The Road (2010), Dir. John Hillcoat

Cast according to most horribly bleak sentiment: Kodi "Cries all the time" Smit-McPhee, Charlize "End it all" Theron, Michael K. "Please man, please" Williams, Viggo "Naked at every opportunity" Mortensen, Robert "Old, badger face" Duvall

Plot: Welcome to the world of tomorrow. Savage gangs of badly-toothed cannibals roam a post-apocalyptic North America while a beardy man (Mortensen) and his naive son (Smit-McPhee) try to stay alive and make it to the coast in hope of surviving the sepia-toned nightmare.

So what?: I make no bones about this as hackneyed as it is - the book is better. There it has been said. And doubtlessly guffawed and nattered by coffeehouse patrons who have had the spare time and money to indulge in both the cinematic and paperback versions of Cormac McCarthy’s dystopian picture of the world after Mother Nature has a mental breakdown.

It is essentially the inverse to the likes of 2012 which revel in the orgasmic destruction of the world, while The Road toils in the aftermath and no doubt some will be aggrieved that there is no explanation of what happened to the world - even if there is a sly-nod to climate change.

Mortensen does well with what plays out as a loving father/husband turning into a roving bandit living on his wits and doing anything to keep his doe-eyed son alive. There is a real bond between the duo but little is done to actually make you care if they survive for that long, even when faced with the aforementioned cannibal gangs.

And, that is the problem. The touching scenes don’t really hit home and the action jolts life into the scenario but only for seconds at a time. There is something so dragging about this it is unreal and I realise that may be expected for something called The Road after all but the performances fail to enliven a plodding and melancholy look at life in a world where roving gangs of flesh-eating balaclava bastards are king.

Verdict: 2/5. Monotonous and slow. If it was actually be a road it would be a shitty country lane infuriatingly filled with farmers moving cows between fields.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009), Dir. Spike Jonze

Cast according to oddest portrayal: James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano the Wild Thing), Max Records (for impersonating Ellen Page), Forest Whitaker (half asleep giant), Catherine O'Hara (motherly monster), Paul Dano (disgruntled goat-boy)

Plot: Irritable little shit Max (Records) ruins his mother's (Catherine Keener) attempts at a romantic evening by being an attention-seeking bastard who then bites her. Running flailing into the night in his all-in-one wolf outfit, Max happens upon a boat which takes him to a land of mysterious gigantic monsters where he decides - like anyone would - to declare himself their king.

So what?: There are a great number of things that are excellent about the transference of this much-loved classic to the hallowed celluloid realm. The monsters are incredibly rendered and draw your eye like a fat child to a popcorn stand anytime they are on screen. Their kingdom is equally endearing, an odd little island of bush, forest, sand and sea that serves as a suitable backdrop to the odd world we are invited into.

Conversely, the fact that Jonze managed to stretch out the blink-and-you'll-miss-it short book upon which this is based to 1hr 40 mins unfortunately tells. There is not nearly enough substance to the story to sustain such a long run time and as pretty as everything is, it does come across as a bit dawdling until the denouement.

Equally, the lead is a whiny unsympathetic little scrotum. Max is like that kid who sat in front of you at school chatting away and then talks over everyone to ask what was said when he was talking. You sort of want one of the monsters to eat his head at the thirty minute mark but then it clicked - you are not really supposed to like him. This is about his journey from being that annoying little twat to a more rounded individual.

Admittedly, the coming-of-age tale is choc-a-bloc with stories of self-discovery but few feature nine foot monsters building massive castles out of twigs do they? No, they bloody well don't. And, with the addition of Where the Wild Things Are to that cannon I think we are all a bit richer really.

Verdict: 4/5. Probably would have scored this on monsters alone but chuck-in an easy-going Karen O soundtrack and a palpable sense of nostalgia and you are onto something special.

Bunny and the Bull (2009), Dir. Paul King

Cast according to most dog milk drunk: Julian Barratt, Edward Hogg, Simon Farnaby, Veronica Echegui, Noel Fielding

Plot: Kings Cross resident and all-round bathrobe wearer Stephen (Hogg) is an obsessive compulsive shut-in living under the cloud of a doomed romance. When mice upset his best-laid plans, as is often the case, Stephen is forced to relive a mad-cap pan-European adventure with extroverted best friend Bunny (Farnaby) which culminates in his curly-haired companion heading for a showdown, quite literally, with a bull.

So what?: It is difficult to judge a film that has been espoused, trumpeted and revered, even, as 'The Mighty Boosh Movie' without feeling slightly puzzled. Is it an absurd tale of two men - one nerdish, the other fantastically self-confident - encountering peculiar cretins in imagineered (good word) environs? Oh it is, it is plus forty. But that is not all it is.

The aloof and often alienating humour of the Mighty Boosh (if you call them 'The Boosh' you are a twat) is the background, the chamber music, the ever-present but non-intrusive crux of what is actually are much more Withnailian prospect. Bunny is so one-dimensional he is effectively see-through - that's given - and Stephen is too weak to really root for, but it works despite itself.

King has created an excellently crafted and visually stunning road movie, which is incongruous in its use of Stephen's flat as a faux backdrop for his continental trip but never over-bearing. The comedy is a bit hit and miss but there is enough of a quirk and promise to give it a look in.

Verdict: 3/5. Funny and arresting but never really takes its central plot by the horn. See what I done? That's a bull reference.

 

Fish Tank (2009), Dir. Andrea Arnold

Cast according to foulest mouth: Katie 'Tell her, her old man's a cunt' Jarvis, Rebecca 'If I'm a fuckface then you're a cuntface' Griffiths, Kierston 'Stupid whore' Wareing, Michael '*backhand slap*' Fassbender

Plot: Mia (debutant and full-time cockney Jarvis) is a booze-swilling, guttermouthed council estate inhabitant who, when she isn't fighting other girls or her mum (Wareing), wants to break out of her sorry roots and become a dancer. Things take a change for the complicated when her perennially pissed mum brings home a thoughtful and handsome Irish suitor (Fassbender) who encourages her to follow her dreams.

So what?: If you are not sick of the story, here it is again: lead actress Jarvis won this part after being seen having a row with her boyfriend at a train station. Obviously she was perfect for the part of Mia as she spends the majority of this downcast but often brilliant picture hollering her fucking head off at God and all his children.

One problem is Mia the character. She is a bad seed, as is her sister, but they are just painted as Daily Mail-standard chavs who want quick sex, cheap alcohol and big punch up all at once if it can be arranged. The strive for realism often seems clouded by attempts to make the situation seem bleaker and bleaker, although an allegory of Mia's plight with that of a starved horse she tries constantly to free works subtly well.

That is not to be down on the picture, although it is often dependent on broad character strokes. Fassbender is impeccable as the charming yet slightly untrustworthy Connor and Mia's sister is often caught red-handed stealing scenes. Jarvis does well with the less obvious elements of her character as well and brings a quite thoughtful side to what could have been a loutish, lager-swilling ladette.

Ultimately, the aimless plot breaks under the weight of the running time. While we are left groping for what Mia is going to do next Arnold seems to add in other developments to prolong the stay and eclipse good work done earlier in the film.

Verdict: 3/5. I hate middle ground ratings but there is enough there to make it a damn good picture countered by enough flaws to drag it back.

Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) Dir. Wes Anderson

Cast according to best outfit: George 'Cord suit' Clooney, Jason 'cape' Schwartzman, Bill 'badger in a suit' Murray, Meryl 'apron' Streep, Jarvis 'Jarvis Cocker glasses' Cocker

Plot: The eponymous Mr Fox (Clooney) retires from his life of crime to raise a family but he still has that hunger to pull the wool over the eyes of three gruesome farmers in the neighbourhood. However, his attempts to battle his agri-foes only lands him and his animal family and friends in a world of trouble. Is he fantastic enough to resolve it?

So what?: There is a certain anticipated unpredictability to a Wes Anderson picture, which leads to people chucking epithets like 'quirky' and 'kooky' with gay abandon but when you see a fox in a corduroy suit riding a motorcycle giving a wolf a black power salute then you can only say so much.

In fairness, Wes Anderson does tend to alienate some mainstream audiences with his focus on the dysfunctional family not really doing anything. However, in this case Anderson benefits from the core of the tale being already set in stone by everyone's favourite Norwegian/Welsh childrens writer Roald Dahl's.

However, Anderson being Anderson still manages to inject it with odd little kinks and an ending turned up to eleven along with stop-motion animation that takes a while to get into. Purists have farted up a fart storm about the ingratiating of American A-listers to fill the small town middle England roles of the animals, ignoring the fact that the use of Clooney, Streep and Murray plays out brilliantly.

While watching the events unfold it is easy to see this becoming a staple of Bank Holiday Monday's in years to come but for the time being it will just have to be held up as another success in the Anderson canon. 

Verdict: 4/5. Not quite fantastic but definitely brilliant, however that sort of fucks up the alliteration. Well worth a look for Dahl, Anderson and film fans alike...um, so everyone.

 

Zombieland (2009), Dir. Ruben Fleischer

Cast according to 'Zombie Kill of the Week': Woody 'Banjo Beatdown' Harrelson, Jesse 'Cistern Smash' Eisenberg, Emma 'Machine Gun in Motion' Stone, Abigail 'Dead-Eye Duck' Breslin

Plot: Nerd-tastic Columbus (poor man's Michael Cera Eisenberg) is venturing across the post Zombie-apocalypto American states to his home...Columbus. En route he is picked up by gun-totting, redneck supreme Tallahassee (Harrelson amped up to 11) and enters a game of cat-and-mouse with two devious sisters (Stone and Breslin) who are aiming to make it to a West Coast amusement park. All the time avoiding the ravenous horde that now patrol the majority of their once fare land.

So what?: Zombie films are essentially the 'Simpsons Did It' episode of South Park. You think of a new concept and some Italian with £15 and a camera has already cut his version. We've had zombies on planes, in secluded cities, running, jumping, thinking, we've had dark, dark horror and comedy and yet - like a blood-thirsty zombie - we continue to pine for more.

The benefit for Zombieland is that it knows this. It isn't try to redesign the dismembered parts that comprise this horror wheel but add a humorous and knowing take on the canon of work that has gone before. Taking a lead very much from cult favourite Shaun of the Dead, the characters are broad-strokes but survive in an everyman way based on wit, luck and living alone. Columbus, true to nerd form, even has a running list of points to adhere to which he has developed to survive in this harshly bleak existence.

The heavily-comedic slant is not the only card in this film's deck with some gruesome scenes to placate those that haven't quite seen enough people eaten alive - and frankly who has? A par-for-the-course love story and some mystifying character choices do detract slightly but not enough to override what is essentially a road movie with a lot of brains and gore splattered on the tarmac.

Verdict: 3/5. Not a classic and the impending sequel raises queasy feelings but for a day out Zombieland is what you can reasonably expect from a slight deviation of a well worn premise.

