Category: Film

Jackass 3D / Due Date / Let Me In

A three-film weekend, and the final one of the list due to Gillian being a horror fan. Nice to get off my backside and see an extra movie, though. Next week’s releases look amazing. Oh dear.

Jackass 3D

“Oh god, why do I have to be Steve-O?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Plot? It’s a Jackass film. Good grief. Get to the back of the class.

First up, the 3D is pointless. The film doesn’t benefit at all, though they have tried to make it a little more grim with some ****, vomit and the like coming out of the screen. As with pretty much every 3D film I’ve seen, though, it just doesn’t need it.

More importantly, how is the Jackass formula holding up? Not too badly, to be honest, although I found myself laughing less hard than I did at the original movie. That one had me completely creased up unable to breathe at points. This third outing got more than its fair share of guffaws, a moment or two of queasiness, but on the whole I’m thinking this may be a good point for the series to finish.

Sacrilege? Maybe. But let’s be honest, Dirty Sanchez were doing ruder things on TV by the time Jackass were finally allowed to show their arses without black bars over them. The budget of the first Jackass film allowed for bigger and sillier stunts, and this had progressed on with this third film.

Thinking back, I was more laughing at the ideas they’d dreamt up rather than the actual execution of them. The simple fact is that Jackass simply isn’t outrageous any more. It’s had its life span and I really hope they go out on a relative high.

Fans: see the film. Mr Knoxville and crew: retire with your heads held high and your arms in plaster.

Due Date

“I’m sorry we drank your father”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two unsuited guys end up sharing a car across the US for a couple of days.

Due Date is the bastard child of Planes, Trains and Automobiles and The Hangover, having the plot of the former and the level of humour of the latter. Sadly, though, it doesn’t match up on either count. In fairness, I never really “got” P, T &A aside from the hilarious Steve Martin “****” scene which the BBC continue to deny us when screening it. The Hangover on the other hand was incredible.

The film suffers from one major problem which afflicts so many releases these days – virtually every funny bit is in the trailer. Had I not seen that (several times) I genuinely feel I’d have enjoyed the film more.

As a saving grace, Robert Downey Jr puts in another great performance though I still think he’s better wisecracking in Iron Man. Zach Galifianakis returns to stereotype as “fat, stupid bloke”. Yawn.

The main problem is that Due Date doesn’t offer anything new. It’s a plot that’s been used before, as have many of the jokes. The performances are fine, but the whole thing’s ridiculously predictable, especially if (as I’ve already said) you’ve seen the trailer. In all honesty I’d say there were maybe 5 jokes which I’d not already seen before I sat down to watch the actual movie.

It’s not an utter dead loss as far as films go, but it’s a huge let-down after the side-splitting Hangover. Oh, and it has an incredibly well-filmed “inside the car as it happens” car crash. Which is weird as that’s also a highlight of…

Let Me In

“I’ve been twelve for a very long time.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: A little girl moves in next door to a little boy, but she can’t be friends mainly as she burns in sunlight, has superhuman strength and drinks blood. Erm. Few clues there?

Now, this one I enjoyed. It’s no perfect, but it has a lot going for it. Gillian’s seen the original (Let The Right One In) which I haven’t, and apparently this is a lot more accessible – it’s in English for a start – but has lost of a lot of the artistry and beauty of Tomas Alfredson‘s 2008 Swedish version. In other words, it’s a typical American remake.

Having said that, with nothing to compare it to I quite liked it. The young actors are excellent across the board, from Kodi Smit-McPhee and Chloe Moretz as the two central characters (Owen and Abby) to the support there isn’t a complaint to be made. Moretz manages to be scary yet conjures up sympathy in her more human aspect. Smit-McPhee is perhaps a little too “soft” but that’s more the character than the actor.

While adults certainly appear in the film, it’s very much a story about these two characters. In fact, we never get to see the face of Owen’s mother.

It’s quite a grisly film and includes some rather disturbing imagery, especially given that the children are in many scenes. As disturbing as the horror aspects the the bullying and victimisation that Owen suffers at school. However, the fate that befalls his tormentors leaves the viewer a little unsure as to whether they deserved it.

The whole film generates conflicted emotion. Abby is a creature suffering from something that’s not her fault. She’s a child, in a child’s body with a child’s mind… but she’s also a dangerous creature when the mood takes. So should we feel pity for her or should she be treated as a monster? I suppose we’ve been asking questions like this since Mary Shelley had a certain book published over 100 years ago.

