Don't Be a Snob: Living a Happier Life by Allowing Yourself to Like Things

This entry is somewhat influenced by a Vlog by Christopher Bingham titled 'You Will Love Boring Things'. He speaks primarily to any young people approaching their twenties about what to expect in adulthood, and the first point he makes, 'All genres of music can be good', is one that I wasn't really aware that I agreed with until he said it. So I'm going to share a few things with you, in the hopes that I can get across the general idea of what I want to talk about today.

I'm an English graduate, and I'm currently reading Dracula, but I'm also following the Ultimate Spider-Man comic series, and I plan at some point to give Dan Brown a try. I like Beethoven, and Los Campesinos, and Eminem, and Beyoncé. Among my favourite films are WALL-E, Shaun of the Dead, and Deathproof. I like Breaking Bad, and I also like How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and Ed Edd n Eddy.

Now I don't claim to have the most refined tastes, or the most eclectic tastes, or even the most original tastes, I just have my tastes. And I'm still surprised that it took me so long to allow myself not only to tell people I liked these things, but just to like them in the first place. I thought that because I grew up playing violin, and studying English, and later getting into writing, that I was only allowed to like certain things, and had dismiss others. I thought that because classical music was good, rap was inherently not good, and so on, even though 'The Real Slim Shady' would play on an infinite loop for about three years of my young teenage life. I want to say now that I was, and by extension anybody who thinks that way now is, an idiot. By liking one thing you aren't suddenly blocked off from liking certain other things and it's ridiculous to think that you are. Some rap is bad, some is good, some classical music is good, and some is bad. Or, maybe it's all subjectively good in some capacity, you just might not like all of it. That happens. Believe it or not.

For some of you this all might sound obvious, and I can only say that you people are wiser than I was. But now I've found that I'm just that little bit happier for letting go of my own snobbery. I listen to what I want, read what I want, watch what I want, and it's less about ignoring what other people think of it, and more about ignoring what I think of it. Having a naturally analytical mind which I made worse by studying English, I have a tendency to overthink why I like something, and what it might say about me as a consumer, as a writer, as a person. Lately I'm trying to just accept that I like something because I like it, and force my brain to be satisfied with that kind of cyclical logic. Because what's the point of feeling guilty about liking something when there are plenty of legitimate things to feel guilty about instead?

To sum up, let me tell you about a conversation I had with my dad last December. He asked me why I liked a certain song, and after some thought I could only say 'it sounds good in my ears' which as an English graduate I have to say is an awful analysis. But it was true. Don't deny the music that sounds good in your ears just because 'people like you' shouldn't like it, because guess what. You do.

If You Don't Like it, Don't Read It: Why This Dismissive Attitude isn't Good Enough

True, the if-you-don't-like-it-etc. argument does hold water when there is a particular genre or medium that you know with a fair amount of confidence you don't like at all. Then I think it's safe to say that that's a road not worth venturing, unless you crave being let down. But it's often used as a hand-wave to dismiss possibly valid criticisms by making the critic, however fair they might be, seem petty and argumentative. Even worse, it can be used to excuse questionable or just offensive material by telling the offended party that they can just not look at it. The implications are pretty self-explanatory but, and not to put too fine a point on it, that's basically like telling a murder witness that it's their fault they're appalled by the crime and if they don't like it they shouldn't have watched.

The funny thing about media is that it's public. I know, mind-blowing. It's available to be seen by everyone, and therefore potentially criticised by everyone. If a person thinks that a piece of work is offensive, or potentially damaging, they have the right to speak up about it, and they shouldn't be patronised for it. I'm not saying their argument is inherently correct just because they are offended—in fact I pretty much consistently believe the opposite—instead I'm saying that their voice should be heard, and their views treated as a jumping-off point for discussion, not just a whinge and a moan which could have been avoided if they'd covered their eyes and stuck their fingers in their ears.

Now this isn't supposed to be some kind of warning against content creators, advising them to be careful not to offend anybody, because censoring media—or worse, I suppose pre-censoring it, if I can make up a term, by creating something 'safe' and 'harmless' in the hopes that it won't cause offence to anybody—is, at the risk of sounding ineloquent, absolute bullshit. Some of the best works are considered offensive by someone, because often in order to make something exceptional you need to take certain risks, like being called misogynist, or insensitive, or a colossal buffoon. All I'm really saying is that when people get offended, and they will, creators just have to have the balls to take the credit for it. I know I'll certainly try my best.

Geeks and Nerds: My Say

Over the past six months or so I have come across some alarmingly heated discussions about 'real' nerds and 'fake' nerds. Being a nerd or a geek used to be something to be ashamed of, at least it seemed to be when I was younger, if television and my personal experience was anything to go by. But over time something wonderful happened; it became first okay, then acceptable, and then cool, to be a nerd and to express it openly, especially on the internet, but eventually in public too. It was a time of liberation, of freedom of expression for the things one holds close to their heart but previously felt too embarrassed to admit it.

Nobody has the authority to judge who is a real nerd and who is not, just as nobody has the authority to judge who is a real person. This is the simple truth of the matter; there is no scale, no meter, no true way to measure what makes a nerd 'true' or 'fake'. This is because there is no such thing as a geek or a nerd. At least, I don't think there is, not anymore. I would say there is no longer any definition of 'nerd' or 'geek', but really, there never was a wholly undisputed definition at all. Wikipedia defines a nerd as:

a person [who is] intellectual, obsessive, or socially impaired. They may spend inordinate amounts of time on unpopular, obscure, or non-mainstream activities, [...] generally either highly technical or relating to topics of fiction or fantasy [...] many nerds are described as being shy, quirky, and unattractive, and may have difficulty participating in, or even following, sports.¹

And it defines geeks as:

odd or non-mainstream people, with different connotations ranging from "a computer expert or enthusiast" to "a person heavily interested in a hobby", with a general pejorative meaning of "a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, esp[ecially] one who is perceived to be overly intellectual".²

TV Tropes defines a nerd as:

someone who... actually, it is easier to describe a nerd as what they are not. Not smooth, not handsome, and not [...] 'attractive'. Not, above all else, popular outside a very narrow grouping of fellow-nerds³

And it cannot define geek, instead giving us the original meaning of the word:

an old Carny term for a species of sideshow performer: a specialist in the art of eating disgusting things [...] Biting off the heads of live chickens was the classic play.⁴

Oxford Dictionaries Online defines a nerd as:

[1] a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious
[2] a single-minded expert in a particular technical field⁵

And it defines a geek as:

[1] an unfashionable or socially inept person.
[2] [usually with modifier] a knowledgeable and obsessive enthusiast⁶

While the Oxford Essential English Dictionary (the only non-digital dictionary to hand) has no definition of 'nerd' or 'geek' at all, which only helps to further illustrate the point. Although the definitions are all different, certain words and phrases keep coming up when defining both nerds and geeks: 'intellectual', 'obsessive', 'non-mainstream', 'unlikeable', 'socially inept', 'specialist'. This all makes for a very vague concept. By this combined definition you could use the word 'nerd' to describe almost anybody. Suppose a man watches a lot of football. He will stay at home or record every game his team plays, and will become violently angry should one spoil the game by telling him the score. He follows specific players, knows how many goals they scored last year, and has very strong opinions about how his team is managed. He might be called a football fan, or one may be so bold as to use the word fanatic, but most would not consider him a nerd, despite the fact that the only thing separating him from nerds in the traditional sense is the object of his obsession.

