The Projectionists Ain't Gone Yet

Written for a college assignment, we had to go out and interview a person of interest and write up an article in the style of the "A Life In A Day" features run by the Sunday Times.

E.g: http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/archive_article.aspx?Id=2786

I interviewed Malcolm Brown, a Projectionist at the GFT:

I went to The Glasgow Film Theatre to speak to projectionist Malcolm Brown on what it is like to be one of few left in an important and nostalgic profession in the film industry.

I’m Glaswegian through and through. From the Southside. Originally I’m from Barrhead. I’ve been here years now. I was at university and worked part time behind the bar; I was doing electrical engineering. I started in here full time, working behind the bar and then I picked up the job to train up as a projectionist about eighteen years ago now. So I trained on the job and also I (attended) a lot of training courses over the years at various places in Scotland but mostly in the National film Theatre in London.

We’ve been trained from the word GO in digital. The GFT were good enough to send us off on training courses with the changeover in mind. It’s been quite surprising how quick it’s happened. Obviously when I originally came it was all 35mm, and we also did 16mm and 70mm. A smaller format which was for mellow film makers mostly because it was cheaper.  99.9% of the time if you went to the cinema you were watching 35mm and also 70mm – which we would maybe show two or three times a year. We were probably the only cinema, certainly in Glasgow, which showed it. We no longer show 16mm at all and very rarely we show 70mm, but I was trained in film.

It was quite sad to see the 35mm go. I did like film although in a way it’s easier for projectionists, for us to deal with digital stuff although it’s got its own problems. There’s security issues, there’s keys to be issued, they are very exacting about times. Although we still show quite a lot of film; we’re maybe about 80% digital.

One cineworld down the road, which has eighteen screens, has no projectionists now. It’s basically front of house managers now because it’s all programmed.

I don’t even know what my favourite film is. I’ve been asked this before but I wouldn’t know where to start. There’s so many. I like Scorcese. On the big screen in particular it looks lovely. I quite liked a trilogy from Allan J.Pakula. . He did: Klute, All The President’s Men and the Parallax View; early 70s. The Parrallax View – that’s one of my faves. All three of them are very good films. There’s hundreds. I was a film buff in my youth but now I’m not so much. I never really go to the movies because it’s a busman’s holiday really. 

How you learn is from making mistakes. I remember once putting on a film shot in Glasgow, Ken Loach’s “Carla’s song.” When that was first released, I made it up on what you call a cake stand which means you can show a whole film start to finish upstairs in cinema one, and I started that day and I went downstairs. We have CCTV monitors so if we’re sitting downstairs in cinema two we can keep an eye on cinema one; and I was sitting looking at the monitor and I thought ‘Is that screen meant to be upside down?” But of course it wasn’t. It was a Friday afternoon. Because it had been shot in Glasgow I think we had about 350 people in to see it. We had to cancel the showing. That’s the kind of things you don’t do very often, and that’s becoming less relevant now because of digital. There always was the human error possibilities. Now if something goes wrong it’s likely to be a software glitch; which is really out of your hands.

The fact that we still have four projectionists here at the GFT is a good thing. Not only are we just showing films we’re doing education events. We also deal with the art school maybe three days a week doing lectures. We would deal with setting that up and getting their PowerPoint presentations on the screen and lighting the people up.

We can be busy from nine in the morning until eleven at night. Which is good for us. We’ve kept four projectionists because we need them. Q and A’s. Director’s coming in. You name it - there’s always something going on.

’37 this building was built so, obviously,  we’ve updated it quite a lot since but there’s still quite a lot of maintenance we’ve got to keep our eye on or else. So we would look after all of that, it’s becoming more relevant. Also be dealing with fire safety and general maintenance. 

Quentin Tarantino - He’s been in here a couple of times. I met him twice actually. Once – just as Reservoir Dogs was released which was way back when I started.  I made him a coffee and he sat chatting. He was back three years ago at the festival so he was obviously much bigger. The first time he came he just arrived himself; he was touring Europe promoting Reservoir Dogs. Peter Mullan’s a regular. He was at university in Glasgow; he knows the GFT really well. He’s here often. We’ve met a lot of celebs over the years. 

