The Week in Spandex - The Avengers assemble as Pixar say no to Marvel

Our weekly round-up of all the talking points from the world of movie superheroes including The Avengers, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, The Dark Knight Rises, Man of Steel and The Amazing Spider-Man…

Warner Bros. may have grabbed most of the attention these past few weeks with casting announcements on The Dark Knight Rises and Man of Steel but this week’s column is all about Marvel (well, pretty much all, anyway), with Monday gone marking the official beginning of principal photography on their epic superhero ensemble, The Avengers. Director Joss Whedon revealed the news himself via a statement on Whedonesque, with the principal cast members – the likes of Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Chris Evans (Captain America), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Mark Ruffalo (The Incredible Hulk), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Cobie Smulders (Maria Hill), Tom Hiddleston (Loki) and Stellan Skarsgård (Professor Erik Selvig) – expected to commence filming this coming week.

To mark the occasional the studio quickly released the first official set photo along with a press release that seemed to indicate a slight name change to Marvel’s The Avengers (is that really necessary?). We also managed to get a few scraps of info about the upcoming film throughout the week, with Mark Ruffalo stating that he has “a couple of lines as the Hulk” and describing his character as “the teammate none of them are sure they want on their team”. Chris Evans also revealed that Captain America will find himself in new threads, while Paul Bettany confirmed that he is set to reprise his role as the voice of Jarvis from Iron Man. Meanwhile a guy going by the name of XXXBobSmith claimed to have a copy of the screenplay for The Avengers and released a couple of pages in an effort to sell the script on to interested sites. Judging by the images the script certainly looks as if it could be legit (see for yourself here) and if so, then I hope Mr. Smith gets enough to pay for a decent lawyer.

Of course before we get to The Avengers we have two lead-in movies from Marvel Studios this year in Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger. Kenneth’s Branagh’s Thor opened officially in UK cinemas yesterday (read my review here and another from Liam Trim here) and with three days of preview screenings you’d have to expect the God of Thunder to topple Justin Lin’s Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist when the weekend box office figures are in. If you aren’t quite fully Thor-ed out yet, be sure to check out MTV's interview with Kenneth Branagh and a ‘Making of Thor’ feature that Total Film posted earlier in the week. Finally, on the Captain America front, Chris Evans and Samuel L. Jackson embarked on some last-minute filming in Times Square, which you’d imagine to be for the customary post-credits scene. You can check out some footage and images at Collider.

Moving on to the X-Men franchise and Fox have released another two trailers for Matthew Vaughn’s upcoming prequel X-Men: First Class, which hits cinemas in less than five weeks time. X-Men: First Class was the clear winner in our poll to find your most anticipated superhero film of 2011 [see the full results at the bottom of this article] and while the film’s poster campaign has been less than stellar the trailers really do look promising. In other First Class news, Hero Complex posted a preview of the film that includes comments from both Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, while the official X-Men Facebook site continued to update their ‘X-Perts’ Q&A series with Jason Flemyng (Azazel) the latest to take on fans’ questions. There’s also an interesting article over at Heat Vision about the dispute that’s taken place over the writing credits on First Class, which seems to have been resolved after the WGA stepped in to try and clear things up.

Another film arriving later this summer is Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern, starring Ryan Reynolds as the first human Lantern, Hal Jordan. Yahoo debuted a couple of new character posters featuring Sinestro (Mark Strong) and Kilowog (Michael Clarke Duncan) along with the final one-sheet, with MTV releasing a promotional banner that gives us a good look at the Green Lantern Corps. Elsewhere Martin Campbell and screenwriter Greg Berlanti took part in an interview with Hero Complex in which they talked about how the upcoming film differs from other superhero efforts, while Variety announced that Warner Bros. are pumping an extra $9m into the VFX budget but remain confident that the film will be ready for its planned release date of June 17th.

Wrapping up the best of the rest…

… Pittsburgh may be doubling for Gotham City in Christopher Nolan’s final Batman movie The Dark Knight Rises but it seems that the production is also set to take in the Indian city of Jodhpur for two days of filming at Mehrangarh Fort in early May. Christian Bale is the only actor mentioned in the article but my guess would be that the location is either filling in for Peña Dura or somehow linked to the League of Shadows…

…Michael Shannon’s General Zod has found his “right-hand bitch” for Zack Snyder’s Superman reboot Man of Steel and thankfully it’s not Lindsay Lohan. Variety broke the news that German actress Antje Traue (Pandorum) has been cast as Faora and joins a cast that so far includes Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Diane Lane and Kevin Costner…

...The Amazing Spider-Man is also set to swing into cinemas in 2012 and actress Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy) has revealed that the six-month shoot on the Andrew Garfield-headlined reboot will draw to a close in mid-May...

...Disney COO and Pixar legend John Lasseter has moved to put an end to fan speculation surrounding a possible Pixar - Marvel team-up, telling IGN that "we've done superheroes here ourselves and so we have that kind of history with Brad Bird doing The Incredibles"...

...And finally, we've been running a poll over the past couple of weeks to find your most anticipated superhero film of 2011 and the results are now in. Take a look...

X-Men: First Class - 31% (165 votes)
Captain America: The First Avenger - 24% (130 votes)
Green Lantern - 22% (121 votes)
Thor - 21% (116 votes)

Gary Collinson

Short Film Showcase - Shooter (2009)

Presenting short films from independent filmmakers...

Shooter, 2009.

Directed by Ronnie B. Goodwin.
Starring Paul Hunter.
Written by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Paul Hunter.
Produced by Ronnie B. Goodwin and Basil Khalil.
Music by Gregor Narholz.

Shooter is a multi-award winning short from director Ronnie B. Goodwin about an ex-soldier (Paul Hunter) haunted by his experiences of conflict. Seeking solitude in the wilderness of the mountains, lochs and forests of Scotland, the shooter is torn between the images of the inhumanity of war that plague his imagination and the natural beauty that surrounds him. Running at just five minutes, Shooter does a fine job of conveying the protagonist's internal struggle to deliver a thought-provoking and emotive piece of filmmaking.

The film has enjoyed a successful run on the festival circuit these past two years, including 27 Official Selections (including the Cannes Short Film Corner, Palm Springs International Short Fest and the Edinburgh International Film Festival), 2 Jury Nominations and 4 International Awards, while it was also named Best in Festival at the Swansea Bay Film Festival in 2010. Shooter has also recently enjoyed its British TV premiere on the Sky Super Shorts Channel, and you can find out more about the film and Ronnie's upcoming projects at his official site.


Click here to view more short films and public domain features.

Michael Bay rolls out a trailer for Transformers: Dark of the Moon

It's been a good couple of days for new trailers, what with X-Men: First Class and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, and now comes the first official full-length trailer for Michael Bay's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, along with the following brief synopsis:

"Shia LaBeouf returns as Sam Witwicky in Transformers: Dark of the Moon. When a mysterious event from Earth's past erupts into the present day it threatens to bring a war to Earth so big that the Transformers alone will not be able to save us."

