Son of Kermode :: Movie Reviews Blog

In case I don't see 'ya...

2011-01-11T18:03:00.003Z

Well it's been fun over the past year, but i'm going to bring Son of Kermode to an end. It's just another website to be writing stuff for and I haven't had time to give it my full attention over the past couple of months - also I got a mention on Kermode and Mayo's Review of the Year on BBC Radio Fivelive and that really is the top for me. It's been brilliant to bring you my opinions on all the crap that gets put out for eye and mind consumption and you can still see my reviews at:

www.huhmagazine.co.uk (for that arthouse fix) and www.lostinthemultiplex.com (for features and reviews)

So pop over when you have the chance and also catch me on twitter/sonofkermode

Chatroom

2010-12-20T21:14:00.007Z

Chatroom
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard
Director: Hideo Nakata
Rating: 1 (out of 5)

Summary: When five teenagers meet online, innocent friendships are forged. However, one dysfunctional member, increasingly drawn to the darker side of the online world, singles out the most vulnerable in the group and seizes the chance to erase his own past...

Think back to those halcyon days of school. Where the classroom was a melting pot of sexual tension, adolescent angst and insecurities were manifest in biting irreverence. Now remember what happened when a new teacher came into the mix. Maybe that teacher "listened" to the same music as you, wore the same clothes, had a cool haircut and tried to be your friend, but it just didn't sit right and eventually you thought that teacher was a dick. Well, this film is that dick and there are major problems in its hideous and condescending attempt to be relevant to the teenagers it's obviously aiming for.

First up is the Skins lite edginess and cast, with "hot property" Aaron Johnson skulking around his parents plush Chelsea flat with all the intensity of a misanthropic Kevin the Teenager (how's that for a pop culture reference?), cutting himself in a vain attempt for attention and dishing out online psycho babble to his chatroom buddies which even the most naive acne ridden teen would struggle to fall for. The performances whether they be from the young cast or elder statesman are poor to the point of panto. Believe me, this is only a £100,000 production budget away from the emotional resonance and acting prowess of a Hollyoaks episode.

Secondly is the concept of a chatroom being at the cutting edge of the social networking zeitgeist. You might as well be using carrier pigeons as the communication of evil. Who still uses them? Is this a parallel world where a movie about the creation of Friends Reunited is Oscar bound? Things have moved on and Chatroom is stuck in the last millennium and trying to dress its self up in Topshop clothing to get into the cool hipster club.

Director Hideo Nakata, he of original J Horror classics such as Ringu and Dark Water, seems unable to add any tension to playwright Enda Walsh's laboured, cliche ridden script - which I only assume was butchered from the original stage source. Sure Nakata occasionally harks back to his horror roots with some streaming online suicides which are played for obvious shocks and there are some initially interesting attempts to gel the real world with the online which ultimately feel too statically theatrical for a film adaptation but with this, and his US remake of Ring 2, he's sullied a career that was well respected. In fact after sitting through 80 minutes of Chatroom I felt like one of Ringu's cursed video tape victims - and I even had a similar horrfically shocked expression on my face.

Control. Alt. Delete. This is dialup cinema for the digital broadband age.

Released 22nd December

Black Swan

2010-12-10T23:15:00.005Z

Black Swan
Starring: Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, Barbara Hershey, Mila Kunis
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Rating: 5 (out of 5)

Summary: Ballerina Nina (Portman) seems destined to be part of the company rather than the lead. But when Prima Ballerina Beth Mcintyre (Winona Ryder) retires, Nina is identified as her natural replacement for the new production of Swan Lake. However, new dancer Lily (Kunis) is seen as the ideal Black Swan and a twisted rivalry and friendship begins...

Black Swan is a masterpiece. Pure and simple. Aronofsky, who has again and again shown himself to be a good director, has taken a step up to the level of genius auteur. As with his previous films such as The Wrestler and Requiem for a Dream he deals with themes such as obsessive impulse and masochistic behaviour but this time fuses them into an Argento inspired, bombastic ballet body horror.

Fantastically whilst Aronofsky stamps his artistic authority all over the place, he is still able to allow the actors to develop and flourish in the atmosphere he has created. In particular former Star Wars Princess and paedo baiting assassin Natalie Portman gives an performance as Nina that quietly but intensely screams awards. As she explores her body and reaches the limits of psychological endurance, Portman's naive and fragile physicality is put on display for the camera in nearly every frame. It's a fearless and brave portrayal that deserves the plaudits.

However, the supporting performances from luminaries such as the long forgotten Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel as the sexed up director of Swan Lake, ex teen Queen Winona Ryder (with a slight nod to her own under fulfilled career) and even Family Guy's Meg Mila Kunis are up there competing with Portman in every frame they share. Hershey especially plays unhinged Mother with a scary glee and jealousy in her eyes.

As Nina's mind (and body) begins to unravel before our eyes, Black Swan enters a paranoid, half whispered nightmare of a world which has nods to Polanski's Rosemary's Baby in the way that it leaves the audience with an almost sickening feeling of dread and Nina with no sense of her own reality. As the pace quickens and each ballerina's twists and turns are held lovingly by Aronofsky's eye, the film culminates into a dizzying and thrilling final 20 minutes that is all at once outlandish, OTT and utterly captivating from beginning to end.

Everything about Black Swan works. The pacing is perfect, all the performances hit the right note and Aronofsky has created a film which will be regarded as a classic for a long time to come. This really is a director at the very top of his game in almost every respect. As with his previous films there are horrific elements that will leave your average Royal Opera House goer spitting out their expensive red, but as a film about the degradation of a human being in their pursuit of perfection it manages to achieve that with a staggering arrogance and swagger.

UK Release: 21st January 2011
US: Currently on a limited run in major cities before wide expansion

Catfish

2010-12-09T09:30:00.006Z

Catfish
Starring: Yaniv Schulman, Megan Faccio, Ariel Schulman
Director: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding as they began to film the life of Ariel's brother, Nev. They had no idea that their project would lead to the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives...

To reveal too much about Catfish would be to its detriment. It's a film where nothing is what it seems, where reality and fiction blend seamlessly and where your knowledge level is better off being at zilch. But if you do watch Catfish on a double bill with The Social Network, you'll see the actions and consequences of building the biggest social networking phenomenon of all time - because if the former was Facebook Frankenstein then the latter is certainly the monster unleashed and creating havoc.

Starting off as a documentary about an up and coming New York photographer and his online relationship with a painting child prodigy as she reproduces his photos in oils, the film takes a number of dark twists, turns and becomes so much more as the documented story unfolds. Equally creepy as it is depressingly sad, it's as if someone took the lyrics of Phil Oakley's seminal eighties classic "Together in Electric Dreams", made Radiohead do a cover and then managed to create a coherent narrative out of the resulting musical abortion.

Comparisons can, and have, been made with "Capturing the Friedmans", another documentary where the dark truth, revealed quite unwittingly, was more riveting that the initial purpose of the piece. With Catfish, the hand held camera also studies the mundane reality of modern everyday life such as constant keyboard tapping and phone conversations but manages to keep up when the truth becomes something out of the ordinary. Most importantly it's able to make it as riveting as any Hollywood drama and create a world where nothing and nobody is as they seem - whether that be online or face to face. Believe me this is a real achievement in the expanding faux documentary genre.

But despite it's occasional flourishes, Directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman have been at pains to convince audiences that this is not a fake; perhaps keeping that idea of blurred reality going beyond it's release date. Personally, I'm undecided. There are moments where everything about the story seems so fantastically convenient and melodramatic - but still engaging - that the cynic in you feels duped. For instance the final 20 minutes at the home of Megan Faccio or the unnerving quality of the spooky desolate farmhouse. But most importantly none of the characters on screen feel directed or false at any point.

Perhaps it's as the old saying goes "there's nowt queer as folk", and the gallery of unusual and detached individuals that crop up in Catfish live up to that old adage in a heartbreakingly real and riveting way.

OUT 17th December

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

2010-11-26T09:03:00.008Z

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Starring: Per Christian Ellefsen, Onni Tommila, Peeter Jakobi
Director: Jalmari Helander
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: In the depths of the Korvanturi Mountains, 486 metres deep, lies the closest guarded secret of Christmas. The time has come to dig it up! This Christmas everyone will believe in Santa Claus...

Rare Exports is one of those films that defies a simple conversational description. It's unlike any Christmas film you've seen before and most likely will again, and leaves you slightly befuddled. I mean, what can you say about a film that includes a chase scene between a 10 year old holding on to helicopter and 200 naked octogenarians?

Something that is obvious amongst all the snowbound mayhem is Exports subversive and successful depiction of the Santa Claus mythology. Depicting him as a child hoarding demon buried deep within an almost fairytale mountain, the screenwriters aren't slaves to Santa convention and even add a late in the game twist that reinvigours the film in the last half hour. The "rules" surrounding this back story mean the film makers can add quirky touches, such as radiators and the stolen hairdryers of the local ladies being used to thaw out the bearded anti-hero, giving the audience appropriate and timely laughs amongst the fearful hushed whispers of the villagers on screen.

Also adding gravitas to proceedings are the cast of child actors, especially Onni Tommila as Santa fearing Pietari. They all give fantastic, comically sweet turns as industrious heroes and sobbing victims alike. Taking arms, disobeying the rules and coming of age in a hostile environment, they're the resourceful, brave kids you remember from the films of yesteryear.

When striped to the core and exposed, at it's very heart its the tale of childhood innocence winning out over the adult cynicism - just as every Christmas movie should be - but this central theme is unable to develop fully under the weight of the unusual pacing, changes in tone and the director's inability to settle on a theme and stick. To use a Christmas metaphor (it is December after all) the chaos of what's up on screen is akin to receiving a Michael McIntyre DVD for a present - not as funny and clever as it thinks it is or needs to be.

There are also no stand out, stocking dropping moments. Of course its unusual, strange and twisted but it's lack of subtlety from beginning to end, coupled with a number of undercooked central characters - usually the adults - mean that you never really feel anything above the occasional smirk and mild interest in how the story will pan out for those involved.

Rare by name, rare by nature. Exports is a mish mash of horror, comedy, adventure, coming of age tale and Christmas flick that's enthused with a typical Scandinavian dark quirkiness but ultimately fails to wrap them into a anything other than a wannabe cult movie package.

OUT 3rd December

brilliantlove

2010-11-07T20:09:00.007Z

brilliantlove
Starring: Liam Browne, Nancy Trotter Landry
Director: Ashley Horner
Rating: 1 (out of five)

Summary: Manchester is a novice photographer, Noon, a shy taxidermist. Over a sweltering summer, Manchester documents their love affair, creating wonderfully charged, erotic images. Then he gets discovered - and the art world closes in on their idyll. Can this intimate, carnal relationship survive public exposure?

Where to start with brilliantlove? Likened to Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs with less Franz Ferdinand - which could only be a good thing - the story of a neurotic taxidermist and her ice pop dildo loving photographer boyfriend spends more time tucking on cocks than the heartstrings.

In all fairness, Director Ashley Horner doesn't have much to work with and he does manage to create interesting, dreamlike, summertime images out of the remnants of a turgid script which tries to comment on the exploitative nature of the art world but instead creates caricatures as readily as a Blackpool Pier cartoonist. Main protagonists Noon (Trotter Landry) and Manchester (Browne) for instance are naive to the point of extreme irritation - spending their days finding dead animals to stuff and indulging in self obsession and onanism. They vaguely sit halfway between 1970's hippie cliches and modern day East London fashion zombies and are doubling frustrating as that sounds.

Holding the film together are the much vaunted sex scenes and they are of an extremely strong nature - with the human body and all the fluids therein shown in all their effervescent glory. But the babbling nonsense spoken by Noon and Manchester whilst indulging themselves means they never touch the erotic nature of the body or even get close to showing "brilliantlove", in fact any point trying to be made about the true nature of love is simply an after thought.

By the time Manchester's innocent "art" is hijacked by filthy rich, cold capitalists - in the guise of pornographers if you were struggling to keep up with the labyrinthine metaphors - the couple's reckless abandonment becomes sexually stranger and even more irritatingly surreal. Although for all the masturbating over each other, catching frogs in buckets and taking of mind bending drugs in wooded areas, it all seems rather cliched and pedestrian, which is another problem with Sean Conway's lightweight script which wants to be controversial for controversials sake.

Brilliantlove is nominated for a Raindance Award at the British Independent Film Awards and good luck to it, because in a category that awards films "made against the odds", Director Ashley Horner certainly deserves it. I don't believe the point with brilliantlove was to side with the obvious villains of the piece but you wouldn't mind if Noon and Manchester were taught a tough lesson about life and love, and taught it quite aggressively. Maybe a few times. Via a Peeping Tom style tripod fitted with dildos.

OUT November 12

LFF Screening - Howl

2010-10-28T11:06:00.003+01:00

Howl
Starring: James Franco, David Strathairn, John Hamm
Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Rating: 3 and a half (out of 5)

Summary: San Francisco 1957, and the obscenity trial of poet Allan Ginsberg's Howl - a masterpiece of the American beatnik counter culture - is in full swing. As the trial unfolds, we see the poetry brought to life via animation and Ginsberg's own performances...

A film which attempts an audacious mixture of animation, courtroom drama and biopic, Howl can be dizzying a lot of the time but it's able to convey the raw power and emotion of Ginsberg's poetry and it's effects on 1950's America seamlessly and with humour, beauty and pathos in spades.

As the film recreates Ginsberg's performances from backstreet beatnik bars to his candid autobiographical audio interviews from the era, it takes a captivating and idiosyncratic performance from James Franco to provide a lynchpin for a narrative that on occasion takes obscure but beautifully produced flights of fancy. In each rage filled poem recital Franco fantastically recreates Ginsberg's voice but also his movements, his poetic gestures and gait to the waiting hordes of horn-rimmed glasses, bottles of scrumpy and black suited introspective beatniks. Whilst to many this may seem simply an impression, and many at the screening who knew Ginsberg praised this, Franco is also able to show a tender streak during depictions of Ginsberg's sexual shyness and awakening. As an actor, he has come of age over the past few years and the real movie star potential, which has been seen in small glimpses before, is now coming to fruition.

As the poetry unfolds, animation – inspired by Eric Drooker's illustrations from a collaboration with Ginsberg in 1992 - blazes across the screen and brings the verbose descriptions of “angel-headed hipsters” leading a sexual, cultural and drug induced revolution to life. Apparently these vivid, colourful and LSD inspired pieces were produced “on the cheap” in Thailand, give the animators a raise because they depict the work expertly, not being too literal but leaving everything open to interpretation – like good art should.

Where the film falls down is director's Epstein and Friedman's inability to bring the same creativity to the stuffiness of the courtroom and the reenactment of obscenity trials that brought Ginsberg's work into the conscious of more people than your usual counter culture poet could have dreamed of. That bastion of 1950's Americana, Mad Men's John Hamm, plays the council for the defence with his usual lantern jawed strength and bland charm, whilst the prosecution led by David Strathairn gives a certain experience and wry comedic timing but smacks of lazy casting. The courtroom occasionally lights up, for example when stiff “literary expert” Mary Louise Parker as Gail Potter gives her two minute cameo but unfortunately it leaves you wanting more surprise witnesses who are just as exciting - and sadly they're never forthcoming.

Despite Ginsberg and Howl being as alien a concept to me as an early night and a cup of cocoa is to a beatnik, it's frank but imaginative depiction of his work and Franco's performance are mesmerising. At many points in the film I found myself closing my eyes but not down to tiredness, rather the dream like quality of the animation and the need to let this new discovery wash over me. If you're a newcomer to this world then Howl is thoroughly recommended as your first step on the ladder to a world of bespectacled black suits and sexual revolution.

Viva Le Phallus!

Release Date TBC

Mary and Max

2010-10-22T11:56:00.003+01:00

Mary and Max
Starring: Toni Collette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Humphries, Eric Bana
Director: Adam Elliot
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: Set in the mid 1970's, Mary Dinkle is a lonely, 8 year old, only child to an alcoholic Mother and a distracted Father. One day she randomly finds a name in the New York phone book and writes a letter to Max Horowitz - a fellow chocolate loving, loner. So starts a 20 year pen pal relationship between the two...

Australian cinema usually has the danger of falling into two categories: an “offbeat” comedy (see Muriels Wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert , Strictly Ballroom and even Crocodile Dundee) or something which uses the desolate landscape to fantastic effect (see Max Max, Wolf Creek,Picnic at Hanging Rock and even Crocodile Dundee again). Mary and Max takes these two facets of the antipodean film industry and fashions them into a beautiful, heartfelt and emotional claymation movie. Mary and Max may be a tough sell to the mainstream cinema going audience but it's well worth the critical adulation it is receiving.

Despite the dark twists and turns taken by Mary and Max – dealing with unrequited love, suicide, self help groups, bullying and a 15 certificate in the UK – there are life lessons in there which transcend geography and age boundaries. Because of this there have been comparison's with Harold and Maude but this film is less preoccupied with morbidity and it's humour (what would expect with Dame Edna herself Barry Humphries narrating) is more in the toilet category than the subtle.

However, rather than being a criticism this actually works for the world director Adam Elliot has created. Filled with brilliantly eccentric characters and one in which the day to day problems of a lonely 8 year old are just as important as those of an Asberger's suffering middle aged man.

Vocally, Philip Seymour Hoffman is on fantastically world weary form as Max. Each syllable he types seeming as tired and heavy as the body he is pulling around. Toni Collette as older Mary is both giddily happy and sad but underused, even when the film begins to turn as dark as the chocolate they both love so much. The real standout is young unknown Bethany Whitmore as young Mary, dealing with the death of her father and constantly being put upon by those around her, she is tragically sweet and innocent.

