I have watched a few films since my last post, and for some reason haven't got around to blogging. I always blog and write 'has blogged' on Facebook at 1am when no-one's online to read and end up posting it again in the morning making me look arrogant, when, in fact, I just enjoy people reading ma shit.
Ghost Town (2008).
Interestingly, Ghost Town was the first film that Ricky Gervais decided to take a starring role in since his meteoric rise to fame. He's cameo'd in a few films, such as Stardust and For Your Consideration, but never taken the lead role because he'd never found a part worthy enough. The role of Bertram Pincus appealed to him, somehow, probably because it was just HIM.
I get annoyed at Ricky Gervais being called a King Of Comedy because he is not adaptable, but then I think to myself...which other famous television comedians have gone far by adapting the role that they rose to fame being? And I think of none. The very few that spring to mind have always stayed in 'comfortable' roles based on their original act. Lee Evans stayed the same. As did John Cleese. And how often do Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell act as anything other than manchildren?
Ghost Town is about Pincus, a dentist, who undergoes a routine operation but momentarily dies, giving him the ability to see ghosts. Greg Kinnear pesters Pincus into helping him separate his widow (he's a ghost, you see) from marrying a new man, with an agreement that he will stop all other ghosts from annoying Pincus. Pincus ends up falling for the widow and it carries on from their. I must say, this film is good. Thoroughly enjoyable. It has a good handful of incredibly laughable moments that easily make the film worth watching. It has physical comedy, and the comic timing of Gervais mixed with drama. I wouldn't really call this film a comedy. Despite not being Marxist, about the working classes, or realistic as it has ghosts, this film contains some of the most socially realistic scenes I've ever scene. Gervais' knack of being himself has paid of incredibly well in this movie, in the way that the conversations he has on screen seem so real and improvised (which I feel may have happened, Gervais is a genius, apparently) that you feel strongly for the characters and their ups and downs.
It may not be the best film I've watched recently, but it's certainly funny and emotional and a brilliant christmas present for a mother or older sister for you people who haven't bought presents yet. I'm not saying it's girly, but two of my closest female companions both admitted to shedding tears behind their boyfriend's (one of them being me) backs
Passengers. (2008)
You won't have heard of this, and neither did I. Thanks to Anne Hathaway's Oscar buzz from "Rachel Getting Married", this film was kept on the hush hush and not promoted. Mainly due to it being shit.
Passengers is a 2008 'thriller' about a therapist helping survivors of a plane crash come to terms with the trauma. After mysterious circumstances cause some of the survivors to disappear, Hathway gets into a web of deceit that only takes her further into the cover up surrounding the crash.
No matter how much I play it up, this film is shit. The plot is sub-par, the acting is particulary terrible (leaving me with dashed hopes for Patrick Wilson as Daniel Dreiberg. He's good in Lakeview Terrace, but crap in this). I feel incredibly sorry for the people who put their hard work into this film only for it to be shunned by Sony because of Hathaway's potential Oscar nod. But then again, I don't because they made a shit film. And did I mention this film was shit?
The thriller elements of the movie are APPALLING. They let the 'twist' go far far FAR too early in a most obvious way, so even Helen Keller could guess the end. The tense scenes are about as tense as watching a grape about to roll off the edge of a table, and so flat it's unbelievable.
I'm not going to say anything more about this film because it's not going to get a major release, you aren't going to see it, and you shouldn't because IT'S SHIT.
Mirrormask (2005)
Visual spectacle, pointless story.
Mirrormask is a 2005 film directed by artist Dave McKean, written by himself and Neil Gaiman (Stardust, Princess Mononoke [he wrote the English translation]).
It's the third of the staple 'Alice in Wonderland' films I've watched recently (which I should call Wizard of Oz's but that'd be bigging them up because that film's AWESOME and the others are just good). It's about a girl, Helena, who's parents (Rob Brydon and Gina 'Mary Cox from Our Friends in the North' McKee) run a circus in Brighton. She desires running away and wishes her mother dead, and subsequently dreams a crazy dream after he mother becomes ill.
Her dream reflects the future of her real life, but all the while her real life continues on the other side of mirrors in her dream. An evil princess from, I'll call it, the mirror world has stolen her life using a mirrormask and sucked Helena into the mirror world. The mirror world is made up of Helena's doodles (mostly McKeans art) and she starts to recognise her own work and fathoms a way out of the world, and back into her own.
Visually, this film is AWESOME. It's a combination of collage art, mostly creating creatures, with sculpture, animation and sketch. If you're a McKean fan, seeing his art come to life must have been fantastic. The film was produced by the Jim Henson Co., who produced Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal in the 80's, and they were hoping to create another 'sleeper' such as them. Neither of those films did particularly well in cinemas, but video sales made them cult classics for years to come. With Mirrormask, the releases were limited to festivals and independent cinemas, hoping to create a 'word of mouth' effect making more people purchase the movie. As far as I'm aware, it failed, but Gaiman went on to gain success with Stardust, of which he wrote the novel, and McKean had already created conceptual art for The Prisoner of Azkaban, and his comics and art are well collected.
Mirrormask is a strange one, I'd say it was for fans of The Fall etc, but it's a different kettle of fish. It's an incredibly childing movie, and would be fantastic for young children's imaginations, but fans of art and cinematic art would also enjoy this film for the spectacle that it is. There's not much story to hold on to, and you really need to appreciate the visuals in order to desire to stay with this movie. I can imagine the story alone would bore someone as it's not deep, but the original plan of creating a movie in the same vein of Labyrinth did work, creating a world for both children and adults to enjoy, albeit in different manners.
It's good, and definately one to own if you have seen and enjoyed it.
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is a 2006 slasher movie, directed by Jonathan Levine. It tells the story of Mandy Lane, a girl who 'got hot over the summer' being invited out to a ranch with the jock kids in order for them to try and have sex with her.
Sex? Teenagers? Sounds like a slasher movie to me. But, a surprising lack of sex and breasts are in this movie, especially considering the premise. I'm not saying there are no breasts, but it's not the breastfest that is, say, Rob Zombie's Halloween. This film is remarkably more mature than your average slasher, some lulls in dialogue but that was mainly due to the script being mostly improvised by unknown teenage actors, Van Sant style.
No punches are pulled in this movie, except for the ones that kill people. This film was made with a budget of $750,000, and is a fantasticly shot film for less than $1 million. A few cutaway shots when gore is expected are forgivable due to the independent nature of the movie. I'd rather imagine the gore than have some tomato ketchup smeared on a latex face. Most of the film is shot with a 70's orange glow, the youthful exuberance splattered against the corn fields hosts a good pallette of colour for to kill against.
This is a good film, peculiar in parts, but it's plot really refreshes the genre. If more people would make the effort to craft a film with less killing and more thought, rather than just straight up slashers (Prom Night, Halloween, etc) then I would be in my element.
Lakeview Terrace is a current cinema movie flick about racism. 'Reverse racism' actually. But you know what idiots think, 'the white people have it coming'
Lakeview Terrace has sparked a lot of controversy. It stars Samuel L Jackson as Abel Turner, an unruly LAPD cop, struggling to raise his two children single-handedly after his wife dies in a car crash. The crash, I might add, was caused by a white man. Therefore he hates white people. When a mixed race couple move in next door, he decides to channel his aggression and hatred away from his work and into his homelife.
The controversy caused is mostly among the white community. They are shocked to see racism 'the other way round'. The white guilt seems to cut so deep that when something so obvious and well-thought out comes along they are taken aback when they are the victims.
The film holds such a good concept, I'm not saying racism is a good concept, but the story could be deep and important, but LaBute's delivery in direction is rather appalling. SLJ is fantastic in this movie, he portrays an out and out villain excellently. There are moments when he attempts to twist and turn your allegiance, played very well, but it feels like LaBute spent too much time convincing SLJ to 'act racist', ignoring the rest of the cast. Patrick 'Nite Owl' Wilson seems to be generally un-offended by Turner's agressive bigotry, and only really seems to get angry when sexism or generally being a bad neighbour comes into play. Again, it could be deliberate on LaBute's part in order to exemplify the unimportance of racism, but it seems that it more exemplifies that it lacks impact, when, in fact, the world is still riddled with racism. I'm aware that at the time of writing, Barack Obama is still president, yes we can etc etc, but I have experienced racism in many parts of my life, mainly when around people from Yorkshire or Lancashire when they are actually full-on racist, and it doesn't feel like it's going away.
I, despite knocking the community that are appalled by this film, still struggle whilst thinking of things to write to avoid bringing up the fact that this film portays racism aimed towards white people. I can admit it isn't something I have seen very often, not outside of comedy and even then, it's not the black Jim Davidson talking, it's intelligent comedians who understand that their fans will not see it as racism. In most cases it isn't, it's observational comedy that just happens to be about the white community, again, not the black Jim Davidson.
Anyway, back to the film. It's opening enthralled me, I was itching to watch the last hour, but it falls at the fence it should break down. Rather than becoming either a superb thriller or drama, it runs towards a hurried ending, by which point you're not sure if you care about the characters anymore. The most important elements of the films plot all occur in the last 15 minutes, and are pushed back by scenes that could be from 'America's Worst Neighbours! A Jerry Springer special' than an intelligent piece about racism.