Bay took some stick for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (personally I thought it had its moments, but not many) and it's been speculated that the director will quit the franchise after the release of this third feature. If that's the case then it certainly looks like he's going out with an almighty bang and it's hard not to be impressed by the sheer scale of the action in this trailer. Check it out...


For a detailed breakdown of the trailer head over to CinemaBlend and visit Apple to watch in HD.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon stars Shia LaBeouf, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Patrick Dempsey, Kevin Dunn, Alan Tudyk, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand and Glenn Morshower, with voice talent including Peter Cullen and Leonard Nimoy. The film hits cinemas on July 1st.

Macho Antidotes to the Royal Wedding – Part 3: Bargain DVDs – Trainspotting and The Wrestler

Liam Trim provides some alternatives to the Royal Wedding in the third of a three part feature...

The big day is upon us. The masculine apocalypse is now. The horsemen will round the corner towards Westminster Abbey any moment, dragging their cargo of the merry middle class and nostalgic Eton boy politicians, right into our living rooms. Oh my god it’s not long until we get to see Kate’s dress!

Shoot me now. I am apprehensive, a little scared even, because I may have been advocating alternatives to the big day but I know I’m fighting an entity so vast that it will inevitably stray into my line of sight at some point. I won’t be able to flee the hordes living and breathing the ceremony like it was their own. It wouldn’t even do any good to flee abroad, if anything they’re more marriage mad than the most devout British Royalist. So I definitely cannot outrun this and in addition I have another problem. I can’t hide from it either, because I’ve already consumed the alternatives in order to point them out to all of you. Blokes, guys and lads everywhere, I hope you appreciate my sacrifice.

We’ve reached the final alternative step and its one I like to think of as the emergency measure. Thor at the cinema requires venturing out and a on iPlayer requires dangerous proximity to internet coverage, but these two films on DVD, available on the bargain shelves of any local high street, merely need a TV. I know, believe me I know, the wedding is on all the channels. But if you have an even more serious aversion to confetti and vows than me, just pull the aerial out and stick these two very manly films in to play, one after another.

Firstly then a film I’ve been meaning to see for a long while, the Scottish breakthrough piece for Danny Boyle, Trainspotting. Despite all the hype, from critics and friends alike, I really didn’t know what to expect from this exactly. I knew there was drug taking, in all likelihood sex, and an awful lot of accented foul language. I knew it starred an emaciated Ewan McGregor. I knew it would have both fun and filth. I knew Boyle’s playful style would scrawl a signature in every scene. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so hilarious and true to life as it was.

Much of the humour comes from the characters of McGregor’s Mark Renton’s “so called mates”. Johnny Lee Miller, now starring fifteen years on in Boyle’s critically acclaimed Frankenstein opposite Benedict Cumberbatch in the theatre, plays a Sean Connery obsessed, seemingly streetwise fellow crack addict. His assessments of Connery’s performances as James Bond and his astonishing grasp of box office data, were particularly surreal for a fellow Bond fan like me, as he helped friends to inject heroin. He turns out to be far less clued up than he pretends to be though. Then there’s Spud, a guy who is very plainly clueless from the start, who lands up throwing his shit all over his girlfriend’s family at breakfast. Don’t ask how. Slapstick perhaps, but I laughed for several minutes.

There’s also Tommy, a guy McGregor’s surprisingly appealing narration informs us has the fault of being honest and not addicted to any banned substance. I assume the visceral poetry of Renton’s narration is so attractive because it is transplanted largely untouched from Irvine Walsh’s novel, which is infamous for its use of Scottish dialect. A scene where Tommy and Spud discuss the pitfalls of their respective women at a club, and the girlfriends do likewise about the boys in the toilets, presumably also has its roots in the book. But it’s wonderfully adapted by Boyle, with subtitles not quite necessary because of the noise and very capable comic acting depicting the darkly funny give and take realities of relationships.

Finally there’s a young Kelly Macdonald, who has since appeared in No Country For Old Men, in her first film. Renton catches sight of her in a club as she’s leaving, with his sex drive rapidly returning as he attempts to give up his habit. He follows her outside, as his narration tells us he’s fallen in love, and tries it on with her. She confidently shoots him down, only to snog his face off in the taxi and subsequently shag him rampantly in her room. In the morning Renton discovers she’s a schoolgirl, and the people he presumes to be flatmates are her parents. It’s the sort of cheeky scene present throughout the film but it centres on deeper, more disturbing truths about youths trapped in a certain limited form of existence.

Renton is undoubtedly trapped by his addiction and his school girl lover is trapped by her age, a desire to break free and be independent. We all know what it’s like to feel trapped; it’s a very human feeling, despite our supposed freedom. Whether you’re a nurse at a crowded hospital running a gauntlet of noses going off like shotguns of snot, a doctor watching patients with crash dummy heads and vacant eyes or one of thousands of the unemployed youths in this country retreading the same old paths, the same old trenches of memory through the earth, with no concept of a future. We can all get that feeling, and recognise it in others.

Ay na donne get all political pal? Keep it light! Ay?

Ah yes I forgot a character. Robert Carlyle plays Begbie, a moustachioed Scot whose job description reads thus: “playing pool and drinking at the bar, until a minor action by another customer causes him to lose his rag and beat everyone shitless”. Begbie’s probably trapped too, but to be honest his character never seemed much more than smashing entertainment. Literally.
The thing about Renton is that he thinks he’s beaten the rest of us buggers trapped in the game of life, chasing after fat televisions and fancy cars. He thinks that by choosing drugs he’s chosen nothingness and some sort of purer, pleasure filled existence. But like every revolutionary he comes to realise he is as trapped by the system as those embracing it. He needs money for his hits, friends for his sanity. Or maybe not friends, as you’ll see if you watch the film.

Trainspotting is a damn good ride through the monotony of modern existence, with eccentric but hilarious and extremely likeable tour guides. It’s more than your average tourist experience because at times it really gets you to think. And as an exploration of drug culture, Boyle’s direction is suitably dirty, bizarre and haunting, but also responsible and not over the top. You’ll flinch at some of the filth, the needles and most of all McGregor screaming his lungs out at a hallucination of a baby. Trainspotting is not simply a mash-up of visual clichés about getting high though, perhaps because it has such a strong grounding in character.

And so we come to The Wrestler, directed by Darren Aronofsky. Now Darren, as I like to call him, is someone I have a love/hate relationship with. First came the love, as I fell head over heels for the sensuality of Black Swan and then came the hate, when I followed this up with his earlier much praised work, Requiem for a Dream.

One of the reasons I found Trainspotting so refreshing was that whilst it dealt with drugs and it had its strange and psychedelic scenes of intoxication; it did not become the pretentious exercise in filmmaking that was Requiem for a Dream. I will probably be slated for saying it, and it may merely have been the context in which I first saw it (see link), but I really didn’t like that film. I did not see the point to it. Trainspotting seemed to say something far truer about addiction, despite its tongue often being firmly in cheek.

