Reasons why you should check carefully before going to the movies

Here is a selection of films currently showing in London. I don't know what the hell they're about. It's much more fun to look at the titles and speculate about them in very silly ways ...

Aliens in the Attic - the first of a series of alliteratively-titled films using two nouns beginning with the same letter and all concerning unexpected visitations in domestic spaces. Soon to be released are: Bison in the Bathroom, Canaries in the Conservatory, Duck-billed Platypuses (platypi?) in the Dining Room ... you get the picture (ho ho).

The Boat That Rocked - another series concerning things which amazed people but which shouldn't have as they were perfectly predictable. Soon to appear in your cinemas are The Eggs That Cracked When Placed Underneath the Potatoes in the Shopping Bag, The Woman who Cried when Faced with FOUR Mirrors in the Shop's Changing Room and The Man who Took a Day off Work when He Sneezed Twice in a 48-hour Period.

Dance Flick - A movie, about a bully who forces his girlfriend, Felicity, to learn ballroom, which was made by a director who didn't know that commas must be used before terms of address when giving commands. This director has released several films which suffer from the same problem. Move Dumbo is a violent film about someone who slices up people in bars who get in his way so that he can't get a drink; unfortunately, the lack of the comma has sent droves of tots along to the movie with their parents, thinking it's about a friendly elephant who is relocating. Compensation claims are awaited. Similar claims are expected from those who went to see Shoot Kid thinking it was a bloody and vicious movie about child-killers, only to find it was just one of those slushy family films about a father who gets access to his son only on a Sunday and can't think of anything else to do with him but train him in photography.

35 Shots of Rum - This film was made by someone who, as a child, only saw his father on Sundays, and longed to be taken to McDonald's or to the park, but whose daddy had little imagination and therefore only taught him how to take photographs. Later on in life, the poor little lad, with only the one skill, and therefore socially disadvantaged, took to drinking. This film is a fascinating in some ways but completely tedious in most others series of frames in which a glass of rum is photographed thirty-five times, each time after the photographer has taken one sip from it. It is only between shots 1-5 and shots 30-35 that there is any discernible difference between the photographs, so there is about an hour and a half in the middle of the film when you can comfortably sleep. Other films made by this man, who has tried therapy but whose therapist found the constant clicking of the camera distracting so cancelled the sessions, include 101 Photographs of a Bottle of Bourbon and 298 Pictures of a Crate of Red Wine. Critics claim his work is "astounding" and "genre-shifting" and millions have been offered for his next movie by those who know art when they see it.


Hey! Notice how each one of those wild speculations got longer and more ridiculous? I thought I'd better hit the sack before I wrote 3000 words on Harry Potter & Half-Blood Prince about why there is no 'the' in this title. Anyone know?