To be honest we bipassed most of the hype surrounding Quentin Dupieux’s killer-tyre adventure on its release, partly because we’re lazy bastard and partly because… well, because it’s a film about a killer tyre.
Seriously, it’s the cinematic equivalent of hanging round Camden tube station in new rock boots. The premise screams “Look at me! Am i blowing your mainstream mind with my weirdness?! I bet I am yeah?!”
And that kind of thing can.. well, fuck off in general. No one cares.

So, seeing as the movie has now burst onto home screens as well (get it? Tyre.. burst… you see… sigh….) we thought it was well worth a revisit, judged entirely on it’s own charms rather than any surrounding hyperbole.
Surprisingly, there are a few Mitchelin stars to be had here…
Part of the fun comes from the meta-meta framing devices. From the off we have sheriff Stephen Spinella revealing that he knows it’s all just a movie, while we get lots of fourth wall bothering dialogue (The cops wondering what the audience is thinking work wonderfully), and the director isn’t averse to telling us about some of the challenges he faced making the film (Well – you try giving character to a Dunlop).

Surprisingly, it’s these challenges that are overcome most successfully. ‘Robert’ amazingly becomes a character to root for, and there’s tons of fun to be had watching the weirdest take on a superhero origin story you’re likely to see this decade.

There’s also some fun character elements as we see the titular tyre peeking in on girls and having some very black humoured fun with his powers -cue tons of exploding heads and mutilated cops. Luckily they know that “Hey, it’s not real life…”.

Overall there’s a lot of positive things to say for Rubber. it’s funny, and there’s actually some rather lovely landscape photography going on from time to time, the tyre rolling endlessly down deserted desert roads gives the whole thing a surreal ‘Mad Max by Wim Wenders’ aesthetic.

Unfortunately there’s only so long a nice sunset can sustain your attention. There’s clunky dialogue to deal with and things start to become repetitive halfway through (although maybe that’s the point in a film about a wheel). Released as a short, this would be a fantastic calling card, but it’s a little too trying even for hardened midnight movie-goers.

Worth catching on cable, but not shelling out for yet, it definitly points out Dupieux as one to watch.

The Fighter is one of those movies that’s production echoes it’s script, to the point where it’s less seconds and more months out for Marky Mark’s punishing and passionate pugilistic effort, but despite the nebulous involvement of a galaxy of stars (Matt Damon and Marty Scorcese can take a bow) it turns out to have been well worth the wait….

Many sporting flicks have an ‘underdog makes good’ tale at their core, but it’s rare that those dogs lie as low as Chrian Bale’s Dickie Eklund, a crack addicted mess, bragging about a comeback as he become’s ever more strung-out and desperate. As usual with sports films there is a glimmer of hope however -here found in the iron resolve of Dickie’s younger brother Micky Ward (The aforementioned former-Funky Buncher).

Downtrodden and exploited by the rest of his extended family and in particular a truly poisonous mother (played with true bile by Melissa Leo), Micky is a poor-to-middling middleweight, constantly taking some horrendous punishment in the ring in order to fund his awful relations.

So, terribly dysfunctional family with a former hero at their heart -sounds like it would make a great documentary doesn’t it? Enter HBO, following Bale’s creepy, crawly Dickie around as he comes apart at the seams (and neatly disposing of huge gobs of complex exposition in the process). As usual, Bale is deeply method, with skin stretched over hollow eye sockets, his now-familiar dedication to physical transformation used to startling effect.

So what? We’ve seen Bale get fat/skinny/batman before haven’t we? Is this just going to be a Rocky take-off?

*insert 'punch in balls' gag here*

Fortunately, not at all, even taking into account at least four training montages (Sadly, not one of them is set to ‘Eye of the Tiger).

Although the first act focuses heavily on Bale, there’s still time to weave in plenty of Wahlberg moments, a blossoming romance with a surprisingly rough n’ tough Amy Adams providing a soft-hearted counterpoint to some truly brutal action in the ring.

The sheer naturalism on display throughout is what makes The Fighter stand apart. The plot may be riddled with Hollywood clichés, but there’s some very genuine humanity struggling to stay on top of it, meaning this is less a ‘boy done good’ story and more ‘the boy triumphed over a really shitty upbringing.

Sure, some of the acting is overwrought. Bale becomes ever more twitchy-showy, but just (just) manages to get away with it, and frankly a few of the East Coast accents are fucking diabolical, but director David O’Russell keeps on top of things, adding enough grey realism to tamp down the majority of the ‘TV Movie of the Week’ moments and make things truly compelling.

The family may be a collection of nauseating assholes, but they’re exactly the kind of assholes you’re likely to see in any low-rent local bar, and there’s a working class humour (and a very non-working class overarching wryness) that consistently makes you warm to the sheer ridiculousness of some of the characters.

They may be shitheads, but they’d sure be fun to have a pint with.

It may be hackneyed and overly complicated, especially as we enter the final straights and there’s a multiple character pile-up, but Russell knows exactly what he’s doing, weaving in and out of the action with hand-held cameras, but never letting things get out of hand.

There’s a measured pace and a very effective refusal to revel in the more gratuitous side of the sport throughout -things get messy and painful, but never gory, something that’s partly a tribute to Wahlberg’s extreme likeability. He’s a regular, nice guy stuck in the middle of a shit storm, and you really do feel genuine sympathy for him.

Like it’s protagonist, The Fighter emerges as a champion against all odds, defying cliché to spar with the very best of them. Sure to be a heavy hitter come awards season, get yourself a front row seat early.

For all their many ecccentricities, no one could ever accuse the Coens of not being fine filmmakers. Indeed, it’s testament to their singular talents (and long-tail box office returns) thet True Grit was made at all.

Seriously, would any major studio really budget a western (let alone one so strongly tied with John Wayne’s 1969 version -very much a product of its time) if they weren’t betting on the jingle-jangle of Oscar gold in the future?

Luckily for the execs, the Coens pull off their first fully-fledged western in spectacular style, Charles Portis’ indulgently cinematic novel represented perfectly through Ethan and Joel’s penchant for subtle sepia hues and singular, often bizarre characterisation.

Jeff Bridges continues his long run of laid back, supremely naturalistic acting as drunken US Marshall Rooster Cogburn, and it’s truly astonishing that he takes a role previously indelibly stamped with The Duke’s mark and makes it wholly his own.

As the ‘One eyed fat man’, his irascible character slowly thaws, revealing a history of heartbreak and hard times through anecdotes and actions. Bridges is comical, wry and deeply, powerfully human, and will surely be heading towards more nods come awards season. It’s hard to imagine another actor managing to make kicking two small children off a balcony both funny and charming, but The Dude manages it with aplomb.

Backing him up, Matt Damon continues to provide value for money, alternating between amusing, annoying and honourable as vain Texas ranger LeBeouf, his poor shooting and hyperbole a perfect counter to Rooster’s solid, earthy charm.

Likewise, a special nod goes to newcomer Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross. Out to avenge her father’s death she is initially cold, practical and precocious, but brings a winning and natural charm to a wordy role that could easily be jarringly theatrical in the wrong hands. Her coldness finally breaking towards the end of the film when, despite aloofly witnessing terrible violence on the trail, she breaks down and cries at the death of her horse Little Blackie and reveals the vulnerable child beneath her businesslike exterior.

Here, Mattie still comes across as slightly rehearsed, but that’s entirely down to the Coens penchant for precise screwball wordplay, delivered in a wry and affected manner that brings an arch humour to proceedings without ever detaching you from the story or the people.

Likewise, the cinematography is superb. Oddly,at first glance many scenes appear as though they’ve been shot with the small screen in mind, coldly lit forest scenes recalling nothing so much as 90’s TV filmatography. At first it’s a little disturbing -this is supposed to be a western after all, a majestic retelling of the Birth Of America. As the film progresses however, you see this convention is being slyly mocked, the TV styling actually a return tto classic 1960’s Hollywood framing, the directors making a concientious effort to shrug off the shadow that ‘Unforgiven’ has cast over ’serious’ westerns for so long. True Grit may be built on a mythical framework, but it’s skin is resolutely small, detailed and human.

Effortlessly amusing, relentlessly engaging and intelligent and not afraid to show very adult themes while remaining a childlike sense of fun, True Grit is a deserving film that never feels try-hard or worthy. It’s fun, and it can be enjoyed as a Sunday afternoon tea-time TV flick or a massive, tense and moving Oscar contender -and just about everything inbetween.

A fantastic film that kicks off 2011 in real style.

Despite all the shouting about cheese, surrender and Freedom Fries over the past few years, there still seems to be a touch of inferiority lurking in the minds of the great American public when dealing with the French. Despite plentiful evidence to the contrary, they are still regarded as sensualists, romantics. Aloof, sophisticated figures capable of infusing even the most mundane of situations with an inherent sexual frisson.

Which is why a great, honking, shouting, uncoordinated, stinking Vincent Cassel (a man whose brother refers to himself as ‘Rockin’ Squat’, lest we forget) can continuously be cast as a leading man despite a predilection for making utter, utter shite.

And so to Black Swan….

First of all, the good bits:
1: Natalie Portman
2: erm….

Let’s move on shall we? To be fair Portman does her best with uneven material, and there are some arresting images on display here. Unfortunately the whole thing is mired in enough inky black to put the willies up Voldemort, and the plot is frankly laughable.

I understand that Aronofsky deals in dreamscapes and surreal imagery, but here the characters are just too cartoonish for you to engage emotionally with any of them.

Babara Hershey is particularly odious as Portman’s mother, living vicariously through her daughter’s success, while Mila Kunis is utterly ridiculous as ‘Bad Girl’ Lily, downing whisky and copping off with a bunch of complete morons at regular intervals. We’re supposed to believe that Nina is attracted to her as part of a dark awakening, but frankly, she’s a squashy-faced idiot, hard to like and certainly not the ball of burning charisma she’s portrayed as.

Finally there’s Cassel, providing a performance that can only be summed up as ‘French As Fuck’, all rolling R’s, turtle-neck sweaters and nihilistic pretence. He’s awful, bellowing lines without a trace of subtlety or restraint. He’s supposedly a sensualist, but again, appears as a chauvinistic screen-hog. He’s basically very easy to hate, even when he occasionally transforms into a Black Swan that resembles the bastard spawn of Howard the Duck and the Muppet’s American Bald Eagle.

Oh –and Winona Rider takes a break from her duties as Spock’s mum to play ‘aging’ dancer Beth, cast aside by the rotten Cassell in favour of Portman’s younger model and driven to mutilation and suicide attempts by the rejection. Unfortunately she gets about four minutes of screen time to portray all of this.

Final complaint: For a film about Ballet, there’s remarkably little dancing on screen. A bit of warming up, a few shots from the side of the stage, but nothing to help us understand the extreme, life-consuming importance of the role of Swan Queen, and unfortunately the whole plot pivots on this callously dismissed point.

Oh, and of course, young Nina does finally manage to dance the Black Swan convincingly. Then she dies. It was he ‘Swan Song’. DO YOU SEE??

A steaming, honking turd of a movie for idiots, its dirty protest plot vaguely iced over by some nice visual touches. Please don’t go and see this.

To be honest, Slashing The Seats gave up on computer games after a particularly tricky level on Sonic 2 saw us kicking a hole in our mum’s TV cabinet, so it was with some trepidation that we prepared to re-enter the digital space for Tron: Legacy.

It’s already obvious that this is a going to be visual feast, but even after the multitude of trailers and music videos, the immersive lengths Disney have gone to are impressively realized.

Even the company’s iconic fairytale castle logo get’s a pitch black Tron-style makeover during the opening credits, and then we’re straight into the action.

