The armchair critic presents
A-Z of Cinematic Nonsense

A is for Advertising
Go to the cinemas these days and you will be assaulted by the same advertisements that television executives feel the need to inflict on us. But it wasn't always like this...
Go back 15 years and you would be treated to cheaply-produced adverts for local restaurants, amusement arcades and bridal fashion shops. They usually consisted of a single piece of cardboard held in front of the camera, often wobbling in and out of focus, which had a telephone number and logo on it. An embarrased and inept voice over would ask: "Why not come to the Ikari restaurant after the performance? All the taste of India only five minutes walk from this theatre. A friendly atmosphere and polite service are guaranteed."
If you were really lucky you would be treated to some footage of the establishment's owner leering at the camera as he waved his arm in the general direction of the entrance to the restaurant. These scenes made even the most cheap horror movie seem hi-tech in comparison - handy, as you had often paid to see such a film.

B is for Blues Brothers 2000
Hideous sequel to the marvellous 1980 comedy. An absolute travesty of entertainment which urinates on all the good things from it's predecessor. Just look at the plot contents for both films:
Blues Brothers: Music, Comedy, Over-the-top car chases, Psychotic ex-girlfriend, Tyrannical nun.
Blues Brothers 2000: Music, Crap comedy, Stupidly over-the-top car chases, Irritating child, Magic powers.

"We're on a mission from God - to instigate the plague of terrible sequels."

C is for Carry on
Seemingly never-ending series of identi-kit British comedies which were quite rude. They can mostly be distilled to the following:
Bernard Bresslaw chases after Jim Dale, who trips and knocks into Barbara Windsor. Her bra flies off, hits Charles Haughtry in the face and Kenneth Williams says "Oooooh!" Sid James looks at Windsor's breasts and laughs "Yakyakyakyakyak." Hattie Jacques scolds him.

D is for Dark glasses, black suits, black ties, and possibly a hat or earpiece
People who wear black suits with black ties are so common in movies that I thought I'd provide this handy guide in a bid to stop confusion.

E is for Edward Scissorhands
Brilliant modern-day fairytale conceived and directed by the interestingly twisted Tim Burton. Plans for a sequel involving new chracters Richard Calculatorears and Jemima Pencilerasorknees are thankfully non-existent, as I just made them up.

"I broke the nail clippers again, dear."

F is for Full frontal nudity
A sure-fire way to get any film an 18 rating and add several thousand pounds to it's takings at the box-office. At least until it becomes commonplace on television.

G is for Git
That man who sits behind you in the cinema, crunching gravel out of a crisp packet fitted with an amplifier.

H is for Harvey Keitel
Star of Mean Streets, Bad Lieutenant and Reservoir Dogs. He specialises in playing mean gangster-type people, which fails to explain why he was in the reprehensible children's ape-movie Dunston Checks In.

I is for India
I still haven't seenone of those "Bollywood" films which are produced in such mass quantities. I think it was one of my new year's resolutions in 1997... Perhaps I should subscribe to FilmFour or something?

J is for Jar-Jar Binks
Stupid, irritating, soul-destroyingly pathetic horse-faced bastard who capers through Star Wars: The Phantom Menace like a diseased mutant clown from Hell. Obviously injected to appease half-witted children with miniscule attention spans during plot progression scenes, his offensively ill-conceived slapstick mincing succeeds only in annoying cinema-goers to near psychotic levels. His hideously distorted visage inspired a whole slew of crappy merchandise, which appeared a very short time later in bargain bins - and dustbins - all over the planet.
It has been suggested that Binks represents a human being created by over 500 generations worth of inbreeding. His place in the British royal family is assured.

"Whoa-no Sir! Me-sa bombad unpopular!" etc etc

K is for Kill Jar-Jar Binks, Jar-Jar Binks must die, Jar-Jar Binks death
Items that appear under the "popular searches" heading on Altavista if you search for "Jar-Jar Binks".

L is for Live action versions of cartoon series
A truly horrible idea which has spawned some of the most awful children's movies in living memory. After the cinematic abomination known as The Flintstones you would have thought that Hollywood would have learned it's lesson. But no - a sequel was produced, and various other cartoons have been snapped up for similar treatment, including Scooby Doo and Josie and the Pussycats. Just leave The Simpsons alone, please...

