The 29th state of the US kicks off the Republican Primaries tomorrow with the citizens of Iowa casting their votes. Candidates pouring over every poll; the leader being relieved to see his own name hovering at the top, most of the candidates despairing at their middle position and the others with only 1-2% who are competing with with fictional tv characters in terms of popularity. All scheming, all plotting, all planning, considering and worrying but most of all hoping.

A lot is built on hope. The one and only time I ever went for election was built on it. Hope that in my secondary school head-boy elections my fellow students would give me enough ones, twos and threes to sweep me into power. My campaign like many others was through posters. Mine attempted to out to stand out through making fun of other posters, misdirection and popular jokes at the time. It didn’t work though. I lost. Boo-hoo but I’m glad I went for it at least. I’m sure most of the losers next Wednesday will feel the same.

Edit: At this point I wanted to show you said posters but unfortunately wordpress is being a bit shit right  now. I’ll put them up tomorrow instead.

(b) My New Year’s Resolution

Learn to do the splits

and

Scores of celebrities      X       Unwanted Holdiay        =       Bums in seats

There is no way this movie a movie of ‘New Year’s Eve’ ‘s ilk can be regarded as anything more than decent. The best hope is an American remake of the 8 year old ‘Love Actually’ which is damning it with faint praise.

The reason I find movies like this vile is because of the people they appeals to. The type of people where, the ‘when’ is far more important than the ‘why’.  The sort who consider it of utmost importance to be doing something special at New  Year’s or celebrate their Valentines on exactly that day. It can be important to celebrate these things but not when being taken so clearly advantage of. Do people know this? Yep. Does this matter? Nope. They will happily hand over the price for cinema tickets and popcorn before taking their seats to sit through 108 minutes of what they already know will be garbage. Yeah, it’s fun to trash the movie afterwards with your date but should you really be paying 20 euro to watch a movie that is neither romantic nor comedic. Moreover who’s laughing harder, you two at the movie or the producers at you?

Rom-com’s can be great; gentle-lady rom-coms like How Harry Met Sally, 10 Things I Hate About You or gentlemen rom-coms like Some Like It Hot or Forgetting Sarah Marshal  or Four Weddings  are equally enjoyed by both sexes. I get the feeling that we don’t consider the above movies rom-coms but rather simple comedies yet all of their central theme is the male-female dynamic and falling in love so they really are rom-coms, for better or for worse.

Even when we movies that are more rom than com we generally move them into the romantic section eg Notting Hill, the animated Transformers Movie,   Eternal Sunshine, Pretty Woman but what about rom-coms sitting directly in the middle. Films such as The Break-Up, Bridget Jones or Amelie. All twelve movies have what ‘New Year’ does not and basically cannot have; lead characters with major character flaws. By only focusing on one, two, three or maybe four, the movie gets a chance to demonstrate these flaws and show the characters overcoming these restrictions.

This isn’t even a very good point as it’s the starting point of all media i.e. conflict and interaction with that conflict.

By setting up New Year’s Eve as a romantic comedy, the director has been given an impossible task i.e. the creation of conflict between 7 couples who are either supposed to be in love or falling in love. Even its most comparable film, Love Actually, does not attempt to do this with only half the leads falling in love while the others suffer heart-break of some sort or other.

You see, I’ve become obsessed with this movie as I tramp past this poster every time on my way to work. It’s huge, gold and beaming with smiles so I’ve been trying to figure out the plot and coming up with my own as well.

My real guesses were based on;

Every character has to end up with someone.

Not all of these actors are A/B list so stars of similar fame will end up with similar rated stars.

The best a black man can do in a Hollywood movie is get another black woman or Latino woman.

There is a character in the movie that is gay but does not appear in the movie poster so it is all strictly heterosexual relationships.

There will be no scenes of people having sex so ‘prettiness’ takes a far more important role over ‘sexuality’.

The movies are aimed almost entirely at women. This means confessions of undying and unwavering love. If anyone is to suffer from an illness, die or need physical/emotional support then it will be the man.

Here’s said poster with additional predictions for the film.

How certain am I?

100% bankable predictions

De Niro / Pfieffer – two over sixty recognisable actors in a romantic comedy! OMG, I hope this movie proves that older people can fall in love too.

Kutcher / Blond girl at the top right – Kutcher will play fun loving dude who at first the completely wrong guy for young executive blond girl in but as it turns out, his goofiness was the perfect thing that she needed to realise the more important things in life. Why is he, a fun loving guy settling with someone opposite to that? Because this is a movie for girls and Kutcher is playing nothing more than a pet for this girl so therefore does not need any type of development.

Efron / Glee girl – men can’t go out with women older than themselves unless the woman is well noted for how young she looks for her age. There is no one else close in age to Efron’s age. Furthermore their demographic fits as comparably well as De Niro/ Pfeiffer.

The wine glasses / couple at the bottom right – two glasses, two people. It’s the perfect fit.

80% sure

Bon Jovi / Swank – this one fits well with the age and celebrity rule. Both are of the same generation so wouldn’t it be nice to see Swank (an actress liked by women almost to the extent of Jennifer Aniston) get together with the lead singer of Bon Jovi.

Berry / guy who was in Transformers even though he did nothing for three movies apart from getting pep talks from Optimus Prime – from the poster we can see that Halle is in scrubs. This means she is either a nurse or more likely a doctor. She will need someone just as serious minded as herself. This cuts out anyone wearing a hat in the poster and most of the other rows. She is only left with Bon Jovi and Optimus’s biggest fan that happens to be wearing a suit. I would also put them on the same level of fame. His has risen and hers has fallen.

