Neveldine/Taylor, the brains behind the Crank series and full on frat boys with a budget return with a non-Crank film, one that has it's own plot, ideas, and, shock horror, is more serious than not.
In Game/Citizen Game/Gamer Gerard Butler plays Kable, a superstar around the world and prison inmate who participates in a televised championship series of video games where real people are controlled and used throughout, an FPS with real people basically.
There's little originality in the premise by any means, but you have to know that the duo aren't planning on breaking barriers with this film, it's a break from the manic crazy inventive Crank series that lets them simply tell a story with 3 acts over a 90 minute runtime, and they succeed with some interesting characters, excellent action, brilliant actors, Logan Lerman and Michael C. Hall both shine moreso, and overall it's a rather fun film, if a little dark.
In the end of the film there's a dance sequence/fight sequence with the bad guy lip synching Sammy Davis Jr.'s "I got you under my skin" and it's that level of silliness that does help some of the parodical elements, which includes a second real life video game called Society, basically Playstation Home or Second Life with real people, so naturally people pay to play as other people having lots of sex all the time. A character pops up named Rick Rape, he, well, he doesn't last long, thankfully not in 'that' way.
It's a shame that the film doesn't reach for the stars and be groundbreaking, but it's easy to see why the duo would want a bigger budget, lower hassle film to work on that's sure to gratify a broader audience than the controversial Crank series, and for what it does it's a well made piece of entertainment, and the Red cameras are used extremely well.
Having seen it twice I enjoyed it both times, the second time had no surround sound which did make it less of a film, but that only tells you how important audio truly is.
Still, it's a violent, sexual, silly film and rather enjoyable to watch.
9/10
Tuesday 29 September 2009
Monday 21 September 2009
When you've been there, you never wanna go again, like France.
Meryl Streep has been on the top of her game since before I was born, and yet again, even in a small chick flick light Sunday afternoon film she scores highly with another marvelous role that practically guarantees another Oscar nod come January. With Julie and Julia Streep plays Julia Child, a very tall middle aged woman in France in the 40's/50's with her husband, played by the ever brilliant Stanley Tucci. Bored all day she takes up cooking lessons and does well, learning French cooking, and helps write a book about it.
As this storyline goes on we are introduced to Julie Powell, played by the wonderful, talented Amy Adams, who works for a 9/11 support project, constantly crying over stories, needs to rise above her station in life after seeing her friends all being successful, starts a blog of cooking all the recipes in Child's cookbook over a year.
So for the year we see her cry, laugh and try, and it's ultimately very boring, there is nothing interesting in this part of the storyline, and as much as I love Amy Adams, and that's a lot, this goes no where very slowly. Thankfully the Julia Child story is fun, light ad highly entertaining, not just because Jane Lynch's appearance as Streep's sister is funny and well done, it's a great story that would have served better solo, I was waiting for Streep to reappear throughout the Julie sequences, and it's a shame because Adams' part would have been great if it wasn't bogged down in rom-com girl power cliches that lead to nothing.
Can't offer much but it's funny, sweet and makes you very hungry, worth checking out.
8/10
As this storyline goes on we are introduced to Julie Powell, played by the wonderful, talented Amy Adams, who works for a 9/11 support project, constantly crying over stories, needs to rise above her station in life after seeing her friends all being successful, starts a blog of cooking all the recipes in Child's cookbook over a year.
So for the year we see her cry, laugh and try, and it's ultimately very boring, there is nothing interesting in this part of the storyline, and as much as I love Amy Adams, and that's a lot, this goes no where very slowly. Thankfully the Julia Child story is fun, light ad highly entertaining, not just because Jane Lynch's appearance as Streep's sister is funny and well done, it's a great story that would have served better solo, I was waiting for Streep to reappear throughout the Julie sequences, and it's a shame because Adams' part would have been great if it wasn't bogged down in rom-com girl power cliches that lead to nothing.
Can't offer much but it's funny, sweet and makes you very hungry, worth checking out.
8/10
Sometimes it's hard to think of witty relevant film or TV quotes.
