ThisFilmIsOn

I would rather watch a snuff movie of my nearest and dearest than sit through another one of these shitfests.

Guy Ritchies latest opens with a voiceover describing what it takes to make a real ‘RockNRolla’. You can’t just have sex, drugs, violence, music, death or debauchary; you have to have ‘em all. Well here are a few things you need to make a good Guy Ritchie film. A London setting, ‘Ard geezers, funny/clever dialogue, a ‘lazy’ voicover to explain the setup which disappears until its needed to explain the twists, nice gangsters and nasty gangsters, nothing mentioning Kabbalah, a cast full of ‘oh he’s that guy from that’ and flashy camera work for the sake of having flashy camera work. RockNRolla nearly as ‘em all.

I’ll attempt to explain the plot but you may have to bear with me. Lenny Cole (Tom Wilkinson) is the top dog London gangster. He’s screwed Mumbles (Stringer Bell!!!!) and One-Two (Gerard Butler) over some property to the tune of 2 million quid. They get offered a job by accountant Stella (Thandie Newton), to steal an investment from a Russian billionaire meant for Lenny Cole. Lenny has also been loaned the Russians favourite possession a painting. A lucky painting. Unfortunately Lenny’s stepson Johnny Quid, a rock and roll star, has stolen the lucky painting. Nobody can find it as Johnny Quid is supposed to be dead. Oh and Superhands is Cookie. Where exactly he fits in I’m still not too sure. But its weird seeing his face 30 foot tall.

As I said the above ingredients to make your perfect Guy Ritchie film are mainly all present and correct. Its just at times they’re all a little too present and correct. While it’d be a little unfair to describe this as a Lock, Stock remake, there are plenty of similarities with the film that put mockney Guy on the map. If you replace the guns with a painting, a lucky painting, Nick Morans four with Gerard Butlers Wild Bunch and the weed obsessed students with the junkie rock stars, you may at times feel like you’ve seen it all before. As for Tom Wilkinson’s Lenny he’s just a bit hairier and a few feet taller than Bob Hoskin’s Harry Shand from The Long Good Friday. All London Pride, big hopes and short fuse.

Where the film starts to gain originality is in the scenes that, at first, don’t seem to fit. A subplot about a gay member of The Wild Bunch starts off sticking out like a pair of tits at a Village People gig but slowly gets turned round to something warm, affecting and above all funny. A flashback to the little Johnny Quid has a similar effect come the final payoff but the bits inbetween don’t have the sense of fun that made Lock, Stock and Snatch stand out. Those were films that made you grin as you left the cinema, guilty pleasures to compare with QT. All directors need to be taken seriously at some point but it might take Guy a little longer to get the tone right. Being clear where are sympathies should lie would be a good starting point. Fortuntely though Johnny Quid and The Wild Bunch will return. Which means more Stringer Bell. Which means one happy me.

At the start of the year I lamented the fact that I wouldn’t be able to watch some of the best films of the year more than once due to the nature of having to watch every single other film. So far the only ones to make the twice watched grade are No Country For Old Men, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The Dark Knight and Wall-E. But strangely enough I can now add The Wackness to this prestigious list. Why? Not because it deserves to be there, its an okay movie, but because I saw it while working at Glastonbury and didn’t review it at the time. Not wanting to let down my devoted readers I sat through it again. Because I love you. And you feel it (and because my boss needed it print checking and I got paid).

1994, New York City. Luke (Josh Peck) is mad depressed yo. A teenage drug dealer, with no friends, useless parents and a chronic inability to get laid, for real. When he meets Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) a legitimate drug dealer (read pyschiatrist) his life starts to become alive a’ight. The two soon become homies as Luke falls for Squires step daughter. Word.

The truth that the only reason teenagers are so fucked up is that its the first time in your life that you question what the fuck life is about, is well played in this film. And so is the truth that if you never stop questioning what the fuck its all about you’ll remain fucked up. Here is the strength of the awfully titled The Wackness. Two boys (of vastly different ages) confused by everything. As Luke, Peck conveys just the right amount of New Yawk swagger with the right level of insecurity. Sir Ben proves his versatility once again as the psyche in need of some psyche, a skipped pill away from a complete breakdown. When the two are together the film really works.

