A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO ASSEMBLING THE PERFECT TV CREAM FILM

7 - THE GENRE

Things are coming together nicely for our burgeoning cinematic masterpiece. But there's one thing that needs to be settled on before our people go so far as to put in that first call to Rodney Dangerfield's people and that's just what genre we're going to place all this expertly crafted concept in. At first sight the inclusion of Rodders would suggest a comedy (although his participation in THE LADYBUGS doesn't really back that up) but comedy is really too broad a term and one which might therefore lead us into the murky waters of the sub-genre – comedy-drama, comedy- thriller or even, God help us, romantic comedy among many others – and that's one boiling sea of controversy that we really don't want to traverse. So we'll stick to pondering over a few of the biggies and start with the first possibility; Sci-Fi.

Science Fiction has its advantages. No plot can be too farfetched (THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE, THIS ISLAND EARTH, erm, just about any other one you care to mention), no character can have too silly a name (Sio Bibble from off of THE PHANTOM MENACE for example, wobbly jowl period George Lucas being a particular offender in this respect), no amount of gobbledegook and cod-technical jargon can be ludicrous enough (almost any series of random noises emanating from any character after saying, "Captain, I have…" whilst looking at a piece of shiny black plastic with lights on in a late-period STAR TREK film) and in that way there's an awful lot of leeway available for the plot and attendant script. Additionally there's the instant attention that draws a whole legion of wonks into the picture halls of the world when anything – anything at all – is set IN SPACE! And producers love to make films set IN SPACE! In fact, we've always had a sneaking suspicion that 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was actually intended to be about monkeys eating their dinner from start to finish but that, during a meeting after shooting had begun, one of the studio bigwigs came down and said something along the lines of, "We love it Stan, we really do. Those monkeys look fantastic! How do you get those pig things to fall down slowly like that? Love it, baby! Keep it up! One slight thing..... now we'd like it set IN SPACE!" This might account for why it doesn't have a proper ending. We're giving Kubrick the benefit of the doubt here.

Of course, just because the general rule tends to be `the sillier the better' doesn't mean Sci-Fi doesn't have to adhere to the very reasonable expectations of an audience that what they're watching make be at least superficially cogent. People may be perfectly happy to suspend their disbelief from the bus stop they used on the way in to the cinema once they've seen the stars in the background on the movie poster in a way they're not quite as willing to do with other genres but if a film makes no sense, then, well, it just doesn't make any sense. In fact, this tiresome insistence from the audience on some sort of continuity in plotline can even negate the need for overly fancy CGI and other computer related cobblers which most of the waking world still thinks look just a little bit out of focus anyway. There are exceptions to this of course. Ray Harryhausen may have been able to get away with hardly anything of note happening in his films at all, 20 MILLION MILES TO EARTH and even JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS being particularly guilty in this we would contend, but it hardly mattered when all we were there for was to wait for the director to bugger off out of the way and let Ray get on with it. Less dialogue, more action! An expectation amongst the viewing audience that provides a surprising and unexpected symbiosis between Dynamation and hardcore porn.

But leaving plasticine and frighteningly glib comparisons aside, when the story matters the effects really can take second place. Hence the success (though not in the popularity or earnings sense obviously, but just because we like it) of the likes of BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS. George Lucas may have spent roughly the same as Roger Corman did on his entire film animating Jar-Jar Fucking Binks for about three seconds but we feel that only serves as a rather handy comparison to prove our point. Lucas could well have splashed out enough cash to have a holographic Binks step out into the audience and juggle hamsters during THE PHANTOM MENACE but it wouldn't have stopped that same audience, even though they were in the presence of a technological marvel, wishing that they were, at that seminal moment, absolutely anywhere but there. Meanwhile, BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS may have ripped off its story from SEVEN SAMURAI but then Kurosawa never had Robert Vaughan say, "I was born in space," did he? How big a genius could he have been to miss that trick? And it's a bloody good story, too. Similarly it may be quite possible to count the number of special effects shots in KRULL on one hand (and then the number of *successful* effects shots in KRULL on one of the late Dave Allen's hands) but since the story is so compelling (we think anyway) it hardly matters. Anyone who has had the misfortune recently to be stuck in a locked room with SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW can hardly say the same of that load of old pony.

