Yesterday once more

As Sandy Denny once sang, "Who knows where the time goes?" Maybe she also spent the Christmas holidays in a drunken fog, just outside of Sheffield. Either way, that's the reason that p0pvulture has been quieter than the output of Cheryl Cole's microphone for the last few days. But now we're up and running again, and counting down to the New Year.

So with that in mind, I thought it might be a good idea to review 2010 and take stock of the weird and wonderful things that the world of popular culture has thrown our way over the last 12 months. I've done my best to document it all, so now let's take a look back and see what went on. Well, if it's good enough for Clive James...

Hollywood was abuzz about two movies as 2010 kicked off. Avatar was packing them in, with its promise of eye-watering visuals and eye-straining 3D effects. Further exploring the technology's ability to damage eye-sight, the porn industry decided to take a leaf out of James Cameron's book, by applying an extra dimension to its own Pandora's box of tricks.

Cinemagoers always had the option of checking in with everyone's favourite detective instead, as Guy Ritchie shared his vision of the unique relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. Unfortunately, many people found their mano-a-mano relationship to be a little too heavy on the mano, making it feel like a two-hour game of soggy biscuit.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail was busy getting its bully on, taking potshots at the underdressed, the overdressed, and the wombling free. And it wasn't just the women who found themselves squirming under the spotlight, Cristiano Ronaldo's ad campaign for Armani underwear showed off his distinctive tackle.

Jennifer Love Hewitt spoke proudly about her confidence in using a glue-gun on her unmentionables, whereas Heidi Montage revealed the results of her extreme makeover, which were just, well, unmentionable. Lady Gaga inspired a whole bunch of video tributes, Taylor Momsen showed off a personality as dark and messy as the shit around her eyes, and Bear Grylls rinsed his out with a makeshift enema.

GMTV was also focused on cleaning house, as it turned the world's cosiest sofa into an ejector seat. As viewers placed bets on which presenters would face the axe, the show's hosts attempted to smile through their upset, much like Boyzone, who reformed for the world's most morbid pop video.

Rather predictably, February followed January like Kerry follows Jordan. And so we plunged head-first into the eighth and final season of 24, to see Jack Bauer working through more rubber hose than an out-of-town B&Q. Sadly, Jack's love of torture seemed to catch on, as a military man was found to have waterboarded his step-daughter in order to 'encourage' her to try harder in school. As an aside, she may also have confessed to an attempted plane hijacking in 2007.

Jack wasn't New York's only problem this year, as the race for the Governor's office saw a notorious Manhattan madam starting up her own campaign. In fact, February seemed to be all about the change of pace, as Dennis the Menace finally went soft, and the Pope turned wannabe DJ, with his recommendations for the best rock albums of all time. Even Desert Island Discs decided to change things up, by taking a more populist approach in selecting its guests. Listeners complained that this was the radio equivalent of mutton dressed as Spam.

But the most shocking image overhaul of the year took place on the golf course, as one of the world's most celebrated sportsmen showed an entirely different side to his personality. It turns out that countless women had enjoyed a Tiger in their tank, and as a result none of his former sponsors wanted to see Woods for the sleaze.

Ashley Cole didn't fare much better here in the UK, as he broke the heart of the Nation's Sweetheart by cheating on her with a bunch of BOGOF slappers. We all knew that he'd done it, because he didn't have the brains to cover his tracks. It probably didn't help matters that he'd sent a bunch of incriminating pictures and texts either.  If only he'd watched the highly publicised live episode of EastEnders, which finally revealed that Stacey was Archie's murderer - a secret that the show's producers had managed to keep for months.

Another long-suppressed secret from within the corporation's vaults finally saw the light of day, as it was revealed that the makers of Doctor Who occasionally used political subtexts in their storytelling. The Daily Mail was delighted that it had finally found the smoking gun sonic screwdriver it needed to prove the BBC's long-standing left-wing bias. Unfortunately, the rest of the world had simply rolled its eyes and moved onto the Sarah Jane Adventures.

