Smith is clearly a talented guy.
But the one thing he must not have is... a sixth sense re Shyamalan who currently looks like he will never recapture the drama, excitement and mystery of his first movie.
A shame, because he's begining to waste my time even more than Adam Sandler and those dudes behind the XXXX Movie spoofs.
Why can't they all just take to working in KFC and serving only the people standing in front of them?
After Earth is reviewed below.
]]> AFTER EARTH (12A)Will Smith's likeable comedy persona once gave him added value as an action man, so why would he then create his own 'slo-fi' story of a man resembling a knocked-out boxer acting in his post-fight sleep?
And then get M Night Shyamalan to direct it after building up such an incredible string of flops beyond The Sixth Sense (1999)?
Such woolly thinking might, though, explain why Will's real-life son Jaden Smith looks too angry to recapture the promise he showed in The Karate Kid (2010).
When the Smiths' stingray-shaped space ship crashes back on Earth - 'a paradise until we destroyed it' some 1,000 years ago - the injured dad Cypher sends son Kitai out to save them.
The boy's motion sensor suit enables Cypher's control panel to predict imminent danger.
"If you want to die today that is fine, but you are not going to kill me," says Dad.
Looking more like a flimsy, 1970s' TV movie than a futuristic Avatar-style epic, After Earth is a reminder of how much fun Arnold Schwarzenegger's Predator was in 1987 and how brilliant Tom Hanks was all by himself in Cast Away (2000).
The film's tagline that 'Danger is real. Fear is a Choice,' makes so little sense that Smith Sr not only has to explain it at length but he also says: 'I'm announcing my retirement!'.
Even more depressingly, after the easy cash-cow milk of Men in Black 3, Will is now set to make sequels of Bad Boys, Hancock and I, Robot.
Meanwhile, trying to turn his son in to a bona fide movie star might yet backfire on the poor lad. Even Clint Eastwood's 'X' factor didn't stretch that far.
You'll be safer with a box of After Eights than this nonsense.
If not, there's just time to mention Michael Shannon's new role as a real life serial killer....
]]> THE ICEMAN (15)Here he's playing a real-life contract killer called Richard Kuklinski, with a boss who might just even more unhinged than he is.
Roy Demeo (Ray Liotta) tells Kuklinski he must only work for him and on his terms... or else he'll be in trouble.
But with partner Deborah (Winona Ryder) and two daughters to support, Kuklinksi wants to be a 'good' father, too - rather like Ryan Gosling's character Luke in this spring's best thriller The Place Beyond The Pines.
Not easy when you are bumping people off at a fair rate of knots.
Written and directed by little known Israeli filmmaker Ariel Vroman, we can't learn too much about Kuklinski the killer when he's with his family - Deborah initially thinks he works for Disney - or the dad when he's out on a job.
And, given the title of the film, which reflects his cold heart when the dirty deeds have to be done, there's little emotion to warm to.
But there's a certain Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer relentlessness about the way Kuklinksi goes about his tasks, Shannon's mesmerising performance has a Frankenstein edge to it and the cinematography by Bobby Bukowski (Rampart) is first class.
The Iceman is a welcome adult thriller and is neat period touches will help to transfix many from start to finish.
With the cast including Captain America star Chris Evans as Mr Freezy, David Schwimmer as Josh Rosenthal, James Franco as Marty Freeman and Stephen Dorff as brother Joey Kuklinski, it will become one of those terrific thrillers you'll be glad you stumbled across like Thirteen Days and Dinner Rush from the year 2000.
GRAHAM YOUNG
]]>Then make a date with this classy low budget drama shot on location in the Scottish Highlands.
]]> SHELL (15)BECAUSE too many modern film are being digitally edited to an almost subliminal degree, it's rather empowering to watch something where hardly anything happens.
This 91-minute story is set in a suitably remote part of the Scottish Highlands, where Shell (Chloe Pirrie) is being suffocated by a difficult relationship with her father Hugh (Kill List star Michael Smiley).
Despite the vastness of the stunning landscape, there's a Breakdown-style intensity to their lives, especially as Hugh is prone to having disturbing fits and their petrol station customers are few and far between.