I only bring this up because it all meant that I didn’t know what I was going to get from The Wrestler; dazzling Darren or dopey Darren. The critical buzz around Mickey Rourke’s resurrected corpse meant not a jot, because some of them hated Black Swan and some of them loved Requiem.

I would not go as far as the five star quotes plastered over the cover. I would not call it the “ultimate man film” as FHM did. But it’s undoubtedly a film about a man and ageing, whereas Trainspotting, with hindsight, was a film for boys. Rourke’s Randy “The Ram” Robinson is someone trapped by his past, the legacy of his prime, and the mistakes he made during that ripe period of life.

Perhaps Rourke put in such a praiseworthy performance because he could really inhabit his character. He has been there, more or less. Rather than playing a caricature or a gun toting gangster, Rourke is simply a person here; a human being in decline, or as he says in one moving speech “a broken down piece of meat”. At first I didn’t see what all the fuss about his performance was, but then after a few emotional scenes with a potential lover and ageing stripper (Marisa Tomei) and particularly some heartbreaking confrontations with his daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), Rourke brings Randy to life.

There’s always the danger of melodramatic sentimentality, but the film manages to avoid it, primarily because of the masculine restraint of Rourke’s portrayal. Aside from some brutal wrestling scenes and one careless fuck, this is rather pedestrian territory for Darren after the frenzied, frenetic highs of Requiem and the disorientating dash for beautiful perfection in Black Swan. The Wrestler certainly didn’t grab me and it didn’t inspire the extremes of emotion that Darren’s two other efforts did. It has sporting parallels with Black Swan but lacks the wow factor of that film.

I don’t think there’s necessarily anything that wrong with The Wrestler. In some ways it is refreshing to see a film that shows so many sides of a man’s ordinary life, making his escape from that routine via his passion all the more meaningful. There’s no doubt that performing as a wrestler requires a certain level of very manly commitment to the drama. This film will offset any feminine activities like dusting icing sugar on cupcakes or fashioning paper chains with ease. But it’s so realistic, so dreary and so grim, that this antidote might lead to a dangerous and depressing overdose.

If you watch these back to back, watch Trainspotting last. It’s fun as well as not for the faint hearted. Either film is preferable to pointless precessions though, I’m sure you’ll agree. Never mind God Save the Queen, God save male souls everywhere and best of luck!

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

Movie Review Archive

DVD Review - Unthinkable (2010)

Unthinkable, 2010.

Directed by Gregor Jordan.
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Sheen, Brandon Routh, Carrie-Anne Moss, Stephen Root, Gil Bellows, Martin Donovan, Yara Shahidi, Sasha Roiz and Vincent Laresca.


SYNOPSIS:

A black-ops interrogator and an FBI agent have just two days to press a terror suspect into revealing the location of three nuclear bombs primed to detonate in the US.


There are terrorist movies and then there are TERRORIST movies. Unthinkable, in my opinion, falls into the latter. We’ve all seen the films that have the Islamic-motivated individuals who have done something extreme to prove either a political or personal point at the expense of others. They are fearless, clever and more than willing to die for their country and beliefs. This thriller has all of this but it takes it to another level.

Steven Arthur Younger (Michael Sheen) or Yusuf Atta Mohammed, which he prefers to be referred as is an American man who has made the conversion to Islam. He has placed three bombs in three American cities, all set to explode on the same day at the same time. Yes, and all of them are of the nuclear nature. He purposely allows himself to be captured by the U.S. government and is then subjected to special forms of “interrogation” by a man called “H” (Samuel L. Jackson). H has been specially hired by the government for his unique skills to deal with these specific kinds of situations. In addition, an FBI Special Agent, Helen Brody (Carrie-Anne Moss) is requested by H to assist him in extracting the unknown locations of the nuclear bombs from Younger.

Immediately upon meeting him, Younger is shown, or better yet feels, what exactly H does. To say the least, Brody is completely against H’s tactics and tries to convince him to stop. Yeah, like that was really going to happen. Throughout the film, many ideas and theories are thrown around by those conducting the investigation as to whether Younger’s threats are even legit. But the “Islamic-motivated” man assures them that he will not disclose any information until his demands are met. Demands that consist of Muslim countries being left alone and U.S. troops being withdrawn from Islamic areas. By stating these requests, he makes everyone aware that he not only wants justice for the horrors that have been done to his Muslim brothers and sisters but also peace and rest for his American people. The events that take place during the rest of the film, including some very unorthodox techniques of trying to get him to talk, makes for a whirlwind of a movie and definitely edge of your seat material.

The story was written by Oren Moverman and Peter Woodward is grossly engaging and I do mean grossly. Although some scenes are not for the faint of heart, director Gregor Jordan does a good job of not making it all about the gore. The interaction between the characters and back and forth of the plotline keeps the audience guessing without managing to lose any eyeballs watching the screen. It doesn’t take very long to get off the ground, delivering an open scene of Younger making his initial video demands. After that, it’s off to the races as we are introduced to Special Agent Brody and H as they are made aware of the possible consequences at hand.

Moss’ FBI character we can tell is somewhat of a light hard-ass, if that makes any sense. She is all about business and achieving results with very limited time for fun and games. But at the same time when compared to Jackson’s H, she is probably more human than we ever guessed. As with many of his roles, Samuel L. Jackson’s character is cool and extremely confident. He acknowledges what needs to be done and never hesitates at his tasks at hand. You like him but at other times you want to label him as a real a******.

I wanted to find something wrong with this movie. Only because I don’t normally hand out perfect scores but I couldn’t. Some may feel that it is simply a pile of processed and rehashed political/terrorism mumbo jumbo while trying to entertain its audience. But I feel that it dives very deep into the harsh reality of what is going on in the world today; bottom line is that there’s a war going on. We don’t know if it will ever stop but we do know that there are people out there who will go the ever seeing distance to make sure they feel retribution for evils done to them and their families. Sheen’s terrific performance as our antagonist provides Hollywood-style proof of this.

I’m sorry I slept on this direct-to-DVD gem so that’s why I’m suggesting it to well, everyone. I give Unthinkable “5 reasons why you can’t prosecute someone without fingernails out of 5”.

“Every man, no matter how strong he is, lies to himself about something”

Sean Guard
Follow me on Twitter @SilentScribbler

Movie Review Archive

First trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Harry Potter fans may be disappointed that Daniel Radcliffe has pretty much closed the door on reprising his role as the Boy Wizard in any future instalments in J. K. Rowling’s blockbuster fantasy series but here’s something to cheer them up – the first trailer from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

Arriving in cinemas on the 15th of July, the eighth feature brings the epic saga to a close and follows Harry, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) as they look to destroy the remainder of Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) horcruxes in preparation for a final decisive showdown with the Dark Lord.

Feast your eyes on the trailer...



Directed by David Yates (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1), the film also stars Helena Bonham Carter, Jim Broadbent, Robbie Coltrane, Warwick Davis, Tom Felton, Michael Gambon, Ciarán Hinds, John Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Matthew Lewis, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, David Thewlis, Emma Thompson, Julie Walters and Bonnie Wright.

Visit the official Harry Potter UK Facebook page here.

