For A Few Movies More

Twilight fans rejoice, for the next instalment in your beloved series has finally arrived and… wait, what? This isn’t a Twilight film? Oh, this is Red Riding Hood, the retelling of the classic fable brought to the big screen by none other than the director of Twilight, Christine Hardwicke. My mistake, but you can probably understand how I made this mistake considering THEY’RE EXACTLY THE SAME THING! No joke, even one of the leads bears an uncanny, and all too coincidental resemblance to Robert Pattinson. I feel so robbed. I thought this was going to be a dark, gritty updating of Little Red Riding Hood, instead the film spends most of its runtime focusing on the hackneyed love triangle that somehow became the central focus of the story. Yeah there’s still a wolf running around in the background only he doesn’t pop up nearly enough. Also, now he’s a werewolf. You know, so he can appeal even more to the Twilight kids. Sigh, I can’t believe I actually held high hopes for this mess. There was so much potential to toy around with this classic tale that scared us all so much as kids. Instead Hardwicke takes the easy way out by ripping off her own material and serving up a dull and dreary disappointment lacking in any sense of originality.

Now we all know the tale of Little Red Riding Hood. A young girl foolishly wonders off alone through the woods to visit Grandma’s house, only when she arrives she notices that several of Grandma’s features appear to have grown predominantly larger. Weird. Well unbeknownst to Little Red, her loving Grandma has been devoured by a big, mean wolf who has taken her place and is hoping to make a snack out of Little Red next. Luckily, a rugged lumberjack busts through the door at the last minute and splits the wolf’s stomach open with his trusty axe to release a healthy, if possibly partially devoured Grandma. They all live happily ever after. Yay! Come to think of it, that really is a messed up kid’s story. It’s dark, scary and full of danger. All the things the film Red Riding Hood definitely is not. Instead, the film focuses on the aforementioned love story that brings tears of boredom to my eyes as I even contemplate writing about it. But I’ll try, deep breath now; you see, the beautiful Valerie (Amanda Seyfried) has been arranged to marry the wealthy, yet constantly confused Henry (Max Irons). However, much to her family’s displeasure, Valerie is secretly in love with brooding lumberjack Peter (Shiloh Fernandez). Luckily, to prevent the audience from killing themselves from boredom, there’s also a violent werewolf running amok, holding the village in a grip of fear. So to resolve this, werewolf hunter Father Solomon (Gary Oldman) is called in to deal with the beast, but his violent and uncompromising ways only ends up adding to the villagers’ problems. Doesn’t sound much like Little Red Riding Hood does it? Well, you’re going to have to wait about ninety minutes for any reference to the story that’s its based on. Even then, these fleeting moments are a complete let down and feel tacked on. It’s almost like the filmmakers just threw these scenes in so they had an excuse to use the Red Riding Hood title for a film that otherwise bears very little resemblance to the original story.

On paper, Battle LA sounded like an intriguing sci-fi/action film destined for success. The premise was captivating, the trailers were cool and Aaron Eckhart was on hand to lend his valuable acting chops to the proceedings. Plus there hasn’t been a truly good alien invasion film since Independence Day, so it looked as if we might have had a new king to crown in the genre. But all is not as it seems. While the film manages to deliver in terms of explosions and gunfights, it has very little else to offer. The film is content to take you on a ride full of every war film cliché ever committed to film, appalling characters and an assault of uninvolving action scenes. It all quickly becomes bitterly exhausting and tedious to no end. I may have walked into Battle LA with high hopes, but I left a disappointed and bitter man.

Battle LA’s opening pre-credit sequence is an exciting and tense teaser that immediately sticks us right alongside a group of trusty marines, heading into battle against an unknown enemy. Their grim and determined faces tell you everything you need to know as enemy artillery decimates their aircraft and those surrounding them. Who is this faceless enemy? Will or won’t the marines survive this hellish ride? This show-stopping introduction is the perfect opener, but it’s also insanely misleading. After such an exciting and promising opening sequence, the film turns the clock back twenty-four hours so it can first acquaint the audience with some of the most dire and blatantly unlikeable characters to pop up in a film for a long while. We’re introduced to a group of young, headstrong group of marines, each of whom is dealing with their own unimaginative subplot in an unsuccessful effort to persuade the audience into relating with them. We’ve all seen each one of these subplots a thousand times before so there’s nothing of interest to see here. These marines spend their downtime away from the base drinking, trying to pick up girls, vomiting and generally talking trash to each other. They’re not on screen for even five minutes and they’ve already proven themselves as brain-dead cretins. Nice one Battle LA. The only likeable individual out of these lifeless drones is Aaron Eckhart. Here he plays a staff sergeant who after getting his immediate retirement approved is dragged right back into the armed forces thanks to an inconvenient alien invasion. Extra-terrestrial life has finally made contact with us, only it’s too bad that their intentions are less than friendly. They’re systematically invading each continent all over the world with efficient and deadly results. Aaron Eckhart and his fellow marines must now gear up and head into the heart of Los Angeles in order to drag any civilians to safety before the city is bombed to hell in an attempt to halt ET’s advance.

