Anyone can tell you that making a top ten of their favourite films is hard. Being told that I’ve got a day to come up with them is harder. But no excuses – these are my favourite top movies, cut down from a list of twenty or so. Some of these movies I have included because I just love watching them so much (and have done – over and over). Some of them are here because I grew up watching them, and they’ve shaped my taste in film ever since. Some are here because I feel they are simply amongst the greatest films ever made and deserve a place.

So unlike my last hasty list of best scenes (which if I repeated would likely turn out completely different), these are not necessarily my favourites just because I like them. These are my top ten, for various reasons. Come back in a few months and the list is likely to change, but procrastination won’t get a list made, will it?

So, in order of “I fucking love this movie” to “This movie is fucking great”, here are my top ten:

1. Jurassic Park

Released in the dinosaur craze in the early 90′s (whether the movie started it or not I’m not sure – I was 6) Jurassic Park is everything a great adventure film should be. For me, it’s the sense of wonder that really sets this movie apart. As I’ve previously mentioned, the first sight of dinosaurs is just staggering, even after the hundred’th time I’ve seen it. It’s a masterful blend of solid acting, excellent use of special effects, and simply stunning music that sets Jurassic Park up as one of my all-time favourite movies. That, and dinosaurs. DINOSAURS.

2. Star Wars

An obvious choice I know, and one that I was unsure about including. While I don’t argue it’s a great film (obviously – I included it), I wasn’t sure whether I should include it in a top-ten. But ultimately, it had to be here, because of how it shaped my love for geekdom. I still remember the first time I watched it – my mother and father grabbed my brother and I, and sat us down in the lounge-room, telling us a movie was about to start that we had to watch. Then, Star Wars. Immediately afterwards, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi followed. Star Wars opened up the possibility of the genre to me, and it will always be important for that.

Many geeks will proclaim that Empire was clearly the best of the six Star Wars films, but I strongly disagree. A New Hope is simply more cohesive, with a greater sense of wonder and adventure, and is the only choice in my mind for best Star Wars film.

3. Lord of the Rings (Trilogy)

It may be technically cheating, but any single of the three Lord of the Rings films simply can’t be judged on its own. Like the books, they are one film, arbitrarily split into three parts. This is part of the reason they are here – Lord of the Rings is one of the only examples of a real trilogy I can think of, with most others really being a film with a two-part sequel.

Lord of the Rings is a staggering epic of film-making, it can’t be denied. The sheer amount of energy, time, money and passion that went into making this film had never been done before, and likely won’t happen again for a very long time. The recreation of the book was faithful in almost every detail (with a few unfortunate omissions) and the sense of scale was extraordinary. It stands as the only high fantasy film ever produced that manages to maintain the wonder and scope of a novel. It’s a masterpiece.

4. Band of Brothers

Why am I including a mini-series in my top-ten movies list? Because fuck you, that’s why. Band of Brothers is awesome. I love war movies – they hit me in that special place men have for historical violence and heroism. Band of Brothers is an epic retelling of the 101 Airborne Division, E Company, during World War II. It follows them from training, through the Normandy landing, the Battle of the Bulge, right through til the end of the war. The film deals with the hardships and loss, as well as the little and large victories these men achieved. You connect with these characters more than any other war film. It’s witty, sometimes funny, and often sorrowful, and it avoids the anti-war undertones that often insults the work of the men who inspire it.

Bookending each episode with interviews by the real men of Easy Company is a masterstroke too, with only the final episode revealing who these people are. The actors do an excellent job of capturing the stories of Easy Company. So yeah, cheating maybe, but Band of Brothers is well-deserving of a place here anyway.

5. The Lion King

So rarely has the opening scene in a movie been so spectacular. The Lion King ushered in a new epic quality to the animated films that would come after (for a time) and it is an absolute classic. The film was brilliantly animated and well-paced, with tremendous performances by the likes of Jeremy Irons and James Earl Jones joined by a great ensemble cast. Disney really let out all of the stops for this film, and it saddens me that even 17 years later, it has yet to be upstaged. The Lion King is emotional and mature, while remaining a family movie. It’s funny and sad, and altogether retains an epic scale.

I include the Lion King because of its formative impact. It was one of the first movies I remember seeing at a cinema, and it was stunning. A special mention must be made for Anastasia though – my favourite animated movie. It was a marvellous film from top to bottom, but I omitted it because I think the Lion King was the greater movie, if not my favourite.

6. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Hilarious and influential on my taste for British humour, Monty Python had to be on this list somewhere. I tossed up between this and Life of Brian, but in the end I think Holy Grail is the better of the two. In typical Monty Python style, it s witty and farcical at the same time, deep and altogether shallow. One of the greatest comedy films ever made, and never loses its shine.

Even though it could be argued that the film is little more than barely stitched-together sketches, it isn’t really important. The movie is hilarious, and is a cornerstone of my family’s film library.

7. Love Actually

I love the idea of this film. A film purely designed to celebrate love in its highs and lows, and everything in between. A stellar cast of almost all of my favourite British actors can’t go wrong. I include this movie because, for me, it does what it set out to do. I feel happy watching it – a sense that there is a greater purpose in the simple things. Very few of the characters seem larger-than-life, and the film manages to make even the mundane aspects of love seem important.

Besides, any film with both Liam Neeson and Alan Rickman in it can’t be bad.

8. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

The Last Crusade is an adventure film with no par. It is epic in scope but maintains integrity. It seems the film-makers were afraid that more than one scene in any individual country would bore the audience, but it manages to string together so many parts with a cohesiveness lost on most adventures. Indiana’s quest to find his father and ultimately the Holy Grail is easily my favourite of the four films.

The movies follows the same template as the last two films, but manages to add a freshness that stands it above them. Replacing the grounded plane from the first (chronologically second) film with a moving tank created an unforgettable action sequence. There is a real sense of adventure to this movie. Also, there’s an airship. And airships are awesome (I thought of including Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow because of this fact – that’s how awesome they are).

9. The 13th Warrior

“I am not a warrior”

“Very soon, you will be”.

This movie is awesome. The action sequences are basic, the night-scenes are too dark, and the ending is disappointing. But you know what? It doesn’t matter. Because this movie is so full of over-the-top awesome Viking dialogue that my conventional rating system for films is crotch-stomped into the ground. The characters are barely developed, but you like them anyway. The plot is just a mannequin to hold up the bad-arse dialogue, but you barely notice. Because this movie is awesome.

It is also one of the very few movies that seems to get better every time I watch it, and I’ve seen it a lot. Antonio Banderas does an excellent job as Ahmed Ibn Fahdlan, and the rest of the cast are equally competent in their roles. If you want a movie with a plot, development and a point, watch something else. The 13th Warrior does what it does exceptionally well.

I also noticed the similarities between this movie and Aliens – seriously, watch them both. They’ve got practically the same plot. I include the 13th Warrior over the also-awesome Aliens because this one has awesome Vikings, instead of semi-retarded whining marines. So yeah. That.

10. The Fountain

It may have been serendipity for me, but I was so utterly dragged into this movie the first time I watched it I was speechless. A convoluted mess, with almost no post-marking or exposition to tell you what the fuck was going on, somehow I got a tremendously deep meaning out of it. When a movie affects you on such a fundamental philosophical level, it doesn’t matter if it makes sense.

The Fountain was my first foray into Darren Aronofsky’s films, and I haven’t been disappointed with any of them since. While I think Black Swan could very well be his magnum opus, I include The Fountain on this list. I lucked out, the stars aligned when I first watched it, and it was a perfect movie-watching experience for me, that I had never had before. It was fragile – I felt that if the phone rang while I was watching it, it would ruin the magic – but that just made it more special. I’ve seen it once more since watching it, and it had the same effect on the other person I saw it with then. We ended up talking for hours about the meanings of the film.

Ultimately though, if you were to ask me whether to watch it or not, I would say don’t. I get the distinct impression that you have to be lucky, in the exact right frame of mind, to enjoy this film, and somehow that just makes it even more special.

Another special mention goes to The Fall, for similar reasons. I was dumbstruck by the simplistic beauty to be found in that film, but ultimately, The Fountain gets the spot.

So there you go. My top ten films. There are glaring omissions (First Contact, Pan’s Labyrinth, Moon, Independence Day, and lots more) but when picking a top ten, sometimes you just have to throw a dart at a board and see what sticks. As I said, in a few months it might be different, but for now, this is it.

OktoBeginWith has always been a place of peaceful rhetoric. A place where I and our colleagues spout inane garbage, delicious conjecture or inspiring prose with each post. But what does you, our reader (and yes, I’m sure there’s only one of you) think of our tight-knit group of mad yea-sayers and opinionators? In an internet world, where silopsism isn’t only possible, but probable, are you too much of a wuss to imagine there to be any tension?

Our episodic content (which has recently been pushed to the proverbial Friday late-night spot on our to-do lists) has been a little on the beatific side. We’ve spoilt you with love and witty affection. For the most part we have produced lists, stories and articles on things that are, not for a minute, contested. So, indubitably, you must feel of us as saints or demigods; capable of no wrong.

