So.

It goes without saying, there's been a little hiatus going on. I apologise for not saying anything sooner. I also apologise for telling you that said hiatus is not over quite yet. 

When I want to write these things, there's nothing more fun in the world to do. When I don't and I'm just getting something out there to fulfill my unwritten 'at least one thing a week' rule, they feel forced and uninteresting, both to read and write. 

I'm on the verge of big changes in my life, which I won't bore/annoy you about, but suffice to say, the combination of being super busy and being simply burned out doing these meant a indefinite break. 

I love writing, creatively, analytically, it's kind of cathartic for me. This is want I want to do for a living in some form or another. And I suppose I'm taking advantage of the fact that I won't get this freedom to scarper much in my adult working life. 

For anyone who bothered to keep up with this consistently, once again, I'm sorry. I promise this will return at some point. When? I do not know. Where? I cannot tell you. How? Eh, I haven't decided yet. But for now, if you still want to hear the sweet sound of my syntax, and, *ahem*, who could blame you, you could follow me on twitter @Tom_Snrub. That'd be cool. Alright, see ya around.

I'm trying out using more paragraphs, I can't decide. They make it look a bit like TMZ.

The Five Women You Meet in Comedy

It's an improving time for women in films. Good? Ehh, that might be a stretch. But improving. Look at comedy films, for example, and you'll see women, who were once treated as pretty little numskulls obsessed with sex, to be pretty damn respectable. Gone are the days when Barbara Windsor's bikini would spring loose, sailing through the air like it's received a distress call from it's home planet, and plop into the hands of a boggle-eyed Kenneth Williams, while the audience literally soil themselves laughing at some other stuff no competent human being thinks is sodding funny. Nope, nowadays, you could almost see women in comedy films as something of a role model. They're tough, independent, loving, thoughtful, carefree, cunning, seductive and secure. But there's one thing women aren't being enough of, and it persistently bothers me that they are rarely written in such a way; they aren't funny.

There are exceptions, obviously. There are terrific films where women are both the stars and the primary source of comedy. And actual comedy, not 'funny because lady thing I'm not familiar with lol' funny. Bridesmaids, for example. Mean Girls. Hell, even the Sex and the City Films. But considering how many comedy films there are, it is far too low a percentage to be down to coincidence or talent. Why? Why is it that the stereotype that 51% of the world’s population can’t tell a good one-liner now and then, has transferred itself onto Hollywood?

It's disappointing, continuously seeing the female lead relegated to being the brick wall the male lead hurls joke after joke at. Which brings me to the reason I’m here typing passive-aggressively today. It’s my solemn duty to present the five types of women that appear in comedy films, each one as consistently unfunny as the next.
1.The Love Interest. Usually seen in teen comedies and your typical rom-coms, these flawless beauties exist only to be drooled at by the (usually nerdy) main male character, and occasionally to tell said main character what a slob/jerk/friend he is.
Language Used: Interrogatives, to ask the hero to parties he’s too nervous to attend, tag questions, to emphasise her air head-edness, and negative politeness.

2. The Voice of Reason. Often an old friend of our hero, she is always at hand to disapprove of any fun being had, with a chance of pretending to be Mr. Hero’s girlfriend to make Love Interest jealous.
Language Used: More declaratives, mostly because she's mean and naggy, plus a meaty dose of complex sentences to confuse and bore dumb, relate-able man, and by proxy, the audience.

3. The Manipulative Cheater. This seems to be the only way Hollywood knows how to make a woman the bad guy. She will use her charms to ruin Joe McEveryman’s life, and usually wind up getting publicly humiliated, making us all feel good about ourselves.
Language Used: Imperatives, to display her promiscuous power, as well as a bit more taboo language than typically expected for a female comedy role, because women that swear a lot shouldn’t be trusted.

4. The Old Lady That Talks About Sex A Lot, Because Ew, Old People. 
Sigh.
Language Used: So. Much. Taboo language.

5. The Bad Ass. 
The lesser of five evils, she at least is able to provide entertainment, simply by not taking the sh*t the other four do. But even she isn't immune from the tidal wave of melancholy, eroding at Hollywood like a plague of fantasist misogyny disguised as empowerment, dressing in barely-there attire, using any body part in her arsenal to dispose of her enemies. And a hair swish or two never goes amiss.
Language Used: Often doesn’t say much to add to the cool persona, but if she does speak, it’s usually in  compound sentences. Furthermore, declaratives are used, as Hollywood always presents this stereotype as someone needing to either prove themselves or have revenge, so don’t be surprised to find her shouting monologues to nobody in particular.

Maybe one day, women will be the stars of comedy films for actual comedy purposes, and it won’t be such an innovative thing. But for now, I guess we should be grateful we’re past the days where women were the punchline. Now they’re just...a line.

Mitchell Monday: Love and Hate

Dave explores and explains the brilliant marketing strategy behind a product that more than half the country detests. I'm not sure if non Brits have Marmite, so look at it like this. New Dexter. There you go.

