ThisFilmIsOn

There is great potential in Jumper. A comic book movie not actually based on a comic book (so therefore ‘shock horror’ an original film), a nice tidy budget, a reasonable cast and a competent director. The ability of teleportation, to go anywhere, and have anything, instantly is perfect for the medium of cinema. The problem, however, is that the film spills its load in the first 5 minutes. The rest of the movie apologises profusely but can’t manage to get it up again before the credits roll.

Young, buff and squeaky voiced David Rice (Hayden Christensen) is a ‘Jumper’, a man who can hop from place to place just by picturing it. He lives a billionaire lifestyle by robbing banks and doing whatever he feels like. This is until Roland (Big Sammy L with crazy custard/cheescake hair) comes along to kill him because, well, only God should have the power to watch the Superbowl without buying a ticket. There is much fun to be had for geeks watching the former jedis kick the crap out of each other.

Support comes in the form of good and bad. Jamie Bell is enjoyable as the fellow jumper who takes great pleasure in dispatching Rolands ‘Paladins’. As he is a slightly less smug version of the lead character, whenever he comes onscreen the film improves. The opposite can be said for Rachel Bilson who has a poor role and does nothing with it. I’m yet to be convinced that her CV should read ‘actress’.

Like the first Bourne (also directed by Doug Liman) the film feels like a set up to something bigger and better. There are traces of darkness in Rice’s character that would have made the film more rounded if fully embraced. The possibility of jumping time as well as space might also add to the drama department because as pretty as it is to jump from Paris to Chechnya in the space of 24 frames it doesn’t add to the story one bit. Hopefully they’ll get it right for the sequel and if its out around Dec25th I can make my ‘nobody wants this for Christmas’ gag as often as I like.

No its not the longest weirdest titled film in the world its just me being slightly lazy and compiling the three films into one review segment. In fairness to me, for we must always be fair to me, its half term holidays and these are kids films. So therefore I’m not exactly their target audience. Plus I’m still feeling bad about saying nasty things about something as lovely as Be Kind Rewind. For me to start beating up on some fairly light hearted romps whose sole design is to make the wee ones smile would push me even closer to the hell in which I’m almost certainly bound.

Saying that though Arctic Tale is fucking gash. Cashing in on March of the Penguins seemed pretty much on the cards from the moment it made a staggering $80 million. But where we had Morgan Freeman before we now have Queen Latifah, where we had a journey of incredible danger and duty we now have farting walrus (walrus’s? walri?) to the pop soundtrack of We Are Family. It would have been a nice idea to show what life was like 10, or even 20, years ago and compare the effects of global warming. Instead, as an afterthought in the end credits, we get preached to by a bunch of middle class school kids telling us to plant a million trees, everywhere!! Well what about planning permission you little shits.

Next The Ugly Ducking and Me. A film so under the radar it could be a low flying swan. In fact if you Google Ugly Ducking and Me film review this lame website that nobody reads may be one of the top 10 hits. I’m looking forward to trying that in about 5 mins. First I’ll tell you that this film is a pretty run of the mill take on the Hans Christian Andersen fable. Its got a little going for it with lines such as “Deep down everybodys…” “Beautiful” “…No, everybodys Ugly” but sadly the sixth rate CGI lets it down. The swans even have arms with little hands. Probably because feathery wings take a fuckload longer to animate.

Last up is The Waterhorse. Now I actually enjoyed this. Its quite dark, it doesn’t shy away from themes such as sex and death (both topics are hinted at rather than shown graphically) and the camerawork seems to be inspired by Sam Raimi. The film is yet another take on The Loch Ness Monster but seems the most faithful in that its actually set in Scotland. The accents are all good too which is a rarity. The special effects hold up well in the first half but do deteriorate once the beastie starts filling the screen. And its based on a Dick King Smith book. I used to love him as a kid, I wanted to be a vet you see and help all the wittle poorwy animals. Now I’m a bitter, twisted ‘critic’ that rants to no-one in particular about how rubbish films with polar bears in them are.

Expectations are a tricky thing in movies. When you look forward to a film based on everything from premise and director to music and cast you can usually be setting yourself up for a fall. Sadly this is the case for Michel Gondry’s latest. Not for a second would I describe it as a bad film, its way too damn cute for that, but because of a very weak plot, it is the first disappointment of the year.

The likeable Mike (Mos Def) is left in charge of the local video store as its owner, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), tries to raise money to keep it open. Things get worse for the store thanks to the hapless Jerry (Jack Black) erasing all the VHS. Jerry and Mike then set out to ‘swede’ (remake) the entire cataologue on a low to no budget with only their, sometimes poor, recollection of the original.

