ThisFilmIsOn

One of the more interesting angles you can take when putting together a film that is intended for a wider appeal is that of a hard-hitting family drama. ‘The Blind Side’, anyone? That’s right. We all remember the 2010 Best Picture nominee that took white people and black people, football and family, threw them all into a Sandra Bullock powered mixer and ended up raking in over a quarter of a billion dollars at the US box office. That staggering figure was based purely on a wide appeal. Susie Homemaker-mothers saw the trailer and instantly bundled their tough-guy, Coach Carter of a husband and four strapping quarterback sons into the Town & Country, and it was off to the multiplex. ‘This will be nice,’ she thought. I can only imagine the increasing moisture in the corner of her eye as Leigh Anne ‘intimidates’ some ghetto hoods by threatening that if they were to be threatening her son they would in turn be threatening her also. Realistically, following her emotionally charged street outburst we would have witnessed a nine pressed firmly against her forehead as she began to cry and beg pitifully for her life. Now THAT’S hard-hitting family drama.

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Anybody lucky enough to have witnessed Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant last year will have been reintroduced to a wonderful thing lacking on the silver screen of late. That thing is Ridiculous Cage. Not for a second would we disparage old Nic as just a foolish performing monkey, the guy certainly can act (see Leaving Las Vegas,Adaptation and many more), but he does have a penchant for picking faintly laughable roles and running with them. In doing so he can turn annoying tosh into enjoyable tosh at the flick of a eyebrow via some Brian Blessed worthy larynx gymnastics. That he doesn’t is just one reason why Season of the Witch could already go down as one of the worst films of 2011.

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There are many reasons to hate Colin Firth. One, regardless of your age, there is a strong possibility that he features on your Girlfriend/Partners/Spouses laminated ‘celebrity exceptions list’. Two, he looks better than you in a Christmas jumper. Three, annoyingly, he’s just that fucking good. Sadly I missed last year’s A Single Man at the cinema however; I did manage to catch the film on a long haul flight. Despite the less than ideal viewing circumstances I quickly found myself immersed in a film driven by what, on another year, could easily have been deemed Oscar worthy. Not satisfied with one career defining performance in the past year or so, Firth is returning to cinema screens in the buzz worthy The King’s Speech and yet again, he is unquestionabley deserving of the high praise currently being lavished upon him.

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High school. That time of your life when you were pigeon-holed like no other. Nerd, jock, tramp, frigid, loser, fattie, rat faced boy, whatever single block children, and occasionally teachers, could fit you into was where you stayed. Hollywood has mined this for years, adding to the cliches until every on-screen character is a stereotype of a stereotype. Thank heavens then for Easy A. The most refreshing look at the social life of teenagers in years, with the most likeable teen star since Say Anything.

Following the rich tradition of placing a classic novel in the school yard (see also; Emma turned into Clueless and Taming of the Shrew becoming 10 Things I Hate About You) Easy A takes its inspiration from The Scarlett Pimpernel. Overheard in the bathroom placating her best-friend by falsely confessing to losing her V-plates, Olive becomes infamous as the new school slut. Instead of rolling over and playing dead until the rumour mill runs out of seed, Olive sees how far she can push the lie, assuming the mantle of UberSkank. Her motive; to monitor how her peers react. And react they do.

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As a rule I try to steer clear of movies that contain colons, both grammatical and anatomical. Granted there are some notable exceptions, but for every Dr Stranglove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb there’s fifty  Ballistic: Ecks vs Severs. Couple this with the fact that I’ve been whole heartedly underwhelmed by Oliver Stone’s last three box office contributions and you will see how the prospect of enduring Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was not something I was relishing.

With twenty three years between Stone’s two trips to Wall Street you’d have thought the director had had enough time to really postulate on what exactly that time had done to the avaricious Gordon Gekko. Unfortunately it would appear that Hollywood’s favourite conspiracy theorist has been filling his time with other, more pressing questions like ‘Who did kill off the electric car?’ and ‘How do they get those boats inside the little glass bottles?’

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The Social Network is about many, many things. The fact that it’s about many, many things is one of the reasons why it’s quite possibly the best, certainly the canniest, film of the the year. But the first thing that The Social Network draws your attention to is ‘giving credit where credit is due’. So to Peter Travers, Rolling Stone magazines film reviewer, congratulations for being spot on when describing the movie as ‘defining the last decade’.

From the second The White Stripes kicks in over the opening credits to the closing shot of a ‘boy’ hitting refresh on his computer, the previous ten years of existence come flooding back to anyone born post 1980. That this is achieved by two (almost) 50 year old’s (Fincher and Sorkin) is just one of The Social Network’s remarkable achievements.

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History is, in reality, littered with crap ideas. The Penny Farthing, Esperanto, Lady Gaga. Now, with heist movie Takers hitting screens this weekend we have something else to add to this list. With an ensemble cast which reads like a who’s who of box office kryptonite very little about this film makes any sense. I’m under no illusion that teaming up the likes of Paul Walker, Hayden Christensen, Idris Elba (sorry Owen) and rap star Tip ‘T.I’. Harris ensures a certain portion of the ‘Burberry buck’ but if there is even a modicum of artistic integrity remaining in Hollywood films like Takers will be forever imprisoned in societies metaphysical bargain bin.

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