It’s always nice to see a celeb step outside the comfortable confines of Hollywood and dabble their toes in political waters and while he probably won’t be following in the Governator’s tank tracks anytime soon, John Cusack has long been regarded as a sensible, well educated actor who continues to be respected despite being in Hot Tub Time Machine.

Something of a surprise then, as Cusack apparently took to the Twittersphere last night and advocated setting up a ‘Satanic Cult Death Centre’ out side Fox News’ New York headquarters.according to the One Crazy Summer actor:

“I AM FOR A SATANIC DEATH CULT CENTER AT FOX NEWS HQ AND OUTSIDE THE OFFICES ORDICK ARMEYAND NEWT GINGRICH-and all the GOP WELFARE FREAKS,” (Capitalisation by Fox.Who you never hear shouting about anything ever. Because shouting means you’re mad. That’s why they don’t do it. Honest. They don’t…)

Ever the advocates of well balanced political opinion (as evidenced by their standing as ‘America’s most trusted news source’*), Fox was fairly quick to respond, noting that ‘this is the first time he’s stooped to threats‘ after citing his ‘outspoken’ political views.

These actually amount to voting for Obama and once writing a bit for Huffington Post.

Face it, he’s practically Trotski.

Anyway, while Slashing The Seats remains resolutely unpolitical, we’d just like to say “Nice one John.” Infer what you will from that.

Anyway, if you like really, really biased, piss-poor strongly opinionated reportage, then you can view the story in full here, and check out any follow-ups from John himself on Twitter:@johncusack

*Source: fuck knows. some idiot probably.

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.

Since Cloverfield’s weirdy half cave-troll/half-whale brutally dissapointed us back in 2008, there’s been a distinct lack of gigantic tentacle-beast action on our screens, but hopefully things are set to change this year, with a number of deadly space invaders and multi-mandibled beasts set to hit our screens. Leading the charge is Gareth Edward’s latest attempt – Monsters.

Judging by this early look it could well live up to the solid buzz that leaked out of SXSW previews, managing to be both eerie and dramatic, with just enough The Mist-isms thrown in to engage on a personal level. If nothing else, Edwards docu-drama pedigree should offer up some decent creature effects, while the Mexican setting adds distinction – is it too much to ask for a gigantic mutant Chihuahua?

Basically, you already knew that we’d love this didn’t you? For one thing it’s got Statham in it, which means it’s already head and shoulders above 99% of stuff on our Lovefilm list.

Add in Stallone, Willis, and surprisingly intelligent (PHD in Biological Physics apparently…) terrible Punisher Dolph Lundgren, and you can’t really go wrong.

Can you?

As far as the action goes this is top notch, each expendable gets a chance to show their trademark brawling style, so for Statham it’s bone-crunching urban smackdowns, Li shows of his devastating wushu prowess, and big Sly…well, he fires a big gun and goes “waaaaaaarggggghh!!!” in a vaguely unninteligibl maner.
And here’s the problem.

Back in the 80’s (and on into the 90’s) this type of balls-out, blow-shit-up-fuck-asking-questions-later explodathons never promised even a hint of characterisation. You didn’t even really want a plot. You wanted Chuck Norris kicking someone’s windpipe off.

This is basically a complete retread of that formula, and on those dated terms it’s awesomely successful. Watching Statham fire a huge howitzer from the nose of a dive-bombing plane is amazing, the effects are, for the most part, physical, and all the better for it. Shit blows up, people fly through the air, and when we’re finally treated to Arnie, Sly and Willis sharing the screen (and not once talking about hamburgers), there are some genuine fanboy thrills to be had. I mean, they never actually do anything but talk, but hey, it’s cool to see them all up there anyway.

Now who's got the nicest hat?

Willis however, sums up the problem here, making wry comments about the amount of dick-measuring going on in the room, he unfortunately points out something the Expendables does it’s darndest to ignore. Movies have come a long way since the 80’s.

For good or ill, we now expect some semblance of plot glueing things together. If a director ignores this, then we end up with crap like G.I.Joe, an unfortunately there’s often just a touch too much “Who would win in a fight” going on and not quite enough story.

Of course, one of the things that made al those old flicks so cool was their resolute straight-facedocity. Even king of the zingers Arnie would dial it down and impart lines like ‘Stick Around’ with the deadliest of serious expressions, and it was these moments that really made the movie.

Once Die Hard came along…well, all that changed. Suddenly all that stuff became knowing. And it continues here. The trouble is, a lot of the guys on screen aren’t really up to irony. Sure Mickey Rourke takes a poke at acting here, but he’s an awkward fit. In short, there’s a huge pile of charisma up there, but it just can’t do much with the slightly lumpen dialogue, and things get dragged down as a result, the whole thing never quite as gloriously ridiculous as we’d been imagining.

Sly is certainly a competent action director, and here there are some great set pieces, although he really needs to reexamine his choice of cinematographers. The mercenary team may get beaten black and blue throughout, but it would be nice if the same couldn’t be said for the visuals.

