It’s that time of the week once more where you get texts from distant relatives and Facebook friends you decided it was acceptable to dole out your mobile number to.

They are texting you because they know that you will be slinking back to a cold flat alone after work and they want your Orange Wednesday so they can go to the cinema with their real friends. You might not be invited, but you’re also not using it are you?

We know that you don’t want to cry all night so we’re going to let you watch some of the trailers for the films they might be watching this week then you can be part of the team (which you’re not because as we all know there’s no ‘I’ in team.)

You don’t know anyone in real life that would go and watch George Lucas make a mockery of his already fairly ridiculous franchise.

However, you do know lots of people on the internet that are outraged by this 3D travesty.

Jar Jar Binks in 3D, just think!

We all noticed Ewan McGregor has a rat tail and we’ve all seen The Matrix here right? Good, moving on.

Remember Ronseal? Well it told you exactly what it did on the tin. Man On A Ledge is the Ronseal of the film industry and that’s the only plot synopsis you’re getting.

As far as everyone involved here is concerned you’re five quid up because you just realised that you’ve now seen a slightly less attractive than usual Sam Worthington stood on a ledge while the rest of New York and Ed Harris’s horrible eyes throw a parade. They just love a parade in that city.

You thought you locked the doors and you thought you were safe, but then we brought this horrifying spectacle, peck dance included and streamed it live in your living room, the worst bit is that you clicked that link all by yourself.

Christ did you all see Michael Caine or did we just hallucinate that bit?  The logistics of Michael Caine and The Rock being in a film together are the reason the phrase ‘logistical nightmare’ exists. It’s fun to watch The Rock pretend he knows what ‘emasculating’ means and then that he is capable of that emotion.

All the moralistic and cultured members of the general public will probably be wanting to go and watch a film called Carnage by a man who can’t go to America because he’s wanted for almost definitely raping a 13-year-old girl many, many years ago; isn’t voyeurism fantastic?

It’s based on a play and is set entirely in one room where four ‘adults’ will deduce who is the best at throwing a hissy-fit. They’re obviously all obnoxiously good actors and they’ll be acting the pants off of this.

If you still feel like you’re missing out then we do apologise, but we can only go so far to make your lonely existence fulfilling and entertaining. Have you tried ringing Samaritans?

Right. Here’s the future. In the year 200andGoogleitbecausewedidnot, once all the disinfectant from Leona Lewis’ Olympic Opening Ceremony Performance has sterilized Britain, there is to be some exciting news. Naomi Watts is going to do exactly what Meryl Streep has just done here in 2012.

But she’s going to do it slightly more creepier – and be all PRINCESS DIANA and everything.

Okay. Quick reminder on who Princess Diana is, just before everyone jumps on the bandwagon and starts holding aloft an ironic piece of bunting with a smashed arm of a princess on it or something.

So, Princess Diana was a woman, who married a man whom she did not love (That’s Prince Charles, that guy who once stood 20 miles from a working class civilian and didn’t complain about it at all) Alas, it didn’t work out – both parties allegedly got off with other people, and it was all a bit of a car crash to be honest.

It doesn’t really matter who Princess Diana was. Suffice to say her buttocks was not as pert as Pippa Middleton, she just contributed to various charities instead. Charities are like Children in Need, but they give the money to impoverished minorities, rather than a hedge fund for Terry Wogan’s minibar, per se. Like we say, it doesn’t really matter what charity is or indeed represents.

Here’s the lowdown on this Princess Diana biopic. Obviously, you all know how to type in ‘IMDB’ into Google, but you’re here now – and god, we may as well, right? The wonderlist for Completely Undocumented Life of Princess Diana is as follows:

NAOMI WATTS – PRINCESS DIANA
WHOEVER THE HELL WROTE ‘THE LIBERTINE?’ – SCREENWRITER

The power troupe of Hollywood there, in full force as per usual. The Breakfast Club of our hearts. The Emilio Estevez of our chronic loneliness. (Or ‘Paula Abdul’ if you want the clinical terminology)

Upon the casting, Naomi Watts said quite a large quantity of things about trophy polish and ‘must get a new diaphragm for Elton’s after-party’, but once we breezed past all that, the gist appears to be:

“It is such an honour to be able to play this iconic role – Princess Diana was loved across the world and I look forward to rising to the challenge of playing her on screen.”

