Ethan's Reviews

A thousand nations of the Persian empire descend upon you, our CGI will blot out the plotholes.

2010-05-09T13:58:00.000-07:00

Ah Hollywood.
Books, songs, TV shows, remakes, theme park rides, video games.
When you have an original idea, every 5 years, it can be amazing, but in between we have to sit with this?

Disney's latest attempt to re-capture the Pirates magic sees Jerry Bruckheimer get a classic NES game of Prince Of Persia, and make it a 2 hour sword and sandals flick which, though billed as an epic, isn't because, well, it's not even 2 hours.

The plot, ha, for this film is as follows:
Young orphan kid throws apple he stole at guard whooping a kid, he is adopted by the king, and as the voiceover and title say at the same time, becomes "Title of the movie"
15 years later, adopted prince and two brothers approach a religious city, Ben Kingsley's uncle says attack, they do, and Princess 'beautiful', or bland, meh Gemma Arterton is taken, along with a dagger.
King is murdered, Gyllenhaal is to blame, but he didn't do it, he runs, Princess follows cos he has her dagger, which takes you back to before you miss-timed the jump and landed in painful fucking spikes.
She guards dagger, so she follows him, they have the Moonlighting both hate each other relationship.
Alfred Molina buys slaves, Arterton is traded, but they escape anyway for the sake of more action.
Jake's brothers go on the hunt, Jake puts 2 and 2 together and realises Gandhi ain't good, has to convince brothers.
Some temple attack, one brother dies, invasion of hometown, other brother dies, Kingsley makes Arterton die, they fight and then end up going back to the beginning of the film to stop the film from happening, 98 minutes too late. End.

So, what are we left with at the end of this film?
Well, besides titling it from a video game, it's actually just your generic stupid action chase film, with the idiotic will they won't they love story that no one cares about because no character is close to averagely written, the dialogue painfully cliched, and at no point does it ever try to bring anything new to the table.

The CGI is shoddy, as always, the action incomprehensible between the 500 cuts to another shaky cam image during an action sequence, the premise shaky at best, nothing works in this film except the brilliant Jake Gyllenhaal, who needs a better script to work on.

So, acting, what happened there? Ben Kingsley is wasted, just looking evil and trying his darndest with nothing on his plate, Gemma Arterton, well, why is she cast in anything? A complete bore, poor at acting, not beautiful and especially not interesting.
The brothers, one the addict from Rocknrolla, the other Geoff from Coupling, could have been good, if they had anything to do, Alfred Molina is completely wasted, just trying to make the poor 'jokes' work, all in all a poor group of wasted talents.

So, what are we left with after the sand has fallen? A big pile of generic crap made almost entirely in computers, with a massive budget and nothing to show for it, Prince Of Persia is a dull, lifeless, unambitious action film with nothing anyone will ever gain.
2/10

My Summer Of Loath 2010

2010-04-30T16:37:00.000-07:00

No niceties, let us begin:

Robin Hood
Ridley Scott Directing
Brian Hegeland Writing
Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong, William Hurt, Danny Huston, Scott Grimes, Mark Addy.

12th May
Ah, Ridley Scott. You know, I enjoyed Matchstick Men, Nic Cage was great, Sam Rockwell, well, he's Sam Rockwell, and Alison Lohman was good too. But. Well, American Gangster was alright, too long, of course, but what R. Scott film can't you say that about? Alien, meh, it's ok, Blade Runner, I bore through sometimes, it's not as amazing to me as, say, A Scanner Darkly or even the only good Spielberg flick in Minority Report, and as a sci-fi, it feels flat, tasteless, an amalgamation of ideas better worked out in countless other films. That said, the PC game was awesome.

But once more Ridley goes back in time with Body Of Lies, Gladiator, A Good Year, American Gangster star Russell Crowe to go fightin' round the world once more, this time in the time period of 1100's, in good ol' Nottingham Forest, so, that means Crowe is sportin' a northern accent, pet.

For some reason Cate Blanchett has decided to join in the, ahem, 'fun' as Maid Marian, who in the trailers sports the northern accent in a lower register than any male actor. Perhaps it's an early reinvention of The Crying Game. Well, given that it's Ridley Scott, there'll be lots of battle scenes, and of course extended periods of boredom, closing in at 2 hours 20 minutes for a film about a group of men throwing arrows at the taxman and Sheriff, well, I'd say I'll reserve judgement until I see it, but that'll be in 2012 when it's shown on TV. I don't think my mind can take such extravagant dullness.

Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
21st May
Mike Newell Directing
Boaz Yakin
Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard Writing
Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Ben Kingsley, Alfred Molina

Donnie Darko, you know, the catcher in Brokeback, yeah, he's longened his hair and given himself some abs so he can play a Persian prince. Yeah, no, he's got an English accent because, well, Disney firmly believes that anyone who doesn't speak American must have English accents, it's the only other way an audience can comprehend what the people are saying whilst informing them these characters aren't American and don't believe in the lord almighty Obama or whatever Kool Aide cult is spreading this quarter.

I thought about it, I don't enjoy the trailers, the CGI is too hit and miss, though some shots look fine enough, and, well, it does look boring. As luck would have it, my thoughts of "I wouldn't pay to see this" were examined, and I will review it early, for free, next week, still, look at Gylly, I mean, seriously. What the hell? Good luck Disney, it'll never be another Pirates.

MacGruber
18th June
Jorma Taccone Directing
Will Forte, Jorma Taccone & John Solomon Writing
Will Forte, Kristen Wiig, Ryan Phillippe, Val Kilmer, Maya Rudolph, Powers Boothe, Chris Jericho, Bill Hader

This is more like it.
I'm a Forte adorer, I mean, he took time, but he totally won me over, dry, smiley, weird, hysterical. And Wiig too, the same thing, but now, I'm a Wiigist. Ryan Phillippe? Hells yeah, and what's that, Val Kilmer? Gay Perry? As a man named Dieter von Cunthe? Yeah, sure, Maya Rudolph, Bill Hader, Powers Boothe, they're, you know, nothing special. Except all are totally awesome too. Oh yes, and of course 1/3rd of the Lonely Island, Jorma Taccone is making his feature directorial debut here, he's especially awesome because he's just brilliant in everything he does too.

And it's R-rated? And it's a proper comedy with action and stuff? And it's got more chance to have smart jokes instead of one note pain as most SNL skit-turned-movies have? Count me in, way the fuck in.

Get Him To The Greek
25th June
Nicholas Stoller Writing & Directing
Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Aziz Ansari, P. Diddy.

Remember when Forgetting Sarah Marshall came out? Suddenly there was a good non-Seth Rogen involved Apatow gang movie, don't mean to diss Walk Hard, but, well, it's not good enough next to this behemoth. So, when that film went over like mad, it seemed necessary to have some sort of sequel or spin-off, clearly. And with what turned out to be a non-annoying, in fact genuinely hilarious Russell Brand performance as Aldous Snow, famous lead singer of "Infant Sorrow" the notion of making him a central focus is lovely. Jonah Hill now plays a different character, but is forced to drag Aldous from London to LA, taking in a trip of a lifetime with him.

It's not going to change films as we perceive them, it's not in 3D, it hasn't got extensive CGI or action scenes, it's going to be 2 hours of what clearly the green AND red band trailers communicate as absolutely hysterical moments, an insane P. Diddy and some Aziz Ansari for all us Ansari fans out there, "Play it DJ Roomba!".

I honestly have this right next to MacGruber and 2 others as my ultimate must see films of this whole year. Action is for losers, quality prevails.

Shrek Forever After
2nd July
Mike Mitchell Directing
Josh Klausner and Darren Lemke Writing
Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Jon Hamm, Jane Lynch, Kristen Schaal, Craig Robinson

Yeah. So. There's this. You know. If you hate yourself, your children, your family, your mind, anything you hate, dump 'em here. Go see How To Train Your Dragon, Dreamworks' integrity animation, before an unnecessary sequel done got fuckin' announced.
Edit, turns out the film has changed names to Shrek: The Final Chapter, not the only colon this film is involved with I'm sure.

Knight & Day
14th July
James Mangold Directing
Patrick O'Neill Writing
Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Peter Sarsgaard, Paul Dano, Viola Davis

Oh look, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz are, like, there's a spy or something, she's, what, they say bridesmaid in the trailer. I think he's rogue or something. Yeah, but, they hate each other or like each other, there's guns and romance, I think there's romance, maybe there's no guns. Oh, and none of them are surnamed Knight or Day. Could Day have been Daye? Couldn't it have stuck with Untitled Tom Cruise Comedy? Why does James Mangold hate the cinema audiences?
Don't look to this film for answers, or, in fact, at all.

Inception
16th July
Christopher Nolan Writing & Directing
Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joeseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine

Ok, yeah, The Dark Knight was good, The Prestige amazing, Batman Begins perfect, Memento, I need to re-watch that, I can't remember what happened (Genuine and joke in one fell swoop), I saw Chris Nolan's short "Doodlebug" once, it was only 2 minutes, it was weird, freaky and very funny. I love it when he's off the leash, and I hope this is one of the same. But if it's not, well, the trailers don't really invite us to see what we're dealing with, approach with caution, then enjoy or endure.

Toy Story 3
23rd July
Lee Unkrich Directing
Michael Arndt Writing
Tom Hanks, Time Allen, Joan Cusack, Don Rickles, John Ratzenberger, R. Lee Ermey, Wallace Shawn, michael Keaton, Whoopi Goldberg, Timothy Dalton, Kristen Schal, Jeff Garlin, Richard Kind, Estelle Harris

Look, Pixar, we know you're good. I mean, look at you, you've done great works. But this, alongside, what, Cars 2, Monsters Inc. 2, the cancellation of the genius idea that was Newt. You're going Dreamworks. No sequels, more original ideas, have another lunch chat, make another 15 years of film ideas. Please. Sorry Mr. Unkrich, this, well, the jokes in the trailers are bad, the new characters too many and not enough in the ideas stage, the plot, same old, nothing looks good about this. I'll happily apologise for saying this later, but this could be the biggest fuck up in Pixar history. How To Train Your Dragon for Best Animated Feature Oscar!

The Karate Kid
The A-Team
28th July
Harold Zwart Directing
Christopher Murphey Writing
Jackie Chan, Jayden Smith, Taraji P. Henson

Here's a coin flip. Two 80's giants, one weekend. One a remake of a classic, now the Kung Fu Kid, with Jackie "I'm aging too much to do good films" Chan as Pat Morita, and Will Smith's annoying fucking kid as Ralph Macchio, kid becomes strong kind of dreck. Meh.

Joe Carnahan Directing
Brian Bloom, Michael Brandt and Skip Woods Writing
Liam Neeson, Sharlto Copley, Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson

The other, Joe Carnahan's tale of epic destruction featuring a rag tag trio and a series of guns all loaded with blanks, titled Plane vs Tank, so called due to the trailer abused sequence where the plane is exploded, they parachute out in a tank and The A-Team shoot down a plane with a tank, well. Take the director of Smokin' Aces, let the lead from District 9 do an excellent southern states accent, give Liam Neeson a cigar, get a butch black man to spout lines and find the big named annoying pretty boy of the era, put them together and have 3/4 of the publicity shots be solely featuring the ugly and terrible at anything Jessica Biel, and you have a problem. But then you have the trailer.
I mean.
There's a plane and tank airfight, there's some abseiling down into a window where a rocket blew up to make your entrance, there's crazy shit going down. I'm fucking there. You might want to get in line too. If it's not good, it should be fun enough to be ok.

Cats & Dogs: The Revenge Of Kitty Galore
4th August
Brad Peyton Directing
Ron J. Friedman & Steve Benchich Writing
Alec Baldwin, Michael Clarke Duncan, Joe Pantoliano, Roger Moore, Bette Midler, Jack McBrayer

Why?
Remember the first one?
Exactly, it was cack.
So.
Why?
Who?
3D?
No?
No.
No!
NOOOOooooooo........

Grown Ups
6th August
Dennis Dugan Directing
Adam Sandler & Fred Wolf Writing
Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider, Kevin James, Chris Rock, David Spade, Maria Bello, Slama Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadows

Ok, this is totally rating dependent. It's not an R, alas, which, with Schneider, Sandler and Rock would have been awesome, but if it goes above the PG, it could be good. Kevin James is good in anything, he was the best bit, cos he tried, in Chuck and Larry, and David Spade is funny enough, Joe Dirt is a guilty little silly flick, all 5 are cool, so we have to hope it's funny, but, don't hold your breath.

The Last Airbender
Predators
The Sorcerer's Apprentice
13th August
Here's what Marti DeBergi once famously quoted as a "Shit Sandwich"
M. Night Shyamalan Writing & Directing
Dev Patel, Cliff Curtis, Randall Duk Kim, Dee Bradley Baker

Last Airbender, no Avatar cos Cameron stole the title, is Shyamalan's next film for his kids, Lady In The Water being the other one, which personally I love, I'm a Giamatti whore, yes, but it's the only entertaining and re-watchable film, even if it's cheesy, it's played for cheese pitch perfect, unlike the horrible The Happening.
The trailers looks boring, the graphics half hearted, storyline pure crap, I won't catch it, but it's not aimed for me.

Nimrod Antal Directing
Alex Litvak & Michael Finch Writing
Danny Trejo, Adrien Brody, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Derek Mears

Then there's the Robert Rodriguez produced Predators. Adrien Brody pops into another genre with this sci-fi horror flick full of characters waiting to shoot at, then be ripped apart by, some Predators, in a jungle, whilst they fail to get to da choppa. The footage so far doesn't inspire confidence, but we have to hope it could be just fun enough to get through.

Jon Turtletaub Directing
Doug Miro & Carlo Bernard and Matt Lopez Writing
Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, Monica Bellucci, Alfred Molina
(No Poster Yet)
And finally this week we see Nic Cage as a wizard, and the awesome, funny, brilliant, adorable, lovely, genius Jay Baruchel as the titular Apprentice. This looks bad, I mean, Turtletaub gave us the National Treasure shit, but jeez. I heart Baruchel, he's my man crush, and when Cage is on, he's on, but once more he looks bored, and the CGI? Eugh. Stop with the CGI.

Dinner For Schmucks
The Expendables
Piranha 3D
Salt
20th August
Jay Roach Directing
Andy Borowitz, Ken Daurio, David Guion, Michael Handelman, Danielle Kasen, Cinco Paul, Francis Veber and Jon Vitti Writing
Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Jemaine Clement, Zach Galifianakis, Ron Livingston, Kristen Schaal

Ok. There's something here you know.
But before we get there, lets look at, sigh, Jay Roach's English Language remake of Le Diner De Cons, dinner For Schmucks, which I've dedicated a lot of time in a previous blog entry to.
Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, I love you guys, but, if you have no one to bounce the crazy off of, or are playing a nice guy like Rudd does, it won't work, it's crazy but sweet meets mean but sensible, that's the chemistry, the rapport, the point of the play, the film, the comedy. Making it a haphazard PG-13 summer comedy just ruins the whole point.

Sylvester Stallone Directing
Sylvester Stallone and Dave Callaham Writing
Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Mickey Rourke, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Eric Roberts, Steve Austin, Terry Crewes

Anyway, lets move on to THE MOST AWESOMEST THING NOT JUST THIS SUMMER BUT LIKE EVER EVERER!!!!!!
Stallone. Statham (swoons). Li. Lundergren. Stone Cold. Crewes. Rourke. Willis. Roberts. Schwazenegger.
All of these people pop in to talk about, or actually, kill bad guys, or are bad guys who kill and get killed, as a team of awesome mercenaries, fronted by the effortlessly charismatic Statham and Stallone, lead their guntoting ways to South America to stop a dictator, live for nothing or die walking away from explosions, and jumping like back in the 80's.
Nothing will stop this film from sounding awesome, and one fears it might not come out well, but fuck it, if it doesn't, the trailer rules anyway, and, well, look at the freaking cast!

Alexandre Aja Directing
Alexandre Aja, Josh Stolberg, Pete Goldfiner and Gregory Levasseur Writing
Adam Scott, Elisabeth Shue, Eli Roth, Christopher Lloyd, Ving Rhames, Richard Dreyfuss
(No Poster Yet)
Then there's Piranha 3D, a tits and gore schlock horror full of gore as Alexandre Aja knows best, he's the guy who made The Hills Have Eyes remake and Mirrors. So, we have, in 3D no less, Ving "Zombie killing mother fucker" Rhames, Elizabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Richard Dreyfuss and Christopher "Where we're going, we don't need wetsuits" Lloyd! I mean, come on, the title alone wasn't enough? Now it's on the watch list, no? Hells yeah it is.

Phillip Noyce Directing
Kurt Wimmer and Brian Helgeland Writing
Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Then there's Salt. Chiwetel Ejiofor is in it, and Angelina Jolie isn't bad often, but, well, looks kinda bland. It's a we'll see flick.

Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World
27th August
Edgar Wright Directing
Edgar Wright & Michael Bacall Writing
Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Chris Evans, Anna Kendrick, Brandon Routh, Alison Pill, Jason Schwartzman, Mae Whitman, Aubrey Plaza

Edgar Wright makes a comic book movie, with Chris Evans, Mae Whitman, Annhogg from Arrested Development, Anna Kendrick, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Brandon Routh and Jason Schwartzmen among a slew of talented actors in what looks to be Wright fully loaded, the right budget, the right visual style, completely kinetic, engaging, fucking balls out insane, fun and entertaining, this will be THE PG-13 action film of the summer, A-Team can't get close to Mikey Cera fighting Superman and Johnny Storm.

The Other Guys
1st September
Adam McKay Directing
Adam McKay & Chris Hnechy Writing
Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson, Eva Mendes, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan

Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson. A comedy about 2 detectives who aren't the top of their league, the ones who do paperwork, not stunts.
Like Cop Out, only it's guaranteed to be hysterical, comedy pedigree meets insane action.

iRon Mayan Too

2010-04-29T13:59:00.000-07:00

And so summer begins, not with a bang, but with a whimper, in the sequel to the ridiculously big hit film Iron Man, which re-energised an already awesome Robert Downey Jr. with star appeal like no other and brought a fantastic, wealthy with character, quirk and intrigue Marvel hero, and his power suit, to the masses.

Unfortunately the film was rather boring, in between the moments where Downey got to be Downey, mostly lots of ad-libbed parts, it was a poor attempt at an origin story where the pacing was off, most of the characters were 1 dimensional at best, and the villain had less screen-time than a SHIELD agent who doesn't even do anything in any of these films, 4 hours of fuck all.

And somehow in the second part we have even less of a villain than Jeff Bridges, between the underused but brilliant Sam Rockwell as charismatic business rival Justin Hammer and Mickey Rourke's barely Russian Whiplash, who spends most of his time locked away looking at Rockwell, growling, then getting back to work, only to escape at the end for no reason other than to have another villain in a power suit fight. Yawn.

It isn't helped that Tony's second act motivations are SHIELD agent Clark Gregg is housesitting him as he has to find a power alternative or something his father will lead him to, his father who is dead from the smoking and whiskey consumption from his time on Mad Men, and Sam Jackson spends 5 minutes sitting around doing fuck all.

In fact, the only person who does anything in this film seems to be Jon Favreau. For some reason the director's small part in Iron Man became his best friend role in the sequel, Terrence Howard passed, Don Cheadle accepted, so he does nothing once more, clearly Favreau wanted Downey to have a buddy, so he decided "Hey, I act, why not" And let me tell you Mr. Favreau, there's about 5 million reasons why not, most of them end with "Cos you're a fucking shitty actor" sir.
For no reason he has not one, not two but three moments where he oogles at Scarlett Johanson, whose sole purpose in this film is to walk around busty and kick a few people. Great character motivation, did you workshop that when you were watching her undress Jon?

So, the rest, well, Paltrow is promoted, but her relationship with Tony is as two people who talk slightly, until a kiss at the end, there's no chemistry, there's nothing in fact, it's just two unlikeable people talking, and yes, Downey is unlikeable, dull, fast talking about nothing, useless in this. For a film about him, it doesn't focus much on him, has 5 strands to follow that are inconsequential, uninteresting and ultimately are forgotten when the CGI hits out.

The film would have worked better had it stopped being a Marvel advertises Captain America, The Avengers and Thor film (A painful Captain America shield cameo used as a gag), and became a film about Sam Rockwell and Downey Jr. as business rivals, leaving the metal on metal yawnfest for another film. A smart, Wall Street meets Changing Lanes, only funnier and lighter kind of film would have worked infinitely better than this mish mash from execs of what looks cool, where the characters should be, which, by the way, most of them act like the plot dictates, not as humans, and eventually the stupid 10 minute action fest that is as uninventive as it is undeserving.

Once again the CGI is average at best, metal looks plasticy, the disembodied faces of Cheadle, Downey and Rourke are weird, a moment were Rourke, as a cool guy, doesn't look as he walks from an explosion on the Monaco grand prix has two cars explode behind him, or, rather, him on a chroma keyed moment, where the cars are about 10 times his size, or closer than him, either way, physics lost that battle. Why oh why can't special effects look anywhere near as good as it did 10 years ago, when the characters become suits, it's painfully obvious it's not even close to practical, hell, the materials don't even reflect or react like they're in the same environment as the backdrop.

So, what's the basic premise? Well, Rourke's father was betrayed by Tony's father, and so the hatred runs through this child's life, in Moscow, so much so that the arc reactor template he design with Stark senior is implemented to fight Stark, once on the radar Rockwell buys his work so that at the Stark Expo, or weapons-fest New York, he can come in and prove that he's better than Tony. At a congressional hearing, by C-Span, whose graphics are on the CINEMA SCREEN for well over 2/3rds of the 10 minute scene, Gary Shandling quizzes the weaponry basis of Iron Man, and Stark embarrasses all nations and Hammer by showing he's the best.

And so, 2 hours later, there's a fight.

Oh yeah, and in the middle people talk and stuff, about nothing, building to nothing.
Can I say fuck more?

So, yeah, it's 2 hours with an Easter Egg about Thor's hammer in a crater in New Mexico at the end, not worth staying for, if, that is, you actually bothered buying a ticket for this dreck in the first place.

For a film so pent up on ADD craziness and had a mellow, joyful, if not at all memorable predecessor, it seems to want to be serious after some painful 'comic' moments, and the stupid robot arm things again, even JARVIS is only used to explain the plot, as most things are said 3-4 times so the kids watching, watching a PG-13, 13!, film can understand the intricate details of this bullshit.

You know, one thing that bugged me, in Minority Report they had screens to work with when using the touch screen flashy computer things, in Iron Man 2 Tony has the stuff projected around his workshop, projected on nothing, how does the image know when to stop? Someone? Anyone? Unobtanium?

Anyway, I divert back to my original point, I went in with really low expectations and hated it, this is Wolverine bad.
2/10 (Purely because Sam Rockwell and that swinging thing were entertaining to watch) ((That swinging thing isn't a way of saying Jon Favreau's belly))

Dear Shawn Levy, Why?

2010-04-19T12:55:00.000-07:00

Alright, let me preface this with these facts:
Besides the Night At The Museum sequel, Shawn Levy is pure hack, and even then he did nothing special, he just had a better script than usual and a capable group of actors doing a sturdier job than in the original.
This was a free ticket.
This free ticket was for March 30th, but was pushed back 19 days because, well...
Because Date Night, starring Steve Carell as Steve Carell and Tina Fey as Tina Fey, with no straight character to bounce their insane overused and dull characteristics off of, is a big pile of shit. I mean, this is stuff that you don't just leave as soon as you smell, you call the government, have it closed down, rinsed out, checked for biological weaponry and then demolish and leave a gaping hole where the bathroom was once situated to avoid a further outbreak of shit.
There are a few things I never do in a cinema. Have my phone on and constantly check the time. Walk out of a film before the credits. Make noise by rustling food and fidgeting in my chair.

I try to, at the very least, make the experience pleasurable enough for the audience even if I hate it, I'll do my best not to ruin anyone else's time.
I broke these rules. By minute 15 I had turned on my phone, wondering why we hadn't seen a reel change yet, it felt like 30 minutes in. I then decided to give it 30 mins, which I pussied out on and gave it 1 hour, perfectly after James Franco, Mila Kunis and Mark Ruffalo were wasted on the film, Mark Wahlberg appeared, and I'm guessing comes back by the end because he's obviously a spy and is in the centre of the film's "comical" mistaken identity issue, only raised when the two loving married people break from their schedules, nice message, stuck in a rut? Better than doing something different each night and then getting in "hysterical" (Read shit, cheap, easy" situations and having guns aimed at you, without reacting like it's an uncommon thing.

I can't bare to even talk much about this dreck, I mean, there's talent here, not in the script or on the director's chair making lots of money for his hack self, but the cast is amazing, I mean, Taraji P. Henson, Common, Fichtner, Liotta! Why the fuck are they in this mess? Sure, there's some 'phat' cash, but jesus, have some fucking respect.
This is the reason I hate cinema, this kind of thing comes out constantly, is never good, NEVER good, wastes talent, time, money, and makes lots of money cos idiots love this shit. Why can't Hollywood go and die? Seriously, Fox, who when I saw their logo before it, was already raring to get to the door, is producing nothing but shit, rarely has, but there are gems, people loved Fight Club, and the Alien and Aliens flicks, why can't they be a bit more daring. Why can't any studio be more daring? Sure there's been a recession, but just because you're afraid to make something different and possibly challenging to an audience, don't pussy out and jump to the easy cash, dar to dream you cunts, dare to fucking dream.

This film is the nail in the coffin that makes me question cinema nowadays, it's safe to say I'm ready to turn my back on the art until we see some improvement in the constant quantity vastly larger than quality issue.
Go suck a fuck Hollywood.

Oh yeah, there was a film involved.
1/10

England's Worst Kept Secret

2010-04-14T06:41:00.000-07:00

Earlier this morning I found myself awake in the wee hours, not sure if it was an attempt at excitement for the coming events, the early night preceding it or the sudden need for my mind to piss off my body and not let me get back to sleep, instead get up and sit through the worst Glee yet (See the TV blog).
But in the dying hours before my planned screening of Gervais and Merchant's film debut together, Cemetery Junction, I indulged in the Chris Martin, Ronnie Corbett Extras episode then realised, I hadn't seen The Office since we got the DVDs in, what, 2004, and before then only when they had first aired. So off I shot to my brother's room, he may have moved out, but his few DVDs retain close at hand, and I threw them in.

Yep, a few years in between and they still make you laugh, but it's the dramatic elements, the narratives cleverly underplayed in order to create real people on screen that Merch-Vais, as no one will ever call them, have done time and time again to such aplomb. Who'd have thought when Extras first aired, out of order, with Gervais' Andy Millman going up to a man who has seen such awful atrocities and trying to convince him to get a speaking role for M&S vouchers, that by the finale we loved this guy, we'd seen his highs and lows, mainly lows, but it wasn't the situations but the character that came out of it that we cared about, the detail in writing and performing is exquisite.

And yet, when it comes to secondary characters, they always have problems, sure they may know all the info on that other rival actor Millman faces, but they don't tell us anything, he's just there to annoy Andy three times a series and the bugger off, and yes, it's not like unnecessary explanations would fit the piece, but the way that it just feels they know the character, but don't care for them, the lack of heart and soul, which is worrying.
Case in point, Ewan MacIntosh's Keith from Accounting, the one who eats Scotch Eggs whilst being so dull in his Peak Practice conversations you want to kill yourself, he's also the DJ, I'm sure there's something there, but in the American Office the same character, now Kevin, is never given much plot lines, barely screen time often, but he's there, he has funny lines, and it feels like he's real enough to care about, and we can connect with him, as opposed to just being there. Sure they've had, what, a further 100 episodes to do this with, but come the second season, when they ditched the UK's plot and went freeform, they knew that these secondary characters needed to come out from hiding and become characters in their own right, not just entities formed to allow interaction to the main characters.

And as we now look to today's feature presentation of Cemetery Junction, I feel this is one of the key issues holding this film back.

A film set in the titular area, a place in Reading that the characters call horrible, slummish, and yet the beautiful cinematography makes it seem so lovely, calm, almost a holiday retreat, just with more factory workers.
The premise is these three young men in the summer of '73 finally coming of age, their lives, their loves, the choices they have to make, where to work, where to go, if they can ever, as is mentioned the whole way through, actually leave the almost prison-like Junction, to them at least, we see it through such a warm summer's glow, I swear I felt warmer in the cinema than when I left, and they had the AC on.
But, I digress, we have our three main characters, Freddie, a young, effortlessly charming man who finds his way into Ralph Fiennes' insurance salesman's office and scores a job, working under Matthew Goode (Who is genuinely good in this), and is embraced for trying to escape the Junction as Fiennes' character did before him, and he has no kind words for the place either.
Freddie's sole reason for the job is to avoid his father's (Gervais) place in the world, bare minimum, resigned to suffering for the family that abuse him anyway, and his only goals are house, marriage, kids, nothing amazing.
Then there's Snork, the chubby funny character, who is unlucky in love, and in anything, telling wonderfully dull anecdotes on bread, and having no idea that a punch-line with the word 'cunt' in it at a professional insurance ball isn't the best idea. Besides being a tad generic, he's sweet enough to get by and rather funny too.
Finally Bruce, angry as all hell, always getting into fights, shouting at his lazy father for never sticking up for his wife when she left him, solely getting out of jail because his father's friend is the chief, he's egotistical, scheming and endearing, presented as the kind of friend who does give a fuck, even if at times he gives too much, and the scenes with him and his father, masterful.

There's also Julie, Fred's old friend, conveniently Fiennes' daughter, fiance to Goode's character, all round off limits in anything but friendship, the kind of free spirited character who convinces him to change, to live life, yadda yadda yadda.
And, perhaps most interesting of all, Emily Watson as Fiennes' put upon wife, a woman who doesn't get noticed by anyone, gets no respect, and just suffers it, of course conveniently for the film she, like everyone else, changes on a dime for plot purposes, but for the most part she wonderfully underplays to perfection what could have been an overly sentimental role.

The film looks amazing, the music is, well, I'm gonna hunt down the score for sure, for it's runtime I was never bored, though a Merchant cameo was rather unnecessary, since it aimed a bit too broad for it's own good, but besides that, Cemetery Junction is a wonderful film, a coming of age in the dead are of England film that shows An Education how you do it without being, well, boring.

I suggest you go and see it, yes the trailer never seems to give much, but it's that which is most inviting, once you get inside the film, by the fifteenth minute, you're in for a magnificent little treat full of great ideas and dialogue, interesting characters, alongside some shoddier ones, some really powerful beats and some hysterically funny moments, it's well worth your time, and I for one will be catching it again happily.
9/10

Movies For Schmucks

2010-04-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

Ever since the wonderful BBC2 aired the French flick "Le Diner De Cons" (The Idiot Dinner) one day between 2001 and 2003, can't remember exactly, but it was late at night and me and my brother watched it during our late night foreign film binge, which was just that and the brilliantly nasty Das Experiment, We saw what remains to this day a fast, hysterical and brilliant film which was a character study of an immoral businessman who loses his wife over the idea of making fun on geeks, whilst the titular 'idiot' ends up looking after the man, who does his back in practicing golf swings for his next game with his bosses, and ends up being the really nice and sweet person as to try and help think of how to get his wife back.

