The DC Animated Universe

Believe it or not, this post has been planned for a while now, and it's only serendipitous that it comes shortly after Warner Brothers announced that the live-action Justice League movie is on the cards. I'm not going to weigh in on the Batman reboot (though they really should wait until they get The Dark Knight Rises out into the world first) or the optimistic 2013 target date- I'm going to talk about some animated DC movies.

DC Universe Animated Original Movies are direct-to-DVD features, borne out of collaboration between DC Comics and Warner Bros. Animation. There've been ten thus far, with another Green Lantern film and an adaptation of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One to come, and seeing as how I've been keeping track of their output, I've been meaning to sample some of their films here on the blog.

Their most recent release, still yet to be released in the UK, is All-Star Superman, based on the Grant Morrison-penned comic series and adapted for animation by the late Dwayne McDuffie. Superman has a brush with death that makes him more powerful than ever before, but also suddenly aware of his own mortality. He makes things right with the love of his life, Lois Lane, but he must also fend off the machinations of his enemies- most of all, Lex Luthor.

There are sequences in All-Star Superman that would be perfect in any live-action Superman film. The indisputable highlight of the film comes when Clark Kent interviews Lex Luthor in prison, and his presence allows Parasite to break out of his cell to go on the rampage. It poses an actual challenge to the Man of Steel- Clark has to protect everyone without revealing his identity to them, especially not his arch-nemesis. It's a fantastic idea, very well executed on-screen, but the pitfall is that it features in a film that also has some very ridiculous stuff.

I suppose if you subscribe to the notion that Zack Snyder should have kept the giant squid ending in his Watchmen film, you'll find some of the weirder stuff in All-Star Superman easier to swallow. Research shows that it's very faithful to the comic, but to me at least, that made it seem far too busy. There are too many opponents in this film, often introduced and written out all too  brusquely, for it to flow very well. The anime-influenced style of animation looks gorgeous, but the story could have been more focused.

It's only in comparison to this particular Superman story that a Batman story could look light by comparison, but that's not entirely what you get with Batman: Under The Red Hood. It's mired in continuity, but the basics of the story are as follows- it's been several years since Jason Todd, Dick Grayson's successor as Robin, was murdered by the Joker. Batman is still reluctant to work with members of the extended Bat-family, but he may need all the help he can get as the mysterious Red Hood begins to corral Gotham's terrorised criminals to his own end.

On the surface, this one looks like everything a Batman fan could want- a moody and atmospheric tale that's faithful to the comic it's based on, to the letter. The reason why Christopher Nolan is doing so well with his take on Batman is because he's being faithful to the comics but tempering that with new stuff. You can still be surprised by the plot of a Nolan Batman film, but it somewhat undercuts the detective story of something like Under The Red Hood if you figure out what's what before Batman does. That's certainly got something to do with the fact that I had already read Under The Red Hood before watching this adaptation, but that doesn't make it a bad film, by any stretch.

There's a stellar voice cast that includes Bruce Greenwood and Jason Isaacs, there's some very clever treatment of villains we don't see an awful lot of, like Ra's al Ghul and Black Mask, and the animation looks fantastic, as ever. However, it's like Nolan's films in the wrong ways. It imitates the style and the storytelling of The Dark Knight when you need look no further than the animated series from the 90s, or its movie spin-off Mask of the Phantasm to see that the animated adventures of the caped crusader do much better in their own niche than they do when they mainly target an older audience.

And finally, for this post anyway, we come to Wonder Woman, which is arguably everything an actual film about Wonder Woman should be. Goodness knows it's better than the Super Ally McBeal TV series rendition sounds. It tells the origin story of the Amazon princess as related in a reboot story arc in the 1980s. The mighty Diana has her first brush with the world of man when US Air Force pilot Steve Trevor crash-lands on the usually concealed island of Themyscira. The crash coincides with the release of god of war Ares, who has been kept prisoner on the island for centuries, and now wreaks a terrible vengeance against the Earth.

As with Under The Red Hood, I got the feeling that this could really have been a live-action film if Warner Bros. wanted to take it in that direction. Unlike Under The Red Hood, this has no continuity baggage- it's an origin story. It's a damn good one too, and although it's not above certain clunky bits of expositional dialogue and the jarring introduction of Wonder Woman's invisible jet, I struggle to imagine how a different live-action origin story could do it better. Especially as the voice acting is superb, with big names like Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Alfred Molina and Rosario Dawson being just as perfectly cast for their vocals as they would be if they made this script in live-action.

The animation is great, and the action is surprisingly brutal without ever exceeding the 12A barrier. It balances the action with a good-natured sense of humour- I quite enjoyed one scene where Fillion's Steve Trevor tries to loosen Diana up on a boozy night out, only to discover that she's not as susceptible to tequila as he is. But best of all, it's not only the action or the well-judged comedy that lends it maturity- it also manages to adapt the character without gentrifying either gender, males or females. Diana might be a bit of a Disney princess while hanging around on Themyscira, but she's more like one of the kickass ones.