The second feature from Oscar winner Andrea Arnold looks at the life of a teenage girl in a housing estate on the London Essex borders of Havering and Dagenham/Barking, a 15 year old bully who has a foul mouth, can put up a fight, has a troubled home life, and secretly dances when nobody is watching. Played stunningly in her debut by Katie Jarvis, the lead character Mia does lots of walking around in very Gus Van Sant style sequences, but unlike Van Sant, has a place to go to each time, and though sometimes she does some horrible, horrible horrible things, thankfully she has so much to care about as well that for the most part you can tolerate the character, and wonder where her life is going.
When you see her homelife, with a vulgar, drunken, slutty mother and very vulgar younger sister, who is not in the film enough but is extremely funny, we see the environment that caused such a persona. After some tough moments Mia's mother brings home a new man, Connor, played to perfection by Michael Fassbender, a character who suddenly brings some warmth into the cold house. Connor sees Mia dance, and although she acts annoyed and harshly, he constantly supports her, and cares for her, even when the rest of the family doesn't. Slowly as Mia finds a boy and gets a job audition Connor's relationship with Mia gets to a sickly tense point.
As the film suddenly and drastically changes for the final half hour we see Mia go from a sensitive teen trying to keep a facade up to a girl who just can't care anymore, and will do anything no matter how repulsive just at the spur of the moment.
The pace is rather odd, it's 2 hours and certainly feels like it, especially when there are long shots of the Essex/London area, which might be interesting to some people, just feels like looking out anywhere, only projecting onto a cinema screen, however sometimes it's fun to spot the places you know, and in one case with a scene on a c2c platform at Tilbury, it felt like being there, without the cold and damp feeling from being outside.
The acting is top notch, absolutely flawless in it's realism, Fassbender is on excellently sweet and slightly odd form, and Miss Jarvis certainly breaks out as a wonderful talent, and even though the film isn't a masterpiece, or completely interesting like a lot of reviewers claim, it's a solid character study, an English Gus Van Sant film without the really annoying long drawn out stuff.
8/10
When you see her homelife, with a vulgar, drunken, slutty mother and very vulgar younger sister, who is not in the film enough but is extremely funny, we see the environment that caused such a persona. After some tough moments Mia's mother brings home a new man, Connor, played to perfection by Michael Fassbender, a character who suddenly brings some warmth into the cold house. Connor sees Mia dance, and although she acts annoyed and harshly, he constantly supports her, and cares for her, even when the rest of the family doesn't. Slowly as Mia finds a boy and gets a job audition Connor's relationship with Mia gets to a sickly tense point.
As the film suddenly and drastically changes for the final half hour we see Mia go from a sensitive teen trying to keep a facade up to a girl who just can't care anymore, and will do anything no matter how repulsive just at the spur of the moment.
The pace is rather odd, it's 2 hours and certainly feels like it, especially when there are long shots of the Essex/London area, which might be interesting to some people, just feels like looking out anywhere, only projecting onto a cinema screen, however sometimes it's fun to spot the places you know, and in one case with a scene on a c2c platform at Tilbury, it felt like being there, without the cold and damp feeling from being outside.
The acting is top notch, absolutely flawless in it's realism, Fassbender is on excellently sweet and slightly odd form, and Miss Jarvis certainly breaks out as a wonderful talent, and even though the film isn't a masterpiece, or completely interesting like a lot of reviewers claim, it's a solid character study, an English Gus Van Sant film without the really annoying long drawn out stuff.
8/10
Monday 14 September 2009
Go back to your celebrity friends, and your beautiful women, and Victoria Silvestedt, Playmate of the Year... FUCK!
After many months of bad reviews from the US release, a subdued UK opening is given to Whitest Kids U Know movie Miss March, about a high school graduate who goes into a coma for 4 years just before he loses his virginity, then he and sex obsessed misogynist pal travel cross country to find the one girl he loved, now a Playboy Bunny.
The film delves into some really low brow moments, poop gags, dick and fart jokes, that stuff, but it also knows what it's doing, carefully crafting the most horrible man in Tucker, a man brought up on Playboy and obsessed with just sex, no relationships, a complete and utter pig, and idiot, and hysterical for these facts. The reviews against it don't find the film's humour funny at all, it's a very silly brand, but there's lots of wit in between too, and added to that, it's got a lot of irony, charm, even some sarcasm over the notions shown.
