The Grip of Film

by Richard Ayoade

  The audience must stay on their asses or you’ll be broke-ass. So, in many ways, moviemaking is about ass management. A good producer is constantly positioning ass, selecting the right kind of ass on, behind and in front of the screen, while at all times trying to cover his own.

  See: ASS, HAULING; ASS, MANAGING; ASS, OUTRUNNING; ASS, POSITIONING; ASS, SELECTING; EMPATHY, WITHHOLDING; HERO, THE

  * I pleaded with him. I said that the sentence construction makes it sound like ‘the worst place a movie character could be is on your [Gordy’s] ass’. I said, ‘I’ll even overlook your inelegant use of prepositions.’ He said that he didn’t believe in prepositions but, two or three months before, he did have a funny feeling about Michael Jackson – Ayo.

  ASS, INCURSIONS IN THE

  One of the most frequent threats made in cinema is that of an unwanted INCURSION IN THE ASS.

  In Félix Enríquez Alcalá’s 1997 eco-thriller Fire Down Below, Jack Taggart (Steven Seagal) addresses an adversary:

  ‘How do you wanna do this? … Do you wanna play this game all the way?… I’ll have three hundred agents come up here in this hick town and crawl up every orifice you got … When it’s over you can go to your favorite proctologist and get a nice soothing ointment for the hole that hurts the most …’

  Now, there is no way you could fit three hundred (presumably full-height) men into anyone’s ass! The mass to ass ratio is completely wrong! I find anything more than a finger tough going, and if you weren’t expecting it, your head’s going through the sunroof!

  You might argue that Taggart’s use of the word ‘orifice’ means his threat encompasses all bodily openings. But I doubt he’s suggesting a bunch of Feds are gonna crawl into the guy’s nostrils, ear canals or lacrimal sacs! Taggart is clearly implying the anus.* Have you tried to get a proctologist to treat a damaged lacrimal sac? Trust me, you won’t try a second time! Especially if you’re both on mescaline!

  So why is ass incursion such a go-to threat in action cinema?

  Perhaps because, as discussed earlier, the action hero is ass. To enter his ass is to enter his soul. His ass is his Achilles heel. It’s the site of his ultimate vulnerability. To cross the threshold of his ass means absolute destruction and not, like it would for most of us, a bit of fun (if done with adequate prep/lube).

  In George Lucas’s vastly overrated 1977 sci-fi exploration of his daddy issues, Star Wars, the chief antagonist is an enormous space station called the Death Star. But if you look at it, it’s really just a giant jet-black ass, complete with perfectly molded sphincter.

  Can I be the first theorist to claim that the climactic attack on the Death Star by Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) and the Rebel Alliance (various) represents the Male Caucasian Fantasy of descending into forbidden, exotic ass under cover of night with a group of buddies, having the ride of your life, and then destroying the evidence by blowing up the neighborhood?

  See: ASS, VARIOUS

  * Or urinary meatus? – Ayo.

  ASS, KICKING

  In the climactic firefight of Joseph Zito’s 1988 gut-punch, Red Scorpion, Dewey Ferguson (M. Emmet Walsh) is fighting to disable the pinko threat in Africa alongside elite soldier Nikolai Petrovitch Rachenko (Dolph Lundgren). As the combat nears its thrilling climax, Ferguson shouts to Rachenko from the driver’s seat of his jeep:

  ‘Keep going, man. Keep kicking that ass.’

  This could serve as an epitaph for cinema itself. Movie moments like this teach us how to live.

  Because that’s all you can do. You’ve got to locate hostile ass and forcefully set about it with your foot.

  What other option do we have?

  Talking?!

  See: WORDS, WHY USE

  ASS-KICKING, CONCERTED

  CONCERTED ASS-KICKING represents the protagonist in his most profound and concentrated ‘flow’ state.

  Foreign Nationals shriek incomprehensibly, women cower in clingy dresses, but the HERO is centered, handing out death like lollipops.

  The capture of a weaker colleague/woman/child is probably one of the few things that can stop him, but only for a moment, for once begun, the concerted ass-kick must reach its conclusion: the bloody destruction of all characters from whom the narrative has withheld empathy.

