In this blog I will attempt to watch as many films released in the UK in 2012 as I possibly can. Mainly using my wily nature this will include all new films and possibly re-releases also.
So we're officially half way through the year now folks and I thought I'd just bring you up to date on the current rankings so far.
Best Films of the Year so Far
Of the 120 films that I've watched there are 17 that have garnered a mark of 8 or higher in my reviews and they are:
Carancho
Coriolanus
Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
The Descendants
Even the Rain
Headhunters
The Hunger Games
Juan of the Dead
The Kid with a Bike
Like Crazy
Marley
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Moonrise Kingdom
The Muppets
The Raid (Possibly my favourite film of the year thus far)
Shame
Young Adult
Worst Films of the Year So Far
And conversely ten films have got a score of 2 or less and they are:
Deviation
The Devil Inside
The Divide
Gone
Hard Boiled Sweets
Jack and Jill
Piranha 3DD
Project X
The Sitter
This Means War
So there you go a lot of treats and a lot of duffers. Do you agree with my lists? If not tell me what you think should be in either category by leaving a comment below.
When I was reviewing Payback Season the other day I mentioned that some of the fight sequences reminded me of those from some of Guy Richie's earlier films however they look totally original when compared to Hard Boiled Sweets which seems to have ripped off the entire oeuvre of the former Mr Madonna. For me I feel that the British gangster movie has long since passed its prime and this Southend-based film just proves it as one generic criminal after another is finished off. The plot is essentially a showdown between two old school gangsters who are both played by actors who instantly trigger the, 'what do I know them from?' question in most of our brains. There's local criminal Shrewd Eddie, played by Paul Freeman who has been in everything from Raiders of the Lost Ark to the Power Rangers Movie while Jimmy the Gent is a London-based gangster and is played by Peter Wight who has this year alone appeared on the TV in Titanic, Hit and Miss and Public Enemies. The meeting between the two will see an exchange of £250,000 so there is some obvious interest in this sum of money with other interested parties being Eddie's vengeful hooker girlfriend Porsche, newly released convict Johnny, his crooked cop buddy Fred, pimp Gerry who everyone refers to as 'Daddy' and his favourite prostitute Delta. Hard Boiled Sweets' unique selling point seems to be the fact that everytime we meet a new character they are compared to a piece of confectionary so for example Jimmy the Gent is The Mint Imperial as he is the King of the Mints while Gerry is The Chocolate Lime because he's an acquired taste and Delta is a Sherbet Pip in that she's a tiny treat with a dizzy centre. I get the impression that writer/director David L Hughes believes he's being awfully clever using these metaphors however there is nothing clever or particularly original about Hard Boiled Sweets.
Using my Guy Ritchie analogy it seems that Hughes wants to emulate the original mockney godfather by giving his characters colourful descriptions and having a lot of multiple plot strands that all interconnect to build up to one big shoot-out at the end. In the case of something like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels though there were clear motives set from the beginning as well as a sense of fun throughout the heart of the film. I didn't find that here as Hard Boiled Sweets took itself far too seriously and Hughes seemed to want to give every character their five minutes in the sun by having them perform a mini-monologue each in which their views were shared through dialogue that wasn't believable for a minute while in some cases was utterly laughable. In fact the script is unintentionally funny from the word go as one of Jimmy the Gent's adversaries claims that he's a bigger cock than him but to be honest everybody in this film seems like a cock. Things got to a head towards the film's final chapter in which there was a three-way shoot-out which just reminded me too much of Reservoir Dogs and screamed a lack of originality on the part of the director once again. On the upside at least the female characters seemed to have a mind of their own, even if Hughes can't write believable dialogue for women, with actresses Ty Glaser and Laura Greenwood shining as Porsche and Delta respectively. However overall this is a film that thinks its a lot more clever than it actually is and while I'm all for promoting young talent it seems that Hughes wasn't ready for a major cinematic project instead meshing together of some of his favourite films. The only thing the film really wanted to make me do was to pop down to my local Mr Simms and dose up on Rhubarb and Custards.