So tradition plays a big role in what one considers a 'true' nerd. However this argument falls flat, because if someone wears a T-shirt without knowing anything about the fandom said T-shirt is referencing, they are still technically a 'nerd' in the traditional sense providing they are socially inept, intelligent, or some kind of specialist. Then, consider the word that came up for both 'nerd' and 'geek': 'non-mainstream'. With the dramatic rise in superhero movies based on comics, the insanely popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory, and the Star Wars films being almost universally adored, can one really call comics, science fiction, and fantasy non-mainstream? Now, in the twenty-first century, the non-mainstream has become the mainstream. So by these traditional definitions of 'geek' and 'nerd' everybody is a geek, and at the same time, nobody is. Nobody is a 'fake' nerd because there is no such thing as a 'true' nerd anymore. Is this not an exciting time? Society is beginning to see a more varied mainstream, filled to bursting with intellectual comedy, guilty pleasures, comics and comic adaptations, science fiction, fantasy, and many more varied and bizarre forms of entertainment. When a person enjoys something it is no longer a source of shame, because you know that no matter how dreadful or 'specialised' it is there will be throngs of fans posting gifs of it on Tumblr for evermore. It is liberating and exhilarating to be able to stand up and declare one's love for something without feeling embarrassed or fearful of judgement.

With any luck, those out there who declare themselves 'true' nerds will cease their judgement of others, as they are no more true in their nerdiness than anybody else. Everybody is simply a person, with their own special interests and obsessions, in a world that is beginning to accept them for it, and that is beautiful. That's my take on it, anyway.

1 Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd> [accessed 15th November 2012]

2 Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geek> [accessed 15th November 2012]

3 TV Tropes <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Nerd> [accessed 15th November 2012]

4 TV Tropes <http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Geek> [accessed 15th November 2012]

5 Oxford Dictionaries <http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/nerd?q=nerd> [accessed 15th November 2012]

6 Oxford Dictionaries <http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/geek?q=geek> [accessed 15th November 2012]

'Damn Dirty Apeing': Why Are the Most Memorable Lines the Hardest to Deliver?

The famous 'To be, or not to be'1 monologue in Hamlet is often referred to as the most difficult monologue for an actor. When I first heard this, I couldn't think why; it's so well known, most actors will know the majority of it by heart, and most viewers have heard it and understand its meaning, or at least some of it. But that's exactly why it's so difficult: everybody knows it. Because the audience knows this monologue so well it's difficult for an actor to do his job: to make a performance his own. Because the monologue is so popular and known inside-out by every theatre critic, and almost every casual theatre-goer, it is difficult to add something audiences have never seen before without making it strange or jarring. It's hard to be original. Conversely, it's hard to keep it 'classic' too. If it sounds too different, or is performed in too strange a way, audiences may react unfavourably to it. These are just a few reasons as to why such a monologue is so, so difficult; I haven't even mentioned the emotional aspects of the monologue.

And it's not just Hamlet that has these very difficult lines. To take another example from Shakespeare (he's coming across as quite the tricky minx in this post), King Richard III. I recently watched a film adaptation of the play; Loncraine's Richard III and there was a particular, oft-quoted line, 'A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!'2 When the line was shouted by Ian McKellen himself, it was all me and my friend could do not to burst out laughing, as we happened to be watching it as part of a university seminar. The line sounded ridiculous. The whole film, in my opinion, was bad anyway, but this was really the tipping point for me. I knew from the beginning that this line would be difficult, and I had hoped that McKellen could have pulled it off, but despite the dramatic backdrop, and his having to shout over gunfire, it just didn't land. It wasn't dramatic, it wasn't captivating, it was funny. And this is just the tip of the iceberg...


Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Say what you like about this film, but it took itself way to seriously for what it was. There is absolutely no way they could have ever convinced me that this film was real, that it had gravitas. It was a prequel to Planet of the Apes, for crying out loud. Now I'm not saying Planet of the Apes is a bad film, especially considering I haven't seen it, but I know that it isn't exactly a centrepiece for realistic cinema. From what I can tell it has about as much realism as an episode of Star Trek. I think you know where I'm going with this, so I won't stall any longer. The film, despite being a prequel to the original 1968 film, contains the line 'Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape'.


I. Died.


Myself and the friends I went to see the film with all burst out laughing, along with half the audience in the cinema. I almost missed the equally ridiculous moment when Caesar speaks for the first time, I was laughing so much. Poor Tom Felton, for having to say that line. I liked him in Harry Potter, I really did. I like him as an actor. But my god. I could feel his career take a savage beating the instant the words escaped his mouth. This wasn't an example of a popular line being difficult to deliver because it's popular, it's an example of a popular line being thrown in awkwardly, making it just about impossible to deliver convincingly. They wrote Felton into a corner with this one; there was no way he could have done that line and not looked like an idiot. When that famous line came up in the original film, it had context, it had a certain gravity, and it was also in an older film, made in a time where I suppose more dramatic, campy dialogue isn't quite so out of place. But this was a modern film, made in 2011, and trying very hard to take itself seriously, touching on animal testing, and the effects Alzheimer's has on a sufferer and his friends and family, and then this? No wonder it was so stupid; they put a campy line from nearly fifty years ago into a supposedly serious modern film that was supposed to make us think that the things we were seeing could really happen. This line, like in Richard III, was the tipping point for me; the point where a film that was simply bad became laughably terrible. I actually feel bad about the Alzheimer's thing, because had that aspect been in a better, less stupid movie, they could have really touched some hearts, raised awareness, and maybe even given people some hope. But instead it was just to create the illusion of gravitas in an awful film 'reboot' about talking apes. But, I digress.


I suppose what I'm trying to get at here is that well-known lines are dangerous territory. Any writer, filmmaker, what have you, should be sure to use extreme caution when handling them, as that dramatic line will often at best sound strange, and at worst ruin a much-loved line from an adored franchise. And that will not serve you well. Maybe just stick to writing your own dialogue, or coming up with new concepts, instead of trying to remake everything under the sun? Just a thought.

1 - W. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth  Editions Limited, 2007), Act III, sc. i
2 - W. Shakespeare, King Richard III (Hertfordshire: Wordsworth  Editions Limited, 2007), Act V, sc. iv


I might well do a post in the future about films using sensitive subject matter to try and add drama, as it's something I've come to feel quite strongly about.

No Soap, Studio Audience

Listening to an episode of Radiolab about laughter, the section about studio audiences, or rather 'professional laughers' caught my interest. At the beginning of the episode Abumrad and Krulwich asked why we laugh, what laughter is, and why it's so great. Aristotle claimed that laughter is the one defining thing that separates humans from other animals. He even believed that laughter ensouled a baby, turning it from a human to a human being. They then made a very interesting point: laughter is social. It is a cue we give to others that essentially says 'as friends, we both understand something'. Laughter only occurs when two or more people are involved, even if the other person is in the mind (e.g. a character in a television programme, or a hypothetical person to tell a joke to). It got me thinking about studio audiences, and why I used to hate them before I allowed them to grow on me, or at least stop grating at me.

The reason I didn't like studio audiences for such a long time was that I didn't like being told when to laugh, which is how it felt most of the time. I still don't like being told 'that's funny, laugh at the funny thing,' especially since some jokes just aren't funny to me, even if they are to others. So the studio audience can pose a few problems in this respect. But I noticed something very weird about studio audiences, something which reminds me of the social experiment No Soap, Radio, in which you tell a joke, the punchline of which is a total non sequitur such as 'no soap, radio' that has nothing to do with the rest of the joke, tell some friends beforehand to laugh at the nonsensical joke, and see if others laugh too. Often the person's subconscious will create a meaning for the joke and make the person laugh, or else they will simply laugh to feel as though they aren't out of the loop, because other people are laughing. The use of a studio audience creates a similar effect; the studio audience laughs, therefore you realise something apparently funny has transpired. So even if you don't get the joke, you might still laugh because either you feel you should, or your brain makes some kind of connection between the event on screen and the laughing response.

