Dear Mavis...

Dear Mavis…

Noted film critic, screenwriter, serial-knitter and sexual deviant Mavis Butterscrape solves your film-related queries & personal problems
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David Addison of Crouch End writes…

Hi Mavis
Do you think Bruce Willis is actually too old to be an action hero but everyone is too scared to tell him?

Mavis says…
Ah, Bruce, what a lovely dear, dear man. Few people know how much he relied on me in those early days. “Die Hard” was originally going to be “Fry Lard” a gritty drama-documentary about a northern fish & chip shop owner before I intervened. It was me that made him wear one of the late Mr Butterscrape’s vests throughout 100 minutes of cinema as a forfeit from a late night game of strip poker. But to answer your question sweetie; No. Bruce is still as believable as ever in the hero’s role. Who can forget him as the tough detective in “The Last Boy Scout”, the tough gangster in “Last Man Standing” or the tough astronaut in “Armageddon”. Such versatility! He’ll always be with us; just like Heath Ledger would have been if I hadn’t lent him those pills for my rheumatics to help his back.

Samuel Smythe of Purley emails…
Dear Mavis,
I very much enjoyed going to see “Meet the Spartans” at the cinema and…

Mavis says…
Can I just stop you there dear? No advice to give, I just wanted to stop you. Thanks.



Sarah Gumm of Shanklin, Isle of Wight writes…
Dear Mavis
I just wanted to write and say how much I enjoyed “Star Wars” which came out at my local cinema last week. Some people were frightened by the flickering lights on the screen (or the magic picture as we call it) and ran screaming into the sea, but those of us that stayed had a lovely time. With your insider connections do you think it’s too much to hope that they’ll make a great sequel to it?

Mavis says…
Yes dear, I think it is.

George Dinkle of Aberystwyth crayons…
Hello Mavis
The worst film I ever saw was “Vanilla Sky”. A film about row upon row of people staring blankly for an hour and a half with loads of talking in the background. Occasionally one of them would walk out and come back with popcorn but that was all the action there was. Rubbish! There should be a law against Tom Cruise being in movies. I didn’t even recognise him in this one, the little weirdo.

Mavis says…
Are you sure you weren’t facing the wrong way at the cinema dear? There is actually a very well-enforced law that prevents him being in movies unless his character is laughably arrogant, which I think works very nicely.


Marvin Fidgely of Milton Keynes types…
Dear Mavis
This month I attended “Swedish week” at my local cinema with high hopes, especially as films by the noted erotic director Ingmar Bigman were being exhibited. Imagine my dismay when, not only did that turn out to be a mis-print, but I had to sit through the whole of “The Seventh Seal” in my mac. If it wasn’t for my slight chain-mail fetish it would have been a wasted evening. If the BFFC rated all films with a simple percentage to show the average ratio of clothed vs. naked flesh then I wouldn’t have been put in this embarrassing position.

Mavis says…
I agree with you totally dear. If they’d have made the effort I wouldn’t have taken my aged mother to see “Schindler’s Fist”. I should have known something was up when it was in colour; mainly pink as I recall. Mind you “Hayley Potter and the Philosopher’s Bone” was a nice surprise.

Biting Satire

Greetings all. I’m not much of a satirist but the case of Paul Chambers really got my goat. And I don't even own a goat. There but for the grace of god, I thought, go me & a lot of other people.

News story here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/twitter-joke-led-to-terror-act-arrest-and-airport-life-ban-1870913.html
Expert Legal Opinion here: http://jackofkent.blogspot.com/2010/05/paul-chambers-disgraceful-and-illiberal.html

Anyway, by strange coincidence I was poking around in the Home Office when I saw a letter on that very subject & nicked it to show you all. And by “all” I mean the three people who might read this.

Dear the Head of the Crown Prosecution Service,

Hello, I’m Theresa, and I’m the new Home Secretary.
Firstly, thanks for the thought about making Hashtags a Class-A controlled substance; good to see you have your finger on the pulse!
As you know there’s been a bit of a hoo-hah this week about you prosecuting a man for making a joke on Twitter and then the judge finding him guilty of sending a menacing communication.
I’m sending some proposals to the press. Have a read of them can you & let me know what you think? I’ve kept the language simple as I know you don’t always “get” this sort of stuff.

