Over the long weekend, I took off to Melbourne’s OZ Comic Con on behalf of FilmInk to talk to amongst others:
You can listen to what I got up to below and check out more great podcasts by searching for FilmInk on your podcast app.
It’s been over 10 years since Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg’s Shaun of the Dead first graced cinema screens and started what would be known as the Cornetto Trilogy. Over three films, Wright and Pegg play with the ideas of genre and friendship, to show how three very different people are trapped in their own lives. Plunge into all three to find references to previous work, film references and foreshadowing up the wahoo. And they’re so rich in detail, that I put it to you that you may not have even realised that each one ends on a complete downer. Don’t believe me? Allow me to retort.
After being the only two survivors of a zombie horde that consumes their friends in the Winchester Tavern, Shaun and his girlfriend, Liz, are living a cosy lifestyle. They spend more time together, they have a memorial to their friends and in a distinctly better place relationship-wise than they were at the start of the film. Hurray for true love in the face of adversity.
Shaun, introduced as a massive man-child only second to his friend Ed, has learnt nothing from his experience. Throughout the film, he shows initiative, leadership skills and compassion. A year later, and life is back to normal. Staring death in the face for 24 hours has done nothing to awaken in Shaun the joie de vivre that Liz wanted in him from the beginning. He sleeps in, he spends all weekend in the pub and caps off the evening watching television. Hell, he hasn’t even moved out of the house share he was in.
And what makes it worse, is he’s dragged Liz down with him. Once the only thing spurring him on to make a difference with his life, Liz appears to have sentenced herself to a life of Sunday roasts, football results and possibly some PTSD thrown in for good measure. And just when life couldn’t get any worse for her, we discover that Shaun keeps Ed – A FLESH EATING ZOMBIE – in the garden shed where he can play computer games with him like he’s the chimp from Project Nim. Whilst her boyfriend idles his life away in a second childhood, Liz takes on the form of the mother figure, chastising Shaun for his desire to play with his friends but loving him unconditionally all the same. Poor Liz.
After a blistering shootout and, let us not forget, massive explosion, Constable Nicholas Angel has saved the village of Sandford from Inspector Frank Butterman and his murderous Neighbourhood Watch Association. Now in charge of the new police department, Angel and his partner Danny keep a watchful eye of the village’s citizens.
Sandford has merely swapped one fascist regime for another. Throughout the film Angel is shown to be an overbearing stickler for the law, despite it costing him the respect of the entire Metropolitan police department. In Sandford, he now has his own little empire from where the forces of the outside world can no longer stop him doing a good job. Hell, they don’t even have any phone reception. Butterman may have been covert in his dictatorship, but in his overtly Stalin-esque uniform and ultra-modern police car Angel proves to be the bigger bastard by flaunting his power.
Like Shaun with Liz, Angel has taken Butterman’s son, Danny, under his wing. Danny, who was shown to overlook his old man’s megalomaniac tendencies, now looks up to Angel as a new father figure. And as they overzealously speed off to take care of some ‘hippy types near the bins’ – because god forbid there is any trace of left-wing politics in Sandford – Danny is none the wiser, for Angel has offered him a world that reflects the excitement of the action movies he so desperately craves. Poor Danny.
After getting all Star Trek V with a race of aliens that have held their hometown hostage for decades, whilst simultaneously advancing the human race, Gary King condemns the whole planet to a new Dark Age. And yet, from this technological devolution, hope reigns supreme! Gary’s friends find inner peace and are, ultimately, happier without the trappings of a modern life. Meanwhile, Gary has recognised his alcoholism and wanders the land like a goth Mad Max with android clones of his old friends. Mankind will prevail. Hurray for mankind!
Let’s go over that again: Gary King, because he wanted a pint, plunged the world into darkness. His selfishness wiped centuries of technological advancement off the planet. And whilst it’s great that Gary’s mates have adapted to their new lifestyles, what about the rest of the world? Let’s be real here, what about the people who actually needed technology to live? It’s all very well saying you’re living a self-sufficient lifestyle with the gorgeous Rosamund Pike, but that’s not going to help people strapped to dialysis machines, is it?
And as for Gary… Well, good for him. He’s kicked the booze, but he’s also ostracised himself from his friends, finding himself more comfortable when he’s hanging around the teenage versions of them. It doesn’t matter if they’re robot clones, they hang on to his every word in a way his grown up friends no longer did. He’s even shaved off his goatee, discarding it as a symbol of an adulthood that he never chose to be a part of. And, with all this in mind, you know that he will never see his real friends ever again for fear they remind him of what he should be doing, instead of what he is doing – starting bar fights with mutants. Poor Gary.