50%

Ludacris / Hot Italian woman – apart from Halle Berry, everyone else is too white while Halle Berry would be too obvious and is needed by one of the other characters. She will be very foreign and he will be nothing less than the most vanilla of characters.

Red haired girl / semi-dorky guy – there is nothing sexual about this mix and is therefore perfect for a Hollywood movie about two supporting group members getting together. This relationship on a side note will also have the least development out of any of the characters.

Girl who has had too much plastic surgery / young guy wearing hat – this is the same situation as the one above except they are more attractive. If I am wrong here then it will be for the reason that red hair went with Mr Hat and Thin-nose with Mr Bland.

20%

Sarah Jessica Parker / Other hat guy – I just don’t see this one. I’m only picking it because who else can each of them end up with. SJP has got De Niro and Bon Jovi open to her. SJP is typecast in rom-coms so her ending up with older hat guy is a bit of a surprise.

After the movie comes out, I’ll update with how correct I was.

The movie I would like to see is that on the planet New Year, Doctor Chris Bridges and Professor De Niro have creating the New Eve; a genetically engineered woman, Katherine Heigel, who acts as the alchemist’s stone to turn whatever she touches into gold. This is discovered when Bridges is gaping at their perfect human and Eve sticks her finger up to his mouth and turns two of his teeth gold. Preofessor deNiro quickly pulls Bridges back but the tooth and gum are dead. Professor De Niro says this is “Crazy”, Bridges agress “Yes, quite Ludicrous” as he admires his new tooth. Within months, Chris Bridges has become Ludicrous- fabulously wealthy and by using gold as a conducter is able to receive information quicker than anyone in the world thus becoming the most powerful man in New Year. The world of New Year begins to suffer serious earthquakes. Professor De Niro thinks there may be a connection to Eve and urges Ludacris to stop so research may be stopped. Ludacris says he will think about it but instead uses his highered super squad, Mr Transformers and Plastic surgery girl (Jessica Biel ) to kidnap the good Professor’s wife and daughter, Pfeffier and Glee girl. Once this has been discovered, Ludacris informs Deniro that he will conduct the research himself and has only taken his family into care as a protective caution against deniro conducting any research himself. Some time passes and it is discovered that Eve is pregnant. Ludacris informs him that he raped Eve twice. He then produces a box with a gold unwrapped  condom in it. Ludacris says “She was never meant to get pregnant but the second time, the condom ripped”. De Niro shocked begins his own research on a different line to Ludacris so as to discover how Eve is converting the metals. continues his research as the Eve gets larger and is forced to convert more gold and earthquakes rip through the New Year. A huge hole has appeared in a city identical to New York. De Niro figures out the gold particles are coming from this creater. He sends a research team of Bon Jovi (captain), Italian girl (first officer), nerdy guy and red head girl. They discover that the gold is coming from a sphere although there is a whole developing in the side. They investigate. A terrible gold bengled tiger dressed as Sarah Jessika Parker is sleeping on a huge pile of gold ála the Hobbit.  SJP stirs and calls out for her missing gold. At that moment, Eve goes into labour and produces a half-cast girl. As the baby starts to cry, SJP screams a terrible roar before attacking the ship. She kills the two blandest characters in the movie but no one really cares and they are soon forgotten about. SJP returns to the surface of New Years on the ship. Bon Jovi and Italian girl are busy making their own babies (very graphic scene inserted at this point) so do not realise what is occurring. SJP rushes to where the child is. Ludacris sends waves of his own men (rest of the cast) against her but for some unexplainable reason they find her really charming and buy her shoes before she breaks up with them. Ludacris, the baby and Eve retreat back to where Professor DeNiro and his family are kept captive. Deniro says that SJP is the centre of the Earth and the world spins around her. No other women can look as beautiful as her. Ludacris looks shocked “But she’s so hideous, how is that possible” and then looking down at his penis “She needs the gold to blind others to her horrible features”. DeNiro nods and looks at the half black, half white child. “This child of your’s will have perfect features. And will not age until the year before she dies. She will be as a sweet berry before its death.” Looking at Eve in her weakened state he realises that all of her power to defeat the gold demon has been transferred to the child “All hail Berry”. Ludacris and the others join in and start to chant “Hail Berry, Hail Berry, Hail Berry”. The child begins to grow rapidly, light blinds them until a gorgeous naked woman stands in front of them. Hail Berry charges everyone $300,000 to look at her boobs. She then waits for SJP to enter. The doors fly open. “Back witch. I have aged myself to within one year of your own birth. See yourself as compared to me. I have no wish to see you in Manhattan, or to see what type of shoes you have spent money on. Neither do I care for your 3 demon friends  nor your prattling newspaper column. Go back to the centre of the world. Repair New Year. Do as I say for I am Eve, New Year’s Eve”.

Did I mention this is a musical and does not go on any longer than 5 minutes.

Scene’s that will not appear in this movie or the real movie

Any of the characters looking around them, people watching between 23:00 and 00:00 waiting for something unusual or memorable to happen.

No one will appear drunk unless it is by a non-character and their purpose will be to spill something on a more important female character’s dress. The dress however will not be ruined and the event will be easily redeemable.

Vomiting

None of the characters will have extra marital affairs or cheat. They may however be cheated on.

And in summary I think that is the dumbest thing that I have ever written.

Someone hated me

Someone loved me

Someone wanted to go shopping with me

Someone wanted to go on a date with me.

Does this mean anything?

Nope