Tag Archives: T

The Incredible Burt Wonderstone  (2013)    53/100

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Rating :   53/100                                                                     100 Min        15

A comedy about performance magicians that starts really strongly, with attention grabbing use of music and the scene well set, and then loses its way badly, largely due to a central character as devoid of comedy and interest value as the cardboard cutout of himself that he carries around with him. It also ‘misses a trick’ by very obviously using computers and camera play to perform a lot of the magic, which for a big budget movie is really not good enough. Steve Carell plays the aforementioned central character of Wonderstone, who has performed countless shows over a successful career with his high school buddy and fellow magician Anton Marvelton, played by Steve Buscemi, and is now jaded, bored, and bullying everyone around him, with an ego even larger than his over the top hairdo. Enter new wannabe magician Jane, played by the perfectly formed Olivia Wilde, who will of course make him see the error of his ways. It’s overtly trite to say the least, and unfortunately the comedy is largely unwaveringly flat. Notwithstanding, however, a wonderful turn from Jim Carrey as the new daredevil of street magic, Steve Gray, appearing on the scene like a cross between Johnny Knoxville, David Blaine and Axl Rose. Here, on the periphery of the central plot, the film is more successful, if only they’d put more effort into the centre rather than going for the same old dull as ditchwater routine. Alan Arkin and James Gandolfini also appear in support.

The Paperboy  (2012)    79/100

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Rating :   79/100                                                                     107 Min        15

This is the latest film from director/screenwriter/producer Lee Daniels, whose last film was the hard hitting, Oscar nominated ‘Precious’, back in 2009. Here we see a marvellous performance by everyone in the talented ensemble cast, including Nicole Kidman, Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, David Oyelowo, John Cusack, Macy Grey and Scott Glen in support. But no Oscar nods this time round? The reason is not that they aren’t merited, especially in the case of Kidman, but that the material is a little dark and overtly sexual for most people’s taste. For example, the story mostly revolves around the imprisonment of one Hillary Van Wetter, played by Cusack, and the investigation of his innocence or guilt by Miami Times journalists, spearheaded by the drive of Kidman’s character who intends to marry Van Wetter should he be found innocent and released – cue a most amusing scene in the prison featuring Cusack jerking off whilst Kidman flaunts her stuff for him, and the others not entirely sure what to do with this particularly sizeable elephant in the room (far from the first time Kidman has wonderfully portrayed a highly sexualised character, nor her first onscreen masturbatory antics – see the deserving but mostly overlooked ‘Margot at the Wedding’).

Daniels co-wrote the screenplay with author Peter Dexter, adapted from his novel of the same name, and the whole film has had a film grain texture applied to it, which is initially a huge distraction and irritant, but as the film goes on it gets easier on the eyes. This is to evoke the 60’s era it’s set in, but if we look at the success of ‘The Help’ set in a similar age and venue, the American south, which was edited with no gimmicky effects, we see its use was hardly necessary to recreate the feel they were looking for. Expect some brutal violence on the way, and they may have perhaps egged the pudding a little, but overall the great work of the cast make this vibrantly engaging and a possible career best for some of them. It’s especially good news for Efron, who is a good actor, but ever since ‘17 Again’ (09) he’s gone for safe and humdrum fare at best. ‘The Paperboy’ also marks another very noteworthy role for Matthew McConaughey, in a year that seen him with plaudits for both ‘Magic Mike’ and ‘Killer Joe’ (which premiered in Edinburgh incidentally, or Edinborow as I believe most of the cast liked to pronounce it), making 2012 almost certainly a career high for him.

