philosoraptor42

The Best of Men (2012 TV Movie)

Sure, it's a made-for-tv movie and it feels like it. Nevertheless, the performances are so good and everything is just handled so well that I just felt joy from beginning to end. There's not a lot in the way of impressive directorial flourishes, but there is a good story told well and emotionally engaging as all hell.



At the centre of it all is Eddie Marsan playing the true-life figure, Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, a German doctor who is finally allowed to treat spinal patients in Britain during the latter half of World War II. Marsan has a very wide range as an actor, but this is definitely my favourite performance from him so far.


( Click here for the rest of the review... )



Labyrinth (2012 TV Series)

Oh dear me Christopher Smith, what happened?

Christopher Smith has become one of my favourite directors. While there's a decidedly annoying decision for one of the scenes in his first movie "Creep" it was nevertheless a pretty cool debut. He followed it up with "Severance" which I saw in the cinema upon its release. Not realising that it was the same director, nor how great it would be, I missed "Triangle" in cinemas (not least because I thought it was about the Bermuda Triangle - which it isn't). And his latest film "Black Death", with Sean Bean, was one of the better "medieval horror" films of late (others being "Centurion", "Valhalla Rising", "Season of the Witch", "Solomon Kane" and arguably also "13 Assassins").



It's been a rather long wait since "Black Death" and it seems that Christopher Smith has tried to transition to tv. (Something it seems that the very similar director Neil Marshall has already successfully managed by directing the excellent 'Blackwater' episode of "Game of Thrones" and starting the series "Black Sails", which I hope will be rather less disappointing than this was.) Unfortunately he seems to have chosen a 'Da Vinci Code' knockoff. I remembered seeing Kate Mosse's book "Labyrinth" in bookshops and I always thought it came before Dan Brown's cheesy bestseller. But it seems I was mistaken.

What's perhaps most annoying of all is that "Labyrinth" is about the massacre of the Cathars in the 13th Century. It's a really interesting historical event to base a drama around. Unfortunately Kate Mosse's book is instead about some kind of mystical books supposedly connected with the Holy Grail. To be frank, I'd rather be watching the bleeding Indiana Jones movie if we are going to go that goofy.



( Click here for the rest of the review... )

When I went to see Whedon's "Much Ado About Nothing", one trailer stood out. It's a trailer for the "Alan Partridge" movie. Now I don't know how well this is going to do. Alan Partridge isn't a character who has been on tv for a while and I'm pretty sure he's not well known in America.

Alan Patridge is perhaps the most well-loved character to be created by the legendary comedian Steve Coogan. I don't know what films of his people would be most likely to have seen. "24 Hour Party People"? (I've never seen that one.) "A Cock And Bull Story"? (That one's pretty obscure.) "The Parole Officer." (Even if you have seen that one, it's really not Coogan at his best.) Perhaps the best examples to point out are "In The Loop" where he is the guy who owns the collapsing wall. I felt he was in danger of stealing the show there, even with just a tiny role. Another high profile example is "Tropic Thunder" where he is the director (named "Damien Cockburn") who, um, disappears early on in the movie. (Personally not really a big "Tropic Thunder" fan to be honest.)



I remembered seeing adverts on tv promoting "Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Patridge" back in 1994 and unfortunately I didn't realise it was a comedy at the time. It's misleading that it initially appears to be a typical chat show and it takes a short while to recognise that the whole thing is a complete send-up. The host is self-centred and consistently massaging his own ego and in spite of seemingly promoting a politically correct show, constantly reveals casual bigotry, misogyny and general ignorance. His guests either hate him, discover that they hate him during the show or like him for the wrong reasons.



I've since caught up on this initial appearance of the character "Alan Partridge" including the excellent 'Christmas Special' (entitled "Knowing Me Knowing Yule with Alan Patridge"). The final conclusion of the Christmas special is shown as a flashback at the beginning of the first series of "I'm Alan Patridge" with a BBC executive (played by the awesome David Schneider) insisting "you shall never work in television again!" So how can there be any more shows? Because Alan moves to radio! Working on Radio Norwich (for non-UKers, that's a pretty mundane area btw) we spend very little time seeing how ridiculous he is as a radio broadcaster, spending a lot more time watching Alan Partridge have meetings and try to salvage his fledgling career. It's been a long time, but I remember absolutely loving the first series of "I'm Alan Patridge" in 1997, though I'm not certain whether I saw the second series which apparently aired in 2002.