The story initially is a simple one: A digitally de-aged Jeff Bridges telling young son Sam all about ‘The Grid’ and his dream of a world where information is completely free, before promptly disappearing and leaving our hero with a convenient excuse to be mildly dysfunctional (remember, this is mouse house stuff, so dysfunctional means ‘a black jacket’ rather than ‘addiction to prescription medication’).

Sam spends his time taunting the newly corporate-ised Encom company with annual ‘pranks’ (such as putting their new OS live on the web before launch) that would get you a hefty spell in white collar prison in real life.

Yep, seems things aren’t so great at his old dad’s company these days, with a bunch of smarmy cookie-cutter suits eyeing the bottom line, and Bruce Boxleitner’s prick of a son as head designer…

Basically, they’re Microsoft, if it was run by profit-hungry corporate wolves and put out terrible products. Oh, wait….

Anyway, you don’t care about that and neither do I, we want to see glass motorbikes exploding, so it’s a handy bit of exposition when the former Babylon 5 commander visits young Sam in his designer low-rent home with a message –he’s been paged (remember when US kids thought pagers were cool because gangstas used them?) from Kevin Flynn’s old office.

An office that’s been closed for 20 years…spooooky.

Yeah so anyway, Sam heads on down, finds a hidden door behind a Tron arcade machine – not to mention a jukebox that pumps out some truly bangin’ Journey tracks – and heads into his father’s secret office. And you guessed it; gets sucked into the world of Tron via his dad’s still functioning de-rezz laser.

Now, a fair few of you probably won’t really remember the original Tron, so it’s a shame this isn’t fleshed out a bit for n00bs (it also makes you wonder why, given the events of the first film, Flynn hadn’t pointed the loaded interdimensional transporter’s barrel somewhere a bit safer. Or at least, you know..put up a sign or something.)

So Sam’s on the Grid. Cue ladies in white plastic shoes, huge flying space invaders and programs wandering about rocking a suspiciously ‘Twilight’ aesthetic, before coming face to face with ‘Clu’, a digitized avatar of Jeff bridges whose gone rotten to the core processor, taking over the entire grid and reshaping it in his image, while desperately looking for a way to enter the real world and continue his nefarious business.

Exposition over, Sam is quickly plonked into ‘The Games’, a superbly realized and surprisingly exciting version of Aerobee (remember those kids? No? sigh…). If, of course, Aerobees were designed to chop your block off.

Of course, because he’s a lazy, feckless teenager, Sam is superbly equipped to deal in hand to hand gladiatorial combat with seasoned professionals, using unfamiliar weaponry in an anti-gravity arena.

I digress.

It’s flashy and exciting, the visuals again superb and immersive, although the sound design does occasionally suffer from a touch of the Phantom Menaces.

Facing off against a mysterious black-clad program armed with two disks, Sam is fortunately rescued by Quorra and whisked to a secret lair where Bridges senior spends his time contemplating the nature of the universe and ageing while all around him remain static.

And this is where things get interesting.

Bridges dream’s of free information and self-adaptive programs actually skim the surface of some extraordinarily deep thinking, particularly unusual in a big family film, and his temporally-displaced hippy talk provides some of the few light moments in what’s otherwise a rather ponderous script.

Sam and Quorra (Olivia Wilde reaching almost Deschanelian heights of kooky adorability) rush about the place, fighting in nightclubs (complete with digital versions of Daft Punk on the decks and blowing shit up, while Bridges remains a calm God/Buddha/Santa Claus figure, occasionally using unseen and unknown powers to reshape the grid.

As plots go, it’s not much to go on, and you definitely get the impression that there’s a lot of excised material waiting for the special edition.

The fate and redemption of Tron himself is surprisingly glossed over in a couple of lines, leaving you desperately wondering what went so wrong for the one-time great hope, while Bridges and Sam as Jesus and Jehovah analogues don’t ring as true as they might thanks to lack of exploration.

It’s moments like this that unfortunately transform gravitas into unconvincing bombast.

Otherwise, this is a triumph.

Fast-paced, deep, exciting and genuinely thrilling. Particularly during the climactic air battle, which never quite crosses the line between ‘Awesome!’ and ‘What the fuck is going on?’ which is tribute to the steady hand newcomer Joseph Kosinski keeps on the digital tiller.

It would be ridiculously easy for this to fall into Batman & Robin territory, so it’s a relief that camp is kept to an absolute minimum, only Michael Sheen’s ‘Castor’ flirting saucily with the edges of annoying.

And then there’s the look.

The entire thing is absolutely stunning. Kosinski has made comments about doubting the CGI used to de-age Bridges, and during the early ‘real-world’ sections it does come across as jarring, and is wisely kept to a minimum.

Once we’re plunged into the 3D Grid however, his slightly off-kilter ‘digital botox’ look works a treat, making CLU just real enough to emphasise with as a character while never quite letting you forget he’s actually a creepy evil AI.

The effects are seamlessly blended with physical sets, and using practical costumes and weapons rather than CGI proves a great move, meaning you really feel every bump as characters fly from Lightcycles, fall towards fans and leap from ledges dressed as digital Dragonflies.

When programs die, smashing into a million glass fragments, it somehow remains poignant –look out for the grieving widow sifting through the sand that’s all that’s left of her lover.

Overall this isn’t without its flaws –something that fits well with the underlying philosophy incidentally.

As mentioned some events are glossed over, while there’s an unnecessarily talky mid-section that could have been trimmed, leaving the pace uneven, a flaw which robs CLU of much of his menace.

The film also suffers by association. There are a few too many nods to the (second) Star Wars trilogy and The Matrix here, meaning the religious undercurrent doesn’t carry the weight it should.

On the other hand, this is a grand spectacle that demands viewing on the big screen, pushing the boundaries of effects work while never allowing them to become unhinged from a linear narrative.

Fun for all the family, it’s thrilling without being scary, drips with eye-porn at every turn and certainly beats the crap out of most large franchises currently doing the rounds – here’s to version 3.0.

This time last year, Slashing The Seats was proud to unveil the very first Harrry potter review in the whole wide world.
Of course, we’ve long since been banned from hanging around Emma Watson (despite a sound defence argument resting on the key fact that none of us have identifiable genitals or human emotional drives) by the powers that be, so we didn’t get to go to the premiere. Instead, we had to rummage through the bins round the back of cineworld. We got there first though. This time round, well, we weren’t so lucky.

Actually, it’s fair to say we weren’t actually that bothered. we had a weekend filled with rum, rollerskates and questionable sexual encounters with troglodyte cannibals to plough through, so we didn’t have time to write about boy wizards. Frankly, unless it’s a miraculous hangover/rash cure magic can fuck right off.

Anyway – I suppose now we’re here you’ll be wanting a review of some sort won’t you? Very well, gather about me now, and I’ll begin….

The fun part about this is that I don’t have to go into the plot (which is good, because it’s all over the shop). If you’re reading this, you probably already know what happens, but that doesn’t make it any less boring. The decision by the money bags at Warner to split the film in two is understandable, but frankly the best thing here would have been to edit out Rowling’s interminable exposition and deliver a breezy magical chase movie. With judicious editing we could have been sitting down to Raiders of the Lost Ark with wands. Instead we get a gloomy, droopy and largely structureless mess that loses an awful lot of the good will built up by The Half Blood Prince.

The problem is, with our three heroes doing a bunk from Hogwarts to go galivanting about the Scotch countryside looking for McGuffins Horcruxes, there’s a distinct lack of form that thoroughly undermines the pace.

Alongside this, the admittedly lovely scenery isn’t the only thing that’s exposed. Reduced to a small group, the cracks in Watson, Grint and Radcliffe’s acting are writ large. That isn’t to say they aren’t game, but being surrounded by so many fine stage actors has obviously had an effect, leading to misplaced volume and stilted delivery that just isn’t suited to the small, intimate personal dialogues we’re meant to be involved in. The acting here isn’t bad per se, just slightly unsuitable.

On the upside, things aren’t quite so dark this time around. Sweeping away the dusty school halls has given returning director david Yates a chance to wash off the oily blacks that so dominated his last crack at Potter.

The only problem is he’s replaced them all with frosty blues.

Previously we were drawn in by the hissing, aquiline menace of Death Eaters swarming like smoke underwater, unseen terrors crowding the previously warm and welcome halls of Hogwarts. This time we’re left..well, a bit chilly.

That said there are some good things lurking (often quite literally) in the mix here. The occasional horror elements work well, jolting but well executed and not forced (there really is nothing more upsetting than a dead owl is there?), and the occasional moments of levity are welcome, warm and natural.

Finally, despite the occasional shortcomings of the leads, there’s are some splendid performances by the adults. Ralph Fiennes in particular is clearly enjoying his chance to finally hog the limelight, slitthering across the screen like a jellied ham, while Bonham-Carter reprises her superbly unhinged role, ethereal and bewitching in every sense of the word. Oh, and let’s not forget Alan Rickman. His duplicitous, calculating turn is short but pitch (black) perfect. Laying terrible plans with not a hint of maniacal pantomime evil or glee. Here, he’s simply rotten to the core, and his performance shines because of it.

Overall this is an overlong money-maker, rambling and too adherant to it’s source material. Full of meandering asides and false trails that lead around in circles while the real action gathers over the next hill. Taken on it’s own, it’s unsatisfying (yes yes, I know it’s ‘Part One’…) and muddled, but has flashes of a fantastic finale to come.

Not the best entry in the series by a long chalk, Deathly Hallows is unfortunately an overstretched if solid preamble.

Early reviews have seen young Mr.Pilgrim underperforming at the box office apprently, and while it’s no fault of the film, it’s unsurprising to see that this simply won’t wash with most casual viewers. Edgar Wright’s sticky fingers are all over this thing, and while it’s a genuine pleasure to see someone having so much fun with the medium, Scott Pilgrim is an experience that will resonate most closely with a very specific demographic -’Spaced’ viewers.

That’s not to say there isn’t something for everyone here mind you. Overall, Scott Pilgrim is a warm and consitantly amusing romantic adventure, but it wears it’s post modern sensibilities tighter than a Shoreditch pirate’s jeans, it’s early 30’s gamer crowd credentials hanging out for all the world to see.

Not that this is nescesarilly a bad thing of course.

If, like me, your teenage years mainly consisted of smoking and playing Streetfighter II in seafront arcades, then you’ll love this movie. Even if you’re a little younger..young enough say..to have watched Power Rangers in a non-ironic fashion, then this is for you as well. If you’re older however, you might struggle to understand why the sight of uberwimp Michael Cira punching Jason Schwartzman’s head off in a glitter explosion is so darn endearing.

As far as plot goes.. well, Scott fancies the (underdrawn, facile, and frankly slightly annoying) Ramona, and must attempt to defeat her seven evil ex’s to win her heart. Why she demands this is never really explored. Presumably it’s because she’s a shallow tit who ‘changes her hair colour weekly’. The fucking hipster twat. Ahem..

Anyway, cue endles kung-fu/8-Bit game inspired fight sequences that look great, there’s a genuine kineticism on display and it says wonders for Wright’s directing prowess that he manages to make such humdrum sequences (band practice in brown living room) become so gloriously cinematic.

The film comes bedecked in swirling graphics and Batman (the 60’s, camp Adam west one, not the Dark Knight) referencing fonts, while the announcements are gloriously bellowed in a Ridge Racer voice that brings back warm memories of the original Playstation.

