A film advent calender

It's the first of December tomorrow. And like it or not the Christmas month is upon us. Here's a lil filmy Advent calendar. Start tomorrow (beforehand Toy show of course)) and watch one Christmassy film every day until the eve of the day itself. I've left out Die Hard cos for some reason it's inclusion in Christmas lists makes people fierce briary altogether. Watch one of these or watch them all, they'll all get you in the mood for demolishing a load of food and lying on the couch moaning about the meat sweats. And isn't that what it's really all about.

Home Alone  

Nothing starts off the season of goodwill like seeing a pair of scumbags get tortured by an 8yr old who's parents forgot all about him. Brilliant.

Black Christmas 

The Holidays are just starting and a group of girls start getting odd phone calls at their dorm. A properly scary Christmas gem that was Elvis Presley's Christmas day traditional watch. What more reason do you need??!

Elf 

A man raised as an elf goes to NYC to find his Da. I hate Will Ferrell but this film is warm and fun enough that it just about cancels him out. Just about. 

Scrooged 

A modern take on a Dickens classic. A nice bit of 80's fun. If you are able for Bill Murray of course.

3 Godfathers 

The story of the 3 wise men with a western twist. You can't go wrong with a John Wayne/John Ford film on a list.

Trapped In Paradise 

A Christmas bank robbery goes right and then wrong. Back when Nicholas Cage in a film was a good thing. Warm hearting, fierce likable fun.

Santa Claus The Movie 

Well you have to have this one. Watch this one before Gremlins BTW.

Bad Santa 

A festive tale of a thieving bastard with a penchant for sodomy and vodka who has no issue with beating up kids. The film that by itself kind of created the 16 certificate in Irish cinemas. Hilarious though. And with a moral too. 

Lethal Weapon 

YES IT'S A CHRISTMAS FILM. Starts off with Jingle Bell Rock. There's a shootout among Christmas trees. A man gets shot through a carton of eggnog!! And another man finds redemption and a surrogate family and a reason to live. That's Christmassy as hell right there.

Gremlins 

A boy gets a special Christmas present. One he'll never forget. And we'll never forget the story of a young girl and her father who dressed up as Santy......

The Nightmare Before Christmas 

Tim Burton's idea of a Christmas story is just as dark and ghoulishly funny as you'd expect as the residents of a Halloween themed town attempt a bit of a change. Brilliant, inventive, funny and beautiful....in it's own way. 

A Muppet Christmas Carol 

The Muppet's take on Dicken's famous tale. The Muppet's make everything better. The Muppet's could make a Hague war crime tribunal fun.

National Lampoons Christmas Vacation 

Attic ladder to the face. And Danny fuckin' Kaye. That is all.

Fred Claus 

An awful, awful film but worth watching to help you realise just how good some of the others on this list are.

White Christmas

Bob and Phil fancy Betty and Judy and they all team up to save a hotel with their Christmas Show. The perfect film for when you are so full of turkey and roast spuds that death would be a welcome release. Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, sure how could you go wrong.

Miracle On 34th Street (1994 version)

One of the perfect family films. Richard Attenborough as a man claiming to be Santy and Mara Wilson as the little girl helping him prove it. If you don't like this you have a cold black dead heart.

The Dead 

A Christmas film done the Irish way. OK, it's not Christmas but it's during the Christmas period.  A group of family and friends get together to dine and reminisce and we get a film that will kick you in the heart in a way only Irish films can.

The Santa Clause

When he puts Santy out of action a man is forced to take his place and do his job. Silly, funny, perfect. If the start doesn't traumatise yer kids of course.

A Charlie Brown Christmas 

Pure and utter nostalgia. Great medicine. You'll be instantly transported back to the 70's/80's/90's when you watch this.

It's A Wonderful Life 

I only saw this for the first time this week and it lived up to the hype. Ye all know what it's about. The lows are low but the highs are HIGH. So good.

Trading Places 

A tale of PCP, pork belly's, institutional racism, attempted suicide, lives being ruined, stock market shenanigans, frozen orange juice, gorilla lovin' and prostitution sounds like an unlikely Christmas film right?? This mixture makes one of the very best.

Hostile Hostages 

A thief robbing a house over Christmas finds himself refereeing a family row. Acerbic, biting, hilarious. But I've just remembered who's in this so i won't mention anything else....