The ‘sweding’ of the films is by far and away the biggest attraction of this film. The first and longest being a perfectly muddled version of Ghostbusters complete with lines in the wrong place and an inspired alternative main song. Unfortunately there isn’t enough story to grab you by the balls when the remaking stops. It almost seems like Gondry needed an excuse to play with tinsel and card again as the subplots come and go without any explaination. The central plot of ‘raising money to save the store!’ is a little cliche too, even in his capable hands.

It has so much heart that every negative word I write makes me cry a little inside. It does fly along quickly and the central pair of Mos and Jack make a great twosome. Also good support comes from the wonderfully eclectic townsfolk, all a little backward but lovingly naive. If only the audience could feel as much for the little store as the people in the film do. The finale is still touching considering at no point are you fully absorbed into the world. Perhaps it’ll be a grower that the more you see the more you care about it. I think I’m just wishfully thinking though because I wanted so much from this little film.

The saying goes ‘May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil know you’re dead’. So it would be nice if at least the first third of this film would be fairly easy going on the characters before the mess sets in. Sadly all we get is two minutes of a Philip Seymour Hoffman/Marisa Tomei two backed beast before we are plunged head first into some Eastenders worthy tragedy.

The less you know about the plot the better but I like my second paragraph to be filled with story details so nah, nah and indeed nah. It is about two brothers Andy (PSH) and Hank (a nerdier than usual Ethan Hawke) who set out to rob their mom and pop’s jewellery store. A silly idea yes, made even sillier by the fact they don’t really have a plan and kinda wing it. This ‘winging it’ leads to some fan and some shit colliding. From here on in its an everything that can go wrong, will go wrong affair told with a jigsaw puzzle type structure.

This structure is very effective in keeping you intrigued but once all the pieces are in place you can’t help but wish you were looking at something a little less messy. One problem with the film is that it looks and feels very low budget. Lots of real lighting and lenghty takes help give the film a naturalistic quality but in Lumets choice of recognisable faces in every role this naturalism is broken. Not that the actors do a bad job, far from it. All are on top form and give a likeability to the characters that is severely lacking in the script.

It has the feel of a David Mamet film, with characters fucking each other over while their lives fall apart. And judging by the almost unanimously positive reviews from critics this is something that some people want to see. For me, it was just a little too cold to be truly tragic, the characters too unlikeable to garner any real sympathy.

After the car crash of Over Her Dead Body anything was going to cheer me up. Little did I know it would be a deeply dramatic drama about a junkie and a widow staring an actress I’ve never been a fan of and using the over-used theme, as discussed in the last review, of coping with loss.

But thankfully it isn’t so much another film about coping with loss, but more a film about coping with the fact that you know you’ve already experienced the best thing in the world. For Audrey Burke (Halle Berry) its the loss of a perfect family. For Jerry Sunbourne (Benicio Del Toro) its the loss of enjoyment of anything since his first hit. And both of them have to cope with the loss of the wonderful David Duchovny.

If you didn’t know it was a European director before you go into the theatre you’re sure to know by the end. Extreme, extreme closeups, a back and forth narrative and characters over plot, are all pulled off well by Susanne Bier. And the performances she gets out of the main trio are in a word tremendousio. I don’t care if its a word, they are. I’ve always thought David Duchovny was the ideal husband and here he proves it. Not having seen Monsters Ball I can’t say whether Halle Berry has been good in more than one film, but she’s definitely good in this.

Benicio Del Toro deserves the most praise. Its even enough to warrant a trip to your multiplex for him alone. While it is a very actorly performance (playing a junkie = Oscar bid) he really is remarkable. Its been a bit too long since he graced our screens. Its good to have him back. The message of the film is ‘Accept the good’. This is.

The subject of Death, and how we move on from it, has raged rampant over the films that open this year. It featured heavily in Dan in Real Life, P.S. I Love You, In the Valley of Elah and the very soon to be reviewed Things We Lost in The Fire. I say very soon to be reviewed but it may take me a while to come up with lots of humourous ways to tell you how shit Over Her Dead Body is.

Its shit because its not funny. Its shit because its unoriginal. Its shit because nothing happens. Its shit because you really don’t care that nothing happens. Its shit because it makes you feel really sorry for Paul Rudd being in this shit. Its shit because the storyline is shit. Its shit because the acting is shit. Its so shit that the word shit has now lost all meaning to me. Its really, really, really shit.

The abundance of cliche moments are too painful to go into in full. So here’s some choice cuts. The girl who dies is a bitch who can’t stop fussing and ordering people around so we’re quite glad she’s dead. During the finale (I’m not sorry for giving away the ending here) the guy chases the girl to the airport but y’know gets stopped and has to buy a ticket to get through. And the cliche thats pissing me off most at the moment ‘the jilted third wheel also finds love!’