I'd still say that this movie should be scene, if not just for it's inclusion of 'Shimmy Shimmy Ya', and for the few moments of genuine tension.
It seems no-one can make an original "action" movie anymore, not since Bourne. Good old Greengrass created a monster.
Anyway, Quantum of Solace is the 'sequel' to Casino Royale. I use inverted commas because I'm not happy about calling it that, it's the 23rd Bond film, but the 2nd in this story, and I don't like continuity in Bond movies.
Quantum straight up rips off Bourne. Casino Royale was an already established bond story, and wasn't terribly like Bourne, but had it's moments. This takes that film, shoves it in it's gob, chew it up, and spits it back out. There is a roof chase, almost identical to Bourne; a car chase, almost identical to Bourne and almost identical to Casino Royale. I respect Marc Forster, I love Stranger than Fiction and Monster's Ball, but it seems he went 'lets have the opening chase ending in a construction yard' completely forgetting that happened in CR. I'm starting to realise, unless one is an auteur, director's mean jack when it comes to a film. Directors of Photography and Art Directors have more effect on my personal viewing of a film than a director, unless the director works on arts himself, such as Burton, or Tarantino, or they have a certain way of staging film, such as the Coens, or Tarantino. A director controls the action, the way the actors play it, but I don't really care about that, and if it's good, it's not the director's doing, it's the actors.
Anyway, I'm getting off topic and ranting. This film has some amazing shots. The freefall scene with Bond and Montes is tremendous, as is the fall-off-the-balcony-through-some-glass-onto-some-scaffolding sequence in Sienna (one of my favourite cities in the world, I might add). But the film didn't do it for me. I lost attention because I was watching the same film as CR or the Bournes. It did nothing new with the Bond genre that wasn't established as new in CR, other than having the sexiest and best acting Bond girls I've seen in a very long time. Casting struck a good balance between looks and ability, as the previous few efforts have seemed to say 'What's acting? Do you look good wet?'. Eva Green can't act, sorry, but she does look good wet.
Again with the ranting. This is good if you loved CR. And it's a must see as it, in a way, does carry on the story, albeit more with Bond's struggle to obey than recurring characters. It's a good action film, but I've said it before and I'll say it again, Bourne is better at it.
p.s. MATT DAMON
I won't say much about this film other than I kinda enjoyed it, but instead I'd have rather:
Played Portal
Watched North By Northwest
Watched Enemy of the State
Played Metal Gear Solid/4 (Albeit badly, but still, it's the thought that counts, or lack thereof on the writes of Eagle Eye's parts)
Basically, this is nothing new, trying to disguise itself by nothing new. Most people who watched Eagle Eye won't have played Portal, or Metal Gear Solid, and unless they love the movie or Will Smith, they won't have seen Enemy of the State in 5/10 years like most people. This way, the writers of Eagle Eye, and art department, have got away with a rather good spot of plagiarism.
The film is about two 'activated citizens' controlled by an omniscient female who contacts them through electronic devices using a monotonous voice (Hmm, I wonder if SHE'S electronic?), and these contacts tell them what to do to the exact inch of manoeuvre (Think Morpheus controlling Neo in his office building at the start of the Matrix), and using blackmail to make them obey. They are then, due to her actions, classified 'enemies of the state' COUGH COUGH or "terrorists" as they call them now-a-days and are persued by every defense force in the USA.
Shia The Beef and Michelle Monaghan are the 'innocent' civilians and are bland and ignorable, with clichéd sentiments and backstories. Billy Bob Thornton and Rosario Dawson, on the other hand, play conflicting and abusive officers of the FBI and Air Force respectively, and become the only things worth watching.
This film is nothing new, and won't be the last of this story. It's done well, The Beef is moulding himself into the Jewish action hero that shouldn't be, and it's all Spielbergs fault. Bring back Even Stevens, I say (mainly for the sister). Rent it, at most.
Last night and tonight I watched two British movies. One was good, one was bad.
Donkey Punch is a 2008 thriller involving the accidental death of a young girl during an orgy on a yacht. Sound good? ISN'T! The film falls flat on it's face, much like the young girl does after dying when punched on the neck whilst 'doing it doggy style' (A donkey punch).
The film begins with three Leeds girls on holiday in Mallorca to get over Tammi, one of the girls, break-up. They meet a bunch of off-duty naval crew and decide to go party on a yacht. There begins the disaster. The film tries to evoke movies such as Dead Calm, and the typical American slasher, but it's more Dead Crap. After taking ecstasy and smoking crack (yes, kids, CRACK) they decide to have an orgy. Due to my limited experience of crack, as in NONE, I can imagine it is hard to maintain an erection whilst on a drug that drives you into euphoria but then a depression so harsh that the only thing that cures it is sweet, sweet crack. This little blip aside, the sex festival misdemeanour that causes the death suddenly becomes so incredibly bad that they have to come up with a plausible cause of death. I thought of one in a second. They are on a yacht, with three floors, and the corpse has a broken neck. Maybe, just maybe, she fell from one of the massive decks to another, possibly breaking her neck on the fall. Instead, they decide to dump the body and try to kill each other.
This film completely lacks tension, and when the characters die you are cheering as their placid little faces will no longer have to ruin my movie watching time. It doesn't help that the boys are Old Glory wearing Raa's that I feel should die in the first place.
Don't bother with it, unless you're 13 and need to wank over something that doesn't look like porn but has tits and shagging in it.
The other film I watched was The Bank Job. Now before I get e-shouted down, I know this is a film with Jason Statham in, and I know he isn't one for creating films beyond violence and drugs, but this film is really quite good.
It's the story of the Baker Street Bank Robbery, apparently a robbery so famous that I'd never heard of it. I've heard of the Great Train Robbery, but never this, and apparently this had a higher collateral. Anyway, the gist of the story is Michael X, a black liberationist in the UK, has incriminating photos of a royal princess engaged in sex acts with girls. He uses these photos as blackmail in order to get away with crimes in the UK, but MI5 devise a plan to recover them from the safety deposit box in a bank vault by channeling a robbery to inexperienced criminals. It all goes tits up, and too much is taken from the vault, and the criminals realise they've been had.
The casting of the film is excellent, with every character having the persona of a wheeler-dealer well out of their depth. The few experienced criminals don't feature enough for you to care about them. One way of putting this is...Jason Statham doesn't punch someone until the last scene. He acts! And is pretty good at it. The strange view of the 70's containing sexy females only also means that the female cast is stunning. None of them can act their way our of a paper bag, but they're sexy, and my misogynistic view of the fairer sex means I was happy with their sexy input.
Roger Donaldson, the director, has a weird mix of films under his belt, with Cuban Missile Crisis movies, and Dante's Peak. He even directed Species. So he's reasonably well versed in different cinematic styles, and has shot this rather well. It does look like a long episode of Life on Mars, but that is not a bad thing. Quiffs and sideburns all round. A few anachronistic mistakes are to be forgiven, also. The 'true story' itself has been spiced up, a character here and a plot twist there, but it's all for the best.
The Bank Job is a good film, easy to watch, and interesting. It's story is really deep, so much that I'm surprised a film took this long.
I, rather mumbly and under my breath, watched The House Bunny yesterday. Problem is, I laughed.
I absolutely adore Bad Santa. I first saw it at the cinema during it's release, and I found it hilarious. I watched it again last night and it was just as funny. I thought the retard jokes might not make me laugh anymore, then I remembered In Bruges.
Twilight.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a 2006 Japanese animé film, that is the sequel to a novel of the same name. The novel, written by Yasutaka Tsutsui in1965, concerns Kazuko Yoshiyama, a junior high student who, one day during science class, discovers the ability that she can time-leap.
I just watched a rather strange film. I don't really know whether I enjoyed it. I think I nothinged it.
Stephen King and Frank Darabont have hit up some pretty impressive collaborations in the past.
The Green Mile and The Shawshank Redemption. Two of the most impressive films of all time, both visually and methodically.
They teamed up in 2007 for The Mist, an adaptation of King's short story of the same name.
I urge EVERYONE to see this film. The trailers made it out to be a terrible horror/monster movie that it most certainly is not. King has a knack with social commentary, creating characters that reflect his country's and the general human's feelings towards life and death, politics and religion, and other human beings.
This film is not short of such characters. The lead is taken by The Punisher's Thomas Jane, who puts in an incredible turn as the trapped father in the film. His efforts for creating a genuine horror in threats towards his son are incredible. The antagonist is Mrs Carmody, a bible-bashing and slightly insane woman who tries to convince the trapped patrons of the supermarket that this is God's wrath. The supporting cast of William Sadler, Laurie Holden and even the Shermanator is incredible also.
There is very little wrong with this film. It has the typical King feel of impending doom, claustrophobia and conflicting personalities acting against each other whilst people attempt to work together. Many moments have dialogue hooks that would lead up to a bang or a spook in many mainstream supernatural thrillers but Stephen King lets you freak yourself out before anything happens.
It is a hard film to watch. It is, emotionally, very intense, and very slow-paced. You have to take your time with this film, much like The Green Mile or Shawshank, or even other non-Darabont efforts such as The Stand and Misery.
I love this film, I will not stop watching this. I will show as many people this film as I can, it is incredible. It brought me to floods of tears, had me shouting at the screen and left me a shell of a human being.