Rare Exports 

Christmas done Finland style. Aka dark and weird as fuck. But still festive in its own way.

A Christmas Story 

The best one of all. You haven't lived until you see a comedy Chinese person trying to sing "Deck The Halls With Bows Of Holly." But really, this one is brilliant. A 1940's set tale of a young boys mission to get a BB gun for Christmas. Perfection.

Battle Of The Sexes. A cracking film.

Tennis is grand. It's not boring but it's never a sport I'd rush to watch. I'll happily watch a Wimbledon final but that's about it. You don't get many tennis films either. It's not particularly cinematic. A ball flying back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. There's only so much of that you could watch. It's had some big personalities though over the years. Serena Williams, Roger Federer, John McEnroe etc. The personalities attract the crowds. This film is about two of the big ones. Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

Billie Jean King in 1972 won a tennis grand slam. Flying high she was suddenly disappointed when she finds out her next tournament has a woman's prize 1/8 the size of the men's. She vowed to form a women only tournament that became immensely popular and this rattled the establishment. The establishment that included Bobby Riggs. An ex tennis superstar turned inveterate gambler and risk taker who saw women as totally inferior to men on the tennis court. He challenged her to an exhibition match to prove once and for all who was better at tennis.

I really liked this. It's a warm and involving look at a very important moment in feminism. Timely too. It's one that doesn't ignore the social mores of the early seventies. Being a successful woman back then meant you were going to be target for scorn and sexism........actually nothing has changed really has it. The recent rise in online chauvinism and misogyny parallels what's on screen too. It wasn't a time for other things either, but I'll let you discover those if you don't know the story. 

Battle Of The Sexes is a very well acted film that looks and sounds great. I love period pieces that look like they were filmed in the era they are set. It has a 70's sheen through to it's core and is bathed in warm & pretty Californian and Texan sunshine. It's shot really well too. Constantly harking back to the title. An early dinner table discussion is shot like a tennis match between husband and wife, with their son's eyes going back and forth like a match spectator. Then a scene of women and men looking into mirrors and framed to look like a face off over a tennis net. A close up scene of a woman getting a haircut is filmed as intimately as any love scene too, more so. A pretty shot of two people rising in a glass elevator over a city as the sun goes down. It's chock full of moments like this. It has a cracking soundtrack as well, using well known hits of the era in ways that's make them seem fresh and exuberant. Joy by Apollo 100. Elton John's Rocket Man playing over a scene of a couple chatting in a car driving down the Pacific Coast highway and George Harrison's What Is Life scoring a joyous montage of two people preparing for one of the biggest moments of their life.

The cast make it all work. Emma Stone is perfect as Billy Jean King, a woman torn between her personal and professional life. Her pain shining through as she struggles to make sense of the unexpected thoughts and feelings she's having. Steve Carell has a ball as Bobby Riggs. A muppet you'll find yourself enjoying despite his views. A lesser actor would have made him totally unlikeable but Carell shows his human side well. And one scene of him ranting at a Gambler's anonymous meeting is flat out hilarious. Andrea Riseborough as Marilyn, a friend of Billy Jean's and hairdresser to the players is good as well. I didn't even recognise her until the end credits. She's an actress who always disappears into her roles. Austin Stowell as Larry King is good too, his heartbreak clear as decent man who did his best for his wife and stepped aside when he realised he was surplus to requirements. The rest of the cast is filled out by a hilarious Sarah Silverman as a walking talking cloud of smoke and a hateful Bill Pullman as a man who'll make you hiss everytime he speaks. 

It's a film peppered with small telling moments. The smile on the face of a waitress in an old boys club. Looks of disbelief and disgust about personal revelations. An arm around an uncomfortable looking interviewee. The little kitchen jokes. Even with the edges slightly smoothed off for a multiplex audience the films still gets across well the shittiness of the times. It's done well in a way that teaches us while never being condescending or taking away from the sheer entertainment value of the film. There's scenes that will give you the rage but there's also moments where you'll pump your fist in the air and seeing the smugness gradually fading from faces never ever gets old. If i had to have one niggle it's that at 2 hrs it feels slightly overlong but that's just a small thing. 

Go see this if you can. It's an important and timely history lesson. You'll "love" it. 

Sorry, I had to get a tennis pun in somewhere.