Javier Bardem officially signs on to star in The Dark Tower

Javier Bardem (No Country For Old Men, Biutiful) has now officially signed a deal to star as Roland Deschain in the movie and TV adaptations of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series of books. The unique and ambitious project will see King’s novels adapted into a trilogy of films, with each one being followed by a TV mini-series.

The story follows Deschain, the last living member of an order known as ‘Gunslingers’ on his quest to find the fabled Dark Tower. He journeys through a land, which shares many characteristics with the American Old West but has magical aspects too, in search of a way to save his broken, dying world.

Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind, The Da Vinci Code) will be directing the first film, with production said to be starting in September for an expected release in May 2013. The huge franchise will then continue with the first of the TV series.

Johnny Depp will have a cameo role in 21 Jump Street

It has been confirmed that Johnny Depp will be appearing in the movie version of 21 Jump Street. He will star in a small cameo role that has been written especially for him. The film, based on the 1987-91 TV series about cops who went undercover in schools, will be directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs).

21 Jump Street’s cast includes Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Brie Larson and Dave Franco (James’ brother), with Johnny Simmons (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) also recently announced to be on board.

The film will be released on March 16th 2012. Depp, who played Officer Tom Hanson in eighty episodes of the TV show that helped launch his successful acting career, can next be seen at the cinema reprising his role of Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, which opens on the 18th of May in UK cinemas.

Two new trailers for X-Men: First Class

If our current poll is anything to go by then Matthew Vaughn's lycra-clad mutant prequel X-Men: First Class could be the superhero movie to watch out for this summer and with just five weeks to go until the film arrives in cinemas, Fox have decided that it's a good time to hit us with a brand new trailer.

Now we've had snippets of new footage over the past couple of weeks courtesy of international trailers, and while this one starts out the same as the first it's only a matter of time before things get going. Along with more of the Xavier (James McAvoy) / Magneto (Michael Fassbender) story, the new trailer also gives us a look at some of the younger mutants and their powers including Havok (Lucas Till), Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Angel Salvadore (Zoe Kravitz).

It certainly looks like First Class is going to deliver some epic Cold War-era action scenes when it opens this June. Take a look for yourself...


Update: Fox have also released yet another international trailer and again, it features plenty of alternative footage...


X-Men: First Class also stars Kevin Bacon, January Jones, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, Oliver Platt, Ray Wise, Caleb Landry Jones and Jason Flemyng, and is set to open in the UK on June 2nd with a North American release the following day.

Macho Antidotes to the Royal Wedding – Part 2: United on BBC iPlayer

Liam Trim provides some alternatives to the Royal Wedding in the second of a three part feature...

My second suggestion of anti-Royal Wedding medication for the ordinary man, following the sensational spectacle of Thor, is a single strong dose of BBC drama United, shown on Sunday and now available on iPlayer. If Thor was grounded in fun fantasy then United is rooted firmly in poignant and period storytelling, of the sort the Beeb does so well. In fact with budget cuts beginning to bite, our national broadcaster has made it clear that quality dramas like United and The Crimson Petal and the White are the future of BBC2 in particular. If future projects are as good as these then it’s a wise as well as an economical decision.

United is the story of the tragic Munich air crash that killed most of Manchester United football club’s first team, as well as reporters and staff, after a successful European cup match in Belgrade. The squad’s flight was stopping over in a snowy Munich to refuel and the players and coaching staff were keen to return in time for their league game that weekend, and thus avoid a points deduction. For most football fans the catastrophe that cruelly cut short the life of so many of “Busby’s Babes” is the stuff of familiar legend. I have been a Manchester United fan since the age of 6 and was raised on the fairytales of pure footballers from both before the disaster and after it. The men directly touched by such devastating events forged the foundations for Manchester United to become the world famous and successful club it is today.

Rest assured though, United is a good drama and an absorbing watch, pure and simple. For those without the background in football heritage or even those that can’t tolerate the game, this is a captivating human story of careers, celebrity and comebacks. Most importantly this is an extremely British tale and the perfect anaesthetic for ears bleeding profusely because of the hypocritical and imbecilic and meaningless whining of Americans pleasuring themselves over the blandest, most lifeless 24 hour coverage of the exterior of Bucking-HAM palace.

Despite the subject matter United is not all doom and gloom. For over half an hour from the start we are welcomed into the heart of a football club going from strength to strength. But it’s not about the football; it’s about the characters at the club. We are treated to finely honed BBC costume drama detail, from the 1950s fashions, to the dressing room, to Old Trafford, the Theatre of Dreams itself, rendered lifelike with impressively unnoticeable CGI. Most pleasing of all is the delicious double act formed between David Tennant’s Welsh coach Jimmy Murphy and Dougray Scott’s understated but charismatic portrayal of United’s most celebrated manager, Matt Busby.

Most of the time, Tennant steals the show, as he does in almost everything he’s in. It is by no means one of the more important judges of an actor, but Tennant continually succeeds at accent after accent, this time believably carrying off the musical Welsh tongue. This role also allows him to show off other more vital aspects of his talent too though. He has tremendous fun motivating the players as a coach with vision and then more than copes with the emotional side to the story when the drama hits. The majority of Doctor Who fans may now be fully warming to Matt Smith but Tennant remains a class act and it’s actually refreshing to see him embracing parts as diverse and interesting as this one.

It’s fitting that United is mostly told from the perspective of a young Bobby Charlton. He’s now a Sir and a national treasure, but then he was just a lad that wanted to play football. And he ended up living through a harrowing and traumatic experience. Yet he came out the other side of it and was lucky enough to have been part of the great team before the crash, and the even greater side built from the ashes. Jack O’Connell, who plays the young Charlton here, does a really good job whether he’s stumbling through the plane’s ripped ruins and grimacing at explosions, practicing on the pitch or gazing up in awe at the stadium.

As a production United really does ooze quality. The acting is top notch, the music is touching and the directing beautiful, particularly at the snowy crash site itself and in the dressing rooms. It also deals sensitively with an immensely emotive issue. The question of blame is delicately raised and wisely the film does not nail its opinion to any specific interpretation. Some will blame those who were desperate to play abroad and then make it back home in time for the league match, and indeed Busby blamed himself. Some will blame the league officials who refused to grant a postponement to the fixture after United’s European trip. Some will insist the officials at the airport and the mechanics and the pilots should have taken more care. But the sensible will just accept the terrible tragedy of it all. The enormous grief.

Of course the overwhelming and important cost of the crash was the human one, with so many young men dead. Their families and girlfriends and mates were robbed of their lives prematurely. As a drama United undoubtedly tells that tale. It often seems callous, stupid and emotionally ignorant to talk of the cost to the game of football. I call myself a football fan but much of the time the game leaves me unmoved. I do not live and breathe the game, I no longer care greatly as I used to as a child when one of my favoured teams does poorly. It takes a great occasion or an unusually interesting story, or an exciting match with beautiful passages of play, to truly ignite my interest these days. But there certainly was a significant cost to the game of football after the Munich crash, and it was a cost that mattered almost as much as the loss of their lives. United tells that story too.