If you have seen and survived United 93, or any other strongly distressing film, then you will survive this. Sissy's (no pun intended, Stephen King fans) will not be able to stand this, and people who 'don't like talking movies' won't like this either. It is fantastic. Nuff said.
Rob Zombie's Halloween is a film of two halves. The first half is an 'origin story' as such of Michael Myers, the crazy masked killer we all love. The second is the brutal slaying of half-naked girls and their boyfriends in suburbia. I bet you can guess which half is better.
The original Halloween from 78 is a whole 31 minutes shorter than than Rob Zombie's effort. This 31 minutes makes the film better, as it leaves out the utter SHITE that Rob Zombie has put in. And it's jam-packed with the staple Zombie dialogue mix of sexism and sex.
I don't want to say don't watch this movie, because it's so worth watching for the second half. What I shall say is....watch the first 15 minutes, when baby Mike goes tits, then fast forward all the absolute tosh in the asylum that RZ has stuck in for no reason. The best thing about Michael Myers is that we don't know why he killed his sister, other than that he is a bit on the effed-up side. The RZ version adds in mental analysis of Michael Myers as a child that tries to explain why he might have done it. NARR, NEE NEED.
Watch Carpenter's Halloween any day over this, but if you like the original, or horrors in general, this is a good effort for the most part.
I watched Kiss Kiss Bang Bang the other night, and all I can say is that it is one slick mother-lover. It's Robert Downey Jr in film form (handy, what with it having him in and all)
KKBB is a murder-mystery film, narrated by Harry Lockhart, played by Iron Man, concerning the lives of Harry and Harmony, two aspiring actors, and their friendship with Gay Perry, a private eye consultant who aids actors with their careers. After Perry and Harry find a corpse in a car boot in a lake, their lives change and become a surreal adventure into investigating the corpse.
RDJ is fantastic, and is sharp becoming one of my favourite actors. In KKBB, he is a witty, cool and petty character, who's actions aren't always well thought out and often lead to more mishap. Perry, played by Batman Val Kilmer, is a sarcastic and intelligent stronghold in the group, his actions are always well thought, but are sometimes selfish and harsh. Harmony is eye-candy, they don't really give her enough depth IMO, not much past the 'independent woman' stance.
Anyway, this film made me laugh rather a lot. I didn't know what to expect from it, I'd heard a mixed bag of reviews, but I absolutely adored it. It constantly makes you smile, makes you love the characters enough to evoke strong emotions through certain actions, and most of all, it's just so cool. The use of the word cool makes me sound so old, but it really is. It's slick, suave, and would definately be a 15-year old me's favourite movie. Fuck Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Harry Lockhart pwns. (I just read he was going to be played by Johnny Knoxville, baaad, RDJ, goood).
I heartily suggest to people that you see this movie. If you liked Lucky Number Slevin, then that is child's play compared to this (child's play as in babyish, not Chucky killing n that). It's just so good. I can't see anyone disliking it, and if you do, you have no soul.
Midnight Meat Train is a 2007 horror movie based on a short story by Clive Barker (of Hellraiser fame/Jericho if you're a nerd).
It stars that annoying guy from the Wedding Crashers, the one that's going to marry Rachel McAdams. It also stars the woman who isn't Shannon from Lost but is in Wristcutters, and some bad TV shows. Most importantly, it stars the Juggernaut himself, Vinnie Jones.
It is about a young photographer who is trying to impress an art critic after she informs him his photos don't capture the 'heart of the city'. After photographing the mugging of a model, he starts to notice links between his photographs and unsolved missing persons cases. He delves deeper into investigating the links and ends up uncovering a spate of grizzly murders on the train.
The film is SHIT. Like, proper shit. It starts promisingly, adding touches of melodrama to the tension. The characters aren't too obnoxious, although their actions later in the film make absolutely no sense.
That is a phrase I'd use to describe this movie. 'Absolutely no sense'. It's based on Barker's short story, which apparently explains the reasoning behind certain plot points better, but falling short of owning a copy, I used the IMDB FAQ on the films profile.
I'm gonna ruin it for you, as I imagine no-one will even have heard of it, never mind have the chance to see it.
What happens is, Vinnie Jones kills people on this train, and takes the train underground to an abandoned station where the people are butchered and fed to zombie like monsters. This is sprung out of nowhere in the film, to the point of laughter. In the short story, it is explained that throughout history and the evolution of man, we have learned that we cannot survive without said monsters, so we have agreed to feed them human flesh in order for them to not rampage and savage on the surface of the earth. Still ridiculous, but at least it's explained a BIT better. In the film, the photographer realises that the disappearences are linked to a butcher (played by the man VJ) all the way back through history (although only span American history, the world only apparently began when America was founded).
The film contains some rather brutal scenes for our viewing pleasure, but the CGI is rather appalling so they are, too, laughable. They include eyes being smashed out of skulls, and bodies being butchered.
Don't see it, it's a waste of time, but was rant-worthy.
What the fuck did I just watch? And what was the point in it?
More importantly, why did I feel the need to turn it off after 55 minutes?
Burn After Reading is the newest film by the Coen brothers. Notorius for their black comedy, of sorts, this film falls down at the hurdle that their previous films have hopped so majestically...being funny. Not funny haha funny, but quirky funny, odd funny. Often the dialogue doesn't carry the film, much like Tarantino, and certain conversation are more about builing rapport with the characters than actually moving the film forward. Their dialogue is often witty, intelligent and littered with farse, but much of the banter in BAR is more Farrelly Brothers than Coen Brothers. Coen's films also feature heavy North-By-Northwest misunderstandings, and mistaken identies. This film contains them, but I'd like to see something fresh. You can see from the outset what is going to happen.
The gist of the film is that a team member at a gym finds the memoirs of an ex-CIA analyst, and mistakes it for classified government information. Then the spiral downwards brings death, divorce and dramatic irony.
Burn After Reading takes 40 minutes before anything happens. I HATE Tilda Swinton in this film, she is two-dimensional, predictable and a terrible actress. Brad Pitt has his turn as a Brad Pitt Idiot, and he is good at playing an idiot, but this is bad. And not bad ghetto bad, but bad Lindsay Lohan bad. I'd expect it from a SNL sketch, but to scatter it through an whole film is just...dire. George Clooney plays an adulterous, OCD and allergy ridden ex-Homeland Security agent, who probably gives the only good male performance in the film. Frances McDormand is excellent, she's a treat and gives everything you want and expect from a Coen Brothers performance.
I've decided to watch the rest of the film, and it does get a little better. The paranoia increases and the film climaxes well, but it doesn't stop it from being predictable.
This film is a DVD collection addition, IF you have all the other Coen movies, because it'd be a shame to break the collection. It's nothing but a dissappointment.
p.s. if you giggle at Brad Pitt, be guilty.
I've just finished watching Mirrors, the most recent effort of Alexandre Aja, director of the fantastic Hills Have Eyes remake and the flawed, but cool as fuck, Switchblade Romance. It stars Keifer Sutherland, Amy Smart, and a whole bunch of people I've never heard of.
The one problem, and only problem is, Mirrors is a film that doesn't know what it wants to be. It reminded me of so many films throughout, some good, some bad. Mainly it reminded me of the fantastic wave of late 90's/early 00's films that I watched as a 13/14 year old that freaked the shit out of me, such as Thirteen Ghosts, and House On Haunted Hill. But, sadly, at times it reminded me of The Number 23, with a manic man trying to convince his family that he's not really crazy, but 'the mirrors are trying to get him', just like Jim Carrey and his bit number.
It ticks all the boxes when it comes to freaking people out. It has an abandoned building which was formerly a hospital. It has scary kids. It has demonic hands trying to escape from behind walls. And it has pigeons. When I mentioned scary kids, it should not surprise you it is a remake of a Korean movie.
It opens with a rather disgustingly graphic murder sequence, and then lulls you into a safe zone with Keifer and his torn family. It then throws the most intensely graphic display of gore that I've seen since the eyeball-cutting in Hostel. This bit makes Saw look like the Moomins. It's fantastic, it throws a curveball right at the audience, and really REALLY keeps your attention.
The film slows down again, in the 'Number 23' type section of investigation, and reminds me in parts of Robert Thorn's plight in The Omen (which I know The Number 23 should also remind me of, but Jim Carrey's acting was dire, where as Keifer's is good and Peck-like: Arrogant, yet broken)
Having gone from Hostel to The Omen, the final sequences that overlap, showing Keifer's fight, and simultaneously that of his wife Amy, are a mixture of ghost movie and straight up horror. They are atmospheric and tense, if not a little obvious, but still really good.
I'd reccomend watching it if you've enjoyed and missed the 'mental asylum' movies such as HOHH and Thir13en Ghosts (to give it it's proper name), or if you fancy seeing something with enough spooks to keep you going, enough gore to make you wince, and enough talking to kiss a lass through. Or if you fancy a wee spook.
Hello stranger. It's good to be back.
I haven't blogged since I returned to the country, so I have a few films to talk about.
Firstly, as it is freshest in my head, Saw V/5/Five. YOU WON'T BELIEVE HOW IT ENDS (pssst...yes you will). I will spoil Saw 1/2/3/4 in this so if you haven't seen the, I don't recommend reading them
I'm a defender of the Saw franchise, they've taken a battering off the critics so far. Yes, the acting is terrible; Yes, the scripts are terrible. BUT...a huge BUT...the twists are great! They're entertaining, as are the torture devices. Jigsaw created the US torture porn market, and it has died down to an extent, but the Saw franchise is still booming.
