The Joys of Sarcasm + Originality & School Dynamics

The Joys of Sarcasm

There seems to be a lot of confused people around in the world. People which point out obvious things. If I had 7 dead lizards for every time somebody has walked up to me and said in a rather dim-witted tone “You wear glasses.” or “I saw you yesterday.” I’d probably be knee-deep in reptile carcasses. It’s like these cretins assume you have no knowledge of anything you have ever done. “You wear glasses.” “Really? Oh I never noticed when I dressed myself this morning, thanks for telling me so I don’t accidentally stop myself from scratching the corner of my eye.” That’s usually my response anyway, and it normally leads to a scowl or an even more simple-minded reply; “Are you being sarcastic?” which almost always leads me to be even more sarcastic. I would feel sorry for these people, but then I realize there’s enough people in the world to feel sorry for, people that actually do need our sympathy, not this middle-class brain-dead bunch. 

The point I’m trying to make however, is that sarcasm is the most amazing thing ever created. Without sarcasm there would be no cool, easy and low-key way to take the piss out of these people. I’d have to stand there and shout “YES I DO RETARD!” and that’s no where near as fun or insulting and usually results in some upset from the league of people that don’t understand comedy and make a fuss about everything. The same people that attacked Jennifer Aniston for using that very word ‘retard’ in a press interview for her movie ‘The Switch’ starring the very awesome Jason Bateman. These blood-sucking funny-munchers deemed it offensive to people with special needs. I tell you one thing, I would love to see these invisible protestors take a stroll through a British secondary school. And not one of the posh ones where everybody plays croquet, I mean a bottom of the pile, chav-anistic (more word making *claps*) landscape of pure drudgery. The sort of insults batted around nowadays is pretty much sickening, although that is slightly hypocritical of me to say such a thing. But back to the case at hand, sarcasm. Sarcasm may not be understood by some, which makes it all the more fun. There’s nothing better than taking the piss out of someone that doesn’t know you’re taking the piss out of them, then they can’t ruin it by accepting it. WIN. Except not really win since you are actually insulting another human being and making them feel bad. Pretty much lose to be honest. Still, we all need our comic relief every now and again, and as long as it’s good natured, everybody wins! 

Originality & School Dynamics

Originality is one of those things which is both easy and hard to conquer at the same time. Hard in the fact that so much has happened already it’s difficult to find something which somebody has never said before, or find something someone has never done before. But easy in the fact that you can just watch what everybody is doing and do the complete opposite. Easy peasy lemon death punch. See, right there, that’s originality. You were expecting that to read “Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” but it didn’t. Shock horror. If it’s that easy to do something original, why doesn’t everybody do it, instead of leeching off of others? Well that probably leads to some complex psychological explanation, and as of yet, I don’t actually do psychology. But I can tell you about the types of people I’ve come across so far in life:

• Queen Bee - Named after the popular buzzing insect, these people are desperate for attention, constantly trying to draw people in. (E.g. laughing at a non-existent note so they get the opportunity to tell an off-the-wall story after you ask what’s up.) They are normally the trend setters.
• Dim-witted Follower - These people follow anybody they can leech onto. They pretty much adapt constantly, changing music tastes, common phrases and some times, even their own personality to fit in. They usually just run with the trends. 
• Outsiders - These are the people that really don’t give a shit about anybody. Well to a certain degree (we all give a shit really we just like to think we don’t). Needless to say everybody wants to be one, but always despises the kid that actually is one. They are usually seen doing something strange just for the sake of it. They go flat-out against the trends. 
• Conglatu - This is basically a mixture of all 3 of the above (I know it sounds like an endangered species of bird, but it’s original) with hints of silence and waywardness, by which I mean they can sometimes have opinions and set things in motion, but usually only with those they are comfortable around. To outsiders (adults, random relatives etc.) they are usually quite shy and protective. 

