Film Guide

Quirky and deeply dark, Brit comedy Sightseers follows Tina as she attempts to escape the clutches or her needy elderly mother by shacking up with newly met Chris, for a camping holiday in Chris’ caravan, touring some of Chris’ places or interest. But Chris, whose taken a sabbatical to overcome writers block and get his book started, seems just a little on edge.

Well maybe more that just a little, as he has a run in with a litterbug and ends up running him over with his caravan. And so starts the bloody holiday romp.

Tina is quite sure how much of an accident it was and almost calls off the holiday, but decides that she loves Chris and doesn’t want anything to spoil their holiday.

As the body count increases, Chris puts Tina on the spot, when in a remote spot, he kills a fellow sightseer to defend Tina’s honour. Faced with the unavoidable realisation that she is shacked up in a caravan with a serial killer, Tina does what any sensible thirty-something woman who has never left home would do; nothing. The holiday must go on.

An incident later in the film pushes Tina over the edge and she picks up a taste for murder, putting their relationship on edge as Chris argues that Tina isn’t allowed to choose who to kill. A lovers quarrel ensues and the body count grows.  Read the rest of this entry »

Top Gear is an interesting show. Essentially it hasn’t done anything different, you know everything is staged, but it still stays funny. From creating the world’s smallest car, to rally testing a Bentley, to playing rugby with cars to creating the ultimate old persons car, the boys come up with many laugh out loud moments.

Then there are the standard components, the news, star in a reasonably priced car and of course The Stig.

If I had one complaint about Top Gear 19, it would be the length. Five episodes and a two part African Adventure leave you wanting more – but then maybe that’s a good thing, unlike some AMerican TV shows that go on forever making you wonder how many more discs you have to wade through. Top Gear keeps you starving for more.

The African Adventure sees the boys purchasing station wagons and heading to Africa to find the real source of the River Nile. Plenty of hi-jinks ensue, a lot of predictability but again plenty to laugh at.  Read the rest of this entry »

The first half of The Master is mesmerising. We follow Freddie Quell (Joaquin Phoenix) from the last days of the Second World War into post war America, full of hope and glamour. But not for Freddie who is emotionally damaged by his experiences – it’s even hinted that he may have not been all that stable before the war. Trying to fit in and hold down a job, he fails miserably, finding solace in the bottom of a bottle of homemade liquor. This is Joaquin at his finest, a role he has seemingly been preparing for his whole career. Nothing he has done before comes close to his performance opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master.

Hoffman himself brings a stellar performance to the film, as Lancaster Dodd, a charismatic cult leader who tries to help Freddie find peace, find himself, to free Freddie from his damaged soul.

Everything about The Master is amazing, the look and feel of the film, the acting, the air of mystery, and it’s seductive pull.

But then, just as Freddie lost his way, the film does too. It’s not that it suddenly shifts direction, or pulls a plot twist out of the blue, it’s just that you realise that you have no idea what the film has become. You’re confused and wondering how much longer these two actors will dance for.

And this is not a good thing.  Read the rest of this entry »

Someone in the marketing department decided to make American Mary pose as a seductive revenge horror, where a surgical student uses her skills to take revenge on those who have wronged her. It had me thinking something akin to Hostel, but hoping for something with a lot more substance.

What American Mary turned out to be however, is something else entirely.

Sure, it has a surgical student who uses her talents to take revenge on someone, but this is a minor part of the film.

Rather, American Mary is a kind of political film that wants the viewer to empathize with the misunderstood freaks and geeks of the body modification underworld – the kind of people who have horn implants in their heads, or have their nipples removed to they can look more Barbie like. It is a fascinating, if somewhat disturbing look at an edgy subculture, and shows the seemingly disturbed lengths some people will go to to feel better about themselves.

It also shows the lengths students up to their eyes in debt, will go to to make a little money on the side – though body modification wasn’t Mary’s intended path to financial freedom, her first idea was equally seedy.

