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OK – so you’re officially in to foreign cinema, and want to be a little more adventurous. Here‘s a is a list of foreign films that are suited to those looking to further explore the more engaging, unique, and interesting movies that other countries have to offer. These are ‘middle of the spectrum’ movies: they require more effort and attention than the previous list for beginners, but aren’t quite the ‘hardcore’ existential or often divisive films that need to be cryptically pulled apart.

This article also has an intentional modern bias. Most of he ‘Best foreign films’ lists appear to have been voted for, and compiled, by older people who only seem to watch a small and predictable list of films made before 1980. That’s utter bobbins, and completely pisses me off. Like music, art, or photography, there’s great things being created all the time. Apologies for the completely arbitrary number but I’ve been deliberating over this list for over three months.

Amores Perros (Love’s A Bitch – Mexico): three different lives brought together by a car single crash. An intricate, intertwined, and multi-layered drama that follows and connects a fashion model, dog-fighter and homeless assassin. This is a raw, authentic, and unflinching look different social classes in Mexico City. It’s 153 mins long, but packs in three fleshed out stories with overlapping themes of violence, family, and inequality. Despite being Alejandro González Iñárritu’s (Birdman) first film, you knew straight away he was someone special. Storytelling in its purest form. TRAILER

Sex and Fury (不良姐御伝猪の鹿お蝶 Furyō anego den: Inoshika o-Chō – Japan): a highlight of the ‘Pinky Violence’ genre (think nudity and nunchucks). This is a refreshing combination of kick-ass female lead, breathtaking visuals, a historical setting, and a revenge story that leans heavily on crimson-splattered action set pieces. Put that all together and you’ve got a supremely high-quality exploitation film that is the blueprint for Kill Bill. Proof that ‘video nasty‘ / exploitation movies can be well-crafted and visually spectacular; beautiful and brutal in equal measures. TRAILER

City of God (Cidade de Deus – Brazil): an honest, visceral, and no-holds-barred drama that follows a group of kids in Rio favelas from childhood in the 1960s through to the 1980s, and how the city and its people changed. It got Oscar nods for direction, cinematography, editing, and writing, so you know it’s a well-made piece of cinema. With such an ambitious scope, and featuring mostly non-actors this was an enormous gamble, but it paid off big time, and has a legacy of one of the best ~~foreign~~ movies ever made. Often referred to as ‘The Brazilian Goodfellas‘ – lets just call if GoodFavellas from now on? TRAILER

OldBoy (올드보이, Oldeuboi – Korea): an unrivaled tale of epic revenge. Everything about this film is exceptional. There’s a grand and intriguing story, meticulous direction, intense action scenes, a nice layer of humour, and the finale to end all movie endings. Every time I watch OldBoy it blows me away. It’s fantastic and cinematic but rooted in reality by sublime, career defining, performances. It sits perfectly in the middle of a trilogy, and you can’t go wrong with Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, or Lady Vengeance either. An original masterpiece that didn’t deserve a Hollywood, or Bollywood, remake – it’s arguably the best film from one of the world’s best film-makers. TRAILER

Together (Tillsammans – Sweden): Explores the life of an over-populated ‘hippy commune’ house in 1970s Stockholm. A micro drama about real people, that manages to be satirical, funny and poignant at the same time. The housemates are vegetarians, homosexuals, hippies, confused teenagers and alcoholics: basically a comedy scrip-writer’s wet dream. It sports a great ensemble cast, a masterful director coming in to his prime, and the happiest ending to a film I can remember seeing – Football and Abba. Between this and Fucking Amal, arguably Lukas Moodysson’s finest era. TRAILER

Infernal Affairs (無間道, 无间道 – Hong Kong): a powerful and simple concept – the triads have a mole in the police, and the police have a mole in the triads… who’s cover will be blown first? While on paper it’s technically a gangster/action film’s success rests on moments of high tension, drama and suspense; scenes where characters are just about to be made by the opposing side. The cream of H.K. actors push this single concept story from great to amazing. The Departed remake is a fantastic film, but this is still superior in every way. TRAILER

Persepolis (France / Iran): A coming-of-age story about a young, liberal, Iranian at the beginning of the strict Islamic revolution. Most reviews splurge on and on about how great this film looks – and this is true – but the biggest draw of Persepolis is the phenomenal story. It balances an interesting history of Iran, with the small-scale drama of how the regime affected individuals, free speech, feminism, art, culture… There are tragedies, shocks, and heart-warming humanity which make this an engrossing watch. TRAILER

Survive Style 5+ (Japan): it’s impossible to describe what this is like to watch – although this trailer should give you a rough idea. Imagine an intense dose of the West’s ‘crazy Japanese culture’ stereotype perception, but it just works! It’s five offbeat, stories set in a colourful, hyper-designed, pop-art, exotic, and garish world. It’s one of the maddest, most memorable, and most enjoyable films you’ll ever see. If you take cinema as a visual medium – this should be the holy text! The world needs more movies like this. A true one-of-a-kind – and I will be recommending this until the day I die. TRAILER

Headhunters (Hodejegerne – Norway): A Norway–Sweden joint venture based on a Jo Nesbo book – it doesn’t get more Scandy than this. The film translates well up to the big screen as a very tense suspense-thriller that only lets up during moments of comically graphic violence and ultra black humour; which give the audience a few seconds to catch up with their breathing. It’s well-directed, well-acted, well-written, and a great example of a smart, serious, dramatic yet darkly comic crime caper. Better than the best bits of the (original) Dragon Tattoo movies. TRAILER

A Bittersweet Life (달콤한 인생, Dalkomhan insaeng – Korea): a loyal mob enforcer’s life is thrown into disarray when he refuses his bosses orders. This is a meticulously directed film where, although quite minimal, every single shot in reveals something else about the characters or keeps the story’s momentum going. The performances are strong, and the action scenes are intricate, innovative and flawlessly executed. It’s the second Korean revenge film on this list, but where OldBoy is unique, daring, and rich – A Bitterswet Life is simple, stripped down, raw, and emotive. TRAILER

JCVD (Belgium): the ultimate anti Jean-Claude Van Damme movie where he plays himself, in real life, during a bank robbery where he reflects on his career. Although it flirts with self-indulgence at times, Van Damme turns in a sensational performance that peaks with a 6-minute long single-cut soliloquy with his heart on his sleeve. It’s an Oscar-worthy show from a man who most people believe can’t even act – and makes you wish he’d been offered more A-list roles. Probably the least accessible film on the list, but you’ll get the most from this if you’ve seen – or care for – other JCVD movies.

Pan’s Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno – Spain / Mexico): while most of Del Toro’s work contains an element of duality this one is split between two contrasting settings; the harsh reality of Franco’s Spain circa 1944, and a wild fantasy underground labyrinth. The film is eerie but seductive; violent but captivating; and contains some big emotional punches. One of the main reasons this works so well is Del Toro’s background in SFX – the physical effects and CGI are masterfully blended to create completely immersive, and non-distracting settings & characters. Like other true auteurs (Besson, Chan-Wook, Almodóvar, Noe, Jeunet…) you always know when you’re watching a Guillermo del Toro movie, and Pan’s Labyrinth is his masterpiece to date. TRAILER

Paprika (パプリカ, Papurika – Japan): a genuinely fearless animation that explores technology, mythology, reality, iconography, dreams, and the psyche. A 50/50 mix of breathtaking & vibrant visuals paired with thought-provoking concepts – you could show Paprika to an intellectual or a toddler, and they’d both be captivated for the duration. It put’s Hollywood’s ‘Cartoons are for kids lol’ attitude to shame, proving that you can do ‘Miyazaki for adults’. As the strapline proclaims: ‘This is your brain on Anime‘. Where can I buy this drug? I want more! TRAILER

Europa (Zentropa – Denmark): Before he was all about controversy and pushing everyone’s buttons Lars Von Trier actually started out as a promising straight up director. Part of his ‘Europa Trilogy’, Europa is LVT at his finest, employing 100 years of cinematic techniques to make this 1991 film feel like a 1930s Noir classic; told through fractured, surreal, and dreamlike visuals. While it’s not a weighty story, imagery is king here, and there are buckets of it – leaving you to wonder why he went in for Dogma, and hasn’t really shaken off that visual style since. TRAILER

Drunken Master II (醉拳二, Zuì Quán Èr – Hong Kong): generally considered to be the one of the best Jackie Chan movies; and finishing with one of the greatest fight-scenes ever put to film, there’s a lot of grand claims that follow this picture. With a fairly weak plot, the film is completely defined by JC’s unique brand of entertaining slapstick, breathtaking, jaw-dropping, and highly innovative fight-choreography. He’s like Bruce Lee and Buster Keaton, but on better form than both here – mix it up with some unbelievably dangerous elements like fire-breathing, and hot coal stunts and you’re on to a winner. Most importantly, Drunken Master is great fun to watch. TRAILER

Y Tu Mamá También (Mexico): Alfonso Cuaron is third director of the modern Mexican boys club (with Iñárritu and del Toro). Before the technical accomplishments of Gravity and Children of men, he made this indie-spirited, passionate, and fiery road-trip movie about love, loss, sexuality, and youth. All three leads are fantastic, but whereas the very young Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna went on to be Latino superstars, the female lead – Ana López Mercado – hasn’t worked since. A solid story, great performances set against a very interesting political background make this a genre-topping road trip to remember. TRAILER

Lives of Others (Das Leben der Anderen – Germany): in the final throws of the GDR (East-Germany) a Stasi police officer has to spy on a writer and his lover, but slowly becomes immersed in their lives. The best thing about the intentionally slow pacing is that it gradually sucks you in, more and more, until you’re completely gripped. Ulrich Mühe steals the show with a dialogue-light, nuanced performance as officer HGW XX/7; going from a cold and by-the-book interrogation instructor, to a complex and divided human being. The other cast members, especially Sebastian Koch, put in stellar shifts too. On paper this sounds like a non-event, but it’s as solid a drama / thriller as you could ask for. TRAILER

Only Human (Seres queridos – Spain-Argentina): a Jewish lady takes her new Palestinian partner to meet the family; naturally everyone’s dysfunctional. I know what you’re thinking: “that sounds like Meet the Parents!? #LOL”. It’s absolutely not, because this is actually smart, witty, and laugh-out-loud funny. Although the story hinges on an intense political divide this film is as apolitical and innocent as they come – it almost feels like a ‘classic’ comedy; playing heavy on stereotypes, slapstick and some black comedy elements. My biggest complaint about Spanish cinema is that it’s usually over-dramatic, but it works perfectly in here. TRAILER

Which foreign film would you recommend for intermediates and why?

Please leave your film suggestions and reasons in the comments.
I’ll hopefully have enough to create a follow-up post – which would credit your entry and link back to your website.
Remember though, these are NOT the best foreign films per se, but the best ones for helping people explore the more interesting movies in world cinema.

Genius or Arse #5: Steven Seagal

September 23, 2015

Features, Genius or Arse

6 Comments

Steven Seagal: Nothing breaks my heart more than seeing good actors in shit films for a quick buck. However, I never experience more intense bouts of simultaneous anger and apathy than seeing Steven Seagal‘s latest releases. Seagal shot to fame in the 1980s with a rapid bout of mainstream action films; Nico (AKA – Above the Law), Hard to Kill, Marked for Death, Under Seige… While none of them were ‘Best. Movie. Ever’ status, they were all quite enjoyable but – most importantly – fitting for the time. Not one to let past glories fade, if you pick any point over the last 30 years I bet that SS was working on the same old hackneyed one-man-army B-Movie action film.

