In The Loop

Big screen adaptation of BBC television satirical comedy 'The Thick of It'

Peter Capaldi as the demon politician 'Tucker' steals the show, the actor chews his way though the film brilliantly. The script is sharp and witty and Capaldi really goes to town with some great one lines. Another standout performance goes to the American general played by James Gandolfini who is on fine form, the scene in the children's room and the calculations being made on a Childs toys is funny, and the line "normally if no solider returns from a war, that normally means we have lost" is one of the best scenes in the film.

Sometimes TV shows are better left on the small screen and not developed and adapted for the big screen. 'In the loop' is an extremely well written film, with award nominations popping up throughout the year for adapted screenplay. Still the format for both the TV show and the Film is similar to another British TV show named 'Drop The Dead Donkey' replacing journalists with government officials. Both these shows relied on an up to date news format that changes from week to week, which as a feature can not be done.

Also the concept works better in a forty minute episode, and ideas used in the film seem stretched for the movie which is almost two hours long.

A one off film although funny in places struggles to add depth to the characters, partly because of the films fast pace and leaves the movie slightly disjointed because of this.

The Last House on the Left

After kidnapping and brutally assaulting two young women, a gang led by a prison escapee unknowingly finds refuge at a vacation home belonging the parents of one of the victims.

The remake wagon carries on, and as other previous horror remakes 'The Last House on the Left' is high on style but misses the point of its original.

It can be seen as the only reason why this film exists is the fact the film is next in line with the horror catalogue of the 1970's. We have had remakes of 'Texas Chainsaw', 'The Hills Have Eyes', 'Friday 13th' 'Halloween' etc and both the 'A Nightmare On Elm Street' and 'Hellraiser' franchise are getting a remake too. With the exception of an ok 'The Hill Have Eyes' all the remakes have been terrible. 'The Last House' is ok, but again there is really no reason why this film has been remade at all.

'The Last House On The Left' remake is slickly made, technically a better made film compared to the ragged original. The performances are also ok. After the main assault and attack the film loses its way, what is left is an hour or so of standard revenge themes and various ultra violent deaths. Also far to many scenes of characters creeping around a blacked out house, or running about in the rain.

The original film had a meaning. The original was released at the time of the Vietnam War, and Watergate, the film was projecting messages of violence and how far on screen violence can or must go, and the film also had an art house following too.
The movie was terrible, gritty and badly made, BUT had a place in the developing 1970's horror genre, and is a watermark for this type of horror genre.

With all the problems of the original it had a point and that is the problem with the remake, what is the point outside just remaking another well know genre piece?. In the end the remake has the slightly less profound message of revenge is good.

The Proposal

On the verge of being deported and losing the high-powered job she lives for, the controlling Margaret announces she’s engaged to her unsuspecting, put-upon assistant Andrew.

The most successful off beat comedy of 2009.
I must admit I am not the demographic or target audience for the new Sandra Bullock romantic comedy, still as a wishy washy predictable comedys go this is a better effort.
The chemistry between both Bullock and Reynolds is there, and there are at least a couple of solid funny scenes, mostly played out by the films lead Bullock.

Still everyone has seen this all before and despite the always watch able Bullock giving a solid run and Reynolds also showing again that he is better at light comedy than drama. Again 'The Proposal' is what it is, a studio summer release to make money and not attempting to become the next 'Annie Hall'.

Bakjwi

A priest loses his faith, and a failed medical experiment turns him into a vampire.

Park Chan-Wook film was a nice alternative to the other supernatural films of 2009, and a complete u-turn to the most successful other vampire film of 09', 'Twilight'.

'Thirst' suffers from style over substance, to an extent that the story and screenplay gets itself in a muddle, and is not as strong as some of Wook's more solid films such as 'Old Boy'.

'Thirst' is strongest in what is on show visually. The film is a visual treat, with impressive style and showmanship. A stand out is an outstanding set of set pieces, including a closing act to the film which is beautifully done, using very little dialogue.

