Thank you for all the entries / comments for the Jack The Giant Slayer competition. There were thirty-two eligible entries, and I used random.org to pick a number from 1-32.
The winner has been emailed. Assuming I hear back from them by Wednesday, I’ll pop their name on here to confirm. If I’ve not heard by by Wednesday, I’ll pick another!
Winner contacted, address received and passed on to PartnersHub for them to sort out sending it. Congratulations to Emma Lewis (entrant number 6)!
Again, thank you to PartnersHub for the competition prize and resources.
Jack the Giant Slayer is not a film I’ve seen yet, though I’ve heard very good things about it. Here’s your chance to beat me to it with a free copy on Blu-Ray courtesy of PartnersHub!
About the film:
Unleashed on the Earth for the first time in centuries, the giants strive to reclaim the land they once lost, forcing Jack (Nicholas Hoult), into the battle of this life to stop them. Fighting for a kingdom and its people, and the love of a brave princess, he comes face to face with the unstoppable warriors he thought only existed in legend… and gets the chance to become a legend himself! Directed by Brian Singer (X-Men, Superman Returns)
Click through to play with the Blog App they’ve created (sorry – it won’t embed on my blog despite many attempts to tweak the code).
Have a go at the quiz and post your results in the comments for all to see! I’ll pick a winner at random from all the comments on September 1st. Please make sure I have a way of contacting you so that I can get your address to pass on to the nice folk at PartnersHub so they can send you your prize!
The winner must be 12 or older (due to the rating of the film) and have a UK address for it to be mailed to.
OK, that’s a poor title but it’s the best I can do to encompass the two films I saw this evening – The Ghost and Whip It.
The Ghost
“They can’t drown two ghost writers. You’re not kittens!”
Plot-in-a-nutshell: After the initial ghost writer of a politician’s memoirs mysteriously drowns, a replacement is drafted in – just as some nasty rumours kick off.
First of all, this film is called The Ghost Writereverywhere except Europe. I have no idea why it’s changed here, and the end credits give it its original title. So if you’re in the US, it’s the same film.
Ewan McGregor plays “The Ghost”, a writer whose job it is to take someone else’s words and draft them into something resembling a book. For some reason he’s been cast as English, yet manages to pull off the accent pretty damn well. His job is to work on a near-finished manuscript when the original Ghost drowns while drunk. The subject – ex British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan).
Lang is very much based on a Blair/Bush combination. Slimy, untrustworthy and possibly guilty of war crimes. A lot of the things mentioned in the film were incidents that happened or were alleged to have happened while the gruesome twosome were in charge of the UK and US. This does influence the way the audience feels towards the character and adds a good dimension to the story.
Lang’s wife Ruth (Olivia Williams) is the other major player. Typical of a politician’s wife, she’s been in the background but it becomes increasingly obvious she’s been pulling his strings for some time.
This is a slow-burning film, but it never loses its way. It’s fairly taught and the central characters aren’t by any means unbelievable. MvGregor’s Ghost really is rather bumbling, not some guy who’s secretly a MENSA candidate or the next… whatever the guy from The Da Vinci Code is called. Throughout, it’s always tough to figure out if he’s making progress or being played. As a result, you really are kept guessing right the way through.
It won’t suit everyone as there’s a lack of high-speed chases, enormous set pieces or fast-cut hand-to-hand combat sequences. What there is, is a damn good story well told. It isn’t perfect – the ending with its superb twist is actually somewhat abrupt – but it’s very enjoyable nonetheless.
Whip It
“Yeah, let’s celebrate mediocrity!”
Plot-in-a-nutshell – girl lives at home with domineering mother, girl discovers outlet in the form of roller derby, girl must keep it a secret from domineering mother.
Bliss Cavendar’s (Ellen Page) mother is typicall mid-American (if the films are to be believed) and wants her daughter to follow in her footprints as a pageant queen. Bliss doesn’t know what she wants until she spies some roller derby bitches, attends her first competition and finds herself turning up for a practice session.
Needless to say she then gets hooked on roller skating, dressing like a tart and smacking other women around. This is by no means a bad thing. She also falls for the local bad boy, falls out with her parents, argues with her best mate and changes the fortunes of the team.
