Star Wars: The Last Jedi - On Balance

This post contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Last Jedi. Extremely spoileriffic. Spoilers all the way down. SPOILERS.

So. *deep breath* I think The Last Jedi is the Star Wars film I have waited for and will stand the test of time better than The Force Awakens.

It is immediately clear that this is not a consensus. Talking to friends after the midnight screening, first reactions were very divided: a couple of them threw up “disappointing”, an assessment I so vehemently and indignantly disagree with I am actually a-quiver, others were much more positive but cautiously so. Compare this to The Force Awakens: at least anecdotally among my peers, the response was overwhelmingly positive with a few notable outliers. So how is this so different?

Well, first of all, I will concede with pleasure that the film is completely, utterly extra. Everything is at eleven all the time. There are about three movies worth of Star Wars in there. It’s A Lot. The Last Jedi is the Schroedinger’s Cat of the franchise. It is a film full of slapstick, peppered almost constantly with humour of every stripe, and some moments that are so earnest they slip into cringe. It is also a film that casts itself out into the furthest and darkest reaches of what the saga actually is, is visually the most stunning of the series (I don’t think this one is in doubt, only Empire comes close), and the very same moments that are so earnest come hauling a huge load of character development for just about everyone involved.

I loved it. In a complicated way.

Don’t get me wrong, I think The Force Awakens is a delight. It is exactly what I wanted from the rebirth of the franchise; it is 99% fan service, and I wanted to be fan serviced (further explanation: I am a very simple fan who is always on some level pleased by the existence of new Star Wars content). The vast majority of the beats come from A New Hope, reshuffled mostly very well*. But The Last Jedi goes back and asks what the original Star Wars trilogy is about in the first place, and does it by interrogating the most ill-defined yet fundamental part of it: the Force. It’s ambitious, and obvious, and unexpected, and I love it.

The Force - as many have noted - does not really make sense. We are repeatedly told it is about balance, yet the original trilogy is very much about the triumph of one side, and not just the Light side in general, but specifically the (Return of the) Jedi, a religious order (who, in turn, are apparently charged with preserving balance and like I said, it doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny). Yet here we have Luke Skywalker - the last Jedi, the Jedi - disenchanted by years of failure at trying to make old authoritarian systems work and rejecting those systems outright, which is not dissimilar to antagonist Kylo Ren, a structural choice that is as smart and complex as I want a Star Wars film in 2017 to be (something something alt right). That Kylo ends the film declaring himself Supreme Leader, and thus not breaking the cycle at all, is properly distressing (as well as a necessary levelling up in order to take on the primary villain role). That Luke ends the film accepting his failures and passing on the baton to the future - the promise of hope, the arc word of the film - feels both tonally different to the straightforward (and more epic) good vs evil victories of A New Hope, Return of the Jedi, and, yes, The Force Awakens, yet entirely in keeping with the essential promise of the original series, whose great climactic moment is the redemption of Darth Vader: no-one is good or evil, Dark or Light. Everyone fails but everyone can be turned. Balance.

I will admit that a lot of my thinking about Luke has been disproportionately influenced by this meme.

It is key that Luke gives up his life in an act that seems almost futile - allowing a straggling handful of Resistance to escape one last desperate time - far more so than if he’d gone out saber to beautifully choreographed saber with Kylo Ren for real. It is part of the emphasis on small, hopeful community-orientated acts of resistance and rebellion that is repeated again and again throughout the film. It feels like it’s taken a lot of tips from Rogue One (“Rebellions are built on hope”) and it’s all the better for it. It’s the defining theme of all of those disparate character arcs: Poe Dameron’s coming of age story is couched in terms of Not Blowing Shit Up, which is both very literal and very entertaining. Finn and Rose - two characters, both played by POC, who have experienced very direct oppression under the First Order - face almost certain death but “it was worth it” because they got to put that fist through a society of war profiteers first (if this is not Star Wars at its most directly anti-capitalist then…well, it is. It is exactly that). Admiral Holdo is prepared to look like a coward and traitor if it means the ultimate survival of the movement.

The emphasis on the Resistance - what it means, and those who make it up - is timely and really a new thing for Star Wars in its mainstream canonical films, yet, again, very Star Wars-y, with the Extended Universe practically built on the premise of wanting to know more about all of these people with cool names.  In the opening sequence, many die but we really get to meet them first - Paige, Rose’s sister, most prominently but others too: Billie Lourd’s character, the female pilot with the gold helmet who I fell instantly in love with, all of Poe’s backup troupe on board the cruiser. Our acquaintance is fleeting but the storytelling gives you their faces, allows you to touch base with the same people throughout the film, feel the cost of more loss at an already dark time (it allows us to feel along with Leia in particular, for whom loss is foregrounded in this film. It means more than I can say for Leia to be the audience’s touchstone for the original trilogy, despite Luke’s elevated screen time). I don’t think Star Wars is ever concerned about making overt parallels with the real world - nor should it be - but The Last Jedi is extremely conscious of the global context in which it is being made. Hope is a spark, and if you guard it, it grows into a blaze. And, to tie two threads together, part and parcel of that guarding is being flawed and failing and living with failure rather than (in Finn’s case, literally) self-immolating at the first chance. (Holy shit, did Star Wars just make a film about self-care in the face of global politics? Maybe.)

I am actually sparing you the brunt of my Rey/Luke/Kylo Ren feels but just picture me looking at this image whispering "can't even" a lot.

In the interests of balance, of course there are things that didn’t work for me as well, and I’ll probably feel them more on the re-watch: I could take or leave the casino planet as a concept (“Prequals-y,” was my partner’s entirely correct assessment) and Benicio del Toro left me kind of cold, despite evidently having a lot of fun**. I would have liked more Phasma, but I’m also not sure what else they could have done with her narratively, other than just have her hanging around the bridge and I guess they wanted to keep her in the wings for the third act. I think some of its pacing will feel more stumbling when I watch it again - there are a lot of plates spinning and they don’t all stay in the air all the time - and even though I’m a huge fan of what it means for Kylo Ren’s character, boy did they ever not give a shit about explaining Snoke.

And on the other hand, everyone from here to Jakku is going to talk about the visuals, so let me add my voice: the light-speed warp through the Star Destroyer, Rey’s hall of mirrors, and the moment when Kylo and Rey’s fight in the throne room against the red-clad henchmen (Knights of Ren, I want to say?) went into slow motion are some of the most beautiful things you will ever see in a Star Wars film or fuck it, maybe any film. Everyone is nailing their performances - John Boyega has less to do in this one but is never anything less than insanely great to spend time with. Oscar Isaacs sells Poe’s growing up and his instinctive impulsive charm. Daisy Ridley has matured a whole lot since The Force Awakens and, despite the occasional odd line delivery (and even that I now think of as an intrinsically Rey-ish thing) radiates a pureness of heart and conflicted need to belong that is too painfully Original Trilogy Luke for words. Laura Dern pulls off the stupidly difficult job of being a one-shot character that is tonally very new to the series (and has LILAC HAIR, and I could do a whole other blog about the presentations of femininity in this film). Kelly Marie Tran is instantly right in the universe in the most Rogue One-ish role of them all and nails the tricky Ascended Fangirl thing with utter charm (cf also Ingrid Oliver as Osgood in Doctor Who).

A word though for Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher. I think it’s fair to say that Mark Hamill’s acting ability is a (very loving) matter of some debate. (Personally, I’ve always been pro-Hamill - he’s not amazing in the original trilogy, but he is Luke, in the way that Ringo wasn’t the best drummer but he was the best Beatle. And besides, his voice work.) But I would say that here Hamill is undeniably, properly actually good. He’s funny, he’s gruff, he’s in pain, he’s completely over the top (Do I hate or love the bit where he brushes his shoulder off after they turn the guns on him? I JUST DON’T KNOW) but he also kisses Carrie Fisher on the forehead with just the right amount of weird romantic tension and Skywalker sibs, I die. I don’t need to say how sad it is that we won’t have her back. I don’t need to say how gutting it is that this film was so obviously teeing up for Episode 9 to be The Leia Film***, in the way this one was The Luke Film and Force Awakens was The Han Film. I’ve written before about the skill of elevating the role of Princess To Be Rescued, how much we feel the loss of her, and The Last Jedi is a punch in the gut, not least because it feels like here is a woman - authoritative, a leader, snappy, hard-edged, inspirational, weary, powerful - finally and completely getting the respect she deserves. It’s hard to watch for a number of reasons.