If there is a problem, it’s one I’ve already mentioned. The whole thing is so ridiculously hipster geeky. The sonic talents of Beck and Metric battle it out, Vegans have psychic abilities (cue a very amusing Tom Jane cameo), and I’m left in no doubt that hundreds of 20-something girls are changing their Facebook profile picture to a headshot of Ramona. Basically, the whole thing looks as though it was vomited up in by Portland, Oregon’s collective hip gland. it’s a little too much at times.

otherwise, this is fast, funny and rather sweet in places, with amusing graphic devices showing character growth (Scott has gained the power of self respect!) and vocal asides (Cool -coins!)as well as managing to convey that difficult “transition between girlfriends” very well indeed.

Oh -and Nega-Scott is a neat trick.

Go see.

Going solely on the trailers, the latest effort from Will Ferrell looks like a return to form, a crazed mish-mash of Lethal Weapon action and Anchorman stupidity. And it is. But for some reason, it just doesn’t gel.

Things get off to a promising start, with New York super cops Danson & Highsmith (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson) blasting their way through criminals, driving a 1960’s muscle car through the side of a bus, blowing up buildings and firing off enough hot lead to drown a Terminator, and despite the reckless endangerment and massive property damage, they’re beloved by the population of New York and the worldwide media.

Of course, it isn’t all guns and glamour in the NYPD, which is where Ferrel, a safe, quiet and relentlessly stable Police accountant comes in. Teamed up with a bizzarrely hirsute Marky Mark when Danson & Highsmith jump to their death in a ridiculous display of bravado, it’s up to the worst cops in the precinct to take down Steve Coogan’s Bernard Madoff-like businessman and save the police pension fund.

All pretty formulaic no?

And that’s half the problem (we’ll get to the other half in a bit).

The Other Guys follows a very basic plotline that works out ok, and has some very funny lines. Ferrell’s background as a naive pimp named Gator is hilarious, and Wahlberg shows some likeable comic timing, coming off as likeable and genuine while directing traffic, lusting after Ferrell’s ‘plain wife’ (actually a smoking hot Eva Mendes). The whole thing is crammed to bursting with ridiculous one liners, idiotic situations (dirty Mike’s homeless orgies are a particular standout), and a relentless driving pace.

So what went wrong?

Ass is the norm for Ferrell’s movies, things don’t quite fit together properly. You get the feeling that someone had four or five unused scripts lying around and rammed them uncomfortably together. Of course, in a bit of nonsence like this, that’s not really a major problem. Instead, The Other Guy’s problems sit squarely in the lap of director Adam McKay.

The whole thing is poorly paced and badly shot, to the extent that any life and vibrancy is sucked right out of the thing, and it’s not just a question of scale. If this had been shot in an intimate TV show style it would be balls-out hilarious. Likewise, if they’d stuck McG at the helm and soaked it in slick then we’d be on to a winner (and I promise never to associate the name McG with the concept of win again). Instead, the movie hovers in a washed out, curiously 80’s middle ground, with action not as exciting as it should be, gjokes not as funny, and the whole thing…well, just underwhelming.

This has some of the best comedy lines and concepts of the year, but much like Ferrell’s wooden gun (a long story involving Michael Keaton and a poorly executed ‘desk-pop’…), it fails to leave a lasting impression.

Definitely worth waiting for the DVD, as a small screen would be infinitely more suitable.

(Note from the editor: I know I know, this came out like, aaaaages ago man. I expect the kidz have moved on to…well, let’s face it, they haven’t moved on at all have they? It’s been a perpetual round of Zombie/Vampire/Werewolf/Ninja interspersed with sporadic Chuck Norris sightings since 1996, which in my opinion proves that most people are a bunch of fucking dicktards who graze nonchalently on mass distributed culture without the wit or forethought to try discovering something new on their own. Fuck you. Ahem…anyway I wasn’t about to sit through a third helping of this toss, but luckily STS aren’t without resources, and have managed to recruit an actual real-live lady with hair and a nice voice and everything to go check this out – and apparently it was much better this time around! Huzzah! The excellent Jazz James investigates…)

Behold every neurotic 14 year-old girl’s dream: The latest installment of the Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Teenage angst is rife, Bella gets the horn and her battle between bestiality and necrophilia rages on. However, wishing to avenge her mate’s death, (proper) vampire Victoria begins to create an army of “newborn” vampires to challenge the Cullens and exterminate her.

I’m not going to lie; as a fully-certified member of the fairer sex, I may or may not have secretly enjoyed the – perhaps one-too-many – gratuitous shots of naked torsos that would flash on to the screen approximately every 1.54 seconds.

It’s enough to give any image-conscious man a bit of a complex.

Please don’t give up on this review already, I promise to keep shameless fangirling to a minimum and there will be no further sycophantic rambling about R-Patz’s sparkly body. Speaking of sparkles, it appeared that Slde had managed to restrain himself enough to keep them to a minimum There were times when Slade even allowed Eclipse to broach the dark horizons of traditional Gothic genre. Eclipse didn’t come without the odd toe-curlingly cringey scene, but thankfully avoids the melodramatic narrative of the first two installments and Slade attempts to branch out past its original fans to appeal to a wider audience.

Overall, Stewart, Pattinson and Launtner appear to have grown as actors and their roles seem much more established. Stewart manages to blink at the pace of a normal human being and Pattinson manages not to look in pain through the entirety of the film. Through the multi-species love triangle that dominates a large part of the film’s running time, Slade surprisingly manages to inject a lot of humour. I can’t help but think that this would have been a different story if it were Hardwicke.

My main criticism, would most definitely be of the portrayal of the newborn vampires. Although Samuel seems perfect for the role of vampire, with his chiseled features, the rest of the army is much less convincing. Instead of adopting the spectral-like movements of the Cullens, they were comparable to rabid tramps upon discovering a fresh McDonalds. They emanated no sense of real threat and it was glaringly obvious that Bella’s Eddy-Weddy and his coven would be there to save the day.

Eclipse will certainly keep manic fans squirming with pleasure; but fear not, husbands, boyfriends and potential boyfriends. There is lots more fast-paced action to keep you from falling asleep and the film even pokes fun at all of the semi-nakedness. However, I fear the Twilight franchise will never be dark or transgressive enough for vampire and Gothic purists.

If you’ve been paying attention since the start you’ll probably know that Chris Nolan has experienced a slight dip in quality over his career.

“WHAAAAA????” I hear you cry.

“But he done The Dark Knight and that’s my bestest film evar evar!”.

Yeah it might well be mate, but let’s face it, it was a bit clunky, overlong and had oblique and unsatisfying sub-plots aplenty.

Before that we had The Prestige (Good because David Bowie’s in it), Insomnia (Good because Al Pacino shouts ever so slightly less than usual) and Memento (one trick pony that still manages to end with someone from ‘Neighbours’ looking good). In my opinion (and it’s the only one that counts round these parts), he’s a trifle overrated. Not saying he’s bad by any means, just not quite the genius he’s made out to be all the time.

So – does Inception justify the hype? Can half-man/half-Brussels sprout DiCaprio ever convince as a leading man?

Yeah…kinda.

Revisiting Memento’s major theme – the unreliability of our own internal world – Inception is massively ambitious, thrusting complex philosophical and neurological ideas at the screen and constantly surprising you with how many stick.

In terms of plot, this is year-one Grinder stuff, with corporations and governments using technology to infiltrate the sleeping minds of various important people, and using this access to uncover everything from military secrets to the KFC secret recipe.

Naturally they need a post-cyberpunk team of ‘Extractors’ to do this – enter Leo and Joseph Gordon-Lovett. They’re the sneaky super-spies (I know, Dicaprio and that kid from ‘3rd Rock From The Sun’…) who squeeze people’s noggins for info, and until now they’ve only been nicking choice titbits. I mean, you can’t plant a new idea in someone’s frontal cortex without them realising it…CAN YOU???

So, this is The Matrix by way of Eternal Sunshine, and, just as only one of those movies is any good (those of you who disagree -fuck you, she’s a complete bitch through the whole fucking movie), this is often only half successful. Fortunately Nolan has anther reference up his sleeve to raise the game a little here – Ocean’s 11.

Yep, despite all the wannabe highbrow intrigue, at it’s core Inception is a heist movie, and a damn good one at that. Much of the viewing pleasure comes from seeing how the pieces fit together, watching the con seamlessly play out as Leo and friends attempt to crack into Cillian Murphy’s brain and make off with the imaginary goods.

Leo quickly began to wish he'd sprung for a Travellodge instead

One of the neat things here is that despite the need for a metric ton of dreamy exposition, it all plays out naturally. Weird shit occurs via some truly stunning special effects, but hey, this is a dream, so weird shit is par for the course, and the fact that things aren’t entirely attached to physics -although there are rules here – makes for some inventive and genuinely thrilling action sequences.

While we’re mentioning those effects, it’s also worth pointing out that although this is a ridiculously over-fx-ed affair, each and every last CGI pixel has a perfect place in the story, and while there’s ‘whoah’ moments aplenty, they never distract from the narrative.

If there’s a criticism here, it’s that some of the philosophical points are a tad too laboured, putting you in mind of a bunch of annoying students on the tube, mouthing off laboriously about Nietzsche without any actual depth, while the character’s lack emotional depth – surely something invaluable when dealing with dreams?

There’s a tacked on grief issues for DiCaprio that fail to resonate. Much like The Dark Knight’s take on Harvey Dent, here the emotions are rushed and just don’t seem entirely plausible.

Other than that however, this is a vaultingly ambitious and visually stunning poke around inside that huge melon you keep perched on your shoulders, full of kick ass action and fun twists that will keep you thoroughly entertained.

One of the best action movies of recent times and one that will certainly warrant repeat watches and blow the developing bonces of more than a few, if not quite attaining classic status.

Fuck Yeah!!

That’s really all you need to know, but feel free to hit the jump if you want an explanation…

Yo motherfuckas, I’m Adrian ‘Death Machine’ Goddamn Brody, and I sure as hell lured you into a false sense of muttafrikkin’ securitah didn’t I?
You all was thinking that I was some kinda goddamn commie piano playin’ scaredy cat pussy. Yeah? Well fuck you, I’m a goddamn hero baby, and I can prove it!

See, I’m only starrin in the greatest goddamn war movie this side a’ the battle of Kuursk, except I don’t take no 80% losses. No siree, what I do is serve up a big nosed, full force action movie thats straight outta 1986 and don’t give two shits about it.

Fuck yeah!!

Remember old school? I mean, do you really remember it? When Hollywood made movies for adults that were rated 18 and didn’t come with a spin off action figure? Well thank god those times are back.

Lets deal with the plot quickly. After all, this is a proper movie, made by men, for men.
Point one: The Pianist wakes up in freefall, strapped to a parachute, having gained about 200 pounds of solid muscle and some guns. Lots of guns.

you bloody kids!get off my lawn!

So, being hard as motherfuckin nails baby, he survives his three mile freefall, and hooks up with some other double hard bastards including Machete and ..erm..that dude who was Venom down below
.
They’re in the jungle baby, and they gonna die!

At least they think they’re in the jungle, and they are -except this isn’t any kid of piss-weak normal jungle bitch! Nope, this is one of those crazy alien jungles. “Oooh -the kind with magic glowing butterflies?” Nope. The kind with multi-mandibled killer giant cougars!

After some staggering about they get shot at a bit, then do some shooting back, then realise it’s Laurence Fishburne they’re fighting -time for a team up.

You see, as is the way, Brody and the other elite mercenaries seem to have been transported to a hostile alien game reserve -hey, it happened to me twice last month – and seeing as this is a Predator movie, they’re being hunted down by the eponymous beasties. Fortunately they’re rock see? And they’ve got Morpheus backing them up.

You can guess the rest.

Thanks to Rodriguez, this is a glorious, gorey, ridiculous return to the best excesses of 80s action flicks. There’s screaming, there’s handheld chain guns, hell, there’s even a few shot-for-shot retakes on the Arnie original.

