This was one of my most anticipated films of last year, that slipped by me through a variety of shameful cock ups and laziness. Nevertheless, I’d been waiting for Ben Wheatley’s third film since I saw Kill List and he’s currently batting 100% with me as I also really enjoyed Down Terrace, albeit for different reasons than the more visceral follow up. So, the news that he was taking a script written by Darkplace’s Alice Lowe and Steve Oram about a psychotic pair of ramblers had me curious. What would a director such as Wheatley do with a concept that is best described as black as midnight comedy? The answer was last year’s Sightseers.

Contains knitted crotchless panties and spoilers below.

You’ve just sat in dog poo, love.

Tina (Lowe) lives a pretty rotten life. Stuck in a midlands semi with a demanding and vindictive mother (Eileen Davies), she really hasn’t a lot to look forward to. However, things are looking up, as her new boyfriend Chris (Oram) is taking her on a caravanning Holiday. If going caravanning could remotely be accused of ever being something to look forward to. There’s just one minor problem, aside from that Caravanning is a horrible experience, and that’s that Chris is a serial killer with severe anger management issues. Sightseers follows their increasingly psychotic trip around Derbyshire, South Yorkshire and the Lake District as the stresses in their relationship appear and the bodies start to pile up.

Filmed in Cumbria, Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, Sightseers does contain a lot of impressive scenery. Now if only Chris could remember where he buried the hooker.

Sightseers started out life as part of Lowe and Oram’s stand up routine. Actually, both of them are accomplished comic actors (Lowe in particular), and it these are a wryly humorous pair of characters. There’s an element of tragedy underpinning both of them (Chris was just made redundant) that informs their behaviour without actually becoming the focal point. They are, admittedly, ramblers and I mean this in every sense- their “holiday” hasn’t a purpose, it’s just an extended and destination free traipse around some pretty stunning countryside.

I’m queen of the world… Wait, shit, wrong film

This is a film essentially about how mundane evil can be. It was long a joke when I was a kid that if we saw Ramblers on the moors then they were looking for somewhere to dispose of a dead hooker. Sightseers is 90 minutes of that joke come to life. Everything about this couple screams out banality- their dress, him driving a Volvo, their food choices, and, even the destinations they visit, with the arguable exception of the Blue John Mines are mind-numbing. Hell, I went to some of these places as part of school trips when I was young, and can confirm that there is little in God’s own universe more boring than the tram museum. Ultimately, even the murders themselves become banal- Chris and Tina aren’t righteous avenging angels, they’re grubby killers, slaughtering their way through the countryside for the most petty of reasons (Littering, complaining, jealousy, irritation etc). There’s no high motive for their spree, and there’s no real justice being served here. These aren’t romanticised Bonny and Clyde in Gore-tex killers, but are instead the most boring and unimaginatively tiresome couple that you could ever hope to avoid.

Never trust a man with a ginger beard. Particularly not one that insists on standing with his back to the sun.

Both Lowe and Oram are talented, and their performances (complete with grating flat-vowelled Midland’s accents) are pretty much note perfect. Lowe is creepy in a psychotic sort of way, and Oram isn’t so much a figure of towering rage as an impotent and fuming little man with a sadistic streak. They both wrote the script, and the first half contains many genuinely stunning jokes and lines (the “Daily Mail Reader” one used in the trailer is probably the high point). The second half of the film, which really charts Tina embracing the madness isn’t as on point, and much more comfortable when Davies’ tyrannical mother isn’t looming over Tina’s actions and as such the film turns into a kind of extended ramble itself. There’s no obvious destination here. This is cinematic caravanning. Well, not that bad, but you get the drift- the film just meanders along with no real dramatic tension and no escalation of events towards an end telegraphed in the first 20 minutes.

Tina borrowed Droid’s review pencil to write her postcard.

The problem, I suspect, is that Sightseers is a slight film based on a thin gag. It may work as a 5 minute section in a stand up routine, or for a group of 17 year old smart arses sneering at those that participate in that sort of activity, but I’m not convinced that it justifies being spread over feature length. Edgar Wright produced this, and I can see how it appealed to his sensibilities, and for much of the run time it was appealing to mine, but Sightseers really is a very parochial film with a limited audience (I know Droid was far less taken with it than I was). As such, it also feels like a step back for Wheatley and is far less impressive than the brutal assault of Kill List or the relentless misery of Down Terrace. The closest the film comes to either of those two earlier efforts is the murder of the bride to be while a cover of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” reaches a blistering crescendo, but, alas, this is not typical of the film as a whole.

A bridge.

Overall, despite the tone of this review, Sightseers is a good film. It’s just not the tour de force I was hoping for. There are many, many nice touches here; either visual jokes such as Tina using a ludicrously oversized pencil or in the script (“Yorkshire’s nothing like you said, I can get my favourite pasta sauce and they do smile”), but it all feels terribly lacking and unsatisfactory. Nevertheless, it is amusing and well performed but will eventually go down as a minor footnote in Wheatley’s career. I do recommend Sightseers, as there are far worse ways to pass the time, but It’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.

I suspect, at the end of the day, that this is another film I simply want to like far more than I actually do.

Until next time,

Jarv

Slam Pig! 

I have genuinely come to the conclusion that modern exploitation films tend to be hideous. It is true, though, that almost all exploitation has been awful, with only a few gems standing out from the crowd, but the difference was that the 1970′s films were attempting to overcome limitations imposed on them by budget, talent, time and so forth and there were a few that genuinely transcended their lowly origins. Whereas 21st Century exploitation has none of the limitations the 70′s film makers had to overcome, and instead intentionally makes the films shoddy, grainy and more seriously unpleasant than they had to be. It was with this in mind that I decided to inflict Boston Girls on myself, and I didn’t have a lot in the way of hope for it.

Contains cack handed faux feminism and spoilers below 

I wasn’t a fan of Boston when I went there. Admittedly it was in the 90′s and I managed to start a fight with a Noraid cunt rattling a tin “for the boys” but still, it didn’t exactly rock my world. When you throw in that Boston Girls is a low budget modern exploitation, even the presence of Danny Trejo made me doubt that this film would be even remotely watchable. After the credits finished rolling, I’d seen nothing to change my mind.

Meet our two anti-heroines: Irish descendant Lynne (Shay Astar), and Italian Carmela (Camille Solari- also on writing duty). They’re basically having a rotten time of it, with both their boyfriends cheating on them. After an altercation at Lynne’s boyfriend’s place, they’re arrested by the cops. One of the cops is bent, and the other is a post-burnout junkie. His burnout was caused by witnessing Lynne’s rape on a Merry-go-round, something we get to see far too often, even if it’s disguised. Anyhoo, his partner is a scumbag and proceeds to brutally rape Carmela to teach her a lesson. Unfortunately for him, she gets hold of his taser and boots him into a creek to die.

What the fuck are you lot doing in the pub? Go home and get the dinner on. Christ. 

Anyhow, our girls go back to the boyfriend’s house for Lynne to murder him and take her top off. Not necessarily in that order. This first killing kickstarts a rampage where they eliminate all enemies on a check list (Kill Bill style). In the meantime, the women of Boston seem to take to the two murderess as cult heroines and we get to see loads of news footage proclaiming them to be fighting the good fight against the evil phalliocracy or some such bollocks. Amongst their victims is Danny Trejo, playing Carmela’s uncle, an ex-ball player who molested her when she was little. Needless to say, they off him after a suitably heart warming, and not at all cack-handed, redemption scene between the old fella and his victim. This, by the by, is the sum extent of the characterisation in this film. They’re basically a pair of angry rape victims on a rampage.

The acting here is a touch ropy. The two girls themselves are OK, and Trejo is solid in his cameo, but the supporting male cast leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the actors here aren’t destined for greater films, if I’m to be brutally honest, as they lack the chops. They don’t really let the side down too badly, but I’d be genuinely surprised to find out that most of them were professional rather than just mates roped in to star in a movie.