Written and directed by Aberdeen's Scott Graham, this is a promising debut for both him and for Pirrie, an actress from Edinburgh named Best British Newcomer at the London Film Festival.
The deer-skinning scene will have everyone worshipping their supermarket packets more than ever.
And the view from the family washing line will see anyone yearning for the solitude of the great Scottish wilderness planning their next holiday.
With too many still shots going nowhere, Shell is ultimately exposed by its lack of a sense of humour and levity.
Even just a few lighter touches would have made all the difference between good and very good but it bodes well for all involved.
Showing at the MAC in Cannon Hill Park on Thursday, April 25 and, if you like this, try Gerard Butler in Dear Frankie (2004).
Why can't they let sleeping log cabins lie?
]]> EVIL DEAD (18)WRITER-director Sam Raimi's debut movie The Evil Dead arrived on these shores 30 years ago this January.
Five friends went into the woods, unwittingly released flesh-possessing demons and were consumed by all manner of bad things, including vines wrapping themselves around one victim before a stick suddenly went where sticks shouldn't go. Ouch!
Such was its low budget, some of the exploding-body effects look decidedly cheesy today - but the original feels more honest than this version which Raimi has produced.
If Hollywood is having trouble with deciding who its 'war and terror' enemies are, that's nothing compared with its crisis in horror.
In The Evil Dead, a degree of old fashioned filmmaking craft was used to create no little tension.
And there was a nice balance of humour, too.
Even though you'd have to be at least 48 to have seen its inspiration in cinemas, Evil Dead always feels that you've already seen it many times before.
The overwhelming sense of déjà vu makes it hard to understand where this sits between the original and its own 1987 sequel Evil Dead II.
So it's an issue purely for geeks keen to spot original star turned co-producer Bruce Campbell now making an uncredited appearance as Ash.
Evil Dead plunges too quickly into its predecessor's equally nasty world, rustles up the Naturon Demonto: The Book of the Dead, revisits the tool shed, overdoses on sound effects and features enough red liquids to have depleted the world's entire tomato stock.
Co-written and debut directed by Uruguayan short filmmaker Fede Alvarez, there's little tension, scarcely a moment of humour and, by the end, you might be glad to be escaping for all of the wrong reasons.
Poster headlines suggesting that this is 'simply astonishing' and 'utterly and astoundingly awesome' should not be taken literally for a film little better than Sean Bean's 2012 flop, Silent Hill: Revelation.
But is it any 'fracking' good?
]]> PROMISED LAND (15)TO CREATE a movie needs fuel. And to get that power... requires
damaging the environment in order to be inspired to try to save it.
That's one of the contradictions of this 107-minute dramatisation
about the problems caused by turning shale into natural gas by a
process known as fracking.
Lead star Matt Damon steps back from his world of blockbusters to
offer heart and soul playing salesman Steve Butler opposite co-writer
John Krasinski as anti-gas man Dustin Noble.
Damon utters phrases like 'There's a lot of scare tactics at play
here' and 'If you are against this, then you are for coal and oil'.
Some might find the ending awkward, but the script tries hard not to
ram its message home while underlining how big corporations can be
duplicitous about getting their own way.
Covering similar ethical ground as Josh Fox's recent Oscar-nominated
documentary GasLand and echoing Julia Roberts' Oscar-winning
performance in Steven Soderbergh's water pollution movie Erin
Brockovich (2000), it effectively features a new twist on the lyrics
in Bruce Springsteen's featured song, Dancing in the Dark.
Except that 'You can't make natural gas from shale without fracking'
doesn't quite have the same ring to it as 'You can't start a fire
without a spark'.
But it could be worth a watch at Vue Star City if you are interested in the subject matter.
JUST like All You Need Is Love, this film about recovering from mistakes and seeking forgiveness is all about trying to move your life on.
Bradley Cooper (The Hangover / Silver Linings Playbook) is bestselling author Rory Jansen - except only he knows that he found an old manuscript which transcended his own previous failures.
Debut directed by Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal, the over-layered plot is ridiculously close to a 2009 German movie called My Words, My Lies - My Love (2009).