There’s not much else that Seagal hasn’t dabbled in: directing, producing, writing, choreography, he’s got a blues band with two albums, he’s a Reserve Deputy Chief with his own ‘reality’ TV show (Steven Seagal: Lawman), he has released his own therapeutic oils and an energy drink (‘Steven Seagal’s Lightning Bolt’), aftershave (‘Scent of Action’), knives, and is in the process of designing his own gun with ORSIS rifles.

Verdict: I don’t really care that he has a bunch of dodgy lawsuits, or is friends with Putin, or still tries to convince everyone he’s a total badass (Video)… What bothers me about Seagal are his crimes against cinema. His films are literally all the same. He’s always an Ex-Black Ops / Mercenary / Hitman. He’s never in danger. Every synopsis is the same. And practically every poster & DVD cover is identical: his big face – usually close up – with an equally massive gun, pulling a ‘badass‘ pose. Even the titles are impressively unimaginative like “Ultimate Revenge”, “Out For Vengeance”, “Retribution Overload”, “Payback Force”, “Explosive Justice” or other such nonsense.

Verdict: Arse

Justice Genius or Arsey Ryback – YOU DECIDE!

BONUS ROUND

10 Essential Foreign Films For: Beginners

July 22, 2015

19 Comments

Have you always wanted to give foreign films a try but don’t know where to start?

There’s something for everyone in the ‘world cinema’ section of any shop – you just need to know what to look for. Foreign films aren’t all 4 hour-long arthouse softcore snooze-fests; although there are some… The only advice I would give to first-timers is to avoid dub-tracks at all costs and go straight for the subtitles (voice acting is generally stale, lips are out of sync, you lose the performance, and famous voices can distract you)

Below is a list of ‘Entry Level’ movies to get you started. There’s nothing too heavy on dialogue or ideas. These are ‘gateway’ movies to show that there’s an alternative to Hollywood’s churn-and-burn franchises. Some of the choices may seem obvious, but this list is aimed at absolute beginners. Most similar lists I’ve seen seem to stop at around 1970 listing ‘classic after ‘classic’; which aren’t necessarily the most accessible movies for novices.

The Raid (‘Serbuan Maut‘ – Indonesia): imagine an action film where pretty much the entire runtime is nothing but bone-breaking, innovative, and mesmerising fight sequences! An action film that delivers on real, physical stunts and traditional fighting & filming techniques! An action film that says no to overblown and unnecessarily cheap-looking CGI, and gratuitous back story of 1D characters. The Raid (and The Raid 2) are movies that don’t disappoint. TRAILER

Run Lola, Run (‘Lola Rennt‘ – Germany): A simple concept played out three times, in a variety of frenetic, stylish, and a adrenaline-pumping ways. The plot follows a girlfriend’s attempts to bail out her debt-ridden boyfriend before his lenders send him to sleep with the fishes. You could watch this and think about free will, chance, the butterfly effect etc – or you can sit back, switch off, and let it hypnotise you. Bright, poppy, and with a pounding dance soundtrack, this plays out like an elongated music video. TRAILER

Hard Boiled (‘辣手神探‘ – Hong Kong): So you love the iconic gun fights from films like Face/Off, The Matrix, and Shoot ‘Em Up – awww, that’s cute. How about some genre-defining gunplay complete with doves, explosions-ahoy, and slow-motion bodies flying in all directions – delivered by the master of infinite-ammo action, John Woo. This is the peak of the ‘Heroic Bloodshed’ genre of action; basically kung fu but with guns. The final hospital shootout is among the best action scenes ever filmed. TRAILER

Love me if You Dare (‘Jeux d’enfants‘ – France): Love stories, meh, I’m not usually a fan – but here’s one that’s quirky, cool and doesn’t star Zooey Deschenel (WTF, France?!?). It follows two best friends from children to pensioners as they struggle to be in the right place at the right time for their life-long love to truly work out. Any film this poetic, stylish and charming – to the point of warming your heart – could only be French! TRAILER

The Good, The Bad, The Weird (좋은 놈, 나쁜 놈, 이상한 놈 – Korea): one of Korea’s best directors, and a handful of the country’s biggest stars in a story about three outlaws trying to find ancient treasure before the Japanese Army and other bandits. This is a fun historical romp that entertains for the duration, like an Indiana Jones film. It’s an Italian-style spaghetti western, with Hollywood sensibilities, but still remains a very ‘Korean’ feeling movie; combining some of the best aspects of 50 years of ‘world cinema’ together perfectly. TRAILER

Timecrimes (Spain): Whilst on vacation with his wife everyman Hector sees a lady undressing at the edge of his property, which sets off an elaborate chain of events. Here’s to the high–concept, low-budget time–travel film with no SFX! It’s hard to say more without ruining the film, but this one stands out for being completely rooted in the real world; the characters feel human, the baddie fumbles around, the settings are banal but creepy. Simple, clever, and effective. TRAILER (contains spoilers)

The Street Fighter (激突！殺人拳 – Japan): when he refuses to kidnap a billionaire heir for the Yakuza, they try to kill the street fighter – which turns out to be a terrible decision for all involved. This is the first movie to get an R rating for violence alone, a major influence of a Mr Tarantino, and while it’s not as shocking as it would have been 40 years ago, it’s still a brilliant Martial Arts movie. It’s also been deemed important enough to be made available for free on the public domain (LINK) TRAILER

Trollhunter (‘Trolljegeren‘ – Norway): mock–documentary following an old school troll-hunter (mythical ones, not internet trolls) as he helps keep these magnificent beasts hidden from the unsuspecting public. This one’s a dead-pan slow-burner that packed with loads of tiny details about trolls and their mythology. The central character is played superbly, taking his job very seriously, which engages the viewer. Great black comedy / fantasy satire. TRAILER

Ring (Ringu – Japan): You know the drill; after watching a cursed VHS you get a phone call saying “you gonna die lol”, and you spend your last week in a pants-shittingly terrifying nightmare scenario. A victim of its own success, having being parodied everywhere, it’s easy to forget how scary this film is; it’s broody, atmospheric, restrained, and genuinely terrifying. The haunted mother of the J-Horror genre, which kick-started the trend of (usually botched) Asian horror remakes. TRAILER

MicMacs (‘MicMacs à tire-larigot‘ – France): after losing his dad to a landmine, and being hit by a stray bullet Brazil sets out to take his revenge on the two weapons manufacturers responsible. Despite being a sharp commentary on the arms industry the title translates as “non-stop shenanigans”, and that exactly what this is. A fun take on the classic ‘revenge’ story, this is from French visionary Jean-Pierre Jeunet; who somehow manages to capture surreal and dream-like worlds perfectly – and manages to make this modern film look and feel like a Golden Age classic. TRAILER

Which foreign film would you recommend for a beginner and why?

An Introduction to… MAXIMUM THE HORMONE

December 22, 2014

Features, Japan-O-Rama

Blood and Cuts: The Goreless death of 18-Rated Cinema

October 9, 2014

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Think of the most powerful movie scenes you can remember? The scenes that shocked and grabbed you. The moments that punched you in the gut. The takes that made you fall in love with Cinema. My guess is that they’re not from a kids film?!?!? For me, there’s something more raw, powerful and hard-hitting about the scenes and themes in 18-rated film that lesser certificates fail to match. Despite this, it feels like there are almost no 18-rated movies being released in the UK any more.

In Britain we have the following certificates for cinema-screened movies, issued by the BBFC (British Board Film Classification)

U: Universal – everyone can watch
PG: Parental Guidance
12A: Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult
15: Fifteen years and older
18: Eighteen years and older

Between 2003 and 2013 the number of films released in UK cinemas jumped from 587 to 994; a raise of 59%. U-rated films went from 60 (10% of all films) to 127 (13%), 12A went from 153 (26%) to 321 (33%) yet the number of 18-rated films has gone from 56 (9.5%) to 68 (6.8%). Of the 28 UK box office number 1 movies this year so far, only one – The Wolf of Wall Street – was an 18; and the last 18 before then was Dredd back in September 2012.

In reality, most of what comes out would be broadly categorized as either kids/family films (PG/U), teen/comedy films (12A), and thriller/horror films (15-18). Despite this, distributors seem hell-bent on cutting 18s down to 15s, 15s down to 12As, and 12As down to PG. It’s frustrating because you pay good money to see a film that’s been censored by the distributors to maximize the bums on seats – but the studios release the DVD as the higher certificate anyway.

Most notoriously, The Hunger Games dropped 7 seconds of ‘gore’ to limbo under the 12A bar. Doesn’t sound bad? Think how much more powerful it would have been with a little bit of blood or some realistic swearing in there! I zoned out of the ‘fighting’, as you saw someone hack into an opponent, and raise their weapon which was clean and shiny. Rubbish! Sure, it didn’t have to be another full-blown Battle Royale, but don’t sanitise it this much – at the end of the day, it’s kids killing kids!

A Good Day to Die Hard was another movie that was intentionally cut from a 15 to a 12A – by removing some violence and swearing. This is a franchise that started life as a genre-topping hard-18 action thriller, which has been diluted down to a family-friendly romp. You know what I say to that? “if you’re not a part of the solution, you’re a part of the problem. Quit being a part of the fucking problem!!”

These films aren’t alone – Jack Reacher lost some violence to drop from a 15 to a 12A. Woman in Black was a 15 that got trimmed down to a 12. Robocop & Total Recall, both originally ultra-gory 18s were re-made as 12As. Machete was an 18, Machete Kills – 15… I’m sure you get my drift

But it’s not all bad news. Nebraska last year should have been a 12A, but for the term C*cksucker being deliberately left in by the director – Alexander Payne, step up and receive your bravery medal. And then there’s Airplane! A film that has been a PG for over 20 years, but was recently has been uppded to a 12A for the sexual references – I guess I picked the wrong day to look up film certificates.

Where did all the brash, bold, action-packed, risqué, sexy, and ballsy film-making go? And why the fudge are the Jackass Movies all rated 18?!?!?!?!

Lessons Learned from Five Years on WordPress

September 25, 2014

24 Comments

Advice to aspiring (movie) bloggers.

For any readers thinking ‘this site is rubbish‘, ‘this guy knows nothing’, or ‘I’ve got loads of time to burn’, you may want to consider starting your own blog. The bottom line is that on WordPress it takes about 2 minutes, and it’s a brilliant way of making yourself feel important – “Yah, I run a Film Review website in my spare time, yah”. But before you dive at the deep end in – STOP! Think about the following…

Do you have enough spare time? Writing, re-writing, editing, pictures, and posting takes longer than you’d think, but that’s only the first part. You should also be reading, linking, and commenting on similar sites. Movie bloggers should join the LAMB, participate in Blogathons, and after a while start your own blogathons… If you’re wanting a decent level of traffic and interaction, you have to invest a lot of time.

So you’ve convinced yourself you want to be a blogger? Before you register, the next two things will be the biggest factors in your blog’s future; so don’t rush them.

It’s all in the name: ideally you want a unique and self-explanatory website title, with a matching URL. It also has to be memorable enough that fleeting visitors will be able to recall it and search for your site again. For me having “Film Reviews” in the title and URL works because it’s on several places in every page, which makes for some good SEO.

What’s your niche? Short articles? Long essays? Detailed analysis? Humour? Technical? Industry insider? Genre specific? Debate? A single country’s or region’s cinema? Pick a pigeonhole and stick to it. In my opinion, there are too many broad film review sites, all busting out generally similar reviews of the same films at the same time – the “one stop shop” market is packed. Pick a niche and fill the vacuum.

