WHO YA GONNA CALL ?? ... SOMEONE ELSE

I love the diversity of movies I often go to see. I look back in particular over the last year and look at what I've watched and it's quite the proverbial smorgasbord of cinematic goodness.

I've been to see most of the superhero blockbusters (Captain America: Civil War is due to pass my eyeballs this very week as it happens) but I've also seen some very innovative and artisan films such as Birdman, and a very genteel Ian McKellen as Sherlock Holmes. The recent comedic biopic of Eddie the Eagle was funny and heart-warming, Kingsmen: The Secret Service was bonkers and brilliant, The Revenant was powerful, gripping, intense and gut-wrenching, Mad Max: Fury Road an astonishing, visceral thrill-ride of visuals and social commentary.

I even treated myself to a solo screening of Deadpool, a film that was more fun than watching a wombat in a washing machine. As well as this I have taken in the latest outings of James Bond, and even Star Wars, which isn't one of my favourite franchises, but I enjoyed very much because it was fun, enjoyable and a good old nostalgic blast.

This last point I make is because in a couple of months time, we get another nostalgic reboot coming in the form of a new Ghostbusters movie, with an all-female cast. This was potentially an excellent idea. At the time, all of us who loved the original speculated about our new team of kick-ass ladies able to wield a proton gun with sass and style. Emma Stone, Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Tina Fey, Eliza Dushku, Amy Schumer were all mentioned and this excited us. This was a great opportunity to bring the franchise kicking and screaming back to life.

Then it was announced Paul Feig was directing and Melissa McCarthy was leading the cast. We mourned our lost opportunity, we mourned that some great names would now no longer be on board. And we mourned, most of all, because what should have been a great opportunity to breathe new life into a beloved franchise was instead potentially degenerating in front of our eyes into a layer of dressing for a mediocre comedy.

A lot of comic book, sci-fi, and franchise movies get criticised these days for being 'dark gritty reboots', and yes, Marvel have shown with Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool that this doesn't have to be the case, but Ghostbusters would have been PERFECT for that approach. Die hard fans alike have already voiced their displeasure of the film and gone on to slam the new all female cast. Its my interpretation of the film by the pictures and the plot details released that its going to fail not because its an all female cast but rather because the plot seems really uninspired as a Ghostbusters film.

It has nothing to do with the fact they are all female but rather that they all seem to be generic characters. In the original Ghostbusters they were more diverse than that and that’s why made them funny without actually having to try and be funny. Egon was the smart one. Ray was also a smart scientist but also a very warm, identifiable human character, he was the audiences eyes into the world of the Ghostbusters. Venkman was a charming, ducking and diving ladies man. Finally there’s Winston, who wasn’t just the token black guy, he actually represented the everyman. He was just a hard working man looking for a job and got it working as a Ghostbuster.

All this achieved the humour and gave us a memorable movie without ticked boxes and pre-filled demographic quotas, and without the aid of blatant stunt-casting. Already with this reboot I feel as if they’re going with the basic modern comedy formula which will be filled with slapstick, stereotype characters. I feel as if there isn’t going to be that diverse cast of characters but rather four actresses trying hard just to be funny with no other rhyme or reason other than moving the movie forward.

Already with the trailer it seems as if its going to be a lot of trying too hard to make the audience laugh. I feel like its going to be your pro-typical modern day comedy which aren’t really that funny anymore and its not for lack of trying its for lack of storytelling. I feel like everything from character development, atmosphere, comedy, fear, horror, a lot of things could be done better if there was someone different who respected the roots of the franchise.

A different writer and director would have accomplished this. If they did that then the character development would flow right along with the story cause you cant develop a character without first having a story that also flows right along with it. The comedy and fear would be better set up with story telling that gives you a reason to laugh or fear something rather than just having jump scares just because you cant figure out a way to do something that creates that fear or legitimate gritty tension.

And this goes back to the point I made earlier. By making this new Ghostbusters a light-hearted comedy there is no progress with the franchise being made at all, there's no evolution. A 'dark gritty reboot' may not have been to everybody's tastes, but it could have at least learnt itself to more authenticity. I feel this film will fail because its going to try too hard to recapture what made the original great while trying too hard to do something different by making some sort of forced joke or plot detail for a certain piece of technology.

