Staying power in film watching. Turn on, tune in, turn off again.

For some reason, once a film has started I feel bound to sit to the end. Often it doesn’t really matter about the quality of the film in question, its run time or even the subject matter. Once I’ve started a film from the beginning, I am loath to do anything but sit through to the finale.

This is mostly driven from an outright curiosity to find out how the plot resolves and to what degree of satisfaction. Partly its out of a kind of respect to the film maker to allow them the opportunity to express the fullness of their vision, it might even be a kind of latent optimism that even the worst film can find some redemption in a dramatic denouement that adds a new dimension to an otherwise pretty average effort (see the collected works of M Night Shyamalan for examples).

Until relatively recently I’ve felt the same about books, once I’ve got past the first few chapters, its quite a wrench to abandon even the most turgid read. My patience on this was tested beyond its limit finally by Ulysses by James Joyce. A book I found so thoroughly un-engaging I didn’t even make it half way through. Like the lifting of a bad sign, putting down this first unfinished text removed the barricade, and the realisation that life is too short to waste on tedious books set in, and now I have little patience for a novel that offers little enjoyment back.

A similar awakening has now prompted me to reconsider my grim determination to see out a film once started. The offending piece was David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis. At an alarmingly impatient 18 minutes in to this film, tolerance for its disjointed verbal masturbation was entirely spent, the disc was ejected and I hope never to see the like again.

Those 18 wasted minutes were filled with increasing anger that Robert Pattinson’s disconnected rambling had been confused at any point with a proper film script. It’s an obvious attempt at ‘higher level’ film making, but a point seems to have been missed in that in order to be as didactic as it so obviously intends to be, some level of coherence is required.

This is where I find the art house wing of cinema so deeply frustrating. A film can carry a message, be gloriously creative, play with timelines, characterisation, perceptions of reality and other cinematic conventions to push the boundaries of originality, but when it does so with both a transparent self-awareness and such a wilful lack of class and grace as Cosmopolis it becomes repugnant in its on conceited narcissism.

Clapping a more cerebral film in the cinema is just self-congratulatory, it’s that knowing nod to your fellow beard strokers that you ‘got it’ too. In the same way making an art house film for the sake of being art house is just as insular and inward looking, it saps the joy out of cinema for the sake giving those most pretentious of viewers the satisfaction of their own smugness. I highly suspect they get as little enjoyment from the actual film as anyone else, but they are so busy enjoying the afterglow of superiority from merely attending a showing they can barely contain their excitement at the opportunity to look down on the proletariat, queuing to watch something that isn’t even in a foreign language.

I hope that Cosmopolis was an exception, both in the nature of its presentation and the ease and complete lack of guilt with which I switched it off. Watching a challenging film should be a rewarding experience, just as a well-made challenging film should be rewarded with audience, otherwise all films would look as lacking in substance as Michael Bay carefully juggling his ratio of explosions to female nudity. I hope that I will, in future, listen to that nagging inner voice and both offer films the time they deserve and, so much more importantly, learn that vital lesson and never watch a film starring Robert Pattinson again.

The incomprehensible enigma of Nicolas Cage

So about 20 minutes into the really quite appalling Drive Angry last night, I was forced to consider just what on earth is going on with Nic Cage. A fairly prolific presence in Hollywood, Cage’s films seem as likely to be cinema success stories as they do straight-to-video discount bin leftovers.

A keen cinema goer might find themselves a fan of a certain actor, enough to perhaps take a punt on a film just for their presence in it. Would this even be possible with Cage? Although he probably has one of the most reliable types of film to appear in, with a high action movie bias, the swing in quality is galactic. Just a quick check of Cage’s recent woks cause much head scratching. For instance, he is at his wild-eyed, manic best in Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant. Fuelled by cocktails of drugs and plunging deeper and deeper into spirals of insanity, it’s a role that was tailor made for Cage. Similarly, the ‘eccentric’ Big Daddy from Kick Ass allows Cage license to unleash the inner lunatic, as he coaches his sociopathic daughter to higher levels of violence in the name of justice and revenge.

However, efforts like Drive Angry, Season of the Witch and Bangkok Dangerous make that 1996 Best Actor Oscar all seem a long, long time ago. That’s a fact that gets forgotten. Cage has an acting pedigree beyond his rich Hollywood Coppola-dynasty lineage. Plaudits for Leaving Las Vegas aside, the likes of Raising Arizona, Red Rock West and Wild at Heart are all high-class cinema and all showed his range without the bat-shit lunacy that has become so much the signature of recent films.

They in turn ushered in the golden age of Nic Cage action classics. The Rock, while dominated by the charismatic screen presence of Connery, has a terrific cast of action stalwarts in which Cage formulates his oft used character of the reluctant action hero. More circumspect than the Hollywood norm, the slightly more cerebral kind of lead who still isn’t afraid of a scrap seems more accessible than the bullet proof, unflinching, stone eyed action-monger of, oh I don’t know why Jason Statham springs inevitably to mind. Reappearing in the car-porn celebration that is Gone in 60 Seconds, slightly second rate Indiana Jonesing of National Treasure and the in every way awful Next, it’s been a successful device Cage has made his own.