Spines get ripped out, people get exploded. And in the best tradition, there’s even time to give everyone a distinct, individual character. Yep, even though these are cannon fodder characters, they all have different things to say and different mindsets. Remember big ol’ native american Billy in the original? ‘Course you do, because he was a well drawn character with hints of an interesting past and enough ticks to seperate him from the pack, and so is everyone here.

Even the Predators.

Unlike the increasingly juvenile Aliens Vs Predators sub-franchise, Rodriguez isn’t afraid to hold off on showing the monster(s). Sure we know what they look like, but one of the real aces here is the return of a sense of mystery. We see heat vision, we see distortions in the trees, but we don’t see any Predators until well into the second act -and when we do it’s well worth the wait.

Clearly, the creature effects department have been given full reign here, and we get a variety of very cool, and more importantly very individual Predators. There’s an elder Predator, there’s a young, impulsive Predator. There’s even a Predator who might just be the original one – we don’t know exactly when this is set after all – and then there’s Mr.Black

He’s the bad guy. The Biff Tannen of Predators, a great, hulking, violent bastard of an alien who doesn’t just treat this as sport – you can tell he really, really hates humans.

Throughout, the effects are largely physical, and it adds a curiously old-school feel to proceedings that’s entirely appropriate. If something explodes here, it really explodes, and it isn’t likely to be a 14 storey Antartic pyramid – it’s usually somebody’s head.

The story itself -hunted become hunters – is thin, the acting ever-so-slightly overblown, but it fits perfectly.

I could spoil it all and go into intricate detail but Instead I’m going to remember my childhood, when an eight year old version of me first heard about this movie from a friend at school – man, it’s awesome!.

Welcome back, you ugly motherfucker.

To be honest, I didn’t have high hopes for The Collector. Speaking as a man who gave up on the Saw franchise after number two (in name and nature), I don’t have a lot of time for torture-pon grot. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve still got an old vhs of The Beyond I dig out once in a while, so I’ve nothing against ridiculously gratuitous splattering. I just prefer it when it serves the plot, rather than being the plot.Still, it was a quiet Friday and I’d managed to blag free tickets, so I figured I’d check it out – and I’m actually glad I did.

Director Dunstan worked alongside writer Patrick Melton on the aforementioned Saw franchise, as well as the ludicrous/idiotic Feast films, but here they manage to break away from by-the-numbers splatter and actually tie-in some serious questions aboout the nature of evil.

Josh Stewart is Arkin, a debt-ridden cat burglar breaking into an isolated and seemingly deserted house. But what’s this? That’s right readers! It isn’t deserted at all. The family who live there have been tied up about the place, and the perpetrator (Juan Fernández in full Leatherface mode) has set a series of bizarre, jigsaw-esque traps about the place. Hey -it could happen to anyone.
Credulity aside, it does open up a barrel of interesting moral worms, Arkin torn between the needs to rob, run or help the victims, and his internal conflict does wonders to spice up the otherwise overused home-invasion macguffin. And while the ‘torturous traps bit has been similarly overdone, there’s still enough invention on show here to provide some decent seat-jump moments (watch out for those bear-traps!).

...he knows when you've been sleeping..he knows when you're awake...

Combining two highly overused horror tropes and chucking in a stock loony in a bad mask shouldn’t work at all, but by cutting out any flab from the script and choosing to focus on the emotional dilemma as much as the flesh-ripping, the Collector drags itself out of the hostel for used gorno to take it’s rightful place as a lean and very mean chop-job.

Toy Story 3

It’s actually tempting to open this review by berating modern Hollywood for their lack of creative nous. While other studios turn out teeth-grindingly inept explosofests like Transformers, Pixar quietly carry out superlative work on films like Toy Story 3, probably the most effective and genuinely touching meditation on the nature of relationships and yep -even that old chestnut mortality – than we’ve seen in many a year, throwing a pretty harsh light on any number of ‘grown-up’ movies out there for their continued lack in both the emotional heft and storytelling departments.

Oh -and it’s sweet and funny too…

Disney have been pulling out the marketing big-guns on this one, from kitschy retro-ads to promoted tweets, they’re determined that this will be a success. The guys in pinstripes upstairs needen’t worry though. Toy Story 3 may complete a trilogy that began an astonishing 15 years ago, but there’s certainly no let-up in the all out creativity and extraordinary technical prowess on show here. There’s also definitely a strange but entirely fitting seam of melancholy that runs through the whole thing, but don’t get your knickers in a twist just yet -this is still funny, genuinely entertaining movie for all the family, the gags come thick and fast -Buzz’s ‘Spanish’ factory setting a particular highlight – but what really makes them work is that we actually care for these ridiculous chunks of plastic. Disney and Pixar pulling off the near-impossible, and making us all remember our favourite toys from childhood, and just how much they meant to us.

This stunning characterisation isn’t limited to the main cast either, sure Buzz and Woody get the lion’s share of the action as usual, but there are fun backstories and one-liners for everyone, including a host of new toys belonging to cute-as-a-button neighbour Molly (With the classically trained, Timothy Dalton-voiced ‘Mr.Pricklepants winning the cute awards hands down)and rotten at the core day-centre Sunnyside.

Speaking of Sunnyside -on to the plot. Andy’s off to college, and while a last minute choice sees him decide to pack Woody for the trip, the other regular cast are accidentally put out with the trash, leading to the first of the film’s many split-second rescue attempts by Woody. Next up and everyone’s packed up and donated to the day-care centre by mom, and while things initially seem fantastic, the toy’s quickly realise that seemingly-lovable (and huggable) Lots o’ Huggin’ Bear has dumped them in with the tiny tots, where they spend their time being filled with plasticine, rammed up nostrils and smashed against anything and everything -needless to say, they need to escape. It’s at this point the film shows its true colours -and they’re grey and white stripes. Toy Story 3 is a fantastic, fun and action packed Prison Movie, with nods to just about any member of the genre you can think of. Great escape-style hang-glider capers and tunnelling rub shoulders with Alcatraz-esque vents, sirens and sweeping lights, setting up a series of ever-escalating and complex escape manoeuvres that thrill and amuse in equal measure.

That’s not to say the film is entirely old fashioned however, with Buzz being reprogrammed, an incredibly tense trash-dump escapade (more on which later) and even Mrs Potato Head’s bizarre remote-eye viewing of Andy’s house, there’s also a thread of Matrix-like metaphysics at work, none more so at the aforementioned landfill. Trapped on a crushing conveyor belt and fast heading towards a furnace, the Toys realise there’s no escape. Instead they bottle it up and hold hands, resolute about going out together. It’s one of the scariest, and most touching moments in the film, and it’s a real tribute to the animators that they manage to cram so much emotion into those moulded plastic faces. At this point, I genuinely thought the cast were going to perish – could it be that Pixar were about to dish out a lesson in mortality to the tiny tots viewing?

Of course not – don’t be stupid.

But their escape, when it comes does cast a striking light onto the importance of faith as well (If you want to read it that way that is. It could just be a very silly joke).

Ultimately, this is a fast and very fun kid’s film with enough of Pixar’s usual adult-pleasing asides, and it works perfectly well if taken at face value. Ken and his dream house are hilarious, Buzz’s aerial acrobatics are thrilling, and Lots O’ Huggin Bear’s villainry is…well, actually it’s genuinely affecting and shows the way that heartbreak and rejection can permanently affect a person (or toy)’s entire outlook on life. Sorry, but this is just too damn good a film to be relageted to Saturday mrning DVD to entertain the kids while you do the housework. Watch it carefully, think about it – don’t worry, you’ll enjoy yourself – and you’ll be faced with one of the best films of the year – a fantastic film however you look at it.

Back when I was 9 years old, the A-Team was awesome man, representing a fantastic Saturday afternoon escape from the clutches of a mother hell-bent on dragging me around the town centre to purchase ill-fitting school shoes, the adventures of Hannibal, Face, Murdoch and B.A happily helped form my entire view of the Midwest, a mythical land full of villainous landowners, oppressed townsfolk, and non-murderous mercenaries who would happily defend your property and your honour –even if doing so involved building a tank that launched cabbages at heavily armed brigands. Over the years, I’ve caught a few reruns and realised that like its contemporaries, it’s actually slow, disastrously plotted mix of improbable scenarios, comedy villains and cigar-chomping, milk-drinking catchphrases. Luckily, the movie is exactly the same.

When 80’s properties get Hollywoodized, they usually fall foul of the urge to make them more adult, more gritty, more ‘real’. Luckily the team behind the team has realised that this is absolutely ridiculous to begin with, and have decided instead to concentrate on cramming in explosions, machine-guns, and of course, jeeps which crash and explode, only to have their occupants step clear of the wreckage rubbing their heads in time to be tied up. Of course, this could be a problem –on TV, this kind of crap is beamed into your brain for free, it’s a guilty pleasure, but hey, it’s free man –but is it really worth paying £6 to watch Liam Neeson say ‘I love it when a plan comes together’?

Well…probably. Just like the show, the plot is all over the place, and it relies heavily on all that pent-up childhood goodwill, but its entertaining enough guff, with a fairly successful update –the team making the change from Vietnam SF to Gulf War army rangers for example –and some explosive action scenes. On the down side, there’s a hundred fairly good action flicks doing the rounds this summer, so it’s a shame that the A-Team struggle to rise above the C-List.

OK, so – the aforementioned wobbly plotting. Basically we get the usual origin story, expanding back beyond the ‘crime they didn’t commit’ to the team’s first get together down Mexico way, and it’s business as usual from the off. Hannibal chews cigars and has a penchant for dressing up, Face seems to have taken a Navy SEAL training course in banging anything with a pulse, B.A is a fan of his van and will happily eat any cheeseburger you put in front of him, and Murdoch is certifiably howlin’ mad. After bustin’ out of prison, the boys try to clear their name while being ruthlessly pursued by Patrick Wilson’s slimy CIA agent, and bump head s with their former commander General Morrison, bump uglies with unlikely officer Jessica Biel –and of course, meddle in the dastardly doings of a corrupt businessman, in this case, the head of a very Blackwater-esque security firm.

Erm..and that’s about it. On the plus side, the budget is clearly immense, meaning a parachuting tank can blow planes out of the air, Lamborghinis can explode, millions of rounds can be expended, and Hannibal can buy terrible disguises and tranquilisers to put in B.A’s milk. The downers? Well, if anything, it’s not stoopid enough. If the producers had gone for ultra-stylised cartoon fun then it would be –as Face so frequently states – ‘Awesome!’. As it is, it’s a bit mid-range, which after so much hype, development and years of manly expectation it’s just a little too serious. Frankly, it’s just difficult to become emotionally invested in a certifiable airline pilot and a man called ‘Rampage’ Jackson.

While it does rely a bit too much on your pre-teen goodwill, the A-Team is a big barrel of explodey-fun, most action movies have one villain, and a team on one adventure, here there’s a seemingly endless stream of reasons for things to blow up, dastardly property developers to cackle and Ms.Biel’s clothes to vamoose, and of course there’s that theme-tune. Really, what more do you want from a summer actionfest?

The A-Team isn’t quite A-Grade, but it’s a solid start to what’s obviously being touted as a franchise, and has the potential to mature into a bloody ridiculous series.

Even though we kindly offered you ungrateful swine free tickets to see this, we thought we should review the bugger anyway, even though it’s another one that’s been doing the rounds for the best part of a year –but hey, it’s quite good…if you like films that replace the cameraman with a lizard and most of the script with acid flashbacks….

First of all, we all know that Werner “I got shot but I’m pretty sure they were aiming for Mark Kermode’ Herzog is certifiably bat-shit. Always has been, always will be –and quite right too. Where would the cinema industry be without a bunch of fruitcakes demanding the insertion of giant robot spiders/Klaus Kinski dragging a boat over a mountain into everything? Well, not in Herzog’s nightmarish New Orleans, that’s for sure.

