In the late 90s, I listened to great deal of rap music. Of my two favourite rappers at the time, one remains one of my favourite musicians. They were Eminem and Cage, and they had a lot in common. They rapped in similar styles about similar subjects, had similar skin colour and shared a mutual loathing of each other that spilled out onto ‘diss' records.

They started at around the same level, Eminem exploded in popularity whereas Cage remained something of an obscurity. This year, both have released new albums for the first time since 2005.

Eminem is still churning out the same old thing, and is still selling millions of records. Cage has never matched Eminem for sales or popularity, but he's progressed artistically, grown up, and he's making considerably better music now.

If there's a point to that introduction, and I'm not convinced that there is, it's that a single starting point can lead in many different directions. You can chase success, you can follow creativity, or you can find any number of ways to travel the middle ground in-between. No matter which choice you make, some people won't like it and some people will.

Take director Kevin Smith. His first film, Clerks, was an independent hit. Few people watching Clerks  back in '94 are likely to have predicted where Smith would go from there (which doesn't stop many of them from whinging and moaning that it isn't where they wanted, the selfish pricks).

Perhaps one of the reasons his debut was such a success was that it's a very accessible art house film. It's black and white, intellectual and very concept driven, but it's also really funny. The art house and European elements are almost all gone from Smith's films now, stripped away so that focus can shift onto the comedy and storytelling elements. Probably a good choice, too, because he's managed to hold onto his originality and still make commercially successful films (albeit on a small scale, which probably accounts for why they're still so good).

Had he decided to cast away the humour and focus on other elements, it's unlikely he'd be as relevant today as he is.

Someone whose career path is proving less smooth than that of Kevin Smith is Richard Kelly, writer/director of the soon-to-be-released The Box. After causing a stir with his brilliant debut, the mind-warping Donnie Darko, Kelly has found his career faltering at every possible step. He scripted the largely ignored Domino, unveiled his second directorial effort, Southland Tales, to derision and now has seen his long delayed third effort The Box fall flat at the US box office.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I stumbled across a few articles this week which were claiming that The Box is one of the worst films ever made. That, of course, is complete bullshit. This site ran a great review of the film a couple of weeks ago, which pretty much mirrored my opinion. The Box isn't one of the worst films ever made; it's actually pretty good. I decided to break a rule I have with this column and do some, what could be called at a push, research, to find out what was going on.

It turns out that some people who have seen the film were asked their opinion on it, and they didn't like it. Immediately the problem becomes clear; they've asked people.

People, we should remember, invented a fashion trend in the 90s for trainers with little flashing lights on them. People get things stuck in their ears. People were not only the contestants but also the actual gladiators on Gladiators. People use the word ‘app'. People watch Casualty and Holby City. People are either Team Katie or Team Peter. People give their bank account details to e-mail scammers. People are fucking stupid. Why on earth would you want to listen to people?

Seriously, with all of the awful films that have come out this year, people want to single out The Box? What's wrong with them? Fucking Twilight 2 is out tomorrow. Can't we hold our breath for even one more day before we start bandying that phrase about? We couldn't reserve the 'worst film ever' tag for the DVD cover of Terminator Salvation? We're fucking idiots.

So, let's try to bring things back onto subject before I disappear into the rage of it all and never come back. Where does this leave Richard Kelly? Well, he's likely to find himself either having to do something more simple and mainstream or he's going to have to go independent.

I would hope for the latter, but expect the former. Really, Richard Kelly belongs on the independent scene. It makes more sense. If he's going to make experimental films, he'd be better off risking smaller amounts of money.

In fact, I have an idea for him. Cage (you remember, the rapper, from the first paragraph) is to be the subject of a biopic, should celebrity fan (and director of his recent video for I Never Knew You) Shia LaBeouf get his way.

I say they snap up Kelly now. Cage's life story is interesting enough, but if they bring in Richard Kelly and abandon reality we could be in for a real treat. Go on.

Let's get him to send Shia into space. 

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