Sadly, I feel I can no longer defend the franchise. Firstly, the advertising campaign. Using the tagline 'you won't believe how it ends' is ridiculous, especially when the whole concept of the film is to sit through flawed garbage, then get twisted, and forget how bad the film was and how good the twist was when you walk out.
Saw V is a 'best of' compilation of the Saw's so far. It jumps back and forward in time, as expected since Jigsaw is dead but the actors name is in the credits, with Straham still hunting the Jigsaw and Hoffman the new Jigsaw, now Amanda is no more. The story is good, the 'strangers in a room like Saw 2' part of the film is reasonable, mainly as it is the only opportunity to stick in new torture devices, some of which are awesome, others are pretty shoddy and flawed.
Maybe it's just my brain being 5 years older, and much more wiser to the world of horror, but since the first Saw, and up until the third one, they have been getting more and more obvious. Saw 4 changed that, it added a whole new slant to the film sequencing and timeline and the twist was fantastic. I came out of that film wholly impressed. But Saw 5 cuts back to the obvious, so much, in fact, that you can work it out far too early. They have done a Derren Brown and put in vocal clues to the twist throughout the film, but really have overdone it and you end up totally believing how it will end. The first last sequences, mind, are fucking brutal, the hardest scenes to watch for gory reasons in the series so far.
All I can say is, if you are a fan of the Saw movies, definately go and see it. It does add to the canon of Saw in many a way, has some great tortures for the gore fans, and will, I hope, definately benefit next halloween when Saw VI comes out. If you haven't seen them, obviously avoid at all costs. The numbers don't work like Halloween, or other horror series, you need to see the first 4 in order to get anything out of the film. At LEAST see the 2, 3 and 4, as Saw 1 doesn't really shine too hard on this film as it has in the last 2.
Reet, another film time..
I can't talk much about this film as it has been about 4 weeks since I watched it, but all I can say is WATCH ME. The film I refer to, of course, is The Fall. It's a 2006 (I think, i'm writing without the aid of imdb) drama/fantasy/comedy about a 1920's Hollywood stuntman who takes a fall and ends up in a hospital. Inside, he meets a young orphan girl, and befriends her, so he can tell her a majestic and fantastic story about revenge. But his ideas turn sinister and dark.
The fantasy sequences in the film are some of the best I've seen outside of J-Movies. It has the epic feel of Hero, or Golden Flower, and uses the same pallette as the two. It's rich in colour, foregrounds and characters stand so prominintly out from the background, which is often wide desert or large greenery. It's a beautiful piece of cinema in that respect. It delves into Oz, in that it's characters are all enhanced and romantic versions of people that we meet in the real world.
The real scenes in the film are hilarious, the orphan girls struggles through conversation in broken English, to the point of cutesiness. The characters we meet outside of our protagonists are all light, but incredibly relevant to the story. The light meets the dark in integral points and make for a fantastic up and down ride.
It does get dark in the end, to the point of tears, but as you'd expect, laughter is interspersed (sp?) within.
If you have seen The Fountain, or the Wizard of Oz, see this for similar reasons, enjoy it as epic fantasy-meets-real world. If you were wowed by the cinematography of Hero, then watch this and have your socks blown off again and again.
Final film to talk about...Get Smart.
Get Smart is a James Bond spoof. No more, no less. But spoofs are funny. (Sorry, CAN be funny. Let's not ignore the 'Movie' series still going. Superhero/Epic etc, they can all fuck off, although I did laugh a few times during Epic Movie)
BUT ANYWAY. Get Smart really is a good pastiche of the Bond movies. It splices Moore's quips with Lazenby's appallingness in many a good way. The gadgetry is hilarious, and the support cast (with Masi Oka in, and groundhog day, Ghostbustin ass Bill Murray) stands it's ground. It made me laugh A LOT, for about 40 minutes, but then does the staple 'Oh we've actually turned INTO a spy movie now' but, where the jokes stop, the kissing begins, and the film can be turned off.
Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is really good in this film, I'm really starting to appreciate him as an actor. He can be funny, but then the eyebrows come into play and he gets all serious, and, lets not forget, good. Anne Hathway is a waif, but hot, so I let her off in this film. Steve Carrell is HILARIOUS for, as I've said, 40 minutes, then turns serious so gets crap. Bill Murray is a tree, I'll say no more.
I'd see Get Smart, as I've said before, if you're babysitting. Kid's find this absolutely genius, with or without seeing a Bond movie. I'd also say that use growned-ups should watch it, but only if you fancy it, I'm not saying rush out and buy it or anything.
Penelope is a 2007 fantasy film about a pig-girl. That's the long and short of it. Nothing original, nothing special.
2007 saw the release of Stardust, a fucking amazing fantasy film with a stunning cast that was really really REALLY good. Penelope came a bit later, riding off James McAvoy's Atonement wave.
It stars Christina Ricci as Penelope, who is a pig due to an ancient curse put on her family. James McAvoy stars as her 'love interest', and he's pretty good in this film. It's got 'that dwarf' Peter Dinklage in, the very same one that's the dwarf in everything. He's the new Warwick Davis. He's funny in it as well.
The film kinda relies on one thing, and that's Penelope's hideous pig face. You didn't see it in the trailer, so that made you want to see how hideous it is. Sorry to ruin it, but it's not. It's not that bad. As soon as you see it you think 'Plastic Surgery would help' so they stick in a bit about how it can't be operated on. It is so 'hideous' that people run away and are scared for life by it, but IT'S NOT THAT BAD. It makes the film fall flat on it's face.
The film has some funny moments, Russell Brand is good in it. It also has Reece Witherspoon in it, and she's just too cute for words. It's got some pretty funny moments in it as well, but it tends to repeat them quite a lot.
Watch it with a small niece or nephew, or any young child, or just watch Stardust cos it's a banger.
I know you are a dead, but you made some banging movies, and you even went a bit mad and shot at people, but I can forgive you for that. What I cannot forgive you for is Soylent Green.
Soylent Green is a 1973 sci-fi movie about a dsytopian future in which the population has grown out of control. Vegetables and meat are rare, and the people are fed on rations of wafers made of vegetable extracts by the Soylent Company. They release new Soylent Green, made from the last remnants of life in the sea, the plankton.
Charlton Heston gives another good turn as Robert Thorn, a fantastically classic tragic hero (that's a spoiler to anyone who studied english at any level), but the film is lacking one major thing. A plot.
Thorn is a NYPD detective, assigned to a murder case which he believes is an assasination covered up as burglary gone bad. He, along with his 'book' (the 2020 term for intelligent person), begin to uncover a deep mystery behind the senator's connection with the murder. Soon the case is closed but Thorn is unsatisfied and continues to investigateon his own time. All the while he meets plenty beautiful women, who have become so scarce they are all prostitutes that belong in certain houses, giving them the delightfully nickname: "furniture".
If you've ever seen my t-shirt with all the spoilers on, you'll probably have read what happens in the end. Also if you've ever seen anything with 'top 100 movies quotes', or 'top 100 sci-fi movies' you'll know the end. Otherwise, the film is so boring and pointless it's not really worth watching to find out, just go read my t-shirt.
There is a particularly poignant scene in which Roth succumbs to euthanasia (known as going home) but it sharp turns into Charlton Heston punching people, the only thing that actually seems to happen in this movie. Outside of it's one memorable line, it is a bland attempt at science fiction cinema. 2001:A Space Odyssey was 5 years earlier, so this film has no excuse for it's shoddy attempts at futuristic scenery and technology.
Don't bother watching this, just wait until its on Channel 4's 'Top Something-or-other' and see the best bits.
It's not a remake, it's not a sequel, and it's not based on a Japanese one. Old school American horror.
The above title is the tagline for Hatchet, a 2007 horror movie by fledgling director Adam Green (No, not the Mouldy Peaches bloke).
It tells the horror-style legendary tale of Victor Crowley (played by Kane Hodder, god of horror, aka Jason) haunting the swamps of Louisianna. Insert teenage males, hot girls, and thick elderly folk to make this a horror movie.
40 minutes in, having read reviews, I was genuinelly stumped as to how it made positive top 10 lists, won awards (granted at horror festivals) and had multiple sell-out screenings. All in Europe, I might add, it was denied an American release due to gore. (To quote Adam Green as to why it finally got released in the US: "Someone can only get hit with a hatchet a certain number of times. It was thirteen times that he got chopped before; now it’s three")
It starts appallingly, with a few funny one-liners from the quirky black friend of the emo boy who's just split up with his girlfriend so reckons a ghost tour might help (You know, that staple archetype in horror movies). It has plenty tits to count as American horror, as J-horror has too many scary little girls in to warrant the presenting of baps. I feel I should complain about the obvious characters, but the acting isn't all that bad, not as bad as some general release horrors *cough*Jessica Alba*cough*. Deon Richmond, of Scream and 'I'm the token black guy at this party' in Not Another Teen Movie, puts in a really good performance, and Tamara Feldmen plays the outsider girl that doesn't get topless rather well.