Wonder Woman is easily the best of the DC Animated Universe efforts I've seen to date. It introduces the character in an exciting way, and prominently broaches the topic of gender inequality, but it's never one-sided or simplistic. I know Batman, and I know Superman, and despite knowing nothing about Wonder Woman, this film surpassed everything with those other characters that I've seen from this studio.

Batman: Under The Red Hood and Wonder Woman are now available on DVD. All-Star Superman will arrive on DVD in the UK later in 2011.
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If you've been watching what comes out of the DC animated universe, why not share your comments below?

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

WAKE WOOD- Review

It turns out that the third time is the charm for the reinvigorated Hammer studios. After the commercially disappointing Let Me In and all-around disappointment The Resident, the studio blasts back with the kind of film only they used to make, and it's a pretty gripping horror flick.

Wake Wood is the name of a rural township, and Patrick and Louise are a bereaved couple who relocate there after being struck by tragedy. Their young daughter was killed, and their marriage has suffered from their collective grief. But Rabbit Hole it ain't, because Wake Wood has a secret. Through a dark ritual, the town elects to help out Patrick and Louise, but it means meddling in forces that soon spiral out of their control.

It's no disservice to the film to be so vague about its story, because the major turn-off for some will be that it's very predictable. That's generally because the way that horror films are structured and the way their characters are built are recognisable, but the predictability of the story doesn't get in the way of the fact that it's a very well made film. In fact, the things that are good about it almost obscure the inevitable from the viewer.

For one thing, it's a horror film that puts the effort into getting very good actors to give good performances, which was one of the main reasons that I trumpeted the praises of The Last Exorcism all last year. Patrick and Louise are ably played by Aidan Gillen and Eva Birthistle, who are both equally able to pull off the characters' inconsolable grief and their later enterprise in exploiting the supernatural. Timothy Spall looks like the best thing about it, with his genial creepiness as pillar of the community and hoodoo-monger Arthur, but unexpectedly, it's young newcomer Ella Connolly who steals the show.

There might not be much unexpected about her actual character of course, but as I've said, I didn't mind the fact that I could see my way to the film's conclusion from the first ten minutes because I was enjoying the film on the whole. There are a couple of missteps, like the odd sensationalised surgery scenes, carried over from The Resident. You could argue that the animal C-section performed by veterinarian Patrick foreshadows later events, but it still seems kind of strange to me.

But on the plus side, it has to be said that this is something different, the likes of which I haven't seen in a horror film for a good length of time. Its roots snake through The Wicker Man and Don't Look Now, but it never feels less vital for its obvious influences. It's not merely the performance, but the slightly grimy look of the whole thing. It's not a clinical or over-polished film like The Resident- its ends are not cauterised and cleaned up but left hanging, to the effect of making it feel very edgy and intense.

If, as suggested, Hammer's future is in remaking its older hits such as Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires or Captain Kronos, here's hoping they find time for more films like Wake Wood. The small budget makes for an inventive endeavour from a strong cast and a skilled crew. It is kind of predictable and it's not exactly a game-changer, I admit. However, it's also the kind of film that can't have cost an awful lot, but which gets the job done anyway, and in a way that's grisly and strangely satisfying.

Wake Wood is now available on DVD.
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If you've seen Wake Wood, why not share your comments below?

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

RUBBER- Review

"In the Steven Spielberg movie E.T., why is the alien brown? No reason. In Love Story, why do the two characters fall madly in love with each other? No reason. In Oliver Stone's JFK, why is the President suddenly assassinated by some stranger? No reason. In the excellent Chain Saw Massacre by Tobe Hooper, why don't we ever see the characters go to the bathroom, or wash their hands, like people do in real life? Absolutely no reason. Worse, in The Pianist, by Polanski, how come this guy has to hide, and live like a bum, when he plays the piano so well? Once again, the answer is "no reason". I could go on for hours with more examples, the list is endless. You probably never gave it a thought, but all great films, without exception, contain an important element of no reason. And you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason."

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the weird world of Rubber.

Yep, this is that killer tyre movie you've been hearing about. Quentin Dupieux writes and directs the film, and nails his colours to the mast with the monologue quoted above. Stephen Spinella's Lieutenant Chad delivers this statement of intent, seemingly to the fourth wall, but then sets up a group of voyeurs with binoculars in the middle of the desert. They watch as a tyre comes to life, seemingly without reason, and starts killing almost everything it encounters. For no reason.

Via the framing device of the intrigued audience, distanced from the action and closer to you, the actual viewer, we get the clearest idea of what Dupieux is trying to do. Rubber is, as some might expect from the premise, a highly intellectual and comical take on monster-centric B-movies, like Sharktopus and its ilk. And in my experience of it, I strongly suspect that how well it works for you will be whether or not you find it funny, as well as comical, or smart, as well as intellectual.

You get the sense that Dupieux is very full of himself, in making this film, and at times, the smuggery of it all makes it a difficult watch. If you saw the trailer and hoped for dumb fun, you're best off sticking with the trailer. While Rubber is an intensely silly film, it's also very arch in its approach. It not only requires you to think about the monster/killer movies that have long been a staple of schlocky cinema, but it flat out asks you to think about it, and that's what will turn some people off the film.

