairly early on in which California is experiencing super-quakes, and everything is collapsing and exploding around John Cusack and his family as they try and escape in Cusack’s character’s limo (before I forget – the character’s name is “Jackson Curtis”; as in the same name as that Javelin thrower whose name I always laugh at, and who I refer to as “50 Cent”, because when billed for competitions, it comes up as “Curtis, Jackson”) – and it is God awful!

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve seen effects so dodgy since I went to see The Matrix Reloaded, where they insisted on completely computer generating an entire fightscene between Neo and countless Agent Smith clones, and it looked worse than the graphics on most playstation games. And you know what? I thought the exact thing whilst watching that scene in “2012”. I thought “I might as well be watching someone playing a computer game” – the effects were THAT bad. I mean, if this is an “effects spectacular”, then Die Hard 4 must have won every achievable award for Digital effects there is, because even that had effects infinitely more realistic than this movie! I honestly get the feeling that they deliberately animated the film in this way, just so people would think “oh wow – this is just like a computer game”, and then rush out and buy the 2012 game as soon as it came out, because people are retarded. Or at least, movie producers think they are.


What movie producers think of us.

Aside from the poor digital effects (which, admittedly, were spectacular at a number of points, though terrible in others), there were a number of other things about the film that really annoyed me. For one:

I can’t stand this whole trend of having a male lead in a crummy job with an ex-wife who’s seeing someone else, and who has a daughter who is completely one dimensional and whose only purpose is to be terrified, and a son who is such a brat you want to just lamp him one RIGHT IN THE FUCKING FACE! I mean, SERIOUSLY, I had enough of that in War of the Worlds (and Dakota Fanning was far more memorable than the girl in this – seriously, I don’t remember her doing ANYTHING! I can’t even picture her in my head, that’s how pointless the character is. And fuck you, that’s ambiguous. Ambiguous? I don’t think so – no, I mean, he’s got a point, I mean, is that like “picture it in your head", or "picture a bullet IN your head", he's got a– shut up) – I don’t want to fucking see it again! (granted, once the son fucked off in that, it did get a bit more entertaining – but his surviving the film ruined it for me. What a cop-out! Only in fucking America, right? A British director would have killed the prick off. At least, I hope they would have…) I mean, why have the EXACT same family set-up in this as you did in War of the Worlds? It worked so well the first time you figured you’d just go for it again? Here’s a hint – most people only have 1 complaint about Terminator 2: The kid was an annoying dick. WHY DO YOU KEEP WRITING PARTS FOR KIDS WHO ARE JUST PLAIN CUNTS? Honestly, why not have some nice kids? Or at least, some with complex motivations behind their douche-ness. If you want a kid who’s a bastard, why not make him a manic depressive/ violently bi-polar teen instead? Why not have a strong girl character, and a wimpy boy, just to mix it up? Why not have a mother and father who are still together? Given only 1 in 3 marriages end in divorce, you’re statistically more likely to have parents who are still together – so why the obsession with creating such a conflict between them BEFORE the event? Seeing people drift apart as everyone around them dies would be FAR more interesting, and have a more real feel to it! I hate to come back to MillenniuM again, especially season 2 (the worst for the most part), but Frank and Catherine’s relationship in that was perfect for this sort of thing – they start off happy, but with some deep-seated issues, something happens to make it all come to the surface, they drift apart, then come back together as they see the end approaching. THAT’S HOW YOU FUCKING DO IT! Shit, seeing Frank, Jordan and Catherine evading the end of the world might have actually been a good movie (or series finale? Oh yeah, I forgot…) – that’s how you fucking write characters, 2012 writers – WHY DON’T THEY MAKE CHARACTERS LIKE THAT ANY MORE? Plus, Lance Henriksen. NEED I SAY MORE?


No, I need not.

What’s more – the characters are so pointless you don’t even give a fuck about them. They’re so one dimensional and unlikeable, I honestly think I would struggle to write characters that bad. Not to give away too many Spoilers, but when the step-dad died in this, I just didn’t give a fuck. He was such a poorly written character that his death wasn’t even sad. And that’s what annoyed me the most about this movie:

Despite the message towards the end about how everyone’s life is important, and how we should all care for each other – the movie does not give a FUCK about all the people who die. You remember I said how “Knowing” was so haunting because, despite the fact you didn’t know any of the characters involved in the plane crash, you could still identify with them, and imagine how horrific the situation was? 2012 does NOTHING even remotely close to that. The deaths are all stylized, and incidental. Nothing seems real, and we don’t dwell on anything. Watching this movie, it was like “oh, dude just died in the background. Whatever”. There was just no humanity to it! None of the characters gave a fuck most of the people in the world were dying, and it was shot in such a way that we didn’t give a fuck either – which pisses me off! How do you make a film about the end of the world, and not care about the people who die? If I wanted to see a film where death was as inconsequential as it is in this movie, I would go and see a film from the point of view of a serial killer. At least then, I would come out saying “wow, that’s amazing how you get pulled so far into the character’s head that these people he kills just seem irrelevant – their life wasn’t important, they were just there to die – what an incredible director – how did he pull that off? Invent such a depraved yet identifiable character, and get you to see the world exactly as he does? That’s getting the Oscar for sure, mark my words. I wish I could write something that intelligent!”, rather than “huh, so apparently everyone around you dying is just fun, or something?”. People laughed at my suggestion that what made Zombieland good was the fact that the lead is clearly a sociopath who gets off on the idea of killing, but seeing this, I’m worried I may have been over-thinking things. Maybe in movies, people just don’t give a fuck about life and death – and death really is inconsequential as far as movie producers are concerned. In which case, I may have to go back and mark Zombieland down, because that’s the whole reason I liked that movie – I thought we only had such a lack of caring in films if they were told from the perspectives of Psychopaths (please don’t tell me American Psycho isn’t supposed to make you identify with Patrick’s views on death and murder, or I will actually go on a killing spree myself, just to understand the level of detachment movie producers must feel from other human beings)!



"My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip. Regards, Jerry Bruckheimer."


I mean, I understand you can’t show enough about everyone who dies to make you genuinely care about their deaths, otherwise the film would take hours. But you could at least show enough so we can sort of identify with them, as in “Knowing”, or at the very least have your main character break down crying at the tragic loss of life or something, rather than just have him carry on, non-plussed. I seriously had the feeling that the view of the general population who went to see this movie must just be “people die. Who gives a fuck?” – and I fear for the future of humanity. How can anyone be as cold as the characters in this film? They don’t seem to give a fuck about ANYONE! Even when the mother’s boyfriend/new husband (or whatever) dies, she seems upset for about 2 minutes, then just stops caring, maybe even forgets he existed. How is anyone that detached? This was either the best study of how a serial killer would write a disaster movie I’ve ever seen, or a movie with such poor writing, and un-empathetic characters it shouldn’t exist. PLEASE tell me a serial killer wrote this movie!


Hmmm... I could really write a Disaster Movie right about now...


Now, having said that, there were a couple of moments where you felt the impact of deaths – such as the two old boys on the cruise ship – one of whom never got the chance to say goodbye to his son, and the other being the father of one of the main characters; but these moments were fleeting, and the number of deaths we don’t give a fuck about far outweigh the well done ones.

But enough on that, because I already covered how it SHOULD have been done in my “Knowing” review. I shall instead move on to the whole “Arks” sub-plot.



Yes, just like this. But not on Acid.

Although we learn about the plan near the start, it is only towards the end that we discover the scale of it. The leaders of the world have united to create a group of “arks”, which are built under a dam in China, and which are designed to allow the human race to survive the destruction of the world. Now, whilst I did feel like screaming “Boooo! If I wanted to watch Deep Impact, I would have watched that! But then again, if I wanted to watch a film with Elijah Wood in, I would have watched Green Street. Why am I not watching Green Street? And why is I called ‘Hooligans’ in America? Are Americans really that retarded that they need to know exactly what a film’s about before they’ll consider watching it? Deep Impact’s probably called ‘Meteorite’ over there. Or possibly even ‘Giant Space Rock’. You know what? Fuck America! No Americans are following this Blog, and that upsets me so much I’m going to insult them, and act like the only reason they don’t read my articles is because they’re too dumb!”, it also kind of made sense. I mean, how else could they possibly resolve the movie without killing everyone off? And since it’s a family movie, that wasn’t really an option. So, fair play.

What really made me laugh about the Arks was the way people were selected to go on them, to be saved. Whilst it was a lottery on Deep Impact, the producers of 2012 realised this would be retarded – because people would have to be told the end of the world was coming in advance for that to happen, and if they had been told then the whole John Cusack (sub?)plot would have been irrelevant. Instead, we are informed that people who pay the sum of $1 billion are entitled to a seat on the arc. Now, I don’t know if you’ve seen billionaries – but here’s what you would wind up with; A bunch of snobby motherfuckers who’ve never done a day’s proper work in their life, and sure as shit wouldn’t be able to perform the kind of hard labour you would need to restart human society – agriculture, mining, building, etc. So the producers put in another little explanatory note, stating that a large number of other people were selected from the Earth’s population, based on who had the best genes to continue the human race…


HEIL HITLER!!!!!!!!!!!