Back to the problems studio audiences can create. I found myself watching an episode of Two and a Half Men (my opinion on this show is biased because I am a woman and I have self-respect) and I really listened to every line carefully, analysing it on a basic level while I watched, and very often I found myself thinking, after the studio audience laughed, that a line just wasn't funny. Sometimes 'funny' lines came across as just hateful. And yet the studio audience still laughed, and so did some viewers at home. This is something I find quite troubling, because the show comes across to me as intolerant and narrow-minded about basically anything outside the apparent norm of macho heterosexuality, and its use of the studio audience 'tricks' viewers into laughing at something frankly damaging or offensive, if you'll excuse my dramatic phrasing. It's not all bad though; sometimes it's just a form of corner-cutting for writers. For example, some shows use a studio audience to make viewers believe a joke has been told when in reality it hasn't. Although I like The Big Bang Theory it is a serious offender of this. A trend on YouTube has popped up, where clips of sitcoms are posted with the laugh track taken out, and doing so with The Big Bang Theory makes it easier to pick out when a lengthy scientific explanation, or simply the mention of geek pop culture, has been disguised as a joke.

Try it out next time you're watching a sitcom with a studio audience; really listen to the lines being spoken, and see which ones you genuinely find funny, and which you simply laughed at because you wanted to conform, if only on a subconscious level. In the end, we can't help laughing at something we don't understand from time to time; we're social creatures, and apparently that's what laughter is: a social communication. Think about that the next time you snort milk from your nose after your friend does his Michael McIntyre impression.

Top 10 Story Devices That I Love

To close out the year on a positive note, I decided to make a follow-up to my Top 10 Story Devices That I Hate post, and make it I did. It's true that at this point in time many devices, jokes, plot points and story elements are done to death. But 'trite and overused' can also be read as 'tried and true', or at least we can enjoy them even when we've seen them a thousand times. So I'll be listing off my top ten clichés that I don't see myself getting sick of any time soon...

10. Blatant Sexual Innuendo

From visual metaphors to strangely suggestive dialogue, there's an immature part of me that finds innuendo just so damn funny. I especially like it when two characters exchange dialogue that, in context is perfectly innocent, but that sounds just a little bit too similar to something a little more seedy. The simple use of phrases like 'was it good for you?' and 'it meant nothing to me!' make the discovery of someone breaking a diet sound strikingly like an act of infidelity. Of course, subtext is key in any well-written piece of work, but let's be honest, sometimes it doesn't need to be subtle; in some cases, it's better when it's right in our faces (oh my!).

9. The Stupid Genius
The stupid genius (or maybe the intelligent idiot) is the character who is very intelligent, knowledgeable and maybe even a genuine genius, but he (or she) is either not well-versed in areas outside academia, or just lacks basic common sense or, like all of us, just has the occasional (or maybe frequent) dumb moment. I find these characters fun because it's an interesting contrast; you'd expect a brilliant rocket scientist to have a good head on his shoulders, so seeing him losing his car keys or failing to realise that the door says 'pull' is just funny. It also helps to divide intelligence from common sense, as there seems to be the misunderstanding that they are the same thing. Think Scrubs, especially JD; he's a doctor, he's clearly intelligent, he went to college and Med. School and he knows medicine, but that doesn't stop him from being air-headed, and doing frankly idiotic things. And, of course, like the stronger clichés, this does happen in real life. Someone who just scored 100% on his maths test might not think to put the lid on a blender before switching the on button. Seriously, it happens.

8. The Loveable Bastard
The character you love to hate. He (or she) can be the villain, the hero, or just a supporting character, but is always rude, unkind, sometimes even downright sociopathic. But we just can't get enough of their snide remarks and their glee at others' misfortune. They're usually intelligent or talented, which commands a kind of respect, and they feel they have the right to be so smug and brash. We should hate them, but instead we find ourselves oddly compelled.

7. The Dance
That scene when the two characters dance. It can be almost any kind of dance; whether it's a formal waltz, a saucy tango, or a tender, romantic slow dance, we know that somewhere down the line the two characters will be sharing more than just a dance together. The physical intimacy and sexual connotations of a dance make it an excellent way of showing a romantic connection, and it can be not only beautiful to watch, but very telling of a couple's dynamic. Who is leading? Are they stepping on each others' feet? Is one resting their head on their partner's shoulder? Whatever the dance, and however well it goes, the message is clear: the two dancers are meant for each other.

6. The Lovable Coward
I know cowardly characters can often be annoying or even despicable; putting others in the path of danger to save their own skin. But sometimes a coward will be endearing, or at the very least justified: they are thrown completely out of their depth, or the situation really is terrifying and any normal person would react the same way, or maybe they're just skittish by nature. I always found these characters enjoyable, because while the main hero will often be the person we want to be, the cowardly cohort is essentially the person we really are, and that's why I often find myself liking these characters. If there was a zombie apocalypse, would you really take on the horde with naught but a shotgun and a handful of nerve, or would you curl up under a table trying not to smell too much like meat? Be honest, now.

5. Sibling Rivalry
As someone with two older sisters and a younger brother, sibling rivalry is certainly not an alien concept to me, which is probably why I enjoy seeing it so much in the media. Seeing two people who have known each other their whole lives fighting, arguing and competing against one another for the smallest possible reasons is something that I can understand and that is extremely entertaining. It's especially amusing when said rivalry is between adults who should really be above all that by now, but who can't seem to help the occasional 'because I say so and I'm the oldest' argument.

4. We're Just Friends
The characters who insist that they are not romantically involved, but who are all too often mistaken for a couple. Whether they seem closer than most friends, they keep getting caught in compromising situations, or their friends have just decided they would be a great couple, they will always be asked if they are an item. This can go different ways, but usually they will end up as a couple eventually, but this device can be, and often is, played with, and sometimes they will end up just being platonic friends, something which I think we don't see enough of in the media, but a lot of the time, this trope is a way for the writers to show who the real couple is, even if they aren't officially an item. Yet. Maybe.

3. The Straight Man
I mentioned in my previous post that I liked the straight man in comedy; the comedic foil to the zany guy. Not to say that I don't like the zany guy, I just always seem to prefer the straight man. Maybe it's his sarcastic retorts, maybe it's his stark contrast to the wacky antics of his associate, or, most likely, it's his endless patience and astounding ability to avoid going on a killing spree. The fun thing is that the straight man doesn't need to be very serious, or even all that normal, he just needs to look that way in comparison to the other guy, a situation which I find answers the question many people ask when they see this comic duo: why are those two friends? Because the straight man would look weird standing next to anyone else, this guy makes him feel normal. That's just my theory though, maybe he just likes getting roped into his wild antics on a weekly basis; he probably has nothing better to do anyway.

2. Guy Love/Bromance
Similar to the above 'We're Just Friends', but with two major differences: it only involves two main characters,  and it almost never results in a romantic relationship. This is those two guys who always seem to be together; they are best friends, they aren't afraid to hug or express their platonic love for one another (or maybe one of them is...), but above all, they are as close as two men can be. Although people around them may think that these two guys are a couple, they very rarely are; they are usually both straight. Now, I don't have an issue with homosexual relationships (most of the romance-related clichés here can refer to gay couples), but as I have mentioned earlier, I just have a soft spot for platonic love.

1. Love-Hate Relationships
It's so predictable; boy meets girl, boy hates girl, girl hates boy, girl and boy fight and end up spending a lot of time insulting one another. Then this passionate hate and anger grows into something beautiful; love. But, even when they get together, they will stop at nothing to mock, insult and shout at each other, despite how much in love they both are. It's a story you see a thousand times, yet I still love it. These relationships are just so fun to watch; I always enjoy seeing two people who we know really do love each other just ripping each other to shreds, either to avoid their feelings of love because of pride, or because that is their way of expressing their love. Now, this doesn't only apply to romantic relationships; there are always those friends who can't stand each other but couldn't live without them. I suppose what I like the most about this cliché is the juxtaposition of love and hate that, in reality, we wouldn't normally think to combine. But in fiction, it makes a very interesting, passionate relationship that is just so enjoyable to watch.