There’s always something to be doing. It’s not often we sit about watching the movies, you know?

(Photo Found on Google. Not actually the GFT)

My Review Of Snowtown for The Journal

http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/8335-snowtown-not-for-the-faint-hearted

A Few Photographs of Aberdeen in January '11

Warrior (2011)

The North-East of the USA has been the home to some of the best fighting films around; this handful of states has been the home to some of cinema’s most iconic sporting characters. Warrior follows in this tradition, set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania it may just have certified this corner of America as the spiritual home to great cinematic fighters. However, if you’re not a fan of sports in either reality or in film format, do not be put off, there is an equal amount of believable drama in this film to satisfy, to the point that the sport - in this case Mixed Martial Arts – often gets surpassed by it. Some might even argue that Warrior is not essentially a sports film, nor even a sports-drama; but a film about confrontation in all its forms.

 It begins with some gentle shots of a slightly peaceful Pittsburgh in winter time before dragging us into the daily routine of Nick Nolte’s Paddy Conlon, a reformed Christian and former alcoholic. Almost instantly it becomes apparent that the environment of the characters will play a crucial part in the mood of the film; the cold and steely Pittsburgh we see comes to mirror the characters themselves. Hardened, stone-faced and bitter; they are a direct product of their environment. Their surroundings are an important element in developing the themes of the story before the film’s epic action-packed finale. Nolte returns home to find his youngest son Tommy (played spectacularly by Tom Hardy) sat on his doorstep. It is their first encounter since Paddy’s drunkenness drove Tommy and their mother from their home and out West years before. He offers his father a bottle of Jameson whisky, Paddy – going on 1000 days sober – refuses and invites his son inside. What follows is a scene which summarises the tough and secretive character of Tommy himself. In the living room he rips his Father’s life to shreds, pin-pointing all the ironies of his father’s changed lifestyle in an almost-accidental bid to start a fight. “I think I liked you better when you were a drunk” – he tells his father, who take all the insults throughout the film, feeling he deserves them for inflicting on his two sons a childhood – which as it is slowly revealed to us in reflection - was both bleak and vicious.

 What is possibly most endearing about Warrior is how it prioritises the dramatic scenes against the sporting ones. It’s a good fifteen minutes before we see anything in the way of an actual, physical fight. Director, David O’Conner has first laid down the importance of his characters, he exposes them to us flatly in the first act of the film; a clear sign to the audience that Warrior is not the Jason Statham-type of action film some might have sensed from those posters stretched boldly across the sides of buses, with a ripped and looming Tom Hardy behind the WWE-esque font of the film’s title. This is a drama with sport infused and blended into it. That being said, Tommy’s first stint in the ring – against a UFC middle-weight contender - will be guaranteed to leave goose bumps running across your skin. He knocks his opponent out in a matter of minutes, and it is here that we see the other side of the film. A film about animosity – shown gloriously through the beast-like nature of the character of Tommy.

 Warrior goes between Tommy’s story as he, with Paddy training him, builds his way through the ranks of Mixed Martial Arts. Simultaneously we follow his older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) in Philadelphia as his secure life as a physics teacher crumbles. Threatened with bankruptcy and with a wife, two children and a home to maintain – he turns to his old sport of MMA out of desperation. Brendan’s tale brings further depth to the story, we delve into his home life with his family, we see him suffer and struggle to convince his old friend Frank Grillo (played by Frank Campana) to coach him, and soon we grow fond of him.

 It is a strange thing in a film to have an audience torn between two characters the way Warrior does and not have us choose which character we wish to see succeed; but instead  has us rooting for both of them as they train for the same title, unknown to each other. As Tommy rages on in his animal-like fury, we watch him and grow to love his rough charm; the bitter disputes with his father adding further tension to the film. Brendan works his way up in a cleaner, more organised environment. We are given two perspectives of the same world. This a contrast that mirrors in the two brothers themselves: Tommy, who fights brutally for reasons unknown to us until the film’s final act and Brendan, who fights for his life, his family and for a future. It is in this contrast that the film maker’s deserve recognition. Not many films can balance such a hefty plot with so much in the way of drama and action as well as Warrior does. Not only does it balance the stories of the brothers’ excellently, it handles the sporting scenes and the drama scenes equally well. As well as the not-too bittersweet family scenes with Brendan, the training scenes, the random side plots such as the headmaster of Brendan’s school and his pupils following his progress in the tournament; and the soldier’s in Afghanistan who uncover Tommy’s identity through the internet. A lot is going on, but nothing is forgotten and there are no loose ends.

