I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOSTBUSTERS 3

Ghostbusters quotes


The other week Drew McWeeny over at Hit Fix asked the following question:

“Do you really want to see Ghostbusters 3?"

In the article that followed he tried to convince us that before we said an automatic geek fueled 'Hell yes!' we should take a moment, weigh up the real, actual Hollywood business model pros and cons before then coming to the eventual answer of 'No.' His argument was predicated on the idea that in order to make the film, to satisfy the many differing requirements (four quadrant movie making – selling toys, fast food/sponsorships, paying talent/back end deals) what we'd end up with would be some ghastly bastardization of a much loved classic. A pale and unfunny imitation. You know, kinda like R.I.P.D.

Drew is right. I don't wanna see that. At all. Who would?

But I like to keep a glimmer of hope alive in my heart. Just a small spark of light fighting the good fight against cynicism and low expectations.

Maybe, just maybe we could get a new Ghostbusters movie done right.

Of course 'done right' depends very much on your own personal take. Many would argue that you simply can't do another GB movie without the original line up, especially Bill Murray. Twenty years ago I would have shared that same view. But not now. Not after all this time has passed. Don't get me wrong. I adore Murray, Ramis, Aykroyd et al but the world they created is so darn good, has so much potential that it can and should live beyond them. And anyway, Murray has shown epic disinterest in the project for decades now meaning it just ain't gonna happen with him. End of. Plus the recent sad passing of Harold Ramis has now made the 'getting the old gang back together' approach a non-starter anyway. So it's a no then to that approach.

But I don't want a remake either. Or a reboot or whatever you wanna call it.

No, what I want is a continuation, only with new characters and a wider universe to explore. That's not to say the old crew can't also appear in some shape or form. Of course they can. And they should if they want to. Personally I love the franchise idea Drew posits in his article. One that builds off of the first two films. I mean, the guys float the idea themselves in the original movie saying that the franchise rights alone could make them rich. So lets see it. Lets see other teams of Ghostbusters around the US, around the world. Some good, some bad, some screw ups, some amazing. Mix it up. Expand the universe. Go play. Go crazy. Franchise doesn't have to be a dirty word. Not here. When done right it can be the best thing ever. When done wrong it can be Transformers.

Opening the Ghostbusters concept up to go international and inter-dimensional is the way to go I say. I've always thought the concept was so awesome and so potentially huge that it could live well beyond the original movie if handled right. I mean, you could create a truly weird and funny Marvel-ous kinda universe full of monsters, ghosts, inter-dimensional worlds and beings and different groups of Earth-based Ghostbusters who work on their own or team up for various crazy missions. And with the right actors, writers, directors it could be really fun, funny and spectacular.

Okay, glimmer of hope starting to fade. Cynical hat coming back on.

Sadly I fully expect that when a new Ghostbusters does get made - and rest assured folks, we WILL get one at some point - it'll probably be a remake/reboot, a bland corporate ghost of its former self and a complete waste of potential. But we'll see. I'll still hope for the best and will keep everything crossed...except for the streams of course. Never cross the streams. Because crossing the streams is bad.

Important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

RIP Harold Ramis

Hungry for More of The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games...but not as you know it.

Okay, so The Hunger Games was very, very good indeed.

For those who don’t know, The Hunger Games is based on the first of a trilogy of highly successful young adult novels by Suzanne Collins and is set in a distant future where after a terrible war in North America a new nation called Panem now exists. Panem’s rich and decadent Capitol rules over 12 impoverished districts who every year are made to send one male and one female child to compete in an epic televised fight to the death: the titular Hunger Games. In the grim and grey District 12 sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take the place of her terrified little sister, joining Baker’s son Peeta as the District’s two contestants in the year's upcoming games. We then follow gifted hunter Katniss as she negotiates the bewildering (to her) decadence of the Capitol while also training for the games, appearing on live TV chat shows, trying to entice sponsors, before finally getting dropped in to the midst of the brutal and barbaric games themselves.

The Hunger Games has been talked about as the next Twilight/Harry Potter - the next huge YA book-to-movie series. But to my mind this is as far removed from Harry Potter and what little I've seen of the shallow and shoddy Twilight as you can get. For a start, it is sci fi and not magical/fantasy/supernatural shenanigans. Plus it's unashamedly old fashioned in the way it has been made, being non flashy, steadily paced and made with an indie/1970's feel that emphasis strong storytelling, strong relatable characters, inventive editing and plenty of smarts and depth. It has ideas, themes, questions to ask, points to make. It wants its audience to think. In short, The Hunger Games is actually about something.

But The Hunger Games’ greatest weapon is its star.

As Katniss, the movie and book’s young heroine, Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic. Jennifer was fab in X-Men: First Class as young Raven and was stunning in Winter's Bone (for which she was deservedly Oscar nominated). In fact, a lot of her work in THG is very similar to that of Winter's Bone. The entire first act of THG could almost be Winter's Bone 2 – a rural, poverty stricken and grim setting; a tough but sensitive teenage girl saddled with a useless parent and who has to effectively bring up her younger sibling and provide for her family under miserably harsh conditions. Even the score is similar being all low key and folksy. But when Katniss and her co-competitor, Peeta, get to the Capitol, this all changes. Things become rather flashy, gaudy and overblown in order to contrast the under-the-heel poverty of the outlying Districts with the decadence and shallowness of the Capitol, a place so ghastly that for entertainment it makes twenty four kids fight to the death each and every year.

At 2hrs 20mins The Hunger Games is a lengthy film. The pacing is slow and steady. But what it is showing us, what it is doing is always utterly engrossing, taking its time to build the world, the characters and the relationships. It never drags. Plus Woody Harrelson is in it and is pretty darn great, as is Elisabeth Banks as the wonderfully shallow Effie Trinket. But this movie belongs wholly to Jennifer Lawrence. As Katniss she manages to be caring, brave and cleverly resourceful while always staying angry, vulnerable and just plain terrified by the situation she finds herself in. I wouldn't be surprised if she gets a second Oscar nod for her work here. In my humble opinion Lawrence is possibly the finest talent of her generation currently working in movies. She’s an actor where you can see so much going on behind her eyes, on her face, in her body language. She sells the character and the situation utterly. This makes her a compelling presence to watch. She has grit and a palpable inner strength, which was so very obvious in Winter’s Bone. I predict a long and illustrious career for this young lady. I just hope she keeps picking varied and interesting projects.

And now to the actual games themselves.

Set in a huge forest arena with cameras hidden in trees, genetically modified wasps and killer dogs, the games are about as shocking and brutal as you can get in a 12A film. I have to say I winced a few times. I mean, they have little kids - not just teens - who kill and get killed! The initial melee when all of the kids are first released in to the game area is stunning. Shot with virtually no sound it’s lots and lots of panicky shaky camera work and quick edits of kids killing other kids with rocks, knives, swords, bare hands. There was one brief shot of what is a little blond girl - maybe 10/11 – lying on her back on the ground with a bigger teen boy standing over her about to start bludgeoning her to death. Luckily the camera cuts away before the first blow hits, but it still made me cringe. It’s shocking, affecting but thankfully not gratuitous. And it carries on like that for the rest of the film with the kids slowly being whittled down until the last two remain.

There’s lots going on here, lots of comment about reality television, about how the media glamorises violence, about how we send teenagers to war to get maimed and killed often for no good reason. And about how kids regularly killing other kids – be it in gangs or in school massacres - has become a horribly regular real life phenomena. Of course there’s nothing original in any of this. Battle Royale did the adults making kids kill each other thing ten years ago (though in BR it is all older teens and is so bloody and over the top to be kinda silly). And Robocop and The Running Man amongst others have done reality TV going too far. But the concept and its related themes and the questions raised are always worth repeating if done well. And they are done very well here. As I’ve said before, to my mind the very best genre books/films/TV are really all about people, about who we are and how we relate to each other. And about the world we are currently living in as well as the future world we are busy making for ourselves. The Hunger Games fits squarely in to that camp.

Major kudos then to director Gary (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit) Ross and to screenwriters Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray for making a grown up, intelligent, provocative movie.

Go see it.

And may the odds be ever in your favour.

John Carter (Or How I Got My Ass to Mars and Didn't Want to Come Back!)

Dejah Thoris - my favourite Martian.

I bloody loved Disney’s John Carter.

See, I was already a fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ original Barsoom books, starting with the classic A Princess of Mars on which Disney’s movie is based, albeit also drawing heavily from various other story elements from later in the series. So I've been excited for this movie for a while now. But also pretty wary too. I mean, the casting didn't click for me. The decision to be more 'realistic' in look and feel didn't either. And the trailers when they appeared weren't exactly great. In fact, the whole marketing effort by Disney has been atrocious. And that's being kind. But I was still excited, but also worried.

A bit of my history with JC.

I'm a late comer to the whole Barsoom series as I first picked up these books just a few years ago after reading an article about how Harry Knowles of Ain’t it Cool fame was involved in trying to get a JC movie made. At that point I was only vaguely aware of the character and his story, being far more familiar with Burroughs’ much more famous creation Tarzan. But finding out that John Carter and his adventures formed the inspiration and basis for much of the pulp sci fi/fantasy adventure I love (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, Star Wars, modern superhero stories amongst many others) I felt compelled to get the books and to give them a go.

And I was immediately hooked.

I mean, what red blooded ‘young’ man wouldn’t want to go to Barsoom and befriend the awesome Tars Tarkas and fight hordes of white apes and evil doers while also rescuing, romancing and then marrying the most beautiful woman in the universe?

Wow! Count me in.

For those who don’t know, the basic story of John Carter over the course of his book series goes something like this:

It’s the late 1880’s and Captain John Carter is an ex-confederate civil war hero who’s busy prospecting for gold, just wanting to be left alone to get rich or die trying. However events lead him to an isolated cave where somehow he gets transported to Mars (or Barsoom as the natives call it) from Earth (Jarsoom to the Martians) where he finds he now has super strength due to changes in gravity etc. and soon gets himself reluctantly involved with Martian tribal wars while also meeting, saving and falling in love with the most beautiful princess in the universe,. Eventually, through the course of his adventures and many battles, Carter works his way up the Martian hierarchy to become a great planetary leader.

