Shred of Heaven

“I am going to die” is a phrase that has quickly become my catchphrase when exerting any small amount of physical activity. That would be fine if I was doing extreme sports or wrestling crocodiles and sharks, but instead is startlingly worrying when it’s uttered when merely walking up a few stairs. At 27 I should be in my prime. Lionel Messi, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Jon Jones, Zac Efron, Dappy. They were all born in 1987. What went wrong? Where’s my fucking Adonis body? I looked at some of the females my age (for perhaps a bit too long), women who would have been in my year at school. I COULD HAVE ASKED THEM OUT FOR A NANDOS! (Nandos was also born in 1987). Blake Lively, Maria Sharapova, Karen Gillan, Daenerys Targaryen. I've got no fucking chance now.

This could be me but I'm playing

BUT HARK! The reverberations of New Year resolutions beckon me! Sort of. I didn’t want to be one of those pathetic humans joining the January pilgrimage to a gym straight after New Year’s Eve - a night in which you reach the lowest ebbs of morality - so instead this pathetic human joined a gym at the very end of January. I’ve always been more Depeche Mode than Beast Mode, but I was adamant on making a change. This of course was met with mostly negative reactions (and laughs): “Yeah, but are you actually going to go?”, “What’s the point?” “Stop talking to me”, “I hate you”, “You’re not allowed within a hundred feet of me”. This was the first challenge. As a famous philosopher once said, “the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate”. This was my motivation, “I am going to die” would no longer be my catchphrase, the new and improved me would proudly proclaim: “I am going to LIVE!”

"Yes! Nandos with David!"

“I am going to die!” is the first thing I said as my heart rate rocketed over 160bpm four seconds after sitting on an exercise bike.  Lacking the eloquence of Jane Austen, I can only write that I was a sweaty fucking mess. As I stumbled and trembled away I set my sights on the weight area. Or as it should be known:  CUNT CITY. As I walked past one man dancing around a punch bag only pretending to punch it and calling it names, all I could see were several Banes. Actually that’s a lie. What I saw was an equal mix of top heavy vest clad brutes, looking like muscular chickens, and what looked like a waiting room for a One Direction tribute band audition.

The weight area in a gym can be intimidating, until you realise two things, that everyone has to start at square one, and also that everyone looks like an idiot. You cannot be embarrassed in a gym because no matter how stupid you may feel you look, the person next to you looks even more ridiculous. One thing that has kept me coming back to the gym on a regular basis is the opportunity to judge people. If actually improving your body doesn’t make you feel better about yourself then just looking around you will. All this judging got me thinking. I see a lot of people in the gym not actually working out. Am I doing it wrong? From my observations I have come up with the perfect fitness plan.

1. Wear ridiculous skinny joggers/meggings. For those more experienced, how about that stupid shorts and tights combo.

2. Spend half your wage on a pair of trainers. The University of Loughborough recently discovered that the more neon they are, the further you’ll be able to run!

3. Have a moronic hairstyle. Man buns, alice bands, and high quiffs are all scientifically proven to reduce brain cells, meaning there is more oxygen for your muscles.

4. Answer every question with “nah” even if you mean yes.

5. Call everyone bro. Especially your sister.

Once you have completed steps 1-5, take a 30 second rest, and go to the gym.

6. Walk up and down the gym. 10 reps, 20 sets.

7. Stand in front of a mirror with your feet apart. Run your hand through your hair. Repeat with opposite hand. 10 reps. 40 sets.

8. Again in front of a mirror with your feet apart, look down at the floor, and slowly lift your head and pout into the mirror. Hold position for three minutes and then rest.

9. Spot a mildly attractive girl on a treadmill and start running on the one next to her, ensuring you are going at the very least the same speed as her. Run for two minutes before you realise she is much fitter than you and give up, then acknowledge you’re a cunt.

10. Go to McDonalds. Initiate Beast Mode.

Walking in Memphis: A few things about Exodus: Gods and Kings

It. Goes. On. And. On. And. On. At one point in the film it seamlessly fast forwards ten years, IN REAL TIME. Coming out of the cinema I looked and felt like a weary, bearded Moses after one of his long walks. BECAUSE HE LOVES A GOOD OL’ LONG WALK.

Speaking of beards, a beardy Christian Bale wandering into the mountains only to return to the city years later to save the people of Gotham Memphis? IT’S A BIBLICAL BATMAN BEGINS!

Hang on, where’s Ben Kingsley? He’s always in these sorts of films.

