Knocked Up / Superbad

Having recently been introduced to these two films, amongst the major successes in a bumper year of off-beat American comedy in 2007, it was heartening to see that American teen/ 20-something comedy is finally growing up.

Just when we thought the Ferrell/Wilson/Stiller gang was hitting its zenith, along comes the Apatow/Rogen/Goldberg crew to steal their thunder. Of the two films, Knocked Up is undoubtedly superior. It has heart where Superbad just has head (in all senses of the word), and manages to create a far more sympathetic collection of protagonists.

The fat/curly-haired anti-heroes (Seth Rogan - pictured - and Jonah Hill) of both films represent something of a new wave of American comedic leading man - although they undoubtedly have Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly to thanks for setting the precedent. What these chubby charmers achieve is an overhaul of the traditional casting of American 'dude' comedy. The down-to-earth, witty 'not-quite-nerds' are a new breed of comedy character, owing much to the Marx brothers in that the whole premise of their comedy is founded on interplay. Witty lines happily sit beside the ever-familiar nob-gags, and well-roundedness applies to their emotional make-up as much as it does to their waist-lines.

These are the products of a post-pop America. A generation of young men grown weary with high-school stereotypes yet helpless to resist them. But the use of the phrase 'young men' is significant here - for the women hardly get a look in. There is still a sexist core in both of these films that leaves one questioning when it is that these all-male production teams will wake up and smell the oestrogen. The nerds and jocks have been allowed to mature, but the cheerleaders remain shaking their pom-poms at the side. A depressing reflection of a country still riddled with ultra-conservative values and under-currents of religiosity.

Meet The Spartans - The Worst Film Ever Made?

I'm going to cut to the chase. Meet The Spartans is 78 minutes of complete and total, unmitigated shit. Quite how the writers (dreaded spoof-movie 'gurus' Friedberg and Seltzer) manage to achieve such levels of buttock-twinging awfulness is a mystery. If you want to experience the film without forking out the price of a cinema ticket, simply ask a friend to say "isn't 300 really gay" and "boobs" over and over again. Trust me, you'll save yourself much time, effort and cash. In fact, what am I saying? If you really want to replicate the experience of watching this film, ask your friend to hit your nut-sack with a tennis racket for 2 hours continuously - the only difference is that this experience would be slightly funnier.

I'm all in favour of spoofs and love a good boob-joke as much as the next man, but here there is nothing to induce even the faintest of wry smiles. Compared to the likes of Hotshots, Airplane! or Shaun of the Dead, classic spoofs all of them, this looks like a student film shot by a group of drunks who've all had humour labotomies. Sean Maguire (clearly cast due to his impressive back-catalogue of Grange Hill, Eastenders and Holby City) gives the worst comedic performance I've ever witnessed on celluloid, whilst Carmen Electra looks and acts every inch the desperate, leather-faced old slag that she is. Pop-culture references are shoe-horned in at every opportunity, and none of them hit the mark (or even come close for that matter).

If you do for some reason decide to inflict this film upon yourself, you'll leave the cinema in a state of quiet shock (I was glued to my seat by sheer exasperation until the final credit had rolled). And, oddly enough, you might well come to the conclusion that this film actually says more about the state of American culture than any Oscar-winner ever will.

Review: Eagle vs Shark

You can see this film in one of two ways; either it's a shameless rip-off of Napoleon Dynamite, or the most originial New Zealand comedy ever made (granted, it's probably the only New Zealand comedy ever made). Personally, I think it would be harsh to accuse this film of overt plagarism - after all, it was most likely conceived of before nerd-god Dynamite was released onto the public conscience. So, leaving that issue aside, what you're left with is a charming, slow-burn off-beat rom-com with stacks of great moments strung together with a weak, if functional plotline.

As the lovers-to-be, Loren Horsley as Lily and Jemaine Clement (of Flight of the Conchords fame) as Jarrod both do a great job. Their physicality is excellent, meaning that often it's the moments of silent comedy which pack a greater punch than the scripted gags. The chemistry between the two may be slightly questionable, but by the end you've been convinced that, however bizarre Lily's obsession with Jarrod may be, at least it appears, by her own cookie standards, genuine. Rom-coms usually always take advantage of the rule whereby from the moment the lovers first set eyes on each other, the audience must just blindly assume that they are meant to be, however implausible it may seem to the rational mind. Eagle vs Shark certainly takes this to the extreme, as from the very first scene Lily appears to have an almost pyschotic obsession with the largely awkward and unlikeable Jarrod.

But still, in a film where almost every character appears to be autistic (and I don't say this with any spurious intent), this kind of structural analysis is perhaps futile.