It's brilliant and I suggest you pick it up, don't rent, give it your money because if you don't laugh once during it, you have no soul.

And yet when news of the American remake came about, the only worry I had was the title, Dinner For Schmucks, too obvious.
When they had Sacha Baron Cohen in the lead idiot role I was happy, he'd have done it well, I could imagine it, though from fat short man to ridiculously thin and tall would have been weird, it's the perfect remake idea, the complete opposite.
But now we have the final finished production, with Steve "YELLING ALL THE TIME" Carell as the idiot, and Paul "Sarcasm only works when you're the straight man not aiming for the funny all the time" Rudd as the sweet man who is FRCED to get an idiot, not willingly, just for a promotion...
Oh, and as you can see from the trailer, the meeting on the train becomes Paul running over Steve, and they actually end up at the dinner too, instead of it being clearly a theatre production turned into a hysterical film, it's just a mindless, soulless, humourless and offensiveless PG-13 slapstick event.

Sigh, I fucking hate Hollywood.
I believe Richard Kelly wrote it best in Southland Tales. "Just because it's loud doesn't mean it's funny"

Clash Of The Shite-ans

2010-04-02T06:44:00.000-07:00

Crass title aside, what can you really say about this much hyped, postponed for supposedly terrible 3Difying 'epic' starring robo-Worthington from Terminator 4 and Avatar, already a shite resume, and directed by Louis Leterrier (The Incredible Hulk, Transporter 2)?
Well, for one, it's 105 minutes long and has a plot that Percy Jackson did better with actual human characters, meaning development, emotion, engaging with the audience, oh, and, well, the modern setting helped add a bit of fresh life to the dying mythical epic breed.

Given 300's success in '07, it's not surprising to see Warner and Legendary Pictures once again shameless traverse the swords and sandals genre, in this case a remake of the 80's flick, which, cos it's an 80's flick, I've avoided like the plague. However, of course, the film 'subtly', and by that I mean shamelessly, reminisces on the original by having Worthington lift the mechanical owl out of a container, enquire about it, then put it back. Why? Because, like 30 Rock before it, this is humour and self-referential genius to these people.

Ok, I hate Worthington, but I was ready to let him warm the cockles of my awesome muscle given the credentials of the director, and the fact that Liam Neeson, Danny (One line) Huston and Ralph (I pronounce it Krah-Kin) Fiennes are gods in it, but the fact that we are offered comic relief characters for no reason, painful dialogue, and lots of it, 3-4 action scene with abhorrent CGI, like half rendered crap, and the editing and directing style of someone having a seizure (No offense, but lets face it, big budget movies CAN afford a fucking tri-pod, and shaky cam isn't realistic, it's annoying, I paid my money, I want to see everything, clearly, with the only camera movements being akin to a ballet with the characters)

It's an overlong short action film that bores the senses and abuses the audience with shoddy attempts at action, a plot so mind-numbing it's impossible to enjoy, and any good actor, Huston, Pete Postelthwaite, are killed off early or ignored in any scene whatsoever.

A completely useless film we've seen time and time again, better before too. Avoid. Avoid like it's The Jonas Brothers.
1/10

How To Know When To See A Dreamworks Animation

2010-03-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

Of late animated films have been, well...
Monsters vs Aliens was a terrible attempt at a comedy action with no character development, limited plot, lots of emphasis on poop gags, a 4 minute Axel F. dance and nothing else sans great 3D.

It's nice that Pixar still cares about their output, but, well, the more I see of the Toy Story 3 trailers the more I worry, the poop gags, dumb intermissions, such as the Barbie/Ken love moment in the latest trailer, mentioning eBay brings the fears that more pop culture references will seep in, something that has been kept at bay at Pixar because, akin to Dreamworks' finest film, Kung Fu Panda, they date the movie, are too easy and don't add to the characters, plot or anything, except making a child chuckle in a hollow manner.

This year sees Dreamworks bring out another, thankfully final, Shrek film, which have stunk since they began. I was 11 when I saw Shrek, and I knew it sucked, same way I knew Finding Nemo, not a good film. And alongside that Mastermind, the dumbed down title of 'Oobermind' with Will Ferrel in place of Robert Downey Junior. So, we have a sequel to a pop culture heavy franchise full of big named stars, at the time, and a new comedy animation full of big named stars.

And before we have them, we have How To Train Your Dragon. Based on a book. Biggest names being Jonah Hill (side character), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (side character), Gerard Butler (strong father figure) and America Ferrerra (romantic lead).
And in the lead, none other than the man who owns my funny bone and tickles it consistently with great force, the hysterical, the nerdy awesome Jay Baruchel (From the likes of Tropic Thunder, Knocked Up and Almost Famous).

So, set in a Viking village on the shores, where dragon attacks are frequent, our hero Hiccup, a weedy teenager, is struggling to live up to his strong, mighty father Stoic's reputation, stuck as an apprentice for weapon maker Gobber (Craig Ferguson, who I think is a talk show host in America, from what others say), and Hiccup's feeble attempts at slaying dragons make him mechanically minded.

So, plonk the same premise as Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs and about 17,000 films, shows, books into a Viking setting and then focus on the characters, that's what happened here. We know each step of the story well, but that's not a bad thing, we, like the writers, focus more on the details, the lavish sets, amazing shots of flying dragons, breathtaking in fact. The great character building and wonderful jokes that stem from that.
This film is truly fantastic.
And when it gets going, with the titular dragon 'Toothless', whom Hiccup hits with his mechanised net thrower, then forms a bond with, leading to the understanding that all dragons are just defending themselves against the humans, fearful of the big dragon queen.

This film could have descended into random action and easy get outs for all the tough situations the characters find themselves, but thankfully it's an imaginative, well conceived film, and the heart of the story, the friendship that forms between Toothless and Hiccup, is riveting, the best animation you can think of, the silent dragon making animal noises, using his eyes and body language to express his feeling, sumptuous, perfect.

It's about as good a film as you're gonna get this year, and I'm pulling for this one to win the Oscar, I honestly don't think any animated film this year can or will top it.

10/10

Call the Police, I was sold something that wasn't true.

2010-03-18T15:50:00.000-07:00

So, here we are, over 6 months after Movie-Con introduced us to a series of perfect clips of upcoming so good it can't be bad superhero caper Kick Ass, with a Q&A by the editor, Jason Flemying and Christopher Mintz-Plasse. Now, the finished film is ready to be released, posters everywhere, infinite amount of trailers, and review of positive adoration from the most stern of critics.

So why didn't I enjoy it?

Well, it doesn't help that the ridiculously oversaturated market it's launching itself into has seen all the key moments in numerous trailers posted everywhere, there seems to be a new one every day, add to that the key shocks and jokes, including all of the Hit Girl character, are so well encompassed into a trailer that by the time their first 2 minutes in the film are up, it's all over, that's it, nothing new, nothing more, no character development, just one joke characters, an 11 year old girl who swears and kills, a psychotic father that makes her do that stuff, a comic book geek who turns vigilante, and a mob boss' son who wants in on the violence.

That's all the characters that are close to, ahem, memorable, and as many reviews claimed the characters iconic, the film perfect, I think, someone's been given too much money by universal here.

So, we begin the film as we already know, man on roof, narration about trying to be a superhero, guy jumps, people watch, smashes into a car.
So far, so already overused.
On top of that, the wonderfully iconic Superman theme used as a temp track for Comic and Movie Con clip showings is now gone, something less is in place, no invoking great memories, a real loss, and we go into our lead's school life, nerd who wanks a lot, reads comics, does school work, no luck in love, yawn. Unfortunately, it's not changing into a new direction, like, at all.
Add to that we then have Mark Strong's mob boss, annoyed by 'Batman' figure killing men, he gets angry, tries to work out what's going on. Oh, and his son is a comic book geek and wants in on the family business.
And then there's Big Daddy and Hit Girl, father daughter killing tea, literally nothing to be said here, that's all there is.

So the rise to fame through youtube, and an obsession with the amount of myspace friends, yes, myspace, that Kick Ass has. (All internet chat seems to be done through myspace in this world.)

So, Kick Ass is now looked upon as a hero, more guys die, Boss' son pretends to be a hero to get closer to Kick Ass, it works, then they capture Big Daddy and Kick Ass, Hit Girl kills them all, then big fights ensue.

Aaaaaand that's about it, oh yeah, guy gets girl bs too.

So, the film, whilst it certainly looks good, and stylistically it's wonderful, the 2 hour run time is sapping, and between a series of poorly conceived, uninteresting characters we bounce around between a realistic kid with hopes story to a mayhem filled Hit Girl, Big Daddy schtick. And the writing is piss poor. Like, real bad. If they looked at the script now, the writers should have kicked themselves, cheap easy gags, already severely dated pop culture references and quick dialogue that if I didn't already know things such as the nerve endings of Kick Ass get severed in a car crash, the writing would have confused me with it barely being explained, short of, punch me, see, no pain.

The music is dull, the action scenes are unmistakably bland (I was watching some scenes thinking, I loved this moment in Wanted, when it looked good) and the acting is ok at best. Nic Cage doesn't get back to Adaptation quirky good, he bores through it, Aaron Johnson is dull, Chloe Moretz is nothing special, she's been better and clearly tries too hard here, Mark Strong is a good bad guy, but he has nothing to do, Chris Plasse for the first time really annoyed me, he just wasn't good or entertaining, or watchable.

Nope, nothing here.

Oh yeah, now the spoilers to come.

Like, real spoilers over some key ending moments.

No, seriously, look away now, a picture involved too.

You've been warned.

Fine.

So, the Kick Ass unmasked fight scene, with the 5 minutes of strobe lighting, oh god, painful on the eyes, it's enough the film wasn't good, but to fuck our eyes like that? Bad move. And then they burn Nic Cage alive, I was so tempted to scream "MURDER! This Is murder, you'll all be arrested. Killing me won't bring back your goddamn honey!" But, I refrained.

So, when was a film about a kid with no powers who becomes a poor vigilante get so up it's own arse as to forgo how shitty a vigilante he is that he's embraced for being beaten up by a duo of murderers, who then let him take control of a MOTHER FUCKING JETPACK, with fucking gattling guns?
No, sorry. At this point if I wasn't with my friend (Who loved it) I would have genuinely walked out. There's one thing to be kooky and over the top for humour, but to put such emphasis in trying, oh and failing, to make the characters 3D, real and likable, why then do something so outrageous that it destroys all you've attempted to work to?

And the Prodigy music, so overused.

Here's a picture to sum it all up (From a trailer of it no less):

AAAAAND, welcome back.

So, overall, Matthew Vaughn follows up the remarkable Stardust with the appalling, Hancock-esque Kick Ass, that fails to do everything Hancock kinda succeeded at, including making a hero be a youtube phenomenon.
2/10

Fun With Dick & Jim

2010-03-17T08:47:00.000-07:00

Jim Carrey. God. Jim Carrey. Morgan Freeman, Jim Carrey man.
Christ, Jim Carrey. Jim Caviezel, Jim Carrey.

Oh, yeah, Ewan McGregor, he's in this one too.

But don't let that put you off.

Nor the vulgar language, the rather silly premise, the odd moments where comedy leaves for more character development, emotional connections, or just comedy leaves to bring a cringe before comedy resurges in genius.

By the time I Love You Phillip Morris was on it's second reel, I didn't care how bad the film would get, the first 20 minutes were fantastic, but they were on a roll and continued.

For a film I've read about for years, waited patiently, watched the trailer, unsure of the tone, finally seeing the whole piece, about a cop turned con-man to pay for his recent coming out of the closet relationships, and eventually landing himself in prison, meeting the love of his life and grifting his way to pay for the good life, I was amazed at how consistent the comedy came, be it slapstick, wit, good use of swearing, mixed with a fast paced plot, with lots of key moments, and some rather dark elements coming forth, including a sequence involving an AIDS related death.

The film is just laugh out loud, and if you're not doing that by the time we see Carrey leap off a building, aiming for a dumpster, and the camera looks over, his body already slammed on the concrete next to it, well, there's no hope for you.

Unlike A Prophet, this isn't the generic prison kind of film, sure it'd be hard to be a comedy drama with heavy issues dealt with, but it doesn't jump for cliche, it uses and plays with it for our amusement.
One wonderful prison sequence has the couple dancing to music played in the cell next door, when all we hear are guards beating the man next door, vulgarities and the music, slightly. The contrast is hysterical and intersting, one of those gem moments that keep a film in the mind.

A fantastic, painfully hysterical film that will probably only be watched because it's advertised like a Jim Carrey movie meets Fantastic Mr. Fox (Judging by the poster).
9/10

The Girl With The Møøse Tattøø

2010-03-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

So, another year, another Swedish flick with solid 5 star reviews from absolutely everyone.
Last year there was Let The Right One In, which saw the vampire love story of Twilight get slightly more violent, and give it to pre-pubescent kids, but ultimately, it was the same old crap with subtitles, and thus everyone seemed to adore it.
It's not a theory I'd subscribe to, until I saw A Prophet, and once again, same shit, different language, amazing reviews.

So, leave it to me to realise I should flat out avoid foreign cinema until new films get released, not freshly made, fresh in ideas, as is the problem with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a two and a half hour journey of an investigation into a disappearance in an incestuous village of rich bastards by a disgraced journalist who brings along a hacker.

Long story short (If only they did that with the film) girl is psycho, only explained in poorly placed flashback of the unnecessary titular character, raped by parole officer, which leads to nothing in terms of plot, or actually character, fights back, goes to work on the case, helps discover the murderer, journalist who she stalks does most of the leg work, gets no character, everything is one dimensional and uninvolved, with the most desperate plot twists and unmistakably cliched 'accident' moments to add compelling drama and tension, which fails constantly.

Yes, I saw the annoying American dubbed version, the subtitled one was already 50 minutes in when I rushed to the cinema, but it doesn't stop the film from being awful, no new ideas, no interesting moments, completely forgettable, but some nice cinematography.

4/10

The Weary Blind Side

2010-03-07T15:26:00.000-08:00

Sandra Bullock, she's one of them rom com actors who does absolutely nothing except those once in a while attempts at doing a dramatic role.

Unfortunately side by side with The Proposal (meh) and All About Steve (Razzie Winning role) The Blind Side is giving Bullock her Oscar win, so it seems. So, what's it about? A young tall fat black kid who lives on the sofa of a friend gets adopted by a rich white family in the South, he learns education, becomes a great football player, in American football, and makes money. And at no point does it feel like we should care, be interested in or want this to happen.

This is, no bones about it, an appalling film. It tries to be a Lifetime movie, tears and urban moments, and it's dull, it tries to be a sports comedy, complete with comic talking kid who you want to die early on. It never ever succeeds in being anything but a shoddy piece of cinema begging for an Oscar. Sample line of dialogue that GENUINELY APPEARED:
"Wow, so you're changing this boy's life."
"No, he's changing mine."
Oh wow. This is spoof Oscar movie trailer stuff, the kind on youtube taking the piss out of these films.

And since it's set around 2003,2004 it begs the question Why are there flat screen computer monitors in EVERY classroom, and everywhere? Really? It's a few years too early.

The acting is awful, the film is long, boring, unnecessary, it's an all round appalling film only given Oscar nods because it fellates the Academy in such a white guilt way that Precious did better. Avoid avoid avoid.
1/10

The Obligatory "Oscar Who?" Piece

2010-03-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm an Oscar Grouch, I'm green, fuzzy, live in a bin and hate awards that suck the life out of GOOD film by celebrating $500 million CGI messes. But I have to, we all do, sigh:

Best Picture: The Hurt Locker
Best Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Best Actor: Jeff Bridges
Best Actress: Sandra Bullock
Best Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz
Best Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique
Best Original Screenplay: Inglourious Basterds
Best Adapted Screenplay: Up In The Air
Best Animated Feature: Up
Best Animated Short: Wallace & Gromit in A Matter Of Loaf And Death
Best Documentary Feature: The Cove
Best Cinematography: Inglourious Basterds
Best Original Score: Michael Giacchino - Up
Best Editing: The Hurt Locker
Best Art Direction: Avatar
Best Costume Design: Bright Star
Best Make-Up: Star Trek
Best Original Song: The Weary Kind
Best Sound Mixing: Avatar
Best Sound Editing: Avatar
Best Visual Effects: Avatar
Best Foreign Language Film: A Prophet
Best Documentary Short: The Last Truck: Closing Of A GM Plant
Best Short Film, Live Action: The Door

I'm crazy? You're crazy, this whole damn court is crazy!

2010-03-02T12:10:00.000-08:00

George A. Romero has given the world the essential horror guide to decomposing corpses shifting and eating humans as survivors scramble through a day, night, dawn, land, diary and survival, but in his side projects he's now got a good sideline in getting money off remakes of these films.

Whilst we'll ignore Day Of The Dead's remake, some sort of direct-to-dvd farce, there's no doubt that Dawn Of The Dead was a surprising remake in that it as entertaining, good, well made. Ok, yes, people seem to adore the original, I get that, it's a solid film, not a personal fave, but it's good. I personally found the modern edition that bit better, it was suitably paced for my modern fast lifestyle (In which I do nothing, quickly), was full of great humour, scares, well placed character moments, music, thanks, in part, of course to James Gunn on writing duties, who redeemed his Scooby Doo work with SLiTHER.

So now they grab a more obscure Romero work, THe Crazies, and bring it to a new audience. After Dawn's success you'd think it would be a hastily put together trashy edition featuring uncaring teens being slaughtered, but Michael Bay produced this is not.

No, shocking as it may be, this film is well done. It has character development, you can actually care about the leads, they seem nice not annoying, it's not obsessed with the 'deaths', instead it's obsessed with the survival. We begin with a glimpse of two days later in Ogden Marsh, burning, trashed, empty.

Then we backtrack, a wonderful day, sun is shining and Sheriff Timothy Olyphant is going to the school baseball game, when farmer and gun appear, is he drunk? No, he can't be, he's been off the wagon for 2 years now. So why is he staying statue before raising and aiming the gun squarely at Sheriff Timothy Olyphant's head? Who knows. Well, the gummimint must do, cos by the next night it's time to be taken away in an aggressive manner by people who seem to know what they are doing, but are actually incompetent young soldiers, odd that they can do a good job one day, then look as amateur as possible the next.

The character change issues also affect deputy Sheriff Deadmeat Ridealong, who suddenly becomes a violent paranoid man after being such a cool, down to earth friend for the first hour of the film, it makes no sense, even if he's 'infected' it doesn't mean he'd turn on a dime, and it's not a slow twist. It's just stupid.

But I digress, the film shouldn't be looked at as a sad waste, because it's not. Not one bit. It's a rare film that doesn't spring for loud noises and jumping scares for the audience to get riled up, in being more thriller with horror elements, it's subtle and understated, moments can be slow and building, like a pitchfork and women tied up, or just creepy, a pan across a room, woman in focus, 'Crazy' blurry in the corner, no BANG to emphasise, just the wonderful image.

This is probably why we see, for the first time in 2 years, the Paramount Vantage logo at the start, no studio would want to have it solely affiliated with their studio logo for fear people would watch it and realise, wait a second, good horror isn't about as much gore and tits and jump scares you can fit into 75 minutes of annoying teens, no, it's about interesting characters in horrible situations and how they try to fend for themselves. And The Crazies does this to a T.

Enthralling, tense, well made, well acted, dark, good elements of humour that don't interfere with the horror moments.
It's everything a good dark horror thriler should be, and a shame that no other film this year in this vein could do such a job.

Also of note, Olyphant can't get away from those lowered floor corridor fight scenes, between Hitman and this it's becoming his trademark, where was it in Die Hard 4.0 and, most importantly, Catch & Release? I know Kevin Smith wouldn't have fit into the corridor, but it coulda been funny.

Still, The Crazies might sadly be ignored for shitter films, you should take it upon yourself to catch this cracking flick in the cinema, well worth it.
9/10

Generic Name & The Overlong Stupidly Named Incident That Sounds Awful

2010-02-23T15:32:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter imitators return once more in the guise of Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief, from no less than Chris Columbus himself.

However, whilst Harry Potter had shit actors and an overlong runtime, this compresses a silly idea down enough and layers it on with a stellar cast:
Leading the pack is Logan Lerman, now officially breaking out from his small roles in such films as The Number 23, 3:10 To Yuma, Gamer, and his biggest role in the under-appreciated Meet Bill. Here he's a smart-arse teen who gets wrapped up in a silly plot about Grecian gods and Zeus' lightning bolt, but he continues his calm, cool, charismatic ways that's been slowly growing for years. I'm a fan of this kid, and it's nice to see such a big role hasn't stopped him doing what he does best. I honestly hope he does get the Spider-man role, he'll do wonders.

Catherine Keener is his mother, another stint of matriarchal work from the ever beautiful, excellent Keener. Who cares what her role is, it's Keener, and she has some screen-time, enough for me not to get sucked in to the others as well.
And who could play the step-dad scumbag but Joey Pants. the awesome Joe Pantoliano, why would he be in this film? Who knows, but why ask when you can enjoy him in his too short, but good work in this film.

Then there's Alpa Chino himself, Brandon T. Jackson as Percy's best friend and goat footed protector, proving he's still funny without being surrounded by some great comic talent, he knocks it out the park in being entertaining to watch, even if he gets too little time to be really fun, but that's the tonal problem of this film.
Then there's Sean Bean as Zeus, small role, silly really, but it's Sean Bean as Zeus, 'nuff said. Pierce Brosnan is either wheelchair bound or a centaur when we see him, having fun in a silly Obi Wan role, he does little, but it's wild man beard Brosnan with horse body.
Hades is portrayed by a very Russell Brand looking Steve Coogan, who has no where near enough time, and seems to be making a career in small roles in kids films. Wonder when he'll sell Partridge and the Calf family to kids, maybe this Partridge film will be an animated feature set in a CGI 3D Norwich.
Hades has his own Persephone with the ever gorgeous Rosario Dawson, who appears and straight away touches up Brandon T. Jackson, who resists! Which takes you right out of the movie. It's Rosario Dawson, even though it's not, anyone who looks like Rosario Dawson, you don't shrug away. Honestly.

Oh yeah, and Uma Thurman hams it up well as Medusa, light and fun in her scene, wonder if she'll be back in the sequel...

So, that's the cast, one hell of a cast. And it's a shame that such an amazing group of talents can't help a film that takes itself far too seriously, in this case, I was hoping that they'd play along but in a light, sarcastic, cynical nature that the opening 15 minutes contained in full force, it had elements where it was trying to be serious, but also alluded to the idea that perhaps it's too silly to be really serious in all nature, but then the next hour and a bit really nails a serious tone, which I have a hassle with since it's very very much unrealistic, too much for seriousness in real life.

Still, that's Columbus, he'll learn to find his humourous parts again soon, right? Ah well, the CGI was awful, for a film like this it needed better graphics, then again it was dropped into the February slot. I know if they make a sequel I would watch, the cast is impeccable but it needs to be less serious, more comical, the cast is mostly from comic backgrounds of some kind.

Still, it's not a bad film, it has some grand moments, and it showcases Lerman as a talent people will hopefully take note of now.
7/10

Do good things and good things happen. I'm just trying to be a better person. My name is Khan.

2010-02-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

"My name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist"
These are the key words to the film, similar to "My name is Harvey Milk, and I'm here to recruit you", the statement is used umpteen hundred times, constantly trying to sound powerful, but coming off as odd and quickly written.

But, that's really all I can say against this monumental film.

We start in San Francisco international airport, a man enters, big backpack, eyes diverted from everything, rustling rocks in his hand, muttering words in a foreign language. Quick as a button he is escorted by security to a cell, searched all over, bag and clothes. He's cleared, eventually, and tells them he's going to meet the President. He first utters the line, to an astounding thump from the film's soundtrack.
After that we see periodically Rizwan Khan's travels around the US trying to meet Bush and tell him he is not a terrorist just because he is of the Islamic faith. He writes letters to a woman, detailing his life from a young child in India, suffering from an as yet undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome, his mother cares for him, his brother hates having no attention. Rizwan is a genius child, he feels no emotions, he can't look anyone in the eyes, he hates yellow, loud noises, new places, but he's a genius.

Whence he gets to San Francisco he works fro his brother, selling beauty products to stylists, wherein he meets the love of his life, Mandira. The following 20 minutes are a light, breezy attempt at romcom, he has to find something in the city she's never seen and she'll marry him, silly but fun.

Everything is going so well until about an hour and a bit in, when the September 11th attacks happen, and bang, everything goes to shit.

Post-Intermission we get the biggest gut punch for a long time, where The Lovely Bones failed, My Name Is Khan succeeds in a violent child attack.
For the rest of the film Rizwan is traversing the country, helping people, breaking stereotypes in the minds of Americans, and as some news people follow his story, he becomes famous for his good deeds and efforts.

The film is remarkable, it's long, real long, but it never lets up pace, there is a clear divide in the two parts, but it works well, and separates the lighter moments and the real wonderful melodrama of the piece. Not one shot in the film ISN'T meticulously conceived, a thing of beauty, each shot is astounding in itself, and I for one hope a good blu ray release happens for this film.

The music is loud and sublime, the acting solid all over, the script fantastic, if a bit cheesy, but it's forgivable, and the only weak casting choice is having an appalling Obama impersonator who can't impersonate, and yet they got Bush so right.

This is a wonderful film, words will never express the brilliance, just, go and see it, find it and see it, I don't care who you are, just do it, it's funny, dark, powerful, moving, beautiful, sublime, an all round amazing film.
10/10

Hey, I paid to see a Disney film, I put on my 3D glasses, and it's all, like, flat.

2010-02-15T15:54:00.000-08:00

So, finally, 6 years after, ahem, "Home on the Range", Disney returns to 2D after an overlong sidestep into CG works, giving us Chicken Little, Meet The Robinsons and Bolt, three exhaustively lacking films, we find Disney almost pleading with the audience to give them a second chance with The Princess & The Frog, and you know what, it's not an awful, soulless piece of quick buck entertainment like the stupid Direct-To-DVD sequels we ignore forever.
No, The Princess & The Frog is not perfect, the songs, in fact, are uninspired for the most part and not memorable, but the comedy can be wonderful, the characterisation is fantastic, the animation a thing of beauty, an inspired 20's style restaurant song and dance featuring high-society style sketches is gorgeous, and some of the characters, inspired.

Who'd have thought watching the opening 15 minutes that at one point the Prince and the young woman would encounter a crazy firefly who would not only be hysterical, but a wonderful emotional tent-pole to the proceedings? Or how dark the Shadowman could be, and the voodoo sequences scary and well done? When a crocodile playing the trombone isn't annoying and is, in actual fact, a wondrous addition to an already well done We're in this together so whilst we hate each other, we'll keep staying together plot, alongside a hysterical cut away to a river boat jazz group, you know Disney are coming back to form.

It's not all perfect, the closing 30 minutes are a little too generic, understandable, yes, but easily avoided, and the John Goodman and his daughter character, rich white tycoon and princess-style daughter, were mere one note characters where at least a further dimension was nearly hinted at at points, could have been better done, it doesn't matter.

Kudos, by the way, to Keith David for his Shadowman performance, the best song in the film, the best character sans Ray the firefly, poor guy, and, well, he's got such a voice, I like to point it out every so often.

Magical, entertaining, heartwarming and wonderful, a must see for anyone and everyone, kids or not, even people as cynical as me, if not moreso, will find something to enjoy.
8/10

An animated film about saving the environment, no, not Avatar again.

2010-02-15T15:22:00.000-08:00

Ponyo On the Cliff By the Sea, or Ponyo as the distributors butchered it to, is the latest film to eventually make it's way across from the land of the Pan, with a big Ja in front of it, in the guise of Studio Ghibli's numero uno, Hayao Miyazaki.
Anyone familiar with his works will know how great his films can be, smart, funny, touching, beautiful, sometimes scary and tense, he can craft a wonderful tale without fear that a slow pace will lose all enthusiasm, in fact, the 2 hour Spirited Away isn't fast at all, but is ridiculously perfect, one of the finest films ever made.

And here in lies the problem.
I loved Spirited Away, I enjoyed My Neighbor Totoro and Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle, not so much. So I was looking forward to, what everyone proclaimed, a triumphant return to brilliance from Miyazaki with Ponyo.
I guess I'm just not understanding critics anymore. The film began with 4 minutes of odd underwater moments, a human, Liam Neeson, bad acting, is working on making fish, and Ponyo escapes.
The rest of the plot is this: fish meets boy, fish loves boy, fish taken home, fish becomes girl, girl loves boy, boy loves girl, 50 minutes of rooting around an island until they can have a happy ending, without any semblance of threat or danger.
It may be a pleasant, easy watch, but it's not interesting, engaging or well done. The animation can be breathtaking, but it can also be simplistic to a point where it feels weak, the dubbing can be good, but awful too, Ponyo has frequent moments in which her mouth opens and the girl's voice lets out a silly sigh to fill the gap.
Matt Damon is listed high up for having, what, 5 lines, as a dad away from home who, as it happens, has no relevance to the plot. Neither do the old women characterised by Lily Tomlin, Cloris Leachman and the awesome Betty White. Hell, Cate Blanchett's mercy spirit mother thing comes in about an hour in to magically fix any danger that just occurred, no problems.

As Ponyo is taken by the young boy, there are about 5 moments in the 5 minute sequence where he worries she has died, all involving her squirting water out, I fear that's one of the 'comic' elements like the old biddies, which is not funny, like, at all. As is a long sequence involving a baby's evil face.

The level of humour is low, the level of entertainment is low, and it's disastrous to see such an iconic legend making such an awful awful film, and getting praise for it.
And if that wasn't bad enough, Liam Neeson keeps complaining about humans ruining the ocean, we get it, environment is good, humans are bad, enough self-deprecating, we're the dominant species, lets act like them. In fact, I believe Rodeney Dangerfield said it best: "Hey, we're all gonna get laid" so shut the frak up.
3/10

I am the eggman, I am the wolfman, a coo coo cachoo a coo cachoo.

2010-02-10T06:36:00.000-08:00

So, it's been abut 4 years since Universal put The Wolfman in full swing, I remember being in college and reading that the original director left during pre-production, fearing Brett Ratner's involvement, intrigued by what James Mangold would do, and being rather meh over Joe Johnson's hiring.

I never had an issue with Benecio Del Toro in the lead, I knew he loved The Wolfman and, well, this picture sums it up:

Just look at him. A perfect villain from the 40's, shaggy, slightly to imperfectly perfect, and yet you know you can't trust him.

And his voice. Oh that voice.
Unfortunately that single image has more gravitas than the whole of the finally released Wolfman 2008.

Whilst Benecio tries, he has little to do, a character written so dull that he's not only 1D, he's also left walking around the whole time, how can we care about the plight of he unwanted curse if the person behind the beast is so uninteresting?