Con Air nearly fits the above mould, but is ruined by the ridiculous scene where he walks down Cyrus The Virus’ gun, and doesn’t even bat an eye as he shoots a lump out of his arm. Here Cage plays it straight in a plane full of crazies, Steve Buscemi taking the crazy cake with his turn as the Lecter-esque Garland Greene.

Completing Cage’s 90’s triumvirate of action classics was the John Woo gun ballet of Face/Off, where Cage practically pops his eyeballs out of his own head in his efforts to take his gurning edge-of-reason nonsense to it’s uppermost limit. But then, how would you feel if John Travolta was wearing your face? Either way it was probably the performance that really earned Cage the reputation in the pubic conscience for some loving fan to create this fabulous montage of mental.

In the mix of styles are also Cage the sensitive, in the surprisingly touching The Weather Man, and further proof he can do powerful without the unhinged element in the excellent Lord of War. Littered amongst are a spattering of rote action flicks, some kids stories and even a few cartoon voice overs. Versatility is as much his signature as the apparent lack of control of his eyebrows.

So Nic Cage can clearly do the business in rolls of all shapes and sizes, so what is that makes him incapable of choosing wisely when those scripts land on the desk? Why for every soaring entertaining high is there a crushing, demand-the-2-hours-of-life-back low? Is it just the cash? There are obvious passion projects for a notorious comic book fan, Ghost Rider being the obvious, and most disappointing stand out. Is it for the hell of it? In Drive Angry, was it for a bet that went sour? He is a law unto himself, that remains fact. His films as entertaining as they are frustrating, hs presence as divisive  as each person’s contact with his varied back catalogue. Doubtless though, he will remain a divisive an unpredictable element in Hollywoodland, and in a world so focused on ‘safe’ investments, a few more mavericks like him would do no harm at all.

It's just an ego trip, really. Isn't it?

So I want a blog. All of my own. Why on earth do I want to lumber myself with this ongoing responsibility? I’m not a writer by trade, I’ve got no agenda I want to push and I am certainly not doing this with a view to eventually plugging a second rate spin off book (I’m looking at you, @queen_uk). Still, I want to do a blog and I am the kind of person who gets an idea, then it niggles away until the idea is put into action, for better or worse.

So I’ve been mulling about what to write my blog about for a few weeks. I know that to encourage readership, maximise opportunities for engagement and manage expectation of audience, a blog should stick to one topic, one main area of focus. In case you hadn’t guessed from that sentence, I am ‘in marketing’. Officianado’s of great comedy will know Bill Hick’s stance on people ‘in marketing’. Re-reading the first half of this paragraph I can see his point. Anyway, I’m a digital marketing specialist, and there is already an internet full of tech blogs plagiarising Mashable and Econsultancy, so no point climbing aboard that bandwagon.

What else could I write about? Music? I love music, but most of my collection wasn’t even recorded this century (specialist area, early to mid 90’s grunge scene), so it’s not like I’ll be keeping people up to date with the latest dubstep anthems or uncovering hot new musical talent. I'll leave that to Zane Lowe to get sycophantically over excited about.

Film then. Big fan of films, love going to the cinema, have a subscription to Empire and a decent home collection of DVD and Blurays, plus a Blockbuster online account with a watched list nearly in 4 figures. Fair bet there will be the odd film review posted on here, plus childlike anticipation of each quarters new crop of celluloid thrills. Will this give me enough fodder to keep a whole Blog going all on its own though?

I could go down the route of being a bit saucy, blog on sex and relationships, maybe be flirty and a bit ambiguous about my sexuality. That kind of behaviour is best left to young Hollywood ingénue, desperate to carve their mark on cinema beyond topless murder victim #3 in a cheap horror sequel. It seems their only avenue for career advancement is to appear to be as sexually accessible by as many people as possible, especially their current interviewer. Regardless of that, I would desperately underqualified to write about sex on the internet, there are images of illicit behaviour on certain websites (so I hear) that will widen eyes more experienced than mine.

After some pondering, I came to the conclusion that, all things considered, I was best off just blogging about whatever the hell I feel like, whenever the mood takes me to post. And, to answer the question first posed, the reason for Blogging need be no more complex than the fact I enjoy writing. So there it is, I think. This is what the internet, possibly the world’s greatest invention, has come to. A massive compendium of small vanity projects from people like me, with a little bit too much spare time. But at least whilst I am on here, blogging about nothing very much, I am not sloganeering a new cringe-worthy marketing tagline.

You see what Jon’s doing there? That’s clever. He’s going for that ‘at least I'm not marketing to you’ dollar. That's a big market, good work, Jon.