Catch-Up Review Session Part 3: Final Chapter

One final burst of mini reviews to get us to our awards season home. Doing This.

MONEYBALL

The set-up: Like The Social Network? well replace coding with Baseball stats and you've got the same movie.

The reality: Yeah not quite, TSN was more of a character study than a film about a coding, whereas this film is legitimately about baseball stats. For real.

MVP: Brad Pitt. The charismatic, dependable centre a film like this needs.

Ideal Viewer: Someone who puts at least 10 hours a week into his fantasy football team, and makes o apologies.

Summation: I'm the right kind of guy for a movie about sports stats. That shit intrigues me, I'm not sure why and it probably speaks to some deep failing in my growth as a person. But I was the guy who cared just how many goals and assists Andrei Kanchelskis got in a season,. So even with it transferred to Baseball, it hits my sweet spot. But even if you're not a freak like me, the central performances of Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill are compelling enough and the dialogue Sorkiny enough for you to to at least enjoy the veneer of class the film plays out with.

Rating: 6/10

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN

The Set-up: You know how you're nobody and fucking a super famous hot bitch would be awesome. Well this guy actually did it, so go fuck yourself and your life.

The Reality: This film should be called 'I saw Marilyn Monroe's boobs and you didn't'.

MVP: Michelle Williams. An impression in lieu of a performance, but it's a remarkably adept and skillful one. An Oscar nomination to come shortly.

Ideal Viewer: Someone who watches and Immensely enjoys Downton Abbey.

Summation: My disdain for the formula of biopics should be well known around these parts, and I think My Week With Marilyn sort of typifies what can be wrong with the genre. There's a laziness inherent within too many biopics, where they seem to think that the work is already half-done, and that the gravitas that their subject matter brings to the table means they can slack off on actually being a good film, and My Week With  Marilyn is that in spades. A terrific performance by Williams maybe isn't enough to save this from deathly genericism.

Rating: 5/10

50/50

The Set-Up: What if an Apatowian man-child got cancer, and everyone forgot that Funny People existed, wouldn't that be a cool, new concept?

The Reality: A film that's deceptively heartfelt and powerful, and at its best when it's being sincere.

MVP: Joseph Gordon Levitt. I think a standout performance for JGL, and you sort of feel it's one of the performances that elevates the whole film with it's goodness.

Ideal Viewer: An ex-stoner who now works as a salesman.

Summation: I don't think 50/50 is a perfect movie, and in fact I think there's sort of a lot that doesn't work about it, mostly involving the presence of Seth Rogen and other formulaic Apatowian crutches, But the simplicity and effectiveness of the central conceit is sort of a breath of fresh air, and JGL's performance is good and he and to a lesser extent Anna Kendrick make the film go beyond something merely worth watching into something I'd actively recommend.

Rating: 7/10

TAKE SHELTER

The Set-Up: Hey you, you miss movies based on Stephen King books? Well this isn't one of those, but it's as close as your sorry as is gonna get.

The Reality: Supernatural shit happens to everyday schlub par excellence.

MVP: Michael Shannon. In the midst of one of those Kevin Spacey alike, character actor becomes movie star transitions. Fucking terrific in this movie.

Ideal Viewer: Someone who thinks that The Stand is one of the best books written in the 20th century.

Summation: This a pretty text-book example of how effective smart lo-fi film-making can be. A compelling character study, driven by the excellent central performance by Shannon. Those who think making movies about the supernatural are inherently trashy would do well to see this, and take in how fucking classy and smart this is. Why can't there be films like this all the time. No, you get New Year's Eve all the time.

Rating: 7/10

THE BIG YEAR

The Set-up: Movie about Birdwatching guys. Make your cocaine plans accordingly.

The Reality: So there's this race to see who can spot the most birds in a single given year. Gangsta shit.

MVP: Owen Wilson. I really liked what was done here, both with his performance and with the character.

Ideal Viewer: A person who likes sports movies of any kind. Quite literally.

Summation: Cards on the table, I related to this movie more than probably was advisory. No, I've never been Bird-Watching, but the sense of completism, the competitive drive and commitment to just one ideal, well as someone who sees over 400 new movies a year and writes about every single one of them. There was a parallel here. The movie itself is sort of by the numbers feel good quirk, but it's got a strong cast and Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black each bring something effective to the table. Nothing wrong with a harmless, sweet movie once in a while.

