Hate the Movie, Love the Review

Sometimes movie reviews turn out to be more entertaining than the movie itself. Whilst their purpose is to let you know what's worth your time and what isn't, it is an added benefit if they happen to be worth your time themselves.

And so I came across Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode's weekly hour-long dissection of what is on at your local multiplex.

While this show has been for a while, I only got onto it earlier this year and now the weekly podcasts are a much welcome distraction when making the way to work.

Kermode (the critic) is a horror movie afficionado and seems to have developed a strong following for his rants about movies he dislikes, which includes any movie with "Pirates" or "Caribbean" in the title or movies directed by Guy Ritchie.

Both of them work extremely well together despite the fact that Mayo never goes and sees any movie that Kermode recommends and -- even worse -- seems to enjoy movies that Kermodes loathes (such as RocknRolla).

But admittedly, the movies seem to be just an excuse for the two to get together and go on endlessly about Jason Statham, Liam Neeson and how "The Exorcist" is the greatest movie of all times.

The Mamma Mia review that is available on YouTube has to be a firm personal favourite.

And it didn't make me see the movie as a consequence.

Parents, Babies, Hulks...

While Parent & Baby screenings are a great way for parents of small children to get to see new movie releases without having to wait for them to come out on DVD, the selection of movies is restricted, and a little bit dubious.

When recently on paternity leave, I looked around for "adult" things to do, apart from not sleeping and changing diapers and I realised that quite a few mainstream movie theatres have so-called "Parent & Baby Screenings" where you are allowed to bring babies up to the age of one year (for free no less) and which usually happen during the day and during the week.

Like just about anything that can be done for new parents to keep their sanity in times of sleep deprivation and seemingly inconsolable babies, it did sound like a good idea. You don't have to get a babysitter, you don't have to worry that your baby is screaming (since probably everybody else's will as well) and you fool yourself into believing that leaving the house is still as easy as it used to be.

Since babies under the age of a year don't really care about movies as such, the main target is of course the parents, which means movies of anything up to 12A certificate are shown - although apparently with the volume turned down a little bit (I guess the audience provides additional sound effects anyway).

Unfortunately, having to wait for builders we did not make it the showing of "Iron Man" during my paternity leave, and since "Newbies screenings" happen exclusively during the week (which pretty much rules out the working population to take their newborns), I couldn't realise my dream of attending one.

When my wife had another go at going out to watch a movie with like-minded new mothers, they found out to their big surprise, that pretty much the only movie showing in these conditions was "The Incredible Hulk".

So, imagine what must go through somebody's head who is running a movie theatre and who is thinking about which movie to book for the next week.

• You have a show at Tuesday lunchtime targeted at parents with newborns.
  
• You probably figure that despite emancipation and all, these new parents are likely to be mothers.
• You have "Sex and The City: The Movie" in your repertoire, which is a "chick flick" if there ever was one.
  
• You decide to show "The Incredible Hulk".

Makes sense.

Misleading Movie Poster Quotes

On any given Friday, a fair number of movies opens across the UK. Some are brilliant, some average, many poor. How is it possible that every movie poster has critics quotes hailing the respective oeuvre as a masterpiece?

Of course no movie studio would admit that a piece of film-making they commissioned is outright rubbish, nevertheless it is astonishing how the distributors are usually able to put quotes on the poster about how great this particular piece is.

A lot has been made about the poster for Guy Ritchie's self-indulgent turkey 'Revolver' and the out-of-context quote "Brilliant - Guy Ritchie back to his best" quote allegedly from the Sun movie critic (which it wasn't).

Thankfully, movie history has cast a very dark shadow over the above product, but there are more examples of misleading movie quotes along the same lines which makes you think how a selected number of movie critics can get it so wrong (or whether the quotes might have been "taken out of context"). The following are examples of movies not worth watching, despite the plaudits:

• "An outrageously hilarious comedy" (The Heartbreak Kid)
• "A great time at the movies for everyone!" (Evan Almighty)
• "It…just may kill you with laughs." (Death at a Funeral)
• "The best movie adaptation of a video game so far." (DOA: Dead or Alive)
  

In general, it seems that one can almost tell by who is quoted whether the quote is reliable or not. For instance Maxim's former Peter Hammond seemed to have a reputation of producing favourable quotes for even the worst tosh.

Five star reviews by something like the Sun (despite being exculpated for Revolver) usually mean that you are up for a mind-numbing spectacle which does not have much of a storyline but is likely to sell out to large crowds.

Probably not unlike the very paper you would have read this review in.

Catching Movies

I don't blame recent fatherhood on this (although it certainly does not help either) but increasingly I don't find myself being able to catch the movies I would like to see in the theatre.

In general, I would distinguish movies I am interested in into 3 categories (the ones I am not interested in do not qualify)

1. The ones I definitely need to see in the theatre,
2. Movies I can happily watch on DVD or on an airplane and
3. Movies where I am remotely interested in what they are about, but I wouldn't necessarily have to watch.

The first category is the most difficult one, since it leaves little room to manoeuvre. As mentioned above, the presence of a newborn does not lend itself easily to movie nights (although at some stage the added presence of a sitter certainly will). Parent and baby screenings are only on during the week, so they should really be called "Stay-At-Home parent and baby screening" because my commitment to the cause is not that great that I would take time off to take my infant to the local multiplex.

The second is generally easier, although I did find myself recently on a number of inter-continental flights where movies were shown on a big screen for the entire cabin. Needless to say, this would never happen in Business Class, and this particular example was unfortunately a 13-hour flight to Thailand. The fact that women got handed a flower when leaving the airplane did not make me forget the poor in-flight entertainment.

For the "stay in to watch a movie" variety, LoveFilm does the trick well, although we do find ourselves regularly receiving movies wondering who on earth would have put those on our "queue".

And, to speak with our friends at MasterCard, everything else, there is MovieSpoiler. Sometime the write-ups of movies are not that great, but at least they usually cover all the latest movie releases (latest US releases that is, which means that you can get the Cliff notes for movies that haven't even come out over here).

Which is a great way to be knowledgeable at the watercooler without having to bother watching all those movies - at least the Category 3 ones.