Wronger Than A Wrong Thing On A Very Wrong Day

If you thought Tom Six's film The Human Centipede (First Sequence) was sick and twisted, you ain't seen nothing yet. Six is back with a sequel The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) which push the boundaries of taste and violence to the next level.

This time the story take a post-modern twist by having the main character Martin be obsessed by the actual film The Human Centipede, watching it obsessively again and again during his long, lonely shifts as a public car park attendant. Unlike the first film which sets up an air of mystery before revealing it's twisted agenda, the violence kicks in almost immediately laying it's cards squarely on the table. Martin is clearly not a stable man.

There's lots of things which, when combined, make this an even more uncomfortable watch than it's predecessor. Most obviously the film is shot on a grainy black and white film stock which immediately makes the movie feel grimy and grubby. The monochrome visual look is fortunate when it comes to the constant and uninhibited bloodletting that occurs, as it blunts the impact of the goriness for the audience.
In addition to the surface level murder, assaults, maiming, surgery and general physical and verbal violence that occurs there's also a provocative subtext of how child abuse warps an adults morality later in life, that sexual arousal can be gained from watching and participating in violent acts in an unbalanced mind, and of course that 'art' can influence a mentally sick person negatively. The violence occurs in the movie on a pretty regular basis. Since the events depicted are of a copy cat nature (performed by an ill equipped, lacking-in-knowledge amateur) of the events in the first film the audience no longer has the 'luxury' of witnessing a clinical, sterile procedure...this is crude, messy and nasty. And finally, there's the final act, with events becoming more and more extreme, excessive and outrageous.

The director has a knack for casting and in Lawrence R Harvey he finds a magnificent leading man, just as he did with the creepy Dieter Laser in the first film. Harvey looks physically repulsive to begin with (sorry mate) and the fact that his unnerving performance is almost entirely mute (which carries every scene of the film)makes him all the more weird and unsettling.

Undoubtedly the film is an uncomfortable viewing experience. However it reopens a debate about whether art can simultaneously be a critique of something as well as being the thing it seeks to criticise. Starship Troopers is a good example. It both shows characters clearly supporting a Nazi-like totalitarian society whilst cleverly taking the piss out of it. Lucky McKee's The Woman shows men clearly enjoying, and benefiting from, the subjugation of women (something the film has been attacked for)...and yet it also explores the negative consequences of this. The Human Centipede 2 shows a man who is inspired to do evil things by a film and is seen to revel in it. As the concerned British censers have already noted, real life nutters could be inspired by the sequel to perform vile acts themselves. But in dramatise a subject, in order to discuss a subject, you sometimes have to show the subject blatantly on screen. Is it possible a nutter may get inspired by Human Centipede 2. Yes. All people are influenced by all types of sensory input, including all forms of art (films, book, photos, music, blogs, sculptures etc) whether they embrace it, dismiss it or ignore it. Is it right to be disgusted by Human Centipede 2. Oh yes, it pretty damned grim. But it's not right to just dismiss the film as purely provocative exploitation. It is that...but it's also a study of that...and that gives the film artistic worth.

Wild Thing You Make My Heart Sing

Director Lucky McKee is a vastly under rated commodity in Hollywood. Whether it's his films May, The Woods, or the best episode of the Masters Of Horror TV series 'Sick Girl' the guy knows how to weave horror, female-centric character studies coupled with the blackest of humour. His latest, The Woman, takes his vision to even more brutal and extreme limits in a tale of a feral woman that is abducted by a seemingly civilized rural family.

It's an exploration of the attitudes towards women in society from the fiercely independent, as seen in Pollyanna McIntosh's feral woman of the title, to the beaten wife and the sexually abused daughter, and how those attitudes are passed down to the next generation from father to son. There are great performances throughout, notably from McKee regular Angela Bettis (who can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned) but it's Sean Bridgers as Chris Cleek, the dominant head of the family, who's the real standout. He mixes a down to earth, laid back charm with brief, angry bursts of violence when a female steps out of line. It's a tough role to pull off but Bridgers manages to convince this isn't a simply evil man (although what he does is despicable)but one with a morally outdated and twisted worldview.

The Woman is sometimes graphic, often shocking in it's content and occasionally a little uncomfortable to watch. But then, that's life. Let's not forget that in some parts of the world women are treated as bad as this, if not worse. Cheap exploitation this is not. McKee might be lucky in name but luck has nothing to do with how good this is.

