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Monthly Archives: May 2010

Drag Me to Hell

May 30, 2010
Film Reviews
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Drag Me To Hell: An everywoman accidentally insults a gypsy – cue an ancient curse and impending doom for our gal. The five minute prologue is totally old school; OTT music, effects and a huge-ass demon. Fortunately, the entire film stays in this vein, and what I liked best was that while there is the odd big jump the rest of the frights come from good old-fashioned sources; wind, leaves, squeaks and creaks – no wet long-haired lizard women rattling down staircases or other such gimmicks. While it’s Genuinely terrifying this also has some subtly funny motifs like the face-fucking/hair-grabbing corpse, funeral, Goat, Dancing Ghost and even the ridiculous gross outs. There’s the best use of a stapler & ruler I’ve ever seen and a pretty sweet, but obvious, ending. Raimi’s direction is great, really proving he’s a pro by milking every drop of suspense and terror, yet making it fun and watchable – all while he’s pretty much parodying an entire genre. Drag Me to Hell effortlessly walks the line between comedy-stire and terror and I’ve not enjoyed a horror film this much in years. Classic Raimi. Classic horror. Instant Classic, just add blood.

Score: 8/10

The Air I Breathe

May 27, 2010
Film Reviews
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The Air I Breathe: Four separate stories of characters based on the emotions Happiness, Pleasure, Sorrow and Love are linked by a ruthless gangster. A somewhat tired idea these days that lands in the Crash / Amores Perros / Babel genre. For the most part the casting is unadventurous, Garcia, Bacon, Whitaker all play bread and butter roles. Hirsch is chronic. Michelle Gellar is really good but the real standout was Brendan Fraser; especially given how unconventional his character is. He pulls off an awesome performance; gruff, grim and interesting. FAO his agent, sack shit like Furry Vengeance and get him more roles like this, pronto! The cheesy voiceovers give the film a bizarre aftershave commercial feel and ‘Fingers’ is such a terrible name for a baddie. The big problem was that the four individual segments were too short and broad to build on the characters effectively. Towards the end the story comes together nicely (albeit quite cheesily) but just doesn’t quite have the full effect. Overall this has good intentions but just fails to rock you. A decent effort by any standards but could have been a real tour de force.

Score: 6.5/10

The Spirit

May 25, 2010
Film Reviews
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The Spirit: Comic adaptation about a masked crime-fighter who fights crime with a mask on. Visually, it’s quite the treat although being brought to us by Frank Miller, one look at any shot from the movie indicates that this ‘borrows’ plenty visuals from Sin City – nothing new there. The Spirit is also lays it on heavily with Noir style, although it constantly regresses from cool to plain corny. The story is so one-dimensional and unimaginative that you’ll probably find yourself slipping into a coma in parts. Pretty much everyone was un-acting for the duration, besides Macht, who at least attempts to do something decent with his fairly lame character; that spends just as much time chasing tail as he does fighting crime. There’s plenty eye candy, from curvy Eva Mendes to the stunning Paz Vega, however they all feel a bit gratuitous, with no real point. Milo and Edgar from 24 also put in some face time. It all just seems very flat, with no real story or focus; random Japanese and Nazi sections anyone? There are some memorable and striking imagery & shots but overall it just feels like a low-rent Sin City.

Score: 3/10

Napoleon Dynamite

May 21, 2010
Film Reviews
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Napoleon Dynamite: follows the mundane life of a dorky student in rural Idaho over a couple of weeks… doesn’t sound gripping, and it’s not, but it’s still well worth watching. Straight from the awesome opening credits you know this has potential. Because nothing much happens in the story department it’s all down to the characters to push the film forward. Nerdy Kip, delusional uncle Rico, apathetic Pedro, coy Deb and manly Rex are all fantastic. Then there’s Napoleon. John Herder absolutely nails his character; the mannerisms, accent, attitude, partial blindness, heavy breathing and the look, especially the so-bad-they’re-good T-shirts. Everything Napoleon does is so funny because of the teenage angst oozing out of every pore – Hess & Herder have truly created one of the coolest geeks in fiction. The low-fi style and the lack of movement or structure in the story are still huge pitfalls. The elevator music is one of many nods towards ‘Welcome to the Dollhouse’, which is absolutely no bad thing. First time round I totally didn’t get this and couldn’t understand why it was a big deal, upon re-watching it several times it just gets better and better.