  See: HANDING OUT DIFFERENT THINGS, VARYING DIFFICULTY OF; HERO, THE

  AUDIENCE

  People say a movie should never look down on the AUDIENCE. But what is the audience doing when it’s sat on its ASS in a theater?

  Lookin’ up.

  Why?

  Because you gotta look up to something … How can we look up to anyone in Real Life? Everyone in Real Life has betrayed us!

  (Also, a movie doesn’t have eyes! It’s not looking at us at all! And why the hell are these ‘people’ telling movies where they can look? I’d like to meet some of these ‘people’ and tell THEM where to look!)

  You know the drill by now:* it’s the Act III climax and two(+) wealthy actors in body armor are pretending to fight above a cityscape. And while these strangely weightless, make-up-caked behemoths lay waste to the municipal infrastructure, committing countless civil violations as they physicalize their psychodramas, the camera will periodically glimpse a dusting of poorly paid extras gazing skyward, buffeted by carcinogenic movie wind.

  Why aren’t these gormless stacks of fuck ducking for cover? What’s wrong with them? Who are these people?

  I’ll tell you who they are. I’ll tell you who they represent …

  US!

  The movie-going public! WE’RE the saps funding these spandexed fuckers’ fortified mansions. WE’RE the ones filling their juicers with superfoods, while THEY make sweet love to this season’s swimsuit models! WE’RE the ones powering their decaf mochaccino fountains!

  And do you know what would happen if we were to approach one of these colossal turds in a parking lot? They’d vomit on us. And while we were scraping their spew off our flak jackets, they’d signal to one of their security team and we’d be pinned against our jeep before we had time to retrieve a résumé from our camo pants. And when we started to snot-cry, they’d be all like, ‘Oh shit. Sorry, we thought you were reaching for a weapon.’ And we’d be like, ‘Sure – by coincidence there is a weapon in our pocket, but we weren’t reaching for it! We were just taking it out of our pocket first in order to gain easier access to our résumé!’

  For a movie to be successful, it must look down on the audience.

  See: ASS; PEOPLE

  * Incidentally, this was the tagline to an excellent horror film set in the world of dentistry. I forget the name. The Scary Dentist? – Ayo.

  AWARDS

  At each AWARDS ceremony people are nominated, or ‘nom’d’, for various awards. Not all of them will be ‘winners’.* In general, only 20 per cent of those nominated go on to win.

  That’s an 80 per cent failure rate.

  And those failures attend these award ceremonies, hubristically ignorant of their inadequacy, nestled alongside their betters as if nothing’s fundamentally wrong with them. As if they’re not ‘worse’ than anyone else! In fact, they often look cheery and full of expectation! These losers think there’s a chance they might be winners!

  There are people who know the identities of these losers from the get-go: the members of the judging panels, a shadowy cabal of women devoted to marginalizing men and keeping the film industry a ‘chicks-only’ zone.

  But before you can decry the injustice, the award ceremony starts, and these dames start doling out gongs one by one like little doggy biscuits – it’s an insult to art/biscuits!

  Results should not be revealed in this manner!

  Many of us in the movie business are tightly wound, given to paranoia, with a tendency to lash out when stressed. The whole set-up is divisive!

  Here’s an analogy: say you begin to experience episodic skin irritation about seven centimeters from your anus, so you go to your local clinic to check it out. They take a swab – it’s uncomfortable
– the area’s red and angry – they send it off for analysis – a couple of weeks elapse – no news – you’re in hell – but just as you’re about to take out your anger on someone less important, they give you a call to come back to the clinic because they have ‘some news concerning the test results’, so you go back to the clinic.

  When you arrive, what they DON’T DO is then line up four other dudes who have skin irritation seven centimeters away from THEIR anuses and announce which one of you requires surgical intervention.†

  So where do these jacked-up ‘awards panels’ get off? Why do they feel they can torture hard-working, underappreciated movie stars?

  What did us artists ever do except try to tell heartfelt stories from an independent perspective, backed by well-thought-out media campaigns before the cut-off for competition entry?

  Why do they hold filmmakers in such UTTER contempt?

  Well, I’ve found out.

  They’re worried that if they told everyone who had won in advance, only the people who had won would show up.

  These people don’t know actors. They don’t know actors at all!

  Actors show up whether they’re invited or not! To anything! You don’t need to entice them! They just like being out.