Direction from Gabriel Bologna isn’t great either. To be fair, he’s clearly got fuck all money (no CGI blood or gunfire, hurray!) and much of the action takes place in enclosed spaces. When he does get a more extended location than, say, the donut shop, he shows that he’s not afraid of setting the camera back a bit, but these are few and far between. In contrast, much of the “indoor” scenes contains moments that feel overly stagey- contrived and simultaneously claustrophobic.

Don’t you just hate when you’re having a quiet shit and two nosy bints peek over the top of the cubicle?

There’s an issue with the sound reproduction at the start that thankfully goes away, which is really a sign of the budget. What it feels is, well, raw. There’s a grindhouse type atmosphere to the film, and while not as crassly exploitative as something like Hobo with a Shotgun, Boston Girls doesn’t seem to be able to transcend its roots. Funnily enough, the film this most reminds me of is the French art-house porno/ exploitation Baise-Moi. Thankfully, it’s far less repugnant than that, and there’s a distinct lack of erect cock on screen.

That isn’t to say that the film is a dead loss. Many of the kills, particularly the oven scene, are entertaining enough, and there’s a verisimilitude to the dialogue (there should be, these are actually Boston Girls) that stands out. Some of the lines, particularly from Astar (also easily the best actress here) raise a chuckle, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see her in other low budget stuff. Particularly given that she’s quite fetching and more than willing to take her top off for the camera.

If I had to pick the thing I like least about this, it’s the accents. Horrible.

Overall, I don’t hate Boston Girls. I’m just not particularly fond of it either. When the final credits rolled I was left with an overwhelming feeling of meh-ness, and the sequel baiting last scene is a damned cheek to be honest. This is never going to get a sequel. Nevertheless, Boston Girls is one of the best of the modern nouveau exploitation films, even if I’m not sure that’s a prize worth winning. It may not come as a huge shock that I don’t recommend this, because it’s just totally and utterly meh.

It does win points for not being totally repugnant, though, and I genuinely think there is the germ of an idea here that a better script and a bit more money might have realised.

Until next time,

Jarv.

The crew of the USS Enterprise are young, dumb and full of… beans. Captain James Tiberius Kirk (Chris Pine) doesn’t give a stuff about rules or “Prime Directives”. He’s a brash, selfish, free thinking, do what he wants, when he wants punk. But when the Starfleet comes under attack by John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), a superhuman rogue Starfleet agent with a suspiciously bland name, Kirk gets taken down a peg or two. To defeat the baddies, he must learn that humility and selflessness must co-exist alongside brawn and bravado. Do your daddy proud, young Jim.

‘Into Darkness’ isn’t an easy film to summarise, because there are numerous characters with ulterior motives. You’ll know them when you see them, because they’re all new. All the cast from the 2009 reboot return, and none besides Kirk and Spock are given a great deal to do. I kind of feel a little sorry for Star Trek fans. I never “got it”. But I understand why people love it. It melds geek fantasy (adventure, space travel, ray guns, sex) with mildly highbrow philosophical storytelling. At least this is how I’ve conjured it up in my head. Then came 2009 and a reboot. In charge of said reboot was a guy who, in the space of a decade or so, had risen (and would continue to rise and rise and rise) to become one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. I’m not sure exactly how he’s done it, but JJ Abrams is everywhere.

So JJ is a powerful guy, and he’s been given the task of reinventing Star Trek for the gadget generation. Money’s thrown at him left, right and centre. He’s gathered up a pretty good cast. Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg etc etc. These guys are solid. And better yet, he’s found a somewhat convoluted way to appease the Trekkies. He’s not overwriting what has come before, but instead he’s invented an alternate timeline for his brand of Star Trek. But the problem, and it’s a doozy, is that JJ is just like me. He doesn’t “get” Star Trek. By his own admittance, he’s never been interested in it. He was always a ‘Star Wars’ kid. And it shows. ‘Into Darkness’ is a film made by a guy who seems bored. Not bored of making ‘Star Trek’ films, but bored of the need to adhere to the implied Star Trek “DNA”. He’s, at best, a half Trekkie. He’s a geek who loves adventure, space travel, ray guns and sex, but appears to hold absolute disdain for any and all “thinking man’s” science-fiction storytelling.

‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ isn’t a particularly bad film. But I personally think it’s a particularly bad Star Trek film. Mainly because it’s not really a Star Trek film. It’s a non-stop, slam-bam-wham action fest with a Star Trek façade, specifically designed to hold the attention of kids who will light up their phone to text or facebook or tweet the moment the foot eases off the accelerator. Apart from one scene late in the film, ‘Into Darkness’ just does not let up. There is nary a moment’s peace. And it’s loud. So, very, very loud. Every sound effect is ramped up to 11. You know when you were in high school and everyone in class was talking amongst themselves and the only way to for the teacher to get your attention was to slam a text book on a desk, creating a thunderous clap? Well, imagine that every 4 seconds and you’ve got the effect this film is going for. Perish the thought that the audience would like to see some actual character development. I’d sure hate to get bored.

There is no greater example I can give as to how little JJ trusts his audience as the scene where Kirk gets demoted. He’s been stripped of his captaincy, and ordered back to the academy due to his reckless behaviour and insubordination. But the film doesn’t want to bother with anything as potentially dull as watching Kirk prove himself worthy and earn his place back on the Enterprise. It’s literally the next scene when Kirk is promoted back to First Officer. And, I kid you not, he’s reinstated as Captain in the very next scene after that. There isn’t even a scene where he’s down and out. It’s Scene # 2, Kirk is demoted. Scene # 3, Kirk is promoted to First Officer. Scene # 4, Starfleet is attacked, Kirk is promoted to Captain. ‘Into Darkness’ is made by a guy who simply isn’t interested in the characters.

I did say earlier that ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ wasn’t a bad film overall. So moving on from the negative ramblings, what’s to like about it? Well, the obvious starting place is Benedict Cumberbatch. This guy is quality. I never would’ve considered him a good choice for a superhuman, head-crushing, all conquering villain, mainly because he seems so lanky and uncoordinated, but I’m happy to admit that I was wrong. The guys a very good actor, no surprises there, but he handles the action scenes pretty well. He’s assisted by a lot of CG and wirework and all that Hollywood dream factory stuff, but nevertheless he makes a memorable bad guy and a distinct character. Pine and Quinto work well together and they seem to be trying hard to cram character development into the corners of the non-stop action, and Simon Pegg is amusing in an otherwise humourless film. Poor Karl Urban is stuck with a character who’s lines always begin with “Dammit, I’m a doctor not a…” and even poorer Anton Yelchin is stuck with an inexplicable accent and nothing else to do.

Some of the action is well done, as in the opening scene where Spock has to venture in to an erupting volcano. There is also a good sequence (reminiscent of Dead Space) where Kirk has to shoot himself across space from one ship to another, dodging debris. And the sequence showing just how capable a warrior John Harrison is, is very entertaining. But the scenes towards the end, where the Enterprise has lost power and is freefalling into Earth’s atmosphere, as well as Spock’s showdown with Harrison, are overdone. The showdown in particular is utterly ridiculous, where a CGI Spock jumps around, impervious to laws of physics. These last few sequences also suffer simply because the very nature of the film takes its toll. The whole film is wall to wall action spectacle and it becomes tiresome to watch. It doesn’t help that I wasn’t very invested in any of the characters. But the film doesn’t really care about that.

If you like your ‘Star Trek’ big and loud, or just like spectacle for the sake of it, ‘Into Darkness’ may be just your thing. But as an outsider looking in, I just don’t see how this film would satisfy a true fan of the brand. I’m going to give the film two ratings…

For die hard Trekkies…

For normal people who just want to see stuff blow up real good…

Cheers,

Droid

I swore that I was never going to do another one of these after the misbegotten Mario Brothers adaptation sapped my will to live. However, when I saw Silent Hill 2 was announced, the sequel to arguably the only remotely successful adaptation, and that Solomon Kane director Michael J. Basset was helming, I resolved to not only watch it, but provide the review as a nice symmetrical bookend to this series- I started with the original so there’s a nice sense of order to finishing with the sequel. So, is this series going out with a bang or a whimper?

