Catch- Up Review Session Part 1

Again an unfortunate couple of weeks of being too busy to write reviews, but here comes the inaugural catch-up session. Let's do this.

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK

Tagline: Kids, when you turn off light, shit's gonna try and eat you. Way of the world.

Plot: Move into an old house where people got murdered? Yeah nothing's gonna happen to your children.

Best thing about the movie: Small monsters can be as creepy as big monsters.

Worst thing about the movie: Timeless in a bad way, people making 1950's mistakes to 2010 problems.

Best In Show: Bailee Madison

In Summation: I didn't hate this movie, and it felt like a serviceable run through of all those cliches we've come to know and love but, you know, for kids. 5/10

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS

Tagline: Imagine if you could meet all your heroes from generations past and have them tell all say you're awesome.

Plot: Dude travels back in time to 20's paris, to meet all his heroes. As you do.

Best thing about the movie: Yet another Woody Allen movie paid for and bought by a European tourist board.

Worst Thing About The Movie: For a movie about Paris, shockingly low amount of Parisians in this movie.

In Summation: The whimsy sort of powers through being irritating to being charming, and Owen Wilson is a good lead, but this is essentially a wankfest right? Woody Allen's most egotistical movie to date, secretly about how he was too good for movies and his talents should have been spent on novels, AKA, real writing. But whatever, nice to look at. 6/10

TYRANNOSAUR

Tagline: No-one is having fun at this movie.

Plot: Domestic abuse. the PSA.

Best Thing About The Movie: People who hate dogs, you've come to the right place.

Worst Thing About The Movie: Nowhere near enough musical numbers.

Best In Show: Peter Mullan

In Summation: Films about serious issues like domestic abuse are important, its important to force into people's brains how unacceptable it is. Yet one also has to view these things as films, as stories, and Tyrannosaur, despite all the great performances here, had no nuance to its characters, no subtlety to it's story-telling and almost no understanding or care for the reasons why. The Eddie Marsan character here is a monstrous, villainous cartoon, and while I don't doubt that there are people who beat their wives for no reason, it would undoubtedly be more harrowing to have some understanding of this relationship and that character, rather than insisting on portraying it in such a black and white, simplistic way. Marsan was just a ghoul, and while that might be the most politically correct way, its sort of like when you get films where you get a cartoon racist or a cartoon sexist. Dramatically, its just not the most engaging way to discuss the point. 6/10

PERFECT SENSE

Tagline: Have you seen blindness? No? Great, then this movie is a one-off original, bitches.

Plot: What if you couldn't see, touch, taste smell or hear anymore?

Best Thing About The Movie: Eva Green is in it, so naturally that means Eva Green's boobs are in it too. Yea boi. (Also Ewan McGregor penis for those the other way inclined. Democracy for all)

Worst Thing about the movie: So like, its blindness with all 5 senses instead of one. But you haven't seen blindness so its cool.

Best In Show: Eva Green

In Summation: I liked this. maybe it's my fondness for post-apocalyptic fiction, but this is yet another reason why David Mackenzie is one of the most underrated British directors. Smart and haunting. 7/10

FOOTLOOSE

Tagline: Let the shoes cut loose.

Plot: Dancing is illegal, a premise as hilarious in the 10's as was in the 80's.

Best Thing About The Movie: Mostly sharp dancing sequences, has enough of a sense of humour to get by, Craig Brewer is a good director.

Worst Thing About The Movie: Julianna Hough. Not a good actress. Why are modern kids listening to 80's music with such frequency?

Best In Show: Miles Teller

In Summation: I actually didn't hate this, and I thin Brewer did about as a good a job as could be done. The attempts to be dramatic, including the legendary angry dance, sort of fall flat but there was fun here for the undemanding. Rating: 5/10

THE THREE MUSKETEERS

Tagline: See that money, you just wasted it.

Plot: Oh go fuck yourself

Best Thing About The Movie: Suck my dick.

Worst Thing About The Movie: It's existence. Find Paul W.S Anderson and kill him. Seriously. Stop reading and do it now. I'll wait..

In Summation: A violation of time and space, and all that might circle therein. A stupid, gross dumbing down of a book that was already a pretty simple piece of mass entertainment. Anderson appears to have had free reign just to make the thing into the scribblings of a 12 year old boy circa 50 million dollars. Truly, it did go full retard. Rating: 2/10

REAL STEEL

Tagline: Violence without consequence for all the family.

Plot: Hugh Jackman learns what it truly means to be a father by......ZZZZZZZZ. Oooh, robots fighting.

Best Thing In The Movie: Some pretty epic robot fighting, I feel unclean just saying that, but I was invested in which scrap of metal won. Yes I was.

Worst Thing In The Movie: Erm, phoned in Spielbergian father-son story. Nobody cares. Really.

Best In Show: Hugh Jackman. He should play Indiana Jones in the inevitable remake.

In Summation: You know what, I kind of appreciated a family film as utterly non-threatening as this. Charisma generated by Jackman and robots pounding each other will do you for a good time (low bar) Rating: 6/10

CONTAGION

Tagline: Germs comin' to fuck you up.

Plot: See above. Haters of Gwyneth Paltrow would be well-advised to see this movie.

Best Thing About The Movie: It was certainly a well-studied movie, and enjoyed the immense detail, and the sense of realism. A number of great performances, and a cast that surely has to be up there amongst the starriest in recent memory.

Worst Thing about The Movie: It's PG-13 rating. Lacked the ferocity to explore the human impact of a virus to the extent that a better movie would have explored it.

Best In Show: Kate Winslet

In Summation: Its an internet blogging cliche, but this really needed to be darker. I liked a lot of what it was trying to do, but there simply was too much optimism in regards to the human race. I wanted to see the worst reactions, the less nobly convicted. Instead we just got one ridiculously stereotypical characterization of a soulless internet blogger that was just petty. Not quite Shyamalan killing a film critic in Lady In The Water,but still. Rating: 6/10

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 3

Tagline: We're in a recession.

Plot: Totes the same fucking movie, you all knew that. Did I mention DOLLARS ALL UP IN YOUR FACE. Gonna buy me some hookers, gonna buy me some blow, gonna have a good time, gonna last all night.

Best Thing About The Movie: Slightly more exaggerated here then in the past, but this formula works man. There's yet to be an absolutely terrible PA movie, and I challenge you to name a horror franchise that got to 3 without producing at least one piece of assaultive dogshit. (Alright George Romero. But whatcha gonna do with genius)

Worst Thing About The Movie: Things got a little too arch here, and the more like a horror movie these films get, the less effective they are. Just about made it I think.

Best In Show: Chris Smith

In Summation: Yeah its the same movie, same beats, same scares, same ending. But it's a well oiled machine, that may now lack the ability to amaze, but it sure can shock you. It's just the shocks are getting cheaper and cheaper, and I do think there's been a slight decline each time out, but not enough to stop these movies being around for a decade. Rating: 5/10

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

Tagline: Kids Today

Plot: What would really happen if your kid was evil, and will Ben Linus just be Ben Linus regardless of what his mother does?

Best Thing About The Movie: Lynne Ramsay, who directed the under-seen mini-masterpiece Movern Callar, is equally adept here, and I can't imagine too many more captivatingly put together films then this this year. Plus a pretty stellar performance from Tilda Swinton.

Worst Thing About The Movie: The Kevin characterization is stuff of fantasy. Can't claim to be a serious psychological drama when you have such a broad unflappable Machiavellian villain from the age of 4. More in common with The Omen then Elephant.

Best In Show: Tilda Swinton

In Summation: I liked this movie. I really did. And I've had a couple of post-match debates that have lead to fire and brimstone, but for me Kevin is almost a cartoon in conception, despite Ezra Miller's mostly terrific performance, and that affects its psychological credibility. It plays fantastically as a horror movie, but it doesn't want to be one, and in that, in spite of how much I liked it, it fails in the main thing it came here to do. Still, an excellent piece of film-making if you can accept the fundamental flaw in its premise. Rating: 7/10

Week In TV

SUNDAY:

The Walking Dead - What Lies Ahead, A pretty lean, tense opening hour of the Walking Dead. But then that was never the problem, it's the show that exists around the zombies that concerns, but that was badass. 7/10

Homeland - Clean Skin, This show continues to shape up to be a gooden, and while this was another table-setting hour, the show continues to make the characters as interesting as the story 7/10

Hung - Mister Drecker, An interesting episode of this comedy that never seems to make me laugh, but never the less I enjoy every week. 6/10

MONDAY:

How I Met Your Mother: Mystery vs. History 5/10, the sort of sucky, tired hour of this show that seems to be the way for every 2 out of 3 episodes. Due a good one next.