Good performances, and a visually flair makes 'Thirst' one of the more stand out foreign language films of 09'.

Sicko

Michael Moore's new documentary sets out to investigate the American healthcare system. Sticking to his tried-and-true one-man approach, Moore sheds light on the complicated medical affairs of individuals and local communities.

Michael Moore shows the U.S health service to be in a mess. With a number of scenes showing a failing in the health service due to greed from private company’s and soaring prices in health attention. 

An opening scene of a man when confronted with a large health bill, after an accident has the choice of only being able to replace one of his fingers out of two which have been amputated. A quite striking opening act, and sets the tone for the documentary.

Of course this is standard Michael Moore, which means that evidence is twisted to support his argument, check out the scene where Moore visits both London and Paris. The evidence is presented that these countries pay for the health service though taxes, but this is only briefly mentioned and skimmed over, and Moore pictures both countries getting everything for free. Also we have the big stunt in the climax of the documentary, where Michael Moore attempts to break into Guantanamo bay. Still the Cuba climax, does produce an off the cuff touching closing set of moments.

The problem as with all of Mr Moore's documentaries is they are always one sided and never attempt to get a balanced view for the content covered, which ultimately although entertaining, emotional and interesting, leaves an air of in complication.

Pour elle

Lise and Julien are married and lead a happy, quiet existence with their son, Oscar. But their lives are turned upside down one morning when the police come to their home to arrest Lisa for murder.

'Anything for Her' has a number of strong central performances from its two leads, Vincent Lindon and Diane Kruger.

The film has a strong engaging opening half and hour. But for some reason the film, kind of goes off the rails with a lack believability, and a second half full of lucky and un lucky turn of events, which is a shame for a film which has a such a well writen first half.

A Hollywood remake is on the way, with no doubt Nicolas Cage taking the lead, it is a type of role that he would take. Still if the remake keeps to the more solid opening half of this French thriller, could be a remake worth looking out for, for a change.

Chi Bi

Based on the true events during the Three Kingdoms period in Ancient China, in which specifically told in the title, The Battle of Red Cliffs.

Director John Woo has been most recently famous for his cross over Hollywood films rather than his original Asian cinema, from the impressive Face Off (his best Hollywood film to date), and the not so impressive 'Windtalkers' and 'Mission impossible 2'. Still his grass roots are with Asian cinema with such greats as 'A Better Tomorrow' and 'Hard Boiled'. The director is at heart an action film maker with plot and dialogue normally taking a back seat.

Red Cliff is right up there with the best work Woo he has done, although the dialogue is still clumpy as with many of his films. There are still loads of fun, impressive action sequences to entertain, and even horses being knocked over by warriors.
As well as the obvious dove sequence that John Woo puts into all of his films, in Red Cliff a carrier pigeon is replaced with a dove as the dove is sent across the river to a spy within the enemy camp, and what we see is a bird’s eye view of the approaching flooting armada, a fun standout scene.

There is a slight Déjà Vu with 'Red Cliff' as ever since' Couching Tiger Hidden Dragon', these types of films are being produced out of South East Asia all the time.

Still how could you not love a film that has a warrior knock over horses with his bare hands.

The Exorcist III

A particularly cruel and gruesome serial killer is at large in Georgetown. His murders, which involve torture, decapitation and the desecration of religious icons, is bad enough; but they also resemble those of the Gemini Killer. The killing in Georgetown, maybe connected to the exorcism of fifteen years previous.

The official sequel to the original Exorcist, with the writer, and for this instalment director William Peter Blatty having nothing to do with the fun but silly Exorcist 2.

The first thing to notice about the third instalment is the acting and Blattys script is solid and well written, a vast improvement from part 2.
Actor George C. Scott as the detective lead is great, and fellow actor Ed Flanders as his priest friend also puts in a nice performance.

The film has one great set piece, an intense horror sequence, which uses a static camera position to drive a five minute sequence before a violent act, a great use of horror timing, and as a whole very affective. Amongst the the very best horror scenes of the 90's.

