Films Of The Weak Week!

Disclaimer- this post is not as much about Kat Dennings as it appears.

Ultra Culture makes a fine point. This week is really weak for new releases. Next week's three posts on this blog will look like this- Skyline, The Tournament, Harry Potter, and only one of those actually hits cinemas in wide release today. I also haven't had time for a trip to the always reliable Tyneside Cinema to see some of the limited releases I haven't got around to yet. What to do when I havent seen Another Year?

Never fear! Believe it or not, there are a couple of films from 2010 I haven't yet reviewed! Sifting through my LoveFilm rentals from the last couple of months, I've picked out a few films I either came to later than expected or simply neglected to review until now. They're still uber-exciting though. Sandra Bullock wins an Oscar! Demons stalk a Faustian surrogate in London! Kat Dennings is adorable! Read on for all of this and more...

Let's get to Miss Dennings first. She's one of the stars of Defendor, a superhero satire that went straight to DVD a few months ago. Woody Harrelson plays Arthur, a man with foetal alcohol syndrome who spends his evenings fighting crime as the titular vigilante. Defendor's life's work is to find and stop Captain Industry, the menace who plagues the city he loves. He befriends a wily prostitute, just as some uncomfortable truths about his life begin to become clear.

In the year that Kick-Ass came out, this Canadian indie movie doesn't really make much of an impression. It's not for any lack of quality- Woody Harrelson and Kat Dennings are both fantastic in it. I make no secret of the fact I have a thing for Dennings, and it's unfortunate that my opportunity to say so comes in the week that nude pictures of her found their way onto the internet, and so everyone and their penis has decided they have a thing for her. Aside from being rather adorable, she's pretty funny in this one, and she's well-matched with Harrelson, who tones down his usual bug-eyed machismo for a more heartfelt turn as Arthur.

As a black comedy, it's not really that funny, to me. Perhaps this post-modern superhero movie lark has finished as quickly as it came around, but you can't escape the feeling that you haven't really travelled anywhere with Arthur when you come to the end of Defendor. It's certainly worth watching for its performances, but not a lot else, sadly.

More intriguing, to me at least, is Heartless. With a heart-shaped birthmark obscuring most of his face, Jamie has been reviled his whole life. He's a lonely photographer who lives with his mum in East London, afraid of the anarchy that reigns on the streets amongst youths in demon masks. When Jamie has a close encounter with one of the attackers, it becomes clear that they might not be wearing masks, and so begins an introspective battle with the devil himself.

As I understand it, writer-director Philip Ridley alienated the hardcore horror crowd when his film premiered at FrightFest last year, by calling it a "proper film" and thus degrading everything other film his paying audience enjoyed watching. I can understand their indignation- Ridley has just reinvented the wheel and by his comments at FrightFest, fulfilled the rather more amateur idea that everyone thinks their idea has never been done before. It's a pretty straightforward Faust allegory. But let the horror buffs hate him if they want, because this isn't an amateur horror film. It's a damn good horror film.

Boasting a great cast that includes the likes of Jim Sturgess, Noel Clarke and Timothy Spall, Heartless is heart-clenchingly tense in its best moments and highly profound for the rest of the time. It's a million miles from the traditional modes of horror even if it's not entirely original, and it's chock full of memorable moments, including a cameo from Eddie Marsan that you'll be thinking about for ages afterwards. It's artful and deeply compelling- go and check it out.

Finally, I caught up with the only Best Picture nominee I didn't catch from this year's Oscars- The Blind Side. Sandra Bullock won the Oscar for Best Actress for playing Leigh Anne Tuohy, a high-powered matriarch who takes in Michael Oher as part of her own family. The traumatised Michael has been abandoned by his mother, and in rehabilitating the guy, Leigh Anne figures that the gentle giant would make a perfect American football player.

