NEW SHOW! Dr.Action and the Kick Ass Kid

The After Movie Diner PODCAST has a sister show:
Dr.Action and The Kick Ass Kid Commentaries: This Podcast Explodes!!

Every week they bring you an 80s or 90s action film commentary, if you're watching your action without them then you're doing it wrong!!




Find them here:
http://dractionkickass.blogspot.com/
on Talkshoe: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/119285
on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/dr.-action-and-the-kick-ass-kid/id513663908
on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DrActionAndTheKickAssKid
and
on Twitter: @DrActionKickAss

The After Movie Diner Kiosk!

The After Movie Diner Store is open for business!

With new designs being added all the time, own a piece of AMD on everything from a key ring to a pair of pajamas!

Be the first cool cat on your block with something from the After Movie Diner kiosk!

Support the show, FREE independent media and look damn fine in the process!
http://www.cafepress.com/aftermoviediner

Cleopatra Wong
Don't Knock the Kwouk
Sweaty Vernon
Team Duck Boobs
Dr.Action and The Kick Ass Kid
logo shirts ALSO available!

ALSO check www.cafepress.com before you buy and look for
SPECIAL DAILY CODES FOR MONEY OFF!

The After Movie Diner on the COMIC BOOKED Podcast Episode 16

I was very honoured recently to be asked for an interview by John and Lucas for their podcast as part of the Comic Booked website

We covered a multitude of topics such as:

Our recent nomination in the TLA Cult Awards

Our Independents and Alternative oscar shows

The Godfather

Evil Dead

Bruce Campbell

CHUD

Fright Night

Sam Raimi

Drive

Clash of the Titans

Kevin Smith

and yes, of course, Billy Zane

It was a fantastic little chat, utterly surprised me to get the request but I was very happy to oblige. Please check out this, all their other podcasts and the whole website over at http://www.comicbooked.com/

You can hear and download the show here:

http://podcasts.comicbooked.com/cbp-16-sharing-a-meal-at-the-after-movie-diner/

or on iTunes

Thanks again guys!

The After Movie Diner Podcast NOMINATED for TLA CULT AWARD!

 

The After Movie Diner is extraordinarily proud to have been nominated for a TLA Cult Award!!
We can be found in the BEST WEBSITE/BLOG/PODCAST/WHATEVER category.
Please please go and vote! http://tlacult.com/tlacultawards2012
VOTE NOW! It would be amazing! Thank you!!

You do not have to vote in all categories if you don't want to
Voting is open to everyone. There is no limit on the number of votes you may cast!!
To vote scroll down the page till you see my category, click on my logo to highlight it with a yellow square around it and then scroll further down and hit VOTE
Do it MULTIPLE times please!!!!!

The AMD Alternative Oscar Nominations 2012

Ok so here they are the various nominations for the After Movie Diner alternative Oscars!

Please read, pick your favourites, vote by either commenting on this blog or e-mailing aftermoviediner@gmail.com
and then don't forget to TUNE IN to the After Movie Diner Podcast on Monday 27th Feb to hear us discuss it and officially pick our winners for 2012!!!

If you want to be inculded:
DON'T FORGET TO VOTE!


Best Actor
Jason Statham (KE)
John Goodman, Michael Parkes(RS)
M Smiley (Kill List)
A Serkis (RPOTA)
Ryan Gosling, Ron Perlman (Drive)
William Fichtner (DA)
Banderas(Skin I live in)
Otto Jespersen (TH)
Robert Downey, Jr – Sherlock Holmes 2
Jason Statham – Killer Elite
Daniel Craig – Cowboys and Aliens
Patrick Wilson - Insidious

Best Supporting Actor
Andy Serkis – Rise of the Planet of the Apes
John Goodman – Red State

Best Actress
Mellisa Leo (RS)
Cary Mulligan (Drive)
MyAnna Buring (Kill List)
Zoe Saldana (Columbiana)
Elena Anaya (Skin I live in)
Saoirse Ronan – Hanna
Depressing and English, so no chance of an Oscar nod, but Olivia Coleman - Tyrannosaur

Best Supporting Actress
Mila Kunis – Friends with Benefits
Elle Fanning – Super 8
Melissa Leo – Red State

Best Screenplay

Kevin Smith(RS)

Ben Ripley(Source Code)

Matt Sherring(KE)

Wheatley/Jump(KillList)

Andrew Niccol – In Time

Best Director
Matthew Vaughan (X-men)
Jason Eisner (Hobo)
Kevin Smith (RS)
Ben Wheatly (KillList)
Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive)
Duncan Jones (Source Code)
Gary McKendry (Killer Elite)
Andre Ovredal (TH)
Kenneth Branagh – Thor
JJ. Abrams – Super 8
Neil Burger – Limitless
Jonathan Liebesman – Battle Los Angeles

Best actor, Director, Screenplay with no more than four words, Original score that isn’t entirely original
The Artist

Best adapted screenplay
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. If you want action, you need to read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold or similar. Fuck all happens in this one, very slowly. A bit like Drive, but with more actual driving.

Best foreign language film, Best Action, Best Use of Cows
13 Assassins

Best animated film
Kung Fu Panda 2 was fun, but Rango was genius, although kids probably sat there thinking ‘what the fuck is this about?’

Cinematography
For making beige look so good….Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Documentary feature
Senna – nuff said

BEST OF THE SAPPY MOVIES I HAD TO WATCH WITH MY WIFE
Crazy Stupid Love

Best Horror

Troll Hunter

Paranormal Activity 3

Rubber

Tucker & Dale vs Evil

Atrocious

Dream Home

Kill List

Best Overall Film

13 Assassins

Red State

Hobo with a Shotgun

Killer Elite

MI4

X-men

StakeLand

Source Code

Skin I Live in

Drive Angry

A Serbian Film

Rise of Planet Of The Apes

Fast Five

Limitless

In Time

Thor

You’ll disagree with me, but this was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I’d happily watch the directors cut with an extra hour of beige men sitting in smoky beige rooms. drinking tea. Then watch the outakes. Followed by the commentary

Most Disappointing Film

Drive – no acting (looking doleful doesn’t count), no tension, precious little driving.

Shame – what a terrible time you must have being quite well off and having lots of sex. Pull yourself together you divot.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. More Bergerac than Midsommer Murders for me, On an island and everyone is slightly posh apart from the obvious bit of rough. Maybe John Nettles is available if Craig doesn’t want to come back for more?