Overall this is fast and fun enough to get away with most of it’s foibles, but in assembling such an awe-inspiring action cast, Stallone seems to have taken short cuts on dialogue and exposition that the modern filmgoer may not be ready to put up with.

But what the hell, don’t go in expecting hamlet, go in expecting Dolph Lundgren sticking someone on a spike and its all good.

Mops. How they’ve vexed me.

I had one when I moved into my new flat, but the other half decided to get rid of it.

“You don’t need it. ” she opined knowingly. “The kitchen is barely five feet square, it’ll just get in the way. ”

I’ve often ruminated on this womanly wisdom and the unfortunate events it led to when, after getting down on my knees for an hour and a half to painstakingly clean that self same kitchen floor with a hand sponge, the lady in question dropped a large blob of peanut butter smack bang in the middle.

Had there been a real mop to hand, I can’t help but think that I wouldn’t have had to bash her brains out with a frying pan and use her hair as a substitute.

Fortunately I was able to dispose of the body in the Thames and escaped without consequence. Much as Jerry Bruckheimer manages to do with his latest foray into action/adventure nonsense.

Do you see what I did there? I love a good seague me.

Anyway, having watched the Bruck’s latest masterpiece, I can honestly say that  was wrong about the mop.

Based on it’s name’s heritage, Disney has seen fit to wedge at least one gigantic dancing mop interlude into the middle of this, a generally enoyable piece of mixed demographic fluff.

It serves no purpose to watch a dancing broomstick anally intrude on a gurning Jay Baruchel, but then, neither does much else here. Bruckheimer is above all the master of the empty headed thrill ride, and he proves a deft hand at weaving giant metallic eagles, surprisingly scary and slightly gross dragons and some seriously bone crunching fight sequences into what is at heart a fun filled fantasy for tiny tots.

Sticking with the mop theme, let’s turn our attention to the ever overly-hirsute Nic Cage, who, along with Alfred Molina as villainous sorcerer Horvah, actually convinces you once or twice that a disciple of Merlin himself could have that accent.

One of the odd things going on here – anal intrusion aside – is that The Sorceror’s Apprentice seems to be made up of two distinct films. On the one hand, the older cast members are caught up in a stagey romantic tragedy, two rival magicians fighting for the love of a third (Monica Belluci – bloody gorgeous as usual), while caught up on different sides of an eon’s old magical war.

Hadouken!

Baruchal and love interest Teresa Palmer meanwhile are caught up in an only vaguely related New York love story. Hanging out, listening to music, building experimental coil energy systems.

Oh, yeah, there’s quite a bit about the relationship between science and magic here as well, which hasn’t quite been thought through but is a neat touch.

And that’s about it plot wise really. Cue Jerry.

What Bruckheimer excels at here is managing to paper over the gaping holes in the writing with some explosive action sequences. Sports cars that battle in mirror universes, buildings that burst into life, eveil sorcerer’s from beyond time blowing up half of China town. It’s all here, and it’s never less than spectacular. The effects are well handled and, surprisingly given the amount of CGI present, don’t detract from the gun barrel chase driving the whole thing along.

While it’s obviosuly skewed at the 7-12 market, there are some sequences that might be a little too much for younger children, but amazingly this is a fun filled ride with ever-so-slightly more depth than you’d expect, some fun battles, cool explosions and decent, if diametrically opposed acting styles on display. There’s a rich seam of physical comedy (Particularly well covered by Horvah’s own apprentice, a preening, empty-headed cockney magician who’s made his name in Vegas and gets away with lines like ‘yeah, I like me nails just the right side of sinister’) that works well although again, the jokes are pitched fairly young.

Overall this is actually more fun than it has any right to be. If you have kids and need an alternative to Inception come family movie night, you could do a lot worse.

After it’s debut at last weekend’s comicon, there was some major buzz about Kenneth Branagh’s upcoming take on Marvel’s resident god of thunder, The Mighty Thor, and based on this sizzle reel it isn’t hard to see why. Dealing in bright, bold colours and explosive action, Branagh seems to have nailed the cod-shakesperian dialogue and borderline campy tone that characterised the classic comics.

Whether (or should that be ‘weather’?) or not Thor’s powers will match those of his in-print incarnation remains to be seen, but so far it looks as though we’ll be in for an overblown cross between Henry IV and Flash Gordon. That can’t be bad can it?

(Via io9)

wow.

Hammer Time!

Ahead of this weekend’s San Diego Comicon, Marvel has decided to sneak out some images from upcoming superheroic blockbusters Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger – and they look pretty awesome!
Previously released screenshots show Thor is staying fairly close to his current Earth 616 look (wiki it non-fanboys!), and it’s pleasing to see that his half-brother Loki, the Norse god of mischief, will be keeping his iconic horned helmet on the big screen.