Is that Yul Brynner? Oh no, it’s Joel Edgerton. I was hoping for a few musical numbers.

Because I was brought up to think that’s what Rameses and Moses did with their lives.

What’s Aaron Paul doing here?

There he is!

CROCODILES!

FROGS!

Has it finished yet? I need a wee.

There is a child playing God. If I was a kid and played GOD it would have gone to my head. How does this kid not acquire anything less than a gigantic ego? Surely God can only be played by an experienced and humble actor such as Morgan Freeman, or Alanis Morissette.

It was alright though.

The Genius of John Legend

I don’t pay much attention to lyrics; I don’t even know what some of my favourite songs are about. They could be horrible and scathing personal attacks on me and I wouldn’t know. I’m only sure Taylor Swift hasn’t called me a wanky prick because we haven’t dated. She’s too tall by the way and that’s definitely the only reason why she’s not written a song about me...yet. There are some artists however whose lyrics are so genius that I do pay attention. John Legend is one of those special artists. There are other artists who are much more misogynistic, gratuitously sexual, and lacking in any subtlety whatsoever, but those artists only have one mode. It’s not a surprise to hear R Kelly tell the ladies that he will perform cunnilingus in a manner akin to eating an Oreo because that’s what we expect from him. John Legend sings about love, a lot, and sometimes quite pleasantly, and it’s this that makes his seedier lyrics stand out and seem much more...well ...seedier. So here is a list of just some of his amazing lyrics.

“Good lord you got body for days, I think the way that you shake it’s amazing” – Alright.

This song is about John’s appreciation of a chick who is in a relationship and how he doesn’t care if her boyfriend is annoyed at his advances. Note his use of a measure of time instead of distance. He is not implying she has a long body but a body that can be used perhaps over the course of a sexy weekend.

“Damn it’s so stressful the dirt we do” – She Don’t Have To Know.

Affairs ARE stressful. Later in the song he suggests a sexy weekend.

“You can’t say I don’t love you just because I cheat on you” – Number One.

He goes on to explain that concealing his amorous activities from her should be seen as a romantic gesture and a token of his love. Though he might sleep with other women, she still sits top in his rankings.

A very special appearance by Kanye West – “Thinking my heart don’t got nothing to do with my penis, he got a mind of his own and he just be seeing shit, and I don’t wanna cheat but I don’t be saying shit, I try to jack off he ask me who is you playing wit?” – Number One.

Kanye explains that not only is his penis capable of independent thought, but it is also able to communicate with him. His penis really wanted to have sex with a lady but Kanye didn’t and offered a compromise of a hand job which his penis declined. Kanye therefore had no choice but to slay that broad.

“This just might hurt a little, love hurts sometimes when you do it right” – Save Room.

Ouch. Where is he putting it?!

“Creep to the bedroom while your Mama’s out, maybe she’ll hear it when we scream and shout, and we’ll keep it rocking until she comes knocking” – P.D.A.

Why are they creeping if they’re going to “scream and shout”? Another way to phrase this line would be “do you want to have really loud sex until your mum comes in and tells us to stop?” This is perhaps why my album didn’t sell well.

“Maybe our neighbours like to spy, it’s true, so what if they watch when we do what we do” – P.D.A.

There is a continuing theme in this song, in which John really wants to get caught fucking. He wants her mum to see, his neighbours. It’s quite sweet if you think about it.

“So we fake it again, I think we’re gonna blow it, and we know it, but she’s naked again, we get wasted, then I taste it, then I waste it again” – Another Again.

I don’t know what this means.

“I see you move, I’m checking your smile, working your back like it’s going out of style” – Green Light.

She is moving, yet he is checking her smile AND working her back. How is this all happening?

“Do I have a girlfriend, technically no” – Green Light.

This can be seen as a general theme of his career thus far. Yeah I have a girlfriend, but I won’t when she finds out what I do to you.

“Couldn’t wait, we did it in the living room” – The Beginning.

I hope he sprayed the sofa with some Febreeze.

“Soon as I saw you baby, I had plans, plans to do it til we have a baby” – The Beginning.

Is he saying that he wants to have sex for 9 months, and then he’s done? Or just until he’s sure enough that he’s got her pregnant?

“Soon as I saw you baby, I had plans, planned to take you to my elevator, and cook a little breakfast later” – The Beginning.

So his first thoughts when he sees this woman are “I want to get you pregnant and make you breakfast”.

“Even when you’re crying you’re beautiful” – All of Me.

I’m guessing she’s crying because he cheated on her again.

