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Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey: when a fumbling Plain Jane student interviews a perverted and tormented young millionaire both of their lives are oh so romantically changed forever. Firstly; this is the least sexy film you’ll ever see about kinky sex, mostly due to the fact that everything else about it is a total turn off. The dialogue is atrocious; the wannabe racy/saucy lines don’t even come close to innuendo, although with the source material it didn’t really stand a chance. Secondly, the colouring is laughably basic: everything is depressingly washed out and grey (we get it!) except for sexy red things like mood lighting, cars, and arse-smacking paddles. The films is unashamedly uninterested in doing anything even remotely interesting with any of the characters, plot points or even the technical aspects. You want a better love story? Watch Twilight. You want to see some kinky bondage? Browse the internets. You want to see a proper film about this stuff? Watch ‘The Secretary‘, which is better than this in literally every way. As it was obviously going to be a number one smash, Fifty Shades of Grey never had to try, so it didn’t. A ham-fisted, disappointingly fist-free softcore movie with boringly-acted one-dimensional characters on a non-story that takes forever to go anywhere.

Score: 0.5/10

02 Fifty Shades of Grey Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Eloise Mumford, Jennifer Ehle, Marcia Gay Harden, Victor Rasuk, Luke Grimes, Rita Ora,

We Are the Best!

We Are the Best!: three teenage girls embrace counter-culture and form a punk band in 1980s Stockholm. Directed by controversial Swedish auteur Lukas Moodyson, Adapted from his wives graphic novel. Moodyson is the back in his wheelhouse; fly-on-the-wall documentary style retro Sweden; and it’s what he does best. He’s also great at capturing snapshots of youth that transport you right back to your childhood – of which there are plenty in this movie. Plot-wise, it pretty much follows the same arc as his movies, particularly Fucking Amal (Show me Love), but with younger kids – unfortunately, it’s not quite as powerful a coming-of-age story. Together was all about family, Fucking Amal was a love story two girls, but We Are the Best tries to juggle family, girls, boyfriends, and punk… making it feel less focused. Another Moodyson-stamped nostalgic and enjoyable trip down memory lane, with good music and all of the teenage feels.

Score: 6/10

Special ID

Special ID (Tè Shū Shēn Fèn, 特殊身份): an undercover cop finds himself in danger when he’s set on a collision course with an old protégé. Tonally, this film is an absolute mess; there’s Loony Tunes style moments of slapstick comedy in the middle of realistic MMA-Style fight scenes; despite it being a big-budget movie with slick intentions it continually returns to the super-cheese with bawdy music and silly melodramatic over-acting; there’s also a few sleep-inducingly boring scenes (one about Tattoos in particular). The timeline is all over the place, jumping around with no explanation, unaided by the lax direction and editing. There’s some woeful Volvo product placement: not satisfied with having their ‘City Safety’ mode blatantly pimped, there’s an entire fight scene AROUND THEIR CAR – it also doesn’t blow up when it’s dropped from height, unlike those rubbish Land Rovers!!! Ppsschhhtt!!! On the plus side, the action is generally impressive (particularly the two elongated fights at either end of the movie) despite some superhuman abilities being thrown in to the mix here and there. I love Donnie Yen and will watch anything he’s in, but he’s going for a Jackie Chan style cheeky-chappy role here, and doesn’t quite have the charm/charisma to nail it. In the end, this is amounts to little more than another completely forgettable Asian undercover cop film – with two decent fight scenes.

Score: 4/10

Edge of Tomorrow / Live Die Repeat

Edge Of Tomorrow (Live Die Repeat): when a slimy Army PR guy is marked as a deserter and put in the front lines he finds himself reliving the same day over and over again. This is at its best when it’s having fun with the concept of time looping, and doing the tongue-in-cheek sci-fi comedy moments; of which there are enough, but could have easily got in a heap more. It’s at its most boring however when it breaks the cycle, and turns into a fast/shaky/quick-cut generic alien invasion action film. Tom Cruise is playing Tom Cruise for about the 7,000^th time; Emily Blunt puts in a good shift in as the kick-ass love interest; and they’re supported by a fine indie ‘OMG where’s he from again?’ cast. Of all the unbelievable alien stuff going on, the daftest thing in here is that a United Global Military is ruled by an Irishman (Gleeson) – LOL Hollywood! The phrase “Tom Cruise Action Vehicle” tells you everything you need to know – if you like him and Sci-Fi doesn’t turn you off, you’ll almost definitely like this. The Edge of Tomorrow AKA Live Die Repeat is an above par alien film, in the middle of a decade where Alien Invasions are becoming boring as shit.