Congratulations Naomi Watts! THIS IS ALL SO INCREDIBLY NECESSARY.

One mild concern – who’s going to play Cat Deeley in the crucial Paul Burrell performing terrifying the Chicago soundtrack with the vigour of a repressed 70s Gimp Candyman on Stars in Their Eyes scene?

Bit worried.

Ever since we all saw David Hasselhoff drunkenly eating a hamburger off the floor while berating his daughter, we’ve all thrilled at how damaged the former Baywatcher is. Not to mention that whole being under the impression he brought down the iron curtain in Germany thing.

The Hoff, for reasons only unclear to him, is one of our favourite celebrities to mockingly enjoy.

And, the good news is, is that he really hasn’t learned a thing. He’s as deluded as ever, growing his peas above sticks and saying, without a trace of irony, that he wants A-List superstar Russell Crowe for the Knight Rider Movie. That’d be the Knight Rider Movie which doesn’t ever, ever look like getting general release.

That’s right. A man who starred in the terrible slo-boober Baywatch and glazed idiot on the peering panel of America’s Got Talent has tweeted an invitation to Russell Crowe The Hollywood Actor.

Hoff said:

“Thanks mate hope to see you soon! Time for us to do Knight Rider the movie. Would love to hook up next time I’m in Sydney. Be there soon. Direct message me your email. Hope you’re well, bud.”

DaveHoff met Crowe in a hospital in Sydney. That’s all well and good until you hear that Hasselhoff is reported to have  danced for the young patients.

Surely there are law against such a thing?

Not only that, but while in Australia, Hasselhoff reportedly proposed to girlfriend Hayley Roberts during a walk up the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He posted photos on Twitter of him down on one knee and the couple kissing each other.

Next week, he’ll show us what he had for his lunch, post-digestion.

Hey! Comic nerds! Fancy picking holes in something? Then step right up, because we’ve got the newest teaser of the new web-slinging flick, The Amazing Spider-Man, which has been trailed at special preview events around the world.

The latest incarnation of Spiderman (it’s pronounced like a surname, etc) is played by Andrew Garfield, and we get to see the full thing – and berate it for not being quite right – in July.

So what can we expect? Well, this time ’round, we’ll see Peter Parker being bullied at school. Yep. Bullied like a big wimp. No wonder he had a chip on his shoulder. We also see the usual testing of web-firing gadgets and, better yet, the birth of the villainous Lizard played by Rhys Ifans (the one in the underpants in that film).

Director Marc Webb (apt name! He definitely hasn’t heard that one before) says:

“I think there are a lot of things from the Spider-Man canon that haven’t yet been explored cinematically. This movie really starts off with Peter Parker and his parents, which is something we’ve never really seen before, and I think that was something we were all really interested in exploring as filmmakers.”

Yes, but are we popcorn munching dimwits going to be interested in exploring it as viewers, huh?

Meanwhile, Emma Stone (who will be playing Gwen Stacey – Peter Parker’s other love interest away from the irritating MJ) told fans in Rio de Janeiro that Gwen and Mary Jane Watson (remember, she was played by Kirsten Dunst in the previous films) are “polar opposites,” while Rhys Ifans said in London that his character, Dr. Curt Connors, who becomes the Lizard, has “a very complex and emotional” link to Parker.

The bad news about this film is that it features music from the Rolling Stones and Coldplay.

Anyway, you have a look at this teaser and make your own stupid minds up. We’re sick of constantly wiping your arses for you and telling you what to think.

Seriously. Grow up.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 3D – Official Trailer /… by Lyricis

One of the big talking points from the Super Bowl commercial break was… well… Clint Eastwood. Away from that though, there’s a little excitement surrounding the trailer for Marvel’s The Avengers movie.

While most superhero flicks are brooding like Batman at the moment, it appears that The Avengers film is going to be pleasingly dumb, if the trailer is anything to go by.

