I know I know, we’re supposed to only cover movies with explosions/Jason Statham causing explosions/William Shatner blowing up giant spiders. And you’re right…you’re right. Unfortunately some of us know real live members of the opposite sex, who make us wash on a semi-regular basis, and eat green things (Skittles don’t count apparently). And they also inflict this on us – lucky for you we’re a bastion of balanced, representative journalism eh? Best treat it as a public service – if you ever do manage to set up an internet date that doesn’t have a beard and get out of your parent’s basement to go on it -this’ll give you something to talk about won’t it?

Anyhoo, Rob Marshall has once more decided to inflict his ability to get major Hollywood stars to dance sort-of in time, in a line on us again and it’s..well, it’s crap isn’t it? Chicago is one of the most sucessful musicals of all time – proving that popularity isnt really the best barometer for quality – but it does at least have a rip-roaring storyline and some classic showtunes backing up a variety of leggy show-offs. When it doesn’t involve Richard Geere, it’s borderline tolerable (high praise indeed). Nine, unfortunately, is unlikely ever to see Jennifer Ellison parading about and bellowing it’s high notes off kilter. Despite surfeits of gloss it never quite connects with the audience’s tin-ear, it’s musical review smorgasbord of tunes bringing up uncomfortable memories of the terror that is summer stock, while the choreography is curiously lacklustre, Marshall seemingly substituting swing-chairs for real moves.

But let’s concentrate on the good bits shall we? Daniel Day-Lewis won’t be recreating his There Will Be blood success with lightweight fluff like this, but he’s entertaining enough to save proceedings from floating away under it’s own wind power.
Plot wise we get to follow Federico Fellini as he shags his way across town and suffers from the mother of all glitzy, all-singing, all-dancing guilt trips because of it. Of course, fellini was actually happily married, but hey-this is musical theatre, and facts shouldn’t get in the way of tap and jazz-hands. Backing him up twin Oscar winners Marion Cotillard and Penelope Cruz are sexy and fun in unrewarding roles, with Cruz in particular smoking nominal lead Nicole Kidman off the screen whenever she appears. Oh-and Dame Judi Dench and Sophia Loren also pop up to embarrass themselves at various intervals, quacking about and mainly serving to get in the way of Cruz’ magnificent rack – but it’s testament to the bizarre star wattage of Marshall that they agreed to appear at all.

Weirdly, the real standout is Kate Hudson – seemingly the worst fit for a musical – who really shines here. Her rendition of Cinema Italiano is (almost) note perfect, and once she dissapears the film suddenly seems a lot less fun.

All in, this is spectacular fluff, and as such is beyond any regular form of criticism – flashy costumes and dodgy tunes wrapped up in some half-assed performances still manage to be more than the sum of their parts, but it’s just not enough to satisfy. In a perfect world it would do badly enough to prevent Marshall foisting any more of this crap on us, but hey-there’s a recession on, a bit of jiggling is just what you great unwashed masses need. Here’s to the economic revival.

Generally, we watch any old crap round here – in the interest of being a representative, even-handed site obviously – from Marley & Me to Apocalypse Now,it’s all fair grist to the review grinder-yep,we even sat through Troll 2 once.

But just occasionally there are some movie crimes so cynical and heinous in their deployment that we’re robbed of even the enjoyment bought by bright shapes moving around a large screen.
Twilight: New Moon is one of them…

The Twilight Saga’s advance guard of posters and promos have been doing the rounds for a few weeks now, it’s gangsta/Calvin Klein ad Werewolves looking like the world’s worst boy band as they balefully bring to life everything awful about post-Rowling fiction in one sanitised, imaginatively stultified package

The reasons for the unerring – and to most people over 30,completely mystifying – popularity of the Virginity-embracing Goth-a-thon are manifold and as ancient as the vampire myth itself, but the main one?

Boredom.

To contextualise; it’s probably worth remembering at this point that tabloid fodder Cradle of Filth are from a small country village, the interminable ennui of small-town existence producing gratuitous, theatrical stabs at an inescapable conformity that have absolutely nothing to do with the isolationist work of their contemporaries

Twilight has risen from the endless malaise of the American Midwest. Despite the stunning scenery, for many growing up there it’s an endless vista of mini-malls and soccer meets, a land robbed of endless opportunity that retains a general snobbishness for any authentic ‘old-world’ culture (”What do you eat in Britain?” Is a standard enquiry I received while travelling), and while this is a gross oversimplification; in terms of romance, Utah is up there with Chernobyl.

It’s no wonder then that the Disneyfied, stripey-sock Goth peddled by Hot topic is grasped so ravenously by teenagers in a locale where dying your hair or missing church is a rebellious act, and although tweens the world over go through endless recycling of these tropes the constant marketing of them as a substitute for genuine invention is a troubling one. Potter and his ilk are the spawn of daytime TV and half-remembered nursery tales, rather than any familiarity with actual fantastical literature. It may be churlish to suggest, but I’d be sorely surprised if J.K’s library included anything by Lord Dunsany. Tapping into a culturally bereft society doesn’t gift a work with any greater kudos.