Okay, so not that. Nevermind. The point is, there have been moments where fighting has ensued. Discussion has taken place. Rhetoric has been dispelled as such through crude or witty retorcisms (a new word. Feel free to use it) and heated debate has broken forth. In fact, it would be remiss of me not to point out that, as much as our contributors admire each other, debate and argument make up the bulk of our less public discussion.

This was going to be a blatantly lazy port from our private RSS conversations but it would at this point be remiss of me not to ensue into a diatribe on my philosophy of friendship.

I’ve had a few friends throughout my life, and most of them are still. It’s important to note what friendship is though. Do any of us know? Our knowledge of friendship is really broken down in to one of two camps. The friends given to us are the learned camp, through which platitudes and truisms teach us the ways of enlightenment. The friends we make ourselves are the experienced camp, where we establish through concerted hardships  who we can benefit from. Both of these modes of thought provide us with potential friends, but neither with any particular accuracy.

I remember many of the people I once called my ‘best friend’ when I was very young. These were people I played with and concocted grand world with. People who I shared food and toys with, with whom I created dull havoc for my (and their) parents. I remember these people through brief snippets of visual or auditory stimulus. They struck me as good people. But as I look back upon it, those people who were my nemeses, who I hated to the quick of my bone, I realise were also friends but in a different way. The way I remember my past is as a grand game. My primary school years were taken up by emulating Neighbours with lunch and basketballs. I imagine my preteen years as a series of games, excluding one person in the hopes that they will take up arms and begin an even better game. I know now that the people who bullied me out of games were much as I: wanting to push the bounds of drama ever-onwards, to get to that new game everybody can enjoy (except for the new excludee-who must strive to build of themselves a new enemy). I look back at these days, and remember the friends I still have that were my enemies in each of these games. I remember them, but not my allies. My allies were always the followers, or the ones I followed. I think this and realise that these people, who I loved so dearly then, mean nothing to me now. This is the flippant nature of friendship, and I posit that these were not friends. I say this because if all of your peers are your friends in some capacity, does that make any of them a true friend?

Ah here we are. “True Friend”. This is the confuscian portion of our discussion, dear reader. While our parents would align us with children of their friends, and our schools would force us to make allies of our peers, where does and at what point does a True Friend lie? We all know of true friendship. We’ve all read Dolly magazines (I mean… Extreme Weightlifting Anonymous Magazine).  We’ve read the chain emails and the self-help books. We all know that a True Friend is the person that will help you cover up the evidence of a capital crime. But we all know that is bullshit. People would like to tell us, through idealic fantasy and platitudinal purveyance that our friends are people out of touch with reality. You don’t have any true friends, because when you’re sick, none of your drinking buddies are going to take a day off to slave over a pot of boiling chicken carcasses in order to bring you a bowl of chicken noodle soup. You don’t have any friends, because when you accidentally murder that hooker through a little harmless strangulation-play, there’s nobody who you wouldn’t feel embarrassed to call at two in the morning to help you chop them into pieces, stuff them into shopping bags, and bury them in the desert. When you get right down to it, those are the people who the “witty public” tell you to befriend. And they are exactly the wrong people.

You know who the True Friend is? It’s the person who convinces you to turn yourself in. The person who laughs at your idiotic plan to be the most geriatric person to row around the world in a canoo. The person who flat-out disagrees with you. The person who, through all that, makes a damn good point. A true friend is a friend who does not outstay their purpose. I’ve noticed that of the people who I would play with in my childhood, the ones who have remained my friends have been the ones who have stabbed me in the back during our games. The friends who I have kept from high school have been the ones who have reasoned with my arguments, and argued against them.

A true friend is a person who challenges you. If you are lazy, they will kick you into action. If you are wrong, they will make you right. They will be the night to your day, the yin to your yang, and the heavy pasta meal to your tuna nicoise salad. And they will be the person that through all of it you agree with, at least in principle. And most importantly, much like a loving couple, a True Friend will be the person random acquantances will always think you’re fighting with when you’re just having a discussion.

Be specific, but not overly descriptive. Be bold, but not irrational. Be brave, but not insensitive. Be kind, but don’t be disheartened by the selfishness of others. Don’t be glass half full. Don’t be glass half empty. You don’t have enough time to be measuring milk the rest of your life.

Be a pain in the arse sometimes; Putting up with you shows how much your friends love you. You don’t have to say it, but show it once in a while. There aren’t enough hugs going around. Give a few now and then, and don’t think of them as free, because they’re not. That’s what makes them special.