Twelve Things About Man of Steel

1. Isn’t it just Thor? A strange handsome man comes down to Earth, makes me feel inadequate, struggles to adapt to human life, has a fight in a small isolated town, and bags himself a girlfriend.

2. Or isn’t it just Superman?

3. But a Superman without a maniacal bald man or Richard Pryor on skis.

4. How exactly does Clark/Kal-El/Superman find that big ship in the middle of nowhere? I get he can fly and shit but an innate sense of direction? That’s just too farfetched.

5. Henry Cavill looks good with a beard.

6. Perry White is Perry Black!

7. Henry Cavill looks good in a cape.

8. Metropolis appears to be populated entirely by journalists.

9. How many times does Zod fly off in his ship only to return minutes later? How often do Kryptonians need a poo?

10. Henry Cavill looks good on fire.

11. 70% of the film is just geezers crashing through walls.

12. A screaming Henry Cavill can fly into my hole any time.  

Wonder

In an age where a quiet night in involves pointing and laughing at Embarrassing Bodies or The Boy who had testicles for arm pits and didn’t have a head and looked a bit like an odd but sort of more attractive Anthony Costa, you could be forgiven (even though you shouldn’t) for forgetting that people like Wonder’s August Pullman exist in the real world.

Though being a book for children, Wonder will still inevitably attract an adult audience hungry for their next fix of freak. It is impossible to produce a documentary about a boy with a facial abnormality and truly move your audience. Some will tune in to have a good ol’ laugh and tweet about “mongs”, some will watch only to improve their own self-esteem (“thank god I don’t look like that”), and some will sympathise right up until 2 Broke Girls comes on. Thankfully, R.J. Palacio’s Wonder does not have that problem...sort of.

Wonder may be about a boy with a facial abnormality, but it is more About a Boy than About a Boy with a vagina for a face and like really big kankles where his nipples should be and he’s got like this really weird smell that’s a bit like a farm but he’s not actually a farm, he’s a boy. While a perpetual obstacle, August’s face is not the sole source of his misery. Starting at a new school and making friends is difficult, being a Star Wars nerd certainly doesn’t help either, and any child and adult can relate to this. Wonder is not so much a novel about a boy with a facial abnormality but a boy who is bullied, and the cruel nature of not only school children, but also adults.

More shocking than August’s face is the behaviour of other characters. Julian, who is the popular kid despite being called JULIAN, is a pre-pubescent Gossip Girl character, the sort of horrible shit Roald Dahl would have brutally murdered by Oompa Loompas or a suave fox. Julian is that Dahlian brand of nastiness, scheming against August and his friend Jack Will (product placement?) presumably because he just loves to be a douchebag. August experiences cruelty from a host of characters but it is his beef with Julian (akin to that of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy) that keeps the narrative flowing. It may fizzle out and end in an anti-climax and not the car chase and sword fight I had hoped for, but this is a relatively realistic novel, and more often than not, bullies stay bullies.

Wonder is narrated by several characters and as a result gives perhaps a more balanced view on the novel’s subject matter. Not only are we given August’s perspective, but also the perspective of his sister, friends, and one slightly grating hipster. Their lives may gravitate towards August and we are shown how they feel about him, but Palacio grants them the freedom to have their own problems and issues. As the novel progresses it becomes less about August and more a story of growing up.

As sad, moving and inspirational as the novel is, it can at times suffer from its extreme sentimentality. Quoting Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful is as cringey as a book can get, and even though the song might encapsulate Wonder’s sentiment...well let’s just not do it eh? For such an honest novel, it comes as surprise to read such a contrived ending. First and foremost Wonder is a children’s book teaching the importance of kindness, but this lesson is so explicit in the final pages that it becomes more like a morality tale than the moving and heart warming story that it is. You have to be a pretty cold hearted bastard not to empathise with August or even one of the characters, so to have the novel’s message told to you so explicitly - be kind - is patronising even for a child.

Despite its flaws (and there aren’t many), Wonder provides a refreshing perspective on an issue that is often treated with insensitivity, as well as accurately conveying the troubles and emotions of being bullied and growing up. The world is full of cruel and mean people, and Wonder demands that it changes for the better. No matter how explicit the lesson may be, it is a lesson that most people need to learn. Maybe those adults hoping for The Undateables: The Novel can learn a thing or two. 

Jenga!

Is it just me or are a lot of films about tall buildings these days?

A Good Day to Stop Making Die Hard.