2 Broke Girls:..And the 90's horse party. 6/10 I love the world of TV criticism, where being racist is much more forgivable than being shit. Still, in spite of its racism, I am being sort of won over by it.

Bored To Death - Gumball, the ratings for this show are astoundingly low, yet fortunately for it's on the cancellation free paradise called HBO. Not really been impressed with this opening two parter though. 5/10

Enlightened - Now or Never, Hmm I was curious to see the second episode of Enlightened, mostly because the pilot really gave no indication to what kind of show it would be. I still don't really know, but ya know, its a fun half hour. 6/10

TUESDAY

Man Up - Pilot, Try to watch the first episode of everything, and while this wasn't awful necessarily, it was pretty bland. Meh. 5/10

Workaholics- Dont' entirely know why I've watched this three weeks in a row, but I have. So there's that. I don't hate it. 6/10

WEDNESDAY

Up All Night - Birth, I was getting quite close to abandoning this show, but this episode meant I'm probably in it for at least a season now. Rich and surprising 7/10

The Middle - Bad choices, Continue to like this show, even as it gets uniformly ignored. Not the best episode ever though. 6/10

Suburgatory - Don't Call Me Shirley, She won't because she's playing a kid and all, but Jane Levy's performance on this show is probably my favorite on any new show and deserves to be emmy nominated. Not quite sure about the show around it yet, but it is at least pleasingly weird. 6/10

Modern Family - Go Bullfrogs, the Emmy's favorite show is doing nothing to help the inevitable rage filled backlash against it, with a sort of awful season so far. Stop giving Julie Bowen screentime please, I like Bowen, but this is the most grating character on TV. 5/10

Happy Endings - Secrets and Limos, Happy Endings continues to be one of the funniest shows on TV for me, and this trend was not in any way rescinded this week. Great stuff. 7/10

THURSDAY

Big Bang Theory - The Rhinitis Revelation, At this point you can pretty much trace the stronger episodes of big bang theory to the times when Sheldon is being repressed in some capacity. And seeing his mum come to town lets you see a different side of him at least. 6/10

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Storm Of The Century, there's a general sense that this season of Sunny started really strong, so it would make sense that these last couple of episodes have disappointed people somewhat, but this had its moments. 6/10

The League - The Au Pair, this aged frat-boy comedy continues to be obnoxious and funny in spells, but the more Paul Scheer and Nick Kroll appear the better it is. 6/10

Top Three:

1) The Walking Dead - What Lies Ahead

2) Happy Endings - Secrets and limos

3) Homeland - Clear Skin

Week In TV

Sunday:

Breaking Bad - Face-Off, maybe its just the astronomic standard set by last year's finale, but this was a bit too much of a straight forward thriller for my taste. A frickin excellent one though, full of memorable moments and a farewell to one of the greatest characters in TV history. 8/10

Homeland - Grace, This has to be the best new show of the year, with creator Howard Gordon's smarter take on what he already did on 24. Very promising. 7/10

Hung - Take the Cake, This felt a slight reversion into the aimless hi-jinks of previous seasons, but still fun and Rebecca Creskoff's turn as Lenore is one of the most scene-stealingy performances on TV right now. Very entertaining. 6/10

Monday:

How I Met Your Mother - Field Trip, for a show that feeds you so much information, it rarely seems to go anywhere these days. They clearly don't want to reveal the mother till the end of the show, but it just means that all that matters is the end of the show. 5/10

2 Broke Girls - There's been two god-awful episodes of this show to two ones that have been OK, but I was teetering very close to quitting on this. This one though was a bit more of an improvement, although the racial stereotype supporting characters are still a carcass the show is carrying around. 6/10

Bored To Death - The Blonde In The Woods, Bored to Death really is the ultimate hipster show, that puts its smarts to absolutely no use other than pointing out its smarts, and has absolutely no story to tell. Having said that, thanks to its over-qualified three leads, it ends up being infectiously enjoyable regardless. This wasn't the best episode though. 5/10

Enlightened - Pilot, This was sort of a catastrophe of a first episode, but this is a show I am none the less intrigued with, I like Laura Dern and if they can figure out what the show is then it might be great. But as for right now...eh. 5/10

Tuesday -

Workaholics - Model Kombat, Tuesday became a very slender day indeed, what with raising hope and New Girl getting bumped, so this was it. Like the last episode, it was OK I guess. 5/10

Wednesday -

The Middle - The Test, Another fun and well put together episode of this show, which is probably a lot cleverer than it's given credit for. 7/10

Up All Night - Mr Bob's Toddler Kaleidoscope, this show is still working too hard to convince me its not boring, but this was probably the best one yet. 6/10

Suburgatory - The Chatterer, The show is very much becoming a two-hander, between Jeremy Sisto and Jane Levy, and I think it's working quite well for the moment. Probably the weakest episode yet though 6/10

Modern Family - Hit And Run, This show had a very shaky start, but I think the last two episodes have normalized everything. Still over-rated though. 6/10

Happy Endings - Yesandwitch - This felt like one of those sitcoms where a guest star comes in and takes everything over, but it was still reliably funny and ha a rhythm like any other show on TV right now. 6/10

American Horror Story - Home Invasion, and I'm out of here. 4/10

Thursday -

Community - Remedial Chaos Theory, After a start that seemed to make everyone profoundly nervous, including me and I'm probably going to be a pretty hardcore apologist for this show always, this was what everyone was looking and hoping for. The kind of fantastically put together episode of Community that's both smart and soulful. 8/10

Big Bang Theory - The Russian Rocket Reaction, A mostly sweet but sort of pointless episode. Something that defines this show at this point. 5/10

Parks And Recreation - Pawnee Rangers, A lesser Parks and Rec I think, although I enjoyed the Ben subplot quite a bit, and the batman costume worked as a great sight gag. 6/10

It's Always Sunny In Philidelphia - Frank's Brother, Frank's origin story probably seemed funnier in concept than in practice, but there were still laughs to be had here. 6/10

The League - The Sukkah - The atmosphere of this show is really quite repulsive to spend time in, yet I think the writing and performances are strong enough to survive the extremely high douche factor here. 6/10

Friday -

N/A

Top Three Episodes:

1) Community - Remedial Chaos Theory

2) Breaking Bad - Face-Off

3) Homeland -Grace

REVIEW; Red State

Hell raining down etc..

In the early 90's, Harvey Weinstein and Miramax had the novel idea that maybe the directors of a movie would speak about their project with more eloquence and insight than the actors who starred in it. The likes of Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Smith became their films, they became voices that superseded their work, and to varying degrees of measurement, all of their careers fell victim to the ego that this status created. Smith's is the most overt though, in which Kevin Smith the personality, Kevin Smith the cult seemed to overwhelm everything, from the reception of his films to his status as a film-maker.

Every film made under the Smith name left to devolve into a critics vs Kevin Smith pissing match, regardless of how good it actually was, until it became apparent that his legacy outside of his hardcore fanbase of Smodcast listeners and fans, would be as the guy who threw a hissy fit every time someone gave him a bad review. The Weinstein plan had backfired, and the platform Smith had been afforded was being used to throw poop at the meanies. To be honest I think Kevin Smith somewhat missed his calling, and probably was supposed to be a stand-up comedian as opposed to a director. He's an incredibly smart, insightful guy with a unique voice, and anyone who's seen a Smith movie knows how good he is at writing dialogue, it's just he's never really been able to tell a story, and always seemed ill at ease in any kind of narrative that didn't rely on irreverent bullshitting. Chasing Amy was maybe the closest, but as the years passed by so did Jersey Girl, Zack and Miri and Cop Out. Each in their own way more damning evidence of the fact that maybe this guy just doesn't have it in him to make a great movie.