Contains strange pink rabbits and severe spoilers below.

Silent Hill 2 the game is not fit for the screen. It’s an inordinately complicated psychodrama, and much of the interpretation of the game is to do with the disturbance in the main character’s head and his struggle to come to terms with his guilt. It’s also got nothing at all to do with the original Silent Hill other than a shared location. Silent Hill 3, on the other hand, has far more potential for cinema, but more importantly is a direct sequel to the original featuring the same plot, same villain, and many recurring character. As such, I can see exactly why they chose this as the model for Revelation. It is also, and this is important for horror, probably the single nastiest game that I’ve ever seen with a climax that is truly, truly repugnant. I have to say, I was curious as to how they were going to handle this, frankly repellent, scene.

Alessa’s smoking habit had got so out of hand smoke was pouring out her arse as she walked along the street.

Meet Heather (Adele Clemens). Heather is a spiky and alienated teenage girl who is on the run with her father Harry (Sean Bean, still sporting a terrible American accent), and is plagued by nightmares of horrible monsters and Silent Hill. She thinks that it’s from the cops, but in reality, they’re hiding from the evil Silent Hill Cultists who are absolutely desperate to get Heather back to Silent Hill. Heather, it turns out, is Sharon all grown up, and Sharon is the “good” part of Alessa, vengeful demon of Silent Hill. The Cult needs her to reunite with Alessa so that they can kill her and thus escape Alessa’s curse, which seals them into the misbegotten hell that is Silent Hill.

On her first day in school, she tells her class to do one, and sort of makes friends with new transfer student Vincent (Game of Yawns’ insufferable Kit Harrington, sporting a much better American accent). She’s also stalked by shady Private Eye Douglas (Martin Donovan). Harry, in the meantime, is kidnapped, while Heather fends off a variety of angry monsters and mad cannibal types. Eventually, she picks up a sigil (stupid symbol thing straight from the game), and for reasons too dimwitted to go into returns to Silent Hill with Vincent to see his Grandfather Leonard (Malcolm McDowell slumming again) to unite the sigil, before a confrontation with Alessa and eventually a demented Claudia (Carrie Ann Moss), the lunatic cult leader.

Wabbit. Scary Pink Wabbit.
Where’s Elmer Fudd with a shotgun when you need him

Other shit happens on the way. But it’s mostly inconsequential stuff- above is the meat of the narrative, and it was damned hard to distill into something coherent, so be bloody grateful. The most important side encounters are with Dahlia (a returning Deborah Kara Unger) and Pyramid Head, who is revealed as Alessa’s Guardian.

*takes deep breath*

As an adaptation of the game, this is nigh on perfect. It hits all the major points from the game, and includes all the major sequences and images. It’s even got the same fucking structure with the dream of the pink rabbit populated amusement park from hell (actually, when you return to it, this is one of the most annoying pieces of any game of all time). They make some clever changes, notably to Vincent’s character (I am at a total loss as to what the fuck he was doing in the game), and significantly alter the climax so that Claudia doesn’t have to ingest Heather’s miscarried foetus to birth the demon god. As a knock on effect of this, it also means that the anger trigger to the darkness makes much more sense in the film than the game- it’s the dark side of Alessa in the film, but a kind of sub-par Star Wars knock off (anger feeds the dark side) in the game. Not all the changes are successful, but more on this in a minute.

The NHS cutbacks really messed with the hygiene standards.

Firstly, the casting is fucking perfect. Perfect. Clemens is a dead ringer for Heather, and I’ve no idea if she was the little girl in the original, but she looks highly credible as an “adult” Sharon. DKU was always the ace in the hole in the original, and is still note-perfect as Dahlia. Carrie Ann Moss, surprisingly, is also a dead ringer for Claudia (I didn’t see that coming), although the character is terribly underwritten, and Harrington and Donovan could have stepped straight from the game. McDowell is a far more expanded character, being little more than an end-of-level boss in the game, but it does make sense to enlarge his role. The acting, bar Bean, is so so, and I actually quite like Clemens in the lead. Plaudits go to Deborah Kara Unger’s damaged Dahlia, though. It’s a small role (as is Radha Mitchell’s returning Rose), but film stealing in its own way.

Adapting Silent Hill 3 to the screen was always going to be a massive challenge. As such, the dialogue is OK, and the writers (Michael J. Bassett and Laurent Hadida) bust a gut making sure that the film crams in as much from the game as it possibly can. In terms of direction, it’s totally over-directed (which is a shame), and there’s a LOT of terrible CGI work in there. On the plus side, though, almost all of the the key Silent Hill 3 imagery (notably the pink rabbits) makes it to the screen wholesale. They really did put in an inordinate amount of work making sure this was as faithful to the game as they possibly could.

No. I’ve been twice now, and it’s a shithole. I’d almost rather go to Wales. Well, it’s not quite that bad.

And here’s where the problems lie, and boy there are lots and lots of problems. So many, in fact, that I’m even going to ignore the shitty “poke things at the screen” 3D nonsense that the film is riddled with. Feel free to insert the Werewolves on the Moon standard fuck off 3D disclaimer here, by the way, if you want. The first half of the film is a bonanza bundle of confusing and tedious exposition as Bassett attempts to jam in every single thing that you need to know for the second half of the film to make a lick of sense. Which it doesn’t by the way. I watched this with Mrs. Jarv, and it felt like we had to pause the bloody film every two minutes so I could explain to her, with reference to the game, what the fuck was going on. In all honesty, if I didn’t know the game backwards, I’d have been completely lost.

Watching this for me, armed with knowledge that most don’t have, became a bit wearying, in all honesty, as I eventually stopped really paying attention and started to play spot the reference. Including the penis-monster thing jumping out of the mannequin beast in the doll factory. I have no idea why they stuffed this monster in, as the best effect in the film was the transformation of girl to dummy that took place just before it, and it was jarring and rubbish CGI. I suppose it did jump at the camera, and was an end of level boss, but really, it’s totally needless.

‘orrible mannequin monster thing. It’s head sprouts a penis demon monster thing as well. It’s still rubbish

The major challenge is one of time. Silent Hill 3 takes a minimum of 24 hours to complete totally. Silent Hill 2 the film has a run time of under 2 hours. The problem is that there’s an awful lot of information required to turn the story into something resembling coherence, as such, it’s an inordinately difficult task to compress this into 94 piddling little minutes. To make matters worse, they’re so intent on hitting every touch point in the game (the demon carousel with the bondage freaks is laughably shit) that the film devolves into a series of individual scenes. Or, in games terminology, cut scenes. I’ve already seen the fucking cut scenes, because I saw them in the game. I do not want to see them again.

Not only did they need to take more liberties with the game (not something I usually say), but the changes they made to make it palatable for the average viewer actually serve to add to the confusion. The joined sigil, for example, allows Heather to “see” the true form of people- i.e. Alessa’s Darkness world. This, while  not a hideous idea, does require exposition to explain, and if there’s one thing this film did not need 60 minutes in, then that’s more exposition. The other attempted piece of cleverness is repositioning Pyramid Head from unstoppable killing machine into Alyessa’s guardian and pet executioner. Shit idea. Full stop. They only do it, because in the game when it enters the shadow world there’s a Demon in the background (forgotten his name) who manipulates levers and wheels and so forth- he’s meant to be operating the shadow world for Heather to navigate. Here, they make a nod to this by placing Pyramid Head at the controls of Satan’s merry go round. Not only is it a crap idea, but it’s also totally needless, and they only did it because of the presence of the Demon in the game.

Mother/ Grandmother, make your fecking mind up.