This memorial day weekend, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn was compelled to defend himself after receiving several abusive messages on his Facebook page – ranging from being called a Nazi to threats to his cat. What were the reasons for this outpouring of anger?
In the cold embrace of the night, had Mr Gunn entered everybody’s home to leave something unsanitary in front of their fireplaces like a perverted Santa?
Perhaps the outpouring of such vitriol was decided as the best course of action because James Gunn, the director of Super, was in actuality a war criminal who slept upon the corpses of his enemies and used child slave labour.
Perhaps, on a lesser level, upon being asked for the time, Mr Gunn instinctively gave the wrong time ensuring hundreds, if not thousands of people were late for meetings, parties or trysts.
No, it was none these options. What happened, dear reader, was James Gunn had something to say about this whole Captain America business, wherein Marvel recently announced the 75-year-old superhero had been working for the bad guys all along.
There are numerous opinion pieces out there about this, you don’t need me to hold your hand to find them. A lot of people are angry. That’s fine. Everyone is allowed to be angry about something. I myself feel the whole thing is a bit of a cheap gimmick. However, Gunn was suggesting that perhaps the histrionics were unnecessary.
And lo his call was heard across the globe and people decided they weren’t happy about being told to calm down. They cried, they hollered, they threatened to chop up his cat.
Meanwhile, Melissa McCarthy commented that those people who feel the new Ghostbusters was ruining their childhood were blowing things out of proportion. She was immediately put in her place by people one can only assume were keeping one eye on their GB Blu-ray lest it should burst into flames.
These are not isolated incidents and if you’re feeling brave enough, you could Google the response belched out into the world when Michael Bay announced the first Transformers film. The cries of ‘Michael Bay Raped My Childhood’ were both alarming and odious.
Now, let’s get some perspective here. Imagine the internet as a large lake. The fan vitriol regarding any franchise is the equivalent of a fish’s fart bubbling to the surface when stacked up against truly important matters. But for those people who dare to suggest that it’s anything other than that are being met with the intensity usually reserved for countries that commit genocide. Hell, people will use Change.org to create petitions to twist their childhood passion into something they alone want. See the one created earlier this year to get George Lucas back in the director’s chair because apparently the critically acclaimed Force Awakens wasn’t that good. Yeah, Force Awakens needs George ‘Revenge of the Sith’ Lucas to bring back some glory.
In 2013, The Guardian published an article, Rise of the New Geeks, that highlighted how things like comic books, superheroes and fantasy were now mainstream. Film companies were now interested in getting ‘geeks’ on their side as it meant more bums on seats. Shops from both ends of the financial spectrum offer goods emblazoned with Batman, Gandalf and Spider-man. Three years later and it’s hard to not think that ‘geeks’ rule the roost.
I remember the days before all that happened. When I was in high school, Doctor Who was still on permanent hiatus, I was laughed at for enjoying The Goon Show and the pinnacle of being cool was wearing Naf Naf jackets and watching Byker Grove. I love the fact that some of my favourite things are popular in the mainstream now, but the level of entitlement that has come with it is bordering on sickening.
Full disclosure, I hated the idea of Batman Vs Superman and the Evil Dead remake. However, I at least went out of my way to see both films and although I’ve changed my mind about one, I still think the other is a terrible idea. However, whilst I’m prone to a drunken argument with increasingly disinterested friends about the lack of virtues in that film, I would never dream of sending death threats to those who made it, or worst still those who loved it. The film didn’t work for me, but good on you for liking it.
However, a number of those who did like a certain film about an angry mummy’s boy fighting another mummy’s boy who could fly felt that they were entitled to lynch those who hated it. Namely: the critics. In what could only have a been a monumental act mental gymnastics, some felt that the film’s lukewarm reception was down to Disney paying for good reviews. Once that seed was planted, it spread across the internet and right now, you can go on social media and find numerous unsubstantiated ‘facts’ that Disney is bribing people to not like a film. Because, sure, that’s how big business works. My review of Batman Vs Superman can be found here. If you ask nicely, I’ll show you pictures of my house in Malibu bought with my ill-gotten gains.
And it doesn’t stop there. Look at the reviews for the new Ghostbusters toys on Amazon. One man is deliberately buying them so that he can give them one star reviews and cement his legacy as an utter self-opinionated idiot. When a nine-year-old child’s review for Age of Ultron ended up online, grown men tore him down, saying the film wasn’t made for him. That’s right, a film about adults in spandex punching robots wasn’t made with children in mind.