Red State feels like the last-ditch attempt to get away from all that. To get away from the Pre-conceptions and self-destructive media patterns that Smith has gone down before. He's tried to make his voice disappear here, and let the movie speak for itself. Except he couldn't, and via a pretty smug publicity stunt at Sundance and a consequent bemusement that people were talking about him again instead of the film. But much as been said about that. Red State itself? Well it's an imperfect movie, sure, but there's a lot of ambition here, a lot of good intention and a lot of raw talent on display. It may be the closest Smith has gotten to reigning in his various abilities and applying them to making the movie as good as it could possibly be, to allowing the material to stand on its own. Equal parts religiously-themed horror movie and morally ambiguous siege movie, it's still way too ADD, but there's a lot to like here.

The first thing that comes to mind of course is the performance of Michael Parks, who as the extremely fundamentalist preacher who has taken to murdering those who in he's opinion aren't living up to the word of God quite as stringently as he would like. Parks is pretty terrific, pleasingly under-playing the role and making him as a little a cartoon as is humanly possible. I'd say his sermon scene went on way too long that the speechifying somewhat sucked the tension and the horror of the situation, but I enjoyed the performance enough that I'll forgive that. I'd say that the political dynamic is somewhat lessened by making the lead potential victims being relatively bland horny teenagers, instead of say, a gay person or someone to whom Parks and his congregation loath most profusely. Indeed the only gay victim dies without a name or a line.

I think the second half, in which the protagonist becomes John Goodman's FDA agent takes over the movie, is probably the stronger, in which difficult moral dilemmas and a violent siege replace the torture porn style executioning. Goodman is terrific in everything, but I found him to be a real stabling presence in this movie, which maybe wanted to more than it's 90 minutes would allow, and it gave the second half a real energy. Melissa Leo was pretty great, but I was pleasingly impressed by both Kerry Bishe and Kyle Gallner, playing two teens from different worlds who worked well together here.

Ultimately, I don't think Red State quite gets right all it wants to get right, but I am a sucker for films with ambition, and almost certainly Smith's most ambitious film as a director. It's the kind of horror movie that should be made more often, where the horror speaks to something as opposed to the violence being the whole point, and its certainly smarter than your average slasher or torture porn movie. Not a direct hit, but not too far off either. I do think the ending is sort of a botch though.

Rating: 6/10

REVIEW: What's Your Number

Women, the 21st guy is the new Scarlet Letter. Let's make this happen.

Here's the thing. I think I've probably spent more time bashing on Romantic comedies on here then any other genre. I don't apologize for this, nor do I believe that I've targeted these films unfairly and it's just my manly agenda and desire to see manly things such as shouting and violence as opposed to girly emotions and love. I think that in theory, the romantic comedy could be my favorite genre, or at least tie with horror. Because right down their very specific DNA, Romantic comedies are about character. They are movies entirely about how two people relate to each other, and how there various problems effect that relationship. In theory that sounds awesome, that's going to have so much more depth and value than a run of the mill action movie.

The problem with this of course is that mainstream genre releases tend to be cynical, they tend to be formed out of what pitches well, what you can sell people on. It's hard to sell people on a movie about two people talking to each other and falling in love. You have to be like this....

" So there's this bitch right, and she's about to sleep with her 20th guy, and like oh my god, that would make her an S-L-U-T slut, so she totally goes through her all her old boyfriends to find the one, so she doesn't have to sleep with a 21st guy because then she'd be a Super Ho. Say What?"

And therein lies the rub. You can't approach a romantic comedy as if it were a thriller. A thriller can survive this cynical way of thinking because the point is to take you on a ride, and the characters are there to service that ride, but with a romantic comedy the characters are the ride and the movie just can't be put together on a high concept and a formula and not be excreble. It needs to be genuinely funny, and it needs to be genuinely romantic, and if you think about all the time that is wasted on explaining that premise, on setting that premise in motion and eventually dismantling that premise, well that's 30 minutes of screen-time you could have spent on getting to know these characters, instead of making them cheap, recognizable ciphers.

I actually didn't hate What's Your Number all that much. Sure, It's got the cynical poster serving premise, but it also has two likable leads and at least glimpses at an ability to be funny that navigate around the groan worthy moments. Of which there are admittedly quite a few. The film starts out pretty atrociously, with star Anna Faris over-acting pretty shamelessly and the whole thing coming across very manic and silly. I'd say once the growing pains are dispensed with, Faris and co-star Chris Evans work pretty well together, Evans has always been a slightly under-rated comedian, and I imagine the whole Captain America thing might make that disappear even more but he's a good fit for films like this.

Ultimately though the end doesn't really live up to the middle and it goes the way every single one of these films has to go and you just tune out. It's not the worst romantic comedy you've seen in recent years but rather one of the better bad ones. It has the same fundamental problems as say Leap Year, but it is not quite as gloriously consumed by them as that movie was. Instead it is just good enough to not be memorable. There are some nice supporting turns by the likes of Joel McHale, Martin Freeman and Anthony Mackie, but yeah.

Rating: 4/10

Week In TV

A new feature I've devised, and no doubt many other have devised before me, is to do a calender of the week's TV, instead of writing actual reviews which would take time and effort. Here We Go.

Sunday:

(Disclaimer - I don't watch Dexter anymore because ergh and I tend to marathon Boardwalk Empire)

Breaking Bad - End Times, an episode that perhaps didn't live up to previous weeks but still contained some great moments. 8/10

Homeland - Pilot, A very strong, engaging pilot. Providing a smarter, darker and altogether more suspenseful look at modern espionage than we've come to expect. 8/10

Hung - Don't give up on Detroit, I don't really know why I'm still watching this show, considering how aimless last year was, but something about it's tone amuses me. And this was a strong season premiere. 7/10

Monday

How I Met Your Mother - The Stinson Missile Crisis, A lot has been made of this shows' decline. But I do still enjoy it week to week, even if it is a pale comparison to what it used to be. 6/10

Tuesday

New Girl - Wedding, I liked this a lot more than previous New Girl episodes, I'm still not convinced there's a show here, stil. Fun half-hour. 6/10

Raising Hope - Kidknapped, Not as strong as the previous two episodes, but I think this is probably gonna be a great year for this show. 6/10

Workaholics - Temp-Tress. My first time checking this show out, It was OK. Might watch one more to see if I got a fair sampling. 5/10

Ringer - It's gonna kill me, but I'll do it, Done with this shit. 4 episodes was infinitely more than it deserved. 3/10

Wednesday

Up All Night - New Car, I tend to think when all of a show's plots are about the leads not being boring, you;re in trouble. But this was likable at least. 5/10

The Middle- Major Changes, I'd be tempted to say this is one of the most under-rated shows on TV, given that the amount of acclaim it gets is precisely zero. I liked this one. 7/10

Suburgatory - The Barbecue, The best new network show for me. Leads Jane Levy and Jeremy Sisto are excellent. Not as good as the first episode, but am feeling this one. 6/10

Modern Family - Door to Door, It's not been a great year for modern family, which is going to compound the internet hate for it into stratosphere, but you know, this one was OK. 5/10

Raising Hope - Henderson, Nevada adjascent baby!, The stronger of this week's two raising hope episodes, a show everybody should be watching at this point. 7/10

Happy Endings - Baby Steps, Honestly I don't think there's a show that makes me laugh more than this one, even if it is a wafer thin show, its a fucking funny one. Not the best episode ever but still. 6/10

American Horror Story - Pilot, It's incredible ambition is only matched by its incredible failure, in that it seems not to understand what makes horror work, or what makes a functioning episode of television. Ryan Murphy writes for moments not cumulative effect, but this is a concoction of all his worst qualities. 4/10

Thursday

Community - Competitive Ecology, Certainly the best episode of season 3 so far, even if the year as a whole seems to be responding to a network note to tone everything down a bit, I'm sort of worried about that direction, but I enjoyed this a lot, mostly thanks to an inspired Chang B plot. 7/10

The Big Bang Theory - The Wiggly Finger Catalyst, Worth it for the line 'Everyone knows all disabled people are good people,' even if this was a weaker half-hour. 4/10

How To Be A Gentleman - How To Have A One Night Stand, this show has been banished to Saturday's, with cancellation soon to follow so there's probably not much point in watching it. It;s not really that great either. 4/10

Parks And Recreation - Born And Raised - This spoof of the birther scandal was a little meh, as Park and Rec goes. Which is quite a bit better than most shows out there. 7/10

Whitney - Silent Treatment, Call it morbid Curiosity, but I have watched three episodes of Whitney. I shan't be watching anymore. 3/10

It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia - Sweet Dee gets audited, Not as funny is the stellar first three episodes, but I love this show man. 6/10

The League - The Lockout, This show is a bit obnoxious for me, but it does make me laugh intermittently. Guest-starring Seth Rogen yo. 6/10

Friday

N/A

Saturday

N/A

Top Three episodes of the week:

1) Homeland, Pilot

2) Breaking Bad, End Times

3) Community, Competitive Ecology

REVIEW: Abduction

This dude is going to vanish faster than you can say Jacob is a pussy.