Seriously, were these guys watching “Doctor Strangelove” thinking it was a serious discussion on how best to continue civilization after a massive disaster, or something? I mean, sure, it makes sense choosing those who can work, and who can reproduce (which is why I wasn’t outraged when one of the charcters decided to leave his 89 year old mother with Alzheimer’s at home), but where does it all go too far? I’m over 6 foot with Blonde hair and Blue Eyes, and fairly athletic (though a little on the fat side) – does that mean I get in before anyone else? Oh wait, I have to wear contact lenses, and have flat feet! Fuck, I can’t get a place! We need perfect Aryans without any Handicaps to continue the human race! Is there an IQ requirement? Damn, I’m only 141 – you need 145 to be classed as a genius and granted a place! Fuck! Do they go on qualifications? I have a law degree! What’s that? Knowledge of a bunch of old documents will be worth fuck all when we have to completely rebuild society, and I should have studied Engineering or medicine instead? FUCK! I mean, it just seems ridiculous that anyone in the modern world would consider trying to create a master race – and I’m not just saying that because I have Chinese friends…



(Ok, I am – I’m happy with the “Blonde haired, Blue eyed, tall and of Germanic decent Qualifications, really”).



The “Arks” thing therefore seemed a little ridiculous to me. But then, I went on IMDB, and no-one else on the 2012 board seems to have made the Nazi connection in the same way I did, so maybe I’m the only one? Personally, though, I felt “Knowing” handled this better – simply because the people had no say in who came or went, so it didn’t end up being completely retarded. Though, of course, perhaps 2012 was simply trying to capture the ridiculous nature of modern society and politics in a satirical manner worthy of Armando Iannucci, and I simply missed it? Maybe everyone else saw this movie as a satire, and I’m just too dumb to spot something like that? Am I fucking retarded? Did you guys really all see this when I didn’t? Fuck! It all makes sense now – I was trying to watch a comedy as though it was an honest, serious movie! God, I must sound stupid. Is the egg showing, or what?

Ok, so rant over – let’s just get the acting out the way to wrap this thing up:

Acting is poor all round. No-one really nailed it except the bad guy on the Ark who wants to keep all the poor people out – and he probably only managed it because that’s his actual opinion, or something. John Cusack was boring, and one-dimensional (like ALL the characters in this fucking film!), and seemed miscast. If I were the producers, I would have cast George Clooney, on the assumption that even if people didn’t like the movie, every woman, and 25% of the men who saw it would come out satisfied (working on the assumption that 10% of the male population is supposedly gay, so 15% more being bi sounds about right) – but what do I know? The rest of the family were terribly written, as stated above, and the acting didn’t help improve the dire characters. It’s admittedly rare that an actor can turn a horribly written part around, and these certainly weren’t up to the job. The black guy from 4 brothers was cool to see again, and I loved the fact he’s actually English – but the character himself was only slightly less boring than the others. Thandie Newton was Bland, and Danny Glover’s heart wasn’t in it (plus, when did he develop that Lisp?) Woody Harrelson seemed to be having fun filming his character’s scenes – but he was overacting way too much. Now, granted, with that sort of character you have to, but he just wasn’t convincing. And I like over-the-top parts: Wayne Gale in Natural Born Killers I can believe. Looney Bin Jim in Punisher: War Zone I can buy. Riddick in Pitch Black I can believe. But this guy? Sorry. However, my little brother and I did like the old Russian Don, especially when asked why his plane was so big, he responded “it’s Russian” – best line in the fucking film.

I also felt like they could have improved the movie massively by just throwing us a curb-ball. When John Cusack falls into a gorge opened up by an earthquake, I started genuinely hoping he had died – because it would have been so much more intelligent! The guy set up as the main character dies 50 minutes in, and the step dad takes over as the lead? Fucking genius! And not been overused, either (apparently Lost was meant to be like this, with the main guy dying in the last minute of the pilot, but the Networks changed it because fuck them. Not that I ever watched Lost, I’m just saying – nice concept). Or how about the Arks fail, and everyone aboard dies, but there is an area of the planet not too badly effected, so the human race carries on, just as a primitive tribe in the rainforest or in Africa or something, so it’s like God’s vengeance has wiped out our society of greed and corruption, and only spared the truly innocent, which would tie in nicely with the whole Noah’s Ark theme (as in ‘Knowing’. Sure, the aliens COULD have saved Adults too, but they wanted the uncorrupted children to help rebuild the human race as something much better – hence the religious connotations to the Noah’s Ark story from Genesis). Just ANYTHING to mix it up, and make the film a little different, and not just a predictable load of drivel.