Review: Juno

If you can imagine a cross between Napoleon Dynamite and Little Miss Sunshine, then you've got Juno. Written by rising star Diablo Cody and directed by Thankyou For Smoking's Jason Reitman, this is the kind of pseudo-indie comedy which has become very popular in Hollywood recently. The brilliance of films such as this and Sideways, the film which arguably started the trend, is that the central character is so well constructed and sympathetic that by the end of the film the entire audience wants to grab them out of the screen and take them home.

This is certainly the case with the titular Juno Macguff, played with relentless charm by Ellen Page. She's a teenager in a 'condition' which has now become familiar for the under-twenties - she's pregnant. But, refreshingly, the film does not condemn her. Instead, it places us firmly by her side throughout the entire process, showing us how much more mature she is than her fellow jocks and cheerleaders, and how such an event can actually bring people closer rather than driving them apart. In a typical narrative Juno would be thrown out the house, have to give birth to the child in difficult conditions but then find that the love she has for her newborn galvanises her to start a new life elsewhere. Not here. I won't give any plot-spoilers but suffice to say most of your expectations are likely to be wrong-footed.

Special mention must go to the supporting cast, particularly Michael Cera and Allison Janney who turn in superb performances. Cera plays Paulie Bleeker, Juno's ever-understanding teenage friend and father of her child. His support never wavers, and serves to highlight the fact that age is no guarantee of maturity (Mark, the 30-something adoptive Dad-to-be is a child by comparison). And as Juno's stepmother Bren, Janney manages to subvert the step-stereotype and show us that this family, however dysfunctional society may label it from the outside, actually has more love at it's core than any of those deemed 'functional'.

In our recent EntsNews survey, asking which film deserved to win best film at the Oscars, Juno came top by a country mile, winning 42% of the vote. Although personally I still think There Will Be Blood was the more deserving winner, it's certainly easy to see why this film has cast such a spell over those who have experienced it.

Review: There Will Be Blood

As the camera presents the postcard-imagery of the Californian desert whilst discordant piano and strings blast out over the audience, it's clear this film is anything but introverted. And yet the entire narrative revolves around one man - oil prospector Daniel Plainview - and his inner struggles with bitterness, loss, anger and alcohol. This is an opera on the subject of psychology, an all-guns-blazing melodrama on the ramifications of greed.

We first glimpse Plainview mining for silver down a hand-picked mineshaft. As he claws at the rock for all he's worth, he seems a man possessed, and certainly the allegory that this is a fallen angel crawling back to hell is apt. Soon his attention turns to oil, and with it a tip (from the enigmatic 'Paul') of where he can find lakes of the stuff beneath a Californian ranch. He duly buys up the ranch, but comes into conflict with Eli, Paul's evangelical twin-brother, who takes a very different view of Plainview's intentions. As Plainview builds his rig, Eli builds his church on the opposing hill, the implication being that this is little more than willy-waving.

Both the Church and the oil prospectors are condemned in equal measure by director Paul Thomas Anderson. The message here is clear: the raping of America, both by money-men and churchmen, have caused irreparable damage. As revealed in the brilliant final scene, Plainview and Eli have far more in common than one might first imagine, and the assertion of both of them that money is the holy grail of human happiness is well wide of the mark.

As Plainview, Daniel Day-Lewis gives, as you'd expect, a powerhouse performance. What makes him so great is his unswerving commitment to the characters he plays. You know that when he winces, he is feeling genuine pain, and when he's dog-tired, he's dog-tired. There's something in his guttural roars that is truly 'from hell', yet his sinister charm works as well on the audience as it does on the ranch-owners he's looking to exploit. This is a lesson in film-making, evoking obvious comparisons with films such as Citizen Kane, Gone With The Wind, Chinatown and Giant. There is something Shakesperean about the narrative that makes it all the more compelling - a reminder that the roots of modern-day capitalism are as tragic as anything the bard could dream up. Indeed, for me, the title provides an eerie reminder that the century which followed this black gold-rush was the bloodiest in human history.

For my rant about the UK release date of this film, click here.

Cloverfield Review

If Hollywood can be relied upon to produce anything it’s a disaster movie, and despite months of internet hype behind Cloverfield it was difficult to see how this offering would differ. Nevertheless, from the start things were unlike past attempts. Filmed from the perspective of Hudson Platt (T. J Miller), Cloverfield depicts the devastation caused by the untimely arrival of a giant monster in Manhattan. The reasons for the creature’s arrival are unclear, and it’s this fact, coupled with the Blair Witch-esque camera angles that give Cloverfield a sense of realness that it’s previous competitors have missed. Director Matt Reeves decided not to go with a star studded cast but instead opted for the lower-budget fresh talent of Lizzy Caplan and Michael Stahl David, something that he surely does not regret because both deliver solid performances.