Cap meanwhile get’s a more realistic chainmail-free look obviously based on his appearance in the company’s ‘Ultimates’ comics line. The Ultimates has already proven a rich seam for Marvel’s movie division, influencing everything from Iron Man’s beard to The Hulk’s helicopter drop, meaning we can hopefully expect a surprisingly grim, if over the top take on the star spangled avenger.

(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.

There’s still a few months to go before Disney’s Tron:Legacy takes us on another trip into the heart of the murderous MCP, but based on these latest one-sheets the CGI is going to be incredible. Check out those costumes – certainly a step up from the Green Lantern pics released so far. Expect a dark (for Disney) movie full of murderous, fetishistic frisbee…

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.

While we still aren’t quite convinced that Michael Cera and his fishbowl bouffant are fully dickish enough to play young Scott in Edgar’s upcoming super geekout, we’re still kinda excited about what exactly it will look like, and judging from this new UK one-sheet, it should at least have some amazing haircuts – and hey, that’s all we go to the movies for anyway isn’t it?

…we watched it again, yes. But only because it’s so bloody ridiculously good.  And they gave us free beer.

But this time we saw it in the Apollo cinema in London on a Sony 4K 3D Screen.

What does this mean? You ask. These numbers, letters and brand names are all a bit Electric Spectre for Slashing The Seats, a blog more at home with yelling at crappy directors and praising lord god Robocop.

Well, let me tell you.  Sony 4K projects are a new thing that makes watching 3D movies actually pretty cool. The technology behind 3D is a bit of a dick really. It’s like listening to an amazing story delivered by someone with a mildly annoying voice. You see, 3D is delivered by showing one frame designed for your left eye, and then one  for your right eye. At 24 frames per second. For hours. This messes with your brain a touch and is why it gives people headaches. Your brain and eyes are designed for the real world, not trickery.

What Sony 4K does is have two projectors, one for an eye each. Meaning your brain doesn’t get confused, overheat and cause you to drool into your popcorn. And it makes the screen brighter, crisper, less flickery and generally, nice.

It’s 3D without being a dick about it.

It also has a ridiculously huge pixel count. So it makes my newly bought 1080p 42 inch TV look like a turd. Bastards.

We were given a nice talk from a man from Sony, clearly excited by his own product, explaining all of this and a dude from Apollo cinemas telling us they’ll start rolling these projectors out across their chain.

So, if you like proper 3D delivered..err.. properly, head on down to one of their cinemas…

And yes Toy Story 3 is bloody amazing. But you’ve already read the proper review, haven’t you!?

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.

Unlike most fanboys, I wasn’t salivating at the thought of a live action take on The Last Airbender. Not because I’m not into cartoons and crap obviously, but because I once worked for Virgin TV, where I was forced to quality check the entire thing at triple speed in one sitting, so heading back into an – by all reports – vastly inferior version of the weird flying bison world wasn’t really firing me up to start with.

That said, I did develop a weird affinity for the whole thing as it burned itself into my retinas so I was willing to give it a decent chance, but given that Roger Ebert of all people took time out from spouting overlong, boring quotations on twitter just to call M.Night Shyamalan an idiot over this, the signs didn’t look great.

Personal reservations aside, everything sounded like it was in place for M.Night to put out a complex, fun and fulfilling fantasy that would slot in nicely alongside Harry Potter as ideal family fodder. The original cartoon is overlong, but still rammed to the gills with plot and sub plot, environmental and ‘hey -be excellent to each other’ messages and came with some neat visual gimmicks that should have looked ultra-awesome on film.

And they kinda do. So what’s missing?

Well, plot for starters.

The filmmakers could be forgiven for things getting a bit woolly as they try to jam weeks of complex storylines into a sub-three hour movie, but it seems like they just jettisoned most of the story points entirely and glued together some random action sequences with some shoddy CGI glue.

Just to get you up to speed incidentally, Airbender takes place in a super spiritual world (as in Buddhists n’ stuff, not Ghostbusters) where each of four cultures have a few element-wielding champions, hurling air/water/fire/earth at each other. The Avatar of the title is the one guy who can use all four to reunite the world and bring balance.

So, Star Wars basically.

It’s not as though the film is unfaithful to its source either, there are lots of neat nods to fans of the cartoon, with several exacting makeovers of key scenes, all the characters are present and correct (some noteworthy racial modification aside) and even giant, six-legged buffalo Appa gets in on the act. The big problem here is that Shyamalan has somehow managed to take two-dimensional characters and settings and make them less fully formed.

Everyone here is the same shouting, clowning, slightly offensive/annoying cutout. Plonked from one scene to the next without any definable sense of journey – the entire point of the original series. There’s also plenty of terrible dialogue and some frankly piss-poor cinematography, making this a lumpen confusing mess most of the time.

Of course, that wouldn’t matter if you actually gave a rat’s ass for any of the people on screen, but they’re just completely bland to the point that it’s impossible to care.