Suburbicon

Sometimes films arrive with such a pedigree attached to them that you think to yourself they can't possibly fail. A-list leads and an A-list director. It's going to be great right?? 

Wrong.

In a 1950's town purpose built to reflect the American dream, a family consisting of Gardner, Rose and son Nicky, suffer a tragedy after they dare interact with their new African American neighbours. In the aftermath of the tragedy Nicky realises the story he is being told isn't quite fitting together. Meanwhile those new neighbours are having some big troubles of their own with a baying mob wanting them kicked out of town.

Suburbicon is a film split down the middle and those two halves are just too different to mesh together. One half is a film noir/black comedy and the other half is a troubling look at racism in small town America. If each half of the film had been turned into a full length film in it's own right you get the sense they could have been great but pushed together they jar horribly with one side inevitably getting the short straw. (Guess which side). At the end we discover why the plot line exists but by then it has just fizzled out into a weak ironic punchline that even though it was aiming at being satirical just feels distasteful.

Tonally it jars too. The noirish side feels in places like a greatest hits of Hitchcock. A blonde leading lady (pick one!) . Investigators snooping around (Psycho). A young child and their suspicions (Shadow Of A Doubt). Dark sexuality (basically every Hitchcock film). Not that this is a bad thing, it's just that it feels odd whenever we cut back to the other storyline.

I've painted a picture of this being bad but there's still plenty of good in it. We get to see a side of Matt Damon as Gardner Lodge that's new. Oscar Isaac in a small role as an insurance investigator is great fun. There's some funny sight gags. Jason Bourne on a child's bike will make anyone smile. There's a welcome bit of dark humour involving a sandwich that will give you a wry grin. The small but painful scenes of violence have a gooey physicality about them that comes straight from the Coen Brothers, the time Clooney has spent with them has certainly rubbed off. The other side of the story is upsetting but doesn't sugarcoat the darkness of this era in America. Racism is the norm. The film doesn't shy away from it. We get to see it in all it's ugliness. The film hints that the only way to rid America of racism is to cut out the deadwood and start again with youth but looking at the state of the country 60 years after this film is set........yeah, that's not going to work either. 

Director George Clooney has made a film that tries to jam too much in. It's a fine looking film but there's just too much going on. He's better than this as his debut film Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind proved. As mentioned early we get to see a different side to Damon but he's not particularly special in it. Pretty subdued TBH. Julianne Moore as Margaret is mostly wasted, apart from an Aruba themed speech near the end. Noah Jupe as Nicky is good though. Watching him grow more and more suspicious of what's going on around him was entertaining. Karimah Westbrook as one of the new neighbours plays her role with a fierce dignity but the story doesn't give her enough to do at all. Finally Oscar Isaac turns up about halfway through the film and adds a nice shot of energy in a fun role. 

There's some good in here and some interesting ideas but the failure to fully and comfortably fit together is what ultimately brings the film down. A disappointment.

10 films well worth watching on TV this week.

Ex Machina   Sat   25/11   CH4 @ 21.00


Caleb, a young computer programmer is selected to take part in a secret experiment and finds himself working with a piece of ground breaking science. Alex Garland's sci-fi drama is a stunner, one of the best films of 2014. A smart and uneasy tale that will worm it's way into your head and stay for longer after this film is over. Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac are perfect in the lead roles.

Margot At The Wedding   Sat   25/11   TG4 @ 21.30

At a family wedding in an affluent Long Island suburb family frictions come to the fore when an estranged woman and her son appear after a long time away. Nicole Kidman plays Margot in a film that will make you cringe & anger you but one that's also funny and full of depth. Kidman is good as always and gets great support from Jennifer Jason Leigh (who's having a timely resurgence this year), John Turturro and Ciaran Hinds.


Silverado   Sun   26/11   RTE1 @ 01.00

A foursome of mismatched cowboys turns up in a small town run by an evil rancher and set out to set wrong to right. It's your quintessential western set up but it's so much fun and so well done that you can forgive any unoriginality. Superb cast in this one. Kevin Costner who always rocks it in this genre, Kevin Kline, Danny Glover and Scott Glenn. A perfect rainy afternoon film that's on at 1am for some reason. 

