Review No.175: What to Expect When You're Expecting

If you have been reading all of the reviews that I've been writing throughout the day then you're a stronger person than me but thankfully this is the last and ironically it is also the least. The big trend at the moment in romantic comedy films is to pack them as full as stars as is conceivably possible to make-up for the fact they are neither romantic nor comedic with prime offenders being New Year's Eve and Valentine's Day. Adding to that list is What to Expect When You're Expecting whose title is based on the popular pregnancy guide and whose script looks to have been drawn on the back of a fag packet. The story focuses on five different couples, all of whom are somewhat interconnected, and who are all expecting babies in one way or another. First we meet Cameron Diaz as weight-loss guru Jules who appears on a Dancing with the Stars like show and starts a relationship with her professional Even played by Glee's Matthew Morrison with her hilariously discovering her pregnancy after throwing up in their winner's trophy. As their relationship is in its infancy they struggle to cope as they're both strong characters and a big argument ensues over whether or not they should circumcise their son which is an issue which soon goes global. One of Jules' former clients Gary is also expecting a baby with baby store owner Wendy, played by Elizabeth Banks, with the pair finally conceiving after trying for absolutely ages so when Gary's former racing driver dad played by the brilliant Dennis Quaid reveals that he and his trophy wife Skyler are having twins it comes as a blow to the couple. Skyler's cousin Rosie, played by Anna Kendrick, meanwhile has a one-night stand with a former high school acquaintance and food vendor rival Marco which obviously leads to her getting pregnant and the pair having to become a couple instantly. Finally Wendy's go to photographer Holly, played by J'Lo, is planning to adopt a baby from Africa along with her husband Alex who isn't as sure that he wants a child in the house so she sends him off to be with a group of fathers led by Chris Rock's incredibly vocal Vic. The basic message of Kirk Jones' film is that life's hard and sometime's we don't get everything we want but as long as we both have each other then life is good. 

As there's five different stories here I thought there'd be different types of couples but two of our pairs are happily married while another have been dating for a while. While the situations involving Lopez and Kendrick are at least a bit different what with the adoption and the one-night stand I would've thought that a film set in 2012 would at least have some alternative views. For example What to Expect purports the myth that a parent needs a mother and a father but why couldn't there have been a single mother or at least a gay couple? I'm guessing the answer to this question is that this film wants to be as traditional as possible and despite the women in this film being presented as strong and independent there doesn't seem to be one character who thinks they'd be better off without a man with the case in point here being Rosie's story as instead of deciding that she wants to raise the child on her own she instantly gets the baby's father in so the pair can become a couple. As this was a comedy I was expecting some clever material but instead what I got was a long line of vomiting, urination, fat jokes and generally tired gags about what happens when you get pregnant. The funniest performers of the piece for me are Dennis Quaid as Gary's ultra-competitive father and Rebel Wilson as Wendy's shop assistant who has some brilliant asides while Chris Rock seems to be in a completely different film as he tries out some new stand-up material in his 'dad's group'. While I was watching I thought some of these individual stories would be good on their own especially Rosie and Marco's tale which I thought didn't have enough time dedicated to it despite the fact that Anna Kendrick is possibly the most talented of the five central actresses. I thought the script as well could've delved more into Holly's struggle with the adoption process but as it was she and Alex managed to get a baby fairly easily after just one home visit! The story that annoyed me the most was that of Jules and Evan which seemed to exist mainly to get a load of cameos in from Megan Mullaly, Whitney from The Hills and our own Cheryl Cole. Personally I would've expect more from Kirk Jones, who directed one of my favourite films in Waking Ned, but here it seems he's sold out directing 'comedy' sequences that I felt would be above him and overall there's not much praise I can lavish on the film other than to complement a couple of the performers. 

Verdict: A horrible mess of a film with far too much going on and too many cast members doing it for the money while Kendrick, Quaid and Rebel Wilson did at least bring something to the picture I personally didn't find it funny or original enough to award it more than 3.5/10

Review No.174: Katy Perry - Part of Me

It's hard to know what to write when watching films that are essentially taped concerts as they have very little plot to them which in turn makes for a very short review. When I saw the trailer for Katy Perry: Part of Me I thought it was simply a concert film with a little bit of DVD commentary thrown in for good measure however there was very much more to this autobiographical feature. Though indeed there are several full performances from her California Dreams Tour which took her all around the world from London to Tokyo and even to her own backyard but really this is a portrait of the artist and also it sees how she influences other fans. The start of the film is indeed her fans waxing lyrical about how she's inspirational and how she preaches the message that it doesn't matter if you're different or weird you can still achieve things, that is especially if you've got your own hair and make-up team, and this segment finishes off with a tape of the 16 old Perry talking to camera. Though I only really watched this because I had to I did in fact learn a lot about Perry including her strict religious upbringing in which she was only allowed to listen to Christian Rock and the only film she was allowed to watch was Sister Act 2 but not the first one however I agree with her parents that the sequel if far superior and much misunderstood. Eventually she went on the road touring her own music however it was far from an overnight success as she spent ages going round various record companies and at one point was so broke she had to ask her younger brother for money. We all pretty much know where the story goes from there as Perry's contemporaries, including Adele and Rihanna, talk about how great she is while we also see her family praising her. Though even now she still has personal issues as we well know her marriage to Russell Brand, a relationship that is really put under the microscope during the film, collapsed and the pair divorced soon after. The fact that Perry shows the aftermath to her divorce in great detail is a testament to her and personally I think it makes the film that more interesting as it does show her at her most emotional. Though the divorce almost means she doesn't go on stage we're left with the message that Katy is a professional and a chorus of Teenage Dream is all you need to get over all your relationship troubles.

I think the enjoyment of a film about a musical act sometimes comes from how much of a fan you are of that particular artist and for me I'm not the biggest Katy Perry fan. Her bubblegum pop is inoffensive enough it's just not my kind of thing however it's good to see that the lyrics are personal and that they do inspire other youngsters unfortunately they're not just for me. For that reason the performance footage did little for me despite the colourful staging, which we saw the planning of during one scene of the film, which takes its inspiration from surreal works of art including Alice in Wonderland. What I did enjoy was the backstory about Perry's upbringing and especially seeing her father doing some of his preaching you could sort of see where she got her love of performing from. The home video footage was also eye opening as we were able to view Perry from a young girl up to the artist that she is today and how each step made her what she is. As I already mentioned all of the scenes with Russell Brand were also fairly interesting as we saw him lurking backstage at her concerts and we also saw how their careers strained their marriage to an eventual breaking point. For me I found the film a little overlong mainly because there were far too many behind-the-scenes of her tour footage for my liking as each little element was explained in detail although I did like the names of some of her backstage team including her manager Bradford Cobb. At times my cynical side kicked in as I started to wonder if at least a portion of the film was created as an advert for her next tour however I think most Perry fans would want to see her on tour before watching this film and as was evidenced in Part of Me they are a fairly manic bunch. So to that end if you're a fan of Perry I would say that you'd completely love this movie and for me I found it interesting if overlong with colourful performances plus a mixture of highs and lows for the singer who had much more of an intriguing past than I first realised.

Verdict: As I'm not a fan the concert footage bored me somewhat while the film as a whole was overlong having said that her fanbase will absolutely love this and personally there was enough information here for me to at least appreciate Perry in a new light so for that reason I will give it 6/10

Review No.173: The Cold Light of Day

You wait for a review of a Bruce Willis film, or maybe you don't, but two come along at once nonetheless but if you were hoping for more of him after his handful of appearances in The Expendables 2 you may be disappointed. Despite appearing fairly prominently on the poster for The Cold Light of Day, Mr Willis' appearances add up to no more than about 15 minutes of the 90 minute run time so any fans of the Die Hard star who would be watching this film for him alone might want to look elsewhere. Willis plays Martin Shaw a man who has a job working for the government booking philharmonic orchestras or something to that effect, yeah right, and is currently in Spain with his family on a fishing trip. Arriving in Spain is his son Will, played by the new Superman Henry Cavill, who doesn't seem to have a great relationship with his father and they argue over Will's instance to make business calls while on the trip a decision that later injures his brother's girlfriend.  He goes to town to get some medicine for her but when he returns he finds his family missing and later discovers they have been kidnapped by some shadowy folks who want a briefcase back from his father who is in fact a CIA agent, shock horror! Will and Martin briefly reunite as we are introduced to his partner, Sigourney Weaver's Jean, who may or may not have turned against him to sell said briefcase and the bigger question is who exactly Will can trust. Later on in the film he meets a sexy senorita by the name of Lucia who  in addition to helping him escape may also be able to shed some light on his father's dealing in the past as the two have a slightly unbelievable connection. 