Not least because we'll now never get to see Leia using a lightsaber.

Above all though, I keep coming back to this film’s care - care for the characters whose story it’s telling, care for nudging those stories off on different vectors. Judging by the early reaction, I think some people feel that it was careless, and it may be the case that tonally it remains unresolved in places, the light and the dark unbalanced. But the flaws are a result of ambition, not laziness, and I was thrilled, and excited, and I’ll take that every single time.


Other assorted thoughts:

- I cannot believe Rey and Kylo Ren spent the whole film Force Sexting. “Join me on the Dark Side. P.S. Send nudes.”

- My wish for the Porgs to have some kind of narrative significance and not be blatantly there to sell toys did not come true, but they were cute and good for a handful of laughs so we’ll let it slide.

- A tip of the hat to Adam Driver’s control over his own face. I particularly covet the ability to look handsome at will when the narrative demands that we sympathise, and like a kind of mad wet cat the rest of the time.

- Mark Hamill and That Bit With The Blue Milk: A Play
   Me: So that’s where the blue milk comes from
   Mark Hamill: *drinks grossly, winks at camera*
   Me: I IMMEDIATELY REGRET THIS EASTER EGG

- How to be Poe Dameron:
  - older ladies
  - constantly pleased to see people
  - just, like, appallingly handsome
  - explosions.


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*not well done - the First Order/Resistance. Which came first? What exactly is the First Order? Who actually was Snoke anyway? Who the fuck cares, I guess, is the film’s answer.

**I think I actually felt it was too close as a performance to his role as The Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy, which is tonally a very different film. A weird sense of deja-vu, maybe.

***Prediction: Episode 9 will open with Leia’s funeral. Massive ceremonial goodbye, eulogising Leia’s in-universe importance to the Resistance and Carrie Fisher’s importance to the series. And if they do it right, she can still remain a central presence to the film - referenced as the inspiration to keep going in the rebuilding of the Resistance/fight back against the First Order that will presumably make up a lot of Ep 9. She (both shes) deserve nothing less.

Game of Boners Returns! Series 7 Episodes 1 & 2 ('Dragonstone' & 'Stormborn')

Game of Thrones is back! Let's be having you.* (Content warning: Game of Thrones, so contains discussion of both rape and violence.)

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DUM DUM da da DUM DUM da da DUM DUM da da daaaaaaaaaa and etcetera FOREVER (literally forever now that they've added lengthy 'previously on' bits before the credits, you fully have time to make a cup of tea). Oh show, I've missed you. The most problematic of the faves.

I feel like Arya's been very front and centre in the first two eps, so let's start there. First of all, I must reluctantly announce that Maisie William's woefully bad casting in the last but one series of Doctor Who has had a bit of an Emperor's New Clothes affect on me, so I'm not quite as on board with her as an actor as I have been in previous seasons, especially since her Tiny Badass routine has been usurped by TINY LADY MORMONT WHO IS THE TINIEST OF THEM ALL. But it's also the show's fault, because they do quite shamefully trade on how much we want to see a preteen psychopath Fuck Up Dem Lannisters. (Ed Sheeran cameo sidebar: just the worst. I at least thought Arya might kill him, which would then have made the whole thing instantly gratifying and completely justified, but no. She bonded with him instead, which I feel is the worst thing you can do with Ed Sheeran.) Secondly, every time she says "I'm going home", I become more convinced that the Starks are ♪never ever ever getting back together♪. Was this the purpose of the Nymeria cameo? Will being disowned by her direwolf, a hugely powerful symbol of her connection to her family and the north, change Arya's mind again and send her riding south for vengeance instead? I kind of hope so, and her entire role this season is just ping-ponging back and forth between the Cheery Humanising Lannister Soldiers and Byemeria the Direwolf until she gets dizzy.

Speaking of T'North, there's an untenable leadership situation a-brewing between Jon Snow and Sansa, as they continue to have massive public disputes about how to proceed in front of the entire CLP group of assembled Stark bannermen. Could they not have had these chats prior to the town hall? Are there no other rooms in Winterfell? Anyway, I'm default on Sansa's side on most of these because how is she not Queen in the North already? Surely her claim is more legit than Sad Jon Snow's? Anyway, I feel like Dark Sansa is being foreshadowed pretty heavily, which I am here for, so long as nothing tragic happens like she becomes an actual antagonist and Jon Snow kills her in battle. I don't think I could take that level of lip-wobbling woobie-age from Everyone's Favourite Secret Targaryan.

Down Saaf, Cersei is legit terrible at queening, and that is shame because she was at least semi-competent at some point (I think? It was all so long ago. I've done a whole degree since this show started.) I hope she gets some better stuff soon because Lena Headey is one of the best actors left on the show and she looks bored af. You can put it down to the natural entropy of a show in its seventh season but it's HBO. These characters should be getting *more* complex and layered, not walking across presumably still wet floor paintings of Westeros and wilfully misunderstanding what a dynasty is. I also may never get over how much the show has mangled Jaime Lannister, who I swear on my Star Wars posters is one of the books' most interesting characters. Any hope I had of them resurrecting his sort-of redemption arc is pretty much dead in the water by now. Thank god for Nikolaj Coster-Waldau anyway, who is manfully doing A Lot.

My jury is very out on Euron Greyjoy. On the one hand, it's always nice to have a villain on the show who actually seems to understand, nay, enjoy some of the requirements of being a villain (camp delivery and leather trousers, I guess), but on the other say with me now the sacred words of House Jane Shakespeare: No-one cares about the Greyjoys. Something something Batman.

HAVING SAID THAT, Yara is 100% going to die this season and I'm super bummed about that because it definitely discounts Dany & Yara: Sapphic Queens of All Westeros. What with their capture at the end of episode two, I think it's pretty clear that she and Ellaria Sand are going to suffer before they get strategically cut from the show to streamline the narrative killed off: I think there was a showrunner comment along the lines that Euron was going to make Ramsay Bolton look like a kitten so like oh good yay I'm sure we're all super enthused about seeing more women die horribly. (Serious side note: Are we still at this point, show? I genuinely think you believe you're doing something positive for women by constantly representing how shitty their lives are, but that's the least fantastical element of a fantasy show so cut it out, I come here for back-stabbing also front-stabbing ifyouknowwhatImean.)

At the other end of the map, Dany et all have finally arrived, having stayed in strict formation on that boat across the entire season break.

Loved the Varys scene, very sneaky rehabilitation of a character who mostly had skulk-offs with Littlefinger in the Dark Places of King's Landing in the early seasons. I guess there's a salutary political lesson for us all: despise the monarchy but work from within, you get a yearly bonus, despise the monarchy and try to bring them down, you get deaded with wildfire. We also had some fire of the in-the-pants variety with the consummation of several seasons of really lovely scenes between Nathalie Emmanuel and Jacob Anderson as Missandei and Grey Worm. You need someone to have a little fun sometimes, and I thought it was really well done, not to mention historically notable for maybe being the only instance of boobs on the show not to feel totally gratuitous. *fans self*

I haven't really talked much about Tyrion. Huh. Well, that maybe says a lot.

Who else? Sam Tarly, working' nine till five, what a way to make a maester. I'm not a huge Sam Fan but actually the scenes with Jim Broadbent have been pretty great and overwhelmingly gross. Good thing Oldtown Library has that Restricted Section, I think we've all been tired of waiting for a) someone to finally piece together that Dragons + White Walkers = crispy undead barbecue, and b) Iain Glenn to get his fine face back and take those gravelly tones off to Dany's side where he belongs so he can gloomily yet yearningly intone "Khaleesi" to his heart's content.

Elsewhere, RIP Sand Snakes, you were an absolute disaster from beginning to end, and that's all the eulogising I'm going to give. They died as they lived: confusing, superfluous, and tackily written.

The #GiveBrienneMoreToDo2017 campaign starts here. We all love Gwendoline Christie, we all love Brienne, she's one of the few truly honourable souls in a corrupt world going through a painful awakening yadda yadda yadda, GIVE HER MORE STUFF.  And by 'more stuff' - and I think this is my only legit *rant* thus far this series - I do not mean this Tormund eye-fucking disaster. I find it so uncomfortable, both in the way it's done and the response to it in reviews and on Twitter**: it's not sexy fun tension, she has repeatedly looked uncomfortable with his advances, Gwen Christie has said as much herself, and yet. And yet. Do you know why "Nevertheless, he persisted" would never become an iconic phrase? Because THAT'S WHAT MEN DO. (Also, yes, Brienne hearts Jaime 4evs and you can't take that from me.***) My worry is that it was originally intended as a bit of levity (though, again, I don't really find a huge dude making creepy faces that funny, even if Brienne can obvi take care of herself) but it's had such a weirdly positive reaction that the writers will just run with it and throw in something wildly out of character like a stormy we're-about-to-die battlefield snog, which would absolutely be the worst thing the show has ever done, including the Sand Snakes and entirely all of Ramsay Bolton.