So there we have it. Four different kinds of people. We all know at least one, and we all know what we would classify ourselves as, but for now, silence is usually the trend. Many people ignore the obvious and just move along in life thinking they’re the best thing since roast chicken and that everybody wants to know what they’re up to 72 hours a day, 14.4 days a week. Which is why God (well, Mark Zuckerberg) created Facebook.  I could add another type to the list above but so many people fit into that category that for now and forever, let’s just call them 'dicks'. There’s no doubt it’s an endless chain though, well more of a circle. There’s always someone that get’s the piss taken out of them by someone else, so they take the piss out of someone smaller than them and the chain/circle moves on. No matter how smart, how popular (let’s face it, that’s not even a word) or how cool you are/think you are, there will always be someone that doesn’t like you. Even if that person has no real reason for not liking you other than just going against the crowd, they still don’t like you. This is another reason why we can’t have world peace. Because there will always be at least one person who wants to disrupt the flow of harmony and go against everybody/thing else. And with almost 7 billion people on this planet, there’s probably quite a few. 

Confuse Me Please?

It’s not everyday that I find myself writing over 1,500 words in 20 minutes. In fact, it’s not everyday I do most things. Sure I get up everyday, brush my teeth, take a dump, and so on, but if you think about it, and once again look closer you’ll see how little you do on a daily basis. In fact, scrap that, it’s the opposite. Or is it? Yes it is... no it isn’t.

Confused yet? Yep, thought you would be, or if you’re not, read it again and then say the word tuna in your head for a bit, then watch/re-watch ‘Inception’ (depending on how cool you are) and try and figure out how the hell Ariadne and Cobb got to limbo. 

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is, a lot of people avoid a lot of movies because they’re scared they’ll get confused. If you think about how easy it is to get confused it’s nothing. I’ve always thought that if a movie confuses you in such a way that you think about it for days, maybe weeks, or even months afterwards, it’s a good thing. It shows that movie has had a lasting impression on your brain and so, you are more inclined to see it again. A good example of this is of course ‘Inception’ which I saw twice then stopped myself from seeing it a third time, before pre-ordering the DVD 3 months before it’s released. When I first left the cinema, there was no doubt a feeling of “Wow, that was like, amazingly good.” but also a feeling of “I understood that”. But within a few hours, after I had got my speech back I began to test myself on how much I did actually know, which was surprisingly little. I went round and round in circles in my head for at least a week, before deciding to go for a second time. Believe it or not, immediately re-watching it does NOT help. If anything, I was more lost than before because I was trying to search for answers that simply weren’t there, and so, I was unattached from the plot and what was going on. I eventually found solace in the answers of others from online chat-rooms and such, which may not actually be the correct answers, but definitely could be classed as believable. I gave up searching for the definitive answers after I realized that they didn’t actually exist. 

To bore you with another example would be cruel, so here it is (but have no fear, it’s a good ‘un). I present example numero dos, ‘Donnie Darko’. In some ways, similar to ‘Inception in the sense that it makes you think afterwards, not as much however, and in a different way. Whereas ‘Inception’ has you questioning certain aspects of the plot and how the characters got from one place to another within the dreamscape as well as the whole “is it all just one big dream?” thing, ‘Donnie Darko‘ makes you question nothing but the end. With two versions of the film out there, apparently presenting different takes on the end, it’s difficult to find a definitive answer, much like ‘Inception’, and so you do think about the movie, but you’re thinking about the movie straight away, once the credits are rolling, not 2 hours later slumped over your computer frantically searching Google. Sure when the ‘Inception‘ title comes up just after the screen cuts to black and we’re all still wondering whether or not the top topples or not, you instantly think “was it a dream then?” but it’s the real ripples of that which throw the other parts of the plot into question. You think for minutes about the spinning-top as you know that there is no answer, but the other questions like, “How the fudge did the kicks work?” make you assume there is an answer, so you trawl through comment after comment, clip after clip, looking for an answer which again, isn’t there. ‘Donnie Darko‘ has you thinking from the moment the screen goes blank but only for long enough for you to come up with an ideal ending, before you just throw it on the pile marked ‘watched’. 

