Stallone in Zurich 2008

People who want to dismiss Sylvester Stallone or action stars do so at their peril. Anyone who has examined the life of these guys or heard them being interviewed knows that they are far more than a clunk headed bodybuilder with an automatic weapon.
Back in 2008 the Zurich film festival hosted Stallone and sat him down for a chat about his work behind the camera. It's fascinating and entertaining. Take a look.

The Wolverine

After a slew of disappointing summer blockbusters it fills me with great joy that I can finally write a positive review for one.
For those of you who don't know I am something of a fan of the original X Men trilogy and I go into detail about it on the latest 2-part epic X-Men episode of the podcast from The After Movie Diner.

The 1st part deals with the main X-men Trilogy We ALSO talk Man of Steel and Pacific Rim a little too.

RIGHT CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MP3 OF PART 1

The 2nd part deals with X-Men Origins: Wolverine, X-Men: First Class and The Wolverine
RIGHT CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MP3 OF PART 2

However, I feel that the two prequel films Origins: Wolverine and First Class add very little to the franchise (although First Class is vastly superior to Origins, of course). It was with a little bit of trepidation then that I went to see the new instalment of the franchise, The Wolverine.

It's basically a sequel to X3: The Last Stand while also giving you more back story, more character and more information about the nature and personality of Logan/Wolverine, it's also the age old comic-book story of 'Superhero loses powers and learns deep abiding truths and the value and responsibility of wielding that power' but it tells it the best way I have ever seen that story told AND it's also a 70s Yakuza film complete with operatic and Shakespearean family drama, some sword wielding and, yes, even ninjas. It has a lot to accomplish, including being an entertaining comic-book, action, blockbuster film and it manages it all with grace, skill, awesome performances, mature pacing and an adult, serious slant.

It's not filled to bursting with whizz crash bangery but when the action and fighting take place it's awesome, especially in the first couple of acts. I have to say that the ending climax seemed a little flat to me and while there were lots of cool moments, as a whole it felt underwhelming after the fights that had come before.

Although it's PG-13, the film is more adult in tone and in pacing. It's slower, it doesn't talk down to the audience and, in fact, even has quite a bit of swearing and some mild gore, certainly more than any of the previous films. Anyone remember those three tiny cut marks on Mystique after Wolverine was meant to have stabbed her back in X1? well them days are long gone, thankfully, although the film-makers don't spill half as much crimson as would actually be spraying everywhere if this was real.

I know there are some out there who wish Fox and Marvel would get off the whole Wolverine kick and give someone else a chance in the limelight but this is truly the film the character and the patient, loyal Jackman deserve and he is particularly excellent in this film. Hugh Jackman has kept this character on when many other actors might have fled and despite the questionable turn of events in X-Men Origins, ignoring that, there is a wonderful continuity throughout the other 5 films that is continued and developed here.
In fact, considering the desire of a studio to often make these films 'stand alone' there is a certain plot strand involving Jean Grey that you really have to have seen, at least, the original trilogy to appreciate.

I felt this instalment added more to Wolverine's character than ever before and finally all the pieces for me, as a non comic book reader and just a movie goer, fell into place. Jackman does a wonderful job of conveying Logan's journey like we haven't seen before.

I can't fault the direction or the performances much at all, Rila Fukushima especially is a great sidekick that I hope crops up again one day, and while the script, much like previous films in the franchise, does a great job of juggling all the plot, character development, back story and action, it has a harder time finding good, decent, crowd pleasing one liners for Jackman to growl on, chew up and spit out with glee. There are attempts but nothing truly satisfying and it's been this way since X-Men 1. Someone needs to do an anti-hero cheesy one-liner punch up on the script. Get Schwarzenegger's old writers on it or something!

Also, MORE NINJA FIGHTING!!

Apart from that I can't suggest you see The Wolverine too highly. It's a good time at the cinema but avoid the 3D it really does add absolutely nothing, sadly.

8 out of 10 adamantium wolf meat kabab skewers

Pacific Rim

To be honest I am not going to write a big long review for this one. I have said my piece on this film on the podcast a couple of times and apparently it's even started to piss people off, which is hilarious as it's just an opinion but if you want to know, completely, what I thought then you can listen below to the Diner episode devoted to it:


RIGHT CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD MP3

In a nutshell, though, I thought Pacific Rim was a badly structured, badly paced, badly acted and badly written film that had a few, really good, robot fighting monster sequences that were, sadly, not serviced by the film around them. 

You can throw all effects, lighting, dramatic music and wobbly camera you want at the screen, if the build up and the dramatic tension isn't there and if you don't give two rabid owl hoots for your protagonists then all your work will be in vain.

It's not like it's difficult to do either. Hell! even the odd Chuck Norris movie can elicit a fist clench and a manly cheer, from the right crowd, during the action climax and he wonders through his films like a lobotomised clothes rack of pale skin attached to a comical moustache. 

Dammit, I really hate to say it but as woeful and ineptly made as it was, even Sharknado worked out the formula for how to be entertaining as all heck and structure a 'monsters-attack' movie in such a way that it's actually, in parts, exciting. 

I know its supporters hate the comparison but Independence Day is the modern blueprint for these disaster/alien attack films, whether they like it or not, and one of the script writers on Pacific Rim certainly thought so as they borrow, wholesale, vast chunks of the plot, script and ideas from Roland Emmerich's fun action/disaster/alien invasion flick. Unfortunately they seem to have done so and then dropped all the pages of the script, shuffled them up and put them back together in such a way that they don't really work or they just shuffled them around in the hope that no one noticed the comparison. Like an amateurish Tarantino might.

 (please notice in that previous paragraph I said 'modern blueprint', I AM aware all these movie formulas date back to H.G.Wells novel War of the Worlds)

The cast of 'plucked from TV' actors fall, sadly, into the bland, confused or, in the case of the anti-funny Charlie Day, just plain annoying and aggressively drown-able.  Ron Perlman does his best to liven up proceedings but gets, really, very little to do.

It's shot ok, there are some sections that are very impressive to look at and then there are some that are edited poorly and render the whole thing just a series of confusing flashes of neon. On the whole though the action was pretty well done considering it was entirely built inside a computer.

I would argue, though, that if you're thinking, even for a moment, "wait? their robot has a sword?? and it can cut through monsters like they are cheap, knock off, vinyl handbags? Why haven't they been using this all along" or maybe "why do the plasma guns take such an annoyingly long time to load and then run out of ammo so easily? This is the future, it's make believe, why do they not have ever lasting plasma guns or, 15 plasma canons strapped to their robot faces??" then the film hasn't done its job of suspending disbelief and instead is dragging and appalling enough for you to notice these things and ask these questions.

I'll stop attacking it now and just basically end by saying, while I enjoyed the robot versus monster stuff a bit, it didn't justify the long running time or the pain of sitting through bland, confused or just plain bad actors massacring shitty dialogue. 

3 out of 10 fried alien lizard burgers

Girl Most Likely

You could easily dismiss Girl Most Likely, and, who are we kidding, probably already have, as just another indie, quirky, self-indulgent, probably partly autobiographical, talky movie in which nothing explodes, where a former SNL cast member does a 'I-Can-Do-Drama-Too' worthy performance and where, by the last act, everyone has begun to learn real values and, of course, you'd be right.

However, if you chose not to see the film or dismiss it out right because of that opinion, like some almighty snob, in favour for a ridiculously awful movie in which CGI things hit each other then not only are you thoroughly misguided but also you missed out on one of the funniest and most charming movies of the season.