Score: 7/10

Blazing Saddles

May 19, 2010
Film Reviews
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Blazing Saddles: (Blu Ray) A parody of almost every Western Movie you’ve ever seen, by comedic virtuoso Mel Brooks. ‘Saddles is one of the best examples of a film that provides constant comedy for the entire duration and never lets up, utilising slapstick and surreal, wit and wordplay, dumb laughs and even the first mainstream fart on the silver screen. You get the feeling that it was written by a bunch on friends just having a laugh and trying to get away with as much as possible. A lot of people look too hard into the racial aspect of the story, but who’s dumber at the end of the day: Sheriff Bart or the ‘Gov’ Le Petomane? Brooks stereotypes everyone here, nobody is safe – from the KKK to the Frontier folks. All of the central characters are memorable and well-acted; picking an outstanding individual is impossible. My only beef with Blazing Saddles is the end, which feels a little off, like the film lost its focus. Sure the characters talk to the camera throughout the film, but the whole cast ends up breaking out of their set and into various others at a film studio, then in to a cinema to watch the end of the film – it feels out of place and too self-referential / random. The Blu Ray disc is alright but the picture and audio still feel really vintage, wouldn’t recommend. All in, it’s a brilliant movie that’s 100% quotable and made so much better because no studio would be brave enough to re-make it in today’s P.C. age. To use a cliché, they genuinely don’t make ’em like this anymore.

Score: 8/10

Traitor

May 18, 2010
Film Reviews
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Traitor: An Ex U.S. Military bomb expert gets entangled with some Islamic radicals and ends up in a terror plot. I hadn’t even heard of this as it probably got swamped under by the glut of newfangled middle-eastern war & drama flicks. This begins in Yemen and the first 30 minutes is dedicated to unraveling the enigmatic main character – pretty much the crux of the whole film. After a short ‘Arabs in Jail’ section the pot focuses on acts of terrorism in France and America. Other than some heightened drama towards the end the film juggles the old civil liberties Vs greater good dilemma, what it is to be a Muslim following the Qur’an today, and painting an accurate picture of terrorist activities in the Western world. Don Cheadle holds his own well as the only main but really just has to look solemn or the most part. Guy Pearce could have been anyone, playing the stereotypical “hot on the heels” cop. Ditto Jeff Daniels in his role. The film looks pretty good and has a few memorable scenes but just doesn’t really grab you; how do you connect with a guy who’s BFF is an extremist and is plotting to kill innocent people? Hyper topical terrorist thriller that you should only check out if you like this type of film.

Score: 4/10

Bad Lieutenant

May 17, 2010
Film Reviews
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Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans. Werner Herzog’s tale of a crooked cop in post-Katrina New Orleans. This is to all intents and purposes a Nic Cage film, and boy is he back on form; overacting an eccentric, pain-ridden dirty cop and tripping on-screen for the full 2 hours… this is the man we fell in love with. The drug use brings a few bizarre and surreal moments ranging from Croc and Iguana close-ups to a breakdancing soul and Cage just talking absolute rubbish. There’s a good amount of very dark humour despite the drugs, murders, prostitution, blackmails and general shenanigans of the worst cop ever. The ending – particularly the scene at the Lieutenant’s desk where everyone visits him – felt like a massive cop-out and could have been so much more. Eva Mendes is good (and hot!), Stiffler‘s mum looks a little worse for wear until the end, Val Kilmer‘s only in about 3 scenes and I can’t see Xzibit without thinking about Pimp My Ride / Yo Dawg Yo. It’s really well shot, doesn’t drag too much and you know it’s well told when no matter how low the Lieutenant stoops, you’re still rooting for him. The amoral protagonist and situations he instigates will probably be the biggest turn-off here, nevertheless it’s a solid detective / drama film.

Score: 7/10

Genius or Arse #2

May 14, 2010
Genius or Arse
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Foightin Round The WorldRussel Crowe: First off, I reckon you’d be a fool to argue with this man’s on-screen talent as he’s one of the best actors of our times. Unfortunately it’s his off-screen capers that seem to get him such a bad rep. He’s been alleged to have terrorised, offended or punched the shit out of people in hotels, restaurants, bars, harbours… nowhere is safe! From hotel porters & security guards to pensioners… nobody is safe! My favourite Crowe-based rumour was him going in to a busy Canadian bar, slagging off Ice Hockey for being a ‘womans sport’ and calling the bar tender a ‘Gabby Old Trout’ (allegedly). He also underwhelmed the world of folk-rock with his band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, although his fame is arguably the only reason anyone’s even heard of them. When sober he can be a charitable chap; rebuilding libraries, saving schools & rugby teams as well as gifting £1,000 to Cancer Research UK and film props to charities during the Robin Hood filming. Like every other man in the world, Crowe goes a bit feral when he’s shit-faced, maybe more so than most, but at least he never gets ‘Mel Gibson’ drunk…

Verdict: for me Crowe’s manly-man-Genius and I’d love to party with him. He definitely gets a disproportionately hard time for his bad-boy antics.