Clay animation is not something that is seen very often on the big screen, it's usually confined to the odd Wallace and Gromit feature at Christmas or Tony Hart's desk. It can seem twee and perhaps too childlike to deal with bigger existential issues in more than just a passing subtlety but Mary and Max hits them head on like nihilistic Play Doe. In the final third it begins to lose its way as it revels in darker territory without the laughs of the first half, but it's unlike many things you'll see this year and convinces as much as any live action feature on similar subjects.

LFF Screening - Let Me In

2010-10-14T22:10:00.003+01:00

Let Me In
Starring: Chloe Moretz, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Richard Jenkins
Director: Matt Reeves
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: In a remake of the flawless Swedish original "Let The Right One In", "Let Me In" tells the story of Owen (Smit-McPhee), bullied at school and friendless whose life takes a turn for the better when Abby (Moretz) moves in next door. Their friendship builds into something more when Owen gradually discovers the terrifying and bloody truth...

Let The Right One In was such a beautifully shot and haunting movie that an American remake does come with a certain critical baggage; European snobbishness citing the fact that those imbecilic American's should learn how to read subtitles before getting their Hollywood sanitiser factories to repackage films.

This time around the setting is 1980's America meaning it all seems so familiar even if you weren't living in Genericville, USA at the time. Reeves plays upon this pop culture familiarity by drawing on themes that Spielberg would have been pushing back in the days of Boy George: the break up of the family,the resulting disenfranchised youth, the father like figure of Reagan on the flickering 20 inch colour TV and even a homage to Close Encounters during Richard Jenkins first kill at a rail crossing. At times this can bring some humorous, nostalgic moments but as is the problem with the increased focus on horror convention, it doesn't quite fit with the central theme of friendship and loyalty.

The decision to not stray too far from the original structure can sometimes fill you with a sense of deja vu and both young leads work amicably with what they are given – The Road's Smit-McPhee in particular building on his burgeoning reputation – but they rarely move beyond imitations of the previous, young cast. As remakes go, cinematographer Greig Fraser and director Matt Reeves seem to have taken the Gus Van Sant “if it ain't broke” Psycho route. Pacing and mise en scene taking their cue from the first with much of the frame lit with the same orange hues of street lamps, saturated white of the snow and vibrant red of blood as it's Swedish counterpart.

In fact the vibrant blood red is something which Reeves seems to be particularly enamoured with as he shows severed necks, gaping open wounds and acid coated faces with bloody glee. This preoccupation with making the subtle horror of the original the main focus this time around works on occasion – fleshing out Abbie's (Moretz) “Father” (Jenkins) character for example with a remorseful, slasher-lite back story – but most of the time creates problems with the dynamic between the two young leads, eventually overawing their slow burning journey from timid friends to life companions with blood and sweat but a severe lack of tears.

Despite the many millions no doubt ploughed into this remake, it struggles to keep the childlike charm of the original but does add more in the way of horror and humour. Some will find that appealing but when the original was almost pitch perfect, this is a clash of movie culture in which no one wins.

LFF Opening Night - Never Let Me Go

2010-10-13T17:01:00.003+01:00

Never Let Me Go
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Andrew Garfield, Keira Knightley
Director: Mark Romanek
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: As children, Ruth, Kathy and Tommy, spend their childhood at a seemingly idyllic English boarding school. As they grow into young adults, they find that they have to come to terms with the strength of the love they feel for each other, while preparing themselves for the haunting reality that awaits them...

Putting together a trio of rising British talent, two of which have had mainstream success and one of which is about to, Never Let Me Go takes their fresh faces and places them into a tale about life, death and the complication that is love whilst also adding a touch of almost Orwellian science fiction.

Despite the nature of the narrative, Never Let Me Go manages to not get bogged down in the murky ethics of the morbid tale its telling. Rather it revels in the personal journeys of Ruth, Kathy and Tommy as they bear their souls to each other – despite the assertion by the powers that be that they have no souls to begin with.

Attempting to describe the beauty of the piece is difficult to do without spoiling it in the process, but needless to say that despite director Mark Romanek's tendency to be heavy handed with his metaphorical screen representations, he has put together a film which is poignant and above all fragile. Managing to make simple interactions between the leads and people around them sinister, tinged with sadness but without being manipulative – which was an issue with a film such as My Sister's Keeper for example.

This fragility is embodied by all three leads but especially in Carey Mulligan's performance. An Education showed off her ability to play doe eyed innocence with ease but Never Let Me Go adds a world weariness and weight which her porcelain features belie. Andrew Garfield, has the capacity to play tormented with such ease and affability that it borders on the sociopathic and Keira Knightly, perhaps wishing to show young upstart Mulligan that she is also an Oscar nominated actress, is competent enough as the jealous best friend and lover to earn her “and” in the credits. However unfortunately for her, the character is underwritten and her motivations remain unexplored.

The child actors portraying these three leads are also fantastically cast. Yes, they certainly look like them but their performances are more than simply extensions of the adult performers. They add traits that are hard to shake off and they will stay with you throughout the film. It's not often that Casting Directors are praised but they should be here.

Never Let Me Go blends elements of horror, science fiction and romance perfectly. There are occasional plot holes that are unexplained but you forgive that when you're so involved in the story between the three leads unfolding before you. There is a real team effort on display which should translate into deserved awards come next year.

The Social Network

2010-10-13T15:00:00.005+01:00

The Social Network
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer
Director: David Fincher
Rating: 5 (out of 5)

Summary: Mark Zuckerberg, student of Harvard University and computer genius, creates the worldwide phenomenon Facebook from the comfort of his dorm room at Harvard University. As the site grows in popularity Mark finds himself in two separate lawsuits. It seems even with 500 million virtual friends you can still have enemies...

Laggards may scoff at this film about Facebook, the current cultural phenomenon at the peak of its networking power, but the tale of it's genesis from the dorm rooms of Harvard to the bedrooms of every man, woman and child in the western world is as old as the carrier pigeon. So old that screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has been at pains to point out that it's themes of betrayal, jealousy and friendship could have been written by Shakespeare or Chayefsky. This may sound like Sorkin starting to believe his own golden award enriched hype but there's an element of truth in his deserved self-aggrandising.

Director David Fincher, sometimes prone to brilliant and artistic flights of fancy in films such as Fight Club, plays a steady hand here by letting Sorkin's quick fire script roll off the tongues of the leads and push the narrative with every sardonic quip and computer jargon soliloquy. It really is a testament to the mutually beneficial partnership between director and screenwriter that when The Social Network moves it's attention from computer screen to litigation room via three separate testimonies and perspectives like a Ritalin starved 14 year old, it is still able to hold your attention throughout. Of course there are the odd Fincher touches and themes, the exclusive frat party which is shot like one of Tyler Durden's wet dreams and his constant penchant for dark, autumnal, desk lamp lighting for example, but really this is an Aaron Sorkin film with the auteur Fincher providing a beautifully lit blank screen for typing.

Facebook itself plays a relative backseat in proceedings, Sorkin all too aware that placing the website front and centre would be as interesting as accepting Farmville invites every two minutes. Instead the website's creator Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is the focus of attention. His inability to be included in the hierarchy of the American higher education system, be that via the exclusive rowing clubs or romantically with female classmates, the catalyst for the ironic creation of this all inclusive behemoth.

Eisenberg's portrayal of Zuckerberg as a computer genius outsider with borderline Asbergers is engagingly restrained , neurotic and amusing in equal measure. Each million he makes and each friend request he accepts taking him further away from any semblance of real life and real friends. There are also stand out performances from Andrew Garfield as the frustrated friend, exascerbated admirer and co-worker Eduardo Saverin and Justin Timberlake as Napster creator Sean Parker. Timberlake especially enjoying the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of Zuckerberg's genius with Iago like arsehole zeal and cowardice.

The Social Network is an almost perfect film that packages the early 21^st century version of the American Dream in a simple and engaging morality tale. Zuckerberg's rise from dorm room Bill Gates to owner of a $25 billion company playing like an out of control monster movie. It's Alive!

Interview - Simon Rumley

2010-10-10T21:40:00.005+01:00

Red, White and Blue is a hard hitting, psycho-sexual tale from British director Simon Rumley which has played to packed houses across the US and the UK at various film festivals and consequently garnered rave reviews from many a critic with its unflinching take on life. It's currently on a limited theatrical release in the States and I sat down with the director to discuss the casting process, the problems within the UK film industry and the beautiful city of Austin, Texas:

For the first hour I wondered where it was going. It had been deemed a horror movie and even though the experiences of the protagonists were horrific, it didn't adhere to horror convention. Then the final 40 minutes blew me away. How difficult was it to get the pacing just right in a film like this?

Once I read the script then the film usually just follows but we were certainly aware that it was a film of two halves. In fact we described it as Larry Clark meets Wes Craven and in the context of my last three films – which were very much Richard Linklater or Eric Rohmer in style – the second half is more like a genre film. So there are things in terms of editing, camera work and music...

The score was fantastic by the way...

The composer Richard (Chester, who also composed Rumley's previous movies) and I have worked together four times now and he's always an integral part of my films, but getting back to your original question, the camera literally doesn't move for the first hour. In fact I think the first time it moves is when Erica (Amanda Fuller) is being abducted in the country bar. The camera is being pushed forward by Noah Taylor's character in the second half so that's one way the pacing is affected – it's a very sparse film up until that point.

Amanda Fuller is again a real stand out in this film. She gives an incredibly vulnerable performance, did she audition for the role or was she in mind from the start?

I spoke to three actresses, some known, that were intrigued by the script but in the end said no. So we tried casting in Austin, Texas when we were there but in the end we did an open casting in LA. We had about 50 people read for the part but Amanda was the only one that from the first time we saw her do her stuff it was obvious from the movement in her face and the emotion conveyed even in the audition that she was the one for the role.

As I said she really puts herself out there. Physically its tough, she wears no make up for instance...

She was amazing. A fantastic actress, a lovely, instinctive person – which not all actors are. But she understood the role and the character. She really connected with her. Amanda had watched my previous film (The Living and The Dead) so she trusted me and the cinematographer Milton Kam and was an intelligent person to work with.

Was Noah Taylor the person you always wanted for the role of Nate?

He was the first person we actually cast. We made a list of names of who we wanted for the role and he was one of the top ones and I was really keen to work with him. I mean he's won the Australian version of the Baftas five times! But he's open to working to a tight schedule. I got in contact with his agent and asked if Noah could read the script in the next two days before I head to Austin and if he liked it could he meet with me a few days after that and then could he make a decision quickly. The agent said yes to all of it!

He wanted to make sure it wasn't going to be another Hostel or Saw in terms of gratuitous violence. I assured him it wouldn't be and he came on board. It was fantastic for me because I've been watching him since the age of 16 in films like the year my voice broke and always wanted to work with him.

Why did you choose Austin as the location for Red,White and Blue? It's got a big film fraternity down there...

A few reasons really. One being that my last few films have all been made in the UK and unless you want to make some kind of gangster movie or a period drama it doesn't seem there's a lot else out there. At the moment there's nothing original coming out of the place. Also, England isn't seen as a world class film playing nation. So if you're doing an indie film at the best of times it's difficult. I think for an English film to work you need to get distribution in the UK and then they have to do a good job marketing it and then there's word of mouth – there are constant hurdles. You're relying on distributors who don't get behind your films.

So I wanted to go to America because it's where you need to go if you have any ambition to make films frankly. At least you know if its American it has more chance of getting out there.

I picked Austin specifically because my last film The Living and The Dead played at Fantastic Fest a couple of years ago and went down well. I stayed with Carrie and Tim League and when you get on the circuit you tend to see the same people at the same events so we all made friends pretty quickly. At some point I said to Tim “If I come to Austin to shoot a film would you help me out?” He replied “Yeah, but I'm not going to give you any money but i'll do anything else.” When you talk about the Austin film community Tim's a lynch pin. I knew if I had him behind me then he could sort out a lot of things in a way that someone who had just stepped off the plane from England couldn't. He was invaluable. For instance he used his cinema website to source a car from the locals for a specific character.

It sounds like an Austin community effort...

It really was. Everyone is really friendly. It's kinda the lost bastion of hippydom but in a positive way. Austin is between Hippy and Punk. People are creative and they're doing it because they like it rather than they want to be successful. Money isn't an issue, folk hang out and dig creativity. It's a lovely place in that respect. There aren't many places like that in the world anymore.

Red,White and Blue is currently on a limited release in across the US and is also available On Demand from IFC Midnight films.

Interview - Robin Mcleavy

2010-10-10T21:37:00.004+01:00

Robin Mcleavy is currently the toast of the horror circuit with her breakthrough performance in Australian horror The Loved Ones. She plays unhinged, torture loving Lola – the schoolgirl you don't want to say no too. Unhinged and sexy all in one, I managed to get 10 minutes with her to discuss nailing penises and the best way to approach a love scene with your Dad...

I loved it. Watched it on a sunny Sunday afternoon in my flat and it scared the shit out of me – especially your performance. You’re probably getting lots of plaudits for what you’ve done with the role...

It was one of those roles that’s so much fun to play. Lola is such a great character that I had a great time working on it.

How did you get the part? Did you have to audition?

Yeah, I originally auditioned for the part of Mia (Goth sister of one of Lola’s victims) and then they asked me to come back in and read for Lola, which I was really happy about because I really related...hold up...not related...

You better keep that to yourself. You don’t want to tell people that!

I don’t want to be typecast!

You didn’t go all “method” did you?

(laughs) I definitely did not go method! I was terrified and thought to myself “if I go method on this I would need to be institutionalised”. I did read a book called “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Neurologist Oliver Sacks and he described all his patient's mental disabilities in a really poetic way rather than clinically. It really was great source for me to draw from. He describes his patients feeling dangerously well when entering a period of violent instability. They feel colourful and ecstatic...

That comes across in the film with the use of vibrant colours in Lola’s room, the bright pinks for example...

Yeah, I really wanted to give Lola a sense of fun instead of making it...you know - too horrific.

It’s usually the case that characters like Lola have been pushed over the edge, bullied at school and suddenly just snap but you don’t really see her in that environment and that’s what I liked about her – she’s never been told “No” she’s not the victim...

Well certainly not by her father, who’s given her everything her heart has ever desired - including young, male victims. But I would have loved to have seen more of Lola’s school life, you know how someone like that would function in that environment is interesting.

I would loved to have seen her dropped into Mean Girls, you are slightly like an unhinged Lindsey Lohan, which is pretty much what Lindsey Lohan is most of the time anyway, but in the fictional sense...

Yeah! (laughs)

You mentioned briefly the relationship with her father (played by John Brompton) how did you two go about getting the right mix between perverted and loving father?

We spent time together trying to figure out what their dynamic was and how much they would touch and that was the key. We never touch in the movie except for just before we start torturing Brent. We wanted to keep a distance because the feelings we had for each other were taboo. It was a very strange process attempting to get the knowingness and tension between them.

The scene when you demand Brent urinates otherwise you'll put a nail through his penis, I was on the edge of my seat clutching my testicles. Luckily my other half didn't walk in otherwise I would have to have done some explaining...

(laughs) I know! My boyfriend was very disturbed by it and he looked at me very differently – it was weird for a few hours.

How do you think it will play overseas? Because it's not so Australian that it would be inaccessible to other countries

Horror always has the ability, especially comedy horror, to transcend national boundaries. There's a formula that fans can relate to and the dialogue is quite sparse in The Loved Ones. Also, I wouldn't say it was a quintessentially Australian film either and the characters – apart from Lola – are extremely down to earth and just regular teenagers.

There seems to be a real appetite for Australian film at the moment, especially horror, do you think Australia lends itself to this genre?

Definitely, its just the fact that we're quite isolated and that comes across in our films. The characters are in the middle of nowhere and against the elements. Lola and Brent obviously live out of town and there is definitely the sense that if you run, you don't know where you'll be running to.

The Loved Ones is out in the UK in October and it's native Australia in November.

London Film Festival Screening: The American

2010-10-09T14:25:00.007+01:00

The American
Starring: George Clooney, Violante Placido, Thekla Reuten
Director: Anton Corbijn
Rating: 2 and a half (out of 5)

Summary: An American assassin (Clooney) finds himself holed up in the Italian countryside after his previous assignment in Sweden ends abruptly and violently. Tempted out for a final small assignment by his usual contact, he finds that a hit man can never truly leave his old life without sacrifice...

The American will be a tough sell to a mainstream audience, the morose mood premeating each scene and the languid Italian afternoon tone of Corbijn's direction slowing the film to a snails pace; excitement is few and far between. Imagine Leon the Professional cleaning his window box on a Sunday afternoon and you've pretty much got where the film stands amongst the pantheon of spy thrillers.

Clooney, looking more like Cary Grant with each film that passes, manages to look great in a number of fine cut Italian suits and Prada knitwear but his gloomy and self pitying character Jack (or his alias Edward) stands out like a sore thumb in back water Italy. Whether it's sitting in restaurants, in cafes, picnicking by a beautiful stream and frequently visiting brothels, for someone so paranoid he really is awfully trusting. At least Cary had the good sense to wear sunglasses.

As the film unfolds, Clooney questions his own existence, wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, falls in love with the hooker with the heart of gold and suspects everyone as being a potentially Swedish hitman. As a cold bastard with pangs for a normal life, Clooney really pulls it off, the pain of one too many taken lives etched all over his face - even if he is having a well earned espresso whilst wallowing.