Bridesmaids

The Life Time Achievement for Most Underrated Films of All Time
Cobra
Escape from LA
Volunteers
Brain Candy
Fanboys
Blood in blood out
Rivers edge
Eagle vs shark
Tao of steve
Thrashin'
Run ronny run
Summer camp nightmare
Hawk the slayer
Grosse pointe blank

Crimes to cinema:

Pointless useless remakes

Conan
Straw Dogs
Footloose
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The best of what Moe 'Drunk On VHS' Porne watched in 2011
Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn
Shock 'Em Dead
Hamburger: The Motion Picture
Class of 1999
Death Drug
Karate Cop
Body Rock
Las Vegas BloodBath

The Craziest
Birdemic: Shock and Terror! - Could actually be a contender for worst movie, but the experience of seeing the film with an audience and all the drunken craziness involved with the screening made for a really amazing experience. The Screening I went to featured the local chapter of the Jerry Owen Fan Club (Jerry is a character who appears in the film for maybe 3 minutes, but the kids love him)

The Absolute Worst!
Though probably not a huge surprise for anyone who follows the No Budget Nightmares Podcast hosted by Doug Tilley and myself, but my pick for worst movie watched in 2011 is quite easily

Hip Hop Locos - The story of 2 cholos looking to rob, steal, and kill their way into the music industry. Every line of this film ends with "ese" or "homes"...I think it actually may do a better job of setting back hispanic's rights than any chapter of the KKK could ever do!

AND LASTLY, From David De Moss 
The AYTIWS Awards for 2011

Nothing unites the rising generation of film critics like contempt for the Academy Awards. So in the spirit of Judd Nelson telling the four-faced, hovering octopus monster that “I have nothing but contempt for this court,” allow me to present a slate of awards to the few films of 2011 I actually managed to see.

The Carl Gustav Jung Award for Archetypical Critical Darling
goes to “Drive,” for being a slow, plodding, staring contest of a predictable crime thriller punctuated by brief moments of violence sure to shock anyone who's doesn't watch low budget horror movies on a regular basis. i.e., professional critics, who are nothing if not creatures of habit. Read any one of them around about the second week of August and you'll see the signs of Summer Blockbuster burnout in full force. The biggest sign being their unreserved praise of the first passably-directed, pretentiously “smart” film they come across. Drive just so happened to be last years lottery winner: not bad, but genuinely overrated by virtue of the fact it stuck out like a sore thumb in the summer of Fast Five, Harry Potter 7.2 and Transformers: Darkside of My Ass.

The Snakes on a Plane Award for Biggest Disappointment
goes to “Captain America: The First Avenger” for being a thirty minute Captain America movie inexpertly stapled to a forty-five minute trailer for The Avengers, as its title helpfully warns. I would give this award to Thor but I've never cared about Thor and not even the combined powers of Natalie Portman and Kenneth Branagh could change that. I occasionally give a crap about Captain America but ours is a toxic relationship since the red white and blue bastards burned me for four movies running. I don't blame anyone involved: all three of 2011's Marvel movies had “Studio Interference” written all over them. But I wouldn't have been so disappointed if those first thirty minutes weren't so damn good. So step forward, Joe Johnston and know that The Rocketeer is still your best film.

The “I've Been Wondering, What Are Midichlorians?” Award for Franchise Murder
once again goes to Michael Bay and Producer-in-Name-Only Steve Speilberg for their Transformers franchise, of which Transformers 3 is but the latest vile emanation. While not as openly racist as its predecessors, Dark of the Moon still manages just as much of an onerous uphill slog through boredom, stupidity and incoherent visual noise. Except its even longer, so I'll say no more about it here, because there are worse things to discuss.

The Pizza Box Full of Dogshit Award for Worst Movie of the Year
(that I personally saw) goes to...(dramatic pause) Green Lantern. Bad enough it was a Top Gun rip-off that completely missed the point of Top Gun by recasting Iceman as a Chick (or a Pink-skinned alien, depending on your reading). Bad enough its director obviously did not give two shits about the material. Bad enough they chose to make the film about the most boring character to ever bear the name in the franchise's seventy year history. (So boring, in fact, that he's recently had his history re-written to be more of a Top Gun rip-off.) Bad enough they consigned one comic's largest and most visually-diverse casts of characters to the not-done-yet CGI background. They had to top all that stupidity off by hiring Ryan Reynolds, the rich man's Jason Lee. Because there's a hero for The People.

And there are my awards, honoring to the four films of last year that actively pissed me off. I'd put together a competing slate of awards for those few films I actually liked but, in an experience I'm sure you'll recognize, all of those turned out to be older releases, mostly from last century. And so it goes.

Don Dohler-Fest 2 coming to The After Movie Diner Podcast featuring Interview with GEORGE STOVER

The is week on Monday February 6th 

the After Movie Diner Podcast
is continuing its coverage of 

Don Dohler films 

with Galaxy Invader and Alien Factor 2

Trailer

Whole film!!

Trailer

and I haven't even got to the

MOST EXCITING PART

yet and that is that this week's episode features

AN INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE STOVER

Yes the actor who starred in ALL of Don's movies in one way or other comes on the show to tell us all about how he met and what it was like working with 'The Family Dohler' of crew and cast, his favourite of the roles and films and much much more!

Check it out MONDAY FEBRUARY 6th

Here: http://amdpodcast.blogspot.com 

Here: http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/110745

or subscribe on iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/podcast-from-after-movie-diner/id452996435

Alternative Oscars Competition

This year the Oscars are a bloody shambles. A bunch of wishy washy, boring, uninspiring and incorrect nominations, although a fair reflection of just how there really weren't many good films in 2011.
Most were boring and bad.
or were they?

For my Feb 27th show on the After Movie Diner PODCAST I will be hosting the Alternative Oscars and I would like to put a shout out here and ask everyone to e-mail me their noms for 2011 that the academy wouldn't go near. The noms can be anything you like, go wild!
Best supporting actor in a titty flick
whatever you want

It just has to have been given some sort of first time release in 2011 (dvd included) and it can't be nominated for an Oscar and that's it.

All submissions to aftermoviediner@gmail.com by feb 6th please

I will then organise the nominations, work out my own categories and put it up on my site for a vote!
WATCH THIS SPACE

David Fincher's Girl With A Dragon Tattoo - 20th December 2011

There he is, look at him there on the poster, the charisma-vaccuum himself, broody, pouty Daniel Craig and next to him a pierced pale goth chick you've never heard of.

What are they doing there I hear you cry?

Well they are there to bring you this generation's Silence of the Lambs and what I mean by that is an outrageous pulpy lot of old implausible and predictable nonsense tarted up with a good director and some amazing performances to convince you with its moody poster and bleak landscapes it's really a classic work of art.