The books are quick and exciting reads. They are swiftly paced swashbuckling romantic pulp sci-fi fantasies filled with epic fights, daring do, hissable villains and nasty monsters. The conceit of the stories is that they were actually written by Edgar Rice Burroughs after he listened to the wild tales told to him as a lad by his beloved uncle Jack – the heroic John Carter himself. So the tales are told as if being true with Burroughs having created his own personal mythology in to which he inserted himself. One can imagine ERB telling his little children and grandchildren spellbinding bedtime stories about his amazing Uncle Jack and his epic adventures on Barsoom, swearing to the goggle eyed kiddies that it was all absolutely true.

Now, a century after Burroughs first gave the world his epic tales of Barsoom comes Disney’s mega budget adaptation of the first novel A Princess of Mars, titled simply (and awfully) John Carter.

Disney’s John Carter, under the assured, stylish, wonderfully old fashioned direction of Andrew (Wall-e) Stanton, does an almost perfect job of adapting the source material while also changing it enough to make it work on screen. Stanton has also wisely toned down/removed certain elements that either wouldn’t have worked on film or would come across as anachronistic hangovers from a different time, likely making modern audiences a tad uncomfortable (there is a certain degree of old fashioned attitudes towards race and behaviour in the books. It isn’t especially bad or unpleasant, just kind of odd, though perfectly acceptable for its time period.) But for all the changes made, the core of the novel’s story, of the characters, of the feel for gloriously old fashioned epic widescreen daring do and swashbuckling romantic adventure remains intact. This movie feels like Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood crossed with the look and grandeur of Lawrence of Arabia played out on a beautifully designed and realised alien world.

And what a world it is.

Barsoom aka Mars looks incredible! The city of Helium is lavish and exotic; the Tharks' city is rough and rugged just as I imagined it. The air ships are elegantly beautiful. The costumes (though in the books most people are naked save for light armour and decoration) detailed and highly designed. Indeed, like the best sci-fi or fantasy, the filmmakers had to build everything for the film hence the huge budget. Everything from tables, chairs, cutlery to costumes, armour, weapons, vehicles had to be designed and built from scratch. That’s your $250m budget right there; that and all the gorgeous FX. It's all up on the screen.

But what about the characters and the actors playing them?

Taylor Kitsch plays John Carter. I’d only ever seen Kitsch before in the woeful X-Men: Origins: Wolverine as Gambit. And he was pretty poor. His casting as JC I just didn’t get. Likewise I’d only seen Lynn Collins in the very same terrible film. She was ok. Pretty, yes, but just ok. Again, when she was cast as Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, the most beautiful, desirable woman in creation, I didn’t get it.

But having now seen them both in action, together, I get it.

Kitsch is very good. He’s still not out and out great in the classic Harrison Ford sense (few are), but he cuts an impressive dash as Carter, balancing the heaviness on the characters soul and his reluctance to involve himself in others affairs with his ingrained heroic nobility. You can see the battle going on inside of him. Of course, in the end you know that John will do the right thing. He’ll be the hero. But it is fun watching him fight the inevitable.

And what of Collins?

Flat out awesome is what!

With her long raven black hair, skin made a copper shade and her piercing blue eyes, big screen Dejah Thoris is drop dead stunning to look at. But Collins is also a damn fine actress who brings tough intense intelligence and nobility as well as a fearful fragility to Dejah. She’s smart beyond words. She can kick ass with the best of them. She can make you fall in love with a wounded look. Perfect.

And the supporting cast are pretty much all round great too.

Willem Dafoe is Tars Tarkas, the heroic tough-but-fair Thark leader who befriends Carter early on, seeing in him potential to be a great force upon Barsoom. Tars is a nine foot tall four armed green dude with tusks created via motion capture. Dafoe and all the mocap actors were actually on set, on stilts, giving the performance using tiny cameras on their faces ala Avatar. And it shows. The performances come through the pixels. And the pixels look realistic too, not the cartoony look given to so many cgi creations nowadays (ILM I’m looking at you). Other great actors in the movie are Samantha Morton as Tars’ daughter Sola, Dominic West, Thomas Hayden Church, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong and the always fun James Purefoy. And a special mention goes to the animators who created Woolla, Carter’s super fast, super loyal Martian ‘dog’. It’s a character that shouldn’t work being far too silly, far too cute. But work it does. Woolla is fab. He steals almost every scene he’s in.

The film is a testament to the skill of its director and the care taken in crafting the fun and intricately plotted script. There is always something important going on be it plot machinations or epic battles or internal/external character work. And most of it is told visually. No walking/talking down endless corridors or sat around tables discussing things here (take note George Lucas.) No sir. Stanton makes his live action directing debut with John Carter after making Wall-E and Finding Nemo for Pixar. Coming from Pixar he knows that story, character and tone are king. You need to make the story interesting, compelling. You need to make rounded characters with arcs that people can invest in and care about. You need to strike an appropriate tone for your tale. Here he manages all three with almost complete success. Most successfully I’d say is the striking of tone. John Carter has its dark edges - especially John dealing with the death of his wife and child and his initial apathy in helping others. But the dark edges never eclipse the overriding sense of fun and high adventure that carries the movie to its thrilling and emotionally satisfying climax. By the time the film’s full title comes on screen at the end to Michael Giacchino’s soaring score (wonderfully ‘John Carter of Mars’ and not just ‘John Carter’) if you have the tiniest escapist/romantic /adventure loving bone in your body, then, like Arnie, you’re gonna want to get your ass back to Mars double quick.

So as a fan count me happy.

John Carter is a wonderful piece of escapist adventure and probably the best film adaptation of the source material I could have hoped for. It is also the first movie in a long while that I can’t wait to go back to the cinema and see again sharpish.

Yes, I liked it that much. I was swept away.

Plus, y’know, Dejah Thoris! Mmmmm.....



Reported faithfully by the Stoopid Monkey of Jarsoom

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Um...okay. I won't.

WARNING! This trailer is waaay scarier than the actual movie.


Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is written and produced by the great Guillermo Del Toro and is a remake of on an old TV movie that apparently traumatised Del Toro as a child. But for some reason he didn’t want to direct his own script this time and so handed the reigns over to first timer Troy Nixey.

The story sees ten-year-old Sally (Bailee Madison) being sent by an uncaring mother to live with her dad (Guy Pearce) and his new girlfriend (Katie Holmes) in the old, rundown mansion that her dad is renovating in order to sell for a profit. Sally, feeling rejected by her mother and unwanted by her busy father, explores the old house, finding a hidden cellar and an old metal grate bolted shut. From behind the grate she hears whispered voices asking for help, promising to be her friend. Lonely and desperate for a connection, to feel wanted, Sally opens the grate, thus releasing a horde of nasty little gremlin-like creatures in to the house. Creatures we soon discover lied to her and want the little girl for their own horrible ends.

First, let’s get one thing straight. Despite the marketing, Don’t be Afraid of the Dark is not really a horror film.

Okay, it has some mild violence when the local handyman gets attacked by the nasty little critters, and a couple of so so ‘boo’ moments, but the overriding feel is of a mildly creepy fairy story. A Brothers Grimm tale. As in his film Pan’s Labyrinth, Del Toro uses the classic fairytale trope of a little child, feeling alone in the world, getting sucked in to another weird and creepy world full of fairies and monsters. There is even the set-up of a potentially wicked stepmother in the Katie Holmes girlfriend character. But Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark lacks the depth and artistic sensibilities of Del Toro's earlier classic, though it mirrors it in certain ways. Pan’s Labyrinth is an intelligent adult take on how young children can use their innocent imagination to conjure an escape from the harsh realities of life. It is a brutal, haunting, and beautiful film that packs a big emotional wallop. Here, things are reversed. The supernatural ‘horror’ is real and allows the child to finally form a meaningful relationship with a kindly parental figure rather than said child using an imagined supernatural fantasy to escape from adult brutality.

As director, Troy Nixey does solid enough work but can’t seem to create any real tension or a genuine sense of foreboding. He also fails to make the little monsters properly scary. We see way too much of them far too early. Also the tone of the film is kinda contradictory. On the one hand it wants to be a child friendly spookfest, like something Disney might have made live action back in the 1970’s. There’s no swearing, no nudity, and no sex. But on the other hand it does have some blood and some brief graphic violence (old dude getting stabbed by scissors and slashed by a Stanley knife). It wants to be a child friendly fairytale but also a graphic horror too. And as a result, fails to do either especially well.

Of the cast, only young Bailee Madison as Sally makes an impression. She does lonely and afraid very well and really sells the emotional fragility of a child who feels unwanted and pushed from pillar to post, who’s quietly desperate to make a connection with someone…or something. Guy Pearce as the dad is okay. He is pretty much the stock busy, distracted father who disbelieves anything fanciful coming from his ‘troubled’ young daughter. Katie Holmes is also ok as Kim. Actually, to be fair, I did quite like the often much maligned Holmes here. Kim and Sally seem quite similar. Artistic, unsure of themselves, with Kim alluding to her own troubled childhood. And despite Sally’s initial hostility, Kim feels a connection with the little girl. It is also interesting that Bailee Madison and Katie Holmes look very similar. They could be related. Check out Bailee’s photo on IMDB – a dead spit for a young Holmes. Oh, and just as a point of interest, the movie also features Aussie actor Alan Dale in a small role, sharing a couple of scenes with Guy Pearce. Twenty years ago Alan played Jim Robinson in Aussie soap Neighbours alongside Guy who played Jim’s son’s best friend. Small world.

Anyway, in the end, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is an okay little movie that works better as a kids fairytale than as an adult horror. It isn’t scary, the creatures are fairly well done but kinda silly, while overall tension is sadly lacking. But the film looks good, Bailee Madison gives a strong central performance as Sally, and the basic concept is classically appealing, especially to me being the sucker that I am for fairytales in all their guises. 3 (out of 5)

Gary Oldman Goes Spy Catching in 70's Britain

Trailer

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tomas (Let the Right One In) Alfredson directs this new adaptation of John le Carre’s famous 1970’s set spy thriller starring Gary Oldman as retired spy catcher George Smiley brought back in to British Intelligence to find a Soviet mole at the very top of the organisation.