Anyway, Christie's nailed it so far, obv, especially re Littlefinger, "Why are you still here?" She spoke for us all. Having said that, it's been rumoured that Littlefinger might die this season and please, show, no. He is a sad imitation of BookFinger but I would be so sad not to have him around anymore, even if his entire role this season is for the population of Winterfell to form an orderly queue to punch him in the mouth (yas Jon). As much as I know I should be grossed out by his Sansession, I am morbidly curious to see how far it goes.  I don't feel like there's a potential rape lurking down that avenue, not least because of the uproar the last time that happened to Sansa and how much it would derail the character she's being built into, but there is an interesting question over a character who has essentially managed to achieve everything he's tried thus far, so it would be great to see what happens when he's absolutely, finally denied the thing he wants the most. And maybe it would revive Aidan Gillen from the dead, because he's looking like he checked out two seasons ago.

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So that's all for now. Will I do this every week? I have quite a lot of work to do, so probably. We are heading into the endgame now and some real heavyweights are going to start getting offed before we get to the Dragons v White Walkers smackdown next year. My predictions for this series: Cersei, Grey Worm, and yeah, maaaaybe Littlefinger. But, excitingly, it's still really anyone's game.


*I am trying to write a Moffat retrospective, which may encompass some kind of (excited) response to Jodie Whittaker's casting, but I keep getting sidetracked by peak This Blog shit like making dumb jokes about Littlefinger's accent.
**Also on Bafflingly Popular GoT Opinions: it turns out many people are rooting for Jon Snow and Daenerys to get it on. I know it's all but inevitable at this point (it's A Song of Ice and Fire, I get it George) but, like, she's his full aunt. Guess y'all are fine with it when it's not Lannisters, huh?
***Just to end on a more fun note than unwanted sexual advances, go and watch this four minute video of Gwendoline Christie and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau interviewing each other in actual real life and I defy you - I defy you - not to come out shipping Jaime and Brienne.

Laterblogs: Pew Pew: The Best Blowy-Uppy Films of 2016: A Careless List

Laterblogs #1: I wrote this AT THE END OF 2016 and then didn't post because I didn't know how to end it. I've just re-read it though, and I think it's solid.

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Look, there's going to be a ton of film blogs and listicles out there right now telling you how Son of Saul was incredible and La La Land is going to sweep the board at the Oscars but honestly, I just want to watch things blow up and try to forget about literally everything that happened last year. 

So here, ranked worst to best, are some of those films. Spoilers.

8) Suicide Squad

Boo-icide Squad, more like, what a terrible - no, I didn't see it. No plans to. 

7) Batman vs Superman

Look, you don't need to me to list all the reasons why this film was bad. The internet has done that again and again and again. In fact, skip all of those links and just read this open letter to Warner Bros that poses the greatest question of our times: why are you still letting Zack Schneider make films? So I won't go into great detail on this one, but for god's sake, Batman branded people. They shot Martha Wayne IN THE FACE. Which feels like some kind of harsh metaphor.

6) X-Men: Apocalypse

Oh man, this film was so bad. I straight up laughed when Michael Fassbender's wife and child got killed. I did. I laughed right out loud in the cinema. I'm not proud of it. But I'm not ashamed either.

James McAvoy, heroically flying in the face of all logic, was still having the time of his life though, so for that simple bit of human joy it ranks higher than Bats vs Supes.

5) Deadpool

Billed itself as an "alternative" Valentine's Day movie, and it sort of was but, like, in the way that Hot Topic is "alternative". It was funny and Deadpool spoke to the camera and swore a lot, and there was lots of creative violence, and at one point Ryan Reynolds regrew his hand and for a while he had a little hand like a baby, but it obviously wasn't actually *subversive* in any way. It's still basically the tale of a white man trying to dude-punch another white man while a white-passing lady (Morena Baccarin) wears not many clothes.  Also there was this whole bit where Morena Baccarin wanted to fuck Ryan Reynolds in the ass because it was International Women's Day and truly, that is what the feminists want, and then he didn't let her. Like, come on Ryan, just let Morena Baccarin fuck you in the ass.

4) Captain America: Civil War - April 29

Cap Mur Civ War was, essentially, very entertaining filler in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It does a job. It gets us from A to B. From a united group to a disunited one. From a world of structures and binaries (SHIELD v HYDRA) to a world of chaos where anyone could be the bad guy, even when - psych - they think they're the good guy. 

AND IT'S ABOUT THE TIME YOUR GAY DADS HAD A REALLY BIG FIGHT. I think at least 60% of the film was just Tony Stark and Steve Rodgers looking at each other soulfully and sometimes shaking their heads a little in a manly, soulful, world-weary way. It's actually better to think about the film as a big old domestic because if you try to engage with the politics of it (Tony wants the Avengers to sign some accords saying they'll be accountable to the fictionalised UN and Steve doesn't want to do this because...'Murica? Idk. They do debate this. They debate this thorny, complicated, divisive issue for a whole scene before the punching starts. Again, feels like a harsh metaphor.) for one single second, you end up going "wha-bu-OBVIOUSLY YOU SHOULD BE ACCOUNTABLE. YOU HAVE LITERALLY KILLED INNOCENTS, HOWEVER INADVERTENTLY. EVEN NOLAN'S BATMAN USED HIS EXECUTIVE-POWER-BUSH-ADMINISTRATION-METAPHOR-PHONE-SATELLITE-SPYING THING VERY, VERY RELUCTANTLY." But don't think that, because Cap is the hero.

Anyway, it there was a scene where all the Avengers plus Spiderman just beat the crap out of each other, so it scores higher than Deadpool.

3) Doctor Strange

*surprised Jerry Seinfeld voice* This was really good! This was a really good movie! Because the trailer looked dumb af. Actually the things about the trailer than worried me were still the things that worked least well in the actual movie (casting of Bendytoots Cumberbritches, TSwints all dressed up in vaguely orientalist garb, Mads Mikkelsen as the same character he's played since Casino Royale) but it was also offbeat and wry and trippy and seemed to hold actual levels of, like, disdain for its main character before he enrolled on A Better You Through Tibetan Magics course. 

And tbh it was worth the price of admission for the stinger alone, which promises that in the future Bothering Cummenpatch will team up with Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) to find Antony Hopkins (Odin or maybe Loki pretending to be Odin so maybe Antony Hopkins doing an impression of Tom Hiddleston that I hope made him cry), and my soul rejoiced.

2) Ghostbusters

AKA THE GREATEST FILM OF ALL TIME THIS YEAR. *ducks* Oh man, I do not laugh out loud in cinemas (except when Michael Fassbender's family gets it, obvz) but I was doing my embarrassing Alone Laugh through the whole of this. Look, I'm not a diehard fan of the original - it's a classic and it's enjoyable and blah blah Your Childhood but it shits on its (two) female and (one) POC characters. I inevitably here have to say that the 2016 film's treatment of Leslie Jones, both onscreen and offscreen (a thundering silence surrounding the campaign of Twitter abuse she received, orchestrated by real life B-list Disney villain Milo Yiannopoulos) was shitty. And we shouldn't be afraid to hold things we love to account, and I did love this. I loved Melissa McCarthy, I loved the smart bundling of Kristen Wiig into a straight man role so she couldn't do too much damage, I loved the world discovering a whole new sexuality in Kate McKinnon's queer-coded maverick Holtzmann licking her guns. And I loved Leslie Jones too, and it breaks my heart that there will be no sequel because I think she would have got a more central role out of it. 

1) Rogue One

ROGUE M'FUCKING ONE. Eh? EH? Yeah. Let's end this shitshow of a year with the tale of a group of *forgotten misfits* who ALL DIE in the service of a greater cause. This film should be the model for your 2017: no-one gives a crap about you but you should do good stuff anyway because you might end up taking down the Death Star, inadvertently, after you have died. And then be the subject of a movie where people come out going, "That was really good but I really thought we were going to find out about the Bothans? Where were the Bothans?" In Episode VI, as it turns out, which I obviously knew and didn't have to Google because I'm a bad Star Wars fan. Anyway, Rogue One is probably the best war movie I've ever watched.