We have become so obsessed with our own childhoods, we are denying the right for anyone else to have their own unless it aligns with our expectations. Maybe in a sense, people are afraid of growing up, so cling desperately to their youthful obsessions because the world is a big and scary place. And in a way, that’s fine. I write as a 35-year-old man wearing Captain America pyjama pants. However, what I see happening time and time again, is this idea that childhood things should grow up with us. When the Doctor Who episode Let’s Kill Hitler was announced many moons ago, I stumbled across numerous requests from fans saying that Doctor Who was too childish and what was needed was an episode where The Doctor visits a concentration camp. Just let that settle in. How adult. How grown up. How paradoxically childish.
Our childhood is gone; it’s never coming back.It’s something we have to deal with. However, the spoilt entitlement we had as children appears to still be the main driving force behind the thinking of others. So what if Ghostbusters turns out to be a dud? So what if there’s four women in the lead? You know the worst thing that’s going to happen? A little girl is going to want to see a film that has characters she can relate to. They may even come out of the film that ‘ruined your childhood’ and want a proton pack, or – whisper it – may even want to watch YOUR Ghostbusters. Imagine that!
Your childhood isn’t being ruined. You’re doing fine. You will get through this. Now, get out of the playhouse and let the other kids have a turn.
Antisocial, the frankly awesome tale of social networking gone awry, will be making it’s Aussie debut at Monster Fest this year (tickets available here), before being released on glossy Blu-ray and DVD on December 4th. Brutal, shocking and guaranteed to make you think twice about what you post on Facebook, we can’t wait to show it to you.
Technology has always been shitter. For every Manborg out there, there’s some other tech that will inevitably want to bite us on the ass. Just look at the Terminator films – James Cameron was clearly out to warn us all with those. But we’re all aware of Skynet now, the 90s have gone and we’re not in a desperate struggle against big metal skeletons. We dodged that bullet. But that doesn’t mean we should be resting on our laurels. John Noonan presents 5 other occasions where technology has nearly led to the downfall of humankind.
Demon Seed (1977)
Based on the novel Dean Koontz, 1977’s Demon Seed shows you exactly what happens when you go about creating Artificial Intelligence and don’t give it what it wants. In this case, the AI known as Proteus wants ‘out of this box’. Unwilling to comply, his creator shuts him down and goes and plays Minesweeper (maybe). Like a petulant child, Proteus manages to hack his way into his creator’s home security system. Therein, it takes his wife (Julie Christie) hostage and, horrifically, forces her to have its child. But it doesn’t stop there, no no. Proteus wants to put its consciousness into the child so that it can become human. Now look… There are upgrades and then there’s that!
Dean Koontz returned to his novel in 1997, rewriting it from the point of view of Proteus who, amongst other nefarious machinations, tries to use Muppet impressions to comfort his prisoner. Obviously not everyone is keen on remakes, but you have wonder about the damage Proteus could do with things like broadband, Wi-Fi and Simpsons Tapped Out.
Read the rest of the list at: Monsterpictures.com.au
We’re all getting a bit excited as we draw closer and closer to the wonderful Linda Blair coming over here for the 40thanniversary showing of The Exorcist. Her legendary performance as Reagan got us thinking about children in films. An English proverb says that ‘the soul is healed by being with children’; but then whoever said that obviously never had to contend with some of the under-16s John Noonan writes about in this list of five killer kid films.
The Children – The Children (2008)
Ah, Christmas. According to many, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. A precious moment to gather with the family and celebrate the birth of Our Lord Saviour, Cthulu. Or Jesus, if you’re a bit old fashioned. In Tom Shankland’s The Children, a middle class family have their festivities (and new age parenting techniques) turned on its head when their little darlings start displaying some rather overtly homicidal tendencies. Hinted as being the result of a virus that worksit’s way up the generations, the children find torturing the pet cat and luring Daddy into a booby trip are a hell of a lot more fun than the Queen’s Speech and Brussel sprouts. This Dora the Explorer militia will think nothing of stabbing crayons in your eyes.
When Shankland was selling this one to the financiers, he would describe the film in which a child forces a doll into an adult body cavity as ‘an elevated film exploring parent child relationships.’ Now, that’s how you market, people.
Read the rest of the list at: Monsterpictures.com.au
Freelance writer with an arts and entertainment slant. Over 10 years' experience as editor and proofreader. Based in Melbourne, Australia.
John Noonan 