Bad Lip Reading

One of the greatest Youtube channels at the moment is the sensational BadLipReading. As it sounds, a music video, film clip or political hype video (yep) has the original sound taken away and replaced by what it looks like they're saying. There are two wonderful things that work together to make sure this will stay a wonderful channel, in a sort of opposite vicious circle. A cuddly circle, if you will. Number one; these never get boring. Ever. You will find the next video just as funny as the last. Number two; there is pretty much endless material available for spoofing. Think of all the millions of hours available of people talking. This channel will go on forever, which makes this a glorious time to be alive.

Mitchell Monday: Problems and Challenges

David Mitchell helps you through life by assuring you that some things really are just crap. There's no way of spinning it positively. So stop trying. What, you think that makes you better than me? You wanna fight about it?! *draws line on floor with shoe, flees from newly formed shoe-line*

Page vs. Screen: The Shining

Many people like to think of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining as one the greatest creations of horror of all time. Honoured by casual movie watchers and critics alike, you'd be hard pressed to find a film that builds tension better, with excruciating dialogue and camera shots that hang...and hang...and hang. You start wondering after a while if the cameraman couldn't handle the tension and bailed. Yes, just about everyone holds The Shining in an understandably high regard. And by just about everyone, I mean anyone not named Stephen King. Said King believes the film fails to capture the intention and message he laid out in his 1977 novel named, aptly enough, The Shining. Arguments have been as bloody and distressing as a Colorado elevator, with both sides having merciless defenders. But which one's better? There's only one way to find out!

...analysing them both and making an informed, objective decision. That's the one way.

Terrifying vision, or a victim of SEGA's Blast Processing? You decide.

To help see what the difference is between the novel and the film, one has to really find what Stephen King finds wrong with the film, and why he considers it so much worse than his message. The 1977 book was, at its roots, a haunted house ghost story. Evil hotel wants a psychic kid for his power, possesses loving but vulnerable father in order to get kid, psychic kid uses psychic powers to defeat evil hotel. Obviously, the characters and motivations are far more complex than that, this isn't Eli Roth we're dealing with, but that was what it all boiled down to. By far the most interesting part of the book is the character of Jack Torrance, who is pretty hard to categorise in terms of what kind of character he is. He doesn't feel like a bad guy, at least not at the beginning. He's a flawed protagonist, a lovable rogue just trying to Go Straight and Get His Kids Back. The book doesn't pretend he doesn't have a dark side, far from it; it appears to lay all of its cards on the table, explaining Jack's alcoholism and violent past and, in turn, explaining why he's changed. What makes Jack's transformation truly disturbing, however, is how you stick with his perspective and his way of thinking throughout and, in what truly makes it feel creepy, it always makes some level of sense. Just as the hotel influences, seduces and eventually possesses Jack, it seems to possess both the author and the reader along with it. If you're not too careful, you might end up agreeing with everything Jack says, as he charges through the hotel corridors, swinging a splintered Roque mallet decorated with brain and gunk. Jack Torrance did bad things, but he isn't the bad guy in this story. The hotel is, and the book never forgets that.

The film disagrees.

For the movie adaptation, Kubrick and fellow screenwrtier Diane Johnson removed almost all of the supernatural elements found in the book. Really, the only ghosts you see at all in the film is in a bizarre montage near the climax, accompanied by Shelley Duvall looking like a fish that's been swatted out of the tank by the cat. In its place, much of the true evil in the story comes from Jack himself, which is where the criticism from Mr. King and his trusted followers is usually held up. Unlike in the novel, Jack always feels like an axe-wielding maniac, who just needs to be given an axe. Where in the book you might be screaming "COME ON JACK FIGHT IT HELP YOUR FAMILY ESCAPE" in the film, you're screaming "KILL HIM OLIVE OYL, STAB THAT CRAZY BASTARD RIGHT IN HIS BIG WEIRD FACE". It seems fair to say that at least some of this can be blamed on the performance of the great Jack Nicholson, who couldn't play a gazelle in a Dreamworks film about the animals of Africa entering a break dancing competition, perhaps called 'DJ, Rwanda Track' without making it seem sinister. Seriously, look at this face.

There isn't a single moment in this film where Jack Torrance feels like a good father. He starts off a borderline maniac, pushed over the edge by the isolation of the hotel. The hotel does sod all to him, really. It probably had a bunch of ways to convert Jack to evil planned, but nope, Nicholson just handles that shiz on his own.

And you know what? Despite it all, I actually prefer the film. Why? The story is stripped down to the bar minimum while still being scary. Kubrick wants a sense of isolation and tension, and the general lack of ghosts and outsiders helps maintain that. The film has much of what makes The Shining so famous. The twins in the hallway, the typewriter, the proclamation that Johnny is here, etc. As much as it detracts from Stephen King's envisioning of Jack Torrance, Nicholson still puts on an incredible performance, and while he can't do family lovin', there's no one better for pure crazy. The novel version of The Shining tells a great, creepy story with a lot to work with. The film version of The Shining tells a great, creepy story with barely anything to work with. For that, it gets the win.

BOOK OR FILM: FILM

Mitchell Monday: Compliments

I have a problem apologizing to people. It's one of my biggest flaws. Since as far back as I can remember, all my apologies have come off as forced, sarcastic and overly rehearsed, although, in fairness, they usually are at least one of those things. It's the main reason why I try and be a nice person. Not for the benefit of other people, but so I don't have to apologize later. Here's David Mitchell with the opposite problem; giving compliments.