From Nightmare on Elm Street to Heartless (an…uhhh…probably some others I expect…) our screens are currently boiling with the stench of sulpher and brimstone as faustian pacts are forged, ethereal barriers are broken down and nasty do-badders escape from the bounds of hell itself to inflict second-tier horror schlockers on our unwitting eyeballs -the Satanic rat bastards. Yep, Mephisto is definitely a guy who’s around for the long haul cinematically speaking, and while Heartless has Joseph Maul as a weird, voodoo-doing East End Devil, we’re sure there must be better ways to portray the one who walks backwards on screen. Oh, wait! There are! Yep, time to bathe in holy water, get Jim Caveizal round and hope it’s the power of Christ compelling us to sit through a bunch of shitty horror flicks, as we check out six of the best: Movie Satans!

1: Tim Curry: The Darkness (Legend)

Ok, so he goes by the name of The Darkness, but his clever disguise isn’t fooling us! One look at those three-foot long horns, fangs and bright red skin and we know exactly who we’re dealing with. Unfortunately for the erstwhile Frankenfurter, Curry’s decided to pick on the only being in existance more evil than he is – That’ll be Tom Cruise then. Still, scores extra devil points for his fantastically spooky arrival on screen; stepping out of a mirror. Well, a taxi doesn’t really scream ‘Prince of Darkeness’ does it? Easily the most evil appearence in Curry’s considerable repertoire (apart from the hotel manager in Home Alone 3 obviously).

2: Viggo Mortensen: The Prophecy

Frankly, the idea of turning up at the pearly gates only to find that chief angel Gabriel looks like Christopher Walken is pretty terrifying to begin with, but halfway through seminal (in every sense of the word) 90’s straight-to-video shocker The Prophecy, the one angel worse than the tap-dancing king of spooky arrives in classic form. He may spend about 5 minutes total on screen, but the evil Aragorn manages to steal the whole movie (and hey, this is a movie starring that guy who played the creepy new roommate Eddie in ‘Friends’ -Oscar-worthy talent indeed!) by dint of a few whispered words and an entirely odd approach to vegetarian dining. Altogether now: “I love you more than Jeeeessssuuussssss…”

3: The Beast: Krull

It’s not often that Satan turns his hand to filmmaking, but a twisted mephistophian deal is the only possible reason we can think of to explain the presence of Bernard Brasslaw, Todd Carty and Liam Neeson in the same film. In his favour, The Beast doesn’t really go with the whole ’subtle trickster’ thing Satan tends to be known for, instead he looks fucking terrifying, landing a bloody great mountain on top of people at random, eating and zombifying the locals as he sees fit, and ditching any kind of psuedonym in favour of the far more straightforward: The Beast! You can’t argue with a name like that. The fact that he’s the only guy here that resembles Mount Saint Helens only adds to his mystique.

4: Robert DeNiro: Angel Heart

Oh Satan, you wily, wily trickster you! How would any voodoo-loving 20’s New Orleansian see through a too-clever-by-half psuedonym like ‘Louie Cypher’. Yep, it’s credit to Mickey Rourke’s general punch-drunkenness that he and that Cosby show chick take the better part of three hours to work out exactly who they’re dealing with. Of course, it’s entirely possible they could just be on an awful lot of drugs -something the audience wishes it had thought of before they started watching Alan Parker’s ‘87 gloomathon.

5: Gozer: Ghostbusters

Technically more a duke (or in this case, duchess…also sailor…) of Hell than a genuine Satan, Gozer still makes the list thanks to a really fucking weird MO. Normally Satan prefers to plant seeds of dissension, get innocent nuns loved up with AntiChrist babies or posess small girls in rural Maryland. Not the Goz’ though. Sure she starts small -I for one would welcome a fridge demon that made me eggs in the morning and gave me a multi-hand massage in my favourite armchair, but it isn’t long before the lord of the Sebuliai decides to give up being a large and moving torg, don a bubble wrap disco suit, and show downtown how prehistoric bitches do things – blowing the tops off skyscrapers, turning people into dogs and eventually turning into a gigantic confectionery that gets its kicks from stepping on churches.

6: Clint Eastwood -High Plains Drifter

He hasn’t got a name, he hasn’t got horns, in fact, you’d figure the king of upper atmosphere would have slightly more to his name than a donkey and a moth-eaten poncho, but that doesn’t stop Clint from being the meanest Satanic allegory of the lot. Let’s face it, if you had all eternity to spare would you spend it buggering about the Utah salt flats goading villagers into shooting the crap out of banditos? Of course you would! Expertly riling the townsfolk without ever just coming out and telling them what to do, Clint squints, spits and cigarillo-smokes his way into their lives before dissapearing in a puff of ‘Channel 4 News’ theme music.

Whuh? Why the hell’s a movie site talkin’ about them thar readin’ books? Next they’ll be askin’ us to be a-learnin’ on our own time, an that thars aginst God’s own will boy.

Generally speaking, we’d much rather watch the movie than read it’s literary counterpart, I mean, since when did books have flashing colours, Robocop and the possibility of a Jenny Agutter shower scene? And let’s not forget, movies are done in 2 hours straight, while a book can take aaaaages to plough through, particularly if it’s the latest chapter in the Twilight series and you keep hurling it out of the window halfway through.

While all the above reasons are 100% true by us, there are a few paperbacks out there that haven’t yet received the Peter Jackson overhaul (not a euphamism), so the staff at STS decided to head to the local library and steal a few weighty tomes. Here’s what we came back with – it’s our: Top 5 Books That Should Be Movies!

1: Learn Swedish in Three Months.

put the chicken in the basket

You ever try to make a movie? Yeah, well let me tell you cadet, it takes years! It’s like goin’ to war -something the Swedish are notoriously reluctant to do. Seriously, when was the last time you heard that Stockholm’s finest had become embroiled in a land war in central Asia? Never, because the Swedes are by and large a bunch of placid (if sarcastic) herring lovers who’d rather pump out top-notch murder mysteries and erotic content than fire a cruise missile at Afghanistan. Let me tell you, you can’t make a movie in three months, but this one should be. Not only will it teach you how to climb glaciers and remain relentlessly optimistic even when the sun doesn’t rise for half the year, but it’ll also provide you with useful phrases. From the specific: “ Var är poolen?”, to the romantic: “Sätt choklad på Moose” and of course the all-purpose: “Det skulle vara en ekumenisk fråga “. With Kenneth Branagh in the Directors chair and Peter Skarsgaard in the lead, it’s the multi-lingual love-in with a cold hard edge (and mobile phone-based sub-plot) we’ve all been waiting for!

2: Modern Painters: John Ruskin

He is like piece of iron!

While the 19th Century original took Ruskin some seventeen years to pump out, there’s no reason why this can’t be turned into a 90 minute Dolph Lundgren straight to DVD actioner straight away. Consider the parallels: Ruskin’s book is an elegant criticism beginning as a defence of J.M.W.Turner, transforming into a meditation on the relationship art plays between God and man, while Dolph genrally plays characters with names like Jake Burner, and portrays the role of Grenades in sending men to meet God. Practically writes itself. Recently re-written for a modern audience by David Barrie – also known as First Secretary for the British diplomatic service, meaning it’s a piece of piss to shoe-horn in a Bourne-style MI6 rogue agent angle!

3:Photoshop CS4 in Simple Steps

no worries, we'll fix it in post...

Simplicity -like an educationally challenged man – crossed with cutting edge graphics. Lawnmower Man may have done it 20 years ago, but hey – that was shit. This is photoshop, which means this’ll be one movie that’s industry standard, chock-full of vector graphics, and is prone to freezing up for several hours at a moment’s notice! Of course, you could use the shortcuts to get to the end of the hopelessly contrived plot (Boy must impress girl with his artistic prowess, but becomes increasingly addicted to pimping out his Facebook profile instead) more quickly, but you’ll never bother to learn them will you? Available for home release in a variety of obscure formats that aren’t compatible with any known player!

4: The Necronomicon

Clive quickly realised the perils of ordering spaghetti on a first date

Hey, it’s already made several guest appearences in Evil Dead movies, not to mention a bunch of dodgy H.P.Lovecraft flicks, so isn’t it time this particular bound-in-human-skin piece of pure eeeeevil got to headline? According to Lovecraft, just reading an old copy would conjure phantasms more ghastly than the human mind could handle -just imagine a script like that in Uwe Boll’s hands! Normally when you emrege from the cinema the worst you have to contend with is the realisation that you’re covered in popcorn kernels -with the Necronomicon you’d be faced with an entire universe possesed by the many-angled ones! (To be honest, this may not be all that different to a regular Cineworld lobby)

5: Twilight: Eclipse. (CAUTION:SARCASM AHEAD)

Edward felt his heart stir beneath her boss-eyed gaze...

Unfortunately there’s no plot, character development or anything even remotely good about Eclipse, but that didn’t stop anyone making Wild Wild West, so why shouldn’t this be a movie too? To be fair, we doubt it’ll ever be made, it’s pretty tough getting a script through the Hollywood grinder at the best of times -even Indiana Jones 4 took years, and look how that turned out -so it’s hardly likely a fanatically religious, warped tale of peadophillic vampires and homosexual werewolves lovin’ up very boring, one dimensional underage girls (with added mopeds) will ever be seen on our screens, which is a real shame, because if there’s one thing missing this summer, it’s an overlong, piss-poorly acted bore-a-thon starring a clumsy oaf who resembles a transvestite crack whore and the world’s most forgettable leading actress -but hey, stranger things have happened!

If the worm is to believed, the Britain is ready for change. Even if it’s the sort of mind-numbingly boring change that involves paying an extra penny for fags in exchange for slightly more CCTV cameras being put up, but hey- at least Brown, Cameron and Clegg stayed on message, although personality-wise they could probably take a few pointers from these guys!Yep, we may have conviniently ignored both Big Ronnie Reagan and The Governator himself, but hey; these are still our top: Movie Politicians!

1: Greg Stilson – The Dead Zone

To be perfectly honest, I’d never vote for anyone, or indeed do anything at all if it pissed off Christopher Walken, but Martin Sheen’s man of the people act is doing a pretty good job of propelling him toward the White House in David Cronenburgs 83 Stephen King Adap. Pf course, we don’t have any psychics on hand to see if Gordon or David is planning to launch a nuclear attack on Brussels anytime soon, but the film still ranks highly as a warning about what happens when your leaders believe a little too strongly in their ideals.

2: Adenoid Hynkel – The Great Dictator

Charlie Chaplin finally decided it was payback time for Hitler stealing his moustache, with his first talkie, a searing attack on the idiocy of the extreme right wing. Along with advisers Garbitch and Herring, the leader of Tomenia is hell bent on bringing the world under his control, only hindered by his own hubris and predilection for making ridiculous speeches in public – so, exactly like our own government then.

3: Jesse Ventura – Abraxas

He may be a goddamn sexual tyrannosaurus, but even former spandex-clad man-grappler and on-again, off-again governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura couldn’t save the woeful pile of crap that called itself Abraxas (in fact it was so bad it didn’t even warrant a real trailer – this fan effort was the best we could find!). Big Jesse may be a dab hand at doing the capitol hill two-step, but here his muddled manifesto – dress up in silver lycra, bring law and order to the galaxy and stop a killer mutant loose on Earth – just doesn’t appeal to the average working class family.

4: Larry Vaughn – Jaws

As anyone growing up in a seaside town knows, the yearly influx of tourists is vital to the local economy, so who cares if one or two of the more nubile ones get their bubble-perms bitten off by a psychotic fish? Certainly not Mayor Larry, who lives up to the classical political ideal by putting money – and re-election – a long, long way ahead of human lives. Sorry Larry, but you’re gonna need a bigger vote.

5: President Scroob – Spaceballs

Honestly – who wouldn’t vote for Mel Brooks? Even if his ass is on backwards? Scroob spends most of the movie tempting an expense account scandal with his own supply of clean air and three in a bed romps with twins Marlene and Charlene, but when push comes to shove he’s the kind of leader who gets things done. How he ever justified spending all those tax dollars on a three hundred foot tall French maid is anyone’s guess though.

With Iron Man 2’s hype machine currently going into Scarlet Johannsen booby-shaped overdrive, it’s easy to think that inventors are a bunch of hyper-intelligent, supercool playboys cobbling together amazing doohickeys for the protection and betterment of mankind.

The movies have a long history of science-types saving the planet and coming up with amazing inventions to win the hearts and minds of us, the lowly viewer. Unfortunately, for every Tony Stark there’s a wet fart, with dozens of films full of half-assed ideas hewn from cardboard and clingfilm. Some are rubbish, some are stupid and others are downright dangerous!

Put on your safety goggles and stand behind the lead sheilding then, while we check out the top ten: Crap Movie Inventions!

1: The Cosmic Key – Masters of the Universe

What is it? A ‘universal resonator’ apparently..
What does it do? Allows Skeletor to launch a massive invasion of planet Earth! Unfortunately its an invasion force consisting of him, his girlfriend, three tanks and two gay bikers. Yep, that should see off the marines skeleton face.
Handily, the key also doubles as a parping 80’s synthesiser, allowing a young Courtney Cox the chance to dance her way across the universe to meet the key’s creator Gwildor.

A stinking Troll.

Bet she was hoping for Simon Le Bon.

2: The Proton Pack – Ghostbusters

Oh yes, very useful for seeing of the undead-if you believe in that sort of thing. What they’re also useful for is setting fire to your hotel lobby and threatening to detonate in the middle of New York City.

Hey, somebody call an exterminator? With an unlicensed nuclear accelerator strapped to his back?

Yes yes, it destroys Mr.Stay Puft, but are you seriously suggesting that a flamethrower and a giant glass of milk wouldn’t do the job? Stupid and irresponsible!

3: The Phantom Zone – Superman

Listen, I’ve got these three super-powered, murderous bastards with a pvc fetish yeah? Could you lock ‘em up? Thing is, they’re all strong enough to punch through the hull of a battleship-not sure if the county lock-up will handle it.. No problem! Let’s stick ‘em in..a brittle piece of plastic three feet across. Yeah, that oughta do it huh? Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ll fire them in the direction of a helpless, primitive world that can’t hope to stop them.

Cheers Jor-el, you dick.