For a poor example of this (which is difficult, considering there are few) we have to journey into independent cinema and look at a small (in running-time as well as budget) film called ‘Primer’. ‘Primer‘ is essentially a movie about time-travel, but with a twinge on it. The fact that the characters never mention anything about time. In fact, they don’t seem to mention anything significant at all. Which is why ‘Primer‘ is bad. ‘Inception‘ and ‘Donnie Darko‘ are good (well brilliant) because they give you enough to chew on, meaning it’s reasonably simple to come up with a definitive answer. ‘Primer‘ however, gives you nothing to work with and just says “go on, get on with it.” And when you don’t feed something, it dies, meaning any interest I had in finding out what the hell this movie was about, died in seconds. Even just the way the story is told makes it impossible to piece anything together and it results in a situation similar to that of a dementia patient angrily throwing a bunch of jigsaw pieces out of a window. The only reason this movie is recognized at all is because it is probably the most confusing film ever made. It may be confusing, but it’s not irritating. It would be irritating if you wanted to know what happened, and nobody wants to know what happened. Hours after ‘Inception‘ had been released, you could Google it and find hundreds of people desperately seeking answers, and hundreds of people answering them, but now, 3 years after ‘Primer‘ was first released to the global market, still nobody has a clue. In fact, out of pure research, the only man I have found to have any understanding of it what-so-ever is a man called Jason Gendler who is/was a Masters student in Critical Studies at the University of California’s Department of Film and Television. That’s not good confusing. That’s bad confusing, very bad confusing. Because that’s the type of confusing which makes us think “Screw it, it’s not worth it”. You can test how good a film is by weighing up how much you generally care about it. 

Simplicity Doesn't Exist

Don’t you find it weird how we get attached to certain objects? I feel quite attached to my DVDs and am practically able to tell you where and when I got most/all of them. It’s like that with other objects too, inanimate objects which hold no emotional connection to us what-so-ever, we just for some reason, feel oddly connected with them. Case in point, mobile phones. I’ve never been a big texter or a big mobile type person (even though, apparently everyone my age is). I have friends who are permanently glued to their handset, literally never putting it down. However, even though I’m not one of these ‘mobiloids’ I still feel strangely connected to each and every mobile I’ve ever had. For instance, my first mobile, one of the first commercial Nokia handsets (that’s something to tell the grandkids) with no colour screen, no camera and a dull, grey body cover. I inherited it from my brother on the 25th December 2003 when he got a new Sagem (which you can no longer ever find anywhere). I never used it for anything, just the thought of having it was enough. Only once did I ever touch the number pad or speak into the receiver. Then, after a few months, I accidentally locked myself out of it when attempting to configure pin protection and never used it again. A phone I barely used, ever, and I remember everything about it… how? Since then I’ve had 4 other phones including my current one; a Motorola flip up, another Nokia, this time a slide, which I had towards the end of year 7 (which cost £100 exactly and ran out of battery even when it wasn’t on), ANOTHER Nokia, and ANOTHER flip up around Year 8 or 9 (which was indeed very good, but was brutally maimed by myself and a swiss army knife whilst attempting to get mother/father to buy me a new one) and finally, my current model, a Sony Ericsson slide. 

My current phone has been loyal to me for many years (well, 1 and a half) and had politely sat in the background, never really being excessively used until recently. It’s also had amazing battery life (roughly 72 hours :O) and provided me with a good communication link to my parents and/or friends. That is until now. The gorgeous piece of black aluminum is now way past it’s use-by date and the middle button is horrifically irritating to use, so to be the direction keys AND it doesn’t seem to take phone-calls either (but did it ever do that?). And so the search begins for a new phone, however, this time, I plan to make it different. 

In fact, I’ve already found the exact phone I want, so no more wondering around the Car-phone Warehouse randomly staring at ugly contraptions and chunks of metal and brick, before finding one which is slightly like-able and taking that one home. Kind of like walking into a pound for mobiles, but having to shell out extortionate amounts of dough for one. Then not to mention the palaver with the networks; 

“Which network would you like that on sir?”

 -”Err, I don’t know, which is cheapest?” 

”Well you can have it for 89.95 on Orange and pick the retarded chimpanzee pack which comes with 7 million free minutes and 12 and a half texts plus free 17H internet connectivity and a free upgrade in 2 days.” 

-”Err, but I want this phone?” 

”Ok, how about T-Mobile then? You get the phone for 70 and a new sim card, that’s it.” 

-”Sure, let’s get that one, nice and simple.” 

”OK, and that requires a minimum top-up of £3,000.” 

-“WAH?” 