On the plus side Avatar's Zoe Saldana plays Rory's wife, Dora, and the cast includes such experienced hands as Dennis Quaid, now 59, and Jeremy Irons (64).
The Words echoes the misconception and lost opportunities theme of Anthony Hopkins' The Remains of the Day (1993) and the scarecely recognisable arrival of Prince Caspian star Ben Barnes as The Young Man offers shades of Ryan Gosling role in The Notebook (2004).
In a relevant study of plagiarism, influences and lifetime experiences, The Words chiefly reminds us that the past is indelible.
As Jeremy Irons' Old Man character says: 'We all make choices in life. The hard thing is to live with them."
]]>It's out in 13 Cineworld Cinemas across the UK on Friday, April 5.
They are:
London: Enfield, Wood Green, Wandsworth, Shaftesbury Avenue.
South Coast: Brighton
Midlands: Birmigham, Nottingham
Wales: Cardiff
North West: Ashton-under-Lyne (Manchester), Bolton, Bradford, Liverpool
Scotland: Glasgow.
Click below for my first review.
JUST like Arnold Schwarzenegger was told his name was too big for movie posters, Marcus Markou's inspirational debut feature film has an impossible title on purpose.
It's a statement of intent from the University of Birmingham graduate that this is an uncompromising, independent film made from the heart.
Exactly the kind of movie the British film industry itself should be making, not just an enterprising one-man band with a brilliant team of followers.
Having the luck to coincide a film about a banking crisis with the current meltdown in Cyprus is one thing, for Marcus to have persuaded an Oscar-winning composer like Stephen Warbeck (Shakespeare in Love) to join his feature-length debut is another skill entirely.
Like the spirit of the film, actors including Stephen Dillane (Zero Dark Thirty) and Georges Corraface (Not Without My Daughter) signed up to play bothers Harry and Spiros in order to embrace Markou's 'something from nothing' philosophy.
The film has the heart of village movies like Roseanna's Grave (1997) and Waking Ned (1998).
It has already won the audience award at Greece's leading Thessaloniki Film Festival.
And anyone who has ever struggled in business or bought a bag of chips will enjoy it, regardless of whether you are Greek or not.
Harry Papadopoulos is such a melancholic character that Papadopoulos & Sons is not as funny as East Is East, set in a Salford chippy in the early '70s.
It also relies a touch too much on the camera gliding along.
But the lighting is stunning (it was shot in 2011 before the year-long bad weather!) and London has been captured beautifully, with some landmark office scenes offering shades of The Apprentice.
Papadopoulos & Sons is worth seeing for a fast-moving, 80-second tracking shot about two thirds of the way in, when the camera follows staff in and out of the shop.
Improvised on the day of the three-week shoot, it took just 12 takes to perfect, with a focus puller using a remote control to maintain the correct exposure of the camera while he walked behind the cameraman.
When you consider it took Michael Mann 11 takes to capture Al Pacino sitting face to face with Robert De Niro in Heat (1995), this sequence alone symbolises how the entire movie proves what you can achieve when you put your mind to it.
The film comes complete with a hands-in-the-air, near-50th anniversary celebration of Anthony Quinn's performance in the Oscar-winning Zorba The Greek (1964).
Nice.
He could be sitting on a $250,000,000 fortune if he has the same kind of luck that fellow Aston Villa fan and double Oscar-winning star Tom Hanks had supporting Nia Vardalos's film My Big Fat Greek Wedding in 2002.
it is released on Friday, April 5, 2013. Don't miss it!
]]> BATTLING Brummie Marcus Markou is ready to take on the world - by releasing his own self-financed £1 million feature film in cinemas nationwide.Papadopoulos & Sons tells the story of a wealthy Greek family hit by an international banking crisis.
And who then go back to basics by opening a fish and chip shop.
To celebrate its release on Friday, April 5, 2013, I shared a £2.50 tray of chips with writer-director Marcus outside the Trinity Road Stand of his beloved Aston Villa, prior to the club's home defeat to Liverpool on Easter Sunday.