The Guilt Trip  (2012)    15/100

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Rating :   15/100                                                                       95 Min        12A

Mearow. That is the sound of my soul weeping for the hours of life invested in this film which could have been more enjoyably spent cleaning the oven with a toothbrush. Let not my suffering be in vain. Supposedly based on a real road trip undertaken by screenwriter Dan Fogelman (‘Cars’, ‘Crazy Stupid Love’) with his mother years previously, it could be the film only exists as some kind of belated apology to his family, though it is quite likely he also watched ‘Due Date’ (10), which wasn’t bad, and thought, ‘Hey, let’s do exactly the same thing but with a guy and his mother, it’ll be hilarious!’. It’s not. The guy and mother in question here are Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand (for whom this is her first leading role since ‘The Mirror Has Two Faces’ in 1996), and the most immediate problem is that Rogen plays someone so completely hopeless that it’s impossible to identify with him, as he plans a tour of the states to sell his cleaning product and very obviously bores everyone to tears with his sales pitch along the way. Cue mother who will eventually have the right approach to solve everything, but who will initially be rejected, and son who takes her along to secretly reunite her with an old flame, which will initially cause upset, before the realisation that her best intentions were at heart. If there was any comedy along the trip they take, which includes a visit to the Grand Canyon as in ‘Due Date’, then I missed it entirely, although it did bring to the fore that using the term ‘oriental’ is no longer politically correct. When did that happen? Is ‘Asian’ out the window too? The Red Dragon, it seems, is a little behind the times, this tends to happen when one is centuries old. Streisand’s character also has a gizmo that attaches to her handbag and allows it to dangle under tables so it needn’t be put on the floor, which was reasonably nifty, and indeed a supporting character picked up on it in preference to Rogen’s product. Thus I have extracted the only two points worthy of note from the film so that you may be saved from the tragic experience of watching it.

To The Wonder  (2012)    63/100

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Rating :   63/100                                                                     112 Min        12A

‘To The Wonder’ is the latest film from highly acclaimed director Terrence Malick, and of all his work to date it is closest to his last piece, ‘The Tree of Life’, in that it is for the most part a series of beautiful shots of nature and people, as part of the natural world, and the narrative, such that it is, is told via the character’s thoughts in poetic voice over. The pivotal character is played by Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko and Rachel McAdams play two of the women in his life, and Javier Bardem acts in support as the local priest with issues regarding his waning faith.

The story really focuses on the fidelity of Affleck’s relationship with girlfriend Kurylenko, and there is a sense of each character here suffering from sensory deprivation – the diligent priest who never stops working but gets no physical satisfaction, the wandering eye of Affleck, his bouncy joie de vivre girlfriend stuck with him in a dead end town, the oppressive weight of society’s expectations and limits contrasted with the wonderful landscape images of rolling hills and running streams. It is a reflective piece, and so interpretation is of course open, but there is an interesting sermon from the priest which mentions how a person can make a mistake and regret it, but hesitating and not acting is much worse. In a sense it’s a redemption for the darker moments of the film but I can’t help but wonder if perhaps Malick has not been thinking along the same lines himself, as the famously selective director, whose films to date are ‘Badlands’ (73), ‘Days of Heaven’ (78), ‘The Thin Red Line’ (98), ‘The New World’ (05) and ‘The Tree of Life’ (11), has suddenly gone into colossal creative overdrive with three full feature films currently in post production, one of which, ‘Voyage of Time’, is all about cosmology, and with his expertise in photography that really should be something special.

This is not going to be for everyone (about one third of the audience left before the end, and there were audible cries of delight when it did finish) and you have to be prepared for the majority of the film focusing on natural visuals – there is almost no character to character dialogue. It is in danger of being labelled pretentious, certainly it’s debatable whether or not he crosses the line here, where probably some of the earlier parts come off worse as we are introduced to the young lovers and it feels like we’re watching a twenty minute condom commercial. However, I think Malick is a director who takes his work very seriously and very personally (‘The Tree of Life’ for example is about a young family that very much mirrors his own upbringing) and over his films you can see his style evolving, and perhaps his confidence growing to the point where now he feels he can do a poetic film and not feel constrained by mainstream notions of story and dialogue. Feeding into this he has a very curious casting taste, usually casting the most beautiful people of both sexes that he can, indeed going for looks over acting quality – Brad Pitt, Colin Farrell, Ben Affleck, all known as male heart throbs but at times perhaps a little hit or miss on the acting front. Has he chosen them to try and match the perfection of his photography? Or for the bigger box office draw for what will be termed an art house film? There is almost a sense that the director is intensely shy and wants to be as far away from us as possible, and this film does suffer from a slight feeling of alienation that never quite goes away.