Score: 7.5/10

2 Guns

2 Guns: two undercover agents go in for a big drug bust, but neither knows the other is also wearing a badge! With Wahlberg playing a flirty street-smart, wisecracker and Denzel going for the moderately stoic sensible man-with-a-plan it’s safe to say neither is out of first gear, but if it were two unknowns, you wouldn’t have even heard of this – so they’ve already earned their pay cheque. In other departments, the quirky bromance is quite fun to watch, the plot is standard, but entertaining enough to keep you interested, and the action is serviceable for a movie like this. The biggest problem with 2 Guns is that it’s just so forgettable, and about as edgy as an 8-ball: you’ve seen everything in here elsewhere, and better. It feels like the kind of film that was made to fill in a space in the schedules, or because there was some spare cash that absolutely had to be used. While it’s not as good as it should be with two massive stars splitting the bill, it’s another just-above-average entry into the surprisingly difficult to nail “Action Comedy” genre.

Score: 6/10

Night Watch

February 27, 2015

Night Watch (Ночной дозор): after a truce that has lasted for centuries, tensions between Russia’s light and dark sides come to a head when the most powerful ‘Other’ has to choose which side to join. This is an ultra-styalised, almost indie-spirited blockbuster that combines multiple sci-fi/fantasy genres and glues them together with a large dose of Russian folklore. It’s filmed with an impressive style; the colours are bold and bright, the cinematography is striking, the camera work is technically sound, and the editing is fast and exciting… The most impressive aspect of this is that it was made for $4.2M despite being CGI heavy, and looks better than most $100M pictures. Good vs Bad, Light Vs Dark – it’s just a shame that the story is nothing to shout about. Overall, this is a solid pre-twilight vampire film that’s less about the emotional complexities of being a vamp, and more about utilising their superpowers to create exciting action set pieces. Night Watch is totally watchable, entertaining, and big/loud/shiny enough to help you forget that the story is actually a bit pants.

Score: 7/10

Surf Nazis Must Die

February 19, 2015

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Surf Nazis Must Die: after an earthquake lays California to waste its beaches become overrun by feuding surfer factions; the meanest of which are the surf Nazis – but when they kill the wrong man, his grandmother wages a one-OAP-War against the them. If you think that plot sounds terrible, wait ‘til you see the film. Several scenes try to live up to the title by attempting to be outrageous – flippant racism and the single most gratuitous softcore boobs in B movie history – but it comes across as lazy. This is absolutely crammed with bad script, bad acting, bad editing, bad plot, bad ‘action’, and completely devoid of gore… congratulations, you’ve taken all of the elements of a classic B/Cult movie, yet made something that barely qualifies as watchable. For an 83 minute film, at least 20 mins could be cut and not affect the ‘story’. It also looks and feels like it was made for $50. My biggest question is that when the Nazis can dispose of gangs of badass bikers, agile Parkour, Deadly Ninjas and Speedy Skaters – yet they struggle with one vigilante granny?!!? Given the reputation and notoriety of a 28-year old B-Movie that’s stuck around for the duration, I was expecting so much more. Goes to show how much a wild title and sweet poster can do for a movie. A terrible, lazy, attempt at shoxploitation; where the only shock is how it even got a release.

Score: 1/10

You should not be allowed to make shit films with such awesome titles!

Horrible Bosses 2

February 12, 2015

Horrible Bosses 2: after the zany hijinx of trying to knock off their bosses, the gang try to start their own business to be their own bosses; even more hijinx ensues!!!lol!1! Most scenes seem to be the three central characters shouting over each other, becoming an incoherent babble of noise, with the odd silence for a scripted ‘funny’ to become audible. Spacey, Foxx, Waltz, Aniston, Pine – there’s some pretty big names in here; surprisingly big given the gutter level humour – so it goes without saying that nobody’s really putting that much effort in (Maybe just Pine?). Despite the lazy premise, inaudible din, and coasting cast I did still laugh, more than I thought I would – although it’s obviously because I’m a bad person that finds crass / inappropriate / shock value moments funny (there’s not a whole lot else in there that tickles the funny boner.). Literally identical write-up but overall marginally less impressive than the original in every way.