How they just slide in each feature like it's nothing major. Like a contract killer talking about slicing and dicing a Welshman and watching him bleed. Why can’t it just be simple? I mean, just walk in, find a phone, buy it, maybe put some money on it, and that’s it. But no, we have to worry about entering into a blood contract with Lucifer himself in return for 716 free items and the added monthly charge of line rental, internet rental and the rental and expenses for the Phones4U employee who sits in his dark green Renault Clio and follows you around, making sure you don’t send 401 texts instead of 400. 

The most irritating thing about this entire charade being that these people make money because other people are stupid enough to listen to them. There are 40-something year old builders out there with iPhones which they spend £50 a month on without realising, and teenagers sending thousands of pounds worth of texts in a matter of weeks. Which is why I suggest all mobile phone salesmen/women should all be locked in a big cage and paraded through the streets, like some sort of modern-day lunatic cart and if you’re stupid enough to want to talk to one, you have to climb in there too, whilst us sane beings are free to purchase from Japanese robots with kind-manners and a general understanding of how someone pays for something (cash, card etc.) with no extra monthly costs, no text plans or line rental and a straight-forward and easy mobile buying experience. And while we're at it, might as well throw in a hypnotic 70's style musical score too, turn it into a trippy sci-fi movie. 

In the end, I am only usually forking out between £40 and £100, so it’s not exactly a massive purchase, but it is something I plan on using for a serious amount of time, so I want to get it right and not spend the next year or 2 moaning about the crummy battery life, blurry camera or disappearing credit. Simplicity doesn't exist. What... it does? No, seriously, think about it. Hard. Harder. ...

"Classic" vs. "Modern"

I’ve recently just given up attempting to catch up with the past and just started living from the present. This may sound dramatic, but it does, once again, refer directly to movies. Over the past few years, my obsession with movies has grown and grown to the point where I watch, on average, at least one a day. Which gives me plenty of time to watch all the so called ‘legendary’ movies of the past 50 years such as ‘The Deer Hunter’, ‘The Godfather Part II’ and of course ‘The Taxi Driver’ among others. I picked these 3 movies out of the bunch that are so called ‘immortal’ purely for one reason. They are all over-hyped rubbish. Well, to be fair, they are good movies but with all the attention they get, and all the lists they top, you would assume they would be better. Another reason why I picked these 3 is because they were all made within the 1970’s. Is it something about that decade or were most films that came out then really quite bad? I mean, sure there was ‘Alien’ and ‘Apocalypse Now’ at the end of the decade, and movies like ‘Dirty Harry’ towards the start which are all phenomenal, but there’s a handful of much-loved tripe which has been incorrectly labelled ‘classic’. And by saying this I am in no way attempting to be edgy or refreshing or whatever, I’m just trying to get my point across. 

Being only 15 years of age, I am forced into a maturity group which also involves nit-wits, nit-pickers and all round creeps. This group is full of other movie-lovers like myself, but with one fatal flaw. They all suppose that if everybody says “Hey, this movie is brilliant!” it must automatically be brilliant. I am not saying that all of these 'over-hyped' movies are rubbish, I'm saying most of them are, and they are nothing by today’s standards. And when I say ‘today’s standards’, I don’t mean Hollywood blockbusters like ‘Transformers 2’ or ‘Salt’, I mean proper brilliant modern cinema that, believe it or not, is around, you just have to *cough* look closer. Forgive the ‘American Beauty’ reference (but if you picked up on it, well done you, have a digestive) and the small rant about modern cinema, I’ll leave that for now. Back to the point at hand. 