I always say that films like Abduction are the hardest to write about. Watching these kind of films leaves you longing for honest to god pieces of shit, because at least there, there is an identity. Something that could conceivably leave a mark, or make an impression. I saw Abduction two days ago and I honestly don't have anything to say about it. I can barely even remember it. Ten seconds out of the cinema I couldn't remember it and in many ways, that's exactly the point. It's designed to be generic, it's designed to offend no-one and it's designed to impact no-one. Wha the fuck is there to say about that?

Sometimes in these things there can be peripheral joys, such as the supporting roles or maybe a couple of decent action sequences. But there are a couple of problems here. Firstly, this movie is largely a cheap piece of shit, with not enough money spent on it to make it even a superficial joy. Secondly, it's a star vehicle for someone who can't remotely act, so even if the script hadn't been terrible (which it is) and the direction wasn't so run of the mill (which it is) and every scene didn't feel like a pale copy of some scene you've seen in a better movie (Which it does), then you're still stuck with a complete blank slate in Taylor Lautner, an actor who seems to perennially make every scene more awkward and lame by just existing in it. In the world of Twilight, maybe Lautner's inability to carry a scene is less conspicuous, but ask him to carry a movie and it's just a no go. It doesn't help that he's paired with the equally vacuous Lily Collins, whose continued presence as a girlfriend character defied logic, and also seemed to be to make Lautner look good in comparison.

Star vehicles for an actor with no talent aren't impossible to pull off, you just need to pair him with someone who can quietly carry the thing, while he postures. But despite this movie having Maria Bello, Jason Isaacs, Alfred Molina and Sigourney Weaver at it's disposal, none of them are asked to do anything other than carry exposition, and Abduction just becomes even more tedious to watch. There's just nothing here for anyone who might expect more than the barest minimum from their cinema going experience. And if that's all you want, if you see it solely as a distraction then that's fine I suppose. But Abduction is the kind of experience that I find to be just the worst you can have. I'll give lower grades, sure, but this is a movie purposefully made in a vacuum of talent, and any talented people who felt like getting paid didn't bother much to change that. A truly cancerous meh.

Rating: 3/10

REVIEW: The Debt

You's about to get whacked son.

Right first thing's first. It's 2011. 2011. So if we all collectively trigger the maths-like portion of our brains and figure out that 2011 is 66 years after 1945. And lets assume that to be a high-ranking nazi official you'd need to be at least 30. To be one of the guys at the absolute top of the chain. That puts even the youngest, youthful Nazi at the he probably would be dead age. All of this to say that having a Nazi as your villain in this day and age is not only sort of hackneyed, but very soon will be completely implausible. I get the attraction. The Nazi regime is the serial killer of mass-murdering empires. Whilst others did it for such understandable reasons as money, materials and status, The Nazis were crazy, and killed for reasons of crazy. It makes them the ideal villains for movies that want villainy to be a shorthand. This guy is bad. Why? Because he's a Nazi. Next question.

I don't want to be too harsh on The Debt, it contains a number of good performances and manages to be a strong thriller, building it's suspense out of moral quandary and character. Yet a lot doesn't work about it, and it contains a flashback structure that seems to exist for the sole reason of because it's what films like this usually do, and it's worked out pretty well so far. But it's lazy, and while Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds are all great actors, I'm not convinced these scenes really added anything to the film other than something to cut to. The thrust of the narrative is the 60's stuff, in part because of the great performances by some of the lesser known talent here. Jessica Chastain, who's had somewhat of a career explosion in 2011, is the best I've ever sen her as the young Helen Mirren. Similarly Marton Csokas, who has has been at the fringes of big movies for a while now, definitely makes his mark in this film, seizing the bigger role with aplomb. Sam Worthington is predictably the weak link, but he's not distractingly bad.

But the problems with the present day scenes is that they seemed to exist to comment on what had happened in the past as opposed to any kind of resonance in and of themselves, and as a result you are just waiting to get back to Chastain and Csokas. I did like how mostly incompetent our three leads were as spies, as so much of what went on seemed to emerge out of their inexperience at their jobs. Too often films tend to lionize spies as infallible, and I liked that these ones could both be credible, and yet capable of making a mistake. The film tails off pretty terribly though, finishing about 40 minutes before it actually finishes and losing a lot of the tension and atmosphere it has built up in the process.

Ultimately though it feels like one of those films that struggles too hard to convince you it's better than it is, and that just stops it from being as good as it could be. The premise is a little hacky, but I think a tight, complex thriller could have been made here, but instead we get a flabby concoction that whilst containing elements of that better film, is just carrying too much superfluous baggage to ever really capitalize on it's strengths. Still, worse movies out there for real.

Rating: 6/10

REVIEW: Melancholia

Melancholia the planet is convicted of being drunk while orbiting.

Lars Von Trier is an asshole. Someone who has let his incomparably defined view of his awesomeness almost derail his entire career, to the point where he's almost as renowned for his antagonistic stunts and quotes than he is for his work. But this antagonism has bled into his movies too, from Antichrist, a fairly vapid and smug attempt to be controversial for controversy's sake. To setting Dogville, what almost certainly should have been his masterpiece, on a chalk-outlined sound-stage. I still love that movie, but it would be undoubtedly in the best movie of all time conversation if it's very making wasn't an act of petulant arrogance. Von Trier is an incomparable talent, but he's incomparable saboteur too, someone who seems to delight in not allowing himself to be as good as he could be, and indulging his stubbornness over creativity.

Melancholia feels like his first attempt to make a film without some extra-textual stunt worked into the mix in quite a while, and I have to say that it is nice to be reminded what an excellent film-maker Von Trier is, and to see all the things he's so good at that seem to get lost in the hysteria. For example, he always gets career-best, near revelatory performances from his leading ladies, to which this film is no exception. Kirsten Dunst has always been a very one-note actress, not a bad one necessarily, but one with a very limited range. I don't think her performance is flawless here, but it is undoubtedly her most bold attempt to challenge herself and she does show a lot of depth we've not seen before. Particularly in the film's first segment, which sees the manic depressive Dunst slowly but surely sabotage her wedding, I was very, very impressed by what she did. I still wouldn't say she's capable of all that much nuance really, but this is certainly a different shade.

Charlotte Gainsbourg meanwhile, who went through proverbial and literal hell for Von Trier's Antichrist (What a waste of a great performance that was) gets a real chance to shine here, and gives a performance as good as anything else I've seen this year. I think Dunst is the much more likely to get awards recognition for this, but it's Gainsbourg who amazed me. In the role of the person who gives a shit, incidently the role who Von Trier traditionally most likes to punish and deride, she's appropriately heartbreaking, but in such a quiet, understated way. It's difficult to say that she's not one of the best actresses around at this point, and I think how good she is really isn't acknowledged enough. The film also found room to give Kiefer Sutherland a prominent role, which I appreciated seeing. I think he's Jack Bauer for life now, but he is capable of more than that, as he proves here.

The film itself is the same kind of fatalist study of depression and the inevitably of death we've come to expect, except this time Von Trier makes things a little more literal with a giant, hitherto undiscovered planet on a collision course with Earth and there's nothing for us to do but well, wait. The film creates a great sense of powerlessness, an aura of how small, pointless and pathetic we and our worries all are. It's misery porn, to be sure, but Von Trier is a steady hand at this kind of thing and while his films can be guilty of lacking a little life on occasion, this film is punctuated by some truly beautiful imagery, from the hypnotic opening sequence to it's climactic image, which is to my mind, the most horrifying shot I've ever seen at a cinema. Wagner's Tristan and Isolde is used to terrific and devastating effect, and it gives the thing a tremendous sense of the operatic, and makes the tragedy that little bit more soaring. Best use of classical music in quite a while I'd say.