Verdict: Unoriginal with one-dimensional characters and a sense that it thinks it's very clever Hard Boiled Sweets' only redeeming qualities are its two female protagoinists so I'm sorry if this makes me sound like a Sour Ball but I'm only going to give this 2/10
After the cheesy musical idea didn't work out too well as a birthday film I decided to watch one of my LoveFilm DVDs that had been hanging around for a while that being Position Among the Stars. The film is the third in Dutch director Leonard Retel Helmrich's documentary trilogy looking at an Indonesian family and this time it deals with the changing nature of the country as well as how different life in the country is to the city. It starts with grandmother Rumidjah travelling from her small village down to Jakarta to look after he intelligent niece Tari who is college-bound and will be the first member of the family to get a decent education. As Rumidjah enters Jakarta we see a differing view of the city as the slums are shadowed by imposing tower blocks in the distance, and if The Raid is anything to go by they'll soon be plenty of dead bodies stacking up in these blocks. The rest of Tari's family are a bit useless, especially the men, with Rumidjah's son Bakti making a living getting members of the community to be on fighting fish while his brother is living on welfare and has to hide the TV every time the council come around to check on him. To me though this is the story of the two women Rumidjah, who unlike her Muslim family is a Christian, trying to make her young grandson understand why she goes to church as well as Tari who describes herself as 'a city girl' and would rather be at The Mall with her friends then at the slum with her family. After a rather nasty altercation between Bakti and Tari, which involves the revelation of a boy who may've got too close to the latter, Ramdjah retreats to the village using some of the knowhow she's picked up in the city to help her friends out.
Having not seen the two earlier parts of Helmrich's trilogy, Eye of the Day or Shape of the Moon, I'm not sure how much of the family's life had previously been looked at. What I can say is that Position Among the Stars is a snapshot of family life from another continent which basically demonstrates that life isn't that different in the slums of Jakarta than it is on a British council estate. We see stroppy teenagers, men trying to falsely claim benefits and a rather nasty case of domestic abuse but thankfully the scenes of violence are few and far between. Now and then I struggled to keep my interest in every one of the scenes and at 110 minutes I felt the film was overlong but more often than not I was captivated by the stories presented in the film. The best thing about Position Among the Stars is Helmrich's cinematography which really takes you into a city that is constantly changing as the camera zooms among the bustling slum towns presenting various different characters later he counteracts this with a scene involving Tari and her friends as they flit through the neon lit roads on their scooters. Position Among the Stars is definitely an uneven film but one that benefits from a whole host of colourful characters and a director who really takes you into the heart of Indonesia's capital city.
Verdict: Though overlong Position Among the Stars is beautifully shot with wonderful characters so I will award it an above average 6.5/10
So as it's my birthday today I thought I didn't want anything too taxing, though as you'll see later I changed my mind, so I opted to watch the film adaptation of the sell-out jukebox musical Rock of Ages. The film is set in 1987 California and follows the exploits of a small-town girl, Julianne Hough's Sherrie, who comes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune but instead ends up working as a waitress in the notorious Bourbon Rooms. There she meets Drew a city boy, I think you can see where this is going, who is an aspiring rock star and its not long before the two start dating with him writing a song about her which isn't completed till the end of the film. The owner of the Bourbon Rooms Dennis Dupree, played by Alec Baldwin who is the best thing by far in this film, manages to get top rock group Arsenal to play their final gig at his venue before lead singer Stacee Jaxx goes solo. Jaxx, played by an incredibly game Tom Cruise, hooks up with a Rolling Stone reporter before he goes on stage however Drew believes it is Sheree who has slept with him so abandons her with the two going their separate ways. Jaxx's manager Paul Gill sees potential in Drew so decides to try and make him a star however when the record executives inform him that rock is dead he ends up adding Drew to a cheesy boyband. Meanwhile Sheree ends up stripping at a club run by Mary J Blige she considers going back home however a chance encounter with Drew encourages her to not 'Stop Believin'. Other stories in the film involve Catherine Zeta Jones' mayor's wife wanting to clean up the town by shutting down The Bourbon Rooms and Dennis realising that he is in love with one of his staff members Lonni, who is played by Russell Brand donning a very odd Brummie accent. All these stories come to a head as Stacie performs his first solo gig at The Bourbon Rooms with Drew's boyband in attendance and Sherrie in the audience, I just wonder if he'll play the song he's been writing throughout the movie?