It's a film that lasts just over 75 minutes, but it's very dry stuff in the beginning. After the initial idea of a head-sploding tyre roaming around the desert is established, it does become a succession of scenes in which our high concept trundles from place to place killing things off. There's some room to appreciate how well it's put together- the cinematography, sound design and special effects are all superb, and they elevate a script that would otherwise have less reason to be so pleased with itself. Luckily, it picks up somewhere in the last 20 minutes with a quickfire round of memorable scenes and quotable lines.

If you can stick with it during the lull, despite any lull being frankly unforgivable in a film so short, then there's some good stuff to be found in Rubber. The irony of it all works best when Stephen Spinella is on screen as the wily and yet incompetent Lieutenant Chad, and it's a great technical achievement, very well put together. But it is a high concept, ideally suited to a short film rather than a feature, pushed out for the maximum amount of mileage- and honestly, it's difficult to imagine such an assault on popular cinema appealing to everyone. At the moment, it costs $9.99 online, just to rent it. Why wouldn't you wait for the DVD or the limited cinema release and see it for cheaper? No reason.

Rubber is available from video on demand sites now, and will be released in the UK on DVD and Blu-ray on April 11th.

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If you've seen Rubber, why not share your comments below?

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

EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP- Review

Sometimes, there's a Friday in which you look at the new releases and say "I don't need that pain in my life." While I hear generally positive reviews about that Justin Bieber thing, Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son stands at a proud 8% Fresh ranking on Rotten Tomatoes. I'm not seeing either of those movies, so let's do some awards season stuff.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is a film by guerilla artist Banksy, and it's been nominated for Best Documentary. Having seen it, I think that might be tantamount to nominating Cloverfield in that category, but whether it's all for real or not, it tells a true story. The story is Thierry Guetta's- he's a bloke who records his everyday life as a hobby and decides to make some footage based on the emergent street art movement. He gets exclusive contact with Banksy, the biggest name in street art, and Thierry's life begins to change.

We don't often review documentaries in these parts. It seems that whenever I do review a documentary, there's always some doubt about whether or not it's actually part of the recent resurgence in mockumentary films. I'm Still Here was an out-and-out hoax, and Catfish was a film with no less mediation than any other verite documentary, but one which I wanted to be a fictional construct so I wouldn't hate the filmmakers so much. And then there's Exit Through The Gift Shop.

If we can take the hooded Banksy at face value, which we can't because he's Nazgul-faced throughout this film, then it's enough to simply applaud this film as an extraordinary accomplishment of editing. Face or no face, the claim is that Banksy created this film from over 10,000 hours of documentary footage shot by Thierry. The handover of the footage from Thierry to Banksy is a plot point in the film, but the film itself is about Thierry. We're through the looking glass here.

Turns like these are probably the main reason I and others have for doubting its veracity. As mentioned before on this blog, and of course, long before this blog or even I came into existence, documentaries are not reality. They're a depiction of reality, and what's troublesome in this case is that documentaries very rarely come together as art. What's so engaging about this film is that even with 10,000 hours of actuality at its disposal, it doesn't play it straight-faced.

Therein lies the only real subversion. The blurb on my DVD of the film claims that it's "shocking" and "provocative", which builds expectations to a point of inevitable letdown. In truth, the film never shocked me, nor did it provoke me, but then maybe that was what the street artists' excursion to Disneyland was meant to be. I did find it amusing all the same, but I don't see what's so avant-garde or subversive about the thing as a whole.

On a topical note, I finally decided to watch the film after hearing last week's news about Banksy's visit to Los Angeles before Sunday's Oscars ceremony. Apparently, the Academy have declined Banksy's request to appear in disguise at the ceremony, probably in case he does anything subversive during the very high-profile television coverage. Personally, I hope the Academy reconsiders, if not to celebrate the good work he did with this film, then to keep me up as I pull an all-nighter watching their bloody awards this weekend. What else am I supposed to do to stay awake? Hope for something like last year's majestically stupid Hurt Locker-based interpretive dance?

Exit Through The Gift Shop seems to shed its documentary trappings as it goes on, and that's why I wonder how much of it is put on. That said, I concede that I found it very interesting indeed without knowing anything at all about the street art scene. Banksy's reasons for making this film, as stated within its own framework, is to capture the creativity and vitality of the street art movement, which he believes has a short lifespan. In that much at least, the film is a triumph, and it's all the better for me not being able to get my head around it.

Exit Through The Gift Shop is now available on DVD and blu-ray.
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If you've seen Exit Through The Gift Shop, why not share your comments below?

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

Mini-Mad Prophecies- 2010 Wrap Up

It's still technically 2010 and there are a few films I haven't yet documented. Rather than do a load of longer posts today, I'm going to do what they do to Christmas presents on December 25th in Soviet Russia and wrap them all up. In just the one post. With the worst pun in the post already out of the way, let's get right into it.

Love and Other Drugs (now showing in cinemas nationwide) is a departure for director Edward Zwick, who's more often found to be making big epics with historical resonance. Here he follows Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie, a pharmaceutical representative who hits the big time when he lands the new viagra drug, and his relationship with Maggie, a woman who has early onset Parkinson's disease. It's muddled in the way of that game on Whose Line Is It Anyway?, where the performers are required to change tack mid-skit at the whim of the host's buzzer.