4: Transporters-Star Trek

Scientist:
“Well, it doesn’t really work all that well, and it has a tendency to turn people inside out or make them go a bit Seth Brundle..I may have wasted my research grant to be honest…” Starfleet Admiral: “Ah I shouldn’t worry mate, what say we stick them on all our starships anyway, at massive expense to the taxpayer? I reckon someone will have figured out how to get the thing running in the next three or four hundred years right?”
A massive waste of public resources!

5: The Lightsaber-Star Wars

Oh yeah, that looks cool, and hey, it isn’t ‘as random or clumsy as a blaster’ so that’s nice. Available in a choice of colours too is it? Well that’s good then. It would be even more handy if we didn’t live in a world where being bombarded from orbit wasn’t a huge, constant threat. Not much cop against a star destroyer is it?

6:Robocop

So, you’re saying you blown our entire budget on a tincan with half a brain, paranoid schizophrenic tendencies and massive firepower? Nice one Dave. Collect your P-45 on the way out will you?

7: The BlameThrower – Mystery Men

Normally we don’t argue with Tom Waits around here, but as pacifist weapons designer Doc Heller in Ben Stiller’s oft-overlooked ensemble piece even we have to admit he’s bloody useless. Imagine if you can a device purposefully designed to make Janeane Garofalo and Pee-Wee Herman even more annoying! Not a patch on the cyclone-based hand grenade.

8: The Reanimation Formula – Reanimator

Yeah. Brings the dead back to life does it? And they’re obsessed with oral sex and eating people? Yeah sounds good Jeff. Dozens of applications I’m sure. Now why don’t you try on this comfy white coat while I make a quick phone call…

9: Skynet – The Terminator

Got me to thinkin’ sir, hows about we stick an advanced military application in the back of every software program sold since the early 80’s? Well, I was thinkin’ it would mean we’d have an autonomous, amoral machine running..well..everything in the world. With access to our most powerful and dangerous weaponry! Cost? Oh, probably about a trillion…yeah sure, I’ll email you some designs over now…what’s that? Go wrong? Erm…nah, nah it’ll be fine, if it does we can use those new Terminator things on it can’t we?

10: The Time Machine – Back to the Future

A Time Machine!? Wow! What a shame the Doc hasn’t got any fuel for it. And has to steal it from Libyan terrorists. And it’s stolen plutonium. And he hasn’t really wired the bloody thing up properly. And the only time it works properly is when it propels a dog one minute into the future. Bloody genius that is isn’t it?

Bloody rubbish the lot of them, and this is just the tip of the iceberg – Come on STS-ers, we know there’s more, but what are they? let us know!

After sweeping the boards at this years Oscars, Katheryn Bigelow could be forgiven for sitting back to enjoy her ex-husband baiting success and asking “Who do you have to blow up to get a Martini round here?”. Instead, word is that the former Keanu-wrangler is already on the lookout for new projects.

Being the helpful souls we are, Slashing the Seats thought we’d pitch a few suitable follow-up’s to help the Point Break helmer re-create this year’s success -and fulfill our obligatory Oscars coverage in the process!

Of course, we’ve only worked our way through half the alphabet while conjouring up this list of steaming awards-magnets. Have you got a better idea?

Can you think of any more vaguely rhyming knock-off versions of this years best picture (that in no way means I can palm this assignment off on you and still collect the royalty cheque)?

What do you want to see the first female best director do next? Let us know!

The Dirt Shocker

Wily gardener Robert Englund realises he’ll never win the local women’s institute ‘Britain in Bloom’ competition by simply talking to his begonias –he’s got to shock them into a growth spurt! Unfortunately the only terrifying disguise he can find is a bargain-bin Richard Nixon mask-meaning he’s mistakenly identified as a member of notorious bank robber gang The Ex-Presidents!
Warning: May contain scenes of extreme mulching.

The Burt Hocker

When Quinton Anderson Reynolds (Dom Deluise) returns from college to find his entire life savings have been spent on back issues of cosmopolitan by his senile father Burt there’s only one thing to do – use the old man’s prize-winning moustache to disguise himself as ex-US president William Howard Taft in a series of daring bank robberies…with hilarious results!

The Pert Knocker

A band of notorious bank robbers are hunted by the US Army Bomb Disposal Squad, but manage to distract them by flashing their boobs at every opportunity, whether the storyline demands it or not! Starring Steve Guttenberg.

The Squirt Rocker

Despite the vaguely pornographic title, this heart-warming rock n’ roll tale is sure to battle its way to awards season glory. Mickey Rooney tap-dances his way back into the limelight by mentoring a group of musically challenged little people on a musical odyssey as they attempt to land a big gig with their idols –midget rockers Little Kiss and Tiny Motley Crue! Unfortunately the only way the tiny performers can get the attention they crave is to hire the US Army to put on a huge and highly dangerous explosive stage show!

The Curt Cocker

Following the success of Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Bigelow follows the adorable misadventures of a very rude spaniel that doesn’t have the time of day for his owners –until he learns the value of true friendship when he’s adopted by the US Army as an explosives sniffer dog!

The Yurt Mocker

When their alternative neighbours Tom and Barbara Good decide to demolish their house and live in an eco-friendly tent, Tom and Margo Leadbetter are quick to laugh, but can only watch aghast as their own property value falls –prompting them to embark on a series of daring bank robberies disguised as ex-presidents. With bombs!

Seeing as The Dude himself recently saw fit to strap on a guitar and bash out a few maudlin country tunes in the Oscar-bothering Crazy Heart, cementing his place (We’ll forget about ‘The Fabulous Baker Boys for now…and forever) in an illustrious list of wandering minstrels who haven’t always managed to pluck the heart strings of the academy committee. We decided to open our ears to some new vibes, man, so join us as we update our spotify playlists with…the best musicians in movies!

1: Beethoven (1770 -1988- 1827 ) Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure

Essential Ipod:The 1812 Overture – by far the finest example of cannon-based Germanic shouting to emerge from the classical era.

Eschewing the obvious choice of Mssrs B&T themselves, we’ve instead gone with the big-barneted Düsseldorf madman with a passion for Bon Jovi. The film may conveniently ignore the fact that Ludwig was stone deaf at the time the two west coast time travellers meet him, but then, Beethoven biographer Theodore Albrecht entirely ignores his close friendship with Billy the Kid too, so we figure it’s even.

2: Nigel Tufnell (1948 – ) This is Spinal Tap

Essential Ipod: Big Bottom.The only tune containing the words ‘Mud Flaps’ you’re ever likely to need on that ‘first date playlist’.

He’s a conundrum is ol’ Nige. Somehow he’s survived the barrage of sex, drugs, exploding drummers and diminishing returns to come out on top with Wembley arena gigs, marriage to Trading Places-era Jamie Lee Curtis, a peerage and infinite sustain. Managed to make lick my love pump’s horn section sound like Mozart rogering Bach.

3: Radio Raheem (1970 – 1989)- Fight the Power

Essential Ipod: Fight the Power, incendiary and poignant, Public Enemy’s justly legendary album isn’t quite juvenile enough for us-fortunately there’s an all-swearing version of NWA’s similarly themed Straight Outta Compton that is!

Not a muso in the traditional sense, Radio still manages to entertain the inhabitants of a 12 city block area with ‘his kind of music’, and looks damn good doing it in his classic Nikes. The fact that his chosen instrument is a gargantuan boombox running on enough D Energizers to drain half the city that also manages to spark a riot and ultimately kill Raheem is testament to its profound musical power.

4: Pierce Brosnan (1953 – well, his singing career died in 2008 anyway ) Mama Mia

Essential Ipod: Mamma Mia (Karaoke Version)

Having had a pretty decent crack at Bond, Pierce proved it wasn’t just exotically-monikered Russian agents he could murder, wrapping his vocal cords around Abba’s monster hits with all the deadly effectiveness of Xenia Onatopp’s killer thighs. Those who thought the Swedish superstar’s dollops of pure pop were impervious to cover version harm stood on astounded as Mr.Brosnan threw caution and years of Remington Steele suavity to the wind in a few seconds, burping out his lines in the manner of a rutting wildebeest.

5: Huey Lewis (1950-1985-1955-1855-1985…) Back To The Future

Essential Ipod: Hip To Be Square. Huey displays remarkable self-awareness, having a sneaky go at his legions of 80’s MOR fans a full decade before Kurt managed the same trick with Nirvana’s In Bloom.

Displaying a sartorial style that almost matches the musical genius that bought us..erm…the harp solo in Thin Lizzy’s ‘Sarah’…Huey dons plaid sports coat and turns down Marty’s awful band The Pinheads, despite the fact that they’re playing one of his own songs. Huey was of course quick to capitalise on this early celluloid success, appearing in Duets a mere 11 years later and belting out some truly shocking karaoke numbers that only appear acceptable because his main competition is Paul Giamatti’s pig-like grunting.

Nick Rivers – Top Secret (1984/Sometime in the 40s, 50’s or possible 60’s…)

Essential Ipod: Skeet Shootin’. The Beach Boys were fine, but they never really grasped the unique pleasure to be had from surfing…while firing a 12-guage shotgun recklessly in the air. The fact that Nick captures this and still finds room for some squeaky-clean west coast harmonies proves his lasting appeal.

OK, so he may be derivative of Elvis and Little Richard, but you wouldn’t catch those guys dressing up as a pantomime cow to storm a castle, let alone order flaming hog’s balls at a state banquet. Displaying the kind of confidence – and massive bouffant -that will get you locked up in cold war East germany, Nick wastes no time in getting to know the guards…and recommending a massive anal vibrator to them.

The Oscars! Once a year, a bunch of hopeless weirdos get together and nominate the year’s worst movies to receive a foot-tall piece of plastic that’s been sprayed gold and give gushing three hour speeches. In the past few years the list of categories has grown so huge that the ceremony lasts approximately 6 weeks – just long enough for Steve Martin’s hourly rate to cover the HP on his Ferrari.

Anyway, because we are the best film site ever, we reckon we’ve ingested enough peyote to see into the future and predict who’s going to win, and because those fine purveyors of discount lovefilm memberships over at vouchercodes.co.uk are running a sweepstakes, we’re going to lay it on the line and go head to head with a few other sites that seem to think they know something about movies – even though not a single one of them has published a Jason Statham retrospective this year!

To make things simple, we’ve decided to ignore dorky categories like ‘Best Window Dressing’ and go with the big hitters –don’t agree? Why not you feckless dog? Well go on then, if you think you know better, tell us!

And the winners are…

Actress in a supporting role

Mo’Nique in Precious

Why? Well, she manages to outshine Maria Carey for one, and let’s face it, Penelope Cruz screeching and throwing her legs up in the air in Nine may have been more fun to watch, but hardly typified the method approach did it?

Actor in a supporting role

Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds

Why? We almost went with Matt Damon and his comedy Transvall accent in Invictus, but what kind of list would this be without at least one bingo playing, pipe-and-scenery chomping Nazi on it? Waltz is the best thing in a movie that features Brad Pitt ordering someone’s head to be stoved in with a bat -that has to be worth celebrating right?

Actress in a leading role

Carey Mulligan in An Education

Why? Frankly, we’d much rather see the lovely Miss Mulligan on stage in a sparkly dress than celebrate Meryl Streep’s bloody awful efforts this year, and although British films never, ever win anything we live in hope…

Actor in a leading role

Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart

After menacing Iron Man on a segway, The Dude got serious for once this year, leaving his lightcycle at the door and churning out a powerful character study that actually made us appreciate country music – for about 5 minutes, then it was back to the Pantera albums – Jeff’s often been overlooked by the Academy so he deserves to shine this year. And hey, would you really want to see George Clooney up there again?

Animated feature film

Up (Pete Docter and Bob Peterson)

Why? Where The Wild Things Are doesn’t count, and to be honest we were a bit unsettled by Fantastic Mr.Fox, so let’s grasp the obvious and go with the latest and probably greatest from Pixar – if only for the talking dog.

Directing

The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)

Why? Tarantino is slowly disappearing up his own mixed metaphors with Inglourious, and Avatar may look great, but it’s as much about typing HTML as it is about directing – Bigelow meanwhile continues to make great, traditionally crafted movies -and fill them with massive kick-ass explosions, meaning she’s the girl for us!

Writing (original screenplay)

A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)

Why? Again, Quentin was a little too obvious this year, while the Brothers Coen crafted a witty, dark and engaging movie that reigned in the trademark obtuse dialogue from their earlier work and came out smelling of roses.

Best picture

A Serious Man (Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, producers)

This won’t win. We actually think that honour will pass into the off-world paws of a certain biggest movie ever, but frankly – effects aside – Avatar just isn’t that great a film. A Serious Man on the other hand is a textbook example of tight plotting and storytelling, full of fantastic red herrings and fun wordplay that really counts. Sure there aren’t as many exploding helicopters, but if it’s a genuine film you want to see win here then this is your baby.

Art direction
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (art direction: Dave Warren and Anastasia Masaro; set decoration: Caroline Smith)

You’d forgotten about this one hadn’t you? Yep, so had we -we were all distracted by the acres of lingerie on display in Nine, but for sumptuous indulgence Imaginarium wins hands down -and it’s a choice bound to be bouyed up by sentiment for a certain ex-Joker so don’t write this off…

Cinematography

The Hurt Locker (Barry Ackroyd)

Why? Ka-Boom!!! That’s why! Desert vistas, bullets singing as they whizz past your face and constant adrenalin being payed off in spades with some massive rumbling explosions. The Hurt Locker took the ‘red wire or blue wire’ moment, stretched it over 2 hours and added in the sweeping desert vistas of Laurence of Arabia – gorgeous and scary as hell.

Music (original score)

Avatar (James Horner)

Make no mistake, Avatar is going to win big this year. Unfortunately for Cameron, it isn’t a character study of one woman’s struggle to come to terms with the death of her missing pony, set against the backdrop of the Hindenberg disaster, so the often snooty Academy probably won’t go the whole hog and award a cartoon Best Picture -leaving music and tech categories. In this case it outdoes the weird indie of Mr.Fox and presents a masterclass in rumbling strings and cat in closet jumpy orchestration – not since Terminator has Cameron had a soundtrack as ruthless and unstoppably stirring. Which just leaves…

Visual effects

Avatar (Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R Jones)

To be honest, we’d rather Star Trek won this, but there’s simply no arguing with a helicopter taking on a six-legged giant lizard is there? Not to mention the vaguely-arousing thought of Sigourney Weaver with a tail. Avatar beats the competition hands down.

