I watched a film the other day. I didn't enjoy it. I watched virtually all of it, but didn't see the end. I didn't care about the end. It didn't matter.
It a comedy-drama set in the 1970s written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's. This is the duo behind The Office (which was good, despite the fact that it only had a single joke: David Brent is an awkward dickhead) Life's Too Short (which is exactly the same as The Office except with a midget as the main character) and Karl Pilkington (which is utterly dreadful. Right, it's funny because it's trying to make you believe that Karl Pilkington is a real person, that his personality is actually like that, which it just is not. Karl Pilkington is a character that they have tried to sell as a real person and that completely takes away the joke for me, because if you aware that this is simply a character and not a person's actual beliefs then the whole situation just becomes one where two writers are trying imagine what someone stupid might think about things, and then you laugh at that fake stupid person.)
The film is called "Cemetery Junction" which is the most pathetic, hackneyed and obvious foreshadowing technique you could ever imagine using. In my mind it would be like calling the star of an action film Jack Actionhero. Watch the film and you'll see what I mean. Well, actually, don't watch the film, that's the point of this blog, just trust me, I'm right.
I was alerted to how bad the film might be when a young man supposedly from the 1970s asked his friend "where are all the fit birds?" Fit! Now, I wasn't alive, so I could be corrected, but I'm pretty sure that the word 'fit' as a synonym for 'attractive' is a lot more recent than that. Certainly I've never heard it any old English TV and from the few people I have asked they are certain 'fit' just meant 'healthy' up until recently.
So then, that's not only a rather embarrassing show of the ineptitude of the writers but also a poor excuse for whoever edited the script or even read it.
Now there are a couple of things you could say. Maybe it's an intentional mistake. I can imagine this being the case. The central theme of the film seems to be that change and progress is a positive thing, and so the idea of using a new phrase doesn't seem too out of place, especially as it is placed next to 'bird' which seems to be more of an archaic term.
The problem is that if that is the case it is quite clumsily executed. It's said by the wrong character. Instead of being progressive, it comes across as an almost sexist and childish outburst.
The other point, however, is that maybe it's not too important. It's either artistic license, as they say, or an honest mistake. I'm not one of those people whose enjoyment of a film is ruined if someone's jumper changes colour during a scene during The Dark Knight. If you're willing to suspend your disbelief that a muscular billionaires goes around punching criminals dressed as a bat, but unwilling to accept a colour-changing jumper, well that's your own problem.
Either way, it's not the main issue, but it does reveal part of the problem. See films based in dreary towns in the 1970s are always going to rely on the characters. Unfortunately in this instance they are filled with cliche, and worst of all, there isn't an milligram of wit lying around.
There is a huge reliance on the word "cunt" throughout for the shocking moments. Shock value being the real lowest form of wit, by the way.
The plot has no surprise twists, no complexity. The ending (which I have since read about rather than watched) is gutless and so utterly and painfully predictable.
No comments:
Post a Comment