 

The Hurt Locker (2009), Dir. Kathryn Bigelow

Cast According to having appeared in the film SWAT: Jeremy Renner, nobody, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty

Plot: In the boiling hot anus of war, an elite bomb disposal team (Guy Pearce, Mackie and Geraghty) is shaken when its leader is decimated by a blast. His replacement, a hot-headed, thrillseeker called James (Renner), causes a rift in the tight-knit camp with his damn renegade and maverick tendencies. As they count down their tour of duty in the Middle East, will James's brashness get the entire squad killed or will he be taken out before then?

So what?: War films are a tricky pickle. You have traverse the line between coming over all Triumph of the Will or a bleeding heart liberal and still make it an entertaining affairs, as it is, after all, a film. What Bigelow does is a very simplistic stroke that serves this tension-ridden drama no-end. She ignores the politics. Beyond a few individual ruminations, the characters only ask 'why am I here?' and never 'why are we here?'. It adds a personal level and removes any need for preaching from what is a very stripped down and effective drama.

Ultimately the film jumps from bomb set-up to bomb set-up and due to the building of tension to an explodey climax each time the audience is left emotional drained in the down-time between. It is in these moments that the characters look to actually connect and you can often miss what is actually going on just because you are still thinking 'holy fuck that was tense'.

Renner as the redneck bomb ace - what a sentence! - is superb. He is both driven and exceedingly selfish much to the chagrin of his colleagues and his increasingly erratic behaviour amps up the tension in not only the bomb scenes but the interactions between them. What is also well played is that James is, well, fucking good at his job, which especially irks with the second in command Sanborn (Mackie). Mackie does well as a man who has reached his limit but won't admit it, while young Brian Geraghty plays the cocksure youngster who is actually piss scared quite well.

Verdict: 4/5. A stand alone war film that forgets politics and assesses the human element, while also having some arm-rest-rippingly tense bomb disposal scenes.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (2008) Dir. Jean-Francois Richet

Cast according to best physical quirks: Vincent 'Busy moustache' Cassel, Gerard 'Gut of eight men' Depardieu, Roy 'Sideburns' Dupuis, Cecile 'angelically cute' De France, Gilles 'perennial cigarette' Lellouche

Plot: Former French soldier Jacques Mesrine (Cassel) returns from the bitter - and bloody - Algerian War to a life of Parisian crime capped off by bank heists, kidnappings, jail breaks, extraditions, divorces, murders and enough gaulloises to choke a chimney. Oh, and that is just part one.

So what?: The problem with doing the life-and-times of notorious French hoodlum Mesrine on the big screen isn't so much what to include but what to leave out and that is where this fundamentally exciting picture lets itself down. Opting to cast a wide net over the criminal ascent, affirmation and imminent demise (as to be shown in Part Deux), Killer Instinct offers a fast-forwarded scatter shot of what should be a more in-depth look at why Mesrine is the way he is.

 

The film, although well shot and brilliantly carried by Cassel's brooding menace, too often relies on the fact that Mesrine did it because...well, he's fucking Mesrine. Seeming like it has but two hours to tell us all it can before part two takes the reins, some scenes just jump headlong into the next one and undercut any character building that has been thoughtfully crafted. At times, it is as if there are eight or nine screenwriters each wanting to up the ante to the detriment of the character.  

Need Mesrine to prove he is a gangster and not a family man? Make him put a gun in his wife's mouth. But he just had a touching moment with her the scene before. Need Mesrine to join the underworld? His oldest friend happens to work for the toughest outfit in town and - barring a slight altercation - they welcome him in. The list of this goes on.

 

Now, this has all seemingly been preened from the annals of historical fact but it doesn't serve to help the film and is very jarring at times. Anywho, as a whole, it is a good picture. Cassel - as stated - is mesmerizing as the cocksure, gun-totting Mesrine and there are even some soft comedic touches among all the carnage and genuinely tense action set-pieces. Amazingly though this French attempt at The Godfather remains destined to sit among the likes of Romanzo Criminale and Gomorrah as a uniquely continental affair without the grandiose or basic psychology to be considered alongside it. Sacre bleu.

Verdict: 3/5. For all the action, intensity and intrigue, you can't help but feel the one-time jail breaker has made off without giving enough of a story away.

Moon (2009), Dir. Duncan Jones

Cast according to Sam Rockwellness: 1) Sam Rockwell, 3) Kevin Spacey.

Plot: Stationed on a remote mining outpost on the lovely lump of cheese that is the moon, Sam (Rockwell, see what they did?) has two weeks left on his three year stint as the man-in-the-moon before heading back to the soupy earth. However, some strange happenings are afoot and the final fortnight may not run smooth.

So what?: This is going to be difficult to do without spunking away any of the increasingly weird plot twists that keep this stripped-down, psycho-thriller running along at a convivial pace. The antithesis of the big, bangy sci-fi renaissance that was brought in with the likes of Star Wars and, to an extent, Transformers, Moon is about the people and the situation not the setting. This isn't going to be rocked up to 11 and blasted out of surround sound wankjobs as explosions ricochet through your eyeballs, this is an emotional drama. It just happens to be on the moon.

In the thick of it, Sam is deadly lonely. Keeping himself going with recorded messages from his ever-so-distant family, it is in Rockwell that we are handed the whole gamut of emotions and forced to wolf it done as it safe little environ becomes a haunting mess. The scenery is perfection and for ruminations on what it is to be alone, the moon serves a fantastical backdrop.

The fact that Rockwell is the only man on the screen for the ninety minute runtime does make it feel a lot longer than it is and it would seem unlikely that anyone without the former Charlie's Angels badguy's witty and shit-eating grin could keep you glued to it.

Rating: 4/5. A weird little throwback that stands out in a sea of big budget space shindigs, this is not about where we are boldly going and more about where we have boldly been and what it means.

 

Brüno (2009), Dir. Larry Charles

Cast According to People in on the Joke: Sacha Baron Cohen, America

Plot: Leading Austrian fashion correspondent Bruno is blacklisted after a debacle at Milan fashion week involving a Velcro-suit which leaves him sans tiny Vietnamese boyfriend and a job. The '19-year-old' heads to America to rid himself of the vacuous and vapid fashion world by becoming...a celebrity. Cue interviews with people in show-business, charity work, swingers and generally anybody that could be slightly offended by Bruno wielding a dildo or making his penis talk. So everyone.

So what?: There is a core difference between Baron Cohen's latest effort - the often obscenely outlandish Bruno - with 2006's smash hit Borat. Both trekked America looking to dupe people into making idiots of themselves in the presence of one of Cohen's eccentric egos but Borat was well...nice. Sure both incarnations have the same wafer thin plotline to run on, both do manage to make a handful of people talk themselves into a stupor, but Borat at least played the fool and was an assuming dunce, whereas Bruno is...a horrible person.

Now before the thoughts swirl - yes, he is a character, I wasn't a berk enough to think this was a real account of the travails of a 6' 7'', offensively gay caricature - but it is just one cringe-worthy sketch leaping to another for no discernible reason and with little more than a few chuckles to outweigh the torrent of just, well, disgusting things that Bruno does.

 

One of the main problems with the picture is that while Borat managed to capture some people's inherent or misguided xenophobia, Bruno's attempt to do the same with homophobia is tempered by the fact that anybody - and I mean, pretty much anybody -would react badly when faced with some of the terrorist-baiting, anal-cramming, exercise-bike-operated-dildo, baby swapping antics that Bruno pulls.

Ultimately, it would seem that the well has run dry for Mr Cohen and this will probably mark the end of him being able to put on an accent and make people squirm but it would seem like it is going out with a camp whimper rather than a congratulatory bang.

 

Verdict: 2/5. Bruno has a few titters and is a good way to waste an evening but you can't help feel that this one-note joke has farted out its finale.

The Hangover (2009), Dir. Todd Phillips

Cast according to worst injury: Bradley 'Tiger claw' Cooper, Ed 'Incisor' Helms, Justin 'Burnt' Bartha, Zack 'Generally retarded' Galifinakias

Plot: Four buddies - well three and the groom's semi-insane, soon-to-be brother-in-law - hightail it to Vegas for a night of debauched shenanigans. However, come the morning only the groomsmen are present with no sign of the soon-to-be-wed and not a fucking clue what happened the night before or why there's a goddamn tiger in the bathroom.

So far, so Dude Where's My Husband. Anyway, the oddly-matched triad brave shotgun weddings, shot glasses, real shotguns, stun guns and Mike Tyson's bulging guns (meaning his arms) in retracing their amnesiac steps to find their missing man (Bartha) ahead of his big day.

So what?: Director Todd Phillips, who brought us the seminal slacker comedy Old School, does two majestic things with this jaw-numbingly funny venture. One - he manages to make the three characters both likeable and funny in equal measure without wetting our faces with either sentiment or bodily fluids, and two - doesn't make it so numbnuts can shout quote-after-fucking-quote out from here to eternity.

Essentially the film is frickin' hilarious, but the majority of jokes work only in context of what has preceded it and this means you, Johnny Moviegoer, feel like you are being carried along for the rollercoaster ride which goes from finding babies in closets to naked Chinese gangster without a pause for a Jagermesiter-wreaking breathe.

The plot has every opportunity to feel hackneyed as misanthropic lady's man Phil (Cooper), hen-pecked...fuck full-on-chicken-coop-pecked dentist Stu (Helms) and beautifully irreverent manchild Alan (Galifinakias) stumble around from clue-to-clue in the surreal Vegas setting but it doesn't.

Characters are clearly defined in their roles without being caricatures, even the supporting cast have time to attempt to wrestle the film out of the slightly imposing grip of nutjob Alan. The jokes are unrepentant but consistently funny and the actual shooting of the film makes Vegas seem like a sprawling city of chaotic, neon-lit, beautiful madness.

That's not to say it's a masterpiece, it is prime Friday night, snort and chuckle material but it is the very high-end of it. It's like if Michaelangelo drew a cartoon penis - it's not going up in the Louvre but you know people would still clamber to see it and gaze at its veiny mite.

Verdict: 4/5. Not very sinful for a Sin City picture but certainly worth a spin on the roulette wheel...of comedy...insert more tawdry Vegas puns...just go see it.

Star Trek (2009), Dir. JJ Abrams

Cast According to Highest Scoring Name in Scrabble: Zachary Quinto (39), John Cho (22), Zoe Saldana (20), Anton Yelchin (20), Chris Pine (16), Simon Pegg (15), Eric Bana (12)

Plot: Space the first frontier...I don't really get Star Trek. Anywho, a trademark Abrams-opening nail-biting sequence brings Jim T. Kirk (Pine) into the world as a rash, rebellious Iowa farmboy while on Vulcan, the half-human logic mesiter Spock (Quinto) is exalted as the future of Starfleet. Kirk enrols into the space cadets and ends up alongside Spock on a motherfucking awesome ship but can his illogical, impassioned ways work with the stoic pointy-eared one's sensibilities to fight off the wrath of planet killing mega badass Nero (Bana).

So what?: A lot of pomp and ceremony was given to the 'reboot' engineered by Lost and Mission Impossible 3 helmer JJ Abrams and his attempts to redress the nerdishly, intricate world of Star Trek to make it palatable to the masses without alienating (space pun for you there) the beloved and obsessive fans at its core.