Once you’ve registered, here’s some more general advice gleaned from years with my nose stuck in the WP dashboard.

You’ve heard the hyperbolic cliché a bajillion times before; but content really is king. It’s your site: should be your content. There’s no point in regurgitating or aggregating stories & content from established movie news sites like IMDB / empire / SlashFilm… who themselves are constantly scanning studio, production and industry sites. Original articles, ideas, features, opinions and reviews will be why people tune in again and again.

Be patient. Don’t worry about your first few months; unless you can log some serious hours it will take a while to find your stride, hone your own style and work out how to best layout your website, widgets and articles themselves. It can take years for your stats to truly snowball, and for your site to build up a loyal readership & subscribers.

Be critical, keep reading/re-reading your articles – looking for mistakes, and areas of improvement. Comb through your stats and find out what’s driving people to your site, and what else is keeping them there. It could be a particular franchise, actor, or catchphrase – once you know, write more about it.

Be honest; a lot of movie reviewers seem to ‘go with the flow’ and mark a film depending on how it’s generally received. Don’t worry about being the stick in the mud, tell it like you see it and readers will genuinely respect you more, comment more, read more…

Watch a film just before you review it: remember how awesome you thought a film was when you were ten years old, drunk or stoned? (You’re a legend if it’s all three) Watch it again to make sure it’s still good and funny!

Review the movie, don’t re-tell the entire plot. This is easily the biggest and most infuriating mistake of many ‘review’ sites – a sentence or two should cover the plot, any more and you’re probably in spoiler territory. If you write a couple of paragraphs about the story, you’re being a dick.

Use the wider WordPress community. As mentioned above, join an index site like the LAMB and participate in as much as you can. Seek out similar, but larger and more successful sites and leave meaningful comments & links there – don’t spam the same comment on every article about a particular topic.

Posting semi-regularly; is far better than bunching reviews together. Start aiming for 2-3 posts a week to keep people interested and coming back to your site. The ‘schedule’ feature in WP is great, use and abuse it!

Pictures help: I went several years with no pictures, thinking short reviews were snappy enough. Now the site looks a lot slicker, and hits from image-specific search engines make up around 30% of all incoming traffic. Some pictures have more hits than the actual review of that movie.

Finally, some advice from one of Britain’s top film critics. The spectacularly quiffed Mark Kermode – as pointed out in his book The Good, The Bad and The Multiplex – lists five essential components to proper for any movie criticism (which applies to all writing)

Opinion
Description
Contextualisation
Analysis
Entertainment.

Most importantly, ENJOY BLOGGING This should be a fun hobby, not a chore. If you ever feel like you’re beginning to loathe writing, GET TO ZE CHOPPA and escape before it’s too late! It’s worth taking some time off to clear your head and put some good content together if you hit the wall.

If you’ve been mulling it over for a long time, the best advice I can give you is to start as soon as you can; you’ll wish you’d done it years ago.

9 More Running Gags from Archer/Archer Vice

September 10, 2014

LINK TO THE FIRST NINE BRILLIANT RUNNING JOKES!

3 Comments

Archer is one of those great shows where the more you watch, and re-watch it, the more you appreciate and pick up on the obscure and flat moments that you didn’t ‘get’ first time round. Here’s another list of even more recurring jokes that you’ll find in TVs greatest adult cartoon.

Kenny Loggins / Danger Zone – this fan favourite appears time and time again; mostly when a perilous mission is being described, or Lana’s feelings for Archer surface. Going beyond bad (and country) renditions of the 80s pop classic, it comes to a head in an episode where ‘K-LOG’ is the central storyline, but it all becomes a bit self-indulgent. Personal favourite. “I will hire Kenny Loggins to come here and play an acoustic set, while I slap some sense in to you”.

Boom… Phrasing – essentially the “that’s what she said”, of the show. Every time someone says anything that has even a fraction of innuendo (pretty much every second line) someone will inevitably shout phrasing – BOOM! Dropped in Season Five, as it was getting a bit too obvious when they were appearing. Favourite: Other Barry calling Phrasing on Barry “So tell Archer I’m coming for him, phrasing, boom, and both Barrys out! “

Smut – it’s far raunchier than most cartoons, and the cast doesn’t hold back with the x-rated running gags. There’s everything from inappropriate boners (favourite: “I love that I have an erection, that didn’t involve homeless people” – Kreiger), to arousal descriptions (favourite: “I swear to god you could drown a toddler in my panties right now” – Pam) and even the blackest of taboo, as Archer gets a stiffy at the thought of his dead mother – it’s wrong on soooooo many levels. Cheryl/Carol is also a one woman choke-fetish gag factory.

Tinnitus – every time there’s an explosion, or a grenade / gun goes off next to someone’s ear the aftermath is undoubtedly peppered with the affected character poking their ear(s) and shouting “Maaahhh” “Mahp”. Favourite: when Archer tries to bazooka the ISIS Armory Requisitions officer Rodney – it doesn’t end well.

Woodhouse – Archer’s long-suffering live-in man-servant is a great minor-character. For no reason whatsoever he is a heroin addict, WWII hero (arguably the original rampager) that collected Nazi scalps – he is also absolutely bursting with gay innuendo and British stereotypes. This is best displayed in the Tontine episode (“The Double Deuce”). Favourite, when Woodhouse learns what his fellow soldier naming his aeroplane “Choke and Stroke” really meant.

Bret Bunsen/Buckley – being a spy agency, every so often a gun will go off in the ISIS offices, and unfortunately mild-mannered clerk Brett usually ends up with a slug in him. Last count I did was six times – although I’m sure it’s probably higher. Season Five opens with Bret’s funeral – “he died doing what he loved – getting shot”. He also got the nickname “Mr Bloodmobile” because he lost so much blood, without ever bleeding out.

Grammar Nazi / Literary References – for a racy, adult style comedy one of the best, and most subtle, recurring jokes is that Archer is a complete book-and-grammar pedant;
– to whom,
– can’t or won’t
– literally and figuratively
– Irony lessons

Favourite: on being told that Animal Farm is a book “No, it’s not Lana. It’s an allegorical novella about Stalinism by George Orwell, and spoiler alert, it sucks”

Couldn’t hear you – even when you can clearly hear someone, it’s not uncommon for agents to bait each other by saying I Couldn’t hear you over the sound of… “… my giant throbbing erection”, “… me breaking your nose”, “… how awesome I am”, Favourite, the one time someone says “I can’t hear you over the sound of.. I genuinely couldn’t hear you” was so unexpected that I snorted.

Woooooooh! – any time Archer partakes in some high-adrenaline activity (or enters the Danger Zone) he will end up running into enemy fire laughing or shouting Wooooh.. Favourite: “he broke both of Wu’s arms; while shouting Wooo!”

And for anyone that doesn’t like Archer…. THIS

15 Questions Movie Meme

September 7, 2014

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Shamelessly stolen from Michael over at It Rains… You Get Wet.

1 – A movie you love with a passion

Oldboy: saw it in a tiny – practically empty – 50-seater screen [Aberdeen, Belmont Cinema] and just fell in love right there. It’s got plot, style, direction, acting, editing, originality, and groundbreaking themes that the re-make probably hasn’t touched with a bargepole: I’m not rushing to watch it! Such a fine example of original, bold, and brave film-making.

2 – Movie you vow to never watch

Don’t think I would purposely decide to never watch a particular film on grounds that it’s potentially bad (I’ve sat though old propaganda films, terrible B-movies, outrageous exploitation films with no problems), but you’d be hard-pushed to convince me to watch the High School Musical movies, or any of those “he/she dies of cancer at the end” manipulative sob-fests.

3 – Movie that literally left you speechless

Children of Men: My friend Spencer and I literally walked home slack-jawed, glancing at each other occasionally and muttering phrases like “No way”, “Holy shit” and “Fuck me” for 20 minutes after we left the cinema. Unbelievable, powerful film-making, paired with groundbreaking technical precision that should be watched big, loud and uninterrupted.

4 – Movie you always recommend

City of God: usually to people that haven’t yet been swayed to world cinema yet. My DVD of this has been continuously whored out for the past 5 years. Actually, I don’t even know where it is any more… Poor Rocket! Take that acclaimed coming-of-age crime film Gomorrah, turn that son-bitch sideways, and stick it straight up your candy ass!

5 – Actor / Actress you always watch no matter how crappy the movie

I try to catch as many Barry Pepper films as I can. For me, he’s one of American cinema’s unsung heroes, never the leading man, but always putting in a top shift, and connects with the audience so effortlessly. Jackie Chan too, although he’s done so many movies that it’s hard to keep tabs – and had a few ropy hollywood outings.

6 – Actor / Actress you don’t understand the appeal of

Zooey Deschanel: seems to have carved herself out as the go-to queen of the quirk. I cannot stand her cutesy, look at me, bug-eyed, big-fringed, dressed-like-a-tranny-from-the-1980s vibe. Arrested Development is Michael Cera’s get out of jail free card, or else he’d be cast off in the same boat.

7 – Actor / Actress, living or dead, you’d love to meet

See next question – LOL. Seriously, I’d love to sit down and have a few beers with Russell Crowe. Of all the egos, stars, and reported stories from behind the scenes, he’s been the most fun to follow through the years, and sounds like he’d be a great drinking buddy. It helps that he can act the pants off of most people too, at least when he puts his mind to it.

8 – Sexiest actor / actress you’ve ever seen

I have always exclusively reserved my Hollywood-wood for the lovely Gina Gershon (Those eyes! Those lips! That hair!) – she’s like an expensive whiskey that keeps getting better with age. Although recently I saw a few photos of Italian actress Sophia Loren and my life hasn’t been the same since. Too close to call. Maybe Lizzie Capplin, or Penelope Cruz. Toughest question on the list for sure.

9 – Dream Cast

The Good, The Bad & The Weird is as close to a ‘dream movie’ I’ve seen in real life. However, if I were a producer I would go for… Brian De Palma directing an international action-thriller with an ensemble including Javier Bardem, Jean Reno, Penelope Cruz, Barry Pepper, Moritz Bleibtreu, Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel – all in their prime.

10 – Favourite actor pairing

When Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) are in the same scene my telly, brain, and Marshall stiffy pretty much explode simultaneously. The back-and-forth banter between those two is some of the best-written TV out there, and the actor’s chemistry is sublime.

11 – Favourite movie setting

If I was living in a world where BASEketball or Death Race 2000 were actual sports I’d quit my job tomorrow. Being dropped into a Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie, MicMacs, Delicatessen) or Luc Besson (Fifth Element, Adele Blanc Sec, Angel-A, Nikita, The Last Battle) would be wildly entertaining, although I know for a fact that this is going to change when Snow Crash is finally made – come on Hollywood, pull your finger out!

12 – Favourite decade for movies

I think the 2000s is a tough decade to beat, so much emerging talent and superb movies. Probably helps that I spent most of the decade in front of a cinema screen.

Oldboy, Amores Perros, Mystic River, A Bittersweet Life, Children of Men, Kill Bill Vol 1, Together, No Country For Old Men, 3:10 to Yuma, Battle Royale, Memento, The Fall, Intacto, Infernal Affairs, The Woodsman, Bourne Ultimatum, District 9, 3-Iron, Brick, Eternal Sunshine, Primer, Lilya-4-Ever, In Bruges, City of God, Love Me If You Dare

13 – Chick flick or action movie

Action; every single time. I like the odd chick-flick now and again – Just Like Heaven, Princess Bride, SATC – but even the Mrs prefers a good old action-film over the chick-flicks.