Director Anton Corbijn, ex music video director extraordinaire and the vision behind Joy Division biopic Control, decides to take time off from his rock 'n' roll sensibilities to show as much dramatic tension on screen as a Daniel O' Donnell production. This isn't so much of a problem when surveying the beautiful surroundings like a postcard but when he attempts to imitate The Third Man by filming the dangerous cobbled, back streets it's as blunt in it's execution as attempting assassination with a butter knife. Corbijn's mishandling of the piece is a big problem with The American - It's too Hollywood, it's too slick and for most of the film it's simply chocolate box paranoia.

Over the course of 105 minutes The American becomes an indifferent watch. It has no heart and to coin a cliche (which this film revels in by the way, kindly old Italian priests?) it has no soul. I've heard of a slow burner but this never even lights.

The American is showing as part of the "Film on the Square" season at the London Film Festival
It is on general release in the UK from 26th November

Winter's Bone

2010-09-19T15:33:00.005+01:00

Winter's Bone
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, John Hawkes, Lauren Sweetser
Director: Debra Granik
Rating:4 (out of 5)

Summary: 17 year old Ree Dolly looks after her house bound Mother and siblings whilst attempting to locate her drug dealing Father - who has put up their home as collateral for his bail and unless he turns up at trial in a week they will lose the property...

It seems appropriate that at a time of seized property and increased squalor, Winter's Bone is released - a film that shows the darker side of the American dream, one of an increasing hard drug culture and the ever changing landscape of the old west.

Set in the isolated Ozark Mountains, director Debra Granik uses the setting to great effect. It's windswept, barren and destitute. Full of burnt out buildings and burnt out people, its ripe for horror conventions but Granik, a newcomer by industry standards, shows a world with rules and a code of honour that is not be broken. Sure, this may manifest itself in violent ways but it is not violence for violence sake rather to protect the status quo.

Ree's (Jennifer Lawrence) journey to find her father is constantly hampered by various characters attempting to uphold this code. Going from house to house, she waits for answers and when they're not forthcoming she's handed a hot drink or cash and told to be on her way. But her devotion to her Mother and siblings is such that even though it inevitably means violence against her, she keeps on trying. This dichotomy between the code and doing what's right is at the centre of this film and watching it unfold is tough but extremely rewarding viewing.

Without a strong central lead the film would have fallen apart and Jennifer Lawrence delivers in spades. Showing the same homely courageousness of an early Jodie Foster performance, she is the heart and soul of the piece. There has been Oscar hype about this breakthrough performance for the past few months and it is certainly justified. Like Calamity Jane in a Larry Clark movie, she's mentally fragile, selfless and tough as nails all at the same time.

Plaudits must also go to stalwart character actor John Hawkes as Uncle Teardrop. Personifying the moral and immoral battle at the centre of the film, he's a violent man who uses cocaine like chewing tobacco but still wants to help Ree resolve her problem and exact revenge on those who have caused the situation for her. Hawkes has been in many features over the past 20 years but never got recognition for his talents, hopefully this will finally see that happen for him.

As the film enters the final 15 minutes, it begins to take a turn into horror territory as the truth is finally uncovered. However, this isn't enough to take you out of the story and it in fact shows the limits of Ree's character. Again, Jennifer Lawrence delivers the goods and holds your attention whilst Director Debra Granik doesn't shy away from the tense reality of the situation.

Winter's Bone may not play at the multiplex for too long but its worth your time and money. As one young woman's personal journey its fantastic and as a story about family, selfless acts and standing up for those you love it's even better.

To be a Pilgrim...

2010-09-19T08:49:00.005+01:00

Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Starring: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Kieran Culkin, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Edgar Wright
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: 22 year old, school girl dating, bass playing Scott Pilgrim falls in love with the mysterious and alluring Ramona Flowers. Unfortunately for him however she has seven evil exes who he must do battle with in order to win her heart...

Edgar Wright's distinctive crash bang visceral style meets it's ideological and visual soul partner with the adaptation of graphic novelettes Scott Pilgrim. They compliment each other perfectly as Wright takes his cue from the computer game visuals of many a Street Fighter and Donkey Kong, with 1ups and coins aplenty, and fills the screen with easily accessible comedy and romance.

Let's get this straight though, if you think Scott Pilgrim will be the film that makes the cult mainstream you would be wrong, it plays to the geek crowd like William Shatner fan dancing in a storm trooper outfit and doesn't compromise it's outsider sensibilities to be easily digestible fodder for the masses. Just like those who worship the pixilated ground Super Mario walks on, Michael Cera as Scott isn't witty, physically strong or verbose but is a daydreamer forever living in his own id and taking a physical and mental pounding because of his love for Ramona (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) - who herself is the pinnacle of the anti-heroine.

The supporting cast is a who's who of up and coming Hollywood talent. Recently Oscar-nominated Anna Kendrick as Scott's sister is the stand out. After my initial reservations about her in the Twilight series, she is starting to be cast in films that really show her undoubted talent. Kieran Culkin as Scott's gay housemate Wallace reaches the nadir of snippy sarcasm which was bearing fruit as early as Igby Goes Down and shaggy ginger drummer Kim (Alison Pill) is as scary as any ex whilst aggressively smashing away.

Where Scott Pilgrim vs The World really earns its full health bar and invincible stars though are the hyperactive fight scenes. Filled with a rich, sugar enthused vein of pop rocking explosions and kung fu, each fight has its own distinctive style and fighter powers. Superman Brandon Routh as Vegan rocker and ex number four Todd Ingram especially revels in the pantomime villainy of the occasion whilst Edgar Wright punctuates each face off with all the "Zaps" and "Pows" of a nostalgic Adam West giving the occasion its grounding in the hyper real.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World is fun. Fun with a capital F. This is how you should approach comic book adaptations, with a real love and understanding of the original. Edgar Wright has taken the source material and rolled in it like a pig in the pop proverbial and provided a wet dream inducing mega film for the socially awkward gamer in all of us.

OUT NOW

Please not another guys...

2010-09-18T22:29:00.007+01:00

The Other Guys
Starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes, Samuel L Jackson, Dwayne Johnson
Director: Adam Mckay
Rating: 2 and a half (out of 5)

Summary: Infamous NYPD Detectives Danson (Dwayne Johnson) and Highsmith (Jackson) are the best in the force and the toast of city. After their unusual, unfortunate deaths in the line of duty, not so infamous Detectives Gamble (Ferrell) and Hoitz (Wahlberg) decide to take up the mantle of hero cops and stop simply being nobodies. Or The Other Guys...

Starting with a high speed chase through the streets of New York and continuing the high octance action spills and thrills over the course of the first 10 minutes, The Other Guys sets out its stall early on with the knowing banter between unlikely comedy duo Jackson and Johnson. In fact, killing them off so soon into the film, like a bad punchline to a killer set up, means the film struggles to hit that momentum again over the course of the ensuing 100 minutes - as Ferrell and Wahlberg struggle to generate an ounce of the same chemistry.

Which is a shame because at the heart of The Other Guys is an old fashioned mismatched buddy cop comedy that could have been so much more. With its intimidating ensemble cast which includes an underused Steve Coogan, Michael Keaton as a ball busting Captain and Eva Mendes as Ferrell's glamorous wife - and the subject of an increasingly unfunny and repetitive joke - everything was set for one of those "laugh out loud a minute" films that the bus advertising and TV spots promise so often.

Unfortunately this isn't so much laugh out loud a minute more nod off a minute as the jokes become lamer, the action more tired and the nonsensical plot stretched to a "huh?" breaking point. Director Adam McKay managed to capture the hearts, minds and collective funny bones of a generation with Anchorman and he has struggled in three Ferrell celluloid collaborations since then to repeat the trick. They obviously enjoy working together, their numerous shorts on Funny or Die testify to this, but it's time to end this partnership. The magic has gone and I don't think it will return.

Compare it to an abusive, co dependent relationship. McKay feeds Ferrell's habit at the expense of our viewing pleasure. Allowing him to ad lib on countless occasions to the detriment of character development because, yes even in a comedy, you need to have some kind of connection with the audience. At least being likeable would have been a start. As the ad libs become more and more obscure, to the point of pop culture surrealism, I laughed less and less and so did everyone else.

A vanity project with no heart, if Anchorman was lightning in a bottle then The Other Guys is shit in a test tube.

Low morale with Miral

2010-09-16T20:47:00.011+01:00

Miral
Starring: Freida Pinto, Hiam Abbass, Alexander Siddig, Willem Dafoe
Director: Julian Schnabel
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: On her way to work, Hind Husseini (Hiam Abbass) comes across 55 orphan children wandering in the street. Unwilling to walk away, she takes them home to give them food and shelter . Within six months, those 55 have grown to almost 2000, and Hind transforms her family's house into the Dar Al-Tifl Al-Arabi Institute...

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly director Julian Schnabel makes a rare misfire with Miral, although visually the story is arresting and the acting bound to gain plaudits come awards season, politically the film has an agenda which doesn't sit well with the overarching theme of education being the key component of cultural harmony.

Hiam Abbass's Yoda like performance as Jind Husseini, imparting wisdom and safety to her ever increasing number of lost school children, holds the film together for the first 40 minutes. Her mission to educate in extremely trying historical and political circumstances is so feel good and inspirational that it manages to make Willem Dafoe seem cuddly. The story, slow burning and compelling, begins to take a turn for the worse when the conflict becomes more aggressive and the politics of both sides become more ingrained in the minds of the young people who struggle to understand the strength of the violence around them.

Schnabel shoots the film with all the care and attention the subject matter deserves, showing the beauty of the region and the people whilst also not pulling away from the full horror that they are faced with daily - Israeli soldiers and tanks violently breaking up a makeshift street English class being a scene that beautifully plays out - but unfortunately he is let down by an adaptation that eventually falls under the weight of its own convoluted narrative structure and is unsure in which direction to take the story.

This lack of focus is evident in the character development of Miral, played by the ever radiant Frieda Pinto. Even though her political activism and the resulting mental and physical brutality is told in detail, her background and family life is rushed through quickly and not afforded the same care. The story of her Mother is undercooked, with her being in prison one minute and then marrying and cheating on her new husband the next. Also the choices of her Father to keep certain facts and truths from her is again played out almost begrudgingly.

As proceedings move away from the school and into the murky world of politics, Miral makes all the wrong choices, picks the wrong allies and despite the films assertion that education is key to disarming fanaticism, Schnabel doesn't appear to have the same idea - spending most of his time creating a thriller that doesn't sit well with the stirring opening half. Of course, as the reality of the political situation moves through the decades there are bound to be shifts in tone but Hiam Abbass's performance is so pitch perfect that moving her to second fiddle is a misstep.

The Israeli conflict contains so many tragic and uplifting personal stories that it's a shame that Miral starts off as riveting, low key stuff and then turns into political grand standing for the final reel. Colours are certainly tied to masts by those involved and the final scenes of broken agreements and two faced politicians leaves a bad taste in the mouth of a film which, just like the bureaucrats, promised so much but most of the time fails to deliver.

OUT 3rd December

The Brothers Bloom DVD Release

2010-09-08T13:27:00.004+01:00

The Brothers Bloom
Starring: Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz, Rinko Kikuchi
Director: Rian Johnson
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: The Brothers Bloom are con men, involved in the most illustrious, theatrical and idiosyncratic cons imaginable and they've decided to do one last job before retirement - involving a thrill seeking, naive, eccentric heiress and a mute, japanese explosives expert...

Appearing on DVD after a limited but critically dignified run in cinemas, The Brothers Bloom is an idiosyncratic puzzle box of a film, which over time is bound to gain a cult and dedicated following. Rhian Johnson, he of high school detective thriller Brick fame, directs in a film that revels in it's quirk and plays like the bastard son of Danny Boyle's A Life Less Ordinary and Soderbergh's Oceans 11.

Despite the stellar cast of A-listers like Brody and Weisz combining with hot newcomers like Rinko Kikuchi and Rian Johnson, one can see why The Brothers Bloom was a hard sell for Hollywood producers. It's a film that avoids mainstream heist and con movie convention, instead having the cohones to seduce the audience with glamorous locations, slick Karl Lagerfeld inspired fashion and rat a tat dialogue - only to pull the wool over your eyes just when you think you've got it all figured out.

Films with troubled histories like Brothers Bloom - filming was completed in 2008 - rarely have the right to be so enjoyable, entertaining and above all refreshingly original. With fantastic performances all round, especially from the underrated Ruffalo and Kikuchi, and almost mythical quality to the Eastern European setting The Brothers Bloom is worth your attention but perhaps not your trust.

Available on DVD/Blu-Ray from Monday 4th October

Piranha 3D - Submitted by Time Ruins All Things

2010-09-08T13:18:00.006+01:00

Piranha 3D
Starring: Elizabeth Shue, Ving Rhames, Christopher Lloyd, Kelly Brook
Director: Alexandre Aja
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: After a sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of the prehistoric man-eating fish, an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop them from becoming fish food for the razor-toothed residents...

How do you please a room full of film geeks? Putting Richard Dreyfuss on a boat in the middle of Lake Victoria singing the same song he sang in a little film a few decades ago before being attacked by a rather famous shark might just do the job!

That is exactly where we start Piranha 3D, with a nod to the monster that kicked its original ass in 1978. The plot line basically consists of a huge tremor which exposes a subterranean lake which is full to the brim of; you guessed it, thousands of hungry prehistoric piranhas. This coincides with thousands of teens descending on Lake Victoria for Spring Break. The words don't go in the water spring to mind, but of course they do in their hoards and the piranhas really go to town.

It would be easy to knock Piranha 3D, yes it is a B movie, yes the script is a little drossy and yes, the special effects do look like they were done on the cheap, but, that’s the fun of it! Alexandre Aja knows exactly what type of film Piranha is, and who its audience will be, and camps it up accordingly. True, there was eye rolling, and groaning from some of the awful dialogue, perhaps most of note was Kelly Brooks opening line of ‘nice horn,’ Piranha 3D is about as subtle as a brick, but there was also much laughter and jumping out of your seat resulting in an oddly enjoyable 88 minutes. I dare you not to come out with a smile on your face; of course this may be due to the sheer number of breast shots littered throughout the film.

As my friend summarised as the credits rolled, ‘its cheaper than going to a strip club.’ True that.

Check out the Time Ruins All Things blog at http://www.timeruinsallthings.blogspot.com/

Frightfest 2010 Round Up

2010-08-31T22:29:00.004+01:00

Photo Credit: Julie Edwards

As this is now the 11^th year the festival has run in central London it has gained notoriety for showing a mix of upcoming Hollywood schlock, obscure foreign oddities, those films still waiting for distribution and the occasional horror classic. This is all interspersed with your standard Q and As with directors, actors and producers who usually appear as the proverbial “rabbits in the headlights” in front of hundreds of baying Horror fans.

Running from 26^th August through to 30^th August, here is a selection of what was on offer:

Hatchet II (USA 2010):

This World Premiere was the opening film, with stars Kane Hodder, Tony Todd and Danielle Harris in attendance along with director Adam Green.

Having never seen the first film, I feel I could come into this with a certain sense of objective opinion. There were certainly many others in the audience who were new to the franchise and Adam Green’s work, but were there to be entertained by something that had been billed by the director himself as much better than the original and funny as fuck.

The film had a certain retro charm to it that many mainstream Hollywood horrors have attempted but often failed. The boogeyman Victor Crowley, as played by Jason Voorhees stalwart Kane Hodder, had an interesting backstory and genesis consisting of botched birthing, mutated outcast and burnt victim. Tony Todd gave his dialogue a certain weight, in both delivery and tone, and Danielle Harris’s lopsided face was not enough to distract from a fine scream queen performance. Fright Night director Tom Holland as Uncle Bob also deserves a special mention as the best of a hit and miss bunch of peripheral characters.

Green certainly does not shy away from showing a bloody good amount of gore and entrails, each kill was as inventive as the last and was met with rapturous approval from the Frightfest crowd but I feel that “Hatchet II” was simply a thank you to the fans rather than a labour of love. To be honest, he seems so well liked here that he could have simply ejaculated over the front row and they would have lapped it up whilst cupping their hands in an outstretched “please sir, can we have some more” Oliver pose. Apparently this is playing in your AMC theatres as an unrated feature. Give it your cash when it finally gets released as its good to see a horror not compromise on the gore for the sake of a rating.

Primal (Australia, 2009):

Six friends on a field trip to an ancient site full of beautiful cave paintings are picked off by a friend infected by an ancient primordial disease. You know the one, it turns you into a flesh eating athlete and can’t be cured with pain killers and a good nights sleep, rather a quick chop with a machete and a shotgun to the face.

This had an interesting premise and was a welcome change of direction and tone after the obvious tongue in cheek humour of “Hatchet II”. It was certainly funnier, with each character in the camp given well drawn out identities and motivations. Leading lady Zoe Tuckwell-Smith especially gives a fantastic performance as claustrophobic Anja, who has to overcome her fears to escape the horror that lies within the caves. If this sounds Descent lite then I’m doing it a disservice as it revels in sexual politics, has fun with the premise and contains a fantastic use of the “C word”.

Eggshells (USA 1969):

Part of the Tobe Hooper retrospective, Eggshells is his little seen counter culture movie from the late 1960s which takes place in a hippie commune which is being manipulated by a presence in the basement. Even though there are obvious aesthetic links to Texas Chainsaw, this film is a psychedelic student film showcasing a filmmaker yet to find his voice. The sound is screeching to the point of ear bursting and I’m not sure what I got out of it apart from a headache and a reinforced feeling that the sixties was somewhat full of idiots most of the time.