Brum, And Then Some

I put off seeing Pixar's Cars for a really long time, which is weird since it comes from a company that hasn't dropped the quality ball at all in its history. But the trailer wasn't enough to convince me that the cutsie speaking motor cars were better than the generic fluff that Dreamworks slap out twice a year. But seen it I have and jolly good it is too.

I was right in thinking that this isn't top tier Pixar like Wall-E, Ratatouille and Up. Nope this is second rung Pixar in the vein of Bugs Life, Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo...colourful, well written, beautifully animated...but lacking that vital sophistication that transcends most family entertainment movies and makes it something exceptional for people of all ages. The gags are far too childish, too often, and the story far too predictable. Plus, of course, the adult mind can't help but pick apart the logic of a mechanical motorised universe populated entirely without human beings. But the telling of the story is so strong, and so well structured, that it's very easy to ignore the canyons of internal logic and buckle up for the fun and charming ride.

With A View To A Retirement

Oh dear. And I thought Octopussy was bad. A View To A Kill is the Bond franchise at absolute rock bottom, no matter how much I might whinge about Die Another Day, Licence To Kill or The Man With The Golden Gun.

Moore looks fricking ancient in this. I mean, where the hell did his eyebrows go in the intervening 2 years since the last Bond film? Sure, he's still charming, funny and charismatic, but he dresses like a pensioner and looks frail, unlike Harrison Ford in Indy 4, Stallone in The Expendables or Connery in LXG, who all looked like they could kick Statham's arse, even in their advancing years.

Apart from the massive San Andreas mine set at the finale, the whole production looks cheap, uninspired and small in scale. The locations this time look like an exercise in budget cuts, being mainly shot in dull, unexotic locales like the English countryside and Southern California. Of course the story doesn't help with Bond blandly investigating the world of horse breeding and mining. What fun! The stunt work is impressive as ever, especially the pre-credits snow sequence, the Paris car chase and a fire engine smash-em-up through San Fransisco...but there's very little that gels into a coherent, exciting action sequence for anything more than five seconds. Oh and let's not forget the trademark Bond rear-screen projection which ruins every action sequence the technique appears in...which is most of them.

It's not all bad. Christopher Walken is a great, OTT baddie, it's always nice to see Patrick Macnee on the big screen, Last Crusade's Alison Doody is cute, cute, cute and I've always liked the Duran Duran theme song. Also, the Bond girls, Tanya Roberts and Grace Jones, might be terrible, terrible actresses, but at least they have what most of Roger Moore's leading ladies do not. Spunk (or in Jones's cases, balls too).

A View To A Kill can be summed up by Lois Maxwell; she should be led slowly to her wheelchair and rolled quietly into a soundproofed cupboard to retire. Moore should have retired in '81 and the production team replaced, in front and behind the camera at that time too...just as they did with Goldeneye in '95.

Occupy Lucasfilm

Whether you're into Star Wars or not, if you want an insight into the relationship between the fans of art and the artist himself, look no further than the documentary The People Vs George Lucas. This is a quite in depth look at the man himself, Star Wars and Indiana Jones creator George Lucas, and the fan community that has grown up around his iconic works from 1977 to the present day.

Despite looking at this complex relationship from multiple different angles, the film keeps returning to one key question; should an artist have the right to go back and alter their work after it has been placed into the public domain? Of course Star Wars is the perfect piece of art to discuss this with at it's been a part of Western culture (not just popular culture) for 34 years now covering generations of fans.

The fans, other artists, and Lucas himself talk about the key moments that have spawned this intense debate like the 1997 Special Editions, Han Shot First, the prequel trilogy, Nooooooooooooo!, Midechloreons, Crystal Skull and the infamous Star Wars Christmas Special of 1978. A fascinating debate that there's not really any answer to, except to say (George, release the originals on Blu ray, Godammit!!!)

The Prequel Of The Prequel Of The Pants-Meets-Shit Project

It's a well known statistic that third films in movie trilogies suck...or at least fail to live up to what's come before. Therefore it's a great pleasure to report that the second cash-in, er sequel, to Paranormal Activity is a resounding success.

As with film two, Paranormal Activity 3 is a prequel, this time taking us back to the events of Katie and Kristi as children, which was alluded to in the first film.
If anything, this plays better than part two. The job of any follow up is to retain the elements of the film series which work the best and define it as a brand...while at the same time make changes that keep the concept fresh and interesting.

The first part of this is done extremely well with another contemporary family in a recognizable contemporary suburban house being plagued by creepy noises and spooky goings on. The screenwriters make a smart move by making some characters catch on to the supernatural happenings early on allowing the audience to side with them as they try and work out what the hell to do. Again shot in a found footage style, the film has a realism and documentary like intensity that comes from the hand held camera style and long uninterrupted takes. And having learned their lessons from the preceding movie, directors Henry Joust and Ariel Schulman stage some beautifully and tensely crafted suspense sequences all generated by convincing performances, mysterious noises and some shit-your-pants jumpy bits.