So, that’s our two-penneth worth, but we know we have the most educated, erudite and discerning – not to mention good looking – readership in blogsville, so we want your predictions as well, let us know if we’re right or if we’re wrong –this is important; if we’re wrong on this, we’ll never win that voucher for a half price Sloppy Giuseppe!

Thanks to watching Hausu last week, STS has curtailed our planned Japanese vacation in favour of somewhere less likely to cause loss of control over bowel functions. Instead, the staff have decided to head west this year in search of some sun – but where to stay when we get there? Luckily the movies have plenty of suggestions– we checked through the brochures down at Kubrick’s Travel in order to find the perfect holiday location – we’re checking in, so why not join us and check out: The Best Movie Hotels!

Bates Motel – Southern California (Psycho)

Combining beautiful views across Godforsakenville, southern california, with a mouldering smell and cramped prefab cabins, The Bates Motel is steeped in 50’s authenticity that’s been carefully preserved thanks to a recent makeover, but its on service that this place really wins out. We found our host to be considerate but unobtrusive, demonstrating our room’s luxury bathroom features for our benefit, while the kitchen was impressively equipped (with knives anyway). When we did uncover a problem-a case of woodworm in the bathroom wall by the looks of things, he wasted no time in reporting our concerns directly to the management.

The Overlook Hotel – Colorado (The Shining)

Perfect for a quiet getaway, the impressively situated Overlook is a hidden gem that’s perfect for couples or family holidays. Children will delight in exploring the seemingly endless corridors-we were often met with requests to come and play-while access is via a unique ’snow ramp’ leading to the extensive, maze-like gardens. Ideal for a family holiday or a working break.

Bernie Lomax’s luxury villa , Rhode Island (Weekend at Bernies)

Despite its exclusive position in upscale Block Island, the rates at Bernie’s were astoundingly low, our host waving away our concerns about the bill. In the day he’d often join us as we lounged around the pool, but still found time to organise some great evening events, while moonlit strolls on the beach were accompanied by displays of Caribbean-style dancing. Perfect for that weekend getaway.

Heavenly Havens – Mega City One (Judge Dredd)

Stopping off in the Big Meg as we returned from our Aspen retreat, we were concerned that Heavenly Havens didn’t match our brochure pictures – we’d been looking forward to enjoying the roof-top pool – luckily we were soon made to feel at home by the many colourful other guests. Engaging in friendly rivalry with a similar nearby establishment, Havens boasts a unique automated catering service, an extensive shooting gallery for the outdoor sports fan, and a security service that’s second to none.

Biff Tannen’s Pleasure Palace, Hill Valley. (Back to the Future Part II)

Where once a dilapidated courthouse stood, a symbol of the equally dilapidated notions of truth and justice, America’s greatest living folk hero saw fit to erect this monument to those altogether more interesting bastions of society: Gambling and Hookers! Why not roa around the loud, tartan-clad museum, or head to the roof for a hot-tub threesome and some gun practice?

The Mint – Las Vegas (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)

It may be a faceless linoleum nightmare, but this is one place where service really counts. If you’re a drugged-up counter-cultural icon anyway! If you’re a law-enforcement official you may want to double check your booking, but for the more scurrilous holidaymaker, feel free to keep ordering room service even when you’ve flooded the lounge of your suite with vodka. Hey, Rolling Stone is paying for it right?

Fig 1: Not Wearing Any Pants Under Here....

Movie heroes – you wish you were like that right? Kicking ass and taking names? You’d be so cool wouldn’t you?
Well, actually, no you wouldn’t. You’d be a boorish dickweed.

We’re not even talking about slimy Matthew Mconaughey rom-com assholes here either, in fact it seems that the cooler you look on-screen, the more of a spaz you’d be in real life. Men hate them, women can’t wait to escape them – we consider how well your big screen archetypes would cope in real life and quickly discover they’d be useless twats…

Han Solo

Oh sure, Han seems cool doesn’t he? With his flashy spaceship, hanging out with Billy Dee Williams. But seriously, would you hire him to tarmac your driveway? He turns up wearing skinny jeans and a waistcoat-attire completely unsuitable for manual labour- with an obviously intimidating ‘friend’, and demands half the cash up front. Then as soon as the cops wander past he drops the job halfway through, and when you go to complain, he shoots you!

Tyler Durden

So, you meet this geezer on a plane and make a bit of polite chat. Hey, you’re going to be sitting together for four hours – you might as well get along right? What does this charity-shop clad underwear model do? He rips into you for making a bad joke, forces you to give him all your cash, gets you involved with criminals, and steals your girlfriend! Got a problem with that? He and his fat friends will blow up your house- actually blow it up over a difference of opinion. What an asshole.

James Bond

In he stalks, all expensive suits and hairplugs. “Fancy a beer mate?” You politely enquire. No, he wants a fucking martini. He critiques your taste, despite having none of his own – if he’s not going on about his bloody Omega watch or his Aston, it’s “that’s as bad as listening to The Beatles – without wearing earmuffs”. You grin and bear it until he leaves, which he does – by kicking a hole in your kitchen window after drowning your French exchange student in the kitchen sink. Let’s face it, he’s a complete cock.

Bruce Wayne

“Oh, I don’t think finding a table for me and the two Eastern European prostitutes I’ve bought to a formal dinner with my estranged girlfriend will be a problem – I own the hotel.”

What a complete wanker.

John McClaine

So, he’s stalking his estranged wife across the country when there’s a hostage situation downtown. What does Johnny boy do? He’s a policeman remember, so he should know to keep quiet and negotiate. Nope. Despite the fact there’s a hundred innocent people at risk, he punches a guy in the throat and starts firing a gun in the air, blatantly putting everyone at risk. When the authorities arrive, he blasts a gun in the air at them, swears in front of children, drinks heavily and racially abuses people outside their own homes. No wonder his kids hate him.

Hitler! Stalin! Ming The Mercyless! Names that live on in the annals of infamy. There’s no denying it; people love a good villain, and remember them too! So why are so many of them..well… a bit shit? We run through some of cinema’s baddest muthas and discover that they really aren’t all that great! In fact, most filmic menaces are a bunch of yakkety idiots with nothing better to do – it’s The Worst Villains In Cinema!

1: The Terminator

It’s from the future, it’s been built to kill you.And it absolutely will not stop, until you are dead. Except it does. The shiftless layabout.
The problem with sending a machine to secure the victory of machines is that it couldn’t give a rat’s ass. Instead the big ol’ T-101 spends most of the movie alternating between cruising The Strip’s alternative nightlife -makes sense for a leather-clad Austrian I guess- and booking itself into seedy hotels. Would you let a room to a one eyed death machine? You would? Classy establishment you’re running there pal.

2: The Kurgan – Highlander

Long before it descended into pony-tailed Afro-Cuban stupidity, Highlander was pretty good. If you ignored the accents. And the villain. Sure big Vik looked the part, stalking about with a misshapen head and a cloak made from pig parts, and he talked a good fight-hi, I’m candy. Of course you are- but that’s about it. He spends pretty much the entire running time driving about with a queen 8-track glued to the stereo. Even when he does meet the Belgian Scotsman Macloud, he hangs out, gibbering like a loon and vaguely annoying nuns by putting his feet on the furniture.
Eventually Lambert’s squinty face annoys him enough for a fight…and he’s shit. Waving a bloody great cleaver about at 2 miles an hour-hardly Darth Maul is he? Speaking of which…

3: Darth Vader

Hi, I’m Darth Vader, an evildoer with an entire star fleet at my back and call. I’m also your dad. And despite my troops knowing where you were, it still took me two whole movies to mention it. Commitment issues? Or just a bureaucratic bigwig who couldn’t organise a nun shoot in a church? Basically he’s taken a leaf out of the ‘let’s sit in a big chair and hope it all goes alright’ management style of his boss.
Bloody useless, and never polishes his helmet to boot.

4: Nero – Star Trek 2009

Ok, so he’s been in the new Trek universe for…oh, about 25 years right? Hanging about on the edge of space in a massive super-advanced spaceship that could kick the entire Federation’s collective ass. And he knows where both Vulcan and Earth are. So what does he do? He stays there.
“oh…I’m…erm…waiting for Spock…” he mumbles. Waiting for Godot more like. And when he finally does turn up he hasn’t even the wit or grace to come up with a properly scary opening line, instead going with: “Hello Jim”. Hardly Hamlet is it?
Let’s face it, he’s shit.

5: The Humugous – Mad Max II: The Road Warrior

Well, he looks intimidating enough, with his weird lumpy head and overpumped bodybuilder physique. But what does he actually do? Bugger all that’s what. He sits in his shiny penis extension dragster, shouting about horror and petrol and shaking his fists, and then lets the perverted idiots following him around do all the hard work. Surely ‘can steer a car a bit’ isn’t really a qualification for leadership is it? Utterly useless, and unattractive with it!

6: The Velociraptors –Jurassic Park

Well, they’re mean and green which is a good start, and with those claws and pointy teeth you’d think they’d be classic villain material. Except…why the hell are they bothering? Apparently they’re super-smart pack hunters, hell bent on gobbling up Laura Dern et al, and we sympathise. But why, on an island full of pig-thick lumbering meat factories, would they choose to relentlessly pursue the only prey with a PHD and opposable thumbs? There’s no point, meaning theses guys rank as vicious little twerps –the giant monster version of a pack of Chavs.

These are the worst offenders, but we know there’s a ton more out there – do you think Sean Pertwee from the atrocious Equilibrium should have qualified? Maybe you find the Joker about as menacing as a small kitten in a knitted purple suit? Let us know!

Plenty of ‘Best Movie of the Decade’ lists have crawled out of the woodwork lately but luckily we were too lazy to bother – for the record, I’m torn between Aqua teen Hunger Force Colon , City of Ember and The Sasquatch Gang – but that didn’t stop plenty of other, lesser movie sites pumping them out like Roger Ebert’s ill-born spawn. ( Filmschoolrejects even went as far as compiling a list of every movie of the decade. And missed about 50,000 movies -good list though.)

Anyway, it seems that all these critical shenanigans created enough raw data to be fed into the cold, cash-centric crystal mind of a robocritic and create a mathematical equasion that reveals the definitive best movies of the decade.
Apparently hollywood.com staffer C.Robert Cargill wasn’t satisfied with mere opinions, deciding instead to back his shit up with cold hard facts. Well, you can prove anything with facts can’t you?

According to this droning boredom leper:

In a vain attempt at a public display of futility, I have compiled a list of the TOP TEN FILMS OF THE DECADE as they were seen at the end of the decade. Here’s how I did it: I began with the box office grosses of each film – after all, this list needs to take public opinion into account. If everyone saw a particular movie, there had to be something really great going on, right? But as you’re already thinking to yourself, box office numbers isn’t going to cut it. So I created something I call the “Critique Modifier.” Using Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, I created a percentage by averaging the RT Freshness score with the IMDb user ratings of the 50 highest-grossing films of the 2000s. For example, if a film had an 8.0 user rating, that became an 80 and was averaged with its Freshness rating (in this case, let’s say 70), to get it Critique Modifier of 75 percent. Then I simply multiplied the percentage against the domestic box office (foreign audiences tend to favor visuals and cannot hear bad acting – thus I left it to the native language speakers).

Jesus Christ, he sounds like a laugh riot doesn’t he? So basically:

RT / IMDB x (+/-)£% = Cinematic Genius!

And the winners are:

Iron Man
Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
Finding Nemo
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man
The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Shrek 2
The Dark Knight
Avatar

This list is rubbish and boring, and contains neither little-seen Tom Waits comedy The Wristcutters, or any of the Transporter films, and proves what a bunch of boring dipshits the average theatre audience are. Anyway, should settle arguments down the pub.

Despite all our bright eyed looking to the future lately, here at STS we’re still a bunch of miserable old bastards – a fact resolutely hammered home by the recent news that Jackie Chan is now old enough to play Mr.Miyagi. The greatest Martial artist of our youth – after China O’Brien – reduced to playing a wrinkly Yoda analogue. Add to this the fact that he’s accompanied by Jaden Smith -meaning The Fresh Prince is old enough to have a son -and we can almost hear the undertakers sizing us up as we dodder down the street.

Now, other blogs might try to age with dignity, but inspired by Jackie, we’ve decided to fight the ageing process to the death, and in order to take out such a dastardly opponent, we’ll need the finest martial arts movie makers can possibly conjure! If you made it through that convoluted opening paragraph then you might just be tough enough to check out The Greatest Movie Martial Arts!

Fuk Yu – So I Married An axe Murderer

Despite it’s odious reputation as a predecessor to Mike Myers predilection for terrifyingly bad Scottish accents, this mid 90’s rom-com does have one major plus -the ancient Scottish fighting style Fuk Yu. According to the DVD notes, it includes biting, headbutting your opponent and -in the event of a tie -drinking them into submission, and if falling asleep outside in Scotland doesn’t kill you, the art’s main weapon will – the deadly under-cooked haggis.

Rex Kwan Do – Napolean Dynamite

Bow To Your Sensei!!You think Rex goes home to Starla every night because he’s a pussy? Hell no, he’s come up with possibly the most useful fighting style in the world – mainly consisting of kicking people in the head when they mock your unnecessarily roomy trousers. Hey – it’s basically an excuse to punch out those weaker or more geeky than yourself; what’s not to love?

Bending -Avatar, The Last Airbender

If you’re going to practice something called bending, you’d better be pretty damn tough. Apparently each form of bending – I can’t believe I spend my time writing things like this by the way – is based on a real martial art, but I don’t recall Tai Chi ever giving me the ability to flood the city with a giant tidal wave or control a monstrous bison – and not for lack of trying I can tell you.

Robot Jox.

Imagine,if you can, a world where massive demilitarization has taken place. Not an explosive device for a hundred thousand miless in any direction. Now imagine you have access to a 20 metre high robot with missiles on it.

That knows Kung-Fu.

And tell me you wouldn’t be running the show. Despite attempting to make jockeys cool-by adding an ‘X’ to their name- and an 18 rating, Robot Jox still spawned a legion of tiny 90’s fanboys that saw it through 2 laclustre sequels – surely we’re due a J.J.Abrahms reboot soon? Anyway-it’s got giant robots beating each other up!

Shaq-Fu.

Ok, technically not a movie, but Shaq himself was in z-list superhero flick Steel so I’m putting it in anyway – unless you have a better source of basketball-based asskickery equipped with the worst fight interface ever designed?
I thought not.
There’s no other way to say it – Shaq-Fu is shit,but it’s also fucking ridiculous,which counts for a lot round here – head on over to www.saveshaq-fu.com and snag a copy(Sega version natch)before rival www.shaqfu.com destroys them all forever!