So if you want to see it, strap in and watch things explode with Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow) and Hulk get into a giant scrap with a fella with long, greasy hair.

The baddie in the piece is called Loki and he’s all cocking his head with an evil eyebrow nonsense while Rob Downey Jr is, well, playing himself.

Elsewhere, Captain America’s shield will get nerds wet, while everyone else with be getting aroused over Scarlett Johansson in a catsuit.

Oh, and there’s aliens and laser beams and all that good stuff.

One thing that people may raise a vague titter at is the exchange between Loki and Iron Man. ”I have an army,” says Tom Hiddleston’s Loki. “We have a Hulk!” Stark replies.

Those superheroes and villains! Do they rehearse this stuff?

Yes they do. Now watch the trailer.

Do you hate everything yet? Do you wake up angry, in cold sweats thinking “this is all just terrible. We have one chance at a viable, enjoyable life and yet the culture we digest is diluted, spoon-fed nonsense with people who are inexplicably famous, we should be worth far more than this” and then carve “4REAL” into your arm?

No? Well, here’s some news.

The Only Way is Essex (sigh) star (double sigh) Mark Wright is going to be included in an artform enjoyed by Kirk Douglas and Robert DeNiro as the boyfriend of Kelly Brook’s character in a film with Danny Dyer and oh don’t you just want to shoot people now?

We can only hazard guesses, but it’s probably safe to say that this news is about as welcome to the world of cinema as ZZ Top at a Leukaemia convention. Remember actors? They would act in things, and people who weren’t actors didn’t?

Mark Wright was quoted as saying literally nothing of value about the film, in which he stars with hard man – if hard man constitutes as someone who looks like too much of a bed-wetter to do PR for Coldplay (and UFO enthusiast) – Danny Dyer, who has a fantastic record in cinema, doesn’t he?

Christ.

“Insiders” have mentioned that Wright is trying to drop his Essex accent to have a crack at Hollywood, which shouldn’t even be worth saying, really, because “speaking differently” and “playing a character who isn’t you” is called “acting”. “Speech marks”.

Wright’s publicist, or “Talky Word Man”, said:

“He loves The Business and Football Factory, so it’s a dream for him to work with Danny and Tamar. Add Kelly into the mix, he’s made up.”

Maybe this is proof that you can achieve anything if you’re a moron.

Films. Movies. Whatever you call them, they are still being released. They’re always being released. They’ll never stop being released. Surely, at some point, we’ll reach a time when we’ve got enough films. We only need so many, right?

Anyway, until then, we’ve got to look at the newest flicks that are coming out. You can almost smell the stale popcorn.

So, here’s what the week in film trailers looks like for those of you who are hearing and/or visually impaired we’re doing the dirty work so you don’t have to.

Now if you’re still one of the poor serfs who has Spotify or television adverts in your life then you will have been numbed by the incessant marketing of a film called Chronicle.

You’ll all be delighted to know this is coming to an end as the film is out tomorrow, but here it is one more time just to make sure you never go and watch it.

What’s that? Douche-bag school kids who probably say things like douche-bag all the time and a ‘found’ film? Either way, these bozos have super powers and one of them goes a little bit psycho. They listen to, sing, and enjoy Jessie J and then they have the nerve to ask us what we’re capable of. Well we’re capable of not watching this movie that’s for sure.

This on the other hand we don’t even really want to discuss, but before you watch it we want to devastate you with the news that you will soon be witnessing Al Pacino starring as himself in Adam Sandler’s ‘The Death of Comedy’ where he plays his own twin sister. Eddie Murphy must be furious.

Eurgh.

More odd is that here’s a trailer for a good film for you! Well, it looks good at any rate. See? We’re not wholly negative goons.

HA! We made you watch one of the Olsen sisters act. She’s not on crack though and she doesn’t have an eating disorder so it’s all looking up for Martha Marcy May Marlene. Plus it has John Hawkes, who is the most underrated actor of a generation and Brady Corbet who is hot stuff for you members of the population who can’t watch a film unless it has good abs and hair being flaunted for at least 45 minutes.

Okay, you’re going to want to ready yourselves for the next one, it’s by Jason Reitman and Diablo ‘used to be a whore in practice now just in your thoughts’ Cody.

