Sharks rock. They are amazing creatures. The pinnacle of apex predators. They've been ill served by movies over the years though. One great film (guess which one) aside most movies about them are bad. Deep Blue Sea and The Shallows are good fun but pretty much fluff. Open Water and 47 Metres Down are boring and bad. Bait 3-D, Indianapolis : Men Of Courage and The Reef are just plain bad. Then you have godawful pieces of shit like Sharknado and Megashark Vs Giant Octopus that just defy belief. It's baffling that such a sleek, fast, efficient and perfectly designed creature can be the star of films the exact opposite of that description. My hopes were not high when I heard The Meg series of books were being adapted into a film. But those hopes went higher when I heard Jason Statham was involved. Then I saw the trailer which boosted them through the roof. Does it meet expectations??? Eh....Sort of...... it's not Mega but it's not Meh either. Sorry. The researchers of a deep sea exploration centre called Mana One are trying to prove that rifts in the floor of the Pacific ocean go deeper than previously thought possible. While doing so their submersible craft is attacked by something massive and contact with them is lost. The only person who can save them is Jonas Taylor, a man with previous experience of both deep sea rescue and the dark things that lurk down there. During the rescue attempt a huge shark known as a Megaladon escapes into the open water and it's up to Jonas and his gang of scientists to stop it before it can reach civilians.
This was a frustrating watch. When it gets going it's good craic. Ridiculous stunts, massive beasts, people being dined upon left, right and centre, Statham in full on Statham mode and some hilarious nods to similar films but it just takes so long to build up a head of steam that you'll find yourself wondering are you watching yet another dud. Like the original Jaws film, the shark is kept in the shadows until about halfway through the story. There it was done for financial reasons and the fact that the model didn't work properly. Here it's done pointlessly because we've already had the surprise of its appearance ruined in numerous trailers and we are left with 45 minutes of people running around, arguing and sitting in submarines. This isn't what we paid to see!! We paid to see giant sharks attacking people. We do get some cheesy dialogue to keep us going though. "Man versus meg isn't a fight. It's a slaughter." & "Are you saying we opened up a super highway for giant killer sharks?" being two particularly cheddary treats. Meg does of course attack eventually and that's when the film hits it's mark. It's like a button labelled "FUN" has been tapped and the madness builds and builds until it hits a crescendo of utter stupidity that will leave a smile a mile wide on your mush. One big set piece sees a beach on the Chinese mainland being attacked by the Meg. A young boy bugs his mother to be let into the water with his inflatable raft. It's Alex Kintner from Jaws all over again. He's toast. The camera then cuts to the ocean and we see thousands of kids all on inflatable rafts in the water. Then a dog with a very familiar name finds itself in trouble. It's here the film turns to the audience and full on winks at us and starts chucking out nods to the Jaws series fast. If you recognise them you'll have a good giggle. Even godawful part 4 gets a nod. It's this knowingness that saves the day. One thing this film does well too is its juggling of horror film tropes with regards to who lives and dies. I was surprised by some of the characters who make it to the end. When a big movie like this can surprise you it's always welcome. The excitement, winks and clever moments in the second half of the film make you wonder why the first half of the movie couldn't have been this good too.
In the second half of the film the story just about manages to find the line between being good fun and turning into Sharknado, and that's all down to Jason Statham. Tellingly the moment the film goes from dull to exciting is the first time he jumps into the water to face the Meg. His character Jonas feels like he's been slotted in from a different film and he plays it mostly straight but still being in on the joke whilst the other cast members like Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose and Cliff Curtis have a ball around him. His few scenes with Shuya Sophia Cai who plays Meiying, the kid on board, are lovely and show once again that Statham and kids go well together. Remember his John Woo aping moment with the baby in Fast & Furious 8. Brilliance!. Rainn Wilson plays the gobshite billionaire benefactor who financed the underwater research and may as well have a bullseye on his forehead. And Bai Ling puts in a good show as Suyin the oceanographer and is the only other character who's actually somewhat useful and thankfully she gets a couple of good moments and isn't just there to be saved. It's a good watch but it could have been much better. Had the filmmakers decided to go all out with the concept it might have been spectacular. The 12A/PG13 rating makes it all feel a bit tame too. One Spielbergian severed limb aside there's nothing in here that would trouble anyone. A good dose of blood and guts and maybe a shot of Statham calling the Shark a "Fackin slag" would have been welcome but when a film costs in the region of 150 million dollars studios tend to play it cool and keep everything family friendly. So it's ended up as a safe film that starts badly and ends well. Hopefully if it gets a sequel the madness will be amped up. Fin.