I’ve never read le Carre's book and am only vaguely familiar with the old 1970’s BBC adaptation with Alec Guinness as Smiley, so I went to this mainly as a fan of Alfredson and Oldman. And because it has a top notch cast featuring the likes of Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Kathy Burke, Mark Strong and John Hurt.

And it didn’t disappoint.

This is a brilliant film with brilliant work by the cast and their director. Oldman deserves an Oscar nom. As Smiley he is quietly compelling and the model of restrained cunning and intelligence though hampered by an emotional weakness around his estranged wife and haunted by some of the things he’s done in his past. Mark Strong is equally as good as a field agent sent out on a mission that goes wrong and who has to then live with the personal consequences. As director, Alfredson paints a suitably drab atmosphere of 70’s Britain – crumbling old buildings, horrible wallpaper and tacky Wimpy Bars (an old British chain for fast food), all beautifully brought to life by spot on art direction and moody cinematography. And the themes he explores are very similar to those in Let the Right One in. Many of the characters here are loners, separate from life. They don’t join in. They watch from the outside. They are all essentially lonely and emotionally damaged people. Also, as with Let the Right One In, Alfredson isolates his characters, often using windows as a barrier. They are seen looking out of them a lot, looking at a world they don’t feel a part of. Then there is the pacing. It is glacial. There is no big action. Instead it is all about conversations, subtle mind games, red herrings and double crosses by oft middle-aged men in bad suits, usually in drab rooms. But it is all utterly absorbing and highly cinematic, showing us a whole new world, the kind we would never normally see; showing us the toll this world takes on these people. This is the true anti-James Bond or Bourne. Only the always good Tom Hardy as field officer Ricky Tarr comes close to a Bond-esque life, working out in Turkey to get secrets from a possible Soviet source, then seducing the guy's wife, thinking that she is the real source. There is no huge climax to the movie either, only Smiley finally working out who the mole is and springing his subtle trap, followed by the sad and grim aftermath.

Tomas Alfrdson's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is a beautifully written, acted and directed film with a refreshing adult tone and feel. It requires patience and a certain level of intelligence from its audience. As much as I love my fun/escapist movie entertainment, it is a welcome relief to go see something now and again that is unapolagetically adult and artistically demanding of its audience. 4.5 (5)

More X-ellent X-Men

X-Men: First Class trailer

Just finished watching X-Men: First Class for the second time. What a bloody great film, my fave of 2011 so far, with Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Super 8 not too far behind. Director Matthew Vaughn did a bang up job, giving XM:FC a super slick James Bond vibe and being helped no end by a smart, textured, yet economical screenplay from usual co-conspirator Jane Goldman. The movie also has a wonderful cast featuring James McAvoy as Xavier and a superstar-making turn from Michael Fassbender as Eric/Magneto. The entire cast is great but special praise goes to the gorgeous and highly talented Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique. Her relationship with Xavier and Xavier's friendship with Eric is at the heart of the film. Plus the action is all top notch. That Cuban missile crisis sequence at film’s end just rocks my world. Oh, and then there’s the sight of the delectable Rose Byrne in her undies as the icing on this mutant cake. Brilliant film and almost as good as the franchise's still high point of X2.

Also I just finished watching Marvel's last X-Men animated TV show - Wolverine and the X-Men. And that was pretty darn great too. Loved how they wove Phoenix and the Hellfire Club in to the story. Wolverine may have been just a bit too nice and cuddly in this version but his struggle to be a leader and to convince his doubting fellow ex-X-Men that he's the man for the job was pretty compelling. Nice how they kept the rivalry with Scott over Jean and Wolvie’s troubled big brother relationship with Rogue. Plus you get some really cool Sentinel bashing and some very nice little stand alone stories, many of which having elements that come back in to play in time for the big finale. Just a shame they never made a season 2 (funding issues apparently). I still prefer X-Men: Evolution over all but Wolverine and the X-Men came from the same team and carries on the same quality storytelling and character work they managed with Evolution.


Wolverine and the X-Men trailer

Make mine Marvel. :)

Stake Land: Horror With Bite

Okay, so this was quite the surprise.

It's the near future and the world has been ravaged by feral vampires. In North America humanity is reduced to pockets of small isolated communities struggling to survive against the blood hungry night walkers as well as against bands of roving religious extremists – basically racists, rapists and other assorted sickos using their own twisted take on religion to justify what they do. Amongst it all, a lone man rescues a boy from a vampire attack that kills his parents, trains him to fight, and takes him on a journey up north, heading for the promised New Eden (i.e. Canada). Along the way, the pair hook up with (and lose) various people, clash with nutters and vamps, and generally try to survive long enough to reach the fabled place of peace.

Before I started watching it I didn’t know what to expect of Stake Land. I hadn't seen the trailer. I just thought it would be some kind of pulpy action/horror flick, like Underworld or John Carpenter’s Vampires.

Not at all.

It turns out that Stake Land has far more in common with the likes of Frank Darabont’s The Mist and The Walking Dead, classic Romero, The Road, Winter’s Bone and the recent Monsters.

Like the best horror or genre films, Stake Land is all about people. It's a slow burn tale whose primary themes are of family, parenting, and the dangers of religious extremism, but also of faith and sacrifice. Though critical of religion, faith is still very much at the heart of this story with the whole journey north being one baased on pure faith. After all, the destination is called New Eden. But this feels more like a faith in people and humanity than in any supernatural force.

The film's direction by Jim Mickle is gritty and naturalistic. Great use is made of the rugged, desolate and worn-down locations (very Winter’s Bone) with the photography equally effective being drained of almost all colour and warmth. The tone of the piece is deadly serious, unrelentingly grim and uncomfortably chilly. Dialogue is sparse with long stretches of silence. The emphasis here is on mood and on theme.

The cast, all very good, includes an almost unrecognisable Kelly McGillis as an ageing nun, and cute Danielle Harris from the Halloween remake as a pregnant girl the man and boy hook up with.

Though this is an arty, serious genre film, there is still some quality vamp slaying action to be had. Much of the action comes often in short, sharp, violent bursts with my personal fave being the religious nutters using helicopters to drop live vamps in to the midst of a small community’s night-time party, thus causing utter bloody mayhem.

In short, if you like your horror films to be smart and more than just monsters and mayhem, then give Stake Land a go. It's not perfect and may be too dour and fun-free for many, but I was completely hooked. 4 (out of 5)

Movies: From Anime to Foos to Fairytales

SUMMER WARS


Summer Wars is a 2009 Japanese anime film directed by Mamoru Hosoda who previously made the critically acclaimed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.

Kenji is a school kid and math genius who is taken by fellow student Natsuki to stay at her huge family home miles from the city to celebrate her grandmother's 90th birthday. However, while there, Kenji is falsely implicated in the hacking of a virtual world called Oz by an artificial intelligence. Oz is the biggest single media environment on the planet, a place where billions of people have accounts and avatars, where governments and businesses have as much a presence as they do in the real world. As the AI gradually takes over Oz, causing world-wide chaos, Kenji joins forces with Natsuki’s extended and connected family to repair the damage done and to find a way to stop the artificial intelligence before it ruins the entire world, both virtual and real.

Summer Wars is an odd film. Being anime that’s kind of a given, I know. But I’ve never before seen a movie that is part smart and affecting family drama, part high school comedy/romance, part virtual reality cyber actioner, part global apocalypse, part conspiracy thriller. But Summer Wars melds all of these competing genres in to a sweet, smart, watchable and winning whole. The animation is great with the beautiful rural backdrops of the family home merging seamlessly with the weird and manga-ish styles of Oz. But what really makes this work is that amidst all the weirdness and cyber action, Summer Wars is at heart a story about family and how families band together in times of need. The story may be bonkers but the characters and their motivations are all down to earth and relatable. You can’t help but cheer Kenji on in his fight as well as feel a longing to be part of a family like the Jinnouchi family, one so big, yet so close and loyal, and governed over by the wise and strong as steel grandma.

Being a tad too long and probably a bit too odd for most western movie watchers, Summer Wars remains a smart, fun and sweetly human slice of Japanese sci fi. 4 (out of 5)



RED RIDING HOOD

Twilight director Catherine Hardwick delivers a good looking film with a good cast including Amanda Seyfried, Gary Oldman, Virginia Madsen, Billy Burke and Julie Christie. But ultimately the film fails because all it is is just another dull teenage love triangle thing with the only interesting plot thread being Amanda trying to figure out the identity of the werewolf terrorising her village. But even that mystery is, sadly, not very mysterious or interesting. Plus the film is not scary at all with the werewolf itself just a large and utterly unconvincing CGI blob.

Now, I love classic fairytales. And I love seeing them reinterpreted. Joss Whedon did some great stuff on Buffy. More recently Steven Moffat has done a great job turning Doctor Who in to a modern fairytale. Unfortunately this particular telling of Red Riding Hood is far more concerned with being a Twilight-esque teen love story than it is with exploring the themes and meanings behind classic fairytales. It just made me want to go watch Neil Jordan's brilliant The Company of Wolves again, a film based on the works of Angela Carter that explored the meanings behind this old story, making it weird, sexually enticing and nightmarishly beautiful.

