Fightrunner Podcast for 20/7/08
Host : Kev
Quote : ‘Another ‘Missed the Boat’ videocast: This time I try to reassure our viewers that Spoof movies weren’t always shit.’
Review – Kentucky Fried Movie
Email : contact@fightrunner.co.uk
Skype : fightrunner
Web : www.fightrunner.co.uk
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Another of my hyped up movies from last month(See Be Kind Rewind) is the Stephen King adaptation ‘The Mist’. A lot can be said about King adaptations, inasmuch as they’re usually terrible, unwatchable and dire. There are, however, some that buck this trend i.e. Shawshank Redemption and Green Mile. Lucky for us then that it’s the same director of those quality movies that brings us The Mist; Frank Darabont.
Instant parallels are going to be drawn with John Carpenter’s ‘The Fog’, from the title alone. It’s true, both movies cloud their movies with a dank fug, but Fog was a ghost story and Mist is, very much, a Monster story. The parallels should really be drawn with ‘Cloverfield’.
When the mysterious mist descends our Protagonist, David Drayton(Thomas Jane, Stander) and his son are shopping in the local supermarket. An old man with blood on his nose and shirt runs in screaming “There’s something in the Mist”. The doors are quickly closed as the store is engulfed. Everything shakes and rattles as though the store is being squeezed by some unseen force.
Cue the idiots who think it’s just a freak weather condition. They’re the first to meet their grizzly end at the hands of the CGI monstrosities; Tentacles, bugs and freaky man-birds.
Three secretive soldiers confess to one another that they’re base may be the cause for the creatures appearance; Something called the Arrowhead Project.
The Monsters aren’t the only problem. They’re not even the most dangerous. The antagonist is in the store already, in the shape of crazed bible-thumper Mrs. Carmody(Marcia Gay Harden). Initially dismissed as the local eccentric weirdo, she quickly gains support as the drama unfolds. She likens the creatures to the old-testament plagues on Egypt, whipping her supporters into a frenzied religious hysteria. The word sacrifice is bandied around and it’s time for our hero to get the sane survivors out of there.
The story is an excellent study on fear and how it effects our minds. How quickly we give ourselves to religion, if only it provides an answer. How in the face of an overwhelming force, our own helplessness can push us towards heroic acts(Toby Jones as Ollie Weeks sums this theme up).
Frank Darabont permeates his film with a palpable atmosphere of foreboding from the very start. It’s only a thin veil of Mist in the first scene, but it still strikes the heart ice-cold with fear. The Store becomes a pressure cooker of irrational actions, pushing the characters to the edge of their own sanity.
The only let-down was the CGI monsters. Darabont is obviously not used to working with fantastical imagery and it shows. The audience will find their suspended disbelief broken by the first sight of the pink tentacle. It’s a shame because everything else in the film works perfectly, that it can be so completely undermined by a few seconds of CGI.
Darabont, who scripted and directed the film, delivers a great finale. His own invention as it does not feature in the book. A real gut-puncher of a twist it is too.
If comparing this film to all the other King screen adaptations, it would be in the top ten, but in the grander scheme of things, it’s not even a top 100.
Verdict: 7/10
Tension built with artistic excellence. CGI built with sticky-back plastic.
Be Kind Rewind
Be Kind Rewind, as you might remember, was one of the films I was most hyped about this year.
I thought the potential for this movie was astounding when I first heard of it. A couple of video shop owners recreate all the movies in the store after the tapes are blanked. It could be like one long sketch show with Jack Black and Mos Def hamming up our favourite movies. Nope, afraid not.
The titular store is owned by an aged Danny Glover, who’s so stuck in his ways that he hasn’t adopted DVD yet. The store is under threat as developers are trying to renovate the local area and require the store to shape up or ship out. If Glover can raise the cash to repair his building then he can stay. While on a reconaissance mission to the nearby DVD store, he leaves Mike (Mos Def) in charge. It’s not long before his loser buddy, Jerry (Black), fouls things up. He blanks all the tapes with his magnetised body. All the best laughs come from Jerry being magnetised.
When customers arrive demanding refunds, the pair are at a loss. They strike a plan to re-shoot the films themselves, starting with ‘Ghostbusters’. Their ‘Sweded’ versions strangely catch on and the demand is immense. It looks like Glover’s store could be rescued.
Plans are later scuppered in the unlikely arrival of copyright enforcer Sigourney Weaver, who simply takes all the profits and destroys the tapes. This is a clever nod to all those who download movies from the net vs the corporations.