It mattered that such a great and talented team was almost completely wiped out, because it mattered to them. It would have mattered to those that died and it mattered to those left behind. It mattered to the fans that mourned them and even the people that knew them. It’s too easy to talk with nostalgia of how football used to be, with starting elevens as opposed to giant squads and meagre salaries and basic training pitches; the modern game is too often ignorantly slated as excessive junk. Watching United though you can see the appeal of that nostalgia, of an old school approach brimming with romance, you can understand those who knew it firsthand ranting and raving at the money making machine that’s replaced it.

Nowadays you wouldn’t get Tennant’s character, a first team coach, ringing round top flight clubs begging for players in the aftermath of a disaster so that the locals could see a game and to maintain the winning philosophy of a club. It just wouldn’t be possible. Or necessary. You wouldn’t get a fairytale quite as magical as the one that swept a ramshackle team, comprised of youngsters and amateur unknowns, to the F.A. Cup Final at Wembley just months after the crash.

I’m not ashamed to admit I cried watching United. I might have been predisposed to an outpouring of emotion because United stirred up a long since cooled love in me for the beautiful game. But I defy anyone not to be moved by such excellent acting, such accurate portrayals of grief and commitment and passion. I have been reminded by United that anything, be it art, table tennis or cartoons, that takes you out of yourself and absorbs you, helping you to forget pain and grief completely just for a moment, is a worthwhile and admirable activity. Something worth fighting for.

The Royal Wedding is more likely to make me vomit than get teary but I know it would be more acceptable to sob down the pub over the achievements of football greats than the nuptials of a posh Prince. So when the women are welling up at the sight of a dress or a bouquet, tell them you’re not dead inside you’d just rather save your sympathy and admiration for real royalty.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)

Movie Review Archive

Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist revs up the UK box office

UK box office top ten and analysis for the weekend of Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th April 2011...

Director Justin Lin and stars Vin Diesel and Paul Walker prove that there's plenty of life left in The Fast and The Furious franchise as the fifth installment, Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist (or Fast Five to those outside the UK), jumps straight in at the top of the box office with an impressive £5.3m including one day of preview screenings. Meanwhile, could it be that British audiences are finally tiring of Russell Brand? His new movie, the comedy remake Arthur, opens in with a less-than-stellar £764k and has to settle for third place behind the CGI adventure Rio, while Easter adventure Hop falls out of the top half of the chart and finishes in sixth with £466k.

Elsewhere and after a decent opening pushed it to first place last weekend, Wes Craven's slasher sequel Scream 4 begins to slide down the chart and takes fourth while new release Beastly rounds out the top five with a debut haul of £553k. Also on the decline are Red Riding Hood and Limitless, both falling three to sixth and tenth respectively, with Duncan Jones' Source Code slipping two spots to eighth. Finally documentary TT3D: Closer to the Edge opens in ninth place, pulling in £312k to give it the second-highest screen average of the weekend behind Fast & Furious.

Number one this time last year: Date Night

Pos.	Film	Weekend Gross	Week	Total UK Gross
1	Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist	£5,332,096	1	£5,332,096
2	Rio	£886,669	3	£8,017,662
3	Arthur	£764,468	1	£764,468
4	Scream 4	£730,963	2	£4,046,069
5	Beastly	£553,069	1	£553,069
6	Hop	£466,676	4	£5,940,142
7	Red Riding Hood	£345,421	2	£1,901,603
8	Source Code	£331,988	4	£5,276,549
9	TT3D: Closer to the Edge	£312,998	1	£312,998
10	Limitless	£282,879	5	£7,685,395

Incoming...

Marvel Studios release the first superhero film of 2011 this coming Friday as Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins star in Thor (cert. 12A), which will surely take the box office crown against comedy Cedar Rapids (cert. 15), supernatural chiller Insidious (cert. 15) and Korean thriller I Saw The Devil (cert. 18).

U.K. Box Office Archive

Michael Mann Retrospective - Thief (1981)

Thief, 1981.

Written and Directed by Michael Mann.
Starring James Caan, Tuesday Weld, James Belushi, Dennis Farina, William Petersen and Robert Prosky.


SYNOPSIS:

A professional safecracker’s plan for going straight spirals out-of-control when he becomes indebted to a crime boss.


Leaving behind the prison walls of his Emmy-winning T.V. movie The Jericho Mile, 1981 saw the release of Michael Mann’s first feature length film Thief. The crime noir was based on the novel The Home Invaders written by real life jewelry robber John Seyfold (under the pen name Frank Hohimer). Playing upon his fascination with the fine line that exists between the law enforcers and the lawbreakers, Mann had Chicago police officers Dennis Farina and Nick Nickeas appear as criminal henchmen, while former professional thief John Santucci plays a corrupt cop.

For the central character of Frank, the moviemaker had in a mind an actor who made a name for himself in The Godfather (1972). “When I met Michael, he had done one thing,” recalled James Caan on how he became part of his favourite movie. “I think I was doing Chapter Two [1979] or something. I see this guy sitting outside my trailer on a little wooden chair. He asked if he could speak to me; he hands me a script — I thought it was great after I read it. I find out the guy did one thing, which I also saw, which is pretty good, The Jericho Mile. So, at the time I was a big shot, and whatever I wanted to do, they did. I said I wanted to do this.”

Behind the camera, Michael Mann sought help from a fellow Chicago native. “I got a call from him asking me if I would read the script for the picture he was doing,” began production designer Mel Bourne. “I saw elements in that script that I really liked.” And when the two men met they discovered themselves to be kindred spirits. “We sat down and talked and had a clear picture of what the James Caan character looked like, what he wore. It was the start of what ended up in Miami Vice.” As for the dark interiors where shadows overpower the daylight, the movie’s production designer remarked, “We wanted that dreary, gritty, night look as a juxtaposition to the wet, neon exteriors.” To maintain this dramatic contrast, a 60,000 gallon water truck was employed to keep the streets constantly wet.

Michael Mann and Mel Bourne went to great lengths to ensure an authentic environment. “We did so much research,” recalled Bourne. “He [John Santucci] helped us and told us scientifically, down to the specific tools, how safes were broken into. Dennis Farina was on the Chicago police force at the time. He was a friend of Santucci’s and had pulled him in a number of times. So you got knowledge from people who really knew what the hell was going on.”

As for James Caan, he greatly enjoyed the cinematic experience, “Jerry Bruckheimer and my brother produced — and if you knew my brother, that's hysterical,” remarked the amused actor. “Those two guys producing it. And Michael — this little Napoleonic workaholic. This guy was nuts. But I liked it, that film, and that character. It's one of my fondest memories.” Thief also includes what James Caan considers to be his best performance. Seated in a diner, the actor has a seven minute monologue with actress Tuesday Weld, talking about his character’s hopes and dreams. Caan was not the only one who enjoyed the picture. “I remember I had a bunch of friends going to Stanford at the time, and I knew a lot of the football players. They used to come and stay with me, and they used to watch that movie once or twice a week. They knew all the dialogue.”