Except that it isn't. It's Midsomer Murders with a graphic and disturbing rape scene. It's a 3hr nordic Inspector Morse. It's Poirot with tits.

That this received an R rating where the sight of Michael Fassbender's old chap in Shame has garnered an NC-17 is, quite frankly bewildering. While I have no intention with this piece on spoiling anything about the plot, I would say this is not a film for the sensitive.

I came out of the film an hour ago and as the credits rolled I loved it. I thought it to be perfectly made, very well acted, beautifully shot and a good story, simply told but with Fincher's usual subtle attention to detail. All the richness you required just tantalisingly out of reach. The trouble is, on the walk home  I talked myself into seeing all of its flaws.

The subject matter, basically a hunt for a killer, is a well trodden path for Fincher and this does have some repetition from, what I consider to be his masterpiece, Zodiac, except with Daniel Craig leaning and posing in a straight-from-a-magazine-photo-shoot stylishly sparse Swedish cottage wearing the latest Banana Republic 'cosy thinking man's range'. It was, however, infinitely more watchable than that tedious fleck of arse beard picking that was the Social Network.

Although I haven't read the book, I get the feeling that most of the problems I have with the film stem from the book and if there's any criticism to throw at Fincher and the screenwriter it's that they followed the whole thing too slavishly and meticulously. So no surprise there then.

There were certain scenes in it that were staggeringly graphic and disturbing but actually, with hindsight, did little to inform you about the character in question (the titular girl with the named mythical creature doodle) beyond 'she's cleverer, more resourceful and disturbed than you thought isn't she and don't worry she'll be fine for money for the rest of the film' and I am sure there is a better way to inform me of all of that than what you did show me which was excessive and perverse seemingly just for the sake of it.
In fact the entire vague back story of our Girl with the Dragon Tattoo can be summoned up by the title of the film. We know what we know about her because of the simplistic yet attempting to be mysterious things we are told and shown.
She has a dragon tattoo, relevent no? dark and edgy? not in the slightest most 12 year olds probably have a tattoo at this point, sounds mysterious and possibly Asian for the cover of your novel? BINGO! Instant hit.

From all my experience of pierced, ever changing goth haired, bi-curious, blank eyed, pale skinned, mopey girls who wear t-shirts with the words fuck on them while carrying around $1500 Apple laptops in their army-surplus black rough-weave back packs is that they are excessively dull and uninteresting people who listen to dreary music and have predictable Daddy issues. I thought we'd all moved on but no, here comes this story and despite it being acted the hell out of in a very brave and gripping way by relative newcomer Rooney Mara, as a character she is a strutting cliche of what middle class white guys THINK is edgy and interesting but really she probably smells like a rusty tap water soaked bath once used for making meth and drowning rats.

It's just all a bit obvious as is the 'internet solves and knows everything' and 'computers are capable of everything in the blink of an eye' writing that passes for detective work. It's all pointless anyway anyone who knows anything will have spotted the villain in the first 10 minutes of meeting them.

The whole film is covert misdirection on Fincher's part to convince you that what you are watching is deep, twisty and turny, dark and edgy, adult and loaded with meaning when really it is a simple murder mystery in a stately home with a family full of secrets that you'll see every week you tune into Lewis (or pick your mopey detective of choice). Thinking back on it now and the overly graphic scenes really did exploit me and left me feeling cheated because they actually didn't inform the overall story at all. There were little to no consequences (for her) during the rest of the film at all.

It was fine, it was good, it never felt slow to me and the 3hrs passed ok.
There are slight pacing issues as it has the multiple ending syndrome that plagues over-reaching nonsense like this and a montage at the very end feels rushed and inartistically put together compared with the rest of the film but that was small potatoes when viewing it as a whole. When Fincher puts his mind to a set piece he can accomplish interesting things with editing, juxtaposition and tension like no other, he needs to move away from these shitty scripts and do something that matches his intelligent, diligent and detailed approach.

Also why are some people doing accents and others aren't? is this all explained in the second book?

It's got to be better than Bryan Singer taking on a big budget film of Jack and the fucking Beanstalk, right??

7 out of 10 predictable yet beautifully tossed salads

A FISTFUL OF DOHLERS

It's HERE - to Listen to the show click the link below!

The After Movie Diner Podcast

PRESENTS

'A Fistful of Dohlers'

A look at the life & films of one Mr. Don Dohler

FEATURING

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH JOHN KINHART DIRECTOR OF 'BLOOD BOOBS & BEASTS'
available on Hulu or to rent and buy from Amazon

Nick, Phil and Myself will look at 3 of Dohler's early Sci-Fi and Horror films
Alien Factor (1978)

Watch on YouTube


Fiend (1980)

Watch on YouTube

and
Blood Massacre (1991)

Only trailer currently available online

Those not familiar with Don Dohler he is a no-budget Baltimore based Horror and Sci-Fi director who, since watching the EXCELLENT documentary and 4 of his 5 early films, I have become hugely enamored with.

We discussed Nightbeast (another of his films) on an earlier podcast

I can't suggest him too highly for fans of B-Movies, schlock, creature features and horror.

Get ready because a FIST FULL OF DOHLERS is coming your way!

My Top 10 of the year so far - 26th October 2011

Thanks to the wonderful fellas over at http://cinematicmethod.com I was inspired to do something I don't do very often: create a list, with a definite order, of films.
It's difficult to do it with favourites or even favourites within a genre but actually, considering 2011 has been so utterly dire in terms of film, it didn't take me long to run down a list of releases this year and out of the ones I have seen, produce a top 10 list of my favourite films of the year so far. So, purely for your idle entertainment here goes nothing:

1. Killer Elite
2. Red State
3. Source Code
4. Jane Eyre
5. Our Idiot Brother
6. Hobo with a Shotgun
7. 50/50
8. Super
9. The Mechanic
10. Contagion
Runner Up: Midnight in Paris
Worst movie of the year: The Thing Remake/Prequel

Drive - 17th September 2011

Ok so I haven't written the blog in ages because, well quite frankly I have been busy and obsessed with the new After Movie Diner podcast amdpodcast.blogspot.com , also a lot of the films that I have seen recently haven't inspired me exactly to write anything about them. Don't worry, I will go back and cover them all eventually I am just not going to be a stickler on when, the date on the posts will still indicate when I saw the film, ok?

So for almost a year this blog has been updated in the order that I saw the films but from now on, it will be updated when I have something to say.