Score: 6.5/10

The Purge

February 2, 2015

The Purge: In the near future crime and unemployment are at an all-time low, thanks to the purge – 12 hours every year where all crime is legal. I loves me a good old B-Movie, and this film has it all: a strong single-concept, near-future dystopia, home invasion / terror flick. It’s 80 minutes long, and could have even cut a bit more out of the setup. There’s’ action. There’s some gore. The baddies are sufficiently scary, whilst remaining authentically ‘Kids next door’. Best of all, there’s a serious social commentary that runs through the entire movie; that makes you think about what you’d be doing in this family’s shoes. In fact, the only thing that bugged me about this was that the son was such a complete idiot-hole moron assface – who continually did the most stupid things for no reason (although it did conveniently push the plot along). The Purge is the kind of film that if you don’t buy into the conceit, you’ll completely hate it. I bought into it, and loved every minute of it.

Score: 8.5/10

The only two rules of Purge Club

No government official holding Rank 10 or higher is to be murdered, harmed, have harm caused to them, or in any event brought to harm in any case.
Weapons above Class 4 are forbidden, meaning that destructive devices (rocket launchers, grenades, bombs or missiles) and explosive materials are excluded from The Purge.

False Trail

January 20, 2015

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False Trail (Jägarna 2): a seasoned detective is asked to return to his hometown to solve a brutal murder. This is as (stereo)typically Scandinavian as anything that’s been released in recent years: it’s grim, the colour pallet is bleak, and the majority of the runtime is bubbling broodiness. There’s a couple of heavyweight actors (Lassgard and Stormare, who is appearing in everything I watch just now) in the leading roles, which gives the story some more levity. The plot is fascinating to watch, as it slowly unwraps for most of the entire duration, heading towards a dramatic finale. I was surprised to learn that this was a sequel, as it works on its own, but would have contextualised a couple of flashbacks. Solidly Scandinavian police procedural.

Score: 7/10

The Double

January 15, 2015

The Double: a retired CIA operative is paired with a pen-pushing rookie – both specialists on a hitman called ‘Cassius‘ – who is believed to have re-surfaced, years after his apparent death. Cassius (ka-see-us) – for some unbelievably annoying reason pronounced “cashus” for the runtime – if I ever hear that name again it will be too soon – it would make a great drinking game. Gere is OK here, but it’s not outside his comfort zone. Topher Grace gets enough screentime to shine, but doesn’t shine because his acting is terrible. Everyone else it a footnote. The story could have been quite interesting – but doesn’t start twisting and turning until it’s far too late – and you’ve lost all interest. The action is sub-standard, and overall – there’s not a whole lot of anything likeable, or even admirable to be found in here. It’s a bad film, but mostly because it plays its hand after 30 minutes and spends the rest of the runtime carelessly smashing through every spy/thriller cliché imaginable. Not good. Not good at all.

Score: 1.5/10

Berberian Sound Studio

November 24, 2014

Berberian Sound Studio: A mild-mannered sound designer / foley artist is hired to work on an Italian Giallo (B-move slasher) film – and goes a bit mad in the process. The director is clearly fixated on the mechanics of period cinema: there’s a lot of shots of spinning reels, needles, gauges, readings, dials, etc. This is interesting for about 2 minutes. Then there’s the foley work where you see how everyday objects make unlikely sounds. This is interesting for about 10 minutes (tops!). If only the director had been so fascinated by things like plot, dialogue, editing, and entertainment – all of which are categorically absent from this. It feels like a 10 minute short stuffed to breaking point with so much pointless filler. It keeps cutting to a ‘Silence!’ sign – for no reason. There are lingering close ups of rotten vegetables – for no reason. There’s a tantalisingly sexy Italian receptionist – for no reason. Finally, for a movie about movie sound, the sound mix is laughable – quiet LOUD quiet LOUD and some generically eerie scratching / screetching for dramatic effect. This 100% feels more like an art/pet project than a legitimate movie. Schmerschmerian Schmoud Schmudio. Bleurgh.

Score: 1/10

BASEketball

November 21, 2014

BASEketball: Two childhood friends create a new sport called BASEketball, but have to ensure that corporate sponsors don’t ruin the league. This film is as funny as they come – everything from college humour, gross-outs, slapstick, sports and normal gags; every scene is crammed with throwaway jokes, both in the script and in the background – it’s truly a gag-a-minute. From the director of Airplane!, The Naked Gun, and writer of Kentucky Fried Movie – you would expect no less. It’s got a surprisingly high budget too; no expenses spared with sets, extras, and an impressive comedy cast. There are a couple of small issues – notably that it’s very American, with lots of US-based gags, stars and parodies that don’t export well. it’s also quite clean and timid, given that it stars the creators of South Park and several playboy playmates – you feel that someone was deliberately keeping this reasonably clean. Having watched this over 20 times as a kid, it’s still as enjoyable as an adult. BASEketball is one of my comedy benchmarks, with more laughs and gags per scene than any modern comedy could even dream about.