I have to say I was looking forward to Rock of Ages in a sort of a cheesy way and I am a fan of a lot of these songs however after I finished watching it I was angry that they'd butchered some of the guilty pleasure classics I use to listen to when I went out regularly in my youth. The main problem is that the two leads are just awful and their relationship isn't convincing for one minute mainly because Julianne Hough, best known for her work on the American version of Strictly Come Dancing, is a better stripper than a singer while Diego Boneta as Drew can barely see what Sheree looks like over his enormous crop of hair. While Baldwin tries his best in The Bourbon Rooms scenes he's hampered by Brand's odd choice of Birmingham accent and when the two finally confess their love for each other, during an awkward duet of 'I Can't Fight This Feeling' it is incredibly uncomfortable. A lot of the cast members seem to be purely there for the money, step forward Catherine Zeta Jones, or just to have a laugh like Paul Giamatti. The only stand-out moments are from Tom Cruise channelling his obnoxious persona from Magnolia, only this time with added monkeys, he is a convincing aging rock star but maybe that's art imitating life in a way. Though some of the set pieces are enjoyable I felt there were far too many performances and not as many scenes to develop characters which is needed especially in a film with as many plot strands as Rock of Ages has. I have to say overall I'm bitterly disappointed as I was hoping for another Mamma Mia type movie but, and I never thought I'd say this, I miss Pierce Brosnan's awful singing voice.
Verdict: While there are some enjoyable set pieces and Tom Cruise is on top form overall this is a disappointing mess so that's why it's getting 3/10
I always think it must be hard for English-speaking actors to star in a film were they have to speak in an entirely different language for example Kristen Scott Thomas who was utterly convincing as a Frenchwoman in brilliant films such as I've Loved You So Long and Leaving. This year Will Ferrell has also had a go at it by donning a Spanish accent to play a Mexican ranch hand in supposed comedy Casa Di Me Padre. Ferrell's Armando Alvarez lives works on his father's ranch but is a constant disappointment to him because, as we found out later in the film, he shot and killed his own mother after trying to defend her from bandits. Armando is worried that drug dealers are taking over the land he loves and killing off fellow citizens but as he is a weak man he can do nothing about it. Armando's brother Raul, played by Diego Luna, returns to the ranch with a new girlfriend Sonia who is actually the niece of Gael Garcia Bernal's drug lord El Onzo. Raul is the apple of his father's eye but Armando is shocked to discover that his brother is also a drug dealer and that's why he can afford to buy his future wife expensive items. Sonia though is drawn to Armando who is much more of a romantic than Raul but as she wants to stay loyal to her current beau she is torn between the two brothers. With rival drug lords in the area it's only a matter of time before a showdown occurs which also features crooked cops one of whom has a connection to the boys' mother but will they be able to save the day?
I will start by saying that I'm normally a big fan of Ferrell's in particular I love the films were he doesn't play it broad such as Stranger than Fiction or the recent Everything Must Go. In Casa De Mi Padre the central joke seems to be that the former Ron Burgundy is speaking Spanish however that wears thin fairly quickly. Former Y Tu Mama Tambien brethren Luna and Bernal both seem to be having a hoot as the drug dealers, with the latter playing a similar part in Contraband, but again there's not much humour to be had in the shoot-out. For me the funniest moments come when director Matt Piedmont is keen to point out that the film was supposedly shot on a small budget with very dodgy edits happening throughout. My favourite moment was possibly when the action stopped for one of the assistant cameramen to inform us that they did shoot a fight between two big cats however it got too violent as both got into the cocaine supply and ended up killing several crew members. For me though, while I smiled several times, I never once burst out laughing which for me is unusual during a film with Ferrell on stage. The exterior settings do add a certain authenticity to proceedings and all the cast did a good job but at the end of the day I felt Casa Di Me Padre was a little flat despite Ferrell's very convincing Spanish accent.
Verdict: A couple of good in-jokes about the overall production and Bernal and Luna's big performances stopped this from being a complete dud but because it felt fairly flat I can only give it 5/10
These days there are very little surprises during awards season as the same people the same awards throughout however this year's one shock did come at the BAFTAs when the Rising Star Award went to Adam Deacon over Thor stars Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth as well as new king of comedy Chris O'Dowd. Looking over Deacon's past work I can't say I've seen him in a lot of things and of those that I had seen the only memorable turn he gave, in my opinion, was as Space in Charlie Brooker's Dead Set. This week I got an opportunity to change my mind about him as my latest LoveFilm DVD was Payback Season in which Deacon stars as Jerome Davis a premiership footballer who comes from a humble council estate background in which he used to be somewhat of a gangster. Jerome is forced to revisit his past when he bumps into some old friends who are led by Baron an intimidating drug-dealer who doesn't take failure very well and is soon asking his friend for large amounts of money as he believes that he is owed for not having the same sort of opportunities that Jerome now has. Baron and his crew try to tempt Jerome's brother into their life of crime which causes him more anguish and eventually things come to a head as he tries to once and for all leave his world behind. Running alongside this is a flimsy romantic subplot where Jerome tries to romance Nichola Burley's sports journalist who at first rejects his advances but obviously his charm is far too much and it seems that the offer of an omelette is enough to make her drop her knickers.