So those are the clichés that I will probably never tire of. Here's hoping 2012 will be filled with films, books, and TV shows filled to the brim with these devices, and utterly lacking those in my last post. Can't a girl dream?

Top 10 Story Devices That I Hate

I'll be honest, this doesn't really need much of an introduction. Everyone has the tired old plots, character templates, etc. that they're either tired of, or that they've never really liked. Here is a list of mine, ready for the impending new year. This list goes from minor pet-peeves to full-on rage-triggers, so expect many rants. I'll see you on the other side.

10. One Word Too Many

Okay, so this isn't an intentional device, so much as something I consider to be bad practice in writing, but this is when a line of dialogue has just one or two words too many, turning an ambiguous implication into an unambiguous statement, making it weaker for it. One example of what I'm talking about is in the Hellboy film (a good film, mind, it's just this line that bothered me), in which this line is spoken to the hero: 'This whole thing is a farce, because in the end, after you've killed and captured every freak out there, there's still one left: you.' That would have been a great line if it had ended one word sooner. Especially since the character speaking was staring right at Hellboy when he said it, that final 'you' just made it obvious. It's a minor thing, but it's generally good form to keep dialogue tight, and although it's only taking away one word in this case, short, concise dialogue makes all the difference between a good line of dialogue, and a great, pithy line of dialogue that people will quote for years to come. Case in point: 'To be, or not to be'.

9. Informed Characteristics

This is when we're told that a character has a certain characteristic, when we never see any kind of evidence to support this claim. This is your basic 'show, don't tell' rule; it's usually better to show us a characteristic than to just tell us about it. It's fairly obvious why this one rubs me up the wrong way, it's just basic bad character writing. Don't tell me that the character is a badass with a heart of gold, show me that he is by his actions, his reactions, how he acts when no one's looking, or if you are going to tell me, you'd better make sure you back up your claim later on. Just because you wrote it, doesn't mean I have to trust you. Why yes, I am a bit of a bitch, thanks for noticing.

8. The Pointless Backstory

A character's backstory can be really interesting; in fact, fans of a work can become obsessed with knowing about their favourite character's backstory, and I would argue that giving it to them is risky business. As you've seen from my post about Origin Stories, I'm not a big fan of telling the reader/audience everything about a character, because it often takes away while it informs. Now, I do think that an interesting and fleshed-out backstory is no bad thing; in fact, I would advise thinking through a character's backstory even if it won't be revealed, just so you'll know your character well enough to write them convincingly. It's when a backstory is either poorly put together, lifted from the standard list of clichés, or if it simply adds nothing to the plot or character that it becomes a problem. If a plot opens doors for the story, or reveals something new and exciting about the character, or causes dramatic conflict among characters (or internal conflict for just the one character), then it has been done well. Unfortunately, this sometimes just comes across as the writer badly wanting to share the traumatic backstory to try and excuse their character's bad attitude, to use but one example, and that doesn't really add anything.

7. Childhood Friends = Marriage

This relates to my love of the portrayal of friendship and platonic love, which tends not to be explored so much between men and women, I find. It seems the only way a man and woman who knew each other when they were children are safe from eventually getting married is for one of them to be gay. Apparently people are just so full of lust they will leap on anything with corresponding erogenous zones. Never mind the fact that a lot of the time two people who have known each other since childhood often see one another as siblings and may even find the idea of viewing them in a sexual way as wrong, or even disgusting (known as the Westermarck Effect); they have a close connection, and close connections are apparently always romantic and never platonic. Yeah, I don't care if it does happen in real life, it's been done to death in the media and now it does nothing but annoy me.

6. Stupid Americans

Yes, as an English person, I don't think that all Americans are stupid; it's just a stereotype. I think that they have been poorly represented over time because some of the less intelligent Americans also seem to be the loudest, from what I've seen. I tend to get irked by racial or national stereotypes anyway (although I do have a soft spot for the English stereotype, but that's just an odd little fancy of mine), but there's something about the over-the-top, uneducated, air-headed, burger-chowing, obnoxious American stereotype that just grates on me. Now, I'm usually okay with the endearingly simple character; the one who might not be all there, but is still a likeable character because they're pretty much harmless (hell, I've written characters like that myself); it's when the character is both stupid and obnoxious that it really starts to grate on me. I'm not sure if it's because I get indignant at such a negative stereotype, or the fact that most of the time the 'stupid' character does nothing but slow the plot down and provide 'comedy', or the fact that characters being portrayed as that stupid make me weep for humankind, but this trope just doesn't sit well with me.

5. No Straight Man

This definitely needs an explanation, because on its own, it must sound strange. First and foremost, I mean 'straight' in the context of comedy: the straight man is the 'normal' guy. He represents logic, reason, sensible rationalisation; he's boring, really. But he acts as a foil to the 'crazy' guy. It's a basic comic device: the zany guy and the straight man; they compliment each other. Now that I've explained a little, I'll move on to what I'm really talking about here. I'm talking about a comedy set in a crazy world with crazy people, but there's just one problem. There's no straight man. The straight man is required in a mad comedy to draw attention to just how insane everything (and everyone) around him is. He doesn't even need to talk about it, you only need to see the look on his face to realise just how mad everything is. Without him, it's just a group of crazies running around and it gets a bit all over the place. Now, some comedies manage without the straight man, and that's fine, but it's actually very difficult to pull off. Plus, I like the straight man. He's the one who sits there trying to work it all out, slapping his forehead as more and more insanity is thrown his way. He is what Marge is to Homer, what Squidward is to Spongebob, and what Brian is to the entire cast of Family Guy. The straight man is the boring, sensible glue that holds the funny, zany cast together.

4. Flashbacks

This is a difficult one to explain. It's related to my 'should you reveal backstory' conflict, but it's harder to pin down exactly what I dislike about flashbacks. I think it's mostly the contrived way they're often placed into narrative, like the character gets knocked out and flashes back, or someone will say something vague to them, making them flash back, I don't know. I have seen it done very well, and realistically, like in Ratatouille, when a mouthful of food takes the character back to his childhood, because that is actually something that happens in real life: senses like smell and taste are very closely linked to memory (I'm not sure how or why, they just are). And I think that very short flashbacks that are literally just flashes of memory are good too, for the same reason that they are somewhat realistic. It's when whole scenes, or whole episodes are flashbacks that I start to lose my suspension of disbelief. I start to wonder if the character is relaying everything we're seeing, and every line of dialogue being spoken, or if they just black out for fifteen minutes while this flashback occurs. It makes me think too much about the technicalities of it, and I start remembering that in real life, actual flashbacks are really very rare in people who aren't suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Like I said, it's hard to explain exactly what I dislike about it, I suppose it's just so easy to do badly that I always focus on that and often forget how well it's been done in the past. I think it's so often used as a cheap way to crowbar in a character's backstory that I've become a little sceptical now.

3. 'Wait, It's Not What It Looks Like!' Used for Drama

Seriously. This is a comic device, and I don't know why it's being used in drama so much. I love the comedic misunderstandings when someone walks in on someone (or more than one person) in a compromising position and they get the wrong idea. But I hate it when they are used for drama; a girl flirts with a married man, his wife walks in on them, gets the wrong idea: DRAMA! No, not drama, idiocy. I know that the other character has a right to get upset because they didn't see what we saw, but that doesn't stop it from really annoying me. I suppose what really gets me about this one is that it's so contrived and you often have to make people act out of character for it to actually work, whereas when it's used for comedy, not so much. This is an example of dramatic irony done really badly because instead of creating tension, it makes the audience exasperated. But what's really irritating about it is that almost every time it's used, it's of no real consequence. The two characters will fall out for a while, but eventually one of them will see the error of their ways and they'll get back together anyway, so the whole thing just feels like a massive waste of time. Yeah, we'll get back to the literary and cinematic cancer that is false tension in a bit. In short, this trope needs to stay in the comedy genre, because it's just not working in drama.