Now lets talk about what I was watching it for, the brutal murders. They are all AWESOME. There are some staple sharp-impliment-to-the-bonce deaths but some absolutely outstanding ideas for how to kill people. I won't ruin them as I expect anyone reading this who likes horror to go out and watch this. (It's reasonably easy to get on torrent, but it's not the uncut version). Some had me absolutely cringing and turning away from the screen, the special effects were tremendous at times, and the make-up was rather gory.
It totally turns itself around once the killings start happening, it cuts the topless/punchy dialogue bullshit and starts getting pretty scary, pretty gruesome, and everything you'd want in a horror. And the beginning is long-winded, but it has enough decent gags, and boobs, to keep you watching (watch for Marcus's response to Ben claiming the boat trip is fun, I was crying laughing).
Hatchet; Old School American Horror, it is; the best horror I've seen in ages, it is not.
I haven't reviewed [REC] but I couldn't do it justice. WATCH IT.
Will Ferrell has made the same film again.
Nothing funny happens, apart from one or two sentences in which Will says 'OH SUCK A HORSE DICK' and you laugh, because it is funny, but not original.
Step Brothers is about John C Reilly and Will Ferrell become step brothers, and hating each other and then liking each other, and then hating each other, and then liking each other, and repeat. It creates some more 'man-child' set pieces for Will Ferrell to swear or fart in, some of which are funny. There are some slapstick moments that also made me laugh, but they are few and far between. There are several pop-culture references that are used in clever ways (mostly in a rap sequence) and are funny.
Will Ferrell and John Reillys partnership is good, but not funny enough to hold a movie. Talladega Nights really isn't very good at all. Will Ferrell needs a support cast to make you realise that he isn't the funniest one in the film, like Steve Carrell in Anchorman, and Napoleon Dynamite in Blades of Glory.
One particular sequence of scenes in which Will Ferrell is seeing a therapist, in which he talks about being a man-child. Surely if he can write about it in a film, he can move away from it. I've mentioned Stranger Than Fiction in the past, and it was good to see Will Ferrell outside of his usual peers, but he still played an imbecile.
In short, I giggled, and lol'd a few times, but it's still on the 'meh' list.
I watched a movie last night that has almost as many plot holes as Gothika. It's a spanish thriller called 'La Habitación de Fermat', or Fermat's Room in English.
It is the story of four maths geniuses who solve a riddle sent to them and get invited to an evening of mathematic exploration, where they are told they are going to solve one of the world's greatest enigmas. They soon find out they are being killed, as the room is shrinking, and will continue to shrink unless they answer riddles that are sent to them via text message. I first read about it in Empire about 2 or 3 months ago, and I immediately started looking for it, as it sounded rather good. How wrong I was! And BEWARE: MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD!
The four people in the room consist of an old man contemplating suicide, a young boy genius, a sexy girl who you don't learn anything about, and an inventor. Turns out, SURPRISE SURPRISE, they are all connected in some ways, and some are even connected to the man they are invited there by, who calls himself Fermat.
I'm gonna rant a bit, and I might ruin the film, so please just don't read if you think you might enjoy the film (ie you're Sloth from the Goonies, or a 12 year old who hasn't seen a David Fincher movie yet),
The connections include the following:
- The girl and boy genius used to be a couple, and they start making out pretty fast, but refuse to acknowledge each other or say their real names.
- The girl and the old man go to crazy chess parties on boats together after meeting on the internet
- The inventor ran over Fermat's daughter and he believes thats why he's being killed.
- The boy and the old man are connected as they both solved Goldbach's Conjecture, only the boy genius was lying and sabotaged his presentation on it, which the girl earlier admits to sabotaging, but he says it was he himself so PLOT HOLE.
I still reckon it's worth a watch, it is good in parts, and the riddles are fun to solve, just ignore it's attempts at intelligence (kinda like Cube). The sexy lady is also easy on the eye. It probably won't get a cinematic release over here, it's nearly a year old, but it might pop up in your local arthouse at some point.
Office Space is a 1999 film but Mike Judge, genius (IMO) creator of King Of The Hill and Beavis and Butthead. Starring Ron Livingston, it tells the story of Peter Gibbons, who after a botched hypnotherapy session takes a new lease of life and starts to act calm about the job that previously angered him. He plots to rob the company with the help of software developers, Sam and Mike.
The story is based on a Mike Judge short 'Milton', who is a support character, a 'squirrely gent who mumbles alot' and gets shat on by the boss. The boss, Lumbergh, is perfectly portrayed by Gary Cole, and is the most annoying character ever (apart from Jar Jar Binks).
It's a really funny film. If you've ever worked in an office, or just had a really annoying boss, then you'll laugh loads at this film. If you like Mike Judge's knack to create awkwardness then you'll like this film.
I'm not saying this film has it's flaws. Jennifer Aniston's character punctuates one point about Peter's new confidence, but other than that she is pretty pointless. It also has a slow ending, but it's still funny in parts.
I'd reccomend it if you haven't seen it, and like Mike Judge, or like South Park. Or white men obsessed with black culture.
Paul McGuigan made Gangster No 1. I haven't seen it but I've heard good things. Wicker Park, I saw and enjoyed. Acid House freaked me out as a 12 year old and I have seen a few times since and I like it.
Lucky Number Slevin was slated by Empire. They asked 'Do we need another Revolver?'. WHAT THE FUCK? And no, I don't just love it because it has bookies in it.
Luck Number Slevin is fucking mint. I loved it in a clever-movie-for-teens kinda way. It's awesome. Revolver went TOO FAR with the depth, so deep it couldn't explain itself. Lucky Number Slevin has questions and answers throughout. Ben Kingsley vs Morgan Freeman would be a fight worth watching. Gandhi vs God.
LNS is well shot. It has that slick, fast-paced Soderbergh's Oceans editing, mashed up with Hitchcock's roving-eye. It fits the story well. Everyone is following everyone, and everyone is making snappy comments. Like George Clooney and Brad Pitt making Rear Window.
I'm not going to rant on about it, because it's a good couple of years old now, and most people should have seen it. I remember seeing the trailer and thinking 'Bruce Willis? Josh Hartnett? SIN CITY 2!?' and it being this. I didn't see it for this reason. It wasn't Sin City 2. I saw it later on rental and it's mint. I'm Shuffling all over Kansas City. Also, Lucy Lui...amazing. Hot, funny, and knows her movies. I want to marry her character.
Watch it. Really do. It's got eye candy for the Ladies who get lost in the Bond talk, and the half-gays out there like me. It's got enough blood to keep Guy Ritchie fans watching, and enough Morgan Freeman to keep the 'good fulm club' happy. And it's got a twist, that you slightly expect, but it goes much further than you expect. It's a banger.
For Your Consideration is ANOTHER one of those Christopher Guest films, but this one isn't about music. And it's just as good as the other ones.
Since Best In Show in 2000, Guest has released Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration. Neither are as good as Best In Show. I actually prefer Best In Show to Spinal Tap, I think it has less drivel in between the comedy. I haven't seen Waiting For Guffman but I'm blatantly going to buy it tomorrow. Along with The Princess Bride (he was in it.)
For Your Consideration is a drift away from his famed 'mockumentaries' but it still has the same improvisation and cast as many of the others. It was co-written with Jim's Dad, I mean Eugene Levy. It focusses on the set of Home For Purim, a jewish film tackling lesbianism and death, which recieves Oscar buzz for the acting performances. The title itself comes from the header used in articles by movie and entertainment magazines in which they write about a film they feel should be considered by Academy Award panels.
The film is good and funny and improvised, and has a lot of the cast reprising similar roles to the ones they always play. Parker Posey is neurotic, Jennifer Coolidge is thick, Eugene Levy is a fool. It adds nothing to this series of films, but also takes nothing away. It does add Ricky Gervais playing Ricky Gervais, I suppose. Mr 'I won't do Hollywood...unless it's for Christopher Guest, but now I'm in loads.'
Anyway, I haven't got much to say about it. If you like Christopher Guest, add another notch to the funny post. If you don't, you'll probably wonder what the fuck Kevin McAllister's Mom and Jim's Dad are doing.
SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Will Smith is an amazing actor. He really is.
I Am Legend is the third film adaptation of I Am Legend, Matheson's awesome and claustrophobic novel about the last known survivor of a viral pandemic. In the past, Robert Neville has been played by Charlton 'I love guns' Heston. Will Smith is better. I love the Hestonator, but he manages to completely withdraw any emotion from the role of Neville, and inserts communist propaganda and vampire hatred into it. Will Smith, on the other hand, keeps the role rather intense.
The film is good for an hour. It's not quite the car chases and vampire-type creature fight onslaught I expected, it focusses a lot more on Will Smith's struggle to avoid insanity with the help of his dog, Samantha. Sadly, the third act is appalling. Apparently the DVD alternate ending is favoured by critics, which makes you wonder why the studio didn't have it as the ending. Not Hollywood enough, possibly? It was more similar to the ending in the book, in that the 'infected' one is actually Neville himself, and his immunity makes him stand out more than the monsters that regular humans have become. But then again, Neville does really need to die, which happens in Hollywood but not in DVD-land. But since this ending didn't happen, with love and humanity conquering their hatred, as opposed to hand grenades, I got incredibly bored.