While watching Payback Season I came to the conclusion that this film really isn't for me as its another of those 'gritty urban dramas' only this time with a premiership footballing twist. Everybody constantly asks 'You Get Me' and ends every line of dialogue with 'Ain't it Bruv' so even though I didn't grow up in an environment similar to the characters in this film I still don't feel that this portrayal of inner-city life is completely realistic. The problems mainly come from the script, co-written by director Danny Donnelly and Jenny Fitzpatrick, which seems to see the characters repeating lines over and over or reiterating similar points. The characters themselves are generally underwritten, especially the female parts namely Burley's journalist and Anna Popplewell's sports columnist, and nothing they say really feels genuine. On a positive note some of the clubbing scenes as well as one of the fights were stylishily shot however I couldn't help but think that I'd seen all of these shots in films Guy Ritchie was making over ten years ago. There are some real laughable performances with Burley, Popplewell and Liam Donnelly as Jerome's brother are the main offenders while there's also a strange cameo from Geoff Hurst as Jerome's agent personally I'm still struggling to comprehend why the footballing legend agreed to appear here but maybe somebody told him that he'd been in with the yoof population if he did it. The one shining light in this mess of a film is David Ajala as the terrifying Baron who is able to demonstrate a level of calm menace before he eventually snaps in fact my favourite scene in the film is when he realises one of his lackeys has been stealing from him so to get revenge he beats him with a kettle before pouring the boiling water all over him. Finally what of Mr Deacon? Well I have to say he was a likeable and relaxed presence throughout here while in addition I felt when Jerome was talking about coming from nothing to be something it was the actor recounting his own experiences however I didn't find him believable for one second which I suppose is a problem when you're the lead actor. Deacon's performance in Payback Season definitely won't be winning him back-to-back BAFTAs and while the actor certainly possesses charm based on this film alone I don't see him as an award-winning leading man.
Verdict: Poorly directed, comically underwritten and featuring some really bad performances the only shining light in Payback Season is Ajala's terrifying screen presence so for that reason alone it gets 3.5/10
Something else that goes on far too long is this film, at just over two hours The Five Year Engagement suffers from too many similar scenes as Tom struggles to adjust to his Michigan lifestyle. I think at least fifteen to twenty minutes could've been trimmed either from these scenes or some of the latter parts of the film building up to the inevitable conclusion. The other element of the film I wasn't too keen on one was the fact that the problems in Violet and Tom's relationship arise from a stale doughnut but I won't go into that as I'm expecting most of you haven't seen the film. I don't think the Michigan tourist board will be too happy with this film as their state is presented as a complete hole in which there is nothing to do, there are no job opportunities for culinary-minded chefs and the only place of note is the university but I suppose at the end of the day the film's setting is where most of the jokes are found. Thankfully the film has more negatives than positives mainly due to the brilliant chemistry between real-life friends Blunt and Segal who seem like a believable couple from their first meeting at a new year's party through to their ups and downs depicted in the film. Blunt is perfectly charming a great counter-balance to Segal's usual goofy routine which here is completely endearing. Segal and Stoller's script is also full of laughs throughout with my favourite moment being Alex's song about Tom's former conquests set to the tune of 'We Didn't Start the Fire' as well as a rather uncomfortable version of 'The Birdy Song' danced after a shocking revelation. Ifans is also brilliant as the smarmy professor who tries to entice Violet throughout her time at the university while these scenes are also spiced up by her post-grad colleagues who all have increasingly bizarre ideas about what would work best as a test experiment. Overall this reminded me of Segal and Stoller's earlier film Forgetting Sarah Marshall as both are peppered with decent jokes but suffer from being overlong and having a bad narrative structure. That being said I definitely enjoyed The Five Year Engagement more as it had bigger laughs, more chemistry between the central couple and most crucially of all no Russell Brand. So it's a very sad RIP to Nora Ephron and while The Five Year Engagement may not be on the same level as When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle but I think she'd be glad to know that even after she's gone the genre she created is still going strong.