Having two vulnerable, pre-teen girls at the centre of the story adds an extra degree of jeopardy on top of the usual high levels of suspense while the late 80's setting creates it's own rewards. A great creative breakthrough (for the writers as well as one of the characters) is when he straps a video camera onto a rotating desk fan...essentially creating a moving CCTV camera. It's a genius cinematic invention. As the camera slowly pans from the lounge to the kitchen tension is wracked to a whole other level as the audience anticipates what the camera will see next when it returns it's view to the next room.

It expands the mythology of the franchise in a way that doesn't undermine what's come before and allows you to leave the cinema both satisfied, and with a full pant load of shit. Excellent stuff.

Real Steel = Real Deal

When I first heard about Real Steel I though the concept sounded kind of cool, but I couldn't generate too much excitement due to the fact that Shawn Levy had been announced as the director. I mean, why would you get enthusiastic for a project from the maker of The Pink Panther remake or Night At The Museum. But it turns out producer Steven Spielberg was right to choose him as Real Steel is, hands down, one of the most unashamedly entertaining films of the year.

The plot is nice and simple. Estranged father (Hugh Jackman) and son (Dakota Goyo)bond in a summer competing in the world of robot boxing. That's a strong foundation to build a strong script which is tightly paced and rich in character development....if a little familiar to Disney dramas and boxing movies alike. Spice it up with some beautiful contemporary glossy photography, the best effects ILM can produce (the robots are better than their Transformers counterparts and are indistinguishable from their animatronic twins), a rousing Danny Elfman score and a good, old fashioned song soundtrack (with The Prodigy, Foos, Limp Bizkit, Alexi Murdoch, etc).

One of the key reasons for this working so very very well is the casting. The father character Charlie is a pretty unlikable fellow being selfish, greedy, unfocused and ignorant. Thankfully Hugh Jackman is a genuine 100% movie star with the acting ability and charisma to pull off the role and make him both likable and sympathetic, despite his foibles (it's been mentioned this would have been a perfect role for Mel Gibson 20 years ago and I have to agree.) Surprisingly child actor Goyo gives Jackman a run for his money with a wonderfully judged performance that balances a strong-willed, stubborn child , an innocence and wide eyed enthusiasm plus a maturity beyond his years that makes this kid the perfect person to play the son of Hugh Jackman's dad. And it's a pleasure to see Evangeline Lily once again, after the end of Lost last year, in a tough yet tender supporting role that benefits from the work she puts in to bring the character to life.

Hats off to Shawn Levy for pulling this off. Tonally it's spot on...a modern day incarnation of the movie Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment specialised in back in the 80's. It puts the drama and characters up front and centre, with the action and effects a secondary consideration. And damn those fight are good. They might just been pixels smashing the bejesus out of each other but thanks to the emotion Jackman and Goyo invest in them, and the fantastic staging Levy has cobbled from a million boxing movies, you end of rooting for Adam the underdog Rocky Robot.

While it's sentimental at times, it's emotion that's never unwelcome or forced. This is a warm family movie possessing that rare human touch which is sadly lacking in the frenetic, shallow family fare of modern PG rated cinema. As a friend reported to me before I saw Real Steel, "You'll what to stand up and shout HIT HIM!!!".
Ain't that the truth.

Fear The Creeper

Creepshow 2; sadly this shoddy sequel was my introduction to the Creepshow franchise, the brainchild of horror icons George A Romero and Stephen King. Where the first film embraced it's pulp comic origins thanks to some solid work by Romero as director, the sequel just comes across as a lazy, made for TV cash in. There's one less story than in the original, so it's thankfully brief, and the tales that are included are tension free and without the clever, shocking endings you'd expect from a collection of stories of this kind.

Of the three tales "The Raft" is still the most visually interesting, even though the menace is supplied by a bin liner in a lake, but it's the Lois Chiles headed segment " The Hitchhiker" with it's decomposing Tom Wright (thanks to some gory KNB FX)that lingers longest in the memory.

A weak horror anthology effort, but one that's not without its charms.

Eight Pussies Is Not Enough

And to think but a few days ago I was as pleased as punch for rediscovering the delights of the big, ludicrous Roger Moore Bond film when I saw Moonraker for the first time in years...maybe even decades. It was such a surprisingly positive experience that it inspired me to watch another Moore effort, 1983's Octopussy.