Seperated, Luke becomes whiny and obsessive, and Dr Squires the same. And as a film about a specific place and time it doesn’t really hit home. The soundtack may be spot on and the references to Mayor Guiliani might have had more of a ring to it had he not faded from the media eye, but the fact is the film doesn’t have enough to say. As for the already dated language so expertly ripped apart by me in the second paragraph, well, thats just dope. Or whack. I can never remember which is which.

Its a little early to be writing to Father Christmas but when I do I’m going to ask him for Will Ferrell to make some more ‘serious’ movies, another Stranger than Fiction, because his last few efforts at the crazy, funny, early ones are really dying on their ass. It doesn’t mean I want him to stop doing the funny, its just without following the Jim Carrey path he may end up following the Martin Lawrence path. As for John C Reilly, you’re a serious actor. Try doing that again sometime.

In something of a re-teaming after the dissappointing Talladega Nights (especially dissapointing when compared to the comedy gold of Anchorman) Will and John are Brennan and Dale. A pair of loser kids who never grew up, still living with their respective parents even though they’re 39 and 40. When Brennans mum marries Dales dad the two become step brothers and tease, torment and kick and punch each other like all good step brothers do. Then they become friends, then they fall out. Repeat.

In a recent review for The Love Guru a critic questioned whether you should have ever found Mike Myers funny. Sadly its a question that can be re-raised for Will Ferrell in this awful, unfunny movie. There are some laughs to be had but they’re so few and far between its becomes a painful experience. Funnily enough (pun intended) the best scenes are actually when the two brothers are seperated, because when together they are exactly the same character, which means that Will or John might as well have just monologued every bit.

The main problem with the film (how many times have I used that phrase over the past 129 movie reviews) is that the characters are obnoxious, idiots suffering severe arrested development. Compare that to the loveable, naive Elf and the distinction is clear. Will’s child like innocence is funny when he’s nice, when he’s nasty he’s just a dick. What may have saved this film would have been Mr. Ferrell and Mr. Reilly playing George and Jeb Bush. Now theres two brothers, nasty dicks, that they could have really nailed.

There once was a time when Vin Diesel was the hotshit. Before the 100 Facts about Chuck Norris brought about a Chuck renaissance, Van fans had already given him the ‘action star as god’ treatment. Lines such as “If you rearrange the letters in Vin Diesel it reveals his credo: “I End Lives.” and “When Vin Diesel was born, the nurse said, “Holy crap! That’s Vin Diesel!” Then she had had sex with him. At that point, she was the third girl he had slept with”, had me rolling around long before Chuck’s uppercuts became the internet gag that won’t go away. Since then though Vins star has faded, quickly and strongly.

To try and turn this around Vin suckles at the teet of the Sci-Fi genre that made his name. In the not too distant future he plays a mercenary paid to ‘transport’ a mysterious child from Russia to New York. Many questions about who and what the girl is are raised, Vin has a couple of fights and people get crossed, double crossed and re-crossed until I get cross that the director has pandered to the studio so much so that the film lies a mess.

Funnily enough there is potential in this film. Its all shot in a Children of Men way, gritty and thoughtful, but its marketed and put together like a dumb, action film. The aformentioned scenes of Vin fighting are crowbarred in in such a way that they feel like deleted scenes from XXX. The rest of the film has some neat ideas and the morally dubious characters make for occasional moments of unpredictability.

It all descends into confusion with some gumph about a virgin birth, a child born from a computer, neolites and religious fanatics. But none of this is given the screentime it needs to really evolve. While I was glad of the 90 minute running time the whole thing comes across as incredibly rushed and its a shame because this could have been something other than the averagely dull tosh it ended up as.

Any newcomers to this site may not be aware of how big a wimp I am when it comes to horror films. Well, I’m a big one. A yellow stain on the front of my pants, brown stain on the back kinda wimp. My usual escape is the ‘its only a movie’ defence but when a frightfest comes along INSPIRED BY TRUE EVENTS the Bold 2in1 needs an outing. But I’m also scared of films that are a bit rubbish. This film ticks all boxes.

Beginning with a couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) having a bit off a fallout over whether or not they should get married (he wants to, she doesn’t) the film soon descends into ‘nasty people want into the house’ action. So we get 10 minutes of Liv walking around the house alone investigating strange noises, then 10 minutes of the bloke telling her nothing is going on, then 10 minutes of stuff going on, then 50 minutes of people with bags on their heads kicking the shit out of both of them.