Score: 9/10

BASEketball League Teams
Milwaukee Beers
Dallas Felons
Miami Dealers
New Jersey Informants
San Francisco Ferries
Roswell Aliens
L.A. Riots
San Antonio Defenders
Detroit Lemons

R100

November 19, 2014

Film Reviews, Japan-O-Rama

R100 Review Movie Film Nao Ōmori, Shinobu Terajima, Hitoshi Matsumoto, Ai Tominaga, Eriko Sato, Naomi Watanabe, You, Suzuki Matsuo, Atsuro Watabe, Gin Maeda R100: A quiet salaryman in Japan signs up for a year-long mysterious bondage contract with only one rule – you cannot cancel it. First thing you’ll notice is that this looks weird; the colours aren’t far off black and white and there’s a full-on noir aesthetic (clothes, props, etc). The next strange aspect is the editing: for no reason whatsoever the film keeps ‘stopping’ and cutting to some test viewers trying to figure bits out; and for no reason it dips in to ‘interview’ / ‘documentary’ formats – both tactics demolish the flow of the story. For a whacky, kinky S&M / Bondage comedy… there’s simply not enough laughs, one or two at most, which is unforgivable as a story like this has so, so, so much potential. Overall, R100 is far, FAR too eclectic and random for its own good; but instead of being cult, it’s TRYING to be cult, and falls short, landing up as more ‘rubbish’ than weird, even by Japanese standards.

Score: 2.5/10

Sabotage

November 17, 2014

Sabotage: a D.E.A. legend and his off-the-rails team of undercover NARCs are being hunted down by a cartel for skimming off $10M of the gang’s money in a recent raid. I know, I know, this one’s never going to win any awards – but in a world where studios are pussying out of 18-rated movies right, left, and center this is like a breath of fresh (or rotten) air. A dark, violent, dingy film that harks back to the 70s–90s cop films that had plenty of grit and edge. From the writer of Training Day, Street Kings and End of Watch you know you’re in good hands here. Machismo’d to the rafters, there’s a whole lot of big-dick swinging, heavy swearing, ‘cop banter’ – and the women in here are strippers, ‘sluts’ or a general nuisances to the lads. The story’s not as black-and-white as it first seems, and neither are the characters – as the film balances both intense action scenes with a well-crafted thriller storyline. You either love these sort of films, or you hate ‘em; and for me, Sabotage is a decent, violent cop film with a rock-solid ensemble cast and an interesting enough story to keep you tuned in.

Score: 7/10

Dear Mr Watterson

Dear Mr Watterson – An Exploration of Calvin and Hobbes: a Calvin and Hobbes enthusiast tries to figure out what makes the comic so enduring. To boil this down; it’s 60 minutes of fans absolutely gushing over Calvin and Hobbes and 30 minutes of people debating whether or not the refusal to licence merchandise was a bad idea. That’s about it. For a Doc on such an abundant and much-loved subject there’s a couple of major flaws: firstly, for being about a living person’s greatest work, the fact that there’s nothing but old quotes from Watterson is crushingly disappointing. One of the main players is a guy who’s written a book about Watterson, and that’s as close as we’re getting here. Secondly, this is a strip that everyone loves, so to hear one person nostalgically navel-gaze and deliberate over his memories and favourite strips totally undercuts the movie. On the plus side, if you read, re-read, and re-re-read the books as a kid, there’s a lot of loving footage of the best and brightest cartoons – and some close-ups of original strips. Even when rapidly flipping through “The Complete Calvin and Hobbes” volumes you can pick out all of your favourites. Stylistically, if you imagine a Kickstarter-funded indie documentary… yup… you’ve got it! Cutesy, offensively inoffensive indie music, and blurry-as-shit visuals. As someone who grew up with their dad’s hand-me-down books listed below (and even knifed a couple to create a comic strip border for my bedroom) there’s absolutely nothing new to be found in here, a cynic may even say it’s leeching off of a popular franchise. May be of more interest to C&H newcomers – if there are any out there.