There’s also a cardinal sin that occurs many times during the proceedings.

Remember that Ralph Bakshi cartoon version of LOTR? Where they ran out of money half way through and reduced the entirety of ‘Return of the King’ to a 30 second voiceover(I hope for your sake you don’t)?

The same thing occurs again and again here. The entire premise of Avatar was the character building, the emotional and physical travels the characters made, something which gave the series a sense of granduer, something which added awe whenever they entered a new city or met new people. Here we’re palmed off with captions saying ”three months later, and the gang have crossed the giant mountain of peril…” and thrown into another badly choreographed fight scene ( another huge let-down, given the exciting and original action that also characterised the source).

We don’t know how they got there, who they’re facing, or why they’re fighting them. So we don’t care.

This isn’t some Transformers-style reimagining. This is a direct-from-source remake. Why, if you had an excellent, well-rounded, interesting, fun, action packed, exciting moving story board to copy from, would you take the time to remove every last thing that made it fun in the first place?

A real waste that shouldn’t stop you from buying your kids the box set of the original.

Woody Allen’s latest has been out for a while in foreign parts, finally geeting a release here in blighty, but don’t panic -you haven’t been missing much.

So, Woody Allen. Let’s make this clear right now. He’s shit. There, it’s down on cyber-paper. I said it. feel free to add comments calling me an unintellectual pig who knows dick-all about filmmaking. I couldn’t give a crap, because you’re wrong and I’m right. Allen is a man who’d made a career out of one vaguely smirk-inducing moment in Sleeper. And that’s it.

Let’s make a Woody Allen movie together and see how Whatever Works stacks up shall we?

Step 1: Set it in New York.

Check. But not real, actual New York. Oh no. This is that familiar Allen parrallel universe where you can sit in Central Park at dusk and not get mugged, and buy a hotdog in the street and not die. An effect cleverly acheived by roping off miles of the city and not letting an actual New Yorker anywhere near the set. Woody’s NY is about as realistic as Mary Poppin’s London.

Step 2: Insert plot about Woody Allen using his oh-so-massive wit and intellect to ensnare a squaking younger girl -hey, she’s annoying but she’s got great tits! (unless she’s Diane Keaton obviously).

Whatever Works only scores a half point here because Wood’s just too damn decrepit these days. Instead we get Larry David, himself a man who’s in serious danger of outstaying his welcome. Sienfeld was often very funny, and Curb Your Enthusiasm is at least very clever, if not comedically appealing to all tastes, but the simple fact is that David has one default setting on-screen, and here he sticks to it like Lox on a bagel.

Depressed Physicist Boris Yelnikoff is solid Wood, panic attacks, nausea, nuerosis and failed suicide attempts -it’s all here. Actually, given the number of incompetant suiciders in Allen’s films, it’s a wonder the old git’s made it to old age, but unfortunately for us he has. If only something could cheer him up…what would do it….

Step 3: Insert slightly dim, bouncy girl some 30 years junior to our hero.

Yay! Evan Rachael Wood turns up and hey presto -Boris are happy. Instead of wandering moodily around a picaresque NY considering his place in a non-theistic universe, he wanders moodily around making occasional glib, self-deprecating remarks. The ganag’s all here. Aren’t they? wait…there need to be a few more issues…if only there was some way that the girl could bring…

Step 4:An annoying, issue-ridden family!

We got there in the end.

Yep, all we needed was to add in bubbly and slightly annoying Patricia Clarkson and worrisome and slightly annoying Ed Begley Jr, and we’re all set to watch them somehow make new lives and friends in NY’s mystical concrete canyons, finding the kind of connections that elude Boris for all his wit and angsty try-hard attitude.

What a crock of crap. Allen takes the same script he’s been unenthusiastically vomiting at us for the past 40 years, inserts David’s vaguely credible face in the hope of being somehow relevant and produces…exactly the same boring, unfunny, turgid mess of a film he’s always made.

Critics have lined up to suggest that Allen’s fire has gone out in the past few years, but frankly, I’m of the school that thinks he never had a spark to begin with – his original stand-up notwithstanding, the ability to pen funny lines for Bob Hope does not automatically confer genius status and the right to repeat yourself adnauseum for the better part of half a century.

A drippy, dippy, ill-planned mess, Whatever Works wastes some potentially stellar talent on a bad script that fails to amuse or educate and stock characters who fail to connect.

Clips and Pics from upcoming offworld-actioner Predators are ten a penny on the net this month, but this clip courtesy of BDTV bought back such fond memories of a childhood spent shouting ‘This stuff’ll make you a godammn sexual tyrannosaur’ that we had to show it.

An almost shot-for-shot recreation of the original movie as Adrian Brody’s mercs encounter the multi-mandibled hunter-killer for the first time, we also get to catch a glimpse of a very special cinematic weapon – yep, Old Painless is back!