Isle of Dogs (UK 2010):

I won’t waste your time or mine. It’s a disgrace that this piece of mockney, cockney shit was playing at all. Detailing a Russian bride’s bid to escape her abusive gangster husband, it stars actors who aren’t good enough for a street corner let alone a big screen. To make it worse it wasn’t even a horror – just a nightmare consisting of piss poor actors screaming “CCCCCAAAAAAAANNNNNNTTTT” at each other like drunk fans of Prussian philiosophy.

F (UK 2010):

An addition to this “hoodie horror” sub genre which seems to be expanding in the UK (hoodies being bad boy youths who wear hoods and carry boy scout pen knives for “shanking”) F was an interesting piece of work which will no doubt fuel the right wing’s assertion that every teenager would rather kick you in the balls than help you with your shopping. Good performances all round from leading actor David Schofield as a physically assaulted, alcoholic English teacher , Ruth Gemmell as the Headteacher and the young Eliza Bennett as Schofield’s good girl turned bad daughter. It highlights the stresses of teaching in modern Britain but is somewhat OTT in its execution and dour ending.

Red Hill (Australia 2010):

A horror/western starring True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten and original Jimmie Blacksmith Tom E. Lewis, Red Hill looked amazing and harked back to early Carpenter such as Assault on Precinct 13 (something which F attempted but never really conveyed). Kwanten as family man Shane Cooper starts his life as sergeant of a back water Australian town on the same day a wrongly convicted aboriginal man (Tom E.Lewis) returns to exact bloody revenge on the locals who set him up. It uses the scope of the Australian outbreak beautifully and Kwanten will be fast tracked to stardom after this tough but sympathetic performance.

Cherry Tree Lane (UK 2010):

If anyone came to the UK after watching this and F you would think that the locals had turned feral and taken to rape and stabbing like it was tea and crumpets. Believe me, you would only be half right. Cherry Tree Lane sees an arguing, middle class couple sitting down to dinner only to be invaded by a gang of kids looking for the son who “grassed” their gangleader’s cousin to the police for drug dealing. As the parents are tied up and subjected to physical and emotional assaults you are left feeling an impending tense sense of doom and claustrophobia as the gang impatiently wait for the unlucky kid to return. This is a tense third feature from Paul Andrew Williams, but just like F leaves a bad taste of hopelessness in the mouth.

The Tortured (USA/Canada 2010):

Yet another addition to the tired “torture porn” genre (which isn’t really porn because that has ladies bits in it and a happy ending) The Tortured stars Jesse Metcalf as a doctor and doting father who has his six year old child abducted and murdered on his watch. As his relationship with his wife (Erika Christensen , the poor man’s Julia Stiles) falls apart, he comes to the conclusion that the moral high ground is for wimps and that torturing, and eventually killing, the murderous paedophile who killed his child will bring them together. Try counselling. It’s cheaper and would be more fun to watch. This is simply a wet dream for right wing, talkback radio DJs and drew laughter from the audience.

13 HRS (UK 2010):

Full of British soap actors and Tom Felton aka Draco Malfoy playing as convincing a drunk stoner as Jessica Tandy soaked in embalming fluids, this werewolf film falls into the usual horror trap of replacing genuine scares with simply matching the quiet/loud quota. The female lead Isabella Calthorpe does what she can with the script but even she falls into the horror clichés after an hour. Also, hairless white werewolves?

I Spit On Your Grave (USA 2010):

I wasn’t too keen on seeing this film, having not seen the original and wanting to have that baggage as I settled in, but I think my untainted mind and eyeballs were all the better for not carrying the weight. Apparently this is having difficulty obtaining an R rating in the US and I can see why. Even the liberal British cut has 20 seconds missing and it was extremely brutal in its depiction of multiple rapes and the resulting vengeance meted out by Jennifer Hills (a fantasticaly brave performance from Sarah Butler). I watched this whilst sitting next to Kane Hodder, and he wasn’t convinced by the “pretty boys” cast as the violating and violated rednecks, but he was convinced by the ability of director Steven R Monroe to kill off the protagonists with elaborate gory set pieces. I have to agree with the big guy. Because he punched me in the arm.

Monsters (UK 2010):

Without doubt the hit of the festival. Monsters director Gareth Edwards, a visual effects man by trade, has created a film that’s closer to evoking Close Encounters Spielberg more than Spielberg is currently capable of. The tale of benevolent extra terrestrials, their continued survival on Earth and the US military’s efforts to eradicate the “infection” is beautifully simple in its execution and visually a work of art. Lead actors Scoot McNairy and Whitney Able have more chemistry than Madame Curie’s kitchen and pull off this road movie with the right amount of romance, wide eyed wonder and respectful fear. A fantastic film already dubbed as this year’s District 9.

The Loved Ones (Australia 2009):

Despite all the ballsy female leading performances seen over the course of the festival the real breakout performance was that of Robin Mcleavy (also, I had a great interview with this girl). She plays Lola, the girl who has never been told “NO!” by her daddy – even when it means he has to drug and kidnap the objects of her affection, the object in this case being Twilight Eclipse’s Xavier Samuel. As a nightmarish prom plays out in Lola’s shack, her “date” is subjected to demeaning tortures and experiences the perverted relationship between daughter and daddy. A fantastic subversion of the generic prom picture, the film is brilliantly bizarre and gorgeous to look at. Lola is a creation I want to see more of, she’s dangerous, cute, psychotic and sexy all rolled into one.

The Dead (UK 2010):

It’s rare to see an African set zombie movie which has actually been filmed in mainland Africa and even rarer to meet genuinely nice filmmakers like The Ford Brothers. It’s a trait I hope they don’t lose as they eventually take the world by storm in the ensuing years. It’s the standard tale of stranded survivors fighting against the elements to escape the zombie terror that surrounds them, but the elements in this case are arid landscapes and the harsh, beating sun. Harking back to old school Romero zombies of the slow shuffle variety, and using the entire scope of the camera to showcase the epic landscape in which they filmed, the brothers have created a beautiful tale of hope against all odds.

Red,White and Blue (USA 2010):

A tough tale from Simon Rumley, director of The Living and The Dead, audience reaction has been polarised with this. For the first hour you wonder how this Larry Clark-esqe tale can be suitable for a horror film festival, but the final 40 minutes make your eyeballs pop out of your skull and quiver in the corner. Unknown Amanda Fuller gives a vulnerable, heartfelt performance and Noah Taylor again displays the chameleon range that makes him one of the most enigmatic and underrated actors of this particularly generation. This is hard hitting stuff detailing the real horror of everyday illness such as Cancer and HIV against the dichotomy the human condition. A tough viewing experience.

As a Frightfest virgin (I only attended The Human Centipede and the awful Descent 2 last year) I was surprised to see such an eclectic mixture of film and to be honest I’ve only just scratched the surface with this rundown as there were 27 films being shown across two screens.

Toy Story 3 - Submitted by Ben Gardner

2010-08-31T22:16:00.003+01:00

Toy Story 3
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Allen
Director: Lee Unkrich
Rating: 5 (out of 5)

It struck me when waiting to see Pixar latest masterpiece that the majority of people in the queue with me were not even born when the original ‘game changing’ Toy Story was first released. I use the term game changing because it is one we have heard a lot recently thanks to the release of another 3D, CGI epic that took all the headlines earlier this year, a film years in the making which apparently broke new boundaries in terms of what was possible with cinema and CGI. Don't get me wrong, I was just as amazed at what James Cameron achieved with Avatar as most of the audience, I'd just like to point out that John Lasseter and his team at Pixar were doing this fifteen years ago, and doing it with much more heart. Will the vast world of Pandora and its many inhabitants still capture an audiences imagination, take away their collective breaths, and tug on their heart strings as much as the bedroom of one Andy Davis and its two dozen or so plastic residents in fifteen years time?

Toy Story 3 opens with a scene that immediately reminds us why we were so hooked when watching the first film all those years ago. The writers have managed to include so many cues to the previous adventures in the franchise without at any time feeling like a rehash of old ideas. Hence we are reintroduced to Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) et al in a sequence that perfectly recalls the time we first met the characters though really ups the ante on what we have seen before. It is probably the biggest set piece in the film, though the rest of the adventure never feels like it lacks because of this.

After the epic opening we learn that Andy (as still played by the original film’s John Morris) is now 18 years old and is about to go to college, moving out of the bedroom that we are reminded was the setting for so many adventures played out between Woody, Buzz and the rest of the toys, in and outside of Andy's imagination.Andy needs to make a decision about what he is going to do with his toys, and thanks to a collection of mistakes, mishaps and misunderstanding, the toys are eventually off to the new pastures of Sunnyside Day Care Centre and its new cast of play mates, feeling neglected by their old owner and desperate to find new children to be played with. It's here we meet the apparently benevolent Lotso (the fantastic Ned Beatty), the vain and emasculated Ken (Michael Keaton) and the surprisingly scary Big Baby amongst others. Ken in particular is an hilarious addition to the cast, and his fledgling relationship with Barbie is a highlight of an already fantastic ensemble. It is as the toys realise that the grass is definitely not greener, forcing Woody to the rescue that our story develops.

I should now mention the rest of the note perfect cast; the subtle yet oh so effective use of 3D; and the as ever incredible visuals, though these are only co-stars to what is at the real soul of the film. Pixar have an amazing knack for creating stories that work on so many different levels: for adults and children; for boys and girls; fathers and sons and mothers and daughters. Unlike the Shark Tales, Madagascars and Ice Ages of the world, Toy Story manages to appeal to every member of its audience consistently, and it does so without alienating anybody in the process.

In Toy Story 3 director Lee Unkrich and his team have created the perfect send off to a group of characters much beloved by audiences, and one that the different members of this audience will enjoy in so many ways. The children will love the spectacle, the humour, the beautifully drawn characters and (rare) fart and poo jokes. Adults will love all this but also will identify with the very human themes of love, loss, neglect and hope that are so important throughout. I will put my neck out and say that at around fifteen minutes from the end we are treated to possibly one of the most beautiful moments I have seen in any movie, animated or not. This is the difference between Toy Story 3 and its counterparts: it is much more than simply a cartoon. In years to come when the kids that are now enjoying these stories for the first time are taking their own children to the cinema, it will be this film that has had more influence on what they are watching rather than Avatar, at least I hope that this is the case.

Out Now

Steady Salted...

2010-08-22T17:06:00.006+01:00

Salt
Starring: Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofer,
Director: Philip Noyce
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: After CIA agent Evelyn Salt is fingered as being a Russian double agent by a ex KGB spy being questioned at CIA HQ by Salt herself. Finding herself as America's most wanted, she goes on the run to find out the truth and stop the assassination of the Russian President...

Every summer season there are a glut of action films starring sexy Hollywood starlets and as quickly as you can say gratuitous topless shot, they will sit in various interviews stating how "different" their character is compared to your usual heroine, that they "kick-ass" as much as the male lead and this time they really hold their own. What you find is that they spend 99 per cent of their time as a damsel in distress and only one soft punch/broken nail away from Kate Capshaw Temple of Doom territory.

Therefore it's somewhat ironic that the role of Salt was originally lined up for Tom Cruise, who instead passed in favour of the dead on arrival romantic action of Knight and Day. Of course the double agent, cold war heavy narrative - as well as the look - are somewhat similar to his initial outing as Ethan Hunt in Brian De Palma's underrated Mission Impossible, but Jolie shows once again that she could rip off Cruise's balls with a quick side swipe along with any other guys wishing to take her mantle as a true action hero.

Director Philip Noyce, used to taut political thrillers such as The Quiet American and Clear and Present Danger, uses all his know how to make sometime director of Hollywood tripe Kurt Wimmer's implausible plot devices as plausible as possible and Jolie, apart from being more than capable in the action stakes, gives considerable acting gravitas to the role of Evelyn Salt. Believe me, Jolie is the star and she commands the camera as if the audience were mere putty in her hands.

In fact, Wimmer and Noyce both seem so enamored with their female spy creation that every other character fades into a background of underwritten stereotypes and finally wide eyed, over acted shouting. The lazily cast Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofer attempt to stay on screen long enough to make an impression but struggle to get their odd five minutes of screen time noticed over the numerous slow motion jumps and sweaty gun grapples of the lead.

The action set pieces are, as standard at the moment, straight out of the Jason Bourne book of close encounter punch ups i.e. all shaky cams, cold violent brutality and real stunts. Occasionally Noyce decides to take the CGI route with the more preposterous set peices and this doesn't sit too well with the old school spy games unfolding around them. Salt has more impact when it sticks to what it does best, espionage and trickery.

Despite this, the final third is pure Hollywood hokum of the highest order but Jolie has such a palpable screen presence that you'll be having too much fun to begrudge Salt the odd flight of fancy. On the weekend that testosterone epic The Expendables opens and the loud, excess of The A-Team goes into its third week in UK cinemas, let's borrow a line from Flight of the Conchords and say that sometimes there are simply "too many dicks on the dance floor" and Jolie is ready to blow them all away. In the pro feminist action sense of the term of course.

She's one bad Mother....

2010-08-18T16:15:00.006+01:00

Mother
Starring: Hye-ja Kim, Bin Won, Ku Jin
Director: Joon-hu Bong
Rating 4 (out of 5)

Summary: After her mentally disabled son is arrested for the murder of a local school girl, his Mother (Hye-Ja Kim) fights to clear his name and discover the identity of the real killer...

This will be remade in the next 18 months by some Hollywood hotshot fresh off a Honda commercial. It's inevitable. But before Hollywood producers get the chance to rip out the films heart and replace the able cast with whoever is willing to go farthest on the couch - take a look at the Korean original. It takes a simple whodunnit and turns it into a piece of accessible allegorical art for large audiences.

You see Mother is always keen to show the cultural esoteric quirks that Korean cinema revels in but they are dealt with in a way that doesn't overawe the slickly produced cinematography or detract from the engaging, suspenseful, gut wrenching and imaginative narrative. Director Joon-hu Hong repeats the feat he was able to achieve with his previous international hits The Host and Memories of Murder.

Another string to Joon-hu's bow is his ability to use the setting effectively, making the small town a hotbed of whispers and paranoid claustrophobia; the Mother's illegal, backstreet acupuncture sessions with local women the key to unlocking rumours and half truths amongst the locals. This is a town obsessed with revenge, honour and financial gain - hopefully all rolled into one easy transaction. It's a fantastic backdrop to a tale which deals with so many different issues such as Korean class systems and honour amongst thieves - it's as the very walls themselves were double crossing you.

Revolving around a Mother's unflappable dedication to her son, be it feeding him medicine or attempting to get him acquitted from a murder charge, the film is anchored with the fantastic performance of Hye-ja Kim as the Mother (and if you check out her imdb page it seems she's cornered the Mother market). Conveying a multitude of emotions with a great physical prowess, the performance is such that subtitles are incidental to the action taking place and the motivations for justice universal. Despite the more reserved nature of the character, Hye-ja Kim overshadows the potentially showy performance of Bin Won as her put upon son. However, he is able to get the right mix of inner torment and childlike motivations without disengaging the audience from the story unraveling bef0re him or treading into the realms of the Hollywood "simpleton".

If it's not too obvious from the above: Mother blew me away. Korean films are a lot more accessible to mainstream audiences than one might think and this is well worth you hard earned cinema going cash this weekend. Screenings will no doubt be limited but if it's on near you then give it a try as it will broaden your movie horizons and whet your appetite for a second helping of Joon-hu Bong's work - and if you don't get to see it then it's out on DVD on the 20th September so there really are no excuses.

OUT 20th August DVD 20th September

I pity the fools...

2010-08-15T21:41:00.007+01:00

The A-Team
Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Rampage Jackson, Sharlto Copley
Director: Joe Carnahan
Rating: 2 and a half (out of 5)

Summary: A team of Army Rangers are double crossed in Iraq whilst on a deadly mission to recover a priceless dollar printing press and its irreplaceable plates. Convicted by military court for a crime they didn't commit they breakout and decide to discover the truth about their betrayal at the hands of a country they love...

In 2009 a crack addicted unit of screenwriters decided to settle in and write a remake of a goofy tv show which is looked at through the rose tinted glasses of twenty somethings nostalgic about everything that happened in a god awful decade despite not being born yet. Today, wanted by the film going public for crimes against cinema they survive as screenwriters of fortune, if no one else can help, and if you can find them maybe you can simply ditch the idea and produce something original this summer.

The A-Team follows a glut of recent Hollywood action films that simply pound the audience into submission with CGI action sequences and ear splitting sound. In fact, I came out of the auditorium feeling like my head had been smashed against the floor for two hours. It is without doubt the loudest film I have seen in years, to the point where you would become worried for your own health if you stay a minute longer.

Health warnings continue because if you need ear protectors for the sound then you'll most likely need a lobotomy for the overly convoluted and hackneyed plot which doesn't know whether it wants to be a homage to the ridiculous, silly set pieces of the original TV series or a serious, sombre tone akin to the Bourne movies. It's at its most successful when it attempts the former, with the duo of Bradley Cooper and Sharlto Copley able to display their comedic talents, and even Liam Neeson able to growl a few throw away gags with conviction.

This schizophrenic pacing is perfectly embodied in Rampage Jackson as the iconic B.A. Baracus, who screams "fool" and "i ain't gettin' in no plane!" with gusto, only to shun violence, quote Ghandi and reclaim his masculinity by firing a few hundred bullets into a nameless henchman 15 minutes later.