Let’s get this out of the way early shall we. The Mechanic is a film that never should have been allowed a theatrical run. Here’s a product that’s poorly made, poorly acted, and feels so dated it could have been made ten years ago (although it still would have been bad even then). Meanwhile, genuinely good quality films that deserve a wide theatrical release are sent straight to the DVD shelves, going unnoticed by wider audiences. Just to get a little off topic for a second and to provide a relevant example, I watched the Samuel L Jackson film Unthinkable the other night. A film that I’d never heard anything about yet it surprised me by being a smart, well-written film that’s brutally intense. Now how does a great film such as that pass under the radar yet for some reason, the powers that be have decided the masses need to be subjected to Jason Statham phoning in his performance in a lifeless husk of a film that marks the peak of unimaginative, seen it all before screenwriting? Around about this stage you can probably tell what direction this review is heading, and as much as part of me would like to wipe my hands clean of this waste of time, I admittedly find a perverse joy out of ripping bad movies like this to shreds. So on that note, let’s take a look at an act-by-act break down of this piece of junk.

In the wake (pardon the possibly inappropriate but timely pun) of the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami, I am feeling a little bit deflated. This flatness has come after feeling saddened, horrified and sympathetic due to the awful disaster that’s happened to this beautiful country I once called home. Feeling like I need to bring attention to this issue in a personal way (and not having vast amounts of money, teams of sniffer dogs to send over, or unbounded creative talents at my disposal) I’ve turned to cinema. Japan’s striving film industry is the source of some of the funniest, weirdest and most unique films you could ever see. With this list I’m hoping to remind (or enlighten, for the J-movie newbies!) us all on just one of the supremely cool aspects of this awesome country and culture. Also, this isn’t a list of the best Japanese films ever made — these are our favourites, the ones we love and watch repeatedly. So before anyone chides us for leaving off Seven Samurai, please keep this in mind!

Japan tribute, start!

PS: If you have a few spare bucks, please donate. Red Cross, Global Giving and many other groups and charities are ready to help Japan get back on its feet. We love Japan and Japanese movies here at For a Few Movies More, so here’s hoping the relief efforts are swift and efficient.

I’m going to make a prediction. It may be a fairly reckless prediction with very little supporting evidence behind it but it’s still a prediction never the less. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that no other animated film released this year is going to be able to match the dizzying heights of sheer entertainment that Rango provides. That may well be just a purely personal feeling but if anything, that should tell you all you need to know about my feelings on the film. I had high hopes going into Rango, however nothing prepared me for how strongly I would find myself connecting with this strange and quirky little animated flick. From the clever, witty jokes to the beautifully rendered world, this film was a complete delight from start to finish.

Seeing as how I just completely drooled over every aspect of Rango, it may seem like a slight contradiction to kick the first section of this review off on a negative point. However there’s just no getting around that the weakest point of Rango is the plot. The film’s narrative jumps all over the place and is seemingly just a random train of events with a thin trace of a story shoved into the background. It would be far too difficult to detail the set-up for the main storyline (when it finally kicks in that is), so let’s keep it simple shall we? Rango follows the adventures of the titular chameleon who finds himself unwittingly freed from his confines within a glass cage and is left behind to fend for himself in the cruel landscape of the Mojave Desert. Through a series of complex events, Rango is appointed the position of Sheriff in the small western town of Dirt and is entrusted by the townspeople (or townsanimals if you like) to find the source of their dwindling water supply. There really is so much more to the plot than this but since it bounces all over the place like a kid on too much sugar, it’s hard to pinpoint the crucial events without spoiling the film too much. But this unfocused plot really is easy to look past since there are so many appealing sights to see and hear throughout Rango’s colourful world.

There’s a common misconception associated with straight to DVD films. The general consensus seems to be that any film that skips theatres and heads straight to DVD is going to be a complete piece of garbage lacking any artistic merit. That every straight to DVD film stars washed-up, past their prime actors like Steven Seagal, Val Kilmer or Cuba Gooding Jnr (or as I like to call them, the holy trinity). That to even briefly glimpse at a straight to DVD film would be equal to someone shitting directly into your corneas.

Well I’m here to try and dispel this myth.

I watch a lot of straight to DVD movies. Since I see the majority of new release films that strike my interest in the cinemas, I often find it hard to find anything worthwhile to watch on DVD that I haven’t already seen in the span of a few months. If I loved a film enough when I saw it at the movies, I’ll buy it on Blu-Ray for further repeat viewings, but I’m not going to watch it again on DVD so soon, especially when there’s a world of movies out there that I’ve never seen. And that’s where the beauty of straight to DVD films comes in. Going back a few years, I always considered these films to be the bottom of the barrel in terms of quality. I mean there’s a reason why they didn’t get a theatrical run, right? Well over the years, I’ve noticed an increase in the number of big budget films featuring big stars that were originally slated for a theatrical release that get slipped straight to DVD. It’s true that some of these flicks did truly suck, however there are a few gems amongst the bunch that are shelved just on the basis that they weren’t deemed profitable enough. Alongside this, the quality of films that are being made specifically for DVD has increased to the point where I often find myself more excited for a forthcoming crappy looking Dolph Lundgren action flick more over anything that’s being released in the cinemas.