The next problem that the film can’t get over is the subtext of the game. A lot of it is metaphorical “onset of sexuality” stuff, particularly in the imagery and the monsters she fights- yes, it’s all about the cock. The film approaches this “dark” sexuality in the most predictable and unimaginative way it could with the monsters being fetishised nurses, bondage freaks and so forth, while the main human baddies are gas-mask clad perverts called “The Brethren” (no idea where this honking idea came from). Given that it’s quite an ugly film, it doesn’t take long for Silent Hill Revelation to feel like a third rate Hellraiser Sequel (that’s all of them not called Hellbound), a problem exacerbated in the main monster design.

Then there’s the climax. Look, I totally understand why they didn’t go with the vomiting miscarriage thing. It’s minging. It makes absolute sense to co-opt Claudia and maker her into the effective End of Game Boss, as that’s sort of what happens in the game, except in a far more repugnant way. What doesn’t make sense is to pull some sort of ludicrous Scooby Doo reveal, and have her transform into the third rate cenobite that’s been plaguing Heather for the course of the film. It makes even less sense for Pyramid Head to get involved and duke it out with said Cenobite while Heather sits there and does feck all.

“The Missionary” was livid that she wasn’t in the Hellraiser remake.

Finally, as I’m aware that I’ve got a bad dose of waffle-itis here, there’s the main character herself. I’m not sure why this was a good idea, but she’s reduced to a damsel in distress, and not a particularly interesting one. In the game, Heather was quite the little badass, but here she’s just not capable. She only kills one monster for fuck’s sake, choosing to run away or let others handle the rest (I’m not including overcoming Alessa on the merry go round). This, therefore, diminishes her and makes her a touch shrill, whiny and unlikable. She does look like she’s going to go all bad ass, by grabbing a pipe to smack a beast (doesn’t go through with it), or getting tooled up, but she never (Leonard excepted) makes the step that the likes of Ripley make- she doesn’t move to being a capable heroine. It’s a shame, actually, because it rips the heart clean out of the film.

Overall, if you’ve played and like the game, then you can get something out of this. Nevertheless, as a film, it’s pretty terrible. The flaws in the adaptation are too many and too insurmountable, and it’s an ugly film with an overabundance of poking shit at the screen. When you throw in the lousy CGI, crappy monster design and mountains of exposition, Silent Hill Revelation becomes an ugly and boring pain in the ass that’s nowhere near as good as either it’s source material or the (many) films it rips off. I do not recommend this one, and I’m going out on a low note. Silent Hill Revelation is, in fact, shite.

And the soundtrack blows when it isn’t using the Silent Hill theme.

Series over, and I have to say that it’s been emotional. If the emotion is pain and rage.

Ciao,

Jarv.

Who’s Chad? He’s the pretty boy you fucked yesterday!

This is quite funny. When I found this lurking in Lovefilm’s watch now section, I thought Forget Me Not was obvious schlock vault fodder. And it is. But what’s amusing is that I’d had exactly the same thought back in October last year, and watched half the film to, erm, totally forget about it and thus fail dismally to watch (let alone review) the second half. I’m a genius- forgetting about the existence of a film called Forget Me Not. Anyway, such is my dedication to the vault, I thought I’d give it a spin anyway.

Contains a wonderfully trashy chick, shit ghosts, and spoilers below

In my defense, the reason I forgot about it, is because this is a supremely derivative film. It basically takes the slasher template and applies it to vengeful supernatural ghosts. We’ve even got an accident as children during a game of hide and seek as the instigator for disaster. In many ways, this is really indicative of the source of this film: Forget Me Not is simply following the Prom Night playbook to the letter, as so many of these slashers do. The twist here is that it isn’t a murderous contemporary, or masked behemoth with a sexual hang up, rather it’s a ghost unleashed by accident.

Don’t you just hate when you walk into a room and then forget what you came in for?

Meet our heroes: Sandy (Carly Schroeder), her brother Eli (Cody Linley), Layla (Chloe Bridges), Chad (Zachary Abel), TJ (Sean Wing), Lex (a film-stealing Jillian Murray), Jake (Micah Alberti) and Hannah (Brie Gabrielle) possibly the most unsympathetic slasher cast ever assembled. When they were kids they played a mean spirited prank on Angela resulting in the poor little moppet’s grand mal seizure and coma. They’re celebrating graduation by shagging each other and getting pished, and are joined by a new girl(Brittany Renee Finamore). For standard slasher reasons, their celebration ends up in the graveyard playing the supernatural themed hide and seek they played as kids. New girl wins, says to Sandy  ”Do you remember me” before jumping to her death.

I don’t think this is actually from Forget me not. But she’s such filth that I would be remiss not including something of her. And this pose fits right in to the character from the right film. 

Next thing you know, they’re being picked off one by one by evil ghosts. Except, and this is the mildly amusing idea, each time that someone croaks they’re eliminated from the timeline- literally erased from history. Poor Sandy is therefore labelled as a flaming nutter because she’s the only one that can remember their dead mates. There are some particularly amusing exchanges, such as the one I quoted above, but eventually it all spirals out of control, and there’s an outrageous downer ending that I’m not sure the film earns.

Writing and acting wise, this is actually surprisingly better than the usual plastic slasher fare. These characters may not be likable, but they are actually characters, with the reprehensible Chad and the fantastically trashy Lex being particularly well drawn. I’m actually slightly in lust with Jillian Murray based on this, and reckon that she’s another one with a decent future if she can break out of crappy slashers. It does help that she gives the most outrageously and unapolagetically sleazy performance in the film, and proceedings are dramatically less interesting once she buys the farm (there’s no way a character as shameless, brazen and downright slutty as this one is making act 3 of a film like this).

Scary ghost being all scary.

It’s not an unamusing time. Yes, ghosts are obviously shit, but seeing as they’re basically standing in for the slasher killer that you’d usually see (and they’re always shit), it didn’t bother me too much. There’s no laughable and stupid attempt to stuff a twist in here- the film sets its rules up precisely (it’s all in the rhyme they say when playing the hide and seek derivative), and then sticks to them to the letter. No deviation or breaking of its own internal logic at any point. I do wish more schlocky films would follow this approach rather than trying to bamboozle the audience with some kind of 9th rate Scooby Doo “But it was you the whole time” reveal at the end.  If I have a criticism it’s of the performance of the little girl at the climax, which is lame, but by then it’s already established that this is simply NOT a scary movie by any stretch of the imagination.

Shocking.

What it is, though, is a fun and trashy movie, albeit a totally derivative and forgettable one. I’m mildly impressed they managed to find the budget to blow a car up, and even more impressed they didn’t CGI it. There’s nothing here that you haven’t seen before, and it hasn’t got the balls-out lunacy of Prom Night 2 and 3, the two films that are the most obvious point of reference. It’s also nowhere near as funny as them, and Angela as a manky demon ghost thing isn’t a patch on Mary Lou, the prom queen from hell.

Nevertheless, there are two fundamental problems with this film. The first is that the kills in it are bland and anaemic- this required more gore and a bit of mess. It’s too obviously aimed at the PG13 market, so nudity is totally out (despite some quite outrageously trashy shagging from La Murray and a few others. Secondly, the effects, particularly the ghost effects, struggle to reach the dizzy heights of “lame”. I’m actually a bit bored by shaking and howling ghosts- it’s a shoddy effect and just not a scary one in the slightest. And don’t get me started on the little girl’s “Demon Face” at the finale. That’s laughably bad.

Here we have a scary ghost modelling 2009′s must have accessory: Duct Tape.

Overall, do I recommend Forget Me Not. Erm… Ask me later. It’s not terrible, and it ain’t boring, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it was anything out of the ordinary. There’s a severe absence of scares, and as the film is playing it totally straight, this does hurt it. More nudity would have been nice as well. The main problem I have is that it plays out as something that you’ve seen 1000 times before, and this is always the problem with this formula. If you are going to follow the Slasher template, then you do need more to distinguish yourself than merely going to the well of the supernatural for the killer.

So, in a nutshell… Meh.