Every so often one of these films is squeezed out into the summer schedule. Up until that annoyingly bad sitcom The New Girl, Zooey Deschanel was practically making a career out of starring in them. This one, however sits alongside Dan In Real Life, Stranger Than Fiction (or more recently, Everything Must Go), Admission or 50/50 and don't worry if you don't really like any of those films either, because while it's similar in terms of Hollywood output, casting, tone etc. it's also very different.

The plot would not look out of place in one of Woody Allen's lazier, later comedies. A playwright turned play blurb writer, living in, fairly high society, New York thinks she has her life together, loses everything, more or less, in one day and, through a plot contrivance, ends up living with her kooky mother played, predictably, by Annette Benning in Atlantic City, surrounded by a cast of wacky characters, only to, eventually, break her writer's block and turn her experience into an award winning, critically lauded play. In fact, I think, Woody Allen may have already made that film.

So, you may be thinking, how does a quirky, self indulgent, predictable and cliche riddled plot amount to one of the funniest and most charming movies of the season? Well it's simple. It's the thing that most films, usually, get staggeringly wrong. The cast and, more importantly even than that, the script are tremendous. Kristen Wiig does the sort of performance that Judd Apatow crushed and destroyed but some of us saw lurking, between the horrendously misjudged poo gags, in Bridesmaids and, actually, even betters it. Annette Benning is, for the first time in her career I think, not annoying and instead turns in a funny and nuanced performance as Wiig's obsessive mother. Matt Dillon is priceless as a sort of beardy and dishevelled Steven Seagal type character, who, hilariously, seems to be lying about being in the CIA and a whole bedtime storybook full of long-winded, tall tales about bizarre and adventurous experiences he says he has. Finally, I found Christopher Fitzgerald as the mollusc obsessed, slightly inward and agoraphobic brother, a delight to watch.

So, to the script and while every seemingly-negative point I said earlier might be true, the script is still fantastically written. The dialogue, scenarios and observations are laugh out loud funny and the jokes are actually ABOUT something or are just joyously odd, much in the way the best Woody Allen scripts used to be, which is a breath of fresh air in this world of easy and sad dick and fart jokes. The characters are wonderfully, and yes sometimes obviously, written with the clue to the script's greatness lurking in the little details. The gag involving the boardwalk crush that Ralph has, played by the always watchable Natasha Lyonne, and the glittery make up tears she gives Wiig or the quick shot of the fridge full of sandwiches towards the end, for example, add little rye laughs to an already hilarious script.

Don't be put off by your impression of what you think it is and don't be too cool for it or too cynical for it, just go and see it and support a film that isn't a sequel, a remake, made for the GDP of a small Eastern European nation and doesn't have enough CGI in it to drown James Cameron's ego.
Even if you don't like it like I did, you'd still be showing the ever increasingly mindless and redundant studio bosses that not everything needs to be a big spectacle, sometimes people want to laugh, cry and have their cockles warmed.

7.5 out of 10 cheese and ham sandwiches

Man Of Steel

FILLED WITH SPOILERS, SWEAR WORDS, SARCASM, CYNICISM AND OFFENSIVE INSULTS
Ok so at the start of this review I am going to lay all my cards out on the table. I have never been a fan of Zack Snyder (yes, even the Dawn of the Dead remake). I have watched Dawn of the Dead, 300, Watchmen and now Man of Steel so I have given him several chances. I could give you a long string of bullet points explaining exactly why, but that comes later. I could also just show you a picture of the man and if that doesn't make you want to garrotte him with piano wire then all hope maybe lost for you.
I just don't believe or much understand the hype to tell you the truth. When people say they like his films there is a part of me, the irrational, uncensored, badly mannered part of my brain that thinks, just a tiny negative thought along the lines of "What, you must be crazy. Actually bonkers crazy". I am also a natural born cynic and sceptic as a rule so buying into something simply because I am told it's good is not my style.

As for Christopher Nolan I am not a true believer there either. There are some things he has done that I rather liked and there are other things, that despite their, obviously impressive, technical superiority, I think are a load of old bollocks. To use a British expression.
Coming off the back of the woeful, yes you read that right, WOEFUL Dark Knight Rises it feels like he has either been supping from his own private vat of 'I'm wonderful' cool aid or was added as a producer to this film in an attempt, maybe, to silence the pretentious, wanky, stroky chin, roll neck and hipster scarf wearing set who blindly attack Zack Snyder without really being able to explain why. I am not one of those either, I can tell you at length WHY. I am also not someone who believes Nolan is somehow high brow genius and Snyder is some gutter dwelling cockroach. I just think when it comes to making films, while technically they obviously have some chops, Nolan more than Snyder, they both have problems when it comes to story, character, script, intention and other things that, I'm sorry, but I deem rather important when it comes to watching films.

Lastly I am not a superhero comic book fan/nerd/geek. Historically I have always preferred Superhero films and action/detective/horror comics. I can neither get into the scripting problems that everyone having superpowers inevitably lead to in the comics or the soap opera of these character's personal lives that I am meant to invest in. When it comes to Superhero films, however, I have always, more often than not, been able to enjoy the spectacle, the effects, the performances and the humour over any glaring pacing/story errors that Superhero films tend to have. I tend to zone out during the third act 'CGI things hit each other a lot' bit that ALL these films devolve predictably and depressingly in to, some worse than others.
I have to, of course, also quickly mention that I absolutely love the first 3 Christopher Reeve Superman films but I do recognise the structuring, scripting and story problems in them. However the inspirational, charming, epic and beautiful way those films are put together, performed and scored, not to mention a large dollop of nostalgia tends to put such thoughts to the back of my mind.

Ok so confessions over. Now why did I write all that and why are you reading it? your brain is no doubt screaming. Well I did it to put my review below in context.
By the way, I did NOT like Man of Steel. At ALL. So if that bothers you, offends you or annoys you in any way then I truly apologise, it is JUST an opinion and really doesn't matter at all but if it does then stop reading now.

To the film then.
Firstly some things I won't do. I am going to try and not complain about this film by comparing it to the Reeve films before it and saying it's, clearly, not as good. The influence of what Donner, Reeve, Hackman, Kidder and John Williams did back then will forever be felt and will always be relevant and important but they were then and this is now.
Of course I could easily argue that if they didn't want 30 somethings hating, arguing and ultimately comparing Man of Steel to Donner and Lester's films then why in the name of Beelzebub's cleft did the producers decide to REMAKE the origin story/Zod as villain storyline. Isn't that BEGGING comparison?
Still, to hell with logic, I won't be doing it.
I am also going to not complain about fanboy stuff like the costume or the mythology etc. because, firstly, I am not enough of a fanboy to justify it, it's all been said by far better men than me and secondly it's petty niggling and ultimately pointless.

SO, in all honesty, I would be lying if I said I didn't, initially at least, during the first few minutes, while trying to be open minded fall into the trap of feeling 'oh this just sucks! What are these CGI winged beasties?! This is needlessly showy-offy and wanky, it's not as good as the Donner one, which, of course dealt with Krypton simply and perfectly'
I then took a deep breath, relaxed and thought 'no Jon, you shall relax and enjoy this film and cast from your mind who directed it and the fact that it's not your childhood Superman... embrace it I told myself'
I did really really try.
I know that no matter what I say or how I explain it there will be folks who say 'well you went in hating it, you wanted to hate it, your opinion is not valid because you are naturally biased against Hack Snyder etc. etc.' and they are going to think that no matter what but I am telling you that this wasn't the case.
I gave myself a talking to, I said 'look at it for what it is and watch THIS film, don't wish you were watching something else' So I did. I watched this film and it stank. It stank like a mouldy jam jar filled with stale piss and with day old cigarette butts floating in it.