  FYI, AND TO FINISH: A GLOSSARY OF TERMS

  The First Award of the Night = Least Important Award

  Technical Award = Who Cares

  Most Promising Newcomer = A Person Whose Monetary Value Has Yet to Be Established

  Best Supporting Actor = A Gendered Award for Someone Not Trusted to Carry a Whole Film

  Best Supporting Actress = Any Woman Who Isn’t Jennifer Lawrence‡

  Best Documentary Award = A Prize for Films That You Know Are Going to Be Really Good, but for Some Reason the Thought of Watching Them Makes You Tired

  Best Screenplay = We Don’t Have the Balls to Give the Best Picture Award to This Film

  Best Actor = The Best Pretending of the Year by a Male

  Best Actress Award = The Best Pretending of the Year by a Non-Male

  * People in such a state of triumph that the word describing them will not bear contraction – Ayo.

  † Could poss. be a good reality show, though – e.g. Fingers Crossed with Dr Raj Persaud? – Ayo.

  ‡ Let’s see how well this ‘observation’ dates – Ayo.

  AWARDS HOST, THE

  Wherever there is a host there are parasites.

  These are the award nominees.

  Parasites are dependent on the host for nourishment. This explains why they are so willing to laugh at jokes made at their expense. It also explains why Billy Crystal needs to cover himself in natural yogurt after every speaking engagement.

  The AWARDS HOST’s jokes may seem edgy, but no more so than being sarcastic to someone while giving them a handjob.

  Being famous enough to serve as a punchline is one of the few remaining barometers of approbation left in this sorry business called show.

  See: APPROBATION, THE FEW REMAINING BAROMETERS OF; MANUAL STIMULATION, SARCASM DURING

  B

  ‘These are the moments from which boners are made …’

  BACKSTORIES

  In the 1988 thriller Above the Law, ‘Nico’ Toscani (Steven Seagal) is a Chicago police detective who was forced out of the CIA because he stood up to a scumbag who tortured prisoners in ’Nam.

  In the 1990 action thriller Hard to Kill, Mason Storm (Steven Seagal) is a Los Angeles police detective who was put into a coma by scumbag policemen who killed his wife when he stood up to corruption.

  In the 1990 action thriller Marked for Death, John Hatcher (Steven Seagal) is a Chicago police detective who is forced to leave the department because he stood up to scumbag drug dealers who killed his partner, Chico.

  Three completely different BACKSTORIES. Three completely different launch pads into explosive action.

  Backstories tell you what kind of man you’re dealing with. In each of these films you’re dealing with a wholly different type of Steven Seagal: a Chicago detective, an LA detective and a Chicago DEA agent. But there’s one common thread: payback. Drama is about consequences. And one of the most dramatic things you could ever do is to fuck with Steven Seagal. Because he will not stop until a fearful reckoning is visited upon you. And you can try to take Seagal out of the theaters, but he’ll keep coming for you. On video. On DVD. On VOD.

  Shit, before long he’ll perform live in your house. He. Will. Not. Stop.

  See: SCUMBAGS, VARIOUS

  BADASSERY

  Being a BADASS is different to having a bad ass, e.g. diarrhea and/or persistent IBS.

  IBS, or Irritable Bowel Syndrome, is a common condition of the digestive system. Symptoms include cramps, savage gas, the squits and tunnel blocks. Taking a load off can help, but it’s no guarantee, let alone a picnic. And I (for one) cannot be touched, approached or in any way looked at during sluicing. I don’t care who was ‘first’, YOU need to leave the bathroom.

  Because when I’m in the throes of a full or partial evac, I’m like Lon Chaney in Wolf Man: my hairs stand on end, my tongue bulges and I can’t go near spring onions.

  It just so happens that the Wolf Man is also a badass.

  The badass plows his own furrow. A bad ass fouls its own furrow.

  See: FOULING FURROWS

  BARE HANDS

  The true weapon of the HERO.

  In Rowdy Herrington’s 1989 doorman dramedy Road House, James Dalton (Patrick Swayze) uses his BARE HANDS to rip out the throat of chief henchman Jimmy (Marshall Teague). But importantly for his RELATABILITY, he only resorts to this after a prolonged MAN-ON-MAN FIGHT, culminating in Jimmy’s COWARDLY PISTOL-PULL.