Wake up early. Sleep in late. Stay up all night obsessing. Stay away from your own company; other people are easier to get along with. Try new things, but don’t give up the good stuff. Be yourself, but be willing to change.

Write. Words will free your mind. Work in a boring job; that’ll free your mind too. Do something you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life. Tell stories; other people need to know who you are. Some people are better than others, but who they are depends on who you ask.

Go to a concert. See a movie. Stay at home and be lazy instead. It all matters eventually. Take a chance sometimes – go out instead of staying home. Don’t make plans. Being spontaneous makes you interesting. You are weird. That’s what makes you fun. Keep being weird. If anybody asks, don’t tell them you took my advice.

Believe in what you want and who you want, where you want and when you want. More importantly, believe how you want. Live life. You only get one, unless you think you get more, in which case don’t live your life. You get another one, right? There’s time to live later. Right?

And most importantly, above all other things, no matter what you do or who you become:

Save the platitudes. Because platitudes are people too.

The silence is deafening. Not a hum of an engine, creak of a pipe, or whisper breaks the eerie quiet. Lights dim slowly, monotonously, and then brighten as the little remaining power tries in vain to illuminate the straight corridors and empty rooms. A pipe swings lazily from the ceiling. The air is stagnant, frozen in a timeless slumber, waiting to be awakened. There is total silence.

A lifeless ship, spinning slowly through the vastness of space. But not alone.

A glimmer against the silky darkness is the only sign. A reflection against metal. A glowing blue ember as this new visitor approaches. Soon, the glimmer grows; a light shines upon the outer edge of the derelict, illuminating a scarred and battered shell. Paint once adorned this hulk, but has long since been sheared off by dust and rocks. A word, written along the side, can no longer be read.

The visitor edges closer and closer, slower and slower. It passes across the bow of the derelict, its huge bright eye searching, light long since forgotten caressing the cold metal. The tiny visitor lazily spirals around the nameless metal corpse. It pauses for a moment as the eye of light finds a window. The visitor peers in, but sees nothing but dust. Reluctantly, it shifts its attention away. It stops again here and there with an infinite curiosity.

The visitor moves closer, drawn towards the derelict. The two wanderers come together with an exquisite patience. The visitor continues spinning, circling, the eye of light piercing the secret corners of rust and ashes. For an aeon, the two ships stay like this, spinning around together. The visitor inches closer and closer.

Until finally they meet, metal brushing metal in an intimate kiss.

With a gasp of movement, the wanderer jerks away. The dark hulk follows it for a moment then releases its hold, gravity’s desire losing to the emptiness of space. The small ship passes its glowing eye one last time over the derelict then turns away. Thrusters fire and within moments it has gone.

The ship is once again left alone, turning end over end in a directionless expanse of nothingness.

Is it impossible to fathom that you could be psychic? That you could know the future, and influence the past? Through all of our achievements, from Prometheus stealing fire from the gods, to a single apple sparking theoretical science and forward-thinking civilisation, the idea that we can bend and break time has recurred through all of us. When we discovered Earth was round, when we attributed thunder and lightning to weather instead of gods, when we argued for evolution over creation, even when critical thinking became the norm, we still pondered the meaning of that inexorable and indefinable dimension: time.

Free-thinkers, philosophers and theoretical scientists are now exploring the nature of time in relation to space. People like Stephen Hawking and Dan Falk are proponents of the idea that we know very little about time. Can we wrap our minds around the idea that everything that will happen, has already and is happening? Or is it all part of the Grand Plan, laid down by a higher being or the nature of the universe itself?

Several modern schools of thought believe that time is not a line; it doesn’t begin at one point and end at another. I’m inclined to agree. If we truly appreciate time as the fourth (or fifth, or ninth) dimension, we must imply the same principle attributes we apply to all the others. Space is infinite. Why not time too? And here’s the really messy bit: if time is indeed infinite, there cannot have been a beginning. It must have come from somewhere, true, but never from the start. This would also work for the end. And seriously – do you honestly believe that something as mind-boggling and powerful as time itself (that truly undiscovered country) can be simplified by a clock?

Which brings me to the crux of it – if time has no beginning and no end, wouldn’t it be possible that it is simply another reference point for the universe to compute its Grand Plan? And if that is the case, would it not be possible for us to move it, to shape it and to surpass it? I can certainly see why we scoff at psychics and paranormal enthusiasts, but so too did we scoff at almost every game-changing breakthrough of our race.