Kirk-Fu.

In a list already high on Fu, you’ve got to have something special to stand out, and this combination of of double-axehandles, side kicks and snap-punching women in the face at close quarters has it in spades. Combines an…unusual..uniform (corset, toupee and a requirement that you rip your shirt off and shout ‘Khaaaaaaaaannn!!!’ Half way through the bout) with some exotic weaponry (a rock), and gives us yet another excuse to play the clip above. Take her down Tiberius!

Gunkata.

Remember the trailer? Equilibrium looked great didn’t it? All high kicking Matrix-ey moments foreshadowing Bale’s Batman nicely, unfortunately wrapped around a movie where Sean Pertwee is the villain. Admittedly Pertwee does come from a line of skilled martial artists (his dad knew Venusian tai-bo or something similarly crap in Dr.Who anyway) but the dvd had the right idea-it included a skip to fight function so you could avoid all the gobbledegook and get straight to a fighting style built entirely around figuring out the best possible angle to shoot someone in the face from. Fuck yeah!

Baritsu.

Sherlock Holmes’ preferred method of asskickery, recently bought back to our screens by ‘consider yourself our mate’ Ritchie. Although it might just be a mis-spelling of bartitsu. Apparently its a Japanese form of wrestling, which we assume means its great during the week but loses its sense of balance on a friday night. Anyway, it’s good to see a man in a deerstalker taking out twenty hoodies, and hey – it filled up the list didn’t it – don’t judge me you filthy pigs.

Matrixsu.

Ok, so I made the name up, but when it comes to beating people up it doesn’t get much better than a martial art where you can do pretty much anything. Wall between you and your opponent? Punch through it! Opposisition winning? Fly away! Fulfils every adolescent boy’s power fantasies while showcasing a gobsmacking lack of imagination – if Neo can do anything, why not just make Smith’s head explode? The sequels might be shit,but they did add yet more giant robots into the mix -you can’t go wrong!

Roddy Piper super punchout! – They Live.

Its boxing see. But each round takes place in an alleyway. And lasts 25 minutes. And basically boils down to two men punching each other repeatedly in the face, before finally giving up and going down the pub.

Oh-and they kill some aliens on the way.

Can you think of a more manly form of pugilism?

Well, I definitely left out The Force to annoy you-but can you think of any other’s that would beat this lot? We’re throwing down the guantlet -dare you accept our challenge you big wuss?

3D movies are all the rage right now, mainly because they’re a hell of a lot more difficult to pirate than regular ones. Yep, Hollywood’s money men are running scared, convinced that the death of cinema is upon us. It isn’t of course – where else can you get nachos covered in what can only be described as electric cheese, costing £32 and served to you by a fat, spotty urchin with his finger in his ear? Culinary delights aside however, there is something to be said for staying at home – the main one being you don’t have to put up with the following group of bottom feeders. Yep, we hate them too – it’s the top dickheads you meet at the movies!

Giant Man and Medusa.

Clash of the Titans première aside, there is absolutely no need for these f**kers to be in a cinema ever – in fact given their brobdingnagian proportions it’s amazing thy even fit in the building in the first place. Giant man is obnoxiously tall -at least 6′11”. He has a huge wide mouth and a huge wobbly belly. All through the movie he will scarf down popcorn, shooting it out all over the place while timing his massive, continental movements to maximise getting in your way. Accompanying him is his wife, the terrifying Medusa. Only Marge Simpson knows how she gets hair that high – topping out Giant Man even though she’s only 5′3” herself. Her massive, hulking haystack hair resembling a gamma-irradiated Farah Fawcett on a rampage of get-in-the-way-lyness. Stay at home you awkward bitch!

Captain Pisspants and The Urinator.

One hero, one villain – both complete bastards. Sure, we all buy a bucket of sticky orange substance that purports to be a beverage and guzzle it before the main feature even starts – its the law. But most of us don’t see the need to fly around the cinema every five minutes for three hours. The hero tries not to bug you, sliding slowly along the row in front or behind and whispering “’scuse me, thanks..’scuse me…thanks” in an insipid sotto voice that carries the length of the auditorium. The Villain? He decides its his weak-bladdered right to march up and down the aisle every thirty seconds -or if he’s a lady go to the toilet in groups – Captain or Ms.Pisspants can’t sit still for ten minutes, let alone the whole of Return of the King. Cineworld take note: Only compulsive, intrusive bladder-measuring apparatus at the door of every multiplex can stop them and we demand it now!

The Literati.

Why bother watching a film when you can read a nice book instead? Of course, if you really like the book, and it’s a bit shit, then chances are 80 Million other people will read it too -meaning you can all go and see the film adaptation together! And then you can sit all the way through it muttering “he doesn’t look right” or ” they cut out the bit where Snape and Edward turn out to be lovers”. In fact, you can moan that they haven’t crammed every single bit of purple prose from a 3000 page monolith into 3 hours of film. And the end was wrong. And it was too long. It’s like a book discussion group, except you get to discuss the book with people who couldn’t FUCKING CARE LESS THAT YOU’VE READ A CHILDREN’S BOOK.

You don’t have to have an annoyingly loud laugh to be here..but it helps!

Hey-have you never heard a single joke in your life? Why not come and sit next to me during a movie you moron! I bet you’d love anything by the Wayans Brothers, oh, that Rob Schneider, he’s amazing – that’s where you belong. But no, no Adam Sandler for you eh? You’d rather sit next to me and giggle at Dr.Manhatten’s cock wouldn’t you? You tit.

LOUD NOISES!!!

Mmmm, extra-large fizzy drink..sure is good isn’t it? It’s just a shame it’s hard to get the last of it..better use a straw..a straw that makes a FLLLLLRLRRPPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRP noise when ever you plant your blubbery lips around it. Why not set that drink off with some crisps or nachos? Although people were looking at you when you made that slurping noise..best chew them…really….really slowly. The fact that you’re doing it with your mouth wide open won’t matter will it? What’s that? The drink was too cold and now you’ve got a cough/runny nose? No worries, just cough all the way through and blow your nose 56 times. As loudly as possible. And don’t worry about the calories, just jiggle up and down in your seat until you’ve burnt off that energy. You annoying f**ker.

It’s for you-hooooo!

Please turn off your phone during the performance. Hey, it’s only been blared at you from a 40-foot wide device specifically designed to impart information in the most intrusive way possible – no wonder you missed it. And hey-while it’s on, you might as well have a really fucking loud Bollywood remix as a ringtone right? And why not get Steph, Trace, Mandy, Jooles and peaches to give you a buzz so you can say “Yeah yeah I’m in film..I dunno..the images of doctor pomegranite or something..yeah yeah I’m well getting’ the evils now…” Occasionally It’s for you-hoooo will get the message and not answer. Instead she’ll sit next to you making clickyclickyclicky noises because, like Trish jst dmped Baz like wos well out of order innit. Fortunately she can be easily silenced. By chopping off her hands.

The Spod Couple.

Nowt wrong with taking the other half to see a movie -chick flicks are popular, you can hold hands and share popcorn while Matthew McConoughey oozes across the screen and content yourself with the thought that you might get some later on. Or you can be one half of The Couple. These professional asswipes will usually be just behind you. “Hey, I can’t see them – what’s the problem?” I hear you ask. Well, how about the variety of sucking, licking, sighing and slurping noises coming from behind you for two hours while these two rutting simpletons try their level best to congeal into a single amorphous annoyance, doing so loudly enough to drown out Arnie blowing up a fuel depot on screen. Call the manager and have them ejected immediately, lest they mate and menace future generations of cinema goers with their horny, gormless offspring

I’m Sorry, I missed that.

In recent years, cinema sound systems have been proven to produce more decibels than a Saturn V rocket launch. Despite this, it’s still possible to miss the odd line -luckily cinema’s see fit to employ this useful village idiot to sit through an entire movie and repeat every single line a split second after the characters on screen. Not content with mere dialogue, he’ll also slip in scene descriptions, and even helpfully read out subtitles – he’s your very own slightly-out-of-time podcast. How very thoughtful of him. I’m Sorry I missed that is also available at Star Wars screenings in a special ‘psychic’ version -who will speak the lines a split second before they appear on screen, which really helps the dramatic tension. Show him how much you appreciate his efforts -choke him to death with a cheap cinema hotdog.

It’s January, and unless you’re a citizen of Guam, it’s bloody freezing outside. What better time of year to stay in, order a huge pizza and rent a movie?

Despite the demise of Blockbuster, it seems plenty of people are too technologically retarded or just plain honest to steal movies off the internet, with Netflix, Lovefilm and those weird coinstar things you see in the mall all doing great business.

So, Friday night and you’re renting a movie -what’s it gonna be? Maybe a piece of classic Hitchcock suspense? How about some arty Kirosowa? Of course not -you’ll be renting absolute shit -And we have the figures to prove it!

Here, for your edification – god knows you need it based on this list – are the top five rental movies of 2009. You should be ashamed!

5:Knowing

Nick Cage’s shambolic, vaguely religious, vaguely idiotic numbers-based apocothon. Ask your friends -I bet they’ve never seen it either. Only They Have – the bloody liars. Watching a bewigged southerner snuggle up to a Star Wars handmaiden while the Earth gets burnt to a crisp isn’t my idea of a good time, but still appealed heavily to the home movie crowd. The ruddy fools.

4: Gran Torino

Now, this isn’t so bad is it? A little bit of class from the Man With No Name. If Reagan were still in office it would probably have bagged the top spot with it’s tale of TRUE AMERICAN HEROES F**K YEAH!!! becoming quite crotchety because of the goddamn commie gangs ruling the ‘hood..er..or something. Anyway, it’s not bad if you like stereotypes and classic cars – which you obviously do!

3: Taken

Continuing the ‘Shit Star Wars Character’ arc, Liam Neeson manages to find away to look even more ridiculous than he did in Excalibur, with a leather jacket that makes him look more Nick Cotton then Tyler Durden and just enough action movies to…wrongfoot an elderly French Gendarme…Taken sticks plot in the bin and concentrates on showing us slightly too many shots of teenage drug addicts in their underwear – surprisingly, the majority of renters for this were boys in their late teens.

2: The Proposal

Unfortunately not the episode of Animorphs with the same name – although that would have shown more critical nous from the viewer Nope, this is an uninspired Rom Com with Van Wilder being sexually harassed by Sandra Bullock – here playing a bigoted old shrew. Forced marriage and prejudice – sounds like a recipe for success right? Remember when Demolition Man came out and you thought Bullock was sexy? Yes you do.

1: Paul Blart – Mall Cop

Yes really. And don’t pretend you aren’t personally responsible. The King of Queens is possibly the only sitcom ever to plumb depths lower than Everybody Loves F**King Raymond and when the fat arsehole responsible gets his own shit movie you love it. Honestly, a fat man rides around on a Segway and rakes in $219Million, while no-one bothers to go and see Let The Right One In. Proof positive that your average movie fans are stupider than a nest of pigs, and a sure sign of the coming apocalypse. Look on this trailer ye cinema goer, and despair!!

After spending New Years Day cleaning what, for argument’s sake, we’ll assume was mud mixed with chewing gum off the office floor, we finally had time to carry on checking out all the new movies crawling out of the toilet to infect your eyeballs like refugees from an early Cronenberg movie in the new year. Yep, it’s part two of our craptabulous round up of the biggest, worstest flicks of 2010!

6: The A-Team

The group ‘convicted of a crime they didn’t commit’ have been updated from Vietnam to the far less interesting Iraq War, but otherwise everything from Hannibal’s cigar to Murdoch’s hat is present and correct – look at this picture, Liam Neeson looks aces doesn’t he? Unfortunately, like everything ever made in the 80s, the A-Team was a load of crap, so expect to see whatsisface from The Hangover driving a cabbage-firing tank at some terrorists intent on taking over a suspiciously attractive girl’s farm in Wyoming and tell me that you think it’ll be cool. You idiot.

7: Twilight: Eclipse

To be honest I only stuck this piece of shit in here so that extra teenage girls would check out the site. Unfortunately they’ll all be chaste Mormons so it won’t do me any good. Not satisfied with pumping out two steaming loaves of vampiarrhoea, the studio money-sharks couldn’t resist farting out yet more of Stephanie Meyer’s absolute crap into your eyeballs. Expect a weird, borderline paedophilia love triangle and strong anti-feminist messages. Also expect girls with IQ’s lower than their pet Chihuahuas to love it, and for it to be a big pile of pigtarded claptrap.

8:The Expendables

Sly and the boys hide their bus-passes and stagger about in the jungle blowing shit up. Fuck yeah!

9:The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Both preceding Narnia films were badly put together shambles that not many people bothered to see, and those that did bother – didn’t like. So, sounds like a good idea to make another one doesnt it? Siblings Lucy, Edmund, Rudolph, Prancer, Frankenstein and Dopey head back to the slightly boring mystical land to fanny about on a ship with big bad brooding Ben Barnes, Eddie Izzard is oh-so-hilarious as an annoying mouse that would make Willy Wonka vomit, and Fox happily flush their cash down the Dawn Treader’s bilges for no apparent reason. Heaven’s Gate!

10: The Three Stooges

Probably not one for the ladies, as the Farrely brothers give Benicio Del Toro a bowl cut and provide plenty of wish fulfillment by pushing Sean Penn down a flight of stairs and smacking Jim Carrey in the face with a plank. With hilarious consequences.

Well, we have hangovers to re-enforce, so we’ll take a short break, but join us again shortly for part three, where we might even slip in a couple of films worth seeing (don’t count on it though)!

A brave new decade awaits us, and what better time for Hollywood to face the future and bring us a bright movie going tomorrow?

Not that it’ll happen of course. Yep, Back To The Future part II predicted that this will be the decade when Max Spielberg steps up to the plate with his 3D Jaws XX, but the STS magic 8-Ball tells us there’s far, far worse than that to come.

Strap on your blinkers and pretend it’s all ok – over the next week we’ll bring you a comprehensive guide to all the ‘fun’ heading your way in 2010 – duck and cover for part one of our cut-out-and-break-your-computer guide!

1: Green Hornet.