John Carter   Sun   26/11   BBC2 @ 22.40

An American Civil War veteran finds himself on another planet and with powers beyond belief after he cames across a mystical object in a cave. Yeah, it sounds stupid but it's great fun and so much better than reviews make it out to be. An epic sci-fi adventure that despite the time it's on is perfect family viewing. Taylor Kitsch in the title role is solid and leads a cast full of famous faces. Based on a Edgar Rice Burroughs story too btw.

The Graduate   Mon   27/11   TCM @ 20.00

"Here's to you Mrs Robinson". We all know the song but this is the film it's from. Dustin Hoffman is at his geeky best as a man who becomes involved with a older woman and her daughter. Complications ensue. A funny, wry, sarcastic and cynical film that rightly sits highly in many Top 10 of All time lists. It's dated but somehow ageless and it's one worth watching. Plus Anne Bancroft rules.

Shutter Island   Mon   27/11   TG4 @ 21.30

Martin Scorsese directs this twisty, turny, dark but very entertaining thriller about two cops investigating a disappearance in a psychiatric hospital off the coast of Massachusetts. Of course nothing is what it seems. Leonardo DiCaprio as the lead is good as always, it's tense, full of disturbing imagery and atmospheric as hell. Plus my favourite actress Patricia Clarkson turns up in a small role and she is always worth watching.

Mars Attacks   Tues   28/11   ITV4 @ 22.50

Earth is invaded by an army of cruel little skull faced aliens with evil senses of humour and it's up to a star studded cast of earthlings to fight back against them. Tim Burton directs this brilliantly surreal & entertaining film with his usual sense of disturbing humour. The first scene will let you know if this film is for you or not. Pam Grier, Jack Nicholson, Annette Bening, Glenn Close, Pierce Brosnan and Tom Jones (yep him) lead the attack.

The Hole   Wed   29/11   The Horror Channel @ 22.50

Four teenagers from a well to do private school in England finds themselves trapped in an old World War Two bunker and it isn't long before things go sideways. A dark, grimy and eventually brutal psychological thriller that has a hint of The Lord Of The Flies around it. Thora Birch is the lead, and iffy accent aside makes a good job of it. Keira Knightley and Laurence Fox are fine in support.

The Raid 2   Fri   1/12   CH4 @ 01.35

In crime ridden Jakarta, a cop goes undercover in a crime gang to bring down it's leaders and to root out the corrupt cops involved with them. If you like action films & haven't seen this I'm extremely jealous. 2.5 hours of amazing fights and stunts and thrills and spills. It's blisteringly violent and won't be for everyone but if you are able for it, it will blow you away. Iwo Uwais in the lead rocks and director Gareth Evans does mighty work. Brilliant.

Haywire   Fri   1/12   Film4 @ 23.20

While on mission in Dublin a black ops spy quickly realises she's been double crossed. All her skills and cunning come into play as she looks for revenge. Gina Carano mightn't be the best actress but her physical presence is immense in this very entertaining action thriller. Cracking cast in this including Michael Fassbender, Channing Tatum and Ewan McGregor. Plus seeing Dublin in an action film is just deadly, a real novelty.

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The Battle Of Ramree Island. A World War 2 story that would make a superb film.

World War 2 films are ten a penny. There's 70 years worth of them. Some are fantastic and some are awful but most are about the same thing. One side against the other. Man Vs Man. English vs Germans, Yanks vs Japanese and so on and so forth. 

The Battle Of Ramree Island is a different kind of war story though.

It's terrifying. The stuff of nightmares. And one that could make for a great film.

Ramree was a small Island off the coast of Burma. Small of of big strategic importance. It was being held by Japanese forces and the Allies needed it to establish a resupply airbase for South East Asia.

On the 21st of January 945 Allied forces invaded the island and started to skirmish with the enemy. The battle continued for two battles until the Japanese forces found themselves outflanked and outnumbered. 900 of them decided to retreat across land to join up with a larger group. To get there quicker they travelled through a dozen miles of mangrove swamp and while they were in there the Allied troops surrounded the swamp. But in the swamp was something far scarier than any bullet. Salt water crocodiles. Man eaters that grew up to 30 feet long. The croc's smelled blood and rapidly the place became death. 900 soldiers had entered the swamp. The next morning 20 were left. 20. The soldiers surrounding the swamp heard it all.

"The scattered rifle shots in the pitch black swamp punctured by the screams of wounded men crushed in the jaws of huge reptiles, and the blurred worrying sound of spinning crocodiles made a cacophony of hell that has rarely been duplicated on earth. At dawn the vultures arrived to clean up what the crocodiles had left…"

Nope.