So this brings me to Drive, which I have just seen and has inspired me big time to put my thoughts down now. For those who either haven't seen it or haven't read up on it, Ryan Gosling plays a quiet, enigmatic stunt driver who works movies by day and by night, literally, moonlights as a getaway driver.
We never find out why, nor does the movie ever fully explain it because that would have forced the writer to actually pen some dialogue. When we do get even the remotest bit of back story about any of the characters it is presented by one character wandering up to another and in a neat, concise monologue telling the person and us, the audience, basically just enough so we get the picture. It's a slightly obvious, ham fisted way of doing things.
Gosling becomes enamoured with Carey Mulligan and her son who live next door by way of a montage and some electronika musak. When her husband is released from jail and some of his old cronies come calling, Gosling takes it upon himself to help, the plan fails, everything goes from bad to worse and it's up to him and only him to ensure Mulligan and the kid's safety.

Sounds exciting, right? well it is and it isn't. Here is what I wrote the moment I got home:

"While I certainly didn't hate the movie and would still recommend everyone to go and see it I am just not sure I wasn't having the wool pulled over my eyes.

It was either a phenomenal piece of stylistic and understated brilliance with subtlety taking the place of script while also featuring some extreme and intentionally over the top and almost manga/cartoonish ultra violence; sort of like David Lynch meets The Coen's (actually Barton Fink came to mind) via Scorsese (part of the plot and character was pure Taxi Driver without the voice over and Albert Brooks' presence sort of confirmed it for me).
OR
It was the longest, most pretentious, stylistic mess (veering oddly from moments of quiet, oblique, impenetrable confusing silence to loud slow mo John Woo via Tarantino violence) that I have ever had the misfortune to sit through.
It certainly had me swinging from one opinion to the other all the way home and part of me was deeply angered by the film but then again it also left me feeling still, happy and weirdly relaxed.

Oscar contender by the new Lynch/Coen/Scorsese/Tarantino hybrid we've been waiting for in the sea of mundane and banal cinematic offerings of late or does the emperor have a new car?
YOU decide - go watch it, any film that makes me think this much and feel conflicted HAS to be worth the price of admission."

What I will say is this, the supporting cast are brilliant. Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston and Ron Perlman all play their parts with as much relish as the non-existent script will allow.
Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, however, fall into the same category as the film, are their incredibly understated, blank, mumbly performances work of amazing, burgeoning young talents? or are they both expressionless, bland, doe eyed frauds?I honestly just don't know and couldn't tell you.

It might have all been a dream.

It was an utterly frustrating experience writing this review but I really had to put it down on paper (so to speak).

Either 2 out of 10 or 8 out of 10 - I can't decide.

UPDATE: Ok, so it's a few days later - Tues 20th Sept to be precise and the whole internet it seems is clamouring to, pardon my expression, suck this films dick. Everyone is going crazy over the praise they give it.
Well that's fine, it's great people saw something in the cinema that for them was exciting and engaging. I would never criticise them personally for thinking what they want but the more people go on about it the more I have thought back over the film to see if there was something I missed because a lot of these people are my friends and I trust and respect their opinion.
Well sadly no, in fact the more I think about it the worse the film gets.
I am just going to say it because before I sort of held back because I was trying to give the film its due but it needs to be said: The script was weak and lazy. The exposition was heavy handed and there wasn't enough of it and the long, drawn out and repetitive silences to replace character exposition got really annoying and had me shifting in my seat wanting to scream at the screen "for fucks sake say something you droopy faced bastard!"
The performances of Gosling and Mulligan don't convince me either, yes they did develop chemistry, of sorts, through their long protracted doe eyed silences but beyond that, it was unrealistic. Real relationships, the sort we are meant to believe they have because the whole film's plot basically hinges on it, require a conversation. Just one or two. A word here or there would surfice but no, nothing, just a whole lot of gazing and a nondescript child is enough to make any lone man risk his life and the life of his only friend, we are meant to believe and I think Mulligan and Gosling do just enough so that people can't accuse them of not acting and for some to think their performances are understated genius but, to be honest, anyone can mumble through a role and the few sparks of energy he did have were few and far between.

Ok, though, let's move away from those two points, let's accept all that as fine, let's say it was more like a grindhouse film, many people have used the word retro (why? I don't know but let's go with it), let's say that the flimsy obvious exposition was on purpose, it certainly fits with the excessive and cartoonishly rendered blood letting and underworld crime theme.
Great, as a grindhouse film it's too long, too slow and with overt artistic pretensions and you can't have a film called Drive, go on and on about what a great driver this guy is and then in the one scene where it really counts (the getaway) have another car there that is as good and almost gets the better of them when it's only meant to be driven by some generic hoods.
So is it an art film with grindhouse pretensions or a grindhouse film with artistic pretensions? I mean at least when Tarantino tried to do retro with Dogs and Pulp especially he put in enough interesting dialogue and jokes to cover up what were huge obvious homages to other things and in fact when he makes a purposeful grindhouse film years later and even Inglorious Basterds after that (which is based on a 70s grindhouse action flick) they are the worse two films of his career.

I still don't mean to be too down on the film, it really was ok but it's a reaction to people going on about how brilliant it was. I am sorry but it really wasn't brilliant. It was ok. Maybe it really just is that people either haven't watched a film like this in a while or that all the other films they have seen recently have been so bad that this one sticks out amongst the shit. I don't know but I also don't believe in falling for hype or praising things unduly. Praise where praise is due: Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman and Bryan Cranston.
The cinematography wasn't bad either but it was uneven in places and the editing, again, wasn't too shabby except where they disjointedly slipped in long shots of silent night driving over and over again to try and infuse Ryan's bland performance with some sort of tortured depth. I get it! the guy feels more comfortable behind the wheel of a car where he is in control than in his own skin where he is not! I get it! I got it an hour ago! stop dragging the film out!
Sorry I am ranting again but this film is forcing me to. I don't know why but when I don't understand why people think it's a masterpiece I have to offer my counter argument. Sorry

The Dilemma - 23rd June 2011

I had heard all the criticisms: the negative use of the word gay, what the hell was Ron Howard doing slumming it with this week sauce comedy, it didn't know what genre it wanted to be, Queen Latifa acted like an idiot (although when she became the bench mark for high art I don't know - like to enlighten me?) and none of the characters were likable.

Well yes, ok, some of those are fair points, for example it does swing violently all over the place in terms of mood with one minute being a drama, one minute being a farce and next moment being some sort of ridiculous lads comedy but for anyone who saw Vince Vaughn's film The Break Up you'll know that the ones where he has input on the idea, mainly writing or producing, usually seem genuinely interested in the idea of relationships, not in the usual 'boy meets girl' but what happens once boy has met girl, got together and the real challenges start.