But perhaps the most momentous event in February, was the first birthday of this blog. Although it sometimes feels like an albatross made of binary code and hyperlinks, it's actually grown into something I'm quite proud of. It's an outlet for my frustrations, and a forum for discussing the things that capture my imagination. And I'm thankful that I have a handful of committed readers who bother to check in every day. Tomorrow, March and April fall under the microscope.

Creating the illusion of depth

In his classic expose of Hollywood process, legendary screenwriter William Goldman famously declared that, when it comes to the movie industry, "Nobody knows anything." Although he's probably right about most film-makers, he should probably add a caveat that says "with the exception of James Cameron."

He may not be the easiest guy to work for - Pol Pot might have been more likely to send his assistant a Hallmark card on Secretary's Day - but time and time again, he's proved that he knows better than everyone else.

People scoffed when he decided to sink over $200 million into a three-hour period film about a stricken ship, especially since everybody already knew the ending. But in the end, he was crowned 'King of the World' on his way to a record Oscar haul, not to mention breaking box office records en route.

Still, those kinds of fortuitous accidents only happen once in a lifetime. Or so we thought. Thirteen years later, he emerged from the technological wilderness with a new film. This one was about giant blue cat people. And it was in 3D, a format which hadn't really seen the light of day since Jason Voorhees first fished a hockey mask out of someone's sports kit.

How we laughed, until he went and beat his own box office record, pulling in just short of $3 billion worldwide. In the process, he gave 3D a much-needed shot of credibility. No longer the exclusive reserve of films that show cats leaping out of cupboards, 3D was suddenly an immersive way of enhancing the movie-going experience - adding richness and depth to the narrative, rather than just dangling an eyeball in the viewer's lap.

Take a look at your local multiplex and see how many films are following in Big Jim's considerable wake - it wasn't hyperbole when Cameron claimed to have seen the future of movies through his polarised lenses.

Having single-handedly transformed our movie-going experience, Cameron rightly considers himself the authority on what 3D should and shouldn't be used for. So when Vanity Fair asked him for his opinion on the state of post-Avatar 3D movies, he spoke in characteristically blunt terms.

He told the glossy magazine "I tend almost never to throw other films under the bus, but Piranha 3D is exactly an example of what we should not be doing in 3D. Because it just cheapens the medium and reminds you of the bad 3D horror films from the '70s and '80s, like Friday The 13th 3D. When movies got to the bottom of the barrel of their creativity... they did a 3-D version to get the last few drops of blood out of the turnip."

Of course, the true irony here is that Cameron's own career began with the Piranha franchise, having directed the god-awful sequel 'The Spawning'. At the time, producers didn't recognise his under-budgeted genius, and fired him from the low-rent cash-in. As a result, Cameron has expunged Piranha from his own CV, in much the same way that my own resume makes no mention of the fact that I spent 12 months applying aerosol garlic butter to the stuffed crusts in Watford's branch of Pizza Hut.

Piranha 3D's producer Neil Canton was understandably disgusted by Cameron's holier-than-thou attitude, and issued a press release through Dimension Films taking the Oscar-winner to task for his 'mean-spirited' arrogance. Canton goes to great lengths (eight paragraphs in fact) to defend his opus, inferring that the world is a better place for having a five-minute naked underwater ballet performed by Kelly Brook and porn star Riley Steele. And, to be honest, it would be churlish to disagree.

Unfortunately, Canton's rebuttal misses the point of Cameron's original critique - he's not denigrating the film itself, merely its tacky deployment of 3D gimmickry to get bums on (and leaping out of) seats. As a result, his haughty defensiveness around the "originality and the vision of the filmmaker" neglects to address the real contradiction at the heart of Cameron's viewpoint.

Whether you're an auteur or a schlock-merchant, 3D technology is just another widget in the toolbox. Another way of drawing in an audience with the promise of an augmented experience. You can use it to create exotic, other-worldy foliage, or treat your audience to a severed cock floating in mid-air. Ultimately, it's an opportunity to drive up ticket prices and increase your chances of turning a profit. Remember, it's commerce, not art, that really counts.