But the film has a nice heart, it's leads might not always be likeable, but they are compelling, and unlike The Hangover, the crazy situations that just get crazier are well done, insane, never really explained, and just funny, which is nice.
A necessary cameo from Hugh Hefner is genius when a photo of a disabled girl is brought into question, Craig Robinson is as funny as usual, the man playing Tucker is just hysterical in his facial movements, and the stupidity he brings, overal it's a truly crazy film that, whilst not perfect, is very very funny and enjoyable from start to finish.
9/10
The film delves into some really low brow moments, poop gags, dick and fart jokes, that stuff, but it also knows what it's doing, carefully crafting the most horrible man in Tucker, a man brought up on Playboy and obsessed with just sex, no relationships, a complete and utter pig, and idiot, and hysterical for these facts. The reviews against it don't find the film's humour funny at all, it's a very silly brand, but there's lots of wit in between too, and added to that, it's got a lot of irony, charm, even some sarcasm over the notions shown.
But the film has a nice heart, it's leads might not always be likeable, but they are compelling, and unlike The Hangover, the crazy situations that just get crazier are well done, insane, never really explained, and just funny, which is nice.
A necessary cameo from Hugh Hefner is genius when a photo of a disabled girl is brought into question, Craig Robinson is as funny as usual, the man playing Tucker is just hysterical in his facial movements, and the stupidity he brings, overal it's a truly crazy film that, whilst not perfect, is very very funny and enjoyable from start to finish.
9/10
It's his painting, his lucky painting.
Ben Barnes, formally of "Oh, look at him, baby faced and legal" fame, plays Dorian Gray, a 20-something rich playboy lothario in Victorian London, a Russell Brand without the prank calls. He goes around innocent, until Colin Firth finds him and creates an evil, nasty, bitter human who sells his soul for infinite youth, eventually costing the man his mind.
Only we don't get much in the way of plot when we watch, instead are often just elongated set pieces involving sex, drama, which is pretty much reduced to, he loves a woman, is a prick, they kill themselves, he cries, fucks another girl... and then lots of Victorian detail like Sweeney Todd, only on a smaller budget.
The music is appalling, mostly out of place, ruining moments, too modern at other points, it makes no sense why it was deemed anything but temp, add the acting is sub-par, heck, the one reason I went to see it, Rebecca Hall, is a waste of time, since she only appears in the dying 25 minutes of the film, I say dying because by that point you've completely lost any interest, and are now waiting for the flatline.
Lets just say this and save me getting rather annoyed, nothing works in this film, whose tone is inconsistent and length and pacing is diabolical, it's a tragedy films from England can still be this shit.
2/10
Only we don't get much in the way of plot when we watch, instead are often just elongated set pieces involving sex, drama, which is pretty much reduced to, he loves a woman, is a prick, they kill themselves, he cries, fucks another girl... and then lots of Victorian detail like Sweeney Todd, only on a smaller budget.
The music is appalling, mostly out of place, ruining moments, too modern at other points, it makes no sense why it was deemed anything but temp, add the acting is sub-par, heck, the one reason I went to see it, Rebecca Hall, is a waste of time, since she only appears in the dying 25 minutes of the film, I say dying because by that point you've completely lost any interest, and are now waiting for the flatline.
Lets just say this and save me getting rather annoyed, nothing works in this film, whose tone is inconsistent and length and pacing is diabolical, it's a tragedy films from England can still be this shit.
2/10
Sunday 6 September 2009
You've never heard me say cuntsucker before, have you? It's all about the element of surprise.
Is it already 8 months since January? Bloody hell, how's it rushed by so far? Well at the top of the year during Oscar season we were given a reunited couple in Leo and Kate Winslet for Hubby Sam Mendes' film Revolutionary Road, where for 2 hours they screamed at each other into a perpetual hell in suburbia.
The film is about a loving couple, Burt and Verona, played to perfection by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, who are expecting a child, and after finding Burt's parents, Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara, are planning a move to Belgium for a few years the month before the birth, decide to hunt for a place to live, now the only reason they were living there is null and void with the parents moving away.