The classic movies most people grew up with are hanging by a thread. I’ve never been more bored in my life than I was when I watched ‘The Deer Hunter’. It was 2 hours 40 minutes of nothingness (well, a bunch of Americans drinking, swearing and whinging) with about 20 minutes or so of tantalizing action and random russian-roulette scenes. Yes, in 1979 when it was first released it was a masterpiece, but not anymore. We need to get our head out of the past and live in the present. There’s so many great films that have been made over the last 10 years which not only have completely changed the genre they are a part of, but changed movies in general. The only problem being that nobody is watching them. I’m talking about ‘Hard Candy’ changing the face of horror/thrillers, changing the dynamic of chilling, meaning you don’t need to throw buckets of blood at the screen to scare people. I’m also talking about ‘(500) Days of Summer’ a movie which twisted the romantic-comedy, so it not only didn’t feel like a romance movie, but didn’t feel like a comedy either. It was like the greatest feel-good film in recent years (if you forget about ‘Juno’ of course, which is impossible) and it also mixed in some fantastically fresh ideas, with the flashbacks, and expectations and such, it really felt like someone had thrown their heart and soul into making this movie, which really isn’t present in any Hollywood blockbuster. I’d like to see Michael Bay get people emotionally attached to a robot as it blows chunks out of a smaller robot whilst transforming into a 1968 Volkswagen Beatle. Jeez that movie was bad. But less about the diabolical ‘Transformers 2’, and more about the movies that matter. 

It’s just a shame when these great, triumphant pieces of modern cinema do finally grace our screens, and people just simply call them ‘alright’ or ‘a bit weird’ just because they don’t follow the usual trend of explosion, sex, explosion, blood, sex. The one exception I can see to this entire rule came out on 16th July 2010. It was neither a blockbuster, nor an indie movie, but a delicious mix of the two. It was of course, Christopher Nolan’s freak-out masterpiece ‘Inception’. And what was so refreshing about this movie is, it attracted everybody. And I mean, everybody. Movie geeks like me were desperate to see it. Retards lapped up the odd explosions, and the general movie going public liked the look of Leo DiCaprio’s face and Marion Cotillard’s boobs (although they completely missed the REAL stars [Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page, duh!]) This movie is so unique in the sense that it’s a blockbuster (I guess, based on the budget) with a brain. It would be like watching Frankenstein develop Einstein’s theory of relativity.

But of course, when I whinge about Hollywood blockbusters, there are some exceptions. These include comic-book adaptations like ‘Batman Begins’, ‘Iron Man’, ‘The Dark Knight’, ‘Spiderman’ and so on. Also, movies such as ‘The Matrix’ which have an underlying message. And finally movies like ‘Kick-Ass’ or ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ which I guess are again comic book adaptations, but with a twist. This final tiny little sub-genre is full of movies like these that are made by fan-boys, for fan-boys who want to see the comic come to life, not a re-imagining a la Batman style (despite them being brilliant). 

Notice how the one movie I left out was AVATAR, purely because I hate what that movie stands for. The movie itself was watchable, and don’t get me wrong, the technology was good, great even, just the message that film seemed to transmit. It’s like James Cameron had just recorded himself saying “It’s expensive, it’s glossy, it’s basically the biggest advancement in movie technology for a while, LIKE IT or you’ll die.” And so the media lapped it up, meaning the public lapped it up, meaning it earned over $2 billion globally, which makes me feel sick to think about, when fantastic original flicks like ‘Moon’ and ‘Kick-Ass’ struggle to make back their budget. Although the public lapped it up for it’s luscious use of colour, ground-breaking special effects and unnecessary but trend-setting use of 3D, there is a small, but fantastically awesome part of everyone (except the cast and crew) that wants to hate it. Some of us, like the dudes that give out the Academy Awards, have embraced it, and some haven’t, and some are even stuck mid-way. When I say I hate what that movie stands for, I mean that everybody assumes they have to like it because it cost lots of money to make, and therefore, everything that cost under 30 or $40 million is utter shit. Sometimes I just want to grab these people by the throat and continuously shake them until they realize what they are doing/saying. Wow, and... breathe. 

Intro + A Startling Experience Which You've Probably Already Heard About

My name is Ben. Owner of many, lover of none. My age can be described in no other format than that of 15 years of age. I guess there’s a bunch of months and days and minutes and stuff that need to be added onto there too but meh, I’m not MADE of money. Nor am I made of sand. But anyway, less about what I may or may not be made from, what this thing is about is me. Well me writing about me. So here’s me. I have a lot of free time, which I spend mostly trawling the internet aimlessly, grabbing at useless bits of information that float their way towards me like a hungry duck. When I’m not trawling the internet, I’m either looking bored, thinking about Ellen Page, or watching a film. Oh, or TV shows, I watch a lot of them too. 

