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Monthly Archives: April 2010

Hot Rod

April 30, 2010
Film Reviews
2 Comments

Hot Rod: a wannabe stuntman has to pull off the biggest jump in history to save his terminally ill step-dad; just so he can kick his ass and win his respect before he dies… Ace! This is one of the few comedies I’ve seen lately that remains consistently funny throughout, with too many laughs to list, and a great script’s that throws up obvious and subtle jokes. Some of the humour’s pretty silly and offbeat but works because of the deadpan delivery. The cast are great with Samberg as the standout (unfortunately the Lonely Island are unheard of in the UK). Danny McBride and his usual posse also put in some good face time, Isla Fisher‘s also on good form. The laughs slow up in the third quarter and a few of the visual gags are predictable but it’s forgivable because the retro 80s hair metal / synth music soundtrack that compliments (and compensates for some of) the humour so well. For me the entire film just worked, and the production values were great. It will get bashed by any serious movie goer but Hot Rod totally exceeded my expectations and was genuinely funny throughout. Will definitely be watching again. Cool beans!

Score: 7.5/10

Three Kingdoms

April 28, 2010
Film Reviews
1 Comment

Three Kingdoms – Resurrection of the Dragon: (Blu Ray) A Chinese historical epic that takes you through the life of a legendary military General. Nothing about this seems particularly well thought-out. Our hero (Zilong) ends up with a new BFF after five minutes, you only see his wife once, and he becomes an invincible warrior after twenty minutes; as you do. There’s hardly any martial arts, but quite a few battles; some of which are on gigantic scale… but you couldn’t have made them any more boring if you tried. This is mostly down to the poor disjointed editing and slow-motion / blurry techniques that are overused. The BD is mediocre: some of the costumes and scenery are detailed but there’s a lot of noise in some scenes, the sound is also up and down. Different era altogether but Assembly is the best Chinese war film I remember seeing. All in, it had good intentions but is riddled with cheesy over-sentimental vibes.

Score: 2/10

Hot Tub Time Machine

April 27, 2010
Film Reviews
6 Comments

Hot Tub Time Machine: 3 middle-aged guys and a nephew go on a Ski Trip, and get transported back to the 1980s via a malfunctioning hot tub; partial hilarity ensues. It’s essentially a mish-mash of several tried and tested movies: American Pie, High Fidelity, Back to the Future, The Hangover, any ‘Buddy Comedy’ you can think of and the Butterfly Effect. Additionally, the characters are all pulled from the ‘Familiar and Safe’ cupboard; the cool / normal guy, Mr under the thumb, the wildcard and nerd loser. The strangest aspect was that it’s essentially a teen movie, but starring adults… weird to watch. There’s puke, piss, shit & many a gross-out but the ratio of hot tits to saggy men’s asses was disappointingly even (note to the director, this shouldn’t even be a ‘ratio’) HTTM is funny, and by no means a bad film, but it’s exactly what you expect a film called “Hot Tub Time Machine” to be and nothing more. Inevitably suffers from trying to be to broad and tick a huge bunch of ‘safe’ boxes, stick to the Hangover.

Score: 6/10

The Good, The Bad, The Weird

April 26, 2010
Film Reviews
9 Comments

The Good, The Bad, The Weird: Set in the 1930s, a bounty hunter, most-wanted criminal and petty thief are all after the same ancient treasure map. This flick has it all: style, action, plot, rivalry, twists, adventure, suspense, guns, huge sets, humour and explosions. Most of all, it’s actually great fun to watch, with the exception of a few short ‘meh’ sections and one psychedelic scene – the rest is all killer. The whole story, but most notably the final  scenes are brilliantly executed classic Western. The Bad and Weird characters are great to watch, and the director‘s on good form. Definitely a bit more of a bloodbath than you’d expect from an upbeat film like this with scarlet, limbs and fingers flying all over the place. The audio track really comes alive during the action scenes and there’s a nice nod to Tarrantino with an epic song choice for the huge chase scene. There’s also a nice bit of Korean history thrown in the mix. Overall, it’s an amazing film from a director with a great track record, and another brilliant example of why Korea is one of the best countries as far as movie exports go.