I do feel the film is perhaps a little overlong, and there is some sag in the back-half, with the message and the metaphor superceding the characters just a little bit, but regardless, Melancholia is an involving and occasionally beautiful study of despair. Not the director's best, I would still call that Dogville, but a great movie, by anyone's standards.

Rating: 8/10

REVIEW: Crazy, Stupid, Love

All the commas in their right place.

So here's the problem with Crazy, Stupid, Love. It's another film that uses the ensemble structure for the pathos and credibility that it brings, yet only has one maximum two stories to tell here, which is Steve Carell's and sort of Ryan Gosling's. For the most part it seemed like a collection of scenes that didn't really lead anywhere or do anything, and characters that were too thin to justify their screen-time. Having said that the film does feel sincere, and that makes even a ham-fisted message more tolerable, if you get the sense that the writer's heart is in it. And there is a sweetness and earnestness to the film, it's just drowned in what one might call the unspectacular. There's no voice here, no insight. Just the same old platitudes re-framed in a more appealing way. And that's fine, to a point.

If there's something that works here it's the scenes between Gosling and Carell in the first half of the movie, where Gosling who is basically playing a less goofy, self-serious take on Barney from How I Met Your Mother here, teaches Carell his almanac of rules and strategies to picking up women in bars. (Always the same bar, by the way) Gosling proves himself to be a very adept comic actor, perhaps because he's simply a good actor, and has an endlessly confident, deadpan vibe to his delivery, which in a way draws something more interesting out of Carell as opposed to just leaning on his usual schtick. Carell in these sort of comedy movies tends to be more enjoyable than Carell in straight out comedies, perhaps because it brings him out of default mode. But there's always been something innately sad about Carell as a comedian, which is way his best work is in the likes of Little Miss Sunshine et al, and he is very good here.

But the movie has such an expansive, over-qualified cast that roles that were probably meant to be throwaway have the spotlight drawn on them, and if you're going to have Kevin Bacon you might as well have him do more than mope around in the background for two scenes, and if you're going to have three-time Oscar nominee Marisa Tomei, you might as well give her role that would be embarrassing on a middling to lesser sitcom. But the worst thing is that Julianne Moore, 50% of the love story we are supposed to care about, is given absolutely nothing to play and fucntions simply as 'Wife', a goal Carell has to reattain. Even Emma Stone, who thought she was going to get her own story there for a while, just gets funneled into Gosling's. And the less said about the teenage son the better.

As an ensemble movie it's sort of terrible, too many undeveloped characters with trite one-note functions, and would certainly have been stronger say if it had narrowed the focus to Carell and Gosling's dynamic, because I enjoyed both of those performances quite a bit. Gosling in particular, in what feels like a necessary move to give him some more mainstream exposure and credibility, comes of well. But movies about middle-aged troubled marriages are vast in number, and you can't be as unremarkable as this movie is and still expect to make a dent. Some scenes are fun, and there are laughs scattered about but fuck is this generic.

Rating: 5/10

REVIEW: Drive

The scorpion jacket gag was well meta.

Every now and again you get a film that's so specific in it's intention, and so forthright in the way it goes about realizing it that it feels like someone's vision. A perspective that is so prevalent in every camera move, every cut and even in the way the actors look at each other that at a certain point, you're going to respond to it or you're not. Drive feels like one of these movies. When I watch it I see a text book example of how to make a movie through tone, a viewpoint expressed through mood and emotion as opposed to ideas and words. It's an action movie that fixes an unflinching eye on itself, and becomes more about art than entertainment. Yet someone telling me they saw a slow, uninvolving movie that didn't really do anything or go anywhere. Where people just stared at each other without speaking and was super violent for no reason. I can understand that. I just think Drive is one of those films you get or you don't, and neither side really has the right to tell the other they're wrong.

Personally, I had an incredible experience watching Drive. An anti-action movie that's clever and moving in the way it went about telling it's story, a story that even a semi-casual movie-goer will recognize as having been told many times before. But that's that great thing about experimenting with genre. In terms of what actually happens, it is a forgone conclusion. So in that sense, it gives film-makers an opportunity to delve into how it happens, through style, through character, whatever. Time is afforded to you by the thriller shorthand viewers have picked up over the years, and you can secretly make a film about loneliness.

The action hero is a perfect through-line for this, and Gosling's character isn't even afforded a name. He's simply 'Driver', because it doesn't matter who he is, it matters what he does. An expert behind the wheel, he is incomplete elsewhere, walking around as in a separate universe then those around him. Gosling fights so hard for his chaste, innocent relationship with Carey Mulligan and her son precisely because it's probably the first time he's known any kind of emotional connection, and the film's willingness to make him so ill-formed and arguably the most pathetic character in the film, lending a different coloring to the silent but deadly leading man, was something I really dug, and it lent a different perspective to the scenes of violence that inevitably came in the movie's latter half. It's not Gosling's best performance, but I loved how restrained he was, how internally he played everything, a compliment that could be extended to the movie as a whole.

Nicholas Winding Refn makes a film where the style and atmosphere does the storytelling in lieu of the script, and while this tact has produced many odious and god-forsaken films in the past and really takes a delicate touch to get right, I think Refn makes it work here, and as a result watching Drive is a hypnotic, encapsulating experience. The supporting cast does some great work here too though, and often make it so Gosling can go as far as he goes. Carey Mulligan is essentially given the thinnest damsel in distress role, but I appreciated the casualness of her character and relationship with Gosling, she was pleasingly real and her innocence wasn't exaggerated. Mulligan did a lot with just unspoken glances to work with. There is some career best work for Albert Brooks here too, the comedian/Movie star who has always seemed to be falling through the cracks, his career never really took off like it might have, yet he makes for a compelling villain, and one with enough dimensions to be more than just a plot point. Bryan Cranston comes very close to stealing the movie, in his role as Gosling's mechanical mentor, and Oscar Isaac did a lot with a little in the role of Mulligan's husband.

But like I said, Drive is a mood piece. Not without it;s flaws, there is the odd scene where the silence becomes a little awkward and the plot really is formulaic to a tee, but it's also a beautiful, melancholy study of a man who doesn't understand the world dismantle his life in the name if the first person who made an effort to understand him, with a few exploding heads thrown in there for good measure. I loved this film and the ride that it took me on, even if it wasn't the one I was expecting. Yet I totally get if you didn't. Because whatever you think of it, this a film that commits to what it wants to be one-hundred percent and that in itself is something to admire. Works even better if you click with it too.

Rating: 8/10

REVIEW: The Guard

I'll turn you into a tree, motherfucker.

The Guard isn't a good movie. Not really. What distinguishes it from the many, many other Elmore Leonard/Quentin Tarantino derivatives out there is frankly it's accent. The joke that this sleepy Irish village where nothing ever happens is currently where everything is happening is not a new one. It's the same principle that gave us Fargo, it's the same principle that gave us In Bruges and at this point it's not a clever enough twist on the norm to cut it. Having said that, the film put together an intriguing double act in Don Cheadle and Brendan Gleeson, and who knows, on paper In Bruges looked a little hackneyed too, and that turned into something great.

But The Guard is the sort of thing one hopes doesn't become of these 'clever' post-modern thrillers. A glib, self-satisfied movie that eschews being about something in lieu of pointing out it's cleverness at all turns. Nobody loves movies with great dialogue more than me, but I think when it becomes annoying is when it's used as a crutch so the writer doesn;t have to bother with any characterization. This is something a lot of people wrongly accused Easy A of last year (That movie had an incredible amount to say both in terms of ideas and character) but it's something that The Guard is severely guilty of, particularly with it's supporting characters. Mark Strong's character for example, is given a lot of Leonardesque lines pointing out the various idiocies in gangster cliche, which he delivers well, but what is he ultimately? A placeholder bad guy, with no depth and no perspective, simply there to be defeated. I would have gladly sacrificed some of his dialogue to spend that time creating a character. Several minor characters come and go, speaking with the same hyper-aware syntax and contribute little to anything really and it becomes quite insufferable. This is why people say irony can be a bad thing, particularly when used as an excuse not make anything interesting.