While it’s admittedly understandable why most of these films were robbed of a theatrical run, there’s simply no denying that a number of these films are entertaining enough in their own right to still warrant a viewing. This new ongoing article hopes to explore this often much-neglected world of straight to DVD films in the hope of tracking down some genuinely quality flicks that skipped theatres, while simultaneously pointing and laughing at those movies that are undeniably horrible.

Last night we went and saw Unknown. Despite not being exactly as the trailer promised (Taken 2) it was still a relatively entertaining thriller. But like most in its genre it was a good 90+ minutes of that feeling that it wasn’t really ever going to be great. It is one of those movies where you imagine that somebody three years ago was reading the book intensely, they were engulfed in the twists and turns, the mystique of the characters and the gripping narrative and they thought to themselves: “This would make a great movie!” Almost simultaneously you imagine somebody else in some cinema of some other part of the world, somebody who had had similar experiences with the book some years ago. They find out that it had been turned into a motion picture. They go see the movie and at the end they say: “The book is better.” So these thoughts got me thinking, and you know what happens when I get to thinking… Blog time!

On face value one would assume that a movie is a much better experience than a book. You have this epic screen flashing pictures in front of you with fully imagined scenes. Characters come to life as they talk in surround sound, depicted by talented actors, directed by visionaries, chosen from countless takes by skilled editing teams, adapted by skillful screenwriters, mixed by specialist sound mixers, edited by specialist sound editors – sorry, carried away by the recent Oscar season. All this is given to you to enjoy in a neat two hour package that presents a start, middle and end of an entertaining story. Everything is perfectly prepared for you; just sit back, relax and enjoy the show!

Alternatively, you have a book with words on a page that you have to read yourself…

I don’t know about you, but every now and then I really enjoy something like The Company Men. You know the kind — it’s not gonna change your life in any way, and in fact, you may never think of it again after the end credits roll. But for about two hours, you get to enjoy a well-made, well-acted, solid little film. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why you like them; no jaw-dropping visual effects, no ‘twist’ at the end, no breakthrough performance. I guess it’s kind of like dropping in on a random restaurant when you’re hungry, and happily getting good service and tasty food. May not seem like a big deal, but compare it to the countless bad experiences/movies you’ve probably endured in your life, and then come back to me and tell me if you still disagree.

The Company Men tells the story of Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck), a successful young executive at a Boston shipping company who loses his job during the economic recession. Over the course of the following year, we watch as Bobby, along with the people around him including his wife (Rosemarie DeWitt), his ex-boss (Tommy Lee Jones), his brother-in-law (Kevin Costner) and an ex-co-worker (Chris Cooper), all deal with the consequences of what happens when companies start cutting down, and getting rid of their employees. I guess it’s kind of like Up in the Air from the other side’s point of view. But better.

I’d hate to start this review off to such a blunt start, but Unknown is one of those kinds of movies that are instantly forgettable the second you step foot out of the theatre. There isn’t a single particularly memorable moment scattered throughout the film’s entire running time, nor is there any memorable dialogue or characters worth recalling. If anything, the film feels particularly suited to a DVD viewing on a lazy Friday night, rather than a must-see theatrical that the trailers try to sell. Not that that’s a completely terrible thing, sometimes I’m in the mood for a fun, cheesy thriller like Unknown. Especially when the film in question stars Liam Neeson as an amnesiac quasi-badass, who spends the film dodging shady figures and deciphering an intriguing mystery that feels like it came straight out of The Twilight Zone. But just to keep your expectations in check, while all the promotional material for the film seem to be trying to sell us Taken part two, Unknown is actually a much more subdued effort that takes its time to build up where it’s leading, and then fails to capitalise on the opportunity to deliver anything particularly special that we haven’t seen dozens of times before.

Unknown’s twist-filled plot racks up the puzzling questions from the moment poor old Dr Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) sets foot in Germany with his wife, Elizabeth (January Jones). After catching a cab back to the airport to retrieve some lost luggage, Dr Harris unfortunately finds himself involved in a horrendous car crash that sees him lapse into a coma for three days. He awakens confused and with only fragments of his memory intact. Things go from bad to worse when he discovers that his wife no longer recognises him and an imposter has stolen his identity. What is an amnesiac doctor to do? So begins a tangled web of questions and cover-ups where nothing is quite what it appears to be. But be forewarned; it you’ve been unlucky enough to have viewed the trailer for Unknown at some stage and you consider yourself an observant moviegoer, then be prepared to pick the film’s twist by no later than the halfway point. Seriously, whoever’s job it is to edit these trailers really needs to be schooled in how to cut an enticing trailer without giving away crucial plot points.