Theatre Director Confessions, or How to Sabotage Your Career in Fourty-Four Easy Steps

As the more astute amongst you may be aware from the subtle hints I have dropped from time to time in this blog, my chosen career is that of theatre director (also it's in the sidebar).  I don't often delve into the world of theatre here - this is a sacred space reserved for vital and pressing journalism about which Batman is best, after all - but sometimes the muse pipes a tune and I must dance to it.  To put it in a way that is slightly less absolutely appalling, as the amount of time I spend doing my job increases, the amount of time available to spend thinking about Batman decreases.  Since I am unwilling to give up the one dominion in which I occupy the role of benevolent dictator, I thought I'd try combining the two.

The following is a sum total of all the things I will one day end up proclaiming loudly at the Oliviers at the same moment the room goes unexpectedly quiet.  Howard Davies will shake his head in dissapointment.  Rufus Norris will delicately avert his gaze.  Thea Sharrock will make an awkward face to her left.  I will drink champagne with great dignity, and trip as I leave the room. Thus:

Theatre Director Confessions, or How to Sabotage Your Career in Forty-Four Easy Steps

1) Sometimes when I watch Mark Rylance act, I hear Liz Lemon’s voice in my head saying “Nope. Hipster nonsense.”

2) Every time I try to read a Beckett play I giggle uncontrollably and have to put it down because it’s so very Beckett. Consequently the only Beckett play I have read is Waiting for Godot and it took me three goes to get past the first page.

3) I like Tom Stoppard. Haters to the left.

4) It is ridiculous that any high profile production directed by a female director should have to represent all work by female directors but I am irrationally panicky when such productions are anything less than flawless and I read the reviews poised in a state of hyper-tense paranoia, scouring them for anything that would not have been said about a male director.

5) I am more angry than I let on about the fact that Michael Grandage was allowed to spunk an astronomical amount of money on a season of work that never rose beyond “okay, I guess”, simply by virtue of being Michael Grandage.

6) I have only ever seen one Katie Mitchell production but sometimes I lie and say I have seen others.

7) I lied to Ben Whishaw about being a fan of Katie Mitchell.

8) I have never read Katie Mitchell’s A Director’s Craft.

9) I have never read Peter Brook’s The Empty Space.

10) I own both, and still believe that I will read them one day.

11) I have an irrational fondness for female directors who swear a lot.

12) I get uneasy when directors are criticised for having gone to Oxbridge because I went to Oxbridge and I try and calculate how much my level of privilege is offset by being female and always conclude that it is not enough.

13) I am far too easily influenced by other people’s opinions. I no longer know how I feel about London Road, having heard it praised and eviscerated with equal ferocity.

14) I sometimes have trouble telling Simon Stephens plays apart, which feels a bit like being racist.

15) I believe that everyone has the right to fail, and fail big time, at least once, but I am scared that the reality is such that I have to be hitting home runs from the start.

16) Sometimes my attention wanders in rehearsal. I am secretly convinced that no other director has ever let their focus slip, ever.

17) I would like to be able to point to a defining incident in my childhood that explains why I decided to become a theatre director, like a supervillain origin story. Sadly, I can’t get beyond ‘I like plays and I like being in charge and I have no transferrable skills.’*

18) I can, however, pinpoint the moment when I acknowledged to myself that I wanted to be a theatre director. It was New Year’s Eve 2009/2010 and after repeatedly being turned away from the club my friends were in for being too drunk, I was eventually allowed access, belted up the stairs just in time for the countdown and looked out through the floor-to-ceiling windows to see the National Theatre lit up across the river. “In ten years’ time,” I slurred to the assembled party, few of whom were paying attention, “I’m going to be on the other side of the river.” Four and a bit years later, I no longer retain the same sense of certainty, but have at least never been clubbing on New Year’s Eve since.

19) The best thing anyone has ever said to me over the course of my fledgling career is, "I'm not scared of Nick Hytner.  I'm scared of you."

20) The worst thing anyone has ever said to me over the course of my directing career was not actually a comment but they laughed openly at a play I had spent six months working on.  The play was not, per se, a comedy.

21) I am sort of waiting for a certain generation of theatre makers to die out.

22) I am definitely waiting for a certain generation of audiences to die out.

23) I will always rather go and see a Shakespeare play than any other writer, and I believe he is objectively the best playwrighdt in the English language. Fine if there is someone else you prefer, but do not fool yourself that there is someone better. There isn’t.

24) Equally, I sort of wish the RSC was just Greg Doran directing and no-one else.

25) I feel slightly sorry for the Marlowe Society. I feel like they sit around pretending Shakespeare doesn’t exist and if someone says the word ‘Stratford’ the room goes silent except for the sound of a single glass shattering on the floor.

26) I think less of people who dismiss Sarah Kane.

27) I worry that ‘edginess’ is going to become the defining factor in how well a play is received amongst my generation of theatre practitioners.

28) I feel like I should feel like more of a nonsense about using the word ‘practitioners’ but I don’t.

29) I feel guilty that I am more likely to remember young male actors I like than young female actors.

30) I find actors easier to get along with than playwrights, which is why I prefer working with dead ones.

31) I am a bit sad when actors like Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston find international film and television fame because it means I am less likely to see them in the theatre again and, probably, less likely to see performances as good as the theatre ones I saw at the beginning of their careers. Andrew Scott, stay with us.

32) I have invented a fictional Royal Court playwright whose work includes such plays as 'Savage Genuflection' and 'The Quiet of Skin'. The title of the play is said in context approximately two-thirds of the way through each.  I am not sure to what purpose this imaginary person exists but I'm sure I’ll find out in due course.

33) I’m pretty certain I’ll write a humorously personal yet insightful collection of essays about Shakespeare plays one day and when I do, I’ll probably call it ‘Lear’s Button’. It will have moderate success, read mostly by dramatically minded English undergraduates, being too academic for most theatre-goers and too silly for most academics.

34) I once had a whole conversation with another theatre director I was trying to impress that I thought was about the Marvel Comics Avengers but was actually about the 1960s television series Avengers.

35) I once thought my cast had locked me in the lighting booth where I was doing some work so they could order pizza without me.  It later transpired they were writing individual thank you cards.  I still would have liked some pizza though.

36) The fact that I will now never direct Richard Griffiths as King Lear almost makes me not want to bother directing King Lear at all.

37) I think anyone who actually likes Titus Andronicus will grow out of it.

38) If I were offered a choice between running any theatre building I wanted or being the next companion on Doctor Who, I am genuinely unsure what I would say.

39) Everyone always uses the example of a Shakespeare play 'on the moon' to denote ridiculous relocations of classics.  I have never seen a Shakespeare play set on the moon.  I would like to.

40) I thought Joss Whedon's Much Ado film was better than Kenneth Branagh's.

41) There is no role I would not like to see Cush Jumbo play.  Literally no role.

42) Going to see a high-profile production of a play you know and thinking to yourself ‘I could probably do that better’ is one of the most enjoyable feelings you can have in this business, and you must never ever tell anyone about it out loud.

43) I genuinely don’t understand why Hamlet at least is not played equally by male and female actors now. (Hedda Gabler is not the female equivalent of Hamlet. Hamlet is the female equivalent of Hamlet.)

44) Jerusalem wasn’t all that.

*Slightly disingenuous, but I don’t think you want to hear the long-winded, over-earnest version I save for job interviews.

Drop Everything, I'm Here to Fix Your Love Life (If You Fancy Dudes): The Jane Shakespeare Guide to Dating Fictional Men

Valentines Day. Boom. Just dropping that bombshell out there for all of you sad, lonely people too repulsive to find another warm body willing to let you lean against it for the 24 hours it takes not to feel like the unicorn that couldn't find its moving buddy for the Ark. And if you're a couple, go ahead and congratulate yourself on being candidates for contributing to the earth's overcrowding problem, and if you're not planning on having children any time soon, then everyone probably hates you two together anyway and you have to reasonably assess whether you can withstand that kind of debilitating social pressure.

Gosh, Valentine's Day. You thought it was over (this post is so late in the day, I might as well say it's in honour of next Valentine's Day) but I'm raking up those painful memories again because I want you all to feel shame about your life choices.