So, as you can tell, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the movie. However, I will say this for it: as a movie you can just stick in and watch without thinking about, it was good. It was silly, it was preposterous, it was poorly written with awful effects. But hell, I loved Flashforward, and that certainly fits that description. So does Doctor Who. So why the hell not recommend 2012, on the assumption that it does what it says on the tin – it gives you a loose story set around a bunch of special effects. Hell, if you’re into the disaster movie genre, or if you’re big on the effects movies (King Kong, Transformers, Avatar, etc.), you’ll probably love this film! My little brother certainly did. I suppose it al depends on whether you can just zone out, and watch a movie for the sake of watching a movie, rather than look for something deeper in it. I will therefore not give this film 1 star, in acknowledgement of the fact that it achieved all it set out to. Also, there’s a fuckload of worse movies out there more deserving of my 1 star rating!



Rating:

**

2/5 stars



Not a good movie – predictable and boring, with nothing to separate it from other similar movies (Armageddon, Deep Impact, the Day after Tomorrow) and with some poor effects. But, exciting enough you won’t turn it off – and given it’s nearly 3 hours, I suppose that’s saying something! It’s not too hard to enjoy, as long as you don’t try and take it at all seriously. Just zone out, and let the movie wash over you, and I’m sure it’s fantastic. It just didn’t quite do it for me. I can’t really recommend this film, but to be honest, if you haven’t seen it already, you probably weren’t going to.


Voice





p.s. I should just Qualify - I am not a Nazi, I have as much Jewish blood in me as I do German (well, both stemming from the same ancestor, in fact; who had the foresight to come to England before the war kicked off, and who fought in the British Army against his own countrymen), I just thought people would appreciate the joke.

Monday 21 June 2010

Knowing - Review (Text)



Over the past week, I’ve seen two *MASSIVE SPOILER* end of the world movies – my dad bought “Knowing” on Tuesday, which we watched then, and my younger brother bought my dad “2012” for Father’s Day (I bought him “No Country For Old Men” and “Invictus” – which you may eventually get reviews of, if I can ever be bothered – which I almost certainly won’t be, given my track record). So, I decided that I could review these two together, and save myself some time.


Saving time - the 1980s way...

Then it occurred to me that this was, in fact, a retarded idea; owing to the fact that the movies are actually very different, are not necessarily easy to interlink just because the overall theme of the films is based around the same premise (i.e. The End of the World) – and also that people may only want to read about one of the movies (and also that they’ll be able to find them more easily if I do a separate review for each).

So, with that in mind, let’s dig into “Knowing” – the newest Nicholas Cage film I’ve watched since Vue cinemas decided to be CUNTS and not release “Bad Lieutenant” in the South-West of the country (whilst re-showing the first 2 Twilight films in Plymouth, I might add! Although, that could make for some hilarious fucking reviewing – maybe I’ll finally do another video review if I can bear to fork over my hard-earned cash to sit through that shit).


The premise of “Knowing” is fairly simple: a freaky girl from the 50s writes a code on a piece of paper, which is buried in her school’s time-capsule; and is recovered in 2009 by Nick Cage’s son (I honestly can’t remember ANY character name, so Nick Cage’s character shall henceforth be referred to as Cassidy – because my Volumes of Preacher are sitting across from me, and I can’t be bothered to go on IMDB), who brings it home. Cassidy accidentally puts his coffee mug down on the sheet of paper, and it leaves a ring circling the numbers 91120012976 (or something like that), and he realizes that this can be separated into 9/11/2001, the date of the Twin Towers attack, plus the number of people who died in the attack. He starts to obsess over the paper, and soon discovers that every number on there relates to a major disaster from the past 50 years, since the time capsule was buried. From then on, the story revolves around Cassidy trying to get word out that there are 3 more disasters due to occur, and trying to stop them. Needless to say, it is revealed fairly quickly that the third and final disaster is, in fact, the end of the world; or at least – of all humans.


It could happen!

Whilst the premise does seem ridiculous, it is all explained towards the end of the film. However, I shall discuss that a little later on in this review, since I would like to get through as much of the movie as I can before getting to any major spoilers.


The acting is fairly decent throughout – especially from the kids. I’m always nervous about watching films with children in, because as a general rule, they can’t act. However, here they were fairly convincing – so much so that I could easily get absorbed within the story, and not constantly obsess about the acting, which was good.

It also says a lot for the script, of course, that I wasn’t just sitting watching a movie, but was having the full movie experience, as IMAX would say (I’ve never been to one, and I don’t intend to – unless I go to America, of course, where it would be considered rude not to).


Americans and their strange manners...