Thank god then for Cheadle and Gleeson, who are both such cool, likable heads that they sort of diffuse the pointlessness of the whole thing. Cheadle's character is very much under-written, but he's an actor experienced and talented to do the best with what he's got. Gleeson though, is pretty extra-ordinary. There's a quality about him that's both pleasingly acerbic yet warm. In this movie he reminded me of Humphrey Bogart or some similar talent that manages to make an incredible impression even with lesser material, and give a performance that's both funny and affecting in a movie that entirely leans on his charisma. I think Gleeson is a large reason why In Bruges is the film it is and by that same token he elevates this from disposable to almost recommendable. Probably one of my favorite performances I've seen this year, but the film around it is such that I have to keep my head here.

On the face of it, The Guard is something I want to like more. Because I do think this is a clever movie, and the performance of Gleeson is that strong. But it applies it's cleverness in the worst way to make this a memorable and effective movie. It applies it in a manor that purposefully keeps everything at a distance, the kind of post-modernism that has an erodible impact on a film's depth. I do think this film wanted to be more than a sum of its parts, and a couple of scenes with Gleeson almost get there. But the story is incredibly flimsy, as are too many of the characters. It's disappointingly lightweight, so I can only view it as a missed opportunity.

Rating: 6/10

REVIEW: I Don't Know How She Does It

Due to this films OCD obsession with taking lists, I have decided to review the movie in this manner:

1) I hung around for two hours to see this movie. And got the bus back at 11 O'Clock subsequently. I could have got jacked. Or died. For I Don't Know How She Does It. That would have made my existence a comedy existence.

2) FUCK THIS MOVIE. It is offensive on several socio-political levels, aside from just traditionally sucking balls.

3) Sarah Jessica Parker is not a good actress. She never has been and never will be. And she is the WORST deliverer of voice-over human kind has ever known. Take you're twee, perpetually flat and high pitched tones somewhere else Parker, for they are not wanted here.

4) If you disagree with number 3, I'd stop reading now because the rest of this is liable to make you very upset.

5) Memo to rich white women. There is one group of people the world hates more than you, and that's rich white men. But it's funny how few movies I see about a rich white guy banker complaining about how his life is so gosh darn stressful, and about how those poor people keep getting mad about us kicking them out of their houses won't stop whining, and my how I don't have enough time to have sex with my hot wife as much as they like.

6) People would leave these movies man. They'd involuntary splurt out FUCK THIS DOUCHE and then leave and go back to their ten hour shift at McDonalds. But for some reason, rich white women think it's OK to make the exact inverse of this movie. Again and Again. Every studio romantic comedy outside of Bridesmaids seems to star a rich female lead, who has just about EVeRYTHING but love.

7) I'm not even opposed to making films about these women, but they keep whitewashing everything, saying that no problems are their fault, and they're perfect hard-working captains of industry. If I Don't Know How She Does It could say, be a comedy about the relationship about two hard-working people whose lives don't allow for true love, then I'd watch that movie.

8)But all they seem to want to do is reinforce how awesome they are, and how their awesomeness defeats any and all problems.

8) I believe the saying goes that whereas you need a reason to hate poor people, you need a reason to like rich people. And if rich white women want to hijack a once proud genre to soapbox their whining, then everyone gets to say FUCK THIS SHIT.

9) Yeah, yeah. It's a fantasy. Except it's not. This film is like the comedian who jokes about how easy it is for him to get into VIP events, and how hard it is to fend off all the girls at the same time. This is that guy.

10) Pierce Brosnan is an increasingly bad actor, Greg Kinnear looks like he has dead eyes and Kelsey Grammer shows up to promote his new show soon to be airing on STARZ.

11) The film ends with a dick joke delivered by Christina Hendricks. Badly.

12) Hendricks is trying so hard to prove that she can be fun and bubbly that she ends up giving a wide-eyed, Jim Carrey-esque ridiculous performance. Embarrassing. Looks great though.

13) Best thing about this movie? Olivia Munn. By miles. A funny and winning performance.

14) Ergh. I feel like I've hit one of those down and out moments where you forget why you care about anything or anyone, and all that's left is for your thoughts of loathing and anger to circle furiously around your head until eventually the pressure becomes too much and before you know why, you've done something that can never be undone or taken back. Like see this movie.

Rating: 3/10

REVIEW: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The trailer for this was incredible by the way.

I've always had a somewhat adversarial relationship with films built entirely around plot. I understand many, many people believe plot to be the most important and engaging aspect of fiction full stop. In sheer number, I doubt any opposing genre can compete with the amount of mystery novels shifted each year, or the amount of viewers police procedurals pull in every week. But I can't help but think that viewing plot as the most interesting aspect of fiction is somehow reductive of it, that viewing it most giddily through the prism of what happens next is the right side of the brain trying to claim ownership of the left side's rightful playground. The most exciting thing about fiction is the characters and worlds it can create, the perspectives and ideas it can communicate and the atmospheres and moods it can explore. Plot to me seems like an extension of the structure, something that exists as a means to an end. So everything can be said with coherency.

Plot is a completely necessary part of the process, but making it the reason for everything makes your work sort of baseless, without root in any point or meaning. You're just a puzzle to be solved. This doesn't mean a plot heavy film can't be great, LA Confidential is one of m favorite films, but it has to place it through the prism of it's characters. This is why I was less enamored with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo than everyone else and it will be the reason I'm less enamored with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy than everyone else. Superficially, it's an exquisite piece of film-making, with all the sets and photography looking absolutely beautiful and Tomas Alfredson's direction creating a remarkably controlled, consuming sense of paranoia that keeps you uncomfortable throughout. The performances are uniformly excellent. Although Gary Oldman's first starring role in quite some time will remind everyone of just how good he is capable of being, and in a performance quite unlike any he's given before, something entirely internal yet with his usual presence. His George Smiley is like a ghost, everywhere but nowhere, silent but taking in everything. A bafta nomination for sure, and maybe an Oscar nomination.

The likes of Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy and Mark Strong make for a strong supporting cast, Jones makes a strong impression as a particularly cutthroat bureaucrat and it was nice to get to see Strong play a more sensitive role than he is usually allowed to do. I was most impressed however by Benedict Cumberbatch, who in a performance as Oldman's subordinate, continues to build on the good will he's earned from Sherlock and many other projects. A couple of people strike a bum note, John Hurt was a little hammy and ill at ease with the film's underplayed tone, as was Kathy Burke. But certainly the performance you'll notice and remember is Oldman's. But for a film this deeply steeped in plot, I'm afraid you need to pack a stronger punch than this story had to pack. I liked that this was a slightly more realistic take on the spy world, but the end was predictable, largely in part to the casting, and because of the way the film had previously played. Spending so much time unraveling meant that relationships and dynamics had to be implied as opposed to seen, and I think the film had a lot less emotional impact than it was supposed.

My problem with the film is that at its core it's a potboiler, a story about what happens on the next page and never about what is happening on this one. For all the excellent performances and surface aesthetics, which again are stunning, the simple act of time passing doesn't turn a thriller into an art film, and I get the slight impression that Alfredson thinks it does. Be that as it may, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is quite a way better than the usual junk you see at the cinemas, and is an incredibly rich and cultured piece of pulp for Guardian readers. Bu instant classic, maybe not quite.

Rating: 7/10

REVIEW: The Change-Up

Also, this film is obscenely gross.

This summer is going to be known by many comedy fans as the summer they officially had to start apologizing for Jason Bateman. Time was when Bateman was a figure of incredible credibility, figure-head of what might be the most critically adored comedy in television history in Arrested Development, which ended in such a premature, grief-stricken hysteria that it made villains out of the Fox Network for a decade and made every actor associated with the show an incredibly high-value comedic asset. Will Arnett became a frequent presence in terrible movies starring Will Ferrell, David Cross' career got a bump, Alia Shawkat got to be an indie movie star in such things as Whip It and Cedar Rapids, purely off the back of AD, Tony Hale was cast in every TV show known to man and Michael Cera, will he got to become public enemy No.1 Michael Cera.