It's not that the A Team is a mess of Clash of the Titans proportions, it's that it could have been so much more. There's a lack of courage on display, not from the team themselves, but from behind the scenes who do not which way to go with the franchise. The casting is spot on, the director has proved himself as an effective director of action and the film has the type of budget that would make a Nicaraguan warlord weak at the knees but ironically something has gone wrong at the planning stage, and as it comes together you'll neither love it or hate it - you'll simply pity it.

OUT NOW

In short...an overstreched curio.

2010-08-15T15:04:00.009+01:00

A Town Called Panic (Panique Au Village)
Starring: Stephane Aubier, Bruce Ellison, Vincent Patar
Director: Stephane Aubier, Vincent Patar
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: Animated plastic toys like Cowboy, Indian and Horse have problems too. Cowboy and Indian's plan to surprise Horse with a homemade birthday gift backfires when they destroy his house instead. Surreal adventures ensue as the trio travel to the centre of the earth, the Artic tundra and an underwater city...

If you have never seen the Town Called Panic shorts then take a quick look at the numerous episodes on YouTube when you get a spare three mintues. The usual plot sees a sensible horse, called Horse, trying to live a normal life whilst housemates Cowboy and Indian run amok and cause mayhem in the town. They are sweet and have a charm that seems so effortless that it beguiles the craftsmanship that goes into creating their world - which is beautifully and painstakingly worked on no doubt.

Upon first time exposure to Aubier and Patar's creation of the rolling hills of Panic and the unusually erratic characters that live therein, you'll experience feelings you may not have felt since a young age. The colours will seem more vibrant, the surreal nature of the whole town will make your eyes widen and the high pitched voiceover work will make you smile like watching a fellow toddler doing helium for the first time.

It's no surprise then that the initial Town Called Panic shorts have been picked up by Aardman Studios - those specialists in transferring the provincial to the mainstream with numerous Oscar winning shorts. In fact, as the love/hate relationship between Cowboy and Indian plays out, you'll notice the same low tech quirks and surrealism that made Wallace and Gromit such worldwide favourites.

Similar Aardman elements such as the out of time small town setting and the romantic relationship between Horse (Patar) and fellow equine, music teacher Madame Longree (Jeanne Balibar) are also there to help everything seem slightly familiar. But despite the best intentions of Aubier and Patar to give their heroes scope to breathe and a backstory to explain their anarchic motivations (like getting drunk on cheap wine and having a bit of a punch up with a local Gendarme), the film fails to create the same emotional resonance that the old man and dog do.

Ultimately its this emotion that is needed to take A Town Called Panic beyond its short film confines and into the promised land of feature length and despite this style of stop motion animation being something that is hardly seen by mainstream audiences, the characters fail to engage with the audience after the initial ten minutes of slapstick heavy laughs and sight gags.

Usually the voicework goes a long way in making the story more palatable, but here it's extremely hit and miss. Cowboy and Indian (Aubier and Bruce Ellison respectively) screech every line like a violated Terence and Philip and surrounding characters such as Postman and Gerard (Frederic Jannin) go the same route of more is more. The blossoming love story between the laid back Horse and Madame Longree is nicely played out but despite their best efforts there is not much to love about any of their small town friends.

A Town Called Panic is beautiful to look at and you'll spend the first ten minutes laughing at the oddity you see before you, but the joke wears thin quickly. Still, you have the shorts to give you a three minute chuckle as its 80 minute counterpart is nothing more than a beautifully constructed but overstretched curio.

OUT: 8th October

Dirty dancehall...

2010-08-09T20:00:00.013+01:00

Soulboy
Starring:Martin Compston, Felicity Jones, Alfie Allen
Director: Shimmy Marcus
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: Joe McCain (Martin Compston) is bored of a life that is going nowhere. Enter hair-dresser Jane (Nichola Burley) blonde, brassy and moving to the beat of a whole new world of sound, movement and all-nighter dancing at the Wigan Casino - home of Northern Soul...

Opening with a promotional video for Stoke on Trent circa 1974, you could be forgiven for thinking Soulboy is simply a rehash of feel good British comedies from the 90s which has arrived 15 years too late, but give it your time and you'll soon realise that this sweet natured coming of age drama is something much more.

Sure it's got the usual "grim up north" aesthetic of The Full Monty or Brassed Off but is able to lift itself out of the doldrums with the injection of a young, up and coming British cast who convincingly deliver sweat and tears through a hopeful hormonal haze. Leading man Martin Compston exudes all the boyish charm and brash nature of a youngster trying to find his feet in a world of routine binge drinking with his mates, whilst Felicity Jones as the lovelorn girl next door has the right measure of sweetness and anger to make us all nostalgic for the one that got away. With the cast playing so well off each other, the familiar boy meets girl narrative is played out with the renewed vigour that the genre deserves and sadly most of the time is bereft of in mainstream cinema.

If the simplicity of Soulboy's romantic plot seems too familiar to invigorate a well worn audience then the music and dance scenes are filmed and choreographed with such a kinetic energy that you can't help tap your feet - the cast again showing their versatile talents in and amongst the authentic dance hall of the Wigan Casino. As the classic American soul records are consumed to the rapturous applause and swivel spin moves of the pubescent masses and the cinema audience, Soulboy takes a rare wrong turn by attempting a drug dealing subplot which feels slightly out of place when everything else feels comfortingly familiar. Luckily this is simply a Macguffin to bring our feuding lovers together and the pace is changed as quickly as the strap on a Gola record bag - which looks like it was the must have accessory in 1974.

Soulboy may be seen as too twee, and dare I say it too British, when compared with recent hyped, steroid injected 3D dance extravaganzas like Step Up and its increasingly ridiculous sequels, but it has more honesty and realism in one finger click than they do in a row of body pops. The industrial towns of Stoke and Wigan may be as romantic as a power station chimney stack but Soulboy is destined to be a cult hit with audiences and young lovers for years to come.

Out 3rd September
www.soulboythefilm.com

Inception is the exception this summer...

2010-07-19T14:03:00.005+01:00

Inception
Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy
Director: Christopher Nolan
Rating: 5 (out of 5)

Summary: Taking place in a world of psychological espionage, Leonardo DiCaprio is given the opportunity to return home to his family if he can perform the task of entering someone's dreams and planting an idea that the dreamer will feel he developed himself. Can this impossible "inception" be possible?

In a disappointing summer blockbuster season, Inception stands above every other movie with a smug look on its face and not a care in the world. This is by far and away the most exciting, innovative, baffling and fantastic film this year and firmly establishes Christopher Nolan as a director with balls. He's not afraid to make a $180 million summer movie which asks you to engage your brain, asks you to put down the fizzy beverage and the large smuggled in packet of Haribos and actually think about the images you're seeing on the screen instead of looking on with a dead eye expression. In summary, Inception is Memento on a Dark Knight budget and does not disappoint.

The film jumps into the action almost immediately and does not let up. Leonardo DiCaprio runs, jumps and shoots through Ken Watanabe's subconscious like a half remembered nightmare. As this prologue unfolds the rules of the games are revealed. A game where you're as vulnerable in your sleep as a sleeping toddler at the Freddy Krueger day care centre as your mind is puppeteered by Christopher Nolan's expert hands.

Just like Shutter Island earlier in the year, Leonardo DiCaprio gives a psychologically scarred performance which just shows how he is becoming the actor of a generation. Gone is the skinny, floppy haired heartthrob to be replaced with a performer of real gravitas and depth. The same could be said of Joseph Gordon Levitt, Tom Hardy and Ellen Page, a supporting cast of up and comers that exude confidence and bravado in the infancy of their Hollywood careers. Oscar winner Marion Cotillard is also suitably unhinged and seductive as the bane of DiCaprio's subconscious.

Like all good magicians Nolan never reveals how he managed to pull off the trick of making an existential heist movie that plays like the love child of The Matrix and Ocean's Eleven directed by M.C Escher. Every time the curtain is pulled back, another one falls in its place and revealing too much about the plot would be redundant and ultimately detrimental to your movie going experience. Challenge yourself to unravel its mysteries, break the puzzle and you will certainly feel more satisfied for doing so. Just enjoy being the puppet and remember that no matter how many superlatives are thrown at this film there is simply no way to describe its superiority over every other this year - it's movie mastery at its very best.

The best thing since Spliced bread?

2010-07-02T12:33:00.008+01:00

Splice
Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, Delphine Chaneac
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) are young, brilliant and ambitious. The new animal species they have engineered have made them rebel superstars of the scientific world. In secret, they introduce human DNA into the experiment. The result is something that is greater than the sum of its parts: a female animal-human hybrid that may be a step too far in evolution...

The director of Cube Vincenzo Natali brings another inventive horror to the screen which modernises the Frankenstein tale for the designer baby age and mixes a hotch potch of Freudian wet dreams, sticky horror gore and capitalist allegory with ease.

Frantically wheeling test tubes of labelled horror genres into the lab, injecting them into an empty celluloid baby and managing to make a beautiful Hollywood horror as opposed to an ugly aborted mess is no mean feat and director Natali manages to do so with aplomb. Touching on morally ambiguous hot topics and then mixing them with the downright disturbed notions of inter species sex and rape, Splice revels in riffing on Cronenberg works like The Fly and Videodrome.

In fact just like Cronenberg the premise is not afraid to comment on the subject matter with tongue firmly in its post modern cheek. The career driven couple played by Brody and Polley both want different things, one a family nest and the other a successful career - and they will go to extremes to finally get that. Just as Cronenberg played on the protagonists fears of combining the flesh with technology, Vincenzo Natali messes with the fear of combining work with family life in a modern society that is playing with the unnatural capabilities of capitalism - and we delight in watching it all unfold.

Swirling around in this delightful mess of a movie are the increasingly eclectic Oscar winner Adrien Brody and Oscar nominated writer Sarah Polley. Both give competent performances in the ensuing mayhem, finding a convincing balance between outrage, desire and intrigue. However, despite these star leads, the real standout is French cinema stalwart Delphine Chaneac as laboratory creation Dren. With a fantastic physical performance she embodies the allure and vulnerability of a being that shouldn't exist and does not belong in a human world wanting to exploit her unnatural abilities. Equally heartbreaking as she is frightening, it's a real breakthrough that deserves the acting plaudits.

Ultimately Splice starts to lose its way in the final reel and descends into a sub par Species rip off, but sci-fi horror films this fantastically mongrel are few and far between from the Hollywood studio system so you can forgive the film makers attempted compromise to wrap it up into a satisfying, lazy ending for mass audience consumption. Just like Dren, this film is a beautiful creation from one of the best science fiction directors working today and will hopefully recieve praise and success with a mainstream audience.

Released 23rd July Nationwide

A few of them in the closet...

2010-06-29T19:03:00.006+01:00

Skeletons
Starring: Ed Gaughan, Andrew Buckley, Jason Isaacs, Tuppence Middleton
Director: Nick Whitfield
Rating: 4 (out of five)

Summary: Davis and Bennett are a mismatched pair of psychic travelling salesmen in the business of cleaning "skeletons" from closets. Together they travel across Britain, wandering in and out of other people's lives, performing the "Procedure" whereby hidden secrets and lies are exposed...

Ironically, Skeletons is not a film that can be easily picked up and put in a genre box or wardrobe in this case. It's take on the well worn philosophical film narrative of letting go of the past to move on to a brighter future is high concept but lo-fi, with a supernaturally eccentric set of rules that make it a bittersweet live action counterpart to a Wallace and Gromit production.

As Davis (Gaughan) and Bennett (Buckley) plod along the hillsides and the disused railway lines of a desolate but very British land swapping their odd opinions on Rasputin's place in the annals of history and exposing lies with a mixture of goggles, fire extinguishers and "truth" detectors, you'll be worried director Nick Whitfield has blown his metaphysical wad too early on a unsuspecting audience who'll either be intrigued to see where the film is heading or be scratching their heads feeling confused by the whole experience.

In fact, stick with it and Nick Whitfield has written and directed something Spike Jonze would be proud of. Davis and Bennett experience their clients secret truths or delve deep into their own psyche by "glow chasing" via lost photos and addictive stones. During these scenes there are a multitude of POV shots that are akin to Being John Malkovich. In contrast, the real world is shown as such a pedestrian and bleak place it makes the hazy recollections in photos and inanimate objects, brought to life with colour and inventive camera trickery, even more alluring. You can understand why Davis would be addicted to delving into this world rather than facing the truth of his own drab reality.

Davies and Buckley have been likened to Laurel and Hardy but there's an element of short changing there. Certainly in terms of their physical performances, which are a mixture of regional accents, hunched walks and hang dog expressions, shows they're more than simple, slapstick cyphers. Davies especially, with his pencil moustache and drug like addiction to "glow chasing" gives a fantastic performance in unusual circumstances. He's just the right mixture of emotional pathos and little angry man lost.

As the film has been stretched from award winning short in award winning full length feature, it does have the occasional issues with pacing, and the sub plot of finding their new client's (Paprika Steen) lost husband lacks the emotional impact it's perhaps attempting to convey. Therefore Jason Isaacs juggernaut performance as The Colonel is a welcome addition to proceedings. With a handlebar tash left over from Green Zone and a scar across his neck, his performance lends a farcical air just as the film was starting to get lost inside its own rules and mythology.

A great success at the Edinburgh Film Festival, the film plays like the lost relative of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Frighteners and The Chuckle Brothers. Spanning the deadpan to the dead weird, it manages to intrigue the imagination and tickle the funny bone but occasionally struggles to leave any emotional ectoplasmic residue.

And then a Hierro comes along...

2010-06-09T22:40:00.004+01:00

Hierro
Starring: Elena Anaya, Hugo Arbues, Jon Arino
Director: Gabe Ibanez
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: While travelling on board a ferry to a distant Canary Island of El Hierro, Maria loses her son Diego. Has he fallen overboard? Has he been abducted? Nobody knows. Diego simply vanishes...

Equal parts thriller, ghost story and a tale of a Mother's grief, Hierro manages to toe the imaginative line of recent Spanish supernatural films whilst utilising Hollywood dramatic convention by way of an almost Asian horror sensibility. This strange combination of genres makes for a giddy mixture of highs and lows which can leave the viewer in a state of frenzied nail biting one minute and then calmly checking them the next.

Starting with a night time aerial shot of a speeding car racing through the rough terrain of the island, Hierro sets a fast pace but has too many left turns into surreal imagery which leave the wheels to fall off. One example of this is how the performance of Elena Anaya is handled. She is able to portray vulnerability, strength and most importantly heartbreak as the film reaches its conclusion but first time director Gabe Ibanez seems more eager to show off his bag of camera tricks than let her be the focus point of the film.

You can forgive this as naivety due in part to this being the director's first feature. Almost as if he's getting used to the conventions of the full length discipline and for all his shortcomings Ibanez does manage to keep the film down to a snappy hour and a half which at least floats by rather than flies, but at best his flights of fancy are infuriating rather than head scratching - and in some cases don't really make sense or add anything.

The real pleasure with Hierro is watching the plot unfold and seeing Elena Anaya's struggle to find the truth about the disappearance of her son against the backdrop of the almost other worldly terrain of El Hierro. The island is another character. Windswept, battered by the sea and covered in black sand. It's isolation from the rest of the world makes the uncovering of the unsympathetic truth even more frightening and tense. Believe me, the Canary Island tourist board aren't going to suddenly find a flock of visitors ditching Tenerife for this party island. Accommodation is at most two star.

As the film hurtles towards the final reel, it starts to swerve as erratically as the car did in the opening five minutes, losing the guile to stick with the violent nihilism hinted at and falling into conventional thriller territory of untrustworthy police and hackneyed plot points. This dichotomy between the disturbing subject matter and the need to keep the movie appealing to a wider audience means Hierro becomes rather gutless and almost betrays the fantastically brave work put on screen by Anaya during the tense and spooky first half.

When the payoff finally arrives it's like being stabbed with a spoon - blunt and annoying. Ibanez has talent and shows promise as a first time director but seems bored by the plot and the need to keep the thriller almost family friendly so overkills on the visuals. However, the film is worth seeing for Elena Anaya alone, this is her 90 minutes to shine and she holds the audience enthralled. She almost makes me want to take at least a day trip to El Hierro. Almost.

Pattinson is still an arsehole...

2010-06-02T21:24:00.000+01:00

2010-05-30T17:43:00.007+01:00

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, Ja Rule
Director: Werner Herzog
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: Addicted to painkillers after a back injury in the line of duty, Lt. Terence McDonagh (Cage) dives into a hedonistic life of drug, alcohol and power abuse...

A tale of excess and ambiguous redemption, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans is the strangest morality tale you're likely to see on the big screen this year or any other year. Held together by the unusual techniques and flourishes of Werner Herzog and an almost supernaturally unhinged performance from Nicolas Cage, it's either one of the best films I've seen this year or one of the worst. One thing's for sure it's certainly the most audacious.

Not a sequel to the original Abel Ferrara movie, which was literally a Harvey Keitel wankfest, Port of Call simply takes the name of the franchise and goes in a different direction with the concept. Taking away the Catholic guilt, the excessive sleaze and images of a drugged up, crying like a baby, naked Harvey Keitel and replacing them with an almost gleeful and playful look at one cops headlong fall from grace into the world of murder, prostitution and gambling.

The plot which involves Cage's investigation into the death of a Senegalese immigrant family and the resulting connections to local crime boss Big Fate (Xibit), unravels in a labyrinthine fashion. People are double crossed here and there, good guys can't be trusted, bad guys can and while all this unfolds Cage rolls like a pig in the proverbial. Herzog, by giving Cage carte blanche with the character, has created a performance which plays like an unhinged pantomime Columbo horse - erratic, intelligent and a fondness of cocaine covered sugarcubes.