In your face, Hollywood

Call it two steps forward, one step back. James Cameron spent longer on Avatar than on most of his marriages, in the hope that he could make 3D technology a viable story-telling tool, rather than a gimmick to drive up ticket prices. This was no 'smell-o-vision' novelty - it was the future of cinema.

So he's probably feeling a little disheartened to see how quickly Hollywood has raced to dig out those old polarised-lens glasses in the hope of repeating his multi-billion dollar success. Virtually every major movie heading to the big screen has been hastily retooled to ensure that audiences are kept ducking in their seats and waving their arms hopelessly in front of their faces.

This weekend, cinema-goers were treated to Louis Leterrier's remake of Clash of the Titans, replacing dated Harryhausen stop-motion effects with shiny new CGI, and even more dated Harry Hamlin with flavour-of-the-month Sam Worthington (hot off Avatar, funnily enough).

Although reviews were fair-to-indifferent, the real criticism was directed at the film's crappy attempt at a multi-dimensional spruce-up. As the LA Times critic commented: "It's doubtful that records are kept about this sort of thing, but consider the possibility that 'Clash of the Titans' is the first film to actually be made worse by being in 3D."

The problem is, Clash and other movies like it, weren't filmed with 3D in mind. Instead, they were completed in 2D and then converted on the cheap. Well, OK, 'on the cheap' is a comparative term, given that conservative estimates place the cost of that extra dimension at around $120,000 per minute.

Asked for his opinion, Cameron was diplomatic, simply pointing out "It's never going to be as good as if you shot it in 3D... They're converting 'Clash of the Titans' in eight weeks. But I'm guessing six months to a year to do it right."

Nonetheless, the extra five dollars per ticket to see Medusa's ophidian weave wriggling in your lap helped the new version of Clash of the Titans to a stellar $60million opening weekend.

Interestingly, while the debate was raging about the film's depth-enhancing effects, viewers in California were unwittingly treated to a fourth-dimension for no extra cost. During mid-afternoon screenings on Sunday, just as the monstrous Kraken rose from the sea, a 7.2 magnitude earthquake hit Southern California, giving movie-goers a rumbling, shaking sensation that even ILM couldn't fake.

For the majority of audiences, it seems that this new retelling of Greek mythology makes for an instantly forgettable experience, no matter how many dimensions you happen to see it in. As Michael Bay said in an interview recently, "You can’t just shit out a 3D movie". However, as he's successfully proven on more than one occasion, a Transformers movie can be easily evacuated from Hollywood's bowels.

Look away now

OK, so you're sitting in the lounge watching a good movie with the family. The DVD cover said that it was rated 18 for explicit violence, drug use, sexual swearwords and graphic nudity, but still you're shocked when confronted with a scene where a bunch of foul-mouthed, crack-addicted strippers burn an orphanage to the ground. Oh, now the lead stripper is making out with the Mother Superior who runs the children's home. This is just awful.

If only there was some way of shielding the children (and the mother-in-law) from this wanton depravity, whilst still enjoying the director's original vision. You can't afford to pay people to stand behind the couch and place their hand over the kids' eyes every time something offensive happens, so what's the next best thing?

How about ClearPlay? It's a revolutionary new filter system that automatically edits out "potentially offensive scenes" leaving you to enjoy the movie with the peace-of-mind that your little ones won't be corrupted by all that adult content.

Using patented technology integrated into your DVD player, the system can "skip and mute content based on seven categories that can be set to meet viewing preferences" including "violence, blood, nudity, sex, swearing, blasphemy and offensive content." So, all the good stuff basically.

Although the system isn't released in the UK until July, it's already up and running in the US (big surprise there). But although lots of families are delighted about the opportunity to chop out all the good bits from a movie, the film studios are somewhat less enamoured with it. Eight years ago, when the technology was first developed, the Directors' Guild of America and a cabal of Hollywood film studios sued ClearPlay, alleging that its software violated studio copyrights and misrepresented directors' finished films.

The people who run ClearPlay believe that most films have a higher rating on account of a handful of scenes which can be easily edited without spoiling the rest of the film. But, once you get into broad areas such as 'offensive content' and blasphemy, all bets are off.