Still the film is not as engaging, interesting nor as thrilling in comparison to the first film. The less said about the over-the-top ending the better. The studio were crying out for an exorcism and a big special effects closing act, and what remains is a slap dash mess of an ending, which brings comparisons to the ending of the Exorcist 2.

American Teen

'American Teen' follows the lives of five teenagers a jock, a popular girl, a heartthrob, an artsy girl and a geek in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school, all real.

The film is not a hard hitting account of teen life in America. General run of the mill falling outs between friends, pressure of one teenager to do well in his local basketball team, also pressure in the boy to get a college sponsorship, are what follows.

Out of all the Teenagers Hannah is the stand out as the girl who wants to move to Hollywood and make it big. A girl out of place in the drama of college boys and basketball life, she is the light at the end of the tunnel, and arguably the one teen you care about.

This is all pretty entertaining, but with rumours of a number of staged moments of the film the whole original idea can be lost. It is also noticeable that director Nanette Burstein plays out alot of the scenes as what seems to be scripted film drama, rather than the more off the cuff realistic drama.

Exorcist II - The Heretic

Four Years after the events of Georgetown, Regan has not full recovered from her Exorcism. The church is also looking for answers to the death of Father Merrin who died while performing an exorcism on Regan.

The sequel to William Friedkin horror master work was trashed on release.
The script of African demons is both odd and does'nt work, also the use of mind reading technology is also silly.

Richard Burton puts on a bizarre performance, neither straight nor tongue in cheek. Linda Blair is though again convincing as both the charming and creepy Regan.

Still this is nowhere near as bad as you have been told. There is alot of original horror on show here. The exorcism being taken place half way up a mountain is affective for example and a highlight. 
Ennio Morricone's score is very affective and produces a lovely regan main theme.

The film is a disaster in horror terms on a number of levels. Also the original is too much of a ground breaker to follow. Still you have to give credit to director John Boorman in producing not a straight copy of the original masterpiece and looking for new ideas.

Dead Presidents

A young group of guys from New York's Bronx struggle with 1960s/70s life and join the Vietnam war to fight for their country, which have consequences that change their lives forever.

Dead Presidents has become the forgotten great black new wave film of the 90's. During the 1990's directors such as Spike Lee and John Singleton were being tipped as the directors who would throw black cinema into the for front of Hollywood cinema. No one saw the emergence of the Hughes brothers though. Although their debut film Menace 2 society would be their breakthrough 'DP' is arguably the film to judge the brothers skills by.
The Film is an impressive comment on black equality and the social impact on various classes involvements in the controversial Vietnam War.

Held together by an impressively directed film. At times visually stylish, the brothers also take a few leaves out of Martin Scorsese's earlier work visually.

The centre performance of Anthony played by Larenz Tate is spot on, and overall the Hughes brothers get an impressive set of performances from all of the cast. Including the one and only good performance from a one Chris Tucker, who is great here.

The film is sadly rushed after the impressively staged climatic heist in the closing act of the film.

Still overall this is stylish film which raises enough food for thought and is thrilling thought out.

This Is It

'This is it' covers the final days of rehearsing for the 50 date Michael Jackson show which would have taken place in London's O2 arena.

The first thing that must be said about this film is that it is a hard piece of entertainment to pigeon hole. 'This Is It' can not be labelled as a documentary. The piece of entertainment does not present a point of view or a story narrative; it is also not a film, because it does not present a story in it traditional sense. So what is 'This Is It'? In its crudest sense it is a well edited put together series of what the live DVD of TIT would ranked as extras/behind the scenes.

There is no doubting the show itself would have been an epic and amazing visual treat. There are moments in the footage of a true pop genius, and it is amazing to see how strong his voice, dancing and stage presence still was, even in rehearsals. Reports after MJs death indicated that Jackson didn't want to do the shows.

If this footage is to show anything it shows that this was not the case. Michael Jackson seems thrilled to perform and his attention to detail was amazing.
On the other hand there are also moments of watching a very fragile ex king of pop, who was struggling with his young backing dancers and the pressure of doing the shows.