Does this mean I'm sexist ?? Well, the odds are I will go and see the new Ghostbusters because of my nostalgic love for the franchise. The fundamental idea of an all female cast was a GOOD one, and it potentially could have had so much going for it. We had our heroes back in the 80's, and I totally agree that young girls of today deserve the opportunity to discover and be inspired by their heroines too. This new Ghostbusters was the perfect opportunity to do just that, but without squandering the charm of the original and the nostalgic warmth we feel for the franchise 30 years later.

And the funny thing is, with all these popular franchises, there was a time when they weren't part of the comfort zone. There was something about the time we were first introduced to a franchise that made us want to stay there. And unfortunately, that first, energizing experience that bought our loyalty will never happen again within the same franchise.

No matter how much the instalments improve their special effects, no matter how much a fifth sequel boasts of 'recapturing' the original, no matter how many times the writers claim to be 'massive original fans', there can only ever be one moment of discovery.

And for all the controversy, I honestly don’t mind an all female Ghostbusters … but I do mind when the story, heart, and the characters are not there.

STOP MY 30's, I JUST WANT TO GET OFF ...

So, then, here I am, in just a shade over 24 hours from now I will have turned 35. I am no longer just a 30-something, but a person in their MID-30's ... not long to go now before my age finally catches up with my waist size, and from then the two can happily start going up together concurrently until I end up in a coffin with a hump in the lid. That is unless posthumous liposuction is approved by the government.

Thirty-five trips around the sun since yours truly emerged into this universe, and the universe in kind cracked it's knuckles, snicked it's jaw, wricked it's neck and said; "Right then, sunshine, here's where it gets complicated …".

There was a change in media culture starting in the 80s, when I emerged dribbling, crying, naked, screaming and covered in all sorts of bodily fluids I hope never to encounter again. The Internet and video games emerged at the same time kids weren't out playing with other kids, what they were doing was sitting around in front of a Nintendo all day. Add to that the fact that as soon as they grew up and moved away from home in their 20s, there was free and abundant Internet porn to satisfy them with.

The only thing the world has in abundance is people looking to exploit these ills. Especially in the ever-over-complicating, horrendous, ultra-competitive sport of relationships. Dating sites are ready and willing to lift money from lonely people, then there's the booming self-help industry that teaches people with no dating prospects what they're doing wrong, despite the fact that they still walk away without any prospects after buying the books and therapists and whatever else.

Now, I’m pretty unremarkable in most respects – neither fantastically attractive (if only), nor absolutely hideous. I’ve got plenty of friends, male and female. They always express confusion and disbelief that I’ve been unable to get a girlfriend in the 20 years or so I’ve been interested in the idea. Apart from this, I’ve lived a full and active life, but somehow this particular aspect has, through more quirks of a fate than a superhero film directed by someone having just ingested a bucket of heroin, passed me by.

My parents met and married through work. They have been married for 40 years. And it hurts me to the core to be 35 and unmarried. Alone. Without a loving wife or a long-term girlfriend. I feel the pain from it every single day like I'm wiping my ass with a cheese grater. Or maybe it's because a random advert for Justin Beiber's new album spoiled my enjoyment of the Nostalgia Critic's review of "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice".

It’s a cliché, but it really did seem seem like one day all my friends were suddenly shacked up with a partner and squeezing out kids right, left and centre expect me. Arriving at 35 as a single man happens via one of three routes. The first is because there were series of relationships that never panned out. Or, there was one epic fail of a marriage that lead to a series of relationships that never panned out. The wake of this type of failure leaves a trail of broken hearts and disillusioned souls.

The third, mine, is because simply no-one has bothered to give me a bloody half decent chance because someone else arrived, with an agenda, therefore automatically gaining the upper hand before I had the chance to even offer the prospect of pistols at dawn at thirty paces.