Marcus says: "My dad was the first Greek accountant in Birmingham in the early '70s, so he quickly had hundreds of clients who were running fast food shops.
"I'm now hoping to follow his example by asking 30,000 Greeks in the city to support my film."
Cineworld Broad Street is one of 13 cinemas in the chain showing Papadopoulos & Sons in the UK and if Marcus can get 5,000 admissions, the film will be retained for at least a second week.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding was a slow-burn success in the US a decade ago, eventually becoming the biggest 'sleeper hit' in history after grossing a quarter of a billion dollars.
Perhaps it's an omen that it was backed by double Oscar-winning Tom Hanks - another Villa fan.
Marcus says: "I have financed Papadopoulos & Sons with my brother Andrew.
"It has cost us more than £900,000 but looks more like a £4-5 million film.
"Even if didn't make a penny back, I am so pleased with the result that it has been worth it.
"The film is exactly what I wanted to make and all of the rough edges have been kept in - in roast potato terms they are the crispy bits which the bigger studios would have edited out.
"All the signs are that we can make the money back because we own all of the intellectual property rights.
"It is already out in Greece on DVD, it's getting a big release in Germany and we've even sold it to a company called Encore Inflight which is putting it on inflight movies all round the Far East, including Singapore Airlines.
"That is already generating a sizeable income every quarter."
Along with younger sibling Andrew, Marcus employs 35 people at the internet business www.BusinessesForSale.com
But he admits he couldn't have won the respect of actors like Emmy-nominated Stephen Dillane (Game of Thrones) and Georgia Groome (London to Brighton) had he not also worked his way up the film ladder.
"I've acted, written two plays, made a short film and for six months in 2009 I studied part-time at the Met Film School," says Marcus.
"I wouldn't change a thing about Papadopoulos & Sons. Not the title, which I insisted on, the cast, the scenes, a piece of music or the poster - which I designed myself.
"How many filmmakers can ever say that, especially when the marketing can be wrong, producers can choose the wrong actor for the director or the writer can feel cut off.
"I am so proud of what I have managed to do through the boldness of naivety and my love of improvisation as an actor.
"My last play had 30 performances and for 20 of those I sat in the audience and watched the audience's reaction to it.
"All of that gave me the passion, the enthusiasm and the confidence to achieve all of
this."
Could he walk into his beloved Villa dressing room and get the team winning?
"What you need is the respect of those around you, even if they don't
like you," says Marcus.
"I'd have to pretend to have a funny foreign accent in the Villa dressing room.
"But no, I don't think I could win the players over without having a track record in the game for them to respect.
"The problems are structural and deep and go back three or four seasons."
Marcus hopes that his film will encourage people to believe that there is light at the end of the economic tunnel.
"Small businesses can lead us back out of recession," he says.
"There are 3.5 million small businesses in the UK, so if it could be made easier for each of them to take just one person on, that would seriously end unemployment."
Review follows soon on another header.
]]>So I thought I'd rush this review through about the story which inspired The Undertones and their hit, Teenage Kicks.
The sad news is though, Mark, that on release weekend the closest that Good Vibrations playing to Birmingham - the country's best music-history city by miles - is 40+ miles away.
It's at: Broadway Cinema, 14-18 Broad Street, Nottingham. Tel 0115 952 6611.
So near and yet so far!
Click on the link below to read my review.
]]> Cert 15, 103 minsDirected by Pip Piper from Kings Heath, it's been selected as the international film for Record Store Day on April 20 when indie record shops will be screening it.
Last Shop Standing drew inspiration from shops across the land, from London to Cardiff, Birmingham and Liverpool.
What it didn't do, and what Good Vibrations does splendidly, is to tell the story of vinyl amid the bombs and shootings of 1970s' Belfast.
This is the story of Terri Hooley (RIchard Dormer) who, instead of taking sides, opened a record shop against the odds and called it Good Vibrations.
Thus helping Feargal Sharkey's The Undertones to make Teenage Kicks, what was always the late John Peel's favourite record of all time.
Hooley's mantra is: 'A proper record collection should have a track for every moment.'
But he's also chillingly told: 'Does it not get lonely being the last man standing?"