The problem of uninterest hits the usually remarkable Emily Blunt, she still looks as bloody beautiful as ever, but the Kiera Knightey performance given is so painfully dull, more than a little restrained, and once more, no emotional connection.

Fortunately Anthony Hopkins as the father of Benecio is wonderful, a little crazy, a bit silly, very restrained, but weird, and entertaining. As is Hugo Weavin'g underused Police inspector. It's Hugo Weaving with a gun, a tache and on the hunt for a wolf beast, simple and well done.

It's a shame that the film's aesthetics are wonderful too, it's a well shot film, sans the horrible CGI, it looks brilliant, and has the creepy, near monotone look that could be recalled to the olden days, the music is a bit more generic, but Danny Elfman is pretty much stuck at that nowadays.

The practical effects look good. I mean real good. It's a shame they used so much CGI, not only does it ruin the brilliance of hiding in the shadows, barely seeing the evil, making things creepier, but the transformation would have been far better if it weren't CGI, it takes away from all believability.

It seems that studios are too scared to not use CGI in films these days, for fear I guess that without it everything looks silly. I saw clips without CGI back in 2008, and that was cracking stuff, subtle and simple. And with the 2 year wait, it seems that they edited the film so much to make it a much more modern film. The CGi is just part and parcel of it, the annoying jump scares which are too obvious and never work are in full force here, whereas a slow creep would have been spine-tingling, we just have a dog constantly barking as a scare, it's like freaking Daybreakers, and then mixing that with some slow, unfortunately poorly written scenes which have a more old fashioned way of going about business, and then some 80's schlock gore, mostly CGI too it seems, or at least caked in red computer pixels. The tone's constant shifting never helps, and a full 5 minutes near the end of Benecio hunting around the mansion waiting for the next loud noise scare is absolutely stupid, at no point did I care or get scared, and it's a shame that this film culd never offer me something I've been waiting years for.

Here's an image of Benecio after he realises what the end result is:

As bad as Dorian Gray.
2/10

Michael Cera revolting? I agree.

2010-02-10T06:21:00.000-08:00

Mickey Cera has been failing to top himself for years.
I'm surprised he didn't once he realised he was in Year One.

But Cera has been playing the same schtick for too long, awkward nerdy tee trying to get laid.
And it was good when it was fresh. The unwrapped marvel of George Michael Bluth, not the singer songwriter, who awkwardly fell in love with his cousin, and then the most boring girl on the planet. Her?
So when Superbad came out I was all aquiver, Cera's big break. Superbad remains a disappointment, bland, dull, the acting is hit and miss, and the breakthroughs came from Christopher Mitz-Plasse and Bill Hader.
Cera then made Juno, where he and Jason Bateman were in the same film together. It was, however, an overwhelming failure.
As was Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, and of course, eugh, Year One.

So it's nice to say Youth In Revolt has the best Michael Cera I've seen since Lucille was arrested in 2006.
Cera plays Nick Twisp, an awkward 16 year old who is 'too nice' for the girls, who want bad guys. He meets one girl who likes as many pretentious things as he, the script was not written with normal teens in mind, only the indie kids that don't exist, at least not in the most extreme nature they do on film. Only problem is she has a boyfriend and he has to move away. So, in a plan she can get his father a job nearby if Twisp can get kicked out of the house. He does this by inventing an alter ego full of evil, Francois Dillinger.

Michael Cera with a John Waters mustache smoking and acting nasty, it's actually rather hysterical, and when the two Ceras interact you forget it's one person playing them, similar to Sam Rockwell last year, two solid performances from the same person make your forget so easily.

Though Cera is fantastic in this, his co-stars are top notch too, included in this group are Steve Buscemi as his father. Fred Willard as an activist neighbour, when is Willard bad? Even with a bad script he brings the funny, as evidenced here. Justin Long briefly appears as a drugged up brother to Cera's love. Zach Galifianakis is nasty and grimy as Twisp's mother's lover in the opening, who escapes post-return home, after a long series of events.
Ray Liotta is a police officer who hooks up with Twisp's mother, and eventually calls for Twisp's arrest once they break up.

But with such a cast, it can't retain quality, as the film's 90 minutes running time is full of scenarios that it has to overcome, within that time Cera is forced away from home for fear that Galifianakis will be beaten up by sailors, meets a girl, goes home, invents a new self, blows up a restaurant, lives with his father takes a trip to the other side of America to visit the girl, get sent home, convince another girl to help get his love expelled, go home, evade police, fake death, make love to his love, get arrrested, all in 90 minutes.

It's an over padded film with lots of strands that go nowhere and offer no laughs, which is a shame as some scenes are hysterical, but as the film drags on, it gets heavier and heavier to a point where it's ridiculous and plodding. Like Edge Of Darkness, this was an adaptation, though of a book this time, but why do these films think retaining EVERYTHING makes it a good film? Tighten it up, have a straight focus, and don't make it seem so different if in the end it's as bland and generic as any film.
5/10

"You're either hanging on the cross, or hammering in the nails. Or directing the whole thing"

2010-02-10T06:04:00.000-08:00

Melanie Gibbons has been away far too long from our screens that we only associate him with The Passion Of the Christ and Apocalypto. You know, ultra violent films wherein violent societies are brought down by the qualities of Catholicism (Wow!)
So after Signs, it's nice to have a break where Mel can get rid of his demons, I hear he dabbles a tad in some quiet nightly romps with Mr. Jackanory Daniels and promote Kristalnacht after a few, but that's neither here nor there.

No, Mel is back as the lead of a film. Remember the times people cared about that stuff? The good old days, I can say old os I wasn't born before they started, when things like Lethal Weapon and Mad Max appeared, Mel was an insane, funny, charismatic, emotional lead we all loved. Well, at least he's back to us no, whilst in Edge Of Darkness he doesn't offer any humour, it's fine because the situation would only be hindered by some Mel gags. Dunno about you, but if my daughter was shot in front of me by a henchman of an obviously evil lead of a corporation working with the government detailing nuclear weapons, I'd not be going up alongside Raaaaaaaandy! and offering a set meself.

But to the film's credit, they try to let Ray Winstone, a comedian the likes of Colin Firth if Mark Kermode is to be believed, as he offers small lines repeated until you laugh, it's like a Seltzer Friedberg script there, but I digress, lets talk about the actual film.

So, based on an old miniseries from the BBC, like most films that aren't reboots or sequels nowadays, Martin Campbell, of Goldeneye and Casino Royale fame, and also he did the horrible Zoro flicks, takes a breath away from action films, as the accumulated action is about 4 minutes maximum, and well done, sans the last scene, which is unnecessary. But it's a drama thriller about one Boston cop who tries to find who shot his daughter. Also it's about Ray Winstone's operative character helping the audience learn everything before the 40th minute is up because he's on both sides of the line, even though it worked well until minute 35 because it was all from Mel's perspective.

Also it's about Danny Huston's ridiculously over evil CEO who has meetings in abandoned areas by a port where he openly details murders like no one would bug him. And it's about a group of radicals trying to take down the evil nuclear conspiracy. There's so much stuff going on by the first hour's end because it is a miniseries turned into a film, and it seems that they felt it was all necessary. It was not.

No, I'd have liked Winstone to be mysterious, Huston to be subtle, the radical stuff, not necessary short of helping Mel link one person to smack in the face to another he can shoot through the hand and into the eye, that's about it.

And it's a shame that the opening 25 minutes are well done and get right on, and the last Mel sequence, where he limps into the CEO's house and shoots everyone without remorse, is so wonderfully done, clearly Campbell's action chops are top notch. But then it goes to Winstone talking to a cover up agent and a senator, trying to compose a PR way to spin the events. Nice. Until Winstone stops talking, stands up and shoots them. Stupid stupid idea, talking at the end, closing it off with everything covered up, not exposed, would have been a dark, wonderful idea. But alas, poor Yorick, we suffer a cliched thriller with a lack of anything but a talented cast and a wonderful director trying hard.

Still, maybe Mel will stay on our screens again, hate him to disappear once more.
5/10

"But I love the bones of you. That, I will never escape"

2010-01-28T07:23:00.000-08:00

Petie Jacksons, li'l Petersberg.
Guy has made lots of films, suddenly jumping into the limelight, of course, with the LOTR flicks, he adapted the books as much as an adaptation could be, that and Watchmen. He then brought out King Kong, at which point all hope was lost of some classic Jackson appearing, the bloated 3 hours paced slower than snails, not since The Frighteners has Jackson been on top form. So, The Lovely Bones, another book adaptation, does it get back to the harsher, quality films, given it's difficult subject matter?

The tale of Susie Salmon, 14 years old living in the 70's, who is, in the book raped and murdered, only murdered in the film. Her family, devastated, falls apart trying to either get over it, or find the killer as she lives in the 'Inbetween' where she can have anything she loves, but wants to help the family.

Now, the first 30 minutes, the characterisation of Susie and the Salmons is fantastic, Saorise Ronan is impeccable once more, Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz aren't as bad as usual, Susan Sarandon is unnecessary, but moreso later, and Stanley Tucci as the odd neighbour is brilliant.
We are given people to care about and, although early one Susie tells us her fate, we still watch, hoping it doesn't happen.

As Tucci gets Susie into his shack, the sense of forthcoming violence is painful, well handled and freaky. We never see anything, but what is implied isn't nice.

However, after that, as the fantasy sequences of the inbetween appear, the awful CGi from Weta's slowly degrading output, the ridiculous addition of another murder victim, random moments where Susie enters her house, only her house in the inbetween, it all feels too far fetched, we no longer care, it's just bulk. The family's plight is well done for the most part, the addition of detective Christopher Moltisanti, or Michael Imperioli, trying to help the investigation, there's a sense of detection leading to what we know that never gets there, as Weisz can't take it anymore and scarpers, Wahlberg tries to work with his children in finding who did it and Sarandon stops by to a Mrs. Doubtfire housework montage, comedy, really?

The problem is, we know where they need to go, but they never get there, and as sad as the events are, we can't care when we're watching the girl having fun after death as well. In addition, the jumping forward of years so suddenly takes us out of it completely, whilst it couldn't be done in a series of weeks, some subtitles to inform us would have been nice, not poorly executed dialogue informing us.

It's a shame that a solid cast has suffered such a terrible fate in a film where the elongated 2 hour runtime never gets anything more than a ho-hum response, there's not enough tension, there's no real sadness, it's just a dull and poorly made look at the afterlfe and life, or something, and it fails.
4/10

It's one of them fancy French films that's sweeping the awardses.

2010-01-28T07:11:00.000-08:00

Un Prophete is very long.
It's not one of those 150 minute flicks that feels shorter, in fact, it feels a lot longer than it should.
This is mainly because it's a story that takes place over years. And I use the word story rather kindly, gibbon that it's as generic as a prison movie gets and doesn't feel as interested in a story as much as a random slew of vignettes to which a premise is tied together with it.
I recently watched the fantastic 4 hour epic Mesrine starring Vincent Cassel, so I was excited to see some more French crime. The reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, and yet I feared it would be a Let The Right One In again, and it was. Both films add nothing to the genre and are far too dull to be satisfying, the only reason that LTROI and A Prophet have gotten better reviews than Twilight and any number of cliched drug dealing action films are because they are in a foreign language, if you can't hear the acting as much as read the script, you feel arty, right? Well, fine, feel arty, but I like good scripts to cap off good acting, neither of those rose above middle of the road, sometimes painful dialogue came about, or appallingly stupid plot twists, but most of all, the lack of anything engaging in the way of characters, especially in such a long effort, is horrible.
Our lead, Malik, starts off as a 19 year old going to jail for hitting a cop, he denies the cop aspect, not the 19 year old aspect, despite clearly being far too old for that. He goes in, gets beaten up, then some Italian-esque gangster group who are also freedom fighters make him kill a witness, the only person at the start who seems to care, and he's in to the group.

Up until this point I was trying hard to get into the film, I started feeling interested. But then we jump to a title saying "1 year later" and it all goes away, there's a small scene, and then we jump, without being informed, 2 more years. We're confused and annoyed at this point, and then we get a sideline of a drug enterprise story which runs through the rest of the film.
It's like it's tying not to break boundaries, every prison cliche you can think of is here, the mean authority, the violent inmates, aspects of homosexuality in the showers, smuggling drugs into the camp, it's never more than anything else ever made, the social realism is bland and predictable, the characters unengaging and annoying, this is simply a misfire on all accounts, an awful film.
3/10

8 Enter, only 1 leaves, it's the wrestling event of the academic diary.

2010-01-28T07:00:00.000-08:00

Exam is an independent English film whose biggest stars are Jimi Mistry and Colin Salmon.
Wait, why are you leaving, don't go.
Alright, so, the premise is 8 people have made it through some tough challenges to win a high powered job in a firm that deals with a virus afflicting most people, I won't go into the rest, most of the film is exposition for it, and they sit in a room, are given a set of rules, then turn over their test papers, 80 minutes on the clock. It's blank.

They begin to talk to each other, discuss what is going on, one early on rightly claims it to be "a big mindfuck", and then we have a mix of exposition on the company and the characters' reasons for being there, and attempts to find out the question on the paper, through UV lights, water, glass. Eventually of course, two people are tied up and civilisation comes crashing down before it. And there's still 20 minutes to go.

The film moves at a hectic pace and keeps you interested, unsure how it'll work on second viewing, but it's tense, well made and interesting, the characters illicit reactions from you and you're engaged wholeheartedly with the piece. The biggest problem is when the exam is over, the long 15 minutes of revelations about the exam, the people behind it, et. all, ruining the mystery with line after line and flashback after flashback, it's a shame that some of the mystery could have been saved, given to us as thoughts we can put together, not treating us like imbeciles after a smart opening hour and change.

However, that said,t he majority is superb, strong acting talent, well crafted ideas, a wonderful set and the film looks fantastic, if that ending wasn't so annoying, I'd give this higher marks, but as a first feature, Stuart Hazeldine still knocks it out of the park, cracking work.
8/10

Teenage Mutant Ninja Assassins! Killers in a Half Shell.

2010-01-28T06:51:00.000-08:00

People are assassinated, that's a gibbon, it's life, people like to take it away.
But they're so boring about it. Load sniper, fire, brains everywhere, yawn.
What is needed to reinvigorate murder is some pizazz, some finesse, more blood and guts.
What is needed, is Ninja.

So, Ninja Assassins.
Sounds awesome right, kick ass awesomeness, like, mind blowing crazy cool awesomeness.
And that's what James McTiegue and The Wachowski 'Brothers' want you to believe as you enter the film, where we begin on a man telling a story of a ninja killing everyone but him, for his heart is on the other side of his body. As a ninja kills them and stabs him but good, it's full of blood and guts, alas completely and abhorrently CGI, but it seems fun and silly.

However, after that the real film begins. Naomie HArris once more suffers through a shitty script, this time as an Interpol agent working with another to find out the mysterious tribes of ninjas who kill for 200 pounds of gold. Of course investigating is dangerous, and when Korean pop star and Speed Racer actor Rain enters as Badsassin, the naughty ninja who betrayed the evil family who forced his painful childhood, they fight and do stuff for an hour, interlaced with more terrible CGI and a cheesy backstory of childhood love and pain right out of Ong Bak 2.

At about 1 hour into the film I realised I shouldn't try anymore, instead, just laugh at how bad the film gets, it descends quickly and stays there, and the flights of fancy it has in continuity (Old 'father' is slashed and has a scar on his face, later, he's untouchably fast) and physics (ninjas clearly hate gravity) and there are plenty of issues here too. Like, why are the ninjas whispering loudly when 30 of them enter a room to kill one person. Or why are all the other ninjas, trained in the same manner and clearly better than the lead, being killed so easily.

The film never explains, instead, just generic action with horrendous CGI and dull plotting, shambles.
4/10

Paul Ross' Black Book of Eli

2010-01-27T10:17:00.000-08:00

After the last two post-apocalyptic flicks, Daybreakers and The Road, my hopes for The Book Of Eli were low, yes there's Denzel Washington, Mila Kunis and Gary Oldman, but the plot about the last bible being protected and lots of random action seemed like it was going to suck.

So I was very happy when about 50 minutes in I was enjoying the story, the characters, including 2 really neat scenes with Tom Waits, the action and the whole piece seemed to work well. Denzel kicked ass, was fun to watch, generally awesome, Mila Kunis was as good as ever, Oldman really came off as a Dafoe like presence, evil and crazy in the classic Oldman style, not the recent subdued status, it was fun to watch him ham it up.
The action is top notch, whilst one scene in an old house clearly rips off Bad Boys II (When you rip off something of that calibre, questions are raised), it's fun, light and breezy, gun fights are well done, sword fighting has some nice limb chopping action, nice moments like the first hit, a decapitation, tell you we're gonna be in a fun film, no Bat screaming jump scares, no monochrome, it's dark in a bright way, and wants you to be entertained, classic blockbuster action.

Whilst the ending, a long series of stupid twists and dull moments in Alcatraz, doesn't work, and detracts from the body, the rest of the film is fantastic, even if it's a bit too bible happy, or that they seem to present Eli's name reveal in a bit of a twist-ish moment, though it's in the freaking title...
Still, it's loud, fun and has great action, nice distraction.
7/10

Ah Fack It's an East LahnDahn Gangsta Flick!

2010-01-27T09:51:00.000-08:00

44 Inch Chest has a cast of great British talents, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Ian McShane, Stephen Dilahunt and Tom Wilkinson.
Together they are very very foul mouthed group of friends who work together to get Winstone's cheating wife's man into a wardrobe and then conspire as to how to kill him.

And that is literally it.
That's the film. Winstone cries, Everyone uses the c-word in place of punctuation and a mix of flash backs, fantasy moments and right now scenes don't add anything to a premise that is as unremarkably dull as it is loudly vulgar for no reason.
The writers from Sexy Beast, an acclaimed British crime drama, work this one note idea into a somehow 90 minute film, a small length that feels like it goes on for ages.

So for the length of time we have 3 settings, in the room, be it real or a real feeling fantasy, including 'comic' banter in the mind of Winstone(!), the stairwell where 4 of the 5 men await the murder and inside Winstone's home, pre-during and post fight.

So we have a wife beater, a gay gambler, an old swearing man, an aging man living with his mother and a slightly younger, well dressed man, none of them have any character or intrigue.

An absolute waste, not one good thing.
1/10

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's, oh, yes, it is a plane.

2010-01-27T09:22:00.000-08:00

Jason Reitman.
Man.
He made an amazing film.
JK Simmons, Sam Elliot, David Koechner, Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe, Adam Brody, Aaron Eckhart all knocked it for six in THank You For Smoking, not one weak link in that hysterical film that never was intended to be the biting satire reviewers hoped for, and as such dismissed it due to the fact. No, it was the story of a suave, charismatic man leading a PR campaign on smoking whilst balancing his son and a bitch of a reporter trying to expose secrets.
This was a fantastic debut, one of those films you can watch again and again and laugh at the same wonderfully delivered subtle lines. The script, based on a book, was also written by Mr. Reitman Jr.

And then there was Juno. This was a film that turned the tide on Smoking, maybe it was a feat of luck that Smoking was any good. A script by now official hack job Academy Award winner Diablo Cody, using the most cringeworthy attempts at 'music' in a ho hum tale of annoying slut Ellen Page as she carries a baby to term, alongside same schtick different day Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer eugh Garner, Allison Janney (Woo) and, once more for good measure, JK Simmons, it was a film that was so up itself in the appalling humour, references beyond a kid's age aren't funny, especially if they're only references in a Guy Ritchie-esque phrasing with the lack of coherent consistency or entertaining rhythm of saying things, it's just a horrible film.
For 2 years now I was wondering if it was a one off or a steep decline that will continue with Reitman film 3.

That film is Up In The Air.
Based on a book, co-written script by Jason Reitman.
Starring George Clooney of all people, with additions of JK, Elliot, Bateman and Danny McBride, it's a film that looks at a man who spends his life in airports and hotels, to which reviewers were disappointed it wasn't a sharply pointed satire on air travel.

Yup, you guessed it, we're back safely in the holy heavens of category 1, this is Thank You For Smoking good.
It's very funny at times, Clooney being as charismatic as ever delivering some fantastic one-liners, the film can really hit the comedy out of the park. But the best thing is, with the aide of two wonderful female companions on his journey, in the guise of Vera Farmiga's female Clooney and Anna Kendrick as a young business graduate of Cornell (Rid did i doo! Nard Dog!) who is trying to change the way that Clooney's outside hiring to lay people off company works, no traveling, all on webcams.
Between the three of them, some semblance of a heart begins to appear, and it's not just coincidence, after the opening 20 minutes we are slowly leaning in to Clooney's Ryan Bingham in his home life, slight hints of family, being a big build up to a sister of his' wedding.
As we learn more and see just how alone he is when he isn't in his element, we connect, and hard.

And that's when the film REALLY gets going, without being synthetic or forceful, the subtle details allow us to care so much more for Bingham, and even the young woman trying to make him stop doing what he loves, when she bursts into tears all of a sudden, we care. Not because the music swells and the close ups make us, but because we're into the story, we like the characters in some small way at the very least, so we want to care, and do.
A testament to Reitman not pressuring anything, taking it nice and cool in that respect, most filmmakers would spend far too long on that kind of moment.

In addition to that, the moments where Clooney and his new friend do things together, visit his high school, go to his sister's wedding, watch Young MC sing Bust A Move, and Clooney even says it, high point of the film, it's nice to see the relationship grow.
Of course, meanly, we then get a twist that makes everything so so so unfair, but I guess what are ya gonna do, had to happen.

The one complaint I have is that the last 10 minutes slow to a halt too early and then keep trudging forward, after an hour and change of excellent work, for it to slow too quickly is a real shame, but, well, it's still great.
10/10
Mr. Reitman is back!

Sex, Drugs and then Rock and Roll dude, was just following the code.

2010-01-27T03:22:00.000-08:00

I knew nothing of Ian Dury going in to Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll, short of the fact that he claimed to have hailed from my home town of Upminster, despite being a lie.

Exiting the cinema I think I was as nonplussed if not more.
Despite a cracking series of performances from the likes of Andy Serkis, Naomie Harris, Toby Jones and Bill Milner, the biopic neither gets into much of the man's life from beginning to end, nor into the music enough, the latter I am thankful for, because it was, judging by the film, neither interesting nor tonal. Then again, I was informed that Notorious misjudged BIG's talents by making him out like a complete cunt as well, so, perhaps the film missed Mr. Dury's good aspects in the face of soapdish Eastenders stuff mixed with Mighty Boosh visuals.
I'll never know.

However, the film's biggest problems are that the songs are poorly intertwined, having nothing to do with the film, just for the 'fans', it's ridiculous, and doesn't help the film's second biggest fault, the pacing. Meandering through series of events in the man's life, mostly mundane as hell, the film never really gets fast to anything interesting, and for the most part spends too long jumping to Serkis playing Dury giving some sort of on stage presentation of his life, similar to last year's awful Bronson, and the life of a Polio stricken child's disability, a child afflicted should surely be cause for some sort of interesting sequence or some emotional resonance no? Nope.

The film decides to be passive in everything, moments just occur, we never give a flying monkeys because the film clearly has no time to care, instead just wants to look at moments that happened, and we know they happened because they are simply too boring to make up. An atrocious piece of work whose only saviour is the plethora of British actors involved doing more than quality work.
5/10

Three films about fucking walking!

2010-01-27T02:53:00.000-08:00

"The Road is fucking hard
The Road is fucking tough
There's no question that,
It is rough rough stuff"
(Jables and Kage, The D, 2001)

The Road is the second big Cormac McCarthy adaptation in the last few years, and up against the Coen's work on No Country, a film considered by most to be an absolute masterpiece (It's great, just not as great as There Will Be Blood) John Hillcoat has the odds stacked high against him.
A depressing tale of post-apocalypse America, savage cannibal gangs roaming the roads, our heroes a Man and Boy walking to the coast, trying to survive, limited food, no sun, no animals. Oh, yeah, and every scene has to be completely deserted with large elements of destruction.
And it's absolutely bleak and harrowing.
Think you're up for that? Well, somehow Hillcoat pulls off a miracle. The film, whilst slow to start, really kicks into gear, suddenly out of nowhere you realise you're nervous about the survival of the pair against the cannibals, be it on a small road or in a house where they appear to be centred on.
And yet that's not the predominant plot of the film. It's a father and son walking, the father teaching the son how to live and what to do so that the boy is ready to go alone one day, the horror aspects don't creep in often, but they're forceful enough to be both memorable and haunting throughout scenes, at the happiest moments your mind still wanders to the outside, humanity's last gleaming.

Whilst the film goes back to the first day of the end of the world and then years later, focussing on the relationship between Man and Wife (Charlize Theron in a throwaway role), the best stuff is the majority, the threats of the 'present' day issues. Though the look at Theron's Mother wanting to die to escape the hell they are in, over staying with her family, and wishing she never had Boy, bringing him into such a world, the power is lost in these moments, Theron's character just comes off like a bitch, and we care vastly more for Viggo Mortenson's Man.
Mortenson is absolutely fantastic in this, as is his screen son Kodi Smit-Mcphee, another young talent that's not annoying (Kids these days, why did my generation have the shit actors, the Freddie Highmores, the Hayley Joel Osments, the Little Annie Skywalkers?) and the relationship between them never comes across as fabricated, it felt like we were watching a father and son, emotionless and struggling through a bleak existence.
And yet when cameo appearances from Robert Duvall, Michael K. Williams and Guy Pierce (Who is having a resurgence as the 5 minute appearance guy) make their way into the character's lives for a few minutes, they never overshadow, overwhelm or feel out of place, working perfectly with the morality, the inhumanity and the nature that these people have lived with for years.

The production design in this film is immense, I went and had a look at where they filmed, shocked to find it was only one small segment of unused road, not a whole state's worth of wilderness, it's mindbogling and amazingly done, the CGI blends effortlessly with the practical elements living off a sense of depth in the destruction that's never showing off, nor anything more than set, no big action for the destruction. The film looks absolutely gorgeous, one of the finest looking films I've seen for months, and for something that feels predominantly monochromatic, that's no mean feat, especially when they have to portray the sun as being gone too.

As near a perfect film as you can get, it's tense, well crafted, emotionally affecting, well acted and interesting. Not something you can enjoy in an entertaining sense, but it still deserves more attention that it's received.
10/10

These vampires don't sparkle, they esplode!

2010-01-27T02:43:00.000-08:00

Daybreakers.
Look at the trailer.
Ethan Hawke is a vampire, Willem Dafoe isn't, Sam Neil is a CEO, they live in a world where humans are endangered.
There's vamp vs human fighting.
AWESOME! Right?

Yeah...
Well...
When a film begins by using a bat's scream as a jump scare, then at the end, oh, and one in the middle for no reason, you begin to question, is this just gonna be stupid moments like that, no relation to a plot, just loud noises from silence to 'scare' people?

Mostly yes, that and some poor dialogue that tries to resemble a plot and then disappears 40 minutes in and changed for series of events that contain vampires running around with guns hunting humans, and then a finale.

And none of these moments seem to have anything useful or relevant after a more slow burn of an opening 40 minutes where it almost tried to make you care about the characters.
Of course, the worst offense is suddenly leaving bad ass Willem Dafoe out, only for him to re-appear as some sort of cheap back up with horrible lines, nothing bad or assy about his presentation, and all round fail here is saved by 3 very cool actors, what a shame as the potential outweighs the end result.
3/10

Hey, you know those horrible thoughts of old people doing it...

2010-01-27T02:17:00.000-08:00

Nancy Meyers is a complete and utter hack, I say this having only seen one of her directed works, and never have, nor will ever, find any interest in seeing any of her works. She's a female Tony Gilroy, can't even do simple goals, like, say, develop interesting characters in a well crafted, simple plot full of wit and charm.
It's Complicated, with it's leads in Meryl Streep (Dull in this role), Alec Baldwin (Still not great, look, 30 Rock sucks now people), Steve Martin (Same as Baldwin) and John Kraninski (Ah, he's awesome, the character is not) should have at least had enough to get to a 3-4/10 rating. But this tale of 50-odd year old ex-husband and wife having an affair has nothing. It's hollow, poorly structured, cliched to all get out, not a single character is interesting or likeable or new, the 'jokes' relay the chick-flick audiences with poorly handled slapstick that doesn't back up with additional smarts to allow the humour to work, or the zany-ness to make the ouchie pain comedy work, instead real people falling over? No thanks. Add to that humour of saying things like penis, how frakking hysterical.

No, not one point in this 2 hour epic of a 'comedy' that, thankfully, was a free screening, did I find myself enjoying it. The film looked like it could have at the very least been a nice looking silent film, sans falling over moments, the music was so annoyingly bland it's a shame that Hans Zimmer was behind it, and so soon after the interesting work on Sherlock Holmes too.

Just.... No.
It's neither Complicated nor Competent.
1/10

Judi Dench in a bawdy French showgirl musical number!

2010-01-27T01:22:00.000-08:00

We all know how awesome Daniel Day Lewis is. If you've not seen any recent work, skip Gangs of New York, which was merely a rehearsal, and sit down for 3 hours and love There Will Be Blood instead, playing a demonic character he's engaging, charismatic, charming, evil and fun to watch, in any other film he's the character you wish was in it more, in that, he's the guy you want to watch for the 2 hour 40 minute runtime happily.
And now Day Lewis is back in the zeitgeist, he's somehow been involved in a Rob Marshall film. Yeah, that guy what did Chicago and Memoirs of a Geisha.
But not only is Day Lewis in it, doing a simple, understated Italian accent and having songs where he talks, not sings, Shatner style, there's Judi Dench, who tries Italian, just comes out as English with some flair, and she sings too. Yes, be warned viewers, Judi Dench on the mic.

But she's not all, Penelope Cruz, fresh from winning an Oscar for crying and screaming in Spanish for 20 minutes in a POS Woodsy Allen flick, appears to do some sensual rumblings in low cut attire, which is funny considering she's hardly attractive at the best of times, Nicole Kidman has about 5 minutes and does frak all, Sophia Loren appears as Day Lewis' zombie mother every so often, the effects are truly stunning, she must have spent days in the make-up trailer, looks like she's genuinely decomposing.
Marion Coutillard is saddled with the wife role where she has to cry, look beautiful and get little to do, poor thing, and then there's Fergie. When Fergie is the best singer you have, it's time to re-assess the project. And she's only in it for one song.

Oh yeah, and Goldie Hawn. Wait, what? Kate Hudson? God she's old now. I though Hawn looked good for her age, now, eugh.

