Hammer Time

An alternative to walking on sticky floors and having the equivalent of Marge Simpson sit in front of you

Again. It’s probably time for another film to be the Best of All the Films, isn’t it?

Ah, Tim Burton. It seems everyone’s got an opinion on the pseudo-gothic king of whimsical romantic fantasy – whether you worship his early work and abominate Alice in Wonderland, prefer his more straightforward films (Planet of the Apes, anyone?) or just want to see more dead women getting married, it’s hard to stay neutral. With that sentiment ever at the forefront of our minds, we’ve had a bit of a row.

Who are the most baked, caned, hopped-up or tripped-out characters in movie history? Here, in the sort of order which can only really be dreamt up through a haze of quaaludes, mescaline and Night Nurse, are our top ten.

The cult of Burton lures another willing victim…

I don’t know about you, but we’re hoping for really crummy weather this summer. Rain, sleet, fog and whatever else God’s got in his “let’s piss them right off” bag; it’s the only way that we won’t feel guilty about spending the entire time at the cinema. A lot of heavy hitters are coming our way in summer 2011, so give up on your tan (lets be honest, you’ve been a lost cause from the start) and throw away any sunny specs that aren’t 3D compatible – it’s cinema summer checklist time.

Mermaids – attractive? Well we never…

If you thought that feathered mariachi bands, chameleons facing Hamlet-esque existential crises, and Pirates of the Caribbean were, in and of themselves, essentially ridiculous, farcical concepts, you’d be absolutely right. Now throw these entirely unrelated absurdities together to create one great, big, superlative mash-up of ridiculousness, and you get Rango.

And for some equally and befittingly bizarre reason, it works.

It turns out that pirates like guns.