Amy Sat 11/8 More4 @ 21.00 A feature length documentary about the wild and at times sordid life of chanteuse Amy Winehouse and her tragic death in 2011 aged 27. The format is the usual talking heads one but a lash of home video clips and interviews with her family and friends turn this into a deeply personal and upsetting watch that will grip you even when you know how her story ends. Money Monster Sat 11/8 RTE1 @ 21.20 America comes to a standstill when the host and producer of a successful financial news show are taken hostage by a angry investor and the whole saga plays out live on air. Jodie Foster directs this thrilling and very topical look at the unspoken after effects of financial crashes. Julia Roberts and George Clooney do well but Jack O'Connell steals the show as a man at the edge of his tether. Trash Sun 12/8 RTE2 @ 01.20
3 young men in Rio De Janeiro who survive by scavenging in garbage make a life changing discovery in the trash and find themselves in a dangerous position. A funny, exciting and despite the situation, a feel good film that will engage your brain. One that makes superb use of it's favela locations too. The 3 leads (Rickson Tevez, Eduardo Luis & Gabriel Weinstein are local actors too and it's all adds to the authenticity. Well worth a look. My Neighbour Totoro Sun 12/8 Film4 @ 13.00 2 young girls, Satsuki and Mei, move to the countryside when their mother becomes ill and discover a wonderful and magical world in the forest beside their house. A slice of absolute joy from Studio Ghibli. The kind of movie that will plaster a smile across your face, a beautiful cartoon loaded with imagination and ideas. A perfect way to introduce young family members to the world of anime. Dead Calm Sun 12/8 TCM @ 23.05 Following an awful tragedy, a couple on a boating holiday at sea take in the survivor of a boat wreck. Of course things go sideways. A blistering thriller that never gets boring despite being mostly set onboard a small ship. Super acting and a lot of tension make this a nail biting watch. Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill are in fine form as the couple and Billy Zane makes for a memorable baddie. Fruitvale Station Mon 13/8 CH4 @ 00.15 The true story of a young man called Oscar Grant III and the last 24 hrs of his life in California's Bay Area before he fell foul of white America. Director Ryan Coogler and star Michael B. Jordan both do brilliant work in this microcosmic look at the daily pressures of life as an African American male. A scary and heart breaking tale. Octavia Spenser and Kevin Durand are excellent in support Shrooms Tues 14/8 The Horror Channel @ 23.10 A pack of eejits take a load of magic mushrooms and head off into the woods in a remote part of Ireland. The locals who live there are not one bit happy about all of this. Paddy Breathnach's 2007 horror film isn't remotely scary but there's some good gory fun to be had from the drug induced visuals and seeing silly tourists meet grisly demises. Sean McGinley and Don Wycherley are solid as always. Crank : High Voltage Thurs 16/8 ITV4 @ 23.40 Chev Chelios is on the move again in this insane sequel to the 2006 hit. His heart has been stolen(?!!) and only regular jolts of electricity are keeping him alive. Can he stay going long enough to get revenge? This film is absolutely unhinged and definitely not for the faint hearted. Jason Statham has a ball in the lead role and Amy Smart & Dwight Yoakam in support just about manage to keep up with him. Scott Of The Antarctic Fri 17/8 BBC2 @ 12 midday In 1912 Robert Falcon Scott led the Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica in the hopes of being the first people to reach the South Pole. Things.......did not go well. This Ealing production is a great watch. Filmed in beautiful early technicolor and with a haunting score, this a powerful and eerie imagining of a expedition where no one is really sure what exactly happened. John Mills as Scott is, as always, a fantastic lead. The Place Beyond The Pines Fri 17/8 RTE2 @ 21.30 The existences of 4 men crash together in this small town tale of crime and corruption. Set over 15 years this is about the cyclical nature of life and how acts of violence have effects that take a long time to fade away. Top flight cast in this one with Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendez and especially Ray Liotta all on fine form. A long but very absorbing film that feels like a mini series condensed into movie form. But in a good way.
The Greasy Strangler Fri 17/8 Film4 @ 22.55 Ok, I'm apologising in advance for recommending this one. A father and son fall for the same woman. At the same time an oily murderer is roaming the streets of their town. This very unique film is like nothing you've ever seen, it's disgusting but a streak of jet black humour running through it keeps it from being unwatchable. Michael St Michaels, Sky Elobar and Elizabeth De Razzo all give..erm... committed performances.
Beautiful Creatures, City Of Ember, I Am Number 4, The 5th Wave, The Mortal Instruments : City of Bones, Eragon, The Seeker : The Dark Is Rising & Ender's Game. What do they all have in common? They are all films that have been made, released and failed financially in the last 10 years or so. All 8 are based on books and all are aimed towards a teenage audience. All 8 are also the first films in failed franchises created in the wake of the Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games series.Those 3 raked in the cash, becoming multi billion dollar properties. The others didn't. And now The Darkest Minds is yet another in a long line of failures. The children of Earth are dying. A mysterious pandemic has wiped them out in their billions. After a few months 98% of those under 18 are gone and the remaining 2% have developed psychic powers that terrify the adults. The surviving kids are rounded up to be put into camps and are segregated depending on the strength of their powers. However one girl called Ruby escapes with the help of anti government rebels and goes on the run. On the way she meets and befriends others like her.