Phoenix Arizona is the first place, with the pair finding themselves in an odd place with Allison Janney as the ex-boss of Verona, who is obscene and loud, but her kids have managed to ignore her perfectly, and her husband is just a constant depression. Whilst I love Janney, her character, because she was a loud drunken mother, was annoying, and when the humour occurred it felt a little too broad, still, that part is over quickly, onto learning more about Verona's family, including a wonderful heartfelt moment in a bath in a bath showroom. Onto the next set of parents, Maggie Gyllenhaal's hippie parent, breast-feeding other kids, and sleeping in one big bed. A dinner table scene where he ideals are pushed to the point of recoil becomes a comic version of the dinner table scene in Revolutionary Road in which Michael Shannon enters the house and shouts at the couple for not realising what they have, and how stupid they are about what they are doing with their lives, this is loud but the sense of fun for the couple to let loose, and break all of the hippie's rules, makes it so endearing.
As we progress through a series of characters ruining different parts of the world, and a really hard hitting pole dancing scene that's just beautifully done, it's nice that the interplay of the leads is so interesting, funny and heartfelt, the chemistry is true and it's lovely to be able to see a couple not go through hell and have a break up segment in a film, and by the end, with the simple interstitial "HOME" it's a moving experience of pure love, something so sweet to watch it really pushed this film higher than it should be, given it's a mere 1 hour 35 minutes and yet it feels longer, thought that could be more that the film started, then was rewound and began again, probably that.
Music is great, normal indie film alt-mellow rock stuff, but it's nice, visuals are sublime, really wonderful to look at, acting is all top, writing is cracking, except one overly expositional line about a job interview.
Overall this is Sam Mendes' best film to date, but personally his films always fail to live up to expectation.
8/10
The film is about a loving couple, Burt and Verona, played to perfection by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, who are expecting a child, and after finding Burt's parents, Jeff Daniels and Catherine O'Hara, are planning a move to Belgium for a few years the month before the birth, decide to hunt for a place to live, now the only reason they were living there is null and void with the parents moving away.
Phoenix Arizona is the first place, with the pair finding themselves in an odd place with Allison Janney as the ex-boss of Verona, who is obscene and loud, but her kids have managed to ignore her perfectly, and her husband is just a constant depression. Whilst I love Janney, her character, because she was a loud drunken mother, was annoying, and when the humour occurred it felt a little too broad, still, that part is over quickly, onto learning more about Verona's family, including a wonderful heartfelt moment in a bath in a bath showroom. Onto the next set of parents, Maggie Gyllenhaal's hippie parent, breast-feeding other kids, and sleeping in one big bed. A dinner table scene where he ideals are pushed to the point of recoil becomes a comic version of the dinner table scene in Revolutionary Road in which Michael Shannon enters the house and shouts at the couple for not realising what they have, and how stupid they are about what they are doing with their lives, this is loud but the sense of fun for the couple to let loose, and break all of the hippie's rules, makes it so endearing.
As we progress through a series of characters ruining different parts of the world, and a really hard hitting pole dancing scene that's just beautifully done, it's nice that the interplay of the leads is so interesting, funny and heartfelt, the chemistry is true and it's lovely to be able to see a couple not go through hell and have a break up segment in a film, and by the end, with the simple interstitial "HOME" it's a moving experience of pure love, something so sweet to watch it really pushed this film higher than it should be, given it's a mere 1 hour 35 minutes and yet it feels longer, thought that could be more that the film started, then was rewound and began again, probably that.
Music is great, normal indie film alt-mellow rock stuff, but it's nice, visuals are sublime, really wonderful to look at, acting is all top, writing is cracking, except one overly expositional line about a job interview.
Overall this is Sam Mendes' best film to date, but personally his films always fail to live up to expectation.
8/10
Wednesday 2 September 2009
Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue... Fuck You Whore!
As summer nears it's inevitable end a film pops out which can't not be mentioned with the ending of a season, (500) Days Of Summer, about 2 young people meeting, becoming friends, lovers, break up and the aftermath finally hits the UK on, ad I'm quoting a mother pushing a push chair as I walked to the cinema, "The last day of summer holidays"
Bliss to come as kids don't annoy me when I go around town, but the film, unfortunately, was full of 12 year olds with nothing else to do. And did they get most of the jokes and references? Not one bit. A quote from Belle And Sebastian, a joke about the misinterpretation of the ending of The Graduate being about true love and contentment, a parody of The Seventh Seal with a chess match against Cupid, it's witty, intelligent, it doesn't pander to philistines and they didn't get any of the brilliant points this film has.