2. Tacked-on Love Story

Everyone talks about this one, so I won't go on too much. Basically, people need to realise that not every story needs a love story in it. Sometimes all the character needs is to find himself, or to find love in his friends, or to realise the importance of family, or to quench his thirst for adventure. Not every plot calls for a romantic sub-plot, and it annoys me when an uninspired love story is just thrown in at the last minute. It makes me think that once the adventure is over, and the adrenaline wears off, they'll immediately break up because they have literally no romantic feelings for one another, they just kissed in the excitement of the moment, or because they were staring death in the face, and now they realise that it wasn't much different from a huge drunken mistake. Anyway, long story short: stop this nonsense, it's not necessary, believable, or satisfying, and everybody has worked it out now.

1. The Fake Death

Ooh, where do I start... This one has annoyed me for years, with perhaps the most egregious example being in Pets (the first film I can remember watching that I thought was bad. I saw it when I was maybe ten years old), where the dog gets shot, and everyone is distraught, only for the dog to jump back to life and be absolutely fine. I hate this cliché so much. There is just so much wrong with it; namely, it's an obvious attempt to get tears from the audience without actually killing anybody off. It only serves to create--I told you we'd get back to it--false tension.

This cliché is very common in children's films, which makes it all the more despicable in my opinion, because it essentially teaches children that death is just a temporary inconvenience. No, you do not get to do that. When a person dies, you need to mourn, pay your respects, accept it and then eventually move on. When a fictional character dies, you need to take responsibility for it. Did Bambi's mother come back to life thanks to bullshit plot contrivance? No. Do you know why? Because her death was actually meaningful and that meaning would be totally lost if she was magically fine for no good reason. So don't pretend to kill a character off only to have them sit back up after about a minute or so of that tender, heart-wrenching piano solo and expect us to cheer. It's manipulative, it's overused, and it's insulting.

Now, there are some instances where I will accept this device, and all of them require some semblance of a reasonable explanation as to why the character is not really dead. These include resuscitation, some form of shield, makeshift or otherwise, that we were previously unaware of (or perhaps we were aware of it at one point and since forgot about it), or a previously established device that brings them back to life in some sense (think the eponymous dragonballs that can resurrect the dead in the Dragonball series). Even if these are not realistic, I personally support artistic licence: if something doesn't technically make sense, but it has some artistic merit, I will normally accept it, providing it isn't too contrived. For example, I will accept a Bible taking a bullet and saving someone, even though I'm fairly certain that wouldn't work, because it's symbolic and can be meaningful when handled correctly. As for the established device, if it makes sense in continuity then I can accept it even if it's not realistic; that's just suspension of disbelief. And no, this doesn't mean that a fake-out death is okay as long as you explain it, because it's really the deceit that I hate the most, and in series like Dragonball we are told pretty much off the bat what the rules are when it comes to resurrecting people, so there isn't a lot of trickery when a character dies. The writers don't toy with our emotions; it's sad, yes, but we know that they can come back. No, it's when we are given some hamfisted, shameless cop-out Deus ex Machina just because the writers didn't have the balls to actually kill off a character, but they still want their emotional moment that I start to get really angry. And don't even get me started on that 'power of love' nonsense; the only kiss that can save someone is the 'kiss of life' (not nearly as effective or romantic as movies will have you believe), unless sexual arousal is actually a cure for sudden cases of death. Doubtful. So I'll finally wrap this up by saying that this is a cliché that I really think needs to be killed off for real, so no contrived magical bullshit can save it.

Wow. Okay. So there's my top 10 list of devices that I hate. Look out for New Year's Eve, where I'll be putting up this post's more optimistic little brother. I'll just take a few days to cool off...

When Taught to Write, Are We Taught to Write Badly?

I was thinking recently about all the things not to do that I've been taught in the Creative Writing segment of my university course, and how many of those things I was told to do back in primary school (I can only talk of the primary education system in England as it's the one I grew up on). I noticed that quite a few things I was told when I was just starting out writing I now see as bad habits I need to get out of. Some examples of these include...

Don't write 'said' all the time; use more interesting words like 'cried', 'exclaimed', etc.
Yeah. Don't do that. 'Said' is one of those words that the brain doesn't really process; we're used to reading it, and we don't really take it in, it's just there. 'Hello,' Terry said. If every line of dialogue is followed by a more colourful word, suddenly the reader's eye is drawn to it, and that can be problematic in three ways: 1) it draws attention away from the dialogue and the action, 2) it makes you look very self-conscious as a writer, as if you were sitting at your desk fretting about writing 'said' too many times and you're compensating, and 3) if you use too many, or too outlandish synonyms for 'said', the reader will find it tiresome and ridiculous. Luckily I got out of this habit fairly quickly, and although I do use alternatives to 'said' I never feel like I have to just so I won't write 'said' too many times. Long story short: 'For god's sake, just write "said"!' Terry vociferated.


Describe your character's appearance in detail
Okay, so I wasn't told to do this directly, but whenever I did describe a character in great detail, I was told it was very good, so I got it in my head that I should always do that. Now I know better. Lengthy descriptions of how a character looks have a very Mary Sue-ish, children's-books-for-girls-ish, Twilight-ish feel to it, so I tend to keep it far, far away from my writing. Of course, you can reveal a lot about a character by how they dress, how they wear their hair, how clean they are, etc. and I even find that you can tell a lot about the narrator by what they focus on and how they describe someone, but there is a limit. There's no real reason to describe every minute detail, unless the narrator is really, really interested in that cluster of freckles just under her left nostril, or those freckles are an important plot point later on or something.

Use lots of adverbs; it livens up your writing.
No no no no no no no. This has been covered in all four books about writing that I own: avoid adverbs unless they are absolutely necessary. Seriously, they can't get enough of bad-mouthing adverbs. But back in school, I was encouraged to use as many as possible to make my writing 'more interesting' or some such. This is probably one of my biggest problems in writing now; the last portfolio I handed in, my tutor told me to go through the entire thing and delete every single adverb that wasn't crucial, and my god there were so many. I even know that I'm supposed to use them sparingly, but I do it without even realising it. In fact, if you have time, and want to laugh at my bad habits, use the CTRL+F search function and search for 'ly' and see how many adverbs I used in this very post. I'm sure the result will make me ashamed.


But, I shouldn't be too hasty to write off what I learned in primary school, as I did learn a few things that are still useful today. Such things include...

Don't use the word 'nice'.
I think 'nice' is one of my least favourite words. Probably my second least favourite word after 'annoying', and I hate both words for the same reason, so I'll stick to 'nice'. It's just so nondescript. It's plain, it's boring, it has low lexical density, it's a bad word. Like 'very', it's just not something you want in your writing because it doesn't really add anything. The only time such words would be acceptable is in dialogue, as is the case with most literary rules I've come across.

End sections on a cliffhanger.
Speaks for itself really. If a chapter ends on a cliffhanger, the reader will have to keep reading to see how it resolves itself. Granted, I would often write a cliffhanger with no idea of how it would resolve itself, but it's good advice nonetheless.