By 1980 and a parent, thanks to the long-suffering Ruth (the great Jodi Whittaker), he's in danger of losing his house...
The film opens with an almost subliminally-quick, visual run through 20th century Irish history.
An extra five minutes here would have been amazing.
It then lands us, Tardis-like, in the '70s at the dawn of what some called either 'a Revolution' or 'The Troubles'.
Good Vibrations is a completely different take on media store life to High Fidelity (2000) and Be Kind Rewind (2008).
You are never quite sure when ludicrous violence will rear its ugly head, for example.
One of Terri's acquaintances since the 1960s, is now, he says, 'a ***** with a gun".
The undercurrent mixture of aggression and delirium is helped by the fact that Terri's bearded visage at times mixes the psycho side of some of Robert De Niro's characters with comical Robin Williams.
His haircut is offputting, even for the period, and his appearance probably doesn't change enough over the decade.
When his dad appears outside of the shop he stands aghast and says: 'Good Vibrations? Naked capitalism is what it is'.
With support like that, it helps to explain why, as successful as Terri was in some respects, the end credits' list of closures and reopenings down the years suggests that a leopard will never truly change its spots.
Good Vibrations wants you to love it. You will want to love it. And many will love its 'good heart' for achieving so much on such a low budget.
Especially for the way it keeps music at the forefront and doesn't ram the dirty political / entrenched sectarianism stuff down our throats.
Later on, the actor playing John Peel is so bad with his physical impression and vocal interpretation of the DJ, that I won't even name him.
But, as Peel, he memorably says: 'You gave me the best two minute and 28 seconds of my life (with Teenage Kicks). How could I not be here?'
There's also a quote at the end from Joe Strummer of The Clash: 'When punk rock ruled over Ulster, nobody ever had more excitement and fun.
'Between the bombings and shootings, the religious hatred and the settling of old scores, punk gave everybody a chance to LIVE for one glorious burning moment.'
Watch this and it will remind you that there can be nothing more exciting than a young rock and roll band with energy and attitude, drums and guitars setting out on the alchemic road to fame and fortune.
Memo to Simon Cowell: what are you playing at with all of these X Factor copycats?
Memo to twitchy North Korea: maybe you need a decent rock band, too.
So perhaps it's no surprise that the film of her bestselling novel should be equally dull.
For my full review, click on the link below.
]]> THE HOST (12A)In November 2006, South Korean director Joon-ho Bong delivered a really fun science fiction movie in which Seoul's Han River spawned a monster.
Originally called Gwoemul, the title was changed to The Host for western markets.
Eighteen months later, in May 2008, Twilight author Stephenie Meyer's new novel The Host began to hog the US bestseller lists for months.
When posters for a new film called The Host were put up in cinemas recently, I hoped it would be a Hollywood remake of Bong's work.
Unfortunately, it's Meyer's story... which means much less fun, much more pouting.
And, just like the Twilight series, a lot of people standing around, brooding and doing sweet football association stuff.
The big difference is that the cast don't have to worry about big wolves and, instead of being set in woodland, much of The Host takes place in caves.
In some almost sepulchral scenes it felt like it was trying to become a desperately dull, live-action version of The Croods.
Depending on how high your boredom threshold is, The Host might be seen as an interesting meditation on our survival instinct and what makes us all the same but different.
Only up to a small point, though,
It might also depend if you are male (my 12-year-old son found it fairly tedious) or female (my wider-reading 15-year-old daughter left wondering if she ought to visit the source novel).
For all viewers, even an out-of-the-blue car chase fails to suggest that this film will ever get out of first gear in a dramatic sense.
Having done well in Joe Wright's Atonement (2007) and then seen Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones fail to hit the mark three years ago, the now almost 19-year-old New York-born Irish actress Saoirse Ronan is unable to make the most of this huge opportunity to build on her work in Wright's later film Hanna (2011).
Her double-lead role as Melanie / Wanda requires the stillness and sense of experience that she possesses beyond her years, as well as all of the usual factors that come with being young, pretty and talented.
