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EAR, NOSE & THROAT

Anyone who has been to a multiplex in recent years will know that two things have gone up: ticket prices and volume. Going to see a major blockbuster in a big cinema is now as loud as going to a Motörhead concert – Mad Max: Fury Road cleaned most of the wax out of the Movie Doctors’ ears. In our own version of an ENT clinic, we offer advice about tinnitus, nose jobs and how to choose a good dentist. No need to thank us – it’s all part of the service.

EARACHE

How the Movies Can Cure Your Tinnitus

Strictly speaking, tinnitus is not an illness, it’s a condition. There are no measurable symptoms but the constant ringing in the ears – a pulsing, never-ending, clangorous, nerve-shredding interference – should be familiar to cinemagoers who have experienced the aural sensation of any Michael Bay film. The effects can vary from mild (The Lionel Ritchie Collection, 2003) to total-pain-in-the-ass (Transformers, 2007).

As a youth you may have strayed too close to the front of a concert and stood unnervingly near to the speaker stack – you paid the price. Later you may have turned your headphones up beyond the European recommended limits – you coped with the consequences of your foolishness. You may have witnessed a party of five-year-old boys just after the Haribo kicked in and just before the entertainer (not to be confused with The Entertainer, the 1960 Laurence Olivier movie or ‘The Entertainer’ from the soundtrack to The Sting (1973)). The aftermath was with you for days.

Prescribing films for tinnitus is a tricky task. Silent movies are a disaster (although, as Dr Kermode is constantly reminding us, ‘silent cinema was never silent – actually, it was quite noisy’). Gentle, softly spoken movies won’t work either, as everything will take place with the seemingly incessant chirruping of a thousand crickets in the background.

What is needed is a big, thumping, flamboyant film to distract and console. This might appear counter-intuitive: why go see a noisy movie if tinnitus is your problem?

Here’s the answer: YOLO. There is no cure for tinnitus so you might as well forget it for a while and take in some meaningful noise instead. There is good noise and bad noise. The Movie Doctors have selected these films for having the right kind of noise. The coolest headphones are noise-cancelling headphones. These films are head noise-cancelling films.

INTERSTELLAR (2014)

A film you don’t hear with your ears. Bypassing that buzzing in your head, you hear Interstellar with your chest. You feel it in your diaphragm (this won’t work if you’re watching it on a phone. Or if you are using any fewer than the 1,000 speakers per channel system recommended by your local IMAX/THX/Dolby dealer.

When it was first released, some viewers complained about the sound, arguing that they couldn’t hear the dialogue above all the effects and Hans Zimmer’s score. This isn’t tinnitus, this is idiocy (see ‘Films for Idiots’ below). Director Christopher Nolan has said that he and sound designer Richard King mixed the movie over a six-month period, using dialogue as a sound effect. You are not supposed to hear what Matthew McConaughey is saying. It’s the Tom Waits school of enunciation. And anyway, what’s a little ringing in the ears compared with the time-warping bedlam of inter-universe space travel?

ALADDIN (1992)

A riot of flamboyant distraction which will quieten your infuriating, roaring head for all of its ninety minutes’ running time. Magic carpets, silk pantaloons, palaces, jewellery, curly slippers, treasure, the world’s grumpiest parrot, the Sphinx, singing, bazaars and dastardly moustaches – what more does your tired and noisy brain need?

The big, dazzling, fabulous star is of course the genie, as played by Robin Williams. It doesn’t really matter that the other characters seem a bit feeble, the story a little ho-hum and the Arab characterisation somewhat lazy. This genie has been silent for ten millennia, and he has a lot of catching up to do.

‘I’m kinda fond of you, kid,’ he tells Aladdin. ‘Not that I want to pick out curtains or anything . . .’

The movies sometimes struggled to capture Williams’s comic genius (though Dr Mayo still maintains he enjoyed Patch Adams) so maybe it was always going to be an animation that could keep up with the speed of his character changes. By the end, Williams’s performance, taking in his Nicholson, his De Niro, Groucho Marx, Arnie and so many others, will leave you exhausted. And your head, for the moment at least, quiet.

SCHOOL OF ROCK (2003)

Of course, School of Rock. Jack Black playing accidental music teacher Dewey Finn is an irresistible (if obvious) choice to cure your tinnitus. Loud rock gives you tinnitus! A loud rock movie takes it away again!