First problem was the camera work. You'd think somewhere in the bloated stupid budget for this waste of time film they'd find a hundred bucks for a fucking tripod, either that or a thousand for a dolly track, or a few thousand for a steady-cam rig or SOMETHING! We can put a go-cart on Mars and we can't find Hack Snyder something to rest his camera on? I tried desperately to ignore it but if it wasn't shaking up and down badly during dialogue scenes, or positively going epileptic during blurred close up fight scenes, then it was crash zooming and rack focussing all over the place. Jesus Christ on a four speed lawnmower it was irritating. It doesn't make things more exciting it makes things look shit.
There was one of the bazillion flash back scenes with Kevin Costner by his truck talking to a young Clark Kent some homespun, irrelevant, seemingly important but actual hokum nonsense and not only was some of it in poor focus but the camera was bobbing up and down like the camera person desperately needed a piss. There really is NO excuse.

Another example of the camera work RUINING this film. When Superman first flies in his outfit it is meant to be an awe inspiring, exhilarating, fist pumping and happy moment. In this case I would've just been happy to be able to see it! The camera is crash zooming, rack focussing, shaking, whizzing, bobbing, bouncing and flying about so much that I waned to walk out. That people accuse The Expendables of being badly directed because of the 'shaky cam' fights but they give a pass to Batman Begins and this which have some of the very worst filmed action sequences I have ever sat through is beyond me. I am sure my detractors will just say I am an old man or looking for things to complain about but the photography direction is one of the most important aspects of a film because the camera operator IS our eyes. Guess what, SUPERMAN does not need to be filmed with faux-documentary style realistic camerawork because... GUESS WHAT?! SUPERMAN IS NOT A DOCUMENTARY!!!

Second problem was the quality of the image. When the image was occasionally in focus it had been so enhanced with green, grey, gritty, high contrast, fake, post production grain that it managed to make Amy Adams and Diane Lane look like a tired, pockmarked Fat Bastard and The Crypt Keeper. A story is dark and edgy when it's actually dark and edgy, not when you just decide it is and give it a good old digital wash making it look like boiled shite.

Then there was the CGI. Considering the script had been written in such a way (i.e. barely, if at all) that the entire story relied on copious amounts of the stuff, you'd think they'd have some decent CGI. Not that I care most of the time as all CGI looks pretty crappy to me, lacking as it does anything approaching realism or a soul, but the CGI in Man of Steel was shockingly bad considering the budget, the studio and the film's reliance on it.

The action scenes were long, drawn out, loud, turgid affairs with little to no point, rhyme, or reason. Billions of dollars damage was done, thousands of people probably died and often with no satisfactory result or catharsis at the end of it. Also there wasn't a set piece in this film we haven't seen a couple of hundred bloody times. School bus, check, bully, check, saving people from a fire, check, planes fall out of the sky, check, New York being destroyed, check, CGI villains being thrown through buildings, check and so it went on...

There was one scene which I thought was a good idea, the tornado scene. That makes sense, I thought. Since the Donner film in '78 established Smallville squarely in Kansas a tornado scene of Supes vs nature is logical now when you think about it, right? Except this is a Nolan/Snyder film and so instead we get a possibly exciting tornado scene that's only really there to deliver one of the biggest insults of the entire film. The death of Jonathan Kent. What a load of arse.
So Supes can save a bus load of school kids from drowning but saving his human Dad and dog from a tornado would be one step too far?
It's always the same with these comic book films: 'you can't reveal your powers' 'I can't have a girlfriend because then you'll be in danger' and what happens? by the end of the film he's revealed his powers to everyone and their parrots and the girl has been kidnapped anyway!!
All their bullshit philosophising, hypothetical danger, worrying, moralising and speechifying is all for nought.
Plus you then have this Peter Parker crap of guilt over the death of his surrogate father rather than the somewhat more poetic message of Clark Kent having to learn from Pa Kent's death that, as powerful as he is, you can't fight time, nature and ultimately death. You see that would be a message we could all relate to and invest in but NO! this is a Snyder/Nolan joint and so it has to be cod-lofty-philosophical-stroky-chin nonsense about 'one day you'll reveal your powers, when the time is right and the world will stand with you' well, yeah, everyone will stand with you except the people in the world flattened to death by massive chunks of falling iron work and masonry as you throw Zod about the place with angry abandon amidst a clumsy and howling 9/11 metaphor.

None of this would matter though, the CGI, the action scenes and even, maybe the camera work if I gave two hearty and heavily pungent shits for any character in this film. There isn't a semi-decent performance, an interesting line of dialogue, an emotional moment or any chemistry, style, class, cool or humour. A po-faced, dreary, slow, heavy handed film featuring non-people who either mumble or shout, there is no in between.

As I couldn't invest in anything that was going on I was left focussing on things like the camera work, the massive amounts of injured and dead people Superman left in his wake, the massive, intrusive, laughable and sad store-names product placement during the downtown Smallville fight, the fact that Zod seems to have picked up a 1940s stereotype, creepy, bald, German, mad scientist as part of his Krypton crew and a series of questions like:
Why does Zod also want Lois Lane on the spaceship with Superman?
How does Zod, at that point, even know who Lois Lane is?
Why is young Supes in a flashback playing a caped hero with a red cloth from the laundry when he doesn't discover his cape until years later?
Superman goes and talks to a priest?? REALLY??!! His very existence dispels the myth of God, he is HIMSELF a metaphor/substitute for the story of Jesus Christ so why on earth is he taking advice from this creepy priest in an empty church on a summers day?
Oh and don't get me started on Superman's crucifix stance with his arms out after the (holy)ghost of his father tells him he can save Lois, he can save ALL the humans (and the fluffy bunnies too) but only when his real father, who's a ghost, says so. When his actual flesh and blood earth father NEEDS saving, nah he can't do that.

From the opening shot of us seeing Superman's mother give birth to the ending where Superman snaps Zods neck it wreaks of Snyder and Goyer sitting in a room patting each other's back or wanking each other off congratulating themselves on how clever and edgy they're being.
Superman's mother giving birth is precisely the Snyder version of edgy realism. He probably thinks he's daring. Actually it's just silly and a ridiculous and pointless way to start the film.
What does that add to it eh Snydes? What great statement are you making there?
Jor-El then says that Superman is the first natural birth Krypton has had in thousands of years about three more times in the film, I guess his mothers big old screaming sweaty face right at the very beginning didn't drive that edgy and dark idea home hard enough huh Snyder?!
And as for the ending, Goyer himself has described the death of Zod as them 'taking down sacred cows'. Yeah because Goyer lives life on the edge, Goyer is sticking it to the establishment and taking down sacred cows. What a steaming pile of myxomatosis filled rabbit droppings!
You didn't know how to end it so you got too big scary CGI machines to destroy a bunch of stuff, the defence mechanism of which seems to be computer game snapping metal tentacles made up of lots of cubes, then you had Supes and Zod duke it out making more things explode and endangering more lives because you'd seen Raimi's Spiderman 2 and then you had Supes snap Zod's neck because you couldn't think how to get out of the mundane hole you'd dug for yourselves. Taking down sacred cows indeed. You pretentious twat Goyer!

