To Love or Loathe

Juno review

2011-06-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

The first time I saw this film, gulping down popcorn unil my veins were all slathered in a thick layer of caramel and my insulin had hoistered the white flag of sugar-busting surrender, I actually quite liked it. In an industry drenched in gun-toting gym buffs, plastic cast whiny actresses and sequel churning producers, indie sweet films are occasionally an appreciated viewing at the cinema.

However, having watched it a few times now, it now seems to be a little too try-hard in the quirk and wit department, making the up-the-buff main character as believable as a playboy bunny claiming she would marry only for love. And although I'm not wagging my finger at the acting abilities of Ellen Page, she does play out more like a dictaphone to the script rather than a smart-arse up the sprout teenager.

And as to the quirkiness, well, its like the odd neighbour who wears her cat-hair-smothered blanket as a dress, whines to you about the misalignment of the planets afffecting her aura and knocks on your door at midnight to see if she could burrow some jojoba oil for an emergency late-night ritual. Amusing at first, but after a few more knocks on the door and copious lectures about neglecting your inner zen, she suddently becomes butt-clenchingly irritating.

Neanderthal Book Review

2011-06-25T04:43:00.000-07:00


Neanderthal - John Darton

Sure, I've burrowed my nose plenty in the crinkle-cut pages of the big daddy classics, and sure, I've wormed my way through the award-drenched paperbacks like a full blown social retard possessed, but that doesn't stop me declaring that this 'low brow' caveman romper-stomper novel as essential reading as the weather forecast on your wedding day.

And even though my friends aren't fully convinced that this is a literary gem slumped in a sack of talentless dirt, I'm not taking it to heart, since they prefer to read the chick lit pulp that is spewed out on a daily basis about unsatisfied women daydreaming about Manolo Blahnik high heels, carbohydrates and stereotypical European rose-swishing casanovas.

Look at it this way, amigo. Any book with the opening line involving a character resting his AK-47 against a tee trunk to take a leak by the campsite is seven different shades of special.

Scarface Review

2011-06-18T02:48:00.000-07:00

My attitude to this film can be simply compared to my dislike of pineapples - despite there not really being an intelligent blog-worthy reason as to why they make my face scrunch up in blatant old-school distaste, I still avoid them like diseased German bean sprouts from the supermarket shelf.

And whilst I'm neither a heavy handed Al Pacino basher who stamps, seals and delivers him as an overrated bunch of twitching muscle fibres nor a member of his loyal butt-kissing brigade, I'm still cradling the belief that his 'bling-bling' gangster perfomance is far and gone from the best in his celluloid history.

Plus, the whole film seems as tacky as five dime hooker's pyrex outfit and resembles more of a hyperviolent rap music video than it does a 'critic's little darling' gangster classic. Or maybe that's just me.

No Country For Old Men

2011-06-15T03:05:00.000-07:00

This is probably the greatest thing I've seen at the cinema, this side of a man of overly generous proportions chomping down a tub of popcorn faster than you could utter out 'heart disease'.

And whilst it's not the stone-cold history-based definition of a Western by everyday standards, its tinged with the genre's glare anyway.

Sure, it doesn't have the feather-in-their-cap Indians, cattle towns and burlesque dancers flapping their legs to the tune of a broken piano as bar fight brawls out, but...it does have the parched lonely landscapes, the north-off-the-border mexican standoffs, the squinting yoga-wisdom sheriff, the pressurised-canister-flaring shoot outs, the coin-flipping hit man, the 'Delia-Smith-meets-a-seventies-lower-division-goalkeeper' hairstyles and a large enough dashering of cowboy hats to make a Blackpool hen party proud - had the cowboy hats been pink, tacky and covered with glittery fluff that is.

Childhood favourite film

2011-06-06T04:24:00.000-07:00

The childhood chunk of that phrase is deceptive as it assumes that since I've outgrown my Barney pyjamas and my pink fluffy bunny slippers, my tastes have matured like a fine slab of cheese and I'm now dipping my toes in subterranean depths of sophistication found only in arthouse critics and chronic intellectuals.

Heck no. I'm still several shades of simple minded and can still weane out an indecent amount entertainment from toddler cartoons and happy-meal toys.

