Kermode Mark - The movie doctors

Table of Contents

First published in Great Britain in 2015 by Canongate Books Ltd

14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

www.canongate.tv

Copyright Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode, 2015

The moral rights of the authors have been asserted

For permissions acknowledgements, please see

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 78211 662 2
eISBN 978 1 78211 663 9

Art Direction by Rafaela Romaya

Design by Hman After All

Picture Research by Hedda Archbold

Illustrations by Toby Triumph

To the ushers and projectionists of the world

CONTENTS

Welcome to the Hospital

INTRODUCTION

Simon & Mark

Dr Mayo: So, were the Movie Doctors?

Dr Kermode: Well strictly speaking only one of us earned our title. Yours is an honorary doctorate. Mine was earned by actually writing a thesis on modern horror fiction.

Dr M: Well mine was earned by actually looking so fabulous in a gown, they decided to give me another one. So we are both, strictly speaking, doctors.

Dr K: Yes but neither of us is a medical doctor. However as movie doctors we are well aware that some movies need medical attention...

Dr M: And also how other movies can make you feel happier, make you nicer and well... weller?

Dr K: I think you mean healthier.

Dr M: I think youre right, I do. And have we constructed a rather fine conceit around this?

Dr K: Indeed. So. Imagine youre a movie in need of medical attention you might be far too long, or unnecessarily upbeat, or be in need of a live organ transplant...

Dr M: ... or you might be an actual human patient in need of a cure for a broken heart, tinnitus or...

Dr K: Celluloid or humanoid, the Movie Doctors Clinic will help.

Dr M: Films will be referred to the relevant department, depending on whether they need a bit of cosmetic surgery or something more drastic.

Dr K: You can find Michael Bays films in the recovery room.

Dr M: And patients?

Dr K: Unlike in a real hospital, waiting times for patients clinics is minimal.

Dr M: From the moment you arrive at our doors, well diagnose you and suggest cures for your problems. Weve colour coded everything so you dont get lost

Dr K: Or find yourself accidentally incorporated into a Human Centipede.

Dr M: So sit back, dip your hand into your bucket of corn-based snack and enjoy this beautifully designed, elegantly written and strikingly affordable movie concept book. Nurse, the screens...

ACCIDENT & EMERGENCY Have you ever found yourself in A & E late on a Friday night? If so, youll know that it can be quite a sweary, violent and unpleasant place. Rest assured that the Movie Doctors A & E is nothing like that. True, our clinic is full of action , drama , glamour and movie magic : car chases , heroes who survive ridiculous injuries , real-life accidents on set. But ours is safe you could watch the goriest, most violent scenes in our clinic and it wouldnt add up to an hour spent in an actual A & E. Go on, collect a ticket at reception. The Movie Doctors will attend to you shortly.

ON-SET A & E

A Clinical Examination

Film sets are really dangerous places to work. In August 2014, the Independent newspaper reported that gruff-voiced action star Jason Statham (of whom both the Doctors are huge fans) had narrowly avoided death on the set of The Expendables 3 . According to the story, the actor was forced to leap from a truck he was driving before it plunged 60ft into the sea after a stunt went horribly wrong. He faced death, declared Expendables co-star Sylvester Stallone with a straight face (or at least a face as straight as Sly can actually manage). He was test driving a three-ton truck and the brakes run out. It went down 60ft into the Black Sea and was impaled.

For anyone else, it would have been catastrophic but not for The Stath. Luckily, before becoming everyones favourite shirtless, oil-wrestling screen star, Jason was a champion diver (he competed for England at the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990) and was thus able to leap nimbly from the crashing vehicle, presumably performing a perfectly executed pike en route, before swimming briskly to safety. If anyone else had been in that truck he would have been dead, Stallone told the Indie . But because Jason is an Olympic quality diver he got out of it. As for The Stath himself, he proved as cool as his on-screen persona, playing down the allegedly life-threatening incident, and insisting that the worst thing that happened to him during the shoot of The Expendables 3 was the fact that I snapped a shoelace in the very first scene. You can see why we love him.

Next page