One minute it's a romantic comedy. The next, a harrowing drama. The next, a romcom once again. Overall, the tone is both comedic and mature, pitching a grown-up love story for an audience poorly served by 12A Katherine Heigl-starring bullshit. This one rescued from its confusion by a stellar performance by Anne Hathaway and almost damned by an annoying and cliched turn by Josh Gad. With copious nudity to enjoy along the way, Love and Other Drugs should prove stark relief both to exasperated fans of the romcom form and to unwilling boyfriends who see this in exchange for getting her along to see Season of the Witch, or whatever.

On the polar opposite end of the scale, The Way Back (now showing in cinemas nationwide) is precisely the kind of film Zwick normally directs, but it's helmed by Peter Weir. It chronicles the journey of a group of escapees from a Siberian gulag as they trek to the Himalayas to escape their oppressors. With the determined Janosz spurring them on, they're eventually forced to overcome their distrust of one another and rely on their comrades to survive the harrowing hardships they face on their journey. If it doesn't sound like Christmas or New Year fare, that's cos it's not.

What it is comes as something of a relief- a great performance-led piece that re-announces Weir after a seven year absence from cinema. Even if it's not his best work, there's a lot to admire about his consummately direction and the beautiful cinematography by Russell Boyd. There's a danger of the landscapes overpowering the characters, but Jim Sturgess, Saiorse Ronan and Ed Harris are more than capable of engaging an audience. The Way Back might drag its feet over a two hour period, but the resolution is enough to make you feel like you've travelled, and you'll get further with it than you ever would with Gulliver's Travels or Little Fockers. However, if you're not into this kind of film, you're clearly looking to Love and Other Drugs for your last cinema trip of the year.

A Town Called Panic (now available on DVD) is one of a few films I've been hoping to catch up with for a long time and I finally got around to it last week. It looks like those Cravendale ads extended to feature-length, and the plot- centring around housemates Horse, Cowboy and Indian- is even weirder for its larger proportions. Nevertheless, its surrealism is consistently hilarious, and it's short enough that you miss it when it's gone instead of tapping your foot waiting for an end to weirdness. The animation is very nice too, and it even boasts one of the best action sequences of the year in its closing movement.

After that, I sobered considerably to watch Mother (now available on DVD and Blu-ray), a Korean film in which a mother's unconditional love for her mentally challenged adult son is put through the wringer when he's arrested for murder, and she's the only one who believes he didn't do it. Playing the eponymous matriarch is the excellent Hye-ja Kim, who's as good a left-field contender as any for an Oscar nomination this year, if the Academy can get past its usual segregation of better world cinema from Hollywood awards season fodder. It's perhaps a bit longer than it needs to be, but it's an arresting mystery that misleads without even becoming contrived.

I'm similarly way behind the curve on Black Death (now available on DVD and Blu-ray), a British horror drama set in the time that pestilence swept the country. Sean Bean is Ulric, an avenging knight who believes a healthy community is harbouring a necromancer, and Eddie Redmayne is Osmund, the monk who's enlisted to guide Ulric's motley crew of soldiers. Both are good, but the real surprise in acting terms is Tim McInnerny as a creepy village elder who gets the meat of the film's allegorical message- zealotry of all persuasions will come to no good. It's more reminiscent of The Wicker Man than of Solomon Kane, and for the audience I watched it with (my silly family), that was something above its station. However, they are very silly, and this is actually a very interesting and thoughtful historical drama that brings forth more subtle religious horror than expected.

More outright frightening is Frozen, (now available on DVD and Blu-ray) a film I caught during the recent cold snap that brought most people to a standstill. It's apt then, that this is a film in which a ski-lift is brought to a standstill as the ski resort closes for the week, leaving three people stranded hundreds of feet in the air in freezing cold conditions. It feels restrained even in its gorier moments, and as I've remarked before, horror grounded in reality is often more frightening to me than supernatural gubbins, slasher flicks notwithstanding. Even beyond its initial premise, a lot more can and will possibly go wrong. Without any critical irony, Frozen chilled me to the bone, using great performances and some expertly intense pacing to keep my rapt attention from start to finish.

Done! From tomorrow, we'll be getting into the Best/Worst of 2010 stuff, as well as looking forward to 2011.

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

Something Boro-ed- THE TOURNAMENT Review

It's taken me a while to get to this one, having first heard about it three years ago. As opinionated as I am on the subject of films, and as eager as I am to try and make films or watch people from the area make films, I was always going to get around to the Middlesbrough-set action thriller The Tournament.

As you might suspect, it's about a tournament. To wit, a tournament in which the world's greatest assassins compete to be the last man standing, earning the distinction of being the world's single greatest assassin and winning a $10 million prize. This contest descends on an out-of-the-way town or city, once every seven years, and now it's Middlesbrough's turn. The contestants include a nutty Texan killer, a vengeful former winner, a hit-lady with a secret, and quite unwittingly, an alcoholic priest who's never resorted to violence in his life.

