Recent Release Reviewed: Predators

Starring: Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne, Walton Goggins

Screenplay: Alex Litvak, Michael Finch, based on a script by Robert Rodriguez

Director: Nimród Antal

A group of killers, including soldiers, mercenaries, and criminals, are dropped into a jungle. They quickly realise that they are being hunted, and they are no longer on Earth.

Unlike the Alien movies, the Predator films have never been big on scares. At their best, they're tense chase films, or big fun stupid action movies. This latest effort, guided through production by avowed fanboy Robert Rodriguez, attempts to combine the two, with a clear intention to summon the spirit of the first film. It's not entirely successful, but it's entertaining enough.

We start by being introduced to the team of killers. Brody's performance as de-facto leader Royce is surprisingly solid, despite the Christian Bale voice, while Alice Braga gives good support as the more empathetic sniper. The rest of the cast are rounded out by the usual stereotypes: Giant Russian, silent Yakuza, odd-man-out (Grace), and Danny Trejo. Most fun, however, is Walton Goggins (The Shield, Justified) as depraved death-row inmate Stans, who gets all the best lines. Fishburne also seems to be having a great time in an extended cameo as "The one you don't fuck with."

Made for a relatively modest $40 million, it's competently directed by Nimród Antal, who beat directors like Michael J. Bassett (Wilderness, Solomon Kane) and Neil Marshall to the gig. It would have been great to see what Marshall would have done with this, but never mind, eh? There's some decent chase sequences, the Predator designs are updated with varying degrees of success (do we really need new masks?), and the Predator-vision brings a warm fuzzy feeling to those of us who are fans.

However, there's never really any sense of surprise. It's pretty easy to spot which of Royce's band of rogues is next to go, and once we get over the fun of the premise, with our anti-heroes stranded on an alien planet, the structure is basically identical to the first movie. While Predator 2 was undoubtedly flawed, it did at least shake things up by bringing the monster to Los Angeles. Certain plot-points are mishandled, specifically one character twist that is revealed far too late in proceedings to make any impact.

Predators is far superior to the Alien vs. Predator movies, which is damning it with faint praise, but it's also a decent sci-fi action film that does restore a little dignity to the franchise. It's no masterpiece, and it doesn't hold a candle to the first movie, but it's a fun ride.

6.5/10

Recent Release Reviewed: Life During Wartime

Starring: Shirley Henderson, Allison Janney, Ciarán Hinds, Paul Reubens, Michael Lerner, Ally Sheedy, Michael Kenneth Williams, Chris Marquette

Written and directed by: Todd Solondz

Several years after the events of Happiness, the characters of that film are still struggling along. Joy (Henderson) is questioning her marriage to Allen (Williams), a perverted criminal who is trying to reform. She travels to Florida to visit her sister Trish (Janney) who thinks she may have finally found a normal man in Harvey (Lerner), and may be able to forget her paedophile ex Bill (Hinds). However, Bill has just been released from prison and heads to Florida to ask oldest son Billy (Marquette) for forgiveness. But while Billy knows the truth, his little brother Timmy is preparing for his bat mitzvah, and has realised that his mother was lying when she told him that his father was dead.

Back in 1998, Happiness was one of the most controversial films around. It looked frankly and with some sympathy at what were mostly unlikeable characters. It was tough to watch but impossible to forget. It's strange that, over ten years later, Solondz has decided to revisit them. He's always seemed like a director with no interest in commercial success, so it's safe to assume that this sequel wasn't made for financial reasons. Indeed, with a completely new cast, Life During Wartime doesn't feel like a follow-up.

The big strength here is the film's cast. Solondz has found a group of actors worthy of their predecessors. Shirley Henderson steps in Jane Adams, Allison Janney for Cynthia Stevenson, Ciarán Hinds for Dylan Baker, Ally Sheedy for Lara Flynn Boyle, Michael Kenneth Williams for Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Paul Ruebens for Jon Lovitz. Henderson is excellent, playing a woman starting to wonder if her perpetual optimism has been for nothing, as is Janney, whose Trish is determined to believe that things are finally getting better. The standout, however, is Hinds, bringing a crushing gravitas to Bill, who knows that he can't hope for forgiveness.

For the most part, Life During Wartime doesn't really say anything new. It's neither as shocking as Happiness (nothing here matches Dylan Baker's confessional scene with his son), nor as funny. The jokes about saying inappropriate things in front of family members and medicating children seem a little like Solondz going back over old ground. There are moments, however, when it works. Joy's hau nted by the ghost of Andy (Reuebens), who is desperate to sleep with her, then screams abuse when she turns him down. Reubens' is creepily effective, playing off Henderson's determination to be kind very well. A scene between Bill and Jacqueline (Rampling), a bitter woman who picks him in a bar, resonates, too, with both characters certain of the pointlessness of hoping for forgiveness. "Only losers expect to get it," she spits. Hinds' scene with Marquette is also superbly played, but to discuss that too much would be to spoil one of the best moments of the film.

It's certainly an interesting experiment to see this characters with different faces so many years later. Life During Wartime is occasionally very sharp indeed, and the performances are excellent. However, it doesn't really seem like the ideas abou t forgiveness have enough meat to drive a whole film, and frankly there's not that much new ground being covered here.

6/10

Takeshi Kitano Marathon: Violent Cop (1989)

"[Takeshi Kitano is] the true successor to Kurosawa." - Nagaharu Yodogawa

High praise indeed, but just how good is Takeshi Kitano as a director?  Like most western audiences, I am most familiar with him from his tremendous acting performances in films such as the manic but brilliant Battle Royale and the sombre Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence.  Since then, like many, I've admired his acting prowess, but I am a bit of a latecomer to his career as a director.  So, over the next few weeks, I'm filling the gap in my knowledge and am going to watch the first seven works in this man's cannon.