‘Immigrant Song’, ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ and ‘Substitute’ have caused millions of ears to ring for decades, so we might as well put them to good use now. The research into laughter’s curative properties in this area is admittedly in its early days. Just about to get going, in actual fact. But it is true that exercise increases the blood flow to the different parts of the ear (genuine medical fact) and this is a good thing. Therefore, the more you laugh, the better the karma flows and the biorhythms of healing will flood your body (less factual). For example, here’s Dewey’s new, improved school timetable: ‘8.15 to 10, Rock History. 10 till 11, Rock Appreciation and Theory. And then Band Practice till the end of the day.’ Here he is addressing his class: ‘It’s gonna be a tough project. You’re gonna have to use your head, your brain and your mind too.’ And the staff: ‘Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those that can’t teach, teach gym’ (a great line, albeit lifted from Woody Allen).

The thing is, we all know that Jack Black’s rocking Gareth Malone figure will have tinnitus and have it a whole lot worse than you. And because Jack plays for real with his band Tenacious D, he understands and feels your pain. Does it stop him raising his goblet of rock? Of course it doesn’t.

THE RAID (2012)

A really rather useful feel-better-all-round film. Whatever your pain, watch The Raid and feel your aches just melt away. Over the course of its 101 minutes, whichever part of your body is afflicted, you will see it punched, stabbed or kicked (maybe all three at once) so often, that you realise you have nothing to complain about.

A new member of a SWAT team finds himself in a fifteen-floor block full of ruffians. He and his noble band of bobbies need to arrest the head ruffian, but wouldn’t you know it, the cad won’t come quietly. So everyone has to be killed. There are many hi-tech, high-powered weapons lying around, but why use them when fists and feet are so much more wholesome? So much more balletic? We prescribe this movie for tinnitus because the way Gareth Evans directs, each crunched skull and smashed spine is like a small explosion going off in your head. This has the pleasing effect of extinguishing the rather feeble ringing in your ears. And don’t worry about the dialogue. There’s barely five minutes’ worth (all in subtitled Indonesian), and who wants to talk (or indeed read) when there is another groin to kick?

DISTRICT 9 (2009)

Nothing pleases the ear more than the sound of an extra-terrestrial bug getting splattered. There’s something about the yuckyness of it all that leaves a fevered head calmed and reassured. And it’s a relief to know you aren’t a prawn from outer space.

That might be hard on the prawns in Neill Blomkamp’s South African movie, as they turn out to be considerably brighter than many of their Uzi-waving tormentors, most of whom work for an outfit called Multi-National United. With a name like that, it’s not difficult to work out that these guys aren’t going to be on the side of motherhood and bobotie pie. And in their alien killer-in-chief Koobus, they have a man who is definitely on the side of DEATH AND FLAME THROWERS.

Spaceships, disgusting eating habits (cat food, mainly) and a good old-fashioned shoot-out make this a feast of fabulous noise. An aural jacuzzi for your tired head.

So we learn that The Tremeloes got it so wrong with their 1967 hit ‘Silence Is Golden’. Silence is not golden. For the tinnitari, silence is a nightmare. Go see a movie.

DR DAVE NORRIS’S HEARING TEST

Dr Mayo: Dr Dave Norris knows all about sound and vision at the movies – see p.110 for his guide to all things ‘aspect ratio’. Here he sets a quick quiz about how the speakers should work in a cinema.

Dr Kermode: And if you have one of those home cinema surround-sound thingummys, it works for those as well. Who said this book had no practical use whatsoever?

Dr Mayo: You? Take it away, Dr Dave.

Dr Dave Norris: Sound design is an increasingly important element in any production. An incorrectly set-up sound system and sound level in the cinema can ruin a film. See if you can match the correct speaker to the correct element of a movie soundtrack.

IDENTIFY WHICH SPEAKER SHOULD HANDLE WHICH KIND OF SOUND AT THE CINEMA

TYPES OF SOUND

• Dialogue

• Explosions, rumbles

• Ambient noises – dogs barking, birds singing etc

• On screen sound effects, music

SOLUTION Dialogue: centre • Explosions, rumbles: subwoofer • Ambient noises – dogs barking, birds singing etc: left, rear and right surround • On screen sound effects, music: left and right

NOSE JOBS

Some Movies Just Stick Out . . .