It's not that Sandra Bullock doesn't give a great performance in this, but that she'd only deserve an Oscar if you gave her a Razzie for All About Steve in the same weekend. And what do you know? They did just that. It's Bullock's character who I don't like- the very fact that we have two scenes where Leigh Anne eats lunch at an expensive restaurant with her three friends should tell you what you're dealing with. It's the kind of female character who's inexplicably become popular after the success of Sex and the City, and it's only Sandra Bullock who could hold the audience's attention as well as she does in a film about that character.

As for the rest of it, it's the standard sports movie baloney. As I suspected at the time, Invictus was the better sports movie, and The Blind Side is basically the weakest Best Picture nominee I can think of in years. It's really no better than an adequate massage to the social guilt of rich white Americans, too hesitant to probe into the motivations of its protagonist beyond the obligatory third-act obstacle.  The ending is an unresolved mess too. If they really needed a tenth nomination, Clint Eastwood's rugby film trumps this softly-softly melodrama any day of the week.

The Blind Side, Defendor and Heartless are all available to rent or buy on DVD now.
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If you've seen any of these films, why not share your comments below? If you stuck with me this long, I'm surprised! I fully expect that I'll lose everyone once I mention there are nude pictures of Kat Dennings on the internet.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

DEMOLITION MAN- Brave New World

Sometimes it's nice to just appreciate a damn fine film. I covered Three Kings on Monday, and then in the aforementioned absence of anything new in cinemas this week that I haven't already seen, I turned to the bargain bin at Blockbuster. And wouldn't you know it, I was able to pick up a damn fine film to write about today.

Sure, in 125 posts on this blog, I haven't once done a "my top 10 favourite films of all time" entry, but that kind of thing can fluctuate from the number 4 slot downwards. Instead, I'm going to talk about a film I like a lot, but not one that many will count as their favourite- Demolition Man.

This film is younger than I am, so I'm not sure why they open in the near-future of... 1996. Anyways, there we're introduced to John Spartan, a man whose moniker has surely predestined him to be a rampant super-cop, and Simon Phoenix, a dangerous terrorist who's brought Los Angeles to its knees with nihilism and outright dickery. They both end up cryogenically frozen after a tussle that kills 30 innocent people, and are defrosted to do battle in the utopic future of 2032.

It's occasionally easy to forget that Sylvester Stallone is generally a thoughtful and intelligent guy, for an action star. The star of films such as Spy Kids 3D, Driven and Judge Dredd also wrote and starred in the likes of Rocky, First Blood (but not the sequels) and this one, which is essentially an action-packed analog to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World.

The ramifications of that involve a pretty circular logic. As Lenina Huxley (told you!) puts it to Spartan, "whatever isn't good for you is bad", and so chocolate, alcohol, smoking, swearing and sex is outlawed along with murder, theft and the like. Oh, and you somehow use three sea-shells to wipe your arse in lieu of toilet paper. It's not really played as dystopic, because the attitude of those in the future makes for half the comedy in Demolition Man.

It's only sad that Rob Schneider, the man shat out by Adam Sandler, is the one who delivers a brilliant line about the police being ineffectual- "We're police officers! We're not trained to handle this kind of violence!" Well the last MurderDeathKill (as they call it) was on September 25th 2010, so why would they be trained for that? They haven't even thought to MurderDeathKill Schneider, who's uncredited nevertheless.


There is dissent within Nigel Hawthorne's dystopic utopia as a committed bunch of nostalgic freedom fighters led by Denis Leary live out their lives in the sewers, eating rat-burgers and driving then-vintage Oldsmobiles. In the end it takes, of all people, Detective John Spartan. It all ends a lot more amiably than Aldous Huxley's novel, and it's generally a much more enjoyable experience too.

Some will call Demolition Man a guilty pleasure, and perhaps that's all it is to some. But it really is a smart and funny action film that bears up despite being quite dated simply by the fact we weren't freezing cons in 1996. It's got a pretty good cast too- it's not a matter of target audience that makes this one of Sandra Bullock's better performances. Next time you watch The Blind Side, remember she started here, and she was better.