This had the seeds of an interesting film but the rush to turn it into a money making machine kills it in its tracks. Characters and storylines are barely introduced before vanishing just as fast, bucket loads of exposition is dropped on us, ideas fly left, right and centre, relationships are rushed, everything clashing together in a mad dash to create a universe instead of letting things breathe and grow organically. It's a dizzying watch and not in a good way. For example one well known face from a much loved TV show turns up and gets maybe 60 seconds screen time before she literally walks off into the woods. If you don't recognise her you wouldn't be blamed for thinking "What the hell is that all about?" but you know the writer's plan is for her to reappear in a surprise moment in the sequel (which won't be happening). It all has such a bang of money making cynicism off it that leaves a bad taste in the mouth. Which is annoying because as mentioned it's an interesting and very dark way to start a story. 98% of the world's kids gone in a flash. TV's The Leftover's only took 2% of the world's population and look how that turned out. In this the remaining 2% have dangerous psychic powers. This could have been a post apocalyptic teenage take on Scanners. But no, it's a humdrum road movie with predictable story beats and a soppy love story jammed in for good measure. It's jarringly choppy too with some moments seemingly coming from nowhere and huge questions going unanswered. You get the feeling a longer and maybe better film is out there somewhere but we'll probably never know now.
One area where it's a success is it's casting. The Fast & The Furious franchise aside this as as inclusive as ensemble films get. The lead (Ruby) is a young Black woman and her sidekicks Chubs, Zu and Liam are Black, Asian and White respectively. Amandla Stenberg as Ruby does well with the material given her but never gets to stretch herself. Harris Dickinson as Liam is very forgettable but Skylan Brooks and Miya Cech as Zu and Chubs add a small touch of fun to proceedings. Ruby was white in the books but changing her race for the film is an interesting choice and adds a racial dynamic to the earlier segments of the film especially with all the bad guys being white including Irish actor Patrick Gibson who isn't bad in his part. It's here the film is at it's best if you can call it that. Scenes of children caged and beaten bring to mind scarily similar real life scenes on the US/Mexican border and if you watch closely you can see a negative nod towards anti-vaxxers knocking around as well. It's a topical way to open the film but any good will created by it soon flitters away. Don't bother with this unless you've read the books. You'll get nothing from it. If you want a bit of dystopian teenage melodrama revisit The Hunger Games instead. Even the worst installment of that is better than this.
The Kennedy political dynasty is an abstract idea to people of my generation. The idea of a family with that much political clout is something I can't get into my head. The only thing comparable is the Royal family of the UK and that makes no sense to me either. People just should not have that much influence and power at their fingertips. Power. Power always corrupts. July 1969. Martha's Vineyard. Senator Ted (Edward) Kennedy was a man who walked in the shadows of his brothers, John and Bobby, two men murdered in political office. Ted is about to start his run for the U.S. presidential office of 1972. Whilst Ted and his cousin Joe were on Chappaquiddick Island for a boat race a party was organised to bring back together the people who ran his brother Bobby's ill fated campaign, specifically the Boiler Room Girls, a group of women integral to the running of operations. One of them was Mary Joe Kopechne and on the night of July 18th she took an infamous car ride with Ted. What happened next changed the course of U.S. political history.
I liked this. It's a fascinating and disturbing look at the behind the scenes machinations of a political scandal and a timely one too. We see how a man's reputation will always, ALWAYS, be more important than the victims of a scandal. Look at the recent Belfast trials for example. And when the victim is a woman, forget about it, she just becomes a detail in the story. It's a look at what power can do to a person's psyche. The arrogance it creates, the egotistical effect it has and how it effects other people's perceptions. The Kennedy's were treated like gold in Martha's Vineyard and seeing elected officials dropping and lapping at their feet is cringeworthy. For all it's political griminess a few sly moments of black comedy appear here and there too. Seeing Ted and his gang of slimy bagmen's plans fail at every hurdle adds a nice and much needed tang of schadenfreude to proceedings. Jason Clarke is excellent as Ted. He mightn't look exactly like him but he carries himself in that almost regal Kennedy way we've all seen on Reeling In The Years. He also affects that same New England accent he used so effectively as Tommy Caffee on TV's massively underrated Brotherhood. It's a great, layered performance from him, even when you think he's being sincere it only takes seconds to clock the machinery whirring behind his eyes. Everything is about self preservation. He carries the movie powerfully. Kate Mara as Mary Jo plays a smaller but vital part too. Her good heart radiating through and her hurt over the death of Bobby Kennedy plain to see. It's easy to see why she became a vital cog in the political machine. The usually annoying Ed Helms takes a rare serious role as Kennedy family fixer and relative Joe Gargan and does well and Bruce Dern in a small part radiates poison as the patriarch of the family Joseph P. Kennedy. History told us he was a nasty piece of work and here in a few small moments we clearly see how his venomous presence ruined his children.
