Awesome / Mark Kermode

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• The show being played to a coma victim, who showed the first signs of waking and is now recovering and married, has to qualify. What makes this even more awesome is the fact that this happened during one of the most epic Kermodian rants.
• Kermode takes Break the Haughty to new heights with his review of John Carter. Hearing him tear up a movie by a director who said that he can't make anything with $5 million and that he makes movies just for himself could make you fist pump. What's more, the listeners join in!
• Mark patiently dismantles Michael Bay and Pain & Gain, partly by comparing it to Richard Linklater's Bernie - a film based on a true story that was good, because "Richard Linklater is an intelligent person" and to Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls, a film which the director insisted was intended to be a satire of misogyny and Vegas/Hollywood culture, but by the filmmaker's own admission failed to achieve that end in the eyes of the audience. He lambasts it for its misogyny, tone-deaf attempts at satire, "grotesquely inappropriate" visual sensibility and also suggests that the film is so soulless that even Werner Herzog would actually be scared by the "void-like abyss of blackness the depth and enormity of which it is impossible to comprehend."
  • And on top of that, there's his utter demolition of Michael Bay and his "pornographic sensibility" in every single Transformers Film Series review.
• His calling out on various filmmakers for using the It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars mantra is generally a sight to behold, notably seen in his reviews of Kevin Smith's Cop Out (seen here) and M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water (seen here).
• Announcing that Gravity is worth seeing in 3D.
• Any review in which he attacks the "insulting" practice of superimposing the head of a tall actor onto the body of a short actor for the sole purpose of comedy, used in such films as such films as Little Man and Fred Claus.
• Saying that he would quit if Bride Wars didn't end up being one of the ten worst films of the year, and winning.
• Radio 5 listeners sometimes have moments, by writing in with their own input that chimes with Mark's own criticism. For example, one of the responses to Mark's review of Terminator Salvation is as follows:
  Simon: Ben in Aberfeldy: "Thought I'd send you my thoughts on Terminator Salivating. First: 'I am Christian Bale, hear me roar.' Second: The film is a terrible mess, and there was nothing in it I haven't seen before. There was some suspicious CG in places, and aren't we all glad Arnold Schwarzenegger keeps a handy batch of mist floating gently over a certain part of his otherwise exposed nakedness. The last Terminator film was by no means a masterpiece but was enjoyable and disposable. This incarnation, however, just felt as if it had fallen off the Jerry Bruckheimer robot film production line and then staggered shakily into a corner where it died a slow and painful death. This is a film which, ironically, has no heart."
  Mark: Can I just say that was very well written and very eloquent.
• The Sex and the City 2 review. When the Good Doctor trashes your film and brands its "disgustingly wealthy" characters "imperialist American pigdogs of the highest order", you know you've nowhere to run.
  Mark: Basically its entire portrayal of female liberation is the right to buy expensive shoes, and I don't believe for one minute that these people are depictions of real women, I just don't.
• The review of W.E. Kermode and Mayo call out the film's defending of Edward VIII's and Wallis Simpson's Nazi-sympathising as being an unfair label pinned on them by people "selling a lie" as utter nonsense. He's especially critical about the film un-ironically presenting Mohammed Al-Fayed as a resource of helpful information.
• These two videos from a Channel 4 show in 1999 showing Mark tearing into censorship and the banning of movies.
• It's good to hear Mark demolish alleged "comedy films" that are genuinely offensive, unpleasant, or just plain unfunny, such as Little Man and Norbit.
  • In a month where he had to sit through a number of such alleged comedies (including the disappointing Zoolander 2), that he found Deadpool (2016) a consistent laugh-generator worth the label of "Comedy", despite technically being a super(anti)hero flick, was something he found rather a welcome relief. Which was an awesome surprise, if you were expecting him to pan it.
• His rant about Entourage, which he describes as such staggering consumerist pornography that it makes Sex and the City 2 - already a film which made him start singing the "Internationale", the anthem of the international Marxist movement, in retaliation against its characters' conspicuous consumption - look like a revolutionary call to arms.
• Tom Hiddleston on guitar and vocals with Mark on bass belting out "I Saw the Light" together? Happened — of course it did: neither need much excuse. Judge it for yourself.
• When discussing The Last Jedi and the variety of reactions to it Mark and Simon took on elements of the conspiracy-minded social media Unpleasable Fanbase who accused them of being paid shills for Disney for their positive reactions to the film, and vice versa explained that negative reactions are actually allowed too, since everyone is entitled to their opinion.
• His frequent and sincere praise of Twilight qualifies as this. Whether you agree with him or not, it takes some serious balls to be so openly positive and supportive of something so many people love to hate and insult.
• His favourite film of all time is The Exorcist. He commemorated its 25th anniversary by making a documentary about it - The Fear of God: The Making of The Exorcist.

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