Stallone and Snipes are likewise having the time of their lives, and the whole affair is gloriously off-kilter. I got it from Blockbuster on 3 for 2 with Battlefield Earth and Zodiac, £2 each, so it was really a bargain. If you haven't already reevaluated this one recently, you need to go find it and give it a look.

Knowing that I'll inevitably pick up a lot of fines for violation of the verbal morality statute when I inevitably cover Battlefield Earth on here, I'll return to new releases on Friday with... (sigh) Cats & Dogs 2.

I'm Mark the mad prophet and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.

The Twin Dilemma

January is traditionally a dreary month in the cinematic calendar, and you could say it's been a bit one note, falling back on the traditional tropes of vampire films, music biopics and post-apocalypse films. Right at the end of the month, we have two romantic comedies, Up in the Air and All About Steve. As something of a regular disclaimer, it's only my opinion here- others are available. As ever, mild spoilers may occur in the process of reviewing, but never so far as to spoil any major plot developments.

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Up in the Air is obviously not to be confused with Pixar's Up, in a title-related oversight that's only surpassed by last year giving us post-apocalyptic animation 9 and musical luvvie-fest Nine. Semantics aside, Up in the Air is all about Ryan Bingham, a specialist contracted by companies to fly around America firing their employees for them. This jet-setting lifestyle is without strings or attachments, and that's just the way Ryan likes it. His life is disrupted by the arrival of Natalie, who threatens to ground him with her more cost-effective proposal for Ryan's company. Ryan aims to prove that a personal touch is needed by taking Natalie with him as he works, despite lacking anything close to a personal connection himself.

Jason Reitman's latest is closer to Thank You For Smoking than to Juno, covering similar ground with George Clooney's Ryan being a middle-aged man who has problems relating to his relatives because of his job. Up in the Air is a considerably lighter film, veering towards romantic comedy rather than delivering harsh satire. Although my previous exasperation with the worst shortcuts of the genre have been well-documented, I found there was a lot to enjoy in this.

Clooney isn't really straying outside of his comfort zone as an actor to play Ryan, but then he's played enough oddballs and idiots in recent films to warrant a return to his tried and tested formula. The last time he was playing "typical Clooney", he was an animated fox, so I'll cut the guy a break. He is the only cast-member of Batman & Robin I've forgiven to date. Besides which, it's the script that makes Ryan such a sympathetic character rather than the performance.

In fairness, I can't go without mentioning Anna Kendrick's excellent performance as Natalie for one major reason. It was bugging me all the way through because I recognised Kendrick from something else. I gave her IMDB a look, and it turns out she's been slumming it as a supporting character in the Twilight films! One of the really superfluous characters who exists to praise Bella! And yet she can give performances like this!


My incredulity at this really knows no bounds, but suffice it to say that she's one of the few performers in Twilight who I actually rate, and she's brilliant in this. Her chemistry with Clooney is totally platonic, and really complements the sparkling and witty script.

Vera Farmiga and Jason Bateman are on fine form too, and the film enjoys the traditional 20% extra quotient of awesomeness that I award any film for featuring Sam Elliot. The man's a legend, and I have no problem with the fact that he seems to be channel that scene he had with Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski in this.

On top of the central character study of Ryan though, there's a motif around what it is to lose your job. Ryan goes from place to place firing people, with Reitman casting people who had actually lost their jobs as the unfortunate victims of Ryan's schtick. And then of course Ryan is in danger of becoming obsolete himself if Natalie's proposal is accepted by his bosses.

In this economy, it's a particularly timely subject for a film. Although it's just not practical to do what Clooney does and embark on an affair with Vera Farmiga, the underlying message is that your job shouldn't define who you are as a person. It's not just grasping at the heartstrings like your bog-standard romcom- it's actually really profound. Maybe my personal enjoyment of the film is down to having lost two jobs during the recession, which they're now saying is over, but it's like Vietnam or a particularly timely joke- you had to be there. That aside, it is still a very well-crafted film.