But considering how my friends envisage my childhood involving barbie decapirations, elastic band catapults and a chronic stockpile of bruises, scratches and grazes, I always get arched eyebrows and snorts when I declare that my childhood favourite film isn't some mind-warping masochistic torture-porn flick but rather the sugar-coated South-America frump: 'Romancing The Stone' - involving flaky latinos, shrieking parka-wearing saga-scribing city frumps, bird collecting jungle hobos and a script that I have engrained in the deepest, darkest core of my brain.

La Haine Review

2011-06-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

I was expecting a chavtastic ode-to-violence with yobby looking teenagers drenched in tracksuits, speaking with 'tape played in reverse' style accents and punching their way through their pubescent emotions by smearing their knuckles against one each other like butter

But expectations aside, it was actually quite good.
As in end-credits-menu-replay-end-credits good. As in drag-my-posterior-in-front-of-the-computer-monitor-to-seal-my-lack-of-social-life-into-a-blog-post good. As in screw-the-recession-I'll-buy-it-anyway good. As in you-probably-get-the-gist-by-now good.

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz (the sugar sweet quirkball in Amelie and the man shrivelling behind the camera in shame in hollywood classics such as 'Gothika' and 'Babylon AD'), the film manages to steer well clear of the usual brainless pitfalls of the 'chavsploitation' genre by not offering a pre-packaged bundle of cliches and morality-lessons ram-jammed down your throat.

Vincent Cassel by the way, is treading thespian gold in this film and is wearing his role like a fat chick wears spandex.

Song Of The Day

2011-04-30T09:45:00.000-07:00

The Cynical Chemist

2011-04-09T06:29:00.000-07:00

You're probably wondering what it is that I do outside of the comfortable walls of cyberspace when I'm not keyboard bashing, blog scribing and gazing at the world through my cynical eyes of hate.

Well, I wilt away my hours in a chemistry laboratory; scribing and keyboard bashing whilst gazing at the world through my cynical eyes of hate in a lab coat.

The Long Goodbye

2011-02-26T11:29:00.000-08:00

Rating ****

Whenever I read a Raymond Chandler novel, Philipe Marlowe always whistles to the tune of the whisky-glugging, chain smoking pulp detective prototype; the type that you automatically envisage with a raised trenchcoat collar, perched against the lamp post gazing sluggishly at the smoke trail from his cigarette in the flickers of the street light.

And whilst Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep decides to play along to this image, Robert Altman decides to upturn the idea of it all by chiselling down the verbal slinging matches between the characters to a slow drawl in the piercing glaze of the Californian sun.

The character itself is rebrandished by Elliout Gould as a scruff-ball cynical detective whose words don't so much skim the surface of his tongue as stumble out in a stream of mutterings. And alienated by a city of perfectly manicured boulevards and health-conscious hedonistic yoga-frumps, he meanders through a strew of murdered wives, topless brownie-craving neighbourhood hippies, actress-impersonating attendants, cats with hyperefined taste buds and coke-bottle itchy gangsters.

All tuned to the whipsy notes of John Williams theme song played again and again a la Sam.

The Devil's Backbone Quote

2011-02-24T04:15:00.000-08:00

What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.

L'Argent review

2011-02-23T16:22:00.000-08:00

I was having a pseudo-intellectual moment.
The type of moment you have when you inexplicably begin to arch your eyebrows, gravitate towards corduroy attire, relate every discussion to existentialism and drink hot beverages with your pinkie extended with a constipated expression on your face just to let everyone know you're in the process of deep thought.

So after skimming the shrine that is my dvd shelf to find some appropriate viewing, I magically stumbled upon an intellectual-gem-of-a-film that is Robert Bresson's L'Argent - a foreign, subtitled adaptation of a Tolstoy story.

So I perched my behind on the sofa, slung my soul through the deepest dooms of torture and all I have to say now on the matter is that the character at the begining has one mother-effin full-blown case of the monobrow.
As to the plot of the film, I was genuinely too distracted by the fuzzball caterpillars cacooned across the characters face to pay much attention.

I have wikipedia-ed it though. And there's something about existentialism right?