The rule breaking and sacred cow tipping didn't end there, once the movie dispelled with its Lord of the Rings/Phantom Menance like Krypton opening and got down on earth, the rest of the film was so desperate to dispense with the tried and tested Clark Kent story and so does everything it can to change it all because, you know, Snyder and Goyer are mavericks.
It has Lois know who he is and what aliens are from the start, he doesn't play Clark as bumbling... in fact he makes no distinction between Clark or Superman at all, thus sort of rendering the point of his entire character a bit moot, he doesn't go to Metropolis to work for the Planet, there's no fortress of solitude and no Kryptonite. Man aren't those cats Goyer and Snyder just so innovative and pleased with themselves.
However, after this 3hr sacred cow tipping tournament has taken place, the very end is his reveal as Clark on his first day at the planet, glasses and all... still no sign of any acting going on but whatever. Trouble is, as clever as Goyer and Snydes THINK they're being, this ending, like the rest of the film is waffly dribbly piss and makes no sense.
He tells his mother that he's going to get a job where no one will ask him a question when he goes somewhere dangerous and where he can keep his ear to the ground.
Well, firstly, after openly saving the world as Superman in front of journalists, the military and everybody, basically, are you telling me that people don't know who this guy is and what he looks like?
I know what Lindsey Lohan's vagina looks like, are you telling me in this day and age of cell phones, tablets, laptops etc. Nobody has this guys picture? Lois tracked him down in 5 minutes in the middle of the film for Pete's sake! Now he needs a disguise?? and the disguise is still a nerdy pair of specs. What run out of cows Goyer?
Also he spends most of the movie traveling around going where he pleases and doing what he wants, he unearths a spaceship and flies off in it without any questions being asked, he even says to the military that he'll save people, on his terms and Washington has to deal with it. So why on earth does he need a job where no one will ask questions?
Oh and that second point about keeping his ear to the ground, sounds good in theory but in the day and age of the internet is working at a bizarrely, still 1950s style newspaper office really going to be giving him the hot pertinent info he needs.
Oh and can't Supes, if he chooses, hear and see everything all at once. Couldn't he just use his mind-internet to locate trouble and focus in on it?
Oh and doesn't he live, basically, in New York City? There's trouble there every single minute of every day from purse snatching to murder to bankers to politicians... he'll have his work cut out for him without needing a newspaper to work at.

None of it makes any sense.

Oh and the 'he's kinda hot' joke at the end - embarrassing, squirm central. When you've had literally NO humour in your film for 3hrs you can't have an army woman say this horrible horrible cringe worthy line and expect chuckles and applause.

I could go on and on and on... there's the score, the editing, the script... I am sorry but this film defeated me. I wanted to be surprised, I wanted to enjoy it, I wanted to be proved wrong, I tried, i relaxed, I put my prejudices to one side and attempted to let this movie drag me in. Instead it beat me slowly to death one noisy, repetitive, CGI filled, out of focus mess of a fight scene at a time.

There were TWO things that I liked about the film! SHOCK HORROR!! one was the Zod, Supes, drowning in skulls dream scene which I felt was a great representation of a comic-book image and just a damn cool idea (I refuse to believe Goyer and Snyder had anything to do with it, PLEASE tell me it actually comes from a comic book) and two, I felt that at least the first two acts had a relatively tight structure that made some sort of sense. The endless flashbacks stopped momentum a lot of the time but, more or less, the driving force behind the story seemed sound even if the characters seemed hollow cyphers.

Last thing I would say is that I have now seen 4 of the bigger films this summer. Each one, from its trailer and promotional material, I would've normally passed on but I have been chastised SO MUCH for making my mind up based on trailers and promotional material and told time and time again to go against my gut, against my better judgement and actually pay and go and see these films. Well I did and the ones I thought were going to be average, were average, the one I knew was going to be self indulgent wank was self indulgent wank and Superman turned out to be everything and worse than what I feared from the director, the writer and the 57 trailers.
So this is me saying NO MORE. I will watch WHAT I WANT TO WATCH and I will have my opinion on the rest based on the stuff the studios marketing company gives me. The last 4 films I have seen in the cinema have been such colossal wastes of time as to be criminal and reviewing them has taken even more time. I am done. Call me what you like, cut me down however you want. I know what I like and that's what I am going to see. End of story.

This is the End

This film is very problematic for me to review. On the one hand it is one of the most self-indulgent, badly made, flimsy premised, weirdly-Christian-friendly barrels of pungent and hateful arse flecks I have ever sat through and on the other hand there were bits that were legitimately hilarious, more likeable than I imagined possible and worth seeing.
So what to say?

Well, firstly, this is a classic case of 'did they even write a second draft of the script?' and also 'you guys are not quite as great at improvising as you all seem to think' because the overall structure, plot and pacing is generally weak and uninspired. There are also missed opportunities everywhere and just as one scene soars and you're laughing, you're also annoyed because you know it's going to derail and take another 10 minutes to do anything actually funny again.

Secondly Seth Rogan plays Seth Rogan, a point which is joked about in the first 5mins of the movie admittedly, but that doesn't change the fact that everyone else in this film is playing either weirdly exaggerated versions of themselves or completely different personas and having him just play the version of himself we've seen time and time again is a little grating and unimaginative. It means everyone else gets parodied and is the butt of a joke (or 5) but he never is, really.

Ok, so, the Seth Rogan thing brings up a question:
Can anyone tell me why taking drugs is funny? who decided that?
I don't mean this in a prudish 'don't take drugs' type way because, please, do whatever you want away from me, I don't care but WHY is it funny?
There are films in which drugs, or their side effects, are portrayed as funny but it's usually in the context where the drug taker is a fool and someone is observing their foolish behaviour but when did this thing of 'oh I smoke pot and take E that makes me cool AND funny' become an acceptable substitute for actually writing a joke or a funny scenario. I am sure if you're high it's funny but sadly I am not 15 and 'getting high' no longer holds any allure whatsoever.
It is just one example of where this film veers into self-indulgent, in-joke, vanity-project pap.

Just like the "Seth Rogan always plays himself" joke at the beginning was echoed in the film, there is also a scene where they fool around with a video camera and make a home movie version of a Pineapple Express 2 trailer. Cut to them all rolling around in the living room laughing. I imagine that is precisely what editing and then screening this movie was for the actors involved. It gives you the distinct feeling that while they may say they want you at the party, you're not really invited and this is just for them, however your repeated donations of $14 a cinema ticket is much appreciated.

My last point on this is some lame running joke about Jay Baruchel and Jonah Hill not liking each other. It routinely made me think, did I miss something? I am not in on this not-very-funny joke so why does it have any place in this movie.

In this regard James Franco and Michael Cera probably come off the best in the film and both exaggerated versions of themselves, that they play, warranted lots more screen time. Weirdly Danny McBride is also not too bad and a, what should've been very stupid, scene in which him and Franco talk about cumming on things that should've fallen flat, turned out to be a highlight.

The celebrity cameos are ok but ultimately are cheap shots and I have seen better on the late night Jimmy Kimmel show.

Where the film succeeds is in the examination and parody of different 'end of the world' movie tropes. There's the siege at home stuff, an exorcism scene and a mad-maxian/hills have eyes cannibals in a winnebago scene that work really well and allow for some funny moments.
The problem is that it falls short and adheres too much to its boring set up. It should've parodied disaster movies, alien invasion movies, zombie movies etc. had a bit of imagination. Considering it's a mishmash, unstructured, mostly one set kind of deal anyway they could've gone hog wild!
Instead apart from the couple of funny, interesting scenes I mentioned before, it sticks to this Christian version of the rapture thing that whiffs to high heaven of keeping the biggest audience possible, happy.

Comedy used to bother Christians. It used to leave no sacred idol unblemished, no taboo trashed and no stone unthrowed but apart from a few shots of the devil's CGI cock and a little, brief discussion around the table about 'ok, so now, God is real' that was it. Again, shame they missed the opportunity. There's some funny stuff there, if they had the balls.

I hate to sound like the only atheist in the room but the ultimate goal of this film being 'to get the characters to ascend to heaven' was childish, idiotic, patronising and naff. Oh and also, BIG SPOILER, if there is a heaven and the fucking Backstreet Boys are the entertainment, I'd rather be butt raped by the devil's CGI cock. Just saying.

It was worth the watch once though and it did illicit some chuckles out of me. It's ultimately lazy though and made me feel that there is a good script to be made of friends at the end of the world but this isn't really it.