So our Creamguide (Films) magnum opus might well attract a bit of attention by having a stop-motion Rodney Dangerfield (with CGI lips) trying to save the Earth day after day from a baddie called Jobsa Badun (or similar) against an overly animated background until he gets it right but, well, we don't know about you, but that doesn't really appeal to us. The search goes on.

Another popular genre, we're told, is drama. The trouble with drama in cinema is that it tends to become bleak, and we really don't like bleak films. TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, for instance, is a drama and there's so much we don't like about it that we're choking on our own rage here as we type this. What possesses people to make films about people dying protracted deaths escapes us, let alone what possesses other people to take time out of their crowded lives to watch them. Still, we expect that the attraction for the actors is that if they pitch it just right and get those lips a-quivering just so, then there'll be Oscars before cocoa guaranteed. Any actor will tell you that it's infinitely more difficult to get a laugh than to make someone cry yet the perception still persists that moaning and wailing all over the place is ac-ting at its height and just send the awards in the post, if you don't mind. Adrien Brodie gets an Academy Award for THE PIANIST and everyone wets themselves about his genius at melodrama and the juxtaposition of despair and hope and all that toss but plonk him at a dinner table in a white tux and see if he can raise a laugh out of recounting the tale of how he came to paint Three And A Half Nymphs Taking A Bath and see how well he does then (although that challenge does in turn conjure up the glorious concept of Hancock starring as a Polish concert pianist trying to evade capture by the Nazis: we're laughing already!).

Now, don't get us wrong; we don't mind sad films. We quite like some sad films. Actually, we only really like one sad film, A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. Despite the fact that it's so wrenching that we can only manage to sit through it about once a year tops it remains one of our favourites `cos at least it has the approximation of a point to it., whereas the only point, at least that we've ever been able to divine, to TERMS OF ENDEARMENT is that dying of a fatal illness isn't much fun, which is something that we would have worked out for ourselves without having to have a damp Shirley MacLaine explain it to us over two hours in the dark. So we'll give drama a miss. In any case we're not sure Rodney would be up for it since comedians only want to play gangsters when they try the straight stuff anyway, don't they?

Horror is another possibility and its certainly experiencing a resurgence in popularity, if not quality, but we're not sure how you can maintain a level of terror in a situation that requires the main character to repeat his participation in the same activity day after day after day. Surely after a few shots a vampire leaping out of a cupboard would lose a bit of its impact, quite apart from the fact that even if our hero did get his cardie caught on its fangs everything would be right as rain the next day anyway? Practicalities rule that out then, which is a shame `cos Rodney Dangerfield in a horror movie is something we'd really like to see now we come to think about it.

So, leaving comedy aside as it's both too obvious and been used to great effect in this format before, we've decided to plump for the genre that remains one of our very favourites, the heist movie. We definitely think that our star could bring a little of Pete Ustinov's TOPKAPI magic into the fray here what with his being almost the least likely type to be involved in an intricate and large scale heist and a combination of the Dessinesque caper and even more shades of Oosti-Boosti and his embezzling masterplan in HOT MILLIONS could give us `product' that really sits up and sounds quite good. Essentially what we'd be looking for is a high-end complicated jewellery caper that goes disastrously wrong and requires our man in the comedy ski mask and black jumper to do it over and over and over again until he gets it right or maybe even sees the error of his ways and chucks it all up for the love of the security guard, or something.

By Jove, I think we have it! Now, how to talk Maggie Smith into co- starring, that's another matter...

Jumpsuits, back projection and trademark terrified gaze - it's This Island Earth's sci-fi roll-call.

Peter Tomlinson and pile of viewers' letters not pictured.

Orphantastic tearjerkery thrives in Brooklyn, even if greenery doesn't.

Polanski's props-garnering emotional gauntlet The Pianist.

Now, this is more like it! Ustinov's been embezzlin' again in the fantastic Hot Millions.