Our first stop is, fittingly, Mr Kitano's directorial debut, 1989's Violent Cop (or the literal translation, That Man, Being Violent).  Now, I'm not sure about you, but on seeing that title, I was expecting something akin to a JCVD/Steven Seagal bloodfest but with less fist fighting.  I'm so glad that this couldn't be further from the truth.  That's one reason why I prefer the literal title, it aptly describes the simplicity of the film, but much like the title, the picture isn't straight forward.

Although other articles have done this much better, with great verbal finesse, no piece on this film would be complete without a brief history of its origins.  The original premise for the film was a comedy about a man whose only emotional response to the world around him was that violence.  Now, to me, that sounds like a pitch for another Will Ferrell/Adam Sandler man-child picture and at the time, that's exactly what Japanese audiences would have expected from Mr Kitano.  Back then, he was known primarily as a comedian - one half of The Two Beats (for a western comparison, he was quite similar to the role Vic Reeves plays in his double act with Bob Mortimer).    Closer to home, we know his comedic side better from the platform-game-brought-to-life that is Takeshi's Castle.  The titular Takeshi?  Yep, that's Takeshi Kitano.  In short summary, the original director had to withdraw from the project due to illness and, because Mr Kitano had expressed an interest in direction, the studio allowed him to helm the film.  Extensive rewrites were performed and voilà! the strange beast we know was Violent Cop was born.

"Strange beast" is definitely an apt way to describe this film.  On the whole, the pacing is slow, dialogue is minimal and the movie feels expertly controlled by its director, which is a great complement to his natural abilities in this area.  These qualities are also found in any scene when violence is committed by its main character.  The timing almost veers towards slapstick (my mind instantly turns to the Three Stooges-esque slap that Kitano gives to a man after a bus has pulled off).  However, there are several sequences dotted in the film where violence (literally in one case) explodes onto the screen, chaotic and free.  Not only does the gratuitous violence from these scenes feel pulled from a different picture, but each feels different to another.  Violence may be presented with great variety, but it is never in a complimentary manner.  It is always shown as the horrid perversion it is.

Visually, the film is dreamy.  Well composed and carefully shot, it is definitely a beautiful film to watch.  This is nowhere more apparent then the finale, with its clever use of light and shadow.  Except for this sequence, it is a refreshingly direct film, lacking in any pretense or "quirky" angles.  Mr Kitano also shows that he is not afraid of alienating an audience and his bravado is rewarding and inspiring.  There are several long sequences where it seems that Mr Kitano is declaring that this is his film and his story, he is going to tell it exactly how he pleases and the movie is definitely better for that.  By allowing him to develop a distinctive sense of image, the film improves as it progresses.

Plotting wise, well, there is barely a plot - in fact, there is a strong argument that the first hour simply introduces the players in order for some sense of a story to begin in the final half hour.  This is not a problem however as it gives us time to realise that the titular character may be violent, but he is not fundamentally a bad man.  It is his incorruptability that keeps him his job after his violence once again lands him in trouble.  In this sense, he is a very pure character, easily to work out and therefore easy to get behind.  Mr Kitano has also surrounded himself with some very capable actors who aid in making this first hour so interesting.  In spite of a couple of amateur-esque supporting actors, the film is incredibly well developed by its actors.

Overall, what is most impressive about this film is the control that Mr Kitano has over his camera.  One film into his oeuvre and he already feels like an accomplished auteur (yes, I speak pretentiously and yes, those are probably the only French words I know).  The film definitely has its flaws and its intentions seem muddled at times, but it is one hell of a début and I eagerly await the next.

Next up: Boiling Point

Recent Release Reviewed: The Limits of Control

Starring: Isaach de Bankolé, Paz de la Huerta, Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Gael García Bernal, Luis Tosar, Bill Murray
Written and directed by: Jim Jarmusch

An enigmatic hitman is hired to perform a job in Spain. Along the way he meets various people who talk to him about different subjects.

I've always been a Jarmusch fan. I understood when some people complained about his films were too slow, too knowing. I didn't mind. I liked them. However, The Limits of Control, a film Jarmusch has referred to as his "inaction movie", is so deliberately slow and uneventful that it's very difficult to enjoy, even for his most ardent admirers.

It's not exactly a new tactic that Jarmusch employs in this film, with the main character drifting along, meeting interesting people played by well-known character actors. Dead Man and Broken Flowers were very similar in that respect. However, both of those films had more going on than their cameos. In The Limits of Control, a huge amount of the film is spent following Lone Man on his silent journey, connecting with no one. Chris Doyle's photography makes Spain look wonderful, and de Bankolé is effortlessly cool, but after a while the inaction becomes draining.

There are moments of humour, mostly delivered by Paz de la Huerta as The Nude, who manages to make her performance as memorable as her consistent lack of clothing. There's something wonderful, too, about a film that gives Tilda Swinton such a marvelous slo-mo entrance and exit, clad in white cowboy hat and peroxide wig, twirling a clear plastic umbrella.

So, basically what you want to watch in this film are the cameos. Don't assume that the fantastic cast will be on screen for long. With the exception of de Bankolé and de la Huerta, no one appears for longer than five minutes. All the scenes with the famous actors are structured the same, with an actor you recognise approaching de Bankolé, asking him if he speaks Spanish, delivering a monologue on a subject such as art, cinema, science, and bohemian culture, then giving our man a matchbox. These range from well-played and interesting (Swinton gives an enthusiastic turn and looks very cool, Hurt manages to imbue his character with a nice bit of weariness and cynicism), to forgettable or misjudged (Bernal's oddball "Mexican" isn't funny enough). Finally Bill Murray appears as the target, and feels like he's walked into the wrong film.

