Things I found in the fire
5 02 2008On Friday Josh, Ian and I checked into the ‘Bush VUE at the very real risk of losing our lives to see the JJ Abram’s film (that he neither directed nor wrote) Cloverfield. Despite all the hype that was allegedly going on, the cinema was well less than half full, which I think I’m right in saying is a good sign that pleases cinema owners. Still, if I’ve learnt anything from 25 years of being increasingly in the minority, it’s that you can’t judge a film by the size of its audience.
Now, this brings me to my first point. One about the audience. I speak not of the specific people in the cinematorium on that day, but of the wider demographic that the films of this particular cinema are aimed at. The young people of Shepherd’s Bush.
Before the film began, we were “treated” to the unique spectacle of cinema adverts. In between the tradition japery about mobile phones, deoderant and alchohol, we had a succession of public service messages designed to confused and subdue the population. In a short 10 minute period we were “advised” the following:
Have sex with a condom. (well, rather, have sex with a woman (or man) while using a condom)
Do not drink alcohol excessively.
Do not drink and drive.
Do not have sex without a condom.
That person you’re having sex with probably has venereal disease.
and most importantly:
Do not be a twat on the bus.
That last advert was particularly pointed given the usual type of people inhabiting the 207 down Uxbridge Road. By which I mean people who hold loud conversations with figments of their own imagination, drug dealers and 13 year old wiggas who think they are in a gang. The bus advert in question showed 4 different views of a bus, being shown concurrently, accurately replicating the nightmarish claustrophobia of bus travel. It prominently featured a monied, white male neglecting those around him while shouting about business deals on his phone, as well as rowdy teenagers who were unintentionally harassing a frail pensioner with their “banging” “choons” which were being piped through tinny speakers on their “mobiles.” Luckily, a thoughtful young woman and an asian youth were on hand to straighten out society, requesting that the fuckers in question clean up their act. Of course, in real life, such intervention would undoubtedly result in you being fatally stabbed in the kidneys while onlookers pretended not to notice, so quite what the advert is trying to suggest I don’t know. It has, if nothing else, successfully reminded me why taking the bus in London is less a form of travel, and more a form of Russian gambling.
Anyway, it’s lucky that the government is on hand to deliver this propaganda to us. I know that most of us would drink until we passed out were it not for the helpful advice of The Man, though one wonders if their binge-drinking and violent culture of careless fornication and disrespect isn’t largely related to confused law-making and poor social welfare in the first place, and simply telling people to “stop it!” isn’t really going to sort anything out when the root causes aren’t directly related to the manifest problems.
On the other hand, the movie industry has finally stopped relying on irritating public service anti-piracy messages and taken matters into its own hands, by making all movies for the forseeable future into complete, utter corn. Jumper, for instance, a film that sounds like it’s about sweaters, but is actually about a teleporting man and the cabal of people out to kill him. Or the new Star Trek, which by all available indications appears to be a film about welding. Not much chance of pirating those…
Still, maybe I’m being too harsh. After all, Cloverfield was fucking brilliant, spending the first 15 minutes ensuring that I was as bored as possible so that the remaining hour seemed even more brilliant. It’s the film that awful Godzilla remake wishes it was.
the JJ Abram’s film (that he neither directed nor wrote)
I don’t understand why everyone’s getting so bent out of shape over the big deal that’s being made of his producer credit. How many films has Jerry Bruckheimer ever written or directed? How many times do you see the phrase “a Jerry Bruckheimer film”?
True, but I don’t agree with it in those cases either ;-) What is essentially happening is that the director and writer, the key artistic cogs in the film machine, are being ignored in favour of praising the man who gave them the money, simply because he’s already got a few massive credits under his belt.
It seems like a fairly dangerous precedent to start praising the people who employed the filmmakers, rather than the filmmakers themselves, so I am eager to mock it at any given opportunity. Especially when it’s Abrams, who, while being a capable director/writer himself, is actually fairly crap if left to his own devices. He’s an RTD-like figure in his own productions. He can steer the ship in the right direction, but if you asked him to watch the engine for a while it’d end up a complete wreck. Cloverfield was a work of genius, but I severely doubt it was Abrams doing the work.
The 207 and N207 are possibly the most amusing buses to be on if you ever have to travel alone. the 427 was the worst thing to happen to london buses