I think The Cold Light of Day has its roots firmly in the old school Alfred Hitchcock thrillers in which the action is all controlled by a MacGuffin, which for those not in the know is an object that moves the plot along even if it isn't that important, however that would be an insult to Hitchcock's collections of films. The MacGuffin here is the mysterious briefcase which everybody is after even though we never discover what is in it, though as Willis is here maybe it's Marcellus Wallace's soul, but I never once cared and that's the major problem with this film. There's a lot of running, jumping and shooting in the film however if it's all based on a plot point that you don't care about then everything seems a little bit pointless despite the fact that all the action sequences are fairly well shot. Personally I didn't think Henry Cavill was a particularly captivating lead but to be fair to the actor has little to work with playing a character who owns some sort of small business which is on the verge collapsing and who also has a poor relationship with his character. Willis is in his action movie default setting as he gets to both play the slightly brooding patriarch and the gun-wielding CIA agent in his brief time on screen in what amounts to no more than an extended cameo. The two performances I enjoyed were from Sigourney Weaver who makes for a tremendous central villain and British actor Joseph Mawle has her creepy henchman. The Spanish setting also means that the running, jumping and shooting gets some lovely backdrops to be shot against but I don't think this is fully utilised as there are more sequences in dingy clubs and dark houses than there on the streets of Spain. Though I did like seeing Weaver brandishing a gun and being badass there's only so much of that you can take in one film and due to the lack of any decent characters and a story that is fairly one-dimensional I got bored of The Cold Light of Day fairly quickly. 

Verdict: Though the Spanish backdrop and Sigourney Weaver's villainous turned did provide brief highlights overall The Cold Light of Day suffers from an uninvolving leading man, a threadbare plot and fairly dull action scenes so for that reason I'll have to give it 4.5/10

Review No.172: Damsels in Distress

There's often a fine line between quirky and irritating films with many finding the mumblecore genre a particular offender but personally I've never really had a problem with those sort of films until I watched Damsels in Distress which was at times amusing but another times fairly annoying. Whit Stillman's film sees Analeigh Tipton's Lily arrive as a sophomore transfer to a college in which she is soon taken under the win of Greta Gerwig's Violet and her minions Heather and Rose. The trio, who work in the college's suicide help centre, seem to want to cheer up students by having them learn to tap-dance while Violet herself is attempting to star a new dance craze. They also invite Violet into their world in which they often hang around with the fraternity boys as they harmless and dumb so they can be easily moulded into the perfect men however Violet's heart is broken when her intended man goes off with one of the girls they are trying to help. As Violet runs away from the college her friends think she may have done something drastic, with Heather revealing the truth about the real Violet, however she is saved by a bottle of hand-soap. At the same time Lily is going through some personal trauma over her own as she is attracted to the handsome intellectual French student Xavier who unfortunately already has a girlfriend so her eye is drawn instead to Adam Brody's cheerful Charlie. Eventually Xavier and Lily get together but his bedtime games don't sit well with her, and don't make her sit well either, so she turns back to Charlie however it is he and Violet who may have more in common. 

Stillman's Ivy League College world is somewhat old-fashioned in its design with our Damsels not paying any attention to what's going on on Facebook but instead marching to their own drum by walking in a dignified manner around the campus trying to help all the people they can. In the first twenty minutes or so of the film I found Violet and company utterly irritating and it is only really when we find out the truth about her that we become more sympathetic towards her while her relationship with Charlie also helps her seem like more of a normal human being. I personally think Stillman wants us to view the film through the eyes of Lily who is bemused by most of the antics of her new found friends but goes along with occasionally challenging Violet who is more than willing to be challenged because she's just that sort of character. Lily's assertion that some people don't want to be quirky but would rather be normal is one that would strike a chord with a lot of viewers of this film and I think in a way the director may be subtly hitting out at some of the same films of the genre. Thankfully his leading actress is Greta Gerwig who has great timing and delivery plus she's someone who is convincing enough as a student who thinks everything she does is for the greater good of the college but sometimes has a sense of self-importance. Adam Brody has some great chemistry with Gerwig and the two bounce off each other perfectly in the second half of the film as Violet gets closer to creating her own dance craze. I also quite enjoyed Analeigh Tipton as the 'normal girl' who suddenly finds her being charmed by a sleazy Frenchmen and taken in by a group of slightly offbeat females though again she more than holds her own. I do feel somewhat sorry for Megalyn Echikunwoke and Carrie MacLemore who have little to do as Rose and Heather respectively however the former does have a knack of repeating the line 'playboy operator' while the latter's romance with the brutish Thor is one of the comic highlights of the film due to the fact that he never learnt the name of any of the colours. Overall there's much to like about Damsels in Distress such as the lead performances, the lighter moments in the script and the way the college is designed but for me there were moments that I found deeply annoying which I think stopped me from enjoying the film as a whole. 

Verdict: With lovely performances from Geriwg and Brody as well as some truly funny moments Damsels in Distress is a somewhat likeable film however for me there were too many irritating sections so for that reason I can only give it a 6.5/10

Review No.171: The Expendables 2

More summer fun now as we enter the retirement home of action that is The Expendables franchise with Sylvester Stallone and buddies blowing more stuff up around the world. The plot of this new film is like the first one, somewhat unmemorable, however with an even bulkier cast plus a shorter runtime and a new director at the helm I found this one more enjoyable. The start of the film sees all of The Expendables from the first film team up to shoot down some bad guys or something before Arnie's Trench comes up and saves the day while soon after Jet Li says his goodbyes to the group. Bruce Willis' Mr Church then gives them another mission to go on with some new recruits namely Liam Hemsworth's idealistic Billy and Yu Nan as new technology expert Maggie Chan. While the group to retreive the mystery item for Church they're soon pounced upon by Jean Claude Van Damme's imaginatively named villain Jean Villain who steals the item, takes their weapons and kills poor old Billy presumably so he doesn't show up the rest of the oldies in the remaining battle sequences. From there the team travel to some desolate Eastern European town where Jean Villain is abusing the men as workers in a nearby plutonium mine and soon his men are on the case of our heroes thankfully though Chuck Norris is around to help them out however he doesn't stay too long as he is a lone wolf after all. From there it's business as usual as Stallone, Arnie, Bruce, Stath and the rest battle JCVD and his allies to the death but as there's a third film in the franchise I think we all know how things are going to pan out.

For me I wasn't a big fan of the first Expendables film finding it disorganised and over long while at the same time it didn't exploit the great cast that it was given with most of the scenes featuring simply on Sly and Stath. The sequel though is a vast improvement which I believe is mainly down to the fact that Sly has handed over directing duties to Con Air's Simon West, who knows what he's doing when it comes to ensemble acting pictures, and he tries to make the best film he can about a bunch of over-the-hill action heroes that he can possibly do. The Expendables 2, unlike its predecessor, doesn't take itself too seriously instead adding a lot of in-jokes about the catchphrases that our stars are best known for as well as some obscure jokes also. The fact that Arnie and Bruce are in the film a little more this time, after the former is officially out of the politics game, also adds to the overall feel of the film as a nostalgia-trip while seeing them fight alongside Sly and Chuck Norris is a treat all on its own. Talking of Norris his Booker is well-utilised and only has a minimal talking role which is good a thing as he's more useful when he's kicking ass and he does that a lot. As far as the rest of the cast is concerned with Mickey Rourke, who did all the acting in the first film, now departed it seems that Jason Statham has picked up that mantle and was actually fairly impressive however it is still his bromance with Sly that is the highlight of the piece. Elsewhere the other expendables don't do a lot, however Maggie Chan is slobbered over by her male colleagues to the point where she could've ordered some sort of employment tribunal while Hemsworth is at least given an emotional death scene. JCVD is always cast as a villain although he does have some of the more ludicrous lines of the piece he's able to pull them off because at the end of the day's it's Van-Damme whose even cool when wearing sunglasses in a plutonium mine. If you're coming to The Expendables to for a story and character development then jog on as there's little of that here however what there is plenty of enjoyable in-jokes, chemistry between the leads and the chance to see your favourite childhood action figures fight alongside each other. Personally I rather enjoyed The Expendables 2 which, while it had no story to speak of, survived because of the willingness of the cast to send itself up and West's competent direction so in summary a good summer action film which is all we can ask at the end of the day.

Verdict: There's lots of fun to be had while watching The Expendables 2 though due to the fact it has very little going on outside of its action scenes I can only award it 6/10

Review No.170: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

It's true that the Apocalypse has been covered in many different ways over the years away from the obligatory sci-fi uses of the end of the world we've also had some more interesting efforts including last year's Lars Von Trier film Melancholia which divided opinion as I know people who both loved and hated it while I was somewhere in the middle. Playing the situation for laughs is writer/director Lorene Scarfaria, best known for her various work on indie films such as Whip It and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, who presents a middle-management drone force to face the apocalypse on his own in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. In the film Steve Carell plays Dodge an insurance salesman whose wife leaves him directly after hearing that all efforts to stop an asteroid hurtling towards the Earth have been in vain so he has to soldier on alone. When he sees one of his neighbours, Keira Knightley's Penny, crying on the fire escape he lets her in only to discover she's upset that she'll never be able to get to see her folks in England again while he finds out that his first love wanted to see him once again however he never got the letter due to Penny holding onto his mail. Eventually the two make a pact - she helps him get to his lost love and in return he'll get to a guy he knows who has a plane so the rest of the film turns into a road movie and inevitably the two develop feelings for each other. Along the way we see how the apocalypse has affected other people with the staff at a TGI Fridays-esque restaurant getting a bit more saucy, one of the people they meet getting bumped off by an assassin and one of Penny's exes building a shelter in the hope of repopulating the Earth. In the end things take an unexpected turn as the pair both find what they're looking for but find out it's not necessarily what they wanted.