5 out of 10 novelty, rudely shaped communion wafers

The Internship

It would be very easy to just blankly hate on this film. It's a movie about Google starring, love him or hate him jabber mouth giant, Vince Vaughn for fuck's sake! How much fun would it be to just indiscriminately rail on this mediocre, run-of-the-mill, quite-funny-in-places, lads comedy?
The thing of it is, though, it's ok. It'll do. It could've been a billion times worse.

Vaughn has forever lost the rapid-fire-funny charm that he displayed in Dodgeball or Old School, where you'd be forgiven for mistaking him as Bill Murray's slightly more talkative and enthusiastic successor but The Internship, like it's leading two characters, is just so full of positivity and some occasionally very funny lines that you can almost see past the mundane, formulaic, Googleness of it all.  It also features some actors you probably like and a couple of actually inspired and pretty hilarious scenes.
Wilson is a mystery to me though, so good and full of nuance and depth in Wes Anderson films and then just so cheery but ultimately weak and bland in everything else. In this he is, again, the chipper foil to Vaughn's often-annoying motor mouth and, of course, has a generic and pointless romance with a random woman Vaughn, also the screenwriter, forgot to write a real personality for.
There are times, sadly more frequent than I would've liked, that the Vaughn/Wilson schtick becomes just teeth-grindingly grating. You want to smack them, tell them to breathe and go again.

The Google setting is, on face value, a big old advert for all the services the primary coloured company provides, with a side helping of 'aren't we a swell place to work and aren't we making the world a better place' type crap which, ultimately, comes off a little creepy and simplistic, especially for those of us who grew up on Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka. We know every seemingly joyous place has a dark, weird core that is not to be fully trusted.
Also, as positive as it attempts to present things with it's green, red and yellow bikes, ping pong tables and free pudding for all, laid back hipster/geek chic attitude, somewhere in my soul it scares the piss out of me that this is someone's idea of the way things should work.

All that said, stick it to the back of your mind as much as you can, switch most of your brain off and enjoy the misfits over come adversity, recycled from Revenge of the Nerds, plot line sprinkled with some ok comedy.
Worth a single viewing.

5 out of 10 overly advertised salads.

World War Z

FAIRLY SPOILER FREE
When I say 'I like Zombie films' I realise, now, that I am talking about really only a handful of movies. George A Romero's original trilogy, Lucio Fulci's Zombie, The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue, Re-Animator, The Return of the Living Dead and that's more or less it. There are probably a few more I am not thinking of right now and probably a few from the genre's heyday that I haven't seen yet but I list these films merely to shed light on where and who this review is coming from.
Notice how I didn't include 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later. Both films I like very much but, to me, they are NOT zombie films. They are post-apocolyptic infection films but they are NOT zombie films. People get infected while living, the dead don't rise from their graves and the infected don't die before they come back with the 'rage' contamination.
I mention this because World War Z is NOT a zombie film (in my mind). NOT AT ALL

It is basically the story of a world wide violent rage/rabies infection seen through the eyes of one perpetually stoned, lank haired, hipster scarf wearing, former UN investigator played by Brad Pitt.
I am not sure I have ever seen a film with such massive, global set pieces that is so utterly bland and underwhelming. This is not to say it's an altogether BAD film because it's not but it's not anything special either. It lacks a sense of humour, a sense of style, a decent soundtrack, engaging characters or any cool at all.

Since zombie films and zombie film remakes became tediously the rage in the last 10 years the genre has distinctly lacked any cool. The zombie films of the seventies and eighties are still popular today because they had iconic soundtracks, great lines spoken by characters you liked, disliked or had a complex series of mixed emotions about, they had metaphor and meaning, style and substance and fantastic gore.
World War Z really doesn't have any of that. What it does have is a global scale, some nice tension at the beginning, a cameo from David Morse that could've gone on MUCH longer and some weak underlying message about how we should all just get along. It feels more like a bland alien invasion movie.

Brad Pitt is hideously miscast, misdressed and woefully haired. He was about as convincing a UN investigator as Denise Richards was a nuclear physicist (in The World Is Not Enough). He was also bland as a beige pair of slacks on a wax model of a local news anchor from Des Moines.

To improve this film you should've cast a ton of people and instead of just following 1 man, who seemingly doesn't eat or sleep for a week as he travels from South Korea to Wales and everywhere in between, you follow lots of people around the world all detailing the outbreak in their own way. That at least would allow for some characters. Say what you like about mindless tat like Independence Day or 2012 but at least they have a sense of humour and are fantastically entertaining.

The film attempts to seriously portray what it would be like if an infection took over the human race and turned us into canabalistic rage monkeys. It also attempts to have a story that wraps up in a predictable 'satisfying' way, some set pieces on a grand scale that you haven't seen before and some wishy-washy guff about how we should work together and, in that regard, it's a complete success.
The CGI is not terrible or annoying, it is shot and edited competently and at least the first act attempts some tension and the last act attempts to be a bit more exciting. It does have one scene though that proves that, even in the midst of apocalypses, mobile phones are fucking annoying.

It thinks it's way smarter and better than it is when really it's all just too serious and a bit dull. It's, also, weirdly, one of the most bloodless films of its kind in existence (obviously to capitalise on the recent zombie craze and pack em in at all ages!).

If you're still curious then it is worth one watch and maybe I am just jaded and burnt out but I was watching the film thinking, if this had anyone else in the lead and a Goblin soundtrack this would already be 10 times better.

5 out of 10 bloodless dry steaks in a beige sack

Interview with Vlad Yudin creator of Head Smash

Recently we had the pleasure to interview Vlad Yudin creator of Head Smash 
You can listen to the interview HERE:

RIGHT CLICK TO DOWNLOAD MP3

The book sounds fantastic and would be well worth picking up.

Pre-Order it here
Learn more here
Follow Head Smash on Facebook
and, of course, check out HeadSmash.net

BUY YOUR COPY TODAY!

Don't Let the Riverbeast Get You! DVD released today Support do-it-yourself aquatic monster comedy!

DVD now available on amazon

What people are saying about the movie: "…good-natured fun is in abundant supply! (Who says you need an even adequate budget when you have heart?!) I loved every minute of it!" - John Paizs, director of classic film Crime Wave "hugely enjoyable and laugh-out-loud funny" - DVD Verdict "an homage to old-time horror and old-time Americana" -Thomas M. Sipos, Hollywood Investigator "I cannot resist a monster movie with a gill-man costume so beautifully goofy and ghastly all at the same time. And it's still better than most of the CGI monsters we see in low-budget movies these days." - Foywonder, Dread Central click to watch the "Riverbeast" teaser Official Facebook ShockMarathons MoternMedia YouTube ShockMarathons site

Copyright © 2013 | ShockMarathons | All rights reserved. HEAR OUR REVIEW OF THE FILM  ON THE AMD PODCAST HERE

Butcher's Hill

We are big fans of independent film over here in the Diner and we are always on the look out for vibrant, interesting new productions.

Occasionally one such feature, short or web series falls into our inbox and intrigues us enough that not only do we, of course, take a look but then immediately after watching it we feel compelled to share it with everyone else and sing its praises.

In this case that short film is called Butcher's Hill and it's a wonderfully macabre and beautifully designed take on the Hansel and Gretel fairytale.

No annoying CGI monsters taken down by a crossbow wielding Hawkeye against a green screen here, oh no, just good old fashioned, atmospheric film making that is like a wonderful breath of fresh air.