Rating: 6/10

THE THING

The Set-up: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/

The Reality: Look guys, we like money. Back off our ass.

MVP: Joel Edgerton. But it's a small victory.

Ideal Viewer: Someone who really doesn't give a shit about movies, and just wants to see some bros get absorbed by monsters.

Summation: I'm not one of those people who is pre-disposed to hate the very idea of remakes before seeing them. I went in with an open mind, but it's kind of a duffer script that really isn't very well thought through, and the movie fails to create a real sense of jeopardy. But even with that on board, I think this film goes along way towards being redeemed with a strong central performance, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is such an ineffectual presence that it sucks the tension right out of the room. The scene where she is re-creating that tour-de-force scene in the original with the blood-testing is almost laughable in how little charisma she has. Control the room Mary, for fuck's sake. I think Ms Winstead's functional blandness is as responsible for this film's lack of identity as the script. The female Sam Worthington.

Rating: 4/10

HUGO

The Set-Up: Martin Scorcese? A kids film? Shiiiiiit.

The Reality: The story of a orphan boy who forms a bond with an automaton and a mysterious elderly man.

MVP: Ben Kingsley. Dude phones in performances fairly frequently these days but this was a good one.

Ideal Viewer: A 70 year old film enthusiast/film critic.

Summation: Look I liked this movie. It was fantastically shot and put together and is certainly high in the running for one of the most beautiful films of 2011, and I liked that it seemed sweet and earnest in it's 'Oliver meets the history of movies' hybrid. But the script is sort of a rambling mess, and not everything coheres all that well. Having said that, there's enough moments here that are legitimately magical enough that one is willing to forgive the roughness around the edges and just take in a soulful film for kids. And weren't Chloe Moretz attempts at an English accent just adorable?

Rating: 7/10

REVIEW: Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1

There's a scene in True Blood where Vampire Pam says " Fuck Sookie. Fuck her and her magic fairy vagina". Until I get an equivalent in the Twilight universe, there'll be no doing.

I was going to bring out the bells and whistles on this one. I spent much of the six months leading up to the release of the latest Twilight movie assessing the various different ways and gimmicks with which I could be a cunt to this movie. There were plans and there were schemes. But when it comes to do it, when I'm sat in front of my laptop at whatever-the-fuck in the morning preparing to actually write this bitch. I have no vitriol to spew. No energy left to hate the way it certainly should be hated. Y'all have plenty of places to find that. This is incompetent story-telling on almost every level, the writing is deftly cowardly and deafeningly stupid, a story about sex that's terrified to speak it's name and there's a scene where someone admits to someone else they love that they killed people, and is met with an answer that can be distilled to 'Yeah whatever, how's my hair?. Ergh.

The frustrating thing about Twilight is that there's probably a great, fucked up movie about twisted lust and love here beneath all this Christian repression, and every time the movies edge closer to it, or even to something else interesting, say the Jasper Flashback in Eclipse or the terrific Victoria chase sequence in New Moon, it retreats, running back to what it's 'supposed' to be. I think the treatment of Jacob sort of quantifies what's wrong with this series. For the character to work, to exist as anything more than the shit on Bella's heel, he needs to be allowed to tell her to go fuck herself, he needs to be empowered in some way shape or form within their dynamic. I think it would have made much more sense to make Jacob the villain in this finale to the series, to react to her rejection with something other than subservient grace, if only to make everything that came before worth something more than simple stalling.

But that's the scratch. The series one and only concern is giving Bella everything she wants and more, and anyone who disagrees or gets in the way is a bad person. So says Stephanie Meyer. The thing is, at its best interpretation, Bella's behavior is that of a remarkably self-absorbed person, ignorant to the feelings of others and viewing everyone in terms of how they can make her happy and fuck everything else. At it's best interpretation. And if it makes me a bad man feminist or whatever I can take it, but I've never known a supposedly sympathetic character be so utterly reprehensible in her behavior. It borders on the sociopathic. But thankfully Bella is deity Meyer's chosen daughter, so there is no consequence to her cuntishness and poor Jacob, well he has to thank his stars to be rejected by such an amazing person. Edward meanwhile, continues to be a whole lot of nothing. The male version of the girlfriend role that exists to oppose but ultimately be repeatedly pushed over by their significant other.