Maximus Genius or Cinderella Arse – You Decide!

The Isle

May 14, 2010
Film Reviews
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The Isle: captures a deviant romance developing between a very strange couple of pseudo-mutes. It starts off quite dry – difficult to ‘get in to’ – introducing the characters and strange setting. As the drama ramps up it starts to drag you in, mostly through the eerie atmosphere because there’s almost no dialogue. One of the characters slowly turns into a terrifying psychopath, and a couple of scenes near the Antichrist level of fucked up appear out of nowhere. The acting, particularly the main woman, is really good: such a shame she didn’t do another movie. There’s some frog, fish and worm mutilation thrown in for good measure. The lakeside setting and scenery are haunting & atmospheric and the no-frills direction really just lets the story do the talking. Director Kim Ki-Duk has a decent track record, including Bad Guy and 3-Iron, which is one of the most memorable Asian flicks I’ve seen. This is a good film; not for everyone but worth checking out if you can handle your cinema ‘out there’.

Score: 5.5/10

Speed Racer

May 12, 2010
Film Reviews
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Speed Racer: (Blu Ray) Follows the Racer family of car-enthusiasts as their son Speed takes on the biggest companies in the world. Off the bat this is blatantly aimed at kids but off the bat I didn’t really care much because this looks absolutely outstanding. The Wachowski‘s mash together so many elements for the visuals: the Jetsons space age, Metropolis, 1920s, Al Capone, Neo Tokyo, extreme sports, The Gumball Rally, Wipeout & Rollcage games, and the list just keeps going… pretty much all green-screen. The editing adds another layer on top, with some awesomely bamboozling wipes and cuts. The comic roots shine through as the overall visuals sit somewhere between classic manga and souped-up CGI. With all of this behind it, the visuals are almost too good as it ends up being a sustained assault on your eyes over the 2hr 10min runtime – especially during every race / ‘Car-Fu’ battle. Looks aside, the story & characters are terribly textbook and the absurd Kid & Monkey combo kept trying their hardest to make me hate the film, it started to work by the end. There’s some genuinely funny nubs of humour throughout like the R-R logo and Paul Frank ‘human’ shirt on the monkey. There’s also a nice James Bond assassination-attempt homage and couple of criminally underused actors – like Moritz Bleibtreu. The BD Picture’s is among the best I’ve seen so far – with everything from the huge city-scapes down to the roads rendered so sharply it feels like 3D in parts – the sound quality is less impressive but the mix still flies out all the speakers during the action scenes. Overall, despite the plain story and shallow characters I was absolutely mesmerised by the spectacular visuals. One of a kind.

Score: 5.5/10

12 Rounds

May 11, 2010
Film Reviews
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12 Rounds: After accidentally killing a terrorist’s girlfriend the hero cop must save his own Mrs in a game of revenge when the baddie escapes from jail a year later. Before watching this I had the sentence “Cena couldn’t act his way out of a joke shop” already typed up; turns out he’s the best actor in the whole film, which doesn’t say much about anyone else. Aidan Gillen was particularly bad, sounding like Raab Himself doing a Tommy Lee Jones from Blown Away impression. Can’t say a good thing about anyone else, other than they pretty much killed what would have been quite a compelling story. It’s from the director of a Die Hard film and the producer of Speed so it’s all familiar territory: high-octane action, constant peril, tasks, explosions, black cop / white cop and ridiculously aware driving. The 5.1 soundtrack’s worth nothing because each crash will thump you in the chest. With the right actors behind it 12 Rounds could have been more memorable however it’s still a pretty decent balls-to-the-wall action flick, and it doesn’t try to be anything else.