Financially, for Vaughn, these have been good waters to tread but, like we have learnt, a films take is no indication of actually how good the film is and when it comes to that he has had varying degrees of success with this concept over his past few films, from the very good (The Break Up) to the 'how did so many right people get something so horribly wrong' (Couples Retreat). He has dealt with break ups, how do couples who are great together privately deal with their dutso families, what happens when another couples mooted break up effects 3 other couples and now the Dilemma which can be boiled down to what happens when one member of two great couples finds out that his friends wife is cheating on him?

Well next to the Break Up this is the second best film of this type that Vaughn has attempted, there is quite a drop off but thankfully Four Christmases and Couples Retreat this is not. Yes some of the jokes and slapstick maybe a bit broad but so was a lot of The Break Up and I honestly always appreciate the attempt to do something more than just the generic rom-com.

Proving, if proof was ever needed, that Ron Howard has absolutely no style of directing what-so-ever, this film could have been directed by generic-blockbuster-comedy-director number 5 and you wouldn't know the difference and while I applaud Vaughn attempting to work with lots of different people each time I am not sure how well this cast gelled together. Individually they were all fine but I am not sure I can handle Winona Ryder anymore, she's just weird.

He may have the success rate of late era Woody Allen, with more misses than hits but I, for one, am willing to allow him to mine the concept of all the possibilities of 'what happens once you're with someone' for as long as he likes and with all the different cast/director combos he can think of because as almost all of The Break Up and parts of The Dilemma show somewhere in his rapid fire delivery is some really good ideas just waiting to be given some form and structure and you never know, it might happen again yet.

6 out of 10 bagels confused as doughnuts and the eater gets a slightly disappointing but not unpleasant experience.
Points from the Wife 6.5 out of 10
  

Best in Show - 20th June 2011

12 years after Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer and Michael McKean first coined the phrase 'Mockumentary' in the now legendarily funny "This is Spinal Tap", the aforementioned Mr.Chris Guest re-intvented the wheel and re-vitalised the formula with a series of similar styled films, all, mostly, starring the same regular group of actors.
Apart from an outline by Guest and SCTV alum and 80s comedic legend, Eugene Levy, the dialogue was improvised mostly in the form of talking heads interspersed with sketches and scenes, some which pushed the story forward and others merely to tell jokes.

Where Tap focussed on a big, famous and bombastic band on the downturn of their luck, the following four films would deal more with fringe groups of smaller minded people, in all but Best in Show, trying to create something artistic but on a much smaller or independent scale. Like Tap though, they all seemingly have delusions of grandeur.

In Best in Show, the second of the four films Guest and company have, so far, made together, the action centres around several couples bringing their prized pooch to compete in the national finals at the Mayflower dog tournament. You get the crazy, wound tight, new age yuppies, the seemingly happy go-lucky, middle aged, mild mannered, married couple where the wife has more than a few skeletons in her cupboard, the fairly flamboyant gay couple, the idiotic, blonde trophy wife to a seemingly ancient man with money and her go-getting, lesbian trainer and finally Guest himself, barely recognisable as always,  as a soft spoken, mild southern gentleman who seemingly lives life by three things: fishing, naming nuts and his bloodhound dog.

Unlike Tap before it and a Mighty Wind that would follow, Best in Show, while it has it's over the top moments and it's silly bits, seems a lot more of a genuine subtle character study and at times, especially with the arguing couple and also with the wife of many lovers, an unusually dark piece full of pathos and awkward silences.
Not a lot of humour is derived from the idea of 'showing the dogs', if the point of a zombie film is that it's really the human's that are the monsters then it's the point of Best in Show that it's us humans who are crazy, stupid or both, with the dogs treated as serious and almost lazily confused by the whole thing.

The performances in this are, across the board, strong, nuanced, perfectly realised and in their attention to detail, utterly hilarious. Guest, Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock especially disappear in their roles and, actually, when you think of Guest in Tap, Princess Bride, A Few Good Men, Waiting for Guffman, this and others, he rivals Peter Sellers in his ability to seemingly become an entirely new, intricate and, often, totally unrecognisable character. While I know he has reached something of a god status amongst those in the know, it is criminal that we live in a society that praises actors who routinely and, very often, badly play themselves over and over again when amongst them, working away, with little fanfare, there is an incredible and talented chameleon like Christopher Guest.

Best in Show is not the funniest film of this type, when it comes to actual, obvious, laugh out loud jokes and of course nothing rivals the quote rate of Tap but there are some classic scenes in this, some lovely running jokes and as we reach the climax at the actual dog show we are treated to, the always fantastic and funny, Fred Willard as a spectacularly clueless announcer.

Nothing is made of the direction but I suppose as you don't notice it and it feels authentic throughout then it's a job well done. Guest certainly knows how to get the best out of these people and capture all that he needs.

Best in Show is probably the bravest, or at least most inventive of the four Guest/Levy collaborations because all his other topics: Small town amateur dramatics, music and movie making are easy targets to some extent, especially for people who are actors/musicians already, and while a dog show and dog trainers may initially feel like an easy target, like absurd beauty pageants or what have you, the way they have crafted the film, the stereotypes may not be what you expect and it actually surprises, also the dogs are not played for laughs, the humans are.

If you only see one post-Tap Guest movie then make it a Mighty Wind because it's just funnier in gag rate but if you see a second one or are in the mood for a slower, more nuanced character piece pick Best in Show. You'll see a new thing each time you go back and watch it, so why not go do that now!

7 out of 10 tasty dog biscuits
Points from the Wife - 7 out of 10
     

Tango & Cash - 12th June 2011

Tango and Cash may just be one of the weirdest and therefor most subversive buddy cop action film you have ever seen.

It has wild shifts in tone that give it the appearance of an action heavy, mismatched buddy cop movie when really it teeters on the edge of being a spoof of that genre, with it's wise cracking, oddball array of secondary characters and, in one scene, cross dressing.

It has a paper thin set up that has plot holes a-plenty, no ending and darts from one scene to the next happily abandoning any pretense of structure or explanation, everything has to be taken on face value and everything, no matter how implausible is simply there to push us on to the next implausible thing. Basically it's one of those 'check your inner film snob at the door' type films, for this you should just sit back, laugh and enjoy.
Especially at some of the 'meta' or 'knowing' jokes that are in the film like Stallone, early on, saying "Rambo was a pussy".