Dear Newspaper Editor
Problem
The case of Paul Chambers this week has brought an age-old dilemma into sharp focus. When is a joke a harmless piece of tomfoolery and when is it a threat to our security?
In the aftermath of 9-11 a lot of things changed. Anyone who thinks that they can make jokes in the same manner as in the carefree days when the free world was kept safe under the heel of a benevolent British Empire, is sadly deluded. The terrorists are deadly serious, so we must be twice as serious as that if we are to combat their ever-present threat.
I appreciate that a minority of people have a need for levity and in a democratic society like ours we shouldn’t demonise them with names or labels. But if these slackers want to play the fool they must recognise that it is their responsibility to be careful with their humorous japes, so that they don’t trigger security alerts or upset anyone.
The menace is not from the jokes themselves as Des O’Connor has proved. The very real problem is the incorrect use of jokes by unqualified people.
Humour, wielded incorrectly, can be a dangerous thing and dangerous things cannot be allowed to remain in the hands of the general public without legislation and control.
Solution
I propose to introduce a Comedy Licensing Scheme. Anyone who considers him or herself a Comedian will need to apply for such a licence. Once the Comedian and their immediate family have passed the police background checks, then they will be allowed to ply their trade. There will also be provision to issue temporary licences such as may be required for someone needing to make a best man’s speech or who will be going with friends to the pub and feels the need to amuse them.
But where, I hear you cry, should this trade in foolishness by plied?
The internet, to which literally thousands of people have uncontrolled access, is no place for something as potentially dangerous and offensive as a joke.
Suitable premises will thus also need to be licensed. Within these premises, jokes can be told by licensed Comedians on the understanding that their audience is fully aware that they are listening to humour and not to terrorist threats and so should not get all alarmed and what not.
Amnesty
Obviously, in recent years the illusion of freedom that has been fostered by the internet has tempted a lot of people to express opinions in the form of sarcasm, puns and other such flippancy. We do not wish to prosecute innocent people, no, seriously, we don’t, stop laughing.
There will thus be an amnesty period so that people can hand in any Tweets, Facebook status updates, Blog posts or seaside postcards which they may have allowed into the public arena but which now they realise were in poor taste and that they should be utterly ashamed of.
Don’t let them win!
The Comedy Licensing Scheme is necessary but one thing is still paramount. We mustn’t let the terrorists win, and we can only do that by not letting them change our way of life.

Lots of love

Theresa

P.S. Thanks for all that money you gave us. David sends hugs.

What do you think Head of the CPS? If the press give me permission then I’ll let Parliament have a vote on it, so watch this space!

Short Story: The Man in the Dark Suit

Still sitting in his armchair, Dave bent over and lifted the box from the floor to his lap. The cardboard was dusty; the brown packing tape that had once sealed the lid had aged and withered, allowing it to half open. He could see a dark piece of the material from the clothes that he’d hastily stuffed in there all those years ago. He opened the lid fully and began to carefully pull them out and pile them on the arm of his chair.
He paused at his task, head cocked to one side. A noise? The familiar sound of the floorboard in the hall creaking under a foot. Loud in an otherwise silent house and very familiar. During the daytime you could jump on it wearing roller skates and it might emit a squeak. At night if you touched it with your sock it would creak like the front door of Castle Dracula. Was Holly up? If she was then she was moving like a ninja. Normally she couldn’t get out of her bed without her little feet thumping on her bedroom floor and likewise down the stairs. Nothing more, no stealthy footsteps, no small voice whispering “Daddy” in Holly’s conspiratorial way as if her and him both being out of bed was a big secret. He sat there for a while pondering…
Still he didn’t move, staring at the half open door and the darkness of the hallway beyond. He became aware he was holding his breath although his heart wasn’t thumping in any sort of alarm. He let it out silently and waited some more. Something had made that floorboard creak and he was damn well going to wait quietly until he found out what. Nothing was going to tell him though. Now that he was listening he could hear all the sounds the world made when no one was paying attention. Outside the very faint rumble of traffic from the motorway a mile distant, the muffled sound of next door’s television, the clunk of the fridge as it made some more ice, the knock of a radiator pipe expanding, the ticks of the door hinge. the door hinge christ the door was opening why was the door opening? The lounge door opened and stayed open. It took maybe two seconds from half open to full and all he could hear was the shush of the carpet as the bottom of the door brushed past it
If he’d been sitting quietly before, he was a study in paralysis now. Apart from his heart beating nineteen to the dozen he was motionless. what the hell was that what the hell was that what the hell was that jesus christ.
Nothing came in the door. He didn’t get any tingling, didn’t suddenly see his breath plume in icy air. Everything was the same as it ever was. Except the door had opened and nothing had done it.
He waited for events to transpire. The house resumed its quiet conversations. Across from him and to the right was the sofa. he’s on the sofa the sofa he’s on the sofa. Once a shining example of what nothing to pay until April 1st could get you. Now after a few years of pummelling and drinks spillage it was a saggy blue heap. It wasn’t in his field of vision, staring as he was at the door, but he suddenly knew there was a dead man sitting on it. His stomach plunged downwards. His eyes widened and swivelled around. He could just get the edge of the sofa into his peripheral vision. If he wanted to see properly he’d have to turn his head. But moving anything would give his position away in the ethereal game of hide and seek. With his eyes at their furthest traverse he could see a leg in a pair of dark suit trousers and a white hand resting on a knee. Then the hand moved and millennia of hunter-gatherer instinct snapped his head round to follow it. Like a flash photo he saw the man fully. Suit jacket spilled out across the sofa, leaning forward slightly, head turned to look at him, jaw tilted upwards. The hand was no longer on the knee, it was pointed at him in accusation. All that came to him later, all that he was really aware of was that he had no eyes. oh sweet jesus christ it’s him it’s him he has no fucking eyes. Where there should have been whites, corneas, eyelids there was only darkness.
And then he was gone and Dave was alone again. His breath whooshed into his lungs and, still motionless, he sat staring into space, eyes wide, mouth agape, fists tight clenched. Then he was bolting for the downstairs toilet to lose his dinner.