Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. They’re of my generation. That’s right, the generation that likes to bang on endlessly about how it was great growing up in the 70’s/80’s! Chopper bikes, Star Wars, Evil Knieval, Look In magazine, Metal Mickey, did I mention Star Wars?, Moondust, Cheggers Plays Pop, Grange Hill, Pac Man, Brady Bunch, bloody Star Wars, crisps, biscuits…!
We are the generation that holds onto these precious memories like it was the last time we were ever truly happy and that life since has been some perverse twisted and bitter disappointment. I know I can be like that sometimes. I know some people who have advanced forms of this nostalgic disease. Pegg and Frost, despite clocking 40 themselves, have found their own audience and market in the UK with this theme and now they’ve taken it across the pond.
And they should fit into California quite well. “Typical Hollywood audience” Eric Idle once told the crowd at the Hollywood Bowl in 1982, “All the kids are on drugs and all the adults are on roller skates!” But though their previous films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz were enjoyable for their juvenile yet innovative and signature style of comedy, their latest film “Paul” seems to be regurgitated Hollywood pap. The story contains a checklist of characters and plot devices found in hundreds of films and which aren’t even delivered in any original order. Let see, there’s two mates, one of which gets the girl who joins them on this road-trip adventure. Oh and an alien. There are some “bad sorts” chasing them on the road as well as three cops, two of which are “comically” inept. And don’t forget to have a mysterious Bond-type villain whom we only hear through a comms-speaker until, surprise, surprise, they appear at the end! They get their comeuppance and the mothership returns to collect alien.
And sadly the film does nothing to sex up this routine of a text-book called Hollywood formula despite a strong list of cameos including the voice of Spielberg himself. Whilst amiable enough it fails to measure up to their previous work. There’s nothing clever; nothing that rewards the audience with an ounce of savvy – well not my generation anyhow. Sure there are heaps of references to SciFi classics, such as ET, Alien, Close Encounters oh and did I mention Star Wars?! Sadly the whole thing felt like it wasn’t scripted for my generation at all but for a more broader possibly teen demographic who are unlikely to get the references. In other words it was banal, bland, predictable and swimming in the cold gravy of mediocrity.
Could be time to grow up!
[rating=2] Buy Paul on DVD
Most of the story is told in flashback. It begins with a man, Salvatore, hearing the news of a death of a man called Alfredo. He then reminisces over this father-figure, a man whom he knew as a child and teen who taught him to be a cinema projectionist. As a teen he also falls for a girl who moves away. Alfredo, for fear he should stagnate the rest of his life in the small Sicilian village as he feels he himself has done, urges Salvatore to leave the village and find his fame and fortune in Rome! Now, thirty years later and as a famous film director, Salvatore (aka Toto) returns to the village to attend Alfredo’s funeral and reflects on what has been and could have been in life and love.
Like most films there are several different versions or cuts. The most famous and successful version was reduced by 30 minutes. However I would urge you to watch the longer 153 minute version as the additional story, which principally happens on his return after 30 years, transforms the film to a more bittersweet level and we are left with slightly altered opinions about the characters. It is less formulaic than the edited down version and so adds to the charm of the film. After all, life isn’t perfect and “happy ever after!” – as Alfredo is clear to point out to Salvatore “Life is not what you see in films – Life is much harder“.
Perhaps this is why the director originally feared to edit too much. Life isn’t about a series of moments that can be spliced together, though it would be good if it were! Nor can it be censored no matter how much we would like to pretend things are no longer there! The ending reminds us of this and is made more poignant by the extended story line, a release for all the bottled emotion that precedes it. I wouldn’t want to give it away but as I watched I remembered another quote from the film LA Story “A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true“.
Based on Jeffrey Eugenides’ novel, the film, like the book, is narrated by the boys that -now grown up- reflect on the final year of the five Lisbon girls. There is a sumptuous simplicity, and haziness that runs through the story retold as the boys remember it. The Lisbon girls are just as mysterious in film as on paper and since the boys never truly got to know them, neither do we; we observe just as they did, peering down telescopes from across the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of them, then piecing together bits of the puzzle and still never knowing why it is that they came to end their short lives. Those who have seen Sofia Coppola’s other films will be familiar with her flair for expressing vast concepts with minimalistic panache, so that it seems only natural that she be the one to adapt the novel, and the addition of a stellar soundtrack by Air becomes the final touch to bring the boys’ memory of that heady summer to life.
roles with a subtlety that is not generally accorded to big teen-movie actors. Kathleen Turner and James Woods, who play the Lisbon parents, perform with restraint and embody their characters with casual ease; as for the rest, blink and you’ll miss appearances from Danny DeVito and (a very young!) Hayden Christensen, as well as a myriad of faces that you almost recognise before they blend into the story of a memory, just as memories tend to do.
This film from 1980 starts in snow covered Upstate New York, middle of nowhere. A couple and their daughter have broken down and are pushing their car to the side of the road. Whilst the husband telephones for assistance in a nearby booth, he witnesses his wife and daughter get mown down by an out of control truck. And that’s all before the credits have even started. George C Scott plays a composer who subsequently retreats to a huge empty house for solitude and grieving. And yes, the house is haunted (cue the ubiquitous spooky staircase shots that everyone seemed to do after Psycho) However, given his present grief, even Mike Myers would find it difficult to upset our hero more than he has been already. And this is where we know the film is going to be different. Indeed, it seems our ghost needs our hero to help unravel the mysterious history that has left his spirit trapped in purgatory (though occasionally this spirit seems like a right ungrateful b**tard) However, for our hero, investigating the skeletons in the cupboard of this house (or indeed in covered up wells) actually seems a gentle catharsis for him.
