Spoiler Alert

Don't read this entry if you've not seen the film 'Fight Club' yet, as it contains spoilers.

Ok, so the first rule of telling people about films they should watch, is you do not give away the ending.

The second rule of telling people about films they should watch is you do not give away the ending.

By way of background, I used to subscribe to FilmFour (a tv channel showing just films, run by Channel 4). Due to being disorganised (and being pre-Tivo), I rarely got around to watching any films on the channel. However, they showed 'The Shining', and as I'd never seen it, I thought it would be a good time to watch it - FilmFour shows films in widescreen with no ads. Perfect.

There was even a short 5 minute introduction before the film, presented by Mark Kermode, the self-important film critic ("Is there another kind?"). Great, I thought, that will be good - have some of the more interesting aspects of the film pointed out, so I can look out for them when watching.

The intro was only 5 minutes long, as I said, but even so, Kermode managed to tell me the ending of the film.

That's right, in the intro before the film was to be screened, he told me the ending of the film.

Tosser.

What a goddamn muppet. Since then, I've never given credence to or even paid much attention to anything Kermode says. My reasoning for the latter is that he seems to be actively trying to reduce my enjoyment of any film I might watch, which is not something I need, to be honest.

So I turned off the TV in disgust, and to this day, I've never seen 'The Shining'. There didn't seem much point watching it at the time as:

• I knew the ending.
• I was angry at Mark Kermode and FilmFour for being so mind-numbingly stupid.
• Mark Kermode is a tosser.

Look at him. Tosser.

You could possibly make the argument that anyone who watches films on FilmFour, or watches a short introductory piece about the film are all tedious film-school dropouts/wannabes who've already watched the film, and they just want relive the experience. So it doesn't matter if you tell them the ending of the film.

Personally, I believe this excludes what I presume is the majority of people who watch a film channel, who are people who just want to watch a film without having some pompous dickhead pop up before the film's even started and shout the ending of the film at them.

So, now, fast forward to today, when FilmFour have once again excelled themselves.

FilmFour has just been added to the FreeView line-up, so on Channel 4 this weekend they showed a programme called "50 Films To See Before You Die". I recorded this as I thought it might be interesting, and I was idly flicking through it this morning (the joys of DVR). One of the films they recommended was 'Fight Club' (and already you know where this is going).

So, over some film footage of Fight Club, they had a caption that said something like "Fight Club contains one of the most effective plot twists in movie history." That made me slightly nervous, as I always find if you tell someone to watch a film with the exhortation "It's got a really good plot twist" then they spend the whole film trying to work out what the twist is. Sometimes this is no bad thing - I watched 'The Sixth Sense' like that, but still really enjoyed it, and didn't work out what the twist was until it was essentially happening.

However, I also watched the Kevin Costner film 'No Way Out' with the same knowledge (it had a twist), and I deduced what the plot twist was within about 2 seconds of the relevant plot event happening. I then spent the rest of the film waiting for the twist to happen.

100% pure 80s Cheese

So anyway, FilmFour/Channel 4 managed to be quite restrained.

Except they then wheeled on some talking head who proceeded to give away the entire ending of Fight Club.

I mean, for God's sake, what is the point? You're making a program that is called, for Cliff's sake, "50 Films To See Before You Die" - it's not called "50 Films You Should Really Watch Again". I immediately stopped watching - I've already seen Fight Club, so it wasn't a bother to me. But I expect they gave away the endings of 'The Sixth Sense' too, and probably of some films I haven't actually seen yet.

As I said, I don't really need that.

If someone had come up to you years ago and said "You should really watch 'The Empire Strikes Back' - it turns out, Darth Vader is Luke's father!" I don't think you would have been impressed. You may have boxed their ears. Yet for intellectual film critics, this seems to be a perfectly acceptable way of behaving.

My Mum had a similar experience with 'The Usual Suspects'. It was being shown on terrestrial TV for the first time on BBC2 (I think), and they advertised this on Radio 4, and even had a short piece about it on one of the programmes my Mum listens to. During which they gave away the ending of the film. If you've seen 'The Usual Suspects', you'll know that does kind of ruin the film for the first viewing.

The greatest trick Mark Kermode could play would
be to convince the world he doesn't exist.

Jesus. How hard is it not to do that? Read that again - the BBC made a big point out of how it was being shown on terrestrial TV for the first time. So for many people, this would be the first chance they had to watch the film. So what the BBC thought they'd do, obviously, is spoil the film for as many of those people as they could.

Even on the internet, where rudeness and lack of consideration for others knows no bounds, there is an informal agreement that you should put the words "SPOILER ALERT!" before any revelation that might spoil a piece of art for someone else.

Yet, for some reason, broadcasting organisations that manage to tell you to "Look away now if you don't want to see the football results", can't seem to do the same when they give away the ending of a film.

I'm not really sure why they do it - my guess is that if they can't talk about the clever ending of a film, then they can't demonstrate to you just how very clever and insightful they are.

Of course, by repeatedly spoiling films for me, they're doing precisely that.

In the words of Ms. Morrissette, how ironic.

« Colour me surprised | Stay With Me On This One »