This story could be the basis for one extremely intense film. Imagine The Thin Red Line crossed with Jaws. Except with crocodiles. And we'd see it from the Japanese point of view. WW2 films from their P.O.V are still rare, especially mainstream one. Offhand I can only thing of Letters From Iwo Jima. This could be very unique, especially when you add in the survival horror aspect. TBH, I'm amazed this hasn't been made into a film yet. It's ripe with potential. The nearest it's come to any sort of adaption is in the pulpy comic books (see above) of the 1950's and 60's

Now, a lot of modern day research has been done into the battle and experts claim the the numbers reported are exaggerated but since when has accuracy ever mattered to film makers.

To quote the classic western 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' - When the legend becomes the truth, print the legend."

This could be the film that haunts your dreams in the future.

A perfect pairing of Sound & Vision part 18. The Omen. Priestly shish kebab.

Jerry's Goldsmiths soundtrack for The Omen is legendary. Even if you haven't seen the film you'll recognise the music, especially Ave Satani. It's been creeping people out for 40 years and is still effective today. The piece of music used here is titled "The Killer Storm" and as you'll see its a pretty apt name.

The words "Versus Christus, Avē Satani!" translate to "Hail Antichrist, Hail Satan!" Eek.

Full of shrieks and otherworldly cries it's very unsettling stuff and therefore fits this scene of a priest coming a cropper by evil forces after he warns a man that he is unwittingly raising the son of the devil. My favourite thing about this is that it's set in bright daylight in the middle of London. The daytime isn't supposed to be terrifying but here it turns nightmarish fast and that's all down to the music.



The scene itself is supremely hokey but the combination of sight and sound just works perfectly. Plus you just gotta love that ending. 

Previous parts

Copland
Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Once More With Feeling
The Mission
Before Sunset
Carlito's Way
A Knight's Tale
Platoon
Before Sunrise
Rushmore
An American Werewolf In London
Dazed And Confused
Boogie Nights
Raging Bull
Almost Famous
Once Upon A Time In The West
Goodfellas
Last Of The Mohicans

Mudbound - a new netflix original movie

Netflix can be very hit and miss with it's original films. The vast majority of them are only there because (i assume) they weren't good enough to get a theatrical release but every one in a while a good one pops up. Mudbound is one such good one.

After they become the victim of a scam the McAllan's, a white family, move to a dirt farm in the Mississippi Delta. Their neighbours are the Jackson's, a black family of sharecroppers who rent their land and work it for them. Things are tense between them and a friendship between two of their family members based on mutual experiences in World War 2 isn't going to make things any easier.

This is a harsh, grim film about the dehumanising effects of racism, war and poverty and it's a very good one too. It's set in the 1940's but chock full of themes that will resonate with audiences watching 70 years later. Families losing everything in one fell swoop. The treatment of war veterans. Post traumatic stress disorder. The racism at the very heart of America. It doesn't shy away from any of it. Life back then was tough but if you were black it was tougher on you than anyone. One of our main characters is a soldier who feels happier fighting in Europe than he ever has at home. How disturbing and wrong is that. He's accepted in war, looked on as an equal. Then he comes home to find himself at the back of the bus again and leaving shops through the back door. It's upsetting and angering. Another is a man who through the ravages of war has seen how stupid and pointless bigotry is but old ways won't let him change. Slavery has been gone for the bones of 80 years at this stage but white people still impose on black people like they owned them. "Heritage not hate" eh? Fatherhood is another big thematic part of the film. How you raise your kids and the effect is has on them. Do you choose to be an honest hardworking example for them or drive them away from you with your bile and bitterness. They mightn't take on your hate but ignoring it and looking the other way is just as bad. All issues we still deal with today.

It's a dark watch but some lovely moments of humanity help leaven it. A son's smile as his mother enjoys a bit of chocolate. A scatological event at 20,000 feet. Hugs between fathers and sons. Two men recognising PTSD in each other a long time before it became a known thing and the small moments of happiness they can snatch from their new friendship. Moments are like little specks of light in the darkness and help to slightly ease the sheer unrelenting misery. From the horrible suffocating opening you know you're in for a hard time but it's really worth sticking with to the end.