There are a number of popular websites in the States that review 'secular' movies from a Christian perspective. Giving people an idea of a film's content is one thing, but the list of things that might 'cause offence' borders on the laughable. According to sites like 'Christian Spotlight on the Movies' and 'Childcare Action Project' films as innoffensive as Harry Potter and Avatar score some harsh reviews thanks to their depictions of magic and Gaia spirituality.

If ClearPlay had their way, a blockbuster like Jurassic Park would only be about fifteen minutes long. Take out the dinosaur attacks, the smoking, the severed limbs, the gunfire, the mild language, Laura Dern's exposed arms, the lawyer hiding in a toilet and any reference to evolution, and what have you got left? A fat IT consultant who can't drive, some kids eating jelly and a conversation about a flea circus. They'd be lining up around the block for that...

For the record, I agree with the DGA and the big studios - this is ultimately disrespectful to the people who put months (even years if you're James Cameron) into crafting a film. Why bother getting Thelma Schoonmaker or Michael Kahn to edit your movies, when the audience at home prefer to let a downloadable patch reconfigure it automatically?

However, there is a silver lining to this particular cloud. As Marie Antionette may or may not have said - "Let them eat cake". If people are too stupid to realise that there's an off switch built into every TV, Sky and DVD remote, let them pay ClearPlay a pound a week to make their viewing safer. Perhaps that way, the rest of us will be allowed to get on with enjoying our movies the way the directors intended, without the BBFC (or MPAA) sticking their nose in.

It's an honour just to be paid

Excitement is building over in Hollywood, as the final preparations are made for the 82nd Academy Awards. The obituaries are being reviewed to make sure no-one's left off the 'In Memoriam' showreel, the seat-fillers are being advised about how long Colin Farrell is likely to spend in the bathroom, and Jack Nicholson is working hard on an all-new smirk.

Meanwhile, in mansions across Beverly Hills, the great and the good are being coached in some last-minute nominee etiquette. Unfortunately though, those lessons may be a case of too little, too late for Mo'Nique, who's up for Best Supporting Actress for her monstrous turn in Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire.

The talk-show host/comedienne/actress has, so far, enjoyed a fairly successful awards season, winning gongs from BAFTA, the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors' Guild, amongst others. But she's always made it quite clear that her only concern is the impact that this recognition will have on her earning potential.

Before her Oscar nomination was even announced, she was quizzing Terrence Howard and Taraji P. Henson on the subject "Let me ask y'all this, because I know y'all are gonna school me correctly, what does it mean financially?" Her point was that there was no point 'campaigning' for her award, unless she was going to be paid for the appearances she'd have to make. Never mind all the extra publicity it could generate for the little movie that managed to secure her nomination in the first place.

Speaking to the AP recently in curiously intermittent third-person, the Oscar hopeful said "Well, when they say Mo'Nique was worried about money, I wasn't worried about money. Mo'Nique has a talk show that comes on five nights a week and she tapes six times a week for that talk show. And yes, when I leave my home, I leave my home and get paid to leave my home, so I wasn't worried about money. They simply said, 'You know, well Mo'Nique we can't pay you to do that.' ... We said, 'OK, baby. Well, then, that's not something we can do.'"

Another low-budget movie keeping its fingers crossed for next Sunday is The Hurt Locker - the smart money's choice for Best Film and Best Director. But just in case any of the Academy voters are dithering between Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq-set nerve-shredder and her ex-husband's big blue epic, the former's co-producer decided to send out an email appealing for support in the run-up to the awards.

Apparently oblivious to the rules concerning campaigning, Nicolas Chartier emailed friends and colleagues begging them to spread the word: "I just wanted to write you and say I hope you liked Hurt Locker and if you did and want us to win, please tell (name deleted) and your friends who vote for the Oscars, tell actors, directors, crew members, art directors, special effects people, if everyone tells one or two of their friends, we will win and not a $500M film, we need independent movies to win like the movies you and I do, so if you believe The Hurt Locker is the best movie of 2010, help us!"