In the case of Affleck here, Malick very wisely gives him almost nothing to say for the entire film, he just sort of struts around looking brutish, and is rewarded for good behaviour by being allowed to break a wing mirror. He does have I think two, possibly three voice over bits of brief poetry, but then it really does sound hopelessly pretentious, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there were a lot more left lying on the cutting room floor. His lady friend speaks in French a lot of the time, and it’s fairly plain to see from the look on Affleck’s face he has no idea what she is saying. The one time he replies in French we know very well it has been dubbed with someone else’s voice, partly from him having his back to us and omitting a small shout a second later with a different audio quality, and partly because there is no way he would be able to produce such a convincing French accent. Interestingly, one of the love scenes in the film, often the most difficult thing to do and usually completely pointless in terms of the story or visual experience for the audience, was superbly done, brief, but showcasing the bodies of the protagonists in a way they will never have any reason to be shy about.

Having said that, the camera does seem to have a constant gravitation toward the breasts of the various females who feature in the film, which begins to feel a little perverse, unless of course Malick is saying they are a part of the wonderful, beautiful landscape of nature which, you know, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with, or perhaps he intends the viewer to almost see through the eyes of Ben Affleck’s character. Art house film can justify almost anything. There is a trend generally in modern film with the fairly ubiquitous use of shaky or hand held cam, to various degrees, to have a sneaky extra dip with the camera – even yesterday whilst rewatching Les Mis there was a noticeable perv on Samantha Barks when she’s in the rain singing against the wall.

The film’s title is mentioned as the main couple visit Mont Saint-Michel in France (also reputedly one of the inspirations behind Minis Tirith’s design in Peter Jackson’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy). I thought at one point there was something about the film that reminded me of ‘There Will be Blood’, which has a similar feel in terms of the landscape acting as a character for the first act of the movie, and sure enough the head of the art department on that film, Jack Fisk (also husband to Sissy Spacek), reprises that role here, being a long time colleague of Malick. With ‘Blood’ the technique worked really well because it was used in collaboration with the actions, if not initially the words, of an intense character played by Daniel Day Lewis, but here the characters are too flimsy and don’t really get interesting until later on, which is ultimately why this isn’t as good as his previous work. There does remain some very beautiful imagery throughout the film that it will be a pleasure to have endure in my memory, and overall I’d say I liked it despite its overly indulgent tendencies, though it would be interesting to know where exactly the division here exists between Malick, Fisk and the cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. Not for the first time in his career, Malick has axed footage of other famous actors from the movie entirely, amongst them Jessica Chastain and Rachel Weisz. Perhaps Affleck’s character was getting too much action. Christian Bale was originally slated for the role that Affleck plays but he pulled out and will feature in Malick’s next two films instead.

One can imagine the casting…

MALICK :   Ok, Olga, love your limited work so far by the way, so we’d like to cast you so we can have you frolic around sensually showing off your body, and then have you lie down on some manky wet marshland, how does that sound, exciting yes?
OLGA :   Em, why?
MALICK :   There is no why …. Only beauty…
B.AFFLECK :   Hey Malick can I be your movie and then have it released around the time of the Oscars so I can say I was in an art house Terence Malick flick, and am therefore a SERIOUS GUY, and my torrid history bashopic ‘Argo’ can have better odds of winning best film?
MALICK :   Yes. But you may not open your mouth again for the entirety of the film. Unless it is in wonder at the beauty….
B.AFFLECK :   Well can I least take my shirt off?
MALICK :   Let me have a look. Beautiful, yes we can work together.