If you take Seeking a Friend for the End of the World as a number of set pieces then it works a lot better than as an overall film. I enjoyed several parts of it including a party Dodge attends, Dodge and Penny's heart-to-heart at his ex-girlfriend's parents' house and the discovery of who owns the plane. The film also has some beautiful location shots which cinematographer Tim Orr utilises especially a later scene on a beach where Penny and Dodge discover a lot of lost people getting married. Where the film falls down is that I never felt the believable nature of the relationship between Dodge and Penny despite Carrel and Knightley trying their hardest to play two people who had genuine feelings for each other. Throughout the film we meet several of Penny's former loves, including Adam Brody's waster Owen and Derek Luke's survivalist Speck, both of whom seem to want to do anything to hold onto her however she only has eyes for the man that insults her several times throughout the course of their journey. Individually though the two leads do a good job with Carell perfecting the hangdog expression we first saw on him in Little Miss Sunshine while Knightley's quirky Penny veers on the right side of being annoying. There are also some great cameos from Patton Oswalt, Rob Corddry and one towards the end of the film which I don't particularly feel like spoiling as for me the revelation was one of the best parts of the movie. The soundtrack is also great, someone sitting next to me in the cinema thought so too as she spent a lot of the time singing along to the more recognisable tunes, thanks to Penny's instance of bringing her records along with her this is a film that really knows how to use popular music to advance the story. As a whole though I don't think the story always worked and I felt that after it ended it went on for another ten minutes which spoilt the overall film plus I didn't really understand why Dodge would choose to keep a dog that was left as his feet for the rest of the film even though it was incredibly cute. Though there is indeed a lot to like in Seeking a Friend for the End of the World it still feels fairly uneven and runs longer than it should've done even though I feel it does do a good job of demonstrating how normal people would react if the world were to end in a couple of weeks.

Verdict: Good performances, a number of winning set-pieces and a great soundtrack are spoilt by a lack of chemistry between the two leads as well as an overlong ending so for that reason it gets 6.5/10

Review No.169: Brave

As I've previously discussed summer time is synonymous with the animated film and over the past decade the majority of the quality animation has been delivered by the Pixar studios ever since the first Toy Story film was released they have more hits than misses with a flawless record only spoilt by the two average Cars films and Ratatouille a film others seemed to like but I personally didn't care for. After Cars 2 was generally derided by critics last year they were due for a strong turn and have released Brave a Scottish-set fable starring Kelly MacDonald as Merida a tomboy who is also a princess daughter of warrior King Fergus and traditional Queen Elinor voiced respectively by Billy Connelly and Emma Thompson. As a teenage girl Princess Merida would much rather be aiming her bow and arrow than getting dressed up in order to choose her suitor however her mother informs her that tradition comes first. When all the warring Scottish lord descent on the castle their sons compete for Merida's hand through an archery contest though when she conceals her identity, takes part and wins she angers her mother who believes that her daughter has disrespected all that she stands for. Annoyed at her mother Merida travels into the forest and comes across a witch's cottage where inside she is given a potion that she believes will change her mothers mind but actually ends up transforming The Queen into a bear. This isn't the best thing in the world that could happen as her father is currently looking for the bear that tried to kill his family and is under the belief that his wife is the bear in question so another journey into the woods with her mother is called for however she gets a cryptic message from the witch. As is always the way with these animated tales all of our characters must learn lessons about breaking tradition, knowing what it is to be a family and about how sometimes our stubborn natures could cost us dearly. 

The good news then is that Brave is better than Cars 2 however for me it lacked the emotional resonance of Up, the sheer bravery of Wall-E or the end of an era that was Toy Story 3. In a way Brave doesn't feel like a Pixar film but rather more of a traditional Disney animation with a simple story and a strong central heroine which you can add to the recent parade of female role models which also included the leads in Tangled and The Princess and The Frog. Indeed the only thing separating Brave from being a classic Disney film is that the characters don't sing however there are several sequences set to music that are sung by Julie Fowlis with a third composed and performed by Mumford and Sons all of which I quite enjoyed. As you would expect from a Pixar films the characters are, on the whole, well-crafted with the flame-haired teenage princess a very relatable figure for a lot of the film's audience with Merida also being well voiced by Kelly MacDonald though at times I felt that she sounded more like a woman than a young girl. Connelly and Thompson both bring life into their respective royals while Julie Walters is also great in her two scenes as the witch my only criticism is that I wished they done more with her. The animation is also absolutely tremendous with the studio sculpting this glorious medieval highland in great detail and really bringing every aspect of it to life. It is the story of Brave that lets it down though and for me it dips when The Queen is turned into a bear with the closing bear hunt scenes also feeling a bit weak. Brave is also at a disadvantage in that Dreamworks have already done a Scottish film, albeit it one that had a slightly different look, in How to Train Your Dragon with Scottish comic Craig Ferguson featuring in both though. Even though Brave may be on the lower end of Pixar's spectrum it still has plenty going for it - the characters, the animation and the music are all spot on however I think the story just lacked a little bit of the magic that is usually present throughout the films produced by the studio. I think fans of the earlier work will be happy that sequels to favourites such as Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. are imminent but for me I feel they should be concentrating on original stories as Brave did show promise even if it did fall slightly short. 

Verdict: As you would expect from Pixar, Brave sounds and looks great with some brilliant characters let down by an uneven story nevertheless it is still enjoyable on the whole so therefore it receives a 7/10

Review No.168: The Lucky One

To me Nicholas Sparks adaptations appeal to a certain demographic to which I'm not a part though The Notebook was a massive crossover hit, and featured the mighty Ryan Gosling, I've only caught parts of it though since then I've had the misfortune to watch both the dreary Dear John and The Last Song which starred the dreaded Miley Cyrus. So imagine my surprise when I actually sort of enjoyed the latest Sparks adaptation The Lucky One which starred Zac Efron as former marine Logan whose life is saved twice by the picture of an unknown blonde meaning that when he is shipped back to the States he makes it his mission to track her down and walks all the way from Colorado to Louisiana to do this accompanied only by his loyal German Shepherd dog Zeus. After a small search he tracks down Beth who runs a local kennel and whose brother Drake was in the same company as Logan however when she mistakes him for someone who wanted to apply for a job at the kennels he neglects to tell her why he's really there. Inevitably the two get close quite quickly with Logan striking up a bond with Beth's son Ben who he encourages to play the violin however this raises the ire of Ben's father Keith who is the town's local sheriff so attempts to make life hard for his new love rival. Keith eventually gets one up on Logan when he discovers that he was searching for Beth when he first came to town which in turn means that he has to confess all. As is always the way with Sparks' books this isn't the end of their story as a tragedy forces old grudges to be put on hold as torrential weather causes our characters' lives to change forever.

Let's get one thing clear right from the start The Lucky One is completely cheesy romantic tripe that I wouldn't normally like however there was a charm to the story and a believable chemistry between Efron and female lead Taylor Schilling that made the film a lot easier to watch. I think in the past the Sparks adaptations suffered from a lack of chemistry between the leads and a story that I struggled to connect with however director Scott Hicks kept things simple enough as this was just a story of two lost people coming together. Though some snootier critics may steer away from praising him here I felt that Efron gave one of his best performances to date as he has made the effort to actually get in shape and be somewhat believable as someone who is deeply troubled from what he's seen during the war though I did find his early night terrors fairly laughable. Though Efron has no problem with the romantic scenes he still needs some work on the more dramatic side of things with the big rain-soaked tragedy at the end seeing him going slightly over-the-top. Schilling is also believable as a woman who has left her life behind her to hide in the kennels following the death of her brother and the breakdown in the relationship between her and the father of her son there is also reliable support from Blythe Danner as Beth's grandmother. Some of the performances are a bit iffy with Jay R Ferguson's Keith being a bit too much of a clichéd villain and Riley Thomas Stewart being a little too annoying as Ben. Hicks, who directed the Oscar-winning Shine, has always been able to capture great visuals and he does this again with The Lucky One with Alar Kivilo's cinematography adding to the overall feel of this syrupy love story. So though The Lucky One may purport the myth that the best kind of man is the one that can look after a boat and has a loveable dog it is still an easy film to watch with a couple of believable romantic leads and lots of well-shot scenic locations.

Verdict: While it's not my usual cup of tea The Lucky One survives thanks to the chemistry between Efron and Schilling and the ability of director Hicks to create a believable love story so for those reasons it receives 6/10

Review No.167: North Sea, Texas

Second film in a row now to feature a seaside community but this one doesn't have any of that silly sci-fi nonsense in it but instead focuses on a very complicated boy trying to determine his sexuality in a small Belgian town. North Sea, Texas concentrates on Pim who, as a young boy, likes to try on his mother's clothes and make-up before having his first sexual experiments. Pim's mother sees him as a hindrance to her having a good time as she invites various gentleman suitors to her place and often spends a lot of time at the bar known as 'Texas' where Pim often has to wait for her doing this by sitting in a corner and drawing quietly. Pim has also developed almost a surrogate family with the more maternal Marcella whose two children love having him around mainly so they can both indulge their passions on him with daughter Sabrina running around after him and older brother Gino leading him with the two eventually having sex. It is clear that Pim is much more in love with Gino who takes him on bike rides and they continue their affair but only in places where they won't be discovered as Gino is obviously ashamed by his feelings for Pim. Eventually Gino leaves town, to hook up with a French girl, while Sabrina also discovers the truth behind her brother's relationship with the boy she is also fond of. Essentially North Sea, Texas is a film about families, growing up and where we all fit in in the grand scheme of things and as the film draws to a close there is a tragic death which brings the majority of the characters closer together.