The big robbery was based on an actual heist masterminded by John Santucci, who went on to become a long-time technical consultant for Michael Mann. Though the crime was fictional, the production crew had other serious concerns. “The jewelry store at the end was built at Zoetrope Studios in L.A.,” explained Mel Bourne. “The walls of the safe were real. There were layers and layers of metal and asbestos in the walls. That paid off, because you really get the smell of that arc and you get the feel of the mass of that metal. We had to work with the L.A. police force and the fire department to make sure that the studio wasn’t going to go up in flames.”

Dennis Farina was not only the one making his film debut; the cast also included acting newcomers James Belushi, William Petersen, John Kapelos, and Robert Prosky. Even at this early stage of his directorial career, Michael Mann was honing his trademark style; the movie features slick camera movements, and a moody musical score composed by Tangerine Dream. Despite being a moderate box office success, Thief was a major step forward in establishing Mann as the A-list filmmaker he is today.

Thief trailer:


Mann Handled: A Michael Mann Profile

A Michael Mann Retrospective

Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.

The Terminator will be back as Schwarzenegger returns to the franchise

It’s been rumoured for a while but now its official – Arnold Schwarzenegger is set to return to his signature role as the unstoppable killing machine (now with added rust!) in a new instalment of the Terminator franchise. Deadline reports that Arnie and director Justin Lin (The Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious and Fast Five) are shopping the project around Hollywood studios today, with Universal, Sony, Lionsgate and CBS Films all said to be highly interested.

It was way back in 1984 when Schwarzenegger got his major breakthrough as The Terminator in James Cameron’s sci-fi classic, and he went on to star in sequels Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) before putting acting on hold to focus on his political ambitions. Arnie’s likeness (well, his 80s one) did make a cameo appearance in McG’s reboot Terminator Salvation back in 2009, but Jonathan Mostow’s Rise of the Machines remains the last time that Schwarzenegger headlined a movie. Despite his rumoured interest Lionsgate’s The Last Stand it now looks as though Schwarzenegger’s CV is set to include back-to-back outings as the T-101.

The Deadline piece goes on to try and unravel the confusion over the Terminator rights, which were purchased by current holders Pacificor from Halcyon in February 2010 for $29.5m and under American copyright law, are expected to revert to James Cameron in 2018. The new project is being shopped to studios with a reported price tag of $36m plus the fees for Schwarzenegger and Lin and, with a shortening window of opportunity to further milk the franchise, you’d have to imagine that studios will act quickly.

As a Schwarzenegger fan, I’m pretty disappointed by this news and can’t help but think it’s a bad idea. There hasn’t been a good Terminator movie for two decades and in all honesty Arnie looked over-the-hill in third one. Unless he’s going to play a scientist responsible for creating the machines or they plan to go along the Salvation CGI route then all believability goes out the window. I mean, why would Skynet bother using a battered, out-of-shape old cyborg when they have an absolute beast at their disposal in the original Cyberdyne Systems Model 101?

With this and The Governator, I’m beginning to think Arnie should have stuck to politics.

Thoughts on... Three Kings (1999)

Three Kings, 1999.

Written and Directed by David O. Russell.
Starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, Spike Jonze, Cliff Curtis, Nora Dunn and Jamie Kennedy.


SYNOPSIS:

Determined to take home more than sand fleas in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, four American soldiers go off into the Iraqi desert to find millions in stolen Kuwaiti bullion.


If there was a film in the late nineties that tested the edges of political cinema and gave a you a cinematic treat at the same time, like David O’ Russell’s Three Kings, then it totally passed me by.

I love war films. Ever since Rambo greased up his mullet and with his bare hands, a trusted meter long commando knife, his handy AK-47 and some grenades thrown in for good measure, he tore South East Asia and Afghanistan apart. Hollywood used to make war look, for lack of a more suitable word, fun. You can fire from the hip and destroy rows of enemy soldiers without even flinching. Chuck Norris in “Delta Force” was the quintessential modern day action hero Jesus, beard and all. He did not hesitate to smite his foes whether on a missile-equipped dirt bike or in hand-to-hand combat. You lived life imagining that war was like an ultimate computer game. It was like having the game “Call of Duty” as your running imagination.

Then came the first Gulf war and for the first time in my life I was sitting watching each explosion as it was happening on TV. The great attention grabbing News headlines on BBC, ITV and CNN, the cool mission names like ‘Operation Desert Storm’ and the full length reports on the F-15 fighters and the Stealth bombers made the whole thing look, well for lack of a more suitable word, exciting. But it also gave me a glimpse into the scary part of war. The part that most news reports didn’t show, unless you lived with parents who watched Middle Eastern news, like I did. My dad would read me the reports of American aircraft dropping bombs onto victims far away, distant from my living room floor. The pictures of children, about the same age as me, who lost limbs or were burnt by the raining fire, only helped to fuel my loathing for this insane and unnecessary act. From then on my perception of war changed as I began to question it’s whereabouts, delve into history books and look at previous wars and educate myself about their origins. I never again saw war as fun or exciting after this.

Three Kings came at a time when most had forgotten about the first Gulf War. Hollywood has a habit of creating war films well after the war finishes. Whether it’s because Hollywood agreed with the political premises of the war (which I doubt was the case), or were too scared to release such a film for fear of a nationalistic backlash, remain questions that need to be discussed on a critical level. What is for sure was that Three Kings was the first if not the only Gulf War film that tackles the gritty issues surrounding the conduct of the allied troops that we most certainly didn’t see or hear about in the western media.

Mark Wahlberg as Troy Barlow, Ice Cube simply known as Chief Elgin, and Spike Jonze as Conrad Vig, star as bored U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq just after the end of the Gulf War craving any sort of action. The action comes in the form a treasure map found in the anus of a prisoner of war. The way the myth of the treasure map travels within the base from soldier to soldier, Chinese whisper like, just shows the extent by which the soldiers’ inactivity gives rise to the use of stories and tales as a means of amusement. The film uses the classic trio character technique to tell the story with Troy (Wahlberg) as the family-man soldier, Elgin (Ice Cube) as the God fearing uber patriot soldier and Conrad (Jonze) as the nihilistic hick who, his compatriots repeatedly tell us, didn’t finish high school. When the frat boy style parties don’t become enough to amuse them, the rumors of a treasure map hidden in the orifice of a POW, entice them to go in search of gold stolen from Kuwait and in turn a better life for themselves and their families. When a disillusioned Special Forces Capt. Archie Gates (George Clooney) also catches wind of this map the trio gains a leader to guide them there. The journey takes them to a small village where they believe approximately $20 million in Kuwaiti bullion is hidden.