In the eyes of Oscar, this kind of activity is about as welcome as a political lecture by an award presenter or a five minute acceptance speech. Although no formal 'punishment' has been determined by the Academy, a contrite Chartier has already penned a suitably grovelling apology for his conduct, reminding everyone that "being nominated for an Academy Award is the ultimate honor."

Competitiveness has always magnified the ugly side of human nature - whether it's people who expect rewards just for getting involved, or those who break the rules in order to give themselves the upper hand.

Having said that, if you wanted to vote for p0pvulture as your favourite culture blog, you could always click here...

Coming at you

The impact of Avatar continues to be felt across Hollywood. Some people are wondering whether movies will become more politically daring when addressing modern imperialism, some are questioning the growing prevalence of 'synthespians', and some are wondering how to apply James Cameron's 3D technology in building a better bongo flick.

The porn industry has always attracted early adopters (as well as premature finishers). In fact, home video, satellite broadcasting, DVD and the internet all owe as much of their success to innovative grot-merchants as Kleenex or Atrixo.

So it's not exactly shocking to discover that pornographers are keen to embrace the third dimension in giving their films a little extra depth. Actually, this isn't the first time that adult movies have delved into 3D - 1969's 'The Stewardess' managed to rake in almost $30 million thanks to its jiggling extra-dimensional boobs.

Sadly, anyone hoping to immerse themselves in a world of bored housewives, tumescent plumbers and disobedient schoolgirls will have to wait a while until full penetration is achieved - the TV technology is still in its infancy. Rob Smith, a director of Hustler Video Group, said "I'm hoping by the fourth quarter of this year it will be at the point where we can justify doing a 3D product."

The other problem is those pesky glasses - according to Ali Joone, founder of Digital Playground, "3D glasses are also an issue because people don't want to be encumbered by eyewear when viewing a film." I would have thought that, as long as their hands were free, this wouldn't be an issue.

The directors have their own challenges too. Aside from budgetary restrictions, there's the issue of image cropping. "We noticed when we were watching the footage later that you have to frame things differently for 3D. When part of an arm or leg is cut out of a shot in a 2D movie it looks okay, he said, but in 3D it looks kind of strange."

I think someone needs to point out to him that it's not the limbs that viewers will be focusing on. They'll be too busy ducking, fearful that they're about to have an eye poked out.

Call me a cynic, but I think 3D will be another temporary trend. After all, what's the point of aiming 3D technology at an audience that's in danger of going blind anyway?

Cameron's blue period

Well, James Cameron finally delivered his gigantic blue baby, and it looks as though he'll get to keep the roof over his head. With a budget of around $300 million, everyone knew that Avatar was a big gamble - Cameron has even deferred his own profit participation options until the investors have recouped their contributions. But with the news that Avatar has claimed its second consecutive week as box office champion, with only a 2.6% drop (compared with the industry average of 40-50%), it's clear that Cameron knows what his fans want.

If you haven't seen it already I do recommend you seek out the biggest screen you can find and immerse yourself in a truly incredible 3D experience. The world of Pandora springs to vivid life, even though at times there's so much neon on display you'd think the characters were stuck inside an Essex nightclub.

As for the story (which I've dubbed Last of the Bluehicans since Dances With Smurfs was already taken), well, it does what all good science fiction should do, taking contemporary issues and exploring them in a fantastical way. More specifically Avatar addresses the conflict between technologically advanced invaders and primitive indigenous people.

Rather predictably, not everyone's so happy with Cameron's kick-ass comeback. Over on Big Hollywood, the right-wing movie blog for the mentally malnourished, critics are lining up to condemn Big Jim's opus for "being a "big, dull, America-Hating, PC Revenge Fantasy". You see, they don't like the idea of the military being portrayed as aggressors (an argument so ironic it makes my head hurt). Likewise, they think it's propaganda to question the ethics of genocidal imperialism.

And don't even get them started on the environmental concerns, as conservative hate-bucket Ann Coulter once said: "God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"

Cameron has never denied the fact that Avatar is a parable, claiming "what this film ultimately does is hold a mirror to our own blighted history, where we have a culturally advanced civilization supplanting more “primitive” civilizations... And this country we’re in now was taken from its indigenous owners. And it’s kind of owning up to our own human history."