14 – Hero, villain or anti-hero

Two words – James. Bond. Total hero.

15 – Black and White or colour

Colour for the most part. I’m not particularly adverse to black and white – it has its merits – but I’ll take ‘modern cinema’ every time over the classics. Imagine watching films like Volver, Scott Pilgrim, The Fall, Lego Movie, Kill Bill and Survive Style 5+ in monochrome / B&W… no chance.

Peep Show: Britain’s favourite comedy.

August 1, 2014

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As a British male under 40, there are very few things that unite almost everyone in this demography – a love for Peep Show, is one of those things. To those unfamiliar, it’s a British sit-com about two flatmates that uses First-Person (from the character’s perspective) viewpoints, and their stream-of-consciousness internal thoughts as part of the dialogue.

I remember being so confused the first couple of episodes – why is it filmed like this? Is he saying this out loud? WTF is going on? But when it clicks it’s seamless. (Not unlike Family Guy’s confusing jumping to unrelated events, timelines, and situations). Essentially, Peep Show is Being John Malcovich, but through the eyes of two atypical British guys.

Most of the comedy comes from the two central characters being wildly opposing personalities; and although they’re almost caricatures – we can all relate to a bit of each of them. One is an uptight, awkward, history boffin loan manager with confidence issues; the other is a happy-go-lucky, idiotic failed-musician / eternal waster. Naturally, these two try to help each other feel more normal, and hijinks / hilarity ensues. We love them because you hear what they think, which is usually what everybody thinks, but society says you shouldn’t say out loud – and you never hear on other shows.

What separates the Peep Show style of humour from other comedy series’ is that it’s so awkward & realistic – with some scenes being difficult to watch. The closest thing I can think of is that it’s a bit like Party Down but – being British – has more deadpan/reserved characters and less glamorous settings & scenarios: basically, everyone’s like Roman & Henry.

Although it isn’t quite as witty, or well-written, as shows like Arrested Development or Father Ted (the storylines are often a bit clunky) the charm of Peep Show is that it’s grounded, brutally honest and unfiltered – like your own thoughts. Because of this, it can stand proud alongside British TV Comedies like Fawlty Towers, BlackAdder, The Young Ones, The IT Crowd and Mr Bean. If anyone was interested in knowing what It’s actually like being awkwardly British in today’s world, take a look at this.

As a bonus, I’m from a Scottish City called ‘Aberdeen’, which is name-checked a disproportionately high number of times for a TV show (i.e. way more than once)

Why ‘The Good Wife’ is the best show on TV right now

July 25, 2014

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After five series’ (and renewed for a sixth) this show is obviously a big hit in the ‘States, but The Good Wife (TGW) in an unsung hero of the UK TV schedules – big props to Channel 4 and More4 for giving it a punt, and sticking with it. As a late-20s guy that loves Action & B-movies, It’s not the type of show I thought I’d like, but here’s a bunch of reasons that will hopefully convince you to give this a spin!

The Women: unlike 99% of other TV shows the main character is a strong, powerful, hard-working mother (don’t run away!). She’s written well, brilliantly acted, fleshed out, and what’s more – she’s surrounded by other equally capable ladies – Diane, Kalinda, and dozens of other minor, characters. It’s a sad time when around 50% of all movies fail the ridiculously simple ‘Bechdel Test’ – and ½ that pass do so by the skin of their teeth – but TGW puts women front and centre, making it a refreshing change.

The Tech: I work in IT and the tech in TGW never fails to amuse and impress, not just the kind of gadgets they use day-to-day – but the way in which cutting edge technology is often the centerpiece of a story arc, or the focus of a case. There are entire episodes based on Bitcoin, search algorithms, NSA surveillance, Reddit (Scabbit), Silk Road, drone murders, leaked documents, Anonymous, ISPs turning over IP addresses, memes, video game murders, and a recurring Google-esque client – ChumHum. You watch it and think “WTF TGW, this exact case was in the news last week!?!?” It’s easily the most tech-savvy show on the planet.

Major characters: Although Alicia is the eponymous Good Wife, there are around ten recurring characters that come in and out of the spotlight throughout the seasons. Kalinda Sharma, Will Gardner, Peter Florirck, Eli Gold, Diane Lockhart, Cary Agos, and to a lesser extent, the kids and grandparents. All of these enjoy a good share of screentime, character-building and season-spanning story arcs, that bring some much-appreciated depth to the cast – making them way more than “The husband”, “The Boss”, “The Competition”.

Minor and recurring, characters: arguably the show’s best feature is the ability to craft great minor characters with very little time. David Lee (Family Law!!) is one of the best lawyers on TV; Colin Sweeney is deliciously creepy; quirky lawyer Elisabeth Tasioni, politically incorrect Senior Partner Howard Lyman, the ever-scheming Louis Canning (Michael J Fox), promiscuous brother Owen, morally sound Clark Hayden, those are just off the top of my head. These characters – and many more – are so good that you cross your fingers every episode, hoping they re-appear and you get enough time to have a proper catch up with them.

The Judges: interestingly, the show has a small roster of regular judges, each with their own personality, leniency threshold, quirks, and history with Lockhart/Gardner. You find yourself thinking “un-ohhh, this is the strict Judge” or “Yeeess, this one fancies Alicia”, or “Is that in your opinion?” Technically another bunch of minor recurring characters, but they’re definitely worthy of their own spot on the list.

The main reason that all of these characters are awesome is that the casting for the show is phenomenal. I can’t think of a single actor who you could say was totally mis-cast. Re-inventing actors so inseparable from their big roles – Chandler Bing, Ugly Betty, Marty McFly – making them work alongside relatively unknown / under-rated actors. Someone somewhere has outstanding vision – like a Tarantino of the TV Sphere – making something special out of people with fairly unremarkable careers. It’s a true anomaly of TV. The guest appearances are also often surprising: Eddie Izzard, Method Man, Anna Champ, Sarah Silverman… it feels like everyone is lining up to appear in the show.

The Law: probably the most important aspect of a legal program – and not that I’m a qualified lawyer or anything – but it’s one of the few shows when the law is complex, believable, but still completely accessible (usually through some ‘approach the bench’ exposition). The show’s also not obsessed with Lockhart Gardner winning every case, and you sometimes see the flipside when they have to knowingly defend a guilty party… There’s so much fiery courtroom drama that you’ll soon find yourself walking around shouting phrases like Objection! Sustained! Over-ruled! Leading the witness your honour!! STRIKE THAT!! RECUSE YOURSELF!!!

The dynamics: it’s baffling that a show with such a super-broad appeal, and so many angles, still works this well. Ultimately, it appears to have been pitched at more senior viewers (median viewer age is 61 years old, and rising), yet it’s very tech-savvy and has a lot of explicitly gay/bisexual characters. It’s supposed to be about a lawyer, but that’s not even ½ of the runtime as family and politics feature heavily. It flips between serious drama, social commentary, and contemporary comedy so easily that it must be enviable to other show writers. You can watch the show as booth case-of-the-week, or appreciate the larger stories that bridge episodes and seasons. On paper it would look committee’d to death – a show that really shouldn’t work – but it’s a true anomaly.

it’s just a shame that the title is so bad. “The Good Wife” – bleurgh! It instantly repels most male viewers (probably wimin’ too); it’s just so frustratingly vague that anyone flicking through the TV Schedules could be forgiven for not giving it a second look. It could be a show about housewifery, it could be a melodramatic soap opera, hell – it could even be a softcore Movies For Men / Cinemax / Bravo style show.

TL; DR? Short Version: this is a peach of a show, and you should be watching it.

Paragraph Film Reviews Turns Five!

July 23, 2014

Mark ROFLO A list of the best search terms that landed people on this blog

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Last week I got a notification that Paragraph Film Reviews had made it to five years old – which officially makes this one of the few things I’ve stuck at for more than a week – joining the tiny list of playing Fifa Games and Guitars. To celebrate this I’ll be throwing up some longer features and articles over the next few weeks.

At the time of writing the site has 750 posts, 1,450 followers, 6,850 article shares, almost 2,000 comments, and (since stats began in 2011) hits from almost every country in the world – including a bunch I didn’t know even counted: New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Aland Islands, Eritrea, Benin, Belize, Martinique. Big shout out to the USA too, who make up twice as much traffic as my home country, the UK! Modest as they are, I never thought this tiny blog would ever get stats like that.

Regulars will notice that the site has slowed down a little, but I do intend keeping it up – I’ve recently moved to the Scottish countryside and got an awesome dog, leaving me with less time to write new content.

Thanks to everyone that’s visited, read, and commented on this site over the past five years – and to all of the other movie reviewers doing the public a solid by being a film blogger!

Hope to see you all around in another five years.

/Paul

My favourite posts from the past five years

My Big Fat Greek Vagina Wedding The ‘Vagina’ movie name game

The short-lived – but soon-to-be-returning – ‘Genius or Arse’ feature

Commentary on the fusion of Korean and Hollywood cinemas

Riki-Oh The Story of Ricky 4 Riki-Oh: Story of Ricky

Violence in cinema 02 Does the Film-maker have a moral responsibility?

Your favourite posts over the past five years (most hits)

Battle Recon: The Call to Duty

007 Albert R Broccoli Daniel Craig George Lazenby Ian Fleming James Bond January Pierce Brosnan Roger Moore Sean Connery Timothy Dalton James Bond January Intro / James Bond January Index

The nine best Running Gags in Archer

Films that defined us The ‘Films that Define us’ post

A Rant about The Only Way is Essex

Anti-Valentines Day Movies

Interview with The Film Program host Danny Leigh

GREATEST HITS: #SearchTermOfTheDay (Totally NSFW)

March 5, 2014

12 Comments

The awesome people that follow me on twitter will be familiar with #searchtermoftheday – a regular feature of the best searches that real people type in to real search engines, which (somehow) directs them to this site.

Unfortunately, Google have started encrypting their searches, meaning that the majority of search engine referrals are no longer known – so enjoy these while you can. Here are some of the greatest hits from the past few years. It should be obvious they they’re 100% genuine / real, because nobody could think them up…

Amusing / phrasing

devout ass
boobs all size abcdefgh
courtroom puns
stupid catface photos
movie with alot of action and tits
hats with special powers
james bond licensed chest wigs
unimaginable lust
Mark ROFLo
jackie chan asian?
skid marks + mtv room raiders
monkey is a good pet?
blowjobs please
the fighter ugliest cast ever
give me a parafraph about jesus was a commie
pancakes are fucking gay
massive fannies
midget mechanics
someone please explain tree of life
chick fights boobs everywhere
boys bumming each other

Stupid Questions:

is nude nuns with machine guns based on a true story
is maud adams nipple viewable in the shower scene in the man with the golden gun
who was the recurring irish contestant with mullet on x factor
where can i find the shake shack from the movie grease
nude nuns with big guns, whats the message behind the movie
how do adult film actresses perform ass-to-mouth sex?