For a comedy the story is too bleak. Try however hard, the community is always trodden under the foot of ‘the man’. They never get their head above water.
Jack Black is a comedy goldmine if you let him loose, but the only evidence of that comes at the beginning and during the film remakes.
Unfortunately this film plays too heavy on its themes of community and coming-together-in-a-common-cause. The lampooning of our favourite movies is condensed into twenty minutes of screen time; Certainly not long enough to satisfy.
Verdict; 6/10
Too heavy for a comedy. Not enough laughs.
Control
Control is the story of Joy Division’s frontman Ian Curtis. A troubled, tortured soul who was overwhelmed by all that life threw at him. The film, shot in black and white, charts the beginnings of his career as he meets the other band members, through to the dizzying heights of celebrity.
Curtis(Played here by Sam Riley) tries to juggle his growing fame with his home life and his debilitating epilepsy. With the demands of a wife(Samantha Morton) and child at home, he is torn between them and his exciting mistress Annik. Bouncing from each with promises of commitment, it’s obvious that he loves them both.Being diagnosed with epilepsy, he must also experiment with new medicines to keep it under control. Ultimately, that’s what this film is about; A young man trying to maintain his life, while things spiral out of his grasp. In one scene his helplesness is demonstrated perfectly as he sings ‘Isolation’. Surrounded by his friends, no-one hears him as he’s in a sound-proof recording booth. It sums up Curtis plight succinctly.
For fans of Joy Division or anyone familiar with Curtis’ name, the conclusion to this film is foregone. Unable to cope, he took his own life. The hard thing to believe after watching this film is that when he died he was only twenty three(It states it with titles). So much has happened to him in such a short time, that the audience can understand how stressed he was. The shock revelation owes a lot to the pacing of the movie; It seems like more time has passed than in reality.
The casting for Curtis was spot-on. Sam Riley(who could win a Pete Doherty look-a-like contest) easily convinces us that Curtis is young without youth. The supporting cast hold their own against such a
stand-out performance. Samantha Morton gains our sympathy as the left-at-home wife raising their baby. Enough so that her demands on Curtis are not
seen as unreasonable.
The black and white, shadowy shoot draws us down into Curtis’ depression, familiarising us with the black clouds hanging over him.
I wouldn’t say this is everybody’s cup of tea, but fans of the band and those who just like an emotional biopic should certainly check this out.
Rating: 9/10
A great story of how life can get the better of us.
As was well publicised late last month, Heath Ledger died of an overdose of prescription drugs.
He was found Unconscious in his home on the 22nd of January, but the emergency crews were unable to revive him.
This young actor gave us some memorable movie performances such as his role of Sonny Grotowski in Monster’s Ball
and Ennis del Mar in Brokeback Mountain( A role which earned him an Oscar nomination at the age of 25).
An actor unafraid to tackle movies that would court controversy and avoided the mainstream expectations.
This year we will see him play the biggest arch-villain in story telling history; The Joker. ‘The Dark Knight’ will
surely canonise Heath Ledger’s name amongst the comic book fraternity. The role has thus far been played to comic effect by
Jack Nicholson(1989) and Cesar Romero(1966), but Ledger’s joker promises to be a far edgier, unpredictable and
dangerous villain. Closer akin to Alan Moore’s character in ‘the killing joke’. Again, showing Heath Ledger’s
determination to buck the trend.
Another upcoming film set to star Heath Ledger was Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus’.
Production on that film has ceased, but Gilliam promises to complete it(possibly with CGI) and dedicate the
film to him.
Heath Ledger 1979 – 2008
Once in a while you get a movie that just knocks you for six and this is one of them. Directed by Paul Anderson (The good Paul Anderson not the guy who brought us the Resident Evil trilogy) and based loosely on the book OIL! by Upton Sinclair this film is a 100% solid gold masterpiece.
The film is a sort of biography of an early 20Th Century oil baron Daniel Plainview played by Mr I Couldn’t Act Bad if I tried, Daniel Day Lewis. It starts with him as a diamond miner who strikes it big and then starts up a modest mining operation then he soon discovers oil in a diamond mine and begins life as an oil prospector. Along the way one his workers dies and said workers infant son becomes Daniel’s adopted son and business partner. This then results with Daniel and his son making a deal to drill in a small American Church led by a fanatical church preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano). The film then follows the fortunes, relationships that build and then decay like the oil wells he drills in the small town.