THE CHILD CATCHER

CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG (1968)

Once seen, never forgotten. Like all the best children’s films, there is something distinctly sinister about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Sir Robert Helpmann’s Child Catcher, with his long, child-sniffing nose, was mostly responsible: ‘There are children here somewhere. I can smell them.’

NICOLE KIDMAN

THE HOURS (2002)

This notorious prosthetic proboscis gained almost as much publicity for The Hours as the entire cast put together. Denzel Washington presented the 2003 Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, saying, ‘. . . and the winner, by a nose, is Nicole Kidman.’

GERARD DEPARDIEU

CYRANO DE BERGERAC (1990)

Another Oscar (and BAFTA) nominee for the man attached to ‘Cyranose’. Depardieu plays the bashful, swashbuckling poet who, embarrassed by his hooter, romances the beautiful Roxane by proxy, assisting the dashing, tongue-tied Christian de Neuvillette in his wooing of her.

STEVE MARTIN

ROXANNE (1987)

‘Laugh and the world laughs with you; sneeze and it’s goodbye Seattle.’ Steve Martin stars in Fred Schepisi’s Cyrano update, most famous for the fabulous string of nose-ist gags which the impressively proboscissed Martin recites.

PINOCCHIO (1940)

The real giant of movie snouts, Pinocchio’s extending schnozzle has had generations of children going cross-eyed as they test out the ‘tell me lies and your nose will grow’ theory.

EMMA THOMPSON

NANNY MCPHEE (2005)

The Reverse Pinocchio – Nanny McPhee’s appearance is a bellwether for the behaviour of the seven unruly Brown children. Her nose starts off as a bulbous, warty potato, but with every step in the right direction Cedric Brown’s seven children not only transform their family’s fortunes, but turn their hideous nanny into Emma Thompson – and what could be better than that?

DAN AYKROYD

NOTHING BUT TROUBLE (1991)

Writer/director Dan Aykroyd plays a 106-year-old judge with – and there’s no other way of putting this – a penis for a nose. Sadly, that’s the most interesting thing that can be said about this ‘adventure comedy horror’ romp. Really.

RALPH FIENNES

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PART 1 (2010) AND PART 2 (2011)

Harry Potter: My nemesis’s got no nose. Dumbledore: How does he smell? Harry Potter: Horful!

SQUEAKY CLEAN

The Good Dentist Guide

A tricky area. We assume that if you find yourself in this section of our ENT Clinic, your dental check-ups to date may not been entirely regular. You may, like Dr Mayo, have had a school dentist. And you may think that surely only the sweetest, most compassionate of dental practitioners would have been allowed to practise on the nation’s youth? You would be wrong.

In fact, testifies Dr Mayo, the opposite seems to have been the case. All dental treatment was to be dispensed as swiftly as possible. Anaesthetics were far too costly (three shillings and fourpence per dose) so despite these being the druggy sixties, no medication was available to small boys who needed pain relief in Croydon.

This association of dentists with misery is commonplace, both in real life and in the movies. You need look no further than Marathon Man (1976) for proof. Dr Mayo grew up thinking all dentists were Nazis anyway, so the idea of Laurence Olivier playing one for real was no surprise. The famous ‘I’m now going to drill your whole mouth away’ sequence is, rightly, regarded as one of the most horrific ever filmed (see p.102).

So the cinematic tradition here is that teeth = pain (except for the 2007 movie Teeth, which, like its 2004 Japanese predecessor Sexual Parasite: Killer Pussy, is about castration anxiety). The Movie Doctors therefore have tried to change this for you. We have managed the impossible; we have found five movies where – get this – dentists are portrayed as good people. That’s right. Not sadists, not idiots, not even morally dubious, but good, decent folk you’d hang out with. If there was really no other option.

EVERSMILE, NEW JERSEY (1989)

Would you trust Daniel Day-Lewis if he was your dentist? Would your mind fill with the random acts of violence he has performed on screen over the years? Beatings, scalpings, that kind of thing? Well, this obscure offering (maybe the least viewed Day-Lewis picture ever) offers us our hero as Dr Fergus O’Connell, an Irish dental missionary pounding the back roads of Patagonia. They don’t want to trust him either. Despite being on a mission to improve the nation’s oral health, he ends up getting beaten up or shunned by most of his would-be patients. You see, he may be a good man but Dr O’Connell is definitely a bit weird too.