In the end, Catherine Hardwick's Red Riding Hood is mildly diverting tosh, if only for pretty Amanda and the pretty set designs and photography. But ultimately it's a pointless, toothess, hollow, slice of teen pap that does nothing with its fairytale aspirations. A shame. 2.5 (out of 5)



FOO FIGHTERS: BACK AND FORTH

It’s easy to forget just what an awesome band the Foo's are, largely thanks to the ridiculously talented, charismatic, down to earth Dave Grohl. Before watching this I didn't know much about the actual band itself, other than it was Grohl who founded it post-Nirvana. I didn't know, for instance, that the first album was the same tape of songs Dave had written and then recorded all by himself before the band had even been formed. He just called the tape 'Foo Fighters' so people wouldn't know it was him. Then when the band was formed and it came time to release and album he just put out the very same tape. Job done. My fave moment in the doc was seeing Grohl on stage at Wembley in 2008 fighting back tears of amazement at how far they'd come as a band. Great stuff. 4 (out of 5)



UNKNOWN

Liam Neeson goes to Berlin with his wife, has an accident, recovers, but nobody then recognises him to be who he says he is. An impostor is now with his wife, who also swears she doesn’t know him. What’s going on? Cue lots of running around Berlin, car chases and general mystery and mayhem as Liam fights to discover the truth of his identity.

Unknown reminded me of quite a few movies I've seen before. I knew a twist was coming and having seen lots of films like this I managed to work it our pretty quickly, though some of the nuances of what else was going on thankfully remained a surprise. Neeson is great in the lead, and as his unwilling helper, Diane Kruger is pretty good too. As Neeson’s wife, January Jones is lovely and icy (you can see why she was cast as Emma Frost) and veteran actor Bruno Ganz does a great job as an old, world-weary ex-Stazi agent.

Slickly directed with that Euro thriller feel, Warner Bros. and Joel Silver have managed a good impression of a Luc Besson/Europacorp thriller. All in all this is well-made and reasonably compelling tosh. 3 (out of 5)



PRIEST

Post apocalyptic vampire slaying action with Paul Bettany as a rogue warrior priest who heads out of his huge Mega-City, in to the Cursed Earth to rescue his kidnapped niece from a pack of marauding vamps before going on to save his short sighted city from potential vampire destruction. Priest is essentially The Searchers meets Judge Dredd with vampires by way of a Paul (Resident Evil) Anderson film. This is low brow pulp sci fi/horror (nothing wrong with that) adapted from a graphic novel that I’ve never read. The set-up is fine and quite interesting if highly derivative. The FX are pretty good, and the cast, including Bettany, Karl Urban and Maggie Q, all do their bit. This is brainless harmless fun but like Paul Anderson films it tries too hard to be ‘stylish’ (i.e. lots of needless slo mo, editing farts, CGI) instead of being at least a tiny bit smart. Still, it’s miles better than Anderson’s last cinematic abortion Resident Evil: Afterlife and Priest’s director’s own previous effort, the tiresome angel vs. angel flick Legion. 3 (out of 5)

Jackboots on Whitehall: Plastic Nazis Just Aren't Funny

The trailer makes this look better than it is.

Okay, so I’d heard some good things about this British World War 2 puppet movie.

Sadly they were almost all lies.

Oh dear…

Jackboots on Whitehall is a low budget British 'satire' about the fight-back after a successful Nazi invasion of Great Britain in 1940. The movie is filmed in Panzervision (just one of many such ‘hilarious’ wordplays to follow) and features barely articulated dolls of the Action Man and Barbie style filmed on miniature sets. Bizarrely this film boasts a top-notch voice cast featuring Ewan McGregor, Alan Cumming, Dominic West, Timothy Spall, Tom Wilkinson, Rosamund Pike, Steven Merchant, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Richard Griffiths and Richard O’Brien amongst others. And how the hell did THAT happen?

The basic plot sees big-handed foundling farmboy Chris (McGregor) set off for London with a rag tag bunch of Kent yokels to save Winston Churchill (Spall) from a Nazi force which has just tunnelled its way up in to London. Saving the PM in the nick of time, Chris, his hoped-for girlfriend Daisy (Pike) along with brash and gung-ho American pilot Fisk (West), brave Rupee (Bhaskar) and his bunch of Indian soldiers (don’t ask) make a dash for Scotland for a last stand at Hadrian’s Wall. In this universe Scotland is a ghostly land of unknown terrors where people fear to go – even Nazis – and is home to a mythical and bloodthirsty army of warriors. Arriving in Scotland, the small band prepare a defence at Hadrian’s Wall, while Chris is sent off in to the misty wilderness to find the mythical Scots army to try and get their help in defeating the coming Nazis. Can Chris find and convince the bloodthirsty Scots to help in time to save Churchill and his rag tag army at Hadrian’s Wall? Will Chris find out the truth about his origins and why he has such big hands? Will he get to be with his true love Daisy over the opposition of her bigoted vicar father? Will I laugh more than twice when watching this silly, amateurish mess? That would be yes, yes, yes and no.

Look, I can cope with the crappy doll design and the cheap production values - it adds a certain ‘made in your bedroom’ charm to it all. Kinda like the old Adam and Joe show. The voice cast too is bizarrely impressive. But the two big problems here are: 1) the script is shit, and 2) the directors (Edward and Rory McHenry who are also the writers) clearly have no real idea what they are doing. The film feels like a mishmash of daft ideas that were put together as they were going along – like a couple of young kids just arsing around with their toys and a camera over many a weekend. Unlike the vastly superior Team America (an obvious inspiration) the satire here is not in anyway sharp, focussed or meaningful. So without any decent satire what we get left with is loads of silly wordplay and unfunny homages to/spoofs of movies like The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Zulu, Independence Day and Braveheart with pot shots at Mel Gibson about fifteen years out of date (there are much better ones to be had nowadays). Plus we get plenty of witless and deeply unfunny playground stereotypes (the Nazi’s arrive in London and the first thing they do is reorganise the London Underground to make it more efficient; King George protests to the Germans that he’s actually one of them; the Frenchman shags every woman in sight). There’s also loads of swearing and plenty of over the top violence on show, which, give ‘em their dues, are the two things that work best in the film. They constituted the only two moments I actually remember laughing while watching it. Sad but true.

Basically Jackboots on Whitehall is a poorly made and messy melding of the likes of Team America, Dad’s Army, Alo Alo, Carry On films, and those godawful Date Movie/Meet the Spartans type spoofs. Although, to be fair, it never ever gets as bad as those vile abortions as the sheer childish amateurish enthusiasm of the writers/directors does come through, providing a certain shoddy charm to it all. Oh, and it also has the sight of Hitler in a dress – Queen Elizabeth the First’s dress no less. Not funny, but odd enough to make a small mark on my brain. But the following two burning questions still remain to be answered: 1) how the hell did this ever get funding, and 2) how on earth did they ever get the voice cast that they got? Was there a major drought of acting work in Britain that week?
(1.5/out of 5)

Feel the Force (minus midichlorians)

Okay, so, I just finished watching The Empire Strikes Back on TV. I didn’t know it was on and just stumbled across it right as it was starting.

I hadn’t intended to watch a Star Wars movie today, but darn it, Irvin Kershner’s classic drew me in immediately. Those stunning FX, that incredible score, that smart, snappy script, that gorgeous Peter Suschitzky cinematography, and most of all those brilliant characters played to the hilt by the pitch perfect ensemble. Films don’t get much better than this. And when they do they tend to have Harrison Ford in them again, only brandishing a bullwhip instead of a blaster.

I haven’t watched The Empire Strikes Back for a few years now. Watching it again today it struck me just what a timeless, gripping, beautiful, character driven adventure it is from first to final frame. It is the best of the Star Wars saga. And if you disagree then you are just plain wrong. What Kershner and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan did was to make Empire a darker film and more adult in tone and theme, and to push the characters to the forefront. And all without sacrificing any of the escapist fun of the original. They also introduced a rather old fashioned sense of character interplay – especially with the Han/Leia relationship with 3P0 as the clueless gooseberry. It kinda feels like a zippy, witty 1940’s romantic comedy…only set in a galaxy far, far away. Wonderful stuff. And of course this relationship culminates in the famous “I love you”, “I know,” moment - one of the greatest and most perfect moments in cinema history. The entire cast is great but it is Harrison Ford who truly leaps off the screen at you. The guy is a charisma explosion. Han Solo rocks!

Now, one major gripe.

The version shown was the latest messed up special edition version. Along with the 1997 added shots of the Wampa chewing on bloody meat (nice but totally pointless) and some amended shots opening out Cloud City (lovely and adds more scope), Lucas also latterly added in Ian McDairmid as the Emperor and Temuera Morrison’s voice for Boba Fett. Okay, now both of these things I can live with as they make sense in the overall saga.

But now here’s the kicker.

What I can’t abide nor forgive is Lucas hacking away at the editing of the final escape from Cloud City. For some utterly incomprehensible reason George insisted on dropping in two long sequences of Vader getting on board his shuttle on Bespin, then a few seconds later, his shuttle landing on the Star Destroyer and him disembarking. This is utterly pointless. Vader already tells an officer earlier to prepare his shuttle. In the original movie we next see him walking on to the Star Destroyer’s bridge, which works perfectly. C’mon George, the audience aren’t idiots. You already told us what was happening. We can add one plus one and make two. You didn’t have to spoil the razor sharp editing/pacing of the final escape by dropping in two utterly redundant sequences of someone getting on and then off a ship. Ah, but I forgot, you love those shots, don’t you George? The prequels are littered with them. Ships landing and taking off, landing and taking off, landing and…oh, you get the picture.

IT’S SHIT, GEORGE. IT’S POINTLESS AND DRAMATICALLY DEAD MATERIAL THAT SERVES NO FUCKING PURPOSE!

Okay, rant over.

New rant.

Despite the lousy tinkering mentioned above, Empire shows up just how shite the prequels are.