Hard Boiled Opening

2011-02-20T15:55:00.000-08:00

This is the type of film that you can bag and pack into the cool department straight from the opening titles. It's the celluloid equivalent of the new kid at school managing to score immediate martyr-level appreciation points from the fellow awe-glazed pupils. Its the type of cool that seems almost so textbook it shouldn't warrant anything but scourns of cliches...all leather coats, gnarls, hunched shoulders and anti-authoritarian motives. But then it's the type of cool that doesn't care if its.

It starts off simple. A black screen. The glug of tequila. A black screen. The crackle and cluncker of an opened can. A black screen. The fizzle of poured soda. A black screen. The grasping hand banging the glass sharply against the table. 'Hard Boiled' scrawled in blood-red lettering against a backdrop of the sizzles of the tequila slammer. A man downs the drink.

Sweat glazed and channeling the cruise ship tourist look with his unfastened shirt and dandy-man beige trousers, he wipes his mouth briskly and perches himself onto a stool. And with the tinkering Jazz Club sign in the background and the rocking of his dangling leg, he strings a fine strew of notes from on his clarinet.

Sorry

2011-02-20T13:04:00.000-08:00

If a blog ever had corners, mine would be laced with cyber-cobwebs and smothered in an inch layer of dust.

So apologies for my shamefully long blogger absence.

But that's what a chemistry degree does to you. It can single handedly transform you into a coughing and spluttering old hag, bent double over ageing text books, getting indecently personal with the details of quantum mechanics.

And once you're gripped by its firm clunch, frollicking around with films suddenly doesn't seem like such a peachy idea, the cinema then becomes a distant memory and your blog sees as much action as a nun.

Playlist

2011-02-20T11:52:00.000-08:00

Ladies and Gentlemen - Kasabian

God's Gonna Cut You Down - Johnny Cash

Les Comperes - Vladmir Cosma

Playlist

2010-11-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

Predator Review

2010-11-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

Predator *

Plot

A group of soldiers haul their asses to Guatemala to try and rescue guerilla-captured hostages. A tarzanic chunk of metal swings from tree to tree and peels the soldiers like ripe oranges. The Austrian beefcake that is the governer of California flexes his steroid lovechild biceps and fights the metallic piece of gunk. Cue a run of the mill wham-bam explosion and tear-shedding in modern day neanderthals.

You'll like this if you are:

A testosterone-fuelled butt scratcher who grazes on steroids and weeps out of emotion during Chuck Norris movies.

Gareth Bale

2010-10-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Gareth Bale

Sure, I was wailing like a banshee every time he whizzed one into the goal in the Inter Milan game, but I still hold the opinion that he bares a riduculousy uncanny resemblance to a space chimp in a polyester shirt.

Read My Lips Review

2010-10-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

Sur Mes Lèvres

As you might have guessed by now, I'm not a sucker for stereotypical rom-coms with smooching conveyer belt casanovas reciting poetry and wafting red roses left, right and centre.

So under my radar, this gallic film noir-thriller slots into the big cheese role of the romance genre like a dime in a pinball machine.

So scooch over Casablanca. No amount of Humphrey Bogart scowling into his gin is going to budge this Hitchcock-esque number out of the ranking. It's got enough emotional porn between Emmanuelle Devos' lonely frumpy secretary and Vincent Cassel's flaky limp haired ex-con to induce a fallopian tube explosion.

A prophet

2010-09-28T10:05:00.000-07:00

A Prophet

Jacques Audiard doesn't do fluffy tear gland itching prison dramas. Jacques Audiard doesn't do easy to disgest characters spurting out motivational one liners like a buffed-up broad in an exercise video. Jacques Audiard doesn't do Morgan Feeman. And most importantly, Jacques Audiard seemingly doesn't do crap films.

Top 5: Sergio Leone

2010-09-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

1. Once Upon A Time In The West

Leone threw a curve ball from the poncho-wearing nameless-one to direct this showboat opera piece of violence and fading frontiers. Sure, it's not an airy light hearted horse-trotting western involving the sheriff and his merry men clonking off into the distant sunset like galloping herds of turd, but things of beauty rarely are.

Instead, the film plays out like the wise old man squinting at the world through the bottom of his whiskey glass, guarding his words like they're the only thing worth giving a damn over anymore.