The arrival of a new Harry Potter movie is always cause celebre round at STS towers, partly because we are entirely staffed by illegally imported child labourers, and partly because I quite closely resemble Voldemort.

Anyway -the new Deathly Hallows trailer hit the web today, and it seems that Harry is still more than capable of seeing off the hordes of Twihards despite his advancing years.

Continuing the series’ now trademark descent into ever darker territory, the trailer hints that many of the books more whimsical elements will still find their way onto the screen, while the outstanding effects work promises a truly awesome final showdown with he who shall not be named.

As someone who actually makes something I laughingly refer to as a living from memes, apps, tools and general online doodads, I’ve been awaiting the Facebook movie ‘The Social Network’ with some trepidation, mainly because it will mean one of two things;
A:Tons of gibbering chimpos will watch it, hear the numbers being bandied around and set themselves up as ‘Social Media Gurus’ on Twitter, meaning it’ll be even harder for me to get a gig. Or
B:Tons of gibbering chimpos will watch it, and realise that what I do for a living isn’t actually that hard, I’ve just been fooling people into paying me over the odds.

Whatever, this new trailer has just pooped up over at www.500millionfriends.com, and it looks like the history of Monsiour Zuckerburg and his all-pervasive ivy league yearbook is going for the tense, courtroom drama angle. How tense you can get with Justin Timberlake as your leading man is up for debate, but will it hold Facebook’s creators up as heros -or point them out for ridicule?

More to the point -does anyone really give a shit about watching a college boy in a hoody make several billion dollars because people love to poke, farm and off each other Mafia style at this point?

Like or Unlike?

The Social Network is out in October.

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.

So, even though your a grown man (I mean, not grown in all the ways a man should be, but you certainly have a hairy back right?), you still like to spend your spare cash on toys (I’m sorry, ‘articulated maquettes’). That’s because you’re a big fat sorry loser who’ll never know a womans touch.

Of course, who needs a girl nagging after you to go for that managerial position at Burger King when you’ve got toys as cool as these guys! Yep, Tron revolutionised film effects when it cam out, so it seems only fitting that the clunky spin-off merchandising should do the same. Alongside such dorkish items as Tron:Legacy snowboards and boots (because, hey, this is the 90s man -snowboards are bodaciously cool!), you can also pick up a lickle toy Lightcyle and Lightcar.

Yeah i hear you: “Well so what man, I gots me an original boxed scorponok”. Well does Skorponok DRIVE UP WALLS?

No he doesn’t, and for that reason alone you are by law commanded to own every last bit of this worthless plastic crap fantastic film merchandise, lest you be forever ridiculed by that chick with blue hair at mega city comic books.

Get buying you loser!

The Green Hornet already has a pretty jumpy production history, with rumours of the suits being none too pleased by the direction the Seth Rogen actioner was taking. Well, the first trailer just arrived on Apple, so now we can judge for ourselves. It’s certainly a mixed bag, the tone seems to suggest an odd mix of Rogen’s usual comedy butting heads with a much more serious Batman-esque actioner, although Gondry’s visuals and some of the effects are certainly striking.

What do you think? We’re reserving judgement for now, but could this be an all-out actioner with gags in the style of Die Hard, or is it too knowing and silly for it’s own good?

Jonah Hex

Oh dear oh dear. Remember Ghost Rider? Rubbish wasn’t it? A badly CGI’d Nic Cage rolling about and taking down crappy MTV villains while comedy Hammer Horror mist floated about and Sam Neill did lots of expositional mumbling. Bloody awful. In it’s favour though, it was undeniably fun. Cage and the crew obviously realising the sheer stupidity of the material and the script and just rolling with it, adding a charm that made it far more enjoyable than it had any right to be. Suffice to say, Jonah Hex leaves its sense of humour at the door….

Fig 1: YES!

Now, Jonah Hex has a particularly weird history, even taking into consideration the fact that he inhabits a universe who’s biggest export is a grown man in a giant blue baby grow. Hex started life as a run-of-the-mill cowboy, then turned up in a godawful tech-noir postapocalyptic setting, then went all black magicky and weird, and now comes full circle. Now, before we get on to the film proper, lemme axe yous a question: If you had an ultraviolent western on the drawing board, who would you turn to? Maybe Scorcese could do something with it? How about Clint? No..no..wait..it’s coming to me..YES! It has to be Jimmy Hayward. Whaddaya mean who? He directed ‘Horton Hears A Who!’ stoopid! He’s be perfect!

God alone knows what goes on in Hollywood boardrooms, but whatever it is, it hasn’t got much to do with making quality movies. So, Our Jonah is a badass scarfaced bugger with the power of life and death over evil-doers, a Megan Fox shaped love interest and a presidential price on his head. Now I’m no expert, but seriously, you’d have to work pretty damn hard to make those ingredients taste bad wouldn’t you? But try as he might, Hayward and associates have somehow produced a cake made out of shit, that no amount of American Gothic icing is going to save.