So, it's safe to assume this is an experiment film. It's a comment on what we expect from our movies. We expect things to happen. Or, even in films where nothing happens, we expect it to be entertaining, or interesting. There are quite long sequences of the film that are somehow very watchable despite the lack of incident, but for non-fans those scenes will feel like death. The Limits of Control shows flashes of classic Jarmusch, but, for too much of its running time, it's an infuriating test.

5/10 (for Jarmusch fans)
3/10 (for people who don't like his films)

Recent Release Reviewed: The Losers

Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Zoe Saldana, Idris Elba, Chris Evans
Screenplay: Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, based on the comic by Andy Diggle and Jock
Director: Sylvain White

"That's right, bitches. I got a crossbow"

The Losers are an elite military unit. While on a mission in South America, they are betrayed by the mysterious Max (Jason Patric) and left for dead. Enter Aisha (Saldana), a femme fatale with an alluring proposition: She'll get them back into the States and help them find Max.

I'll admit it. I've got a weakness for well-orchestrated action films. I'll go on and on about Jim Jarmusch or Lars von Trier, but every now and then I'll get a craving for a Bad Boys, a Point Break, or a Con Air. And while The Losers might not be up there with the best of the guilty pleasures crowd, it's damn entertaining. And in the interests of full disclosure, I should mention that I watched this shortly after The Limits of Control (review forthcoming), so perhaps I enjoyed it more than I might have normally.

Sure, it's basically plotless. There's a MacGuffin about Max trying to buy some sort of weapon that disintegrates matter....or something. But I didn't watch The Losers for that. I watched it for the cast, and the promise of quip-filled action scenes. And it did not disappoint on that score. Yes, it's the kind of movie in which the characters wisecrack while dodging bullets. And, you know what? I have no problem with that. In the minus column, it's violence is restrained thanks to the PG-13 rating. Our guys mostly use tranquilizer darts and over-elaborate schemes to get around the baddies. And hey, that's fine. It's only during the last stretch that you wish that White would cut loose a little as the bloodless explosions pile up.

However, this can't take away from the cast. Watchmen's Jeffrey Dean Morgan enjoys his first lead role as the gruff team commander Clay, Avatar's Zoe Saldana clearly has fun not having to deliver all her dialogue with po-faced sincerity, and Idris Elba is solid as Clay's second-in-command Roque. Columbus Short and Óscar Jaenada round out The Losers as the family man vehicles expert and taciturn sniper respectively. Best of the bunch, however, is Chris Evans as nerdy communications man Jensen. He gets the best lines and makes the most of them with a comic timing and enthusiasm that bodes very well for Scott Pilgrim. Also, he almost manages to pry Journey's Don't Stop Believin' from Glee's syrupy grasp.

When we're following The Losers, everything is entertaining and fine. Things do go off the rails a bit when the focus shifts to Max, the gloved villain. Jason Patric does a very good job, reminding us that he was supposed to have a comeback after Narc, but the fact is that the story, beyond "revenge", is very weak. There are some funny moments (a misunderstanding of a nod from Max means that a man is thrown off a roof rather than slapped), but we want to get back to our heroes.

The bottom line is that there's enough here to keep us entertained, and entertained well. There's also more than enough promise to make me hope for a sequel. It's always refreshing when the "funny quips" are actually funny, and the chemistry that the cast share is fantastic. The Losers isn't perfect, but it's damn good fun. If you think this sounds like the kind of film you'd enjoy, chances are you will.

7/10

Recent Release Reviewed: The Killer Inside Me

Starring: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Tom Bower, Elias Koteas

Screenplay: John Curran and Michael Winterbottom, based on the novel by Jim Thompson

Director: Michael Winterbottom

"I love you."

In a small town in Texas in 1952, deputy Sheriff Lou Ford (Affleck) is told to convince prostitute Joyce Lakeland (Alba) to leave. Instead, he begins a violent affair with her, hiding the truth from his girlfriend Amy Stanton (Hudson). But a con involving the son of local tycoon Chester Conway (Ned Beatty) will soon reveal Ford's true nature.

N.B. This is my review. I thought I'd be much more impressed by this film. As it is, all that stuck with me when I left the cinema was the shock of the violent scenes. The rest of the film seemed almost incidental. Ben will write his review of the film when he's seen it, and he may well disagree with me entirely!

All the controversy surrounding Winterbottom's adaptation of Thompson's cult novel put me in mind of another film accused of misogyny: Lars von Trier's Antichrist. But while Antichrist see

med to revel in it's genre trappings, Winterbottom takes great pains to keep focus on the characters rather than the desert landscape or the 50s small town setting. Which begs the question, why set it there at all? I'll talk more about that later, but aside from a virtuoso opening title sequence, there's little other than the cars and the smoking to place The Killer Inside Me in the 1950s. The fact that Lou's a cop is only important in that he gains people's trust. As a waitress points out, he doesn't even carry a gun.

The three central performances are superb. Affleck's turn as Lou Ford, the every-man with the pitch dark soul, has drawn a lot of comparisons to his work as Robert Ford. However, while Robert was ultimately a somewhat tragic figure. Lou is a monster. While it might have been expected to cast an actor with a somewhat more cheerful demeanour to make the transition more chilling, Affleck's focus, and that horrifying little grin when he lets himself go, makes the central character chillingly magnetic. There's also the fact that Lou doesn't have a transition. People call him a nice guy, but we see very little evidence of that.

