300 People In My Living Room

The world is a mighty confusing place. So much so that this particular rant should've technically been written some three days ago, but at the time, I had nothing to say on the subject and yesterday afternoon's "hunger and loneliness" vibes proved too strong to be shunned. Anyway, I was going to write this thing with regard to myself (in the company of friends, of course, I'm not that much of a miserable loner) venturing to a cinema to watch The Inbetweeners Movie. However, I'm not going to talk about that. Mainly because every other fucker on the face of the Earth who's gone to see it (which apparently seems to be every other fucker on the face of the Earth) has already spouted off about how 'awesome' it was, and how 'amazin'' it was, and how 'ded funni' it was and blah-fucking-blah. So instead, I'll have a wee moan about that instead. This is more about my whole cinema viewing experience, rather than that a review of a film, for two reasons: (1) I find the whole cinema experience much more exciting to write about, and (2) I don't do film reviews. Why does anyone write film reviews, by the way? Correction. Why does anyone who think they can write film reviews write film reviews? Honestly, I've read a bunch and it feels like torture. Like some kind of fanboy 'OMGZ dis film woz well gud, yeahzzz' that any 5-year-old would probably cringe at. So yeah, fuck reviews. (Noticed I'm saying "fuck" a lot... apparently I'm agitated by this and haven't fucking started yet!)

The cinema experience began after 9pm for the ticket purchasing ceremony, although this was preceded by the procession of waiting your turn. By the time the booth people were able to take my money, the next available showing time transpired to be bordering on midnight. This allowed time for snacks and beverages in a nearby bar, but meant that it'd virtually be 2am before I'd see the credits roll. The joys of sleep deprivation. Watching an entire film in a darkened room with itchy, strained eyes just adds to the uniqueness of the experience. The people were a bit odd too. I mean, afterwards, someone told me they found it a bit odd watching The Inbetweeners on a big screen because they weren't used to it, but in that respect, I should really be notifying people that upon my recent purchase of a new 26-inch TV, to replace my little square TV-video-combi thing I've had since age twelve, I started to find it easier to read rolling news tickers and I was confused at how Deal Or No Deal's boxes had suddenly grown massive. I could kind of see what they were getting at, though. I never watched the show avidly, but have found it to be of light entertainment value whenever it's been on. Humorous moments have provided a small chuckle from me to myself as the only one in the room. Sometimes there have been one or two others in the room with me and small chuckles have emanated from each mouth and disappeared a second later. In a crowded, sell-out cinema screen, however, the chuckles amassed and reverberated for minutes longer than was absolutely necessary, giving the whole thing the feeling of there being over 300 people in my living room. And while everyone was too busy laughing at one joke, they missed at least seventeen new utterances that could've contained more joke. Defeated the whole point, really.

Special mention goes to the dumb-fuck sat behind me at the point when, SPOILER ALERT, one girl kisses one guy to make another guy jealous or something teenagery like that. We see lingering shots of her looking at the one she's trying to jealousise (is that a word? Fuck it, it is now!) and reaction shots from him too. Cue the idiot in the chair behind mine, with a genuine sense of "I know something nobody else knows" cleverness, a good 18 seconds after the scene ended: 'oh she was only doing that to make the other guy jealous'. Congratulations. Here's a crash helmet and some armbands. Try not to fuck yourself up too much during your stay on the planet.

Somehow, though, I can't help feeling I'm missing something, because this movie was essentially a spin-off from a TV show, and a very short one at that. So why is everybody cacking their pants about it? The Inbetweeners has existed for three series', each at a total of six episodes, essentially amounting to a total of eighteen half-hour episodes. In comparison, Black Books, which I've recently started watching, produced exactly the same amount of episodes and lasted exactly the same amount of time. Where's the Black Books Movie?!?! And where's all the hype for it? And where's all the love for it? And etc. and all that. For Christ's sake, The Inbetweeners never even had its first run on a main channel! It first blinked into existence on digital channel E4. Although, saying that now does feel a bit redundant since the whole country's practically gone digital. Let's face it, the issue of analogue versus digital channels only affects you if you're elderly or reading this in 1986, which, considering you're reading this a whole 25 years before it's actually been written, is nothing short of miraculous.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not slating The Inbetweeners. I'm just saying I don't understand the hype. To me it's a piece of light entertainment youth comedy blah blah with a few points where it seems to lack a certain something special. But that's it. It's not God. It's not the greatest thing ever to grace the history of human existence. It's just a nice piece of filler-TV. Stop hyping it so much!

Altogether, in my non-professional, non-film reviewy review of not a film, I'd give the film four mundane looking asterisks. * * * * . Look. There they are in all their ordinaryness. Ahhh, it's almost like M*A*S*H without the letters, or they could be used to cover up every time I've mentioned the word "fuck" in this thing, the number of which just so happens to be ten.