Most of these actors crashed and burned, with Cera being the most high-profile and high speed rise and fall, but Jason Bateman seemed to slowly but surely ascend after the end of Arrested Development. Arnett and Cera came out quicker, but Bateman seemed to be going about it the smarter way, playing supporting roles and forging an identity in movies that wasn't solely dependent on his AD persona. Dramatic work in films like Juno or The Kingdom led to a higher profile and eventually to 2011, where Jason Bateman movie star is now a statement people can say. But at the same time, the work seems to be getting broader and broader. Horrible Bosses was perhaps a better example of this, but The Change-Up feels like the moment Bateman becomes a harder guy to praise quite so highly. Granted, he's the best thing about the Change-Up and certainly does his best to elevate the material. But fuck. This is absolute bottom of the barrel movie comedy, built of a dumb premise that seems to only get dumber as things go along.

It feels like the movie does the same thing these terrible studio comedies always do. They get all their indulgence and raunch done and over with in the movie's first half and then work incredibly hard to say how wrong that behavior was in the second half. It's a movie that has no identity and nothing to say, and surely nothing funny to say. Bateman is bending over backwards to make it work, and Reynolds is about as affable/douchey as he always is. Leslie Mann has a nothing role, and Alan Arkin turns up presunably to pay for his granddaughter's piano lesson. It's all the worst things about mainstream comedy films put into one.

It's not going to get the worst rating I've ever given, because if you way up the material against what he's had in the past, Bateman is actually pretty terrific, but the Change-Up is still something I wish I could unsee.

Rating: 4/10

REVIEW: 30 Minutes Or Less

Making movies for slackers doesn't really mean you get to be one.

What happened with Ruben Flesicher's last movie, Zombieland, is essentially a scenario they should teach in advertising college. That movie had an aura of cool, of anti-establishment smart-assery long before it actually came out. It had people celebrating it on arrival, and scored more than one ecstatic review from respectable critical entities, and yet what was so remarkable about it was how utterly tame and ultimately toothless it was. What an incredible sell they made here. I don't hate the movie, largely thanks to Woody Harrelson, but it is about as unhip as it possible to be, and zombie movie spoof that seemed to know nothing about zombie movies or even respect them, from the fact that there's not one zombie kill of a speaking character (Seriously have you guys EVER even seen a zombie movie?) to the forced teen romance and ridiculously positive ending. In a way it was the ultimate hipster movie, something that presented a perfectly formed veneer of ironic smarts on the outside, but as it's core was obvious, dumb and empty.

I say this because 30 Minutes Or Less seemed to carry that same sense of superficial coolness and slacker pandering, but was equally as lazy and uninspired when it came to actually being funny. Again the casting is canny, Fleischer gets Eisenberg back, whose stock has considerably risen since Zombieland, as well as Aziz Ansari, whose status as a rising star comedian has only been amplified by starring one of the best sitcoms on TV right now in Parks And Recreation. He's got Danny McBride, who might just be starting his down-slide, but for now still cuts as a credible comedy star. But there's a couple of problems here. Eisenberg and Ansari don't make a particularly charismatic pairing, mostly due the latter, who might be this generation's Chris Rock in the way he's so fantastic as a stand-up but sort of a lackluster actor. His goofy, over the top performance is ill at ease with Eisenberg who just might be too good for this movie, and gives a performance that doesn't really get on board with the movie's ridiculous tone.

If it has a saving grace it's probably McBride, although he's just doing the same thing he's done many times before, but having said that McBride is a pretty good actor, and it makes me curious to see what he'd do if taken a little more out of his comfort zone. He and sidekick Nick Swardson are occasionally amusing, as is Michael Pena in a turn as an Hispanic hitman. But the whole thing feels overbearingly obvious, no joke catches you by surprise and comedy is at its best when it gives you what you're not expecting. Fleischer's style seems to be give you exactly what you expect at all times, and without a Woody Harrelson or a Bill Murray to make these weak punchlines land, well it just makes the thing incredibly forgettable. A movie that will never cross anyone's mind ever again, and frankly I want Fleischer to try a little bit harder with the material next time. Because you can get away with that shit once, but as the critical and box office response to this movie would suggest, two times is a lot harder to pull off.

Rating: 5/10

REVIEW: Jane Eyre

Hey didn't I just see this movie?

There's a theory I have about adaptations like Jane Eyre. Books of such stature and cultural presence that they have century-spanning legacies, simply can't make for a masterpiece. The story becomes to saturated, too loudly shouted. And Jane Eyre, with 22 cinematic variations already existence, simply can't outdo what's already been done. You can't possibly say anything new with the material, and even if you get everything right, even if you come out with something outstanding, it's just a landscape that's been painted by too many people, and any power it may have had to be powerful or bold has been removed by over-exposure. And in lieu of telling a story with a fresh perspective, we get a 23rd iteration of the same old thing, and at a certain point that's just franchising.

Jane Eyre as a marketing brand cuts more water than an original story about the same period or even an adaptation of a lesser known novel. It sells as instant credibility and quality coming at half the effort. Jane Eyre didn't even have to be a good movie to get good reviews, because to the viewers it's not about being challenged or being told a story. It's about finding something they know every moment of in advance and seeing it play out exactly as planned. Intellectual comfort food. But isn't then the goal to be familiar? And if it is, then how can a movie of Jane Eyre ever be great. It's nothing against this movie in particular, I found it to be strikingly shot and as always, terrifically acted. Mia Wasikowska in particular, showing the kind of subtlety and intelligence she did way back on the first year of In Treatment, and she is certainly one of the best young actresses around. Michael Fassbender would no doubt be everyone's immediate choice for a role like Mr Rochester, a dark mysterious figure, who just might be Charlotte Bronte's version of the bad boy with the heart of Gold.

I think Fassbender can be great, but I've yet to see him completely pull of being subtle, and seeing him acting opposite Wasikowska only brought this home to me. I don't think he's bad by any means, and he certainly has more than one moment of powerful charismatic intensity. But I wanted him to bring something more to it, something maybe a bit more cerebral. Judi Dench turns up in what might be the most obvious piece of casting of all time, and Jamie Bell turns in some great, sure to be overlooked work in what we shall call the 'Jacob' role, to suit the parlance of our times. Everything is perfectly fine, and the story is a classic, with some surprising and welcome darkness. It's just, I already knew that. And I was expected to already know that, and the movie can only be forgettable when deliberately choosing a story with such a level of saturation. Literary classics are not a reason to never try anything new and this damn modern age inferiority complex is getting boring.

Rating: 6/10

Breaking Bad: Shotgun - A Lot of Miles In Between

Two for the road.

- There's been a lot of grumblings about the pace of season 4 thus far, about the lack of forward momentum and the lack of focus on Walt being a badass. I think this is sort of complaint is particularly telling to how a lot viewers watch the show, because I'm pretty sure if you put yourself into the psychology of Walt, he'd be saying something similar. He's frustrated that he's stuck in an endless, uneasy status quo with Gus, and everything he tries to get himself out of it doesn't seem to work. The old Heisenberg solution of spectacular nerve and balls doesn't cut it with Gus, he's simply too clever.

- And it's not like Walt hasn't tried. He showed up to Gus' house, gun in hand in episode 2. He drove like a mad man to Los Pollos Hermanos at the beginning of this week's 'Shotgun', fully prepared to go out guns blazing. Walt at this point is the embodiment of those fans who watch this show for and through him, he wants desperately to move on up to the next stage. He feels he has earned it, and is tired of waiting for it. So much so it has blinded him to everything else. His increasing sense of paranoia and impotence as he is stuck being Gus' worker bee makes him seek conflict with even more ferocity than usual. And I think the more than sizable section of fans who watch this show solely for Walt and Walt's journey, well they're likely to be annoyed about a season entirely about his inability to solve his problems.

- Having said that, 'Shotgun' is the kind of Breaking Bad that I have the least time for. The kind of episode that is entirely and obviously about moving the plot along, and plot to me should be a means to service character, and not the reverse, but I understand many viewers see things the opposing way. But it can often feel jarring, to see the wheels being turned more fervently and openly than before. Breaking Bad has done these kind of episodes in the past, Season 2's 'Breakage' or last year's 'Abiqiui', and I think my official policy is that I don't mind these hours from time to time, they often enable incredible stuff down the line and it's not like they're bad. This is still better than the average episode of almost any other TV show and it might just be a necessary evil for a show as densely plotted as Breaking Bad. Every now and again you'll need an hour to just lay your shit out and say this how it's going to be.