On a level of your new favourite movie to totally crapping twee how good/awful does that look?

Charlize Theron was good as an ugly serial killer in that film that was about the ugly serial killer, but she’s much better as a smoking hot grade a bitch.

Now go to the cinema and stop bothering us.

Have you seen Domino? It’s just about the worst film ever made. That includes the ill-advised Garbage Pail Kids movie which some idiot wasted his money on making. And the reason that Domino is so bad lays entirely at the feet of the godawful Keira Knightley – an English accent designed to occupy a thong.

Of course, criticism and Keira are common bedfellows. Where Knightley goes, people muttering about how dismal she is, is never far away.

Apart from in glorious America, where they’re dim enough to like her. The USofA is just about the only country gullible enough to buy her schtick of being a not-ugly posh English girl of no-fixed-talent. And she’s noticed.

The dreadful, dreadful actress feels she gets more support as an actress in America than at home in the UK. That’s because the UK has a dreck-filter, not like in America where they’ll gobble up any ol’ gash. Want evidence? Americans will happily watch Two And A Half Men and The Big Bang Theory in their droves, whereas everything the UK produces is absolutely brilliant.

Apart from Knightley.

The Pirates Of The Caribbean jobsworth who, in her new film ‘A Dangerous Method’, realises that her acting abilities are so stunted, that she must take on a role that sees her getting spanked while tied semi-naked to a bed (you have to generate interest somehow, right?), admitted to GQ that she gets upset when people point out how gaspingly awful she is at her job.

Keira said:

“The Americans are generally a lot more supportive. They generally like the work a lot more than they do here. It is what it is, I suppose. It could just be that I’m not to a lot of people’s tastes. Which is fine.”

“Well it’s not, obviously. You want to be to everyone’s taste… But. I think it’s better to do your own thing rather than try to please everyone and just be this mushy thing in the middle.

“Sometimes it’s like water off a duck’s back, and sometimes it really hurts… and then you go away and cry for an hour or so, and then you pick yourself up again.”

There you go. We’ve all been making Keira Knightley cry. Something that no-one has ever been moved to do after watching one of her performances… unless you include the bitter tears of frustration as you watch a young talentless div sloping around a set for huge sums of undeserved money.

Plot holes! Popcorn! If you hadn’t guessed, hecklerspray is venturing into the world of film criticism and, as awards season rolls around again with all the depressing monotony of Madonna trying her best to make a movie, we couldn’t have picked a better time to start.

We’ve already seen The Golden Globes pass by like a bus that couldn’t be bothered to hit anyone and The London Critics Circle had an altogether more serious affair for the ‘proper’ films; they’ll be the ones you never saw while you were queuing for tickets to The Inbetweeners Movie.

Now though it’s time for that decrepit golden man to bestow some acclaim on some people who really don’t need anymore; enter Oscar. In other words – let us look at new trailers for new films.

The nominations have been announced to massive sighs from just about everyone other than Michael Hazantthisfilmbeentalkedaboutenoughalreadyvicius who’s silent film The Artist is quickly rising from ‘underdog’ to “Oh my god this is, like, totally amazing and deserving of everything thrown its way,” favourite.

The uncouth Frenchman couldn’t even be bothered to write dialogue and still has a chance of winning best screenplay; will someone alert the academy? They’re probably all so old they didn’t even notice.

If you’re one of those run of the mill: “This Orange Wednesday thing is pretty ground breaking,” type people then you will never have heard of Albert Nobbs which is perfectly fine because it’s not going to win either of the three awards it’s nominated for and it can disappear blissfully back into obscurity. While we’re here though may as well watch the trailer, eh?

As far as we can tell it’s about a gender politics in a bygone era where everybody didn’t really get ’round to shouting HAVE YOU SEEN GLENN CLOSE’S FACE?

Elsewhere, one of the most bizarre decisions was to nominate Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close for best picture, being that nobody really knows or cares anything about it; especially in this country where the marketing campaign is only just getting going.