Is it possible that we have already, or are currently doing, or are going to do, everything that we have, are and will do? Is it possible that we are simply reliving moments, that we are jumping around in time in our own heads, that everything is a memory and a dream? Scoff all you like, but tell me: how do you know that is not the case? Perhaps we are living every moment at the same time. Perhaps I know already how this blog will end, or when I will die. And perhaps time itself is simply an illusion.

Our minds are extraordinary things. Our souls are far more extraordinary. Perchance one day you wake up, and then you wake up, and you witness your life and your place in the universe and you think to yourself: is it truly all that simple? Perhaps we do this every day. Perhaps, when we sleep or when we die, we have our chance to understand the nature of things.

We are a forward-thinking people – perhaps we are the closest anyone, anywhere among the stars, has ever or will ever come to understanding the nature of this great thing we call the universe. But through all our time on this planet, and on this very plane of existence, we have never once come to understand the nature of time. We still rely on clocks to tell us, but ask yourself this: would you trust a clock with anything else?

I’ve stumbled upon a theory.

This theory is dependent on whether you like, or appreciate, Star Trek (in any of its forms – see ‘The Theory’). This theory (hence known as ‘The Theory’) may or may not sway your opinion on the matter, but I feel it is worth at least a random, inconsequential blog post to parley (another awesome ‘cinematographique’ to put into question) .

Star Trek is an enlightening, intelligent, satirical and inspiring visual stimulus – IF you digest it as it is meant, and as it is delivered by the people involved. Now I am fully aware of the many other blogs, forum posts, magazine articles, full magazines, documentaries, newspaper clippings, and PHD papers that make basically the same point. What I am about to reveal is the way that YOU  can come to appreciate Star Trek.

You = “anyone who is not at the moment, enriched from the Star Trek experience, but who is willing to become interested”;

The theory is very simple, and best enforced through example. Note that this theory has different weighting based upon the Star Trek series in question, in order as follows:

Original Series

The Next Generation

Voyager

Deep Space Nine

My theory is thus: The importance of Star Trek, and its influence upon our culture can be socially, scientifically, spiritually and critically evaluated based upon the actions of key actors outside the realms of the show. If this were a PHD thesis, I would spell it out for you, but as it’s a random blog post you have stumbled across while Google searching ‘the true meaning of star trek’ (don’t actually Google search that, I was lying) I’m simply going to give examples of what I mean (in order of the ‘In order as follows’ bit):

Gene Roddenberry: Star Craft (thanks attributed) – He is one of the only people on the planet, to be directly attributed to influencing the creation of a national sport, bar anecdotes. His work in bringing the world of science fiction into science fact cannot be overstated either.

William Shatner: Spoken Word Poetry – come on, he’s good at it, and he brought it into the public eye; Boston Legal; being a general mockery of himslf also shows people that you can have a laugh in life – even at your own expense.

DeForest Kelly: Come back to this blog when you’ve converted. Truly R.I.P. a great man. A great man who was nothing more than a man struggling with greatness.

Leonard Nimoy: (Narrator) Civilization IV, the latest in a video game series that has spanned the years since the popular inception of personal computer gaming – in 20 years time, even those who don’t know what I’m talking about WILL know what I’m talking about.

George Takei: ‘Heroes’ – in no small part developed the popular  opinion of superheroes (regardless of your opinion of the show in question).

Patrick Stewart: Brilliant stage actor; In the workings to be the replacement for David Attenborough… I think that is enough, but I’ll add ‘The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’ (Narrator, ‘Emperor’) and ‘American Dad’ (popular adult comedy). Also; he is Patrick Stewart.

Ethan Philips & Armin Shimmerman: They’re in a LOT of movies and television shows. These two actors become recognisable fan favourites once you have digested ‘The Theory’.

Well, there are obviously more. The ultimate point is that each and every person involved in the television phenomena/fight for ultimate liberalism should be considered a Knight of the Order of the Human Race. Each of these people have strived (in the form of a far-out, cheesy soapish television series) to make our world better for each and every person, through the power of Modern Culture. It may seem a little silly, but it’s pretty much guaranteed that one of these people has affected your outlook in some way or another.

I’m not going to hold your hand, but if you are dedicated enough you will see how Star Trek, of all the pointless, base, overlooked, cultish and cheesy entertainment, has and will shape our world in the future. From the fiction of the show spurring scientists to make it so (couldn’t help myself) through to the work of former cheesy television actors influencing indie, and then popular culture, Star Trek has shaped our lives in more ways than any of us could possibly know – whether you like the show or not.

I only hope that the majority of humanity holds half the hopes and dreams portrayed in that most basic of television science fiction.

