Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens REVIEW

Sod it. I have nothing insightful or important to say (do I ever?) so I might as well review a movie.

On 'Star Wars'

I realise things have been getting a bit depressing on this blog recently. Whilst I could argue that the world at the moment is depressing, and I'm trying yet failing to find any redeeming qualities - I understand that this blog is supposed to be about art and all this moody political stuff is probably tiring. Sorry.

The Hypocrisy of Christianity

I hate the world sometimes. I really do.

Shut Up And Mourn

As soon as word broke out of the attacks in France, my father turned to me and said: "Don't write anything about this. Don't say anything online."

The Lie That Is Bisexual Privillage

Some say that Bisexuality is a mere construct and that Bisexuals are liars who hide behind their identity for protection. Don't worry: those 'some' who say that will one day die and rid us of their idiocy. Until that day however, I feel I must step in.

'The Great British Bake Off' Controversy

It's always nice to be reminded that even the most harmless of things can bring out the absolute worst of humanity.

Top 5 Worst Moments Of The Conservative Party Conference 2015

Say what you want about the Conservative's, but they are masters of putting everything in perspective.

On Re-Animating The Dead (in fiction, obviously)

It's often said that what is dead may never truly die. This is of course a part-truth. Death is death. My poor beloved cat won't suddenly re-appear outside my room to beg for food . But Terry Pratchett's last book has just been released and it's shot up to the number one bestseller despite Terry losing his defiant battle with Alzheimer's earlier this year. His name is still everywhere. He's dead, but certainly not forgotten - something we all aspire to.

The PM and The Pig

If you've been paying attention to social media, you'll know that everyone's making jokes about David Cameron partaking in a humiliating student initiation ceremony involving placing his genitals in the mouth of a dead pig. This post shall refrain from any pork-related humour, not because I'm above such rhetoric, but because all the best jokes have already been made and so I can add nothing to them.

Shakespeare Wrote Shakespeare

In 1920, J. Thomas Looney (sadly pronounced 'Lone-ey') wrote a book called: Shakespeare Identified. In it, he detailed how Shakespeare didn't actually write Shakespeare's 42 plays. It was in fact written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford who - according to Looney - was the bastard child of Queen Elizabeth I and later, through incest, fathered a bastard of his own that would've inherited the throne of England and the Tudor Line would've carried on if only society knew of this man's genius. All hail King Joffrey!

The Hypocrisy of The British Media

The Migrant Crisis. After branding the buildup of refugees that's been accumulating for the past two years as 'immigrants,' 'holiday-ruiners,' 'scroungers,' 'swams,' among many other dehumanising terms - all it took was a picture of a dead child washed up on a Turkish beach for society to finally gain a conscience and brand this a 'crisis.' Except people still haven't...

On Cannabis

There will be four key issues that eventually people will look back on and say: "Why were these issues again?" And the only answer will be: "Because people are stupid." These issues are: gender equality, race equality, LGBT equality, and marijuana.

SHUT UP ED SHEERAN

I originally hated Ed Sheeran. My 'cool' friends were going mad over this guy (forgetting he wrote songs for One Direction) whilst I was getting excited about Kraftwerk's return, but I tried to put all taste aside so I could listen to his first album: + with open ears. I still hated it. I hated how Ed sounded so pleased with himself whilst singing about a prostitute dying of drug addiction in The A Team. I hated how he promised to be there for some person in Lego House without actually saying how he'll support this person (though, the music video is actually really clever). I hated the swagger he tries to convey in You Need Me I Don't Need You whilst sounding as nasally and out of his league as Vanilla Ice.

Dulux Hollywood White

You'd think that after Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Barrack Obama, the thousands of black Americans who've called America out on it's inherent racism, and the millions who have been victims to racial abuse - the United States might stop being racist assholes for once.

"The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword"

At face value, it's clear the pen isn't mightier than the sword. Maybe you could ride into battle with The Complete Works of Shakespeare to use as a sort of warhammer, but try it with Heart of Darkness then let me know how much of your face remains afterwards. And let us not forget that this blog post doesn't actually exist within this universe. You're peering through the black mirror into a digital world that cannot harm you unless you allow it to.