M is for Mystery Science Theater 3000
Strangely brilliant American TV series, created by unknown Joel Hodgson. The format: A crappy old horror film is shown. Superimposed on the bottom are a row of cinema seats, two of which are occupied by strangely shaped robot puppets and the other by Hodgson (or later his replacement, Mike Nelson). As the film is shown the three characters take the piss out of it. And that's about it.
Very simple and very funny, the show ran for about 11 series before being canned. There was even a movie produced, where the semi-competent This Island Earth was mocked. Mystery Science Theater 3000, we salute you.

N is for No point in watching
I have a friend who was in Russia when the new Star Wars film came out. He speaks fluent Russian, so I asked him if he watched it. He said that there was no point, due to the quality of the dubbing. It seems that films are generally dubbed into Russian using only two voice actors - a man who performs all the male parts and a woman who performs all of the female parts. Not a great way to experience cinema.

O is for Orange (Clockwork)
Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of Anthony Burgess' bizarre novel. Beethoven loving sociopath Alex likes nothing better than to get out of his face on drugged milk and commit some "ultra-violence" - until he is treated with equal brutality by the penal system.
Banned by the director, it was re-released into the cinema following Kubrick's death. The film is now unsettling for one reason: the portrayal of Britain in the near-future looks exactly like Milton Keynes last April.

"More tea, Vicar?"

P is for Pi
Tedious, plodding, pretentious twaddle - a fair description of Pi. Filmed entirely in black and white, it centres around a mathematician who is about to solve an equation that explains the universe. Or something along those lines, anyway.
The creators of Pi should have saved some time and just made big badges for themselves that read, "WE'RE REALLY CLEVER AND ARTY, HONEST." People often claim to have "quite liked" this film because they are afraid of appearing as if they didn't understand it - Emperor's New Clothes syndrome in action.
This movie is generally referred to as the greek symbol denoting the letter pi, which I cannot be bothered to reproduce here.

Q is for Quigley Down Under
The only film I can come up with off the top of my head which starts with the letter Q. Except Q: The Winged Serpent, which I mentioned in a previous A-Z.

R is for Rewriting history
History is rewritten by the winners. America won and everyone else lost. Hollywood is effecting the necessary historical changes.

S is for Sensurround
An early cinematic gimmick which entailed having huge bass speakers placed into the floor of the theatre. All the seats would then shake at strategic points in the plot, providing an exciting 'force feedback' feature for the audience. The idea was great for films about earthquakes and volcanoes, but somewhat redundant for films about romance and teenage angst.

T is for Toy Story
Hugely successful Disney funded film which was the first full-length computer animated movie. It appears in the Guinness Book of Records for the 'most single grains of dust in a computer animation.' Is it just me, or is the Guinness Book of Records going downhill? Even the Anal Retentives Society must have laughed at that award.

U is for U-571
See: Rewriting history.

V is for Video games
Here are some movies which were based on video games: Double Dragon, Wing Commander, Super Mario Brothers.
Here are some really, really terrible movies: Double Dragon, Wing Commander, Super Mario Brothers.
Here are some people who should learn from this: HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS.

"Remember: We're Kung Fu heroes, even though we look like rejects from Starlight Express."

W is for Worst movie of all time
Plan 9 from Outer Space. I know it's almost a cliche, but watch it and you'll see why. More recent contenders include Battlefield Earth, Showgirls, Mission to Mars and Blues Brothers 2000.

X is for X-Men
Arguably the best movie to be spun-off from a comic book. Previous abysmal attempts include: Spawn, The Fantastic Four (still unreleased to my knowledge), the third and fourth Batman films, the third and fourth Superman films, and those God-awful Spiderman things from the 70's.

Y is for You don't need to watch the movie now
The following films all have twists in the plot. Save time, money and retinal wear by just reading the following list and not bothering to see the film.
The Usual Suspects: Kevin Spacey's cripple character is Kaiser Sozay.
Fight Club: Tyler Durden is a schizophrenic extension of the protaganist's personality.
The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis' psychologist character is a ghost, he actually died after he was shot at the start of the film.
The Crying Game: That woman is really a man.
The Blair Witch Project: They all die and you never see anything.
The Empire Strikes Back: Darth Vader is Luke's father.
Scream: The killer is the boyfriend, working with an accomplice.
Stigmata: Nothing interesting happens the whole way through.

Z is for Z
Wasn't there some foreign film about a political assassination that was called "Z"? Might have been Spanish. Oh, who cares, it's the end of this list anyway. Huzzah!

All text copyright and intellectual property of Stuart Ashen

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