Not me though, because my life choices are and have always been beyond question or reproach. And you are all very lucky, because I am about to share with you one of those life choices. I was like you once. Lonely. Pathetic. Unable to hold down a good job and a stable relationship at the same time because being a fierce career-driven lady is hard work.* But then I found a light. A path. I started only fancying men who were fictional.

I know what you're thinking. Fucking genius.

A fictional man has never, let us say, forgotten a birthday or, to give another random example that has definitely never happened to me, squeezed your thigh and declared you to be “not that fat”. A fictional man has never seen you walk into a room visibly upset, ask if you're ok, then return to playing iPhone Scrabble when you say, “Sort of, I guess” in a tone that conveys broadly the opposite and when you point this out offers the rebuttal "You said you were fine".

Yes, fictional men have the decided advantage of being fictional. But wait. There are rules to this thing. You can't just make them do whatever you want heedless of the universe from whence they came and inherent traits with which they were gifted.** You must be accepting of your fictional man's flaws. You must love them because of their flaws, not in spite of them. Detractors of the Fictional Man System may say that this is akin to 'real life' relationships, that one must work also at relationships with actual breathing people, but to them I say shut up and you smell. My way is both quicker and easier and therefore correct.

It's important to know the territory, is what I'm saying. Each fictional man carries their own baggage with them. To help you on the first steps to a stress-free world of romance and talking to yourself on public transport, here are the pros and cons of ten of the best:

The Top Ten Most Eligible Fictional Males (from literature)***

A/N: To anyone shouting for Rochester or Heathcliffe: was your favourite film as a child Beauty and the Beast?

10) Satan (Paradise Lost, John Milton).

Why? Everyone loves a rebel with a cause, not least Jonnie Milton himself, who at several points of Paradise Lost clearly panics and throws in some shit about original sin and being the root of all the evil in the world to throw off any delicate female brains that may have been affected by this shape-shifting orator with cunning oral skills. Satan is the thinking ladies' crumpet. He ponders. He broods. Also, have you read the description of Adam and Eve's grown-up make-out fun post-apple? Good times, courtesy of Satan.

Why not? Approximately halfway through the poem, Milton realises everyone's rooting for the fallen angel and turns him into an underwhelming snake-thing. (Calm down, Freudians.) Also there's some minor stuff about raping his daughter Sin to produce his son/grandson Death and Death then raping his mother to produce hell-hounds that live inside her womb. But everyone has baggage.

9) Draco Malfoy (Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling).

Why? Blond. Mainly, blond. And again, blond. Probably more of a fling than anything else but if anyone in Hogwarts is making the most of their common room by installing a hot tub and hiring house elves as the wizarding equivalent of monkey butlers, it is the Slytherins. Malfoy also comes equipped with severe daddy issues, which makes him a shoo in for this list (to new readers, I apologise; to regular readers, you really should just expect this by now). Is willing to commit murder for the sake of family honour or some bullshit like that so presumably easy to manipulate. (What?) Also, blond.

Why not? Cries in bathrooms. Requires henchmen as living security blanket. Daddy issues go hand in hand with definite unresolved Oedipal yearnings: would probably still have been breastfeeding at an uncomfortably late age.

8) Eros (Greek mythology).

Why? Quite literally a love god. Forget all those fluffy little Cupids, before the Romans came along and enacted their subtle foreign policy of killing everything and stealing what was left, the Greek god Eros was all wings and abs.  And if you get bored, he has a twin brother called Anteros who avenges slighted lovers and is the deity actually portrayed in statue form at Piccadilly Circus (Eros has been getting the credit for over a hundred years now, it's time to set the record straight.  OPEN YOUR EYES.  SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE.)

Why not? Lack of experience – in the whole of Greek mythology, is only shown getting it on once, despite being aforementioned God of Love. Will also insist on having the lights off in case you realise the identity of your lover and his mother tries to kill you. And also was regarded as the protector of homosexual love between men.  So the takeaway here is that Greek mythology is not a great place for women.

7) Casanova (Histoire de ma Vie, Giacomo Casanova)(yes I know he was a real guy)(I'm examining his literary persona)(shut up)

Why? Come on now. Self-explanatory. Admittedly this is not for the lady looking for something long-term but I bet you'd have a good time along the way. As well as being world's first lad, he was also a spy, conman, linguist and librarian and spent most of his life rubbing elbows with royalty, popes, writers and musicians like Goethe, Mozart and Voltaire (and rubbing something else with literally all of the ladies).**** Factor in a slamming dress sense, a preference for eloquent woman, and an ability to make money out of basically everyone, including people who fired him, and that's a recipe for a fun weekend that you'll only remember as occasional flashbacks.

Why not? Have fun with all the venereal disease. Allegedly also had a threeway with his illigitimate daughter and her mother. (I must apologise, this list contains a significantly higher degree of incest than I had originally envisaged.) Also, as I said before, fidelity was not his strong suit. That was comic understatement. He had all the sex.

6) Peter Pan (Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie).

Why? Has three women after him for the duration of play/novel and, in most representations, clothes seem to be optional. He would be terribly exciting and there would be a large number of gap year style escapades and you would definitely probably have some kind of journey of self-discovery.  Also, property-owner. Peter has his own island, replete with mermaid lagoon (which must be better than a hot tub) and pirate ship (frankly, 'owns own pirate ship' should be a must on any self-respecting woman's list).  

Why not? Oh, where to begin.  Aside from the obvious fact that liaisons with ‘The Boy Who Never Grew Up’ have bad connotations in this day and age, Peter would be the ultimate bait-and-switch date.  "Come to my magical island where we'll fly into the night together holding hands and ultimately defy death itself and you will never feel so free or young or alive and I'll tell you how you fill this empty aching hole in my life but like would you be a total doll and do the boys' laundry first? Shit, I need to pay the delivery guy, have you got a tenner?" This is a short-term option. Wendy knew it, and you need to know it too – think of it as the best holiday romance ever. Enjoy the mermaid lagoon and get out before he starts encouraging his friends to call you 'mum'.

5) Victor Frankenstein (Frankenstein, Mary Shelley).

Why? It's easy to forget Mary Shelley was 18 when she wrote Frankenstein but I swear, somewhere in her notes is a scrap of paper that reads, “and btdubs, Victor is like totally hot.” Within the first ten pages, the manly and (I imagine) waxed-mustachioed explorer Captain Walton is waxing lyrical about his new bff Victor and the lustrous melancholy of his eyes, amongst other attractions. If you can manage to mentally strip away a few decades of Hollywood-distorted mad scientists cackling in castles, you'll find that Shelley's protagonist is a tender twenty-one years old when he stitches together a bunch of corpses and creates an abomination in the eyes of God. Plus, there's significant textual evidence that suggests Mary was basing some elements of Victor on her boo Percy Bysshe, so I think it's safe to say that in her eyes at least, Victor Frankenstein is one fine piece of grave-robbing ass. You heard it here first. Also Percy Shelley might have been a Romantic proto-douche (and there's a whole other blog post there) but his portraits can confirm that he was, indeed, totally hot.

Why not? Well, he stitches together a bunch of corpses and creates an abomination in the eyes of God for a start. Also, the whole Gothic-Romantic hero thing turns out to be something of a double edged sword because, as a direct result of his 'Fun With Cadavers' science kit, Victor spends significant portions of the novel proving his dedication to being sensitive and shit by fainting, and at the same time blaming, variously, dead authors, living authors, dead scientists, living scientists, fate, destiny, chance, his father, his mother, his best friend and, not kidding, a tree. So a) he probably wouldn't remember to do the washing up and b) when you get home and ask him to do it, he'll tell you all about how it totally wasn't his fault because someone made an offhand remark about Percy Shelley's poetry and that reminded him of sleep and he had to go and do that instead. (Meta-burn. Thank you very much.)

4) Bertie Wooster (many books, P.G. Wodehouse)

Why? Bertie Wooster is a magical human being who attracts charming happenings full of whimsy and gentle confusion into his life, and you could be a part of that.  Whether making off with Aunt Dahlia's cow creamer or concealing the music hall origins of your chum's latest squeeze from the uncle upon whom he is financially dependent, your existence could only be improved by having this man around.  Tell me you wouldn't want to be in a P.G. Wodehouse novel and I'll tell you your soul has withered beyond the point of redemption, you sick, sad bastard.  You would get to be a member of the idle rich.  Your job would be having escapades.  Also Bertie is just, like, the nicest guy. Like, actually.  Not in a Nice Guy way.  He genuinely is a nice guy.