The more inane (and probably more astute) result of this theory is that the quantity of the recognisable cultural figures derived from a series of Star Trek is proportional to the significance and general awesomeness of the series in question… Actually, you could probably just ignore the bulk of this post and focus on that.

Everybody hates things. Whether the things are people or objects, ideals or idiosyncrasies, accents or idioms. I find it hard to figure out exactly why. I fear I succumb to the Church of Reason, and thus there are times when my more fiery emotions rise up against the most illogical, superfluous things. I know this, but as this blog is all about what I think of illogical and superfluous things, I have decided to make another list.

Yes all, it is indeed a list of the stupid things I find infuriating. Please, after perusing, feel free to submit a comment, telling us all of the silly things you find aggravating, disheartening, vexatious, exasperating and maddening. You don’t need to register, and I’m sure you’re just dying to let out all the frustration.

5 THINGS THAT PISS ME OFF; a diatribe, by Drew McMahon

1. The colloquial use of the word literally [being that, there cannot BE a hyperbolic use of the word] – Colloquial speech tends to emphasise the meanings of certain words in our language, in an attempt for us all to bring extra meaning to important points in our speech. There are a few words however, that simply cannot be blown out of proportion, one way or another. One of these words is the word “LITERALLY”. It drives me mad every time I hear the word when the situation described doesn’t warrant it. Literally, in case you don’t know, means: in accordance with, involving, or being the primary or strict meaning of the word or words. I think you can agree with me now that adding any hyperbole upon words under the stricture of the word “literally” would therefore completely discount the meaning and purpose of the word. Most of the time, this doesn’t bother me, as it is used in the heat of the moment, and when wrong, is often followed by the phrase “Well, maybe not literally, but figuratively.” But when printed in the pages of the news press, for instance, I immediately feel the need to dismiss the claims of the journalist as distended, hyperbolic and sensational speech. Why? Because if it is your job to deal in words, you should take some pride in your work and use words as they are meant to be used. Literally is one of the very few words in our language that CANNOT, cannot, and cannot be taken out of its primary definition. If you do use the word commonly, to emphasise any point you feel like making, like how you “got so drunk last night I LITERALLY DIED”, or how “Mum LITERALLY FLIPPED HER LID* when we came home after midnight ”, or any other silly thing, then please kill yourself right in the face. Literally**.
2. *Use of the word Literally, as seen above, but in a context where it is absolutely impossible, regardless of circumstances, for the phrase to ever be accurate – Note – *This sentence is impossible to literally fathom, as nobody’s mother literally has a lid to flip. This just implies a callous regard for words and their context, and makes you look like a moron.
3. **Use of previously identified phrases that simply cannot be take out of the context of their definition, as a pun or other trite, staid joke – See Point 1. – **last word, for example of lame, humourless joke. Even at junctures like this, where a point is being reinforced in a comical sense, the use of one of these phrases pisses me off, because it contradicts logic.
4. Insignificant shit that pisses other people off – I know you love your partner and friends, but occasionally we all have little things that drive us crazy, for no particular reason. For instance, perhaps your spouse leaves the toothpaste cap open, or puts the toilet roll facing the wrong way. Seriously people, how about a little pragmatism. Realise that it’s only a tiny difference, and you don’t need to have a domestic over it. We all need to learn to ignore the petty things, appreciate who we are, and stop using the word literal in phrases where it isn’t fucking meant.
5. People who cannot understand irony. Or double irony, or even triple irony, if you know me really well.

Think of all the classic movies. Or games. Or albums. Now try to picture those pieces of art being advertised. If you are like me, it’s very difficult. There are some texts(note, for the sake of this article, I will be referring to all instances of the medium in the literal “text”) that convey a grand picture – a masterpiece of the human mind and form – that simply cannot be advertised. Trailers won’t do the film justice. Gameplay videos just don’t inspire the gamer. Radio edit singles are a far cry from the richness embodied in the album.

Marketing is slowly devouring the soul of our creativity.