Forget Me Not is an OK, not unenjoyable but totally forgettable film. Although I do hope Murray in particular goes on to better films with more casual nudity than this PG13 Horror.

I’m thinking about procuring Bad Ass if it does actually exist next. If not then I’m not sure what shambling corpse of cinema will lurch out of the vault, but until then,

Jarv

Droid nailed this down as the worst film of 2012. While I have seen some of the other mentioned stinkers, and think that the worst film of last year was the incomparably awful Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, he is right about how “good” it is. Cosmopolis is a rotten, awful, pretentious, pompous movie, and lord knows what it is doing as part of Cronenberg’s canon. It’s winding me up a bit actually, because having found a bit of form with History of Violence and Eastern Promises, he seems to be luxuriating in the kind of tiresome crap that he wouldn’t have gone anywhere near in the 80′s. Following on from the disappointing Freud nonsense, Cosmopolis is another let down, and I’m hoping he’s not about to enter another fallow period.

Based on Dom Delillo’s insanely overrated novel, and apparently adapted by Cronenberg in 6 days, Cosmopolis was described by The London Film Review in equally demented hyperbole with

” The fact is, Cronenberg made a movie for YOU. The 99%. A movie that reflects, comments on[,] satirizes and parodies our time”

In a way, it was timely. The Occupy soap dodgers were in full hypocritical swing, busy sleeping faux-rough while swilling lattes from Starbucks and purchasing commercially made Guy Fawkes masks by the bucket load. Cosmopolis should have tapped right into this zeitgeist, but instead prompted mass walk outs, and I know precisely why. The middle class student audience that comprises both the Occupy movement and Cosmopolis’ core audience were busy sitting outside St. Paul’s Cathedral/ Wall St. singing “We shall overcome”, and for anyone else this is a painfully boring film. Fuck you, dirtbags.

This is a man in dire need of another facial expression

I suppose I should do a plot summary here. Except it’ll be nigh on impossible as Cosmopolis basically doesn’t have a plot. Packer (Robert Pattinson), a self-absorbed financial “Master of the Universe” is on a tailspin of self destruction. He’s placed a disastrous bet on the Yuan, and is about to lose it all. His inability to keep his prick in his pants has alienated his poet wife of 22 days, and he’s been getting death threats from an unknown assailant. It’s a bit harsh considering all the man wants is a haircut, except he struggles to get that, as he’s caught up in anti-Capitalist protests, and a rapper’s funeral.

So, he sits in his plush limo talking absolute drivel with various people, indulging in the odd bit of grubby sex, talking more drivel, before eventually getting his haircut, and encountering his would-be killer to, er, talk more drivel. Except “mumble” would probably be a better term for it. I genuinely became convinced that there was something wrong with my TV as I frantically turned the volume up to try to make out what they were saying. I have watched other films since, and can confirm that it’s not my telly. It’s Pattinson and Giametti (an actor I usually like) to blame.

So, what do you think about the financial crisis?

Acting wise, this is lousy. The cast is stuffed full of good to great actors in the form of Giametti, Juliette Binoche, Samantha Morton and others, but they’re being forced to recycle DeLillo’s dreadful, pompous, faux weighty critiques of capitalism. While occasionally Pattinson buts in with something allegedly profound along the lines of “Were you interested”. It’s absolutely fucking dire, and it becomes apparently very, very quickly that this isn’t a film. It’s a series of lectures on the inherent evil of capitalism and the financial system.

The writing it entirely to blame for this mess. Pattinson is an unsympathetic, anaemic looking pretty boy at the best of times, but he can’t be held responsible- even though he is on screen all film. The problem here is that Cronenberg himself said that the adaptation process was literally him transcribing the novel’s dialogue and then adding scene descriptions to it. This approach has produced an inordinately stagey film, as Packer lurches from tiresome encounter to even more boring and pretentious conversation. A brief moment of levity at the start of the film sees him doing business while getting a prostate exam (in his limo), but this proves to be the exception rather than the rule. I don’t like the dialogue in this novel, and think that it strives so hard to be “important” and meaningful that it basically becomes didactic and sterile. On screen, this is even worse.

He just made sure Juliette Binoche took his 1% in his limo and he seems to be very pleased about it. Smug git.

Then there’s the direction. If this is, as advertised, a scathing satire of the financial sector then Crones is the wrong director for it. We’ve got another beautifully constructed, elegantly staged but surgically precise and monumentally boring film. As with A Dangerous Method and so forth he just hasn’t got the style for a production on these lines- he doesn’t have the fire or the hatred. Cosmopolis feels boring and clinical (well, it is boring and clinical) and much of that comes down to the Canadian’s style. Actually, I struggle to think of anyone that could have turned in a good film from this script, but can categorically say that he wasn’t the man for the job.

Then there’s the message/ philosophy of the film. I consider the Occupy parasites to be hypocritical turd-fondling douchenozzles, and thus I don’t like being preached at by them. Also, has anyone actually established what the fuckers stand for yet? I can’t stand this 99% motif from them- as the 99% basically seems to be defined as “anyone with more money than us”. I’m totally lost by the idea that middle class students can “protest” with the predicted effectiveness of a perforated condom on a message that they have neither defined nor understood anyway. It’s another nebulous and useless manifesto; a call to arms that cannot be properly nailed down, and therefore not properly attacked.

Don’t shoot yourself in the hand Robert. It’s a waste of a bullet. Shoot yourself in the face instead.

“But but but Jarv” I hear you say in your whiny little bitch voice “aren’t you bothered about inequality and unfairness”. Well, yes I am- but I will NOT be preached to by Hollywood multi-millionaires on the subject- especially one who is so whorish that he starred in the fucking Twilight movies.  And I’m pretty certain that I’m not in the 1%

Overall, Cosmopolis is a terrible, rancid, preachy and boring film. It’s so boring, actually, that it put Mrs. Jarv to sleep three fucking times while I manfully struggled all the way through to the limp and talky climax. If you enjoy spending time in the company of a complete wanker while being lectured on all sorts of crap then this is the film for you. If you’re not into being bored rigid for a couple of hours than don’t touch with a bargepole. There’s only one rating this can get: The Orangutan of Doom.

That’s me up to date with Cronenberg again, I hope to god he finds some form soon.

Ciao,

Jarv

It’s some time after The Avengers showdown in New York and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) is a troubled guy. He doesn’t sleep, and has started having anxiety attacks. As such, he buries himself in his work, creating a prototype suit that he can call to him remotely (a bit like The Force). What “burying himself in his work” also does is create a filter paper thin set up for what is essentially a third act dues ex machina. But I’m getting ahead of myself. A terrorist known as Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) is threatening the USA via video messages and mysterious bombs are going off around the globe.

A flashback to New Years Eve, Nineteen Ninety-Nine at the beginning of the film introduces Maya Hensen (Rebecca Hall), a scientist who has been developing gene therapy for regenerative healing (I think), and crippled scientist Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce). Twelve years later, they resurface as the company Advanced Idea Mechanics (AIM). AIM has created the EXTREMIS virus, which indeed succeeds at regenerative healing, but also gives the person superhuman strength, speed and agility. They also burn red hot whenever they want to, and sometimes when they don’t. When your patient burns up and explodes at three thousand degrees, you might want to start tinkering with the formula. Unless, of course, if that’s your intention. So Killian is working for Mandarin, Stark tracks the source of the bombs, finds Mandarin and it all ends in an overblown barrage of special effects.

There’s an enormous twist in this film. It’s better off not knowing, and they’ve done well at keeping it hush hush, so I’ll avoid revealing it here. I will say this though. It’s blatantly clear what the twist is about thirty minutes in. Despite the obvious nature of the twist, it succeeds because of how it’s delivered. Good comedic writing and acting sell it well enough that you can forgive it for its lack of surprise. And comedic writing and acting is clearly the best thing about ‘Iron Man Three’. Littered throughout the film are the clever lines of dialogue and amusing interchanges between characters that we expect from co-writer and director Shane Black. “His Lear was the toast of Croydon.” is a great line, but one that I suspect could be wasted on many.