The Tournament is the kind of film that confused people will equate with the work of Quentin Tarantino. The kind of person who can only elaborate on this comparison by saying "it's violent". Tarantino's films are much more about a cinematic literacy that often overpowers whichever crime story is being told, in which violence happens to occur every so often. With only Ving Rhames, Marsellus Wallace from Pulp Fiction himself, to corroborate the likeness to Tarantino, I think that films like this owe more to the visual style and convenient storytelling of Tony Scott, the minor Scott who has worked prolifically through the 90s and will come out with Unstoppable in a few weeks' time.

As you might have read on this blog before, I don't rate Tony Scott. On the other hand, I do rate The Tournament. The director and writers are all from my hometown, and the difference between them and Scott, who also hails from the North East, is that they're all starting out with this film. Through Man on Fire and Domino and remake The Taking of Pelham 123, there's a missing vitality. Scott knows the craft of action cinema very well, but he's past his very best work- in my estimation, his only two really good films are True Romance and Crimson Tide, neither of which were the disposable action fests for which he is now better known.

With something to prove, director Scott Mann and writers Jonathan Frank, Gary Young and Nick Rowntree have buckets of vitality. As with many debuts, this film is a calling card. These guys are hungry for the craft of filmmaking, and the result is an action film with much more vim and vigour than most films being churned out of Hollywood week in, week out. It was evidently a fraught production- the budget apparently ran out twice before production was finished. Even with its troubles though, their enthusiasm brought together a fine ensemble cast with a high degree of international renown.

It might not be the best work any of them have done, but it's always great to see Ving Rhames and Robert Carlyle in anything, and there are some very well choreographed fight scenes between Kelly Hu and Sébastien Foucan. The weak link is Ian Somerhalder, who isn't given a lot to do but play "Texan" and "psycho", two traits that stereotyping has made so synonymous that neither is really distinctive from the other. The trouble is, it's hard to really care when the film is so transparently headed for a climax in which none of these characters are the most important part.

The chief allegory to be had is related to surveillance. Liam Cunningham, playing the shady orchestrator of the contest, handily exposits that Middlesbrough has more CCTV cameras than anywhere else in the world, allowing the spectators to watch the proceedings by hacking in and watching on a big screen. We keep returning to a bunch of international billionaires sitting around a big table, watching grisly deaths with scantily clad waitresses catering to their every whim. Factor in the fact that there are no standout antagonists amongst the 30 hardened killers competing for the prize, and you can probably see where it's headed a mile off. With all the shades of grey amongst the contestants, the more tangible "evil" of the piece is all too visible.

Beyond the surveillance subtext and the little slugline that tells us where we are, there's really no indication that it's set in Middlesbrough, or at the very least, I didn't recognise many of the locations despite having lived in the town all my life. I'm not complaining about that at all, as the first step to a cringey and parochial student film would have been tourist-friendly lingering shots of the Bottle of Notes or characters enjoying "delicious" parmos.The filmmakers wisely avoided both, and the film is better for it. For that reason however, there's really little reason to place the film in a set location at all, much less Middlesbrough.

It's often said of the British that we hate success. You need only look at how many articles reductively speak of UK films abroad as "underwhelming" to see that there's not an enormous amount of support for ambitious productions like these in the popular press. I'm definitely not slating The Tournament for taking on an international market. I'm an aspiring screenwriter myself, and it's not the film I would have written as my debut, but then it's packed with stuff I could never achieve in my very first film, including tautly executed action sequences and a strong cast who you've actually heard of.

Back in February, I found myself wishing that someone would make a film for Middlesbrough as interesting as David Morrissey did for Liverpool in Don't Worry About Me. The Tournament isn't that film, and in my opinion it's better for it. It's more inclusive of a worldwide audience, because goodness knows it doesn't need shots of Kelly Hu abseiling down the Transporter Bridge, or whatever. Instead, it's a perfectly serviceable and action packed calling card film for whatever the filmmakers want to do in the future.

The Tournament is now available on DVD.
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If you've seen The Tournament, why not share your comments below? If you're not from Middlesbrough, please be assured that there aren't nearly as many titty-bars and abandoned churches as this film would have you believe, and drop by anytime!

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

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.

(Meno)Pause for Thought

It's been a while since I've doubled up films like this in one post, but I've decided I'm going to go back to doing that on films about which I only have a certain amount to say. It helps that both Atom Egoyan's erotic pseudo-thriller Chloe and Catherine Corsini's arthouse drama Leaving deal with similar subject matter- married middle-age women and extra-marital affairs.

Leaving is another film I saw at the Tyneside Cinema a few weeks ago, and I've taken my time writing about it. But on the day this entry is posted, I'll be on my way there to see three more films with limited distribution, so I had to leave you something to read. The film finds one Suzanne Vidal in utter boredom with her upper class family life. Everything changes with the arrival of Ivan, a labourer who's fixing up her house- the two embark on an affair that leaves Mr. Vidal closing his wallet in a temper...