Only one person really knew what happened that night and because of this the film plays out along the lines of Ted's testimony. It avoids sensationalism and the sleazier aspects of the story that the press of the day hinted at. We see exactly what he says he did following the events of the night. Some comments about this film have called it tame and afraid of conjecture but for me this simple and sober retreading of events shows him up for the coward he was. There's no need for extraneous story or fabrication. He hung himself with his own words. This is a fine film and one well worth watching. It's just a pity it didn't make it to cinema's here. Available on Region 1 DVD/Region A blu-ray now & streaming from Amazon.com
American Honey was my favourite film of 2016. It's a hard sell though. A 163 minute long movie about teenagers selling magazine subscriptions in middle America. A description that would put anyone off watching TBH but director Andrea Arnold pulled off a miracle and created a masterpiece. A dark, vivid shot in the arm. A depressing but life affirming story of America's lost and alienated youth. Star (Sasha Lane) is a young girl going nowhere fast in a small Oklahoma town. She spends her time looking after her two younger siblings and her father is a sleazy piece of shit. She spies a way out when she meets a group of young sales people and is offered a chance at seeing America and making some money on the way. The below scene is the moment she gets hooked by a glimpse at a freedom she's never experienced. Who'd have thought Shia LaBoeuf dancing to Rihanna in a Walmart would create such a joyous moment. The lyrics are hilariously on the nose. "We found love in a hopeless place." Star finding friendship and a new life in Walmart. The music a million miles away from the depressing country dirge popular in the bars around the town. Shia's hilarious moves are very different to the regimented line dancing loved by the locals and his joie de vivre is exactly opposite that of the other man in her life. She wants to get out, he knows it and reels her in. Rihanna's "Yellow diamonds in the light" promising the money and adventure she'll never know if she stays. A brilliant moment in a brilliant film.
Every now and then I see people reminisce about the halcyon days of the video store and the cinema experience pre multiplexes. I do it myself often. How it was so much better than relying on Netflix. How we have too much choice now and how it has spoiled us. How film watching was just so much more exciting back then. Maybe it was but one thing I do know is that a lot of people have forgotten about the crappier aspects of being a film fan in the 1980's and 90's. 1) Pan and scan copies of our favourite films. Look at the picture below. Luke Skywalker staring at the twin suns of Tatooine from his Uncle Owen's farm. A beautifully composed image. Now look at the picture below it. Nearly half of it missing. This is what we had to put up with watching Star Wars on VHS and TV back in the day before DVD. Nearly every film was shown like this. Carefully created cinematography ruined by the crappy technology of the 1980's and 90's. The odd film was of course released in widescreen but then you had to put up with questions about why half the screen was taken up with black bars. A lose lose situation right there.
2) Censorship. Always a nuisance. Because Ireland and the UK are a small market they are grouped together meaning we had to put up with videos with cuts enforced by the British Board of Film classification. I remember being baffled by the fact that my copies of Cliffhanger and Under Siege were a lot different to the versions I saw in the cinema. It just wasn't fair. It still happens but it's a lot rarer. 3) Dirty video tapes. No no not Electric Blue 44 or The Devil And Miss Jones. Actual dirty tape in the cassettes. It was a killer when you legged it home with Stop Or My Mom Will Shot and the tape banjaxed the tracking on your panasonic player so badly that Stallone looked like Chunk from The Goonies.
4) Only being able to tape what you were watching. This one was a huge nuisance and could only be avoided if you had a technical wiz for a parent. It was always mighty craic enduring the icy stare only an Irish mother can muster when you were watching and taping Turner And Hooch and she was missing Leave It To Mrs O'Brien. 5) Fleapit cinema's. Dirty, manky deathtraps with mysteriously stained screens. Sitting in a cloud of smoke watching a film you could barely seen let alone hear. Leaning back and staring up at Young Einstein being projected through the mist of 100 Benson & Hedges. Backbreaking chairs and the sound of rodents scurrying around underneath you. 2 Screens, if you were lucky, showing films that came out 6 months beforehand and the picture full of scratches and tears from being passed around 20 other cinemas before it came to yours. People call modern multiplex's soulless but at least you aren't risking your life and your eyesight to go there.