Or: Who F***ing Cares? Learning absolutely shit-all from The Spirit, Seth Rogen decides that not only is he all serious and stuff after the awful Funny People, he’s an action hero too! Yep, he sure looks the part, the tubby f***er. Nothing says exciting crime fighter like a gut in a two-piece with a lone ranger mask does it? Add to this the fact that the original series was a load of ill-plotted, rambling, unfunny oh-so-wacky-hey-kids-it’s-the-ker-azy-60’s-man garbage, and Green Hornet is all set to be the biggest turd of the summer. People who think Pineapple Express is good will love it, but that’s because they’re a bunch of morons.

2: The Hardy Men.

Apparently this has been fermenting in the brains of Tom Cruise and Ben Stiller for a while, but frankly we couldn’t even be bothered to find out what it’s about. From the title I’m going with a wacky update on the Hardy Boys, those perennial Nancy Drew pokers, but updated as a hilarious, SNL style sketch a la Starsky and Hutch. That was funny wasn’t it? Is it me or has SNL never, ever, ever produced anything even approaching an amusing sketch? We’re not saying Skit either, because only a c**t would do that.

Proof positive – if it were needed that Stiller should stick to being really, really, ridiculously good looking, and Cruise should go back to planet Mongo and fulfil L.Ron’s mighty plan. No video was available at time of press. And if there was, it would be shit.

3: Clash of The Titans.

That Terminator geezer, in a skirt, with a robot owl for company. Oh, and Greek girls in short skirts, and a bloody great monster or two. This looks like it may be acceptable.

As an aside, every ship ever named Titan, Titanic or Titania has sunk. Every single one – wooooooo spoooooky. Don’t say STS isn’t tops for movie related news!

4: A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Apparently some people are terrified by the thought of someone with quite long arms hanging around outside their house, so this was a natural for the remake treatment.

Unfortunately Jonny Depp won’t be getting his bits chopped off this time round, but it does at least leave the floor open for a remake of Part II in 2011, possibly the most homoerotic movie ever produced. Seriously, check out the clip.

This will be rubbish, and anyone who’s scared of it is a spaz.

5: Black Hole.

Alas, not a remake of the Disney thing with the robots n’ that, this Black Hole instead refers to a graphic novel featuring a sexual disease that gives those infected horrible deformities. So, severe physical handicap combined with the wit of an Ace Frehley solo album – should be a laugh riot eh? Apparently David Fincher is directing, which means he’s taking time out from his other project Heavy Metal to bring us this gumph. Bad David!

Oh – did we mention there’s worse to come? Stay tuned for part 2…

With Star Trek currently warping up the DVD/Blu-ray charts as Kirk and Co. make a triumphant return to the big screen with the promise of even better to come, here at STS we thought we’d spare a thought for that other massive space franchise that’s been sadly humbled of late, victim of shoddy prequels and dodgy Saturday morning cartoon shows- Star Wars is not the all-conquering merchandise Death Star it once was.

Despite these varying fortunes however, around the STS office ..Empire is still on a constant loop, the first three films unarguably some of the best movies ever made.

So – who’s the best? It’s a toughie, which is why we’ve rated both sides according to strict criteria and let these twin titans of star-spanning adventure battle it out for the prize in: Star Wars Vs Star Trek!

Round 1:Fashion!

While Trek favours snug polyester tops and flared trousers, looking like a nightmare version of the Playboy mansion where bowl-cut ‘dos and girdles are all the rage, over in Star Wars it’s experimental haircuts modelled on bagels, full-face carpet coats and – for the discerning villain – fetish medical wear. Han’s waistcoat/skinny Jean military look wouldn’t look out of place on Shoreditch high street.

Consider-given the choice would you rather wear a red jumper that might as well have a target painted on it, or a bandoleer…and nothing else? Even fashion icon David Bowie agrees, putting on his best R2D2 impression for hit ‘Fashion’: “Dance with me, don’t dance with me, no -beep beep, beep beep.”
Winner: Star Wars.

Round 2: Gettin’ Jiggy!

Over the years Star trek has spawned more than a few hotties, while Starfleet remains the only major scientific institution to outfit it’s female recruits in mini-skirts and silver beauty pageant sashes. Unfortunately by The Next Generation things had gone sadly downhill, Klingon women with bad teeth were the order of the day, and when Tasha Yar decided to strip off the unflattering jumpsuit for Hef, she was promptly eaten by a Tar Monster!

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away, any girl is fair game -  even your own sister! Metal bikinis and loincloths rule in hyperspace, and while the federation is a humanoids-only club, it’s perfectly acceptable for Star Warsians to get down with tentacled women, hairy midgets, and even the odd crustacean. For sheer, uninhibited kinkiness it’s hard to beat Jabba the Hutt.

Winner: Star Wars.

Round 3: Shouting!

Well, what would you rather hear?
“Threepio where can he beeeeeee?”
or:
“Khaaaaaaaannnnnn!!!!!!!”
Winner: Star Trek.

Round 4: Dangerous Sports!

Despite having interstellar travel, the Star Wars universe is curiously short on deep space sports, preferring to stick close to the ground with an overly-repetitive Grand Prix analogue in cars so weedy they can only be driven by children and tiny alien jockeys.

Meanwhile in Star Trek, free climbing the Yukon is considered a relaxing day off, while ‘Space Jumping’ with a lunatic Australian is an assignment it’s perfectly acceptable to give to raw cadets.

Bullseyeing Womp rats from you T-16 may come in handy later, but it’s no substitute for leaping down an elevator shaft in a pair of rocket boots.

Winner: Star Trek.

Round 5: Hardness!

The final, most dangerous category, as both franchise eye each other up from the ropes before whipping out their most deadly combat styles for your consideration. People often forget the sheer amount of rucks that go down in Trek, what with the captain nicking star-warlords girlfriends every other episode, and even Wesley Crusher once managed to create an intergalactic incident by..erm..crushing someone’s vegetable patch…so it’s no surprise that the Trek universe has some pretty awesome fighting styles at it’s disposal. If it isn’t Vulcans pinching your neck it’s Klingons waving bloody great knives about, although all these fall to the sheer double axe-handling. Side-kicking might of Kirk-Fu, a mysterious fighting style ideal for the older gentleman.

And let’s face it, if you were being chased by a huge lizard, you’d throw a big rock at it’s head as well. Add to this charged photon torpedoes and a predilection for sucking planets into artificial black holes and star Trek starts to look like a pretty hardcore place to hang out.

On the other side meanwhile..well, we’ve already mentioned that Vulcan neck pinch thing right? The Star Wars version? Crushing your windpipe via a TV. Fuck yeah, that’s hard! Klingon Batleth? Against a Lightsaber -you’re kidding right? Arena Kirk-on-Gorn combat? Fair enough, but it’s hardly Jedi vs Giant Sabre-Tooth Tiger, culminating in Jango Fett’s head being chopped off is it? Combine this with a laser that blows up planets and a martial arts style that actually includes magic and you can’t go wrong!

Winner: Star Wars.

Overall winner: Star Wars!

Proof positive that despite it’s ailing fortunes, it’s still more than a match for Starfleet when it comes to kicking ass and looking good while you do it. May the force be with you baby.

Disagree? Do the Borg beat LoBot in your book? Could The Dominion kick Imperial ass? Let us know!

Ah, Phantom Menace. Has it really been over ten years? It feels like only yesterday that Jar-Jar Binks led Liam Neeson and Obi-Wan Kenobi down into the depths of the Gungan City, dragging with him the respect of thousands of loyal Star Wars fans. Yes, Phantom Menace has a great many things wrong with it. Listing these and working oneself into a frothing rage has, for over a decade now been the pub-conversation of choice for nerds the world over. Well, now I’m going to throw in my two cents on the issue.

Now, I don’t want to get sucked into a debate on whether Phantom Menace ruined the Star Wars saga, or just how bad a film it actually is. Whatever our opinion on the new trilogy, I think we can all agree that it’s not perfect. No matter how good or bad a film is, it’s still going to have things about it that suck. These are some of those things.

1. Jar-Jar Binks

Of course. There’s no debate. George Lucas explicitly stated that Jar Jar Binks was included with the explicit aim of appealing to children. That’s fine, rampant commercialisation aside, but y’know what? Mufasa was aimed at children, and he’s a kickass lion. Aiming something at children is no excuse for it being annoying, poorly written and so badly CGI’d that it makes poor Liam Neeson look like he has some kind of eye problem when he continually directs his speech to a tree three feet to Jar Jar’s left. No more needs to be said on this really, but no list of things wrong with Phantom Menace would be complete without a mention of this floppy-eared buffoon.

2. Racism

Is Jar Jar’s zany character just a little too close to the black-and-white minstrel acts of old? How about the corrupt, greedy and obviously East Asian-accented Trade Federation representatives? Or indeed the miserly Watto as a Fagin-esque Jewish stereotype? Whether or not these allusions were intentional, it certainly makes for uncomfortable viewing.

3. midi-chlorians

Microscopic organisms? Communication with the force? What the hell is this crap?! Everyone knows (or thought they knew) that the force was some kind of mystical magical..well… force! The lack of explanation was part of its charm, and added some religious mystique to the role of the Jedi. “it’s magic” is a much better explanation than some pseudo-scientific nonsense that poses questions such as:

• Can I have gene therapy to enhance my force powers?
• If midi-chlorians explain one’s connection to the Force, and all life, then what the hell is the Dark Side? How does Anakin – who has midi-chlorians practically coming out of his ears – turn so amazingly evil?

Sometimes things are best left unexplained.

4. Sandstorms

They’re very, very dangerous.

5. Politics

“Oh boy, here we go – a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – Here comes the music! Pow! And there’s the logo! I can’t believe it’s actually new Star Wars! Here comes the set-up…”

Turmoil has engulfed the Galactic Republic. The taxation of trade routes to
outlaying star systems is in dispute.”

“Wut?”

“the greedy Trade Federation has stopped all shipping to the small planet of
Naboo. While the congress of the Republic endlessly debates this alarming chain of
events…”

And so on. The first half of this movie is like watching a terse exchange in the House of Commons. The point it’s trying to make I suppose is that the Star Wars galaxy is not the war-torn, run-down shell that we know and love from the original trilogy. Rather it’s a wealthy, democratic and resplendent utopia, where folks are more likely to invest in your small business than shoot you in the back and steal your starship. But it doesn’t exactly make for gripping viewing. It doesn’t help the situation when you realise that the two Jedi sent to “settle the conflict” genuinely have been sent to debate the blocking of a trade route and not – as you’d probably expect – to kill everything on board and blow it all to hell.

And finally – the worst thing about Phantom Menace?

6. This guy:

A Stormtrooper he ‘aint. This funny-lookin’ battle droid (the B1 model if you’re interested) is the single least imposing soldier I’ve ever seen. These guys, with their spindly arms and their wise-cracking jobsworthiness are about as exciting and terror-inducing as watery porridge. Not only do they pose minimal threat and provide zero humour, they raise serious questions about the Trade Federation’s commitment to winning this war. For instance – why program a Battle Droid for cowardice? Or to argue and misunderstand its colleagues? Or indeed to have a whiny, unimposing voice module? Or fall over, surrender, miss its target 90% of the time and just generally be crap? It’s established early on that Destroyer model droids have shields, making them Jedi-proof. Why not make a whole army of Destroyers? Or at the very least program in some battle tactics more complex than “move forwards, slowly, in a straight line.” The Terminator, the Matrix’s Sentinels – these are proper battle-robots, programmed to kill and not to feel pity, mercy or fear. I can only assume that in peace-time the Droid army maintain the Trade Federation canteen, or possibly run a small theatre-group.

Let me end by saying that there are some cool things in Phantom Menace. The laser-grids in the final battle between the two Jedi and Darth Maul was a particularly cool set-piece, and if you’re watching closely Dominic West is one of the queen’s guards.

OK, so science fiction films often have remarkably poor foresight when it comes to setting the date of their story. “No-one will be watching this in fifteen years!” they confidently cry. “We’ll all have burned in a nuclear fire by then, surely!” The most prominent example being 2001: A Space Oddysey and the best example of dodging the issue being the Star Wars saga, which is set in the past. Somehow.

In any case, despite scriptwriters’ determination to give their own work a limited shelf-life there is light at the end of the tunnel. Here follows, then, a list of things that society still has time to invent, implement and generally make happen.

1. Sick sticks – Minority Report – set in 2054

Now, 2054 is still a good way off, meaning there’s more than enough time to invent a stick that when you poke someone with it they vomit uncontrollably. This should go second on the science priority list under curing cancer. I have no idea how this stick would possibly work, but that’s for the boffins to figure out. I’m the ideas man. Well, i’m the man who reminds you of other people’s ideas anyway.

2. Self-drying clothes – Back to the Future part II – set in 2015

Ah, how blissfully distant 2015 must have seemed in 1989. (when part 2 was released, not set. duh) But now the future is catching up with us remarkably quickly. We’ve already mastered and far surpassed that Jaws 3D thing that Marty gets so frightened of, and I think it’s safe to assume that hoverboards, cars powered on rubbish, self-tying laces and tiny pizzas that expand in the oven aren’t going to be made in time. That really just leaves self-drying clothes, by far the most useful and practical future-object seen in the movie. And guess what – we have them! Ahead of schedule too! Nice one.

3. Cryogenic freezing.

Now obviously a good deal of movies feature cryogenic freezing, and there seems to be no consensus on exactly how futuristic the procedure is. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could get it done tomorrow in some medical practise in Belgium. But this doesn’t change the fact that it’s not widespread yet, which sucks because I for one am eager to cheat death. The best known cryogenic freezing occurs in Alien, which is set in 2122, so scientists have some leeway on getting that organised.

4. Robot apocalypse – Terminator series

Now this is just flagrant cheating. In Terminator 2 it’s mentioned that Judgement Day – the day that Skynet becomes self-aware and begins a nuclear attack on the USA – is in 1997, which means that we should all have been carbonised by now. However in Terminator 3, released in 2003, the date is set back to 2004. Then, in the Sarah Connor chronicles it’s set back again to 2011. Now, clearly Skynet have trouble meeting their quarterly targets, and their internal organisation is in need of a serious restructuring. The other possibility is that scriptwriters couldn’t bear to ask their audiences to enjoy a film or TV series that is set in a world even slightly different to our own. (because what iPod-lovin’, trainer-wearin’ money-loaded hipster is going to relate to that?)

In any case postponing Judgement Day until 2011 gives us a little time to prepare. Take funding away from the Olympics and put it into grimy underground tunnel-networks and old 2-way radios. Oh, and lots of corrugated iron sheets.

