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.

What Price Dreams

Technical issues persist here, but hopefully my readers will be pleased to know that my rant head is still in full working order. As for the new computer, it's been sent off for repairs and should be sorted soon, with any luck. Fortunately, I've seen some good films lately, including Zombieland and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. 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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Zombieland appears to be another in a long line of knock-offs of Shaun of the Dead, which have been coming in a steady stream since Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright found great success on both sides of the pond with that film in 2004. Appearances aside, Ruben Fleischer's first major feature film is actually the only worthy contender to Shaun. In the aftermath of the zombie apocalypse, the handful of survivors remaining in the United States roam the roads and generally try to avoid emotional ties, going so far as to name themselves only after their next destination. Our hero, headed for Columbus, has survived thus far by fastidiously following a rigid set of rules- rules that are compromised by the arrival of the gun-toting zombie-hating Tallahassee and a conniving pair of sisters called Wichita and Little Rock.

You really can't expect me to say this is better than Shaun of the Dead, because that's one of my favourite films of all time. But like that film, Zombieland is a film about people surviving the zombie apocalypse as opposed to the event itself. Large amounts of time go by, including most of the second half, without any zombies making an appearance whatsoever, and the film is the better for it. By ditching shock-horror tactics and the traditional social allegories attached to George A. Romero's zombie outings, Fleischer can better focus on characters, making this a very enjoyable horror comedy indeed. A great deal of the film's energy and charm can be attributed to the way the relatively small cast bring it to life- Jesse Eisenberg concerned me a little because as I said in my review of Adventureland, he reminded me a little of Michael Cera there, and the same is true of this film. As I've mentioned, I like Michael Cera, but he always plays the same kind of character, and I'm hoping Eisenberg will fulfil his potential and branch out a little.

With the rest of the cast, no complaints whatsoever- Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin both make an impression, but the real highlights are Woody Harrelson, who just has a whale of a time giving it every ounce of machismo and bad-assery he can muster, and the surprise cameo halfway through. If you still don't know who makes an appearance, please try to avoid finding out, because it's so much better when you don't know it's coming. It's a surreal and brilliant segment of the film and pretty much elevates cameo to high art- I can't see how any successor will cap it for hilarity and general... well, dementia. There's plenty for all to enjoy in Zombieland, gorehounds and comedy fans alike. While Pegg and Wright showed ordinary people surviving "Z-Day", Fleischer gives us an entertaining and fitting show of what might happen once you accept that zombies have taken over. Witty, occasionally demented and just laugh-out-loud brilliant.


A more divisive film currently playing in cinemas is Terry Gilliam's eagerly-anticipated and tongue-twistingly titled fantasy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. The majority of the film's marketing and appraisal has focused on the late Heath Ledger, given how he died halfway through principal photography. However, the film as a whole centres around the titular Doctor Parnassus, played by Christopher Plummer. He runs a carnival sideshow that allows customers to step through a magic mirror into his own imagination, which puts him into an ongoing game of one-upmanship with Mr. Nick, his devillish counterpart. The doctor's daughter, Valentina, is soon to turn 16, but little does she realise that when that day comes, a lost bet with Mr. Nick means her soul will be damned. The only hope is for Parnassus to enlist the help of a charming stranger to entice five souls to rejuvenation within his show, before Mr. Nick can entice the same number to eternal damnation.

Ledger plays the charming stranger of course, and because so much attention has been lavished upon him already, I'll get my appraisal of him out of the way first. As with his role in The Dark Knight, his performance as Tony is utterly magnetic- Ledger has a natural charm, and so in the short term, audiences might see the film as a sad reminder of how great he would have been if he'd survived long enough to fulfil his potential. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is naturally dedicated to him by Gilliam, who used the film's fantasy concept to work around the character's unfinished scenes with remarkable effect. This comes in the form of a device that employs three of Ledger's friends- Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law- to alternately complete filming without disrupting the film's continuity. For me, that was the most important thing, because this is a film that will be appraised as a whole rather than based on Heath Ledger- if you didn't know the circumstances, you might have felt that it was always the intention for Tony to be played by multiple actors.

I felt the standout performance of the film came from Christopher Plummer, one of those great older actors who really isn't in enough films these days. Additionally, Andrew Garfield and Lily Cole make themselves noticed rather well in a film that also has the aforementioned performance by Ledger, scene-stealing turns from Verne Troyer and Tom Waits, and of course Gilliam's own very distinct visual language. It's a morality tale, but the visuals look like one of Roald Dahl's cheese dreams. Gilliam's aesthetic sensibilities and flair for storytelling make this a film that may divide audiences somewhat, but that's surely par for the course from the director of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. This is one of a rare breed since Harry Potter set that recurring trend for big-budget fantasy adaptations aimed at the broadest audience possible- it's an original fantasy film made for an older audience, and if you can enjoy fantasy without switching your brain off entirely, you'll probably love it. Everyone else will feel the film is a little flabby at its two hour running time, but hopefully you'll engage enough with the story that it flies by.

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus had a troubled production, but the end result is something truly special. In my opinion, the credits' proclamation that it's "a film by Heath Ledger and friends" doesn't entirely do justice to everything that's on show here, but I realise that's something they felt necessary. What's important is that in time, the film will be reassessed on all of its merits and enjoyed as a thinking man's fantasy- it's almost certain to become a cult classic in the future.

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I'll be sure to visit the cinema again this week, most likely before my PC is repaired, but when I can access a PC I'll be bringing you reviews of Couples' Retreat, Triangle and Fantastic Mr. Fox. In the meantime, please comment below if you've seen either The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus or Zombieland and let me know what you thought of the film and of my review- I always like a bit of discussion and feedback.

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