This is 40  (2012)    70/100

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Rating :   70/100                                                                     134 Min        15

The latest from producer/writer/director Judd Apatow focusing on two of his previous characters, specifically married couple Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann) from 2007’s ‘Knocked Up’, as they both reach the milestone of their fortieth birthday. Their two daughters are played by Mann’s children with husband Apatow, namely Maude Apatow as hormonal teenager Sadie, and Iris Apatow, who is a bit of a scene stealer, as her much younger sister. Good use is made of Megan Fox in support, or perhaps more correctly, her body, as she is accompanied by Jason Segel, Chris O’Dowd and Melissa McCarthy, although each of these feature too briefly in a film that is the latest in a cinematic trend of movies that are fifteen to twenty minutes too long. Fans of the actors and director will certainly enjoy this, and the cast do bring the characters and story to life with relish, delivering a steady stream of pretty decent comedy.

Altogether they pull off the film, but the drama behind the story, supposedly focusing on a couple going through difficult times triggered by money issues and the passage of time, doesn’t really work for several reasons. Firstly, Leslie Mann could easily pass for someone ten years younger (she is actually forty in real life) and comparing her body to that of Megan Fox, as her character does in the film, isn’t really fair, although even Fox has reputedly had at least a slight nose alteration since her rise to fame with ‘Transformers’ in 2007. Debbie constantly has a go at Pete for eating cupcakes and we suppose his increasing weight is putting a ‘strain’ on their relationship, and yet he seems to do a lot of fairly serious cycling and looks quite fit in general. There are a lot of relationship issues thrown together over a very short time frame, and it gets particularly overdone, repetitive and messy toward the end, but overall it doesn’t detract too much from it being an enjoyable film. Stay through some of the credits at the end for a great outtake scene with Melissa McCarthy too.

The Last Stand  (2013)    50/100

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Rating :   50/100                                                                     107 Min        15

This has been touted as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to the big-screen after his two term, eight year stint as governor of the state of California. Of course, it’s not entirely accurate, as he also appeared in ‘The Expendables’ (2010) and its more action stars per bullet sequel ‘The Expendables 2’. Nevertheless, here he is the main character, the sheriff of a small American town near the Mexican border; a semi-retirement from the horrors of solving crime in Los Angeles. Cue entry of one on-the-run criminal looking to escape south of the border (from the clutches of FBI agent Forest Whitaker), and no second guesses over where he decides to cross.

The film opens with a shot of a police officer in his car eating donuts, from which we can infer it’s either going to be full of stereotypes, or something that perhaps turns those stereotypes into satire. Sadly it’s mostly the former. This really is a step in the wrong direction for Arnie, harking back to films in his early career such as ‘Commando’ (85) rather than classics like ‘Predator’ (87) and the Terminator series (though it has been confirmed he will return to that franchise as per his catchphrase {which, incidentally, was actually a botched line – he was meant to say ‘I’ll come back’}, whether they’ll be able to pull it from the depths of ‘Terminator Salvation’ 09 is another matter).

The film features some unbelievably bad tactics by both the criminal gang orchestrating the escape attempt and also the cops led by the big man himself. Though it is good to see him on the big-screen again, as his acting creaks into gear like a huge, rusty, ahem, machine before he eventually gets into a rhythm and delivers some of the one-liners we would expect, but never with full conviction. I’m pretty sure he shoots one of the bad guys in the head at point-blank range at one point, and then launches himself of a roof with the, presumably, deceased for company. Most amusing.

The film also stars Johnny Knoxville of Jackass fame, who seems to be relaunching his movie career too with a spate of films made in 2012. Perhaps his main selling point is being able to save on stunt man costs, as in at least three of those films, including this one, he performs some ridiculous stunt for no reason other than he wants to remind everyone he is as far removed from a character actor as you can get. This is the first American film for South Korean director Jee-woon Kim, who has a critically and commercially successful backlog of films, but unusually he didn’t write the screenplay for this project (no less than three people are credited with that glory), a story which could have worked, but ultimately, really doesn’t.