I may have given it away in my first paragraph, but this article is somewhat of a shoutout – and a proof in form – to those texts that surpass the advertising limits and create a mass-market appeal all to their own. Today, we call these texts “cult” – a derogatory term at the best of times – which is a clear indication of our society’s opinion of what the minority KNOW to be great. For instance, in 1977, a film was released to cinemas. It was in the boom summer months, where we generally have one lead film by a production studio, plus a bunch of minor, cheap backups. The film I am talking about is one of those cheap, throwaway backups. It was a film where the entire cast and crew were of the opinion that they were making a joke. It would never go anywhere. It was a flight of fancy by an unskilled screenwriter who, for some reason, managed to score a small budget. That film, in case you hadn’t guessed…

Was Star Wars. Possibly today the most recognised film brand in the Western World, Star Wars was given a measly (even for the time) $8m budget. For argument’s sake, allow me to note a few other similar films: Blues Brothers, Donnie Darko, Clerks, Slacker, Saw… All these films weren’t considered to be friendly to marketing, at least as far as the publishers saw (ed: if there really were an editor, he would punLOL right now). The fact is, the big budget production studios need to make absolutely certain that the money they spend on a film comes back to them.

I hold no grudges. At the end of the day, the job of a publisher is to finance a creative work. When we come to matters of finance, capitalist society dictates that financing something must, in the end, make a return. Which means that, in order to publish a creative work, a publisher needs to be aware of exactly how they are going to recoup their interests. This leads us to the marketers…

I’m not going to pretend marketing companies are evil corporations out to brainwash the public to the “regime” mode of thinking. Marketers simply collate, calculate, predict and report statistical trends in the ‘marketplace’ (that being, us in the majority) that they know will sell. The problem is the human factor. Statistics only prove so much, and only from a scientific standpoint. When it comes to the creative media, anything is up for grabs.

I am a teacher, pioneer and citizen of “Games”, and as such I must approach this article from a game perspective. With a little thought however, I am sure you will make the same links with your own medium of choice. There have been several genres of video game that have become all but extinct – they definitely don’t hold the popularity they once did. Genres like adventure games, space sims and turn-based strategy games were once leading the charge in game sales. Today, they barely make a blip on the charts (with a few notable exceptions). I believe the reason for this is marketing, namely that these genres are very difficult to advertise. Trailers and gameplay videos don’t appear flashy enough, screenshots and posters show graphs and text more often than not, and press releases just haven’t got the forceful impact of say, a first-person shooter. This is certainly not to say that these games are bad. You just need to be playing them to appreciate them. The only games in these genres that tend to do any well nowadays are those rebooting, based on, or continuing a once-popular franchise (Sam & Max, Monkey Island, Civilization, Freelancer, Hearts of Iron and the many independent “rogue-likes”, to name a few). Films show the same trend – the biggest takers of any given chart tend to be movies with big, flashy, exciting trailers. Album sales are more often based on the radio single. A new book only really sells big when someone bases a film on it.

It is this industry that is the cause. Publishers targeting product to the mass market. In the end it all comes back to trying to please all the people all the time. The text just gets “dumbed down”, the effect lost in a thousand compromises designed to make it appeal to more people. I remember the games industry in its relative infancy at the turn of the 90′s. There was no advertising. Games were independent affairs. A game sold through word of mouth. This is where the classics make their mark – not through mass-market themed teasers, but based on the recommendation of the human element. And no, I’m not talking about the critics. They aren’t really people.

As those who subscribe to our RSS, and picked up the somewhat vague post I made recently, may have understood, I’ve decided this blog could do with a bit of a shakeup of the norm. We here at OkToBeginWith have always considered this blog to be a collection of statements about society, popular culture, and the artistic industry.

So I decided I would take a time-out from being the usual pretentious wanker I am in my blog posts, and do a list: My personal favourite top five movie moments.

Fret not; unlike most blog lists, my list is truly my personal list. It has come the time that people should feel unashamed of their opinions. Perhaps you always thought that Aqua’s “Turn Back Time” was a poignant and emotional moment in the group’s artistic story and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” was a highly overrated album. Perhaps you believe Spiderman was a better movie than The Godfather, or that Dan Scott is a better artist than Jackson Pollack. Art is art, and emotional resonance is in the eye of the beholder.

My list is up for debate: it may be that you spark a memory of mine that shunts out one of the film moments on my list. But at the end of the day, popular opinion is not MY opinion, nor should it ever be YOUR opinion. When it comes to art, it truly is up to the individual.

So with no more ado, here is my top five movie moments, off the top of my head (note, I haven’t compiled any list, the points I list here are completely off the top of my head, as they should be – how could your top moments possibly be so if you need to spend hours thinking of them?):

>IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER<

1. Jurassic Park: The scene towards the start of the movie where they are in the jeeps, and first spot the dinosaurs. The camera zooms in on the characters, before showing a wide panning shot of dinosaurs. Sam Neil’s acting is wondrous, the visuals are astounding, and above all, the sound track is simply tremendous.