Now the Alan Patridge movie seems to show him still working in radio. Unsurprisingly he decides to backstab one of his co-workers to get him made redundant, but he then becomes a hostage in an armed siege. Alan Partridge is a delightful combination of horrible, egotistical and stupid. As an audience we love to watch him make a fool of himself and suffer for it. This looks like it'll be hilarious...


(video link)


TV Shows Update:

I don't talk much about tv shows because I generally wait until they reach DVD before I watch them. So here are my comments on all the shows I've enjoyed in the past few years:


Game Of Thrones
I've finished the first two seasons and I kinda love it. A bit weirded out by the sex bits, but I don't think you need to focus on that so much. Clearly Peter Dinklage, Charles Dance and whatshername, the girl character, *googles* Arya Stark, are the most awesome parts of it. I tried reading the first book before watching the first series and couldn't get into it at all. I am better with faces than names and after the initial part of the book where every character I've been introduced to promptly dies, the author then gives me a bunch of names to remember without describing what any of those characters are like. I then struggled to work out who was who and got wholly frustrated. Yeah, I didn't really give it much of a chance, but even my mum whose a big reader seemed thankful to have been introduced to some of the main characters in the initial tv episodes before she dove into the book series. I loved Neil Marshall's episode "Blackwater"


Party Down
My main reason for checking this out was because I heard it had a reference to "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" before the book was written. And it's true. In the version they describe in the relevant episode Edgar Allen Poe and Abraham Lincoln both hunt vampires together. Essentially the series is about washed-up actors and writers who work in catering to make some money. I gained additional enjoyment when watching "Wreck-It Ralph" as a result of gaining familiarity with her in "Party Down". She's great.


Girls
So far I've only seen season 1, but it's pretty cool. Interestingly Lena Dunham has a short cameo in Ti West's horror-comedy "The Innkeepers". It might as well be Hannah from "Girls" though she's essentially just known as "that annoying girl who works at the coffee shop" in the movie. (Actually she's also credited as "911 voice operator" in Ti West's other movie "The House Of The Devil".) Lena Dunham both wrote and stars in the series "Girls" and while she's pretty, she has a refreshingly normal figure for a protagonist that young on American television. Pretty much every character in Girls has massive flaws, including the central protagonist and that's part of why the series is so enjoyable. Nearly episode seems to feature Hannah having awful sex with her weird boyfriend - which is um, unique. This is equal parts drama and comedy, but the comedy is funny enough to make those moments worth the wait - and in a good episode, you really won't be waiting long.


Miranda
Okay, enough of the American stuff. While we are on the subject of less conventional body types in female protagonists, it seems like perfect time to talk about Miranda Hart. I first saw her in the tv series "Hyperdrive", a sci-fi comedy series which slightly recaptured the magic that "Red Dwarf" now appears to have thoroughly lost. (For me, "Red Dwarf" only has six series worth mentioning. Ending ironically with the words "To Be Continued...") In "Hyperdrive" Miranda's character was a stickler for the rules and in one episode tries to spark up an old romance with a childhood friend from the Camp for Young Agnostics she used to go to.

Alongside Sarah Hadland who used to regularly feature in "Mitchell and Webb" sketches, Miranda (in the tv series) runs a joke shop which she paid for with her life savings. Miranda is a character who gets flustered by social expectations and just wants to enjoy herself without the pressures of life getting in the way. She is an extremely tall and quite large woman and so many of the jokes are connected with her insecurity about her appearance and the way she is regularly put down because she doesn't conform to classic beauty standards. Some people hate this series, but it's just so sweet and endearing that I don't understand how they can feel that way. Each to their own I guess.

I've onlys seen series one of "Miranda" so far, but I actually first found out about it through the Christmas specials.