Déjà vu is evoked at certain times (Godzilla anyone?), but nevertheless Cloverfield brings a certain intelligence that previous attacks on New York City have lacked. What is particularly striking about the film is the sense that you are part of what goes on, being embroiled in the chaos and dizziness seems to bring on a real sense of nausea. Add the clever juxtaposition of a past and present relationship by means of a video camcorder, and you’ve possibly pushed this genre to the limit of what it can achieve. Critics and commentators have drawn parallels between the unknown monster and the terrorist threat that New York faces but this sort of conclusion gives the movie a facet that it doesn’t possess. Instead it’s better to view Cloverfield as what it actually is, namely a cracking Saturday night at the cinema. So not quite a modern classic but well worth a watch.

By Lee Crouch

Sweeney Todd

Tim Burton adapts Stephen Sondheim. A master of film meets a master of the stage – what can possibly go wrong? Well, on this evidence, not much. Watching Sondheim on the big screen has several things going for it. Firstly, you can hear every last impeccable lyric in full-surround sound, reminding you of the reason he is the greatest exponent of the stage musical genre. Unlike watching Phantom Of The Opera (one of the most ball-shrinking experiences I’ve suffered in a cinema), where the music hits you like a wall of over-ripe stilton, Sondheim’s songs very much follow the grain, and only on a couple of occasions (the very first line being one of them) was I forced to wince.

One of the major make-or-break elements for critics of Sweeney Todd has been the casting of Johnny Depp. Whilst I certainly agree with the assertion that their creative relationship has probably now hit the glass ceiling, I nevertheless feel that in this case, it works well. Depp’s take on Willy Wonka was OTT and lacked comic timing, but here he manages to capture all the pain and bitterness of the infamous barber whilst only changing his facial expression once (ok, maybe twice). As his partner-in-grime Mrs Lovett, Helena Bonham-Carter is sublime, although her physical similarity to Depp is at times alarming, particularly when one considers that her partner is Burton, who in turn has a total obsession with Depp. Anyway, this disturbing ménage-a-trois aside, Sweeney Todd is an assured adaptation of a made-for-film story. Throw in one of Alan Rickman’s best performances in years, a great cameo by Sacha Baron Cohen and a child-star who can actually act, and you’ve got a mixture that tastes almost as good as Mrs Lovett’s.

Je ne suis pas là pour être aimé (Not Here to be Loved)

The French, generally speaking, create on-screen atmosphere better than any other filmmaking nation. Not Here to be Loved showcases this brilliantly, presenting as it does a sequence of exquisitely shot, tension-filled scenes which tell the straight-forward story of a man and a woman who fall in love.

Jean-Claude (Patrick Chesnais) is a 50-something bailiff with about as much joie de vivre as a snail (no racial slur intended). Following the advice of his doctor, he enrolls in a tango-class where he meets the beautiful Françoise (Anne Cosigny). As soon as they have danced their first steps together, the level of chemistry between them is almost unbearable. The snag is that Françoise is engaged to struggling novelist Thierry, and adding to Jean-Claude's woes is his invalided yet ever-critical Father, who piles salt into his already gaping wounds.

This, the simplest of love stories, is told in painstaking detail, so that moments such as a curtain-twitch or the slight movement of a hand become drenched in meaning. When the basic formula of man + woman + dance lessons = love, gets used by Hollywood, the result is usually always OTT (Shall we Dance, Strictly Ballroom, Save the Last Dance etc...). What's so refreshing here is the exquisite use of silence and stillness.

Eastern Promises

I saw David Cronenberg's latest film at the London Film Festival last week, and was generally impressed with what I saw. Following the story of a Russian mob family (think Goodfellas with vodka) living in London, it examines what happens when innocent girls in search of a better life abroad get ensnared by criminal gangs.

Writer Steven Knight examined similar territory in Dirty Pretty Things, no doubt a big factor in Cronenberg's decision to work with him. As in that film, what we see here is an ensemble of characters, all of whom are to some degree morally ambiguous, and all of whom are in search of escape. As mysterious assassin Nikolai, Viggo Mortensen is solid if not outstanding. Cronenberg leaves us to fill in the gaps regarding Nikolai's past, and from the clues we do get it's difficult to see exactly why it is he's motivated to impose justice. The real show-stealer is Armin Mueller-Stahl, who as mob leader Semyon manages to evoke the menace of the godfather in the clothing of a grandfather.

Cronenberg is clearly playing homage to the gangster genre here. His pacing is superb, with each scene playing to its optimum length, and the cinematography is pure class. This is a vast improvement on History of Violence, and whilst not quite quantifying a masterpiece, is nevertheless well worth a look.