What I really liked about North Sea, Texas are the performances with the young cast in particular portraying confused teenagers really unsure of their feelings. In the lead role Jelle Florizoone is excellent as a teenager deciding which path he wants to take in his life and despairing over his awful home life as his mother constantly ignores his needs. Mathias Vergels is also good as the torn Gino somebody whose carnal desires point him towards Pim but he realises that he can only be accepted if he dates someone of the opposite sex and leaves the boy he actually loves for somebody else. I think if this theme had been picked up to a stronger extent then this would've made a better impression on me but as it is I found Bavo Defurne's film fairly meandering for the most part as when Gino left, Pim spends most of his time gazing out along the coast as Matt Smith did in the last film I reviewed. The only character to really stick with me was Pim's mother Yvette a really big character who wants desperately to hang onto her youth which she knows is slipping away especially now that her son is turning fifteen. The cinematography is also beautiful capturing a small town that a lot of the characters want to escape from and in that essence it reminds me of the great Swedish film Show Me Love however other than this sparse setting and the homosexual relationship there isn't much comparison. So there are admiral points about North Sea, Texas, mainly the acting and the cinematography, overall it's rather a bland effort that seems to run out of steam before the end credits roll, which is a shame as some good themes are bought up throughout the film.

Verdict: Some great camera work and performances give some impact to this otherwise forgettable film which runs out of steam so for those reasons I'll award a generous 6/10

Review No.166: Clone

Before latest Doctor Who Matt Smith became a household name he was a jobbing actor picking up any films that came his way and obviously the chance to have a love scene with Eva Green was too much to resist even if it was in such an odd film as Womb which has since been re-named Clone on its UK release. In a weird English beach town of the near future two kids, Rebecca and Tommy, are very close however when her family move to Japan she goes with them. The older Rebecca, played by Green, journeys back to the town to find Smith's Tommy shacked up with Natalia Tena however it doesn't take too long for old feelings to come to the core with the pair hooking up. As they go off on the road together the two get into an accident which injures her but kills him off however desperate to get him back she decides to enrol on a programme in which his DNA can be used to bring him back however she must give birth to him first. This is where everything gets a little weird as Rebecca essentially has to raise the baby, she calls Thomas, into the man she loves so she can get with him or something like that. Smith obviously resurfaces again as the older Thomas whose mother is in love with him however he hooks up with Monica, played by Skins' Hannah Murray, who is a little unsure of the frosty relationship in her boyfriend's household. The plot of Clone is a fairly odd one which looks at how much science could meddle in our future relationships if cloning of this nature ever becomes popular but more than this it is just a bit confusing.

Anybody wanting to watch this film just for Smith may want to know that he's not in it for great periods of time only a bit about twenty minutes in and then for the final half hour. In that time he does some things you wouldn't normally catch him doing on prime time BBC1 such as saying the F-Word, showing his bare behind and that aforementioned romp with Ms Green. Talking of Eva Green this is really her film appearing in the majority of the scenes she perfects the wistful stare casting her eye over the unknown beach in many scenes throughout the film. For me Green's performance is the best thing about this film for a country mile as she manages to make the preposterous plot at least halfway convincing in that she is able to portray a woman torn between trying to be a mother and caring for her lost love. Smith once again does his best manchild impression, similarly to the one he does in Doctor Who but this time without a Sonic Screwdriver, while Hannah Murray is given little but gives a lot as the girlfriend weirded out by the situation she finds herself in. The seaside locations add a nice touch and everything is well-photographed but there's no getting away from the fact that this is a ridiculous film and more than that is fairly dull for long segments in between. I found there were far too many quiet moments that were meant to be arty but came off as as slightly pretentious and fairly overlong. There are some good things in Clone - Green's performance and the majority of the cinematography however an odd plot and too much naval-gazing means this is one to miss even if you're a big Matt Smith fan.

Verdict: A silly plot about nature and nurture coupled with too many quiet moments makes Clone a fairly skipable film all be it one with a great performance from its leading actress.

Review No.165: 360

The first time I saw Fernando Meirelles' stunning City of God I was transfixed by this study of Brazilian gang life and the movie ended up being crowned my favourite of less decade. Meirelles followed this up by helming The Constant Gardener which saw Rachel Weisz scoop a Supporting Actress Oscar and now he reunites with the actress for new multi-lingual drama 360. The film, which is written by Peter Morgan of The Queen and Frost/Nixon fame, sees Weisz play an unhappy housewife to Jude Law's businessman with her cheating on him while he considers spending the night with a high class prostitute. Laura the wife of Weisz's lover leaves him when she finds out about him and decides travel back to America where on the plane she meets Anthony Hopkins' recovering alcoholic who is desperately searching for his daughter who ran away from home years ago. Also on the plane is Ben Foster's recently released convict who was arrested as a sex offender and catches the eye of Laura as their plane is grounded due to heavy snow the two almost have an illicit encounter but he brushes her off. We also see that Law's prostitute is getting into deep water with a known Mafia crime lord who hires her for a night while her sister and his henchman Sergei meet and fall for each other. Finally we find Sergei's wife Valentina falling out of love with him as she catches the eye of her dentist boss but as he's a devout Muslim the two are destined not to end up together a problem she vocalises at an AA meeting that Hopkins' character just happens to attend.

Watching 360 I felt that Alejandro González Iñárritu had to be involved in some capacity as the film reminded me strongly of his back catalogue especially Babel and Amores Perros. At least those films though kept all of their plot strands equal throughout the course of the film because in the case of 360 you pretty much only get to spend twenty or so minutes with one character and its on to the next one. That's not too bad when it involves the very disinteresting marital rifts between Law and Weisz's married couple however Anthony Hopkins' character, simply known as Older Man, is an intriguing creation who deserves a lot more time on screen given the calibre of the actor that is playing him. Similarly Ben Foster, who has mastered the art of playing the creepy loner, is great as a sex offender trying to make amends for his past crimes but is tempted in while in airport full of families. The problem with the majority of the characters is that Morgan never really brings them to life and seems far more obsessed with pointing out the stories that connect all of us across the globe rather than giving us any reason to care about them. The piece is universally well acted,  as well as Hopkins and Foster I enjoyed Jamel Debbouze as the Algerian dentist, however the cast are fighting a losing battle in a film that essentially calls for them to say their lines before exiting stage left. Morgan and Meirelles try desperately to keep all their plates spinning at once but ultimately there's porcelain all over the floor by the time the end credits roll. There's no denying that the acting in 360 is top notch but everything else leads a lot to be desired which is a shame seeing as this is from the man who bought me my film of the last decade but I can safely say that at the end of the 2010s his latest movie will not feature in my list at all.

Verdict: Incredibly well-acted but lacking in all the other areas 360's cast try their best with the material they're given but ultimately there's too much going on so I can only award this 5/10

Review No.164: Step Up 4 - Miami Heat

Onto the second fourquel as the all-dancing Step Up franchise entitled Miami Heat or Revolution depending on what it was you saw it. For arguments sake lets call it Step Up 4 but it does indeed take place in Miami this time focusing on a flash mob known simply as MOB who become infamous after a series of impromptu dance numbers. Sean and Jason are the two members of the MOB that we follow throughout both of whom are from a poor district of Miami as well as working side-by-side at Dimont Hotel owned by Peter Gallagher's dastardly property tycoon Bill Anderson. After work one day Sean meets a girl called Emily who later transpires to be Anderson's daughter though the two do hit it of and he convinces her to join MOB after  she is told she needs to add some originality into her dancing in order to get a place at a prestigious dance company. Around the same time Jason is fired by Anderson while the MOB's bar owner also reveals that Bill will be tearing down all of the old town in order to build a new hotel essentially rendering them all homeless. Emily convinces the MOB to do something about it and arrange a routine in protest of the development which initially goes well however when the rest of the group discover that Emily is Anderson's daughter things don't go to plan. So will Emily get into dance school? Will the area be saved and economic recovery put back another ten years? Will the MOB earn all that money from the YouTube competition? Will Emily and Sean get together? And will anybody make an attempt to tie this film to the rest of the Step Up franchise?

In answer to that last question the film does share a couple of familiar faces from the Step Up films, although most of them simply cameo, but Step Up 4 seems to be parading itself as a stand-alone film. As you can imagine the plot isn't up to much and it seems to resort to the boy from the wrong side of the tracks falls for the upper class girl but they realise they're not too different story although it is done well mainly due to the performance of the always-reliable Gallagher as the her father. Aside from Gallagher the acting is fairly ordinary and the character development is almost zero but then I don't think anybody goes into a Step Up film for any of those sort of things. Yes indeed it is the dance sequences that make these films and the decision to focus on the ever popular flash mob trend was a clever one as it leads to a number of enthralling set pieces my favourites of which were the opening scene on a busy highway and a later number at an art gallery though all of them are impressive. The setting of Miami is also well shot by Karsten Gopinath as he really makes us a part of this hot city with its divide between our poor protagonists and the wealthy landowners. Step Up 4 may not be original but I can't say I wasn't entertained and even a cynic like me found the majority of the dance sequences enjoyable and in some cases fairly unique to the extent where I think this certainly kicked the ass of the Streetdance sequel I watched not so long ago. For a fourquel Step Up 4 certainly has a lot going for it even though there's poor acting and characterisation, the dance sequences are all top notch though I really don't know if there would be room to do a fifth film, or if anybody would want to see it.