Why not? Here be actually-quite-terrifying-when-you-really-think-about-it-properly valets.  A few women have threatened to intrude upon the domestic equilibrium enjoyed by one boy and his manservant and none were ever heard from again.  And as totes adorbs as Bertie is, things might get a little wearing once you realise that you are being woken up for the hundred and twelfth day in a row by an argument between your significant other and his significant other over his polka dot spats or whatever it is now in the name of christ I'm invisible in my own home help me god please.

3) Odysseus (The Iliad, The Odyssey, Homer). Why? Epic. Hero. Not just any epic hero either, but a smart epic hero. Odysseus is the Batman of the Bronxe Age: ain't no invulnerability or flying sandals here (take that Achilles. And you, Perseus.) Just a really really determined dude. So if he says he's going to put those shelves up, he's damn well going to put those shelves up, but he's probably going to Tom Sawyer someone into doing it for him by, once again, being really smart. And then taking all the credit. Like smart people do. Let's not forget either that there's a slough of goddesses, nymphs and princesses queueing up for their turn at The Odyssey: Boardgame Edition (there are two rules: 1) Abduct hero. 2) Bone.) Foremost amongst these is the goddess Calypso, who keeps the Big O (see what I did there?) on her island as a sex slave for seven years. Got to be a reason. All I'm saying.

Why not? Man, he really wants to get home to his wife. Have some fun by all means, but know you're just a pitstop along the way to an epic book deal and twenty years' worth of reunion sex. If Olympian goddesses couldn't keep Odysseus tied down, you probably won't fare much better. He'll give you some stuff about needing his space and being a free spirit and before you even get a chance to turn his men into pigs again, he'll jump ship (literally) and you'll be left looking for the next epic hero to fix that dripping tap you never got round to.

2) Mr Darcy (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen).

Why? Self-evident. The ruder you get, the more he likes you in a tortured, brooding sort of way that doesn't involve murdering puppies (Heathcliffe, I am looking at you). Also a self-improving hero – Darcy walks the fine line between sociopath-god-help-you-restraining-order (Lovelace, Rochester, Heathcliffe again) and 'he's just shy' (literally any rom-com based on comic misinterpretation of character) meaning that he's genuinely the sneery hipster in the corner initially, but he works on not saying douchey things like “your family sucks and you're poor” and gets the girl eventually. The girl, incidentally, is too busy repeatedly saying things like, “Wow, I am a horrible judge of character” to fix his faults for him (Jane Eyre, you could learn something here), so just be chill. He'll get there. Also the whole book is basically about him trying and failing to repress his libido.

Why not? I have to say, I don't have much here , assuming you can get past the initial insults to your appearance, family, manners, class, financial status and pretty floral bonnet (probably). Maybe if you like loud music or immoderate drinking or the drugs that all the young people use these days, then he's not the man for you? But then again, Austen says that Lizzie makes him more fun. Damn, she's good.

1) Hamlet (Hamlet, William Shakespeare).

Why? The prince (sorry) of the fictional men. Because, contrary to what I began this list by saying, Hamlet is kind of whatever you want him to be, while also definitely being in possession of cheekbones so sharp they refract light (science). Seriously, the Victorians even thought he might have been a woman, so if you are looking for a receptacle into which, Pygmalion-like, you may pour every quality you have ever desired in a lover, then start with the one who fundamentally embodies the pain and joy of the human condition, and also fights off some pirates.

Why not? Where do you want to start? His in-universe track record isn't great, breaking up with his girlfriend by stabbing her dad through a curtain, which ranks only slightly above dumping via text. There's also some astonishingly good (bad, I mean bad) work going on in the daddy issues department with him being the only one on this list taking orders from a Ghost Dad who may or may not be a fractured remnant of his own tortured psyche. On the plus side, he loves his mother very much. A little too much? Perhaps. Also, in brief: gets touchy when his best friend calls him out on murdering-by-proxy two of their old uni mates, hipster-postures about how poor people totally don't understand art, talks during the theatre, is generally a self-pitying, solipsistic, intellectually superior, emotionally anguished, sexually repressed, arrogant, moody philosophy student. And now I've totally lost my train of thought. I'm sure I was supposed to be listing bad things.

(See also: Constantine from The Seagull, Edmund from King Lear, Prince Hal from Henry IV, Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, any other character that could feasibly be played by Ben Whishaw.)

(It's possible I may have a type.)

*Was in university, watching Horrible Histories.

**If you find yourself doing this then congratulations, you are a writer of bad fanfiction. Now burn your laptop, you are banned from the internet.

***None of this TV or film bullshit. Characters represented in a visual medium are played by actors and, as we all know, actors are raging whirlpools of neurosis, insecurity and heart-breakingly blind optimism, plus when you Wikipedia them they're always married and at least, like, ten years older than you thought they were.

****Imagine how disappointed he'd be with his present-day descendents. Casanova never had to descend to thinly-veiled homophobia and misogyny. He had books.

The Blacklist: Five Films I Hate That Everyone Else Loves

When I was a young lass with barely a handful of overreactions and needlessly capitalised opinions to call my own, I had a school teacher who offered me this sage advice when it came to debating: "Don't rant.  When you rant, we stop listening." Which - don't get me wrong - was all well and good within the confines of structured debating competitions largely dominated by chinless male adolescents whose sense of self-importance was directly proportional to how much they wished their voice would just drop already.*  But this is a blog, so sorry Mrs Edwards, I am going to rant my little digital socks off.

In summary, the following films are abominations and deserve to be fire-bombed out of existence.

The Jane Shakespeare Blacklist: Five Films I Utterly Loathe That Everyone Else Inexplicably Loves (and Obviously Contains Spoilers For Those Films)

Now look.  Most of the time, I get by ok despite being an emotionally neutered wasteland of a human being whose ability to respond appropriately to the adult world has been unalterably decimated by years of learning my life lessons from TV. I grew up reading books and then I went to university to read more books and realised that watching shitty children's films on the internet was much quicker and less effort. I feel more strongly about television about than I do about some actual human relationships (when I started watching Orange is the New Black, I genuinely think I was more psyched to spend time with my Netflix account than I was with my first boyfriend). What I'm saying is that I watch a lot of stuff, good and bad, so I don't usually judge others on their choices (in fact I detailed my love of crap TV here). However, there are a few films, just a few, that I loathe and every time I say I loathe them, someone looks at me like I just expressed indifference towards a Youtube video of an ocelot forming an unlikely friendship with a penguin.**  They're both small animals, I get why it's cute, I just...god, don't you people have anything better to do with your lives? You could be writing blogs justifying your deep-seated aggression towards humanity. Anyway, here they are.

5) Titanic

Now this is an obvious choice to kick things off and maybe kind of a cheat because actually there are a lot of people that don't love it. It's just that the people who love it really love it. And I hate those people. I've also never actually seen it all the way through. I just can't. Every time it comes on TV, I think, “This time, this time, I will respond to this film that makes people cry their innards out through their noses.” And every time I have to stop watching because I can feel bile rising in my throat at the first few strains of that Celine Dion wankfestival of over-literal interpretation of the concept of undying love. It brings out the absolute worst in me. It only takes a few minutes and I'm treating human tragedy like it's the funniest thing I've ever seen (cf also: Forrest Gump). Also obligatory mention of get on the fucking door.

4) The Lion King

This is potentially where I lose some friends.  But actually let's be clear.  I do not hate The Lion King.  But I am happily indifferent to The Lion King.  But the world, as always, will not let me be.  "How can you not like The Lion King?" they gasp, as though I have expressed a neutrality towards breathing oxygen, and that incredulity has pushed me dangerously towards hatred.  Easily, is the answer.  Bloody easily.  Anthropomorphism has never been my thing, not ever, and when I watched Bambi as a kid I asked my mum whether Bambi's mum had just been shot and she nodded sadly with soft, compassionate motherly eyes ready to leap to the rescue of my tender psyche and I said "oh ok" and went back to wondering what exactly his dad had been doing all that time.  Nature is not cuddly, it is red in tooth and claw, and it will thank you for showing some respect (I mean you Ang Lee). Also if I want to read Hamlet I will definitely just read Hamlet.  So let me be, in my joyless, loveless bubble.  I'm not telling you not to enjoy it but I will not pretend I enjoy it either.  I am the Andy Murray of film watching, refusing to smile, and winning at Twitter.