Use other works as inspiration
Another self-explanatory one, but I'll go into some detail here. The first things I ever wrote were based on this kind of stimulus: read this book, and write your own version. They were short picture books, so it was never particularly time-consuming, and it was a fun, relatively easy way to get started in writing; all you need to do is change a few things: the setting, the characters' names, the little fiddly details, and you have your own work. Now, obviously I don't encourage plagiarism, which this really borders on, but I do encourage looking at works you like and building your own work around a certain theme, idea, character, plot element or overall tone of that work. It was essentially what got me started in writing, before I even knew that was what I wanted to do, so I do recommend it.


So we have a balanced argument, I'd say. Do the beneficial things I learned outweigh the more ill-advised things I was taught as a child? I would say yes. Those bad habits will be a pain to get out of, but I'm still grateful for the leg-up I was given back then. If I wasn't taught any of that, I'm certain my writing would have suffered in at least some small way, and I probably would have been set back quite a bit, having to learn the importance of lexical density instead of it being near second nature, and torturing myself trying to come up with my own completely original idea, because using someone else's work as inspiration is cheating!

So, to answer the question posed in the title of this post, I would say no, we are not taught badly. We are taught well, we were just taught some unfortunate bad habits along the way.

Why Origin Stories Need to Go Away

This will be my first of a new segment I'm calling 'Why Things Need to Go Away', in which I will talk about certain things that I think no longer have a place in the world and should go away.

Today's instalment: Origin Stories. You know the ones; the prequel to a franchise which shows how it all began. I'm definitely not alone in disliking these; just find any film or game with 'Origins' or the number zero in the title and you'll find reams of negative reviews for it. But I thought I would take some time to explain just why these are not only unnecessary, but actually harmful to a franchise or character.

It probably goes without saying that I love characters. As a writer I love creating them and fleshing them out, and as a reader/viewer/what have you I love seeing them and analysing them (did I mention I'm studying English Literature?). One of my favourite things about characters is what we don't know about them, because it gives us an excuse to speculate and fill in the gaps for ourselves. Especially in the case of antagonists, anti-heroes or just mean-spirited or unhappy characters; they are interesting to analyse and it can be fun to try and gauge why they are the way they are. Tacking on some half-baked backstory about child abuse and parental abandonment doesn't add as much depth as one might think at first, and even if that is the character's backstory, there's nothing wrong with simply hinting at it, or writing it into the subtext of the character's dialogue and actions.

As an example, let's introduce John Smith (creative, no?). We can show John's relationship with his father simply with the way he addresses him. Does he call his father 'dad', 'father', 'sir', by his first name, or by his last name? These all hint at John's past without spelling it out. If he calls his father 'Mr Smith' instead of 'dad' we can speculate on what kind of relationship he has with him; maybe they have a very formal relationship, or maybe Mr Smith isn't his real father, or maybe the two of them had a falling out and John no longer wants to acknowledge him as a part of his family. This is a good way to hint at a character's backstory without giving every single detail. We don't know everything about John, but that's what makes him interesting, it's what makes us ask questions about him. Why does he call his father 'Mr Smith'? What does that say about him? What does it say about his father? Now how would you feel if I were to tell you that John Smith was adopted and his parents told him when he was fifteen and he has called his adoptive parents Mr and Mrs Smith ever since. It's a little disappointing, isn't it? Yes, we have a brief moment of 'oh, so that's why' and then John would be just that little bit less interesting for it, because the mystery, however small, is now gone. This is my main problem with prequel films and origin stories.

This is especially true of villains in horror movies, and the prequel/origin story is perhaps harming this genre the most. One of the key points of a villain in a horror film is really very simple: the less we know about them the more scary they are. We don't know why they came to the conclusion that killing people with a chainsaw and wearing their face as a mask was the path for them, or how they are able to take so much damage without going down, or why they seem to take such sick delight in torturing people with ironic punishments, and that is what makes them such formidable characters. We fear them because we don't understand them. If we did understand them, we would sympathise with them and because we know why they are the way they are and they become more human, they suddenly become less threatening. Why? Because we now know that they are just like us, and we aren't that scary. Suddenly a horror movie is no longer scary, meaning that it has failed, and it instead becomes a full character profile. Full character bios, in my opinion, should stay in the writer's saved files and never see the light of day. The bio should be used as a reference for the writer, but only certain details should be fed into the story, little by little, to build up a picture of the character without giving everything away. Less is more. People are afraid of the unknown, and that's what creates many great horror stories. Imagine a man who wanders the streets and stares into people's bedroom windows, even when the curtains are drawn. Why is he there? What does he want? How haven't the police caught him? Why won't he leave, even when people shout at him and threaten him? We don't know. He won't tell us. He won't even speak. He can't be understood and he can't be reasoned with, and that's what makes him frightening. We don't know his motive, we don't know what he's going to do, and like hell is he going to tell us a damn thing about himself. That's the way horror movie villains should stay: shrouded in mystery and surrounded by question marks. Villains like these are what make people crowd together and argue over his motives and backstory. They make people ask questions and think about the criminal mind, or the unstable mind, or both. They keep the audience guessing, and keep them wanting more, which is exactly what you want.

Now, for the sake of fairness, I do have to argue that point somewhat. While I do believe that not understanding a villain's reasons and motives is what makes them scary, it's right to point out this is not always strictly true. In the case of The Shining, being in Jack's head and understanding what he is going through and what he's thinking is actually quite frightening as we follow him into madness and he slowly loses control. This proves that it can be done, but I would argue that it isn't easy to pull off, and it can be dangerous territory. After all, there's a fine line between 'oh my god, I kind of understand where he's coming from, maybe there's a bit of psychopath in all of us!' and 'nobody really thinks like that, this writer is just trying to get in my head and failing. Next'. Also, although we are in his head, we never do get a vivid idea of his past; we only get the details we need in order to flesh out his character and move the story along.

What it comes down to is that writers need to understand one simple truth: viewers are writers too. Good writers in fact, who will often come up with better explanations for things than the writer ever could. Why do you think we never see Maris Crane in Frasier? Or whatever is under Edd's hat in Ed Edd n Eddy?* Because nothing the writers could come up with would live up to the audience's expectations. The audience is much happier to imagine than they would be to see one person's idea. I thought I'd wait until the end to crank up the pretentious with a little something I learned at uni (that's right, I am getting my money's worth): Roland Barthe's essay 'The Death of the Author' explored the idea that the author is not god of his own writing, and that a work is never truly finished until it has been read, because readers bring their own interpretations and experiences into their reading of the work, consciously or otherwise. The same applies to film and other forms of media: the viewers will 'finish' a work for you by filling in the gaps you leave for them. Readers and viewers enjoy filling in the gaps, so to all you writers out there: please let us.


*Sorry, I cannot believe I can't come up with any better examples.


And hey, it may be two days late, but I got a Halloween-esque post out. It mainly focuses on the horror genre, so I'm counting it.

Dragonball Evolution: In Which I Drop A Bombshell

When I first saw this film in the cinema, I considered writing a review of it, and I think I even started one, until I realised that everyone and their mums had already written a scathing review, pointing out all the mistakes, all the shortcomings, everything just all and all bad about the film, so for me to write one would be redundant and boring, so I left it. But then a few weeks ago the film was shown on TV and because I remembered having a vague fondness for its 'so bad it's good' qualities and sheer 'shit got wrong' factor, I gave it another try. In watching the film again I found that I did have a few things to say about it, but not anything particularly analytical or indeed technical or logical in any way, but I feel it's something I really do need to say, so here it is...

I kind of liked this film.

But not in the way I normally like a film. Usually I'll enjoy a film because it's well-written, the acting is good, the storyline is engaging, it touches on themes that interest me, it has good directing and cinematography, it has nostalgic value or, at the bottom of the barrel, it's a guilty pleasure. Dragonball Evolution doesn't quite come under 'so bad it's good' territory, but rather 'so bad it's hilarious'. I'm not sure if anyone who doesn't know about the anime (I only have one volume of the manga, so I can't say much of that) would find it as funny as I did, but seriously, wow. If you don't take this crap seriously, it's a very funny film; funnier in fact than any of the comedies that I remember coming out that year. I remember me and my sister struggling not to burst out laughing right there in the cinema, and I spent the rest of the day quoting the laughably bad dialogue and imitating Justin Chatwin's howlingly awkward line delivery. I really did like it, even though I will be one of several thousand people to say that it really is a terrible, terrible film.