So ‘Iron Man Three’ (mostly) succeeds as a comedy, and therein the problems lay. Tony Stark is always on hand with a glib remark, and he so quickly seems to get himself out of trouble (with or without the suit), that it’s impossible to fear for his danger. Therefore, it simply becomes a series of scenes that show Stark succeeding against the odds. The film never pauses long enough for Downey Jr to “act”, as when, late in the film, someone important to Tony dies. The film barely gives him three seconds to react before the next slice of action. If the film can’t be bothered showing Tony caring, then it cannot expect that I care. It’s no wonder that Downey Jr has come out and said he’s ready to move on from ‘Iron Man’. He owns the role, pretty much made Marvel Studios the success it is (or at the very least, kick started it) and has benefited handsomely for it (he made fifty million dollars from The Avengers). But as a character, Tony Stark has been found wanting and neither of the sequels have created anywhere interesting for the character to go. To be brutally honest, I’m rather bored of the character, as well as the visual depiction of Iron Man. There’s only so many times I can see a CG metal suit flying around before it becomes stale. The film tries to spice things up with some different prototypes and such, but in the end it’s still Iron Man, and I’m bored of it.

Where the film really falls down is in the villain department. This has nothing to do with the acting. Ben Kingsley and Guy Pearce are both quite good in their roles. The problem I had is that the EXTREMIS virus was never established properly, and the rules weren’t defined. Sometimes it’s unstable (leading to the human bombs). Why? Just because the movie says it is. How does it cause the human body to glow red hot? So hot that a man can place his hand on the Iron Man armour and melt it. At one point, a bad guy BREATHES FIRE! Of course, this is waved off with a glib remark, but I didn’t buy it. A guy just propelled a jet of fire out of his mouth. WTF? And why, if they burn so hot, do they have hair? I’d assume that would be the first thing to go.

My other problem with the villains is that I am utterly flummoxed as to their intent. The big scheme is muddled to say the least. I think it’s something about a coup, with the Vice President as a puppet President. But they go a long way to kill the President, and then just hang him up ready to be plucked up and flown away to safety. Even if they’d succeeded, I have no idea how they would benefit from it. The whole plan is a hot mess, and the twist doesn’t help because the film spends a great deal of time and effort in the first half on subterfuge. I don’t expect strict adherence to reality in an action film, but I expect at least a minute nod towards logic.

‘Iron Man Three’ also features the bane of any action film, the annoying kid character. You can see Shane Black frantically trying to work his magic and make the kid funny and likeable, but it’s all for nought. The moppet doesn’t have the comedic timing necessary (not his fault), and the film spends an inordinate amount of time with him. It grinds to a screeching halt in these middle section scenes and while it may have worked with a really talented kid in the role, it just seems like it was a bad idea. The film ends in what could easily be a sign off for the character, at least in standalone features. While the best aspects of ‘Iron Man’ (primarily Downey Jr) have made two of the three films watchable, I truly hope they end it here.

As always, there is an after credits sequence, but it’s not worth sitting through an extra ten minutes to get to. ‘Iron Man Three’ gets a completely unjustified two loony Sir Ben’s out of four. This is a very generous rounding up from the intended one point five because I’m too lazy to make a one point five rating.

Cheers,

Droid

Get away from him you CUNT!

Beer: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems. Even up to inexplicable squid beasts that crawl off the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

There was no way in hell I wasn’t going to love Grabbers. It’s set in Ireland, stars Richard Coyle, who I like from Coupling on the BBC years ago, and features alcohol prominently. Not to mention that it also has giant inexplicable tentacle beasts with a severe attitude problem. Seriously, throw in some gratuitous nudity and a midget or two and I’m in heaven. That it’s also quite a good little film, certainly one that transcends its pathetic budget, is merely a bonus. It does also feature that twat from Being Human sporting a terrible Upper Class English accent, but you can’t have everything.

Contains dipsomania and spoilers below

The Irish complain incessantly about their portrayal in the media as alcoholic layabouts who like nothing more than swilling down a bottle of poteen, 20 pints of Guinness and then smacking each other in the head.  Except there’s two points of note here. Firstly, and I can say this from first-hand family experience, it’s true, but secondly, they love nothing more than spreading these myths themselves. It is, as my relatives say, known as being a “cute hoor”, and they’ve marketed themselves as a “fun loving” nation that’s all about “The Craic”. Cheeky buggers.

O’Shea using his detective powers of observation on Nolan’s ass.

Anyhow, Grabbers is set on a small Island off the coast of Ireland. It’s a lonely place with feck all to do apart from induce Alcohol related amnesia. They locals are bored, surly and far too prone to a pint. The local Garda (plod) is Richard Coyle’s O’Shea, a functioning alcoholic. He’s joined by Nolan (Ruth Bradley) from Dublin, a workaholic non-drinker spending her summer holidays, er, working. She, accurately, predicts that her arrival will be the signal for everything to go to hell, and no sooner has she said this than two local inbreds bring a tentacle creature ashore. This, unsurprisingly  causes the tentacle beast’s (alright, the grabber) father to come ashore to kick some ass. They literally have no clue how to deal with it.

So, seeking answers, they consult local scientist Smith (Russel Tovey from Being Human and that unspeakable shit Him and Her). A few blunders later and they’ve discovered that said rogue tentacle beast is fatally allergic to alcohol. Thus, coming up with a plan that only the Irish could dream of, they decide the solution to the problem of the grabbers is to get everyone on the island into a local pub and to drink themselves into an outrageous state. On the Garda. In the meantime, O’Shea will forsake alcohol to keep control of the situation, which, frankly, I find somewhat unbelievable- particularly while Non-Drinker Nolan gets absolutely rubbered. Spectacularly and monstrously rubbered, actually. Cue showdown, flagrant “homage”/ rip off of Aliens (the line I quoted at the top is delivered by Nolan while in a digger just before she piles into the grabber), and dead tentacle beast.

“Using my powers of detection, I have come to the conclusion that this while is, in fact, fucked”

This is fun. That’s a very underrated quality in movies nowadays. Particularly British movies. No misery porn here, instead we’ve got a heavily stereotypical Irish village and it’s all about the craic. I’m all for this approach to schlock, actually, and would far far rather they did this than some po-faced nonsense where the locals indulge in alcohol in misery before a light spot of domestic abuse. It’s also entertaining- which I suspect is the point, and while it has its tongue buried so far in its cheek that it can taste yesterday’s breakfast, that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this instance.

The acting from Bradley is OK. Not bad, actually, and her character is reasonably likable. Coyle does a decent and not too “japers” Irish accent, but he’s good at accents. However, Tovey fucking stinks. He is actually English, so Christ alone knows what he’s doing with that horrible psuedo-Queen’s English accent. He’s also the most annoying character, and simply doesn’t have the chops for the “eccentric scientist” role he’s been given. Unusually, I can think of an instant replacement who would have improved both the film and the role exponentially: David Tennant. Grabber- makers, consider that an open goal missed.

The grabber made a fatal mistake by invading Ireland when it’s fatally allergic to alcohol.

The Special effects, while very CGI heavy (for obvious reasons) are startlingly good for this sort of film. I’d say, actually, they are better than those in New Dr. Who- which has a fucking huge budget per episode as I recall. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that Grabbers has a smaller budget than a single Dr. Who episode. The creatures themselves are an entertaining design, but I particularly like the way they move on land. It’s well thought out, actually, with them rolling rather than walking on their tentacles, and I suspect was probably thought out due to budget limitations.