So, what's the plot? Some italian director making a film that he knows not the plot or anything about, only got the actors, nothing else. Seems very meta, in fact, perhaps that's why the film falls flat the whole time, it's purely a giant in-joke, Marshall made a film that is the outcome of the proposed idea.
Because there is nothing in this film, Day Lewis, Couitllard and Dench are great, but they have nothing to do, the other actors, not so much.
It's a completely lifeless, soul sucking 2 hours with no memorable or well made songs, awful dancing, appallingly dry atmosphere and nothing redeemable.
However, don't forget, the numerical title, 9, is out on DVD soon, and a far superior effort all round.
2/10

Spider-Man Begin Again

2010-01-12T02:27:00.001-08:00

So, Sam Raimi is no more.
Tobey Maguire, the face of geek chic from 2002 to 2006, is now just another actor, Kirsten Dunst is, well, James Franco, poor guy, and Dylan Baker, they got screwed over didn't they.

Yes, if you need that rock pushed over to see the Sun again it'll be a shock to the system to hear, mere hours after the 'confirmation' of John Malkovich as Vulture in Spidey 4, that project was cancelled, the creative team kicked out and in it's place, Sony are going for a new origin story of Spider-Man, in 2012, the world will end, and doing the destruction will be a retconning of one of the biggest film series in recent history, one full of critical acclaim, fanboy love, and worst of all, isn't even a decade old yet.

You may stop me right now and say But Andrew, how about The Punisher, that had big actors, but they did a change up, hell, look at Hulk, then look at 2008" And I'd say, 1, shut up, this is my piece, and 2, they weren't well received, be it financially, critically or both.

Whilst I found Tom Jane's Punisher well done, or Eric Bana a good actor, the films ultimately were wrong for the franchise, and myself, I'm glad that these changes occurred, the Ray Stevenson Punisher was nastier, more silly and much more violent, perfect, whereas the Ed Norton Hulk had a well rounded plot, needing only 3 action scenes, great cast, and lots of fun.
But if the Daredevil reboot ever starts going, I'll throw a hissy fit there, I find, and me only, Daredevil to be more than just a solid flick, I think it's one of the best superhero films ever made, it's not revolutionary, but it knew the formula, abided by it well, and made it entertaining, unlike, say, Iron Man, which just did everything in a ridiculously slow and dull manner like a kid doing paint by numbers whilst having already done the image yesterday, and today he's distracted by bigger, shinier CGI.

I wish I could say "I'll reserve judgement" for this Spider-Man idea, but lets face it, the great stuff comes out of ideas that were going no where, aren't anywhere near as close to our hearts, do you remember Spider-Man when it first came out? I sure as hell do.
Spider-Man was the first film I saw in the cinema without an adult, my first independent film, if you will. It was action packed, funny, scary, well acted, well shot, some great set pieces, yes the CGI was never amazing, but you could ignore that because you were invested in Maguire's Parker, he was sweet, geeky but you believed he could get the girl, change into the brave hero, Dafoe was freaky, he knew too much, he was insane, a perfect villain.

The template for all forthcoming superhero films, Spider-Man leapt off the success of the first X-Men film, a film which was differently structured to all other comic book films now, and between them, the humour was never pushed too much, and retained the more serious aspects, obviously they couldn't take the subject matters completely seriously, but for films about mutant heroes and men with the powers of spiders, they both managed to retain a lot of key themes and didn't mock the ideas, instead they were willing to go deeper into what the powers would do to the heroes and people around them.

So, what can we expect from Sony with this film?
Well, they've already stated that they'll be going back to Parker in high school, so, maybe the whole film will be based around the somewhat slow first 35 minutes of the first film, before the action kicked in. Whilst it'll be nice to get away from the too many villains issue that was going to plague Spidey 4 as well as ruined number 3, which Sony are clearly blaming Raimi for, though who pushed for Venom to be in it when Raimi stated that he wasn't a fan of that villain? Yeah, thought so.
Sony, the studio behind such masterpieces as 2012, are going to give us some 90210 Skins style superhero film, young good looking people in the roles now synonymous with other actors, it's got Star Trek 2009 written all over it. (The gag reel on that DVD actually has the new actors messing up, and then their names come up with the characters they portray, not the actors they are ripping off, and yes, Chris Pine is ripping off an actor, Mark Hammil)

On top of seeing new faces, which is always hard, there are some key elements to the franchise which will be lost. Namely the build up for Dylan Baker as Dr. Connors who would have become Lizard at some point, and you can sense some darkness and apprehension in his performances, a well structured 2 film arc that will never get it's conclusion. It's a shame because Baker has done so much good work it would have been great to see him suddenly be thrust into the limelight of the Spidey series, not just the lecturer Peter goes to for problems, as unenlightened kids presume he must have been.

Whilst Baker's performances have been for nought, do you know who suffers most? Bruce Campbell.
How key was Campbell? To the point where he was the narrator for tutorial levels for the Spider-Man games. The cameos were always the things to look out for, be it silly as all get out as the French waiter i number 3, or the hysterically annoying usher in number 2, his work really brought the normal life back to Parker, the difficulties of the mundane, like an episode of Seinfeld, and helped the films balance the super moments and the normal elements.

So, what can we expect from the new film?
Who will play our heroes, villains, who, in fact, will be chosen to be the first villain Spidey must fight? Will it end up being a straight remake of the original?
We'll have to wait until the teaser in 2011 to really make up our minds, but for now, we have to ask Sony, was Sam Raimi such a bad choice? Really?

'atchet 'olmes & Dr. "Sleuth" Watson

2010-01-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

Guy Ritchie isn't the kind of director you'd think would make a PG-13 action adventure for the mainstream, then again a Madonna comedy was also unexpected. Unlike that film however, Sherlock Holmes is great.
From the off, Downey Jr. in the lead nails a fantastic accent and between him and Jude Law's Watson the chemistry and comedy work perfectly. Action isn't as integral but is more than I thought, and more visually stunning than I thought it would be.
Holmes doesn't go as much on the detection parts, but it doesn't shy away at points, having preview slow motion fight sequences from Holmes guessing how a fight will go down, in Guy Ritchie's most esque- sequences.

The biggest issue in the film is Rachel McAdams as the lover of Holmes, annoying as always, never fun, poorly written, worse acted and when she appears all quality runs off screen.
And it's a shame as sans McAdams the film is top notch, far superior to the summer's outputs. Mark Strong as the villain is eery and exciting, the plot, whilst long winded and near incomprehensible, is entertaining and does the keep you guessing element well like a good detective tale.

Hans Zimmer's score is truly fantastic, well done, memorable and interesting, using odd instruments to help create the London of a Victorian era, and boy the film gets that well, In comparison to the dark Tim Burton one of 07 and Dorian Gray of recent, it's better, more realistic and easier to see, being not dark in any way whatsoever, take that Gothic over the top directors!

The film plays well, it's long but vastly entertaining, well made and better than most big films of the year, a corker of an action adventure, great actors in the leads, great entertainment and superior in every way to Avatar.
8/10

You know what's hard to get? Unobtanium.

2010-01-03T10:02:00.000-08:00

So, Avatar, a long process for a film and here we are, it's out, it's about, and how is it?
Well, most critics agree it's a masterpiece.
Is it?
Well, short answer no, long answer Absolutely not.

15 years to make this?
Well, Cameron clearly spent 5 minutes making a plot, by fingering out 3 films and using their plots, and then 14 years doing 3D and CGI.

The plot is painfully dull, cliched and doesn't even try to regenerate the dying ideas, for a 'gamechanger' it's shit.
The acting, on top of that, is limited to Sam Worthington's unlikeable blah-ness, Sigourney Weaver's unfortunate annoyingness, and two good actors in Stephen Lang as the general, who you root for to kill the Na'Vi and their fucking annoying smugness, and Giovanni Ribisi who has no interest in the indigenous people, instead wants to make money from the 'Unobtanium' in the planet's core.

Unobtanium, that's right, is all the humans want, and the Na'Vi are literally connected to their world, and it's an environmental message played much more subtly in An Inconvenient Truth. The CGI is painfully just better than GI: Joe, the 3D was meh at best, and it never ever tries to be anything more than a 2 and a half hour film about cowboys and indians, however it thinks it's a superior epic.

James Cameron fucked up with his most disappointing, dull, painful film for ages, Titanic was better.
4/10

Where The Independent Filmmakers Are

2010-01-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

I love Spike Jonze.
I love Spike Jonze more than my love for Richard Kelly, not Kevin Smith love, but by god it's a close battle.
Spike Jonze hasn't just done two masterpieces of cinema in Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, but he's made some amazing short films, exceptional music videos and helped create Jackass. He's got an amazing sense of humour, genius visual style and amazing mix of indie hipster and mainstream.
In Malkovich he gave us the most freaky, funny, bleak tale, in Adaptation we got two Nic Cages (When he was really good) being shot at by Meryl Streep and now, like Wes Anderson, he's chosen to make a kids film.
Or so it seems.
What we get from Jonze and Away We Go writer Dave Eggers is an adaptation of a book from the 60's or 70's that's about a child's reluctance to accept responsibility, instead the violent, bi-polar kid escapes into a fantasy world occupied by parts of his psyche and he learns how hard a job his mother has.

Max Records as the lead is a capable actor, for such a young kid he makes us care enough and wonder what's wrong with him, The Wild things are voiced impeccably with people like Catherine O'Hara (jealous), James Gandolfini (anger), Paul Dano (immaturity), Chris Cooper (compassion) and Forest Whitaker as, well, I dunno.
On top of that Catherine Keener is impeccable as the mother, subtle, simple, sweet.

The film never tries too hard, we have an intro about aggression and depression, some very kid like moments, then a mass escape, then the Wild Things segment which is the majority of the movie, where fascination and childlike wonder meets the mental challenges of the child, and soon it becomes a life lesson.

Between wildly inventive and bleakly compressed, WTWTA manages to be a big budget film that doesn't care about magic and hope, and replaces things like that with the simple artistic devices you'd find in a student production, once again Jonze switches the expected with the opposite, and doesn't even make you expect it. He's a smart one, Mr. Jonze.

Whilst being an odd film, tonally, visually, structurally, it's still an amazing film, a real gem. Script-wise it's impeccable, acting is strong, and if you've yet to catch it, go now, I promise you'll be disappointed if you expect anything big.
9/10

Me & Linklater's Most Interesting New Direction For Years

2010-01-03T08:36:00.000-08:00

Richard Linklater is never a director you can comprehend the choices of, at one point he'll be making a kids film with Jack Black, then a rotoscoping sci-fi film and then a partially Spanish language drama about fast food.
This year he has a film set in '30's New York filmed in the Isle of Man starring Zac Efron and about an early production by Orson Welles. Yeah, exactly, Funny thing is, however, it can sound as shit as possible, but damn him, Linklater knows quality still.
Efron once again proves his talents and charisma isn't just working on tweens, he's fun, engaging and top quality throughout, as a young man trying to get a big break in the theatre it's sweet, his interactions with fellow cast members, trying to be one of the men, and at the same time wooing the 'beautiful' young woman, Clare Danes, who oversees the theatre. I put beautiful in quotation marks because she's supposed to be good looking, but as it plays out, good god she's ugly.
The film manages to be fast paced and witty, entertaining in the build up, the interactions with Efron and the other actors, and of course Orson Welles, played to perfection by Christian McKay who is a shoo-in for an Oscar nod (Though Mr. Chris Waltz will win), It's a shame that people would avoid the film due to Efron's appearance in the film, alongside Hairspray, he's showing his qualities are vast and his talent is underused in the Disney career he's begun with, in the next 10 years he's gonna break out and be a BIG star, you can count on that.

The film looks amazing, you could never tell it wasn't shot in New York, and the palette is well done, almost an amalgamation of the period setting being realistic and the sepia tone we see it from footage nowadays. The music is big and broad, the script is brilliant, acting fantastic and the direction is top notch. A small and subtle film that won't be noted much but is superior to what you might expect.
9/10

WHAT'S IN THE BOX! WHAT'S IN THE BOX!

2010-01-03T08:22:00.000-08:00

Richard Kelly is very marmite, he's one you love, of which I sit in that camp with a passion, or you hate his works, like a lot of people.
You can claim Donnie Darko is a masterpiece, doesn't mean you love his work, Southland Tales is the deal-breaker. No one seemed to like it, poor reception at Cannes, recut, sorted out, limited release after a year and a half later, critics and the few who saw it still unimpressed.

What I saw was a very funny, odd, eccentric fantasy comedy drama thriller that doesn't really want you to keep track of what's going on unless you actually care enough to watch the film, rather than ignore it and hope to know what's going on.
People hate to be active.

I would love to say that the third feature from Mr. Kelly was up there with his last two greats, the first chance I got to see one of his films in the cinema, The Box stars Cameron Diaz who manages to not be completely awful, James Marsden who is always good and Frank Langella who is very creepy but easy to watch. Add to that Holmes Osbourne once more, who is great though underused, and the cast is solid.
It's a shame, however, that the film never really gets good enough for the talent involved. It's tense, really tense at points, the pre-push the button sequence, the final 10 minutes, it can be horrendously hard to watch, however the hour and forty in between the tense stuff, whilst interesting and funny near the start, can be a drag. After 40 mins the titular decision gets made, and until the last 10 minutes the film slows to a snails pace, sometimes it's a detective tale, other times it's about aliens, but it's never interesting, getting painful. I wish I could say it was at the very least consistent but alas it tends to lend itself to a boring waste of time with a good start and amazing ending. Sorry Mr. Kelly, this isn't a step in the right direction.
7/10

Top 25 of 2009: Part 2 Top 10

2010-01-01T08:59:00.000-08:00

10. Watchmen

Directed by Zach Snyder
Written by David Hayter and Alex Tse
Starring Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Carla Gugino & Matthew Goode

This time last year I still had no clue what Watchmen really was, I saw the Movie-Con footage, violent and interesting visually,but not full of any kind of coherent story. Then, last February, I finally got round to reading the novel. And it hit me. It's longwinded, slow, and in classic Alan Moore style, the dialogue is near appallingly generic through and through, but the ideas, the characters, the structure, it was so well done, clear parody without ever pushing humour, instead going for a serious meditation over the ideas of costumed heroes.

And the film doesn't fail to do it justice. The film, of course, couldn't tell the WHOLE spectrum of the novel, it leaves out the Black Freighter, which is how I read it, skipping over those parts, but on top of the amazing visuals, the story is well told, the action well done but minimal, the acting near top tier, thanks to Matthew Goode and Malin Akerman for being shit.

Patrick Wilson gives the understated performance of this year, akin to Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent, perfect but underrated, especially between Jeffrey Dean Morgan's loud, violent, brash but still within inches of humanity performance as The Comedian, Billy Crudup's total removal of humanity as Dr. Manhattan, and most of all Jackie Earle Haley's sterling work as moral vigilante Rorschach, clearly a messed up person, but one who sticks by his guns throughout.

A sublime 3 hour film, better of course in the director's cut edition where the 3 hours flow by at a superior pace, and new additions from the novel are added in perfectly. See this movie.

9. Crank 2: High Voltage

Written & Directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart, Efren Ramirez, Dwight Yoakam, Art Hsu, Ling Bai, Clifton Collins Jr., David Carradine & Joseph Julian Soria

If your top 10 of 2009 list includes Star Trek but has no conscious notion of Crank 2 inside it, then your top 10 sucks. Not only did Star Trek come out a month later, but it was no where near as well done, plot wise, character wise or action wise. Lens flare can go fuck itself, this is adrenaline fueled filmmaking at it's finest, a step up from the first, whilst not as good, Neveldin/Taylor raised the bar of just how fucked up they are wiling to get in the series as Chev Chelios now has his heart stolen and powers off the mains as he kills people. It's not political correct, it's not for kids and it's not for the mainstream, it never lets up and it's not taking itself seriously, it's about as ballsed up as a film can get and it's super hysterical. Fuck Star Trek.

8. In The Loop

Directed by Armando Iannucci
Written by Simon Blackwell, Jesse Armstong, Tony Roche & Armando Iannucci
Starring Tom Holander, Chris Addison, Peter Capaldi, Gina McKee, Steve Coogan, James Gandolfini & Paul Higgins

The Thick Of It is genius. Right. Now, expand that humour to an hour and fourty minutes. OMG WOW amirite? Yeah, ok, but it's a feature, the x-odd hundred people who saw Thick Of It on BBC4 won't do as the audience, we need to expand. Add some Americans in, maybe they'll flock to see it. Hmm, how does that work? Well, sadly it weakens the film a bit, softening the bludgeoning hell that Westminster politics is shown as, instead we have 3/4 of a film full of anger, vulgarity and genius, and 1/4 a weaker, more pleasantly toned film, but ultimately one that has none of the punch the other 3/4 has, so it's to that 3/4 we say, thank you, for lines so wonderful as "It's not easy peasy lemon squezy, it's difficult difficult lemon difficult" and "You really are a boring fuck, you know that. I know you hate swearing, sorry, you really are a boring F star star cunt"

Peter Capaldi shines once again as Malcolm Tucker, PM's spin doctor extraordinaire, Chris Addison as intern Toby once again brings the snarky mean comedy he's presented in the show so well, newcomer Tom Holander is amazing and fits in so well as the cabinet minister who gets shoved firmly up shit creek throughout the film, if only they never left England, this film would have been contender for number 1.

7. The Hurt Locker

Directed by Katheryn Bigelow
Written by Mark Boal
Starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty

Once in a while there's a film made that you sit down, and not at one point do you begin wandering your eyes around the cinema. Rarely, however, are you so invested in the characters and story that you are biting your nails on the edge of your seat for nearly the complete runtime of the film. The hurt Locker really nails you down and pushes you to the edge and stops just before you have a heart attack. It's one of the most intense films made for years, and Ms. Bigelow certainly knows what she's doing. There's about 6 big sequences, and all of them get you hooked, they may run for over 15 minutes, but they feel like they're only 3 minutes apiece, and it's all interesting, handled well and simply perfect. I re-watched this film in HD recently and it more than holds up, I knew what happened in each scene, but it didn't stop the tension from hitting hard. A true masterpiece, acted well, shot well, edited perfectly, written extraordinarily, everything is note perfect.

6. Moon

Directed by Duncan Jones
Written by Nathan Parker
Starring Sam Rockwell, Sam Rockwell, Matt Berry, Benedict Wong & Kevin Spacey

You have £5 million, Sam Rockwell and a script not just set in a space station, but featuring outside shots of the Earth's satellite. What do you do? Besides leaving sound in space and not having limited gravity, you get to Pinewood, as the writer's strike hits all other productions hard, and make your film using some real talents, miniatures, Kevin Spacey as a robot and then throw some CGI on to help the miniatures have a realistic edge to them, then release an adult sci-fi drama that's smart, simple and entertaining. Duncan Jones knows what he's doing with his first feature, a true jaw dropping piece of work on all accounts, and when you get 2 Sam Rockwells on camera together, and playing ping pong, there's no way you can say it's a piece of crap. Definite contender for the Oscars, especially since it's high time Sam Rockwell got one, he so deserves it.

5. Fanboys

Directed by Kyle Newman
Written by Ernest Cline and Adam F. Goldberg
Starring Jay Baruchel, Dan Fogler, Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Kristen Bell, Seth Rogen & many many awesome cameos.

After years of waiting a friend linked me to a download of this film, I hated having to do this, but it was the only chance I had to get to see this film, it's still not seen the UK, though I've pimped it out everywhere. The day I saw it was actually 1am on Star Wars day, who knew. Fanboys is simply put a wonderful comedy that, unlike The Big Bang Theory, respects the geeks in people, not just playing them up for laughs among the masses. With some real great actors, some who will definitely be big names soon enough, we're hoping Mr. Baruchel, we're hoping, and lots and lots of great Star Wars cameos, and just cool people, like Danny Trejo, Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes and Zak Knutson, the road trip comedy about a group of friends who plan to break into Skywalker Ranch and steal a first cut print of Episode 1 for their friend Linus, who has cancer and won't see the release, is a well handled comedy with dramatic elements, unfortunately not enough because our friends at The Weinstein Company only gave a day or so to re-insert the cancer plotline after fearing cancer and comedy don't work well, if anything it emphasises the comedy and adds so much more heart to the piece.

Whilst we wish an original cut of Newman's version will be released one day, import the DVD from America and have a great time, trust me.

4. Zombieland

Directed by Ruben Fleischer
Written by Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick
Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin & The Cameo.

Zombies. They've been fuel for nightmares for decades, and only recently have people gone for a more comedic route, see Shaun Of The Dead for a brilliant take on the zombie tale. Zombieland goes for an American style rom-zom-com, young man, still a virgin naturally, survives in the desolate America where the undead roam, meets a gun-toting man, strong, little dumb but good at survival, and they travel together, wherein they meet two young vixens, and then young man and young woman fall in love. It's vulgar, violent and very very very very very funny, add to that great use of text, an opening credit sequence that only Watchmen pips to the post and the cameo from a world famous funnyman, it's all brilliant, and a must see.

3. (500) Days Of Summer

Directed by Marc Webb
Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber
Starring Joeseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel

Rom coms, sometimes they can be well done, mostly they are middle of the road, not awful, just, not good. Sometimes they are pure cack.

This isn't a rom com. This is a comedy drama about a relationship, a woman who is a complete bitch and everything possible that makes going shopping in Ikea so damn fun. The two leads are extraordinary as always, the comedy is hysterical through and through, the music fantastic, the style of the piece genius, non-linear, jumping around, sometimes even looking into fantasy and reality simultaneously. A sublime comedy that I've waited months to watch for a third time, I loved it so much that the wait has been painful, nearly over. Simply brilliant.

2. Inglourious Basterds

Written & Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Starring Christopher Waltz, Brad Pitt, Eli Roth, Diane Kruger, Til Schweiger, Daniel Bruhl, Michael Fassbender and Melanie Laurent

Tarantino films have a shelf life of about 6 screenings before they really turn kinda sour. Jackie Brown, Reservoir Dogs, Death Proof, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, some elements are great, but for the most part all those films are kinda dull, a little too over the top in every respect, and, well, just annoying at points. Basterds is not. The ensemble cast works perfectly as we jump between the serious tale of Shoshanna and the Nazi premiere party mixed with the comedic action of the Basterds trying to scalp Nazis and invade the premiere. But tying it all together with the intimidating danger and hilarious comedy is Chris Waltz as 'The Jew Hunter' Colonel Hans Landa. He's viscous, dangerous and scary, you are never sure what he's up to, if you want to laugh at his lines or want to hide in case he finds you, and in that lies the genius which keeps Basterds away from the rotting nature of Tarantino's other films. It's a wonderful film, paced well, shot perfectly and with a great soundtrack, dialogue, acting, nothing is wrong with this film, a perfect WW2 action film, of which there haven't been many for years. The last one to be as good or as funny was Schindler's List.

(If I go to hell for that joke it was worth it)

1. Away We Go

Directed by Sam Mendes
Written by Steve Eggers & Vendela Vida
Starring John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jeff Daniels, Catherine O'Hara & Allison Janney

And here we are, numero uno, the shock, the twist, the upset. This year I sat in a cinema and watched a film for free, the film started too early so was rewound and replayed, so I missed the opening, then saw the opening and had to re-watch scenes again before setting off. And I wasn't even that big a fan of it. Of course 2 weeks later the film was released and I went to see it. 2 hours later I left the screening in love. Soon enough I imported the Blu Ray and have watched it continuously for months. Away We Go is a funny, well told tale of two people in love, starting a family, but trying to find a place to plant their roots. At times it can be brutal to watch, and particularly moving, beautiful but tragic. Other times it can be the funniest parts of the year. And the two leads in Krasinski and Rudolph rise above the Office and SNL roots that have made them so famous, the last big films they were in were Idiocracy and License to Wed, so seeing them so adult, serious, hysterical but able to hold a film on their own with the chemistry so strong and real you'd swear they genuinely were in love is amazing to watch.

The writing is near perfect, Eggers once again proves himself to be masterful in writing, Mendes' directing is fantastic,a particular shot of a plane taking off through reflections on glass is breathtaking, the music by Alexi Murdoch is nothing short of brilliant and everything in this film is superb, if you haven't seen it yet, check it out NOW!

And as we depart that year and head into 2010 I only have one thing to say to the last year.

FUCK YOU!

You sucked massively, it was so hard compiling this list that only at number 12 (The Wrestler) did films that got 10/10 ratings appear, usually I have over 30 10/10 films. Not this year!

Lots of hate, Andrew.

Top 25 of 2009: Part 1 25-11

2009-12-31T20:56:00.000-08:00

25. Where The Wild Things Are
Directed by Spike Jonze
Written by Spike Jonze & Dave Eggers
Starring Max Records, Catherine Keener, James Gandolfino, Paul Dano, Catherine O'Hara, Forest Whitaker and Chris Cooper

Here's a film I was looking forward to purely because of Jonze's name, but the trailers and clips all looked naff, dull and like a sweet arts and crafts visual footage with no plot. The plot is, however, limited, but everything else I thought was wrong when I finally saw my first Jonze film in a cinema. Same amazing visuals as presented in his previous films and shorts & music vids, except Praise You which was very much the Jackass side of him.

A very dark, depressing film about a child's development problems and repression, bi-polar disorder and aggression, as he lives with massive creatures, all parts of his psyche, he finally understand what he puts his mother through as he becomes their king, and tells them what they should do, keeps them busy and holds the family together.

It's by no means a light kids film, but it's not a horrible film, it's daring to give children the chance to see something that's realistic in a fantasy environment, and much more subtle than some films this year. It's funny, interesting and the lead kid is actually a good actor.

24. Role Models
Directed by David Wain
Written by Paul Rudd & David Wain and Ken Marino and Timothy Dowling
Starring Paul Rudd, Seann William Scott, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, Elizabeth Banks, Jane Lynch, Matt Walsh and Ken Jeong.

Paul Rudd, now synonymous somehow with bromance films, honestly, I Love You, Man, that's all, and that's his worst film for ages. That and Monsters Vs Aliens, but it wasn't his fault there, he didn't have to hold the film together with Rush gags and pretending to be shit at improv. At the top of the year he was in my locket close to my heart, and you couldn't say a bad thing about the man. Add to that Chris Mintz-Plasse, who whilst always McLovin to everyone is a funny and intelligent guy, playing a geek, Stifler playing Stifler, Scott is epic at that, and Bobb'e J. as a foul mouthed kid constantly playing the race card, what could go wrong? Nothing.

A consistently funny, silly and entertaining film full of great lines, moments and an amazing 15 minute action sequence using plastic swords, a small wooded area in LA and lots of slow-mo. Jane Lynch, Matt Walsh, The lovely Liz Banks and Ken Jeong are just icing on the cake to showcase to idiots that these people are also hysterical, and it worked, see Community and Glee and The Hangover, recognisable now right.

23. Observe And Report
Written & Directed by Jody Hill
Starring Seth Rogen, Anna Faris, Michael Pena, Ray Liotta and Aziz Ansari

He did it! Finally that twinkle of brilliance in a sadly disappointing on the re-watch Foot Fist Way, and an appallingly unfunny series of Eastbound & Down wherein the joke is the main character is uninteresting and annoying, and we suffer that for 3 hours, has sparked. Jody Hill, it seems, is the funny guy next to Danny McBride, who is a funny actor but not writing material, and Ben Best, again the same here.

Jody, in a year where America was overcome with Paul Blart in January, gave the gift of a more adult Mall Cop for us all, though Kevin James' charm won over more, there's no mistaking this very dark black comedy about a bi-polar testosterone build idiot who feels castrated when real cops enter into the equation of a flasher getting the girl of his dreams. With this Seth Rogen delivers a tour-de-force, both funny and frightening, he's serious and silly at different times, but it's always right for the character, and at points he manages to get Curb style cringe moments.

With some exceptional work from the likes of Michael Pena as a drug abusing mall cop and second in command, Anna Faris as a complete bitch (It's a good year for bitch acting) and Ray Liotta as a cop who hates Rogen's guts purely because he knows that he is better than Rogen, Observe and Report is not for everyone's tastes, but it's hella fun to watch, short and bitter and a must see for comedy of the year.

22. 9
Directed by Shane Acker
Written by Pamela Pettler
Starring Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover, Jennifer Connelly and Martin Landau.

It's not the most original tale, end of the world, key to existance, life and death, humanity destroyed by machines, but as it's told in a visually stunning, ever compelling, wonderfully acted, voice and animation-wise, 9 presents a dark tale of the future in a more adult animation than is normally in the mainstream consciousness, and for that it deserves props, unashamed of going for a more PG-13 area, it's interesting, entertaining and enjoyable, if not unpredictable it leaves you on the edge of your seat for a vast majority of the film's runtime. Well worth a viewing, despite negative reviews.

21. Gamer
Written & Directed by Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor
Starring Gerard Butler, Logan Lerman, Alison Lohman, Michael C. Hall, Chris Bridges, John Leguizamo, Kyra Sedgwick & Terry Crews

Again an unoriginal idea, my friend thought of this concept about 10 years ago and tried to write a novel on it, I remember it distinctly because I thought it sounded like a good idea, we were not conscious of the outside world at this point, clearly.
Butler is Kable, a prisoner who is controlled once a week by a kid playing a game, an FPS, Kable, whilst knowing he's being controlled, has no contact with the kid. As it unravels, Chris bridges' cyber terrorist tries to help free Kable and get to see his family once more, And during this plot there's like 70 action scenes, all amazing in comparison to the year's blockbusters, unsurprising given the directors, more on that later, and a wonderful music sequence with Michael C. Hall being all evil and what not.
Massively entertaining and a must-see soon, if you miss this, well, you're sad. Butler, gun, prisoners, boom headshot, nuff said.

20. The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Written & Directed by Terry Gilliam
Starring Christopher Plummer, Heath Ledger, Verne Troyer, Jude Law, Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell.

When I was at Movie-Con, Mr. Gilliam came on stage, entertaining, funny and insightful. I had seen the trailer to Imaginarium and had no interest in seeing it. To me it looked like a poorly made, random kind of film full of weird images and no semblance of a plot. The subsequent clips, Empire claimed 'a massive amount of the movie' which was about 2 minutes in total, were poor, out of context and lacking content.

Cut to October and it's release, I'm bored, Up is out but saw it in May and June for free, what to do. I see Imaginarium. What a film it turns out to be, it's funny as hell, interesting, and although the last 20 minutes get a little too complex for it's own good, imaginative and visually arresting, compelling and well made. Imaginarium turns out to be a hidden gem, a Gilliam film which actually isn't as annoying as earlier works of this decade. Whilst Ledger's death looms over the film a bit, the changing face of the character through many actors is neither jarring or out of place, in fact it works better as it is than if, alas, it was Ledger all the way through, I'd guess the character's change would be more subtle, however...

19. Life During Wartime
Written & Directed by Todd Solondz
Starring Alison Janney, Paul Reubans, Ciaran Hinds, Chris Marquette, Shirley Henderson and Michael K. Williams.

Ok, so it's not been released yet, so probably next year people MAY put it on their lists of the year, however seeing it at the LFF this year the semi-sequel, more epilogue, to Happiness, the 1998 masterpiece from Todd Solondz that went through some dark areas of life, is a far lighter, easier piece, shorter too, surprisingly lean.