Die Hard. We’ve all seen it and we all love it like Romanians love to put horses in lasagnes. There is no need for a mass debate, Die Hard is the greatest action movie of all time. It’s also the greatest Christmas movie of all time. It is a multi-purpose movie, suitable for all occasions. You are bored, what do you watch? Die Hard! You are feeling down, what do you watch? Die Hard! You find out your girlfriend/boyfriend has never seen Die Hard? Die Hard! Those clinic results are positive? Die Hard!

The same cannot be said of its sequels. The order of quality is thus: 1, 3, 2, 4. There is reason to disregard Die Hard 4 (or Live Free or Die Hard or Die Hard 4.0) as part of the canon; the John McClane established in the first three films would never jump onto a flying jet. With Die Hard 4 drawing a line between 20th and 21^st century Die Hards could we really expect the fifth entry, A Good Day to Die Hard, to rival the first three films? No. In fact my expectations were so low that it would have been a miracle if it could rival Die Hard 4.

If there’s one thing A Good Day to Die Hard tells us, it’s that miracles don’t happen, unless they involve breaking the laws of physics. Die Hard 5 makes Die Hard 4 look like Die Hard. Quite simply, it’s fucking awful. From the moment we see the opening credit of “Written by Skip Woods” we know that we will not be witnessing a beautifully crafted script. Skip is not a writer’s name, it is a pet’s name. Did you read that new book by Skip Bronte? NO. It gets worse because he is the man responsible for writing Hitman. Director John Moore is responsible for unleashing Max Payne into our lives. Die Hard 5 is a video game adaptation of a video game that does not exist. It has more in common with Call of Duty than it does with Die Hard. Big guns, big explosions, faceless villains, and a political conspiracy that leaves more plot holes than bullet holes. If anyone ever thinks “Gee Whiz it would be neat if they made a Call of Duty film” this crock of shit should be shoved in their face immediately. This is a film for the COD generation: socially inept pubescent teenagers with anger issues who are only stimulated by LOUD NOISES and BIG EXPLOSIONS (and bad ladies in catsuits).

Without a comprehensible plot, discernible villain, or convincing protagonists the result is just a slide show of fiery bangs. Characters are introduced and discarded like used condoms, we are shown the now clichéd Bourne-esque CIA agent automatons at the beginning of the film only for them to never appear or be mentioned again, while the myriad of “bad guys” take turns at playing Hans Gruber. Bruce Willis is no longer John McClane but just an old bloke with a gun and a penchant for falling through things with his two dimensional son. There are homages to the first film and while some are a nice touch (McClane’s instinct to “shoot the glass”) others feel almost spoof-like while the obligatory “yippee ki-yay mother fu...*mumble*” appears like it was forced into the film at random. While perhaps a more conscious effort to make it more “Die Hard” than number 4 these moments do not save the film from its dire script and general shiteness.

Perhaps more appalling than a disregard for GOOD WRITING is the disregard for PHYSICS. During the course of the film both McClanes must/choose to drive from Moscow to Chernobyl. They steal a car full of guns, why is the car full of guns? Because their owners put them in there to enter a club. It is night time, it must be reasonably late because I assume Russian gangsters don’t go to the club straight after Pointless. When they arrive at Chernobyl it is still dark and presumably the same night as neither McClane have had time to wash their faces. As Google maps shows, Chernobyl is roughly 1000km away from Moscow and would take roughly 12 hours to travel. So what average speed must they have been travelling at to arrive in the same night? As we all know speed = distance / time, and even if we are to believe that the journey took them five hours they would have to travel at an average speed of at least 122.8 mph, including crossing the Ukraine border with a boot full of weapons. IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Pedantry this may be, but there was no real reason to relocate to Chernobyl. If any action film is proof that one setting is sufficient it is DIE HARD. All that long arse drives does is kill any tension that the film had. Did Hans Gruber give McClane time to embark on an uneventful road trip? They didn’t even have to go there anyway! The entire film is ridiculous! A lame by-the-numbers action blockbuster with a lazy garnish of Die Hard hallmarks on the side. It may still attract enough of the Fast and the Furious audience to be a success and warrant a sixth instalment but it’s a disgusting spit in the face of its predecessors.   

Eleven things about Les Misérables

1. The cinema hasn’t attracted a mob so middle class since The King’s Speech. I thought I was waiting in line to see highlights of the Queen’s Jubilee.