Weirdly specific

cartoon images of men who is going through menopause
japanese naked women on salarymen’s desks
first experience of going to the cinema adult style
big bouncy tits shot full of bullets by zombies
old tv show where a man has two personalities in one hes an assigned killer in the other hes a loving husband
big fake titties, guns & manly shit that’s gonna piss your girlfriend off
“unique is young, full of energy and a bottom girl that loves big dicks on her men and the darker the better!”
write a short paragraph about your experience with your friend to go camping
adult foreign film from 1980s where fox hunters on horse back hunted nude women
the pornsite jay was using in the inbetweeners movie
My parents went to Miami and all I got was molested by my neighbor
cannibal story of young girls being fucked milked then gets crushed up

Saught-after celebrity body parts (these are around 40% of incoming hits):

pierse brosnan penis
pierce brosnan donkey shit
pierce brosnan doggy style
cybill shepherd ass pics
pam griers amazing booty
pam grier booty
teri hatchers tights
brandon quinn has 11 fingers?
bryan cranston‘s crooked teeth
ving rhames bulge
stephen hawking nude
bart simpsons willy
channing tatum disfigured penis
jason statham cock
fiona fullerton‘s nipples
michelle dockery‘s neck
penelope cruz labia
kirsten dunst in willies
robert sheehan‘s ass
vagina of kate winslet
robert de niro naked
alyson hannigan nipples
louise bourgoin sexy feet

Fetish / Sexy-to-someone / Fapping

womenpigsex
horse penis
dogporn film
upskirts vintage martial arts girls
sumo sex
huge monster dildo shop
unthinkable penis
xxx rat torture
vibrator fight
pointy tits
penis biting gore movies
bikini clad bitches playing chess
women pig sexual
mega fuck slut masturbator
lara croft bound and gagged
http://www.madogasex.com
classic porn movie with rose in pussy
batman and catwoman get busy
bondage chess
kate beckinsale tied up
bizarre bestiality productions
why wank with ham?
jock strap stories
needles in tits movies
“assassin” “porn” “silencer”
tall moustached transvestites
cool big semi trucks and hot chicks
bouncing round breasts in horror thriller film
babes on horseback
pterodectyl porn
guys with huge nipples
smurf sex

What are your best search terms? And why are some people still allowed online?!?!

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Prison Break (but were afraid to ask)

January 16, 2014

4 Comments

Last year Mr and Mrs Paragraph Film Reviews destroyed all 4-and-a-bit seasons of Prison Break on Netflix. While it’s faaaar too much for a single paragraph, below is a list of all thoughts and issues. BEWARE: This article contains some spoilers – so if you want to be cautious, skip to the final paragraph.

The Key Players

Michael Schofield: architect-turned-inmate with a ‘genius’ mind, but clearly has a learning difficulty of some sort as he he’s continually putting everything and everyone on the line for his absolute meathead of a brother. His role boils down to babysitting the other characters, and hundreds of close-ups of his shifty eyes & pretty fake-looking tattoos, whilst he incessantly muttering nonsense about how everything is always part of “The Plan”. The writers give him some of the most random illnesses, scenarios and backstories of the group. He’s also slowly inflating as the series tick by, winding up as a bit of a pie in Season 4.

Lincoln Burrows: Michael’s aforementioned meathead brother. Initially and indisputably THE worst actor in the cast, but unlike everyone else he doesn’t switch off by the end of S4, and slowly becomes one of the better actors. Lincoln is there to continually hit people, fight people, jeopardise/ruin ‘The Plan’ and generally be the total opposite of Michael. It’s like a casting agent didn’t have the budget for Henry Rollins, so just went to a LA gym, found a similarly-looking beefcake that had done some amateur dramatics and said “YOU’RE HIRED! Please channel the energy and charisma of a root vegetable into your character”.

Theodore Bagwell (T-bag): absolutely nailed by Robert Knepper: easily the best and most interesting / entertaining character in the show. Easily the best actor in the show. Gets all of the best lines, stories and memorable parts. Almost forgot to mention that T-BAG IS THE CENTRAL BAD GUY, AND A TOTALLY DESPICABLE PERSON. He’s genuinely creepy, has a sleazy physicality, disturbing accent, is a sex offender (and pedophile) with serious daddy issues – not to mention a white supremacist, murderer, rapist, necrophiliac, vile, unhygienic, and leaves a trail of bodies and devastation behind him. He even ends up with a freaky deaky plastic hand. How this can end up as the best character is a testament to Knepper doing a stellar job, and spectacularly shit writing of every other character. On the flip side he’s clearly smart, resilient, eloquent, and above everything else – a survivor, with a penchant for eating any clues that will keep him in the game. T-Bags is undeniably the best thing about Prison Break and will go down as one of my all-time favourite villains / characters.

Prison break tbags Robert Knepper Theadore Bagwell

Yup – that’s a motherfucking plastic hand!

Sarah Tancredi: Initially appears as a minor character / romantic sub-plot / the only girl in the show, but ends up in all kinds of trouble, so decides to join the outlaws, landing herself a Kim Bauer-esque role – perpetually in the shit, being kidnapped, tortured, killed, beheaded and resurrected all in the name of terrible writing. It’s a shame because in S1 she was actually pretty good (in a badly written but well acted kind of way), but by S4 and beyond she clearly doesn’t give a single shit about anything but the money. For some reason, every time she gets sexed up the writers made every guy she tried to seduce ABSOLUTELY REPULSED by her advances – felt a little sorry for SWC by the end of the show. See also – Prison Break: The Final Break.

Alexander Mahone: played by Will Fitchner, would have been one of the best characters… if he had something good to work with. In season 2 he’s a generic bad-cop / bent lawman, season 3 he plays a zombie/junkie with flashes of clarity and only really gets a chance to shine in the fourth series. It’s an interesting character arc, given that everyone else is either good or bad, but any attempt to pad out his story feels like necessity or afterthought, which is a shame, as he’s easily the most talented actor in the show.

Gretchen Morgan: remember Nina from 24; a femme fatale with a deadly set of skills and no conscience… Imagine someone gave that great character to a bad actor. The writers try their best to make her the ‘sexy chick’, but she’s the second manliest thing about the show after Lincoln. She also has the ridiculous task of being the face of ‘THE COMPANY’ for S3: the combination of a bad actor, playing a bad character with a bad plotline is just too much to handle.

Fernando Sucre: bum-chinned token Latino petty criminal with the best intentions but a very bad streak of luck, and some shitty family members. When Sucre isn’t telling us that he’s doing it all for MARIE-FUCKING-CRUIZ (about 20 times in every episode), he’s generally shouting hispanic insults at people interfering with the plan, and calling Michael Papi in every scene. Quite a flat character given the amount of screentime he gets, but he’s played well enough by Amaury Nolasco.

John Abruzzi: stereotypical Italian-Mobster boss, right down the greasiest hair in history, and a stupid religious breakdown. Despite being such a ridiculous character, the he’s played very entertainingly and almost knowingly ridiculous by Peter Stormare – which only serves to make his early-ish departure more frustrating than sad.

Brad Bellick: Fox River’s mad dog head guard with only one weakness – his mammy! Bellick’s story arc is the most varied of the cast: S1 Nasty Guard, S2 deputised bounty hunter, S3 prison bitch, S4 begrudging good guy. He’s another case of a baddie played well, making you really dislike him. My only problem was that for the whole story he is all about himself, but in his last scene he makes a sacrifice, which just isn’t Bellick.

JL (Lincoln Junior): If anybody was the true ‘Kim Bauer’ of the Prison Break universe, it would be LJ, a weak and feable character that’s always either on the run or being captured by pretty much any person with a weapon, or 1/2 brain. Ultimately he just whimpers, cries and apologises to everyone for getting into trouble, again, and again, and again.

Minor Characters

Paul Kellerman: an autonomous hit-man working in the FBI, for “The Company”. Doesn’t have a whole lot of range to cover, but is played well by Paul Anderson.

Charles Westmoreland: classic old-time, cat-loving, staying-out-of-trouble prisoner. Well played, but most notable for having the amazingly nerdy history of supposedly being the infamous DB Cooper.

Don Self, perhaps the worst-cast person in the show – nasally voice, non-intimidating, ginger-permed pansy of an FBI agent. Not impressed. Not scary.

Bill Kim: another terribly-cast government/FBI/Lawman body. Supposed to be intimidating and dangerous; looks like a school-kid in his dad’s suit.

Nika Volek – an eastern European stripper played by Holly Vallance. Clearly just there for ‘eye candy’ – shaky accent, but ultimately a bit of fresh casting.

Wyatt Mathewson: Season 4 company hitman, stoic but almost ‘Terminator’-esque in the things he does. Unrealistically brutal, and generally unbelievable in his style, method and ability to avoid detection (for a man-mountain of a guy).

Tweener: absolutely ridiculous white-rapper stereotype, who’s styled to look like a 90s boyband member. Shifty acting, but with such a crap character, it’s hard to say if it’s his fault, or the just a terrible character.

Writing and direction

There’s such an obvious distinction between the first two seasons and seasons 3 & 4. Series 1 is generally well-written, dramatic – and runs seamlessly in to Season 2, which has many well planned plot threads simultaneously running together for the duration. Then season three is born out of a ridiculously stupid twist in the last five minutes of S2, which feels like the ultimate tag-on to merely keep it all open-ended. The last 10 minutes of Season 3 also set up yet another season, which is infuriatingly bad – and short-sighted – writing for such a big show.

Season 1: THE ACTUAL PRISON BREAK! A season in which everything that can go wrong, does go wrong. Every single aspect of Michael’s ridiculously convoluted prison escape plan is jeopardised and strained to wring out the maximum tension. Most episodes revolve around obtaining an object or access to a part of the prison that is ‘VITAL TO THE PLAN’ – it takes 40 minutes of twists and turns, but the gang usually get their way. Turns out to be an interesting look at life on the inside. Things of note: stupid Taj Mahal sub-plot, toe amputation, pretend diabetes, about 40 people getting shivved, random Christianity conversion, horrific flashback filler episode for no reason, prison poker, random acts of origami.

Season 2: BAND ON THE RUN. The not-looking-like-a-Christian-rock-band-at-all “Fox River Eight” escape prison but now must survive in their various factions, all searching for DB Cooper’s money. In this season, every coincidence and bit of luck is cashed in by the writers. Out of the whole of America, separated characters end up bumping in to each other all of the time. This was probably the peak of the show, as it juggled several good stories with loads of characters doing their own thing and plenty action. Things of note: nobody sleeps, European Goldfinch dot net, cartels, terror-baths, electrocution, forced suicide, plane ride.

Season 3: SHIT, THE SHOW’S STILL CALLED “PRISON BREAK”, BETTER PUT ‘EM BACK IN A PRISON! Half of the crew are in Sona, a ridiculous guard-free prison, where the inmates self-govern the joint; looks like a 3rd world crack den. The rest of the team are on the outside either helping the plan, or being held as collateral (aka completely written out). Probably the most boring series, and was thankfully cut in half by the writer’s guild strike. Feels like a sloppy re-hash of everything from season 1.

Season 4: SCYLLA. Totally couldn’t be assed watching it by this point, but having sunk 55 episodes before it, there didn’t seem like much point in quitting. The actors’ disdain is there for all to see by this point – nobody seems to give a shit as the story spirals from the ridiculous to the completely retarded. Some of the throwaway lines are supermassive holes in the story – like “oh yea, those guys escaped from that maximum security prison when a fire broke out, OBVS!”. WTF?!? To substitute for everything being terrible the writers in as many gratuitous fights, gunfights, and action scenes as the budget will allow. Shocking TV, feels like a totally different show to the first few series.

Why WOULDN’T you photoshop faces inside a lady’s body?!