There, against the better judgment of some, they find themselves involved with villagers eager to rebel against Saddam Hussein and who mistakenly see the Americans as a small squad sent to liberate them (much like the actual case for the Kurdish rebels in Iraq). They soon find that the band of men, are actually here to liberate something completely different. But when the Iraqi troop presence in the village escalates, mind you only to quash the rebel uprising rather then to interfere with the US soldiers, and the senseless execution of the wife of a rebel prisoner in front of her family, Gates takes the decision to intervene with force. The group find themselves embroiled in a battle with the Iraqi squadron who capture Troy and begin their routine torture interrogations. What ensues is a glorious Hollywood action fest involving a jackknifing lorry spilling it’s milky contents everywhere, the use of mustard gas on the fleeing U.S. soldiers (a visual comment on the ultimately true accounts of the Iraqi use of chemical weapons in that war), and a brilliantly masterminded rescue plan involving a fleet of stolen Kuwaiti luxury cars kept by a sympathetic army defector in a bunker in the middle of the desert.

The film ends almost too cliché-ish with it’s the American soldiers do the right thing at the end of the day by freeing a small group of rebels, and taking them to the Iranian border as refugees. It was doomed to that fate but for it’s lingering well placed message about the unprecedented media coverage of this war and also the conduct of the media. Adriana Cruz, a journalist embedded with the U.S. regiment, when trying to find the AWOL group, encounters the burning oil fields of Kuwait and the geological impact it had. When she is confronted by a bird covered in oil and dying she says that this story has been “fucking done”, an indictment on the longevity of stories in the media, which ultimately get replaced for something more eye catching and shocking. It’s also a great criticism of how reporters reported the news, showing how they were in it just to catch that big story that would land them with more fame and notoriety.

In the end Three Kings is a war movie like any other great war movie that at the end always poses that existential question of ‘why do we go to war?’ Well this films answer is clearly shown by the revelations of Said Taghmoui’s torturer who in this powerful scene tells the idealistic Troy that “there is a lot of people in trouble in this world my man and you (America) don’t fight no fucking war for them”. When Troy replies with the whole bringing stability to the region argument, he is literally fed the answer with the help of a CD cover and some oil to which the torturer poignantly ends with the line, “this is your fucking stability my main man”.


Afshin Salehzahi

Movie Review Archive

Macho Antidotes to the Royal Wedding – Part 1: Thor 3D at the cinema

Liam Trim provides some alternatives to the Royal Wedding in the first of a three part feature...



If you’re not fed up with the circus yet, you soon will be. Every clowning performer, every newsreader, commentator and gushing crowd member, will be salt rubbed into your severely wounded mood. Gossiping and gawping at two rich strangers is irritating for half an hour, annoying for an evening and soul destroying after days and weeks. Wedding talk is a stressful and pointless nuisance. At the end of this week the womenfolk will be in an unstoppably riotous mood. It will be terrifying.



Your masculinity will be torturously chipped away. The usual refuge, the pub, will be hideously transformed into a paradise of bunting and delicate decoration. When the confetti and the cupcakes and the tiaras get too much, new escape routes will be needed. After the horrors of the day itself, you’ll need to rediscover your true self and chill out as a bloke again.



For the alternatives to the madness, the cures to wedding fever and feral femininity, keep it glued to Flickering Myth. We’ll remind you that there’s good honest entertainment worth living for after a monstrous marriage marathon.



Your first anti-wedding tip then is Kenneth Branagh’s (that’s right the thespian and national treasure, directing a comic book adaptation) eagerly anticipated Marvel epic Thor, in three dimensions courtesy of the now standard issue Elton John specs. After all what could be more manly than a hero with impossibly mahoosive muscles and a badass cape, whose principal superpower is a giant hammer for bashing stuff to bits? He’s a God-like handyman irresistible to women and the envy of lesser men.



I promised myself I wouldn’t resort to atrocious puns to describe the merits and failures of Branagh’s creation, as other reviews have done. But then I thorght, by Odin’s beard there’s no harm in saying that whilst this isn’t quite a thor star film, its plot hammers along with such thunderous gusto that it at least cracks the norse code of decent superhero movies for the most part. The critics are right to muck about with words and have fun with their reviews though; because Thor, whatever its faults, is a fun watch.



Despite the drawbacks of spending much of the running time in the CGI kingdom of Asgard, I found such a different setting mostly refreshing. Gleaming golden palaces, elaborate armour and impossible landscapes are ingredients unavailable to the likes of Batman and Iron Man, no matter how artificial the environment might sometimes seem. Undeniably at times the 3D CGI is visually dazzling and striking. There are even a number of good, thumping action scenes in the eternal realm. As some reviewers have pointed out, setting much of the film in Asgard ensures the audience becomes attached to it, whether they appreciate its over the top beauty or not.



There’s no doubt that the fun factor only truly kicks in when things literally crash down to earth though. There are a good number of gags, nearly all of which are LOL worthy. Thor amusingly thrashes about at the humans he interacts with, struggling to accept he is at the mercy of the mortals. He only really bonds with one of us human plebs, the beautiful and gorgeous (I do not have a crush!) Natalie Portman. She plays a scientist on the verge of some vague but momentous discovery to do with particles and space or something. Thor sees she is clever. And that she’s a woman too. Portman is by no means mesmerising as she is in Black Swan here, but she does the job asked of her by the story, as do Anthony Hopkins and even Chris Hemsworth as Thor, who looked so wooden in the trailer. No I don’t just think she did a good job because she’s hot.



You might like to know the basic thrust of Thor’s plot: Thor heir to throne, Thor seeks revenge on Frost Giants, Thor banished for breaking peace, Thor seeks to find lost hammer, Thor inadvertently falls for hot human scientist, Thor tries to return to save kingdom. I like to think he may have grunted it out bluntly like that. And yes you read that rightly, the bad guys in this are called Frost Giants. They are perhaps Thor’s weakest ingredient; childishly simple foes that are difficult to take seriously. But again they are at least different to standard superhero fare.



The best bits, besides the laughs, following Thor’s fall to earth are two stunning action scenes. The first sees Thor roaring like King Kong as he bashes a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D agents. He’s trying to get to his beloved magical hammer, which is sealed off by awesome looking white tubes by the guys in suits that will link all Marvel’s superheroes together for the forthcoming Avengers film. The second climatic action scene sees Thor and his warrior friends fleeing from a fire breathing robot despatched by the traitor in Asgard’s camp to kill Thor.



This scene gets the best out of a small and dusty New Mexico town location, by smashing it to pieces with fantastic fiery explosions. The really impressive and surprising thing, especially given all the talk about Thor’s visual style, is the sound the killer robot makes every time it unleashes a fireball; it’s so piercing and deafening that you feel the impact of each blast. My friend violently flinched in surprise at one moment when the thing shaped up to slap something. Then in the aftermath of the destruction the soundtrack and the visuals reach suitably epic proportions for Thor’s big race against time comeback moment.



Thor is of course the God of Thunder, which is fitting given that most superheroes grapple with the stormy consequences of their own God complexes. Needless to say Thor predictably learns his lesson, to put others before yourself is truly heroic blah blah, but in engrossingly epic style. There is just something fun about this film, which makes you reluctant to dwell on its various faults and flaws. Thor ended leaving me wanting more from the character and more from his world, despite the silliness of some of the mythological squabbles. Branagh has not crafted the meaningful art he is accustomed to, but a fun and refreshing thorker of a blockbuster. He may be a prince, but Thor will easily sail your mind away from all things Royal.