2. Attracting a bourgeois theatre going crowd ensured they all laughed at the “funny” bits as they would do watching the stage production. Just because you pay £60 for a ticket and it’s in a fancy theatre doesn’t mean the shitty jokes and dialogue become high art and hilarious. If you charged £60 for a peasant stoning they'd find that hilarious as well.

3. Helena Bonham Carter has only ever had one look in her career: The scatty wench pimped by Tim Burton.

4. Wolverine, Maximus Decimus Meridius, and Catwoman all feature, yet all they do is go on about their feelings through the medium of song.

5. Speaking of which, Hugh Jackman ages horribly in the film, what happened to his regeneration abilities?

6. Why do the revolutionaries all look like they’re in Mumford and Sons?

7. Revolution looks fun!

8. Oh no it doesn’t.

9. I wonder if Chris Klein auditioned for the film.

10. Why do girls love it so much? It’s two and a half hours of relentless depression. Valjean dying at the end isn’t sad. It’s like the dog dying at the end of Marley and Me. He’s fucking old. Write some lyrics for Schindler’s List and they’ll eat that shit up.

11. It was alright though.

Saturday Night's Alright For Judging

LOLLE!

HILAR!

AMAZEBALLS!

WHORE!

It’s that time of the year again when reactionary phrases like these break Twitter. Yes, Britain’s Got Talent is back and this year it has a rival! The Voice UK, or Don’t Look At My Ugly Face! As it’s more commonly known. Along with Take Me Out, Saturday nights have become a three hour long cavalcade of judging twats. No longer do you need to leave your house to experience the dickheads that England has to offer.

It starts with The Voice UK. At first The Voice seems to dissuade you from judging and laughing at its contestants. It’s all about the voice you see, not the HORRIBLE face. The judges - Tom Jones, Jessie J, Will.i.am, and that Irish guy from The Script - have their backs turned from the HIDEOUS faces and as a result they’re never able to hurl the same caustic insults as The X-Factor judges do: “You look like a prick, you dress like a prick and you sing like a prick”.

X-Factor fans may find this disappointing but they should embrace the positivity of The Voice, it’s not some freakish sideshow where we point and laugh at all the DISGUSTING people who can’t sing. Instead we applaud all the REPULSIVE people who can sing. You go girl! Or are you a man? 80 minutes of this is just depressing. There aren’t any bad contestants at all on The Voice, in fact the only ones who don’t go through are already famous or have a moderately interesting tale to tell. Watching 80 minutes of talented singers can leave your self esteem in tatters.

It’s alright though, because they’re SICKENING right? You can’t even look at their faces without wanting to gouge your eyes out. Well no. Most of them are good looking people, while no contestant could be considered downright fuck ugly. Sure that guy is fat and that woman has no hair but at least they haven’t got a foetus growing on the side of their head. Watch The Voice and you’ll feel like you’re the horrible, hideous, disgusting, repulsive, sickening excuse of a human being. There must be something wrong with these people!

And there is. They’re all cunts. The bald woman doesn’t have to be bald, she can wear a wig, Beyonce doesn‘t have real hair! The man who acted like quitting his job at Sainsburys was the biggest sacrifice ever made didn’t have to quit, book the day off you dickhead! The sixteen year old girl who dressed like a slutty crow didn’t have to dress like a slutty crow for a competition where the judges couldn‘t see her!

I started to enjoy The Voice when these idiots showed up but it’s not enough to save such a flawed and contrived show. It’s called The Voice but the judges spend as much time bemoaning how they would have said yes had they seen the contestant as they do finding as many cool ways to push the button. Try your elbow this time Jessie! The whole point of the show was to find the next Susan Boyle yet all they’ve found is a bunch of misshapen camp men.
 
Britain’s Got Talent is like a circus that comes into town once a year, bringing with it the nation’s biggest freaks and mentalists. The format has stayed the same since its conception and there’s no need to change it. BGT exists so we can point and laugh at the deluded and ugly. Most of us probably are deluded and ugly so it makes a welcome break to crying in the mirror.

It’s a shame that Britain has got some talent because BGT would be a far more entertaining show if it didn’t. If anything the talent gets in the way of the entertainment and it would bring in a much larger audience if it was called Britain’s Got Ugly. We don’t really care about the good auditions unless there’s some sort of odd quirk to them, like the two gay ballroom dancers who showed that ballroom dancing is literally gayer than gay sex.