Verdict: Packed with plenty of thrilling dance sequences Step Up 4 is an entertaining ride even if the acting and scripting generally sucks but any film with a Mario Lopez cameo can't receive a bad mark so for that reason I'll give it 6/10

Review No.163: Le Havre

I sometimes find that you can sum up a film with one adjective and if I were to do that with the next film on my list, Le Havre, then I would say it was simply charming. Le Havre is the latest film to be helmed by legendary Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki who has moved over to France, to be exact the Normandy port of the title, as a setting for his new project. The protagonist of Le Havre is Marcel Marx a former literary great who is now making a very modest living as a shoe shine as well as trying to care of his ill wife though this sometimes means stealing a couple of baguettes from the local bakery. Early on in the film Marcel meets Idrissa a young African boy who has escaped from the rest of the illegal immigrants who have arrived at the port and is desperate to meet up with his mother in London. Though Marcel is scared away by the police he later finds Idrissa in his outhouse and invites him to stay while his wife in hospital with a potentially fatal disease. The community rally around to help Idrissa while Marcel discovers the address of the boy's mother in London as well as hatching a plan to get him there on a fishing boat the only problem is raising the money to do it. Marcel's other big problem is that the wily head of the police Monet is onto him and is constantly trying to catch him out as he's aware that the boy is being hidden he just is yet to find the proof. After a benefit concert in Marcel's local bar he raises the money to send Idrissa home although will it be too late as Monet and the rest of the La Havre police force are on his tale.

So why did I describe Le Havre as charming? Mainly because it just has that quality about it and I found it very old-fashioned to the extent that if the currency exchanged wasn't Euros and there wasn't the plot about the immigrants then I would say it would've been set about fifty years ago. Andre Wiilms has a very classic screen presence about him and he almost reminds me of one of the silent comics as his mannerisms are spot on though he is also able to tackle more dramatic scenes such as the realisation that his wife might not come out of hospital. As our central antagonist Monet, Jean-Pierre Darroussin is a very stoic figure, often dressed top to toe in black, but one that bounces well off Marcel with the handful of scenes featuring the two being some of the film's best. The themes of the community bonding together also gives Le Havre a very earnest quality as Marcel is given more free food and is allowed to hold his benefit gig in the bar where he spends most of his time anyway. Kaurismäki blends old-school charm with a modern day issue to create a truly pleasing film which is well shot by cinematographer Timo Salminen who sweeps over the small houses of the town to give us a feel of what life is like there. I had a few problems with La Havre and most of them were due to the plot which at times, I personally felt, really didn't make a lot of sense especially the final scene featuring Idrissa and Marcel. These don't really stick with you after the film though but what does is a charming, often funny film which demonstrates friendship, love and acceptance in a way that is never saccharine but simply engaging and realistic.

Verdict: Though the plot suffers at times Le Havre is generally a charming film about love and friendship with some great performances, brilliant camerawork and a lovely score so for those reasons I will give it 7.5/10

Review No.162: Personal Best

It's those damned Olympics again. Round two of athletics-based movies sees me take on a more up-to-date story this time of four athletes, most from underprivileged  backgrounds, as they prepare for Olympic tryouts. The documentary starts off in 2007 when director Sam Blair made a short film entitled Sprinters as part of his Film Studies MA and this followed the exploits of Jeanette Kwaykye and James Ellington two youngsters who love to run. We see both of them training hard with Michael Afilaka a tough coach who gives a hard time to Jeanette however their relationship improves as the film goes on where we follow them right up to 2011 and the qualifiers to become part of the Team GB quota.. James' motivation is that he doesn't want to be normal and that all he's wanted to is run claiming that if he doesn't qualify then he'll have to go back to being Job Centre James and bumming around though both of his parents claim that he's extremely motivated. James is probably best known for being the athlete who put himself up on ebay in order to gain a sponsorship deal however the majority of the film is set before this incident which is simply mentioned in the final reel. Jeanette meanwhile is a fairly self-deprecating character who knows that when Sam first started to film her she wasn't a contender at all however now that her relationship with Richard has greatly improved, she seems him almost as a father figure, she knows that she can go the distance despite some injuries holding her back from  qualifying for Beijing. In making this into a feature film Blair has also drafted in two new subjects firstly sprint hurdler Richard Alleyne someone who had been out of the game due to injury and whose coach fears that he's starting from a negative space however, somewhat predictably, he turns himself around in order to be in shape for the World Championships. My favourite of the four subjects is the youngest of the bunch Omardo Anson a 17 year old who only wanted to run rather than doing anything else with his life while his brilliant mother bemoans this fact however knows that he is becoming a man. It's just a shame then that both Richard and Omardo often get pushed to the side in favour of Jeanette and James presumably as Blair has a better relationship with both of them.

For me the problem with Personal Best was that there was so much going on that it was hard to keep up and at times I forgot who of the four I was watching and what they were currently trying to qualify for. The slow motion running scenes were all shot well however after a time they started to become fairly monotonous although those featuring Jeanette displayed a lot more of her character than some of her to-camera interviews did. Admittedly I'm not a huge sports fan so that may be a factor on why I didn't enjoy this as much but I think the fact was that there was no real conclusion due to this finishing before we found out who had actually qualified for the games. It was actually fairly odd as the day I watched was the same day that James failed to get any further in his heats at the Olympics while after a quick search on Google I discovered that none of the other three made it to London 2012. I also started to get fairly annoyed with the electro beats of Lukid which accompanied the majority of the training and sprinting scenes this was because I felt that they lacked emotion as did lot of the film. Though I did like individual elements of the film overall I didn't really connect with any of the four subjects, even though I did love Omardo's mum, while all I learnt about being an athlete was that it was quite hard as you had to sacrifice a lot. Though it's probably on the same level as The Athlete I found that Personal Best wasn't anywhere near as well-made or fascinating as Town of Runners another film about the sacrifices made in order to be an athlete only set in a deprived country. Overall the cinematography and the subjects of Personal Best were interesting up to a point but there really wasn't anything for me to connect with in Blair's film also he faces a lot of competition in the running documentary genre but unfortunately I don't feel he's made it past the first heat.

Verdict: Some good points are covered in Blair's film however after a while I failed to connect with any of the subjects and found the music monotonous so for those reasons Personal Best receives 5.5/10

Review No.161: Ice Age - Continental Drift

More kiddy cartoon action now with the fourth instalment in the Ice Age franchise a series which I've caught smatterings of but never had been a huge fan. As you can imagine from the title the whole premise of these cartoons are that they focus around a group of prehistoric mammals who, though they are outcasts, have come together to form a mini family. In this fourth film the dynamic of the three is changing with Manny the Woolly Mammoth, voiced by Ray Romano, now having a teenager daughter of whom he is very protective while his wife Ellie tells him to lighten up. Sid the sloth also has family problems when his  whole brood descends only to lumber him with their wise-talking grandmother, voiced as Wanda Sykes playing the character she always plays in these kinds of films, before scarpering off once again. Finally there's Dennis Leary's sabre tooth tiger Diego the gruffest of the bunch who is feeling lonely so wouldn't you know it throughout the film he ends up finding love. As the subtitle atests to this sees our band of heroes drift off as the ice cap begins to melt and different parts of ice are splintered separating Manny from his family with the majority of the woolly mammoths having to find a new home while our central trio plus Sykes' character try to find home again. Continental Drift also parodies/rips off the pirate genre by having our heroes having to defend themselves from a gang of pirates led by Captain Gutt, voiced by Peter Dinklage in full Game of Thrones mode, which include a range of animals from Nick Frost's dumb elephant Flynn to Jennifer Lopez's sexy sabre tooth tiger Shira who as I alluded to earlier becomes Diego's love interest. Along the way there are life lessons learnt as Shira learns it's better to part of a family, Manny's daughter learns that she'd been better sticking with her friend than going after the bad boy and Sid learns that he isn't as much of a screw up as his family think he is. As well as all this there's the usual malarkey with Scat the squirrel desperately trying to bury his acorn.

As you can imagine this is a lot to cover in under 90 minutes and to me Continental Drift reeks of the flogging of a dead horse despite some clever touches. I don't think anyone, who is at least under eight, really needed yet another Ice Age film and Continental Drift seems to be drinking the well dry with plenty of pointless subplots and stunt casting. Said stunt casting includes R&B stars Nicki Minaj and Drake popping up as two of Manny's daughters friends I'm not sure if these names bought any customers to see the film especially for them however I'm wondering the point of paying two such high profile stars for voicing very minor characters. Thankfully the main voice cast are still good at their jobs while Dinklage adds that little bit of eccentricity and Nick Frost is also good in his minor role as Captain Gutt's comic side kick however as much as I love Wanda Sykes her wise-cracking nature doesn't fit with the character she has been asked to play. As far as the plot goes there's far too much of it and I feel the pirate stuff was also a little bit rushed as were the stories involving the other mammoths which I feel that I didn't really need. I'm also sure I've heard and seen all these messages in previous animated films where they were said and done better plus probably spending a lot less money than the team behind Continental Drift did. I do appreciate that I'm not the target market here and I do think there's a lot more enjoyment to be have if you're under eight but I've still seen smarter films for that age group that I enjoyed just as much as they would've done. Ultimately I can't help but see this as a pure money making venture, rather like the fourth Shrek film, as this is a franchise that long outstayed its welcome but one that it seems looks set to continue as this film as already made a shed load of cash.