Ends with a painfully unbelievable final fight sequence too.


Quotes

“I’m the sheriff.”   Arnold Schwarzenegger/Ray Owens

The Sessions  (2012)    59/100

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Rating :   59/100                                                                       95 Min        15

The Red Dragon feels a little cheated by this film. The ending delivers a strong emotional punch, one that was felt throughout the audience and had a few in tears. The rest of the film, however, does not do a good job, especially when it tries to be humorous as it does too often and with too little effect. It tells the true story of poet Mark O’Brien, played by John Hawkes, who can move only his head and must spend most of each day in an ‘iron lung’ in order to stay alive, though he can still feel sensation throughout his entire body. He begins ‘sessions’ with a sex therapist, played by Helen Hunt, to explore that which has always been denied to him, and the film follows his sexual awakening and the emotional consequences that follow.

The performances are good, but perhaps the film’s biggest problem is a lack of connection with the main character. Sarcastic humour has too much of an emphasis from the start and it never really comes off well, creating the lack of a feeling of reality and seriousness from the onset, although for the character being upbeat is certainly to be applauded. Similarly, the transition from what is supposed to be a lot of comedy into more serious characterisation and emotional connection also seems loose and ungrounded. A shame because it is a good story. Hunt is up for an academy award for her performance and although it is perhaps merited, The Red Dragon has on occasion mooted a possible correlation between the bravery of actresses baring all onscreen and Oscar nominations.

Interestingly, if the connection between the characters seems a little unlikely, have a look at this recent scientific article on the possible side effects of male sperm on the female reproductive system.

Texas Chainsaw 3D  (2013)    60/100

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Rating :   60/100                                                                       92 Min        18

This is the latest offering in ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ franchise. In fact, it’s the seventh film of the lot after the original from 1974, then ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2’ (86), ‘Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3’ (90), ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation’ (94), ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ a 2003 remake of the original starring Jessica Biel, and ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning’ (06) a prequel to that remake. This version goes all the way back to the original film and follows on with the immediate aftermath to the events that unfolded in the town of Newt, Texas. There’s been a little more of an effort made with the story here, certainly compared to the other two modern instalments, and a degree of sympathy has been put into the narrative which is new. You can be sure though, that the owners of the franchise were not going to miss out on the money making machine 3D has gifted producers with, and they are far from the first horror filmmakers to be milking the new tech with its higher cinema ticket prices.

With that in mind a lot of what follows in the film is true to previous form, with a group of ridiculously good looking teens throwing themselves into every obstacle in their path in order to satisfy the audience’s gore fetish, including the rather phallic weapon of choice of everyone’s favourite country bumpkin: ‘Leatherface’. Lead actress Alexandra Daddario (‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’ 10) certainly has a body to die for, and the camera has no qualms about showing it off as much as possible. Scott Eastwood, Clint Eastwood’s son, also stars as the local town sheriff. Very much an example of horror porn rather than torture porn (the likes of ‘Hostel’ 05 and so on where the emphasis is on the intricacies of the actual mutilation) and not too bad for what it is, decent enough if you’re just in the mood for a late night slasher.

The Impossible  (2012)    59/100

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Rating :   59/100                                                                    114 Min         12A

Juan Antonio Bayona’s second film after the hugely successful ‘The Orphanage’ (07) focuses on the true story of one family facing the full brunt of the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. The real hotel and pool that the family were playing around when the waves hit were used for filming, with the ground floor residences rebuilt just for the shoot. It gives a very memorable impression of the terror and brutality of the event – not just of the initial impact and the subsequent powerful waves but also of the underwater, deadly collisions with all sorts of debris. In conveying this, and the general scope of the disaster within the confines of their geographical area, the film is very successful, just as it is in displaying a troubling sense of realism in the injuries incurred and the sicknesses that followed them.