With such an emotional storyline and cliched haunted house set-up, the actors/director have done well not to be hammy. Scott is splendidly grounded as John Russell (character no doubt named after the writer Russell Hunter who, if Wikipedia is to be believed, based the experiences on his own whilst renting a house in Denver) It is this down to earth, almost believable way the story is approached that makes it gripping and a times chilling. I’m a great fan of “less is more” and this film does that well. The set is marvellous and the music is superb. Try something original this halloween and give this film a try.
The film is harmless enough, telling the story of a former jewellery cat-burglar called “The Cat” who’s tracing down a copy-cat cat burglar, whom also steals from fat cats…..paws for thought!
The thing that you need to understand about Charity Hope Valentine (Shirley MacLaine), to put it bluntly, is that she is fairly pathetic. A dance hall hostess, she’s young, pretty, and desperate to be loved, but most importantly, she is irrevocably naive. Sweet Charity follows her search for love in 1960s New York City, always believing that ‘This must be the One’; in the opening scene, Charity is so blissfully in love that she announces that “New York is my personal property, [and] since I like you very much, so very, very much, I’m gonna split it with you.” We instantly understand that this is not the first. And that it cannot end well.
And yes, there are songs, it is a musical after all, but every tune serves a purpose, offers an insight that words couldn’t achieve with songs you never knew you knew: If My Friends Could See Me Now, Big Spender, There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This, and The Rhythm Of Life. The latter of which is jubilantly lead by Sammy Davis Jr.
This 1962 film stars Jack Lemmon (as Joe Clay) and Lee Remick (as Kirsten Arnesen Clay) – a couple who fall in love, marry and start a family. But from the off, we are made aware that their relationship is a threesome between them and the bottle. Yes this film deals quite thoroughly with the subject of alcoholism and it’s knock on effects, taking us on a rather comprehensive tour of the subject. In Kirsten we see a journey from tee-totaler to binge drinker, to bad mother, to bad daughter, to wooing her husband off the wagon, to her becoming quite “in-denial” that she has a problem. 
Joe, her husband was an alcoholic to begin with and falls off and on the wagon frequently. Whilst his progress leads him to attend the AA and ultimately total abstinence, his journey represents the realisation of the responsibility he has to wife, child and self and furthermore his lack of control over this responsibility. All this with a pungent mixture of rage, hopelessness, temptation, lack of self belief and terrible guilt.And I most liked the fact that Joe’s desire to “make good” when he was sober was full of self-centered gestures and quick-fixes that were oblivious to the feeling of others around him – reminiscent of his behaviour on the sauce. His alcoholic catchphrase “hit me again” to waiters and barmen oozes with the selfpity and moroseness that rots within him.
The film also gets us to reflect on what we consider to be a moderate and healthy lifestyle. I was amused to notice that the AA meetings in the film were filled with smokers, all unaware that they had traded one vice for another just as addictive. And yet one may question whether some of the social drinking in the film is quite mild by today’s standards.
Having watched Mark Gatiss’ brilliant “A History of Horror” on BBC4, I realised that I had quite a bit of catching up to do in the classic horror department. So tonight was the turn of the 1976 classic The Omen – a film that warned us to beware any Geminis born in 1971 (being a 1973 Gemini I’m safe) And I bet they were kicking themselves that they’d not come up with this idea 5 years earlier and used the year 1966!
Still, the film hasn’t suffered too badly over time. The director Richard Donner (who was to write and direct Superman the following year) paces the film splendidly. The cast, headed by Gregory Peck gives, what could otherwise have been a hammy scenario, weight and gravitas. Extra mention to Billie Whitelaw’s sinister nanny, Mrs Baylock. Also David Warner who, like Peck, keeps his characters feet firmly on the ground; a splendid measure of realism that rightly wins our attention of their plight.
There are many images and moments from this film that I was aware of before even watching, such is the reputation that precedes it. I was quite surprised to find that the excerpt from “Carmina Burana” that I had expected didn’t actually feature! (Jerry Goldsmith won an Oscar for his original soundtrack). The image that probably haunts me the most is the first death in the movie at the childs’ birthday party. It demonstrated a psychological power which sadly lacked in development. It was after all responsible for the behaviour of Mrs Baylock whom one assumes was not always the way she was. That would have been a nice aspect to develop.
When I first saw “The Hangover” back in 2009, I remember being pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. However it’s sequel was exactly what I was expecting, pretty much the same as the first film but in a different place, this time Thailand! They wake up, with a “Hangover”, then piece the night before’s adventures together with the aid of text messages, mobile video and souvenirs like a tattoo on the face. End the film with a montage of photos that someone finds on a camera and which would have deemed the whole movie redundant had they just looked at that to begin with.
Bradley Cooper plays the good looking cool one, Zach Galifianakis plays the insane out of control one (think John Belushi in Animal House) and Ed Helms plays the nerdy victim who needs to get to the church on time. This time round the tiger is replaced by a monkey and Mike Tyson’s cameo is just as shit and cringeworthy as the original. Oh and expect plenty of Thai stereotyping, including drug-dealing monkeys, lady boys and Buddhist monks who could help our heroes but have taken a vow of silence. D’oh!