The film starts in the middle and jumps around, kindly we get some voice over at different points to keep us on track about the feelings, the point we're at and it also makes it a sort of story-book kind of romance. We see the meeting before the credits too, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel sharing a look, a smile, nothing more, and it builds nicely, from a look at who Summer is, who Tom is, and a credit sequence shot like Super8 home videos of the two at different stages of life, it's rather brilliant and inventive, like a Romantic Comedy in the style of Crank. In that we have a dance sequence out of the blue that is random, funny and brilliant, side by side reality and expectation sequences, walking down a road from real life to a sketch, subtleties that really work wonders to keep the film fresh, consistent, interesting, but most important of all, heartfelt.
As we jump from happy times to the depressing there is an ecclectic mix of songs to enjoy, from The Smiths to The Doves, a magnificent script, which starts with a note that it's all fictional, then proceeds to call a woman a bitch, direction that is inspired, a time lapse sequence of sun going down as Tom sketches is just a thing of beauty, and lots of great gags, sweet moments, shocks, really upsetting parts, and all in all a full film that you'll want to enjoy and endure again and again.
The two writers and the director being male makes it interesting from a rom-com standpoint, more often than not at least one of the creative aspects is more feminine, this instead takes it on itself to be a cynical callous film that is a true romantic at heart, but can't fathom the downers that go along with the ideas of love.
Acting throughout is top notch, it's well edited to keep a solid pace throughout even if we're just re-watching scenes as we think, was it really that good a relationship, but ultimately it feels like it's too short, you want to spend more time with the characters, even if one really does seem to be a bitch by the end of it, it's an immense undertaking to change the rom com structure to fit the sadness, and the film handles it remarkably well.
You owe it to yourself to see it and watch what a true, non-Hollywood manufatured romance, is about.
(10)/10
Bliss to come as kids don't annoy me when I go around town, but the film, unfortunately, was full of 12 year olds with nothing else to do. And did they get most of the jokes and references? Not one bit. A quote from Belle And Sebastian, a joke about the misinterpretation of the ending of The Graduate being about true love and contentment, a parody of The Seventh Seal with a chess match against Cupid, it's witty, intelligent, it doesn't pander to philistines and they didn't get any of the brilliant points this film has.
The film starts in the middle and jumps around, kindly we get some voice over at different points to keep us on track about the feelings, the point we're at and it also makes it a sort of story-book kind of romance. We see the meeting before the credits too, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel sharing a look, a smile, nothing more, and it builds nicely, from a look at who Summer is, who Tom is, and a credit sequence shot like Super8 home videos of the two at different stages of life, it's rather brilliant and inventive, like a Romantic Comedy in the style of Crank. In that we have a dance sequence out of the blue that is random, funny and brilliant, side by side reality and expectation sequences, walking down a road from real life to a sketch, subtleties that really work wonders to keep the film fresh, consistent, interesting, but most important of all, heartfelt.
As we jump from happy times to the depressing there is an ecclectic mix of songs to enjoy, from The Smiths to The Doves, a magnificent script, which starts with a note that it's all fictional, then proceeds to call a woman a bitch, direction that is inspired, a time lapse sequence of sun going down as Tom sketches is just a thing of beauty, and lots of great gags, sweet moments, shocks, really upsetting parts, and all in all a full film that you'll want to enjoy and endure again and again.
The two writers and the director being male makes it interesting from a rom-com standpoint, more often than not at least one of the creative aspects is more feminine, this instead takes it on itself to be a cynical callous film that is a true romantic at heart, but can't fathom the downers that go along with the ideas of love.
Acting throughout is top notch, it's well edited to keep a solid pace throughout even if we're just re-watching scenes as we think, was it really that good a relationship, but ultimately it feels like it's too short, you want to spend more time with the characters, even if one really does seem to be a bitch by the end of it, it's an immense undertaking to change the rom com structure to fit the sadness, and the film handles it remarkably well.
You owe it to yourself to see it and watch what a true, non-Hollywood manufatured romance, is about.
(10)/10
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