WARNING: Contains traces of interesting content. Made and packaged in a Bill Watterson free environment.

Score: 3/10

Dear Mr Watterson Berkeley Breathed, Lee Salem, Stephan Pastis, Jef Mallett, Dave Kellett, Charles Solomon, Seth Green, Keith Knight, Jenny Robb, Tony Cochran, Andrew Farago, Calvin and Hobbes, Joe Wos, Toonseum, Jean Schulz, Jan Eliot, Bill Amend2

LOOK AT MY CRAZY WIDE APERTURE!!!

Calvin and Hobbes
Something Under the Bed Is Drooling
Yukon Ho!
Weirdos from Another Planet!
The Revenge of the Baby-Sat
Scientific Progress Goes “Boink”
Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons
The Days Are Just Packed
Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat
There’s Treasure Everywhere

The Frozen Ground

The Frozen Ground: when an upstanding citizen is accused of kidnapping, torturing and raping a ‘lying’ prostitute the case is immediately dropped, but lands on the desk of a diligent detective. The first-time director coaxes solid performances from an impressive cast: Con Air’s Cage and Cusack are always welcome (and Cage looks like he actually wants to be here!), supported by the likes of Vanessa Hudgens, Dean Norris, Kurt Fuller, Brad Henke, and 50 Cent’s teeth. Unlike 99% of serial killer films, this is different because you know very quickly who the baddie is – it’s not a random character added in the last act – so we see the cop stalking the killer, while the he tries to evade detection, not unlike Insomnia (in setting / location too). In fact the only real mis-step is the clichéd ‘over-committed-detective-with-suffering-family’ trope, but it’s a minor part of the picture. As great as this is, it’s a tough one to recommend because it’s pretty grim viewing in parts, but I’d put this as being head and shoulders above your average movie in the burgeoning ‘true crime / serial killer’ genre.

Score: 8/10

Porky’s

Porky’s [Steelbook] a group of teenagers in 1950s Florida head to Porky’s strip club to get some action, but nothing goes to plan with this – or any of their sexual misadventures. Undoubtedly one of the most (in)famous coming-of-age teen-sex comedy flicks, Porky’s is less of a “film” and more of a bunch of individual scenes edited together to form a loose plot. There are so many side-stories like the jew-hater, bad biker dad, and horny P.E. teachers that really have nothing to do with the premise. There’s also far too many characters, none of which are the central focus, which makes it all seem even more tangential. But Porky’s was never trying to woo the critics, and for a sex–comedy there’s enough of both to make it a genre-classic, from the infamous voyeuristic shower scene to the 5-minute penis report (not to mention that it’s a High School where they only seem to teach sports classes and playground hijinks) it’s packed with entertaining stuff. While it’s a little dated (and even timid) compared to teen movies these days Porky’s is the definitive blueprint / Supertext for the genre; opening the door for films like American Pie, Superbad, Van Wilder, Road Trip… It’s good, it’s funny and the Blu Ray looks lovely. Great little Mr Skin feature about 80s skin-flicks too!

Score: 6.5/10

Homefront

Homefront: when an undercover narc is re-located his past eventually comes back to bite him, and his daughter. I was really looking forward to this: Statham playing Statham in an action film, James Franco as the baddie, and Wynona Rider… things were looking up; then I saw this phrase in the credits “written and produced by Stallone” and my heart just sank. We know Statham’s a badass (he’s Jason Statham), we know Franco is the baddie, we know the cop is bent, we know the revenge story… don’t spend over an hour backgrounding these basic characters, and genre plot. And don’t sell it as a non-stop action-fest when it’s only really the finale that’s action-heavy. And don’t cast a young girl with an old-lady’s face! (She was like ‘Chloe from Vine’). And don’t be so loose with your accent, Statham. While this isn’t a completely terrible film it just feels like nobody’s really trying: not the writers, not the director, not even the actors… everyone involved is better than this. Distressingly average.

Score: 4/10

White House Down

White House Down: a group of mercenaries storm the White House leaving an aspiring Secret Serviceman as the President’s – and America’s – only hope. They’ve only gone and made “Die Hard in the White House”, again! It’s easy to confuse this with Olympus has Fallen, but in a duel for the oval office this one wins hands-down, mostly due to the entertainment-factor; it’s the true embodiment of the term ‘action romp’. Everything that can do so, explodes during big set pieces that punctuate the movie, and is generously littered with laughs too – by the end I was even guilty of a few fist-pumps. I’d go as far as saying that it’s the kind of movie that – at least on paper – we should all hate: big, loud, dumb, derivative, but the director seems to know this, and fully embraces it – cheesing everything up to 11. The only real downside is that it’s a tad on the long side (for the kind of film it is). If you want a cheesy 80s/90s big-budget one-man-army taking on waves of despicable henchmen, look no further. Fly this DVD up your flagpoles, ‘MURICA!