To be fair, things do start fairly promisingly, we get short busrts of a super-mean Josh Brolin facing off against a Civil War terrorist (naturally, it has to be a terrorist…)in what looks like it might be a really good supernatural western. It isn’t. Instead an admmitedly game Brolin spits out ridiculous dialogue as he grieves for his wife and child, and there’s actually a pretty interesting back story there -Jonah kills big bad Confederate General’s son, big bad Confederate general kills Jonah’s family and tries to offf Hex too, only to have him come back with spooky supernatural powers and become ever-more consumed with revenge, espousing all human contact. Except Megan Fox in her sweaty underwear obviously. Well – you would, wouldn’t you?

Fig 2: NO!

Anyway, for some sort of reason, president Ulysses S Grant has decided that Hex and his sweaty other half are the best people to take down the aforementioned terrorist, Hex hoping to redeem his sense of honour through revenge in the process. Unfortunately the film seems to forget about most of this about 30 minutes in, instead concentrating on rolling from one overloaded action sequence to the next. All this would probably still be forgiveable if we got an interesting leading man or some semblance of commitment.

Instead Hex is wiped of his comic-book anti-hero roots and becomes another faceless mouthpiece for a bunch of badly thought out one-liners. It’s Judge Dredd all over again. The producers are also obviously hell-bent on preserving their all-important PG-13 rating as well, cutting away from on screen killing, meaning the action sequences amount to a lot of barrels exploding and men leaping through the air. Seriously, The A-Team was more violent (and I don’t mean the recent remake). If there’s one thing that could have saved Hex, it would have been willingness on Hayward’s part to just really go for it. I don’t know about you, but if I’m offered a supernatural western with a demented, scarred and cursed hero, I want to really see that blood. I want arms being blown off, severed heads, horses being chopped in half. What I get is some sub-Wild Wild West theatrics and a meandering storyline with plot holes you could stampede a herd of broncos through. Even John Malkovitch -normally eminently reliable in the cackling villain stakes, seems bored and confused.

Jonah Hex is a short film that feels over-long, with some terrible performances that can’t be saved by Brolin’s well-meant attempts. The editing and photography is overly slick, the violence watered down and pointless. In all, it’s a massively wasted opportunity and another example of cut n’ pate filmmaking that needs to be outlawed.

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.

Did you eneter our recent comp to win free tickets for Toy Story 3? No? Why not you feckless dog?

Well, the STS office was inundated as literally some of you wrote in, shouting about Potatoes, all of you desperate to coagulate in London’s super-swanky Leicester Square this Sunday morning to catch the continuing adventures of Andy’s toybox a month early -and who can blame you?

We (well…me..it’s not like I have anything better to do…) rummaged through the pile of potato-based commentary and based on a strict selection criteria involving closing my eyes and pointing,  a winner emerged – congratulations Katie Richards!

Katie’s weird Kelis/Spud mashup caught our eye (like a potato has eyes- do you see? IT’S A JOKE!) :

MY POTATO BRINGS ALL THE BOYS TO THE YARD AND THEY’RE LIKE … ‘MY PARTS ARE KILLING ME!’

Katie and a friend/partner/pet/kidnapped farm animal get to head down to Leicester Square for a free matinee performance this very Sunday! Congrats and enjoy.

Christ we’re generous around here aren’t we? Although not quite as generous as the lovely dudes and dudettes at Disney who made this possible -give them a big up and join the Toy Story 3 facebook page! and don’t panic, I’m sure we’ll have some other free crap to hurl at you soon -cheers to everyone who entered!

From Nightmare on Elm Street to Heartless (an…uhhh…probably some others I expect…) our screens are currently boiling with the stench of sulpher and brimstone as faustian pacts are forged, ethereal barriers are broken down and nasty do-badders escape from the bounds of hell itself to inflict second-tier horror schlockers on our unwitting eyeballs -the Satanic rat bastards. Yep, Mephisto is definitely a guy who’s around for the long haul cinematically speaking, and while Heartless has Joseph Maul as a weird, voodoo-doing East End Devil, we’re sure there must be better ways to portray the one who walks backwards on screen. Oh, wait! There are! Yep, time to bathe in holy water, get Jim Caveizal round and hope it’s the power of Christ compelling us to sit through a bunch of shitty horror flicks, as we check out six of the best: Movie Satans!

1: Tim Curry: The Darkness (Legend)

Ok, so he goes by the name of The Darkness, but his clever disguise isn’t fooling us! One look at those three-foot long horns, fangs and bright red skin and we know exactly who we’re dealing with. Unfortunately for the erstwhile Frankenfurter, Curry’s decided to pick on the only being in existance more evil than he is – That’ll be Tom Cruise then. Still, scores extra devil points for his fantastically spooky arrival on screen; stepping out of a mirror. Well, a taxi doesn’t really scream ‘Prince of Darkeness’ does it? Easily the most evil appearence in Curry’s considerable repertoire (apart from the hotel manager in Home Alone 3 obviously).