As Melanie Stryder, she is one of the last surviving humans on Earth, where unseen aliens have invaded bodies and erased people's minds.
They also give the special effects' team plenty of work to do in order to make most of the cast's eyes look as if they have got hi-tech cataracts - an early novelty which becomes annoying before it almost wears off altogether.
Can Melanie's bravery help to save the lives of the nondescript Jared (Max Irons), Ian (Jake Abel), brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury) and Uncle Jeb (William Hurt)?
New Zealand-born writer-director Andrew Niccol's films to date include Gattaca (1997), S1mOne (2002), Lord of War (2005) and In Time (2011).
The first two films in particular were almost stifled by their slowness, but at least they signalled a director who prefers to create a sense of style instead of aiming for the lowest common denominator.
Sadly, even though Lord of War was one of Nicolas Cage's best films this century, any film with him in it these days almost has to be interpreted as a case of realism triumphing over profound optimism.
And, despite a great premise, Justin Timberlake's In Time ended up relying too heavily on some excellent industrial landscape cinematography by Roger Deakins (No Country For Old Men / Skyfall).
The Host has been shot by Roberto Schaefer (The Paperboy / Monster's Ball / Finding Neverland) and, for promotional purposes only, I daresay, includes some wonderfully shiny Lotus cars.
But why, when they make these out-of-context scenes look like a glossy TV commercial for cars?
I also had to keep asking myself another question.
Had the script not been developed from a high profile Stephenie Meyer novel, how much interest would there have been in this movie?
Especially as distributors Entertainment deliberately didn't screen it to critics in advance of release.
The Host looks good, the landscapes are magnificent and Ronan tries hard to match it all in an understated way.
But sci-fi movies of this nature work best when there is a degree of jeopardy.
Despite - or perhaps because of - The Host including strong suicide themes in a film clearly keen to be a 12A, its reliance on wordy interplay keeps the dramatic handbrake on for far too long.
It's one thing to try to take a more intellectual look at alien life on Earth than an equivalent vampire movie like Ethan Hawke's Daybreakers (2009).
Quite quite another to make that seem riveting on the silver screen when nothing is happening.
The sense of isolation and foreboding in Duncan Jones' Moon (2009) worked much better.
If you love the tension and extraordinary risks of motorcycling races, this is unmissable.
Full review via the link below.
]]> I Superbiker: The Day of Reckoning (12A, 99 mins)MEN dressed up to the nines as if they are ready to blast off into space, not race on two wheels.
Tanned, blonde women in white T-shirts stand on the sidelines - some holding parasols while putting on a brave face.
There's also the roar of engines, the speed of the wheels and the spray of champagne.
Yes, its Day of Reckoning, the third movie in the I, Superbiker series.
A high octane review of the 2012 Superbike Season, it includes old footage of some of the bikers practising stunts in their back gardens as youngsters.
Thirty two contestants set off to do battle over 12 rounds - but there can only be one winner.
Thanks to the competition's new format, just six racers were left competing for the title on the final weekend of the season.
Hall Green-born veteran F1 commentator Murray Walker says: "The series is so exciting because it's the leading championship of its kind in the world.
Tommy Hill, the current MCE British Superbike Champion only won the 2011 title by one sixtieth of a second.
Now, with a pregnant fiancée in the wings, he defends his title against competition from ex-Moto GP star Shane 'Shakey' Byrne, Australian Josh Brookes and rising British star Alex Lowes amongst others.
I'm no petrolhead, but, by the end of the film I could more than smell the mixture of fumes and burning rubber. I could taste it, too.
Writer, producer and director Mark Sloper says: "I wanted to capture the emotion and
passion of motorcycle racing and the drama of the new showdown format.
"This is a classic motorcycle racing film, set in the 2012 season but a timeless story that will stay fresh for years to come.
"I also wanted it to appeal to people outside the motorcycle industry and the fan-base and I truly believe it will change outsiders' perceptions of motorcycling."
The action is captured in high quality 2K digital photography and I would have preferred more of it instead of so many talking heads.
But how those women put up with standing on the side while their men put their lives on the line is beyond me.
No wonder the winner is happy to burn so much rubber at the end.
