Desert Island Descendants

I've got to be in the right mood to watch certain Oscar qualifying stuff as simple, no-frills drama might turn my brain to bored mush before I reach the 10 minute marker. But once that mood has been attained, watching a family drama like The Descendants becomes a pleasure. Having already swept several of the early 2012 movies awards it's poised to chase down Oscar this year at the Academy Awards in February. And deservedly too as it's an enjoyable and quirky story stuffed with great characters, deftly interconnected story lines and filled with a wry sense of humour.

It's a simple tale of a father of two daughters who is suddenly thrust in to the primary parenting role when his wife is injured and made comatose following a power boating accident. Told from the fathers point of view by a never-better George Clooney it's an unsentimental, authentic and honest feeling story of coping with day to day life in the face of adversity. It's not the comedy that it's been described as but it does possess a down-to-earth absurdity that real life awkward and tragic situations have, and it's this that gives the film it's offbeat edge. Tonally it gets the balance right between the potentially depressing subjects of death, infidelity and dysfunctional families with a lightness of touch with the ensemble of characters and a constantly evolving narrative that doesn't let the gloom settle for very long at any one time.

What with this and The Ides Of March in the last 12 months, Clooney's search for quality projects is showing no sign of running out of steam.

Run Scotty Run

I can't say I was that bothered in seeing the Simon Pegg vehicle Run Fatboy Run on it's original 2007 release as it looked like a rather weak, generic romcom. Having now seen it I can confirm it IS a generic romcom, but not the tepid, mirth-free experience I'd been anticipating. Thanks to a solidly amusing script, a game, supporting cast and a steady hand in the directors chair (take a bow Friends' David Schwimmer) it travels it's familiar path with frequent laughs and lively characters.

Best of all it showcases the comic talents of Simon Pegg who proves he can carry a feature when not starring in a self penned, Edgar Wright helmed broad, genre-homaging comedy. What with this and his recent successes in the Star Trek and Mission Impossible franchises, Mr Pegg's inclusion in the Hollywood inner circle is set to continue for a good while longer.

Tight PVC = Sexy Vampire Glee

Certain franchises this year I have very high hopes for like Batman, Bond and Baggins. Other franchises I have less anticipation for based on their pedigree of badassery, babes and bullshit action. Of course I want them to be entertaining but if they're not perfect I'm not going to get into a geek strop about it. Underworld Awakening, the forth film in the franchise, falls into the latter category. This sequel sees the welcome return of English fox Kate Beckinsale, although founding director Len Wiseman and male lead Scott Speedman are absent this time round (slight shame and who cares respectively).

The plot is a natural progression from the previous Beckinsale Underworld movies, this time adding the extra dimension of humans as the primary threat, some devious Lycan science experiments and a daughter for our heroine to contend with.
It's all good brainless fun with tons of monster effects, Charles Dance thesping things up right proper, and more slow motion gore and gun play to get competitor Resident Evil's Paul WS Anderson worried.

The technical aspects let the film down. The direction isn't as sleek or as gracefully edited as the three previous movies, the mandatory 3D doesn't add a penny of worth to the visual experience while the non-Gothic, concrete and steel city setting is a bit jarring to see in this series and utterly, generically bland in the grand scheme of contemporary bullshit action movies. Most irritatingly the director seem obsessed with using strobe light at every opportunity. It's fine to signify emergency lighting in a modern skyscraper, but it gets too much to bare when it's used again in an underground car park, an ancient, subterranean vampire lair and even in a medical laboratory while performing a complicated surgical process. No wonder the 3D doesn't work.

A perfectly enjoyable entry into the series that just needs a more fleshed out script and a more accomplished director to make it stand as high as the previous movies.

Innkeepers Can Keep Their Inn, Thank You

There's a lot of promise in Ti West's The Innkeepers which unfortunately never quite emerges. It's the story of two hotel clerks with an interest in ghost hunting looking into the spooky goings on in their old inner city inn. The slow burn storytelling is a plus as it generates both atmosphere an tension (just ask John Carpenter), the deep focus, slowly dollying camerawork is admirably professional and old fashioned especially in this era of hand-held horror films and the characters appealing, amusing and down to earth...making rooting for them a lot easier.

But the script is too meandering, the scares ineffective, the story unoriginal and a bit too obvious and it feels like a lost opportunity to do something really frightening. In fact the most terrifying aspect of the entire enterprise is how old Top Gun star Kelly McGillis has got. Good on her for aging naturally in front of the camera, but in this age of bottox and nips and tucks, it's a shock to see her short haired, gray and wrinkly. After all, she's the same age as Kim Cattrall, Sela Ward and Sharon Stone. Holy crap!

The Tart With The Dragon Tats Goes To Hollywood

If you're not familiar with author Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, either through his novels or the Swedish language film series that followed, then all you need to know that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a cracking serial killer whodunit with two very different, but complimentary, protagonists leading the hunt. This being a David Fincher film you can be assured it's meticulously constructed, looks as stylish, sleek and dark as you'd imagined, and is absorbed in the details of the characters, the history and the intricacies of the murder case in a way that only Fincher can orchestrate.

On top of that you've got a great, atmospheric score from collaborators Atticus Ross and Nine Inch Nail's Trent Reznor, there's one of the greatest title sequences to grace a motion picture in a decade or two and it's got a stunning cast in Christopher Plummer, Steven Berkoff (remarkably subdued), Stellan Skarsgard (charming and creepy, of course), Robin Wright and Joely Richardson (surely her first and only great performance?) Oh, and there's a career best turn from Daniel Craig (naturalistic, vulnerable, intelligent) and a brilliant show from Rooney Mara as anti-heroine Lisbeth Salender who equals the excellence of Noomi Rapace in the 2009 version. Salender's like the female Snake Pliskin of the new millennium; she's extremely smart, will go to any lengths to achieve her objectives and doesn't give a shit about anybody (well, nearly.)

If you have seen the Swedish 2009 version then the best comparison is the Let The Right One In films. Dragon Tattoo USA is like Let Me In USA in that they're almost identical in quality, tone, subtext, even down to how scenes are composed and played out to the original Swedish counterparts. The main difference, apart from the English language, is that the US versions are 15% to 20% more cinematic.

It's not a quality thing, but a taste thing. If you like one version, you're sure to like the other. If you didn't like one adaptation, don't bother with the other one. So the remake is very good indeed, good enough to receive awards this time of year I'd say. But as Fincher has already noted, maybe there's too much ass raping for series Oscar contention. Shame.

Don't Be Home Alone With This Monster

Technically Home Alone 3 wasn't my first film of 2012, it was my final film of 2011 but, either way, it's a piece of shit. Directed without a feeling for that all important ingredient comic timing, or any display of common sense for that matter, by The Smurfs Raja Gosnell it's a belated, cheap, tired cash-in of a franchise that clearly doesn't work without any talent in front or behind the camera. And when I say no talent that includes the cast of nobodies, the made-for-TV crew and the bastard kid they found to replace Culkin.

The big surprise is that original producer, legendary John Hughes, still wrote this turd. But let's not forget he was pooping out dirty nuggets like Dennis, Curly Sue and Babies Day Out until late into his career so it isn't that much of a shock.

January Pick N Mix