3) 500 Days of Summer

I have been told so many times by so many folk that I just didn't "get" this film.  No, you see, it is a deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, the magical quirky girl who pinwheels into the life of the male protagonist and heals his damaged first world soul, it is a warning against projecting unmanageable expectations onto someone.  Is what they say.  Well, no.  Is what I say.  Because a) if that were true, why is the last thing we see in the film Joseph Gordon Levitt hitting on an identical woman (Zooey Deschanel just wasn't the right Manic Pixie Dream Girl! Keep searching, entitled white boy, there's a Manic Pixie Dream Girl out there for you too!) and b) even if the film was pointing out the folly of their relationship, so what?  The idea that putting women on a pedestal ends badly is not a blinding revelation.  I think most of us do not need a film to tell us that you cannot build a lasting relationship on shared love of The Smiths.

It is not a deconstruction of the trope because it does nothing to deconstruct the trope.  The story is still told from the viewpoint of the aforementioned lost boy who pursues a woman because she symbolises a meaningful existence and ultimately 'wins' her, despite her free-wheelin' ways and initial reluctance.  The fact that he loses her again means nothing for, as the film makes clear, he will do this again and again and again.  A deconstruction would tell her story, show her agency and inner life rather than just informing us that she totally has them, and focus on her choices because of what they mean for her, not as and when they affect him.  In the end, it still reinforces the stereotype that women's lives are plot points in men's stories.  No amount of non-linear storytelling and cutesy Expectations v Reality set pieces can disguise that.  It's hollow, it's twee, and it challenges nothing.  Mic drop.

2) Juno

It is not the miracle of central heating or the tender embrace of a lover that keeps me warm at night, it is my hatred of this film.  It nourishes my soul.  It gives me energy.  Why?  Because it's fucking annoying.  Basically.  But oh, such annoyance.  My intolerance of this film is nigh on Biblical.  The smug Dr Seuss dialogue, the lazy mumblecore performances, the appalling manner in which Michael Cera continues to exist, the vicious desperate straining towards being alternative (and yet at the same time so painfully afraid of offending anyone - no it's totally cool that you support abortion! It's just not for our did-we-mention-ADHD-but-not-in-a-way-that-is-ever-really-represented-as-anything-other-than-edearing-in-an-offbeat-way heroine!  Oh, and by the way, all abortion clinic picketers are also quirky and adorable!).  At no point does this film celebrate anything difficult or unusual or uncomfortable (spoilers: the baby ends up with sweetly middle class Jennifer Garner, bad Jason Bateman with his ephebophile tendencies is banished, and Ellen Page goes to the prom with Michael Cera, the poor, poor girl) and it pretends it does because it comes packaged in The Moldy Peaches***, ironic euphemisms for penises, and a fucking hamburger phone.  I really hate that fucking hamburger phone.

1) Love Actually

Ok, this is it.  The big one.  I don't want to overreact here but everyone involved in this film deserves to be put up against a wall and shot.  Even you Colin Firth.  Especially you, for trying to trade off against Darcy goodwill by jumping into a lake.  Every character in it is a borderline horrendous sociopath and every one of its hoard of dead-eyed paycheck-visualising actors has done a better performance than this at some other point in their careers, and for Kris Marshall, it was his mugshot when he was arrested for drunk driving.  This film goes out of its way to tell you that any option - literally any option - is better than just talking to a woman.  Hold up passive aggressive placards about how your entire existence has been destroyed by a woman having the temerity to marry someone else, learn to play the drums, buy a woman on the white slave trade market, decide you have no future together because she committed the heinous crime of electing to look after her brother instead of having sex with you, offer to have her ex boyfriends killed because they called her fat (because no woman of yours will bear the shame of being called fat) but for the sake of all that is holy, do not simply talk to her about your feelings, she will not respond to your simply and sincerely expressed feelings.

Oh Gentle Reader, I cannot truly express to you the depths of my antagonism towards this film.  I hate it with the gnawing, churning, all consuming darkness of a black hole, and were I possessed of ungodly  reality-altering powers, I would rip it out of existence itself and send it spitting and cursing back into the howling chasm from whence it came.  I hate the way, the truly tragic way, it takes actors that I like - Laura Linney! Andrew Lincoln!  forever to me to the most perfectly cast Edgar Linton there ever shall be, decent and strong-jawed and faithful! - and buckles them into this devil spawn of a roller coaster ride to hell.  Oh, I am sorry Linney, Lincoln, Firth, Ejiofor, Freeman and company (Not you, Knightley.  Never you.) but I cannot forgive your presence in this cynical money sink of a film (that does not - has never - really believed that love is, actually, all around but knows that you will believe it for long enough in your wine-addled Yuletide fugue of loneliness and existential despair to rent it off LoveFilm or add to the royalties by watching it on repeat) on the basis of previous and subsequent good form.

And the turtlenecks.  Dear weeping Jesus on a two-wheeled canoe, the fucking turtlenecks.


*I was actually really good at debate.  I once did a public speaking contest where they invented a prize to give me because I had written my speech the day before and not followed any of the rules about structure or having an actual argument but was apparently "utterly charming". But I am fucking charming, so you know.
**Actually that does sound fucking adorable.
***Who I liked before this film, goddammit.


A/N: Bonus Extra Episode of a TV Show I Hate That Everyone Else Loves, Incidentally Also Written by Richard Curtis: Vincent and the Doctor (Doctor Who, Series 5, Episode 10)

Snow Patrol is just the tip of the appallingly twee iceberg here.  No one - no one - can straight-facedly call someone "my friend" in continuous prose and not sound like a twat.  Just - just go and watch it again, and this time listen to the dialogue.  Consider the incredible crassness of the metaphor of Vincent van Gogh being haunted by an "invisible monster" (DEPRESSION THE REAL MONSTER IS DEPRESSION).  And ask yourself whether you actually thought it was good, or whether you just felt like you should because Matt Smith and Bill Nighy compared their bow ties.

(IT'S ABOUT DEPRESSION.)

Very Boys Such Bromance Wow So Unlikely Alliances Much Cheekbone Part 2: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

2013: Year of the Colon.

So basically I'm linking together Thor and The Hobbit and Sherlock (forthcoming in Part 3) because they are all such utter sausage-fests about the manly bonds between manly men and why would you think we're gay we're not gay and maybe we should get a new joke for this show, Stephen Moffat.  It's particularly noticeable to me right now because I've been watching Battlestar Galactica again and I have to say, actual realistic representation of women as fifty percent of the population never felt so good. I watched a scene today where three politicians discussed the impact that a particular issue would have on an upcoming election and they were all women and nobody commented on it. I nearly wept.  Anyway, I really enjoyed The Hobbit but Middle Earth sure has been struck by some tragic ovary-targeting wasting disease.

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: Review: I Knew Aidan Turner Was In It For A Reason

So on the whole, it was a ton of fun.  It has the same flaws as the first film, only bigger, and the same strengths as the first film, only bigger.  It's bigger.  Is what I'm saying.  It also has that Middle-of-a-Trilogy-itis thing where the director gets excited by not really having introduce anything or tie anything up so it's all action, bitches, because it's 2013 (well, it was) and that's what we like, amIright? This is a good thing or a bad thing depending on your tastes - some of the action sequences are epic and beautiful and brilliant and so much wow (the dwarves going all Home Alone on Smaug and DON'T FUCKING TALK TO ME ABOUT THE SPEED THAT GOLD MELTS AT BECAUSE THEY'RE FIGHTING A DRAGON AND THIS IS YOUR BEEF) and some were sort of 'ok so this is still happening' (endless chases through Laketown, endless). 

Like the first film, it's a big, heavy juggernaut and it takes a while to get going and it stutters and chokes a little bit to begin with but then heave-ho, everyone puts their shoulders to the wheel and suddenly its weight is helping it gather momentum and oh wait, I am really enjoying this film, whoosh dragons molten tacky gold dwarf statues fabulous elves OH IT'S OVER.  Which was also exactly like the first film.  But also like the first film, it revels in the delight of this being a familiar universe, deftly balancing new elements with old favourites. Wisely, it doesn't dwell too much on episodes like Beorn's house because it knows that we know - and it knows that we know that it knows - that Mirkwood is just around the corner and that can mean only one thing.

Hey baby.  It's been a while.

Legolas: still sexy.  Still confused as fuck.  What's going on? Who are we fighting now? Legolas doesn't care.  He's going to stand on the heads of two dwarves in barrels and shoot arrows from his seemingly infinite quiver because he literally has no other clue about what he should be doing right now and the soundtrack in his head is going "dun dun dun LEGOLAS dundunnnn".