For God’s sake, don’t forget the corrugated iron sheets!!

Since Iron Man, Spider-Man and The Dark Knight reminded them how succesful comic book movies could be, and with Thor girding his hammer for battle, rubbish-but-marketable X-Man gambit getting a spin-off and Green Lantern about to throw his ring into the…erm…ring.. Hollywood is nutso for capes right now.

Unfortunately they don’t usually get it right, leaving us clutching our popcorn in horror as Catwoman craps all over our fanboy dreams. Luckily, STS is on the case, so here’s a list of characters ripe for the big screen treatment, and a few studios shouldn’t touch with a Kryptonite bargepole!

Yes!: Miracle Man

Starting out as a Captain Marvel rip-off in the 50s, it wasn’t until comic writer ubermensch and all round weirdy beirdy Alan Moore got his hands on the book that Miracleman really came into his own, facing off against atomically-powered sociopathic teenagers, robotic versions of Andy Warhol, gritty scum-style borstals, cloned alien super-dogs, extreme violence and all round grim, gritty deconstructionism – including an alien supervillain with Hitler’s brain that offs most of the cast before someone teleports a steel girder into his skull – this is a book that has it all!

Let’s face it, the R rating didn’t do Watchmen any harm, and we haven’t seen a Nazi’s head explode since Raiders – somebody get Alfonso Cuarón on the phone for a slice of dystopia that’s as grey and mean as it’s 80s British setting.

NO! -Wonder Twins

So, there’s these twins see – they look kinda like Spock – and they’ve got these rings..and they turn into water..uhh..and animals! Oh..and they spend waay to much time with each other, so it’s a bit creepy too. Did I mention they have a cute green alien monkey? Hello? Hello…?

YES! – Transmetropolitan

Patrick Stewart has often lamented being too old to play Spider Jerusalem; the two-fisted, alcoholic crusading journo who made Warren Ellis’ Transmet series completely unmissable. OK, so his powers are limited to scorching penmanship – one article about the new president consists of the word ‘fuck’ written 2000 times in a row.. – and a superhuman appetite for drugs, he’s lured back to a dystopian future City from isolation by the promise of cash, but this prosaic motivation is quickly replaced by a psychotic desire to bait and bring down the ultra-corrupt powers-that-be.

Onscreen The City needs a breathtaking Spielberg makeover; and with citizens consisting of intelligent fog, disenfranchised mutants, people thawed out of cryogenic stasis and left homeless, and brutally corrupt and stupid officials, it would freak the hell out of anyone who thought Avatar looked nice. The only downside is that the complex storyline would be incredibly difficult to fit in a 2 hour movie, even for someone with the editing skills of Spider’s boss Mitchell Royce -HBO series anyone?

NO! – Wonderman

Possibly the most faceless supehero ever created! Wonderman is in reality Simon Williams, an industrialist who becomes a superhero when – get ready for it – he embezzles millions from his own company! Certainly makes a change from that whole “Truth, Justice etc etc “ stuff doesn’t it? In order to further prove his heroism, he allows a Nazi to do experiments on him, and joins the Avangers in order to destroy them! Oh, and has been known to star in both Porn and daytime TV.

Not really a character you can root for is he? Add in a costume-changing fetish that usually includes a safari jacket and he’s box-office kraptonite.

YES! – Steel Spider

OK, so back before comics were cool, they were the sole property of fat, geeky teens, and they knew it. So it was that Marvel decided to go all inclusive and put the fans on the page. The result: Ollie Osnick. Stupidly named and stupidly clever, he’s Doctor Octopus’ biggest fan, even building a set of mech-arms just like his hero! Unfortunately Doc Ock is a crazed sociopath, so Spider-Man soon becomes a rather more healthy role model for the tubby funster, who then sets about a life of rage-filled vigilantiaism, presumably because it’s more interesting.

Sounds stupid right? But get Tim Burton in to direct, cast a fatted-up Christian Bale and you’ve got every aspect of nerdy teen market covered; not to mention tying-in to the hugely profitable Spider-Man movies! Hollywood accountants-get McG in for a meeting on this no-fail cash-cow!

NO! - Hawkman

Batman. He’s quite good isn’t he? How can we improve him/ How about we make him an alien. And replace the bats..with Hawks! We’ll give him a beak, a nonsensical continuity, a love-interest imaginatively called Hawk-Girl, and top it off by arming him with a mace..because that’s probably what aliens would have isn’t it?

Hawkman, hawkman, so dull they killed him twice – and NO ONE NOTICED. His greatest role came in a 90s Baby Ruth advert that screams Jack Black remake.

Hopefully this will keep our screens clean of the worst offenders, but even we can’t be everywhere, so it’s up to you STS-ers; Which caped crusaders do you want to see on screen? Do The Boys float your boat, or do you live in fear of a Crystar remake? Hero’s or Villains, who deserves a shot at Oscar glory? Let us know!

Obviously a man of impecable taste, regular STS-er Cap’n King kindly directs those of you with an X Factor obsession toward some real music- strap on your cans for some great pieces of relatively obscure movie music that you might have not noticed, never even heard before or just need reminding of – all with spotify track URLs, so you have no excuse not to sing along!

Das Boot – Konvoi (spotify: 7qdtbyggsomXg7YHtXdW0K)

The first time I saw Das Boot it was a late showing on one of the more obscure BBC channels. The director’s cut started at 1am, and I settled in on the sofa, alone in the darkness. I emerged, four hours later, bleary eyed and blinking in the harsh morning light. Hungry, thirsty and exhausted, I felt I had lived every depth charge along with the poor crew of the ill-fated U96. The film’s score nicely echoes the tense, frantic and claustrophobic feeling of the film itself, and it also has a distinctly 80s feel to it which I personally find delightful. Synthesised horns, orchestra hits, and a lots and lots of big drums really make this track.

Con Air – Battle in the Boneyard (spotify: 1XLUtez6LTfdBDJ2dEUs4r)

OK – Con Air obviously is not a very good film. But it is ridiculous, and a guilty pleasure of mine. It takes me back to a time (1997) when action films had evolved beyond the classic 80s formula, but hadn’t yet gone all high-tech and shaky-cam. This tune is all menace and soaring guitars. You will feel as if a sweaty, mulleted Nicholas Cage is groping your face and calling you his hummingbird. It’s some kind of horrible nu-metal, redneck, jingoistic masterpiece.

Back to the Future 3 – End Credits (spotify: 6KX3z2IrtPC8gYKh9uJy16)

Alright fine; Back to the Future isn’t exactly obscure, but I’ll wager when you recall the famous theme tune you don’t remember the fantastic, overlooked western-style version from the third film. It starts with some red-blooded pomp and circumstance yankee stuff, and finishes with the kind of musical climax that the series deserves (And there’s a very nice flute bit in the middle).

Once Upon a Time in Mexico – Church Shootout (spotify: 0gME5kV1cf9dg6ZjajkGS9)

I think I mentioned in a previous post how cool I think this film is, and this short piece from the soundtrack captures the movie’s flavour perfectly. It has all the melodrama you’d expect, and of course a distinctly latin flavour, with some nice spanish guitar and that ‘clanging bell’ sound you hear all the time in films – some kind of reminder that it’s high-noon and there’s killing to be done I guess.

Star Wars – Force Theme

Again, you’ll have heard this before, but this fantastic piece of John Williams-composing doesn’t enjoy the same iconic status as the main theme or the Imperial March and that’s just not fair. That bit in A New Hope when the strings build up as Luke stands, windswept, gazing intently out at the setting twin suns of Tatooine, always sends a shiver up my young spine.

That’s enough for now, and hopefully plenty to remind us that past the blockbuster movie themes we all know and love, a great deal of hard work and passion is expended in making music that brings even the most insignificant scenes to life. (apart from Con-Air, obviously)

“I knew It! I’m surrounded by assholes!” Wise words indeed as Gunner’s Mate, First Class Phillip J. Asshole (Recently promoted by his cousin Major Asshole) confirms Dark Helmet’s deepest fears in that classic piece of modern cinema, Spaceballs. But the asshole isn’t just a comedy device by any means.

Think of any movie -which character really stays with you? The Hero? Nah, too goody-goody. Sure some are memorable, but it’s mainly when they behave like pricks, throwing people off buildings and slapping them around in the name of justice that we really like them. How about the villain? Yeah yeah, Darth was imposing enough, and The Terminator is a stone cold killer, but did they bring anything new to the table? The one thing guaranteed to elevate these two dimensional stereotypes above the pack is the pithy one-liner, the sneering self confidence to do what the other guy won’t, and to hell with what anyone thinks.

In short, being a dick.

In art, as in life, behaving like a real shit rules rules, which is why STS decided to weed out the greatest gits in cinematic history and leave their cheese out in the wind (tm Mr. Rooney -Ferris Bueller’s day off). Yep, it’s Six of The Best: Movie Assholes!

Chuck De Nomolos -Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey.

Chuck hates Heavy Metal. That alone more than qualifies him for this list, but if we dig deeper, we quickly uncover a rich seam of douchebaggery that means he’s not just the 23rd century’s champion sit-upper, he’s also it’s top dick biscuit. As portrayed by Josh Ackland, he’s a borderline Nazi who’s in it for the leather uniforms more than that whole political thing, but that doesn’t mean he won’t kill to enforce his goose-stepping fantasies. Not only does he build a version of Bill S.Preston Esq. who’s actually a dick, he enjoys being wedgied, wears moonboots, and is so piss-on-everyone-else’s-party heinous that even the spiritually aware Big Jim Martin can only find one way to describe him: “What a shithead”.

Phil Stuckey – Pretty Woman.

For starter’s, he’s George Kastanza suffering from an almighty case of short-man syndrome. Stuckey isn’t just shaped like an egg, he’s oily, greasy and raises just as much of a stink when his be-a-cock-first-ask-question-later attitude gets him in Julia Robert’s bad books. Flaunting his cash and his sexist idiocy for all to see, he’s a lawyer but still manages to be the definition of investment banker wanker, Stuckey is so odious he even manages to make Richard Gere appear charming.

Bill Lumbergh – Office Space

Bill sports the type of all-American ‘do that makes you want to vomit at a hundred paces, micromanaging his way onto the kill-lists of everyone else in the office, Bill’s a power mad small fry who loves to watch 9-5ers wiggle, pinning them ruthlessly into extra hours with his clone-bank smile and ‘Hey, it’s my job, sorry’ attitude. Anyone who’s ever worked in an office will feel their hackles rise the moment he hit’s the screen, a cold-skinned middle-management fish that actually believes his job is important, sporting the kind of Argyle-clad junior exec look would make Val Doonican blush. What a tit.

Chet Donnely -Weird Science.

Bill Paxton has turned being a jerk into something of an artform over the years, but however many ‘True Lies’ he appears in, he’ll never quite top this early effort. Chet’s a bug-eyed moron with a haircut that cuts straight to the chase; He’s an asshole. Putting his younger, weaker brother in headlocks and extorting cash is only the beginning for a man who thinks combats tightly laced into boots is a decent look. Obsessing over guns, doling out wedgies with the homoerotic fervour of Jock culture, talking with his mouth full and tattling to the parents at every opportunity, Chet’s the definitive Jock Cock. He’s such a bellend he actually thinks this is impressive too, trying to chat up the way-out-of-his-league Kelly LeBrock by offering to ‘Butter Her Muffin’. He’s a charmer is our Chet, which is why it’s so satisfying seeing him turned into a fly-gobbling turd/frog hybrid.

Walter Peck -Ghostbusters.

William Atherton has a nice sideline in movie assholes, and a special mention should go to his odious performance in Die Hard, but those performances all spring from one almighty well of dick. Walter Peck is a pencil pushing noseybeak with nothing to prove apart from his own petty, paper-based superiority. The next time Ghostbusters is on TV, watch closely. Peck doesn’t blink. Not once in his entire time on screen. He’s not just a bureaucratic pain in the ass, he’s a reptile. A cold blooded, limp wristed power player who takes his self-loathing out on anyone and anything. You’d think being covered in steaming-hot demono-mallow would be punishment enough, but such are the heights of turdishness reached by this character, the public didn’t think so, with the “actually a really nice bloke” Atherton having to stay out of bars for years afterward – because patrons kept starting fights with him. It’s true your honour. This man has no dick.

Carter Burke – Aliens.

Wanting to advance your career is one thing, but willing to murder thousands of innocent farmers to do it? Proving that there is such a thing as being overly ambitious, Paul Reiser utterly destroys any fond memory you may have of ‘Sensible dad’ Michael from My Two Dads, replacing them with a smarmy, hidden-behind-a-desk performance that isn’t so much magnificent as malformed. Burke orders colonists into danger zones, sabotages marine missions, tries to impregnate a child with a facehugger and always, always keeps one eye on the cash register. He sympathises of course -it’s a ‘real shame’ that so many people had to be exploded/melted with acid/eaten from the inside out, but hey, the profit justifies the means right? A godawful space yuppie vampire, it’s all the more satisfying when he’s finally hoisted by his own petard, which in this case happens to be 8 foot tall and have nasty big pointy teeth. A lesson to corporate shills across the galaxy. Game over man.

So there you have it-the gamut of douchebaggery -have we missed any? There’s certainly more than one cock in Die Hard, and the 80s in particular are crawling with pin-stripe suited dillweeds. Your favourite hate figure not here? Tell us!

Due to a long, convoluted story involving the Dorset Tank Museum and a case of Jagermeister, none of the STS staff are currently allowed to drive, but that doesn’t stop us from lusting over the Lamborghinis that regularly drop off high-class courtesans at our luxury offices, not to mention the often incredible vehicles appearing in our favourite movies, so let’s check out exactly what the well turned out fictional character about town is driving these days, as we bring you six of the best: Movie Vehicles!

The RV – Tango and Cash.

Traditionally the Van isn’t a cool car. Chicks don’t dig it, and even if it’s got a werewolf doing a handstand on the roof, it’s a very tricky vehicle to avenge crime in –would Batman be as cool if he had a Bat-Winebago? Luckily Lieutenant’s Ray Tango and Gabe Cash are here to redress the balance, taking a vehicle that people are normally forced to buy by their heavily pregnant wives and strapping enough bulletproof armour and howitzers to it to take on a legion of exploding JCBs! Why the villain would own these isn’t really explored, but it certainly provides a showcase for the ‘RV from hell’.