It has a young wide-eyed boy, Tom Hanks laughing, Sandra Bullock doing ‘the look’, and Max Von Sydow giving Christopher Plummer a run for his money in the old stakes. It’s about 9/11 and pretty much says “This is going to be more epic than Epic Movie”. It also has this:

And now, over to The Help which has a butt-load of nominations.

Hark! A film that tackles racism by succumbing to every lousy racial stereotype there is!

Obviously many other films were nominated for something or other this year and Michael Fassbender’s penis was Shame(fully) ignored. We think Chris Nolan is going to surprise win all the categories despite the scandalous underrepresentation of all the films he didn’t make this year.

It’s disheartening how much that woman isn’t Michelle Rodriguez.

You’ve seen Sherlock on BBC television right? Yeah, that homoerotic nonsense that all furrowed brows and winks to camera. It’s awful isn’t it? If you’re the kind of swine-nosed, spotty sloven who is now tutting in disgust at such a sentiment, we have news.

Mr Benedict Cumberbatch, a man with a face like an iron hand, is going to be in the new Star Trek movie.

The British actor has been cast in J.J. Abrams’ sequel to his 2009 ‘Star Trek’ reboot, according to Deadline.com. And when have they ever lied? And he could well be getting a juicy role.

Of course, you’re not bothered about the role he’ll be getting because you’re still fapping over the various glimpses of flesh that Benny Cummerbund flashes during his tenure as a smack-head violin detective aren’t you?

For those not working their groins up into a froth, Cumberbatch’s role is shrouded in mystery BUT, it seems that there’s mutterings which are growing louder and louder.

The rumours say that he’ll be playing the movie’s villain. Quite possibly Khan. This gives us the chance to mention the original Khan because not only is it relevant, but it’s also the best name ever – Ricardo Montalban.

Cumberbatch has a full diary of late, starring as a British cavalry officer in Spielberg’s ‘War Horse’ as well as a turn in ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’. He’s also joining his Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman in ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’ as the voice of the dragon Smaug.

Honestly. Grown men pretending to be dragons and elves.

Anyway, Benedict joins Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Karl Urban (Dr. McCoy), John Cho (Sulu) and Simon Pegg (Scotty) in this new Trekfest and everyone can continue having a big ol’ fiddle with themselves.

Hope you’re happy, scumbags.

Think about Will Smith in your piddling mind. Go on. Try. What are you thinking? That he seems like an inoffensively nice bloke. The kind of chap you could take home to mama and everything would be AOK?

WRONG! JESUS CHRIST, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU? THE MAN IS CLEARLY A MONSTER!

How so? Well, you may have seen recently, that the cast of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air go back together for a nice reunion. One person wasn’t there. That person is Janet Hubert and she wants you all to know the truth about Will Smith and what a massive jerk he is. Honest. He’s nearly as bad as Lucifer himself. No, it’s nothing to do with his pop-rap career which blossomed with a WIKKIWILDWILDWEST.

Janet played the original Vivian Banks in the Fresh Prince, before getting fired for getting pregnant. Great work patriarchy. She spat to coffin chasers TMZ:

“There will never be a reunion as I will never do anything with an asshole like Will Smith.”

“He is still an egomaniac and has not grown up.”

It seems that former co-stars Tatyana Ali, Karyn Parsons, Alfonso Riberio and James Avery don’t think Will Smith is a massive demonic bozo. And who are we to believe? James Avery isn’t only Dad Phil in Fresh Prince, but he’s also the voice of Shredder in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon.

Surely we all side with him?

Either was, Hubert still blames Smith for her 1993 mid-series departure from the show.

“This constant reunion will never ever happen in my lifetime unless there is an apology. He doesn’t know the word.”

Smith has before spoken about all this, once saying:

“She’s mad now but she’s been mad all along. She said once, ‘I’ve been in the business for 10 years and this snotty-nosed punk comes along and gets a show.’ No matter what, to her I’m just the AntiChrist.”

So there you have it. Will Smith. As evil as a box of goat hooves.

The days when ‘big films’ on Christmas telly were circled in red pen by enthusiastic Radio/TV Times readers have long since passed. Cheap DVDs and 950-odd movie channels have made the ‘terrestrial premiere’ have all the impact of the phrase ‘starring Jim Cavaziel’.

