Smurfs on a stick: The joke that refuses to get any funnier

Monday December 27th 2010

Brooker, I am disappoint.

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Blu-ray

Monday December 27th 2010

It was a few months ago so I can’t be certain, but I think I may have mentioned Scott Pilgrim vs. The World a couple of times when it came out back in August. Well now it’s hit Blu-ray and (spoiler alert) it’s still amazing.

I won’t bother writing any more about the movie itself (there are 1000 supremely hyperbolic words on it here if you’re interested) but I will detail a few of the exciting bonus features:

So there you have. It goes without saying that you need to go out and invest your money in this wonderful product. And even though it’s sold out, why not try and blag yourself a ticket to the exciting screening and Q&A at the Ritzy this Thursday, hosted by friend of Ultra Culture, Sam Clements? It’s going to be amazing.

The Guardian’s Best Films of this or any other year

Sunday December 26th 2010

It’s a pet peeve that I probably bang on about too much, but the world badly needs a consensus on the parameters of Best Films of the Year lists. Obviously, the most sensible solution for British publications is to limit the entries to films released within the UK during the calender year itself, thereby ensuring that no film will appear on the list for more than one year. And yet, some people still feel the need to be different.

Serial offenders The Guardian have outdone themselves this time around, including on their list both Where the Wild Things Are (released 11th December 2009) and Black Swan (due to be released 21st January 2011).

Other highlights of the reader-voted poll include the biting satire of ‘Most embarrassing performance: Mel Gibson in the life of Mel Gibson’ and the pointless provocation of voting Inception both ‘Best Film’ and ‘Most Overrated Film’. I see what you did there.

Basically, this is all a very roundabout way of saying that my personal Top 25 movies of 2010 will be online over the next few days.

Harmony Korine on the joys of Christmas

Saturday December 25th 2010

What’s your favourite thing about Christmas?
My neighbour is a white witch rapper named ‘Lil Potion’. On Christmas morning he ties a dead deer to his bent basketball rim and then freestyle raps to the swaying deer corpse. I photograph him doing this every year. He drapes himself in Christmas lights and a pink bathrobe.

What are you doing this Christmas?
Kicking ass.

Do you have any favourite Christmas movies?
Pam and Tommy Lee’s sex tape.

Would you ever consider making a Christmas movie?
Hell yeah, I’d devote my life to Christmas shit.

What’s your least favourite thing about Christmas?
Everyone in my neighborhood having convulsions on their front porches. I live on a street that’s Mecca for people with epilepsy and for some reason Christmas brings out the fits.

Gulliver’s Travels

Friday December 24th 2010

Despite a Rotten Tomatoes score almost as small as the people of Lilliput (you can have that one for free) and a pun-filled poster that made me want to cry sweet Christmassy tears, I had a sneaking suspicion that I might quite like Gulliver’s Travels. And I wasn’t far wrong.

Jack Black (or as the press notes have him, ‘star of Kung Fu Panda, Jack Black’) is back doing his School of Rock schtick and personally I’m still finding it funny. Not a laugh riot perhaps, but at least a mild altercation.

While it feels a half hour too long at 90 minutes, Gulliver’s Travels is well structured and entertaining in a mercifully uncynical way. No blowjob innuendos and outdated TV references for the parents here. Even the bit that was played for laughs in the trailer but clearly taken from the film’s emotional climax…

… has a certain amount of emotional depth behind it, and given that we started 2010 with the most shallow, emotionless pile of old toss imaginable (Did You Hear About The Morgans?) it’s nice to end it on something that’s essentially quite good-hearted.

Not a masterpiece mind you, but a solid 0.59.

Oh, and…

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