This is a slow burner of a movie with long scenes of Little dialogue with the incredible soundtrack and most importantly of all Lewis’ master full portrayal of a deeply flawed but human man. This is without doubt one the finest acting performances ever captured not just this year, decade but probably in the whole history of film making. Daniel Day Lewis pulls it off big style the two most noticeable scenes being his forced ‘conversion’ to the church of his friend/rival Eli Sunday and the deliciously nasty role reversal of that situation played out in the final scene. The supporting cast are on form but totally overshadowed here which is a shame as Paul Dano would have made a name for himself but not for the stature of the leading man.
The filming is breathtaking with small town America being captured beautifully and a great feeling of authenticity with all the oil drilling scenes also capturing the harsh nature of working during those times and the great dangers involved.
Don’t miss this movie a story of power , greed , money , oil , religion basically a story involving all of the failings of the human condition.
Zulu Rating : 9/10 Excellent, one to see before you die.
Alpha Dog.
After a bad week of movies(See my Jumper and Run Fat Boy Run reviews),
It’s great to find a film that reminds me why we love movies so much.
Alpha Dog is an ensemble piece, stitched together in the structure of a Documentary. A story about free-spirited and somewhat spoilt rich kids who like to play gangster.
Johnny Truelove (Emile Hersch) deals drugs from his home, having wild parties and pretty much doing whatever he feels.
In a drug deal gone bad, he’s owed money by the edgy Jake (Ben Foster, 30 Days of Night). Inspired by his gangster
idols, Johnny pulls a gun on Jake, starting the feud which will drive the film. This is escalated further when Johnny
and his friends kidnap Jake’s brother Zack and hold him for ransom.
Zack’s a nice kid and fits in with Johnny’s friends, especially Frankie (Justin Timberlake). Frankie takes him to all the
parties where Zack becomes the Notorious ‘Stolen guy’. He even loses his virginity to two beautiful babes in a pool.
Johnny doesn’t know what to do with Zack when the police become involved, even semi-joking that they should kill him. After all, they don’t want to go to jail. Johnny calls Jake and tries to negotiate, but finds nothing but furious threats and
vitriol.
In a world full of parties, sex and drugs a big dose of reality is too hard to handle for them. It surprises to learn tha this is based on a true story about the youngest
man to appear on the FBI most wanted list; Jesse James Hollywood.
*Spoilers ahead*.
Even though the audience know what’s coming in the final sequence, it still hits like a sucker punch. In the emotionally charged denouement, I dare you not to gasp, “No Way”.
Brilliant acting from top to bottom; from Bruce Willis and Harry Dean Stanton down to Timberlake himself. The standout performance goes to
Ben Foster as the murderous, unhinged Jake. You can’t take your eyes off the screen when he rants, raves and screams. Watch out for the fight
scene where he KO’s all six opponents.
Rating 9 (Nah, Fuck it) 10/10
Starting like ‘Dazed and Confused’ and winding up like ‘A Perfect World’ via ‘Rules of Attraction’.
Sometimes you have such high expecations for a movie that it can
never possibly hope to live up to them. This makes the movie’s shortcomings forgiveable.
Unfortunately, my expectations weren’t very high for this film and it still came up short.
Jumper is a great concept on paper. A guy, through some unexplainable genetic mutation, is able
to teleport anywhere in the world. There are rules though; He has to have been to that place before.
David Rice(Hayden Christiansen) is one such Jumper. Living the life of Riley – Robbing banks when he needs money,
Going to Egypt when he needs a tan etc – He gets a nasty shock when silver haired Roland (Samuel L Jackson) turns up trying
to kill him. This is when the movie turns into a long chase narrative. Roland pulling gadgets out of a bag that stop Rice from
jumping or let him follow him through the worm hole. One good plot twist comes in Jamie Bell’s character; A charismatic Jumper
who gets his kicks from killing Roland’s pals; The Paladins.
You’re David Goyer.You’ve written your flawless Sci-fi story. Checked that you’re bases are covered. Good.
Time to shoe-horn in a Love story. Rachel Bilson plays Millie; a two dimensional cut out of a character who doesn’t add anything to the story.
Worse still is Rice’s mother(Diane Lane) who makes it into all of two scenes. Lane is a credible actress and is unbelievably under used.
It would have been a more interesting movie, if his quest was to find his mother from the beginning and give Lane more screen time.
The acting is atrocious – Christiansen does some crazed eye acting, coming across like eagle-eyed action man.
Jackson phones his performance in. Leaving Bell to take the movie on his shoulders. He was convincing as the dark sardonic Griffin,
Lending some reality to the story.
