Tag: Mila Kunis

Ted

For the first time in a while, I went to the cinema by myself. Gillian has let her Cineworld card expire and mine only runs for another week or so. Too many gigs coming up, and one extra munchkin in the house to look after! My first solo film was supposed “gross-out” comedy:

Ted

“Death to Ming!”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Man lives with magic teddy bear who’s a bit of a bad influence on him, but has to split up his lifelong friendship to keep his girlfriend happy

See it if you like: Family Guy with actual swear words, Bad Santa with stuffing

You can see the plot above. It’s just a play on an old favourite; a well-meaning guy caught up between single life with his best friend (who in this case just happens to be a sentient teddy bear) and moving forward with his long-term girlfriend. So far, so “seen it all before” although it’s not a bad riff on the basic scenario. Beneath all the foul language and sex jokes is a decent enough story.

Seth MacFarlane directs, script-writes, motion-captures himself and voices Peter Griffin Ted. If he were a live action character he’d be played by Zac Galafikinoiwsis. Galafikinosos. Galak… the fact dude with the beard. Or Seth Rogen. You know, the other fat guy with the beard. Mark Wahlberg, complete with rather bizarre accent, plays John – a car rental employee who’s managed to land himself a rather hot and high-flying girlfriend played by Mila Kunis. She, in turn, is being hunted down by her misogynist rich payboy boss Rex (Joel McHale from TV’s Community). Added into the mix is a rather manic Giovanni Ribisi who is on a misson to capture Ted for his own little boy and you have a couple of little plot threads.

The humour is, generally, gutter-level. If you don’t like bad language or euphemisms for female genetalia (or jokes about poo, visual sexual humour, off-colour comments about race, flippant remarks about terrorist atrocities…) don’t come in. Go and see Batman again or something. Having said that, I didn’t get quite the kick out of it that I did with the aforementioned Bad Santa that genuinely did have me bent over, laughing so hard that I couldn’t breathe at points.

It’s not that Ted isn’t as funny, it’s just that there’s no continuous bam-bam-bam joke after joke after slap after punch after off-colour-remark that Billy Bob Thornton‘s hastily-buried (by the studio – they hated it) classic managed. Aside from a couple of moments it also seems to lack the shock value, too. Perhaps I’m jaded. Bad Santa was very novel for its time. Since then, we’ve had the likes of Family Guy, American Dad! and The Cleveland Show on TV plus a fair number of bad taste comedies in the cinema.

What really did make Ted for me was the nostalgia and references to the 1980’s, plus all the little in-jokes and guest appearances. Without giving any plot details away (I hope): Ted Danson in a fake Cheers DVD extra; Ryan Reynolds in a non-speaking walk-on; Sam J. Jones as Sam J. frickin’ Flash Gordon Jones.

If there was a sad moment, it was the realisation that – judging by the type of laughter in the theatre at the relevant moment – I was on the only person in there who’d seen the original Airplane! film. Good grief.

Having a brief review at some of the reviews (a handful linked below), some have said in harsher terms what I would agree with. As a comedy it’s just not funny enough. What jokes and situations there are do hit the mark – I don’t think there’s a single fall-flat effort in there – but there aren’t enough of them.

It doesn’t detract too much from an otherwise decent film and as I said at the start at least it’s got a decent story, so you’re not sat there twiddling your thumbs waiting for the next fart joke with nothing to concentrate on. Just don’t go in expecting to be in rib-wracking pain and you should come back out having enjoyed the ride.

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Black Swan, NEDS and Tangled

Three films this weekend and certainly some variety in them. WARNING: this review contains the word “****”.

Black Swan

“I just want to be perfect.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: ballet dancers vie for the prized rôle in Swan Lake while the director bashes the audience’s brain with a marmalade-smeared herring.

Black Swan has had some impressive reviews and I believe is up for OSCARs. Darren Aranofsky isn’t exactly known for making run-of-the-mill films and this certainly isn’t a change in direction for him. Natalie Portman plays Nina, an incredibly skinny young girl and a promising ballet star, under the watchful eye of trainer Thomas (Vincent Cassel) and domineering influence of her mother (Barbara Hershey).

After landing the part of the Swan Queen, she finds herself in a confused friendship/rivalry with Lily (Mila Kunis), a more happy-go-lucky character.

That’s about as far as the regular plot goes. Leading on from this, the plot goes ever so slightly Fight Club. Only weirder.

One thing I will say – every performance is superb. the acting is simply brilliant right across the board. The story, however, just didn’t grip me. I guessed a couple of the “odder” parts before they happened so despite the twisting freakiness, I never felt surprised.

This may make me pretty unique in the film viewing world, but I just didn’t enjoy Black Swan that much. As I said, a great piece of work but just not one that grabbed me. Gill – on the other hand – loved it!

NEDS

“What the **** are you looking at, you wee ****?”

Plot: A young boy grows up in Glasgow and changes from promising student to psycho thug. Pretty much a documentary, really.

If you want hard-hitting, this is it. NEDS is brutal, unrelenting and unforgiving. In many places it’s rather uncomfortable to watch (although never quite as much as The Kid).

Conor McCarron plays John McGill, a young boy leaving primary as best-in-class and entering secondary school where expectations change from academic to thuggish. His brother’s reputation as a NED (non-educated delinquent) precedes him and other people’s expectations of how he might turn out push him towards the Dark Side.

For a bunch of amateur actors, the performances are well above par. The dialogue certainly helps gain the movie it’s 18 rating with more “*****” than a building full of senior bankers. It’s pretty violent as well, including some domestic incidents on top of the street brawls. This is not one to watch with grandma.

John’s descent seems pre-prescribed, especially once people find out where he lives and who his brother is. The message buried within certainly hinges around whether nature or nurture is at the heart of how a person turns out.

If there’s a weak point in the film, it’s the ending. After some strong incidents and emotional story, writer/director Peter Mullan doesn’t seem to know how to round things off. A shame as it spoils an otherwise excellent example of low-budget locally-made cinema.

Tangled

“Frankly, I’m too scared to ask about the frog.”

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Rapunzel with a PIXAR twist.

Yes, I know this isn’t a PIXAR film – it’s traditional Disney – but John Lasseter is a senior producer and it shows in the humour. Apparently this is the most expensive animated film ever made. Much as it is enjoyable, I just can’t see where the cash went. It doesn’t look much better than anything else recently. Having said that, Disney went to extraordinary lengths to create a CGI film that looked like a traditional hand-painted one. Developing new technology is always a big investment.

The story is fairly simple. After all, it’s geared at the younger audience. We took two 9 year-old girls and a 2 year-old boy (who was very well behaved!). The girls enjoyed it, but did seem to get a little bored close to the end. At 100+ minutes it’s a little longer than most animated films these days.

With some witty banter between characters, there is something there for the grown-up, too. However, the two best characters in the movie are Maximus the horse and Rapunzel’s pet chameleon – both non-speaking parts. This says a lot for the quality of the artwork.

I’m not a fan of films with spontaneous singing, so I switched off when the characters burst into song. With the exception of the performance in the grotty inn, most of the song/dance sequences don’t have much going on on-screen to while away the time.

Overall, not a classic but not too bad. As I said, though, the kids enjoyed it – and that’s the main thing.

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