Score: 8/10

Red 2

Red 2: a Retired, Extremely Dangerous (RED) agent Frank Moses is back on the radar when an APB goes out to every contract killer in the world, with a tasty bounty on his head. First off, although he’s in a restrictive role (and – skeptically – probably only to sell tickets in Asia) I like the gamble of casting a Korean megastar that is relatively unknown in the West. Even delivering phonetic/over-dubbed lines Lee Byung-Hun steals his scenes, and raises the action bar – peaking in the impressive and innovative fridge-door fight in Moscow. It’s also as funny as RED was, but every single laugh is John Malkovich – “If there’s one thing I know, it’s women and covert operations”. Hopkins is entertaining, Louise-Parker & Zeta-Jones are both hyphenated surnames, and dame Mirren also enjoyable company. The setup is rrrrrather contemporary for a comic – a’la WikiLeaks, but the overall story (and film) don’t flow particularly well as they’re determined to have a James Bond style travelogue element – popping up here, there, and everywhere for no real reason: London, Moscow, Paris, America… despite this, it’s hard not to switch off by the end as the required ‘twisty-turny’ but overall a fairly predictable story arc plays out – what’s wrong with goodies being good and baddies staying bad?!?!? Basically, Bruce Willis doing a dialed-in ‘wise guy’ with diluted attitude, surrounded by people you’d rather be watching – all reminding you of that film ‘Paycheck’, but for the wrong reasons. Less Die Hard, more Die Soft and wrinkly.

Score: 5.5/10

Cobra

Cobra: Marion Cobretti – essentially a paramilitary policeman – comes across his scummiest scumbag yet, but he believes this is more than just a one-off. This is a spin-off from when Stallone walked away from Beverly Hills Cop to make something more violent! It’s essentially an ‘Arnie Film’ but with a different star, and more than most of the Arnie movies around this era, this has a really nasty streak through it – the baddies are a fairly nihilistic, ruthless bunch working under the name “Night Slasher” – although their back-story & motives could have done with fleshing out. Stallone’s Cobretti is unnecessarily cool – Car, Shades, clothes, attitude – it’s laughable at times, but Sly always does this. The action scenes are all pretty good – including a superb car chase that feels straight out of the Fast franchise, a lot of shooting, a boss fight in a suitably 1980s industrial setting (a foundry) and even a cheeky homage to the Shining’s famous door-smashing scene. There’s also flakes of social commentary (particularly the failing justice system), and an under-appreciated ‘anti Christmas movie’ vibe throughout. While Cobra is absolutely nothing new, it’s all fairly enjoyable if you appreciate cheese, big action, and lots of hard-18 violence – although if it does require subtitles to comprehend Sly.

Score: 6.5/10

Chopping Mall

Chopping Mall (aka Killbots): it’s the near-future, where mall cops have been replaced by security robots, and “absolutely nothing can go wrong,” but a couple of lightning strikes later… yuuup, things are going wrong for a bunch of “teenagers” stuck in the mall overnight. If one thing defines this film, it’s the knuckle-chewing levels of cheese present in every scene. All characters are hyper-generic (nerd, wallflower, hunk, party boy) and the dialogue / delivery is terrible across the board – even the cool and quotable lines like “Let’s go send those fuckers a Rambo gram!!” The film plods through as a by-the-numbers pedigree b-movie, that’s not quite bad enough to be so-bad-it’s-good – but everyone seems to know how bad it is, and rolls with it anyway. Shopping centre boffins will note that this looks very similar to the one from Commando!! Chopping Mall just isn’t as shocking, gory or violent as the ‘slasher’ title would suggest; it just ends up feeling like a 1950s sci-fi film with a 1980s face-lift.

Score: 3/10

It’s like Krieger’s robot and Cheryl/Carol from Archer!