( About Another Sixteen TV Series Listed Under The Cut... )

Director Showcase: Joe Dante


Okay, it's taken a while, but what follows are reviews for every single movie Joe Dante has ever made. This is also available as three separate posts at candycorncomm.




( Read more... )



(video link)

So is that everything worth seeing in the film then? Well... not quite. There's a number of very good scenes. But first of all I feel that I ought to explain what definitely ISN'T any good in this film.

1) Brendan Fraser....

*gasp* "But he's really funny in other stuff!" ... Um.... that's what everyone was thinking, right? Heck, I was. I thought he was really good in "The Mummy Returns" (Just me? Okay....), I thought he was pretty funny in "Bedazzled" (especially after that one wish where he can suddenly speak Spanish) and I don't think anyone can deny that he made some of the funniest guest appearances on Scrubs.

But in this Looney Tunes movie? I'm afraid I didn't find him funny at all. He occasionally had a funny line and I'd listen to it and only notice that it was a funny line after the pause for laughter had passed me by. He just seemed to have no comic timing.

The problem wasn't even the script. Bugs and Daffy's banter with one another would often be pretty funny, but Brendan? *shrugs*

2) Third act problems. Yeah, movies often have that, but I have to say that in the last act I vaguely remember a runaway train and a bomb and all sorts, but I have absolutely no idea what actually happened. That is really NOT good.

3) Steve Martin. All previous problems pale by comparison to this one. If there was one person who sucked all the humour out of the movie it was Steve Martin. Basically times my issues with Brendan Fraser in this movie by about one million. He not only failed to show any ability in terms of comic timing, but actively lowered the mood of the whole film. I am actually prepared to go out on a limb and say that this film might be worth recommending if it weren't for Steve Martin's presence in it.

So, with the negatives out of the way, let's talk about what is good in this film.

1) Timothy Dalton. He has some rather naff stuff to do in the final act of the film, but when he first appears leaving a video message for his son (played by Brendan Fraser. Yeah, moving on.... ) while simultaneously fighting bad guys and hurling grenades, he's just awesome.

2) The whole scene in Area 52. Turns out Kevin McCarthy is only doing a cameo, but it's great all the same. Meanwhile the head of the Area 52 operation is led by Joan Cusack (who is brilliant). When the monsters escape naturally, what with Joe Dante being a classic horror movie geek, one of them comes from "This Island Earth". (Not only did they redo the Metaluna Mutant brilliantly, but one of the guys involved has a deviantart account.)

3) Obviously with Kevin McCarthy, Joan Cusack and some rather awesome monster effects all compounded into one point, I'm struggling a little to top that with this third point. However, I think it needs to be noted that the banter from Bugs and Daffy in the movie is actually really good. Admittedly you are talking to the guy who finds the new Giant Robot Love song absolutely hilarious, but the point is that a movie centred around Bugs and Daffy needs to make the most of its central characters and I think, to be absolutely fair, this movie does.

Sadly, I have to finish by admitting that this film sucks. I'm still putting MOST of the blame on Steve Martin, but he can't be blamed for all of the problems. Not all of the slapstick running around works. There's a random music number that falls rather flat and the whole thing is a bit lacking wind in its sails. Still, as I said, there are several bits that are quite inspired. Once you've seen the Psycho reenacment above and the Area 52 scene you've pretty much seen the best the film has to offer. Even if you count the odd little good bits elsewhere in the film, we're talking about a 90 minute movie with no plot of which two thirds is basically filler between jokes. That's really not very good.

Though interestingly the deleted scenes show that this was clearly a pretty compromised work. Just check out how Joe Dante originally wanted the movie to begin!

D-


Masters of Horror: Homecoming (2005)

Now this was pretty fun. Joe Dante is quite keen on combining horror and comedy, but that's not really what he did here. By his own admission, the horror only really comes from the concept: zombies. (We all love zombies, right?) I'm not going to give away what the zombies do, but it seems that Joe Dante was pissed off by George Dubyah Bush's presidency as much as the rest of us. Robert Picardo gets to be Karl Rove and Thea Gill gets to be absolutely incredible as Anne Coulter.