The night ends with Take Me Out. Just as the world as we know it will. Any girl who thinks ITV is a suitable place to meet a man should have their ovaries confiscated. But that’s the point. To find 30 of the most undesirable women and try to pair them up with a massive cunt so we can all have a good judge and laugh about it. Look at her, she’s a slag. Ooo he’s full of himself. Her arms are too skinny. I bet he’s got Chlamydia. She’s orange. He’s gangly. She’s a bitch. He’s a bastard. I bet she’d suck off a tramp for a fiver. He’s definitely fucked his cousin.

After a terrifying horde of wildebeest stampede into the studio, one fearless wanker enters their pit. As he does his best to prove he’s a bigger prick than Paddy McGuiness (and inevitably fails) the “girls” show why we the audience are true judging connoisseurs. It took liking The Lord of the Rings for every girl to be disgusted by a man who looked like a 1930s paedophile. We’re judging him for looking like that, judging the girls for not judging him and judging Paddy McGuiness for being Paddy McGuiness.

Some people go to the cinema on a Saturday night. Some people go to a club, get drunk, and get herpes. Some people go dogging. But for most people Saturday night is all about judging the nation. Social networking has made the act into an actual event, in fact tweeting about these TV shows is more interactive than dogging. It may only be watching TV, but it’s more therapeutic than an Orwellian two minute hate.      

30 or 31 Days of Netflix

“Gee Whiz! A free 30 day trial of Netflix! Boy I can stream just about any movie I want and for free!” - Me, upon signing up for Netflix’s 30 day trial. Or is it 31 days? That’s probably where they get you. The good ol’ days of going down to Blockbuster and picking up a shiny looking box, being told you can’t sign up because you need proof of your address, coming back later and finally taking home a less shiny looking box, are almost over.

Call me old fashioned but I kind of liked making the effort to go out to Blockbuster to have an argument. “I don’t want to watch that Julia Roberts shite you bitch!” She’d say to me. Of course I don’t actually go to Blockbuster, I’ve spent the last five years buying DVDs instead of renting them, and now I’ve got no room in my house because of all the fucking awful DVDs I’ve bought. Give an idiot money and he will buy shit. Today I have no money or room to buy any DVDs, so renting films seems like a great idea once again. Imagine watching a film and not thinking “I’ve spent 10 fucking quid on this” all the way through.

While you have to put on trousers and leave your house to go to Blockbuster, Netflix and Lovefilm don’t even require you to get out of bed. Surely a service as great as this will put Blockbuster out of business, “Hey Blockbuster! It turns out I CAN rent films in my pants!”. Sign me up Netflix 30 day (or 31 day) trial! Sign me up now!

The first striking thing about Netflix isn’t that you can watch any film you want at the click of a button, but that you can watch any film that you DON’T want to watch at the click of a button. Trying to find a film to watch on Netflix is like trying to find a nun who’ll have sex with you. When it’s free it’s difficult to feel aggrieved, but when they catch me out and I have to pay £5.99 next month I’m going to pretty pissed off. Save for a few TV shows there isn’t much on Netflix. There are some good films but if you haven’t already seen The Usual Suspects chances are someone has already told you who the fuck Keyser Soze is.

Navigating through their horrible interface is as painful as any simile you can think of involving a penis. Genres are either too broad or too specific, who is ever in the mood for a visually-striking violent film? According to Netflix, me. Netflix suggests films for you after you tick a few boxes and rate a few films. Filling in your taste preferences seems simple enough: How often do you watch the following genres? Then you have to do the same for moods. Moods! Romantic, feel-good, scary, cerebral. Cerebral? What is that? Do they mean Inception or The Man with Two Brains? They also have steamy down as a mood! Steamy! Is it Top Gun or Thomas the Tank Engine? The options I’m given to answer are ridiculous: never, sometimes, often. I’ve seen steamy films but sometimes is a bit of an overstatement, yet I can’t say I’ve never seen them. I’m just going to leave it blank until I’ve seen enough steamy films.

Netflix tells me that the more films I rate the better it knows me, and to an extent it delivers on its promise. Because most of the films in its library are terrible I’ve rated them as such, and Netflix successfully predicts that I won’t like them. It still suggests them to me though. “Hey Dave! You’ll probably think this film is shit but you should watch it anyway!”

As long as it’s free, Netflix is a joy to behold, but paying £5.99 a month every month to watch Jason Statham and Nicholas Cage films would be a waste of £5.99. You’ll feel inclined to make the most of what you’re paying for and end up watching all kinds of films you never thought you’d want to see. You’ve paid for it now, you might as well use it. You might not have to put pants on and go out, it might even be cheaper, but you’re not going to see the film you want to see. You’re going to see Drive Angry.