Ultimately though, I wouldn't care about the marginalization of 2/3 of the leads if Bella herself was a compelling character, but she's achingly boring until the universe is willing to acknowledge what a terrible person she is, and since that will never happen, Twilight becomes Eat Pray Love with vampires. The whole thing works only under the assumption that you think that the protagonist is awesome beyond reproach, and thus when they use the world and other people as their own personal pic N' mix stall, taking what they want and throwing away what they don't. We're supposed to be behind them. But if you're going to ask that of me, you better be fucking entertaining. Yet alas, Twilight continues to be a handful of fuck all, and boring as is humanly possible. See you at part 2.

Rating: 3/10

REVIEW: Justice

Dear IRS,

You don't know me, and nor should you. My taxes are someone else's problem. I would just like to make a plea for you guys to split the money Nicolas Cage owes you between say, 100,000 poverty stricken individuals in America's poorest cities and just call it even. Because this once great actor, this man who could legitimately claim to be one of the best screen actors of the 90's and early 00's, has out of his debt to you become a joke, and many people's number one shout when asked who the worst actor alive is. To me, this is an unacceptable state of affairs, and I'm sure the good peoples of the underclass would be happy to take on his burden, if it meant that Cage didn't have to keep making 5 to 7 shitty films a year to keep from sharing a cell with Wesley Snipes. An actor's good name is surely more important then such trivial things such as wealth and taxes, which come and go, whilst The Wicker Man will last forever.

If not for him, then for me. I'm a person who has to keep saying that Nicolas Cage has given more than one of the best performances I have ever seen in my life, and I keep getting laughed at. Have you seen Leaving Las Vegas I'll say, have you seen Adaptation I'll say. Not the bees, they'll say. Because of your insistence, Marlon Brando is being turned into Chuck Norris, Gerard Depardieu into Rob Schneider. If life is temporary and the forms of this world die,what could be more important then art. It is our one escape from the specter of death, the IV Drip of time. A place where the extra-ordinary can be common place and the miraculous attainable. The potential for Cage to do great things is stratospheric. Even with all the Knowing's and Justice's, I know that if he didn't have to take the highest paycheck at every turn he could turn in one of the greatest performances in the history of cinema tomorrow. IRS, can't you find it in your hearts to just let the odd unpaid Castle residency tax slide. I mean who really cares about one stray castle in the grander scheme of things right?

I know it's your job and your just holding up your end of the social contract, but I want you to watch this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xP1-oquwoL8

and honestly tell me this man shouldn't be above the law, and able to do what he wants when he wants. Some human beings just emit too much awesome to be judged by our standards and to follow our rules, and Cage is one of these people. He'll pay us back in performances and in crazy. That's a better deal then the people would get out of the banks. So please, lets come together to rise above the small stuff and release Nic Cage from his shackles of not wanting people shouting 'PISSED BLOOD' at him through his cell walls and allow him to be the incredible entertainer that the world will be eternally grateful for. After all, What's a little money when you can say FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKK.

Rating: 5/10

REVIEW: Wuthering Heights

Is Wuthering a name, a place, or a metaphor. Either way, spell check is telling it to go bite.

Before seeing this film, I had a conversation with a film loving friend about the nature of classical adaptations. He said that they were his favorite kind of film, and I told him I didn't understand how his brain worked and to promptly get the fuck out before I called the 5.0. To me viewing these films as the highest mark of your cinematic calendar is to take a frighteningly pessimistic view of what fiction can do, let alone cinema. It works on the fundamental belief that the best literature has already been written, the best stories being already told. And the most exciting thing to look forward to is the re-branding and re-imagining of these stories? Then really, what is anyone doing here.

