Run with Eric:
Film

Two Indian child actors who helped the film Slumdog Millionaire to its Oscar success have been relocated from slums to new houses in Mumbai.

Azharuddin Ismail and Rubina Ali, who played the youngest versions of characters Salim and Latika in the film, had been living in the same slums as they were before being discovered by casting agents. Ismail's family home was recently demolished, forcing him to live under a tarpaulin on a busy road.

It has been suggested by critics that the move, paid for by the Mumbai government, represents a publicity-grabbing political manoeuvre months ahead of India’s general election, but Amarjit Singh Manhas, chairman of a Mumbai housing association, has said, "Since the children have made the nation proud, they must be given free houses."

My opinion? Yes, it is a publicity stunt. But who bloody cares, eh?

Last night I found myself watching a much heralded little British film called Happy-Go-Lucky on FilmFour, directed by Mike Leigh of Secrets & Lies and Vera Drake fame. It wasn't very good, to be honest: a pointless non-journey with a terrible script and an incredibly annoying soundtrack (think when Lottery-funded films have 'quirky' scenes). Without stellar performances from Sally Hawkins and the ever-brilliant Eddie Marsan, it would have been a complete waste of everybody's time.

But even though it wasn't going anywhere, I wanted to know what happened at the end. I'd been sitting through this film for two and a bit hours waiting for something to happen (caveat: a film can be good, even brilliant, without anything happening; it's just that this was not an example) and finally it was petering out to an inevitably saccharine conclusion. Still, I wanted to hear what the final words were. It's the end of a film, isn't it? Of course you do.

Then, over the final scene: "And next on FilmFour, blah di blah di blah di fucking blah."

What? You're joking, right? Now? Right now? Over the final words of the film?

But no - it happened, and in the film's closing scene. Not over the credits, which immediately followed. Over the film itself. The last bit we heard, after the voiceover, was two characters laughing. What were they laughing about? I don't know.

This is absolutely inexcusable. In fact, it's unthinkable. Further than that, it's mental. Completely, utterly mental. I can't think of any way of justifying this argument because, surely, surely, it's just so bloody obvious. YOU DON'T TALK OVER THE END OF A FILM. Even I know that, and I used to talk over films all the time.

And yet this isn't even the worst example of plugging the next show during the current one. On Christmas Day, I was watching one of the many millions of A Christmas Carol adaptations that always turn up. In fact, through circumstance more than judgement, I think I watched four or five that year. Patrick Stewart, Jim Carrey, Michael Caine and the muppets, the cracking Alistair Sim... thank Dickens I was saved from the Kelsey Grammar musical shocker.

ANYWAY, the film was drawing to its close and we all know what's going to happen. Still, we've had 90 minutes of misery and here comes the big ending, right? The closing speech in which we find that Scrooge went on to be a good man and Tiny Tim, who did not die, etc. etc. etc.

Nope.

"And next on BBC1, blah di blah di FUCKING BLAH BLAH."

Unbelievable. I mean that. I couldn't believe it. It's not just one of the most famous endings of all time in any medium, it's the whole point of the fucking story. It's the fucking moral. What the HELL is a child meant to take from that film without the final monologue? Did Tiny Tim die? They'll never know, but at least they'll know that Sue Barker's wearing Christmas holly for a predictably shit seasonal edition of Question of fucking Sport.

This has to be stopped. Now. If you're running late (these weren't) and have to - HAVE TO - talk over the credits, do it. But you don't talk over the end of a film. You just don't. I mean... that's it. No argument here. You just don't.

This says a lot about society, I think. We find ourselves accepting this And next week on Huw Davies' Week Spot, your not-so-intrepid occasional blogger rants about the BNP and asks, how can we let ourselves be in such a position that this party can exist? Make sure you stay tuned to www.weekspotblog.com for intellectual discussion end up dying in a fucking sewer with pokers in our eyeballs.

Oh, it makes me mad.

Ah, the importance of reading a whole story before drawing conclusions.

My first reaction to this little piece of gold (originally seen on the Bad Science forums) was, in my head, "Has the world gone mad?" and verbally something I probably shouldn't repeat here. Rest assured it was along the lines of "Oh for Puck's sake".

But then you read the facts behind the conspiracy and you realise that you can agree with some aspects of taste and even political correctness if, y'know, they actually make sense.

The problem with the film Righteous Kill being advertised in Stockwell tube station, the site of the de Menezes shooting, is not that it's a violent film - if that was the issue, you'd be justified in calling me a Daily Mail reader (incidentally, did anyone see the tabloids yesterday screaming 'IMMIGRANTS HAVE STOLEN ALL OUR JOBS'? Sigh). But no, the issue is the film's tagline, which takes on wonderful irony in context of de Menezes' tragic death.

"There's nothing wrong with a little shooting as long as the right people get shot."

More than anything else, it's very funny. But then not everyone has the same dark sense of humour as I do. If it was deliberate marketing, it's a work of genius but also more than a little sick; if it was accidental, it was stupid.

OF COURSE people were going to be offended. I think removing the poster would be completely justified.

Either that or people get a darker sense of humour, but given that de Menezes lies dead for a crime he didn't commit, I can forgive them for not plunging those depths just yet.