Overall hardcore Michael fans will lap this up, and this is as good as it could get to show how the shows would of played out.
To be fair the live shows would have been pretty amazing.
Still this is a choppy stop and start affair of the songs; some don't even get to the end, which is ultimately unsatisfying as a whole.

Also if you watch the DVD check out the feature on the costumes that would have been worn by Michael Jackson, now they are something else.

Summer Scars

Six fourteen year old kids skip school to play in the woods, but some hot rodding on a stolen moped changes the fate of their day.

The latest popular horror film genre which has exploited youth terror, is nicely flipped on its head in this film from a bunch of tear aways causing terror and mayhem in a wood to a young couple in the way of the bigger budget 'Eden Lake', to the adults getting their own back, with terror inflicted on themselves, in the manner of a drifter actor Kevin Howarth, in 'Summer Scars'.

Summer Scars has been tipped as a mixture of 'Stand by Me' and 'Eden Lake' and although not up to those to films standards, it is an easy comparison.

The film is low key and generally not that thrilling.

The film does though have good performances from its leads and doesn't out stay its welcome with a running time just under and hour and twenty minutes.

Pandorum

Two astronauts, Bower (Foster) and Payton (Quaid), wake up from suspended animation to find themselves alone, with no memory of who and were they are, they both soon discover that they are members of crew or a ship taken over by fleshing eating, mutant humans.

Despite a number of film reviews calling the film a rip off of other genre type films ranging from aliens etc, this may not be the problem with Pandorum.
The problem lies in the fact that the film is lacking suspense. There are so many scenes you can watch, of people being chased by alien type characters, and get bored of this endless style. These aliens looking not unlike the beasts in the recent masterpiece 'The Descent' chase after chase.

The acting is ok Ben Foster is fine as the hero, but Dennis Quaid who I am a big fan of has little to do.

The set design is impressive and does keep you visually impressed. Still the lighting is so so dark it is really hard to work out what is going on in the opening section of the film.

Overall the film had a great idea and has a rewarding twist ending.

Still it seems an age getting to the final reveal, and ultimately the movie is just not exciting nor thrilling enough when the big payoff comes.

Crazy Eights

Six people are brought together by the death of a friend. Which leads to a discovery of a time capsule unleashing evil from there childhood home.

Crazy eights is the most confusing badly directed, badly scripted not scary horror film in a number of years.
The plot is interesting and in more accomplished hands this film would have been better.

Open ended by bad acting and script. The cast are pretty much the D list of actors, you have seen them all in at least one film, and that film was years ago and either the film was just ok, or the film was good and they were the most un interesting part in it. Also a note to make is the soundtrack which seemed to have been completed by a number of composers, it is intrusive and distracting.

The whole film wraps up making little sense, with the worse offender being why was the ghost killing the characters.

Overall the film comes and goes so quickly you will forget most of it by the end of the credits.

Le Pacte Des Loups

18th century France, the Chevalier de Fronsac and his Native American friend Mani are sent by the King to the Gevaudan province to investigate the killings of hundreds by a mysterious beast.

Brotherhood of the Wolf is a glorious looking drama, which begins with a impressive opening scene and solid first twenty minutes, setting up the characters and showing what the hunted beast is capable of. The film pretty much drops off the radar from then on. The film is slow and un-involving, and falls into a self absorbing mess losing sight of the wolf story and runs away with social dramas with the characters, that are never really that interesting.

Husband and wife duo Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel star, but not quite sure why. Bellucci plays a weird prostitute character that doesn't really have any use apart from look gorgeous and wondering around aimlessly, and Cassel as an over the top crazed hunter.

Overal the film looks great, but is poorly executed and dull.

Pontypool

A deadly virus infects a small Ontario town, a tiny town radio station team try to piece together what is going on from their studio, as the situation gets worse and worse.