I rewatched Revenge of the Sith for the first time in ages a couple of weeks back and was shocked at how shit it actually is. And it’s the best of the prequels. Now, I still do enjoy them as they are still Star Wars films and do have some great individual moments and some mighty cool action sequences, but artistically and dramatically they are almost entirely dead weight. They are flashy but hollow, lifeless cartoons based on what feel like first draft screenplays that needed a ton of work to whip them in to any kind of shape. Look, if you don’t believe me just rewatch Empire and witness how to make a sleek, smart, exciting, funny, touching, character driven sci fi fantasy adventure. Then watch The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith and laugh for all the wrong reasons and then have a good cry at the right royal butt fucking George gave his own classic myth. And if you still don’t believe me go watch the infamous Plinkett reviews where he dissects each prequel and forces you to understand just how cack they really are. Great looking cack for sure. But cack all the same. Give me Luke, Han and Leia any day over the characterless mannequins of Episodes 1,2 & 3.

http://www.redlettermedia.com/plinkett.html

Anyway, I dread to think what has now been done to the original films for their Bluray release, or what is being planned for their eventual 3D upgrade. Please, just stop screwing around with the original trilogy, George. They are pretty much perfect…or at least they were until you started ‘prequelising’ them. And please put the Bespin escape in Empire back to how it originally was. And if for some reason you do feel the need to further tinker with your Star Wars films, then go tinker away with the prequels. Better still, dump them entirely and get in some other talented writers and directors to remake them from scratch, the kind of people who still have a grasp of character, drama and theme, who know how to make smart, compelling, emotional sci fi space operas that leap off of the screen. Kinda like what Joss Whedon did with Firefly, or what Ron Moore did with BSG. Just an idea.

May the force be with you. (Minus midichlorians)

Hailee Shows True Grit

True Grit, written and directed by The Cohen Brothers from the novel by Charles Portis, tells the tale of fourteen year old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who sets out to track down and bring to justice the man who murdered her father in cold blood, one Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). After asking around, Mattie hires grizzled, drunkard US Marshall Rueben ‘Rooster’ Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track Chaney in to Indian territory, taking her along too. However a Texas Ranger called LeBoeuf (Matt Damon), who’s been on Chaney’s trail for earlier crimes in Texas, rides along with them to try and collect his own reward for bringing Chaney in.

And that’s pretty much all there is to the story.

True Grit is a straightforward manhunt through the wilds of Indian country while Mattie and Cogburn and LeBoeuf argue and fight and bond as they pursue their goal. The plotting is simple A to Z with no real twists or turns or deviations. And though simple it may be, it is also supremely elegant and rich in subtext and thematic depth. For True Grit is a story about family, about what makes a family, what people will do to keep a family together and what they will do for that family even beyond death itself. It has religious undercurrents around redemption and Old Testament eye for an eye vengeance vs. the competing need for true justice to be seen to be done.

The Cohen Brothers direct the film with the same elegant simplicity yet subtle depth as they did when writing its screenplay. And the film looks stunning too. Roger Deakins photography is breathtaking and requires this film to be seen on a the biggest screen possible. The design and art direction is Western perfect and the lovely score by Carter Burwell is as elegantly simple as the rest of the film. It is quiet and sad, the main theme sounding like an old-style hymn.

But what really sets this film apart and elevates it are the performances. All are great. But one stands head and shoulders above the rest.

As Mattie, young Hailee Steinfeld is quite simply stunning.

Hers is a performance that stays with you. You watch her and you marvel at the maturity, the finely tuned emotion and depth of dramatic delivery. There is so much going on behind her eyes. This is an utterly convincing and mesmerising performance. Steinfeld owns this film. Make no mistake Mattie is the central character. This is her film, her story from the first frame to the last. It is told entirely through her eyes. Everyone else is mere support. To me, the ‘true grit’ of the title is hers. Mattie is a force of nature. A girl with a will of iron and a sharp, smart, determined mind. She will get what she wants come hell or high water. Literally. Hailee should get an Oscar nom for lead actress for this. And as much as I love Natalie Portman in Black Swan, Hailee deserves to win.

In support, Jeff Bridges as Rooster Cogburn is great as well. All grizzled, grumbling, shuffling, mumbling old man. Cogburn is a worn down soul filled with regret but with a natural ability to do his job and a nature that allows him to care about what really matters…even if he has to dig down deep beneath his own boozy and battle worn demeanour. As LeBoeuf, Damon is also very good. The Texas Ranger is at first a cocky, unlikable sort but soon proves he has worth and grows to become appreciated, if not by Cogburn, then certainly by Mattie. And the feeling becomes mutual. Brolin as Chaney is good too - even if his role is pretty brief and fairly one note. He’s a mumbling, stumbling fool who clearly has no idea what he’s doing or what to do next. Making more of an impact is Barry Pepper as Chaney’s new gang boss. A villain, sure, but he’s one with some kind of internal sense of decency. He’ll kill and rob but not without good reason. His quiet moments with Mattie are really rather intriguing and quite touching in a strange way.

But then that’s the thing about this movie.

There are bad people doing good things and good people doing bad things – all for varying reasons, sometimes by pure accident. Life in this world is harsh and brutally tough. It often is kill or be killed. And yet simple humanity and kindness still can shine through.

True Grit is a film that entertains hugely and can also inspire through its wonderful central performance and the ideas of family bonds and of battling on against all the odds. In that way it is very similar to Winter’s Bone, also a tale of a young girl searching against terrible odds to learn the truth and to protect her family. And with another wonderful central performance by a gifted young actress as well. But always lurking beneath True Grit is a continual mournful sadness about loss and ruined and empty lives. This is brought home hugely at the end when we skip forward twenty-five years to see an older Mattie recalling the events of her childhood with Marshall Cogburn and what became of him and of her. We see where her single-minded determination has eventually led her. And it makes your heart feel heavy as the credits roll.

A brilliant, beautiful, mournful film with a stunning central performance and almost as good support, True Grit deserves to be a huge hit with audiences everywhere. Go see it. 5+ (out of 5)

Winter’s Bone: Redneck Noir is a Chilly Affair

Winter’s Bone, an adaptation of Daniel Woodrell's 2006 novel of the same name and directed by Debra Granik, tells the story of 17 year-old Ree Dolly who lives in a rural dirt poor area of the Ozark Mountains, Missouri. With her father having absconded while on bail and her mother virtually comatose with depression, it’s left to Ree to keep her and her little brother and sister together and to keep them all fed and warm with little or no money, relying instead upon squirrel hunting, wood gathering and the charity of neighbours. However things take an even bleaker turn when Ree learns her father put up their house as collateral for his bail and that unless he shows up for his trial in a week's time they will lose their home. So doing the only thing she can think to do, Ree decides to head out on her own to find her father and bring him back in time for his court appearance. Knowing that he was part of the local drug trade, she goes looking for him in the most unsavoury of places only to be told in no uncertain terms by those she meets to keep her nose out and to stay clear. But being the tenacious girl she is, Ree refuses to listen, and carries on searching and asking questions, putting her own life at risk in the desperate attempt to keep her family together.

Winter’s Bone is a bleak, harsh, slow-burn story of courage and fortitude in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds and obstacles. It is about the varying strength of family ties and community. It is about the hard cruelty of life in the poorest areas of heartland America. And it is about the destruction and misery of drugs, especially on the poorest in society. But most of all it is a story about strength of character and how one so young can and does step up to the mark to be the kind of person we all hope we could be.

As Ree, Jennifer Lawrence is fantastic. She is the centre of this story, the foundation upon which the entire film is built. Ree is a smart, tough, caring, industrious and ultimately tenacious and thick-skinned girl who, despite having the weight of the world on her young shoulders, soldiers on to do what she must for the good of her family, no matter the many set backs and abuses received along the way. Twenty year old Jennifer Lawrence is for sure a very pretty girl. But as Ree she carries with her a heavy world worn look that blunts her natural prettiness and which along with a rock solid determination and intelligence makes her seem old beyond her years. It is without doubt a great performance and if I’d seen Winter’s Bone in 2010 then she would have given Natalie Portman a close run for best female performance of the year. On a side note - it’s great to see that Lawrence is playing Mystique/Raven Darkholme in Matthew Vaughan’s upcoming X-Men: First Class, a great casting choice for a film which has the potential to be the very best of the year.

Anyway, back to Winter’s Bone. Debra Granik’s direction is focussed and naturalistic. There are no visual or creative ticks. The camera, often handheld, simply follows the characters around while catching occasional glimpses of the depressing, worn-out human landscape of rotting houses, rotting vehicles and discarded trash that pollute what is an otherwise beautiful part of the world. The pace is slow and steady and patience is required from the viewer. Also, be warned, the film is no laugh fest. Humour is almost entirely absent. It is an unrelentingly grim, grey, chilly tale featuring unpleasant characters that do unpleasant things and will definitely not be to a lot of people’s tastes. However if you stick with it, you’ll find that it’s also oddly life affirming too, being as it is about family, community, sacrifice and determination in the face of adversity.

I recently heard the term ‘red neck noir’ used by someone to describe this film. And it’s quite a good one as Ree is in effect a young Philip Marlowe type who is out to solve a mystery no matter the consequences and the physical traumas she must endure along the way. But unlike the also excellent Brick, Winter’s Bone doesn’t employ the many conventions of the genre and transplant them to a new setting. Instead, it tells a fairly simple story with no great twists or surprises from a realistic and purely character based angle. And it does so very well indeed. 4 (out of 5)

2010 in Review: Film

After some careful (and some not-so-careful) consideration here's my own personal take on film in 2010 starting with the ten movies I enjoyed the most.

My top 10 favourite films of 2010

10. Easy A. Will Gluck’s witty, charming and keenly intelligent high school comedy sees the fab Emma Stone as Olive, the invisible nerd girl who tells a little lie to get herself out of a pickle. Only problem is Olive then sees that small lie grow beyond reason until she is eventually branded the biggest [insert derogatory term for women who have lots of sex with lots of different men] in the school. Stone is wonderful in the lead but she also gets great support from a sterling supporting cast especially Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive’s loving if slightly eccentric parents. Smart, witty, biting, Easy A sees Emma Stone’s birth as a major movie star. At least it should.

9. Centurion. Neil (Dog Soldiers, The Descent) Marshall’s Roman Britain era film sees the always excellent Michael Fassbender leading a surviving band of Roman soldiers back through the hostile wilds of Scotland to the relative safety of Northern England after their legion is devastated by fierce locals. All the while, mute psycho tracker/hunter Olga Kurylenko is hot on their heels and craving Roman blood. Centurion is one of the best looking films of 2010 thanks to Marshall’s sweeping direction and regular DP Sam McCurdy’s gorgeous (as always) cinematography. Centurion is simple yet grimly elegant with blistering and bloody action, great characters and gorgeous scenery.