Maybe I have a bias against these things, I don't know. Or maybe the 17th adaptation of Wuthering Heights has nothing more to say than the 16th, and what we're dealing with here is essentially properties people recognize. Like Superman or The Smurfs, Wuthering Heights rings a bell in our minds that means they don't have to convince us to try something new. None of this refers to this films, or any film like it's quality. It's not that they're bad movies, it's that they're the same movies. And Wuthering Heights, if it wants it, has a path to critical acclaim that completely passes ambition or risk and that bores me. Here, I actually think Andrea Arnold, who made the excellent Fish Tank, is playing with a lot of pretty bold stylistic choices, from going all Public Enemies in shooting a period film in digital, to making Heathcliff Black, something that Arnold does with out drawing too much attention to it (Although certainly some) and manages to amp up the sexually repressed despair nicely enough.

The performances are hit and miss, James Howson's Heathcliff works a treat, but while Effy from Skins as Cathy may have been a nice idea in theory, it doesn't really pan out and I think Kaya Scodelario impacts the quality of the film more than a bit. I didn't hate this, and it's probably about as a bold an adaptation of a classic work I've seen in quite some time. I just hope Arnold got this out of her system and goes back to making original films after this, even if they are harder to sell.

Rating: 6/10

REVIEW: The Rum Diary

What is seen can not be unseen.

I'm not quite sure how The Rum Diary ended up as tame as it did. It's formed from the brain of Hunter S. Thompson, one of the most unique voices of the 20th century, directed by Bruce Robinson, he behind the most cult of cult films, Withnail and I, and it stars Johnny Depp, never more alive then when in Thompson's material. Yet what we got in the end was an intermittently amusing, dully shot and all too undistinctive film that just isn't all what it should have been. To be clear Rum Diary is still a good movie, and contains a couple of great supporting performances. But the next Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas it's not.

Having said that, it hardly seems fair to compare such is that films excellence, and taken on it's own terms a lot works within The Rum Diary. Naturally there's some great dialogue, and the film never works better then it simply parrots the prose of Thompson, and there's at least one performance that will go down as one of my favorite comedic performances of the year, from our boy Giovanni Ribisi. Ribisi, who has been on the fringes of being the number one 'That guy' for a long time now, the face everyone recognizes but no-one can identify. He sort of gets his moment here, playing the Swedish Nazi reporter Moburg, who when not listening to Hitler's speeches on vinyl, is wasted out of his mind. Actors like Michael Rispoli and Richard Jenkins lend dependable support, but Frankly what doesn't really work here is the leads.

Depp just doesn't show up in the way you hoped he would, giving that same unenthused performance we seem to be seeing on a much more regular basis these days. I think he's great actor, but perhaps too many easy roles with Tim Burton has pacified the mad run he was on in the early 00's. Similarly, Aaron Eckhart's antagonist doesn't really cut any ice either, not really getting beyond a corporate douche stereotype. I don't think Robinson does enough with his Puerto Rican scenery either, and the film falls flat many more times then it should. Still, even if you're only a passive fan of Thompson's, there's enough of his talent on display to make this worthwhile.

Rating: 6/10

REVIEW: Arthur Christmas

Semper fi, motherfucker.

Right, a little edifier to start. This movie will be over-rated, probably drastically so. Animated movies often have to do less to be called a landmark, and this movie's combination of mostly genuine sentiment, wonder and the fact that it's not a soulless Shrek-alike pop-culture clone will encourage people to be overly kind and get caught up in its sweep. This isn't really anything special, but it certainly is refreshing, thanks to a healthy dose of cleverness, dry humour and earnestness. It's not a perfect mix, and sometimes these qualities get in each other's way, but it's a good time.

Now a revisionist take on Christmas is pretty common ground for kids movies, and the obvious reference point here is Nightmare Before Christmas, even with all of that films dark and gothic sensibilities far removed, both are interested in the practicalities of putting Christmas together, and in answering some of the burning questions regarding the feasibility of the whole Santa Claus mythology, and doing so to amusing effect. in fact the most enjoyable sequence be far sees the military operation it essentially takes to deliver all the millions of presents that need to be delivered. Best in show here is certainly Ashley Jensen's hyper-competent Gift-wrapping Elf, who doesn't really need to be in the movie at all. I'd say that the most problematic aspect of the film is Arthur Christmas himself, a doe-eyed Christmas fanatic who's perhaps too simplistic to be an engaging lead.