This is mental, but it’s also bloody great. The audience may be a little nervous at the start, wary of Abel Ferrara’s soul searching (and soul destroying) original filtered through the mind of an unstable, gun-wielding German and an actor who’s talent seems to decrease in direct proportion to the size of his hairpiece. After a frenetic, start involving a gibbering loved-up Cage we’re off into the mental hinterlands of dead alligators, gang killings and granny-bothering –and oddly enough, it’s hilarious.

His hair just seemed to lack volume these days...

After his increasingly unhinged performances in the likes of Ghost Rider and Knowing, Cage’s unique shouty, boggle-eyed thing comes well and truly into its own here. His Terence McDonagh is a whirling, deluded force of nature, intense and brooding one moment, unhinged and incredibly violent the next. In short, it’s one of the most extraordinary performances of recent years, and a staggering return to form for Cage –top marks Nick, you’re an Actor again!

There’s also a rambling, addled plot involving Cage’s fall from favour with his bookie as he becomes increasingly involved in his hooker girlfriend’s (an improbably hot Eva Mendes) nefarious comings and goings, he quickly becomes further removed from reality, with some sly and very entertaining results.

Cage is realistic and completely fearless throughout, searing his performance into the celluloid as though his career depends on it –and there’s a school of thought that says it does. But where Cage is intense, Herzog is clearly having a ball.

While not afraid to stuff in a fair few of his trademark surrealist touches (the aforementioned ‘Iguanacam’ a case in point), he’s also clearly enjoying the pulp novel atmosphere, distancing this purposefully from the original as he busies himself exploring the ascendance of McDonagh’s ego and the destruction of his id, ignoring the down-home spirituality of the original in favour of purely animalistic expression.

If we must search for parallels, it’s possibly to be found in the continued theme of heroism –its forms and corruption – but there’s little if anything to go on, this is purely Herzog’s creative enterprise and is all the better for it.

In short, this is a whacked-out dope-fiend take on buddy cop movies that doesn’t let up for the entire running time. It’s surreal and brutally realistic in equal measure, with some incendiary performances and some brilliant, pointed direction. It’s also very, very funny and one of the best dramas you’ll see all year.

OK, so let’s start with that title shall we? It’s awesome isn’t it? And I mean that in the untrue, full-on, bodacious 1980’s meaning of the word. It’s bloody ridiculous and very cool, but can the filler live up to the label?

…well…sort of…

HTTM was put together by three guys ( and a fourth if you count director Steve Pink) and follows the misadventures of three guys ( a fourth if you count John Cusack’s nephew Jacob –played by an ‘exactly the same as in Sex Drive’ Clark Duke) who head off in search of simpler, happier times and wind up back in the 80’s-where they’re thoroughly confused. Exactly like the script.

Basically, HTTM channels 80’s comedies like Police Academy through the childish lens of 90’s gross out flicks and winds up being occasionally brilliant, but –like its protagonists –rather stupid. It’s the cinematic equivalent of people who think Right Said Fred were an 80’s band.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s some very funny moments here, and the gross out works well (failed musician Nick working in a dog grooming shop where he spends his days removing shit from pampered pet’s arses is a particular high point on the upchuckometer) and the whispered catchphrases (“great white buffalo…”) have more staying power –and truth to them – than the rest of the film put together. The only real problem is that the movie doesn’t know what kind of comedy it wants to be. Firstly, there’s a mountain of jokes about 80’s clothes, technology, music and even cold war politics, but with each character following their own dreams, there’s also a weird heart running through it, as Revenge of the Nerds cross-pollinates with The Sure Thing.

It’s odd, but Cusack seems to be off in his own little romantic comedy, a much darker and more serious movie with Zooey Deschanel that doesn’t quite belong. Likewise Craig Robinson (best known as The Office’s Darryl Philbin) is taking part in a weird underdog makes good film with oddly inserted tits out moments.

It’s all a bit of a muddle.

That said, the leads are never less than likeable, the time travel isn’t dwelt on and shouldn’t be, referenced only by Jacob -”Do I have to be the asshole who says -’hey we drank too much and travelled back in time to the 80s?” and it’s nice to see Chevy Chase pop up as a Fletch-esque hot tub engineer. The back-to-2010 coda doesn’t make a lick of sense but then, neither does the end of Weekend at Bernie’s –another strong influence.

Like the decade itself, it’s probably better off being forgotten, it’s no classic but it has its moments –get a pizza in and enjoy. Just don’t drink any Russian energy drinks while you’re at it. A big, stupid, whirlpool of fun.

While most movie sites were reclining in luxurious comfort at Robin Hood’s glitzy premiere, STS decided to test our outlaw skillz to the max – we nicked it off the internet.
All well and good, but you might want to remember that we watched this via glorious head-in-way blur-o-vision, rather than the way Ridley probably intended, but hey, fuck him yeah, with his Hovis advert aliens and his…erm…beard…

Anyway, will Sherwood’s most famous son leave you all a-quiver (see what we did there? Eh? Eh? Quiver…eh?…sigh….)? Well, possibly, but there are a couple of major factors that will influence your opinion.

Firstly, exactly how long is your attention span? If you struggle to get through an episode of Hollyoaks then this might not be for you. Similarly, if you have trouble with the idea of a Will Scarlett that appears to be doing a sort of Chinese Robert Dinero impression for much of the running time, then walk away now….

Otherwise –this is pretty good. Yes, yes, it’s burdened with the hideous ‘reimagining’ label, and all the pre-release talk focussed on Sir Rid and 30-foot-of-grunt frontman and occasional poet Crowe’s previous partnership, but this isn’t Gladiator 2.

There are no tigers in it for starters.

It’s also far less grim. True, Crowe does step into Maximus territory at times, especially when doing the traditional shouty speeches, but it’s tempered by some witty support and he brings a genuine dignity to the role at times, coming across as straightforward but never foolish, and – unlike many previous screen Hoods – he isn’t driven by revenge.

criticise my bloody poetry will you...?

Indeed, here the reimagining steers well clear of the usual darker, grimmer design elements and finds its focus in the story, with precious few mentions of many of the tale’s traditional tropes.
Matthew Macfayden provides a deliciously serpentine turn as a shabby Sheriff of Nottingham, but he appears for perhaps ten minutes at most, with chief villain duties being passed to Mark Strong’s Sir Godfrey, a naughty knight who’s decided to throw in his lot with the French king. Strong is able enough, but his character isn’t given much time to develop, and why he’s so vehemently supporting those dastardly Frenchies is never really explored. Luckily Robin and his three merry mates see him –and about half of the French army –off quick sharpish in some bloody and excellently choreographed battle scenes. While Strong manages well in the opening act, it’s basically a repeat of his appearance in Sherlock Holmes last year.

Yes there are echoes of Gladiator here too, but that’s no bad thing, with soldiers leaping from horses, sticking bloody great swords through each other and even the odd nod to history buffs as we see exactly why the English Longbow was such a game-changing weapon in its day.

Anyway, next stop merrie olde England, which despite being curiously short on English actors (take a bow, Max Von Sydow…), and consisting entirely of part of Kent, is under the odious caprice of King John – the film’s stand-out performance from Jeremy Isaacs.

As the king, Isaacs is on another level –and quite possibly on another planet. He practically leaves a snail-trail as he oozes across the screen, all pale flesh and odious, slithering movements. Again, he lacks time, but he more than makes up for it in impression, staying the right side of pantomime and coming off as a truly rotten bastard. He’s absolutely great and completely steals every scant scene he appears in, while his residual menace imbues later scenes with a real impetus as you genuinely root for Hood to see off the French and overthrow the rat bastard.

This is by no means a great movie, it suffers from convoluted multi-stranded stories that stretch out the second act into an interminable talk fest, while much of Maid Marion’s (A ballsy but somewhat cut n’ paste Cate Blanchet) are simply a macguffin and would benefit from some judicious trimming or even complete exorcism (but what sort of Robin Hood movie would it be without Marion?). It’s these attempts to cram so much in that leave the movie lurching from time to time, but luckily the final battle arrives in time to save us all from boredom – there’s nothing like seeing someone put a steel bolt through a man’s head from 500 paces to make things entertaining is there?

Overall it’s not quite as good as Gladiator, but to compare the two is perhaps unfair. Though uneven, Robin Hood is a strong, well-executed movie that may spend too much time setting up a probable sequel but does it with class and wit, and it’s genuinely refreshing to sit through a real blockbuster that requires you to shut up, watch and concentrate, the director never treating his audience as anything but adults.

Good, solid, villain-killing fun, some performances are excellent, some – Crowe’s in particular –merely adequate by comparison, but all naturalistic and believable, and while it occasionally drags, its money shots more than make up for it –all that and not a Lincoln green feathered cap in site…

STS watches a lot of movies. Seriously, an unhealthy amount. You probably think we do this because we love film and love talking about it right? Well..yeah..I mean cool old films like Ghosbusters sure..but new movies?

Well since there’s no way of telling in advance if it’s any good or not, we tend to go on early buzz and how much free shit the studio will throw at us. Generally speaking, the higher the number of Jonny Depp bobble heads arriving on your doorstep, the worse the film. So based on these exacting criteria-how does Prince of Persia stack up?

Well, originally Disney invited us to the Soho screening rooms, so we rocked up early, keen to guzzle their free booze and eat 15 corner-cut sandwiches. Unfortunately someone at the mousehouse made a booboo, and there’s no room at this subterranean movie inn for bloggers. We are deposited on the mean streets of London after having or place in the food chain confirmed –the critic from The Times is allowed to take his bike in with him – so we wait a couple of days and then head to Disney’s glamorous Hammersmith offices for a private screening. There’s no beer. There are four or five other bloggers admiring the Iron Man suit ion the lobby, and a couple of vaguely confused Germans groaning about the 116 minute running time. All things considered, this should be a pretty good movie!

After a dodgy intro explaining how grubby oik Jake finds his way into King Sharaman’s palace in the first place. He’s brave you see. That’s it. Remind me to hang around outside Buckingham Palace saving cats from trees. Anyway, soft-dissolve, and it’s years later. Jake and his two poorly drawn brothers – a grumpy one and a ‘used to be in shit sitcom ‘Coupling’ one –are invading a holy city against the direct orders of their dad. Why would they do such a thing?! Well, possibly because they’re acting on the advice of Ben Kingsly.

There’s something about Sir Ben isn’t there? It’s as if he used up all his ability to play good people and act while he was channelling Ghandi, leaving him a dried-up husk only capable of playing villainous, chin-stroking British villains in sub-Dungeons & Dragons rubbish. Here, he’s playing the king’s brother and Chief Vizier –meaning ‘must be a back-stabbing bastard’ is part of the job description, and you guessed it –he’s up to summink, the sly git.

That something involves a magic dagger hidden in said city, so he’s keen to nick it. And the battle gives the wetagnomes some great chances to include nods to the PoP games –swinging on poles, riding on Ostriches – that continue through the movie. Once inside, our hero and his pals encounter the lovely Gemma Arterton, and out of respect for her cut glass tones, the entire cast adopt upper crust English accents throughout which actually works out quite well. The whole thing looks like The Mummy, but plays like a much older adventure movie. There’s derring-do aplenty, evil assasins, oddball guards, a surprising amount of death-by-spike for a family movie and of course, lovely Miss Arterton’s heaving, linen-clad bosom for the dads in the audience. Basically, it’s lots of fun.