Starting back at its origins, Abrams indulges in painting Kirk - a competent laddish performance by Pine - as a tearaway who struggles with authority in a very ordered and precision-fuelled arena but this isn't just about Kirk becoming all Shat-tastic but those around him as much.

At the core, the story is of how Kirk is moulded into a true leader of men, while the cold impassioned Spock - an excellent Quinto, who does well without simply playing Nimoy Mark 2. - is exposed as a man of conflict and torment but ultimately righteousness and how their true selves work in tandem.

Abrams manages, if only with broad strokes, to bring in the wealth of characters that have featured in the many guises and generations of the Star Trek oeuvre but its frenetic pace gives little time to develop beyond Kirk and Spock.

At its heart the new Star Trek is blockbuster, an explosion-riddled, blink-and-you'll-think-what-the-fuck-did-that-explode? romp through alien vernacular and shiny big fucking weapons. And, even if it serves more as a base for adventures to come, it bring Star Trek hurtling into somewhere it has very rarely gone before - mainstream mass attention.

Rating: 4/5. Thoroughly enjoyable for ardent creatures of the nigh...Star Trek fans and 'normals' as well.

In TheLoop (2009), Dir. Armando Ianucci

Cast according to best use of language: Peter Capaldi, James Gandolfini, Chris Addison, Tom Hollander, Gina McKee

Plot: Flailing cabinet minister Simon Foster (Hollander) makes an ambiguous gaffe about war on the radio which causes Americans looking for British backing for conflict swoop in and the PM's director of communications (Capaldi) explode in a volley of insults which takes the story all the way to the White House and the brink of war.

 

So what?: 'Political satire' isn't something that you would imagine dragging in people on a Friday evening. Politics by its nature is insular, complicated and very fucking serious. Here, however, Ianucci crafts a hilarious - and plausible - tale of how ministers can be pressured in situations and wars can be crafted out of double-dealing and a lot of proud and indignant individuals clashing in meeting rooms.

 

For this film to come out just as the Damian McBride affair - centring on PR battles and quite a few shits in suits - is a godsend to Ianucci in trying to capture a veritable viper's pit behind baby kissing and glad-handing. The near documentary camera work makes the whole thing verge on a mockumentary of what really happens behind the closed doors of government.

 

The cast is replete with comedic talents, Hollander is excellent as the bumbling Foster, as is Addison as is new aide Toby, but for someone to even get this far into a review without mentioning Peter Capaldi's tirade-fuelled-motor-mouthed Malcolm Tucker is a crime. One which, in his guise as Tucker, would be met with a thousand and one insults about intelligence, credibility, stature, use of language and...well anything.

 

Verdict: 4/5. Filthy as all hell but clever and poignant at the same time with a great take on the effect an ill-placed word could have.

 

Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009), Dir. Phil Claydon

Cast according to horror puns: Matt 'Devil's' Horne, James 'Police' Corden, MyAnna 'Rhymes with Goering' Buring, Paul 'um...Renault' McGann

Plot: Gavin and Smithy - or whatever they're called in this - go on a weekend away to escape the clutches of Gavin's cartoonishly evil ex-girlfriend. Upon'st visiting a remote Norfolk town with a sinister curse, the duo team up with a bevy of beautiful exchange students to ward off the clutches of marauding lesbian vampiresses.

So what?: The plus side of this low-budget, high-camp horror is that it is very, genuinely funny. If you like Gavin and Stacey. And, are 18. That's not to say it isn't funny, it is just a select brand of derivative humour based on the fundamental tenants of laddish, brash jollity. Here's a taster - do you find a fat man decapitating a vampire with a frying pan and shouting 'Fucking get some' funny? No, then avoid this like a plague-ridden mule.

 

The actual narrative is as you would expect - ridiculous. The story is constructed of a mixture of convenient twists and turns to essentially drive our two 'heroes' into some lesbo-vamp destruction. There are tits-a-plenty, replete with bantering exchanges between the main pair and a host of 'quirky' sideline characters - including a needlessly foul-mouthed vicar (Withnail and I's unrecognisable McGann).

 

However, even at its relatively clipped run-time, the fact that they encounter the fang-toothed femme fatales so early on means that the action seems to have run its course at about the hour mark and interjecting 'fucking' into every other word does little to stem the tide.

 

A superfluous romantic sub-plot doesn't even seem to have been aimed at appeasing dough-eyed girlfriends dragged along by slack-jawed tittering boys. Essentially, you don't care if anyone survives and you'll have forgotten if anyone does by the time you're on your bus home.

Verdict: 3/5. Good among a packed Friday night crowd and likely to be a major rental but if you miss this there's always the next series of Gavin and Stacey, or Horne and Corden's sketch show, or their Brits appearance...you get the idea.

 

Slumdog Millionaire (Dir. Danny Boyle)

Cast According to...um...names I can type efficiently*: Dev Patel, Frieda Pinto...or is it Freida? Anil Kapoor

(*No offence intended)

Plot: Young call-centre tea-boy Jamal (Dev Patel) is horribly tortured for...um getting to the final round of India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire. The problem stems from the fact that Jamal is actually a slum kid (or dog perhaps) and has no right to know all these bits of knowledge that edge him closer to fame and fortune. Or perhaps he does.

So what?: In honesty, I thought this was going to be the film equivalent of Twitter. Everyone keeps banging on about it so bloody much in lowbrow moronic tones that it you feel it will eventually swell into a crashing wave of bludgeoning praise that turns you into a piece of human driftwood, cast aside from the cultural lives of all those around you.

However, it's not. It's actually a quite engaging, meandering tale. Is it schmaltzy? To a point. Exploitative? Not my position to say. Award-baiting? Like a great big fucking fishing line into a barrel full of Oscars. That does not mean this film, that was slated to be direct-to-DVD before Fox Searchlight saved it, isn't an impressive feat of cross-cultural story telling.

 

The broken narrative -thanks largely to the young street kids playing the lead characters' child selves - lets you see the three main protagonists evolve to who they become and much more importantly why. Latika knows nobody but protectors, Salim just wants to rule and Young Jamal is naïve but helpful and that plays through to the version played by Dev Patel sat in the Millionaire hot-seat. You actually give two fucks whether he wins or not, which is quite a feat.

 

Of course there are drawbacks, the gangster sub-plot with his brother feels hurried and the lead - although gratifyingly stunning - seems like a huge deviation from the actresses that went before her and never really adds anything except to fill the part of 'woman' at the heart of the emotional plot.

 

Verdict: 4/5. Nothing like Twitter. Inventive to a point and charming in a crude way but nonetheless it is a worthy film of most of its praise just not the absolute ravishing that culturally bereft Hollywood ilk seem intent on mauling it with.

 

 

The Wrestler (Dir. Darren Aronofsky)

Cast according to most odd career-defining status: Mickey 'Became a boxer or summat' Rourke, Marissa 'Won a bloody Oscar' Tomei, Rachel 'Dating Marilyn Manson' Evan 'And starred in a horribly bleak underage romp' Woods, Ernest 'Wrestled in WCW' Miller.

 

Plot: Self-anointed 'broken down piece of meat' Randy Robinson (Rourke) is an eighties icon now feigning fights in front of fifty people on a Saturday night. The once god-king of the pro wrestling circuit is aging horribly - a fact obscured by Rourke's own peculiar mug - and a chance heart attack reminds him that he is cataclysmically alone. Reaching out to his long-estranged lesbian daughter (Woods) and tart-with-a-heart Cassidy (Tomei), 'The Ram' begins to live a normal life but the pull of one final showdown could body slam his emotional recovery.

 

So what?: A lot has been made of the parallel biography that unfolds in The Wrestler. Both Rourke and the eponymous wrestler, The Ram, experienced heady heights in the eighties but spiralled into self-destruction and desolation. In The Ram's sense he is still highly charismatic but struggles to find his place outside of the ring, as Rourke did off the screen.

It is obvious that Rourke channels a lot of his own derivative ways into his performance as the perma-tanned former champ but you never feel you are watching more than Rourke make amends for all his sins. And - without that - this is just the Rocky sports formula with a different action inside the ring.

That's not to say that Rourke isn't mesmerising - ditto Tomei - its just that you never feel that it is The Ram striving for one last shot at redemption but the actor-turned pugilist-turned-actor in the lime green trunks.

The wrestling element and the loneliness in crowds is beautifully performed but a clumsy handling of The Ram's relationship with his daughter - she forgives him at the second attempt despite supposedly having written him out of her life - tears at the emotional core of the material.

Verdict: Perfectly affable not wholly engrossing. The characters are well rounded but beyond Rourke's own journey there isn't much of an actual film going on as blood, tears and awards rain down.

 

Changeling (2008), Dir. Clint Eastwood

 

Cast According to best 30s clipped accent: Jeffrey "I'm gonna git you, see" Donavon, Gattlin "Can we ride the trolley, mommy?" Griffiths, Angelina "Shucks" Jolie, John "This is a cesspool" Malkovich

 

Plot: Single mother Christine Collins (Jolie) comes home from working at an oh-so-30s operator's switchboard to find that her dough-eyed son Walter (Griffiths) is nowhere to be found. After an agonising wait, the shady LAPD reunite pouty Collins with her runaway son...only it ain't. However, the beleaguered force hasn't got time for a broad squawking up trouble see, and they ain't having none of her if's and buts, as Christine screams more and more that it's not her son the more the police make her life hell.

 

So what?: Neo-con icon Clint Eastwood has rendered him self something of a dab hand at these women-in-peril/defiance pictures. Building solidly where Million Dollar Baby suffocatingly left off, Eastwood throws us whole hog into thirties life and somewhat at the mercy of Jolie's performance.

 

The film is so centrally positioned behind Christine Collins that anything short of powerhouse performance and the whole illusion is broken like, well, the effectiveness of the LAPD...chortle. Thankfully, Jolie embodies Collins whole heartedly and gives an assured performance without meandering too far into melodrama, and is well supported by a thankfully understated Malkovich and obstinate Donovan.

 

The sheer macabre of the tale makes it hard to see who is going to be willing to sit through a period thriller when there's so much bleakness in the bloody world as it is, although the issue of a child going missing was never going to be a breezy affair but the jet black darkness that Eastwood injects into this harrowing event is at times jarring but nonetheless imperative to the story.

 

Despite covering a number of subplots and personal journeys, the story eggs on the side of becoming bloated and by the time the film does eventually end, you have already felt that the lights would come up at least twice before. Not that it detracts too much from a taught, psychological story of trying to battle the corruption of those paid to protect you and the mechanism they control.

Verdict: 3/5. Powerful and engrossing at times but the fake finishes put pay to the built tension. Jolie is exemplary and the worhtless hacks whispering Oscar may be onto summat.

 

The Dark Knight (2008), Dir. Christopher Nolan

 

Cast According to Bad Luck Surrounding the Film: Heath Ledger (deceased), Morgan Freeman (car crash), Christian Bale (alleged family assault), Maggie Gyllenhall (replaced Scientologist incurring wrath of Tom Cruise), Aaron Eckhart (A-List performance overshadowed by aforementioned tragic/unlucky events)

 

Plot: Some call it the Batman version of Heat, however, this time sees the increasingly driven Batman (Bale) forced to go toe-to-toe with an erratic and irreverent homicidal bank robber (Ledger), against the backdrop of a crime wave a political superman (Eckhart) attempts to run the mob out of Gotham without resorting to donning a cape and plummeting off buildings.