In most respects, I should probably like Leaving more than I actually did. To describe the plot in the barest terms makes it sound slightly like some Brazzers video involving a bored housewife, but it goes without saying that with Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead role, the film is considerably more thoughtful than it sounds. She gives a performance that is really, properly wonderful, and she's evenly matched by the versatile Sergi López, who most will remember as the sadistic officer from Pan's Labyrinth.

The romance between their characters is electric, but the fundamental flaw of the film, for me, was in how difficult it is to empathise with Suzanne. She's not unhappy in her marriage, nor is her husband neglectful- she's just bored. To a point, that's fine, but some of the stuff that happens as a result of her boredom is unforgivable. The last five minutes brings around a terrible twist that undermines any attachment you might have had to the opprobrious Suzanne.

Although Leaving is beautifully shot and very well acted, Catherine Corsini seems so intent on undermining the bourgeois class politics that Suzanne initially upholds that she also undermines everything human. Is it fair that Suzanne's cuckolded husband should cut her off financially just because she cheated on him? Well, yes! Yes, it is, no matter how many times she bemoans her circumstances. Despite some beautiful scenes scattered throughout, the film's ugly conscience ultimately left an unbearably sour taste in my mouth.

Leaving (Partir) is still playing in select cinemas in London, and will be released on DVD later in the year.

Elsewhere, Chloe is a prostitute hired by a genuinely unhappy wife and mother to honey-trap her husband. Catherine believes David is cheating on her after he repeatedly flirts with other women right in front of her, and crucially, deliberately misses his plane home when she's planned a birthday party for him. Chloe reports back as she dallies with David, but Catherine is ultimately drawn into something much deeper.

I'm not familiar with Atom Egoyan's work, but here he speaks softly and carries a big stick, to borrow a broad adage. The score is full of what the DVD subtitles call "soft" and "pensive" music, though this one's anything but soft. It's a psychodrama of an oddly seductive power. Not because its female stars bare all, but because of the palpable charge that the film accumulates throughout. The opening is fairly prosaic, but while it's never massively exciting, it's relentlessly interesting.

Amanda Seyfried is the closest thing to a weak link in the cast, but that's only because her co-stars are Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. Seyfried is definitely watchable throughout, but every time those two shared the screen, it was fantastic. Their marriage, now deflated of romance, is utterly believable- Neeson's indignation is ambiguous enough that it actually feeds the uncertainty of the plot, and Moore beautifully portrays her character's frustration at how everyone loves a man as he reaches his autumn years while a woman is seen to be past her best.

Chloe makes for a sensual and beguiling drama, even if it goes just a little bit Fatal Attraction in the last act. That's a development I could have done without, but it has a lot to say about the gulf between genders in middle age and while many will appreciate Amanda Seyfried being naked, that's not there to titillate. It manages to be portentous without being pretentious- a mature and powerful film that leaves the viewer with a lot to muse upon afterwards.

Chloe is currently available on DVD and Blu-ray
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If you've seen Leaving or Chloe, why not leave a comment on the films and/or my review? Be sure to let me know if you're perturbed by how much I'm talking about gender lately- my current trip to the Tyneside involves Black Dynamite, so discussion may be lighter from here onwards.

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

Girl Prowess- WHIP IT Review

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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Some days, your Mad Prophet can't be arsed to get out of the house to see something as second-rate as Marmaduke. In such times, he often dusts off the DVD remote and gets onto a couple of films he missed in cinemas earlier this year.

One of those films is Whip It, the tale of 17-year-old misfit Bliss Cavendar. The discovery of a local roller derby league is the most exciting thing to happen in Bliss' small-town life, and she decides to compete and take control of her life, instead of parading through beauty pageants at the behest of her domineering mother.

Let's be frank- this looks for all the world like Bend It Like Beckham on skates. Nevertheless, I urge you to give it a look, because you might just be as surprised as I was. The director is Drew Barrymore, so you should probably be really surprised that this is actually a very thoughtful and fun teen movie. It doesn't exactly announce Barrymore as a major directorial talent, but it's more than good enough for 105 minutes of your time.

If you've never heard of roller derby, you're not alone. But hey, I've personally been left confused by films about much more mainstream sports than this. Barrymore at least knows that you don't know how to play this thing, so the film goes to certain lengths to explain the sport. It's played on roller skates, by girls in fishnet tights with punny names, and the rules are a lot easier to swallow than, say, Quidditch- a sport which has now featured prominently in five films.

In the way of the best sports movies, the sport itself is secondary to the characters. Bliss, excellently played by Ellen Page, hates the lack of purpose that comes with her stage mother's pushing and pulling, and this fairly obscure sport becomes her outlet. The match scenes aren't so much about girl power as girl prowess- there's the minimum amount of "Wow, Bliss, you're a born roller derby player!" that you see in other coming-of-age sports films, and more of a rigorous path to glory from her merely being light and speedy enough on the track to avoid being hit.

As could be expected from a female director, it's good that there's no leering for the sake of leering at girls playing a sport. However, maybe it was too much to use Jimmy Fallon as a mouthpiece for that "phwoaar" sensibility, making this one of the eight films (according to IMDB) that would be better for not having Jimmy Fallon in them. And then Fallon's match commentator is something of a cartoon character, but hey, he's used sparingly, and the best parts of Whip It are more than ostensible anyway.