Of course, it’s not all good news. First of all the characters are too stagey. Frankly, I couldn’t decide if it was uniformly bad acting or wonderfully mannered throughout, but it means the whole thing comes across as a touch too panto at times, the laughs a little too forced, Alfred Molina’s ‘cockney’ geezer a bit too larger than life. It’s…well it’s a bit weird to be honest, Jake’s accent is spot-on. But it just seems wrong hearing it come out of his mouth you know?

Underneath this there’s a ridiculously convoluted plot, Sir Ben is jealous of his brother (the King, remember) and wants the magic dagger. It can turn back time see? Sir Ben wants to travel back in time and off his bro when they were kids, meaning he gets to be king. Unfortunately to do so will bring about –naturally –the END OF THE WORLD!!!!

It’s absolute claptrap with plotholes you could drive a herd of camels through. But hey –it’s for kids right? Well, kinda. First of all there’s the aforementioned extreme violence. Then there’s that running time –if your kids suffer from ADHD** then this won’t be for them. In fact it’s hard to know who this is for exactly-it’s a weird mix of family film, stage drama and tiny tots fare, and it’s budget is way too huge for the studio to be relying entirely on the videogame crowd. Speaking of which, there’s a problem with the CGI too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovingly rendered and the ancient cities look great, but it’s a question of scale. Once in the city the scale is stripped away, and we’re left with that feeling that this is a low budget production. The exterior shots however, are an entirely different matter. Compared to the absolutely stunning natural scenery, the imagineers attempts just don’t hold up. Persia itself is the star of the show here –awe-inspiring, timeless and beautiful – it’s possibly too much to hope that this will turn people off the idea of ripping the region apart in search of oil in the near future, but it instantly stirred up the urge to get on lastminute.

Overall it’s a confused but good looking romp, Jake is suitably buff and happy to show it, the fights and stunts are exciting, and Arterton is lovely –a perfect, if overlong, family film, that suffers because of it’s confused demographic. It’s no classic, but it’s a fun romp with its heart in the right place.

Politics, elections, proportional representation, yadda yadda yadda…

Let’s lighten things up shall we? Let’s talk about a child sex killer who gets burnt to death, and then haunts his former prey, slashing them to bits in their dreams, shall we?

That’s right, Freddy Kruger’s back. Again. The remake/re-boot/’re-imagining’ of A Nightmare On Elm Street is here and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it. Apart from watch it (or ignore it).

Before we start, let’s just imagine that Frederick Krudger were real. Wouldn’t he just be the Daily Mail’s ultimate wet dream? Not only is our man a paedophile, he is also quite possiblly an immigrant paedophile (check out his surname…). The worst kind, eh Daily Mail?!

Slashing The Seats was granted access to the exclusive premiere of the film last night in London’s glitzy West End, walking down the red carpet and mixing with such stars and luminaries as Sir Anthony Hopkins, George Clooney and Dame Helen Mirren.

Well, that isn’t strictly true. It was an advance screening that we couldn’t really be arsed to go to and had to pay £4.75 for a bag of Munchies. We were graced by the presence of ‘That Bloke Over There’, ‘The Man Who Came By Himself And Is Rocking Worringly In His Seat’ and ‘That Girl Over There With The Big Rack’. But don’t tell STS’ friends, because STS’ friends think STS is cool and gets into film premieres and stuff.

Okay, that isn’t strictly true either, STS’ friends think that STS is a sad and lonely film geek who needs to get laid, but anyway – LET’S TALK ABOUT THE FILM, SHALL WE?

Freddy is as Freddy was in Wes Craven’s classic original. He’s still sporting that fetching red and black striped jumper, that dirty ol’ fedora and that handful of knives. New Freddy (Watchmen’s Jackie Earle Haley) can’t help it, but the 2010 version is almost laughably short. I mean, it’s one thing being a nonce (and a foreign nonce at that), but a short nonce?! That’s just unforgivable… But what Rorschach lacks in stature, he more than makes up for in menace. He’s not a guy you’d like to go for a picnic with.*

Just look at the state of this grouting...

This time out the onus is slightly more on Kruger’s child molesting and his crimes and character before he starting interfering in kids’ dreams. That element of Kruger combined with Haley’s talent for creepiness somehow contrives to make him more disturbing as the pre-burns paedophile Fred Kruger than as his nightmarish vision. After all, the image of Freddy is so familiar now, especially after 53 sequels (including Freddy vs Jason- which I was disappointed to find was not 90 minutes of Jason Lee having his face shredded to pieces in his sleep). Couple that with the clichéd Halloween image we all know and it has robbed Freddy of any real terror. I mean, he’s wearing a Dennis the Menace jumper for Chrissakes!

It’s your standard hokey remake stuff, with effective performances from Quentin (played by a young Pete Doherty) and lead girl Nancy (Roona Mara). The inclusion of Katie Cassidy as high school student Kris looks a little out of place (she looks about 34…) and coupled with her dreadful acting, it stilts the first half of the film somewhat. But I’m not sure too many viewers will care too much.

What they will care about is how impressive the death scenes are and they are this: ‘pretty impressive’. Other stand-out scenes include a corridor of blood, Freddy coming through the walls (not like that) and a scene where a class full of students turn to ash.

The original is better, but then you knew that, didn’t you? This is a decent stab (ho ho ho!) at a remake and while it doesn’t unsettle as much as you might hope, it does the job. The 1984 film sparked seven sequels, and they’ve knowingly left room for more here. And why not? Everyone likes seeing teenagers slaughtered by the dream-inhabiting, burnt ghosts of kiddy-fiddlers don’t they? And why?

Because THAT’S ENTERTAINMENT!

*Although saying that, he would be useful for cutting up the pork pie.

Here in swingin’ London town, going to a movie doesn’t always have to mean ‘sitting in multiplex scarfing electric cheese flavour nachos. ‘ Nope, there’s a whole raft of cinematic ‘events’ and ‘experiences’ going on at any given time, and Curzon Cinema’s monthly Midnight Movies are one of the best and most enduring of a pretty funky bunch.

So it was that STS strapped on our grooviest velvet Nehru jacket and go-go danced our way down to this month’s event – a super-sexy sci-fi spectacular screening of 60’s cheeseathon Barbarella….

Making an effort to create an atmosphere as usual, we descended into the Curzon’s basement screening room and were greeted by go-go girls with giant eyeball helmets, a DJ sporting a very natty all-in-one silver spacesuit, and a few free Jameson’s Whisky cocktails to get the crowd relaxed and in the mood for free love baby.

Previous happenings here have had some pretty cool opening numbers, with the likes of Edgar Wright popping in to wax lyrical about Death Wish 3 or John Landis Q&A-ing American Werewolf. This time we get…amateur burlesque. Gold cape and ‘tit-lights’ (you had to be there…) aside, we’re also ‘treated’ to a preview of upcoming US ‘Romantic Thriller’ Birdemic –fast earning it’s reputation as the worst piece of crap ever made –we’re looking forward to it immensely.

Onto the movie!

If you’ve never seen Barbarella then there’s a tendency to assume it espouses some form of proto-feminism. It’s gloriously kitsch Frazetta-esque poster art giving the impression that the eponymous space starlet is some kind of ass-kicking female Flash Gordon. In fact, it’s a full on exploitation piece, the camera taking every opportunity to grub its way over Jane Fonda’s curves as she hunts down rogue scientist Durand Durand (Milo O’Shea – channelling the spirits of Colin Clive and Groucho Marx) and his deadly positronic ray in a city built on pure eeeeeeeevil. In its defence…well, there is no defence really. One can only hope that Fonda’s then-husband Roger Vadim was simply very, very proud of his new wife and wanted to show her off.

Oh-and make no mistake, Fonda looks absolutely amazing. Not a frame passes when you aren’t reminded exactly why she sold so many exercise books. Her performance is also endearingly ditzy but never annoying, and wether she’s being tickled to death by a giant sex organ or rolling around naked in a giant nest (after restoring the will to fly to dull as dishwater angel Pygar) it’s perfectly apt that she never even remotely resembles anything on Earth.

But she –like everything else here – is merely window dressing. There’s a godawful Saturday morning serial plot attempting to glue things together, but in the main it’s an excuse for screaming seagull-children to attack with killer dolls, woolly-chested icemen to bang Jane’s brains out and an outrageously OTT performance by Anita Pallenberg as the slightly lesbian Great Tyrant.

In any other setting this would be mortifyingly sexist, and let’s be honest, it is here too, but it’s also smothered in such a freaky amount of cheese that it becomes incredibly endearing. It’s wilfully out there, from its happy ice monsters to it’s rock-people to biological starships lined with velvet. Lines like ‘Decrucify that angel or I’ll melt your face’ actually sound fine here. A Drew Barrymore remake has long been on the cards but frankly I’d be flabbergasted if modern Hollywood dared to leave all the acid trip weirdness and hair-curling – literally – sex in.

Tonight’s print was scratchy, and it says something that the jumps and missing dialogue actually add to the experience. While you’re best off viewing this when you’re high as a kite (Or when you’re a horny 15 year old boy) this is a fantastic classic that really makes you wonder what the hell your parent’s generation thought were up to. A free-lovin’ super-groovy classic capped off with some smooov sounds from Bob Crewe’s Generation (Spotify them –you won’t regret it…), put this on your Lovefilm right now.

What better place than the vast temple of Mammon men refer to as London’s Westfield shopping centre to settle in and check out a movie about a billionaire show-off. Make no mistake, Iron Man 2 is all about the bling.

Unfortunately, it isn’t really about anything else.

Where the first movie gave us a former hellraiser as a cocky, likeable..er..hellraiser, here we get to see all the bits we hate about rich guys like that. All the dazzle, all the showing off -in short, all the style over substance…

Back in 2008, Iron Man continued down the path mapped out by the X-Men and Spider-Man movies (We’ll ignore the Fantastic Four for now) and did what fans had been telling studios to do all along; Read the comic and stop trying to change it. There’s a reason these characters have remained popular for 40 years.
Favreau did a great job transferring Tony Stark’s flawed, egotistical super hero to the screen – lack of credible villain aside – Iron Man is a great movie. Unfortunately the director has possibly taken too many notes when watching Sam Raimi’s Spidey flicks, following the rocky route set by Spider-Man 3 and trying to cram way too much of that four-decade long continuity into the 2 hour running time, with borderline disastrous results.

I’m sorry guys, but after all the hype, all the great looking trailers, and all the shots of Scarlett Johanssen’s bottom, this is a massive disappointment.

With large chunks of screen time taken up by the enlarged cast, there’s a lack of focus on Stark himself, often leaving a muddled and confusing mess flashing in front of your eyeballs. While the newly sex-changed Whiplash (seriously -his comic book alter ego was an amazonian lesbian terrorist…) looks great, Mickey Rourke seems to have reverted to default, showing none of the villainous, downbeat charm that worked so well in Spun or The Wrestler, while even the always value for money Sam Rockwell struggles to make an impact as rival industrialist Justin Hammer. It’s not that he doesn’t work hard, but he’s written in such broad strokes that he seems..well…like a comic-book villain.

For Downey Jnr there’s some room to manoeuvre; a subplot about his technology affecting his health could be interesting -although it’s a cowardly get-out when you consider the alcoholism storyline it stems from – but is only alluded to before the focus whips off to check out James Rhodes in his new War Machine armour, or Hammer’s monstrous military models. Stark fails to engage the way he did previously, and is far less likeable because of it.

Sure, there’s plenty of explosions, but the editing and distinct lack of anything approaching characterisation means the whole thing suffers from a huge case of the Transformers halfway through. Yes, it’s cool to watch guys in super-suits blow shit up. What isn’t so cool is that you quickly realise you don’t know who’s in what suit or why they exploding things, and then you stop giving a crap.
It’s just too much. Look at the bad guys;

Hammer -Industrialist. Wants the armour to make money and is a bit jealous of Stark. Fair enough, but it hardly seems like motivation for murdering hundreds of people does it?

