Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

This is one movie I desperately want to see. It looks awesome!

On a more serious note, this could actually be quite a dangerous thing. The movie, in the style of a bad Michael Moore film, seems to suggest that ID is a a viable scientific theory, that should be taught alongside, if not in place of, evolution in schools. The gullible, already relatively religious public, are likely to be swayed by this – if they already believe that Abu Hamza is a four fingered bomb maker living in Saudi Arabia due to the movie The Kingdom, they’ll believe anything they’re told on a big screen.

Ok, tenuous link, but I like laughing at that film, plus any opportunity to use a picture of Abu Hamza is awesome. But the point remains – the public believe what they’re told. And if ID can muscle it’s way into American schools due to a movie built on the most rediculous of pretences, it will be very dangerous for both science and humanity in general. And it’ll pretty soon end up over here, like other undesirables such as rampant obesity, the litigation culture, and House.

What we need is a similar film in favour of evolution. Not something by a stuffy academic, but a pop science show like Expelled in which we find a movie star who is prepared to stand up for Darwinism, or even better a Christian movie star who will say “ID is bogus” and present a sensible argument that the common public will understand – even if like in this case it has to resort to dodgy camera angles to make the proponents of ID look like ogres and very creative editing.

[Or maybe just a rip-off of Evolution featuring the FSM - though I doubt the majority of America wil get the joke]

Review: Meet The Spartans

With nothing better to do, myself and Jamie went to see Meet The Spartans last night. And despite the reviews, I really enjoyed it.

As the title, trailers and above shot suggest, the film is a cheap rip off of 300, a fantastically shot take of Frank Miller’s graphic novel. This could have gone very badly, as many attempted parodies end up. Meet The Spartans got absolutely awful reviews from film critics: IMDB users voted it a 2.3/10, and Rotten Tomatoes gave it 2%. This lead to me being rather aprehensive on the way in, and fully prepared to feel that’s I’d wasted £3 (student card + NHS Discounts FTW).

But I thought it was amazing. The film was very well shot – they may even have used the same set, and the feel and camera work was so similar it made the spoof much more believable (notable being example the scene with the dancing Oracle, pushing the initial Persian force off the cliff, and the final battle where Lionidis runs through the crowd of advancing Persians mowing them down). But in this case, he is whipping the Persians with wet towels, or kicking them in the nuts. You see, it’s integrating the jokes with the visual effects that made 300 what it was, and to me that was the genius in there. Ok, may not sound that funny reading my humourless review, but trust me, you’ll laugh when you see it.

The majority of the jokes revolve around the latent homosexuality that all the Spartans exhibited in the original film. As with Scary Movie and alike, the film spends most of its time sending up films, TV shows and celebrities (though the majority of these are dispensed with early on). Other references to geeky internet culture abound – the “blue screened” armies, and Xerxes transforming into a huge metal god that can play YouTube clips.

I think the problem with the critics is they have too high expectations. This film is not intended to make you challenge your perceptions on reality, demonstrate a revolutionary cinematic technique, or make you believe in humanity again. It’s meant to send up some films and make you laugh, which it does almost perfectly.

Of course, it’s not totally “the perfect film”. There are a couple of bits that dragged on, and one or two unnecessary slapstick moments (flushing the people down the Pit of Death would have been fine just with the switch, it didn’t need the tacky swirling CGI effect). It’s more like a Hot Shots! Part Deux, rather than a Hot Shots!. But for a good giggle in the midst of all the doom-and-gloom that seems to be taking over cinema nowadays, you can’t go far wrong by seeing Meet The Spartans.

Star Wars: Sweded

If any of you haven’t seen Be Kind Rewind, I’d recommend it. Not great (the Jack Black being magnetised thing was rubbish) but it’s worth a giggle for the “sweded” movies. Sweding is the process of redoing a movie, using a few amateur actors on a exceptionally tight budget and in a few minutes.

Since the film’s release, there’s been a competition running on YouTube for people to make their own sweded movies. On the way into the department this morning I was thinking of the best way to do one, so I had a quick look around the website. I give up – there’s no way I could do better than this:

Canteen

You never get this at the Cav…