Adventures in Amsterdam

So it may seem as though I was embarking upon a typical 'lads trip out' when I hopped on the train to der Nederlands, but this was slightly different since rather than bringing five jockish straight dudes determined to smoke marijuana and chug alcohol (which, if you're thinking this sounds like a great idea, isn't) I bought my family.

Adam Sandler Has The Secret Of Writing

Adam Sandler. On the Internet, you don't hear much praise for the guy...and for a very good reason. His films, for a variety of reasons which may or may not have anything to do with Adam Sandler himself, are more pleasant than the sound of bagpipes at a mass crucifixion.

But Dr Sandler actually mastered the secret of writing. Yes. Chances are that Adam Sandler is a better writer than you. Please don't mention my name anywhere on your suicide note.

It's Not Over

I was having a bad day Friday. Work was a pain, with ten computers deciding to simultaneously break in one room - and the only way I could get them working again was to replace every network cable and tear out part of the wall so I could thread all the wires through. Then, covered in dust, I had to trawl through the cupboard full of broken computers noting the serial number, unscrewing the back, and then adding the serial numbers to a database. I still maintain that I like my job, but I almost ran out once the day was over.

Screwing Up

What's your one biggest fear? Mine is death. Oh, and spiders....because they remind me of death. If you want to be my boyfriend then you need to be able to deal with spiders in a way that doesn't involve having an arachnid corpse splattered against the wall. Or perhaps radiate a chemical that naturally repels them. Or just be really good with a hoover.

"Have You Tried Turning It Off And On Again?"

I generally dislike computers. People who say they only do what you tell them to do are filthy liars who'll be the first against the wall when I invade society and reclaim my rightful throne. I don't think I've ever told a computer to suddenly reboot or corrupt a file or explode into a shower of sparks.

YouTubers: The New Rockstars

So YouTube is celebrating its 10th Anniversary, which makes me incredibly nostalgic. I remember the days when only people my age understood this weird little website. There was a time when you could find anything on YouTube - albeit in crappy pre-HD quality. It was a wonderful, free world. Then Skynet invaded.

4 Tory Satires To Vent Your Fustration At

So with the most recent election, the 68% of the population who didn’t vote Conservative are understandably a bit miffed. The smear campaign against Ed Miliband (focusing on how he eats a bacon sandwich rather than his policies) evidently worked, the SNP took a chunk of Labour's seats, the Liberal Democrats were swallowed up, UKIP split the vote, and the way our shambolic voting system works means that even if you didn’t vote Conservative then you probably still did without knowing it.

No One Knows What They're Talking About

For a while I was a critic. I do still sort-of consider myself an unpaid critic even though I've never been paid in the first place. I cannot help but view a piece of artwork and judge it even though I know that people have worked hard on it and I don't want to crush their dreams. There's a reason why artists hate critics, which is why I'm surprised so many artists are also critics themselves.

Who The Hell Should I Vote For?

The election is almost upon us, and so every party of note has released their manifesto. If you don’t know, these are very long documents – usually filled with jargon – detailing precisely what the party will work towards should they succeed. It’s basically 80 or so pages saying: “PLEASE VOTE FOR US”

"You're Gay?!"

A few months ago, I talked about sexuality in fiction – and how I really didn't see it as a big deal despite being not only gay myself, but a gay writer. I touched upon how it’s both really funny yet also terrifying how the world fusses over homosexuality. 

How To Write A Crap Fantasy

Welcome hacks, incompetents, and/or people who only create art for money!

There are three genres that are hugely popular yet are even more difficult to get right than most works: horror, sci-fi, and fantasy. They’re difficult to get right because there’s a formula that writers always feel obliged to follow, and this in turn creates work that’s at best bland and at worst is intolerable.

So, want to break that formula and write something no-one’s ever seen before? Then sod off. This is how to write a really, really awful work of fantasy that’ll cause nothing but misery and despair. 

All Fiction Is Political. Shut Up.

So there was this tweet:

Uh...bullshit?

Why Someone Would Crash a Plane

You know about this. On Tuesday, the Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 crashed into the French alps. The co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, locked the pilot out of the flight-deck and drove the plane down into the mountains killing 150 people including himself. Andreas Lubitz had depression. 

Why are People Afraid of Contractions?