American Mary also is more of a big tease than the torture-porn it pretends to be, with most of the gorefest done off camera, and unless you enjoy perving at Barbie when the kids are in bed, Mary doesn’t live up to the other end of the genre ether.  Read the rest of this entry »

My wife and youngest two kids (12yo and 14yo) sat down to watch Billy Crystal’s new movie last night and we’re giving it more than two thumbs up. The kids pushed through the initial shock factor when we told them they were seeing the voice of Mike Wazowski (Monsters Inc) in real life and we all settled in to an enjoyable night.

The 64yo Crystal is joined by the ageless Bette Midler as the ‘other Grandparents’ who are called on to help their ‘successful’ daughter get a much needed break. These modern parents have kept each of their unique kids in line with a plan for success but have since become disconnected from the grandparents. Next we find a serendipity of events brings everybody together where some wisdom and age are able to bring the family together with some old fashioned common sense.

Now don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a justification for the ‘old ways’. The heart of this movie comes from Billy Crystal being able to put himself at the centre of the humour. The opening story shows Crystal’s character as a Baseball game announcer who loses his job. Just when our empathy level is reasonably reaching its peak we also see the thoughtlessness and selfish stupidity that also needs to be brought into check. The whole script is a brilliant vehicle for Billy Crystal and you would think you were watching a 100min long introduction to the Oscars he is so famous for hosting. Bette Midler keeps guiding Crystal and the rest of the family through the experience and thankfully we also got an opportunity to hear her sing as well as matching Billy Crystal’s comedic genius with a glint and a glare. The screenplay itself centres around the family’s patterns and schedules. It’s a sugar free environment that needs care and control, two factors that will be missing in order to stir up a recipe for bedlam. A classic piece involves Crystal trying to get out of his parental duties to audition as an announcer for the X-Games where Tony Hawk is in a cameo role skating a half-pipe and putting him at the centre of a recipe for disaster. The comedy and consequences are brilliant as the entire story comes together. Read the rest of this entry »

Oh my gosh! Where do I start with this? How about “I loved it!” or “It was amazingly, gut-wrenchingly good?” or “Why have I never seen this musical before now?”. In short, I absolutely loved this film. I could barely fault it; not on the performances, the costumes, nor the script…which by the way was kept, as far as I know, in tact from the original musical.
So the question I’ve given you at the moment is why? Why did I fall absolutely in love with this film so much that I plan on watching it again and again?

Well, I’ll start with the cast. Because I swear, you need a strong and talented cast to pull off what this film did. It’s the first of it’s kind to film the singing live on set, while filming. Now you may think “why is this such a big deal?”. Its a big deal because usually they rehearse record music numbers in the studio, till its perfect and then just mouth it on set. These actors had to get it pitch perfect whilst filming. And it made it so real! It felt anything but over rehearsed. The actors emotions came through in their singing it made it so believable. You’ll see what I mean when you see Eponine singing On my Own. That performance alone had me near tears.

Hugh Jackman was fantastic. Knowing he’d had Broadway experience with Boy from Oz I thought, “Yeah, ok, could be good”. I didn’t expect him to carry the film so amazingly. Absolute stand out performance as our convict turned redeemed father figure, Jean Valjean. Anne Hathaway’s commitment to her role as the starving prostitute Fantine was almost obsessive but brought a convincing character to life. She did this supposedly by eating two oatmeal paste crackers a day for two weeks or something and under medical supervision. Not that I’m recommending this I just admire her commitment to the role, And I loved her rendition of I Dreamed a Dream. Cosette was played by Amanda Seyfried. Pretty voice, and the caliber of songs, a step up from Mamma Mia for her. Speaking of which. Russel Crowe as Joubert…Great acting, so much passion. Unfortunately every time he sang I was reminded of Peirce Brosnan’s attempts to warble in the ABBA film. Not exactly a thought you want going through your head during a dramatic scene. Read the rest of this entry »

End Of Watch is a gritty, action packed cop buddy film from the writer of Training Day and director of Street Kings, focussing again on the LAPD, but this time, on a couple of good honest cops. To get us up close and personal however, writer/director David Ayer has taken a leaf out of the much overused horror genre technique – that of the found footage. Though to be honest he mixes the found footage with some standard third-person filming similar to what happened with the 3rd [REC] film.