There’s always the big screen of course, with the festive flicks offering a welcome escape from hateful relatives or having to grind through the likes of The Krankies’ ‘It’s Behind You’ Panto Special on Channel Five (at least we don’t have the horrors of Disney Time and Holiday on Ice to glaze our brains over any more).

So join us at the movies and let’s see what’s on.

Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows

Not the one where the world’s greatest detective and his faithful sidekick pretend to be Hank Marvin and Bruce Welch. No, its arch-mumbler Robert Downey Jr and wet fish Jude Law as Holmes and Watson in Guy Ritchie’s sequel to the quite-likeable-actually 2009 adventure. This one has our sexually ambiguous investigators taking on the dastardly Professor Moriarty (Richard Harris’s lad, Jared, in comedy beard and hat combo).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Americans, as we know, cannot read. Which is why they make perfectly decent foreign-language subtitle films all over again, just after they’ve been perfectly decent successes, with big stars who speak proper languages like English. So here comes the second adaptation in two years of Stieg Larsson’s gloomy Nordic crime thriller, beloved of public transport users everywhere. Perpetually furrowed Daniel Craig leads with sort-of newcomer Rooney Mara as the titular Girl, looking like the offspring of Noel Fielding and a newly discovered tropical plant. David Fincher is directing, so let’s hope it’ll be more like Fight Club than Panic Room.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

If you groan at the very sight of Tom Cruise then you’ll want to dodge this. That the Mission Impossible films are usually crushing disappointments doesn’t help. The point of Mission Impossible is that it’s about a team, but once you’ve had to accommodate Tommo and his ego no-one else really has room to look in. Simon Pegg’s there for his chums at Empire magazine to fawn over, whilst Alan Tichmarsh lookalike Jeremy Renner competes with Cruise in doing action stuff. Pixar veteran Brad Bird directs. Insert your own Tom Cruise/cartoon character joke here.

Alvin and the Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked

Speaking of cartoons, the young ‘uns get yet another dose of computer/live action shenanigans from the USA’s answer to Pinky and Perky. Where we trotted the singing puppet pigs off to TV hell decades ago, the Yanks still peddle the squeaky critters to easily bored kiddies. As you can guess, they get dumped on a desert island this time round, with Jason Lee the human mug acting opposite thin air. If that’s no good, there’s Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek smouldering their voices into feline avatars in Shrek prequel Puss in Boots.

Hugo

The best until last with 3D that works, a charming story, great design and characters (including an appearance by Christopher Lee, the world’s coolest nonagenarian), and a love of cinema shining throughout. However if you want something more horrific and stomach churning, there’s a film out in January that makes Human Centipede 2 look like Bambi: Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady. If the thought of those bus posters doesn’t make you vomit up your figgy pudding, nothing will.

Happy Christmas!

This was a guest post by Peter Sharples who has, to date, offered absolutely nothing of value to anything ever which is precisely why we like him.

The trailer for the first part of Peter Jackson’s hugely-anticipated return to Middle Earth, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, has hit the internet shelves for everyone to get all excited over.

Unless, of course, you can’t stand all that hairy toed adventure from pipe-smoking midgets.

Naturally, the trailer itself is over the jump of this article. This means we’ll have some padding to do before then in an attempt to make you watch it on our site rather than somewhere else. This requires a paragraph to leave you ‘hanging’, willing you to click ‘read more’. Please read more. It’ll be worth it. We’ve noticed a link between The Hobbit and the terrible 80s He-Man film, The Masters Of The Universe.

In the trailer, you’ll see Ian Holm as Bilbo, talking to Frodo, before we jump back in time where Bilbo Baggins was actually Martin Freeman, which is nice.

He then puts a stapler in some jelly.

Ian McKellen shows up as Gandalf, and then the swooping orchestrations start to force you into feeling like a buckle has been swashed or some nonsense.

Then, all the stars arrive, with Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and some other all appearing in New Zealand, pretending it is some magical land of fairies and that little dude with the annoying voice arrived to mention his pwecious.

Just watch it yourself, alright?