The one massive flaw with the film is editing. Did they watch it before it was released? There is one scene on the pier when Will Smith is attacking some monsters and it shows the same shot twice, once out of chronological sense and once at the correct time. RIDICULOUS! Also, they really didn't try hard enough with continuity errors, when Neville and his dog are running after a deer, the distance between them alters from shot to shot, to a ridiculous degree.
There is also a Batman vs Superman poster WITH A RELEASE DATE, they shouldn't have done that without a decent reason, or proof that such a movie is happening.
Anyway, dink ending, decent enough film. I prefer The Omega Man, despite it's emotion-sapping lead. It's just got more shooting and motorbikes in, and a little more blaxploitation.
A terrible film is a terrible film, but terrible horror is the worst, possibly on par with terrible comedy.
Today I watched Stay Alive, a film from 2006 starring Peter Petrelli, I mean Milo Ventimiglia (I'm not going to google him to get the correct spelling, you know who I mean, he's shagging the cheerleader). I say it stars him, he's top billing, but only in the film for the first 5 minutes to be sharp killed off. A possible homage to Drew Barrymore's top billing on Scream? No, probably not. His character is also called Loomis, probably more of an homage to Scream again, rather than Psycho, where Scream stole the name from.
Anyway, the concept is one of those in which a bunch of teenagers do something that causes them to die, like The Ring, One Missed Call or Final Destination. In this, they play a computer game called Stay Alive, after which you die in the manner you died in the game. Sound shit? It is! It pays homage to several video games, such as Project Zero (Fatal Frame in America), Silent Hill (through referencing, and a foggy-girlinfrontofthecar-crash), the Konami Code is used, and several references to Gamespot.
One character saves it, and thats is Fineus (sp?) who is an utter prick, but says 'Sup mama' to Anna from the OC. He made me laugh, and that was the only thing I enjoyed in the film. The CGI sections were looked over by the CliffyB, of Gears/Unreal and oddly enough SILENT HILL fame.
I really don't know how this film got made, Hollywood Pictures practically came out of fruition to make it, AND ITS SHIT. They had Sixth Sense, and American Werewolf in Paris (my favourite werewolf film evarrrr) under their belt, they needed no more horror.
Don't waste your time with this film, not like Lindsay Lohan's Opus, I mean I Know Who Killed Me, that is the best film ever.
This morning I watched Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium, and I really liked it.
I must admit that kids films very often move me. I love Elf with a passion, and there are certain kids movies that aren't even old enough to evoke memories that I thoroughly enjoy. I loved Monster House when I saw it, and there's rarely one that I don't enjoy. Stardust, if you could class it as a kids movie, was awesome. I have talked about how mint Kung Fu Panda is, and Pixar movies are on another level of enjoyment.
Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium is like Garden State for kids. It's so smiley, and lovely, and warm. It concerns Mr Magorium, Dustin Hoffman, and Molly Mahoney, Natalie Portman, and their magical toy shop. The story rotates around the store being passed on from Magorium's care into Mahoney's, but the store isn't happy about the change.
I don't understand how Zach Helm does it. After Stranger Than Fiction, an odd post-modern existential comedy, he goes on to write this fantastic childrens story, full of quirk and magic. It's full of little connections between the spoken and the seen, with dialogue based in simple riddle and rhyme. I sure hope he never makes a bad film.
The casting is rather good too. Dustin Hoffman is always good, without a doubt. Natalie Portman is fantastic at adapting from role to role, from comedy to drama, to kids movie. Jason Bateman plays Henry Weston, an accountant who fails to believe in the magic of the store, and he's good, I liked him in Juno and he's a really good well rounded character in this. First prize goes to Zach Mills, who plays 9-year-old Eric, and he's fantastic. I don't understand how he isn't 'that kid', you know, the one who is really good in one film then is in EVERYTHING. Like Jonathon Lipnicki, and Mara Wilson. I guess he got stumped by Freddie Highmore.
The story, I guess, is your typical kids movie story. It's about realisation of what you are, and what you can be, with hints of coming-of-age and struggling for acceptance. From Eric's struggle to make friends, and Molly's writers block, to Henry's lack of make-believe skills, it's got some nice little advances throughout. There is one scene in which Eric and Henry communicate by writing on pads through a window which is just marvellous. There is also a little section of Molly and Magorium having fun in several places around the town that is so pleasant, and rather hilarious. I shall never forgive Natalie Portman's terrible, out of time dancing though.
If you have an hour and twenty minutes on a Sunday, or you babysit children and need something to do, watch Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium. It's really nice, and enjoyable, and Dustin Hoffman is marvellous.
PS Did I forget to mention that KERMIT THE FROG is in it!?
Have you ever seen Deuce Bigalo:Male Jigalo?
It's funny.
Big Stan isn't. But I honestly don't think it's trying to be. I haven't seen any trailers and I'm assuming it's going to bomb in the box office, but it doesn't feel like a comedy. Would you call Mean Machine a comedy? Probably. This has less jokes than Mean Machine.
Rob Schneider calls this his anti-man-rape film. And that's all it is. It's a constant reminder that you will get raped in prison, and one man's attempt to stop that. That premise sounds funny, but trust me, it's not put across in a funny way. I laughed a few times, but I can laugh in Schindler's List, ADD makes everything funny.
David Carradine has only taken a role in this to show off his Kung Fu past, much like Kill Bill. I don't think he's got anything apart from that, because he sure can't act. It's also got that old man that swears in. You know the one, from Wedding Crashers. He used to be in Sabrina as well. And Magnolia.
I've also come to the conclusion that while they may be incredibly racist, Nazi tattoo's are actually cool as fuck to look at. I'm not a nazi, but they chose some nice images for their terrible clan.
Don't waste your time on Big Stan. Unless you love Rob Schneider, and I don't think anyone does.
James Bond has been renewed and I hadn't seen it yet. I couldn't imagine not seeing Batman Begins but the Batman movies were hardly an institution. Bond, on the other hand, was a 20-strong series of albeit non-continuous but canonical films that are pretty damn popular. The actor has always changed, hence the lack of continuity, as has the time and setting, and the bugger doesn't seem to age. But never mind, I don't understand what caused the revamp. Oh yeah, JASON BOURNE.
Casino Royale 2006 is the third adaptation of the first Fleming novel. It was done just after it was written, satired in the 60s and then now created properly the studio that satired it in the first place. We have Daniel Craig in the role of Jamesy B, and he's pretty good. Connery is, and always will be, James Bond, no matter what people say. I honestly don't thing Craig's big ears and Gordon Ramsay expressions are handsome enough to warrant women swooning over him and he doesn't look at all British. I know it's breaking the mould for Bond, but I quite happened to like the old mould. No matter how misogynistic and indulgent it was. Well, I'm lying, I was never arsed in the first place and I never will be. James Bond, in my eyes, will always be for Mastermind contestants and racists. (I'm biased as the only people I know who like James Bond happen to have been on Mastermind, and be incredibly racist)
Die Another Day was labelled Buy Another Day due to ridiculous product placement, but this film is no different. I spotted Sony Vaoi (sp?), Sony Erricson, Rolex...no...Omega (2for1 in that scene, kids) and many more. Also, it may be all modern with it's parkour and DBWhatevers but I really can't see the difference between this and GoldenEye's bungee jumping and Z3? Why the new timeline for Bond? And continuity over films? The last time that happened, George Lazenby was Bond and he was shit, and they sharp got Connery back in the Bond boots.
Enough rambling, I liked Casino Royale. It's a good film. I just prefer the Bourne movies when it comes to snappy action, and I prefer the old Bonds for snappy and sexist dialogue. (I just think of that 'You've had your six' bit from Dr. No. Amazing)
Taken is not at ALL how I expected it to be. From the television trailers, I saw a thriller about an old man going after his kidnapped daughter. From the cinema trailer, I saw a little bit more action than I expected. From the film itself, I saw a brutal and non-stop action film.
The first half an hour introduces you to Liam Neeson's character, Bryan, who is an ex-CIA 'preventer'. Basically he was a security guard, who prevents disasters and gang wars etc. He is highly skilled in martial arts and torture tactics, but a very paranoid man. He fears his daughter doesn't love him as much as she loves her step father. When she goes travelling to Europe, she is kidnapped and Bryan swears he will go after the kidnappers. Using his CIA connections, he tracks down the gang that did it and travels to Paris. There begins the brutality.
Thinking back I really should have expected the action. Liam Neeson has done some banging action in his time, namely Batman Begins. The film is also written and produced by Luc Besson, who has stepped away from intriguing character pieces and into the shameless action genre about 10 years ago.
But the AMOUNT of action is phenomenal. It's also backed by a really gruesome and intriguing story about human trafficking in Eastern Europe. If you don't watch Channel 4 documentaries you won't know much about this, and it's a disturbing realilty that this happens. Bryan is an intelligent man who knows precisely how to crack the system of both the gangs and the police, with whom he has connections. Some of his actions are ruthless, torturous and not would you'd expect from Kinsey. He's like Jason Bourne's dad.
If you enjoy The Transporter movies for shameless action, and like the Bourne movies for his spy-wizardry, then this film is right up your street. There are enough explosions to keep a simple man happy, but also enough drama and cleverness to rope in your seasoned cinema goer.
ps Holly Valance is in it. Excuse enough for any man.
Today I watched 3 hours of comedy movies. One and a half movies.