It didn’t make me quite as angry as P.S. I Love You for at heart its only a romantic comedy not a worryingly uncomfortabe step by step guide to getting over the death of a loved one. But just because its not trying hard doesn’t mean its not one of the worst put together movies I’ve seen in a long time. Will I go see an Eva Longoria movie again? Over Her Dead Body.

It really does make a big difference what kind of mood you are in before you watch a film like this. If you’re bemoaning bills, relationships and the threat of Armageddon on our fragile little planet then you could easily take your frustration out on this sequel by numbers. If, however, everything is David Bowieingly Hunky Dory and you want to keep it that way you could do a lot worse than National Treasure 2.

With a Jamie Oliver sized tongue in its cheek we open with a hugely bombastic assasination of President Lincoln. Treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nic Cage on over the top, shouty form) is forced into getting the gang back together to, well, hunt some treasure so that he can prove his Great-Great Granddaddy didn’t plot to kill the aforementioned President. Ed Harris joins his The Rock co-star in a similar, ‘he’s the baddy, but for good reasons role’ and Helen Mirren pops to show us old people can be fun too! So far, so stupid.

But, and here is where you’ll either love or hate this film, it gets more ridiculous. Instead of covering this lame premise up the film makers throw themselves into it whole heartedly. Taking in Buckingham Palace, Both Statues of Liberty and, in a scene that would usually have me throwing stuff at the screen, The Oval Office. When the lead says “I have to kidnap the President” the only response I could yell out was “Of course you do Benny!”.

The likeability of Nic Cage also helps. Whether he’s working out the plot in a monologue that encompasses all of history or pretending to be drunk and English he’s always having fun and that fun is contagious. In the year of the return of Indy, I do sincerely hope that its Mr. Jones that leaves the lasting impression. But for a fly-by 2 hours National Treasure 2 left me with a few less brain cells and a huge goofy grin.

Something incredible has happened. Something generation defining. The kind of thing your children ask you where you were when. A film has been released that every body either loves or hates, the celluloid equivalent of marmite, and here I am with a general feeling of ‘Meh’. This doesn’t happen. I either feel so passionately for something that I’m willing to have its multiple offspring or I deride it so much that I open up dark corners of my mind and get a little scared.
So why has Cloverfield had this impact on me? Simply because its … alright.

After a contradictory hype campaign in which the audience is told it’ll be told nothing, we’ve instead been told everything we need to know in the first teaser trailer. There’s this bloke, who we’ll call ‘bloke’ who is leaving town. His friend, who we’ll call ‘bloke 2′, is filming his going away party. Then a big monster comes to town and ruins the party. ‘Bloke’ then decides to run across town and tell ‘Ex’ that he loves her. The film itself (not including credits) lasts less than 80 minutes which is a clear indication that they have an ‘idea’ for a movie and thats all.

The one camera POV technique, while Anti-Nurofen, is effective in places. The subway tunnel attack is genuinely scary but, and this is a crucial, the film is never really suspenseful. The reason for this is two-fold. Firstly, because its all ‘ATTACK, ATTACK, RUN, RUN’ it quickly becomes as monotonous as a slasher pic. Secondly, the characters are just fodder. Some are bland, but in the case of ‘Bloke 2′ some are genuinely unlikeable. What kind of a guy videotapes his best mate grieving over the loss of his brother seconds after the event? Put the camera down and give him a hug for godsakes.

The 11/9 references seem a little close to the bone considering this is, at heart, a piece of Entertainment. The billowing dustclouds do have an effect on you but for completely the wrong reasons. You start to think that the director will do anything to get a reaction, any reaction.
All in all its nice to see something a little different even if it doesn’t quite work. But for those ‘film lovers’ championing this as a true piece of originality when the superior The Host and The Blair Witch Project are still fresh in the mind, you should feel a little ashamed.

Well its a whole month in and I’m on track with every film released so far. So with 100% success for this first month I sit at my desk now awaiting a fanfare, a ticker tape parade and if I die prematurely a song written about me by Elton John and then re-written for someone else.

I’ve dealt with complaints that the reviews are not clear enough, that my punctuation and spelling rivals that of a dyslexic 6-year old and also that if I continue to be negative about every film I’ll put myself out of a job. And also that I’m a second rate Charlie Brooker. This last one pleases me. I’d personally take anything above a fifth rate Paul Ross.

So January. We’ve had some very good films in the form of Lust Caution, I’m Not There and Sweeney Todd. Some very bad films in the form of AVPR, In The Valley of Elah and P.S. I Love You. And one boda fide classic in No Country For Old Men. Thats pretty 50/50 for Yay Vs Nay.

And for the week commencing 01/02 we have the very long titles of Things we Lost in the Fire, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, Over her Dead Body and the shorter titles of Cloverfield and the already vilified Penelope. A magazine that rhymes with Blempire gave that last film 4stars. The Revolution starts here…