Alba shows a vital sadness and heart to the role of Joyce, the prostitute who is convinced that Lou is going to run away with her. The same goes for Hudson in the part of Amy, who initially seems to have more smarts and backbone but makes the exact same mistakes. Both actresses are normally to be seen in more family-friendly, upbeat fare, and both excel here. It's their old-fashioned movie-star good looks, personality and soulful eyes that make it so hard to watch when things take a horrible turn.

In terms of story, Winterbottom keeps focus solely on Lou. We see the world through his eyes, and hear his subdued world view through voice-over. For the first 20-30 minutes, this is gripping. After that, it settles into a disappointing sort of monotony. Because of this, there is a lot going on with the plot that we don't know about, and any supporting characters are pretty much incidental. This does mean that we have no one to root for. The two men closest to figuring out the truth are DA Howard Hendricks (Simon Baker), who needles and works Lou but can't quite catch him on a lie, and union man Joe Rothman (Elias Koteas), who's only concerned that the he and the union can't be seen to be to blame. Of the two, Howard is marginally more heroic, but neither seem to be especially likeable.

Winterbottom's aim seems to be to take a period which we tend to view with rose-tinted glasses and place scenes of horrible violence into it. But while it's well-shot and superbly acted (Beatty is excellent, as are Tom Bower as Lou's kindly boss, Brent Briscoe as a drunk drifter, and Bill Pullman in a fun cameo), there's nothing terribly compelling about the film other than its shock value. Once one of the women is horrifically dispatched, the rest of the film deals with Lou laconically covering his tracks, and waiting for that temper to reappear. The scenes of violence against women are unflinching in their honesty and are difficult to watch. Accusations of misogyny are misplaced, but frankly there's not much here that Joe Wright and Keira Knightley's PSA didn't cover.

I disagree with some of the flak the film has received, but not all of it. See it for Affleck, Alba and Hudson, and a couple of excellent scenes. However, there are a couple of tough-to-forgive missteps and it's surprisingly light on dramatic tension.

6.5/10

Ten Characters Played By: Michael Wincott

First off, we apologize for the delay. Been a long time.
Anyway, we love Michael Wincott. Suave, gravel-voiced, and very talented, he's one of the best at playing those who are off centre. So, here's a look at ten characters played by our man Wincott:

1. Matthew, Curtains (1983)
OK, so he doesn't actually have a single line in this. But the film is an underrated, genuinely creepy little horror, in which a film director (John Vernon) holds auditions for a leading lady in a big house in the woods. Needless to say, someone starts killing the hopeful leading ladies one by one. Wincott plays Matthew, Vernon's assistant, and swaggers into the film, louche and mysterious, sleeps with one of the actresses in the hot tub and is killed off early. All without saying a word. Alright, so maybe Matthew's not his best character. Good film, though.


2. Guy of Gisborne, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
"Might I have the pleasure of your name, before I run you through?"
Now we're talking. The best thing about Kevin Costner's cheesy, overblown version of the Robin Hood story were its villains, played with great relish by Alan Rickman and Michael Wincott. They got the best lines, and they knew it. Wincott's sniveling, cowardly villainy works wonderfully next to Rickman's grand pride and vanity. He'll shoot his mouth off when he's backed up by an army, but he still gets run through by his cousin the Sheriff. And he's stupid enough to question why the Sheriff would threaten someone with a spoon.


3. Top Dollar, The Crow (1994)
"I'm sorry if I spoiled your wedding plans there, friend. But, if it's any consolation to you, you have put a smile on my face."
Top Dollar, the villain of Alex Proyas' superb adaptation of James O'Barr's Gothic revenge comic, is perhaps Wincott's best-remembered performance, and with good reason. In a film that will always have Brandon Lee's shadow hanging over it (He died during filming), the fact is that when Wincott is on screen, you're watching him. As a villain, he's full of contradictions, going from introspective and melancholy to joyful murderous excess at the drop of a hat. That's what makes him impossible to forget. There's the creepy incestuous relationship with his sister, the obviously traumatic childhood ("Dad gave me this. Fifth birthday. He said "Childhood's over the day you know you're gonna die"), the acceptance of Eric Draven's supernatural abilities, and the relish with which he accepts the challenge. The Crow may not be the masterpiece its fans herald it as, but it is an excellent film, and a lot of that is due to Wincott.



4. Conway Twill, Dead Man (1994)
"I'll Tell you one thing: If that there Blake fella keeps on shootin' marshalls I might end up likin' the bastard!"
Wincott's performance in Jim Jarmusch's oddball western Dead Man has a different balance to his previous roles. Conway Twill is a bad man, one of three hired guns charged with hunting down William Blake (Johnny Depp), but his drinking and dirty jokes are nothing compared to the past acts (cannibalism, incest) of fellow mercenary Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen. Here, Wincott lends a much needed sense of levity to the proceedings. Twill's a simple man wandering through Jarmusch's bizarre landscape, one of the few characters not prone to double meanings and symbolism. He's out of tabacco, impressed by Blake's shooting of Marshalls, and unsettled by his employer's tendency to talk to a stuffed bear. He's funny, and becomes more and more likeable, but is obviously doomed by his decision to ride with Wilson.


5. Philo Gant, Strange Days (1995)
"Paranoia is just reality on a finer scale"
Kathryn Bigelow's sci-fi, written by James Cameron, is an odd one. Not good enough for "cult classic" status, but certainly not bad enough to be completely forgotten. Wincott plays the interestingly named Philo Gant, a record producer who's stolen our hero Lenny Nero's (Ralph Fiennes) rocker girlfriend (Juliette Lewis). Of course, given that he's played by Wincott, he's clearly a bad man, and the prime suspect when brutal murders start happening around Lenny. He's also such an obvious bastard that it's not much of a surprise when he turns out to be a red herring. Still, that's what Lenny gets for having Tom Sizemore for a best friend...Not Wincott's best performance, but he does well with an underwritten part.


