Mark Kermode
“Good, Good, Good, Ow Ouch, Good, Good, Found shirt”
OK, so, here's the thing: articles are rubbish, the Internet is rubbish, and articles on the Internet are really rubbish. So thing is that the internet was first thought of by J.C.R. Licklider, who, incidentally, has a daughter whose cousin once worked in the same office as Linda Blair, who superbly played Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, and you know what I think of The Exorcist,but apparently I'm not allowed to speak about that anymore. So anyway, Mark Kermode. He is amazing, literate, eloquent, visceral, intelligent, superfluous, sublime, mesmeric, genius, Citizen Kane, illiterate, and intelligent.
Career[edit]
Mark Kermode, or Doctor Mark Kermode B.S.C. PhD D.Phil. D.Hor.Fic. Dr.Phil MSci MBiochem MEng MMath MPhys MDes MPhil MB BS or BM BS MB BChir MB BCh BAO MA (Cantab.) MA (Dubl.) MA (Hons) MA (Oxon.) EdS NuclE PsyD FdTech MBE CBE OBE, also does a lot of writing about film for City Life, Time Out, New Musical Express, the Independent, the Grauniad, Fangoria, Vox, Empire, The Beano, Fangoria, Flicks, Fangoria, Neon, BFI Modern Classics, Fangoria, Sight And Sound, South Pontycagal Film Society Newsletter, Fangoria, Sound and Sight,Zoo and Andrex Extra-Soft.He also used to write for Fangoria, but he doesn't like to mention that. And in the early 1990s he also moved into radio, doing shows on BBC Radio One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, π, diddly eye chai, and Etc., until he became the resident film critic on Radio One FM, presenting film programmes such as Clingfilm, Movie Update and Phil Space and talking over the top of Mark Radcliffe, Simon Mayo and the Evening Session. And then Channel 4 came by with more money, as they do, and set him to work doing Extreme Cinema and writing, researching and dribbling documentaries such as Scream and Scream Again: A History of Listening to Mark Kermode for Twenty Years, and is introducing a law to Parliament that all networks he is not the film critic on should be required to have him as their film critic as a condition of keeping their license, which I think anyone could agree with. Fangoria.
Qualifications[edit]
You know, anyway, Mark Kermode, well if you don't like him then I don't know what to say, I really don't, it's symptomatic of the death of critical cinema, the decline is exponential, I give up, I really do. Fangoria. His attitude bespeaks the antithesis of being mephetic and is sublime. He is a doctor of American horror fiction and as such should be referred to as "Doctor" or "Sir" or "Dr.Am.Hor.Fic." or Dr. Boremode, as he will be referred to until he has a rant about a bad film, is the other half of Professor Linda Ruth Williams, author of The Erotic Thriller in Contemporary Cinema,which roughly translates into English as Porn, and she is an expert on erotic thrillers (soft pornography) and is very good at what she does.
Flicks[edit]
He has directed, written, starred in, produced, narrated, written and introduced many documentaries and, well, ho and indeed hum ... I mean, they are all right, they are of course clichéd, y'know, and have been done many times before, they are not malicious, I mean they are not Little Man, it's all very innocent but when are we going to stop having clichéd, boring, unoriginal, facetious, cine-literate, clever "wink to the adult" documentaries about Salo: 120 days Of Sodom? Where are the modern day Exorcists, Citizen Kanes and Brazils? ... Well, I'm thinkin' this as I'm saying this, Bug, that's where ... it's horrific, chilling, sadistic, masochistic, sick, visceral, disgusting, pornographic, violent, quaint, threatening and horrifying ... but in a good way. He is all like, "Ohh, I am Mark Kermode, I have opinions, I don't like some movies, I'm right, it's everyone else thats wrong." GET OVER IT Boremode. I mean, that guy's no Gore Verbinski, I mean Verbinski doesn't do actors, he does big dramatic special effects, incidentally the special effects on the new Cronenberg movie are very good, not that they need to be or anything.
Salo: 120 days Of Sodom Documentary[edit]
“Funny, Funny, Funny, Horrific, Quaint, Mutilation, Funny”
“Yes or No, how good is it?”
After seeing this I am lost for words, I really am.I'm not just saying this to be contrary but this documentary is worse than Last Days, and you know what I think about Last Days ... one of the worst films of 2005. I had to sit through all TWO HOURS FORTY FIVE at a screening in Cannes. I mean you know what I think of Cannes ... vile, boring, banal, bordeline racist, boring, belidgerent and full of middle class toffs who spend the whole time going "ohhhh ... Uncle Mark's written a documentary about the infamous Salo: 120 days Of Sodom, let's clap him and cheer, because its just so intelligent, I mean I don't understand it myself but ..." Incidentally, funny I should say that after I was incidentally infamously thrown out of Cannes for swearing in French, so, OK, anyway, y'know, I've had enough of these kids' movies which are boring and long, incidentally twenty minutes were cut out in editing, that's not nearly enough, two hours sixty five minutes preferably, I like my movies short, I mean Titanic is 194 minutes long, that bespeaks boring and calignosity, Deep Throat, however, is 61 minutes long, that's perfect,although so is 9 songs which was along the same vein...but appalingly bad.Although all is forgiven Michael,as movies such as Tristram Shandy and 24 Hour Party People,which I LOVED....and incidentally also starred Steve Coogan. Although incidentally I remember when I was making the Linda Lovelace documentary with horrible, vile people, and I went off and watched the Scooby Doo movie and being filled with warmth and humanity.
Anyway, where was I, oh yes, Salo: 120 of Sodom documentary. well, y'know, it's a lighthearted romp about four fascist libertines rounding up nine teenage boys and girls and subjecting them to a hundred and twenty days of physical, mental and sexual torture which gives them plenty of scope for gags, but I found that it didn't quite hit the mark with some of them.
I found myself by surrounded by people laughing and howling and exhaulting in amusement at a gag about mutilation, but I just had a slight problem with some of the gags which seemed to border on anti-American. I honestly thought that maybe I wasn't part of the same race as these people, and I am not just saying this to be contrary, people always come up to me and say "ohhhhh ... you're only saying that to be contrary," but the fact is that I wanted, I really did, to be part of this humanity surrounding me but I just didn't find it funny. That's all. It's rated 12A for a reason, there is a scene where someone swears quite profusely. 12A means over 12 unless you have a very good reason to believe that your child can cope with the content of the film. The BBFC, who, incidentally, are doing a very good job, were going to put a minimum age limit on 12A certificate movies but decided to leave it the discretion of parents, and, frankly, parents with any sense wouldn't take their children to this atrocious, boring, banal, emetic, vomit inducing,nauseant,tautologous, quaint, offbeat and, frankly, horrifically dull documentary which is nothing more than a wannabe Toy Story.
Well Toy Story it aint't.
Conclusion[edit]
That's all well and good but, at the end of the day is he a good critic? Yes. Does he have good opinions? Yes. Is he Citizen Kane? No.