So if the eye-gazing foreplay and the thick to thin length to dialogue ratio doesn't induce cold sweats in you, it's a must viewing.

2. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Elli Wallach's perfomance as the mother-cursing starpin sleazeball is the mantlepiece role of the trio. Fact.

3. For A Few Dollars More

4. Once Upon A Time In America

Leone took a break from slugging it out in the desert sand to throw his hat into the gangster genre ring. And my, did he throw it in with some force.

5. For A Fistful Of Dollars

Playlist

2010-09-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

I'm having a K'Naan jamming session. So sue me.

Humpty Dumpty of the Field

2010-09-16T06:59:00.000-07:00

Hercules vs Barcelona 2-0

After having his face gnauled on by wayward studded boots and being sterilised by a jabulani laying attack on his private ryan barracks, the official world cup cat scratching post has done it again.

Stirring up his pot of Mr Bean lady luck, the Barcelona centre back made a gruesome acquaintance with the keeper's jawline only to be left soaking like a dishevelled prune in the red stuff.

If ever there is a flying ninja kick, an outstretched elbow or a hovering football boot, Pique is more than likely to be itching his lothario chin against it.

Call it injury proneness. Call it sadomachism. Call it the 'special one' playing around with his hocus-pocus abacadbra voodoo.

But there's only one solution Pep, a bubble boy outfit with more padding than you can shake a stick at.

Clint Eastwood As Bond

2010-09-11T04:19:00.000-07:00

After Clint Eastwood's revelation of turning down offers to play James Bond, I present you with the what-could-have-been scenario.

Oh, James Bond. I see you've caught me having an awkward fondling moment with the cigarette case.
Please don't file for sexual harrasment.

Scowl

James Bond, we have a smidgen of a problem.
A rich-off-his-clogs foreigner armed with a heavy accent and enough uranium to upturn the world entire wants global domination.

Scowl

This is a pocket sized explosive, Bond.
Use it only when you're outclassed in a fist fight.
Which is pretty often for someone who has to rely on gadgets schamdgets to blast their euro-trash villains to high heaven.

Scowl

Look into my eyes, look into my eyes, the eyes, the eyes, not around the eyes, don't look around my eyes, look into my eyes.

Scowl

Sleepover time, Bond.
And please remove the pocket sized explosive from your trousers before you give a new meaning to 'finishing with a bang'.

Scowl.

Gone With The Wind Review

2010-09-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

Gone With the Wind

My relationship with romantic epics can usually be summed up to a fine-tuned accuracy by solely one word; constipation, my friends, constipation.

That is to say that whenever I'm blessed with a hollywood romance to gaze over, it's close to a sure shot that it will be a long and painful affair involving a bucket load of groaning, moaning, sighing and clenched angry faces on both sides of the screen.

So finding myself actually juicing some pleasure out of the mother all romance sagas was a surprise on an equal notch to the snooping children discovering Narnia where the back of their wardrobes ought to be.

And after much grunting and pondering over as to why I actually liked it, I've come to a swift conclusion that there are exactly two things that glosses over the 'spare me the tears' falling south sentiment and the tangerine orange background that suggests that the set designers caused a global dulux colour shortage during filiming.

And these two things come in the thespian form of Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh.

Vivien Leigh for her unrelentness queen bitch act that's she carved down to a fine museum centrepiece and Vivien Leigh again for her pseudo-innocent smirk that makes you want to punch her in the ovaries to knock some sense into the curtain-wearing broad.

And Clark Gable for his athlete-mobility rubber moulded facial muscles.
No, seriously, if I had anything to say about the matter, his eyebrows would actually get top billing. And an oscar nomination. And a star on the hollywood walk of fame.
And obviously a restraining order from me.

Look at me, all dashing and shit. Call George Cukor. I feel like a stairway musical number is in the works.

Self Help Books Suck

2010-09-07T13:17:00.000-07:00

The words 'self improvement' are gag-inducing. They instantly conjure up images of one-size-fits-all self-help books penned by the type of people who hold conversations with their garden plants and claim to communicate with your aura.

My theory on this paperback 'happy-trail' boom is that if you can't define happiness in one sentence, then whatever turd you're smearing across each page doesn't add up to squat.