Score 8.5/10

The Ghost

April 25, 2010
Film Reviews
5 Comments

The Ghost (Writer): A Ghostwriter replaces his predecessor who died under mysterious circumstances, as he researches and re-writes the memoirs of Britain’s ex-Prime Minister all is not what it seems on the surface. It’s a pretty generic conspiracy story, and just when it’s starting to drag everything happens in the last ten minutes, which feels a bit rushed: the ending’s quite disappointing / obvious but the final scene more than makes up for it. It’s very contemporary, political, and unashamedly based around Tony Blair; portraying him in the worst possible light! For a political movie the script’s quite warm and funny in parts, and other than some dodgy accents the cast are pretty solid – Cattrall’s just a more educated version Samantha, Olivia Williams is all over the place but you can’t go wrong with the Broz or Ewan McGregor. The main star for me though was Polanski, whose direction is outstanding (especially given he was under house arrest!). He lets this thriller tell itself, with no fancy trickery and just plain old-fashioned brilliant directing. Definitely worth a watch if you like this type of movie.

Score 7/10

Note: As mentioned on Have I Got News For You: the film’s been given a 15 certificate in the UK, Polanski swears it’s 18!

Redbelt

April 22, 2010
Film Reviews
3 Comments

Redbelt: (Blu Ray) Follows a badass martial artist – that goes around unintentionally making everyone else look rubbish – and his nagging wife as they end up in the world’s biggest cluster fuck. For the record, this one’s all story and no action, with what has to be the worst main ‘non-fight’ ever. There’s almost no fisticuffs throughout and what little action you do see is comprised of 1-2 second shots that doesn’t really flow like MMA should. This is made more annoying because the soundtrack really gets you pumped up for a big rumble several times. Fighting gripes aside the story’s a tour de force in every sense of the word, although it gets a bit unlikely towards the end. It’s masterfully told / directed and superbly acted; Ejiofor and Mortimer in particular standout despite all the distracting big-name athletes, actors and personalities that pop up throughout. The BD picture’s sharp, but there’s nothing eye-popping on show, the sound however is immense, crisp and feels very natural – a pretty impressive disc.  The judges score; marketing this as a ‘fighting’ film (Sony Fight Factory Label) is like branding The Blind Side an American Football movie, Borat an Educational one or Crank ‘good’… you do feel totally cheated; but what was on show is great.

Score: 5/10

Beast Cops

April 21, 2010
Film Reviews
2 Comments

Beast Cops: A bunch so-called ‘policemen’ (how they’re remained gainfully employed was the biggest plot hole) get a new boss that tries to shake things up a bit. Unfortunately this one takes about 50 minutes of 1-dimensional character-building before anything interesting happens; we got it after 5 minutes – there’s no honour among thieves in Hong Kong! The acting’s very hit-or-miss, ranging from subtly great to parodic overacting, and at times the script makes it feel like a sexual awareness campaign. Other than the lame credits the style’s quite slick and does a great job in distracting you from the plain story, however the main actors break the fourth wall several times, which is strange and unnecessary. The last fight is a pretty epic and  brutal affair, and generally everyone in this film ends up getting a machete lodged in their neck at some point. To sum up, this is the epitome of a bog-standard Asian cop flick with a twist of ‘gritty street’ thrown in for good measure. Talks the talk all over the DVD box but fails to walk the walk.

Score: 3.5/10

10 Movie Facts about Me

April 20, 2010
Features
19 Comments

So Kai and Novroz recently posted a couple of memes and tagged me in them. Here are my ten movie-related facts, and a sneak peek inside the life and times of your author. Please don’t use any of this information against me going forward.

  • I only started this site to document all the films I watch; at my peak I was averaging around 2-3 per day and trying to remember which movies are which (let alone good or bad) is usually a nightmare. Everything else I get out of this site – like readers and comments – is a bonus!
  • The earliest films I have memories of seeing are Papillon, Predator, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Mary Poppins – odd one out?
  • First time I went to the cinema without my parents was to see Spice World (it was my little sister’s birthday, honest!)
  • The films I’ve seen most times would probably be BASEketball, The Lion King and the start of Commando (after a lot of nights out)
  • I tried every weekend for 2 months to convince the staff at my local that I was old enough to legally watch The Matrix, I failed every weekend and had to wait for the VHS.
  • I only have three film posters in my house: Infernal Affairs, Goodfellas and Burn After Reading – none of them are up at the moment though :(
  • Studied Politics, International Relations and Film at university: the Film courses turned my fondness for movies into a voracious hobby and I genuinely couldn’t have guessed it would become the most useful, or relevant, to my future self at the time.
  • The pile of films I’ve yet to watch is probably bigger than most people’s DVD collection, definitely have an amazon wishlist addiction. I’m simultaneously proud and ashamed of that pile.
  • You wouldn’t believe how long it takes to chop a page full of notes into a concise paragraph! Sometimes I think it’d be easier and faster writing normal reviews. (Note: it’d be good to see people take the ‘Paragraph Film Review Challenge’)
  • Currently writing a screenplay for my first short film, plan to shoot, direct and edit it too but we’ll see how that works out with no experience… The story’s somewhere between (500) Days of Summer and Idle Hands at the moment.