Of course, this is surprising for this type of movie (disaster movie), because generally they don’t rely on the script, but instead rely on the effects. Which, I am proud to say for the first time in my life, were FUCKING MIND-BLOWING!


Please remind me to NEVER search for "Head Explosion" on Google images with safe search off EVER AGAIN! It soooooo wasn't worth it for this crummy image - which would have come up if I'd typed in "Scanners", anyway!


Think of the best digital effects you’ve ever seen. Now realize that you picked that scene because it was easy to recognize as being a special effect, and therefore probably isn’t that good. With this movie, you won’t have that moment of realization. The effects in the disaster scenes of this film are beyond imaginable – it’s like actually being there!

The cinematography helps tremendously with this, as well as the direction. For example, during the first disaster, which is a plane crash, we go straight from looking at Cassidy speaking with a cop, to seeing the plane come spiraling out of the sky and crashing, and then follow Cassidy as he tries to rescue survivors, ALL IN ONE SHOT! That’s right – there is not a single cut in that scene – the camera never stops rolling! Not only that, but it’s a rainy day, with many of the colours muted by the grey sky, and this gives it a far more “real” feel than the ridiculously bright effects we’re used to seeing – which are too reminiscent of computer game graphics. And to top it all off – the scene appears to have been shot on a Super 16mm camera or a 28mm, rather than a 35, so has a more grainy, documentary feel to it. All these factors combined lead to possibly the most realistic plane crash scene ever depicted on film. And it is HORRIFYING!

For me, at least, I found the scene very hard to watch. Don’t get me wrong – I love it when movies are real; I can’t stand films where a bunch of faceless people are killed, and it doesn’t matter because we never knew the characters (see my next review!). But this was something else – this was so real, it actually felt horrible just watching it.

Other than war movies, I can’t really think of any where there are previously unseen and unknown characters killed, and it has the level of resonance with me that the plane crash scene in Knowing did – and in many ways I’m surprised it didn’t get an 18. And it’s not as though I’m just a pussy who can’t stand seeing anything horrible on screen – the scene isn’t exactly gory; and even if it was – I watch the fucking Saw movies for fun and don’t lose a moment’s sleep over the scenes depicted in those. What’s horrible about this is the scale of the event, and the realness of it. It’s not stylized, it’s not compromising; it just shows it as it is. In fact, the only time I’ve felt more horrified when watching a movie was when I saw Schindler’s list, which I had to walk out on because I felt so sick (how that’s a 15, I do not know).

I suppose the problem I have is that I have a slightly over-active mind when compared to the average movie-goer. Whilst I can quite happily sit through ridiculously high body counts in films like ‘Punisher: War Zone’, or ‘The Wild Bunch’, and hardly flinch (indeed, at varying points in each of those movies, I would be shouting “Awesome” or on the edge of my seat with excitement because someone had just been killed in an over-the-top and ridiculous fashion), the realistic stuff gets to me; the stuff you know people are actually going through, or have gone through. Whilst ‘Schindler’s List’ made me sick, imagining both what it would be like to be in a concentration camp, and also wondering how anyone could bring themselves to commit the sort of atrocities the SS soldiers did, ‘Knowing’ got to me because I can imagine myself being on a plane that goes down, or witnessing such a crash in real life, and imagining what it would be like. In all honestly, the visual images were so powerful, I felt I could smell the scene – the charred flesh hanging in the air, the Kerosine flames; everything (in the same way as people taste Mint in Shamrock shakes because they’re green). It probably doesn’t help that I’ve seen clips of an actual aircrash, either, and so ha already spent some time imagining what it must have been like to witness firsthand (I am, of course, referring to the Ramstein Airbase disaster, from which the band ‘Rammstein’ took their name, and wrote a song for; and which killed 44 people). The way Cassidy is in the middle of it all, yet unable to help anyone, is just as haunting; because it is easy to imagine yourself in his place. After seeing this scene, I have decided to lay off all the Nick Cage bashing that is so popular on the internet, because you have to be a hell of an actor to pull off a scene like that, and leave audiences with that effect.


Yes, one HELL of an actor!

Credit where Credit's due, I totally stole this image from Dan O'Brien in the hopes he would fuck my shit up in revenge!




In my defence, it doesn't say anything about stealing IMAGES...


The second disaster doesn’t let up either, with the exact same kind of feel to it. It revolves around something we’ve all done, and we can no doubt imagine ourselves in such a position, and when you combine this with the realism of the effects; it is truly haunting. Granted, after the first disaster, the edge is slightly taken off the second one, because you know what to expect, and also because it is shot from multiple angles, rather than one long tracking shot, so is identified by your brain as just being a movie, rather than getting that feeling it is real. But still, it is a very powerful scene.


