A big blow for democracy

In our sidebar, you must surely have noticed that there are four films which form our latest podcast vote. This means that you, the rabble, can directly influence the next film that gets the now legendary Versus Sexboat treatment. Obviously, there are issues within that, particularly for any of you who feel that voting systems are flawed and unrepresentative. However, it's probably best to leave such concerns to one side unless you want them to consume you.

To assist you with making an informed choice, we have decided to provide a little bit of extra information about each of our choices, which as of our most recent cut-off point (Sunday 19th February) were all rated the same as Sexboat (1980) on IMDb.com (7.0).

Marley & Me (2008)
This based-on-a-true-story sentimental dog adventure stars Owen "nose" Wilson and Jennifer "nosejob" Aniston. A newly married couple, Ethel and Norris Steamboat, move from chilly Michigan to the warmth of Florida. There they both get a plum job at rival local newspapers, The Florida Herald and The Florida Beagle. As the couple start to consider starting a family, a colleague suggest they try to get a dog first to see if they are ready for such a responsibility. This is how they come to own Marley, a particularly dog-like dog, whose dog-like behaviour patterns provide Norris plenty of ammunition for a column about the ha-ha-hilarious trials and tribulations of dog ownership, which becomes a hit in his paper.

Marley & Me is a story of some people's lives, basically. And the dog dies at the end because that is what pets do. You love them and then they die and make you sad. Apart from tortoises, but tortoises don't get up to as many rambunctious mishaps and therefore make worse films. And tortoises do of course actually die. Imagine having a pet tortoise die on you. What a kick in the nuts that would be. You may as well have gotten a hamster, at least you can pet a hamster.

Soylent Green (1973)
A futuristic science-fiction adventure, set on an overpopulated, polluted and environmentally compromised  (where do people get their ideas?) future Earth in 2022. Much of the population of the planet are forced to live on processed food rations, including the mysterious and delicious Soylent Green (like in the title). A police officer and a scholar set out to discover the delicious secrets of this mysterious puck of life-giving protein goodness, advertised as plankton-based. After they find out that the globally warmed oceans are in fact no longer capable of sustaining a population of plankton, they make a shocking discovery about what the manufacturer has begun to substitute for our single-celled fishy friends. Yes, like Sexboat itself, when all is said and done, Soylent Green is people.

The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)
Following the completion of their A Level exams, four 18-year olds not dissimilar to the leading characters in the Channel 4 comedy series The Inbetweeners head off to Crete for a holiday before they all make their way in the world. In a desperate attempt to do a variety of things which are by now both legally and socially acceptable for them to do - such as drink alcohol and have sexical intercourse - our heroes naturally find a way of making a mess of it, probably. I should think. Those japesters.

Thunderball (1965)
Two nuclear warheads have been stolen by impeccably evil supervillain Emil Largo, who will probably use them to blow stuff up or as ballast for his yacht. Either way, he is not going to give them back to their rightful owner unless he receives $100 million in diamonds, which is a bit steep. Luckily, fully licensed secret agent James Bond is sent on the case, ready with all manner of underwater gadgetry and a bumper pack of rubber johnnies to thwart the evil Largo's scheme and have a lot of casual sex. Some of both the former and the latter takes place on or near a boat.

So there you have it, the four choices! Voting closes on Friday evening this week, so don't pontificate about your choice for too long, or there's a risk we'll lose interest and just keep on watching 4-minute long train rides whilst drinking paraquat.