]]>Click on the link below to read my review.
]]> The Incredible Burt WonderstoneWE ALL know that Jim Carrey has made too many turkeys for comfort - but has Steve Carell now become even less watchable?
From Dan in Real Life to Date Night, Get Smart, Dinner For Schmucks and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, Carell's CV is starting to look more holed than the Titanic.
But that's without reckoning on a film as bad as The Incredible Burt Wonderstone a woefully pedestrian, terminally-unfunny boreathon.
Feeling like light years have passed before shamefully daring to end with the song lyrics 'It's magic, never believe it's not so', the film begins with two boys who forge a friendship through magic and end up as adults headlining in Vegas.
Burt Wonderstone (Carell) and Anton Marvelton (a horribly miscast Steve Buscemi) are then only staying together out of habit when they are then dated by the arrival of Steve Gray.
Played by Jim Carrey, he's a much more daring magician cursed with such bad, long hair he looks as if he ought to be playing Biff Byford, the frontman with Barnsley heavy metal band Saxon.
Debut directed by actor turned multi TV series director Don Scardino, this film should a) never have been commissioned; b) given such a stupid title and c) ever released.
Perhaps someone tried to make it disappear and failed.
Even Alan Arkin (Rance Holloway) and James Gandolfini (Terry Venables-esque as Doug Munny) are wasted and probably wish they hadn't signed up.
Try as you might to magic up Bill Bixby from the 70s' TV series The Magician, it just ain't going to happen.
Click on the link below for my full review.
]]> VINYLI'm not sure how much of a market there is for 'old rocker' films of this nature.
Bill Nighy starred in Still Crazy 15 years ago.
But, even though the solid-enough script was penned by The Likely Lads' pair of Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, it wasn't a massive hit - perhaps because it wasn't Spinal Tap (1984).
Although the ten years since Jack Black's (last decent film) School of Rock has left plenty of time for others to carve up the market, Tom Cruise's Rock of Ages (2012) comedy was the smallest box office hit of his leading man career and many others quickly disappeared, such as The Runaways (2010).
Into this strange genre comes a limited-release, small British movie about a band of ageing punk rockers who get a younger but comparatively talentless band into the charts playing one of their new songs.
It's based on a true story involving The Alarm's Welsh frontman Mike Peters, who has written some authentic-sounding original music for the film version directed by actress and Mad Cows' director Sara Sugarman (also from Denbighshire).
Veteran actors Phil Daniels (Quadrophenia) and Keith Allen (Trainspotting) lead the cast as Johnny Jones and Minto, with newcomer Jamie Blackley (Snow White and the Huntsman) as Drainpipe.
Vinyl opens well, has its heart in the right place and tries earnestly to do what it says on the spin.
There's lots of banter, but the story arc isn't really strong enough to sustain the degree of bickering and 'the song' gets a bit repetitive.
To my ears it's sort of good, but not as good as it would have you believe.
Complete with a look that is more suited for TV than the cinema screen, Vinyl plays like an old '45 - welcomely familiar for anyone like me who has ever played a gig, but dated at the same time.
A curiosity piece which, on its own, will not be enough to spawn a punk revival.
GRAHAM YOUNG
But why has it bee on the shelf for two years? Why was there no regional press preview screening in the West Midlands for it?
Find out with my review. Click on the link below.
]]> Red DawnRidiculously violent for the certificate and wholly implausible in its set up, Red Dawn is the kind of gung-ho action thriller for people with sawdust for brains.
It's even been on the shelf for more than two years, despite starring two of Hollywood's brightest young things - Chris Hemsworth (Avengers Assemble) and Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games).
The Patrick Swayze / Charlie Sheen 1984 film of the same name - directed by Apocalypse Now writer John Milius - featured Soviet / Cuban troops invading the US and a group of young people fighting back with heavy duty weaponry.
It's a sign of the times that the enemy is now North Korea, thus ensuring that no trading partners would be upset.
The essence of the commie-invasion scenario remains the same - on top of the fact that it's only two years since a similarly-themed, and sometimes rather naff Australian film, Tomorrow When the War Began.