Liam Trim (follow me on Twitter)



Movie Review Archive

Bill & Ted look set to party on as a third excellent adventure moves closer

A third outing for those Wyld Stallyns, Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted 'Theodore' Logan, has been rumoured for nigh on twenty years now, but things appear to be moving forward at pace as Alex Winter revealed via Twitter that he's got his hands on a completed screenplay.

Bill & Ted 3 first took a step closer to reality back in September 2010 when Keanu Reeves announced at the Toronto International Film Festival that Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon - writers of both Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989) and sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) - were about to start work on the script.

Reeves updated progress earlier this month, stating to MTV that the draft was about six weeks away from completion, and also hinted at the film's potential plot: "When we last got together, part of it was that Bill and Ted were supposed to have written the song that saved the world, and it hasn't happened, so they've now become kind of possessed by trying to do that."

While it'll be interesting to catch up with Bill and Ted after all these years, you have to wonder how Reeves and Winter will manage to pull off the nonsensical slacker shtick given that they're both in their mid-forties. But it's better than another reboot, I suppose.

Five Essential... Misfit Movies

Simon Moore selects his Five Essential Misfit Movies...

So called because they feature (and appeal to) misfits of all ages. Why not ‘Teen Movies’? Reeks a bit of Disneyfication to me. Brings to mind the ruthless, sickeningly effective demographic hunting tactics of High School Musical or the Twilight saga. There’s no place for such non-smutty nonsense here. No cool kids allowed. This list is all about the films that chronicle and champion our geeks and freaks, full of beans and pent-up bluster. You know, the interesting kids.

You may have noticed that John Hughes is taking a back seat on this list. Why? Well, consider that Hughesy could easily populate this list all by himself; it wouldn’t allow for much in the way of variety. In fact, he already has a list to himself, compiled by my colleague Alex Williams elsewhere in the “Essentials...” archives. Look it up. In the meantime, let’s crank the angst up to eleven and let rip on those five essential misfit movies...


5. Juno (2007, dir. Jason Reitman)

Juno MacGuff is up the duff. That is to say, she has a bun in the oven. In a family way, even. Not knocked up, though. That’s Katherine Heigl, in another film not appearing on this list. Juno (Ellen Page) tackles this situation with surprising courage and a healthy dollop of witty remarks. Seriously, Juno might as well be Humphrey Bogart trapped in a 16 year old girl’s body.

Quite selflessly, she decides not to abort the baby, but to donate it to a couple who really want a child but can’t get one the usual way. This couple happens to be Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman, who round out an exceptional supporting cast including J.K. Simmons as the straight-talking dad, Allison Janey the mighty step-mum and Michael Cera carving out a niche of his own as the clueless boyfriend. Juno is seriously funny, in both senses of both those words. Watch out for pork swords, orange tic-tacs and blue spew.


4. Some Kind of Wonderful (1987, dir. Howard Deutch)

John Hughes writes the ultimate love letter to teenage misfits, high school love triangles and Rolling Stones slash fic. Watts (Mary Stuart Masterson), a tomboy drummer, is best friends with Keith Nelson (Eric Stoltz), an oddball artist/mechanic, who’s just got an unlikely date with the gorgeous Amanda Jones (Lea Thompson), a young lady extensively easy on the eyes. To shamelessly quote from Keith’s sister, “...any fool can get into a college. Only a precious few may say the same about Amanda Jones.”

Watts thought she was happy just being friends, but this sudden and sexy turn of events prompts an earth-shattering revelation – she’s in love with Keith, and the dopey greasemonkey doesn’t even know it. Sparks fly between Keith and Watts, caught in the lost, hesitant mood of two people who thought they knew everything about each other. As an added bonus, count on John Hughes’ impressive musical taste to provide a stunning alternative ’80s soundtrack.


3. Rebel Without A Cause (1955, dir. Nicholas Ray)

Jim Stark (James Dean) is being torn apart. His parents (domineering and spineless by degrees) squabble and bicker and neglect him. He’s threatened and tormented at his new school, getting into knife fights and high-speed car chases and seeing the inside of a police precinct on a regular basis. Then he meets the other outcasts, Judy (Natalie Wood) and Plato (Sal Mineo), both cast adrift in the brutal high school social scene.

Dean, then 24 years old, doesn’t just let youthful looks and costume department do the work of convincing us he’s a teenager. He slouches. He mumbles. He’s deadly sincere about what he says and does. He plays Stark with laconic intensity – an angry young man lashing out at everything around him. Hanging out with Judy and Plato, he soon finds that he’s become a father figure himself. Looked up to. Admired. Emulated. Can he handle it?


2. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010, dir. Edgar Wright)

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) lives almost entirely in a world of his own. He plays bass guitar in a garage band with his friends. He dates a fangirl high-schooler. Life is pretty much a video game for Scott, with power-ups, experience points and boss fights. When he meets the mysterious Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the girl of his dreams, his over-active imagination chooses to deal with her (considerable) emotional baggage by personally fighting and defeating her seven evil exes.

Adapted with great affection and 8-bit finesse from Bryan Lee O’Malley’s original comics, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World sees Edgar Wright at the height of his powers, telling a story of love, loss and that nagging feeling at the back of the mind of young men and women in their early twenties, waiting for their adult lives to press the start button.


1. The Goonies (1985, dir. Richard Donner)

The ultimate misfit movie, full fit to bursting with crooks, maps and devilish booby traps. A motley crew of kids find a treasure map that could just save their neighbourhood from being redeveloped into a golf course. They’re inventors, idealists, tall story tellers, braver and smarter and better by far than the crooks and accountants standing in their way. Goonies, after all, never say die.

Donner sees to it that the laughs come quick and clever, hitting you crabwise, charming you and beguiling you with the adventures of Mikey, Brand, Mouth, Chunk, Data, Andy and Stef. As mad as they sound and then some, they talk and swear and fight as only thirteen and fourteen year olds can, or will.

There are a great many things that deserve to be written about The Goonies – Joe Pantoliano’s rogue toupé, the inimitable Sloth, Chunk’s infamous Truffle Shuffle – but that takes up valuable time that’s better spent watching the film, falling hilariously, helplessly in love with it.


Honourable Mentions...

Whip It (2009) – Ellen Page develops a passion for the wild, dangerous world of Texas roller derby. Also, the wild, dangerous world of boys.

Brick (2005) – The hard-boiled detective story comes to the modern high school as loner Joseph Gordon-Levitt investigates the murder of his ex-girlfriend.

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (2008) – Michael Cera and Kat Dennings scour New York for their favourite band’s secret show, trying to discover whether they share something more than musical tastes.

Agree? Disagree? We'd love to hear your comments on the list...

Simon Moore is a budding screenwriter, passionate about films both current and classic. He has a strong comedy leaning with an inexplicable affection for 80s montages and movies that you can’t quite work out on the first viewing.

Essentials Archive