It’s a hard movie to associate with as the protagonist displays no human side to his character. He’s simply out for himself.
Even after his Dad kicks his bucket(Or does he? We don’t know for sure) He doesn’t display much emotion.
The script wasn’t good enough in the first place, but the actors don’t even try to salvage it.
Rating 5/10
The sci-fi concept is great, but poorly executed.
There is nothing like a good documentary that informs you and makes you think about the issues it raises, this is not a good documentary to be frank to say it is shit would be too much praise. This is a ‘documentary’ made by a bunch of guys who think that googling information on 9/11 then extracting facts to fit their agenda and at time down right lies can somehow compete against EVERY single fucking expert in the world that disagrees with them.
The idea behind this piece ( of whatever excrement you prefer ) is that the US government was behind the dreadful events of September 11th 2001. And to achieve this point they display their ‘facts’ on screen backed by thumping techno music. Any sane individual with a shred of common sense will see through the ‘facts’ for the distortions they are. The only plus side to the viewing experience is that it is a slick and well edited piece with decent production values for a ‘documentary’
Thankfully this is a public domain movie and you don’t have to pay to watch otherwise you would feel as if you had been robbed, beaten and stabbed several times. The main reason the tone of this review is somewhat more negative than usual is simple THESE GUYS ARE PISSING ON PEOPLES GRAVES. To take a tragedy of this nature and to twist it round to your own paranoid agenda is sick, really fucking sick and before anyone comments saying ‘you just believe whatever the government(s) tell you’ that is not true, i believe what evidence says and the evidence does not support you.
I will provide the link for this steaming pile of shit and i will also provide the link for Screw Loose Change with rebuffs every lie, distortion and manipulation in loose change. But in summing up cool production values aside this is not a documentary , just disrespectful , dishonest film making.
Zulu Rating : 1/10 A Steaming , maggot infested turd that was left out in the sun way too long
Watch loose change here.
One you are done throwing up in disgust watch Screw Loose Change here.
Run fat boy run
David Schwimmer makes his movie directorial debut with this heart-warming comedy about going the distance.
He calls on comedy heavyweights from both sides of the pond; Hank Azaria and Simon Pegg.
Potentially a comedy goldmine waiting to be tapped.
Pegg plays Dennis, who we first witness jilting his pregnant fiancee Libby (Thandie Newton) on their wedding day and running off
down the street. Skip forward five years and we find him working as a security guard, chasing a transvestite
shop-lifter. Life hasn’t exactly worked out. He still sees his ex when he visits their son and it’s obvious
that he regrets having dumped her. Problem is, she’s moved on. Enter Hank Azaria as the self righteous, self loving
new man in her life, Whit. He’s better looking than Dennis more successful than Dennis, even has a longer penis than Dennis.
Jealousy writhes through our Gut-laden hero. So much so that he decides to enter the London Marathon to prove to Libby that he
can finish something he starts. Cue the Montage. He struggles at first, gets better etc…(Seen it before).
Libby tells him that even if he does complete the race, she won’t take him back. By now he’s doing it for a different reason,
his best friend(Dylan Moran) bet all his money on him to finish.
*Plot spoiler warning*
This film isn’t funny.
They waste the antagonist ‘Whit’ by making him too sympathetic. He should be taunting and winding Dennis up every step of the way,
Not being friendly and doe-eyed. We only witness his nasty side in the final scenes. It leaves the audience wondering who to side with;
the guy who buys Libby expensive gifts and treats her with respect or the guy who left her on the wedding day holding the baby.
The only funny bits in this film happen when Dylan Moran or Harish Patel are on screen as Dennis’ trainers. They manage to out-perform the
leads so much that you’re left anxious for them to return.
Pegg overplays the unfit man. Out of breath almost every time we see him. Certainly not up to his previous standards in ‘Hot Fuzz’ and the
immaculate ‘Shaun of the Dead’. They shoe-horn some cameos in too, trying to excavate some much-needed laughs.Even stooping as low as shoving
David Walliams in doing a variation on his ‘Pirate Memory game’ character from Little Britain.
To it’s credit the final scenes are uplifting. Dennis was never going to win the race, but it’s a film about completing what you started. Be it in
a race or in a relationship. It’s a tried and tested story that appeals to most. Though, ‘Rocky’ did it better.
Overall, I wouldn’t bother with this one. If you like the actors in it, watch one of their other films; ‘Shaun of the dead’ or ‘Mystery men’.
Rating 5/10
David Schwimmer’s movie career starts with a Stumble fat boy fall.