Now the bags on their heads trick is pretty damn scary, think little boy from The Orphanage or for more mainstream spooks The Scarecrow from Nolans Batman. But when its bookended by natural (meaning stilted) relationship dialogue and fake scares it all gets a little tedious. The first half hangs only on these fake scares, (meaning hand on shoulder/turn round/realise its your friend type) that get pretty fucking boring, pretty fucking quickly. If you take away the moody music and pov camera moves its just Liv walking around a room. Oooo rooms.

The unknown motivation of the strangers themselves would be intriguing if it wasn’t for the far superior Funny Games having done the home invasion thing so, so, so much better. While its always unfair to compare one film to the other, I’m an unfair guy. For proof read my next sentence. All the while I was thinking the movie would have been much scarier if Liv had accepted Scotts proposal and we saw her mould into her dad, Steve, over time. Imagine waking up next to that day after day.

Another week, another screening where I feel as welcome as Gary Glitter at an international airport. The problem I have with these public shows is I always sit as far away from all the families and teenage girls dressed like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver as I can. And its this that makes me look like a weirdo. So for the next tweenfare I’m gonna sit right in the middle of these annoying, screeching pre pubescents in the hope that only the ones close to me think I’m a wrong un. The rest of the movie going public will think I’m just sitting with my family. And if anyone complains to an usher, they’ll pop their heads in and say, ‘Its alright. Its just Owen.’

The Wild Child of the title is Poppy (Emma Roberts) a spoilt little brat whose life revolves around boys and parties. When she pisses off her father one time too many he sends her to Blighty and a private school that would get Ms Hilton to fly right. While there she tries to get herself chucked out by misbehaving in a 12A style way, which means copping off with the headmistresses son. Oooooh take that conventional life!

After months of watching the trailer, thinking Jesus H Christ I may take a pass on this whole watching every movie thing and chase traffic on the M25, I was swayed by the opening titles. Because for all its faults in the idea and the marketing and the plot and the idea and the plot this is after all a Working Titles picture. Which instantly means its been put together by people that know a thing or two about films. And while it takes til halfway through to break me down, it eventually does.

The inclusion of Nick Frost, some quite witty one liners and the central message that us Brits are better at raising children than the Americans, all go down incredibly well. While the film falls a little when Poppy tries to Americanise her new friends, rather than the friends Briticizing her, the crossing the pond idea works well in this context. With the Spartacus ending working better than it should I’d probably say this one of the biggest surprises of the year. In that what I was hoping would be a train wreck, instead, is a better than average teen flick.

Daffodils popping up in February. Birds flying south whenever the mood takes them. At least one seasonal thing is constant. If Keira Knightley slips on a corset (without buckling any swashes) and speaks in clipped tones then the summer season is over. So its out with comic books and big bangs and in with the ‘worthier’ fare. And by worthy I mean the aforementioned corsets and clipped tones. So here is a sarcastic Yip and a droll eee.

KK is the titular Duchess of Devonshire. A girl who has enormous beehives (like the troubled singer Amy Winehouse), gets pissed and makes a twat of herself (like the troubled singer Amy Winehouse) and gets smacked about by her husband (like the troubled singer…er…Tina Turner). Trapped in a loveless marriage with King of the bastards Ralph Fiennes, she shits out some sprogs (including one called Little G!!!) and contemplates adultery. Justified adultery though considering her husband is rooting her best mate in front of her.

The first half of the movie is basically setting up the Duchess, all Bambi eyes and no tits, as ‘pud upon’ so that we can want her to go off and boff that Dominic Cooper chap from Mamma Mia (who is almost as drippy in this than he was in that, which is really quite something). And it works. Mainly because of how despicable the Duke’s character is. Not that Ralph plays him as a boo hiss villain, instead he confuses sullen for bored to tears for fifty percent of the film. The other half he just does an impression of Rigby from Rising Damp.

All this doesn’t help my main beef with movies like this. In that they usually end up being about as dramatic as someone wearing the same hat as someone else at a high society party. The whole ‘trapped’ in a loveless marriage thing has me screaming at the screen ‘just get the fuck out!’ but I found by the end of The Duchess each character managed to illicit a certain degree of sympathy. Even the bastard Duke. And here’s a sentence I didn’t think I’d write 9 months ago but… the costumes are really good.