8. The Losers. Similar to The A-Team and The Expendables, The Losers is by far the best even if it did make by far the least at the box office. It has a breezy, witty, snappy script and a top-notch charismatic ensemble cast led by the excellent Jeffrey Dean Morgan in rumpled George Clooney mode but with the brilliantly nerdy and funny Chris Evans stealing the show. Director Sylvain White gives the whole thing a glossy, gritty comic book feel while always keeping the ensemble cast front and centre. Also, The Losers has my favourite single shot of 2010: the gorgeous Zoe Saldana firing a rocket launcher in slow motion. Sexiest thing I saw all year. Does that make me a bad person?

7. Whip It. Drew Barrymore’s hugely charming, sweetly anarchic and very funny directorial debut sees Ellen Page’s outsider teen from a nowhere town hook up with a ‘cool’ roller derby team made up of a motley bunch of girls who can’t stop fighting and losing. Beyond the funny and the roller derby madness, the film is at heart a simple story about a mother and daughter’s stressed relationship and their struggle to connect to each other. Ellen Page is fab as is Kristen Wiig as the roller team’s mother figure but it is Marcia Gay Harden as Page’s actual mom who takes the acting gong in a perfectly pitched performance of parental strife.

6. Tron Legacy. Yep, I’m a Tron geek. Have been since 1982. I love light cycles, recognizers, disc wars etc. And though far from perfect this belated sequel is a stunning film to look at and is smarter and richer in substance than it has been given credit for. The script, though messy and choppy, is loaded with allegory and theme and the brilliant score by Daft Punk keeps your neck hairs raised. Oh, and Olivia Wilde makes for one dreamy cyber warrior babe.

5. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Edgar Wright directs what is the single most energised and visually inventive and creative film of the year. A very funny, very cool, very smart love story and coming of age story that plays out like a super slick video game. Think Spaced with a budget. Tons of energy, tons of smarts, tons of fun.

4. Black Swan. Darren Aronofsky’s deconstruction and reconstruction of an immature, fragile and fearful girl’s psyche as she struggles to become the mature and confident woman she needs to be is a beautifully poetic and darkly disturbing piece of cinematic art. It is certainly not to all tastes but I for one adored every single frame. Natalie Portman is quite extraordinary as Nina, the troubled young ballet dancer struggling to transform in to the perfect performer. That Oscar should be hers for the taking. To my mind this is Aronofsky’s best work yet. A beautiful nightmare.

3. Kick-Ass. Mathew Vaughan’s bright, bloody, violent, sweary, funny not-so-superhero film adapted from Mark Millar’s comic of the same name is so much fun it hurts. Aaron Johnson is great as Dave/Kick-Ass, as is Nicolas Cage as nutty vigilante Big Daddy, but it’s uber-moppet Chloe Moretz who steals the movie as the viscous, foul mouthed and all round badass Hit Girl. If you’re a geek like me and you don’t love this film then there’s something truly wrong with you.

2. Toy Story 3. Pixar strike again with what is arguably their best film to date. Before TS3’s release who’d have thought they could come close to equalling let alone surpassing the previous two Toy Story films. But that’s exactly what they did. A glorious mix of laugh-out-loud fun, edge of the seat adventure and genuinely heartrending emotion, Toy Story 3 is not just a great animated film but a great film. Period. Oh, and Spanish Buzz, possibly THE funniest thing this year.

1. Inception. Christopher Nolan’s puzzle box film is an absolute masterpiece of ingenious, complex storytelling and thematic depth. It’s that rarest of beasts – a blockbuster that is unashamedly deep and intelligent, that challenges its audience and demands close attention, active thought and multiple rewatching. Nobody makes films like Christopher Nolan, nobody.


The five films I hated most in 2010

NOTE: these are all major releases and don’t include the many dregs I’ve seen from cheap direct to DVD or cable as there’d be far too many of them to list.

5. Robin Hood. Utterly dull, charmless and misguided ‘prequel’ to the old story we all know and love. Batman Begins did this kinda thing so very right. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood got it so very wrong. Boring in da Hood.

4. Case 39. Puffy faced Renee Zellweger looked as bored as the audience in this long delayed scary child horror that was neither horrific nor scary, but was instead just plain silly and bland. Kids, just say no to a puffy Zellweger.

3. Legion. Paul Bettany is a heroic renegade angel in this flashy but stupid and tiresome actioner that wants so bad to be The Terminator with an angry God instead of Skynet but without an ounce of the originality or intelligence of Cameron’s sci-fi classic. Beefcake Angels make me laugh.

2. Law Abiding Citizen. Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx star in this ridiculous, morally dubious and flatly made revenge thriller from hack journeyman director F. Gary Gray. Arrest ‘em all and throw away the key.

1. Resident Evil: Afterlife. Boring beyond belief was how I found this floater; a big steaming jobbie that has no redeeming features whatsoever with no proper story, no interesting characters, terrible acting and a style ripped off ten years too late from The Matrix…and done really badly at that. Die you zombie scum!


Other stuff


Best actor: Ryan Reynolds in Buried. Special mention to Ben Affleck in The Town who was also most impressive.

Best actress: Natalie Portman in Black Swan. And a special mention goes to Chloe Moretz for her outstanding roles in Kick-Ass and Let Me In. If not for Natalie it would be Chloe hands down.

Best Guilty Pleasure Film: The Wolfman. Joe Johnston’s gory remake of the 1941 classic is more old school Hammer Films than Universal horror but Rick Baker’s make-up FX are fab as is Benicio Del Toro in the title role and the always great Hugo Weaving as Inspector Abberline.

Most likely guilty pleasure for 2011: Zack (300, Watchmen) Snyder’s Sucker Punch. Kick-ass girls fighting giant samurai, dragons, space robots and mutant soldiers in what Snyder describes as Alice in Wonderland with machine guns. Woo hoo!

Best Trailer for a movie released in 2010: Inception

Best Movie News of 2010: The Hobbit is officially a go with Peter Jackson directing

Worst Movie News of 2010: Warner Bros. and Atlas Entertainment to make a Joss-less Buffy reboot movie. NOOO! GRR ARGH!

Buried: Livin' in a Box, yeah, yeah...

Okay, so that was nasty.

In Buried, Ryan Reynolds is Paul, a civilian contractor who drives trucks in Iraq ferrying kitchen supplies around. One day his convoy gets ambushed and he’s taken prisoner. A while later Paul wakes up in a coffin-like box apparently buried somewhere in the deserts of Iraq. He finds he has a mobile phone left with him with limited battery life, along with a small knife, a flashlight, a lighter and some chemical glow sticks.

And that’s your movie right there.

And it’s all you need.

Because what follows is ninety minutes of pure horrific tension and claustrophobia as Paul discovers who has him and what they want while desperately trying to get through to his corporate employers and the US and local authorities for help as well as his loved ones back home. All of this before his limited air and battery power finally runs out.

Three things to say about Buried:

1. Ryan Reynolds is brilliant. Already a strong actor with tons of charisma and great comedic ability, this just goes to prove beyond any doubt his heavyweight dramatic acting chops. The entire film from first to last second is just him in a box acting the genuine terror, confusion, desperation and rage of his situation as well as his bitter frustration - especially when dealing with faceless, useless bureaucrats over his slowly dying phone. Reynolds truly sells it. You believe every ghastly second of his harrowing plight right up to the nerve jangling and emotion filled conclusion.

2. The director does one hell of a job in making a tense, terrifying, and set piece filled movie with just a guy in a box. But tense set pieces there are, lots of ‘em. The film’s concept is simple and genius. You can’t help but instantly identify with Paul and feel every horrid moment along with him in what has to be one of the biggest universal fears for humans – being buried alive. Honestly, to truly scare the bejesus out of people you don’t need ghosts or monsters of even serial killers, you just need something so very simple, real and primal in its terror and to be able to have people identify and connect with whoever is suffering. And that’s exactly what happens here. I’m not especially claustrophobic but, for me, Buried is hands down the best horror film of 2010.

3. All you need to know about the pointless, futile and misguided lunacy of America and Britain’s adventures in Iraq and the greedy corporate big money behind it is right here in Buried. Forget the well made yet pointless Green Zone or any other preachy, indignant Iraq dramas, just sit and watch and identify with Paul and the situation he is in, a situation built on greed, lies, broken promises and betrayal. It is simple, intimate and utterly horrific. And, sadly, very human.

Buried is one of the simplest, probably cheapest, and certainly best films of the year. Along with Natalie Portman for Black Swan, I’d love to see Ryan Reynolds get an Oscar nod. He probably won’t but as of right now his is the best male performance I’ve seen this year. 5 (out of 5)

Black Swan Ruffled My Feathers

Wow!

Black Swan tells the disturbing tale of Nina (Natalie Portman), a beautiful, talented but also reserved and immature ballerina who’s quickly reaching the age when the chance to become a Principal Dancer and a major star is starting to slip away from her. However her Ballet Company’s director (the great Vincent Cassel) sees something in Nina and gives her the lead in his upcoming production of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. But this means Nina playing two distinct characters – the sweet, innocent, virginal Odette, a princess cursed by a sorcerer to live as a swan, and Odile, said sorcerers dark, duplicitous, passionate daughter who tricks Odette’s Prince in to betraying his one true love. And while Nina has no problem portraying the innocent, fragile Odette, she finds it impossible to capture the dark inner passion of Odile, to allow herself to become the Black Swan. Nina’s major problem is that despite her age (28) she is still effectively a little girl. She’s immature, not yet having become a woman with the experiences of life and of the world that most have gained by that age. The main experiences here being of sex and passion. Nina lives with her mother who has effectively isolated her from life, from growing up and maturing. She smothers Nina, giving her no privacy at home, treating her as if she were still 8 years old. But as Nina starts pushing herself to embrace what being the Black Swan means by exploring her own inner passions, by letting herself go, weird and scary things start to happen. She starts seeing physical transformations in herself – scratches and marks appearing on her body. And then, later on, feathers breaking through her skin and reflections of herself taking on a life of their own. At the same time she is also becoming more and more convinced that the new addition to the company, the flirtatious Lily (Mila Kunis), is out to get her. That she’s looking to replace her, just as Nina has unwittingly done to the now broken figure of the previous Lead Dancer, Beth (Winona Ryder).

