Category: Entertainment

The Boat That Rocked

I saw this one on the Etihad flight from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow and it deserves a review all of its own. The Boat That Rocked is a typical UK ensemble comedy with a great cast. A couple of free white wines may have helped, but I was snorting away and laughing out loud at some points; almost in tears at others.

What makes this such a good film – aside from the wealth of acting talent – is the fact that the central plot revolves around something I care about. Freedom of choice, a fight against censorship and the underdog having a good go at an overbearing authority. It’s also got a superb soundtrack, several plot threads and some great segments in the end credits.

Plot in a nutshell: It’s 1966 and rock’n’roll is booming. Except in the UK where the only radio – BBC – plays about 40 minutes per week of popular music. Feeding off the demand, pirate radio stations start up and are an instant hit with the masses… and reviled by the authorities who do all they can to shut them down. The film follows the adventures of the staff on one ship over the course of a year or so until the final closedown of pirate radio by the British government.

Bill Nighy plays Bill Nighy (as he always does) with aplomb, running the ship and the station. Philip Seymor Hoffman is The Count, the headlining American DJ. Nick Frost is the disgusting Dave, Rhys Darby the Kiwi Angus, Rhys Ifans the self-proclaimed king of the airwaves Gavin… and so on. Not a bad actor amongst them. Despite the large number of main parts, nobody gets lost and each character has their own personality.

On the other side of the fence, Kenneth Branagh is nicely slimy minister Dormandy with assistant Twatt (Jack Davenport) toadying to him.

As well as the Good Morning, Vietnam-esque DJ segments and good guy v bad guy plot, there is a lot of romance and bawdy sex (nothing too offensive, though not 100% family friendly by any shot). Nighy’s character has a godson who ends up on the ship after being thrown out of school. He’s our entry into the world of Radio Rock and introduction to the aforementioned characters and lifestyle.

The following two hours are a wonderful mix of highs and lows. Characters don’t always get on – who would living in such cramped quarters? – creating some great conflicts which go right over the top at times.

Of course, the soundtrack is superb being based on the music of the late 60s. The closing montage mentions that “rock and roll had a pretty good 40-or-so-years” flashing up more and more recent album sleeves. However, who on earth decided to include Take That And Party as on a par with the likes of BloodSugarSexMagic and Rattle & Hum needs shot.

Definitely catch this one.

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In-flight films

A380 In-flight entertainment
A telly. On a plane.

Another quick rundown of the flicks I got to see on my last Etihad flights from Bangkok to Heathrow. Just shorties.

First up was Fast & Furious which was pretty good. This is the sequel the first film’s been after for all these years. Don’t get me wrong – 2 Fast 2 Furious was decent enough in a light-hearted way and Tokyo Drift was a half-decent sideways step. But getting the original cast back was the best thing they could have done and this immensely silly bit of car fun is worth the running time.

I then opted for Push which wasn’t quite so good. A nice premise – people with natural superpowers and a government agency trying to improve them by pumping them with drugs… which usually kill them. The superpowers fall under several labels and a lot of the “empowered” try to live off the radar so that the government can’t find them. The story does drag and there are so many holes in the plot that even Swiss cheese would get jealous. Dakota Fanning, though, once again proves she’s a pretty good child actor by not being annoying.

A change of planes and on to The Boat That Rocked which was so good it’s getting a full review (next post).

Final film was Outlander which was nowhere near as good as I was hoping for. Sci fi meets historical fantasy as a spaceship crashes in Viking Norway. Hitching a ride with the humanoid pilot is a rather nasty beastie intent on wiping out anything on two legs. It’s a bit of a mix of The Spaceman and King Arthur, Alien and a Viking Braveheart. Overall not too bad, but it just didn’t flow very well and was fairly predictable.

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Brüno

Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. I confess I only went to see Brüno as it was the last English-language film on at the cinema that I hadn’t seen. I wasn’t too bothered about it, but it’s cheap here in Bangkok so what the hell.

I want my ninety minutes back.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: gay fashion icon loses his job in Austria so heads to the US to become famous by any means necessary. Side splitting laughs… erm… don’t really ensue.

OK, there were a couple of laughs but overall this was far more cringeworthy than the forerunner Börat. Sacha Baron Cohen has this time targeted the US’s seeming hatred of homosexuality rather than that of semi-Communist outsiders for what’s basically a re-run of the last movie. The thing is, despite the new character it’s an old joke. There’s even a weak companion character who’s almost a mirror of the fat bloke from Börat.

You’re still wondering how, in some scenes, the “innocent” people involved don’t query the existence of a camera/sound team. Couldn’t they have freed the two guys from the cuffs during one scene? Why is that question not even raised?