 

So what?: This film has been a victim in two senses: in one, perhaps more real sense, was the untimely death of Heath Ledger. The pin-up-turned-serious actor delivers an unrecognisable, yet brilliant, performance as the deranged Joker, who seems just as content recounting stories about his hideous facial scarring as he does killing off anybody in his way.  

A far cry from the high-camp of previous incarnations, the Chelsea-smile-wearing menace proves a harrowing and humorous counterpart to Batman's brooding consciousness.

 

The second part that damages the film is the meteoritic hype. The hype was higher than an Obama/Christ election ticket and left me feeling oddly underwhelmed by a truly brilliant film. Underwhelmed but not disappointed. 

Nolan has crafted a Gotham that is a believable functioning metropolis with real problems and real characters - some who happen to fight crime and others who perpetrate it. Batman is still growing accustomed to his unofficial role, while a new face Harvey Dent - a powerhouse performance from nearly man Eckhart - shows how things have to be done legally, even if his opening court room scene seems like a rush job of showing off Dent's unflappable nature.

 

For an overtly long film the action never drags and has a few twists capable of actually deceiving the audience rather than simply opting for a simple mano-e-mano showdown as many films of this ilk resort to. The issue isn't so much Batman v Joker but Batman and Joker and their place in the city they fight over. The addition of the unnerving Two Face is a sharp shift into madness, but handled well and follows an interesting choice to dispose of a leading character. 

Some parts still jar - the sonar guff is still a little hard to swallow even in a film about a billionaire bat crime fighter - and at points the world of comic, or Batman's legacy, clash with what Nolan is doing. For example, the trademark gravelled prose Batman delivers is damn near incomprehensible and sounds like Bale is spitting stones at the audience.

 

Ultimately, its hard to see what villain could fill the shoes of both Eckhart and Ledger in a sequel, with the supporting cast likely to give as strong a performance third time round, but where the arc of an out-casted superhero now goes is something I am sure that the producers will be salivating over to have in cinemas in a few summers time. 

Rating: 4/5. Room for improvement but if you want action, drama and story you've got one tough act to follow in the multi-million dollar superhero genre. KAPOW!

 

 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), Dir. Steven Spielberg

 

Cast according to people who shouldn't have been in this movie: Ray Winstone, Karen Allen, Cate Blanchett, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent and Harrison 'bloody' Ford.

 

Plot: Indie's whip-cracking antics take him all over the globe again in search of mysterious crystal skulls and the vanished Dr Oxley (Hurt). In tow is mealy-mouthed Brando clone Mutt (strongest performance by Shia Lebeouf), who develops a growing admiration for the seemingly indestructible part-time archaeologist, full-time world saver Jones.

 

Ray Winstone emerges with a character as well thought out as Winstone's Boston/East End accent for The Departed while Irina Spalko (Blanchett) heads the red charge to get to the much vaunted skulls first. Cue Spielberg set-pieces a plenty and improbably Lucas plot holes by the country bucket load.

 

So what?: Rocky Balboa was good. Stallone realised that his character had aged, the world had somewhat gone and left him there and he struggled to maintain. A heightened realism but realism none the less prevailed in the pugilist's last encounter with the squared circle but everyone left feeling Stallone had not done himself a disservice by sticking a rewound tape of 'Eye of the Tiger' back in his walkman.

 

I mention this because I read a review that contrasted the above with the latest incarnation of the popcorn frenzy that is the Indiana Jones dynasty and came down scathingly. It has been a damn long time since Indie last cracked both his whip and a cheeky one-liner in the pursuit of world treasures and maybe, just maybe...he was done.

 

Now I am not some old curmudgeon, as much as I like the word. I admit to only having seen bite-sized chunks of the original trio but like anyone my age I am inundated by pop culture references to snakes, whips and shooting people when you have the runs (*check IMDB), which means I understand the series. However, even taken as a stand alone film it was a floppy mess perforated by exhilarating action and mind-melting story in equal quantities.

 

Ford looks in great shape, don't get me wrong, but he takes a pummelling that makes Rocky's final fight look like a slapfest between toddlers. Henchmen, explosions and he even somehow endures a bloody nuclear explosion. I won't tell you how...the memory makes the bile quiver slightly at the thought of ejecting onto my keyboard.

 

The plot feels so thrown together and drawn out when there were so many scripts turned down, so much honing and secrecy that created so much anticipation and left Empire in a constant pants-messing state of news updates.

 

The film feels both long and hollow, if that is possible. The cheekiness is replaced by knowingess, where we have to accept what's happening because 'it's Indiana Jones' when this could easily, and probably more relevantly, been a sequel to Stephen Sommer's decrepit Mummy saga.

 

LeBeouf is good, Allen is damn near incidental, Winstone is terrible and Hurt is completely misused. In ball-breaking honesty this felt like tawdry fan fiction rather than the long awaited brain child of the SFX masters who brought us the original saga. Sadly it seems that a fifth is on the way into cinemas, to which I can safely assure you I will not be following it.

 

Rating: 2/5. Good if you can switch your mind entirely to 'off' but otherwise leaps in logic, pretty explosions and a muddled plot are as much as you're left with.

 

 

  

Funny Games (2008), Dir. Michael Haneke

 

Cast According to Who I Expected More Of: Tim Roth, Naomi Watts, Michael Pitt, Brady Corbett.

 

Plot: Upper class family (Watts, Roth and their annoying little weiner son) go to their beach house for the weekend. When they get there two Droog-like golf enthusiasts (Pitt and Corbett) impose themselves on them and then hold them hostage, betting that they will be dead by morning...oh exciting! No, not even slightly.

 

So what?: As a measure of how much I hated this film I haven't checked any facts or proofread this.

 

I will start with two apologies.

 

1 - Mark Kermode. Usually I hate your bookish view of film and your pompous air but here you were right. You were right and went ahead anyway. I am sorry.

 

2 - Michael Haneke. I am dumb. I know that, I don't need you to hold up a cinematic mirror to my failings, I have family, friends, a girlfriend and the British education system to prove that I am not that clever I don't need to give over £7 and my Saturday to work that out.

 

Here you get two overtly camp torturers psychologically rattling a boring family for their own amusement and one of the murderers knows it's a film. HOW FUCKING CLEVER. Usually, upon reflection I draw on the film's strengths and here I am struggling to even remember where I watched this.

 

Oh and don't think I didn't get it. Haneke attempts to goad all the 'me-likey violence' horror drones in and then give them nothing. Fill a cinema on a Friday night with bloodthirsty cretins and watch it slowly disperse as nobody is brutally eviscerated by an unknown. All the key action happens off screen leaving the general pulic farting into their popcorn, "Me want murder. Where my murder? No murder!? Me angry!"

 

Other critics, bar Kermode, have been falling over themselves to bum this film but why? The main action happens off screen which, sorry Haneke, didn't infuriate the murderous being inside me it bored the cinemagoer sat playing rock, paper scissors with the people in the next seats. There is an 8 minute scene of Naomi Watts helping Tim Roth stand-up. 8 minutes! 8 minutes! I could have put myself in a tumble dryer and been half-cooked by then.

 

The only way I can sum up this film is with the old mantra that teachers used to give, after all Haneke is trying to 'teach' us our own deficiencies when it comes to horror films, 'It's your own time you're wasting'.

 

Rating: -5/5. Well done fart-knocker you got me to see it. Luckily for the both of us I will never see any of your work again. So this is goodbye...I'll try not to cry.

 

 

 

There Will Be Blood (2007), Dir. PT  Anderson

 

Cast According To Oscar Baiting Performance* (*I realise the Oscars happened a long fucking time ago and he won but shut up): Daniel 'Drainage' Lewis, Paul 'Hand of God' Dano, Dillon 'Deafo' Freasier, the vast baron wilderness

 

 

Plot: If you don't know now you won't know. Ah hell: Daniel (Day-Lewis) Plainview is a grumbling, mentally focused 'Oil man' hell-bent on pulling up as much black gold from under the ground as humanly possible. This disregards anybody...particularly a self-righteous preacher (Dano) - who dare step in his bloody, slobbering way in his cerebral attempt to gain power, money and more oil then you would find in the Middle East. He does have a caring side for his adopted son HW (Fresier) but in reality he just needs a cute face to distract from his moustache-twirling chicanery. He rises, he falls, he revels in oil and blood...like George Bush....ZING TAKE THAT SATIRE!

 

So what?: If the last thing you hear before this is, 'bloody hell, Day-Lewis is a bit over the top' then that's going to be at the forefront of your mind. Every cursory glance, every simple stride, everything he does as the demonic lead is magnified and analysed and you create a vision of a pantomime villain. However, Day-Lewis stops you from shouting 'he's behind you' and wields in his charisma just enough to make Plainview oddly likeable, if not contemptible, for his actions.

 

He is a father even if the son isn't his and he does know when he's gone to far but it won't stop him. Part of the reason you want Plainview to succeed is due to those who surround him. A sea of boring characters is only perforated by the annoying piety of Eli Sunday, brilliantly played by Paul Dano. You are drawn into their tête-à-tête with tension bubbling beneath the surface like the thousands of tonnes of oil waiting to explode.

 

Sunday is completely aware of Plainview's real, abusive nature and Plainview detests Sunday's control over his congregation. They envy each other but also harbour pity for the other's chosen profession. If this had been played down and a flabby documentation of one man's single-mindedness had been presented instead I would have understand the cat calls that some corners of the press have elicited, however, you get a well-rounded portrayal of business-minded bastard and part-time father trying to rob a priest's family of their land to better his lot. Not a Disney film then? Is it fuck.

 

Verdict: 3/5. The tendency to linger on shots and the overall length detract from what would be a very perfect time capture of a burgeoning era of cut-throat capitalism.

 

 

 

Juno (2007), Dir. Jason Reitman

 

Cast According to Humourousness (is that a word?): Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Allison Janney, JK Simmons, Olivia Thirlby

 

Plot: Jabbermouth Juno MacGuff (Page) goes and gets herself knocked up by nerdy, long-distance runner Bleeker (Cera). Being sixteen she has to decide what to do with the untimely sprog and, after an odd visit to the clinic that Roman Catholics burst into flames upon naming, Juno decides to keep the baby but give it to a better adjusted family. Stumbling upon the lovely Lorings (slacker/preppy Bateman and madam dinner plate Garner), Juno entrusts them with her offspring but a few hiccups occur along the way.

 

So what?: This movie has received more congratulatory hype than any film this year but when the main plaudits come from New Woman and Closer, you approach with caution.

 

God knows why, this is brilliant. The film doesn't preach a solitary thing but connects you with the characters and the circumstance. The strength lies in Diablo Cody's rapid fire comedy script but it's not without sentiment and it's all backed up by a killer soundtrack. 

 

Page is off the charts as give-em-fuck, pint-sized Juno and Cera is, as always, the awkward buffoon that made such an impression in Superbad. The characters could have easily been hand-picked from the 'Quirky Indie Character Catalogue' (mouthy pregnant teen, nerdy runner, best friend who loves teachers, slacker turned preppy) but they are rounded enough not to override the story.