Score: 6/10

Four Lions

May 10, 2010
Film Reviews
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Four Lions: follows a band of useless homegrown terrorists and their attempt to inflict maximum damage to a London target, hopefully starting an uprising. The only remotely realistic character is Omar: the other four bombers turn the film into a slapstick / comedy of errors and are so unbelievably stupid that it’s hard to take any of the more emotive scenes at face value. This said, the out-and-out satire parts are the best by a long shot and in typical Morris style most of the best jokes are ‘random’-based. The last section (London Marathon attack) is great and salvages an otherwise tepid comedy – almost every single big laugh had already been splurged all over the trailers & TV spots. This trivial take on terrorism will hit a lot of nerves and while it’s quite topical – detention / house raids / torture / Afghanistan – the few serious messages are completely overshadowed by the buffoonery. Four Lions is an alright film, but doesn’t come close to the brilliance of Chris Morris’s previous works like The Day Today, Brass Eye, Blue Jam or even Nathan Barley.

Score: 4/10

Orgazmo

May 7, 2010
Film Reviews
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Orgazmo: An unsuspecting Mormon accidentally finds himself in the porn industry and ends up battling corruption and cleaning the streets. As you’d expect from the makers of South Park there’s a lot of great / silly jokes and some awesome running gags like stunt cocks and Dave the Lighting guy. Despite the funnies on offer the story, script and overall production are all rough around the edges – but forgivable being so early in their career. For a satire movie based around the porn industry it avoids descending into smut and is well-handled – remaining moral without getting too preachy. The cast features a harem of porn stars that would rival the biggest Hollywood release, but don’t expect much skin on show. As much as I love this film – and it is good – it’s probably my least favourite Matt / Trey release (BASEketball & Cannibal being the best). It’s light-hearted entertainment but wears a bit thin towards the end.

Score: 6/10

Genius or Arse #1

May 5, 2010
Genius or Arse
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Genius or ArseNicolas Cage: I realise this has probably been done elsewhere but it would be cool to glean everyone’s brutally honest opinion on perhaps one of the most troubled actors of our times. Career highlights: The Weatherman, Matchstick Men, Face/Off, Wild at Heart, Adaptation, Lord of War and even National Treasure, Kick–Ass & Bangkok Dangerous are acceptable. Crimes against Cinema: you can never unsee The Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, Next… I recently saw the Sorcerers Apprentice trailer my heart just sank into my guts – why does he always have such shit hair?!?! Naturally, he picks up these awful big buck roles to aid his habit of spunking money on stuff like jets, yachts, 9 Rolls Royces (!), dinosaur skills (!!) a handful of castles (!!!), and his own god-damned island (!!WTF!!) Given his track record he’s like your crazy uncle at Christmas: will he embarrass himself and the entire family or will he be the highlight of the day?

Verdict: Despite his downfalls I put Cage in the Genius category because the pros of his career outweigh the cons (so far…)

Genius or Arse – You Decide!

Hamlet 2

May 4, 2010
Film Reviews
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Hamlet 2: a melodramatic drama teacher has to inspire a bunch of underachieving Latinos to turn his sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet into a successful production and save his department. There are a few funny parts, but the play at the end is the only real winner. The rest of the laughs stem from shock value: ‘face rape’, Christian-bashing, gay jokes and a lot of Steve Coogan’s ass – probably won’t help you break America Steve! The main song ‘Rock me sexy Jesus’ is totally catchy, but could have been better. The story plods along quite predictably and is a jumble of Dangerous Minds, Summer Heights High and Jerry Springer the Opera. With Pam Brady’s track record on South Park BLU, Team America and Hot Rod (not to mention the likes of Catherine Keener Amy Poehler, David Arquette and comic genius Steve Coogan) you expect a bit more from this.

Score: 4/10

Nathalie

May 3, 2010
Film Reviews
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Nathalie…: A woman suspects her husband is having an affair so she pays a prostitute to seduce him and tell her everything… yes, that’s how the French do it! You’ve probably noticed the biggest flaw already; why would you persevere so hard with a serial-cheater husband? At times it starts to feel like an audio-descriptive porno, and when it’s not being racy there’s plenty trivial footage of the characters with no real character development. Fade to blacks are inexplicably overused. There was one good joke, but I doubt it was intentional: Fanny Ardant plays a gynecologist. It’s been re-made by Hollywood as “Chloe” with some big names behind it – Reitman, Neeson and Julianne Moore – although why anyone wanted to re-make it is beyond me. It’s pretty boring, banal and hard to get your head around. Married people: do they all do stuff like that?

Score: 2/10