Well, that certainly burst my bubble. While there's much to like in this grand 007 adventure, there's an awful lot to get irritated by:-

1/ Blimey. Roger looks old here. His hair and clothes are that of an 'older gentleman', he's no longer convincing in a scrap...or a seduction scene for that matter. However, he's still a great leading man.

2/ John Glen return as director and his 70's directing style is coming across a bit stale, especially when you consider Octopussy was made in the era of Donner, Spielberg and Zemekis. The action stuff is very static and Glen has a nasty habit of using crash zooms instead of dolly shots which dates the work horribly.

3/ The production design is flat and uninventive, while the interior sets look fake and hokey. It's not helped by Alan Hume's softy focus photography which seems to cheapen the interior locations more often than not.

4/ Octopussy's got one of the best pre-title action set pieces of the series with it's ballsy miniature jet sequence. Unfortunately, very little of the action measures up to this. The buggy chase through Delhi is fun (although very daft)and Bond's frantic chase to stop the Nuke from going off is tense and expertly staged, but there just not enough of it...or enough of it done well to give the film credit.

5/ Finally, and most importantly, Octopussy is edited with all the energy of a comatose Snail. It's sooooooooooo slow. Boring even. And that's inexcusable. Too much of the narrative gets bogged down in India for the middle act while the plot sees Bond in another one of his leisurely, intrigue-free investigations yet again.

It's not all dull. Maud Adams is one of the few Bond leading ladies from the Moore era who's actually a good actress (no wonder they brought her back after her stint in The Man With The Golden Gun) and barking mad Steven Berkoff is value for money no matter what he's doing.

Hey ho. Maybe in 20 years I'll get round to checking out A View To A Kill once again.

Writer Director Producer Actor

Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy is something of a rare beast and Working Title are to be commended for even considering producing the thing. It's an adult spy thriller. Its a spy thriller, for adults. It's densely plotted, has extremely subtle and complex characters, it introduces you to the world of 70's British espionage and expects you to pay attention to the structure and the rules of this world and it moves at a snails pace in terms of editing (although the plot is rocketing along simultaneously with multiple characters on different levels).

Kids who like their spy movies fast (The Bourne Franchise), funny (Austin Powers), adventurous (James Bond), juvenile (Agent Cody Banks) or bullshit (Salt) won't like this at all. Meticulously constructed by Tomas Alfredson it requires the viewer to pay attention to what's going on. The relationships, the spy world, the jargon, the operations is thrown at you constantly, often without the back stories and history that make it easier for an audience to follow, making it imperative that you watch out for character's reaction, place names, past events, etc to keep on top of the labyrinthian plot. It may sound like a lot of work but if you put the effort in the narrative strands gradually combine into a wholly satisfying and cohesive tale. It reminds me of the excellent L.A. Confidential in that too was a movie with multiple characters and complex story strands which combined into a rewarding whole.

The performances are sublime too, with Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, Mark Strong and Colin Firth all delivering refined, top notch character work. Of course, Gary Oldman as the forcibly retired George Smiley tops them all. Here is a character who's been in the spy game, and who gives virtually nothing away, but whose inner light which emerges when his thoughts turn to his wife or his Russian counterpart (and nemesis) Karla in the merest flicker of the eyes and subtle changes in his body language.It's a great piece of work from Oldman which will, hopefully, give Oldman a well deserve Oscar nod in the new year.

Great, great stuff. They don't make stuff like this very often so savour it while you can.

Señorita Gonna Beatcha

Columbiana may not be the best thing to come out of Luc Besson's production stable, but it's a worthy addition to his collection of bullshit action movies like The Transporter, Taken, Kiss Of The Dragon and District 13.

It's got everything you'd want from Bullshit Besson. Full on, R-rated action, a memorable and lively supporting cast (Lennie James, Cliff Curtis, Jordi Molla), classy Eurostyle direction, an appreciation of character as well as action, and an underlying coolness that saturates all Besson's stuff. On top of that you have the pleasure of watching Godess Zoe Saldana take names and kick arse for 110 minutes while she demonstrates a level of acting ability that's above and beyond the call of duty for this kind of thing.

On the downside, Oliver Megaton's direction lacks a certain 'zing' and the script is taken from the revenge thriller playbook page one. But it looks good, plays just fine and you'll lap it up if this is your thang.

Bitchslap Da Wolfpack

Forget Occupy Wall Street. Someone needs to occupy Hollywood for the mirth-free psychological pain and misery brought upon me by The Hangover Part II. Someone in Tinseltown, and I'm looking at you greedy Warner Bros executives, thought it might be a good idea to make a sequel to one of the most average comedies in years. Yes The Hangover was very successful, but it terms of quality, it barely got by.