However, rather than telling a gritty and accurate tale, ‘The Impossible’ has gone for a slightly more Hollywood style of story, despite the fact it’s a Spanish film. It is very much a case of ‘if this were in the movies, this would happen’, and even though we’re witnessing an interpretation of real events it’s filmed in such a way that it seems a little contrived and thus a little off given the tremendous death toll the tsunami took. Nor is there any mention of the geopolitical real life issues surrounding the catastrophe, such as the universal lack of any kind of warning for the poor souls that died during the event.

The older child in the family, played by Tom Holland, simply does not convince as someone experiencing the events as reality, rather he comes across as someone enjoying all the action and occasionally in need of a good slap. He is a central character and that together with the general feel of the whole, and the poor choice of title, hollows out the film. The two younger brothers are much more convincing, and both Ewan Mcgregor and Naomi Watts are very good as the parents. Watts is up for an Oscar for her role, perhaps aided by the fact she is terrified of water and yet was plucky enough to take on the challenges of being smashed around by torrents of the stuff. Not, I imagine, the most pleasant shoot she’s ever had.

The Hobbit : An Unexpected Journey  (2012)    71/100

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Rating :   71/100                                                                     169 Min        12A

The long awaited prequel to ‘The Lord of the Rings’ trilogy from director Peter Jackson finally hits the big-screen and delivers a faithful adventure back into the lush meadows and goblin invested caverns of Middle-earth. The story follows the youthful adventures of Bilbo Baggins, as he embarks upon the titular unexpected journey with Gandalf the Grey and an entourage of dwarven companions. The scope of the film is wonderful, and fans of both Peter Jackson and J.R.R. Tolkien will be glad to see that there are quite a few extras in the film taken from outwith the relatively small confines of ‘The Hobbit’ the novel, but still from the pages of Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth from other sources.

It has been said that spinning a much smaller story out over three films again (‘The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug’, and ‘The Hobbit: There and Back Again’ will be released in 2013 and 2014 respectively) is simply a cynical attempt to make as much money as possible from a venture which is guaranteed to do just that, given ‘The Lord of the Rings’ was one of the most successful film franchises of all time, and the third film ‘The Return of the King’ one of the most successful at the Oscars in their history too. However, the new trilogy is also an opportunity for the fans and filmmakers alike to once again invest in a world they love, and to bring as much of it to life as possible, and with that in mind using material other than just ‘The Hobbit’ is not only valid but to be actively encouraged.

A major let down and problem with the film is, unfortunately, Peter Jackson’s style of shooting action sequences. Here there are many, many, confrontations of sword and magic, and though the details differ, they are all essentially one and the same thing. Believability and tension are the casualties of bad guys that are too easy to kill, and good guys that should by rights all be dead a thousand times over. In fact, one sequence seems to be an exact replica of one the director has already used in his version of ‘King Kong’ (05), a film that was good visually but was all but destroyed by nonsensical action set pieces.

It would have been much better to keep the action gritty and tense, even at the expense of the grandeur that has been put into the final version. In a sense, the action does fit with what is supposed to be the translation of fiction aimed at younger readers (‘The Lord of the Rings’ was aimed at a more adult readership compared to ‘The Hobbit’), but adult audiences will almost certainly find it dull and a little disappointing. Nevertheless, it is wonderful to see Sir Ian McKellen back on the big-screen as Gandalf, though they seemed to have used prosthetics to make him look older than in ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’, and yet they’ve sensibly used computers to make a lot of the other characters look younger.

The young Bilbo is played by Martin Freeman, who was head hunted for the role, and the dwarves feature a range of accents and talents from across the British Isles – no doubt we will come to know, and probably love, them much better over the next few years. Female readers might want to debate this list trending on Facebook at the moment – the-13-dwarves-in-the-hobbit-ranked-by-hotness.

An enjoyable sorte back into Middle-earth. Hopefully the action will have a little more bite to it next time round. Also, note the somewhat frugal use of transportation at the end…