It’s not all roses, though. Grabbers is a one-joke film (let’s get pished) and an idea that’s a lot funnier in one sentence than it is spread over feature length. There’s no tension at all in the early scenes, and the attempts at clever dialogue are blatantly aping the mighty Tremors without being a fraction as good. There are exchanges between O’Shea and Nolan that have the air of Val and Earl to them, but neither Coyle or Bradley are remotely as good as K-Bacs and Ward. Considering Tremors is the clear model for a film like this, I also find it incredibly odd that there’s no Burt figure- O’Shea and the rest of the locals simply aren’t capable enough to fend off the beast. That they do is down to a series of flukes and some very schwonky writing.

Yikes! What the feck is that? Oh, it’s a member of the league against alcohol post-shedding it’s human skin.

Nevertheless, there are a few genuinely cracking sequences. Nolan’s drunken trip through the pub to retrieve the keys while fending off baby grabbers is solid gold and performed with real chutzpah by Bradley, and I did laugh out loud at the sequence where Nolan, O’Shea and Smith beat a grabber to death while Smith mourns the loss of a beast that could “teach us so much”. Smith’s death, actually, is hugely satisfying and thoroughly deserved, even if they are trying far too hard for a Samuel L. Jackson Deep Blue Sea check out.

The pub sequence itself is a blast. Watching the locals all get totally shitfaced while blissfully unaware that there’s a legion of oceanic tentacle beasts coming for them is highly amusing. The choice of music (Whisky in the Jar and the greatest hits of the Dubliners) is a bit much- it reeks of stereotyping taken to an extreme. This, I suppose, does fit in with the mentality of the film (honestly, they’re as stereotypical a bunch of drunken paddies as can be imagined), but there are other “Oirish” musical options available without resorting to that.

Craggy Island never had problems like this.

Overall, I had fun. Can’t really ask for more than that from a film like this. The idea is funny, but can’t really be sustained over a feature, and the cast are likable and trying their best. The effects are better than they have any right to be, and there are a number of sequences that buy the film a lot of time when it is beginning to sag. I do recommend this, but be warned that it isn’t remotely in the same class as Tremors etc- although it is still one of the better recent monster movies.

It’s all about the Craic, really.

Ciao,

Jarv.

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed anything due to crushing work pressure and the fact that I’ve knackered the home PC. So, in a lame attempt to at least update every now and again, I’m resorting to our Spanish lap top. Which is fun, provided I remember where the quotation marks are.

Anyway, I’m still not watching a lot in the way of films, seeing as Lovefilm has seen fit to put basically every TV show ever made up on free to view. So, as a result I’m picking my way through TV series. You know the drill for this by now: a handful of mini-reviews of whatever series I’ve watched recently. Usually a mix of the good, the bad and the downright rotten.

First up this time is actually the best series of everything that I saw last time but just, like a dickhead, forgot to include in last time’s round up. I give you the insanely controversial and frankly fucking awesome Brass Eye.

Brass Eye: episodes watched 7 including Paedo Special

How did I forget that I rewatched this?

Brass Eye, for those across the pond was probably the most vicious satire of the late 90′s/ early 21st Century. Spawned by Chris Morris from his satire of the news (The Day Today), Brass Eye masqueraded as a topical news/ current affairs programme. Morris hosted (and played a number of other parts), and each week focused on a hot topic.

Roping in the great and the good to make utter dimwits of themselves, each episode was a mix of fantastical news stories, humiliation of celebrity types and a blend of scabrous and evil humour masquerading as straight talking. A brutal and coruscating satire of the media (this will be important in a minute), Brass Eye was one of the seminal comedy series of my teens/ early 20′s. A series that has, frankly, passed into legend.

How good was Brass Eye? Well, it’s a satire, and a comedy, and yet it was so effective that Morris managed to gull a politician during the “drugs” episode  into asking a question in parliament about the prohibition of an imaginary drug called “Cake”. It was one thing conning celebrities into looking at the camera and saying things like “Remember kids, don’t eat cake” but to actually get it into the House of Commons was absolutely unprecedented. That he even managed to get the attention whores to read out sentences such as “Cake is an entirely made-up substance” and that it stimulated a part of the brain called “Shatner’s Bassoon” without spotting something was up shows the sheer subversive genius of the man at work

However, as is often the way, Morris and Brass Eye fell from grace.

The point of Brass Eye was a pisstake on the media, particularly the hysterical way they manage scares, and to savage the famous people who jumped on board the bandwagon without putting any thought into it. The original 6 episodes were an unqualified success. However, the Brass Eye Special, while arguably the crowning glory of the series, was a totally different kettle of fish.

The subject of the special was the media’s treatment of paedophilia. Now, note carefully that it isn’t paedophilia itself he was taking the piss out of.

At the time, the British Media seemed to be tripping over themselves to put out “Pervert on every street corner” headlines that bore little or no relation to reality and were, if I was to be extremely generous, scaremongering and pandering horseshit. Morris and the Brass Eye team looked at this, and rightly thought that it was open to satire. Thus the “Paedo Special” was born- unleashed would probably be a better term for it. What they did here was honestly like launching a turd into a swimming pool and standing back to see what the reaction would be.

The reaction was predictable, and in its vehemence vindicated Morris’ point. The media as a whole was relieved to have a chance to put the boot in, and so became unable to tell the difference between what he was actually taking the piss out of (i.e. them) and the grim subject matter itself. It even got as far as the home secretary condemning it- sight unseen, obviously. Well, it would be sight unseen, given that he was blind. Nevertheless, Morris and Brass Eye were absolutely slaughtered in the press.

The thing is, though, that there was a significant gap between the original series and the special, and Chris Morris and Brass Eye were hardly unknown quantities. So, the special itself came with the same faux-news jokes (Paedo spotted in Cardiff disguised as a school), humiliation of celebrities (that twat Dr. Fox on camera saying that Paedo’s share 98% of their genes with a crab. There’s absolutely no scientific evidence for this, according to Fox, but it is a FACT), and very funny staged Panorama style news events- with Morris himself at the center conducting affairs like the ringmaster from media hell.

Funny as hell, scabrous, dark and evil, the paedo special was not only a brilliant piece of television, but the reaction served to underline the point Morris was making about the media being full of arseholes. Brass Eye in its entirety is a magnificent achievement, and if you haven’t seen it, I would suggest digging it out, because it is so close to the bone and so accurate that it is still relevant even now- over a decade later.

Simply some of the best television this country has ever produced.

Unlike the next series to be reviewed. Alcatraz: 

Episodes watched. All 13 pointless, annoying, time-wasting episodes.

This, on paper, isn’t a bad idea. Playing in Fringe territory, Alcatraz is about the disappearance in the 60′s of the prisoners and their reappearance in 21st Century San Francisco.

Starring Robert Forster, Sam Neill, that bint from Bend it Like Beckham that isn’t Keira Knightly, the fat cunt from Lost, and some blond woman I’ve never seen before (and suspect I’m never going to see again), Alcatraz is simply awful TV that fully merited the axe.

The problems here are huge. Firstly, structurally, it tries to be all things to all people by basically being monster of the week mixed in with flashbacks of the 60′s that allegedly tell the overarching story and reveal the secrets underpinning the premise.

Unfortunately, by the half way stage of the series, I had a strong suspicion that they didn’t know what the secrets that underpin the series are. It struck me that this was Lost redux, with confusion and obfuscation masquerading any attempt at a coherent narrative or satisfying story arc. Listen, yank TV types (and film types if Prometheturd was anything to go back), being superficially difficult to penetrate is not the same thing as being deep. So fucking stop it.

Also, please do try to realise that you don’t fucking have a god-given right to 10 series that go nowhere. Try to (as Supernatural did in its most successful series) tell an entire fucking story a year, but leave it simultaneously open to continue in the future. Do not just randomly throw ideas at the screen to see what sticks, because all that does is make it apparent that you haven’t got the first fucking clue what you’re doing.