Reliable folks like Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Hugh Laurie and James McAvoy turn up and do good voice work and the film is mostly a joy to look at, and while not quite as good as I hoped it would be, is a serviceable sugar-rush of a kids movie that will give your kids an undemanding good time and also not completely rot their brain and turn them into dead-eyed children of the corn in the way, say the way Alvin and The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked would. The script is sort of a mess, but it's a good time.

Rating: 6/10

REVIEW: The Awakening

The Fuck did I do?

People always think I'm joking when I say horror is my favorite genre, I think because of the lower than normal tolerance for enjoying 'bad' movies. It's not necessarily that I'm the guy who only likes the very best and tells everything else to go fuck itself, I've enjoyed some OK movies very much on their own terms, I think it's more that I don't enjoy 'badness' in and of itself, and I think that's mostly how the world views the horror genre, perhaps fairly given how 90% of its output is abysmal, but having said that the most electrifying movie experiences I've ever had tend to be watching a horror film where everything works, they're rare but when they come along there's nothing else like them.

Somewhat anti-climatically, The Awakening isn't that. But it is an enjoyable, mostly well-executed example of a solid Ghost story that has all the right pieces in their place. It won't blow your mind or anything, but it will take you on an effectively creepy ride without feeling too derisive or enslaved to cheap scares and shocks. It helps that it's built on a solid foundation of two great performances from Dominic West, but primarily Rebecca Hall, who is maybe one great role away from being the next Kate Winslet. Every performance she gives seems to improve on the last, and she played her early 20th century Dana Scully role well here, taking a potentially infuriating character and giving her enough dimension to not solely function as the plot-driven centre piece of the film. West too, who has a far from 100% strike rate at the movies of late, impressed me too.

I suppose my problems then mostly aim toward the script, which while impressive in it's attempts to form some genuine three dimensional characters, also fell into that twist upon twist upon twist thing modern horror films are wont to do, not to mention it pretty much gave in to the nonsensical in the final act and relying on previously unmentioned amnesia is always the sign of bad writing. But I enjoyed the first hour and the performances enough that I think I can forgive a mostly botched ending. The goal here is to scare people, not surprise them and if you sacrifice atmosphere and tone for the sake of a surprise then all you do is betray your own movie, and it was sad to see that happen here.

In every review of every British film I ever write I always seem to say that whatever it's faults, it's pleasing to see something with some ambition, and while this is essentially our version of a reigned in studio horror film, it's the kind of mainstream thing we don't nearly enough of, so to here this kind of thing in my accent is gratifying and for all it's cliches, is contextually refreshing. Such is the state of things.

Rating: 6/10

Catch- Up Review Session Part 2

Abandon all hope ye who enter here etc...

ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: THE SECRET OF THE UNICORN

Tagline: Isn't 3D animation just grand and sparkly

Plot: Some artifact, some adventure, some ginger.

Best Thing About The Movie: Well, everything looked pretty crisp and colorfully realized. The occasional action scene is pretty the technically impressive.

Worst Thing About The Movie: I don't think Mo-cap technology is quite there yet, particularly with human characters, who persist in being creepy as fuck. They've taken poor old cartoon institution Tintin and made him look like the sickest fucking murderer you ever did see. Tintin and the adventures of the dismembered corpse.

Best In Show: Andy Serkis

In Summation: Tintin is truly a movie for no-one. Too violent and adult centre for young kids, to cotton candy clean for adults or even older teenagers. Stuck in a vacuum of perfectly polished, perfectly stylized visuals that just plays utterly lifeless, utterly synthetic universe. Everything in Tintin is just too planned, too by the book and everything just feels fake as a consequence. I kept feeling like I was supposed to be having a better time then I was. Plus the script is kind of stupid, so there. Rating: 4/10

THE HELP

Tagline: White people, rewritin' history daily.

Plot: Black women empower themselves, courtesy of a fearless white woman who cares not what society expects of her. This is of course exactly who you would have been in the situation, right fellow white people?

Best Thing About The Movie: I appreciate it's intention and I do think this film is a fairly sincere attempt to decry past crimes. A couple of interesting characterizations and terrific performances

Worst Thing About The Movie: Isn't everyone going to see themselves as Emma Stone and not as everyone else. Movie accidentally allows each and every white person to be absolved of their sins.

