So, does anyone remember the scene in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang where Robert Downey Jnr turns to the camera and talks about how much it sucks when movies telegraph the ending: “why was that in the movie, gee, YOU THINK IT WILL COME BACK LATER MAYBE? I hate that, a TV’s on talking about the new power plant, hmm I wonder where the climax will happen; or the shot of the cook in the Hunt for Red October”.

It came to mind when we went to see State of Play tonight, in a last ditch effort to stay out of the bar for at least one night. It’s a good movie - good script, good direction, great acting (even from Ben Affleck, who still owes the world a huge drink to apologize for Jersey Girl and whose head for some reason looked weirdly and distractingly big in this movie).

But why why why all the panning over big corporate headquarters in the opening scenes? Was it just to make sure that there would be no actual suspense in the alleged suspense movie? So no fucker would feel any tension that could cause them to take six months of stress leave and sue the movie studio for 100 billion dollars?

If you’re going to make a suspense movie, why not, I don’t know, leave a little suspense in it??

We saw the original BBC miniseries on which this was based, and while the movie only had two hours to do what the Beeb did in five, surely there was no need to be so obvious? I remember sitting back at the end of the first episode on TV, thinking “What the fuck is this all about? Who was that guy who got killed? Who was that freaky little girl?” But I kept watching, because I was enjoying all the loose ends and blind alleys and confusion.

Also, is there some sort of genetic abnormality in American movie makers that they are compelled to break out the sledgehammer to drive their message home at the end? I get the point, true journalism is dying, and it’s a tragedy, but you don’t need to have the guy lean out of the screen and nail a placard to my head, just tell the story and let me work it out myself. Give me something to debate about at the bar afterwards, give me subtleties that I didn’t pick up, but someone else did, and can get all superior about when they point it out to me afterwards. Stop taking the bloody fun out of it for me. Blart! Give me 10 minutes alone in an editing room with that movie and some scissors and I could turn it into something brilliant. And i don't even know what an editing room looks like.

Bloody Merkins, it’s about time someone sent them all over to be integrated with the French.

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