To give a brief overview of the film in terms of how good it is, well... in terms of faithfulness to the source material, the film is god-awful, and that is no exaggeration. Just about the only thing it has in common with Dragonball is the character names (and their basic roles as those characters, I suppose) and the dragonballs themselves. In terms of basic pacing, story-telling, and character establishment and development, the film is sub-par bordering on just plain bad; the plot is riddled with holes and it seems to meander without really going anywhere and the love story played out like it was simply tacked on at the end, for how uninteresting, untouching and irrelevant it was. Put simply, up until the third act, the film is just bad in a 'generic bad film' way; it isn't offensively bad, it's just not good. Then it dives head-first into what I like to call 'third act insanity'. However, in terms of entertainment value and unintentional hilarity, this film is actually very watchable. As a long-time fan of Dragonball Z (Dragonball less so, but that's because it didn't air in the UK until quite a bit later) I found the film very entertaining because it just got so many things wrong. From characters to the story to basic continuity, basically everything was just wrong but that's why I find it so funny. The ludicrous portrayal of Goku as an average teenager was hysterically funny, let alone Chatwin's poor performance and general lack of charm or screen presence. I know I lost it when Goku called out to the dragon in overly-dramatic fashion, immediately preceding possibly one of the worst CGI effects I've ever seen. It was goofy, predictable, and made what is admittedly a fairly silly, low-budget nineties fighting anime look like absolute gold by comparison. And I loved it. I know this film made a lot of fans really angry, but I really didn't take it that seriously. I knew it wasn't going to work as a live-action film, so I expected it to be crap, and it ended up being really quite enjoyable to watch anyway, if not for the reason the filmmakers intended.

So yes, I would actually recommend you watch this if you're a fan of Dragonball or Dragonball Z. Some of the scenes may be hard to get through, but I think it's worth it in the end.


Additional: Hell, at least the dialogue is better than in the original English dub of the anime. And in the movie's defence, it does provide a number of shout-outs to the original anime that were pretty sweet, if completely undercut by the mountains of mistakes.


Thinking about it, the film's portrayal of Goku was a lot closer to Goku's son Gohan. He was the highschooler who wanted a normal life and a girlfriend; Goku didn't give nearly enough of a shit about being normal, especially when he was a teenager. Besides; Great Saya-man? That would have been pretty damn funny to see. There's your movie.

My Top 10 Favourite Films (2011)

That's right, after complaining that I am terrible about writing positively, I decide to write a top ten favourites list, and let me tell you, this took a while. Not just because I find it difficult to explain myself in terms of why I like something, but also because it was tricky to narrow down my choices into a simple top ten list. But I persevered and now I get to share my somewhat eclectic taste in film! Cheer, groan or cower where appropriate.

I felt the need to date this because more films will come out in the future that may bump some of these films off my list. Also my opinions do tend to change over time, so my favourite film does change from year to year. For example, a few years ago my favourite film was Holes and even earlier still, it was The Lion King.

I tried to keep this list balanced in terms of the time it was made, target age, and genre, but you will notice certain trends cropping up, and you'll get a good idea of certain genres and directing styles that I like. What is also worth noting is that any films that I thought were too similar to another on the list I had to tearfully push aside, although there are a couple of honorary mentions here and there. So, without further adieu, here are my top ten favourite films...


10. Howl's Moving Castle

"He's calling the spirits of darkness... I saw him do this once before when a girl dumped him."
Whenever I meet someone who likes anime, I can almost guarantee that they like this film. I am one of these people. Something I can say about all Studio Ghibli films is that they look gorgeous; the animation is fluid and attractive, and I can always count on breathtaking visuals and intricate, detailed and quirky character, building, and landscape designs. Christian Bale does an excellent job doing Howl's voice; the perfect combination of sexy arrogance and childish... arrogance, and Jean Simmons makes Grandma Sophie quite possibly the greatest granny in the world, ever. Honestly, I love the character of Sophie and how she embraces her curse and learns to live with it, rather than letting it dominate and ruin her, which is a nice change from the kind of 'curse storylines' I'd seen in the past. And let's not forget my favourite character: the wise-cracking fuss-pot fire demon Calcifer, voiced by Billy Crystal. It's a very enjoyable, funny and emotional film and I can see why so many people really enjoy it.
This only has the number 10 slot for one simple reason: the ending is pants. Don't try to deny it; I love this film a lot, but I can't pretend that the ending didn't spoil it just a little bit. It's rushed, contrived and riddled with clichés. In fact, this is a common problem in Studio Ghibli films in general, judging by the ones I've seen. However, the rest of the film more than makes up for its shortcomings at the finale, so I'm willing to forgive it.

9. Juno

"If I could just have the thing and give it to you now, I totally would. But I'm guessing it looks probably like a sea monkey right now, and we should let it get a little cuter."
Yeah, I'm not apologising for this one. I don't care. It's a great film, and I enjoy watching it every time. The characters are fleshed out and interesting, the acting is solid, and the dialogue is unlike anything I'd heard before. I find the relationship between Juno and Paulie very believable, and I'm able to forgive their admittedly idiotic behaviour regarding one another, considering the fact that they are both sixteen, and they have been dealt a pretty hefty hand at the beginning of the film. Really, what I can say about Juno is that what I originally thought would just be yet another teen drama turned out to be a genuinely funny comedy, with some seriously heart-warming and romantic moments. There's a scene near the end that never fails to bring me to tears, it's just so perfect and beautiful. Not my favourite film ever, but certainly deserving of my number 9 spot.

8. The Shawshank Redemption

"They send you here for life, and that's exactly what they take. The part that counts, anyway."
Okay... wow, this one is tricky. What is there to say about this film, really? I suppose the reason I love it so much is that it provides such a sense of hope, but it's very much like It's a Wonderful Life in that you absolutely have to watch it until the end, or it will depress the hell out of you. I definitely wouldn't call it a 'feel-good film' because there is a lot of hardship to wade through before the pay-off, but that's exactly what makes it so gratifying in the end. So yes, it is a very heavy film, and definitely not suited so someone who just wants to watch something and have a jolly old time, but I will say that this film always leaves me with a smile on my face. And Morgan Freeman's soothing tones throughout are no bad thing either. Seriously, the man's basically America's answer to Stephen Fry. But, to get back on topic, The Shawshank Redemption is a great, if hard-hitting, film and it sits securely in my number 8 spot.

7. Who Framed Roger Rabbit

"I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."
As someone who grew up watching Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Disney, along with many other cartoons, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a really enjoyable watch. Also speaking as someone who thrives on nostalgia, it felt really nice to combine the cartoons of my childhood with the more gritty and grown up plotline that this film had to offer. Murder, sex, blackmail; this thing was not for little kids, and I'm not the only person to comment on how utterly terrifying Judge Doom is. Yes, there are some pretty heavy scenes for a film with a cartoon rabbit on the cover.
One of the things I love the most about this film is the special effects, and by that I mean the cartoon characters interacting with the live-action characters. Honestly, I watched the DVD extra which explains how they pulled it off, and it is just amazing. Not only were all the cartoons hand drawn onto the film stills, but in order for the 'toons to lift, move and touch 'real' things, they had to use puppets and robotic arms and have the live actors often speak their lines to robots or just to thin air. I would say that of the films that have tried to combine cartoon with live action, none have done it quite as well as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. While watching it, you forget the technical aspects altogether and you can believe that the cartoons are really there, it looks that good; to quote Bobby Pedesta of Pixar: 'A good animated film looks like one person animated everything. And a great animated film looks like no-one animated it at all.' While I don't believe that's really possible in a literal sense, I think he meant it in the sense that the film will immerse and engage you and you will forget about how it was animated and instead concentrate on the plot and characters, which I think this film does very well. Even when it is constantly referenced that there are 'toons running around everywhere, you begin to take for granted the fact that they were drawn there; watching it, it feels like they are just there. And that, to me, means they did a great job.