The half of Forgetting Sarah Marshall made me laugh a lot more than the 2 hours of Pineapple Express.
It'd be easy to slate Pineapple Express, but it's not THAT bad. The one thing that struck me straight away was just how badly acted it is. It's like one of those movies off Zone Horror called 'Telephone of the Dead Zombie Eaters 174' or any dodgy comedy. Previously, in Judd Apatow's career, he's produced fresh and rather hilarious comedies, with a selection of actors that always impress. With the exception of Saul, it was pretty badly acted.
Pineapple Express has Seth Rogan in, and pretty much only because he wrote it. The guy who plays Saul, I didn't recognise, only to find out it's that guy who plays Harry Osborn from Spiderman, James Franco! There are a surprising lack of the expected cameos from Jonah Hill and Steve Carell etc. A lack that stems to absolutely none. There is the inclusion of Harvey Pekar (who isn't actually Harvey Pekar, it's Jack Kehler so this point is irrelevant) and that doctor from Knocked Up, it's the height of barrel scraping when it comes to their friends.
It's really really long, and there are characters who could be completely removed and it wouldn't change the film at all. His girlfriend is pointless, apart from the part where he insults her for liking Godspeed You! Black Emperor, but it was a very geeky thing to laugh at. There are also sections that could be remarkably shorter, and plot points that are included that are pretty pointless. Mostly involving the girlfriend.
It is a funny film, but it's as funny as Superbad or Knocked Up, therefore not constantly funny. Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Don't Mess With The Zohan both had me laughing ALOT more than the three Seth Rogan/Jonah Hill movies. Not since 40 Year Old Virgin have I constantly laughed in a Seth Rogan film, although most of that is the supporting cast, and Steve Carrell and his bags of sand. I'd even say it's on the same level of comedy as Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanemo Bay, which isn't amazing but makes you laugh enough to it be called a comedy.
The film also relies on a lot of MacGuffins (I love that word). Seth Rogan originally flips out because he ASSUMES that the bad guys might trace his roach, and James Franco smashes his phones because he ASSUMES they could triangulate their positions. I know a lot of it relies on the paranoia one suffers whilst high, but it kinda goes a little too far. It also relies on the comedy/action thing too much as if it is something original, lots of explosions and stuff, but 'Hello! Hot Fuzz!'. This film is VERY Edgar Wright. Explosions, homages to action films and snazzy-but-jokey editing in certain sequences.
If you like the Jew Tang Clan movies, most importantly Superbad (ie the not very funny one) then you'll like this. Also if you're stoned, you'll like this. Seth Rogan even states 'Weed makes shit movies better'. I'm not saying this is a shit movie, but it's not the best. I'd recommend Zohan or Forgetting Sarah Marshall over this anyday. And I'm hoping that Tropic Thunder will be much better than this.
Anyway, to mention Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I didn't watch it all but I have seen it before at the cinema. It's fucking hilarious. And everyone should see it. I'm really excited for the Muppet Movie from these guys.
Blade 2 is better than the first one. Fact.
Blade 2 is a seminal, life changing film. Fiction.
Blade 2 is another one off the 'good movie' branch, it's entertaining and fun. There's not much to say about it that isn't the same as the first one, other than it takes the things it does in the first one, such as awesome fights and deaths but does them a little bit more frequently. There's less talking and exposition in this one, and when there is talking it's swiftly interrupted with fighting.
There are 'funnier' characters in this film. I use inverted commas because they still aren't that funny, just a bit quirkier. It's a lot more hollywood than the first outing. The inclusion of Ron Perlman is ALWAYS good, because that guy is funny. Funny looking and acting. There is one thing that got me, and that is DANNY JOHN JULES. When did Katt from Red Dwarf hit the acting so hard? I remember him in Lock Stock or Snatch (I can't remember which one he's in) but I didn't realise he'd actually got anywhere with it.
It's a Guillermo film but there's not that much in it that pins it to him. There aren't too many wierd creatures, and there's 25 minutes before there's a cog and it's not on screen for that long at all.
Anyway, watch this, and you don't really need to have seen the first one because there are plenty flashbacks.
Roger Deakins is a little bit of a god. In 2007, he used his well-honed cinematography skills to craft the films 'No Country for Old Men', 'In The Valley of Elah', and 'The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford'. He recieved Oscar nods for the premier and the latter, and a BAFTA for 'No Country'. You'd expect he also shot 'There Will Be Blood' as it is, cinematographically a similar film. The sepia tone and sweeping prairie landscapes blended with dark and cold portraits.
I have just watched 'The Assassination of Jesse James...' and what an odd film it is. I feel this, on top of 'There Will Be Blood' and 'No Country' have brought us possibly the best year in cinema history since 1977. All three films are amazingly different, yet all so similar.
The Assassination is an awkard and slow film to watch. Despite the subject of the film being embedded in the title of the film itself, you constantly feel on edge, and that death is around every corner. The on screen displays of both heroism and cowardice are so phenomenally portrayed that you never feel safe around the characters. It is beautifully shot, due to Deakins amazing eye for landscapes and locations. There are moments of almost still photography, close-ups of the environment, that evoke such vastness and loneliness that are key to the film.
I was shocked to hear that Shia LeBouef was also considered for the role of Robert Ford, because this film stands on Casey Affleck's shoulders. He is a fantastic actor, and this year I've seen him give outstanding performances is both this, and Gone Baby Gone. His acting in The Assassination is nothing short of incredible, and one of the best displays of such astounding acting I've ever seen. His on screen portrayal of a young man who's idol falls from grace in his eyes is enough to bring tears to yours. There is also Paul Schneider, who I'd seen before in Lars and The Real Girl but never since or before. He plays Dick Liddle, another one of the James Gang, and every scene he is in is well acted, well rounded and gives you the feeling you're expecting.
Brad Pitt does deserve some credit too. His Jesse James is not the hero you'd expect, as you're often seeing him through Robert Ford's eyes, so his moves seem pathetic and not as impressive as hoped for. He seems more like an outlaw as seen in The Big Silence, with touches of The Searchers. His emotions are cast through every scene. When Jesse's angry, you feel scared yourself as to what he might do. Even in scenes between Jesse and Robert, when you know neither of them die, you feel like one of them is ready to snap up and shoot the other in the head.
I'll try and wrap it up. I really thought I wasn't going to like this movie, much like I did with No Country and There Will Be Blood, it's partner pieces in such incredible ways. A triple bill of those films would be like sex on a spoon. It is difficult to watch due to the tension, but it drags you through like Marty Mcfly from a horse, and the outcome is tremendous, complete with Casey Affleck drunkenly insulting Nick Cave, always a treat.
One thing I could say is that the film is too long. Although, I am not surprised to hear that this is the edited version, from a 4 hour cut that was originally intended for release. In one sense, I feel the end could be wrapped up sooner, but then in retrospect it wouldn't have enough of an impact. I can think back of moments that could be removed but then think how they aid and enhance later sequences in the film. And to cut any of the landscape shots would be like cutting comedy from Airplane.
This film is a phenomenal display of all things cinema. It's beautiful, well acted and emotional. Well done 2007, you did the film world proud.
50 minutes in and Alien Autopsy is one of the freshest and most original comedies I've ever seen. Declan Donnely is a natural comedian. He's got the face, the voice and the actions of a great comedian. Ant, not so good, but that's why he's the tight-arsed serious one in the film. The support cast includes Omid Djalili and Jimmy Carr, both in good and funny roles.
The story is about a faked alien autopsy from Roswell made by Ant and Dec (Forget the character names, they play Ant and Dec) after a geniune copy of the Roswell autopsy is damaged in transit. Naturally, it being British, it contains a gangster character who happens to be Eastern European who threatens the main characters, but they overcome him.
There is a problem with the film in its use of swearing. This could easily have appealed to the whole family, there are gory scenes that could have been cut but are also set up as completely fake so it looks no worse than cutting into fresh meat. It's brand of comedy is very British in that there are moments of slapstick but also idiotic and simple characters. The title of this post itself is a line spoken when Nana is haggling with an Argentian over the phone, and it had me in stitches.
It is not a buddy comedy as you'd expect from Ant and Dec but it is a film of a group of friends overcoming adversity, and it is warm and funny. My favourite thing about the film has to be the use of 'spanner' as an insult.
It's just finished and it's damn good. It's only rated at about 4.5 out of 10 on imdb, and I'm not sure why. I really enjoyed it. It moves forward in section after section and flows well, the story unfolds but it could really have been longer. There are 'twists' that are tossed and turned in about 2 minutes, and are pretty obvious, but I feel if they were drawn out as big story points then it would have been appalling, but it's short and snappy feel keeps it easy to follow and easy to laugh at.
I was blissfully unaware this was an actual true story, and that Ray Santilli is a real person (That's Dec's character) who claims he really did have the genuine footage but then faked it when it was destroyed. He still also claims there is a bit of restored footage but it has never been seen. I wanna see it, me like.
I can't think of a time when a man ripping out another man's throat and then using it as a weapon on a third man wouldn't be cool as fuck. Nor a vampire's head explanding to ten times it's original size, going orange, then blowing up.
Blade is a really entertaining film. It is just under 2 hours long, and manages to keep its pace throughout. I'm not particularly a fan of 'fight scenes', in that style of 'insert industrial music, lots of spinning and kicking' sense but Blade has added little gestures and actions to the fight scenes enough to make me feel like a 10 year old watching wrestling. It's completely real, feasible and awesome.