Likewise Twilight is born of a warped, half developed sexuality, a flirting with defiance in the face of the US religious machine, and the deeply unsatisfied and unrealised yearnings of its author. Vampires are the ultimate asexual – the bite representing a non-threatening penetration – that means they are non-threatening romantic partners, perfect grist for the mill of the unsettlingly carried out (if well-intentioned) Chastity movement the books encourage. While virginity and chastity are both admirable qualities, they are very personal ones that shouldn’t be enforced by mass-media or religion; to do so is a backwards step, rather than a liberating one. Here non-sensationalist information is the key, not mass hypnosis.

Most movies try to sell you a tie-in computer game and a McDonald’s happy meal. Twilight tries to sell you morality.

Twilight (And Buffy beforehand, although Weedon at least realised this and had fun with it) is in effect Mills and Boone without the edge. Here there’s no sex, and while there’s haemoglobin aplenty even death is robbed of it’s power.

Author Stephanie Meyer claims the novel is about ‘losing true love’, but has aimed it squarely at a population so cut off from genuine interaction the word becomes meaningless, a substitute for parental affection and an excuse to pretend at the rebellious. In one of the most telling scenes Bella’s ability to commune with Edward is enhanced when she pursues ‘The Dangerous’. In this case, riding a motorcycle – that ever present symbol of disaffection for American youth. Meyer has crafted a work where motorcycles and leather jackets stand-in for danger, where Italy represents the entire planet outside the Midwestern bowl, and where dreaming of wider horizons inevitably leads to terror and sadness-or at least a simulation of it.

New Moon offers an endless curse – one of morbid, flatulent commercialism infecting its victims with a warped feminine ideal where the answer to everything is a good man who doesn’t want to have sex. It has more in common with Mona the Vampire than Dracula – this is sex and death without the sex and death played out by blandly attractive mannequins whose only supernatural power is the height of their hair.

Excited yet?

Complete Disaster!

Ah Roland Emmerich, where would we be without you? Along with  Michael Bay, Emmerich is almost totally responsible for sucking anything even resembling plots out of Summer Tentpole movies over the last few years. In the case of transformers, at least Bay had an excuse-he wants to flog you toys – so it’s hard to work out why grumble like this ever gets greenlit. One can only assume that Hollywood junior execs are now so young they’ve never seen Ghostbusters, and actually think this is a real movie.

Eschewing the more traditional route of plot points building drama around interesting characters, Emmerich has instead decided to utilise the most powerful computers in the world to help him dumb down Independence Day, creating a non-stop senses-hammering disasterpiece that goes so over the top it actually becomes quite loveable.

Basing itself on quasi-science straight from ‘Weird Tales’ the film begins by dumping California into the ocean (the actually real threat of nearby Yellowstone exploding is mentioned briefly and then forgotten – presumably because the movie makers don’t want to start a panic…), fault lines bursting and huge explosions quickly becoming the order of the day. Obviously the US is the focus of these events, although there’s a couple of obligatory ethnic villagers shown scuffing about in Assbackistan and the now-vital Sky News lending credence to things. Remember, if it’s said in an English accent; It’s the TRUTH!

Of course, the world’s high and mighty aren’t going to sit back and let this happen, and have their own plans in place to escape, the rat-bastards. Lucky for the rest of us poor schmoes  Chiwetel Ejiofor’s on hand to convince President Danny Glover (definitely getting too old for this shit) not to quit on us. Meanwhile John Cusack does his very best to remain likeable as he drags his kids into more and more danger on the flimsiest of pretexts, resulting in a chance to leap out of a ‘plane in a Bentley (weighing upwards of 3 metric tons fact-fans) onto ice, help the government rescue some cute Giraffes and give his obviously strained marriage to a skeletal Amanda Peet a quick fix.

The rest of the cast? Well, think about Independence Day. Then think Stargate, The Day After Tomorrow, 10,000 BC..in fact, go to IMDB right now and check out Emmerich’s entire career: Do the regretful grandparent, the evil scientist who has a change of heart, the ditzy girl (with obligatory chihuahua in handbag), evil rich guy or Ultimate Sacrifice Dad ring any bells?

They should, because they’re in all those movies, and yep, they’re in this one too. Clearly giving up even the pretence of originality, Roland then has these cardboard standees variously cling to cliffs, pilot light planes heroically through explosions, and even at one point, set a timer incorrectly so it races towards early detonation. It’s like watching 100 best disaster movie moments, right up to the nauseatingly happy ending – I guess no one really cared about those 6 Billion dead right? – and it goes on and on, reaching levels so stupid they become amazing, as you constantly try to dredge your summer film memory to guess what happens next.

What actually happens next is that Woody Harrelson continues his glorious career revival as a conspiracy theorist/survivalist with awesome Marty Feldman eyes and enough ham to feed an Elephant being transported by Chinook Helicopter (yes, those are in here too…), almost completing a one-man mission to push this into full blown Airplane! Territory in the process, he’s far and away the high point of the movie.
So awful it’s fucking genius, we’re already looking forward to a sequel (we’re opting for ‘2013′ with Will Smith in the lead role), there are too many flaws to mention, but the only one that really needs fixing is Emmerich constant attempts to pull our sentimental heart-strings. Come on Roland, we’re willing to buy into a lot, but we’re not stupid.

Beautifully, irredeemably awful- and all the better for it.