Verdict: A charming and funny romcom that boasts plenty of jokes plus an easy chemistry between the leads is let down by being overlong as well as becoming repetitive in its final third so for those reasons it gets a very high 7/10
So it's getting into summer holiday season which means that plenty of animation will be on the cards including a new Ice Age film and the latest from Pixar however I'm going to backtrack to a previous film that was released when the schools were out during Easter which is The Pirates! the latest film from Aardman Animation. The Pirates! in An Adventure with Scientists sees the team behind Wallace and Gromit spoof the high seas genre with Hugh Grant's pirate captain eager to be named pirate of the year after being ridiculed by his peers. Though respected among his crew The Pirate Captain, which is his real name, isn't very good at his job as he struggles to find any real booty or seize any ships that don't have nudists or ghosts on them. He sees his chance to get a prize after kidnapping Charles Darwin, voiced by David Tennant, who explains to him that his parrot Polly is in fact the last remaining dodo so the ship sets a course for London despite Queen Victoria having a hatred of all pirates. When there it becomes clear that Darwin isn't all he seems as he tries to kidnap Polly however The Pirate Captain succeeds in hiding her and then entering into the contest which he wins. However there is something more sinister behind Queen Victoria's want to get her hands on Polly and Darwin is eager to play along as he his completely in love with her.
Darwin's love for Victoria was one of my problems with The Pirates! film as I found there were too many plot strands to cover with a running time of only 80 minutes. Unlike previous full-length Aardman features Chicken Run and Curse of The Were-Rabbit which felt like proper films I found The Pirates! to be a lot more episodic because while it did have a basic plot structure it seemed to want to fit in too many different comic situations which for me ruined the overall narrative of the film. Another issue I had was the fact that it wasn't as funny as it should've been especially considering how many laughs the Wallace and Gromit films provided this just doesn't feel like it's in the same league as those early efforts. I'm not saying I didn't laugh at all there are some funny moments most of them involving Darwin's monkey Mr Bobo or the evil Queen Victoria's final speech in addition there are some farily amusing set pieces including an early one where The Pirate Captain attempts to rob various ships only to find that there is no treasure to be found on any of them. There is also a game voice cast who add a certain Britishness to the film especially Grant's boisterous Captain and Staunton's brittle Victoria. As you would expect from an Aardman film The Pirates! is extremely well-crafted as every scene brims with visual detail and the biggest strength of the film is definitely its animation it's just a shame that the story isn't as great as some of the other films that the company has produced have provided. I'll be surprised if this is the best animated film I'll see this year however I don't think I'll be that disappointed if it isn't and I just hoped for a little more from the company who'd bought us such great animated pleasures in the past.
Verdict: Wonderful animation and a game voice cast can't escape from the fact that this film isn't as funny or as perfectly-scripted as it should've been therefore I can only give it 7/10
If there's one genre I'm particularly picky with its horror as I don't find I scare too easily as we're now well over the 100 film mark the only film that I felt had some genuine scares in it was The Woman in Black however my experience of that was marred by the disrespectful half term audience. I find most horror, especially American horror, to be fairly generic offering cheap shocks rather than fully-rounded characters who I can care about. The Pact follows in this tradition as we open on a shot of a green eye which eventually we find out belongs to Nicole Barlow who is back at her old family home sorting out stuff ahead of her mother's funeral however when she tries to convince sister Annie to join her she gets a negative response. As this is a modern horror a webchat between Nicole and her daughter Eva, who is currently staying with her cousin Liz, reveals that she is not alone when her daughter asks her 'who's that behind you mummy!' Flash forward to the funeral and we see Annie all clad in bike leathers back at the house with Liz now looking after Eva ever since Nicole's supposed disappearance. Though at first the sceptical Annie believes that her sister has simply taken off she begins to think that something is amiss after spending some time at the house before her suspicions are confirmed when Liz goes missing and Eva is taken in by the police. Its up to Casper Van Dien's police officer to try and calm Annie down however after several bad dreams he caves and they go to the house where he takes some pictures of a room that she never knew existed. Obviously this room has some family secrets hidden within it that Annie must unlock so with the help of an old school friend, who conveinently can talk to the dead, as well as a ouija board she finds out things about her heritage that maybe should've stayed buried and as this is a horror film we are all in for one final shock.