Admittedly none of the characters are known as the figures they are blatantly playing within the short film, but they don't need to be. If there's one thing you don't have to worry about here, it's subtlety. The message is fairly straightforward and there's no risk of a reference to Fox News or Guantanemo Bay passing you by. However, it's all a pretty clever idea and while the amount of time that's passed might take the impact away a little bit, the whole concept is quite amusing. I actually wish there'd been even more Thea Gill though. Her whole performance is absolutely brilliant. (IMDB reckons that one of the four things she's most well-known for is starring in a Uwe Boll movie. Someone seriously needs to correct this and fast.)

The ending of this is a bit cheesy, but then again so is the whole thing. It's cheesy satire from start to finish, but it's funny and original and, what can I say? I loved it.

B+


Trapped Ashes (2006)

To be absolutely fair to Joe Dante, this is five stories directed by five different people i.e. not him. All he is responsible for is the join in between and those joining bits are great. It's all the same actors, but somehow they seem to be much more entertaining when Joe Dante is directing. No surprise there... However, what holds together Joe Dante's connecting scenes is an excellent performance from Henry Gibson, one of Joe Dante's regular actors (like Dick Miller and Robert Picardo).

Of the individual stories in Trapped Ashes the best has to be the killer breasts storyline, directed by the recently deceased Ken Russell. It's really great fun and to be honest it's the only reason to watch Trapped Ashes. (Joe Dante's section isn't allowed to get very exciting in case it detracts from the main action. Even though it's actually more interesting than the short films even without much in the way of effects work.) I'm ashamed to say that of Ken Russell's work I've only really seen this and "Altered States" (oh my goodness I hated that film - particularly when a short clip from it was giving me nightmares as a small child).

So yeah, the other stories are boring and I wasn't too impressed by the acting either. All in all this was pretty lame and one good story wasn't going to save it.

E-


Masters of Horror: The Screwfly Solution (2006)

Okay, so while Homecoming was only horror in terms of concept and was mainly played for laughs, this is absolutely horrific and has no humour at all. By the end, I suddenly realised that this is the most miserable film in Joe Dante's entire filmography. It's not bad, but it doesn't really feel like enough happens.

The premise is that something introduced into the atmosphere has caused men affected by it to kill every single woman they come into contact with. The men affected come up with a new misogynist sort of anti-procreation cult to justify their behaviour called "Sons of Adam". The situation is compared to a method used to reduce the population of screwflies.

Nothing wrong with the acting. Like I said, it doesn't feel like the story really goes anywhere. All in all this is actually pretty good, but oh my goodness it's so blooming miserable. Ugh.

So yeah, pretty solidly good episode. Don't watch when depressed.

B-


The Hole (2009)
I have already written a review for "The Hole". It was originally posted here. I've re-posted the review below:

An attempt at horror-for-kids. Though we shouldn't think this is some new experiment. This is, after all, coming to us from the director of "Gremlins". (And the love interest is called Julie too!)

Two boys and their single mother have moved to a rural setting and aren't happy with the change. What's more there's a random hole under the house that, when they first find it, is covered by a trap door bolted to the ground by about five or six large padlocks. The hole definitely has something supernatural about it, but what is it?

Weird stuff starts happening (which began to raise my "ghosts without proper rules" alarm), but it's quite a tight script with everything linking together rather nicely. Some of the lines pull you out of the action a bit. The idea of the girl next door whose just been had an encounter with a strange young girl in white who "doesn't want to die" happily saying a few hours later "You've got a gateway to hell in your basement... and that is very cool!" Still, there's no doubting that this is great fun, acted well and well worth watching.



It's got everything you'd expect from the this sort of film, it flows well and it's imaginatively put together. It's just not a masterpiece.

B+ (Very good. Not quite excellent)


X-posted in parts here, here and here.

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Also, Family Guy: Something Something Dark Side
Watched about 15 minutes before giving up due to a distinct absence of humour. What the hell happened to that show?

The extras on the DVD involved people raving about how "important" what they were doing was and how there wasn't enough drama that opposed the current political climate. I really have no idea how they thought that this was any better. There's a speech about supporting socialism at the beginning and Margaret Thatcher appears on tv at one point, but asides from that the tv series seems entirely irrelevant to politics.

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