My World

• UGC Cinema, 120 minutes, 15, 2005

This action romantic comedy film, staring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, is the first film I've been to in a while without seeing either any reviews or any trailers — in other words I was seeing it blind. I really enjoyed the film, particularly because I didn't have a clue what it was about, or what direction it was heading in.

Those who know me well, will be aware that "spoilers" are one of my top ten peeves. ITV are probably the worst offenders, as they seem to assume that trailers are there to enable the viewer to avoid watching the program at all. Books are much more hit and miss. Many books (particularly in hard back) do not have a blurb at all, and a few (e.g. Terry Pratchett's Discworld or Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy) have a blurb written by the author themselves that can be considered part of the book. Many other books however, have blurbs that pretty much ruin the pleasure of reading the book itself, by giving away cruicial information that wont be revealed until well into the plot itself.

For books, reading the blurb is of course optional, and I generally leave reading the blurb til the end. Cinema trailers are much harder to avoid, as you can't see films without first being exposed to trailers for "upcoming releases" many of which you will probably be planning on seeing anyway (or for which the trailer only reinforces my desire not to see it).