No meme would be complete without the ability to spread. From my daily blog fodder I choose…

Michael Bay is The Antichrist – top reviews and movie news

Critic Planet – the internet’s biggest critic

Fandango Groovers – Big hittin’ movie review site

Suture Me In – Startup site with a bunch of reviews and mini awards

Tartan Films – Another startup, one dedicated dude watching every release by (Palisades) Tartan

Candy Strippers

April 19, 2010
Film Reviews
1 Comment

Candy Strippers: A gherkin-looking membrane transfers and infects female hospital workers through kissing, turning them into seductive murderers… nothing to do with pole-dancers; I want my money back! Definitely bags the ‘Misleading title of the year’ award. It’s refreshing only having infected female killers for a change, but that’s where the originality ends. The last 40 minutes is just 20-somethings carelessly running around a hospital getting chopped up one by one. The last 10 ten minutes is a ludicrous needle-fest. Generally skipped through all the ‘plot building’ after the 20 minute mark. Nothing groundbreaking here: lame ‘monster’, average gore, terrible gags, unfathomably hot females, some gratuitous boobs and dumb people doing dumb things.

Score: 1.5/10

Love Me If You Dare

April 17, 2010
Film Reviews
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Love Me If You Dare: Two children start a game that plays through both of their lives. As they grow up the game consumes them, eventually blurring the line between what’s playtime and genuine. Because of this the film is fully-stocked in the drama department, and it’s heightened even more by Cotillard and Canet‘s knockout performances & fantastic chemistry – especially as the game intensifies and the characters should become less likable. The film’s style slowly transforms from trippy and dream-like through to bleak and gritty, echoing the characters as they age from cute kids to jaded adults. The story and script are so poetic, stylish and quirky that it could only be French! A dozen versions of ‘La Vie En Rose’ dominate the soundtrack but it never gets boring – may have even subliminally got Marion Cotillard cast as Édith Piaf in her biographical film. The ending comes out of nowhere. and is quite bittersweet given the tone of the majority of the film, however the last few scenes leave a sweet taste in your mouth. Yes, they’re not role models and yes it gets silly at times but this is one of the most unforgettable romances I’ve ever seen. Definitely a Desert Island DVD.

Score: 7.5/10

Kick-Ass

April 14, 2010
Film Reviews
12 Comments

Kick Ass: A guy who’s only power is being invisible (to girls) sets out to become a crime-fighting ‘superhero’. in order to remain original, which it does pretty well, Kick Ass avoids the usual comic book clichés – however the film suffers because the story’s pretty flat. All of the main characters are well-played, especially Cage and Strong, although you don’t see nearly enough of anyone that isn’t Dave Lizewski/Kick Ass; and as a lead he’s not that interesting! My biggest problem was that it kept leaping between American Pie style comedy, shock value, grim & realistic violence, outrageously OTT fantasy/comic violence, romance, gangster… This will drag you through so many genres (sublime and ridiculous) that you never know what’s coming or how you’re supposed to react.  Some of the action scenes are fairly frantic and unclear, especially the lame “doom style” night vision shootout!! It should have been about 30 minutes shorter and borrowed a lot of visuals from the recent Spiderman flicks. Despite the bashing above it is good fun, pretty entertaining and there are LOADS of comic-references for your inner-nerd to pick out – for me however it was a bit too superficial and the saturated trailer campaign absolutely ruined all the best bits.