Verdict: Some nice comic touches plus a reliable voice cast mean that Continental Drift is passable plus it will appeal to its target market but I feel that it exists purely to make money rather than to bring any particular kind of entertainment so for that reason it gets 5.5/10

Review No.160: Ted

I would say that Seth MacFarlane is a fairly polarising figure there are some that will hear no wrong said about the creator of Family Guy while others find his creations tacky and puerile. I feel I sit somewhere in the middle as I was a fan of the early Family Guy series as well as American Dad which I personally think is a better all-round show however I do think that sometimes he puts jokes ahead of plot structure not a bad thing when you're making a twenty minute cartoon but it's a little different when crafting a 90 plus minute film. I say this of course because MacFarlane has now made his big screen debut with Ted in which, as well as directing and co-writing, he lends his voice to Ted a toy bear initially given to eight year old John Bennett who wished that he was his real friend a wish that came true bringing notoriety to both Ted and the Bennett family. Years later we find John at 35, now played by Mark Wahlberg, living with Mila Kunis' Lori his girlfriend of four years as well as Ted who has now grown up to be a drug-taking foul-mouthed layabout who constantly wants to drag John down to his level. Lori feels that Ted is keeping John from being a proper grown up as he still works a dead-end job, in a car rental service, and has to have his childhood toy in bed with him whenever there is a thunderstorm. After an incident in their apartment, which is funnier if you see it first hand, John forces Ted to move out but still sees him every day which brings his relationship with Lori to its tipping point which is not helped by the fact that her sleazy boss Rex is constantly hitting on her. After a lot of jokes MacFarlane seems to want to add a little bit of plot so slides in a story about Giovanni Ribisi's creepy father and his son who want to buy Ted from John but won't take no for an answer.

There's no denying that Ted is absolutely hilarious and if you love Family Guy then I would recommend you see this immediately as it couples expletives with plenty of pop culture references though I think watching Flash Gordon before you see this film would be a good idea to get about ten of the jokes. As I mentioned MacFarlane's never been one for story structure and it shows here as the various plot strands such as Rex's flirtation with Lori and Giovanni Ribisi's pursuit of Ted are given very little time over the bromance between Wahlberg and his bear. This is of little concern early on however the jokes peter out in the last twenty minutes or so and do expose some of the film's shortcomings such as the fact that the central idea about a foul-mouthed children's toy can be stretched too far. Wahlberg is great in the lead, and today seems much more comfortable in a comic role than he did in the woeful Contraband, he and MacFarlane have a natural chemistry which is easy to enjoy as well as being essential to the smooth running of the film. Wahlberg captures this middle-aged man who still refuses to grow up and blames most of his issues on the fact that he has a teddy bear that he helped bring to life it is this theme that gives the film its much needed emotional edge which stops it from being just another offensive comedy. Mila Kunis is also perfectly cast in her role and is given a strong female character rather than one who just puts up with her boyfriend's odd situation it's also clear that MacFarlane knows how to write for her, she does voice Meg in Family Guy after all, which makes her seem natural. Giovanni Ribisi and Joel McHale make the most of their roles the latter doing his usual slimeball routine to play Rex however both just act as plot devices however some hilarious cameos do light up certain scenes. Ted is certainly one of the funniest films of the year and MacFarlane has cemented himself as someone who can also do feature films however I still have the issue that I feel he puts jokes over plot structure but then I don't think I care that much when a film makes me laugh as much as this did.

Verdict: Possibly the funniest film of the year so far however one that cares little for most of its plot strands MacFarlane is on form here making the most of his talented comic leads creating a movie with emotional core if not one that is evenly balanced so for those reasons I will give Ted 7.5/10

Review No.159: The Athlete

Damn those flipping Olympic Games. As a result it seems that a number of various athletic related documentaries and dramas, some of which that have been on the shelf for a while, are being released if only briefly. After the already reviewed Town of Runners we have The Athlete once again focusing on Ethiopia but this time on arguably their most famous Olympian marathon runner Abebe Bikila who made his name by running barefoot at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome. Davey Frankel and Rasselas Lakew's film has an odd mix of archive footage of Bikila's most famous moments and actors reconstructing the latter stages of his life. The film focuses in on Bikila trying to train up to run the marathon at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich after he feels he embarrassed himself and his country at the 1968 games in Mexico City. As we learn through flashback Bikila won the marathon in Rome before breaking his own record four years later in Tokyo with hopes to do the same in Munich however his friends are sceptical given his age and his record. The film then recounts the tragic car accident that left him as a paraplegic and that complete depression he suffered after this with him only breaking through this barrier by taking up archery. Though Bikila thought about running marathons in his wheelchair instead he went to Munich where he was honoured before taking up his friend's idea of competing in a sledging contest for people with impairments such as his. This sledging scene is one of the film's final pieces and for me was definitely the most involving as we saw that this had been filmed for a previous documentary but in this film we see he and his friends watching the film. Sadly Bikila died three years after his accident but his funeral, which we also see footage of, was attended by thousands of his countrymen so in a way this was sort of a celebration of his life.

Abebe Bikila is obviously a fairly famous figure in the world of athletics but I personally had never heard of him until this film where I learnt what a courageous person he was and how he was taken from us far too soon. The best bits of the film for me were watching the archive footage of Bikila's various marathons that were narrated by co-director Rasselas Lawkew, who also portrayed Bikila in the film, as this really gives you a picture of what the man was like. I feel that Lawkew and Frankel probably had enough of this footage to combine it with some talking heads and make a straight documentary as for me the dramatic scenes are what really let down The Athlete. Lawkew is seemingly better behind the camera as he is in front of it as I don't really think he gives justice to the character of Bikila and I felt he didn't really convey enough emotion in the scenes just after his accident where he is completely depressed. None of the supporting players really convince either and the scripted parts of the film sometimes seem almost comical, such as the scene in the bar where Bikila is threatened by some young soldiers who don't believe he should be celebrated in the way that he has been, maybe these are created from stories that have been written but for me I would've much preferred just to hear Bikila's story told by those who knew him best. The Athlete is definitely a film of two halves one is a captivating documentary about a great man who had a passion for his sport while the other is a poorly acted biopic with little merit other than to fill the gaps of the narrative where no archive footage is available. I'm just hoping there's better to come from the Olympics output, and indeed I promise at least one more athletic documentary before the week is through, as The Athlete for me fell at about the fourth hurdle.

Verdict: The Athlete is at its best when showing us archive footage of Bikila's achievements however the dramatic portion of the film falls flat therefore I will be fair and give it half marks so therefore it receives 5/10

Review No.158: House of Tolerance

As I watch some of the films on this list I often think about the titles given to them, which are usually fairly obvious, and how apt they are with my latest movie House of Tolerance being a case in point as I mainly had to tolerate it rather than really enjoy it. The House of Tolerance of the title is actually a Parisian brothel which we see at the dawn of a new century going through from 1899 to 1900 with changes afoot both for the management and the workers themselves. The opening scenes sees one of the prostitutes, Madeline, dream that a regular client will propose marriage to her however when she reveals this dream he is pleased but later in a rather dramatic scene cuts her open leaving her with a permanent scar. One year later we see Madeline is still working at the house but now as more of a chambermaid with her scar giving her the nickname 'The Girl who Smiles' however her odd facial feature does attract attention from a weirder section of society. We also meet Pauline a 16 year old who comes to the house looking to assert her independence however she finds out that the Madam likes to trap the girls early by having them rack up debts including the use of perfume to cover up the smell of previous clients. Then there's Julie one of the more upbeat members of the group who is taken of the rounds when it is discovered that she has syphilis and eventually the condition takes over her body. These stories are all set around the fact that these types of establishments are slowly dying out and the Madam of the house has to find to keep it open but ultimately fails selling off a few of the girls but the others have to make their own way. In the final scene, which I quite enjoyed, director Betrand Bonello takes us into the modern day into grainy footage of hookers parading the streets of Paris looking for men to pick them up in their cars.

This final scene is fairly memorable which is an adjective I wish I could apply to the rest of this film however as I mentioned boring scene followed boring scene and I just had to tolerate the fact that I had to sit and watch this for two hours. The main problem is that you can only watch men pay for sex and women frolic with wealthy gents for so long before it starts to get monotonous while I even found the sight of multiple breasts to be tiresome by the end of House of Tolerance. Another issue was that there was too many stories going on and none of the girls really got to develop that much as characters before we focused on somebody new with a problem of their own. Pauline's story is a case in point as I would've imagined she would've been the character we followed throughout as the rookie learning the ropes is an old school narrative technique however she leaves the brothel sometime before the end of the film. The most captivating story has to be that  of Madeline and her scar but that's mainly down to the fact that Alice Barnole is such a great screen presence that she makes you feel for her situation. Reading around on the film it seemed that Bonello wanted to make a film based around a character who had a scar that looked like a smile but realised that that wasn't enough to sustain a whole movie so padded it out with scenes of these girls together. While I quite enjoyed some of the small talk between the girls the scenes where they are enjoying swimming or eating breakfast together are almost eclipsed by the numerous scenes of them romping together. Bonello's best quality is his eye for detail so the main sets are lovely created as are the costumes, even though there not on very long, while the choice of a range of classical and modern music would usually annoy me but I think tracks like 'Nights in White Satin' and Lee Moses' Bad Girl No.1 work quite well. There's a lot of style here but not much substance with too many plots, too much nudity and not enough conclusion there was a lot more that I to tolerate rather than enjoy however this still had a good ending, pardon the pun.