2: Viggo Mortensen: The Prophecy

Frankly, the idea of turning up at the pearly gates only to find that chief angel Gabriel looks like Christopher Walken is pretty terrifying to begin with, but halfway through seminal (in every sense of the word) 90’s straight-to-video shocker The Prophecy, the one angel worse than the tap-dancing king of spooky arrives in classic form. He may spend about 5 minutes total on screen, but the evil Aragorn manages to steal the whole movie (and hey, this is a movie starring that guy who played the creepy new roommate Eddie in ‘Friends’ -Oscar-worthy talent indeed!) by dint of a few whispered words and an entirely odd approach to vegetarian dining. Altogether now: “I love you more than Jeeeessssuuussssss…”

3: The Beast: Krull

It’s not often that Satan turns his hand to filmmaking, but a twisted mephistophian deal is the only possible reason we can think of to explain the presence of Bernard Brasslaw, Todd Carty and Liam Neeson in the same film. In his favour, The Beast doesn’t really go with the whole ’subtle trickster’ thing Satan tends to be known for, instead he looks fucking terrifying, landing a bloody great mountain on top of people at random, eating and zombifying the locals as he sees fit, and ditching any kind of psuedonym in favour of the far more straightforward: The Beast! You can’t argue with a name like that. The fact that he’s the only guy here that resembles Mount Saint Helens only adds to his mystique.

4: Robert DeNiro: Angel Heart

Oh Satan, you wily, wily trickster you! How would any voodoo-loving 20’s New Orleansian see through a too-clever-by-half psuedonym like ‘Louie Cypher’. Yep, it’s credit to Mickey Rourke’s general punch-drunkenness that he and that Cosby show chick take the better part of three hours to work out exactly who they’re dealing with. Of course, it’s entirely possible they could just be on an awful lot of drugs -something the audience wishes it had thought of before they started watching Alan Parker’s ‘87 gloomathon.

5: Gozer: Ghostbusters

Technically more a duke (or in this case, duchess…also sailor…) of Hell than a genuine Satan, Gozer still makes the list thanks to a really fucking weird MO. Normally Satan prefers to plant seeds of dissension, get innocent nuns loved up with AntiChrist babies or posess small girls in rural Maryland. Not the Goz’ though. Sure she starts small -I for one would welcome a fridge demon that made me eggs in the morning and gave me a multi-hand massage in my favourite armchair, but it isn’t long before the lord of the Sebuliai decides to give up being a large and moving torg, don a bubble wrap disco suit, and show downtown how prehistoric bitches do things – blowing the tops off skyscrapers, turning people into dogs and eventually turning into a gigantic confectionery that gets its kicks from stepping on churches.

6: Clint Eastwood -High Plains Drifter

He hasn’t got a name, he hasn’t got horns, in fact, you’d figure the king of upper atmosphere would have slightly more to his name than a donkey and a moth-eaten poncho, but that doesn’t stop Clint from being the meanest Satanic allegory of the lot. Let’s face it, if you had all eternity to spare would you spend it buggering about the Utah salt flats goading villagers into shooting the crap out of banditos? Of course you would! Expertly riling the townsfolk without ever just coming out and telling them what to do, Clint squints, spits and cigarillo-smokes his way into their lives before dissapearing in a puff of ‘Channel 4 News’ theme music.

Russell Brand as an off-the-bandwagon rocker trying to make it to a gig. Sounds shit doesn’t it? On paper Get Him To The Greek looks like it was written on a coffee break at National Lampoon. In reality, it’s a right melon squeezer. Mainly because it’s quite good.
Despite Russell Brand freaking out the Jonas Brothers and lambasting the health system, the soon to be Mr. Katy Perry seems to have wormed his way comfortably into the US consciousness, and while his appearance as cartoon-rocker Aldous Snow in Forgetting Sarah Marshall was fun, upgrading him to central character status was always a definite risk. Fortunately it’s one Brand files neatly alongside ‘massive cocaine intake’ and takes in his stride.

Story-wise things are kept simple and are effective because of it. Record company low-life Adam Green trying his hardest to get ‘the most self-destructive man in rock n’ roll’ (that’s ‘MTV Rock n’ Roll’ not actual rock n’ roll obviously – think Avrl Lavigne rather than Sabbath) from an unsurprisingly swingin’ London to glitzy L.A in time for his big comeback concert -with hilarious results obviously.

The odd-couple buddy movie setup is overtried and overtested, but writer-director Nicholas Stoller steps up to the plate with aplomb, throwing out the goofy-cutesyness that made Forgetting Sarah Marshall such a well received rom-com, and replacing it with full-on Judd Apatow nonsense that fits the character and the set-up perfectly. All that’s left is to roll from set piece to set piece in London, New York, Vegas and finally the city of angels and keep the yuks coming – and come they do.