And by ‘contractions,’ I mean the contraction of “is not” to “isn’t,” “I have” to “I’ve” and so on. Not the ‘contraction’ you get in pregnancy. I feel sick just thinking about that…

Harry Potter Is A Bloody Idiot

You probably think, since this is the second post I’ve written that criticises Harry Potter, that I don’t like it.  And to you, I say: "Put a mandrake (or mantagora) root in it! Of course I like Harry Potter!"

The Slytherin Problem

Yay! I’m writing about Harry Potter! That means my view-count's going to shoot up this week…

Show, Don’t Tell

No, I don’t mean “weave exposition into the narrative.” I mean “insert academia into your art.”

Let me explain. You’ve heard of Freud, right? The man who wrote hundreds of influential essays regarding the study of psychoanalysis – but who is known in popular culture as the guy who talked about sex a lot and presumably ruined the mood at a lot of social gatherings?

Is It So Bad To Plagiarise?

If you don’t know, I also run a gaming blog. In that, I reviewed a really bad game called Unturned. I promptly realised that the game was made by a 16 year old and then felt awful because I’d crushed the dreams of a promising young individual.

Being Boring

The question I get asked all the time: “Max, why have you never written a gay protagonist?”

Well…I don’t know. 

‘Freedom of Expression’

I hate this phrase.

There are many countries where people’s freedom of speech and expression is oppressed, often violently. It is a basic human right that everyone should be given for the sake of a fairer and enlightened society. The problem is that people use this phrase to justify all sorts of twaddle. 

No, You DON’T Have The Right To An Opinion

(I apologise if this post is a little short, but I really don’t think any more needs to be said on this issue.)

The oxford dictionary refers to ‘Opinion’ as: “A belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty.” So, an opinion is just a thing with little justification that gets thrown out there to be devoured by anyone with actual logic, and played around with by those with none.

The phrase “in my opinion” might as well be replaced with: “speaking from a biased, flawed, unjustified standpoint taken directly from my rectum...”

Debates should be contain at least one factual view, followed by a conclusion drawn from said facts. Eg: “America has the most high-school shootings in any first-world nation, and the only similarity between each shooting is that the person responsible for the shooting has access to guns – therefore, gun control is needed NOW.”

It’s fair enough to say: “therefore, my opinion is that gun control is needed NOW” because the opinion is based on fact. But if it’s fact then there’s no need to undermine it with opinion. Why not just say what you conclude, and if there is a flaw or disagreement in the conclusion then the other people debating will point it out.

‘Opinion’ has become like ‘literally’ – a meaningless buzzword inserted into a banal sentence to make that sentence seem less banal. For the next episode of Question Time, they should install chairs that drop the occupant down into an enclosure of tigers if s/he says “in my opinion.”

The Trouble With 'Sherlock'

So I no doubt offended half of the world by saying that not only is current Doctor Who severely flawed, but the show has never been perfect. Now, I might as well offend everyone else in the world by being possibly the only person on the internet to criticise Stephen Moffat’s other massively successful BBC show: Sherlock.

Perhaps Sherlock would be a far better show if I wasn’t overly-familiar with Moffat’s work. If the opening credits said that the show was written and produced by Sheridan Ponsonby, I would probably look upon the whole thing more fondly. But, the fact is that Sherlock himself is stuck between two worlds: intentionally flawed, and unintentionally heroic.

Sherlock is emotionally oblivious, self-absorbed, and constantly endangers others for the sake of the case. These are all character flaws created to produce drama and tension as Sherlock attempts to function in the real world. This is a good thing, and was something sorely lacking during Matt Smiths reign of Doctor Who – as the Eleventh Doctor was basically a god of time and space.

But that’s the problem – despite the base flaws, Sherlock is perfect. He can solve cases in a matter of seconds. He walks into a room and knows everything about it. He’s anti-authority. He has a fussy, mother-like figure look after him. He has at least two women perpetually attracted to him despite him acting like a jerk to them. The closest thing he has to a female antagonist is one who constantly flirts with him. He rents a flat in the heart of London, and never has to worry about money. He’s portrayed by a curly-haired heartthrob with a voice that’s ruined a thousand upholsteries. He does science, but not the icky kind of science where he dissects things but the sexy kind of science where he wears goggles and fiddles around with tubes. He can play the violin so well that he actually composes his own music. He even comes back from the dead! He also evades arrest at the end of series 3 because he’s just so awesome we can’t possibly punish him for MURDER.