That's not how they see it over at Big Hollywood though. Taking it in turns to miss more points than a blind tennis player, these professional movie critics make inane comments like "Why couldn’t Cameron have left his agenda at home and crafted a non-political story in which Americans could be heroes..." I guess Carl Kozlowski missed the point that it's an injured US marine who heroically leads the Na'vi into battle. Or maybe he just didn't like the idea that the lead was played by an Australian.

Ultimately though, it's fascinating that all of these rhetoric-spouting imbeciles see the film as anti-American. They're seeing all the worst elements of human nature - greed, violence, aggression - and thinking "Yep, that represents me." More worringly, they're proud of the fact. But then, it's clear that Cameron was never going to win over someone who believes "Cameron’s... tribe is boringly perfect and insufferably noble … I wanted to wipe them out."

The funny thing is, I don't remember the same arguments erupting 26 years ago when another visionary science fiction film-maker told a similar story. Even though die-hard Star Wars fans hated the Ewoks, no-one looked at Return of the Jedi and said "Why does everyone insist on seeing the Empire as the bad guys?" I guess that's progress for you.

Seeing is believing

Spare a thought for one-time global monarch James Cameron, who's probably nursing a sore head this weekend. Having stayed out of the limelight for the last 12 years, since Titanic swept the boards at the Oscars, he's gearing up to reveal his long-awaited follow-up to the big boat movie, and expectations for Avatar couldn't be higher.

As part of the pre-release campaign, he and Twentieth Century Fox decided to declare August 21 'Avatar Day'. Building on the buzz from this year's Comic-Con, where preview footage was revealed to a breathlessly salivating press, the plan was to share an advanced preview with Joe Public to create advocacy and drive word-of-mouth.

So the publicity campaign went into overdrive, a two-minute teaser was launched and the public was invited to attend an exclusive presentation of 15 minutes of the movie that promises to redefine the very concept of film-making (Cameron is no stranger to hyperbole). Pre-fans (what else can you call someone who's a supporter of something that doesn't yet exist?) simply had to register with the website for free tickets so that they could attend one of these special screenings.

It's a great idea in theory, giving audiences a chance to see just what James Cameron's been talking about with a high-def, 3D presentation of his photo-real CGI characters and their other-worldly environments, rather than squinting at a heavily pixelated and compressed YouTube snippet.

Unfortunately, the concept seems to have fallen at the first hurdle. In the US, the ticket allocation server crashed due to 'over-subscription', with some conspiracy theorists even suggesting that Fox did this deliberately to sustain the perception of massive interest. But irrespective of any ticketing issues, the bigger problem seems to be that audience numbers were decidedly underwhelming. The question many bloggers are asking this weekend - if Cameron can't sell out a free screening, what hope does the movie have of recouping its rumoured $200 million budget?

Those who did attend the 3-D Imax screenings have responded with a shrug of their collective shoulders - sure the film looks great, but it won't change your life. The bigger problem seems to be the fact that, by selecting six or seven unconnected scenes to screen in their entirety, these exclusive previews felt more like a DVD presentation of deleted footage. Audiences that were supposed to be spending the weekend raving to their friends about Cameron's blue period are instead attempting to fill in the gaps between the out-of-context footage, to try and guess what the hell is going on.

The real mistake made by Fox was its attempt to 'manufacture buzz'. The kind of audience advocacy they were looking for can't be willed into life through a heavy-handed marketing campaign. It has to find its own way, starting small and growing virally. Fox tried to go too big too soon, in the process alienating the hard-core fanatics and confusing the masses. Fox needs to stop trying so hard and should just trust in its A-list director.

When Titanic originally opened in 1997, it did so with an unspectacular $28 million (considered a major flop). But it went on to find its audience thanks to uncontrived word-of-mouth recommendation, and spent a record-breaking 15 weeks in the top spot. If the studio believes in the film, it just needs to be patient - the film will find ultimately find the audience it deserves. After all, given that Avatar has been 14 years in the making, what's a few more months? In the meantime, here's the trailer if you haven't already seen it.