 The heart of Warrior is in the bitter relationship between Paddy and his two sons and the most emotive and engaging scenes in the film are not the epic fights which conclude it but the verbal confrontations between the three of them. Paddy – the War vet and former alcoholic who seeks forgiveness but never receives it, Brendan – as angry as Tommy at the childhood his father inflicted on them but guilty of abandoning his younger brother. Then of course there’s Tommy, who lashes out at his brother, his father, his opponents and the world for allowing his life to unfold the way it has. His life has been plagued by suffering since his childhood and he seeks both revenge and forgiveness in his anger. Tom Hardy does an outstanding job of expressing this rage; the turmoil of Tommy’s life and this creates a notable contrast to Brendan’s sombre and honourable demeanour.

 Of the many scenes in the film, three stick in my mind more than any other, and each one features a face-off between two of three main characters. In the first half there a scene set in a Pittsburgh cafe where Tommy reluctantly – and rudely – asks his father to coach him. It’s a great scene, with the two men putting each other in their places. “You get something through your skull, too. You called me. So don't go threatening to walk every five minutes” – says Paddy, and in reply Tommy spits “You wanna tell your war stories, you can take 'em down to the VFW. You can take 'em to a meeting, or church, or wherever.” There’s another excellent scene which takes places during the Sparta tournament later on in the film, where the two brothers come face-to-face for the first time since they were teens. On one of Atlantic City’s empty beaches they show-down, Tommy hitting out at his big bro for not being with him as their mother died. It is at times brutal to watch Tommy as he destroys any hope of having a normal relationship with his brother, distancing himself further and further from normality. It helps builds the whole aura of animosity around Tommy himself, the swelling rage, all adding to the intensity of the following fight scenes.

The best scene, however, is when Tommy finally succeeds in breaking his father’s spirit, driving Paddy back to the bottle. He returns to their Atlantic City hotel suite to the father he left behind as a teen - the dangerous, unstable, angry drunk - and it’s in this scene that we see the humane side to the character of Tommy. He returns to familiarity, a father full of hate – like he himself is - and in this scene he shows the only signs of respect for his father in the film as he cares for him and sees him to bed. Nick Nolte reaches his peak as the character of Paddy in this scene, believable and terrifying as the tortured war veteran.

 Warrior is charged by its three central performances from Hardy, Nolte and Edgerton, but is not solely dependant on them for its impact. It is well-filmed; the cinematography is honest and often absorbing, driven mostly by natural light, selling Warrior as a real, believable film. The soundtrack is fittingly minimal; music is reserved for moments of emotion or triumph. Worth noting is the split-screen montage midway into the film, documenting the training of both brothers – probably the best sports montage in recent memory. As already discussed the environment of the characters plays a massive role in our overall perception of these characters , and it’s in the cameras exploration of the setting in the first half that sets the mood of the film. These men mirror their own surroundings and were born on the streets of Pittsburgh. The city of Pittsburgh itself was an excellent choice for the setting of the film, a fairly unknown place, forgotten arguably – torn between the East-Coast and the mid-west; between busyness and emptiness. All this mounts up, adding to the grittiness and the realism we feel watching Warrior.