Through the haze of drug and gunshot smoke, Herzog directs proceedings like it were a modern day fairytale. The surreal imagery of various reptilian creatures, peaceful fish, dangerous femme fatales and the duplicitous nature of the world in which the Bad Lieutenant resides is effectively played out amongst the recently ravaged environment and dark dangerous world of New Orleans. However, these touches can occasionally pull the audience out of the film and leave them as confused as Cage himself. The constant jumps from the surreal to the darkly humorous mean plot and surrounding character development is often as undercooked as Cage's heroin - but when your along for the trip with him it makes it difficult to not still have a maniacal smile lashed across your face for the majority.

The coming together of two of films biggest enigmas has of course fashioned a bizarre detective story that resembles Ferrara's original in name only. Port of Call is difficult to grasp pulp fiction you'll either be with after the first five minutes or unable to get past the bizarre images that you are seeing. Luckily, I was part of the former and loved nearly every minute.

OUT NOW

[Rec]edingly good shakes...

2010-05-30T17:04:00.008+01:00

[Rec] 2
Starring: Jonathan Mellor, Manuela Velasco, Oscar Zafra
Director: Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza
Rating: 2 and a half (out of 5)

Summary: Picking up almost immediately after the final scenes of the original, [Rec ] 2 sees a grizzled SWAT team, led by a Vatican exorcist, entering the quarantined apartment building on a mission to find a vile of contaminated blood - which could hold the key to a possession vaccine...

Using the handheld camera method and letting characters build as slowly and effectively as the tension, the original [Rec] was an exercise in effective and economical shooting. [Rec] 2 takes this template and attempts to expand the mythology - with mixed results.

This expansion takes a leaf out of the Aliens "how to die quickly and horribly" book by dropping a suitably sweaty, grunting SWAT team into the zombie ravaged Barcelona apartment block and conveniently placing cameras on their heads. This enables each gruesome death to be captured on out of focus, badly signalled Zombietron.

As well as making each death appear more visceral, it also gives the audience the impression that they're playing Resident Evil or Alone in the Dark - which is not a good thing. In fact, it simply adds another level of detachment between yourself and the increasing zombie fodder.

As the ever decreasing SWAT team open apartment doors and turn dark corners they encounter yet another silhouetted and still zombie at the end of a corridor (pick between young girl/boy zombie, old man/woman zombie and fat woman/fat man zombie) which greets them with a loud scream and a sprint towards the camera. In the original [Rec] this was tense, teetering on the edge of your seat scary stuff but this time around it smacks of simple hackneyed laziness.

In fact for the entire first half of the film, it seems as if directors Plaza and Balaguero have been infected with the very same Hollywood rehash virus which remade the original [Rec] as the toothless Quarantine. Simply adding more guns, more gore and more hardware to a sequel equals the law of diminishing returns and [REC ] 2 suffers badly from this.

However, just as you think you're simply watching Quarantine 2 with the wrong language setting, Plaza and Balaguero cut to proceedings outside the apartment building and a group of local youngsters wishing to cash in on five minutes of fame by breaking in. As we see their journey from playful, goading teenagers into infection ravaged, possessed puppets of a demon the film becomes exciting again. This narrative thread lets the mythology grow and in particular enables Jonathan Mellor as Dr.Owen to own the screen rather than share it with increasingly agitated and cliched SWAT members.

The reintroduction of heroine Angela Vidal (Manuela Velasco) at the same point gives [Rec] 2 an exciting and tense final act which harks back to the fresh and innovative feel of the original claustrophobic horror, but it's almost too little too late.

The most important thing in this genre is character and [Rec] 2 does not have it. The mythology being created is interesting and has the potential to be examined in further films but to do this Plaza and Balaguero need to go back to what made the original so frightening - namely spend more time creating believable, likeable people that the audience care about. [Rec] 2 is like two separate horror films from two separate horror cultures clashing and in the ensuing carnage we all lose.

OUT NOW

Up the Villa...

2010-05-30T16:45:00.007+01:00

Villa Amalia
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Hugues Anglade, Xavier Beauvois
Director: Benoit Jacquot
Rating: 3 and a half (out of 5)

Summary: Huppert stars as Ann, a gifted musician whose sense of security falls to pieces when she witnesses her husband kissing another woman. Without hesitation she makes a clean break leaving him and everyone else from her life behind and travels to the Italian coast...

Villa Amalia details one woman's world being destroyed and an exciting and seductive new life being born, therefore it sinks or swims on the strength of its central performance - and Huppert does not disappoint.

In the wrong hands, Ann could potentially become a housewife caricature like Shirley Valentine but Huppert changes not only her mental tics and personality traits but also her physical appearance beyond the mere superficial. Sure there are scenes in which she simply cuts her hair and puts on more liberating, colourful dresses to show off her new freedom but Huppert manages to make her sunken, sullen face more colourful and wide eyed as she leaves her drab life behind and begins her journey of personal exploration. It is her performance that stops the film from simply becoming a travel memoir and instead makes it an intense and believable experience.

Director Benoit Jacquot deliberately and effectively lets this lead performance build the pace of the film rather than letting his own work become too obvious. Occasionally there are moments in which his pace is at odds with that of Hupperts, for example a five minute scene in which Ann makes her way across France and ditches mobile phones, changes clothing and transport links like she was Jason Bourne, but this is Jacquot simply "stretching his legs" - and who can blame him? This is a film in which the shackles of restraint are to be worn by the director and not his actors.

As Ann leaves France for Italy and the scenery changes to the more sunny climate of the Italian coastline, and the aforementioned Villa Amalia, the film becomes has the double edged sanguinity of the locals - with the camera panning up and down the cliffs as if it were attached to the head of a seagull and the once relaxing clear, blue seas becoming as relaxing as a Clear Blue pregnancy test. During this section of the film begins to play with Ann's identity, letting her explore darker, ambiguous areas such as suicide and a lesbian relationship with an inquisitive, sun drenched local. The Villa Amalia is beautiful, dangerous, enticing and something which Ann lost during her old life. Her emotional confrontation with her absent Father during a brief journey back to reality only serving to show her that she has run away just as he did - and it feels good.

Villa Amalia is Huppert's film. She gives a performance which only serves to cement her as one of the most capable actresses on the continent, continually challenging herself with roles which depend on her ability to display an emotional range with a reserved dignity. This is a tale of betrayal, identity and regret which manages to be engaging and beautiful to look at whilst also veering into unusual directorial flourishes on occasion. As is the case with many French films, it won't be to everyone's taste, but if you do decide to take a chance on the red, white and blue this summer then why not take a chance on the one without the stars.

Out: 25th June

Step 1: Locate Bandwagon Step 2: Jump on bandwagon

2010-05-24T10:15:00.005+01:00

Sonofkermode is now on Twitter! I have no clue how it works but if you want to know my initial reactions to a film rather than wait for me to get round to a review and then shamelessly plug it on facebook - add me today!

The feed is simply sonofkermode. You should probably search for it or something.

They're men, they're men who fight...

2010-05-15T22:47:00.013+01:00

Robin Hood
Starring: Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, Mark Strong
Director: Ridley Scott
Rating: 4 (out of 5)

Summary: Robin Longstryde, a long bowman fighting his way back to England in the crusades, finds himself in a position of responsibility after taking the name of his dead comrade Robin of Loxley and returning home. Pretending to be Loxley he sees first hand the struggles of the people of Nottingham and the insidious plot to allow the French to invade...

People are going to have problems with the new Robin Hood adaptation. It takes the cookie cutter prototype of pervious Hood's and, keeping the cookie analogy going, keeps some of the chocolate chips but changes the dough. Scott has created a hostile world where oaths were honoured as quickly as they were broken and fatherless feral children roam the forests of the Midlands like it was 2010.

This is the serious reinvention that the Robin Hood tale needed if it were to avoid becoming the parody Mel Brooks foresaw way back in 1993. Gone are the green tights of Douglas Fairbanks, the hearty laughter of Errol Flynn and the mullet like hairdo of Kevin Costner to be replaced by yellow toothed, morally questionable but tough, loyal English men who would think nothing of staring down a French army with nothing but a stick and a thin piece of cloth to cover their Chronicles of Narnia.

Russell Crowe's performance as Robin is both blood thirsty animal and rugged charmer. The origins of his much maligned accent are explained by the narrative: this isn't an East Midlands born and bred Robin, he has been drifting around Britain since the age of six. Just as much as his accent doesn't belong, nor does he. Robin finds his home in Nottingham with the family he never had and a cause to fight for.

Cate Blanchett harks back to her Elizabeth performance by donning the silver armour and hitting the battlefield with zeal and the merry men are all present and correct. Mark Addy especially shows the comic fallibility which made him such an audience favourite in The Full Monty with his efforts as drunken Friar Tuck.

Robin Hood isn't your usual summer time Hollywood fare, it shows the birth of a nation with warm English beer, forestry laws and the Magna Carta - and for this it should be applauded. It won't be for everyone but Ridley Scott continues to challenge convention and show that action set pieces don't need fast cuts, 3D interactivity and shaky cams to engage with the audience - simply an exciting story, believable characterisation and visceral action. To quote another Scott classic "Are you not entertained?"

A Comedy Paradox...

2010-05-15T22:12:00.008+01:00

Hot Tub Time Machine
Starring: John Cusack, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, Crispin Glover
Director: Steve Pink
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: Three old friends decide to take a trip down memory lane by visiting the old ski cabin they used to holiday in during the 1980s. Finding that the old place just ain't what it used to be, a night of drinking, hot tubbing and time travel ensues...

This is a marmite film and the title alone will either be enough to get you in the cinema seat, walkman in hand, or it will have you running for the exit clutching your ipod. If you do decide to stay you may find yourself more disappointed than amused.

On the outside, Hot Tub Time Machine seems like it will take the recent run of bromance comedies and turn them on their heads by adding a sci-fi twist that is full of comic opportunities - and for the most part it does. The three middle aged leads have the right mix of morose regret and unbounded optimism that this opportunity presents andthe film pokes fun at elements of the 1980s like its auditing the decade - Cold War paranoia? Check. Black Michael Jackson gag? Check. A tendency to mix and match primary colours like a blind Cyndi Lauper? Check. Crispin Glover (Back to the Future's George McFly) in a starring role? Check.

It's surprising then that a film, in the first hour, wallows in the cultural garbage heap that was the 1980s with all the dark fearlessness of Teen Wolf rolling around in a Soda Stream induced piss, manages to become so blunt as it plays out the inevitable paradox inducing narrative arc and attempts to shoehorn a romantic subplot with all the subtlety of Max Headroom's scalp.

Gags about emailing and texting girls being interspersed with the occasional fellatio and ejaculation gag are too sweet and salty to be an effective mix, and the performance Rob Corddry is so manic that Cusack's lovesick puppy routine will start to grate as you find yourself pining for Corddry's swearing, pot puffing, self hating performance to light up the screen again. This is certainly his breakout performance.

A cameo from Chevy Chase as a supernatural janitor and Lizzy Caplan as the perfuntionary kooky love interest add nothing to proceedings. Caplan especially brings all the zeal of someone who knows she has been cast in another one of Zooey Deschanel rejections. However, you can't blame Caplan for a script that makes her the catalyst for Hot Tub Time Machine's loss of nerve in the last third. Whilst Chase's one note performance makes you wonder what happened to that madcap charm that he used to have in abundance during the 1980s.

You'll enjoy the time you spend with the perennial losers of the Hot Tub, but just like all good paradoxes you'll come full circle and struggle to explain your reason for doing so. As a piece of nostalgic fluff it is effective, having gross out gags that can stand toe to toe with any in the Porky's franchise, but it falls into the the 21st century trap of having to explain its actions and giving the main protaganists routine comedy cliches to achieve. Hot Tub Time Machine takes you back to that decade superficially but it doesn't have its subversive heart.

Retro Tetro...

2010-05-14T16:22:00.008+01:00

Tetro
Starring: Vincent Gallo, Maribel Verdu, Alden Ehrenreich
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Summary: Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich) arrives in Buenos Aires looking for his older brother Tetro. Upon his discovery he finds that the brother he once worshipped is a shadow of his once creative self. Bennie must piece together his brother's past by deciphering the unfinished play that Tetro wants to forget...

The first original script from Francis Ford Coppola in 30 years, Tetro arrives in the UK riding on a wave of critical and professional praise.

There is no doubt that Coppola has lost none of his talent for setting up a shot. The eclectic European architecture of Buenos Aires looms over proceedings with an almost supernatural quality but also acts as a romantic foreground for the creative and eccentric characters. The use of black and white accentuates this romanticism, harking back to glamorous European films of old when every shot was framed like a painting and symbolism gave the audience a glimpse into the psyche of the characters on screen.

This is the work of a fighting fit first time director not a jaded, seasoned 70 year old professional. Coppola uses every opportunity he can to show he can move the camera in a way that no one esle can and he is keen to prove his ability in the craft of filmmaking. Perhaps coming off pedestrian fare like The Rainmaker and the retina burning Jack, Coppola has a point to prove. He can still be that maverick auteur of the 1970s that produced classics like The Godfather and Apocolypse Now with a determined arrogance.

However, even though the quality on show from the director and editor Walter Murch (you have to give him the credit he deserves - he directed the best childrens flick of all time Return to Oz!) is second to none, Tetro managed to leave me cold, uninspired and feeling like I had been told a joke that I just didn't understand. Despite my bald head, I felt like a dumb blonde.

The cause of this could be two things. The script is full of questions. Those intangible, philosophical questions that scream pretentious Euro tosh. Coppola's screenplay manages to be so esoteric as to be detrimental to the any relationship that can be struck up between the characters on screen and the audience in the auditorium - the only one managing to transcend this being the beautiful Maribel Verdu as Tetro's long suffering partner Miranda. The pace of the film is as languid as siesta time in a Spanish narcoleptics house and there is no sense of urgency as the film reaches its dramatic climax, with Vincent Gallo's performance as Tetro having all the charm of a sulking teenager.

Tetro is so fantastic to look at that you can almost forgive the shortcomings in the script and performances. Coppola loves his art and that is clearly on display with each frame of celluloid lovingly caressed by the camera, but writing is not his craft. There is certainly is life in the old dog but you can't teach it new tricks.

This week in film

2010-05-14T14:03:00.010+01:00

There are many websites out there which have rumours, scoops and over inflated egos writing self important reviews so I thought I would be a kind movie blogger and condense all the hot air into one, easy to read Hollywood bottom burp.

This week has seen the opening of the Cannes Film Festival. An event which pits the low budget producer looking for a distribution deal against the yacht owning elite of tinseltown bastardry and the insomnia slapping pretension of the "Official Selection" films. This haven of bad taste, vast sums of money, lack of inhibitions and lack of self worth, even has the audacity of plugging films that haven't happened yet and according to the star are "99%" certain never too

Initial reports say Rambo will be combating a Mexican sex slave ring. I think another plot point is that Rambo contracts angry sperm syndrome. This is where the sperm are so angry and roid raged, that during the mission to fertilise the egg they maim and kill each other before they even reach the promised land. John Rambo is an angry spermed, steroid ridden freak and Rambo V sees him at the age of 70, impotently jerk his "gun" at horny Mexicans.

Iron Man 2 made $133 million at the US Box Office this week. Even though the film is only mildly entertaining, contains an Iron Man dance scene and a annonying tendency to contain no plot twists that mean Scarlett Johansson's top falls off. This time last year Star Trek opened with half that gross, which means the sequel will require Captain Kirk and Spock to have a sexually insipid dance off with potato headed aliens if it is to stand any chance of breaking even.

A few years back Quentin Tarantino and his best friend Robert Rodriguez released the double bill B movie extravaganza Grindhouse. A homage to the bad taste, low budget gorefest's of the 1970s, the film was split into two seperate movies and connected via a series of fake trailers directed by the likes of Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) and Rob Zombie (the underrated Halloween remake). Well it now seems as if the fake trailers were so popular that the fake movies are getting made. Or not. I'm confused. So below is the real trailer for a real film based on a fake trailer for a fake film that you never meant to see.

It stars human Halloween mask Danny Trejo and Lindsey Lohan dressed as a nun. She must be referencing the number of high profile film scripts she's recently optioned. None.

The new advertising campaign from Imodium...

2010-05-08T17:35:00.011+01:00

You may remember a few months back I reviewed a heartwarming little film called The Human Centipede. A film full of sutures, hyperdermic needles and a little smidgen of poo. The film has been getting some recent hype across the pond as the legendary film critic Roger Ebert gave it no stars and it was given no rating by the MPAA (yank version of the BBFC). So open Pandora's box and kick down the backdoors by taking a look at the trailer below and if you notice the fantastically rendered visual effects, that will be because they have been expertly dealt with in post production by Tom Dunn over at W1 Media.

You should all be very excited about this...

2010-05-08T17:18:00.003+01:00

I almost feel bad for showing the trailer to Inception, its like a sneaky peek behind the curtains, but this film is what i'm most excited about this Summer season. It stars Leo DiCaprio (recently in a really rich vein of form film choice wise) and Joseph Gordon Levitt (yes, from 3rd Rock from the Son but also from a number of other more dramatically fulfilling things). If the aesthetic seems slightly familiar then that will be the midas touch of Christopher Nolan, who's fast becoming a successful auteur of the Hollywood blockbuster genre. Actually, there's no reason for me to tell you this as its all there below, get clicking and keep dreaming...