Having read a little more about the differences, I’m definitely interested in seeing the original – and the book on which it’s based.

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Red / Burke and Hare / Easy A

Assuming that M Law Solicitors don’t demand I take down this blog post for defaming a film for giving it bad reviews (as they did with my post regarding Parking Eye, which I still maintain wasn’t defamatory as it was in the public interest), please enjoy the following catch-up from the last 2 weeks’ abuse of my Cineworld pass.

Red

“Time to open up the pig”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a group of retired secret agents take on the CIA to find out who’s put them on a “to be killed” list.

This is another in the current run of bigger-than-life action films that seem to be putting bums on seats at the moment. It’s also one of the best, mainly due to a novel idea and a superb cast. Come on – Helen Mirren with guns? How can that not be cool?

The rest of the eldsters are played by Bruce Willis, John Malkovich and Morgan Freeman. Freeman could be in the biggest cinematic turd in history and would still make his sequences worth watching, but fortunately Red is no such bum-dropping and is instead just good fun.

There’s plenty of action and it makes full use of the common trend of using CGI rather than stuntmen to a large degree. I still prefer more old-school effects (Raiders is the best Indy film by a mile for several reasons, this being one of them), but it doesn’t stop Red being any less enjoyable.

Definitely go see.

Burke and Hare

“That… would be an artery”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two Irish guys stumble across a nice way of making money – selling corpses to a medical school. Only what happens when they run out of fresh meat?

Honestly, can Simon Pegg do know wrong? I honestly don’t think I’ve seen him in a film I’ve not enjoyed yet. When you add the likes of Andy Serkis and Tim Curry to the cast, then top it off with Ronnie Corbett it would take some kind of miracle to destroy it. Get John Landis to direct and you may as well buy your ticket without seeing a review.

Burke and Hare is perfect Halloween fodder. It’s set in the 19th century, it’s grisly, it’s tasteless and it’s funny. I’d not recommend it for younger kids due to some of the scenes being a little too “eeeeewww” but other than that it’s superb.

There are loads of little references in the background (Greyfriar’s Bobby makes an appearance) and the original historical tale does make for decent film material, even if the facts have been moulded somewhat.

Looking at the other horrors available this Halloween, this has to be the best of the bunch.

Easy A

“That’s the one thing that trumps religion… capitalism”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: shy teen pretends to nob schoolmates for cash/vouchers until it all goes too far

I didn’t expect to enjoy this, despite the trailer being “OK”. After all, it’s a teen-girl-at-a-school film, and they’re pretty formulaic. I just went as it was on at a good time for me to fill 90 minutes of an afternoon.

Oh, I love it when I’m proved wrong.

Easy A has a fantastic script, beautiful dialogue, an in credible wit and a decent story. Emma Stone is excellent as Olive, the girl who gets talked into pretending to sleep with a gay classmate to stop him being bullied for his sexuality. Who then recommends him to others, until she’s made out to be the school slut.

The supporting cast are all well-played from her hilarious family, to the wise-cracking English teacher and the bonkers Christian brigade. There genuinely is not a dull moment.

While Olive does bemoan the fact that her life story wasn’t directed by John Hughes, it could have been. It’s that good.

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Mr Nice / The Social Network

Just for a change, I headed into the Glasgow city centre Cineworld as I had most of Sunday to kill before Bowling For Soup came on stage.

By some bizarre coincidence, both films I saw today were “true stories” based on biographies.

Mr. Nice

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Smart Welsh boy goes to Oxford, figures out that dealing drugs is far more profitable than teaching and ends up living the life of crime.

I’ve seen the book Mr. Nice kicking around so much recently, mainly in hostels. It seems that pretty much every 20-something thinks Howards Marks was the coolest guy ever because he sold shitloads of dope and stood up for the whole “it’s a silly law so it doesn’t count” school of thought.

Either way, the story is well known. I even vaguely remember bits of it from when I was a kid and the story appearing on the news – but I won’t go into detail for those of you who are trying to avoid any spoilers!

It’s a good story, too, although given it’s based on Marks’ own viewpoint it’s obvious that there may be a little bit of embellishment somewhere along the lines. Rhys Ifans is perfectly cast and bears more than just a passing resemblance to Marks himself.