The cast is good. Jason Clarke as Jamie is fine in a thankless role and Carey Mulligan as his wife Laura is good but wasted. More on her later. Garret Hedlund and Jason Mitchell as Jamie and Ronsel are both on fire though. Two broken men trying to be cool and calm but the pain inside them showing through clearly. I've seen this type of work from Hedlund before but Mitchell who I've only seen in Straight Outta Compton was excellent. He'll break your heart. Mary J. Blige as Florence, mother of Ronsel is fantastic too, a woman totally devoted to her children. I didn't even recognise her until I saw her name in the closing credits. Watch out for her name come awards time, providing they can get over their ridiculous snobbery about Netflix. And finally Rob Morgan and Jonathan Banks. Both great as two very different types of patriarch. One loving and one full of hate. I loved the use of voiceover in the film too. It's not exposition heavy but it gives a good insight into the character's onscreen, their state of mind and the things they wouldn't dare say out loud. It's a long film too, clocking in at 135 minutes but because it's well paced and written so never feels boring. 

One particular story strand feels out of place but makes sense in the final act of the film. But it highlights a problem I had with the film too. Carey Mulligan's character Laura. She's good in the part and gets a couple of good scenes with Florence but it seems like her character only really exists for this moment at the end. To be a saviour to someone else. I dunno, She felt wasted to me. That's my only real issue with the film. Others mightn't feel this way at all. To me it was one area where I felt the film went a bit cliched.

That aside Mudbound is really worth at watch. It's a film that makes you realise how far we've come from the recent past but also how far we have still to go.

The unsung heroes of Film and TV part 27. Mary McDonnell

Mary McDonnell

Yet another actress who is rarely off our screens and another example of an actress who loads of people will recognise but not many will know her name. And it's a pity because she's pretty damn great. One of those rare performers who you empathise with straight away, no matter what character she plays. A unique talent and one i wish more film makers would avail of.

She's been the president of the world, in a way. Been the dying wife of a US president. Been in two separate shows called ER. Lived in Fargo, Minnesota. Been the mother of a young man haunted by a giant rabbit. Acted in sci fi stories of massive scale and acted in intimate little drama's. Been in huge Oscar winning westerns and played nuns who've had run in's with angels. Been nominated for and won numerous awards but still finds time to star in a film called Killer Hair. You cannot beat a nicely varied career and Mary's been doing it well for 35 year now. Here's the link to it.  

Greatest Hits

Independence Day. First Lady Marilyn Whitmore. The rock behind the President. Survives a close encounter with the aliens but sadly not for long. 

Battlestar Galactica. President Laura Roslin. Probably the role she's most recognised for and deservedly so. She's brilliant. The kind of leader that puts that orange ball of pus to shame. Fair, decisive and capable of making the tough decisions when needs be.

Dances With Wolves. A white woman raised by Native Americans after her family was butchered. She doesn't say much but imbues what could have been a one note role with passion and heart. Deservedly got an Oscar nomination for this.

Previous parts

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26

The Justice League. Don't bother.

One spoiler in the 6th paragraph. Be wary.

The first film I ever saw in the cinema was Superman 3. Nowadays it's regarded as a disaster but when I was young I thought it was the best thing ever. It made me a life long fan of Kal-El, the Man Of Steel. In 2006 a new version of Superman appeared in Superman Returns. It was massively disappointing and every Superman film since has been the same IMO. None of them could match up to the Christopher Reeve films. Those first two perfect films. Even The Adventures Of Lois & Clark TV show was better. Last year Warner Brothers pit Superman against Batman in a bid to start a series of films that would rival the Marvel extended universe. It was not good. They managed to take two comic book icons and make a battle between them boring. Even lobbing Wonder Woman into the mix didn't help. Then the Wonder Woman film came along and amazingly it was really really good. It had the heart and the sense of fun that Batman V Superman was missing. Had Warner Brothers turned a corner in their comic book films? Had they finally found the right mix? Could the upcoming Justice League film be actually good?

Nope.

Superman is gone. The Earth is in trouble. Forces from beyond the stars know this and plan to take advantage of his absence. Batman and Wonder Woman must now recruit a team of superheroes to help them in their quest to defeat this new evil. They have their eyes on Aquaman, The Flash and a chap called Cyborg. (Nope, I never heard of him either). Together they will do battle but will the five of them be enough?? 