Then, try to use your fucking brains when you’re writing. Let me give you a clue: a police detective in San Francisco would have to be inordinately stupid, even by the standards of police detectives in San Francisco, to not know that her fucking grandfather was an inmate in Alcatraz not a guard. Furthermore, given that it took her about one second to work out that the man she called her “Uncle” was actually her grandfather’s brother, I suspect this would not have come as a surprise to her either. Then, kindly, do not launch my suspension of disbelief into the stratosphere by casting a British Indian woman as a Prison psychiatrist in Alcatraz in the late 50′s. Furthermore, do not compound this cretinism by trying to make out that she’s a fucking Oxford graduate. This is horseshit.

Alcatraz was a colossal misfire, an annoying, frustrating and just plain shit waste of time. Frankly, it deserved the axe, and I’m fucking pleased it got it.

Lost-lite in the very worst way, and inevitably going to split off into about 50 different parallel universes or some such honk had it continued, this series was a shocking waste of both Forster and Neill. Shocking.

Special Bonus review: V

V: Episodes watched- 3/4 of the first one. Then I couldn’t take it any more. What a terrible load of honk

The original series V scared the bejesus out of me when I was about 4. The woman eating the hedgehog genuinely gave me nightmares, and I can see why it would be attractive for a remake.

Just not like this.

The only episode I endured (so bad I couldn’t even give it 4 to bed in), was stuffed full of cardboard cut out (and severely unlikeable) characters, crap motivation, and sheer stultifying boredom.

As pompous and full of its own importance as Battleshit Galaxative, the “pilot” episode really should have been the death-knell for the series. Yet somehow they got 2 years out of it.

Good bye, good riddance, and kindly fuck off.

That’s TV done for a while,

Ciao,

Jarv.

It’s the event film season. In this time of CGI effects, slow motion hero shots, basic storytelling and stuff blowing up real good, it’s often difficult to find a film at your local Hollywoodplex that tries for something more. A film about actual characters, who are involved in meaningful stories with insight and compelling themes. So when The Place Beyond The Pines was released last week, accompanied by favourable (often slobbering) reviews, I went out of my way to see it. I’m afraid I will be discussing the plot in some detail, so developments will be revealed. While these developments aren’t integral to the effectiveness of the film (ie. knowing them won’t ruin the film for you), I didn’t know the important one, and it wasn’t revealed in the trailer. If you read further, you’ll know. There, I’ve sufficiently covered my ass.

Luke (a bleach blonde Ryan Gosling) is a motorcycle stuntman at a travelling fair. His gig is to get inside a giant metal ball with two other stuntmen and all three ride at crazy speed. Unfortunately this is only glimpsed at the end of the opening tracking shot (involving a clever hidden cut). For curiosity sake I would have liked a better look. After the show, Luke is approached by an ex, Romina (Eva Mendes) and he discovers he has a one year old son named Jason. Wanting to be a father to the boy, he quits and takes up a job as a mechanic, working for Robin (Ben Mendelsohn). But times are tough, and you can’t support a family on minimum wage. Romina has settled with Kofi (Mahershala Ali), and Luke will have to show his worth to win her back and be involved in his sons life. Naturally, he turns to crime. With Robin as his accomplice, he begins to rob banks. But when he lashes out at Kofi and is arrested for assault, he is cut off by Romina. Luke becomes desperate. He decides to hit two banks in one day, and when Robin refuses to help, he goes it alone. Bungling the getaway, he is pursued by the rookie police officer Avery (Bradley Cooper). When Luke holds up in a house, Avery charges in and shoots him dead.

That’s the big plot development, and one that I didn’t expect. Ryan Gosling, name above the title and all that. But this is just a third of the way into the film. The perspective of the film then shifts on to Avery, as he recovers from a bullet wound in his leg (Luke shot back before he died), and deals with being in the spotlight as a local hero. Knowing that Luke had a son the same age as his own, he feels substantial guilt for the shooting. His marriage to Jennifer (Rose Byrne) suffers. He also becomes reluctantly involved in police corruption, when fellow officers in his department (led by Ray Liotta) shake down Romina for the stolen cash. Looking for a way out, he goes to the DA (Bruce Greenwood) and makes a deal. The son of a senator, Avery was set to become a lawyer and had passed the bar before he quit to become a police officer. In return for informing on his fellow cops, he receives a job as an Assistant DA.

15 years later and Avery is running for office. Divorced from Jennifer, his son AJ (Emory Cohen) moves in with him. AJ is a ginormous douchebag in need of a good kicking. Going to the local high school, AJ’s first friend is… you guessed it, Jason (Dane DeHaan). Things happen, past events resurface, and old wounds are re-opened. Blah blah blah.

This film didn’t work for me. Not after Luke is killed anyway. The first section of the film is compelling, well acted and really seems like it could go somewhere interesting. The desperate actions of a man who only wants to do good by his son, so that he can become a better man than he is, who is backed into a corner and is given a way out through crime. The repercussions of his acts could have been a thought provoking, involving and emotionally satisfying story. And this is where I thought it was going. By killing off your main character and shifting focus to a new one that was only just introduced (we first see Avery when he’s in pursuit), the screenplay by Darius Marder, Ben Coccio and the director Derek Cianfrance well and truly over-eggs the pudding.

If they had created characters as interesting as Luke and Robin, then the film would have rode the bump of this shift and continued on its not so merry way. Sure the theme of the film is the sins of the father blah blah, but each section of the film is less interesting than the last. So much so that I had almost no interest in the outcome of the film (apart from the hope that they would show AJ getting his head kicked in). I didn’t believe certain actions taken by Jason towards the end of the film, and found the whole situation contrived. At 140 minutes, the film is also overlong by at least 20 minutes. I’ve not seen Cianfrance’s previous film, Blue Valentine, but he’s an effective director and the robbery sequences in particular have a visceral, raw quality that seems to come naturally.

Despite screeching like a woman during the bank robbery scenes, Ryan Gosling puts in a very good performance. The character is interesting, and I was invested in his story. Ben Mendelsohn is also good as Robin, who is essentially a nice guy who likes Luke and doesn’t want to see him in trouble. Eva Mendes is okay, but she’s too old for the character and probably needed someone in her mid-twenties. There’s some solid work by Ray Liotta, the always dependable Bruce Greenwood and Dane DeHaan (although he could use a role where he’s not an awkward teenager). Rose Byrne is largely ineffectual, although she doesn’t have much to work with. And my feelings towards Bradley Cooper are well documented. My jets have cooled over the last few years, and he doesn’t incite instant dislike as he used to, but I’m never going to be a fan. His performance is fine, but I didn’t like the character and wasn’t very interested in his story.

The biggest problem I had with the film is Emory Cohen as AJ. Firstly, he looks nothing like his onscreen parents. Neither does DeHaan for that matter, but I didn’t have as much of a problem with him. The real problem with Cohen is his performance. I assume it was a directive from Cianfrance, but as played it’s like the goombah bastard child of Marlon Brando and Paul Sorvino. Never for one second did I believe that this kid was raised by Avery and Jennifer. He doesn’t even seem to have been raised in the same town. He’s a douchebag rich kid and he tawks loik he’s from the streets of Brooklyn (or some shit like that). It’s just so out of place, it only resulted in taking me entirely out of the film. What little interest I had in the film ended when the focus of the story shifted to him.

The other issue I had with the film, and this is a very common problem with films set over a number of years, is that 15 years later none of the characters looked much different. I watched Broken City the other day and that suffers from the same problem. Sure the women were given a makeup job so that they were a bit darker under the eyes, and maybe some salt and pepper in the hair. But in close up, Rose Byrne hadn’t aged a day. Her skin showed no sign of the passage of time. Time marches on for all of us, and there is no secret for everlasting youth. Bradley Cooper was merely given a slick politico’s haircut and an expensive suit, and we’re expected to buy it.

Overall, this was a disappointment because the first section is actually very good. It’s possible that ambition got the best of the writing team, but whatever the reason, The Place Beyond The Pines fell apart. It’s a shame because these films are few and far between at this time of year. It’s back to ‘splosions and superheroes I guess.

I bestow two bottles of peroxide out of a possible four on The Place Beyond The Pines.