 There is however smalls anchors weighing Warrior down, for starters the Commentary which is used heavily for the final tournament in the film feels slightly out-of-place to begin with and takes a while to adjust to. Soon enough  the commentary blends into the mood of the final act and eventually helps with the build-up of the fights; but it is a big leap to go from such heavy drama to snappy-line commentary. Another problem is the character of Tess Conlon, Brendan’s wife – played well by Jennifer Morrison - who plays an important role for the films first half but fades away towards the end. She ends up a side-character with little to do as the film progresses, until eventually she is torn between side character and extra, lost and out-of-place in a film essentially about a Father and his two sons; not a father, his two sons and one of the son’s wives. The casting of UFC fighters themselves and wrestler Kurt Angle might confuse a few people, but they play their parts well and are not given enough screen time to destroy the film.

At the end of the day though, this film belongs to O’Conner and Tom Hardy. Hardy is nothing short of glorious as the enraged Tommy, and it would be good to see a few awards go his way for his turn. God-knows he’s earned it.

There will be inevitable comparison here to the other stand-out fighting film of the year – no, not Real Steel – The Fighter, but to me these are two very different films. Yes, they are both set in nearby states. Yes – they both contain a substantial amount of drama; but they are structured in different ways. Plus Warrior doesn’t have a character that resembles the likes of Christian Bale’s unforgettable Dickie Eklund. On top of this, Warrior is made-up. The Fighter was real. Though both films are on equal terms critically, they are great for differing reasons. All comparisons are - as they always are with great fighting films – put side-by-side next to Raging Bull. A film whose representation of the world of competitive fighting has never been matched, Warrior comes close to engaging the viewer in Raging Bull’s themes of brutality and rage, but ultimately has too much of a Rocky-style climax element to it, which works better for it I believe. O’Conner does not delve into as dark a place as Scorcese did, but it works brilliantly for Warrior, whose tone is perfectly real.

Warrior is a film about human nature, animosity, rage, forgiveness and redemption - and it handles all of its themes remarkably. We see the world of Mixed Martial Arts, not as a blunt world of blood and bones where brainless thugs bash skulls; but as a world where hard men with hard lives fight because fighting is all they know. The cage itself becomes a metaphor for the animal kingdom that is the world, and these characters exploit it to us, they show us that violence will always be a part of our culture. When we see the characters beating each other in the ring, we see men exposed as the animals we often forget we are. In every way Warrior is a film about confrontation. Confronting the past, the present and our way of life. In Warrior, physical confrontation is a means of communication far more effective than speech.

Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)

  Probably the most memorable quote in Page One is from the mouth of Julian Assange, the controversial founder of Wiki-leaks, when he tells a New York Times Journalist in a phone conversation during the film that, “Journalism is just a tool.” It is fitting not just to his trail of thought but to the nature of the documentary ,  which explores the King of all Newspapers, and the empire which has been built around its example in the States. This documentary also attempts to address important and relevant issues in the modern world, such as the apparent death of the newspaper format in a world where news can be blogged and tweeted to the masses before most editors can say the word “pitch.”

  Page One begins with some nicely composed shots of the production of an edition of the New York Times, we see giant rolls of paper loaded onto huge machines and forklifts roaming with flashing lights: its newspaper production on an epic scale. Almost immediately the film delves into one of the many issues it aims to confront: why is the newspaper dying? We see old news reports charting the decline of some of America’s top papers, some of which were forced to shut down due to poor sales – all but the New York times, whose readership only increased. The film then throws us straight into the New York Times’ office environment, a busy and stressful place where-in work people who have dreamt of working in its walls for most of their lives. Such is the nature of this film, all of the above takes place in a short space of time, almost like news itself, the plot points come and go, taking us in different directions but never fully absorbing us in one singular story for longer than a few minutes.

  Unexpectedly the documentary is given some much appreciated depth in the form of David Carr, a media columnist at the New York Times with a fantastically natural charisma and filmable charm; the scenes in which he features are far more absorbing than anything else in the film. Carr’s honesty on the screen when speaking of the youth he spent as an addict merged with his own personal nerve and wit in the workplace makes the film worthwhile. God-knows there may have been a better documentary to be made in merely filming the man himself as he goes about his daily life.

  That’s not to say that this documentary fails, it is informative and will be interesting even to those who couldn’t care less about the newspaper industry; its problem is that it twists and turns a lot in terms of focus. Page One’s camera men stumble across so many fascinating stories in passing that it actually becomes a slight annoyance when they delve slightly into certain ones before unceremoniously pulling us out again. This does however give off the energy of the newsroom to great effect, and perhaps this was the intention of its director Andrew Rossi, because it certainly does this well.