6) TV edits. There was no better way to ruin the magic of a movie than to cut whole chunks out of it or dub ridiculous voices over the original soundtrack to remove profanity. RTE tended to be good at showing movies intact but BBC and ITV were notorious for their butchery of movies. For example the time they showed Robocop at 3pm on a Saturday in a version made almost nonsensical by editors, that was a fun watch. Below is a fine (albeit extreme) example of the art of killing a film.
7) All copies of a film being rented out. This sucked. You gathered your pennies and ran to the shop to rent out The Pelican Brief only to find that every single copy has been snapped up already and you end up sullenly walking home clutching a copy of The Flintstones or Mighty Ducks 2 knowing full well you are in for an evening of disappointment.
8) Unraveled tapes. You've just finished Legends Of The Fall. It was pretty good. That fella with the long hair is going to be a big star one day you think as you press eject. The tape pops out, you go to pick it up.....but wait, something's wrong, it seems to be stuck so you yank it out and trailing behind it is 3 feet of tape. Well fuck it anyway. Which brings me to number 9. 9) Fines. Late returning your tapes? Pay a fine. Tape not rewound? Pay a fine. Tape damaged? Pay a fine. Damaged case? You get the idea. Have a bad day and your trip to the video shop could get expensive very quickly. 10) If a film you wanted to see wasn't available on VHS you were screwed. In the days before Netflix, Shudder, Mubi, Filmstruck and speciality labels like Arrow and Shameless any movie away from the mainstream was hard to come by. There was the off chance a film you wanted to see might get a late night showing on RTE2 or CH4 but other than that you were goosed. Now we can just press a button. In fairness we have it great these days. The thrill of discovering new things might be fading but it's very easy to be a film fan in 2018.
The vast majority of boxing films tend to follow the same path. An underdog rising through the ranks until he takes on a champ. Here he'll either win or lose but importantly he'll learn life lessons and drag himself out of the gutter while doing so. Rocky, Cinderella Man, The Champ, Undisputed, Girl Fight and many more follow this pattern. You'd think it would get boring but somehow it never does. There's something about seeing a dark horse succeeding that just transcends repetition and the sport of boxing is a perfect framework for these stories. Journeyman is a little bit different, being more of a film about the effects of boxing than the sport. It's a film about a man who happens to be a boxer. Matty Burton is a happily married husband and father who's about to defend his world championship belt in a fight against the showboating Andre Bryte. Andre's nickname is Future and he represents it while Matty stands for the past. He's a journeyman. A fighter who's unflashy but who has the ability to grind out a result. During the fight he suffers a serious brain injury and finds himself fighting to make the biggest comeback of his life. Paddy Considine wrote, directed and stars in this and he's made a great job of it all. As you'd imagine it's a bleak and upsetting story but gladly it's not as traumatic as his last film, the nearly unwatchably brutal Tyrannosaur. It has that film's realism though. Happiness is in short supply, life's disappointments loom large and easy answers aren't around. We see the effect life changing injuries have not only on a patient but the people around him, the people who love and depend on him. We see how men fail to cope in stressful situations and instead choose to run and hide rather than face hardships and their own emotions, how woman cope better in these situations but how there's still only so much a person can take. Thankfully some shards of humour bleed through the misery otherwise it would all just be too grim. Not much now, but just enough. Fans of the montage scenes so familiar from Rocky films also will be happy to see they reappear here too but rather differently to what you'd expect. They'll still make you pump your fist though.
It's hard to watch a man come apart at the seams but Considine sells it. He's a great actor and one not afraid to look feeble and needy onscreen. His change from the happy, friendly, confident fellow we meet at the start of the movie to what we see after is stunning. Not flashy, not award bait, just real. Jodie Whittaker as Emma Burton gets her own story too, she's not just a witness to Matty's journey. Fear, worry, stress and love are etched on her face and some of the decisions she makes during the film might have felt questionable in the hands of a lesser actress, but with her you just feel nothing but empathy. She's a mam, just doing her best for her family. This is Considine's first serious lead role in 14 years since his amazing turn in Dead Man's Shoes. When this film didn't do well in the cinema he spoke of retirement. That would be an awful pity if he did. He's too good to lose. Here's he's managed to take a genre as old as the hills and turn it into something beautifully humane and fresh feeling. That takes skill and he does it all without bloat or padding out the story with unnecessary asides. At 92 minutes long the film is as lean as a bantamweight fighter. This is out now to buy and is also available to rent now in the google play store. It's really worth watching.