Next up, Whiplash. Why does he hate Stark? God knows. And the director isn’t telling. Hell, he isn’t even telling us why Tony Stark is taking part in an F1 race when Whiplash attacks. I guess it just looked cool huh John?

Finally, there’s a senate committee -led by fucking Gary Shandling of all people – who want to steal his secrets as well. Basically, their motivation seems to be that they’re THE GODDAMNED US GOV’MENT BOY! And that’s it.

So; three unbelievable villains, two love interests, One under-developed sub-plot and some guff about War Machine to further confuse matters.

And of course about five minutes of actual footage showing Iron Man, the constant to-ing and fro-ing reducing the Golden Avenger to minor character status.

Seriously, he shows up four times -once at a hideously flag-waving Stark Expo, once for a poorly explained meeting with Nick Fury, and for a couple of battles- one with Whiplash, one mind-and-arse-numbingly extended one alongside War Machine.

To sum up; Marvel had greater creative control, the cast are all strong actors, and Favreau has always produced decent work in the past, so what went wrong remains a mystery, but it’s one that needs to be solved quickly if we’re to hold out hope for Joss Wheedon’s Avengers, or even Iron Man 3. This is all flash and bang, with none of the neat fanboy winks that fleshed out the original.

Strongly in need of a reboot, Iron Man 2 is as confused and disillusioned as its protagonist. With some judicious re-editing and an extended running time there’s hope come director’s cut time, but the suit needs some serious retooling if we’re expected to shell out to see old shell head a third time.

Time to welcome Neil Marshall back from the post-apocalyptic hinterlands of Scotland for his latest, a…erm…post-apocalyptic* adventure set in Scotland…

Looking back on his work, it’s clear that Neil has an affection for genre pics – nowt wrong with that. Dog Soldiers set up a small group of hard nuts against Werewolves. Descent set up a group of soon-to-be hardnuts against..whatever that weird Morlocky thing was. Doomsday set up..well, you get the idea, and while it doesn’t quite reach the absurd brilliance of his earlier take on lycanthropy, Marshall’s look at ancient British history is still a grab bag of gory fun with a certain swaggering charm.

It’s the 2nd century, and the chaps in Rome are a mite pissed off with a bunch of hairy Scots ner-do-wells wandering about and beating the crap out of various border patrols. Time for a spot of overkill thinks emperor Hadrian.

Hey, what else can is he supposed to do? It’s not like he can build a wall along the entire side of the country is it?

Enter the Ninth Legion, a bunch of crack leather-skirted lunatics taking time out from chopping up Visigoths. Unfortunately their overconfidence proves ill-founded, as fierce Pict Etain (Kurylenko) takes out most of the legion before embarking on a gory chase movie for the next two acts.

Plus points first then: Clearly the director’s penchant for filming in Caledonian woodland is bearing bitter fruit – the cinematography here is fantastic (Marshall’s penchant for over-using the blue filter aside). Mist soaked woodlands come across as beautifully primal and eerie, the landscape displaying a rugged, terrifying charm that The Lord of the Rings would have been proud of. Lead Roman Michael Fassbinder and his surviving men have a whale of a time plunging through the deep forests and scrambling up shale covered hillsides in their bid for escape, the landscape itself one of the most formidable opponents on display.

Unfortunately Etain and her fellow Picts just don’t compare.

The action is all-out, frantic chases across a terrifying landscape, but it’s too break-neck, with little time for character development as one faceless legionnaire after another is despatched by a variety of interchangeable blue-faced Pictish loonies. Meanwhile Kurylenko’s character is mute, meaning her already limited emoting time is reduced to a montage of angry scowls. The Picts have a genuine grievance against the Roman invaders, so it’s a shame that both sides of the story aren’t aired in a more effective fashion – if they were, this could be something quite special, rather than the effective but somewhat run of the mill shocker we’ve ended up with.

But hey, it’s an action flick with added swords and sandals, and when it does succeed, it’s great. Dominic West stands out as slightly deranged, scenery-chewing general Virilus, and while Fassbinder struggles to convince in his five minute encounter with a token luverly lady, he scowls, growls and punches his way through the often electrifying action sequences in fine style, proving himself as a major action star in the making.

Overall this is good, but not great, and while it’s a shame that some of the missed opportunities stand out so clearly on screen, what remains is a brutal romp that will go down a treat on DVD with a few beers and a pizza.

*OK, OK, it was the apocalypse as far as the Roman Empire was concerned, so I say it still counts. It’s my f**king blog ok?

Remember Saving Private Ryan? Remember how amazing the Normandy scenes looked the first time you saw them?

They were brutal, visceral but thrilling.

It was a neat bit of Spielbergian string pulling to make you feel horrified and yet genuinely excited – how many of you wanted to be in on that action, chopping down Nazis with your trusty browning?

With Lu Chuan’s City of life and death, the same visceral, blood curdling reality of war awaits you, but thanks to some truly amazing auteurship the last thing you’ll feel is elated…

Detailing events in 1937, when Japanese troops defeated and occupied the former Chinese capital Nanjing, and including the rape and murder of an estimated 70,0000 civilians, City of Life and Death shows a dark period in human history that fostered an animosity between the two eastern empires that remains to this day.

The terror practically drips off the screen, some striking touches of humanity on both sides as the perspective shifts between Japanese and Chinese making it all the harder to understand how disciplined troops could conduct such appalling acts of savagery.

In terms of plot there’s little to go on, exact details of the incident are still muddled – deliberately in many cases – but here Chuan focusses on a small group of soldiers desperately trying to staunch the violence with little success, meaning we are immersed in the true human experience of war, one of gruelling horror. Events are captured in an unforgiving monochrome that rivals Rome:Open City in it’s attention to detail and refusal to turn from ferocious fighting, the director concealing his influence, masking any air of construction and providing a war film that far outstrips The Hurt Locker.

The Rape of Nan King is something of a historical footnote in the west, and while the sheer violence makes this nigh unwatchable at times, it’s a desperately important document that deserves widespread recognition.

Informative, enthralling and appalling in equal measure, City of Life and Death is one of the most important war movies made in recent memory, it’s director a massive talent who refuses to sanitise events, instead revealing them with a brave and passionate eye. It’s on limited release across the UK, but is well worth seeking out.

Brilliant and terrible.

It’s an easy target. It’s also absolutely brilliant…

Ensconsed in Disney’s fortified subterranean viewing theatre, STS gets the feeling that should we follow our instincts and start hurling molotovs at the screen the moment Miley ’spawn of Billy Ray’ Cyrus shows her oddly pumpinesque features on the screen then we’ll be hauled off to some tower in the magic kingdom, forced to serve high fructose corn syrup to toddlers for all eternity.

But let’s stick to our dodgy journalistic integrity here – this is shit.

Popular tripe of the worst kind.

I know, big surprise eh?

What is surprising however is that it’s also a heartbreaking work of staggering genius – though possibly not for the right reasons.

Ok, so any movie with a cast led by Hannah Montana and Liam ‘half-clothes horse, half-root vegetable’ Hemsworth will always struggle come Oscar (if not MTV young choice awards) season.
We know we’re on shaky ground when Greg Kinnear is the best thing in a movie, but to berate the actors is unfair.

The performances, all high school play pouting, stamping feet and wistfully staring out to sea turmoil fit perfectly here.

And so does everything else. And I mean everything.

Never have I witnessed a film quite so absolutely, mechanically in tune with its target demographic. It’s nothing short of astounding. Former Gray’s Anatomy director Julie Anne Robinson can’t be accused of not knowing how to handle sloppy romance, and every daytime TV trick in the book elbows its way in between Nicholas ‘The Notebook’ Sparks’ – uniformly diabolical, obviously- dialogue , a few aerial opening shots one of the few concessions made to cinematic effect. That’s not what this film is about however. It’s about its audience.

As Miley argues with dad, falls for a great galunking oaf, fights with him, gets back together with him (he’s rich and clever too incidentally), gets back with daddy when she finds out he has cancer and helps a friend out of a spot of bother with a dodgy boyfriend, it’s every beat is laser-focussed on the mind of tweenage girls the world over.

Well, maybe not the world. Maybe Southern California.

Watch in awe as Miley saves some sea turtles, her family cooing in wonder as they hatch and head out to sea. This should be the last scene in the movie, but unfortunately dad chooses this point to keel over, and he’s coughing so we know it’s the Big C. Because there was new life, meaning that old life has to make way –did you understand that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie where cancer prompted actual laughs in the audience, but hey, this isn’t the right audience.

This is for 12 year olds who love their family, and want to experiment with rebellion in a safe way. So Miley ‘just doesn’t do drink ok?’, and although she’s been busted for shoplifting her dad believes her innocence when she gets set up. She knows it’s wrong. Because STEALING IS BAD KIDS, do you see?

So, it’s total fluff then? Well yes, but halfway through it had a curious effect on me. I started to really enjoy it. Like really enjoy it. Daytime TV tropes and all. It somehow transcends its hoary routes to become a sort of Metaguide to making teenage romances.

Really, I’ll be genuinely upset if it doesn’t make a few film studies syllabuses next year.

If you genuinely want to see a decent romantic movie, rent Brief Encounter. If you want to truly, deeply understand what the hell your teenage daughter thinks she’s doing, then see this. It honestly made me question every critical sense I have, finally coming to the conclusion that even absolute shit can be great. It’s identification with the teenage condition is astoundingly accurate, all running on the beach, warm, fuzzy first kisses and petulant, pointless parental battles.

I’m going to get flack for this, but this is fucking brilliant, I laughed all the way through, and I also reverted to my 13 year old self half way through, I cringed at the hokey, forced jokes with little brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman, far and away the best thing here by dint of relentless, ten year old enthusiasm), I giggled when Miley finally decides to play the piano again (she got accepted to Juilliard without auditioning you know, they’ve been watching her since she was five…) at Captain Amazing’s funeral, and I suppressed my cynical laughter when we find out who really started that fire dad was feeling so guilty about (I may have forgotten to mention this sub-plot earlier, partly because there are at least 27 on the go here, and partly because each one receives approximately 4 minutes of screen time). I even went all warm and fuzzy when the gigantic piece of cornbread she’d fallen for got back together with her, because, hey…come closer…hey, love is a fragile thing right? And we have to hold on to it, and nurture it yeah? And hope that that fragile thing survives against all the odds, because, like, love..and music…will bring you joy….

Absolute tosh that’s relentlessly full of heavy handed heart string manipulation, tired clichés and vomit-inducingly awful performances. It’s up there with Citizen Kane.

So there’s this sort-of sexy, sort-of spooooky girl yeah? And she’s needs a part time job. Now, if you have lank black hair, then obviously a creeeeeeepy mental institute would be your first choice too right?
I mean, I’m not exactly carrying all my hammers in one bag either, so I can see the appeal -free meds lying around, getting to lick Sarah Connors face, it’s the complete package…

Such is the working life of suitably haunted looking Sara Foster, making the traditional leap from fashion modelling by starring in -a low budget horror! Still, she was in D.E.B.S too, so I’m sure the academy is taking notes. Unfortunately for the divine Ms.F, this particular hospital has just closed down, and why exactly they’d want a night shift is never really explained – although frankly it’s the least of the gaping plot holes on display here.

If you do make it through the relentlessly hokey set-up, then don’t go blaming me when a serial killer gets loose and starts picking off young nubiles, while any originality is left to rust alongside the viewer’s braincells.
Carey Elwes pops up during the second act, as a creepy doctor inexplicably hanging about the deserted wards, and finally completing the transformation from Princess Bride great bloke to waxwork model of David Niven that he’s been working on for a few years now.