Distrust of each other turns relationships into transactions. There is literally a universe of information consolidated into constellations of blogs on the topics of sex, love and relationships. As a society we keep talking about it, and by talking about it we make it important. Products, lyrics and lives coalesce around it.

Love is both form and substance yet, if you find yourself single at age 35, love isn’t nearly as important as feeling legit and being desired. And desire will continue to kick your sorry, pink, hairy ass until you find that you can notice it without having to turn your head. It doesn’t matter what bracket you are in. There will always be another rung of the latter to climb, someone to be jealous of and past failures to reconcile.

And I think the greatest lesson I’ve learned being 35 and single is that ultimately nothing matters in reference to the big picture. Emotions drag us into the fray and spur storylines that can both catalyse and interrupt the flow of creation. It's how I managed to drag it out into three "Ghostbusters" scripts and a mountain of "Doctor Who" fanfiction.

When I first set off to write this blog there was a very particular angst welling up in me that wanted to provide a narrative to the joys of being 35 and single. But, I had to stop myself because, honestly, it kinda sucks too. Four generations of rampant new wave feminism have not exactly produced a plethora of well-balanced traditional men who are equipped to head a heteronormative family and deal with non-feminist women, in fact, most young men are feminists or equalitarians who have been brainwashed into despising our civilisation.

In other words, they are just as unhinged and difficult as the young women that feminism produced - this is what you reap when you sow anti-authoritarianism and tolerate gendermainstreaming. Slowly but surely younger generations are realising what is wrong, but given the power of the Internet and mainstream media it won't be undone in a generation.

There are 60 years of terrible mistakes to undo.

Sadly, I means bypassing those such as yours truly, who have long since given up the ghost.

Happy Birthday to me ...

A-Z OF EVERYTHING IMPORTANT

A is for: Antubis

Antubis was the Egyptian god of something or other, you know, the one with a head like a jackal. For some reason his symbol was a penis. He must have been at the back of the line when they were handing out hieroglyphs. I'll bet all the other gods giggled at him behind his back.

B is for: Butterscotch

A type of confectionery it is illegal to purchase if you are under 65 years of age. Werther's Original is a prime example of this slightly unpleasant treat.

C is for: Choirboys

The best way to get your son to hate you - make him join a church choir. It mixes all the fun of strange robes, religion and high-pitched singing. Does anyone actually like listening to it? Doubtful, although a young Aled Jones managed to get the brain-piercing "We're walking in the air" into the charts. The best thing about Aled Jones is that his career evaporated when his voice broke. Ha!

D is for: Duck City

One of those post-Simpsons adult oriented cartoons shown late at night on BBC2 in the late 1990's. I have never seen an episode and, seemingly, neither has anyone else. So in theory, it might be quite good and nobody would know.

E is for: Evangelists

Those smarmy, suit-wearing sods who knock on your door and try to convince you that you have to believe exactly the same things they do or you're evil. America has now produced a new breed of tele-evangelists, who have the power to annoy more people and accept credit cards. Perhaps not coincidentally, 'evangelists' is an anagram of "evil's agents".

F is for: Fetish

I once read that the most common fetish is for women's feet. This is clearly an unhealthy and twisted practice that I will NOT tolerate, even if posting a related picture would increase traffic to my profile. Boobs are better anyway.

G is for: Greensleeves

A piece of music supposedly composed by King Henry VIII between bouts of spousal decapitation. It goes, "Da da, da da, da da doo doo, doo doo da da-da-da-daa doo doo". No, wait, hang on a moment - that's the theme tune to 'Airwolf'.

H is for: Halitosis

A medical condition which causes people to forget how relatively cheap Polo mints actually are.

I is for: Interactive Movie

A horrendous (and now almost defunct) genre of computer games which appeared when consoles became capable of playing full motion video. Such games consist of watching bad actors talk crap whilst you occasionally click on something with the mouse. More tedious than watching somebody else watch paint dry. Worryingly coming back into favour.

J is for: Junk Mail

THE scourge of modern society. Sending off for anything by post will now result in your letterbox being endlessly bombarded by credit card offers and AOL internet CD's. Perhaps one day companies will accept that if we want something, we will go and get it. Until then they will repeatedly claim on the telephone that we have been selected for a prize before trying to sell us double-glazing.