 

Hugely enjoyable and devoid of any slushy moments...apart from the jumbo blue one that Juno drinks throughout.

 

Rating: 4/5. Funny and heartfelt; like a Valentine with a dirty joke in the middle.

 

 

 

In The Valley of Elah (2007), Dir. Paul Haggis

 

Cast (According To The Amount of Times Tommy Lee Jones Gives Them a Grizzled Stare): Charlize Theron (114), Wes Chatham (44), Victor Wolf (37), Jason Patric (22), Susan Sarandon (7), James Franco (2), Jonathan Tucker (0), Josh Brolin (0)

 

Plot: Hank Deerfield (Jones at a standard that will have Academy bosses drooling) is a gravel-jowled vet (not the animal kind) who gets a call about his son going off on a wander despite soldier boy supposedly being embroiled in the Blood for Oil marathon over in Mesopotamia.

 

As Hank sets out to locate his AWOL sprog, he ends up being handed the hacked up and charred remains of his son who is found brutally barbequed out in the middle of nowhere. Hank puts his detective hat on and tries to get to the bottom of his son's untimely and gagging charred demise.

 

The only cop willing to help is put upon mother Sanders (a dowdy looking yet excellent Theron), as they fight through the Army's bureaucracy and the puzzle-piece messages of Iraq service found on his dead son's mobile.

 

So what?: Rename this sucker 'In The Shadow of Tommy Lee Jones', as anyone within seventy feet is sucked in by a three-dimensional portrayal of a man fighting against his own belief system to find skewed justice in a grizzly murder. Theron holds her own but is always second fiddle and Sarandon's heart broken mother would probably be the highlight of a lesser film but this is all about Jones.

 

The weathered lines that scratch paths across the father's head tell more than having the script tattooed word-for-word onto your skull could do. The film is clever without the way that Haggis' previous effort Crash was so aware it was.

The finale is horrifying at such a base level and will leave you chewing over everything that has gone before it; understanding what you see but not believing it...not wanting to believe it. I make it sound like an M. Night Shyamalan film but it ain't.

 

In essence this isn't an anti-war message, it is an anti-Iraq War message. This isn't waving a flag in your face but showing you examples, looking at the psychology effects of the War on Terror and the untold affect it has on the common American man. Jones is note perfect in a film with an agenda but not propaganda.

 

Rating: 8/10. At heart a simple 'who dunnit?' but when you scratch a little deeper you get a measured effort coupled with a career high.

 

We Own the Night (2007), Dir. James Gray

 

Cast According to Most Noticeable Feature: Joquain Pheonix (lip), Mark Wahlberg (bullet wound), Eva Mendes (nipple), Robert Duvall (big bald head), Alex Veadov (rat's tail)

 

Plot: 1988, Brooklyn; Bobby (Pheonix) is a popular club manager who dabbles in the odd chemical indulgence alongside his pouting girlfriend (Mendes). However, the other half of his family (Wahlberg and Duvall) are hard-ass NYC cops in the crackdown on gangs to 'recclaim the night'. These colours run in the wash. After a number of serio-narcotic-types frequent Bobby's club, his brother Joe and 'Pop' try to get him to flip and help the boys in blue overcome the baddies. Bobby toils with the idea of turning his back on his club-life for his family while numerous gangs pass out contracts on the family's heads. All set against a sprinkling of Blondie tracks and other 80s throwbacks.

 

So what?: If you go in expecting little don't be upset when they give you something. As pretentious as it sounds it fits James Gray's third crime-in-modern times film to a tee. The trailers alluded to a shoot-'em-up, guns blazing cop fest but what is actually formulated is a well-measured look into the inner workings of the men that cross and patrol the line of the law. Don't go bananas, its not an Oscar effort by any stretch but the weight of intellect is sufficient enough to get you to sit up and take notice.

 

Pheonix is indomitable. His portrayal of a wildboy being reeled in for the benefit of his family is likeable without ever letting you forget that it was his own maltheusians that got him there. Wahlberg is stellar and Duvall, unfortunately, wheels out the grizzled matriach without adding or failing in any area. I say 'unfortunately', because this role could have gone to any leather-faced actor with the gravitas to shout-down Marky Mark and young Joaquin.

 

The fact that it takes a horrible action for Bobby to realise his mistake gains some sympathy, as do his continual arguments with his old crowd, but the way he then follows it up is a tad predictable. There is a car-chase in the rain that sets pulses racing near the finale and serves as a good lead to a somewhat abrupt but, in the context, rewarding finale.

 

Rating: 3/5. Dealing a lot of these middle-of-the-road results out but this is better than expected but still not brilliant. Definite rental material.  

 

 

 

No Country for Old Men (2007), Dir. Joel & Ethan Coen

 

Cast According to Baddest Ass: Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrleson

 

 

Plot: Llewellyn Moss (Brolin) stumbles on a shitload of money and a shitload more dead bodies. He scoops up the 2 million bucks and flees but the socioptahic Chigurh (Bardem) is hot on his heels through 1980s New Mexico. Sherrif Ed Tom (Jones) is always one step behind, as Moss tries to get somewhere safe with his stolen jackpot and Chigurh introduces anyone who gets in his way to his lovely little friend - the bolt gun.

 

So what?: Cannes covered this thing in yucky muck. Critics fell over themselves making this out to be the return to form of the irreverent familial duo the Coens and it is...but its not as Godly as some purport. Brolin's craggy, stubborn cow-poke is a damn fine performance and so hard to like that you do, in fact, like him as he high-tails across the scenic remoteness that is the southern tip of Texas. While, sticking to him like glue, Chigurh is the creepiest crawly who ever did creep and has a menance that is somewhere between Maths teacher and Angel of Death. Bardem single-handedly carries off a wackjob haircut with such fear and pestilence that you don't ever see anything above his cold, dead eyes.

 

 

Tommy Lee Jones is, as always, Tommy Lee Jones. And that is by no means a bad thing - a kindly, Sherrif in a changing world where the days of the horses and bandits is replaced by H and Uzis, he finds himself as something of a weather-worn anachronism even in the 80s. The individual performances are damn fine and worthy of the accoldades to be bestowed u'ponst them. However, the story never seems to get out of second gear and cribs rather than innovates on the written words of McCarthy (see book review).

 

Humour is speckled throughout like sugar in coffee and serves to alleviate what would otherwise be a wordless hunt perforated by exceptionally gruesome killings. A good film? Yes. A great one? Not quite. The cinematography, the wordplay and the performances are all there but it somehow never escapes its own shadow and could quite possibly be remembered as 'that chase movie where the bad guy has a pudding bowl haircut'.

 

 

Rating: 3/5. A lot to like and a lot to leave. The top end of average but not the second coming of Jesus hadning out free ice cream.

 

 

 

The Kite Runner (2007), Dir. Marc Foster

 

Cast According to Skill With a Kite: Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, Khalid Abdalla, Homayoun Ershadi, Zekeria Ebrahimi

 

Plot: Before Afghanistan was changed by right-wingers to read as a by-word for 'Terrorist Land', it had a rich heritage. Young friends Amir and his servant/buddy Hassan enjoy the heights of Kabul's fruits and have a wonderfully touching relationship based around Amir's storytelling and Hassan's kite-running ability. However, Hassan's devout, good nature is more than Amir is willing to defend and the spineless rich-kid Amir lets Hassan down so severely that Amir's guilt drives them apart. Fully grown Amir, now living it up in Frisco having been driven out of the country by the invading Ruskies bastards, finds love and continues to write. His life as an author is going well until he is faced with a harrowing reminder of the past and one last chance to redeem himself.

 

So what?: With Hollywood adaptation-bonkers it's no surprise that Khaled Hosseini's surprise smash was served up on celluloid. From people close to me who have read the book, like Skip, this is seen as a touching, well measured tribute to the stunning novel. The child's friendship is so bloody believable it makes the story even more resonant. Amir's guilt is manipulated further by the strength of Mahmidzada's cute and subservient, young Hassan - despite the controversy the role courted - and the scene-stealing and oxan-strong Ershadi as Amir's battling father Baba.

 

At times the movie plods, attempting to capture the breadth of the novel, but the moments when it has something to hammer home it does so impressively. The kite-running scenes are enthralling and Amir's visit to a modern orphanage is heart wrenching, the first for it's visual landscape of the country and the second for the emotional. When Amir returns to his homeland twenty years on - where is informed he has always been a tourist due to his father's money -  is an eye opening dramatization of Taliban-rule, something that stands in the way of Amir's redemption.

 

The film could have easily been over-shadowed by the act that divides the duo but, despite Afghan protestration, it is handled sensitively and serves to underplay the tension that runs like a river through the second act of the film. Without opting for callous manipulation of the viewer, Foster has fashioned a sentimental film that won't you coughing up brie or weeping hopelessly into your Kleenex, it hits a good medium.

 

Rating: 4/5. Soft, sensitive subjects brim under the surface in a well told visualisation of a breath-taking tome.

 

 I Am Legend (2007), Dir. Francis Lawrence

 

Cast According to Being Will Smith: Will Smith

 

Plot: PLAGUE! A BLOODY PLAGUE! Emma Thompson cures cancer and then things really go tits up and leads to the world ending or summat, we never get to go outside New York. Soldier/saviour/virologist Robert Neville (Smith) is left behind because he's Will Smith...I mean immune...and has a dog. They try and cure the hoardes of shadow-hugging vampire beasties while staying alive themselves in the empty modern world...spooky.

 

So what?: Say what you want about Will Smith...and I will...he's the only person in Hollywood who could carry a film like this. Big budget, check. Apocalypse, check. Glib remarks, check. Obligatory work out scene, check. It's been rubber-stamped by the Will Smith appreciation fanclub. However, something doesn't quite work for me.

 

The picture is a moody, psychological thriller for the opening hour. Smith contends with his own mortality, love, loss and life in a depleted ruin of urban power. His hunting scenes are showy but it's when he converses with mannequins and seems to border on understandable mental deterioation brought on by three years of isolation he really shines. A teary encounter with an inanimate object in the middle of picture is the best Smith has done since his 2001 turn as Ali.

 

The second half of the film is a big clunky, Bruckenheimer expload-your-load that is perforated not by tense forrays into the horrible dark but by extras from Virtua Cop 3. The fully (read poorly) CG vampire/humans (KV victims) are stupidly out of place and successfully undermine the films tension and sense of foreboding. The denoument is abrupt and unfulfulling, with some of the remaining moments playing out like an elaborate rom-com.

 

Rating: 2/5. Kudos to all involved for finally getting this flightless bird off the ground after nearly fifteen years in waiting (supposed to be ARNIE in LA!!) but it can't help but feel over-cooked.