In the background to Marcia Gay Harden's fine performance as Bliss' mother, there's Daniel Stern as Bliss' father, Earl. At first I wasn't sure why I latched onto his performance in particular, but later I realised that all of his character was being conveyed without those hackneyed heart-to-heart scenes that are the last resort of romantic comedies and weak dramas. He's wistful about having two daughters, both of whom are being groomed by their mother for pageantry rather than bonding with their dad, while the next-door neighbour is frequently seen with his two sport-star sons. With that in mind, the otherwise predictable conclusion becomes a logical development of his character.

It's this kind of background character work that elevates Whip It. Although the central plot is nothing we haven't seen before, it's being told differently. More than that, it's not too alternative- in its most exclusive moments, there's a little too much of the kind of hipster faux-knowing that has bogged down other films of this type. It's one thing to promote an indie band in a film, through the soundtrack perhaps, but when you stop to have a conversation about that band, it's no better than product placement, and it's bloody distracting.

And you'll want to pay attention to what's really going on anyway. For Ellen Page, it's not a huge departure from her role in Juno, but it's still a fine turn from one of my favourite actresses working at the moment. Similarly, Marcia Gay Harden does a severely toned-down variation on her performance in The Mist, as a bull-headed Midwestern mother who has great chemistry with her screen daughter. For the likes of Kristen Wiig, Alia Shawkat and Barrymore herself, this leaves a lot of comic mileage, which they gamely cover as the running time goes on.

With a likeable cast and a script that can be both moving and amusing at different junctures, I'm really wondering who would hate Whip It. It's not the best of the year or anything, but it's winsome enough that there's really nothing there to outright dislike. This kind of film could be, and has in the past proven to be, hell for a certain type of viewer, but instead it has broad appeal rather than speaking to a minority.

Does it matter that young women who don't know what to do with themselves might not listen to that band or wear that t-shirt? Nah, because it's a very charming family drama, of the type you'd see before "family drama" meant either a talking dog teaching a broken family the meaning of friendship or a Oscar-bait topical pot-boiler. This sits comfortably between the two, and it's a highly endearing debut that's well worth catching on DVD.

Whip It is currently available on DVD and Blu-ray.
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If and when you see Whip It, why not leave a comment on the film and/or my review? Maybe you can help me figure out why more films don't go to the lengths that this one does to give its characters memorable names, like Babe Ruthless or Bloody Holly.

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

Not Currently Playing In Cinemas...

It's a sad fact of multiplex culture that even in excessively large cinemas, certain films still don't get screened. Your local 25-screen Omniplex Cinema will sooner dedicate half of its venues to the latest overlong blockbuster so as to maximise profit than give one auditorium over to a thought-provoking 90 minute independent film. As a result, I can't always bring you reviews of every single great cinema release, equipped as I am with a local cinema that's still showing Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs in 3D, and yet I'd have to travel two miles to the nearest independent cinema if I wanted to see either of the Mesrine films.

With the prevalence of DVDs, it's become the case that a lot of these oversights can be rectified once films arrive on the shiny disc- Fight Club was outshined by the execrable Star Wars Episode I back in 1999, but anyone can tell you which is now the more quoted and enjoyed. And that's thanks to the film's popularity on DVD. And that's why I'm only too pleased to dedicate a blog entry to two rather great films from 2009 that've just made it to DVD. I'm not entirely sure if this problem with multiplexes warrants a regular feature on DVD releases, but I can say for now that this post will cover Good and Is Anybody There? Both are available to rent and buy on DVD right now, and if you read on, I'll tell you why they're worth a look, with the usual minimum of spoilerage.



Good is a film set in Nazi Germany, exploring how the middle class was drawn towards political activism in the tidal wave of oppression and national change that Hitler's election brought about, but it's a character-based drama as opposed to say, a film about a complicit Nazi who likes being read to. Based on a stage-play, the lead roles are taken by Viggo Mortensen and Jason Isaacs. Mortensen plays John Halder, a university professor who juggles his work and his lukewarm marriage and family life with the care of his elderly mother. He's outshone professionally by his friend Maurice- played by Isaacs- a Jewish psychologist for whom things understandably get difficult as the Nazis develop their ideas. Meanwhile, Halder comes to the attention of the leading Nazi officials with the publication of his book about euthanasia, and rapidly finds himself ignoring his conscience entirely to make lavish changes to his lifestyle.

So as you'll grasp from that, it's a morality tale at heart. The title refers to Halder being a fundamentally good man, with the inferred message that evil (the Nazis) will prevail as long as good men (like Halder) do nothing. The representation of evil in films is a can of worms I don't want to open in the middle of this review, but needless to say, we've got the gist when it comes to Nazis being bad. In the wake of Inglourious Basterds and Valkyrie, it isn't the best time for Good to come to DVD, as it may well be lost in the wake of those more bombastic and action-packed "Nazi movies". And all the way through it, I couldn't shake the feeling I was watching the story in the wrong medium. Seeing as how it's adapted from a stage-play, that's arguably true. Director Vicente Amorim certainly makes the affair feel more theatrical than cinematic, and while that's certainly not a bad thing, it drew me out of the film every now and then.