Arriving on the back of this month's shocking Panorama report about the availability of guns in the US, Red Dawn shows the amount of mayhem that any half-organised group could cause with automatic weapons and training like: 'Relax, breathe out and squeeze'.
Here, it's almost as if Syria's problems have arrived in Washington State and that ordinary young Americans are now the 'rebels'.
There's no real attempt at finding a solution, just protracted gun battles and explosions from the moment we see the enemy arriving via parachutes - which look more like prawn crackers falling out of the sky.
Working on the principle that the kids can fight their way to success - 'even the tiniest flea can drive a big dog crazy' - the script includes some extraordinarily sub-Henry V lines like 'We inherited our freedom, now it's up to all of us to fight for it'.
Aussie Hemsworth tries his best to lead the gang as a younger, bigger version of Matt Damon.
But it says a lot about the violent nature of our modern world that just seven years after starring in the Little Manhattan - a beautifully tender 11-year-olds in love movie - we now have Hutcherson struggling to handle the kickback of a machine gun.
In the end, Red Dawn has enough energy on screen to just about survive its brutal largesse, but probably only because debut director Dan Bradley is a stunt co-ordinator by trade.
As Martin Scorsese and Lawrence of Arabia's Oscar-winning editor Anne V Coates remind us in the brillant new industry-in-transition documentary Side By Side, sometimes you need to stand back from the digital process to see the picture.
Half the time here we are so far inside Red Dawn you can't even tell what's happening or why.
GRAHAM YOUNG
Click below to read my verdict of one of the films I was most looking forward to seeing this year.
]]> STOKER (18)Thanks in no small measure to Christopher Lee, Dracula is quite probably immortal in a cinematic sense.
Stoker, on the other hand, is the surname of Richard, a central character we scarcely see... because he's actually dead.
In five years, the chances are that this Stoker he will have been all but forgotten.
And nobody will care that a more appropriate title for this movie might have been Tease.
Which is a shame because in his English-language debut filmed in Tennessee, South Korean director Chan-wook Park (Oldboy / Lady Vengeance), brings a lot to the screen.
The opening credits are terrific, the mood unsettling.
The cinematography, by Park's regular collaborator Chung-hoon Chung, is first class and the latest score by Midlands' Pop Will Eat Itself composer Clint Mansell (Black Swan) works hard, too.
The direction is gripping and there's also a top cast - Nicole Kidman (back on the form of The Others) plays emotionally unstable widow Evyln Stoker.
And the usually blonde Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) is suitably dark-haired as daughter India, a character in mourning and who doesn't even like to be touched by her own mother.
Into their lives comes Charles Stoker (Matthew Goode), a good-looking uncle that India didn't even know she had...
What was that in the opening voiceover about feeling free as an adult?
So far so good, but there the plaudits reach a plateau.
The debut script, by Chipping Norton actor Wentworth Miller, just doesn't cut the mustard in terms of putting you on anybody's side.
As a thriller, there's lots of atmosphere as per The Others (2001).
But, despite having been produced by British pair Ridley Scottand (his late brother) Tony Scott, the plot lacks pace.
After half an hour of the 99 minutes, you already suspect the game is up in terms of the film developing any significant meaning.
By the end, I didn't really mind either way how it was going to climax - I wasn't rootin', I wasn't tootin'.
But do note, thought, that the 18 certificate film earlier includes one of the hardest-to-watch neck scenes since the kerb scene in Ed Norton's American History X (1998).
Now aged 34, Brideshead Revisited remake star Matthew Goode would have been at the University of Birmingham while Nicole Kidman was coming a cropper with husband Tom Cruise while making Stanley Kubrick's last movie, Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
He would never have guessed, back then, that he would have ended up touching lips with her in a film of this scale.
Nor, even, that she would still, remarkably, look as if she still has the figure of a 19-year-old fresher.
What is really good, with a capital G, is that he drives a Midlands-built Jag, too. And you'll also see a Range Rover as well.
So, even when a revered South Korean director gets a gig in the West, isn't it great that two classic Midland motors end up in the movie?
Where would Hollywood be without 'em?
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