Score: 6/10

Desert Island DVDs

April 11, 2010
Features
25 Comments

Picture the scene, your author here gets kidnapped by an angry band of disagreeable movie bloggers and left for dead on a remote Desert Island. After 3 months of living off of tree bark and spring water he finds a rusty old lamp, tries to polish it up and WHAM – out pops a Genie. “Oh great one” Says the Genie, stretching, and giving his balls a seriously overdue scratch “You have awoken me from a 10,000 year slumber, and while I’m eternally grateful my wife will be pissed so I need to nip off home and do some washing up. Quickly, tell me eight things you would like…”

After a short think Paul replies. “I’ll have a solar-powered hot tub, an everlasting bottle of chilled Dos Equis, a bottomless bag of hot McChicken Sandwiches and the five most attractive Swedish female volleyball players the history books will ever see”

Fast-forward 25 years and Paul’s getting old, terminally jaded, has serious weight issues, no sexual boundaries left, alcoholism and 5 moody women / 47 unwanted children running around. He yearns to re-live the days where he sat around watching movies all day without a care in the world. It’s even more annoying that he found a 50″ TV and DVD player under a rock some 24 years ago… If he could go back to that fateful day and ask for eight of his finest movies, he would have probably said…

1) BASEketball: This film never fails to make me laugh. Watched it dozens of times growing up, know the script inside out and will never get bored of this. Anything featuring the minds behind Airplane! The Naked Gun and South Park is a surefire winner. Best Scene: pretty much every psyche-out

2) Kill Bill I: nothing comes closer to filling a man’s insatiable lust for a great revenge tale like Tarrantino’s first Kill Bill Movie. With an epic story and more action than you could shake a stick at. Everything about this is textbook cool. Best Scene: House of Blue Leaves showdown.

3) Goodfellas: one of the best movies ever made and definitely the best gangster film. Screw the Godfather Trilogy, this is where it’s at. Diamond cast and technically it’s still one of the slickest films out there. Best Scene: Shoe Shine / In What Way Am I Funny?

4) Happiness: Every single subject brought up in this film is totally wrong. Rape, paedophilia, sodomy, abuse, massacre, masturbation… yet Todd Solondz manages to make this one of the most unforgettable black comedies known to man. Best scene: Seymour Hoffman’s phone manner.

5) Love Me If You Dare: outstanding French movie about a life-long romance that starts off brilliantly but strains with age. Guillaume Canet and Marion Cotillard set the screen on fire long before they were household names. Best scene: the dares in school.

6) Oldboy: Korean masterpiece that’s just too damn good to never see again for the rest of your life. Everything about it is just stunning. Best scene: the single-take corridor fight.

7) The Wire: bit of a cheat here but seeing as I rate this higher than any film I’ve seen to date I’d love nothing more than to have the free time to watch it again, and again, and again. Best Scene: Omar, Stringer Bell and Brother Mouzone in the empty building.

8) Swedish Nymph Volleyball Milfs Go Wild*: On a practical note, any red-blooded male’s going to need some company until he’s rescued, dies or tries to escape!

Click here to see the full list of everyone’s Desert Island DVDs

Note: now you know why this isn’t a creative writing blog… *May not be a real movie, but you get the picture!

Stop Watching, Start Writing

April 9, 2010
Features
7 Comments

Script Frenzy: Having reached the end of my outstanding reviews the site’s going to slow down a little for the rest of April. Main reason for this: Script Frenzy! it’s basically a collective effort to get as many movie buffs as possible into writing a script. It may be a week in already but it’s not too late to join. The site’s got loads of awesome writer’s resources, links to scrip writing software, and has a great community vibe. All this makes it the shot in the arm that your project’s sorely needing (definitely helped my one get off the ground!!). Here’s some info on the whole shebang:

Official Script Frenzy Site

Do it

Who: You and everyone you know. No experience required.

What: 100 pages of original scripted material in 30 days. (Screenplays, stage plays, TV shows, short films, and graphic novels are all welcome.)

When: April 1 – 30. Every year. Mark your calendars.

Where: Online and in person (if you want!). Hang out in the forums, join your fellow participants at write-ins, and make friends by adding writing buddies online.

Why: Because you have a story to tell. Because you want a creative challenge. Because you’ll be disappointed if you missed out on the adventure. Because you need to make time for you.

How: Sign up. Tell everyone that you are in the Frenzy. Clear your calendar. (US participants: Get your taxes done now!) Start some wrist exercises. Have fun!