Brand wholly inhabits his character, and given his public persona it’s not hard to believe in Aldous as a living, breathing, snorting, banging entity, grinding through various unlikely scenarios without batting an eyelid. Jonah Hill meanwhile, has much more of a journey. While he manages plenty of wide-eyed shouting and falling over, the movie also takes time to show his changing opinions of both Snow and the music business and means that we actually end up with a character we give a hoot about, something sorely missing from the majority of modern films. By taking time to flesh out the characters, Stoller actually delivers a film that’s…well, a film, rather than just a movie.

To be honest, all this was a surprise, but a welcome one. The movie gives off a comic vibe that’s closer to 80’s hits like The Sure Thing than the current crop of Hollywood straight to Blu Ray cobblers, and while there’s plenty of references to Sarah Marshall thery’re nice points for exsisting fans rather than confusing for newcomers. The central casting is spot-on, and there’s some fun support from Diddy (I even feel stupid typing that. How does the man live with it?)as Brand’s slimebag manager Sergio Roma (typical African-American name there), proving himself to have surprisingly fine comic timing, while Colm Meaney of all people is lots of fun as Snow’s obnoxious git of a father.Ocassionally the jokes are thin or easy – a particularly Cordon-esque workout secuence in particular -but on the whole there’s enough quality gags to make you forgive any rough patches.

Overall it’s no masterpiece, but it’s far better than it deserves to be, and while the prospect of a thinking man’s Superbad may be a very weird concept to get your head around, it’s one that you shouldn’t let your preconceptions stop you from seeing.

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.

As you know, STS has been getting far too excited by the prospect of a 12 inch plastic woody returning to our screens lately, and as we’re top-notch media moguls, resplendant in our gold lame suits and real velour underwear, we’ll obviously be going to see it before the rest of you unwashed scumbags. Unless of course..we were to be GIVING AWAY TICKETS! Yep, it’s Toy Story 3 competition time!

We’ve got a pair of shiny tickets to the Leicester Square press preview of Disney’s latest visit to Andy’s toy box, taking place in swinging London’s shiny Leicester Square on Sunday, 20th June -an ENTIRE MONTH before the rest of your plebby mates get to see it! Let’s face it, you’ll be the coolest kid in school with this kind of super-advance viewing opportunity.

Now, unlike other, better written and more popular blogs, we here at STS know that our readers are busy people – you’ve got toast to eat and areas to scratch -you certainly haven’t got time to answer complicated questions about plastic bloody dolls.

So, instead of a question, we’ll make it easy on you – just leave a comment below that contains the word ‘Potato’! We’ll pick the most idiotic and announce the winners on Thursday the 17th of June -get your potato-based thinking caps on and get commenting!

With Sean “Y’bloody bastards’ Bean in full knight’s regalia and ‘Severance’ man Christopher Smith in the directors chair, you’d be forgiven for expecting a ridiculously gory horror that doesn’t take it’s historical trappings too seriously. Rather than following in the thoroughly ridiculous footsteps of ‘Soloman Kane’ however, Smith seems to have taken a conscious decision to continue the expressive expansion he began in Triangle, resulting in a film that isn’t afraid to play the stupid seriously, and it’s all the better for it.

Bean is Ulric, a knight charged by the church with investigating a remote settlement which seems immune to the ravages of the eponymous plague. Suspecting necromancy, Bean leads a team of sadistic witchunters into a marshland community that’s held under the sway of villainous -sort-of – Pagan Sorceress Langiva ( a compelling and surprisingly weighty Denise Van Houten), dragging us along on a twisting trail that delves into religious intolerance, superstition and mob fear.

Bean is stony-faced throughout, the stoicism that first appeared in LOTR here ramped up as things take a turn into Wicker Man-esque weirdness.

While the film’s long gestation (It originally popped up around Frightfest time last year) means that some of the modern parallels it pokes at are slightly dated (Swine-flu in particular), but it manages to make a convincing and deftly handled argument about the nature of evil, pitting the herd instinct and superstition against the possibility of the supernatural with some very creepy results, while the decision to anchor the often gruesome action around young novice monk Osmund’s ( an affecting and naturalistic Eddie Redmayne) conflicted faith adds an effective human element to proceedings.

Ah yes – the aforementioned grue. Well, this coming from Smith means there’s certainly no shyness when it comes to chopped-off limbs and exploding bubos, but he also manages to utilise camera filters and floats wonderfully, adding a dream-like eeriness that will stick with you long after you’ve finished wincing over disgusting pustules – while his take on a crucifixion is one of the finest single-shot scenes since Goodfellas.

Overall this is violent and gory, but full of excellent, emotionally charged performances and a very British sense of the odd that’s been sorely lacking from horror for many a year. Not afraid to face weighty issues and wear it’s philosophy on it’s sleeve, Black Death is one of the finest horrors released this year and should summon it’s own hefty cult following in years to come.