Verdict: Too many characters and too many scenes just there to put in as much boob as possible, House of Tolerance does have some good moments, is well-styled as well as having some decent performances but it is spoilt under a cloud of nudity which eventually became pure boredom so I will in the end give it a tolerable score of 4.5/10

Review No.157: The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan

In my last post about 388 Arletta Avenue I talked about how the poster was fairly deceiving and I feel to an extent that is also true of the promotional material surrounding our next film The Rise and Fall of a White Collar Hooligan. Looking at the poster it seems that  film will be all about a football hooliganism, in the same vain as The Football Factory or Green Street, but instead it's a bit more than that dealing with credit card fraud and unemployment. Sure Paul Tanter's film does have as its leading man, in Nick Nevern's Mike, a guy who likes to get trashed and then incite violence at football matches but he's also someone who is constantly on the lookout for a job. It seems that Tanter wants to make a commentary on how so many people are falling into a life of crime as the early part of the film sees Mike desperate for work but him being a bit of a bum and all he instead agrees to help his old schoolmate Eddie out with a bit of business. As Mike has to drop off and pick up suspicious packages for Eddie he suspects that its drugs however when he opens up one of the boxes to find various bits of machinery he doesn't know what to think. After Mike proves himself as a reliable ally Eddie lets him in on their secret namely that he and a bunch of geeks are running a scam to clone people's debit and credit cards before using the clones to withdraw money. As Mike sees this as a victimless crime he is driven into an underworld filled with drugs, champagnes and various blonde prostitutes obviously he loses his girlfriend but at least he still has his friends around. The gang are eventually rumbled in France but it is Mike, who has gone to a football game, who ends up being arrested though after he doesn't grass anyone up he is welcomed into the inner circle of the gang by the kingpin of the group played by former Bill star Billy Murray. After this more gun battles, fighting and double-crossing goes on before a couple of not-as-clever-as-they-think-they-are endings take place.

It seems that Tanter is most proud of the scenes of hooliganism in his film as they feature heavily in the poster and also feature heavily in the opening as Mike gets extremely poetic over his love for fighting after a football game. I think, in the way that all of this year's British crime films have done, TRAFOAWCH wants to emulate the early work of Guy Ritchie before he struck gold with Sherlock Holmes. That's why actor Nick Nevern speaks very quickly and why the early scenes are meant to be comical as the character interviews for various jobs that you could never imagine him doing such as working at a women's clothes shop or in a nursery. I feel the scenes inside the credit card fraud operation as well were heavily lifted from scenes of the introduction of the various scams carried off in the Lock Stock/Snatch world especially when Eddie introduces Mike to the main concepts of their operation. I feel the meshing of the white collar crime and football hooliganism also doesn't really work apart from perhaps in the title while the camera work isn't as impressive as the director would like you to think. The ending of this incredibly brief film, it's under eighty minutes long, seems fairly rushed as if Tranter and company ran out of money before the story got told in the way they wanted it to. On the upside the short run time didn't mean I completely loss the will to live before it finished while Billy Murray has made a career out of playing dodgy small-time gangster types and makes the best of a bad lot in this film but those are only minor praises. There's not much to like here the acting, the scripting and the cinematography all feel old and tired or just rubbish while the ending comes off as fairly smug rather than anywhere near satisfying.

Verdict: Only Billy Murray's performance and the fact that this film is short saves Tranter's project from being utter rubbish having said that I can only feasibly give this one a 2/10

Review No.156: 388 Arletta Avenue

Not knowing much about Randall Cole's 388 Arletta Avenue I really only had the poster to go on and from the looks of it I thought I was getting a post Paranormal Activity vibe. To an extent the film does rip a lot from the Paranormal Activity franchise as it is filmed completely from the point-of-view of cameras set up in the titular residence. Instead of capturing spooky goings on though Cole establishes early on that all these cameras have been set up by an unknown stalker of the young couple who live at the house. The couple in question are James and Amy, played by Nick Stal and Mia Kirshner, while he seems to edit travel brochures for a living she apparently has spent eight years working on a thesis about Afghan embroidery. The torture starts when James discovers a Mix CD in his car playing The Crystals' Da Doo Ron Ron and accuses his wife of making it however the history on in his computer seems to suggest otherwise. On returning home from work James discovers that Amy isn't there and after quizzing her overly-suspicious sister Katherine he realises that somebody is out to get him. His suspicions are turned to former schoolmate Bill, played by former child star Devon Sawa, who he and his friends used to bully but after several meetings he still can't get anything from him while at the same time he can't figure out why anybody would be doing this to him. After his cat is decapitated he decides to take action and goes out with a gun determined to make somebody pay but as he doesn't know who it is things inevitably won't end up going the way he wants them. 

388 Arletta Avenue did surprise me to some extent in that it was a lot better than a Paranormal Activity rip-off and I certainly enjoyed it more than either The Pact or The Chernobyl Diaries. The central concept is exciting at first while Cole's decision to make Da Doo Ron Ron the creepy soundtrack of the film somehow works as every time it plays James gets more and more paranoid. The performances as well are on form especially from Stahl who often has to carry the film single-handedly while Sawa's handful of scenes add a different dimension to the James character as we learn he has a dark past. For me though after a while the voyeuristic aspect started to get a little bit tired especially as I believe Cole put a lot more effort into perfecting the style of his film than he did with the character development. For example I don't think the relationship dynamic was explored as much as it could've been before she disappears off screen for the rest of the film as I think had there been a lot more of what happens could be explained. One of my main problems was that Amy's sister Katharine had an issue with James throughout believing that he had done something to her rather than actually trying to help him find her in addition there was also an insinuation that James had an alcohol problem. Though the character problems are forgivable what isn't is the final couple of scenes which for me negate the good that Cole does building up to his so-called revelation as personally I found his conclusion to be not as smart as he thought it was. 388 Arletta Avenue certainly isn't a stinker of a film however the voyeuristic stalker film has been done better than this and has produced more well-rounded films than Cole's thankfully though he has strayed off the Paranormal Activity path just enough so this isn't just another clone. 

Verdict: An interesting concept runs out of steam quickly as characters fail to develop before a rubbish ending though due to some enjoyment and good acting work from Stahl and Sawa I will still award this 5/10

Review No.155: Delicacy

Ever since she made her name with Amelie it seems that Audrey Tautou has carved out a career by mainly playing kooky yet likeable French Women there are obvious exceptions such as The Da Vinci Code but on the whole she does portray a certain character type. Her character Nathalie certainly fits the usual Tautou mould as we see her in the opening scene accosted and kissed by a stranger only it is actually her boyfriend because they were playing one of those kooky games that only seem to exist in the movies. Nathalie, who at the start of the film sells programmes at the theatre, is swept off her feet by Francois with the two marrying pretty swiftly before talking about having children. There is tragedy though as Francois is killed and Nathalie goes through a three year grieving process which we the audience don't witness on screen but is instead represented by the fact her pregnant friend now has a two year old daughter. Nathalie, who has now moved up job wise, surprises new Swedish co-worker Markus one day by laying a kiss on his lips but as fate would have it the two end up falling for each other. So follows a quirky romance involving bottles of wine being knocked over, the giving of Pez dispensers and a lot of faux pas at the hands of the clumsy yet charming Markus. Thankfully Delicacy doesn't just follow a whimsical romance but rather tells the tale of how you pick yourself up again after the love of your life is no longer with you and more importantly are you ready to love once more. Nathalie's friends voice their concerns about her new romantic partner while her boss, who is also in love with her, tries to find a way to put a stop to the partnership. Though it is Nathalie herself who has to battle through and it is up to her whether she is ready to say goodbye to her late husband before moving on with her new beau.

Delicacy is obviously a very precious project to directors David and Stephane Foenkinos as it is adapted from a book written by the former who I'm guessing wants to keep as much of his initial story in the film as he possibly can. I feel that this is a mistake as the romance between Markus and Nathalie is built up far too long before anything happens but maybe this is because I found the whole courtship about too quirky or kooky. The best parts of Delicacy are the beginning and ends of the film which look at how hard it is to cope with grief and how at the end of the day we have to move on with our lives. Tautou is most comfortable in the middle section however she is stretched more by the other parts of the film and therefore is able to demonstrate why she is such a talented actor. I also thought Francois Damiens was excellent as Stefan the slightly slovenly and overweight gent who just happens to be in the right place at the right so is therefore the perfect man for Nathalie to move on with. It is interesting that Damiens is portrayed as a romantic lead however this is addressed by Nathalie's boss, and Markus' romantic rival, as he questions why she wanted to romance someone so ugly when she has the option to date him instead. Another problem Delicacy has for me is that there are too many narrators as the film kicks off with a voice-over from Francois before Nathalie takes over but gives the reigns to David for the final part of the film including the ending which I enjoyed very much. I also felt that the use of music throughout was excellent as the different parts of Nathalie's life are illustrated through what is heard while Markus introduces her to a new world of audio delights with his slightly offbeat taste in bands. The Foenkinos' have given us an enjoyable little film which survives on the performance of the two actors and the beginning and ending of the film which deals with the grief process as well as the readiness to find a new love. The problem is that they're too close to the story to realise that the middle section needs cutting down and the film unfortunately suffers as a result. The star of the show once again though is Tautou who is at her more interesting when she stretches herself rather than playing the kooky character that she normally portrays.