He’s actually the most intelligent version of Holmes since that one time Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation cosplayed as him in one episode…and Data was an android capable of learning every language in the world in a matter of seconds (hence his name).

Sherlock is a fantasy. Specifically, it’s Stephen Moffat’s fantasy. He’s created a character that’s perfect in the sense that he has no responsibility or care for anything other than the thrill of the chase. Women find him attractive, and everyone else sticks by Sherlock despite the fact that in reality Watson would’ve left after the first series and Sherlock would’ve been kicked out of his flat the moment he started putting heads in the fridge – then would have been dropped by the police after he almost gets innocent people killed

Out of interest, I took this Mary Sue* test for Sherlock, and got a score of 125. The test says that anything above 50 is a very bad Mary Sue. I think that says everything, really. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to board up my shattered windows in preparation for the next wave of abuse. 

*A ‘Mary Sue’ is basically an author surrogate, or self-insert character. It’s a character who’s idolised by the author despite being poorly written and shallow.

The Trouble With ‘Doctor Who’

…what happened?

Doctor Who Christmas Specials are reliably awful, to the point where despite watching every episode during the rest of the year I will refuse to watch the Christmas special because I don’t want to ruin my Christmas.

They conform to every whimsical cliché associated with Christmas whilst attempting. This year I managed to get to the 12 min mark before shutting off iPlayer. My palm immediately hit my face when Clara awakes to find Santa crashed on her roof.  Then we have a sudden shift in tone to deathly-serious, then back to painfully unfunny comedy, then to deathly-seriousness, and then Santa rides in on a reindeer. Then he gets off the reindeer and uses a remote control to lock the reindeer like a car. It’s at that point I turned off. I then looked at the reviews to find that the critics had obviously seen a completely different episode to the one I did.

I wasn’t invested. The tone was jumping from your typical snow-encrusted magic to hard sci-fi with no transition or space to breathe. And within the first ten mins we had already seen the monsters in full-frame with clear bright lighting. Not to mention these monsters were blandly designed and had a telepathy-related power that I swear every alien in series 8 had.

What happened? How did we go from An Unearthly Child to this?

Of course, Doctor Who doesn’t do hard sci-fi anymore. That’s fine. Doctor Who has endured for over fifty years because it’s evolved, and if you want to see how quick and readily the show evolves: look at Tom Baker’s run. At the start the show was a gothic horror, then showrunner Peter Hinchcliffe was fired because people were accusing Doctor Who of being ‘too dark’ – which is ironic considering that Tom Baker’s first few years were in hindsight the best the show has ever gotten. Then the show became a pantomime in space, which is clearly what inspired current Showrunner Stephen Moffat to include a central-locking Rudolph. This era was awful, and so Doctor Who was dragged kicking and screaming into the 80’s with a brand-new theme tune and a new hard sci-fi tone. Tom Baker was still on board, but his characteristic joy was gone – mostly because Baker was ill during shooting.

The show had radically re-jigged its theme and tone thrice, all with the same lead-role. And each era had it’s good and bad stuff, though the panto-era only had one good thing in the form of The City of Death.

Because, and this is the most crippling thing: Doctor Who is and has never been perfect. What sums up the show for me is how The Caves of Androzani – one of the best episodes not just of Doctor Who but of any sci-fi show – being immediately followed by The Twin Dillema…which is one of the worst episodes not just of Doctor Who but of any sci-fi show. This tragically funny sequence of events demonstrates how Doctor Who has the potential to be (and at rare moments is) a truly fantastic show, yet it so often hides behind the sofa of shlock. The good/bad ratio is probably at 1:50.

But there are times when one series as a whole will be better than others. As I said, the Hinchcliffe-era was the golden age of Doctor Who. Meanwhile, everyone can agree that the Peter Davidson-era was bland with a handful of exceptions, the Sylvester McCoy-era started as awful then suddenly became good, and we don’t mention the Colin Baker-era. It makes us want to hurt people.

The last series showed promise with Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, who is vastly different from any other incarnation – but the problem is that the show is turning into Sherlock In Space…only written by a ten year old with a fetish for middle-aged women. Moffat once again claimed that the show was ‘getting darker,’ yet we opened with giant dinosaurs and closed with Santa Claus Conquers The Bland Aliens.

Can someone please pull this man away from the writing desk?