“Where the shopping can cost you an arm and a leg”

Indie Game: The Movie

Indie Game, The Movie: [I am not a ‘hardcore gamer’ – regular, but haven’t bought an ‘Indie’ title since the days of PS2] – focuses on a handful of independent games developers and their hugely anticipated titles. What put me off this from the get-go is that the four main developers featured come across as such a rather whiny bunch: “my [universally acclaimed] game [that made me rich] wasn’t enjoyed by users on the level that I had intended it to…”, “In order to be a world-class games dev I’ve had to sacrifice my social life…”, “If I couldn’t release this game I’d kill myself… “My INDIE game isn’t being advertised on the Xbox Live front page…” – wise up! You’re doing this fringe hobby/lifestyle as a choice, like every other struggling actor, photographer, painter & musician that anyone has ever met. The visuals are shoe-gazingly artsy – wide-aperture super-blurry slow-panning shots, accompanied by an equally cutesy, offbeat minimal score. This style echoes the outlook of the film; focusing solely on just three games, and blurring out the entire history (and future) of computer gaming. While IGTM is an interesting look behind the curtains at a small section of that particular gaming scene, it doesn’t show you anything that you couldn’t have guessed beforehand… games developers are socially awkward / misunderstood ‘nerds’ that live with their parents and program all day? No way!?!? For me, the best thing about this was that Charlie Brooker got to make a complimentary 90-minute doc that covered the entire history of gaming – from Pong to Twitter – called “How Video Games Changed The World.” IMHO, seek that out instead.

Score: 4/10

Law Abiding Citizen

Law Abiding Citizen (mild spoilers): when his wife and kid are murdered and the legal system fails him, a disgruntled everyman with nothing to lose spends years engineering his quasi-legal revenge. Gerrard Butler (Shut up, Butt wad), WTF are you doing man? You’re all over the place and why the fuck did your character get nude when you were arrested? The Fantastic Mr Foxx is OK, doing what he does (normal guy in a moral quandary) but his character’s role is unbelievably wonky: supposed to be a prosecutor, but does loads of detective work. The film starts off interesting – and the opening in particular is powerfully violent – the set-up is theatrically gruesome, but once Butler is in prison it turns absolutely ridiculous – and when you hear about his previous employment it’s like being slapped in the face with a big silly stick. However, it’s quite funny and enjoyable despite being so bizarrely cheesy and shockingly stupid. Deliberately 18-rated, over-the-top B-movie with an A-list cast.

Score: 4/10

Shooting Robert King

Shooting Robert King (aka Blood Trail): follows an aspiring war photographer through 15 years and three conflicts. First off, Robert King is a total asshat. We meet him as a young – egotistical – douche, and see him grow to a middle-aged cold-and-jaded douche. He comes across as the worst parts of the psychotic “Cool Ethan” from Slackers and the grating Josh from Generation Kill (the singing driver). A lot of the “OMG” moments feel set up, or are ridiculously convenient. For a documentary about a photographer, there’s not actually a lot of his work, and it’s mostly nondescript handheld footage from his freelance cameramen buddies in the ‘good old days’. What’s weird is that he clearly wanted to film a documentary from day 1 of his career – hence the abundance of ‘look at me’ and ‘look at the peril’ type interviews he did. There are a couple of more disturbing / shocking moments – pics of dead bodies, and bombing / war aftermath; and a boring deer-hunting simile / parallel that is just unnecessary filler. The best part of the documentary is a 2-minute montage of his best photos; however the best thing on the disc is a 5-minute slide show in the extras – which are more powerful, interesting and tell a better story than the full-length 80-minute documentary. Most annoyingly, the doc doesn’t tell you anything about the wars he’s covering, showing only Robert King trying to make it all about him. Whilst his story is remarkable, having such an unlikeable person at the centre of this makes it very hard to appreciate.

Score: 3/10

Enemy at the Gates

Enemy At The Gates: Stalingrad is being attacked by the Nazis, and after a Russian sniper terrorises the Germans, they send their top marksman from a Berlin Sniper School in for an epic sharpshooting duel. How could a film about a sniper battle be so boring? There’s only a handful of kills and the rest is hammy, over-sentimental, schmaltzy war boringness and distracting “human element” side-story shite. The cast are confusing as shit too: there’s English people with cockney accents playing Russians, American’s doing German “Vith and Ak-scent”, and Ron Perlman (American) trying an English accent in order to fit in with ‘team Russia’ – accent-mageddon. I’m also pretty sure that no Russian ever spoke about “tea and a biscuit”. The look, feel and tone of the movie all reek of something from the 1950s – including bad acting, a poor script, the worst / most awkward love scene of the 2000’s, and a terrible “classic cinema” score that tells you exactly when you should be excited, crying etc. This is a film that starts off like Private Ryan on a budget and goes downhill from there. Utter war-pants.