Details:
Year made: 2008
DIRECTED BY: JASON NOTO & RORY KINDERSLEY
STARRING: TIMOTHY CHALAMET, JACKIE RHOADS and TATE STEINSIEK  "You won’t believe where filmmakers Jason Noto and Rory Kindersley take you in this bloody twist on the Hansel and Gretel story that will leave you stunned. Left to fend for themselves, a brother and sister venture into a remote cabin where a bounty of treats costs more than expected"

The most striking thing about the short is the detail and design. So rich, so creative, so tactile almost that from the smoke in the trees, to the crumbs of the cakes, to the rough wooden floor boards of the house, you are completely immersed in this familiar yet stunningly strange and foreboding world. There are welcome overshadows of Terry Gilliam here and the better of Tim Burton's films, a tough thing to pull off but done with a wonderfully restrained elegance to the filmmaking. 

As the tension builds and the short moves into its final moments there is a delicious sense of dark humour that I reveled in. 

Lastly the performances of the two children in the production is fantastically unselfconscious, just the right side of playful and never annoying.

We'd be interested to know what you think, so please, watch for yourself.
FEATURING an Exclusive Introduction by Filmmaker Jason Noto
VIDEO is available at Fear.net

The filmmakers are attempting to expand this to a full feature in 2014 and have a Kickstarter campaign starting July 2013, the press release and details of are below but we would urge anyone who watched the short and was inspired, surprised and excited by the talent and creativity on display to support the feature.
We here at The After Movie Diner wish them the best of luck.

PRESS RELEASE

APRIL 29 New York, New York (Monday April 29, 2013) 
– From the Award winning writer and directors Jason Noto and Rory Kindersley, BUTCHER’S HILL, their short fantastical film, celebrates its online premiere today Monday April 29 2013 on FEAR.net. TV to over 40 million homes nationwide. 

The infamous short film swept the genre festival circuit with its brutal decapitation scene in 2008 garnering wide acclaim from critics and bloggers internationally. Now for the first time ever it reaches its bloody hands across the nation in all its HD glory. And furthermore, the team has decided to re- launch their efforts to develop the short film into a heart pumping, blood curdling, feature film in 2014 with the support of London based content innovation studio, Fablemaze.

Fablemaze is a brand and content experience studio specializing in forward thinking interactive ideas and distribution platforms for today’s marketplace. Launched in 2007 and helmed by Toby Cook and Matt Cook, Fablemaze brings together the vision and excitement of filmmaking with the innovation of interactive design to make unique experiences for brands, agencies and entertainment. Also on board, esteemed producer Brian W. Cook has joined the team as Executive Producer. 
In a career spanning over 40 years, Brian W. Cook has worked as a Producer and Assistant Director with some of cinema’s most respected talents, including five films with Michael Camino, three films with Stanley Kubrick and two with Sean Penn. His producing credits include ‘Colour Me Kubrick’, ‘The Pledge’ and ‘Eyes Wide Shut’. 
 Additionally, Award winning Special make-up effects studio Ill Willed Productions (The Amazing Spider Man, Piranhaconda) will provide effects for Butchers Hill. IWP Founder Tate Steinsiek quickly became a horror fan favorite on SYFY’s special effects competition, FACE OFF and has been featured in Fangoria, Rue Morgue, The New York Times, and Variety. 
Award winning Composer Adam Balazs (The Butterfly Effect 3,The Secret of Moonacre) has also signed on to Butchers Hill. 

“Butcher’s Hill is an homage to all the great Brothers Grimm tales of our child hood. We wanted to create an unflinching look into the world of dark tales in all its gruesome glory,” explains Kindersley. “And after the economic collapse we struggled like most indie filmmakers to find support but now we’re ready to go with new and exciting momentum to get Butcher’s Hill killing again.” 

The production has launched the facebook fan page https://www.facebook.com/butchershillthemovie, which will track the development of the film with regular updates from Jason and Rory. It will feature videos of the films progress, including behind the scenes casting, production meetings, and interviews with key production staff. 
Fans and supporters will also be able to connect to the Butcher’s Hill KickStarter campaign, (launching on July 1st 2013) which will enable them to to contribute towards crowd-funding in exchange for Butcher’s Hill themed gifts, such as credits and special edition DVD’s, and even participation in the films production.

Butcher’s Hill is scheduled to shoot in the fall of 2014. For more information on Butcher’s Hill visit https://www.facebook.com/butchershillthemovie.

Oblivion Review

A 70s style, thoughtfully paced and beautiful looking attempt at straight sci-fi that starts off intriguing and descends into an action fueled string of seen-it-all-before sci-fi cliche twists.

The just second time director (also creator of the graphic novel on which this is based) has vision by the bucket load but no sense of timing within the story telling and can't really mount an exciting action sequence.

Loved the design, though and Tom cruise's performance was tremendous. It's crazy that I like him more and more as an actor but with this, Jack Reacher and the Mission Impossible films he's proving himself to really just be a watchable, enjoyable and, in this, a damn fine actor. Having seemingly dropped the annoying, chest thumping earnestness that plagued his younger, dramatic roles. In this he is just the right level of wistful, cheeky and action man so as to be intriguing and an engaging protagonist for us to be stuck with for 2hrs plus. Good thing too as the entire film hangs on his diminutive shoulders. Also a good thing that his space suit mirrors those collarless leather jackets his prizes above all others.

I didn't much care for the English redheaded actress in the film, Andrea Riseborough. She seemed too young, too serious, too annoying and just not well matched to the subject matter or her leading man. True her part doesn't really give her much to do and yes a certain reveal in the film later explains away some of her characters inability to embrace Cruise's character's romance with Earth but even so, while it's clear she is a talented actress, her performance grated with me and felt out of place.
The rest of the performers in the film were satisfactory considering the one note parts they had been handed out. Morgan Freeman has a cool "Oh look it's Morgan Freeman" entrance that they sadly ruined in the trailer but apart from that his purpose is to be the kindly, wise but strong African American sci-fi character cut from much of the same cloth as Lawrence Fishburne in The Matrix.

Overall the film is literally every science fiction film ever made rolled into one but with a great design and enough new for you not to mind what it's got in common with previous films such as 2001, Moon and even Independence Day.

In a film that needed to balance lofty ideas, a few twists, an epic sense of romance and explosive action I am not sure it 100% succeeded and the score, sadly, doesn't help this by being flat and instantly forgettable but for a second time director, if you like proper Sci-Fi and want to see a riveting Cruise performance, well you can't go wrong.

A flat 7 out of 10 cool 70s looking airline lunch.

Just What the Hell is Talkshoe?

Get accustomed to Talkshoe!
What is Talkshoe I hear you cry!? well it's the place where we host The After Movie Diner podcast.
Don't have iTunes? Don't worry!
Confused with the listening/downloading instructions on my website? aren't we all!
Then come on down to Talkshoe - works exactly like iTunes, Podomatic, Podbean etc and it's all there. Every episode as an easy to download MP3!!
Link to Facebook, Twitter, get our RSS Feed, share us on any website you can think of!
EVENE Rate & Review us with none of the membership hassles of iTunes!!
Get accustomed and acquainted with Talkshoe!!!
http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/110745

It's also a huge community of live shoes, phone in shows, podcasts etc. You can visit and, probably, never have to leave!

The Story of Droning by Mark 'Despair' Cousins

Just tried to make it through the first two episodes of The Story of Film by Mark Cousins and gave up. The man is one of the most pretentious, humourless, mumbling, egotistical, pompous and downright bizarre men to have ever existed. While Hollywood in the 20s you imagine to be glamourous, exciting, vibrant and innovative he makes them dour, tedious and monochrome all the while disparaging fantasy, effects, romance, performance, urgency and story telling in favour of long drawn out Danish films in which people weep in a still black n white shot for 40 minutes.
I knew it was all utter nonsense when Cousins interviews other pretentious arse head Lars Von Trier about Dryer and Von Trier stammers and dribbles through an utterly pointless and horribly shot interview segment saying 'I don't know why he's great but he is'. Oh well that's ok then Cousins.
At one point, while randomly and casually discussing the birth of documentaries, Cousins actually says "Seemingly they were only co-directors, the other director being life... itself"
Jesus!