This has its moments but overall it sucks. It has a couple of good performances but they are cancelled out by the shoddiness on display. A great cast and a fuckload of money to throw around and this is what they come up with. Marvel let their universe grow slowly but surely. Everyone (well the characters with powers....and Iron Man) got a film first to show who they were and what they could do. But Warner Brothers in their greed and lack of foresight have thrown everything into the mix far too early and crowbarred in 3 new characters and it makes for a very shoddy stew.


There's a few good bits. 1 new character is fun, Barry Allen aka The Flash. He's a likable young chap and a few of his lines hit the spot. Ezra Miller does well in the part and I'd happily watch a film just about him. Gal Gadot is good again as Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman, she brings a great presence to the part. A few odd bits of humour hit home too, a blink and you'll miss it David Bowie/Prince joke, a couple of fun lasso of truth scenes, a quick scribble on a face, a knowing look between 2 women. A few snatches of Danny Elfman's Batman music appeared too and made me smile as well. Diane Lane and Joe Morton make appearances and it's always good to see them onscreen. Also a competition between 2 superheroes near the end delivers a proper laugh and a cameo from an actor who appeared in the Reeve Superman films will raise a few grins. But that's about it for the good stuff. Now for the bad. A lot of bad.

Ezra Miller, one of a few good things about this

If like me you aren't a comic book fan and only watch the films some of it will go over your head. A visit to the home of one hero left me baffled and conscious of the fact it was only there to justify future films for the character. Other actions and decisions are introduced and skipped over so fast that big scenes make no sense. You get the feeling that quite a bit of story was cut out to get the film down to the 2 hour mark. There's some godawful forced humour in here that has been introduced to lighten the tone of the film and it jars badly against the darker tone. Some of Batman's one liners genuinely hurt to hear. There's some painfully obvious product placement too. One scene of Bruce Wayne having a shave will take you out of the film straight away considering he's using a product you'll see in an ad before the film starts. The film's big baddie is muck as well. An entirely CGI character who YET AGAIN wants to take over the world. Voiced pointlessly by the great Ciaran Hinds too. Why hire a an actor like that and then not show his face and distort his voice beyond recognition. Plus he's called Steppenwolf and doesn't make one 'Born To Be Wild' joke?? Come one, that's just lazy. And then it all ends in the usual CGI bombast. This is a complaint that can be leveled at every modern superhero film but here it was bombastic and bad looking. I mean it looked poor and unfinished. So much purple.

For me though, the films biggest sin is it makes the superhero characters look crap. In her own film Wonder Woman rocked. Here she does not. She gets a good solo scene early but gets relegated to the background as the film goes on. Plus all the respect shown to her character in her solo film gets thrown out the window here when the film can't help but throw in a big close up of her arse for the slavering fanboys. New character Aquaman is pointless. Why add him to the story if we aren't going to get to see him do cool watery stuff, the stuff he's best known for. Jason Momoa looks like a big scary fucker and all but he adds nothing here. A 30 second bit of underwater action just ain't enough. He should have been removed and his time given to Wonder Woman. Cyborg is..........dull and totally unexplained. He can do computery and weapony stuff and no explanation is given why. He's a deus ex machina character. He can do whatever the script needs him to do. And Batman, this film makes Batman look shit. He's the weakest of the bunch, relying on gadgets instead of powers and he's pretty pathetic in this film, especially the climactic scenes. And then after all that, a returning character who I won't name although ye can probably guess who it is, makes all the rest of them feel utterly inconsequential.

Director Zach Snyder's family suffered an awful family tragedy during filming and he was replaced by Joss Whedon. The two directors styles don't mesh well together. Snyder's dark and gritty and Whedon's light and breezy. It feels messy. Just watch during the horrible one liners I mentioned earlier. They are mostly spoken in close up, no other character can be seen. It's obvious they were added late in production and they don't seem to match. The light and dark stuff here doesn't mix. It's an issue that should have been dealt with during the writing of the film before filming even started.

The acting is fine. Gadot and Miller shine above the bunch. Anyone no one comes to a comic book film for the emoting. J.K. Simmons as Commissioner Gordon is wasted though. And has a fluffy fringe that would make Pat Hingle turn in his grave.

I really wanted this to be good. I love the main characters in it and I thought Wonder Woman was a huge step in the right direction but nope, this feels like 5 steps backwards. Warner's wanted desperately for this to be their Avengers film but it isn't a patch on it. 