6. Rene Ricard, Basquiat (1996)
"When I speak no one believes me, but when I write it down everybody knows it to be true"
Wincott followed his OTT villainy with a wonderfully sensitive performance as art critic/prophet Rene Ricard in Julian Schnabel's Jean-Michel Basquiat biopic. He puts that gravelly voice to a different use as the man who discovered Basquiat and set him up with his first show. Rene is flashy and flamboyant ("My God, you sound famous already) but easily hurt. The scene in which he watches Basquiat sell a painting previously dedicated to him to Warhol's manager (Dennis Hopper) is heartbreaking, as he storms out of the gallery. He reappears at a celebratory dinner, insults Warhol, and delivers the film's central message: "We're no longer collecting art; we're buying people." In a film packed with stars (Bowie! Dafoe! Walken! Hopper! Oldman!), Wincott's performance brings the heart. It should also be mentioned that Jeffrey Wright is terrific in the title role.


7. Frank Elgyn, Alien: Resurrection (1998)
"I'm guessing what you've got going on here ain't exactly approved by Congress?"
There's a lot wrong with Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien sequel, scripted for Joss Whedon. Fortunately, Michael Wincott's not one of them. A popular theory is that the gang of crooks that Elgyn leads was a blueprint for Firefly's loveable band of rogues, and it certainly applies for some of the characters (Ron Perlman's Johner is almost identical to Adam Baldwin's Jayne). However, Elgyn is certainly not Captain Mal. You wouldn't get Nathan Fillion referring to one of his crew as "severely fuckable." Elgyn wisecracks his way through the first twenty minutes, showing no concern for the morality of his mission, and proceeds to suffer one of the most frustratingly stupid deaths in the film. Note: If a gun is covered in slime, best to leave it. Don't keep walking down the corridor.


8. Heberto Zorilla Ochoa, Before Night Falls (2000)
Wincott re-teamed with Basquiat director Schnabel for this superb Reinaldo Arenas biopic. It's a small role, but a memorable one. Ochoa introduces Arenas (Javier Bardem) to the literary elite in Havana. In his most memorable scene, Ochoa is forced to testify before a tribunal. As sweat runs down his face and his voice trembles, we're reminded how well Wincott can portray vulnerability.


9. Julius Bicke, The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004)
"As of this moment, I wash my hands of you"
It's fair to say that this film is pretty much a one-man show, with a superb central performance from Sean Penn as the mentally unstable Samuel Bicke, despite good work from Naomi Watts and Don Cheadle. Wincott has one scene late in the film, as Samuel's severe brother. He reveals that Samuel has stolen from him, and disowns him. There's nothing big or flashy here, just a solid depiction of solemn authority. The film's worth hunting down, too.


10. Hayes, Seraphim Falls (2006)
"I never was much for scripture"
The decision to cast Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson in a gritty chase Western is an odd one, no question. However, it's difficult to argue with the casting of Wincott as Hayes, the foul-mouthed, callous gun-hand hired by Carver (Neeson) to help him hunt Gideon (Brosnan). Asked by a young colleague how to spell "wife", Hayes tells him "W-H-O-R-E". It may not be a complex part, but it's a pleasure to watch his obvious discomfort as he and Neeson take shelter in a Christian missionary camp. As for the film, it's underrated but takes an ill-advised turn for the dream-like in the final third.

Recent Release Reviewed: The Box

The Box
Starring: Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, James Rebhorn, Gillian Jacobs
Screenplay: Richard Kelly, based on the short story Button, Button by Richard Matheson
Director: Richard Kelly

1976. Things are tough for Norma and Arthur Lewis. He's a NASA scientist who's been turned down for astronaut training. She's a teacher at a private school, and has been informed that the school will no longer pay for their son's tuition. Enter the mysterious, gruesomely scarred Arlington Steward, bearing a box with a button. Press it, and they will be paid a million dollars. The consequence is that someone, somewhere in the world who they do not know will die.

First things first: I thought I'd like The Box. And after I watched it, I found that I didn't. Now, my opinion may well change after a second viewing; there is a lot in the film, I think, that would benefit from a re-watch. But this first time left me cold. Richard Kelly's return to cinema after the roundly derided Southland Tales is a very mixed bag. The big plus is that it's a great moral conundrum that the characters have to face. Financial security weighed against the life of a stranger. And to the characters' credit, it's a decision that they don't take lightly. But they do take it. And it's there that the story begins to slip. It's obvious from the get-go that Steward isn't telling them everything, but the morality of their decision is inescapable. And it's not a spoiler to tell you that they make the wrong choice. Otherwise, there would be no film.