Prison Break – The Final Break: not being content with giving us a proper conclusion, wrapping up the entire story and showing us a ‘several years later’ scene at the end of S4, someone thought it would be a good idea to make a TV Movie. They found a single open-ended story from S4 (wasn’t difficult, there were about ten thousand) to milk, and boy, did they milk it. The long and short is that the love of Michael’s life – Sarah – has been put in to a sexy-but-dangerous women’s prison, and he needs to break her out. OMG, it’s like a role reversal!!! This is shockingly bad; from the women in prison angle, to the terribly acted lesbian inmates, to the whole cast not giving a shit, to the god-awful, rushed, final break. It was such a sour and cynical note to end what could have been a really good show.

Other things of note

Theme Song: has to be the most random, and ill-fitting piece of post-classical world music you ears will ever hear. Hints of Indian / Persian scales and singing, mixed over an orchestrated dramatic rhythm, and why not mix in a tad of dance beats at the end. I guess it’s fairly unique – but I have no idea what it has to do with the show.

Action scenes: for a show based on big set-pieces it handled human drama/action OK – but if you threw in cars, or anything on a remotely bigger scale the directors seemed to shit their pants and lose the ability to make sense of anything in front of the camera. Then the editing team had to cut the shit out of it, to make it more tense. End result – boring and/or incoherent car chases and shootouts every episode.

Stabs: In the middle of action scenes – when I assumed they’d break to adverts – a bizarre concoction of epilepsy triggering images, rapidly flash up on the screen to some loud, fast, panic-induing music that goes – DUN-DICKA-DICKA-DUN-DUN!!! Like every 5 minutes. For all +80 episodes!

The Verdict!

I’m amazed that Prison Break went on for as long as it did. I can only assume that it was filling a void in the schedules or something. My biggest issue is a tag-team combo of the most staggeringly shit casting I can remember seeing, combined with some of the laziest and dumb writing you could imagine. In the end, someone, somewhere managed to force 83 episodes out of Prison Break, and like an absolute sucker, I watched every single one. My advice would be to watch series one and two, then walk away while the going’s good.

2013-2014 & Housekeeping

January 13, 2014

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As I tried to compile a ‘Best of the year’ list from 2013 (previous ones here, here and here), I ended up with only two movies that were actually released in the UK last year: Alpha Papa – Alan Partridge, and Flight. All of the other high-scoring movies on this site were oldies.

Is it just me or did the studios fail to deliver last year? Almost everything I saw was middle-of-the-road; and most of the big films were re-boots, sequels, or disappointments. This led to me falling out of love with cinema in the second half of 2013; going from around 2 new releases a week, to one a month.

As a result, it’s made me think more about this site, and what I’m writing. From this month on I intend to be going back to this blog’s roots – loads more World Cinema, indie and B-movies. The ‘features’ were also the most popular articles of 2013 by far, so I will be doing more one-off non-review posts.

Here’s to 2014,

/Paul

JAPAN-O-RAMA

November 28, 2013

Features, Japan-O-Rama

15 Comments

This gallery contains 51 photos.

Konichiwa! Brief interruption from regular film reviewing schedule here. As mentioned earlier in the year, the ongoing JAPAN-O-RAMA feature I’ve been running – in conjunction with some of my favourite movie bloggers – was brought around after I booked a trip from Scotland to Japan. It’s been and gone, and I’m not even going to …

KOREAN INVASION!!! (Of Hollywood)

July 30, 2013

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Since I started this site I’ve been bleating on about how much I believe that Korea is one of the strongest film industries in the world regarding the actors, directors and the canon of associated staff that it takes to produce world-class, top-notch films. It looks like Hollywood is finally catching up, recognising this talent, inviting the cream of the crop over to tinsel town. Here’s a list of my favourites that have made the jump, so far…

Director – Park-Chan Wook (박찬욱): easily Korea’s most famous cinematic export, and firmly established as one of the world’s greatest directors with over a decade’s worth of acclaimed movies, including; Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK, and Thirst. His trademark style? Meticulous direction, spellbinding visuals, powerful storytelling, and often violent & disturbing subject matter. When Hollywood came a-knockin’ he managed to get Nicole Kidman, Jacki Weaver, and Tony & Ridley Scott involved in his first English-language movie – Stoker, which was well-received.

Actor – Lee Byung-hun (이병헌;): top of the K-actor pack in my books. He’s starred in some of the biggest and best Korean movies of all time: JSA: Joint Security Area, A Bittersweet Life, The Good The Bad The Weird, and I Saw The Devil. Has recently brought his Asian clout to Hollywood as ‘Storm Shadow’ in the past 2 GI Joe movies, and will appear in RED 2 this summer. He can do everything from rom-coms, to flawed heroes, to villains, and his 20-year career’s been so strong that he has his own Wiki page just for awards and nominations.

Director – Kim Ji-Woon (김지운): another director running with a hot streak of impressive movies: A Tale of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life, The Good The Bad The Weird, and I Saw The Devil. For his debut American production he managed to cast Arnold Schwarzenegger (and coax arguably one of his best performances after a long line of duffers), Forrest Whitaker, Eduardo Noriega, Peter Stromare, and the prolific Luiz Guzman. While it was not on the same level as his national works, The Last Stand far outshone Sylvester Stallone’s attempt at a similar genre movie – Bullet to the Head.

Actress – Bae Doona (배두나): Breaking out internationally in Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, and later The Host & Air Doll, Bae was picked up by the Wachowski brothers for Cloud Atlas, for which she was unanimously praised, sealing her a place in their next film, Jupiter Ascending.

Actor – Rain (Jung Ji-Hoon, 비): broke through with I’m A Cyborg, but That’s OK – and immediately jumped over to star in both Speed Racer and Ninja Assassin. Hasn’t done much since, but that’s OK too, because he’s also a singer, songwriter, dancer and model.

Director – Bong Joon-ho (봉준호): despite having less films than the previous two directors, they still pack a punch: Memories of Murder, The Host, and Mother, all being successful exports. Bong’s next film is the much-anticipated sci-fi thriller Snowpiercer, starring Chris Evans, Jamie Bell John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Ed Harris, and…

.. Actor – Song Kang–ho (송강호): One of the most watchable and charismatic actors in Korea today, he has a magnetism that can only be described as ‘star power’ and a range that most actors can only dream of. Appearing in many of Koreas biggest movies: Shiri, The Quiet Family, JSA Joint Security Area, Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, The Good The Bad The Weird, and Thirst – I’m excited to see that Bong Joon-ho has pulled him across the Pacific.

As you can tell, it’s quite a tight and incestuous list, as the great combinations of elite directors and actors stick together, to create world-class film after world-class film.

But have they been good Korea moves for those involved? (Sorry, had to put that in) You could argue that something is being lost in translation, as the two released directorial efforts, although strong, aren’t on the same level as their previous works, and the actors, despite being in some big roles, are usually word-shy, or over-dubbed in post-production. To that, I would say… so what? Let’s throw Nolan, Scorsese, Bale, Fassbender and Streep into South Korea and make them do a Korean film, speaking Korean, and see how that sits with a completely different culture!

Remember this flag, as it may – someday – replace The Hollywood Sign!

Although it’s quite a recent trend, and a fairly short list in the grand scheme of things, I hope that this cross-pollination of talent continues, and shines a bright light on everyone’s previous – overlooked – work in K-Cinema.

Note: there’s a load of Korean Born / Korean Descendent actors that have spent the majority of their life working and acting in America like Rick Yune, Ken Jeong, Sandra Oh, C.S. Lee, John Cho, Sung Kang, Daniel Dae Kim and so on… but to include them would be cheating.

Barb Wire

July 2, 2013

7 Comments

This post is part of the The 5 Obstructions Blogathon over at MyFilmViews; a series where Nostra challenges film reviewers by issuing limitations and rules for five film reviews over five months. The first month’s challenge is to “write a positive review of a movie you don’t like, or write a negative review of a movie you love.” Here goes.

Barb Wire: It’s 2017, the 2^nd American Civil War rages on – this film shows how everyday people struggle to make ends meet – by mixing lapdancing and bounty hunting. When people talk about culturally important movies you never hear Barb Wire – this pisses me off. This story is a re-telling of one of cinema’s finest: Casablanca, which sets a high bar for this film – although Barb Wire vaults over that daunting monument with ease. Pamela Anderson, bounces seamlessly from TV and into the movies, cashing in on her trademark look – and transforming herself into a cinematic icon with bodacious curves, blonde hair, skimpy leather outfits and gallons of water for that signature ‘wet look’. The director further complements this by making every single shot about her (and ensuring she flashes a tit every 10 minutes) – not to mention casting Pam as the only sexy person in a world full of freaks and mutants: she truly stands out, and delivers her lines with the cold, jaded authenticity of a bounty hunter that really has seen the horrors of war first hand. She’s supported by some big names, including Udo Kier, Xander Berkley, and Steve Railsback – not to mention a talented Bon Jovi lookalike – who all fit right in with this calibre of movie. The movie is crammed with bold striking imagery and iconography, creating a totally believable futuristic landscape by fusing together the visuals from distinctive eras like WWII, the American Civil War, and Cyberpunk classics, which are expertly stitched together with a Noir look and feel. Despite being 1996, this has the explosions and action of an 80s blockbuster. Barb Wire is a film that has it all: a sexy, dangerous leading lady, on-form supporting cast, action, plot, direction, and most of all re-watch-ability. A criminally overlooked studio classic that will hopefully be seen for the cultural masterpiece that it is within my lifetime.

Score: 9/10
Real score: 1/10

Expendables 3 cast (what I’d like to see)

June 10, 2013

4 Comments

To me, The Expendables movies are fantastic. Over-the-top action films in the vein of 1980s classics had all but died out, limited to the archive of that decade’s finest genre movies. Then Stallone came along and said “hrmmph hrm hrm mph mphm hmmmmmm ranmhnhmnh mmmpphhhhh” (Translation: “Fuck it, I’m going to make more ridiculous action films”)

“hrmmph hrm hrm mph mphm hmmmmmm ranmhnhmnh mmmpphhhhh”

These films let action fanboys like me re-live our youth, watching Arnie, Willis, Stallone, Noris, and other legendary action stars shot bad guys with big guns, blow up pretty much everything blow-upable, drive vehicles into things and generally cause as much havoc as the budget will allow. But there’s one crucial element missing from these films… they only focus on the good guys.

The 80s action era was the perfect breeding ground for some of cinema’s most dastardly, evil and often ridiculous bad guys, mega-villains and henchmen.

Bolo Yeung: this guy is my favourite baddie ever. He’s menacing, he’s ruthless, never plays fair, and best of all, he has a huge physical presence and one of those faces that he can make look so, so evil.

Alan Rickman: respected thesp and hands down one of the best actors still around, yet was he ever really as good (or memorable) as the German terrorist Hans Gruber?

Gary Busey: that rubber face, that crazy blonde ‘haircut’, that shit-eating grin, those wildly colourful shirts… Gary Busey was born to play bad-guys.

Dolph Lundgren: sure, he’s OK as a good guy in the films at the moment – but he’s got a face that looks like he’s been pillaging random Asian villages for the past 30 years.

Kurtwood Smith: pretty much famous for playing the nasty and crazy Clarence Boddicker in Robocop, but what a villain he was. Outrageous, and would love to even see a glimmer of something like this again.

Vernon Wells: again, a one-trick pony, but Bennett from Commando is the ultimate in camp-classic baddie – a ridiculously out-of-shape guy with a chainmail vest that was supposed to be John Matrix’s equal! LOLZ!

So far, as someone who still gets warm, nostalgic and starstruck seeing the biggest names in action cinema literally coming out of retirement, the only way that this franchise could be any better would be with a stronger emphasis on the bad guys.