Lastly the documentary is so utterly horrible to look at. Amazing clips are presented with no life to them, the interviews are unlit and discoloured giving them the look of 3 day old dried sick and the footage he took from around the world is bleak, too slow, shot on cheap video and unimaginative making the world a cold and ugly place to look at. The whole thing is accompanied by the dreariest music Cousins could find (probably from his own personal collection of Latvian dirges) that makes it have the feel of a 'help you quit smoking' hypnotic video from 1989.
How can you take an art form so full of innovation, creativity, life, excitement, message, propaganda and importance and reduce it to this droning, creaking, plodding, monotonous, opinionated and slanted 15 hours of tedium?!?

Some review on imdb described it like he was trying to hypnotise an otter. I can't beat that.

I imagine that a dinner round Cousins house takes place in a cold grey room, on a bare, rough table (because, you know, poverty and despair are "REAL"), while Russian funeral marches play on a small wind up, war time gramophone and the 7hr Eric Von Stroheim film Greed plays on a loop, projected on a blood stained sheet next to a bare window, while his wife sobs uncontrollably into the mash potatoes and Cousins drones on saying "These are the worst mashed potatoes so far in the story of Cousins, there's no cream, no butter, no taste and yet think again, look closer, the preparer has left the skins on, the skins are red. Maybe the red potato symbolises hope amongst this futile dinner time. Maybe it's just a potato. The server leaves it ambiguous and who am I to ask?"

It all makes you want to scream and say cheer up you miserable bastard!
If I manage to wade through any more I will let you know.

Twat.

The Diner NOMINATED for a TLA Cult Award

And there you go thinking AWARD season was over... oh no! there is the little matter of The Podcast from the After Movie Diner being nominated a SECOND year in a row for a prestigious TLA CULT Award. Last year, if you didn't know, we WON the award, much to our surprise, and it would be great to do a Daniel Day Lewis and just win every year! hahaha
So please please go and vote.
To vote simply go here: http://www.tlavideo.com/cult-awards/a-7 or click the banner above and scroll through the categories highlighting which winners you like as you go.
Right at the bottom there is the BEST WEBSITE/BLOG/PODCAST/WHATEVER category and that's where we are located. Click on our logo, a yellow box appears and then hit VOTE!
The best part?
You can do that AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE so, please, for us: GO HOG WILD
Voting ends March 15th so we're not asking you to do it for long, just, please, go and vote. VOTE NOW.
Also, while you're there check out

Where you can find the best cult, exploitation and/or just normal Hollywood releases at great prices and from a great store!

Thank you VERY MUCH for supporting FREE independent CREATIVE internet content. The more you do, the better you feel... trust me.

BRUCE WILLIS - ACTION MAN

So A Good Day to Die Hard has been released and lets be honest, the reviews have been terrible but I loved it, I went in with low expectations and came out getting exactly what I wanted, a Die Hard movie with Bruno, kicking ass and quipping like the badass he is.

Who Farted?

The question is, why do we love Bruce Willis???
What makes him a great action hero???
I mean he’s not built like a Sly or an Arnie, even in the original Die Hard he started out as someone who seemed very unwilling to take on Gruber and his batch of terrorist/robber bastards but he is very much held in the same justified esteem as Sly and Arnie.

Personally speaking, Sly and Arnie are the guys we want to be, huge, tough and with the one liners. Whereas Willis is the everyman we can relate to, not extremely well built, down on his luck at times, some hair thinning but he can stand on his own when he needs to, kick arse and always be ready with a well placed quip. His characters are always different, and he seems to like genre hopping as much as he can, but lets be honest, Willis will be known for being an action legend.

This year Willis will appear at the cinema in 4 action movies, A Good Day To Die Hard, Sin City 2, Red 2 and as the original Action Man himself 'G.I. Joe' in G.I. Joe 2. Its the genre that truly made him who he is, and he keeps returning to keep the genre alive.

Who didn’t have a huge smile on their face when at the end scene of Expendables 2, a great shot of Arnie, Sly and Willis were all there machining gun bad guys??? Personally speaking that was a shot in a movie I thought I would never see, and it shows how much we the audience and, a legend in his own right, Sly, holds Willis in such high regard.

One of the GREATEST moments in movie history EVER. FACT

Nothing quite portrays Willis as the down on his luck, but he can kick your ass while making you laugh, hero than Joe Hallenback. The Last Boy Scout is truly, in my opinion, one of the greatest action movies of the nineties. Willis gets cheated on, beaten up and his daughter mocks him, yet we still want him to win and we all think, I wish I was as cool as him.
I will be reviewing the whole movie at some point, so I won’t gush over it too much but listen to our latest commentary of it, myself and The Kick Ass Kid LOVE this movie.

Wayans, your agent is on the phone, this is the best film you'll ever be in

So Willis isn’t our typical action hero, but in my opinion the most relatable. He is still out there making action and I will never grumble about that. Once I see him on screen, I see the smirk and he shoot the baddies, I will never tire of him as an action hero.
Well its been 25 years now since Die Hard was released, Willis has gone the distance and sir I salute you, keep doing what you’re doing, cut out the comedy stuff if you want, but please keep saving the world.
The Doc and The Kid thinks you’re great and damn, we wish we could be as cool as Bruno!

- The Doc

Action movies we can't wait for!

SNITCH
A strong premise and a trailer that promises a great looking car chase has us excited for Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson's next starring role.
Out February 22nd

OBLIVION

Tom Cruise fights Aliens on a distant planet but all may not be as it seems. The real reason I want to see this though? This image from the trailer...

Out April 19th

 



KICK ASS 2 - Balls to the Wall
While we don't intend to cover a lot of superhero stuff here on the blog, technically these aren't superheroes and secondly the first film was a joyous celebration of ultra violence, awesome action and fantastic swearing. We hope this continues for the sequel. Obviously the lack of Brit helmer Matthew Vaughn is a little cause for concern but we have our fingers crossed for this entertaining slice of lycra clad ass kicking.
Out June 28th

R.I.P.D.

While Ryan Reynolds isn't exactly a huge selling point for us, how about Kevin Bacon, Jeff "The Dude" Bridges, Robert Knepper from The Transporter 3 and Dr.Action Hall-Of-Famer JAMES mutherfunking HONG! Based on a graphic novel about a bunch of undead policemen, this could be some seriously cool action fun. We hope.
Out July 19th

MACHETE KILLS

Say what you like about the first one, the fact that Trejo's machete wielding federale is back is a good thing. It means lots of over-the-top action, shexy ladiesh and tons o'blood letting. What's not to love?
Out September 13th

THE TOMB
Outside of The Expendables this will be the first time where the two powerhouses of 80s action will share the screen. Stallone's been to prision before in Tango & Cash and Lock Up and the high concept of this action thriller is as intriguing as it is exciting. Sadly the lackluster and baffling responses to the fantastic The Last Stand and brilliant Bullet to the Head might effect this genius idea at the box office but let's hope not, let's hope people pull their heads out of their arses and realise that Stallone and Schwarzenegger in a movie together like this is a dream come true for all mankind.
Out September 27th

THEN THE STATH IS BACK!