A big problem lies in the casting. Of course, the Lewis family isn't exactly on the poverty line. Both Arthur and Norma have good jobs. As Arthur points out, they don't need a million dollars to be happy. The film is set in Virginia, which means that Diaz is playing a Southern housewife, which, contrary to other reviews, she does not pull off. Just because she's now age-appropriate, it doesn't mean the actress can get away with giving what is a fundamentally bad performance. The Luthers also have a son, which the characters only seem to remember when it's necessary for the story. As Norma becomes more and more distraught, Diaz' performance frays at the seams. Marsden fares better in an admittedly less challenging role, but suffers the same pitfalls towards the final third. That said, the two actors work best when they are with each other. A sub-plot involving Arthur creating a prosthetic for Norma's disfigured foot is performed gently and sweetly by the two leads. But generally, I did find myself wondering if the film would have worked better with different actors in the roles of the Luthers. Of the leads, only Frank Langella finds the happy medium between auto-pilot and ham as the enigmatic Steward, giving the occasional twitch of empathy even as his incredibly cruel mission continues onwards

There's also a unforgivablewaste of the supporting talent. Celia Weston and Holmes Osborne are given little to do as Norma's parents, and deserve much more screen-time. Osborne was fantastic as the father in Donnie Darko, while Weston (Observe and Report, Igby Goes Down, Junebug) seems condemned to play drunken inadequate Southern moms for the rest of her career (admittedly, she does it very well). Superb character actor James Rebhorn (The Game, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Carlito's Way) is given even less in what is potentially the most interesting character in the film, as Arthur's boss who uncovers the truth surrounding Steward. Frankly, a film based around him would have made for a much more compelling movie. There is also good work from Community star Gillian Jacobs as the Luthers' babysitter who may be linked to Seward.

As for the story, it has its twists and turns but is finally fairly straightforward. There's no room for interpretation here, as there was in Donnie Darko, and Richard Kelly refuses to get lost in the twists and turns as he did in Southland Tales. But this means that some of the more interesting aspects end up unexplored. For all of Southland Tales' faults (and there were many), it did not lack for ambition. I'm not criticising The Box for keeping it's focus relatively tight, but the film's decision to not explore the grander scheme means that the it lives and dies by its lead characters. And frankly I found it difficult to care. I'm not against movie-star casting, and I understand why it was necessary for Kelly to cast a big-name (otherwise a film like this would not have been made in the studio system), but the star must be able to make us forget that we're watching a star. Diaz simply does not work here.

The Box is certainly not a disaster, however. Kelly has a knack for the unnerving, and several sequences here will have you at the edge of your seat, provided that you are willing to go along with it. Seward informs Norma that he has many employees, dead-eyed nose-bleeders who trail our heroes wherever they go. The best use of this, however, is during a scene in which Gillian Jacobs' babysitter sees a shadow outside the window. A similar sequence, in which we actually see one of these men watching Norma from her yard works well, but not as well as before. By the time crowds of these people are following Arthur and Norma around a library, it's a trick repeated once too often.

It's worth watching The Box. I suspect that I might have enjoyed it more in a different mood, or if I watch it again. There are scenes in the film that will remind you why we all went ga-ga over Richard Kelly in the first place. The 1976 setting is rendered beautifully, from the costumes to the set-design, and the NASA-Mars connection is certainly intriguing. I'm favourably inclined to films that aren't afraid to embrace more fantastical and bizarre influences, particularly from this period, but I do think that by the second act, in which Richard is forced to choose a wormhole, you'll know which side of the fence you're on. I do think that Button, Button may have best been left as a short story, however. A noble effort, perhaps. But there is too much here that does not work for The Box to be a success.

6/10

TV Guide: Part 3

And so, the final part of our network round-up is here. After this we'll look at some of our favourite shows in a lot more detail, but here are the last few networks that we're looking at.

Showtime
Sex, violence, swearing?: Oh yes. Showtime is a cable network.
Past programmes: An interesting mix. Stargate started here, and they co-financed The Outer Limits. Bryan Fuller's Dead Like Me had two troubled seasons, as did Masters of Horror. More conventional dramas include Huff, The L Word, Brotherhood, and Sleeper Cell.
On the air: Showtime boast three of the most popular cable shows. There's Jenji Kohan's Weeds, starring Mary-Louise Parker as a suburban single mom who starts dealing drugs, which is about to start it's sixth, increasingly dark, season. There's David Duchovny-starring Californication, about the sexual misadventures of a writer, which is going into its fourth season. The biggest hitter is Dexter, starring Michael C. Hall as the mild-mannered blood-spatter analyst who moonlights as a serial killer. Darkly funny and gripping, Dexter will soon be starting its fifth season. Other shows include Nurse Jackie, starring Edie Falco as a pill-popping nurse, Diablo Cody's The United States of Tara, starring Toni Collette as a the mother with multiple personalities, and The Tudors.
Upcoming: Laura Linney stars as a suburban mom with cancer in The Big C, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will produce an as-yet untitled comedy about friends who run a porno store, Neil Jordan will produce Tudors-alike drama The Borgias, and there's a sci-fi series about synthetic people called Syns.
Must-see TV?: Yes, absolutely. Dexter is superb, recovering from a couple of wobbles during season three for an excellent fourth season. Diablo Cody has promised a better season two for United States of Tara, and Weeds and Californication are generally pretty solid.

Syfy
Sex, violence, swearing?: Frak no!
Past programmes: The network that used to be called Sci-Fi is, of course, best known for it's science fictions shows. Andromeda, Stargate and it's various spin-offs, Sliders, Farscape, and the best of the bunch, Battlestar Galactica. They also were responsible for the awful revamps of Flash Gordon and The Bionic Woman, Mystery Science Theatre 3000, Tremors, and The Invisible Man. Mini-series include the excellent The Lost Room, starring Peter Krause and Julianna Marguiles, the bizarre Tin Man, and the Battlestar Galactica mini-series that kick-started the full reboot.
On the air: Battlestar spin-off Caprica is getting great reviews, while Eureka is more of a niche-appeal show. Sanctuary, starring Stargate's Amanda Tapping, gets good viewing figures, as does Buffy writer Jane Espenson's Warehouse 13. There's also Stargate: Universe, which stars Robert Carlyle. The network also owns the rights to several shows that originally aired on other networks, such as Firefly, Dead Like Me, Lost, and many, many others. Syfy is making the unpleasant move into more reality programming, but the quality of their original programming is impressive.
Upcoming: The only upcoming show on their schedule is a live-action Star Wars series, with minor characters from the movies. George Lucas' lust for money continues unabated. Mostly, however, Syfy is just renewing their shows for more seasons.
Must-see?: Depends on your tastes. While Battlestar Galactica remains one of the best things to have happened to TV in the last decade at least, the rest of their shows are entertaining but not essential. Only Caprica seems to be on the verge of becoming something special.