 

 

 The Golden Compass (2007), Dir. Chris Weitz

Cast According to Most Promotion: Least Screen Time Ratio: Daniel Craig, Nicole Kidman, Sir Ian McKellan, Sir Ian McShane, Dakota Blue Richards

 

Plot: I can tell you what it is in the book and it's rivetting but according to this it's: posh/not posh/cockney/aristocrat female Oliver (Richards) lives at a college and gets in trouble. She gets taken under the wing of Mrs Coulter (Kidman's swaggering hips) and moves to the city. Using her get-out-penthouse free card (the Golden Compass) she escapes to try and find her little urchin mate, Roger, and ends up in all sorts of hulla-ballo in the North Pole with fighting Scandinavian polar bears with strong English dictions, war hungry Gyptians, evil child-abducting scientists and all-too-brief witches patrolling the skies. Oh and motherfucking Sam Elliott as a balloon-riding cowboy.

 

So what?: This is an oddity. The book, in honesty, took two reads to sink in but when it did, it created this visceral other-world of majesty and intellect. The gravity, the depth of thought and insight Pullman instilled in the fore-runner of the Potter-led kid's fantasy brigade left it pretender to the throne. How, therefore, did something become so bloated and flat as this come to the big screens?

 

The CG is mind-numbingly beautiful, there is no denying that, but for every fully ingratiated daemon (human's animal sidekick representing their soul) a piece of plot is pulled away like weight being thrown over board on a sinking ship. Lyra's stay at Oxford is all too brief, her rough-and-tough attitude is reduced to spitting a plum stone off a roof..oh take that up-tight college. The lurking menace of the gobblers is now a solitary scene of an unknown beasty attacking over a wall - the only slightly frightening scene in the movie. The Magisteruem, somewhat neutered in fear of the church's reprecussions on box-offixe, is dev oid of any subtletly. And...unfortunately...I could go on.

 

Kidman, for all her failures, is icy and cruel. Sam Elliott brings the much-missing sense of adventure to the piece as Lee Scoresby but still your mind wanders to the edges of the screens and thoughts of 'how did they make Pan look so much like a cat?' before idylly kicking the gawping ten-year-old's chair in front. The only thing to shake you from your slumber are the two Ian Mc's. McKellan is sublime as disgraced armoured bear Iorek and his nemesis McShane's Ragnar is as intense as jacking your buttocks with steroids and trying to wrestle a moving train to the ground. 

 

The ensuing fight between the bears is an exceptional piece of CG cinema and one which, in all honesty, deserves to be in a more thought out and measured piece that actually reflects it's source material. Saying that, those unfamiliar with the books will probably enjoy it due to not having the nagging 'but where's...' syndrome rattling through your ears as the movie careers to an unfulfilling and abrupt finale. The seeds are set with the trilogy but from this showing it's not a bright future.

 

Rating: 2/5. From reading the books it would seem that this is too crass a cash-in on a splendid novel aimed squarely at parents' Xmas-

lined pockets. The Golden Compass is off course when it comes to chasing the Potter film franchise.

 

American Gangster (2007), Dir. Ridley Scott


Cast in order of uses of the phrase 'My Man': Denzel Washington (147), Cuba Gooding Jnr. (18), Chiwetel Ejiofor (3), Common (1), TI (1), GZA (1), Josh Brolin (1), Russell Crowe (0) 


Plot: Frankie Lucas runs Harlem, get that shit straight. He's been good to them (flooding it with heroin) so they're good to him (flooding him with cash). He starts a company peddling heroin that fits the Microsoft business model and cuts out the middleman by flying to Vietnam to get it himself. This upset a number of people - crooked cops, the Mafia and good-cop/pariah Richie Roberts (Crowe). Roberts has to bring down the heroin heavyweight.


So what?: You have the temerity to question why this is a good thing? Washington, Crowe, Scott. Guns, drugs, 70s funk. All the ingredients are there baby, just cook it up and inject. However, there's something missing. Its not in Washington's performance - chanelling Training Day like a bible, Washington is a self-assured driver-turned-gangland entrepeneur who puts faith in his family, his connections and his product to full affect. 

He remains low-key and clinical, this is pure business and when he's dealing with 100% heroin number 4, put a big accent on the 'pure'. Washington is corporately cutthroat while remaining as efficiently street as a crack in the pavement. His performance is measured to perfection and never wanders into the pantomime as some gangsters have done in recent years (finger squarely at you, Ray Liotta, in Revolver).

 

Crowe is down-trodden and outcast, like a faithful dog in the rain. Even in his testing divorce proceedings you still feel that Richie Roberts' boy-scout cop is trying his hardest to swim against a tidal wave of corruption in his daily life. Even if he realises that he isn't the most honest of men himself.

 

The film takes a dip when Scott tries to make it too rounded. Lucas meets the Mafia at a country estate and they discuss dairy farming (you'll get it on your own junior) and this is where we are supposed to get it that not everyone is happy in Harlem but Josh Brolin's brooding bent drug's cop and Cuba Gooding Junior's return to form as fellow Harlem hustler Nicky Barnes bang that sucker home. Washington is mercurial but he doesn't need every other frame.

 

The film has to be long to encase all the craziness that was Frank Lucas - the family ties (to the Lucas' and Harlem), the cat-and-mouse with Roberts and the countless pretenders to the throne but somewhere in it Scott falls between an epic gangster film and an in-depth character study and makes a portrayal of one city and one man; this could have been called New York Businessman rather than American Gangster.



Rating: 3.5/5. Too good to be classed as merely average but somehow lacking the punch to be put up there with the Corleones et al.

 Eastern Promises (2007), Dir. David Cronenberg

Cast in order of most convincing adopted accent: Naomi Watts (Kiwi to Brit), Viggo Mortensen (American to Russian), Armin Mueller-Stahl (Russian to Broken Russian), Vincent Cassel (French to Frenchman Russian)

So what?: One review labelled this the 'BNP view of Britain on celluloid', insinuating that the depiction of the criminal element of immigrant Britain threatened proper British values, while other reviewers showered Cronenberg with so much praise even the most self-involved (read Madonna) would have blushed. In honesty, this is a pretty average - if gruesome - fare.

The film opens with a graphic throat-slitting, vaginal bleeding and half-dead new borns. So it's not a Disney film then. Midwife Anna (a strong Watts) is at hand to save a child as the drug-addled 14-year-old prositute mother dies in birth. She finds the girl's diary that depicts her harrowing life in Britain. This is where we are integrated into the world of the Russian mob residing in the various dank and dark of London without ever seeing the flicker of Big Ben or the London Eye.

Trying to find the baby's family Anna ends up at the door of the kindly restauranteer Semyon...oh he also happens to be the London boss of Vory V Zakone (Theieves in Law); think the Mafia with less suits, more tattoos and ample vodka. His idiot son Kiril (a pathetically wasted Vincent Cassel) and their driver Nikolai (an enthralling Viggo Mortensen) also bumble about disposing of bodies and the like in the background. Nikolai takes a shine to Anna and then she gets a little too close to this sex-trafficing crime families business. Without spoiling the ending, it all goes a little too far for the poor midwife.

And that's it. A plot presumably written on one side of A4. You never feel for the girl at the start, you question Nikolai's believability throughout and wonder why Cronenberg picked an actor the calibre of Vincent Cassel to play a lobotomized drunk? That's not to say it's terrible but it feels like a 3 hour film trimmed to fit 90 minutes on half the budget.

The action is intense to the point of grotesque, epitomised by Nikolai's bathhouse fight against Checen hitmen which leaves the viewer squirming from the mixed sight of ravaged flesh and Viggo's flopping nutsack. But you feel somewhat empty when all is said and done. It is a stark view of the ills of crime - without any glamourizing we have come to expect so kudos to Cronenberg there - but it still seems...hollow.

Rating: 2/5. Obviously good source material but nowhere near as exploited as a film based on exploitation should be.

 Ratatouille (2007), Dir. Brad Bird


So what?: Even in the sheer derth of cutely animated, quasi-moralistic CGI films that seem to clog cinema listings, Pixar stands out like a giant in a world of midgets.


Take Ratatouille, a story of a rat who wants to be chef. Sounds stupid doesn't it? Well it isn't. Remy, the furry verming leading the shenanigans, has a nose for the finer things which alienates him.


He is physically removed from his clan after an incident with an old lady and a shotgun and ends up in Paris - home to his hero Chef Gusteau.  After finding his feet, he is drawn to a functioning kitchen and is soon inexplicably controlling a hapless garbage boy to the heights of culinary performance. Cue mishaps and madness without the drawbacks of the tired pretenders to the CGI throne.


Remy is loveably neurotic - think Woody Allen but even smaller - and his interaction with his human...um...host, Linguini, are charming. While the numerous subplots - of love, family, morals and evil - tie together to a neat, if somewhat contrived, finale.


However, the piece de resistance (see I'm even 'Frenching' it up) is the under used nemsis - Anton Ego. Voiced equisitly by Peter O'Toole, you soon realise what modern cinema is missing - the deplorable, pompous, evil and self-righteous: a proper bad guy. It is his involvement that drives the story to the head of heights of brilliance. However, like a layered cake, the rest of the the story has to be put in place before the icing that is Ego can be added.


Their focus isn't commercial - that is merely a byproduct of a good film - they aim to tell simple yet effective stories framed by ingenious animation. Ratatouille ticks the boxes: brilliant chases, excellent esoteric characters, belly laughs and scintillating scenery.


Rat-Ting (*wink*): 4/5. The film will leave you wanting food, Paris and maybe even a pet rat. However, the finale lets it down and there is something not quite there but this is nigh on perfection.

 

Superbad (2007), Dir. Greg Mottola

 

Cast in order of funniest line: Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Bill Hader and Seth Rogen.

 

So what?: What has been deemed the prequel to Knocked Up, mainly due to Knocked Up star Rogen penning this one, comes a teen film that harks back to the mindless delights of American Pie and Porky's. The story is achingly simple: three nerdy guys want a party before school ends and, luck willing, maybe even to lose those pesky virginities. Alas, the best plans to get laid often go ary.

 

What we are treated to is some inventive swearing, touching discussion of friendship, somewhat unbelievable plot-lines and the most out of control police officers since Training Day. The story is true in its intentions to capture the awkwardness of youth even if many aspects are heightened to the absolute maximum. What keeps this boat sailing is the quick-fire dialogue and the fact you know that this film is just the first time the actors have really been able to mouth off without getting a slap from their mum.

 

The casting is dynamite; Michael Cera, a fresh-faced simpleton, plays a beautifully awkward role as Evan. While brash obnoxious Seth is fleshed out by Jonah Hill and enthused with charisma to burn. The pair's dwindling friendship - about to be separated by college - is perforated by foul-mouthed discussion ranging from girls to hiding porn sites on billing information to the male form conveyed in art. You are always left laughing by what is actually a very firm, believable friendship rooted in the actors' natural rapport.

 

However, debutant Mintz-Plasse leaves everyone in his wake as the jive-talking, nerd extraordinaire McLovin/Fogel. Believe me, the fake ID carrying miscreant will even have you cracking up at the tired line 'I have a boner' delivered with more aplomb than the majority of so-called summer comedies.

 

Mark Kermode castigated this film as some huge elemental retreat to a Neanderthal era of film, where tired clichés and misogynist-directors roamed free ready to defile liberal film-goers. Citing the foul-mouthed leads incessant talk of female anatomy and the depiction of American youth, Kermode took exception to the film that he saw as stressing the limits of post-modern cinema, where sexism is merely humorous because we are laughing not at it, but ironically at it. We know its wrong, that's why it's funny.