Iron Bru

2010-05-07T21:13:00.008+01:00

Iron Man 2
Starring: Robert Downey Jnr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Scarlett Johansson
Director: John Favreau
Rating: *** (out of 5)

Summary: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) has announced to the world that he is Iron Man and in doing so has successfully, in his opinion, privatised world peace. However, a disgruntled Russian mercenary known as Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) also has access to the technology that makes Iron Man tick and is willing to sell it to the highest bidder...

The first Iron Man film came out of nowhere. The character wasn't well known, Robert Downey Jnr was according to Hollywood tabloids and internet forums, a washed up has been and director John Favreau had just directed flop Jumanji sequel Zathura and Christmas favourite Elf - hardly a recipe for success. Against the odds though Iron Man was a fantastic handful of grade A Hollywood popcorn and Downey Jnr a revelation in the role of hard drinking, fun loving genius Tony Stark.

Therefore Iron Man 2 comes to the screen withall the pressure of hype, bigger budget and tentpole lead actors which hinder most summertime comic book adaptations and unfortunately it cracks under the weight of expectation - like Gwyneth Paltrow's ribs if Mickey Rourke ever made love to her.

This doesn't mean that Iron Man 2 is a complete disaster of Clash of the Titans proportions. The action set pieces, especially the introduction of Whiplash (Mickey Rourke) amongst the speedy streets of F1 hosting Monaco are exciting enough, and Sam Rockwell as arms dealing Justin Hammer along with humourless American Senator Gary Shandling are nice touches which are portrayed with the necessary tongue in cheek which all Marvel comic book adaptations are known for. But for all its whizz and bang what is missing in this second outing is something which will make your mind explode in a shower of primary colours and rapiers wit.

In fact the main purveyor of that wit, Robert Downey Jnr, seems to need a Iron Manesqe superhuman pacemaker to put his all into the film. Only perking up when he has some screwball comedy dialogue with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Pawltrow), Stark's failing health and self destructive streak are unconvincingly portrayed and struggle to have any emotional resonance with the audience.

The blame for this however cannot be placed solely at Downey Jnr's feet. Marvel studios continuing race towards an Avengers movie means a number of plot points, characters and comic book cameos have to be shoehorned into an already bloated plot. The perfect example of this being Scarlett Johansson's Natalie Rushman aka Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow. Of course she looks fantastic in skin tight leather which hugs her hour glass frame as she punches and kicks her way through a corridor of dispensable henchmen but her interruption of Stark when he's in full alcohol fuelled self loathing mode means the darker side of the Iron Man/Tony Stark character is never fully explored - instead we have to see an Iron Man dance routine and a quick game of fullsize Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em Robots.

Iron Man 2 is bloated, confused and lacking any kind of focus and it's a sequel to a Hollywood blockbuster by numbers. Sure it has great special effects and more glamourous and colourful characters but just like Harrison Ford at the end of Raiders - no arcs.

Out Now

She sure had a Deneuve...

2010-05-05T20:50:00.010+01:00

The Girl on the Train (La fille du RER)
Starring: Emilie Dequenne, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Catherine Deneuve
Director: Andre Techine
Rating: *** and a half (out of 5)

Summary: Jeanne (Eimilie Dequenne) is a young soulsearching, rollerblading Parisian living at home with her Mother (Catherine Deneuve). After an unsuccessful job interview at a local Jewish run law firm, a series of unexpected events occur which lead to claimed anti-semitic violence, media sensationalism and national political ramifications...

A "based on a true story" french political drama set against the backdrop of antisemitic violence and directed by a man known for his attachments to the iconic cashiers du cinema magazine and as a leading light of the post French New Wave auteurs? Settling in to watch the piece you may feel either trepidation or a sense of initmidation but Andre Techine's The Girl on the Train is beautifully engaging.

Jeanne's colourful rollerblading around her quiet flower strewn surbuban environment may seem whimsical and remniscent of that other naive Parisian Amelie, but the mise en scene is constantly punctuated by the loud and excessive sounds of passing trains and long, dark passages. For the viewer, Techine's use of sound and contrasting intimate moments visually and between the leads becomes disorientating and creates a relationship of distrust which permeates the film - making it all the more engaging and filling the screen with a sense of approaching danger and foreboding.

The Girl on the Train is also fortunate to have a trio of fantastic central performances from Emilie Dequenne all naivity and innocence, confused and maternal timeless beauty Catherine Deneuve and the rugged Nicolas Duvauchelle. The interaction between Jeanne (Dequenne) and Franck (Duvauchelle) in particular is portrayed believably as sensual and intense but due to the constant fabrications between them, ultimately doomed to failure.

It's a double edged sword that the beautifully shot and portrayed relationship between the two young lovers makes and eventually breaks the film. The moments of intimacy are captured by Techine's camera with such erotic tension that Jeanne's eventual psychological breakdown due to it ending almost justifies the phantom anti-semitic "attack" that eventually comes about due to her childlike fragility. The film begins to suffer once it has to explain the "consequences" of her deceitful actions. Its the reverse of the tornado from the Wizard of Oz, the political storm whisking us out of the fantasy land and into the drab reality of everyday life.

Once the Bleistein family, headed by experienced lawyer Samuel (Michel Blanc), become entangled in the political and media furore that Jeanne's lie has brought about the film starts to dramatically faulter.They are portrayed as such a cold and unfeeling group of individuals that it's difficult to engage with them.
Their elongated discussions about the fear mongering stance of the French government and alienation of minority groups sees the film, ironically, come off the rails, smacking talking head after talking head between the eyes as it does so.

Of course the fine line between fantasy and reality plays an important role in the central plot point of this true story but when the audience is so emotionally invested in that fantasy, the reality becomes difficult to pay attention to or be interested in.

The Girl on the Train is split into two parts, the circumstances and the consequences of the lie told by Jeanne. Unfortunately the first half is so arresting (pun not intended) visually and dramatically that the film runs out of steam (pun intended) by the time that Jeanne's world falls apart. The performances however are a strong glue which successfully hold the film together and make for a satisfying dramatisation of a dark episode in recent French history.

UK limited release 4th June

The end is the beginning is the end...

2010-04-06T22:49:00.010+01:00

Clash of the Titans
Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Gemma Arteton, Ralph Fiennes
Director: Louis Leterrier
Rating: 1 (out of 5)

Summary: The half god son of Zeus, Perseus, is pulled into a battle between his immortal father and Hades for the very souls of mankind...

The first big film of the summer blockbuster season and it's a cinema hot dog i.e. under cooked, bloated and full of absolute arse. Clash of the Titans simply smacks of a film that had its release date as set in stone as a Medusa victim, and thusly the rushed nature of such a venture is clearly up there on the screen in an overblown collage of poorly executed set pieces, painful exposition, awfully hammy acting and incomplete CGI.

Is there any point on wasting the electrical impulses in my brain to think and write about Titans? A film that stoops so low that it rips off the absymal Mummy Returns? No. There is no point. They didn't bother thinking about the components that make a fun summer blockbusting romp so move along. I will however mention the following in bullet points, and I really hate bullet points:

- Sam Worthington's Australian accent. It just doesn't sit well.

- Danny Huston's blink and you'll miss it appearance as Poseiden. What was the point?

- The shield made of scorpion armour which is impervious to metals, even though it was easily broken with a sword 10 minutes previously.

- The comedy Middle Eastern sidekicks.

Please don't think ill of me for not putting much effort into this review. Think ill of Louis Leterrier and Warner Brothers for making me do it and don't waste your cash.

Sticks and stones will break your bones. Along with knifes, guns and a bazooka.

2010-04-05T22:21:00.008+01:00

Kick-Ass
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Mark Strong, Nicolas Cage, Chloe Moritz
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Rating: 5 out of 5

Summary: Comic book nerd Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson) wonders why, in this world of crime and Z list role models, no one has donned lycra and become a superhero - it's time for Kick Ass!

This isn't your everyday comic bo0k adaptation, a property like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for example, which has been purchased by a Hollywood film studio and diluted into lowest common denominator, sequel generation, fast food tie in fodder. Kick-Ass has been lovingly brought to the screen with fans of superheroes in mind. It doesn't patronise or ask for anything else but your attention and companionship on a two hour ride into what makes the naivety of youth exhilarating, beautiful and a little bit scary.

Each of these lovingly constructed kicks, slices, dices and cutting remarks have been brought to the screen by original comic book creator Mark Millar and the reunited team of Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn. Vaughn's assured direction successfully marrying the violent gangsterisms of his first film Layer Cake with the heartfelt whimsical fantasy of his financially unsuccessful Stardust, and Goldman's adaptation subverting the occasionally nauseating saccharine sweetness of Peter Parker's, aka Spiderman, adolescent wrist fuelled fluid emissions.

Kick-Ass has so many fantastic moments, characters and set pieces that attempting to critique all of them would be a disservice, probably as my limited vocabulary would not give them the credence they deserve, but needless to say Nic Cage channelling Adam West's Batman in all his stunted delivery and inappropriate breathing glory is perfect and Chloe Moritz's C-bomb dropping, knife welding Hit-Girl is a Leon inspired revelation. But despite the rich vein of stylish fantasy violence that runs through the film (and in these two characters in particular), at its heart, Kick-Ass deals with issues of loss and abandonment and it's at these moments of black comedy and pathos that it acquires the cape to fly above and beyond the usual super hero dross that fills your local mulitplex at this time of year.

Occasionally you stumble across a film that ticks every single box in your cinema going repertoire, a film where it's almost impossible to be objective because the goose bumps on your skin are affecting your critical senses every five minutes. Kick-Ass is that film and it will stimulate your mind and overload your body like a 5 course meal with an energy drink soup starter and an enema dessert.

No pork please we're Jewish...

2010-03-25T20:56:00.009Z

Eyes Wide Open (Einaym Pkuhot)
Starring: Zohar Shtrauss, Ran Danker, Tinkerbell
Director: Haim Tabakman
Rating: ** (out of 5)

Summary: A married, orthodox Jewish man takes over the butcher's shop owned by his late father and takes on a young outsider as his apprentice and lover...

Set amongst the alleyways, closed shop shutters and rooftops of Jerusalem, Eye's Wide Open effectively maintains an atmosphere of repressed expression from beginning to end but the tone is such that it almost stifles any emotional connection the audience feels with the leads or the story.

In terms of finance and experience of the director, it may be slightly unfair to compare Eyes Wide Open with Brokeback Mountain but the similarities are obvious and comparisons unfortunately unavoidable. Whereas Brokeback's ability to underplay the traditional histrionics of Hollywood love stories and replace them with a masculine intensity was one of many keys to its critical and commercial success, Eyes Wide Open fails to recreate this or create anything with an originality that can equally resonate.

The blame for this falls on the shoulders on many of those involved but director Haim Tabakman must take the fall. He builds momentum only to cut it short at inappropriate moments in an attempt to reinforce the sexually repressive and unfulfilling life being led by Aaron and Ezri but this frustration affects the audience as well, and they're ultimately never rewarded for their patience. With all artful foreplay and no explosive money shots, the audience falls off the edge of their seats and starts to begrudge the bruises.

The portrayals of butcher Aaron (Zohar Shtrauss) and Ezri (Ran Danker) are also extremely stilted. There are longing stares and occasional intense flashes behind the eyes but the moments of togetherness, guilt, satisfaction and frustration are never conveyed convincingly. The problem is two fold when the intimate scenes are handled with such coyness that you need your leads to show what the director is almost scared to. Of course there's a fine line between gratuitous sex scenes and handling with care but there is no fearlessness on screen.

Its not all doom and gloom though, the actress Tinkerbell does a fantastic job with the role of Aaron's wife Rivka. With her beautiful long, red hair hidden beneath a dowdy greying wig, she watches her husband drift away with the same expression of forlorn hope that she has in the mirror every evening whilst she brushes her flowing locks. Tinkerbell uses her brief screen time to bring extra dimensions to a character that is quite underwritten and for the duration simply an onlooker.

Also, the cinematography by Axel Schneppat is beautiful to look at, with the backdrop of the city of Jerusalem in complete contrast to the blue and grey hues of the naturally lit butcher's shop and surrounding streets.

Eyes Wide Open is uneven, poorly paced and baits the art house crowd in such a way that an avid Transformers 2 watcher would be offended. It's also pretention of the highest order and extremely disappointing. It pulls punches in what could have been an interesting look into a culture hardly seen on film and is filmed so cynically and with such a rigid hand that it's more like watching a slideshow than a film. Eyes Wide Open? You'll struggle trust me.

A little to the left...

2010-03-20T23:43:00.009Z

Green Zone
Starring: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Jason Isaacs
Director: Paul Greengrass
Rating: *** a half (out of 5)

Summary: Chief Roy Miller heads up a team looking for WMDs in Iraq after invasion in 2003 and finds nothing but empty factories and holes in the ground. There must be something wrong with the intel the search teams are recieving from their own government and Miller is determined to find out what that is...

With two action packed Bourne films to his name, audiences were most likely unaware of Paul Greengrass's political film past, but films such as Bloody Sunday and the recent Oscar nominated United 93 demostrate the ability he has to build excitement, fear and tension with a realistic aesthetic built on handheld HD cameras and a heart pounding percussion soundtrack. Green Zone continues this evolution of "Greengrass the auteur" as he takes his combination of action and cinema verite and fuses them together effortlessly to create a thought provoking thrill ride.

With this chaos of miltary occupation in 2003 raining over the audience with every twist, turn and shake of the screen, Greengrass turns to Bourne stalwart Matt Damon to provide a strong point of moral reference. Damon's casting as Chief Roy Miller is inspired rather than pure nepotism with his all American boy scout good looks and earnest gait betraying the cliched image of the modern American "grunt" who takes orders like a 2 star dimwit at their favourite outlet of McDonalds.

Whilst the intelligent Damon manages to convey the shock and anger felt by the public majority whilst convincingly having the strength to ignore his peers and government to expose the truth, his counter point is Greg Kinnear's Clark Poundstone - as slippery as an Iraqi oil field and as sociopathic as Patrick Bateman. A politician with a hint of travelling salesman, he commodifies and packages democracy for the Middle East without any care to rules, regulations or innocent lives.

After initially being cast as romantic leads in films such as Sabrina, Nurse Betty and Dear God, Kinnear has become the go to guy in Hollywood if you want a convincing portrayal of two faced scum. He looks like butter wouldn't melt but he would sell your Grandmother, your Grandad and at least half of your most loved cousins for a slither of that blood tinged Iraqi black gold.

Unfortunately the two leads are so strong that other characters are not afforded much screentime and are therefore a mixed, underwritten bag. Brendan Gleeson's cynical CIA agent who has seen it all before could have a movie in his own right, whereas Jason Isaacs wears his moustache like its the monstrous, attention seeking trait of a sub standard Bond villain rather than the action equal of Damon.

Just when the film is hurtling towards a thrilling and entralling conclusion it hits a speedbump, as Greengrass and screenwriter Bryan Helgeland handle the journey of Amy Ryan's journalist from naive government stooge to morally horrified whistle blower with the subtlety of a Jason Isaacs rifle butt to the head. It smacks of a liberal media apologist agenda which fits uneasily in the indignatious tone of the rest of the film.

Green Zone can sometimes feel like two hours of liberal lecturing but its serves as an important historic footnote in the war movie genre and as a timely reminder of the murky rational behind war in Iraq. The traditional lines between good and evil are being constantly drawn in the Baghdad sand only to be brushed over again with the stroke of Greg Kinnear's pen or a shot from Special Forces brut Jason Isaacs rifle. There is no moral code in this war, simply the strong preying on the weak. The law of the playground enforced at the barrel of a gun.

Go Crazy! at Shutter Island.

2010-03-20T15:10:00.010Z

Shutter Island
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams
Director: Martin Scorsese
Rating: **** (out of 5)

Summary: The disappearance of an inmate from the remote asylum known as Shutter Island, sees federal agents Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) being brought in to assist with the search and to solve the mystery of how she escaped from her locked cell...

After having the Oscar shaped emptiness in his heart finally filled in 2008, this is the first time in many years that Scorsese appears to be having fun, going through his encyclopedic mind of celluloid and indulging in terror, beauty, mystery and suspense whilst leaving the viewer feeling like a rat in a maze. You're watching an omnipotent master of cinema at work so just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Accompanying you on this metaphorical trip into the brain of Scorsese and out of the existential backside of Kafka, is a musical score full of cues that add weight to an already oppressive atmosphere. What your hearing doesn't quite fit with what you're seeing, which makes the scattered jigsaw pieces of plot even more difficult to fit together into anything resembling coherence. Just when you think you're one step ahead of everyone else, Scorsese pulls the rug out from under you and leaves you whimpering like a patient on the sticky auditorium floor.

In his fourth collaboration with the director, DiCaprio is all sweaty brows, shivers and jerks but also shows a maturity in his performance which, for the first time, makes him seem older than his youthful face would have you think. Michelle Williams also gives a unnerving performance which is equal parts happy homemaker and broken psyche. The remainder of the all star cast give passable performances, merely serving as red herrings and histronic cyphers as the film broods and twists towards a satisfying climax.

With its intimidating shoreline, air of mystery, nazi experimentation and nightmarish symbolism, Shutter Island leaves the viewer feeling as stranded as an inmate and just as in need of a padded cell. Despite the gravitas of DiCaprio, Kingsley and Ruffalo, the star of the show is Martin Scorsese and thankfully he's showing no sign of slowing down any time soon.

Girl with the drags-on tattoo...

2010-03-01T14:03:00.007Z

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Peter Haber
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Rating: ** and a half (out of 5)

Summary: When a young, unorthodox hacker is asked to look into the private life of a left wing journalist, she becomes entangled in the unsolved case of a 16 year old girl's disappearance 40 years earlier...