I should say this is mercifully short, but it’s barely-feature-length running time seems more a result of editing assembled by a chimp with OCD, rather than a shortage of material. Ridiculously crass and often wilfully idiotic, the whole thing suffocates under a dearth of ripped off influences and hackneyed dialogue, hopefully ensuring that director Andrew Shortell will never work again.

The worst piece of low-budget horror we’ve seen since Death Tunnel, avoid like an abandoned mental hospital at midnight.

Ricky Gervais recent success in Hollywood has obviously had a lasting effect, as his latest shows an assured directorial hand and a toning down of the outright comedy that’s marked his work with Merchant thus far, and while the plot may be structured around a conceit familiar from The Office – guy likes girl, girl engaged to wrong guy – there’s character development, some lovely cinematography, and a willingness to dispense with clichéd Brit-com staples that lifts this head and shoulders above the pack.

Set in Gervais’ home town of Reading in the 70’s , from the opening we’re immersed in a world dealing with the duality of a bucolic, sun drenched English summer, and the grim reality of factory life and three day weeks. Following Bruce (a cocky but likeably un-arrogant Tom Hughes) and friends Snork and Freddie (Jack Doolan and Christian Cooke respectively) as they attempt to change their dreary existence.

Freddie’s ark in particular showcases Merchant and Gervais’ flair for the bittersweet, as he desperately tries to woo his boss’ daughter Julie (a smart and hard-working Felicity Jones), while Bruce and Snork’s varied attempts to fight or think away their pain are handled with a lightweight, deft touch that comes off as cautionary without resorting to finger-wagging. There are some big issues on display here, and it’s a brave decision not to smother them in jokes or mawkish sentiment. Rather, the humanity and razor sharp observation lends a lingering and far more satisfying tone to proceedings.

While the characterisations are well-drawn, with some strong lead performances and wonderful back up (Ralph Fiennes is particularly good as Freddie’s oily boss), there is a tendency for the dialogue to appear over-scripted. This may be a result of over-familiarity with Gervais’ oeuvre however, as you occasionally can’t help but imagine the lines emerging from his mouth rather than the actors, but it’s a small complaint in an otherwise restrained and assured debut.

A well balanced but not overdone look at a difficult era doesn’t detract from the humanity at the core of the piece, and whatever your feelings about Gervais, it would be churlish to deride this. Overall it’s a great character piece backed up by strong writing, some cool tunes and a positive message that deserves every success.

There’s only really one question lurking in every geeky fanboy mind – how well does this stack up against an original version as semi-legendary as Sam Worthington’s protagonist. The answer – pretty well actually!
There’s definitely a sense of campy lunacy about things as Worthington’s Perseus is found and raised by an over-acting and bizarrely accented (for ancient Greece) Pete Postlethwaite, who decides to chuck in a nuanced, emotionally charged performance for some reason, despite being in a world where most of the second act is taken up by giant scorpions attacks…

He’s easily the best thing here, but there’s definitely a suspicion that he just doesn’t get the joke, so it’s no great shame when he’s offed in time for things to shift up a gear, Perseus embracing his heritage and going on an almighty rampage that takes in Titans and assorted hangers-on of all shapes and sizes, and it’s here that former Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier really comes into his own, his grasp of creature CGI providing some fantastically exciting battles.

Unfortunately the attention paid to the digital terrors doesn’t quite extend to their backdrops, the renderings of the city of Argos and the barren deserts taking to many cues from 300 to truly involve you, and the 3D is frankly shocking -unsurprising given the sheer number of last-minute reshoots involved.

Once we travel to Olympus however, it’s as if we’re entering an entirely different movie – one not too far removed from 80’s cheeseathon Flash Gordon. Disney columns spring from overloading dry ice machines, while Liam Neeson’s oddly compassionate Zeus looks like he’s about to embark on a Starlight Express tour of Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula, his gleaming mirrored armour highlighting the pounds of ham dripping from his ridiculously bearded lips, and bringing back more than a few memories of his performance in John Boorman’s lunatic Excaliber.

Meanwhile on the villain roster, Ralph Fiennes makes good use of his Voldemort training to stand out as an oily Hades, swirling and oozing across the screen and clearly relishing the chance to belt out some pantomime malevolence as he decides it’s time to put the fear of the Gods into the uppity mortals by releasing The Kraken unless the city sacrifices it’s princess Andromeda before an upcoming eclipse, while Jason Flemying recalls his part in The League of extraordinary gentlemen, packing on pounds of prosthetics as the monstrous Calibos.

So far, so bloody mental – as are all the best ancient myths. It’s this willingness to run with the sheer insanity of the plot that saves the movie. Despite some dodgy CGI window dressing, it does a good job of portraying legends the way they should be – massive, pumped up heroes swinging bloody great magic swords at mad gods and eventually the fearsome Medusa – a titan we may be over-familiar with but who’s appearance is still enough to provide some good old-fashioned edge-of-seat chills. We may know how it ends, but that doesn’t mean we’re not worried for the various Argonauts as they creep towards imminent enforced retirement as garden statues -until she actually appears on screen. Then we’re left stifling giggles as what appears to be a badly animated sex doll with third degree burns wobbles across the screen.

In the end The Kraken itself is also underwhelming, it’s appearance shot in needless, confusing close-ups that rob the thing of it’s Cthonic magnitude and suck any genuine terror into a mire of gloopy 3D rendering, and it’s a shame that technical shortcuts rob the film of much of it’s would-be grandeur, leaving us with an odd mix that plays like a $100Million 70’s school play, strong performances by bit-parting Danny Huston and Gemma Arterton being needlessly and badly cut, rendering much of the romance null and void and stealing the film’s heart. Worthington fares better, lacking the acting chops to bring any sense of gravitas to the edam-o-riffic dialogue, but looking good and clearly enjoying himself.

Overall then this is no classic, but if you’re after a shiny 90 minute blockbuster with plenty of shouting and the odd scary harpy then you cant go wrong.

Ah Dreamworks, will you never learn? While rivals Pixar continue to leap ahead of the pack with sky high concepts and sublime characterisation, Dreamworks seems satisfied to churn out slapstick/Scottish accent mash-ups that – ahem – drag on…

To be fair, How to Train your Dragon is a visually arresting diversion with some lovely moments, but the mile high benchmarks set by the likes of Up! Will unfortunately always leave this trailing sadly behind and appearing…well, just too damn cartoonish to compete.

Based on Cressida Cowell’s children’s novel, we’re transported to the mythical land of Berk, a Noggin The Nog setting with manly Vikings refusing to up sticks despite the almost constant, fire-breathing attention of the titular scaly beasts, while Chief’s son Hiccup takes dragon-slaying lessons to win the respect of his father ( a superbly cast Gerard Butler). Typically, things soon go awry as Hiccup can’t quite bring himself to kill anything, instead nursing an injured dragon back to health as we stumble innocuously into one boy and his dog territory.

Unfortunately it’s not only innocuous –it also veers dangerously into boring territory. Even at under a hundred minutes the pace drags, shown in a harsh light against some truly breath-taking 3D flight and fight sequences.

Meanwhile the oddly Scottish Vikings run around shouting, fall over and look goofily at camera as the writers run out of things to say and fill the gaps with bucket-on-head clowning. The novel may be brisk, but surely there was enough material to fill out such a short running time? The result is an uneven adaptation that will leave younger children fidgeting at the lumpen ‘comedy’and adults glumly checking their watches.

It’s a shame that what could have been a genuinely entertaining concept is instead delivered as a missed opportunity, Dreamworks providing some superlative animation but missing the razor-honed wit of their rivals.

Judging by the trailers, Repo Men looked like it might be quite good, what with the ever-reliable Forest Whittaker promising to kick some ass Ghost Dog style, and hey –I was kind of hoping it would have something to do with Alex Cox’s mental 80’s Emilio Estevez vehicle as well.

It doesn’t.

To start with, we’re in bog-standard ill-thought-out future dystopiaville, our heroes working as repo men for ‘The Union’, an eeeevil future corporation flogging replacement body parts-not always the easiest things to repossess naturally – but when one of the Repo’s needs an expensive new heart himself…well, you can guess the rest.

To be fair, there are flashes of a genuinely good film here, with some interesting and blackly comic elements (Alice Braga’s ‘organ addict’ for starters…) but it comes off like a greatest hits of other, better films and never quite gels. The trouble here is that this could be a smirksome, subversive number, but plays out as interminably stoopid instead.

There’s a potentially decent script, adapted from his own book by Eric Garcia and full of daft one-liners, but it feels like he and fellow scribe Garret Learner just can’t be bothered, and you’re never entirely sure if the laughs are intentional or not, as many coming from Jude Law’s piss-poor delivery as from any remote flashes of wit, while the action is clunky and the gore…well…ungorey enough for the movie to make an asset of either genre.

Instead, this is an MTV cut n’ paste of The Matrix, OldBoy and a thousand straight to DVD pretenders to the throne, played out over an unnecessarily lengthy running time, set pieces glued together pell-mell by director Sapochnik, with lots of OVERLY CLEAR EXPOSITION to help out any mentally retarded members of the audience.

When its done right, pastiche like this can be amazing –just ask Tarantino – but here it’s a galumphing, clumsy and brash film in all the wrong ways. A certain amount of dumbness is to be expected from any action movie worth its salt, but here it’s a try-hard mess suffering from heavy handed, inexperienced direction and waxwork acting that effectively consigns Repo Men to the bargain bin of history.

Remember the 1980’s? They were well skill weren’t they? With your high-top trainers and body warmer you were probably pretty cool as you skateboarded down to the awesome new multi-screen cinema that opened in your town, hoping you could scope out some well wicked flicks and maybe score with some bodacious babes along the way.

So, you pay your £1.50 entrance fee and find that Tim Burton’s Batman is playing on 7 screens, and Back to the Future 2 is on the remaining 6 – woah; totally heinous dude! How’s a hard-core gorehound like you going to get his grue-filled kicks when every decent horror movie has been banned by Maggie Thatcher: Milk Snatcher?!

Well if you were resourceful, you popped down to your local video store/ice cream van, slipped them a tenner and got a dodgy third-hand VHS copy of Evil Dead, and possibly some crap German porn as a bonus. Or you could take the more circuitous route followed by director Ti West; Wait 25 years, then score some ancient filming equipment and film your very own hoary 80’s scarefest – with seriously scary results!

That House of the Devil works at all is testament to the resilience of the themes it explores, using the 80’s ‘Satanic Panic’ epidemic as a backdrop, the film may rely on clichés, but it ignores the crutch of irony completely, instead delivering a sharp shocker that will grumble away in the back of your head, replete with jouissiant ending for true 80’s compatibility.

Plot-wise we’re on familiar if skewed ground, following all-American teen Sophie Hughes (an excellent, fluff-permed Jocalyne Donahue) as she follows up the offer of a baby-sitting gig at a c-c- cer-eeeepy old mansion.

From here on in it’s stock-horror character stupidity all the way, Sophie agreeing to stay on even after the oddball couple who own the place admit they don’t have kids, just a largely unseen elderly relative parked in the attic, and acquiring clues to a darker secret as strange happenings go bump in the night around her.

Fortunately West keeps a firm hand on the tiller, never letting things slip into parody. The whole thing comes off as a superbly thought out pastiche that shows both glowing affection for B-level 80’s crud alongside a brave decision to follow in the footsteps of 70’s classics like Rosemary’s Baby.

Slow-burn dread with the occasional shocker squirrelled away, House of the Devil offers a genuine return to a genre that Hollywood remakes have all but forgotten how to do. This is taught and fun, the ideal date horror movie.