Unfortunately, the producers couldn’t keep it up. Whilst those two scenes are incredible, both in their direction and cinematography, and as a tour-de-force of digital effects rendering; there were also a couple of let-downs in the movie. I’m gonna get into some major spoilers below, so feel free to skip to my concluding paragraph if you wish.


Seriously, though, Fuck puns! And - wait! Is that Exeter Cathedral in the background? WTF? There aren't Chinese people in Devon!

First of all, I was annoyed by the “crash out of nowhere” scene near to the end. Whilst I was VERY impressed with the suddenness with which the plane crash occurred earlier in the film, I have seen WAAAAY too many movies where one of the protagonists is just crossing the road, or driving across it, and is hit by a truck. It was shocking and fresh in Meet Joe Black; it was a stupid repeat in Hot Rod, but still a funny scene; by The Orphanage it was getting too predictable (hence the real shock comes afterwards), and by the time we hit Knowing, everyone already knows about it! Get it? Knows? Cos the film’s called… Oh man! Tough Crowd!


Get it? TOUGH crowd? Tou - oh, wait. I got "Tough" and "Gay" confused again, didn't I?


My second complaint is that the “shocking twist ending” was too predictable. I don’t know why, but for some reason, I kept thinking about Signs whilst I was watching this, and not just because I want to nail Abigail Breslin.


Come on guys! I didn't mean when she was IN Signs; I meant NOW!... What? 14's still not legal? Huh... Ummm, did you put that charge sheet away yet?


But I think that there were a lot of connections to be made; the kid with a mild disability who’s obsessed with aliens; the father who stopped believing in God after his wife’s death; hell, they even live in the same style of house! So when the aliens did finally come, it wasn’t much of a surprise, but more of an “I told you so moment”, because earlier on when the woods were on fire, and you could just see a light through the window, my dad said “what’s that?”, and I replied “It’s the Aliens”, then when it turned out it was a fire he said “what Aliens? There weren’t Aliens” – but I knew better! Cue evil laughter…


Today's competition: Name the Cartoon this still was taken from! Answers in the comments, or burned into the skull of your next victim.

And yes, I get the religious connotations - the whole rescuing the innocent before the planet perishes thing, which sits halfway between Noah's Ark and The Rapture in the Book of Revelations (I was a MillenniuM fan, you know?). But seriously, those were fucking Aliens. Hell, maybe Angels are Aliens? But I like to think of it as an analogy for religion, rather than it actually being angels. Still, each unto his own (the angels theory does fit in nicely with the non-beliver converting back to faith theme nicely, though). Hell, you can talk about the philosophical points behind this movie forever, but I get the feeling it would be just like all the religious imagery people see in Pulp Ficiton - half of it probably wasn't intended! Plus, I'm just doing a basic review here, not a full table disucussion. So if I may...?


The effects towards the end are also fairly lousy compared to earlier on, because they go from being incredibly realistic, to being very fanciful and also very obviously just effects. Obviously, it’s hard to make aliens and their ships look realistic, and since the structure of the ships could very well be beyond our comprehension, for all I know this all looked exactly as it would in real life. However, I wasn’t feeling it, and I felt that, with a little more work, it could have been greatly improved. Cage’s acting towards the end is also great, and it makes you wonder why so many people rip on him…


Oh... yeah.

On top of that, there’s really not all that much to say. Surprisingly, I have come out of a movie with my mind preoccupied more by the digital effects than anything else – in a GOOD WAY! That’s never happened to me before. Previously, as with The Dark Knight, or The Matrix Reloaded, when I’ve been more obsessed with effects than the actual story itself, it’s been because they were so BAD. But here, it’s just… unbelievable.



Rating:


****

4/5 Stars


Truthfully, I do feel like a bit of a dick, rating this movie 4 stars; because I know full well that, based on the story, the acting, and the direction, it really only deserves 3. But damn it, those effects were SO good, I feel it deserves to be bumped up a notch – because they really have made an otherwise fairly predictable movie unique. And hell, I marked TDK down for the shitty Two-Face effects, why can’t I mark this one up for having great effects?

This movie is fairly exciting, and for the most part will keep you interested, even if the beginning is a bit slow; and the disaster scenes are so impressive it has to be seen to be believed. I recommend you watch this film if you can look at Nicholas Cage for more than five seconds without thinking about burnt toast:





2012 review hopefully coming tomorrow!