  Page One’s most obvious aim is to humanise the New York Times. It addresses the fantasy of the Times – the 50’s-esque, perfectly run newsroom, that’s more “Daily Bugle” than anything else – and infuses the reality: the office spaces, the redundancies, the tough stories, the law suits and above all else the worrying thought that some stories are bigger even than the paper itself and may never see the light of day. It makes for an enjoyable watch.

  Still the film, though superbly edited and well-researched, could have done with a few improvements. It’s a shame that we never see much outside of the New York Times office, save in small doses. New York City could have been a great playground for the camera crew; even a few shots of the city itself could have boosted the energy of the documentary and the mood of its character’s environment. The best scene in the film in fact takes place in an office at Vice Magazine and features Carr, who argues three heads of the magazine to the ground when one of them insinuates that the New York Times is too mainstream.

  Carr is the hero of this picture, and it really does feel like a waste to not have had more of the man in the film. If he had more screen time then this documentary might have held a candle next to the other great docs of recent years: Catfish for one, with its impulsiveness which was gripping, or Senna, which was emotionally involving in a way which few films in recent memory have been. Sadly it doesn’t, and in the end the film itself feels nothing much more than old news.

One of the Best: The French Connection (1971)

“I had this epiphany that what we were doing wasn’t making fucking films to hang in the Louvre. We were making films to entertain people and if they didn’t do that they didn’t fulfil their primary purpose.” These are the words of the  landmark film director William Friedkin, speaking of his 1971 film, The French Connection.  Very few films will grip you with their suspense the way this film does, a suspense which for forty years film makers have ached to establish in their films. It’s the kind of tension that only great films carry along with them, it is a feeling present as the haunting and unpredictable Travis Bickle roamed the sidewalks in Taxi Driver, it is in the twisted nausea of A Clockwork Orange, in the vice grip of Pulp Fiction’s Ezekiel 25:17 and in the lingering and darkly comic violence of Fargo. The French Connection is the grand-daddy of this greatest of film attributes. Gritty, intense, pessimistic and mesmerising; The French Connection is one of a kind.

 New York City Detective “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) are attempting to unravel a drug smuggling ring between a small group of French criminals and NYC crooks. Doyle is an obsessive, short-tempered man, rough, hard-drinking and sleazy; but ultimately fascinating and determined to break a major narcotics case. Doyle and Buddy are rogues, not playing by the book. They are old fashioned, their story taking place before the CCTV takeover of society when cops did not depend on surveillance but on their own vision and hearing for investigations. This makes The French Connection is unique; the film is essentially one enormous chase with the authorities’ always one step behind their suspects. There is an air of cluelessness about the cops. Does Doyle know what he is doing? How does he prove there is a “French Connection” at all? But Doyle is possessed by his “hunch” and as a result the viewer is too, Doyle whose “brilliant hunches cost the life of a good cop,” convinces us. We are at one with him and his hunch. Thus this unique and dastardly character grows on us, as he does so he blurs the preconceptions of the traditional screen protagonist. Popeye is both the good guy and the bad guy; a loveable bastard. John McClane and Hans Grüber. He will protect the life of a child but he will also shoot an unarmed man in the back.

  Doyle and Buddy are amongst the few stand-out characters in the film, alongside the key French men Devereaux and the hit man  Nicoli. The film does not introduce many characters but instead depends on the visuals of the streets of New York City to give off its gritty charm. The dialogue too is thin, coming to us only when crucial to the plot. This is something which is really quite spectacular about the French Connection; it has us almost solely depending on its visuals for the unfolding of the plot. Nothing is verbally explained. Friedkin has really tapped into something here; it is almost as if he’s saying to the viewer “if you don’t have the brain capacity to understand this film through its action then I don’t want you watching it.” He has made an effort to not have everything explained through dialogue. Friedkin has even said in interviews that the script was partially abandoned during the five-week shoot and that much of the dialogue was ad-libbed. The script was just a “guideline.” It all works beautifully, the energy of New York City, its busyness and often its bleakness adding to the wonderful intensity of the action.