From his early beginnings as the school nerd right up to the current day, Marks is played by Ifans. It seems a bit unusual putting him into a school uniform, but it works given that those early years are just brushed over in about ten minutes.

Marks ran the rocky road from college boy to kingpin, dealt with the IRA, arms suppliers, and MI6. Regardless of your moral views on what he did, he led one hell of an interesting life. Shoehorned into 120 minutes, it never gets a chance to get boring.

The Social Network

“The internet’s not written in pencil, Mark. It’s written in ink.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Harvard Freshman comes up with an idea for a website (or steals it) called “The Facebook“. Legal action ensues.

What happens when you mix the verbal genius of The West Wing with the world of computer geekery? The answer is contained in this two-hour internet-driven legal office drama.

In short – Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) is a freshman at Harvard, one of the US “Ivy League” universities. That is, all the “best” students go there. Zuckerberg is, shall we say, a little socially awkward. He has a couple of friends, an immense intellect and really can’t handle other people at all. The view we get in the film is that he finds them of little consequence, perhaps not worthy of his time. Eisenberg plays this part perfectly.

After crashing the school’s network as part of a revenge plot against a recent girlfriend who just dumped him, he is invited to help program a website by two brothers and their business partner. He agrees, but instead spends his time on “The Facebook”. It may have escaped your attention, but the resulting website is slightly popular and was recently valued at around $25 billion.

Needless to say, as soon as money of those amounts is bandied around, people get lawyers involved.

The film is roughly split into three parts, all of which play over each other as the viewpoint jumps around. There are two legal cases plus the back story upon which they are both based. This can make it a little hard to follow in places, but not too much so.

Even if you don’t have an interest in the internet and computers, if you remotely enjoyed The West Wing for its dialogue – and let’s face it, that was a thing of utter beauty – you’ll love this film. Aaron Sorkin‘s work on the script shines as brightly as it did for 154 episodes of the TV show and there’s barely a minute or two without some gem or other being uttered.

The Social Network is a clever, witty, fast-paced legal drama which is hugely enjoyable. If David Fincher ever needed to redeem himself for Alien3, this wipes the slate clean. You know, just in case Se7en, Fight Club and Zodiac don’t prove that the studio execs who kicked him off the third Alien film didn’t have a clue what they were doing.

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Wall Street 2 / Made in Dagenham

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Two-film Saturday again. I popped over to the Cineworld in Edinburgh to chill out and forget the world for a few hours. First up on today’s list:

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

“Why don’t you start calling me Gordon?”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Young upstart financier finds himself engaged in corporate corruption, and engaged to Gordon Gekko’s daughter.

Oliver Stone returns, bringing the iconic character of Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) back for a second airing some 23 years after the original. Wall Street was, and still is, an iconic piece of film-making, exposing all that was wrong with the financial world at that time. This sequel attempts to do the same, focussing on events of the last couple of years.

The films kicks off with Gekko being released from prison while his estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) is shacked up with a fledgling financier, Jake Moore (charisma vacuum Shia LaBeouf). The bank Jake works for starts to crumble, his mentor and boss Louis (superbly played by Frank Langella) tops himself and Jake finds himself “teaming up” with Gekko in a bid to find out what happened to start the whole mess.

LaBeouf is the odd one out in this film as he’s capable, but just not that great. Given his past roster has included being eye candy for girls in the awful fourth Indiana Jones film, and the teen-kid from both Transformers movies it does surprise me to see him in a “serious” role. He’s OK as far as it goes, but just doesn’t really carry it off that well.

Douglas is, of course, excellent. Slimey, sleezy… and you never quite know if he’s being genuine which does lend itself well to the plot. Langella, as I mentioned, was superb – probably the best actor in the film.

It’s a tad under two hours long, but manages not to flag right the way through and the story carries on right until the very end with little “fluff” hanging off the plot. Having said that, there are few major surprises as we go through other than the very end which is – in honesty – a little weak.

Perhaps not as powerful a film a the original, and mainly as we are now as a public somewhat more informed of what happens in the financial world. After the revelation that was Gekko’s first appearance we have discovered that sharks like that aren’t just movie characters and villains in books. On the flip side, it makes things all the more believable.

The reviews I heard on the radio yesterday weren’t all that favourable, but I enjoyed it. In fact, I think I’m going to try and find a copy of the original to watch. It’s been a long time and I’d like to compare them.