TNT
Sex, violence, swearing?: No.
Past programmes: TNT has only started making their own programmes very recently, previously focusing on sports. Series to have only lasted one season include Heartland, starring Treat Williams, and Saved, starring Tom Everett Scott. Their high-point was the recently cancelled Saving Grace, starring Holly Hunter. They did have some success with miniseries, such as Spielberg-produced Into the West, and Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes
On the air: A bit better here. Leverage, starring Timothy Hutton, Christian Kane and Beth Riesgraf, is a fun series about master criminals robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. The Closer features Kyra Sedgwick yelling at criminals, while Dark Blue features Dylan McDermott as an undercover cop. TNT picked up cancelled NBC drama Southland for its second season, but its future is unclear. Comedy-wise, Men of a Certain Age, starring Scott Bakula, Andre Braugher, and Ray Romano, has been getting solid reviews
Upcoming: Another cop show called Bunker Hill, starring Bridget Moynahan and Donnie Wahlberg, and Alien Invasion, produced by Steven Spielberg, which we assume will do exactly what it says on the tin.
Must-see TV?: Not particularly. Leverage is good fun but aside from that there's nothing here that you'd miss.


USA
Sex, violence, swearing?: No.
Past programmes: Like TNT, USA has only started making shows fairly recently, but they've all been really quite popular. The Dead Zone ran for five years, and The 4400 got solid viewing figures. Their biggest hit was Monk, starring Tony Shalhoub as the obsessive compulsive detective.
On the air: Psych, starring The West Wing's Dulé Hill, plows the same ground as Monk with entertaining quirkiness. There's medical drama Royal Pains, In Plain Sight, which stars Mary McCormack as a US Marshal, and White Collar, about a con man who helps the FBI. Their flagship show is the very entertaining Burn Notice, which stars Jeffrey Donovan as a fired spy living in Miami trying to figure out who screwed him over. It has the not insignificant added bonus of featuring Bruce Campbell as one of the main cast.
Upcoming: Nothing very inspiring. Medical drama Operating Instructions, CIA drama Covert Affairs, and lawyer drama Facing Kate. Seriously, were these the best titles they could come up with? More interesting is Stiffs, which will be about a single dad juggling his commitment to his daughter with his job in a mortuary.
Must-see TV?: Not particularly. Like TNT, there's one good show (Burn Notice), then a lot of filler.


The CW
Sex, violence, swearing?: No. Although, after the watershed, they're not afraid of a bit of blood.
Past programmes: The CW has swallowed up The WB and UPN, taking it's programmes with it. This means that they broadcast Veronica Mars, Gilmore Girls, Reba, Everybody Hates Chris, and Reaper.
On the air: Somehow young Superman show Smallville is still going on. Gossip Girl, 90210, The Vampire Diaries, and One Tree Hill all focus heavily on the teen market, and are not within our realm of interest. Supernatural can be a lot of fun, or it can be terrible. It's a 50/50 shot, but it's popular enough to have been renewed for a sixth season.
Upcoming: There's an "Untitled Robert De Niro" drama in development, and something called Bitches in Britches, which we doubt will be as witty as its title.
Must-see TV?: Veronica Mars was great, but was cancelled after three seasons. Basically, Supernatural is the only thing worth watching here.


Well, the last three networks weren't great, were they? But anyway, that concludes our overview of TV networks. Soon we'll look at our favourite shows in more detail.

Recent Release Reviewed: Kick-Ass

Kick-Ass
Starring: Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Mark Strong
Screenplay: Jane Goldman and Matthew Vaughn based on the comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.
Director: Matthew Vaughn

"Tool up, Honey-bunny. It's time to get bad guys"

Dave Lizewski is a regular, nerdy high school nobody until he decides to put on a costume and fight crime as Kick-Ass. After being so badly beaten that his nerve endings are too damaged to feel pain, he starts winning fights and becomes an internet sensation. But he's not the only costumed crime-fighter in town. Soon he meets Hit Girl and Big Daddy, a father-daughter duo who are taking their vigilantism is a bit more seriously and racking up quite the body count.

During the first scene in which the well-intentioned but basically inept Dave meets Hit Girl, he spends most of the scene cowering on the floor while the 11 year-old child dismembers a room full of bad guys, wisecracking and grinning. The look on his face his pure terror. The look on hers is glee. This sums up in a very simplistic fashion a viewer's response to watching Kick-Ass. Yes, it's shocking to see this young girl kill so many people in superbly and imaginatively choreographed set-pieces. But it's damn entertaining.

But let's start at the beginning. This is the third feature for director Matthew Vaughn after Layer Cake and Stardust, and his second with co-writer Goldman. It's also his best by quite some way. While Stardust benefited hugely from a sense of humour to offset the fantastical story-line, Kick-Ass benefits from moments of straight-faced darkness that remind us that this mostly comedic film is set in the real world. Dave's mother wasn't killed by a mobster, she was killed by a brain aneurysm. People do get hurt, and characters do get killed. Of course, that doesn't mean that the film lacks comic fantasy.