It is for the reasons above that explaining the plot for this cheese-ball fest that ricochets from gags to garottings, is a bit like trying to explain the appeal of Kurt Russell's mullet. On him, it just works.
However, very quickly, it involves an underworld king pin played by Jack Palance who has an evil villain warehouse lair with a maze for his mice (evil mice presumably) in the top of his bar, a wall of televisions and red haired, pony tail wearing hard man with one of the worst British accents to appear on screen since The Van Dykester in that Poppins movie. Wouldn't you know that his elaborate drug smuggling plots are aways foiled by either the scruffy, fast talking, cowboy boot wearing and mullet sporting Gabriel Cash, who has a very nifty gun with a glaringly obvious laser site or by Raymond Tango, the Armani suit wearing, stocks and shares dealing, bespectacled tree-trunk of a cop who does the job purely for the thrills and not the cash.
Despite being able to orchestrate a fairly obvious, yet curiously successful, frame up of the two troublesome coppers and through, what must've been some fairly hefty string pulling, manage to get them into a prison for hardened criminals, most of whom they have put away, he still refuses, even when he has them in his grasp, to just, I don't know, shoot them in the face, for reasons neither I nor James Wong will ever understand.
Through an even more massive contrivance the two narrowly escape from prison, Cash hooks up with Tango's sister, while dressed as a woman (because he's that much of a man or maybe she is a bit bi-curious) and that leads to some hilarious indignant posturing from Tango. This goes on for a while until everyone decides to be friends, take a super truck thing from Cash's weird Q (from James Bond) like friend and storm the gates of the evil hideout and blow everything up. Which presumably, if they wanted to, they could've done this months ago and saved the tax payers the cost of an expensive trial.
Still, it all works out in the end, sort of.
Well it actually has an A-Team like ending but then just when you expect to see some postscript of maybe Tango and Cash strolling down the beach playing ball with a strangers dog while Terry Hatcher, Tango's sister, struts around laughing like an idiot in a bikini, instead you just get the credits with little to no idea whether these two on-the-lam cops will be sent back to prison or what. Let's assume, for argument's sake, that the entire city is now safe and they all have a lovely holiday in Rio for a month.

Maybe for all these reasons it's a bit of a lost gem. While you can hardly call yourself a fan of Stallone or Russell's without having seen it, I think, for the masses, it has been lost through the years under a pile of Die Hard's, Lethal Weapon's, Stallone's own franchises of Rocky and Rambo and even 48 Hours which seems to be more fondly remembered than messers Raymond Tango and Gabriel Cash.
It's a shame because it's pretty out there, pretty funny, well performed by both leads, atmospherically directed and one of the lucky few that bares the credit - Score by Harold Faltermeyer, no it's not going to win any Oscars or even points for good plotting from the Marlon Brando school for incomprehensible gibberish spouted by drunk bus drivers but if you disengage your brain and switch on your dopey man grin then you'll be in for a good 90 minutes of hilarity, bad hair and bonkers kick assery.

7 out of 10 slices of surreal man cake
Points from The Wife - 6 out of 10

You can hear me discuss Tango & Cash and more Stallone/Russell films on episode 2 & 3 of The Podcast from the After Movie Diner which can be downloaded from iTunes or http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/110745


or just listen to it here on the site using the Talkshoe player on your left
or go to http://amdpodcast.blogspot.com
   

Cave of Forgotten Dreams - 11th June 2011

I saw this film at the IFC cinema in New York and it was a perfect, pristine 3D print of it.
I am still not sure, having not seen the 2D version, just how much the third dimension added to it but despite that it was a rich, intelligent, fascinating and detailed type of work the likes of which we rarely see anymore.

This is a documentary in the purest sense, as it is, quite simply, just a documentation of something. It just so happens that this 'something' is  beyond valuable and utterly remarkable.
It has no axe to grind, no drum to beat, in typical Herzogin fashion, the Bavarian loony genius shows us something, offers up a couple of intriguing questions and moves on without long diatribes or half baked assumptions.

For those not in the know this is all about some 35,000 year old cave paintings in France and Herzog is the only person who has been allowed down there to film it for all to see and thank Zeus he has because I can't imagine anyone doing a better or slightly weirder job. From the people he chooses to interview to the questions he asks and the observations he makes, the whole thing is just a little off its axis in a charming, slightly nuts way.

The film throws up so many discussions your mind can barely contain them all and the more you think, the more you see the ramifications of these paintings. Questions of tribal behaviour being more observant and artistic than you'd expect, questions of religion, or at least some form of basic gathering/worship/celebration, questions on sex/gender and of course questions of evolution while the whole time it also balances the fact that the paintings shine a light on our self inflated sense of our own creativity and how, really, little we have creatively progressed in that vast chasm of time.

Herzog's use of simple cameras, a tiny crew and minimal lighting when he is down in the cave, is just hypnotic and don't worry he covers every inch he can with those cameras and towards the end of the film he does just let the images play out, utilising evocative music and simple but highly effective light play to transport you back 35,000 years with those questions still swirling in your head.

To hear me review this film in more depth, along with others, please listen to the third episode of my podcast:

Available to download now from http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/110745
and iTunes (just search 'after movie diner' in the podcasts section)

9 out of 10 Bavarian fruitcakes
Points from The Wife 9 out of 10
     

Friday 13th Part 4 'The Final Chapter' - 5th June 2011

Never before has a title for a film been so horrendously far off the mark. Calling this the final chapter is like saying 'there can be only one' in Highlander.

Anyway

Many people credit Psycho with being the first slasher film, then Halloween established the set-up and rules of the modern day slasher but if you ever wanted to know where the template of teenagers, sex, nudity and doing something so common sense defying and horrendously stupid that the audience is screaming 'No turn around, put your clothes back on and fucking run!' was truly tested and then pushed to illogical and hilarious levels then look no further than The Friday The 13th Franchise.

Part 4 is particularly stupid in this regard. There are scenes in this film of such heroically idiotic ineptitude as to boggle the mind.

In one instance a girl leaves everyone else she knows in the warm safe glow of a rental house and wanders out into the dark woodland towards a lake, all the time shouting the name of her boyfriend and despite no reply, no evidence of him anywhere or no reason to believe he'd be out in the woods by himself in the small hours of the morning, she gets to the lake, removes all her clothes (you know as one does), calls his name a few more times and then swims to a semi inflated rubber dinghy in the middle of the lake. It is then and only then that she realises, you know what, he's probably not out here and I got all naked, wet and cold for nothing. It is these moments of clarity that happen seconds before some hockey wielding maniac leaps from the lake and kills you with a machete.