Verdict: A good turn from lead actress Caity Loitz is not enough to save this boring film which should've been consigned to the straight-to-DVD section so for that reason it only gets a 3.5/10
As you can see at the moment I'm focusing on rather obscure cinema releases and the reason for that is that I'm trying to make a dent in my LoveFilm list so I'm currently watching films that I know very little about the latest of these is the obscure French film Hadewijch. The film centres around a young theology student who wishes to become a nun but after extreme demonstrations of her blind faith, including too much fasting and standing in the rain without an umbrella, she is asked by the sisters to return to her everyday life. Known as Hadewijch in the convent she reverts back to Celine as she re-joins her upper class family who live in a swish Parisian pad and where she spends most of her time caring for their dog or keeping up with her prayers. After drinking alone in a bar she meets attractive Arabian teen Yassine whom she is attracted to but cannot sleep with as she is saving herself to give solely to Jesus. Through meeting Yassine's brother Nassir her faith is tested as he tries to teach her some of his radical Muslim beliefs and he is also able to answer some of her questions about why she doesn't feel as close to Jesus as she could. The film's crescendo is Nassir's attempts to persuade Celine to partake in a suicide bombing in the Paris Metro, and also I felt to a lesser extent to sleep with his brother, so again it is up to her to see if her faith justifies her doing this. Alongside all this is the story of a young convict who was working on the convent and saw Celine in her Hadewijch days so again it is up to us to decide how he fits in with her story.
Hadewijch, as well as being a really film name to repeatedly type, is one of those arthouse flicks where characters take a long time reflecting on things by staring into lakes. For me the film reminded me most of The Nun's Story as both focus on young women who join convents for maybe the wrong reasons but struggle with their faith. However while Audrey Hepburn gave a big performance here lead actress Julie Sokolowski gives a subtle turn here which makes the film feel realistic but at the same time I also didn't feel any emotional connection with the character. Like with the previous film I reviewed, Blackthorn, this one is also to an extent a group of scene strung together by one character however here at least there are strong themes dealt with that I could identify with - the struggle with faith, resisting natural urges and deciding right from wrong. The film really kicked up a notch after Celine meets Nassir and from then on I felt hooked with the big scenes on the metro and their aftermath making this film a lot more gripping than it should've been. Director Bruno Dumont definitely takes on an interesting journey throughout the film even if it at times the detours are a little meaningless everything is still visually captivating. What makes this film worth watching though is Sokolowski who is brilliant throughout although sometimes what she's given to do isn't very interesting.
Verdict: A beautifully-shot film with a great lead performance is let down by too many inconsequential scenes which are there to give it a very 'arthouse feel' and for that reason I can only give it 6/10
There are a lot of movie endings that are constantly debated - was Shane really dead when he left on that horse? Did Thelma and Louise really plummet off that cliff? And did Butch and Sundance get finished off at the end of their film? Thankfully Mateo Gil's Blackthorn attempts to answer that question by telling us that they weren't the outlaws shot up in Bolivia but Sundance still ended up dying. Butch Cassidy however retired to a secluded Bolivian village, changed his name to James Blackthorn and spent his time raising horses as well as sleeping with women much younger than himself. Things start to go wrong when Blackthorn decides to return to the states, to be with the son that doesn't know he's his father, when he's attacked on his way across the border meaning his horse bolts unfortunately the animal had all of Blackthorn's money on him. The man who shot at him is Eduardo Apodaca who is being chased by a posse after he stole money supposedly from a tyrannical mine owner eventually Blackthorn agrees to keep the man alive if he splits the money with him. From there it becomes an old-school western with Blackthorn and Apodaca on the run from the posse we also see how Butch Cassidy came to be in that situation as flashbacks show us he and Sundance with our protagonist now being played by Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones. The past does catch up with Blackthorn to an extent when he is recognised by a doctor who informs Butch and Sundance's old nemesis Detective McKinley, played by that he's found the famous outlaw. So the whole thing builds to a crescendo where once again Cassidy is being pursued by the Bolivian military however will he survive once again?