- After last week's cliffhanger, it is revealed that Mike is not in fact taking Jesse to bury him in some hole somewhere, but rather take him riding shotgun (See what I did there) on his collection of deaddrops. That is to say, collect the money accumulated by those dealing the blue magic, put in various deep dark holes in various ass-end of nowhere's. I liked this twist a lot, because I think it was about the right time to bring the self-destructive Jesse arc to an end, as dramatically rewarding as it was. And because taking his mind of his pain was essentially what Jesse wanted to do, and here Gus has found away to do that for him -by throwing him into work - in a less possibly catastrophic manor.

- Plus he and Mike made an amusing buddy cop duo, in part because Mike's exasperation is never not funny. His reactions to various Jesse ravings about being bored always were the stuff of Gold. I think Jesse's dialogue was a little too on point this episode. He asked for a gun one too many times that one began to think it was inevitable he would need one, so when the Gus orchestrated fake-attempted stash-jack happened, it was a little telegraphed. But as a solution to the Jesse problem it worked fine for me.

- Skin-head Aaron Paul is quite considerably more badass then before. Boy to man type shit.

- It's also a shame we didn't get to see that hypothetical keys vs. shovel smackdown between Jesse and Mike, for that would have been legendary.

- I kind of liked how the episode began with a sequence of great intensity, Walt racing to Los Pollos Hermanos thinking he was about to die, telling his family he loved them, to dilute that with comedy, Walt having to sit in a cubicle and get a call from Mike telling him not to be so hysterical. That dissolution of his bravado is the calling card of season 4.

- Also, the show has nicely been building to getting Walt and Skylar back together, and it appears that is about to happen. Interestingly, Walt's 'I'm about to die' phone message was the thing that got him and Skylar back into bed. I think not making Skylar Walt's adversary might be a good thing for the perception of the character, or at least reduce the irrational hatred for a while.

- One thing I always liked about the Walt-Skylar relationship is that no matter what position of strength or weakness Walt may be in otherwise, within that dynamic he is the recessive one, as Skylar deems when he should move back in, and the manner in which their life together should be lived. And that's just how it is. Granted season 4 Walt will fight back against that parameter with much more intent than season 1 Walt, but ultimately there is no Walt and Skylar if she isn't in control.

- The deeds to the car wash were signed, so finally that can happen. It perhaps wasn't the wisest idea to make the buying of a car wash an episode spanning arc. Its much more interesting once the laundering starts.

- Minimal Gus in this episode, although as always his presence is felt. Right now he's hanging back pulling the strings, I expect him to take a greater prominence later. A lot of Mike screen-time in this episode though, and as always Jonathan Banks is terrific in the role.

- The dinner scene at the end felt in character for Walt, certainly, but maybe a little too convenient? Gale seemed like such an easy out for Hank's pursuit of Heisenberg that it felt something maybe a little more artful than Walt getting drunk and telling him he wasn't to solve that problem. Regardless, Cranston played the scene fantastically and with the final scene putting Hank not only back on the trail but potentially back on the trail of Gus, you can feel the various pieces of the season come together.

- Walt Jr. Watch. He had more screentime than usual in this episode, appearing in up to three scenes!

- That though, is what episodes like 'Shotgun' exist for. To get everything and everyone in the right place so future episodes can reap the rewards. Season 4 is a very different kind of year to the previous, which played out in halves as opposed to a full thirteen episode arc. Here, Everything is building to one huge explosion, but that wont come for a while. Its a long game, this one. And I'm incredibly intrigued to see where it goes.

Rating: 7/10

Breaking Bad: Bullet Points - Make Sure To Really Hit The Cancer

Don't forget the dipping sticks.

- I think the most exciting thing about Television as a form of story-telling is that it has an in-built allowance for you to go off the map. There's the bigger picture, the mandate of what usually do, and what the audience expects of you. None of these elements can be ignored or passed over, but the exciting part comes in finding ways to expand on what an episode of your show can be. Breaking Bad has gradually become a show more deeply immersed in its plot, these experimentations and permeations on what is usually done are more vital for the show now then ever, considering that we are fast approaching the endgame. And Bullet Points, while not as notably rebellious as say 'Fly' or 'Four Days Out', was a subtler spin on the status quo, but one that was every bit as interesting.

- Bullet Points seem to take on directly how an episode of Breaking Bad is structured. There's the teaser, and then the A plot, the B plot and the C plot and usually runners involving minor characters and they usual play out in tandem throughout the episode. This creates a sense of forward motion in a way that best suits this show, because the simultaneous escalation of events, however unrelated help to ratchet up the tension. This is nothing new. What Bullet Points did was plays things out in segments, and the 4 stories of the episode, Skylar and Walt convincing Hank and Marie over the gambling story, Walt discovering Hank is onto Gale, Walt trying to find a way to save Jesse from himself and Gus deciding what to do about Jesse's slide into nihilism, came one after another, making each feel like it's own contained story, as opposed to the accumulative narrative the show usually goes for.

- It's episodes like this that make you realize how incredibly important structure is to a show like this, and how different these moments feel when played at a slower pace. It's not like Bullet Points didn't do its share of heavy lifting in terms of the plot, but playing out without cutaways made each sequence feel more significant, and have a great sense of gravitas. The opening scene of Walt and Skylar discussing just how they were going to tell their story to their family was a fantastic piece of writing, that seemed to both seemed to let you know how awesome it was and yet felt entirely organic. Seemed to serve as a great acting setpiece for Anna Gunn, giving a performance so much better than everyone seems to think, and a great comedic setpiece for Cranston, who hasn't got to be this funny on Breaking Bad for a while.

- The moment where he looked sarcastically down at his feet at Skylar's instruction was particularly choice.

- The moment where Walter apologized to Skylar for all he'd put her through and then took it back under the pretense of rehearsal was COLD-BLOODED. But awesome.

- The Dinner sequence was a bit more sporadic. Dean Norris continues to do some incredible work, but a couple of things felt a little too on the nose here. The video of Gale singing Karaoke was probably much funnier in conception or possibly in a different cut, but Walt's somber reaction didn't allow me to laugh at it because, as ridiculous as it was, this was a good-hearted man who Walt had by proxy killed, and that made it get stuck in a sort of awkward place between funny and tragic.

- Similarly the scene in which Hank and Walt go over Gale's notebook, was a little hit and miss. The tension it tried to play out of the moment didn't really work, in spite of its cleverness and the moving way Hank mourned the fact that he never got to put the cuffs on Heisenberg. I liked the Walt Whitman resolution to the W.W Problem (Call-Backs are the best aren't they) its just when the music went up and we were supposed to feel that Walt was in the shit, well I never quite bough that. Great scene otherwise though.

- As is the tendency these days, things began to kick up a gear once the episode became about Jesse, who after being absent for the episodes first half, became its lead in the second. It's pointless to say because every time you do, the subsequent week just makes you redundant, but Aaron Paul did some of his best work in the series to date in this episode. Just the sense of brokenness, the way he showed that Jesse has reached a point where he no longer gives a crap about anything. Emmy all over.

- The scene in which Walt forced him to reenact his murder of Gale step by step, was both a perfect example of how little Walt gives a shit about Jesse's actual soul or feelings, and a moment of incredible intensity from Paul.

- Matched by the way he called Mike's bluff on murdering the hobo who jacked him was awesome, both because it was a moment where Jesse got to be smarter than Mike, and also because it showed how fearless he is at this point. As Mike drives him off to some unknown destination at the end of the episode, you believe that he doesn't care, and we probably comes to the end of the Jesse falls apart narrative.

It's been fun, and some seriously great stuff from Paul, the second episode of this year is amongst my favorites of the whole run and this year it's hard to say that the show's lead isn;t Aaron Paul .

- A small moment of Gus, who hasn't appeared since his tour-de-force in the premiere. His absence has been used well. This a paranoid ass season.

- I believe Walt Jr had two scenes in this one instead of the usual one. Hit the big time.

- Almost forgot to mention, but that was a mind-melting teaser. A terrific reverse-expectation action scene, ending with a moment of gore to shoot for the cheap seats. Mike's annoyance at getting part of his ear shot off is the funniest thing that's ever happened in this show genius.

- An intriguing experiment in episodic structure, and perhaps something that non-writer nerd might find distracting as opposed to rewarding, but this kind of stuff is right in my wheelhouse, an experiment that added to the development of the big picture as opposed to detract from it, with an increased focus on character and less on pace. Nifty

Rating: 8/10