Quick Movie Reviews Go!

Hey all. Sorry I’ve haven’t posted for a while, I’ve mostly been helping Kitacon run another kick-ass anime convention up in Birmingham and also been covering Kapow for Geek Planet Online. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t watched some films recently. Here is some brief nuggets of Genre-Giant wisdom.

Rio (2D Version) (2011)

Director: Carlos Saldanha

Stars: Jessie Eisenberg, Anne Hathaway, Jamie Foxx, George Lopez

Domestic bird put in a place he can’t handle. Yep, it’s the good old fashion fish out water storyline. Just with birds and set in Rio. Despite some lovely looking animation and solid voice work from Eisenberg, Hathaway and even Flight of The Concords Jermaine Clement, Rio is just lazy with a formula we’ve seen in countless films; animated or not.  Talented the vocal cast is at singing, the musical touches don’t help it fly from its stale generic birdcage either.

Hop (2011)

Director: Tim Hill

Stars: Russell Brand, James Marsden, Hugh Laurie, David Hasselhoff

The moment when James Marsden is revealed as the first human Easter Bunny, the words that came out of my mouth were “seriously?”  This hybrid animated live action fest is a weird creature indeed. Easter Bunny to be, E.B (Brand), doesn’t want to be Easter Bunny and goes to Hollywood to become a famous drummer. Jobless James Marsden accidentally runs him over and hilarity begins. Er, kinda of. Hop is marginally better than Rio simply because Marsden move into comedic roles like Sex Drive, Death At A Funeral Remake, and Enchanted to name a few has been entertaining to see so watching prattle about again for 90 minutes isn’t a bad thing.  Oh yeah and that Russell Brand meta moment where actor and animated character meet might have been an attempt to blow the kids tiny mind when in fact it’s just weird. That word perfectly sums up what I think of Hop.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams 3D (2010)

Director: Werner Herzog

This is my first encounter of a Herzog documentary so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. His subject for Cave of Forgotten Dreams is the recently discovered centuries old artwork in The Chauvet Caves in southern France. Armed with 3D cameras, he succeeds in showing off these fascinating drawings and on the other hand, completely alienates me with his barking mad metaphors. Those with Herzog experience will be happy, newcomers might get a little confused at the 3D albino crocodile bobbing in front of your eyes.

Your Highness (2011)

Director: David Gordon Green

Stars: Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman, Zooey Deschannel

On paper, it sounds like it could have been a laugh. However, when that proposed idea is taking a mystical fantasy quest and putting a swear word in every spout of dialogue, I’m not pleased. There are some genuine chuckles in this farce but again it’s all about being crude with the humour. It’s all about the sex jokes, the fart jokes, people swearing over and over again thinking it’s always funny.  It might be from the same talent as Pineapple Express, but Pineapple Express was an Apatow clan film. Tells you something, doesn’t it? You want a fantasy quest film with actual humour; check out The Princess Bride instead. This will infuriate many.

I did also check out Scre4m (or Scream 4) (which briefly I'll say here that I liked it...a lot) and will get a full in-depth review posted up soon.

Now if you excuse me, I have to go see Winnie The Pooh! That honey junkie fiend

Cinematic Dramatic Catch up!

Hi all,

It's been a while I know, mostly because real life work, convention work, and podcast work seems to over rule each other at some point over the last two weeks.

I'll have a review coming soon, just now for the time being, you can catch up on the Cinematic Dramatics that you might have missed. 

As usual, click the logos to go to the episode page. Enjoy!

Cinematic Dramatic 3x01 - Best Worst Movie and Troll 2

Cinematic Dramatic 3x02 - Drive Angry 3D / Byron Pitt Vs The Oscars

Don’t get checked into The Ward, it’s already dull.

The Ward (2010)

Director: John Carpenter

Stars: Amber Heard, Jared Harris, Lyndsy Fonseca, Sali Sayler

Me and ghost horror films don’t get on well. It’s not that I’m shit scared of watching them. They just don’t really seem to catch my imagination, excitement, and enthrallment. Very rare cases do.

There’s nothing different about most of them  especially when most of the reasons they lurk about is from being the deceased remains of someone who was wronged or evil. Or both.  Or maybe, a Scooby-doo villain.

A good movie memory was when I watched What Lies Beneath when I was 15. Scared the fucking shit out of me in the cinema, perhaps I didn’t expect it but hey I remember the viewing experience fondly. It may not stand the test of time, sure. But when I look back at that film, I have happy memories of good cinema experiences.

And that’s the thing with most ghost films. I try to find the positives in them but when they’re all about loud shunting noises, annoying characters, and a repetitive ending. I don’t tend to go out wanting to see them. I remember watching The Grudge US (hated it), Reeker (hated it), Boogeyman (hated it) to name a few and still don’t find these sort of films entertaining. It doesn’t make me want to go watch the original Ringu, or Grudge, or similar films. I know I should but when I have repeated bad experiences, it’s not a genre that screams out to me immediately to watch.