6. Terminator

"Come with me if you want to live."
Hell yeah, Terminator. How can anyone not like this film? It's got action, it's got time travel, it's got an indestructible killer robot, it's got high-speed chases, it's got sex; what more could you want? Seriously though, I do enjoy action films (despite what some ill-informed preconceptions about my sex might suggest), with Die Hard and Die Hard 2: Die Harder being two other films I love. Yes, I know that time travel would be extremely problematic if it were actually possible, I know that not everything blows up on impact, and I know that in real life people can't think of cool things to say before shooting someone in the head, but shut up, it doesn't need to be logical because it's freaking Terminator! While I'll be the first to admit that I'm not really a fan of Schwarzenegger (in fact this is the only film of his that I really like) you can't deny how convincing a job does playing a giant robot. Could they have cast anyone better than the Govenator himself? I think not.
Now, because everyone asks me when I say that Terminator is one of my favourite films, I'll say this now: no, I have not seen Terminator 2, but I do plan to. Would I pass up the chance to see a film often described as 'like Terminator but better'? Hell no! But for now, Terminator is secure in the number 6 slot.

5. Donny Darko

"Why are you wearing that stupid bunny costume?"
"Why are you wearing that stupid man costume?"
I watched this around Christmas of 2010, having no idea what it was about, what genre it was, and generally what sort of film it would be. I had no idea it would end up blowing my mind.
As I may or may not have made clear, I'm getting tired of overused and predictable storylines, so imagine my delight when I watched this film that literally kept me guessing from beginning to end. I honestly had no idea what might happen next; the erratic nature of Donny and the strange, abstract nature of the film itself meant that I could never predict what would happen in the next scene, how it would be shown and how much immediate sense it would make, if any. Filmmakers trying to make horrors and thrillers could take a few notes from Donny Darko on suspense; I was on the edge of my seat, my heart thudding all the way through, even in the seemingly sedate, funny, or more naturalistic scenes, because I couldn't tell when it would all change and something else odd and frightening would happen. Tense, thought-provoking and subject to a lot of debate as to what the hell it actually means, this film earns its number 5 spot on my top 10 list.

4. WALL-E

"I don't want to survive, I want to live!"
I would describe WALL-E as an English student's dream: the imagery, the symbolism, the use of visual metaphor and non-verbal expression, the recurring themes and motifs, the portrayal of a dystopian future; this film had me wearing my analysis hat all the way through. And yet it still managed to tug at my heartstrings at the same time, without simply being schmaltzy. This film is a fine example of saying a lot with few words; the two main characters barely exchange any verbal dialogue, but a wealth of information and feelings is expressed between them and we can see their relationship grow and develop throughout the film. Pixar have always been very good at bringing non-human characters to life, and while admittedly their attempts have been somewhat hit and miss (for example, Toy Story works very well, but Cars not so much, in my opinion), WALL-E has shown that by merely giving characters the simple human characteristics of eyes and arms, as well as very human emotions, an audience can relate to, sympathise with, and even love a pair of fictional robots. And really, it's Pixar, do I need to mention the animation? Stellar stuff, as is to be expected, and particularly impressive considering the sheer scale of the film. WALL-E is an excellent example of character building, visual storytelling and true heart; something a lot of writers can really learn from.

3. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

"If we're gonna date, you may have to defeat my seven evil exes."
I saw the trailer for this film and thought it would be a fun film; nothing spectacular, just something enjoyable. I should have known when I saw that it was directed by Edgar Wright, but wow. This film surprised me so much, and in the best way. I just love the way it presents itself; the visual style, the written sounds, and the impressive special effects were just ingredients in this recipe for awesome. The dialogue is quirky, shamelessly clichéd at times and almost always fall-off-your-chair hilarious. I especially enjoyed the way they provided no explanation as to why people had the ability to fly, summon demon hipster chicks, and turn 'super-vegan', it just got on with it and you would just shut up and watch, damn it! It's one of the most interesting, entertaining and quirky films that I've seen in a long time, and you should go and watch it right now; I don't care what you're doing, just go and watch Scott Pilgrim vs. The World.

2. Reservoir Dogs

"You, buddy, are stuck in a situation you created. So, if you wanna throw bad looks somewhere, throw 'em at a mirror!"

Quentin Tarantino seems to be the marmite of directors; either you love him or you hate him. Fittingly enough, I enjoy toast with about a centimetre of marmite spread on it. But, I personally like marmite when it hasn't gone past its sell-by date... this analogy is getting a bit strained. Basically, I like Tarantino's earlier work.

I like this film so much that I barely ever watch it. I know it sounds daft, but let me explain: I try not to watch it too often in case I eventually get bored of it, which I never want to happen. I like to leave it for months, up to a year, so that I nearly forget all about it, then when I watch it again, I feel more like I'm watching it for the first time. The characters are fascinating, entertaining and deliciously detestable, and with Tarantino's now signature technique of showing scenes non-chronologically we are able to slowly build up an image of a number of those characters, and which of them is the rat who blew their heist. Not to mention the dialogue is classic Tarantino (it is his first film, after all); untrimmed, vulgar and intriguing, and the long scenes which are done all in one shot are not only cool and interesting to look at, but make you feel like you're actually in the scene with them.

And yes, I do own the limited special edition DVD in the metal case shaped like a petrol can because I think it's really cool.

1. Shaun of the Dead

"The... the Z-word, don't say it!"
"Why not?"
"Because it's ridiculous!"
Yeah, another Edgar Wright film. In fact, the only reason Hot Fuzz isn't on this list is that I thought it would be redundant; I like Shaun of the Dead just that little bit more than Hot Fuzz so it only just missed its place on my list.

Everyone has that one film that they can watch over and over again without ever getting sick of it, and this is mine. I can recite most of the script (it can get annoying to watch this film with me, I'll admit that), I've seen it that many times. It's also one of those films where I notice something new each time I watch it, so I feel somewhat justified in having seen it so many times.
What struck me about the film is that it's oddly realistic for a zombie flick. What I mean by that is the characters react to the threat of a zombie apocalypse in a way that I find very believable and natural, and their use of assorted blunt objects to ward off the hordes was both funny and interesting; what if a zombie virus did break out in an area where not everyone owns a gun? Another thing I love about this film is that it's not a parody of zombie films, despite the name, but an homage to the genre, balancing comedy and satire with genuinely poignant, disturbing, violent, and tear-jerking moments. Where the film does poke fun at horror films however, it does so with love, in my opinion the best way to satirise something. So I'd definitely recommend you give this film a watch, provided you aren't particularly faint-hearted.


So now you know to what I hold other films against when reviewing them. As you probably already know, these kinds of lists are highly personal, so my number one favourite film could be someone else's number one least favourite film. So why not think about your own favourite films and why it is that you like them? Is it a guilty pleasure? Does it hold sentimental or nostalgic value? Do you just think that it's an extremely well written film that you wish more people knew about? You'd be surprised what you find out about yourself when you stop to think about just what it is that you enjoy about the films you like. If you're a grumpy bear like me, it might be hard, but it can also be very rewarding, and I recommend you give it a shot.


And yes, I really did put WALL-E ahead of Donny Darko and Terminator.