Guilty Pleasures

There has always been one genre of film that I feel gets an unwarranted amount of flak – the dear old rom-com. It seems to either evoke a smile and a warm, fuzzy feeling inside, or you can see the look of concentration on someone’s face as they try to restrain the vomit from making it any further up their windpipe than their throat.

A lot of people say that they are too ‘slushy’ or totally unrealistic. But the point is that even the films themselves know they’re not meant to be taken seriously. People go to see them to escape for a while from the knowledge of their own dreary existence. To lose themselves in the idea that maybe, just maybe, everything will actually be ok in the end. That there is the perfect person out there just waiting for us and to cling on to the hope that one day we will experience the ultimate romantic gesture that reduces not just yourself but everyone else around you to mush.

All these criticisms of them being wholly unrealistic and therefore not worthy of viewing are utter crap. Point out to the macho man who slates romantic comedies that the chances of someone being hunted in a wood by a psycho wearing a mask and wielding a chainsaw (as seen in his favourite horror film) are just as slim, and he hasn’t got a leg to stand on.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to watch ninety minutes of something that will make us feel better about life. Over ten million people watch Eastenders each day – and they’re doing it because it makes them realise that their own life in comparison isn’t nearly as bad as they’d maybe originally thought. Anyone who tunes in for realism may be unbelievably deluded, but whatever their reasons for watching, you don’t hear conversations of people at the desks next to you slating their colleagues for watching on a daily basis.

Yet after announcing I was going to watch The Ugly Truth (the industry’s freshest rom-com offering), all I received was eye rolling, loud groans and a field of questions revolving around the word, ‘why’? Well why bloody not. I’m proud to say I like watching them, and next time you criticize me you can be prepared to face my barrage of questions as to how realistic that oh-so-cool art house film you watched last night was. Ready?

Bru-No

Nobody had higher expectations of Bruno than me. After being dragged against my will at uni to see Borat, my pre-conceptions of Sacha Baron Cohen were shattered. Previously, I had presumed him to be crass, unintelligent and uninspired, but his second big screen outing proved otherwise (The Ali G movie is best left ignored). Cohen is one of the most intelligent comedians out there at the moment – his social observation and manipulations of different personalities takes far more skill than I think many of us appreciate.

So what the hell he was thinking when he wrote Bruno, I have no idea. There was not a shred of intelligence in the entire film; just a whole lot of debase humour and sex, and in my mind, a comedian who relies solely on cheap gags displays nothing more than a lack of genuine creativity and intellect. Yep, some people may find a dildo attached to the end of an exercise machine funny the first couple of times, but after its continued appearance in a succession of very similar set-ups, you start to wonder if Baron Cohen had simply run out of ideas.

Whether it was seeing Bruno refer to Bin Laden as a ‘dirty Santa Claus’, or overtly try and hit on to men at a heterosexual swingers party, it felt too forced. Comedy should seem natural and it should have a flow and a purpose; this possessed none of these qualities. Bruno appears to have been made for controversy and publicity motives alone and Baron Cohen’s antics at premieres around the world only serve to reflect that.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all up for slapstick humour and a token comedy sex scene in a film if it suits. But after watching over ninety minutes of the same slapstick and comedy sex scene, it doesn’t seem so funny any more. You are left questioning the standing of the film industry when it deems it acceptable to commission such unconscionable fodder. I fear we are stuck with such inept movie debris cluttering our cinema screens for the near future however, because we all know that dollars are a far greater motive in the system than integrity ever will be.