K is for: Klingon

Those aliens from Star Trek that look like they've got cornish pasties stuck to their foreheads. Come to think of it, most aliens in Star Trek are just people with funny foreheads or noses. The USS Enterprise must explore some very cheap galaxies. It is now possible to learn the Klingon language, as for some reason it has been invented in full. Great - millions of people are starving all over the world and what do people do? Invent fake languages for fun, or write stupid blogs …

L is for: Vatican

Hang on, no it isn't !!

L is for: Lion

That's better !!

M is for: Marge Simpson

The least used member of the Simpson family, Marge deserves a mention if only for her fantastic haircut. Episodes based around Marge tend to be less funny, which is probably why there are relatively few of them. Her purry voice is unique amongst cartoon characters. All together now - "Hrrrrmmmmmmm..."

N is for: Nightmare

A nightmare is a bad dream. I have a recurring nightmare involving a bucket of pens. You may have that one yourself.

O is for: Organisation

Possibly the most difficult task in modern society - organising any sort of social event. Even the most carefully planned outing will be met with a barrage of people who don't pay on time, people who drop out at the last minute or change their mind, and people who just don't turn up. Scientists believe that this behaviour is caused by a faulty gene and are developing tests for it. Offenders can then be diagnosed at birth and humanely destroyed. With a blunt axe.

P is for: Penguins

Funny little birds that swim rather than fly. Which is obviously why their name was used for a brand of chocolate biscuit.

Q is for: Quetzlcoatl

Some sort of Incan snake-god thing. It appears in a film called "Q - The Winged Serpent" (which I breifly mentioned in my post "A-Z of Everything I Hate About The Movies"), which is partly about a failed bank robbery and partly about a giant flying snake terrorising people. Strangely, Quentin Tarantino was genuinely influenced by that film when he wrote Reservoir Dogs. It's true. Ask him.

R is for: Resident Evil

Abysmal adventure game for Sony's PlayStation 2 that enjoys huge success despite having identical gameplay to a crappy Spectrum game I bought new for £2.99 back in 1993. It's all there - picking up objects and using them in unlikely places, not being able to carry enough things and having to drop them off in linked storage boxes, and of course a combat system which involves holding down one button whilst pressing another. Other highlights include ludicrous dialogue ("Jill, the master of unlocking!") and frog-like enemies that can cause game over with a single hit. I paid £40 for that! Grrrr. But never mind - it had pretty graphics and lots of blood, right kids?

S is for: Suggestively-Shaped Vegetables

Always funny.

T is for: Tie & Die

Method of producing t-shirts that look like they've been washed by your Dad.

U is for: Unexpected

Surprise endings are great, aren't they? But so rarely seen these days. It's all too obvious in most films, TV shows and even books that the hero or heroine will beat all the naughty people and live happily ever after. Until the sequel, which will end the same. "Tales of the Unexpected" was an old TV show, written mainly by Roald Dahl, that offered only stories with a twist at the end. But due to the title of the programme, viewers were expecting a twist, so it wasn't really unexpected. Oh well.

V is for: Vikings

Nordic hardcases who invaded everywhere they could find, raping, pillaging and drinking as they went. Most people remember them for singing a song about spam in a Monty Python sketch.

W is for: Waiters/Waitresses

People who serve you food in a restaurant. On television there seem to be only two types - arrogant French waiters for French restaurants, or jovial Italian waiters for Italian restaurants. Whereas all other eating establishments employ young, jaded American actresses.

X is for: Xylophone

When I was at school X was BLOODY ALWAYS for xylophone. But in modern children's books, it seems to be represented by a fox. Or a foX, indeed. This is probably better for teaching kids, but it seems like cheating to me.

Y is for: YouTube

Of course it is nowadays.

Z is for: Zygote

A zygote is a sex cell - but also the last word in the dictionary. So if anyone ever says to you, "You always have to have the last word!" just shout "Zygote!" back at them. Then run away as fast a possible before they smash your face open.