  The first few scenes of the film establish a nice contrast between the dangerous metropolis of New York and the picturesque beauty of Marseilles, where the “French Connection” is rooted. In dialogue-free moments we watch as a man, presumably a French detective wanders the city’s pleasant streets only to be shot at point blank range in the face by an assassin. Whilst in the cold New York evening, Popeye and Buddy pursue a crook through the messy and graffiti-adorned Brooklyn alleyways. The message is clear: violence is everywhere. New York is no more or less dangerous than any other city, and the style in which the chase in Brooklyn is filmed, and in fact all other chases in the movie are filmed, give off an inspiring city vibe that only American cinema can achieve.  

  Mixed in amongst the many chases of The French Connection are snippets into the life of the protagonist Doyle. We are given flashes of this character’s “other side,” the side that is not a determined Detective; and it is a life which is pitiful, ordinary and humorous. Doyle is revealed to be apathetic and sleazy. In one of the film’s best scenes he wakes up on a bar stool with his head resting next to his beverage. Arising, he puts on his noir-esque hat and wanders outside into the empty street by the Brooklyn Bridge. He gets into his car, still drunk, and begins to stalk a young female cyclist, staring lustfully at her backside as she cycles. Cut to a minute later in the film and Buddy finds Doyle in his filthy apartment, naked, handcuffed to his own bed by the cyclist whom he had managed to woe. Buddy unlocks him, and without showering he puts on his clothes and they get back to work. This scene really spoke to me. Not only is it funny and gritty but as someone who has grown up into the “slacker” generation, Doyle seems to be on the same level as the modern man. When he is not working he is drinking and chasing after woman; he has no family tying him down. Doyle exists just to seek pleasure and respect. This is something I think many men can relate to.

 My favourite scene in the film however is the “Popeye’s Here!” scene which takes place in a small New York bar filled with African Americans. Popeye’s mere presence here is tense, him being a moderately racist Irish-American cop makes him immediately out-of-place. When he bursts into the bar proclaiming “Popeye’s Here!” you may even cringe at his boldness. Immediately the men in the bar begin to hurriedly empty the illegal pills and the dope from their pockets onto the floor, causing an echoing clicking sound. Popeye soon holds the whole bar in his wrath, commanding them all to stand against the wall as he inspects the various pills and bags and pipes. A man steps out of the toilet, immediately named “haircut” but Doyle, and Popeye takes him outback where the man turns out to be his insider. At the end of their chat he says to the man ,“Where do ya wan’ it?” before landing a punch on the left hand side of his face.  It is one of those rare scenes in cinema which will have you smiling at a character’s nerve; a “Dirty Harry” moment that has the viewer both laughing and shaking their head.

  However the most intense and suspenseful scene in the film is the famous subway chase. In all my years of wasting away my life watching films I have never witnessed a more gripping chase. It has more in common with the “Grand Theft Auto” game franchise than with any other film. What is most incredible about the scene is the way it is stretched out from one small incident into an epic chase which sees Doyle racing after a hijacked subway train. One moment Doyle is walking to his apartment block, a sniper tries to assassinate him, next thing Doyle is “borrowing” a civilian’s car as he chases after the train which the French assassin has boarded. “When will I get it back?” – asks the car’s owner, but he does not get an answer and soon the car is flying down the streets, underneath the subway line, through red lights and into oncoming traffic. In one nail-biting shot, the camera has been placed on the front of the car as Doyle shoots straight into a busy intersection. It is another kind of intensity.