Featuring odd performances from such randoms as Crispin Glover and the creepy little boy role filled by none other than Corey Feldman, the film is the standard horror fair with a bunch of kids renting a house from a Mother, daughter and her son (Feldman), who despite being no older than 10 maybe, inexplicably has a hobby where he makes masks and make-ups for horror films (possibly a nod to Tom Savini who's make-up and special effects started the franchise) just down the road from where Jason hacked all those people to death in part 3. In fact the beginning of this film follows on exactly.
Not content, obviously, with the carnage and mayhem he brought about in the previous film, Jason staggers down to the next pack of stupid, alcohol swigging, fornicating teenagers and decides, for no apparent reason what so ever, to do them in as well.
As well as the bizarre addition of Feldman's character, which, at least, plays a relevant part in the final showdown, there is also a seemingly endless scene of one of the, quite frankly, nondescript and tedious teens watching a super 8 projector of 1920s burlesque dancers.
Which is what every sad male did in the 80s when all of his friends either hooked up or, unbeknownst to you, got hacked up. You break out the old whirring projector, string up a sheet and seemingly amuse yourself (but not abuse yourself) to a grainy black n white image of  topless women from a bygone era. Standard Saturday night for most I would imagine.

This where the slasher horror genre became like porn, in the sense that you sit slack jawed in amazing boredom during the dialogue scenes waiting for the money shot, or in this case, deaths. Unfortunately the deaths are heralded about 5 minutes in advance so you know exactly what's going to happen and it's all over way too quickly. There are some good effects though, I guess and the odd inventive death, still it all gets a bit ridiculous when you see that Jason has had time to arrange some of the bodies, and in one case nail one of them up to a door frame, apparently in no time at all. Where got the hammer and nails from is anyone's guess!

However, you know, these are minor niggles at the end of the day, you either like silly slasher fair or you don't. I watched this in a cabin by a lake late at night and I loved it. I laughed, I clapped when one of the annoying ones got killed, shouted at the stupid people in disbelief as they made basic blunders and the ending, not unlike the ending of Halloween 4 that would come 4 years later, was genuinely affecting and a bit creepy, if for no other reason than a tiny Corey Feldman in a bald cap with a knife will always be affecting and a bit creepy.

Is it the best of the series? no but it's not the worst (say hello Jason takes Manhattan) and I had a ball watching it. If you like to laugh and you like your slasher films to have their fair share of nudity then this is one of the ones for you!

6 out of 10 blood oranges or something...
  

PODCAST ANNOUNCEMENT - 26th July 2011

The After Movie Diner has finally gone audio with an AMD Podcast series! and while continuing to write reviews on here (and I promise I will continue to write reviews on here) I will also be attempting a fairly frequent podcast too with a series of guests.

The first episode is already up and can be heard and downloaded here, for iTunes users please click the iTunes button to download and subscribe that way:
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/110745

and if you're already a blogger.com user and want to remain so, then the sister website which will also be hosting the podcast is here:

http://amdpodcast.blogspot.com/

Also I will have widget on this website that will allow you to listen to it here as well. Just look in the right hand column.

Thanks for all of your continuing support, please download, listen, enjoy, share and spread the word!
Thank you.

Trick 'r Treat - 4th June 2011

Trick r Treat is a 'Creepshow', 'Tales from the Crypt' type anthology movie except that they have taken the 'multiple short stories in one film' concept to it's logical next step and intertwined all the stories by setting them in the same town on Halloween night and having the characters interact.

Like any of the aforementioned forerunners to this film it is heavily laden with a macabre sense of humour rather than being genuinely scary.
In fact the title sequence of this film is done like a comic book and that is very apt because the whole thing has a sort of comic-book feel, despite the graphic novel of the stories (originally meant to be a 4 issue run) wasn't published till after the film was made.

Also, like any of these films some parts inevitably work better than others and I would say that the beginning and end of the film is considerably better than the middle section. Still it is put together slickly, with a nice fun but frightening Halloween feel, good cinematography with a definite leaning into Tim Burton territory and features its fair share of semi-famous faces, no doubt enjoying themselves immensely.

If you are a hardcore horror fan looking to be scared I wouldn't suggest it but this sort of film works perfectly as an introduction to horror or just something to crank out every Halloween for a bit of a sick dark laugh.

7 out of 10 poisoned pumpkins
Points from the Wife 7 out of 10
 

Midnight in Paris - 30th May 2011

There's a lot of crap talked about Woody Allen. Critics talk about his 'Early funny ones', his 'shaky recent out put' and his 'European period'. When reviewing a Woody Allen film apparently you have to either critique his 40+ years of work in one big impossible whole, line him up against other film makers, attempt to pigeon hole him or write him off completely. It's true that in the following review I do fall victim to some of those cliches because it's almost impossible not to but what I mean and what I actually attempt to do is, his films are hardly ever reviewed individually for what they are and this is either because the critic has nothing to say about the film they've actually just seen or they are too busy longing for a bygone time that they think no longer exists, which, funnily enough is rather apt in the case of Midnight in Paris.

We'll never know if this film was an attempt to make an early funny one with hints of dramedy stuff like Annie Hall and the lush period visuals of Bullets over Broadway whilst all the time secretly satirising and mocking the critics for not being able to live in the present. If it is then Woody may indeed be the genius he so frequently claims that he's not, if it isn't then it's a simple and charming film about the artistic and maybe just human condition that nobody wants to live in the present and every artist secretly yearns for rain drizzled Parisian streets.

Whatever it is or was meant to be, it has succeeded in being, just in box office terms the most successful Woody Allen movie of all time. I saw it a couple of weeks into its run and it is still playing at my local multiplex now, over a month later and when I went to see Horrible Bosses the other night there were still crowds of people exiting the Woody film and not just the bearded, corduroy wearing sociology professor you might expect but a broad cross section of the public. At one point the same theatre had dedicated 2 screens to it! 

Just to put this in contrast when I went to see Whatever Works, which had the pull of being the first film Woody set in New York in 5 years, starring Larry David who is a highly successful writer and star now and the one actor everyone thought should've been working with Woody all along and was, for my money, the first actually really funny comedy he'd done since Deconstructing Harry, I managed to find one art house cinema that was screening it for maybe two weeks if that and the showing I was in I think the audience was about 3 people, maybe one old Dutch woman with a poodle as well, I can't be sure.

It doesn't really make any sense who goes to see what and why but it's just nice to know that, in this world of Transformers, vomiting bridesmaids and the excitement some people seemed to get from almost seeing Jennifer Aniston's nipple, a Woody Allen film not even starring his most starry of casts and set in a country most Americans (and to be fair most Brits also) despise, full of in jokes and references about authors, artists and musicians from over 70 years ago can be so, financially at least, successful.  