 

Basically, Kermode is as much the target audience as the Luxembourg is the next stage on America's global police beat. This isn't for pretentious film dissection it is a five quid romp that is light-hearted and nowhere near as poisonous as conservative cinema goers will have you believe. For those still sprouting patchy facial hair or used to the rigmarole of being ID'd, this is a good, funny if not witty film which has some underlying heart.

 

Rating: 4/5. Funnier than being hit by a bus full of clowns.

Atonement (2007), Dir. Joe Wright


Cast in order of most clipped accent: Keira Knightley, Benedict Cumberbatch, Saoirse Ronan, Vanessa Redgrave, James McAvoy


Plot: Very rarely do Britons make such a buzz about their own work. We are deemed humble, reserved and restrained in the eyes of our Atlantic cousins who revel in celebratory high-fives, group hugs and 'way to go Chucks' but here Joe Wright has got Briton tongues wagging like a butcher's dog on a summers day. Is it simply a vein attempt to reinstate British authority in the film market or is McEwan's novel-cum-film really worth its wait in merchant ivory?


The film is an upper-middle class haven of doing-nothing on a country estate. War clouds loom angrily over the hot summer of 1935, with the Tallis estate gearing up to host the return of Leon, along with his creepy friend Paul Marshall. Young Briony (the impeccable Ronan) passes the time with plays, imagination and infatuation - mainly of the servant/adopted sibling/hired help Robbie (yet another accent from Mr. Moment James McAvoy). However, despite 13-year-old Briony's best attempts, he only has eyes for Cecilia (Knightley in the role her plum-filled mouth was born to play) in an requited tension-filled exchange with all the resonance of 'A Brief Encounter' or other 30s sexually suppresive pieces.


With her mind full of betrayal and imgaination all it takes is for one lie by Briony, with the back up of an accidently delivered profanity-laden letter written by Robbie intended for Cecilia, and Briony has Robbie carted off for the rape of Briony's cousin Lola. Realising her mistake, Briony begins then a quest to atone for her lie that sees Robbie fighting in France instead of rotting in jail and the broken heart of her sister.


The opening 30s set sequence is brilliantly crafted. Scenary overtakes dialogue and tensions build to a beautiful crescendo as a taut dinner party becomes a search party - looking for Lola's twin siblings who have run off into the vast estate. From this moment the film seems to peak with its cleverly inter-woven score, emphatic double-takes (how Briony sees it against what actually happens) and dawning realisations of love lost and lives broken.


However, the sprawling war sequences - although technically mindblowing (see the five minute single take through rabble awaiting the evacuation of Dunkirk) - seem to slow proceedings and never quite hit home the detriment Briony's lie has caused. It isn't until a face-to-face encounter with Knightley, McAvoy channelling De Niro and the older Briony (Romola Garai) that we truly comprehend what has happened. For a two and a half hour film the story seems over-stretched, which can be excused for trying to adapt such a well written, intricate book that would problem warrant four hours of screen time to truly capture the resonance of Briony's deceit.


Despite this failing it would seem that we have an Oscar contender at least: even if it is an also-ran as Best Picture. Many people have mentioned its similarites to The English Patient, which is fair and on that pretence it is in good stead as Britain loves looking at its chequered past and moments of glory, its lost loves and fallen heroes. So here we have a wonderfully shot, brilliantly directed if slightly over-wrought look at the damage lies can have on every aspect of life.


Rating: 3/5. Technically sound but lacking in stellar performances and pace.


  

 
Knocked Up (2007), Dir. Judd Apatow


Cast in order of funniest face: Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Leslie Mann, Jay Baruchel, Jasoon Segel and Katherine Heigl. 


So what?: Knocked Up is a bit like teen pregnancy. Some people, mostly teens, are all for it and accept their actions but still see the lighter side. While others cite it as the beginning of the end, the first step on the road to debauchary. In reality, Knocked Up has more heart than any Richard Curtis tripe and enough comedy to keep your chuckle meeting ticking over....oh you don't have a chuckle meter? Poor you.


You have probably been blugenoned to death with the plot by now: LOSER (he smoke pot so you have to put it in capitals, read the Daily Mail) Ben impregenates icy go-getter Alison on a one night stand and, devoid of a little rubber fella to blame he has to question whether to step up to the plate. He doesn't exactly have great knowledge and travels the film gaining advice from the always canny Paul Rudd, playing Alison's sister's husband, his dad (fucking Egon from Ghostbusters) and his frat pack of tubby, moustachioed loser brood. 


However, its not just one-sided boy-becomes-man tale, as Apatow pains to show us Alison's plight: getting fat, fear of losing her job, telling her preppy friends, not being sure of Ben. And this even-handed nature does the film wonders. Even if small aspects like Ben and Alison falling in love on one date let the plot down there is enough sentiment to keep everyone...*cough* women *cough*...involved in the profanity laden story.


Oh and there is swearing, from Ben's friends harrowing depiction of bodily functions covered in hair to Leslie Mann, who I swear to good could scream wallpaper off walls with her fluctating vocals, dissecting her husband as a 'fucking asshole' every five minutes. Thats not to say its not funny, but then I still giggle on the tube when they say Cockfosters...hehehe. 


What Apatow has crafted is a worthy successor to the Steve Carrel vehicle Forty Year Old Virgin and we once again get a misguided male having to enter sexual territory without simply resorting to tit jokes or cliche. Not a classic but miles above the likes of Wedding Daze or anything else on the market.


Rating: 4/5. For what it is: funny, heartfelt, light entertainment.

 

The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Dir. Paul Greengrass


Cast in order of believable evil glare: David Straitharn, Matt Damon, Joey Ansah, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney, Joan Allen and Edgar Ramirez (CHOCO!)


Plot: Bourne is back with his memory seeping back into his pours like the haze of a hangover clearing and all the action to leave John McLane whimpering.

Right off the back of the tepid Supremacy and the generic nature of Identity comes a tour de force that puts not only action but thrillers of recent years to shame. Bourne is tired of realizing who he is and who is after him to turn the tables and attack the men who programmed him.


Off the back of a tip by a soon-to-be-disposed journalist, Bourne is tracking down the ominous suits (led by Straitharn) with their shady political motives. Cue fast-paced, intricate chases and camerawork that has more in common with the Wurlitzer than Hitchcock. Crossing continents that doesn't just leave a carbon footprint but drop-kicks it in mother nature's face, the seer expansive nature of the piece is merely one faucet of a well-oiled killing machine.


Damon brings a downplayed believability to the role of a man of immense intelligence, strength and threat but pure confusion. The action is clever without being the Bond-fuelled gadget mayhem or a Cruise/Bruckheimer explosive fuckfest and still packs a punch in its sheer unglamorized violence. A likeable lead with shady enemies and a plethora of paranoid US governmental agents leaves the plot scarily echoing modern foreign policy without shouting 'Get Out Troops' but 'Fuck Him Up Bourne!'.


Rating: 4/5. Bourne may be the baddest ass who ever assed bad.











 The Simpsons Movie (2007), Dir. David Silverman


Cast: Cartoons don't have a cast, Tom Hanks



So?: When Charlie left Busted we all thought it was the end. Gone was the romantic songs about staying up late and having bushy eyebrows and in came his attempt to 'be hard' with emo-thused Fightstar. Everyone laughed. But then the NME reviewed their first gig and people thought...wait a minute...he's going to pull this off. This was my exact sentiments for the long-awaited-much-delayed-probably-should-have-been-done-in-its-prime Simpsons Movie.


Where to start? 'South Park's movie was an epic, 'Family Guy's was like three episode's back to back and this somehow hits a happy medium. Grand in scale but still grounded in what it is. 'The Simpsons' hit the big screen without forgetting who they are...as proven by Homer's lament at watching 'Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie' when "We've been getting this on TV for FREE for year!".
 

A Greenday led opening gambit sees environmental issues as the hot topic for Springfield and after one too many reckless endeavours Springfield is faced with giving up pollution or losing out in the long wrong. Great, but Homer doesn't listen and soon we are in a world of huge dooms, big-titted Eskimos, Spider-pig and Bart the Flanders. Lisa thinks she's found love, Marge thinks she's lost hers and every member of the Springfield clan is assured a line in some of the best jokes to come out of the comedy mill that is Matt Groening's team of writers in years.

For those wanting serious questions answered...you are shit out of luck. Homer realizes what he also realizes, Bart is an unconvincing turncoat and Monty Burns is criminally underused but otherwise this is a fun-filled romp through a neighbourhood we are all well familiar with...even if we are no nearer to working out where it is.


Rating: 3/5. More Season 10 than Season 4 but at least its not Season 18. For non-nerds. Funny not classic but not trying to be 'Family Guy'.














Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix (2007), Dir. Mark Yates


Cast in ability to act order: Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Michael Gambon, Ralph Fiennes, Imelda Staunton, Robbie Coltrane, Maggie Smith, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, a broom, Daniel Radcliffe

So what?: Before I launch into a dissection of all things leviosa, I haven't read the books. Forgive me, for I am only human. Any discrepencies are herein accepted.

When it comes to films, in honesty, the first three weren't great, finding their feet and all that but the fourth was a blow your hair back romp for all eternity - magic, humour and horror in equal ample dosage. This isn't a let down but it isn't a vast improvement.

Pottter (if you need to look in these brackets to work out who plays him you live in a cave) is almost expelled for using magic in front of a non-wizard (muggle? yeah! two points) but is saved by the enchanting Dumbledore...see what I did? From there he is inducted into a secret sect called 'Order of the Pheonix' or at least he wants to be and the film is basically the gripes of young love, growing up, authority and a malevolent deity trying to kill you.

For me Oldman is the man when it comes to characters  - get Leon  if you are an idiot - and he is given ample chance to shine as the godfather Sirius Black. The multitude of characters doesn't way down the story with Rickman's impervious Snape still at his snivelling best, while Staunton's Umbridge is like a mega bitch next door neighbour who doesn't ask you to turn the noise down but calls the riot police.

If you can't stick the plotting, intriuge and thick web of pacts there's lots of purty pictures for y'all to gawk at. Some scenes still appear forced or contrived due to the expansive nature of the books but the promise of a grand ol' finale to the money-spinning franchise is something you could bet your broom on.

Rating: 3/5. Readers will go for a 4 or maybe a 5 but even the uninformed can feel the magic...oh I am good.

 Die Hard 4.0 (2007), Dir. Len Wiseman

 

Cast (according to amount of hair): Bruce Willis, Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Smith, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

 

Review in new 'BLOCKBUSTER' style.

 

So what?: We all know the score - McLane is a maverick. A renegade. A loose cannon in a stuffy beuracratic regime. But can the man with no hair and whitty post-carnage quips still cut the mustard...meh.