Rarely predictable and highly enjoyable, Up in the Air is that elusive beast that I'll always praise whenever it appears- a romcom that doesn't glamorise deplorable characters or resort to cookie-cutter formula, and instead tells an enjoyable story. Clooney's playing a character whose line of work is becoming obsolete, but in real life, he's continuing to pick interesting projects like this one instead of resting on his laurels. Despite an utterly schmaltzy last line that made me feel physically sick for a couple of minutes, this is a satisfying and likable romantic comedy.


Now, what to say on the subject of All About Steve? It follows Mary Horowitz, a relentlessly twee crossword constructor who lives with her long-suffering parents while her flat is being fumigated. They set their daughter up on a blind date with Steve, a news cameraman who is frequently on the road. When Steve tries to let Mary down gently, she misreads the signs and sets out across country to er... stalk him. Yeah, really. Hilarity ensues, I say with the largest dollop of irony your web browser can support.

Tonally, it is all over the place. With its subject matter, I reckon that with the raw footage, an editing suite and some creepy music, even a monkey could transform it into a very passable horror film. Maybe reshoot all the scenes with Mary's parents so they're tied to a bed, Misery-style, everytime they appear. In trying to set up a message for individuality, what the writer has actually done is cast Sandra Bullock as an overbearing and unlikable woman.

More than that, there are two films at war with each other in All About Steve. There's the aforementioned horror film of Mary's character, mixed in with some element of genuinely funny satire of 24 hour rolling news culture. I wouldn't say a whole film around Thomas Haden-Church's conceited newsman would be funny, but I did laugh at some of the jokes involving him for the same reason I laugh at Charlie Brooker's Newswipe. What this film does is take two films that would be fairly mediocre and merge them into a gestalt of incredibly inventive rubbish.

Early on in the film, Mary 'hilariously' ponders whether brain cancer is better than a lobotomy, or vice versa, and for a while I was thinking I'd prefer both to watching any more of the film. I'd went in expecting to hate the film, come back here and make some Kermodian declaration that if I saw 10 films worse than All About Steve in 2010, I would quit reviewing.

Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely awful, but when I'm constantly complaining that romantic comedies have a cookie-cutter formula that means you can tell the ending of any given film just from watching the trailer, this is something different. It goes to absurd and asinine extremes to be different, but I can't deny it's different.

It circumvents "so bad, it's good" and settles back in "bad" territory again, but there's something incredibly entertaining to watch about that. I can't really fault the performances so much as the writing, and although this may just be me finally having snapped, I have to make this statement- this film is the reason why I go to the cinema.

Let me put it this way, to conclude- All About Steve is like the dark twin of Up in the Air. Reitman's film subverts the traditional romcom template with likable characters and relatable situations. This film does it with cartoonishly abhorrent characters and a set piece where some deaf children fall down a mineshaft at a funfair. Reitman's film is great, and All About Steve is just awful. But my God, it's trying.

It's a one star out of five film, make no mistake, but it did make me laugh, which was way more than I was expecting. For sheer innovation of awfulness, and the fact that it's actually challenging me to write objectively about a film I really ought to hate with every iota of my being, I have to give some small acclaim. Very small. Really, don't pay to see this.

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You're probably all horribly confused now, but that's why this post is named for a similarly rubbish Doctor Who story from 1984. Basically, if you want an unequivocally well made and well judged romcom, see Up in the Air. If you want to challenge yourself a little more, join the ranks of the four or so people in the UK who've been to see All About Steve. And if you've seen either, why not share your comments below?

Given the absolute chaos of advertising that seems to be going on with The Lovely Bones, I have no idea if that's out this Friday or next month. That aside, the next trips to the cinema are likely to cover Ninja Assassin, Precious and/or Edge of Darkness.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, don't watch anything I wouldn't watch.