Fast Food Nation

Having read Eric Schlosser's non-fiction account of the gruesome truths of fast-food production (human limbs in the burgers et al...) I didn't really know what to expect from a fictionalised film version. Or rather, I had some niggling doubts that it would struggle to knit together a cohesive narrative considering that the book is so reliant on bare journalistic fact as opposed to character or plot. And unfortunately I was right. The film starts promisingly enough, with Greg Kinnear's 'well-meaning but working for the man' character Don heading to Colorado on behalf of a burger-chain to investigate the reason that faecal matter has been found in the meat. The air established is that of a Thankyou For Smoking-esque corporate conspiracy thriller, and audience interest is suitably piqued.

What Don encounters is a series of characters who are affected in various ways by the cruel conditions of the meat-packing factory (and hence the American corporate 'machine'), from the abused Mexican workers to the teenagers manning the tills (and of course spitting in the burgers). And thrown in for good measure is a cameo by Bruce Willis, who manages to lend suitable menace to the character of Harry, the man who brokered the original deal between the burger-chain and the factory. A much more baffling cameo is made by pop-brat Avril Lavigne, who makes a complete idiot of herself trying to 'get political' about the welfare of cows ("why do the bad guys always win?" is about as deep as she can get). This obvious celebrity bandwagon-jumping does little to help the integrity of the narrative.

The script is inconsistent to say the least, prompting me to wonder whether half-way through the writer had been fired in favour of a teenage intern. It loses its way to the extent that the original message gets completely mangled (along with the poor old cows) and leaves you asking the question as to why they bothered to attempt such a pointless adaptation.

Atonement

Whilst many critics are hailing Atonement as a shoo-in for next year's Oscars, I feel this talk to be a little hasty. Whilst an undoubtedly fine showcase of cinematography and overall production values, what this film is missing is actually the one thing it should have in bucket-loads: soul.

The first and final acts are generally very good. The story is established at an Evelyn Waugh-esque country estate, told alternately through the eyes of 13 year-old Briony (Saoirse Ronan) and dashing gardener Robbie (James McAvoy). The relationship which develops between Robbie and Cecilia (Keira Knightley) is observed with a mixture of fascination and horror by Briony, whose obsession soon has huge ramifications.

We are then moved at blinding speed to the BEF retreat in 1940. Robbie is now a soldier, and far away from his beloved. This sequence culminates in the film's most famous scene, a masterful long-shot set on the beaches of Dunkirk. However, even this is not enough to prevent the niggling feeling that beneath this wonderful showcase of logistics we have somehow missed something. Robbie's fall from grace never seems very far, and as the grown-up Briony (now working as a nurse in London) goes on her personal quest for atonement, it's impossible to feel a true empathy. It's not until Vanessa Redgrave appears and lends some much-needed gravitas that finally the film's heart begins to beat. But by that stage it is a little too late.

The acting is good. The direction is good. The script is good. But the chemistry is somehow not quite right.

Babel

After Amores Perros and 21 Grams director Alejandro González Iñárritu established himself as the undeniable king of the multi-strand narrative. In Babel, the scope is larger but he again employs his favourite structural technique to explore his theme. However, it is with the mention of the word ‘theme’ that Babel hits a problem – for its lack of thematic clarity is in fact its major flaw.

Telling the story of 3 family units, Babel opens in Morocco, where a goat herder buys a rifle for his sons with tragic consequences. The boys attempts to test the range of the gun lead to the killing of American tourist Susan (Cate Blanchett) which sparks an international ‘situation’. Meanwhile back home, Susan’s children are taken to a wedding in Mexico by their loving illegal immigrant nanny, which all goes fine until they attempt a late night border crossing on the journey home…

And the final piece of the puzzle is provided by Chieko (Rinko Kikuchi), the deaf-mute daughter of a Japanese businessman, whose role in the unfolding Morocco storyline only becomes apparent in the last act of the film. This particular story is the most fragmented of them all, and although moving and insightful in its own right, often struggles to match the pace and impending sense of crisis inherent in the other narrative strands.

As Susan’s husband Richard (Brad Pitt) nurses his dying wife, and the Moroccan herder attempts to protect his guilty sons, a clear point is made about the ‘chaos effect’ that a single wayward bullet can cause. But aside from this there is a lack of cohesion to the film as a whole which makes it pale in comparison to another film of this type, Crash.

The cinematography is stunning and the acting is generally excellent (although someone should have told Brad Pitt that ‘arthouse acting’ doesn’t just mean whispering every line), one is left at the end with a feeling that perhaps this film is all style and no real substance.