Hmm…all sounds a bit odd and freaky I hear you say. Yep, that it is. But in the very best way possible.

I reckon that with Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky, director of Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain and The Wrestler, has done his best work to date. This is utterly brilliant stuff. It’s an exquisite, disturbing, intelligent and artful film. I especially love how he films the dancing with energetic close in cameras following the dancers as they move. And then there's his fantastic time and location transitions while tracking Nina’s face or following the back of her head. Everything we see is stylised and intimate with the entire story being shown from Nina’s perspective. It is the self-view of a fragile, immature, isolated, frightened, yet deeply committed and ambitious girl. All of the nightmarish imagery we see is through her eyes. It is how she sees others and herself – the injuries, the blood, the grotesquely beautiful transformations. With Black Swan, Aronofsky pretends to be ambiguous. Is this all actually happening for real, or is it all purely in Nina’s head? The truth is, though, that Black Swan really isn't ambiguous at all. Not if you’re a reasonably smart human being who can see at least some of what this film is really all about.

So, having now set myself up for a fall, here’s what I think Black Swan is all about.

*WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD*

I see Black Swan as an allegory for the female journey to full-on womanhood with all the physical and emotional issues, problems and insecurities that journey entails - not to mention the various (and not always helpful) male and female attitudes and peer pressures. It’s also about what roles/personas girls might adopt throughout that journey, or might be forced upon them as they mature. Some of those roles/personas are shown in the characters of Nina, the immature, innocent child looking to grow up; Lily, the sexually confident and worldly young woman; Beth, the spurned older woman who is feeling unattractive, unwanted and redundant. And then there’s Nina’s mother, who is just that – the ‘mother’, the only thing that defines her. These female personas are all potential aspects of Nina’s own character. And she fears them. But she must confront them throughout the film so as to banish her fear and take control, to try and become the ‘perfect’ woman and deliver the ‘perfect’ performance as both Odette and Odile. And what better backdrop to this artistic female allegory than that of ballet, a world built upon female competition, continual striving for physical perfection, delicate beauty and fleeting youth. The world of ballet is a world full of women who’s ability to perform is in large part down to their age and the intense physical sacrifice, pain and punishment their art demands of them. It is a world where they have to become something that others determine and to continually adopt roles and personas. It is a world where there is always a younger, hungrier version snapping at the heels and where obsolescence is something that happens quickly and is especially cruel.

Specifically, though, Black Swan is about immature Nina's breakdown - or break through if you will.

For it is only by taking on the dual role of Odette and Odile (The White and Black Swan) that she finally forces herself to make the transformation in to a fully sexually mature woman. And maturing sexually is key here - complete with seduction, arousal, gay fantasies and masturbation. Indeed, the final shot of Nina dressed in virginal white and lying flat on her back in a dreamily satisfied state with blood on her lower body is a blatant allegorical image of the final transformation in to being a woman. The film shows us that this process of maturing sexually and emotionally, of growing up and dealing with all the trials and tribulations of becoming someone else, becoming someone more, is often painful and deeply troubling. These are age-old themes that have been told and retold throughout time in various folk tales and in classic and popular fiction. From my own pop culture bias the entire second season of Buffy is pretty much about the same thing – a young woman’s sexual awakening and painful transformation in to womanhood. As a film, Black Swan makes for a fine companion piece to Neil Jordan’s lush and dreamlike The Company of Wolves and John Fawcett’s excellent Ginger Snaps, being that they all share the same main theme.

Anyway, that’s what I reckon. But I could very well be wrong.

Whew! Almost done. But I can’t finish without a major shout out to Natalie Portman.

Unfortunately the flat acting of the Star Wars prequels along with various other stuff she’s done over recent years had lulled me in to thinking that Natalie as an actress was actually nothing that special. As far as I was concerned her stunning turn in Leon (aka The Professional) when she was only 12 was by far her best work.

Until now.

Yes, the entire Black Swan cast are great (yay for Ksenia Solo). But make no mistake this is Natalie’s film all the way. And she is quite astonishing. She captures perfectly the frailty and immaturity of Nina as well as her internal yearning to become what she needs to become. But there is also an intense fear beneath everything that she does - fear of failure, of letting go, of growing up, of becoming like Beth, or her mother. And when Nina eventually starts freaking out, when she is struggling with the emerging Black Swan, Natalie is ethereally frightening with her dramatic weight loss, wide-eyed paranoia, and violent outbursts. Purely on a physical level she is incredible, being totally convincing as an experienced ballerina, a job that requires huge physical stamina, ability and precision. The dancing Natalie does is beautiful as is all of the dancing on show. I don’t know that much about ballet, although I do have an appreciation for it, but I do know that it is enormously hard work that takes years of dedicated and painful practice, making what Natalie achieves here all the more impressive. If she doesn’t at least get Oscar nominated then the world has gone truly insane.

In closing, Black Swan is an excellent film and one of the very best of the year. It requires its audience to think about theme and allegory and emotion rather than to simply follow a plot. Most will consider it an art house film, some a horror film, some a psychological drama. And Black Swan is partly all of that. And more. It is a weird, disturbing, yet also beautiful and poetic film that should under no circumstances be missed. Ms Portman, I’m sorry I ever doubted you. 5+ (out of 5)

Trailer:

Emma scores an Easy A from me

It’s official: Emma Stone rocks!

You might remember pretty red head Emma from her supporting roles in The House Bunny, Superbad and Zombieland plus her various TV appearances. And she was uniformly excellent in all of them. Because what Emma has is an aura of sharp intelligence to her acting not to mention bags of natural charm to go with her impeccable comic instincts and timing. As a result, she’s been at the top of the list of the new generation of Hollywood up and comers to watch, in the same way that Julia Roberts and Sandra Bullock were twenty or so years ago. Because just like those two, as well as having bags of talent, Emma also has that certain indefinable something that quite simply makes the camera and the audience love her. She has star quality.

In Easy A, written by Bert V Royal and directed by Will Gluck, Emma plays socially invisible high school student Olive. Mostly ignored by her fellow students, the whip smart, witty Olive tells a little lie to avoid going on a camping trip with her best friend and her best friends weird parents. Said little lie involves a fictitious date with a college freshman. Well, one thing leads to another and the little lie soon gets out of hand evolving in to a much bigger lie about Olive losing her virginity and engaging in all kinds of freaky sex games with the made-up boy. Unfortunately this bigger, badder lie soon spreads further afield than it was intended, mutating ever more as the school rumour mill goes in to overdrive. And before poor Olive can say ‘woman of easy virtue’ the entire school now thinks she’s a (insert derogatory word for a woman who has lots of sex with lots of different men.) Despite her protestations of innocence, the rumours still continue to grow and she very quickly becomes a social pariah and a target for the schools group of creepy Christian holier than though kids. Olive is so incensed by what’s happened that she decides if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. So, taking payment in the form of cash/vouchers/coupons etc. she pretends to have had sex with several dopey boys in order to help them out of various social jams. All the while she starts dressing like a burlesque dancer and wearing a scarlet ‘A’ on her clothes mirroring the book her English class have been reading, Nathaniel Hawthorn’s The Scarlet Letter, a story of adultery and hypocritical puritanical persecution in 17th Century America. Interwoven in to all of this is the fairly standard romantic story of the one boy Olive has really liked since they were both small and who can see through all of the lies about her.

So, essentially, Easy A is The Scarlet Letter transposed to a contemporary Californian High School in a similar way to how the great Clueless transposed Jane Austin’s Emma.

However, where Easy A differs is that it is not an adaptation but rather the Scarlet Letter is a touchstone for the story. Olive openly references The Scarlet Letter and identifies with its heroine Hester Prynne even going as far as wearing the same scarlet ‘A’ on her clothes to make a point and putting up with hypocritical religious persecution from her peers. But Easy A also openly refers to other more contemporary sources for inspiration – mostly 80’s teen movies by the likes of John Hughes. Olive makes the point that her story is not like any 80’s teen movie. She wishes it was and that she could get the same cool but pointless musical number ala Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (she does), or get Judd Nelson from The Breakfast Club (she does…kinda), or get the same romantic John Cusack boom box moment from Say Anything (she gets that too…also kinda). So as well as being a modern take on an old literary classic, it is also an open love letter to some of the great teen angst/romance movies of the last twenty plus years.

But Easy A also happens to be very funny and very cool in its own right. The script is snappy, witty and sharp. The performances likewise with the quality of the cast being pretty darn impressive. For your money you get:

Emma Stone
Thomas Haden Church
Lisa Kudrow
Malcolm McDowell
Amanda Bynes
Patricia Clarkson
…and Stanley Tucci.

Clarkson and Tucci especially do some truly great work as Olive’s funny, loving, supportive yet rather offbeat parents. You can tell they were having a blast.

But, y’know what? The oddest thing occurred to me while watching Easy A.

The style of acting, of dialogue and delivery…I almost felt like I was watching a Shane Black film.

Or rather a Shane Black/Joss Whedon/John Hughes hybrid film.

It has that same cool, snarky, one liner, insult filled attitude of Shane Black mixed with the witty, pop culture/classic culture references, verbal word play and thematic layering of Whedon, plus the whole teen angst/wish fulfilment thing of Hughes. I was watching Shane Black’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang the other night and loving it. And watching Easy A reminded me (rather bizarrely) a whole heap of that film.

Sidebar: how bloody great is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang? I adore it. Best Downey Jr role ever. Period. So why is Shane Black not making more movies? Answer: cuz judging by Kiss Kiss Bang Bang he pretty much hates Hollywood. End of sidebar.

Now, stay with me here.