So far, so seen-it-all-before.
Whip It doesn’t stand a chance of pipping Dodgeball to the title of “funniest sports-based comedy ever”. Hell, Dodgeball managed it despite the huge handicap of featuring a Ben Stiller “comedy” character. Still, this isn’t a bad flick. Drew Barrymore is in it, so there’s eye candy, and she also directed it – I believe this is her first attempt. Credit to her, especially for the roller derby sequences which really give a feeling of being in the middle of it all.
Juliette Lewis is also a main character and I still don’t like her. Still, despite this, the cast are fairly strong and up to the task. Pretty much every stereotypical character and plot strand from this type of film is in there, present and correct, but it does hold its own. The ending may not be quite what you’d expect either…
Due to a timetabling cockup I ended up going into town earlier than anticipated. And then due to a very fortunate piece of scheduling I managed to cram in three films rather than just the one I’d intended. Thus Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), I Love You Phillip Morrisand The Bounty Hunter all in one afternoon/evening.
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Plot-in-a-nutshell: A journalist is tasked with finding a girl, missing for fifty years and on the way discovers a far murkier history to the story
I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this film. At all. I’d not seen a trailer and the only review I’d heard was part of one on Radio 5 a week or so ago where I was warned about the violent nature of the sex scenes. All I knew was that it was based on a novel and it was in Swedish. Thankfully with subtitles.
The lack of forewarning is always good when seeing a film based on a novel, Swedish or not. Mainly as it’s very rare for those who’re read the book to enjoy the film. I’ve still yet to meet anyone who’d read The Lovely Bones or The Time Traveller’s Wife also recommend the film afterwards. Such is, I gather, the case with TGWTDT.
This is a shame as it’s not bad. It’s long – almost 2 1/2 hours – but it rarely seems to drag. The pace is a little slow to start, but once the additional depth is added and the characters are explored it all moves along nicely.
Michael Nyqvist plays the journalist, Michael Blomkvist, and Noomi Rapace takes on the role of Lisbeth Salander, the titular Girl. The one thing that surprised me was that very little was made of the tattoo itself. She does have one. You see it. That’s it.
It’s her character that’s the most intriguing, though, even more-so than that of the missing girl. She’s damaged, under guardianship… but we don’t know how or why. This thread runs from almost the beginning of the film until almost the end.
Some of the sex scenes are indeed brutal. There are only two to really watch out for and they’re not hugely graphic, just unpleasant. A few people did leave the cinema but not during or immediately after either of these, which seemed strange.
It is a long film, and it’s not exciting as most Hollywood-made thrillers and mysteries have to be. There are maybe a couple of adrenaline-pumping moments in it. The rest is slow, methodical, thoughtful and captivating.
If you like a film that makes you think and don’t mind sitting around for long then this is worth the effort. On the other hand, if you need a shooting or a car chase every thirty minutes then definitely look elsewhere.
I Love You, Phillip Morris
“It’s really expensive being gay”
Plot-in-a-nutshell: Great husband Steven Russell (Jim Carrey) decides to stop living a lie and come out of the closet… and jumps into debt, resorts to fraud and lands in jail where he meets the real love of his life – Phillip Morris (Ewan McGregor)
Amazingly based on a true story (how closely based, I’m happy not knowing), this is a great story with some equally impressive performances from all those involved. Narrated by Russell, we hear about his beginnings as a wonderful family man before a car accident makes him realise that life’s too short to live a lie.
You do need to be pretty open-minded to watch this film. There are some overtly (homo)sexual sequences that some may be uncomfortable watching and there’s a fair bit of strong language. However, this is all balanced with some genuinely funny moments and great dialogue.
Russell simply lets his life run away with him and doesn’t realise what he’s doing half the time. He just happens to be good at it so he runs with it. McGregor is excellent as Morris and the pairing of the two just works.
There is a near-twist at the end that works up well and I confess I wasn’t expecting it – though I’m sure half of the cinema was. I shall say no more in case I spoil it!
Not the best film ever, and there are more insightful commentaries on the issue of gays in society (Philadelphia still has to hold the award for that) but it’s simply enjoyable as it doesn’t pull any punches about its subject matter.