And I’m sorry for that god awful pun.

And The Ward is yet another aggravatingly bad experience.

I’ll be honest. I’m not a familiar voyeur of John Carpenter films and this is probably the wrong one to start viewing if I wanted to get into watching the films of a very renowned and respected horror director. But I think I really should have just asked someone to borrow their copy of The Thing, I’d likely enjoy that a bit more. Probably tons more than The Ward. 

The problem with The Ward is that it’s uninspiring, unoriginal, and quite frankly…dull. It’s like it’s trying to mesh Girl Interrupted with Identity with say any recent ghost movies. And it fails. It splats against the small hole it was supposed to be melded into in the first place. It sadly plays out more like a TV movie than anything else considering Carpenter’s association with Masters of Horror.

It’s a group of mentally unstable girls locked up in a ward where the ghost of one of their former patients is stalking and killing the girls one by one. Leaving the naturally sane, yet also unbalanced, good girl played by Amber Heard, to question what on earth is going on. Obviously, like all normal horror tales, no one is inclined to believe her including the head doctor played by Jared Harris.

It really doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens. 

Then they decide to be really, really, smart and throw in a twist that is eye rolling bad.

Then they add that traditional never ending ending. 

Well done, everyone involved. You’ve just annoyed me for another 90 minutes.

I really don’t want to be mean but when I’ve seen it all before, it’s hard to be positive about my experience with The Ward. The acting isn’t as bad as other films. Amber Heard and Jared Harris actually are really watchable in the flick. It’s just annoying that the same potholes of horror logic just come into effect and considering this is from a revered director who brought us the original Halloween (not the Zombie crap), The Thing and other cult titles, it just feels disappointing.

Can someone lend me the copy of The Thing now and show me how good Carpenter is, please?

If I was a tourist, I’d go on holiday Angelina Jolie any day.

The Tourist (2010)

Director: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Stars: Johnny Depp, Angelina Jolie, Paul Bettany, Steven Berkoff

Ah, mistaken identities, gangsters, spies, Timothy Dalton. It’s an appealing prospect that lies ahead of us in The Tourist. Johnny Depp’s simple maths teachers in trouble all because Angelina Jolie sat next to him. On paper, you’d think that The Tourist would have grounds for being a perfect dynamite hit. Though when you start seeing the way they’re pushing the film into cinemas, it seems more a vacant affair.

Thanks to Optimum Releasing’s slow crawl publicity push that I’d usually expect to see with independent titles, I had grown the expectation that this was something its distributor were so confident on it. That or they thought putting the words Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie above any title, like Soup Kitchen Melee, would just get bums on seats.

Well, at least I’m not bitter about my two hours just spent.

I’m not going to defend The Tourist against its naysayers at the moment. They have valid points. It really isn’t anything special. It is a typical by-the-numbers genre picture of mistaken identity that does little to challenge an audience. That’s it, there’s nothing else. The plot twists you, it turns you, but it’s not pulling the rug out from under you. When a big secret is dropped at the end of the film, its fine just go “Really? Oh well, never mind. I’ll go with it for now. Film's finished in ten minutes.” The Tourist simply qualifies as 100% pure escapist entertainment on a Friday / Saturday night at the cinema. You won’t mind it; it just won’t stick with you despite the simple thrills it offers.

Depp and Jolie are fine together, it’s nothing special. Jolie brings her usual sultry self with English accent. Depp goes along with it, his face always seemingly riddled with bewilderment and befuddlement. You occasionally chuckle at Depp’s predicament. You will (most likely males really), just stare at Jolie for her sheer beauty. They’re not pushed to deliver demanding performances and it shows.

Paul Bettany takes a break from battling “ANG-ELS” to be a sleezy, arsey, Policeman. You’ll watch him throw a strop for most of the film. Makes a change I suppose. Steven Berkoff makes a rare cinematic appearance as the main baddie as has a better presence than most of the cast. Rufus Sewell sneaks about, that mysterious man. And to make everything right in this world, Timothy Dalton is the head of Scotland Yard / Interpol. Somebody make this man the new M! Or the manager at your local Co-Op. Everyone’s here on holiday…acting.

Perhaps Donnersmarck wanted to just take things easy after winning an Oscar for The Lives of Others? Like Steven Soderbergh did with Ocean’s Eleven. Maybe that’s why The Tourist tries to be a mixture of whimsical knockabout spy and gangster thriller runarounds in Venice. It just doesn’t know what to be and that’s the make it, break it for many people going in with high expectations. 

Considering its low key advertising and promotion, I think everyone involved clearly was thinking this was a playful working vacation too. For those seeking high quality from all those involved, it’s not going to come in this relaxed state.

Though Venice looks nice….