There's no doubt this will be a tough sell for anybody who hasn't already invested themselves in the best selling Millenium trilogy of books. Lisbeth Salander is a troubled character. Her moral compass twisting and turning, the result of a life full of sexual exploitation, neglectful parents, crime and death.

Having her at the centre of the film makes for an uncomfortable viewing experience, something which it struggles to deal with as it flirts with the possibility of being your standard thriller fodder (product placement, Google searches and clues pinned to the wall), only to be dragged into a seedy and perverse world every 20 minutes and in graphic detail.

The uneven tone of the film means that the running time becomes a problem at some points as moments of tension are dragged out too long for the audience to care. We may occasionally frown on Hollywood for is cut and paste approach to book adaptations, but The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo would certainly have benefited from someone taking a pair of scissors to the reel. Or at least having a director with a stronger vision than just a simple page by page book to screen translation.

But for all its faults, when the movie does focus on Lisbeth's life it's edgy and riveting - the sleaze oozes from the celluloid. Noomi Rapace giving a fantastic performance, equally terrifying and heartbreaking. It's just a shame that her presence is such that the film suffers when she's not on the screen.

Murder. Anal rape. Sexual assault with a 10 inch dildo. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is certainly not an episode of Columbo. I can't imagine what his iconic "just one more thing" catchphrase would eventually lead to but i'm sure he wouldn't like it too much. Or maybe he would, you never did get to meet his wife.

Colin Firth's finest hour (and 40 minutes)...

2010-02-25T22:38:00.002Z

A Single Man
Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Nicholas Hoult
Director: Tom Ford
Rating: **** (out of 5)

Summary: After the death of his partner, English Professor George (Colin Firth) struggles to cope with the loneliness and decides to take his own life...

Colin Firth is loved by all women of a certain age but he's always boring. His face is always boring, his mannerisms are always boring and dare I say it, most of his films are always boring. Sometimes I look at him and think he has the capacity to make time stand still, like being in a near death experience. Your movie going experiences flash before your eyes as you try and remember anything you've seen that is more boring than the Colin Firth movie your currently watching - your mind harks back to Bridget Jones or even worse, Dorian Gray. If i'm not making this clear enough - he's always boring.

But despite Firth's uncanny ability to have the personality of a baked potato and the emotional resonance of a dead ant, his performance in A Single Man held my attention through the entire 100 minutes. He was made for this role and I doubt he will give another performance of this calibre. That stiff upper lip and stuffy imperialistic sensibility that embody all his other roles are used to fantastic effect, masking a man that feels deep pain for the lover he has lost and engages in the shadow of death that covers the life he leads.

This postmodern take on the American way of life is nothing new - at times the subversion between white picket fences and bomb shelters reminded me of Blue Velvet - but while Lynch reveled in sexual perversion and the grotesque, Tom Ford endulges his palet of colours in the beauty the world holds. As a beautiful sunset rains across the city we're reminded that the colours are only created by pollution - but that doesn't make them any less alluring.

The allure in this case is personified by college student Kenny (Nicholas Hoult). Sporting an unconvincing yank accent it could be said that he's the weak link in the film but then Julianne Moore rolls in giving her impression of a lovesick Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous and steals those honours. Maybe in another film, Moore and Hoult's performances would have been passable but up against Colin Firth they fall into the background like a piece of George's expensive and stylish furniture.

A Single Man has a single acting nod at this year's Oscars but it deserves alot more. It's fantastically directed, photographed and, as to be expected, the costumes are second to none. Who would have thought that Tom Ford's muse would be Colin Firth?

ass to mouth action - euro style...

2010-02-22T21:15:00.005Z

The Human Centipede
Starring: Akihiro Kitamura, Dieter Laser, Andreas Leupold
Director: Tom Six
Rating: *** and a half (out of 5)

Summary: A mad German doctor, a specialist in separating siamese twins, decides to create a "human centipede" out of three unfortunates he has drugged and abducted. His methods are slightly unorthodox - probably because he has a fascination of fusing said abductees together ass to mouth...and it's 100% medically accurate!

It may seem weird that i'm writing about a movie I saw almost 9 months ago at the London Frightfest. A film that hasn't been released anywhere apart from "the circuit"and still hasn't been seen on the shelves of your local Blockbuster or the obscure depths of Lovefilm, but as my mother used to say as she cradled me in her arms - even the ugly ones need love.

I had a good idea of what The Human Centipede was about before going into the screening but that's part of the fun with a film like this - I was teetering on the edge of mount grotesque and ready for that funny feeling in my stomach before my popcorn creeps back up my oesophagus. How happy I was that Mr.Butterkist didn't pay me a visit.

You see The Human Centipede is a tease. A filthy, depraved, morally corrupt tease but a tease none the less and it's because of this teasing that the film was so fun rather than the expected endurance test.

Director and writer Tom Six injects a rich vein of black humour into the proceedings and doesn't go over the top with the guts and gore, only showing suggestive shots of procedures being drawn crudely on a whiteboard and the expressions on the faces of the victims when the inevitable call of nature rears it's ugly head. Like all the best horrors, its what you don't see.

A special mention must go to the actors. Accepting this film takes a certain type of person, or maybe a certain level of desperation, but they all give convincing and at times heartbreaking performances. Especially Dieter Laser as Dr.Heiter, its as if he managed to fuse Herr Flick from Allo Allo with Bela Lugosi - exuding a level of dark camp not seen before and probably never again.

As you can tell from the summary, The Human Centipede is unlike anything you've seen on a cinema screen, and if you have seen it anywhere then it would have been on the most obscure of European "educational" websites. It shouldn't work, it's two girls, one cup with higher production values and the cup replaced with a japanese guy, but it has a dark, sardonic wit which is a winning formula.

If you ever get the chance to see it, take the chance and I promise you won't be disappointed.

An impotent Valentine's Day...

2010-02-20T22:23:00.008Z

Valentines Day
Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner,
Director: Garry Marshall
Rating: ** (out of 5)

Summary: The intertwining stories of couples in Los Angeles over Valentines Day...

Since Sonofkermode does not believe in Valentines Day (especially if it includes seeing a movie from the director of Pretty Woman) I thought I would celebrate with a girlfriend. So off I went to Wandsworth cinema, bag of sweets in one hand, happy glow of anticipation for 2 hours of sentimental drivel in the other. My expectations were not very high but I did expect to be at least entertained. How wrong I was.

The plot is structured very much the same as 'He's Just Not That Into You' i.e. many stories running simultaneously with two central characters linking them altogether. These two leads are played by Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner and in my opinion Ashton is not a good enough actor to carry a film. He proved my theory correct many times over as the unbelievable love stricken lead - he just didn't seem that bothered about anything.

I liked 'He's Just Not That Into You' because I liked the characters and their stories, in this I didn't care about their story or what happened to them. None of them had any heart or soul.

My favourite character (Not that I could tell you her name!) was played by Julia Roberts but since she was probably only on screen for no more than 30 minutes, that might be the key factor in my favouritism. It was like being given a big chocolate heart and realising that it was a year out of date. You know it's tasteless and not good for you but your probably going to eat it anyway.

I wouldn't pay money to see this film but in 3 to 4 years time when it's premiering on ITV2 and I happen to be watching TV, it's cold outside and there is definitely NOTHING else on I'll probably give it another.

Love Mrs.Sonofkermode

Prophet a loss?

2010-02-20T17:35:00.003Z

A Prophet
Starring: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup, Adel Bencherif
Director: Jacques Audiard
Rating: ** (out of 5)

Summary: A young Arab man goes to prison and finds out the hard way about the heirarchy of life behind bars. Caught between the turf wars of the Corsican and Middle Eastern prisoners, he must use all his wits and charm to work his way to the top.

Its french, its 3 hours long, it has a plot as hard to follow as Jason Bourne in a Russian taxi cab and its the best crime thriller since Goodfellas (apparently). Let me introduce A Prophet, the proverbial film critics jizz rag.

This isn't a backlash for backlash's sake - i'm simply annoyed. I believed them all. All the critics that wrote superlative after superlative about A Prophet. This isn't the second coming of the gangster genre, if you want that you should watch the epic Mesrine, which is a film that has the decency to split its running time over two films.

It's not a total waste of 1500 feet of celluloid. With its close camera work and overcrowded frames, you really feel the claustrophobic and horrific atmosphere that must permeate the walls of prison and the acting of Tahar Rahim is second to none. However, The Godfather - which A Prophet has been likened to - had a cast of support characters that demanded your attention and that is lacking here, with the supporting players merely underwritten cliches that fall into the background too easily.

As you can tell, A Prophet just didn't do it for me. The film is baggy, becomes incomprehensible once Rahim's Machiavellian rise to the top begins and it wallows in the stench of criminality it so readily judges.

Within and hour and a half I was checking my watch - and I don't even wear one. No doubt it will have recieved its gold plated glory once the awards season is over but it certainly won't deserve a single carot of it.

Brothers in arms

2010-02-20T16:27:00.005Z

Brothers
Starring: Tobey Maquire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Sam Shepard, Carey Mulligan
Director: Jim Sheridan
Rating: **** (out of 5)

Summary: Ex con Tommy (Jake Gyllenhaal), sees his revered brother Sam (Tobey Maguire) go off to war in Afghanistan, whilst he stays at home and suffers the mental abuse of his father (Sam Shepard) and the scorn of Sam's wife (Natalie Portman).

I was initially apprehensive about seeing Brothers, the remake to the highly acclaimed Danish film. Not because of my undying love for the original (a film i'm now keen to take a look at) but because a) Mrs.Sonofkermode was very keen to see it, with tissues ready before the Orange Danny Glover ad had even finished and b) It was an early Sunday morning, a time of day more akin to sleep and cookery shows than Hollywood melodrama.

Imagine my surprise when despite the half shut eyes, awful trailers (seriously, when did "from the producers of 27 Dresses" become a seal of approval?) and disappointing pic "n" mix, Brothers held my attention from start to finish.

Director Jim Sheridan allows the relationships to simmer and drive the narrative and in turn gets fantastic perfomances from all three leads. Tobey Maquire, though admittedly the more emotionally volatile, never falls into the realm of histronics or over the top physical movement. Macquire is wound up, rigid and straight as a board but exudes fear and sadness with one wide-eyed stare.

In turn, Portman and Gyllenhaal do well with their evolving relationship. Showing contempt, admiration and burgeoning romance in convincing, equal measure. In fact, far from Portman's glamour distracting from her performance it actually adds a bittersweet edge to her character. She's the college sweetheart, the girl everyone fell in love with at school but now finds herself widowed in a dead end situation.

Some critics have called Brothers an unbelievable old style Hollywood melodrama, but what's wrong with that every now and again. There are some plot devices that can be described as slightly far-fetched and Sheridan is so understated in his direction that he adds an out of place decorating montage seemingly to wake himself up, but Brothers shows that the next generation of A list talent isn't confined to just selling tabloid newspapers and magazines. Maquire, Portman and Gyllenhaal deserve the adulation inevitably heading their way.

Update...

2010-02-19T22:28:00.005Z

Apologies for the lack of activity on the blog. What can i say, a combination of full time work, an addiction to championship manager and just plain laziness has seen a drop off in my visits to the cinema - but fret not.
This weekend will see a return of the bumper triple bill at the local Cineworld, and even the beautiful Mrs.Sonofkermode will be getting involved in the action with her views on the unwatchable "Valentines Day".

So lots to look forward to! Just keep the faith...

Book of Crap...

2010-01-23T21:13:00.007Z

The Book of Eli
Starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis
Director: The Hughes Brothers
Rating: ** (out of 5)

Summary: Denzel Washington walks a ravaged, sun scorched Earth with nothing but his wits, a dead ipod and a book. After arriving in a ramshackle town run by madman Carnegie (Gary Oldman) he realises that some people will stop at nothing to get their hands on the text and he is the only one who can protect it...

Whilst The Road (reviewed below) gives the viewer a sombre but ultimately rewarding movie experience - both visually and in terms of the performances - Book of Eli would rather blow your senses with quick cuts, loud bangs and laughable plot twists.

Welcome to the apocalypse - Hollywood style.

Don't mistake me for a pretentious arse who would rather watch a boxset of German expressionist work with a packet of wheat germ biscuits than stuff my face with popcorn and sweet, sugary liquids. I love big, dumb action films where script comes second to exploding heads and C4, but The Book of Eli takes its subject matter far too seriously to be fun and is far too ridiculous to be serious.

By casting reliable, heavyweight actors such as Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman amongst the bullets and babes (well, babe, unless Frances de la Tour is your thing) The Hughes Brothers attempt to bring gravitas to the precedings. However, Washington sleep walks and mumbles his way through the deserted land like a Romero zombie and Oldman gives a performance that is more The Fifth Element than The Dark Knight. I suppose even the best actors are allowed the occasional bad script choice.

Credit to Michael Gambon and British sitcom stalwart Miss De la Tour who both bring a sense of sinister fun to their brief cameos, but the enjoyment their moments on screen give are too few and far between to make Book of Eli anything more than an almost passable Saturday night movie.

Never hitting the Mile High Club

2010-01-23T19:26:00.018Z

Up in the Air
Starring: George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick
Director: Jason Reitman
Rating: ** (out of 5)

Summary: Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) flies from city to city being the bearer of bad news. Hired by companies to fire their employees, he's close to acquiring 10 million airmiles and becoming part of an exclusive club. However, his perfect lifestyle comes under threat when his company plan to ground him and turn his role into a desk job...

Jason Reitman's follow up to Juno is missing the one thing that movie had: Soul.

The characters in Up in the Air are unlikeable, cynical arseholes for the majority of the time - even more so than I am. It's like spending two hours with Jason Bateman's Juno character whilst he tells you how awful his life is and lights Cuban cigars with £50 notes, all the while picking his teeth with a passport photo of his beautiful wife. In summary, bloody irritating.

Up in the Air seems to have attracted critical acclaim because of its timely unemployment subject matter and George Clooney's apparently revelatory performance. However, one of those can be seen as a pure plot device and coincidence whilst the other can be seen as pure, Hollywood bullshit churned out by the hypemill 3000 (Acme patent pending). Clooney is simply Clooney, nothing more and nothing less. Holding back on the Just for Men for a month or two and attempting to cry whilst looking like the before subject in a laxative ad does not make you Oscar worthy. Clooney is not a bad actor, but he is simply coasting in this movie, and is not pushed like David O Russell pushed him in Three Kings for example - which is still his best performance in my opinion.

The plus points, which are few and far between, are the two female leads, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Despite the fact that Reitman and Turner's script paints them as a cliched cold femme fatale and a weak and neurotic damsel in distress, they give honest performances, filling out underwritten support roles with gusto.

The movie was a disappointment, unsure of itself and guided by a main protagonist who, despite the amount of soul searching and puppy dog looks, deserves a happy ending about as much as Hitler in Triumph of the Will. Jason Reitman and George Clooney can and must do better.

Stake and Cheese

2010-01-11T13:13:00.022Z

Daybreakers
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neil
Director: The Spierig Brothers
Rating: *** (out of 5)

Summary: In 2019, vampires rule and humanity is almost extinct, but blood supplies are running low and vampires are fighting for survival from their own blood lust...

10 minutes into Daybreakers and snippets from a number of quick news reports show that it's going to be somewhat of an allegorical mess, attempting to shoehorn a number of hot political topics - reliance on non-renewable energy, treatment of the homeless, the third world - into the plot with the subtlety of a stake through the heart.

The majority of the cast do well with what they're given. Sam Neill gives a suitably slippery performance and Ethan Hawke sulks his way through his portrayal of a remorseful vampire. Special mention must go to Willem Dafoe, who seems to have been auditioning for the part of Woody Harrelson's brother in Zombieland 2 and stumbled into the wrong film. The action set pieces are well executed and Daybreakers twist on the traditional underground vampires is something I haven't seen before - its good to finally see the superior species living an above ground, Wachowski-lite, corporate existence.

Despite this, Daybreakers was a frustrating experience. Even now, 48 hours after viewing, I'm not sure what to think of it or where to place it on a simple one to five rating scale. There were aspects I really liked and aspects I despised. It's not a simple Marmite test, its Marmite with jam - confusing for the senses and not very satisfying.

We're on a Road to Nowhere...

2010-01-10T18:46:00.010Z

The Road
Starring: Viggo Mortenson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall
Director: John Hillcoat
Rating: **** (out of 5)

Summary: A father and son walk through the wastelands of America after an apocalyptic event and fight for survival from cannibalistic gangs and starvation...

I've come to the conclusion that The Road is a man's film. Estranged fathers and sons should see this movie to rekindle their relationship or the government should show it to absentee dads as a demonstration of the responsibility that comes with bringing a life into this world.

It's the simplicity of the story and the bare bones that are exposed, metaphorically and in the physical sense, that makes The Road such a refreshing antidote to recent end of the world movies such as The Day After Tomorrow and I Am Legend. Those films, weighed down by big budgets, rewrites and test audiences, are insecure about their representation of humanity during such a crisis and as such are diluted, unintelligent exercises. The Road is nihilistic and dirty but driven by an unambiguous moral code of right and wrong which is dealt with subtlety rather than bombastic special effects and emotional histronics.

This movie certainly won't be for everyone, with its collection of emaciated bodies, lifeless trees, cold windswept landscapes and bleak outlook on humanity's survival after an apocalyptic event. However, despite the harsh colourless aesthetic of the piece, at its core is a simple and poignant relationship between a father and son that cannot be broken.