The Bounty Hunter
Plot-in-a-nutshell: Milo (Gerard Butler) is a bounty hunter who has to bring his ex-wife Nicole (Jennifer Aniston) in for skipping bail – hilarity is supposed to ensue.
Seen the trailer for this film? Then you’ve seen all the good bits. Like Ms Anniston, it’s got a couple of good parts but the rest is all filler.
The funny parts are genuinely funny, but they’re few and far between. The central section where the couple start to get all mushy over each other again is just slow and painful. The ending, though, isn’t bad.
Basically, it’s a bit of a mess. I’d happily recommend maybe half of it. Unfortunately, without providing you with a timetable of when you can walk out of the cinema and come back in it would be hard to miss the dross.
Just for a change, a Saturday visit to the picture house and what a change it made crowd-wise. While I much prefer an empty theater (as people are generally selfish, noisy buggers in this country) it is good to see that the cinema is still a popular place to go. The queue was pretty big at 1pm, and by the time I walked past at 3pm I was glad I’d picked up the ticket for my second film in advance – the queue was out the door and up the street!
The Men Who Stare At Goats
Weird title, weird film. Apparently based on a weird book – which I actually remember seeing in the Popular Science section of Waterstone’s many years ago.
Plot-in-a-nutshell: a journalist with a failed marriage heads for Iraq to write a war story. On the way he encounters a retired soldier who claims to have been part of an elite psychic soldier outfit. And this is apparently based on a true story…
The main cast is astounding: George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, Ewan McGregor, Kevin Spacey… Robert Patrick is headlined, but he’s only in it for five minutes. They’re all damn good as well. McGregor managed to pull off a decent American accent without sounding stupid while Clooney pulls off stupid without looking… well, stupid.
This is a film about complete mentalists. It’s hard to tell where the line is drawn between docu-drama and complete fiction. I’d guess that the book is the same, partly as it just seems to far-fetched. Yet how unlikely is it that armies were throwing cash a potential psychic “weapons”?
There are laughs a-plenty, most of them quite dark. The fact that McGregor’s character ends up in a quest to become what the psi-ops regiment called a “Jedi” is not lost on the viewing public either.
Overall a good film that doesn’t outstay it’s modest running length.
The last decent female-based teen horror film was Ginger Snaps and that was released ages ago. Jennifer’s Body goes more down the “monster” than “werewolf” route but does it well with some great black humour. And two hot girls snogging.
Plot-in-a-nutshell: Town bike Jennifer turns from slut to blood-hungry psycho, requiring the blood of scared teens to survive. Her best friend is the only one to know her secret and she doesn’t like it.
When I saw the trailers I thought “rubbish – move on”. Then I saw some reviews, and not just from the likes of Baz Bamigboy and Jonathan Ross‘s far less talented sibling who will say anything is the “Best film of 2009” if it gets them a free bag of popcorn. The schedule fitted in with my free time so I took a chance.
The film opens after the end of the main plotline with one of the characters putting us into the scene. The story then jumps to the beginning and is more or less linear from there except for a brief jump back to explain exactly what happened to Jennifer (Megan Fox). Fox, incidentally, is hot. Scorchy hot. I-would-give-a-limb hot. But credit must also go to co-star Amanda Seyfried who plays the frumpy best friend, Needy – “frumpy” in the sense that as soon as she takes off her glasses and shakes out her hair she’s also typically sexy.
Everything happens at a good pace with the characters not being too stereotypical. The gore isn’t over-the-top and the effects are good. What I liked most, other than the humour, is the way the two main characters act opposite each other and how Needy develops.
You can pretty much guess what happens, it’s the ending that’s fairly original. Although not a huge twist, it’s definitely well written.
Don’t avoid this film just because it has obvious eye candy in. Don’t get me wrong. Fox isn’t that great an actress, but her hotness is actually useful in this film. And you get to see her with her tongue down another hot chick’s throat. Admittedly this scene was made somewhat less erotic by one numpty in the cinema crying “YAY” in a dull monotone, resulting in a huge outburst of laughter and a smattering of applause.
Still, that’s a throwaway moment in the film in my opinion. The main reason to see it is Seyfried’s performance. And the poor jokes.
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