Nicolas Cage, Jackie Chan, Mickey Rourke all confirmed, and Statham, Eastwood, Snipes, Harrison Ford & Mel Gibson all rumoured to be in talks, the cast is looking stellar – throw in a couple of the guys mentioned above and it could become the greatest movie of all time!

Expendables Review

Expendables 2 Review

The 9 Best Running Gags in Archer

May 21, 2013

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For those that don’t yet know about this piece of TV gold, Archer is a smart, fantastically written, genuinely funny and raunchy animated adult comedy. It follows the world’s deadliest secret agent, Sterling Archer – a James Bond parody – at his mother’s spy agency ISIS. The show has the advantage of combining two great genres: mixing the world of ‘spy parody’ with ‘workplace comedy’ – and trust me when I say that fans of either genre should be watching this.

Like any other comedy worth it’s salt, there’s a long list of running gags and references that hardened fans will pick up, adding a much deeper appreciation. Here are my favourite gags:

1) Cyril’s welcome: Every time the ISIS sex-addict accountant-turned-field-agent Cyril is caught in a compromising situation he lets out the most innocent and child-like ‘Helloooo’. He even gets to say “Olllaaaaaa” when he gets caught in a Mexican quandary.

2) Lana’s Yep / Nope: The pronunciation (and frequency) of these two words uttered by Lana are so infectious that they will soon creep in to your everyday vocabulary. By the time season 3 rolls round it’s a full on catchphrase. It’s never a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ with her, but an attitude laden YUUUUUUP or NOOOOOOPE.

I’m not a serial killer…

3) Krieger: there are too many standout krieger moments to warrant picking one out – his elaborately pimped out vans are ridiculous, he has a manga girlfriend who’s beamed from a projector, and so many grim and sinister ‘scientific’ projects that are always going wrong – he is easily the darkest aspect of the show.

4) Do you want ants? Every time a piece of food is dropped on the ISIS carpet someone makes a remark about getting ants. It starts as a throwaway line, but is mentioned frequently enough to beome an in joke. It’s so ridiculous and out-of-place that it gets you every time – “We might as well just start an ant farm”

5) Lana’s Hands: Poor Lana. Despite being one of the hottest cartoon ladies ever drawn (is that OK to say?) everyone comments on her man / shovel / yeti / monster / cricket bat hands. Any time she touches someone these are likely to be brought up – even though they look completely normal. Poor Lana, although she doesn’t help herself by using them to death-grip her colleagues.

6) Archer / Barry rivalry: the relationship between Archer and his nemesis Barry, from ISIS competition ODIN, is so twisted and bitter that it has to be laughed at. Archer has dropped Barry from a great height (twice) and broken up his engagement, to which (Bionic and / or Other) Barry has returned the favours.

7) Malory Archer: aside from the fact that not even she knows who archers father is (could be one of five men) Malory appears to have slept with almost every male character, from ex-colleagues through to Burt Reynolds. She’s also the, most stubborn, alcoholic and least PC character, continually spouting the most risqué and offence-courting dialogue.

8) Passwords: working in IT, this is particularly funny to me because it’s so close to the truth, yet played for laughs in the show. Every password to every database and ‘mainframe’ computer in the whole of ISIS is ‘GUEST’.

Archer 09 - Phone Elaborate Voicemail Prank Ringtone Mullato Butts

BOOM! Birthday Voicemail!

9) Archer’s Phone: a double-header: firstly, he has the most elaborate voicemail pranks you could imagine, some spanning +30 seconds, and usually aimed at his mother. He also has a completely awesome, but totally unexpected ringtone (Mulatto Butts) going off at the most inappropriate moments of his covert operations.

Of course, there are dozens of other jokes and smaller characters that keep re-appearing. Archer’s childhood flashbacks, and his obsessions with rampages, Lacrosse, turtlenecks/tactlenecks, significant historical names, and cars. Pam “Shit Snacks” Poovey as the shockingly incompetent, badass and blabermouth HR manager. Cheryl / Carol “You’re not my supervisor!” Tunt as the glue-eating choke fetish secretary. Archer’s life-long live-in male servant Woodhouse, and all of his innuendo & heroin. The ever disabled / able ‘Gay’ Ray Gillett. Brett “gunshot wound” Buckley, ODIN Boss Len Trexler, Nikolai Jakov (Khhheeaadd ov Kay Gee Bee) and so forth. Put all of these individual elements together and you have an unmissable comedy show.

Event Cinema: The Room

April 22, 2013

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The Room: 10 years after it was released, this has become the greatest cult film of our time. In the UK there are currently two (very well-worn) 35mm prints that endlessly tour the country, hopping from one independent cinema to the next. These screenings however are like no cinematic experience you could ever imagine. Remember the established Cinema Code of Conduct that us hardened movie goers live by… bin it.

Aberdeen’s Belmont Cinema showed this for the first time in over a year, late last Friday night. Upon entering this screening, there was a very unusual atmosphere. Dozens of people were grasping handfuls of white plastic spoons, which rattled throughout the movie like background chatter, people dressed in over sized suits / tuxedos with shaggy black wigs and shades (inside a darkened theater), American footballs being thrown around – crashing against the odd unsuspecting head, and a whole lot of shouting, heckles and laughter. The cinema was absolutely buzzing and the lights hadn’t even gone down yet.

The origins of the movie are equally unique. It started off as a failed play, then an unpublishable book, before Tommy Wiseau (above) decided to turn it in to a film that he would star in, write, produce, direct, cast and distribute himself – to keep artistic control, of what is easily one of the worst vanity projects in human history. Initially flopping on its small release, it quickly built up momentum on the midnight movie circuit in America and has been screened all over the globe for the past ten years.

The film itself is absolutely god-awful: I’ve seen movies made from editing several separate films together to try to make a single narrative that have worked better (and made more sense) than this. The acting is absolutely tragic. The script feels like it was written by a nursery class. Characters just walk into a scene, spit some melodramatic lines, then walk off, often to never re-appear. There’s next to no continuity in any of the scenes. I genuinely don’t think anyone could make a film this bad, no matter how hard they tried. It’s a crashing car that flips for 99 minutes.

Yet it’s this level of previously uncharted terribility that makes the experience of seeing the room like no other. Nobody’s there to watch it, they’re all there to enjoy it. I’ve seen 1-2 films a week for the past fifteen years and can only remember a handful of standout cinema visits: James Bond opening nights, birthday trips, first-dates etc… All of these pale in comparison to the thrill of watching The Room in a sold-out theater with die-hard fans and wide-eyed first-timers.

As a movie-going experience The Room is fascinating, electrifying, unique, but above all else – stunningly entertaining. Everybody was grinning ear to ear for the duration. It got a King’s Speech style standing ovation at the end, more laughs than Anchorman, more whoops than Rocky and more audience participation than a sing-a-long Broadway show. To watch a download on your laptop, or a DVD in your front room would kill the very essence of the film. If you ever get the chance to see this in a cinema you have to cancel any weddings, funerals, graduations, anniversaries and buy yourself a ticket.

Film score: UNRATABLE

Experience: UNMISSABLE

Audience participation checklist for a screening of The Room.

Spoons: the main room in the movie has far too many framed pictures of spoons. Every time one of them hits the screen the audience loses their shit, yells “SPOOONS!!!” and a torrent of white plastic cutlery is thrown towards the screen. It’s like the arrow scenes from The 300… hundreds of white streaks flying overhead. Happens around a dozen times and never gets boring. Fact: it took 3 people +90 minutes to pick all the spoons up after the screening (remnants pictured left)

Hi / Bye!! when any central character enters of leaves a scene everyone hollers “Hi Denny / Bye Denny” in an eerily sincere manner, whilst waving at the screen. The exception being that when Lisa appears she’s greeted with Boooos, hissses and quick-fire bursts of the word ‘SLUT!’.

San Francisco: between most scenes there are establishing shots of San Francisco. Alcatraz, steep hills, trams, iconic houses and the Golden Gate bridge. Any time these appeared the audience yells “Meanwhile, in San Francisco”.

Go! Go! Go!: in any above mentioned establishing shots that are slow-pans the audience claps, stamps, and yells “go, go, go’ for the duration.

Chicken dance: there’s at least three times when a character is called out for being a chicken, and the people in the room burst in to an Arrested Development style ‘CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP’ with flappy arms. Naturally, everyone in the cinema does this too.

Sex Scenes: for a 99 minute movie, there’s at about five lengthy sex scenes – two of which are the exact same footage. Cue lighters in the air, yells of “bewbs!!!!”, and synchronised hand-clapping to the awful romance music. Of all the Men and Motors, Bravo and Babestation nudity you’ll have ever seen in your life, nothing compares to the cold, awkward, physically impossible, ass-bearing, petal-blowing ‘sex scenes’ of The Room.

American Football: about every 20 minutes, for no reason, characters start tossin’ a pig skin around. Guess what everyone in the theater starts doing…

General, infamous, dialogue: You know when these are coming because the die-hard fans will hush the screen in to silence in the run up to some of the best and worst delivered lines in cinematic history. “Oh hi Mark!“, “YOU’RE TEARING ME APART LISA!!!”, “I got the results of the test back – I definitely have breast cancer“, “anyway, how’s your sex life?“, “She’s showing everybody me underwears“, “Leave your stupid comments in your pocket”, “Well we’ll Seeee, Denny, don’t plan too much, it may not come out right”… Every line was followed by an uproar of laughter, yelling and cheering.

There’s nothing else left to say other than seek this out and see it as soon as you can.

Event Cinema: The Dark Knight Trilogy

April 2, 2013

4 Comments

What makes a movie going experience unique? In the age of Blu Rays / high-definition torrents, and bargainous HDTVs / home cinema kits it’s becoming easier and more affordable to get a totally immersive film-viewing experience at home. To combat this and keep the footfall in the foyers cinemas are having to go above and beyond the standard experience. My local independent – Aberdeen’s cherished ‘Belmont Cinema‘ – has just screened back-to-back showings of the Dark Knight trilogy (all 7hrs 34min!), and although you can pick up the box set for under £30, the event was packed full of things that no amount of money or equipment can replicate.

With films this big there’s absolutely no denying that they’re best viewed in a proper auditorium. Christopher Nolan’s unmistakable eye-opening wide-angle style which is intentionally shot on celluloid for maximum effect; Wally Pfister’s I-MAX cinematography, Hanz Zimmer‘s deep brassy orchestrated scores, the pounding sound effects & sound editing, million dollar stunts, props and CGI… Sure, they all look fantastic on Blu Ray, but when you see them thrown up on a cinema screen and pumped out through a Dolby SR amp/speaker kit – the effect is nothing short of phenomenal.

DARK KNIGHT COSPLAY COSTUMES, CATWOMAN BATMAN, BRUCE WAYNE, Selina Kyle, The Cat

Batman and Catwoman: guardians of… the auditorium!

Beyond mere technical details there was an atmosphere in the theater that you don’t see often, and definitely couldn’t replicate at home: staff and punters dressing up as their favourite characters from the series (and further back down the Batman franchise), hardcore comic fans ‘nerding out’ in the foyers, people shouting out the big lines of dialogue – and particularly in the first two movies – there’s a lot of humour that really falls flat when you watch it on your own.

Add to this that the staff had gone out of their way to ‘make a day of it’, including an in-character Batman – with the voice – for the duration, special food/drinks promos, cosplay competition, a riddler quiz with awesome prizes, and giving everyone a goodie bag on the way out – it really did make the experience feel unique, and elevated it far beyond the scope of any regular visit to the movies. It also made the 1pm-10pm shift fly by.