Everest Sat 4/8 RTE1 @ 21.55 In 1996 two expert mountain climbers led an ill advised expedition up Mount Everest while a massive storm front was bearing down on them. Things did not end well. Jason Clarke, Emily Watson and Jake Gyllenhal lead a starry cast in a pretty damn good film that will both terrify you and piss you off. Rich stupid people and their death defying hobbies always makes for gripping viewing. Hard Target Sat 4/8 ITV @ 23.20 Jean Claude Van Damme. Lance Henriksen. John Woo. The essence of new Orleans captured perfectly and the finest mullet ever seen on film. This 1993 action thriller is a thrill a minute watch as we follow Chance Boudreaux as he tracks down and takes on the bad men who are hunting homeless men in the Cajun capital. Very very violent but very very entertaining. Florence Foster Jenkins Sun 5/8 BBC1 @ 20.15 Florence was a member of New York City royalty in the 1940's, an heiress who dreamed of singing at Carnegie hall. The only problem was the fact that she was truly awful. Meryl Streep is as always amazing in the lead role of this film that is at times hilarious and and at others quite upsetting. An elegant and charming look at the problems that can be bypassed by money. Simon Helberg and Hugh Grant in support play their parts perfectly too. Nightcrawler Sun 5/8 BBC2 @ 22.00 Jake Gyllenhall gives a career best performance in this dark and intense tale of a desperate crime journalist willing to go outside the law to further his career prospects. This is gripping and compulsive viewing but Gyllenhall's character is so seedy and creepy that you'll need a shower afterwards. Strong back up from Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed too. This film will put you off ever going to Los Angeles. Chevalier Mon 6/8 CH4 @ 02.15 Six Greek men head out into the Aegean sea to fish and take part in a series of games that will prove who amongst them is the manliest of the bunch. A darkly funny and in places disturbing look into the male psyche and the ridiculous lengths men will go to to one up each other. I haven't a clue who any of the actors are but they fill the movie with naturalistic performances that compliment and sometimes ruin the beautiful scenery. Tigerland Mon 6/8 TG4 @ 21.30 A young infantry recruit training for Vietnam in 1971 Louisiana tries to fight back against the system but the system is having none of it. The film that made Colin Farrell a star. He's just magnetic in the role of the rebellious Boz and IMO no film since has used his potential as much as this one did. A funny, sad & tense film that evokes a great 70's atmosphere. Watch out for Michael Shannon in a early role. Twelve Monkeys Tues 7/8 BBC4 @ 22.00 A convicted criminal is sent back in time to gather information to help stop a plague that has decimated the earth of the future. But he gets sent back further than he should have been. Terry Gilliam's time travel thriller is absolutely bonkers and utterly compelling with an ending that will have you drawing diagrams to understand it all. Bruce Willis is at his best in the lead but Brad Pitt steals the film as a psychiatric patient he meets on his travels. Cherry Falls Thur 9/8 The Horror Channel @ 02.30 A serial killer is targeting virgins in a small town. The only way to survive? Lose your virginity as fast as possible. Sounds crass doesn't it? It's far from it. A funny, intelligent and subversive satire on modern horror that really works if you go with the concept. The late Brittany Murphy is very solid in the lead and gets fine support from Michael Biehn and Jay Mohr. Totally ignored on it's original release but worth a re-evaluation. Grave Of The Fireflies Fri 10/8 Film4 @ 01.20 World War 2 is coming to a close and 2 siblings, Seita and Setsuko who live in Kobe, Japan find themselves alone and hungry after U.S forces firebomb their city. This animated story is in my opinion the best and most effective anti war film you will ever see. It's a masterpiece that will kick you in the heart and pretty much ruin your day. Don't let that stop you watching though because it really is something special. My Brother The Devil Fri 10/8 BBC2 @ 23.35 Mo and Rashid are two Muslim brothers growing up in Hackney. Rashid is in a gang and doesn't want that life for his brother. Rashid also has a big secret thats not exactly compatible with his religion. A beautiful looking film that tells a familiar story but with it's own unique slant on things. James Floyd and Fady Elsayed as the brothers both give committed, genuine performances. Patrick's Day Fri 10/8 RTE1 @ 23.40 A young Dublin man with mental health issues who meets a suicidal woman. Yes, it's sounds terribly sad but it's much more than that. Super performances all around but Moe Dunford brings the lead character of Patrick to life in a way that makes you genuinely care for him. It's a film that will kick you in the heart a dozen times but you'll be glad you watched it. Rewarding stuff.
The football World Cup is a pain in the hole. 4 weeks of nonstop coverage of one of the most mindnumbingly boring sports on the planet. 22 seriously overpaid wimps running around a field and tripping over blades of grass while holding their faces and screaming blue murder in the hope of getting another person thrown off the field for it. I hate it. Also for some bizarre reason, movie studios don't tend to release good films during the period either, wrongly assuming everyone on earth will be too busy watching the telly. Ant Man And The Wasp is getting a belated release on this side of the pond for this very reason. Grrrr. It's two years after the events of Captain America : Civil War and Scott Lang is finally coming near the end of his house arrest. He just wants to get it over with so he can go back to his security company (X-Con, brilliant name) ran by his prison buddy Luis and get back to living his life fully with his daughter Cassie. A strange dream scuppers his chance at an easy finish to his sentence though and soon enough he's back working with Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne and avoiding shady business men and a strange new ghostly being intent on disrupting their work.