Score: 2/10

The Raid 2: Berandal

The Raid 2: Berandal (aka The Raid: Thug): following on directly from events in The Raid… after his brother is murdered the rookie SWAT member goes undercover in order to flush out the city’s dirty cops. It feels like director Gareth Evans is “doing a Tarantino” here, drawing from a lot of established Asian movie elements: the story is essentially Infernal Affairs; the themes feel like those of a fairly standard Japanese – notably Takashi Miike – gangster flick (internal power struggles, territorial battles, OTT Violence, honour, betrayal, black humour); and the visuals feel like you’re watching a modern Korean movie – e.g. Park Chan Wook – as it’s loaded with rich imagery and patterns (like the art deco ballroom and bar, sterile kitchen, snow fight) and some cartoonishly menacing enemies (‘Hammer Girl’, and the ridiculous side-combed, cane-wielding baddie) – there’s also a shitload of nods to A Bittersweet Life, from the Car/Warehouse fight to the impeccably dressed mobsters. The action scenes remain unbelievably entertaining, expertly choreographed and jaw-droppingly inventive – although shaky cam is used a lot more in this one. You never get tired watching Iko Uwais play human pinball with dozens of henchmen, exploiting the various locations, and through most of the big fights you can’t help but grab your equivalent body part that has just been mangled on-screen and shout “fuuuuck!”, every 20 seconds. Once again, there’s a good peppering of ultra-black humour to provide a little relief from the action. At 150 minutes there’s a lot that could have been cut out and not missed – from developing minor characters through to shots of nails, water, snow – although it is rigidly punctuated with big set-pieces so you never get the chance to nod off. The Raid was a powerful, gritty, relentless and raw 90-minute virtually dialoge-free history-making fight-fest that raised the bar for all action movies – and although I can understand why Evans didn’t want to just do the same again, in ‘beefing up’ The Raid 2 he has leaned a little too heavily on other director’s works, taking the edges off – and diluting – the 90-minute, 10/10 movie that’s contained in here. Niggles aside, the film is still packed with genre-defining action, cutting edge fight-choreography, and more hard-18-rated violence than you could shake a poorly-aimed shotgun at.

Score: 8/10

Sound City

Sound City: tells the story of the greatest music studio that ever existed – IRGDGHO (In Rock God Dave Grohl’s Honest Opinion). And what a story it is, plenty of ups and downs to make an interesting and entertaining documentary. Not unlike Side by Side’s knockout movie cast, some of the musicians that pop up in here are jaw-droppingly famous: Stevie Nix, Neil Young, Trent Reznor, Josh Homme, Rick Springfield… the list is endless. The film covers standard ground like the rise-and-fall of raw / live recording several times through, 80s over-production and the dominance of pro tools a decade later. The first 70 minutes is a great documentary, however the final 25 or so really let the film down as star after star is invited to jam with Dave and the Foo Fighters, creating (average) songs in a couple of hours “old school style” – in what’s essentially an advert for the soundtrack, and a rather unnecessary addition to the runtime. Even as a massive Foo Fighters fan, it’s just a bit too much back-slapping. Weirdly, the film gives drum sound it’s own section but doesn’t bother with bass, guitar, vocals… Dave you cheeky drum monkey!! Overall, this is a good rock-dock, but I preferred hanging out with the rock stars and hearing their stories over seeing their (surprisingly boring) “creative process” in the studio.

Score: 7/10

Shaolin Soccer

Shaolin Soccer (少林足球, Siu lam juk kau): a has-been footballer (soccer player) convinces a struggling Kung-Fu master to form a football (soccer) team with his equally gifted ragamuffin friends. It’s so silly, bawdy, theatrical and over-the-top that it feels like it’s based on a manga series – apparently it isn’t! The story’s a bit stupid, but the film finds some form during the wire-work and CGI heavy ‘football’ (‘soccer) matches. Even by bad Asian standard the acting – although probably closer to mincing – is fairly shoddy, and it’s difficult to know if the actors were hired for their martial arts skills because most of the action is entirely green screen. Shaolin Soccer is entertaining enough, but behind the SFX it’s quite a formulaic sports film that’s too erratic to properly enjoy, and not particularly funny or dramatic enough to be noteworthy. All-in, I can’t understand why there’s so much love for this – definitely not one for proper football (soccer) fans.

Score: 4/10