The Jawamobile –Star Wars.

If you’re a dealer in second hand goods you’ve ‘liberated’ from a huge space fleet, you’re going to need something slightly tougher than a Reliant Robin van to haul your wares down to the lockup, and The Jawas cope admirably with their reduced circumstances by tooling out a what appears to be an enormous rusty doorstop with the type of tank tracks not usually seen outside a NASA rocket-carrier. Imperial Stormtroopers are known for not being able to hit the side off a barn, so it’s unfortunate for the little guys that they own the only car on the planet bigger than a barn, with tragic consequences.

The Gilamonster – O.C & Stiggs.

Based on an obscure Mad Magazine cartoon, O.C & Stiggs is justifiably unloved. Nevertheless this tale of teens annoying their neighbour Mr.Schwabb and floating to Mexico has two redeeming features. Firstly, there’s Dennis Hopper as a crazed Vietnam Vet with ‘Reefer Madness’, and secondly, there’s the Gilamonster. STS loves this car so much we used a quote from the movie on our logo bar: Here’s a list of places I want this car to be totally unwelcome. The list itself is impressive, Number one: funerals. Number two: affairs of state, you know, real formal ones…ones with…chamber music. Number three: wet golf greens. Number four: the acropolis.

It also generates a ‘terrifyingly seismic field of noise’. Our two heroes are looking to combine really loud noise with the ugliness of poverty, and boy does the dealer step up to the challenge, with a 1950s rust bucket, handily monstertruckerized, cinema boasts no finer method for ‘picking up these girls, we call them the sluts’. Stupid and ugly. Man I want one!

AT-AT – The Empire Strikes Back.

Let’s face it, this is Darth Vader’s car. It would get in based on that alone – and we’re talking proper, bad-ass Sith Lord Darth, not emo whiney Anakin here – and it’s a giant dog that steps on people. Roaming around the galaxy like a pack of atomic-powered, badly behaved Great Dames, the AT-AT is a pretty bad design, you can trip them up, you can blow the legs off, but imagine you’re a tank commander, a legion of Chieftains at your beck and call, and the enemy turns up driving these buggers. That’s why At-At’s are badass.

Dodge Charger – The Fast and the Furious.

The Fast & The Furious. A never ending franchise that gives license to the kind of moron who honestly thinks it’s worth buying a 2K car and putting a 5K exhaust on it. Plastic Mazdas tripped out with nitro and underlighting, and generally parked up in a seafront carpark on a wet Wednesday night. Now combine this with Paul Walker and Vin Diesel. It’s so uncool it goes out the other side into cool, then out the other side of that into anti-cool. Watching this movie you can practically feel your trousers becoming half-mast, that’s how stupidly uncool it is. Except for one thing. 3 tons of Detroit muscle. Other movies have had a Dodge Charger in them-the Dukes of Hazard even had Jessica Simpson in a bikini cleaning theirs – but none of the others had a blown Hemi stack sticking through the bonnet and transforming them into a beast that absolutely terrified the erstwhile Riddick man-mountain. So awesome it almost (almost) redeems the movie –get one from EBay’s ‘classic cars’ listings now –your inner Viking demands it!

Flying Motorcycle – Megaforce.

Poor old Barry Bostwick. Rightfully he should be king of the action men, rivaling Arnie as the governor of a mighty state, or at least wobbling around in a popular sitcom a la Charlie Sheen. But no, instead he’ll be forever remembered as a bargain bin, unthinking man’s Chuck Norris thanks to 80s turd-a-thon Megaforce. Quite possibly the stupidest movie ever to come out of the Philippines.

Luckily Barry has a sweet deuce to bail him out of trouble: Firstly, there’s his ridiculous bit-partery in the likes of Hannah Montana The Movie, but far more importantly: His Flying Motorbike!
Let’s face it, we’ve all seen flying cars, but even if the car in question is a time-traveling DeLorean, there’s always a chance it’ll be borrowed by the wife for taking the dog to the vets and doing the shopping. But a flying bike? There’s no denying this would only be useful for drag racing, picking up girls and possibly pursuing criminals/escaping the law – and in Megaforce it’s owned by a man called Commander Ace Hunter. How cool is too cool?

Your favourite not on the list? Pissed that we missed out The Ice Cream truck from ‘Bubble Boy’? let us know!

With chilly crapola-fest Whiteout currently packing idiots into multiplexes across the globe, STS investigates Hollywood’s long, unhappy tradition of snow-bound terror and destruction. Put on your furry hat and long johns and follow us then dear reader, as we explore the –quite literally-coolest characters, scenes and entire movies that utilise the snow, ice and general brrr-chilly-ness of the tundra to such startling effect; yep, it’s the STS guide to: Arctic Flicks!

Mr. Freeze – Batman and Robin.

An awful lot is made of Bat-Clooney’s built in nipples, and Alicia Silverstone’s Bat-sidecar –surely the worst crimemobile in history. But one of the few redeeming features in Joel Silver’s franchise crushing idiot-a-thon has to be the ice rink fight. Now, why the hell Bats would have skates built into his suit isn’t explained, but there’s no denying the bone-crunching fun of an ice skate kick to the face. And who’s responsible for all this frozen carnage? The Governator himself; Big Arnie’s Mr.Freeze.
Is this Arnie’s greatest movie? It’s certainly hard to argue with lines like “You’re not sending me to da cooler”
It’s also nice to know that Arnie’s contracts always contain a sub-clause: He gets to keep his wardrobe. I’m sure you’ll be comforted whenever you remember that the man in charge of one of the planet’s largest economies –and with access to one of its largest nuclear arsenals – has a glowing blue and white suit of armour in his closet.

The Thing.

The Daddy. Hands down Carpenter’s best work, even knocking Escape From New York into a furry hat. For starters, it’s just plain weird. That fuzzy, dissolving logo, the brave move to full-on show the flying saucer at the start. Then there’s the helicopter chase. When was the last time you saw a movie open with people shrieking in Norwegian and throwing grenades at a dog, watched by a bunch of misfits and some looming, ominously Lovecraftian mountains. Sure, the whole thing has a very serious AIDS undercurrent, but it manages to be almost as scary as the disease itself. Man’s inhumanity to Man –and Dog – erupting long before we really see any tentacles, it takes the lone wolf Mack to hold things together, and he only manages it by being the most cynical and mistrustful of the lot. Demented and bloody brilliant!

Marge Gundersson -Fargo.

Up there with The Dude in terms of quality Coen, the only thing worse than the weather in Fargo is the Minnesota accents don’tcha know. Marge Gundersson cuts a pretty feeble figure, but she’s still the sharpest tack in the very dull box that is Brainerd, North Dakota. Ruthlessly pursuing some Kinda-Funny_lookin’ villains across midwestern pacake house and motel alike, and catching up despite the worst witness statements in film history, she’s cinema’s top –and possibly only –heavily pregnant detective lead.

Vampires -30 Days of Night.

On the face of it this is a pretty bog-standard Hollywood Horror. It’s not that scary, it’s got a sheen of production slickness that robs it of real terror. But what it’s also got counterbalances this. It’s got COLD. When the sun goes down in the extreme north it doesn’t come up again for a month. Great news if you’re a vamp, but painfully unfunny if you’re on the menu. The conceit is great –no explaining where that ship has come from, or where the bloodsuckers are planning to go when the month is up, just hinted mythology – and bad continuity – resulting in a quick and bloody shocker who’s monsters annoy as much as terrify – there really can’t be many cinema goers who didn’t want to slap that baldy bloodsucker around a bit.

Box –Logan’s Run.

“Fresh proteins from the sea!” It doesn’t really rank with “Prepare to die!” in terms of classic threats, but what do you expect from a cardboard lunatic who alternates between feeding penguins and blasting hapless escapees with a fire extinguisher? As a villain Box is, it has to be said –crap. His weird pipe-cleaner/drainpipe arms only really good for cleaning fish bits from Seal’s teeth, he looks like a demented AGA. That said, when it comes to eliminating subterraneous simpletons and blowing Jenny Agutter’s dress off, he the man!

AT-ATs -The Empire Strikes Back.

There’s not much that hasn’t been said about Empire. It’s generally agreed to be the best Star Wars film, and around the STS office it goes toe to toe with RoboCop as ‘greatest movie ever made’. But why is it so fantastic? Is it the Muppet-based spirituality? Is it the ‘hand lopped off’ fight? There’s certainly no major space battle barring some asteroid cat n’ mouse –so what is it? Simple; It’s the sight of some 10-storey tall metallic dogs with concussion lasers coming out of their faces, stalking across the ice and blowing the crap out of everything in their way. Quite possibly the best battle scene ever filmed, it’s technically brilliant (Bluescreen model shots on a white background? In 1982, it simply couldn’t be done), perfectly paced, and there’s a genuine hint of danger as Luke’s co-pilot Dak gets squished under that giant steel foot, and consider the perfect malice as a giant AT-AT takes a moment out to pick off a lone, fleeing rebel trooper before targeting the base’s main generator. Let’s face it; the only thing missing is a Heavy Metal soundtrack.
Awesome in every way, shape and form, and for this reviewer’s money-the best thing ever to grace a cinema screen hands down.

In a frankly shocking display of prejudice, Hollywood has traditionally shunned the dead. Oh sure, there’s plenty of zombie movies out there, but when is the last time you saw a dead guy get the girl-and not eat her brains? STS sets out to redress the balance by bring you Six of The Best: Movie Dead Guys!

Sloth- Se7en

You know its coming. They break into the apartment; they wander around, lifting the plastic sheeting slowly and lurching backwards. If you’ve been to film school in the past 10 years you probably wrote an essay on the use of the Pavlovian response. He’s tied to the bed, looking like Skeletor’s S&M fancying cousin, and he’s dead as a doornail. Lean in closer detective, he smells a bit but there’s nowt to fear here. Until of course…That Ain’t No Corpse Grandma! The only dead body on the list to have forgone that whole pesky dying thing, Sloth gets our vote for possibly the finest ‘Cat-In-Closet’ shock in movie history. Possibly because the regular furry kitty has been replaced by a weeping, insane rictus that’s eaten its own tongue.

Bernie Lomax –Weekend at Bernies

Think of the truly great cinematic actors. Olivier, Brando, DiNiro. Presences that fill the screen with their intensity, burning emotion and conviction into the hearts and minds of the audience. Now ask yourself, honestly. Could any one of those screen heroes have played dead as well as TV regular Terry Kiser? Could you keep a straight face while a horny dog drags you off a balcony by your balls? Or while required to Conga with a paraletically drunk starlet in a bikini? No way, Dustin Hoffman has nothing compared to this guy, which is why he is and ever shall be cinemas greatest dancing corpse!

Bubba Ho-Tep

Yeah Yeah Yeah, there’ve been other mummies. Their was Nephren-Ka in Universal’s The Mummy, there was that bald dude in..er..The Mummy…but none of them was bad enough to wear a ten gallon hat and beat up a Karate-ing Elvis. Ho-Tep sucks the life outta oldies and lightbulbs alike with his mere presence, so it’s ironic that he’s finally despatched by a couple of septegenarians with back – and brain – problems. This ignoble demise doesn’t stop him dressing to kill in the smartest pair of western boots ever to walk outta Memphis.

Evil Ash - Army of Darkness

Despite looking like boil in the bag Spaghetti Bolognese, Evil Ash takes having his arms and legs chopped off in his stride, giving us one of cinemas greatest rising from the grave sequences. He commands a huge army of skeletons despite behaving like the fourth Stooge most of the time, and is the only action figure ever to arrive with Kung-Fu grip AND ‘Detachable Jaw’. Altogether now:” I…Live….AGAAAAAIINNNN!!!!!”

Dracula

Easily the best dressed cadaver in the house, Drac is the only necrotic body you’d ever feel comfortable taking to an opera. Capable of turning into a wolf, he’s his own best friend, which may explain why he’s happy enough sitting alone in his study when he has three nymphomaniac vampire women waiting in the bedroom. Even managing to be cool when George Hamilton is playing him, Drac is the thinking ladie’s corpse.

Death – Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey

Not content with his more traditional role as king of the dead, Death enjoys taking time out to win the Indy 500 on foot and release terrible bass solo albums. His Bergman-esque style extends to a head as smooth as his ‘Reaping burn a lot of calories’ sculpted behind, and he’s good with both a sickle and a shopping cart. The first dead dude brave enough to attempt transvestism in front of God Almighty, Death is the epitome of both poor sportsmanship and Rot N’ Roll. The only ex-person you’d want to go to a party with.

With Tarantino’s Basterds currently carving up critical opinion in the style of 1940s Berlin, we figured it was a perfect excuse to crack open the beers and watch a few two-fisted, boy’s own adventure WWII flicks. It’s all very well going on about Rambo and Arnie in Predator, but when it comes to kicking goose-stepping Nazi ass, you need a different calibre of hero entirely.

Join us as STS dons it’s goggles and fleece-lined RAF jacket, pops a pipe in it’s gob, and, in our very best BBC English, concocts some cockamamey mission to rescue Winston Churchill’s secret exploding cigars from a Bavarian castle. This type of who dares wins needs a very special set of protagonists, so join us as we bring you 6 of the best: Nazi Fighters!

1: Indiana Jones – Raiders of the Lost Ark

Nazis. He hates those guys. In between all the religious iconography/claptrap and occasional subcontinental detours, we sometimes forget that those is Nazi faces getting melted off by Jesus, and Dr. Henry Jones Jnr is the ideal earthly apostle of two-fisted SS head cracking. He’s interested in history for it’s own sake, and is more concerned with filling a museum than winning the war, but that hasn’t stopped him from working as a triple agent in both World Wars, stealing a U-boat, disfiguring senior SD officials in bar fights, punching a bald Nazi Ubermensch through a plane propeller, and even banging into little Adolf himself at one point. Dr. Jones is a man of science, but that doesn’t mean he won’t shoot first,and commune directly with Jehovah later. His fedora-beheaded silhouette makes him the ideal operative for jungle and desert warfare, and he may even let you keep a few camels at the end of it all.

2: Nick Rivers – Top Secret!

OK, so a light blue high-school wind-cheater isn’t your typical choice of uniform, and neither is waiting until 1955 to get involved, but that doesn’t stop teen surf and song sensation Rivers from sticking it to the Hun in fine fashion. An innovative display of weapons (an enormous, high-voltage dildo) and a range of superb disguises (a pantomime cow) mean he’s perfect for deep cover work. Whether it’s ordering flaming Hog’s balls for dinner, or crashing a submarine into a castle, Rivers may not have much upstairs, but he knows exactly how to combat history’s most notoriously uptight armed force-with Rock N’ Roll baby!