In place of a man's realisation of his sick fetishes and his relationship to his eldest son during the time, we see a few years later, the family still together, sans father pervert, and it's the youngest son's Bar Mitzvah coming up, as he learns to become a man he finds out what happened to his father. Recasting all the roles isn't as jarring as expected, though Philip Seymour Hoffman becoming Michael K. Williams is odd, I didn't understand they were the same person until I looked on imdb later that day. A hard film to really discuss, Wartime has elements from Happiness, the titular song is sung by the same character, who sees her past dead boyfriends all the time, having a mental breakdown, sisterly relationships, love, sex and that opening is very much made to welcome you in to a familiar world. It's a must see for a great wrap up to an 11 year old film, and it's very funny in itself.

18. Red Cliff
Directed by John Woo
Written by John Woo & Khan Chan & Cheng Kuo & Heyu Sheng
Starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang and Chen Chang

I was following the production of this film for at least 3 years and one day in June the UK cinemas were offered the film, not quite the 4 hour 45 minute epic two parter that was done in China but a condensed version. As of writing I have just viewed part one of the two part version on bluray, and the additional hour cut from our release adds the character development that was sorely needed in the condensed, intense but empty version we saw this year.
It says a lot for a film if, without any sign of interesting character development it was still able to climb this top 25 list, the action is epic, well done and different each time, making it far more enjoyable than, say, star Trek, and the style presented, Woo meets modern Chinese filmmaking, it's pure heaven. Whizzing around, slow-mo, long shots, CGI, well choreographed fighting, and more amazing visuals.

17. Up
Directed by Pete Docter (Bob Peterson co-directing)
Written by Pete Docter & Bob Peterson
Starring Ed Asner, Christopher Plummer (Yes, again!), Delroy Lindo, Jordan Nagai and of course John Ratzenberger

It was too much to ask for Pixar to be able to one up last year's masterpiece WALL-E, a top 20 film of all time easily, and whilst you must lower expectations, it's no masterpiece, and unfortunately it's very much an action adventure with weak plotting and a change from wonderful to meh about half way through, it's still superior to many other films of the year. How many other films would have the balls to have a geriatric man lead the, hang on, Gran Torino, Harry Brown, erm.... Well, ok, but for a kids film, no vigilante-ism to focus on a man losing his wife, happy family film of course, and then fulfilling their dream with a kid who accidentally tags along, well, to be sure it's a heartbreaking, tearjerking beautiful 45 minutes that's hysterical beyond belief, it's just a shame that when they add a villain to the piece the film collapses, the greatest enemies in the opening half are gravity, time and annoying children.

16. Public Enemies
Directed by Michael Mann
Written by Michael Mann & Ronan Bennett
Starring Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard, Christian Bale, Giovani Ribisi, Stephen Lang, Billy Crudup, Channing Tatum and Stephen Graham

Admittedly when I first saw this film I was devastated at how bland, empty and uninteresting it all was. However I credit this to the poor sound on the film, the fact that the earlier screening's surround was broken and we weren't warned though the cinema already knew and the factor of rushing back an hour after rushing home to catch a screening. And subtitles. Subtitles are wonderful creatures, you can understand the film even if you quiet it down because the dialogue is low but the gunshots are too fucking loud even fro Mann's standards, see Heat for a near well balanced sound system.

As muffled as it all is, the film is intense, interesting and, though slow, it lets you enter the period setting as we watch Dillinger in his last year, and Christian Bale as a panto villain FBI agent. It's not the masterpiece that Mann has offered time and time again, but it's certainly a well done little film.

15. Trick 'r Treat
Written & Directed by Michael Dougherty
Starring Dylan Baker, Anna Paquin and Brian Cox

Another of them long to get here films, one I heard about way back when, like 2005-2006 and was excited then. Then the trailer appeared on the 300 US DVD, and some kind person put it on youtube. I was squealish in anticipation. October, october, come on Warner Brothers. Then they let it slide that year, build a marketing campaign and release it next February was the idea, which was then changed to October '08. The WB proved time and time again how to mishandle a film which had only garnered positive reviews in it's precious few screenings. Time flew by and the film had still not appeared, then, October 09, fuck it, they just threw it on DVD, Blu Ray in the US, and didn't give a fuck. WELL WE DID!
I imported that mofo like it was my own film, I was so excited, and yet I waited 3 weeks before I put it in and watched it, I had to, needed a Halloween spirit. And you know what? It was funny as hell, clever, full of great twists in each scene and great actors, the best obviously being the one and only Dylan Baker, but it was scary without being too much, violent without being gory and entertaining without needing to spoof, relying more on pastiche and ambience, it's a brilliant film abused by a terrible studio.

14. Anvil: The Story Of Anvil
Directed by Sacha Gervasi

How wonderful when you can say a documentary was good, so good in fact you'd WANT to watch it again, and not just that, it's an easy watch and it surpasses a majority of the films released this year. With all their budgets and CGI and big name actors. Yes, ok, the similarities to Spinal Tap aren't exactly unmanufactured, but it's allowable to fudge the facts for the sake of telling a great comedic tale of two men in a heavy metal band respected by their peers, ignored by the public majority. It's an underdog story told like a documentary, just with details changed, but fuck it, it's just such a great film, and I don't like Heavy Metal music, so it's well worth checking out.

13. Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel
Directed by Gareth Carrivick
Written by Jamie Mathieson
Starring Chris O'Dowd, Anna Faris, Marc Wooton & Dean Lennox Kelly

How wonderful when you can go to the cinema and see a small British piece of cinema that is insanely funny but best of all, a pure geek film. 3 Imagineers, or geeks like us, find the men's room of the pub makes them travel through time by accident, and in true form, they understand the rules of such travel from films, and know about the kinds of dangers and scrapes from films too. And it's just lots of clever, silly and funny sequences which works even better on DVD than the cinema counter-part, more an epic feature length comedy for the BBC than a big budget sci-fi film that demands the screen, but it demands you go find a copy and tell your friends.

12. The Wrestler
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Written by Robert D. Siegel
Starring Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood

Not the most shocking choice, a film that last year was garnering billions of pieces of praise for the film and Rourke's performance alike. Calling it his comeback was mean, however, his work with Robert Rodriguez, most famously in Sin City, was surely a performance he'll be remembered for years ahead, but it's no secret Rourke was amazing in The Wrestler, a simple and well told drama about washed out star rebuilding his career, fighting old age, finding love and losing family.

It's tragic, funny, superbly paced and tremendously acted, Evan Rachel Wood and Marissa Tomei are equally astonishing in their secondary roles, and yet Rourke is never a smug lead, he's charismatic, interesting, and best of all, true. Similar to seeing Jean Claude crying in JCVD, the warmth and reality of the film stems from Rourke's actual experiences, and that's what makes this film so damn good.

11. Punisher: War Zone
Directed by Lexi Alexander
Written by Nick Santora and Art Marcum & Matt Holloway
Starring Ray Stevenson, Dominic West, Wayne Knight, Dash Mihok, Colin Salmon and Doug Hutchinson

An odd choice, yes, but just outside the top 10 and I present a film I laughed at, was constantly interested in and purely entertained in the most visceral of ways when watching it, and not just in the cinema, multiple home release re-watches and if anything it gets better. It's not a great film in the sense of writing, character development, strong morality, but it's fun, violent and got some hysterical little moments. the Punisher without the commercial mainstream issues that made Tom Jane's one a little too polite, quiet and shiny, this is down and dirty, full of mad limb tearing moments, and never afraid to utter the term "Krispy Kreme Motherfuckers"
Awesome.

And so there we are.
2009 is officially over, and I'll be revealing my top 10 later today, hope you had a good year, and a better 2010, especially in cinema.

People of 2009 (Well, actors, not real people)

2009-12-10T16:40:00.000-08:00

10. Eric Bana

The Time Traveler's Wife and Funny People were far and wide not GREAT movies, however both had great elements, TTW had an amazing visual style, couldn't say that for an Apatow film, a man who has completely ripped off Kevin Smith's career and made his latest bomb because of this, but they both had exceptionally grand performances from awesome man Eric Bana.
Bana was hysterical, and added some pep to a dying film suffering a wind an hour and 45 minutes into the 2 hour 20 minute runtime, he comes in, shouting, making jokes and swearing, he's Australian, that's the base gag, but he makes it so much more entertaining because he's, well, a genius.
In TTW thankfully the titular character, played by the terrible Rachel McAdams, isn't as important as this Terminator style nude man who pops up now and then, and is highly entertaining and charismatic as he appears through a non-linear timeline, never sure where he is, or when he'll go again.
And he's just so awesome, the kind of guy who oozes charisma, and even in weak films he proves himself to be a talent unhindered.

9. Jesse Eisenberg

I'll admit, I hated Adventureland, I knew it wasn't the loling on the floor comedy it was advertised as, I went in hoping for another masterful workplace comedy drama/coming of age comedy drama, like Dazed and Confused met Clerks and adopted Garden State, just not as good as any of those films of course, instead it was just pure depression and lots of hitting in the bollocks.
However it once again showed that Eisenberg is a loveable, not likeable, lead, he's funny, uncharismatic and awkward in the best way, and whilst he's done that schtick in the exquisite Roger Dodger and the masterpiece Squid And The Whale, he's great at it. But it wasn't that flop which proved him, t'was another.
Yes, Zombieland, where he, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin and Woody Harellson faced many of the undead with guns, jokes and geniusness. And once again Eisenberg was the top hitter in a group doing amazing work. And I just hope his star actually rises one day.

8. John Krasinski

From The Office to Leatherheads (If we ignore License To Wed, something I've managed to do so far) Krasinski has been funny and sweet consistantly, and whilst this year he only had the one film, it was an amazing film, and it just showed that even out of Jim Halpert he could be funny, sweet and, well, just so damn huggable. He continues to show his knack for great roles, great chemistry with co-stars, and, well, being great, there's nary a moment you don't buy into his relationship with Maya Rudolph, they just work perfectly together, and both can deliver lines snappy and funny adding more to what was written, as opposed to, say, Keanu Reeves, who might take what's written it, and revert the paper back to wood.

7. Amy Adams

I don't have to explain this decision do I? It's Amy Adams, the cute as a button, excellent in everything beauty who, even in films that seem bad, churns out brilliance, and lightens everything up. Sunshine Cleaning had a whiff of indie unsure what to do with this premise, but, Between Amy and Emily Blunt (2 beautiful sisters to enjoy) the aimless plot didn't bother me.
With Night At The Museum 2 I actually, and finally, enjoyed one of those films, having hated the first, and it's thanks in no small part to Amy's portrayal of Amelia Earhart. She's got a great voice going on, and she's super chipper, the kind of pep you can't fake.
And even with the boring half of Julie & Julia it was nice to watch Amy try and portray a normal human, one who has bad, dark moments, which, of course Amy will never have due to her awesomeness. Right?
Well, there was Doubt of course, she played a nun who fears she may have seen the process of child molestation occurring, but doesn't have any proof, making Julia Childs shout at Truman Capote Mark 1 for an hour, but even then she's super chipper and looking on the bright side.

6. Chris O'Dowd

From telly to belly, as a voice over on The Day Today once said, Chris O'Dowd wasn't in BIG films, he wasn't in many films, but he was in films, and they were good, and, dare I say it, he was the best part of them. In March Richard Curtis made a less rom-com, more actual com The Boat That Rocked, wherein a series of characters had vignettes to befit a 2 odd hour run time, one of which was Chris O'Dowd getting engaged, married, then finding his wife in bed with the famous DJ. He's funny as hell in the film, but at the same time he gave more emotion and gravity to the role than you'd expect from such a light, breezy, overlong film.
Add in the equation of a film of the year, and better each time, in the form of Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, wherein he and two others play imagineers, nerds, and know far too much about Time Travel from films and television, though far too much is my way of saying "I concur with their statement having seen many of what they have and know all of it too. Once again he was hysterical, laugh out loud so, and made it thoroughly entertaining to watch these films.

5. Sharlto Copley

FOOKIN' PRAWNS MATE!
Who is this guy? Why is that 'tache swarming with icky? How would you actually find an orifice to insert oneself into a 'prawn'?
These are, almost, all good questions, and, well, I wouldn't have been able to tell you who he was without jumping to imdb, even after watching District 9. But, I made it my business to know his name, cos, whilst the film wasn't a masterpiece by any means, a no name carrying such a big film, well, and not making it dull and dry, instead being freaking hysterical, no easy task, but with limited effort, seemingly, he gets you interested, and makes him a hate-able racist AND a lovable character on the run in one fell swoop. Also he ad-libbed a lot of the stuff, making FOOKIN' PRAWNS MATE more awesome.

4. Michael Fassbender

Yes, he got lots of acclaim last year for playing Bobby Sands in Hunger, but, whilst that film was disappointing, he came into his own this year. A double header in the form of a brilliant job in Inglourious Basterds as a straight up English officer with a funky German accent, funny and interesting, and then playing a smooth, charismatic, yet darkly weird Irishman in Fish Tank, where he wooed a woman, then set his eyes on the 15 year old daughter, seemingly fatherly, sweet and innocent, but, of course, it being in Essex it can't last in innocence for too long, none of us do...
But he was a higherlight in both films, films swarming with highlights, and the more I watch Basterds, the more I enjoy his performance.

3. Sam Rockwell

What have you seen Mr. Rockwell in this year? If you didn't answer Moon you must now fin a copy and watch, it's one of the funniest, most constantly interesting, and brilliantly made for such a small budget, films of the year, and a testament to Zowie Bowie's work to manage to make a convincing Moon landscape for only £5million. Ok, yes, sound in space is annoying, but sod it, you get Kevin Spacey as a robot and many Rockwells, not just one, and each have a different attitude, and when two appear together and have conversations, boy is it endearing, entertaining, and you can tell which one is which with your eyes closed, the personalities sculpted are brilliant, subtle but entertaining, and showcase Rockwell's undeniable, and underused, talents.
Sam Rockwell for Best Actor Oscar '010!
('010 is a joke given that it doesn't reduce the characters)

2. Jackie Earle Haley

When he was nominated for an Oscar in 2007 I thought "Who the frak" then I finally saw Little Children. I didn't hate it like the trailer convinced me I would. No, if anything I loved it, and not just cos Patrick Wilson is mega awesome. (Although he seems desperate to prove he has an arse sometimes) But the film's most interesting, compelling, and dangerous character was Jackie Earle Haley's newly released paedophile, a man who, at the end of a date whacks off to a woman complaining about her love life.
Rorschach is a horse of a different colour. As the tests prove, he is pure black and white, right and wrong, there's no in between, and Haley, giving a Batman voice that works perfectly and is never painful to hear, it's a natural fit in every moment, offers up a vigilante who, whilst his methods can be cruel, is someone you root for because, unlike everyone els,e he sticks to his gun and can see the world for what it is, not the bull shit shrouding everything, and in this comic book character we get a £D human, two lives, one he likes, one he suffers until he can go back to what he does best, and the mix of solo and team work, how he reacts when working with others, just make everything even better.
If he doesn't get a nod this year I'll be miffed, if not shocked, it's a purer, better, more enjoyable performance than Heath Ledger by far.

1. Christopher Waltz

This time last year I'd have said "Who the frak are you talking about? Sounds weird, probably arthousey"
Well, Euro cinema. German cinema. But good ol' Tarantino, in his masterpiece Inglourious Basterds, created a perfect character, self assure, interesting, bad but not evil for evil's sake, and always has something to say, be it claiming he is the Jew Hunter because he's an excellent detective, or the faces he pulls, the subtle, and hysterical, foot on my lap please motion, the 'glass of milk' and pipe schtick, the Strudel (Oh lord that strudel) everything he does we are enthralled, and we don't care that it's not Brad Pitt in what is essentially the second lead behind Shoshanna, no, we're interested in what he's doing, is he gonna catch the good guys, is he there to shoot the Frenchman at the start? What's his game plan?
It's ambiguous, and well done, we fear him and his power, but also laugh at his events, they're funny and dark, and it's no mean feat that he has, in one film, proven himself to be an immense talent, where he goes from Basterds I don't know, I just hope he doesn't sell out and make "Hans Landa: P.I."
Actually, if any networks wanna make that, I'd watch it.

The Bottom Rung Of 2009

2009-12-07T05:31:00.000-08:00

10. Star Trek

Yes, ok, I know, it's a cliche, everyone and their Trek addled mothers loved Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in JJ's latest film, action packed, CGI heavy and more young stars than a Harry Potter vs Twilight battle royale, but you know what? You're all wrong. It's an appalling work of cinema. The plot? Near non-existant. The characters? Smug and annoying, like characters from the OC or Skins were aboard a spaceship. The graphics? Meh, too much shaky cam and lens flare, it's stylish in a shit way. The script? Appalling, a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory set piece for Simon Pegg, science delivered in such a way that it's laughably bad and horrendously believed with intent by the young, and shitty, actors. Well, except Yelchin, Cho and Pegg.
What is Star Trek? It's a mess, a disgusting looking film which is neither original nor inventive, it's Iron Man syndrome, people love it, claim it's original when it's quite the opposite.

9. Couples Retreat

What's that? It's nearly August and no sign of a Vince Vaughn Christmas film still? Thank you Tarvu! Wait, what's this on apple trailers? "Couples Retreat"? Looks like lots of people doing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, load it up.

DAMN YOU VAUGHN!

Not a single laugh, no sausages, even from resident genius Peter Serafinowicz. And yet number one for weeks in America. Shoddy. Shoddy shoddy shoddy.

8. The Spirit

First film of the year. Seriously. 1/1/2009.
Why?
Frank Miller makes a horribly stupid aesthetic decision, with a talentless group of actors and a braindead script that jumps between serious and silly so often you want to jump between dead and dead but not in hell watching the film on a continuous loop. An appalling work of inhumanity. Please Amnesty International, sort this out.

7. Year One

Jack Black, Paul Rudd, David Cross, Hank Azaria, Harold Ramis. A massive piss-take on the bible and evolution in one fell swoop, with some comedy geniuses. What went so wrong? 2 things: Michael Cera, indie charmer, formerly George Michael Bluth, and sticking to that role in every film he's in. Number 2, hee hee number 2, it's immature, puerile and neither subtle nor clever to sustain any jokes, and the characters are all loud and annoying. Plus Jack Black has a literal shit eating grin.

6. GI Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

The guy who gave us The Mummy said the trailer. The guy who gave us The Mummy died and was reincarnated by the man who offered up The Mummy Returns and Van frakking Helsing. CGI-less Sommers are something that were before Climate Change hit, now, well, if there's anything in GI Joe that hasn't been altered with computers, it's cut out before the final cut is confirmed. A shit storm of horrendously plasticy and overuse of CGI mixed with a cast that features Channing 'SlabO'Meat' Tatum and Marlon 'Funny Black Sidekick' Wayans. Yep, you read that right, Marlon Wayans is considered funny to some people. Fuck knows why, this film is proof that even Joeseph Gordon-Levitt needs to eat.

5. Seven Pounds

Will Smith - Good. He's funny, charismatic like only Clooney and few others are, and when he does drama he at least tries.
However... The Pursuit Of Happyness was shit, no bones about it, and here, same director, same star, the premise, he's giving away things, he did a bad thing, he wants to die and make peoples' lives better. It's dull, overly 'sentimental' without getting close to deserving any emotions. A bore and a terrible waste of time and money.

4. State Of Play

Tony Fu

3. Duplicity

cking Gilroy.

2. The Hangover

Todd Philips gave us Old School. He offered up Road Trip. There was Starsky and Hutch, an unappreciated silly little film that's just funny as hell at points. Well, he did School for Scoundrels, but that was fucked from Jump Street. This, a film in which 4 people forget the last night, and trace their steps, like Dude Where's My Car? succumbed to poorly written characters, over-explaining plot points and making the random events explained, thus destroying the inexplicability of it all. Add to that the two writing hackjobs did Four Christmases and, wait for it, Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past before this one. They aren't funny, and neither is this film. A shame as Ed Helms has proved himself on The Office, and Zach Galifianakis has reassured he's talented with Bored To Death on HBO.

1. Paranormal Activity

Here we are. The bottom rung of 2009, a year in which films never regained quality from the funk that mid October 2008 began, we're looking at you Quantum of Solace. And with a film that has received the highest of ratings from critics and consumers alike. A film I'm relieved to say I saw for free and earlier than the UK, not earlier than most, Sundance 08 and the US release were before, but it beat Saw VI at the box office, and is insanely profitable because it was super cheap. And the problems are inherent to it's budget. A poorly written, uninteresting 80 minutes that lack tension or investment into the film, it's not real, and never feels close to real footage, the acting is appalling, the script painful, the special scare moments either too small and easy to explain or ridiculously dumb such as the final 10 minutes. It's an appalling film in every respect, and another blow to my attempts at understanding why people like camcorder films, it's like fake snuff movies. And they're as entertaining and well made as the real things.

Bunny Boilers

2009-11-30T16:44:00.000-08:00

Bunny And The Bull is a film I'd never heard of until Movie-Con in August, and when Simon Farnaby, the titular Bunny of the film, and writer director Paul King took stage for a Q&A after some clips, including a hysterical Richard Ayoade as a shoe museum tour guide, I was desperate to see the completed film. Finally I scored a ticket to the Genesis cinema's screening of the film for the London Film Festival, a screening so packed and devoid of quality sound I was going to await a second screening before I judged it, until the release became so limited it was impossible to do so, now over a month later I've decided to review it.

Sadly the funniest moments are all in the trailer, as are some of the most awkwardly annoyingly cliched humourless moments, of which the film has a lot. Paul King's work with the Mighty Boosh TV show have clearly made him stay in their frame of mind instead of developing his own ideas, of which can be clearly seen as the best parts by the end. So desperate to have the two Boosh leads in his film, a random meeting with a Russian dog lover who offers milk to Ed Hogg's Stephen, yet 'hysterically' he offers a beer to Bunny, Julian Barrett just gurns for the camera. In a separate vignette, Noel Fielding as a bullfighter does his usual, odd, random, then normal schtick, and it's just as grating, I enjoyed the pair's antics for two series, but by the time everyone loved them they got so smug and painful watching the best stuff is impossible.

Even with a budget of £1million Paul King sticks with the Boosh style, projected backgrounds of animations in South Park cut out ways for cheapness, and whilst it's visually amazing at points, the film's cliched characters, dull premise and painfully boring leads don't help the film, the best part is the emotional punch the film kicks into the audience an hour and twenty five minutes in when you realise what the title is referring to, and you suddenly know how it's going to end, yet you don't want it to.

It's just a shame that the opening hour and a half are so dull and made-for-tv that it never manages to hit the highs of a certain other gang of TV sitcom greats that transcended into cinema, Wright, Pegg anyone?
Still, it's not Lesbian Vampire Killers, so well done there.
6/10

FYATTT MYAATT DAMON!

2009-11-30T16:23:00.000-08:00

Steven Soderbergh began my movie year, kinda, with Che Part One, minutes after suffering The Spirit I nestled down in a chair and enjoyed a wonderful, if disappointingly unfulfilling look at Che Guevara and Cuba, so fittingly he almost ends the year, with one of the last 10 films on my radar, starring Matt Damon as an annoying person. Method as always, here Matt isn't hitting people in shaky cam with terrible Tony Gilroy scripts, in fact he's slowly lying to people in a script written unsure of comedy or drama as it's forte, Damon's voice overs drift randomly through his mind, whereas the topic is approached in a heavy handed manner, even though the 70's style music and fonts in the 90's set film suggest a more fun and free film, it's sadly dull, long and about corn.

The film gets going in a way that seems ok, a blackmail that leads to the FBI, lying inside the company, and finally Damon announces to the FBI that the company, and other, price fix corn prices.

And from there it's about him recording people, badly, and being an idiot, and that's it, he's stupid in a world of smart people, that's all.

The saddest elements of this film are that there's so much the talent could have done instead rather than wasting away in this limp, lifeless attempt at a 'caper' film, and the talent involved itself. 30 Rock's Scott Adsit, Community's Joel McHale, Arrested Development's Tony Hale, Tenacious D's Paul F. Tompkins and the awesomeness of Patton Oswalt are all in this film, and do fuck all, why? Who knows, but together they'd make an awesomely funny comedy, here, they're wasted and bored.

As was I, when I saw it in an empty cinema as the other patrons saw the first screening of, sigh, New Moon.

I ended up screaming AD references about Barry Zuckercorn as Baby Buster assumed his mantle.
3/10

The Men Who Stare At Light Projected On A Screen

2009-11-30T16:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, so, The Men Who Stare At Goats.
A film based on a book based on true events that's presented in the most unfeasible way wherein the creators appear to have limited interest, sadly, in presenting facts in a believable manner, instead opting for going all out crazy and backing up a road trip with a poorly American accented Ewan McGregor and a mustached George Clooney in Iraq by using 'document's and narration to supply backstory in segments to the events that unfurl on film. The premise of a journalist slowly realising a local man, Stephen Root, wasn't crazy and actually spoke the truth about a military segment focussing on psychic powers, leading to his journey to find the truth, seemed great, lots of comedy, interesting revelations to the movie going public about what really happened, and backed up by what clearly is an amazing cast.

The first 10 minutes had so much hope, Root is only in the beginning, and he's always great, add to that a wonderful montage of events and credits set to Supergrass (Instant Win), but by the time we're knee-deep in the desert and realising that the film has limited interest in giving much in a story or informing us of the events, short of the comedic moments in the trailers dragged out more, ruining all elements of humour in them, it becomes a painfully slow hour and forty minutes.

Even in a film that brings Jeff Daniels in as The Dude under military command, drugs, long hair, crazy dancing, not giving a shit, all the Dudians that Jeffrey Lebowski offered up, and given an adversary in Kevin Spacey's villainous, smart officer joining the 'jedi' program, it all falls flat and, like the premise, goes nowhere, slowly.

Even poor ol' Robert Patrick and Stephen Lang are underused, they're too awesome, it's the equivalent of having R. Lee Ermy in a military film and having him be a worried grandfather concerned, caring and sweet natured, it's wrong.

Alas the film never really tried to get off the ground, it just goes along with it's star studded mess for it's runtime, near oblivious to all it's missgivings, even a raid of LSD in water at a base plot point is far too dulled down to be genuinely entertaining, the film proves it's a real shambles and what could have been is long gone by now.

5/10

How much wood would a woodstocker stock if a woodstocker woodstock wood?

2009-11-17T11:12:00.000-08:00

I've tried and failed consistently to really enjoy and sink my teeth into Ang Lee's repertoire, there's no doubt the man makes great looking films, and most of the time elements are amazing, be it acting, score, style, plot, tone, but the one thing he never can work with is pace. Hulk was too long and drawn out, Brokeback needed 25 minutes shaved off, Crouching Tiger spent a lot of time just going over things that never really felt that necessary.

With Taking Woodstock a laid back approach isn't just a good idea, it's mandatory, for a story of a young Jewish man (at least it's not half Yiddish like the Coen's film) who manages to secure the Woodstock concert for his town, helping his family out of debt problems at their motel, and giving new life to their town, but with the hippy movement in full swing, not everyone is happy. However the pace is laidback like most of the characters, even in dire situations they are all 'groovy' and 'far out', in accordance with Ang Lee's work, it's also too long at different stages, and then misses the best bits for more long nothingness.

A cast of actors such as Demetri Martin, Imelda Staunton, Emile Hirsch, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Eugene Levy, Liev Schreiber & Dan Fogler in lead roles, cameo appearances, transvestite characters and straight laced anti-Semitic townsfolk among others, it's impossible to criticise the acting, and the film does look exceptional, utilising split screen for some scenes, archive footage feeling for others and natural, one image film for the majority, it's got it's own use of ideas presented in many films before it, and it certainly works for the piece.

Add to that the film is rather funny at points, and the drama is well done, even though none of the characters really care, as the hardest stuff to cope with is given a brush off and a hippy catchphrase and never looked back upon, it's a light film, but it's also an odd film, the first hour deal with monetary issues and the setting up of the concert, the next 45 minutes are about the trickling of people to the fields and the lead character trying, but failing, to reach the venue, instead hanging on a hill with friends, old and newly acquired. The film also has a look at the free love regime, a small moment in a bar the lead is grabbed and kissed by a woman, he turns round, a man he hung out with earlier is there, they kiss, but there's never any talk about the lead's actual love life, or who he really is, short of being an artist, mentioned from time to time but briefly.

Overall the film does try to present issue, ideas and not be conventional 'here is the music you love and here's a story about the music with the music' but ultimately it does seem rather pointless, yes it's a fun watch, but you get nothing out of it, and in the end this film could really have been something amazing if it tried harder.
7/10

A Disappointed Man

2009-11-16T14:53:00.000-08:00

I love the Coen brothers. No, I adore The Coen Brothers, yes they don't always knock it out of the park, but their bunts are better than at least 50% of films made, and their small hits to get bases loaded can be better than 90% of films made, of course the home runs are the masterstroke, films such as No Country, O' Brother, Hudsucker and Lebowski for instance, so it's no surprise that A Serious Man is on the higher end of the 1-10 score spectrum.
Sadly it's barely there.

A Serious Man opens with a 5 minute vignette in a foreign snowy land, a man returns home happy, tells his wife his carriage broke and a man helped, she says that the man had been dead for years, the man enters, is stabbed for being some spirit thing, then walks out, bleeding. It has no relevance to the rest of the piece, maybe that's the point, but it's the level of almost smug cleverness that makes The Coen's forget the human factor and really making characters and situations you care about in place of such showing off in a filmic and linguistic manner, especially in the use of some yiddish, not Collinwood amounts, thankfully, and all rather easy to understand.
We meet the man we follow for the next 2 hours in a doctor's office, going through a medical, before he goes about his job as a professor at a university, and is bribed by a failing Korean student, then gets home to find his son wants the aerial fixed, his daughter needs to wash her hair, his brother is in the bathroom working on his cyst, and his wife wants a divorce.

A sudden storm begins to emerge without warning. And for the duration we see the divorce process in Jewish fashion, going through Rabbi's for help on his life, lawyers for the divorce, his brother's police issues, land issues, faith issues come about, family issues go mental, but through it all, there's limited engagement with the lead, he's going about doing things as you'd expect, the normal person in a quirky Coen world, but ultimately you know that like they always do, they'll pull that piss stained rug from under you and it'll all be meaningless, sudden and there'd just be wasted time to connect with the leads.
Even if you desperately try it's damn near an inaccessible film, it's funny, very funny don't get me wrong, but it's by no means a masterpiece, or even that good. The script isn't up to much, though the acting is superb all round, especially from Richard Kind as the brother and Micahel Stuhlbarg as Larry Gopnik, our hero, and it looks especially beautiful, Roger Deakins back behind the camera for the duo, if only he was around for Burn too, but still. The score by Carter isn't as impressive as others he's done recently, then again it's overshadowed by a lorra lorra Jefferson Airplane anyway.

Overall, though A Serious Man is a very funny film, it's a middling, pointless and annoyingly dull film which might be better on the re-watch, but sitting down of an evening to see it, I was left cold and annoyed, not even asking questions like the dentist story Rabbi 2 gives halfway through, which is the film's key, it's just a step down from 2 10/10 films of late.