I believe that the variety and novelty of screenings and events like this will become a larger part of remaining cinema’s revenue, and Aberdeen’s Belmont Cinema is putting a lot of effort in to such programming. At Christmas there was a festive Die Hard screening, a 90s Action Classics season has just wrapped up (Matrix, Total, Recall Con-Air…) and coming up there’s a special screening of the notorious ‘The Room‘, a Wes Anderson retrospective, and one-off re-releases of cult cinema favourites such as The Princess Bride and the ABCs of Death – to name but a few!

Seeing the films together in one sitting also helps pull the story together, with a lot of detail slipping through the cracks of the three, and four year gaps in theatrical releases. More than anything, it’s a glowing testament to Nolan as a director: he has made three very individual, stand-alone movies that will appeal to general punters, whilst having enough detail and plot threads to make them a proper trilogy, AND appease hardened Batman fanboys.

DARK KNIGHT COSPLAY COSTUMES The Joker, Harley Quinn, Henri Ducard, Ra's al Ghul, Catwoman, Batman The Riddler, Robin

The staff really made the day, and led by example with their awesome costumes.

REVIEWS

Batman Begins (Review) – perhaps a little harsh on it, but the one that benefited the most from a proper theatrical viewing. It’s funnier with a crowd, and the ‘filler’ is more necessary when viewed as part of the entire trilogy. Overall, it’s an interesting examination of fear – last-minute cameo from Katie Holme’s nipples. Trilogy score: 7/10

The Dark Knight (Review) – the closest thing to a Bond film that Nolan has done. Travel, big stunts, cooler gadgets (and quips about them), peril, awesome villain – it feels in parts like Nolan was using this as a CV. SOMEONE PLEASE LET HIM DIRECT A BOND FILM!! Still awesome. Trilogy Score: 8.5/10

The Dark Knight Rises (Review) – less action, and a whole lot of plot to wrap up the trilogy. Still massive voice issues with Bane – I think my biggest gripe is that unlike the other sound like their being recorded on set, Bane’s booms from all speakers – giving him a bizarre omnipotence. The tone and accent are far too silly for such a bad badass. Still, great way to cap off one of cinema’s best Trilogies. Trilogy Score: 7.5/10

JAPAN-O-RAMA!!!!

March 6, 2013

Features, Japan-O-Rama

8 Comments

VIEW ALL JAPAN-O-RAMA POSTS

Having just booked a trip to Japan for this summer I’ve decided to use it as the perfect opportunity to watch the huge pile of Japanese movies I’ve been slinging into my cupboard for the past 10 years.

Japan’s culture has always been absolutely fascinating to me, particularly their cinematic output – or at least what we can get our hands on in the West. Many of the Japanese films I’ve seen are easily among the most eclectic I’ve seen when it comes to both style and subject matter, and it’s probably the only country where Yakuza, Ninjas, Robots, Monsters, Samurai and Martial Artists appear to be fairly ‘mainstream’ movies.

For the next 6 months I’ll be consuming and reviewing all of the major genres and themes that have defined Japanese cinema on the world stage: 1950s Samurai Epics, J-Horror of the 2000s, 80s/90s Sci-Fi & Cyberpunk, 4 decades of Yakuza flicks, Monster Movies and some of the most bizarre and unique one-off films the country has to offer. The viewing list is fairly big, but a list as varied as: Branded to Kill, Wild Zero, Zatochi, Babycart (Lone Wolf and Cub), Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Ichi the Killer, Seven Samurai, Tokyo Story, Tetsuo: Iron Man, Tokyo Gore Police, Tokyo Decadence, Lady Snowblood, Godzilla – to name but a few.

I’ll also take a look at how Japan (and East Asia) has been portrayed in Western movies over the years, which hasn’t always been positive; bringing to mind things like the fairly racist stereotypes like Mr Yunioshi from Breakfast at Tiffany’s (played by a caucasian – not uncommon), everyone as a Yakuza (Black Rain), student nerds (almost every high-school film), exotic and erotic females and so on. I can barely think of a single Japanese character in a major Hollywood film that wasn’t nerdy / socially inept / over-disciplined / tech savvy / submissive etc.

As always, I’m happy to take on any film suggestions providing I can get my hands on it easily enough. Also happy to team up with other bloggers, publish some guest reviews, collaborations etc – so please get in touch if you’re interested!

Cheers, and I hope you enjoy it.

/Paul

Current reading: Battle Royale – 13 Assassins – Sukiyaki Western Django – Gozu – The Machine Girl – Survive Style 5+ – Tokyo Zombie – 20th Century Boys – Hana-Bi – Versus

Interview with Danny Leigh

February 7, 2013

2012 Review

January 12, 2013

2 Comments

Another year, another film review site and another list of the films that are worthy of another mention. The stinkers aren’t so well-represented this year due to a more rigorous selection process.

The Best:

THE RAID REDEMPTION gareth evans iko Uwais Joe Taslim Donny Alamsyah Yayan Ruhian Pierre Gruno Tegar Setrya Ray Sahetapy kick ass action film fighting scene machete watch stream

The Raid: Action! Action! Action! Action! Action! Fight! Action! Explosion! Action!

End of watch Jake Gyllenhaal Michael Peña Natalie Martinez Anna Kendrick David Harbour Frank Grillo America Ferrera Cle Sloan Cody Horn

End of Watch: hands-down my favourite cop movie ever.

The Descendants Alexander Payne George Clooney, Shailene Woodley, Judy Greer, Beau Bridges, Nick Krause, Amara Miller, Matthew Lillard, Robert Forster, Rob Huebel

Descendants: watched it twice now, same impact both times. Great acting.

Headhunters: dark Scandy thriller that’s better than all of the Dragon Tattoo films. Bleak but funny.

Skyfall 05 Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem, Judi Dench, Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Rory Kinnear, Ola Rapace, Ben Whishaw

Skyfall: The best ‘film’ featuring James Bond, but not 100% true to the ‘Bond Film’ formula.

Cabin in the Woods: an absolute treat for horror fans.

The Expendables 2 Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Chuck Norris, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, Liam Hemsworth, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger

Expendables 2: stop judging me. Bigger, better, louder, wilder, explodier, ridiculouser…

Goon Seann William Scott, Liev Schreiber, Jay Baruchel, Marc-Andre Grondin, Allison Pill, Eugene Levy, David Paetkau, Kim Coates, Richard Clarkin

Goon: Inde-spirited sorts comedy that’s sweary but funny.

21 Jump Street: Much funnier than it had to be. Tatum out-comedies a comedian. FUCK YOU SCIENCE!

Reykjavík-Rotterdam Contraband Baltasar Kormákur, Ingvar E. Sigurðsson, Lilja Nótt Þórarinsdóttir, Þröstur Leó Gunnarsson, Victor Löw, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson, Jörundur Ragnarsson, Óskar Jónasson

Reykjavik-Rotterdam: Re-made by Hollywood as “Contraband” the original was far, far superior.

Stinkers:

Keith Lemon The Movie Bang Tidy Smash your back doors in ooooosh

Keith Lemon: the Film: or more accurately – Keith Lemon: possibly the Worst Film Ever.

The Master Turkish Poster Joaquin Phoenix Philip Seymour Hoffman Amy Adams

The Master: not the worst of the year by a long shot but given the director and cast, a major letdown.

Killing Them Softly: dry, boring, slow, offensive, predictable, unoriginal, forgettable.

Piranha 3DD: How could you take a film full of nudity, violence and babes, yet make it this boring?

Best of the rest:

Blow Out: De Palma giving us a seemingly effortless masterclass in direction, storytelling and drama.

Super Rainn Wilson Ellen Page Liv Tyler Kevin Bacon Nathan Fillion Michael Rooker Crimson Bolt Boltie

Super: a love/hate film that hit all of the right chords with me. Shut up, Crime!

Kill List, Neil Maskell, Michael Smiley, MyAnna Buring, Emma Fryer

Kill List: Intense, claustrophobic, edgy, black thriller.

The French Connection: more than just the legendary car chase – all killer.

Battle Royale: Never gets old, never gets boring. Hunger Games = Battle Royale with Cheese.

3 Iron, Korea, Jae Hee, Lee Seung-yeon, Kim Ki-duk

3-Iron: strange but endearing Korean offbeat love story.

Buried Box Ryan Reynolds Coffin José Luis García Pérez Robert Paterson Stephen Tobolowsky Samantha Mathis Erik Palladino

Buried: Coffin. Phone. Zippo. 1 Actor. Brilliant film.

Heat 02 Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Danny Trejo, Kevin Gage, William Fichtner, Jon Voight, Hank Azaria, Natalie Portman, Dennis Haysbert, Mykelti Williamson

Heat: Can’t go wrong with this epic cops ‘n’ robbers story – genre defining.

Anvil Story of Anvil Steve Lips Kudlow Robb Reiner Sal Italiano

Anvil: Story of Anvil (Doc): Absolutely heart-warming doc that happens to be about a metal band.

The Good Wife Season series 3 finale diane lockhart alicia florick eli gold will gardner kalinda sharma david lee Derrick Bond Wendy Scott Carr Julius Cain Luis Canning Cary Agos Zachary Grace

The Good Wife (TV): Another storming series.

Justified (TV): Series 3 is among the best TV I can remember watching. S1 & S2 also great.

Awake Jason Isacs Laura Allen Steve Harris Dylan Minnette BD Wong Wilmer Valderrama Cherry Jones Laura Innes Daniela Bobadilla Penguin

Awake (TV): one-off cop drama about a cop with two lives, unsure which is the dream.

2011 in review
2010 in review

Brave (Guest Post)

June 27, 2012

4 Comments

This one’s from Bubbawheat / Nathan over at Flights, Tights and Movie Nights;a site that you should most definitely check out if you love superheroes! Comics, TV, Movies and Games – everything’s fair game and no page is left unturned. Like every professional blogger – he’s on Twittah too. Click click

Brave: A Scottish princess with a shock of red hair has a strained relationship with her overbearing mother who wants her to marry to one of the other heads of the kingdom, but she ends up seeking help to change her fate in a way that she would never expect. As with all of Pixar‘s recent movies, the animation is absolutely gorgeous, from the breathtaking scenery to the wild and bouncy hair of the main character Merida. The story isn’t something exactly new however, how many times has there been a princess that is supposed to marry for political reasons while she wishes to marry on her own terms instead. There is a bit of a surprising magical element to the movie which is reminiscent of another Disney movie, which I won’t mention because it would give it away. The comedy is overly cartoonish and slapstick at times, I know I never personally cared for the antics of the three young triplets who generally just caused random mischief in the background. In the end, there’s still a fair amount of heart at the end which you would expect from a Pixar picture, but the rest of the movie felt a lot more uneven. It’s still worth a trip to the theaters though.

Score: 7/10

Interview with Flights, Tights & Movie Nights…

June 15, 2012

1 Comment

A quick break from the norm: Nathan (a.k.a. Bubbbawheat) from the superhero-centric movie blog Flights, Tights & Movie Nights got in touch with some great site-specific questions as part of his Follow Friday project; having been directed this way by the mentally-connected, universally agreeable, movie reviewing, ever-the-gentleman Ryan McNeely from 5-Word Movie Reviews.

Head on over to the interview to if you’d like a little more insight into Paragraph Film Reviews by Clicking HERE – or on the picture at the top of the post. Cheers.

/Paul

Creep (Guest Post)

April 26, 2012

Trishna (Guest Post)

March 23, 2012