3: Morris Shaeffer – Where Eagles Dare

Any STS readers -and a few ex-staff writers- who have a gun fetish will know that a standard German-issue ZK-383 submachine gun generates around 65lbs of recoil force per square foot. That’s enough to break your wrist. At one point during classic whack-a-fascist-fest Where Eagles Dare, Clint Eastwood’s Lietenant Morris Shaeffer holds one in each hand, and mows down an entire legion of sausage munching right-wingers in a hail of lead. Lets face it, on a mission this stupid, you could probably use an ultraviolent killing machine with a dry sense of humour, and Shaeffer gets our vote. Pause for a moment if you will to consider the film’s poster. Look at it! Where Eagles dare has absolutely everything a WWII flick needs, fist fights on the top of cable cars, Michael Redgrave shouting, beautiful double agents – it’s got it all. The fact that it’s got sod all to do with the realities of conflict, and absolutely everything to do with the blitz spirit makes it even better, and when it comes to wiping out truckloads of limping, eye-patch wearing SS fairies, Morris is the best there is.

4: Michael Redgrave – The Dambusters.

Every mission needs a commander, and when your squad consists of dangerous lone-wolves, then you need someone who can ignore unfortunate pluralisation and get on with the job at hand. Someone who reeks of quiet courage. Possibly someone who smokes a pipe. There’s only one operative who springs to mind: Sir Michael Scudamore Redgrave. His knowledge of bouncing bomb trajectories is second to none, and his eclectic sexual practices make him perfectly suited to understand the perverse workings of the Nazi mind. The only man on the team to have an entire squadron of Lancaster bombers formed just to test out a crackpot theory he’s had. If it’s war winning you’re interested in, then the velvet-voiced, stiff upper lipped Redgrave’s your man!

5: Hellboy – Hellboy

An unusual choice to be sure, seeing as he is himself the product of obscure Axis technology and Satanic powers from beyond the veil of sleep, that doesn’t mean Big Red can’t be trusted. Fitting surprisingly easily into the Germanic pantheon -he has a penchant for LederHosen and comes equipped with his own Alpenhorn – the cigar chomping demonoid will come in handy when you need to punch through the wall of Castle Wolfenstein. Of course, it’s been widely and accurately reported – mainly on the ‘Fortean Times’ message boards – that Hitler’s stinking lapdogs were well into the Harry Potter side of things, so having someone who knows his Tuetons from his tentacles probably couldn’t hurt either.

6:Vasily Zeitsev – Enemy at the Gates.

If there’s an abiding lesson to be learned from history; “Don’t F**K with Russia” has to be up there. Vasily may or maynot believe in the cause, or uniting the proletariat, but he sure likes to shoot people in the head. Wether it’s taking Ed Harris down with a well-placed bullet to the bonce, charming the combat fatigues off Rachel Weiss’ perfectly formed Soviet issue bottom, or facing down an incensed Bob Hoskins, Zeitsev is a man who thinks fast in a crises. Every team needs a sniper, and with the addition of Jude Law’s ill-equipped peasant sharp shooter, this squad just got a whole lot better looking, and a whole lot more dangerous too.

Whaaaaaaat? No Virgil ‘Cooler King’ Hilts? No barking mad Edward Woodward? No Winston Churchill – circa ‘Churchill; The Hollywood Years’ natch- ?? There must be tons more to choose from right? Where the bloody hell is Richard Attenborough? Over to you then STS’ers; I expect a crack legion of highly skilled Nazi Bashers in my comments box by the end of the week – the future of the free world is in your hands; get on with it you ‘orrible lot you!

This month sees the multi-platform, media-saturating release of top-notch hugeasaurus-face-off Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus – so in time-honoured tradition, the staff at STS have taken a quick look around the office, seen the DVD and come up with a list based on it!

Now the rules are easy: The beast should win.

Which means the Kraken is out due to Depp-induced death and Jaws has long since been reduced to chum by Roy Schneider et al. Likewise, these are the big boys, so no room for namby-pamby slashers like Jason or Freddy here – can you seriously see Pinhead taking on Biolanthe?

Of course, that doesn’t mean we mightn’t have missed a few or bent the rules in some cases, so feel free to point out any gaps as we sort the Godzillas from the Godzookies and the Kong from the just plain wrong – matching up the greatest behemoths of the silver screen, watching them hack, claw and occasionally set fire to each other – all for our amusement. We bring you the six finest examples of: Movie Monsters!

1: Godzilla

The hardest of the hard – a nuclear gecko with atomic breath and a 50 year+ pedigree. He’s faced down aliens, rockets, space-beasts, Jet Jaguar and Ferris Bueller alike over the years, but it’s his performance in 1968’s Destroy All Monsters that Gojira finally crowned himself the city-crushingest king of Kaiju, kicking the asses of not one, not two, but 16 separate beasts in a royal smackdown like no other. Up from the deep, 30 storeys high, the best of the best!

2: Mr. Stay Puft

Without doubt the cutest guy on the list, he’s a hundred-foot pile of modified corn starch with an eons-old hunger for Human sacrifice and inter-dimensional mischief. Strictly speaking, he doesn’t face down any other monsters while on screen (Ernie Hudson’s acting aside) but just look at the way those soon-to-be-barbequed hell hounds scatter when he approaches. Stay-Puft may be cute, but he cements his position as Lord of the Sebulei on rep alone, triumphing over inherent softness to come out looking hard.

3: Kong

Even though he’s effectively driven to suicide by Fay Wray, there’s no denying that King Kong is one menacing simian. Specialising in reptile-punching, he’s happy to take on multiple T-Rex’s if they threaten his girlfriend, while even the mighty Godzilla has taken a monkey punch to the head more than once.
Cinema’s toughest Gorilla.

4: Talos – Jason and the Argonauts

From the moment the Argonauts arrive on the island, the huge statue of Talos looming over them, you know exactly what’s going to happen. ‘There’s something wrong about that big bronze bastard’ you find yourself thinking – and you’re right. Making off with their booty, there’s no wonder the tiny Greek fellas let out Willhelm Screams aplenty as his clanking metal eyes set on them. Most monsters go for brute strength or heat vision. Talos is more pragmatic, favouring a bloody great sword. The toughest thing ever to wear sandals and a skirt.

5: The Thing – The Thing/Thing From Another World

The sneakiest beast we’ve come across. Of course, the Bodysnatchers and Children of the Damned attempted to quietly replace us, but The Thing one-ups them by not only replacing us, but doing it in an excellently gory fashion! It’s conniving back-stabbery has clearly seen it in good stead too, as it’s crossed the galaxy, gobbling up more planets than Galactus can imagine, spreading like a rash that no amount of talc will remove, and very nearly conquering the Earth not once but twice! The first time it made the schoolboy error of disguising itself as a giant root vegetable, but the second time round…well…are we REALLY sure that’s Kurt Russell?

6: Shelob. – Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is jam packed with beasts from the depths. While the Cave troll is adorable and the Balrogs score on… erm… horniness – Shelob comes out top due to her sheer unkillability. Hell, if we look at the books we find out that even Sauron’s master Melkor was an arachnophobe of old, and it’s no wonder. We’ve all freaked out when an unexpected eight-legged fiend has crawled up our leg at a picnic, so imagine that little money-spider in the tub is as big as a garage, possessed of an ancient, cold-blooded intellect and is only waiting in a dark place until the sun goes out. Then it won’t even bother to climb up your drainpipe. It’ll just smash through the living room wall.
Winner on sheer creepiness!

The second in our series of kids movies that weirdly never quite made the grade…

Ferngulley: The Last Rainforest

If there’s a film on this list you’re likely to remember, it’s this one, as it didn’t perform too dreadfully. Whilst it’s no masterpiece, it’s still kind of underrated. It tells the story of fairies living peacefully in the rainforest, whose harmonious existence is suddenly interrupted by a logging corporation systematically tearing up the whole place. One of the ne’er-do-well tree-haters is radical 90s everyman Zak, who is accidentally shrunk to fairy size and learns to love the forest, be at one with nature and so on…

Robin “not so funny since I stopped taking all that cocaine” Williams provides the voice of Batty, the inventively named bat whose echo-location is scrambled thanks to evil animal experimentation. Indeed, the film takes an amazingly aggressive stance against animal testing and deforestation. At one point we see, in silhouette, a crazy scientist mutilating some small furry creature before spinning round and screaming, “get me another one! Get me another ANIMAL!”)

Extraordinary.

Kids make for the harshest critics in the business. You can pour your blood, sweat and tears into hyping a movie release, but if it won’t hold the attention of a seven year old for 120 measly minutes, it’s no good to anybody. When it comes to children’s movies, the kid’s deliver the final verdict and they often do so with honesty and conviction. However, every once in a blue moon the kids screw up and a perfectly good movie slips under the radar and is lost – forgotten forever – vanishing into the ether. Here’s the first of four films on a list comprising movies the children of yesteryear should have had the good sense to appreciate for the classics they are. By the time we’re done, you’ll remember why we don’t let them vote.

You might remember some of these titles and hopefully the list will cause you to experience at least one decent nostalgia rush – so let’s crack on…

Cats Don’t Dance

Cats Don’t Dance is an anthropomorphic adventure telling the story of country-bumpkin moggie, Danny.

Danny decides to move to Hollywood to seek his fortune as an all-singing, all-dancing musical star. Upon arrival however, his hopes are quickly dashed. He finds that animals like himself are relegated to playing bit-parts in major musical productions designed to further the career of odious child stars such as Darla Dimple – the film’s antagonist. He sets out on an adventure to change the status quo and ensure that his secretly talented animal friends get the screen time they deserve.

Along the way, Danny forges a romance with Sawyer, the sexy but stubborn actress-cum-receptionist (who is also a cat –  obviously otherwise that would just be weird). The film is nicely animated, has a pretty decent story, some great songs and derives a lot of laughs out of Hollywood stereotypes and icons, from the cigar smoking agent to the MGM lion. (It’s an elephant who has to wear tusks and trumpet through the Mammoth Studio’s logo – though secretly he plays a mean jazz piano).

Gene Kelley did the choreography for the film and it was his last project before his death, which is a great reason to watch it. Honestly though, for me the main appeal of this film is the premise – cats don’t dance. It’s not that cats can’t dance, it’s just that they don’t. Did you ever hear such a great setup for a kids’ film? The only thing better would be an environmental romp in the rainforest in which Robin Williams acted as a spokesman for all victims of animal testing. But that film never got ma…

OH NO WAIT! THAT FILM TOTALLY EXISTS!

And it’s next on the list.

Interceptor takes a look at the most evil corporate parasites in living movie memory and comes up with a list of six. Here are the most dastardly, money-hungry and megalomaniacal enterprises in history. And if you think we’ve missed one – get yourself to the comments.

1: The Company: Aliens

Despite the fact that it already owns the whole planet and most of the known universe, The Company still wants more – and it’s willing to sacrifice every man, woman and child on Earth if it means it can sell more experimental bio-weapons to the colonial marines. Strangely, it persists in this business model against the odds. A company so terrible, it would hire the uncool one from My Two Dads to run its foreign offices.

2: Cloverleaf: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

The name may conjour up images of rolling Irish meadows, but don’t let the faint whistle of pipes and whiff o’ peat bogs put you off the scent. Cloverleaf is run by a murderous non-human entity so twisted; he actually thinks mini-malls are a good idea. Not only does he hate public transport – and private detectives – but the vile Judge Doom would happily kill Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouseand even a very, very cute shoe to destroy it.

3: BiffCo: Back to the Future Part II

No-one really knows what the sinister BiffCo actually does, but the hints are more than enough for it to rank among cinema’s most deliciously evil industrial conglomerates. Overgrown high-school bully Biff Tannen ploughs his ill-gotten gains into terrible schemes that appear to involve gambling, toxic waste, giving Lea Thompson breast implants and the frantic production of Velour Tiger-Skin upholstery. Compared to his interior decorating skills, bumping off local Sci-Fi authors is the least of Tannen’s crimes.

4: OCP: RoboCop

The Evil Corporation’s Evil Corporation. OCP are wantonly eeevil, lusting for money and power, and not giving a shit who they trample, kill or mutate in the process. A company so ruthless, the boss is even called Dick. Omni Consumer Products struts its diabolical stuff on the world stage, building dodgy reactors in the middle of rainforests, dispossessing the poor, shutting down the police and replacing them with sociopathic tank-cum-chickens and, of course, putting manic-depressive dead people and crazed drug addicts in charge of solid Titanium super-suits. It’s all in a day’s work for these paragons of rat-bastardry. The only company on the list to literally make employees piss their pants with fear and, while boardroom killings are a recurring theme here, none are quite as messy as OCP’s ED-209 debacle.

5: Cohaagen: Total Recall

Seemingly a wandering Ronin of a CEO, Cohaagen’s lack of any discernable company hasn’t stop him from engaging in high level corporate gittiness, seemingly for its own sake. While others on the list bow at the altar of profit, Cohaagen finds evil is its own reward. Building cheap domes and cultivating three-breasted hookers and psychic children is quite literally the tip of the iceberg for this conniving bugger, spending years exploiting his workers and alien technology alike. Would you work for a man who, despite being your best friend, would happily lobotomise you and demote you from VP to ‘Road Driller’ in order to get a job done? Just pipped to the top spot because of his generous benefits package – Sharon Stone in a pair of tiny Lycra shorts.

6: The Empire: Star Wars

OK, So the Empire isn’t exactly a publicly owned company, but it still manages to exhibit the very worst aspects of corporate culture. In between ruthless expansion and attempts to corner the intergalactic shipping trade, The Empire isn’t above a bit of micro-management; making people wear stupid high-button shirts even though they sit alone in a room pushing buttons all day. The only reward for hapless employees is the Death Star Disco, with it’s awesome EuroTrance light show and Bass system. Meanwhile, the boss roams the corridors, poking his respirator in where it’s not needed and offing members of the board if they disagree with his clap-trap, new age policies, all the while trying to build a GAP-esque identikit uniform fashion empire – something that the jumpsuit and waistcoat fashion pirates don’t take too kindly to. It’s Armani versus shabby chic on an interstellar level.