The film starts as a funny riff on Spider-Man, with Dave Lizewski (played well by Nowhere Boy's Aaron Johnson) growing bored of his inconsequential life, hanging out with his friends and the comic book store and being regularly mugged. When he asks his friends why no one has tried it before, the answer is simple: "Because they'd get their ass kicked!". They're not wrong. His first attempts at fighting crime end shockingly violently, and lead to his "super-power". Dave's action scenes are believable and painful.

While these scenes are good, they pale in comparison to those featuring Hit Girl and Big Daddy. We're introduced to the two characters as he is about to shoot her in the chest with a hand-gun to show her that there's nothing to be afraid of. "I wouldn't be afraid anyway" she tells him, but puts up with it. Their real identities are Damon and Mindy Macready, who are working their way up towards mob boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong). It's been a while since Nicolas Cage has been this good. We're used to seeing him play quirky, but there's a heart and a sadness here that is too often missing from the actor's work. His performance is an excellent combination of comic oddity, paternal tenderness, and dark hints at psychosis.

Then there's Chloe Moretz. Kick-Ass would be a far inferior film were it not for her performance. She manages not to coast by on the fact that her character is violent and swears a lot, giving a geniunely witty turn and hinting that there may be a little girl inside. It's not too big a hint though. Mostly, she just enjoys killing bad guys. My hopes for the Let the Right One In remake have gone up after this film. The cast is rounded out by Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad's McLovin) playing the geeky son of Frank D'Amico who dresses up as crime-fighter Red Mist and Mark Strong as D'Amico himself, who has a lot of fun as the increasingly furious mob boss.

The action is handled well by Vaughn, and for the most part the film manages not to betray its meager budget. The set-pieces match the tone of the film: startling violent but comically over-the-top. The "New York" streets do occasionally look like a sound-stage but not too often. The soundtrack is also impressive, making excellent use of pieces of music from 28 Days Later and Sunshine in amongst the catchy pop-rock.

This most certainly isn't for everyone, but if you found the trailers funny, the film is fantastic. It's hilarious, shocking, exciting, and frankly kick-ass. Also, it's got that rare thing: The good Nicolas Cage performance. Catch it!

8/10

Very foul-mouthed Hit-Girl trailer:

Recent Release Reviewed: The House of the Devil

The House of the Devil
Starring: Jocelin Donahue, Tom Noonan, Mary Woronov, Greta Gerwig
Written and directed by: Ti West

"Are you not the babysitter?"

1980s. A title card explains that during the 1980s over 70% of Americans believed in the existence of abusive Satanic cults. College student Samatha (Donahue) needs cash, fast. She's just found her dream apartment, but has to raise the deposit before the weekend. Desperate, she finds a flyer advertising a babysitting job for Mr. Ullman (Noonan). Mr. Ullman sounds creepy on the phone, but he's willing to pay her well for a single night's work. When she and her friend Megan go up to their huge house in the middle of nowhere, Ullman reveals that he wasn't entirely truthful. Megan thinks they should leave, but Samantha decides to take the job anyway...

The House of the Devil is a love-letter to films from the 1970s and 1980s. From the poster to the soundtrack, from the "based on true unexplained events" premise to the clothes and colour palette, everything is beautifully reminiscent of a past era of horror film-making. It's also really rather good. The last time a film was promoted in a similar fashion we got the underwhelming Grindhouse, with it's great trailers and posters but disappointing substance (although I do like Planet Terror). The House of the Devil is a different animal. For those expecting an exploitation film due to the poster and the tagline, that's part of the joke. Spooky films like Halloween and Rosemary's Baby seem to be the touchstones here. A big clue with regards to tone should be the presence of Larry Fessenden as producer, who wrote and directed low-key horror films Wendigo and The Last Winter.

Ti West has become the next big horror director thanks to this film, and based on the evidence presented here, it's a deserved title. His first film, The Roost, wasn't great but was well-intentioned and boasted a great Tom Noonan cameo, and from all accounts Cabin Fever 2 is awful, but West has disowned it as a product of studio meddling. Here, he shows a very impressive handling of pace and tension, as well as proving adept at building menace.

Jocelin Donahue is a great discovery as Samantha. Apart from looking the part, she carries the film with a believable performance as her growing apprehension leads to terror. Mary Woronov is appropriately creepy as Mrs. Ullman, who makes odd references to the Ullman family history, and Greta Gerwig (who's been getting raves for Greenberg) makes for a excellently sarky and funny best friend. There's also a nice cameo from Dee Wallace (formerly Dee Wallace Stone) as "The Landlady".

The real star of the film, however, is Tom Noonan as Mr. Ullman. It's hard to think of another actor who can make creepy so sympathetic. With another actor, Mr. Ullman's dialogue would become typical "horror movie villain" dialogue. But with Noonan, there's always the possibility in the back of the viewer's mind that Ullman is geniuinely well-intentioned but keeps making a bad choice of words. "Oh, thank goodness. You're saving me. And I promise to make this as painless for you as possible." Of course, at the front of our minds is the thought that Ullman is up to no good. But his soft voice is so wonderfully at odds with his imposing height, dark suit and cane.

The House of the Devil goes at it's own pace. No suspicions are confirmed or dispelled until quite late into the film. We keep waiting for something to happen, which makes the sudden bursts of action really very shocking. An impatient viewer would call the film boring, but if you let yourself be immersed in the story and the atmosphere, The House of the Devil is one of the most rewarding horror films I've seen in a long time. And it is all about the atmosphere. This should appeal to horror fans, as well as those not usually drawn to the genre. It's a slow build rather than a gory blood-fest. And Tom Noonan is just excellent.

9/10