HUMMINGBIRD
Statham has a busy work sheet at the moment and a good thing too because we need our favourite British action star to keep working! Hummingbird is all about an ex-special forces soldier finding himself homeless. No word yet on how much action there is, I think Statham described it more as a drama but whatever it is we'll be there opening night. Here are a few more pictures from the set:

 

 

HOMEFRONT

Originally intended as a Sylvester Stallone starring film, Sly, instead, handed this to his Expendables co-star Statham. The story of a DEA Agent tangling with a local meth druglord in small town America stars, apart from Statham, James Franco, Winona Ryder and Kate Bosworth.

 

Both films are currently listed as having 2013 release dates although I imagine one will be early next year.

 

Then there's Expendables 3 news about it starting shooting as soon as this autumn!!

 

Stay Tuned, mumble and carry a big fucking gun - The Kick Ass Kid!

What's wrong with critics and action films?

Figures from Rotten Tomatoes:

The Last Stand - 59% Audience 68%

Parker - Critics 38% Audience 63% 

Bullet To The Head - 49% Audience 71%

I just got back from seeing Sylvester Stallone's latest film Bullet To The Head and basically I loved it. Was it flawless? no but was it well acted, well directed, with a great soundtrack and some great violent action? damn right it was! 

I am going to leave the full and official review to the doctor himself but something struck me checking out reviews and the like online after the film, I don't read them before the film I want to go in fresh, and that was when it comes to action, critics and audiences seem to be on opposite sides to each other.

The above scores from that loathsome and divisive website Rotten Tomatoes illustrate my point quite well and that's the only reason they're there.

Why can't critics review action well? maybe it's the same for all genres they arrogantly deem beneath them, maybe horror and comedy fair just as badly, I don't know I haven't done the research, but lately it sure feels like action is taking a beating.

My philosophy is that you review stuff within its genre. If you're a big budget blockbuster then I am going to stack you up against everything from Ghostbusters to The Dark Knight, if you're a quirky indie film then everything from Rushmore to Looking for a Friend at the End of the World is fair game and if you're action, especially a certain type of action, then you are going to be reviewed alongside Cobra, Die Hard and Commando.

Why do critics seemingly just rate everything on the same pointless and impossible scale? 

Why do critics go on about action stars not having depth of character or action films not having intricate plots?

They are seemingly willfully missing the point! 

Did they not see that Jason Statham just fired a flare gun from the nose of a fucking plane onto a gasoline covered pontoon and blew the fucker sky high?! The nose of a plane people!! AWESOME!

They dismiss death defying stunts, often performed for real by mere actors wanting authenticity and, yes, in a safe environment but show me Dustin Hoffman willing to climb down a building, hang off a helicopter or run out of an exploding building, even if offered a harness he'd nasally refuse and toddle off somewhere.

They dismiss the screen presence, the charisma, the athleticism, the enjoyment, the humour, the catharsis, the drama and the great feeling we all get when good triumphs over evil.

I wrote an article on here about Jason Statham and how he has constantly tried to do more, achieve more, work with interesting people, take interesting scripts and push himself. When you hear these guys in interviews they've thought about the character, the director, the great stunts, the chases, they care about their audience and they want to entertain but because they're not Daniel Snore Lewis, who is yet to be in one film I want to see ever, they don't get the time of day!

I just want The Kick Ass kid to like me... *sob*

Also action stars, like Stallone and Statham never get credit for their characterisations why? because they're not playing Mr.Darcy or mumbling pretentious, impenetrable shit in a Paul Thomas Anderson movie?

Yet Stallone is never the same person twice, seriously. Watch Rocky, Rambo, The Expendables, Cobra, Demolition Man, Bullet To The Head, hell watch fucking Over The Top for christ sake and each one is different. He uses different voices, changes his appearance, thinks about the way his character would walk, talk and the different weapons his guy would use to pulverise his next low-rent hood... all important things and all on screen for you to see.

Do you know how I know critics are full of shit? well look at the way they coo and swoon when someone like Stallone does a film like Copland or Bruce Willis does sensitive in Twelve Monkeys, they practically fall over their collective tongues to lick the stars balls! Or what about when they actually get in a room with these icons to interview them and they turn into girly, sycophantic wretches, just seconds away from wetting their draws in excitement. Then they get home to their little rooms and write about how there wasn't enough serious drama or character development in Expendables 2. Morons.

Serious drama just shit itself

The same goes for comedians when they play-it-straight, the critics act all surprised and taken a back that these guys can do a great performance but year after year they have entertained and excited audiences everywhere. That's no easy feet you know and should be acknowledged.

Our beloved action stars are having a rough time in the market place so far in 2013. It's down to a combination of the gun violence debate, bad press, bad marketing and a changed audience, that's clearly now 12 and would rather see glittery vampires, zombies in love, endless remakes and Paranormal Activity 14 (this time it slams a door and turns off a light in night vision! ooooh!) than these icons of cinema perform tremendous acts of physical endurance all wrapped up in an awesome, timeless tale that'll make you forget your rotten existence for 90 minutes!

I can't help but wander, though, that the rough time would be alleviated somewhat if some of these critics lightened the fuck up, pulled the 'worthy' 'earnest' drama stick out of their ass and reviewed some of these films as the damn good time that they are and are clearly meant to be and urged people to go see them. I have even read critics condemn perfectly good action films by getting involved in the gun debate instead of saying "That's reality and these are MOVIES". It's so irritating, unprofessional and down right bad at their job to not critique them within their own wheelhouse. 

Lastly, critics, stop fucking mentioning how old these guys are and how they're 'passed it'. Please call me when you're 64 and lets see if you could make Expendables 1, brake your neck, recover and then get back to work in a manner of days. It's awesome these guys are old and kicking ass, I'd take 1 Schwarzenegger over 50 Sam Worthingtons that's for damn sure! and how come Eastwood gets a pass? oh yeah because occasionally he directs worthwhile dramas about women who can box or war films about a battle from 70 years ago that everyone should really have gotten over by now! 

Get over yourself critics!

You're worthless idiot hacks and if you had any testicles you'd be dangerous.

Love The Kick Ass Kid

New China O'Brien 2 Commentary out today

Over the last couple of weeks Dr.Action and the Kick Ass Kid have covered China O'Brien and China O'Brien 2 as part of a look at women in action films. You can find these and all our other 80s and 90s action movie commentaries right here:
dractionkickass.blogspot.com
Or by clicking the tab above marked commentaries.

You can also watch THE FULL MOVIES of both China O'Brien's on the website. Where we can we try and provide the film too so you don't need to source it yourself or even leave the comfort of your computer.

If you're watching your action without us you're doing it wrong!

Statham wants to do an action comedy like Lethal Weapon

Jason Statham said this in a recent interview with Collider

Statham: I’d love to do a comedy. I’d love to do a two-hander like the old Leathal Weapon movies. I love those, like an action comedy with the straight man and the funny man. I’d love to do one of those. I really would. Just got to find one, find a funny man that wants to do one with me. 

First thing that went through my head was 'Why aren't I watching that RIGHT NOW?' and second was 'who would I want to co-star?'
So we're asking you, the Dr.Action and the Kick Ass Kid reader/listener to let us know WHO you'd like to see him partnered with.

I (the Kick Ass Kid) am a big Will Ferrell fan but sadly when he did his action comedy it was more comedy than action and they went with Marky Mark. Still, I could see Ferrell and Statham in a 70s action heist comedy for certain.
I also really dug the only-one-season show The Good Guys that managed, with Bradly Whitford and Colin Hanks, to make a lunatic action comedy movie every episode, plus Whitford was genius in Cabin in the Woods, so I could see Stath and Whitford (as an offbeat choice).
What about Bill Hader, who was the best thing about unfunny dud 'Paul'? He needs a starring role and this could be JUST the thing for him.

But we want to hear from you! what would be your pairing for a Stath action comedy?

Anyone but fuckin' Seth Rogen... got it?

 

Written by The Kick Ass Kid