Blackthorn certainly has an interesting premise however a film that keeps referencing the brilliant Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid must have to be compared to it and for me there is no comparison. Whereas the 1969 film had a real sense of fun in it Blackthorn is very serious and plodding with the gun battles not having one iota of excitement certainly in my opinion. What Blackthorn does have going for it is a brilliant central performance from Sam Shepard who is utterly believable as a grizzled ex-outlaw who has lost everything, apart from of course casual sex with beautiful Bolivians, and is now trying to live out the sunset of his life with loved ones. Shepherd raises the film and makes it seem important while having a great chemistry with Stephen Rea as McKinley as the two verbally spar with aplomb in the latter stages of the film. The Bolivian locations are also well utilised, as they were in my previous film Even the Rain, with the old school Western vibe really shining through. My main problem was that I really didn't care about most of what happened and therefore the film came across as a collection of various scenes rather than a complete movie. The flashback scenes added nothing for me and I would've much preferred just to see Blackthorn explain what happened in his past rather than seeing it ourselves and I found it rather sacrilegious for other actors to play roles made famous by Newman and Redford. I am a big fan of a western however this didn't have the grit of something like True Grit so despite Shepherd and Rea's best efforts Blackthorn really was a bit of bland affair albeit one with a much more definitive ending.
Verdict: A collection of scenes rather than a full movie Blackthorn is lifted by a glorious performance from Sam Shepard and some wonderful Bolivian backdrops so for that reason the film gets 5.5/10
After having my brain well and truly numbed by the dire Piranha 3DD it was time to try a film that had a bit of a message to it with the Latin American movie Even the Rain. The film is based around a Mexican film crew going to Bolivia to make a film about Christopher Columbus' voyage to the new world as well as him trying to impose his religious beliefs on the natives and their eventual rebellion. In the opening scene we see Gael Garcia Bernal's director Sebastian and Luis Tosar's executive producer Costa greeted with a long line of natives wanting to be considered by parts after the former advertised an open casting. Though the filming team goes back on their word they are confronted by the resilient Daniel who is eventually cast as Atuey the Taino Chief with his real life daughter playing his daughter in the film. The uprising of the Indians in Sebastian's film is shot concurrently alongside the current protests in Bolivia as they take offence to their water supply being privatised and demand to be given a voice. As Daniel leads these protests both Costa and Sebastian are constantly having to bail him out of jail however the incidents become increasingly more violent and they both worry that they won't be able to finish the film. Throughout the film both of their attitudes' to the natives change as the initially liberal Sebastian finds the constant protests are hindering the progress of the story he feels he needs to tell while the financially-minded Costa becomes close to Daniel with him ultimately making a major sacrifice in the film's closing scenes.
Though I'm not usually a big fan of political message Even the Rain really drew me in to the plight of the Bolivians by drawing it alongside the story of these wealthy movie folks. Though the film-makers bemoan the exploitation of the Bolivians they to are using these locals as extras because they are a lot cheaper than their Hollywood counterparts. This hypocritical behaviour is pointed out several times, most notably by the drunken actor playing Columbus, however we the audience are allowed to make our own minds up about the central characters as they change during their time in Bolivia. For me the best performance in the film comes from Tosar who was absolutely terrifying in Cell 211 but here is much more of a kind individual even if at times he comes across a trifle authoritative. Juan Carlos Aduviri also feels completely natural in the role of Daniel as he shows how easy it is to seem powerful without saying anything at all. The mainly exterior locations look great while the final scenes of the full-scale rebellion of the Bolivians are made as realistic as possible. Though not a perfect film, at times I felt it a little too preachy, Even the Rain is a well-written excellently acted parable about exploitation and history repeating itself which neither underestimates or alienates the audience throughout.
Verdict: A thoroughly enjoyable film about exploitation and how your opinions can change with two great performances from Tosar and Aduviri easily gets 8.5/10
I have to say I'm a big fan of the guilty pleasure movie and at the end of the day as much as I love my Scandinavian noir and my Indie comedy dramas occasionally there's nothing better than a brainless Jason Statham movie. A couple of years ago I have to say I did have fun watching Piranha 3D thanks to the retro feel of the piece as well as the efforts of Elisabeth Shue to keep a straight face reciting some of the ridiculous dialogue that was given to her. Two years later and the franchise returns without Shue however both Ving Rhames and Christopher Lloyd play their characters from the first film but only in short cameos which is a shame. The main plot revolves around marine biology student Maddy who returns home to find that her step-father Chet has turned the waterpark that they co-own into a semi-pornographic venture in which strippers frolic merrily in the water. Of course it's not long before the piranhas make their presence felt, including an opening scene featuring a game Gary Busey, as two of Maddy's friends are devoured after their truck falls into a fish-laden lake meanwhile another of her friends has one of the critters crawl up her vagina later biting the penis of the unlucky lad that she is trying to lose her virginity to. After discovering the fish they rush to Lloyd's fish shop where he tells them to be careful however this doesn't stop Chet from opening his water park inviting David Hasslehoff to appear as the guest lifeguard. Inevitably the piranhas soon kill off a lot of the strippers as well as the main baddies, Chet and Maddy's corrupt cop ex-boyfriend Kyle, however Rhames' former sheriff is on hand with his new gun legs to finish them off. Like in the last film once the survivors have vanquished the piranhas there is another call from Lloyd informing them that the piranhas have now evolved meaning that we may yet get a third film which for me was the most horrific thought coming out of this film.