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Dear Danny Dyer (text)

Recently, Cockney Hardman Danny Dyer has been in trouble over a comment in his ‘Agony Aunt’ column in Nuts magazine, in which he suggested a reader cut his ex-girlfriend’s face, so “no-one will want her”. Whilst this comment was widely condemned by the media, including that woman in The Times who wants to ban free internet porn, it was, by his standards, comparatively mild. After all, for every one reply printed in Nuts, Danny actually writes 10 that are deemed “too offensive” to publish.

We at Voice From the Pillow (so… just me) are determined to bring you all the material you could reasonably desire on such subjects (despite the fact this is meant to be a review site – it’s even called ‘Voice From the Pillow REVIEWS’, but I’ve only posted 1 Review per month for I don’t know how long… eh, fuck it); and so, using my incredible skills of detection, I have managed to unearth a number of responses to readers’ letters that Danny Dyer submitted to the editors of Nuts, which were refused on “moral grounds”. Enjoy!



ASK DANNY DYER




Movie Hardman and Proper Geeza Danny Dyer answers YOUR questions for NUTS Magazine! If you would like your letter featured next week, just email it to Danny10inchcock@nuts-staff.co.uk!




Dear Danny

I am in my 40s, and believe I am having a mid-life crisis. Recently, it finally hit me that death is inevitable, and that, as I have no family, it is likely that I will not be remembered by anyone when I am gone. This terrifies me, because more than anything, I want to be remembered by people – in a hundred years time, I want people to still know my name. How can I realistically achieve this?

Yours sincerely,
Stephen, Yorkshire.




Steve

Getting people to remember you is tough, mate – I recommend becoming a film star like me – you know geezas are still gunna be watching Football Factory down the pub in a thousand years, Bruv. But it’s a proper hard business to get into. I recommend doing extras work to start off with, and work your way up from there. You’ll feel like a mug to start off with, but trust me bruv, it’s well worth it if you make it. But then, for all I know you’re an ugly cunt, and wouldn’t be cast in no movies – in which case your best option is probably to become the next Hitler or something? Or maybe a serial killer? People are still going on about Jack the Ripper hundreds of years later. Just a though, Princess…

Danny.



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Dear Danny

My boss had a go at me at work in front of all my workmates, and really made me feel little. What should I do?

John, Hull




John

If I were you, son, I would want to get revenge on this mug – make HIM feel small. Best way to do that is to bed his wife, and send him the tape after. But if you’re a bit of an ugly cunt, or his wife’s a proper dog and you can’t even do her with a bag on her head, I recommend abducting one of his kids, and sending him a toe every day until he hangs himself. My mate Dave did the same thing, and the guy hung himself in 4 days – then Dave took a picture, cos the geeza pissed himself whilst he was hanging, and he posted it on the intranet – it was a proper laugh, mate! Well, till Dave got 15 to life – but you sound proper smart from how you write, bruv, I reckon you’ll get off Scott free, mate. Dirty Scots – getting away with everything. Fucking mugs…

Danny



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Dear Danny

My boyfriend beat me up yesterday for not making him a sandwich when he was watching football because I had to pick my baby up from my mums, what should I do?

Katie, London




Kate

Try making him a fucking sandwich when he asks! If you were my bird, I’d hit you with a cricket bat next time. You’d better make sure your boyfriend reads this!

Danny.


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Dear Danny

My brother just admitted to me that he is gay. What should I do?

Gavin, Berkshire.




Gav

If I were you I’d crucify him, Bruv. I remember when I went on that show ‘Never Mind the Buzzcocks’, and that cunt Simon Amstell was talking all kinds of shit to me, and when I got home after, my agent told me it’s cos he’s a poofter – if I’d known at the time, I’d have proper lamped him, Bruv – you know fags don’t even like footie? That ain’t right!

Danny.



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Dear Danny

My cousin’s coming to stay with me from South Africa next month after the world cup finishes. Got any ideas for any good practical jokes I can play?

Robbie, Leicester





Rob

I remember one time when my mate Vin got fucking wankered and passed out on my kitchen floor, so we duck-taped him down and took it in turns to piss on his face. He went proper psycho and tried to stand up, so my mate Jon stabbed him – it was a proper laugh, bruv – but I gotta admit, me bum was flappin’ a bit when he got his arm free! If your cousin’s a bird, that’s even better, just wank over her face rather than piss on it!

Cheers, Dan.



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Dear Danny

I had a party Friday night, and my idiot friends egged the INSIDE of my house, and now my landlord’s gonna kick me out. Got any suggestions?