The high points of the film are – as in the first, very similar outing – the reactions of “real” people to the situations. Primarily the TV studio audience and the crowd at the all-in fighting match at the end. It’s also horribly indicative of the state of affairs in the US today when you see the lengths some people are prepared to go to to get their children a modelling contract.

I actually thing, in parts, the film is more scary than funny. The fact that these people are real, not actors. That PR advisers can have less brain cells than digits on one hand. That Bible-thumpers genuinely think they can “cure” homosexuality. That grown men will weep because they’ve just seen two males kiss. That people will genuinely consider cosmetic surgery for a 2 year-old.

Brüno is more shocking than funny, and it just doesn’t carry its one joke well. Cohen’s had his two shots – I seriously doubt I’ll bother with the next film (which sounds like another version of the same damn idea all over again).

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Sweep of film reviews

I’ve watched a fair bit here in Bangkok as the cinemas are both cheap and very good. I also can’t be bothered writing full reviews for all of them so here’s a quick run-down of the four I’ve seen in the last week.

Public Enemies

Johnny Depp struggles not to remind you of Captain Jack Sparrow in this gangster flick set in the mid-1930’s. He almost gets away with it as well. How closely it tells the true story of John Dillinger I couldn’t say, but the period settings and so forth are beautiful.

It is without a doubt a good looking film with a respectable cast. However, the story just didn’t grip me and I found it a little hard to follow in places. Not as good as I was expecting, but I’m sure others would enjoy it a lot more.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

A remake of a film based on a book. Who says Hollywood is short of ideas? It’s a simple enough plot – a subway car and its passengers are taken hostage under New York City by a rather insane John Travolta. Denzel Washington, as a city worker, tries to do the hostage negotiation thing.

Simple plot, simple film. Nothing’s really a surprise although the story has been brought up to date to include modern technology. I can’t recall the original 1974 version too well, but I would like to compare the two. I have a feeling it was a far more taut thriller.

Nothing wrong with the performances in this one, but it’s still a little vapid and had a really weak and sudden ending.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (IMAX 3D)

I’ve enjoyed the Harry Potter films up till now, much as I enjoyed the books up till this one. In this regard, the films are now better. This was the first of the original novels I didn’t like – over-publicised, over-long and the ridiculous “leak” about a major character dying had someone carking it in every second chapter. And then being resuscitated, or discovered to be a shape-shifter or something. Bunkum.

As a result of the book’s size, a lot has been stripped out which gets rid of some of the unnecessary padding. The cast have improved with age and the series simply must have every single good British actor ever to tread the boards in it.

The one thing is that as a result of the stripping, you finish the viewing feeling like this was just the opening for the grand finale. I mean, it is. But that sensation is just a little too much. You expect to see “to be continued after the news” instead of closing credits. No bad thing, in a way, as it’s left me gasping for the final instalments (the last book is being split into two films).

A word on the IMAX 3D experience, though. And that word is: WOW. Only the first 15 minutes are in 3D, but they are staggering. Absolutely staggering. Simply the best 3D I have ever seen at a cinema. It’s just a crying shame that the whole film couldn’t be rendered in this way. I assume it’s a cost thing – maybe one day.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra

Oh, this is a silly one. It’s as comic book as you can get and utterly, totally, sublimely ridiculous. Never before has the phrase “leave your brain at the door” been more apt. You can tell it’s by the director of the Mummy films simply from the insane amount of half-cocked CGI that’s been used. But the thing is, you don’t care.

For every shonky “cartoon motorbike” there’s a collapsing Eiffel Tower. For every “heat-haze to disguise the rush job” there’s a kick-ass fight scene. For every horrendous piece of acting (Christopher Ecclestone – you should be ashamed of that “accent”) there’s a phenomenal pair of boobs to stare at to make up for it (Sienna Miller and Rachel Nichols just made my “must do when I’m incredibly rich and famous” list).

From what I gather, if you’re a fan of the comics then it will hurt you to watch this film in the same way that Sylvester Stallone‘s Judge Dredd made me whimper and want to drive nails into my own head. However, for the rest of us it’s an eye-opening, ridiculous, explosion-filled piece of pure sugar-coated entertainment.

Utter crap. But in such a great way.

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Culinary hints

WikiPlate.
Image via Wikipedia

When faced with a single red chilli pepper, don’t think the best way to impress people is to chew it up and eat it at the start of your meal. This causes great pain, suffering, sicky feelings in the tummy and a very painful bottom hole when it works its way out 12 or so hour later.

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