With the sequel, a straight forward remake of the first film (now set in the more exotic and expensive looking Thailand), "barely got by" would have been more than acceptable compared with the insulting piece of unholy shit they actually came up with. There's not one fucking funny thing in it's entire fucking withered body; the script is pretty non-existent, the direction utterly unsuited to the comedy genre and the cast are the biggest joke of this entire fucking endeavour. There are some spiteful, mean-spirited cunts in Hollywood who think that pranking audiences by casting Bradley Fucking Cooper as a leading man, Ed Twatting Helms as the hapless guy, Ken 'that crazy, squeaky asian shit is getting real tired' Leong and Zack 'three month old rotting hamster corpses are more hilarious' Galifinakis as the goofy, funny man in a comedy is pretty damn funny. It is, of course, not fucking funny in the slightest. Oh and what the fuck is going on with the Mike Tyson cameo? In the first movie, Tyson's appearance raised a smile. Here, the film makers actually undermine the integrity of an athlete who was once mentioned in the same breath as Marciano, Sugar Ray and Ali.

I fucking hate The Hangover Part II. I was irked by the original, but only because I didn't find it as amusing as it's success suggested (there are a handful of tittersome moments after all), but Part II crosses the line into humour-free inanity to the point where I want to commit homicide, suicide, genocide and any other 'ide' I can think of. Fuck the makers and the cast of The Hangover Part II. Fuck them all to hell. May their genitalia wither and decompose and may their brains spontaneously combust with all the fucking apocalyptic force of a hundred Hiroshimas.

Apart from Jamie Cheung. She's nice.

Rave Grave Encounters

On the surface, Grave Encounters looks like an ultra-cheap cash-in on the 'found footage' horror sub-genre, with the twist this time that the camcorder wielding heroes are making a TV episode akin to Most Haunted or Ghost Hunters. But as with most films of this type, it works rather well.

Picking an abandoned Mental Hospital (obviously a Vancouver building seen a million times in episodes of The X-Files, The Outer Limits, etc) from which to film this weeks episode, the intrepid team get the caretaker to lock them in and they set about trying to find something vaguely creepy from which to construct their show. But something nastier finds them.

The handheld style adds realism and immediacy to the drama, the amateur shooting style creates a excited, frenzied feel in the moments of brief, violent action and there's some strong jump scares to be had in the dark corridors of the hospital. It's also great the way it gently sends up the TV programmes on which it's based from the eccentric psychic trying to communicate with the spirits to the hammy presenter trying to bribe a groundsman to make some supernatural story up for the camera.

Unsettling, disorientating (it pushes the situation into surreal territory at times) with a few well placed spectres to make you shit your pants, this is a surprisingly welcome addition to the still expanding found footage club.

October Pick N Mix

Bow To Your Saviour, Roger Moore!

It's kind of become trendy and the norm to mock Roger Moore Bond films; they don't take themselves too seriously, they embrace the fantastical side of cinematic Bond and a good portion of them aren't the best example of blockbuster cinema. As such, I haven't watched many pre-80's 007 films recently with the exception of the under-rated On Her Majesties Secret Service.

But then it happened. I just sort of accidentally came across Moonraker in High Def and was compelled to watch, despite its reputation for being both dull AND ludicrous in one big, daft package.

And I bloody loved it. Yes the gags are childish. Of course the action is lacking excitement. I have no defence for the terrible rear-screen projection that completely takes you out of the movie, I agree that Richard Kiel's henchman is a joke and the new cast (Michael Lonsdale, Lois Chiles, Corinne Clery) make coma victims look lively. Shirley Bassey supplies a great Bond Theme, John Barry a classic, classy Bond score, the locations (Brazil, Venice, Outer Space) are fully exploited, the model work largely impressive and the girls are hot (Corinne Clery can't act to save her life but, by God, she's sexy).

Best of all is Rog. Holding the whole dopey package together with a deft balance of charming leading man and eye raising irreverence, Roger Moore deservedly defined cinema's longest running franchise for 12 years in 7 adventures. Yes, he got too long in the tooth in the 80's and yes, his approach to Bond isn't what fans of Fleming's book wanted. But he consistently maintained a commendable aspect of Bond that even Timothy Dalton (Licence To Kill), Pierce Brosnan (The World Is Not Enough) and Daniel Craig (Quantum Of Solace) sometimes failed to do. He was fun.

Gotta get me some Octopussy now!