6/10

The Day After The Day After The Day After The Year Or So After Tomorrow.

2009-11-13T08:56:00.000-08:00

Mr. Roland Emmerich has had a rather interesting Hollywood career, Stargate, cack, Independance Day, awesome. Godzilla, cack, The Day After Tomorrow, awesome. 10,000 B.C., cack. So in essence 2012, seeing as his last film was more than the standard cack, should be a masterpiece right?

I mean, the basic set up, John Cusack as divorced dad rushes to save kids, Amanda Peet and her new boyfriend as the world collapses, with lots of CGI and loud noises, should be a focussed, simple exercise in unmittigated disaster movies, right?

Well, to be fair, the film opens with a 15 minute set up, including Chiwetel Ejiofer, in another masterful performance where only a standard one is ever needed, meets his pal Jimi Mistry, again great, in India and discovers things are starting to happen in the Earth's core along with solar flares taking physical damage on the planet. Then Oliver Platt, who has a real bad agent after Year One, understands the danger and helps him, but, shock horror, he has his own plans cos he's part of the government.
Add to that Thandie Newton, Danny Glover's daughter, he's the president, works for a company who replaces art in time for the worldwide crisis, finds out the details as her friend explodes in the same, shameless, tunnel as a certain 'peoples princess' like that matters.

Oh, yeah, and everytime Danny Glover says something he doesn't look outside as the disaster hits and say "I'm gettin' too old for this shit" so he fails.

But, yeah, the basic premise is shit is happening all around the World in increasingly ridiculous manners and some people gave a billion euros for a seat on an ark, so they head over there, Cusack and co. know where to find it cos crazy hillbilly Woody Harrelson presents a radio show about conspiracies like that...

Cue many moments of "We're gonna die" then they don't, miraculously, for 2 hours and change. It's ridiculously long and painfully contrived, and worst of all, unengaging. It's the end of the World and the characters are so bland we can't connect with any of them, and this is the film's problem. We can sit through a long film if the characters are right, Jesse James, Dark Knight, Watchmen, Lord Of The Rings, the characters are set up, reacting to the situations in a way only they could, and we follow them, here it's about as inventive as GI Joe.

The acting of the big names is mostly great, Harrelson, Ejiofer, Mistry, Platt, Glover, Cusack, Peet, Newton, all as expected, Cusack's kids aren't bad either, though a Russian billionaire's family are awful, twin russian kids who sound more American than anything else, and an annoying, boring trophy girlfriend help make the middle section painfully dull before the body count reaches new heights. The whole ark idea was better done in Sky Captain too, but I guess you can't expect miracles.

And to be honest the film doesn't try too hard, it just throws situations out on the screen to see what happens, be it the Sistine chapel's God and Adam image cracking in the middle, or Amanda Peet and her boyfriend in a supermarket, he says "I'll never leave you" or something then a crack separates them without making any of them fall down the gap, miraculously.

It's all stupid, and maybe in a more vocal, entertaining crowd it works, but in an English, soggy, mid-day crowd the film fails on a lot of levels, especially entertainment, some scenes are better on youtube.
5/10

Rosebud! I Am Law Abiding Citizen Kane!

2009-11-11T13:59:00.000-08:00

F. Gary Gray has brought us such titles as The Italian Job with Mark Wahlberg and A Man Apart with Vin Diesel, now he teams up with Kurt Wimmer, the man who gave us Ultraviolet and Equilibrium, to bring us Law Abiding Citizen, a film where Jamie Foxx plays a cunt and Gerard Butler is an innocent man who gets revenge on the people who unnecessarily murdered his family.

From the outset it's clear that Butler is our hero, he's the man that got screwed over by the system to keep Foxx's record in perfect order, so 10 years later when Foxx has a family and Butler goes about delivering a lethal injection that's rather painful. Given it's less than 24 hours since the Washington Sniper was executed, the scene was rather brutal and interesting to watch, like the opening where a fat man stabs Butler and his wife in a shockingly frank manner reminiscent of Zodiac.

Sadly when Butler gets to torturing the fat man, paralysed but not numbed, filming as he severs limbs and such, we see a deranged build up deliciously evil, but no pay off. Even when the daughter of Foxx watches it, it's all sound effects, no images, and the man's head lying on a worktop without any signs of it being a human head. Come the last hour all the build up from Butler becomes a series of gunshots, similar to Harry Brown, it's same old same old, nothing new, and then, annoying of all, it turns out we're meant to be on the side of Jamie Foxx, I'm rarely on his side, ever.

The acting is superb from Butler, he's fun and dark, and he has more funny moments here than the whole of The Ugly Truth, Foxx is annoyingly shit, everyone else gets nothing to do, and the whole film seems to be an exercise in build-up and futility, which is a real shame, as it could have been a violent but fun vigilante revenge justice flick.
5/10

My Name Is Harry Brown, And I'm A Nosy, Violent Neighbour!

2009-11-09T12:01:00.000-08:00

Michael Caine has had his arm in many a violent little English film through his illustrious career, but none more so than with Harry Brown, a true 18 rated grimy, gritty, bleak and unsettling vigilante tale set in an estate around Elephant & Castle, where yoofs have guns and swear and do drugs everywhere, like most places, and they're violent little pricks.

With Harry Brown the first hour begins with a 5 minute camera shot sequence of events with a youngster embraced by a yoof gang, given a gun, shooting a woman and getting run over, all it needs is a 'Think: Don't shoot people then make an exit without overlooking the possibility that your idiot body might be crushed' text and it'd be a complete advert, instead we then get the outline of the day to day for Harry Brown, Harry not Harold, not even the police when formally addressing him say Harold, well written as always, he wakes up, tea and jam, walks to the hospital, sees his wife, grabs a pint, talks to his pal Leonard then gets home before the yoofs come out and make noise, general discomfort and cause some ultra-violence, if they had milk instead of booze we'd have already seen this film...

One day the yoofs shove dog leavings through 'Arry's pal's letterbox and he snaps, running out with a bayonet and attacking the kids, who use it against him and violently kill him, whilst filming the attack of course. Soon enough the police investigation, led by the wonderful Emily Mortimer and a stilted partner dishing out lines so bland and devoid of human emotions they'd be out of place in a Bill episode, peters out and 'Arry can't have that, scoring a few guns from local black market drug runners he soon runs rampant around the estate, causing the police to get mobile on the yoofs and dealers, thinking they are behind it all instead.

The first hour of the film delivers some really harrowing, unsettling moments and has a bleak and realistic world view, offering up no easy answers, just lots of poorly scripted moments dealt with by professional actors. The second hour, however, the film loses all quality, becoming something of a facist fantasy, an old man with a gun reigning terror on idiot yoofs and hoodies, with no interest on moral dilemmas if there's a chance for a stupid, overblown action sequence that adds nothing to the characters, instead saying that the only thing that needs to be done is shoot all kids and crime rates drop tenfold. A subsequent riot sequence with kids acting like French students and a pub finale where a random, stupid twist is added to try to create an effect on the 'who is the bad guy, is the good guy even worse' without looking at Harry Brown as anything but a saint with a pistol.

It's a shame that the film delves into ridiculous male fantasy after some amazing reality grounding work first up, and Daniel Barber's visual eye is clear here, the lighting, the shots, it's wonderfully done, if only the script had been given a once over by someone who didn't say "Oh, shooting would be cool here, what's normal people speak sound like?"

6/10

Five, Six, Seven, Eight!

2009-11-06T16:41:00.000-08:00

Shane Acker's 9 has been given very middle of the road reviews since it's US release in September, mainly that the animation is great, no question, but the story and dialogue is cliched and contrived. Given that the main pulling power is that under producoral capacities are Timur Bekmambetov and Tim Burton.

9, which resembles a dark version of LittleBigPlanet the movie, is about 9 sacks with skeletal metal given life by a professor as humanity is wiped out by machines the professor invented with AI, that slowly became hostile to humanity. The 9 slowly appear as #9 awakens and is born into the wastelands of the Earth. 2, Martin Landau, is a smart old man who is abused by number 1, Christopher Plummer as a cult head leader. 5 is a partial medic, sweet-natured man, played by the epic John C. Reilly, 7 is femme fatale, even though they have no genders, played by the faceless, bland Jennifer Connelly, 6 is an introverted psychotic drawing images of an odd shape that 9 awakens to find, played by Crispin Glover. The cast is topped off by 9, Elijah Wood, as an innocent but brave and foolish kid in the world, new to everything, for better and most definitely worse.

The film most definitely looks astonishing at times and is stylistically amazing, but to be fair, whilst the script and story are simple and been done before, it's not to say that it fails on these accounts, quite the contrary, the cast give life to the characters, vibrancy in dialogue, even contrived dialogue, and the story can be tense and exciting, not knowing when it will end as well, it's a cracking little underrated gem that whilst imperfect, like the film's lead, is also a great film and deserves a lot more attention than it received on release, a must see especially next to more kiddie attempts at animation, it's a solid PG-13 action adventure, scary, dark and brilliant, and because it's not perfect I get to give it a...

9/10

The weather outside's not frightful, yet Christmas is coming to multiplexes?

2009-11-04T11:59:00.000-08:00

Robert Zemeckis returns once more for the third of his mo-cap films, first was the rather brilliantly sweet and simple Polar Express, second was the dry but exciting Beowulf, now he's employed Jim Carrery to play about 1000 characters who all don't sound English by any means, so fit in perfectly with the shoddy accents from the people of London, specifically the children. Think Chev Chelios as a kid in Crank 2, THAT level of painful accents.

Again the film looks stunning, and Zemeckis pretty much throws virtual cameras around like they cost nothing. Probably because they cost nothing. But he clearly wants to show off the worlds that have been built for the film so much by giving us every angle in less time than we can monitor, in IMAX 3D the film will not be for those who suffer from extreme vertigo, Liza Minelli, nor anyone with severe motion sickness, you pretty much whizz around London at the start, after an opening segment.

The film kindly opens with the book being turned to the opening, and we, from there, see Jacob Marley's corpse and Scrooge with the undertakers. From there we begin the story as traditionally as possible, sneering, bah humbug, the same dialogue as it once was, rather authentic.

As we meet Marley's ghost we start to see where Zemeckis' version has it's own ideas, rather dry and traditional in Victorian London, when the spirits come in, the humour is being attempted to rise, in the case of Marley his jaw detaches and he smacks it up and down to talk for a bit. It's as funny as it sounds, maybe less so if I described it well enough. The Christmas Past spirit is a candle with a flame the face of Jim Carrey, sporting a soft Irish accent, that sometimes sounds a tad too Canadian, just before the two go oot and aboot the 'shadows of the past'.

Christmas Present is Jim Carrey as Brian Blessed, he laughs a lot, is very beardy and booming, and clearly needed the presents of someone with a voice like Blessed, as Carrey cannot sustain the bass to really excel in the vocal department here, however the final scenes are perhaps the most disturbing in a kids film this side of Jar Jar.

Christmas Future is the point I mark on the map wherein the film goes downhill. Before the spirits went into the flashback moments rather quickly, a little introduction and conversation, then BLAM, Scrooge is shown things, here Scrooge is chased down streets by the shadow spirit on a shadow horse and cart and shrunk until he fits through pipes, and for no reason smashes against 10 icicles as he falls off a roof, THEN gets to a flashback, that's 5 minutes of runtime that could have been cut and the film would feel better, especially since it's duties to be as traditional in the dialogue as possible make such an extended action sequence seem rather hysterical, like a parody in itself of an American remake.

Of course the tale of Tiny Tim is well done, if a little heavy handed at points, but Gary Oldman as the face of Tim and the face and voice of Bob Cratchit is great, he doesn't overplay, he just delivers a simple character who is always in the background until the final 15 minutes. Colin Firth, though high in the credits, has about 3 scenes, all are adequate, but there's nothing for him here. Bob Hoskins as Fezziwig underplays the Cockney, and during a dance sequence looks far too cartoony, then again he never looked all that real in Roger Rabbit either.

Whilst the detail is great on some textures and Scrooge's face, many Londoners look rather bland and quickly rendered, which is disconcerting when many kids with limited expressions play on the roads. The music is rather festive without being too overbearing.

It's a nice happy film, with some good moments and sequences, but the final act kills off some of the quality from the previous two.

7/10

It's late October, that must mean shitty comedy throwaway release date!

2009-11-02T11:08:00.000-08:00

The Goods was horrendously marketed using Adam McKay and Will Ferrell's names shamelessly and focussing mostly on Jeremy Piven's speech on a plane about smoking, and then some alligators running around and lots of random moments, that's exactly what this film is, completely. It's like the film took the basic template of middle noughties comedies, Vince Vaughn/Will Ferrell vehicles, and didn't try to be funny, just as random as possible to survive. That's not to say it doesn't work sometimes, it has moments of rather funny, but ultimately it's a generic one man stops being selfish, learns to work with others and learns to love. That's it.

The premise is Piven, David Koechner, Ving Rhames and the cheating wife from Step Brothers are a mercenary team of sellers that are assigned to help a struggling car lot to sell more over the July Fourth weekend, come the second day Piven decides to challenge rival car lot company chief and son, portrayed by Ed Helms, that if he can sell EVERY CAR on the lot, they won't be taken over. For no frakking reason!

Cue montages of 'funny ways to make a sale' that are overlong, tedious and predictable, lots of famous faces, Ken Jeong, Tony Hale, James Brolin, Craig Robinson, Alan Thicke, Kristen Schaal, Matt Walsh and Will Ferrell pop in to do some gags and stuff for no reason, and hey, they say the f-word a lot, and make lots of sexual jokes, that means it's funny right?

Well, no, it's kinda disappointing to see such a talented group of people stuck in a film that has no interest in trying to be good, instead settling for bland deja vu feeling of comedy, comedy is best when fresh, come on people.

4/10

16 year old boy becomes a vampire, girls DON'T scream?

2009-11-02T10:05:00.000-08:00

The Darren Shan vampire books have been a source of contempt for me as a teenager in school, friends would sit and read the series in between Alex Ryder books, and say how amazing they all are. I took a look at the opening chapters of both series' and boy howdy did they stink to high heaven. With Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, Hollywood tries to bring back some elements of classic vampires following last year's vampire fuck ups, True Blood, which at least kept them violent, and Twilight, which is something we'll only discuss as we move all copies of the series into an incinerator.

With this film, Universal are clearly trying to launch a franchise, with a starry cast, lots left hanging for future editions and a style reminiscent of A Series Of Unfortunate Events and a majority of 80's and 90's kids adventure flicks, light hearted, silly but with serious elements as well. It's a shame that the lead character is painfully bland, his best friend, that kid from Firehouse Dog and Journey to the Centre of the Earth, is boring at being brash, coming across like a spoilt kid trying to be street, and it's a shame that the good cast get limited time. Jane Krakowski from 30 Rock is always good, here she's a woman in the freak show that can regenerate her limbs, Ken Watanabe is an 8 foot tall head of the traveling show, and is far too underused in the film, not only for his calibre, but for what the role should call for.

Salma Hayek has about 3 scenes, and gets so little to do it's just not right, Punisher himself Ray Stevenson is sadly stuck pulling a mix of American, English, Scottish and Eastern European as some zombie thing, Patrick Fugit is some hip young lizard boy, he's rather good for someone who actually has screentime in comparison to the majority. The only actor who is of any quality that gets enough time is Mr. John C. Reilly, he's also the film's best asset, Reilly is almost always amazing, and here is no exception, playing a vampire who has had eternal life for well over 150 years, and is slowly showing signs of aging, he's not the young man he was when he first got the curse. Reilly is hysterical and interesting, you care for the character, and laugh at the antics, a sequence where he has to pretend the young hero has died so his family won't worry about his disappearance, he injects a numbing agent, then a minute later breaks his neck and kicks him off the roof, brilliant.

It's a shame the writing is bland and uninspired, the CGI is rather repulsive, and the action sequences near the end near incomprehensible, Batman Begins confusing at times. A fight scene involving Reilly and Stevenson on some chairs off a stage involves lots of CGI fast blurring and Bourne style camera shots, and if you can tell me who hit who where without an audio, I will salute you, and say you have no frakking life.

The music was soli, similar score to most teen based action adventure flicks, editing was fine, pacing was a bit too slow, and what you'll notice I've barely talked about, the plot, was dead on arrival, film only began 40 minutes into it's 1 hour 40 minute runtime.

4/10

My name is Michael Moore, and I'm a nosy neighbour.

2009-10-26T15:28:00.000-07:00

Going in to the BFI's LFF Surprise Film knowing the film from the night prior's paid for screenings people saw, I was prepared to witness another Michael Moore documentary, a man I've been a fan of since I started really getting into cinema, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko and Roger & Me are truly amazing and re-watchable documentaries, however Fahrenheit 9/11 was easily his worst, a multi-tonged approach to a subject the public was already more on Moore's side than ambivalent to and unfocussed so much that it jumped around on ideas that led nowhere to prove points that had limited impact.

Alas Capitalism, a film which was worked on as Fahrenheit 9/11 1/2 is like the original, a multi-tonged unfocussed approach to the banking crash that we're all anti-banks with already, and sadly whilst it's hysterical at times, it's also rather dull, overlong by at least 40 minutes and gives no resolution or attempts to break through to important people like Charlton Heston in Columbine. Instead Moore has times where he's recognised, and criticised for his films, and gets no where, slowly.

Do we care about people being thrown out of the house when only tears and religion are used to go into peoples' psyche, and how many American flags do you need to see in one film?

Sadly Moore's latest is exactly like this review, half-hearted and uninterested in it's subject matter, in fact distracted by everything else, and boring like fuck.

5/10

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, I saw it, it's alive, it's boring!

2009-10-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

Blair Witch rocked the movie scene a decade ago, no budget camcorder horror about the power of suggestion that got everyone riled up. Then it subsided until 2007's [Rec] and subsequent, and shameless, English language remake Quarantine, add to that Cloverfield and Diary of the Dead, and forthcoming [Rec 2] (Quarantine 2: Quarantiner is out next year) and the also forthcoming The Fourth Kind and camcorder/true life horror is having another renaissance.

With this a no budget film form Sundance has been building buzz in recent months, about a couple who have a haunting in the house, using a camera to view it. Starting off normally, man turns on camera, abuses the camera by forcing it into conversation, awkwardly throws expositionary dialogue down and has two bad actors with no chemistry failing to make the one dimensional characters real like the film suggests, or even make the humour or scares work, it's a tired formula that you've seen time and time again, and here it's no different, it's painful, dull and slow.

Unlike the subtle trailer, the film goes for loud noises as jump scares to suggest forces of evil in the house, or if you're like me, loud noises outside that you just ignore. Or door movement that's clearly oh so freaking sinister.

I don't believe in the mumbo jumbo about ghosts 'n ghouls, demons and psychics, so maybe that's why the film didn't freak me out, send shivers down my spine or engage me at any point. Hell, from the beginning I knew which character I wanted to die, and which one was going to, they were not one and the same.

Horror is tough to do right, I recently caught Saw, a film people claimed to have revolutionised the horror genre. They don't notice it's purely a thriler, and the same is the case here, with it's tone it's slightly creepy, well, supposedly, but it's not about a horror stance, it's a thrill based film.

Alas it didn't work for me, but maybe you'll enjoy it. Anyway, horror still sucks as a whole, with only ambassador Raimi firing on all cylinders this year.
1/10

Wes Anderson, you know, for kids!

2009-10-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

So here it is.

After years of work, and since Wes mentioned about Life Aquatic's stop motion fish that he wanted to work on a full feature in the style, he made it.

Filmed in the heart of the story, England, and featuring actual British actors as the humans, and Americans/Canadians for animals, we have Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox, as written by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Now, to comprehend this film through my terms you need to understand where I'm coming from.

I've grown up from 10 to 19 on Anderson's portfolio, Rushmore, Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic, Darjeeling, Bottle Rocket, and as such have become one with his quirky, smart witty style of comedy, alongside Noah Baumbach, who I first became familiar with through Life Aquatic during a second viewing at 3 am, where the film really becomes pertinent. And subsequently second viewing of The Squid and The Whale made me adore that film, you can watch it again and again and each time focus one one character/team, brilliant. Margot at the Wedding was not the disaster everyone proclaimed, it was just even darker and leftfield than Squid.

So I'm up to snuff on these most awesome of indie movie makers, so imagine my surprise when I read the end credits and find it's not Anderson alone, ala Darjeeling, but with Baumbach that he co-wrote Mr. Fox, a film that is odd in all the wrong ways.

Yes the film looks great, has a homely charm indeed, but the characters are completely hollow and soulless, and with George Clooney and Meryl Streep's voices clearly too slick and American for the image, the film doesn't work on the vocal level. What about in humour? It's gonna be surreal, odd and yet human, right? No. No, instead of funny but true family problems we get 'cuss' as a running gag to replace fuck, shit and hell. To be fair it offers one of the film's two gags, in clustercuss.

But the only other gag is that Badger, Bill Murray in a very small role, has a mac behind him with post-its on it. That's it.

Who the film is made for is confusing as it's too wordy and complex for younger kids, not enough action and adventure for older kids, nothing vulgar for the teens and not smart enough for adults, they take their gags that aren't funny and instead of being patronising with them, run them into the ground or spell them out. It's not right, it's not what solid filmmaking and humour is about.

And the worst part about this film? It's 87 minutes and the film starts off feeling like it's going to have a lot of goings on, then about 2 reels in the main plot has been underway for ages, and the main plot is Mr. Fox wants to eat more chickens and feel rich, then he pisses off the farmers and puts all animals in the shit. And that's it, there's some unfunny, odd grenade and shooting sequences, but that's all the action, and the scope is so narrow it's almost no need to be animated, coulda just used real animals and got the same lack of emotions out of it.

I say this as an aficionado, the film is awful, truly awful, and it's sad that this is the case.
Avoid.
2/10

The Contrabulous Fabtraption Of Professor Horatio Huffnagel

2009-10-20T11:03:00.000-07:00

Terry Gilliam returns with a ridiculously entitled film of The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, wherein Christopher Plummer is a man made immortal by Tom Waits' devil, and beaten in a bet must give any 16 year old child to the Devil. He runs a small sideshow with friend Percy (Verne Troyer, also immortal it seems), his 15 year old daughter, Lily Cole, looking beautiful, and odd teenager Anton, Andrew Garfield. In the sideshow they offer people the chance to go through a mirror and into Parnassus' imagination, a weird brightly coloured CGI cartoon world that has all the delights you want, and the temptations placed by The Devil as well.

One day they see a man hanging under a bridge and bring him up, the man, Heath Ledger, has amnesia and is given the name George, until the papers fly by revealing he's front page news.

He works with the sideshow and rakes in money, but breaks rules, and ends up having a crush on Parnassus' daughter, who Anton has loved for ages, and it's a big ol' love triangle, as Parnassus is offered the chance to save his daughter by taking 5 souls before the Devil does. And so the film plays out.

Right there is about the first 45 minutes of the film, it takes time to understand what the hell is going on, so there it is, but surprisingly it doesn't annoy you, it's a wonder to enjoy the film play out, for a film where the trailers looked like abstract garbage it's a true delight to say the film in completion is absolutely hysterical, sometimes rather tense and almost consistently interesting, the film's final 15 minutes go on for a bit too long, but it's really interesting, especially when Heath Ledger goes through the mirror and becomes a new actor, a different face in his imagination.

The film is annoyingly good actually, it held my attention and appreciation throughout, though the CGI was off putting, the acting was hit and miss but the actors made the characters interesting and not simply one note, the direction is masterful and some of the designs are disturbingly surreal.

Overall Imaginarium is a real treat, a funny, smart and imaginative film that you should catch when possible.
9/10

Ow My Bak 2!

2009-10-20T10:55:00.001-07:00

Tony Jaa returns to his breakthrough performance in Ong Bak by making the sequel, entitled Ong Bak: The Beginning...

In this film we see Tony Jaa as a kid learning to fight so that he can kill the people who killed his parents, and learn about life along the way. From the same people who did the first they return with a lush looking sequel which has absolutely 0 originality in the plot and dialogue, subtitles badly coloured with white sometimes impossible to see because of the image behind it, fight sequences that are for the most part slow and uninviting and worst of all, there looks to be a lot more CGI in use this time, ruining the whole point of the original's gritty, simple, cheap style.

The sequel tries too hard to be a serious drama with action, involving a kid fighting a fucking crocodile, and it's ultimately a very boring, mundane, plain action drama with no elegance or interest, a complete and utter disappointment from Tony Jaa, who should do more modern day based action films, get away from the misplaced period settings most action titles abuse nowadays.
3/10

Happiness 2: Happinesser?

2009-10-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

How does one summarise Life During Wartime for the uninitiated and sustain the shock of the original film's dark, twisted nature and taboo breaking subjects?

Todd Solondz has consistently made awkward, dark films that had amazingly funny moments that change tone to the dramatic, pushing melodramatic, so perfectly, and with Happiness he went all out, a child's attempts to masturbate all the way to the climax, his father's horrible fetish and how he goes about getting what he wants, a bright young woman who searches for happiness and ends up in a string of bad relationships, a poet who can't write as she's never been raped and a woman who murdered then cut up a doorman who raped her.

For a comedy drama it's particularly in depth and at times graphic, with many dark moments.

Fortunately this follow up doesn't go down those roads. The closest to a young boy and his dad talking about topics in a frank manner that is close to the bone if not past it is exchanged for a small conversation between Trish, now played by the wonderful Allison Janney, telling her young son Timmy, who was young in the first, now almost 13, about her date with a man getting her wet.

The film opens in a rather genius mode, almost shot for shot like the original, the opening titles with the white frames, the new Joy, a 40 year old married to an ex-con who reveals he still phones up random girls to get himself off, after giving Joy the same ashtray Jon Lovitz hands her in Happiness' opening sequence.

Hell, Lovitz's character offs himself in the first one but returns as a ghost, in the form of the magnificent Paul Reubans, to talk to Joy and try to convince her they are the perfect couple.

Ultimately though, Joy, who had a lot of the last film, is only handed a small segment of the 96 minute runtime, instead it's focussed on Trish moving on from Bill, now portrayed by Ciaran Hinds as a believable prison serving change from Dylan Baker's daring performance. Bill is out of prison and stalking the family to see what he is left to do, whilst Trish has found a new man, a sweet, kind but slightly older gentleman.

Timmy is gearing up for his Bar Mitzvah and suddenly learns his dad isn't dead like his mother told him, but actually still in prison, or he thinks he is even when he's just outside, and finds out what Bill did in the first film.

The film boils down to simple conversations, some very dark moments as always, and some out and out hysterical stuff, but given it's brief runtime in comparison to the 135 minute original the film seems slight, we go to places but it's more a Before Sunset glimpse than a Clerks II. full on here they are, and they are going on another journey. The acting is universally solid, never perfect, but never awful, the re-casting is odd but adds to the freedom Solondz gives the characters to change their lives instead of sticking in the rut of the original. Whilst the choice of Timmy looking oddly like Billy's friend Johnny, the first victim in the original, is rather distracting, to the point that a talk between College aged Billy, played by Linus from Fanboys, about Bonobos and incest seems rather, well, horrible.

For a film I was interested in from the get go but apprehensive about the approach, the tone and if Solondz would Crank 2 it and go for more taboos to break instead of character, I was relieved when it was all about real life people in situations, be it real or surreal, using humour and drama to perfection, it's a perfectly imperfect film that won't go down well in the mainstream, you need to see Happiness before seeing this film, and as there's still no distributor (A blank slate at the start of the film where it'd be) it'll be great to see the film get out to people.

And the HD will looks great, shot using Red cameras the depth and definition is remarkable, made me appreciate Solondz as a visual as well as witty writer/director.

If you can, I recommend seeing this film, it's funny, well made and rather brilliant in it's own way, just too darn short.
8/10

Hey, I'm Vince Vaughn, and I'm gonna bang your mom, chim chim cherroo.

2009-10-13T13:55:00.000-07:00

Another year and another Vince Vaughn pic is released, subsequent classics include Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up,Fred Claus and Four Christmases. This year he's avoided going for another festive cheer comedy, and by festive cheer I mean lacking any warmth or humanity, and by comedy I mean Vince Vaughn spluttering American pop-culture quotes and fast food joints that only are in America to no avail.
Instead he's brought in heavyweights in the shape of Jason Bateman, Jon Faverau, Kristen Bell, Malin Akerman, Jean Reno, John Michael Higgins, Ken Jeong and the ever awesome Peter Serafinowictz (Serowikz to the BBC announcer who fucked his name up the other day)

Couples Retreat sees four couples go to paradise to have relationship counseling even though only one couple want to do it, and they all find, shock horror, they might not be where they should in their relationships. So Faverau and his wife go cheating, Faizon Love and his 2 week 20 year old girlfriend split up, Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman contemplate what they are doing wrong and Kristen Bell and Jason Bateman argue and act like uptight twits.

Being that it's Hollywood the 4 relationships all have happy endings, Faizon gets back together with his wife, Bell and Bateman get back together even after Bell willingly leaps out of a boat to swim away from Bateman, marking the end of their relationship, even Faverau and his wife, who always cheat on each other, love each other.

Why? Because that makes everyone happy right?
Well, when a film offers not one but two scenes where a kid defecates in a bathroom showroom toilet, and has said kid and his brother do the 'go and have this holiday' speech for the parents, you question why you are sitting in this shitty cinema watching a horrible film like this.

Even Jean Reno, Ken Jeong, John Michael Higgins and Sir Peter Serafinowicz can't save this film solid heavy hitters and funny people, well, Jean Reno is more awesome than funny, but still.
The film reeks of desperation, and once again it's all about Vince Vaughn mugging for screentime to get 'laughs' which, you'll be glad to hear, weren't embraced by the audience.

This truly is as painful an experience as Vaughn's Christmas themed films, if you find anything funny in this film then you, sir, are an idiot.

1/10

Thoughts on cinema of 2009

2009-10-12T14:12:00.000-07:00

Whilst the year is certainly not over, we still have hopeful masterpieces from The Coen Brothers, Richard Kelly, Guy Ritchie and Roland Emmerich, I can, however, comment on the year so far, from January 1st's screening of The Spirit, where I was so bloody tempted to walk out but I wanted a clean record, to Last Thursday's Zombieland screening, where me and two other people sat laughing and clapping as the rest of the audience were in silence, probably wondering why the Jewish kid was talking so much, and why none of the characters were unlikeable and thus killed off in increasingly tired ways.

January did start shitly, I mean, Frank Miller fucked up didn't he. But it had high points, David Wain's Role Models is a dry, witty comedy that shows why Paul Rudd should be a leading man, soon cancelled out by the low-brow I Love You, Man, which should have worked given Jason Segal is pure man. January slipped in some Oscar bait, in the much loved Mamma Mia od the Oscar season, Slumdog Millionaire, and Kate Winslet's double bill, The Reader and Revolutionary Road. All three were depressing, mostly because they were so well received despite being complete bollocks,more so than the usual Oscar fare, which I have found is not too bad sometimes. Last King Of Scotland wasn't as good on DVD but had an impact in the cinema, yet these films got such a critical glistening it's hard to believe critics anymore, which leads on to one of the most shameful films of the year, and the first complete let down of 2009.

