Sexboat scandal

As we all know, democracy doesn't work. The wise old owls at Versus Sexboat knew this all along, actually. It's why they only go to vote if the pub is on the way.

What we really believe in, then, is that we don't want to watch Marley & Me, the piece of shit dogbound weepy with her out of Friends and him with the nose in it, shooting their labrador in the face with a blunderbuss. No way no how. A number of straws, clearly, needed to be clutched at.

One possible avenue for a get-out clause we discussed was that, like the French economy, Sexboat (1980) has now been downgraded to a mere 6.8 on IMDb.com. However, we'd already discussed the vagaries of the rating system and our intricate series of cut-off points and safeguards. Bugger.

But then, a godsend. Dotmund's mum's terminal illness took a turn for the worse. All celebrated wildly, as rogue elements came out of the woodwork and admitted to us that they may well have nobbled the previous vote in favour of Marley & Me, but that given the new circumstances, the most lachrymose film ever made is probably not what we all needed to see right now.

So, we have disregarded the results of the previous film vote. We could have moved down the line and watched the second-place choice, The Inbetweeners Movie, but as we all know from an actual referendum, Britain is morally opposed to the Alternate Vote electoral system. Plus Nick Clegg is a fucking cunt.

So, what will be the subject of our next podcast? I'm not sure. I considered the possibility of putting up a new vote, but then I realised you'd all abused your privileges and therefore needed to be punished. As such, I think we will pick. So if you don't like it, you only have yourselves to blame.

And the Greeks, for inventing democracy in the first place.

Our next film: Marley and Me

cunt

The people have decided on the next film we should watch for Versus Sexboat. The results were as follows:

Marley & Me 48% (13 votes)
The Inbetweeners Movie 25% (7)
Thunderball 17% (5)
Soylent Green 10% (3)

Total number of votes cast: 28
Total number of abstentions: 6,999,999,972

So, our next film will be fucking Marley & motherfucking wanking shitting cunting shit-up-your-dick wank-in-your-fucking-pants Me. We're all looking forward to it.

In more exciting news, Sexboat's IMDb rating today plunged to an unprecedented low of 6.8 out of 10, throwing up all manner of new possibilities for future podcasts. Whether or not we allow you lot to vote on them again, however, is very much up in the air. You bastards.

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.

This time, definitely

As our growing band of loyal Sexboateers will be only too aware, our grand plan to be democratic and let you choose our next film ran aground (boating metaphor) when we discovered at rather-too-crucial a stage (i.e. we'd just got back from the boozer ready to start watching the film and taking notes) that we did not in fact have a copy of Die Hard 2 (1990). Boy, were our faces red. Our noses were, certainly.

However, our spirits and livers hardened by potential failure, we still managed to get a good podcast out of it, as you will know. In fact, Podcast 2, The Good Life (1975) versus Sexboat (1980) has just won the prestigious Prix de Rome Podcast Gold avex Sexy Boatsex at this year's ceremony in Royal Wootton Bassett.

However, this weekend, democracy will once again prove to be a good thing, unlike YOU thought as Podcast 3 emerges from the waves (boating metaphor) and comes in your ears. How will we rate the gun-heavy exploits of John McClane as he systematically destroys Washington D.C.'s Dulles Airport on Christmas Eve, against the cock-heavy antics of those two blokes who stowaway on a boat and turn it into a sexboat by systematically destroying every available vagina? And will any of our decisions be swayed by the fact that Betsy's mum has a crush on Dennis Franz?

Keep your eyes peeled for the next film vote which will be announced on this very blog next week. Also, hopefully we will soon be ready to announce some exciting news about guest commentators on future Versus Sexboat podcasts, just as soon as we've managed to break some people out of the psychiatric hospital that watching Sexboat (1980) put them in.

Please note: There are still a few hours left to vote for the beverage that will fuel our Die Hard 2 podcast! You can make your choice in our sidebar to the right of the page. Go on! The worst that can happen is that we'll ignore it (we probably will).

Our next film - Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)

Rejoicing is unconfined at Versus Sexboat this morning (well, 66.6% of it, 5olly voted for Puss In Boots) as the results of our poll to decide our next film are in and the winner is Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990). A late surge took it across the line with just hours to spare! The full results were as follows:

1st: Die Hard 2 - 6 votes (37%)
2nd: Crank - 5 votes (31%)
2nd: Puss In Boots - 5 votes (31%)
4th: Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy - 0 votes (0%)

Total votes: 16
Abstentions: 6,999,999,984

W. B. Willis in action

So, our next podcast will pit the endless virtues of Sexboat (1980) against Renny Harlin's action-adventure Christmas fairytale Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990). Will the story of Bruce Willis pitting his wits and courage against a band of ex-military terrorists on Christmas Eve with a weather eye on saving his wife so that they can have a bunk up prevail? And how many times does Dennis Franz say "fuck"? All these questions and more will be, if not answered, then at least asked.

Hopefully the next Versus Sexboat podcast will be along in the next week or so, depending on how much we drink (we tried to record one for the Podcast Wank Bank on Saturday but 5olly fell asleep and I drew a tortoise instead of making notes).

A tortoise

Vote 2012

You've got just two days left to vote for which film we review in Versus Sexboat podcast 2! Our current leader is Puss In Boots but all that could well change if you just pull your fucking finger out. If you wish to vote, you can do so in our sidebar.

A word about a potentially contentious issue. Puss In Boots was rated as 7.0 as our project began and, as such, made our film list. It was from that list that we made our shortlist for the podcast 2 vote. However, as is possible with IMDb's rating system, Puss In Boots' rating is currently a completely lousy 6.9. However, we will still review it should it win.

For the avoidance of doubt: the shortlist for all podcasts will have a decision date, at which time all the films would have been rated the same as Sexboat. We accept that these ratings are subject to change in the intervening period. However, that is the nature of the IMDb rating system. We hope and believe that it should not seriously distort the scientific value of our review or your enjoyment of the podcast. Or our alcohol intake.

Sexboat democracy

Here at Versus Sexboat we have a list of films to watch, all of which were also rated 7.0 out of 10 on IMDb on the day we began planning this project, Sunday 15th January 2012 (one of them has since slipped to a pathetic 6.9). It is a fearsome list - an IMDb search for things rated 7.0 runs to over 11,000 titles - and as we are usually drunk and always stupid (Betsy aside) we realised the best way to go about choosing the next film to watch would be to ask our listeners.

So this is what we have done. In the sidebar over to the right of the page you will find a POLL. Here you can vote for which one of the four films we should watch for the second Versus Sexboat podcast. More information about the films can be found here:

Crank (2006)
Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)
Puss In Boots (2011)
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004)

Voting closes at Midnight on Tuesday 31st January 2012. Drinking commences shortly after that.