2. Independence Day: The presidential speech… You know the one. Even though it is charged with USA-specific patriotism, reading between the lines reveals the point of the whole movie – that we are far more than the sum of our parts

3. Starship Troopers: Basically the whole movie, but as a moment, the scene where humans touch down on Klendathu, and we see the media become so enthralled with the spectacle, that the journalists fail to see the danger they are in.

4. Planet of the Apes: “You blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!” – All the frustration of the individual person released in one explosive moment.

5. Young People Fucking: During act V. Orgasm, “The Best Friends” share a moment. The scene is charged with unspoken words that really resonated with me.

… It honestly has just occurred to me as I read back over this list, that these five parts sum up five different things about the human character (and obviously, mine in particular). The first sums up the wonder of something new, the second reinforces our duty to our fellow Man, the third shows the extremes our society has taken to entertain, the fourth sums up all the frustration of each of us at the stupidity of our species as a whole, and the fifth is possibly the most poignant of all; the final moment of acceptance and bliss we all find when we meet our life partner.

So take away from this what you will. Argue it to high heaven – everyone will feel the need. But at the end of the day, when you make your top 5 movie moments, I urge you to do it without considerable thought, and try to make the list your own. I was tempted for a moment to include instances from The Godfather, The Dark Knight, Forrest Gump, Casablanca, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many others, but at the end of the day, my top five resonate more truthfully to me. What does your list look like?

Australia is the best country on Earth. No really, think about it. We’re a young and vibrant country, with a history built less on aggressively taking what is ours, and more on opposing oppression with common sense and a humanitarian moral value in human life. We have vast tracts of untamed land to call our own. Our economy is relatively self-reliant, with good market exports to Asia, North America and Europe. We can drink any bastard under the table, and are great at parties. Our sporting teams are the best in the world at what they do.

Now, obviously, that isn’t the end of my rant. My point is I am Australian. And why wouldn’t I have nothing but the highest esteem for the country that raised me to be who I am?

There is the crunch right there. Australia raised me to be who I am. I was raised an Australian. I’m sure people from the USA have a similar esteem for their own country, even though others may have many conflicting moral values. They’re proud of their belief that Americans are infallible under God. The English pride themselves on their ability to be cheerful in misery (and with good cause really – You’d have to be).

So, why do people from every country feel their own country is the best? The answer is simple: because we are, one and all, a product of our birthplace.

We see things with rose-tinted glasses, if you will. Raised from birth, I have been taught that Australian values are the most important values. The countries with similar values are good friends, while the countries with wildly dissimilar values are to be shunned.

There are those among every country who choose to leave and explore the world, or move to another country. I believe there are two types of people that do this. The first group is made up of those who have taken their countries values completely to heart, and feel the need to propagate them elsewhere. This is basic human nature – send our best to convert others to our way of thinking, and we become stronger. The second group is made up of those who, at heart, don’t believe in their birth-place’s values. These people tend to visit a specific country, and become expats. Again, there is nothing wrong with this. It is all simply the distribution of wealth.

Problems will occur of course, when two countries that are extremely powerful have vastly differing opinions. Again, this is simply a cosmic state of life. The cold war between the USA and the USSR wasn’t fought over traditional small-scale, short-term things like resources, land or diversity of breeding options (from a biological standpoint), it was fought over something much larger. Something much more human. The two countries were at severe odds because they were of equal power and wealth, with almost opposite values, ethically and morally.

So I suppose the point I’m making here is that, while you should be proud of your place of origin, you should keep an open mind about other lands. To get right down to it, we are all human, we simply have different social compasses. And just for fun, consider this paragraph:

Australia is the worst country on Earth. No really, think about it. We’re a young country, with what little there is of our history built on aggressively taking what Britain thought was theirs, and on opposing rightful oppression (both from the British, and the native people from the Caucasian Australians). Because our general education is low, we consider the idiotic things we do common sense, but hey, we were recently forced to have a humanitarian moral value in human life, after the rest of the world became disgruntled with our White Australia policy in the 60’s. We have vast tracts of untamed land to call our own, but it’s mostly rocky desert and completely useless. Our economy is relatively self-reliant, with good market exports (rice and cotton, which destroy our rivers and landscape, sheep which ruin tenable land, and uranium, nuff said). We can drink any bastard under the table, and we think we are great at parties, but really most people hate our thuggish personalities. Our sporting teams are the best in the world at what they do, being that we only play sports that we’re good at, and think all the others are crap.

Now isn’t that interesting. Why don’t you do the same with your own country, and perhaps next time we meet, we can meet person to person, instead of clash our morals against each other in some sort of metaphysical rutting session.

Peace to all.