A huge but inevitable let down.

10 films worth watching on TV this week.

Lucy   Sat   18/11   CH4 @ 21.00

While muling a new and mysterious drug shipment inside her stomach, a woman undergoes a drastic transformation when it leaks into her blood stream. Luc Besson directs Scarlet Johansson in this fun film that has a final 10 minutes which has to be seen to be believed. You'll either love it or hate it but you definitely haven't seen anything like it before. Johansson is solid as always and Morgan Freeman & Min-Sik Choi add to the fun.

The Life Before Her Eyes   Sat   18/11   TG4 @ 21.30

Skipping between the present day and the early 90's this is a story of how a violent act in a school years ago effects the present reality of a woman's life. An overwrought film in places but one that has an interesting and unique premise and one that contains some fine acting from a solid cast including Evan Rachel Wood & Uma Thurman as a younger and older version of the same person. Oscar Isaac pops up in an early role too.

Raging Bull   Sat   18/11   RTE2 @ 23.45

Martin Scorsese's magnificent biopic of Jake LaMotta, a world middleweight champion boxer who let himself be controlled by his demons. It's far from a fun watch but it's a fierce compulsive one. Sit back and enjoy the amazing performances from Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty and Joe Pesci & beautiful black and white photography and know you are watching one of the best films of all time

Badlands   Sun   19/11   BBC2 @ 01.20

In the heartlands of the United States, a young couple go on a crime spree and that brings them to national attention. The first film from Terence Malick is a true masterpiece and a film that is still being "homaged" over 40 years later. A dreamy, beautiful but stark and shocking film full of superb acting. Sissy Spacek is great but Martin Sheen is amazing. This is the film that paved the way to stardom for him.

Atonement   Sun   19/11   CH4 @ 23.00

A moment of teenage jealousy causes a young girl to tell a lie and the effects of that lie haunt her for the next 60 years of her life. Director Joe Wright's adaption of Ian MacEwan's book is a devastating and beautiful looking film about the power of words and the damage they can do in the wrong hands. Superb acting abounds as well from Keira Knightley, James McAvoy, Vanessa Redgrave & Ireland's own Saoirse Ronan.

The Man Who Knew Too Much   Mon   20/11   Film4 @ 16.20

An American family take an impulsive trip to Morocco and finds themselves in the midst of an assassination attempt and their lives are immediately in dangerous. Sounds heavy but this is one of Alfred Hitchcock's lighter and more fun films. James Stewart and Doris Day lead the film and are delightful as their roles as always. A highly entertaining and suspenseful film worth recording for a rainy Sunday.

Rudderless   Mon   20/11   TG4 @ 21.30

In the aftermath of a sadly very topical tragedy a father uses his son's direction and influence to give his life some meaning again. William H. Macy directs this lovely little story and does it well, deftly balancing light and dark moments. It's an upsetting but ultimately uplifting watch and has a fantastic cast with Billy Crudup in the lead supported well by Felicity Huffman, Laurence Fishburne, Anton Yelchin & Macy himself.

Wake Wood   Wed   22/11   The Horror Channel @ 22.40

A small family living in rural Northern Ireland find themselves looking to the supernatural when tragedy strikes their quiet little life. A modern folk horror film that is genuinely scary and unnerving. Shades of Stephen King and Hammer horror abound. Well written, well made and well acted by Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall and a clutch of Irish actors including Aiden Gillen, Ruth McCabe and Brian Gleeson.

Needful Things   Thurs   23/11   Syfy @ 23.30

In a small New England town, a distinguished gentleman opens a store that always seems to have whatever a person wants. The catches are a small price and a little favour. This adaption of the Stephen King novel isn't the best one but it's has a lovely streak of black comedy running through it and it's downright vicious in places. Superb cast too including Max Von Sydow, Bonnie Bedelia, Ed Harris, and Amanda Plummer. 

Rush   Fri   24/11   More4 @ 21.00

The story of James Hunt, a flamboyant & hedonistic superstar of Formula One racing in the 1970's and his intense rivalry with Niki Lauda, a man the exact opposite of him. Even if, like me you've no interest in the sport you'll still find this to be a cracking watch, it's funny, very entertaining and the race sequences are a the title says, a rush. Chris Hemsworth in the lead is very good but Daniel Bruhl as Lauda is excellent.