  Initially, the LOVE INTEREST may be repelled by the sight of a man using his bare hands to perform a THREE-FINGER THROAT-RIP KILL, especially if she hasn’t seen the action performed in context.

  Case in point: Dalton’s lover, Doc (Kelly Lynch), does not know that Jimmy’s boss, Brad Wesley (a tired-looking Ben Gazzara), has made a PHONE THREAT to kill either her or Dalton’s mentor, Wade Garrett (Sam Elliot), and she certainly didn’t see Jimmy pull a piece on Dalton while making a DEATH THREAT AUDIBLE ONLY TO THE PROTAGONIST. So Doc, coming late to the party, forms a double ‘X’ chromosomal kangaroo court and bangs the gavel down before Dalton has a chance to lodge an appeal.

  Women.

  Later, in a ONE-TO-ONE FINAL BOSS-CONFRONTATION SCENE, Dalton successfully disarms Brad Wesley (who had foolishly embarked on a LONG PRE-TRIGGER-PULL GLOAT) with a SWEET KARATE KICK. Dalton’s hand contorts into the same three-finger throat-rip position, but after A BIG-DECISION STARE into the eyes of a thoroughly exhausted-looking Ben Gazzara (drifting in and out of character, perhaps wondering how he can wisely invest the money from his appearance in Road House), he relents, turning to the forgiving eyes of Doc, late to the party once more.

  Ever the opportunist, Ben Gazzara’s dastardly Wesley pulls his gun and makes to shoot Dalton in the back, only to be gunned down by, in turn, Red Webster (Red West), Emmett (Sunshine Parker), Car Dealership Owner (Jon Paul Jones – not the Led Zeppelin bassist) and Frank Tilghman (Kevin Tighe). Thus, Dalton is denied his homicidal catharsis, and as an audience, we will never respect him again. An otherwise excellent film squanders its potential in the last act.

  Result? Mediocre B.O.*

  Lesson? Never back down from a KILL OPPORTUNITY.

  See: BIG-DECISION STARES; COWARDLY PISTOL-PULLS; DEATH THREATS AUDIBLE ONLY TO THE PROTAGONIST; FIGHT, MAN-ON-MAN; HERO, THE; KILL OPPORTUNITIES, MAKING THE MOST OF; LONG PRE-TRIGGER-PULL GLOATS; LOVE INTEREST, FAILURES OF COMPREHENSION WITHIN THE; ONE-TO-ONE FINAL BOSS CONFRONTATIONS; PHONE THREATS; RELATABILITY; SWEET KARATE KICKS; THREE-FINGER THROAT-RIP KILLS

  * Gordy’s gone native, so ‘B.O.’ means but one thing to him: Box Office. While, to me, BO means Gordy’s just wafted into the room – Ayo.

  BARS SUDDENLY GOING SILENT

  This only really works just after someone walks into the b
ar. If the BAR SUDDENLY GOES SILENT for no reason, the audience may become disoriented.

  See: HORACE AND PETE

  BELIEVABILITY

  It is the mid-eighties and two beings from the future materialize in downtown LA.

  One is an Austrian ex-bodybuilder programmed to kill the Director’s Wife; the other is a man whose face is impossible to remember even while you’re looking at it. The Non-Face Guy tells the Director’s Wife that she’s going to give birth to a child who’ll lead a resistance force against an army of machines set on destroying Mankind, which turns out to be one of the best chat-up lines of all time. The Non-Face Guy gets a PITY LAY, but buys the farm later, leaving the Director’s Wife to destroy the chief Man Machine in what looks like a massive hydraulic trouser press.

  Believable?

  The way Jimmy C tells it, you bet. Cameron’s 1984 sci-fi meisterstroke, The Terminator, taps into something deep within us. We all think the human race depends on us. But while it’s fun to meet a movie that validates our self-regard, the fact is the machines have already taken over.

  Try doing a simple bank transaction with an actual person. It’s practically impossible. And when you go into a branch to try and get someone to engage with you, they’re gonna have you on file, and they’re gonna ask you to leave the building.

  The Terminator makes us believe our actions count. That they’re gonna live on in history. That our kids will amount to something rather than plunder our resources and put on end-of-semester plays denigrating us with their barely veiled caricatures. Do they think we’re stupid? That we can’t see straight through those cyphers?