Press notes

Documents handed to critics at screenings of films for review. Press notes usually contain details of the cast and crew, together with the thoughts of key people (actors, directors, producers) on the movie they have made.

Mark Kermode is particularly worried if the press notes contain words like "journey", "universal themes", "life and love" - or in the case of Marley And Me, all three.

The press notes for Seven Pounds asked critics not to give away what the seven pounds of the title were. This really annoyed Mark.

Other notorious press notes were those for Dance Flick ("I mean, Heather Mills - everybody wanted that leg to fly off. I was watching, just hoping - "come on, just for once, just let it slide on the floor and turn it into a dance move"."); Franklyn ("Set between the parallel worlds of contemporary London and the futuristic metropolis of Meanwhile City, "Franklyn" weaves a tale of four lost souls, whose lives are intertwined by fate, romance and tragedy. As these worlds collide, a single bullet determines the destiny of these four characters") and Revenge Of The Sexually Pathological Voyeur ("the first comedy to be inspired by Taxi Driver").

At the Live Wittertainment in Hull, Mark reviewed The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard using only the press notes, still being able to utterly condemn the film: "The new comedy from the makers of Talladega Nights and Step Brothers - raunchy, risque and politically incorrect, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is a 500-horsepower ride through a three-day car sale." On Adam McKay, producer: "He was in the enviable position of being able to work on a movie 'just because we think it's funny.

If it makes us laugh, then we want to do it." McKay is "the first to admit that he likes to take a joke as far as it can go - 'and we've certainly done that!', he says." McKay: "The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard is a great movie to see with friends, and to laugh your butt off - but there's also something more lying beneath the surface. Sometimes a movie can transcend the simple form it takes. I don't want to say that I hope this movie changes nations, but maybe, out of the hundreds of thousands of people who fill the movie theatres, 100 to 150 of them will go through a little change of heart, and walk out with a broader view of the world."