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. I love David Fincher, Zodiac is a complete masterpiece and unfairly overlooked by the Academy, Button had a 5 star review from Empire, Doubt only got 3 for goodness sake, and what was Button? A 2 hour 40 minute film about an un-extraordinary life lived by a man who grows young instead of old, besides the one quirk it's as mundane as could be comprehended, why is this deemed a masterpiece? I will never know, but it stands to reason that the writer also did the abysmal Forest Gump, where Tom Hanks mugs it for an Oscar like he's Jamie Foxx.

February did, however, offer up a film that I thought would probably be shit, but turned out to be THE best comic book adaptation of the year, in Ray Stevenson's Punisher: War Zone. Colin Salmon calls cops "Krispy Kreme Motherfuckers" nuff said. On top of that two unfortunate films that slipped under the radar or weren't appreciated like they could have been, Cadillac Records and Push, came out, Push was solid fun, and whilst rather plot heavy, was good fun, and Cadillac Records was a solid, by-the-numbers musical bio that at least gave the feeling of the era.

March was geek heaven though, Watchmen finally came to cinemas, and yes, it was good, great in fact, but it's pacing issues and the last hour being slightly too plot heavy after the hour and a half flashbacks, squishing too many chapters together in the end and changing the ending affected the film, the Director's Cut didn't do a bad job of just calming the film down and adding more. Hollis Mason's death scene in particular was always missed in the cinema, twice on opening day I got up from my seat and felt it needed that added emotion for Dan.
March offered up a new English film in Bronson, a dark experimental comedy drama horror bio of a violent prisoner, played by Tom Hardy, who in his groundbreaking role got fat, naked and called everyone a cunt before punching them, that's all the film was, 100 minutes of a vulgar, violent twat with nothing interesting to say.
Richard Curtis brought out a new film too, with The Boat That Rocked, which is now coming out in America under the title Pirate Radio. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Chris O'Dowd save what could have been a painfully shit music loving film with some good comedy and drama, and even at 2 hours 15 minutes it still had lots of good moments, though the stiff upper lip English sequences involving a character called 'Twatt' were just awful stuff.
Fortunately Paul Blart was on it's way out, and whilst it was by no means perfect, it did well and secured the brilliant Kevin James a lead role from now on. And it was rather funny, Die Hard in a Mall was simple enough, and Blart was a well crafted character a sweet man who is overweight but knows it as a problem, I can understand.

April appeared with the second big CGI film, after the disaster that was Bolt, with Dreamworks' Monsters Vs Aliens, a film so painfully unfunny, padded with weak pop culture jokes that kill humour and with characters so devastatingly dull there's no point in seeing if they complete the film's 'plot', a true waste after last year's Kung Fu Panda showed that Dreamworks COULD make smart, funny films without resorting to pop culture riffs.

Again it was England's chance to save the day, Jason Statham appeared in hilarity inducing insanity sequel Crank 2, which one upped every single scene in the original, sometimes it was too much and became annoying, but it has the homemade charm that adds to the style.
Even with Jody Hill proving that it was Danny McBride and Ben Best that did the worst stuff in Foot Fist Way and Eastbound and Down, Observe and Report unfortunately flopped, it's a cult film to be sure, dark, vulgar but hilarious.

But the best comedy was almost completely home-grown, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel is a hysterical 80 minute film about 3 geeks who know too much about sci-fi rules that when they accidentally find themselves going between 30 minutes ago and 5000 years in the future, they know exactly how to go about business without destroying the universe, once again it's all about Chris O'Dowd and his comic genius.

In The Loop, though, really shot out. The Thick Of It spin-off and feature debut for comedic master Armando Iannucci, In The Loop had everything we loved from the show, sweary Malcolm Tucker and his bloodhound Jamie, nerdy but sharply funny Chris Addison, but it added the dynamics of the US government in the lead up to the Iraq war, and all the lies and bullshit from both sides. Genius.

May arrived with the first group of summer blockbusters. The leaked-a-month-before-release Wolverine wasn't anywhere near as fun with the, ahem, 'completed' CGI, though the claws, Wolverine's one main weapon, were hilariously bad, the whole film was too serious, too dull and painfully slow. Star Trek got a lorra lorra love, but it really was bad, Star Wars with Kirk and Spock, not a reinvention as much as stealing from better films and clunking them together in an appalling way. The villain was dull, the characters were one dimensional, the humour was painful and the film was one of the worst experiences of the year.

Angels and Demons, however, diverted shit summer to good stuff, with a larger, faster paced, well done thriller, instead of a drama, where Tom Hanks almost died, and Ewan McGregor was a priest who jumps out of exploding helicopters. Good shit, and the Blu Ray certainly adds with it's extended cut, more violence is always welcome.
Drag Me To Hell proved Raimi still has the horror gene, Up was a let down after WALL-E but the best CGI film of the year and Synecdoche, New York, well, it was not as good as at the LFF.

June opened with the completely humourless The Hangover, from the pens of the writers of Ghosts Of Girlfriends Past and Four Christmases. McG's Terminator 4 bored it's way through the summer, a dull, loud film that added nothing to the universe, the film's or our universe, your choice.
John Woo's Red Cliff finally came out, condensed into 2 hours 33, but still a cracker, visually beautiful, tense and full of great action, it lost a lot of character development, I'm guessing the additional 1 hour 45 minutes adds that stuff. Transformers was the same runtime and had EVEN LESS Character development, the film was painfully stupid beyond the realms of most Michael Bay films, no more Baytardation, it was full retard.
And Year One gave Harold Ramis' career the cyanide pill it needed for a long time now.

Ice Age 3 was a rather silly but entertaining hour and a half, some awful stuff mixed with good gems, but following that, Michael Mann's latest, Public Enemies, was a loud empty shell of a film, everything was there except any character depth or heart.
Moon brought Duncan Jones to the forefront with an amazingly and deceptively simple film that was hilarious, dark, tragic and constantly interesting, Sam Rockwell has always been and will continue to be an actor who deserves recognition.
In the opposite spectrum, Sacha Baron Cohen used his last remaining character for mock doc Bruno, which spent 40 minutes of the 80 minute runtime to set up a plot for no reason that it was all staged and uninteresting.
Even Will Ferrel's latest, Land Of The Lost, was a loud, stupid and painful hour and a half, comedy failed this summer.
Thankfully Tony Scott's Pelham 123 remake was a solid job, nicely stylised and entertaining, he is back to Man On fire quality.

August opening with GI Joe, a massive piece of cunt that had no humour, plot, CGI or idea of what quality is. District 9 also came out early on, a well received film that sadly is far too cliched and feels off by the time the mockumentary style is abandoned.
Judd Apatow's Funny People finally made it's way to cinemas, a 2 hour 25 minute comedy drama that had no interesting or funny characters at all, a waste of time. Unlike Tarantino's latest, a self-indulgent but rather entertaining version of what might have happened to the Nazis if Quentin was in charge of it all.

The Hurt Locker snuck out with critical love and limited PR, and showed that even at 57 Katherine Bigelow is an amazing director, very tense stuff for a 2 odd hour film.
David R. Ellis returned to finish The Final Destination series in 3-D with lots of shitty CGI but undeniable fun in it's stupidity. On the other hand, (500) Days Of Summer was a witty, quirky and brilliant comedy about romance, and how shit it all is. Amazing soundtrack too.
In the opposite corner from that is Away We Go, a film about the best couple in the world, purely sweet and calm, with an exceptional soundtrack, Away We Go was the best Mendes film of the year, take that Revolutionary Road, or indeed ever.

Dorian Gray was a massive failure of a film from Ealing Studios, a slow horror with no tension or a sex drama with no eroticism or character depth. Fish Tank, however, had lots of character depth and development, and whilst losing itself in the last 45 minutes was still a well made drama.
Julie & Julia proved that Meryl Streep is awesome, as is Jane Lynch, and whilst her Doubt co-star Amy Adams had a good year, with Night At The Museum 2 as well earlier, she couldn't make a mundane plot interesting.

The Crank team were back with Gamer, a silly, dark violent action film tarring Scottish man Gerard Butler, and whilst it didn't light up the box office it was entertaining enough. Sony Animation's next release post-masterpiece Surf's Up, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, was harmless fun, and had funny moments, but wasn't perfect, still, it made lots of money, sequel set for next August.

Surrogates showed that Jonathon Mostow and the Terminator 3/4 and Catwoman writers must be shot, and Bruce Willis likes paychecks, the same is said for Invention of Lying, a painfully dull, unfunny film that needed 5 re-writes and no Jennifer Garner.

But the highlight of October has been Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg forgives the awful Adventreland with this, and if you still haven't seen it, why are you reading this, CATCH IT!

To be honest, the rest of the year looks shit, so we'll see how it goes, but so far it's been a large mess.

Don't say that, the, the Z word, it's ridiculous.

2009-10-08T14:14:00.000-07:00

Zombieland is probably a marmite film, in that you either love how silly it all is, and yet enjoy the wonderfully fleshed out human characters and the horrors they face, with some incredible style, more later, or you have no soul and call it generic trash or a broader and worse Shaun Of The Dead. To the haters I say this. Fuck you.

Ok, this is a review that I will be very passionate about, so if you're reading this and saw the film thinking it sucked, the cross at the top of this window, there's the door, don't let it hit you on the mangina as you exit, fucking idiot, you have no idea what constitutes pure silly awesome entertainment, and somehow Zombieland offer Shoot 'Em Up style insanity of action with Crank's style of visuals, text interacting wonderfully with the environment, and the character development and dialogue from the best indie comedies of the last 20 years.

Zombieland focuses on Jesse Eisenberg, a college kid alone in the US as a zombie outbreak has whittled the population to none, until Woody Harrelson's trigger happy bad boy appears, and from there on in instead of a cumpulsive kid's zombie adventure it's a chalk and cheese road trip, using the towns they want to get to as their names so as not to get too close lest they need to kill one another later, as Harrelson hunts a Twinkie, and Eisenberg his family. That is until sisters Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin come into play, grifting their way to a new car and guns, eventually getting stuck with the male duo as they all head to LA, and to an amusement park that is supposedly zombie free.

In between the dialogue there are zombie attacks, cuts to backstories, one including Amber Heard as a sexy girl next door turned zombie, another with Mike White being conned out of $400, though we see him killed on the bog earlier on, poor guy gets it rough, and some fun stuff, including a 'Zombie Kill Of The Week' moment. Mixing four amazing actors with a fantastic script and some great songs makes this hour and a half film so fulfilling, you get the scares of horror, the gore of zombie films, wonderful wit mixed with some rather crass moments and some epic action.

One genius segment involves going to a certain celebrity's house and staying there, until he appears, allowing Harrelson and Stone to act in scenes from one of his films, hysterical stuff. Yes the Eisenberg virgin trying to find love story has been done to death, hell, he's had at least 4 films where that's his character's goal, but in a zombie film it really makes it more interesting, and I will say this, the film's ending is not what I expected, especially with a Custer's last stand type scenario, but more for a sequel I guess.

Zombieland is a painfully hysterical, genuinely well made film with some solid scary moments, cracking violence, great actors and lots of giggles between the big laughs, a must see, seriously, SEE THIS FRAKKING MOVIE!

10/10

Look Marge, there's the truth shake head and The Truth *nod approvingly.

2009-10-05T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ricky Gervais returns for a second lead role in a rom-com American mainstream film, this time, unlike Ghost Town, he co-wrote and co-directed This Side OF The Truth, renamed The Invention Of Lying, and it's truly shocking. Ghost Town had some middle of the road reviews but the film itself was a wonderful, hysterical and ultimately beautifully emotional movie that was ridiculously well made in the beginning of a shitstorm of bad films that we're still in.

But this year he brings in the full force of disappointment, With an unknown co-writer/director and a high concept idea, a World that tells no lies, which is presented in shit narration from Gervais, where he badmouths opening credits and calls them unimportant, trying to be funny but not true at the same time. The whole concept is flawed as the film goes on, yes it's a world without lies, but why do people feel the need to blurt out their inner thoughts, they must have learnt self-control and restraint over the generations. Music and poetry makes little sense in the World either, it'd not really have anything interesting, and all the technology they have/all the history humanity has is confusing, without religion there'd be few wars, and thus not so much in the way of leaps in technology, so getting to where we are now without lying doesn't work.

It's also flawed to the bone tonally, sometimes it's tying to be broad comedy, or witty comedy drama, or even emotional drama, and only succeeds in two scenes, an emotional death scene where Gervais goes all out, and a comedic flashback to his father, played by Barry from Eastenders, breaking into Stephen Merchant's house, who opens the door as he does that.

The cast is odd, Gervais is one note more than usual, Jennifer Garner is a crap as ever, and too focussed on plot-wise. Louis C.K. is a catch, he's ridiculously funny and holds his own in the film. Rob Lowe is the only other actor listed in the poster that has enough scenes to not call a cameo.
The cameos include, though: Tina Fey as Gervais' ex-assistant, dull. Jeffrey Tambour as Gervais' ex-boss at a movie studio, good but nothing interesting. Jonah Hill as a depressed man, he does fuck all. Edward Norton as a racist, violent cop, fun but unimportant. Philip Seymour Hoffman as a bartender, funny but not enough of him. Martin Starr as a waiter, too little.

The film has a Simpsons-esque feel to it with all the sign gags and visual humour, all of which fail, and this film is insanely disappointing, it's just so uninteresting, uninviting and worst of all, unfunny. Please please please Cemetery Junction, please be good.
3/10

It's just a saying, a robot saying...

2009-10-04T08:25:00.000-07:00

Surrogates re-unites disgraced director Jonathan Mostow with the disgraced writers of Catwoman and Terminator's 3 and 4, to be disgraced for one film is rather hard to do, to be embraced for many films and raping a child is all well and good of course though, another robot film after 6 years of hiding from fans of the Terminator series sees Bruce Willis don the most ridiculous blonde wig to be a robot version of himself investigating the death of Surrogate creator James Cromwell, you know, the guy who invented US Robotics in I, Robot and monarchy in The Queen, and shot up Kevin Spacey in LA Confidential, that guy, guess who the bad guy is, go on, it's not obvious at all, even with Ving Rhames sporting dreads in a human only area, have a guess who is really killing people using robots.
For that matter, have a guess why this film is getting bad reviews and limping at the box office.

One clue, people are smart.

There are points in this film that close the gap between bad and so bad it's good, but the film constantly goes for seriousness and thus makes the whole experience painfully awful. There are scenes in this film that I wouldn't deem Bruce Willis screaming "Go Go Gadget Chainsaw Army" out of place, it's the level of been-there-done-that that these futuristic sci-fi conspiracy thriller films are stuck with until someone makes the next game-changer, and as the films flounder more and more I doubt it'll come anytime soon, so we're stuck with September dumping ground pieces of crap like Surrogates, which sports Rosamund Pike with a terrible American accent as the surrogate wife of Bruce Willis, who has friends that like to jack-on with electricity, yes, they even RIP OFF FUTURAMA! They call humans meatbags for goodness sake.

Mostow should fuck off back to hiding and never come out again, for an 88 minute action thriller the action was slow, poorly shot and limited, the thriller element was painfully obvious, and the runtime is appalling, it's thirty minutes too long and the credits begin at the 80 minute mark, to pad out the film they desperately, read hopelessly, add Bruce WIllis trying to get his wife off the robot machine, and it never ever feels like anything but desperate padding, probably based on poor early test screenings and March re-shoots, which might help explain the horribly cartoony CGI in the film.

Avoid.
4/10 (And that's being kind, due to it's short runtime)

It's like a Bromance, only there's no Bromance, but it's all depressing and what not.

2009-10-04T07:55:00.000-07:00

Joe Wright returns after triumphantly proving all wrong about the unfilmable-ness of Atonement, by making Atonement, and making it a damn good film.
With the aid of Susannah Grant on typewriter, joe makes a drama about two men in different circles of life, one a lonely journalist who writes human interest pieces, the other a homeless musical genius with schizophrenia. Together they bond for two hours in a Reign Over Me style push me pull me, I hit you then apologise, I don't know what I'm doing really film, which has been done before, and better, but gets by easily on the charisma and skill of Lucky Downey Jr. A man who oozes brilliance and makes acting look easy. Though it also makes Jamie Foxx's turn look like he's trying to hard and failing at every turn.
In addition to these two there's an unfairly ignored Stephen Root being funny, Catherine Keener, who gets roped in to a sub-plot that makes Downey's character more human and have issues, Tom Hollander in a bad American accent being a bible bashing music teacher and an assortment of quality yet unknown actors peppering scenes in the LA Mission Centre, homelife of Foxx's character and Downey's investigation and quest to help Foxx's character.

The plot is far too basic to go over, but the film isn't sure what it's doing most of the time, it starts focussed on Downey's character in a biking accident, then he finds Foxx, writes about him, gets a great response from people, but then goes into flashbacks of Foxx's character, as uncharismatic and uninteresting as possible on a movie screen, and evolves from young kid to adult in an apartment in a very Lynchian nightmare sequence, that goes nowhere and explains nothing.

Fortunately Downey is always close by to increase the film more, but the biggest problem of this film is somewhere in there it's a dark, interesting and funny character piece about two people who become friends against all odds, and things go wrong, but it's clearly Americanised to the point that happy endings are expected and painfully given in a desperate attempt to wrap up the previous hour and forty minutes of film before it. And it's a shame as it could have been something more, but as it is The Soloist is Oscar bait that won't get far and is disappointingly mundane, save for Downey as always.
7/10

I'll have the steak, the chicken and, erm, the chicken fried steak.

2009-10-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

Sony Pictures has a new output of animation following Open Season, Monster House and the absolute masterpiece Surf's Up, again grabbing as many insanely awesome voices in one film, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs announces the first worldwide 3-D release from the studio, Monster House was rather limited given it was before the 3-D boom.

I think before we start the film's talk, I want to focus on the cast.
Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan, Andy Samberg, Bruce Campbell, Mr. T, Bobb'e J.. Thompson, Neil Patrick Harris, Lauren Graham, Will Forte & Neil Flynn.
I know, right, epic! Hader, Forte and Samberg being some real gems from modern SNL, also included in that genre are Poehler and Wiig, then Anna Faris who is, alongside Catherine O'Hara, one of the funniest females around right now. James Caan, well, needless to explain that, Mr. T is pure retro, Bruce Campbell is groovy, Bobb'e is hilarious even in dreck like Land Of The Lost, NPH is NPH, he's Awesome, Lauren Graham is fantastic and Neil Flynn, well, he's a genius.

And that as a voice cast is ridiculously sturdy, and it shows, as the acting is never out of whack in this film, even when zany and emotional mix together, with Hader really going a step up here for developing a character who retains eccentricity in the face of romantic and parental scenarios.

So, the plot is this weird odd kid, Flint Lockwood, constantly invents things, ratbirds, remote controlled televisions, in a small island in the middle of the Atlantic whose sole income is a Sardine fishing and canning industry, which goes out of business, leaving the island with no money and only sardines to eat in many ways.
One day Flint invents a machine that can transform the molecules in water into food items of any kind, but when testing found it needs lots of power. Meaning he has to go outside, to a transformer station. And of course things go wrong to satisfy a feature length plot, the machine gets too much juice and flies into the air, making it rain food items. Soon enough as the town becomes popular, thanks to a weather intern, Faris, reporting on the crazy situation, radiation from the clouds affect the machine, the food gets bigger and bigger, and as Mayor Campbell gets fatter and more selfish the whole town is put in peril of being destroyed by massive food crushing them.

In between action Flint forms a relationship with the weather intern and tries to impress his father, who has become more and more introverted after his wife's passing. You know, generic middle class problems that kids really understand and comprehend. Thankfully not told too often in a patronising way.

But the film is an animated comedy, leading to some really neat sequences, scaling a deep cavern of peanut brittle with a liquorice rope, an ice cream snowball fight that gets rather violent rather quickly, Gummi Bears attacking the wings of planes.

It's almost surreal in it's way, and that's what makes the film so good, when it wants to it is willing to maybe alienate the kids with some risque jokes or some old references, but always manages to add a monkey doing things or some slightly low brow stuff to let the kids laugh too, which is nice, but infuriating at the same time.

the writer/directors of the film have previous credits in How I Met Your Mother and Clone High, two real gems of TV, the former a consistently risque yet fantastically funny show, the latter a very close to the bone piss take on high school TV dramas. And it's good that even with a U rated film they can scale some slightly odd territory, and don't succumb to Dreamworks' horrible output of pop-culture quips and waste of time characters who add nothing but tedious one liners, even Mr. T's crazy athletic police officer has his own sub-plot, everyone gets time for development, and whilst it makes the film seem longer than it is, it means the writers genuinely care about what they are doing and want the audience to care too.

Lets face it, Pixar do it better and with less pandering or over exposed characters, but they are the pinnacle of animation studios, we can't expect the same output from anyone else, but when it's not entirely awful, it's rather nice to watch, as is the case with Cloudy.
7/10

This Ain't No Game No More!

2009-09-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

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

When you've been there, you never wanna go again, like France.

2009-09-21T09:18:00.000-07:00

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

Sometimes it's hard to think of witty relevant film or TV quotes.

2009-09-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

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

Go back to your celebrity friends, and your beautiful women, and Victoria Silvestedt, Playmate of the Year... FUCK!

2009-09-14T12:28:00.000-07:00

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

It's his painting, his lucky painting.

2009-09-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

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

You've never heard me say cuntsucker before, have you? It's all about the element of surprise.

2009-09-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

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

Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue... Fuck You Whore!

2009-09-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

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

"You can't stop what's coming!" Now in 3-D!

2009-08-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's another sequel to a film that's had it's basic premise abused for 3 more movies than it should now, but having never watched them I went in fresh for The Final Destination, a film containing characters so paper thin that it's easy to understand how they get impaled or squished or cut apart that easily.

David R. Ellis offers no likeable characters in the film, and using the basic structural highlights of Snakes on a Plane, he gives us shitty CGI, bad dialogue, stupid unrealistic scenarios and a wealth of bad actors.

You have the main guy, who sees the deaths, and his girlfriend, they are happy people, then his best friend, a man more 1-D than possible, and her friend, an unnecessary bitch, then the Black guy who doubles up as the smart one, and a wealth of others who just happened to get deaths too.

For a 78 minute film, plus credits, the opening premonition and subsequent set-up is about 12 minutes long, and then there's a wonderful CGI X-ray title sequence looking at highlight deaths from the previous 3.

And then we return to the film in question, and lots of CGI blood and gore, silly macguffins, laughable moments and amazing 3-D, many people in the audience batted pieces of paper away from their eyes it felt that real-ish.

The film isn't serious, and certainly isn't a horror, it's a thriller, and a bad one, there's limited tension and nothing interesting, but you don't care, it's all about seeing people die in more and more ridiculously over the top ways that question logic and gravity, and have a good freaking laugh as things pop out in 3-D.

And I loved it, it was silly, violent, bad and everything I enjoy in a bad film, one to enjoy for fun, and in 3-D too, well worth a trip to the cinema.

10/10

I haven't got a bomb strapped to my chest, I work for the national trust!

2009-08-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

Katheryn Bigelow is an odd mistress, she's surprisingly pushing 60 and looking as young as a 40 year old, and her films are all dark, violent and testosterone filled.

She's a testament to her gender, hell, she made Point Break. Point Break!
Young, Dumb and Full of Come, Johnny Utah, Gary Buesy, it's brilliant!

And she's back with a new film, another Iraq war film, eugh, I know, but this one isn't about the public consensus, the politics of the situation, it's just about a group of men in the situation, and how they face up to it every day, following them as they deactivate bombs.

And by golly is it brilliant. It's more a series of vignettes featuring the same characters in different situations, but that's what you expect, day to day life not a plot about a kidnapped soldier or a murder investigation, there are bombs, they deactivate them, they go back, drink, have a laugh, go out the next day and do it all over again.

By the end of this film you'll be lucky to have a fingernail remaining, nerve-shredding doesn't do it justice, you're there in the action, one false move and it's all over, as noted by the first sequence, starring Guy Pearce of all people.

And he's not the only big name, David Morse has a small role as a dark officer who shoots an insurgent instead of giving him medical support, even Ralph Fiennes appears for a shootout sequence that is so scary you don't know who will survive.

And that's the key to this film. It's all about who will make it out alive, and why they do what they do, with a wonderful heartfelt conversation at the end with two of the team just thinking about what they leave behind if they make that one wrong snip.

It's fast, it's tense, and it somehow makes 2 hours 15 minutes whizz by, a true gem, it looks amazing, sounds amazing, the score is heavy guitars and puts you in the moment, the acting is fantastic and real, and it's just a stunning piece of work that I can't praise enough, I urge you to see this film!
10/10

Roads? Where We're Going, We May Not Require Them.

2009-08-28T14:03:00.000-07:00

So, Eric Bana eh, what happened to him? Chopper, stand up, Incredible Hulk, Jewish avenger, Funny Person...

And now, in the oddly named The Time Traveler's Wife he plays a man who from a young age in a tragic car crash can somehow travel time, and as things happen to him and people who met him years ago meet up once more only to find that he doesn't know them yet, it's a convoluted romance drama about Eric Bana and a long crush of his in Rachel McAdams, who thankfully isn't the lead unlike the title's suggestion, and it's a tale of one man's irregular problem, he can't control it, and how it affects the ones he loves.

For the first 30 minutes nothing is really explained about what happens that makes him travel, and as it leads to a big wedding scene I personally was beginning to feel that if we get no explanation about this odd behaviour the film will be another chick flick with no sense, a Lake House if you will. Somehow during a series of moments involving different aged Banas doing the wedding reception I got lost in the interest of the character too much to care, and from then on out the drama of one man who can't control his problem alongside an annoyingly, and very suddenly bitchy, wife became something I wanted to watch.

Yes the film's script is dripping with cliche dialogue, contrived scenarios and deus ex machina but it's Eric Bana's showcase and he show's off a lot, his humour, heart, emotion, I was enthralled by this man's journey, especially the darker turns and a heartwrenching moment where he goes into the future 10 years and meets his daughter.

This isn't My Sister's Keeper "Look, dying girl, audience, CRY AT MY COMMAND!" instead it's a sweet, oddly dark drama that avoids asking questions but softly touches upon subjects that are all too real in an odd inventive way.

Add to that the director's obvious visual flares, Bana falls on the floor as he disappears, we fall with him, a long tracking shot of a house through the ages from birth of daughter to 5th birthday, it's these wonderful flourishes that help raise this film above a generic studio romance for the gals, instead it feels like, although a bit bad in the acting of everyone sans Bana, a solid little film that's rather lovely.

7/10

You wanna be a comedian? But you're not funny!

2009-08-28T13:53:00.000-07:00

Judd Apatow has enjoyed overwhelming success since Anchorman hit the scene, his films have grossed insane amounts for comedies, especially with relatively low budgets on all of them, that is, of course, until this year, Year One was expensive, rubbish and fell flat on it's face, Funny People, his latest directorial film, and another step closer to the mature drama tone that was introduced in Knocked Up, cost $70 million somehow, and dropped in the cinema at number one, but the next weekend was all but gone, and there's a damn good reason for this.

Funny People is a 2 hour 20 minute drama about a complete prick played by Adam Sandler who is famous for bad comedy films and his sole joke throughout the film is about looking at Seth Rogen's penis.

Seth Rogen is a boring nerd who is thinner than ever, living with a successful TV show star, Jason Schwartzmen, and an annoying, competitive prick, Jonah Hill. He wants to make money from his comedy, Sandler wants him to write for him, ipso facto, they work together, then Sandler finds his cancer isn't too bad, then he finds an old flame in Leslie Mann and her hubby Eric Bana, the one good thing this film has, and then he returns to his normal life, not learning anything, not being sympathetic, interesting or anything important for an audience to connect and take interest in.

With an extended run time the pacing is way off, I nearly fell asleep about 5 times, and wouldn't have missed a damn thing, it's all filler with no plot, like deleted scenes or a line-o-rama without any of the jokes.

Now, I love Rogen, Sandler, Schwartzmen, Bana, Apatow, and Hill, who was hysterical when he introduced the film live, but this film is a shambles, it's not dramatic enough to be interesting, the comedy ruins the dramatic moments, and the comedy is rubbish, it's scatalogical humour as always, but it's very much ignorant, awful, stupid comedy, not clever one liners or solid punch lines.

The film is a blow to the Apatow brand like no other, an awful waste of space, and I hope Apatow returns to a solid mix of drama in genuinely funny and WELL PACED!!!!!! films one day.

3/10

John Hughes is dead, his basic ideas live on, stolen, if you will.

2009-08-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

So day 2 of the Con, Downey's glorious face appeared once more for Iron Man 2 footage, what could be more exciting? Sure the prospect of Avatar footage later on, which turned out to be shit, but I digress, a non-secret screening of Adventureland, that's still not out in the UK yet, occurred, a film that was a critical success but commercial failure, about 1 hour and 50 minutes too long considering it's near 2 hour run time.

The trailers made it a light comedy coming of age film from Greg Mottolla, most notably the helmer of Superbad, a film that is already tired and dull, in reality it's a dark drama with people being punched in the balls as it's jokes, about a young man who has to work at a bad theme park to earn money, as you do, and ends up hanging out with Martin Starr's gloomy oddity, sultry slut Kristen Stewart and a group of 80's and teen cliches that are relatively 'wafer thin'.

He's a virgin, by choice, he's got unsupportive parents, he's got a friend who just hits him in the balls, one dimensional like them all, and he's got limited direction. For a summer he has some partying and stuff, so he goes to a party, supplies the drugs, then it all becomes a relationship film about two boring people surrounded by people who are dull as hell.

Jesse Eisenberg was the lead in two of my favourite films, Roger Dodger and The Squid And The Whale, both with him as the neurotic teen virgin character trying to lose it, again he does that schtick, but the script is awful, it's got no jokes, plot, direction or interest in the characters, things happen, but there's no effect on the audiences, it's just one of the kinds of films I can't stand, it's boring, depressing, and with a solid cast it's shockingly uninteresting.

1/10

You were just a Basterd from a Basket!

2009-08-28T12:35:00.000-07:00

I did my Tarantino run in the lead up to his latest, and you know what I realised? I don't really like any of them.

No.
Reservoir dogs loses pace by minute 35, Pulp Fiction is a bloated self-absorbed attempt at something it couldn't reach, Jackie Brown is arduous and unnecessarily long, Kill Bill, well, it has it's moments, but they are mismanaged and in between excessively long moments of pointlessness, Death Proof, nuff said.

Tarantino's best work was True Romance, and he didn't direct it.

