I watched Scott Pilgrim vs. the World this weekend, and thought it was an enjoyable and imaginative film. Eager to find out how it had fared overseas, I was disheartened to discover it was a total flop in the USA, and looks unlikely to fare much better elsewhere. The worst thing about this, other than the talented Edgar Wright now being saddled with far greater challenges for funding his upcoming films, was that all of the aspects I found so enjoyable about Scott Pilgrim—its irreverence, inventiveness, and sense of fun—were ignored or rejected by many critics, who struggled to ‘get’ the film.

The Hollywood Reporter dismissed the film as nonsense, calling it juvenile and saying that: “Nothing makes any real sense. The ‘duels’ change their rules on a whim, and no one takes the games very seriously, including the exes, who, when defeated, explode into coins the winner may collect”.

Yes, well done: you’ve realised Scott Pilgrim isn’t a documentary. Also, it’s not anchored in hum-drum reality. The film (and the comic-book it’s based on) has its own logic fashioning its own reality. But the thing is, most films aren’t ‘real’ in any sense—it’s just that they portray ‘TV realism’; that critics are so quick to belittle the kind of hyper-reality of Scott Pilgrim is hugely disappointing, and in part explains why there’s so much generic crap being churned out of the Hollywood machine.

Even the usually dependable Empire’s review begins with a massively dispiriting statement: “Here’s another great film of 2010 which takes place partly—or possibly entirely—within the leading man’s head.” Maybe it’s just me, but I never saw Scott Pilgrim’s acts and scenes as anything other than totally ‘real’ for the characters that were experiencing them. In this comic-book world, foes really do explode into coins when defeated, and everyone has the power to ‘battle’ in crazy, over-the-top ways.

That everyone feels the need to ‘explain’ every single thing that happens in a movie, or to ground it within the reality that we inhabit, is depressing as hell. Movies should be an outlet for the imagination, not reportage; and those movies claiming to be or striving to be larger than life should not feel the need to anchor themselves in more mundane settings, surroundings and reality, just to cater for people who aren’t willing to just go with the flow and live within a world they’ve never seen or experienced before, and that they themselves will never get to experience, except through the screen.

If you live in the UK, you must have by now heard about the Coventry woman who dumped a cat in a wheelie bin (BBC News). The cat spent 15 unhappy hours in the bin until found by its owners, and the cat-dumper, Mary Bale, was, unluckily for her, caught on CCTV. The RSPCA’s now considering bringing charges, and crowds of people with nothing better to do won’t leave the woman alone. (Note: I find Bale’s actions distasteful and I do hope the RSPCA charges her with a cruelty offence, but going mob-handed to her home and chanting ‘I love pussy’ isn’t going to help anyone.)

In a ray of light on the entire incident, we at least get to see how an old person leapt to the defence of the cat-binner, who may now be about to lose her job as a bank teller. According to the Daily Mail (and, let’s face it, this is the Daily Mail, so this might just be made-up, but, hey, it’s funny anyway), 78-year-old Jean Thompson said: “The only explanation I can think of is that she was worried that the cat might get run over on the road and wanted to keep it safe in the bin.”

To be fair, roads are dangerous to cats, but I’d suggest starving to death in a sealed, thick plastic cage that you’re dropped into by a stranger is a bigger threat.

I remember when I was a kid, games magazines would clamour for ‘exclusives’. Every cover would scream EXCLUSIVE REVIEW! at you, and every mag would somehow have the same EXCLUSIVE! coverage of the same EXCLUSIVE! games. It was hugely tiresome.

However, one thing that was apparent with games mags back then is the people behind them often played games for an absurd amount of time before coming to a conclusion about them. But with the shift to the web, the need to be first with reviews is coming pretty close to breaking the entire point of critical coverage.

As a case in point, I happened across a couple of reviews earlier today for two new iOS titles. These games were released last night, and reviews are already online, rating the games and providing buying information for the website’s readers. On reading the reviews, it’s horribly clear that neither game was properly tested, because there are inaccuracies throughout. There’s little point in naming the site, because it’s hardly unique in doing this kind of thing, and with readers demanding to know RIGHT THIS SECOND whether or not something’s any good, it’s hard to blame the editors.

It would be good to see sites have the balls to try a different approach, and only review games when they’re ready to be reviewed. This is what I do with iPhoneTiny. Even though the reviews are only 140 characters long, I aim to only review a game or app when I really know what I think about it. This is why some reviews are turned around a few days after a product’s release but others take weeks. Online, this could be a differentiator, and in print it’s ridiculous to not take this line—after all, any EXCLUSIVE! review within a mag’s pages has already been ‘outexclusived’ by myriad websites.

Samsung’s decided the best way to get one over the iPad is to go all sci-fi. “Create a clone,” said the directors. “The iPad will be caught unawares. Then, when it least expects, we can kick it repeatedly in the knackers until it begs for mercy—but we don’t have any of that. MWAHAHAHAHA!”

OK, so that’s perhaps a bit far-fetched. It’s probably more likely that some higher-up at Samsung got an iPad, went “oooh, shiny”, shoved it in front of the company’s design team and said: “One of those please, but in Android flavour”.

And if you think I’m exaggerating, take a look at Matt Gemmell’s Samsung Galaxy Tab comparison with iOS. Mid-1990s Microsoft has nothing on these guys.

The Wall Street Journal reports on LG’s vice president of marketing saying LG is readying an iPad ‘killer’. Again, the claims are pretty much copied and pasted from the How To Get Tech Journos Excited About Your iPad Killer That Doesn’t Actually Exist fact sheet: Android device; better than iPad for [SUB: INSERT REASONS HERE]; “our device will totally rock”.

What’s most surprising, though, is Chang Ma’s slightly odd decision to smack the iPad with the same kind of bullshit that lazy tech journos use. Ma is quoted as saying the iPad is a great device, but that he doesn’t do much work on it, inferring that Apple’s device is for displaying content, not creating it:

[LG’s] tablet will include content focused on creation such as writing documents, editing video and creating programs. It will also have “high-end features and new benefits,” many of which will focus on productivity, Mr. Ma said. “It’s going to be surprisingly productive,” he said.

Man, if only the iPad had some kind of App Store, with hundreds of great apps for boosting productivity and creating work, such as SketchBook Pro, OmniFocus for iPad, Pages and Numbers, Bento for iPad, iMockups for iPad, OmniGraffle, Markup for iPad, and ReelDirector, we wouldn’t be stuck waiting for LG to magic a ‘productive’ tablet into existence, along with the dozens of unicorn-dust-sprinkled apps that will also suddenly be available to make said tablet productive.