And like a play, it's very performance-driven. Viggo Mortensen underplays Halder rather well, and Jason Isaacs- for whom this was something of a personal project, having spent a lot of time and money trying to get the film going- is excellent in an impressive but relatively smaller role. "Screen Jew" seems to be a credit that the average Oscar-hunting actor is keen to add to their CV, if you take a cynical view of things, but as with all of Isaacs' work, there's something intense and honest about his performance. Isaacs is one of the best and most under-valued British actors in film today, and holds his own against Mortensen very well too. They make good use of a script that moves along at a leisurely pace, with no real sense of momentum at any given point. Good is a drama that's worth watching for its performances alone, but it's also a fairly competent drama that will intrigue anyone who has studied or is interested in Nazi Germany before the war, and how the large part of an entire nation found themselves supporting madmen. I am interested in that era, and so I liked it.



Perhaps the other great film that's just arrived on DVD has a more broad appeal- everyone loves Michael Caine, right? From The Ipcress File to The Dark Knight, via The Muppet Christmas Carol and Without A Clue, I am a huge fan (6'5 at the last measurement) of Michael Caine. And Is Anybody There? might just boast one of his finest performances ever. Caine plays Clarence, a retired magician with a cynical and anarchic outlook on life, who is pressed to move into an old peoples' home. There he finds friendship with the owners' young son, Edward, played by the utterly superb Bill Milner. Edward is obsessed with the customary death rate amongst the infirm population he shares his home with, and more specifically what happens to them after their bodies give up.

I was lucky enough to see this in a cinema- the Arc Cinema in Stockton, two miles from where I live- and was willing to take two buses to see it on my own because I'd heard such good things about the film. However, as I'd neglected to read the listings properly before I set off, I hadn't realised that I was going to what the cinema promoted as a Silver Screen showing. And because of that, I was sat in the middle of a sold-out screening of excited OAPs who'd gained admission for half-price. Some might say that's a slightly immersive viewing experience given the subject and setting of the film, but I'd happily go to another of those screenings- they were the most excited and enjoyable audience I've seen a film with all year. But I'm getting off topic here- the question should be, was it worth it? Yes. Yes, yes, a million times, yes.

The reason I didn't review the film immediately after seeing it was because I knew it would be forgotten if I reviewed it at a time when nowhere close was showing it. I wanted people to actually be able to see the film within a few days of reading the review if I really wanted, because Is Anybody There? is just a marvellous film. Aside from the moving script and well-drawn characters, the performances are just absolutely excellent. Granted, it has a good cast, that includes David Morrissey, Anne-Marie Duff and Liz Spriggs in her final role, all of whom are on excellent form, but what really made the film stand out from the rest were the two central performances- Bill Milner builds on the promise he showed in last year's Son of Rambow to bring another charming character to life. I feel old and wizened for the combination of words that are about to occur, but I'm absolutely sure he will go far in this business. And then there's Michael Caine. Well, it's Michael Caine- his character is obviously funny, spellbinding and brilliant to watch. He's made his name out of performances like that, and here I just thought he was amazing.

I'll address one potentially spoilery element that I suspect I'd be challenged about if anyone saw this film and disagreed with me, so look away if you're planning to watch and don't want to read anything close to plot spoilers. People will say that the ending is predictable. I think that's just a fact of how the film is structured, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say those people are wrong. Yes, you realise what's coming at a certain stage in the film, but we're certainly not talking Marley and Me levels of predictability. I'd say instead that what happens at the end of the film is inevitable, not predictable. And the scenes that precede it don't act as a fanfare, but rather as a sort of poignancy that runs through the second half of the film. And I shed a tear at the very end. No, really, I cried like a giant baby at the end, and I don't cry easily at films. Perhaps a second viewing is needed to tell if that ending is as much of an emotional sucker-punch as it was first time around- perhaps I was just feeling vulnerable, being alone in Stockton and surrounded by gleeful OAPs.

Whether my fragile emotions factor into it or not, Is Anybody There? is a touching, darkly comic and generally marvellous film. I'm planning to get it on DVD as soon as my stunted finances will allow, and I advise anyone else to seek it out and watch it. Caine and Milner make an enjoyable duo to watch, and together with the script, the direction and the rest of the performances, it's one of the best films of the year. It might seem like I'm throwing that out a lot lately, but I'm really not. This was the best film I'd seen all year back in July, and it probably still is. Absolutely definitely see it if you set any stock by my opinion whatsoever. Thank me later.

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District 9 is coming at some point, I promise- I still need a second viewing before I review that film and that hasn't yet happened. I'm sure that's getting enough praise elsewhere for you to see it without hearing my verdict first, and without giving too much away, I agree that you should. Possibly pipping that review to the post however, reviews of Adventureland and Gamer shall be appearing online within the next week or so, depending on when I see the latter.

I'm Mark the mad prophet, and until next time, make sure you don't watch anything I wouldn't watch. More pressingly, watch Is Anybody There?