Phil, Nottingham





Phil

You’ve got 2 problems, mate – your landlord, and your so-called “friends”. But don’t worry, I can tell you how to solve each of them. First your landlord – when he comes round to evict you, crack him on the nut with a spanner, and bundle him into your boot. Take your car to the ferryport, and stick it on a ferry to Ireland (best to use a car you’ve nicked if you can) – then wait til the ferry’s left the dock, and call up the Irish customs saying there’s an illegal immigrant hiding in the car. They’ll arrest him, and cos you’ve already nicked his wallet when you knocked him out, he won’t be able to prove who he is. If he’s a black guy or a Paki, he’ll probably get sent home, but even if he’s white, he’ll still be stuck in an Irish prison for a couple of weeks waiting for the British Embassy to send his passport, in which time you can nick all the fixtures and copper wiring from the house and do one. As for your mates – ask them to come out with you on a night out to Birmingham and get them pissed. When they pass out, dress them up as members of the KKK, and set a cross on fire (this might take some forward planning), then leg it to the fucking taxi rank, and get out of there. Should work a treat, bruv!

Danny.


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Dear Danny

M8 IZ A GANG$TA BUT IZ BIN DISSED BY DIS PUNK ON DA INTERNETZ! HE CANT EVEN DO NO ARTICLES WIVOUT MAKIN A REFRENSE TO ME BEIN A SPAZ AN ITZ PROPER GOT ME PISSED OFF BLUD. I MEEN, IZ A NUMBA 1 SELLIN ARTIST – I DID A GIG AT BUTLINZ FOR GODZ $AKE – BUT DIS GUY WONT STOP DISSIN ME, SAYING IZ A SPAZTARD AN TELLIN HIZ REEDER$ I IS RETARTED. CAN U HELP ME, BLUD?

SAFE, YEAHS?

Dappy, London



Dear Dappy

I couldn’t read a word of that, you mug - You thought about having your head checked? Just a thought…

By the way, you ain’t Dappy from N-DUBZ, are you? Cos if you are, your cousin Tulisa still owes me a blowjob for that rock of crack I gave her – and Frazer still has my Leonard Cohen – I mean - 50 Cent Cds…

Love, Danny



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Dear Danny

My ex-wife just told me that she plans to Marry her American boyfriend, and move to California with him, taking my kids with her. What should I do?

Paul, Essex





Paul

That’s a hard lot you’ve got there, bruv. If I were you, I would let them think you’re totally ok with it, and let her go to America with the kids. Then about 2 months later, you pay one of your mates to fly over after them, and pay them a little visit – with a fucking shotgun! With their mother dead, the children will have to be put in your custody, and then you’re free to do whatever you want with them, no questions asked. Or, failing that – you could just lock your kids in the cellar, and tell your wife they died – I gave the same advice to this guy Josef a while back, and he said it worked a treat!

Regards, Danny



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Dear Mr Dyer

I must say, I am shocked and appalled by the blatant sexism and homophobia you include in your column, and must confess my surprise that such a highly regarded publication as “Nuts Magazine” would publish such tripe. What do you have to say for yourself?

Anne, Cambridge.





Anne

Don’t be such a Dyke Cunt.

Danny.



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About the author:



My name’s Danny Dyer – Double D (like your sister). I’m one of the smartest geezas in Britain, and I spend my time playing Footie, making movies, and helping the rest of you out with your problems. I was voted sexiest man in London twice – once by women, once by the poofters – and make over a million quid a year from DVD sales alone. I also did the voice of Kent Paul in the GTA games – THAT’S HOW FUCKING COOL I AM!

Don't forget to watch my new show:




- Danny ;)

Tuesday 15 June 2010

Ok, 2nd Attempt... (PICTURES!!!! YAAY!!!)

Read the original article here.


Well, as you may have guessed by now, my relentless attempts to go Viral have, so far, been futile - with even my best video failing to garner more than 40-odd views. I was about to hang myself this morning, but then it hit me - the reason i'm not getting views isn't because my videos are bad! It's because the whole YouTube scene is sooo last year. Nowadays, everyone's into meme's!


Quite why...

So, I rushed out and bought a copy of the Times, and flicked through until I found a suitable image:



This image worked perfectly for me, because not only does the situation have the potential to be funny (a mother and daughter on a computer? Hello!) but it's also an advert for EDF energy, and so my vandalism would not only be entertaining, but would also help strike a blow for anphropogenic climate change deniers across the Globe! WOOOO HOOO!


So, I got to work creating a masterpiece of modern art, using nothing more than my poor skills on Microsoft Paint. I hope you enjoy the results...




































Edit: FUCK! It's meant to say "dot org"! Ah well, too late to change it now...

























As you can see, limitless potential. Feel free to spread these far and wide - to every known corner of the internet! We shall take over with our crappy meme! Mwahahahahaa!


Yours sincerely,
El Voicerino