Okay, so why does a violent, sweary comedy/action thriller from 2005 remind me of a teen high school comedy drama from 2010? Like I said above, Easy A shares with Black’s film that same style of clever, witty, smart-ass talk and ‘tude along with some great insults and put downs. Like KKBB, it also has the central character telling their story to the audience and narrating that story all the way through. Plus, both films main characters start out as total nobodies, rather hopeless cases. Though smart and sweet, they are both social outsiders who, through lies and some stupid decisions, become involved in a series of events that they then try to use to their advantage but which rapidly spiral out of control. There is also a childhood crush in both films who become part of the ongoing plots. Of course, there are no violent gun fights, fist fights or car chases in Easy A, just a swift, snappy, witty script and some top notch acting all round. Plus Emma Stone. And Emma Stone is great. She alone would make this film worth seeing. The script, style, and remaining cast make it pretty much unmissable. Sure, it all ends happily and the resolution is kinda formula and cheesy, but then Easy A is partly an ode to those kinds of films. And, anyway, the journey to the film's end has been an immensely fun one so I can forgive it.

So, yeah, Easy A. It’s a really good movie and a star making turn for Emma Stone who has the talent and the charisma to be big…Bullock and Roberts big.

In 2012 we’ll see Emma in the Spider-Man reboot as Gwen Stacey, Peter Parker’s love interest. Of course she’ll be great in it. We know that. I just hope she doesn’t get stuck in the girlfriend role too often and gets to have plenty more of her own leads. Cuz this lass certainly deserves 'em. Nice one, Emma. 4 (out of 5)

GRR ARGH! Jossless Buffy gets the (re)boot.

Oh balls!

It’s official. Atlas Entertainment has announced via press release that they are “…rebooting the beloved franchise, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with Warner Bros. Pictures.” Charles Roven and Steve Alexander will produce the new film alongside Doug Davison and Roy Lee of Vertigo Entertainment. Whit Anderson is writing the script. And who be Whit? Apparently she is a young actress with no script writing credits and only three minor acting credits. But who knows, she may turn out to be a great writer. Doubtful I know, but we can but hope.

Producer Roven said:

“Whit approached us with an exciting idea about how to update Buffy. There is an active fan base eagerly awaiting this character’s return to the big screen. We’re thrilled to team up with Doug and Roy on a re-imagining of Buffy and the world she inhabits. Details of the film are being kept under wraps, but I can say while this is not your high school Buffy, she’ll be just as witty, tough, and sexy as we all remember her to be.”

Crap!

And there was me thinking that the proposal from earlier this year by the original film’s producers to reboot Buffy sans Joss had died a death. Apparently not.

Double crap!

Based on that quote from Roven, Atlas and Warner Bros appear to have no clue as to what the vast majority of Buffy fandom wants. Yes, Buffy fandom is big, active and still growing. Yes, we have been eagerly awaiting her return to the screen (big or small).

But not like this.

If Roven and co. really wants to know what fandom thinks then he needs to check out the most active fan sites such as SlayAlive. Sure, a few on there seem intrigued, some just dismissive. But the majority by a mile are openly hostile to his plans. The main point of hostility being that Joss Whedon, Buffy’s creator and all round genius, is not involved. Nor does it sound like he was even approached.

The truth of it is that Warner and Atlas only have the rights to the name and character of Buffy and to characters and events in the dire 1992 movie which they’ve licensed from the dreaded Kaz and Fran Kazui, producer and director respectfully of that movie. They have access to nothing of the classic TV show's characters and situations as that all resides with Fox and Joss. So this new take will either be a rehash of the original movie or some entirely new story/mythology about a girl called Buffy who kills vampires. And it doesn’t even sound like it’ll be a high school thing either. Maybe she’ll be a cute blond twentysomething waitress in a southern bar with special powers and who falls in love with a broody vampire. Hang on a sec…

If this all sounds like I’m being rather too precious and protective, then you’re right, I am. Damn straight I'm protective of Buffy. And I make no apologies for being that way.

Joss's Buffy is one of the few things in pop culture I do feel immensely protective of. She is Joss’s creation, his avatar as he described her. Despite many writers providing her words it was always Joss’s voice that came through. She’s his girl. End of.

And just so you know, I’m not one of those angry fanboys who bemoan all remakes and reboots. As I’ve said before in previous blog posts, I'm not morally opposed to them. Some of the best films and TV have been remakes and reboots. Buffy itself was a reboot of the failed movie. But I only agree with them when there is artistic merit. Not just for pure financial gain. Another Buffy reboot by others in the distant future post-joss would be fine. But to actively do it while the guy is still writing Buffy (seasons 8 & 9 comics) and while its fandom is still so big and active and vocal is just plain disrespectful to Joss and to the millions of the Slayer’s fans all around the world. It comes across as nothing but a cynical cash grab aimed at the Twilight generation.

Some comments I’ve seen have compared this yucky turn of events to JJ Abrams reboot of Star Trek.

I say no. Not the same.

I thought Abrams’ Trek reboot was brilliant. But there’s a big difference here. Roddenberry is long gone and by the time Abrams came to it, the Trek franchise had been done to death, and, in my opinion, pretty shabbily treated in its latter years with the likes of Enterprise, Insurrection and Nemesis. It needed a reboot in order to survive. And a good one at that. And thanks to JJ and co. that is exactly what it got. Also, Abrams reboot is still very much a part of the classic Trek universe (though a universe now altered by time travel). It has the same characters, situations and is linked by Nimoy's Spock Prime which gives the whole thing instant credibility.

So there you go. Those are my thoughts on this grim turn of events for the Slayer. I just hope that whether the movie is a success or failure (critically and/or commercially) it doesn’t taint the popularity of Joss’s classic series or adversely affect its ongoing comic book continuation.

This is what Hercules, Ain’t it cool news’ TV guy had to say after reporting the news:

“Buffy fans have been craving a movie for more than a decade. Given youngsters’ insatiable lust for young-adult vampire stories of any stripe, I suspect something called “Buffy” will find its way to the big screen. It may even be good. But without Whedon working the script, it won’t be Buffy.”

And I leave the last witty, sardonic words to the man himself, taken from his email response to E-online regarding the reboot news:

“I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER. I don't love the idea of my creation in other hands, but I'm also well aware that many more hands than mine went into making that show what it was. And there is no legal grounds for doing anything other than sighing audibly. I can't wish people who are passionate about my little myth ill. I can, however, take this time to announce that I'm making a Batman movie. Because there's a franchise that truly needs updating. So look for The Dark Knight Rises Way Earlier Than That Other One And Also More Cheaply And In Toronto, rebooting into a theater near you. Leave me to my pain! Sincerely, Joss Whedon.”

If this is the Afterlife then count me out

Resident Evil: Afterlife

I’m not a fan of this franchise. At all. I quite like the first Resident Evil movie if for no other reason than Milla was cute in it and that laser slicing and dicing scene was sweet. Apart from that it was not so much. The second one, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, was terrible on every front. The third, Resident Evil: Extinction, was not too bad but I can’t remember much about it…zombie crows maybe? And Ali Larter. Yum!

When film number four came out last month in the now obligatory 3D I really didn’t wanna pay good money to see it. I’d seen the trailers and thought it looked rubbish – highly derivative and ripping off The Matrix ten years too late. I had the strong feeling it would indeed be just as rubbish as it looked. But giving writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson (Event Horizon, Resident Evil, Alien vs. Predator, Death Race) the benefit of the doubt I sat down on Sunday and gave it a watch, hoping for the best (for free I hasten to add and not in 3D).

Guess what?

It was actually worse than I thought.

God I was bored.

Anderson has basically made a film with no story. And no characters. And no excitement. And no tension. And despite some nice photography, no style at all. Anderson thinks that style means aping The Matrix whenever he can. But in his mind that just means the endless use of slomo for jumping, shooting, dodging, hitting, rather than creating and filming skilfully crafted action sequences with real visual impact and coherent structure. But then coherent structure is almost entirely missing from this film, the bulk of which takes place in a grimy abandoned prison where Milla arrives and must help the stranded people inside escape and get to a ship in the harbour. And that's pretty much it. And when they do eventually get to said ship, Milla finds this bad guy from the movie's beginning (who she thought was toast) waiting to trap her. Now, I had no idea who this bloke was when I saw him at the start…only that he was doing the worst Agent Smith impression ever. Utterly cringeworthy. So when he comes back at the end I'm still baffled. However by then I'd long since given up caring about any of it and was reading a magazine. Out of the corner of my eye I saw shitty Smith dude and Milla have an equally shitty matrixesque fight while some other stuff happened to the lunk from Prison Break and cute Ali Larter. And then (thankfully) it ends...BUT with an obvious set-up for yet another RE film. Please God make them stop!

There is no story here folks, nothing. Land a plane in a prison, meet some very dull, one dimensional characters, get on a ship, have a fight, The End. None of the monsters are remotely interesting - except the big bloke in the shower with the axe, and that was ripped off from the vastly superior Silent Hill movie.

Now look, I don’t mind formula schlock.

Hell, I love me some quality formula schlock.

But this ain’t quality.

The script is basic back of a postage stamp stuff with no thought to originality, character or dramatic tension. Stuff just happens. For example the whole subplot about Wentworth Miller stuck in the Hannibal Lecter cell is not developed and goes nowhere. I thought they might pull a twist on us and try to introduce a cool badass anti-hero character such as Carpenter would do. But, no, he is exactly who he says he is - a charmless lunk. Milla, bless her, not the best of actresses, still looks the part, though age is slowly creeping up on her as it is to us all. Still, she can still kick ass and fire guns pretty good. Ali Larter is okay, reprising her role from the last RE, but everyone else is either awful or makes no impact at all.

I can’t stress how much I hated this. I was sooo bored by it. Unforgivable for any film. I couldn’t care less what happened to any of the so-called characters and I just wanted it all to end so I could watch something else instead, something remotely interesting. Paint drying for instance. Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe it would have come across better in 3D at the cinema. I dunno, but I doubt it. A turd in 3D is still a turd...only closer to your face.

In the past I’ve been an apologist for the much hated (in geek circles) Paul W.S. Anderson. I like the first AVP movie. I love Event Horizon. But what with the rubbish Death Race and now this...Yikes! (0/5)