The result is a hard edged film that mixes visceral violence with buddy cop sarcasm and some hearty family moments. Mixing the various callouts with the personal family stuff does make End Of Watch run the risk of feeling disjointed, but for me it just added to the slow build up, as the cops go from dealing with small time drug dealers to pissing off a Mexican drug cartel, keeping you on your toes, with the knowledge (from watching the trailer) that the shit is going to hit the fan, but never quite sure when things will go South, or how fast.

Can’t really say too much more without spoiling some of the finer moments of the film, or giving away too much of the plot, but I can say that it’s probably my favourite cop movie, certainly the most originally filmed, at least for it’s genre.  Read the rest of this entry »

All Our Desires is an interesting French film about deciding what;s important in life. The story focusses on Claire, a young judge who is compelled by the struggles of Celine who has found herself indebted to the shady world of the French banking system. It’s a cause she decides is the most important thing in her life, more important than her husband or her recently diagnosed terminal brain cancer, which she neglects to inform her husband of and goes out of town for treatment and pain killers.

She does how ever enlist the help of an older male work colleague who eventually finds out that she has brain cancer, and forms an awkwardly close relationship with her, but seems to be the only one who realises that she deserves to live the rest of her life the way she sees fit.

It’s a great mix of social justice, romance and loss that is carried by the brilliant performance of Marie Gillain as the lead character Claire.  Read the rest of this entry »

Storm Surfers The Movie isn’t really a movie, it’s more a personal surf documentary. By personal I mean that along with epic wave action, you also get to see parts of the personal lives and life long friendship between Australian surfing greats Tom Carroll and Ross Clarke-Jones. Now approaching 50 these veterans do irritate each other, but that’s just a human quality, but when they hit the water they are solid. They overcome fears of being too old, of having family to go home to, and focus their energy on finding some of the biggest waves there are.

With miniature cameras on their boards and camera on the end of poles that they hold whilst surfing, Carrol and Jones make sure we are in the thick of the action, and with dedicated Meteorologist and friend Ben Matson helping them decide where to go, the action is plenty.

Of course with big waves comes risks, and Storm Surfers doesn’t shy away from showing the dangers inherent with this sport.

Storm Surfers The Movies shows some awesome surfing action, but it also shows that you’re never too old to live your dream.  Read the rest of this entry »

Pawn Stars is another reality TV show in the fast expanding genre that was essentially kicked off my England’s Antiques Roadshow so many years ago. Here we focus on the family run pawn shop, Gold & Silver Pawn Shop in, where else but, Las Vegas.

The Pawn Shop is open 24 hours 7 days a week, but we just get to se the punters who bring in the interesting stuff. It’s a basic premise, seller brings in an item, and if they have done their homework, will tell the boys about it. If it sounds valuable, but the boys are not sure they will get an expert in. Expert will then give them the good or bad news, and the seller will then ask for top dollar, to which the boys will bring them back down to earth offering only about 40% of the lower estimate.

Hey it’s a business and they’ve got to make money.

The show succeeds on two levels, the interesting factor of seeing some rare or unusual things and the haggling over the price and the making or breaking of dreams.

The show is fronted by four main characters, even though the show tends to focus on only three of them. Grandfather, father (and owner), son and son’s best friend. Father and owner Rick is the one who carries the show. The grandfather or “The Old Man” is just too rude and obnoxious, presented as funny, but isn’t. The son and his best friend are cast as idiot and play the roles well. The thing that really grates me however, so how much both t he father and grandfather come down on the two younger boys. Once or twice they deserve it and it’s funny, other times it’s just rude.  Read the rest of this entry »