The virus theme is growing popular in modern cinema from the 28 days series to the resident evil series, but Pontypool is a more original take on this genre.
The film is almost entirely set in the radio station with a skeleton crew of three people, the first half build up is excellent, with panic ranging only kilometres away from the studio director Bruce McDonald really cranks up the tension with radio interviews, that may remind views of the Orson Welles radio 'war of the World adaptation in the 1930's.

Everything is held together by a good cast and a great turn from the films lead Stephen McHattie, as the unhinged DJ.

It almost falls flat in the final third of the film, with the release of the tension with the reveal of what the virus is and the appearance of the zombies, although the origins are very clever.
At this point the film falls slightly zombie generic in its execution.
The film works better when you don't see the zombies, the pure radio scenes are greatly acted and written.

Another point is the comedy which is hit and miss, with more added to the final third of the film, taking the edge off the movie.

Pontypool is a very original horror film worth seeking out.

Role Models

Wild behaviour forces a pair of energy drink reps to enrol in a Big Brother program.

Paul Rudd is fast becoming the comedy man of the moment starring in a number of Hollywood comedies recently.

There are a few laughs in 'Role Model', Seann William Scott is an established comedy actor, and a funny turn from the young actor Bobb'e J. Thompson, both these actors steal the show from its lead Rudd, with a number of nice character bonding scenes, giving the film a bit of weigh when needed.

'Role Models' aims its target audience firmly in the teen market, which means many people over the age of 16, may not find this film funny because of this.

Sadly the film all ends to the predictable solution of mates on a redeeming voyage formula, used already in so many Hollywood films, you can see this a mile off.

These films like the popular 'Superbad' and Rudd's follow up film to 'Role Model' 'I love you man' are sticking to the American Pie crude comedy formula. The first American Pie was funny, but this type of copy cat comedy is fading fast.

Zatoichi

Zatoichi is a 19th century blind nomad who makes his living as a gambler and masseur. Stumbling onto a small town he gets involved with a number of gangs who wish to take over the town, also a pair a geishas who have vengeance on their agenda.

Director Takeshi Kitano has become a legend over the eleven films he has made in his home country of Japan; with many of his earlier films being rather abstract, Kitano has said that Zatoichi is a more in the way of his words 'an 'entertainment type of film'.

References can be seen within Zatoichi to many of the 1960s Italian westerns, such as the Dollar's trilogy. The wondering loner, the two gangs fighting for power over a town, and a number of stand offs that will involve long group shots that lead to swift action set pieces.
Still Zatoichi is one of the most original Japanese western you will see.

The performances are great. The director himself leads the pack as the blind masseur on fine form, Daigorô Tachibana as the leader of the Geisha is good, and Tadanobu Asano of 'Ichi the killer' fame produces a fine performance.

The action, which although brief are impressive, the opening and closing blood feast are stand outs.

The film also manages to have time for a bit of comedy, which is mostly un funny, still the training scene of a couple of young samaris getting a rubbish training lession, hits the spot.
The music and its integration is also a worthy point. Most Hollywood films would not integrate a show stopping action set piece closer with a dance routine, Kitano somehow gets away with it.

Redbelt

Mike Terry is a retired American solider, who now runs his own self-defence studio in Los Angeles.
A series of events force the ex Jiu-jitsu master to get back into the ring for a $50,000 prize.

David Mamet script is as usual pitch perfect, although not as quotable as a number of his past movies, the film is still an extremely well written piece.

The real prize for the film is the casting and performances, Chiwetel Ejiofor as the lead Mike Terry is exceptional, with ever scene showing a building of the character as events around him get more and more tense, and he feels that the control he teaches to his students could crack.
The support is also great including a worthy performance by Joe Mantegna and also an impressive and much understated performance by Tim Allen. Bravo to Mamet as a director, as well as a good script writer he can draw good performances from his cast.

If there are floors in the film it is possibly that there are too many plot ties for Mike Terry to have make that force him to take part in the competition. There are around three in total. Which although the films climax is satisfying allot of these story threads are left.

Still great performances from the lead and a great supporting case makes RedBelt an intelligent piece of cinema which you now come to expect from one of Hollywoods best screen writers.