Made in Dagenham

“Unskilled, my arse!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Company pays peanuts to women, they go on strike, **** hits fan, world is changed.

Based on the real events of 1968, Made in Dagenham follows the story of a couple of hundred female workers who downed tools and forced first the world’s largest motor manufacturer, and then the British government to change the law relating to sexual equality.

The film begins with the gears already in motion, the women threatening to turn off their sewing machines unless they are given a better pay grade. On their side is foreman Albert (Bob Hoskins) and he drafts Rita O’Grady (Sally Hawkins) in as a right-hand-woman. They also allegedly have the support of the union, characterised by the slothful Monty Taylor (Kenneth Cranham).

Meetings go from bad to worse, and the women walk out causing problems further down the production line as the new “Escort” has no seats to fit into it. As the situation blows out of proportion, men are laid off, factories close and Ford execs are shipped to the UK to try and deal with both the workers and our government.

Top two cast members for me have to be Richard Schiff (Toby from TV’s The West Wing, looking surprisingly young without a beard) as one of the execs, and Miranda Richardson as then First Secretary of State  Barbara Castle. She really does bossy and shouty very well, and I confess I can’t see her without thinking of her as the Queen in Blackadder II.

The story twists and turns with both high and low moments. The women’s demands increase from “a bit more cash” to “equal pay” back in the day when women were routinely paid a fraction of the amount that men were for the same work. Council estate hardship is compared to posh house luxury as Rita befriends the wife of one of the factory bosses (played by a damn hot Rosamund Pike), giving another facet to the story as women’s domestic suffering is also highlighted.

There’s a fair bit going on here and on the whole it’s played in a lighthearted way, but it’s a fantastic story boiled down to a little over ninety minutes. How close it is to the actual events is down to the historians to tell me, but it’s a very entertaining dramatisation and I’d highly recommend it. Another victory for British cinema.

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Buried and Takers

Ah, the joys of having afternoon CPD sessions. Not the greatest of fun last thing before the weekend, but it does place me near the local Cineworld. As such, as soon as the lecture was over I drove right along the road and picked up a ticket for…

Buried

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Man wakes up to find himself trapped in a wooden box. Time and air are running out.

Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) is having a bad day. He’s just woken up trapped inside a wooden coffin, buried underground. The last thing he remembers is his convoy being attacked, his co-workers being shot… and then taking a blow to the head.

Oh, and he was in Iraq at the time.

Director Rodrigo Cortés has gone for the most claustrophobic film he could. Taking the single-scene premise of Phone Booth and pushing it to extremes, the entire film is located in this one dark location. Reynolds’ is the only face we see, the other characters only featuring as voices.

It’s a great idea for a film, and a brave one for mainstream cinema. It is well filmed with all angles of the box being seen constantly so you really get a feeling for  Conroy’s situation. Reynolds plays the part very well, for someone who apparently has made his way so far with comedy roles. Having said that, the best lines in the film are ones which did get the audience laughing.

It’s not a long film, but it does still feel padded in places. The ending is either superb or awful, depending in your viewpoint as well. I liked it, but one discerning (and loud) voice declared it “a load of *****” as the credits rolled at the end.

Certainly something different.

Takers

“We’re takers, gents. That’s what we do for a living. We take.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: a gang of robbers push to do one huge job at the behest of a comrade who’s just got out of jail.

What at first looks like a heist movie turns out to be a pretty taught character-driven thriller with quite a few twists and some good back-story. The closest recent film is The Town, but on balance I think I preferred Takers.

As well as a great cast, there are some excellent set pieces including a wonderful near-final shoot out sequence where sound (or lack of it) has been put to excellent use. The central “job” is also very well done.

The sidelines leading off the central plot are perhaps a little fluffy (a detective’s family issues, gang member’s crackhead sister and so on) but they add depth to the characters without detracting too much from the story. They’re also woven into the plot so that they effect events without seeming like hugely improbable coincidences.

A lot of people might not like the fact that Paul Walker is in the film judging by comments I’ve seen about him since the Fast and Furious films. However, he’s more than acceptable in this. Matt Dillon is on the opposite side of the story playing one half of a detective duo (Jay Hernandez plays the other half). Even the cops aren’t all clean, however…

There’s enough meat on this film to fill a mini-series, yet it doesn’t seem to be too much to take in the running length. Definitely worth seeing.

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