Stumbling in the direction of something more serious, the Mirkwood elves are a perfect example of what the film does right: "less wise and more dangerous" is how they're described, and it takes everything we love about elves (shiny) and invests it with personality and flaws and other tasty and sumptuous things.  I mean, man, these elves are such bitches.  We always suspected it and we were right.  They are the Regina Georges of Middle Earth.  Take Thranduil, for example.  All he wants to do is just comb his hair because what if it gets a kink in it, and then it won't go with his glittery mini-antlers and god Legolas, daddy is busy right now with his straighteners and for the last time Tauriel, the order of precedence goes Picking Up Robes from Dry Cleaner, Booking Facial, Giant Spider Attack in that order.  If you couldn't tell, Thranduil is my new favourite character.

Sorry, we were being serious.  For me the elves worked particularly well because book-universe-wise, there is nothing to say this wasn't going on, it's a logical extension of the Mirkwood plot, and film-universe-wise, we didn't really get to see communities of other races in Lord of the Rings, just societies of humans and the tagalong duds the other races sent along ("yes Legolas, it is a very special and important mission and you should on no account try to call or write and really, stay away as long as you need to").  If the mission statement behind fleshing one small book into three films is to deliver a richer and more complex universe as a reward for investing our time in it, then showing us not only a community of elves but a community of elves that is specifically different from other elves and have their own customs and hang-ups is a very good use of time and resources.  And now I have to stop typing "community of elves" as I can no longer keep a straight face.

But as well as the excitement of meeting new characters and catching up with old ones, what really made the film worth it for me was the plethora of little moments that just flicked out the paintbrush and added a little more dimension to the cast of fantasy archetypes.  Nearly every character gets one, which is just a nice reassurance that Peter Jackson knows what he's doing as a storyteller and - moreover - has probably spent more time immersed in the Tolkien universe than anyone else ever and really actually deserves to take The Hobbit and spin it into three films of (let's face it) ultimate nerdy self-indulgence.  My favourite of these little moments has to be Legolas literally being so hugged so hard by one of the Big End of Level Boss Orcs that he nosebleeds (well, we've all had that urge).  It's great because, again, it fits with the expanded view of these new flawed, impulsive, human-like elves and along with Thranduil's magicked-away dragon-flamed face (he must get through a lot of concealer) it suggests that actually elven beauty is a very important external symbol of immortality and imperviousness to the passage of time and how elves are a race apart, standing outside the natural ebb and flow of things, but basically also because my viewing companion and I showed our age and simultaneously went "You made me bleed my own blood!"*  And after a cursory google, I found that half the internet thought the same thing, so, Orlando Bloom: bringing people together through looking confused and outraged since 2001.

Speaking of new characters, I don't think anyone was a disappointment. I'm also just not sure how absolutely necessary Stephen Fry as the Master of Clumsy Social Commentary on Good Governance was but hey, it was still all super-delightful in its way.  Bard the Bowman** and his Adorable Children were all you could ask for in the way of good, decent, not terribly interesting salt of the earth folk, even if I did spend much of their scenes going, "Why is Bard the Bowman also sometimes Orlando Bloom but maybe also Welsh?"  He's not though, it's Luke Evans, and he is definitely Welsh.  Maybe.  I mean, his kids were.  But why they emigrated from Wales to Middle Earth, I couldn't tell you.  As a side note, a friend of mine described him as "bang tidy", a phrase which - regardless of whether or not I agree with its application in this particular instance - surely deserves more exposure.  Bang tidy. Hee.

And, of course, everyone is getting their robes in a twist over the inclusion of a character who - gasp -isn't even in the book (Deviations from the source material! Imagine!) and who is - double gasp - a lady.  Well let's all just unclench because Tauriel was basically pretty great and a very welcome addition to the series.  The problem, of course, starts when female characters have to represent their entire gender because they are the only female character in the whole thing and in this respect it would be very easy to bitch about the only significant female character in the film being shoved into a love triangle of sorts*** but you know what? Eh.  Besides, it must require a lot of fortitude being an elf lady in love with a dwarf dude, it is basically like Romeo and Juliet with an added height difference.  I mean, the romance plot was obviously horribly executed, it must be said, and happened in about five minutes flat and everyone was bandying the word 'love' around after a single conversation about the relative descriptors for starlight (dwarf chat up lines, ring a ding ding) but Tauriel as a character, on her own, was boss.  I'm not hugely bummed about the film introducing this warrior-lady and then shoving her into a romance plot as she also had agency and strengths and other stuff going on, whereas ironically it was at this point I went "oh so that's why they cast Aidan Turner" because Kili really was basically there to be dwarf totty.  I was a bit sad that his bromance with Fili wasn't so in evidence but this was also the time at which the film chose to take a firm stance on that particular relationship and went with "definitely brothers, however you may interpret Fili choosing to stay behind with his dying bro instead of going on the adventure of a lifetime to the mountain he has literally been waiting to see for his entire life".  Oh shit, I've just remembered how The Hobbit ends. Oh, fuck you, Peter Jackson.

Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage continued to rom-com it as Bilbo and Thorin, with Smaug as the conniving ex ("oh you think he's into you but you just try and get him to commit, there is no way he's coming all the way down here to save you").  Less smouldering for Thorin this time and more "slow descent into madness" but that sounds like a recipe for brooding to me, so I'm still happy.  Also it must be said that while his plan to get rid of Smaug was flawlessly executed, it was also dumb as shit. Oh Thorin, he has fire literally inside him, all you did was make him more bling.  Also was there just a giant gold dwarf statue hanging around and they melted it? Or - even weirder - a mould for giant gold dwarf statues because they were in such hot demand back in the day? Yeah, that was strange. 

La la la, a quick rundown of the rest because I think you can tell by now that I liked the film and just want to make affectionate sarky comments about it.  Benedict Cumberdragon was on good form, particularly the "I like you" line, a thought which I finished as "In another life, I feel like maybe we could have lived in a flat together and solved crimes."**** The problem is that while his voice is awesome and dragon-y and villainous, he's also - in my mind - clearly actually the nicest guy in the world which kind of confused me about Smaug so I came out of the film thinking of him as that friend who you all know is kind of an arsehole but then, like, he's got a big house and loads of cool shit and he's a bit lonely, and really his douchebaggery just mostly makes you laugh and he only sometimes tries to incinerate you. I actually could have watched Smaug and Bilbo chinwag all day and it was half the movie as it was.  Loved Smaug's design too, that slightly Keira Knightley-esque amount of jaw really putting the smug in Smaug (yeah, SORRY NOT SORRY).

What else? Gandalf, yes, cool, great.  He should be nicer to Radagast, though, since something tragic is clearly going to occur to explain his absence in LOTR.  Also, actual magic! I feel like up to this point wizard-magic in the LOTR universe has been more along the lines of New Age positive thinking and supreme good luck.  I mean, Voldemort would be all up in Gandalf's grill and Gandalf would be all "it is small acts and small people who stand against the dark" and Voldemort would like "Bitch be trippin', I'mma AK that shit."  I'm sorry, I've also been watching a lot of Orange is the New Black lately.

So yeah.  In summary, I couldn't take any of it seriously, not for a moment - but in the best possible way.  It's all so dear and familiar, it basically feels like a constant stream of in-jokes, heightened to increasingly ridiculous levels, and even when it's slow or clumsy, I just - oh, Lord of the Rings universe, I can't stay mad at you.  I just can't.  I'm not sure I'll pay to see it again but when it crops up on Netflix in six months time, I will most definitely grab a bottle of cornershop plonk and be glad to make its reacquaintance.

*If that's the wording you thought in, you're referencing The Simpsons, congratulations.  If, on the other hand, you thought "Nobody makes me bleed my own blood!", you are referencing Dodgeball and might be still in your teens, and also Blades of Glory is the far superior work of that particular cinematic movement. 

**Incidentally, Bard the Bowman is the character that I assumed Richard Armitage had been cast as when I first heard he was going to be in it.  I hadn't read the book for a good fifteen years and filtering amongst my hazy watercolour recollections of it, my brain clearly felt that 'heroic lost prince man who slays dragon' was a better fit for him than 'slightly pompous and kind of useless dwarf king'.

***Personally, I feel like the inclusion of an elf v dwarf love triangle is just Peter Jackson sticking two fingers up at Twilight, but that could just be wishful thinking.
****To be discussed in rabid, devoted detail in Part 3 - coming soon! Actually soon, not 'half a year' soon.