So, I was worried, and the first time I didn't like the Basterds. It was after a day that featured District 9, Mcovin', a Python and an appearance from Pearly King Guy Ritchie and his new wife Robert Downey Jr. That' a lot to live up to, and when a ideo intro by Tarantino proclaimed we were some of the first to see this film I called bullshit like everyone else, it had nationwide previews that weekend.

But as the screenings have progressed I got used to it, the opening sequence gets shorter each time as Christopher Waltz chews the French farm as he hunts down the Jews under the floorboards, Brad Pitt's silly Italian accent, Eli Roth's batting skills, The brilliant use of David Bowie, the film as a whole is brilliant. It's not perfect, however.

The dialogue tends to drag with Shoshanna as she ends up being sucked in to hosting the premiere of Goebbell's new film, starring a soldier who killed almost 300 Allies over a 3 day period, who takes a liking to her instantly. From that everything zips off, the plan to blow up the cinema and eliminate the entire Nazi headliners for what they did to her family, the Basterds preparing their own brand of justice, even in a long scene in a bar with Michael Fassbender's ridiculously English officer under the guise of a German captain, leading to the inevitable explosion of violence, flows far faster than the heavy handed way that Chapter 3 is done, which is painfully boring at times when it could have lots more intrigue, tension and emotion.

As is the case, the film gets better as it picks itself up to the end, with a big sequence between Brad Pitt, B.J. Novak and Chris Waltz negotiating an end to the war, and in truly original style, the ending isn't exactly what we were taught happened.

The soundtrack is exquisite, the use of Bowie is brilliant, Ennio Morricone's stuff works wonders, the memorable opening and closing songs hummable all the time, the tense tunes, the superfluous ones too are well chosen as always, solid work here.

The film looks great, all natural, nothing CGI feeling, just the right style, the acting is universally great, from Mike Myers' scene stealing stiff upper lip to Mr. Waltz's Oscar winning work, and I assure you if he doesn't get the supporting Actor gong there'll be some serious furor, no pun intended, here. Brad Pitt is notably very funny, sometimes hard to comprehend, but he does his job, and the gals, well, they do the kicking ass stuff, and do enough to maintain the dignity needed.

Overall it's a great if not perfect film that isn't quite WW2 as much as Oh Man I Want Him To Explode For No Reason!

10/10

There's a Lot of secrets in the secret screening

2009-08-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, so, picture the scene, in the middle of London after being there for 3 hours, early on we have Terry Gilliam standing up and presenting mini clips of his latest film, then a full on Q&A where he gets really involved, then some very very fucking exciting clips of Matthew Vaughn's Kick-Ass in which a 7 year old girl calls a groups of people with weapons cunts and then proceeds to slice and dice, and without warning Jason Felmying and Christopher Mintz-Plasse appear for a light Q&A where it proves McLovin' is just as funny in real life.

How does one react when a secret screening begins with all that fun beforehand?

Well, sitting in our seats the Tristar logo appears, some whispers, then the QED logo, more whispers, we've seen them before, but where? Finally Peter Jackson Presents"
MASSIVE
FREAKING
APPLAUSE!
I whooped and I hollered like I was at the Drafthouse, and I was not ashamed nor alone, District Freaking 9, yes it was out in America already, but we'd have to wait until September 4th otherwise,

So we settled in, chuckles, claps, gasps, 'ew's, but mainly the audience just got stuck in.

The film begins with some interviews, documentary footage looking at the history of the Alien ship appearing, what happened, why the aliens were forced onto Earth, stuck in a refugee camp and treated like animals, and some nice stuff about 'what happened' that hasn't happened yet for us watching as the story plays out. Opening and staying almost completely in a documentary style for the first 30 minutes is what kills the film a bit.

We have our lead in Merwe, a normal guy with a sense of humour who is promoted because he's married to the boss' daughter, he is part of a government agency in Johannesburg who's sole purpose is working with the aliens, and the day we join him he is making them sign letters of eviction so they can be moved from the shanty town in District 9 to a smaller place, some of them seem more unwilling than others, and in it we see tempers rise and the attitudes of the MNU agents.

The use of CGI aliens and not making them monsters but sentient beings who act like you'd expect in their situation not only makes it a far superior film, but also makes it a breakthrough in sci-fi, a proper R rated CGI sci-fi that's not all about the explosions and tits, transformers, but more about social commentary and relationships between different beings, get it, it's about how we react to those different to us.

As we progress and get away from the documentary we see two radical 'prawns', an informal name for the aliens, making a weapon to attack the humans with, one that poor Mewes finds and accidentally triggers, leading him to have some side effects, and become the hunted like the Prawns, eventually hiding in District 9 with them, and making an alliance with the weapon's creator, Christopher Johnson.

And here's the best part of the film, a fully CGI character, in a film where the CGI is sadly a little lackluster, really makes you believe in his existence, and hope he survives, finally it's not about oh you can't care for him because he's different, and he has a kid to boot. When the action kicks off it goes with the expected bang, but it's almost as big a step in the right direction for adult Sci-Fi as Children of Men was.

A funny, shocking, icky film with a lead character who can't help but turn to a slightly Irish hint when he begins swearing a lot, and in his situation it makes sense to throw the F-word out as agents, Nigerian gangs and aliens all hunt for your body.

It's not perfect,t he sudden change from documentary to filmic styles is jarring, and disappointing, but it knows what it's doing, and for the most part avoids the cliches head on.

8/10

A Letter To Paramount

2009-08-06T05:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Paramount,
Over the years you have maintained a quality that, whilst sometimes dips, was usually counter-balanced by something so amazing it's too awesome for words.

I thank you for Transformers, Stardust, Cloverfield and Hot Rod in the last few years.

However, please note that it is not acceptable to go a whole summer and offer us absolutely nothing.

Star Trek, whilst hearts and minds adored it, was a dire piece of generic trash with cliche all over, poor ideas, limited story, annoying actors and comedy for no fucking reason.

You kindly followed that up with Transformers 2.

Now, Transformers was the perfect Michael Bay vehicle, if you pardon the pun, it was big loud and dumb, but had the right amount of humour, CGI and action sequences. The sequel took out the sturdy pacing, the interesting human characters and the quality CGI, replaced it with downgraded work, robots as the only characters if any, and John Turturro in a jock strap. Now I love Mr. Quintana as much as anyone, but I don't wish to go an hour on a packed train to see his hairy arse on an IMAX screen do I?

I'm so glad that for your latest opus the cinema was empty, because GI Joe is a fucking disgrace to film.

For a film that cost, I'm hazarding a guess as $175 million, the CGI is some of the worst I have seen. You can clearly tell the greenscreened parts, the faces changing from real to Computer, heck, in one scene the face stays the same size as the camera moves away. No film needs this much CGI, and if it does, a better company should have done it, clearly the chumps you got were messing with photoshop and then printed their shit out, threw it at a car, picked it up, scanned it in, and put it to film.

If that wasn't bad enough, the dialogue was so mentally unstable I was actually hitting my head against the cinema's wall for a fair bit of time, no easy feat when sitting in the middle, heck of a run up though.

Who cast the actors too? Fucking hell, if you want a comedic sidekick, you hire someone funny, not a goddamn Wayan brother, they were barely passable in the first Scary Movie, why have you given them a damn career, with Dance Flick on the horizon, and the astonishingly bad reviews all around. Channing Tatum as the lead? He looks like a slab of meat with two satellite ears sticking out, and acts worse than he looks. Sienna Miller was a good call, but Christopher Eccleston? His Scottish accent, whilst hysterical, was so stupid it was hard to watch. All other actors were truly awful too, Dennis Quaid, what did he do to you Paramount? Poor Jonathon Pryce, why on Earth did you not stop him signing on to this, he's too good for you.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as well? That was truly mean, heck, when they were in uniform, Channing and Joseph, I thought the film had became Stop-Loss, but no, it sucked instead.

Cliches were hit all the time, and just giving flashbacks doesn't mean you care about the character, the writing needed work, like every part of the film.

You ruined an already bad summer, I thought Fox would be the bad ones, no, you ruined the summer, Fuck you.

Andrew Jones.

Earth and Water? This Is Madness, This Is ROMCOM!

2009-08-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

Gerard Butler, oh Gerard, the future was so bright. After 300 we were willing to overlook P.S. I, Love You, no one should make a film with Ms. Swank anymore, especially when steady grower into an awesome film RocknRolla had you being so freaking funny and willing to debase himself with some scenes, mainly the getting the arse out and the sex scene, god that sex scene, so unbelievably graphic. Nothing like that in his latest venture, Produced and starring Knocked Up's Katherine Heigl as a woman who is human and can't find love, but film cliches say she will at the end. She's a sad story too, after the brilliant Knocked Up where she wasn't just some gal, but a full character, human to the bone, she went off and made 27 Dresses, and because she was in two big hits, now produces this film with her sister, or cousin or mother, or something.

So, one of the first R-Rated Chick Flicks for a long time, The Ugly Truth is about Heigl's TV Producer struggling to accept the bringing in of Butler's shock jock TV show host to boost ratings as he explains his misogynistic views live on air, leading to Cheryl Hines' and John Michael Higgin's married anchor-people going from hating to loving each other in one reel, ending their portion far too quickly.

Boy and Girl hate each other, must work together, and sure enough they bond as he tells her how to woo a man of her dreams kinda guy, amidst comic moments where she falls over, off a tree, and all that malarky that's genuinely cringeworthy and would be out of place if this film were aiming to make a human romance story, which it's first 20 minutes seems to believe so.

You know the big twist at the end, all the drama and everything, down to the dialogue it's all there, and it's nothing special. As an R-rated film, yes there is some vulgarities, but nothing too much, and the most raunchy part is, thankfully, the film's funniest scene, with a kid picking up what he thinks is a toy in a restaurant but is the control for a pair of vibrating undies Heigl is wearing as she presents her ideas for advertising during sweeps to the big guns. You know what's gonna happen, but it's still rather funny.

The only other times you laugh is when Butler is being a real piece of work and making sex jokes, they are childishly funny.

Sub-plots come and go, Butler's character's nephew is introduced, used a few times to make Butler a nice guy, and then disappears, Heigl's assistant had little to do, the man of her dreams does nothing until the end where he becomes and arsehole. Heck, they even have E from Entourage in it and only gives him one short scene.

It's not The Proposal calibre, but it has it's moments, and would be awful if it weren't for Gerard Butler's talents leading the way into the light of this generic mess, a shame as it could have been a really near-the-knuckle Truth About Cats And Dogs for the 21st Century, maybe in a few years someone will change rom-coms for the better by turning them on their heads, has there been a romance flick that ended with one of them murdering the other one sadistically? Maybe 2011...

6/10

Marshall Willenholly vs Jay and Silly Bob

2009-07-31T06:09:00.000-07:00

So, Kevin Smith predicted it, in 2001, Will Ferrell played Marshall Wilenholly in Jay and Silly Bobs' Stricken Backs, and 8 years later Ferrell pops up in TV adaptation Land of the Lost as Rick Marshall in a film that tries to do the Starsky and Hutch mickey take and yet loving homage to the show, but messes it up completely by losing the funny for CGI, jump scares, lots of unnecessary plotting and poor character development.

Rick Marshall and new assistant Holly, Anna Friel, go to Will, Danny McBride, and his crazy devil cave where they travel time and space to an odd land full of monkey men, Chaka played by the legend that is Jorma Taccone, dinosaurs who are smart, odd lizard men and a giant crab for no real reason.

It begins with a horror scene, then some relaxed improv, with Bobbe J'Thompson, the brilliant kid from Role Models, and slowly forgets this for lots of running, gross out gags with blood sucking bugs, sex jokes that aren't funny, except "Watch out you'll get wet, No I mean Holly" which the kids in the audience, mainly the entire limited audience, after all the ads and trailers were child friendly, didn't get. Add the moment where Ferrell says Eff you to Chaka and lots of cursing and some violence, comedic but boring, and it's stupid how they can put Coco Pops ads in front of it.

So, whilst the actors are solid, the music is brilliant, it's just forgotten that CGI is the anti-funny, like David Koepp said on the Ghost Town commentary, CGI stops jokes, it's true.

What a waste of time, avoid, like most films this year, avoid.
2/10

Man On Train Tracks

2009-07-29T07:37:00.000-07:00

So, Tony Scott back again. The man who gave us the magnificent True Romance and the surprisingly wonderful Man on Fire remake is remaking another cult classic with The Taking Of Pelham 123, starring his favourite actor, and who wouldn't want him in their film, Denzel Washington, as a rail controller, the voice on the other end of the line as Travolta's eccentric hostage taker as he works out a plan to make $10 million in one hour. Add John Turturro as a hostage negotiator who helps Denzel and James Gandolfini as the mayor.

So, it's all you expect, tense dialogue, people being shot and shouting "Where's the money Lebowski?" swishy camera work, fast editing, saturated images, slo-mo and fast motion mixed together, the Scott Standard.

The opening credits are a testament to him, lots of classic styles mixed with showy offy text work and dialogue.

And that's kinda the film's big weakness, the dialogue is dull and just has lots of f-words because they can't think of something good to say, I never cared for Denzel and never feared his life would be in danger at all, Travolta was never a savage man, just a slightly odd character with a gun and friends, and it's a shame because the actors work really well, the film looks and sounds amazing, but the script is flat and lifeless.

I guess it's good that everything else works then, because considering it's high score the script just makes you question why they let it go into production without another re-write, stupid Writer's Strike.

It's not the Tony Scott film you've waited for since Man On Fire, but it's got the same components and it'll do for now.
7/10

Lame quote to trendy film that works with film reviewed below

2009-07-28T06:13:00.000-07:00

So, Ryan Reynolds eh? Van Wilder turned to rom coms quickly, then decided to make himself a massive star by signing on to two, count them, two comic book film projects, after the disastrous Deadpool re-imagining in the Burton sense of the word in Wolverine, he's gonna be Deadpool properly in a few years time, meaning The Proposal will be his last romantic comedy until his career subsides, though he should just stick with frat boy comedies, him in The Hangover would have been 100000x better than Bradley Cooper.

Sandra Bullock is a horrible actress, I mean, annoying, bad and thinks she's far prettier than she could ever be, I swear she's got Miss Piggy's nose. I mean, when she fell down he stairs in Crash I cheered. She survived which was annoying, but she fell down stairs, take what you can in this life. I avoided the film where she finds a magic mailbox and sends horny letters to Ted "Whoah" Anderson Constantine Utah, who takes many red pills to forget the words. I saw Speed because, well, Dennis Hopper gets decapitated and Ted "Whoah" Anderson Constantine Utah drives a bus fast with a gun. Why would you miss that?

But Bullock is a bad actress, she has little comedy knowledge, isn't entertaining and just comes off like a preening bitch.

So The Proposal, a film where contrived situation rom com actress Bullock is gonna be deported to Canada, pretends Reynolds' assistant is getting married to her, settling the issue, but a government agent guy thinks it's all a big ruse, so follows them as they visit his family in Alaska, where lo-and-behold he's not just some poor kid moved to the big city, but has a massive family estate and practically owns their home town.

It's like Chuck and Larry in some of that sense, faked couple, man sniffing around, although here it's not as stupid, annoying, and forgetting the quality drama of some scenes for madcap moments. There are some mad moments, and they don't fit, such as Bullock dancing around a fire with mad 90 year old grandmother singing a shitty rap song as the song plays, comedy is missing here, as is a sequence where Bullock, her again, picks up a dog and tries to barter an Eagle to take the dog not her phone. Yeah.

Fortunately most of those moments are cut by Reynolds' sarcastic quips and charm, making you genuinely laugh and understand the situation.
Some times though the film falls too far into a pre-established genre. They hate each other, inexplicably learn to love each other doesn't really work since she's about 45 and he's only early 30's, and they don't have much in common. The family has issues, all resolved easily, when 90 year old grandmother has a heart attack, but it's a fake one that gets the characters to reconnect, oh how wonderful...ly stupid.

Fortunately even a stupid strip dance from The Office's Oscar aren't too annoying when you have Reynolds' enjoyable nature easing the film along, and even though it relies a lot on him, he makes it effortless.

Malin Akerman has a thankless role as an ex of Reynolds who says he's a good man once, and that's it, that's all she's there for, nothing else, which is odd since she's third on the credits. The music also has a similar issue, it's there for one scene, and then in the background the rest of the time reminding you that it's a silly scene with brass beats. Generic indeed.

The camerawork, however, is far superior, shots of the couple are often distanced, and in close up the director has moving cameras going in opposite directions for each actor, subtle yet clever.

Even though at points it seems like it's going to transcend the Rom-Com genre like Definitely, Maybe did, it ultimately wants girls to laugh at Bullock being a stuck up bitch letting loose, which is the film's weakest points, when Reynolds saves it with being effortlessly awesome. It's a cheap showing kinda flick.

7/10

I didn't hit her, it's not true, it's bullshit I did not hit her, i Did NAHT! Oh vassup Mark!

2009-07-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

So, Sacha Baren Cohen, 'king of comedy', returns to the big screen almost 3 years after Borat made everyone gasp for air in the cinema time and time again, critics loved it, audiences loved it, it even got an Oscar nomination. Now with the final character from his Ali G repertoire, gay fashion show host Bruno from Austria, going to America again, Sacha will find fewer fans.

I personally laughed at Borat, but never felt the quality that everyone else did, maybe the years of enjoying the TV stuff made me hope it'd be more like that, and I was disappointed, especially in the staged stuff and unnecessary ending that's too un-documentary-like. Add to that everyone doing the catchphrases and it's a painful experience to watch now.

Bruno I never really liked, but I hoped it'd be so good and so big everyone would imitate him, suddenly thousands of Essex Lads revert from "I ain't a Queer" to "Oh vassup! Zat is incrediblech"
Alas no.

The fears of it being dire have been confirmed, for an 80 minute runtime the film felt about 1 hour 55 minutes long, and most of the first half of the film is all staged plot points, with an annoying character you can't like because he's never vulnerable enough, well, in one scene when his baby is taken away it's a nice dark moment, but nothing more than that, so we can't care about this senseless boob with nothing going on up here. (points to head)

So the basic premise is this, breathes in to say the whole long story, Austrian overtly gay correspondent Bruno loses his job in a screw up at Milan fashion week, goes to America to become famous, tries to act, tries to host a show, tries to bring peace to the middle east, tries to be charitable, ends up trying to be straight, falls in love with assistant.
And in all that they need some humour, but for it's runtime there's so much downtime between the set-pieces and jokes it's devastating, and many real moments feel too staged, including a moment where he refers to a cop as Paul Blart, a reference that wouldn't be made until after shooting had ended, thus ADR-ed later, destroying all chances of reality by too much post.

The real stuff ranges from the hysterical - A test audience watches a Bruno show where penises talk and swing and he dances in his undies, then he comes in and they aren't happy - to downright dull - a hunting party where a slight whiff of people annoyed by a gay man wanting to sleep near them naked, understandable really in those situations.

The ending sequence where Elton John, Chris Martin, Sting, Bono and Snoop Dogg record a charity song with Bruno isn't funny or interesting, they get the joke and are in on it, and is a tiresome extra 2 minutes on the runtime.

The worst thing is this film has no real agenda. Borat looked at racism in America through the eyes of a sweet foreign journalist, instead of hitting homophobia it's just one man trying to make homophobia, it's not smart and worst of all it's not funny.

A blinding bore, disappointment, and only one real "OH wow" moment, featuring a 'real terrorist', and he only clenches his fist and tells Bruno to get out.
5/10

That's No Death Star!

2009-07-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

Alright press, we get it, Director Duncan Jones is the son of David Bowie, get over it, he's not gone out and made his name through his father, no, he's done it by being a genuine talent.

Moon is about Sam Rockwell, who plays Sam, a man working on the other side of the moon for "Lunar Industries" a company who create energy using Helium 3 from the Moon to power the Earth. He and his robot chum GERTY, Kevin Spacey, do their work and retain sanity, until he has a crash on a Lunar Rover and wakes up back to normal, wondering what happened to the rover.

He's not allowed out until he's deemed medically fine, but sneaks out and gets to the crash site only to find a body in there. Him.

From there on in it descends from breezy special effects drama to a twisting turning psychological thriller in space with two of the same person trying to figure out what is going on, and it skips over the cliches, they're not evil versions of one another, the computer is bad, instead of trite easy moments it jumps from a slow burning film that's not too fascinating into a slowly meandering into oblivion web that you get hooked into and can't really figure it all out until way past the credits.

For a $5 million budget they certainly got a lot out of it, the sets are authentic and have a nostalgic feeling going back to 2001, Alien and the like, the proper kinds of sci-fi, slightly futuristic but almost possible, the moon itself looks amazing, and whilst there's not much with gravity issues, it's not a problem. The music by Clint Mansell is one of the first of the year that come the end I was tapping toes to, I simply must find the score, it's haunting, epic, subtle and at it's high points loud and fun.

For such a small budget it is a beautiful film, breathtaking in fact, with just so much smart and fun dialogue, great Sam and Sam interactions, a Table Tennis scene explained "Howdeydodat" by Mr. Jones after the film is impeccable, and overall this is the kind of filmt he summer needs. A rock solid fun, interesting, tense, dark well made film that's also a smart adult Science Fiction like the old days before I was born.

Brilliant.
10/10

Mann I Wish It Was Good

2009-07-10T12:51:00.000-07:00

The much anticipated summer flick of choice now, Public Enemies, a film by Mr. Mann, director of such greats as Heat, Collateral and Miami Vice, a film that swayed me from hate to love within 15 minutes of it's hard to follow intricately brilliant action drama.

Public Enemies is much the same in that the dialogue holds the key, but you have to listen carefully, but I mean really carefully this time, as the only things consistent in this film are the odd score choices and the gun sound levels, the dialogue is impossible to hear at some points and crystal clear in others.

The film is about a few months with John Dillinger, or maybe even weeks, leading up to his death by Patrick Bateman, he really hated those business cards. So Johnny Depp acts charismatic and fun loving and does some bank raids and falls in love, whilst Melvin Purvis trashes lights, runs around and shouts for answers.

The only problem is the film is a hollow shell.
You never once care about what happens to anyone, we never find much out, are invited in or really feel highs and lows of the events, the bank robberies are a disappointing bore, the shootouts while trade-markedly loud, miss a lot of humanity and aren't interesting, and it's runtime is 30 minutes too long for nothing to actually happen.

The HD cameras with a handheld feel is odd, like a docu-drama set in the '30's, and whilst it looks extraordinary, it feels boring and sluggish, trying to set up the period subtly doesn't work, and when they go a bit in your face with newsreels and radio news it feels a little embarrassing.

Whilst it looks and sounds alright and the acting is solid, Public Enemies offers absolutely nothing and should really be ignored, clearly when he works with real people Mr. Mann can't get into their minds like he does fictional creations.
6/10

I Promise You The Dawn Is Coming

2009-07-10T12:14:00.000-07:00

The Dawn of The Dinosaurs, apparently.

The Dawn, even though in Ice Age 3, the dinosaurs had been extinct, a point they make many times, it's still just starting for them, unless dinosaurs are nocturnal in this metaphor for lifespan.

So when we last left our intrepid pre-historic heroes they were... Erm. I can't finish that sentence. I only made it through 3/4 of the first one, and never bothered with number 2, it was too cutesy, not enough comedy, though Scrat's Looney Tunes style antics were a highlight, and the added 3-D and boredom drew me to see this new one.

So, the basic premise, in this KIDS film, is conventional 3rd film antics, i.e. childbirth is coming, yep, a kids film about parents preparing for kids. So the mammoths, incredibly poorly voiced by Queen Latifah, who's vocals seem too serious for anything, and gives the horrible line as she rids a Brontosaurs neck "Yabbadabbadoo" to which Ray Romano's mammoth replies "Lets not ever Yabbadabbadoo that again" I shit you not, Honest To Blog bad!

Dennis Leary is the sabretooth tiger who wants to do stuff on his own, then doesn't, has about 5 minutes to do anything, and spends most of it with a funny gazelle cockily voiced by uber-funny man Bill Hader.

2 new characters I'm guessing sprang up in the sequel are Weasels or something who make jock style jokes and add nothing and detract a lot, voiced by the awesome Josh Peck and Seann William Scott, two great talents being just dire.

Hell, even Scrat suffers with a love story that's not funny nor interesting.
Add on Simon Pegg's boringly over the top insane weasel Buck who tells tall tales and helps the herd find the one saving grace of this picture.
Sid.

John Leguizamo, last seen in the Mark Wahlberg Talks To Plants film Boogi.... Erm, The Happening. What Happened? Nothing.
I never cared for the series, but I caught Surviving Sid on the Horton Hear's A Who Blu-Ray expecting some poor unfunny kids cheery cheese, and laughed an awful lot, he's a fool that you know will fail, but the way he's done is perfect, so loveable and idiotic you just know he's too innocent to comprehend the situations he gets himself into, this time wanting to be a parent too, finds 3 eggs and nurtures them, though when odd coloured T-Rex mama comes round and drags them all off, the quest begins.

It's all cliched, and almost all awful, but Sid's brilliance really does add this film a boost, and the 3-D is spectacular, not Monsters Vs Aliens good, but better than Coraline, Bolt or Up. A scene involving hte eggs, a piece of wood like a bobsled and Sid is just marvellous, and really draws you in.

The graphics are impeccable, cartoony in a great way, and have really improved to a ridiculous amount that it's just stunning.

I wouldn't buy it unless it's cheap, but it's fun enough, and I'm sure kids love the dumbness of it all, I think highly of the as you can tell.
7/10

You Can Keep My Sister

2009-07-10T12:04:00.001-07:00

Nick Cassavetes, best known for girl weepy The Notebook, but also made the surprisingly brilliant Alpha Dog, returns to adapting crying books for another delve into making girls cry, I say girls cos in the screen I was in, I was the only one who should at least have a Y chromosome.

Basic plot is Abigail Breslin is a young girl who was created artificially to be able to give up body parts and blood for her sister, who has cancer, happy times, and she wants to be allowed to be in control of her body medically, so hires Alec Baldwin's lawyer. Mother Cameron Diaz shouts and screams at her a lot, and then cries all the time, while her sister numbingly monotones through voice overs, talking and every other scene she is until finally cancer kills her, two hours later than is acceptable.

Add to that the elder brother is a loner, gasp, and father is sitting on the fence, nothing interesting here.

No, the only moments that are any good involve the court case, which also includes the brilliant Joan Cusack as a crying judge who's daughter was run over half a year ago, so knows daughter loss pain, see, get it, she's empathetic.

Speaking of pathetic, a scene near the end, where the family rejoin to go to the beach one last time, is made up of complete weepiness, only the whole film's problem is it's not about here are the characters, this is who they are, it's sad, yeah? No, it's HERE ARE THE CHARACTERS, SHE'S DYING, CRY!
And the audience did, they fucking let go and cried, at some shitty indie music, blurry beach images and a bald girl smiling and cuddling to daddy. Cliche ridden cack and these gals ate it up like it was the best meal in years.

I just don't understand, I connected only to Abigail Breslin's character, who was sweet, fun and interesting, the best part of the film with her struggles, and Diaz was dull, if an English language version of Penelope Cruz's Oscar winning shouting and crying acting talent was given a name, it'd be The Diaz.

Just bad
5/10

Don't Clean My Sunshine.

2009-07-10T11:56:00.000-07:00

Sunshine Cleaning, a film I gathered by the poster alone to be some hilarious breezy black comedy about two chicks who accidentally kill someone and have to hide the evidence.

Of course the poster was half there, but my imagination kinda went further, as the film is in actual fact about Amy Adams' single mother needing money to get her kid into a good school after being kicked out of his old one, and getting into cleaning crime scenes for big money due to her affair with married high school sweetheart Steve Zahn.

She and her sister Emily Blunt go and do that, whilst the kid is looked after by grandfather Alan Arkin, typecast much?

So there's highs and lows, quirky moments, but overall it's a solid but lacking comedy drama with lots of moments that as a whole need more time to really sink in, and being just about 90 minutes long, it's one of those indie films that gets so close, but bottles it and has a lacklustre sudden ending as opposed to a solid finale that reaches highs the film needs to go to be truly memorable.

The film hasn't got anything new aesthetically, tonally, the acting is as solid as you'd expect from the cast, but it really never breaks through a mediocre bar, and there's nothing especially funny in it. A subplot involving 24's Mary Lynn Rajskub falling in love with Emily Blunt is given no real time, especially with the addition of possible boyfriend Eric Christian Olsen, who has about two scenes barely being there.

Can't complain as it's got enough quirk and heart to keep it going, but little of anything amazing.
8/10

Year One: Audience Zero (Agg. 37972 - 12)

2009-06-26T11:28:00.001-07:00

Then there's Apatow Productions disaster of biblical proportions, Year One, in which Harold Ramis destroys his rep and a talented cast mess up, it's this year's The Love Guru. Jack Black and Michael Cera do the same stuff they always do, same schtick, different day, they are in a village of cave people they go away, meet biblical characters, and then live and be heroes, why, because the film thinks it's funny.

This is a film where Michael Cera pisses into his own mouth, Jack Black eats ***, Kyle Gass plays a eunich, Hank Azaria only gets to say foreskin a lot, and the idiots behind me, see dumb demographic, loved it cos of the useage of the words penis and sh it as punchlines to the, ahem, 'jokes'.
Poorly handled film all round.

It's not funny in the least, the cast is awful, cringeworthy, I found myself avoiding eye contact with the screen, avoid avoid avoid avoid avoid.

Year 1/10

Blade: The Littlest Vampire

2009-06-26T11:27:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I know it's an anime or something, but before the film began I knew nothing, except the CGI in the trailer was awful.

So there's this chick who is half human half vampire or something, and someone killed all she loved, so she wants to kill them, to get to the baddie she kills bottom of the barrel vampires for an American team, always in Japan. She goes to an airbase run by the US where some killings have happened, meets an American girl, defends her as two other vampire girls try to kill her, then Colin Salmon turns into some stop motion looking CGI vampire beast and takes the American girl, Saya our hero kills him easily, and then they find the baddie, and big fight with 'shocking' revelation.

Whilst missing the pre-finale monologue due to a cinema problem might seem bad, honestly, I know we missed nothing what so ever, the fight came on, you knew why they fought, because every film needs a climax, and who would win, every film needs an ending, and the idea of killing the hero doesn't work since you never care for the character, and as such the expositional sequences are dull and tedious.

The action is mishandled, jumping between jump scares and hand held cameras, the wire hack and slash nature feels very odd, American meets Asian cinema, and none of them winning, add to that the ridiculous CGI blood, which there is a lot, sphericaly perfect, but distractingly badly handled, and takes a lot away from the violence of the film, what could have been a graphic and shocking film is a stupid and light hearted action film with limited amounts of anything, and not in the Punisher War Zone way.

It feels like if Blade was set in 1970, and lets face it, if you see this film there's only a few reasons, you like the anime, you like the 18 rating with Blood in the film's title, or you have a thing for asian school girls, and who doesn't, but in the end you're left wanting a lot, and it has a feeling of Miho the Movie, without and of the quality of Sin City.

6/10