On the topic of TV shows I tend to become obsessed with one, then watch every single episode of that one show almost in one go, which takes months (or in Lost’s case, years) of my life, leaving me feeling depressed and lonely afterwards. A void I’ve started to fill with  an increasing obsession over Oscar nominated (she was robbed) Canadian actress and all-round most awesome person alive, Ellen Page. I’ve seen almost all her movies (bar two, which I could watch, but it would cost me the grand total of £27 and weeks of waiting) and the obsession began when I realized I was only ever vaguely happy when watching her on screen. ‘Juno’ and ‘Whip It’ quickly became two of my favorite movies, and then even her harsher more depressing outings such as ‘The Tracey Fragments’ became amazingly brilliant. Soon I found myself with a list of all her work, watching each one and crossing them off the list. I got to the point where I was watching 3 or 4 movies a day. 

One weekend I watched the entire 8 episodes of the Canadian show ‘ReGenesis’ which starred Ellen (at 45 minutes each) and all 4 episodes of the show ‘Trailer Park Boys’ (which even now I’m ripped on for, because it sounds like a gay porno). After that weekend, came the weekend where I watched ‘Ghost Cat’, ‘The Stone Angel’ and ‘An American Crime’ all in one day. The last on that list being the beautifully shot adaptation of the tragic tale of Sylvia Likens, a teenage girl who was brutally tortured and murdered in the 1960’s. The film was so powerful and emotionally epic I was bummed out for a while (a feat only achieved once before by John Hillcoat’s ‘The Road’). But it was on that night when I decided something had to be done. Sunday 4th July 2010 and I had school the next day, so to avoid what I had experienced before with ‘The Road’ (a whole week of depression only saved by watching ‘Whip It’ 3 times and a collection of other brilliant movies) I decided I had to cheer myself up by watching a happier film. After minutes of scouring my collection I came to the conclusion that no comedy would be funny in the face of the heart-wrenching ‘An American Crime’ so the only cure was to take my mind away from it with an amazingly fantastic super-awesome movie. I at first picked ‘American Beauty’ off the shelf, my official number 1 film of all time, but 20 minutes in, I realized it wasn’t working at all. The plot just didn’t engage me enough. So I got back to my EP list, realizing that all of her happy movies I had seen very recently and so would have little effect. This lead to one of the strangest but most brilliant decisions of my life, the decision to, 8 months after first sight, re-watch ‘Hard Candy’

. It was on that Sunday night which I discovered the truly immortal excellence of said indie film. Ellen shone as the obviously insane and psychotic Hayley Stark, a 14 year-old who invites herself into the home of suspected pedophile Jeff, and drugs him, before mentally torturing him. The movie also is known to be infamous in the film community for it’s unsettling castration scene in which we see no blood, just the facial reactions of the 2 characters which is easily enough to make you squirm with horror. As the movie ended, and the credits flicked past I was left bedazzled, attempting to remember  my reaction to the film the first time I laid eyes on it. 

Ever since that fateful day in early July, I have used ‘Hard Candy’ as a reference point for anytime I doubt the ability of the human race or anytime I am completely bummed out and depressed. In any sad circumstance I think back to that movie and the affect it had on me that Sunday night. Ellen Page’s spine-tinglingly awesome performance. Patrick Wilson’s convincingly terrific twist on the modern-day sexual predator. The raw tension, the grey tint and the unpredictably twisted switches from Ellen’s character, from sweet schoolgirl to demonic super-bitch and back again. Everything just pulls together so beautifully. The only danger I faced was over-watching it. People look at me like I’m some sort of mental patient that’s just soiled himself, rolled it around in his hand, then smeared it across his face when I tell them that I used said movie to cheer me up in times of trouble. They can’t see past the plot summary of “teenage girl tortures grown man” and the troubling involvement of castration and look at the big picture. The beauty of it all. Movies to most are just brief periods of enjoyment but to me, they’re not just art, but a way of life. Those people find it difficult to see that happiness can come from brilliantly made movies, not just movies that make you laugh. This remains as one of the most beloved experiences I hold from my life. The experience of how ‘Hard Candy’ became one of my favorite movies of all time. A small but honestly invigorating experience that believe it or not, has changed my life forever.