But what’s this about He-Man? Well, watching the trailer and seeing the big noses and acrylic hair, we couldn’t help but get a reminder of the irritating Gwildor from the Masters Of The Universe film which starred Dolph Lundgren.

Look. Gwildor is a Hobbit!

Playing Margaret Thatcher must be great for an actress like Meryl Streep. Thesps just love it when they get the chance to play vile people from history. Murderers, rapists, sex offenders and the like give an actor the opportunity to feel brave and bold.

And ol’ Streepy knew too well that pretty much everyone on Earth hates Thatcher. This is something that made her ”more interested” in portraying the heartless witch in ‘The Iron Lady’.

And Meryl has some theories on why everyone despised her so much and… well… she’s off the mark really.

The Oscar-winning actress (we’re legally obliged to say that or people from Hollywood come and crack our shin-bones with slender golf clubs) was shocked at the level of hatred for the former British prime minister, which is a clear highlighting of just how little interest she had in the world during the ’80s and ’90s.

Streep said:

“We give our elected leaders iconic stature almost to have things to tear down, to work out all sorts of our own psychological problems and needs and venomous feelings. So I wondered about all the times that Margaret Thatcher was spoken about being unfeeling.

“And I thought, ‘Well, why was that? Was she really completely unfeeling?’ And as a public figure in a much smaller way myself, I understand that feeling of being stripped of your humanity. Was she a monster?

“While we were making the film, people had such strong and particular and specific venom for her. It was sort of stunning. It made me all the more interested in where her humanity lay.”

So, researching the part, you’ll assume that Meryl worked out why Thatcher was so reviled by many Brits, right? WRONG. See, Streep believes the anger directed towards Maggie Thatcher was largely down to the fact she was a woman.

“I did suspect that there was a weird special rage about her because she was a woman. From all sides. The policies that she pursued were the same policies that Geoffrey Howe pursued, although he’s not loathed and detested with the same intensity. And I think that it is a discomfort with, and a confusion about, women in leadership roles.

“For feminists it’s a betrayal because she doesn’t do the right thing, and so you hate her more than you’d hate a man who stood for the same things.”

It may have had something to do with the countless riots that took place under her stewardship, as well as the fact that industrial production fell massively during her government, which is seen as an affront to the working classes. In short, there were nearly 3.3million unemployed in Britain in ’84, compared to 1.5million when she came to power in ’79.

In 1990, when she resigned, over a quarter (28%) of children in Great Britain were considered to be below the poverty line. Thanks to the procedures she put in place, that number kept rising after her time in Downing Street, leading to Britain’s having the highest childhood-poverty rate in Europe.

And she talked funny.

Hey! The Devil seems okay doesn’t he? Sure, some of his followers are a bit mental and go around killing people in his name and indulge in strange practises while praising him… just like Roman Catholics without the whole ‘child buggering’ thing.

Anyway, Reese Witherspoon has signed on to star in Devil’s Knot. That’s a forthcoming drama about the funny feeling Satan gets in his stomach when he sees a girl he fancies.

Actually, it isn’t. It’s much darker than that. In fact, it’s about murder and the only thing more sickened and twisted than the goat boy himself… THE AMERICAN LEGAL SYSTEM.

That’s right!

It seems that our Reese hates those light-hearted films to pieces. On the back of doing Water for Elephants (starring human creosote, Robert Pattinson), romcom How Do You Know? and festive filum, Four Christmases, she’s decided to do something that… *gasp*may actually be interesting.

The film concerns the ‘West Memphis Three’ who were tried and convicted of the murders of three boys in Arkansas (pronounced ‘Ark And Sass’) in ’93.

If you remember (which you won’t because you’ve sniffed too many aerosols), it was a rather high profile trail which saw the prosecution pointing at some children and saying that they were killed as part of a satanic ritual.

Reese will play Pam Hobbs (Russell’s wife) who is the mother of one of the victims who initially believed the trio murdered her son before being persuaded that they are innocent and wrongly accused.

Nope. Us neither.

Distressingly, this story also features Eddie Vedder as he was championing a cause relating to this whole thing. We can’t be bothered to check, so we’ll just assume the bozo was campaigning for Satan.

Nice one.