Best In Show: Viola Davis

In Summation: Look I didn't hate this movie. It's well meaning and the performances are mostly terrific, in particular Viola Davis, whose Oscar nomination and possible win is deserved and inevitable. But it's not a helpful discussion of racism. It's too simplistic, not exploring the issue with any kind of complexity or honesty. And instead serving to be a cleansing where all white people can be on the side of the righteous in regards to their own crime because isn't that Bryce Dallas Howard a bitch. Still, not necessarily a bad movie. Rating: 6/10

ANONYMOUS

Tagline: Genius from the middle class? Clearly a conspiracy.

Plot: Gosh, this whole Shakespeare being a povo sure does render my Oxford degree meaningless doesn't it?

Best Thing About The Movie: OK, this being Roland Emmerich there are some sumptuous visuals, and the film does make for the occasional solid twist.

Worst Thing About The Movie: Everyone's acting. You can stop exploding stuff Roland, but you still can't really direct actors for shit. A lot of stiff performances from talented people on display here.

Best In Show: Rafe Spall

In Summation: Offensive in it's very conception. If one can stomach the outrage, it's not necessarily terrible, and I liked a couple of the twists nearer the end. Also Rafe Spall's performance as the laughably demonized Shakespeare ends up being the least dour part of the movie. Ultimately it felt like a fiction film made by someone who always is talking down to what makes fiction important. Shakespeare isn't a genius for his political allegories or his referencing, but for the majesty of his imagination. Something that class and privilege can't give you. Rating 5/10

IDES OF MARCH

Tagline: Clooney. Gosling. Eye candy for women of all ages.

Plot: Something about a what now?

Best Thing About The Movie: A lot of big name actors earning their paycheques in this movie. Great performances pretty much across the board.

Worst Thing About Movie: This is what's wrong with political movies. They always end up so utterly toothless and afraid of saying anything that they become Ides Of March. Which I guess is a thriller. And depressingly fucking boring.

Best in Show: Philip Seymour Hoffman.

In Summation: Incredibly frustrating. I want nothing more than for there to be political movies. Talking about and examining issues in fiction is something an entire generation has been deprived of, but this isn't it. It's gloomy and unimpressive, and despite great work from a mostly great cast. I liked Hoffman and Giamatti in particular, it's just an empty, pointless movie. Politics corrupts? STOP SPEAKING IN PLATITUDES ASSHOLES AND ACTUALLY SAY SOMETHING. Rating: 5/10

IN TIME:

Tagline: Amanda Seyfried is now my title picture. Because that happened.

Plot: Imagine a future where the currency was not money, but time. Sounds awesome right?

Best Thing About The Movie: The concept.

Worst Thing About The Movie: The execution.

Best In Show: Cillian Murphy

In Summation: I think conceptually speaking, Andrew Niccol is perhaps the most incisive, impressive and occasionally prophetic science fiction film-maker of our times. He;s just not really a very good writer. Or at least one that hits and misses. Gattaca did this kind of thing right, but In Time is too much of a pseudo-blockbuster to really do what it wants to do. Some of the ideas still impress and intrigue, but mostly this is a pretty horrible misfire for Niccol, even if it is his most successful movie date. Rating: 4/10

MACHINE GUN PREACHER

Tagline: Guns, God and Righteousness etc..

Plot: Gerard Butler kills black people. Reductive, but technically true.

Best Thing About The Movie: Some earnest shit, but it didn't feel false necessarily. Good performances.

Worst Thing About The Movie: I think there's a serious case to be made that the recent Rambo reboot is a subtler reboot than this. Fans of nuance will not be pleased.

Best In Show: Gerard Butler

In Summation: I liked Butler in this movie. I think there's a charisma and power about Butler that is pretty consistent, almost as consistent as the terrible movies he chooses to star in. Maybe an interesting character part supporting role, or a villain would be a good move. The movie around him? Well it's a well-meaning movie, but if the Oscar Movie was a genre, which I'm increasingly inclined to think it has, this would be the B movie version of it. Righteous outrage all present and correct. Eloquent way of expressing it? Not so much. 5/10

TOWER HEIST

Tagline: Brett Ratner, voice of the American Suppressed.