While I tried my hardest to find some sort of pleasure in Piranha 3DD after watching it I mainly felt guilty even if it was only about 80 minutes long. On the plus side Lloyd and Rhames' contributions to the film added a sort of camp value to proceedings as did Hasslehoff's appearance and Busey's opening attack however none of these are asked to anchor the film. Instead it is the young cast all of whom are utterly dire, despite them including both Danielle Panabaker and 30 Rock's Katrina Bowden, while the villains are utterly stupid. The idea that a sane person wouldn't close down a water park when piranhas may attack their clientele is just completely ludicrous even if this film doesn't claim to be based in reality. I would go so far as to say that the majority of the film is misogynistic with the stripper pool just be a vile idea to try and lure lonely men into the cinema with the chance to see 3D breasts. Offensive and crude I would advise you just to watch the first two Cranks if you want a guilty pleasure film and leave Piranha 3DD on the shelf where it belongs then thankfully they won't be able to make a third film.
Verdict: What should be a guilty pleasure classic is an offensive mess with only a couple of game cameo performances saving it from becoming the worst film of the year so I just because of Rhames and The Hoff I'll give it 2/10
It seems these days that George Lucas only wants to tweak with films he's already had hand in for example his constant alterations to the Star Wars franchise however it seems that he does have other ideas up his sleeve. Take Red Tails, an film that Lucas has been wanting to make since the late 1980s, which focuses on the work of African American airmen towards the end of World War 2. The film, which Lucas has produced as well as directing some of the post-production re-shoots, introduces us to the Tuskegee Airmen who are being used for simple ground attack missions against freight trains and enemy ground transport. The group include the alcoholic 'Easy', the risk-taking Lightning who ends up romancing an Italian woman, 'Ray Gun' who is often referred to as Junior by his colleagues as well as the wise-cracking Joker. The men are led by the pipe-smoking Major Stance and the inspirational Col Bullard, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Terrence Howard respectively, it is the latter who is able to secure the men more important missions escorting bombers during their mission. The men are given better planes which are given painted red tails to mark them out as different from the rest of the airmen however it isn't all plain flying when Ray Gun is captured and taken to a prisoner of war camp. As you would imagine before the end of the day some of the 'Red Tails' die while others become heroes but what seems most important to Lucas is to put in as many scenes of the airmen flying as humanly possible which is a shame as these are some of the dullest parts of the film.
Being nasty about a film as good-natured Red Tails and its clear that this is a passionate project for Lucas who at least is able to get across the good job that these men did and why they deserved to be honoured. Of the cast I thought Howard was a stand-out however David Oyelowo as Lightning was fairly compelling in his subplot where he romanced the beautiful Sofia despite the fact neither spoke the other's language. The problem is that there are far too many characters that no-one really gets a chance to shine and I felt there was far too much time devoted to some of the aerial sequences and it was as if Lucas was trying to make his own Saving Private Ryan. To me at least the whole thing felt a bit like a TV movie of the week from the cheap-looking opening title sequence to some of the initial dialogue such as one airman yells out, 'German, Let's Get him.' The Italian locations, most of which were shot in Prague, makes the film look more like an Olive Oil commercial while Cuba Gooding Jr.'s instance of his character smoking a pipe seems like something Joey would do in Friends so I couldn't help but laugh every time I saw him. I can't say the film was poorly directed by Anthony Hemmingway, whose most famous for directing episodes of The Wire, and indeed one of the joys is spotting how many former cast members of the Baltimore show are in Red Tails such as Andre 'Bubbles' Royo, Tristain 'Michael' Wilds and Michael 'Wallace' B. Jordan. Overall this was an undemanding film was overly long aerial sequences with far too many characters and subplots to take on but I feel that Lucas has still created a very worthy historical film which does at least paint these men as the heroes they were.
Verdict: A very worthy film with a smattering of good performances is ruined by overly long aerial sequences, far too many characters and an overall sense of smugness so for those reasons I can only give it 5.5/10
Even the Rain 