 

McLane is back, at odds with his daughter (Winstead) and a detective when somebody starts killing off known hackers with a shitload of explosives. Cue Matt Farrell (Long), a wimpy whiny nerdo, who happens to be on the list. McLane is charged with getting him to the FBI - who's computers have been hacked - when all shit breaks loose and suddenly McLane is fending off Frenchmen like a dog-pile at Arsenal's training camp. As luck would have it former government agent Thomas Gabriel (Olyphant) and a mixture of femme fatales, henchmen and technophiles are shutting down the globe with the click of a mouse. Farrell knows what they are doing and McLane has the brute strength to deal with it. With me so far?

 

What's good? Its hard not to like Willis and Long is more human and less jibber-jabber than the trailer lets on. The carnage is brutal and you can't help but feel guilty when you are willing the death of someone. Shit blows up like it was George Bush in control of things - who they happen to swipe at a couple of times - and its big balls out, brainless carnage. Olyphant is cold and calculating, as he is a man without a deadly streak just severly pissed off and seems genuinely afraid of McLane but knows he is in the seat of power

 

What doesn't work? Logic gets thrown out of the fucking window. Farrell complains his door is locked and the next fucking second opens the door without trouble...what? A parking lot winds right into an office conveniently enough for Willis to drive straight the fuck into it...what? This was never going to be an esoteric statement about the over technological nature of modern governance but come on. At least make some sense. In the grand finale, McLane is chased by a fighter jet that decides to come down to street level and face off with him rather than dropping a payload from thousands of feet...why?

 

It was enjoyable when it was loud but I couldn't help checking my watch when the 'serious' stuff happened. A clever idea but without enough gas to keep this old trucker chugging along. Willis - good, Long - likeable, Olyphant - powerful but it can't really be anything more than a flash in the pan. A fly-in-the-ointment. God knows if there will be a Die Hard 5 but on this evidence, 4.0 may have been 1.0 too far.

 

Verdict: 2/5. Fun but then so is swearing. Not big or clever just there.

  

 

 

 

 Zodiac (2007), Dir. David Fincher

 

 Cast in order most rubber faced films: Robert Downey Jr. (A Scanner Darkly), Brian Cox (Super Troopers), Jake Gyllenhaal (Bubble Boy), Anthony Edwards (Top Gun), Mark Ruffalo (Just Like Heaven)

 

 

So what?:Many people lambast films that recount the life of a serial killer, or attempts to stop him, as glamourizing a legacy but here Fincher paints a dark disturbing trail of how an elusive killer managed to consume a wide range of Californians lives in their attempts to decipher the Zodiac killer and his riddles.

 

 

The attention to detail is staggering as we open up in late 60s - by which I mean 69 - Vallejo and are soon introduced to one of many disturbingly brutal assualts on a young couple by anonymous killer. The killer then phones in the fact that two youths lay dead - or so he thinks - with only details that the killer would know (bullet type, entry wounds, positions of bodies). After a second slaying the killer then gouds the San Francisco Chronicle with a letter staking his claim to the killing and urging the letter be printed lest more be killed...why am I writing in such a weird way?

 

Anyway the paper happens to be home to gadabout crime writer Paul Avery (a fucking brilliant Downey Jr.) and neurotic cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal). Graysmith - who actually penned the source material for the film in his book 'Zodiac' - takes the cryptic message the killer attached to the letter and tries to decipher it.

 

While this happens the SFPD partners Armstrong and Toschi (Edwards and Ruffalo) attempt to track their tormentor, who begins to lay waste to a dozen residents of the surrounding area each with a different style, new mistake or lack of motive. The sproadic pattern renders finding the killer impossible. The unsolveable nature leads them close to a number of suspect - the effeminate Leigh Allen (John Carrol Lynch) and later a more promising lead. The story doesn't exactly race to a finale but you are left wondering will they or won't they catch their man.

 

The story spans an excpetionally large period - coming up to 91 - and feels like it, despite Gyllenhaal's character not again at all. The story is engrossing and the scary moments become embedded in the sombre mood like a pin in a matress - just when you're comfortable they strike and seem all the more unnerving. Downey Jr. stakes a claim to be the most under used actor in history while there is also excellent support cast in the form of Ruffalo's beaten family-man-cop and Gyllenhaal's boy-scout-good leading neurotic.

 

Fincher shows a closer turn to his crime work in Seven, with a meticulous eye for detail and some of the rye humour from Fight Club seaps through. Had it managed to race to a finish in somewhat more time it would have definitely affirmed itself as a modern day classic but it also seems that at this considerable length (2:48) it is still a damn good picture that attempts to address the psychological affect of a mass murder on those who hunt him not only those he hunts.

 

Rating: 4/5. At the two hour mark this was destined for 5 but it lumbers to a satisfactory finale.

 

 

 Ocean's Thirteen (2007), Dir. Steven Soderbergh

 

 Cast in order of age: Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, Al Pacino, Bernie Mac, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, Eddie Jemison, Matt Damon, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan.

 

 So what?: In honesty Ocean's Eleven  wasn't brilliant but when it was put up against Ocean's Twelve it seemed like a solid gold heist film composed of whit and intrigue. A collective groan was released when the love-in series third instalment was announced but, like petty shop lifting, it leaves you feeling washed over with a mixture of guilt, glee and excitement.

 

The smug theives reunite to attempt to avenge the dodgy business dealings of Willy Bank (played by a ruthlessly downplayed Al Pacino) which leave mentor Reuben (Elliot Gould) in a post-heart attack coma. This time - with the gang all back in place - they try and bankrupt Bank's new gawdy eyesore The Bank on its grand opening night. What follows is more technological adventure but less suspension of disbelief than was needed in the ultimately vapid Twelve. On top of some clever camera-work by Soderbergh, the story is dependent on broad character strokes with a little sprinkling of humour and a meandering plot destined for the somewhat obvious reveal. As more and more obstacles present themsevles to the thirteen they have to go to new lengths - such as procuring the drill that dug the Channel Tunnel (a snip at $36m) - and a completely unbelievable turn of events that seems somewhat sci-fi compared to the yester-year simple heist of the original remake. 

 

That's not to say it isn't enjoyable. Its a 'movie' in the simplest form and isn't likely to win any awards any time soon. Its hard to look past Brad Pitt and George Clooney as anything more than their Hollywood personas but Eddie Izzard is surprisingly good as consultant Roman and Andy Garcia does well as Terry Benedict on a return to the fold as an enemy to the ultimately under-used Pacino...none of The Godfather Part 3 sparks are evident on their three minutes together on the screen. The film is the most like a rollercoaster there could be - exciting, winding but when it comes down to it you're no better off than when you started.

 

Rating: 3/5. Better than Twelve but struggling to reach the smooth heights of Eleven.

 

 

 

 

 

 Wedding Daze (2007): Dir. Michael Ian Black

 

 Cast in order of amount of American Pies starred in: Jason Biggs. Isla Fisher (well...Wedding Crashers). Everyone else. Joe Pantoliano.

 

 Michael Ian Black is a funny guy, as anyone who has seen Wet Hot American Summer or the cookey-as-fuck series 'Stella' can attest but this, well it's just there. It'd be like hating bread. Nobody hates bread but you can't build a whole meal around it and you can hardly remember the last time you had it.

 

Studios crank out low budget rom-coms like a horribly gooey hairballs every year and this is simply lost in a quagmire of a shitty genre. Biggs is his usual likeable self and Isla Fisher plays the first character that has been well...human...rather than batshit goofy. Biggs proposes stupidly and his fiancee has a heart attack - cue depression montage - until he meets waitress Fisher who is weighing up whether or not to marry effeminate mummy's boy William. He proposes...for no reason...she says yes...for no reason. Cue a cavalcade of half-baked characters and more misfiring jokes than an Acme Joke Gun owned and operated by Wile E. Coyote.

 

Some elements are mildly tittilating while others are dumb. Biggs' parents are needlessly sex obssessed without any of the coy sensibilities of American Pie  Joe Pantoliano hits the lowest of lows as escaped convict Smitty...this guy was Ralphie in the fucking Sopranos and now he is playing a supposedly crazy father figure fugitive. Sorry wasted talent isn't the half of it. This is a misguided post-Garden State attempt at an oddball romantic comedy and it is so fucking wide of the mark its unreal. If it wasn't for that obvious parallel then this film would be passable.

 

Rating: If you are stuck on a plane and can't get to sleep watch it...or at least half of it.

 

 

 

 

Magicians (2007): Dir. Andrew O'Connor

Cast: David 'Hitler Haircut' Mitchell, Robert 'Ginger Fringe' Webb, Peter 'Fluffy Bonce' Capaldi, Jessica 'Luscious Locks' Stephenson.

 

So the people who wrote Peep Show get the principle cast from Peep Show and try to make a film...all signs point to a comedy of epic proportions. Having brought delight to those with nothing better to do on a Friday the comic dynamite of Armstrong & Bain manage to bring what can only be seen as a well...durge. I don't even know what that means but this is it. Probably blinded by envisigioning the potential for magic-laden puns in publications across the nation they manage to bring a below-average laugh-free romp through meaningless cinema.

 

Mitchell and Webb play tandem magicians who part ways when Mitchell's bumbling baffoon Harry (think Mark from Peep Show) decapitates his wife in a trick-gone-bad. Four years later Karl (think Jez from Peep Show) is trying a Derren Brown act, while Harry is unemployed. For no reason they decide to reunite for a competition in Jersey. Blah, blah, blah. Who gives a fuck. Seriously drab and tiresome speckled with as many laughs as healthy nutrients in a fry up. The odd titter could be heard but the other six people in attendance showed that this is more Black Ball than The Full Monty. Even the usual humour of Peep Show seems tired when they string nonsensical adjectives to swear-words ('man-cock', 'piss-shit', so on). Supporting cast is lost and Stephenson has to play insane/loveable in one character with way too many facial expressions. Peter Capaldi brings some hope but its a small part in a big jigsaw that makes a wanky picture. Avoid.

 

Rating: 1/5. When the ticket seller tells you how the Refund System works you know you're in trouble.

 

 Spiderman 3 (2007): Dir. Sam Raimi

 

Cast (in order of likeability): Bruce Campbell, Topher Grace, JK Simmons, Thomas Hayden Church, Bryce Dallas Howard, James Franco, Tobey Macguire, the city of New York, a pigeon, mud, random extra, Kirsten Dunst.

 

 

There is an old saying...'too many cooks spoil the broth'. Yeah, you've probably already heard that but here is the cinematic equivalent. Having found some cinematic solace in the first effort and going against the grain to despise the second installment phasers were set to 'excited' when this got into proudction.

 

 However, it fails to deliver. Cutely funny and all-round well acted (even moonfaced Kirsten Dunst isn't stupidly fucking annoying) the third Spidey adventure is heavy on the kitsch but low on substance.

 

 Bad guys hang around and wait to fight as Spiderman battles his own demons and geekiness but you all know what happens when you go up against the web-slinger. You get brutally murdered like a muppet in a turbine. Not all bad though Topher Grace ditches his Eric from 'That 70s Show' routine and shows why I've tipped him to be a star, James Franco is seething in his GAP-model frame, JK Simmons is on rapid fire and Thomas Hayden Church excells in a completely absurd role as a sand monster but it seems tired and surely they can't stretch this formula much further.

 

Rating: I'd give it a tip of the cap for its comedy and a thumbs up for style but in the end it falls short of Half An Excellent Dog.