Plot: So some guy who's not but really is Bernie Madoff steals everyone's money, REGULAR GUYS, decide to steal it back.

Best Thing About The Movie: It's a good cast, with the likes of Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick and Michael Pena backing up big guns Stiller and Murphy, is enjoyable in places.

Worst Thing About The Movie: It's sort of a lazy script, as you'd expect with Ratner. The heist itself is lame, and there's not nearly enough Eddie Murphy.

Best In Show: Eddie Murphy

In Summation: Oh Ratner. How you confound me so. The thing about Ratner is, no-one can really call him bad, as every film he makes seems to hit the 5/6 out of ten range, but what's so odious is something tells me that this isn't an accident because he's motivated by what sells not what works, so as a storyteller he's just feeding the audience what he thinks they want, trying not to be daring or forceful as to alienate anybody. And it just means all of his films become anonymous, disposable pieces of mediocrity. Tower Heist was working with something here, entertainment sure, but formed out of righteous indignation. But Ratner who prizes the material as an artist and as a man above all things, is just the wrong man for the job, and consequently it all comes out in a muddle. Rating: 5/10

STRAW DOGS

Tagline: The most iconic Rape movie in the history of cinema...IS BACK.

Plot: Yada Yada Farmhouse, yada yada Eric from True Blood.

Best Thing About The Movie: A functional, mostly efficient thriller, A couple of tense sequences.

Worst Thing About The Movie: Doesn't really get/feel Comfortable with the intellectual material, so the movie is all over the shop as far as what it's saying, and ends up trying to say that a woman would be more disappointed if her rapist was killed by her husband, then vice versa. Maybe think this shit through.

In Summation: Straw Dogs is caught between a rock and a hard place really. It's remaking a film that's such an unabashed expression of the male ID, but doing it for commerce. So it wants to reflect the 'Brand Name' so to speak, which essentially all comes together to mean it's uncomfortable with it's own existence. I liked a couple of the performances, James Marsden and Alexander Skarsgaard bounced of each other well. But you just feel that this is a film that no-one involved wants to be making. Rating: 5/10

IMMORTALS

Tagline: 300, except this time there are Gods. Ah yeah.

Plot: Mickey Rourke is coming to kill everyone, Theseus and Stephen Dorff apparently don't much appreciate this. Freida Pinto can see the future.

Best Thing About The Movie: If you have a really low investment rate in actual story, the visuals are on occasion spectacular, in that entirely synthetic CGI way.

Worst Thing About The Movie: Right so apparently there's thing called acting, where people pretend to be people in a believable way. This movie, this movie does not care about this principle. Accents range from American to English to Indian, and it's Tarsem Singh saying clear as day, 'I don't care about the human side of my movies' his fans wouldn't like it, but he and Zack Snyder are a pair made in heaven.

Best In Show: Stephen Dorff (I guess)

In Summation: This is a film where you keep thinking 'why is that in the movie', or 'why is he in the movie' or 'Why are their gods in this film when they don;t matter a jot to the story' It's just a terrible script across the board really, and I think the question is how highly you rate visuals in your movie going experience. If they're the reason you love movies, then you'll probably enjoy this in spite of eveything. If like me you're a writing and acting guy, this stuff was pretty intolerable. Rating: 4/10

TRESPASS

Tagline: Two Oscar winners slumming it for a paycheck

Plot: Guys want Money that's in the house, but Cage and Kidman don't want to give it to them

Best Thing About The Boy: Oh boy. Erm, I didn't see a reflection of the camera at any point during this movie.

Worst Thing About The Movie: A complete failure on almost every level, yet in a way that's somehow forgettable and unremarkable. One of those movies where it's like yep, I've wasted my life.

Best In Show: My liquefying brain.

In Summation: Nic Cage needs to pay the IRS, I get that but what's Kidman doing here? And of course they give the role of the wildcard psycho to Cam Gigandet, also known as the greatest actor alive. Legitimately one of the worst performances of the year. This movie is just, there are no words for it's inadequacy. Joel Schumacher's name was not a surprise. Rating: 2/10

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