Degree Break goes to the Movies

The cinema is so bloody expensive these days I’m surprised people still go. But I suppose there is something a little magical about visiting a twelve screen multiplex with adjacent eighty five acre car park, Maccy Ds and TGI Fridays. Your favourite adverts in glorious high definition! That sweet, vomitous fug of toffee popcorn! Headache inducing 3D effects! It truly is wonderful. Somehow sitting at home by yourself streaming Fight Club in ten minute chunks on a dodgy feed from South Korea doesn’t quite have the same appeal, even if Odeon/Cineworld have done there level best to ruin whatever charm and glamour “going to the pictures” once had. The following websites go a little way to refute this bitter attitude.

Contemporary film posters can be pretty generic. Most seem to be built around whichever big shot celebrity is involved in the production- write their name in massive letters, stick in a picture of them which accentuates whatever body part they are well known for (face/arse/arms/boobs, select as appropriate), then sit back and watch the money pile up (in the words of Fiddy Cent, a man who knows all about turd polishing). Simples. But how about some posters which engage your brain a little? Some of these are pretty amazing: I suppose they only really work after you’ve seen the films, but I like them a lot.

One of my worst cinema related experiences was when I went to see the fourth Indy film, Indiana Jones and the Crock of CGI Bullshit. It was on TV the other day: I found myself watching it again, fascinated that fellow humans were capable of producing something so utterly horrific. Luckily (and inevitably), somebody has a whole youtube channel addressed to righting cinematic wrongs. The video below shows what should have happened- and the hand drawn special effects are a lot more convincing than the real multimillion dollar atrocity. More clips of this ilk can be found here.

You’ve probably guessed by now that despite my semi-informed moaning I’m hardly a movie buff. I steal most of my film related opinions (and writing techniques) from Ultraculture– and I highly recommend it. Easily digestible and easily regurgitated at dinner parties, it’s like eating LMAOyonaise.

P.S. If anybody from Union Films happens to read this, please can you put in a press area which has seats with extra leg room; the last time I went I’m pretty sure I started showing early symptoms of deep vein thrombosis. Keep up the good work though!