The story, as I gather most people will know, is about Blade, a half-vampire 'daywalker' who is a vampire slayer. He is trying to bring down an evil rich boy who wants to resurrect La Magra, the vampire blood god. Nothing original, in fact it's story is almost identical to most films about demons, when you need the blood of someone to be spilled somewhere to make someone else into something else.
It is also relatively poorly acted, I don't rate Wesley Snipes as an actor, mainly because I've neveer seen him do anything other than Blade and Bad (which I never knew was directed by Scorcese). Nor do I rate Kris Kristoffereson, because everytime I see him I get excited because I think it's Jeff Bridges, and it isn't. Also, Stephen Dorff? He's in more music videos with his top off than anyone I've ever seen. But other than that it's a good film, it's not jam-packed with witty dialogue like some of the comic book movies try and boast, it's a hearty and shameless action movie.
But despite the criticisms, it is a good and enjoyable film. As I said, it doesn't lose it's pace. There are slower moments in the film but mostly they are giving backstory to the characters, which you can't complain about in a trilogy, you need to learn something about the protagonists at some point. There are action sequences a-plenty, a body count of 88 and lots of exploding vampires.
Watch it if you have a couple of hours to kill, and if you watch it I'm sure you'll want to watch Blade 2, as I'm going to tomorrow. I'm, in fact, a little excited to see how Blade's story progresses. And it's Guillermo. Love love love.
Last night I watched a film widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, and I have one statement to make. It was one of the worst films ever made. I feel I could sit and write a five thousand word essay picking every little fault in that film.
BTW IT'S CALLED 'I KNOW WHO KILLED ME'
I totally didn't write that in :D
On the IMDb board it has sparked an on-going argument about 'what it means' and 'what the director wanted to say' which is so strange considering how terrible this film is.
The film is about Aubrey Fleming, a bright young star pianist and writer who is kidnapped after the college football game and not seen for 17 days. After the 17 days, a girl is found in a ditch and taken into hospital and it is Aubrey but she claims her name is Dakota Moss and she is the daughter of a crack addicted mother. She has all the same injuries as they expect Aubrey to have, as the killings are serial (with 1 other murder, real serial that is), its just assumed the murdered failed to kill Aubrey properly.
First, the story. It is utterly ridiculous. It feels like it was written by an intelligent 10 year old. Everything about this film is TRYING to mean something, I feel it is not accident that the intelligent girl is Fleming and the slut is Moss. (Alexander and Kate respectively?). The town it takes place in is Little Salem (Stephen King nod, much?). But it's isn't childishly thematic as the direction. It has the odd bit of narration, the odd attempt at snappy Tarantino-esque dialogue, but it has plot points that are rendered completely inept by the twist. I really really want to spoil this film, because lets be honest, no-one is EVER going to see it unless they are held down and forced to watch it until they shit themselves.
Ok, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS.
The twist of the film is that the real Aubrey died in complications after the birth but the father couldn't live with it so BOUGHT A CHILD off a crack addict down the hall. Thus Aubrey and Dakota are twins. They then develop Twin Stigmata, a rare and completely made-for-the-sake-of-the-movie condition in which a twin, no matter where they are, will suffer the same injuries as her identical twin. To much use of the word twin.
Here are some things that don't add up. DAKOTA MOSS' LEGS JUST FALL OFF. YOU'D FUCKING FREAK OUT. Sorry, but if you're a stripper/whore who's mother is a crack head, doesn't mean you have a natural ability to ignore the fact your legs and arms are falling off, AND SURVIVE IT. This happens because Aubrey is being tortured and having her arms cut off by a psycho so it's happening to Dakota out of the blue. Dakota is asked in hospital by the police who did it too her and you'd say 'THEY JUST FELL OFF, IT'S PROPER SICK' rather than trying to be witty and outsmart the police by refusing to give information.
Secondly, there is a section where Dakota actually gives over information about the killer, that he was wearing blue gloves because she'd seen him before he took her, but then he actually took Aubrey, but....THEY DON'T LIVE IN THE SAME TOWN. So while the killer is in Little Salem stalking Aubrey, he also happens to be stalking her twin half-way across the country in a strip club.
Little Lindsay Lohan is appalling in this film, she also managed to get done for DUI after is was made so can't promote it and apparently blames that on the reason it flopped. That and the fact its SHIT. There is a part at the end where 'she knows who's killed' her because she sees a piano prize in the first victims house as well as in Aubrey's thus knowing it was the piano teacher. Cos the police wouldn't have checked that out when inquiring about the victims lives. 'Oh they both play piano and have the same teacher? He lives in the creepy house on the edge of town and is a loner? We'll completely ignore that then'. When driving to the piano teachers house, Aubrey's father/buyer states 'we don't have time to tell anyone where we're going' and ends up dead. PROBLEM IS, we live in the age of MOBILE TECHNOLOGY. Dakota is sitting in the car doing nothing with her hands when she could be on a mobile informing the police!
I'll go back to flaws in a bit, but not after I slate the director.
This guy loves themes. So much that he destroyed his film with them. He has done with the colour blue what Hitler did to swastikas. Basically, due to the 'twin' nature of the film, EVERY SHOT with Aubrey in has her wearing blue, in a blue room, looking at blue things with her blue eyes, and EVERY SHOT of Dakota has her wearing red, in a red room, eating a red hotdog covered in red sauce with her red albino eyes. The childhood photos are almost identical apart from the blue and red bikinis. There is even a part in the film where a stranger on the bus sits and looks at Dakota's heavily bleeding hand and tells her to hold it higher than her heart, and then randomly appears in a vision and says 'There are two sides to everything. Love/hate etc'. He seems to have magically been transformed from a wierdo on a bus into her guardian angel. fucking stupid stupid stupid film.
There is also the theme of mirrors, again with the twin thing. There are at least 20-25 shots in the film which are shots of a person's reflection doing the talking, or people sitting staring into mirrors, in blue/red rooms.
Every theme is completely overused, like there are literally thousands of objects that are the same shade of blue, and the director must have been standing in all this seas of blue rooms and thinking 'Yeah, not too much blue at all. In fact, not enough, let's dress her in blue as well!'
My favourite theme is this. Owls! The college football team that plays on the night of Aubreys kidnapping are the owls. The first victim of the single-serial killer has a stencil of an owl on her trophy shelf. There are toy owls and even owl graffiti on the bus stop outside Dakotas strip club (which im sure the writer hadn't decided where it is yet). The reason? When the piano teacher psycho finally decides to bury Aubrey's body, THERE IS AN OWL IN THE TREE.
So fucking fantastic.
This film isn't even so bad it's good, but it is so bad it's a talking point. Like I said it has sparked so much discussion about what is going on, that the director must be thinking 'I'm a genius' (This guy has also made a documentary about Tobe Hooper's Toolbox Murders, and another dodgy slasher and that's about it). He also must be raking in the cash from rentals and £1 bargain bin purchases, because so many people seem to have seen this either to see how bad it is, or just to see Lindsay Lohan pole-dancing, as she is so unbelievably hot in this film.
I don't know if I've said enough, I feel I will come back and write more as I do quite fancy watching the film again. I can't tell you to watch it because I've ruined it for you, but what I can do is say that if it's a quid, buy it, because it's worth it.
Here's some fantastically thematic moments from the film:
Aubrey in Blue, on a blue bench holding a blue pen.
Dakota in red, in her red strip club
Note how clever that is.
I'll be back to write more, I hope.
That's all Sex and the City is. I really can't be bothered to write about it, it was pretty fucking bad. It's rare that I'm so bored by a film that I decide to do something COMPLETELY different, I can normally stick by a film but this is awful.
The structure goes:
Problem 1
Solution 1
Problem 2
Solution 2
Problem 3
Solution 3
etc
etc
etc
Correct me if I'm wrong but that is EPISODES STUCK TOGETHER. That is what this film is. It's a mini SATC season, and by mini I mean 2H45 of episodes.
I did laugh a few times, the same as I do when I'm watching the show, which I will admit I enjoy. It's funny, and the characters, as cliché as they are, have good stories and good lines. Again, I'm getting at the film for it's structure, but for any SATC fan it must have been like a visit to Mecca. The stories and resolutions it poses are satisfactory additions to the stories that are only slightly resolved in the final season of the HBO show. It is just FAR TOO LONG. They have signed up for 3 movies, and this film could have and should have been at least two of them.
Some of the, for want of a better term, set pieces in the film are really good, particularly Samantha's life in LA and the trip to Mexico, but other than that it just feels like a really long episode, with nothing particularly out of the ordinary happening. It really didn't need to be a movie, as I said, it could have been another, albeit shorter, season, as it is 5/6 episodes worth of screen time in length. (They're 29 minutes not 22)
The main problem I have with the film is it's commercialism. There is a section at a photo shoot which is basically a list of people who's clothes you should own. The worst section is the 'here, use my phone' section where Carrie holds up an iPhone in the style of a advert, perfectly square on with the camera and the apple logo glowing in light. I may watch again and count how often a label is mentioned, as I imagine is ridiculous.
I'm going to agree with Empires philosophy, and it is a good film, if not far too long, but 'add a star if you're a fan of the show'