But DDL still smiles that anti-bacterial, teeth-whitening smile, and so all is well. The next time you find a gaucho with a rotting molar, you’ll know who to call.

THUMBSUCKER (2005)

If Dr Day-Lewis can’t see you, why not sign on with Dr Keanu Reeves? He seems just your sort. Young, floppy-haired and prone to saying things like ‘the trick . . . is living without an answer’ – he is either a guru, a visionary or just deeply annoying. But if he’s a great dentist, who cares if he mumbles his way through the Van Morrison phrase book?

In Thumbsucker he plays Perry Lyman, an orthodontist who shows how cool he is by smoking in his surgery. Seventeen-year-old Justin, who needs a new approach, is impressed. He is the titular thumbsucker and, having fallen for beautiful Rebecca, is finding the habit rather embarrassing. His real problem, however, turns out to be his parents Audrey and Mike, played by Tilda Swinton and Vincent D’Onofrio. The issue is not Tilda’s suspect record as an on-screen parent (We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) didn’t end too well for anyone) the issue is this: he calls them Audrey and Mike. Science shows us that any child who calls his or her parents by their first names will grow up to be problematic.

But at least he has found a mentor in Keanu Reeves, one of the few on-screen dentists not wanted for trial at the International Court of Human Rights.

GHOST TOWN (2008)

If Daniel Day-Lewis is action man dentist and Keanu Reeves is spiritual dentist, Ricky Gervais is spectrum dentist. He plays Bertram Pincus, an uptight, misanthropic, Scrooge-like Brit (surprise!) who likes dentistry but hates his patients. He is never happier than when filling their mouths with cotton wool and dental equipment, just to shut them up.

Nervous readers might query our selection of such a film as being uncomfortably true to their own experience. But salvation, maybe for the first time, comes in the form of a colonoscopy. While undergoing this simple medical procedure, Pincus ‘dies’ for seven minutes. He subsequently finds he can see dead people, who turn out to be more needy than the living.

But just hang on a minute – there’s a girl who is neither a hygienist nor Tilda Swinton, so his road to redemption becomes clear. An almost-cuddly, funny and skilful dentist emerges and we can chalk up another orthodontist who isn’t going to hell.

FINDING NEMO (2003)

Yes, we are reduced to finding comfort in cartoon characters. In Pixar’s acclaimed story of the timid clown fish, not enough praise has gone to dentist Philip Sherman. He has been unfairly lambasted for his role in taking Nemo from the ocean and putting him in the compulsory dentist’s fish tank. He then wants to hand Nemo to his hideous niece Darla who, we know, is so terrifying she must have come straight from the Barney the Dinosaur school for nauseating children (see p.120 for other pupils from said school to avoid).

However, we need to prescribe Finding Nemo to you because P. Sherman (like ‘fisherman’ obvs) is a good man with a bad niece. He only takes Nemo from the sea because he thinks he will get eaten. He only plans to give Nemo to Darla because he is blind to the sadistic glint in the devil-girl’s eye. He is only motivated by compassion, generosity and fish rights. Not sadism, greed or an overpowering need to impose himself on the helpless.

Thank you, Pixar.

LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS (1986)

We know what you are thinking. We have lost the plot and are prescribing precisely the sort of film that has caused your dentophobia in the first place. This is an understandable, if misguided, reaction. It is true that Steve Martin’s sadistic dentist (following John Shaner’s Dr Farb in the original 1960 Roger Corman film) appears to enjoy inflicting pain on puppies, fish, cats, dental assistants and his patients. He drills, injects and abuses his nitrous oxide. He smashes doors into faces. He thinks he’s Elvis and seems obsessed with his hair (imagine that!).

However, but and nevertheless . . . After we see the full range of his ghastliness, Martin’s dentist asphyxiates, is chopped up and fed to a plant. We cheer, we applaud and punch the air, realising that this is what happens to bad dentists. They face their judgement. They cannot rule with impunity. Little Shop of Horrors is a morality tale which states that over-billing and over-filling will be punished by dismemberment. This alone should put a spring in your step and a sparkle in your smile.