A few issues aside I thought this was great fun. It feels like pure candyfloss after the world altering events of Black Panther and Avengers : Infinity war but it's a change of pace that was very welcome indeed. Not every superhero movie has to be epic and stuffed with city thrashing mass murdering chaos. There's plenty of room in the stable for a more intimate look at what heroes get up to every day. Ok, intimate isn't exactly a way to describe it but this time we see our characters dealing with things that are almost relatable. Family issues, pining for the past, trying not to disappoint others, problems with work and taking responsibility for past mistakes. Serious stuff aside and on a much smaller scale, it's as action packed and as funny as the best of the Marvel movies . Dinky car chases through the streets of San Francisco, Luis's unique way of telling a story, pez dispensers and salt cellars used in .....different ways, Baba Yaga, crazy quantum phasing scraps, malfunctioning suits and oversized hoodies, truth serum, quite possibly the funniest Stan Lee cameo yet, bastard seagulls and uncomfortable FBI agents all make for a very entertaining stew. A stew made even more entertaining by an immensely likable cast. Paul Rudd as Scott/Ant-Man rocks and he never once stutters at the comedy stuff like others in the Marvel stable. Evangeline Lily as Hope/the Wasp gets the lions share of the action stuff and carries it off with aplomb and her distain at Scott's Avengers hero worship is deadly. Michael Pena once again threatens to steal the show as the fast talking Luis and a frail looking Michael Douglas as Hank Pym gets far more to do this time around. Hannah John-Kamen as Ava, Scott's new ghostly foe adds a lot to proceedings too and like Thanos in Infinity War (and Brolin's Cable from Deadpool 2) there's a lot more to her than meets the eye. I suspect her character will turn up again soon. She's too interesting to see only once. Another famous face turns up too but seeing as she's so far been absent from trailers I'll leave her as a pleasant surprise for ye.
It's not all perfect of course. Walton Goggin's bad guy Sonny Burch is the worst type of Marvel baddie, an undercooked villain with a plan that's never fully explained who never once feels like a threat. A few funny lines aside him and his story could have been comfortably lifted out of the film altogether. It's a pity because his turns in The Shield and Justified as amazingly complex bad guys show he has a lot to bring to the table. A wispy subplot involving Scott & Luis' business feels wedged into as an excuse to bring back cast members from the first film too. Not big issues really but enough to knock some of the shine off. Speaking of shine, the special effects in this are amazing. A few Marvel films so far (Ant-Man, Civil War, Guardians 2) have used de-aging technology but its at its best so far here and avoids that uncanny valley feeling that similar scenes have suffered from because it's used sparingly. Very effectively though. I dare you not to see these youthful faces without feeling a pang of nostalgia. That nostalgic feeling is why I enjoy these movies too. They remind me of watching Superman films as a baba and not having a care in the world. 2 hrs of fun and laughter where you can switch off and thankfully these 2 hrs avoid the allusions to real life strife that other Marvel movies have contained. This one is just all about having fun. Well worth a watch.
I love horror films but I'm not the biggest fan of jump scares. They're a cheap way to scare an audience and usually add nothing to a story. Modern examples tend to be a combination of misdirection and loud music and always annoy the face off me but every now and then one works perfectly. William Peter Blatty's 1990 film is the second sequel to the 1973 original. It's not a particularly good film but it pisses from a height on the 1978 sequel which was just a mind bogglingly terrible watch. Originally called Legion, it's about a series of murders in Washington DC and it's connection to the original film is tenuous at best. The film was produced by Morgan Creek who were disturbed to realise that a sequel to the Exorcist didn't actually contain any exorcism. This would not do at all and the film was massively rejigged in post production to add an exorcism scene to the climax. As a result the movie is all over the place and its messiness it obvious even when you don't know the behind the scenes stuff. But for all it's bad points it contains this scene. A brilliant moment that should be watched in the dark and with the sound up loud. Even when you know something bad is going to happen it still works. The deliberately slow pace lulls you into a false sense of security even when the deserted hospital ward halls are creeping you out. The creaking noises the nurse investigates are red herrings that make you think something is going to happen and then nothing happens apart from cheap shock that makes you laugh in a nervous way and then feel relieved. The music free soundtrack forcing you to take note of everything you hear. The nurse's red jacket standing out against the white walls ensuring you track her at all times. You start to wonder what the hell is the point of this scene and then........ The shroud wrapped figure. The crash zoom. Those huge shears and that shriek on the soundtrack. We don't see anything happen yet it still feels brutal and that cut to a decapitated statue tells us everything we need to know. A perfect scare in an other forgettable horror film.