So, what is the film actually like? I hear you cry. Well, it's not bad. I don't think it's a classic to be honest but it's not bad. 

The cinematography is, as always, excellent and both modern Paris and the Paris of the past look stunningly beautiful. 

The script is, if I am honest, a little contrived, obvious and devoid of subtlety. It's very funny, has a great little point to make and it makes it understandably and simply but there isn't the quick fire one liners and the dialogue that lets the human drama unfold and play out realistically. Everything is sign posted with a sledge hammer. 

Owen Wilson is likable enough and doesn't attempt to get his Texas nasality around too much of a Woody impersonation, like a lot of other leading men have done in his position, he can, however, be a tad one-note in the part though and his character is not exactly convincingly drawn. He spends a lot of the film just doing enthusiasm or wide eyed wonder and not particularly convincing at that, I do not see prose that would impress Gertrude Stein coming out of that man.

Still he has more to work with than Rachel MacAdams who is not exactly given much to do and it does border almost on insulting how thinly written, flat-out annoying, shrill and stereotypical her character is, for the man who has always been applauded for writing female characters so well I was actually a bit surprised at the sitcom nature of the 'nagging fiance who has nothing in common with her hubby to be' character she was weakly forced to inhabit.

The only other person with a significant lead is Marion Cortillard who almost pulls a Penelope Cruz in Vicky Christina Barcelona here by being the token foreign actress who swoops in and shows up everyone else, unfortunately she doesn't get a grand amount of screen time in which to swoop. 

Everyone else is a cameo and from Kurt Fuller as the hilariously republican soon-to-be father-in-law right down to the scene-everyone-is-talking-about featuring Adrian Brody as a batty, rhinoceros obsessed Salvador Dali they are all pretty splendid although I honestly felt each character could've had a lot more jokes attached to them.

There was an article recently about whether Woody Allen was a genius, where he sat in the long line of cinema auteurs like his beloved Bergman. Well Midnight in Paris suffers from the problem a lot of his work suffers from and what, I think, stops him earning the 'genius' tag completely and that is laziness.  

Now you may think it's odd I say laziness as he is 76 and has a schedule where he still writes and directs one movie a year every year and has done for at least three and a half decades but what I mean is it feels like he's either not giving himself the time, or really can't be bothered to fully form an idea anymore or to maybe do a few re-writes or polishes of his scripts. 

This maybe because he doesn't need to. 

He gets enviable casts, support from his peers, has a dedicated fan base around the world, doesn't do atrociously with the critics and like he has said, the financing for his next film is already in place while he's working on the prior and so he doesn't really have to have standards or it maybe because he can't really keep the pace that he used to when it comes to churning out movies.

I understand that you'd have to be a fool to expect all of them to be great works of art and for all of them to compare with the earlier, more critically acclaimed part of his career but while I, personally, love that I don't have to wait long to see another Woody movie maybe he should slow down, make one movie every other year or something and take his time, primarily, re-writing the script. 

Now this is not because I believe they would then be all classics, he would probably have about the same hit rate as he has now but because I believe that when a potential classic came along, like Midnight in Paris, it would be better, it would be polished, characters rough edges smoothed down a bit, jokes added and it may have had more thought put into it. His films are slowly resembling demo versions of films that could be.

These are all minor niggles though, Midnight in Paris was enjoyable, watchable, looked beautiful, had some very funny scenes and good, strong performances from most of the cast. It beat the fucking bloomers from his last effort 'You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger' or 'You will Wish You Had Never Been Born' as I called it, which was, quite possibly in the running for worst Woody Allen movie of ALL time. I couldn't get through much more than half of it and I sat through all of Cassandra's Dream and, apart from the lead's accents, rather enjoyed it.

To stop and play typical-critic for a moment, out of Woody's recent "European period" I actually rank Midnight in Paris equal with Scoop as my two favourites. This may surprise some but I thought the two which were the best received, Match Point and Vicky Christina Barcelona were absolutely terrible, except for Penelope Cruz's excellent turn in the latter.

In the end, whatever their genre, location or cast, Woody Allen still achieves more in a half-arsed annual film than most film makers achieve their entire career and who am I kidding, I love my yearly Woody movie.

7 out of 10 and there were surprisingly few baguettes

Points from The Wife 8 out of 10.

     

Breakdown - 29th May 2011

Alright so after that exciting interlude where I posted about the Evil Dead remake and got my first negative comment from a guy who didn't really seem to understand what I was saying and who took some sort of vague offense for no obvious view point or reason. It was fun. My comment box was like an average day on an IMDB message board only with 1 idiot instead of millions.
Still back to playing catch up and reviewing the movies I have mostly had the pleasure to watch over the last month and a half.

We return with Breakdown which is a little remembered, predominantly road based, action thriller with the superb Kurt Russell going up against thieving murderous truckers headed up by the man who always relishes the chance to play evil, the late and most certainly great J.T. Walsh.

It has a simple set up, a hero you can root for a bad guy you love to hate, the action comes on thick and fast and it's a pretty fantastic viewing experience all round to be honest. The acting is top notch and the direction and production valuesare great and perfectly suited to the subject, which is odd because everything else Jonathan Mostow has done has been completely bilge.
Kurt blows the bland bad actor Chuck Norris, the Sluggish and lumbering Seagal and the incomprehensible and silly Van Damme out of the water in the action stakes. This film is very much in the same ball park as their outputs only better. Much better. It's the film all their films want to be.
Russell is not a kick boxer, he's not a martial artist, he's just an East Coast yuppie on his way out West pushed to extremes by some rednecks.

If you have ever been attacked (and I hope that you haven't) but after a couple of days of nursing bruises you start to picture what you would've done if only you had the guts or the opportunity, it's a very common scenario or if you have ever watched a horror or action movie and said 'now this is what I would do...' well this film lives out that wish fulfillment for you. That's its entire premise.

Forget these wannabe exploitation/retro/B-Movie action films of recent years that try so hard but 9 times out of 10 fail, Breakdown is the real thing, a simple action thriller that doesn't have to make everyone aware of it's 70s influences to be good, it just IS good. Now-a-days the only way to make a film like this again and for it to be any good is not to get Tarantino to do it but it would be to hire Jason Statham.

I would say this was the last great movie Russell has done, it happily stands alongside classics like Tombstone and Escape from New York for me, just obviously not as iconic but either way, well worth a watch.

9 out of 10 dusty road side cantina burgers
Points from the Wife 8 out of 10