Verdict: An excellent first and third part are spoiled by an extremely baggy middle section thankfully Tautou and Damiens are both great so therefore Delicacy receives 6/10

Review No.154: I Am Bruce Lee

At the moment one of the trends in documentary film-making seems to be that of producing biographies of famous men who left us too soon with last year's award-winning Senna setting the way while Kevin McDonald's Marley has also received plenty of critical praise this year. Looking to follow this success is Kevin McCormack, who directed a 2009 film about Muhammad Ali told from the perspective of his opponents, by bringing us I Am Bruce Lee which tells the story of the small lad from Hong Kong who went onto be one of the most famous martial artists of all time. I Am Bruce Lee starts by showing Bruce's funeral before back-tracking to tell of us his childhood where we learnt, something that I wasn't aware of, that he was a big child star in his native Hong Kong with one of the talking heads describing him as the Macauly Culkin of his day. It then went on to see him journey over to America where he met his future wife when he was a teacher and then finally his big break as Kato on The Green Hornet with everybody questioned saying that they watched the programme for him rather than for the titular hero. After the show finished Lee became a martial arts teacher to several big Hollywood stars including James Garner, James Coburn and Steve McQueen all of whom wanted to toughen up. Lee's massive career break came when he went back to Hong Kong and restarted his acting career which finished with Enter the Dragon but sadly he died just after filming it a death that to this day is still unexplained. Though McCormack does cover his acting career the majority of I Am Bruce Lee focuses on his fighting style and how the elders didn't want to teach Lee as he wasn't of pure Chinese blood as he was one quarter German. The middle section of the film also looks at how Lee's style influenced the now highly popular MMA fighting and this is confirmed by UFC president Dana White as well as some high profile fighters from the organisation including Haywire star Gina Carano who is able to comment on moving from fighting to acting. The tone of the film then is much about Lee's influence as it is a biography of his life and in that way I found it a little unsettling.

I feel the reason that Senna and Marley both worked so well was that they put their main focus on what their subjects were famous for as we saw plenty of race footage in the former while the latter was packed with Bob's back catalogue. In the case of I Am Bruce Lee the majority of the public know him primarily as an actor and for me it is those bits of the film that focus on his early career, his time on The Green Hornet and his rise to super-stardom that are the most interesting. The part of the film that lost me was the middle section which seemed to be as much of an advert for Dana White's UFC organisation than it did to be about Lee's fighting style. I am aware of MMA and also don't have a problem with McCormack providing a link between the two however I feel it is the part of the documentary that loses focus. The MMA fighters are also possibly some of the less interesting talking heads while Lee's family, in particular his wife, are able to provide insight into his life. It is the more famous faces though that a lot of people will watch this for in particular the actors who also have a fighting background and while Mickey Rourke was an obvious choice somebody who I didn't know had a fighting background was Modern Family actor Ed O'Neill maybe because his most famous role was as a hen-pecked husband on Married with Children. The prize for oddest talking head though is Black Eyed Peas member Taboo who talks about how Lee's footwork influenced him and in particular Bruce's background as a Cha Cha Dancer as one of the things I learned was that he was actually the Hong Kong Cha Cha champion of 1957. Though the talking heads add insight it is the archive footage of Bruce that provide the most compelling moments of the film namely a 1964 screen test as well as an interview in which Lee talks about his famous martial arts pupils. I feel it a little harsh to compare I Am Bruce Lee to Senna or Marley as they both had blatantly higher production budgets than this film did however McCormack makes the most of his lot by combining interesting talking heads with some fascinating archive footage. The big problem with the film is the reliance on UFC footage to bulk it out as I feel that's where it loses its way a bit but luckily the final 20 or so minutes brings it back to focus on Lee the actor something that I'm a lot more interested in.

Verdict: Fight fans will probably enjoy this more than film fans however there's enough to satisfy both because while I didn't enjoy the blatant UFC adverts there were enough revelations about Lee to keep me interested throughout so for that reason I will award it 7/10

Review No.153: Return

The story of a soldier returning home from war and trying to adjust to new surroundings isn't an original filmic concept indeed we've seen it in two best picture winners 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives and to an extent 2009's The Hurt Locker. Liza Johnson's Return does flip the idea on its head slightly as the returning war veteran is a woman, Kelli played by former ER actress Linda Cardellini, coming home after a year serving in the army supplies unit. Kelli's husband Mike, played by the always brilliant Michael Shannon, has essentially been filling the roles of both parents two their two young girls as well as attending spouse group and denying his wife sex when she first comes back. It is the resentment that Mike has had to play, in his own words, Mr Mum that starts to wreck the couple's relationship as does the fact that Kelli doesn't really want to open up about her experiences leading him to think that she may have had an affair. Kelli's experiences at war have changed her and she feels she no longer knows her daughters or her husband while she finds her warehouse job monotonous eventually quitting an action that adds further problems to her marriage. Over the course of the film Kelli essentially has a mini breakdown as she basically loses everything after drinking and driving so is sent to an AA meeting where she meets John Slattery's Bud a fellow veteran who is the only person that she really confides in over the course of the film. Return is about how emotion gets sapped out of you after seeing truly horrific things that others around you just understand and to that extent it does work as a film.

I feel that the best thing about Return was also the element about the film that bothered me the most namely the fact that Kelli is so emotionally detached throughout the film. Though the film is built around the fact that Kelli's inability to open up about what's happened to her over the last year after a while I felt a little alienated by the character to the point that I wasn't really that bothered about what happened to her. That's no fault at all though of Linda Cardellini who gives a career best performance of Kelli a woman who has a lot going on behind her eyes and is unable to convey the true horrors of what she has seen. Michael Shannon was also perfect casting as Mike as he is an actor that can do placid one minute before completely snapping the next and Johnson's script meant that he could portray a whole range of emotions. To me Return loses its way when Mike and Kelli's marriage starts to fragment as from that moment on it lapses slightly into cliché save the charismatic turn from John Slattery as the still suffering war veteran Bud. Anne Etheridge's cinematography captures Kelli's struggle to go back to her mundane existence as it slips between gloomy shots of factories, bars and the family home. I personally enjoyed the fact that this was about a female officer as it's about time that the movies recognised that the military isn't simply a boy's club having said that there's nothing too memorable about this film which ends in a way that most of us saw coming from the very first scene.

Verdict:Return's meandering structure and alienating lead character means that at some points I found it hard to care about those involved in the films however due to the fantastic work by the cast I can't mark this lower than 6.5/10

Review No.152: Mozart's Sister

Now it's time for a bit of culture with a look at the story of Mozart from another angle and no it's not Amadeus 2 but rather a look at Wolfgang's sister Maria Anna, nicknamed Nannerl, in the imaginatively titled Mozart's Sister. Rene Feret's coming-of-age drama sees his daughter Marie portray Nannerl who when we first meet her is in the midst of a family tour accompanying her supposedly more talented brother on the harpsichord and also singing while he plays the violin. In the film Feret seems to tell us that Nannerl was the more talented of the two however her father Leopold was more interested in presenting her brother as a child prodigy ignoring the fact that she had produced some of the compositions that had been attributed to Wolfgang. As the Mozarts seek refuge in an Abbey, Nannerl befriends a young girl who turns out to be Princess Louise Marie of France whose father has sent her to live with the nuns and who tells her to deliver a letter to her young lover when they get to court. As Nannerl slowly becomes a woman she at first has to hide her femininity from the young Dauphin however after she realises that he will hear her accompany Wolfgang he finds out that she is indeed a girl of his age. As the two continue to meet in private her love of music entrances him and it seems as if the two will embark on a grand romance however as this is the time of marriages of convenience he ends up having to marry for politics rather than love. Another meeting with Louise Marie sees the girls lament on their lot in life as they realise that neither will really be given the chance to love mainly due to their pushy fathers.

Mozart's Sister is an odd film on one hand it's a coming-of-age story of a girl who is becoming a woman and who isn't quite sure how old she actually is as her father seems to lie in order to create more hype around the Mozart siblings' performances. Nannerl's almost romance with the Dauphin is to an extent slightly odd as the two are never believable as anything other than friends if even Feret wants us to think that they have a connection between the music. The film is also partly historical biography looking at a female figure who isn't well known in most countries, save France and Austria, and another person who seemingly had more talent than Wolfgang Mozart but suffered from having a father who only saw that he had one talented child rather than two. One of the more powerful scenes in the film sees Nannerl tear up all of her composition sheets as she vows never to write or teach music again ultimately ending marrying a man much older than her before settling down as a housewife. The film's final theme is that of the friendship between Nannerl and Louise Marie, real life sisters Marie and Lisa Feret, who despite being related off screen don't have that much chemistry on screen which makes their scenes together a little stilted. Even though I've been a bit harsh on it Mozart's Sister does have quite a lot going for it namely the costumes and make-up in particular the spectacular wigs that the majority of the characters wear throughout the film. As you would imagine the music is also splendid and in some places adds historical context to those who are watching this primarily as a biopic. Marie Feret gives a good accounting of herself as Nannerl while Marc Barbe shines as the pushy Leopold and David Moreau is fun to watch as the petulant Wolfgang. While good in parts Rene Feret's screenplay struggles to stretch a very thin story across an almost two hour running time which makes the film feel baggy. Though very stylish Mozart's Sister ultimately suffers from a lack of chemistry between the main players and a running time which is far too long for this very small story.

Verdict: Good to look at with an impressive central performance Mozart's Sister is let down by being overlong as well as suffering from unconvincing chemistry between many of the main players so for those reasons it gets a 6/10