  The two aspects of The French Connection’s production which triumph are the cinematography and the sound; and the two combine and coincide beautifully, emitting a rare excitement and energy – and this may be the correct word to sum up the film itself – energetic. It is non-stop like a great Hitchcock film only set in a seedy, underground world that Hitchcock himself never explored. Friedkin has often spoken of the influence of the 30’s and 40’s-era American action films as his inspiration for the movie, but at the same time he has kept something of his love for the French New Wave alive through the often dizzying and accidental beauty of the character’s surroundings. The cinematography is the element which stood out to me because I have seen the range of its influence in so many films over the years: Tarantino’s works, Heat, A Guide to Recognising Your Saints, The Wrestler, and so on. The camera is shaky, moving, stalking, following – like a cop itself tailing the characters. There are shots in The French Connection which are stunning in their subtlety, and they come for brief moments, unexpectedly; and with the superb editing they blend to produce a wondrously edgy portrait of the character’s New York City environment.

  The French Connection, however, is Hackman’s film. He blends perfectly into Doyle and the wastelands of Brooklyn which he roams. Like the culmination of every noir cliché of the American cinema and Brando’s legendary Terry Malloy, he merges beautifully into the bloody underbelly of America. The character of Popeye Doyle, his demeanour, his swagger, his recklessness was surely a catalyst for the swarm of cinema anti-hero’s which would emerge in the wake of the French Connection’s release, not just in the 70s and 80s with the like of Nicholson’s Randall.P.MacMurphy and Jake Gittes, De Niro’s Bickle and La Motta, Pacino’s Carleone and Montana, Sheen’s Kit Carruthers and Willard and every Gordon Gecko, Barnes, Mr Blonde and Chopper to come, but also in cinema today. Nothing brings more pleasure to the big-screen than an amoral, reckless anti-hero, an “inglorious bastard,” the anarchic “Joker’s” and Cool Hand Luke’s; and Popeye Doyle is the Godfather of them all. Only in the final minutes of the film do we realise that Doyle’s obsession has consumed him, his story is doomed, and The French Connection ends with a fitting, echoing gunshot.

  If you have never seen The French Connection before then please for your own good – do. If you have seen it, - watch it again, and again, and again, and again. It’s that good.

"What's you're favourite Scary Movie?" Certainly not this one: Thoughts on: Scream 4

Just a few things that pissed me off about ghost-face's 11-year's-in-the-making 4th stabbing:

Number 1: Douey is the worst cop EVER

How on earth did he ever get promoted to sheriff? All he does is drive around Woodboro, constantly missing out on all the killings; arriving at the scene of the murders ten minutes too late, running his fingers through his sweaty hair. Scary Movies "Dufus" comes to mind more than once, most prominantly when Douey is beaten - nearly to death - with a bedpan. Although that is hilarious.

Number 2: Syd - Will You Ever Learn?

  Sydney. We're four movies in now. Everybody in your life has died and you've lived on, scarred, in turmoil; the witness, "The angel of death." You've watched tradgedies most fictional characters cannot even imagine. Would it really have hurt to have taken some self-defence classes? Usually ghost-face turns out to be some moronic twat or a dumb teenager with Daddy issues, surely if you learnt a few moves you could take him - your a big girl now. E.G: "Lesson number one: If a creep comes at you with a butcher's knife raised above his head, kick that bastard right in the family jewels, then toss him down the staircase."
  Personally, If I were Syd, I would have gotton myself a gun licence - say round Scream 2 time - and blown ghost face to Tim-buc-fucking-too before he even had time to hang up his shiny-new I-Phone.

Number 3: Woodsboro Teenagers Are Completely Retarded

  "There's some dude in a mask killing people around about our age, lets totally have a party in an abandoned barn where no one will find us, especially police."

AMATUERS

SO to sum up, Scream 4, though enjoyable, is without a doubt one of the most idiotic films I have seen for quite some time. It's not bad, it's not great. It's OK. You will get a good few laughs here-and-there, but theres no real point to this sequel. The eventual motif behind this batch of Woodsboro killings feels like a last minute brainwave from one of the writers; it is a very lame reason to go on a killing spree (cough - FAME - he-hem). I would not advise you to not see Scream 4 because if, like me, you just fancied a laugh with a few of you're mates then you will not be disappointed. However, fans of the great original Scream and such other classic horrors will find themselves much like David Arquette's hapless Douey, forever lagging behind the films events, confused and frustrated at yet another round of pointless Woodsboro stabbings.

Just Avoid thoses bedpans.