Faith must be a nice thing to have. It sounds comforting and it seems to be a good thing to have to fall back on when life is kicking the shit out of you. An invisible safety blanket. Blind unquestioning faith is something else though. It's a dangerous way to live your life and this new film Apostasy is a damning indictment of religious groups that hold it up as something to strive for. Alex (Molly Wright) and Luisa (Sacha Parkinson) are two teenage girls being raised by their mother Ivanna (Siobhan Finneran) as devout Jehovah's Witnesses. Ivanna is unwavering in her beliefs but her daughters are having trouble. College, friends and exposure to the wider world has opened Luisa's eyes and medical issues in the past are troubling Alex's conscience. Then Luisa drops a bombshell on the family. This is a genuinely frightening, disturbing and rage inducing watch about life in a cult, the stupidity of unquestioning faith and how following teachings to the letter can have absolutely disastrous repercussions. In an age where fundamentalism, religious or otherwise is on the rise, it starkly shows us the end result of not questioning things, even when it's to the detriment of your health and your relationships. It's a heavy watch that will stick with you when it's over and it's a film that gives no easy answers, no relief, no catharsis.
It sounds like a horrible watch and tbh it is but fantastic performances and an extremely intimate portrait of a family in crisis will keep you watching even when you want to grab certain characters and shake them and shout at them. It brings to mind the work of Shane Meadows in the way that the drab and mundane can become terrifying and suffocating and it's close up camera work that forces us into the faces of the people we are watching to see what they are going through. It's an eye opening look at the astonishing cruelty perpetuated by people who call themselves good. JW is an offshoot of Christianity and like all Abrahamic religions it has a patriarchal hierarchy that makes things up as it goes along. Seeing young women suffering needlessly because of familial shunning or lack of medical care will have you leaving the cinema shaking your head at the pointlessness of it all. A film that creates an emotional response this strong is always welcome even when that response is sadness and shock. It's hard to believe this is a debut because it feels so accomplished but writer/director Daniel Kokotajlo is working from experience having grown up in the JW faith and thankfully he's gotten away from it. He doesn't go for cheap sensationalism or shock and one moment, that in other films would have been a climax, is played out in a way that lets blind faith hang itself by it's own petard. Siobhan Finneran, Molly Wright and Sacha Parkinson are all great in roles that will make you want to both scream at them and rescue them. Finneran especially showing the damage a life time of brainwashing can do to a person with her emotions straining to burst out from behind a calm exterior. Her words at the end of the film will chill you. It's a film that will make you think twice the next time you are going to shut the door on the young people in white shirts talking about god at the front door. You won't want to convert but it will give you an appreciation of the hidden hardships they go through. It will leave you bruised but it's well worth a watch if it's on near you.
We've a strange aul relationship with alcohol. Irish men in particular. Your capacity for beer = how people judge you. Drink too much? "Don't mind him, he's only a pisshead." Drink too little? "Don't mind him, he's thinks he's special." You can't win. Too much and you're looked on with derision. Too little and derision becomes suspicion. For years I could murder pints. A gallon of porter in a night wasn't an issue at all. I used to love it and I have some great memories of super nights out with friends, some of who aren't here any more. One Monday morning I was chatting to a co-worker who sat beside me absolutely broken. He was around 10 years older than me and decided he couldn't do it anymore. Not the drinking part but the next day part. He told me that as you got closer to 40 the hangovers just get worse and worse and that it would happen to me too. I laughed it off of course. And of course it came true. I started noticing that what would have taken me an hour or two to shake off before was starting to stretch into the afternoon and then the evening. Wasn't just a sick stomach either. Your head would be playing games with you too. The fear. The bastard fear. The feeling of impending doom. Stupidly going over decisions made years before and gnawing at them even when you couldn't possibly change the outcome now.
Then one night myself and one of the boys drank a load of gin. Gin for jesus sake. The things they say about the after effects of gin are true. I had a traumatic hangover the next day. One where you want to cry but you're so dehydrated that you can't. One where you want to puke but it just isn't happening. A hangover so bad that it made me speak those oft repeated immortal words "I'm never getting drunk again". Of course I've been drunk since. Exactly twice. Both times I felt like death the next day. A sweating, shivering, I'd gladly embrace the sweet release of death kind of hangover. But it's been 6 months since I've been drunk now and I do not miss hangovers one bit. I'm far from born again though. There's still nothing as nice as a good, well poured pint of porter but now one is generally enough. But when I mention this I still get that side eye look from some people. That look of "what's he up to?" and I even got the old "You think you're something special don't you?" from one of the lads at home when I made the mistake of talking about it. It would be great if Irish lads could just accept that drink isn't for everyone and that people can change in regards to their consumption of it. I'm not preaching abstinence or cutting down btw, you drink away, just don't get ratty when others don't want to. Remember these words.