Do it

I’ll post an update at the end of the month to let everyone know how it went. If anyone else decides to join my name’s “ParagraphFilmReviews”.

The Fall

April 6, 2010
Film Reviews
4 Comments

The Fall: (Blu Ray) With a ‘to watch’ pile this big it’s uncommon for me to re-watch a film, even rarer viewing one several times within a year, but after subjecting many a friend to the DVD I couldn’t pass up a loan of this Blu Ray. The Fall is pretty impossible to pigeonhole but would probably fall more under the Art realm than just a plain ol’ Movie. In saying this, the mythical storyline is pure cinema escapism that you rarely see these days: much like the magic Cinema would have had like in the 1920s. There’s more eye-popping locations on display than the finest travel brochure – so many that some get no more than 1/4 second glimpse: Colosseum, Eiffel Tower… Both lead characters are fantastic; Pace should be a much bigger star and the young girl Catinca Untaru will be, mark my words! The scenery, costumes, textures and detail of the picture is phenomenal, it’s what BD was made for! The Bulgarian Symphony Orchestra ensure the soundtrack’s epic, making the BD a must see. There’s a few spells of trippy visuals and the story won’t be for absolutely everyone but I would encourage anybody to give this a shot. Reining in my initial score from a 9.5 to an 8, although the first viewing DID blow me away that much.

Score: 8/10

Original Review

Kaispace: Films you didn’t know you needed to see

Blades of Glory

April 5, 2010
Film Reviews
4 Comments

Blades of Glory: started off very strongly by backgrounding the characters and fierce competition, paired with commentators on the BASEketball level of awesomeness. Unfortunately it fizzles out a little when the focus shifts off the rink and a fairly uninspired underdog / unlikely friendship story plays out. The characters definitely have their moments but they’re no Ron Burgundy or Napoleon Dynamite. Even Will Arnett couldn’t muster up many laughs, an indication of the patchy script. I’ll buy a meal to the people who made Jenna Fischer look that hot! The rest of the film relies on the innuendo of male skaters and there’s a whole load of skating stars & references throughout. Probably more for fans of the sport than Joe Public but there are some good bits scattered throughout.

Score: 5.5/10

Zinda

April 2, 2010
Film Reviews
3 Comments

Zinda: Unauthorised remake… Absolute rip-off of Oldboy. Story-wise it’s an ‘Indianized’ version of the original; scene for scene – barring the first and last five minutes – but with all humour, taboo, acting, style (and everything that makes the original great & watchable) ripped out. The script is beyond terrible & drifted between Hindi and English, which is bizarre, stupid and very annoying. The main fight scene is totally lame-o. It looks like this was filmed in the 1990s, on a home video camera with all colour deliberately washed-out, leaving a depressing blue. The shitty distributor logo (Eros) keeps appearing on the top left. There’s a ridiculous soft porn scene and loads of close-up torture / wound stitching for no real reason. The ending’s still messed up, despite being completely different, hats off for that. If I’d never seen or heard of Oldboy I’d have thought the story was alright but poorly executed (perhaps a 4/10) but having seen, and love, Oldboy I’m going to have to make sure this one’s dead and buried. Shame on everyone involved!

Score: 0.5/10

The Blind Side

April 1, 2010
Film Reviews
5 Comments

The Blind Side: Rich white family take in a homeless black dude and fund his transformation into an American Football star. Biggest shock for me was Sandy’s Oscar. She was believable, but showed no range, coasting in her comfort zone – playing the perfect, morally righteous, confident soccer-mum – in saying that she seems to be getting hotter with age! Not doubting her talent but getting one over on Mirren & Streep… dubious.  Big Mike was convincing as the unobtrusive, good-natured, underdog. Can anyone tell me why is Kathy Bates always an inspirational Southerner?! For me, this fell under the ‘comedy’ branch more than anything else, focusing on the inspirational and feel-good stuff and shunning any saddening backstory. It would help to know a bit about the American College system and American Football going in to this. It’s  a good story, told quite well but is so All-American, almost to the point of stereotype: the good Christian mum, American Dream dad, prosperous children, poor ghetto boy, blockhead coach… It was on track for a 7 but just refused lay off with the nicey nice.

Score: 6.5/10